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April 18, 1974

29th Parliament, 4th Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L026 - Thu 18 Apr 1974 / Jeu 18 avr 1974

REPLACEMENT FOR DON JAIL

INTERMEDIATE CAPACITY TRANSIT SYSTEM

RENT CONTROL

WARRANTY ON NEW HOMES

OIL PRICES

INCREASE IN PRICE OF MILK

INQUIRY INTO HOSPITAL EMPLOYEES’ REMUNERATION

HOUSING PROGRAMMES

OHC ADVERTISING

INDEPENDENT SAWMILL OPERATORS

MECHANICAL FITNESS CERTIFICATES FOR CARS

GO TRAIN TO GEORGETOWN

TRAIN JOURNEY IN WESTERN ONTARIO

REPORT ON LAKE WANAPITEI

BILL 25

HIRING OF LIQUOR STORE EMPLOYEES

PYRAMID SALES SCHEMES

ANSWER TO WRITTEN QUESTION

UNLAWFUL FUNDS INVESTMENT ACT

POINT OF ORDER

POINT OF PRIVILEGE

BUDGET DEBATE

ESTIMATES MINISTRY OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES (CONCLUDED)

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. J. White (Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Speaker, the members of the Legislature will be interested to know that we have as our guest today -- as your guest, Mr. Speaker, in your gallery -- Mr. William Lane, who is the head of the British Columbia land commission. Perhaps he would stand for a moment.

Mr. Lane and his associates are here to confer with me, my colleagues and certain of mv officials with respect to land matters. I must say the exchange has been very interesting and useful to us and I am very glad to have him here as our guest today.

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

REPLACEMENT FOR DON JAIL

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): I would like to ask the Minister of Correctional Services, Mr. Speaker, if he can make a statement to the House on the circumstances in Don Jail which have led to another tragic death, and if he can report to the House when the plan to replace that facility with something more modern is going to come forward? Is he now in a position to say that we are going to have a new jail in this area?

Hon. R. T. Potter (Minister of Correctional Services): Mr. Speaker, I reported to the House two days ago that plans were under way to replace the Don Jail. The funds are available, as you know. Planning has been completed, the Ministry of Government Services has advertised for tenders which I expect will be completed in June, and construction will be started to replace the old part of the Don Jail.

The present unfortunate incident is of very great concern to me as it is to everyone else. I think the hon. member will appreciate that all of us are determined to see that every effort is made so that this doesn’t happen. But no matter how careful one is and no matter what precautions are taken, if an individual is determined to take his own life sometimes it is practically impossible to prevent it.

I should point out that last year in Ontario we had 1,078 suicides reported in the province which were proved suicides. I am advised by the chief coroner if we were to consider others -- automobile accidents and others that were not proved as suicides -- that perhaps the number would be increased by another 500 or 600. So it is not just within our institutions that we have this problem, which is a very big problem as far as I am concerned.

As members know, every week and every weekend there are a terrific number of accidents on the highways --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I’m talking about inside the Don Jail.

Hon. Mr. Potter: -- deaths that could be prevented if proper precautions were taken, but people are reluctant to do this.

As far as we are concerned in the jail, every effort is made to see that circumstances are such that it doesn’t happen, but occasionally it does. Within the last 25 years there have been seven suicides in the Don Jail altogether, unfortunately two of them just very recently.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Since the last two have been quite recent and both with young people -- teenagers -- is the minister not concerned that there should be some special supervision for these people? Has he asked for perhaps a psychological or psychiatric report on what happens to those people when they get in that particular jail that seems to be so seriously and tragically depressing? What’s the matter with the supervision down there?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Mr. Speaker, certainly I am just as concerned as the hon. member professes to be.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Professes to be?

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Potter: I think that what he should say is that it is not just the Don Jail. There are other institutions, too, within this province where this happens. I am concerned about all of them. A study is going on. We have a continuing study to determine, if we can, what can be done to prevent it.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): The minister is a great studier. He studied himself right out of the Health department too.

Hon. Mr. Potter: I did a pretty good job of that too, didn’t I?

Mr. Singer: That’s why he is where he is now.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Ask the Premier about that.

Interjections by hon. members.

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

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): If I could ask the minister a supplementary.

Hon. W. G. Davis (Premier): They are all jealous.

Mr. Roy: Well, send him to the back row.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Scarborough West has the floor.

Mr. Lewis: I understand and accept some of what the minister says. I presume, and I’m asking interrogatively, that he appreciates that the Don Jail is a very special case that seems to be beset by continuing problems. To what extent the nature of the jail fosters this tragedy is difficult to determine. But, given what has occurred in the last few months in two instances, has the minister undertaken to launch his own investigation into the supervision and psychological supports that are provided in the Don Jail as long as young people are inappropriately incarcerated there for given periods of time?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Mr. Speaker, yes, I have, and not just within the Don Jail but within the whole structure of Correctional Services.

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

INTERMEDIATE CAPACITY TRANSIT SYSTEM

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications. In light of the fact that the contract for the construction of the guideway portion alone of the Maglev test track at the CNE was awarded yesterday to C. A. Pitts for about $10.5 million, which is almost twice the estimated cost for the guideway and the stations combined, is the minister now prepared to submit a revised estimate of the total cost of the experiment at the CNE?

Mr. P. J. Yakabuski (Renfrew South): It’s Trudeau-Lewis inflation all over again.

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): Mr. Speaker, the hon. Leader of the Opposition is approximately three days late. The same question was asked by the hon. member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) and I told him at that time I would get the information.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Now that the increases in these costs are associated with firm bids, can the minister confirm that we are at least at the level of $23 million from the original announcement of the Premier which was $16 million?

Mr. Lewis: It was higher than that.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I will repeat that I will get the information that was asked for here --

Mr. Singer: What takes so long?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- and I will bring it before the House.

Mr. Singer: When?

Mr. Roy: The minister must have been holding hands with the Minister of Correctional Services.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I would rather bring the information and be accurate than just run around the subject as is done so well by the members of the opposition. They’ll get the information.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): Make it this year. We know more about it than the minister does.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: The minister may recall that I asked for estimates of the overall cost of the main system whenever it’s, built, if ever it’s built. Would he now be prepared to give the House an estimate of the total cost of the experimental demonstration system at the CNE? How much has it gone up from the original estimate of $17 million forecast?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, that is what I understood the hon. member asked for -- for both those particular matters -- and that is exactly what I am getting for him. I didn’t realize he had only asked for half of it.

Mr. Singer: Oh, then apologize.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I am getting him both.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Supplementary question, Mr. Speaker: If the minister is --

Mr. Singer: He is wrong as usual.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Breithaupt: If the minister is advised that those persons who made the original estimates were out by two or three times the final amounts, is he intending to discipline them in any way?

Mr. Yakabuski: Trudeau inflation.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to answer these hypothetical questions that are being asked by the opposition on a subject that they know very little about.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): He can’t answer them anyway.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I have told the hon. members that the information will be brought here when it is available.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: There seems to be some sort of a feeling in that particular group that we should discipline everybody. I think they must beat their wives.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: If the minister is wrong he should resign. He should resign himself.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: This is not the Hepburn regime.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, order please.

Mr. P. G. Givens (York-Forest Hill): What happened to the specific question that I asked the minister several weeks ago, about whether he was revising the agreement with Krauss-Maffei? He promised to give me an answer and he hasn’t.

Interjections by hon. members.

An hon. member: As soon as he gets the information.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, at that time I think I advised the hon. member that we were not revising the contract.

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

RENT CONTROL

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask the Minister of Housing to report to the House further on statements that he has made that he is examining all the alternatives that may lead to some procedure of either rent fixing or rent control, or at least the review procedures that were put before the House by way of amendment to the Landlord and Tenant Act when it was before the House three years ago, in view of the implications from the Toronto city council motion that the rents are going to go up by 10 to 15 per cent and other predictions that they may very well be up 25 per cent by the fall?

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Housing): Mr. Speaker, what I have already stated, and has been published, is that we are examining all aspects of the rent problem and we recognize it as a problem. The amendment the hon. member mentioned, of course, will be taken into account when we examine the problem. We have not yet received the resolution from Toronto city council although I think I know its intent and its contents. It seems on first glance that the city council is having difficulty in devising techniques to deal with what it accepts as being a very, very difficult problem and obviously government policy, if there is one, would be announced to the Legislature in the usual way.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Singer: If there is one, yes.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: Order, order.

An hon. member: If they have one.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. member for Wentworth have a supplementary?

Mr. Deans: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: I regret there was so much noise I couldn’t hear.

Mr. Deans: Supplementary question, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister aware that government policy as stated some three years ago was not to allow rent control within municipalities, and is the minister now prepared to state that the government is prepared to allow municipalities, upon application to the government, to inaugurate some form of rent control within their own jurisdictions?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I am prepared to say, Mr. Speaker, that the government is prepared to consider that possibility along with a number of others in order to deal with this very serious problem.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Cassidy: That is a cop-out.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): They are three or four years too late.

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

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): By way of a supplementary question, what is the minister going to do about Mrs. Smith, in my riding, who yesterday received a notice increasing her rent from $140 to $220?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Ma Smith’s rent is going up?

Mr. Lewis: A notice of eviction.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I don’t know Mrs. Smith and I don’t know the circumstances of her rent increase. If the hon. member would send it over to me I would be glad to look at it. At the present time, the answer would have to be that we have no measures under which we could take any action at this time in that type of a situation.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Resign.

Mr. Singer: By way of supplementary, Mr. Speaker, could the minister tell us the extent to which, if he is correctly quoted in today’s Star, the production of 30,000 lots within three years is going to alleviate the urgent housing need problem that exists in Ontario today?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I am not too sure it is a supplementary, but since I was aware of that

article I will answer it anyway.

An hon. member: He is not sure of anything.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: In the interview, what I did say, and I think I am accurately quoted, was that --

Mr. Singer: Well, that is a change.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: -- at the outset of the programme the target was approximately 30,000 and that in my optimistic position I feel that we can exceed that, and I the

article did say that there would be more than 30,000, if the hon. member will check to find out.

Mr. Singer: No, but I asked about --

Mr. Speaker: Order. There have been five supplementaries, I believe, which is a reasonable number. The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

WARRANTY ON NEW HOMES

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations why he or a representative of his ministry did not take

part in the conference that was scheduled in Ottawa, and took place on April 16, by the Housing and Urban Affairs department federally, co-ordinating the provincial consumer departments across Canada with CMHC, specifically designed to discuss and develop a home warranty legislation model?

Hon. J. T. Clement (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): Mr. Speaker, two people from my ministry did attend in Ottawa at the request of Mr. Basford on April 8 in the persons of Mr. Graham Adams and the chief solicitor, Mr. Ed Ciemiega. I understand the provinces were asked to return a week later -- I suspect that’s the date to which the member refers, April 16 -- when a committee was being formed. The provinces were invited, as I understand it, to observe the workings of that committee in development of the proposed house warranty programme.

I’ll check it out, but I don’t think my people re-attended on that occasion for a reason which I don’t know; whether or not they were invited I don’t know. I’m waiting for a report from Mr. Ciemiega but they were up there a week ago.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Is it the minister’s feeling that model legislation could be established which would be implemented provincially across Canada but which could be co-ordinated by the federal minister, that is, the same provisions in legislation put before all the legislatures? Is that the aim and the goal of the programme?

Hon. Mr. Clement: It would appear, Mr. Speaker, that the question of house warranties is one of provincial jurisdiction but I can visualize a number of problems being created it we have 10 different sets of rules because of the number of provinces. For this reason, it is one of the matters to be discussed on the agenda at a meeting, in about three weeks time, of the consumer ministers across Canada to develop, hopefully, uniformity of legislation on warranties at the provincial level.

There will have to be some federal involvement for the very simple reason that there’s federal funding by way of mortgages for residential construction across the entire country, namely through Central Mortgage and Housing. The consumer minister at the federal level, the hon. Herbert Gray, will be in attendance during those deliberations, so I’m advised.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question: Am I to take it from the answer to the question I asked on Tuesday and the answer to today’s question asked by the Leader of the Opposition that this government is prepared to go ahead regardless of whether or not other jurisdictions are prepared to? Or is the minister going to hang on and wait until the whole thing has become such a mess that it is impossible to deal with?

Hon. Mr. Clement: This government is prepared to proceed in that direction regardless of the decisions of other provincial governments but because of the nature of the subject it was felt by the minister who is hosting the conference that it would be a matter very properly placed on the agenda to be discussed by all the consumer ministers at that particular meeting in the middle of May.

Mr. Deans: One final supplementary question: Has the ministry prepared legislation that might be put forward as a model to the other jurisdictions and is the minister prepared to bring it before this Legislature this session?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I have a number of proposals before me not reduced to legislative form. I am prepared to bring forward legislation along these lines -- not during the session but at the session which follows, presumably late this autumn -- for introduction into this House.

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

OIL PRICES

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Premier, Mr. Speaker: Now that the Minister of Energy (Mr. McKeough) has publicly rebuked the oil companies for the manner in which they set their prices, is the Premier prepared to indicate that the Province of Ontario will set a maximum cost per gallon of gasoline and home fuel oil to protect the consumers of this province?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, the government is not prepared at this time to make that statement.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, what kind of hypocrisy is the government engaging in over there? No, I ask it seriously. The Minister of Energy will use a public forum to attack the oil companies for irresponsibility in what they are extracting from the consumer without the government stepping in to defend the consumer as, for example, the provincial government of Nova Scotia is now doing, in insisting that the prices be rolled back.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I can only say at this time I have no statement to make as to the price of fuel oil or gasoline.

INCREASE IN PRICE OF MILK

Mr. Lewis: I hope the two of them can resolve it. Let me ask the Premier another question. How is it that the increase in the price of milk per quart went 3.4 cents to the farmer, entirely and legitimately justified; and 1.6 cents per quart to the dairies, totally unjustified and illegitimate? When is the government going to defend the consumers of Ontario in respect of milk prices?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I must confess I am not as familiar with the distribution of cost as it relates to the milk industry as perhaps the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Stewart) might be. I heard the member say the 1.6 cent increase to the dairies is in his view unjustified. I am not sure that is in fact the case.

Mr. Deans: That’s right, the Premier is not sure.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, is the member aware, as Premier, that the most recent profit increases for Silverwoods on a comparative-year basis was 88.9 per cent; for Dominion Dairies, 46 per cent; for Becker Milk 57 per cent? Does he not realize, as one of the people supposedly involved in protecting the consumer, that we are paying almost two cents more per quart than we should be paying because the government has allowed the dairies to rip off people in Ontario rather than giving the farmers what it should have given them?

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am glad there is at least one area where we can agree with the hon. member. I do agree that the increase to the farmers was justified.

Mr. Lewis: Right.

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

Mr. Lewis: Okay. Who protects the consumers of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Certainly not the member.

Mr. Lewis: Not this government, not this government.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I see the member’s father is going to support us.

Mr. Lewis: Well.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I saw that. Is the member going to do so as well?

Mr. Lewis: Don’t push me.

Hon. Mr. Davis: There was that press nonsense of a while ago about the member becoming more conservative; we now see evidence of it.

Mr. Lewis: I see, I see.

Interjections by hon. members.

INQUIRY INTO HOSPITAL EMPLOYEES’ REMUNERATION

Mr. Lewis: I want to ask the Premier another question: Is he now prepared to indicate to the House and to the public that before May 1 next the government will make an offer to the hospital workers directly involved in the 12 hospitals in the Toronto area who have threatened strike action as of May 1? I needn’t remind the Premier that today is April 18.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is correct, it is the 18th; I accept that. I can only say to the hon. member that meetings were under way at 2 o’clock this afternoon; and I really have no comment further than that at this point.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, I am not talking of the mediation meetings; we all know what they are. I am asking the Premier about a government commitment in advance of May 1.

Does the Premier not realize the degree to which he is heightening both the militancy and the desperation of the hospital workers? Is that his policy? Or is he prepared to promise an offer?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: No, I don’t want to see that strike; I don’t want to see that strike.

Mr. Renwick: The government wants it and they know it.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): The same thing as the teachers; they want the same thing as the teachers went through.

Mr. Lewis: We have had enough of the government’s --

Mr. Renwick: In every situation they create this confrontation and they know it.

Mr. Lewis: I go away for a day and look at what I return to, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Lewis: I say to the Premier, I almost beg of the Premier, does he not realize that it’s getting very close to the point at which it’s almost impossible to defuse things unless he makes a public commitment in advance of May 1 that the government will meet the legitimate expectations of the hospital worker?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am fully aware of the time frame involved, and I can only say to the hon. member the government is as conscious as he is as to the nature of the situation.

I can only say the matter is under consideration by the government. Meetings -- the member may call them mediation, perhaps that’s the proper term -- are under way at the present time. I just will not be provoked into making any further comments until the time is appropriate.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Rainy River, a supplementary.

Mr. Reid: Supplementary: The Premier has been playing games with us on this issue for over a month. Does the Premier not realize the legitimacy of the claims of the hospital workers?

Mr. Speaker: That’s a repeat of the previous question. It is just a repeat of the original question. I rule it out of order.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Be original.

Mr. Reid: Well I am not finished yet, that’s my

preamble.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Scarborough West. All right, the hon. member for Ottawa East.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Premier how he can justify not making a commitment to the hospital workers now, when just over a month ago the government gave this increase offhandedly to the doctors at the other end of the scale? How can the Premier procrastinate with these people and give the doctors, who are making a lot of money, this increase?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, with great respect to the hon. member, no increase was given to the doctors in an offhanded way. If the member wants me to recite

chapter and verse as to the procedures that were used --

Mr. Lewis: It was -- in a significant way.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- I’d be delighted to do so, but I can only say that the government accepted a recommendation of a committee under the chairmanship of, I think, a relatively able and objective person --

Mr. Reid: Do the same thing in relation to the hospital workers.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- composed of members from both the profession and the government. If the hon. member for Ottawa East or the Liberal Party wants to say -- and I’d be delighted to hear them say it -- if they think the procedure was wrong, if they think the amount awarded the profession was too high, and if they were elected and would lower it, let them say so and have the intestinal fortitude to do it.

Mr. Reid: We’re talking about hospital workers.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: They can’t always have it both ways.

Mr. Roy: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Reid: The government has had the same kind of reports about the hospital workers and it hasn’t done anything.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Roy: Just to clarify my question, I did not attack the method; I attacked the increase to people already making a lot of money --

Hon. Mr. Davis: The hon. member said it was offhand.

Mr. Roy: -- and the fact that the government was forgetting the people at the bottom end of the scale.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The hon. member said it was offhand.

Mr. Roy: We know where the government’s cards are.

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

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The Premier decided it himself. Why wasn’t the Legislature involved?

Mr. Roy: Why didn’t the government bring it here?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Sure he did.

Mr. Lewis: We’ll answer the Premier’s question. It was to much. It was wrong for the doctors.

Hon. Mr. Davis: These people don’t say so.

Mr. Lewis: Well, that’s fine. We’re telling the Premier it was wrong.

HOUSING PROGRAMMES

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I have one last question of the Minister of Housing, if I may. Does the minister realize that the 30,000 additional serviced lots he talks about over the next three years will in fact put him behind in the production of housing in respect to the last three years in the Province of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I suppose I should clarify this again. What I did say was that the original target of the housing action programme was to bring on stream approximately 30,000 additional -- or more than normal -- serviced lots over the next three years. And, with my usual optimism, I think

-- and, as a matter of fact, I’m almost sure -- that with full co-operation from the other two sectors we can achieve considerably more. These are additional lots over and above the normal production.

Mr. Lewis: Well, may I ask a supplementary? Is the minister saying than 10,000 additional serviced lots per year is any contribution to the housing crisis at all in Ontario? Does he not realize that that’s roughly 10 per cent of the immediate requirement within the next year, over and above what he intends to produce? And that’s his total programme?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: The answer to the question, do I think that 10,000 additional lots is a contribution, is yes I do. If I am asked if I think it’s a solution, I say no. There are other approaches; this is part of the total approach.

Mr. Lewis: What are they?

Mr. Deans: What are they?

Mr. Singer: By way of supplementary --

Mr. Roy: By way of supplementary --

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Downsview.

Mr. Singer: Of the 10,000 lots that might be supplied this year, how many in fact is the minister prepared to say will be available to Ontario citizens this year?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, we have a three-year programme --

Mr. Singer: No, I said this year.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I cannot assure the hon. member of 10,000 this year or 5,000 this year --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let the minister answer.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: When we have commitments from the other two parties to this programme, we will make the announcement and we will aggregate the lots. It’s obviously impossible, in 1974, to say suddenly, “There shall be lots.” Lots are now under development.

Mr. Lewis: Suddenly? The minister says he has been working on it for years.

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

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: This question was pursued before; surely there have been sufficient supplementaries. It’s the same thing that was answered before.

Mr. Cassidy: There have only been three, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. Lewis: No further questions.

Mr. Speaker: All right; no further questions.

The hon. Minister of Housing has the answer to a question asked previously.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That will be refreshing.

OHC ADVERTISING

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The hon, member for Brant (Mr. R. F. Nixon) asked me about Ontario Housing Corp. advertising, and I would like to read the exact question, because there is an erroneous assumption in the question itself.

“I would like to ask the Minister of Housing, further to the province’s advertising budget, to explain why Ontario Housing Corp.’s advertisement for integrated community housing programmes appeared -- a display ad -- it appeared three times in today’s Star, exactly the same ad.”

The answer, Mr. Speaker, is that they weren’t exactly the same ad. They were three different advertisements.

Mr. Reid: Was the minister’s name spelled correctly?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: A very casual inspection, which I think is the hon. member’s usual course of action, indicated that they might be identical. Reading the fine print is something that takes some time. One ad related to Metropolitan Toronto, one to Mississauga, and one to Oshawa. In the case of Mississauga and Oshawa, the ads covered more than one programme.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: All put in by the minister’s department.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: That’s right. They were all put in by OHC; they were directed to different people. And obviously the power of advertising worked, because the hon. member noticed them.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: At triple the cost -- and did the minister get any response?

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

Mr. P. J. MacBeth (York West): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications, who was here a minute ago. He has suddenly disappeared.

Mr. Renwick: He must have known the member had a question for him.

Mr. Cassidy: The member’s moment of glory is gone.

Mr. Speaker: Is the hon. minister not present? All right, the hon. member for Rainy River is next.

INDEPENDENT SAWMILL OPERATORS

Mr. Reid: A question of the Minister of Natural Resources, Mr. Speaker. I will catch him before he slips out.

Can the minister explain his ministry’s policy in requiring all the independent cutters in the Thunder Bay area to take all their wood to the Laidlaw Co. in Thunder Bay and cutting off the independent sawmill operators and increasing the independent’s costs?

Hon. L. Bernier (Minister of Natural Resources): Yes, Mr. Speaker, I have made some very clear statements on this. In fact I have sent a full description to the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds), the member for Thunder Bay and the member for Fort William (Mr. Jessiman), outlining the reasons and the actions we took and why we took them.

Just to go back a couple of steps, we were most anxious of course to fulfil the requirements and the government decision to accept Design for Development, Phase 2, in which x-number of jobs would be created in the forest industry.

We dealt with a number of forest companies who were interested in establishing a fibreboard plant in the Thunder Bay area. We asked them to look in several areas of northern Ontario and MacMillan Bloedel, who are now Laidlaw in Ontario, came to us with a proposal that if we could guarantee them 100,000 units of poplar per year within the Thunder Bay area, they were prepared to spend up to $12 million in a major investment creating something like 225 new jobs in the area.

We looked at it very carefully and it was obvious that we had the wood fibre in the Thunder Bay area, but it was on Crown land in three Crown management units. We are well aware of the many small operators who are operating in the area and the decision to allocate this poplar in the three management units to Laidlaw was taken with a great deal of thought. We are convinced that it is the best thing for the small operators in the area.

Some are saying that it will give a monopoly to Laidlaw; we don’t think it will, because the poplar off the private lands can still be sold anywhere that the individual would like. We are not controlling that at all. They still have that right; but we are directing the poplar from the three Crown management units in the Thunder Bay area to this one industry so that will provide X-number of jobs; and, of course, the investment will come to northwestern Ontario.

Mr. Reid: A supplementary, if I may, Mr. Speaker: When the ministry puts a company like Laidlaw or Boise Cascade in the Fort Frances area in a monopoly position, what do they do to ensure the independent operator of a fair price for their wood, whether they get it off their own limits or Crown land?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: As I said earlier, we are not controlling the sale of poplar from private land to any forest industry in the area. We have already advised Laidlaw that we will monitor the prices given to those individuals who harvest poplar off private land and sell it to the paper companies. In no way will we let them use their monopoly position to downgrade the price of poplar in the Thunder Bay area.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Yorkview.

MECHANICAL FITNESS CERTIFICATES FOR CARS

Mr. F. Young (Yorkview): Mr. Speaker, a question of the hon. Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations: In view of stories which have recently appeared in the press in connection with mechanical fitness and fraudulent certificates, as well as other instances that have come to the attention of individual members, has the minister any plans to tighten up the legislation regarding administration of certificates of mechanical fitness, so that aggrieved persons have some other resource than to courts with attendant long delays and costs?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, the involvement of my ministry with certificates of mechanical fitness emanates from our control and registration of the new- and used-car business. Whenever it comes to our attention or investigations indicate that there has been a breach of the legislation dealing with the issuance of those certificates, then we have in all instances prosecuted.

The qualifications of the person or persons who issue those certificates are within the purview of the Ministry of Colleges and Universities under its educational programme. I concede there are difficulties, there are problems, insofar as some of these fraudulent certificates are issued. I don’t think they’re that widespread but they are significant enough to cause me concern.

Some hon. members: Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I haven’t heard the word supplementary yet.

Mr. Young: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary?

Mr. Young: Is the minister satisfied that measures are under way which will solve this problem because it still is a very great problem for a great many people?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, I’m advised by my colleague, the Minister of Transportation and Communications, that his ministry is tightening up on it. One of the things I would personally endorse is the removal of the fine only against the person who issues the fraudulent certificate -- or one who is stretching the truth to some degree -- and impose in lieu of a fine, imprisonment and/or a fine and the removal of the licence for the person to practice. It would be the same type of penalty as is borne by professional and semi-professional groups already subject to other legislation.

Mr. Roy: Could I just ask one supplementary?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Ottawa East has a supplementary.

Mr. Roy: In reference to the minister’s comments that the abuse of these certificates was not widespread, how does he correlate that with the comments of the previous Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Carton) who said they were widespread?

Secondly, how does he expect to have proper enforcement of this type of certificate when the jurisdiction is spread out between the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, his ministry and the Ministry of Colleges and Universities? Doesn’t he think it’s high time, maybe, the enforcement was under one ministry?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, it’s because of the very nature of the responsibilities themselves. T&C has it because it is seized with the responsibility of monitoring the Highway Traffic Act, as the member well knows. The Ministry of Colleges and Universities deals with the professional qualifications of the people who, in fact, are issuing those certificates. The involvement of my ministry is because we monitor the car industry. Unless all three were placed in the responsibility of one ministry, and I suggest that would not be the answer, we’re going to have this fragmentation.

Mr. Roy: It would help.

Mr. Speaker: The member for York West.

GO TRAIN TO GEORGETOWN

Mr. MacBeth: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I see the Minister of Transportation and Communications has returned --

An hon. member: Welcome back.

Mr. MacBeth: -- and I would ask him whether or not there will be a stop at Rexdale now that the announcement of the GO route to Georgetown has been made? Can he tell me whether there will be a stop at Rexdale to serve the northern part of the borough of Etobicoke?

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): Yes.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, there will not be a stop at Rexdale immediately. We are looking at the possibility of putting one in there.

Mr. Deans: But the train will slow down?

Mr. Breithaupt: Will it slow down at all?

Mr. Singer: It will wave at them as it goes by.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: If the member for Downsview is on he can jump off any time.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Grey-Bruce has a supplementary.

Mr. MacBeth: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. MacBeth: Can the minister give consideration to such a stop?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, certainly, we’ve just recently had some discussions with the mayor of the borough on this very point.

It is not forgotten.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Grey-Bruce is next.

TRAIN JOURNEY IN WESTERN ONTARIO

Mr. E. Sargent (Grey-Bruce): Mr. Speaker, I have a Question of the Premier. In view of the fact that he and the member for Grey South (Mr. Winkler) are cooking up this journey into history, and in view of the fact we don’t have a train service up our way --

Mr. Reid: They’re rewriting history.

Mr. Sargent: -- he took it away along with the federal government -- now he’s going to have this special junket through western Ontario with a lot of civic functions, etc., how does he justify blatantly adding insult to injury by bringing a train junket into our area? We haven’t got a train service but he’s going to have it.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He’s just trying to re-elect the Chairman of the Management Board. It is an impossible task.

Mr. Sargent: How much is it going to cost? Let’s start there, how much is it going to cost?

Mr. Roy: Who is paying for it?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The Treasury Board.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, I think first of all I should straighten out the member on who really took the train service off the tracks. If he can get in touch with his friends in Ottawa there’s a little bit of warmth there right now about reinstituting the service -- with which I agree.

In reference to the question he puts, this isn’t the first time we’ve done it. This is about the third, and each and every time it funds itself. It costs nobody anything.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for --

Mr. Sargent: A supplementary --

An hon. member: I’m looking forward to the trip. I’m going to drive the train.

Mr. Sargent: If it funds itself why the hell can’t we have a train service up there?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Why doesn’t the member ask Mr. Marchand?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I’m almost disposed to answer the member the way the member for Lakeshore (Mr. Lawlor) did the other week because of the irresponsible way he approaches a question.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Irresponsible? That is a very sensible question.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: He knows whose responsibility it is but he is afraid of them.

Mr. Yakabuski: He drives down in his white Lincoln. Why doesn’t he use the train?

Mr. Sargent: The Ontario government is giving a train to Barrie now -- what’s wrong with Grey-Bruce getting a train?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Maybe the member had better look at himself.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sudbury East.

Interjections by hon. members.

An hon. member: That wasn’t much of an answer.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: It was as good as the question he asked.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sudbury East.

Interjections by hon. members.

REPORT ON LAKE WANAPITEI

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): I have a question of the Minister of the Environment, Mr. Speaker. In view of Dr. Balsillie’s report which states, “The above observations indicate that both acute and chronic injury are occurring to vegetation in the area north of Lake Wanapitei”, could the minister indicate whether or not his ministry is willing to indicate who is responsible for the damage at long last? In other words, is it Falconbridge and Inco that are doing that damage?

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): I missed the first part of the member’s question. Could he just repeat the first part?

Mr. Roy: And the minister didn’t understand the second part.

Mr. Martel: Dr. Balsillie’s report recently to the minister’s office indicated the following: “The above observations indicate that both acute and chronic injury are occurring to vegetation in the area north of Lake Wanapitei.” Is the ministry now willing to indicate who is responsible directly for the damage?

Hon. W. Newman: We have received the report and are studying it at this time and we will be back to the member on it.

Mr. Martel: Supplementary --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That is almost as good as the Minister for Transportation and Communications.

Mr. Deans: That was funny the first time.

Mr. Martel: In view of the fact that the ministry has already condensed Dr. Balsillie’s report and chopped it up pretty well, I can’t see why it is necessary for further study for the ministry to indicate who is responsible. Would the minister be willing, once he indicates who is responsible, to assess Inco and Falconbridge a certain amount to neutralize the water and restore the vegetation in that area?

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): What does the government want -- another Dow?

Hon. W. Newman: As the member knows, we are very much concerned about that whole Sudbury basin. We are doing a lot of studies and we are doing a lot of monitoring. I’ve been writing the member a lot of letters about the problems they are faced with up there.

An hon. member: The government studied itself right out of power in that area.

Hon. W. Newman: Certainly we did some research.

Mr. Lewis: The government has a right to be concerned in the Sudbury basin. It will never have a seat there, not one.

Hon. W. Newman: Don’t let the member kid himself. When we get through with the work we are doing up there, we may have them all.

Mr. Lewis: Not to mention the Renfrews. They are gone forever.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order. There are just a few minutes remaining.

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, we have done some experimental work, as members know, up there. We will be continuing this work this summer.

Mr. Singer: No wonder they hired McPhee.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Downsview is next.

BILL 25

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Singer: -- of a statute like this and make police-state-like legislation?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I’m informed that this is on the order paper.

Mr. Singer: Well, that’s all right, I want to stop it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Singer: No, Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, whether it is on the order paper or not, surely it is demeaning to this province to have written in a statute police-state-type legislation. I’m trying to head it off before it gets any further.

Mr. Speaker: It is not proper for the hon. member to anticipate any provisions that might be in the bill. It is on the order paper.

Mr. Singer: It is there.

Mr. Speaker: I think your question is not proper.

Mr. Singer: Oh, the Premier just shakes his head. He should be ashamed.

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

Mr. Singer: Another Bill 99.

An hon. member: What was wrong with it?

HIRING OF LIQUOR STORE EMPLOYEES

Mr. Shulman: I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, Mr. Speaker: What action has the minister taken since the letter which he was shown last week from the organization representing the liquor employees of this province, in which they say there is now chaos in the stores which he manages because they are being forced to hire people who are mentally incapable of handling the jobs?

Mr. Reid: The member means retired cabinet ministers.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, I checked into that allegation which was so kindly drawn to my attention by the member for High Park, with whom I feel a real affinity over the past few days.

Mr. R. K. McNeil (Elgin): Drinking more wine?

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I miss him every weekend.

An hon. member: And Wednesdays.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I ascertained that before a person is hired by the Liquor Control Board of this province as a permanent employee that person undergoes an aptitude test and a physical examination. This does not occur if the person is a temporary employee working a day or two a week.

The board, as a matter of policy, attempts as much as possible to hire people on a temporary basis -- some of them quite elderly; under 65 but beyond 60 in many instances -- who do have some physical disability so long as that disability will not interfere with their work, i.e., a back injury, which would preclude them from lifting heavy cases of liquor and this sort of thing. But if such a person becomes a permanent employee, then he must undergo the two tests to which I have already referred.

Mr. Shulman: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Can the minister explain the comments here that utter chaos over which the staff has no control now reigns in the stores?

An hon. member: Nonsense, nonsense.

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): Who wrote that?

Mr. Shulman: The head of the liquor employees’ association.

An hon. member: The Sun.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, I would consider that to be --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Is that for tomorrow’s column?

Hon. Mr. Clement: -- poetic licence of the writer of that particular article. If he will describe the degree of the chaos, and if he will give me the particulars, I will undertake to look into it.

I might point out that the writer of that

article has in the past indicated his interest in various matters pertaining to the employees’ association and has, in fact, spoken and met with me on matters of mutual interest. This has not been the subject of any discussion between that particular writer and myself.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Ottawa East.

PYRAMID SALES SCHEMES

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations dealing with pyramid sales:

First of all, would the minister advise how many certificates of acceptance have been issued in this province? I suppose he will say none.

Secondly, how can he tolerate two or three different companies operating in this province under the pyramid sales scheme, one of them being Holiday Magic in Scarborough? And why is he waiting to do something about it in light of the fact that the Province of Quebec last week issued some 81 charges against the same company?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago I would have said none had been registered. I don’t know as of today how many have been registered --

Mr. Roy: None, none.

Hon. Mr. Clement: -- because I have directed the acting registrar to effect registration of those who have complied with the requirements set out in the Act and the regulations, and I anticipate they will be registered within days, if they have not already been registered by now.

Mr. Speaker: The time for oral questions has now expired.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Mr. J. A. Taylor, from the standing private bills committee, presented the committee’s report which was read as follows and adopted:

Your committee begs to report the following bills without amendment:

Bill Pr4,

An Act respecting the City of Hamilton.

Bill Pr6,

An Act respecting the Wellington County Board of Education.

Bill Pr16,

An Act respecting the City of Orillia.

Your committee begs to report the following bill with certain amendments:

Bill Pr3,

An Act respecting the City of Hamilton.

Your committee would recommend that the time for presenting reports by the committee be extended to Thursday, May 2, 1974.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes presented the annual report to the Minister of Transportation and Communications of the Ontario Highway Transport Board on its affairs for the year ending Dec. 31, 1973, for the information of the members.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any further reports?

Mr. Shulman: No.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. House leader have any reports?

ANSWER TO WRITTEN QUESTION

Hon. Mr. Winkler: No, I don’t have a report, Mr. Speaker, but I would like to table the answer to question 3 standing on the order paper.

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Introduction of bills.

UNLAWFUL FUNDS INVESTMENT ACT

Mr. Shulman moves first reading of bill intituled.

An Act to prevent the Investment of Funds Obtained Unlawfully.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. Shulman: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to prevent the investment in Ontario, by or under the control of persons I engaged in unlawful activities, of the unlawful proceeds and to prevent the laundering of unlawful proceeds to secure their source.

I would like to give a word of thanks to Mr. Stone of the legislative counsel for his kind work in assisting me and to the Solicitor General for his consideration and help in looking at the bill.

POINT OF ORDER

Mr. R. F. Nixon: On a point of order just before the orders of the day, I wonder if the Minister of Revenue could assist us since he has indicated that there may be amendments to the land tax bill, which I understand it is expected would be debated on second reading tomorrow. Is it possible that we might see those proposed amendments before we approach the bill on second reading so that we know the areas where the minister feels that the bill is already wanting? We might then modify our approach to some extent.

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Mr. Speaker, the public and many of my colleagues are presently providing me with some very, very useful comment on these bills, particularly on the Land Speculation Tax Act.

To the extent that my ministry and I may have reached some firm conclusions on the amendments which I would propose to introduce when the bill is in committee, I think there would be no difficulty in my providing those to the hon. Leader of the Opposition and to the leader of the New Democratic Party if they would both wish to have those.

I want to emphasize that because we are, for the agrarians in this House, ploughing virgin soil -- and perhaps for the boaters and nautical types in this House I am sailing some uncharted waters -- there are bound to be some rocks in all of this and we’re encountering problems virtually daily which I am wrestling with --

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): That’s an apt description if I ever heard one: “Ploughing virgin soil.”

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- and there will consequently be the very great likelihood of amendments being generated right up to the time when we do get into the committee of the whole House on this. Indeed, I will be listening with interest this afternoon to the speech of the former leader of the NDP, in which I would expect he will have some comments to make on this bill. In the course of the debate on the bill on second reading there may well also be some very useful ideas put forward which I would like to be able to take under consideration.

Therefore, I do want to emphasize that if I am able to provide the hon. members with some thoughts on my proposed amendments that those amendments by no means represent a fixed position.

Mr. Breithaupt: If I might speak to that point of my leader to the minister. If there are some considerations given to amendments and if we are to proceed, as I understand it, with second reading debate beginning tomorrow, is the minister at least considering having the bill go to standing committee for --

Mr. Bullbrook: Very good idea.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- the committee process so that perhaps other members of the public --

Mr. Bullbrook: Why not?

Mr. Breithaupt: -- who may wish to give additional information could possibly be included, in the best interests of having as good a bill as we could have?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Well, Mr. Speaker, I have given that some thought, but in view of the urgency of passage of both of these bills and particularly the Land Transfer Tax Act and the present uncertainty in the commercial areas of activity in this province today because the bills are not law, it is essential that they be passed as quickly as possible.

What the Treasurer said in his budget speech and what I have gone to considerable length to say also since that time, is that we are very flexible. On the other hand, I think the people of Ontario have to know where they stand as accurately as possible and as quickly as possible.

Therefore, for the initial stages of passage of the bill in order that it can become law, I would propose to take it to the committee of the whole House rather than to the standing committee at this time, although I certainly invite -- and I am receiving these submissions daily -- submissions from the public as well as from our colleagues in this House which I can take under advisement, when looking at the Act, when looking at the regulations that will be drafted, and indeed we are working on those now.

So over the next few months when we get a feel for this Act and this new form of legislation we will have a much better idea of where we are going, and in the fall session might then follow the course of action which the hon. member for Kitchener has suggested.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, doesn’t the minister think that in view of the substantial reservations which are being raised in the business community and elsewhere, as he himself agrees is now taking place, that wisdom would dictate that the principle of the bill will obviously be affected by the extent and nature of the amendments which the minister proposes to introduce or incorporate, and that it is impossible for him to resolve the problem of the immediate passage of that bill with a proper and adequate public debate in consideration of this immensely important principle?

Wouldn’t the minister consider suggesting to the House leader that discretion requires that the bill be not debated tomorrow morning on second reading but be debated at the point in time when the ministry has made up its mind what road it is going to take, having regard to the public reservations about the bill?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, we appear to be returning to the question period. To both those questions I think I would just simply say no, not at this time.

Mr. Lewis: On a point of order, Mr.

Speaker, I want to say on this point that the minister is absurdly inflexible and that once again we are traducing the Legislature, because a debate is necessarily unproductive when he intends to introduce major changes by way of amendment, when he as minister is receiving submissions from the public, when we as legislators are still receiving submissions from the public, when he has already indicated to the House that he will provide no forum for the public and he forces us into a debate tomorrow morning on the principle when he himself has indicated that the principle may be altered.

That’s just bloody-mindedness. It’s silly, it’s childish and it’s obviously going to be destructive.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Order please.

Mr. Lewis: And I’m tired of that kind of role.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Roy: In fact it’s mean.

Mr. Lewis: Even nasty.

POINT OF PRIVILEGE

Mr. C. J. S. Apps (Kingston and the Islands): Mr. Speaker, in connection with a statement made by the official opposition critic during the budget debate on page 1083 of Hansard he said.

“The population of Kingston is dropping by one per cent per decade.”

I tried to correct him at that time with very little success so I got the proper figures. The population of Kingston in 1963 was 50,011. In 1973 it was 59,289, an increase of 18.6 per cent.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Apps: That is just about as accurate as his critic’s figures were.

Mr. Breithaupt: Check the Financial Post.

Mr. Apps: Mr. Speaker, I find it rather amazing that the --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member is permitted to correct a wrong impression that has been created but there should be no further statements.

Mr. Apps: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, other than the fact that probably the member who spoke should apologize to the Legislature for quoting a very inaccurate figure.

Mr. Speaker: I think that is not necessary, nor is it customary.

Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The first order, resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to the motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government.

BUDGET DEBATE

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): I hope I don’t disappoint the new Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen) too completely, but I’ll have some comments on the matter of his current preoccupation.

Mr. Speaker, the outstanding characteristic of the budget that was presented to us last week is one of an illusion of progress with very little reality. And that is why my first reaction was to dub it a streaker’s budget --

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Who wrote that?

Mr. MacDonald: -- because at first glance it’s attractive but it doesn’t stand up to any closer examination.

The only people still being taken in by this budget appear to be the government backbenchers. They were so depressed by the relentless succession of bad fortune suffered by their party, some self-inflicted and some fortuitous, that they can be forgiven their rather euphoric reaction; but the general public has learned from experience to view critically what this government does and what it leaves undone.

But it was characteristic, Mr. Speaker, that the provincial Treasurer (Mr. White) should bring in this kind of a budget. He is a streaker by nature, the provincial Treasurer.

An hon. member: Yes, he was born that way.

Mr. MacDonald: A streaker by nature. I repeat, a streaker by nature.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. MacDonald: He is the only hon. member in this House -- with the possible exception of the hon. member for High Park (Mr. Shulman) -- who has the necessary combination of energy, courage and indiscretion to physically streak through this Legislature; but I suppose that would be too much of an affront to the traditions of the House, so instead he does it by way of the budget.

For a fleeting moment it was something of a dazzling performance. But upon further thought and closer study, I’m not so sure, Mr. Speaker, but that my reaction was too generous as far as the provincial Treasurer is concerned. I have a growing suspicion that even I was taken in a little.

An hon. member: No.

Mr. MacDonald: You see, Mr. Speaker, I rather like the provincial Treasurer. He is an interesting guy.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. MacDonald: He is somewhat offbeat. He is certainly unpredictable. He has something more than mere pretensions to intellectualism. In all, he is rather a pleasant relief to the kind of stuffy atmosphere created by some of his cabinet colleagues.

But my sober second thoughts, when I had gotten over this rather kind reaction to the provincial Treasurer, led me to the conclusion that with this budget the provincial Treasurer has established himself as the leading flim-flam artist in Ontario budgetary history.

Interjection by an hon. member,

Mr. MacDonald: I want to spend an hour or two this afternoon exploring the true ramifications of his flim-flamming exercise, otherwise known as the budget in 1974.

The provincial Treasurer’s whole budgetary posture, Mr. Speaker, is one of anti-inflation, because it is the thing to do today. It looks well. Unfortunately, the facts belie his posture.

The budget of the last Robarts year reached $5.2 billion. During the first four years of this government’s budgets, they have climbed from $6 billion to $6.5 billion to $7.3 billion, and this year to $8.3 billion.

It is interesting to recall that in the first 100 years of Ontario’s history, from 1867 to 1967, we didn’t quite reach our first $2 billion budget; and yet within the first four years of this government it has added a cool $3 billion more to the budget.

Those figures give the lie to the government’s contention that they are successfully restraining expenditures and therefore playing their

part in checking inflation; one of the basic arguments advanced by the Premier (Mr. Davis) many, many times.

In fact, the premise upon which this budget was built is one of an acceptance of inflation. The government is living off the profits of inflation. It even speaks of sharing those profits with the municipalities. That was a headline in the budget text.

The net tax increase was nil. Taxes were cut by $140 million on one hand and increased by $147 million on another; a minor shift to the hitherto lightly-tapped corporate and resource sources of revenue to compensate for the government’s gesture of greater tax equity for those who have been carrying too much of the burden for too long.

It is interesting to note, Mr. Speaker, that when the BC budget was recently brought in, Premier Barrett dubbed it the resource dividend budget. The expansion of services to the people is being financed by more equitable levies on the resources of the province.

Here in Ontario our provincial Treasurer has brought in an inflation dividend budget, all the while contending that he is freely engaged in an all out fight against inflation. It is a flagrant exercise in flim-flamming the public. Let me take a moment to document it.

The hallmark of the 1974 budget is that we are getting something for nothing. Imagine that philosophy coming from the Tories -- getting something for nothing.

Hon. J. White (Treasurer, Minister of Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs): No wonder the member smiles when he says that.

Mr. MacDonald: Pardon?

Hon. Mr. White: No wonder the member is saying those things with a smile.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): That’s because he likes the Treasurer.

Hon. Mr. White: The member for York South knows that what he is saying is flim-flam.

Mr. MacDonald: Do I? Well, the Treasurer should wait until I have laid all the facts on the table and then he will be flim-flammed into silence and perhaps into some effort to reply substantively.

As I was saying, the hallmark of the 1974 budget is that we are getting something for nothing -- a kind of philosophy that normally is condemned on the other side of the House.

For example, transit fares are being frozen; pensioners are getting GAINS; municipalities are being revenue-shared; not to mention the housing prices stabilized -- and we are not paying anything for it. Tax rates are not being changed for anybody except the nasty speculators and foreigners and the resources corporations, who supposedly are going to be taxed until they beg for mercy.

True we are spending $1 billion more this year -- a cool billion dollars more -- but the speculation tax, mines taxes and timber royalties only add up to $150 million. Where does the rest of the money come from? Why it’s collected from that money tree that the Treasurer keeps in the vault in the Frost Building, or it’s financed out of the public debt that we don’t have.

We don’t pay taxes to the “Ontari-ari-ari-o” government, do we Mr. Speaker? We pay taxes to the greedy “feds,” and the kindly provincial Treasurer just gives us more and more tax credits and labels it on the tax forms to make certain that he gets the credit. And just to make sure, Mr. Speaker, that they don’t forget it, next year he is going to bestow the goodies all by himself and not through the federal tax system.

Hon. Mr. White: That is not so.

Mr. MacDonald: Now let’s take a look. Let’s take a look at how the Province of Ontario is living off the avails of inflation and boasting about it in the process. You would expect that kind of a thing from the swinging provincial Treasurer.

During 1974 to 1975, Ontario’s revenue increase is forecast at $833 million. That figure breaks down as follows: 15.7 per cent is $131 million net from new taxes and royalties; 48.4 per cent is the $403 million from inflation and the sales tax, the personal income tax, the corporation tax and LCBO profit; 13.14 per cent is $112 million from non-inflationary expansion of the tax base; 14.2 per cent is $118 million added revenue from the federal government; and 8.3 per cent is the $69 million from interest on investments. Thus it is seen Mr. Speaker, that the largest component, 48.4 per cent -- almost half of Ontario’s new revenue next year -- is a windfall from inflation.

Now, one or two of the components of that revenue breakdown that I have just given you deserve a little more comment. It’s interesting, for example, that the government doesn’t expect to increase revenues significantly through inflation in the corporate income. Even including the $75 million payment from the federal government to compensate for a federal tax concession to corporations, the corporation income tax will yield only $41 million more in 1974 to 1975 than it did in 1973-1974. Part of the explanation, of course, is the $21 million in tax concessions which were granted to corporations in this budget.

Also, Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note that the LCBO profits of $312 million for the next year will bring in more revenue than the combined total of the speculation tax, the foreign land transfer tax, the mines profits tax, all the timber royalties and succession duties. So eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may have to tax Inco. That’s the kind of approach of the government today.

In the face of these figures, what effrontery it is for the provincial Treasurer to try and kid the public that his budget is anti-inflationary. Why Mr. Speaker, flim-flam is almost too kind a comment.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): It’s the La Scala budget

Mr. MacDonald: La Scala!

Let me broaden out beyond the budget for a moment, Mr. Speaker, to consider related activities on the part of this administration.

Throughout this session the Davis administration has sought to create the public image of an all-out fight against inflation. Thus we have the Throne Speech, and I quote:

“My government will employ all practical means at its disposal to alleviate the causes and effects of inflation.”

And now in the budget, I quote:

“The government of Ontario is willing to use every practical measure within its constitutional jurisdiction to combat inflation.”

Well Mr. Speaker, it simply isn’t true. Here we have the flim-flam artists at their misleading best. Admittedly the government has done some things to alleviate the effects of inflation. I shall deal with them in more detail in a moment. But as for alleviating the causes of inflation, this government is guilty of an almost complete cop-out. It attempts to flim-flam the public about using all practical means at its disposal, “every practical measure within its constitutional jurisdiction,” but its record in this connection is virtually blank.

I dealt with this to some extent in an abbreviated contribution to the Throne Speech debate. Just let me recap some of the points I made then, and then I can proceed.

First, since last summer’s public furore over food prices, the government has sought to create a public image of great concern. The Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Clement) has promised, often in tones of pained belligerence, that he would bring in a business practices Act to prohibit unfair and deceptive practices; give the courts power to rule on what is an unconscionable profit; explore cease and desist orders in case of excessive price increases; arm the government with authority to act against food hoarding, speculating, profiteering and fraud; and monitor regional price disparities.

It sounds like a pretty impressive programme. But after months of huffing and puffing all we have is part one of a long-term study. The minister asserts that he can do nothing until he gets all the facts. And he stresses how hard it’s going to be to get the facts. All these promises were at least premature. In reality they were flim-flam, an illusion of action where there is no action taking place at all.

In a second area, the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Stewart) misrepresents the picture by asserting that all, or at least most, of the consumer price increases for food are going back to the farmer. And heaven knows the farmer needs them after 20 years of depressed prices between 1951 and 1971. Nobody denies that.

But the primary producer represents only 20 per cent of the giant food industry. A growing number of middlemen, ranging from storage to transportation to processing to retailing, represent the remaining 80 per cent.

The food processors, for example, enjoyed an 81 per cent increase in profits during the last quarter of 1973, as compared with the final quarter of 1972. The supermarket retailers enjoy a good return on equity, publicly disguised as only one per cent of the consumer’s dollar; to which is added a highly wasteful 10 per cent in advertising and another five per cent in gimmickry and super-plush quarters, for all of which the consumer pays.

And what does this government do about these middlemen operations which cut returns to the farmers and boost costs to the consumers? Nothing!

Well that’s not quite right. The government is never completely passive. While conceding that they don’t really have all the facts, their spokesmen nevertheless continuously defend price increases by the middlemen saying that their costs are going up too. There’s no effort to find out whether the price increases are justified.

For example, the four western provinces, including the Tory government of Peter Lougheed in Alberta, have set up price review machinery to dig out the facts on the two major farm input costs, namely fertilizer and machinery. But this government does nothing. Instead it hosts an expensive fertilizer conference to prove what everybody knew beforehand, that fertilizer is in short supply and that the oligopoly of the industry is capitalizing on the situation with higher prices. No wonder farm leaders in the OFA, the NFU and the Christian Farmers’ Federation unanimously dismiss the whole exercise as a whitewash, as reported on the front-page news story of Farm and Country.

It is clearly within the constitutional jurisdiction of the province, first to investigate, and second to control, and where necessary roll back, prices within the Province of Ontario. This is a “practical” means -- that word that the government used in the Throne Speech and the budget -- this is a practical means of imposing some check on rising prices; but it is cavalierly dismissed by this government at every turn.

All of which underlines a third area for action, a prices review board, either on isolated commodities such as fertilizer or farm machinery or across the board.

If there was a will, this government could smoke out flagrant and unjustified price increases. There is a way to do it, but there is no will on the part of this government -- and that’s our problem.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): They have no sense of responsibility.

Mr. MacDonald: Why? In addition to having no sense of responsibility, their lack of responsibility springs, I want to suggest, from their basic philosophy. This government is so firmly committed to a doctrinaire belief in the efficacy of the free-market operation that it seeks one excuse after another to justify its inaction. They are shirking what is not only a clear constitutional responsibility but an obligation.

As a result, there is nobody to champion the consumers, except a minister with that name, who joins the provincial Treasurer as the gold dust twins of the flim-flam circus. Well, let me turn -- he’s smiling; mind you, he is smiling, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): The Minister of Agriculture and Food is showing remarkable restraint.

Hon. Mr. White: It isn’t easy --

Mr. MacDonald: After that budget and that calculated deception of the people of Ontario, I can quite understand why the minister would feel a little conscience-stricken.

Hon. Mr. White: No, it isn’t easy to smile while the member is on his feet. It is very difficult.

Mr. MacDonald: However, let me turn to a final area where the need is perhaps immediately greatest and where the government has a mechanism at hand that could be assigned to the job, and where the Minister of Energy (Mr. McKeough) stubbornly refuses to do anything about it. I refer to the prospective hike in energy costs from crude oil.

In mid-May, so we are told, gasoline costs will go up 10 cents a gallon, with an equivalent rise for home fuel oil. For every cent increase in the price of gasoline, there will be $5.60 increase in the cost of living for every Ontarian on an average, whether they own a car or not so to speak.

If the increase is 10 cents, that is a per capita outlay of $56 a year, or $224 for an average family of four. This government asserts that seven cents of that increase is justified by the boost in crude oil to $6.50 per barrel. That represents a cool $313 million more from the consumers of Ontario.

Does the government have the facts to confirm whether that seven cents is justified? No. They continue to accept the oil companies’ self-serving statistics.

Furthermore, experts in Ottawa estimate that the non-crude increase in cost would be covered by another half cent per gallon. But the oil companies propose to cream off an extra 2% cents per gallon when the price goes up on May 15. That extra 2%-cent unjustified rip-off represents $14 for each man, woman and child in the Province of Ontario, or a total of $112 million a year -- well over one-half of the outlay represented by the government’s much-vaunted anti-inflation measures in this budget.

What the government puts in one pocket of the consumer, all the while preening itself as the champion of the anti-inflation fight, it stands idly by while the multinational corporations take it out of the other pocket.

Are there practical means to cope with this, Mr. Speaker? Is it within the province’s constitutional jurisdiction to do anything about gas and oil prices? Of course it is. As the leader of the New Democratic Party pointed out earlier in question period, Nova Scotia has just proven how effective corrective actions can be.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): That’s a good Liberal government.

Mr. MacDonald: Yes, a Liberal government that is acting out of character for the Liberals. Show me another one that is doing the same thing.

Mr. Breithaupt: It’s a good Liberal government.

Mr. Ferrier: There aren’t many of them around.

Mr. MacDonald: Does the hon. member mean that if a Liberal government acts out of character it becomes a good Liberal government? Well, I will reflect on that one tonight.

Mr. Ferrier: There are not many Liberal governments around these days.

Mr. Deacon: I think there are just as many as there are NDP governments.

Mr. MacDonald: Down in the Atlantic Provinces last fall, Mr. Speaker, the Nova Scotia Legislature extended the powers of the Board of Commissioners of Public Utilities to investigate price increases and to impose a price rollback where the increases were not justified.

And just last week, following February hearings, that Nova Scotia provincial board forced a rollback in prices on Imperial Oil; even more, reimbursements of the overcharge to the consumers.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, the age of miracles isn’t over. Earlier this year, in face of an investigation that was only pending, the Irving Oil Company voluntarily rolled back one price increase and reimbursed its consumers. That Santa Claus role on the part of K. C. Irving has Maritimers still a bit aghast.

Now in the Ontario Energy Board this government has the mechanism for price review and rollback. All we need to do is what they did in Nova Scotia; pass the necessary amendment to the Act, as was done last fall, and grant our Energy Board those powers.

In fact last June the hon. member for Chatham-Kent (Mr. McKeough) reported to the Premier that this expanded role for the Energy Board should be studied by the energy secretariat which his report was proposing. He pointed to the obvious anomaly that natural gas prices, and now Hydro prices, are subject to review by the Energy Board; so why not gasoline and oil prices, why should they be exempted?

The Premier has made excuses that oil companies are different. They deal in interprovincial and international trade, one of the 1,001 excuses. But insofar as they operate in Ontario and retail to Ontario consumers, their prices are subject to our jurisdiction. Nova Scotia has proven what everybody knew; everybody, that is, except this government.

What does the government do? It simply ignores the $112 million rip-off scheduled for commencement on May 15. The Ministry of Energy now encompasses the energy secretariat which the member for Chatham-Kent said last June should study this matter. The member for Chatham-Kent is himself the minister presiding over that secretariat. But nothing happens. The silence is deafening. Ensconced high atop the Sunoco building, symbolizing the Ministry of Energy’s cozy relationship with the oil companies, in spite of the odd rather belligerent speech with regard to them, the Minister of Energy sits idly by while the consumers are being subjected to another multi-million dollar fleecing.

Well sitting idly by maybe isn’t quite accurate, Mr. Speaker. For the Minister of Energy never sits. He’s a very energetic person, delivering a speech a day on problems, domestic and international. In fact what he has done is to join that chorus of flim-flam artists posing as champions of anti-inflation measures while steadfastly refusing to use all of those practical measures to which other provinces are now resorting. Meanwhile the Minister of Energy keeps singing his siren song. It’s the solo effort, highlighting the continual performance of other Davis flim-flam artists.

On the one hand he laments the oligopolic practices of the international oil cartel of the Middle East, which as the minister says engaged in the classical monopolistic practice of creating artificial shortages and then escalating prices.

But meanwhile he ignores the documented testimony of congressional investigations in Washington that these same oil companies in the Middle East acted in concert with the “Sheiks of Araby” to help boost oil prices, and therefore their own profits. He chooses to ignore the operations of those self same oil companies, Canadian subsidiaries of the international cartel, operating in precisely the same manner back here in Canada.

Consider, Mr. Speaker, the testimony of the chief spokesman for Imperial Oil before the hearings of the Nova Scotia Board of Commissioners of Public Utilities as carried on the front page of the Feb. 16 Globe and Mail. And I quote:

“Pricing is not a cost-plus formula. We don’t determine in our pricing the cost of our product, we get what we can from the tone of the market.” The Imperial Oil spokesman told the hearing that pricing involves a great deal of judgement. “It’s one of the great mystics of our industry.”

It surely is one of the greatest mystics of their industry. But let me continue; he elaborates on the mystic mildly.

At another point he said: “Costs are only one consideration in pricing policy. And if they go down that doesn’t necessarily mean that the prices of fuel, for example, will go down. Our ability to move prices is not our costs. [So spake Imperial Oil.] We make our price increases fundamentally on whether market conditions will allow us.”

In other words, we have been given by the oil industry here in Canada -- subsidiaries of that international cartel that the Minister of Energy has spent so much time chastising -- an updating of that illuminating, refreshingly frank statement of the late J. S. MacLean of Canada Packers some years ago when he said: “We pay the farmers as little as possible and we charge the consumers as much as the traffic will bear. That is business.”

Hon. Mr. White: In 1948. I remember it well.

Mr. MacDonald: In 1948, was it? Maybe the Treasurer wrote the speech for him.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: It’s in keeping with the Treasurer’s beliefs.

Mr. MacDonald: Quite true, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deacon: What did the member do when he sold his old car and bought a new one?

Mr. MacDonald: But where are the champions of the consumers, to protect them against this open, blatant exploitation? The Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations is studying the problem.

Mr. Deans: Does the member for York Centre believe that is the right way to do business?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. MacDonald: The hon. member for York Centre can have his speech later. He can speak later. He should not try to run interference as though he was back in the leadership race or something like that.

Mr. Deacon: The aggravation by the NDP House leader is causing that.

Mr. MacDonald: I was asking where were the champions of the consumers in Ontario. The Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations is studying that problem and that can be a life-long pursuit. The Minister of Agriculture and Food is holding national conferences to document the obvious. The Minister of Energy is high atop the Sunoco building preparing his next speech --

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): Why not tell us what the western provinces are going to do about the report on their investigation into the fertilizer industry?

Mr. MacDonald: We will find out. They are in the process of doing it.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: They have had the report for a month and haven’t moved an inch on it; not an inch. Now let’s be reasonable.

Mr. MacDonald: At least they got the facts out and the minister will find out they are going to do something about it.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: That is great. We will wait with bated breath, but not holding our breath -- that wouldn’t be safe.

Mr. MacDonald: As I said, the Minister of Energy is high atop the Sunoco building preparing his next speech for the Chamber of Commerce in Chatham or Whitby or Kapuskasing. And where are the provincial Treasurer, the Premier, the whole government? They are handing back a little of the people’s own money to ease the pain and suffering caused by inflationary prices, while doing nothing to check the causes of the disease itself. It is as impressive an array of flim-flam artists as this province has ever seen.

Well, so much for the government’s own sins of omission. I suppose you can’t really be pinned for sins of omission as effectively or as solidly as the sins of commission, so let’s consider them specifically in this budget.

The simple truth is that the average Ontario family is worse off because of this budget. Now that doesn’t square with the government’s efforts at image making, so I would like to analyse the impact of the average family to document my conclusions.

There are two identifiable areas of savings brought on by this budget.

First, there are the tax credits. Despite the budget claim that the property tax credit will be doubled from $90 to $180; and that that “will more than offset the increase in heating bills for these low-income families and individuals least able to bear such a cost increase”, changes in this will do little for the average family -- two adults and two children under 16 on the average family income of approximately $12,000-in Ontario. Table 9 on page A-11 shows that such a family will actually receive total tax credits of $124, an increase of $18 over the 1973 figure. There is the average Ontario family. Its tax credits, in total, go up from $106 to $124.

Second, sales tax exemptions: The average family will save about $22 in 1974 from the added exemptions. This is calculated by dividing the $43 million which the government itself expects to lose by the Ontario population of eight million and multiplying by four for an average family.

There will be an additional saving to public transit users of between $30 and $40 for each daily commuter. This will be limited, however, to only some residents -- some residents, not all -- of six cities. Families with no transit users in those cities and all families living in other municipalities will have no saving at all.

Let’s turn now to expenses brought on by this budget. Estimated increases in the cost of heating oil and gasoline may mean an increase of approximately $185 per family. On increased beer prices, assuming, I suppose this is a rash assumption, a case of 24 every two weeks, that would be an increase --

Hon. Mr. White: That is quite a conservative assumption.

Mr. MacDonald: Always in criticizing this government, I err on the conservative side. That would be an increase of $13 a year per family, a sizable contribution to the extra $31 million of LCBO revenue as shown in the budget.

Finally, municipal governments are expected to experience a financing deficit of $182 million, of which the government will provide only $124 million.

If I may just interject here, Mr. Speaker, for years the government has been arguing --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. MacDonald: Just listen for a moment -- that the increase in grants to the municipalities exceeded the increases the municipalities were going to experience so that their mill rates could come down. The government boasts about the extent to which they have come down. Take note of the fact that we’ve come to the end of that happy trail. This year inaugurates, and it was backed up verbally, the fact that the government is not now going to cover the whole cost of the increase; it is going to leave some of it to the municipalities. In fact, in the coming year the difference of $58 million will probably mean an increase of 3.2 mills.

Hon. Mr. White: The member is overlooking the tax balance.

Mr. MacDonald: Well --

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): No, he has taken those into account.

Mr. MacDonald: I’ve taken those into account in another connection.

Assuming the tax rate is 100 mills, roughly the current rate in Metro, the increase on a house assessed at $5,000 would be $16.

Mr. Speaker, the amount for the increase in heating oil, the increase in beer, the increase in the mill rate, totals $214 extra expenses brought on by this budget. What is the net result? Tax credit and expanded sales tax exemptions will mean a saving of $40 for a family of four living on the average Ontario family income of $12,000. For those living in selective cities where the transit subsidy will be effective the saving could be up to $80.

However, provisions in the budget regarding fuel, municipal taxation and sundry items such as LCBO profits will result in further expenses which will far exceed the savings.

There are other items which might be included in both savings and expense categories, such as the ripple effect of fuel price increases throughout the economy, but those listed are the most identifiable. Therefore we come to this overall conclusion. For those families benefiting from the transit fare increase, expenses will exceed savings by $134 per family. That’s what this budget costs the average family in the Province of Ontario.

Mr. Deans: Shame.

Mr. MacDonald: And for other families --

Hon. Mr. White: That is absolute nonsense.

Mr. MacDonald: And for other families who don’t get the public transit, the expenses will exceed the savings by $174.

In short, Mr. Speaker, the Treasurer has fiddled around with some taxes. He has focused some assistance on worthy groups such as senior citizens but the average Ontario family is definitely worse off and no amount of flim-flamming can disguise that fact.

Hon. Mr. White: The member is definitely mistaken.

Mr. MacDonald: Did the provincial Treasurer really have something to say?

Hon. Mr. White: He has carefully overlooked the increase in per household incomes, which will approximate 10 per cent

Mr. Deans: What is he talking about?

Hon. Mr. White: I’m talking about --

Mr. Deans: He doesn’t even understand.

Mr. MacDonald: I’m talking about the impact of the budget in terms of the greater expenses and of the benefits it included. I come up with the figure that for the average family at least $134 and perhaps $174 more is what he is going to have to pay. He is going to be that much worse off; and let’s have some challenge of those figures instead of some irrelevancies such as the Treasurer is now bringing in.

Now Mr. Speaker, let me consider the one group, the senior citizens, where the government did belatedly move in the budget to provide more adequate income. We have another alphabet soup name -- GAINS -- Ontario’s guaranteed annual income system.

Mr. Deans: It reflects on dog food. That is what most of them were eating.

Mr. Foulds: Gainsburgers? Is that where the Treasurer got the idea?

Mr. A. Carruthers (Durham): More water for the windmill.

Mr. MacDonald: In several important respects, Mr. Speaker, Ontario’s GAINS programme is cribbed from the BC income plan. I notice the minister doesn’t deny that. One can be thankful that Ontario has finally at least pointed itself in the right direction. The provincial Treasurer doesn’t publicly admit, of course, that the BG plan was the source of Ontario’s inspiration or challenge; but I was interested to learn from the media representatives that in the private briefings, ministry spokesmen were at great pains to try to convince them that Ontario’s package of GAINS -- prescription drugs, property tax rebate, et all -- was actually more generous than that of BC.

Perhaps for once it will have to be admitted, even by the cabinet spokesmen, that Ontario is just catching up on some other jurisdiction in Canada and the western world and the universe. For while emulation is the highest form of praise, there are significant problems and omissions in Ontario’s GAINS.

In the first place, the age of eligibility is 65 while in BC their resource dividend made it possible for them to lower the age to 60. Such a change in Ontario would add another 50,000 people to the relatively limited number of 30,000 who are going to benefit in the first instance from GAINS.

Secondly, the budget provides only for income levels that will be raised in the future to compensate for increased costs of living. Why this chiselling approach? Why not a built-in escalator clause, which has become accepted as the only fair way to maintain purchasing power in pensions or things of this nature? Is the government reserving piecemeal handouts to be made on the appropriate political occasions, say just before the next election? Is that what they have in mind?

Thirdly, residency requirements are established for GAINS-five years in Canada or one in Ontario. BC has no such requirement. And what is more important, the Canada Assistance Plan specifically excludes any federal sharing in the funding where residency requirements are imposed. Has Ontario worked out a special deal with the “feds”? Or is it just a stupid way of cutting Ontario out of this federal source of funding so that government spokesmen will have something more to complain about with Ottawa?

I don’t want to sound ungenerous, Mr. Speaker, in my reaction to the government’s move in the right direction by providing more adequate income for our senior citizens, but last December, when we were debating the $50 Christmas bonus which “Santa Claus Davis” handed out -- and incidentally that $17 million one-shot present is now going to be eliminated by or absorbed in the $75 million spent on GAINS -- there was a bewildering array of excuses from the government side as to why they could do no more.

They ranged from the fatuous comments of the hon. member for Algoma (Mr. Gilbertson) that the senior citizens didn’t want the bonus and would hand it back; or that their admiring sons, daughters and grandchildren would prefer to look after the grandparents; to the more carefully worded statement of cabinet spokesmen that it was not in the government’s priorities at that time.

Well, we’re glad that it has now come into the government’s list of higher priorities -- with at least a beginning on what is going to become a basic social security measure of the future. And once again, the NDP has provided the ideas and the goading to leaven the stale loaf of so-called Tory compassion.

Well Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn now to the two areas of tax increases: The new speculation tax and the land transfer tax. Clearly, the government deemed them to be of major public image-making potential.

First, there is the land speculation tax, and particularly its influence on housing. I am not going to go into the kind of detail the hon. Minister of Revenue was expressing hope for earlier this afternoon so he can be guided towards bringing in an effective bill; I think the appropriate time to deal with that is on the bill. I want to try to look at it in terms of the overall impact on policy, and particularly housing policy.

Clearly, the government regarded its 50 per cent land speculation tax as the headline-grabber of the budget. But I venture the prediction that it will be the prize example of flim-flamming in a budget which is replete with it.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, I was rather interested to note on the day of the budget, that among the material distributed to the media was a picture of a baby with his hands to his head and his tongue out, screaming, “Oops” or “Aah.” And the cutline was, “Fifty per cent?”

Apparently the government and the whiz kids in the ministry had come to the conclusion that this depicted what they deemed to be the public reaction -- one of startled surprise. Imagine, a 50 per cent tax on land speculation! Imagine it. Well, it’s flim-flam, Mr. Speaker.

The effectiveness of the tax, so the provincial Treasurer argues, can be judged in advance by the fact that it will result in only $25 million of revenue. The argument is that it’s going to be so effective there will be no speculation, no gains made, and therefore very little revenue will come in.

Well Mr. Speaker, that’s as self-serving a statement as I’ve ever heard. It assumes the tax will check speculation so effectively that there won’t be revenue. But bear in mind that most of the major developers have made about $75 million each in the last year or so. So the proposition of $25 million coming in as the whole take from this tax is really rather picayune.

In fact, there are so many exemptions granted and so many potential loopholes in this tax that the limited amount of revenue will be a measure of its ineffectiveness, not of its effectiveness.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): That’s right.

Mr. MacDonald: The lawyers are going to have Roman holiday, and the developers will still be laughing all the way to the bank. In fact, the ineffectiveness of the new tax is confirmed by the relative silence with which it has been accepted by those who were supposed to be victimized by it.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): He is right on.

Mr. MacDonald: The provincial Treasurer recognizes its likely ineffectiveness himself. A number of times since the budget he’s revealed his basic concern by blustering away at the developers. “If these present proposals don’t do the trick,” says he, “then the government will resort to something else that will do it.”

There is also the question, Mr. Speaker, of the incidence of the tax. Will it be passed on? Of course, it’s going to be passed on. Only a market that is firm enough to resist upward pressure will stop that tax being passed on, and the continuing inadequacies of the government’s housing programme will keep housing in such short supply as to keep the market bullish.

In fact, the exemptions are so wide-ranging they’re almost certain to guarantee that speculative profits will continue to be built into land and housing prices.

Undeveloped land and properties on which the tax would apply will simply not be sold until some loophole in the Act or its regulations can be found to provide a way out. The net result will be to slow up development at a time when the government contends that the overall objective of its policy is to accelerate development.

As for the land transfer tax, on the surface there does not appear to be as many loopholes or exemptions. But when the lawyers have worked it over, it will be interesting to see how much of the foreign takeover of Ontario housing property and land will have been avoided. Time alone will tell the tale, so for the moment I’m simply going to reassert my doubts.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): Why doesn’t the government adopt the select committee report?

Mr. Carruthers: The hon. member always was a doubtful cuss.

Mr. MacDonald: Right. I was doubtful of the energy tax last year. And one minute later the hon. member became doubtful.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. MacDonald: The basic problem, Mr. Speaker, is that what the government is attempting to do in this is to regulate behaviour by a tax. And quite frankly, there is a wealth of experience to indicate that is not an effective approach.

As the minister himself confesses, if we attempt to regulate behaviour by a tax it’s going to take us about two or three years to be able to build a tax that is effective. And this is the dilemma that the minister faces at the present time, of bringing in a bill in which he is getting advice from all quarters. He is not going to get a conclusive amount of advice so that he can have the best possible bill. He is just going to rush the thing through knowing that six months from now, in the fall or next year, we are going to revamp it, and hopefully, two or three years from now, the minister might have some idea of how a bill could be effective to regulate behaviour through taxes.

Mr. P. G. Givens (York-Forest Hill): But he’s showing us he’s doing something. He’s showing that he’s doing something, that’s fair enough.

Mr. MacDonald: Well that’s the whole point, that’s the flim-flam.

Mr. Martel: Why doesn’t he adopt the select committee report?

Mr. MacDonald: That’s the flim-flam, because he is not going to be doing it.

Mr. Martel: Why don’t those people adopt the select committee report? The Minister of Housing (Mr. Handleman) was on it.

Mr. MacDonald: May I say to the hon. member for York-Forest Hill, the overall effect of these taxes will be to consolidate the speculative profits of the past --

Mr. Cassidy: That’s right.

Mr. MacDonald: -- into the land and housing prices, while giving no assurance that the speculative profits of the future are going to be checked.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s right.

Mr. MacDonald: And that adds up to nothing -- nothing.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s right.

Mr. MacDonald: Once again, we are back to the unbelievable proportions of the flim-flamming in this budget. Here where the government is presumably coming to grips with perhaps the most outrageous manifestation of inflation, it has officially embedded those speculative profits in today’s prices and it has given no real assurance that those prices won’t continue in the future. All this from a provincial Treasurer who poses as the white knight challenging the rampaging forces of inflation. You know, Mr. Speaker, it’s really quite a joke if it weren’t such a serious matter.

However, let me get back to the important question of housing policy, which is so affected by this. Presumably these taxes were simply a means to certain ends, namely the maximization of property holdings, chiefly residential property, in Canadian hands.

Interestingly enough neither Comay nor any of that rapid succession of ministers responsible for housing gave any attention to speculators as role players in the housing crisis. If they did, it was not done publicly. Suddenly the government has identified speculators as the bad guys. The next step is to convince the public that the bad guys are the cause of the problem; presumably that will be done through the new Minister of Housing, backed by the provincial Treasurer and the Minister of Revenue. And having convinced the public the speculators are a major cause of rapid inflation of housing prices, the government has now unveiled the speculation tax as the solution to the problem.

As I have already suggested, experience is likely to prove that solution to be ineffective, and therefore the real bad guy emerges as this government -- this government.

Mr. Foulds: Right on.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s right.

Mr. MacDonald: It’s the bad guy that has brought in taxation measures, frankly accepting and consolidating the scandalous inflation of the past year, as well as giving no assurance of it being halted in the future.

But even more critical, all the statements of the new Minister of Housing, vague and vulnerable as they are, give no assurance that the overall result will be any significant increase in the new stock of housing.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s right.

Mr. MacDonald: Overall housing starts are down. The government is playing at the age-old game of housing by headlines and you can’t live in a headline.

Mr. Cassidy: Right on.

Mr. Givens: The Minister of Revenue should have stayed in bed.

Mr. MacDonald: Since the government has sat idly by for so long while housing costs have zoomed beyond the reach of an ever-growing majority of our people, it is left with only one alternative, a massive --

Mr. Martel: Resign!

Mr. MacDonald: Well yes, I suppose on second thought --

Mr. Martel: Resign!

Mr. MacDonald: -- on second thought, that’s better. But for the moment I was going to be constructive on the policy point of view.

What this government has got to do is to move into a massive public housing programme such as it has never even dreamed of considering in the past. Only in that way is it going to be able to take the upward pressure off the housing market.

For example, it’s significant to note that in 1971, again the last year for which we have figures, the Ontario Housing Corp. owned only 0.65 per cent -- less than one per cent -- of the province’s housing stock, and rented only 5.13 per cent of it. Compare that, for example, with the situation which has traditionally existed in Europe. More than 25 per cent of Britain’s housing stock is rented from local public housing authorities. In fact that is a low estimate of the total government involvement, since it covers only public housing and in addition there is government assistance for co-op and other kinds of housing authorities.

In other words, added to whatever this government may do by way of encouraging the private sector, this government should set itself the target of building from 25 to 40 per cent of the housing stock of this province through the OHC. Only in this way can housing be re-geared to income because it has gotten away beyond income for the majority of our people. Only in this way can the market be cooled sufficiently to dampen the fires of inflation.

An hon. member: Right on.

Mr. MacDonald: The time has come, Mr. Speaker, to quit boasting that the OHC has a larger housing stock than all the other provinces put together. That may be true, but it is irrelevant and it does nothing either to acknowledge or to meet a need that is growing greater every day.

Now, let me turn to the second tax where the government has felt that it had real potential for image making, namely the new resources taxes.

Following the budget, the newspaper headlines spoke of “heavy new taxes on the mining industry.” Well, let’s get this picture back into perspective, back in touch with reality.

The new mining revenue is forecast at a mere $50 million. That means, with this added contribution of the mining industry, as a percentage of total provincial revenues, their share will rise from 1.1 per cent last year to 1.6 per cent this year.

This government has traditionally kept the profits of mining companies shrouded in secrecy. It’s all part of their cozy relationship with the industry. But Ontario s production represents 44 per cent of our national output and on the relatively safe assumption that Ontario’s mining profits would be at least 44 per cent of the total, the figure of $425 million for Ontario can be deduced from the Statistics Canada information’.

But that figure, Mr. Speaker, is for 1970 -- the last year for which statistics are available. Let’s remind ourselves that the provincial Treasurer reports that Ontario’s revenues from the mines profits tax doubled in the past year from $20 million to $45 million, and one can, therefore, assume that Ontario’s mining profits have gone up from $425 million in 1970 to about $900 million -- in 1973.

Thus it is seen that Ontario’s mines profits tax revenues represent approximately five per cent of the industry’s actual profits. And since the revenues for 1974 are forecast at $88 million, that will be approximately 10 per cent of the total profits, assuming that they hold at the 1973 level.

So the government, despite its boost of doubling the tax on mines, is still getting only an estimated 10 per cent of the profits generated in the Province of Ontario. Well let’s get that into perspective, Mr. Speaker. Just how light that tax burden is can be judged by comparisons with other industries reported in the taxation statistics of Statistics Canada.

The 1970 figures revealed that the taxable income of the metal mining industry was only 23.5 per cent of its book profits before taxes. The taxable income of mineral fuels was even worse, only 3.1 per cent of book profits -- something the Minister of Energy should bear in mind.

By comparison, manufacturing has a taxable income of 64.3 per cent of book profits, and the wholesale and the retail trade about 84 per cent of book profits. Mining was only 23.5. No wonder that the Globe and Mail in its lead editorial of April 3 designated the mining industry as, and I quote: “an increasingly likely candidate for a greater share of the tax burden.” And it added that while “the provinces with NDP governments have moved first and farthest” in correcting this situation, all governments whatever their ideology are going to be forced to move in the same direction.

Of course, in general terms there is nothing new in this. It is the NDP’s familiar corporate rip-off theme in the tax fields. Nowhere is it more flagrant than in the resources industries. The point that shouldn’t be missed in Ontario’s moves in this year’s budget is that that rip-off continues with only marginal remediation. The government has taken a little here in taxes, but granted a little there, so that the burden is only marginally greater.

For example, the exemption levels have been doubled in mining from $50,000 to $100,000. This simply means a tax saving to small companies with profits just under $100,000 or 15 per cent of the added $50,000 exemption. In other words, a tax-saving of about $7,500.

For example, while there has been a disallowance of the deductions of resources taxes in calculating income taxes and an end to the three-year holiday for new mines and a repeal of the mine and mill allowances in computing capital taxes, this has been significantly compensated for by an extension of the accelerated depreciation privileges.

This raises the whole question of the government opting for a mines profits tax rather than royalties, arguing that the profits tax is fairer because it takes into account the expenses in extracting ore and consequently does not encourage the mining of high-grade

But mining companies are allowed so many deductions from income by mining assessors, who are given a great deal of discretion under the Act, that their taxable income is a pale shadow of their operating profits. So the higher rates are applied to a very narrow base, and for that reason they produce only $50 million in revenue.

We contend that a profits base is a poor measure as long as companies are allowed to deduct expenses, such as exploration and development, generous depreciation of assets, depletion allowances, and so on. In providing such a write-off for exploration and development, the public is really paying the companies to find the minerals and then they exploit them at very lightly taxed profits.

The mining companies can hardly plead inability to pay. A recent Globe and Mail survey, for example, showed that metal mines profits in the fourth quarter of 1973 were up 358 per cent over the same period for 1972; for the entire year they were up 237 per cent over 1972.

But the government’s main rationale, Mr. Speaker, for further tax concessions, not only to the mining companies but to all corporations, is that risk investment in exploration and development must be increased.

But would these higher taxes on the mining industry mean less exploration? Not necessarily. When we permit the companies to make excess profits we have no guarantee that they will invest them in exploration in Ontario. They may invest them in a variety of other businesses, such as Noranda has done, and become a great conglomerate. They may invest abroad. In 1973 Noranda spent only 47 per cent of its exploration money in Canada; 23 per cent in Australia, 17 per cent in the USA and 13 per cent in other countries.

Inco reported that exploration expenditures were made in Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines; and Falconbridge reported exploration expenditures in Canada, Australia, South America, Norway and South Africa.

The real question is whether we give the exploration money to the companies through tax concessions and let them end up controlling the reserves, to be capped and developed at their pleasure; or whether we take the same money in taxes and be sure that it is invested in Ontario. Then the people of Ontario will have control of the new-found reserves and can exploit them through a public corporation, or let the existing companies exploit them on a public utility basis, that is earn a normal rate of return for the undertaking of the work of development.

In fact, the validity of this approach is implicitly conceded by the government itself in its announced intention to develop a Crown corporation to engage in exploration and development. If the higher taxes make it less attractive for the private sector to continue operating in this province, they will themselves clarify the role for the public corporation to step in where they drop out. In short, events are inexorably forcing even this Tory government to adopt, piecemeal, the philosophy of the NDP. It is so basic and so increasingly important that I want to restate our approach, Mr. Speaker.

The NDP believes the natural resources of Ontario are rightfully the property of the people of Ontario.

Mr. Cassidy: Right on.

Mr. MacDonald: Our objective is to obtain full economic rent from these resources for the people. Economic rent is the value of the resources. We have let the companies walk off with most of it in the past.

The rate and the nature of resource development should be determined by the people of Ontario and be tied in with our overall industrial strategy.

What would an NDP government do? Briefly this:

1. Take a more active role in exploration, development, processing, refining and distribution of our mineral resources through resource development Crown corporations;

2. Insist that the private sector in the mineral industry must conduct its activities more consistently with overall social and economic objectives;

3. Increase resource taxation to gain the full economic rent; substitute a production tax averaging 15 per cent from the mines’ profits and add a tax on reserves in the ground. These measures would bring in as much as $400 million a year instead of the $88 million now expected from the mines’ profits tax --

Mr. Cassidy: That is where we should be getting our revenue.

Mr. MacDonald: Going on:

4. In addition, obtain windfall profits resulting from scarcity, and enhance value of our natural resources through a tax based on price increases above a certain basic level;

5. Regain ownership of all our resources and mineral rights through a combination of taxation and purchase;

6. Increase processing of resources in Ontario; exemptions have been granted for export in such profusion that they have made a mockery of the existing legislation; only half of Ontario’s ores are processed in Canada;

7. Develop secondary industries, based on Ontario’s resources, located as close to the resources as feasible --

Mr. Foulds: Hear, hear.

Mr. Martel: Hear, hear.

Mr. MacDonald: I expected an echo of approval from the north on that.

Mr. Foulds: Absolutely right.

Mr. MacDonald: Finally:

8. Provide compensation for individuals with small shareholdings in resource companies who are adversely affected by the implementation of these policies.

Well, that is something of an initial reaction with regard to the resources industry, and I need not warn the hon. members in advance that I know many of my colleagues will be following through.

I want now to deal briefly with one change which the government didn’t make, namely, dropping the sales tax on building materials.

For years the removal of the sales tax on building materials has always been on the political agenda. But at the moment, Mr. Speaker, the situation has really become a bit ridiculous. In Ottawa, the opposition Tories are demanding that it should be removed, while the governing Liberals resist. In Toronto, the opposition Liberals are demanding that it be removed, while the governing Tories resist.

The time has come when this perennial issue should be treated as something more than just a political ploy.

Quite frankly, the NDP has never been a very enthusiastic proponent of the sales tax removal from building materials as the Liberals and Conservatives have been. The reasons, I suspect, are precisely those which lead Liberals and Conservatives to retain it when they are in power, even though they continue to urge its removal when they are in the opposition.

Briefly put, those reasons are that the sales tax removal is likely to benefit the builder or developer without any reduction being passed on to the ultimate purchaser of the property.

Mr. Deans: I agree.

Mr. MacDonald: Now, if old-party governments had been willing to develop effective mechanisms for isolating price components, for example in a new home, there might be some assurance that the sales tax could be passed on to the ultimate homeowner. But old-party governments have traditionally resisted the establishment of any kind of prices review board.

If the sales tax on building materials were removed today, as federal PC leader Robert Stanfield demanded again as late as last Friday, the benefit would certainly go to some middleman.

There are ways in which the objective of reducing costs for homeowners might be achieved. Let me suggest a couple.

First, the sales tax on building materials could be removed on small purchases of materials, say any purchase under $100, to help people undertaking home improvements.

Secondly, it could be covered by a rebate applied for directly by the purchaser of a new home. This would avoid windfall profits going to builders and developers and not being passed on to the ultimate home purchaser. Under these circumstances it would be possible, and I suggest desirable, that the rebate be limited to homes below a certain value, thereby fulfilling the government’s objective, with rebates and tax credits, of channelling assistance to those whose need is greatest. It would also ensure that relief did not go to commercial and industrial buildings as would happen if the tax were simply removed completely.

The provincial Treasurer has estimated that sales tax on building materials is generating approximately $190 million in the Province or Ontario. If it were removed only for building improvement purposes, bought in limited quantities as I have suggested, or for new homes of modest values, I suspect the loss to the provincial Treasury would be limited to no more than 10 or 15 per cent of the total building materials sales tax revenue -- in other words no more than $25 million to $30 million. That, I suggest, might well be a worthy contribution to reducing costs for homeowners and the encouragement of home ownership.

Certainly such a procedure would also avoid the encouragement of unnecessary economic activity at a time when federal fiscal policy has just boosted central bank rates to the highest in history in order, so the shapers of fiscal policy hope, to dampen the raging fires of inflation.

While on the budget itself, Mr. Speaker, I want to deal, with a final comment, with the government’s stance with regard to the public debt. During the past year, the provincial Treasurer boasts, he has reduced the outstanding public debt by $225 million and during the coming year he expects to reduce it by another $449 million. It all sounds very impressive. The public is left, and deliberately so, with the image that the government is living within its income.

Yet during the coming year the provincial Treasurer forecasts that expenditures will exceed revenues by some $708 million. In the budgetary tables it is noted that during the year the net debt of the province will jump from $2.94 billion to $3.56 billion -- in other words from under $3 billion to over $3.5 billion -- representing a per capita increase f