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April 9, 1979

31st Parliament, 3rd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L019 - Mon 9 Apr 1979 / Lun 9 avr 1979

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

UNITED WAY CAMPAIGN

COMFORT ALLOWANCES

ORAL QUESTIONS

TRANSPORTATION SERVICES FOR HANDICAPPED; COMFORT ALLOWANCES

TORONTO CONSTRUCTION PROJECT

SUBURBAN SOCIAL SERVICES

CO-PAYMENT FEES

TOURISM

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

FOREIGN OWNERSHIP

HOSPITAL BED ALLOCATIONS

ORGANIZED CRIME

HEALTH QUESTIONNAIRE

AMBULANCE SERVICES

FAMILY BENEFITS

PETITION

HERITAGE LANGUAGE PROGRAM

MOTIONS

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE

STANDING ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE COMMITTEE

ESTIMATES

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON NOTICE PAPER

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONCLUDED)

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

UNITED WAY CAMPAIGN

Hon. Mr. McCague: Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to the attention of the House the results of the 1978 United Way campaign organized by the public servants of this province. The final tabulation shows that the Ontario public service raised $405,000 in Metropolitan Toronto and $274,000 in 30 other communities in Ontario, for a total of $679,000. This is a 6.6 per cent increase over the 1977 campaign.

This success is a credit to the generosity of the employees and the effectiveness of the fund-raising structure that has been set up. Our organization is unique in charitable fundraising in Ontario.

As members know, we are in the middle of a cancer and heart fund campaign now, hoping to raise $105,000 before the closing date, this Thursday, April 12. I am confident that we will meet this objective.

It should also be mentioned that the Red Cross blood donor clinics received 3,083 donations of blood from government employees in Metropolitan Toronto during 1978.

I hope the members will join with me in expressing our thanks to the staff who have made this worthy project so successful.

COMFORT ALLOWANCES

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to be able to announce an increase in the comfort allowance for 45,000 residents of our long-term care institutions.

As the honourable members know, co-payment levels in the major long-term care programs are designed to ensure that residents maintain discretionary income to meet their personal needs.

In homes for the aged, the first $45 of monthly income is currently exempt from charges for maintenance. In nursing homes and chronic-care facilities, the co-payment is set so that an aged person at the guaranteed income level is left with $45 in discretionary income. Non-aged residents of such facilities are often eligible for family benefits allowance, which includes the same comfort allowance.

The basic needs of food, shelter and personal care are met by the facility, and the comfort allowance is to provide for such items as tobacco, refreshments, telephone, clothing, dry cleaning, toiletries, personal travel and confectionary.

In recognition of the increase in the cost of many of these items since the last adjustment in May 1977, the government has decided to increase the comfort allowance to $51, effective May 1.

Consequently, the co-payment level administered by my colleague the Minister of Health (Mr. Timbrell) will remain at its current level of $9.80 per day for the 22,500 residents in nursing homes and the 13,000 residents on extended care in homes for the aged.

The charging policies of the homes for the aged, administered by my colleague the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Norton), will be adjusted to ensure that the other 7,800 residents in these homes who are entitled will receive the same $51 in discretionary income.

The same increase in comfort allowances will apply to the 2,000 adult residents in facilities under the Homes for Retarded Persons Act.

This adjustment amounts to a 13.3 per cent increase and maintains Ontario’s position of having one of the highest comfort allowances in Canada.

Mr. Cassidy: It’s 2.5 per cent a year.

Mr. McClellan: Who plays Bob Cratchit to your Scrooge?

ORAL QUESTIONS

TRANSPORTATION SERVICES FOR HANDICAPPED; COMFORT ALLOWANCES

Mr. S. Smith: I have a question of the Provincial Secretary for Social Development. How can she come before us with a generous, in quotation marks, $6 per month increase for these people, when people in wheelchairs alone -- certainly in the city of Hamilton -- can’t even go downtown, in most circumstances, for less than $50?

How can people, confined to wheelchairs yet still able to be reasonably active in society, possibly live on your generous $51 per month income when it will cost them almost all that amount just to get around? Remember, they must have more than one ticket if they want to go and see a movie or something like that and then need someone to help them.

Surely she can show a little more humanity than this?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I don’t know where the Leader of the Opposition has been for the last couple of years. We introduced a program of transportation for the disabled. The onus is on the communities to provide that, but it is subsidized very heavily by the Minister of Transportation and Communications.

Mr. Laughren: You don’t think it is a restraint package?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: The fare for such services is 50 cents per trip. I don’t see any relationship between what I am announcing today and the transportation available to handicapped people across this province if the communities in which they live will become involved and set up the services.

The ministry is providing the subsidy and Hamilton is already involved in it, so I don’t know where the Leader of the Opposition was when all this was going on.

Mr. S. Smith: A supplementary: Perhaps the minister would like to join me at Chedoke Hospital and talk to the people confined to wheelchairs there. Under the new co-payment arrangement her colleague, the Minister of Health (Mr. Timbrell) takes away what meagre allowance they may have had from alimony or from pensions or insurance. It leaves them each with a grand total of $45, now $51. With that each is supposed to buy clothing, pay for entertainment and have somebody handle his or her wheelchair from time to time.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Eighty-one dollars a month.

Mr. S. Smith: Let me invite the minister to visit the people at Chedoke Hospital and tell them about the generous increase from $45 to $51.

Hon. Mr. Norton: There you go, off half- cocked again.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: The honourable Leader of the Opposition forgets that those same people are entitled to tax credits, which makes the total income --

Mr. S. Smith: Tax credits?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Tax credits, yes.

Mr. S. Smith: They are low income.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I don’t know where the Leader of the Opposition has been for several years, but he doesn’t understand. They get a tax credit which brings their monthly allowance to about $81.

Mr. S. Smith: That is unbelievable.

Mr. McClellan: Leaving aside the incredible cheapness of this announcement, may I ask the minister, since she referred to tax credits, whatever happened to the promise in last year’s budget to enrich the tax credit for senior citizens, or is that as phoney as this increase in front of us today?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: This is almost beyond explanation.

Mr. Wildman: You are.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Three million dollars are being contributed to make this possible for those people, who through no fault of their own are in institutions across this province. Their basic necessities are provided for, they are provided with tax credits, and in addition they are each provided with a disposable income, now at $51 a month, to help with those basic requirements.

Mr. Warner: You probably send them a $6 bill. Mail them out two $3 bills.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I really feel, regardless of what the opposition members are saying, that for those people who will be the recipients of what may seem like a small amount to members opposite, this money will be very helpful and will be very well received across this province.

Mr. McClellan: Answer the question; what about the promise of enriched tax credits?

Mrs. Campbell: I wonder if the minister would care to elaborate? Does this disposable income formula apply in those cases where people are in their own homes, and hopefully in receipt of some home-help service; or are they still precluded because all the funding has been cut off by OHC and they cannot afford to pay for home-help service themselves out of $45?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I don’t think that question relates to the announcement I made today, which was about an increase in the comfort allowance to those people who are in institutions.

Mrs. Campbell: And nobody else?

Mr. McClellan: What about your promises on the tax credit?

Mr. Swart: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: I wonder if the minister would table in this House the average amount paid out in tax credits to people in those institutions for the last four years. In view of the fact that the tax credit formula has not been increased and that they are getting less he cause of the slight increases in remuneration, would she not think that they’re worse off in the tax credit than they were four years ago?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: That information is all public knowledge; I’m sure if the honourable member is interested in receiving it he can find it quite easily.

Mr. Warner: Yes, send a letter to Darcy McKeough.

TORONTO CONSTRUCTION PROJECT

Mr. S. Smith: I have a question of the Minister of Government Services. Since the city of Toronto has been prepared for the last three and a half years to develop the southern two thirds of the east of Bay site, the housing portion alone of which would produce about 700 jobs for one and a half years, which is 1,000 man-years of work, why is the government continuing to drag its heels on this project? Why is it not going ahead and doing something there after three and a half years of waiting.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the Leader of the Opposition, the government has not dragged its heels.

Mrs. Campbell: You have so.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: The government has looked at several projects for this site. The site is being used at the moment. As the member knows, the Toronto Humane Society is there. There are several other people there. The province owns the site, but it has not decided yet as to whether it will be used by the province or the city of Toronto. At this time I have informed the mayor of Toronto that we are still looking at the site and we will get back to him.

Mrs. Campbell: How many years have you been dragging your feet?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: We haven’t been dragging our feet one year.

Mr. Nixon: What’s dragging then?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: We have responded fully to the city at all times.

Mr. S. Smith: There’s something dragging; I don’t know if it’s their feet.

By way of supplementary, will the minister make it clear who speaks for the government on this issue? Is it the minister himself? When he answers that, would the minister also explain why it has taken three and a half years for the province itself to decide what it wants to have as its portion of the development on that site and why it won’t let Toronto get ahead with the planning for at least the southern two thirds of the site? Since that could create much needed jobs, 1,000 man-years of construction work, why doesn’t he at least let the city get on with it while he’s sitting around making up his mind?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Nobody’s sitting around making up his mind. The province of Ontario owns this property, not the mayor of the city of Toronto.

Mr. Cassidy: Well give it to him.

Mrs. Campbell: That’s right. Give it to him.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: The mayor of the city of Toronto has put forth a proposal --

Hon. Mr. Davis: There are millions of dollars’ worth of real estate there and members opposite say give it away.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: -- that is not acceptable at this moment to the province. The province is studying the proposal, and I have so informed the city.

An hon. member: Sell Minaki.

Mr. S. Smith: What about Minaki?

Hon. Mr. Davis: To the city of Toronto?

Mr. S. Smith: Sure, why not?

SUBURBAN SOCIAL SERVICES

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Provincial Secretary for Social Development, arising out of the findings in the report of the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto on Metro suburbs, which was published today and which confirmed what we have known for a very long time, that is that social services in Metropolitan Toronto suburbs are simply not adequate to meet the needs of disadvantaged groups, like the elderly, single-parent families, immigrants and working women with families --

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Cassidy: -- who now make up a social majority in the suburbs. My question is that since we have known for a long time that planning in the suburbs of Toronto and other major cities has catered to physical. but not to social needs, and since the social planning council’s report confirms the desperate state of those in need of social services --

Mr. Speaker: Get to the point of the question .

Mr. Cassidy: -- does the government have any plans to meet the social needs of these suburban residents; and what are those plans?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, since I haven’t had the benefit of looking at that report I’m very loath to make any comments. But coming from one of those suburbs which the member suggests does not have those social services, I take exception. I have a riding office and I am available, and very rarely do I ever have any complaints about the lack of social services to senior citizens, to new immigrants or to anyone else. I would like to have the opportunity to look at that report myself…

[2:15]

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Since the Provincial Secretary for Social Development is saying in the first place that in her tenure in the ministry she has never been aware of the problems of people living in these suburban areas; since she has only just discovered them now that the social planning council has brought them to her attention; and since four years of operating her riding office have but brought her into contact with the problems of groups such as women in the labour force, pre-school children whose mothers are in the labour force or who need group care --

Mr. Speaker: Do you have a supplementary question?

Mr. Cassidy: -- immigrants and other people like that, can the minister explain how the government intends to provide the needed social services in the suburbs which are not now in place, in view of the cutbacks which this government is imposing on social services across Ontario?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the honourable member is referring to Scarborough in particular. That is of course the one suburb with which I am very familiar. But I am assured that social services, as provided through Metropolitan Toronto, look after the needs of the suburbs very well, and I am not aware of any gap in the services.

Mr. di Santo: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister aware that, with the new immigration law, immigrants in this country are not assisted by the federal government after three years and, therefore, many of the immigrant aid societies are closing down services for immigrants; and is she aware that the Ministry of Community and Social Services does not have enough staff to assist people, especially in the west end of Toronto, which is the part of the city I represent? What is the minister planning to do if she is aware of these problems; and if she is not aware of them, where has she been in the last three years?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I will have a look at the report when it comes across my desk; obviously the Leader of the Opposition received it far in advance of the rest of us. But I am sure that the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Norton) is very well aware of the programs under his jurisdiction; and, as far as I am concerned, a great deal of money flows into those particular immigrant services through many of the ethnic services that are available within this city.

Mr. S. Smith: By way of supplementary, Mr. Speaker, has the Provincial Secretary for Social Development ever taken the time to go to the Jane-Finch area, for example, to see the way in which the nonprofit housing, having all been crushed into one area and having been sort of ghettoized in that way, has led to enormous problems for the people there? Has she gone into suburban areas to see the way in which various kinds of facilities have been resisted in suburban areas, or put into a corner somewhere, and to see for herself the problems that are created that way?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, unlike the Leader of the Opposition, yes, I have taken time to do many of those things; and I am very much aware of many of the things of which he obviously has not been aware, such as transportation for the disabled and tax credits amongst other things. Yes, there are problems in those particular areas; and yes, there is money being funnelled into those services that provide additional help to those Ontario Housing units where they do have problems. We are well aware of that. Pro- grams are available.

Mr. Warner: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Even though the minister is not particularly concerned about the report, and even though she does not realize the reality of social problems in Scarborough, probably because most of those problems from her area end up in my office --

Mr. Speaker: Do you have a question?

Mr. Warner: I would like to know a precise date when the minister intends to respond in detail to this serious report, which was made known today.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my honourable colleague from Scarborough that I was involved in social planning long before he ever thought of being concerned about social problems. Serving as I did for 10 years on the social planning councils of Scarborough and Metropolitan Toronto, yes, I think I know some of the problems.

Mr. Warner: So the minister does not intend to respond to the report.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I did not say that.

Mr. Warner: That was the question.

Mr. Philip: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister not aware that in suburbs like Etobicoke valuable services such as the new Welfare Action Centre are closing their doors on this very day because of lack of government funding; and would the minister, when she brings in her comments, also look at the statement made in the report, that not only are there current problems, but current population statistics suggest the suburbs will increasingly become the homes of increasing numbers of aged and disadvantaged; would she advise the House what her government intends to do, not only to meet the present inadequacies but also to meet the future projected inadequacies of the system?

Mr. Warner: She won’t even respond to the report.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I will be very pleased to look at the report.

CO-PAYMENT FEES

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Health arising out of a case which came to the attention of my riding office this week. I would like to bring to the minister’s attention the case of Mrs. May Brown, pensioner, aged 83, with an income of $350 a month, who was transferred to a chronic-care bed in the Pembroke General Hospital last month.

Mrs. Brown has received a bill for $298 for the month of April, payable in advance, as a result of the minister’s new co-payment charge for chronic-care beds.

Mr. Speaker: Are you asking the minister if he is aware of this case?

Mr. Cassidy: I’m going further than that, Mr. Speaker. Does the minister condone this practice of billing a chronic-care patient in advance and does this particular case mean the ministry has eliminated this 60-day grace period he announced would be an integral part of the program?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: That, I think, is a critical point. If, in fact, Mrs. or Miss Brown was just admitted last month, it doesn’t sound to me as though she should be even considered at this point, and I would have thought the member’s riding office might have drawn it to the attention of the administration or the sisters at the hospital, depending which hospital she is in. I will make sure that is drawn to their attention and her situation is checked into.

Mr. Martel: What is the government’s response in all this?

Mr. Cassidy: I thank the minister for suggesting people in my riding office should do his government’s work in terms of ensuring people aren’t victimized by this co-payment charge.

Mr. Havrot: What have you got a riding office for?

Mr. Cassidy: Will the minister act in order to ensure chronic-care patients are not billed in advance for this co-payment charge? Can the minister assure the House that if a patient is transferred to a chronic-care bed from a nursing home there will also be a 60-day grace period in the future?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: As I think any reasonable person would expect with the implementation of this program, as recommended by the three parties in this House among other sources, there are bound to be some start-up problems. That sounds like a start-up problem; I will make sure it is clarified for the benefit of the administration of that particular hospital --

Mr. Swart: Especially when you say go get him.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- and that as far as the advance collection is concerned that is straightened out. That is not what is anticipated or expected in the administration of this program.

Mr. Wildman: Supplementary: Can the minister explain why a married couple earning less than $15,000 a year is exempt from the co-payment plan, but if they are married and pensioners over 65, receiving old-age pensions they are not exempt? Isn’t that a bit of discrimination?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: No, Mr. Speaker. I think I have pointed out to the honourable member once before that having received all the recommendations to institute the copayment, we looked at how it is administered in other provinces. There are three other provinces which have the system, if I remember correctly. In Quebec, they start to charge it from the day the person is diagnosed as being a chronic care patient, no matter where they are in the system. My recollection is that in all three cases the charge applies to everyone, regardless of means, from day one, and if you are without the means, you end up going on welfare.

That kind of system is unacceptable to me --

Mr. McClellan: You are all heart.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- and so in devising the scheme, we set it up in such a way as to be uniform with the nursing home system. However, there are cases where the breadwinner in a family situation, with young dependents, is confined for reasons of strokes, or various debilitating diseases and it was felt those exemptions had to be built in, unlike in the other provinces.

I think on examination the member will see it does meet the two criteria. First of all, it is uniform with the nursing home system, inasmuch as in the nursing home system we are dealing basically with the extremely long-term stay patient. The average length of stay in a nursing home is measured in years.

It meets the other concern identified by various bodies such as the Senior Citizens’ Advisory Council that moneys provided for the maintenance of an individual by way of an individual pension are being used, in fact, for their support, albeit in the institution in which they have become resident, rather than in the community where they were resident.

An hon. member: How do they keep their homes?

Mr. Cassidy: A final supplementary: In view of the discrimination between pensioners and people aged under 65; in view of the very real anguish this co-payment charge is creating for such people as the multiple sclerosis patients of the Chedoke Hospital in Hamilton, whom I visited three weeks ago; in view of the limited revenues now coming in for this co-payment charge because of the exemptions built into it; and in view of the difficulties this co-payment charge is creating because hospitals must apply a means test, will the minister and the government not simply eliminate all those problems by eliminating this unreasonable charge completely?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I will first of all reply, and I hope not in a pejorative way, that it really amazes me how little backbone exists in that party. Having signed a recommendation about six months ago, they scurry for cover all the time --

Mr. Warner: Not for this kind of punishment. No one signed for this nonsense.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- when somebody picks up on a recommendation they supported.

Mr. Cassidy: You get the facilities available in the community. You give people a choice.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I think, with respect, we have gone to great lengths to ensure that the co-payment plan is brought about in the fairest possible way.

Mr. Cassidy: It is institutionalized misery.

Mr. Havrot: You thrive on that.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: We are monitoring it very closely because we know there will be various problems to do with the administration of the co-payment plan, and various problems to do with the way the forms have been designed. We will do everything possible to ensure it is brought about smoothly.

There is one point in particular I do want to refute: The member said a means test is being applied. In point of fact, there is a statutory declaration of income and income only.

An hon. member: How do they keep their homes?

Mr. Cassidy: It sounds like a means test to me.

Mr. Warner: Point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Health claims I signed a report authorizing the course of action which the government has taken. In no way did I sign for the kind of distortion which we are now getting in the province of Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Squirm a little more. Where is your integrity?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: You are in trouble, David.

Mr. Nixon: Let him make a speech.

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is no point of privilege, so there is no need to respond to it. There is a legitimate difference of opinion between two members in the House. Let’s leave it at that.

TOURISM

Mr. Eakins: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Tourism: In 1977-78, the Ontario Development Corporation approved a total of 398 loans; of these, only 52 were tourism oriented. Will the minister introduce a more effective program to encourage the people in the tourism industry?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I must say our support to tourism has, by the member’s own figures, been rather substantial. I think our support through the Ontario Development Corporation to the tourism industry has outstripped our support to any other single industry. That is particularly the case in eastern Ontario and northern Ontario where we have specific preferential rates available to the tourist industry.

We are at the present time considering the ways in which the tourism industry may be even more substantially assisted through the new employment development fund. As the member will be aware, I have already indicated the tourism industry will be one of those industries particularly favoured by the new employment development fund and one of our priority sectors.

Mr. Eakins: Supplementary: Only 52 loans out of 398 certainly does not reflect that the minister is giving very great priority to the tourism industry. Will he introduce a program which will help the people in the tourism industry upgrade their facilities in order to make them four-season oriented? Fifty-two out of 398 is not a very high score.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I must repeat for the honourable member, I don’t have the analysis with me but I suspect he would not be surprised to learn that tourism still is the industry which has received more loans than any other single industry out of the Ontario Development Corporation.

Mr. Eakins: Fifty-two out of 398?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: It far exceeds the support we are giving any other single industry through the development corporation. I have already indicated we are looking for new programs through the employment development fund to give further help to the tourist industry.

1 must say to my friend, before sitting down, that I was interested to note a document unveiled by his leader this morning which talks about seven priority areas for Liberal Party industrial strategy. Although I have already indicated that one of our priorities for industrial strategy is the tourism industry, there wasn’t a single word in terms of the priorities of the Ontario Liberal Party in industrial strategy referring to tourism. It wasn’t there.

[2:30]

Mr. Van Horne: Here we go again.

Hon, Mr. Grossman: How did you let that happen, John? How did you let that happen? Such a high priority and you left it out.

Mr. S. Smith: Why don’t you read it? You might learn something.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: You’ve been reading my speeches; that’s where you wrote it from. You read well, though.

Mr. Van Horne: How’s your expert in bankruptcy doing over in Istanbul?

Mr. di Santo: Supplementary: Doesn’t the minister think what he is doing to boost the tourist industry in Canada is totally contradictory, when last January he withdrew the presence of this province with the other Canadian provinces from the tourist world fair in Berlin, which will provide 30,000,000,000 Deutschmarks out of which $150,000,000 was coming to Canada? Is he aware that most of the Canadian operators were forced to use private travel agency booths, as well as American booths, to promote tourism in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I regret that because of the reaction to some previous statements I missed most of the initial part of that question. Perhaps the member might either repeat it or drop me a note on it, and I can get that for him.

Mr. di Santo: I would rather repeat the question. Doesn’t the minister think it is contradictory to try to help the industry in Canada while we missed perhaps the most important occasion this province had by not participating in the world fair in West Berlin last January, forcing our operators to use private travel agents’ booths a well as American booths, because the Canadian government didn’t participate in the fair, thus losing most of the 30,000,000,000 Deutschmarks that are going out for tourism, $150,000,000 of it coming to Canada?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I regret that the Canadian government chose not to participate in that fashion. We have already had communications with them, urging them to reconsider for the next time that fair is held. From what I hear, it is quite likely that they will once again participate.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I want to advise all honourable members of the House and all our guests in the galleries to vacate the chamber in a very orderly fashion and to go down to the main lobby of the building. We will recess for 15 or 20 minutes for that purpose.

Would you do that now, please?

The House recessed at 2:33 p.m. and resumed at 3:15 p.m.

On resumption:

Mr. Speaker: I thank all honourable members and our guests for their co-operation. Because a message I received gave me concern for the safety of those in the House, the security service searched the House and its precincts. I am satisfied that we can now proceed with the question period for which we have 32 minutes left.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, having discussed this matter with representatives of the security force, the Ontario Provincial Police and the Metropolitan Toronto police department -- who all had a hand in the search -- it is fair to say we are satisfied that the call received by the central switchboard can be characterized as a crank call. But it was the recommendation of the Ontario Provincial Police that in the circumstances the utmost precautions be taken.

As you have already mentioned, Mr. Speaker, we are satisfied that our security precautions, which have been in place for some time, are quite adequate. However, I might respectfully suggest to the members and, particularly, to our friends in the press gallery, that a high degree of discretion be utilized in talking about or reporting this interruption in our proceedings, inasmuch as we don’t want to encourage other individuals to disrupt the proceedings of the House in the same manner.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, because of the interruption and the amount of time involved, and knowing what we had planned for today, I didn’t know whether or not the House might want to make some adjustment with respect to the time allocation in order that we could get to the windup of item one. It is really a matter for the unanimous consent of the House. There are still 32 minutes left for the question period before we get into other matters of routine proceedings and orders of the day. I would like to raise that now before we get started, because I do know certain preparations have been made for the windup today. This will eat into that time.

We could either deem the question period to be completed and carry on, or we could have some adjustment of time. I have no fixed approach, except to say that this is the time to discuss it.

Mr. Martel: Well, Mr. Speaker, I think we are prepared to do that. I think most of my colleagues would prefer that we go beyond 6 o’clock to make up the time we lost. That would take us to about 6:30 or 6:45.

Mr. Peterson: What about your lunch? You usually get quite upset when you miss dinner?

Mr. Martel: I only do it on special occasions.

Mr. Nixon: If I might suggest, Mr. Speaker, it has been indicated that about 30 minutes remain in question period. How about having a good compromise -- continue the question period to 3:30 and then carry on with the business otherwise unchanged?

Mr. Peterson: The Liberal Party always has the answer.

Mr. Speaker: Do we have unanimous agreement for that proposition?

Mr. Martel: Which one are you talking about?

Mr. Speaker: It has been suggested that the question period terminate at 3:30.

Mr. Martel: I suspect, Mr. Speaker, that you won’t get unanimous consent. I would ask the House to consider going until 6:30 p.m.

It is only half an hour more and we could carry on until then, with unanimous consent. Or the minister could move a motion to that effect.

Mr. Speaker: The proposition was that the question period be deemed to have ended at 3:30. We do not have unanimous consent for that. I have no alternative but to abide by the rules of the House that provide for one hour for question period.

I want also to remind honourable members that standing orders indicate that a vote will be taken if there is an amendment to the motion for acceptance of the speech from the throne; and that that vote will be taken at 5:45 the night before the budget is brought down. That’s tonight. I just want all honourable members to understand that the debate on the throne speech will terminate at 5:45 p.m.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, we have done it in the past. Just in the last session, to finalize the estimates of the Treasurer, we sat on the Monday evening until seven to accommodate the House, so those estimates could be finished and so we could get on to Bill 70. I would ask the House leader to put a motion forward so that the House goes to 6:30 this evening, to accommodate the orderly completion of this debate.

Mr. Speaker: We will proceed with the question period.

FOREIGN OWNERSHIP

Mr. Laughren: My question is to the Treasurer. In view of the fact that for the year 1978 straight figures show that foreign ownership continues to be an enormous drain on our economy and that our deficit on interest and dividends alone is $5,400,000,000, up in the fourth quarter 72 per cent over the third quarter and more than 50 per cent over the fourth quarter a year earlier, will the Treasurer assure us, and I understand that he cannot provide us with precise details at this time, that his budget statement tomorrow night will address itself to that particular problem?

Hon. F. S. Miller: The last time I was caught in a position of attack such as I am now, I was saying to the honourable member in between, a fire intervened to save me. This time I have to say it was perhaps a little more frightening.

Mr. Nixon: Disaster accompanies you.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Yes, you were with me that night, you may recall, at St. Lawrence Centre.

Mr. T. P. Reid: The third one will be tomorrow night.

Mr. Nixon: That was one of your better evenings.

Hon. F. S. Miller: That’s right, it was certainly a hot show.

Much as I would like to indulge in speculation about what is in the budget, unfortunately I know that I obviously can’t answer the member’s question today.

Mr. Laughren: Supplementary: Is the minister aware that in 1978, as in other years, his government gave approval to approximately 95 per cent of all takeover applications that went to the Foreign Investment Review Agency, and that in 1978, out of 310 foreign takeovers, 91 per cent were approved, and that for new businesses established in this province, 96 per cent were approved? Will the minister table the criteria by which he and his close personal friend, the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman), approve takeovers in their submission when FIRA asks them for their opinion on takeover applications for Canadian industry?

Hon. F. S. Miller: The Foreign Investment Review Agency certainly does perform a useful role, although in many countries it is seen as a definite deterrent to investment in Canada.

Mr. Laughren: I am asking for your criteria.

Mr. Wildman: They approved 95 per cent.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I can only say to the member that while we want very much to encourage Canadian investment in Canada, an exclusively Canadian investment posture would obviously do away with many opportunities for employment for Canadian people, because by their very nature many industries have become multinational. There is absolutely no use trying to pretend that we have a Canadian automobile manufacturing industry per se. Our job, of course, is to maximize the Canadian content of the production in this country.

I have to agree with the honourable member that if we could have Canadian ownership I would be delighted, and I want to encourage Canadian ownership either through the purchase of shares or the creation of companies that become big.

Mr. T. P. Reid: As the minister is so concerned about encouraging people to participate share-wise, will he also encourage these companies perhaps by way of legislation that requires them to dedicate part of their dividends or profits -- and I leave the percentage to the minister, but I would say 50 per cent minimum at least -- to research and development and reinvestment in Ontario or Canada?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I am sure the honourable member has heard the Minister of Industry and Tourism, the Premier (Mr. Davis), me and others talk about our stated objective to improve the percentage of R and D done in Canada. It is something we take every opportunity to encourage. The last federal government’s budget, we were glad to see, had certain measures in it to encourage that. In the past, Ontario’s has too, and we intend to keep on trying to get more R and D in Canada.

Mr. di Santo: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that despite what the Premier (Mr. Davis), the Minister of Industry and Tourism and this minister have been saying, not one iota has changed, and last year we had a trade deficit of $317,000,000 in the auto pact, most of it in the area of research and development, because it costs Canada $230,000,000 a year, what is the Treasurer going to do specifically and what has happened to his ministerial fair-share document released last year?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Research and development I think has to be encouraged rather than legislated. The member may feel it can be legislated; I don’t think it can.

Mr. di Santo: I didn’t say you have to legislate.

Mr. Cassidy: You will never stand up to the multinationals.

Mr. Warner: You didn’t answer the question.

HOSPITAL BED ALLOCATIONS

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: In my absence on Friday the Premier was asked a question concerning Queensway General Hospital.

The ministry received a letter from Queensway in July 1977 requesting an 80-bed chronic-care unit to be built adjacent to the hospital. That request was forwarded to the Hospital Council of Metropolitan Toronto and to the Peel District Health Council for consideration as part of the broad process of setting priorities.

The hospital subsequently withdrew its request for chronic-care facilities and substituted expansion of its radiology department as a first priority. This was agreed to by HCMT and approved by the ministry.

The next correspondence was a year later, in July 1978, saying the beds were needed for 16 patients who were occupying temporary accommodation in the emergency department. Since, at that time, we were already making definitive plans to expand chronic care accommodation in Metro, the Queensway situation was included in consideration of the overall plan.

Last Friday, ministry personnel visited Queensway to learn that the hospital doesn’t want more money. It doesn’t want more chronic-care beds. It wants to be relieved of the chronic-care patients it has.

Our Metro-wide plans for chronic-care facilities are already bearing evidence. Last September the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital branch opened on University Avenue.

Mrs. Campbell: Bearing evidence of what?

Mr. S. Smith: The minister’s lack of policy.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I think you were there. Maybe you don’t remember.

To repeat, last September the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital branch opened on University Avenue, providing 300 new chronic-care beds. The conversion of Salvation Army Grace Hospital in Toronto will provide 116 more chronic-care beds, of which 61 are already in use.

Next month about 300 chronic-care patients at the old Queen Elizabeth Hospital on Dunn Avenue will be transferred to the new building, and by August an additional 154 chronic- care beds will be available when construction is finished at the West Park chronic-care hospital.

‘Prior to the opening of West Park, about 40 of the West Park beds will be opened in the early part of May, using the old surgical building at West Park, as a means of phasing in their expanded program, and in this way, will relieve pressure on chronic-care facilities in the west end.

Mr. Cassidy: Can the minister explain how these plans are going to solve the problems, when more than 1,200 beds are to be cut in active-treatment hospitals in Metropolitan Toronto over the course of the next two and a half years, but only 509 chronic-care beds are mentioned as being provided under the plans announced here today?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, in addition to what I’ve already identified, we have asked for, and are funding, a study, under the auspices of the Hospital Council of Metropolitan Toronto, to identify the need in Metropolitan Toronto for both chronic-care beds over and above what I’ve already indicated --

Mrs. Campbell: Why don’t you do that before you cut beds?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- and extended-care beds over and above what I’ve already indicated.

Mr. Warner: Great system.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: As in all parts of the province, we are trying to make sure that as we, in the spirit of the philosophy of health care that has abounded in this country in the five or six years --

Mr. S. Smith: First you cut it and then you study it.

Mr. McClellan: Why didn’t you do the study before you cut the beds?

Mr. Warner: You begin the destruction and then you study it. Great system.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: As we are de-emphasizing acute institutional care, in the process we are identifying the needs for chronic and extended care and meeting those needs.

Mr. S. Smith: Is that the only way of identifying it -- when patients are in the emergency room?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: No. We’ve been working on it. That’s the point I was making.

Mr. Foulds: Talk about hyperbole.

Mr. B. Newman: I have a question of the Minister of Health, concerning Metropolitan General Hospital. As Metropolitan General Hospital in Windsor provides two area services, that is, cancer treatment and burn care, which require a large number of active-treatment beds, thus leaving fewer beds for obstetrics, paediatrics, medical and surgical services, is the minister not concerned that the lack of active-treatment beds there means there will be inadequate health-care services provided by Metropolitan General Hospital?

[3:30]

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: With the establishment at Grace Hospital of a centre of excellence in obstetrics and with the establishment at Hotel Dieu of St. Joseph Hospital of a centre of excellence in paediatrics, it seems to me that the obstetrical and paediatric needs, in addition to those of the much smaller units that remain at the Metropolitan General Hospital in Windsor, will be extremely well met.

In the statement I made in February regarding hospital services in the Windsor area, part of it concerned approval of the expansion of the cancer clinic at Metropolitan General Hospital, as recommended by the Ontario Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation. Given the overall picture in Windsor, the services will continue to be very well met.

Mr. Grande: Five years from now.

Mr. B. Newman: Supplementary: Is the minister not concerned that Metropolitan General Hospital has already stated that after April 1 it will not be able to assure the public it serves of backup beds required by the emergency department or admission to a hospital when necessary for active treatment?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I am aware that in all the planning in Windsor there has been an odd man out every time.

Mr. Wildman: You.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: It’s always been the same odd man.

Mr. Wildman: You.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I am confident, given the support of all but one of the hospitals in Essex county to make sure the rationalization works and the level of service is maintained, that any problems will be kept to a minimum.

As I said, with the establishment of centres of excellence in obstetrics and paediatrics, as well as neurosurgery, inasmuch as a CAT scanner will be going to the Hotel Dieu hospital as well, and with the expansion of chronic-care units in various of the hospitals, I am confident, based on the advice of the local health council but also involving the hospitals who are signatories to that rationalization agreement, that the level of service will not only be maintained but improved, particularly through these centres of excellence that are being introduced into that community.

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, I have raised this issue in the Legislature on several occasions over the last few weeks. I would like to ask the Minister of Health whether he has bothered to check out the fact that since January of this year, on an average night at three hospitals in Windsor -- Grace, Met and Hotel Dieu -- people are stacked up in emergency rooms and hallways because of a lack of active-treatment beds? Did he bother to check that out when he was in Essex county last week?

Mr. Mackenzie: He hasn’t got around to it yet.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I have discussed it with staff on various occasions. I am satisfied it would appear this is again a situation where, with the expansion of chronic-care services and even with a reduction in active treatment, this will assist a great deal in relieving these kinds of pressures.

Mr. Foulds: Well, expand them. Expand them ahead of time.

Mr. Swart: Before, you said it wasn’t true. Remember? It’s a different story today.

Mr. Cassidy: Where is your plan for chronic care across the province?

Mr. Mackenzie: He is too arrogant to have a plan.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Ashe: A bunch of rowdies over there.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I know it upsets people in that party --

Mr. Mackenzie: It’s upsetting people; that’s what it’s doing.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- that for one of the first times anywhere in the province the local health council, with the active involvement and support of the hospitals in the community, came up with a plan not only to rationalize existing services but to provide very valuable new services to that community.

Mr. Cooke: You told them what to do.

Mr. M. Davidson: You didn’t give them any alternative.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I know it bothers them that local people can plan --

Mr. Cooke: You made the decisions.

Mr. Mackenzie: They can’t make the decisions. You are pulling the strings.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I know it bothers them that we aren’t accepting their policy. I know it bothers them that we aren’t wiping out all the hospital boards as per their green paper and centralizing all the bureaucracy.

Mr. Warner: It bothers us that you allow the health-care system to be destroyed.

Mr. Mackenzie: Come off your arrogant horse and start dealing with people.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I know that bothers them, but local planning can work and is working in Essex county.

Mr. Mackenzie: How long are you going to fool around with people’s lives? Arrogant.

ORGANIZED CRIME

Mr. di Santo: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Attorney General. Can I have his attention?

In view of the fact that last Thursday the editorial in the Toronto Sun, and the adjacent cartoon, reinforced the stereotype that organized crime is the exclusive product of the Italian community, and in the aftermath of the CBC program Connections, doesn’t the minister think it is time for an inquiry so that it can be made clear what is the extent of the operation of organized crime, and what control over the situation the government has so that the public will have a clear perception of the phenomenon, since this is the way to contribute to clearing the atmosphere of the suspicion and misunderstanding surrounding the entire Italian community ?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I have said on a number of occasions in recent years that any conception in the minds of any of our citizens to the effect that the Italian community is any less law-abiding than any other community in this province would be entirely mistaken. The fact of the matter is the Italian community, which, as we know, has made an immense contribution to the development of this province, is as law-abiding as any other community in Ontario. I repeat that once again.

In so far as a public inquiry into the problems related to organized crime is concerned, I am still not persuaded that this would be in the public interest. I say that, having met on a regular basis with senior officers of the major police departments in Ontario, who are all of the view that the fight against organized crime can more effectively be carried on by traditional police methods, namely, the gathering of evidence that is admissible in court, upon which to secure convictions.

I rather regret that those responsible for the production of Connections II did not make note of the fact that several individuals who were featured in that series had been successfully prosecuted. Notwithstanding that, I think I should also state that in the past year and a half, according to figures available to me, some 250 individuals who are believed to have some connection with organized crime have been arrested in this province and have either been tried or are at present awaiting trial.

The advice I have received from senior police officials is that a public inquiry would probably interfere significantly with ongoing investigations and, furthermore, would interfere significantly with the cases before the court. For that reason, at this time I am of the view that it would not be in the public interest to have such an inquiry.

Mr. Warner: If they wore hockey skates, you’d get them. You wouldn’t hesitate.

Mr. di Santo: Supplementary: Since I don’t doubt for a moment that law-enforcement officers have control of the situation, short of an inquiry, could the minister at least undertake to make a public statement delineating the limit and extent of organized crime operations so that the public has a clear perception of what is going on? I don’t think it is good enough for him to issue a disclaimer, as the editorial in the Sun demonstrated on Friday. Can he make a public statement at least?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I will take under advisement whether or not the honourable member’s suggestion might be carried forward into a public statement. I will certainly consider that and advise the honourable member as to my decision in that respect.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Supplementary: In view of the minister’s response in regard to the number of charges laid and the number of convictions, and in view of the fact that organized crime does seem to be on the increase in Ontario, is the minister still of the opinion the police forces in the province and the RCMP have all the tools they require to deal with this growing problem?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: First of all, Mr. Speaker, we do not have evidence to suggest that organized crime is on the increase. It is a significant problem, it has been for some period of time and I am afraid it probably will be for the foreseeable future. But I am of the view that, while police forces would always like additional resources, they currently do have the tools with which to carry on very effectively their law enforcement activities in this area.

Mr. Lupusella: Supplementary, Mr.

Speaker: In spite of the minister’s opinion that a public inquiry would not serve the public interest; and in spite of the recommendation that was made by my colleague the member for Downsview that public statements should be made by the Solicitor General in the Legislature in relation to organized crime to sensitize the public -- an idea that was suggested several years ago -- can the minister explain the statement made by Commissioner Harold Graham of the Ontario Provincial Police, who told the annual Ontario police chiefs’ conference on June 28 that there is no Mafia in Ontario, they are just organized criminals, and that, in his opinion, he thinks of the phenomenon as no more of a problem than burglary?

Can he explain that?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I think I heard the honourable member’s statement, Mr. Speaker. First of all, the term “Mafia” is not a very helpful term. It is rather a meaningless term in the ranks of law-enforcement officers. It is a term that is not used by experienced police officers who are involved in the fight against organized crime; it just is not a very useful noun and it is just not a very useful term. I do not know how one adequately defines what is meant when one uses the term “Mafia.”

Mr. Lawlor: You’re the first Attorney General to admit that organized crime exists in this province.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I did not hear the commissioner make his remarks to the annual conference to which the honourable member referred. Without having the benefit of the text of his remarks, I do not think I can add anything further that is useful at this time.

HEALTH QUESTIONNAIRE

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, April 3, the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) asked me about a questionnaire of the ministry and its use by certain health-service organizations, and I replied that I would respond more fully at a later date.

Today, I am tabling my response to the member rather than taking the time of the House to read the answer in full; it is fairly lengthy and detailed.

In essence, my reply indicates that a questionnaire was used by the ministry as part of a pre-test in four HSOs. Legal counsel has indicated that neither the survey nor its application, which was on a purely voluntary basis, was in violation of the Ontario Human Rights Code or the Health Disciplines Act. The questionnaire and its results will be discussed by ministry officials and the HSOs concerned, at a meeting on April 16.

I should also like to say that I know the honourable member will agree with every effort made by the ministry to ensure that consumers are provided with satisfaction where it involves the expenditure of tax dollars.

AMBULANCE SERVICES

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I have a further answer. On Thursday last, the member for London North asked me some questions about students employed as ambulance attendants during the summer months. I am tabling today a letter that explains the matter fully to the member. Again, it is a very lengthy answer, too long to go over here.

In brief, I am satisfied that the requirements for summer part-time employment in ambulance services across the province are such that excellence of care is protected. Summer students are always required to work in company with senior ambulance officers anywhere in the province.

[3:45]

Mr. Van Horne: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: The allegations that were made in my opinion were serious, and in spite of the assurance the minister has given I would like to know that students as poorly trained as this would not he employed in any way, shape or form either this year or in years to come.

Has the minister spoken directly with the executive of the London Ambulance Association and has he looked into the specific instances wherein they claim that students who were not qualified did work in London and Windsor in the summers of 1977 and 1978?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I have not spoken with them. I believe staff of the ambulance services branch, either at district office or in Toronto, have. I am advised by a member of the media in that community that at a press conference last Friday the representatives of the association were asked to give specific instances and for some reason were reticent about it.

I would hope that if they have any specific incidents about which they have concern they would report them either to the district office in London or to the head of the ambulance services branch, directly or through solicitors, however they want. I can show them they should have no concern about any legal problems for themselves. If there are specific incidents they are aware of, we want to know about them. The member will see in the letter I have tabled, the original of which will come to him, that our policies are very clear in that regard.

FAMILY BENEFITS

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Community and Social Services. Is he prepared to table in the House the study that four senior civil servants in his ministry reportedly embarked on into the issue of removing unfair sexual biases in the welfare legislation and the family benefits act?

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, I have no reason to withhold the information as obviously it is available merely by looking at the legislation. There is nothing secretive about identifying those areas within the legislation where there are apparently biases based upon gender. All the report consists of is identifying those areas within the legislation. It’s not an original comprehensive report of information that’s not already available. I will see whether we can make it available to him. That’s no problem.

Mr. Peterson: Given that the minister has made this piercing insight into the self-evident and the obvious, is he now prepared -- because he now admits it and everyone else who looks at this admits it -- to work with the other members of the House to change these sexual biases in the legislation? Or is his only answer against it the one he gave in an interview in the Globe and Mail -- I believe about November 1977 -- when he said it would cost $26,000,000? Is that the only reason he has for changing this? My supplementary to my supplementary is: On what basis does he say $27,000,000 will be the cost to change this unfair legislation?

Hon. Mr. Norton: The basis upon which I used that figure was the work done by the analysts within the ministry as to the total cost implications. I would say that is not the only reason but I would say it is a significant reason. If the member can identify where we can come up with $27,000,000 in this fiscal year --

Mrs. Campbell: That’s the only reason you gave.

Hon. Mr. Norton: -- to eliminate those biases, then it seems to me you have accomplished something I haven’t been able to in the time I have been in the ministry. I would also point out that another and very significant reason is that in view of the fact -- I recognize it and so do my colleagues -- there are traditional biases within existing legislation and we would like to eliminate them --

Mr. McClellan: How about an income security review?

Hon. Mr. Norton: -- I would like to see that done in the context of a major reorganization of our approach to income maintenance, for example. I had, in view of the desire to do that, made very specific proposals to the other provinces back in September and got the support of the other provinces. In November I made the request --

Mr. Warner: Blame it on someone else.

Hon. Mr. Norton: -- to the Honourable Monique Begin at the federal-provincial conference for co-operation on the part of the federal government to make the necessary changes to the regulations under the Canada Assistance Plan. At that time it was indicated to me, along with the other provincial ministers, that they would sit down and seriously discuss changes under the Canada Assistance Plan. I must say that I am terribly disappointed to tell the House that I have now in my possession --

Mr. S. Smith: How about the pensions?

Hon. Mr. Norton: -- it has now been received by our ministry, a letter, to which I intend to be responding to the Honourable Monique Begin very shortly, indicating that no, the federal government is not prepared, after all the effort that has gone into it and support from the other provinces, to sit down and seriously make changes in the regulations that would allow us the necessary flexibility.

In the face of that, I obviously will have to discuss with my colleagues whether Ontario is in a position once again, as we have been repeatedly in the past, to go ahead independent of the federal government to make changes that we feel are necessary, with no cost sharing at all.

PETITION

HERITAGE LANGUAGE PROGRAM

Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to present a petition from over 200 parents in one school area petitioning the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) regarding the reduction of funding for the heritage language program. The petition reads:

“We were shocked and dismayed by your recent proposals to reduce funding for the heritage language program. This program was instituted after long years of struggle on the part of several community groups and has become a valid and important part of our children’s education. Therefore, we most vigorously protest the proposed budget cuts for this program and strongly urge you to consider and rescind them.”

This petition is the first in a long list of petitions from people who are extremely upset about the retrograde decision to destroy the heritage language program.

MOTIONS

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Welch moved that when the House adjourns on Thursday, April 12, it stand adjourned until 2 o’clock, Tuesday, April 17.

Motion agreed to.

STANDING ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE COMMITTEE

Hon. Mr. Welch moved that the standing administration of justice committee be authorized to travel to Milton and Guelph to visit the Maplehurst complex and the Guelph Correctional Centre on Wednesday. April 11, 1979, and that two and a half hours be credited against the time allotted for the estimates of the Ministry of Correctional Services, and that the provisions of

section 66 of the Legislative Assembly Act be not applicable.

Motion agreed to.

ESTIMATES

Hon. Mr. Welch moved resolution 2.

Reading dispensed with. (See Votes and Proceedings.)

Resolution concurred in.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON NOTICE PAPER

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I would like to table the interim answers to questions 100, 101, 102 and 103 standing on the Order Paper. (See appendix, page 874)

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONCLUDED)

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, let me say at the outset I am tremendously disappointed at the government House leader in not moving that we sit until 6:30, because we on this side of the House on more than one occasion have seen fit to do so to accommodate the order of business which had been planned. I draw your attention to the Monday when the House adjourned for the Christmas break and we sat until 7 to get the Treasurer’s estimates finished so that we could do Bill 70 on Thursday and Friday, and I feel that the minister --

An hon. member: Stop crying and get on with it.

Mr. Hodgson: You weren’t interested in reducing the question period by half an hour.

Mr. Martel: When the order of business is established and something interferes with that order, there is nothing to say that we cannot change the rules, by motion, to accommodate the orderly carrying out of the business planned for that day.

Mr. Foulds: We certainly did not plan for the adjournment of half an hour.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I want to say that in reading the throne speech it contained, I think, something for everyone -- mind you in small doses. It reminded me of the Brylcreem ad, “A little dab’ll do ya.” That is what everyone is getting, a little dab. It amounts to very little.

In fact, the throne speech contained a lot of reruns that the government has tried to pass off as things that are going to be done. Let’s look at a few of them.

How long have we been talking about apprenticeships; how long? Forever, it seems; and we really haven’t reached first base. The committee to promote employment opportunities for women; we established such a committee in the civil service a number of years ago and it has not accomplished a great deal.

Mr. Laughren: Bob Welch, remember that.

Mr. Martel: The fight against inflation; members will recall that this government --

Mr. Hodgson: Get on with your speech, Elie.

Mr. Martel: -- supported the federal Liberals on that fight against inflation on the backs of the workers of Ontario, as well as on the backs of the Canadian people. There is a little blurb in there that says we are going to look at profits this time, but for the last three and a half years the workers have paid the price of fighting inflation.

Risk capital; those of us who served on a select committee from 1971 to 1974 advocated action, there is a whole report on risk capital. We have been talking about helping small business for years and not much has materialized.

They also ran this one by us, senior citizen drug plan retained. That’s nothing new; it just goes to show how they just threw a little bit in here, a little bit there to make a throne speech which appeared to be doing something and which virtually was not going to change a heck of a lot in this province.

Family planning; we have been talking about that for years. I was surprised to learn, a couple of years ago, that we had a clinic in Sudbury which was open every Wednesday afternoon. The only problem was that the people of Sudbury did not know it was there. I did not know it was there.

An advisory council on multiculturalism; we had one, our friend from Sudbury was on the multicultural committee but it was allowed to die. I think my colleague from Brantford put his finger right on the pulse when he said, “This government has as much commitment to multiculturalism as an alley cat has to morality.”

My colleague today brought in a petition from people who are trying to establish a heritage program. It indicated their dismay at government withdrawal from that whole sphere, withdrawing the funds necessary to proceed. Now we are going to establish another committee. I ask the government: what in God’s name is it doing?

I have cited just seven items. All of them have been repeated over and over in this House, but we really have not advanced very far with them. A couple were good. I appreciate the fact that we are going to do something for people who are handicapped, at long last. This is something I started advocating as the critic for this party in 1971; that we do what Saskatchewan was doing then and put 50 per cent permanent funding in place for those municipalities which in fact were providing transit systems for the handicapped. We are going to do it in 1979.

The other one, interestingly enough, was a motion I moved in this House, and which the government and the Liberals voted against, when we created the Ministry of Northern Affairs. I advocated a community council. The government is not going to call it that; it is going to call it a local services board; but in fact it is going to do exactly what I suggested, which was to get people voted onto a committee through which in fact necessary funding would be obtained. This was impossible in the unorganized communities.

The throne speech really did not have much new. It is not going to do much to overcome the problems facing Ontario. It deals, I think, primarily with the economy. I want to look at the economy as it affects my area, and then broaden it out to the province. In my own area, I want to examine this throne speech against the background of a document, prepared for the region a couple of years ago and called A Profile in Failure. So members won’t think it’s just those people in the New Democratic Party, listen to what the chamber of commerce said in respect to the planning of the northeastern Ontario regional strategy, called NORS:

[4:00]

“The NORS is devoid of any strategy of development physical, economic or social. It represents the pinnacle of intellectual bankruptcy of the southern establishment in even analysing the problems of the north, let alone dealing with them effectively.

“The only way to deal with NORS is to let it terminate as an expensive receptacle of dust, until it glides, gracefully or otherwise, into oblivion.”

Mr. Laughren: Who said this?

Mr. Martel: The chamber of commerce. “The fundamental problem with NORS can be summed up as the troika of noes: no strategy, no analysis and no programs; therefore, no use.”

That’s the business community in Sudbury indicating what they see as the problems in the Sudbury area. I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, if we’ve got problems, the beginning of the problems in the Sudbury basin started with this government: I well recall in 1974, the day the House adjourned, as I motored home I listened to the announcement by the government that they were shutting down Burwash. They eliminated 250 jobs with the stroke of a pen. Interestingly enough, they opened up a new institution in Milton.

Mr. Laughren: The Davis years have been bad for the Sudbury basin.

Mr. Martel: That was part of the decline of the economic base in the Sudbury basin. They wiped out, with the stroke of a pen, the fourth largest employer, after having spent in the previous two years anywhere from $4,000,000 to $5,000,000. They put in a new gym, new quarters for single custodial officers, remodelled all of the homes, and then they wiped it all out overnight.

We argued to try to get the government to change its mind. We argued on the economic basis that they were wiping out economic diversification and leaving us simply to the resource-based industries. It didn’t matter.

We argued that they would have to then take the prisoners from the Sudbury basin and put them somewhere else where their loved ones couldn’t see them. That was the excuse for closing Burwash: there were too many visitors from the south who had difficulty getting to the Sudbury basin and, therefore, they would have to alter it. Do you know where the prisoners go now from Sudbury? They go to Monteith, about 250 miles away, and they go to the institution in Thunder Bay, about 450 to 500 miles away. It didn’t matter about people from the Sudbury basin.

I remind members that Burwash is less than 200 miles from Toronto. It was good, and they wiped it out. I remember raising it in the House. Know what Dr. Potter said to us? He said: “I am running a correctional services institution, not an employment agency.” They wiped out some diversification, and they haven’t put it back. It was mothballed.

The Minister of Government Services, then the Honourable Margaret Scrivener, followed and she was going to sell it. She, in fact, got one offer of $1,000,000. The chamber of commerce, the labour council and the local members met with the Premier and prevailed upon him not to sell it and, in fact, to establish a committee that would look into the multiple-use concept for Burwash. We suggested, first, that there should be jobs involved in this multiple-use idea and that it should offer services which were not available in the north.

A year and a half later, that committee reported. Listen to what that committee said: “This proposed use is as follows: It provides for an integrated use of the entire site. It will effectively utilize the arable land and institutional facilities, including Camp Bison, which the federal government previously purchased for $1,800,000. It will provide jobs for local residents.”

Unfortunately, by the time the report was tabled, the federal government had withdrawn its offer.

Mr. Nixon: That’s not like them.

Mr. Martel: It was no longer going to build a federal institution in Sudbury, utilizing the facility that was already there. So there went the jobs. I wrote to the Premier and I said to him: “The Dillon report could have been prepared by a six-year old after a cursory walk around the property.”

Mr. Nixon: Is that the Mr. Dillon you are talking about?

Mr. Martel: I’m talking about Mr. Dillon.

Mr. Nixon: Is that the guy who used to be chairman of the John Robarts election committee?

Mr. Martel: I believe he is the same one.

Mr. Nixon: That is the fellow who is on the board of Hydro.

Mr. Martel: I wrote: “The multiple-use concept made more sense than the proposal by Dillon, particularly when one realizes that Camp Bison, which the federal authorities purchased, has not received ministerial approval to proceed with the necessary renovations. I can almost envision the expression of the federal minister, the Honourable Jean Jacques Blais, when he learns there is another authority telling the federal ministry what it should be doing with the property.”

I went on further and indicated it makes more sense to provide a number of services under the provincial jurisdiction which are not now available in the Sudbury area, such as a rehabilitation centre for injured workers, promised by the Premier the Tuesday night before the 1975 election in Sudbury.

Mr. Nixon: That’s going to Hamilton.

Mr. Martel: Well, that’s gone. The use of some of the homes in the village as group homes f or the retarded was recommended by the Ministry of Community and Social Services. That’s gone.

The Ministry of Natural Resources wanted in, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food wanted in, Laurentian University wanted part of the facility, Cambrian College wanted part of the facility, and so did the labour council. We get a report after all of that which says, “We’ll make it into a federal institution.”

I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, for gall this government demonstrates it all.

Interestingly enough, the chamber of commerce responded very recently to the Premier.

The chamber of commerce says in their letter to the Premier. “To the Honourable William Davis.

“Dear Sir:

“We are sorry to have to pursue further the matter of Burwash land use study which upon serious examination we find to be a disservice to yourself, your government and the people of Ontario.

This is a sad conclusion regretfully arrived at and which we suspect that you may already share, having regard to what we understood to have been a very substantial cost to the taxpayers of the province, to produce a document of 223 pages which is permeated with bias, contradictions and imbalance of emphasis both in the selection of study areas, conformity to the accepted terms of reference and failure of terms of reference to reflect both in spirit and action the commitment which we felt to be morally binding between us.]’

“The steering committee formed by your authority was to address itself to the concerns originally identified by the Sudbury Burwash committee, formed around local citizens and groups which met on a chamber of commerce premise to effectively document their collective concern and which we felt would ensure us of effective ongoing direct input and liaison with the steering committee. In reality we were exorcised from further involvement by the procedure of holding meetings alternatively in Sudbury and in Toronto which effectively ensured the non-participation of the chamber volunteers and others, both through cost and subsequent failure to invite meaningful participation.

“This point was brought more precisely into focus by independent and voluntary appearance of the chamber of commerce members at public information gatherings and meetings held by M. M. Dillon Limited, during which no specific recognition was accorded to the visitors, no special courtesies extended, no notes were made or tapes recorded, so that it is bemusing in the ultimate to encounter the outright gall evidenced within the chamber report when it stated that interviews were held in Sudbury with the Sudbury and District Chamber of Commerce on page 93.

This statement was so lacking in substance as to bring into question the quality of the other purported contacts and which leads to the following observation.”

1 am not going to go into those observations, but what in effect we have happening at Burwash and in the M. M. Dillon report is really a continuation of the status quo.

Mr. Foulds: Was that the chamber of commerce again?

Mr. Martel: Yes, that was the chamber of commerce again. We believe the government advised M. M. Dillon not to come up with a multi-use concept which would provide the services and the jobs which are so badly needed. Instead of spending $10,000,000 on Minaki Lodge, they could spend a heck of a lot less and in fact, provide some alternative employment in the Sudbury basin.

The only recommendations which are meaningful in the backup to what we asked for were the adoption of those services or those things already on the Burwash property. For example, they went along and said, “What we need or should go along with is the camp that is already there for kids.” Well, that was built by the Ukrainian community, I believe. That’s already there.

They suggested we go along and have a part of the facility for training dogs.

They went along and said they would put a weigh scale on the Burwash property.

It went on and on in this vein, not creating one new thing. Not one cent of commitment came forth from the government to establish a multi-use concept, although they had spent $4,500,000 to $5,000,000 when they shut it down and they’re spending roughly $500,000 a year now to keep it in mothballs. I tell you, Mr. Speaker, that’s commitment.

I want to leave Burwash to move to another part of my riding, and it deals with a multinational. You haven’t come to grips with the multinational situation in this province yet either.

We have a mine in my community, which is located about 14 miles away. There are 250 jobs at the mine -- by the way, they only made $6,000,000 profit last year. It’s called National Steel.

I want to thank the Minister of Labour and Manpower (Mr. Elgie) and the Premier for trying to keep that facility open. But it comes to the nub of the problem when dealing with multinationals that we in Ontario are held to ransom by those corporations.

Let me document it briefly, and I make the following observation before I start. Multinationals, not only in this country, but in other countries, have no concern for the host country. Recently I listened to an economist indicate that southern Ontario looks to northern Ontario as a supplier of raw materials -- and I remind you of the Thoman report. Do you, Mr. Speaker, remember that famous report which said that northern Ontario would continue to be the source of raw materials for the megalopolis from Chicago, to Toronto, to New York?

That was the Tory government’s response to our problem, called the Toronto-centred region plan. The multinationals look on all of Ontario and all of Canada in the same vein; as merely a place from which you draw natural resources.

This company, lo and behold, has an excess of pellets. Iron ore pellets. They’ve got an excess in the United States. Shades of excess of nickel. Here we go again.

National Steel, which is managed by Hanna Mining, was going to close a mine called Pilot Knob in Missouri, which produced approximately the same amount as is produced in Capreol, my hometown, about 500 tons or 600 tons a year.

Pilot Knob is a losing proposition. It’s underground mining for iron ore, and that’s usually a losing proposition. They have a three-year life expectancy. The American government decided: “We shouldn’t close this operation. We want you to mine it out. We’ll pay the shot. You mine it out, and we’ll pay you $28,000,000 a year to mine it out so that we can store oil.”

National Steel and Hanna Mining decided they could close the mine in Capreol, throw 250 people out of work, despite the fact that the company made $6,000,000 in Capreol last year.

One wonders why they can’t gear down somewhere else. Hanna Mining, which manages this operation, produces about 18,000,- 000 tons a year in Canada. They produced about 20,000,000 tons in Brazil, and they produced about 15,000,000 tons in the United States. It’s a drop in the bucket to produce 500 tons in Sudbury. They could gear down one notch somewhere and not destroy that community.

Let me tell you what will happen. Two hundred and fifty men will be out of a job as of May 15, unless we can get something to change that. They’re going to close for two or three years, and then they’re going to come back when the pellet glut is over. But, where do workers from the Sudbury area go, with Inco having laid off 2,000, losing another 2,000 which they would have had to lay off had there not been a strike; Falconbridge laying off about 750? Where do the 250 men and their families go from Capreol?

But, this company is going to come back. Two or three years from now it will say to the town council, “We need another subdivision. We want you to put that in and we want you to put sewers and water in, and we want you to put in an addition to the high school because we’re coming back.” Hopefully in two or three years those homes which will have been put up for sale will have been sold, and other people will have come in.

What does it do to that community? What does it do to those workers? What about the tax loss to a small municipality, with about 4,100 people? Right now there are 84 homes for sale in that community.

[4:15]

If Hanna Mining is grinding out 35,000,000 tons a year, and it’s just the operator for National Steel, and if from Labrador alone National Steel itself is extracting about 10,000,000 tons, I can’t understand how we allow a small community to be hammered in that fashion. This leads me to ask a question of the government.

When we had the Inco layoffs, the Premier established a cabinet committee under the jurisdiction of the then Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. F. S. Miller) which was going to do a cabinet study and come up with a policy pertaining to resource communities. I suspect that committee hasn’t even met because if it has, I’m still waiting for the report on what policies it is going to adopt to prevent multinationals, or even nationals, from acting in such a high-handed fashion that they would destroy a community and see workers lose their homes.

After 35 years, this government has not come in with a policy with respect to the resource sector. Its track record leaves a good deal to be desired. That leads me to want to deal with the whole mining industry. I’m glad the minister responsible for the resource sector is here because I want to indicate to him what bothers me about that sector.

Aside from a legacy of abandoned communities, I’m not sure what we have in northern Ontario in terms of secondary industry. I might indicate that if we wait for secondary industry, as espoused by the former Treasurer when he said there would be no secondary industry in northeastern Ontario for 20 more years, if that’s the position of the government of Ontario, northeastern Ontario is in trouble.

The mining industry produces fewer than 50,000 jobs a year, and yet the boast of this government is that the resource sector is the basis of our economy and that it is very proud of that. What does it do with the 50,000 jobs, if you include pits, quarries, mining or you name it? If one looks at employment in metal mining and the amount that is produced, one will notice that in 1966 with 27,147 people involved in metallic mining the industry managed to churn out 43,000,000 tons. In 1976 notice the great difference. With 27,380 workers, about 230 more workers, they managed to grind out 60,000,000 tons. In other words, they increased their production by 39 per cent with 230 more workers.

That doesn’t bode well for us in the north. It doesn’t bode well for Ontario in terms of jobs for young people. If one looks at where our unemployment is, the heaviest area is among young people. Look at revenue. The government talks about this being the cornerstone of our economy. In 1968-69, we got $19,000.000 in revenue in Ontario. Isn’t that a magnificent sum?

Mr. Foulds: What are those figures again?

Mr. Nixon: For the whole mining industry?

Mr. Martel: For the whole mining industry, we got $19,616,000. Up until 1972, it had got all the way to $16,344,000. If we include it with income tax, starting with 1973-74 as a base year, we got $59,000,000. Then we had a boom year. We got $191,000,000 in 1974, if we include mining tax and corporate income tax.

Mr. Nixon: That’s when John White adjusted it.

Mr. Martel: That’s right. Then the slide started.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Reform.

Mr. Martel: In 1975-76, we got $82,000,000. In 1976-77, we got $59,000,000. In 1977-78, we got $31,000,000.

Mr. Nixon: Gee, that John White was a great Treasurer.

Mr. Foulds: Scandalous.

Mr. Martel: The total in federal income tax and in mining tax was $31,500,000.

Mr. Nixon: They have been trying to clean up their act after John White ever since.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, if you want to look at it in another way, based on production, let me tell you the value of production in 1977. The value of mineral production in 1977 in Ontario was $2,699,400,000. Our total take was $39,000,000 or about 1.4 per cent of production.

Mr. Foulds: Awful, just awful!

Mr. Martel: Tell me how we will build an economy in Ontario with that kind of return. Let me tell you, if you try taxing them, Mr. Speaker, they will just high grade, so you can’t win the game on taxation.

Let me tell you what the Saskatchewan government did in 1978. Let me read their return.

Mr. Nixon: It sounds like a political pamphlet you are reading.

Mr. Martel: In 1978 they got $349,000,000 from gas and oil. In natural gas they got $500,000. In potash they got $108,000,000; in uranium, $2,356,000; and there are a couple of other smaller ones for a total revenue from the resource sector of $461,923,000. Compare that to Ontario where from a value of mineral production of almost $3,000,000,000, we got $39,000,000.

Mr. Laughren: What a disgrace.

Mr. Nixon: Inco says they pay it all to workers.

Mr. Martel: Oh, I can give you Inco’s figures too. I have broken them down. Inco’s total profits in 1976 were $197,000,000; their total tax -- federal, provincial and provincial mining -- was $79,000,000.

Mr. Nixon: That is corporation tax -- everything?

Mr. Martel: The whole business, the whole business. It is not only bad enough that we don’t have jobs and we don’t have tax revenue, but we got into the game of exemptions. We have about 30 exemptions which allow them to take our resources from here and refine them somewhere else.

Inco alone delivered 111,000,000 pounds of nickel -- contained in nickel oxide sooter -- to Wales in 1971. It was 109,000,000 pounds in 1972; 75,000,000 pounds in 1973 and in 1974; 100,000,000 pounds in 1975; and 82,000,000 pounds in 1976. That comes to a total of about 20 per cent of their total production.

If one looks at the refining capacity in Port Colborne, they refine about 90,000,000 pounds a year and this accounts for about 1,411 jobs. When one realizes that Inco sends that much out annually to Wales, we see we lose those 1,411 jobs. If you extrapolate and consider the effect in terms of other jobs in Ontario, it is about double.

It isn’t bad enough that we give the exemptions and allow them to send it out of the country, we even allow them to take their money out and explore somewhere else, and we even allow them I to write off their taxes against profits earned in Ontario. We are generous. We are generous to the extreme. In fact, they don’t even reinvest in Canada any more.

Mr. Foulds: We are giving them away.

Mr. Martel: Let’s just look at Inco for a moment. They reinvested about $250,000,000 abroad in ESB Incorporated. They invested $235,000,000 in Exmibal in South America. They invested $30,000,000 in Inco United States Incorporated, International Metals Reclamation Company Incorporated in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania -- I didn’t even know that existed. They invested $850,000,000 in PT International Nickel, Indonesia. All of that money was earned in the Sudbury basin and they haven’t invested a cent for secondary industry in Ontario -- none. They have a plant which may start up eventually. They have taken that kind of money and invested it somewhere else.

Before someone says, “Ah, but what about their investment?” As of November 16, 1977, Inco’s profits for the previous 10 years amounted to $1,700,000,000, or a 14 per cent return on investment. That is not bad, when you take all that investment, you plough it in somewhere else, and you do not create a job in Ontario. In fact, the only place Inco has invested in Ontario is in the extractive end so that it can get it out of the ground faster.

Inco ploughs it in somewhere else, and we get nothing. We get nothing in tax; we get nothing in research and development; we get nothing in jobs for our young people. I want to say that goes right across our resource sector. If one looks at Falconbridge, Falconbridge is the same; Falconbridge invests in Norway.

Let me tell you just how bad it is, Mr. Speaker. Inco is taking some $50,000,000 of its earnings this year and putting it into ESB-Ray-O-Vac to upgrade those plants in the United States. But they cannot even put an offer on the table to the workers in the Sudbury basin who have created all the wealth for them. All the Tories do is give them more privileges and more benefits, and after seven months they still have not put a decent offer on the table.

I want to tell the government that its track record in the resource sector leaves a good deal to be desired and, when government party members say it is the cornerstone of our economy, I think they are all nuts. There is nothing left to be the cornerstone.

If one takes it one step further, to where the exploration is going on, even the mining companies to whom we have been so generous do not reinvest that money here. In Ontario in 1977, $28,000,000 was spent in looking for new metals. In 1972, the amount spent in looking for new metals was $14,000,000; then it got to $16,000,000, and in 1977 it was $13,000,000.

Do you know what they are spending in Saskatchewan this year? Eighty million dollars. And that province is one seventh the size of this jurisdiction in terms of population. Thirty-five million dollars is coming from the Saskatchewan mining development corporation, but $45,000,000 is coming from the private sector. This government can say socialism scares off the private sector, but we are not getting $45,000,000 looking for new wealth. In fact, the last new mine discovered in Ontario was Land Lake Mine in 1971, and the last new mine to come into production was Sturgeon Lake in 1975.

Where is this government’s policy? Where is its policy that will ensure that we have more jobs, more tax, and a greater percentage of reinvestment of earnings held here in Ontario? Where is its policy to guarantee that a certain amount of that resource will be put into the manufacturing sector? Why are we allowing them to invest abroad and then to write that off against the profits earned in this jurisdiction? It’s nuts. Surely, even for a Tory government, it is time to put it all together and take a look at it. It’s a disgrace.

If one looks at forestry, the government’s track record is a little bit better. I guess it was Frost who said, way back, “You have to produce more in this country.”

I am trying to go as quickly as I can, but there are some things that cannot be overlooked.

First of all, we are turning back to the private sector the reforestation of this province. We took it away from them in 1963 because they did a lousy job. Now, in the speech from the throne, we are putting it back in their hands. What has convinced this government that they are going to do any better now than they did prior to 1963?

Mr. T. P. Reid: Because the government did a lousy job itself.

Mr. Martel: I was just going to say that. Armson in his report indicated the government did a lousy job. Here’s this industry in Ontario which in the first nine months of 1978 made $540,000,000 in profits, and we’re going to give them $100,000,000. The federal government is going to give them $230,000,000 -- not all in this province. This is happening at a time when we have Domtar in 1978 acquiring a gypsum business in California for $34,500,000, and when we have Abitibi Paper going to invest some $22,000,000 in an expansion at Roaring River, North Carolina.

Why do we have to provide $100,000,000, without equity and without a return? Does the government even look where those companies are reinvesting the money we are giving them? It might not be the dollars we are giving them, but they are taking other dollars and investing in North Carolina and in South Carolina. They are investing abroad, yet out of the public treasury we are going to give them $100,000,000 this year and we don’t have an equity. Government members are lousy businessmen. I don’t know any other country that is so generous.

[4:30]

It was interesting when the select committee on economic and cultural nationalism visited England, the vice-president of ICI, which is the parent of CIL, said to the select committee, and there are seven members sitting over there: “The second you start giving money away you are in trouble. The companies that locate in Canada or in any jurisdiction go because the infrastructure is there and the government is fairly stable; but if a government starts playing giveaway, we want our share too, even if we don’t need it.”

Mr. Laughren: It’s unstable government.

Mr. Martel: The government wants to play Las Vegas with these corporations. I want to know if the government has any policy, outside of giveaway, to enhance the economy of this province; I think not.

Yet there are areas where this can occur. I was able to serve on the select committee on economic and cultural nationalism for about four years. In that four years we tabled, I think, 21 reports dealing with the mining industry and with a whole variety of things. One of the conclusions we came to was that somewhere along the line we are going to have to grapple with multinationals. Seven government members signed those reports, by the way; most of them are in the cabinet today too.

Mr. Wildman: And now they don’t even know who is responsible for replying to questions on the subject.

Mr. Martel: One looks at what multinationals do. There are not only multinationals like National Steel putting it to us in the Capreol area, but if one looks at Hamilton, one sees that Westinghouse wants to close and move somewhere else. One looks at Columbus McKinnon in St Catharines; they closed and moved to Buffalo, after 102 years, I guess, in Ontario. One looks at Budd Automotive who are at the trough looking for a hand-out. One looks at the Hoover Company. One looks at Kennametal who have moved to Toronto. Remington Rand have closed; Wagstaffe bought out Delmonte and closed the operation down.

The government just can’t go on with handouts in this area. The select committee, we thought, was established by the Premier to look into that problem, yet most of the recommendations have been ignored.

On the one report dealing with natural resources it says, “The policy shift should involve not a discouragement of resource development but an encouragement of manufacturing and processing in Canada.” The second recommendation was, “One important goal of both provincial and federal resource policies should be the achievement of a strong and visible Canadian-controlled presence in the non-renewable resource sector.” We haven’t done that.

I won’t even read it, but the government member of the committee suggested in that report, and signed it, as did the two Liberal members, that we should take up to 50 per cent ownership in the resource sector.

Mr. Nixon: Donald Deacon was a Liberal member.

Mr. Martel: Donald Deacon, and my good friend the late Dick Smith wanted that. And the government members over there signed that document.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Donald Deacon signed it?

Mr. Nixon: Donald Deacon signed that.

Mr. Martel: That’s right. But the government hasn’t moved. They paddle around this province saying, “Oh, it is only the socialists who want that.” The Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. W. Newman) signed it. The member for Carleton (Mr. Handleman) signed it; and the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. Walker); as well as the former Speaker (Mr. Rowe). It really is amazing.

But that select committee also said something else. It said we should look to areas where there are weaknesses and then move in. When one sees what our trade deficit is it indicates to me there are certain weaknesses. The trade deficit in Ottawa, $1,100,000,000; auto pact machinery, $3,100,000,000; electronics, $1,000,000,000; textiles, $1,900,000,000.

That select committee had recommendations on mining equipment. I want to speak about manufacturing. Members would be interested to know that at the present time there is a smaller percentage of our population in the work force engaged in manufacturing than in all other western countries except Ireland, Turkey and Greece.

Mr. Laughren: You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.

Mr. Martel: Can you imagine that; Ireland, Turkey and Greece? There are fewer Canadians and Ontarians involved in manufacturing than in all those countries. Isn’t that something? The emphasis on giveaways --

Mr. Foulds: What are those countries again?

Mr. Martel: Ireland, Turkey and Greece.

The select committee said one of the places we should be moving into was our mining equipment sector. I just want to put a few facts on the record.

Canada is the third largest mining country in the world; Canada is also the second largest consumer of mining machinery. Canada has the dubious honour of being the largest importer of mining machinery in the world. For mining machinery, narrowly defined, our imports amounted to $376,000,000 in 1978, up 340 per cent from 1968. The trade deficit in mining machinery was $255,000,000 in 1978, up 140 per cent from five years earlier.

The percentage of market captured by imports is truly astounding and getting worse. For mining machinery, the figure was 91 per cent in 1978, up from 73 per cent in 1975 and up from 59 per cent in 1965. Mining machinery has about the worst trade performance of any of the machinery sub- sectors.

In terms of jobs lost, the imports represent a conservative estimate of 6,000 jobs, based on the formula relating value of shipment to number of employees in the overall machinery business. Other formulas suggest that the spin-off would amount to double that. In other words, mining machinery imports represent a total of about 18,000 potential jobs, if we got serious about it.

The argument is always advanced that Canadian industry can’t get established because of a small domestic market. Well, in this field, that’s crazy. In the mining field this argument just doesn’t hold water. The Canadian market for mining machinery

-- and this does not include oil and gas or extractive machinery -- was $416,000,000 in 1978, double that of five years earlier.

According to Stats-Can, the capital expenditure on new machinery or equipment for all Canada amounted to about $1,163,000,000, or $649,000,000 excluding oil and gas. If equipment for smelting and refining is included the total expenditure rises to $1,692,000,000. Capital expenditure on machinery and equipment for iron ore alone was $233,000,000.

It is an interesting fact that Canada produces a value of metals almost equal to that of the United States, yet the United States maintains a trade surplus and we continue to be the largest importer of mining equipment. Canada also produces more minerals than England, Sweden, Germany and Finland, yet all these countries have established a strong domestic base.

Just one interesting fact: you cannot, for instance, buy a Canadian-made diesel engine in Canada of any size, of any size.

Mr. Foulds: Scandalous.

Mr. Martel: Isn’t it interesting to note that the select committee, in 1974, made the following recommendations: “There is a scope for the development of a significant Canadian control presence in the mining machinery and equipment industry. The committee recommends that the government actively encourage the development of Canadian-controlled firms in the mining machinery and equipment industry through the provisions of loans and research assistance and through purchase policies. The committee recommends that policies be developed to include the performance of mining machinery and equipment firms in terms of export, research and development and increasing Canadian value added.

“The committee is of the view,” I go on further, “that if the private sector does not respond to policies designed to encourage the development of the mining machinery and equipment industry, it may be appropriate for the government to become involved in the area directly.”

That was signed by at least four cabinet ministers.

Mr. Nixon: Yes, but do you believe that any Minister of Industry and Tourism or any Premier ever read that or ever paid the slightest attention to it?

Mr. Martel: Well maybe they didn’t, but maybe they should have.

Mr. Nixon: You, me and your mother are the only ones who read it.

Mr. Martel: My understanding is that the member for Carleton (Mr. Handleman) was put in charge of going through those reports and indicating to the government what policies might, in fact, be enacted. Interestingly enough, it was not just that select committee, it was the select committee that looked into Inco last year. They too, made a recommendation. Let me read that recommendation. Finally, the final report of the select committee of the Ontario Legislature on Inco and Falconbridge layoffs made a recommendation:

“That all levels of government investigate and develop a program of industrial diversification in the Sudbury area.” Two of the specific areas to be examined and encouraged were an expanded mining research and development program at Laurentian University and a mining equipment manufacturing industry in the Sudbury area.

“While acknowledging that the Sudbury area is primarily involved in the production of nickel and copper, the committee notes that most of the heavy equipment used in the mining industry throughout Ontario is manufactured outside of Canada. Within a relatively few miles of the Sudbury area, uranium, gold, silver and other precious metals are mined throughout the year.”

It was interesting that the people who opposed the establishment of that sort of development were the mining companies. Edwin Carter said at those hearings: “That is a cyclical industry and therefore we should not get involved in it.” It is interesting that the one large producer of underground mining equipment in North Bay --

Mr. Nixon: Canadian Tire?

Mr. Martel: -- hardly -- Jarvis Clark, recommended that we move to that field. He is the only successful producer of equipment. Mr. Clark said he would leave the market system intact but has specific proposals for government effort to foster its development. One of his favourite themes is that Ontario should form an Ontario mining group modelled on the Swedish and Finnish group. Its members would be the manufacturers, government agencies, mining companies, contractors and consultants. The Ontario mining group would have a commercial role, informing its members of all the international commercial opportunities, arranging joint ventures as well as participating in trade missions.

That was just one of the recommendations from the select committee. Significantly, though, they indicated in the report probably seven or eight other areas of real weaknesses, and the select committee recommended that Ontario should look to those weaknesses and then get involved.

Mining equipment is a natural. Because we are the third largest producers in mineral wealth, we should in fact move to the field of production of mining equipment. We have not done so and it is a disgrace, because not only could we capture the internal market, we could give tax preferences and so on, tax credits, we could also get involved in research and development and we could also start to export.

The market is there. If the private sector does not want to do it, rather than give away to Ford $68,000,000, rather than give away to other industries large sums of money, maybe we should be ploughing our money into something that is going to give us jobs, that is here going to give us research and development, that is going to give us offshoots, and that is going to allow us to get into the export market.

That is just one area. Those reports indicate a variety of areas.

I am trying to go as quickly as I can. I am just going to deal briefly with the health issue. I wanted to talk about children, but I won’t.

Hon. Mr. Welch: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Before the honourable member goes on to the final issue, I think the record should show that there was a general understanding by which the House is not bound, and I appreciate that, that the time allotted for this debate prior to 5:45 would be divided equally among the three parties. Notwithstanding a matter that I am going to talk about in a minute for just a minute, that would have been 35 minutes per speaker.

The honourable member started at five minutes to four so he had an extra five minutes on that, which no one is going to question, which meant he would have 40 and the other two parties would have 35. Before even the disruption of this afternoon he assured us he had a 45-minute speech; he has now gone 50. All the time he takes now is taking away from the other two, which is not in the spirit of the understanding.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, if my memory serves me correctly, I started after four o’clock.

Hon. Mr. Welch: You started at five minutes to four.

Mr. Martel: That is quite impossible. I would ask the Speaker if he would check that figure out.

Hon. Mr. Welch: You started at five minutes to four.

Mr. Martel: You might say that. I do not agree. My timetable does not indicate that. The other thing is, before you get too hooty with me, we offered a solution --

Hon. Mr. Welch: Why don’t you go to six o’clock then?

Mr. Martel: -- and in your usual lovely fashion you ignored it. We have sat on this side of the House on a number of occasions to accommodate the government House leader beyond six o’clock. I asked the minister why he couldn’t move to go an extra 30 or 35 minutes.

[4:45]

Hon. Mr. Welch: You never agreed to anything that wasn’t convenient to yourself.

Mr. Martel: If it isn’t convenient to the House leader it doesn’t hold water either, does it?

Mr. Cassidy: You sat there, inert.

Interjections.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Would the honourable member continue?

Hon. Mr. Welch: You’ve proved your point. You just take it away from the other side.

Mr. Martel: We’re prepared to sit until 6:30 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Welch: You’ve proved your point.

Mr. Martel: You did that on the emergency debate. You proved your point. And you proved your point last Tuesday night when we went into bills that weren’t scheduled. So, don’t come around here telling me about proving points.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Now, wait a minute. We had an understanding.

Mr. Martel: We had it out, yes. My office checked with your office on that occasion, my friend.

Mr. Nixon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, it has already been raised. I can’t wait to hear what the honourable member has to say about medicare, and I hope we all understand that whatever happens now, the light will have to go on after this marvellous debate concludes. So, let’s get on with it.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I only want to spend about five minutes on this.

Mr. Laughren: I’ll testify to that.

Mr. Martel: I am interested, from this point of view, at the accusations being made.

Mr. Nixon: Come on, come on.

Mr. Martel: It is interesting to note that 18 per cent of the doctors have opted out, that we are down to a formula of four beds in the north and 3.5 in the south. It is interesting to hear the Minister of Health (Mr. Timbrell) try to blame the opposition parties for the dilemma we are in. He didn’t get such a hot reception at Wellesley Hospital last week, according to the reports in the paper. As for the member for Algoma-Manitoulin (Mr. Lane), who totally blamed the NDP the other night for the attack on doctors, I’m amazed; I really am amazed.

Mr. Laughren: He had to apologize to his constituents.

Mr. Martel: Before we are all said and done, if he has not already done so, I suspect the member for Algoma-Manitoulin has already gone to the Minister of Health to talk about the cut to the Little Current hospital, which is going to see itself with about a one per cent increase this year and a bed cut. I suspect if he hasn’t already visited with the minister, he will be doing so in the very near future.

Mr. Foulds: If he hasn’t gone, he should.

Mr. Martel: The other problem with medicare, of course, is that this government has never been committed to it. I recall when it came in -- I happened to be here -- John Robarts called it a Machiavellian scheme. I remember it well, the great reluctance with which they went into OHIP. I recall that debate well.

Interjection.

Mr. Martel: The minister wasn’t here, so she needn’t tell me about it.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I do read.

Mr. Martel: She should read the record some day.

The government didn’t want to go into it. If the government were sincere about trying to iron out some of the problems -- but it is not usually; this government has a great capacity for putting a middleman between the government and the electorate. It does that with school boards and municipal councils, and now it is doing it with doctors. It makes them the goat in the piece.

If the government wanted to resolve it, it would have appointed a mediator, as Saskatchewan has just done, to try to iron it out -- someone with the eminence of Chief Justice Hall, then it would get a mediator in there to try to resolve the solution. It might look at a couple of other things in discussions with doctors. There is no other profession I know where one starts at the full buck, where one starts from square one. If one is a teacher, he has to work his way up the totem pole. If one is a lawyer, he works his way up the totem pole. Not doctors; they start at the top. No other profession does that. Maybe the government should start to look at that.

They might also look at the maldistribution of income within certain groups. They will find there are certain specialists in certain sectors at the top -- a very small group -- who cream off the milk. This is what the specialists tell me. Maybe the government could look at it.

The other thing it might look at is the mess within OHIP. In the Saskatchewan system, 82 per cent of the claims are paid within 30 days. I know a doctor in Sudbury who is still waiting for his $3,000 cheque for January. Does the government wonder why they are upset? It is convenient to have the minister try to blame the opposition parties.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Do you support Saskatchewan’s balanced billing?

Mr. Martel: There is less than three per cent in there. They are so far ahead of us it is not even funny, Larry.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Do you support their system?

Mr. Warner: You will never catch up.

Mr. Martel: I was amazed to read in the last couple of weeks a letter from Dr. Vail. I thought he was just blaming the NDP. I thought, “Here’s a Tory,” but I learned lo and behold, the other night that Dr. Vail is a Liberal. I couldn’t understand why he was just kicking the hell out of us. I thought he was a Tory and, like most doctors, kicked the hell out of us, but I found out he was a Liberal.

I want to ask if anyone in this House recalls this statement being made: “If the marketplace, to which the Premier refers, is insufficient to overcome this 30 per cent differential in the two fee schedules, and it seems as though that will be approximately what the difference is, would the minister consider making the marketplace truly effective by either eliminating the opting-out provision or more importantly, by including the non-reimbursement by OHIP of those patients who chose to go to opted-out physicians?” Do members know who asked that question?

Mr. Laughren: Who said that?

Mr. Martel: That was in the House.

Mr. Laughren: Tell us who said it.

Mr. Martel: It was the Leader of the Opposition. It is in Hansard, April 14, 1978.

Mr. Cassidy: What a flip-flop.

Mr. Martel: We have Dr. Vail sending letters to everyone in the province saying:

“Look at the NDP; they’re after you,” while there’s the Leader of the Opposition saying, “You can’t opt out or, if you do opt out you’ll have to collect all your money yourself.”

Mr. Laughren: He is still saying that.

Mr. Martel: Isn’t that an interesting question? Maybe somebody would send a copy of that to Dr. Vail and to all the doctors in the province.

Mr. Laughren: Is he still saying that?

Mr. Martel: No, of course not. The other thing I wanted to mention is the $50,000,000 budget cut that was recommended from that side last year.

Mr. Laughren: The Liberal side, that is.

Mr. Martel: The Liberal side. Last year they were going to save the province $50,000,000 in the health budget. Nobody ever asked them where they were going to cut. If they were going to cut $50,000,000 last year, that wouldn’t be in this year’s budget and, with a four or five per cent increase where would we be this year, if that party had got its way?

When all of these people go around wagging their finger and saying it’s the NDP, I want to tell them we’re trying to save the universality of this plan.

Mr. Nixon: Goodbye socialism.

Mr. Martel: That’s what you said before Thursday’s by-election.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Right, and you dropped 20 per cent.

Mr. Martel: Those two seats will be filled by New Democrats.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: What about Chatham? There was a landslide there.

Mr. Martel: What happened in Chatham? Where was the landslide there? You slid all right, you slid in the mud.

I want to tell the honourable members that for sheer hypocrisy that group has got it all. They wanted a $50,000,000 cut in the budget, though they didn’t say where. That would have given a further shortfall this year, if we had gone that route. They wanted the opting-out clause totally removed or not to allow doctors to bill OHIP. That’s just unacceptable. I wish somebody would send a copy, as I said earlier, to Dr. Vail to let him know the Liberal position.

Mr. Nixon: Why don’t you send it? You’re always sending out letters.

Mr. Martel: I don’t send anything out. If the member wants to give me Dr. Vail’s address, I’ll send him the letter and Hansard.

I’ve heard many speakers in the last week on this side of the House say that they’re tired of this government. If they want an opportunity to get rid of it, I urge them to join us in the vote today.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I think we can probably divide the time remaining. I will be cutting short some of my comments as did the member for Sudbury East, and perhaps the Premier will be able to cut his short as well. I notice he hasn’t been in since the bomb scare. No doubt he and his platoon of writers are feverishly trying to work out some defence of the indefensible, which he will bring in hot off the mimeograph machine when he has it completed.

I am of the opinion that the irrelevancy of this debate is pretty much apparent to everyone anyway, and I say that with a very heavy feeling in my heart and mind. As a matter of fact, for most of the hour that the member for Sudbury East was speaking we did not have a quorum. Keeping careful count, there were at one stage only four NDP members present and only about three in the government benches, without a cabinet minister except our good friend formerly from Cochrane, who in that respect doesn’t really count -- except as a gentleman, when he will always count.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: And two Liberals.

Ms. Foulds: And two Liberals.

Mr. Nixon: So the idea that what is presented in this debate is of some momentous importance really is something that disappeared, if not this year, maybe several years ago.

Mr. Foulds: Probably because the Premier never attends.

Mr. Nixon: I think it should be a tremendous responsibility on all of us, including the House leaders -- I say to the member for Sudbury East, and the House leader for the government (Mr. Welch), who has now departed -- that we can surely organize ourselves so that this debate returns to being one of the more important ones the legislative session would have.

I would suggest as follows: On the completion of Her Honour’s speech, we set aside the first day immediately for the leaders of the three parties, including the leader of the government. There’s no reason why we couldn’t do this. It’s not necessary for an elaborate presentation, since the leaders have the responsibility to put forward in broad terms the alternatives they and their parties are offering to the electorate and the taxpayers.

We could devise a time and maybe could have an agreement sealed in blood so that no one is going to take advantage of the other. The honourable members could be sure we would see there would be no committee meetings, and heaven help the private member who would not be interested enough to attend and listen. We would hope some of the press people would be hanging on the gallery -- let’s say hanging on the railings of the galleries; we will hang them another way some other time. It can be made an event.

I would further suggest we could limit the speeches of private members, such as I myself and the honourable member who has just completed, perhaps to 20 minutes. Once again, we could arrange the work in the Legislature so there is no reason for the members not to be in attendance.

If we have to rely on our whips to see the men and women who are elected are here to listen to the views expressed by the honorific members in a limited debate, we can certainly do so. This ought to be an occasion where, in general terms, we not only put the party alternatives but listen to the problems that have been brought forward and will be brought forward by private members.

There are not many members of this House who know anything, or give a damn, about the mining tax. Whate