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March 31, 1976

30th Parliament, 3rd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L021 - Wed 31 Mar 1976 / Mer 31 mar 1976

POINT OF PRIVILEGE

GAINS INCREASES

RENT REVIEW

HOSPITAL CLOSINGS

HOSPITAL CLOSINGS

CHEDOKE HOSPITAL

INFLUENZA VACCINATIONS

BENEFITS INCREASES

INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE

FUNDS WITHHELD FROM HOSPITALS

USE OF COAL BY HYDRO

PROPOSED PLAN FOR ONTARIO

PAYMENT TO DRAKE PERSONNEL

TRAINING OF MINERS

MINAKI LODGE

LAYOFFS OF WORKERS

FALCONBRIDGE SMELTER EMISSIONS

HOSPITAL CLOSINGS

TEACHER-BOARD DISPUTES

BROWNDALE OPERATIONS

DAYCARE OPERATIONS OF CHILDREN’S AID SOCIETIES

MOSQUITO CONTROL

ABORTION REFERRAL REGISTRATION ACT

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Speaker: Before entering upon the business of the day, I know that the House will wish to welcome a distinguished parliamentary visitor in the person of Sir Robin Vanderfelt, the Secretary General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Sir Robin is in Canada for consultations with Premier Regan of Nova Scotia in his capacity of chairman of the executive committee of CPA, and to meet with officials of the Canadian area of the association. Sir Robin is seated in Mr. Speaker’s gallery.

May I also at this time just draw attention to the note which should be on your desks -- I presume it is -- about an event that will take place around 5 o’clock this afternoon. We’d like to see as many of you as possible. In connection with that, the magazine which is referred to there, the Parliamentarian, is available in somewhat limited numbers at the entrance to the chamber.

POINT OF PRIVILEGE

Ms. Gigantes: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of privilege as a member of this Legislature, and I seek your guidance. I would like to know how the members of this Legislature can transmit to the Ombudsman’s office a request to have made available to the members of the Legislature a report on the Ottawa-Carleton Regional Detention Centre and conditions there. The report has been available for several weeks at the Ombudsman’s office, and I seek your guidance, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps your help in expressing to the Ombudsman’s office our desire to have that report brought before the House.

Mr. Speaker: I’m not familiar with the report. I shall look into it and take whatever action I deem to be necessary. Thank you.

Statements by the ministry.

GAINS INCREASES

Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise members that effective April 1, Ontario GAINS income guarantees are being increased to $269.30 per month for single pensioners and to $538.60 per month for married couples, where both spouses qualify for GAINS.

The purpose of these adjustments is to ensure that increases in federal payments resulting from the indexing of old age security pensions and guaranteed income supplements are fully passed on to Ontario’s GAINS recipients. Provincial GAINS payments will not be materially changed at this time. Thus, Ontario’s maximum monthly GAINS payment to single pensioners will remain at $38.88; while the maximum for couples will be increased nominally by 40 cents to $99.04 per month in order to round up federal OAS/GIS payments.

However, for the more than 6,000 GAINS recipients who do not qualify for federal OAS/GIS, Ontario’s GAINS cheques will be increased by the full amounts of $4.30 and $8.60 per month for singles and married couples respectively in line with the increase in overall income guarantee levels.

Members will recall that, in addition to routinely passing on changes in federal OAS/GIS payments, the province has also regularly increased its own GAINS cheques to compensate for cost-of-living increases. Most recently, maximum monthly GAINS cheques were increased in October, 1975 by $6.02 for singles and $12.60 for couples; while in January, 1976 they were increased by $2.85 for singles and $6.28 for couples.

In

summary, the maximum income guarantee level will be raised in April to $3,231 per year for singles from $2,600 when the GAINS programme was introduced in July, 1974 and to $6,462 for married couples from the original level of $5,200. Over the same period, the number of elderly people benefiting from the GAINS programme has increased from 258,000 to approximately 282,000.

The increases in federal and Ontario payments since the introduction of the GAINS programme in July, 1974 have worked well to protect the elderly from the effects of inflation. We will, of course, continue to review the guaranteed income levels on a regular basis to ensure their continuing adequacy.

RENT REVIEW

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Yesterday while answering a question from the member for Kitchener (Mr. Breithaupt) dealing with rent review, I told the House that so far no appeals have been filed with the Residential Premises Rent Review Board. Since answering that question, on returning to my office yesterday, it came to my attention that in fact four appeals have been lodged by landlords with the board. To the best of my knowledge, no appeals have been filed by tenants at this time.

I just wanted to apologize to the House if my earlier statement was in any way misleading.

HOSPITAL CLOSINGS

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to report to the House on the status of the appeals which have been heard by the Premier (Mr. Davis), the Minister of Health (Mr. F. S. Miller) and by myself with respect to the hospitals slated for closing on April 1.

Clearly, since many of the appeals have been received within the past few days, the April 1 closing date previewed at the outset of the programme would be unfair. When the decisions on the appeals are announced, effective dates will also be announced. The closing date of April 1 for the hospitals at Kemptville, Virgil, Bobcaygeon and Copper Cliff stands. The Ministry of Health is now working with these hospitals to ensure appropriate wind-down procedures and caseload transfer.

However, in order for justice to be done to the constructive and informative appeal briefs which have been presented to the government, and in order to discharge responsibly the commitment made by the Minister of Health to the right of appeal, all figures and counter-proposals are being examined very carefully. I might say that, in some cases, the proposals indicate a preparedness to curtail operations or to modify the nature of service offered that is indeed worthy of very careful scrutiny.

The Ministry of Health is pursuing the examination of these appeals with the Premier in an open and positive fashion towards the goal of overall improvement of health delivery in Ontario as set by this government. Despite what may be implied by newspaper reports, the government has not altered any decisions made with respect to any institutions slated for closing. What is indeed taking place is a careful and open-minded review of the briefs which have been presented, with a view to preparing a decision within the next few days.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. S. Smith: If you had done that in the first place, you would have got the comments at the beginning.

Mr. Speaker: Before I call the next order of business, I would like to point out to the House that we also have another parliamentary visitor with us today from one of our sister Commonwealth countries in the person of Mr. Jack Slater, MP for the Gillis constituency, House of Assembly in South Australia, who is seated under the Speaker’s gallery.

Oral questions. The hon. member for Wentworth.

HOSPITAL CLOSINGS

Ms. Deans: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the acting Minister of Health -- in fact, I have two or three questions.

Would the minister be able to explain to the House whether the statements that appeared in today’s press and which seem to indicate that the government is prepared to consider alternative uses for Doctors Hospital -- and I hope that I can assume for all other hospitals -- are true; whether the opportunity to provide alternatives will also be made available to all of the other hospitals which are being told that they must close their doors or eliminate their active treatment beds, and how is she going to manage to save the money that she’s talking about saving if she is going to allow the change to take place so that it becomes something other than active treatment but is still to be kept in use?

What does she have in mind, in other words?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, certainly those hospitals which have appealed for their varied reasons the closures as active treatment institutions must be given the right to have those appeals heard. Their briefs are being heard and they are being read very carefully. There are alternatives which can be, in fact, utilized in some of those institutions and some of them are very reasonable I would think.

The major cost to the health care delivery system in this province is the acute general hospital cost and it is that cost that we are attempting to minimize. There are reasonable alternatives which cost very much less, which perhaps some of these institutions might, in fact, be put to.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question: Doesn’t the minister feel that it might have been more appropriate to have done an evaluation of the health care delivery system of the Province of Ontario with an eye to finding out what those alternatives were and how they could be implemented, rather than disrupting entire communities with this threat of closing?

Hon. B. Stephenson: As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I would doubt that any other jurisdiction in the world has had as many surveys of its health care system as this jurisdiction has. We have a great deal of information about it --

Mr. Reid: How could you make so many mistakes then?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. B. Stephenson: -- a great deal of in- formation about it, and that information has all been utilized in the decisions which were taken.

Mr. Cassidy: That doesn’t stack up. That’s nonsense.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Davidson: Your surveys are wrong.

Mr. Deans: If the ministry has already conducted the surveys and if the information has been considered, what new information does the minister now have then that makes the ministry believe that it is possible to change the use to which those hospitals are currently being put in order to keep them in service? Will the minister please show us what rationale she has for either changing her mind, whether you are prepared to extend the same benefits to all other areas, and how it is that we are going to be able to come to conclusions different from the conclusions which she claims she already has reached?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member would care to look at various reports which have come from committees of the Ministry of Health --

Mr. Makarchuk: Particularly from Gallup.

Hon. B. Stephenson: -- from the council of health of the Province of Ontario over the last several years, he will find that those suggestions have been put to institutions in the past. It is, unfortunately, only under severe pressure that boards of governors of hospitals apparently are willing to consider this kind of alternative.

Mr. Angus: You’ve never tried, how do you know?

Interjections.

Hon. B. Stephenson: However, we do have a surplus of active treatment beds in the Province of Ontario related to any other jurisdiction and this must, in fact, be reduced if we are to make the kinds of modifications which will improve our health care system.

Mr. Roy: Why did you build the beds in the first place?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, the member for Hamilton West with a supplementary.

Mr. S. Smith: Could the acting minister kindly give us the facts on which she bases the somewhat slanderous statement that hospital boards of governors would otherwise be unprepared to make constructive suggestions? How does she know if she has never asked them? When she finally asked them they were, in her words, “very constructive.”

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, this is not a debate.

Mr. S. Smith: What are the facts?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, the suggestion has been made rather forcefully upon occasion over the past decade to many of them and --

Mr. S. Smith: Oh, come off it.

Hon. B. Stephenson: -- unfortunately some of them have not considered it. There are institutions --

Mr. Singer: Oh, come on.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Listen to the answer.

Mr. Cassidy: That is balderdash.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, there are institutions in this province where, in fact, those suggestions have been taken up. One of the institutions happens to be Chedoke, as a matter of fact, in Hamilton.

Mr. Deans: Are you still closing it?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, that is a specious remark and the member from the New Democratic Party knows it because we met with him the other day and discussed the problem with him.

Mr. Deans: Nonsense.

Mr. Warner: Did you say inaccurate?

Mr. Speaker: Order, order.

Hon. B. Stephenson: No decision has been taken at the moment on that situation.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. We will have a final supplementary on this question from the member for Huron-Bruce.

[2:15]

Mr. Gaunt: Since the deadline of April 1 has been postponed, does the acting minister have a new deadline in mind with respect to the Clinton Public Hospital closing and will the decision with respect to that institution involve alternate uses?

Hon. B. Stephenson: I had hoped that I had made clear in my statement that the statement was in reference to all of the four institutions whose appeals we are considering at the moment. When the decision is made, the effective dates will be announced as well.

Mr. Roy: May I have a supplementary?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I said that was a final supplementary. It is developing into a debate. I will call for a new question from the member for Wentworth.

Mr. Roy: How do you arrive at your decision on supplementaries?

Mr. Deans: You will get another chance. Wait a second.

Mr. McNeil: Be around once in a while and you will know what is going on.

Mr. Reid: There is a new rule for every question.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

CHEDOKE HOSPITAL

Mr. Deans: I have a question for the acting Minister of Health related to the same matter: Can the minister provide the rationale for her own statement that one of the hospitals that did in fact comply and attempt to comply with the suggestions of the ministry was Chedoke and that the ministry still went ahead in spite of their efforts and tried to close the beds?

Hon. B. Stephenson: I think that that is misrepresentation because we did not try to close the beds. The letter was sent as a suggestion because we did not have any other suggestions from the district health council at that time. The decision has been made to ask the district health council to make recommendations to the ministry to resolve this dilemma for the Hamilton bed situation, and we are hoping that they will do that on behalf of the citizens of that area.

Mr. Cassidy: Can the minister explain why she now says that? Hospital boards of governors have been ignoring ministry advice for the past 10 years.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Cassidy: Then will she say why the government has approved so many thousands of beds?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Will the hon. member take his seat? Does the member for Wentworth have further questions?

INFLUENZA VACCINATIONS

Mr. Deans: Yes, I have another question for the acting Minister of Health. Can the minister indicate what discussions have taken place between her ministry and the federal Ministry of Health with regard to the inoculations for swine flu? Can she indicate the rationale that is going to be used by this province in terms of who are going to receive the inoculations, how they are going to be administered and how they are going to be paid for?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, discussions are still taking place regarding this matter but it has been a federal-provincial decision that the federal government will be responsible for securing the vaccine. The federal government will provide for the provinces all the vaccine which it can acquire. It depends entirely upon the amount which is available to the Province of Ontario and other provinces, I would presume, but certainly to this province, which people will be inoculated.

If we have enough to inoculate the entire population, then I would propose that we should do so, with the reservation that those who are allergic to vaccines produced on egg yolk would not be inoculated or would be inoculated in a different fashion. If we do not have sufficient vaccine to inoculate the entire population, it is proposed that those people who would be most highly at risk will be inoculated and we propose to use the health units throughout the province to do so.

Mr. Deans: Supplementary question: Does the ministry intend to have a fee attached to this? It was indicated this morning that the federal government thought the costs might range between 60 cents and $1 per inoculation. Is it the intention of the Province of Ontario to recover that directly through OHIP or is it going to be provided free?

Hon. B. Stephenson: That decision has not as yet been made. We are hoping, as I said, to use the services of the health units to provide the vaccine so that there should be no fee for the inoculation procedure itself. For the material, the decision has not been made.

Mr. S. Smith: Will the minister tell us will the vaccine contain immunization against types A and B viruses as well as swine flu, as we have been advised by some experts would be desirable?

Hon. B. Stephenson: There are two vaccines available and it depends, I suppose, on which is going to be more readily available to us. There will be a monovalent and a polyvalent vaccine available. It is hoped that those people at very high risk at least would acquire the polyvalent vaccine. Those at lower risk might acquire the monovalent vaccine.

BENEFITS INCREASES

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Community and Social Services, if I may, flowing from the statement of the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen). Is it the intention of the Ministry of Community and Social Services to make adjustments to the social family service benefits paid and to the general welfare assistance provided similar to those which are currently being made by the Ministry of Revenue for those under the GAINS programme?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: We have no plans at this time to do that.

Mr. Deans: Supplementary question. Might I ask the minister how he proposes that people --

Mrs. Campbell: Send them to work.

Mr. Deans: -- in receipt of those benefits, the disabled and others, are going to be able to meet the rising costs of living in the Province of Ontario?

Mr. Bounsall: They’re behind now.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: As the member knows, there has been a difference in rates. At one time they were kept parallel; that has lapsed and the intention isn’t to keep those two rates consistent.

Mr. Speaker: Further questions?

Mr. Deans: One supplementary: Does the minister feel that somehow or other the disabled and others in the Province of Ontario don’t feel the effects of the inflation?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: As the hon. member knows, the rate he is talking about, in terms of increases, certainly from the federal government, are geared to the cost of living index and they become automatic.

Mr. Deans: That’s what GAINS was supposed to do.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: All right. It’s not based on need. Our programmes are based on needs testing, so total income is taken into consideration in terms of supplementation.

Mr. Deans: Is the ministry ready to make adjustments?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: We have no plans at this time.

INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Mr. Deans: I have one final question of the Minister of Colleges and Universities. Can the minister indicate whether he has yet looked into the whole matter of the investment of capital by the president and his assistant at the Seneca College? Does he feel it appropriate that colleges, funded almost entirely, if not entirely, out of public funds, should be permitted to invest those public funds as they see fit? And does he think that perhaps some investigation of the matter might be carried out to determine whether or not it ought to be followed in this province?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I’m prepared to say to the hon. member that a statement in greater depth will be made shortly on that particular question. I replied in

part last week to a similar question. I would like to refrain, in fact I will not answer in greater detail at this time; but I will, in the next week, give a more detailed answer to the member’s question.

Mr. Deans: By way of supplementary: Is the minister able to indicate, as a matter of policy, whether he deems it appropriate for public institutions to use public tax dollars to invest at the whim of the president and his helper?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: No, I don’t think public funds should be invested at the whim of the president or his administration, but I think there are some positive rules established and perhaps in the not too distant future we will be able to identify more positive guidelines in this respect.

At the moment, from any information I have, there is no doubt there is no mishandling of those funds. I think the amounts are adequate, not in excess of what is required in the way of surplus. There might be individual colleges with perhaps a larger share than some of the others. if one views the system in total, I’m quite convinced those funds are only a normal and adequate amount to handle the liabilities they could expect to have.

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Is this a supplementary? The member for Kitchener-Wilmot.

Mr. Sweeney: Is the minister aware of the fact that the figure quoted last week of an excess of $2 million, in the most recent statement is now $3.4 million; and that that represents about 15 per cent of the budget of that particular college?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Yes, I’m fully aware of all the facts and figures. As I indicated earlier, I’ll make a more extensive statement in the next week or so.

Mr. Speaker: Final supplementary, the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere.

Mr. Warner: Is the minister aware that while the college has been accumulating more than $200,000 a year in interest, seven faculty members have been fired as of September of 1976 from the diploma nursing programme?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think it would be quite unfair to relate those two particular events. There are some very definite problems with the number of nurses who are needed in this province.

Mr. Davidson: As a result of your policies.

Mr. Speaker: Order, order.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: It made good sense to ask the community colleges to reduce the number of people that they are accepting into their programme. I think the member would agree with me that right now there is a very considerable surplus in the number of qualified nurses in this province.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I fail to see where that was a supplementary to the first question; I didn’t get the portent of it earlier.

FUNDS WITHHELD FROM HOSPITALS

Mr. S. Smith: Another question for the acting Minister of Health. It’s her day today.

Mr. Foulds: lit was her day yesterday.

Mr. Martel: Out playing tennis?

Mr. S. Smith: Would she confirm a claim made by the Ontario Hospital Association that $16 million was being withheld from hospitals over the past two months because of insufficient funds. When will she make up this shortfall?

Hon. B. Stephenson: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I can’t confirm that claim because I do not have that information. I shall investigate, however.

Mr. S. Smith: I will undertake to send the information to the minister.

USE OF COAL BY HYDRO

Mr. S. Smith: A question of the Minister of the Environment: Will the minister table this government’s copy of the letter by the federal Deputy Minister of the Environment expressing concern about Hydro’s plans to continue burning coal to produce energy for export to the United States?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I understand, Mr. Speaker, that that letter went to the National Energy Board. I don’t imagine there is any problem in getting a copy of it, and if I do I will table it. All I would want to say at this time is that Hydro has been importing low sulphur coal from the United States for a number of years, and it isn’t for the prime purpose of exporting hydro to the United States. This is to supplement high sulphur coal that is used from Canadian sources so that our ambient air quality standards can be met.

Mr. S. Smith: Supplementary: Is the minister in disagreement with the views of his director of the environmental protection service who gave the opinion that the environment would be poisoned unnecessarily if the exports are approved? It’s the minister’s own director who said that.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: That was an official of Environment Canada.

Mr. Roy: Supplementary: Doesn’t he feel himself, as Minister of the Environment, some concern about the fact that we are importing coal, burning it here, and polluting this area to export electricity to the US? As a principle, doesn’t he sort of have concern about that for the future?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the hon. member how he would fire a coal-generating plant unless he used coal, and we are using the highest grade coal to do just that.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Hamilton West, further questions.

Mr. Roy: That got you excited. That woke you up did it, Bill?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have been here for two weeks, where have you been?

Mr. Roy: I finally woke you up over there.

Mr. S. Smith: They’re being very provocative, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. S. Smith: I will try to involve the Treasurer in something more constructive, Mr. Speaker. I will ask him a question so that he doesn’t have to be out of order in his answers.

PROPOSED PLAN FOR ONTARIO

Mr. S. Smith: Will the Treasurer confirm that a proposed plan for Ontario will be released next week?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: No, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Roy: Oh, you are a real genius.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, order. Supplementary question.

Mr. S. Smith: Supplementary: Will the plan that has been referred to in the newspapers, of which the Treasurer I am sure is aware, just be another vague strategy such as the Toronto-centred region plan which is now 10 years old, or will it in fact be a real land-use plan with mechanisms for implementation?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, if, as and when these plans are tabled we will know those answers.

Mr. Roy: Are you proud of him, Bill?

Mr. S. Smith: This is another supplementary. These answers of course are very helpful, Mr. Speaker, and I would love to hear more of them. Will the plans supersede or elaborate upon the COLUC report?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, the world will unfold as it will and we will know that next week.

Interjections.

Mr. S. Smith: That’s beautiful; I really like that one. In fact, you should patent that, that’s very original.

[2:30]

PAYMENT TO DRAKE PERSONNEL

Mr. S. Smith: A question for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations: Having had two weeks now to find out the answer, would the minister inform this House just how much is being paid to Drake Personnel for the hiring and paying of the rent review personnel? Will the minister tell us the terms of this contract?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, the contract was entered into by the Chairman of Management Board and I believe he has that information.

Mr. S. Smith: May I redirect it, please, to the Chairman of Management Board?

Hon. Mr. Auld: I’m just looking for it.

Mr. Reid: There goes the question period.

Mr. Nixon: Get out the marbles.

Mr. Reid: You just happen to have a 12-page document.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I just happen to have it here.

Mr. Nixon: He said “how much money?”

Mr. S. Smith: We don’t have the time to waste.

Mr. Speaker: I presume the hon. minister is going to start on page 2?

Mr. Reid: From one we get nothing; from the other, we get too much.

Mr. Roy: Can we revert to statements?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please; let’s get on with the answer.

Hon. Mr. Auld: On Dec. 9, 1975 --

Mr. S. Smith: Please table it; we don’t mind if he wants to table it. I don’t want to ruin the whole question period with this sort of farce, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Ruston: Time up, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I ask the hon. minister if it is a lengthy answer?

Mr. Reid: If it is the minister’s, it has to be lengthy.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member from Hamilton West indicated he would be happy with tabling it if it is lengthy.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It is obviously not of public importance or you never would have asked.

Mr. S. Smith: The way it is being treated is farcical, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I will attempt to give a synopsis and table the whole report.

Mr. Speaker: It is obviously an important question so we will hear the answer at least.

Hon. Mr. Auld: On Dec. 15, 1975, tender proposals were sent to three firms which were recommended by the Association of Professional Placement Agencies as having the capability to meet the province-wide requirements of the rent review programme. Only two of them tendered.

Mr. S. Smith: I didn’t ask if there were tenders. I have just said, Mr. Speaker, that the question was how much is being paid? It is a simple question.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. It’s too early to tell yet.

Hon. Mr. Auld: The contract called for the provision of 277 trained clerical stenographers, typists, clerks, other support personnel and administrative officers --

Mr. S. Smith: And they all lived together in a candy house in a forest.

Hon. Mr. Auld: -- with salaries and wages equal to equivalent positions in the civil service plus 11.8 per cent for employee benefits and for replacements of those who came and then left.

Mr. Singer: That still wasn’t the question.

Hon. Mr. Auld: The contract total is in the amount of $1.6 million; approximately $416,000 or 34 per cent of the total salary cost represents charges for employee benefits and the service fee. The service fee alone represents 22 per cent and that service fee covers all the personnel costs of administering this group.

Mr. Singer: How much was that?

Hon. Mr. Auld: The only administration paid by the government is the head office clerk. I will table the entire report.

Mr. S. Smith: Was it $350,000? Approximately?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Deans: Supplementary: Would the Chairman of Management Board care to explain to the House why we didn’t use the offices of Canada Manpower?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Yes, indeed, because Canada Manpower can supply personnel but not offices, office furniture and administration of that personnel; nor the actual interviewing of staff, and the replacement of them if they didn’t turn out to be effective.

Mr. Deans: Office furniture?

Interjections:

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Is that the answer?

Mr. Singer: Supplementary: Mr. Speaker, can the minister explain to us why he spent $352,000 and did not avail himself of the personnel services of the Province of Ontario and save that money?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, to employ people in all parts of the province through the central office of the Civil Service Commission would not be possible. The personnel departments of all the ministries are in Toronto, and they don’t have to hire overnight about 300 people.

Mr. Nixon: I thought that is what they were there for.

Mr. R. S. Smith: How does the minister know?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. We will have a final supplementary from the member for Windsor-Sandwich.

Mr. Bounsall: Mr. Speaker, can the Chairman of the Management Board tell us why Drake Personnel was not asked in its hiring to contact the local Canada Manpower offices for referrals from them which, in many cases, was not done -- certainly in Windsor -- or to place a specific ad --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I believe the question was asked.

Mr. Bounsall: -- for rent control officers rather than the general ad which was placed?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, one of the specifications in the tender call was that the personnel provided will be recruited in accordance with the provisions of existing employment practices legislation which, I assume, would certainly imply to me that they would go to Manpower if they needed to.

Mr. Deans: What is the minister in charge of? Couldn’t he have got the furniture?

TRAINING OF MINERS

Mr. Germa: I have a question of the Minister of Colleges and Universities with reference to the committee inquiring into the matter of miners becoming a certified trade group. Now that the Ontario Mining Association has effectively frustrated the work of this committee, what is his next move in this regard?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Later today I had hoped to make a rather extensive statement in regard to the Speech from the Throne on the Industrial Training Council. I think matters of this nature are just prime opportunities for that industrial council to come effectively to grips with that kind of problem, and I’m sure it will do so in the not too distant future.

Mr. Martel: Supplementary: Isn’t it a fact that the ministry and the government officials were the ones who scuttled any possibility of establishing a mining certificate for miners?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I don’t believe so.

MINAKI LODGE

Mr. Reid: I have a question of the Minister of Industry and Tourism in regard to his white elephant in northwestern Ontario. Can he explain how the cost of Minaki Lodge has escalated by $3 million in the last year? Can he confirm whether or not --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Does your brother John know you are asking these questions?

Mr. Reid: -- that just the maintenance charges of the lodge, which we understand will not be opened now for at least four years, are in fact $30,000 per month? Is this part of his government’s restraint programme?

Mr. S. Smith: They catch poisoned fish, mind you.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: To answer the last part of the question first, yes, it is part of the constraint programme of the government of the Province of Ontario, that they have decided to forego the completion.

Mr. Nixon: No wonder you are so successful. That is the way you save money.

Mr. S. Smith: Close hospitals and open lodges.

Mr. Nixon: That is why taxes are going up.

Mr. Reid: You could keep a few hospital beds open that way with that money.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: It’s your time. We decided to defer the completion of the Minaki reconstruction programme in light of the constraint programme. Inasmuch as we’ve cut back in other areas in this province, we thought it was essential that we should also defer the final operation of Minaki.

As to the $3-million figure, I’m not quite sure where the member happened to arrive at that cost. It was clearly said in this House at the time we took back Minaki Lodge, that we brought it under the ownership of the Province of Ontario so that it would not fall into the hands of the first mortgagees who happened to be Americans.

Mr. Reid: They can’t afford it now.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: We clearly indicated that they would automatically have held it. Whether they could afford it or not, the fact is that they would have become heir to it because of defaults in payments on the mortgage.

Mr. Nixon: They don’t want to pay that $30,000 a month.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I indicated clearly at the time that we were going to do a refurbishing job on the lodge at a total cost in the range, in addition to the buy-back rights, of $5 million.

Mr. Davidson: Who can afford to stay there?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: As to the cost of maintaining this lodge over the next period of time, I’m not sure of the monthly cost, but we will continue to operate Pistol Point Park that is presently on site.

Mr. S. Smith: Who wants to stay there to catch poisoned fish?

Mr. Davidson: Who could afford to stay there?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Rainy River may have a supplementary.

Mr. Reid: Is the minister aware that the executive director of the tourism division is quoted as giving the $6.3-million figure? Will the minister table in this House the cost; who the contractors are; and what is being paid for this sum of money? Will he table all the costs that he has to date and will he give us an idea of when this place may be open?

Mr. Foulds: It is already on the order paper.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: First of all, on the point of $6.3 million -- I’ve answered the question in the first part of the member’s question -- clearly it cost us, to buy back and to pay off the ODC loan that was outstanding as well as the first mortgage with the American firm, in excess of $1 million. It was $1,250,000. In addition to that, I indicated to this House that we would spend $5 million in refurbishing and trying to put Minaki back into operation.

Mr. Singer: Isn’t that awful? It’s unbelievable!

Mr. Reid: But you have spent that much and it’s not open.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: That money has now been spent; that is correct, sir.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: The member is absolutely right. There is a further extension to the plan, because we said it would be a phased operation, and we have the first phase completed. We have postponed the second phase. As to tabling the figures, I shall take that under advisement.

Mr. Reid: We didn’t know you made a contract with a millionaire. A white elephant.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. A final supplementary, the member for Fort William.

Mr. Angus: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether the Minister of Industry and Tourism would now consider placing the Minaki Lodge development on the auction block to recoup the millions of dollars that the Province of Ontario spent on this project, in order that we may have some more money to spend on our hospitals and secondary industry in northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Do you want to sell it to the Americans? I thought you were a socialist.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I am the one who first said that as far as I was concerned the lodge should go back into private hands, and over the last two years we have attempted with the federal agencies, as well as our own ODC and our own ministry, to secure an outside purchaser.

Mr. Singer: They are all white elephants.

Mr. S. Smith: Everybody wants a white elephant.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: You know, I have a great deal of advice from over there and they should know a great deal about white elephants in that party, let me assure them.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, if we are to dispose --

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: -- of this particular operation, or lodge, it will have to be brought to a completion and be first in operation. I would hope that the first step to persuade it to go back into private hands is that we’ll have a private firm of hotel operators that would participate with the province at the completion date. Then, if the project obviously becomes a financial success, or can be a viable one in the private hands, it will likely go in that direction.

Mr. Reid: It will never be viable.

Interjections.

Mr. Mattel: As long as it is losing money, keep it.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

LAYOFFS OF WORKERS

Mr. Kennedy: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Labour: With reference to plant layoffs, would the minister consider requiring plants which have layoffs of fewer than 50 in number to give notification to the ministry in order that it may try to be of assistance to those people who lose their employment?

Mr. Deans: Try to be of assistance? They are creating unemployment.

Mr. Kennedy: Also, would the ministry re-examine some of the assistance that is offered to see if it can be of further help to those employees who are laid off?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, the ministry is at this time examining the termination legislation with a view to making modifications which will make it more equitable for all workers who may be laid off. There are mechanisms now which can be used in conjunction with Manpower which the ministry does, in fact, establish when the company laying off employees, or the union to which those employees belong, makes application to the ministry for that kind of assistance.

Mr. Deans: Are you going to give them jobs in the hospitals?

FALCONBRIDGE SMELTER EMISSIONS

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of “the statesman,” if I can get his attention.

Mr. Hodgson: Jealous, Elie?

Mr. Martel: Well no, there is only one in the House, and I want to recognize it.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Who, me?

Mr. Martel: On Feb. 5, I wrote to the minister concerning the conditions at Falconbridge smelter and he replied recently stating the following: “These time-weighted studies are being done in the smelter and form the basis for providing relief where and when required.”

Mr. Martel: Yes, you are the statesman. Could the minister tell me, based on the directive by Falconbridge that men cannot leave their place of work until concentrations of SO 2 have reached 15 parts per million, how that corresponds to the ministry policy of five parts per million over an eight-hour period?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I didn’t catch the first part of the member’s question. I wonder if he would repeat it?

Mr. Martel: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I wrote the minister about the conditions at Falconbridge since the layoff and the minister responded to my letter recently stating: “These time-weighted studies are being done in the smelter and form the basis for providing relief where and when required.”

Based on Falconbridge’s instructions of recent date that the men could not leave the place of work until concentrations of SO 2 gas have reached 15 parts per million, how in fact are the men supposed to know that they can leave a work place which has been overexposed, based on the fact that the ministry’s criterion is five parts per million and the company is saying they can’t get out until it is 15 parts per million?

[2:45]

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I’d be glad to look into that detail and report back to the hon. member.

Mr. Martel: Would the minister at the same time tell me when was the last time an inspection was conducted at the Falconbridge operation, for both gas and dust?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I’d be glad to get that information.

Mrs. Campbell: That’s a new question.

HOSPITAL CLOSINGS

Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, a question of the acting Minister of Health: Will the minister tell this House if there is a surplus of chronic beds in the Perth area and, further, confirm a report that attempts by the Great War Memorial Hospital in the town of Perth to get chronic beds have been thwarted?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I don’t think any attempts made by the board of that hospital have been thwarted at all. As a matter of fact, the hospital board and a committee of the ministry is examining the bed requirements and the situation in Perth at length right at the moment.

Mr. Conway: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Does it concern the acting Minister of Health that her parliamentary assistant, the member for Lanark (Mr. Wiseman) is perhaps in a position of conflict of interest, given the position of Wiseman private hospital and the chronic care bed situation there?

Hon. B. Stephenson: I am sorry; I can’t hear the member.

Mr. Speaker: No answer?

Mr. Nixon: She said she couldn’t hear.

Hon. B. Stephenson: I am sorry; I can’t hear the question, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Conway: Doesn’t it concern the minister in any way that her parliamentary assistant, the member for Lanark, given the fact that there is some family ownership in the Wiseman private hospital which is involved in chronic care beds there -- does that potential for conflict of interest concern her? Would she inform us of that?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I regret very much that any such statement has been made by a member of this Legislature --

Mr. Nixon: You mean it does not concern you?

Hon. B. Stephenson: -- about an individual who has worked diligently on behalf of the Ministry of Health and on behalf of the people of Ontario. If a conflict of interest could be construed to exist, I shall most certainly investigate it, but I really do not like the innuendo that this individual has made.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Are you going to run for leader now? You have got the qualifications.

An hon. member: He ought to apologize.

Mr. Conway: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I would simply state that because we have in this province a set of guidelines governing the conflict of interest potential on behalf of members of the ministerial bench, I thought perhaps we might be given a similar set of circumstances governing parliamentary assistants.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. That is not a point of privilege on the part of the hon. member.

Mr. Cassidy: A supplementary: In view of the minister’s answer, will the minister return to this House within a couple of days and give us a specific statement about the possible conflict of interest involved in the parliamentary assistant’s wife running a private hospital in the area?

Mr. Speaker: Any answer? The member for Port Arthur.

Mr. Cassidy: There is no answer, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Nixon: What is the matter with that?

Mr. S. Smith: The minister is closing chronic beds there, but she has some chronic beds.

Mr. Cassidy: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I realize the minister is entitled to refuse to reply but I would put on the record that the minister is refusing to reply.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. That is not a point of order.

Mr. Cassidy: Why doesn’t the minister stand up?

An hon. member: Don’t get so mad.

TEACHER-BOARD DISPUTES

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Premier: In view of the Premier’s statement yesterday in reply to a question from the leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Lewis) with regard to the Windsor and Sault Ste. Marie teacher-board negotiations, and on the understanding the cabinet considered the situations this morning, was he aware in his deliberations of a memorandum sent out March 8 by the Ontario School Trustees Council, which says:

“However, under no circumstances should a school board agree to final-offer selection or arbitration on matters that are not directly related to salaries and fringe benefits. Matters relating to the control, nature and policy of the educational programme should not be left to third party adjudication.”

Mr. S. Smith: Is this a speech or what?

Mr. Mancini: Is this a speech?

Mr. Foulds: Does the Premier not find that an obstructionist memorandum? Does the Premier not think that it could lead to bad-faith bargaining and does he not think that the ERC should look into it to see if it actually contravenes sections 3 and 9 of the School Board and Teachers’ Collective Negotiations Act?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I’m not aware of the particular document. I’d be delighted to bring it to the attention of the ERC. I sense that documents are sent out by both sides in these negotiations, perhaps even by the teaching profession from time to time, and I don’t examine these either. I’d be delighted to bring it to the attention of ERC.

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary: In view of the four or five outstanding disputes that we’ve had in the last few months, and in view of the reluctance of the trustees in these cases to go to voluntary arbitration, does the Premier not think that the government should examine --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: There’s a conflict of interest for you right there,

Mr. Foulds: -- whether or not they are involved in a concerted effort to avoid one of the legitimate routes provided for in Bill 100?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am only going by memory, but I think my memory is correct, and I mentioned it to the hon. member’s leader yesterday. I could be wrong, but I recall that the Metro Toronto school board did suggest they would go to voluntary arbitration and this was not accepted by the teaching profession. The hon. member is saying that in his view now the legislation should be amended to make voluntary arbitration in fact --

Mr. Foulds: That’s not what I said.

Hon. Ms. Davis: All right. All I’m saying is he can’t have it both ways. If he is saying that this should be really the case for both sides --

Mr. Foulds: All we want is enactment of the legislation in the way it was designed.

Hon. Ms. Davis: -- that’s tremendous, but please don’t just put it on one side, as is that party’s custom.

BROWNDALE OPERATIONS

Mr. Eakins: Mr. Speaker, to the acting Minister of Health: Will the acting minister tell the House if the audit that has been ordered into the affairs of Browndale Ontario is complete?

Hon. B. Stephenson: To my knowledge, Mr. Speaker, they are not as yet complete. When they are, I shall be pleased to report on them.

Mr. Eakins: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Will this be tabled in the House?

Hon. Mr. Stephenson: I shall most certainly report about the audit, Mr. Speaker. I shall have to check about the total report.

DAYCARE OPERATIONS OF CHILDREN’S AID SOCIETIES

Ms. Sandeman: A question of the Minister of Community and Social Services: Is the minister aware that the ceiling imposed on expenditures of Children’s Aid Societies has forced the Kawartha-Halliburton Children’s Aid Society to seriously consider closing its daycare centre? Further, would the minister assure this House that he considers daycare centres run by Children’s Aid Societies are part of the essential protective and child care services provided by the societies, and that budgetary allowance must be made for their operation?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Well, there are two parts to that.

Mrs. Campbell: That is obvious.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: In reply to the first part, no, I don’t accept that there’s going to be any deterioration of service in connection with that Children’s Aid Society or any Children’s Aid Society in this province. I may say --

Mr. Moffatt: I don’t believe it.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: -- for the information of the members, that last year the average increase of all Children’s Aid Societies --

Mr. Davidson: It’s they who are saying it.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: -- in Ontario was 22.9 per cent; in other words, almost a 23 per cent increase over the year before.

Mr. Moffatt: Who is this guy?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: This year, they will be given another 5½ per cent over last year’s funding, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deans: Whether it is adequate or not.

Interjections.

Ms. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Additionally, I am reviewing every Children’s Aid Society’s budget to ensure --

Mr. Moffatt: Answer, answer.

Mr. Makarchuk: Will somebody pull the plug on the tape?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: -- that no child will suffer because of the constraint programme. And that, of course, includes this society to which the member refers. That’s the first part of the question.

As to the second part, insofar as daycare centres are concerned, normally daycare centres that are subsidized are either operated by the municipalities themselves or else they enter into contracts with the owners --

Mr. Moffatt: He talks automatically and makes no sense.

Mr. Davidson: If the minister has a statement, please table it in the House.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: -- and operators of those Children’s Aid Societies --

An hon. member: Sit down, baldy.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: -- so that they are eligible for provincial funding.

Mrs. Campbell: If he doesn’t know the answer, surely he can be short and say so?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Again, as members know, provincial subsidies in terms of operating costs of daycare centres --

Mr. Moffat: Do you believe yourself?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: -- in this province will be about $27 million in the current fiscal year.

Ms. Sandeman: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Is it a short supplementary?

Ms. Sandeman: Yes, a very short supplementary.

Mr. Singer: Shorter than the answer.

Mr. Nixon: Ask Michael Houlton.

Ms. Sandeman: I had some difficulty following the convolutions of the answer, but I understand --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. We can’t hear the question.

Ms. Sandeman: Did I understand the minister to say that he did not consider the closing of a daycare centre to represent a deterioration of the service offered?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: No, I didn’t say that. If the member had listened, she would have heard the answer.

Mr. Deans: Well, what can you say --

Interjections.

MOSQUITO CONTROL

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of the Environment. Has the ministry yet decided which insecticide will be used in Ontario in the mosquito control programme to prevent encephalitis outbreaks this summer?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I understand the insecticide being recommended by the pesticide advisory committee is Abate.

Mr. Reid: Yes, that is the one we were going to recommend.

Mr. Gaunt: Supplementary: Could the minister tell me why the larvicides Altosid and Flit MDL were not on the ministry’s approved list because they are very safe and non-toxic to humans, even more so than Abate?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: It is my understanding, Mr. Speaker, that the application for approval of that particular larvicide wasn’t made to the advisory committee in time for this particular season -- in the event that there is any problem this season.

Really, the

article in today’s Star and the answer by Mr. Ruf would be our answer. This is information that he gets from the advisory committee and basically, as it said, Altosid is only in its testing stage and does not act on all species of mosquitoes and is not as effective as Abate.

Contrary to what the hon. member has said, Abate is considered just as safe as the other one recommended.

Mr. Speaker: The oral question period has expired.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

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

Your committee begs to report the following bills without amendment:

Bill Pr3,

An Act respecting the Borough of Scarborough;

Bill Pr4,

An Act respecting the Township of Nepean.

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

Bill Pr2,

An Act respecting the Township of Wicksteed.

Hon. Mr. Snow presented the annual report of the Ontario Highway Transport Board for the calendar year 1975.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry presented the first annual report of the Ministry of the Attorney General for the year 1974-1975 for the consideration of the House.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. There is too much background noise in the chamber. Order, please.

Mr. Cassidy: There is too much foreground nonsense as well.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. minister with a further report.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, in response to a request from the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Lewis), I am pleased to table a report of the air quality assessment of United Asbestos to which I have referred publicly on a number of occasions. I have also included a copy of my own ministry’s report which shows that the levels of asbestos fibres from that particular plant are slightly higher. The members would also be glad to know, I am sure, that the meetings at Matachewan and Kirkland Lake to which I referred publicly will take place on April 13 and 14.

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Introduction of bills.

Orders of the day -- I am sorry, there is a bill; I didn’t notice it. The hon. member for Scarborough Centre.

Mr. Mancini: Stand up, Frank.

Mr. Drea: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thought perhaps the sound system hadn’t improved since my remarks yesterday.

Mr. Speaker: And you didn’t do it any good?

ABORTION REFERRAL REGISTRATION ACT

Mr. Drea moves first reading of bill intituled,

An Act to register the Referring of Abortions.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, the bill provides for: 1. The registration of individuals charging a fee for referring individuals outside of Canada for abortion; 2. The bonding of abortion referrers; 3. The setting aside of abortion referral fees in a trust account pending the results of post-operative medical examination by the local medical officer of health of the woman who has undergone the abortion.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The first order, resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to the amendment to the motion for an address in reply to the speech of the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Mr. Speaker: I recognize the hon. Minister of Industry and Tourism.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s the $28,000 man.

[3:00]

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I shall conclude my remarks in spite of the sarcasm of the member for Ottawa Centre. That’s fine. He can keep it any way he wants it, sir.

May I continue with the programme of tourism and its development? In my concluding remarks yesterday evening, I indicated the return we are receiving in Ontario for a dollar spent and related it and compared it to the Canadian expenditure and to the Province of Quebec’s expenditure for promoting tourism. There have been some great success stories in the tourism field for us.

Last year 56 per cent of all the Americans travelling in Canada came to the Province of Ontario as the principal destination for their holiday period. That’s a remarkable increase, because in 1967 that figure was 46 per cent. Through extra expenditures and wise placing of advertising, it is now 56 per cent. We hope that in this year of the Olympics in Montreal we will retain that percentage for the Province of Ontario.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I wonder if we could have a little less noise in the House so that we could hear the hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Last year, Mr. Speaker, the Province of Ontario was fortunate to produce for the economy, through the field of tourism, $2.6 billion which is a very substantial return to the individual communities. Just short of $1 billion of these funds was from our American visitors to Ontario.

Tourism missions have been taken by our ministry to the European market on three occasions in the last two years. I can sincerely report that the success story as a result of those missions is more than worth the cost to the province that is expended by the ministry. The last mission was to England and Scotland a week ago and I am pleased to report, having discussed the situation with some of the people on the mission, that they felt after the first day or two on the mission that the journey was indeed worth their time.

We shall continue to promote tourism for central, eastern and northern Ontario.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. There are too many conversations being carried on.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: The objective in promoting tourism to northern Ontario is to try to increase its percentage of the overall expenditures in the province. At the moment we have about 18 per cent --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. There are too many conversations being carried on during the throes of this debate. Would the hon. members kindly give courtesy to the hon. minister so that he may continue his remarks?

Mr. Bullbrook: I suggest you name this fellow.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I was indicating, Mr. Speaker, that the objective of the ministry between now and 1980 is to try to increase the revenue position of the overall tourist market for northern Ontario from its present 18 per cent to a 26 per cent level, and we believe that can be achieved.

Let me for a moment just mention that we have gone along with the government’s programme of decentralization from the city of Toronto and Queen’s Park to try to offer our services in the various areas of the province. Over the last three years we have been fortunate enough to establish 21 field offices in this province which we believe now serve the individual communities on a much more sophisticated basis than we could achieve from a central point here in the city.

Mr. Cassidy: Nothing has been achieved from that.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: While some people say nothing has been achieved, I would suggest that if one would open his eyes and look around, he might find there has been a fair amount of achievement even in eastern Ontario as well as in the northern part of our province. When one does not want to look at the situation openly --

Mr. Cassidy: Talk to Smiths Falls about that They are beside themselves trying to get assistance.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Smiths Falls has had the assistance of this ministry and if the member would just listen for a moment, we are also assisting the people in the field of opening up their new municipal industrial park.

Mr. Cassidy: They weep when they come to Toronto. There is more industry along a mile of the 401 than in all of eastern Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: There is no doubt that there are certain advantages along 401. That’s why we have some incentive programmes in our ministry, to try to encourage industry to locate in various parts of the province where not all of the services are as conveniently located as one might find in this part of our province.

Mr. Cassidy: But those programmes aren’t working.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Very clearly the programmes have been working. Municipalities have been applying for them and I will give the member the facts and figures.

Five hundred and seven industries last year made application for and received financial assistance through the loan programmes of NODC, ODC and EODC for a total of $89 million, a sum far exceeding anything we have had in the years prior to this. May I say that over $22 million went into the tourism field to develop and enhance that programme, something we have never achieved before. I think it’s a step in the right direction. Eastern Ontario and northern Ontario were the two parts of the province which principally received those funds, and I think it speaks well for the interest of those communities in developing their industrial programmes and getting on with creating meaningful employment.

Mr. Cassidy: Does six per cent unemployment represent success?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, at the moment we are in the process of implementing the completion of the programme for municipal industrial parks under the Ontario Land Corp. and with the Ontario Development Corp. I am pleased to report that at this stage there have been some 40 applications by municipalities across the Province of Ontario. The incentive, of course, as was clearly indicated in the time of the legislation, will be that in the first year there will be no interest charged and the amount of interest charged in the second, third, fourth and fifth years will increase proportionately.

The interest rate has yet to be established, but I hope that will be achieved this afternoon at a Management Board meeting that we are having.

I say to the members of the Legislature that there are many programmes within the ministry that have been functioning extremely well. Trade conditions have changed in the world and are continuing to change. We have to be able to modify our programmes that would be compatible with the federal programmes so that they might succeed in moving Canadian products out of the Province of Ontario into foreign markets and so that we can succeed in luring new industries from other countries of the world to relocate in the Province of Ontario. That is going to be one of our principal objectives.

As I said last evening, another key point at this stage of the game in the field of trading is to put together turnkey operations so that we can sell completely Canadian packages. And I use the word “Canadian,” because while a great deal of the content of goods in any package being sold by Canadians comes from the Province of Ontario, if we are going to be successful we’re going to have to blend together all of the industries and capabilities that are at our fingertips here in Canada.

Mr. Cassidy: Does six per cent unemployment represent success?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, the question has been clearly placed, does six per cent unemployment indicate a success story? I would trust that the member who spoke would use a little more good judgement, if he has any, and consider the fact that six per cent is not an unusual figure at this time in world terms. If we look around the world, we see unemployment situations in England, France and other countries; there is a world economic situation that Ontario is not going to change alone.

Mr. Cassidy: And we have one of the highest rates in the industrial world.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: But we certainly can contribute to changing it by the constraint programme that this government has brought in; and with a little bit of encouragement by certain people in the community for people to work towards achieving those goals, maybe we can turn the economic situation of this province around and thereby also enhance the employment opportunities at this time and move down the road. But it’s not all going to be accomplished in one night.

Mr. Cassidy: But you’ve had 32 years to turn the situation around.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: May I say that if we’re going to look at the last 30 years, maybe we should look at the low points of unemployment. Economics have trends up and down; governments for years have tried to find ways to level them out, and not with the greatest degree of success that they would like.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s what we’re saying.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: We’re going through one such period at the moment, and I’m sure that we shall be successful, because we have people in this party and in this government who are prepared to apply themselves to the challenge at hand to bring things back into line.

Mr. Cassidy: The long-term rate of unemployment keeps going up under your government.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I conclude my remarks by saying that I am very much aware of the fact that there is an unemployment situation in the Province of Ontario and in Canada. I also am aware of the fact that through the loan programmes and the incentive programmes of this government we have been able to lure new industry into the Province of Ontario and to find employment for roughly 125,000 new bodies on the market annually over the last five years. That’s an accomplishment.

Mr. Cassidy: New bodies?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Employment for bodies, yes.

Mr. Cassidy: Do you mean men and women?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Sure, he can sit there and laugh. He wouldn’t know what it is to work, because he has never had to go out and work; he has lived from the public trough all his life.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, the member is clearly upset. Would he withdraw that remark, because I’ve obviously worked in the private sector for many years before coming to work in the Ontario Legislature?

Mr. Germa: How about selling insurance?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Selling insurance is a good occupation, one that the British Columbia government destroyed very nicely and one that I hope the present BC government will have enough encouragement to put back into the private hands to run it profitably, rather than having a $350-million deficit after five years.

Mr. Cassidy: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This member was drawing $50,000 a year from the public trough in his first couple of years here when he became a parliamentary assistant and was still on Ottawa city council.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister will continue.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I fully recognize the fact of what I was drawing; I’ve been through at least two elections since then, and I’m sure it has been obvious that the public has agreed I should have received that sum of money.

Mr. Cassidy: You wait until next time. You don’t have a safe seat any more.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: There’s always a next time for the hon. member too, and we’ll make sure we have the right candidate that will fix him.

Interjections.

Mr. Moffat: A contract.

Mr. Cassidy: Is that right? I’ve heard about your right candidate, and your candidate is a bum.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I know a certain party that had a great number of them in their organization.

Mr. Cassidy: Sure, the Conservatives.

Mr. Grossman: Makes them twice as good as the incumbent.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister will continue.

Mr. Bullbrook: Are you enjoying this, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. minister will continue.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I conclude my remarks by saying that we shall be putting forward new programmes in the next period of time to try to overcome some of the problems that are confronting smaller communities across the province.

Mr. Philip: More giveaways!

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I once again say that the municipalities are making great use of the municipal industrial parks programme. I hope that within the next few weeks we will have some announcements as to the parks that are being assisted by the Province of Ontario.

The Speech from the Throne carries a lot of information that is worthy of the times in the Province of Ontario. I would strongly suggest to the members of this House that it is no time for an election in Ontario at this point, and I would ask for the members to join with us in supporting the Speech from the Throne.

Mr. Roy: That wasn’t much of a speech.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: That’s okay.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Windsor-Riverside has the floor.

Interjections.

Mr. Burr: Mr. Speaker, it is customary to begin a speech in the Throne debate by a few courtesies. The only minister, apart from the one who has just spoken, who is still in the House is the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Kerr). I would like to say that we welcome him back as Minister of the Environ- merit after his recycling. It is nice to have a minister back again who is going to make the polluters pay and one who is going to swim across Hamilton Bay. in fact, I understand he tried it the other day and put his arm out of commission.

Mr. Germa: It was in the papers.

Mr. Burr: Oh, that was in the papers.

Mr. Philip: He even tried walking across it.

Mr. Burr: In the eight years I have been in this Legislature I have had some opportunity to observe the Tory mind and the typical Tory attitudes. But because all individuals are different, one from another, my remarks will not refer to any individual members of this House, although individual members, past and present, may have been instrumental in creating or reinforcing some of my impressions.

Perhaps I can best begin as follows: Let us imagine that we have taken a random cross-section sample of 100 Ontario citizens, 18 years and older, 100 citizens who are doing paid work or who need paid work or who want paid work. We would except the three large categories of homemakers or housewives, post-secondary students and those who have retired from the labour market.

Let us imagine that we could assess the employability of these 100 men and women. There would be many factors to consider in employability, such as intelligence, talent, education, training, age, experience and physical qualities, including height, weight, health and personality. It should be obvious to everyone, even to red-necked Tories --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: There is no such thing.

Mr. Burr: Maybe there aren’t many, but there are a few.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Not in this House.

Mr. Burr: Well, I have met a few.

Mr. Bain: There are not many Tories.

Mr. Burr: It should be obvious to them that in our free enterprise society roughly five per cent to seven per cent of every 100 will spend most of their lives unemployed or underemployed. Physical handicaps, mental handicaps and personality handicaps will disqualify them in the competition for employment.

It should be realized, likewise, that for every unemployed person there is probably an overemployed person or perhaps two or three overemployed persons. In Windsor, some auto workers are required to work 1,000 or more overtime hours per year. It is cheaper for the auto companies to pay overtime to fewer workers than to hire more workers and pay the fringe benefits that are required. The profit motive under which auto companies operate causes overemployment for many, while depriving able and available unemployed workers of the right to work, and forces them on welfare.

I have received complaints that hundreds of truck drivers are laid off while those kept on drive many hours beyond what is considered safe and beyond what the law actually allows. Why? It is cheaper for the companies and enables them to make more profit, but in the process it puts willing and able truck drivers on welfare.

[3:15]

In Ontario, we have finally reached the point at which we have enough well-trained nurses, enough well-trained teachers, enough well-trained social workers, enough people sufficiently trained to satisfy the various social needs of our whole society. But what happens? Because the provincial government is unwilling to tax the affluent corporations and the most affluent citizens sufficiently to keep its budgets reasonably well balanced, we have a government-imposed restraint programme that wipes out 5,000 jobs and job opportunities for trained hospital workers of all kinds, including nurses, technicians and even administrators.

Similarly, provincial government support for education is now restricted so that local school boards are contemplating scheduling larger classes and increasing teaching loads from 30 classes a week to 35. If this happens, about 15 per cent of the secondary school teachers now working will be laid off. I know of at least two secondary school teachers and one secondary school principal who taught 50 different classes a week during the hungry Thirties -- 50 different classes a week, while other trained teachers were teaching none. That was in the hungry Thirties and the trend, if followed today, may see us reaching that point again in the history of Ontario.

In the private sector, the profit motive produces overemployment for some and unemployment for others. In the public sector, Tory inability or unwillingness to raise revenue from the affluent results in overwork for some and no work for others.

The Minister of Health (Mr. F. S. Miller) has travelled around Ontario disemploying 5,000 hospital workers. He has been followed, or in some cases preceded, by the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Taylor) exhorting those on welfare, even those on mothers’ allowances, to get out and find a job. Where? At the hospitals? How? As nurses? As teachers?

Perhaps they could start a corner grocery store, without capital of course. Perhaps they could start a restaurant without capital of course. Actually, they can’t even start a home daycare operation unless they can meet certain conditions, such as building and equipping a fenced-in playground in their back yard. “Perhaps the 16-year-old son could drive a transport,” suggests the Minister of Community and Social Services. What chance has he when even high seniority drivers can get only an occasional day of driving?

My colleagues from Windsor West (Mr. Bounsall) and his predecessor, Mr. Hugh Peacock, and I myself have appealed to a succession of Tory Ministers of Labour to eliminate compulsory overtime work, to reduce the work week -- in short, to share the work. Sharing the work automatically shares the wealth. It reduces the welfare rolls, restores human dignity, prevents family disintegration and rectifies a host of other flaws in our present society. Yet the redneck Conservative, whether he is a member of this Legislature or a member of the voting public, has a simplistic view of our economic and social system.

He does not realize that in the competition for jobs as a means of earning a livelihood, only 95 out of 100 can succeed in holding a job if there are only 95 jobs available.

Only government by legislation can eliminate overemployment or shorten the work week to expand those 95 jobs into 100 jobs. Only government intervention, government enterprise and government imagination can arrange full employment.

As matters stand in Tory Ontario, there will always be about five per cent who cannot find work however hard they try, or however capable they might be. By and large, these five per cent will be the least employable. They are those who are weaker, less attractive, less educated, inadequately skilled or trained, in poorer health, suffering from some mental, physical or emotional problem, or handicapped. But to our Tory friends, they are, and always will be, ne’er-do-wells who don’t want to work and who are good for nothing.

The least employable for most of their lives will be the chronic unemployed for whom a whole range of community and social services must be established. If it weren’t for these least employable persons the present Minister of Community and Social Services would have no ministry. In a full employment society which we in this party have always advocated all but the unemployable would find a working role. They would enjoy the satisfaction of pulling their weight, of doing useful work, of making their contribution to society. They would retain or recover their dignity.

The Conservative, however, seems to be unaware that his success in life has been attained because of his own superior employability. He continually points to individuals of his acquaintance who have failed, usually because they lack qualities which he himself possesses. If one probes, these qualities turn out to be described as willingness to work, get up and go, initiative and willingness to take a chance. Your Tory who has made a success, let us say, of a restaurant, hardware store, a barber shop or any other small business rarely seems to realize that luck also played a

part in his success.

He was lucky that several other equally enterprising individuals did not decide to open in his neighbourhood two or three other restaurants, hardware stores or barber shops in competition with his. For each type of store there is usually a definitely limited amount of business. Too many stores of any kind spoil the business for all. Only those individuals with certain qualities, which may include a certain amount of ruthlessness or just plain good luck, are able to succeed in a competitive society.

Your typical Tory does not seem to realize that in a competitive society, all too often one man’s success depends upon another man’s failure. In a co-operative society, the success of one is a boon for all. Consequently, your rednecked Tory develops an attitude of contempt, sometimes approaching hatred, towards those who end up at the bottom of the social and economic heap. Certainly he has no compassion.

It may be, of course, that this supercilious attitude results, not from a lack of understanding, but from a bad conscience. Perhaps your Tory appreciates fully that our economic system by its very competitive nature ordains that some should be first and others last and that some should be praised as successful and others condemned as failures.

Perhaps his constant harping on the supposed laziness and other shortcomings of those for whom social services have become essential is just a reflection of his feeling of guilt in approving and championing a system that invariably in every continent, in every country, in every province, in every city and in every community invariably produces the same results, a group of people who have been left out or perhaps frozen out, people who have been almost entirely excluded from the benefits enjoyed by the majority of the members of our competitive, so-called free enterprise society.

Last year’s pre-election Tory tax concessions of over $592 million were almost entirely for the benefit of those who needed them least. This year’s pre-election restraints are almost entirely at the expense of those most in need of help, all those in ill health and all those requiring community and social services of various kinds.

The NDP is opposed to welfare abuse. In fact, we are opposed to welfare. We favour a full employment society in which there is no need for welfare except for the disabled and the unemployable. Blame for any cheating in or abuse of welfare must be borne by the Ontario Tory government that has permitted it. Blame for any cheating in or abuse of unemployment insurance must be borne by the federal Liberal government that has permitted it.

Mr. Reid: Nothing like individual responsibility, is there?

Mr. Burr: Blame for loopholes in unemployment insurance must be borne by the federal Liberals. A good example, or a bad example, was the subject of a news item in this morning’s Globe and Mail.

Mr. Reid: Did you hear about the last election in British Columbia?

Ms. Burr: Unemployment insurance regulations, we were told in this morning’s Globe and Mail, allow supply teachers to work a couple of days a week for a period of eight weeks and then collect as much as $95 a week for 26 weeks. If there are weaknesses and abuses in welfare and unemployment, place the blame fairly on those who drafted the legislation and enforce, or fail to enforce, that legislation. Don’t blame us.

The NDP stands ready to support any proposals for full employment which would automatically reduce welfare systems and unemployment insurance plans to a bare minimum. The Minister of Community and Social Services, during debate on supplementary estimates, said that members of this party do not believe in the work ethic. This was one of the many strange statements made in and outside this House during the week of March 15. In fact, a policeman friend of mine drew to my attention the fact that the full moon was on March 16; it may be that some of these weird statements were caused by the position of the moon.

If NDP members don’t believe in the work ethic, they certainly practice it --

Mr. Reid: This sounds like an election speech.

Mr. Burr: After considerable reflection, I have been unable to think of any NDP member, supporter or MPP with whom I have had any social, economic or philosophical discussion who ever condemned the work ethic. The only Canadian politician who ever questioned the work ethic, as far as my memory serves me, is the federal leader of the Liberal Party. He is the only one I can recall ever suggesting that work might be optional or should be optional in modern society.

Mr. Philip: In between his vacations.

Mr. Burr: The UAW, both in Canada and the United States, has repeatedly called for a reduction in the work week so that the work, and therefore the wealth, could be shared. That is an ethical attitude towards work. It is because of this government’s indifference that some truck drivers in Ontario are driving inordinately excessive hours, while many truck drivers are called in once a week or so. It is because this government has not bothered to encourage the work ethic that we have many factory workers working overtime, often seven days a week, while other workers are forced into idleness and on to welfare rolls.

Admittedly, there are a few young people who seem to have little desire to work. But the blame for this should be placed on our whole society, our whole social and economic system. If you insist on placing blame somewhere, then place it on those who have been in office, both federally and at Queen’s Park, for they at least have had the power and the opportunity to do something about promoting and fostering the work ethic.

It is in the very nature of the private enterprise system -- what my Liberal and Tory friends call the free enterprise system, and what I call the selfish enterprise system -- that some succeed and others fail. That is the way the competitive game is played. If there are to be winners, there must also be losers. Losers, especially those who lose repeatedly, become discouraged and are considered failures and, what is even more unfortunate, consider themselves failures. Very often their despair is such that they seek to escape. A few turn to crime, most turn to alcohol and, in recent years, many turn to various mood-changing drugs.

[3:30]

Mr. Philip: Some turn to politics.

Mr. Burr: Society, or at least its less sensitive members, then condemn these unfortunates for abandoning the work ethic. If you are one of these insensitive people, you are likely to join or support one of the so-called free-enterprise parties. If you understand what our competitive society does to its losers, you join or support the party that believes, not in private or selfish enterprise, but in social enterprise and in the value of co-operation rather than a competition.

It was this belief that led me during the hungry Thirties to support the formation of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. The CCF, as it name implied, was a group of people, a federation, working together, co-operating for the commonwealth or the common good. This new movement attracted support in the political field from those who were already active in social enterprises such as co-operatives and credit unions. We in the New Democratic Party and earlier in the CCF have always believed that a good society must put the emphasis on co-operation. We believe in the superiority of social enterprise as a basis for an economically stable and just society.

Recently the leader of the Liberal Party in Ontario told the press: “The NDP amendment bears no more resemblance to the NDP than the Martian party. Lewis is trying to change his political stripes, he’s trying to be a Liberal.” Let us examine the NDP amendment. Our Throne Speech amendment criticized the government for its inaction in occupational health hazards, which exist largely because of the profit motive, and for its inaction on food land disappearance, which is caused largely because of the profit motive. Because of the NDP’s belief in the work ethic, we criticized the government for failure to create jobs.

We criticized the government for its undermining and dismantling of our social service structure because we in the NDP believe that we are our brother’s keepers. We criticized the government for its disemployment of 5,000 hospital staff members, all of whom, obviously have believed and practised the work ethic. We criticized the government for failure to stimulate the building of homes because we believe that all humans should have a right to adequate shelter as well as to adequate food and clothing.

In short, our Throne Speech amendment, based on our belief in everyone’s rights to practise the work ethic and on our recognition of harmful side-effects of glorifying and practising the profit ethic, was completely consistent with our party’s theories and practices ever since its inception. Apparently the member for Hamilton West (Mr. S. Smith) entered this Legislature with some preconceived ideas about the New Democratic Party’s philosophies, for he made this bizarre statement, quoted in the Toronto Star and other papers on March 9, and I repeat it: “Lewis’s amendment bears no more resemblance to the NDP than to the Martian party.”

What does he think the NDP philosophy is? Probably he shares the simplistic view of the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Taylor) who stated in the House on March 18: “The NDP wants the government to run everything.” Ever since the NDP was formed in 1961 and for many years before that in the CCF, our party spokesmen have repeatedly and consistently stated our belief in a mixed economy for Canada, partly based on private enterprise, and partly based on social enterprise. We in this party put the greater emphasis on social enterprise; the two opposing parties put the emphasis on private enterprise.

Of course, for psychological reasons, they talk about free enterprise, which has largely perished before the onslaught of monopoly enterprise. Actually, many of us in this party would like to see free enterprise still alive in certain sections of our economy.

Service station operators, for example, were at one time free-enterprisers. They bought gasoline and sold it and, by the quality of service offered to their customers, carried on as independent businessmen, each one depending for his success largely upon his own initiative. Today, however, the service station lessees are little better than wage slaves chained for 16 hours a day to their gas pumps. One friend of mine, a service station operator, estimated that he rarely made a cent for himself and his family before 7 o’clock in the evening.

Mr. Philip: They make less than their employees.

Mr. Burr: He had to stay open at night in order to buy the groceries. Service station operators, even of 20 years tenure, have had their rent raised 100 per cent in the last few months. The more successful the station becomes, the more rent is demanded by the oil company which supplies the gas and, in most cases, owns the station.

What have the two parties that champion free enterprise done for the small businessman? Precious little. Oh, yes, I believe last year, as one of the election goodies, the government restored the commission for collecting the sales tax to the small businessman.

An incidental remark, Mr. Speaker: I should like to suggest that the Legislature might function more effectively if the rules were changed to give a minority government a guarantee of a minimum term -- perhaps two years; perhaps 18 months -- to permit a period of stability in which members would not be in constant fear of some accident or other throwing them back into the election jungle.

I’d like to make a few remarks about the election expenses for the last election which cost the taxpayers of the province $12 million. The Progressive Conservative provincial headquarters collected, we are told by the commission, $1,227,000; the Liberal headquarters, $864,000; the NDP provincial headquarters, $112,000. In other words, the provincial headquarters of the Liberals collected almost eight times as much as the NDP provincial headquarters, and the Tories collected almost 13 times as much.

The Canadian Press dispatch in the Star went on to explain that of these large amounts collected by their provincial party headquarters, the Liberal ridings and candidates received $85,000 and the Tory ridings received $476,000, an average of almost $4,000 per candidate. I mention this in order to put on the record a significant difference in the funding methods of our party and of the two older parties.

In the New Democratic Party, every riding association is expected to send to our provincial headquarters in every election campaign an amount equal to 20 per cent of its own local expenditures. For example, if the Windsor-Riverside NDP spends $9,500 on a campaign, we must send $1,900 to support the provincial campaign conducted through our provincial headquarters.

Incidentally, this imposes on each NDP candidate and riding association a certain restraint in election spending because, in effect, we are fined $20 by our provincial office for every $100 we spend daily locally. If the constituency associations of the older parties had to function under our system they might show similar restraint in their spending.

I am told that the 1975 provincial election statistics have established an average expenditure for the Tory candidates of approximately $24,000 each, for the Liberals about $13,000, and for the NDP about $8,000. These last three figures are from memory. If, however, they are inaccurate I am sure someone will correct me.

Some Tory candidates spent over $50,000 to get elected; in some cases, to try to get elected. Even the $24,000 average is far too much to spend on election campaigns. There should be a limit to the amount each candidate is allowed to spend, and $20,000 would appear to be quite ample for any candidate.

There is one other aspect I should like to mention -- no, there are two. One that has come to my attention is a development affecting various ministries, especially the Ministry of Labour. The Komoka nursing home, which is part of a chain of nursing homes in southwestern Ontario, has initiated a strategy for denying health care employees the fruits of their collective bargaining.

About September, 1974, some 20 employees of the Komoka nursing home, though their union, began negotiating for a 1975 contract. After all kinds of stalling operations by management, the case went to arbitration on April 28, 1975. The award was four months in coming. On Aug. 25, 1975, an award was finally made to be implemented within 30 days.

So it took them 10 months to get their award, right? Wrong. The management appealed the arbitrator’s award and it was March 4, 1976, before a judge announced that the arbitrator’s decision was upheld. So there was a further period of seven months’ delay since the award resulting from compulsory arbitration.

But that was not the end of it. The employees have now been told that management will appeal to a higher court. Consequently, the Komoka nursing home management is holding over $100,000 of money that has been awarded to its employees. The employees need that money. They have negotiated for this money. They have been awarded this money, first by an arbitrator and secondly by a judge. Management, or the owners, have had two chances and both times have failed to persuade, first the arbitrator and then the judge, that they could not afford these wages that have been awarded.

The Nursing Home Association is now encouraging its members to use these stalling tactics that have been developed by the Komoka nursing home.

I wish to make one point here. The legislation covering the whole health care industry must surely require review. Legislation should not allow for any health care workers an outcome such as I have outlined.

The final topic has to do with restitution rather than retribution. Just recently, on March 25 to be exact, Windsorites were shocked to read in their local newspaper that a man walking his dog had been assaulted by two young men who had just left a tavern.

One of the men “struck the dog, sending it sprawling into the street.” When the dog’s owner “instinctively retaliated and swung at the man who had kicked the dog, he was knocked to the ground and beaten in the face.” The other man “stomped him in the face with a high heel, tearing his nose from his face.” The assistant Crown Attorney said that the man’s nose was severed from his face and “was just hanging there when he was found.” The Windsor Star reported that “a plastic surgeon spent two hours trying to piece his face together.”

[3:45]

What shocked Windsorites, in addition to the description, was the sentence given the two culprits. The stomper with the high heels was given 60 days in jail, to be served in the evenings after work. The other, an unemployed man, was sentenced to 30 days in jail.

These sentences should be considered from three viewpoints: the victim’s, the taxpayers’ and the offenders’.

First, the victim’s: As far as one can tell from the newspaper accounts, the victim gets not even an apology for his nightmarish experience. He may get some compensation under the Act which deals with victims of crime. Even so, the whole incident can never be better than a traumatic episode for him.

Second, the taxpayers’: We taxpayers have to pay the medical, surgical, ambulance and hospital costs through OHIP. We have to pay the cost of the trial. If the victim is awarded some compensation as the victim of a violent crime, we taxpayers will foot the bill again. We must pay heavily, too, for the period of incarceration of these two men.

Third, the culprits’: They will spend time in jail. With good behaviour, one will spend 21 days, the other 42 nights. Will their incarceration make them better citizens or worse? Or will it have no effect whatever?

Could there have been a better sentence? It is my belief that punishment should fit not only the crime but also the criminal; that restitution rather than retribution should be the aim of justice; and that there should be repentance and reform on the part of the offenders rather than a fruitless vindictiveness on the part of society.

Sentences in England often require that a culprit perform some kind of personal service or make some kind of financial restitution to the victim. Sometimes an offender is required to perform some service to the community. Judges in England are being imaginative and innovative. When will Ontario start to follow suit?

Not knowing what skills or talents these two culprits possess, and what needs this victim may have, it’s impossible for me to suggest what form of restitution the judge could have called for, except the obvious financial kind.

Judges, aided as they are by a presentence report, should be able to come up with innovative restitution sentences in some of the cases that come before them -- and they should be encouraged to do so.

What made this mild sentence for such a brutal crime seem to me so inadequate was another news item of a few days before. A Toronto woman was convicted of perpetrating a welfare fraud. This defrauding had taken place between 1966 and 1973, a period of about seven years, during which she had received $18,600 in provincial assistance for herself and three children. The sum of $18,600 may seem an inadequate amount for a family of four stretched out over seven years. Actually, it’s about $2,650 a year or $51 a week.

This woman defrauded this province of almost an additional $10,600 during this period, a sum amounting to about $1,500 a year or $30 a week. For this crime she was sentenced to a jail term not to exceed six months. The defence counsel was quoted in the paper as saving: “There is nothing here to suggest that the funds were used except for the support of herself and the three children.”

I have forgotten now how much a certain famous Toronto sportsman defrauded the government some two or three years ago in income tax, and I have forgotten how long a sentence he served as a result but I am sure that it was much more than $10,000 over seven years. I’m sure that the motive was greed on his part; not, as in this woman’s case, need. By comparison, the well-known sportsman got off much more easily than this woman who struggled along on $81 a week --

Mr. Nixon: Are you talking about Harold Ballard?

Mr. Moffatt: How did you guess that? You did it, Bob; we didn’t think you would.

Mr. Burr: -- an amount that included her ill-gotten gains. Compare these two sentences for these two crimes: The woman got six months in jail for defrauding an impersonal victim, the government, in order to support her three children -- an action we can all understand, even though we may not be able to condone it. The two young men were given the equivalent of one month each for a senseless, brutal crime against an innocent, unsuspecting victim which no one can understand and no one can forgive.

The gist of my remarks is that there should be a review of the types of sentences being handed out in Ontario today. They should be more in keeping with the seriousness of the crime. There are thefts from individuals and there are thefts from the public treasury; a difference that almost everybody recognizes. There are thefts with violence and thefts without violence; an important difference. There are thefts because of need and there are thefts because of greed.

There are offences in which no other individual is actually harmed; for example, exceeding the speed limit. And there are offences in which lives may be damaged or even ended; for example, by an impaired driver. There are offences that cause the offender such shame that he will never offend again. The same offence may be committed by another individual who feels or betrays no remorse whatsoever. Yet sentences too often are not appropriate for the offence or the offender.

Recently, a Detroiter had occasion to drive to New York city and felt that he needed to carry a pistol under the driver’s seat. After his return to Detroit he forgot all about the gun and crossed into Windsor. The custom officials found the gun and although the man appeared to be a law-abiding citizen, the Windsor judge sentenced him to two weeks in jail.

One judge sentences a man to 30 days for a brutal assault on a complete stranger. Another judge sentences a visitor from Detroit to 14 days because he inadvertently broke one of our laws. It is time for judges to hold a review or a workshop and for the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) to formulate a few guidelines.

Mr. Speaker, it has been a pleasure to speak once more in the Throne Speech debate. I think I would like to close by expressing my regret that the Minister of Health (Mr. F. S. Miller) is not with us these days and to pass onto him, through Hansard, the wishes of those of us in this party for his speedy recovery and return.

Mr. Cunningham: As the member for Wentworth North and a new member to the Ontario Legislature I am particularly pleased to be able to participate in the debate on the Speech from the Throne in this our third session of our 30th Parliament.

Initially, I had intended to devote most of my time to discussing a number of issues which tend to affect us all in Ontario. I would say, as one of the younger members of this Legislature, that I particularly enjoy the privilege of being able to represent my constituency in this Legislature. I said during the course of the last election that I regarded public service to be a privilege in trust, and I must say I certainly appreciate this privilege and I hope I will always be able to honour that trust.

At this time I would like to speak on a number of issues. In the time I have, I would spend the concluding remarks on the issue of the Chedoke Hospital in Hamilton. At the time of my original preparation of my speech I was not, in fact, aware that Chedoke Hospital in Hamilton was to bear the brunt of health restraint in Hamilton. With this in mind, I intend to devote most of my remarks to this subject.

Before I move to that discussion, though, I would like to express my concern through you, Mr. Speaker, about a number of subjects I am concerned about, again not only as the representative for Wentworth North, but also as a member of the Ontario Legislature charged with the responsibility for directing the future of Ontario.

During the last election, the Liberal Party was criticized on many occasions concerning our stand about the need in Ontario to return to basics in our educational system. On many occasions our policy was simply interpreted to be a return to the three Rs.

In my brief experience as a member it has become apparent to me that while the children of Ontario are becoming increasingly well versed in the more esoteric aspects of education, they are failing to grasp the fundamental principles of reading, writing and mathematics. Such an approach to education many may conclude to be, in fact, simplistic. I myself am inclined to think that children were better educated, at least in the areas of reading and writing, some 20 and 30 years ago.

There are those who would generalize, I think in a rather fallacious way, that reading, writing and mathematics are not as important in today’s society as they were some years ago. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, as one who has recently left that system of education that, in fact, the demands that are being placed upon our children today are even greater than they were in the past.

I would like at this time to put forward just a few of the conclusions reached by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in its report on basic educational skills, which was compiled in June, 1975. They concluded that the educational system in Canada has changed drastically, and in surprisingly similar ways across Canada, in the last five or 10 years. To this end, I guess the Province of Ontario is not alone.

Most of the respondents to the survey conducted by the Chamber of Commerce indicated that many students do lack a proficiency in the basic skills and that there is, in fact, a very serious need to upgrade teaching of basic skills; that is to say, reading, writing and mathematics. There is also a tremendous need for measurement, so that the student knows, in fact, where he or she is, where he or she has to improve, and what is to be expected.

Clearly, the responsibility for not only the standard of education, but also the measurement of that standard, rests with the provincial Ministry of Education. It was not that long ago that we had a provincial standard of education across this province. This failure to enact solid standards among our high school students has caused some grave concern among our universities and community colleges.

In a survey taken among universities, the reaction to the statement that high school students are, in fact, lacking in basic skills, was that 14 of 21 respondents felt that, in fact, the graduates were lacking in basic skills. At the community college level, 18 of 25 respondents felt that high school students were lacking in basic skills.

Times change, and I am sure that everybody in the House recognizes that the time has come that we must require our students to be better based and more informed if these students are going to be able to meet the stringent demands that I know will be placed upon them in the future.

On Dec. 1, 1975, I had occasion to speak in this House on the debate that related to the Toronto teachers’ strike. At that time, I indicated that I felt a real need for an Anti-Inflation Board here in Ontario, not only to interpret things like teachers’ strikes, but also all the matters related to public servants of Ontario, and anything related to the people of Ontario as designated by the BNA Act to be within our jurisdictional control.

At that time, it was apparent to me that there was a very serious reluctance on the part of the government of Ontario to enact an Anti-Inflation Board of our own, as provided to us as an option given by the federal government. What is becoming increasingly more apparent to me is the continuing need for an Anti-Inflation Board here in Ontario, to interpret not only the federal legislation, but also to make sure that it is implemented in the fairest and most equitable possible fashion.

It is increasingly certain the Province of Ontario is not going to be exempt from the number of disputes that result in the labour relations field.

[4:00]

Perhaps nothing illustrates this labour problem so much in Ontario as the failure and the sense of failure that we all experienced in the Metro Toronto teachers’ strike. Possibly, at this time, we in the Ontario Legislature should address ourselves to the need to find better and more efficient methods of settling our labour disputes. To this end, I would recommend that the Province of Ontario seriously take a look at the establishment of a labour court in Ontario.

While I recognize that there would be some expense involved in this, I think the expense would be far outweighed by the benefits that we would all enjoy as a result of the increased productivity and, of course, the lack of labour strife that would result from such a system.

Integral to such a system, I think, should be some serious consideration about the possibility of adopting what is recognized to be a system called final-offer selection, where labour and management can work together, or where the Province of Ontario might assume a leadership role in seeing that the various negotiating parties reach a settlement much faster than we are accustomed to seeing right now.

Certainly, the incidence of industrial conflict has been one of the major reasons for Ontario losing its competitive position, not only within Canada but within the international market system. To this end, Ontario again can be a leader. We can rely not only on the material resources that we all know to exist in the Province of Ontario but, more specifically, on the human resources -- the kind of resources that I fear we are in a position of losing, should industrial conflicts continue to occur in the way that they have.

I would like to indicate very briefly my concern about the direction that the Province of Ontario is giving to the municipalities of Ontario. As indicated, the increase in provincial funds that will be transferred to the municipal sector will be eight per cent over the amount transferred last year. As I’m sure every member in the House is aware, this is a considerable reduction from previous years.

The municipalities and school boards of Ontario possibly have been inclined to spend beyond their means in the past but, more often than not, they have been extremely responsible to local needs and wishes and, of course, they have been responsible for keeping municipal taxation at a rather low level.

Integral to their taxation policies and, of course, to the provision of municipal services and local needs, is the need for long-term planning. To this end, I must express my disappointment that the various municipalities of Ontario are required to live on a year-to-year basis. That is to say, the municipalities of Ontario are never really aware of what the future may hold for them.

In November last year, the report of the special review programme was tabled by Her Honour the Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Ontario. I’m sure that each and every member of the Legislature welcomed the need for restraint in the Province of Ontario. There can be no doubt that for so many years we have spent beyond our means.

The Treasurer (Mr. McKeough), in his budget last year, stated that inflation was the single most serious problem facing the province today. He further stated that government spending was the primary cause of that inflation. Then he tabled his fifth successive record-breaking deficit budget of $1.6 billion. I would be less than candid if I did not say that this enormous debt that we have in this province worries me seriously. In the last five years, this debt has accumulated to an even greater extent, giving us the largest total debt of any province in Canada and one of the highest per capita debts.

In the same period of time, Ontario’s growth has deteriorated to the point that our gross provincial product is in rather poor shape.

If this trend continues, we could lose our preferential credit rating in the international money market and, in fact, lose that triple-A rating that we have enjoyed in the past, thereby increasing our interest costs even further. This, I can assure you, would only leave a litany of decay for our children.

I am sure that no one is surprised to hear that Ontario at this time has the highest total debt of any province in Canada. By debt, I mean all the guaranteed debt and direct debt for which we in the Province of Ontario are responsible, including foreign and domestic credit and provincial treasury bills. This debt has grown from $6.719 billion in 1970 to more than $11 billion in 1974. This represents the highest growth, in percentage terms, of any province in Canada with the exception of Newfoundland, which as you know is governed by a Conservative government. In short, Ontario is on the verge of destroying what competitive edge we have enjoyed in the past.

We now have 38.4 per cent of the total provincial debt in Canada, a growth from 33.7 per cent in 1970. In that same period of time, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Quebec and Saskatchewan, none of which is ruled by a Conservative government, have decreased their share of debt.

Between the years 1969 and 1974, the debt in Ontario increased 95.9 per cent and there is no doubt in my mind that if this trend continues unchecked we will have a very serious problem. What has the Premier’s (Mr. Davis) solution been to funding these deficits and interest payments? It’s been to use the taxpayers’ pension fund and through various capital markets. I would say to members this is excessively inflationary.

For instance, in this last year we will be required to borrow $750 million from the Canada Pension Plan; $128 million from the Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System; $228 million from the Teachers’ Superannuation Fund. In short, this $1,106,000,000 of pension funds will be used to finance 63 per cent of Ontario’s deficit. The interest on the $4.4 billion borrowed from the Canada Pension Plan alone amounts to somewhere in the area of $340 million.

It is no surprise that the Ontario Provincial Auditor’s report of 1975 relates one very sad story as far as our borrowing practices are concerned and that is the $28 million loan received by the Ontario government from West Germany back in 1969. The re-evaluation of the German mark ended up costing the people of Ontario $37.5 million in total when we paid it off last year. In other words, there was a $9.5 million loss on the $28 million loan. That, in short, has been part of the approach of the Ontario government as it relates to the fiscal administration of this province.

Certainly, I know the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) of this province would tend to rationalize such deficits over the years as methods of stimulating employment and maintaining the standard of living that we in Ontario have come to expect. But I would submit that we are now, in Ontario, tied up in so many wasteful procedures, overlapping jurisdictions, unnecessary advertising programmes; programmes based on growth for growth’s sake -- such as Hydro -- and a myriad of various bureaucracies which we all know to exist. I guess this brings me to a discussion of the waste of public funds.

The government of Ontario has been excessively centralized in Queen’s Park. This centralization perhaps is indicative of the philosophy held by the Premier himself. It is a kind of centralization which not only encourages waste and abuse of public funds but also further insulates the people of Ontario from their government.

In my perception, the bureaucracy we have at Queen’s Park seems to be self-perpetuating. Max Henderson’s study of regional government indicated that the excessively high growth of upper tier staff at the regional government level has not spawned a corresponding decrease in the lower tier staff level.

Between the years 1910 and 1974, the municipal staffs in regional government grew at a rate more than triple that of the staffs of local government. It is the costs that relate to this expansion of staff in the area of municipal and regional government that is causing the excessive rate of municipal taxation which municipalities are going to experience not only this year but in the years that follow unless we take some drastic action now. Certainly, the object of the exercise with regional government was to make local government more efficient.

It’s a rather sad commentary that in almost every region in the Province of Ontario taxes have increased and services have decreased. Certainly, Wentworth North is no exception.

I suppose one of the reasons hospitals have to be shut down and hospital budgets have to be cut back and, of course, community and social service budgets have to be cut back, is the waste that has taken place, especially at Queen’s Park in the last 10 years. No one should be inclined to forget the cynical approach by this government prior to the last election, with the introduction of the first-time home buyer’s grant; the drop in sales tax from seven to five per cent; and the cancellation of sales tax on new cars.

Clearly, it was bait to get voters in the various constituencies to vote Conservative. From my point of view, it did not work and we’re all paying for these election goodies now.

Highway construction in the Province of Ontario has declined but the government’s construction staff has not been cut. Enrolment continues to decline in Ontario’s elementary and secondary schools yet there are mere people working in the Ministry of Education and for the school boards than ever before.

Let me speak briefly about the subject of Wintario. The Province of Ontario is realizing millions and millions of dollars in Wintario revenue. Where are we directing these funds? To ethnic dance costumes; trips for senior hockey teams abroad; goalie pads; soccer balls -- so many things that I know the people of Ontario were inclined to support in their own communities, quite sincerely, long before the advent of Wintario.

What is the cost of administering this Wintario programme? I would suggest that 20 per cent of all the money we take in is allocated for administration alone. I would compare that to the Canadian Cancer Society, which budgets somewhere between three and four per cent for the administration of their budget.

I think the time has come for the government seriously to consider directing Wintario revenues to the general revenue fund; more specifically, possibly for hospital programmes so that in fact hospitals would not have to be shut down in communities such as Chesley, Durham, Clinton, Goderich and Paris and 187 beds at Chedoke Hospital in Hamilton.

One of the fundamental approaches to the election by the Progressive Conservative Party in that past has been what I would refer to as a bait and switch approach. That is to say they tend to bait each constituency across the Province of Ontario with some form of specific election goodie and then after the election they tend to switch their point of view.

Only yesterday I was actually at the point that I was appalled to hear the member for Scarborough Centre (Mr. Drea) suggest in this House that a $10-million court house was built in his riding because that riding was represented by a Progressive Conservative. I really was told that these kind of things occurred but I really didn’t think that anybody in the government party would actually admit to it.

Mr. Nixon: They boast about it.

Mr. Good: And brag about it.

Mr. Cunningham: He actually did boast about it. I would like very briefly to share with you just a few of the election promises that I understand were made during the course of the last election.

Mr. Mancini: Where is the member for Scarborough Centre?

Mr. Cunningham: On Aug. 15 the member for Lambton (Mr. Henderson) announced a $3-million loan in Sarnia for the Ontario Housing Action Programme. It was odd that it was done during the middle of the election. On Aug. 11 the Minister of Housing (Mr. Irvine) announced $50 million in loans to various developers in Scarborough. The then Minister of the Environment (Mr. W. Newman) and the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) announced on Sept. 3 that $660,000 would be spent in Timagami for a sewage system.

Mr. Nixon: They were buying votes with the people’s own money. There won’t be enough money next time.

Mr. Cunningham: In the area of health, the Premier (Mr. Davis) on Aug. 17 announced that unspecified millions would be spent in Chapleau on hospital beds.

Interjections.

Mr. Cunningham: On Aug. 26 unspecified millions were announced, again by the Premier, for a Toronto-centred highway programme. On Sept. 3, $143,000 was promised by the Minister of Health (Mr. F. S. Miller) for health research grants; again during the course of the election.

Mr. Nixon: He was not talking about hospital closings then.

Mr. Cunningham: The member for Oxford (Mr. Parrott) announced an unspecified amount -- certainly not cheap, I would think -- on Sept. 5 for a hospital expansion in Tillsonburg.

Mr. Nixon: He thought he was buying a cage.

Mr. Cunningham: Another unspecified amount was announced by the Premier himself on Sept. 6 -- getting close to election day -- for the Instit