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March 27, 1979

31st Parliament, 3rd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Hansard Transcripts

L008 - Tue 27 Mar 1979 / Mar 27 mar 1979

SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

PUBLIC OFFICERS ACT

CLEANUP OF SPILLS

INTERFLOW SYSTEMS LIMITED

HOME RENEWAL PROGRAM

GRIEVANCE ARBITRATION

ORAL QUESTIONS

DISPOSAL OF HAZARDOUS WASTES

PHYSICIANS OPTING OUT OF OHIP

DISCRIMINATION BY POLICE

BRANTFORD HOSPITALS

CHEST DISEASE CASES

NIAGARA RIVER POLLUTION

HEALTH INSURANCE

HOSPITAL BED ALLOCATIONS

MOTIONS

COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY

STANDING GENERAL GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE

STANDING ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE COMMITTEE

STANDING STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS AND MEMBERS SERVICES COMMITTEES

STANDING SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON NOTICE PAPER

MEMBER’S BOOK OF POETRY

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AMENDMENT ACT

LABOUR RELATIONS AMENDMENT ACT

HURONIA DISTRICT HOSPITAL ACT

VILLAGE OF COOKSTOWN ACT

CONSUMER PROTECTION AMENDMENT ACT

PORTABLE FIRE EXTINGUISHERS SAFETY ACT

INNOCENT PERSONS PROTECTION ACT

MOTION TO SUSPEND NORMAL BUSINESS

HOSPITAL BED ALLOCATIONS

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES

Hon. Mr. McCague: Mr. Speaker, I have a message from the Honourable the Administrator of the Province of Ontario signed by his own hand.

Mr. Speaker: The Honourable William G. Howland, the Administrator of the Province of Ontario, transmits supplementary estimates of certain additional sums required for the services of the province for the year ending March 31, 1979, and recommends them to the Legislative Assembly, Toronto, March 27, 1979.

Hon. Mr. McCague: Mr. Speaker, the honourable members will recall I tabled a set of supplementary estimates last December amounting to $6.4 million. At that time I was pleased to note that the increases had been fully offset by decreases elsewhere, and that the government remained committed to a total expenditure ceiling of $14.482 million as announced on April 25, 1978. The supplementary estimates which are being tabled today amount to $96.165 million. Again I am pleased to report that these expenditure increases will be fully offset in other areas so that the total expenditure limit of $14.482 million for 1978-79 will be maintained.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

PUBLIC OFFICERS ACT

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the Public Officers Act requires that within the first 15 days of every session I advise this assembly of all securities furnished on behalf of public officers and of any changes made to such securities. Since my predecessor’s statement on February 28, 1978, there have been no changes in either category.

CLEANUP OF SPILLS

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, in December I introduced a bill to amend the Environmental Protection Act, 1971, with respect to spills of pollutants including toxic substances to the natural environment. The purpose of the bill is to impose clear responsibility to clean up and provide for more immediate and more effective action in these environmental emergencies and to provide a better mechanism for recovering costs and damages from the responsible parties. Early in January the bill was circulated to appropriate members of industry, to municipalities and to other concerned groups and I invited comments.

My request received considerable response and I am now introducing a revised bill that takes into account many constructive and practical suggestions I received. The compendium of background material on this bill is being updated and will be tabled shortly.

This revised bill is intended, among other objectives:

1. To impose a clear responsibility for control, cleanup and restoration on owners and those in charge of pollutants including those involved in their manufacture, handling, transportation and disposal;

2. To broaden the authority of the minister to order control and cleanup of spills and restoration of the natural environment by those responsible, and when necessary, by other persons;

3. To enable the ministry to take immediate remedial action in the event of a spill and to pursue the question of liability later;

4. To establish liability for compensation for damage resulting from a spill and for the cost of cleanup which clarifies and extends the right to compensation at common law;

5. To enable a person who has been ordered by the minister to clean up a spill, other than a person already responsible to do so, to recover his reasonable expense from the ministry. The minister subsequently will be able to recover the amount of such expenses from the owner and person in control. This amendment is meant to save the person ordered by the minister to carry out cleanup from having to collect from or sue the owner and person in control;

6. To authorize control and cleanup of spills and restoration of the natural environment by municipalities and designated persons and to provide them with the right to recover their reasonable expenses from the owner and the person in control.

In addition, among other things, the regulations to be developed will provide for the designation of certain types of discharges of pollutants as being abnormal, thereby clearly spelling out and avoiding delay and argument over what will be regarded as a spill and subject to the legislation.

Finally, the bill gives persons ordered to do cleanup and those authorized to do so, the right to enter on private land for the business of cleanup and immunity from prosecution.

As I informed the members previously, this legislation is unequalled in Canada. We hope it will lead to a decrease in the number of spills. We know it will speed cleanup, reduce potential damage and assist any injured party by placing initial responsibility on those who own and control pollutants.

Copies of the compendium required under the standing orders were of course made available during the last session when I first introduced this bill. However I must apologize to the honourable members that I do not at this time have a

summary of the amendments that have been made since that date. The reason for this is that I wanted to give interested parties as much time as possible to suggest amendments and at the same time I wanted to reintroduce it at the earliest possible moment. We are currently working on a

summary of the amendments made and I will be pleased to make those available as soon as they are ready.

In addition, there are three minor amendments of which I will advise the critics prior to second reading.

INTERFLOW SYSTEMS LIMITED

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, I have a second statement on another matter, if I may present it at this time.

On March 13 in this Legislature, I gave a commitment to produce a detailed account of the situation with Interflow Systems Limited and the Upper Ottawa Street landfill site in Hamilton. This statement has been difficult to prepare, due to the risk of prejudicing upcoming court proceedings and the possibility of interfering with the on-going investigations conducted by ministry staff, Hamilton-Wentworth police and the regional municipality, but the public concern and confusion which now exists makes it imperative that I speak in some detail about the situation.

We have said repeatedly that the day-to-day operation and responsibility for what goes into this landfill site belongs to the municipality. The responsibility for operating this site in accordance with ministry environmental requirements and for deciding what waste goes into it rests with the municipal level of government. It shall continue to do so. It is their site. They are responsible for minding the gate, so to speak, as are other municipalities in Ontario.

I am not criticizing the regional municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth. They have taken prompt action when the report of our waybill audit was finished. They immediately notified police and implemented tight controls on waste being allowed into this landfill site.

My office has been informed by Hamilton-Wentworth officials that municipal staff have since been reorganized; indeed, one person was dismissed and seven were disciplined for their

part in the matter. I also understand that a new bylaw is being drafted to regulate more closely activities at the landfill sites. In other words, the municipality has accepted its responsibility.

The ministry has also taken action on this matter and on the entire problem of liquid waste disposal. I need not review my seven-point plan, but I will point out that our new waybill system is proving itself effective in dealing with this situation.

Much has been made of the “samples” supplied to the ministry’s regional office in Stoney Creek. I would like to make a few comments about this well-known scientific practice of pop-bottle testing.

In December 1976, two individuals dropped into our office with two pop bottles which they said contained samples from a load of waste delivered to Interflow and from another load hauled from Interflow to the landfill site. It was the understanding of the regional staff that these samples were given to them in strict confidence.

I would like to point out that the individuals were from a company operating in competition with Interflow; and it is not unusual for ministry staff to hear allegations from those in the waste disposal business against their competitors.

These samples had not been collected in an acceptable scientific manner. Since we had no way of determining whether they were representative of the loads they were taken from, no analysis was done in our laboratory.

Other than knowing what was in the bottles, an analysis would not have proved illegal activity. Disposal of liquid waste in this landfill site is not in itself illegal. The certificate of approval which we gave the municipality for the Upper Ottawa Street site allows licensed haulers to dispose of liquid waste there.

Mr. S. Smith: The fact that it came from outside Hamilton-Wentworth was illegal; that is against your certificate of approval.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: And who is running that site? Listen, please.

Mr. Nixon: No one is listening.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: It is the responsibility of the municipality; let that be very clear.

A Liberal researcher asked staff if they had had a meeting with three waste haulers. Staff said they did not recall such a meeting and asked for the date. A check of the files revealed that two persons had visited the office two years before. When reporters made inquiries, the visit was confirmed.

However, the ministry staff had suspected problems well before that visit. During 1976 and 1977, they conducted innumerable spot checks on Interflow, K-D Enterprises and the landfill site. Many visits were made incognito, as well as in the middle of the night, in an attempt to obtain evidence if illegal activities were going on. Both companies were also asked to supply additional information on the handling of their liquid waste. This they did. But no evidence of illegal activities was found.

The waybill system, with which we now keep tabs on what waste goes where, had only recently been introduced on an experimental and voluntary basis to give the ministry and industry time to become familiar with it. But it was not until April 1977 that this became a legal requirement.

During 1977, Interflow operations were closely monitored. On several occasions the ministry directed cleanups of minor spills on the company site. On November 29, 1977, Interflow was convicted on two charges for violation of the Environmental Protection Act and fined $2,500 and $500.

In December, staff supervised removal of contaminated soil and repairs to a leaking lagoon liner.

In the first eight months of 1978, staff conducted limited auditing of waybills, night-time investigations and indeed even tailed company trucks. But, again, no admissible evidence of illegal activities was found. Problems with linings of lagoons and improper piping were discovered. Requests for repairs were complied with.

It has been implied that trucks were illegally dumping waste at the site at night. We do not deny there is a lot of trucking activity there during the night. But most of it involves dumping of city street sweepings.

Mr. S. Smith: It was a foul-smelling liquid, my friend.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Is the Leader of the Opposition saying most or all? Or what is he saying?

[2:15]

Mr. S. Smith: I have between six and 12 cases of foul-smelling liquid --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Questions and answers come later.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: It isn’t even a large portion. Most of it is city sweepings.

It is interesting to note that company officials complained of harassment by our regional staff -- a rather interesting note, I might add, that the company complained of our harassment.

In September 1978, more work on the waybill system made it possible to do a detailed audit of records. I cannot go into the details of that audit, nor would it be appropriate to discuss further the charges that have now been laid, but I would like to point out that the ministry lawyers, as well as staff from the ministry’s Stoney Creek office, have conducted countless interviews with truckers and officials from the municipality, Interflow and industries.

Statements have been made that people could die of cancer or suffer birth defects, as at Love Canal, because of this situation. Let me stress that public health is not in danger. Since the early 1960s we have regularly monitored Red Hill Creek which contains water that has seeped from the landfill site, called leachate. Monthly tests done at locations above and below the site have not found the presence of liquid industrial waste in the creek.

In the past two years we have stepped up the number of tests, and additional samples have been taken from leachate on the site itself. The results are the same. Most of the liquid waste that went into the landfill site consisted of water used to wash industrial tanks that held substances like oil, caustics and rust preventive material.

I am deeply concerned over the misleading and inaccurate information spread by the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. S. Smith: Right on every time.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: He has asked for a judicial investigation. The ministry is investigating, the regional municipality is investigating --

Mr. S. Smith: Investigating itself. I am very impressed.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: -- and the police are investigating. His unfounded allegations have only served to deflect much of their efforts and have delayed a comprehensive and reasonable assessment of the facts of the case.

The leader of the Liberal Party has made statements about ministry staff looking the other way because of dereliction of duty or because they were paid off. He has talked of illegal dumping and threats to health. I realize a by-election is on, but surely some responsibility should be exercised. If the leader has evidence, he should bring it forward in the interest of justice.

Mr. S. Smith: You waited until the Christmas break before bringing forward the evidence.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Let me repeat that: If the hon. member has evidence, let him bring it forward in the name of justice. And if he does not wish to present it to myself, then at least he can present it to the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) or the police.

Mr. Kerrio: Do you want them to do your job for you?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: On January 25 I asked the Leader of the Opposition in a letter, on a formal basis, to present that information.

I again asked him on March 13. Instead, he has chosen to drop those insinuations in the media.

Mr. S. Smith: You ignored the information you were given.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: If you had listened to what I have said in the last 10 minutes you would know that I have not --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the minister confine his remarks to his original statement? This is ministerial statements.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I will be glad to, Mr. Speaker, if I don’t have to deal with any interjections.

The Leader of the Opposition has claimed it was his pursuit of this issue that produced action. His first question in the House was on October 31, 1978. As I have pointed out, ministry staff were well aware of the situation in 1976 and have pursued it with all means at their disposal.

The Liberal leader has asked that ministry staff should be dismissed for their handling of this situation. I do not agree. He knows that on another occasion here in this very House I criticized staff for actions they took that I did not agree with. In this case I find no reason to criticize staff; in fact, I would commend their efforts.

I feel his accusations are unfair, because staff cannot defend themselves. I regret he chose to cast doubt on the integrity of those people, with remarks that in our opinion border on slander. I wish him to know that the Hamilton-Wentworth police have told us that their investigation has cleared the ministry staff of any illegal activities or involvement in taking money; or “looking the other way,” as he has so often accused them of doing.

Many of the individuals working in the Stoney Creek office reside in the Hamilton region. They and their families have had to live with the embarrassment caused by the leader’s charges. I have spoken to them and I know the kind of insinuations that have been made to them. I feel a great deal of compassion for them.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that the member for Hamilton West would have the courage to offer an immediate and public apology to my staff for the suffering he has subjected them to with his unfounded attacks on their professional reputations.

The ministry has certainly had its major concerns that all was not right. But the leader does not seem to realize that we must produce concrete evidence before actions can be taken. I hope he has now learned that the kind of allegations he made cannot be substituted for careful homework and investigation.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult to ignore those interjections. In the last eight pages of this text I have put on the record what has been done. I had to be very careful in doing so because I do not wish to prejudice the trial.

In the future, I would like the leader to exercise greater care and I would welcome more co-operation from him in enforcing our laws. I intend to prosecute those who violate them, but I do not wish to try anyone in a kangaroo court conducted in the public media or in the Legislature by the Leader of the Opposition.

I have an obligation to do justice now and in the future. I wish that he shared it.

HOME RENEWAL PROGRAM

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to inform the honourable members that the very popular Ontario Home Renewal Program has been renewed for another year.

Recognizing OHRP’s value to municipalities and home owners throughout Ontario, my cabinet colleagues agreed to allocate $20 million for this year’s program.

Since 1974, some 22,000 home owners in some 615 municipalities have received more than $82.2 million in OHRP loans. In addition, another $4.2 million was approved for 811 loans to the residents of unorganized territories.

OHRP provides grants to municipalities to administer directly as loans of up to $7,500 to low and moderate-income home owner occupants for home improvements. A portion of the loan may be forgiven and interest rates vary from zero to eight per cent, depending upon the home owner’s income.

GRIEVANCE ARBITRATION

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, later today I wish to introduce a bill to amend the Labour Relations Act. The purpose of this bill is to reform the grievance arbitration procedure.

Members will recall that in July 1978 an industrial inquiry commissioner, the Honourable Arthur Kelly, reported to my predecessor on certain perceived problems relating to grievance arbitration under the Labour Relations Act. He made a number of recommendations as to how the existing system might be improved.

Mr. Cassidy: It’s taken so long, it’s shameful.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I have now had an opportunity to consider the commissioner’s recommendations, as well as the comments of a number of employers, trade unions and arbitrators, to whom the report was sent for comment. In addition, I had the benefit of hearing the views of some members of this Legislature during consideration of my ministry’s estimates before the standing committee on resources development.

The bill I am introducing has three main purposes: first, to expedite the hearing of unresolved grievances; second, to provide third-party assistance to aid in the settlement of grievances, and third, to reduce the cost of arbitrating those disputes that cannot be settled.

The amendments proposed are simple in form but significant in impact. They enable either party to apply to the minister for the appointment of a single arbitrator 30 days after the grievance is filed, or following the completion of the grievance procedure, whichever occurs first. On receipt of such request, the minister must appoint an arbitrator who is able to commence the hearing of the dispute within 21 days of the receipt of the request for arbitration. Grievances involving termination of employment will be dealt with even more expeditiously.

The amendments further provide that upon receipt of a request for the appointment of an arbitrator, the minister may assign a grievance settlement officer to confer with the parties to assist him in arriving at a mediated settlement.

In addition, the amendments provide for the enactment of regulations fixing scales of remuneration for arbitrators and providing procedures for the review and resolution of disputed accounts.

Finally, the bill repeals the Labour-Management Arbitration Commission Act.

I believe the proposed amendments, while preserving the best features of the existing arbitration system, effectively and fairly address the problems of delay and of cost -- the two major issues which led to the establishment of the Kelly commission. With the passage of this bill, and with the co-operation of employers, trade unions and arbitrators, upon which I am confident we can rely, Ontario should have one of the finest grievance arbitration systems of any jurisdiction in North America.

ORAL QUESTIONS

DISPOSAL OF HAZARDOUS WASTES

Mr. S. Smith: A question of the Minister of the Environment: In view of the statements by members of his ministry that they are seeking those dumps that may have accepted hazardous liquid wastes in the past, and that they have no record of where these dumps are, can he explain such a statement from his ministry, when there exists this document from 1974, which I draw to his attention, called Land Drainage Reference Study, Task 2B?

This document -- which I may say was made up by a consultant from records in 1974, provided by the Ministry of the Environment itself -- contains maps and descriptions of 13 sites in the province that are listed as having accepted hazardous wastes. I would ask the minister if the ministry has lost this information, which it seemed to have for the consultant who drew up this report in 1974? Had the officials in his ministry simply not seen this report when they announced that they didn’t know where these hazardous locations might be found? Can he tell us how many of the sites referred to in this report are in fact still operating?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: On the very last portion, I would be prepared to get that information for the member. I think what we are saying with regard to the number of sites is that indeed there could be sites in Ontario that were in operation, were closed, that we would not be aware of; sites in the 1930s, the 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s -- long before we, as a ministry, were formed -- that could have easily been opened and closed and no specific records known of them.

This summer we are making a further and complete search of all of those sites. We’ll have as complete an inventory as it is humanly possible to do of the sites throughout Ontario.

Had we or had any government had a ministry of the environment back in the 1920s and 1930s, it would be easy to have those records. But since neither we, nor any other jurisdiction, had those records, it’s now up to us to try to find as many of them as we can. It will be a difficult task, but we’re prepared to do it.

Mr. Breithaupt: I presume it all happened before 1943.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Certainly; you are right.

[2:30]

Mr. S. Smith: Supplementary: In view of the fact that in 1974 there were records, maps and descriptions of at least 13 sites listed as having accepted hazardous wastes, can the minister tell us whether that information, subsequently incorporated into this report, has since been lost by the ministry? I think that is a reasonable question.

While he is thinking about the answer to that question, may I also ask another question by way of supplementary? In view of his response to the resources development committee last fall, in which the minister was asked for a list of sites licensed to accept liquid wastes -- part of his information there noted eight sites which had accepted liquid wastes and now are closed, yet this report shows that as of 1974 as many as 15 sites were licensed to accept liquid wastes exclusively; interestingly, only three of the eight sites listed by the minister show up in the 15 here -- what about the other 12? Why were they not on his list?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: We will be more than pleased to identify those and to supply that information. The point I was trying to make, and I will try to make it again, was that we do not have full knowledge of all the sites that may have been opened and closed in the province prior to any particular date. Certainly we have not lost that information. If the member wants us to correlate it in, if you will, a more logical fashion for him, we are prepared to do so. I think that is easily done. If it will help, we will do it.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: In view of the fact that the ministry itself has estimated that there are more than 2,000 landfill sites that have been used across Ontario, and not just the 13 that have been referred to, can the minister undertake, in the first place, that his ministry will be seeking to establish how many of those more than 2,000 landfill sites received hazardous liquid industrial wastes; and, secondly, will there be a complete record made available to the public at the earliest opportunity so that the public will know which of these sites will be used for hazardous wastes and what is being done about it?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: There is no doubt that we will do that, Mr. Speaker, and we are pleased to do so. I draw to the attention of the leader of the third party, however, that finding these sites will not necessarily be easy, and certainly determining what went into those sites 30 years ago is not going to be easy either. We are flying over certain areas which we suspect likely would have sites, and we are doing a great deal.

Mr. Cassidy: You should do it if we’re not going to have any Love Canals in this province.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Let is not extrapolate too far.

Mr. Cassidy: Let’s not extrapolate too little either.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I can tell the member that in our judgement today there is absolutely no fear of a Love Canal in Ontario. Let us be very clear on that point. But I am not going to stand in this House and give that kind of assurance when there can be the tiniest fraction of doubt. We are going to search out as many sites as --

Mr. Cassidy: That’s right. Those words may come back to haunt you.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: If the member would permit me the full answer, I said that, having made that statement, it is my unconditional belief, and the belief of my ministry, that that is true. But because I have a great concern, and indeed this government has a great concern, for the health of the people, it does not give us a licence to make that statement and then to rest on our laurels. We are not going to do that. We will continue to search out as many areas as we possibly can.

I say to the member, if he has a spot he thinks should be investigated in detail, he should let us know; we will do it. Not only that, but that information will be as public as he wishes it to be. We have nothing to fear. We have nothing to hide. We will be better served if all of us know as much as we can about that problem.

Mr. S. Smith: Supplementary: Since the fact is that in 1974 the ministry apparently knew of 13 hazardous waste sites which now it apparently doesn’t know about, and since it knew of 12 liquid waste sites which the minister didn’t bother to mention in his report to the resources development committee, and which again I therefore assume the ministry doesn’t know about, I ask the minister if they have lost the information.

By way of answering that question, I will send the minister a list of the permit numbers of the 13 hazardous waste sites. Would the minister be kind enough to undertake in this House to send us copies of the certificates of approval for those sites, copies of any site inspection certificates and, while he is at it, copies of site inspection certificates for the Upper Ottawa Street site as well?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I just can’t comprehend why the leader didn’t hear me say that I would correlate that information. We haven’t lost sight of what he has just said for the third time that we must have. I have rejected that statement three times. We will correlate it for him and will be glad to do it. That’s no problem at all. But please don’t ask me for the fourth time to say that I disagree that we have lost sight of it. We haven’t, for the last time, I hope.

Mr. S. Smith: Why didn’t you report it to the committee?

Ms. Bryden: Since I believe there are something like 900 fewer landfill sites now than there were in 1970, it seems to me the minister cannot say there are no potential Love Canals in Ontario until he knows what is in those 900 closed sites. I would like to ask him is he just taking an inventory of sites or is he actually digging into them and taking a test of what is underneath.

Mr. Havrot: All 900. Yes, he is digging into them all.

Mr. Wildman: That would be something for the member for Timiskaming to do.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I said it was my un- conditional belief that there was no danger and I am very sure of that.

As we try to address this problem, one should perhaps look at our history a little bit. I think there is a lot of comfort in that. We have been basically an agricultural community. We haven’t been a highly industrialized society, a chemical society, nearly as much as have our neighbours to the south. They are now seeing some of the great side effects and unpleasant effects of a chemical industry. I think we are fortunate in that regard. It is a fact of our history.

Mr. Riddell: The farmers have saved your hide again.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I am glad they have and I am glad that I too, am a farmer and can share in that heritage.

Mr. Breithaupt: You are certainly spreading it around right now.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think it gives us a far greater assurance that it isn’t likely to happen in Ontario. I will assure the member that we are now looking into those sites that we are aware of. We are digging into them. We are quite prepared to investigate them as thoroughly as she or I think it should be done. I want that done. I want it on the record that it has been done because I think we have a great obligation to the people of Ontario to guarantee the statement I just made. We will continue to work at that. We want to be very, very sure about safeguarding the health of the people of this province.

Mr. MacDonald: Tell the honourable member for Timiskaming. He laughed at it.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think the member might recognize that our greater concern is not so much what is happening here in Ontario, but in those jurisdictions which have not been so careful as Ontario. Because there is no way one can stop air circulation in North America or water entering into our Great Lakes, we have some concerns coming from other jurisdictions. But I think it is easily proved that we have done the best job of any jurisdiction in North America in many of these areas.

Mr. Martel: That’s taking it too far. The minister should have quit while he was ahead.

[Later (2:50):]

Mr. Speaker: Does the minister have a point of order?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Yes. I am not quite sure whether it is order or privilege and I am certainly not trying to be provocative on this point. But I thought, regarding the point the Leader of the Opposition made to the effect that our ministry had supplied that information on the 13 sites, I note that it was from Environment Canada. We may have supplied it, but the information was from Environment Canada.

Mr. S. Smith: But the data were from the ministry.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I thought it was inferred that we had given that report, and I think in fact -- well I read here: “Task 2B Report: Waste Disposal Site. Prepared for Canada Department of the Environment by two independent researchers.”

I am not trying to be provocative, I am simply saying I hope it is on the record that this was a Canadian report rather than --

Mr. Speaker: Talking on the point of clarification.

Mr. S. Smith: If I may respond on the clarification: Indeed, the report, of course, is from Environment Canada. It was provided to us by the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources. But the data used by the researchers, according to the researchers themselves, came from Ontario Ministry of the Environment records. That is where they got the data to draw up these maps and it is very questionable as to whether that data still exists within the ministry.

[Reverting (2:39:)]

PHYSICIANS OPTING OUT OF OHIP

Mr. S. Smith: I have a question for the Minister of Health.

Now that the minister is aware that anaesthetists at Toronto Western Hospital, and for that matter at North York General, Scarborough General and Branson Hospital, have all opted out, and that consequently any patient who goes for surgery at those hospitals is then subjected to a means test administered by the physicians themselves, one would assume, could he tell us how he feels about that particular erosion of the universal health care system and whether he is prepared to accept the means test philosophy, a philosophy which is apparently well known and well liked by the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) of this province?

Is the Minister of Health willing to accept that doctors will apply that kind of means test?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Let us perhaps deal with one example I asked my staff to look into and about which they reported. In the case of the Toronto Western Hospital, where the anaesthetists have apparently been opted out for a number of years, fully 70 per cent of the services provided are billed through the billing group on an opted-in basis.

Mr. S. Smith: A means test is what you call it.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I look at it this way, and I think this is a principle that certainly has stood the test of time though I will acknowledge that perhaps we need to look at ways to reaffirm it. The principle is that wherever possible the agreement of the patient should be obtained first.

Mr. S. Smith: Wherever possible.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I say “wherever possible” because there are cases --

Mr. S. Smith: Just before surgery.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- where a person will be brought into hospital unconscious and wouldn’t have the opportunity to agree or not. In those cases, it is my view and it is my understanding that it is general practice that they should not be charged in excess of the OHIP rate.

Mr. Swart: The doctors wait until they come to and then ask for it.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: As part of our --

Mr. Warner: You are an apologist for the OMA.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. S. Smith: They apply a means test; they don’t ask anybody.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I come at it from the other side. The Leader of the Opposition is coming at it in a different way.

Mr. Swart: You sure do, but not from the public side.

Mr. Warner: Go run a Mr. Submarine somewhere.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I say that the person should have the opportunity to review it and must agree before the provision of the service.

Mr. S. Smith: The minister knows they don’t.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I’m afraid that’s not the experience and it’s not the information I have; otherwise I think we’d have hard examples of people actually being deferred from necessary medical care.

As members know, we are reviewing with the medical association how we can revise the mechanism by which we negotiate their fee schedules. In fact, we are now talking about a specific document. We’re at the point where we are looking at a specific proposal. It seems to me that that principle, that an individual should have to agree beforehand, is one that has served us well. It may well be that we have to look at, and we will look at, possible ways of --

Mrs. Campbell: Opening the hospitals.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- reaffirming that principle.

Mr. Warner: Try ways of protecting the patient. That would be a good way to start.

Mr. S. Smith: By way of supplementary, what is the minister saying? Is he not aware that certainly at the Toronto Western the chief anaesthetist is on record as saying that they don’t charge certain patients the extra because they feel the patients are too poor and that they make that judgement based on their own opinion about the patient’s working status and one thing and another?

Is the minister now saying that as long as a patient agrees to pay the extra, it’s quite all right for the doctor to charge it, even though these people are facing surgery, but if the patient doesn’t agree, then the doctor has no business charging it? Do I take it that what the minister is saying is any patient who simply says, “No, I do not want to pay the extra,” shall not be charged the extra by an opted-out doctor? Is that not what the minister is saying?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: No. What we are saying is what is the strength of our system which has served the province well.

Mr. Swart: It’s breaking down now. Does the minister realize that?

Mr. Warner: You put it in the past tense. The system is being destroyed and you know it.

Hon. Mir. Timbrell: In fact, every province has in one means or another a variation. In Saskatchewan they have what’s called balanced billing where they can patient-stream anywhere at any time, in a physician’s office or elsewhere, on any account In other provinces, they have other variations. Every province is different in one way or another, although they all meet the principles of the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act.

Mr. Swart: And this is the worst.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: What I said was, to use a specific example of someone who perhaps comes into emergency unconscious, in that particular case it is my view -- and I understand it is general practice -- that that individual should not pay above the OHIP rate.

Mr. S. Smith: We’re not talking about that.

Mr. Cassidy: You have to be unconscious to avoid their surcharge.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: What I’m saying is, that has been the principle that has been agreed to and supported by the medical profession --

Mr. Martel: You just knock them all out first.

Mr. McClellan: Medicare for the unconscious. If you are conscious you can’t have universal health care.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- and by the health plan since the beginnings of the health plan. As part of our discussions with them, what I’m saying is we are looking at whether there is any need in some way to strengthen that and to reaffirm that principle.

Mr. Laughren: Supplementary: In view of the minister’s statement that opted-out physicians should not impose a hardship on people receiving health care in the province of Ontario and in view of the fact that the OMA has indicated the same, could the minister explain to me why it is that striking miners in Sudbury receiving $25 per week are receiving notices from opted-out physicians indicating that if they don’t pay up their bill will be sent to a collection agency? How does that fit with the minister’s indication that people in Ontario will have equal access to health care?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: First of all, I have to go back and point out that in that particular area of the province the level of opting out is extremely low compared to the other parts of the province.

Mr. Swart: You don’t have to go back; you’re as far back as you can go.

Mr. Warner: Look at the bills.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Secondly, the basic philosophy of our system is that it is based on options for the patient and options for the physician. In that particular area, there are a great many options available with opted-in physicians as there are in all parts of the province.

[2:45]

Mr. Warner: The only one who should opt out is you.

Mr. S. Smith: Is the minister of the belief that in 1979 the public of Ontario is ready to turn back the clock and, when entering public hospitals, is now prepared once again to let doctors decide who shall pay and who shall not pay? Is he of the belief that that kind of doctor-administered means test is once again to be part of the health-care system here in Ontario in public hospitals or does he not see the necessity to have within the public hospital system those people who are prepared in fact to work within the insurance plan?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I think again the last part of the question suggests exactly what we are talking about, that there be options, and to take the example of the west -- I don’t support or condone the principle of means test as you call it. What I am stating as the basic principle we have always worked upon, and which I acknowledge we may need to reaffirm in some tangible way, is that patients should have to agree and if they don’t agree they should not be billed.

Mr. S. Smith: With a knife over them.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, the member engages in hyperbole. It’s not a question of a knife over them. I already gave the member my views on the instance where the individual might be brought into emergency and not be in a position to agree, to even consider it.

Mr. Breaugh: Could I ask the minister whether I read correctly what he has just said. He has just said to the people of Ontario that if they don’t want to pay extra services, fees or over the approved rate, they simply don’t agree to it; the doctor must provide the service and the patient has the option then to agree or not to agree to pay that amount of money. Is that correct?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I am saying and I have said all along, Mr. Speaker, that it is the availability of options that is important. In fact in hospitals it is the billing groups that ensure the options are available. What I am saying is that the patient should agree first, and if they don’t then change the doctor --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, there are bound to be some cases where they are not in a position to consider it and in those cases they shouldn’t have to pay.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the question of the opportunities and alternatives. Is it not a fact that at North York General not only the anaesthetists opted out but so have the obstetricians? What is the function of the ministry in the funding of these so-called public hospitals where a whole staff would opt out? Has the minister given thought to his position vis-à-vis the open or closed hospitals?

Mr. Breithaupt: What are the patient’s options then?

Mr. S. Smith: You give the patient a choice.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I don’t see the connection between the two but perhaps the member could make the point at a later date. Essentially, what we are saying is -- and this is since the beginnings of the plan -- the strength of the plan has been based on the options available. The evidence would indicate, from the inquiries we have had from the public over the last number of years and the investigations we have made to date, we found, for instance at the Western, even though the entire anaesthesia staff has opted out, fully 70 per cent of the claims have been on an opted-in basis.

Mr. S. Smith: On a means test.

Mr. Breithaupt: There is no option for the patient.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I have already answered that point, I think. It would seem that in fact the public has been served well by the system that we have in this province.

Mrs. Campbell: In the past.

Mr. Speaker: A new question; the member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I want to pursue with the Minister of Health this question of the degree of opting out by surgeons and by other specialists in various hospitals around the province; and also ask about the kind of options that are in fact available to patients in situations where every practitioner in a particular specialty in a particular hospital has opted out of the plan.

If I can be specific, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that there are no anaesthetists providing services at the insured rates at Toronto Women’s College Hospital or at St.

Joseph’s Hospital in west Toronto; in view of the fact that all seven obstetrician-gynecologists accredited to Scarborough General have opted out; in view of the fact that all the pediatricians at Northwestern Hospital have opted out; in view of the fact that seven of the nine psychiatrists at Toronto Women’s College Hospital have opted out; in view of the fact that many other hospitals we contacted in the past week would not, in fact, provide information on the number of opted-out specialists on their staff; will the minister now make available, for each specialty and for each community in the province, the number of doctors who opted out and the number who have remained in the plan?

Will he also say whether he really believes that the amount of opting out by specialists is not, in fact, a threat to the universality of health care in this province?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I have to go back to this fact: If members look at the history of the health plan as we know it in Ontario, I would point out that every one of the 10 provinces has a slightly different plan one way or another --

Mr. Swart: Not quite as bad as this.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh Mel, you know better.

Mr. McClellan: What about Quebec?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- a number of them involving additional billing options; including Saskatchewan, that allows patient streaming of any patient -- any patient on any service.

Mr. Martel: Three per cent.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Patient streaming and extra billing.

Mr. McClellan: Three per cent, and they are worried about it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You are trying to have it both ways.

Mr. Warner: You don’t care about Quebec.

Mr. McClellan: You couldn’t care less.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Now I suspect, Mr. Speaker, if you look at any situation over the last number of years in any of the teaching hospitals, in those instances where we have groups of specialists opted out you will find an experience similar to the one we found when we inquired about Toronto Western. In that case a very high percentage of claims had, in fact, been billed on an opted-in basis. That is because for years they have had the right in the teaching hospitals to have billing groups. That right, as members know, was extended to all the clinical departments --

Mr. McClellan: Why don’t you just give us the information?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- of the non-teaching hospitals earlier this year as a means of ensuring options for the patients.

I will take the member’s other question under advisement and give him an answer in a few days.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Let me take a specific instance and then ask the minister if he can defend this.

At York-Finch Hospital all four dental surgeons on the staff have opted out of OHIP. Is the minister not aware of the particular case of a 76-year-old pensioner at that hospital, a man named Mr. Nick Laurella, of very modest means, who had a lung removed in June? He is now facing a bill for $167.50, in addition to the $433.50 paid by OHIP. His doctor has refused to listen to repeated protests by Mr. Laurella’s family that they cannot pay and could they please be excused? Does this kind of charge not constitute a deterrent to vitally needed health care; and how on earth can the minister tolerate a pensioner or any other citizen in the province of Ontario being put into this kind of situation?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: First of all, Mr. Speaker, I have some difficulty in acknowledging that it is a deterrent when in fact the individual got the service. He got the service.

Interjections.

Mr. Warner: The system is crumbling around you and you’re doing nothing about it.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: The second point is I would want to be sure that in fact it was discussed with the patient beforehand and that he agreed. What I am saying is I feel that it is a generally accepted principle --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I said I would want to know whether it was discussed with him beforehand, because it is a generally accepted principle, certainly by the government and by the profession, that it should be discussed with the patient beforehand except in those cases which we have discussed several times already today where you cannot discuss it with him, and that they should agree to it; that they then should have the option to find a doctor who will do it on an opted-in basis. That is the important point.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, in that particular case the evidence would seem to indicate that -- to continue that review -- 70 per cent of the claims are on an opted-in basis; the system has been working as it is supposed to work, in general. Maybe we will find specific ones where it hasn’t.

Mr. Roy: You have been given an example where it hasn’t.

Mr. Cassidy: You are hiding behind your averages.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: The way we expect it to work is that it would be discussed with the patient beforehand and if the patient didn’t agree that he could then seek out another physician --

Mr. Martel: Yes, get out of his bed and find another doctor.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: No, that is not what I am saying -- on staff to do it on an opted- in basis.

An hon. member: What about emergencies?

Mr. Makarchuk: He is put in there by another doctor.

Mr. Rotenberg: Why don’t you wait for the answer?

Mr. Warner: The system is crumbling and you know it. It is falling apart.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: The evidence would seem to indicate that it is working that way.

Mr. Breaugh: I would like to ask the minister in this regard: In a telephone survey in recent days we called hospitals and the hospital would not tell us whether certain specialists had opted in or opted out. How is a patient supposed to know whether he can receive that service by an opted-in physician when the hospital doesn’t tell the patient whether they are in or out, and in some cases says they don’t know? How is the patient supposed to find out?

Mr. McClellan: Not from the Minister of Health, they won’t.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I think, first of all, it has been widely known -- and I will acknowledge that perhaps more needs to be done to make sure that it is even more widely known -- that the patient does have the option, that they can choose.

An hon. member: How can they choose when they don’t know?

Mr. Makarchuk: It is another doctor who sends him to the hospital.

Mr. Rotenberg: Why don’t you wait for the answer? Stop yelling over there. Just wait for the answer.

Mr. Makarchuk: He doesn’t have any answers.

Mr. Cassidy: Because it is outrageous, that’s why.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I can only point to the record of the health system these number of years. There is no evidence whatsoever -- none whatsoever -- that people have in fact been deterred from necessary medical care by our system.

Mr. Martel: Answer the question. They won’t give you the list.

Mr. Cassidy: The minister says there is no evidence. I just want to bring to his attention the fact --

Mr. Speaker: This is your second question.

Mr. Cassidy: This is my second question, Mr. Speaker -- that in the case I just brought to his attention, Mr. Laurella, this 76-year- old fellow was Italian-speaking, there was no advance notice given to him or his family. When the family, both verbally and then in writing, made the request to the physician to say, “Look, we can’t afford it” --

Mr. Rotenberg: What’s the question? Mr. Cassidy: -- the physician simply insisted on continuing with his demands for $167.50, despite the inability of either the patient or the family to pay.

[3:00]

Mr. Speaker: No question yet.

Mr. Cassidy: In view of the minister’s repeated insistence today that doctors should inform patients in advance if they are going to charge more than the OHIP rate, I would like to ask the minister whether he is aware that

section 26 of regulation 577/75 of the Health Disciplines Act provides for disciplinary action against physicians who fail to notify patients in advance if they intend to charge more than the Ontario Medical Association fee schedule, but the regulation is in fact silent in insisting that a doctor tell a patient he intends to charge a surcharge over the OHIP fee, even though that surcharge is now averaging around 42 per cent?

I would like to ask the minister if he will undertake now, here in this House, to change the regulations in order to ensure that patients of opted-out physicians are, in fact, informed in advance if their doctor has opted out and intends to charge more than the OHIP fee, and how much more?

Mr. Swart: Give that commitment.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I can tell members that that is, in fact, what we have under consideration as part of the discussions with the OMA on the fee-negotiating process. That is the position we are taking.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: Given the failure of the minister to give the commitment now -- if he is really committed to defending medicare he should have made that commitment here in this House, this has been an issue long enough for him to have made his mind up by now.

Interjections.

Mr. Cassidy: Since the minister says that the consumers of health should be informed, that an informed consumer is a good consumer, is he prepared to ensure that the consumers of health can at least find a physician who is practising under OHIP? Will he do that by publishing, on a regular basis, for each community in the province, a list of those physicians who are in and those who are out of OHIP?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: It is my understanding that it would, in fact, be a violation of the Health Insurance Act --

Mr. Swart: Change it.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- to publish physicians’ names. What is more, I think that, again based on the experience with the plan, ensuring the public’s knowledge of their rights, ensuring that this principle is upheld, will in fact serve the public interest best.

Mr. Warner: You are destroying this system we fought so hard for.

Mr. S. Smith: As the minister goes about permitting these little erosions of the principle of universality --

Mr. Swart: Little?

Mr. Warner: The system is being destroyed.

Mr. S. Smith: -- to the point of complete dismantling, is he also, in fact, prepared to countenance the matter we saw discussed in a newspaper today? That is the question of insurance companies being permitted to insure for the amounts above the OHIP rates? Does he not realize that if he permits this to happen, he could succeed in completely dismantling the system and turning back the clock to where he seems to want to go; that is to when doctors said who must pay and who must not pay?

Mr. Warner: That is the next step.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I should say I am surprised at the honourable member, but maybe I’m not. He is now engaging in the same kind of hyperbole we have been hearing from that other corner of the House, lo these many weeks. There is no evidence, there is no reason of any kind, to believe that our health plan is in any way being dismantled --

Mr. Swart: That is the biggest joke I have heard in the House.

Mr. Roy: How can you say that?

Mr. Warner: The system is being destroyed and you know it.

Mr. Cooke: You are living in a dream world, Dennis.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- or that it is in any way in violation of the principles of the Health Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act. In fact, there is all kinds of evidence to suggest that it is very much in conformity. Any actions taken by this government have been to maintain the integrity of the health care system. And that includes, by the way, dealing openly and frankly with the medical profession; not trying to engage in doctor-bashing, not trying to use some kind of bludgeon; but rather to get at the real problem --

Mr. M. Davidson: Something you haven’t been doing.

Mr. Swart: What is the problem?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- namely, the way we arrive at the fee schedules and the question of doctors’ concern about the bureaucratic procedures of the health insurance plan. That’s how you solve problems, by dealing openly with them.

Mr. S. Smith: Are you going to allow co-insurance?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: No, we are not considering allowing co-insurance.

DISCRIMINATION BY POLICE

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Solicitor General although I would be delighted to have the comments of the Attorney General at the same time.

In view of the recent statements by police officers concerning apparent discrimination against Jews, blacks and homosexuals in our society, has the Solicitor General any comments to make? Has he made any investigation of these facts as they have appeared?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I assume, Mr. Speaker, the member for St. George is referring to a recent publication of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Association called News and Views. I have discussed the

article with the senior members of the Metropolitan Toronto police force and very recently with the president of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Association, who has indicated to me that he regrets very much that the

article was published. As a matter of fact, I understand that the president of the police association will be having a press conference tomorrow to indicate his regret for the publication of the articles to which the honourable member refers.

I have also written a letter to the editor of that publication indicating my concern about the publication and I should be pleased to supply the honourable member with a copy of that letter.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, do I take it then that the Solicitor General views such statements by those who are engaged in the administration of the justice system of the province as being somewhat different from private statements of a similar nature made by private citizens?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Yes, I do, Mr. Speaker, and I pointed out to the editor of that publication that whether they necessarily always accept this fact or not, I think that the public regard the police as police officers 24 hours of the day. It is really impossible from a practical standpoint to separate their responsibilities as police officers and as private citizens, and although they may think that they are simply expressing their views as private citizens, invariably those views are going to be regarded as expressions of police officers and therefore I do regard them in a different position.

Mr. Bounsall: Will the minister, in his capacity as Solicitor General, suggest to the police forces across Ontario that in the annual education sessions which most of them undertake they include in that education session one of the very good courses run by the Human Rights Commission, whenever they are asked to do so, as a means of ensuring that these problems mentioned do not continue?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I am quite satisfied, Mr. Speaker, at the present time that the police forces across the province are aware of this problem and through education and through any other means available are attempting to avoid this type of incident, any expressions of bigotry or intolerance, and that is a problem about which all police forces are aware at the present time.

BRANTFORD HOSPITALS

Mr. Makarchuk: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Health.

Now the minister has had an opportunity to talk to the Brant County Health Council, has received a petition with 20,000 names on it -- I’m sure he has even had a suggestion from the Premier -- can the minister tell the House whether he is prepared to accept the idea that both hospitals in Brantford, the St. Joseph’s Hospital and Brantford General Hospital, will continue to be active treatment facilities?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I want to first of all read to you a press release which came from the honourable member’s office this morning, and it is part of the answer to this. It said approximately 400 people will be demonstrating -- I think it was 120 -- in front of the Legislature to protest the attempt of the government to close St. Joseph’s Hospital in Brantford.

Mr. Speaker, with respect, that is totally misleading because in point of fact there is no intent, no desire at all --

Mr. Warner: You changed your mind.

Mr. Swart: You are going to leave it open.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- to see St. Joseph’s Hospital in Brantford -- or any other hospital for that matter -- close.

Mr. M. Davidson: What are you going to do in Penetanguishene, Dennis?

Mr. Cooke: You are just going to starve them.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: We had a very good meeting with representatives of the health council, and at a subsequent meeting we had a very good discussion with about 20 or 30 people, I would say, from Brantford and area, from the member’s constituency and that of the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon).

The health council, by the way, has not officially received or considered any report yet from the rationalization committee which was struck about a year ago. The committee was under the former chairman of the health council, with representatives of the board, administration, and medical staff of each of the hospitals. They have not finished their work yet --

Mr. Swart: But you’ll close it anyway.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- and therefore there’s no report before the health council to make a recommendation.

Mr. Makarchuk: Of course there’s a report.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: No. With respect, Mr. Speaker, my information is that the rationalization committee has not finalized their work --

Mr. Makarchuk: It was presented two weeks ago on Wednesday.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: What the honourable member is referring to, I believe, is the present state of the consideration of the rationalization committee, which they discussed with the public, which they have discussed at various meetings --

Mr. Swart: You call that a report?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- but which they have not finalized, and which they have not recommended to the health council.

We do believe in decentralized planning, and we do believe the rationalization committee and the health council should have the time --

Mr. Swart: You believe in closing hospitals.

Mr. Cassidy: You have been using health councils as a smokescreen.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- to hear the representations, to consider the alternatives, and to make some conclusions. The conclusions will be based on how to maintain the quality of health care within the standards that apply.

I indicated to the health council I am prepared to see, as we have done elsewhere, at the conclusion of their work the savings that will be generated from the rationalization applied against deficits that will be built up in the interim. What is more, I indicated in a letter I gave them when they left that we are prepared, at the point where the hospitals and the health council finalize an agreement on the rationalization, to reinstate up to $390,000 into the hospital budget for 1979-80, plus recovering -- which is consistent with our financial incentive policies -- any additional deficits from future savings generated by the rationalization.

Mr. Makarchuk: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: The nurses say that in the past, sufficient material resources were available for sisters directing St. Joseph’s Hospital as a fully-accredited, active-treatment hospital, and the present economic climate will not permit the continuation of this fine service much longer. In effect, what they’re saying, contrary to what the minister has said, is that the hospital will stop being an active treatment facility.

The point of my supplementary is how much time does the Brant County Health Council have to come in with a new proposal? And is this proposal going to contain the decision to keep both hospitals open as active treatment facilities?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: First of all, the health council has not made a recommendation. My information is they haven’t even had a recommendation from the rationalization committee. They will eventually make a recommendation to me, which will be based on two things: first of all, what is the most appropriate way for that community to arrive at the four active treatment beds per thousand population; and what is the most appropriate way to meet the chronic and rehabilitation bed needs of that community.

I have made no foregone conclusions --

Mr. Makarchuk: How much time will you give them?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I’ve made no foregone conclusions of what the recommendation will be. It will be a recommendation which is in the best interest of that community.

Mr. Makarchuk: How much time are you giving them?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I haven’t put a time on it. What I’ve indicated -- to repeat for the member’s benefit -- is that at the point of an agreement up to $390,000 will go back into the budget; and any additional deficit above that will be recovered, as would any capital costs associated with rationalization, from savings resulting from rationalization.

Mr. Nixon: Since the overall cut is estimated to be about $1.5 million, and the minister has indicated that close to $400,000 would be allocated --

Mr. McClellan: You are going down, Dennis, slowly but surely.

Mr. Nixon: -- to give the community more time to consider its alternatives, might we and the people of Brantford assume they have approximately three months to further consider the situation before the cuts announced by the minister in January will come into effect at the present stance?

[3:15]

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I didn’t put a time limit on it, but I think everyone involved would want to do it in a timely fashion, so that the matter does not drag on indefinitely. I would hope it could be done in the next few months, so that we can get on with whatever is their ultimate recommendation, or set of recommendations, for the rationalization of services in that community, as we are doing throughout Ontario.

CHEST DISEASE CASES

Mr. Pope: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Labour and Manpower. It arises from a letter addressed to myself from Dr. Vingilis of the industrial chest disease service of the Ministry of Labour. Dr. Vingilis has said: “There is no excess of lung cancers in Ontario gold miners in comparison with the population at large.”

Mr. Laughren: Really? He’s a Tory.

Mr. Pope: My question is how can Dr. Vingilis make that kind of an absolute statement in the light of a report prepared in December 1978 -- that’s approximately a month before this letter was sent to me -- which is entitled Cancer Mortality in Selected Northern Ontario Mining Communities, including Timmins, Kirkland Lake, Elliot Lake and Kapuskasing, and which establishes exactly that there is an excess of lung cancers in Ontario gold miners in comparison with the population at large?

Will the minister immediately engage on an urgent priority basis though his industrial diseases branch to determine whether this is a valid report and to determine whether or not there is additional information that can be made available? And will he act immediately to assure the miners of northern Ontario and their families that there is, in effect, no problem or take steps to remedy the problems?

Secondly, in the light of Dr. Vingilis’ statement --

Mr. Bradley: Cross the floor.

Mr. Ruston: Come on over here.

Mr. Pope: -- that diesel fumes in high concentrations are known to cause chronic bronchitis, will the minister review every decision the Ontario Workmen’s Compensation Board has made concerning railroad workers who are suffering from chronic bronchitis --

Mr. Germa: Speech.

Mr. Pope: -- and try to ascertain whether or not they have been fairly dealt with in light of this recent conclusion?

Mr. Breithaupt: You will be a parliamentary assistant next time.

Mr. Mackenzie: He’d make that kind of minister.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, I was going to ask the member to repeat the question, but I think I won’t.

Mr. Bradley: No wonder you could upset that guy.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I would be glad to have the report the member has referred to reviewed by the industrial chest disease service, and I will assure the member I will look into the other matter as well and report to the House.

Mr. Renwick: He’s the first Tory backbencher to express an interest in the topic.

Mr. Nixon: Some other people are going to look into it too.

Mr. Martel: Supplementary: While the minister is looking at the bronchial problem, could he look into a report a number of years ago which indicated that 22.5 per cent of the smelter workers in Sudbury suffered a bronchial problem? In view of the fact that we have been trying for about four years to get this government to recognize that as a compensable condition, would he make a decision as to whether those workers in the smelter are also entitled to benefits? This is far in excess of the provincial average.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I’ll be glad to look into that matter as well.

NIAGARA RIVER POLLUTION

Mr. Kerrio: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of the Environment. Is the minister aware of a statement made on water quality by the International Joint Commission that chemical dumps on both sides of the border must be found and clean-up must become a top priority by both countries? In view of that statement, I would also ask if he is aware of the fact the residents of Niagara-on-the-Lake, St.

Catharines and Virgil have circulated a petition to be given to the New York state environment department protesting the dumping of additional chemical waste by a chemical dump company in the lower Niagara River? Is the minister leaving the responsibility up to the residents of the area, or is he, as the minister, going to assume a responsible position with the US authorities to make certain no more dumping of chemicals is going to go into the Niagara River until the residents on both sides of the border are guaranteed safe water?

Mr. Laughren: That’s free enterprise. I’m surprised the member would intervene.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, I guess it was yesterday morning the member for -- I’d better check the location -- Lincoln, was it?

Mr. Martel: Yesterday afternoon.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Brock. Sorry about that.

Mr. Martel: I knew you’d have trouble with that.

Mr. Breithaupt: You made a real impression.

Mr. S. Smith: There was a time you were considered important in the cabinet.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The member for Brock gave me a call in the great riding of Oxford -- I don’t forget the name of that one -- and we had quite a long discussion on the very issue. It’s my understanding that the member -- and I support him fully on it -- is asking for a public hearing. I think he is doing so knowing that this is the approach that we in Ontario are now taking on these items. Having set the example for the United States in this regard, I think they would do well to follow our example and have public hearings on these items.

Yes, I am well aware of the statement by the International Joint Commission. Yes, I am well aware that at the moment by far the vast majority of those who are polluting our waters with chemical toxic wastes are from the other side of the border.

No, we will not sit idly by. We are very aggressively monitoring all of the water supplies. Let me be very, very positive about that.

Mr. Martel: You used to walk across the water, George.

Mr. Warner: You are watching vigorously.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: There is absolutely no danger to the present water supply of those municipalities.

I share the concern the member for Brock (Mr. Welch) expressed to me very forcibly about the future.

An hon. member: Does that mean you are going for a swim?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: We will remain concerned. But until it is proven otherwise -- and I think the only way you could prove it otherwise is to seek tests that would indicate there is a problem and at the moment there is not one -- there is no problem with the water supply in your riding, or indeed in Brock.

Mr. Warner: You will wait until we can have foot races across the river.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: We feel very confident that the water supply is in a very safe condition right now. We will monitor it. We have stepped up our monitoring of it and we will do everything possible. I hope the member for Niagara Falls will join the member for Brock and myself in saying we are sure today the water is all right. If there is any change in the tests the member will be the first to know -- the people will be the first to know.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Any time you want a public hearing.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: It is important that in the other jurisdiction over which we have no direct control we will not remain silent. I only hope they take the suggestion of the member for Brock and have a public hearing -- have it out in the open so we will all know.

Mr. Kerrio: I just want to bring something to the minister’s attention.

Mr. Speaker: By way of a question, hopefully.

Mr. Kerrie: Yes, thank you; I will bring the supplementary immediately.

I wonder if the minister is aware of the fact that both the Love Canal and the Bloody Run Creek are connected to that international waterway? Is he aware that one is in the upper Niagara River above the falls and the other is in the lower river? I hope he will not continue to make the statement that we will not have a Love Canal incident here, because it is connected with our waterways. I want to make that point very clear.

Also, I would ask if the minister is aware that if this dump site goes in in Lewiston, New York, they are contemplating moving some of the chemical waste over the Penn Central Railway in southern Ontario? I wonder if he would look into the matter to be certain that if any of these dangerous chemicals are going over the rails to that disposal site, he might be the first to know about it and therefore monitor it very diligently.

Mr. Martel: He is going to walk alongside the train.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think that the legislation I will be introducing in a matter of minutes has a great deal to say about the transportation of those dangerous chemicals. People from the industry have indicated to me it is pretty tough legislation because they will be held responsible. That kind of action on our part has alerted them.

Mr. S. Smith: The spiller must pay.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Well, indeed they have. It is so difficult not to react to the interjections, Mr. Speaker, but the material that will be moved by the transporter and/or the industry that owns it is their responsibility. I know now from the reaction of both the transporter and the industry that they are very concerned on the safe transportation of the material.

Mr. Nixon: Shades of George Kerr.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: While I may not know in advance it is being moved, indeed, they know in advance it is their liability, their responsibility and that is very clear in this legislation the member will see today. I think that is a very important piece of legislation, to answer the question.

HEALTH INSURANCE

Mr. Renwick: I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. It relates to the private insurance industry and the Ontario Health Insurance Plan and the consequences of the doctors opting out.

As the continuance of the Ontario Health Insurance Plan as the sole insurance carrier under the Health Insurance Act, 1972, is the guts of our health care system, will the minister tell the House whether private insurers can now re-enter this field to insure the public against excess doctors’ fees over and above the fees permitted under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, having regard to

section 19(1) of that act, which reads in substance as follows: “Every contract of insurance for the payment of any part of the cost of any insured services performed in Ontario for any insured person under this act is void and of no effect” -- and these are the words that bother me -- “insofar as it makes provision for insuring against the costs payable by the plan, and no person shall enter into or renew such a contract”?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Just a few moments ago, my colleague, the Minister of Health, replied “No.” Since obviously for more than a decade there has been no co-insurance, I really fail to understand the concern of the member over those words.

Mr. Renwick: By way of a supplementary -- and this is precisely why I asked the question -- that subsection of the act states that there can be no insurance insofar as it makes provision for insuring against the costs payable by the plan. My supplementary question is: are those words not sufficient as at the present time to permit the private insurers to come in to insure the excess costs being incurred?

Mr. Breithaupt: Beyond that.

Mr. Renwick: If the answer to my question is that they are not an open gate for the private insurance industry to re-enter the field, will the minister consult with his colleague, the Minister of Health, and with the ubiquitous Attorney General of Ontario and let us have an opinion of the law officers of the crown as to whether or not that permits at this time private insurers to come in on the Ontario Health Insurance Plan and add to the destruction of that plan, which is taking place now?

Hon. Mr. Drea: First of all, I can answer the bulk of that supplementary question by saying, “No, not as long as I am the minister.” Secondly, if the member wants an opinion from the chief law officer of the crown, why didn’t he have the courtesy to ask the Attorney General? If the member wants me to get it for him I’ll be delighted to get it for him.

Mr. Martel: He didn’t have the courtesy to be here.

HOSPITAL BED ALLOCATIONS

Mr. Hennessy: My question is to the Minister of Health. In view of the repeated requests from the city of Thunder Bay, the local hospital boards and myself for a meeting with the Minister of Health to discuss the hospital bed situation in the city of Thunder Bay, has the minister set a date for such a meeting?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: As I recall, there is a meeting being arranged for April 3, I believe, with a group representing the city, the health council and the various hospitals.

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

MOTIONS

COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY

Hon. Mr. Welch moved that commencing Thursday, March 29, the House may resolve itself into a committee of supply.

Motion agreed to.

STANDING GENERAL GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE

Hon. Mr. Welch moved that the standing general government committee be authorized to meet this afternoon and this evening concurrently with the House, and on Wednesday, March 28.

Motion agreed to.

STANDING ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE COMMITTEE

Hon. Mr. Welch moved that the standing administration of justice committee be authorized to meet on the morning of Wednesday, March 28.

Motion agreed to.

[3:30]

STANDING STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS AND MEMBERS SERVICES COMMITTEES

Hon. Mr. Welch moved that the statutory instruments committee and the members’ services committee be authorized to meet on the morning of Thursday, March 29.

Motion agreed to.

STANDING SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

Hon. Mr. Welch moved that the standing social development committee be authorized to meet concurrently with the House this afternoon.

Motion agreed to.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON NOTICE PAPER

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, might I use this opportunity to table the answers to questions 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 61, 62, 63, 64, 86, 89, 90 and 92, and the interim answers to questions 8 to 60 inclusive, 65 to 85 inclusive, 87, 88 and 91, standing on the Notice Paper.

MEMBER’S BOOK OF POETRY

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I regret that the member for Lakeshore (Mr. Lawlor) is not here in the House at this moment. It is very seldom that we have actual tangible evidence that one of the members of this chamber is literate; many people have had doubts on that particular question. I want to assure you, Mr. Speaker, and all members of the House that the member for Lakeshore is very literate and that today, in fact, he has published the outpourings of seven or eight years of poetic endeavour -- endeavour which I believe puts him in a class with such famous commentators, wits and reviewers of our time as Pope, Dryden and Ezra Pound.

The tome is known as The Psychotic Personality of Our Time. I wish to read one short introductory portion of it which I think sums up the thrust of the whole thing in reflecting this chamber. If I can quote Lawlor quoting Rilke’s Second Elegy: “Jeder Engel is Schrecklich” -- “Every angel is terrible.” And if I can quote Lawlor on this place, he begins his first canto in this tome: “The times are mad.”

I have had an offer from the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick), who was anxious to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest from having the member for Lakeshore peddling his own tome; therefore, the member for Riverdale will be happy to take orders for this particular work. At $10 a copy, the member for Lakeshore will be happy to sign them.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, having referred to the very distinguished member for Lakeshore as the poet laureate of this House on more than one occasion and having known him perhaps for more years than the present leader of the New Democratic Party, I would like to express my real congratulations to him. I guess it’s a more creative effort than one that I have been told about emanating from a former caucus member of his. When I say more creative, it probably will add more to the literary style of this province than Morton Shulman’s book will to the history of this province. I am not sure of that, but I am told that is the case.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, if I also may be permitted a word of congratulation, I presume that a text with such a title as The Psychotic Personality of Our Time might be one of autobiography. Indeed, it might be one of dedication to his present or future leader. Of course, it could also be that it was written because of his caucus colleagues or in spite of them; I am not sure which.

In any event we welcome this literary outpouring. I presume that for those members who cannot obtain a copy in the next few months, no doubt when Dr. Shulman’s book receives greater prominence, perhaps in the future we could all get them as a pair at Coles for about $3.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, as business agent, I just did not want any misunderstanding. The figure of $10 is for the paperback. For the hardback book, which is in limited edition, the price is -- well, it is almost going for auction now; of course, with the member’s signature on the flyleaf of the book, I doubt if any member of this House could afford to buy such a copy, but I am willing to accept any offers at all for his work.

Mr. Sargent: He’s trying to beat Maggie Trudeau.

Mr. Lawlor: Yes, there is a lot of competition abroad in the publishing field these days. I do not know how anyone reads anything; there is so much to do.

However, I would warn the Premier that, by heavens, before he says very much about it, he had better read it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s why I am not paying for it first.

Mr. Lawlor: He will remember the famous colloquy of the critic who spoke to Robert Browning about these things. Robert said: “Oh, yes, there was a time when I and God understood what it was all about. Now only God knows.” I take that position almost from the time of its birth.

Writing poetry -- I suppose writing anything -- is a form of self-exposure; it may be indecent exposure, although I suppose it is not arrestable quite yet.

As far as my friend over here is concerned, he is included, let me assure him.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Parrott moved first reading of Bill 24,

An Act to amend the Environmental Protection Act, 1911.

Motion agreed to.

LABOUR RELATIONS AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Elgie moved first reading of Bill 25,

An Act to amend the Labour Relations Act.

Motion agreed to.

HURONIA DISTRICT HOSPITAL ACT

Mr. G. E. Smith moved first reading of Bill Pr4,

An Act respecting the financing of the Huronia District Hospital.

Motion agreed to.

VILLAGE OF COOKSTOWN ACT

Mr. G. E. Smith, on behalf of Mr. G. Taylor, moved first reading of Bill Pr6,

An Act respecting the Village of Cookstown.

Motion agreed to.

CONSUMER PROTECTION AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. B. Newman moved first reading of Bill 26,

An Act to amend the Consumer Protection Act.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to require that every product offered for sale by a retailer that is marked with the universal product code must also be clearly marked with its individual purchase price.

PORTABLE FIRE EXTINGUISHERS SAFETY ACT

Mr. Stong moved first reading of Bill 27,

An Act to regulate the Manufacture, Sale and Servicing of Portable Fire Extinguishers.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Stong: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the bill is to protect the public from the fire hazard created by inadequately manufactured and serviced fire extinguishers.

INNOCENT PERSONS PROTECTION ACT

Mr. Stong moved first reading of Bill 28,

An Act to protect the Reputation of Innocent Persons from Untimely Publicity.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Stong: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the bill is to prohibit publication of the name of or otherwise reveal the personal identity of persons charged with offences until such time as a court begins to hear evidence in the case or the person enters a plea of guilty to the offence.

MOTION TO SUSPEND NORMAL BUSINESS

Mr. Foulds moved under

section 34 of the standing orders, that the ordinary business of the House be set aside to discuss a matter of urgent public importance, namely, the failure of the Minister of Health to provide adequate funding for hospitals throughout the province, as evidenced in northern Ontario by Thunder Bay, Kirkland Lake and other small communities; in Metropolitan Toronto by Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital; and elsewhere in southern Ontario by Brantford and Windsor; so that the reduction in hospital facilities and services is causing severe hardships to citizens of this province and is seriously threatening the level of health care the people of Ontario have a right to expect.

[3:45]

Mr. Speaker: The honourable member, has up to five minutes to explain why he feels this is of urgent public importance.

Mr. Foulds: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe the matter dealt with in the resolution is a matter of urgent public importance or the following reasons:

One, my attention was first focused on the issue by the effects of the active-treatment bed allocation method. It was devised by the Ministry of Health and sets the new and arbitrary bed ratios at 4.5 per 1,000 of population in northern Ontario and 4.0 in southern Ontario, to be reduced further to 4.0 in northern Ontario and 3.5 in southern Ontario by 1981.

Although that came to my attention because of the devastating effects it was having in Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario, I believe the evidence is mounting throughout the province in places such as Etobicoke, Windsor, Brantford and throughout northeastern Ontario that it is a province-wide phenomenon. It is just that we are now seeing the first evidence of it most strongly in the communities mentioned in the resolution.

Two: the first phase of the ministry’s plan goes into effect just four days from now, April 1, so the matter is urgent if we are as a Legislature to express our opinions and try to persuade the ministry they are set on a wrong course of action.

Three: we have no other avenue for discussing this most serious problem at the present time. The matter deserves debate and discussion, not merely questions that can be fobbed off by ministers during question period. For example, the Ministry of Health estimates will not come up for debate until after April 1; in fact, they are, in my understanding, slated to come somewhat down the road of legislative consideration.

Also, it is my understanding there is no opportunity for debate in the throne speech debate this week, and the throne debate itself does not focus sufficiently on an issue of this importance and magnitude throughout the province.

Four: this is the first opportunity since the House has resumed after the March break to discuss a matter of substance. Surely, the health of the populace must be one of our top priority considerations in this Legislature.

As I understand it, on the previous occasion when a matter of health was brought up for emergency debate -- the Chesley Hospital debate in November 1975 -- the Speaker ruled against such a motion that was confined to one situation. The House expressed its will otherwise so the debate proceeded because it was used as an example of the plan in 1975 which would decrease the effectiveness of the delivery of health care to the people of Ontario.

Five -- and I just want to use this as an example -- in my own area the matter has been brought to my attention very forcefully. I have received over 1,000 letters on the topic in the last 10 days to two weeks. There has literally been a news story every second day in the local media, which are being contacted by individuals. There has been concern expressed by city council and several representations to city council by McKellar General Hospital, St. Joseph’s General Hospital, the senior citizen groups, the district health council and many individuals.

I note the efforts of my friend, the member for Fort William (Mr. Hennessy), who has been trying to line up a meeting between responsible civic officials and the Minister of Health and/or some of his colleagues to discuss this urgent matter.

I am sure when this debate proceeds, my colleagues from Brantford, Oshawa, Windsor, and Algoma will be able to present ample evidence of the urgency of this motion as it affects many areas of the province.

To sum up, Mr. Speaker, the hospital bed cutbacks, the implementation of the bed ratio rates, is only four days away. This Legislative Assembly has the final authority and has not had an opportunity to discuss this urgent matter until now. The regular avenues of debate are not open to us.

Three, the House expressed its will with regard to the Chesley debate on November 20, 1975.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I believe that the matter of health care is one that has been badly handled by the government. A government cannot cut back on active treatment beds the way it has until alternative services are in place and we shall make those arguments when the debate proceeds, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, my colleagues join me in urging you to accept the resolution and recognize that the matter put before us in the resolution is one of urgent and public importance. It has already been put to you, sir, that the effective date of April 1 is just two or three days away as far as the application of the budget cuts are concerned.

One matter that sometimes is forgotten is that in those areas where the budget cuts are going to persist -- I do not know whether there are any or not -- the layoffs, if they have not already been undertaken, are going to have to be paid for from some source. I would suggest to you, sir, it will be the responsibility of this Legislature to find those funds.

There will be an opportunity, I trust, sir, having a lot of confidence in your good judgement, to discuss the specific matters later this afternoon, but I should tell you that when my colleagues examined the resolution, notice of which was given to us, we wanted to indicate that other communities not listed in the resolution certainly should have their problems aired and discussed and put before the Minister of Health here.

I refer to the hospital cutbacks which are going to cause a serious depreciation in health care facilities in Fort Frances, in Goderich, in Wingham, in the Four Counties Hospital at Newbury, and of course I, sir, want to bring your attention to the problems faced by the citizens in Brantford.

Frankly, I was a bit offended that the minister in a rather cavalier way indicated with some disparaging tone that only a handful of people appeared in front of the Legislature today to argue against his cutbacks of the services in our own community. I should tell you, sir, that in fact it was a very important delegation indeed, well versed in the problems that we have. As a further indication the policy seems to be still fluid, the minister in his comments in question period today indicated there was going to be the flexibility of about $400,000 in the situation in Brantford itself.

Unless we have a chance to put our arguments before the minister and to hear his responses in this connection, I would put to you, sir, that the citizens in our various communities, directly and deeply concerned with this matter, will otherwise not have an opportunity for the argument to be put by their elected representatives.

I end my comments, sir, by urging you once again to indicate that in your good judgement this matter would be properly before the House this afternoon for special debate.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I would go along with the comments made earlier about the value of the discussion this afternoon of the various concerns with regard to hospitals. May I say, sir, in answer to the comments of my friend from Brant-Oxford-Norfolk, I certainly meant no disparaging tone or intent at all with regard to the group with whom I met. In fact, this morning when I got into the office -- I had been up to Panetang yesterday afternoon -- I got the notice that the group was coming and I bad been asked to meet with them. I readily agreed, although I couldn’t meet at the time they suggested and they were good enough to come at a time when I was free.

As I said earlier, it was a very good meeting. I think it was a constructive meeting for me and I hope for that group as well. We shared information and views.

Mr. Speaker, this subject is one that consumes a great deal of my time every working day in dealing with the district health councils and hospitals, and has as long as I have been in this portfolio, since the evolution, the transitional phase of our health care system is one that has been going on for quite some time and will go on for quite some time into the future. As the health care needs of the province have changed, are changing, and will change, so too will the means of addressing those needs be changed so as to maintain the quality of the health care system.

I will, therefore, be glad to participate. The time limits of such a debate are such that all the points can’t possibly be answered. Whenever my estimates do come on -- I don’t know when they’re going to be, whether it’s spring or fall, or whenever -- or during question period, or for that matter privately with members, I’ll be glad to discuss more than what can be covered in this limited time today.

I have arranged meetings with a number of members. My friend, the member for Huron-Bruce (Mr. Gaunt), was in touch with me recently about the possibility of a meeting With some hospitals in his area to pursue the question of planning for additional chronic needs in that area to be met out of surplus active treatment facilities. I certainly readily agreed to that. In fact, I think we’re meeting on April 6. I’m meeting on April 3 with a group from Thunder Bay, dealing with local people, to solve local problems. I’ll look forward to the debate.

Mr. Speaker: It is the responsibility of the chair only to decide whether or not the motion was in order. Proper notice was given. The main criterion is that it be of sufficient and urgent public importance. Given the comments I have heard I would rule that it is, so it does meet the criteria of standing order 34. The only thing that remains is that the Speaker ask should the debate proceed?

Motion agreed to.

HOSPITAL BED ALLOCATIONS

Mr. Foulds: In my remarks I’m going to focus on the problems as they have arisen in northwestern Ontario and Thunder Bay. Even in the 10 minutes allotted, I’m sure I cannot do that justice, as you will recognize. However, my colleagues will -- and perhaps you could -- describe the areas outside of Thunder Bay. I certainly feel inadequate to the task.

First of all, I want to say that my colleagues will be outlining situations in other areas of the province. I want to outline very briefly some of the facts, as I understand them, as they affect Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario.

I think the big problem that has arisen is that the reductions that were announced by the minister and the ministry in January have put a crimp in service because we have not had in place ahead of time adequate alternative care -- adequate chronic care, adequate extended care. For all the will in the world, and for all the attempts, frankly -- I know what the minister is going to interject. I’ll let him use his time to do that -- adequate chronic care and extended care have not been provided first.

For example, in Thunder Bay we have lost 200 beds since 1974 and now must reduce by an additional 27 beds by April 1, 1979, and by 114 beds by April 1, 1981. In small areas of northwestern Ontario there are reductions that I’ll go into later on. There are over 100 chronic care patients and 100 extended care patients in Thunder Bay awaiting adequate placement. Until alternative facilities are in place, no active treatment beds should be cut.

We get to the question of how the ratio is established. I think we have to recognize that the ratio is largely an arbitrary one, that it is set up arbitrarily and can be changed arbitrarily. It is not dependent on any rationale.

For the remaining 77-bed reduction after April 1 that must be implemented in Thunder Bay by April 1981, we haven’t had details of that and there is no way of knowing at the present time if a four per thousand ratio is the final goal. We have not had a clear statement of that by the minister. As alternative services increase, hopefully, the minister may lower that ratio further, but because it is an arbitrary standard, it can be changed arbitrarily.

At the present time, my understanding is that McKellar General Hospital will be reduced by 16 beds, Port Arthur General Hospital by 12 beds, and St. Joseph’s General Hospital by nine beds.

[4:00]

In the last factor, the only real standard is how much the public will accept. Clearly, the provincial government believes we will accept it. I want to assure the House that until those alternative services are in place, we in the north will not accept it. It’s simply not acceptable. The conditions that exist are simply not acceptable.

I prefer not to use waiting lists as a criterion because they are not a full criterion for judging how crowded or overcrowded facilities are. But when you have occupancy rates of over 85 per cent, when you have patients staying overnight in emergency beds while they await admission to a regular bed, and when you have intensive care beds often full or nearly full and you have an increased number of patients being admitted as emergency cases rather than as routine admissions, then there is a widespread sense of chaos and pressure throughout the hospital. Those are the rules of thumb I would like to speak to.

The chronic care situation seems to me to be the crucial one to relieve the difficulty with active treatment beds. Although St. Joseph’s Heritage is slated to open before long with 100 nursing home beds, there is almost as much need for 100 chronic care beds. At the end of February I believe the waiting list was 102 for nursing home beds and 129 for chronic care beds. Even the recommendation by the district health council has not been approved that 24 of those beds -- just 24 of those beds that are in St. Joseph’s Heritage which the minister likes to talk about -- be designated chronic care. The minister cannot say the alternative services have been provided in Thunder Bay.

I just want to quote very quickly and briefly from one of the submissions made to the city council, I guess it was by St. Joseph’s hospital. They indicated that occupancy rates are 100 per cent in their medical and surgical units. They indicated that -- and I’m quoting -- “patients requiring in-patient medical care are subjected to staying in emergency for one or more nights. Emergency is not equipped or staffed to provide in-patient type of care and vital space is taken up to the detriment of bona fide emergency cases.

This (the imposition of the present bed ratios) has resulted in a decline in the number of elective surgical bookings which can be made. Some patients are inconvenienced by multiple intrahospital transfers before they are appropriately accommodated. Physicians are coerced by the demand for beds into making decisions on discharge under pressure.

“We believe that some of these patients are justified in believing they have not experienced the quality of care they should have expected from what was thought to be one of the better health systems in the world. The impending sense of chaos was heightened recently when one night every intensive care unit bed in the city was filled. Each of these beds held a patient who genuinely required intensive care unit treatment. This apparently has never happened before.

“The precarious situations described are real and render impossible the systematic and orderly management of patient bookings and admissions. With our 100 per cent occupancy rate, the patient booked in the ‘urgent’ medical category has almost no chance of being admitted. They get better or are eventually admitted as emergencies. About 68 per cent of all patients are admitted as emergencies.”

As I understand the situation, that is serious. Those are not my words. They emphasize, too, the necessity for long-term care. They also emphasize the necessity, quite rightly, of the pilot project that has been suggested by the district health council, but that won’t provide for an immediate solution to the problem. What they suggest is a delay of the implementation of bed and financial cuts until the study is complete and long-term requirements are met.

The general hospital, 221 beds total: It has an 85 per cent to 95 per cent occupancy rate, and an elective waiting list of three months. Medical patients are being admitted on an urgent basis only. They have not yet determined where the cuts will come but it will probably be 12 beds.

St. Joseph’s hospital I have dealt with, but I wanted to add they have an elective waiting list of 206, urgent waiting list 55, five rheumatic, eight rehabilitation, 15 psychiatric, nine medical, 18 surgery; all admitting being done on an emergency basis first.

The McKellar hospital has 98 per cent occupancy rate for medical-surgical, 100 per cent in all other fields, patients staying overnight in emergency because of bed shortages. They will have to close 21 beds, even though they are slated to close 18, because they have to close one unit to make it economical.

I want to touch very briefly on the region because in Geraldton they are being reduced from 45 beds to 25, in Nipigon 33 to 20, in Red Lake 44 to 27. My colleagues will deal with some of those, but when the ultimate cut comes to 27 in Red Lake, the administrator there is being quoted that the occupancy rate at peak periods would be in excess of 117 per cent. That is just not possible.

I think we have to decide, for the regions outside, what is a hospital? When you are 190 miles away from your referral centre, no matter how small the community or given it is a reasonable size, surely there is need for the essentials of a hospital. You can’t cut physiotherapists or an x-ray technician when you have only one. So that those communities like Nipigon, Geraldton and Fort Frances are in danger of losing doctors.

La Verendrye Hospital and Geraldton Hospital, for example have had no increase at all.

Mr. Speaker: The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr. Foulds: If I just might conclude with one or two sentences, Mr. Speaker, I think the present cutbacks in the northwest are just not reasonable. We are not asking for the moon. We are saying, “No. No more cutbacks until you provide the alternative chronic care and the extended care first.”

There is no lack of space in the north for those places. There is no lack of possibility of providing those under the present system.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Your time has expired.

Mr. Foulds: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to say, then, we in Thunder Bay and in northern Ontario do not --

Mr. Speaker: Order. The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr. Nixon: I want to take this brief opportunity to convey to the minister how much the people of Brantford and Brant county resent the application of centralized power to the provision of their hospital services. They are all aware of our participation in the overall medical insurance program but the minister must surely understand how the area has been, I suppose, sensitized by the attempt by his predecessor, the present Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller), to move into a small community in the area, Paris, and simply unilaterally close the Willett Hospital.

The courts found that the government didn’t have the power to do that, Mr. Speaker, and the hospital still continues to give the excellent service for which it has established a well-earned and high reputation.

The minister, coming from his own more or less small community in the centre of Metropolitan Toronto, must surely realize the pride which people have in hospital facilities which they have, in fact, built themselves. With the initiative of the citizens of Brantford and more latterly the Sisters of St. Joseph, we have built there one of the finest hospital establishments probably anywhere in Canada, if not in the world. It has been done with our own initiative and, until about the last eight or 10 years, it has been done largely with our own money.

I see the minister is frowning and he may have a moment or two to tell us about it, but I simply recall to him, that at the time when the grants were coming from the Treasury of the province of Ontario and we were in an expansionary situation, there was no health council. The announcements of the grants were made by the Minister of Health’s predecessors, going back to Matthew Dymond and before and, of course, that assistance was very much accepted. There was all sorts of gratitude expressed to the ministers of the day.

Now that we are in a situation with the budgetary problems associated with the mismanagement of the government, the minister has set up a health council which has to do the minister’s dirty work in this connection. I tell you, Mr. Speaker, I resent this very much. The people in the community who serve on the health council are outstanding men and women. I feel that they have somehow been seduced by the minister into thinking that they are going to provide the views of the community regarding provision of the very best medical service.

Now, if they had been in operation a decade ago, when we were building these things, that would be fine. But, under these circumstances, these people have to make the tough decisions to apply the cutbacks which have been handed to them unilaterally by the minister. Perhaps they were handed to him unilaterally by the Treasurer or even the Premier. I’m not so sure that it happens quite as directly as it did when Darcy McKeough was holding the purse strings. But surely this is an area for real resentment as far as the people in our area are concerned. We have built these fine hospitals.

We have two active treatment hospitals and I submit to you, Mr. Speaker -- and the Minister of Health, I think, would agree -- that we need them in the Brantford area.

Now the cutback of $1.5 million which goes into effect on April 1, a few days from now, is in the opinion of the medical authorities in Brant county going to degrade seriously the quality of the medical service in the community. There appears to be an attitude on the part of the ministerial officials that our doctors put too many people in the hospital and leave them there too long.

Now, I believe there is no evidence to indicate that the “cookie cutter” approach of the Minister of Health to the provision of hospital services should he applied to a community such as Brantford. That it is unfair and, I believe, it is bad judgement to apply this kind of uniformity to the communities right across the province.

As you know, we are not favoured with a university or community college campus in Brantford. But the statistics do show, and these are available to the minister as well, that the average age in the community is perhaps higher than in many other areas. We don’t have the hundreds and in fact thousands of young people going to university as they do, say, in Guelph, or in other communities, who, fortunately, don’t have to have hospital services. When they do, they normally return to their own home.

There are many factors which I’m sure the health council and the delegation from Brantford brought to the attention of the minister. I’ll say I applaud the fact that the minister did see fit to discuss the matter with both delegations. I’m glad he has at least relented to the extent that the final decision is postponed for some months -- three or four months in the Brantford area.

To tell you the truth, Mr. Speaker, I was not entirely clear as to the meaning of the minister’s comment when he said there would be a flexibility of approximately $400,000 with regard to our own hospital situation. But the only meaning I can give it is that in fact the immediacy of the decision has been withdrawn.

You know, the minister -- at least, spokesmen for the ministry have indicated that Brantford and Brant county had been warned that this cutback was coming. I suppose in some respect that was so. But we never believed either the minister or his officials. After all, they came and said that the Willett hospital was going to be closed, and the Willett is still functioning and it is functioning properly.

I would submit to the minister that, if this deleterious decision was going to be made in a hard and fast way, we should have had at least a year’s notice of a hard and fast decision. Then the delegations and the health council could have discussed it further with the minister and the administrative officials of the Health ministry. Then they could have made the rationalization required if the ministry of the day could not be persuaded that our needs were greater than indicated by the budgetary cuts.

Instead of that, the announcement was made, I believe on January 19, to come into effect April 1. It has simply not been practical or even possible for anything but the toughest sort of rationalization, involving removing active treatment from the St. Joseph’s hospital; centralizing it at the Brantford General Hospital; and removing the emergency service from St. Joseph’s hospital, which is closest to our large and we hope growing industrial area. These are the sorts of decisions that can only be reflected by the needs of the community itself.

[4:15]

My leader has spoken and will speak again perhaps later this afternoon. But in the question period today and also in speaking to the group in front of the parliament buildings this morning he indicated that for the officials to work with a computer, having something to do with the number of hospital beds per 1,000, without looking at the special needs of individual communities is really in our type of government simply unacceptable and that’s why I feel this debate is of such great importance.

I say again I am very glad indeed that the minister has softened his former inflexible approach. I have been somewhat critical of the health council of Brant county for not responding to the minister immediately with an indication that it feared the quality of our hospital services would be reduced to a point where it would endanger the good health of the community. I regret that their first response was to take the directive as if it had come from on high and simply determine how it was going to be implemented. This, if anything, is going to detract from the continuing value of a health council which must speak for the community first and not the Ministry of Health.

I feel that the members of the council individually feel that and I trust and hope that the Minister of Health feels the same way. I have a suspicion, however, that the health councils are, in the mind of the minister, designed simply to do his dirty work and leave him free to cut the ribbons. After all, he and his predecessors have not been too well favoured with the kind of brains that have seen the good allocation of public funds. You don’t have to go very far down University Avenue to find a major world-class hospital that had been sitting empty for eight years until it was more or less reprocessed as a chronic care hospital opening just a year ago. You know the one I mean, Mr. Speaker.

You don’t have to go very far away from here, just to McMaster University, I say with great respect to my colleague the leader, to find a $100 million facility that has been built and operating now for many years, and I don’t know what the percentage of utilization is but I believe that for all of these years it has been considerably less than half utilized. All of those millions of dollars, in fact, have been wasted in trying to persuade the community to use this facility.

I believe that the planning of the Ministry of Health has been terrible and that this minister now is simply carrying the old ashcans that the former Treasurer had to set down when he found that his approach -- that is, going out and unilaterally closing the small hospitals in some of the Liberal areas of the province -- was unacceptable and that he could not proceed in that way.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr. Nixon: I appreciate that, Mr. Speaker. I am glad to have had the opportunity to at least put before the Minister of Health some of the very strong feelings felt by the citizens of Brantford and Brant county.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I will try to deal with this situation in 10 minutes, but I ask your indulgence if I go over. Perhaps I could steal some time from my colleagues in this party.

Some hon. members: No.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: In that case, Mr. Speaker, I won’t try to respond to the specific situations that have been described so far and will be described later in the debate. Those are dealt with regularly in this House as we consider questions and regularly on a daily basis as I deal with individual members and health councils and delegations from various parts of the province, some of which I discussed earlier today.

First of all, let me respond though to one point, that being the question suggested by the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk about giving a year’s notice. In point of fact, what the ministry has done is to give three years’ notice that we are moving in the health care system in the province towards the identification of and meeting of chronic care and extended care needs and the reduction of active treatment beds in recognition of that and in recognition of changing patterns in the provision of health care services.

The standards that currently exist, of four beds per thousand in the south and four and a half in the north, are the standards which have applied in this province since 1972 and the goals of three and a half in the south and four in the north are for 1981, so, in effect, we are talking about moving over three years to achieve those levels.

I think our policies are well known in dealing with the hospital community. What concerns me -- and I think it’s worth putting on the record, though I don’t do it in a pejorative sense but as they have not put it on the record, I will -- is that certain of the policies of my friends in the third party are not referred to by them from time to time so that the people in a place like Brantford would know what the alternatives are.

I am concerned that if they ever sat on this side of the House it is their policy to abolish all hospital boards and establish social service and health boards. It is in their green paper and it is apparently stated as their policy. I think the people in Brantford, for instance, should know that at St. Joseph’s, the Willett and the General they would abolish all their boards.

Mr. Makarchuk: It is better to have them elected than appointed by the minister.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: They should know that that party’s green paper in effect is prescribing for Ontario a prescription on their

part very similar -- in fact, it is almost identical -- to that which is in place today in the United Kingdom. I think it is well known by any objective observer that the national health service of the United Kingdom is an unmitigated disaster. The policies of the third party, like those of the United Kingdom, would give effect to excessive bureaucracy and bureaucratic centralized control.

Mr. Makarchuk: That’s not true. What is the mortality rate?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: In my time in the ministry I have spoken repeatedly -- literally hundreds of times -- in every corner of the province about the need to move our health care system through what is admittedly a difficult period of transition, a period of restraint in government spending, a period when the health needs of the province have clearly changed, are changing and will continue to change.

We have set standards for the province which compare well with any jurisdiction which one chooses to bring forward in Canada or North America or, for that matter, anywhere in the world.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s not true. It is the second lowest in the country, and the minister knows it.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, if you go back to the deliberations of the select committee in the summer and fall of 1978, they found that in terms of health spending for the provision of beds and on doctors or whatever Ontario tends to be pretty well on the national average. Some are higher. For instance, British Columbia spends more proportionately on doctors than we do, and proportionately less on hospitals than do we in this province.

It is interesting that this morning at the conference at the Constellation Hotel, which I believe my good friend from Renfrew North (Mr. Conway) was attending, apparently a gentleman, who is one of the principals in the firm of McKinsey and Company of the United Kingdom, made the observation that in the National Health Service, the Valhalla of the third party, they spend one-third as much on health care per capita as do we in Ontario. That is only one comparison. There are many and, in fact, people continue to come to this province to look at our health system as a model for other areas of the