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November 3, 1975

30th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L005 - Mon 3 Nov 1975 / Lun 3 nov 1975

CONDITIONS IN CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTIONS

TORONTO TEACHERS’ NEGOTIATIONS

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE RATES

ASBESTOS EMISSIONS AT JOHNS-MANVILLE OPERATION

PAYMENT FOR CATTLE PURCHASES

ADVERTISING OF RENT REVIEW

HOME WARRANTY PROGRAMME

KRAUSS-MAFFEI SYSTEM

MUSTARD REPORT ON HEALTH SERVICES

HIGHWAY EXTENSIONS

PURCHASE OF RAILWAY LAND IN ERIEAU

ONTARIO’S CREDIT RATING

HUMAN RIGHTS CODE

MINIMUM WAGE

DEFINITION OF DISABILITY

SPENDING REVISIONS

ANTI-INFLATION PROGRAMME

HOLIDAY CLOSING FOR RETAIL BUSINESSES

FAMILY PLANNING CLINICS

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (CONTINUED)

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Leluk: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to introduce to the House this afternoon 64 grade 8 students from John G. Althouse Public School in York West riding. They are seated in the west gallery.

Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the members of the House to welcome the pupils of grade 7, from The Elms Middle School in the riding of Etobicoke, accompanied by their teacher, Mr. Michael Luedicke.

Mr. Evans: I would like to introduce to the members of the House, grade 12 students of the Barrie Eastview Secondary School, sitting in the west gallery, and ask them to join with me in giving them a warm welcome.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry. Oral questions.

CONDITIONS IN CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTIONS

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Minister of Correctional Services: What is his ministry going to do about the alleged problems within the jails and correctional institutions of Ontario other than involve the Ombudsman, whose domain I would have thought to be secondary rather than primary?

Hon. J. R. Smith: This has been very apparent to me since I assumed the responsibilities of the Minister of Correctional Services. I have visited a number of the centres in the province -- such as Brampton and Sault Ste. Marie, as well as here in Toronto -- where there is severe overcrowding. We are trying to speed up the new facility at Maplehurst and increase the accommodation facilities from 100 to 400 within a few weeks. These and the House of Concord north of Toronto and new detention centres are going to provide some relief from the overcrowding in certain of these municipal jails.

Mrs. Sandeman: Supplementary: What steps is the minister prepared to take in the meantime while the overcrowding exists in the present jails, to make sure that the staffing levels in those jails and reformatories are sufficient to deal with the very high number of inmates?

Hon. J. R. Smith: Staffing has been increased in the Don Jail this year to 35 correctional officers; five in Brampton and 60 at Mimico. We are doing our very best. I recognize that the correctional officers in these centres are under a great deal of pressure because of the overcrowding, but we are up to complement.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary: Does the minister recall that his predecessor spent over $2 million in upgrading Burwash in the last year and then closed it, also in the last year? Why doesn’t he reactivate Burwash if he needs room? It is all there, with all of the facilities and the people who want it in the community.

Hon. J. R. Smith: The immediate problem is accommodation for remand inmates who have to appear in court almost on a daily basis. They have to be near their legal counsel. The population that was previously at Burwash was primarily from southern Ontario. Only 10 per cent of the inmates were from northern Ontario centres. One gets into the problems of transportation --

Mr. Reid: We don’t have those problems up there.

Hon. J. R. Smith: -- proximity to legal counsel and family and rehabilitative services. It is hoped that these new facilities such as Maplehurst, Mimico and House of Concord will alleviate that problem.

Mr. Nixon: You don’t put remands in the reformatories.

Mr. Lewis: A supplementary if I may: Do I take it from the tenor of his answers that the minister largely agrees, or at least implies that the intimations of a blowup, as expressed by the Civil Service Association on behalf of its personnel, are apparently real and that things have been allowed to deteriorate to a point where they need the rescue of an outside agency like the Ombudsman? What does the minister intend to do as the crisis develops before his eyes?

Hon. J. R. Smith: I beg to disagree with the statement of Mr. Cooper that there is a crisis situation and a fear of riots in the institutions. This is ever present in this form of correctional work, either at our institutions or those of the federal government. It is ever present

Our main concern is to see that we are satisfied that enough precautions have been taken with regard to the staff and their training and that there is security, but when we reach a certain overload in institutions such as Brampton, where we have facilities for an average of 30 beds and we have 68 inmates -- such as the day I was there -- they replace the single cot beds with bunks and then they have 60 places and an overflow of eight. That means they would have to sleep in the corridor at night and that’s when the security problems arise.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right.

Hon. J. B. Smith: I have a great deal of concern for the correctional officers when they have to enter those corridors in that kind of situation. We are moving as quickly as possible to try to open these other facilities and I welcome full co-operation with the Ombudsman. The CSAO requested this and it did not, as the member has intimated, come as a request from this ministry. We are willing to co-operate fully with him, in every way we can.

Mr. Speaker: This will be the final supplementary on this question.

Mr. Young: Could I ask the minister a supplementary regarding the timing of this tremendous upsurge of inmates in the correctional institutions? Over the past two or three years, we were led to believe that things were going very well and now suddenly we get the crisis. What is the reason for the sudden crisis?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. We are now straying into a debating session. The original question had to do with the Ombudsman’s participation. In fairness, I feel we should allow a final supplementary to the leader of the -- not the leader, the member for Sarnia.

Mr. Foulds: The undeclared candidate.

Mr. Nixon: It is a very natural error, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Bullbrook: Would it be the feeling of the minister that perhaps an undue backlash to the Bail Reform Act is causing part of the overcrowding at the present time?

Hon. J. B. Smith: There are many factors behind the overcrowding. That could be a contributing factor, yes. It is also related to the fact that the populations are basically very young, 18- to 25-year-old males, and to the end of the baby boom; there are many things such as the member suggested. In Metropolitan Toronto there has been an increase of 30 per cent this year in admissions to the Toronto jails.

Mr. Bullbrook: Are any representations being made by the hon. minister to his colleague, the Attorney General, (Mr. McMurtry) in connection --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I think that was the final supplementary. I tried to draw that to your attention a moment ago.

TORONTO TEACHERS’ NEGOTIATIONS

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Premier -- I hope he will understand my addressing it to him in the absence of the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells).

Now that the high school teachers in Metropolitan Toronto have seemed to indicate quite specifically that they intend to exercise their right to strike when the secret ballot comes this week, is there an intention on the part of his government to intervene at the highest levels to bring the parties together in the last-ditch effort we would all support since there are now only about nine days left before the walk-out begins?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I expect the Minister of Education will be here, perhaps even before the question period is over, and I think that question should be properly directed to him. I think he does have something to say in this regard.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE RATES

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, if I may: In this period of constraint on all fronts, is the government now prepared to consider requiring of the automobile insurance companies in Ontario that they justify any future premium increase applications that they may bring and that the now minister provide a public explanation for the 63 per cent rise in cumulative premium increases since 1972?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. Leader of the Opposition well knows, we have always required them to justify premium increases, but I think the complaint he has is that we haven’t required them to justify them publicly. The restraint programme which the federal government has now embarked on, obviously will have an effect on future rate increases. I have been talking to the people in the insurance industry, and there is still some confusion as to whether or not they are all going to be required to go to Ottawa and justify their rate increases. In the meantime, I can assure the hon. Leader of the Opposition that we will carry out our responsibilities to the public.

Mr. Lewis: Supplementary: What exactly does that mean? Many of the automobile insurance companies have increased rates in three installments in 1975 alone at 30 to 35 per cent of the premium levels as they existed in December, 1974. What intervention will his ministry make, in good faith with the guidelines, to make certain that no future increases occur without public scrutiny by this government?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I can’t assure the hon. Leader of the Opposition that there will be public scrutiny. There certainly will be scrutiny within the ministry. If there is any public scrutiny, it may very well be by the Anti-Inflation Review Board in Ottawa.

Mr. Singer: Would the minister not believe now is the time to proclaim the unproclaimed sections in the Act which would give him power to control those rates?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: No, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Makarchuk: Supplementary: Would the minister consider looking into the increases that were imposed on the taxi drivers in Brantford last week where the rates went up anywhere from 60 to 300 per cent? Would he examine them and report publicly as to the reason why the increases were introduced at a time when we are supposed to be practising restraints and this government preaches these restraints?

Mrs. Campbell: That is not supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Was that an increase in the insurance rates that the hon. member was talking about?

Mr. Makarchuk: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, there have been some instances of increases in insurance rates on taxis and other public vehicles. I would be prepared to look at any specific instance that the hon. member would like to bring to my attention, as I have been doing for the past two weeks.

ASBESTOS EMISSIONS AT JOHNS-MANVILLE OPERATION

Mr. Lewis: One last question, if I may: Can the Minister of Health undertake to table in the Legislature the readings for asbestos emissions in the Johns-Manville mine and plant in Reeves township near Timmins during the course of the eight years that that mine and mill were in operation?

[2:15]

Hon. F. S. Miller: I’ll check into it, Mr. Speaker, and see whether I can.

Mr. Lewis: Supplementary: Is the minister personally aware whether or not readings were taken systematically during the course of that eight-year period, or were the readings confined just to the last year?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I can’t say.

PAYMENT FOR CATTLE PURCHASES

Mr. Nixon: I would like to put a question to the Minister of Agriculture and Food regarding the situation pertaining to Essex Packers, that was raised by my colleague, the member for Guelph (Mr. Worton), in the House on Friday. Can the minister explain to the House how the taxpayers of the province involved themselves to the extent of close to $1 million in making available the facilities at the Guelph Reformatory to Essex Packers? Have we in fact lost that $1 million in this circumstance, and was there ever an application by Essex Packers for assistance from the government so that they could maintain their operation?

Hon. W. Newman: To the first part of the question, I can’t really give the member a full answer on that. On the second part of the question, yes, there was a meeting some time ago and it was pointed out to Essex Packers by the ministry that they must themselves raise $1 million in capital before we would have a look at it. We are under the understanding that they would have raised this, but as of last week they had not. My prime concern here is the payment to the farmers prior to Oct. 17 and the outstanding balance to the farmers.

As far as the amount of money owing to Essex Packers by the Ontario government through the Ministry of Correctional Services is concerned, there was a cheque to be issued for $185,000, which I have today asked for a hold to be put on, to see what we can legally do about taking some of those funds to make sure that the farmers receive their payments, which I believe are outstanding to the tune of approximately $160,000. The OBIA are meeting today and I expect to meet with them myself later this week.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary: Since Essex Packers is, I believe, the last in the smaller group of packers offering any competition to the major packers in this province, wouldn’t the Minister of Agriculture and Food have a broader concern to see that this organization is kept functioning for the good of the agricultural community and also for the good of the consumers?

Mr. Speaker, it’s a bit of a problem directing the question, since it might at least be directed in part to the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. J. R. Smith), since the correctional facilities in Guelph have been in partnership for this period of time with the commitment of $1 million in our funds. But I would direct it to the Minister of Agriculture and Food, since it certainly falls within his more general responsibility to serve not only the agricultural community but the consumers.

Hon. W. Newman: The receivers moved in last Friday afternoon. I’m not convinced in my own mind at this point in time that, unless it was a very large amount of capital, even an infusion of money would keep this company going. We want to wait until we get back some further information later this week before a decision is made on that.

We did make it very clear before that they must infuse some of their own capital. After all, it’s owned, I think, primarily by two people. They were to infuse their own capital into this situation before we would look at it. From the way their statement is beginning to look at this point in time, I’m not sure the infusion of large amounts of capital would really help the situation at the moment.

Mr. Nixon: They’ve already got $1 million.

Mr. Gaunt: Supplementary: Since time is of the essence, when does the minister anticipate having this legal opinion as to whether some of this money from Correctional Services could be made available to the farmers for payment?

Hon. W. Newman: As of this morning I’ve asked the legal people from Management Board to look into it to see what our legal status is and to see what we can do. My prime concern is for those farmers who got a lot of NSF cheques prior to Oct. 17. I will do all I can in my power to try to see that they get paid.

Mr. Worton: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary: What plans does the government have for using the plant now? I understand it’s coming to a halt. Does Correctional Services plan to keep it going under its own staff, or what plans does the Government have?

Hon. W. Newman: At this point there are conflicting views whether it is still buying or not buying. But where any buying has been going on, the cheques, in processing, are being certified by the bank at this time to guarantee payments to the individuals. They have to give at least 37½ hours’ notice to the employees, so they’ll have to operate this week. I can’t tell you at this moment exactly what the outcome will be of the plant at the Guelph Reformatory until we’ve got more facts and figures on it.

ADVERTISING OF RENT REVIEW

Mr. Nixon: A question of the Premier: Is the Premier now in receipt of a letter from the election expenses commission indicating the opinion of the commission that the Minister of Housing has been in violation of the intent of the Election Expenses Reform Act in the publication of advertisements in the election campaign?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think I am in possession of a copy of a letter sent to the Minister of Housing.

Mr. Nixon: A supplementary: What does the Premier intend to do about it since, when the statute was proclaimed he himself indicated, I thought rather gratuitously, that his party intended to support not only the words in the regulations and the law itself but also the intent? This, of course, was the indicated intention of all sides. What is he going to do about it? Is the Premier going to arrange for payment into the consolidated revenue fund of those moneys that the ads cost?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think the commission really will have to make some decision, other than just passing some form of opinion, which is really what I understand from the resolution.

Mr. Nixon: It was a motion of the election expenses commission.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I don’t want to be provocative, because if I became provocative I might say the only mistake we made in the Election Finances Reform Act was that we didn’t provide in the legislation that it be compulsory for advertising in election campaigns to be reasonably truthful, which would have then obliterated the Liberals’ total campaign. That was the only mistake we made. But I won’t become provocative today, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Ruston: You wouldn’t have got a word in.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I can only say, as I said to the press, that I think it is something that you can have a difference of opinion on.

Mr. R. S. Smith: We have no money for advertising.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I mean there was public funding going into your advertising; don’t forget that.

Mr. Reid: And yours.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s right, but I tell you, at least ours was truthful.

Mr. Nixon: Go ahead.

Mr. Reid: You used the government’s money to run your campaign. That is the whole point of the question.

Hon. Mr. Davis: As I said to the press -- and I don’t intend to prolong this --

Mr. Nixon: You don’t intend to prolong this, but you are.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- I disagree; what do you mean, I don’t intend to prolong it?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The question has been asked and the answer is being given.

Mr. Nixon: The Premier is totally at fault in this regard. Is he going to make restitution or not?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am not totally at fault at all.

Mr. Nixon: You are. The election expenses commission says you are.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I would have thought the former Leader of the Opposition would have learned something from the last campaign, but quite obviously he has not.

Mr. Nixon: Yes, I learned that I cannot trust your statements.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am not directly involved in this at all. There is a letter expressing an opinion from the commission. Fine. If the commission wishes to make a ruling, as I have said to the press, this government and this party will abide by any ruling that that commission makes.

Mr. Nixon: That is the weakest answer I have heard in this House.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Nixon: A supplementary question: Does the Premier then mean that the motion of the election expenses commission saying that his party, and in fact his government, is in violation of the intent of the Act is nothing more than a personal opinion and that he refuses to take action?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think it means this: The commission will have to make some determination. If they make a determination as to what they believe should be done, this party and this government will abide by it.

Mr. Singer: They have no such power.

Mr. Nixon: You are not prepared to act --

Mr. Reid: So much for the spirit of the Act.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: What I am saying right now, Mr. Speaker, is that I haven’t read the detailed, unofficial commission minutes. Listen, you people should talk about the spirit of the Act --

Mr. Nixon: What are you talking about?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I am on my feet.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I refuse to sit here and listen to cheap innuendo from the leader of the Conservative Party when he is trying a weak defence of a position which he knows himself to be completely impossible and indefensible. Is the Premier going to make restitution to the treasury or not?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. That is not a point of order. Is there a further answer to the question?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I can only say this, if the former Leader of the Opposition is suggesting that I am making innuendoes -- and I am not -- I can only say that there is one man in this House who should know what that is all about.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary? The hon. Leader of the Opposition?

Mr. Lewis: The present leader of the present opposition is what you call it, I think. May I ask the Premier --

Mr. Nixon: It’s a total abdication of the Premier’s responsibility. The intent of that legislation has been smeared.

Mr. Deans: Why don’t you two get together on television and debate this?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. Leader of the Opposition wishes the opportunity to ask a supplementary.

Mr. Lewis: Could I ask the Premier if he would consider directing the commission to make public and to post regularly, perhaps with all members of the Legislature or perhaps in some other public function, the minutes of the commission as they are arrived at and the time at which it is intended to make a determination based on a motion passed by the commission?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think I would be presumptuous to direct the commission. I certainly would be quite prepared to discuss it with the chairman of the commission.

Mr. Nixon: He may be foolish to listen to you.

Mr. Reid: Just ignore them, that’s all.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, while I am on my feet, if I might interrupt the proceedings of the House, I would like to introduce to the members of the House the Prime Minister of St. Vincent, who is in your gallery watching these proceedings here this afternoon.

Mr. Lewis: In St. Vincent, they demand restitution.

Hon. Mr. Davis: They don’t have a Liberal Party in St. Vincent.

HOME WARRANTY PROGRAMME

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Does the minister recall two years ago informing me in this House that there would be, within six months, a warranty on new homes? Does he recall, about 18 months ago, my being informed in this House that that warranty was being drafted? Does he recall about a year ago my being informed it was simply a matter of getting a little bit of agreement with the federal government? Could the minister tell me where the warranty is?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I am glad to hear the member correct his question in the second phase because I didn’t inform him. As he recalls, it was my predecessor in this portfolio who made the two statements. During the examination of my estimates in the last session, I told the hon. member that we were working on a warranty plan and I hoped to have it in place this fall. This fall is not completed yet and I’m working on it.

Mr. Deans: Not quite.

Mrs. Campbell: Christmas is coming.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: We have reached the point where we are almost in a position to announce the plan but I can’t tell him the exact date.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question: The minister can forgive me for being a little bit worried about it because we seemed to be at the same point a year ago. Could he tell me whether we’ll have this during this session?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: It may not require legislation so I would be presumptuous if I told the hon. member we would be introducing something in this House this session. We are working toward the implementation of a plan completely apart from the federal government but also we would like to be in a position to integrate a plan with a national plan in the event the federal government does arrive at some consensus with the industry across the country. But we are proceeding on our own.

Mr. Deans: One final supplementary, if I may. How can a warranty be put in place, which would be legally binding across the province, without some Act of the Legislature?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: There was no suggestion on my part that it would require legislation at all. We would probably be adopting a warranty plan in the very near future. We may not require legislation to do it and until such time as we’ve arrived at a final plan, I think it would be a little bit premature of me to make any further statement.

KRAUSS-MAFFEI SYSTEM

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Transportation and Communications.

Has he, in his search for the information supposedly tabled by his predecessor, had occasion to look at Hansard of April 18, 1975, page 968 -- when he can see the first time the question was answered -- or at Hansard of June 20, 1975, at page 3200 -- when he can see another time the question was answered -- or at the words of his predecessor who said on June 20, “I have said to the member, and I have made the statement in this House as late as my estimates, that these figures will be tabled in this House.” If his investigations have led him that far, when are we going to see the Krauss-Maffei cost figures?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Since the hon. member asked that question Friday morning, I have not had an opportunity to search all those copies of Hansard. I gave him my word on Friday that the figures would be available and they will be. I understand they’ve already been tabled but I have to confirm that.

Mr. Singer: Come on; that was the whole point of this. Neither you nor your leader have figured that one out yet.

MUSTARD REPORT ON HEALTH SERVICES

Mr. Williams: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Health: Could the minister advise this House as to what the current status is of the Mustard report pertaining to delivery of health services in this province?

Mr. Nixon: He is after your job.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I am not really used to having voices come from behind me. Sometimes it’s a sign of an ailing mind.

Mr. Lewis: That would be fair.

Hon. F. S. Miller: The enemy I can see before me is always one I can trust.

Mr. Foulds: True enough.

Mrs. Campbell: You are right.

Mr. MacDonald: Let’s get back to question period.

Mr. Speaker: Could we get to the answer, please?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I was trying to think of one.

Mr. MacDonald: That’s what I thought.

Hon. F. S. Miller: During the last session of the last Parliament, I did have a chance to report on the reaction of this government to the Mustard report. As a matter of fact, during the summer months a booklet was prepared called, I think, “Report, Reaction, Response.” This is a fairly concise

summary of the response of this government to the many recommendations of Mustard and the responses of the people who studied it. It could take a long time to go over them and since it is a matter of record I’ll take it upon myself to send the member a copy so that he’ll have them.

[2:30]

HIGHWAY EXTENSIONS

Mr. Dukszta: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Transportation and Communications: Does the minister intend to meet with three groups which have requested a meeting to discuss the extension of Highway 400 south to St. Clair Ave. and the paving of the Spadina Expressway from Lawrence Ave. to Eglinton Ave? These three groups are: the Citizens Transportation Coalition, which requested a meeting on Oct. 6, 1975; the borough of York council, on Oct. 1, 1975, and again on Oct. 27, 1975; and the city of Toronto, on Oct. 15, 1975. If the minister does intend to meet them, can he tell me when?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat concerned, because I cannot say I have not received any of those requests, but I certainly have not received them all. In my office on Friday, I was going over requests for such meetings, and I have had some requests that we have not been able to fit in, but those were not among them.

Mr. Dukszta: Supplementary: I asked the minister, but maybe the question should have been directed to the Premier, since the requests were sent to the cabinet I assumed that in the meantime those would have been directed to the minister to deal with.

Hon. Mr. Snow: No, I have not seen those requests.

Mr. Dukszta: Another supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Ms. Speaker: Order, please. The last one was not really a supplementary. I thought it was more of a statement. Is this a supplementary?

Mr. Dukszta: Can the minister make sure he gets copies of those requests?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Yes.

PURCHASE OF RAILWAY LAND IN ERIEAU

Mr. Spence: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Natural Resources. Could the minister clear up the confusion of the ownership of the land that has been owned by the Chesapeake and Ohio, Railway in the community of Erieau, Kent county? We’ve heard rumours that a private businessman has bought this property, and then we read in the Windsor Star on Oct. 11, 1974, that the Province of Ontario owns some of this property that was owned by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. Could the minister clear up this confusion over the ownership of this property, and does he intend to buy this property when possible?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member’s interest in this particular area. In fact, it is an area that the hon. member and I personally examined. We did express some real interest in developing this particular area as a provincial park to serve that part of Ontario. We indicated our interest in purchasing this particular property.

However, in the interim I am told that a certain gentleman by the name of Drake from London, Ont., moved in and negotiated with the C and O Railway before Government Services could do any negotiating on our behalf. We have no ownership of any land there at this present time. I understand that Mr. Drake is having financial difficulties in finalizing the arrangements, but I am not sure of that.

To the second part of the hon. member’s question, if we are still interested: I would have to say we are still interested, but I would have to point out as strongly as I can that because of budgetary constraints, and cutting back in land acquisition for provincial parks specifically, this does not have a high priority on our list at the present time.

ONTARIO’S CREDIT RATING

Mr. MacDonald: I have a question of the provincial Treasurer. In view of Moody’s action in the United States recently in reducing Ontario’s credit rating from a triple A to a double A, would the minister give the House an explanation as to what he ascribes this downgrading; and second, what difficulties, if any, is it going to create for the government and Ontario Hydro in terms of capital needs over the coming year?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I may have missed this, but I am not aware that they have done so.

Mr. Lewis: What? The minister did not hear of this cataclysmic decline in Ontario’s credit rating on foreign markets?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. MacDonald: Supplementary: Would the provincial Treasurer investigate this -- because I have every reason to believe that what I have been told is correct -- and reply to my question at his earliest convenience?

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary on that -- because it is a very interesting subject that we’ve heard about frequently from the Treasurer’s predecessor: Did the representatives of that American firm call on either the Treasurer or representatives of the treasury during the last four months to discuss this credit rating? Has this been a matter of more concern than the Treasurer is evincing at the present time?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: They did not call on me, Mr. Speaker. I believe there was to have been a meeting with the deputy minister and some officials about 1½ or two months ago and it was cancelled.

Mr. Nixon: The deputy was called back on a matter of urgent importance -- was that the story at the time?

Mr. Speaker: The member for Windsor-Walkerville.

HUMAN RIGHTS CODE

Mr. B. Newman: I have a question of the Minister of Labour. Does she intend to amend the Human Rights Code so that discrimination because of a physical handicap will no longer deny an individual with a handicap, who can perform the services of being given an opportunity of employment?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, the question raised by my hon. colleague is a very pertinent one. The Human Rights Code of the Province of Ontario is to undergo a complete study and revision within the next 12 months. I would be certain that aspect of human rights will be included in that study and will be taken into consideration.

MINIMUM WAGE

Mr. Makarchuk: I have a question of the Minister of Labour. In view of the harsh restrictions imposed by the guidelines on people at the lower income levels, is the minister prepared at this time to raise the minimum wage?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague knows, the minimum wage is under constant scrutiny within this province. It is being studied at the moment and there will be proposals made, I am sure, within the next two months regarding movement of the minimum wage in the Province of Ontario.

Mr. Lewis: The government is learning.

Hon. B. Stephenson: It will be recognized, I am sure, that the statement made by the Minister of Finance of Canada was not that the federal minimum wage was to be raised, but that in fact any wage under the level of $3.50 an hour could be elevated to that level without any penalty under the AIB.

Mr. Lewis: They are nothing but generous.

DEFINITION OF DISABILITY

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, my question is of the Minister of Community and Social Services. I must first quote an incident in order to make my question clear. In the case of a person who had been denied eligibility under the GAINS programme administered by the Ministry of Community and Social Services, the eligibility finally came though during the month of September. I was rather gratified because at the point at which she had died, previous to the eligibility -- I thought she died of unemployability.

My question is has the minister given any consideration to redefining disability for purposes of GAINS? Secondly, in line with the constraints of the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough), would he not now think it would be advisable to disband the medical review board, which sits at the rate of $25,000 a year per person, for four persons for part-time service, in view of the fact that they never see a patient and their decisions may be overruled by a lay board, namely, the appeal review board

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Yes.

Mr. Reid: Stop right there.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: In connection with the first part of the member’s question, I certainly have given a great deal of consideration to that problem. As the member knows, it has been a difficult problem because of the criteria that must be involved. I am giving consideration to that. There is supposedly a difference, as the hon. member knows, between the permanently unemployable and those who are permanently disabled. That’s a difficult situation.

Mrs. Campbell: That’s what I am talking about.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: We’ve reviewed that. That has been an ongoing review. We’ve reviewed every case from 60 to 65 years of age. As a matter of fact, there have been quite massive transfers from the permanently unemployable to the permanently disabled. That has gone on.

In regard to the medical review board, I would want to give that further consideration before I gave an answer.

Mr. Deans: Is the minister telling us he reviewed them all?

Mr. Speaker: Is there a further question from the New Democratic Party?

Mr. Shore: Mr. Speaker, could I ask a question?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Beaches-Woodbine.

Mr. Bullbrook: The member for London North has a question.

Mr. Speaker: I thought there was a question there a moment ago but I think we caught them by surprise, so we have to give them the benefit of the doubt.

SPENDING REVISIONS

Mrs. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the chairman of Management Board. In the House on Friday he gave us a statement in which he claimed that the government was expecting to achieve a four per cent reduction in something known as the civil service complement by the end of the fiscal year. Will the minister provide us with the two missing pieces in the jigsaw puzzle, which will enable us to determine if actual savings are being made?

The two pieces of information requested are: First, the number of civil service jobs existing prior to Apr. 1, 1974, which have been contracted out to other workers? Secondly, whether those called “contract employees” are included in the figures of civil service complement? If not, how many contract employees were there a year ago and how many are there now?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, as far as the second question is concerned, if one assumes that the definition of a contract employee is anybody who is working for the province who is not on the classified staff or the civil service staff, then as of this date in time, Nov. 3, I would estimate there would be about 16,500 people in that category.

I hasten to point out that figure includes a great many part-time people, like Crown employees, people who work in the jails, psychiatrists, dentists, and so on. It also includes roughly 500 teachers who work in places like the schools for the blind, the schools for the deaf and the Science Centre -- a variety of places.

Mr. Reid: There are 100 of them in the Premier’s office.

Hon. Mr. Auld: In the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, it includes snowplough operators and winter maintenance people. In the summertime it includes roughly another 10,000 students and all the people who work part-time in the parks. There are a great many part-time people and it is virtually impossible, I’m informed by my own staff, to say that there are so many contract people in one year, it will vary seasonably.

I might be able to give the hon. member the answer to the first part of the question, as to the number of civil servants who have been dropped from complement who might now be found under the guise of contract employees. I can say that it would be very few, because the way Management Board plugged that loophole was to reduce direct operating expenses, including all salaries, by 10 per cent, so that in the event someone tries to replace a permanent civil servant by contract employee they still have to have the money to do it, and that we are watching very closely.

However, if it is possible, I will try to give the hon. member a further answer to the first part of the question.

Mr. Reid: I wonder if I could ask --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Has the original questioner a point of clarification?

Mrs. Bryden: Yes; do I take it that the minister says contract employees are not included in the civil service complement? Secondly, all I’m asking for on contract employees is the number as of, say Nov. 3, 1975, versus Nov. 3, 1974, which would cut out all the problems about seasonable and part-time? Is that possible?

Hon. Mr. Auld: I’m afraid it isn’t quite that simple, but I will try, and --

Mr. Foulds: No, it certainly isn’t.

Hon. Mr. Auld: -- give the hon. member an answer. You see for instance --

Mr. Lewis: Never mind the for instance, just give the answer.

Hon. Mr. Auld: -- in the government there are positions -- not a great many of them, I understand -- which have always been filled --

Mr. Lewis: The minister is the greatest fudger in this Legislature.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I am sure there are others who don’t want the answer, but the hon. member might.

Mr. Bullbrook: He means the minister is sweet when he calls him a fudger.

Hon. Mr. Auld: There are positions that have always been filled by unclassified and contract people. For instance, in what we might call the foreign service in industry and tourism.

Mr. Lewis: The foreign service? This is Ontario.

Mr. Foulds: Where do they work -- northern Ontario?

Mr. Speaker: Order please, we are wasting time.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I have a great answer, but I’ll restrain myself.

Mr. Deans: Go ahead.

Mrs. Campbell: Just give us the answer.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Auld: We can get together --

Mr. Bullbrook: Yes, that would be great.

[2:45]

Hon. Mr. Auld: -- you be Mr. Interlocutor and I can give you a lot of

definitions.

The people who work for Industry and Tourism in the United States and in other countries have always been unclassified non-civil servants. For one thing, they can’t take the oath of allegiance and there are always local conditions, so it is not quite as simple as it appears on the surface to try to get these

definitions.

Mr. Lewis: That is certainly germane.

Hon. Mr. Auld: The hon. member may find some more illumination in the special programme review committee, which I understand has been taking a look at this problem along with others. I will endeavour to clarify things further for the member.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Did the member for Rainy River have a supplementary? One final supplementary.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, at the risk of taking on the Paul Martin of the Ontario Legislature once again, I would like to draw to his attention that there is a question in my name and that of the member for Kitchener (Mr. Breithaupt) on this very thing. My question was on the order paper for four months in the last session. Is it not possible for the Management Board to come up with these figures and, if you like, categorize them as contract people and others as opposed to permanent civil servants? Quit playing games with the people of Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Auld: If the hon. member will indicate how long he means -- if he would like to have delineated every person who has been on contract, including those for a months and those for six month, it is going to take another four months. I’ve tried to explain the complexities of this --

Mr. Reid: It’s taken you six months to answer that question.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I suppose the answer may have been just about ready and then there was a whole different group of unclassified employees --

Mr. Singer: Then you had to tear it up.

Mr. Reid: Give me the old answer. I will take the old answer.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The answers are getting quite lengthy.

Really, I believe if there is further discussion, this should be between the two people. The member for London North.

ANTI-INFLATION PROGRAMME

Mr. Shore: I have a very simple question. It seems we are having difficulty reconciling what I consider simple questions so I’ll ask this question in a more simplified form.

Mr. Speaker: Could we have the question please?

Mr. Shore: Could the minister, the hon. Treasurer, reconcile this: He is said to have stated in the Globe and Mail the other day that about 120 civil servants, who are in the salary range of between $30,000 and $50,000, have been told they have a freeze. I’ve been informed that public accounts have stated that there are over 375 people in this category. Could he please reconcile these two numbers?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, what we referred to in the statement was the senior compensation list which is about 120 or 130 people. Their range would be -- I think $30,000 would probably be a little bit on the low side; $49,000, I think, would be the top. There are people who are certainly earning over $30,000 who are not on the senior compensation list. Provincial judges come immediately to mind; and there are also Crown attorneys and a number of others who are not on the senior compensation list. There is a cross-over point there.

Mr. Shore: Could I ask a supplementary? How was the decision made as to who was frozen and who wasn’t?

Mr. Lewis: By law.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The ones on the senior compensation list.

Mr. Foulds: The Celsius scale.

HOLIDAY CLOSING FOR RETAIL BUSINESSES

Mr. Bounsall: A question of the Solicitor General (Mr. MacBeth), Mr. Speaker: With reference to his newly introduced Act to regulate holiday closings for retail business will he consider exempting the downtown core of the city of Windsor on the same basis and for the same reasons as he is considering exempting Muskoka and Niagara Falls?

Mr. Bullbrook: It is out of order, Mr. Speaker, you know it. The legislation is before us. My goodness gracious, who has to do your job for you?

Mr. Speaker: I think that question -- order, please. This bill will be discussed very briefly; I think there will be an appropriate time then.

Another question; who have we? The member for --

Mr. Sweeney: Kitchener-Wilmot, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Yes.

FAMILY PLANNING CLINICS

Mr. Sweeney: A question of the Minister of Health: The various county and regional health units have been advised to set up family planning clinics. It is my understanding that a community advisory group is supposed to determine some of the rules of the game. Those groups are presently --

Mr. Speaker: Your question please.

Mr. Sweeney: The question is does the Minister of Health or his ministry advise those groups as to what age level -- I would have to use the term children -- they are to receive family planning material, shall we say? There seems to be a great deal of conflict as to --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, the question only. No debate or discussion.

Mr. Sweeney: At what age does the Ministry of Health recommend --

Mr. Speaker: The question has been asked.

Mr. Sweeney: At what age does the Ministry of Health recommend, through its family planning clinics, that people would get family planning material or devices?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, as far as I know we don’t advise an age.

Mr. Speaker: The oral question period has expired.

Mr. Lewis: Let the supplementary go on; I want to hear the supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: Petitions. Presenting reports.

Motions.

Hon. Mr. Welch moved that Mrs. Campbell be substituted for Mr. Good on the select committee appointed to consider the fourth and fifth reports of the commission on the Legislature.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. B. Stephenson: I beg leave to table the 56th annual report of the --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. I believe I may have missed the order for reports. You may continue.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table the 56th annual report of the Ministry of Labour for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1975; and explanatory materials for the 1975-1976 estimates of the Ministry of Labour.

Mr. Speaker: Any further motions?

Introduction of bills.

Mr. Lewis: Where’s the rent bill?

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The first order, resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for an address in reply to the speech of the Hon. the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Lewis: I am not at all sure I can cope with both the Premier (Mr. Davis) and the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) arid the entire entourage in the House at the same time.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: We can leave.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Does the member want us to leave?

Mr. Lewis: What wonders doth minority government perform.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased and delighted to begin the response to the Speech from the Throne for our party. I don’t intend to dwell on or savour or relish in unseemly ways the election results. I don’t want to fight those battles all over again, although I judge from time to time that’s going to happen anyway. I wanted to make only one reference to the election campaign which struck me as symptomatic or symbolic of some of the problems which the government faced, the conclusions to which I didn’t know, frankly, until today.

Right at the end of the campaign, Mr. Speaker, with about a week or 10 days to go, we had a public contretemps, I suppose that’s the way it could be described, over the increase to the GAINS programme and the minimum monthly income which the government was going to provide. The Premier had made an announcement of $6.02 per month to bring everybody up to $250 a month, as I recall, and we said that $5.99 of that would be the cost of living increase provided by the federal government on Oct. 1, and that was much disputed. The Premier said they would go ahead anyway.

I learned today that the increase provided on Oct. 1 under the federal cost of living adjustment was, lo and behold, $5.99, and that in fact the government really did, during the campaign, increase the amount by only three cents a month and endeavoured to get away with it at that time.

I had a feeling, in retrospect as I looked at the figures, that that was part of the malaise of the Tory campaign, that there was a continuing inconsistency and lack of public credibility in much of what was said. Now, of course, fortunately, happily, the senior citizens of Ontario are receiving $255.99 a month as a result of the various adjustments. It’s not as much as they should have, I presume, but it is rather more than they would have received had the matter not been reconciled during the campaign.

I am not going to deal with all of the issues which emerged, Mr. Speaker, although I want to deal with some of them in their aftermath. I presume, as I look across the floor, that the mere shift in the physical array within the Legislature is enough to disconcert the Conservative Party. I guess the presence of the socialist hordes is trauma enough to unsettle some of them.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I doubt think hordes is quite the term.

Mr. Lewis: I thought perhaps I would pre-empt it in advance of the next campaign, if you will allow me to do that.

Interjections.

Mr. Lewis: The Tory rump has become the Liberal rump, which is an interesting shift in proportions, as it were. The monolithic juggernaut that we once knew has become the fragile remnants that we now see. That, as well, indicates to all of those who wish to judge the House what remarkable shifts there have been in the Province of Ontario.

I don’t want to indulge myself in merriment over things which occurred -- that will happen regularly during the session -- nor do I want to raise a whole wealth --

Mr. Yakabuski: Go ahead.

Mr. Lewis: No, I will do that later, I would say to the member -- is he from Renfrew North or Renfrew South?

Mr. Yakabuski: Renfrew South.

Mr. Lewis: Renfrew South. I will do that later. Nor do I want to range over a list of new issues. That will be provided during the estimates in the new year, if we reach the new year intact.

The election is over; the Premier remains the Premier; bloody but as yet unbowed. My felicitations to him. The Treasurer, I notice, still runs the government; that too is reassuring. The Liberals anticipate their leadership ruckus as soon as they draw lots to see who will run; and we, Mr. Speaker, I hasten to add, are indeed Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. If I may say, as ambiguously as possible in the hope of satisfying everyone, we don’t intend to be in the opposition forever.

Interjections.

Mr. Lewis: I said “as ambiguously as possible.” What more would members wish?

Interjections.

Mr. Riddell: The leader of the NDP will enjoy it for the short time that he has it.

Mr. Lewis: We will enjoy it for as long as it is conferred upon us. Maybe we will ascend -- who knows? In any event, so much for the pleasantries; I want to get down to business.

Our view of politics in Ontario at the moment is one of the continuing shifting sands of the election campaign itself and of the period which preceded. Our view, I think, is that much remains the same in Ontario as was characteristic of the election campaign and the events which preceded it.

If I can identify on behalf of my colleagues in the New Democratic caucus -- and there are happily many of them -- I think that what persists now, which was in fact the Achilles heel of the Tory party prior to its partial defeat -- more than partial some would say -- is a continuing failure of political leadership. I don’t mean that in the context -- I think the Premier understands -- of an individual. I mean it in the context of the government as a whole. Its political leadership was wanting before the campaign. Its political leadership was wanting during the campaign and the failure of political leadership persists now.

All of the patterns which were clearly evident in the Province of Ontario before, continue. They harass the government; they haunt the government; they demonstrate a government at once inconsistent and confused, government which hasn’t yet been able to reconcile what authority it should exercise.

On those issues which were germane and central to the life of the election campaign itself, nothing very much has changed. No sooner was the election over, the last 10 days or two weeks of which were fought on the question of rents in large measure, than there emerged a succession of reversals and pirouettes by the government on the question of rent control, rent review, tenant security, whatever you wish, all of which successive reversals were unlovely in the extreme.

From the day the election was over until this day, this government, this cabinet, has still not been able to define in its own mind what it is going to do about an issue which was absolutely central to the life of the electorate.

That suggests to me a continuing failure of political leadership.

[3:00]

The election, Mr. Speaker, was fought in large measure on matters of energy. No sooner was the election campaign over than the Minister of Energy tabled, a little later perhaps, the first Isbister commission report and announced, characteristic of the Conservative Party, that prices for a gallon of gasoline at the pump and a gallon of home heating fuel would go up by 5.4 cents in the first case, by 4.8 cents in the second place, effective Nov. 16 next.

That is a default on political leadership. That is a practical and current demonstration of the things which brought the government into disrepute prior to this climactic election campaign of ours.

The Isbister report simply said that the inventories had run out for 1975. It made no pretence at recapturing the extra days of inventory which resulted in windfall profits for the oil companies in 1974 -- some 48 days of inventory and some $52 million of unanticipated windfall profit. The Isbister report didn’t say to you: “Raise the price on Nov. 16;” but you did it, willingly, voluntarily, gratuitously.

You did it, even though to this day you have no statistical documentation from the oil companies which you provided to the Legislature or Ontario. You did it even though to this day you have no knowledge of whether the current base price is valid and legitimate or invalid and illegitimate. You did it although you know that the increases in profits to the oil companies continue to be unconscionable, even though they claim they are losing money.

Can I just refresh the Premier’s mind that in 1970 the net profit of Imperial Oil was $105 million and by 1974 had risen to $290 million; that the rate of return on investment in that same period of time jumped from 11 per cent to 22 per cent?

Can I refresh the Premier’s mind that Gulf Canada jumped from $39 million profit in 1970 to $161 million profit in 1974, an increase of 313 per cent, and the rate of return on investment went from six per cent to 20 per cent?

Can I remind the Premier of Ontario and his colleagues that Shell Canada’s profit went up from $51 million net in 1970 to $142 million in 1974, an increase of 178 per cent, and the rate of return went from seven per cent to 16 per cent during that time?

Can I remind the Premier that the profits of the oil companies and the improved rates of return continue apace through 1975, never once justified in the public marketplace; and yet this government, without the slightest whimsy or hesitation, increases the price per gallon yet another 5.4 cents effective Nov. 16 next?

These oil companies, you know, they never lose. They never lose. What they don’t get from Peter Lougheed, they get from William Davis. What they are not provided with from Pierre Trudeau, they are provided with by Darcy McKeough. Every way they turn, every government acts as a supplicant to the oil companies.

It makes life very difficult for people in northern Ontario, many of whom my colleagues represent in this caucus. It makes life intolerable for wage-earners and consumers across the Province of Ontario who face the spectre of restraints on all sides while you free the price for the oil companies. You want to lock horns on the question of energy? We’ll lock horns with you on the question of the profits you are providing for the oil companies.

Do you remember that memorable quote which was provided from the hearings before the Nova Scotia Public Utilities Commission by the comptroller of Imperial Oil when he said: “I think I have to preface my remarks by suggesting to you that prices are not entirely related to cost. I think there is considerable judgement in the numbers which are picked out of the jumble of numbers in order to put the price into the market as best we see it.”

They charge what the market will bear. They charge what governments allow them to get away with and you have forced the consumers of Ontario to pay more than a quarter of a billion dollars in additional prices to the oil companies -- no questions asked; no answers provided -- and it was done in the wake of an election campaign which clearly marks this government with a failure of political leadership. So it persists.

It persists as well in the field of Ontario Hydro. There the failure of political leadership is also a failure of political courage. Either the government believed that the 27 per cent increase guaranteed or allowed by the Ontario Energy Board should be passed on to the consumer or it didn’t. Either it felt it was too high in the context of the federal guidelines or it didn’t. But collectively, this government didn’t have the courage to make the decision itself. It never does. That is also the failure of political leadership.

We don’t begrudge the government turning it over to a select committee of this Legislature, because I suspect that the opposition parties combined will give Ontario Hydro the kind of public scrutiny which has not occurred in a political context for so many years. It will doubtless result in a reduced rate of increase, despite Ontario Hydro’s insatiable growth fetishes. But it had to be done by the collective apparatus of the Legislature. The government, across the way, did not have the political strength and credentials to do it itself; a failure of political leadership.

Even when the government introduces something so relatively lesser on the scale of human needs as Sunday legislation in the retail industry, to prevent the openings on Sundays, it could not bring itself to respond to the clear and evident pressure all over the Province of Ontario for uniform store hours during the week as well. Again, the government succumbed to the effective lobby of the corporate monolith -- sure it did -- to the large corporations, and refused to accept what PUSH said to it, what the Federation of Canadian Independent Business --

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, that is silly.

Mr. Lewis: The Premier thinks it’s silly? He doesn’t know how silly I feel finding myself in agreement with John Bulloch, rather than with others. I resent that bedfellow relationship, I’ll tell you. It’s more than I can bear.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don’t think he considered it that kind of relationship.

Mr. Lewis: As a matter of fact, I questioned it closely, and I have to grant the Premier he is as uncomfortable as I am.

Nonetheless, political leadership, some sense of what was at work in the Province of Ontario, would have allowed the government and should have allowed the government to do both things simultaneously. But again it falls short.

On matters which were central to the election campaign, on matters which revealed the problems of the Tory government, problems that appear never to be recoverable, problems that appear somehow never to be alterable, those things are reinforced in the day-to-day work of this short legislative session. We’re not going to call the government down because of that -- I don’t mean that in terms of a vote of non-confidence -- I understand what it is wrestling with. It may be that at some point the government will mobilize itself and pull itself together.

I want to deal a little more thoroughly -- albeit not in as great length as I’ve dealt in previous Throne speeches -- with the latest issue in the life of the Ontario Legislature, which creates for the government and for the province an enormous problem, and for the Legislature an enormous tension. And that is the statement by the federal Prime Minister on Thanksgiving last.

We are ready as a caucus to deal with this subject in minute detail -- particularly in response to the Treasurer’s statement of Thursday -- but I want to deal with it in general terms first, because it so clearly underlies everything we’re going to do in this House. It raises a fundamental difference which, at some point either, has to be resolved or will be evidenced in legislative votes and proceedings.

It would be possible for me, obviously, on behalf of my party, to take the time to challenge the fundamental premises on which that whole apparatus of wage and price guidelines was based. It would be possible for me to quote the Statistics Canada figures which show that while real wages have increased 36.3 per cent between 1961 and 1974, the gross national product has increased more than 2.5 times that and profits have increased more than six times that. It would be possible for me to quote

chapter and verse from Statistics Canada that the value of real wages actually fell in dollars and cents terms compared to the increase in the consumer price index over the latter part of 1973 and 1974.

It is possible to show how dramatically the poor become poorer and the rich become richer in Canada generally and in the Province of Ontario because the lowest quintile of earners in Canada now take about 2.5 to 3.5 per cent of total income, while the highest quintile now occupies between 45 and 50 per cent of total income. In other words, income distribution in this country and this province continues to be entirely inequitable.

Clearly wages have not yet, in many sectors of the economy, particularly those which are most vulnerable, have not yet caught up with inflation; and clearly prices and profits are still very much out of control. But I don’t want to challenge it on fundamental premises, I want to deal with it in the context of the provincial government, if I may.

I think that the Province of Ontario embraced those wage-price guidelines with indecent haste and that it did so not out of patriotic motivations but out of simply unadorned political motivations. This government was exceptionally relieved at the apparent initiatives which the federal government would take, particularly in the wage sector.

The people over there love to control wages. It is so easy. The employer does it for them. Every employer is a policeman over wages. There are no great problems in control. It strikes this government as a very fashionable attack in the marketplace. It embraces the possibility of having the federal government solve for it all kinds of collective bargaining settlements which may have been uneasy or awkward. This government embraced it very quickly. I suspect that ministers sat down at cabinet and chuckled over the fact that Pierre Elliott Trudeau, irony of ironies, had come to their rescue at a time when the government felt itself profoundly vulnerable.

I have no doubt this government was also seeking an issue and, Tory intuition at play, it felt that some demonstration of austerity, it felt that hard-lining it and it felt that statements, which in their way were even more extreme than the statements made by the federal cabinet ministers, might set the basis, the groundwork for the next election campaign. That I sense also.

We can understand that over here. Those things are obviously matters of discussion, but the simple fact is that the government’s embracing of the federal guidelines, as we saw it, stemmed from those motivations. It never had the candour to say anything about it. The Premier and the Treasurer clutched the national interest to their bosoms when just three months ago they were prepared to revile every federal initiative and did so shamelessly on every occasion they could muster. The instant conversion is hardly very persuasive.

On the other hand, the government has done it. It has gone head over heels for the guidelines and now we have to cope with the consequences. The New Democratic Party admits willingly that the federal guidelines are a watershed in the history of politics in this province and country. We concede there had to be a careful provincial response, because I am prepared to admit that the question of inflation is, and was, truly grievous and truly difficult.

[3:15]

There isn’t a political party in this House that doesn’t want to face inflation frontally. I am perfectly willing to admit that even our sister New Democratic provinces in western Canada are at sixes and sevens about the extent to which they should encourage the guidelines or respond to the guidelines. It’s entirely possible that British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, while expressing more profound reservations than Ontario will ever express, will not resist the federal application of the federal law in a frontal fashion because they understand the political realities as well. I concede that.

The political reality is that everyone in this country wants some response to the question on inflation.

But only Ontario, as far as I was able to judge, opted in -- uncritically, almost mindlessly. It didn’t know anything about the rules or the regulations of the anti-inflation board; didn’t have any of the details; didn’t express anything other than the most ritual and trivial reservations -- indeed not just ritual and trivial but simply fashionable reservations -- and just moved to embrace the guidelines. This government, I think, abdicated in the process a whole range of provincial initiatives to strengthen the guidelines where they are weak and to ameliorate them where they are wrong; to strengthen them where they are weak and to ameliorate them where they are wrong.

That again, I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, indicates the failure of political leadership. Abdication is not leadership. To surrender everything to the federal government is not leadership. The provincial Treasurer’s statement of last Thursday was not leadership.

You know what social democratic parties believe. We have, for a very long time, all of us, believed -- does that bother the Premier? Would he prefer me to say democratic socialist or the New Democratic Party?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am wondering about the difference.

Mr. Lewis: There was a time when he called us the socialist group. Maybe that would be fashionable for him now.

You know what parties like ours believe. We have always believed as an

article of faith that it is legitimate for the state to intervene fundamentally in the economy. That used to be a basic difference of opinion across the floor of this Legislature as the Tories protected the private sector from government intrusion.

We have always believed, as a tenet of our social philosophy, that it is legitimate to intervene in the socio-economic apparatus of Canada or of Ontario, to defend the citizenry or to make major alterations in economic distribution; or indeed in prices, profits or wages. No one who is a socialist has ever hesitated on that score, and I put it to you as simply as that.

On the other hand, I think we have understood what perhaps the Conservatives in Ontario have not understood. That is that the power of the state is so awesome you don’t intervene lightly. You don’t intervene in the fashion which Pierre Trudeau is now entertaining. If you’re going to intervene in the economy at all, you do it with one underlying rationale and that underlying rationale must be fairness.

The government across the way has abdicated fairness, that’s what they have done. They’ve accepted the guidelines with all of their inequities and they’ve made no effort whatsoever, as a political government showing some sense of political leadership, to institute fairness.

We’re going to oppose the guidelines in every way which strikes us as unfair, unworkable and inappropriate because we think that’s the job of an opposition and of a government. We’re also going to ask the government to move in and do something for the people of Ontario which it has clearly refused to do. Let me simply remind the House of what that consists.

When the Treasurer of Ontario made his speech the first area of four which strike us as a total abdication of government responsibility was the question of prices. He said,

A lot has been said about prices by those who oppose the programme and who have apparently not read or understood the proposals for limiting the price increases and net profit margins of large corporations.

I want to tell the Premier and the Treasurer, as directly as I can, that we understand exactly what the price proposals of Pierre Elliott Trudeau consist of. Every federal cabinet minister who has spoken is falling all over himself to explain that prices will continue to rise. Jean-Luc Pepin has made it clear that prices will continue to rise. Pierre Trudeau asks us to show patience because prices will continue to rise for a year, or two, or more.

The major companies do not have to give advance intention of raising prices and have them approved, they only have to give notice of intention to raise prices, without approval being required. The system to establish monitoring is not yet set up, the number of employees attached to the anti-inflation board is pathetic in the context of the job. There is absolutely no mechanism built into the federal legislation which will deal with illegitimate price increases.

So if the government is willing to show political leadership; if it is willing to give the people of Ontario some sense that the guidelines are fair -- that coming down like the guillotine on wages will have a corresponding consequence on prices -- then either it sets up a provincial review board in Ontario, which scrupulously and relentlessly monitors every single price increase and rolls it backward if illegitimate, or it does what they had the courage to do in the province of British Columbia, and that is to institute a price freeze, and it does it today for a minimum period of two months until things sort themselves out.

Mr. Yakabuski: Until the election is over.

Mr. Lewis: No sir, not at all. The election is in fact continuing, but that is not what I am talking to. I am talking to a very important issue.

You wouldn’t consider the price freeze. The Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) made some reference to it in his speech. The fact of the matter is that the price freeze in British Columbia is one of the most remarkable successes that government has ever undertaken.

Do you know that one retail company after another has fallen into line? Do you know that one supermarket after another has agreed to follow the price freeze of the government? Do you know that there are supermarkets and retailers in British Columbia who now have signs over their marquees which read: “We co-operate with the Province of British Columbia”?

Do you know that the business community has not openly, since the freeze, attacked the government of British Columbia for what it has done? Do you know that at least in that province the wage-earners and consumers have some sense that the government is serious about prices rather than simply being serious about wages?

But there is no such political leadership in the Province of Ontario at all; no such political leadership whatsoever. Your only interventions in the marketplace are ad hoc and self-serving. If you intervene in the marketplace it is only because an election is coming and you have to do something with the oil company increases. That is all. That is the only time you ever raise a finger. I will come to that in a few minutes.

The one area of provincial initiative which was entirely open to you, that of prices, you have defaulted on, and you can understand why working men and women across Ontario will feel jaundiced and sceptical about their government while prices continue to go up irresistibly without any interference on your part whatsoever to protect the consumers of this province. That is called the failure of political leadership.

The second area with which the Treasurer dealt in his speech on behalf of the Premier (Mr. Davis) and his government was the question of profits. Nowhere was the Treasurer prepared to concede how easy it is for major corporations to manipulate profits, or to write them off, or to calculate them in ways which no army of accountants could possibly decipher. Nowhere did the Treasurer of Ontario blanch at the prospect that profits could be maintained at 95 per cent of the level of the best profit margins of the last five years.

Have you looked at any of the profit margins of those companies for the last five years? Have you looked at International Nickel? Have you looked at Denison? Have you looked at Rio Algom? Have you looked at Ford? Have you looked at Canada Packers? Have you looked at George Weston?

We have looked at all of them. All of them provide for profit increases of between 45 and 100 per cent over and above what existed in 1970, even at the 95 per cent level.

In other words, the Treasurer will bring down his fists on wages but he will do absolutely nothing to intervene in profits, although he did say something. The Treasurer said this:

Our concern is that these proposals should be reinforced if necessary by a corporate surtax. Such a tax would be levied against corporate profits in excess of the guidelines where these profits are not reinvested.

I read that as an open invitation to the corporations of Ontario to soak the consumers of Ontario, to accumulate as much by way of profit as they can, and if the appropriate portion of it is reinvested, they are exempt from the corporate surtax. That’s the way the government’s corporate surtax would work. It is an open-ended policy for the corporations to behave as they wish. If the government is going to tie price increases to that kind of open-ended corporation profit, then what the devil is the use of this whole masquerade anyway?

The government has failed on prices, it fails on profits and yet it talks about political leadership. Although the government laughs it off now and tends by and large to be benignly indifferent about the public’s view of the Tory party at the moment, it’s the failures in these areas which I think will come back to haunt the government.

The same attitude, incidentally, just by way of passing, is shown toward professional incomes. When the government dismisses fee for service as a basis leading to the guidelines and their enforcement, and it talks about professional income being subject to a surtax, what the government is saying to the consumers of Ontario or the recipients of professional services is simply: “You will pay the increase and if we catch it later as an excess profit in some professional income, we may retrieve it.” But along the way the consumer and working people continue to pay the additional amount.

That’s what the government is granting to the corporations, and that is apparently what it is willing to grant by way of professional incomes; that again is a complete abdication of political leadership. It’s classic Toryism all over again.

The third area, and the one which I admit is most contentious and controversial, is the whole question of the public sector. Here again we

part company in pretty fundamental ways and speak again to the question of political leadership. I believe, this party believes, that the option clause provided under the federal legislation to the Province of Ontario isn’t just some constitutional quibble; it’s real.

I am not going to get into constitutional arguments, although I think Ontario’s case could be much stronger than the government has made it out to be; but I am going to concede that if the government accepts the guidelines, it has to accept the federal law and try to deal with it.

The option clause gives to the province an alternative worthy of very serious consideration, and it’s a political alternative the government chooses not to exercise. Not every province, despite what the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) has said, intends to turn its entire public sector over to the anti-inflation board -- by no means every province. Quebec is clearly going to operate separately. It looks as though Newfoundland will operate separately. It looks as though New Brunswick may operate separately. Saskatchewan and Alberta have not yet indicated how they intend to proceed.

All of those provinces are looking carefully and clearly at the option which is open to us under the federal guidelines; and none of the motives which lie behind the careful appraisal of the option proceeds from the assumption that they would undermine the federal scheme if the province exercised its own authority.

Mr. Bullbrook: It wouldn’t be there if it undermined it.

Mr. Lewis: Precisely.

Mr. Bullbrook: It wouldn’t be there; it wouldn’t have the option.

[3:30]

Mr. Lewis: The Treasurer says on page 13 of his statement:

As the programme develops, I am confident that all responsible individuals, whatever their particular economic interest, will work for the success of the programme and not for its erosion. For this reason, we accept the intent of the federal legislation for full inclusion of the province and its emanations. At this critical stage of development of what must be admittedly a very complex and yet often arbitrary programme, we cannot afford to behave in an obstructive manner. It is the national interest we are all involved in now and not the limited interests of any one level of government or its agencies.

What he is really saying in that statement is that the course he had determined on is the only course. Our response to that is: “Nuts.” There are alternative courses available to him. What is good for the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario is not necessarily good for Canada.

I want to remind them of that and simply to cast it in these stark terms doesn’t validate the position they have chosen. I don’t deny the present predicament of inflation in Canada. But I do differ with the government profoundly in its method of dealing with it.

The provincial Treasurer said a little earlier:

Picture what would happen if all provinces set up separate review and enforcement bodies. Each would make an unconnected string of decisions concerning exemptions and apply different standards of enforcement. This could only lead to a tangled web of disarray, a serious erosion of the national effort and, as a consequence, a higher rate of inflation in this country. This government does not endorse that kind of approach.

That, frankly, is fatuous. That’s not what is involved. It is rhetorical absurdity.

Who is to say what would be undermined? If it was the decision of the Province of Ontario to adhere to the guidelines in any way which was consistent with the federal proposals, what would be undermined in any manner? Why does it necessarily undermine it to allow the province to exercise its authority in areas which are traditional to it?

What the province might do -- which the federal government will probably never do -- is introduce a powerful component of fairness to the way in which the guidelines are applied. If he is serious about the guidelines he will recognize the implications which exist within them. He doesn’t surrender his responsibilities. If he talks about the public disarray which would flow if he didn’t give the public sector to Ottawa, let me suggest to him the public disarray and non-confidence that will flow, the disrepute into which the guidelines will fall, if people sense the unfairness of what is now afoot. The Treasurer went on:

In one way or another the government has a special relationship with virtually every member of the work force in Ontario. Trade unions, small incorporated businesses, businesses requiring licences, tradesmen, small construction companies, real estate brokers, credit unions and other provincially-incorporated bodies.

These and many others are covered under a variety of provincial statutes. Public servants are by no means the only groups who have a special provincial relationship.

What kind of silliness is that? He understands the difference between the public sector and the rest of these chartered statutes. He understands that in the public sector the government is directly or indirectly the employer of all these people and therefore has an absolutely central responsibility. How can it be denied?

Let me suggest the inconsistency which emerges and I’ll do it again in greater detail. It is all eight for him to surrender to the Legislature of Ontario the setting of Hydro rate increases but he quite happily turns over the wages of the Hydro workers to the anti-inflation board. That’s the kind of inconsistency in, and abdication of provincial authority which will ultimately get him into a great deal of difficulty.

Let me put it this way. If the guidelines were lasting only three to six months we might say to him, “By all means deal with it as you are dealing with it.” But the guidelines are lasting for three years. He is opting in for two years. That’s a long time for people’s wages to be constrained and therefore the provincial jurisdiction has to be exercised.

Let me put it another way. If it was an absolute freeze, if there was no variation, we might say to him, “Fair enough, do it this way.” But the anti-inflation board has been given the specific right to vary settlements up and down and once variation is permitted, those variations should be exercised by that jurisdiction which is most sensitive to the settlements that are involved and that, again, is clearly the provincial jurisdiction in this area. I’m not suggesting to the government that it is going to vary them away up. It may not vary them at all. It may vary them by only one or two per cent but it would be done in the area of provincial jurisdiction where it clearly belongs.

If, as most of us believe, there are inequities in the private sector in Pierre Trudeau’s guidelines, why should they be imported into the public sector? What rationale is there to maintain inequities in both sectors? Why is the government so willing to compound injustice? And if it doesn’t think injustice exists, then it could exercise its authority accordingly and maintain the guidelines at their exact level. There is no great virtue in identifying wrong in one sector of the economy and duplicating it in another sector of the economy.

If the government is so all fired up about enforcing the guidelines, then it could obviously still do so. It could obviously give to the Province of Ontario the kind of authority and power which would deal with the guidelines on terms which make it happy or which it finds manageable and satisfactory. If that means descending with both feet on the public sector, the government is clearly able to do that; or with some sensitivity, diplomacy and careful political response, it could deal with some of the individual applications in a way which exercised fairness.

There is something terribly inconsistent and, I suggest to the government, wrong in the way we are abdicating our authority in this area constitutionally for a considerable period of time and it will visit unnecessary aggravation arid resentment on large numbers of people.

I’m going to admit a very special concern on the part of this caucus with the public sector. I am concerned about the way in which they have emerged to full collective bargaining rights only over the last three or four years. I’m concerned about the potential explosiveness. I’m concerned about the sense of grievance that exists. I’m concerned about the very low income earners who lie at the bottom of the scale, among the hospital workers, for example, or the lower echelons of the public service, for example. I’m concerned that the government should play fair and should keep the faith with all of these people.

I’m not suggesting to the government that it break the guidelines indiscriminately because as a government, it never would. I understand that. But if the government is going to vary it one or two or three per cent, up and down, let it at least be done by the authority to whom the workers feel beholden.

Let me digress for just a moment; let me mention the teachers. I hold no special brief for teachers. The only thing in my life I’ve ever done other than being a politician is to teach.

Mr. Hodgson: There are a lot of them over there.

Mr. Lewis: It’s a nice profession. There are a lot of teachers over here. There is no vested privilege. I’ve said before -- too much abuse from the teachers, I may say -- that many of their demands were exorbitant and silly. Where they are exorbitant and silly, we should say so because that’s obviously disruptive, and everyone understands that.

I want to come back to the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) and to the Premier (Mr. Davis) -- the man who fashioned this educational model -- to remind them of something. We’ve worked for three to four years in this Legislature to fashion a bill for collective bargaining for the teachers of Ontario. For a year or two, the minister hedged in the way it was emerging. We were confronted with that major demonstration in December, 1973. He changed his mind between 1973 and 1975, and all that we did in response was to applaud him for the change. He brought down a bill on collective bargaining for teachers which is one of the most enlightened bills in the field, and I concede it happily.

Then the teachers of Ontario and the boards of Ontario started to bargain within the confines of that legislation, Bill 100. They bargained scrupulously on both sides. They bargained in good faith on both sides. In the case, for example, of the Metropolitan Toronto high school teachers, they went to a fact-finder, a man whom the Minister of Education acknowledges is one of the most objective and excellent arbiters in the business. Stanley Hartt came down with a fact-finder report.

I feel a little chagrined about it myself because this party argued so hard and so long for a fact-finder method which would give the public a sense of what might be an objective settlement. The fact-finder’s report, while acceptable to the teachers, is totally unacceptable to the boards of education.

The possibility of a settlement, even though that is the case, has now, I think, been lost because of the guidelines. The possibility of a strike on Nov. 12 looms very large, partly because of the guidelines.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say to you that if this strike occurs it will be unlike any other teachers’ strike in Ontario’s recent history. It is not going to be like Windsor and it is not going to be like Thunder Bay and it is not going to be like Ottawa. It’s going to be long, it is possible to predict. It’s going to be terribly bitter, it is possible to predict. It is going to do some serious damage to the educational system despite the fact the teachers and the boards wish that didn’t have to happen.

I am amazed, through the Speaker to the Minister of Education, how the moderates in the teaching profession feel aggrieved and angry. I am amazed how the rank-and-file teachers feel they should carry placards for as long as it takes to win their point I worry greatly -- as he does, I admit fully -- about the consequences for the educational system in Ontario if and when this strike should occur. I don’t understand why, in God’s name, he has been taking such a long time to intervene at the highest level to see if it could be coped with.

But it’s the guidelines in some measure which are bringing these groups to this frontal confrontation. It’s the sense that somehow they are responsible not to the minister any longer, not to the Premier any longer, but to Jean-Luc Pepin, absurdly enough, which is creating even greater tensions than now exist.

I am not asking the minister to give them extravagant wages but any reasonable human being will admit there’s something profoundly unfair about that group of public sector workers facing the crunch they are now facing. I gather that 2,000 or 3,000 of them intend to come down to the Legislature tomorrow night to give voice to their protest.

Teachers aren’t popular. Does the minister want to clobber them? It’s the most fashionable game in town. We understand that. The public will be with him. We understand that. The point being made is that the guidelines are often unfair or, where they are perhaps fair, to surrender the entire public sector to Ottawa is going to work lasting damage and hardship on a whole range of provincial employees, working men and women in this province, who should not be thus subjected.

I really think that on those grounds, partially if not totally, the minister should re-examine his position. If they are to be dealt with unfairly -- in their minds -- at least let them feel they are being shafted by an adversary rather than by some surrogate in Ottawa. At least in terms of their own hostilities and anger, they will be able to identify the group responsible.

What happens four, six, eight, 10 weeks down the road when we all come together in this Legislature to bring in compulsory arbitration for the Metro high school teachers’ situation? What happens then? What is the minister going to have them settle at? At the guidelines? At the last board offer? At the offer of the fact-finder? How is it all going to sort out? What are the consequences for the school system? We are saying to the Premier, as strongly as we can, that we don’t need any federal intervention, gratuitous or otherwise, to foul up a situation that is already perilous and difficult.

[3:45]

I think the problem lies on balance, in the philosophic rationale. I will use the last quotes I intend to use from the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough), who couldn’t have written this himself:

I am frankly somewhat dismayed by the number of groups who have already rushed forward with demands for exemptions. A year from now, these same groups will be arguing for cost-of-living increases and will probably not admit to any connection between their earlier income demands and the rise in living costs for the general public. This, in my view, is a distressing form of economic isolationism.

He goes on to say:

I said in Ottawa last week that we must be prepared to live for a time with inequities and to draw the line now. I do not believe that there is any other way of proceeding if we mean this programme to work. It is a tough decision, but the times demand it.

The people over there on that side of the House, are so easy with their inequities. They are so ready to tolerate inequity. In my book inequity means injustice, and I want to know what re-definition of the political process they are about.

When a government sees injustice, it moves to strike it out; that’s what a government does and it doesn’t sit back. It doesn’t sit back in that sanguine, self-indulgent way of the provincial Treasurer and say with a flip of the wrist, “We will have to abide the inequities.”

How easy it is for politicians to render sacrifice on to others. It is always that way, isn’t it? That’s the way of the political process and that is what the Pierre Trudeaus and Darcy McKeoughs and William Davises are now saying to the public of Ontario.

I must say that’s where we

part company, because time and time again it doesn’t take the illustrious Treasurer to dislocate the facts and to skewer them in the process. There are others who have done it. The federal Minister of Labour, John Munro -- may I apologize for quoting him on this one occasion, but it serves my purpose. I will use anyone when it serves my particular purpose.

Mr. Reid: We will go for that. Right on. It is the only true thing he has said so far.

Mr. Lewis: I know, the member for Rainy River will take that out of Hansard and spread it across the front --

Mr. Singer: Stop right there.

Interjections.

Mr. Lewis: I will now descend to John Munro, who said this on Oct. 28, to the Newfoundland Federation of Labour:

I have consistently argued over the last few years both inside and outside Parliament, that wage and salary gains have been a result of inflation, not its cause. Much of the public hysteria over wage levels has been generated by some who, intentionally or unintentionally, have distorted statistical data. Some settlements, admittedly, have been excessive by any standard, but taken as a whole the increase in wages and salaries in the last couple of years has reflected an attempt to offset real and apprehended inflation.

The federal Liberals are good -- they apprehended inflation and apprehended insurrection. They also understand the meaning of real inflation, and that is what sticks in the craw about the Treasurer’s entire statement.

Day in and day out in this Legislature for four years and more, non-stop, we asked the government about price increases in everything from supermarkets through to automobile insurance premiums, and not once did it lift a finger to defend the consumers of Ontario. Not once in that entire period of time! Week in and week out, month in and month out, we chronicled for the government the profits of the corporations, and not once did it lift a finger to defend the consumers of Ontario from the excessive and outrageous corporate profits which exist.

Now, the Premier (Mr. Davis) asks us to live with it. At the end of the economic cycle, when the workers of Ontario try to catch up with the prices and the profits, the guillotine descends and the government says it will live with the inequities and it elevates it to the position of a principle. That’s what’s wrong with the Tory party. It has never understood how profoundly unfair is the way in which this economic order works. And it is now prepared to reinforce all of the unfairness that is consummate in the guidelines presented by Pierre Elliott Trudeau. It is not a government any longer. It is a facsimile.

That’s the problem of political leadership. This leads me to the last point I want to make.

There isn’t a thing in that entire statement from the provincial Treasurer worthy even of talking about as it relates to jobs -- not a thing. It is as though unemployment barely existed in the Province of Ontario. He makes a quick and facile bow in the direction of unemployment figures but he indicates not a single proposition in response to it -- not a one. The reality of course is that in a position of inflation and recession the question of job creation is every bit as important as the question of wage, price and profit control.

There isn’t a thing in this statement of the Treasurer, and therefore in government policy, relating to the building of houses in the Province of Ontario -- nothing. All of the things that were said about the housing crisis during the campaign have obviously had no impact on this government whatsoever. The announcement which Barney Danson made, just a couple of hours ago as I understand it, in the federal House of Commons will alleviate the situation hardly one jot.

So the fact of the matter remains that the provincial initiative which his government could have exercised in the area of jobs, it refuses to exercise. As a matter of fact, the only initiative it really took was to say that next year it will contain its provincial spending to a limit of 10 per cent over this year.

That’s admirable in itself, but we know in this caucus where those cuts will come. They will come where they always come. They will come in services to people. That’s the way it works with the Conservative government. When it cuts back, it cuts back not in hardware but in services to people. When it cuts back in services to people all over the province, from jails to treatment centres, it means that it creates further unemployment and further social and economic dislocation. What has really emerged from the paper of the Treasurer is the worst of all worlds.

If the government wants to accept the federal law, accept it as we would do. The law is the law. I have said to trade union groups and I will say it anywhere that I am not interested in confrontation; I am not interested in general strikes; I am not interested in civil disobedience. It has never commended itself, or on occasion so exceptional that one can chronicle it in an itemized way, but not in this case. If we don’t like the law, then we have the option of changing the government. That’s clearly there too for us over a period of time.

But it would be right for a provincial government to summon its courage about it and to take a number of important initiatives, to move on prices through price freeze and price control, to move on profits in a way which made an impact, to maintain to some extent a provincial authority over the public sector so that inequity did not spread from one group to another and so that all option as a province would clearly be exercised and, above all, to create jobs.

All of those routes which we would have exercised and which would give the government as a government some sense of political leadership in the community as a whole, the government has chosen to default upon. It has simply surrendered everything to another jurisdiction with the beads of sweat of relief upon its brow as it retreats from making the kinds of political decisions which others make easily and which it always finds terribly, terribly difficult to do. It will not do anything that requires either initiative or exertion. That has become characteristic of the Tories in this province.

They are walking a tightrope in Ontario and I don’t know how long they can maintain their balance or their equilibrium.

We think that the government is a very long way from pulling itself together. Our impression is that there is still a large quotient of public weariness, scepticism and even suspicion generally about the Conservatives and that they are making a very serious error on the guidelines.

I don’t deny for a moment that all over Canada there are individuals and groups who have heaved a sigh of relief at some expression of federal initiative. All over Canada there are individuals and groups and political parties who are glad that the fight against inflation has begun. But we believe this is the wrong way to conduct the war. If it must be conducted in Pierre Trudeau’s trenches, then the Premier of Ontario can at least intervene to make it fair, equitable and workable, where that is humanly possible to achieve. For whatever reason the Premier has opted out of that obligation entirely.

The lessons of the campaign? They seem never to be learned. The political leadership, whether it’s in rents, energy, housing or guidelines, is clearly wanting. The political leadership on human issues is clearly wanting -- and that hasn’t changed either. I listened to the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Taylor) give a reply today to the member for St. George (Mrs.

Campbell) about a case involving the difference between those who are permanently unemployable and those who are physically disabled and the absurd distinction we make in the lives of people and the differing amounts of money that we ascribe to one condition but not to the others. He implied that all of the cases have been re-examined.

Mr. Deans: Nonsense.

Mr. Lewis: My colleague from Wentworth says it’s nonsense. I remember, during the course of the campaign, raising the ease of a Mrs. A in Stratford who was so clearly physically disabled that only a medical nitwit would be able to describe her otherwise, and to this day she remains categorized as permanently unemployable rather than physically disabled, as we attempt to get one statement after another from medical personnel to somehow persuade the board of review that this woman deserves the slightly increased amount of money which she should receive from the state.

It was a day or two ago that we asked the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. W. Newman) about the question of the farm income security plan. During the course of the campaign we raised questions about cow-calf operators and farmers in agricultural distress because of the government’s agricultural programmes.

During the course of the campaign I raised the case of a man named Barnie Evans, who is a cow-calf operator -- a one-time Tory, I want you to know; he is lucid, articulate and bright, and has become ever increasingly so as he deserts his Tory origins. He lives not very far from Embro. In the course of the campaign we set out how this terribly earnest and dedicated cow-calf operator found his whole farm operation going down the drain because of the absurd subsidy programme which the government had provided him.

After the election, Barnie Evans sold over 80 of his 140 cows. As a matter of fact, he took seven cows to market in Kitchener just ,a couple of weeks ago and got $872.81 for all seven of them. The government should calculate that when it is looking at the subsidy it has provided for the cow-calf operators and think of it in terms of the farm income subsidy plan that we discussed generally in this Legislature; then it will know that its loss of so much of the agricultural community in the last election leads directly from its refusal to listen to the cries and pleas for help from individual farmers.

I asked the Minister of Health (Hon. F. S. Miller) today at question period whether or not he has readings for the asbestos workers in the Reeves mine of Johns-Manville up near Timmins. I got a letter back from him which shows that in the three-, four- or five-year period before the mine and mill closed down, they took some scattered readings in one of the working environments which was the single most hazardous environment that I’ve discovered on the North American continent.

[4:00]

While we talk about that in the Legislature today, the Workmen’s Compensation Board of Ontario is still procrastinating and stalling on the cases presented to it for compensation as a result of Johns-Manville in Scarborough, for asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma -- procrastinating and delaying in individual human circumstances --

Hon. B. Stephenson: That’s hogwash!

Mr. Lewis: -- which makes the behaviour of the board intolerable, and I would like to hear -- and I will be glad to hear it from the Minister of Labour --

Hon. B. Stephenson: You will.

Mr. Lewis: -- when you are going to provide the compensation for the cases that have been brought to your attention -- not just from Johns-Manville, wait until you hear it from Elliot Lake -- over the last several months I would like to know when the Workmen’s Compensation Board will make decisions on some of these areas so that we don’t forever have to deal in fields where there is a clear and explicit failure of political leadership. There never seems to be a satisfactory resolution.

All right, Mr. Speaker. Let me provide summation this way. The new mandate which the New Democratic Party has in this Legislature we hope to exercise as carefully and thoughtfully as we can, with as many alternatives to government policy as we can muster during the course of the session. We don’t seek ritual confrontations with the government on issues or on votes. Where we will divide, we will divide, and it will be on serious and substantive matters.

I am not going to move an amendment today to the Throne Speech debate, partly in good faith, partly because that amendment avenue is open to us at any point over the next four or five weeks, and the vote coming, as I expect it is, in December, we would like to contain in our amendment those issues which are more clearly divisive depending on the course of debate over the next one or two or three weeks. The confrontations will not be ritual; they will, in fact, be real, and I want the Premier to know that.

I also want the Premier and the government to know that we have no illusions about the past or about the future, where we are concerned. We know that the campaign was a nice amalgam of hard work and good fortune and we noted the fortuitous vote splits; we noted that as well.

I also find it occasionally worthy of a smile to see the irritation in parts of the media that somehow the NDP was not dealt with toughly enough in the campaign; we were ignored too easily; we came up the middle illegitimately. You want to deal with us anyway --

Hon. Mr. Davis: I never heard the word illegitimate used.

Mr. Lewis: -- you want, we will be happy to respond to that challenge. But we are, however unexpectedly to anyone, Her Majesty’s loyal opposition. You will notice how easily those words trip from the tongue, how nicely they are savoured.

Hon. Mr. Davis: One of these days your tongue will trip you up.

Interjections.

Mr. Lewis: You cannot imagine how many toasts to the Queen I have indulged in since this election was over --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think you started about four weeks ago.

Mr. Lewis: -- with every variety of intoxicant.

We have a voice and a role and an audience which we never had before and we intend to exercise it. It will not be exercise , let me say to the Premier, in political ways which are either abusively or stridently personal. I think he knows that.

As a matter of fact I noted in that

article in the Toronto Star about the Leader of the Opposition, the one which had the very gracious pictures of my childhood, that the Premier found it hard to say publicly that he liked the Leader of the Opposition. I think the quote was “I can’t say that publicly” or something to that effect.

Well, even if it drives you to distraction I am going to tell you right in the House now I think you are just fine. I am really quite fond of you. I know it scars your political honour and I know it causes a great deterioration in the credit with which you are held by your colleagues, but I think you are a nice person and I am not going to conduct a battle with you in personal terms -- under no circumstance.

Nor do I think we will be obsessed with power and considerations of power as we watch the session emerge over the next few weeks and perhaps the next few months because the New Democratic Party has always been cautious about the exercise of power understanding that it usually comes at the end of a pretty lung road for us.

On the other hand, were we to form a government at some point after an election we would today cope just as we indicated at the outset of the election campaign we would attempt to cope. As you look at some if my colleagues in the New Democratic opposition benches I think you see and will increasingly see that we have the capacity to fill a cabinet as well.

It may just be, therefore, after we’ve dealt with the issues of this session and perhaps a Throne Speech and a budget and we’re out on the hustings again, that this election, quaintly enough, will be fought on matters of political philosophy, on matters of political programme, on matters of political issues. I want you to know in advance that nothing would please the New Democratic Party more than that kind of election campaign when it occurs. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, whenever that happens, we look forward to it.

Mr. Nixon moved adjournment of the de bate.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The 13th order; House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (CONTINUED)

On vote 2801:

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Chairman, I believe we’re on item 11 of vote 2801 and I believe one or two of my colleagues wish to make contributions on that item, the Languages of Instruction Commission.

Hon. Mr. Wells: First of all, there was no legal obligation for there to be a French language advisory committee in London because they don’t operate classes at the secondary school level. They can, if they wish, establish a French language advisory committee as an option, which I understand was done in London. However, they don’t have to have one. I’m emphasizing that the legislation only says you have to have one if you have programmes in the secondary school panel.

They did have one and then I think the board, for various reasons, decided to disband that committee. I’m not saying I agree with their decisions to disband it, but they did disband the committee. We had some correspondence, I can recall, about that action and we really felt there was nothing we could add to what the board had done. We felt the board could, if it wished, do away with the committee. They have not submitted that particular dispute to the Languages of Instruction Commission at the present time, as I understand it.

Mrs. Gigantes: Who has to make the submission to the Languages of Instruction Commission?

Hon. Mr. Wells: The submission to the Languages of Instruction Commission can be made by the French language advisory committee, or by a group of parents or a group of ratepayers concerned in a matter between themselves and the board. In other words, there does not have to be the existence of a French language advisory committee in order to have access to the good offices of the Languages of Instruction Commission.

In the case of elementary school disputes -- and as the hon. member knows, there are many elementary French language schools in the province run by boards where there are no French language advisory committees -- if there is a dispute in these particular areas the citizens concerned, in most case the parents of the students at the French language school, or the French language parents, will submit the dispute to the Languages Instruction Commission.

Mrs. Gigantes: I understand that it was the Languages of Instruction Commission which advised the setting up of the French language advisory committee in London. I am wondering what the minister’s position will be if that commission, appealed to by the committee or parents now not in a committee, because the committee has been disbanded, is faced by the committee with the need to reassert the existence of the French language advisory committee in London? Will the minister back up the commission?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Will I back up the Languages of Instruction Commission?

Mrs. Gigantes: Will you back up the commission? The commission last year called for the establishment of the advisory committee in London; that advisory committee has been disbanded by the board; the minister is saying that the parents who were on the committee should now appeal to the commission again. Presumably the commission would still feel that there should be a French language advisory committee in London. Would you back up the commission if it decided once again there should be such a committee?

Hon. Mr. Wells: It is very difficult to speculate on exactly what I would do if the commission made certain determinations in the future. I can just tell you that, based on what I have seen and heard and recall from the London situation, I would probably back up the commission, yes.

Mr. Foulds: Did the original commission report, from which you set up the Languages of Instruction Commission, not recommend that the committee at the elementary level be set up in a compulsory manner, rather than the optional manner in which you have set them up in your legislation?

Hon. Mr. Wells: It was not recommended by the Symons report that these committees he set up for the elementary panels. I think the rationale for that was that most of those schools are operated by school boards which had a preponderance of French language trustees already sitting as full trustees. At the particular time when we were drafting the legislation we were discussing the matter with the separate school boards of the province, who, by and large, have under their aegis most of the French language elementary schools, and they felt there wasn’t need for French language advisory committees for their particular boards.

Mr. Foulds: Obviously this case that my colleague from Carleton East has brought up points out a weakness in the way that we are dealing with French language instruction at an elementary level. How do you deal effectively with the situation in Ontario where you have -- as in London, and I believe it’s in Halton county, is it not? -- a substantial number of French-speaking elementary pupils who do not have access to French language instruction? How do you deal with that?

I think it is Halton or Burlington -- somewhere in that area -- where there has been a large influx of workers from Quebec, with students at the elementary level who have had a terrible difficulty with their board in getting instruction in French.

[4:15]

Hon. Mr. Wells: As I recall from memory, the Halton situation involved the Halton Roman Catholic Separate School Board and a large group of francophone parents who were attempting to get instruction for their children in a particular area or school. There has been quite a dispute over the past few years as to whether there should be a separate school built or whether classes should be carried on in two or three different locations in Halton, rather than one central location.

Mr. Lewis: They have also got the Renaissance movement, God help them.

Hon. Mr. Wells: The London situation I think is different, though. The London situation is a combination of many factors, I suppose. Far be it for me to explain the London situation to you when the immediate past chairman of the London Board of Education is sitting in this Legislature and probably could explain it to us all in a much better fashion than any of us. I am referring, of course, to the education critic of the Liberal Party, who I am sure could give us at least the London Board of Education’s version of this particular situation.

I simply believe that there are a number of factors all tied together in the problem In London and it has been a difficult one to try to sort out in any way to make all sides happy. I think that as much as anything else, there have been conflicts of personality that have made it a very difficult thing to be able to sort out. But the Languages of Instruction Commission has been trying to do this and will continue to try to do this.

Mr. Foulds: Let me take this a step further and shift the discussion slightly but still on the same topic.

I have had some correspondence from across the province from parents who would like their particular board to take stronger initiatives in terms of instruction in French at the elementary level. Is it the job of this commission to expedite that? Is it under another vote?

What I want to put to you pretty strongly is that I think Ontario is not moving adequately and fully enough towards a bilingual policy and towards adequate teaching of French to us unilinguals; and this might be the only opportunity we get in these estimates to debate that, because it may be the only opportunity we get to debate it where it’s important, at the elementary level.

Mr. Chairman: Shall item 11 carry? Carried.

Item 12?

Mr. Foulds: I want to start with this item and I’ll get back to it after a few of my colleagues have undoubtedly piled in.

Mr. Minister, you gave us a commitment in the last debate on this item in the estimates in 1974 to bring the superannuation commission members before a committee of the Legislature in order to sort out some of the allegations, if you like, which have been levelled against the commission in terms of the inequities created by the present superannuation fund. I wonder if we could have that commitment carried out this session?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. I fully intended that the commitment be carried out and I guess the only reason we didn’t get down to carrying it out in the latter half of the session, in the spring and early summer, was our lengthy discussion of Bill 100 which occupied all our time. It didn’t give us a chance even to get a committee we could take this matter to.

The commission and Mr. Causley are ready. I think what we need is an opportunity to spend some time down there with them discussing the various impressions, things that are said about the commission, the way they operate, the feelings held by people about the commission and perhaps what are the facts as to how the commission operates. There is a degree of misunderstanding.

Mr. Foulds: When you say you intend to carry out that commitment before the end of the session, does that mean before we wrap up in December or are you thinking of going into the spring?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I’d be prepared to do it before the end of December but I understand we don’t have any of the regular committees organized. We have one or two committees and I’m not sure that would serve the purpose we wish. I would say if we could do it before the end of December I would be agreeable. If not, I guess we should do it as soon as we organize in the spring -- all of us being here -- and we get the regular committees. It could be one of the first jobs of the social development committee to have meetings with the commission.

Mr. Foulds: My own feeling is that the sooner we can get that, the sooner we can clear away some of the clouds, misconceptions and what have you. Certainly that’s going to be our thrust in that committee when we meet.

I can very easily be confused, as I’m sure most people can, by actuarial figures and there are certain principles I think we need to debate and we need to come to a firm understanding of before we can discuss the item intelligently. I would urge that the sooner we can get that the better. If it is possible even to organize the social development committee for this short session, say for the second week in December if we should sit so long, that should be aimed for.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I’ll speak to the House leader about that.

Mr. Warner: Mr. Minister, I’m interested to know whether the scope of that committee would include items such as an escalating clause for those members who have already been superannuated. There seems to be a great deal of discrepancy in that area. Would it include also public knowledge for those who pay into the fund as to where their money is being invested and the return they are getting for that investment? Would it also include information as to when the commission should be required to put money into the fund, as stop and start dates for those deposits?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Yes, I think that’s the kind of thing we could get into in detail.

I’m a little confused about your comments about escalation for those alr