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June 5, 1986

33rd Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L027 - Thu 5 Jun 1986 / Jeu 5 jun 1986

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

RAPID TRANSIT

PENSION FUNDS

RAPID TRANSIT LINE

PENSION FUNDS

AFTERNOON SITTING

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

ROWING CHAMPIONSHIP

GOVERNMENT JOBS

TARIFFS

ENVIRONMENT WEEK

POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION

NORTHERN ONTARIO GAMES FOR THE PHYSICALLY DISABLED

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

SPECIAL WARRANTS

RENT REVIEW

WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY

PREMATURE DISCLOSURE OF GOVERNMENT POLICY

ORAL QUESTIONS

RENT REVIEW

GREAT LAKES WATER QUALITY

PENSION FUNDS

RENT REVIEW

TECHNOLOGY FUND

GRIFFITH MINE

TECHNOLOGY FUND

RIO ALGOM

PROPERTY REASSESSMENT

FIGHTING ISLAND

JANITORIAL SERVICES

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT

EQUAL PAY FOR WORK OF EQUAL VALUE

FOOD LAND PRESERVATION POLICY

DISMISSAL OF EMPLOYEE

TABLING OF INFORMATION

POWER FAILURE

PETITIONS

EMPLOYMENT

SALE OF BEER AND WINE

ONTARIO HUMANE SOCIETY

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

SOVIET REACTOR

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

RESIDENTIAL RENT REGULATION ACT

UPHOLSTERED AND STUFFED ARTICLES AMENDMENT ACT

TRAVEL INDUSTRY AMENDMENT ACT

ORDERS OF THE DAY

WITHDRAWAL OF BILL 78

POLL

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

RAPID TRANSIT

Mr. Gregory: I am delighted to see the government House leader here to listen --

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I am not voting for it.

Mr. Gregory: Maybe I will convince him after my 20-minute speech.

Mr. Speaker: Will the member read his resolution, please?

Mr. Gregory: It is with a great deal of pleasure I will read my resolution. It is as follows:

That in the opinion of this House, the government through the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, should proceed with construction of a rapid transit line along Eglinton Avenue, servicing the neighbouring municipalities of Metropolitan Toronto, recognizing that another population boom is expected to add 1.5 million people to these regions over the next 15 years.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: That is what one calls an amended motion.

Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, as you know, as is the practice with the Clerk of the House when a motion is submitted to him, some editing is done for purposes of printing cost, I expect. I did express this concern to the Clerk. I will be happy to read the motion as it is stated in Orders and Notices and then follow in my remarks with my full motion.

Mr. Gregory moved resolution 38:

That in the opinion of this House, recognizing the population boom to be expected in the neighbouring regions of Metropolitan Toronto in the immediate future, the government should proceed with the construction of a rapid transit line along Eglinton Avenue, servicing those neighbouring municipalities.

Mr. Gregory: That is the wording of the motion as it appears on the order paper.

Mr. Speaker: The honourable member has up to 20 minutes for his presentation, and he may reserve any portion of it for the windup.

Mr. Gregory: May I speak for 15 minutes and reserve five minutes? Perhaps someone can warn me at that time.

As I began in the beginning:

That in the opinion of this House, the government, through the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, should proceed with construction of a rapid transit line along Eglinton Avenue, servicing the neighbouring municipalities of Metropolitan Toronto, recognizing that another population boom is expected to add 1.5 million people to these regions over the next 15 years.

Twenty-six years of background information can be found that supports public transit improvements in the greatest-demand areas, identifying in all cases the Eglinton corridor in west-central Metro. The Eglinton line will create a pattern of stability within which seriously planned development and redevelopment can be created by each municipality through which Eglinton Avenue passes. Construction of the Eglinton line is vital to Metro's good health. Metro will be strengthened, both by internally servicing its own population and industry more efficiently and by providing the broadest access to all municipalities within any surrounding Metro borders.

In proposing this resolution, I hope to demonstrate to members of this Legislature, and particularly to the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Fulton), the benefits of an Eglinton rapid transit line for Mississauga, Metro and surrounding regions, York and Etobicoke, and to show the need for such a service before the turn of the century.

To begin, I point out that a proposal for a transit line along Eglinton Avenue does not represent a new idea. Over the past 26 years, Eglinton Avenue has been identified as part of many proposals for improving the rapid transit network in west-central Metro.

At this point, I want to acknowledge the presence in the gallery of Mrs. McDowell, whose extensive research on this matter has led me to gain even more interest in the project. The research this lady has done on the history of Eglinton Avenue, covering not only the past 26 years but also many more years dating back to the 1800s, is very impressive.

The growing transportation crisis in the greater Toronto area, especially at the Peel-Metro boundary, has become increasingly evident during the past few years. The roots of the problem lie in the population and employment growth patterns and the resulting travel implications. To provide a clearer understanding of the growth patterns, it is necessary that I incorporate in my comments some facts and figures.

During the past 10 years, the population and the labour force in the region of Peel have increased by 61 per cent and 89 per cent. During this period, total person-trips eastbound at the morning peak period have increased steadily by 76 per cent, this in spite of internal employment growth of 73 per cent for the same period.

It is estimated that about 664,000 person-trips cross the Peel-Metro boundary in both directions between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. each day: eight per cent by bus, four per cent by commuter rail and 88 per cent by car. During the morning peak period, 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., about 50,000 and 89,000 person-trips cross the boundary westbound and eastbound.

These figures show there is significant traffic volume in both directions across the Peel-Metro boundary. The 73 per cent employment growth in Peel further highlights this point.

Projected population and employment growth for the Toronto region indicates a large expected increase in travel volumes across the boundary. Metro Toronto is foreseen to experience slow population growth while more than half the population growth in the Toronto region is expected to occur in Peel-Halton, with 27 per cent in York and 14 per cent in Durham.

Metro will continue to experience employment growth which will predominantly be filled by non-Toronto residents, and particularly by Peel residents. Peel employment will also increase, but the labour force is not expected to increase at the same rate, resulting in continued imbalance in the regional patterns of population and employment distributions. The travel implications of the projected population and employment growth for the Toronto region are going to require significant improvements to the existing transportation network.

A 1981 study investigated the feasibility of increasing the number of lanes from Mississauga at the Etobicoke boundary to accommodate further traffic flow to Metro. The study concludes that travel at the boundary is going to increase so dramatically over the next 25 years that it is expected to quadruple by the year 2011, while the capacity of the road system, currently at or near full capacity, cannot be expanded in any significant way.

10:10 a.m.

One of the key solutions to the problem is to stimulate a shift in modal split across the boundary in favour of transit. An Eglinton rapid transit line would contribute significantly towards achieving this objective. The existing and growth figures referred to earlier indicate high ridership levels, which are necessary to ensure that operation of the service is economically feasible. Ridership will inevitably increase as many will shift from auto trips to transit given the road network, already at capacity, not being able to accommodate the forecast auto demand by the year 2011.

The Eglinton rapid transit line will have many benefits to both Metro and the surrounding regions. These benefits further justify early implementation of the line. Some of the more significant benefits are summarized as follows.

An Eglinton rapid transit line will enhance the economic development objectives of Metro by supplying the required labour force to compensate for the growing imbalance between the resident labour force and job demand. It will also support the development of two major traffic generators, namely, the Mississauga City Centre and Pearson International Airport, where about 10,000 and 12,000 jobs currently are located. The Mississauga City Centre is the only major centre not now served by a major transit service.

The line will increase in general the modal split in favour of transit, which leads to greater fuel efficiency and conservation of energy. It will also be the only rapid transit line directly serving five local municipalities: the cities of Toronto, North York, York, Etobicoke and Mississauga.

It will improve the functioning of the Bloor-Danforth subway by reducing its peak loads west of St. George station while also providing a good alternative route to passengers in instance of breakdown on the Bloor-Danforth line.

The Eglinton line will move the centre of gravity of the Metro rapid transit network farther to the northwest, which is compatible with the direction of urban development. The level of service along the roads at the Peel-Metro boundary and overall traffic conditions will be improved by diverting some auto trips to transit.

In my opinion, which I believe is supported by other members of this Legislature, the abovementioned merits are more than enough to justify that an Eglinton rapid transit line should be built ahead of all other plans. It should also be noted that the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Toronto supported the Eglinton line as a top priority in its recent submission to Metro Toronto council's transportation committee.

I also point out that the Network 2011 report was prepared without an invitation for representation or input from Peel. Of the five recommended priorities, only one penetrates beyond the Metro boundary: the Eglinton facility. In my judgement, the implications of Metro's recommendations will have a serious impact on Peel and the city of Mississauga, and the cities of York and Etobicoke will suffer from delayed improvements of transit service along Eglinton Avenue. The Metro report has downplayed the concerns of its surrounding regions, on which Metro depends for its employment growth.

Further, the Minister of Transportation and Communications should be commended for his recent announcement that he intends to implement a recommendation put to him by Peel, York and Etobicoke to establish a joint committee to evaluate all major transportation decisions prior to any statement concerning the Network 2011 report. I am very encouraged by the minister's statement and feel it brings good news for our cause.

Whether the province funds 75 per cent of the cost, as recent reports have indicated may not be the case, it is certain the province will pay a fair share of the $2.7-billion cost of the construction of all three Network 2011 proposals. For this reason, I believe any further transportation improvements must promote a balance between the municipalities and regions. The province's role in assessing and evaluating Metro's report is therefore extremely important, not only to Metro but also to all the surrounding municipalities.

With this resolution, I am hoping to convince the province through the Minister of Transportation and Communications that there is an urgent need for the Eglinton West rapid transit line.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know how much time I have left.

The Deputy Speaker: You have eight minutes and 28 seconds.

Mr. Gregory: Fine. Thank you. I would like to go back and touch again on some of the points that are very important to this.

The Network 2011 plan does not adequately serve or take into account the transportation planning and development objectives of the surrounding regions, including the region of Peel. Interregional matters are not given significant weight in the selection of transit priorities. This is reflected in third priority for the Eglinton line.

Northwest Metro has been subject to severe transportation impacts generated by the fastest overall growth in the province from Peel and Halton regions. During the past 10 years, the population and labour force in Peel have increased by 61 per cent and 89 per cent. During this period, total person-trips eastward during peak morning periods have increased steadily by 76 per cent. This increase has occurred in spite of internal employment growth of 73 per cent during the same period.

Metro Toronto population is foreseen to experience slow or no growth, while more than half the total population growth in Toronto region is expected to take place in Peel-Halton, with 27 per cent in York and 14 per cent in Durham. Population and employment growth will have serious travel implications if improved service is not granted to the existing Peel-Metro cross-boundary traffic network.

The Eglinton rapid transit line will have many benefits to Peel, Metro and the other surrounding regions. These benefits further justify early implementation of the line before the turn of the century and reflect a higher priority than is currently indicated in Metro's Network 2011 study.

I ask the members of all parties in the Legislature to consider this resolution seriously. I know my friend the member for Mississauga North (Mr. Offer) is going to take a very careful look at it, since he and I share the boundary of our ridings on Eglinton Avenue. Naturally, he will be very susceptible to my idea. I request support of the members of the Legislature.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve my remaining five minutes for a

summary later on.

10:20 a.m.

Mr. Rae: It is with considerable pleasure that I rise to take

part in this discussion since it is a subject that has long been of interest to me and one for which I am glad to say the minister is here to listen. The member for Mississauga East (Mr. Gregory), who just moved the resolution, and I so rarely agree on anything that I thought it appropriate for me to be in the House today. I know leaders do not often participate in private members' resolutions, but since it is such a red-letter day when the Mississauga rattler and I can agree on anything, I am delighted to be here to be in support of his resolution.

The reason this debate is of greater significance than it will be given by observers in the media is that it allows this House, for the first time, to consider and debate what is going to be an increasingly important debate about the transportation priorities in the greater Toronto area, the broader area surrounding Metro. An agenda has been established in the document called Network 2011, put out in draft form by Metropolitan Toronto council, the transportation committee thereof, and the Toronto Transit Commission.

We have conflicting and competing agendas being considered by Metro and by the provincial government. This debate gives us an opportunity in this House to begin to become more publicly involved in this process. It is with considerable pleasure that I do so as the member for York South.

I am delighted to see so many representatives of ratepayers from the city of York and from my constituency here today, as well as the aldermen, who are both here; it gives me real pleasure to see the degree of interest. It is fair to say that many people in the city of York feel, not only in terms of many other aspects of government planning but also when it comes to transportation, that the needs of the people of the city of York have been seriously and systematically underestimated by government. I rise to support the proposal with respect to a rapid transit line that would go west, using Eglinton Avenue as the basis for that line, for two reasons.

First, I am convinced that the focus for the setting of priorities on transit has to be broader than the boundaries that were established in 1953 when we set up the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. Second, I am convinced that we have to see rapid transit and the expansion of our subway system as an essential counterbalance to the tremendous inclination on the part of planners and other people to see highways and expressways as the answer to the problem. It is for these reasons that I rise to speak today.

With respect to the nature of development and planning, I do not rise simply as someone whose riding is to the west of Yonge Street. All of us who live west of Yonge Street can say we have a vested interest, as it were, in seeing that we get the transit line first or that we have higher priorities as opposed to some other part of Metro. That is not the nature of my intervention today.

The nature of my intervention is to say to the minister that when it comes to establishing the priorities, they have to be established at the provincial level and not simply by Metro Toronto. This is not simply a TTC decision or a Metro decision. This is a decision that has to be made in the broader context of what is happening to population, what is happening to growth, what is happening to development and what is happening to employment, not simply over the next couple of years but over the next 20 or 30 years.

As New Democrats, we are perhaps habitually prone to criticize, but let us look for a moment at the imagination and the commitment that went into the building of the existing TTC rapid transit system. A lot of imagination, a lot of planning, a lot of commitment and, if I may so, a lot of jobs went into the initial phase of transportation planning with respect to rapid transit decisions that took place 20 and 30 years ago. We are equally bound today to be imaginative and creative as we create the new rapid transit system that will be in place for the 21st century. Just as people then planned quite effectively and well, we have to do so today.

I say to the minister, this is not a time to be allowing one's priorities to be set simply on the basis of going to the province and saying, "The municipality of Metropolitan Toronto has a rapid transit organization and we have extensive capital needs; these are our needs," and having the province respond, "We can give you some of these, but we cannot give you all of them; here is a bit of this and a bit of that." This is not a time for a piecemeal solution. This is a time to sit down, not only with Metro but also with Peel.

I have written to the minister about this and attempted to speak to MPPs from all parties who share a similar interest and who recognize that the degree of population growth that is going to take place west of Metro is astounding. The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. We do not know exactly how many, we do not know the numbers and we do not know what may change. We do know that today we have an area increasingly underserviced in terms of the quality of its public transportation.

It is underserviced because so many of the people now living in Peel region work in Metro and have difficulty getting to Metro. Even those who are within Metropolitan Toronto, who live in York and Etobicoke, are underserviced in terms of being able to get to the centre of town.

I said there were two reasons for my intervention. The first one has to do with the nature of development and planning and the fact that we are living in the greater Toronto area, where the boundaries that were established in 1953 begin to look increasingly artificial when we consider the transportation needs of these people.

It is up to the provincial government to establish that fact clearly and to demonstrate its leadership by saying very clearly to other levels of government, "We are going to co-ordinate the planning, and we are going to make the decision on the basis of what we think makes sense for greater Toronto and for the southern Ontario area in terms of a regional plan." It has to be a greater regional plan. It cannot simply be a plan that is determined by Metro in the interests of what it sees as the interests of 1985-86. The decision cannot simply be made on the basis of what looks as though it might be the case in 1986.

It has to be based on what is going to happen and what is going to be the long-term trend.

Very briefly, in the time remaining to me, I want to say why I believe in a rapid transit line rather than the bus route, which is recommended to start in 1999 in the Network 2011 report, and why the rapid transit line is essential. Anybody who drives around today in this part of Ontario knows full well that planning has been so poor and the degree of concentration of economic growth in downtown Toronto has been so great that we face ever-increasing pressure on our roads and on our highways. There are ever-increasing demands with respect to the growth of expressways.

That is not the way to go. We have to look at a rapid transit route. We have to give the public a transit alternative. We have to make it clear that we cannot simply continue to clog our highways, our byways and our roads the way they are being clogged today. We have to deal with the problem with a continuing commitment to the expansion of the rapid transit system. This is a time for imagination, a time for creativity and a time for public investment.

It may look as if it is going to cost some money -- and I know the minister has looked at the dollars, raised his eyebrows and said, "My God, how can we possibly afford to do that?" -- but I ask the minister how we can afford not to do it. We cannot afford not to have the kind of creativity and imagination that have gone into the building of a very good system of transportation, but one that drastically needs investment, drastically needs to be enriched and drastically needs to be improved.

This is a very good way to go. I commend the member for Mississauga East for giving us the opportunity to debate the matter today.

10:30 a.m.

Mr. Offer: I am pleased to rise and join in the debate on the resolution introduced by the member for Mississauga East. At the outset, it appears that the basis for this resolution stems from the Metro Toronto report known as Network 2011. This comprehensive report on the potential future of the greater Toronto area transportation matrix calls for a total expenditure of some $2.7 billion and talks about a construction span of something in the neighbourhood of 28 years.

It is important to understand clearly at this juncture that this initiative is a Toronto Transit Commission proposal. Among other things, the proposal encompasses five routes of transportation systems in five areas where those systems should and might be increased. The five routes include the Sheppard subway. Second, it talks about a downtown relief line. The third, which has been alluded to so far today, is the Eglinton West rapid transit system. The fourth is a harbourfront light rail transit line. The fifth is a Spading LRT line.

It is true that the provincial government is and should be very involved, in that its responsibility for this type of transportation system could amount to something in the vicinity of 75 per cent of the cost. However, it is also true that Network 2011 is at this point a TTC initiative. I believe it will be discussed next week by a joint committee meeting of Metro council. Whatever permeates from that meeting will be discussed by Metro council in the latter part of this month. Therefore, if this resolution is directed to what that decision ought to be, it may be a bit premature or presumptuous, on the basis that the questions have not yet even been put to the joint committee meeting.

Having said that, I have read the resolution very carefully, and it talks about proceeding with a rapid transit line along Eglinton Avenue. The resolution is silent, though, about when construction should proceed and with respect to how the line ought to be prioritized within the context of Network 2011. I am somewhat. concerned about this silence, this vagueness. I agree with the member for Mississauga East that a rapid transit line along Eglinton Avenue is required, but one should discuss in greater detail how important this type of line is.

As the member for Mississauga North, I hope any discussion of the prioritization contained within Network 2011 by any of the people who make these decisions will take certain indisputable facts into account. We know that over the next 25 years, development within the greater Toronto area is expected to continue at a steady pace. The present population of 3.5 million is going to come close to five million. A lot of that growth is going to be found within the Peel region. Peel is going to set the pace, I believe, followed by the York and Durham regions.

Employment in the Peel region will make even greater gains. It is anticipated that within that time span, approximately one third of the new jobs will be in Peel, one third in Metro Toronto and one third in the remaining regions. It is important to keep in mind the great demands we are going to have from areas to the west, from the Peel region in particular. Peel is a region of monumental growth, varied business activity and increasing business growth.

Although I indicate my support for the resolution, I specifically note that it could have gone further. I direct that comment to the member for Mississauga East.

We know many dollars are being spent now with respect to transportation within the greater Toronto area. The province contributes almost 50 per cent of the annual cost of that expenditure, with contributing amounts coming from the municipalities and transit users. The magnitude of this investment, combined with the basic importance of transportation to our social and economic development, makes it essential that any planning efforts take into account all the factors affecting future demand.

The province recognizes the need to provide an efficient network of roads and transit for the residents in the greater Toronto area. I am not supposed to speak for the member for Mississauga East but, as we travel along the Queen Elizabeth Way each and every day, we know there is much room for improvement with respect to access from the Toronto area to the Peel region and vice versa. We know there is great growth, especially within the city of Mississauga and the city of Brampton. We know that growth is not going to end tomorrow; it is going to continue for many years.

We also know there are going to be greater demands made upon our existing transportation systems, which are at capacity or overburdened at this time and which need great relief. The Eglinton line is a start in that direction.

With respect to any investigation of the future of the transportation system throughout the greater Toronto area, including Peel, it is responsible to take a look at the current population, the growth of population, business growth, business activity, the types of businesses being formed in different areas, how they are being formed, when they are being formed, the future potential of these areas and what now exists, the transportation facilities now at hand.

Notwithstanding the fact that I, as the member for Mississauga North, come with certain preferences -- as do the member for Mississauga East and the leader of the third party as well as many people in Metro, North York and Scarborough, all of whom have their own preferences -- it is my opinion that a responsible and rational investigation of this nature must use actual, indisputable facts.

I believe the Eglinton line will bode well after that type of investigation. After looking at facts, figures and trends, the Eglinton line will prove to be a possible prioritization within Network 2011. It would be remiss on the part of all of us not to acknowledge that this type of investigation must proceed. Personal preference is important, but rational investigation of hard facts must proceed. I say that because I am confident that type of investigation or examination will prove the Eglinton line to be the line of most demand and greatest need. Therefore, I am very happy to support this resolution.

10:40 a.m.

Mr. Leluk: On behalf of the constituents of York West and the people of the city of Etobicoke, I appreciate this opportunity to support the resolution put forward by my colleague the member for Mississauga East and enthusiastically endorse the urgent need for an Eglinton West rapid transit line, a line that would effectively and efficiently serve many regions of Metro, including York West and Etobicoke.

I echo the concerns recently expressed by the mayor of Etobicoke, Bruce Sinclair, that Etobicoke's local streets are daily becoming more and more crowded by traffic from the residents of Peel fighting to get to work in downtown Toronto. The traffic situation in Etobicoke, particularly on the major arteries, is already serious and, without an Eglinton West rapid transit line, will soon result in congested chaos.

Recent studies and statistics underscore the situation. Within 20 years, more than 50 per cent of all daily traffic from Peel region will cross Etobicoke's western boundary. Within 20 years, 28 per cent of all traffic leaving Peel will be headed towards Etobicoke, while a further 26 per cent will pass through Etobicoke to go downtown.

Metro Toronto's Network 2011 report notes that 132,725 vehicles enter Metropolitan Toronto in the morning peak, with 48 per cent of this traffic arriving from the west crossing the Metro west boundary. The number of persons arriving through Etobicoke in the same time period represents 56 per cent of the total. In other words, more than half of all Metro-bound commuters enter Etobicoke every morning.

The report also indicates that transit users who cross the Metro boundary will increase in numbers more so than those using transit within Metro itself and that the cross-Metro increase will be particularly marked in the west. The report further notes that 16,827 people cross into Metro daily on GO trains, with almost 75 per cent of these passengers arriving from the west.

Over the next 25 years, development within the greater Toronto area is expected to continue at a steady pace. The present population of 3.4 million will likely increase to 4.6 million. Most of this population growth will occur in the regions surrounding Metro. York region in particular has been singled out among those that will set the pace.

Employment forecasts also predict that the heaviest employment growth will occur in the regions around Metro. Approximately 40 per cent of this employment growth will take place in the region of Peel, located immediately west of Etobicoke. This will result in substantial accelerated demand for increased transportation services across the Metro west boundary. Population growth predictions, economic expansion forecasts and ridership studies all point west with respect to the fastest and the most growth. They all point to the urgent and vital need for an Eglinton West rapid transit line.

During the past 10 years, there has been a noted increase in GO Transit rail passengers. Recent reports project this increasing trend will continue and suggest GO Transit might largely solve the west-Metro boundary commuting problem. A strong pitch for a much-improved GO Transit service has been made with a recently released publication, reported in yesterday's Globe and Mail, entitled West Metro Boundary Transportation Review. Authored by the Metropolitan Toronto planning department, the report suggests that if GO Transit service were substantially improved, its relieving effect could postpone the time when the Bloor-Danforth subway line reaches capacity.

Assuming such relief, the report maintains that the need for an Eglinton West transit line will become less urgent. There are several things wrong with this assumption. GO Transit has traditionally been a very specialized service, with trains departing in the morning and afternoon rush hours only, except for the Lakeshore line, and transporting people from catchment areas near stations along the route to Union Station. Unless a person lives within one of the catchment areas and works within a short distance of Union Station, the service is not at all attractive.

On a second point, the railways have been reluctant to agree to GO service expansion since it would seriously impede the movement of freight trains using the same tracks. To my knowledge, there have been no assurances so far that they would be willing to agree to a much expanded GO service.

On a final point, to enhance the attractiveness to some degree of using GO Transit, fare integration would have to ensure that a person could ride with one fare and use local buses, GO Transit and the TTC system. This has been discussed on and off for the past 15 years or more but owing to the different tax bases of the neighbouring municipalities, on which the running of train systems relies, there have been many insurmountable obstacles. Short of very substantial subsidies from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to overcome the fare integration problem, it is difficult to see an early solution to this problem.

On May 26, at an emergency meeting which I attended, the councils of the cities of Etobicoke and York unanimously approved a motion urging the province to give high priority to the Eglinton West rapid transit line. The motion supports a plan to serve Metro as well as several surrounding regions. With regard to Metro's Network 2011 transit priorities, Etobicoke's view, reinforced by the provincial government's position, is that the Eglinton West rapid transit line appears to be the only proposal that will inherently serve both regional objectives.

I am encouraged that the provincial government favours a balanced transportation system, and I am very pleased to know that the aim of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications is to promote transportation projects deemed most beneficial in the context of the entire greater-Toronto area. I join with the member for Mississauga East in commending the Minister of Transportation and Communications for having recently established a provincial committee to carefully evaluate all transit development options prior to making a public statement concerning Metro's Network 2011 report.

The people of York West and the city of Etobicoke are extremely anxious, as I am, that an Eglinton West rapid transit line be given urgent priority consideration and subsequent commencement and completion as soon as possible.

In conclusion, I strongly urge the present government to recognize the regional significance as well as the local significance of an Eglinton West rapid transit line. Such a line will benefit the citizens of the several municipalities it transects, namely, Metro, North York, York, Etobicoke and Mississauga. I encourage the present government to provide provincial funding to cover 75 per cent of the construction cost, this being the level of transit development funding established by the previous government.

I urge all members of this House to give serious consideration to supporting the resolution put forward by my colleague the member for Mississauga East this morning.

Mrs. Grier: I am pleased to participate in this debate this morning and to support the motion put forward by the member for Mississauga East, although I find it a little difficult to understand the hesitations expressed by the member for Mississauga North. I was not quite aware, until his final sentence, whether he was going to support the resolution.

I am glad he wound up saying he was going to support it, but I point out to him that when he says this debate perhaps is premature because Metro has not yet taken a position on the Network 2011 report, it was the Minister of Transportation and Communications, in his letter of May 14 to the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto, who pointed out that the province wanted to talk about transit priorities on a regional basis.

In my opinion, this debate is very timely. It is appropriate and important that the members of this Legislature go on record as supporting the motion put forward by the member for Mississauga East. The debate is not only important with respect to transit planning, which needs to be done on a regional basis as opposed to a local or parochial basis, but also because we have to take into account the interests of transit as opposed to roads.

I worry when the Minister of Transportation and Communications calls for a balanced transportation system, because in the past that balance has always favoured expressways. I hope that when he says "balance" he means balance and that we are not going to go back to the period of ever-increasing road improvements and ever-widening roads that inexorably led to expressways. That was put to rest by the former Premier when he closed the Spading expressway, and it was well laid to rest. We do not need it in Metro or in the regions surrounding Metro.

10:50 a.m.

My interest in the Eglinton transit corridor began when I was a member of Etobicoke council. We debated an expressway, as that corridor was first supposed to be in the early 1970s, but when expressways were killed in Metropolitan Toronto, Etobicoke had the foresight to preserve that right of way for a transit corridor. All through the years since, when development has been proposed -- apartment buildings and subdivisions on either side of Eglinton Avenue -- it has been designed to take into account that the corridor is one day going to have rapid transit. As a result, a great deal of development has occurred, and the population to be served by such a transit corridor is in place.

We have heard from other members of the very rapid growth that has occurred to the west in Mississauga. In my experience with planning in Metro and in the Toronto-centred region, if anybody remembers the Toronto-centred-region plan, we seem to have gone back and forth from regional planning to local planning. It has become ever more apparent, especially where transit is concerned, that we have to look regionally, and that is why this debate is important.

I remind the members of the House that when Metro began to develop its own official plan, known as MetroPlan, it began with a review of transportation improvements, the Soberman study, which talked about the network of transportation as an essential component of any official plan. That official plan, when it was finally adopted, called for decentralization of growth and development in Metropolitan Toronto. The way to achieve that decentralization is to build the transit network.

We only have to look at the development that has occurred at the extensions of the subway lines, not only in Metro but also in other cities, to know it works. If we do not want all the development to occur in the heart of downtown Toronto, then we have to provide the rapid transit that will enable people to develop subcentres out in the regions and on the periphery of Metropolitan Toronto.

Another reason this transit plan is very important is that it provides the link between downtown Toronto and the airport. We have in Metropolitan Toronto a world-class city -- to use the adjective so favoured by the government of the day -- that does not have a rapid transit link to its international airport. That transit link is long overdue. If it is ever to occur, it will occur by way of a transit line along the Eglinton corridor. That is another important reason why priority should be given to the Eglinton rapid transit line and why it has to be built quickly.

We have heard from my colleagues in Mississauga the statistics and the data about the growth of development to the west of Metropolitan Toronto, about the cordon count and the incredibly rapid growth of cars into the downtown area through the western boundary. If we do not get on with building this transit corridor, we will have created in Etobicoke one vast parking lot at the end of the existing subway line or, if not a parking lot, a series of roads clogged with cars at the morning and evening rush hours. The pressure to widen the arterial roads out into Mississauga will be inexorable, and that will have a very detrimental effect on Etobicoke.

We also have the need for this rapid transit line to utilize the existing transit corridors better. The Spadina subway line has traditionally been underutilized, and the linkage that would be provided by a transit line along Eglinton would greatly balance the use of the existing system. It would balance the investment that has already been made.

There is an unequivocal case in favour of giving priority to rapid transit along Eglinton Avenue through the cities of York, Etobicoke and Mississauga. It makes sense from a planning point of view, from a development point of view and from an economic point of view. I hope all members of the Legislature will support the resolution of the member for Mississauga East and that the Minister of Transportation and Communications will take that expression of support into account when making his decisions about transportation planning for Metropolitan Toronto.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Morin): The member for Frontenac-Addington. You have two minutes.

Mr. South: It is with pleasure that I speak in regard to the member for Mississauga East's resolution. I neither support nor oppose it, but I think it is time that we pause and wonder where we are going. It is more than 150 years now since Cooke, Wheatstone and Morse perfected the telegraph and we were taken away from the necessity of depending on the weather and less dependable things to move messages. From that, we evolved to the telephone, radio, television and now the computer, which is the area we must think about.

The computer has the ability to store and sort information, which we hope we can then retrieve. We are now planning and building for the younger generation -- such as the young people in the public gallery today, who are completely familiar and at ease with the computer. The possibility of people doing more work in their homes is here now. I believe we should grasp this technology. The prospect is for small local centres, much the size of local banks, where a score of workers can be located. They can compute with their central filing systems --

The Acting Speaker: Your time has elapsed.

Mr. Gregory: I am delighted to hear the degree of support in this House. I must confess to being a little confused by the remarks of the member for Frontenac-Addington. I am not sure he is on the same resolution as we are. With the greatest respect, I do not know what his point is. I wish we could have heard 10 minutes of his speech to determine what he is talking about.

I am very pleased to have the support of the leader of the third party, the member for York South (Mr. Rae). When I first heard him voicing his support, I wondered whether I should go back and re-examine my position. On sober second thought, I am pleased he has seen the light and the intelligence of this resolution. I very much welcome his support. The arguments he makes are very valid, the main point being that rapid transit in Metro Toronto cannot be planned in isolation from the surrounding communities, as has been done in the past.

There is now not only the Network 2011 proposal, a recommendation made to Metro Toronto council, but also a recent finding by the same body which totally upsets the first recommendation and which is signed by the same three people who signed the first report. I do not know what they are trying to find, unless it is a deliberate move to make sure the Sheppard line gets first priority. The facts that have been presented by the planning staffs of the region of Peel, the city of Etobicoke and the city of York bear out the importance of placing Eglinton as the first priority in this plan.

11 a.m.

I am very pleased to have the support of my neighbour the member for Mississauga North. He had me a little confused and worried at first. As I mentioned, he was trying to ride the horns of a dilemma without knowing which way to go, although he came out very clearly in support of this proposal in his last sentence. That is a very wise decision on his part and shows he has learned a great deal since the last election. We have found a way to communicate and support one another in a joint cause, and I welcome that support.

The member for York West (Mr. Leluk) has been attending the same meetings and hearing the same things that I have. He has realized all along that the Eglinton line should be the number one priority. This is not based on any parochial interest; it might appear to the member for Erie (Mr. Haggerty) that this is so, but it is not so. It is based on factual planning.

During the discourse the member for Erie asked, "What have you been doing for the past 42 years?" I point out to him that all the transit built in Toronto during the past 42 years occurred under the government of this party. That is what we have been doing for 42 years. The entire Toronto Transit Commission and probably even the transit system that serves Erie was done under the previous government. I will be delighted to take the member for Erie for a ride in my car to show him precisely where Eglinton Avenue is. That might convince him to support this cause as well.

Mrs. Grier: You should take him in rush hour.

Mr. Gregory: I am very pleased to have the support of the member for Lakeshore (Mrs. Grier). She raises a valid point. I touched on it in my remarks, but she has reinforced it. There is the need to have rapid transit support for Pearson International Airport, What a service it would be to the people of Metro Toronto and all the surrounding areas to be able to take rapid transit directly to the airport.

I am sure the minister will take that into account. I urge him to pay attention to this resolution, because I feel it is going to pass. It is good advice, and I look for his support.

PENSION FUNDS

Mr. Rae moved resolution 39:

That in the opinion of this House, the government should recognize in law that pension funds belong to employees and not to employers. Legislation should therefore be introduced immediately providing that any so-called surpluses -- that is, funds in excess of actuarial requirements -- be used to improve benefits and to provide mandatory inflation protection, and that no surplus withdrawals be permitted for any other purposes.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member has up to 20 minutes for his presentation. He may reserve any portion of it for the windup.

Mr. Rae: The resolution before us gives the House a unique opportunity to express itself collectively on what has become one of the great outrages of our time. It gives the House the opportunity to express very clearly the view that moneys contributed into a pension plan, either on behalf of employees or by employees, belong to those workers. Any increase in the value of those funds should be used to improve the benefits that are there and not be available to be skimmed off and ripped off by employers who suddenly decide they have need of those funds.

Half the workers in Ontario do not have private pensions. The half that do are subject to private pensions that can be safely and politely described as nothing more or less than a ripoff. It is well known that until this Legislature is presented with legislation which will allow us to change the law, the law in Ontario today provides that if there is a fund established, the worker has access only to the specific amounts of money contained in the plan. The plans are invariably not negotiated; they are simply imposed by the employer. The plans do not provide for part-time workers and usually provide nothing for workers who have been there for fewer than 10 years.

We have a reality in Ontario that a person can work for three or four different employers in his entire working life, and at the age of 65 he will have absolutely nothing. The money that has been contributed by the employer on his behalf into the plan, according to the present law, reverts to the employer and to the shareholder. We are giving to the shareholder and to the employer money which, in all justice, should belong to the employee. It should go to the worker and should be used by the worker to improve pension plans, improve the possibility of earlier retirement and guarantee protection against inflation, rather than simply being skimmed off and used by employers.

It is obviously an issue that has gained heightened publicity in the past year because of the activities of Conrad Black and Dominion Stores, because of the issues we have raised in this Legislature over the past six months and because of the news yesterday that, in its purchase of Canada Permanent, Genstar Corp. raided its own pension plan. It has been fuelled by the realization that in the United States we have seen a virtual explosion of pension fund ripoffs and raids, to the tune of $3.1 billion in the last year for which we have evidence.

Since 1980, more than $8 billion has been taken out by companies in the US and used by those companies for their own purposes and for reasons that have nothing to do with the improvement of pension plans.

When we were engaged in the first days of a debate in this Legislature, I asked the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Kwinter) whether it was his view that the money in a pension plan belonged to the employees or to the companies. His instinctive reaction was that it belonged to the employees. That was the first day. That was Monte Mark I. That was the initial Monte response.

That was the gut reaction of an individual upon being asked: "When money is put at a fixed rate into a pension fund negotiated on behalf of the workers, do you think increases in value should go to those workers as part of their deferred wages and part of their savings; or do you think the employer should be able to raid that money and use it to avoid a takeover or to finance a takeover or to finance a departure or whatever it might happen to be?"

Monte Mark I's response was, "It belongs to the employee." That was before the corporate big boys got to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations and to the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon). Initially, we had statements from the Treasurer and from the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations that indicated they were concerned. The Premier (Mr. Peterson) himself, when we raised the Conrad Black example, said he was very worried. There is not an issue facing this province about which the Premier is not very worried and very concerned. He has expressed that concern in many different ways.

However, something strange happened over Christmas, something strange happened as we came into the new year and something strange happened to this government on the way to pension reform. They got mugged in the corridors of corporate power. Since that time, they have refused to bring in the kinds of changes that would make sense.

11:10 a.m.

This debate allows ordinary members of this House an opportunity to express to the government of the day how they feel and how their constituents feel about what is happening. I wonder whether the constituents of members who are present today approve of the morality of what is happening, to say nothing of the legality, which is now being determined in the Supreme Court of Ontario; I am not going to get involved with that. I am questioning the morality of a company reaching into a pension fund, to which employees have contributed over the years, taking that money out and then refusing to pay severance pay to a great many workers who have been laid off because of corporate decisions.

I wonder whether people feel it is moral or appropriate. I say to members of the Conservative Party and of the Liberal Party, I have spoken to a great many Liberals and Conservatives who, upon hearing of our raising this issue, said, "You are right to do so, because it is a problem." I can remember speaking with a member of Parliament who has been very active in raising this issue in the House of Commons, Mr. McCrossan, the member for York-Scarborough. He has expressed concern for a number of years about the morality and fairness of what is being done to pension funds by employers.

The facts are very clear, and eloquent enough on their own. The mathematics is increasingly clear. What we had in 1980 was a mere trickle of $3 million being taken out of those funds. What we had in 1984-85 was $187 million being taken out of those funds. In the US, there has been an increase from $18 million per year to $3.1 billion per year. What we have is the makings of a major run, a systematic practice by companies in which they engage for a variety of reasons, at the expense of the improvement of plants.

I can give examples from my own constituency. A fellow came in who had worked for many years for the Toronto-Dominion Bank and had taken early retirement. He gave me the statement from the Toronto-Dominion Bank pension association, showing the Toronto-Dominion Bank had just taken out $25 million and then put in $25 million less than it otherwise would have had to. In other words, it took a $50-million benefit, and at the same time, this individual, who had been retired for some time, had received no improvement in his pension whatsoever.

I am not speaking here of a four-year or five-year employee. I am speaking of a 25-year veteran at the Toronto-Dominion Bank. I am not speaking of a hard-line member of the New Democratic Party. I am speaking of somebody who had been a loyal employee of that bank and had worked his way up to assistant manager and manager of a Toronto-Dominion Bank branch.

Whatever else he may have felt about the New Democratic Party, he felt it was the only party that had the guts and the courage to bring this issue out into the public and to take on those corporate interests that are ripping off the public and taking money out of workers' pockets and putting it in their own. There is no other way to describe what is going on. There is no polite way to describe the process.

These are funds to which employers are making contributions on behalf of employees. These are funds whose value is increasing. Why is it increasing? It is increasing for two reasons. It is increasing first because inflation has gone up dramatically. Even an investment manager working blind would have been able to make money over the past 10 or 15 years simply by investing that money.

Second, there are plans that are increasing in value in relationship to the number of employees because the workers are getting fired. If they have been employed for fewer than 10 years, they have no benefits coming to them under the current law, and so the employer says, "Oh my goodness, look at all the money I have been putting in for somebody who has been working for eight or nine years; I had better get that money back." The Pension Commission of Ontario says: "Fine, take the money. It is yours." Actuarially, one is allowed to do that.

I think it is immoral for the province to be put in a position where the pension commission is giving an okay to such a systematic haemorrhaging of funds and of money that belongs to the working people.

If one puts money into the bank or somebody else puts money into the bank on one's behalf, that money is there in trust for that person. Nobody in this Legislature should be under any illusions about what has been permitted. Because of the existence of a pension law that is a disgrace, because of the existence of this 10-year rule, which is a disgrace, and because there is no worker participation or worker right of return with respect to money made on investments, which is a disgrace, those funds are accumulating a surplus.

Conrad Black has written some very uncomplimentary things about me in the Globe and Mail Report on Business magazine. I have been called worse things by better people than Conrad Black, and I suspect I will continue to be. I take pride sometimes in knowing not only who my friends are but also who my friends are not. I am delighted with the relationship I have established with Conrad.

He said, and other business commentators have said this as well: "The NDP is failing to recognize that the investment managers have been the smart ones. They have made the money. They have been smart enough to invest that money and make a return, and therefore they should get all the money."

It would have taken an incredible act of financial expertise to put one's money in an investment portfolio over a range of investments in the past 10 or 12 years and not have made money. Almost anybody in this Legislature would have been able to get that amount of money, put it in a range of investments and make a return, no matter where he put the money. One could have put it anywhere except a sock and made money in the past 10 years. Conrad Black's theory is: "We had the genius to keep it out of a sock and to put it somewhere else. It has made money and therefore that is our money."

I do not think it takes any particular genius to take money out of a sock and put it into something that gives one some kind of return on one's investment. For God's sake, if one puts it into the bank, one is going to make more. One could have put it into a daily interest chequing account and got more money than the rate of inflation during the past year. Everybody knows that. That is the reality of where interest rates have been recently. The information coming to us from the financial industry makes that very clear. The funds have increased in value.

With inflation running at 4.4 per cent in 1985, the average pension plan rate of return was 23.3 per cent. Even looking back four years, the average has still been 18.4 per cent. Yet we still have these investment analysts telling us it is their exclusive genius that has produced this result. We all know that, according to the evidence, everybody has been a genius. There is nobody who has not been smart, who has not been a genius and who has not produced that rate of return.

In drawing my initial speech to a conclusion, I want to make a very basic point. Today the Legislature has a chance to stand up for what I call the commonsense morality of ordinary people. There is a commonsense morality on the street that says if an employer puts money into a plan on behalf of a worker, that money ought to stay with the worker; that worker ought to have access to and some control over that money; that worker ought to be able to get a return on that investment. The return should not simply go to the employer, who decides when he has made enough money and simply reaches in and skims it off.

We have an opportunity in this private member's resolution to send a message to Ottawa, to Queen's Park, to the Pension Commission of Ontario and to everywhere it will be heard that it is time the law was changed to give workers some control and some return on their investment.

Mr. Offer: I want to respond to the resolution put forward by the honourable member, who is the leader of the third party, regarding withdrawals that are made from the surplus of active employer pension plans. I understand the member is requesting that we require employers to use these surpluses to improve benefits. In response, I wish to make four points.

1. Unions can and do negotiate contracts that include cost-of-living adjustments for pension benefits. Many companies also provide inflation protection for nonunionized employees.

2. We support mandatory inflation protection of benefits and are urging other provinces also to move ahead on this issue.

3. Amendments to the Pension Benefits Act of Ontario, which will in all likelihood be introduced before this session closes, provide employees with greater opportunity to benefit from the investment performance of pension funds.

4. One of the primary objectives of this government is to encourage the expansion of private pension funds.

11:20 a.m.

With respect to my first point, it is important to stress again and again the voluntary nature of private pension plans. Private pensions are either implemented by management for the benefit of employees or negotiated by management and labour. The Pension Benefits Act of Ontario sets minimum standards for these agreements to protect the vested benefits of employees. We want to make sure that all future pension commitments will be met by requiring that assets from pension funds are safely invested.

We also want to guard against unforeseen circumstances by requiring that employers maintain a large cushion of at least 25 per cent of the liability in the fund. Because the security of the retirement income is so important, we encourage employers to fund their plans generously. As a result, these funds sometimes contain far more than is necessary to meet future obligations. Employers cannot touch surpluses that arise out of employee contributions. They are allowed to make withdrawals from the surplus that is generated by their own contribution only if this is expressly permitted in the plan.

In recent years, exceptionally high investment returns have made surpluses more common. I believe it has been alluded to that this is expected to be a short-term situation, as were, which was not alluded to, the apparently forgotten pension deficits of the mid-1970s.

I must remind the member for York South that it was up to employers to fund those liabilities by pumping millions of dollars into the plans. It is interesting to note that during that time of poor investment performance, the third party did not raise the issue of employee control of pension liability. Assuring equity between employers and employees is one of the main thrusts of the draft pension legislation. Surely, giving liability to employers and surpluses to employees would not, could not and probably should not serve this goal.

To reach a consensus on many urgent issues of pension reform, issues of such urgency that we are clearly able to address, we have had to put mandatory inflation protection on hold. We had to put that on hold so other very important, urgent issues could be addressed, attacked and met. However, let me assure the House that although it has been put on hold, it has not been put on stop or on the shelf. We are going to continue as best we can, in a responsible manner, to move forward with respect to mandatory inflation protection and to getting necessary consensus.

In the meantime, the amendments to the Pension Benefits Act of Ontario include three provisions that will strengthen the employee's position on surpluses arising from investment performance.

First, we will be requiring employers to give plan members advance notice of the request to withdraw surplus.

Second, employee contributions must be credited with a market-related rate of interest. For example, the rates could be tied to returns on Canada savings bonds. This would ensure that plan members would benefit from investment earnings that are produced by inflation.

Third, employers will be required to fund at least one half of the accrued pension benefits. This means that when investment returns are high, employers will not be able to use these surpluses to escape their responsibility for paying a fair share of the benefits.

We feel these measures reflect a substantial reform of pension benefits in Ontario. They do not replace collective bargaining; they simply set minimum standards. In this way, both parties are free to negotiate, while we avoid imposing restrictions that discourage employers from setting up or improving plans. It is important that there be no discouragement of the responsibility of employers to set up these plans in one instance and to improve them in another. The three objectives I indicated earlier do, in our opinion, meet these goals.

Most important, we feel these measures are in keeping with our responsibility to encourage the growth of pension funds to cover more people in this province. They are intended to encourage adequate funding of plans to safeguard their solvency, and they will encourage employers to offer the kind of plans that provide the most secure retirement income.

Mr. Ashe: First of all, I want to put on the record some agreement on what a pension plan is. There is no doubt in anybody's mind that it is part of the package of benefits for an employee, albeit a deferred benefit, but something there for the future. I do not think anybody will dispute that. If there is a problem in resolution 39, which has been put forth by the member for York South, and in the remarks he put to that resolution, shall we say, being generous, it is that it muddies the waters.

Neither do I think there is any great disagreement that pension plan regulations have to be brought up to date. That is exactly what is happening. I am referring to the fact of portability, vesting at a much shorter term of service; and, of course, benefits for regular, part-time service, that is a different issue from the one addressed in resolution 39.

Having said all the positives, and agreeing with the general principle of what pensions are all about, how they accrue and who should benefit, I have had the privilege of being in this Legislature for nine years come next Monday, and I do not think I have ever heard such one-sided, socialistic, dogmatic rhetoric as I heard from the leader of the third party a few minutes ago. It is fine to put forth a point of view. There is nothing wrong with that, but one has to be fair and put out the facts on both sides of an issue, not only the facts that support a rather narrow point of view.

The member is suggesting all employers are crooked, all employers are bad and all employers are out to do whatever they can to the detriment of their employees. I agree there are some bad employers, but there are also some bad employees, as there are some bad politicians, etc. The previous speaker put some of this on the record when he was making reference to the present legislation as well as to proposed amendments to the act. I am not going to go into detail about those again, albeit I could.

What the member for York South has failed to put on the record and what has to be put on the record for the benefit of all the good employers out there who operate plans for the benefit of all, who are honest employers and who give the benefits to employees, is that they are not all crooked, which is what is being suggested by the words of this resolution.

11:30 a.m.

Mr. Warner: It does not say that.

Mr. Ashe: It sure does, whether the member takes it that way or not. He should read the media and he will see. Of course, he probably only reads the comics.

We have a system that says if, actuarially, a plan builds up a surplus to its needs -- and a well-protected surplus, I might say, the previous speaker alluded to that -- it is not matter of an employer deciding: "I need a bunch of money. I will go in and rob the pension plan. There is a formality that I have to touch base with the pension commission, but it just says yes automatically anyway." Let us again review what the criteria are.

First of all, it has to be allowed within the trust agreement. The employer approaches the pension commission. It studies the plan, the future liabilities and the contributions. Once it has established that the employer contributions -- not one penny of the employee contribution, but all of the moneys from the employer -- are in excess of 125 per cent of the projected liabilities, then it is probably going to get approval to withdraw those excesses.

Mr. Warner: That is what Dominion Stores did. It is corporate thievery.

Mr. Ashe: Again, I have to emphasize it. This has never been alluded to in the remarks of the leader of the third party or others. They seem to suggest that if a plan makes money or is ahead over and above the obligations, the employer goes in and takes out all of that excess. All of that excess above 125 per cent is the contribution of the employer, not of the employees.

Mr. Warner: It is corporate cannibalism.

Mr. Ashe: Why does the member not learn what he is talking about before he opens his big mouth?

The Deputy Speaker: Order. Will the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere not interject and will the member for Durham West please address the chair?

Mr. Ashe: I always do, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Rae: Is this is a filibuster?

Mr. Ashe: No, only for another couple of minutes.

In actual fact, another recognition has to be put on the record, and it was alluded to indirectly by the previous speaker. We all know there is an innumerable number of pension plans in Canada. I understand there are about 117,700 with about 4.6 million active members. About 60 per cent of the plans are in Ontario covering, as the leader of the third party recognized, approximately half of the employees in Ontario. About 1.8 million plan members are in Ontario.

As we all know, there is more than one kind of pension plan. One can have a defined contribution plan, in which event there is no other obligation on the employer or the employee to put up extra money. One might say there is the out right there, but what has to be put on the record is that 90 per cent -- not 20 per cent, not 60 per cent -- of those 1.8 million employees in Ontario are covered under defined benefit plans.

As was pointed out before, from history, from the facts of the situation, what happens is that there are not always huge returns on plans. There have been times of deficit. We do not have to go back to the 1920s or 1930s. We need go back only to the last decade when there were many plans that were actuarially in a shortfall. It is funny, but we did not hear the socialist dogma at that time saying: "Hey, it is a shortfall. I think all of the employees should kick in some more bucks." The plan's obligation to kick in and fund any shortfall is 100 per cent the obligation of the employer.

I do not dispute that. I think that is only fair. I have no problem with that philosophy, but one cannot have one's cake and eat it too. If all of the obligations are on the employer to make up a shortfall, surely with the built-in protections of 125 per cent and so on, the employer should have some possible opportunity to withdraw some of his -- I repeat his -- surplus funds, not those of the employee, because I agree that would be unfair.

We do not have a perfect system. I suggest we probably never will. There is no doubt that pension reform at the federal level and at the provincial level is already well on its way. There seems to be more agreement virtually each and every day between the different jurisdictions in Canada and the federal government. The proposed reforms to the Pension Benefits Act in Ontario obviously will be helpful, but this Legislature cannot make an indication to the good employers out there -- and I would suggest that is most of them, I am not picking on a particular one.

I agree that the public relations of Dominion Stores and Conrad Black was not helpful to the image of employers and that the way he put it out was not helpful to him from a personal point of view. I do not deny that at all. That there is the odd bad apple in every barrel does not suggest that one bad apple necessarily makes the total barrel rotten, which is what is suggested by the party to the left.

As a responsible Legislature, we cannot support the rhetoric in this resolution by the leader of the third party.

Mr. Mackenzie: I am pleased to rise in support of the resolution put before the House by the leader of my party.

I am little amazed by some of the comments I just heard from one of the Tory members. Pension benefits and the payments that go towards the pension plans are deferred wages. I do not know whether the member now is changing his position on that. We had a select committee report from the Legislature filed in 1982. Some of the Tory members who signed it were the member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt), the member for York Centre (Mr. Cousens), the member for Durham East (Mr. Cureatz), the member for Brantford (Mr.

Gillies) and former members Terry Jones and John Williams, all of whom agreed in that report that pensions were deferred wages. Has there been a change in the Tory position? I would like to know that.

I recall the debate about this committee. The setting up of the committee followed in about a year. There was some fairly serious debate in this House on the need for improvements in private pension plans. There was a resolution that I moved in this House back in 1979, which received support. It asked for earlier vesting, a central agency and portability. The debate on that private member's bill passed this House with support from all three parties.

We did not get any movement on those points and a lot of years have gone by. We did not get a darn thing out of the Tory party, but we finally got the setting up of a select committee on pensions. That committee did some good work. However, it totally refused to look at improvements in public plans, which are really needed in Canada and in the province today. It dealt only with recommendations dealing with private plans, which probably pay pensions to less than half the workers in the province in any event. The reason there was a dissent by myself and my colleague the member for Bellwoods (Mr.

McClellan) in that report is that we tried to get some discussion and improvements in the public plans and we could not.

We had long debates on the improvements that were recommended to the private plans, some of which we supported in the report and some of which we did not, but we did reach agreement that pensions were deferred wages. There was no dissent on that point.

I guess it was a Band-Aid approach, but I do not recall a dissent by any of the Tory members of the committee at that time when we reached agreement in that committee that we should be taking money, where there were excess earnings in a fund, and using it to improve the benefits.

We could not get them to agree to indexing in that report, although we made the fight in the course of the select committee report, but we did get agreement that it made sense to use excessive earnings in private plans for improvements to those plans and that this might be the first step towards some form of indexing. That was the position taken at the time by the committee. It was taken by Tory, government party members. It made some sense. It did not go nearly far enough, but it was a beginning.

11:40 a.m.

We established that pension payments are deferred wages. Instead of taking that pension benefit, if a worker had taken the trouble to invest it, he would have earned the money on it. For a long while, workers took the wages, especially in earlier days when inflation was a little more and contracts were easier to come by, because they wanted the money in their pockets; but having decided instead to forego perhaps five or 10 cents in wages to put into a pension plan and to take the pension, that was guaranteed as a result of that set of negotiations, that agreement or that contract they signed when they took employment with the company.

Given the discussions we have had in the committee, it makes eminent sense that the money that may be earned as a result of those payments into the plan belongs to the workers. It is totally out of line to have the kind of ripoff we are seeing today when these plans have earned excess funds and companies are using them, in some cases, to pay their benefits, as poor as they may be, when they decide to shut down a plant.

Let me cite a couple of examples. We raised one of the cases in this House recently. I am talking about the Rexnord company in Toronto. This is a letter we received from the president of the local, who was trying at the time to get a meeting with the Premier:

"I work at Rexnord Canada Ltd. We are anticipating a plant shutdown in early January. As a result, the salaried employees will receive severance pay, from eight months to one year of pay, and up to $850 per month pension. Shop floor employees will receive severance pay from four weeks to 16 weeks of pay, maximum 62 years if qualified, and their pensions will be multiplied by $13 per year of service for a maximum pension of $455 for 35 years of service."

Obviously, there is a difference in the pensions of the office staff and the workers in the plant. However, four to 16 weeks after 20, 25 or 30 years of service with that company and a maximum pension of $455 is not a heck of a lot.

Then we take a look at what could have happened in terms of that pension. There is an excess in that plan. I wonder how much of the severance these workers are getting, which they are supposed to get as a result of severance pay legislation in this province, is coming out of their own money. Calculations as of January 1, 1986, by an independent actuary show that the balance in the Rexnord pension fund exceeds the plan's liabilities by $572,000. Rexnord has made application to the Pension Commission of Ontario for approval for a refund of $310,000 of this amount.

It goes on to talk about the total approval of $3,213,000 of this surplus, leaving $2,208,000 in the fund. It also talks about taking some money out of a plant called Matthews Conveyor Co. in Port Hope, which is owned by Rexnord.

I do not know where the justification is to use that excess funding, in effect, to pay for the responsibilities the company has under other legislation in this province. This is not the only example. The examples abound across Ontario. The company is using the surplus in that fund, which the workers always saw as their money since we established the principle of deferred wages in this province a number of years ago. Prominent members of all parties in this Legislature have agreed that those funds belong to the workers.

It seems to me there is not justice in Ontario. There are some dangerous double standards at play if we allow companies to dip into surplus earned as a result of investing money that otherwise would have gone directly into the pockets of workers during the course of their negotiations with the company. If we do not pass this resolution, we are insulting not only all the workers who are involved in private plans in Ontario, but we are also negating a principle that I, as a trade unionist, thought had been established a long time ago with respect to pension benefits. We will live to rue the day.

If there is an upside to it, it may finally drive home to people that the real answer in this country lies in dramatic improvements in the public pension schemes and not in trying to fool around with the private plans. However, as long as they are there, there should be justice. That money belongs to the workers and that is where it should go, not back to the companies.

Ms. E. J. Smith: I am very happy to support the motion of the member for York South. I realize, by necessity, such a motion is overly simplistic and cannot deal with many of the intricate problems involved in the writing of legislation around such an issue. However, I still believe this motion should be referred to a committee dealing with pensions so that the considerations put forward in it can be considered by that committee in the hope that it can find some solution that at least makes some gesture towards resolving this difficulty.

There is an issue of fairness here. I remind the members of the House that in the Middle Ages usury was actually considered a mortal sin. I recognize that in our present day and age we have a system virtually based on usury. However, this outlines the fact that there are very heavy moral issues involved in interest and in the use of money.

I can give members a very simple example from my own existence. My father, who was permanent force army, paid into a pension fund for many years. When he died and his widow received his share of it, the value of that money had substantially and radically changed because of the years during which he paid into it, the dirty Thirties and Twenties, and because of the value of money by 1955. In 1955, the pension my mother would have received was figured out at $2,500. Members know we do not even pay that in charity now for someone to live on minimum standards.

I point out to members that this laudable pension was for the wife of a major general. I do not even care to think what a noncommissioned officer would have received.

I recognize that the government then increased these pensions, but it gave out as charity what should have been there in justice, because the money that went into the pension had actually changed in value. The money that should have been there in the pension was the real money that was put in with this changed value, a point that has been regularly made by the New Democratic Party.

I agree with the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) that it is recognized that this was a benefit negotiated between employer and employee. The normal growth of that money belongs to the plan in the same way as the actual dollar value. If that money were invested by a prudent third party, it would increase in value because of the inflationary trends of money. That is not exceptional profit. For the most part, it is the regular profit that comes from prudent management and it belongs to the employee on whose behalf that money was negotiated in the first place. It is not new money. It is the same money adjusted upward as the money value has changed.

The arguments put against this by the ministry officials and by the new bill suggest it is insurmountable to work on this for some of the following reasons.

In the first place, we want to put in mandatory inflation protection, but the other provinces will not. I believe the committee can examine this. Surely there is something the committee can do to find some other method of keeping this money in its fair and rightful place to benefit the employees who have lost the value in their money. I believe it is time this province showed leadership. Let us do it now. Let the other provinces fall in behind. It can be done separately from those parts of the dealings that have to be done on a nationwide basis. I do not believe that should stand in the way of looking at this.

We are told it is too expensive. I am not impressed by this argument when I see that Genstar took $100 million in order to buy Canada Trust. I read from yesterday's Toronto Star:

"Canada Permanent had acted as trustee over Genstar's pension funds, but was removed because of philosophical differences, the Permanent's former counsel...told the committee.

"He testified the Permanent's ouster came after the firm resisted the withdrawals because of a number of lawsuits which arose out of similar transactions."

We are talking about billions of dollars. We are talking about to whom it belongs. I suggest that not everybody, even in the business world, believes it all belongs to the employer, or even that portion of it that comes after the 125 per cent.

11:50 a.m.

Another reason that is put forward as making this impossible is that it was not in the original contract. The employers and the employees made a contract, and that was not part of the deal struck by the employers and the employees at that time. I remind members of the House that I got married 38 years ago and my husband did not agree to Bill 1 at that time. He finds he is stuck with it now whether he likes it or not. if there is an issue in justice that we are looking at, we should look at it. It would be much more difficult to argue against this question of justice than it would be to argue with people who object to the retroactiveness of Bill 1.

Another facetious reason that is put forward is that business opposes it. I suppose it is human nature that if one's option is to share the funds with the people who put it in there or to take them for one's self to reinvest and do what one wants in a businesslike way, one looks after oneself. The business may do that. It is the ruling of government to look after the common interests of the individual, and in this case those individuals are the employees.

The other question that has been put forward by the Conservative members is that since businesses have to look after the shortfall when they have figured out their actuarial tables incorrectly, they should also get the benefits. There have to be better ways of making sure actuarial tables are correct and of looking after this eventuality. After all, if a company goes bankrupt and the shortfall exists, that is not resolved in any case. As was pointed out, they can dip only so far and then they put themselves at risk. There have to be other ways of making sure pensions are secured in their inflated value and kept safely for the people who contributed to them.

Society has taken on the responsibility for old people, and pensions create a pay-as-you-go philosophy of looking after those eventual obligations. Therefore, it is in the interests of society that employers and employees look after this responsibility while the employee is working so that the money is there and secure when the employee retires. Otherwise, it falls on the ordinary taxpayer anyhow because in this society we do not let our senior citizens stand in need.

To keep this money fair, inflated and able to pay what it was supposed to pay when the agreement was made, we need to find a way to build in this inflationary factor. We need to do it now as a government and as a Legislature and not wait until the courts tell us that is the only fair way we can act. I believe we should be examining these. We have heard that the government believes philosophically in this, that it wants to do it and it cannot do it for reasons of money and reasons of other provinces. If we have a philosophical and moral obligation here, then let us try more sincerely and with greater effort to meet that obligation as best we can.

I do not suggest, as the member for Durham West (Mr. Ashe) suggests, that to say this should be done is to say that all employers are being accused of being crooked. I think many employers see the fairness and honesty of what is being put forward here, but unfortunately we write laws because there are criminals or crooks who would abuse society and its people. That is why we have to have laws saying one cannot do these criminal activities. That does not in any way imply that everybody in our society is a criminal and needs to be forced by law not to damage other people.

In the case of employers, I believe many employers want to see fair pension plans in place and would be more than willing to co-operate in setting those in place and seeing them mandatory and looking after the people they were intended to look after. It is because some businesses will not do this that government has to get involved and say this is the fair way to do it. I hope the government people will look at it.

Mr. Rae: I very much appreciate the chance to conclude this discussion. A month ago, I was going to a convention to give a speech. A woman was standing at the door of the hall I was going into and selling buttons. She came up and told me her story. She said she had been a Dominion Stores employee for 27 years, that she was 57 years old, that she had no severance pay, that she could not keep up on her mortgage payments and that she was selling buttons about Conrad Black and getting $1 per button. That is Ontario 1986.

I am not describing some medieval country. I am not describing something in what the member for Durham West described as socialist rhetoric. That is not socialist rhetoric; that is reality in Ontario. That is what is happening to people. The member described Conrad Black as a "bad apple." Those are his words, not mine. I look forward to the correspondence between him and Conrad Black.

Mr. McClellan: I hope he says it outside the House.

Mr. Rae: I urge him to say it outside. Then we would all get to see what the correspondence would look like.

That is reality. What I think the member for London South (Ms. E. J. Smith) has done today is to speak very directly to what is a moral issue. It is a moral issue about people's money, about what happens to people's money, about who is entrusted with people's money and what they can do with the money when they put it into a fund on behalf of other people.

My colleague the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) spoke with such eloquence about the issue of insurance that I do not need to embellish the point. When it comes to pensions, it is extremely clear; it is not a complicated issue. The member for Mississauga North (Mr. Offer), who is here representing his boss, the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, has given us the party line. If I may say so, it is exactly the same line we had from the Tories.

Mr. McClellan: It is the Frank Miller line.

Mr. Rae: Yes, it is the Frank Miller line. It is the same line we have heard from those who say there is nothing that can be clone to change the situation and everything that is there is inevitable.

I do not have time to go through all four points the member made. I just want to say that nothing we are suggesting will discourage the existence and the development of private plans. Nothing we are suggesting will take away for a moment from the existence of a private sector that will be providing pension plans. All we are suggesting is that we inject an element of what I have called "the commonsense morality of ordinary people" into the way money is invested, saved and used on behalf of those people. We are talking about the use and the misuse of people's money.

The government has expressed an interest in the amount of corporate takeover activity that is happening. The Treasurer has said he is very concerned about the amount of corporate takeover activity that is taking place. Who is financing the paper economy, the roulette economy, the casino economy? The workers of this province are. Their pensions funds are financing the roulette economy. Genstar takes over Permanent and finances it with money which is there on behalf of its own employees. The people say that is perfectly legal, that is the way it works and that is the wonder of private enterprise.

I disagree. I think when the story of the 20th century comes to be written, it will be the story of ordinary people striving to gain some degree of control over an economy and striving to inject greater and greater amounts of morality into that economy so it corresponds to their commonsense feelings of what should be.

Is it moral for a father who is putting money into a bank on behalf of a child to say at some point, "That money has made some interest and it is my genius that produced that interest and not the bank"? Conrad Black would say it is his unique genius, and that is baloney. If the father says, "I am going to take that money out," does the money not belong to the child? Yes, it does. If one puts money in trust, that money belongs to the people on whose behalf one has placed that money. That is the commonsense morality of the family and it ought to be the commonsense morality of our economy.

It is time we gave the workers in this province not charity, but some justice, some economic power and some economic control.

12 noon

Mr. Speaker: The member's time has expired.

RAPID TRANSIT LINE

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Gregory has moved resolution 38.

All those in favour will say "aye." All those opposed will say "nay." In my opinion the ayes have it. Motion agreed to.

12:05 p.m.

PENSION FUNDS

The House divided on Mr. Rae's resolution 39, which was agreed to on the following vote:

Ayes

Allen, Andrewes, Baetz, Bossy, Breaugh, Bryden, Charlton, Cooke, D. S., Cordiano, Foulds, Fulton, Gigantes, Grande, Grier, Haggerty, Hennessy, Laughren, Mackenzie, McClellan, McGuigan, McKessock, Miller, G. L, Morin, Morin-Strom, Newman, Polsinelli, Rae, Ramsay, Reville, Sargent, Smith, E. J., South, Sterling, Stevenson, K. R., Swart, Warner, Wildman.

Nays

Ashe, Barlow, Dean, Eves, Ferraro, Gregory, Guindon, Hart, Knight, Lane, Leluk, Marland, McNeil, Nixon, Offer, Poirier, Pollock, Reycraft, Rowe, Sheppard, Smith, D. W., Taylor, Villeneuve, Wiseman.

Ayes 37; nays 24.

The House recessed at 12:10 p.m.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

ROWING CHAMPIONSHIP

Mr. Partington: A very successful 41st annual Canadian Secondary School Rowing Championship was held this past weekend on the 1,500-metre Henley rowing course in St. Catharines in the ridings of Brock and St. Catharines.

There were 82 schools represented from across Canada, from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland, and from the eastern United States. Heats were run on Friday and Saturday, with 30 finals being run on Sunday. The weather was a tremendous challenge to both the athletes and the officials, but they rallied and completed a great closing day on schedule.

Ridley College from St. Catharines captured top honours in both the men's and women's events, as well as the total points championship and the prestigious Calder Cleland Trophy for the senior men's heavy-eight race. Denis Morris separate school and Lakeport Secondary School, both of St. Catharines, took second and third places, with Upper Canada College of Toronto fourth and Shawnigan Lake School from Vancouver Island fifth.

Rowing is a demanding sport, requiring total dedication from the participants on a seven-days-a-week basis. It develops the minds, bodies and characters of our young people. In the process, it creates lifetime friendships. I take this opportunity to commend the athletes, coaches and officials on a job well done.

GOVERNMENT JOBS

Mr. Morin-Strom: I see no reason why so many government offices must be in Toronto and why many of them are not in northern Ontario. For 42 years, the Conservatives ignored communities such as Sault Ste. Marie. These communities have experienced the frustration of trying to deal with slow, unresponsive government ministries in Toronto.

After one year of Liberal government, the problem remains to be addressed. Several months ago, we heard the promise of the Minister of Northern Development and Mines (Mr. Fontaine) to move an additional 1,000 jobs to northern Ontario. The words were commendable, but when will we see the action?

Saint Ste. Marie in particular is currently facing an economic crisis from the down-sizing of Algoma Steel. We do not need more studies and recommendations. The Rosehart commission on resource-dependent communities has just recommended that 5,000 Ontario government jobs be transferred to the north during the next five years. A group of deputy ministers and the standing committee on resources development have both recently heard specific recommendations for action on this issue from the community of Sault Ste. Marie.

The chamber of commerce has suggested that the timber and wildlife sectors of the Ministry of Natural Resources be moved from Toronto and that the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines could transfer jobs to the Sault rather than reducing its staff. For years, United Steelworkers locals have been asking for a regional office of the Workers' Compensation Board. With a committee of cabinet ministers visiting the Sault next week, I want the government to know that we in the Sault expect action now, not more consultation.

TARIFFS

Mr. Ferraro: I am pleased to tell the House that the United States International Trade Commission has ruled unanimously against directing new barriers on imports of steel forks used on forklift trucks. That decision removes a serious threat to Kenhar Products Inc. of Guelph, a firm that employs 134 people and is the major supplier of steel forks to the US market, selling about 85 per cent of its products there.

Kenhar's prime US competitor petitioned the International Trade Commission on January 17, asking it to raise the current 0.6 per cent duty on imported steel forks to 35 per cent. The US company said these imports were causing serious injury to American firms. However, Kenhar argued before the commission that the problems of US companies were the result of poor management and not imports. The commission ruled six to zero to deny relief to the US industry, without disclosing its reasons.

There is little doubt that most of the jobs at Kenhar would have been in jeopardy had the commission accepted the American request. Officials of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology took that threat seriously and met with representatives of both the federal government and Kenhar to discuss ways of avoiding such a punitive tariff.

Kenhar is in my riding and is recognized around the world for the quality of its products. I congratulate the management and employees on this exciting victory, and I wish to thank the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. O'Neil) and the deputy minister, Pat Lavelle, and his staff for their efforts in this regard.

ENVIRONMENT WEEK

Ms. Fish: As members know, this is Canada Environment Week. It is a week in which we can focus our attention particularly on environmental issues and hope to heighten the awareness of the public and industry of the economic benefits of a clean environment and a healthy place in which to live.

By focusing on environment this week, all Canadians, not just Ontarians, will participate in workshops, information sessions and seminars. Schoolchildren, for example, will participate in many programs that will contribute to the beautification of their local communities and will give them a better understanding of the need to keep Ontario clean.

Our Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) has refused to acknowledge the special focus of this week and has refused to promote it.

A great deal of work has gone into public education and expanding the public's awareness of the importance of the environment. A great deal of that work has been done by voluntary nonprofit environmental groups. They, in particular, have organized seminars, conferences and public information sessions all this week in an effort to enhance not only World Environment Week but also the public's awareness and involvement in a clean environment.

Our Minister of the Environment should be applauding that work, not insulting it.

Mrs. Grier: I too want to celebrate World Environment Day, part of Canada Environment Week. I agree with the Minister of the Environment when he says that in this province every week is environment week. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, we agree with what the minister says but we wait in vain for concrete action.

This is the 49th week of the term of this government -- 49 environment weeks, according to the minister. We have had more than 49 promises of action, but let me give members a few examples of how these 49 weeks have been celebrated.

In week 2, we had a promise of comprehensive legislation to provide intervener funding. We are still waiting.

Week 19 indicated an action plan for the St. Clair River. That came up again in week 21, week 23, week 24 and week 31, and then I lost count.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: How about control of acid rain in week 6?

Mrs. Grier: I am getting to it.

Week 21 also had a promise of legislation to increase penalties and fines. That came again in weeks 29 and 31.

Week 22 was the week to promise a drinking water strategy, and again in week 45.

Then there was week 25, an action week, with strong measures to curb acid rain emissions. We welcomed week 25. We praised week 25. And we wonder how long we will have to wait for the next action-packed celebration.

POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION

For example, we announced an $84-million, five-year faculty renewal program to hire 500 new faculty members. Recently the colleges received $60 million of new funding over the next two years to hire a substantial number of new faculty members throughout the system.

In October 1985, the university excellence fund and the college excellence fund were announced with an overall total commitment of $80 million. Funding for the Ontario student assistance program was increased by eight per cent for 1986-87, compared with 5.9 per cent in 1985-86.

On May 13, 1986, the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) announced a further $IS million to support applied research in Ontario's universities. Although we have made considerable progress in putting our post-secondary institutions back on the road to recovery, this government will continue its efforts to bring about excellence in those institutions.

NORTHERN ONTARIO GAMES FOR THE PHYSICALLY DISABLED

Mr. Eves: I want to take this opportunity to announce that the Northern Ontario Games for the Physically Disabled will open tomorrow in Parry Sound.

It is a great honour for our community to play host to these games this year. Athletes from many northern communities, including Timmins, Thunder Bay, North Bay, Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie, will be participating in the games. As well, more than 400 volunteers and support staff have given up their time and energy to help ensure the success of this event.

I wish all those competing the very best of luck, and I look forward to emceeing the opening ceremonies tomorrow evening. In these games, everybody is a winner.

2:11 p.m.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

SPECIAL WARRANTS

Hon. Ms. Caplan: In response to the point of order from the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris): when I made my statement in regard to the tabling of the special warrants on April 24, I understood that copies of the special warrants were to be inserted into members' mailboxes. Apparently, this did not take place. As a result, copies are being distributed to all members today.

Mr. Harris: I am pleased to respond briefly to the statement by the Chairman of Management Board. I accept the apology I called for yesterday from her for not distributing

Interjection.

Mr. Harris: I read apology into it, and I think that was her way of doing it. She apologized because they were not inserted into the members' mailboxes. However, the main point I made yesterday was that they were not tabled with the Clerk. That is the requirement under the standing orders. There was no comment on that from the Chairman of Management Board today, and that is a serious breach of the rules of this Legislature.

RENT REVIEW

Hon. Mr. Curling: This is a long-awaited moment. This is a historic day for this province. Later this afternoon I will be introducing legislation to reform Ontario's system of rent review. This legislation is significant for three major reasons: (1) it provides the tenants of Ontario with real and universal protection from unfair rent increases, (2) it provides for the revitalization of rental housing construction in this province and (3) it creates a system of rent review that is fair and equitable to all.

This legislation is even more significant for the manner in which it came to be. Since I became Minister of Housing, I have met and spoken to hundreds of landlords and tenants. I have listened to their serious concerns about the system of rent review that existed under the previous government. It was apparent that radical changes were required.

In seeking to reform the rent review system, our government faced a choice. We could simply implement our policies as additions to the existing system; and there would be little risk in taking that course, for the previous government had operated the rent review system that way for years. Or we could take an alternative course: we could go right to the root of the problem, take the entire system apart and come up with something better. That is the approach we selected.

Yet we knew that to do the job properly, we would need the assistance of tenants and landlords who are expert in the field. For this reason, I announced on December 16 the formation of a committee of tenant and landlord leaders who were asked to provide a new approach to rent review that would balance both their interests in a fair and effective manner.

As members are aware, the Rent Review Advisory Committee reached agreement on the best way to implement a new system of rent review and provided its recommendations to the government in its report of April 18. These recommendations represented a unique consensus between landlords and tenants. It is a consensus that this government has adopted and that has been incorporated into the new version of the Residential Rent Regulation Act.

The revised legislation maintains the framework outlined on December 16, which was reflected in Bill 78. Today I am introducing a new bill to provide the people of Ontario with a seamless, fully comprehensive piece of legislation. Later, I will be withdrawing Bill 78, and at the appropriate time I will be introducing some minor amendments to the new legislation after consulting with the members of the Rent Review Advisory Committee.

The six major features of this legislation are: (1) the establishment of an annual rent review guideline based on an inflation index, (2) a costs-no-longer-borne procedure for some financing and capital costs, (3) the establishment of a comprehensive province-wide rent registry, (4) a provision for the elimination of economic loss on post-1975 buildings to ensure the viability of those properties, (5) the provision of a revised form of hardship relief for owners of pre-1976 buildings and (6) the establishment of the Residential Rental Standards Board to develop provincial property standards. These standards will be used in calculating rent increases.

A key provision of the new legislation is the rent review guideline. I want to assure this House that the formula that has been put in place to adjust the guideline on an annual basis was fully supported by the tenants' representatives as part of a fair overall strategy to protect all tenants from spiralling rent increases and assure them of regular maintenance of their homes. The tenants' representatives are also in full agreement and support of the provisions in this act that assure builders, landlords and investors of a fair return on their investment in both existing and new rental accommodation.

The Residential Rent Regulation Act is a key facet of our overall housing strategy. At the same time, it is essential to note that the assured housing strategy is designed to increase the supply of available rental housing in this province.

I want to emphasize that this government fully accepts its responsibility to meet the housing needs of the less fortunate among us. Provisions in last month's budget allocated to my colleague the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) provide shelter subsidies for welfare recipients that will benefit 50,000 families in Ontario.

Earlier, I announced a commitment to build 6,700 new social housing units each year for the next five years, for a total of 33,500. Today, I am pleased to announce that we are adding an additional 13,400 units of nonprofit and co-op housing, to be released over the next seven years. This will constitute a total of 46,900 new social housing units in this province.

I am proud of this commitment to provide housing for Ontario residents with low to moderate incomes.

Today's legislation, the Residential Rent Regulation Act, opens the door to the private sector to increase the supply of rental housing for the middle-and upper-income markets.

It would be remiss of me not to recognize the members of the Rent Review Advisory Committee. On April 18, 1986, I publicly thanked them for their participation in the process that led to their historic agreement on a system of rent review for Ontario that would be equally fair to landlords and tenants. Today, I wish to thank them for their contribution. This government has accepted their recommendations with few revisions.

The people of Ontario owe a debt of gratitude to the members of the Rent Review Advisory Committee. These men and women put aside their own interests to work for the common interest. I cannot measure the hours, days and weeks they contributed to this undertaking. In the end they provided the guidelines for our new system of rent review.

They are in the gallery today, and I want to introduce them. First, there are the two people who co-chaired the committee so efficiently and effectively and who worked so very hard to make it succeed: Mary Hogan, director of Parkdale Community Legal Services, and William Grenier, chairman of Pagebrook Holdings Inc.

2:20 p.m.

Other members of the committee include John Basel, president of Arcadia Group Investments Ltd.; Leslie Robinson, co-ordinator of the Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations; Peter Goring, senior vice-president of Bramalea Ltd.; Kathy Laird, a lawyer with Metro Tenants Legal Services; Gary Griesdorf, vice-president and general manager of Goldlist Construction Ltd.; Fred Bever, an advocacy researcher with the National Anti-Poverty Organization; Glen Sifton, president of Sifton Properties Ltd.;

Pilar Amaya-Tones, a community legal worker; John Andrade, president of John Andrade Associates Ltd.; Jeffrey Patterson, senior program director of the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto; Stuart Smith, president and chief operations officer of Shipp Corp. Ltd.; Dr. Claude Brodeur, a professor with the faculty of education of the University of Toronto; Peter Libman, a barrister and solicitor with the firm of O'Reilly, Moll and Libman; Robert Elms, chairman of the London Towers Tenants' Association; and last, but certainly not least, Jan Schwartz, president of the Multiple Dwelling Standards Association.

I would like them to stand and be recognized.

I have a tremendous staff in the civil service in the Ministry of Housing, and they too have done a tremendous job.

To all of you, my congratulations on a job well done.

Some people may be under the impression that the tabling of this new rent review legislation today signals the end of the process, the end of the consultation. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, today marks a new beginning.

The Rent Review Advisory Committee will continue to work with the government in developing the regulations and guidelines of our new rent review legislation and assist in ensuring the legislation is implemented properly right from the start. Restructured as the Rental Housing Advisory Committee, it will review the Landlord and Tenant Act and present me with recommendations for change which I will bring to the Attorney General (Mr. Scott).

Today, this government moves to put in place the most responsive, constructive and sensitive system of rent review in North America, It is sound legislation, designed to be fair and designed to work. It is legislation that is fully deserving of the support of every member of this Legislature.

Mr. Gordon: I would like to reply to the statement that has been made today by the Minister of Housing. I am sure the House is aware, as is the public of Ontario, that it was the Minister of Housing who set the agenda and promised a new housing policy for Ontario more than seven months ago. It was the Liberals who identified housing as the pressing issue in Ontario, and if they were prepared to make a political point by promising action then, they should have been prepared to follow through by now.

We want to be constructive, but when we see the minister introducing a bill in this House and then telling us he is going to have to withdraw it for further amendments, a bill to replace Bill 78, which has been here since January, we have to wonder whether he has it together at all.

When the minister is having his party today in the office of the Premier (Mr. Peterson), along with his invited guests, I hope they will ask him this question: How can he justify causing rents to go up for tenants in this province? Those rents are going to go up more than the rate of inflation and more than what unions are able to negotiate for their workers today. How can he justify raising rents for those people? How can he justify raising rents for more than 200,000 people who right now are living in rental units they cannot afford?

Does the minister think the bill he is introducing today is going to make their units more affordable? I beg to differ with him. We are trying awfully hard to be constructive, but this bill does not do anything for affordable housing in this province. The minister has been promising us a new history in this province, that landlords and tenants are going to come together and be happy.

Daniel McIntyre, president of the Ottawa tenants' group representing 40 different groups, is not happy. He told me he would not sign the agreement to do with this bill because it means housing is going to become less affordable for tenants in Ontario.

It does not make Dale Martin happy either. He is the former chairman of the Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations. He told me this bill was going to transfer millions of dollars to the landlords at the expense of the tenants and was not going to provide one more unit of housing. In fact, it is an excuse for the minister to say he has a policy so that the minister and the Premier can meet today to celebrate causing tenants to pay more rent in this province.

Are the developers happy? The minister says they are on his side. They have just launched a $2-million advertising campaign saying this new bill is merely a stopgap and that it does not answer the question of how to produce more affordable rental units in this province. This is a sham. I put it to him that when every individual in this province has had a chance to assess what he has done here today, he is going to find that people are not going to buy it.

Mr. Reville: This is a historic day in the province and in rent review legislation. History will tell whether this legislation will do what the minister has promised it will do. It was introduced on December 16, 1985, again on April 22, 1986, and again today on June 5, 1986.

I am happy it is finally here. It is symbolic that the minister has withdrawn his first Bill 78, because I think he has also withdrawn the commitment he made to the tenants of this province when his government was formed. That has to do with all the rent review protections that were so clearly spelled out in the accord signed between the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party of Ontario.

There is no way to determine whether this legislation will create one stick of rental accommodation in this province. That is a supply question. The minister should know that rent review is consumer protection, not supply. When the minister sat down to listen to tenants and landlords, he was listening to the landlords with his better ear.

I would like, however, to join the minister in thanking the members of the Rent Review Advisory Committee for their very hard work. They worked long and hard. They struggled with some of the most contentious issues in our society and they made some recommendations to government. However, they were working under a horrible constraint. The horrible constraint imposed upon them was the government's assured housing policy. They were deliberating within that framework. It is not surprising that the New Democratic Party will find some difficulty in supporting some of the recommendations.

We are very anxious to get on with this debate. It has been a year since the tenants of this province were left in limbo by this government, and while one is still alive limbo is not a very good place to be.

I agree wholeheartedly that this is not the end of the process. There is need for strong and searching debate. The Tories have been bankrupt on housing policy for 42 years and are still bankrupt. What they have been able to do to bolster their speech today is quote from two prominent New Democrats, who find the process embarked on by the government is not to their liking. We will, of course, entertain any entreaties they may want to make to us about joining our party.

Over the next while, we in the New Democratic Party will be fighting with all of our not inconsiderable heart and soul to ensure that this rent review legislation works very well for the tenants of Ontario. I do not think the government has managed to achieve that. Some aspects of the bill are very important, and those are things we have been after for many years. I am surprised that it took the minister so long to find out what those elements were.

Those elements are indeed a rent registry, improvements to things such as costs no longer borne and universal rent control. Without universal rent control, tenants do not have control over their lives, which is what the New Democratic Party is fighting for on behalf of the people of Ontario. This is one area in which control over one's life is absolutely essential. We will continue to struggle on behalf of the tenants to make sure that occurs.

WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY

Hon. Mr. Bradley: Today is World Environment Day, and I would like to outline the broad direction our government is taking to protect the people and the ecosystem.

Over the past year, I have tried to reinvigorate the Ministry of the Environment. We have stopped pampering polluters; further, we have put them on notice that drastic reductions are a must. In some cases -- the acid rain polluters -- strict abatement schedules are already on the books, and in other cases -- the water polluters -- those abatement schedules are being formulated. I hope to have our waterways' cleanup blueprint before the House shortly.

When we step back from the daily tussle, we can see that these measures are merely a first step. I can see the day when the only significant pollution sources in Ontario will be accidental spills. We are closer than we may believe to a time when routine, day-to-day disposal of persistent toxic industrial wastes into the air, water and soil will be seen as a destructive, unhealthy crime which society will not tolerate.

Industrialization has brought us great wealth. We must now harness this engine of prosperity so it does not clog our very life support matrix, the global ecosystem.

Already the dimensions of what we have thoughtlessly wrought are becoming apparent. Frightening accounts of our entire Great Lakes basin being a bowl of toxicity have surfaced within the past six months. Our food chain is being contaminated. We are poisoning ourselves slowly, and it is time to turn the situation around.

Within a few decades, all routine persistent toxic pollution must, and will, end. Our government is taking the first steps at home by preparing tougher air and water abatement measures which address, for the first time, persistent toxic pollution; but much of the damage is transboundary in nature, and beyond our direct control.

In the most immediate sense, we must deal with our American neighbours on several key issues. While this is sometimes a difficult process -- witness acid rain abatement and the Niagara River cleanup negotiations -- there is a good record of past achievement. One need only look southwest to Lake Erie, where ou