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December 1, 1975

30th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L028 - Mon 1 Dec 1975 / Lun 1er déc 1975

DECORATIVE OUTDOOR LIGHTS

GRASSY NARROWS, WHITEDOG INDIAN RESERVES

TORONTO TEACHERS’ NEGOTIATIONS

STOUFFVILLE DUMP SITE

CAMBRIDGE GRAVEL PIT LICENCE

HIGHWAY EXTENSIONS

KOKOTOW LUMBER LTD.

USE OF FUNDS BY RYERSON

STERILIZATION OF EMPLOYEES

KAWARTHA LAKES SCHOOL

BILINGUAL SERVICES

DRUG TRAFFICKING PENALTIES

ESSEX PACKERS

CLASSIFICATIONS OF JUDGES

DREE GRANTS

SERVICE STATION OPERATORS

PROPERTY TAX CREDIT

JURORS’ FEES

PUBLIC HEALTH AMENDMENT ACT

TORONTO TEACHERS’ NEGOTIATIONS

TORONTO TEACHERS’ NEGOTIATIONS

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Hodgson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce to you and the members of the Legislature 18 students, nine of whom are exchange students from Germany, attending schools in the York County Board of Education. They’re in your east gallery under the leadership of Mrs. Crone.

Mr. Swart: I would like the House to welcome 35 students from the Centennial Secondary School in Welland, accompanied by their teacher, Mr. Spence. I believe that they are in the west gallery.

Mr. Shore: Mr. Speaker, I’d like you to join with me and my fellow colleagues to introduce and welcome 40 students from the Clarke Rd. Secondary School in London, in the famous London North riding. Would you join with me in welcoming them here today with their teacher, Mr. Lewis? Thank you.

Mr. Hodgson: I would also like to introduce to you, Mr. Speaker, 30 students from the Country Day School in King township under the direction of their teacher, Mr. Taylor.

Mr. Ziemba: Mr. Speaker, I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce to the members of this House 35 students from Runnymede Public School in the riding of High Park-Swansea. They’re in the east gallery. They’re accompanied by their teacher, Mrs. Mary Brooks. I’d like to ask the members to join with me in welcoming them.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

DECORATIVE OUTDOOR LIGHTS

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, as the festive season approaches I would like to remind hon. members and the public that the economic use of decorative outdoor lights is an excellent way of conserving energy in Ontario. I realize many people put up colourful displays of lights to show pride in their homes and in their neighbourhoods at Christmas and I don’t want to discourage this practice at all. But there is a real need to prevent the extravagant use of electrical energy.

We are suggesting that outdoor Christmas lights be turned on only after dinner and then switched off at bedtime. By having them on for three or four hours in the evening instead of all day and night, we can keep electricity bills down and still enjoy the colour and the excitement of Christmas lights.

The Ministry of Government Services and Ontario Hydro will be following these conservation guidelines. Outdoor decorative lights on provincial government buildings will be turned on at 7 p.m. and off again at midnight. In addition, I will be communicating with my colleagues, the Ministers of Colleges and Universities (Mr. Parrott) and Education (Mr. Wells) to solicit their co-operation in having all academic facilities throughout Ontario follow the same procedure. Municipalities can play a vital role in making this conservation effort work. I am requesting municipal council to direct that all their buildings observe the guidelines as well.

I realize that to the individual the cost of burning one or two strings of lights day and night is modest and the energy used relatively low. However, on a province-wide basis I think the House should know that the peak demand on Ontario Hydro represented by these lights is substantial -- equivalent, in fact, to well over half of the entire output of one of the nuclear reactor units at the Pickering generating station.

As I said, I have no desire to darken the Christmas spirit in any way but the sensible use of decorative lights is one example of how better energy management practices can be implemented by everyone.

Mr. Speaker: Oral questions.

GRASSY NARROWS, WHITEDOG INDIAN RESERVES

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, may I put a question to the Minister of Health, if I could? Are the communities of Whitedog and Grassy Narrows right in their impression that within two weeks of his meeting with them on Oct. 31 there was to have been a determination about a number of matters which arose at that meeting? If so, since a month has now passed, has the minister taken any specific initiatives and have the Indian communities been informed?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the member is quite right that there were certain things they expected within two weeks and we tried our best to meet that deadline. We had some of them resolved within that time frame but not others.

As a matter of fact, last Wednesday, as the member may or may not know, three ministers from Ontario met with three ministers of the federal government to discuss nothing but the division of responsibilities in Grassy Narrows and Whitedog specifically, apart from all other Indian areas in Canada, because we acknowledged that these were communities with special problems which perhaps did not apply anywhere else.

I can’t recall all the things which were to be answered within the time frame of two weeks but certainly one of them was the appointment of a co-ordinator. That appointment, I understand, has either been made or is on the verge of being made. The Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier) may be able to answer that specifically since it was on the socio-economic field which is not quite so related to health.

The question of the closure of the river was one we had hoped to have resolved in that time but I have to tell the member we have not done so as yet. We have been trying very hard to come to a conclusion on that one. That was discussed with our federal counterparts, too, on Wednesday of last week because there are certain problems which spill over into other provinces. I think we have to realize that a great deal of attention is being placed on the problem in Ontario but it is not unique to here; it does apply to other provinces. I’m surprised it doesn’t gain the attention it deserves in those other provinces.

Mr. Lewis: I am not asking the minister to stop the water. I’m sure he could but I --

Hon. F. S. Miller: Walking on it yes; but stopping it, no.

Mr. Lewis: May I ask a supplementary? Since the frustration and impatience of the Grand Council Treaty 3 and the Indian bands grows apace, can the minister indicate when he will respond to their briefs and all of the specifies mentioned, in a way which might be coherent and reassuring, since they are once again aroused?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I think the best course of action would be for us to respond on those things we have been able to come to conclusions about and hold those on which we have to defer some action for the balance of the month or whatever it may be. I will be pleased to see that we do this, hopefully, within the week.

Mr. Lewis: May I redirect the question to the Minister of Natural Resources and ask him whether he has a co-ordinator and committee in mind or about to be appointed; can he make an announcement?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I can’t make an announcement at this specific point of time. We have been working on a reporting structure within the government and within the policy secretariats. That will be going before cabinet, I hope, this week, so that a statement or a release can be made, as the Minister of Health just pointed out, as to the coordinator and the reporting mechanism that we’ll employ and impose.

Mr. Lewis: Why, after five years of struggling with this problem, does it take so long to respond to some simple and quite compelling request which the minister has had on his platter for as long as any of us can remember?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: To say that we’ve not done anything or have not responded to the request is not entirely correct. This is the first indication -- and I think the thrust came from us -- that we would establish a coordinator to coordinate all the provincial activities of a number of different departments.

It was obvious to us, as the Minister of Health has pointed out, that we had to have some coordination at the federal level also. At our meeting in Kenora, we indicated to them that one of our first steps would be to meet with the federal authorities and to get them involved in co-ordinating their activities with ours as we move ahead into some special needs for these two specific reserves.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary: Would the minister not agree that one of the problems, as far as the delay in establishing this new policy is concerned, is that the minister was under the impression that it was sufficient to provide a freezer full of fish for the Indians until just a few months ago, when the experts from Japan came over and drew public attention to the fact that this is a continuing and serious problem?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: No, this is entirely incorrect. We’ve met with the native peoples on a number of occasions and we’ve always been looking for some mechanism for short-term social and economic programmes that would eventually lead into some long-term ones, and these are the policies we’re looking toward for the native peoples.

TORONTO TEACHERS’ NEGOTIATIONS

Mr. Lewis: I have a question of the Premier, if I may. Has the Premier any suggestions about what the next step might be in the present teacher-board situation in Metropolitan Toronto, given the events of the weekend?

Hon. Mr. Davis: The Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) will be here very soon and may have some observations in reply to that question. My own observation would be that the next step, if at all possible, would be for the parties to return to the bargaining table just as soon as possible.

Mr. Lewis: Can the Premier elaborate slightly on that, and suggest what they may do at the bargaining table apart from speculating about what Jean-Luc Pepin may or may not mean in the vagaries of his announcement.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I would think they would do what parties do normally at a bargaining table -- if at all possible come to an agreement.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary: Would the Premier consider it part of our responsibilities as members of this House, and particularly the responsibility of himself and his cabinet, to see that the views of the government are expressed to the Anti-Inflation Board, particularly views which might allow the Anti-Inflation Board to reconsider its weekend pronouncement on the basis that teachers of similar qualifications working for the same board should be paid on the same salary

schedule at least?

Hon. Mr. Davis: This is one of the difficult aspects of the problem. The fact is that some panels and some boards have settled and some have not. While there is without any question a relationship -- and no one can argue this --

Mr. Nixon: Right.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- I think it’s also fair to state that this is not confined just to the educational field. For the government to say in this particular area that we are going to make representations or to take a position in support of a particular group -- and I’m not minimizing the problem; don’t misunderstand me -- means the government would then become involved in many other such potential situations.

I think what we have to recognize is that if this programme is to work, I put it as simply as this -- and I’m not speaking in support of the Anti-Inflation Board’s rulings; that is their determination -- that we might as well accept the fact that there are going to be some decisions that make it unpleasant or awkward for some groups of people. As I say, I’m not making any brief for the Anti-Inflation Board, but if this programme is to work at all --

[2:15]

Mr. Lewis: Of course the Premier supports the Anti-Inflation Board. He has turned his back on the teachers. The AIB has let him off the hook.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, we have supported the structure and the process without any question -- and I make no apologies for it. I don’t think there is any question that if this House and the people of this province and this country are going to take inflation seriously, it is obvious the federal programme will not work if Ontario doesn’t co-operate.

Mr. Lewis: Right.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It is great for the members opposite to say we should have a separate board, which would be subject then to political pressures for any particular group with which those members may have some particular interest --

Mr. Nixon: No more than the federal board would. You must feel you are very subject to political pressures. We feel we were elected to do that.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, that’s true.

Mr. Lewis: This government shows no leadership.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes, we are showing leadership. That is just what the people opposite aren’t prepared to do. They are not prepared to have the intestinal fortitude to recognize it is going to be pretty tough in the process.

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: I would like to put it to the Minister of Education -- perhaps to have less ambiguity in his response, if he doesn’t consider it political pressure, Mr. Speaker, that I should raise it. What has he now advised the parties? Has he a mediator in mind? Has he suggested to them the parameters of their bargaining, given the Friday decision?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, first of all I remind my hon. friend that it’s the Education Relations Commission that is in charge of overseeing, or attempting to --

Mr. Nixon: Oh yes.

Mr. Deans: On how many other people are you going to slough this off?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Wells: On Friday, I asked the Education Relations Commission to be in touch with the parties and to have a mediator ready and available, if needed. That has been done.

Mr. Deans: Good.

Hon. Mr. Wells: As I understand it, immediately after the AIB decision had been made public on Friday afternoon, the Metropolitan Toronto School Board negotiating committee was in touch with the teachers and invited them to come back to meet with them; to have an exploratory meeting on procedures; to get together and start bargaining again. I understand that they haven’t had any response from the teachers at this point in time on that particular matter.

There is a hearing beginning tomorrow morning at 9:30 before the Education Relations Commission --

Mr. Lewis: It’s madness.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- on a complaint lodged by the teachers concerning bad-faith bargaining on the part of the board.

Mr. Nixon: What a waste of time this is.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Wells: As I understand it --

Hon. Mr. Davis: Who lodged the complaint?

Mr. Nixon: That doesn’t make the procedure right.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister is replying to the original question.

Hon. Mr. Wells: That complaint is still there and the hearing will begin at 9:30 tomorrow. I urged in a statement on Friday that both parties get back to the bargaining table --

Mr. Shore: What for?

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- to assess their situation and find out just where they are going to go from here. I think that is the logical course.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Following from the minister’s answer, would he not feel that based on the pronouncement of the Anti-Inflation Board on Friday, that bargaining as we would normally understand it is just a bit ridiculous?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. This sounds like a debate. Is there a question?

Mr. Nixon: Wouldn’t he agree that in order that he fulfil his responsibilities on behalf of all of us here, it’s necessary for him to contact the Anti-Inflation Board to express the views of this government as to a reassessment of their statement having to do with the paying of teachers with the same qualifications for the same board under the same circumstances? Surely we must take a position in this through our own Minister of Education.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, somewhere, somehow we’ve got to decide whether we want an anti-inflation programme in this country --

Mr. Warner: Better decide whether we want schools.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- and if we want a programme in this country --

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- we have to decide whether we want it to be run nationally. That is what we have decided -- that we want a national anti-inflation programme.

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Wells: And that board is going to bring down decisions. Now, we have all urged them to make decisions; and they finally made some decisions.

Mr. Nixon: But with no input from the Minister of Education; none whatsoever.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I was just going to say they made some decisions concerning the workers up at de Havilland Aircraft. What do the members opposite want us to do about that? Should the people in this Legislature --

Mr. Nixon: Are you denying that obligation is a provincial responsibility?

Hon. Mr. Wells: It is a provincial responsibility, but this special --

Mr. Nixon: The constitution gave it to you.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- anti-inflation programme --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. If we could have fewer interjections, we could get on properly with the question period. Is the hon. minister finished with his answer?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

Mr. Lewis: May I ask a question of the minister in another way? If the Anti-Inflation Board makes a decision which he would regard as destructive to the educational system, present or future, would he feel called upon to intervene, to say something, to exercise any leadership at any point along the way?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I would feel called upon to indicate where I thought they had made a decision which I didn’t think was in the best interest of the education system, but I wouldn’t feel that I should interfere with that decision that they have made, and I would be very pleased to make my particular opinion --

Mr. MacDonald: Have you done anything?

Mr. Lewis: Does the minister regard Friday morning’s decision as in the best interest of the education system? Could we elicit his opinion?

Hon. Mr. Wells: From the point of view that if inflation can be beaten in this country it is in the best interest of all of us and, therefore, in the best interest of the educational system, yes.

Mr. Lewis: That is the candour that will re-elect the Tories, is it?

STOUFFVILLE DUMP SITE

Mr. Lewis: May I ask the Minister of the Environment, as the last question I have: Is he going to accept the Environmental Hearing Board report on the expansion of the dump at Stouffville, despite the continuing and concerted opposition of the councils in the area, the citizens’ groups in the area and almost every environmental concern one can name?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, there was a hearing and the board recommended that the site go ahead. I haven’t had a chance to read the report completely. I will be discussing it with whatever members in this Legislature are involved and will also be discussing it with the board. I want to review some of the objections that were made at the time of the hearing and then a decision will be made.

Mr. Lewis: Thank you. If and when the decision is made, and if it is made in favour of proceeding, could the minister indicate to the Legislature, how the conditions set out in the report will be enforced by his ministry, since, by his ministry’s admission, it failed to enforce them previously?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Yes. My answer to the question is yes, Mr. Speaker, but I might say that it is a different type of site; it will be a different type of operation than existed previously.

CAMBRIDGE GRAVEL PIT LICENCE

Mr. Nixon: A question of the Minister of Natural Resources, somewhat similar to the one just asked of the Minister of the Environment: How does he justify to this House his approval of a licence to open a new gravel pit by Preston Sand and Gravel Co., in Cambridge, the approval dated Nov. 28, when a special hearing of the Ontario Municipal Board convened at the minister’s request specifically recommended against the issuance of such a licence on Oct. 30, just three weeks before?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I must point out to the leader of the Liberal Party that the Ontario Municipal Board only makes a recommendation to the minister on the direction it feels should be taken, It is correct that I did not accept that particular recommendation and I reversed their recommendation in granting a particular licence to the Preston Sand and Gravel Co., for a number of reasons.

That particular aggregate body in the Cambridge area contains very high quality aggregate. The lifetime span of that particular deposit is about five to 10 years. The plans that they submitted to us for sequential use of the land were very attractive indeed. In fact, I have indicated to the mayor of Cambridge himself, in a personal call, and in my news release on the issue itself, that prior to issuing a licence to this particular company we would contact the council, and comply with their various recommendations to alleviate any fears they may have that could cause problems in their municipality.

But in the best interest of that particular area, the overall interest, we think the decision was correct in allowing them to use this aggregate.

Mr. Nixon: A supplementary question: Since the Municipal Board was commissioned by the minister to have public hearings in the community -- and it did so and they were open, with all the professional testimony and advice that one could possibly wish -- and the findings were that the board not recommend the issuance of the licence and they found that it would not be in the best public interest, surely the minister must be remiss in his duty if he would expect the people in the community and the people in this House to accept those reasons for reversal? What was the sense of the bearing in the first place?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The hearing of the Ontario Municipal Board gave the objectors an opportunity to lay their facts before that particular board. They made a recommendation. We have examined in detail all the various points, and in our experts’ opinion we feel that it was in the best interests of those at large.

Mr. Breithaupt: After seven days of bearings?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Yes.

Mr. Davidson: May I ask the minister, in view of the fact that the official plan of the city of Cambridge and the official plan of the region of Waterloo, which was approved on Nov. 27, designates that area as agricultural, does he not feel he is contravening

section 6, subsection 2, of the Act?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: No, Mr. Speaker, because the original application for this particular quarry permit was made far earlier than that. When the application for a quarry permit was received there was no official plan for that particular area.

Mr. Good: There is now.

Mr. Lewis: Boy, oh, boy, fast and loose with agricultural land.

Mr. Sweeney: Supplementary: Is the minister aware of the fact that the sand and gravel company which wants to work that area has not done expert or adequate bore studies; there has not been an adequate environmental study; and returning that particular area either to agriculture or to residential use after the five or 10 years span he quotes may not be possible?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, our information is that they have done most of this. In fact, I will assure the hon. member that it will be done if it has not been done. The information coming to us, according to our experts, is that all the environmental problems, the water table problems, the noise problems and the dust problems which may be caused by the trucks themselves, will be carefully written into the conditions of the license.

Mr. Good: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: This is rapidly becoming a debate. In fact, some of the supplementaries have been refuting the minister’s statement, which is out of order in a question period. If the member has a true supplementary question --

Mr. Good: I have, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: We will allow one from each side then.

Mr. Good: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Has the minister contacted the Minister of Housing (Mr. Rhodes) to see what effect this permit will have on the projections of the regional plan which says this area should stay in agriculture until at least the year 2001? Arising out of --

Mr. Speaker: That’s the question. Is there an answer?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I am not sure if this has been done, Mr. Speaker, but I will check out that.

Mr. Lewis: I would like to ask the minister how it is possible for his experts to enumerate confidence and assurance on all the items he just indicated, when that was exactly the range of items which the Ontario Municipal Board recommended against?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I have to support the experts within my particular staff. I think they are more familiar and more aware --

Mr. Lewis: Why bother the OMB? Why have a hearing?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- of the needs of the industry and the area at large. I want to say one thing: This is the second reversal we have made on a recommendation of the OMB with regard to a gravel pit licence. The earlier one was completely opposite to this. They said we should issue it in the best interests of the public at large and we said we shouldn’t. It was in another area and we didn’t. We have been fair to both sides.

HIGHWAY EXTENSIONS

Mr. Nixon: I would like to ask the Minister of Transportation and Communications if he has available the route and neighbourhood impact studies which indicated the extension of Highway 400 down to St. Clair should proceed in the method he announced, I believe last Friday or Thursday?

Hon. Mr. Snow: No, Mr. Speaker. The selection of the route for Highway 400 south of Eglinton Ave., has yet to be carried out in conjunction with the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary: Did the minister or his predecessor not undertake that there would be neighbourhood impact studies undertaken before the government policy went forward?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Not to my knowledge, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Ziemba: Is the minister advancing this money for the Highway 400 extension without waiting for an impact study, as suggested by Mr. Soberman and the mayor of Toronto, because he is nervous about what the impact study might have to say?

Hon. Mr. Snow: No, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Dukszta: Supplementary to the last question: Has the minister taken into account the almost total opposition of the city of Toronto council, the mayor of Toronto and almost all the residents of Toronto against paving Spadina and extending Highway 400? Also, has the minister taken into account how much it will cost in terms of destruction of existing housing stock, dislocation of people and spending unnecessary money which could be better used --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I think the supplementary question has been ample.

Mr. Dukszta: - -- for occupational health and other special services?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, it’s pretty hard to figure out just what that question was. I’m sorry, I didn’t --

Mr. Dukszta: I can repeat it. Didn’t the minister get it?

Mr. Speaker: Suppose we treat it as a new question because it’s straying a bit. Would the member wish to repeat it as a question?

Mr. Dukszta: Did the minister take into account two factors when he made the decision about extending Highway 400 and paving Spadina? One is the total opposition of the city of Toronto council, the mayor of Toronto and almost every resident in Toronto? Two, has he taken into account how much it will cost in terms of destroying the existing housing stock, dislocating the people there, plus spending the money unnecessarily when it could be used for occupational health, social services or any other thing which is needed by the people of Toronto? I hope he understood it this time.

Hon. Mr. Snow: It’s still pretty difficult, Mr. Speaker. Certainly, many things were taken into consideration when the decision was made to proceed with the paving of the Spadina Expressway as an arterial road to Eglinton Ave., and the construction of Highway 400 as an arterial road on the existing right of way to Eglinton -- which doesn’t displace anyone to my knowledge. To extend it further as an arterial road to St. Clair, I am told, can be done with very minimal disruption to the community. This route is to be selected in conjunction with the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto and there will be ample opportunity for public input in that selection.

Mr. Ziemba: Mr. Speaker, can the minister tell us how many cars will be coming off the southern end of the Highway 400 extension and where are they going to go?

Mr. Speaker: That’s pretty far from being supplementary to the original question.

KOKOTOW LUMBER LTD.

Mr. Conway: A question of the Minister of Natural Resources: Could the minister inform this House how and why it was that Kokotow Lumber Ltd. of Kirkland Lake was allowed, in the year 1974-1975, to fall behind in the payment of its timber dues to the Ministry of Natural Resources to the tune of $650,000?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The sawmill industry, as the member is very much aware, has been in some pretty desperate situations. We met with Kokotow Lumber on a number of occasions and indicated to the company we could work out a repayment schedule. I believe the repayment

schedule was supposed to begin in November this year with the final payment coming before Nov. 31, 1976. After that time, of course, if the back dues or the Crown timber dues were not paid the licences would be cancelled in compliance with the Crown Timber Act.

Mr. Conway: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Could the minister tell us what the ministry is prepared to do now that Kokotow Lumber Ltd., as of Oct. 31, 1975, has ceased operations and declared bankruptcy?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, the Ministry of Natural Resources has seized some 61 carloads of chips belonging to Kokotow Lumber and has put seizure tags on all the inventory they have in the sawmill yard. We think we have in excess of $750,000 worth of inventory, if and when it’s sold.

Mr. Speaker: Was there a supplementary from the member for Timiskaming?

Mr. Bain: I believe the company has not gone bankrupt, as the member for Renfrew North mentioned, but it is in receivership.

Directed to the minister as a supplementary: If the seized material, lumber, etc. comes to a value of more than $750,000, will the minister use this extra money to guarantee that the workers receive the wages they’re owed?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, there may be an earlier call on those moneys in excess of the Crown stumpage dues owing. I would not know, but I will certainly check into it and let the member know.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The Banking Act.

Mr. Lewis: The Bank of Commerce probably.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Colleges and Universities has the answer to a question asked previously.

USE OF FUNDS BY RYERSON

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, on Nov. 25 the hon. member for Kitchener-Wilmot (Mr. Sweeney) asked me some questions concerning the alleged diversion of provincial operating grant funds to non-academic use by Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. Further to the reply that I gave at that time, I can now inform the hon. member that we have received a full and detailed report from the chairman of the board and from the president, and I am satisfied that no provincial operating grant funds have been diverted to non-academic use.

Ryerson has accumulated a reserve fund of some $710,000, no portion of which has been spent. The fund is reported in the audited statement of the institute and the auditors, Thorne Riddell and Co., have reported no irregularity in its administration. Ryerson’s finance committee is at present considering how this fund can best be utilized in accordance with the ministry’s established guidelines.

In addition, I have written to all of the institutions reminding them of the guidelines to be adhered to in the allocation of provincial operating funds.

STERILIZATION OF EMPLOYEES

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Labour. What is the position of the minister on the sterilization requirement for female employees at the Oshawa battery plant of General Motors of Canada?

Mr. MacDonald: Shocking isn’t it?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: They’re not very well charged.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of any such requirement. I shall investigate and give the member my view.

Mr. Breaugh: Supplementary: This matter is currently under investigation by the Human Rights Commission; I thought the minister would surely be aware of it.

Mr. Speaker: Just a minute, is this a supplementary question?

Mr. Breaugh: I am asking the minister if she is not aware of it.

Mr. Speaker: The minister said she wasn’t aware of it.

Mr. Breaugh: She should ask around a little.

KAWARTHA LAKES SCHOOL

Mr. Eakins: To the Minister of Correctional Services: In view of the uncertainty in some areas of his ministry, could you tell us what is planned for the operation of the Kawartha Lakes School in Lindsay?

Hon. J. R. Smith: No definite decision has been made about the Kawartha Lakes School. As the hon. member is likely aware, there are declining enrolments in most such institutions for juveniles. At present the ministry is reallocating its employment complement. In fact, 14 teaching staff members and four trade instructors were notified on Thursday of last week that their services would no longer be required. That was across the province, not at that one particular institution. We hope they will be incorporated into teaching opportunities in other ministries or offered employment opportunities to which they might be qualified within our ministry.

Mr. Eakins: Supplementary: Does this mean that there is no change in the type of operation from a girls’ school to a boys’; or any plans to close the school?

Hon. J. R. Smith: There is at present no change in plans.

BILINGUAL SERVICES

Mr. Nixon: If the Tory from Ottawa will permit it; he calls it creeping liberalism.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don’t think I can recall all of the parts of that one question. I will deal with it in a general sense.

The policy of this government has been and continues to be to provide services of a bilingual nature where they are required, and to produce government documentation in the French language where it makes practical sense to do so; and that will continue to be the policy. We have increased the number of documents and the number of services; and we will continue this on an orderly basis. As the question relates to the specific items, those are some that are under consideration. There are others being considered by the government. They will continue to be considered and as these develop the House and the public will be informed.

Mr. Samis: Supplementary: May I ask either the Premier or the Minister of Transportation and Communications If any definite action is being taken for 1976 --

Mr. Speaker: Order please. If there is no question for the Premier, you can’t direct a supplementary to another minister.

Mr. Samis: To the Premier then: Can the Premier tell us if there is definite action being taken on the 1976 motor vehicle licences so that application forms will be bilingual?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think I really answered that in the first reply. I said there are a number of things presently under consideration.

DRUG TRAFFICKING PENALTIES

Mr. Spence: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Attorney General. Is the Attorney General aware of the concern of a number of people in this province in regard to the light sentences that are handed down to those who are in possession of drugs and in the process of trafficking? In Chatham two months ago a 90-day intermittent sentence was handed down for this offence. Is there any way that sentences can be more severe for those who are trafficking in drugs in this province?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, I certainly share my hon. friend’s concern with respect to the very serious situation related to any trafficking in drugs in this province. It is a very critical problem. One of the difficulties so far as the province is concerned, I should inform the House, is that most drug prosecutions are conducted by agents of the federal Ministry of Justice. I don’t have the actual figures, but virtually all the major drug prosecutions are conducted by the federal government, and what we can do as a province is relatively limited.

I certainly have instructed all the Crown attorneys under our ministry to be very aggressive in any prosecutions they handle, but as I have indicated, most of them are handled by the federal government.

Mr. Nixon: Perhaps it could be given to Judy as an expanded term of reference.

ESSEX PACKERS

Mr. Mackenzie: A question of the Minister of Industry and Tourism: As the workers at Essex Packers are right now considering investing up to $1,000 of their savings in the firm, has the minister received a request from Mr. Ephrams Jonah, the accountant for the employees’ council, for information leading to the reasons the provincial government was not willing to invest in this company; and if he has or does receive that request in the next day or two, will he give the employees’ council the information?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I have not received any request from the employees’ council. I believe the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Handleman) has received a request as to the investment programme, and I believe that ministry has already indicated very clearly under what conditions employees might invest, given the constraints that are placed upon that company at this moment. I would be prepared to review the letter or the request, and at that time make a decision.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary: The minister really is not changing his position, stated previously, that the principal owners of Essex Packers had the resources to invest further in the company to keep it operational?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that I gathered the relationship between the Liberal leader’s remarks and the previous question.

Mr. Nixon: I might clarify that, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: If he would.

Mr. Nixon: We are concerned about the employees being asked to invest in what I suppose the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) would call a pig in a poke, a phrase he has used recently, when in this instance the minister himself has said the principals in Essex Packers have the financial resources to further invest and keep the company operating, rather than the government and the taxpayers and the workers being called upon to save it.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, it is our understanding that at present the owners could find the necessary funds to continue the operation. That is the understanding we have. As to under what conditions or terms an employee might invest in the operation of the company, that, of course, will be under the guidelines of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations and the Ontario Securities Commission.

We have been approached by several outside organizations that would like to get involved in the takeover of Essex Packers, but that is a decision that will have to come as a result of the board of directors’ meeting at Essex Packers and whether the outside firms are able to find the sources. I say to this House that as the Ministry of Industry and Tourism we are not in a position to give any encouragement to the employees to invest in this particular firm.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question of the minister: Has the minister made any representation to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations with regard to what information ought to be made available to those employees in order to ensure they’re not sucked into investing?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, the question asked is one which will relate entirely to the employees’ representations to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations and to the Ontario Securities Commission. The terms of reference under which an employee might invest in a company will have no relationship to the information we have on file within our ministry on a confidential basis.

Mr. Deans: Why?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: None whatsoever, because the Securities Commission will indicate very clearly what are the terms under which an employee might invest in that company, if he or she so wishes to do.

Mr. Nixon: It has been delisted.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Renfrew South. The final supplementary on this question.

Mr. Lewis: Are you going to make Essex Packers the company of the year?

Mr. Yakabuski: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Does the minister feel the fact that the employees may be investing in this firm would have a good effect and would tend to ensure the success of that company?

Mr. Lewis: Wonderful idea.

Hon. J. R. Smith: It is delisted.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, from the limited amount of information I have I wouldn’t want to offer an opinion at this time without knowing how much money the employees might be investing.

Mr. Deans: Would you invest your money in that firm?

Mr. Lewis: Would you put a nickel into Essex Packers?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: The leader of the third party has already indicated one of the problems that employees might find in trying to invest in a company which has been delisted.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, they would lose their money, that is why.

Mr. Gaunt: Dig into your sock, cough up.

CLASSIFICATIONS OF JUDGES

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, through you: My question is of the Attorney General. Could the Attorney General advise this House whether or not it is a fact that judges in the provincial court in this province are classified in the same category as a Crown attorney, grade 2?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I’m not sure that I have the correct answer to that. I should inform the House, though, that the Ministry of the Attorney General does not have anything to do with the salaries of provincial judges. I don’t know exactly what the situation was before, but upon becoming Attorney General I made clear my views that this is not something which should involve the Ministry of the Attorney General because of the possibility of a conflict of interest. I think the question should be redirected -- the Chairman of Management Board (Mr. Auld) is not here but when he returns I’m sure he’ll be able to answer my hon. friend’s question.

Mrs. Campbell: A supplementary: Could I explain to the Attorney General that I was not talking about salaries? It was talking about a classification and whether or not judges now are regarded as civil servants or public servants in this province as they are provincial judges?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, that matter is an issue I am presently discussing with some of my colleagues. I think we will be able to give a more definitive answer within the next few days. I can say that as far as I’m concerned the matter is not entirely clear. My view is that they should not be classified as civil servants.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. member for Lakeshore have a supplementary?

Mr. Lawlor: I don’t know if the Attorney General is as circumspect as other Attorneys General. Does he not subscribe to the position of one of his predecessors in office, namely Dalton Bales, who gave certain understandings and, as they understood it, commitments to the provincial judges of this province with respect not just to salaries but to parity in a whole range of benefits vis-à-vis the county court judges?

Mr. Lewis: That was before the guidelines.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I’m not sure I really understand my friend’s question.

Mrs. Campbell: I am sure you don’t.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: As far as I’m concerned --

Mr. Lawlor: A previous Attorney General committed himself. Is this minister not bound?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I am bound to do what I can to see that the provincial judges in our province are treated entirely fairly. I will certainly do anything I can, to see that occurs and I’m satisfied that it will occur.

Mr. Lawlor: He doesn’t know.

DREE GRANTS

Mr. Ferrier: I have a question of the Treasurer: Have any agreements been signed between his ministry and DREE to cover either the whole of the northeast or part of the northeast? If so, how much money has been made available this year for this

section of the province?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I’d be glad to get that information for the member.

SERVICE STATION OPERATORS

Mr. Reed: I have a question for the Minister of Energy. Is the minister now prepared to reveal the cabinet’s decision on whether or not to introduce interim measures to protect independent service station operators -- which he said could come in the next few weeks, according to the Nov. 6 Etobicoke Gazette?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: No, Mr. Speaker.

PROPERTY TAX CREDIT

Mrs. Bryden: I have a question for the provincial Treasurer. If the provincial Treasurer is sticking to his plans to restrict increases in provincial grants to municipalities to an unrealistic five or six per cent, and as a result of course --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. That is editorial comment. If there is some information requested, fine.

Mrs. Bryden: Is the Treasurer considering an increase in the property tax credit this coming year to maintain his contention that he is interested in reducing the regressivity of the property tax, which will inevitably go tip as a result of this restrictive grant?

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, all these matters are under consideration.

JURORS’ FEES

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Attorney General. Is the Attorney General aware of the financial hardship imposed upon many who are selected for jury duty? Is he prepared at this time to follow the recommendations or suggestions made by his predecessors that jurors’ fees be substantially increased?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, that’s a question that perhaps should be more properly directed toward the provincial Treasurer.

Mr. Renwick: No, I would think it is for the Anti-Inflation Board.

Mr. B. Newman: Supplementary: Is the minister aware that those who fail to report for jury duty are quite often fined or treated much more harshly than is the criminal?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: No, I am not aware of that, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The oral question period has expired.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Motions.

Introduction of bills.

PUBLIC HEALTH AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Leluk moved first reading of bill intituled,

An Act to amend the Public Health Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. Leluk: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to ensure that patent medicines in liquid, tablet or capsule form, and household chemicals in liquid or solid form that are for sale in Ontario, will be packaged in child-resistant packages.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

TORONTO TEACHERS’ NEGOTIATIONS

Mr. Lewis moved that the regular business of the House be set aside to discuss a matter of urgent public importance understanding order 30; namely, the turmoil into which negotiations between the Metro Toronto School Board and teachers have been thrown by virtue of the Anti-Inflation Board decision last Friday; the consequences for future collective bargaining relationships; and the implication of potential damage to the education system, both in Metro and province-wide.

Mr. Speaker: I might say first of all that due and proper notice was given to the Speaker, according to standing order 30, and according to our standing orders a member from each party may have five minutes to present his or her position. The hon. Leader of the Opposition leads off.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, that’s appropriate, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to work on the hope, if not the premise, that the debate will be permitted and, therefore, I would like to save the substance of what I want to put to you, sir, for that debate itself. I would just like to present very quickly three of the arguments, as indicated in the motion, which, I think, make the debate at this point in time sensible and appropriate.

I will admit to you, sir, despite the request of the provincial Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) for benchmark decisions over the last week or two or three, that I, as one politician in this House, was really thrown by the explicit recommendation of the Anti-Inflation Board last Friday. I’m not talking, for the moment, to the quality of what they said but to its impact. Let me say that the negotiations in Metropolitan Toronto have been thrown into unutterable shambles and what was difficult before is almost irretrievable now, and that seems to me, in the context of 140,000 students and 8,500 teachers, to be a matter which justifies an urgent public debate.

There is absolutely no indication, Mr. Speaker, may I suggest to you respectfully, how we are now to approach this dilemma in this collective bargaining dispute. Although I asked the Premier (Mr. Davis) and the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) in good faith today what they would suggest, it seems to me that the facile response that the parties return to the bargaining table, without indicating some sense of provincial direction is, indeed, difficult for the parties.

Therefore, what we are likely to see in the alternate is that the teachers go off to Ottawa today, wounded and angry; the proceedings on the application for bad-faith bargaining occur before the Education Relations Commission tomorrow and are prolonged through this week, and that the negotiations, however they have been characterized in the past, are inexorably grinding to a halt now.

I don’t know whether the teachers were led down the garden path or not in their contracts with Ottawa and the Anti-Inflation Board over the last several weeks -- I rather think they were, Mr. Speaker, but that aside, I think the teachers were surprised; I think the boards were surprised; there may even have been some surprise and concern on the government’s part about the decision that was rendered on Friday.

I have not heard in a long time a position of such elemental stupidity as that which was put by Jean-Luc Pepin when he said that he could not set a percentage figure which might someday be acceptable because, “I do not want to interfere in the collective bargaining process.” If that is the way in which the Anti-Inflation Board is going to behave with our teachers in the Province of Ontario then a motion of urgent public importance is surely in order.

Very briefly, it is also obviously in order, I think, because it has implications for future collective bargaining relationships for other teachers and boards all over Ontario. It is, I think, in order because the anxiety and feelings of the teachers as a consequence -- speaking not to the merits of the salary position but speaking to the natural feelings, emotional responses and attitudes of an aggrieved group, dealt with, I think, unfairly and in some ways thoughtlessly by the board -- this, too, merits debate in order to prevent real damage to the educational system, that object being shared by all.

I therefore hope, Mr. Speaker, that you can bring yourself to accept this as a matter of urgent public importance and rule accordingly.

[Applause.]

Mr. Speaker: The member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk. Order, please. Will the hon. member just take his seat momentarily, please? We’re always happy to have visitors in our galleries, of course, but one of the very firm rules around here is that there shall be no demonstration of any kind. That includes applause or any other sort of demonstration. I would ask our visitors in our galleries to abide by that rule. Thank you very much.

[3:00]

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, my colleagues and I urge you, sir, to consider this a matter of urgent public importance and I feel confident that you will and it will be not necessary for us to have a vote in the House to indicate even more clearly our feeling that such a debate should proceed.

The fact that the ruling on Friday from the Anti-Inflation Board was undertaken without any discussion on the basis of government policy in this House is simply a further indication that there is not an alternative time on which such a debate or discussion here could take place. The government opposite has declared as a matter of policy that it does not wish to, nor will it, involve itself in this discussion, but has left the responsibility completely to the Anti-Inflation Board, a federal emanation.

We will have another opportunity to discuss further and debate what we believe the necessity is for this government to involve themselves on a matter of specific responsibility with the teachers and other groups in this province. But we, sir, agree wholeheartedly that the decision on Friday has left the teachers -- and, in fact, the boards -- in a position where they really cannot proceed in any effective way.

For that reason, the only alternative is for this House not only to debate the matter, but hopefully to debate it in such a way that eventually action by this government will be used to either moderate the situation in Ottawa -- and we will be able to state more clearly how we feel it should be moderated when the debate proceeds -- or to take provincial responsibility, which we think would be the preferable course of action.

We urge upon you, sir, the acceptance of this matter and this motion so that the debate can proceed this afternoon.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, the government agrees that this is a matter of public importance, a discussion of which would be very helpful.

Interjections.

Mr. Lewis: Well, well. How the world turns!

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: How it spins on its axis.

Mr. Speaker: I would suggest that the --

Hon. Mr. Davis: Are you disappointed?

Mr. Lewis: Not at all.

Mr. Speaker: Can we get on with the business of the afternoon?

Interjections.

Mr. MacDonald: They’ve finally recognized reality.

Mr. Speaker: In view of such unanimity, the Speaker cannot do otherwise but rule in favour of the debate. But I think the arguments have been quite convincing that it is a matter of urgent importance; it’s timely. It’s important not only to the local situation but it has been mentioned by at least two of the speakers that it is of general interest across the province, not only in this situation but others. So I am prepared to put the question, shall the debate proceed?

Those in favour of the debate proceeding will please say “aye.”

Those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the “ayes” have it.

By the way, I believe you are all familiar with the rules. Each speaker has 10 minutes to place his viewpoint with the debate adjourning at 6 o’clock, if not before.

TORONTO TEACHERS’ NEGOTIATIONS

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I hope to offer some useful reflections, if not absolute solutions and I don’t intend -- may I say to the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) who may enter the debate -- to do it in a spirit which is either combative or provocative. I just hope that all of us feel that it needs to be done.

Last night I was at what was intended to be a small membership meeting at my own riding association in Scarborough West. When I arrived there, I found waiting some 150 teachers from the metropolitan secondary system for whom the present dispute was a matter of intense emotional urgency. I want to say to the House that I have never seen a group of teachers in this province more embittered or more bewildered. I have never seen a greater sense of solidarity or a greater sense of confusion.

I was talking to the chairman of the Toronto Board of Education briefly at noon today. He had had some 200 teachers appear before the Toronto board last evening and confirmed the sense of anxiety and bitterness which is developing within the secondary school teaching system in Metropolitan Toronto. This is not like Windsor and it is not like Ottawa; it is qualitatively different. It is, in fact, less and less about money, ironically, in the last few days and more and more about the treatment which the teachers are receiving.

Can I say something to you, Mr. Speaker, which may sit well with some and not with others? I have always felt that the teachers are not cut out for confrontation. They are not terribly sophisticated as a group about collective bargaining confrontation. Like some sweet innocents they are led off to the slaughter. They can make very high demands on occasion but they are not all that familiar with the ways of this wily world. They tend to teach democratic practice and, therefore, to believe in it. I have often thought that that is kind of simple-minded and endearing, but it is often not very useful in the whole process.

I don’t think that teachers as a whole fully understand or believe what is happening. Their good faith, however it may be, turns to ashes in their mouths and they cannot comprehend the unfairness of it all, which is how they experience the decision which was rendered on Friday.

The hostility Mr. Speaker, is growing. Some of the teachers will quit; some will move to other boards. Some will go back to the schools or most will go back to the schools if we should force them back arbitrarily on some occasion, but it will leave in the life of the learning process in Metro Toronto an atmosphere of hostility, tension and dismay. That is not what should be permitted to happen to any aspect of education in the Province of Ontario; that’s the first point.

The second point is that the decision of the Anti-Inflation Board -- and I choose my words carefully -- was, I think, both irrational and destructive. Irrational because without a range of reasons it came to the decision and provided no arguments by which we can proceed, appropriately and usefully, with the collective bargaining process.

It was destructive because there is no sense of the history of what has happened in Ontario; how hard we all worked to create Bill 100; the sensitivity of the collective bargaining relationships as they have unfolded tor the last couple of years or, indeed, what the government of Ontario may wish to say about all of this since we have abdicated our responsibility in total.

If Jean-Luc Pepin prevails, Bill 100 will be a tattered remnant at the feet of this Legislature.

I want to point out that I am not so interested at the moment in the dollars. I have told the minister of Education in private and have said in public that I didn’t believe the Hartt report was acceptable or should be acceptable except as a negotiating item, and that obviously the teachers would have to come down. Obviously there would have to be negotiations in good faith at the bargaining table. We didn’t buy the fact-finder’s report in total. I don’t think very many people did, including now the negotiating team of the teachers. But the precise percentages are no longer what is at stake.

What is at stake is the way we deal with a very sensitive area of Ontario and with a group of people who were bargaining in good faith, and the immense importance of dealing fairly.

I think I remember, in the Throne Speech debate, saying to the members opposite that if we are going to intervene in no uncertain terms in the life of the economy, we have to do it with fairness. If it is not done fairly the anti-inflation guidelines will collapse. They won’t collapse because they aren’t applied nationally, they will collapse because they are applied unfairly.

Therefore it seems to us -- point 3 -- that we must have and should have in this province a provincial anti-inflation board where, if necessary, tough decisions could be made with our own provincial public sector, but they would not be handled so crudely and so ineptly as was discharged by Jean-Luc Pepin on Friday last.

My colleague from Wentworth (Mr. Deans) has been making the argument to me rather strongly, and others have done the same, that an anti-inflation board in Ontario might well have to deal with the private sector as well as the public sector on the basis that even though you have national guidelines, it is legitimate to argue for their enforcement in Ontario by Ontario.

That is just what we are doing with rents by the way; just what we are doing with the Farm Products Marketing Board, by the way and there is no reason why we shouldn’t do it at least for the public sector, and maybe even the private sector, or there will be serious and inequitable dislocations. It will all result in the guidelines, whatever legitimacy they may have, collapsing.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the government to consider an anti-inflation board for this province for that purpose. I want to go further.

Point 4: We don’t know where the negotiations go now. It may be that the teachers and the boards could come back to the bargaining table to attempt to negotiate a one-year agreement with a different percentage figure, take it to Ottawa and try again. However, what has really happened, irony upon ironies, is that we have introduced compulsory arbitration between teachers and boards across Ontario through the back door. The decision which all parties in this Legislature made, that compulsory arbitration was destructive to the school system, has now been reversed by caprice and by an arbitrary decision -- and I think an inappropriate decision in every sense -- last Friday.

Two final points: I, for one, would like to hope that the public and some others, politicians amongst them, would stop clobbering teachers. Teachers do silly things. Teachers do human things. Teachers, like other groups in society, make exorbitant demands from time to time. But they are, as everyone knows, dedicated and committed to the educational system. To deal with them the way we have been dealing with them, and to do what Jean-Luc Pepin did on Friday, is to demean their self-respect and their sense of fairness.

It is to put tremendous pressures and tensions on and into the school system which it cannot endure. Frankly, the hostility we are creating must be reversed if possible lay some kind of thoughtful intervention on the part of this government. And that’s really what we are asking for.

Everyone sees the writing on the wall down the road. We are heading toward compulsory arbitration. It will probably have to come in in January, or the end of December, if the situation is not rescued. The government may wish to hard-line it, for reasons which crept through the responses of the Premier and the Minister of Education today --

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s a very silly statement.

Mr. Lewis: -- but the short-run decision will have disastrous long-term consequences. As I take my seat, I urge upon the government the recognition that the Anti-Inflation Board will not work if it renders decisions in vacuo as it did on Friday; that the Premier and the Minister of Education should intervene to attempt to salvage the situation; and that it is the school system which is now at stake, not simply the percentages for a negotiated settlement.

Mr. Ferris: Mr. Speaker, it’s a pleasure to rise in this debate, because it is a debate which concerns not only the people of Metro Toronto, but all of the people of Ontario. I trust that what I say is positive, because I truly think that we are dealing with children -- and children are a very important product. They are the generations that will follow and will make us the strong country that we need. The reason we are really discussing this, more than anything else, is probably because of, in a word, confusion. Confusion has been introduced from several angles.

To begin with, I would agree with the Leader of the Opposition that this strike is not necessarily the same strike as in Windsor, or the same as in Ottawa. I have talked to people who were involved in them at the time, and the situation here seems to be different. It is done with a different set of rules. This is because of the introduction of Bill 100 and perhaps that in itself, coming in as quickly as it did, has caused some of the initial problems in this dispute.

[3:15]

As we then look at why we are in a special debate today, it is obviously because of the announcement by Mr. Pepin last Friday which seemed to just put the cap on a situation which was becoming totally irrational, I would believe, from both sides. Both sides have obviously made mistakes but I think that very deep inside they are really trying to make some kind of settlement.

I think what we must look at, having gone through these very bitter times, is the involvement, as the Leader of the Opposition has said, and the action that we have been requesting for some time now that to clear the matter up, the minister, the Premier and the people who are responsible for the government of this province must become involved.

They must, once again, also become involved in setting up structures within Ontario to deal with matters that are purely Ontario’s concerns, not just teachers but public servants as well. The matters that have been delegated them traditionally through legislation they should not be attempting to put over and turn over to a federal group who do not necessarily understand the problems that exist in Metro or in any board of education in the Province of Ontario.

To look briefly at the anti-inflation white paper, the federal government included the clause -- and, hopefully, we believe that it has some rational reason for being there -- that there may also be other grounds for exceptions, such as increases necessary to maintain long-established historical relationships between wages in closely related groups and other special cases.

In my view, there is at least some room to believe that there is a historical relationship between the teachers within the same system. The principle has existed for many years on many boards that two teachers with the same qualifications should always be paid the same amount of money. This is a very logical reasoning. To be faced then with a decision that says, even if that was given, it would be too much, certainly confuses the issues and compounds the problems of this strike.

I think there are very few easy solutions once a matter has got to this point. Once again, we can say Bill 100 must run its course, but let’s think a little bit. Bill 100 is a very new bill; it’s suffering growing pains obviously. Maybe we could perhaps make a comment that it’s time that the minister and the Premier became involved with straightening out the situation in Bill 100 and maybe teach it or help it to learn how to walk in its new-found state. Most certainly the effects of the processes that are going through are going to be very damaging, if this is the ultimate resolution of the problem.

The quality in the environment of the classroom itself surely must suffer. The resignations of teachers, I am told, are already coming to boards. This would be a very sad situation.

The answer or the direction that we wish to be followed and that must be followed in our mind is that we ask the minister and the Premier to become involved, to gather with whatever resources are necessary to sit down and draw up what the new rules that must be used in the process of bargaining. This is so confused now that I’m sure that neither side without a very long discussion really knows which direction to turn.

As well as becoming involved, I think it incumbent upon the government at the same time to take the steps that are necessary to set up the legislation that they can themselves act and rule on matters which are of their jurisdiction and cannot be delegated to an outside body.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, in commenting on this resolution which we have before the House today, first of all I would like to begin by saying that, of course, I agree with the Leader of the Opposition that in order to have a first-class educational system such as we have in this province, and such as we always have had, there must be high morale among those who work in that system. There must be high morale among the teaching staff and the administration staff. Certainly, as Minister of Education, I have always felt it was my duty to help promote that kind of relationship.

In order to have the kind of educational system we all want in this province there must also be a feeling of trust and respect between the teacher, the student and the community, particularly the parents.

As I’ve said many times, the biggest thrust in education today has to be to open the classroom doors and to have the community involved in the educational process. It’s not the sole prerogative of the teaching profession. It’s not the sole prerogative of the trustees, it’s not the sole prerogative of one particular group; it belongs to everyone in the community. The parents are the ones for whom the educational system exists and they must be a part of it.

I guess what I’m saying is that we regret that in circumstances such as we now find in Metro Toronto this kind of progression gets set back one step further. Barriers are built up between teachers and parents and between students and parents. I would have to regret this for the good of education and for the good of a first-class educational system which cannot be built on this kind of breakdown in relationships. Therefore I think anything we can do to bridge the situation which occurs when this kind of impasse occurs has to be helpful and has to be for the good of education.

In this House, last spring or last summer we debated Bill 100, and one of the cornerstones of Bill 100 was that through it we would be able to help re-establish some of these relationships in our school system. We would be able to help build respect and trust and we would do it through responsible actions; through building a process by which teachers and boards would bargain; and through giving teachers the right to withhold their services as a last resort if all the steps of responsibility in the bill had been fulfilled and they still found they hadn’t arrived at a satisfactory conclusion to their agreement.

I think we all agreed in this House that the steps in that bill and the rights given to the teaching profession were right and that they were based upon a sense of the responsibility of all those partners in the school system.

Now we have in Metropolitan Toronto an outgrowth of teacher-board bargaining which began before Bill 100, which continued through the passage of Bill 100 and which has led us to an impasse, a strike, a withdrawal of services and a straining of those relationships which I say are so necessary to a high quality educational system. We now have an impasse and I want to review what happened and led up to that impasse.

It’s been said many times in this House that the Premier and the Minister of Education should be involved. I want to state again that we have been involved. This government has been involved through the Minister of Education who appointed a mediator away back in the middle of June, 1975, to try to bring the parties together and to try to help them arrive at a settlement here in Metro Toronto.

Why did we take that unusual step? Why did we take the unusual step of bringing one of Canada’s best labour mediator-negotiators to Metro Toronto to try to help get a settlement? Because we knew this was going to be a tough bargaining situation. We knew the parties hadn’t been talking. We knew as a government, and the parties knew, that it would not be in the good interest of education in Metro to have a strike or a work stoppage here. So we brought in Stanley Hartt back in June, and he worked through July and he worked through August in an attempt to get a settlement.

As I said in this House the other day, he had the parties sign off about 300 items in the contract, but there were still seven or so important items left, the most important of those the monetary ones. On those particular items he was not able to bring the parties together. They did not agree; an impasse came about. A fact-finder was appointed; Stanley Hartt was appointed as that fact-finder and he brought in his report. As he now says, he brought in a report which he said was what he thought would get a settlement.

He said it was what he thought would get a settlement in Metro Toronto, not what he thought people were worth, not what he thought the board should pay, not what he thought about any other particular thing, but a report which he said he thought would bring about a settlement.

That report was subsequently embraced by the teacher negotiators as a basis for settlement and, with certain modifications, put in as their final offer. The board put in as its final offer an offer based on the monetary settlement it had given to the elementary teachers and which had been accepted by them just a few weeks earlier.

However, even these two final positions, very clearly delineated and well-known to all, didn’t produce a settlement; and bargaining, even eleventh-hour bargaining with Bill Dickie trying to get both sides together and myself meeting with them just before the deadline, did not provide any settlement; and so we have an impasse in Metropolitan Toronto.

I think the important thing to remember in this particular situation is that in the midst of all this the Prime Minister of Canada, on Oct. 13, on Thanksgiving Day, said to this country: “We have a desperate situation here. The economy is in bad shape; we have all got to do something about it if we are to keep this country running. If we are to maintain some semblance of the kind of standard of living that we want and that we have in this country, if we are to keep utter chaos out of our economy, we have got to do something and we have all got to do something.” He laid the challenge before us. He presented his price and wage guidelines programme.

This came out of the blue to some; to others there was an indication it was coming; but it came and it descended on all segments of the Canadian economy, private and public. It has descended on the private sector in the Province of Ontario. Through the national programme, they have no choice but to be part of that national programme. If one works for a firm that employs over 500 or a construction company over 20, one has no choice; the federal procedures become operative. The province has decided that those procedures should apply in the public sector also, because we think that in the short term something has got to be done to bring inflation under control.

These negotiations and the offers that have been made, are now found to have become part of this general programme. Whatever agreement was arrived at, whatever agreement was settled on, if it had been settled on in the last few days, would have had to go to the Anti-inflation Board. The school board, and to some degree the teacher negotiators, felt it might be helpful in Metro if they could get some indication of what the board was thinking insofar as their contract was concerned; if they could get this indication it would help them perhaps to arrive at a contract settlement; and the Anti-Inflation Board last Friday, of course, did give its opinion.

I draw to your attention Mr. Speaker, that this opinion is also subject to appeals. Once the final decision is arrived at, there are appeal procedures that can come into play.

Let me just finish by saying that I think the solution at the present time is for both parties to get back to the bargaining table and talk to each other. I understand that the Education Relations Commission has been in contact with the two parties, that the two parties are coming together for a meeting tomorrow, that a mediator will be appointed immediately if they wish. I am hopeful that by tomorrow afternoon they will be sitting down and talking together.

If they wish me to come to those meetings, for clarification or for some type of assistance to arrive at a settlement in Metropolitan Toronto, I would be glad to come to those meetings also; but I can assure the House that I think that is what should be happening, and it will be happening tomorrow, and that from there we will have to see where the process goes.

[3:30]

Mr. Deans: I want to spend a few moments in this debate setting out what I see as being wrong with what has happened. First of all, we all agree that the Pepin decision of last week is the reason for the debate. I don’t necessarily feel that the cause of the chaos is that decision, but rather it is because of this government’s failure to provide political leadership. It is because of this government’s inability to provide economic guidance and it is because of this government’s failure to deal with the many rising cost-of-living items that were within its jurisdiction.

It is easy enough now to turn around and say that we are going to abdicate responsibility to Ottawa. We are going to allow them to do to the people of Ontario whatever they will without this government taking any positions of any kind. We spent three years in this Legislature debating the whole matter of regularizing negotiations between teachers and boards. It resulted in a number of strikes. It resulted in a number of demonstrations. It was the cause of many sleepless nights for a lot of members of the Legislature.

In July of this year, all 117 of us came to the conclusion, given the choice between compulsory arbitration on the one hand and free collective bargaining on the other, it was in the best interests of the educational system of the Province of Ontario that free collective bargaining should prevail in the province and not compulsory arbitration.

What we have seen happen over the last few days is the federal government impose itself in Ontario, come in and say, notwithstanding what was decided by this Legislature to be in the best interests of the people of the Province of Ontario, compulsory arbitration would be the order of the day, that collective bargaining no longer would take effect and, no matter what decisions are reached between the parties at the bargaining table, they will finally impose a settlement upon both sides. That’s what happened in the case of the city of Hamilton and its elementary teachers. Not only is Toronto facing difficulty but so is the city I represent.

The city of Hamilton’s elementary teachers came to an understanding with the board and signed a collective agreement. Then it went to the Anti-Inflation Board where they reduced the agreement by eight per cent. They didn’t take into account the historical relationships. They didn’t take into account regional disparities or any regional differences that might be in effect in that area. They simply decided on whatever basis they make these decisions that they should reduce it by an amount of eight per cent.

They said that at some point perhaps they can make it up over three or four years, the secondary school teachers taking a little less, and the elementary school teachers getting a little more, without any clear indication of the rationale that brought them to the decision they came to.

It is evident to most of us that compulsory arbitration does not work. It has been tried in many jurisdictions. It has never succeeded. The whole purpose of collective bargaining is to bring about a settlement which is satisfactory to both parties. This cannot be arrived at through a wholesale intrusion by the federal government. It seems to me that the provincial government in this jurisdiction has the responsibility to speak on behalf of the people of Ontario.

Of course this government should take

part in the discussions that set the guidelines and of course it should have a representative on anybody that sits down to talk about what’s in the best interests of the country as a whole. But when it comes to dealing with the people of the Province of Ontario, when it comes to dealing with their economic futures, when it comes to dealing with the way the collective bargaining system ought to work and when it comes to deciding what the purchasing power of people in this province ought to be and how they are going to be dealt with, that is the responsibility of this government; and this government has failed in that responsibility.

It is easy enough to turn around and point the finger at Ottawa and to say that it is not this government’s fault. But it is its fault; because these people who live here have to buy here, to purchase houses and to purchase in the marketplace. The fact of the matter is that unless this government sets down the guidelines for the people of the Province of Ontario, then those guidelines will be imposed by other than people in this province, and it will be imposed to the detriment of the people here.

The guidelines from Jean-Luc Pepin cannot work. They can’t work because they are ambiguous. They can’t work because there is no continuity evident in them. They can’t work because they will deal only with people who have to collectively bargain in the next short period of time. They will allow disparities which existed previously to continue to exist. They give no recognition to regional problems in Ontario. They don’t recognize that in fact in the Province of Ontario, we decided -- we decided, as was our sovereign right -- on what type of collective bargaining we wanted for those people within our jurisdiction.

If the government wants to abdicate its responsibility as it is now doing, then why doesn’t it just give it all away? Why doesn’t it just say to Ottawa: “Do whatever you will with us. If it’s in the best interests of the country as somebody in Ottawa sees it, then by all means just go right ahead. We’re not going to speak on behalf of the people of Ontario.”

Why should this government speak on behalf of the people of Ontario? It never has, to date.

Mr. Ferrier: You’ll respond to that, Darcy.

Mr. Deans: It’s evident to me that Jean-Luc Pepin is speaking on behalf of the policies of the federal Liberal Party and its Labour ministry. When John Munro said in Hamilton many nights ago that he would not have given the teachers the right to strike, that he in fact believed that compulsory arbitration was the way to deal with teachers, Jean-Luc Pepin got the message. The message was, “That’s what you have to impose through this body.” He is the front man for the operation that the federal Liberals can’t bring about in any democratic way.

I suggest to the government that it is bringing destruction on the educational system in the Province of Ontario; that it will be virtually impossible for teachers to address themselves to the problems at hand, to deal reasonably in the classroom -- though I know they’ll try -- that they will be consistently and continuously aggravated by the way they’ve been handled.

They will recognize now and in the future that the responsibility that was this government’s has been abdicated; that there is no way that they -- those who are being dealt with today by Pepin -- will ever be able to make up what they’re losing; that their purchasing power is being eroded by the activities of the federal government with this government marching in lock-step.

I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it’s time this government stood up and was counted. It’s time that it stood up and spoke on behalf of these people here. It’s time that it recognized its responsibility. It’s time it took action in all of the various areas that bring about the inflation we’re suffering from. It’s time that they stopped blaming the wage-earners in the Province of Ontario for all of the inflation when in fact they know full well that much of the inflation has been brought about by the rising interest rates, by the rising land costs, and because housing and accommodation are no longer within the capacity of people to buy.

In those areas this government could have acted and failed to act; and because it didn’t act we’re now faced with this kind of prohibitive legislation from Ottawa, and this government has failed miserably to protect the very people over whom it has jurisdiction.

I suggest that the government should set up a board and that board should deal not only with the public sector but also the private sector to the extent that it’s possible. The guidelines that we agreed to in Ottawa should be enforced in Ontario by a board that is responsible to the people of Ontario -- directly responsible to the people of Ontario. Those people should be able to feel confident that not one but all of them will be dealt with in the same way and that the regional disparities that we know exist in Ontario will definitely be taken into consideration by the board at the time of its deliberations.

I don’t shift the responsibility to Ottawa. I think a plague on Ottawa’s house and a plague on the provincial government of Ontario too.

Mr. Nixon: I understand the anti-inflation legislation is before the Parliament of Canada this afternoon for third reading. All going as is predicted, that will become the law of Canada within the next few days; and even before it’s proclaimed as the law, in the regulations, the imposition of the concept of wage and price controls has already been with us since the Prime Minister’s announcement on Thanksgiving Day.

There are two provisions I think we must consider this afternoon. The first is the clear alternative in the law, in the national law, which allows any province to decide to implement and administer the wage and price controls at the provincial level. As has already been clearly stated by other speakers and by myself as leader of the Liberal Party, we believe that provincial implementation is going to be the best solution for the problems that confront us now with the teachers’ strike -- the continuing strike -- and other problems that we will have.

That’s been dealt with quite effectively, it seems to me, by a number of speakers. I would predict that as wage and price controls and the problems attendant on their administration and policing go forward we will see more clearly the necessity of having, at least in part, some provincial implementation if we are going to deal fairly and without delay with large groups of people who look to this Legislature and the provincial government for leadership in those spheres of provincial responsibility clearly ours under the constitution.

It has been said by the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) and perhaps others speaking for the government that those who would foster provincial implementation are really talking about a watered-down, softer approach to wage and price guidelines. I would say that is not the case. It would remove delay and it would provide the authority at the local level -- or at least the provincial level -- for those people who are directly affected by these decisions to have input with their views and, I suppose, their political pressures as well.

Certainly the Premier (Mr. Davis) feels this whole thing has to be divorced from that sort of pressure but we are a democratic society, a community which must take these things into consideration. The fact that the teachers have had to go by bus to Ottawa to parade up and down there -- as they probably are -- objecting to the decision is a clear indication of how we in this Legislature are failing in our responsibility by abdicating that to the federal government.

I would say also that the decision announced by Mr. Pepin on Friday is an indication of the lack of understanding of the problems we face here. It has already been said there are really three levels of settlement before the community -- that is, the teachers’ demands; in the middle, the Hartt recommendation; and, at the lower level, what the Board has offered, which is really, basically, the agreement which has already been accepted and is applicable to the elementary teachers.

I suppose, at some other level, there is what the wage and price board, the Anti-Inflation Board, will accept. We don’t know what that is but presumably it will be at the 12 per cent level. There is no indication otherwise.

My own feeling, and this is a rather severe thing to say I suppose, is that the statement made by the federal Anti-Inflation Board is a reflection of the way the community perceives the strike in Toronto. I think it is perceived that the teachers do not have a large degree of public support and it may even have led the Anti-Inflation Board to have what I suppose one might call the courage to make the pronouncement it made on Friday. I believe the pronouncement is wrong. I believe it is based on inadequate information and that is probably the kindest thing to say about it.

I personally believe it might even be motivated by a board looking desperately for some clear demarcation line where it lowers the boom on some group within the community and says, “You think you should have more but we are not going to permit it.” I think that perhaps the decision was motivated by the Anti-Inflation Board seeking some convenient way, maybe an easy way, to be tough with a large and important group within the community.

I suppose they have set upon the teachers in Toronto as such a group and one on which they could lower the boom with some impunity. I think it is our job here to say to the Anti-Inflation Board that either it is not in possession of the facts or the second provision of that federal law has not been considered adequately. That is the historic relationship built into the law which should have given the Anti-Inflation Board the kind of impetus, the kind of stance, which would have permitted it to say to the Toronto board, “We will permit you to settle with your teachers and pay them the same

schedule as the elementary school teachers.”

This would not have been received by the teacher’s with joy -- they’ve been fighting against that for a long time -- but I will say it is the only basis for fair, just and legitimate settlement of this present controversy under the circumstances as they are. The teachers are very strong, well-organized and recently militant group, I do not believe that they as a group are going to be able to accept, with any rational expectation that the school system will go back on an orderly and productive basis, a settlement which is anything less than what the school board presently pays the elementary school teachers.

[3:45]

To talk about the historical association, it is true that the OSSTF for years has fought against the same salary

schedule as payable to the elementary school teachers. I can remember an occasion in 1953 when the strike weapon was not available but a weapon called “pink listing” was, and the secondary school teachers in Toronto pink-listed all of the schools here because the school board had the temerity to insist they would pay all teachers on the basis of the same salary schedule. That pink listing lasted for many months and it did apply substantial pressures to the board. There was a solution, I suppose acceptable to both sides, when the board finally said, “Well, we are going to have the same

schedule but we will put it on two pieces of paper,” and on that basis of rational deliberation, after many months, a solution was effected.

My point is this, Mr.

Speaker: There is ample historical precedent for the association of those two salary schedules that the Anti-Inflation Board, if they knew about it -- and surely they did know about it -- could have accepted and said, in the case of the Toronto strike which started on Nov. 11, “We are prepared to moderate the guidelines, which have built into them some rational and reasonable flexibility, and we are prepared to accept that as a settlement.” It would have been seen by reasonable teachers, taxpayers, and reasonable members of the government, as a way to achieve a fair and just settlement of a situation here and still maintain the lid on inflation which all of us believe must be a part of the control of the economy which we are having now.

So I would just say to you, Mr. Speaker, that in my judgement we will not get back any sort of peace, order and good teaching in this community -- that is, Toronto and across the province -- unless the settlement is on the basis of paying teachers with the same qualifications, working for the same board, the same amount of money. While the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) and the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) may want to attempt to justify it on the basis of fitting into the tough federal concept of controlling inflation, anything else is not acceptable because it is patiently unfair and will be seen to be unfair.

I feel very strongly that the Minister of Education has to do more than just offer his services to the Education Relations Commission. He has protected himself, and the government has protected itself, so carefully in this matter that they don’t even have to decide when to use the power of this Legislature to end the strike and impose compulsory arbitration or some other solution. They don’t have to do anything until Mr. Shime and his board hold hearings, or whatever they are going to do, and get around to sending a letter np here saying “We think now the strike has gone on long enough.”

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a few comments and try to put some of our thinking in the context of not just the teachers, who are the cause célèbre of the moment and the purpose of this particular discussion this afternoon. I think we have to put inflation not just in the context of the federal programme announced on Thanksgiving Day, but we do have to put our problems in the context of worldwide and Canadian inflation, which have been with us now for two years.

We must particularly put our problems here in Ontario in the context of Canadian inflation, which is now running at nearly twice the rate of inflation in the United States. We have seen, in instance after instance, not just wage costs but Canadian salary costs as well, both from the organized and the unorganized sector, break through not only parity with our trading partner the United States, but in fact surpass parity. We’ve seen example after example where costs here have become higher than they are in the United States.

I think we must reflect on all the attendant problems which that means to us as a country, and particularly in this manufacturing Province of Ontario, which accounts for so much of the percentage -- 60 per cent or 70 per cent, whatever it is -- of the finished manufactured goods which are exported from Canada.

We have consistently argued and we have taken such action as we thought was necessary in terms of Ontario Energy Board hearings; in terms of restraint and constraint. We have consistently argued that if inflation was to be dealt with it had to be on a national basis; that we were in fact a country in which so much of the answer to inflation could only be on a national basis, where one had the fiscal and monetary tools to deal with inflation, that that could only happen on a national level.

Lest there be any doubt in the mind of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Lewis), the support expressed by Ontario happens to be 100 per cent support. We support what the federal government is trying to do; what it is trying to achieve not out of any sense of ultra-nationalism or national purpose for the sake of national purpose. Quite frankly, we believe it is important in Ontario and we believe it is important in Canada that we come to grips with the whole subject and the whole question of inflation.

Mr. Nixon: But it wasn’t a freeze; it wasn’t a freeze.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: There would be people on both sides of the line.

Mr. Lewis: It wasn’t a freeze.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It was not a freeze -- and whether there was a freeze or not, there would be people on both sides of the line.

Mr. Nixon: But there are provisions for justice.

Mr. Lewis: But there are provisions for fairness; that is what one is asking.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: There are provisions for fairness. In the case of the Hamilton dispute, for example, I understand something like 30 per cent was agreed to, where the guidelines say 12 per cent or 10 per cent, depending on your

interpretation. I suppose bringing that 12 per cent up to 22 per cent, as I understand the board’s decision, is some element of fairness. But whether it is as fair as I think it should be, or the Leader of the Opposition thinks it should be, I suppose is a matter of some debate.

There is no question it would be easier on us, in the short run, with a provincial board. But what do we do with a provincial board? Recognizing the fact that a provincial board would be closer to the people, as is a provincial government; that we are -- and let’s face it -- in a minority situation in this province; that there would be pressures -- the leader of the third party, undoubtedly, would say, “Well, the teachers deserve special consideration; the teachers better go through and we will deal with the next one or we will deal with the one after that.”

Perhaps the federal Anti-Inflation Board, or a provincial one, should have let teachers march through with whatever their requests might be; perhaps they should have. But the Anti-Inflation Board has chosen to start drawing the line as of Oct. 14.

Mr. Nixon: I don’t know who suggested that we didn’t want any controls? Why are you setting up a thing like that?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I say to the leader of --

Mr. Nixon: It is ridiculous; it is unworthy of you, unworthy.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I say to the leader of the third party: When would he come to grips with this situation?

Mr. Nixon: When a board of this Legislature was established.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: When would he come to grips with the situation? There are 98,000 rail workers in this country whose contract expires at the end of this month. Would he come to grips with that situation? Would he make his date Dec. 31? I say to him there are 6,300 people at General Electric in this province whose contract comes due on Dec. 31. Which side of the line would he put them on?

I was impressed and had some consideration for the remarks -- the fine remarks -- of the Leader of the Opposition. I dismiss completely the man-the-barricades approach of the member for Wentworth (Mr. Deans). But I say to the leader of the third party, where does he draw the line? Does he draw it on Oct. 14, as the federal legislation says, or does he let everything go right on marching through?

Mr. Nixon: There is not a freeze.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Does he play to his friends in the gallery on this occasion and say no to the rail workers? Or does he say yes to the rail workers, yes to the teachers, yes to the doctors; and then draw the line next spring with the construction workers?

I say to the leader of the third party, for once in his life he should stand up and be counted on something. He shouldn’t just try to give in to every little group that comes along every day of the week, because he is never going to succeed on that basis. At some point, you have to stand and be counted; and we on this side of the House are acting as we perceive the people of Ontario want. I perceive that the people of Ontario say to us, “Look, the line has to be drawn. It hurts some of us on one side of the line, it lets other people go through, but there is a time -- ”

Mr. Nixon: Your point is even weaker than I thought with that sort of an approach.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: What does the leader of the third party think the people of Canada are saying about the postal workers? Let him ask that question. In my view, the people of Canada have supported Mr. Mackasey and said, “Stick to your guns.” That decision too goes to the Anti-Inflation Board. Would the leader of the third party have let the postal workers march right through?

Mr. Conway: There is no comparison.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Has he been saying to Mr. Mackasey he should have offered more? Would he have offered more?

Mr. Nixon: They got more than 12 per cent, buddy!

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Where would the leader of the third party draw his line? At some point we in this Legislature have to stand and be counted, and we on this side of the House are prepared to stand and be counted in a Canadian national effort against inflation.

Mr. Nixon: Yes, but you are not standing and being counted; you are doing nothing about it. You are abdicating completely.

An hon. member: You are passing the buck.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Make no mistake: This isn’t Prince Edward Island; this isn’t the Legislature in Charlottetown. What this province does in the battle against inflation has a bearing on the success of this programme across Canada. If we stand and are prepared to deal with inflation, then this programme has some chance of success.

Interjections.

Mr. Nixon: You are doing nothing.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: If we stand, then this programme does have some chance of success.

Mr. Lewis: No, you are killing the programme.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: If we start to bring it into being, if we give it our support, if we rally around and say, “Okay, let’s get on with this job; let’s not put off something that is unpleasant today.”

Let’s let the mill rates go ahead; let’s put two or three more points on the sales tax --

Mrs. Campbell: That’s what you are doing.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: -- let’s give the teachers whatever they want because they are nice people -- that’s the attitude of the leader of the third party and it’s about time he remembered that he also speaks in this Legislature for the taxpayers of this province.

The taxpayers of this province are fed up with at least one thing, according to the leader of the third party; they are fed up with high taxes. That’s what he talked about for two months last summer. He never said what he would do about it, and today we have the first glimmer of an answer. He would let the anti-inflation programme go to pot, and he would let the teachers, being the first group up, march right on through.

Mr. Nixon: Darcy, you are ridiculous. You are right out of --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: He would let them march right through. And I suppose he would let the rail workers march through --

Mr. Nixon: What did you have for lunch?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I suppose you would let the doctors march through. Where, I say to the leader of the third party, where does he draw the line?

Mr. Nixon: Give him a saliva test.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Where does he stand up and be counted for Ontario and for Canada?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: With that kind of performance, if there had been businessmen in the gallery instead of teachers, the Treasurer would have left the ground.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Nixon: Darcy, have you ever thought about going into polities?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: And don’t give me this seduction.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Scarborough-Ellesmere is the next speaker.

Mr. Warner: Now that we have been informed by the Treasurer about drawing solid lines, I assume that he will announce tomorrow that the sales tax will not increase as of Jan. 1, 1976, because it is that very point around which I centre some of my remarks.

This government does not wish to give up its authority over the sales tax, as it was given in the British North America Act and rightly so. It took a very strong position that it was not covered in the white paper, and therefore the sales tax would be left to the discretion of the government. All well and good’; it’s a provincial responsibility, one which should be lived up to and one which should ultimately see the stopping of sales tax, because it is a regressive measure. But when we come to education, another provincial responsibility guaranteed to this government under the BNA Act, we see a totally different approach.

[4:00]

We see an erosion, a usurpation of that power now given to the federal government. I submit the government ministers do not entirely understand what kind of a situation the school system in Metro Toronto is being placed in. They do not entirely understand the kind of destruction which is taking place.

I would submit that what they should do is listen carefully as the chairman of the mathematics department of a high school in this city, at the end of 25 years of teaching in the school system, explains why he can no longer continue. He’s a person who has dedicated his teaching career, his life’s work, to the educational system, and feels he has been cheated by his government. He feels his government no longer cares about his very existence and so he must quit.

It’s a very curious point here: There are few professions in which one is allowed to quit only at certain times of the year. In many jobs one can quit on giving notice of a week or even a month. In teaching, there are only three such times during the year, one of which, curiously enough, fell yesterday. Those people who were taken quite by surprise and who could not, in good conscience, review their entire life-standing and where their careers were going to head them, could not in good conscience make such a very terrible kind of decision overnight.

They are now faced with the possibility of returning to classrooms under duress, under the threat of receiving less than what is fair for their life’s work, and to remain in those classrooms until the next possible date for quitting which is late in the spring.

It places a burden upon the school system which I submit cannot be borne. It certainly cannot be home without a tremendous amount of tension. It cannot be borne without there being tension between the students and their teachers, between the students and the board, between the taxpayers and the board. I ask that the Minister of Education at some point explain how it is that school boards can reach a certain point --

Mr. Nixon: There goes the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough).

Mrs. Campbell: Stay around, Darcy.

Mr. Nixon: He can only take it for about two speeches.

Mr. Warner: -- that they were willing to pay. They reached e certain agreement and obviously they could not have reached that agreement unless they were willing to pay for it and yet that flies in the face of the Anti-Inflation Board. Why?

I think the minister should explain what his role, if any, was in the Anti-Inflation Board decision which was reached. It is my understanding that the hon. minister was there prior to the decision on the weekend and there should be some explanation of his role.

The board has indicated an ability to pay a certain percentage, clearly above the percentage which the Anti-Inflation Board is willing to grant. Where has the local autonomy gone? I submit that what we are talking about is not a question of not building a system, which the hon. Minister of Education indicated, but is clearly a question of the destruction of the collective bargaining system and, ultimately, the destruction of our school system.

What is clearly needed right now is some leadership by this government to step up to the responsibility it inherited under the BNA Act. That is guaranteeing the protection of a school system, the development of a school system and the protection of the students, teachers and taxpayers within that school system. That is not being done. Secondly it must step up and accept a political leadership role. Don’t stand there and tell us it’s a minority situation which will create great problems.

The Conservatives are the government of the day so they have the responsibility to show some leadership and if they show good leadership they will get the support of this side of the House. If they show the kind of non-leadership we’ve seen in the last few weeks it’s obvious we don’t even need to talk to them. We should all go to Ottawa and discuss it with the federal people and perhaps they should appoint a Minister of Education for this province.

I hope this government will take a more serious look not only at what is happening with regard to percentage increases, but it will look at the school system and the tremendous destruction which this dispute will have upon not just the teachers but the students and those parents whose children are in the school system; that this government will take a leadership role and that this government, if it is not ready to set up its own anti-inflation board, as it probably should do, will at least get a negotiated settlement between the two sides and make active representation to the federal government on behalf of both sides that that negotiation stick and that the schools can be opened and teachers can work in a good atmosphere once and for all.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for London North.

Mr. Shore: I will allow the member for Wentworth North to speak in my place, Mr. Speaker, if you don’t mind.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth North.

Mr. Cunningham: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Listening to the Minister of Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs, (Mr. McKeough), he reminds me of the little boy who fell out of the canoe. He’s not in it.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Try again.

Mr. Cunningham: I’m sorry he’s not here to hear it. Wage and price controls, in my view and I’m sure in the view of so many of us, are a rather unfair and inequitable method of economy.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: It would not help?

Mr. Cunningham: We all realize the severity of the problem and I’m sure we’re all dedicated to seeing some sort of meaningful solution, but it’s obvious to us -- I’m sure all of us on this side of the House -- that Jean-Luc Pepin neither appreciates the severity of the problem here as it relates to the teachers of Ontario and our educational system, nor does he have any political accountability, as we in this House do.

Hon. J. R. Smith: He’s a fine Liberal.

Mr. Lewis: He makes a good salary.

Mr. Cunningham: There is no easy solution.

Mr. Warner: Not under the guidelines.

Mr. Cunningham: In my view, and I think in the view of the people of Ontario, neither side is 100 per cent correct. I think it is a time for fairness, fairness to be administrated by the people of Ontario here in this House.

Compulsory arbitration has been raised and I would say to you, and through you to the people of Ontario, that I think this solution would only worsen the situation as it exists today. I don’t think there is going to be any consensus on behalf of the teaching profession in this city, which I believe to be doing a good lob, to accept that kind of thing. This will only worsen the situation in Toronto and in Ontario.

What we have is a real need for an anti-inflation board here in Ontario, not only to interpret things like teachers’ strikes but also matters related to all the public servants of Ontario and anything that relates to the people of Ontario as designated through the BNA Act to be within our jurisdictional control.

Briefly, I would say that a failure to be fair here to the teachers of Ontario, and also to the students of Ontario, may result in mass disobedience, the kind of disobedience that I think would jeopardize this entire programme.

The Minister of Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs raised the subject of railway workers and General Electric. I think the analogy is an unfair one. Here we have, in the Province of Ontario, a whipsaw effect with teachers’ wages and I think that once we get this straightened out, once we get them op to a fair level, then I think we can apply the guidelines as outlined by the federal government. As the Tories said so many times during the provincial election, it was the time for strength. I must admit, quite candidly I’ve been guilty of tossing the odd heckle across the House.

I would say to the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) in the most non-partisan fashion that indeed it is a time for strength and it’s a time where all of us look at this situation, not for political gain but for the students, for the taxpayers, for the school board, for the teachers; and more important, to see this system work.

I’m not going to go on at great length, but we all appreciate the severity of this problem. It’s a problem that I think we can only solve here; and we can’t solve it by abrogating our responsibility to Ottawa and saying let them solve it. It’s easy for the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells), or more specifically, the Minister of Treasury, Economies and Intergovernmental Affairs, to pass that buck, to pass the accountability to people who, in fact, are not accountable to us now and will likely not be for some time.

It’s a time, I think, when we realize our responsibilities, and if we decide that we don’t want to, if members on that side of the House don’t want to, then as the Premier indicated the other day maybe we should make that trip down the hall and see the lady. I know there are people on this side of the House who recognize the sense of responsibility and the sense of urgency that relate to this problem, and I am sore we are prepared to take action if necessary. I would say to the government, and through it to the people of Ontario, that we are prepared to do this; and if they are not, let’s make that trip. We will go down and I think we will solve the problem.

Mr. Lewis: We will just choose our time.

Mr. Wildman: If the Treasurer thought the member for Wentworth (Mr. Deans) was throwing up barricades, I would suggest that he was throwing up barricades in protection of the education system of this province and the Treasurer set himself up as a one-man demolition squad against those barricades. It was a great act but I don’t think it really speaks to the problem that we are discussing here.

This isn’t just a Metro problem. It is a problem throughout the province. Unless something is done, we are going to face teachers’ strikes throughout this province. The present boards all over the province are in a position of being told to negotiate settlements by this government and by the people they represent, the ratepayers and so on; at the same time they are being told that the offers many of them have already given are too high because of the decisions made in Ottawa.

This is ridiculous. How can collective bargaining have any meaning at all in this kind of situation? The failure of this government to lead and the decision of the Anti-Inflation Board last week have produced an impossible situation for collective bargaining in teacher disputes. In my own area tomorrow, the Central Algoma elementary school teachers may be talking a strike vote. I hope a strike doesn’t occur there and I think both the board and the teachers in the area share that same hope. But if it doesn’t occur, it won’t be because of the leadership taken by this government.

In that situation, the Education Relations Commission, which is so often spoken about by the minister ns being the agency which should settle disputes or help to settle disputes, did take action. They appointed a mediator, a Mr. Dempster, at the request of the teachers. He met with them all one day last week and also with the board and they reached a tentative settlement. Then, for some reason, he broke one of the most elementary rules of mediation by telling the press that the teachers had settled even before a ratification vote could be taken. Such a move could have drastic effects on that vote; I sincerely hope it doesn’t, but it could.

What’s the point of negotiating? What’s the point of going through mediation? What’s the point of voting on proposed settlements, if the teachers cannot receive the settlement they have been offered without referring to Ottawa and then having the Anti-Inflation Board in Ottawa say the board offered too much? In this situation, I implore the ministry to take action and to solve the dilemma faced not only by teachers but also by boards in present negotiation situations; otherwise we are going to have this terrible situation spread throughout the province, and that can only be bad for education.

Amicable settlements cannot be reached without leadership on the part of this government. Leaving it to Ottawa is not the kind of leadership that is necessary. I would certainly hope that this debate will prompt the minister to persuade his hon. friends and colleagues, the Treasurer and his other colleagues in the cabinet, that the kind of action they are taking now is not enough and that they should be setting up their own board and dealing with their own problems and not leaving them to Ottawa.

[4:15]

Hon. B. Stephenson: I rise not simply as a member of this government but also as a parent with children in the Metro secondary school system and as the parent of a teacher in the secondary school teaching system as well. I have very real concern for the impasse which has been reached within the past two weeks in this province. Things have happened within the last couple of months that have been somewhat disturbing to the entire process of negotiation between teachers and boards. Some of those things happened before the past couple of months as well.

I think it is obvious to all of us that the impending horrors of spiralling inflation had to be checked in some way. I think the concern of this province has been clearly enunciated for the last 1½ years at least, that there had to be some method of attack. I think there was a nationwide audible response on Oct. 14 when the federal government acknowledged the concern of the Canadian people and the desire of those people to come to grips with the problem and to begin a frontal attack upon this phenomenon which is so potentially damaging to this North American society.

Shortly after the first flush of relief that finally something was going to be done came the realization that it was going to be painful to do it; painful for all of us and that some of us were going to be more hurt and more lacerated than others. As a matter of fact, the federal leader of the Progressive Conservative Party delineated this method as rough justice, and rough justice it is.

Mr. Lewis: It takes a Tory to think in those terms.

Hon. B. Stephenson: There are others than Tories who have made even more descriptive remarks about the anti-inflation action. However, as I said, after that first flush of almost joy that something was finally going to be done came this painful realization.

Mr. Lewis: Come now.

Hon. B. Stephenson: The realization, I think, hit all of us quite acutely for a period of time. It certainly had a very severe lacerating effect on the Minister of Labour of this province who, in the process of learning all of the inherent mechanisms within the negotiating, mediating, conciliating and arbitrating mechanism, suddenly had to face yet an extra mechanism which was going to be imposed upon those traditional factors which usually -- and I say usually with some gratitude -- led to a negotiated settlement in labour-management disputes in this province.

However, if we look at the collective bargaining process, we do have to realize there are problems inherent within our perception of that process in this province which this anti-inflation attack may begin to solve, or may help us to solve. We really are partners, all of us; labour, management, the professions -- be they teachers, physicians, lawyers -- the workers in the field, the farmers, the members of this Legislature -- all are really partners in the attack on inflation. I truly think the Act, as it has been proposed in Ottawa, provides us all with a challenge to meet, head-first I would have to say, the problems which inflation is imposing on us.

Mr. Lewis: We should have some music behind this; a little accompaniment. Perhaps an accordion.

Mr.