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February 12, 1975

29th Parliament, 4th Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L181 - Wed 12 Feb 1975 / Mer 12 fév 1975

BUDGET DEBATE

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

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

BUDGET DEBATE

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Huron-Bruce.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): It’s a pleasure, Mr. Speaker --

[Applause.]

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): That’s just to make up for the member’s lack of friends.

Mr. Gaunt: It’s a pleasure, Mr. Speaker, to know that one has complete endorsation for a speech one is going to deliver in this House --

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): The applause was for the member’s rising, not for his speech.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): We may applaud even heartier when he sits down.

Mr. Gaunt: I thank my friends to my left and right for their kind consideration.

Mr. Deans: Had the member issued a statement that he was going to speak, I would have got a crowd in here.

Mr. Gaunt: No, I didn’t have any PR statements produced today. As a matter of fact, I only found out about an hour ago that I was going to be on first, so I didn’t have any time to prepare elaborate press releases for the gallery, for which I apologize.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): He’s not likely to be seven hours.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): There’s nobody up there to give them to.

Mr. Gaunt: In any case, I am going to begin in the traditional way, Mr. Speaker, by paying tribute to you, sir, for the excellent job which you do in running the affairs of this House. It’s not always easy. At times I suppose our accolades become somewhat repetitious but nonetheless I think they are important. I think it’s important for you to know, sir, that all of the members of the House appreciate the manner in which you conduct the affairs of this House.

I want to talk for what I hope won’t be too long on a matter related to Hydro and the manner in which Hydro handles its power-line corridors. Never has there been an issue that has been so irritating to me in my 12 years and some odd months of political life. Hydro’s insensitivity, its power-play tactics, its bullying tactics, its deliberate distortions, its self-righteous proclamation by word and deed that it can do anything in the name of producing power for the Province of Ontario, has left me extremely frustrated.

In March, 1974, I gave a speech in regard to Hydro in which I attacked the organization for its incredibly inept handling of the power-line corridor though my own riding. I don’t want to repeat that speech. However, I thought that Hydro had learned something from that experience; but I am sorry to say, Mr. Speaker, I take that all back. Hydro hasn’t learned a thing in the intervening months; there are certainly no visible signs of improvement. There is significant evidence to substantiate that, and I want to deal with that evidence for a few moments.

First of all, Hydro apparently is still considering building a nuclear power plant in Huron county.

Mr. B. Gilbertson (Algoma): No way.

Mr. Gaunt: I would hope not.

Mr. Gilbertson: They have given up that idea.

Mr. Gaunt: Ontario’s white bean industry is worth over $25 million annually, and it could be wiped out if a nuclear power plant were to be located in Huron county. Beans are extremely sensitive to air pollution; 85 per cent of the Canadian crop is grown in the direct path of the prevailing winds from the proposed plant locations in Huron county. So, it is easy to see what would happen under those circumstances. The bean industry would have to go. The question then becomes: Is the bean industry worth saving?

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): A good question.

Mr. Gaunt: I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that without a doubt it’s worth saving; without a doubt -- no equivocation at all. There are other alternatives for power sites, but there are no other alternatives for bean growing areas in this province.

I blame the government just as much, or perhaps more in this regard, than I blame Hydro -- because the government has failed to set out its priorities. It has failed to stand up and be counted on the issue of preserving good agricultural land; and, in this instance, preserving a vital industry in the Province of Ontario.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Right.

Mr. Gaunt: All the government had to do was say, “We believe that that industry is very important to the farming community and it’s very important to the citizens of Ontario and Canada. Therefore, there is no question about building a power plant in that good agricultural land. It just won’t be done.”

That’s all that had to be said, and I am sure that would have been the end of it. However, that hasn’t happened. There has been no clear-cut statement on the part of the government in relation to this proposed nuclear power plant location -- nothing.

When it became public that Hydro was thinking about building a nuclear plant in this particular location, Hydro said they felt that this was a good location. It fitted in with their total grid plans for the province and they felt that there was nothing wrong with the location. Further, they said the adequate and abundant supplies of water out of Lake Huron were something that they needed.

Then it became very clear that there was a lot of opposition to this proposed location, and so Hydro began backing off. They said: “Well, we have taken another look at it and we are not so sure that it is a good idea to build in that particular location. For the moment, we are certainly going to cancel out our plans to build a plant in that location.”

Then they took a survey and that survey, I understand, indicated that there was some support, particularly in the urban areas, for locating that plant in Huron county. The questions were somewhat loaded, but to give Hydro the benefit of the doubt I would have to say that there were some citizens in Huron county who favoured that particular location. Then the statements started flowing again and now they became stronger and more positive; that Hydro was definitely going to build a power plant in Huron county right in the centre of the bean-growing area.

Really, what has happened is that we have undergone another one of Hydro’s cold wars. It is a war of attrition with Hydro. They are very good at this tactic. They move in and play the aggressor. When the opposition marshals itself, they pull back and they soften the whole procedure and water down the statements and so on, then when opposition dies off they move in again. It’s just a matter of attrition.

They weaken the opposition to such an extent that finally everyone who has been opposed to the thing, says: “Oh, well, they are going to win anyway, so what’s the use?” This is a deliberate and calculating tactic on the part of Ontario Hydro. I am convinced of that and I say to the government and to Ontario Hydro once again, please, for goodness sake, don’t put your power plant in Huron county, because it simply means the destruction of the bean industry in this country.

Mr. Gilbertson: Send it up to Algoma.

Mr. Breithaupt: If the member wants it.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): It would destroy the maple sugar business up there.

Mr. Gaunt: Moving a little farther up the shoreline --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: There’s not enough cold water.

Mr. Gaunt: -- I come into my riding, and I want to talk for a few minutes about some of the things that have gone on, or are proposed to go on, at the Bruce nuclear power plant and how these things are affecting the power corridor routing of Ontario Hydro.

The provincial government has announced, of course, the plan to expand the facilities at Bruce to provide hydroelectric power to the Toronto market, essentially the Toronto market. This would incur capital costs of many millions of dollars and necessitate numerous and heavier transmission lines across prime agricultural and scenic areas of southwestern Ontario.

These plans completely negate Hydro’s stated priority of locating all generating stations close to major load centres. Also, the proposed routing of the primary transmission line and the secondary security or backup line covers a distance of 150 miles, which at an approximate estimated cost of $500,000 to $1 million per mile depending on the terrain, means an expenditure of up to $150 million.

Hydro’s long-range plans have not been publicly discussed, but I think it’s clear for all to see that it is planning a programme to establish generating stations around the western perimeter of the province. Obviously, Hydro made plans, held superficial hearings -- merely going through the motions of public and democratic participation -- and then simply proceeded, with cabinet approval, to do exactly what it had intended to do from the outset.

The Bradley-Georgetown transmission route is inappropriate and illogical, because the primary market for Bruce power should be the Kitchener-Waterloo area, with any backup line for Toronto being routed via Owen Sound, Collingwood and down around that way, linking up with the already established Essa-Kleinburg corridor and serving those markets en route.

The government has given much emphasis to the Solandt commission, of which a very curious aspect is the fact that Dr. Solandt chose to ignore completely the expert, neutral and highly expensive report of his environmental consultants, Bruce Howlett Inc., which recommended that the escarpment be crossed at Rattlesnake Point, permitting the Kitchener-Waterloo line to be routed via the 401 crossing. It would seem the consulting engineer’s report was changed to be acceptable to Hydro. And the question has to be why?

Although the Nanticoke-Pickering transmission corridor was extensively studied, this was not the case with the Bradley-Georgetown route. On July 11, 1974, the former Minister of Energy (Mr. McKeough) said that approval of the southern 500-kv transmission corridor between Bruce and Georgetown via Kitchener was being withheld pending review of the long-range plan for Ontario Hydro. Nothing more was heard of that, Mr. Speaker, until Jan. 16, 1975, when an

article appeared in the Globe and Mail in which the new chairman of Ontario Hydro, Mr. Robert Taylor, announced that the blueprints outlining the expansion of North America’s second largest electric utility will stay as they are.

I say, Mr. Speaker, that particular result was predictable from the outset. It was an in-house study by Hydro, and it was a study which was conducted in such a way that Hydro, I think predictably and with great certainty, was bound to reaffirm its original decision. And that’s exactly what happened. Hydro officials obviously intended from the beginning that the escarpment should be crossed at Limehouse beside Georgetown. Serious consideration has never been given to the Bruce-Essa route, with Essa-Kleinburg as a security line involving only one crossing of the escarpment at the 401.

The Essa-Kleinburg line has a capacity of 6,000 megawatts with the present single-string towers, and the double-string towers through this corridor would give a capacity of 18,000 megawatts. The government’s planned Hydro corridors have a potential of 70,000 to 80,000 megawatts. I’m talking here, Mr. Speaker, about the corridors from Bruce and also from Pickering and Nanticoke. Those corridors have a potential of 70,000 to 80,000 megawatts, while today’s overall needs for the entire province are between 12,000 and 13,000 megawatts.

At present, there are something in the neighbourhood of 4,000 megawatts now being consumed in the “golden horseshoe” area. What we’re talking about here is the twentyfold increase to this particular area. If the government insists on allowing Hydro to proceed with the current proposals, both will be guilty of an incredible waste of taxpayers’ money, of arrogantly and unnecessarily taking over many acres of prime agricultural land and of facilitating the provision of an excessive amount of hydro-electric power to the Toronto region, encouraging increased industrialization and intensifying the already serious problems of overcentralization in this area.

I say without question that what is needed immediately is a public inquiry into the Bradley-Georgetown line. I’ll tell you why, Mr. Speaker. There has been no opportunity to challenge the in-house study of Hydro in the public forum. They should be required to say what they are doing and why they are doing it. No new transmission corridors should be cut until a full study has been made and alternative existing corridors completely utilized.

The second reason why I think we must have a public inquiry in this province in regard to the Bradley-Georgetown line is the fact that, based on Hydro’s own failures, the line cannot be justified, Let me take just one area in that line and use the figures supplied by Ontario Hydro in its own environmental report -- Ontario Hydro 500-kv transmission line right of way, Bradley-Georgetown environmental report, vol. 1, page 83. I take the Eastern Garafraxa area and the Erin area and I am dealing with what is named in this report as the original route and the alternative route.

The original route, I am given to understand, is the concession 2 route; the alternative route is the concession 4 route. Ontario Hydro has settled on the concession 2 route. These are the figures for that routing as opposed to the concession 4 routing.

They include the total number of miles of right of way required in the original route which is the one Hydro is going to use. The information meetings are now being held on this particular line at this moment, Mr. Speaker, in several municipalities in that area, where Hydro tries to explain why it is doing the things it is. In any case, let me get back to this report. The total miles of right of way required for the original -- and this is through East Garafraxa and Erin -- are 17.6; the alternative route, 15.6. In terms of mileage, the alternative route is the more attractive.

We come to total acres of new right of way required. In the original route which Hydro is using, it is 1193 acres; in the alternative route, 1,058 acres. There again the alternative route is more attractive. We come into the area of class 1 and 2 agricultural land. In the original route, 431 acres of class 1 and 2 agricultural land will be used in the route Hydro is going to pursue. In the alternative route, only 194 acres are going to be used.

Of acres of intensively used class 1 and 2 agricultural land in the original route which Hydro is using, 225 acres are going to be taken out of intensive production; in the alternative route, 99 acres. On that point alone, Mr. Speaker, I think Hydro is seriously flawed in its judgement.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why they are taking those power lines through some of the best agricultural areas in those two townships. It just indicates to me the degree of importance with which Ontario Hydro views agricultural land in this province and in this country. It couldn’t care less.

Then we move on to the total number of water courses lost by right of way in the original, which is the one they are using, which is 11; in the alternative, 5. We come down to total acres of wooded land in the right of way. In the original it is 234 and in the alternative, 326. If one wants to talk about the number of buildings in the original, it is two; in the alternative, no buildings. The total number of properties crossed by right of way in the original is 75; in the alternative, 47. The total number of properties diagonally severed by the right of way, in the original is 17; in the alternative, one.

This has been a big point of Hydro in the lining of the routing through my area, through the area of Huron and Bruce county, the fact that they don’t like to have any more diagonal intersections than possible. They like to try to avoid them because they are very costly and they sever or chop up the property very badly.

They have argued many times in my presence that they try to avoid severing land diagonally at all cost. Yet in the route they are going to use through Garafraxa and Erin they are diagonally severing 17 properties, as opposed to only one property if they used the other route.

On every single count, Mr. Speaker, in establishing their routes Ontario Hydro have completely disregarded their own criteria in favour of the proposed original routing. Why, I can’t explain. It’s beyond me. I don’t know. There’s no answer to it. Given Hydro’s criteria, based on what they try to do in establishing a routing, every one of the points is violated in this particular routing and yet they’re going ahead with it.

There is no question, I say, that this matter must be subjected to a public hearing. The Minister of Energy (Mr. Timbrell), in my view, has no alternative but to establish a public hearing in regard to this matter, because the very vital public question has to be: “Why is Ontario Hydro doing this? Why are they violating their own established rules of procedure in setting up a line of this nature?” I don’t know. The public doesn’t know. The property owners involved don’t know. I think the only way we’re going to find out is to have a public hearing.

Mind you, I have some ideas as to why they’re doing it. Perhaps they’re right, maybe they’re wrong. I don’t know. But in my view one of the reasons Hydro is so intent on going forward with this line -- and my proposition basically is that it doesn’t need the line at all; it is the least required line now -- is that Hydro knows it would be the hardest one to obtain in the future. They want the line sometime in the future because they feel it’s necessary for the security of the system.

As a matter of fact the former Minister of Energy indicated that as far as he was concerned the arguments proposed by Hydro showed that the security of the system in the short terms was more than adequate but that while the short-term security might be adequate, the long-term needs might call for a brand-new corridor. So Ontario Hydro takes that to mean that it can put that corridor through now although it’s really not required, because if Hydro leaves it for a number of years it’s going to be almost impossible to get it through because of environmental considerations, because of the need and the public outcry to preserve good agricultural land and so forth.

Even though they don’t need this line at the moment, they are going to put it through because they think that they just might happen to need it at some point in the distant future. In the meantime, they are destroying good agricultural land; they’re disrupting the ecology and they’re upsetting the property owners all the way along the line.

This is really part of Hydro’s land-grabbing policies that I have talked about before. They’re doing some land-banking in this instance, Mr. Speaker; and, as far as I am concerned, I don’t think they should be permitted to do it. That’s why I want a public inquiry, and that’s why I urge the Minister of Energy to institute a public inquiry on this matter immediately -- the sooner the better. We haven’t got any time to waste on this matter.

As a matter of fact that’s one of the big arguments that the ministry uses in regard to this particular line. They say it’s imperative that we have this line not only for the security reasons which are important in the long term, but we need it to get the power out of the Bruce generating station by 1977. If we don’t have sufficient lines to get that power out, we are going to be in trouble, and it’s going to cost the power users of this province an extra $31 million by 1977 -- and perhaps as high as $60 million by 1980, if we haven’t got the lines in place to get the power produced in Bruce out to the consuming areas.

My point is this, the rights of way are already there. They are already in place to get that power out from Bruce. All Hydro has to do is use the present rights of way that it owns and it is home free. But they don’t want to do that because they want to put in this extra line to ensure that they have a little to play on. As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Speaker, I’m not prepared to endorse any more ego trips of Ontario Hydro -- because I don’t think they need it. I think a public inquiry would show that they don’t need it, and I think if the minister doesn’t agree to a public inquiry it’s an abdication of his responsibilities.

I want to leave that particular topic for now, Mr. Speaker, and turn to another topic that I have talked about at various times over the past number of years, the matter of the disposable bottle. You may recall, sir, that I introduced a bill back in 1971 which would have banned the disposable bottle. I thought, in view of the report of the provincial solid waste task force, I would make a few comments in that regard, particularly in view of the minister’s response which has so far been totally inadequate in this particular area.

The solid waste task force was formed in the fall of 1972. It had very broad objectives in terms of reference. No sooner had it got going than the minister indicated that, in his view, it should concentrate on the packaging of milk and carbonated soft drinks, alcoholic beverages and so on, because he felt those the most pressing of the solid waste problems, countenanced by the province at that particular time. As a result, two subgroups were set up within the task force to study this particular problem -- the beverage-packaging working group and the milk-packaging working group. These were constituted separately from the solid waste task force itself.

Vol. 1 of the report contained the reports of the solid waste task force and of its two working groups. Vol. 2 of the report is the environmental study of beverage packaging, and it’s to this report that I want to refer during these comments. I think it’s fair to say that vol. 2 is the most formidable and most significant of the reports.

The environmental study was undertaken by the secretariat of the solid waste task force, an independent body, an excellent group of people who had a great deal of input into the final outcome and recommendations of the report. I think even the industries involved in the task force report were somewhat of the view, although grudgingly, that the secretariat was completely unbiased and that many of the things that the industry had been putting forward by way of facts and figures in regard to the solid waste programme and in regard to the problem of disposable packaging, particularly the bottles and the cans, were not really accurate.

As the study put it, any switch from the use of non-refillable soft drink bottles and cans to refillable bottles is beneficial to the environment. The study, in a very scholarly way, scrapped a lot of the figures and the folklore which the can and bottle industry had circulated on the subject.

I find it rather interesting that out of the recommendations -- and I believe there were 16 of them in regard to the beverage packaging working group -- six were for further study into the matter and the other 10 were recommendations which run the entire gamut.

Recommendation No. 10 was that the detachable pull top on cans should be eliminated. I think recommendation No. 1, however, is the important recommendation. It recommended that consumers be given the option in the store of purchasing soft drinks and beverages out of either returnable or non-returnable containers. In other words, the consumer should have the option and both types should be placed before the consumer in all of the retail outlets.

The government, however, has not seen fit to implement that recommendation for one reason or the other. Perhaps they felt it would be difficult to do, that it would involve a complicated system of refunds and it would necessitate the retailers building extra facilities on to their present facilities in order to accommodate the return of bottles and cans.

Admittedly, there are complications, there are problems. But I think the first recommendation of the working group was a key one and since the government and the minister have not seen fit to implement it, then I think it’s pretty obvious that the government really doesn’t want to do anything concrete by way of lessening this problem -- a growing problem this last few years -- in our society. What the minister has said is that there can be no more cans sold with the detachable pull top. That’s really the only recommendation that he has accepted and implemented.

As far as I am concerned, it was a good exercise for the committee to try to come up with a programme of deposits and refunds and develop a system that could establish some sort of free play in the marketplace between the refillables and the non-refillables. However, as I understand it, the committee, after struggling with this problem for a period of time, simply threw up its hands and said, “No, there is just simply no way that we can ever arrive at a workable solution to this problem. The neatest and the most clean-cut method is simply to ban the non-refillable cans and bottles entirely.”

Quite frankly, I support that ban and that particular proposition because I feel it is really the only alternative. There have been other jurisdictions which have undertaken the complicated system of refund legislation and so on. I think Oregon is one of those jurisdictions that has undertaken that kind of thing. It is interesting to look at some of the statistics in Oregon because they have had some success with their legislation -- a great deal of success, as a matter of fact.

From that standpoint, if the government were to undertake a programme of a similar nature, at least it would be a big step in the right direction and it would be far better than what is being done at the present, which is almost nothing.

The State of Oregon was the first state to enact beverage container refund legislation. It was enacted on Oct. 1, 1972. There is a rather complicated refund system attendant with their legislation, and I don’t think I’ll go into that. They also in their legislation ban cans with detachable opening devices. With the legislation there has been a switch from less than 50 per cent of containers being returned in 1972 to over 95 per cent being returned at the present time. That is quite a dramatic increase in that regard.

A report on the effect of their particular legislation one year after it was enacted indicates that the bill has effectively reduced the volume of solid waste and litter caused from beverage containers. This decrease could account for a $700,000 annual saving in trash handling and cleanup costs.

Brewers and bottlers have saved $8 million through the use of refillables. The bill has resulted in approximately 365 more jobs than before. In terms of energy saving there has been a saving of 1,320 billion Btu per year. This is equivalent to heating 11,000 housing units by gas, or a city of 46,000 people per year. In terms of electrical energy saving, this has amounted to a saving of $2.5 million per year.

Given their legislation and given the fact that this province would do the same thing, we could anticipate a dramatic increase in the number of returnables used. We could anticipate a tremendous increase in the saving of energy and trash handling and costs associated therewith. As a matter of fact I am told that in the Province of Ontario we could save $3.2 million per year by getting rid of the bottles and cans. And really I think that is the only alternative.

As far as I am concerned, I think the ideal environmental solution is to eliminate waste at the source. By banning the bottles and the cans we’d be doing this. I am not suggesting a ban overnight. I think it would have to be a phased ban to give the industry time to adjust; that’s no problem. All I want is a commitment from this government to take some action, which it certainly hasn’t taken up until now.

One of the big arguments when I introduced my bill to ban the disposal bottle back in 1971 was the fact that many jobs would be lost. Jobs would be in jeopardy. It was of great interest to me, based on the figures given in the task force report, that a return to the old system -- that is to say, where we didn’t have any non-returnables -- return to returnable bottles, returnable containers, would save the consumer over $7 million, produce 600 new jobs, and have significant environmental benefits.

The prediction of 600 new jobs was of vital importance to me, because I had been concerned at the time that there would be some dislocation in the industries and that some of these people might lose their jobs. But in the research done by the task force, it was shown that not only would these people not lose their jobs -- although they wouldn’t be doing the same jobs -- there would be an additional 600 new jobs created. I believe the net increase is 645 new jobs. Of these, 385 of these are the result of the extra spending power from the $7 million or so which a return to returnable bottles would save consumers. The remaining 260 jobs would be created in areas of distribution and handling.

So, I really think the one big argument of the industry, of the unions, of the workers, has been dispelled with respect to the ban on the bottles and the cans.

I would suggest that the government really has no other alternative in the long haul. I think any interim programme it brings in by way of legislation, is only going to be a temporary measure -- because in the long run I think they are just putting off the inevitable. I am suggesting that it is inevitable that the non-returnable bottle and the can will ultimately have to be banned if we are going to ease the problem of waste in our society.

None of the conventional arguments against the environmental measures, in terms of added costs and society hardship, need apply. The fact of the matter is we got along very well before the non-refillable bottle came on the market. Soft drinks were available. They were readily available in returnable bottles. The fact of the matter is that the throw-away bottle is not a necessity in our society, far from it. If our government can’t come to grips with this particular issue -- which is, in my view, fairly clear-cut -- then I don’t know what hope we have for solutions to more complex and difficult problems.

I urge the government to take some action in regard to this matter and to indicate to the people of Ontario that it does have some real concern and interest in the problem of waste and disposable packaging. I don’t know why this government is seized with such paralysis, because I would hope that this should be one of the easier decisions it can make. We are looking forward to action on that one.

Before I close, I should make some comment in regard to agriculture. Agriculture is my responsibility in this House. I just want to deal with it briefly, and really in passing, at this point. I want to have more to say about it later on -- perhaps in the Throne debate of the new session, which isn’t too far away, I am sure -- and then again, during the estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.

Mr. P. J. Yakabuski (Renfrew South): The minister is doing a good job, isn’t he?

Mr. Gaunt: There are a couple of problems I just want to highlight briefly. The first one is the matter of importation of live poultry into Canada. I recognize this is primarily a federal responsibility, but I feel I should mention the matter in the hope that perhaps the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Stewart) in his discussions with the federal minister might undertake at least to see if some relief couldn’t be given to the industry at the present time.

When one takes a look at the importation figures of live chicken over the past number of years, the figures are somewhat startling. In 1972, we imported 2,718,964 lb of imported chicken. That’s both live and carcass. In 1973, it was 934,308 lb, and in 1974 -- a startling increase -- it went up to 7,029,591 lb.

The first few weeks of 1975 show no relief. As a matter of fact, the chicken is coming in from the United States at an unprecedented rate. The first 24 days of this year saw 575,147 lb of chicken come into this country from the United States. Needless to say, that’s causing a great deal of concern to our broiler and roaster farmers in this province, and I’m sure in this country.

What has happened is that the chicken coming in from the United States is coming in at a cheaper rate. Chicken is cheaper in the United States, and so the importers and the retailers of American chicken are taking advantage of this and bringing that chicken in and, for the most part, selling it at Canadian prices. There is certainly a bit of a ripoff there in terms of chicken prices as they relate to the American imports.

There has been no noticeable reduction in chicken retail prices in the stores, even with this tremendous influx of American chicken. What has happened is that the chicken on Canadian farms have started to back up as the imports have increased. Many of the chicken farmers have had to keep their chicken broilers longer than they would normally. They’ve got overweight and they’re into the roaster class. It has meant that many of our chicken farmers are losing a lot of money and in some cases are not even getting a reasonable offer at any price to remove those chickens from the growing facilities.

It is a serious concern. I have had some representation made to me to indicate that if it doesn’t stop or at least slow up there won’t be any independent broiler producers left in this province. They’ll be entirely integrated because the only way they can survive is to associate themselves with a hatchery or a feed company or some other integration related to the chicken industry. In that way, they can have some security of supply and they can have, in some cases at least, security on price.

With that, of course, goes a very tragic trend in the loss of independence to these farmers. I see my friend, the hon. member for Middlesex South (Mr. Eaton), frown when I mention price. I think the integrators in some cases are offering a basic cost-of-production price. Sometimes they’re offering what might be termed a profit price, because the farmers are being so hard put because of these importations.

It has been suggested to me that unless something is done very quickly in this regard, we are going to have no independent chicken broilers left in this province. All of them will have to go into an integrated operation where they join with the feed company, the hatchery or some other industry.

It has also been suggested to me that one of the solutions will be Bill C-176, the national marketing bill. I am not so sure. I have watched with amazement some of the things that have happened with the CEMA affair, and my information is that CEMA is on the verge of collapsing. I hope that doesn’t happen, but if it does then I am not so sure it augurs very well for another national marketing agency that would follow closely on its heels. I don’t know. I really haven’t settled my own thinking on that particular point.

In the short term at least, I think Bill C-176 does not give these farmers the relief they are seeking. I think it is going to have to be done by government action, primarily at the federal level and encouraged, aided and abetted, I hope, by this government here.

The beef industry is also in a very troubled period right now. We are experiencing a tremendous increase in cattle numbers on farms in Ontario and right across Canada. The beef cycle, of course, is a long cycle; it involves a period of about 10 years, during which there is expansion and then contraction of the breeding numbers in the country.

We have been undergoing an expansion since June 1, 1969, and we are really just starting to reap the whirlwind of that expansion period. As I understand it, the increase since then has amounted to about 45.6 per cent,

whereas our population has increased by only about 6.1 per cent.

We can readily see that we have an overabundance of beef. On the one hand we have a tremendous increase in producing capacity, given the numbers of the breeding herd, and on the other hand we have a relatively modest increase in population, which is the consuming side of the equation. The production side has been increasing far more rapidly -- just a little over seven times as rapidly -- than has the population side.

Added to this is the fact that ordinarily we ship about 120,000 stockers to the United States yearly, and that market has withered substantially in 1974, which means those cattle have to be fed in this country. As I understand it, there is going to be a record calf crop in 1975. Those calves will have to be fed somewhere; and if we can’t export them to the United States, then they will have to be fed in this country.

To put it simply, it looks as though the beef business is going to be in some trouble for the next two years because the 1975 calf crop won’t move off the market until 1977. For the next two years, I think we are going to have a very troubled beef industry. Many producers will be losing money hand over fist, with little chance of recovering it; this will particularly hurt the younger people who have high mortgage payments, for whom I see no other alternative but that many of them will go broke in the process. I think that is particularly unfortunate.

I think it is particularly unfortunate also that, coincident with the increasing numbers of beef cattle breeder stock across the country, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food came in with its beef-heifer programme to increase our supply of feeder cattle. I think all that has done, really, is exacerbate a bad situation.

I really don’t know what can be done. I think, basically, it’s just a question of working ourselves out of the oversupply. Perhaps the government, federally and provincially, could give some consideration to some stabilization programme to see the beef men over this rough period. But it seems to me that any action that the government is contemplating, aside from what already has been done -- I’m aware of the programmes that were announced last December -- is going to have to be done rather quickly, because I think the industry is under very severe pressure and will continue to be. So any assistance in that area by way of government help would certainly help greatly, I’m sure.

Mr. Speaker, I think I’ll conclude. I’ve gone on really longer than I had anticipated. I just want to wind up by saying that, come next fall, all of us in this party are looking forward to being on the other side of the House. I’m sure that many of my colleagues --

Mr. Cassidy: The member may not be here at all.

Mr. Gaunt: I am sure that many of my colleagues will be --

Mr. Yakabuski: He is dreaming. He is pulling the wool over his own eyes.

Mr. Gaunt: -- sitting along the front benches. They’ll be sitting along the front benches, and I can look around and see all of my colleagues sitting in the front benches.

Mr. R. G. Eaton (Middlesex South): Is the member going to run again?

Mr. Cassidy: It would be a disaster for the Province of Ontario.

Mr. Gaunt: I tell you, Mr. Speaker, all that I want is to be vice-chairman of Ontario Hydro and sit back in the corner up in the third row there, mind my business and talk to Ontario Hydro about where they’re going to put their power lines and how they’re going to spend their money, and listen --

Mr. G. Nixon (Dovercourt): It will never happen.

Mr. Gaunt: -- to the rest of my colleagues along the front bench answer the daily questions that are put to them, which I’m sure they’ll be able to do adequately.

As I sit here, day in and day out --

Mr. Yakabuski: Did the member bring up agriculture at Windsor last weekend?

Mr. Gaunt: -- I can’t help but think that I’m witnessing the death rattle of a government; this government.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: They kid themselves.

An hon. member: Oh, he’s a dreamer.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Gaunt: The polls indicated it, the by- elections indicated it, and all the indications are that this government is on the way out and we are on the way in. It will be a pleasure, Mr. Speaker, to get over on the other side and run this province the way it should be run for a change.

Mr. Eaton: Isn’t the member going to run again?

Mr. Cassidy: The member had better enjoy himself until the next Gallup Poll comes along.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Cassidy: Relax, relax. It’s okay. He is finished.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Algoma.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. B. Gilbertson (Algoma): Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to get up in this Legislature to express my sentiments in regard to some of the things that I’m hoping will become a reality in the riding of Algoma.

An hon. member: The bridge is there now.

Mr. Gilbertson: I was very interested in the member for Huron-Bruce’s comments about his views on a nuclear plant, or should we say another nuclear plant, coming in on his side of the province?

Mr. Gaunt: The member can have it. He can have it. He has my full blessings.

Mr. Gilbertson: I am sure that as far as the opposition is concerned I am not going to hear too much adverse flak about getting it up in Algoma.

An hon. member: Get that in writing.

Mr. Breithaupt: The member has more trouble with the government than with the opposition.

Mr. Gilbertson: First, I would like to say that Blind River is a depressed area on the North Shore of Lake Huron, on the North Channel, and this place lost its only industry several years ago. They’ve never been able to get something back in there that would take its place and would create any amount of employment.

I think we could get a nuclear plant just west of Blind River in the Dean Lake area. I understand that the government has looked at this particular area. They’ve been up there taking surveys and I understand that it’s quite favourable in the Dean Lake area. There are quite a few thousand acres that haven’t any farming to speak of and I would think that this will be an ideal place. I want to go on record as being in favour of establishing a nuclear plant on the North Shore in the Dean Lake area.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): Don’t count on it.

Mr. Gilbertson: I looked at the survey that was sent to the members after they’d been up there and the comments looked very favourable -- 85 to 90 per cent of the people were in favour of establishing a nuclear plant in that Dean Lake-Iron Bridge area.

Mr. Yakabuski: They should have it there, because the member for Huron-Bruce doesn’t want it.

Mr. D. J. Wiseman (Lanark): He gave it to the member for Algoma.

Mr. Gilbertson: That’s in our favour, I believe. I’m not sure how many nuclear plants they are going to build in Ontario or what’s on the programme, but I understand --

Mr. Yakabuski: The member for Huron-Bruce doesn’t want the lines, he wants the plant.

Mr. Gilbertson: I understand they expect to establish four or five throughout Ontario. I don’t believe you can get a more ideal setup or more suitable place for a nuclear plant than on the north shore just west of Blind River where it will do least harm to the ecology. We don’t have any farmers there who have big bean crops. As I understand it from the member for Huron-Bruce, fumes from the nuclear plant affect the farmers and their bean crops. We don’t have anything like that to worry about along the North-Shore.

The reason I am in favour of this is because the people of Algoma, especially those east of Sault Ste. Marie, are very much in favour of getting a nuclear plant up there, for the simple reason I understand a project like that will take about 10 years to construct, and that alone will help the economy. Then after it is completed it will probably employ 200 or 300 people, and that’s exactly what they need in that particular area to help the economy.

So, Mr. Speaker, I don’t hesitate one bit in inviting the establishment of a nuclear plant on the North Shore.

Mr. Gaunt: The member for Algoma will be sorry. He’ll be sorry.

Mr. Gilbertson: I heard some scientists on television the other morning saying that it’s very remote that there could be a major explosion from a nuclear plant -- perhaps one chance in three million. So I don’t think that anybody would worry too much about having something like that happen.

As the members are quite aware Mr. Speaker, in a riding such as Algoma, we don’t have too much industry -- although I must say Algoma Steel Corp. in Sault Ste. Marie employs quite a lot of the people within commuting distance, which helps considerably.

Mr. Eaton: Don’t forget the maple syrup business.

Mr. Gilbertson: The hon. member for Middlesex South says, “Don’t forget about the maple syrup industry.” I want to assure him that I’m well aware, because it’s getting near the time when we’ll be looking forward to producing maple syrup again.

Mr. C. Nixon: Great syrup.

Mr. Gilbertson: And if the members behave themselves and don’t interrupt me too much when I’m speaking --

Mr. G. Nixon: The member is pretty sweet.

Mr. Gilbertson: -- I might do as I’ve done for several years now, get the page-boys and girls to put a little pat of maple sugar on every member’s desk in the Legislature.

Mr. Yakabuski: Well, some of them could stand sweetening, especially over there.

Mr. Cassidy: Does he know if that is in accordance with the Legislative Assembly Act?

Mr. Gilbertson: I couldn’t think of a nicer thing to do at this time of year, just to sweeten up this House.

Mr. Cassidy: It will take more than that the next session.

Mr. Wiseman: Some of them need to be sweetened up.

Mr. Gilbertson: I was also interested in the member for Huron-Bruce, feeling quite optimistic that after the next election he would be over there perhaps serving as vice-chairman of Ontario Hydro, or something like that. Well, as far as I am concerned the member for Huron-Bruce is a very fine gentleman, and I am sure that he can handle a job like that; but we are not ready for that yet.

I know that they have been waiting a long time, and there must be some reason that they are not over here. There must be some reason; because it is the people who put governments in. They haven’t been able to get it across to the people, They haven’t got it across enough so that they can get a majority so that they can get over on the other side.

So, I don’t know what to tell them. I certainly don’t want to give away any secrets as to how I have been re-elected the last couple of times. I don’t know whether it’s the maple syrup or what it is that makes me sweet so that the people take to me.

Mr. C. Nixon: Right on!

Mr. Gilbertson: Because you can catch more people with syrup than you can with vinegar.

Mr. Yakabuski: Sincerity.

Mr. Gilbertson: Sincerity, too; I believe that is one thing that I --

Mr. G. Nixon: Not part of the time, but all of the time.

Mr. Gilbertson: I have tried to be sincere. When my constituents bring their problems to me, their problems become my problems --

Mr. C. Nixon: He is right on.

Mr. Gilbertson: -- until I get them solved.

Mr. C. Nixon: Right on.

Mr. Gilbertson: I am pleased that, since I have been elected to the Legislature, I have been able to help many people in getting their problems solved. It doesn’t mean that I have the answer every time, but I think that they will admit that I have tried.

So, Mr. Speaker, I feel that a member’s job as a representative of his riding is to represent the people in whatever projects or problems they might have. They bring it to my attention; in turn, I take it and get it into the various ministries, and hope that these projects become reality.

I am pleased at the amount that has been accomplished in my riding since I became a member. I can’t help but think when the opposition members get up and say how the north has been neglected and so on, that in dollars and cents, tax-wise, I feel my area has got its share of the provincial tax dollar. And I think in some cases it has got more than its share.

Mr. G. Nixon: What about that bridge?

Mr. Eaton: A good member to get it for them.

Mr. Yakabuski: And they will get a lot more, because they deserve it.

Mr. Nixon: Great bridge.

Mr. Cassidy: This is the cookie jar school of politics.

Mr. R. S. Smith (Nipissing): That is what it is.

Mr. Cassidy: That is what it is, yes; the member is nodding his head.

Mr. Gilbertson: Well, the truth will come out. I would say to the member for Ottawa Centre --

Mr. R. S. Smith: That is the trouble -- the truth is coming out.

Mr. Gilbertson: The truth -- all of it has got to come out. I think that one thing --

Mr. Cassidy: There has been a bit too much of it for those members on that side in the last few years, you know.

Mr. Gilbertson: We on this side, as backbenchers, haven’t been vocal enough in saying what the government has done. Quite often we sit here and let the opposition rant on and run the government down and everything. But you know, it’s just like two lawyers fighting a case. You hear the one side and you think for sure that he’s right; but then when you get the other side, that changes the picture an awful lot.

Mr. Yakabuski: That is what the people are waiting for right now.

Mr. Gilbertson: And it is the results that count. It is what you see in the provincial Legislature. It is the number of seats and the number of members who have been re-elected over the years. The people are the ones, in our democratic system, who have the opportunity to speak on election day. I don’t think that the people of Ontario are very stupid; I think they know what to do.

I remember when I was re-elected and the Conservative government got in so strongly a second time, one old established resident there says: “Well, I am glad to see that we have got some pretty good straight-thinking people in Ontario.” They know what side their slice of bread is buttered on. There isn’t the alternative, when you come to look at it, Mr. Speaker, there really isn’t the alternative.

Mr. Yakabuski: Good thinking people.

An hon. member: There is no alternative.

Mr. Gilbertson: I hate just to be this way and say this to the opposition members, but this has been proved for quite a few years now; what is it, about 33 years that the Conservative government has been in power in the Province of Ontario?

Mr. G. Nixon: Right on.

Mr. Yakabuski: Good government deserves support.

Mr. G. Nixon: Continued support.

Mr. Gilbertson: I can remember the Opposition saying --

Mr. Cassidy: Members opposite are whistling in the wind; they really are.

Mr. G. Nixon: So is the member for Ottawa Centre.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. G. Nixon: We are hearing so many sour notes that we are getting tired of it.

Mr. Yakabuski: They have to learn the hard way.

Mr. Cassidy: They had to protect his seat in the redistribution or they knew he’d never come back.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Wiseman: The thing is that he is sincere.

Mr. Cassidy: Oh, I don’t doubt his sincerity.

Mr. Gilbertson: Mr. Speaker, you have heard over the years how the opposition has said the Conservative government has been in too long and it is a tired government. One thing you mustn’t forget is that the Conservative government has been rejuvenated over the years so that most of the cabinet ministers that are in were perhaps in grade school 33 years ago, a lot of them. The old ones pass on and the younger ones come on, but the people of Ontario still want the Conservative government to rule this province.

Mr. Cassidy: And the old ways of the Conservative Party never die.

Mr. G. Nixon: Rejuvenated.

Interjections by hon. members.

An hon. member: We’ve never had it so good.

Mr. Gilbertson: I mustn’t neglect to say something about the western part of my riding. I am very pleased that the Abitibi is establishing a big sawmill up in White River that is going to help that part of the riding. They are going to employ 300 to 400 people. In a town like White River, with about 1,000 population, this is going to make quite a difference to that town.

This is what we need. Our economy needs a shot in the arm. I must say this is what we have been hoping for and we are making headway. My job, as the member, is to keep pushing on for better highways, get more industry, help out the tourist operators with loans to improve their establishments and look after the affairs of my constituents.

Mr. Speaker, that’s all I have to say now. My job is to look after the affairs of the people of Algoma.

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

Mr. Cassidy: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to make a few comments on four things and I’ll try to be brief on each, but I wanted to get something on the record before this session ends.

The first thing I want to talk about is the abrupt and disastrous reversal of government policies which has occurred on the question of urban transit and on the questions of the Spadina Expressway over the course of the last few days.

Mr. Yakabuski: No way. The member can’t twist that around.

Mr. Cassidy: I say there has been an abrupt, sudden and disastrous reversal of government policies. It has taken place in this Legislature where the signals have gone out to the Metropolitan Toronto council. The council last night has acted on the decision which was signalled by the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Rhodes) in this House just two weeks ago.

Mr. R. C. Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton): Metro council doesn’t see it that way. The member is out of step again.

Mr. Cassidy: Metro council doesn’t see it that way? Mr. Speaker, I’ll take this in order. Let’s just go back a couple of steps.

In the first place, there has been continuing pressure from Metro council and Metro Chairman Paul Godfrey in order to reverse the government Spadina Expressway decision. That has taken place over the last 3 1/2 years and it has never ceased.

Secondly, the Soberman review of metropolitan transit and metropolitan transportation in the Toronto area was adjusted near the very end in order to include a special study of the northwest. It’s obvious from internal evidence and what we have learned at the back doors that that portion of the report was inserted near the end because of pressure, once again, by Metro council and quite possibly by the government here.

Third, there were recommendations made in the Soberman report which flowed from that pressure and which indicated that one possible solution to transportation problems in the northwest was the creation of an arterial south of the Spadina Expressway through the corridor and the creation of an arterial on the Highway 400 extension route. That needs to be read in the context in which the Soberman report came down, but that of course was not done.

Next: Paul Godfrey got the report. He turned to the

section on the northwest. He underlined those portions that were favourable to his point of view. He sent it down to the Premier (Mr. Davis) and the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Rhodes) and he said: “When are you going to act? I want action now.” And what happens?

If David Crombie comes up here to get action, nothing happens.

Mr. Yakabuski: Did the member see the underlined copy?

Mr. Cassidy: No, I haven’t seen the underlined copy. Has the member for Renfrew South seen the underlined copy?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Cassidy: All right. The Premier is perfectly open to bring his copy that he received from Paul Godfrey and to say that it is not underlined. However, Mr. Godfrey’s own people indicated in the press that Mr. Godfrey sent this down and said: “I want action now.”

Within a very few days -- within a week in fact -- we had the Liberal Party, which is as divided as ever on the issue, asking the Minister of Transportation and Communications what his view was on the Spadina Expressway. The minister said, in effect: “If Metro wants to go ahead, that’s okay by me.

Then it sifted over to the Premier. The Premier was asked: “Is that now your policy?” He simply sat there mum and indicated that he acquiesced in the reversal which was carried out by the Minister of Transportation and Communications.

Within a very few days, we also had the Premier indicating that this government would also agree to an increase in the TTC fares and other transit fares across the province and now last night we have Metro council deciding, without advance public notice, that it is going to pave the ditch, that it is going to pressure Queen’s Park in order to create, not just an arterial along the Highway 400 route south of the 401, but a new expressway in that portion of the city -- a new expressway, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Eaton: Does the member think all the TTC fares should be subsidized?

Mr. Cassidy: One has to ask whether a deal has not been reached with the minister and the Premier that the Province of Ontario, in order to accommodate Paul Godfrey and his tinpot empire-building politics here in Metro council, will invest millions and millions of dollars --

Mr. G. Nixon: Oh, come on. The member is kidding himself.

Mr. Yakabuski: He is millions wrong.

Mr. Cassidy: -- of provincial taxpayers’ money in the extension of the Highway 400 expressway. Now, I have people back in my riding in Ottawa who would dearly like to see transit improvements or social service improvements with that money, but there are taxpayers from across the province who will be called upon for a sordid deal that has been cooked up in the back rooms between a couple of Tories who don’t understand what it is to be responsible to the public, Bill Davis and Paul Godfrey.

Mr. Speaker: I must remind the member it is very unparliamentary to be calling the Premier of this province Bill Davis.

Mr. Cassidy: From a sordid deal that was cooked up --

Mr. Speaker: No, no, you are out of order when you do this, so please refrain from it, will you?

Mr. Cassidy: -- between Premier Davis and Metro Chairman Paul Godfrey. Is that better, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: No, no, you don’t call the Premier or minister or any other member by their names -- you refer to them by ridings -- the hon. member for a certain riding. You don’t call them by their first names, or more particularly, don’t call them by names at all. You refer to the Premier and you refer to the hon. minister.

Mr. Cassidy: Thank you -- from a sordid deal that was cooked up in the back rooms between the hon. Premier and the hon. chairman of Metropolitan Toronto.

Mr. Speaker, the report itself needs to be looked at fairly closely and I will put a couple of the points that were made on the record. First, while congestion was forecast if nothing happened in the northwest, we have to bear in mind that the reason for the problems in the northwest sector of the city is that the government has had a romance with Krauss-Maffei and has not been serious about finding alternative solutions for the transit problems of Metro as a whole or of the northwest -- that’s one.

Secondly, Mr. Soberman indicated very clearly in his report that the first decision that Metro must make is whether it wishes to continue centralized development or whether it wishes to have decentralized development in the city and in the metropolitan region; and until that decision was made, it could not come to conclusions about Spadina or Highway 400.

Thirdly, the Soberman report indicated very clearly that whether there were to be improvements to the arterial road system or other transportation improvements in the northwest area, they should be preceded by studies which could be carried out over the course of less than a year. He said: “Don’t act until that’s done.”

Fourthly, it must be clear that Mr. Soberman indicated that of the two possibilities, he favoured action along the Highway 400 corridor; he did not feel that the paving of the Spadina ditch was a particularly desirable solution. He said that it wouldn’t be a total disaster but in no way did he give it priority over other possibilities.

Next, he said specifically that the Highway 400 extension could not go ahead now because insufficient information was available and it had to be studied first.

Now, in fact, Metro has simply barged ahead and run roughshod over the protests of people like the mayor of the borough of York, the City of Toronto representatives and many other politicians and, far more important, many citizens in the area. There is a feeling, which I think is well founded, that there is now an inevitability about the creation of both the Spadina Expressway right down to the heart of the city and the Highway 400 expressway, which would take out between 4,000 and 7,000 population and between 1,200 and 2,000 homes, according to the best estimates that Mr. Soberman was able to make.

In less than two weeks we have seen the final destruction of the “cities for people” philosophy, which was projected by the Davis government as one of its so-called commitments in the 1971 election. We have the Spadina Expressway, or something like it, back. We have fares starting to climb again. We have the abandonment of Krauss-Maffei. We have the lack of any alternatives in the transit field. We have a government which is bankrupt in ideas, and is now showing no alternatives but is again giving its acquiescence to an expressway-oriented policy.

Mr. Speaker, very briefly, we in the NDP would urge that the studies proposed by Mr. Soberman be carried out at top speed. Metro should make a decision that would involve decentralized growth within the metropolitan region, rather than further centralization in the downtown core. In addition, Metro should actively work with the province for a policy of decentralized growth in Ontario as a whole so that the pressure of growth in the Toronto- centred region would be reduced and some of that job creation and stimulation could be applied in eastern and northern Ontario, rather than here.

We would urge, as an alternative to the paving of the Spadina Expressway corridor, that the Spadina subway construction be accelerated by at least a year to the maximum extent feasible, and that park-and-ride facilities be built at the north end of that subway route to give commuters coming into the downtown core an alternative to trying to filter through an admittedly difficult traffic situation. We would also urge that there be accelerated action by the province on the possibility of a transit corridor along Eglinton Ave., as has been proposed by Mr. Soberman in his report.

Those are steps that can be taken now. Further study will still be needed, I recognize, in the northwest corridor area. When those studies have been made and that action is taken, let it acknowledge, as Mr. Soberman acknowledged, that the northwest corridor area -- or the northwest sector of Metro as it’s called -- is relatively self-contained and that its problem is not access to downtown Toronto. its problem is internal transportation, both by transit and possibly by automobile, and the solution should reflect that particular situation.

The second thing I want to talk about, Mr. Speaker, is the private member’s bill that I put forward about the protection of families against discrimination in rental accommodation. I think I have a copy of the bill here. It has had a very positive response from individuals and from groups, even from groups such as the Alliance for Life.

The purpose of the bill is very simple, Mr. Speaker. It is to prohibit discrimination in accommodation against people by reason of their age or by reason of their having dependent children who will be living with them in that accommodation.

Ontario now prohibits discrimination in accommodation, as in jobs and other things, on the grounds of race, creed, sex and colour. I think those sections of the Human Rights Code are acknowledged by everybody in the House to be worthwhile and to be reasonably effective. I think we can be quite proud of our record in those sections of the Human Rights Code that do actually apply.

I think, for that matter, that the Ontario government itself does quite a commendable job in its employment policies of ensuring non-discrimination.

Mr. G. Nixon: It would be real fine of the member to say something good about it, wouldn’t it?

Mr. Cassidy: Yes, that’s right.

Mr. Deans: It is difficult.

Mr. Cassidy: When it comes to the question of families though, we find a much more difficult situation. Mr. Speaker, I want to read into the record a few statistics that would indicate to the House just how serious this problem of discrimination in rental accommodation has become in areas like Ottawa and Metropolitan Toronto.

In my riding I believe there are currently four or five apartment buildings which are in the process of opening up and renting units. Three of those apartments do not permit families with kids; two of them permit children with grave restrictions and do their best to discourage them.

There are two condominiums currently being built in my riding. One of them will not permit any person to come in who has a child under the age of 16; the other building is clearly also very reluctant to permit kids.

The other day, Mr. Speaker, we checked out the advertisements in a Saturday Star, when the real estate ads are most numerous, to find out how serious this situation had become. I was aware, through phone calls and other kinds of information, that there was an increasing number of buildings being converted to adult-only buildings, and that many of the new buildings under construction were directed only to adults.

The bulk of the apartment suites available on the Toronto market are apartment suites in buildings that have just been built. Those are the ones which put display ads in papers like the Toronto Star. Of 64 display ads in the Feb. 1 Toronto Star for unfurnished apartments to let -- in many cases these would represent 10, 50 or even 100 units to let -- 27 stated expressly in the paper that they were only for adults, and 37 did not specify. We did a check with four of the apartments which did not specify; two of them would not accept kids.

In the small ads, which have more low-rise accommodation, sublets and so on, 39 out of 182 ads -- or more than 20 per cent -- stated expressly that they were for adults only and would not permit kids.

In the Globe of the same date, 23 out of 71 advertisements, both display and small ads -- or 32 per cent -- were for adults only.

That’s only the beginning of the situation, Mr. Speaker. The other day I had the opportunity to talk with somebody who responded to my bill and wanted to tell me about his situation when he and his wife and their four-year-old daughter went looking for an apartment in Toronto. They have moved in several cities over the last three or four years and have never had problems finding an apartment that was suitable for their needs before.

This time, however, they spent a period of more than two weeks, during which he took time off work and looked day and night for an apartment that would accept him, his wife and their child. He covered more than 1,000 miles in his car in the course of those two weeks, so obviously he wasn’t just simply sitting on his rear end looking. These were his experiences.

At Crescent Town in the east end of Toronto, where there are three 25-storey buildings at 7, 9 and 11 Crescent Pl., only the first five storeys are for people with children, and they were not permitted to take any of the apartments that were available in the upper storeys because they had a child.

When they went to Greenwin -- and I am not sure of the address -- they were asked whether he and his wife minded going onto a family floor. He and his wife said: “No, of course not, because we have a child.” They were promptly told by the management:

“We’re sorry, we can’t take you. We’re not taking people with children on the family floor.” This was the case where, obviously, the building was in the process of a quiet conversion to an adult-only building.

At 77 Davisville Ave. in a complex of apartments, they were about to sign the lease, when it happened to be mentioned that they had a child. The forms were almost snatched away from them and they were refused the opportunity to rent.

In another building -- I haven’t got the landlord -- there were two apartments available and one couple was ahead of them in the queue. One apartment was on the family floor and the other one was a few floors higher. The management actively pressured the couple who had priority to take the apartment on the family floor, even though it was clear to both the management and to the couple that my friends had a child and also needed the apartment. The couple did take the apartment on the family floor, despite not having children, and my friends could not get the place.

In the Quebec-High Park area, on Quebec Ave., I think it is, in the west end of Toronto, in a building controlled by Cadillac-Fairview, these people went to management in order to sublet an apartment which was suitable for their needs on the 10th floor. They were told no because children were only permitted up to the eighth floor.

Another sublet happened to become available in the neighbouring building which was occupied by the same management. That was on the eighth floor. They said: “Fine, that’s good. These people have a policy. At least, we can get in on the eighth floor.” They went into that sublet and were told: “We’re sorry, this is a different building and our policy in this building is no kids above the fifth floor.”

You can imagine the kind of frustration that existed there, Mr. Speaker. This kind of experience is being repeated every day by people who are desperate for housing accommodation in the Toronto market and to a lesser extent in Ottawa and in other centres around the province. It shouldn’t be a problem. The rental market should accommodate the needs of people who are single and the needs of people who are couples and the needs of people who are families.

But it has broken down now. It has broken down now because it’s a fight housing market. It has broken down now because landlords are taking advantage of that tight market and of the greater ability to pay of people who don’t have children to support. Families are economically weak in the housing market because they need more space and they tend to have less income. The mothers can’t work. She has to pay for day care, and so forth.

What is happening, Mr. Speaker, is that a real prejudice is developing against children in this society. It’s spreading, and it isn’t just among old people. It’s also among people who say: “We don’t like kids. They’re nasty little brats,” and that kind of thing.

It’s no different than that kind of thing which has a tendency to exist in relation to black people, Jewish people or other groups that are discriminated against in our society. Yet if I can be philosophical for a moment, one of the purposes for which we gather together, that we have an economic life, that we have a Legislature and that we have laws to protect morality and so forth is because of a belief, that I think everybody in this chamber shares, that the raising and nurturing of children is a very important element in our society.

In fact, it’s one of the raisons d’etre, one of the reasons that we’re all here. Even those of us who choose not to or who are not fortunate enough to have kids will still subscribe in theory to that particular principle.

In practice, however, given the chance, people are saying: “No, I don’t want smelly, snotty little brats on my floor intruding on my particular living environment.” I just don’t think that that should be permitted, Mr. Speaker. There used to be a tradition, which may sound a bit paternalistic or chauvinistic, to talk about women and children first; that as a society we would seek to protect those which we consider to be the weaker members of our society. Maybe women can look after themselves, but I don’t think children are at the point where they can look after themselves now, Mr. Speaker.

We should not put people who, by choice or by chance, happen to have kids into the position where they simply cannot find accommodation.

The proposals I put forward, in Bill 184 I think it was, are not perfect. They don’t solve the problem completely. I suggested in order to prevent overcrowding that a landlord be permitted to have an occupancy standing, for example, of no more than one person per room in his apartment, to prevent somebody with six kids moving into a two-bedroom apartment. That’s perfectly reasonable.

I would also suggest and put on the record that if a prospective tenant comes in with a bad record, a record of being disruptive or destructive, from his previous accommodation, a landlord has a right not to accept that tenant whether or not that tenant has kids. Likewise, with a tenant -- be it a bunch of young singles or people with kids they can’t control -- who proves to be destructive and disruptive after a year or two, the landlord should have the right, under certain circumstances, to evict that particular tenant.

I’m not disputing that. But the idea that they can put a phrase in an ad that says “adults only,” and simply exclude that large group in society that has children, is far, far different than saying that they’ll judge on cases and that occasionally they won’t accept somebody because they think that the kids are not going to fit in. The plan still wouldn’t be perfect, because for example certain apartments would not have facilities designed to accommodate children and they would probably tend not to get many families with kids.

There is a natural sorting out that happens in the rental market anyway. Some buildings are old and dignified and some attract young swingers. The young swingers will tend to congregate where others of their kind are and the older people who like a quiet life will tend to do that too. That natural selection would probably tend to continue under the legislation. There would also be discrimination based on rents.

Certain developers would charge $400 a month for a two-bedroom accommodation, so that accommodation would be out of the reach of those people with kids and, therefore, the building would be unlikely to have many families with children. Other places where the rents were $200 a month for a two-bedroom accommodation would tend to have more families. So it wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be a lot better than the situation that we have now.

If we decided not to prejudge against families we wouldn’t be overwhelming the apartment market. We wouldn’t be creating the situation where every floor is going to have 10 little three-year-olds running up and down the corridors. In the first place, families, where they have a preference, will probably not move into apartments. In many cases it will be single mothers with kids, people who have a child with a particular health need who needs to be close to a hospital, people who want access to day care, people who can’t afford transportation. There are people with special needs who will be looking for apartment accommodation.

Another group will be people who are moving from one city to another and need to have accommodation that they can acquire quickly, like an apartment, while they look for a more suitable long-term place to live; and people who are saving up money until they can buy a place of their own; that kind of thing. These are the people who will tend to use apartments if they have children.

But they have a legitimate need and a legitimate right, and it seems to me that it’s a shameful kind of legacy or mark on this society in Ontario that we can permit landlords to discriminate against people with kids. It is shameful that the Minister of Labour in this government (Mr.

MacBeth), when asked to comment on an amendment in this Legislature that would permit families access to accommodation and prevent the kind of discrimination I’m discussing, would say he didn’t think that our society was ready for it; it wasn’t the policy of this government; and he thought that people who didn’t want to have children around should have that right.

It would be shameful if he said he thought should have the right not to have Blacks or Jews or Hindus or other people like that around; that would be shameful and would be seen as such, and it’s equally shameful if he makes that same reference to children.

I intend to continue with this particular bill. I hope that the government takes note of the comments that I’m making in this debate and I hope that it acts upon it in the spring session of the Legislature, so that discrimination against families ceases.

Mr. Speaker, I want to comment very briefly on the question of rents. This is the untold story of 1974-1975; the fact that rents in Metropolitan Toronto in particular are now escalating at an astronomical rate and that there has been absolutely no response from this government to that crisis for tenants. We had an indication --

An hon. member: Yes, there has.

Mr. Cassidy: There has been no response. The Minister of Housing (Mr. Irvine) and the Premier were confronted with the possibility of $70 rent increases in Peel Village, which I think is in the Premier’s riding. The Housing Minister said: “Well, let them contact me, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Well he saw what he could do when he got a 10 buck reduction on the rent increase in return for an agreement not to paint the apartments that year. And that was all. It was a trifling kind of a concession. It was done on a grace and favour basis because of political intervention. But it certainly didn’t stop the rent increases, which are now coming forward by the bushel, Mr. Speaker.

At 5 Brookbank in Don Mills, for example, rents of $219 a month have been raised to $282 a month. There is a two-year lease and at the end of the first year the rent will increase by a further $40 a month.

In Peel Village, a $50 increase in a one-year lease. In Rosebury Sq., a Cadillac development, a $35 increase in a one-year lease. Greenwin, a large developer in Toronto, is apparently increasing its rents by around 35 per cent across the board in Toronto and is only granting one-year leases.

Belmont, another large developer, is also setting 35 per cent increases across the board, and leases of only one year.

My own mother, who lives on her own in a bachelor apartment in Toronto, has had a $40 increase; and there is another increase slated at the end of the year.

Two- and three-year leases, which were common, are now being replaced by one-year and even six-month leases. Tenants Hotline, a group set up this winter in order to help tenants, says that the increases that are being reported on its phones range between 27 to 45 per cent across the city, and in many cases no leases are being given whatsoever.

I have had a lot of contact with developers, over the last months, Mr. Speaker, because of the bills I have been involved in, such as the condominium bill this week and the certain bills relating to land development and land banking and so on. When I talked to them they are urbane, gentlemanly, nice people who indicate in person that their only concern is for the betterment of society and for getting a reasonable kind of fair profit. I find it hard to equate that with the actions they take when they go out into their offices and make corporate decisions.

I cannot understand how people who say they are civilized and support the ballet and all the other things that they do, can turn around and discriminate against people with kids in that automatic, vindictive way that I’ve described; or how they can justify rent increases of 25, 30, 35 per cent in one year, which are clearly not justified by cost.

That’s why, Mr. Speaker, I have proposed, and will continue to propose, that this Legislature adopt a rent control measure for the Province of Ontario. It would ensure that rents can increase in relation to costs; it would ensure that landlords can continue to get a reasonable, fair profit; but it would protect tenants against the kinds of rip-offs to which they are being subjected daily in Toronto and in other parts of the province.

We happen to be fortunate right now in Ottawa that we are not having rent increases on the scale they are experiencing in Toronto, Mr. Speaker. The reason is that there is a much higher vacancy rate. Unfortunately, that won’t last for long. But at the present time there are landlords who are actually offering rent reductions in order to entice tenants to move into their developments.

Now, I ask you, Mr. Speaker, if they were losing money at the present level of rents, would they really be offering rent cuts because their vacancies are two or three per cent of the total number of units? And the answer is, of course not.

What is happening down here is that in a tight housing market in Metro Toronto and the surrounding region, the developers are taking advantage of that tightness and are simply lining their own pockets at the expense of tenants with increases that far exceed any increases in cost.

The final thing I want to talk about, Mr. Speaker, is the question of eastern Ontario development, which was raised by the announcement of the Spencerville land assembly -- and what a joke that is turning out to be.

Mr. Speaker, I want to go through the points very briefly and put it on the record. When Design for Development in Eastern Ontario was published a couple of years ago, there was no mention of a large industrial land assembly anywhere in the eastern Ontario region, and that has never been canvassed as an alternative for people in the area.

We have had promises for the past eight years about the creation of a provincial plan. That plan might be intended to direct some of the growth of the Metropolitan Toronto region into areas like eastern and northern Ontario, but it is still just a promise. And the so-called commitments that the Premier was so fond of talking about at the time of the last election are proving to be nothing but empty pieces of paper. We have no provincial plan.

Mr. P. Taylor (Carleton East): The Liberal government will bring in the plan.

Mr. Cassidy: Ha! I am sorry, I find that the Liberal government couldn’t agree on what it would want, so it could never bring in a plan. They would have the same problems as this bunch here. The member for Chatham-Kent (Mr. McKeough) disowned the member for London South (Mr. White) the day he came into office as Treasurer. The Liberal government would never get around to even knowing exactly where it would stand.

Two and one half years ago we had the introduction of Design for Development in eastern Ontario. It was intended to be the beginning of a plan for eastern Ontario. How one could plan for that region in the absence of a provincial plan is hard for me to tell. Nevertheless, since then there has been no further development.

This particular booklet said there would be facts and figures available to underpin the dialogue on development in the region. It took me two years to get my copy and only by insistent pressure on the people here at Queen’s Park. There are no planners from the province who are permanently stationed in eastern Ontario concerned with regional development.

We now have a larger eastern region; no plan has been published for that region. There has been no dialogue. There was a series of a handful of meetings, but subsequently there has been no dialogue. So far as I know, the whole process has ground to a complete halt.

Enter the former Treasurer, the member for London South, who I must say had some megalomaniac tendencies in his handling of regional government, in his handling of land-banking and in his handling of the whole Treasury portfolio. The man thought he could simply whisk away with the flick of a finger, deficits that were approaching $1 billion a year. That is the character of the man.

The former Treasurer talked to one or two of his cronies in the cabinet -- the Premier was one; there were one or two others -- and said, “I want to buy some land.” The rumours say up to 150,000 acres. It’s probably a bit less than that. And, in a twinkling of an eye, he went to A.E. LePage and they were buying up 10,000 acres at Cayuga; they were buying up the land from the Cherkas group in the Townsend site in Haldimand-Norfolk; they were buying land at Whitby; they were buying land at Pickering; they were buying 10,000 acres at Spencerville -- all with no cabinet approval.

The options were there, and the commitment was made to a price far in excess of prices that prevailed. No attempt was made to use the expropriation route in order that people could comment on or participate in the decisions of the government, or for that matter that the exchequer would be protected.

Who the four ministers are, we don’t even know. How that $5 million was committed to Spencerville, we don’t know. How the land is going to be used -- we’ll come to that -- we don’t know that either, Mr. Speaker.

We do know that the ministers from the area, the Minister of Housing and the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Bennett) people who ought to have been concerned with a major industrial and housing land assembly in their region -- and in the case of the Minister of Housing, in his riding -- were completely in the dark. The Minister of Industry and Tourism went around saying the government would he completely off its nut to build a new industrial complex, that it would be absolutely foolish, and the Minister of Housing was making comments with equal strength.

I don’t know what kind of a deal they cooked up in cabinet whereby they can live with the proposal that is being made right now. If they really still feel as they did in the fall, I think they probably ought to quit. But the government is trying, as the Tories say, to suck and blow at the same time. At any rate, they are trying to say on the one hand that this is a major initiative for the development of eastern Ontario; on the other hand, the Tories are trying to say that it isn’t really going to influence anybody at all.

Looking at the statement that was made in the House by the Minister of Housing, he said first that the proposal is to facilitate development in eastern Ontario. He talked in gobbledygook about reinforcing the amenities which residents have chosen, about economic and social stimulation, about the communities involved and so on. Eventually he said that EODC will be prepared to do anything these municipalities want in terms of their own industrial development.

Then he goes on to say that the site is being chosen. He doesn’t know in any detail how it will be used, but that it will be to accommodate major industries and any associated community and support services which ultimately prove most desirable. He also says that Spencerville has the only deep sea port between Montreal and Toronto, a statement which the people of Cornwall found rather hard to accept because they have always thought that they had one of the few deep sea ports between Montreal and Toronto along the Seaway.

The fact is that we don’t really know what the government intends to do, Mr. Speaker. On Jan. 28, some 250 municipal representatives, along with the Conservative backbenchers from the area, were invited to a meeting in the Macdonald Block in order for the Minister of Housing and the Minister for Industry and Tourism to participate in the grand unveiling of their intentions for Spencerville. These people came here at their own expense and their own time, in order to have what?

The meeting had all the characteristics of the unveiling of Design for Development, 2 1/2 years before, which aroused tremendous resentment among the municipal leaders from eastern Ontario; and that resentment was recreated or reinforced by this particular meeting.

For two hours they sat there and asked meaningless questions about what the government intended to do. At about 1:15 the announcement was finally made. There then followed, believe it or not, a series of question, not by the municipal leaders but by Conservative MPPs. The member for Prince Edward-Lennox (Mr. J. A. Taylor), who isn’t here, asked a question. He gave a speech in fact. The member for Renfrew South, the member for Hastings (Mr. Rollins) who comes from the fringes of the area, and I think the member for Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Apps) had some thing to say. The member for Ottawa West (Mr.

Morrow), who never speaks in this House managed to hold forth for a few minutes, even though the only constituent of his who was present was Mayor Greenberg of Ottawa. When five Tories had spoken, I decided that I was going to put a question. That was just before the time was up because the ministers had to come into the House for the discomforture of the Minister of Industry and Tourism, which subsequently took place.

Mr. Speaker, the resentment was aroused because the government has given no indication of what on earth it plans to do. There were no details about the plans for helping with industrial parks in the other municipalities. The municipal leaders in the area had been treated to a series of tidbits. They had been told by the Minister of Industry and Tourism that major industry means industries requiring 1,000 acres or more, and that negotiations are under way with some industries at this time; but there were no further details and no indications of what kind of industries might be negotiating with the government.

The Minister of Industry and Tourism said to the municipal leaders that Canadian Westinghouse or CGE were the types of firms that might locate at Edwardsburg in the Spencerville land assembly. Now those companies are making appliances. Appliance factories would suit Cornwall, would suit Brockville, would suit Hawksbury or Pembroke or Smiths Falls, or for that matter Ottawa. They are not so noxious or so land-consuming that they would have to go on a site of their own. There is in fact a Philips plant, I think it is, which makes small appliances in Cornwall, where a third of the work force is currently laid off because of a shortage of markets.

We have tried to think in the NDP caucus what kind of industries it was that Mr. Bennett could be really negotiating with. If I can quote from the Hansard of Oct. 15, 1973, I suggested in the debate on the Haldimand-Norfolk bill that the government consider locating the new Stelco plant, intended to go at Nanticoke on Lake Erie, either in the north or east of the province. In my caucus we had some disagreement about where that should go, whether it should be northern Ontario or eastern Ontario. However, I stated that the government should have looked very seriously at Prescott where the member for Grenville-Dundas (Mr. Irvine) was formerly the mayor.

“What about a bit of patronage,” I said in jest “for the member for Grenville-Dundas by looking at that particular location which would be well located on the St. Lawrence River to provide an economic impetus for all of eastern Ontario?”

At the time, in other words Mr. Speaker, I suggested that the Stelco plant be located at Prescott. Stelco has acquired 6,600 acres of Nanticoke on Lake Erie and presumably it would need at least 3,000 or 4,000 acres if it were to move to the Prescott area, to Spencerville, but Stelco is now committed to Lake Erie and won’t move to Prescott and this government never lifted a finger to try to persuade them to go there. Okay, that’s one potential steel mill that’s lost.

Just last week, Mr. Speaker, Dominion Foundries and Steel Co. of Hamilton -- Dofasco -- announced a major expansion of its plant in Hamilton itself. The members from the Lake Erie area may recall that Dofasco has a large site at Port Burwell, some 50 or 75 miles to the west of Nanticoke, where it considered expanding in the same way that Stelco is expanding. The people in that area, however, indicated quite strongly that they didn’t want Dofasco to come in.

The government didn’t seem very hot on it either, but once again exerted no pressure to try and get this particular plant, the Dofasco expansion, moved into the eastern or northern parts of the province where it could have had substantial spinoff effects. No pressure like that was exerted at all.

I see that the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. McNie) is present in the House. I can tell him, Mr. Speaker, that the spinoffs that will be created by the Dofasco expansion are going to create acute urban development problems for the Hamilton area. Hamilton will have too many jobs because of the expansion of 4.5 million tons annually in Dofasco’s capacity in the Hamilton area, which is now under way and which is being done with $100 million investment between now and 1977. Dofasco is lost to eastern Ontario.

Algoma is at Sault Ste. Marie and is already in the north and is unlikely to consider a location in the east.

Okay, what else would be a major industry so big and so unwieldy and so difficult to accommodate that it couldn’t go into the vicinity of Cornwall, Brockville, Pembroke or Smiths Falls? We’ve thought of a refinery, but Spencerville is located only 100 miles from the Island of Montreal, which is a major refinery and petrochemical centre. It would seem logical, if the federal government is building a Sarnia-to-Montreal pipeline in order to help make us self-sufficient, that if any refinery expansions take place the oil companies would probably decide to have them take place either at Montreal or else somewhere closer to the source of supply in Alberta.

What about automobiles? Well, to say that is to joke, Mr. Speaker, because I cannot see any serious investment in new automobile plant capacity for the next two, three or five years, until we’re over the present situation and until demand has either been restored or else the auto makers have been able to redirect their capacity and get over the current slump within the industry. In other words, there seems to be no realistic large industry which would have to be located at Spencerville and could not go somewhere else.

Next, in eastern Ontario the economy of areas like Cornwall and Brockville is not strong. It’s much stronger than it was; it’s no longer as weak as it was a few years ago. A new major plant at Spencerville, like a steel plant, will tend to have spinoff effects, but those spinoff effects will tend to take place on the site and not elsewhere.

At Nanticoke, Stelco is building an industrial park. The steel will come hot out of the ovens and be taken straight into the plants that will do things to it while it’s still hot; it won’t have to cool and reheat. There will be a concentration of steel fabricating industries that will take place right there.

If a steel plant or a refinery and petrochemical plant went into Spencerville, most of the industrial growth would occur right in that area, and the effect on Cornwall or Brockville would be to create a commuter traffic of workers who lived in those communities, but had to drive or take a bus in order to find jobs in Spencerville.

I would challenge the government, if it finds industries of substantial scale, that it commit itself to offer those firms the opportunity of going into Cornwall or Brockville or other communities, and in fact tell those firms that if they want to go into eastern Ontario, Ontario will facilitate their location near Cornwall or near Brockville, rather than in this entirely new industrial site. If that commitment is made, I assure the government that those plants will wind up in or near established communities. There is lots of industrial land available in eastern Ontario. It’s looking for people to occupy it, and not only at Spencerville.

We are, therefore, faced with a situation, Mr. Speaker, where either the government is going to suck growth away from communities in eastern Ontario, or it does not have the major new thrust in industrial development that Spencerville is billed as having. If it is a major thrust then it is going to suck growth from other communities. If it isn’t a major thrust then it is a piece of PR which is costing $5 million or more, which will cost us half a million dollars a year in interest alone, plus taxes, in order to hold it until the Eighties or the Nineties -- and it is a piece of public relations, Mr.

Speaker, which I suggest has already backfired for the government and for the Conservative Party in the resentment that it has provoked among municipal people and other people in eastern Ontario.

I have to say that there is particular concern about the suggestion made by the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) that that land in eastern Ontario at Spencerville might be put under the control of the Eastern Ontario Development Corp. The concern is because the EODC, paltry as its efforts may be, now directs those efforts to locating industries in or near existing communities.

If it also owned 10,000 acres that it wanted to develop, the strain and the tension that would be developed -- the difficulty the EODC would have in deciding whether to give a plant to Cornwall, say, or to Ottawa, or to Hawkesbury, or Pembroke, or put it in Spencerville, would be intolerable, and no one could really accept the credibility of the EODC when it said, “We are awfully sorry, boys, we had to take those on for our land at Spencerville.” It just wouldn’t be credible.

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that the comments that were made by the Minister of Industry and Tourism that the government would be completely off its nut to put a new industrial complex at Edwardsburgh, were very well taken. I would suggest that a designation of an industrial site and freezing of that site so that it would stay in agriculture for 25 or 30 years for development around the turn of the century, or for development at the time of the next round of major steel industry expansions in the middle to late 1980s, might be a reasonable step to be taken by the government of Ontario.

But if that were done it should be done within the context of a provincial plan, and of course that context doesn’t exist.

The present form of ad hoc planning is disastrous, It is increasing the resentment and alienation that is already felt in eastern Ontario toward this government. I can tell those members and ministers and civil servants who are trying to help the government, or who may be asked for advice that may be used by the government to help itself, that they are not helping themselves at all; that this is going to backfire and that eastern Ontario in the coming election is going to give the Tories a lesson like they have never had before.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Etobicoke.

Mr. L. A. Braithwaite (Etobicoke): Mr. Speaker, in joining this budget debate I want to talk about several topics which are of interest to the people of Ontario and in particular to the people of Etobicoke.

Before I get into more serious matters, Mr. Speaker, I would like to pass a few comments on our young assistants who will be leaving us at the end of this session. One of them is a young girl called Heide Schumacher, and she is from Redgrave Dr. in the borough of Etobicoke, in my riding. I am really sorry to see her go.

Since this is women’s year, Mr. Speaker, I think it might be appropriate to comment on this question of girl pages very briefly. Back in March of 1966, during the debates en the estimates of the Department of Labour, I suggested the addition of girls as pages. At that time, Mr. Speaker, we had only boys and I recall that night, Mr. Speaker, some of our friends from the government benches just about fell over laughing; they thought it was funny. I have a clipping from the Toronto Daily Star of Wednesday, March 23, 1966, Mr. Speaker -- that is some nine years ago -- and it says:

“Interest perked up in the Legislature last night when Leonard Braithwaite (L -- Etobicoke) suggested the addition of girl pages. He said the girls would not only brighten up the legislature chamber, but could also comfort the Legislature’s only woman member, Ada Pritchard.”

She was the member for Hamilton Centre who chose not to run again, Mr. Speaker.

I recall that evening, Mr. Speaker. I mentioned that the idea didn’t originate with me. Many high school girls and public school girls had asked me why there were no girl pages and I told them that I didn’t know. I mentioned it that night during the debate. I think it was just because there had always been boys. Once again, that slogan that the federal government is using, “Why not?” comes to mind. The Star

article of March 23, 1966, stated there was a mixed reaction among the page-boys. Some said the girls would be silly but others thought they would be keen.

Mr. Speaker, we have had girl pages for some time now and I thought that the House might be interested in the reaction of a young lady who was with us not long ago. Her name is Coleen Egerton. She was from Dixon Grove Senior Public School in the borough of Etobicoke. Her reactions were set out in a composition which she wrote after leaving the Legislature. She called it “The thrill of being a page.” I’m not going to read the whole thing but I will read a few paragraphs, Mr. Speaker, to let you know how we look, through the eyes of one of the young girl pages. She starts off:

“Did you ever think of talking to a member of Parliament, a person of great responsibility, who is known by many people and sometimes has his picture in the newspaper? I hadn’t until I found a letter waiting at home for me one day saying that I had been chosen to become a page. I realized that this was a great privilege. Think of all the other boys and girls across Ontario who had also sent in applications.

“When I told my friends, they immediately started asking me questions. The basic requirements are that you are in grade 7 or 8, you have an average of at least 80 per cent in your school work and you can get transportation down to Queen’s Park and back home every day. You also need your principal’s permission because you miss school for six to eight weeks.”

She goes on, and I’m going to skip some of it. I’ll start again:

“I was very fortunate to get this job and will be sad when I have to leave. I had a first-hand look at how the laws which govern this province are made and now when I see something in the newspaper about Queen’s Park I will understand what is going on. I will also recognize names and faces.

“I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Hon. Allan Reuter who made this all possible; to Mr. Braithwaite, my member who helped me to get in; to the principal of Dixon Grove Middle School, Mr. McPherson, who allowed me to stay away from school during my term as a page; to Mrs. Hood, the page mistress; the attendants; Mr. Wilkinson, our school teacher; and to the members who were kind and understanding.

“This wonderful experience is one I will never forget.”

Mr. Speaker, those are the comments of a young girl page who was here, as I said, not long ago.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I wish to turn to the problem centred on Sunday store openings and the whole question of reasonable store hours at the retail level. I have no hesitation in stating that the majority of people in the constituency of Etobicoke are in favour of PUSH, that is, reasonable uniform store hours on a provincial basis. In northern Etobicoke, the fight has been led by the minister of the Rexdale United Church, Rev. Colin Todd; Mr. Dennis Prinhold of Genthorn Ave., an elder of the same church; Rev. Dennis Terry, also of Rexdale; and many other citizens of northern Etobicoke who oppose stores being open on Sunday for major retail selling.

I should add, Mr. Speaker, that I have been in receipt of many communications from citizens throughout the northern part of Etobicoke who have made it clear to me that they are in opposition to wide-open retail Sunday selling. Further, they do not wish to see retail outlets open at all hours. The majority are eagerly looking forward to a return to sane retail practices so that they may once more have the opportunity to enjoy some leisure time during the week, for what advantage is the good life if there is no time to enjoy it.

Mr. Speaker, the borough of Etobicoke recently passed its own tough new bylaw which would impose fines of up to $5,000 on stores that refused to close down on Sunday. It took this action because of the failure of the Provincial Lord’s Day Act to stop big stores from selling on Sunday.

Mr. Speaker, the government has had its hearings. Many briefs have been submitted in connection with the green paper on Sunday as a common day of rest and uniform store hours. It is now incumbent on the government to bring forward reasonable legislation consistent with the aims of the Ontario Provincial Uniform Store Hours Association and the wishes of the greater majority of the citizens of Ontario, who would like Sunday to continue to be a day of rest as far as possible.

As you may be aware, Mr. Speaker, the provincial caucus of the Liberal Party recently submitted a brief to the Gibson airport inquiry commission questioning the need for a second Toronto airport in the Pickering area. The brief questioned whether or not all the various alternatives to the proposed airport have been explored. One thing the brief did not suggest was an expansion of existing facilities at Malton. In fact, it specifically opposed any further expansion to Malton Airport.

While our position has been misinterpreted by some, it should be noted that the brief most specifically stated that Toronto’s existing airport already contributes enough to community disruption in surrounding areas and if nothing else is done regarding this second airport, we should at least introduce serious noise suppression programmes and standards to cope with the existing problems at Malton.

I have strong views on the discomfort and noise pollution and air pollution which Malton Airport brings to those who live in its vicinity. My own home is directly under a flight path and I can speak from specific experience of the way houses vibrate, the air reeks of kerosene, and backyard, outdoor conversation is limited to gestures.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I could take some time and talk about the curfew being ignored night after night while sleep is made impossible by the vibrations of heavily-loaded airplanes taking off at ungodly hours during the night. Yes, the evils of pollution from Malton Airport are legion.

For those reasons, Mr. Speaker, I have in this House spoken on many occasions in opposition to the expansion of Malton Airport and will continue to do so until some relief is afforded the residents of Etobicoke and Mississauga, whose enjoyment of the good life has been so seriously curtailed by the indiscriminate operation of Malton Airport. I am still, and will continue to be, in opposition to any expansion of Malton Airport.

I am opposed to the commission by whatever level of government of anything which might directly or indirectly cause Malton Airport to be expanded. We don’t need another Kennedy Airport or O’Hare Airport in the neighbourhood of Etobicoke.

I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that under no circumstances would I ever condone anything which could bring harm to Etobicoke and which could, in any way, increase the noise and air pollution from which we in Etobicoke suffer.

Until recently, I was not convinced that stopping the Pickering airport would in any way harm Etobicoke. In any event, I could not and would not support any action by Ottawa or by Queen’s Park which could cause Malton Airport to be expanded.

In brief, Mr. Speaker, the story at Malton Airport, or Toronto International Airport, as it is known, is as follows:

1. In 1937 Malton Airport was built on 1,400 acres of land.

2. In the 1950s our residential neighbourhoods were built up before the introduction of turbo-jet aircraft.

3. Between 1958 and 1963, Malton Airport was expanded to a total of 4,200 acres. The expansion took place southerly toward existing residential districts. One runway was extended south 1.3 miles. A new east-west runway was built pointing at the heart of Etobicoke.

4. Turbo-jet aircraft were introduced, and 40,000 Etobicoke residents and the entire population of Malton found themselves under heavy jet traffic in noise zones where the Ministry of Transport now recommends either no residential development at all, or residents in sound-proof apartment buildings only. The majority of residents live in single-family houses.

5. In 1968, as many as 110 jets a day thundered over a single neighbourhood. A government report proposed a 75 per cent increase in the airport size and activity.

6. Residents organized to oppose the expansion. Within the year the federal government decided to cancel major expansion at Malton, but announced an interim expansion that included the lengthening of the third runway at Malton to commercial jet capacity.

7. In 1969 area residents met government officials and were given assurances that the expanded runway would be used in a limited manner. They were told the runway was needed to avoid mid-air collisions and to handle increased traffic until the new airport opened in 1976.

8. In 1971 the lengthened runway was put into operation. For the first time, 10,000 residents of northern Etobicoke experienced heavy jet traffic over their homes.

9. Two months after the runway opened, a commitment was given by the federal Minister of Transport that the east end of the runway, 23R, was not to be utilized for approaches by turbo-jet air carrier aircraft except in an emergency. Residents’ complaints in the years since suggest that there have been many emergencies.

10. Some equipment was installed to monitor noise in residential districts around the airport. Vandalized in one location, on a school roof, the noise monitoring system is yet to be expanded to the seven locations recommended by the ministry.

11. In 1973 a decision was made to build the second airport.

12. Area residents met government officials again and were told nothing further could be done to keep down the noise, and that the improvements made would be offset by increased traffic.

13. Residents were also told that traffic roads would offset any technical gains that might be made.

14. Next, a commission was appointed to find out if there was new evidence which could affect the decision to build a second airport, and to examine whether Malton Airport should remain as it is.

15. In 1974 the commission held its hearings.

16. In 1975, the commission is reported to have recommended immediate construction of the Pickering airport, and construction of a fourth major runway at Malton.

17. On Feb. 1, 1975, a newspaper headline in the Globe and Mail declared: “Decision on Airport Delayed by Ottawa.”

Mr. Speaker, that is the story of Malton Airport to date. In the last few weeks, Mr. Speaker, I have examined carefully the findings -- which are available -- of the Gibson commission which looked into the whole matter of airports in Ontario and heard submissions from a large and representative group of people from the Metropolitan area. Speaking as an individual, Mr. Speaker, I have come to the conclusion that the facilities at Toronto International Airport at Malton would quickly become saturated if plans for an airport at Pickering were scratched.

Therefore I would ask the Minister of Transportation and Communications, the Premier and the government of Ontario to do everything they can to see that the Pickering airport is proceeded with as quickly as possible. The time for a decision is now.

In any event, I ask this government of Ontario to notify Ottawa to keep its hands off Malton. Malton must not be expanded. My reasoning, Mr. Speaker, is that our own government of Ontario will be providing services for a second airport wherever it is built, and it will certainly seem logical that the recommendations of the Ontario cabinet on the location, apart from the technical considerations of aviation, would have a direct bearing on the location of the new second airport.

The question then arises as to exactly who is responsible for the original airport proposal. The federal government in Ottawa must determine the need for such a facility, and that need has been reassessed and confirmed by the Gibson commission, But the provincial government must be held accountable for its proposed location at Pickering, which I support.

So far, the Tory government at Queen’s Park has said little about its involvement in the airport decision. I hope it will soon provide us with a complete statement of its position. A strong government should show leadership in serious matters such as this. The time for waffling is past. The Premier should set out his government’s decision for all to see. I personally would like the Premier to join me in pushing for the speedy commencement of the Pickering airport.

I want now, Mr. Speaker, to turn to a matter which is of the greatest importance to the residents of the northern part of Etobicoke. I speak of the desperate need for better transportation facilities, particularly in Rexdale. For those Etobicoke residents who work in Malton, lack of service on the Malton route means that they often have a daily walk of as much as four or five miles. Everyone wants to know why on some days there is only one bus every 36 minutes in rush hour going to and from Malton.

It is a common cause for complaint that by the time a bus reaches Martin Grove and Dixon it is so full that those waiting, who would like to get to work, cannot get on. At night the problem is reversed. If people can’t get on the bus because it is crowded, they may have to walk for miles to get to the Martin Grove-Dixon Rd. area. And that is just part of the problem.

We all know that about three years ago this government abruptly cancelled the Spadina Expressway. Many in Rexdale who have their own transportation now find it most difficult to get downtown through northwest Metro because of the detours around Marlee Ave. and so forth. I want to go on record once more as urging the government to go along with Metro Toronto’s plan to proceed with the completion of the Spadina Expressway as soon as possible. This will benefit residents of northwest Metro immeasurably. Something must be done with this vacant spot, and it is my hope that the government does not wait until just before the next election to decide that it is going to take some action.

North Rexdale has a series of transportation problems of its own. In spite of this, we were never given an opportunity to show that dial-a-bus could have worked. All that was needed, in my opinion, was testing in a transportation-hungry area like Rexdale. With a little advertising in the Etobicoke Gazette and in the Etobicoke Guardian, dial-a-bus could have succeeded, It is no exaggeration to say that the lack of transportation in the Rexdale area is next to criminal.

I am informed that there are plans for a new separate high school in northern Etobicoke, to be located on Kipling Ave. north of Albion Rd. This will merely serve to magnify the existing transportation problems. I don’t know if the members of this House know that one can travel north to south in northern Etobicoke on main arteries such as Islington or Kipling or Martin Grove, but there is no way for a person to secure public transportation in an east-west direction though most of north Rexdale.

Those who live in Rexdale and must depend on public transportation to get them downtown to their place of employment, often find that tardiness of the buses in the north Rexdale area causes them to be late for work or to miss work altogether.

I call on this government to use its good offices to spur the Toronto Transit Commission to improve transportation facilities in northern Etobicoke. Further, I once more call on the Minister of Transportation and Communications to initiate a dial-a-bus system in northern Etobicoke.

Now, Mr. Speaker, for a few minutes I wish to review the serious difficulties of ensuring an adequate supply of housing for all citizens in Ontario. The housing problem is of prime concern to myself, my party and my constituents. Rapidly escalating shelter costs are taking up a larger and larger portion of family income, and for our less affluent families the situation is critical. We find ourselves today in a situation where families cannot afford to buy their own housing, and rents have become prohibitive. It is going to require the greatest concentration of effort on all our parts if we are going to break through the barriers that prohibit access to sound housing at reasonable cost.

Recently, the government announced its Housing Action Programme, and I support this programme as far as it goes. The problem is, of course, that it doesn’t go very far. Four-fifths of the families of this province have incomes of under $15,000 per year, based on the 1971 census. By the most generous estimate of the total programme, there is little indeed for the vast majority. Then per cent of the additional 12,000 new units will be under the HOME programme. That will increase by 1,200 the 6,000 units that have already been promised. These units will be for families with incomes under $14,500 per year.

Another 3,600 units will be allocated to the income group from $14,500 to $20,000. The bulk of the homes-for-sale programme is geared to the affluent -- that fact is very clear.

The government place great reliance on the solution to the housing problem being the expansion of the total stock of housing; the trickle-down theory. However, in spite of wishful thinking, this just doesn’t work. The opposite process is very conspicuous in our larger cities.

The pressure of high housing costs are forcing middle-income families to seek shelter solutions that would have been considered unacceptable just a few years ago. They are moving into the inner city and competing for the scarce housing stock that has, in the past, been available at more moderate cost for the less affluent among us.

As I said before, and it bears repeating, filtering down doesn’t work. As a cup of water poured on the top of a mountain does not reach the sea, a few housing units added at the higher income levels does not relieve the problem of the moderate and lower income groups.

We are becoming a city of renters in Metro, a trend contrary to our historical situation. I am concerned about this state of affairs and wonder if its full implication is realized. The 1971 census reveals that in Metro Toronto, 58.4 per cent of dwellings were tenant-occupied, as opposed to 41.6 per cent that were owner-occupied.

Our families are losing the privilege -- or is it a right? -- to build up equity in housing. For as long as any of us can remember, housing equity for most families has been their major investment.

Mr. Speaker, another area of major concern to me is the desperate situation faced by low-income families. I know that my borough has been accused of not responding to the great need for public rent-geared-to-income housing. I feel forced to observe, however, that if modifications to the public housing programme had been made five years ago, when organized resistance to these projects became apparent, we would not be in the situation we are in today. Public housi