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May 17, 1976

30th Parliament, 3rd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L059 - Mon 17 May 1976 / Lun 17 mai 1976

URBAN TRANSPORTATION

SPADINA EXTENSION

HOSPITAL CLOSINGS

VINYL CHLORIDE STUDY

ASBESTOS-CANCER STUDY

OIL PRICES

GOVERNMENT STAFF SALARY REDUCTIONS

GROUP HOME LICENSING

DUST PROBLEMS AT FORT FRANCES PAPER MILL

WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION BOARD BACK INJURY CLAIMS

HYDRO CORRIDOR IN ESQUESING

SHORTAGE OF SEALING LIDS

ONTARIO HYDRO ANNUAL ADJUSTMENTS

FEDERAL REPORT ON WOMEN’S WAGES

ANSWERS TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS

BUDGET DEBATE (CONTINUED)

POST-RETIREMENT INTEGRATION OF INSURANCE MONEYS AND PENSION BENEFITS PREVENTION ACT

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. S. Smith: On a point of order, I would like to introduce to the House, Mr. Speaker, in the gallery to my left, the Minister of Public Works and Supply from the Province of Quebec, the Hon. William Tetley.

Mr. Lewis: The Hon. William Tetley has doubtless learned that we are out of money, although he is more than welcome.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

Oral questions.

URBAN TRANSPORTATION

Mr. Lewis: A question first, if I may, to the Minister of Transportation and Communications, as he takes his seat. What kind of contractual arrangement has Ontario entered into through the Urban Transportation Development Corp., which involved the expenditure of some $6 million in the last year, I gather from news reports, and with no estimate of money in the forthcoming three years as yet, to -- quoting the information officer of the corporation -- “pick up the pieces of Krauss-Maffei”?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, there’s no secret about what the Globe and Mail published very factually last Friday. This is exactly the proposal that was announced by my predecessor about a year ago.

I believe it was April 14 of last year that my predecessor made a statement in the House announcing the steps that were to be taken; that there was to be a research and development project carried out by the Urban Transportation Development Corp. and that the corporation would report to the government at the end of stage two -- I believe that was the terminology -- at which time a decision would have to be made as to whether funds would be made available for further development. At the present time, as reported in the Globe and Mail, that year or 13-month period is up.

They are approaching the end of the phase two part of the project now, and I expect the corporation’s status will be considered by cabinet in the very near future.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, since Mr. Brezina, the information officer, indicated this was not an off-the-shelf project, that it was a high-risk project, is there any way of recapturing for Ontario part of that $6 million, or future expenditures, if the result of this project is as ill-fated as Krauss-Maffei was, even though we are now using wheels’, which is an innovative thought?

Mr. Breaugh: Round ones?

Mr. Lewis: What contractual protection is there for the public of Ontario as the ministry continues to experiment with these abstract alternatives rather than simply developing a light-rail transit system for the public transit needs of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I think the government made what I guess one would call a contractual relationship with the Urban Transportation Development Corp. a little over a year ago and funded the corporation to the tune of $6 million to proceed with research and development of new modes of urban transit vehicles. I think it is high time we proceeded with the development of this type of technology in a country the size of Canada, in a province the size of Ontario, and considering our needs for transit vehicles.

I for one, as a resident of this province, want to see this technology developed in Ontario so that we can manufacture here, the needs for Ontario at least, if not for all of Canada. As I have said, the corporation has been carrying out its mandate to date. There is a time coming now for a decision by government to carry on with this type of research and development.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary: Since much was made of the fact, at the time of the withdrawal from the Krauss-Maffei deal, that their test facilities in West Germany would be available to us, do we still have engineers working with Krauss-Maffei? If not, can the minister tell us how much of that $6 million was spent in West Germany for this kind of engineering liaison?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I haven’t got an exact breakdown. I would doubt whether it was very much --

An hon. member: It could be built in Oshawa.

Mr. Lewis: It will never be built.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I think there was a decision --

Mr. Lewis: This is just another unnecessary expense.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Snow: -- made and announced some time ago as to the discontinuance of the Krauss-Maffei project. The decision was made to proceed with other lines of research and development.

Mr. Nixon: Are there any engineers over there?

Hon. Mr. Snow: No. I do not believe there are any engineers in Germany; nor has there been for some period of time. I’d have to verify for sure when the last person was over there. The new research and development is on a facility which would be truly developed and manufactured here in Ontario -- or at least in Canada -- with probably some components from other areas.

Of course, we have had engineers and people in Europe working on the new streetcar project which is under way at this time.

Mr. Singer: It is a round thing.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Most wheels are round. They have been that way for some time now.

Mr. Singer: You’ve just discovered the wheel. That’s your secret weapon for the next election.

An hon. member: Why don’t you hit him ever the head, Margaret? Quiet him down.

Mrs. Campbell: That makes him transportation man of the year.

Mr. Shore: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: As a member of a party which believes in the private free enterprise system, has the minister totally satisfied himself that there are no free market companies available to investigate and pursue this matter without the government getting involved in it?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Yes, I believe that is the case. I believe I’m totally satisfied in that regard. I think government at one of the senior levels has to fund this type of research and development.

Mr. Lewis: Shocking!

Hon. Mr. Snow: Obviously the federal government has no interest in research and development of this type.

Mr. Nixon: You wanted to invest in Krauss-Maffei.

Hon. Mr. Snow: It prefers to buy foreign-made products.

Mr. Nixon: Like Alberta did.

Mr. Lewis: Your dependence on the public sector will bankrupt us all.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It won’t bankrupt you, though.

SPADINA EXTENSION

Mr. Lewis: If I may, Mr. Speaker, I’d like to address a question to Bill -- to the Premier, I’m sorry. If I remember his memorable “Go Spadina” speech of Aug. 8, 1975, he said that there would be no paving of the Lawrence to Eglinton extension until certain conditions had been met -- one-lane exit ramps; the province taking the property south of Eglinton; a 3-ft buffer strip transferred to the city of Toronto -- none of those things has happened as I understand it, yet the paving is proceeding. Can the Premier indicate when the government intends to act?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I’m meeting with the mayor of the great city of Toronto plus, I gather, representatives from York, some citizens, around 3:30 this afternoon --

Mr. MacDonald: The great borough of York.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The great borough of York -- around 3:30 this afternoon, at which time we will be discussing a number of these matters.

As I recall the statement I made in August and a further letter from the Minister of Transportation and Communications to the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto, certain conditions were set out. There are some questions as to the exact location, for instance, of the 3-ft reserve where the geographic limits of the city of Toronto begin or end. There is no problem in terms of the government’s commitment with respect to that reserve. If it has to be in some other location, I understand there’s no problem with that. I think it’s quite possible that we can give a 3-ft reserve as well to the borough of York if that is helpful.

The understanding, and I didn’t bring the correspondence with me, was with respect to other parts of the right of way where probably the province would take title and lease back. There may be some discussion as to whether the leasing back should be to Metro or to the city for the housing component because I’m not sure who is best able to deal with it. I think that’s a matter which can be negotiated. The other significant part of the understanding, as I recall it, was that there were to be two ramps, one southbound and one northbound, and they were in fact to be single ramps.

I just heard a rumour that there had been some design sent forward that there were to be two ramps. I think that too could be rectified, because my recollection of the announcement in the minister’s letter was for a single ramp. I am quite satisfied that the commitments made by the government can be met.

[2:15]

Mr. Singer: Supplementary: Is it fair to assume that the commitment given by the Premier remains substantially as it was, subject to whatever negotiations he was talking about?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes, I think so. I expected the member for Wilson Heights, after a phone call from a very active alderwoman in that area related to this issue --

Mr. Singer: No, she hardly ever talks to me.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- I understand she was in touch with him last week before she went away for a few days.

Mr. Singer: Before she went on holidays.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes. She got in touch with me after she was in touch with him and I indicated that it was to be basically that which we said it would be last August; and again I think the letter went in November.

Mr. S. Smith: Un ménage à trois.

Mr. Singer: Is she going to be a candidate this time?

Hon. Mr. Davis: What I found a little bit intriguing is that all of this was stated and documented; but according to some of the news reports I have heard and read and some of the discussions, that letter couldn’t have been read by too many people, nor the statement that was made in August. I am meeting with them in any event.

HOSPITAL CLOSINGS

Mr. Lewis: A question of the acting Minister of Health in the spirit of the new freedom of information and requests for the freedom of information which surge through her party. Can the acting Minister of Health now table the rationalization study for the psychiatric hospitals in Ontario, which premised the closing of Goderich and Northeastern and which has been requested unsuccessfully for several months in the Legislature?

Hon. B. Stephenson: It was my understanding that in fact the Minister of Health had responded rather fully to the question of the hon. Leader of the Opposition in the House.

Mr. Lewis: No.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Oh, I stand corrected.

Mr. Lewis: With respect, I don’t think that is accurate. Can the minister find that rationalization study?

Hon. B. Stephenson: I can certainly attempt to.

Mr. Lewis: In the same spirit, does she think she can trust us with the regression analyses for the various hospitals that resulted in the ward closings and reduction in dollars about which we have spoken in the Legislature?

Hon. B. Stephenson: As I have said to the hon. Leader of the Opposition previously, I most certainly can explore the possibility of releasing that information to him.

VINYL CHLORIDE STUDY

Mr. Lewis: By way of a related question in the same spirit, can the acting Minister of Health release to the Legislature the material on vinyl chloride, whatever it is, that exists within the occupational health branch of her ministry?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, this spirit is always very willing, and I shall be happy to release whatever it is we have within the Ministry of Health regarding vinyl chloride.

Mr. Lewis: Supplementary: Why does she continue, I guess as recently as last Friday on the CBC, to speak of a tentative threshold limit value in the United States when, in fact, the threshold limit value in the United States has been one part per million since Jan. 1, 1975, is down to zero in other jurisdictions, and Ontario still manages to maintain a highly hazardous level of emission of 10 parts per million, even though the ministry has a study now of vinyl chloride as an airborne hazardous contaminant, which shows that even in airborne emissions the levels allowed by government have been exceeded?

Hon. B. Stephenson: It is my understanding that although the level of one part per million has been recommended in the United States, it has not been accepted.

Mr. Lewis: Her understanding is unreliable.

Mr. S. Smith: Supplementary: Is the minister not aware that after the appeal was defeated in the United States, the level of one part per million has been in force, not since Jan. 1, as suggested by the Leader of the Opposition, but since April 1, 1975? The appeal, in fact, was lost and this has been in effect since April 1.

Hon. B. Stephenson: I shall certainly explore the information which I had developed which is, according to the leaders of the two opposition parties, incorrect. But it was my understanding that it has not been universally accepted within the United States at this point.

Mr. S. Smith: Just call the occupational safety and health administration in Washington.

ASBESTOS-CANCER STUDY

Mr. Lewis: In fact, it is the established level. But leaving that, one last question for the acting Minister of Health. Can she also, then, table with the Legislature the material which has been prepared for her by Dr. Stewart of the Workmen’s Compensation Board and Dr. Ritchie of the University of Toronto, indicating, I believe, that stomach cancer is a compensable disease consequent on asbestos exposure and upon tabling that material, institute compensation for workers who have died from or are suffering from stomach cancer induced by an asbestos environment?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. Leader of the Opposition is labouring under some kind of misapprehension. We do have an interim report from Dr. Ritchie, which at this point I believe is not entirely directed in the direction which the hon. member would lead us to believe that it is. That report will be available to me shortly. I have not seen it as yet. I have been told about it, and when I have seen it, perhaps we are going to have to move to further research in this area, because I gather that the report is somewhat ambivalent right now and I would like to read it first before I make any commitment about it.

Mr. Lewis: Can the minister, in the interests of public security and information, table these most important documents, like that of Prof. Ritchie and the comments which will accompany it by Dr. Stewart and Michael Starr, chairman of the Workmen’s Compensation Board, so that we can be privy to some of these internal discussions upon which the livelihood of working families is then based?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, this is a philosophy which I think has been pretty much evident within the Ministry of Health of this government at any rate.

Mr. Lewis: It certainly has not.

Hon. B. Stephenson: We have had some internal studies which are not as yet completed. When they are completed, the results of those studies may most certainly be publicized to the members of the Legislature.

OIL PRICES

Mr. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, disappointed as I am that some chap by the name of Bill doesn’t bear me sufficient warmth, I am concerned that he may not permit me sufficient heat either. I would like to ask the Premier, with regard to his marvellous energy policy, considering that Premier Lougheed has now not denied that he has threatened to keep his oil in the ground, would the Premier recommend that the Prime Minister of Canada and the federal Parliament act under

section 92(10c) of the British North America Act and declare the oil in Alberta as “a work for the general advantage of Canada,” and in that way prevent the Premier of Alberta from withholding his oil, and in that way also not give him any more money than the Premier has already offered him in his blended price scheme? Wouldn’t that be one way of keeping the price of energy down?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I must say to the member for Hamilton West that if he --

Mr. S. Smith: The leader of the third party.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- sensed any lack of affection or warmth or enthusiasm in my remarks on Friday, I guess it really comes from my not knowing him as well as the Leader of the Opposition yet. I am sure that affection will develop over the years, as he retains his position where he is and I am here, as we get to know one another.

Mr. S. Smith: The Premier may be Stephen’s opposition but not my competition.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am intrigued by his continuing to question on this issue, and one might almost feel that he is asking questions on behalf of the Prime Minister of Canada. I am very suspicious.

Mr. S. Smith: Why don’t you answer on behalf of the Premier of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am very suspicious, after the luncheon or whatever the member had with him on the Friday after the meeting. I think if the hon. member will look back he may find that the Minister of Energy (Mr. Timbrell) has already suggested, and so have I, that the Act dealing with this is available to the federal government and that is what federal governments are all about.

Mr. S. Smith: And the Premier recommends that, does he?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think if the hon. member really had thought of his question last Thursday he would have recognized that even if there was some threat -- and I question the use of that word -- it’s quite obvious there is a very simple solution, and he has touched upon the solution which is known to all of us.

I would say this, I think it would be regrettable if the federal government and the Prime Minister were forced into that position, but that really is what it’s all about.

Mr. S. Smith: As a supplementary, to be sure that I understand the Premier: Is he saying that in the regrettable instance that Premier Lougheed stays firm and refuses to give up oil at the price the Premier of Ontario is offering him, that is what the federal government ought to do and that’s what federalism is all about? Did I understand him correctly?

Hon. Mr. Davis: First, I didn’t offer the Premier of Alberta anything. I want to make that abundantly clear.

Mr. S. Smith: The blended price.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I didn’t offer him a price at all. I offered the other first ministers of this country what we thought was a pretty logical approach to this question of pricing of energy, and if the member wants a long dissertation on that, I will tell him just why I think it’s very good.

Mr. Shore: No. We want a short yes or no answer.

Hon. Mr. Davis: But Ontario did not offer a price to Alberta. We did not offer to Alberta a price. If the member for Hamilton West (Mr. S. Smith) is once again attempting to get me to say what the Prime Minister should do to help him, if he has to do it, I’m just intrigued. I really wonder if there isn’t some form of direct communication with the Prime Minister of Canada’s office.

Mr. S. Smith: This is what federalism is all about.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have simply said that the federal government is there to govern. If it has responsibilities and if they become complicated in this area, I can only assume, as a citizen of this country, that it will exercise that responsibility if necessary.

Mr. S. Smith: This is what federalism is all about.

Hon. Mr. Davis: And you knew that last week.

Mr. S. Smith: I am tempted, of course, to continue this line of questioning to find out whether the federal government should declare our uranium and our nickel also something to the general advantage of Canada, but we’ll move onto another area.

Hon. Mr. Davis: In answer to that question --

Mr. S. Smith: They have with uranium but not with nickel.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- I would be delighted to say to the member for Hamilton West that if uranium became a much sought-after resource by our sister provinces and if they found this necessary to the general well-being of their economies, I would be very disappointed if uranium costs in the Province of Manitoba or any other province were in excess of those being paid by Ontario Hydro here.

Mr. S. Smith: I trust people will notice that this surrender of provincial autonomy is a remarkably interesting one and occurred on May 17.

A question for the Minister of Community and Social Services --

Hon. Mr. Davis: Some of us are Canadians first, Ontarians second.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

GOVERNMENT STAFF SALARY REDUCTIONS

Mr. S. Smith: To the Minister of Community and Social Services: Is he not now prepared to admit to the House that as a result of the reclassification of unclassified project staff at Rideau Regional, and probably elsewhere, certain employees of his ministry will have an 8.5 per cent cut in wages? This is coming at a time when these same employees will also lose previously accumulated sick leave credits and certain vacation privileges as well.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: In answer, there will be some reduction in terms of salaries in regard to employees on contracts who have their contracts renewed. I may say that the reason for that, I think, is quite simple and should be obvious to the leader of the third party.

We have, as he may knew, a number of contract employees in our institutions for the mentally retarded who are filling in as counsellors or assistants to counsellors, pending training of a sufficient number of counsellors to take on those jobs. I may say there is a fairly high turnover also in terms of counsellors’ assistants. They are regarded as unclassified staff because they are on contract.

As a result of certain negotiations which have taken place with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, these unclassified staff are now covered in the collective agreement. In providing for that personnel in the agreement the union did not see fit to provide for certain fringe benefits which we were providing under the individual contracts or individual agreements. Therefore, as the individual contracts expire and the collective agreement or contract takes place, they will not be covered as fully in terms of the fringe benefits as they were previously.

I’m not saying that was an oversight on the part of the union. It may be perceived as an impetus to ensure that unclassified staff become classified staff and, therefore, permanent employees who would experience the same deductions in terms of union payments -- I think it is $2 a week. So that is a brief explanation, Mr. Speaker, of the problem there.

[2:30]

Mr. Cassidy: Neither brief, nor adequate.

Mr. Reid: Must be one of your students.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Hamilton West has the floor.

Mr. S. Smith: Supplementary: Do I take it from that long-winded answer that this is now the ministry’s way to motivate people to become classified -- that is, to take low-paid people who are getting $4.05 or $4.19 an hour and reduce their salary in 1976 to $3.83 an hour? How many members of the government’s front bench are also going to get motivated to improve themselves by reducing their salaries?

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: We did that last year -- tell them about last year.

Mr. Reid: It didn’t help any.

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

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: We did it last year when the member for Hamilton West was water skiing in Mount Royal.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, no, I think that is an obvious misunderstanding by the leader of the Liberal Party as to the true picture, because this unclassified staff actually was working on the basis of a classification, or a pay rate that was applicable to the hospital system as opposed to our system. In some cases, the salaries would be almost equal to what we would be paying for a fully-trained counsellor; so it is not a question of that at all. It’s a matter of making sure that there was equity, and this very point was discussed with the union and the classification was agreed upon -- so there was no problem there at all.

Mr. Lewis: Supplementary, if I may: Is the minister saying that the Ontario Public Service Employees Union willingly and knowingly negotiated a reduction in fringes and wages for people simply because they could be absorbed on the classified staff? Was there no effort to red circle or to maintain the wage levels and fringes as they presently exist?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: I presume they willingly and knowingly did that, because they were actively involved in the whole process and understood the personnel arrangement -- the terms of the individual contracts and what would happen upon the expiration and what would happen upon the expiration of those contracts and those employees then covered by the collective agreement. Now, as to the motivation, presumably from a union point of view it would be better for them to have the unclassified staff become classified staff, thereby qualifying for the deduction of union dues.

GROUP HOME LICENSING

Mr. S. Smith: Another question of the Minister of Community and Social Services: Is he aware that there are presently group homes operating in Ontario in contravention of zoning laws, fire regulations and without licensing from his ministry? And will he tell us what became of the promise by Assistant Deputy Minister John Anderson on Aug. 21, 1975, as reported in the Globe and Mail, that legislation would be drafted to make licensing mandatory for all homes, not just the ones with four or more children?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, in terms of group homes, I think the leader of the Liberal Party may know, or he may not, that group homes are usually operated by some agency, often other than the government. We do some financing -- for example, the group home may be owned and operated by a Children’s Aid Society. In terms of compliance with the local regulations and zonings, I would expect that before a group home was operated by an agency, whatever that agency may be -- and there are a number of them in Ontario, as the member may know -- then they would clear it with the local authorities to ensure that they operate in compliance with the local regulations.

In response to the second part of the question, the whole area of residential care is currently being reviewed. I don’t have any amendments presently in regard to that field but when we are in a position to do something then of course, that will be brought forward and presented to the House.

Mr. S. Smith: A supplementary: It’s hard to know, with this droning answer, whether the minister cares about the fact that these group homes are operating in our province in contravention of the fire regulations and zoning laws --

Mr. Speaker: Is this a supplementary?

Mr. S. Smith: -- but let me ask the minister this: Is he aware that Viking Homes in particular has licensed only five of its 17 homes in the Viking One programme? Can the minister tell us how often inspections are made of all unlicensed homes; whether more than four children have been found; and, finally, how many convictions have been registered for those instances where more than four children have been found?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, may I apologize to the leader of the Liberal Party if I speak in a droning way? I tolerate his manner of speech without criticism, but I was speaking slowly so that he may perceive what I have been trying to get across.

The point is that group homes, of course, are physical buildings that are either purchased or erected in local municipalities that have their official plans and their zoning bylaws. They also have their codes which determine the type of services that are necessary.

We have, I may say, a provincial building code that applies now and covers such things as wiring and plumbing and fire prevention and so on, so these local ordinances or bylaws are usually enforced at the local level. Surely if there is some question as to a breach of a bylaw then that should be prosecuted at that level.

Sure we’re interested -- the province is interested, my ministry is interested -- in ensuring that anything that we fund is properly operated. There is a difference; we have to license it then, of course, we have the further controls in terms of the licensing -- whether it’s approved for licensing, the inspections and so on. If the hon. member has some problems in connection with any one of these homes, whether it be Viking One or Viking Two or what have you, let him please let me know and I’ll check that particular establishment and ensure that he has a report on it.

Mr. S. Smith: Supplementary --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. May I just point out that there are practically 33 minutes of the question period gone. The questions are lengthy and some of the answers are lengthy as well so --

Mr. S. Smith: The questions are lengthy?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. There are offenders on both sides of the House, I assure you.

Now, does the hon. member for Hamilton West have a further question, because there are many more around the room?

Mr. S. Smith: I’ll call it a further question. Does the minister care that Viking Homes has licensed only five of its 17 homes in the programme? I ask the minister the question -- and I’ll put it differently so as to be a supplementary -- can he tell us again whether the ministry inspects unlicensed homes; whether it inspects the ones that are not licensed -- and whether it ever finds more than four children there, which means they should be licensed, and whether that violation is prosecuted? If so, how many times?

Mr. Warner: In 25 words or less.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Again, Mr. Speaker, there is a distinction between those homes that have five or more residents in them and those that don’t. If they have five or more, then they are licensed by the ministry and certainly we have inspections in those cases.

Mr. Shore: Why is it so difficult to answer?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: It’s not difficult, it’s --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Do you have any further questions?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: -- a simple matter that the Liberal leader should understand. He doesn’t know anything about the problems.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

DUST PROBLEMS AT FORT FRANCES PAPER MILL

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, on May 11, the leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. S. Smith) asked me if I was aware of the dust problem in the Fort Frances paper mill and could I tell the House why the Ministry of Health’s procedure for inspection was such that it couldn’t get inspectors there at some point during a three-day run of TV Guide-type paper.

It is well within the capability of the Ministry of Health’s occupational health protection branch to carry out testing at any specific time. However, the facts of the case to which the leader of the Liberal Party referred are these:

On March 13 the Ministry of Labour received a union complaint regarding dust conditions at the Ontario-Minnesota Pulp and Paper Co. Ltd. at Fort Frances. The complaint was general and did not refer to any specific run of paper. The occupational health protection branch was requested to carry out tests in this plant and did so on April 21. These tests indicated that the dust levels were within the threshold limit value for paper, dust of 10 milligrams per cubic metre of air. In fact, the levels were five.

I understand that the union wrote to the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Kerr) on May 4 expressing appreciation for the testing which had been carried out and asking if further sampling could be done during a run of TV Guide-type paper. In accordance with this request, arrangements have already been made for a return visit of the occupational health protection branch during a run of the specific paper about which the union inquired.

Mr. Reid: A supplementary, if I may, Mr. Speaker: I’ve been in touch with some of those people who work in the mill. Will the minister give us the guarantee that her people will contact the union when they go there to do the inspections and get their side of the story about the times in which the dust levels are hazardous and how it is affecting the men, because some of them have got sick from it?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, the Ministry of Health is most certainly going to carry out an inspection during a run of this specific type of paper, which was at the particular request of the union.

Mr. Reid: But the ministry people don’t always contact the union when they go there.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. B. Stephenson: The Ministry of Health inspectors do not always contact the union, because they may go at any time. The Ministry of Labour, however, does attempt to contact the union when they make inspections. We can co-ordinate that, if the member wishes; but the Ministry of Health inspection will be at a time when, I’m sure, the union will be present.

Mr. Reid: I would appreciate it.

WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION BOARD BACK INJURY CLAIMS

Mr. Mackenzie: I have a question of the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of the statement by Dr. William J. McCracken, executive director of the WCB rehabilitation services division, that the board intends to crack down on the various treatments in cases of backache? Is the minister aware of the great difficulties already experienced, whether by individuals or union safety committees or members of this House, in establishing back claims at present?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I have not heard that statement, which is alleged to have been made by Dr. McCracken.

Mr. Mackenzie: A supplementary: His statement is well covered in an

article in last Thursday’s Hamilton Spectator, and quotes him directly. I’m just wondering, in as much as over half of the cases in Toronto’s Workmen’s Compensation Board hospital are back cases, if this is another example of the cutbacks in the hospital field?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. number well knows the rehabilitation hospital at Downsview has nothing to do with the Ontario hospital system. However, I am not sure of the figures regarding the numbers of back cases in the hospital. That I will check, and I shall most certainly find out the information that Dr. McCracken has released publicly. I doubt that there is any intention at all to decrease services to patients under the Workmen’s Compensation Board.

HYDRO CORRIDOR IN ESQUESING

Mr. Reed: I have a question of the Premier. Is the Premier intending to allow Ontario Hydro to short circuit the democratic process by successfully petitioning the Lieutenant Governor for an order in council changing the official plan of Esquesing to allow the Hydro transmission corridor to pass through?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think there is some question as to whether, in fact, it is the official plan of Esquesing. I think that question should be directed to the Minister of Energy.

Mr. Speaker: Does the member wish to redirect the question?

Mr. Reed: Mr. Speaker, I will so redirect.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows there are two bylaws in question. The one which has been appealed to the Lieutenant Governor in Council is a bylaw passed in 1974. As I recall, it’s bylaw No. 51 of the town of Halton Hills. There’s a bylaw of the former township of Esquesing, bylaw No. 69-51, which is also similar to that. But the matter is before the cabinet. Hydro, as is its right, has appealed the decision of the OMB. As I understand it, the council of the town of Halton Hills has directed its staff to prepare a reply, or rebuttal if you will, to Hydro’s appeal; all of this will then be considered by the Lieutenant Governor in Council.

Mr. Reed: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Does the minister consider that the rights of the citizens of this province are being protected when actions of this nature take place?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: What if it happens in reverse?

Mr. Lewis: It is all right in reverse. The reverse is valid. Hydro should not be given the right of appeal on this.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: If the hon. member would care to read the Ontario Municipal Board Act and would care to look at the deliberations of the select committee on the Ontario Municipal Board, of which the hon. member for Erie (Mr. Haggerty) was a member as well as the hon. member for Armourdale (Mr. Givens), his two colleagues, he would find that, in fact, the process does protect the rights of the people.

[2:45]

SHORTAGE OF SEALING LIDS

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations: Is he aware that the prospect for an adequate supply of home sealer lids is even more dismal than when I raised this question some six or seven weeks ago? Is he prepared to reconsider his decision not to intervene?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, no, I am not aware that the situation is more critical now than when the question was first raised. We have investigated the matter thoroughly. There appears to be sufficient supply. The province does not propose to get into either the manufacture, distribution or rationing of this particular product.

Mr. Swart: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Would he care to comment on the fact that Murray Food Market in New Hamburg -- the area of this province where a great deal of home canning is done -- ordered 150 cases and has received only two cases to date, and that the vice-president of Anchor Cap and Closure Corp. has stated that the company is holding them off the shelves at the present time because it is afraid there will be a run on them and that it won’t be able to supply them?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I am aware of the fact that the manufacturers are very concerned about the kind of hoarding that went on last year and, yes, they will be phasing in deliveries to ensure that there is no hoarding.

ONTARIO HYDRO ANNUAL ADJUSTMENTS

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Energy, if I could get him in his seat, in regard to the Ontario Hydro annual adjustment. Can the minister explain why Hydro bills the municipality PUCs for the deficit Hydro has run up in the year and why the direct consumers of Hydro are not so billed?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, this relates to what is known as the 13th billing process. I am not so sure that the direct customers aren’t billed. I will check into that and come back to that in a few days.

As for the rest of it, based on the fact that at the beginning of a year Hydro’s rates are based on projections in costs, and if at the end of a year the costs were in fact higher than anticipated and revenues didn’t meet them, then there is a 13th bill. Many times though, any one or all of the 353 municipal utilities would get a cheque from Hydro. It works the other way as well. If their estimates are higher on costs and their estimates of revenue lower, it can work the other way.

Let me check on the other aspect of direct industrial customers.

Mr. Reid: One quick supplementary, if I may, Mr. Speaker. Can the minister explain why the annual adjustments only reflect changes in the non-common cost function? Secondly, why should a municipal PUC have to pick up the costs of what went wrong in Pickering through someone’s negligence?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member well knows the system is based on the principle of power at cost. A problem at Pickering is no different than if the line into Fort Frances or into Atikokan goes down and has to be replaced or repaired by Ontario Hydro. All of this is part of the cost of maintaining the system and is borne by the users of the system.

FEDERAL REPORT ON WOMEN’S WAGES

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, on April 26 the leader of the Liberal Party directed a question to me regarding the federal labour department’s wage survey and possible infractions of our legislation in the Kitchener-Waterloo area.

In October of each year the federal Labour department forwards questionnaires to all employers in the province having more than 20 employees, except for the construction industry. It does this on a community basis. In March of the subsequent year the results of the survey are tabulated, and information on various job categories within a particular community is returned to the companies involved.

The Ministry of Labour in the province has been in contact with our officials in Kitchener. At the present time, although we have tried, we have not been able to obtain any information on the firms surveyed in the Kitchener-Waterloo area which would indicate that equal pay for equal work violations are in fact existent in that area.

The employment standards branch of the Ministry of Labour is continuing to pursue any equal pay violations which can be identified through routine or complaint investigations.

I think the members of the House should know that the acting chief of the data branch of Labour Canada has stated publicly that figures in the federal wage survey showing women earning less than men in comparable jobs do not prove discrimination. He goes on to say, with respect to the Kitchener-Waterloo survey, that there a number of possible explanations for the difference. He suggests, for example, that two firms could be paying both men and women exactly the same rate for a given job but if one firm paid less than the other firm in that job category, the figures would show women on the average I making less.

These are figures and statements made by the acting chief of the data branch of Labour Canada in Ottawa. Differences in wage rates between two companies do not necessarily comprise a violation of the equal pay provisions.

The women’s bureau of the Ministry of Labour analyses data and surveys from various recognized sources and publishes information sheets explaining the province’s legislation. I think these fact sheets are very informative and I’d be very pleased to give this set to the hon. leader of the third party.

Mr. Speaker: The question period has expired.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. On May 3, 1916, I asked the Minister of Transportation and Communications if he could give the House an up-to-date report on the Urban Transportation Development Corp. and its new programme on the ICTS. The minister has not yet replied to me but in the Globe and Mail of Friday, May 14, the headline is “$6 million spent on Successor to Magnetic Train as Ontario picks up the Pieces of Krauss-Maffei.”

It seems to me that the information requested by me some 11 days before was not forthcoming from the minister but was partly answered by a press release through the UTDC. However, such information was not forthcoming from that source when our research office phoned.

I would appreciate it if you’d look into that matter, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member, I’m sure, is free to ask questions. If he’s not satisfied with the answers at any time there’s a procedure to raise it in the proper form,

Presenting reports.

Hon. Mr. Handleman tabled the 26th annual report of the Ontario Racing Commission for the year 1975,

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Introduction of bills.

ANSWERS TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day I want to table the answers to questions 42, 72 and 87 standing on the notice paper.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

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

BUDGET DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Mr. Speaker: Did the hon. member for Halton-Burlington complete his remarks?

Mr. Reed: I completed my remarks, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Is the member going to read both those volumes?

Mr. McClellan: Not only will I quote them, I’ll read them as slowly as James Taylor speaks.

Mr. Speaker, let me first of all, since I have not had the opportunity to do so previously, congratulate you on your election and congratulate you and your deputies on the fine job you are doing in your office.

Before I move to the main body of my remarks with respect to the budget, I want to speak at least briefly about a matter before us again today. That is the matter of the extension of the Spadina Expressway.

In a very few moments there will be a delegation meeting with the Premier of this province, composed of municipal elected officials and concerned citizens; composed of people who are anxious about the future of the city of Toronto; composed of people who are anxious to preserve this city from the destruction that will result from a continuation of this government’s transportation policies unless those policies are changed and changed very quickly.

An opportunity presents itself again today for the government to return to the principle stated in 1971 that cities are for people in this province; cities are not for the automobile.

There will also be people gathering outside this Legislature to dramatize their concern to the people of this assembly and to the people of this province about the future of the city of Toronto.

Let me suggest that as a bare minimum the Premier should insist that with respect to the Spadina Expressway no access to or from Eglinton Ave. be permitted to vehicular traffic; and secondly, let me suggest that as a bare minimum to preserve this city, the Spadina ditch should be paved only to driveway standards and what should be established in the Spadina ditch is quite simply a park-and-ride facility that will make it possible for the new rapid transit system to be properly utilized.

To do otherwise, to fail to block the expressway at Eglinton or to fail to construct park-and-ride facilities, is virtually to destroy this city, to open all of the neighbourhoods south of Eglinton to simple devastation from the automobile. To do otherwise is to guarantee that the new multi-million-dollar rapid transit facility will be utterly useless. The money spent on it will be as useless as the money wasted on Krauss-Maffei or the money that will be wasted on some other Krauss-Maffei.

In the name of sanity, we ask the government to return to the principles, for which it was acknowledged by transportation experts across the world.

In the debate on the budget to date, our speakers have spoken a number of times about what we consider to be a major failing of this budget, and that is simply in the area of jobs and job creation. Unemployment in the Province of Ontario has been hovering consistently above six per cent and is now in the vicinity of 6½ per cent, which represents approximately 275,000 people in this province who are out of work. Not only does the Conservative budget fail to deal with this overwhelmingly urgent problem, the budget, in fact, serves to increase unemployment.

The particular set of fiscal solutions in this budget is simply a response to the Conservative-created debt crisis in this province, a response to the fact that we now have a $10 billion funded debt and still have a $2 billion deficit after all the restraint.

The government has chosen to deal with this debt crisis of its own making, not by dealing with the real problem, which is a revenue gap, which is the tax holiday that the corporate sector in this province has enjoyed for the last 10 and 15 years; on the contrary, the government has chosen to deal with its own fiscal mismanagement through destructive cutbacks, and one effect of those cutbacks has been to increase unemployment. I need only point to the health sector, where at least 4,000 health workers are being thrown out of work.

Other NDP speakers will deal with various aspects of the budget as it relates to the unemployment scene. I want to talk about one particular aspect of our employment policy. The area that I want to talk about, within the context of this budget’s total failure to address itself to the issue of jobs for Ontario’s people, is day care.

It may seem odd to be talking about day care within the context of a debate on the budget or within the context of a discussion of economic policy, but for us in the New Democratic Party, I think it is important that we establish our social development policy, that we try and explain to the people of this province that for us day care is not simply a social service like other social services. It is not considered by us to be solely a specialized support service for a disadvantaged minority, although it certainly is that. Day care is more than that.

Daycare policy has to be seen within the overall content of a provincial manpower policy, within the overall context of a provincial employment policy and a provincial job strategy. Day care, for us in the New Democratic Party, is a necessary condition to achieving our basic economic goals.

[3:00]

For us, it should go without saying that our basic economic goal is to achieve full employment for the people of this province, and our basic economic goal is to achieve a condition of full participation of both men and women in the labour force. To achieve this goal of full employment and full participation of both men and women in the work force, day care is quite simply a necessity, and the cost of daycare services must be viewed as a necessary cost of that policy of full employment and full participation.

It is a necessary cost in exactly the same way that roads, serviced industrial land sites, community infrastructure of other kinds, vocational training and the like are now accepted by all of us as a necessary cost to the achievement of economic goals. Day care is no different.

We are prepared to meet the costs of providing adequate day care to the people of this province, because we believe that it is the people of this province who are the real wealth of our society, and that the source of our wealth is the work of our people upon the natural resources with which we are so blessed. That is what produces our wealth, not the shares of the government’s friends in the multinational corporations and not the government’s pals in this province’s corporate boardrooms. It is the work of the men and women of this province that produces the wealth of this province.

No society can afford to deny itself the productive contribution of the 50 per cent of its members who are women. That is a cost that no society can afford. Full and equal participation is a necessity in economic terms, both in terms of the growth and development of the wealth of this society and in economic terms, in terms of the abilities of individual families to survive in increasingly hard times. It is necessary as well in human terms, in terms of personal fulfilment, particularly of women.

Day care is also a children’s issue. It is a matter of the rights of children as well as the rights of families. The reality is that female participation in the work force has grown so dramatically in the last few years that women now compose 30 per cent of Ontario’s work force. In 1970 -- which, unfortunately, is the last year for which the Ontario Ministry of Labour has prepared adequate statistics, which is a commentary in itself -- there were 700,000 married women in the labour force, with 715,000 children; 330,000 married women in the work force had children under 16, and of those 110,000 married women in the work force had children under six.

In the category of women with children under six, there was a total of 135,000 children whose mothers were working in the Province of Ontario. That was five years ago. We can assume that in 1970 there were some 330,000 working women in this province who had to make some kind of child care arrangements, and of these some 110,000 women had to make arrangements for preschool children.

Again, that was five years ago. It is absolutely safe to assume that the need has continued to grow and that it has continued to outstrip the provision of needed daycare spaces by this government. In 1974, the Daycare Reform Action Alliance estimated on the basis of somewhat adequate updated statistics that there was one daycare space for every 37 potential daycare users in this province.

In the absence of updated statistical data, it is difficult to give accurate figures. It is safe to say there are tens of thousands of children in this province who lack adequate child-care arrangements. We know how unstable private daycare arrangements are. They are fantastically unstable. Kids are bounced around from one care facility to another during their early formative years on a hit-and-miss basis. We in this province are going to pay heavily for that kind of child neglect in the years to come.

Mr. Breithaupt: The government is listening carefully.

Mr. McClellan: Yes, they certainly are.

Mr. Samis: There is one Tory here.

Mr. McClellan: It is an indication of the seriousness with which government takes the daycare issue and women’s rights issues that there is only one government member, the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Kerr), in the House at this particular point in lime.

Mr. Breithaupt: He is the leader.

Mr. R. S. Smith: Let George do it.

Mr. McClellan: And I am sure it’s safe to say he hasn’t understood a word I have said.

Interjections.

Mr. McClellan: Day care is an essential social service --

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Clean will hold the fort.

Interjections.

Mr. McClellan: -- both preventive and rehabilitative.

An hon. member: Ah, here comes the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development (Mr. Irvine).

Mr. Breithaupt: They just doubled their numbers.

Mr. McClellan: What a joy it is, Mr. Speaker, that there are now two members of the government on the benches opposite.

Mr. Foulds: Now there are two. Keep it up and we can get to A. A. Milne’s “Now We Are Six.”

Mr. Samis: Where is “seatbelt” Johnston?

Mr. McClellan: The instability of private ad hoc child care arrangements will have the inevitable result in years to come of high social costs to the people of this province, high institutional costs as a consequence quite simply of emotionally damaged kids. That is quite simply inevitable. It is important as well to keep in mind that kids of single-parent families can only hope to escape from the indignity of substandard living on family benefits allowance through the provision of day care -- enabling the parent either to remain in employment or to re-enter the work force.

Thirdly, single-parent mothers rely upon part-time daycare services to relieve the kinds of stresses and tensions that otherwise result in complete family breakdown. We know without any doubt at all that day care is the most effective preventive social service in our current array of social services we can make available to people. Yet rather than provide this essential means of keeping families together, this government seems positively to prefer institutional alternatives to the natural family.

There is absolutely no doubt in our minds, even apart from the economic justification for a dramatic increase in the number of daycare spaces available in this province, that the effectiveness of day care as a preventive social service is such that it deserves priority on that basis alone.

When we turn to look at the record of the Conservative government with respect to the provision of daycare services, the record is utterly dismal without relief. The capital expansion programme of 1974 has turned out to be an incompetent fiasco. Let me quote from the final report of the advisory committee on day care which was submitted to the ministry in January, 1976. This is a group of volunteers who worked on behalf of this government, on behalf of the people of the Province of Ontario, to look at all aspects of the daycare question. It is an eminently responsible and respectable group of people.

Their criticisms of the Conservative government’s record with respect to day care, while couched in the most gentle of terms, are, nevertheless, absolutely devastating.

Here’s what they had to say on the now infamous capital expansion project:

“Any capital programme on a large scale, such as the recent daycare expansion project, should be thoroughly prepared in advance of any announcement with clear priorities established, both regional and varieties of programmes, application procedures determined, administrations established, approval systems organized and with the involvement of programme staff.”

Quite clearly none of those things was done with respect to this daycare capital expansion project and that is why it has been such an utter fiasco.

They go on to say:

“There were, undoubtedly, faults with the execution of the last capital programme [I may say, in an aside, that has to be one of the understatements of the year] and the council has not had the opportunity to study this in sufficient detail to comment on the advisability of allocating resources in this way. We would urge that serious consideration in planning be done before any further capital programmes are instituted.”

One of the reasons the council has not had sufficient opportunity to comment more fully on the field of day care, is that this government killed the committee when it became clear that the committee was doing an effective job of raising some pretty fundamental questions about how day care is provided in this province. This government has consistently shirked its responsibility for giving leadership in helping prospective day care providers negotiate their way through the nightmare tangle of red tape and regulations at both the provincial and municipal levels.

The government has failed to provide sufficient funding. Moneys coming onstream this year were originally allocated in budgets in 1972, 1973 and 1974 and now, in 1976, all new funds are either frozen or cut. This government’s preoccupation has been with a quailing and timorous obsession with costs which has led to a succession of utterly ludicrous ideas.

There was the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mrs. Birch) and her proposal to increase staff ratios to such a level that quality day care would be utterly destroyed; Maxwell Henderson and his preposterous suggestion that senior citizens should run the daycare centres of this province on a voluntary basis; the Minister of Community and Social Services’ ludicrous praise of the pathetically inadequate and dangerous private day care arrangements which are the plight of most children of working mothers in this province.

This government offers day care subsidization under the meanest, most demeaning and humiliating of means test procedures requiring a microscopic probe of a person’s personal life by welfare bureaucrats in order to acquire a subsidy. Now, thanks to this 1976 budget, we have new stringency and a complete halt to day care expansion.

Day care remains important to us in the New Democratic Party, even if it is of no further interest to the Conservatives, and we would accord it priority, as I have said, because it is seen as an integral part of our economic policy. It is seen as a pre-condition to achieving the goal of full employment and full participation. As well, it is the preventive social service par excellence, in terms of preventing family breakdowns and in terms of helping people to return to productive employment.

For the government to be talking at this time about a welfare policy, which helps people to return to jobs while at the same time cutting back on day care and cutting back on day care subsidization is the most cynical kind of political fraud.

[3:15]

In the matter of daycare-facility construction to meet the need, our commitment as a government would quite simply be there. We would undertake a meaningful daycare capital expansion programme along the lines and within the parameters suggested by the Advisory Council of Day Care to provide sufficient day care in this province to meet the need. We would strive, in so doing, to reduce the currently high capital cost of new daycare facilities by stressing conversion as opposed to brand new construction, by stressing the use of available vacant school space for daycare facilities and by fostering employer-employee arrangements through the collective bargaining process.

In the matter of the operation of daycare programmes across the province, we would remove the burden of subsidization from municipal governments. It has no place there on the property tax. It makes no sense at all to be subsidizing day care out of the property tax. We would establish a subsidization programme which would permit access to day care for all children who need it, quite simply. We cannot afford to do otherwise.

It is clear that the basis of subsidization of day care has got to be changed from the present demanding, humiliating and bureaucratic procedure. Every single daycare applicant for a subsidy has to reveal his or her budget in total, and each determination is made individually on the basis of an individual financial report by a welfare bureaucrat. The cost of administering this subsidy programme must be staggering.

It should be very easy to implement an alternative. We are at the present time considering a two-tiered support method which would establish a base subsidy rate and a secondary subsidy based on income and family size.

Finally, we would put an end to what has got to be one of the most odious developments in this province in the last decade, and that is the move to reprivatize social services and human services and turn the provision of essential social services over to free enterprise. This government has permitted the Great West Life Insurance Co. to come into this province and establish a chain of daycare centres called the Mini-Skool chain. They make their profits for the shareholders of the Great West Life Insurance Co. in the same way that any other good business does it, by keeping their costs down, by cutting their costs.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Efficiency, efficiency.

Mr. McClellan: That’s the same thing, isn’t it? I’m sure the minister would agree that an efficient business is one that keeps its costs down, and the only way they keep their costs down at daycare centres is at the expense of kids.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Oh no. No.

Mr. McClellan: That’s absolutely true, and the minister well knows it. They have permitted a kind of regression in this province that is quite simply intolerable, and it would not be permitted for an instant -- let there be no mistake about it -- under a New Democratic government. There is no room for private profit at the expense of kids in this province.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: There goes Brown!

Mr. McClellan: The principle is universal. Let me make that perfectly clear.

Mr. Foulds: You’d better believe it.

Mr. McClellan: Let me refer you finally, Mr. Speaker, again to the Advisory Council on Day Care’s third report. On page 32 they give what is, in a sense, a plea to this government and I’ll add my voice to theirs.

They say:

“This is the third and final report by the advisory council since its formation 18 months ago. Each report contains a series of recommendations for action by government in a number of areas including fire safety, private home day care, qualifications for staff, training opportunities and research [and as well the material covered in this, the third report].

“We respectfully request that the minister respond to these recommendations, advising the community about the government’s responses to these matters and any action which has been taken or is planned.”

Again, in its gentle way, the Advisory Council on Day Care has issued what is a scathing indictment of this government’s whole attitude toward day care and has highlighted its complete paralysis.

It is now 18 months since it began its work. The recommendations which have been thoughtfully and carefully prepared and submitted to the minister and to the government as the basis of rational policy decisions have been ignored. The response has simply been the social service cutback programme. Even Maxwell Henderson himself, the great guru of austerity and cutbacks, called for an increase in daycare expenditures.

Now that the Conservatives have returned, like so many Attila the Huns from the meetings with the golden horde over the weekend, at which, I understand from the press, their paleolithic welfare policies and social development policies were greeted with great approval and esteem by the assembled multitude, we hold out little hope for the reintroduction of rationality in the development of this province’s social development policies and programmes. I suppose we can continue to hope with whatever vestigial optimism is left to us, that this government will somehow come back to its senses and will stop listening to Godzilla the ape.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: People, people.

Mr. McClellan: We can hope it will start to address itself to the real needs of the people of this province and not to the ranting and canting of free enterprise ideologies.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The Premier was right; you are a bunch of gloomsters.

Mr. McClellan: That, I think, concludes the remarks I wanted to make and I appreciate the opportunity to set before this Legislature one piece of our own economic policy. It is perhaps a small piece, the matter of day care, but I hope I have shown how it fits in to our employment policy and how crucial it is to this party and, I think, to the people of this province. Without adequate daycare services we are never going to achieve the goal of full and equal participation by men and women in the work force of this province.

Mr. Foulds: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, having counted assiduously for the last half-hour, I can see no quorum. I think there are only two government members of the 12 presently in the House.

Mr. Speaker ordered that the bells be rung for four minutes.

[On resumption:]

Mr. G. I. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I’d like to congratulate you on the fine job you are doing as Deputy Speaker of the House in this 30th Parliament of Ontario.

Mr. Laughren: He’s doing a great job. A great man.

Mr. G. I. Miller: It is a privilege to rise and speak on the budget debate in the 30th Parliament. This is my second opportunity to do so as a new Liberal member for the Haldimand-Norfolk riding, which I am proud to represent, after so many years of it being served so ably by the former James Noble Allan of the Conservatives. His shoes are big to fill but it is obvious, too, as I sit on this side and watch the government work, that there is nothing to compare between today’s government and the Conservative government back in the 1950s and 1960s, of which he was a key figure.

Mr. Ruston: It’s gone down the drain since then.

Mr. G. I. Miller: While he sat as the Treasurer of Ontario, I don’t think he came in with a deficit budget at all. In the last two years we have had the highest deficit budgets of any in Ontario’s history.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Sunshine budgets.

Mr. Sweeney: He rode off into the sunset.

Mr. Foulds: Is it the worst budget in Ontario’s history?

An hon. member: An election budget.

Mr. G. I. Miller: That is true. We are faced with serious problems today. We need new ideas and new approaches to questions of health, energy, agriculture, transportation, jobs for our young people, housing and the survival of the free-enterprise system on which our country was built.

[3:30]

Now with respect to the budget, this new budget conceals more than it reveals. During the last election, Liberals went across the province stressing time and time again the necessity of exercising financial responsibility, of streamlining government programmes and the need to cut down on waste and extravagance. So what has the government done? They have run around Ontario closing hospitals, putting nurses out of work and upsetting communities without any consultation with the people concerned -- without study of the ultimate result. They would not discuss or debate this in the House, once again showing the arrogance of the government.

When hospitals are closed and hospital beds are taken out of service, it is surely an admission of poor planning -- an admission that somehow we ended up with more hospital beds and facilities than required to service the surrounding community. In certain parts of the province we have too many hospital beds, while in others there are too few; clearly something must be done to equalize hospital facilities to some extent throughout Ontario.

The problem cannot be resolved by closing down hospitals, without any thought of the consequences -- selecting the victims with no real justification or reasonable explanation. There seems to be no clear-cut criteria or objectives in the government’s hospital closing programme -- no standards which must be met; no community needs taken into consideration. Surely a more sensible approach to reducing hospital overheads would be to decrease the number of beds in larger hospitals, and increase overall hospital efficiency. Durham, Clinton and Chesley, and the Doctors Hospital in Toronto, stood up in court and the decisions were reversed. More power to them.

The government went about it in the wrong way and would not listen. Our party wants to be responsible and fair to people. I think they would accept restraints if approached in a proper manner.

What is the budget for agriculture? Very little. The tile drainage programme has been brought to a standstill by government restraints and, again, with no planning, leaving a lot of farmers in a very sad situation financially.

Mr. Ruston: Listen to that, Lorne.

Mr. G. I. Miller: Until recently the province encouraged farmers to apply for loans and funding, for the programme was open-ended, with some municipalities having passed burrowing bylaws of up to half a million dollars to accommodate the programme. Thus, any tile drainage project approved by a municipal council was funded by the province. But this year, just as most municipalities reported the programme was finally beginning to catch on with area farmers and the applications for tile drainage loans started to pour in, the ministry announced spending ceilings on the programme as part of the province’s austerity cutbacks.

Municipal officials said they were given very little warning for the province’s decision. This resulted in every rural municipality in my region being caught with over-commitments in tile drainage loan applications which will now probably have to be rejected out of hand. This is responsible government?

In the town of Haldimand, in my riding, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food has allowed the municipality $20,300 for 1976-1977 tile drainage loans, while the backlog of applications currently on file amount to $82,000. In the town of Dunnville, where council has approved drainage loans amounting to $74,450 for the upcoming year, the allotment is $29,300, only 37 per cent of the total already committed by council.

In agriculturally-dominated Nanticoke, where the allotment is $87,200, officials say they will be unable to accept any more applications for the drainage loans for at least the coming year.

The township of Delhi faces a similar situation, where council has already committed its $50,000 allotment for the 1976-1977 year. The township of Norfolk is already over-committed by $41,000, based on an original allotment of $75,300.

This programme has been good for farming, improving production by draining low areas which are more easily cultivated. Tile drainage opens up areas of land previously unavailable for agriculture because of drainage problems. Until recently the province encouraged farmers to apply for loans and funding for this programme -- but now the plans are jeopardized by the budget cutbacks. Once more the government encourages taxpayers to become involved in a provincially-sponsored scheme only to pull the plug without warning.

I believe there is cause for alarm about the rate at which land is being removed in recent years from its traditional function of producing agricultural crops and livestock both in Ontario and in the rest of Canada. Urgent government action is necessary if we are to arrest and perhaps reverse the decline in agricultural acreage.

The present government has shown an appalling lack of leadership in this connection taking an irresponsible, “I-don’t-care” attitude. Land is being regarded simply as a commodity to be bought and sold rather than a valuable resource which must be protected. Apparently the government’s policy has been that land is a resource to be drawn upon as and when it is needed for orderly urban expansion.

Last year the Treasurer of Ontario (Mr. McKeough), the unofficial chief planner for the province, indicated his government was prepared to establish policy guidelines on the subject but added: “We don’t want anything with great teeth in it.” This attitude on the part of the government must change. Already here are statistics which show that Ontario is in danger of losing the favourable position which it held previously in relation to the agricultural productivity of other Canadian provinces.

The conclusions drawn in the report of the central Ontario lakeshore urban complex are very damaging to the government’s policy. For example, the report states:

“Both provincial policies and provincially-approved municipal official plans reflect an urban bias exhibiting little concern for rural resources priorities. Agricultural designations are often regarded as an impermanent holding category. Ontario cannot afford to gamble with the future and risk losing a significant portion of its good agricultural land. With a growing population and with a declining land base, Ontario may have to import 60 per cent of its food requirements by the year 2000.”

The government has been warned that prime agricultural land must be preserved, a warning endorsed by the government’s own report produced at considerable expense. However, in 1976, while valuable farm land continues to vanish, there is still no substantial reaction from the government, and there is still no effective master land-use plan for the Province of Ontario. We have studies and more studies. We have predictions by commissioned experts on how much agricultural land will disappear unless something is done. But we have no action by the government, no province-wide land-use plan which will effectively preserve our prime agricultural land.

The policy of the Liberal Party in Ontario has always been and continues to be that class 1, 2 and 3 agricultural land must be clearly designated as special crop lands, as land to be preserved for the production of food now and in the future. We realize that special situations may arise when it may be justifiable to use agricultural land for other than food production, but potential users must be prohibited from taking out of production anything but the poorer class agricultural land.

A major thrust of Liberal policy would be to steer growth away from class 1 and 2 farm land. The growth pressures which contribute to urban sprawl, especially in “the golden horseshoe” area, must be decentralized to eastern and northern Ontario. This decentralization can be accomplished by creating much-needed industrial development and employment opportunities in those areas.

A few years ago a government committee on farm classification released a report to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food on the question of land use. It recommended that our farm land be classified into five categories: agriculture, agriculture-residential, rural-residential, rural-recreational and rural-speculative. The committee stated that an inventory of current land use is necessary if farm land is to be classified. This would mean that all people who own farm land would be required to file a return indicating how the land is used.

Another recommendation of the report was that the responsibility for land use planning with respect to farm land should be transferred from the Ministry of Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs to the Ministry of Agriculture.

We in the Liberal Party favoured the land use controls recommended in the report and urged the government to adopt them. In almost every attempt to implement meaningful land use control in North America, the question of compensation for permanent zoning of agricultural land has been an important issue. This is, of course, only to be expected because it involves the most sacred of jurisdictional rights, that of the private ownership of land and the belief that private ownership implies the right to use the land in one’s own best interests.

If farm land is to be zoned for permanent agricultural production farmers will no doubt demand some form of compensation for the loss of development rights. Compensation for zoning has never been practised successfully on a large scale either in North America or Europe. I believe that serious consideration must be given to this matter, preferably in consultation with interested and knowledgeable groups such as farm organizations.

In the past, the financial return from food production in Canada has not been sufficient to enable the food producer to compete in the market with other potential users of land, such as industry and urban development. Consequently, much foodland has been lost and food producers have been forced to move to other and less productive lands. We must initiate policies to assist food producers to keep valuable foodland in production.

An effective provincial agricultural policy must contain measures which afford farmers adequate income protection combined with the means to preserve prime agricultural land specifically for food production. Clearly, any policy which neglected the welfare of the farmer would not only be unjust but would also be ineffective and would ultimately fail in its objective of ensuring our food supplies and protecting our agricultural land.

There is increasing evidence of the need to ensure farm income stability in this province. For a long time, farmers have struggled to gain economic and social stability and many farmers have only obtained income security upon retirement, after they have sold their holdings. Economic pressures have forced thousands of farmers to leave farming and many thousands more have had to supplement their farm income with off-farm employment, at least on a part-time basis. Moreover, young people are not being encouraged to go into farming.

The federal and provincial governments must work together to bring some stability into the agricultural industry so that farmers may at least be certain of a basic income, taking into account the cost of production and tremendous fluctuation in input costs. The cost will have to be shared by the government, by the farmers and by society generally. However, the cost is surely worthwhile.

Income stability is more important today than ever before because of price uncertainty. Farmers cannot be expected to continue investing in new machinery, in buying more land and in all the other production costs in an effort to increase production unless and until they receive some guarantee and some assurance that increased production will not lead to short-term surpluses which ruin prices and force them into bankruptcy.

The Liberal Party is in favour of a farm income stabilization programme on a voluntary basis which would guarantee a viable income to full-time farmers who are prepared to enter into such a plan and contribute premiums. Such a plan would be financed by a combination of farmer payments and contributions from provincial and federal governments. This would only be possible on a nationwide basis of federal-provincial cost sharing, and the plan would have to be co-operative.

If this were not the case, we might well be faced with provincial wars because provinces would pour provincial money into some segment of their agricultural industry in order to support it. Producers in some provinces would therefore gain an artificial and competitive edge over producers in other provinces where no such assistance is given.

[3:45]

The cost of production for each commodity would be established co-operatively by farm organizations, by marketing boards and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. Rather than being a subsidized programme, when market prices fell below the established cost of production a makeup payment would come from the insurance plan and the plan would provide insurance only against the failure of a policy. It would be directed toward having the consumer pay the legitimate cost for quality food supply.

Farm marketing board procedures would be utilized to gear production to consumption, with the understanding that food prices must reflect the cost of production plus a reasonable profit. Under this scheme, the farmer would not have to worry about his increasing input costs because he would have a reasonable assurance that he would at least recover his cost of production.

In regard to the IMPIP programme, which was instigated in 1973, in the first 11 months of 1975 total milk marketed by the Ontario Milk Marketing Board was 7.7 per cent greater than the milk marketed in the comparable period of 1974.

The increase in milk production has resulted from a number of factors, a major one being that the provincial government has fostered industrial milk production through its IMPIP programme. These loans were introduced on July 1, 1973, for a one year period and they were renewed to the end of June, 1975. In that period, 3,168 producers borrowed some $41 million to upgrade their production and the average loan was roughly $14,000. The loans have resulted in overproduction, cuts in quotas and stiff penalties have placed farmers in an impossible situation. Producers have been deprived of the income to repay these loans.

The ministry has never set long-term policies in this province for agricultural production. The government has merely reacted to situations. What is needed is the adoption of consistent operative principles which guide subsequent decisions.

The outlook for the dairy industry in Ontario for 1976, as analysed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, is for an increase in milk production. Clearly, a large share of the problem is lack of government foresight and policy.

The fishing industry is of real concern to me, which is perhaps not surprising when you consider that I have some 80 miles of Lake Erie shoreline in my riding. Harvesting fish from our lakes by fishermen is similar to farming the land, in that both industries are dealing with vital food resources. I share the concern of the fishermen throughout the province and believe that they themselves could contribute a great deal to discussions about the fishing industry generally, with respect to the best methods of harvesting the catch, processing and distribution, restocking of our lakes, etc.

Ontario’s total investment in the fishing industry is $16,779,000 of which approximately half -- some $8,580,000 -- is invested in Lake Erie. Total employment in all fishing in Ontario is approximately 2,280. For Lake Erie, the total number of fishing boards is 193 and the number of men employed is 643. More than 50 per cent of Ontario’s total catch comes from Lake Erie.

There has been some discussion in recent months about the question of perch size, and there is every indication that conservation officers intend to be quite firm about enforcing the 8-in. size limit for these fish. It has been estimated that approximately 90 per cent of Ontario’s perch are caught in Lake Erie, of which 70 per cent to 80 per cent were between seven and eight inches and the rest over that 8-in. limit.

Understandably, fishermen in the province are anxious about the possibilities of strict enforcement of the 8-in. limit, because they are only too well aware that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to survive in the fishing industry if this was the case. I have been told that if this law was strictly enforced for all bats there simply would not be any perch for sale because fishermen could not make a living in July and August catching 8-in. perch.

Back in 1959, Lake Erie was full of perch. There were so many perch in May of that year that fishermen were picking them and selling them for 2½ cents per lb. Some of the larger boats took on more men and brought in as many as 100 80-lb boxes of perch per day, seven days a week. In the 1960s, perch prices ranged from five to seven cents per lb and sometimes the fishermen couldn’t give the fish away.

While this was going on, the federal government came out with loans and subsidies to build bigger boats. Many took the money and began building 80- and 90-ft fishing boats, freezers and processing plants so that they could catch five times as many fish and process them cheaper. However, the more fish that were caught, the lower the price went, until about the year 1968 the government was persuaded to buy the surplus perch at a minimum price of 10 cent per lb.

So many fish were caught that freezers all over the country were packed full. The government had tons and tons of round perch for which 10 cent per lb had been paid. In the spring these fish were sold to the fur breeders by the ton for one or two cents per lb. Then the fishermen went out again and caught thousands of fish, and so it continued.

All through this period, no one -- not even the biologists and experts of the Ministry of Natural Resources -- thought of putting a quota on each boat, dividing up what the market could handle, getting a fair price per lb for the perch and leaving the rest in Lake Erie for next year. This would probably have solved the problem, but too many people wanted to catch a boatload of fish even if they had to be given away.

Now we are hearing about phosphates, raw sewage, fertilizer and other pollutants in Lake Erie, and it seems that even if Lake Erie were closed to fishing for five years, only about 50 per cent of the perch would reach 8 in.

In 1960 the government brought trawling to Lake Erie. This was introduced to stop the spread of smelt because they were overrunning the lake so badly. It was impossible to fish with gill nets in over 24 ft of water at some times of the year. Since 1960, thousands of tons of smelt have been caught in Lake Erie. Had this not happened, it is quite likely the lake would have been so full of smelt that it would have been impossible to go swimming because of dead fish.

However, there is a drawback with this kind of fishing. The smelt are going into a bag of 1-in. mesh and with the smelt also go any other small fish. At certain times of the year the small perch move out and mix with the smelt and there have apparently been instances of about one ton of 3-in. perch in one day from one boat taken to freezers for animal food. This has been going on for approximately 15 years.

Obviously, we have to take action to protect our natural resources. The pity is, of course, that for so many years we have been neglectful in this respect. The question of the fishing industry and the harvesting of our lake fish is a very complex one. I think the government must be careful not to make hasty decisions that will ultimately have a detrimental effect. As I said before, I think it is very important that the province’s fishermen be involved in consultations and plans for the industry, because after all, they are vitally concerned and have the day-to-day knowledge that is so important.

There are many other things of interest as far as my riding is concerned. I represent perhaps one of the largest ridings of the tobacco growing industry. I am concerned with that but I will not cover it in any great detail. I had an opportunity to speak on it when government brought in its tobacco tax.

The seatbelt law was of concern to many people in my riding. I think I had a petition from something like 8,000 who are against the seatbelt law. I would just like to point this out to the Legislature: They are not so much against the fact of wearing the seatbelts, as against having the law to enforce it.

As for the city of Nanticoke, the Townsend townsite, housing and development for the industrial park in my riding are a concern, but again I will leave these issues to discuss later and for the other members of my caucus to debate. I would just like to say thanks for having the opportunity to debate the budget for the coming year and it has been a pleasure on behalf of my riding of Haldimand-Norfolk. Thank you.

Mr. Breaugh: I wanted to participate in this budget debate and to engage in some discussions about what kind of a budget this one is, what kind of a budget procedure the government in power uses, and how a budget can affect the economy of the Province of Ontario.

I think in essence though, we have some basic problems with this particular budget. To be specific about it, does it really provide a balanced and stable economy for the province? Does it really do anything significant to alter, if you like, the economic affairs of the Province of Ontario? What kind of a role does this government see a budget playing? I feel perhaps we might find in that some differences from the kind of budget procedures that we would use.

I want to address myself too, Mr. Speaker, to, if you like, the government’s taxation target. Who gets identified to pay the bills and in what order and to what degree?

In Ontario I guess there are many areas that are defined as being acceptable tax targets. Certainly there are capital gains, corporation taxes; there is a bit of an attempt at a resources tax. In Ontario it has been traditionally somewhat different, but these days they seem to have zeroed in on one target, that is people taxes, taxes that ordinary working men and women could pay, and it hits them in a great number of ways. It hits them substantially in an income tax. It hits them substantially in a sales tax.

It also gets them in taxes which they don’t see; in commodity taxes, if you like -- in gasoline, in alcohol, in tobacco and in a number of other areas that manufacturers are, in theory I guess, taxed for but which are in reality taxed out onto the consumer.

So in Ontario we have that taxation target, if you like, clearly identified. We are going to work in this province on the working people. That may be a matter of numbers. It may be that there are substantially more of them than of anybody else. But at any rate, for whatever reason that seems to be the current target.

It wasn’t always so. There was a time in Ontario when corporations picked up pretty much 50 per cent or so of the taxation budget. That isn’t true anymore. That’s down to about 15 per cent. So clearly we have identified that group of people we want to tax. I’m not particularly sure why they are identified so well and so clearly, but in this budget as in previous budgets of this government, they are the ones who pay. They are the ones who cough up the dollars. It may not always be dollars, it may be a few cents here and a few cents there, but it certainly does add up.

I want to address myself to a kind of assessment of priorities, because I think that one of the ways in which a government speaks to its electorate, very clearly, is in the way that it strikes a budget -- in what it decides to spend money on and what it decides it will hold back on; in how it raises that revenue and how deeply it goes into debt and how long it finances that debt; on its fiscal policies; on its taxation policies; on policies for buildings things or not building things. I think in this budget we can see pretty clearly something that has been true for some time. The priorities of this government are in real hard things.

If you want to take the obvious example of roads -- and I don’t just mean the Spadina expressway because that’s topical today -- in the building of roads, provincial highways, back roads, city streets, the amount of money that is spent by all levels of government in Ontario is phenomenal. When you go and look over the municipal budget in almost any municipality you’ll find that usually somewhere between 60 and 70 per cent of the money that is spent is for, if you like, hard services and by and large, roads.

By and large too the reason for that is essentially the Province of Ontario has a tendency to loosen up the purse strings when you want to build a road. It’s not nearly so free with its funds when you want day care and to keep that going past the initial ribbon-cutting ceremony and was quite prepared to pay $1 million to give somebody a chance to cut a ribbon. But after that happened, after having to try to keep that thing in operation, the funds disappear.

[4:00]

Basically, we go back to an old Tory tradition in Ontario, and that is to build roads; that that’s always a good thing. We have examples all over Ontario. I remember one just outside of my riding; it happened when there was a county of Ontario. They used to take the money that the province coughed up in the roads budget and build things. They didn’t want to build them all at once and get into debt, so they’d build something with whatever moneys they got from the province in any given year. One year they decided they would build a bridge, which they did.

They built a nice little bridge, one of the best-looking bridges in Ontario county, all the way across a creek. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that except that in that instance there wasn’t any road on either side of the bridge. So far a couple of years we had the great honour of looking at this rather fine structure, set in the middle of a cow pasture and crossing a nice little creek. It was one of the best looking bridges you could find; there just happened to be no road on either side of the bridge.

The bridge followed the great Tory tradition in Ontario of building things. It doesn’t matter how or whether you need it, or really to what standard or how the contracts are let or good things like that. But the Tory party in Ontario has a wealth of tradition, particularly about building roads. I often wonder if they could have survived even two or three years at the outside had they not embarked on that.

I can’t find a construction project in the Province of Ontario that isn’t built by a corporation that has known members of the Conservative Party at its head; it is rather difficult to find a municipal council building those roads that doesn’t have considerable influence from the Tory party there. The whole exercise seems to have been to build a vast system of roads throughout Ontario, some of which are quite good and quite necessary and some of which are not. But that criterion about whether a road is needed or not is not always considered.

The plain fact is that the Tories have discovered that building a road is a good deal. You can find some roads that are perhaps a little better than the standard in an area but happen to lead up to a particular person’s cottage or a particular person’s farm. I think we could all give a little

chapter and verse on that particular instance in the history of Ontario, where the reeve got a road built to his house and it didn’t go past his house. But it follows that Tory tradition of building roads.

On the other hand, I guess the legitimate thing to say is that that wouldn’t be our emphasis. We would move in different areas; we think that fundamentally there is certainly a need for roads in Ontario, but there is also a need now in Ontario to provide people with services. Some of those are not popular services; that’s true. Some of those are not concrete things that you can see forever and a day. It is difficult to conduct the kind of public relations campaign around people services that you can do about building roads; that’s true enough.

It is also difficult to make the case -- but I think it can be made -- that daycare centres, senior citizens’ homes and things like that, as functioning entities, are every bit as important as the construction of those facilities in the first instance.

I think what we probably need here is some device that allows us to cut ribbons every day and get our pictures in the paper as politicians. If that were the case, if there was some political gain to be salvaged out of that situation, I’m sure we’d be far more active in Ontario in providing services to human beings on a day-to-day basis.

In Ontario too there seems to be -- and I think it not unfair to lay this one at the Tory doorstep as well -- a good deal of cooperation, if you like, on one level; that is, with the corporate entity in the province. There seems to be not a great deal of difficulty in establishing what the corporations want in terms of tax incentives. There seems to be not a great deal of difficulty in at least sympathizing or approaching whatever problem might be before the House, or before the government, from a corporate point of view. But there seems to be a great deal of difficulty in approaching that from the workers’ point of view.

I think examples have been quoted at great length in this House of places where there’s an unsafe work place. It might involve lead oxide levels, dust levels or asbestosis; it could be a number of things. But I think one will find, in all of those instances, that the corporation that is quite happy to receive some tax incentives from the Province of Ontario also gets pretty good co-operation from the government of Ontario in dealing with those items as well. There is great reluctance on the part of the government to move in and shut down a corporation or to enforce meaningful control legislation on that particular thing. That’s a last resort.

I’m not suggesting that every time we find a lead oxide level or a dust level that’s 0.1 over whatever is the acceptable limit we shut everything down until they rectify the situation. That’s not the point at all. The point is that there are ongoing difficulties in the work place, I think rather extensively documented by the public at large, by various interest groups, by the unions involved and by the workers involved, where the government is clearly dragging its heels.

I suppose we can find, too, the one or two corporations that from time to time do cease operation and clean up their act. That may be acceptable in some quarters. To me, it’s not. Quite frankly, that isn’t the point at all. Even if the government is prepared to shut somebody down, that’s an unfortunate approach to it all. What at least strikes me as being a particularly sane approach to it is that the work place is monitored regularly and that those results are made public so that everyone who either works there or who controls that work place knows what is going on, can identify what the problem is, and that it’s kept to be a safe working place.

By that I want to use both words emphatically: that it’s a safe place for somebody to work, and that it’s a working place; that the work carries on and we don’t have to shut it down once a month or every six months and clean the joint up; that we allow it to continue to function but that it functions at safe levels. There is, of course, some argument about safe levels and I’m quite prepared to deal with that and to accept that problem.

But where we have consensus, where we have overwhelming evidence, if you like, that something is unsafe -- and we’ve had indications of that in the Province of Ontario in the last three years -- I don’t think it’s satisfactory for the government to wait until there is some kind of public pressure or even until the matter is raised in the House before it deals with it.

I frankly don’t see why the government of Ontario is not prepared to deal with that thing on a day to day basis as, if you like, part of the workings of government. Why does it have to be a scandal? Why does it have to be front-page headlines before anything ever happens? Why do we have brand new plants -- and we’ve seen several instances of that; one in my own riding -- brand new multi-million-dollar plants put up supposedly under the guidance of the Ministry of the Environment and in co-operation with the Ontario government, that aren’t a safe place to work from day one? How does that happen in Ontario?

We have the money. Clearly the money has been spent putting up the facility. We have the expertise in terms of making it a safe work place. Why didn’t it happen? Why do we always have to go through this process -- the nice term for it is a shakedown period -- where we have people work for six or eight months in a plant that everybody agrees is an unsafe place to work, but the excuse is, “Well, we’re just shaking the place down. Give us a year or so and we’ll clean it up. It’ll work okay.”

I really wonder whether corporations in that sense would be happy if the people who supply them with equipment said, “Well, take this equipment on delivery now, let it shake down for six or eight months, but let it cost you a few hundred thousand dollars, and then if we don’t get it fixed in a year or so, well, we’ll take it back and give you something else.” I don’t think they would. I don’t think that’s a very businesslike attitude on anybody’s part.

To take another issue, this government has dramatically and consistently dealt with the entire problem of providing affordable housing to the people of Ontario from the industry’s point of view. It has consistently provided those people who are in the housing industry with incentives, it has provided them with mortgage money, it has done promotional jobs for them, it has set up OHAP programme and NIP and RRAP programmes and provided them with the big blue pipe in my area. It has done a number of things to deal with this particular problem, but all from one point of view essentially.

I suppose one could make the case that when they attempt to provide mortgage money through a developer, as they do under the OHAP programme, that sooner or later a consumer benefits, and that may or may not be true. Not very many of them, but some of them might.

The fact is that the perspective is to work through the industry first, from its point of view, to provide it with the things that it needs, the mortgage money, the sewer and water services, that kind of stuff. That’s where the emphasis is, that’s where the priority is, that’s how this government approaches that problem. It does not approach it from the point of view of those who need housing and it does not consider that need to be the priority item in this whole approach to a housing problem.

If they were actually trying to identify those people who can’t afford housing now, would they be satisfied, for example, in the OHAP agreement to give them 10 per cent of the housing? I am not particularly concerned about those people who earn $30,000 or $40,000 a year; they can buy whatever they want. But those people, for example in my riding, who earn less than $15,000 a year -- I want to point out that the average wage for the city of Oshawa is $14,000; that is virtually, 50 per cent and probably far more of the people in that particular municipality -- can’t afford to buy a house in Oshawa.

They can’t even afford to qualify for the mortgage let alone carry it. Those people who can are qualifying because both people in the family are working. What happens when one of them faces a strike situation or ill health or loses a job or gets laid off is rather devastating. People in my riding, earning collectively less than $20,000 a year, are facing $500 to $600 a month in carrying charges on a house. That’s ridiculous and there really has not been a movement on the part of this government even to approach the problem from that angle because the priority lies in a different area -- helping industry.

The assumption is -- and it is nothing but an assumption -- that if we help industry, sooner or later we will help somebody who needs a house. That’s not necessarily true and, frankly, I would be hard pressed to find an instance in which it is true.

In terms of dealing with another aspect if we like, of corporate life in Ontario, I see the government attempting to help corporations and I don’t disagree with that. I don’t see anything wrong with that at all. I have just come from listening to the estimates of the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations and I don’t have any bone to pick with a government which tries to help industry or tries to help corporations. All I am saying is there ought to be equal emphasis on the people who buy their products, that is on the consumer; and that’s not there.

I have heard the minister say repeatedly, “The people have somewhere to go. They can get a class action suit going or they can get a lawyer and sue the company.”

I suppose from one point of view that’s valid. If one is not happy with whatever was bought or the service which was purchased one can get a lawyer and sue them but in practical terms for the people who buy the stuff that’s no alternative at all. To say to somebody who has made a major investment in something which is faulty -- we could run through the list from automobiles to houses to any kind of goods -- that he can go off to court, grab a lawyer and go to court for two or three years and then get some answer, is no answer. That’s no answer at all.

For the rich, that’s a workable solution. Someone who is wealthy can afford to hire a lawyer, romp off to court and sit around for two or three years, not particularly concerned about what the outcome would be. Someone who is not at that level of income just can cope with that situation at all.

I had a lady call me this morning at my constituency office. She happens to be one of those unfortunate people who bought one of those expensive houses in Oshawa. The developer who built it really didn’t do much of a job on grading the property so her backyard is kind of the cesspool for the neighbourhood; that’s where all the run-off water goes.

We had to explain to her, “In Ontario, the laws are such that you have the right to sue the guy.” She was making the case to me, “How do I sue this guy? Where do I get the money for the lawyer? What do I do for the two years it takes to get it to court? What do I do afterwards?”

Frankly, there are some alternatives -- there is no question about that -- but certainly they are not desirable ones and maybe not even efficient ones in Ontario because basically the thing is geared to the producer. Whoever builds the house has got the ace. The consumer at the other end has an up-hill battle.

One can hear the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Handleman) saying, “We did this. We put a cease and desist order on Vic Tanny’s,” but that’s rare in Ontario. One can hear the defence mechanisms that everybody has a right to get a lawyer and take him to court. That’s true but that is also rare and that’s also not much of an answer for most human beings.

We were discussing in there the kind of hidden warranties which some automobile manufacturers supposedly were using. It’s fine to say that if one is Ralph Nader and has a team of lawyers or is prepared to stick it out for six months or two years and chase whatever corporate entity it is around the block, one might get a warranty but for most people that’s not a practical solution. That isn’t an answer for them at all.

The point I am attempting to make concerns the priorities of this government -- and they are, I think, well displayed in this budget -- the priorities of this government are really set from a corporate point of view. If they want to do some good, that’s the approach they take; that’s where their perspective lies, that’s clearly where their priority is. It is not at the other end of the scale. It is certainly not with the consumer.

It is certainly not with working people, and in terms of the taxation process I find it phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal, that that process is reversed -- that when it comes to taxing, then the priorities seem to be ordinary working people. That’s when they get their just desserts I guess, according to this one.

[4:15]

I might say that even in terms of influencing a government that seems to be true. It seems to be not too difficult, and I’ve heard ministers say it in the House many times. They are about ready to meet with the heads of that corporation; in the pulp and paper strike, they meet with the executives in the pulp and paper industry. In any other kind of a problem, they grab the industrial people first and they bring them into the room and have a little discussion with them. They might -- just might -- go and talk to the union as well, if there is a union in that situation, but that’s a little on the rare side.

The only time they get much attention is when they parade on the front lawn out here, but on a day by day basis, this government deals with the corporations, on a day by day basis, this government deals with their executive. That’s just the information source, if you like. The only other source of information or influence that comes in here is kind of when public pressure hits a certain boiling point, and that’s not all that often. It happens once in a while but it isn’t really all that often. When it hits the boiling point and then pops open, then the government is prepared to react, but not before it does that, not until that particular thing happens.

I suppose we could hear

chapter and verse from the other side of the coin, that in Ontario there are a number of good laws in the books. There are, without question, good laws in the books in Ontario, but unfortunately that’s where they are. They are in the books. They are not in the streets and they are not in action. If we left Ontario, we could probably take our statute books out somewhere else in the world and say, look at what a great province Ontario is. Look at all the statutes we’ve got, because we have certainly got them, but we don’t use them very much. We don’t see that they are thoroughly enforced.

At that critical point where we have to make that decision, do we enforce the laws we have or do we interpret the laws we have? In Ontario, this government always opts for the latter. They always want to interpret the thing and see how valid things are.

I want to deal, too, with some things I think are observations of one form or another. There is a form of aristocracy at work in Ontario and most of it is sitting on the empty benches on the other side; and I don’t begrudge them that, they are quite welcome to that one. What I find is ludicrous, though, is the definition of the work ethic that’s coming out. With the great Tory turn to the right, there seems to be at the same time a great return to the work ethic. “Everybody be good and work hard 12 or 15 hours a day and don’t grumble about your pay,” that kind of thing.

I accept that from people who really have spent their lives working their way up through a system. I really accept that from people who are self-made men and are just totally devoted to that. I think it’s a little nil perhaps, but for most of us on this side of the House, particularly in this caucus over here, that’s where we spent most of our lives. There are very few millionaire sons over here, not that there is anything wrong with being the son or daughter of a millionaire, but there aren’t very many of us over here, and certainly the people we represent are the workers.

They are the people who spend their time making cars or whatever it is, producing steel or making pulp and paper. I find it odd that we’re made the subjects of great long lectures on the work ethic. I don’t really see how that falls into place at all.

We have this commitment to the kind of human needs and the understanding of those things. I’ve heard the Premier (Mr. Davis) say a number of times that we don’t have a monopoly on caring for people. That’s true. That’s certainly true. The problem this government has is when it gets past that point about caring, when it gets into the realm of actually doing something, that’s where the problems arise.

This government has a great tendency, and it used them in this budget, to make a decision based on some kind of statistical analysis, and it doesn’t really matter whether the analysis holds water or not, or whether or not it is true, or whether it is relevant even, but if it gets something that has a bunch of numbers attached to it with some kind of a formula, that’s what this government loves to have. When it closes hospitals, it likes to have that kind of an analysis. It doesn’t matter whether it is fair. It doesn’t matter whether it is accurate, as long as they have some kind of a report somewhere that says something they can use.

I am told that there are entire files of analyses of this, that and the other thing, and statistical evidence which will prove almost anything, and that the government is quite prepared to pull whatever analysis proves the point it is trying to make at any given moment. I really don’t doubt that; I really don’t doubt it at all. This government, I think, has displayed a rather courageous stand in spots about ignoring reality. It doesn’t want to deal with real situations; it wants to deal with numbers and is not terribly concerned -- or at least deals as an after-thought -- with what the consequences of its government action really are.

Let me get back to this basic point that I want to make about zeroing in on working men and women. I would understand too that there is some rationale behind this. There are more of them; there are more people working now. If you want to tax each one of them a little bit, as opposed to taxing one group a lot, that is perhaps a painless way to do it. There is that theory of taxation that you should tax everybody a little bit equally and not really go at those who make rather large amounts of money.

My concern essentially is that I think there has been a mistake in judgement made. I really think the government has hit the saturation point at certain levels, that there are working people in Ontario who are taxed right to the teeth and there isn’t any room left. This government, in this particular budget, has hit them in several ways, some directly and some indirectly, and I am not terribly sure that it is going to be able to do that successfully this time.

I recognize the success that this government has had in doing that a number of times previously -- of hitting everybody a little bit -- not enough that it hurts, but just enough to generate considerable millions of dollars of revenue and no one even notices that he has been hit. This time I think it might have done it. This time I think it hit its base group in a number of ways, some of which are indirect, I know, but I think it hit them just a bit too much. I think it gilded the lily a bit.

Let me nail down a couple of things that I think the government did do right. I think that when it got into that area of what we call the sin taxes, I guess -- taxing beer, liquor, all forms of alcohol and cigarettes and things like that -- it probably hit them a bit. It certainly didn’t come anywhere near the mark of what they did in Quebec this past week where they doubled their taxation proceeds on that. I think perhaps this government’s judgement in those areas was not that bad. It probably could have squeezed a bit more in taxation purposes on those items.

Let me tell the government what my concern is. What is it doing with that money? Where does that money go? Is that a legitimate source of revenue for the Province of Ontario to spill into its general funds and use as it sees fit, or when the government collects that kind of taxation money does it have -- if you want, a social obligation; if you want, a moral obligation -- to use those funds derived from those particular sources to deal with the problems produced by those sources at the end of the process?

Is the government really doing very much pursuant to the problems of alcoholism in Ontario? I guess it is all a matter of perspective. My opinion is no. It is continuing to allow millions of dollars to be poured into advertising to convince people it is a really good thing to drink whatever beer happens to be on or whatever kind of alcoholic beverage is being touted at the given moment.

It strikes me that is a particularly useless exercise, at any rate. Most of the people in that kind of industry with whom I have discussed the matter seem to agree they are not increasing their markets; they are really all fighting for a set number of people who will consume alcoholic beverages, and the game after that point really is to see who can get the largest share of that set market. That seems to me to be a useless exercise, frankly, and yet no one seems quite prepared to deal in a meaningful way with the problems that alcoholism causes in the home, in the work place, in the society as a whole.

There isn’t any reallocation of funds that are generated from that kind of taxation into that kind of research, that kind of education, that kind of corrective process, if you like. That transfer is not made. The government views it as a source of revenue and I think that is wrong. All right, it puts money into the coffers for sure, but if it is to do that, then I think the government has a moral obligation to see that that money is spent to correct the problems it has caused.

Maybe we are into a kind of esoteric argument about degree, the amount of money spent, and the kind of money that is put into it. We might even get into the argument about prohibitionism or things like that. I don’t think all of that is necessary. I think, frankly, in realistic terms we are talking about the people who abuse these things. We are talking about taking set amounts of taxation moneys raised from those specific items and channelling that money back into corrective programmes -- to correct abuses, to be very specific about it, At some point in time you are going to hit a critical reaction point in that kind of taxation, in taxing the little things.

I could quote some instances -- I suppose we all could -- of people who said, when the government went the extra measure on the cigarettes, “That’s it for me. I am not smoking,” is probably a good thing. From the government’s point of view, the problem is that when that critical point is reached, it starts to lose revenue. If the purpose of the tax in the beginning is to generate considerable amounts of funds for the coffers, when we hit that critical point, we start to lose money. I think the government is not too far off that one; it could probably get on the sin taxation process a bit more, but I don’t think so.

Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, about one of the things in this budget that caused quite a little furore in my riding. I really hadn’t anticipated the kind of furore it caused when the government raised the OHIP premiums. That got them. I listened to the Treasurer make his spiel in the House, and I thought that while he got a little carried away with himself and was given to his usual kind of excesses, that that wouldn’t hit too hard. But it did hit -- and much harder than I anticipated. And the public reaction is a little larger than I had expected.

It is true -- and I have some difficulty rationalizing this -- that it’s double what the Anti-Inflation Board is supposed to allow for any kind of price or wage increase. I have great difficulty explaining to people, “Yes, your wages are controlled. Yes, there is supposedly some price control, although I can’t tell you what prices they have ever controlled. But, on the other hand, taxation can kind of roll on. They are exempt.” That’s the nice thing about the whole anti-i