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October 21, 1982

32nd Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Hansard Transcripts

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

WELFARE PAYMENTS

MINISTERIAL APPEARANCES AT COMMITTEES

VISITOR

ORAL QUESTIONS

UNEMPLOYMENT

DEATHS AT HOSPITAL FOR SICK CHILDREN

WELFARE PAYMENTS

HANDICAPPED ADULTS' SERVICES

USE OF TIME IN QUESTION PERIOD

HOTEL FIRE SAFETY

CAMCO INC.

FRENCH-LANGUAGE SCHOOLS

USE OF TIME IN QUESTION PERIOD

REPORT

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT

MOTIONS

COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTIONS

MOTION TO SET ASIDE ORDINARY BUSINESS

UNEMPLOYMENT IN SUDBURY

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON NOTICE PAPER

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

WELFARE PAYMENTS

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, today I would like to announce a special recession package of $52 million in program improvements and new initiatives to provide additional basic assistance in this critical period. This assistance will be directed to those people who are most severely affected by the current recession.

I would like to emphasize that a new type of recipient has been forced on to welfare, one who had never had to rely on government assistance. There is an unprecedented number of unemployed people in Ontario who have exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits. Even though they are actively seeking jobs, jobs just are not there.

Let me point out what this has meant for the general welfare assistance program. In March 1981, 84,563 people were receiving assistance from this program, and with the usual summer seasonal decline the number of recipients dropped to 72,020 by October. However, in March of this year, just eight months ago, 94,725 people received general welfare assistance. Little or no seasonal decline took place in the summer of 1982. Not only has this not happened in recent memory, but the outlook for the winter is particularly bleak.

The Ministry of Community and Social Services will be responding in a number of ways. I am pleased to announce permanent allowance increases to more than 100,000 family benefits assistance recipients, and to over 85,000 general welfare assistance recipients. These increases will benefit some 370,000 people in both programs.

In addition, an emergency winter community shelter and assistance program will be undertaken immediately. This program will involve the co-operation of church agencies and municipalities, whom it will assist to meet the needs of those most affected by the current recession. Up to $1.5 million will be made available.

It is clear to me that the next six months will be particularly difficult for those without resources. As a result, I have taken this major step of providing temporary emergency funding over and above permanent increases to existing programs. The following increases will take place in Ontario social assistance programs:

General welfare assistance recipients: effective November 1 of this year, they will receive a basic five per cent adjustment to their benefits; in addition, a $25 across-the-board adjustment in the province-wide shelter subsidy will go to those with high shelter costs. A special rise of $11 per month above these increases will be provided to all single employable recipients, raising the maximum allowance for this group from the present $266 to $313, or a total increase of up to 17.7 per cent.

Family benefits recipients: effective January 1, 1983, they also will receive a basic five per cent adjustment in addition to a similar $25 across-the-board adjustment in the province-wide shelter subsidy.

I would also like to inform members of this House that, as of next month, the guaranteed annual income system for the disabled, or Gains-D, under the family benefits program, will be extended to include more than 27,000 recipients now classed as permanently unemployable. This is the second stage of an expansion of the Gains-D program, which began in November of last year with a $40 per month increase.

This second stage will provide increases of up to $46 per month as well as the five per cent adjustment which applies to FBA recipients in general. These increases will result in rate adjustments of up to 24.1 per cent for single persons on the program. The increases, which also will apply to single 60- to 64-year-old women, will result in adjustments to this group of up to 39,3 per cent over November of last year.

As in previous adjustments, the object of the selective application of available funds is to ensure that those recipients in the greatest need receive the greatest benefits. The emergency winter community shelter and assistance program will provide a critical source of aid to those who have been particularly hard hit by the effects of the recession. Emergency assistance is currently provided through the general welfare assistance program, but the severity of the recession calls for an increased allocation for the next six months through the winter.

I anticipate that an additional $1.5 million will be required to finance these new initiatives. We have already been talking with church agencies in the core of Metropolitan Toronto so that we may determine the program details, as well as to clarify the role of the municipalities.

In addition to the social assistance increases I have referred to earlier, there will also be increases to foster-children rates, pregnancy diets, facility discharge allowances and back-to-school allowances for children of family benefits recipients.

2:10 p.m.

The rate adjustment contains a further example of selectivity in its treatment of boarders. While recipients facing market costs will receive the five per cent adjustment plus the shelter supplement, those whose boarding costs are not determined by market conditions will not receive them. For example, many individuals living with relatives or friends will not receive any increase to their maximum payments at this time.

Consistent with the overall selectivity theme, however, minimum boarding payments have been increased by five per cent. Also, individuals renting other than self-contained quarters will be treated in a comparable manner to boarders.

I would like to stress that an increased allocation of $96 million will be required next year just to keep pace with the allowance levels we already provide. This increase on its own means that the amount paid by the province for basic income maintenance will exceed $1 billion. This amount is cost-shared by the federal government under the Canada assistance plan.

In closing, I am confident these features and the new initiatives to Ontario's social assistance programs will improve our responsiveness to actual needs while the new funding will help us in the short term.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Riverside.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Can the minister make a copy of that statement available to each member of the assembly today?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Certainly.

MINISTERIAL APPEARANCES AT COMMITTEES

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order on which I need your direction.

My understanding is this House is supreme and that committees are an extension of the House. On two occasions while the justice committee has been dealing with the restraint bill, the chairman has ruled out of order motions requesting the appearance before the committee of ministers whose portfolios are directly affected by Bill 179.

I have read the chairman's statements. There was no statement on the first occasion. He just said, "You are out of order and I will not deal with it." On the second occasion, he made a ruling. I believe his authorities and rulings are incorrect and unprecedented and the precedents he cites do not deal with the matter.

No one is asking that the committee do anything outside of its terms of reference, but to interpret the committee's instructions from the House so narrowly as to exclude an appearance by a minister is ludicrous and unacceptable. Surely, public hearings should be interpreted as permitting the public to hear from the minister concerned.

I point out that on the same page of May mentioned by the chairman, it also says, "The

interpretation of the committee's order of reference is a matter for the committee." I am not questioning that the committee does not have the right to set its orders, but the chairman did not allow the committee even to make a decision. He arbitrarily, without any reference, ruled out of order the motion that was moved.

If the chairman means that public hearings mean only presentations from the public, how could he have allowed the critics to make opening statements on Tuesday night? If public hearings are going to be so narrowly interpreted, then presumably neither the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) nor his parliamentary assistant will be permitted to say anything until clause-by-clause study begins on the bill.

What I am asking for here is some direction because we had a heavy-handed action by a chairman that was totally out of order. What recourse do we have, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. McClellan: Speaking to the same point of order, Mr. Speaker, before you make your ruling on the --

Mr. Speaker: I would ask the member to proceed. I am not asking advice; I was telling the Clerk something. I can listen to you while I am talking.

Mr. McClellan: I am glad you are not asking for advice.

Before you make a ruling on the matter that has been raised by my colleague the member for Hamilton East, I would like to ask you to review the transcript of the proceedings of the justice committee. My understanding is that not only were two motions having to do with the agenda of the committee ruled out of order by the chairman in a totally arbitrary way, and I was present for those two events, but that a third motion, also dealing with the ordering of the agenda of the committee, was accepted by the same chairman. It was accepted, I am told, because it came from a member of the governing party.

It is a matter of extreme concern when chairmen rule that resolutions are out of order by virtue of the fact they come from one side of the House, but are in order by virtue of the fact they come from another side of the House. I am sure you would be very concerned if that kind of thing --

Hon. Mr. Eaton: Sounds like the days of Philip when he was chairman.

Interjections.

Mr. McClellan: Well, some members of the government may think their majority entitles them to stampede over everything and everybody, but that is not the way we do things in a parliamentary democracy. Mr. Speaker knows that, whether my tinpot friend knows it or not.

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, I know that in the past when we have brought matters of what transpires in committees to your attention, you have indicated the committees have the right to order their own business and, in essence, should settle their own squabbles within the committee system. That worked very well when we were in a minority position because, if there was a challenge to the chair, we were in a position to overturn the decision of the chairman if it was unfair.

The reason we are coming to you with these questions of order, or points of order or privilege, whatever they come under, is that the last person we can appeal to in this regard is the Speaker, for his guidance and his persuasive powers in dealing with committee chairmen. I do not want to place the matter I drew to your attention in the same category as this; it is not the same thing. We come to you because ultimately we have the Prime Minister's six and five solution on every motion that comes before a committee: six Conservatives and five opposition members.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order: The policy the chairman has fallen into in this matter is that he continually remarks that we are under mandatory instructions from the House, as if in some magic way that overrides the orderly business of the committee. I am sure, sir, when you are giving consideration to the point of order raised by my colleague the member for Hamilton East, you will take into account that you must instruct the chairman about the leeway involved, even though the terms of reference of the committee were specifically set by resolution of the House.

Mr. Speaker: I thank the honourable members for raising this matter and bringing it to my attention. I would ask that I be given some time to consider it and report back next week.

VISITOR

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, with your indulgence, may I take this opportunity to introduce a very important visitor who is sitting under your gallery on this side of the House. Our guest is Mr. Stephen Neary, the Leader of the Opposition and leader of the Liberal Party in Newfoundland.

I should point out he is the longest-serving member of that House, having served some 21 years. I understand in that period of time he has been a minister of the crown, the whip, the House leader and is now the leader. I am told by those far wiser than I that he will be the next Premier of that great province.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: He's more likely than you anyway.

Interjections.

Mr. Peterson: I had to do something to arouse those chaps.

ORAL QUESTIONS

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a question to the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller). The Treasurer is no doubt aware that on Tuesday, Falconbridge mines announced 300 to 500 more workers will lose their jobs permanently, joining at least another 1,000 of their fellow workers in Sudbury. No doubt he is aware that General Motors announced yesterday that the Oshawa car and truck plants will be closed for three weeks and two weeks, respectively, affecting another 5,050 people. In addition, 135 workers at the Oshawa fabrication plant will go on indefinite layoff starting Monday, joining 1,250 truck workers already scheduled to begin indefinite layoff.

No doubt these statistics speak to the very serious structural problems both in the manufacturing sector and in the resource sector in this province. Is the Treasurer now persuaded, hearing this almost daily litany of statistics every week in this House and given the record number of unemployed, that it is his responsibility to act and what is he going to do?

2:20 p.m.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition's question is in two categories. One

part is specifically for the north; probably when it is responded to, my colleague the Minister for Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier) may be the best one to answer it. I believe my colleague the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope) is in Sudbury this afternoon; no matter what else he may be doing there, I assume he is quite concerned about and involved in the problems of Inco and Falconbridge.

As far as the other part of the honourable member's question is concerned, it is the question he has asked me most days of the week. I must say I have been very encouraged of late by the rapidly increasing dialogue between the new ministers in Ottawa and ourselves. I have been impressed by the willingness of both Mr. Lalonde and Mr. Johnston to come here to talk to us and to imply that there probably will be some federal action. We hope we may be part of it, and we have offered to be. I have instructed my staff to be ready to discuss matters with Ottawa should they permit us to do so, and I understand that they will permit us to do so.

Mr. Peterson: I must tell the Treasurer that I have drawn no more comfort from his remarks today than I have over the past few weeks, as he continually fails to address his mind, or the actions of his ministry, towards what we consider to be very serious problems.

I remind the Treasurer that when his colleague the Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. Walker) announces jobs -- for example, when he said there would be some 600 or so jobs as a result of one GM deal -- he always goes on to say, "As a result of that, the actual economic spinoff will be twice or three times that, because each manufacturing job creates twice as many non-manufacturing jobs." With respect to the Clark Equipment deal that he bragged about in this House last week, he talked about the initial jobs, but he also said twice as many jobs will be created in the community.

His point is that when these jobs are created there is an economic ripple effect, or spinoff, that is good for the community.

Is the Treasurer impressed by the fact that every time we lose a permanent job in this province, we are not losing one job but, by his own logic, we are probably losing three jobs and that things are much more serious than he is prone to admit? Does that not say to the Treasurer that he has to have a greater sense of urgency in these matters; that just having a few meetings with Mr. Johnston or Mr. Lalonde, or whoever his friends are in Ottawa this week, is not going to address some of these questions nearly quickly enough? Why will the Treasurer not come forward to this House now with a plan of action?

Hon. F. S. Miller: My friend never wants to admit that we ever do anything positive or that we have had a plan of action. I can only suggest, in terms of the numbers of jobs created by government action, that Ontario has done well. That in no way alleviates the suffering that is going on. My friend knows that. But he does not want to admit that

section 38, with the federal government's Unemployment Insurance Act, has helped to produce 4,000 jobs in the north. He does not want to admit that those jobs are worth having. He would imply to me that putting 4,000 people back to work on projects such as access roads and reforestation --

Mr. Bradley: It's not enough.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Sure it is not enough. I am not even trying to pretend it is, but it is 4,000 jobs that have been created. My friend does not want to admit that the housing program is working right now; that applications are coming in quickly and that for every house sold, three to 3 1/2 man-years of work are created in Ontario. He does not want to say that if we had not put $75 million into that program, those jobs would not have been created. Those people are working. He does not want to admit that interest rates are coming down because of a turnaround in the spending habits of at least this government.

Mr. Peterson: What nonsense.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I was looking at some statistics today, and I want to read a couple of them into the record to show how well this province has done in comparison with the others, particularly compared with a Liberal government.

Interjection.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Yes, the rate just dropped again. Just a few moments ago it dropped nine basis points, and it dropped 92 last week.

I want to point out that, while I have had my deficit get worse this year by some 15 per cent, Alberta has had its deficit change, from the day it estimated until now, by 223 per cent. British Columbia's has become worse by 203 per cent; the federal government's by almost 400 per cent. Since its last budget was brought out, there has been a 400 per cent change. The member is trying to imply that on a day-to-day basis this government has not been a good and orderly operator or that it has not taken action. We have done better than any other government in Canada. The facts show it.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: I think it is your responsibility to determine whether his staff writes an answer for him regardless of the question or how he thinks about it. What does what he has said have to do with the question asked?

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is not my responsibility.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary to the Treasurer has to do with that part of the leader of the official opposition's question that dealt with the Falconbridge announcement of 500 more layoffs. Is the Treasurer aware that in Sudbury now, approximately $15 million a month is being paid out in Unemployment Insurance Commission benefits and $1 million a month in welfare payments to people within the region?

Given that and the fact that my colleague the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) and I have prepared a document called A Challenge to Sudbury, which outlines an eight-point program for rebuilding the Sudbury economy -- a document, I might add, that even the Treasurer should not find ideologically offensive -- would the Treasurer assure us he will support my motion for an emergency debate later on this afternoon?

Hon. F. S. Miller: No, Mr. Speaker, I cannot give that assurance at all. A motion of that nature was defeated, I believe, or at least ruled out of order or not necessary, just a few days ago. I recognize the problems are not better. I do not think, however, they have deteriorated in the last two days to a point that changes the picture. However, the member knows that later on today that motion will be put and will be ruled on. Let us wait until then before deciding what the feeling of the Speaker is.

I accept the fact that the member's ideas are put forward seriously and they are put forward intelligently. I say both of those things. I am in no way going to try to reject any of them now. I think I should be looking, as all of us should be, for ideas that will work from any source. I am not rejecting out of hand or accepting. I am looking for solutions. That is the attitude I have at this point. One of the ironies of this world, as the member knows and I know, is that the world nickel market is being --

Ms. Copps: The ironies of the world are not the question.

Hon. F. S. Miller: The member for Hamilton Centre is back.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I might remind the member for Hamilton Centre that I am quite well aware of what my responsibilities are. The Treasurer was answering a question of the member for Nickel Belt.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I assume, Mr. Speaker, that because she is back she had to have her name in the record.

Mr. Kerrio: You were stickhandling and she knew it.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I have offered to play hockey for the member for Niagara Falls one more time. He got rid of me last time that way.

Mr. Speaker: Never mind the interjections, please.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Now, back to the member for Nickel Belt. One of the ironies of the situation, in spite of the attitude of the member who just interrupted both of us, is this: In the world of nickel producers, a number are from states and nations where profit is not a motive. The member would argue that profit should not be a motive and that there should be stockpiling.

Mr. Laughren: Is that what it says in here?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I am talking of the world situation. Cuba and other countries that need hard dollars have been really hurting Sudbury. I think the member would agree with that. That has been a major problem. They have depressed the prices, flooded the markets and, in fact, destroyed the world's orderly marketing system.

2:30 p.m.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, the Treasurer has been around here a long time and knows it has been the custom of the government of Ontario to announce in the autumn -- some time in November -- a series of programs that will assist the economy and particularly reduce the number of unemployed over the bad winter months.

Since the Treasurer says that his leadership is doing so much for the budget he brought in some months ago, and that it is so much better than the other jurisdictions that are trying to do something with the unemployed, does he intend to make an announcement within the next four weeks of a series of programs to come to grips with at least some of the unemployment in some of the more hard-hit communities?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, when it comes to being around here a long time, I take my hat off to the honourable member and say I hope I manage to make his time. There are some of us in the room who are celebrating our 11th anniversaries today. I suspect there are a number of them on his benches, there are some on those benches and there are quite a few on these benches. By my estimation, I am halfway through my term as the member for Muskoka.

Mr. Speaker: Now to the question, please.

Hon. F. S. Miller: The fact is that it has not been a habit to have --

Mr. Nixon: It has been with you.

Hon. F. S. Miller: It has not. I have done it once. It has not been a habit to have a mini- budget in the fall. When we brought in the five per cent legislation, Bill 179, we implied that there would be a need for further actions to stimulate employment and that if there were no federal ones, there would be some provincial ones. We have not said "Maybe," we have said "Yes." Please give me the time and give our government the time to work in a co-operative way. We are working hard at it.

DEATHS AT HOSPITAL FOR SICK CHILDREN

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Attorney General. Will he bring this House up to date on the status of the police inquiry at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto?

It now has been five months since those investigations started again in earnest. Of course, the police have been there for considerably longer than that -- a year and half or so -- looking into these matters. The Attorney General expressed some concern five months ago that these matters would conclude as soon as humanly possible. Can he tell us the status of that investigation and when he expects a conclusion?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, I ran a meeting with some of my senior people at the beginning of the week to get a status report. There is no doubt that the investigation is still very active, but it is very difficult to put a time frame in which one can reasonably speculate as to when the investigation will be concluded.

Obviously it is very difficult to predict the length of any investigation, because new facts arise that warrant areas of investigation that perhaps had not been thought of before simply because of the absence of relevant information. The best estimate I have is that the investigation will be proceeding for at least some weeks. I would hope it would be wound up within the next couple of months but, apart from that, I cannot assist any of the members further.

Mr. Peterson: There is no doubt that a number of public questions linger. The minister will see various questions raised from time to time about a number of issues that still have not been resolved in a lot of people's minds. Has the Attorney General in his thinking come any closer to bringing about some kind of public inquiry into this matter?

It was an option he did not rule out, as I recall, when he originally announced the police investigation. It appears there is not very much information coming out on this matter, either publicly or with respect to the hospital staff and others. They are very much in the dark, by and large, about what is transpiring and there are a number of people, including myself, who are not terribly reassured by what has been transpiring with the investigation up until this point.

I would like the Attorney General to reassure me and many other people who are concerned that we may not get the answers through his police investigation, which has been going on for close to two years now in that hospital. We may have to be looking at alternatives to find out the truth.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: It would be unwise for the Leader of the Opposition to speculate that nothing much is turning up as a result of this investigation. I am not sure whether that was the point he wanted to make. As he and all the other members know, there is also the investigation conducted by Mr. Justice Charles Dubin of the Ontario Court of Appeal. That report probably will be available to members of the Legislature before the end of the year. In the event that no further criminal charges are laid, the matter of a public inquiry obviously is an option that will have to be considered very seriously.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, the Attorney General made a statement in the Legislature on May 25 in which he said: "We must establish the facts concerning the tragic deaths and those that are unexplained and may be considered homicides. It is absolutely imperative that we first establish which of these deaths are homicides, for that is essential to the aggrieved parents, the public, the hospital and the administration of justice."

Is the Attorney General prepared to make a statement as to which of the deaths that occurred at the Toronto Sick Children's Hospital between July 1980 and March 1981 are now determined to be homicides?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: No, Mr. Speaker, except to remind the member for Riverdale that a press release was issued a few weeks ago indicating that of the approximately 44 deaths that were under investigation, and I cannot be precise about the number, I believe 23 or 24 of these deaths, in the view of the investigators, were ruled out as possible homicides. The balance are still being investigated, and it is simply too early to indicate how many of the remaining deaths are considered to be homicides.

Mr. O'Neil: Mr. Speaker, in regard to the same matter and the haste with which the Nelles girl was charged, can the minister tell us whether any investigation by the police force has taken place to see if those charges were laid in haste and whether the people who laid them will be reprimanded in some way?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, it is very premature to draw the sort of conclusions the honourable member wishes to draw. Obviously the conduct of the police and the crown attorney's office has been criticized in this matter. There has been some suggestion of a possible lawsuit to be initiated by Miss Nelles which may provide a forum to deal with some of these issues.

There are a number of issues that have to be addressed in this whole tragic affair. These issues will be addressed, but obviously, until the criminal investigation has been completed, those of us who have some responsibilities in this matter have to be restrained in relation to any public statements in view of the ongoing criminal investigation.

WELFARE PAYMENTS

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Community and Social Services. I congratulate him. He promised to bring this out before winter started and, for everybody except the people in Kapuskasing, he made it.

Is the minister not concerned that he is again picking favourites? How can he see an increase of 8.5 per cent as being adequate for a welfare family of four which has not received an increase since the beginning of 1981, when the consumer price index has gone up by 25.7 per cent in that time, milk has gone up by almost 30 per cent in that time and Consumers' Gas rates have gone up by 30 per cent in that time? How can he rationalize that as being a group that should not have received the same kind of increase he has given to the single unemployables?

Why is it fair to Family Benefits Act recipients and the disabled that he is not going to give them their money until January? Is the minister not taking their money out of their hands just to pay for his winter project special?

2:40 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, as to the thrust towards the single employable person, I would have thought the honourable member would have said that he inspired me.

As I explained very carefully in my statement, this is a program that is designed to be of assistance to those who are hardest hit by the current recession. Obviously there were priorities. One of the priorities was single employable persons, who have the greatest of difficulty in meeting shelter costs and in trying to meet the costs associated with trying to find jobs. That is why they receive priority at this time.

The general welfare assistance recipients received priority from November rather than from January on the basis that the winter situation is bleak and a whole new class of people is on general welfare assistance because of the recession. I did not recycle any money and I did not save any money.

The emergency assistance and shelter program is money that is specifically earmarked for this winter only; it has no application after that. What we want to do is to assess very carefully what goes on after December and January -- what the economy is indicating, how the very large and increasing number of exhaustees from unemployment insurance is going to be treated by the federal government and ourselves -- and to make some determinations in January and February as to where we go once spring begins.

As I said, there obviously were priorities. I think I have met those priorities. We have been very careful to explain that this has been done on a selective basis.

I also point out that it is because of the selectivity in increases that I introduced last year that, by and large, we have been able to cushion to a very substantial degree the impact of inflation on two groups who are the least able to cope with it; that is, the permanently unemployable persons and the single women aged 60 to 64. That is the whole basis of selectivity. We choose our priorities, and even in rather difficult times like these we have been able to do so.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: That is why I posed selectivity. I find it difficult to understand how the minister can consider families who are on welfare today, and those who are going on welfare in family groups this winter, as not being in desperate need. I find that very hard to understand.

There are a number of questions of clarification I might ask with regard to the minister's statement. He stated that there were approximately 94,000 people on general welfare assistance in March and that he was not expecting that to diminish. The last figure I heard was that there were more than 90,000 such recipients during September. Yet, in his news release, he says he is going to assist 85,000 general welfare recipients. I would like to have some clarification on that.

On page 7 of his announcement he gives me some concern in that I am not sure of the status of rooming houses. When he says that "individuals renting other than self-contained quarters will be treated in a comparable manner to boarders," I would like to get it very clear that people in rooming houses, sharing kitchens and other facilities, are not included in that group.

Finally, will he tell us how many people on general welfare or family benefits will not be eligible, for reasons of their rent, for the extra $25 maximum they can receive? Does he have any idea how many will not be eligible for that $25?

Hon. Mr. Drea: First, any single general welfare recipient, or I suppose even a couple, living in a rooming house -- and a rooming house is self-contained quarters by our definition, even though they may be sharing a kitchen; what we are talking about is a situation of a board arrangement whereby the food and shelter are put into one package.

As a matter of fact, the shelter allowance and some of the extras that went to single unemployable people obviously were intended to meet the particular situations of rooming houses.

Second, the reason that the number of cases who are on general welfare assistance is different from the number of recipients, heads of households or cases, whatever one wants to call them, who will not be receiving benefits is that some of those who are boarding with friends or families obviously will not receive them. That is the difference.

In terms of family benefits, the number is slightly higher because there are a number of people on provincial pensions who have that type of arrangement, which is not quite the same as general welfare assistance.

The number of people who will not be getting any rent supplement depends on how many have high shelter costs, and it is increasing daily. I can get the member a detailed breakdown, but I hope that he and the House will bear in mind that if we say it appears that as of October 21, 1982, a particular person is not eligible because of his relatively low scale of rent, if he is in the competitive marketplace it might very well be a month, two months or some weeks before he would get a rent increase that would push him beyond the threshold cost level where he would be entitled to an additional rent supplement.

May I pause for a moment to draw something to the attention of the House? Yesterday, the member for Grey (Mr. McKessock) and I were absolutely delighted to have a very distinguished parliamentarian, Mr. Farquhar Oliver, join us in Durham for the sod-turning of a home for the aged.

Since he was such a distinguished parliamentarian in this chamber for so many years, not only as a member but also as a cabinet minister, a party leader and, indeed, one who participated in making some of the arrangements that now have us doing what we do, it would be appropriate that those of us in the House, particularly those opposite me, symbolically send Mr. Oliver our collective appreciation and best wishes that he is working so well in Durham and able to take

part in a ceremony with so much distinction and verve just as he did over so many years.

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I have a two-part supplementary question of the minister if he wishes to listen.

Given that the minister has stated there is a new class of general welfare recipients, and we acknowledge there are people who have never been on general welfare assistance before, and given that to restore the purchasing power that general welfare recipients had in 1975 for a father, mother and two children, he would have had to increase his benefits by some 36 per cent, and as I calculate from what the minister stated to us today they will be increasing by less than 10 per cent for a family of four, does he feel the increases are adequate in those circumstances?

Second, does he wish to tell the House whether he consulted his colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett) about obtaining additional funding for the municipalities, which will have to foot their part of the 20 per cent increase, since the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing stated the following on August 23: "It would be imprudent for any municipality to plan for next year on the assumption of any increases in grants from the province"?

2:50 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, answering those in the reverse order, I consulted with the executive of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario prior to making a decision. They pointed out to me, and I had considerable sympathy with them, the fact that in any increases in the general welfare assistance area there was a 20 per cent cost factor for themselves. The AMO executive, which included the new president, a senior alderman of the city of North York and a senior alderperson of the city of Ottawa, assured me this was an area in which they would find the money. So I do not think I have to discuss this matter with my colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing at this time.

I made it very plain when I spoke at the AMO convention. I talked about the very large increases that appeared inevitable because of the significant numbers of people exhausting their unemployment insurance benefits. At that time I assured the municipalities that I was prepared to sit down with them if they began to find themselves in significant difficulty. That commitment is there. AMO endorsed this increase, knowing full well the implications and the repercussions.

One of the things we hope to do -- I direct this to the honourable member, particularly, because of the singular problem he has with unemployment in his area -- is with regard to the emergency shelter and assistance program to be offered by municipalities and churches over the wintertime.

At this time we are having to deal with a very large migration into Metropolitan Toronto, in the core of the city, because of unemployment in other areas. While that has been our focal point, certainly we would be prepared to discuss a similar program in the area the member represents, particularly because in that area it is not so much a question of recently exhausting UIC benefits to people who have been unemployed through no fault of their own for a considerable period of time and who have utilized virtually all the family resources available.

I am sure the bishop and some of the church groups there have some ideas. We would be delighted to sit down with them and with the member to see what can be done on the basis of their delivering the service.

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask the minister a question about the emergency winter community shelter and assistance program, which he identified on page 3 of his speech.

Can the minister tell us how many people his ministry estimates there will be who cannot afford to put a roof over their heads this winter, despite today's increase in general welfare assistance rates, and who will be living on the streets and sleeping in community shelters? How many people will be relying on what I will call the social safety net of the 1982 depression; that is, soup kitchens and community hostels? To how many people does the minister intend to provide this kind of service?

How many people does the minister estimate will require to make use of the facilities provided under the emergency winter community shelter and assistance program?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, at no time have I used the term "soup kitchen." At no time will there be the type of facility that is commonly known as a soup kitchen. It is quite true that through community agencies we plan to feed a large number of people, but I can assure the honourable member that it will not be on the basis of a soup kitchen.

The municipality of Metropolitan Toronto has been working very diligently to try to estimate the need for emergency shelter over the winter months. We are talking about emergency shelter for people who otherwise would not be in it. I am not talking about the 400 or so transients. Since I have not been directly involved in the provision of beds or in the estimates for them, from memory I think they are talking about somewhere in the area of 1,000 to 1,200 in terms of sleeping accommodation. In terms of provision of food, Metropolitan Toronto is entitled to have any type of hostel or feeding arrangement it feels is necessary and we have come in with 80 per cent.

Metropolitan Toronto has been estimating on a very practical basis. They are talking not only about single people but also about families who may need additional food. They are looking at it in terms of how single females might be able to have their food or shelter needs met and not in terms of a catch-all program.

I think we are a couple of weeks away from a detailed outline of what we are prepared to co-operate with or to make available in conjunction with the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto social services department and various community groups. At that time it might be advisable to put down an estimate based upon this winter rather than the one that has been done purely on the basis of expectation of hostel-bed inventory.

I do not want to belabour the point, but many of the people who will receive assistance in this way do not need shelter accommodation, because they already have a place; they need food. We will give a complete breakdown and make it available to the House.

Mr. Laughren: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: I think you will agree that it is incumbent upon members to look after the privileges of other members of the House, and not just their own privileges. Ever since the beginning of the question period, the government House leader (Mr. Wells) and the chief government whip (Mr. Gregory) have been leaning, intimidating and threatening the member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon) to vote the right way on the emergency debate this afternoon, and I think that is wrong.

Mr. Speaker: I must inform the honourable member that is not a matter of privilege.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am sure it is brotherly love and affection, which is seldom seen in this House.

HANDICAPPED ADULTS' SERVICES

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Community and Social Services to do with the potential closing of the institutions for the developmentally handicapped. I do not want to deal with the fact that with this package he is making a myth of the job security arguments of the five per cent wage controls, but I do want to ask about his credibility in terms of using this money for community projects.

Was it not the case in 1981-82 that he actually provided 319 fewer beds in the community than he had predicted he would, 100 fewer clients with shelter workshops, 1,665 fewer individuals with support projects and 228 fewer with life skills training, therefore saving himself something like $4 million in community projects, according to his estimates?

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Why should people believe the minister is going to use this money for community projects?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, the public can rely upon the programs of this ministry in dealing with the developmentally handicapped. I realize it is difficult for the honourable member; he does not know which way to go on this one. The Ontario Association for the Mentally Retarded is waiting out there for him to make his decision.

In the past 6½ years, as part of a deinstitutionalization policy, more than 3,800 developmentally handicapped people have been placed in a community setting from an institutional environment. In the next four or five years, we intend to place 942 more people in a community setting, most of them adults who have been trained to live in a community setting while being in an institution.

That is only possible because of the tremendous expansion there has been in the funding of community programs for the developmentally handicapped. It has gone from $10 million back at the start of the 1970s, when the programs began, to over $91 million now.

We are right on

schedule in the placement of the developmentally handicapped in the community and providing them with opportunity. If some projects come on a little bit more slowly and cross over between fiscal year boundaries, it is invariably because the local working group has found some difficulties that delayed some thing for a short time.

3 p.m.

I am telling the honourable member this because I do not want him crying to me next week that he did not know. The Ontario Association for the Mentally Retarded is wholeheartedly in support of exactly what we are doing. It knows what we are doing, and also that we are not saving money. Over that time we will spend $10 million more than any savings that come by because of a rationalization of an existing system.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, the minister will know that in the estimates this year he projected spending $48,874,000 on accommodation in the community, which is an increase of 47 per cent. Will the minister tell me whether that amount will be met this year, or whether there is going to be a substantial reduction of that spending?

Some groups have informed me that they have been told the offering is likely to be closer to 10 per cent. Would the minister clarify the position? Does he expect to spend that total allotment this year?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I always intend to spend a total allotment. In the next week or two I will table in the House what we have spent up to this point and what the projections are for the remainder of the fiscal year.

Mr. Riddell: Mr. Speaker, when the minister anticipates closing such model treatment centres as the Bluewater Centre for the developmentally handicapped in Goderich, what is he going to do with those residents there now who cannot find places in a community-oriented setting?

A lot of parents have expressed concern to me. They are wondering if the minister intends to put these people back into the large institutions, which is a retrograde step. What is he going to do about those people?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, the Bluewater Centre is a large institution. There are not many bigger.

The placement of those who are unable at this time -- and I emphasize "at this time," because there have been such significant advances in training and in medicine that many who today might not be prepared to live in the community will be more than capable in a relatively brief period. These people will be transferred to existing relatively small facilities in western Ontario.

If the parents are concerned that they are all going to be put into a single large institution, there is no such intention. Part of the reason we have accepted in principle, although the details still have to be worked out, the phasing over a prolonged period is to be able to deal extremely humanely with both the parents and the residents who will still have to stay in a facility for a time.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I guess the minister is finding it hard to understand why I am cynical about this report, except that he will understand it is clear -- or is it not clear to him? -- that he is trying to save money in the easiest ways, in closing the easiest institutions rather than reducing the size.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I think that was partly a question. It was an interrogative.

Is the minister not also trying to stop the local planning process by emasculating the working groups in exactly the same way as he has done with the children's services committees, by saying, as he does on page 22 of that report, that he is now going to move to stress joint action to accomplish more specifically defined goals, although he expects the working groups to accept this in the end, although somewhat reluctantly?

Is the minister not now taking the power out of working groups to make the decisions in their own areas, much as he has done with children's services?

Hon. Mr. Drea: The paranoid mind really works.

We are bringing the local working groups of the association for the mentally retarded into a much closer partnership. The member knows that. He also knows that the rationalization program, which will bring into the community another 1,000 people who otherwise would have spent their lives in institutions, is not being done to save money. If I wanted to save money, I might follow his line of thought.

The simple truth of the matter is that over the past six or seven years, relatively few children who are born developmentally handicapped have been entering any type of facility or institution or going into communal care. The ones who are coming into the system are almost in an infirmity situation where they require total care.

Obviously the facilities will be required, but when we have a net loss of 1,500 beds over six years and we are going to have another net loss of 1,000 beds, it does not seem to me to be either humane, practical, progressive or anything else to say that people must remain the rest of their days in a facility just so it will stay open.

USE OF TIME IN QUESTION PERIOD

Mr. Samis: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: May I bring to your attention that we have established a record today? By my calculation, we have spent 47 minutes on the leadoff questions. That is intolerable.

Mr. Speaker: You are absolutely right.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, part of the intolerance is your natural reluctance to bring into line some of those long-winded ministers over there.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Every question asked of me had five or six parts.

Mr. Speaker: I point out to all honourable members that points of order and privilege do cut into the question time. The member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye) does not agree with that, but it is a fact.

HOTEL FIRE SAFETY

Mr. Spensieri: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Solicitor General, who no doubt will be aware that the Campbell inquest jury rendered its verdict yesterday and offered 12 recommendations towards the prevention of similar occurrences. Does the Solicitor General have a plan for implementation of these recommendations reasonably soon? If he does, what is his plan and does he care to share with this House a timetable for the implementation of the main recommendations?

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I have just received a copy of the report on the inquest that was completed only yesterday. Actually it has nine or 10 recommendations, some of which are in place already and had been made by other juries.

I must indicate to the member that recommendations from inquests flow, as a matter of course, to the particular ministries or bodies that can correct the situation with which the recommendations are concerned.

There are some recommendations regarding the building code, and there are some regarding the fire code. I bring to the member's attention that the Ontario fire marshal is currently acting upon those recommendations that are within the jurisdiction of the Solicitor General, and when the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie) obtains the recommendations that relate to the building code, which is under the jurisdiction of his ministry, I am sure he will act where possible on those.

Some of the other recommendations will be reviewed more thoroughly by the Ontario Commission of Inquiry into Fire Safety of High-Rise Dwellings, under Judge John Webber, which is currently sitting. I am sure he has been following the results of this inquest and that he will apply the information received from the inquest and make more thorough recommendations for the prevention of the same difficulties that arose in this fire.

3:10 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye)

Interjections.

Ms. Copps: We didn't get a supplementary.

Mr. Wrye: We haven't had a supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: This is the first supplementary to the original question. It stays with the same group.

Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, thank you. If the other party would wait until its turn comes we could get on with this.

If the Solicitor General has those recommendations at hand he will note the first is that the current multiplicity of fire prevention legislation be brought under one ministry. As he knows, there are currently nine statutes which relate to the prevention of fire, cutting across the range of ministries.

Rather than waiting for the other ministries to look at these recommendations, will he immediately consult with the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett), the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations and those other ministries involved in fire prevention to begin the process of bringing uniformity and centrality to these important regulations so that we do not have to wait for the Webber commission to make its report to do at least that?

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, the usual situation is that there is an ongoing review of these particular pieces of legislation. It is being done in the other ministries and we have people reviewing them all the time.

Although there is one recommendation that says if these were all grouped under one particular piece of legislation it might be more satisfactory, I think the ministers involved will be reviewing that and coming to a conclusion as to whether or not this is being satisfactorily enforced under separate legislation.

I am not so sure at this time that there is not adequate enforcement and following of all the legislation even though it is under separate ministries.

Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, since the minister's first answer outlined the difficulties of the different recommendations going to different ministries, is it not time for the coroner to have a regular reporting and follow-up system that would report back to the Legislature or to a committee of the Legislature those recommendations that have been implemented by the various bodies and those that have not, and the reasons the various ministries, municipal governments, or whatever, have not implemented certain recommendations of the coroner?

Hon. G. W. Taylor: First, Mr. Speaker, they are recommendations. Some are extremely helpful and can be easily followed up and those bodies that are concerned with them, be they ministerial, municipal, private or public, can act on those recommendations. There are some on which one cannot. There are some that may require further legislative abilities to carry them out.

In most situations, the coroner receives recommendations, applies them to the particular ministry or private or public body and then there is a follow-up as to whether or not they have been carried out if they are at all feasible.

Also, as the member knows, he can from time to time, during the estimates of this ministry or during question period in this House, ask questions as to recommendations of coroner's juries. I would be only too pleased to inform him what action has been taken on those.

CAMCO INC.

Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry and Trade, in the absence of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) and 16 other ministers.

Mr. Wildman: He obviously was not your first choice.

Mr. Di Santo: He was not.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Di Santo: Well, he was interjecting, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister of Industry and Trade is aware that Camco Inc., a company that has been in Weston, Ontario, since the turn of the century, has decided to move to Hamilton, Ontario, wiping out the jobs of 700 people who have been working there in some cases up to 32 years.

In view of the fact that Camco has received federal aid to move to Hamilton, wiping out the jobs in Ontario, does the minister not think --

Mr. T. P. Reid: In Ontario?

Ms. Copps: Hamilton is in Ontario.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Proceed, please.

Mr. Di Santo: Weston, Ontario -- does the minister not think this government should do something to prevent the closure of a plant which has been very much part of the community for so many years, instead of destroying jobs in one place in order to move the jobs to another place without any guarantee they will be there for a long time? Is the government determined at this point to oppose the federal government's aid to that company?

Hon. Mr. Walker: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but I missed the first half of what the member was saying. I would appreciate it if he would repeat at least that part of it. I got the essence of the question but I do not have the name of the company he is referring to.

Mr. Di Santo: Camco.

Hon. Mr. Walker: Would the member tell me another paragraph so I understand what he is saying?

Mr. Di Santo: The minister, like many other MPPs, must have received letters from the workers at Camco, a company owned by General Electric and GSW. The minister should be aware that the company is moving to Hamilton from Weston, Ontario. I am asking him if he thinks taxpayers' money should be used to help this company rationalize its operation, wiping out jobs in one place supposedly to create jobs in another place?

Hon. Mr. Walker: I am not familiar with the precise details involved in the movement. I would like to get the benefit of the transcript. I will review it, refer it to the Minister of Labour and an answer will be forthcoming.

Ms. Copps: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Although the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Snow) on previous maps of Ontario did leave our great community of Hamilton off the map, I did want to set the record straight and let all honourable members know that Hamilton is indeed in Ontario.

Mr. Di Santo: Obviously, the member for Hamilton Centre thinks this is a silly problem --

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Di Santo: -- to be treated with levity, but this is a problem that affects 700 people in Weston.

In view of the fact that in this province there is legislation that gives free rein to every possible employer to come in, raid the market and then leave, does the minister not think that in this case the government should ask that company to come before a committee of the Legislature and justify the closure of the plant in Weston, or does the minister, with his philosophy of nonintervention, think he should give the company the right to do whatever it wants until the point where this province becomes like a banana republic where they can come and leave at any time?

Hon. Mr. Walker: Yes.

FRENCH-LANGUAGE SCHOOLS

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, in the absence of the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) and the Premier (Mr. Davis), on the report on the governance of French-language elementary and secondary schools.

His government has rejected the report, at least for the time being, and I believe he announced he would establish pilot projects pursuant to the recommendations of the report on the governance of French-language schools if he obtained legal advice that gave him the power to do so.

Could the minister now indicate to the House whether he has received that legal advice, when he intends to implement these projects and how they will function in view of the fact it is too late now to elect anybody to those positions in the November elections?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding the Minister of Education has some information on this matter. We have discussed it briefly. While I am sorry she is not here to answer the member's question right now, I think if he were to direct that question to her when she is here, she would be able to answer it fully for him.

3:20 p.m.

USE OF TIME IN QUESTION PERIOD

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order:

My party colleagues and those of other parties have raised the fact that the leaders' questions have taken some time today.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Speak to your leader.

Mr. Roy: I hear comment from the member for Ottawa South --

Mr. Speaker: Never mind, continue.

Mr. Roy: I just say that today was a striking example of where it was not the questions that took time but the answers. Mr. Speaker, earlier in the week you dealt with some of us, including myself, who spent so much time on our questions that you interceded. I ask that you would do likewise with respect to ministers, including the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) and the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Drea) who were, in fact, making statements and taking up too much time instead of responding to questions.

Mr. Speaker: I thank the honourable member for bringing that matter to our attention, and the member for Cornwall (Mr. Samis) for raising it in the first instance. It is a problem and one that has been ongoing for many Speakers, really. I have asked the co-operation of all members in the phrasing of their questions. I have asked the co-operation of the ministers in answering those questions. I think my personal observation would be that perhaps the individual caucuses could come to some kind of agreement. Perhaps their House leaders could exert some influence on the questions and on the answers.

Quite frankly, I have said it before and I do not want anyone to take offence at this, but if you are going to ask a question with two, three or more parts, you are going to get a long answer, as we saw today. in all fairness to back-benchers in particular, the leaders and others should phrase their questions to the main question they have in mind, not a whole bunch of supplementaries at the same time. I would ask everybody's co-operation in doing this.

Ms. Copps: Mr. Speaker, I would like to rise on a point of privilege to address the same issue, if I might.

Mr. Speaker: I beg your pardon?

Ms. Copps: I am rising on a point of privilege to speak to the issue of questions and answers.

I think if the Speaker will look back to the record today it will clearly show that our leader kept his questions short, succinct and to the point. In fact, the respondent, the Treasurer, was travelling all over the map on issues which did not relate to the question.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Just one moment. Order. Would the honourable member resume her seat, please?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: That is the problem in bringing these matters to the attention of all members. There are some members who take it personally and take offence. I was not making reference to any particular member. All members are guilty of it, as we have just seen.

Mr. Wildman: Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to find out if you would agree that the member for Downsview (Mr. Di Santo) and the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) are certainly short and succinct.

Mr. Speaker: Indeed. Thank you.

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, may I --

Mr. Speaker: No, not on the same thing.

Mr. Epp: Why don't you single out the people who really are guilty so that they and everybody else knows who they are and so it is on the legislative record?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I do not think there is any doubt in anybody's mind. Do you want me to keep a report card?

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: I would like to draw to your attention that I feel the privileges of the members of this House were abused yesterday by the actions of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett). In a telephone conversation that I had with the Ontario Housing Corp. I was informed by the corporation that the minister had asked --

Hon. Mr. Bennett: That has nothing to do with it at all.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the honourable member resume his seat? I would refer again --

Ms. Copps: I can't believe this. It's incredible.

Mr. Ruston: It is a coverup.

Mr. Speaker: Indeed it is not.

Mr. Bradley: Then let him place the point of privilege.

Mr. Speaker: I did.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Hamilton Centre has a habit of jumping to conclusions and trying to reach a conclusion that I do not.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Would the member for Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) resume his seat please?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. He did make his point.

Mr. Bradley: No, he did not.

Mr. Boudria: You listened to the minister interjecting instead of listening to my point.

Mr. Speaker: Indeed I did not. You are impugning my motives. I heard your point of order and it is not a point of order and I ruled you out of order.

Mr. Boudria: It is a point of privilege.

Mr. Speaker: Nor is it a point of privilege. Your privileges were not in any way, shape or form abused.

Mr. Boudria: Yes, they were.

Mr. Speaker: They were not. Just resume your seat please. I heard distinctly what you said. Quite obviously, the other members were paying more attention to this side and I have ruled that you do not have a point of privilege and I have no reason to change my mind.

Mr. Roy: Don't let them intimidate you, Mr. Speaker, especially the minister.

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: We like to believe that you are as fair as possible with members of the opposition. My colleague the member for Prescott-Russell got up. He was establishing a point which was a matter of privilege, that certain information is not able to be obtained from the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

That was fine. You were listening very nicely and co-operatively to it until the minister said, "That is not a point of privilege, it is a question." At that point, my colleague was asked to sit down. If they will not provide information to members of the opposition as requested, surely that is a point of privilege.

Mr. Speaker: As I said before, I distinctly heard the member's complete point of privilege. I want once again to assure all honourable members that I am not taking direction from anyone. I am making up my own mind in these matters. I will remind the member for Prescott-Russell that it is not my responsibility. I have said that a hundred times and I say it once again.

REPORT

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT

Mr. Barlow from the standing committee on general government presented the following report and moved its adoption:

Your committee begs to report the following bill with certain amendments:

Bill 127,

An Act to amend the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the bill be ordered for third reading?

Ordered for committee of the whole House.

MOTIONS

COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTIONS

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that the following substitutions be made: on the standing committee on social development, Mr. Runciman for Mr. Watson; on the standing committee on general government, Mr. Gordon for Mr. Eves, Mr. J. M. Johnson for Mr. Havrot, Mr. Lane for Mr. Stevenson; on the standing committee on regulations and other statutory instruments, Mr. McLean for Mr. Runciman; on the standing committee on procedural affairs, Mr. MacQuarrie for Mr. McLean; on the standing committee on members' services, Mr. MacQuarrie for Mr. Piché and Mr. McLean for Mr. Runciman.

Motion agreed to.

3:30 p.m.

MOTION TO SET ASIDE ORDINARY BUSINESS

Mr. Laughren moved, seconded by Mr. Foulds, pursuant to standing order 34(a), that the ordinary business of the House be set aside to discuss a matter of urgent public importance, namely the announcement by Falconbridge Nickel Mines to permanently lay off an additional 500 workers, bringing to 1,500 the total number of Falconbridge workers who will lose their jobs; that since this is in addition to the more than 2,000 permanently lost jobs at Inco, this latest announcement will cause even more hardship in the community; and that since there are some positive and imaginative solutions to the crisis in Sudbury, these proposed solutions should be debated in this Legislature at this time.

Mr. Speaker: I would like to advise all honourable members that the notice of motion has indeed been received in time and does comply with the standing order. I will be pleased to listen to the honourable member for up to five minutes as to why he thinks the ordinary business of the House should be set aside.

Mr. Laughren: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate that ruling. This is the second time this week that I have risen in my place to attempt to have the ordinary business of the House set aside to discuss the problems in Sudbury.

On Tuesday, Mr. Speaker, you ruled that it was not an emergency, that indeed it was not even in order, and that it would be repetitious. I would put to you that it will not be repetitious. We have some new proposals to put before this chamber and we are very anxious to do so.

The government House leader indicated then: "If we were just going to be dealing with some fairly trivial piece of legislation today, perhaps it would serve our purpose well to debate it here again. But we do have the windup of an important debate…" We do not have Bill 179 before us today, and I hope very much that all members in the House will agree to have this debate.

On Tuesday, I moved the motion on the basis of an Inco announcement that they were extending their shutdown for three more months to April 4, and were reducing their work force by three per cent a year for five years, all this on top of already announced layoffs of over 2,000. Today, I move this motion because Falconbridge has announced that it intends to further reduce its work force by 500, on top of the 1,000 previously announced.

I have always felt that emergency debates are to bring before this chamber matters of urgent public importance. Surely a major community in this province with an unemployment rate of between 32 and 40 per cent is an urgent and important piece of business. It is the highest unemployment rate in Canada. Unemployment insurance benefits are running about $15 million a month in the Sudbury district now, and welfare is around $1 million a month. Not only that, between 2,000 and 2,500 new unemployment insurance claims are coming into the Sudbury office every month. That is spinoff; that is not from Falconbridge and Inco, because they are already recorded claimants.

When the last debate was allowed a month or so ago, we did not have the kind of material that my colleague and I have prepared and that we would very much like to debate in this chamber. We prepared a document entitled A Challenge to Sudbury, which we have sent to all of the various levels of government and to the business and union leaders in the Sudbury area. We think this document should be debated in this chamber because, if it is adopted by the government, this document will give Sudbury a brighter future. I have absolutely no doubt about that.

This government, on the other hand, has not proposed its solutions. So not only have they not proposed their solutions, they will not even debate our solutions. How does that make any sense in a community like Sudbury?

What is the role of the opposition if it is not to bring forth constructive, imaginative proposals that the government can look at and we can debate here in this chamber? We really do want to engage in a serious debate, and we believe the government has an obligation to do so as well.

On Tuesday, I was quite angry, quite upset, when the Speaker ruled against our motion and we felt compelled to challenge it. I was really struck by the behaviour of the member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon). I hope he will stay for the debate today, that he will stay for any kind of vote that occurs on this motion. It is one thing for the member to vote against it and to vote for his party, and another thing to vote against us; but he did not have the courage to do either. That is the way a chicken behaves. That is not how it should be.

To make it worse, the member for Sudbury went out and said to the media that the New Democratic Party members were grandstanding by attempting to have an emergency debate. If ever there was a master of grandstanding, it is the member for Sudbury, not the members of this caucus. I could tell a story about how that member had a cheque reissued, reprinted, so that he could present it a month or so after it had already been presented to the Sudbury Science Centre.

Mr. Speaker: To the motion, please.

Mr. Laughren: Back to the motion. Mr. Speaker, I believe in this chamber we have an obligation to use every legislative means at our disposal to debate the problems in the Sudbury community. All we are asking for is a chance to do that. I can assure the members that what we intend to place before the chamber has not been placed before the chamber prior to this date. We would very much like to do so this afternoon.

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Speaker, once again I rise to support the motion presented by the member for Nickel Belt. We are starting to sound like an old record that gets stuck and keeps repeating itself.

The situation we have before us today is one we are all too familiar with: first with Inco, then Inco again, now Falconbridge. I think it is timely to reflect on what has not happened in terms of action by the Conservative government of Ontario.

I do not think there is a citizen in this province who would quarrel with the observation that Ontario was one of the most prosperous communities in North America in the post-Second World War years, particularly at the time of the leadership of the late Premier John Robarts. No one in this chamber would quarrel with the prosperous Ontario of the 1950s and 1960s and the early 1970s.

What was left by that Premier when he retired from office, what was passed on to the new Premier (Mr. Davis) and his new cabinet was the challenge of accommodating the needs of Ontario at a time when things started to toughen up.

I do not think there is any question in any member's mind that the toughening up started to happen a little earlier in northern Ontario than it did in southern, eastern or southwestern Ontario. But toughen up it did to a point where some minor recognition was made with the appointment of a new Northern Affairs minister. Some lip service was given to the problems of the north by the initiation of a few new studies. In spite of what the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope) said on Tuesday about studies, nothing has come from them, nor has anything come from this government, its Premier and its Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier).

Nothing in the way of hope has come for those single-industry communities of the north which are treated by this government as a colony would be treated. Colonial status is something the north has known for a long time. Until something concrete is done, something that will give hope to the people of northern Ontario, none of us in this chamber will have done his job.

3:40 p.m.

I support the motion of the member for Nickel Belt. In one of my earlier comments on this same theme of the emergency of the north, I reminded him that I and my colleague the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye) not only supported the needs of the north through our debate here in the Legislature, but in June of this year we attempted to sit in on a meeting of the local members and the union representatives in Sudbury. We were refused access to that meeting where we had hoped we might learn a little more and be able to provide some extra input.

If the opportunity to do that arises in the future, and I am sure it will, I hope the member for Nickel Belt and his colleagues from Sudbury will support our presence because we feel we too have something concrete to offer in terms of solutions.

Mr. Speaker, if you rule in favour of this motion, I will elaborate on some of the points of the policy of the Ontario Liberal Party which we feel are viable in providing direction or assistance for the needs of northern Ontario communities, like Sudbury, which are so reliant on a single industry.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I was just reading over the comments I made on Tuesday. I notice I commented particularly on the regional chairman Tom Davies, the group he put together and the kind of work he is doing. It has since been reinforced for me that the job he is doing is an effective one. As I indicated to the House then, this government stands ready to work with him in whatever his committee comes up with for some long-term achievable objectives to help with the problem there.

My comments about that committee have been reinforced by the subsequent talks I have had since Tuesday with the member for Sudbury. I think the members will recall I indicated that having the member for Sudbury in our caucus was worth 15 debates in this House. That comment still stands.

I think it is particularly relevant when one reviews the record of the work and co-operation that went on between the then mayor of Sudbury, Jim Gordon, and this government 2½ years ago to create jobs and programs in Sudbury. What this all leads up to is that this government has always been concerned about any problem anywhere in this province, and it is concerned about the problems in Sudbury.

On Tuesday I said perhaps it would serve our purpose to have this debate, but not on Tuesday. I think my friends over there know, and I am not going to tell them, why Tuesday was not the time to have the debate. They know why and so do my friends in the Liberal Party.

I have talked with the member for Sudbury. He has always wanted this debate, but he understood why we could not have it on Tuesday. The member for Sudbury has indicated he would like to have this debate, as all of us in this party would like to have it. That presents us with a bit of a problem, because on Tuesday we respected the Speaker's ruling, which I believe was right. I would not want to have the holding of this debate set a precedent for this House under our rules.

Mr. Speaker, I submit that since all are in agreement, at this time perhaps we could assume we have the unanimous consent of all parties to waive that particular

section of standing order 34. If, in your wisdom, you find because --

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I am sorry.

Mr. Breaugh: We are convinced now.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Wells: We would be pleased to waive rule 34(b)(iv) with the unanimous consent of the House. Therefore, that gives an opportunity, because all parties in this House are willing to allow the debate to go ahead, to allow the Speaker in good conscience to allow it to go ahead. I would leave that in your hands, sir.

Mr. Speaker: This presents us with a very interesting situation.

Mr. Roy: Legal gymnastics.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps.

I just want to make it very clear that whatever is decided should in no way be accepted as a precedent. I have listened carefully to the arguments put forward by the honourable members on both sides of the House and --

Mr. Wildman: You had to listen carefully to the House leader.

Mr. Speaker: That is the kind of comment that really does not add anything to the standing of the member nor to the House itself.

I would just draw the attention of the member for Nickel Belt to 34(c)(iv) in the standing orders. I will read it out, "the motion must not revive discussion on a matter that has been discussed in the same session under this standing order."

Quite clearly, that can be countermanded by unanimous consent and only by unanimous consent can the House decide. Therefore, I am going to ask the House to make the decision on whether this debate goes forward and whether we do have unanimous consent for the debate.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: The debate shall proceed.

Hon. Mr. Wells: On a point of order: Could I just correct the record and say that 34(c)(iv) was the rule I was pointing out. I think I said "34(b)(iv)" several times.

Mr. McClellan: Get it right for the precedent.

Hon. Mr. Welch: No precedent.

UNEMPLOYMENT IN SUDBURY

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, I did want to make one point before I start: namely, that we want this debate not simply because it can be found to be in order in some way, but because there is an emergency in Sudbury and we should be talking about it here.

I am very pleased the members have given unanimous consent for a debate this afternoon. We have tried on many other occasions to resolve the long-run problem in Sudbury, and we have had everything from select committees to emergency debates to government reports. It is as though the government is mesmerized by the whole idea of planning and cannot get on with it. They see the words "plan for the future," and they go into a comatose state. They simply are not able to do it. I guess it is because the government somehow equates planning with socialism. Maybe that is what is bothering them.

Maybe they see planning as meaning too much intervention; I am not sure. But individuals plan, corporations plan, so why should the public sector not plan? We have simply got to plan. We cannot continue to accept the kind of roller-coaster economic ride that a major municipality like Sudbury is put through every few years. It is totally unacceptable.

There was a day when in the Sudbury basin we controlled about 90 per cent of the western world's supply of nickel. We think of what we could have done. But even in those days when the government was told about it, it said, "No. The private sector can do it best." We would not be in this mess now if we had taken action before, and the government was told about it many times by many people. We have asked, we have pleaded and we have demanded a varied economic base in Sudbury. The dangers are obvious if we do not build a varied economic base.

3:50 p.m.

We have a choice to make now. We can get on with private-sector-led initiatives, the way it has been done in the past, or we can do some government-led economic planning by both the private and the public sectors. But the private sector is not going to take the lead in working with government; government has the responsibility to do that.

We are saying that the choice should be clear. If we leave it up to the private sector again and again, it will be like driving into the future by looking into a rear-view mirror, and that is simply not good enough any more. We can expect intermittent unemployment, shutdowns, layoffs, a declining work force, a continuation of the export of our raw materials and the importing of machinery. That is what private sector initiatives have done for us in northern Ontario and in Sudbury in particular.

Sudbury will forever be known by its image. Sudbury's image will change when the reality of Sudbury changes, not before. You cannot buy an image; you have to change the reality first, and that means economic planning.

That is why, about three weeks ago, my colleague the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) and I held a press conference in Sudbury in which we presented what we like to call a challenge: A Challenge to Sudbury. That challenge to Sudbury had two major thrusts. One was an integrated nickel complex. The nickel is there, it is going to be there for a long time and we would be silly not to maximize the benefits that could accrue to us from that nickel. But we said to ourselves that this was not enough. This is still being dependent on a resource, so we also need another thrust, which we will call new opportunities, new initiatives, and this is a very important part of our challenge to Sudbury.

We sent a copy of this document to virtually everybody we could think of at both government levels, and if any member in the chamber would like a copy, we would be very happy to provide it. We have asked everybody to respond to us. We have had some responses already -- very positive, I might add. We are hoping we will get more, particularly from the two senior levels of government. When we presented the document, we said that we wanted to rebuild the Sudbury economy so we could have a better future, so we would not have to live forever the way we have in the past.

Under the "Integrated Nickel Complex" heading, we relied mainly on existing government reports. These are not ideas we dreamed up in our sleep. Virtually all of these came from government reports. The first proposal, a nickel institute, came from a government report. Resource upgrading and refining came from a government report. The name of the report was, Towards a Nickel Policy for the Province of Ontario. Fabricating, too, was in an Ontario government report. Resource machinery and pollution abatement have been recommended by government. A fertilizer plant has been recommended by government.

Every one of the proposals under the integrated nickel complex

section has been presented and recommended by government reports, and the government ignores its own experts time after time. We are saying that enough is enough. It is time to move on, to show some courage and some initiative, and to get on with rebuilding Sudbury.

Under "New Opportunities" we developed four major proposals. We said that not only will these new opportunities create new jobs but they also will make us less dependent on the resource base in Sudbury.

First was an energy conservation and retrofit program, which will provide low-interest loans to home owners in order that they may better insulate their homes. That has a couple of major benefits to it. One is job creation; the other is energy conservation -- a very good recommendation. The government now has what it calls a residential energy advisory program, but it is not working. The last time I checked, three Sudbury homes had taken advantage of it, so that program is not working. We say that we should get on with something more substantial.

Second, we say it is time we emphasized food production and processing in the Sudbury basin. There is an agricultural potential in Sudbury that the government does not seem to understand. They see the problems of the environment in Sudbury and they assume we do not have a potential for agriculture.

That is dead wrong. There is an enormous potential for agriculture in Sudbury. There were years when Sudbury had the world champion potatoes right in the Sudbury basin -- excellent crops in Sudbury. I could go on at great length about the agricultural potential there.

Since 1961, the region has lost 79,000 acres of agricultural land. That is at a time when the population is not even growing. It is not as though we are going through a period of massive expansion in the Sudbury area. We are not.

Third is a health-care import replacement program. We think Sudbury should have its share of replacing the tremendous amount, over $7 million, that we import in medical supplies into this province. Sudbury could have its share of producing those health care supplies. Again, we think that would get us away from dependence on the resource industries and it would be a very useful thing to do, both socially and economically. There is nothing radical about it, and it should be done.

The fourth major new initiative was an institutional import replacement program. When I was working on this particular recommendation, I was reminded of the Liberal member for Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria), who made an excellent presentation in here last year -- I think it was a private member's bill, I am not sure -- when he talked about all the things this government imports that we could be buying and making here in Ontario. It was an excellent and very dramatic presentation.

That is exactly what we should be doing in the Sudbury area. We are talking now about the supplies, equipment and furniture that public institutions use. That could include some high-tech equipment as well. We are saying Sudbury should get its share of that.

Those were the major recommendations in our document, A Challenge to Sudbury. There is nothing in there that the government should find ideologically offensive. We believe these things will be achieved when the resources are in the public sector. We believe that very strongly. But the government will notice as well that all these proposals could be done under its economic system. That is why it has an obligation to respond to those proposals. There is nothing in that document that should turn government members off, that they could reject out of hand.

This was done very deliberately to make sure they could live with the proposals. And we would ask them to keep that in mind that most of them come from government reports.

Also, surely they will admit that the private sector has not given us balanced growth in the Sudbury economy, and is unlikely to do so in the future. There is no indication of that whatsoever, so let us get on with it, with publicly led initiatives.

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Speaker, I spoke just a few moments ago in support of the motion. In my comments I indicated that we too, as a political party, have some suggestions to pass on to the government from time to time, suggestions we hope will strengthen the economic viability of northern Ontario.

Before I mention the specifics of our proposals, I want to reflect on the four points made by the member for Nickel Belt. He indicated that energy conservation was something that could be implemented very quickly and would be very helpful to the people of the north.

I remind all members that during the 1981 campaign, our candidate from Parry Sound had some very interesting suggestions to pass on to the people he was running against and to our party. He chose to run for our party in the firm belief that the north had the resources necessary to make available to itself and to the rest of the province the energy, the energy source and the spinoff for one of his projects that would assist the agricultural industry.

The member for Nickel Belt mentioned that ideologically he could not see any quarrel coming from the government side on any of the four points he made reference to -- the other three, aside from energy conservation, being food processing, the medical and health care supplies industry and an institutional import replacement policy.

4 p.m.

Dealing with the fourth point, the member for Prescott-Russell made an excellent presentation in this chamber, pointing out that the government of Ontario and, indeed, most provincial governments, as well as the federal government, import an awful lot of their supplies either from the United States or Europe and, in some cases, from Asia. There is no question there is a market here that we could accommodate with many of our own resources. I want to add to the observation of the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) that not only the government but also all members of this chamber should find this acceptable.

Shifting from that to an observation that has been made before about the particular problem in Sudbury, that which relates to the mining industry, we have reminded the government on many occasions that Ontario law says all metals mined in this province must be refined completely in Canada. Yet the Conservative government in Ontario has passed hundreds of exemptions -- in fact, since 1974 the exemptions are in excess of 70 -- allowing millions of pounds of semi-precious metals out of this country to provide processing jobs elsewhere.

That is a point to dwell on. It is not just a matter of those people who are out of work, those people who previously had been working with Inco or with Falconbridge. We are talking about the need to find additional jobs for people in northern Ontario through new industry. Certainly the government of Ontario has missed an opportunity here.

What is happening is that those people who have a little degree of mobility in their life are not staying in the north. The population growth factor in the north is virtually zero, because people are heading to other provinces or to the southern part of this province to find employment. It is critical, then, that Ontario start demanding of the mining industry that processing be done here in Canada, so that jobs will grow here in Canada.

The law I have referred to is, for all practical purposes, almost nonexistent. Of the metallic minerals mined in Ontario, about 30 per cent of the zinc, 33 per cent of the nickel, 100 per cent of the platinum group metals, 38 per cent of the lead, 17 per cent of the iron ore, 11 per cent of the cadmium, 10 per cent of the copper and 55 per cent of the cobalt are processed outside Canada.

A Liberal government in Ontario would initiate action in the area of mining by creating a separate mining ministry and by establishing a comprehensive mineral policy for the province. We would also negotiate a federal-provincial agreement on resource taxation, with a reasonable ceiling on total taxation, to stabilize that system. This would replace the present process of budget-by-budget changes in taxation.

Another thing we would suggest would be the financing of junior mines in Ontario which would be encouraged by means of a revision of the Ontario Securities Commission regulations. Furthermore, to encourage mining exploration, more airborne geophysical surveys would be carried out on geologically favourable areas for the use of mining companies.

Also, we would insist on increased secondary and tertiary processing of ores mined in Ontario. And, as part of an Ontario industrial strategy, we would develop a mining machinery industry based in northern Ontario.

These four or five suggestions I have made deal strictly with the mining industry and address themselves particularly to the problems that Inco and Falconbridge are facing.

We could broaden out in the area of food processing, as the member for Nickel Belt suggested. Again, I do not think it is any secret that on many occasions our party has spoken of the need to develop the whole agricultural industry in the north. It is viable. The problem is that nothing much has been done.

I mentioned earlier in my response to the motion that a golden opportunity was missed in the post-war years of the 1950s, 1960s and even the early 1970s. It was the opportunity that comes with being flush or affluent, as we were. Money was available for developing schools, adding to hospitals, developing a community college program and expanding universities. But what did not happen, and where the government has to accept some blame, was that it did not take that full bank account and put something away for the rainy day we now see.

The government did not take the opportunity to get into the development of an industrial strategy for northern Ontario. It did not do anything to improve the transportation situation in northern Ontario. In other words, the government blew it.

What I am suggesting by making reference to some alternatives that our party has -- and I have stressed mainly those alternatives in the mining area -- is that this is a starting point; this is building on something we have. There is no problem with our minerals; there is a problem with the market. I am also saying there are other problems in related industries that have been overlooked.

It is the government's responsibility, having heard time and time again that both we and members of the third party do have some viable alternatives, to respond today and tell us whether it thinks these are viable and what it has that might be better. We want to hear from it.

The people of northern Ontario do not want to hear about studies. They want to hear something positive. The opportunity is here this afternoon, through the member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon), a former mayor of Sudbury, and through the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier), to put something concrete on the table. Let us hear from his government what the plan is for northern Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I must confess I am most pleased to enter into this debate. I am particularly pleased that the House gave unanimous consent for what I think is an important discussion.

It is not the first time we have discussed the problems of Sudbury in this House to some extent. As the government House leader has pointed out, we on this side are very deeply concerned about the problems related to the loss of jobs on a temporary basis, indeed on a permanent basis, in the Sudbury basin. That concern has been expressed a number of times in a number of different ways. In fact, my colleague the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope) is in Sudbury this very day dealing with that issue and working very closely with that community to try to come up with some resolutions, however difficult they are.

As the member for London North (Mr. Van Horne) pointed out, we have to realize that we are in some difficult economic times because tonight we will see "strike 3" on television. The Prime Minister of this country will go before the nation for the third time in three days to express and impress upon us the seriousness of the economic situation in this country. Of course, he is asking for the faith of the nation and for it to pull together.

I have lived in northern Ontario all my life. I have gone through the cyclical nature of a resource area. We have had our ups and downs. We have survived. We have come through it. We have built the north. I am not concerned about the future. I have real faith in the future. I know there is faith in the Sudbury basin, plenty of faith.

4:10 p.m.

Just the other night, the Premier (Mr. Davis) held a fund-raising dinner in Toronto at the Harbour Castle. Several thousand people were there for a $200-a-plate dinner for the Tory party. How many people from Sudbury were there? There were 43 people who flew down from Sudbury. I had the pleasure to be in their midst. They were very positive. They said, "We are going through some difficult times, but we have survived before and we have come through before." It was a positive note I heard from that group. I was pleased that it was a very positive attitude.

We have moved forward in a very positive way. We cannot forget the successes we have had in the recent past with the Sudbury area. It was 2½ years ago when we had that very long strike and the government of this province responded, with the support of the members of the Socialist party, by turning the sod for a $10-million provincial building. How they cheered, how they were pleased that we created those jobs on such short notice for the Sudbury area. We moved very quickly, as we have done in a number of different areas.

We have worked with alternative import substitution. The honourable member has mentioned agricultural import substitution. Those studies are all done. They were done by my ministry well over two years ago in five major areas.

Mr. Laughren: Exactly. That is my point.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The government does not run farms. The only thing is that it is there.

Mr. Laughren: You are not doing any more on them.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: We are not going into any more studies.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): Order.

Each member has the opportunity of participating in the proper way.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: We have the information and we will certainly move ahead in a very positive way. Just a couple of years ago, when we were going through these very difficult times in the Sudbury basin, the community responded in a very positive way and formed the 2001 development organization, which some of the members opposite laughed at, jeered at and made some snide remarks about but never really discussed in this Legislature because they were on the board of directors. Remember the three members from Sudbury?

Mr. T. P. Reid: Tell us about the sheep farm.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: We will tell the member about the goat farm in a minute.

They came to us with a very positive and reasonable approach to try to diversify the economic base of Sudbury. The present member for Sudbury was supportive of that thrust. No longer do we want to be dependent totally on the Falconbridges and Incos of the day. We want to diversify our economy, and they are doing that in Sudbury, but the members opposite do not point that out.

I ask the member for London North, when was the last time he was in Sudbury and how long did he stay? It was not very long.

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: The minister and his colleague the Premier make references to my visits to Sudbury. I know the minister is not trying to get personal, but I might have to remind him of my sister, who is a native of Sudbury and has been for 25 years. I have visited that community on at least half a dozen occasions within the past few months on personal family matters, which are really none of his business. I resent the innuendoes that I never go there. The length of my visits is none of the minister's concern.

The point is that if the minister wants to pursue the matter and to do it in a fair way, then I will confide in him; but I do not think it is fair for him to make that kind of innuendo.

The Acting Speaker: I thank the honourable member, and I ask the minister to respect the personal privilege for which the member has asked.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the member for London North is the critic for northern Ontario. I am sure that by the time this parliament is over, he will be very well educated on northern Ontario; I will see to it that he is. I will do everything I can to make him better informed of the problems of northern Ontario and the things we are doing.

The Minister of Natural Resources made some comment yesterday about his efforts to try to cope with the problems of unemployment in the Sudbury basin. He mentioned the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development committee and what it was doing, and grants to Cambrian College and Laurentian University. He mentioned the four local seeding nurseries; there is $10.8 million in that project alone.

The minister also mentioned BILD's thrust to establish a resource machinery development centre in Sudbury; that is on the way. That is not a study, as the member for London North has pointed out. This is what we will do. We are doing it. We are not planning it; we are moving ahead with it. It is a fait accompli, and it will answer the problems of creating some resource machinery manufacturing centres right in the Sudbury and northeastern Ontario regions.

Nobody mentions the things that are happening in the Sudbury area. The Sudbury Science Centre is moving ahead. There is the cancer treatment centre, which is also moving ahead and which will make Sudbury a major medical referral centre in the years ahead. There is the air ambulance centre, which is now stationed in Sudbury. I had the pleasure of being in the Sudbury area recently with my colleague the member for Sudbury to officially open that modern ambulance hangar, which now has a dedicated air ambulance helicopter stationed there with room for additional helicopters to serve the Sudbury basin. These things are all positive.

We recently assisted the region and the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation in jointly funding a tourism study which was just approved last week. That was another $20,000 for that study, which the local people wanted and to which we responded.

I point out to the members that much is being done. We are not one of those parties that believe a grand industrial strategy is the be-all and end-all for the problems of northern Ontario. We have been dealing on a very positive basis.

I point to the Atikokan story. The member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman) was with me in Hornepayne last Friday. That is a single-industry community. What has this government done for Hornepayne? There is a $12.5-million town centre which has really made that community, and the lead ministry was the Ministry of Northern Affairs. Pickle Lake is another one. We will do the same thing in Sudbury; I have every confidence we will. I make the commitment that the Ministry of Northern Affairs will be up front and centre.

In dealing with the local people, as the government House leader pointed out, we are working very closely with Tom Davies, the regional chairman, who is pulling together the entire community, including the local members, be they from the New Democratic Party or the federal Liberal Party.

Let us not forget who our representatives are in Sudbury now. The people of Sudbury have responded and have sent a Tory member down here. They threw out one of that party's members. They threw out its federal member, Mr. Rodriguez. They replaced Mr. Rodriguez with the person who is now Minister of State (Mines and Status of Women), Judy Erola, who is very concerned. They also changed horses and have Doug Frith there, who was regional chairman.

There are many positive signs on the horizon. There are positive things happening in Sudbury today. We will move ahead, and we will resolve the problems of the Sudbury basin with the strong support we have from the member for Sudbury, who is very positive all the time.

Mr. Wildman: Mr. Speaker, I must say I am somewhat disappointed with the contribution to the debate from the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier), because we approach this debate from a very serious standpoint.

I want to make clear that, from our point of view, this is not an attempt to have a talkfest or some kind of a rant against Falconbridge or Inco but, rather, to talk about the positive alternatives that have been presented by my colleagues the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) and the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) to deal with the present economic crisis we face in Sudbury, which is experiencing the worst unemployment in the country today.

It is our position that we must have an economic program. There must be economic planning to deal, first, with the short-term problems and then with the long term. I understood the Minister of Northern Affairs to say he does not believe in what I think he called grand industrial strategies for northern Ontario but, rather, he believes in specific individual projects, such as the one he mentioned he attended on Friday in Hornepayne.

4:20 p.m.

While individual projects and initiatives are started by this government in good faith because it wishes to try to bring about new facilities for communities and even to produce some jobs, I want to emphasize our belief that unless there is a wider economic approach by the government, we are going to continue to rely on the private sector for the production of jobs in northern Ontario. In our view, it is this reliance on the private sector that has brought us to the situation we face in the resource industries not only in Sudbury but also throughout northern Ontario. We have unbelievable unemployment and an enormous increase in just one year throughout the north and especially in Sudbury.

In our view, the response of this government to our economic problems has been wholly inadequate. To argue that wage controls in the public sector are somehow going to deal with the unemployment problems we are facing today is to completely misunderstand the economic situation we face. We believe that we must have economic leadership and that this leadership must be provided by the government. We have been dependent on the private sector for too long, and this has led us to the situation we face at present.

We have to create jobs. I cannot accept the position the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) expressed just last week at a meeting he and I attended in Sault Ste. Marie, that wage controls in the public sector are the answer, that we must all learn to accept less from our economic system, that we must restrain our demands and that somehow by controlling the public sector in particular we are going to produce the jobs we need in the private sector. That is just ridiculous.

A young steelworker got up at that meeting and said to the Minister of Labour: "Mr. Ramsay, I am a member of Local 2251, United Steelworkers of America. I work for Algoma Steel. I have been laid off for some time. The reason I am laid off is that we are not selling steel, and the reason we are not selling steel is that people do not have enough money or do not wish to purchase automobiles and appliances; so those manufacturing firms are not operating at full capacity and they are not buying our steel. How is restraining public sector wages, taking money away from some people who have jobs, in any way going to help me to get my job back?"

Frankly, the Minister of Labour had absolutely no answer for him. In our view, it is a choice between reliance on the public sector and reliance on the private sector.

The Minister of Northern Affairs has indicated that although he is and will be involved in projects in conjunction with the private sector or completely on the part of the government itself, in certain areas of the north the main responsibility for economic development and for bringing us out of the hole we are in is with the private sector. We believe that is inadequate.

I cannot accept the response of the Minister of Natural Resources, who gets up time after time and talks about the short-term jobs he is helping to create in northern Ontario along with the federal government. I do not doubt that the 4,000 people in the Sudbury basin or the other people in the woods industry communities in northern Ontario who have jobs as a result of that program are happy. They are certainly happier than they would be if they were simply on unemployment insurance; I do not doubt that. But the point is that this does not produce any long-term outlook of recovery for those communities.

It is simply treading water. It is preventing a drowning man from going under, but it is not getting him out of the water.

The Minister of Northern Affairs basically tells us that we should have faith. If I listened carefully to his speech, that is what he said: We have got to have faith; we have got to be positive. He said "positive" over and over again. I was happy to hear him say he did not want to have further studies; then he went on to mention a study on tourism. But he did not want to have further studies. We accept that.

Interestingly enough, the proposals that were made by my colleagues from the Sudbury basin in A Challenge to Sudbury were taken mainly from the studies that have been completed over the past few years by this government or by legislative committees. They are not proposals they have just pulled out of the air and made up on their own. They are ones that have been drawn up largely by studies commissioned by this government. What we are asking now is for some action on those studies' proposals. I would like to know how many jobs have resulted and what has been done since those studies have been produced. There have not been very many jobs, certainly.

I want to deal with one particular aspect of the proposal made by my colleague for an integrated nickel complex; that is, the resource machinery industry. We have heard a lot of talk about that in this House. Some people may say: "Why are you talking about the resource machinery industry at a time when you have enormous layoffs in the mining and lumber industries? If people are not working, the industries are not going to purchase machinery anyway."

There are some bright lights. Some resource industries are still operating in northern Ontario. There certainly is a market, and in the long term there is going to be a major market, for mining machinery in northern Ontario. I am sure Canada will maintain its position as one of the largest producers of minerals in the world.

As we have said before in this House, Canada imported more than $700 million worth of mining machinery in 1981. This represented an increase of more than 200 per cent in six years. In 1980, we had a deficit of $590 million in the value of production, which meant we would lose about 7,000 jobs.

I would like to know whether someone from the government side can tell us in this debate what exactly is happening with the resource machinery institute in Sudbury. Is that to remain a political football between the federal and provincial governments over funding, or is it actually going to produce something? Is it going to be more than just an institute with 19 jobs? Is it actually going to become what it should be, a public corporation that will actually produce the machinery for which there is a market for production of the numbers of things that are listed on page 7 of this proposal by my colleague from the Sudbury basin? I certainly hope it will.

For it to do that, we believe the Ontario government must become directly involved in the marketplace in an active way, and not just leave it to the private sector as has been reiterated, in his blind faith, by the Minister of Northern Affairs.

We believe that there are opportunities in Sudbury, even in these bleak times, and that we could create new jobs. We must have a government, though, with the will to institute the economic measures necessary to bring about true economic growth, and not just short-term jobs. It is up to the government to take advantage of the tremendous market that will be available when the resource industries rebound. Sudbury is an obvious place to produce those kinds of machines.

The New Democratic Party has made its position very clear. We have been as positive -- to use the minister's word -- as we can. We have put forward proposals. What we are waiting for is action from the government.

4:30 p.m.

Mr. J. A. Reed: Mr. Speaker, the crisis concerning the city of Sudbury, which we are addressing in the debate this afternoon, is really only one more manifestation of the problems of northern Ontario, which have been realized even more acutely during the past 12 months or more.

I was in northern Ontario last November, almost a year ago, to see firsthand the acute problem of the over-reliance on one industrial source. When the market for the produced goods dries up in some other part of North America or in this province or in Canada, then depression or recession comes to a community, even though the rest of Ontario may appear to be buoyant and prosperous. That is really the core of this debate.

What we are dealing with is not just a crisis of the layoffs that have taken place, but the long-term challenge that involves people in the Sudbury area who will not have the opportunity to go back to work in those mines should those mines be reactivated. It seems to me that if we are going to be thoughtful and constructive about what we are going to do, we have to understand that the work has to be done now to prepare for that diversification.

In recent years, as Energy critic I have had the opportunity to discuss in this Legislature some of the areas of diversification that northern Ontario might enter into. Contrary to my Socialist friends, I do not believe the answer lies solely with government intervention or government participation. I believe that the private sector has a very dominant role to play and that entrepreneurship has a dominant role to play.

What I am concerned with is the fact that government in many instances is interfering with the private sector's ability to fulfil its role, and it is not undertaking to identify the areas where it does interfere and prevent the full potential of the private sector.

I might add that it is no longer going to be satisfactory for the government to bask in the sunshine of ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Municipal buildings, as important as they are, are no longer enough.

It seems to me that in a time of economic crisis, one of the things we should look at but we are not looking at now is those areas of resource development in northern Ontario which we can address through the encouragement of capital expenditure and which have known markets. That is the revenue-producing kind of expenditures that are still available to us in the north, even in this time of great economic constraint.

As a way of suggestion to the government, I want to outline a few of those areas which should be given the most serious and immediate consideration.

As I said, I had the privilege of being Energy critic for six years, which allowed some hands- on exploration of the energy and resource potential in Ontario. It seems to me that through perceived economic consideration and through perceived political consideration, we have chosen not to properly develop or exploit all the resources, both renewable and nonrenewable, that are available to us and that have markets here in the province.

We are still bringing in from outside the borders of this province approximately $11 billion of energy products a year. Such an incredible figure has to be looked at with a view to being replaced by indigenous energy resources coming from the north, and it can be.

It is not enough to say simply that we have uranium mines and so on. We know that we need a diversification of energy, we know that a lot of the diversification is available to us from Ontario products, and we know that the markets are there for us. We simply have to get on with the job.

I talked about the obstacles to development, and I am glad the Minister of Northern Affairs is here to listen to this, because there are bureaucratic obstacles to entrepreneurial development that remain. The obstacles are not fully identified, and they are not fully addressed; they also exist in the companion ministry, this Ministry of Natural Resources. As Natural Resources critic, I often sit here with great frustration because those obstacles are not being addressed and removed.

If we want to talk about employment that can produce revenue, let us look first at one recognized subject, hydraulic development in northern Ontario, which Ontario Hydro, the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Natural Resources all agree is a good thing. There are sites already under study. There are areas where small hydraulic development is necessary in remote areas of northern Ontario, and that capital construction can provide jobs and produce revenue. Both those things, if they go together, can spell some economic recovery,

whereas the construction of a nice facility to do something may not produce any revenue whatsoever.

I look at the utilization of wood waste. One company, BioShell, established a pilot plant in no