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March 13, 1979

31st Parliament, 3rd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Hansard Transcripts

L005 - Tue 13 Mar 1979 / Mar 13 mar 1979

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

WESTINGHOUSE CANADA

PHYSICIANS OPTING OUT OF OHIP

ORAL QUESTIONS

WESTINGHOUSE CANADA

ILLEGAL DUMPING OF LIQUID WASTE

PHYSICIANS OPTING OUT OF OHIP

WESTINGHOUSE CANADA

PROPERTY TAXATION

CO-PAYMENT FEES

FARM TARIFF CUTS

JOB CREATION

HOTEL DIEU HOSPITAL

MEDICAL SCHOOL ACCESS

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

FAMILY BENEFITS AMENDMENT ACT

LANDLORD AND TENANT AMENDMENT ACT

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)

PROVINCIAL OFFENCES ACT

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I know that a couple of my colleagues have statements. They have been detained, obviously.

Mr. McClellan: Better put on the whips over there.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Actually they just wanted to make sure everything was up to date; so they are waiting until the last moment.

Mr. Breaugh: Is this an acknowledgement that you really are bankrupt over there?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, with the concurrence of the House, perhaps we could carry on with the question period and revert to statements when my colleagues with statements arrive.

Mr. S. Smith: No, we will wait. What do you have -- 26 cabinet ministers?

Mr. Hennessy: You tell him, Stuart.

Mr. S. Smith: Mickey’s here, look at that; Jim Taylor is here.

Mr. Nixon: Jim never misses prayers.

Mr. Makarchuk: Did you tell him when the big hand is on 12 and the little hand is on two that’s when the House starts?

An hon. member: It is about time, Larry.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: It has been a very busy morning.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

WESTINGHOUSE CANADA

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry for the delay and I thank the members of the House for their forbearance. We were working until just a moment or two ago to finish our work on the Westinghouse Canada situation in Hamilton.

To that end, I might say that I would expect the members opposite are just now receiving copies of my statement, which they will know from dealing with me in the past is not a usual situation. Usually copies are there well in advance but, because of these circumstances, we have been delayed until now. Also, I am out of breath for those reasons.

Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. S. Smith) raised the question concerning the possible closing of the Aberdeen Avenue plant of Westinghouse Canada in Hamilton. Yesterday, he referred to -- and I quote from Hansard -- “a study undertaken by Westinghouse Canada which may well result in putting 700 production employees out of work in Hamilton.”

Yet I understand that by 11 o’clock last night, after doing some research, he discovered that the layoffs might not in fact occur. His original, unresearched statement raised, I think, unnecessary concerns for all employees in Westinghouse and elsewhere.

This House will therefore be interested in facts concerning Westinghouse instead of unresearched speculation.

Mr. Sargent: I’m sure glad you’re around here.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: You should try it more often yourself, Eddie.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Glad to see you here too, Eddie.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: My officials met with the Westinghouse Canada executive -- the president, vice-president and their staff -- last November 15. The meeting was indeed to have been held as early as October 13 but had to be postponed.

Westinghouse told us then of their long-range plans for their Canadian operations and how they were conducting an evaluation of all their manufacturing so they could build for a profitable future in Canada. They told us frankly that unprofitable lines, not surprisingly, would probably have to be discontinued, and that their policy was to convert from a branch plant to an organization set up to service local needs. They discussed the changing pattern in their industry and how they must respond.

I am, as I stated yesterday, frankly disappointed that they did not tell us earlier of the specific study which involves the Aberdeen Avenue plant, but I must remind the House that this is still at the study stage and the conclusions will not be made until the study is complete. My staff has discussed this matter with Westinghouse officials who anticipate that the first part of the study, the first part only, will be completed by June and the rest of the study finalized by October.

If any layoffs do result, and this will not be known until the study is complete, those layoffs will indeed be phased in over a period of three years. Even so, the company feels there is a good possibility that, with increased employment in other Hamilton operations and with normal attrition, the 700 employees who might otherwise be affected could be absorbed elsewhere.

Mr. S. Smith: That’s still 700 jobs whether it’s the same people or not.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I wish to stress that any decisions affecting Westinghouse Canada Limited will be made in Hamilton and nowhere else. In our discussions with Westinghouse it has become apparent that they feel the reaction through the press and their own elected representatives has been much greater than the situation warrants.

Westinghouse has been in Canada since 1903 and there have been tremendous changes in the entire electrical industry in Canada and in the rest of the world, quite obviously, in that time. The company at present employs more than 7,000 people in Canada, plus a further 2,300 people who were recently transferred to CAMCO at the time of that merger.

Westinghouse Canada has not been content to stay as just a branch plant. They have been successful in introducing the world product mandate concept by which the Canadian company is the exclusive manufacturing plant and conducts product research and development for certain products which are sold world-wide.

Mr. M. N. Davison: How many products?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: One of these products is gas turbines which have been sold successfully against aggressive foreign competition into many world markets. They are able to do this in part because they are a multinational, and because they can use the worldwide facilities of their company. This rationalization process is one that benefits Canada and one that we are encouraging in other companies.

Mr. M. N. Davison: How many other products?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The product mandating buffers them against foreign-made decisions .

Mr. McClellan: Give us another product.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That’s what these studies are all about. That’s precisely the process that’s going on now.

On the whole question of multinationals, I think all persons, including the Leader of the Opposition, must take a mature and responsible attitude.

Mr. Cassidy: What does that mean?

Mr. Warner: For the minister that means bow and scrape.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: There are many examples of successful multinational operations in Canada providing substantial employment to our citizens.

Mr. Warner: Where?

Mr. Cassidy: Like Inco?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I’m going to tell the members where. If I may quote a speech I delivered in the great city of Cambridge on March 1:

“A great deal of our economy is dominated by branch plants of multinational firms. There’s a lot of nonsense talked about multi nationals. On one side people say they are all bad; others talk as if they raise no problems at all. The truth is somewhere in the middle” -- I would say to the Leader of the Opposition -- “but I think it’s high time we started to work in a deliberate way to maximize the benefits we can get from the activities of multinational firms in Canada.” That was on March 1.

I suspect, I would note to the Leader of the Opposition, that notwithstanding yesterday’s performance, many people in -- just to name three communities -- Sarnia, Kitchener and St. Catharines -- are happy to have major multinationals creating very substantial employment in their communities.

I have stated over the past several weeks that we must do what we can to rationalize the branch plants that are operating in Canada. Product mandating is one way of encouraging efficiency of operations, and decision-making in Canada is part of that scheme. We must do what we can -- I say to the Leader of the Opposition -- to develop a mature and responsible attitude to the whole subject of multinationals in Ontario.

While we are on the subject of maturity and multinationals --

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I am going to quote from the Leader of the Opposition in a minute -- I want to discuss the comments of the Leader of the Opposition this past weekend.

Mr. Kerrio: There has to be something sensible in there.

Mr. M. N. Davison: How many more products?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: My friend will find out.

On March 12 the Leader of the Opposition was quoted in the Toronto Star as saying --

Mr. S. Smith: That was an inaccurate quotation.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Another one? Are you on the conservative or liberal side of the party?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The Leader of the Opposition says it was inaccurate. We will find out whether he means this year’s or last year’s statement.

Mr. S. Smith: We will read the correct statement to you.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: “The Tories believe the way to do things is to provide giveaways to American companies while totally ignoring our own industrial potential. The Conservatives gave away” -- .

Mr. S. Smith: We said you had to do it that once but not to make a fetish of it. That’s what we said. Do it once but don’t go down the slippery slope.

Mr. Speaker: Order. If we are going to have orderly proceedings, only one person should be heard at a time. We are at the point in our routine proceedings where we are listening to a ministerial statement. There will be ample opportunity to respond to the statement during question period.

Mr. S. Smith: It’s an inaccurate quotation.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I say to the Leader of the Opposition to wait until he hears all of his statements and then pick the ones he wants to disavow.

I continue to quote from the Leader of the Opposition: “The Conservatives gave away millions to the Ford Motor Company to build a plant in Ontario and the real reason was the vision of ribbon-cutting ceremonies in the minds of Tory cabinet ministers.”

Mr. Speaker, I would now call the attention of the Leader of the Opposition to his comments in the Legislature --

Mr. S. Smith: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: It happens to be that the minister is reading a statement from the Toronto Star which statement itself was not a correct quotation from my speech. I would like to set the record straight by reading the exact quotation, and a tape recording is available if the minister and other members of the press would like to hear it. I now quote from the speech:

“They sort of stumbled into the Ford deal in Windsor. They were dragged into it by the feds -- most of the money was federal -- and the provincial government stumbled into it” --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. S. Smith: -- “and got some good publicity. Suddenly they realized that here was an opportunity for them to look as though they were doing something. Visions of ribbon-cutting danced in the heads of Tory cabinet ministers as the notion struck them that all you have to do is give away the taxpayers’ money and someone might open a plant. They will claim that the reason they are opening the plant is because you gave them the money; then you can stand back at the ribbon-cutting ceremony and talk about what a great economic strategy you have in Ontario.”

[2:15]

An hon. member: What’s the point of privilege?

Mr. Hennessy: What’s the punch line?

Mr. S. Smith: You will recall that, at the time of the Ford deal, we recognized that this was -- and I called it at the time -- “a slippery slope.” Those were the words that I used.

Mr. Nixon: Exactly right.

Mr. S. Smith: I am still quoting, Mr. Speaker, from my statement from the weekend. If the Premier would like to hear the actual statement, I said: “We were being blackmailed and had no choice but to give in, in that one particular instance.”

Hon. Mr. Davis: That is incorrect.

Mr. S. Smith: “It was like applying a tourniquet when a haemorrhage is occurring. You don’t normally use tourniquets as a regular way of maintaining people’s health, but it was a necessary thing to do at the time. We made it plain at the time that it had to be regarded as an exception, as something that we were forced to do because we were desperate for the jobs, but that we had to use the intervening time after that to develop a genuine industrial strategy. What did the government do? It repeated the experience on a smaller scale with the Hayes Dana Corporation of New Jersey.” And I went on to discuss the Hayes Dana matter.

Let’s be very clear on this matter. The minister should get his facts straight in the future.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The minister will please continue his statement, uninterrupted.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition has risen on a point of order to explain what he said. He has asked for a retraction. May I say that I am sure he would have written a letter to the editor of the Star explaining what he did say. May I say, secondly, that he has indicated to me just now that he indicated in his speech -- and I look forward to receiving a copy -- that we were dragged into it by the federal government.

Mr. S. Smith: I said we were going to lose the deal.

Mr. Speaker: Order. As I drew to your attention before, we are in the process of listening to ministerial statements. Any editorializing, or anything in response to what is said over here is not permitted at this time. If the minister would just complete his statement, let’s get on with the business of this House.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, to respond --

Mr. Speaker: No. Just continue with the statement.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: With respect, the Leader of the Opposition has asked that I withdraw a portion of my statement, and I ought to either withdraw a portion of that statement or respond to his point of order as to why I should not withdraw that portion of my statement.

Mr. S. Smith: I didn’t ask the minister to withdraw a thing. Let him leave it on the record. Let him leave his distortions on the record.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Rather than taking up the time of the House, Mr. Speaker, I will distribute to any persons who are interested, including the Leader of the Opposition, a copy of the Leader of the Opposition’s letter to the Right Honourable Pierre Elliott Trudeau, dated June 21, 1978, which will show that we were not dragged into it by the federal government.

Mr. S. Smith: The minister knows I favoured it at the time.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The Leader of the Opposition pleaded with the federal government to give us some money to go and get the deal. That’s what he did. Here it is.

Interjections.

Mr. S. Smith: What is wrong with the minister? He was in the House. Everybody knows that.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: In his letter to the editor he can draw that to his attention too.

To continue with the statement, Mr. Speaker: I want to call the attention of the Leader of the Opposition to his comment in this assembly on June 23, 1978.

Mr. S. Smith: When you guys were about to lose the deal.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Oh, I see! “We need 2,600 jobs in the province.” Here is what he said: “Why stop at $17.5 million when, for another $17.5 million or so, we can get the $500-million plant on Ontario soil and create the 2,600 jobs?”

Mr. S. Smith: Or you would lose the deal; that’s right.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Is the member ready for what he said next? “I’m proud to say that is the policy of the Ontario Liberal Party.”

Mr. Havrot: Talk about red faces now.

Mr. Mackenzie: Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, to sum up: It is always easy to beat up on multinationals, but the plain fact is that this country, like many, has always needed a certain amount of foreign capital to be able to meet the aspirations and the job demands of its people.

A mature approach is needed when speaking of both domestic and international capital, and jurisdictions which operate on cheap politics or immature sabre-rattling have no credibility and will be left behind.

Although the Leader of the Opposition may have difficulty deciding on his party’s industrial policy, we have no difficulty in developing and following our own. We intend to take every opportunity to develop Ontario industry, to work with the facts that exist and to be concerned for the potential for industrial growth and employment in this province.

PHYSICIANS OPTING OUT OF OHIP

Mr. Speaker: The honourable the Minister of Health.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, yesterday I was asked to table the figures for physician options on a county-by-county basis; today I will read those figures into the record.

I may say, sir, that the statement will be distributed later in the day, inasmuch as I got the draft statement as I left the CBC after talking to my friend from Oshawa and certain changes have been made by myself. Before I give the figures, Mr. Speaker, I would like to put them into context.

Almost since the inception of the plan in its present form, the province’s doctors have had the option of billing the plan directly or billing the patient directly; in the latter case the plan reimburses the patient. In fact for the first approximately seven years of the plan approximately one doctor in eight have billed patients directly.

As I have said, sir, on many occasions, we in the ministry expected an increase in physicians opting out of the plan as the Anti-Inflation Board regulations were lifted at the end of 1978; and that, Mr. Speaker, is precisely what has occurred.

Before reading the figures for the counties, regions and districts, I would like to apprise members of the following figures. First of all, the matter of the number of physicians opting out by effective date: On November 1, 1978, 36 physicians opted out; December 1, 1978, 31; January 1, 1979, 205; February 1, 1979, 116; March 1, 1979, 77; coming up on April 1, 1979, 71; and on May 1, 1979, two.

Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I said I felt we had seen the peak of opting out and these figures confirm my view. These figures are firm and final and no more than two physicians can opt out in the month of May because of the three-month notification period.

Mr. Roy: Don’t count on it.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: It is also noteworthy, sir, that since 1973 there has been a steady growth of the utilization of health services. In 1973-74 the average number of claims per insured resident of Ontario was 5.3, and by 1977-78 that had risen to 6.7.

What this indicates, Mr. Speaker, is that despite an increase in opting out by physicians there has been a steady growth in usage of the services; in other words, there would appear to be no threat to the acceptability of medical care.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, it should be of interest to members to see that the ratio of opted-in physicians in the province has improved significantly in the past six years. The figures, which are based on Statistics Canada population estimates, are for March of each year. I will start with 1973 when there was 907 population per opt-in physician in the province; 1974, 869; 1975, 838; 1976, 824; 1977, 803; 1978, 812, and once we have the March 1979 data I will release that as well, although I obviously expect a slight increase in that ratio but well below the figure at which we started in 1973 when the records started to be kept.

To reiterate, Mr. Speaker, I do not see any threat to the universality of the health plan in Ontario at this time. Universality is the cornerstone of the plan and we are constantly monitoring it.

Now as I promised, here are the figures for physicians billing the plan directly for the end of February, 1978. I might point out, Mr. Speaker, that these figures include the total number of physicians who have signified their intention of opting out, whether their effective date has arrived yet or not. They also represent physicians who are actually billing the plan, as opposed to the much larger number of physicians registered with the plan but who are not presently billing for one reason or another. These are by county, region, or district, and the percentage of doctors who are billing the plan directly, that is, who are opted in:

Brant county, 97.5 per cent; Bruce, 100 per cent; Dufferin, 94.7 per cent; Elgin, 96.8 per cent; Essex, 89.8 per cent; Frontenac, 94.2 per cent; Grey, 90.5 per cent; Haldimand-Norfolk, 93 per cent; Haliburton, 100 per cent; Halton, 71.1 per cent; Hastings, 99.2 per cent; Huron, 95.7 per cent; Kent, 98.9 per cent; Lambton, 78.1 per cent; Lanark, 100 per cent; Leeds and Grenville, 89.7 per cent; Lennox and Addington, 100 per cent; Metropolitan Toronto, 76.3 per cent;

Middlesex, 79.8 per cent; Muskoka, 100 per cent; Niagara, 80.3 per cent; Northumberland, 98.3 per cent; Durham, 100 per cent; Ottawa-Carleton, 82 per cent; Oxford, 89.4 per cent; Peel, 78.6 per cent; Perth, 70.7 per cent; Peterborough, 52.8 per cent; Prescott and Russell, 100 per cent; Prince Edward, 94.3 per cent; Renfrew, 97.8 per cent; Simcoe, 74.8 per cent; Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry, 98 per cent; Victoria, 100 per cent; Waterloo, 74.5 per cent; Wellington, 71.4 per cent; Hamilton-Wentworth, 88.1 per cent; York, 59.3 per cent;

Algoma, 99.2 per cent; Cochrane, 97.4 per cent; Kenora, 100 per cent; Manitoulin, 100 per cent; Nipissing, 82.9 per cent; Parry Sound, 100 per cent; Rainy River, 100 per cent; Sudbury, 91.8 per cent; Thunder Bay, 97.1 per cent; Timiskaming, 100 per cent; and out of the province -- there is a group of physicians who bill from out of the province -- 95.4 per cent.

In brief, Mr. Speaker, I see no threat to the principle of universality in this province.

Mr. Warner: You wouldn’t.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Listen, if you got grades like this you would have passed.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: What is of great importance is the fact that we in the ministry are constantly seeking ways to improve our dealings with physicians.

Mr. Warner: You sit idly by and watch the thing being destroyed.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: We have a lot more to discuss with the OMA and we have been setting up mechanisms to discover and to dispatch minor irritations with bureaucratic procedures, and to review the means whereby the

schedule of benefits is arrived at so that the results of such negotiations not only are fair to the public and to the profession but are seen to be fair.

ORAL QUESTIONS

WESTINGHOUSE CANADA

Mr. S. Smith: I have a question for the Minister of Industry and Tourism. Given that his own officials have now spoken with Westinghouse and seem to confirm that, as said in today’s Spectator, there is little hope that the 700 jobs will stay -- even although some of the jobs lost will be lost by the process of attrition and therefore actual employee layoffs in some instances may not happen, the city will lose the 700 jobs very likely -- what is the explanation that the minister is able to accept for this?

Is he aware that the reasoning being offered by the company, which accepts that the switch gear and control plant on Aberdeen Avenue is profitable, is that they wish to replace this older plant with a number of smaller, decentralized plants all around the country? Does this make much sense to the minister, does he accept that particular reasoning; and is he not concerned with a statement made by the president of Westinghouse some time ago in which he spoke of the benefits of these small, more-automated, decentralized plants which are non-union? Does the minister feel that the reasoning may be an effort on the part of the company to avoid the union?

[2:30]

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I have to say to the Leader of the Opposition that I suspect the company wouldn’t have to conduct a study which it has well publicized, let its employees know about, and indeed let the public know about, if all it was trying to do was to get away from a union.

That study will be available to our ministry, I am sure; and with the consent of the persons doing the study and that of Westinghouse, we would be happy to make it available to the Leader of the Opposition and to the third party, and to anyone else who wishes it. Therefore, I would tend to discount at this time, on the evidence we have at hand, an attempt to avoid the union.

Secondly, the Leader of the Opposition refers once again to the Hamilton Spectator, from which apparently he concludes there is little hope of the jobs being saved. I should say that as a result of our discussions with them they have indicated to very senior officials in my ministry there is some hope for a lot of those jobs.

I would remind the Leader of the Opposition that, as he should know, there are currently some 4,300 persons employed by Westinghouse in the Hamilton area, and that many of those 700 or so workers might well be absorbed into some of the other activities of Westinghouse in Hamilton. I would reflect that Westinghouse has made a substantial contribution to the Hamilton area and is not about to take what I suspect would be an unusual step; that is to walk away from its labour force there and those parts of its operation there which seem to work well.

I would also remind the Leader of the Opposition that when Westinghouse talks of getting into diversified plants and smaller operations they are not only talking about other parts of Canada. Indeed in our conversations they have indicated -- the member for Quinte (Mr. O’Neil) will be interested -- some talk about moving some parts of their operation to eastern Ontario.

These are alternatives which Westinghouse and Canadian-owned plants, plants all over Ontario and everywhere else, do look at from time to time. I am happy to say that Westinghouse is not following a high-handed approach of simply closing the plant, giving layoff notices and moving its operation to another country or even another part of this country.

Rather they are conducting a study, and the bottom line of it is as I believe the Leader of the Opposition indicated to some persons either out there or on the media last night, I think he reflected that this was free enterprise, and one of the things that is going to happen is that free enterprise operations are going to assess their operations from time to time to see if they can develop more profitable ways of carrying on business than those currently in use.

My concern is that they do not abandon a community for reasons other than good, businesslike reasons, and that they have given every opportunity to this government to assist them in relocating the work force, and given the workers and community involved every chance to adjust to that change.

Mr. S. Smith: By way of supplementary:

Given the fact that the Aberdeen plant has been quite profitable, that they intend to continue making their switch gear and control products in Canada -- it’s not something they are willing to admit they are going to take back to the United States when the tariffs go -- is the minister convinced that it makes sense to have a bunch of small plants all around the place when he is always speaking of the economies of scale and so on? Is the minister convinced that it makes more sense to do that? Isn’t he the least bit suspicious as to the reasons for that, given Mr.

Tyaack’s address to the Conference Board of Canada in which he praised the small, decentralized non-union plants as the way of the future?

Hon. Ms. Grossman: Again, I think it would not be helpful to the long-range prospects for Westinghouse, which does employ 4,300 persons in the fine city of Hamilton, to invite speculation, based upon a speech made earlier and upon a study it is conducting, that Westinghouse is acting in a high-handed, unreasonable fashion. As I have indicated earlier, I just don’t think that premature speculation is a type of attitude which is conducive to attracting the type of confident investment decisions made by Westinghouse and other people.

I do acknowledge, I would say to the Leader of the Opposition, that it is politically attractive to jump on Westinghouse and accuse them of having plans and motives.

Mr. S. Smith: Do small plants make sense to you?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I must say to the Leader of the Opposition, whether a diversification into those operations makes sense or not I would prefer to wait until I have had the opportunity of seeing the results of the study which they are carrying on. Obviously, Westinghouse feels that it hasn’t got enough information to make a decision on the Aberdeen plant without a study.

If Westinghouse feels that way, I must humbly say to the Leader of the Opposition that I obviously do not have the information either to make that assessment without at least having the opportunity of looking at that study. Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition feels he does not need the advantages of that study to make that business decision. I myself do not have that capability, nor apparently does Westinghouse.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: I have had the opportunity to talk both to the company and to the union in the last 24 hours. Can the minister explain his confidence that he will have access to the study and that he will be able to share it with members of the opposition when the company specifically informed me at 9:45 this morning that they were not prepared to open their books either to me or to the workers who are concerned about the future of their jobs?

Is the government prepared to insist that Westinghouse Canada open the books on its switch gear operations so that the workers, the community and this Legislature can judge whether this is a sound, business-like decision or whether this is yet another example of a multinational corporation pushing Canadians around?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I must say I wonder whether the leader of the third party would be taking the same attitude if it were a Canadian-owned company making the same assessment of its business as the American multinational is. I suspect he would find it a little harder to beat up on them than he does on the multinational.

Mr. McClellan: Inco perhaps.

Mr. Makarchuk: We just want to make them responsible, that’s all.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Secondly, may I say I don’t apologize for the fact that in this country we do believe that businesses have the right to keep their records confidential and to make their own decisions as to which portions of their records --

Mr. Cassidy: So we won’t get the study, or it will be meaningless.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: -- are going to be open to the public and which are not, the same as the members opposite have that opportunity, the same as the unions have that opportunity to make that decision, the same as any ordinary worker or any union member has the opportunity to decide whether --

Mr. Cassidy: No, they don’t.

Mr. McClellan: You are not answering the question.

Hon. Ms. Grossman: -- his or her own personal affairs are matters which are going to be open to the public.

Mr. S. Smith: Not when you’re shutting a plant down,

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I think it is a very crucial thing to decide on the floor of this House as to whether this government believes that a firm, deciding it is going to close its plant, is required to open all of its records and all of its books to government with the logical conclusion that government can or should force it to maintain an unprofitable operation.

Mr. S. Smith: How do you know it’s unprofitable if you can’t look at the books?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: May I say that the record of my ministry in dealing with very many firms throughout the length and breadth of this province is that the good and responsible firms co-operate on a confidential basis with my very excellent staff to do everything they can to protect the work force that suffers from a layoff or a plant closure. I would expect, though I can’t be sure and one can never be, that Westinghouse would follow the now-established procedure of working with my staff and myself, showing us the details of their operation and permitting us to comment with them on a confidential basis with regard to the long-term prospects for that particular operation.

Mr. S. Smith: By way of supplementary, does not the minister feel, given the infrastructure which the people of an area have to put in when an industry locates there -- the houses that are built, the schools as a consequence, the streets, the water, the sewage -- that an industry has a responsibility to a community, and that before it can just walk away from a plant it at least ought to be able to show that no viable alternatives exist? Doesn’t the minister think the day of treating industries as though they were kings and could walk away or come in at will without any responsibility to the community is over in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I must say that I wonder whether that was part of the Leader of the Opposition’s feelings when in the Prescott Journal he was quoted as saying he would encourage industry to leave the golden horseshoe by lowering energy rates and upgrading transportation services in other places. Is that what he was thinking about when he said he would encourage industry to move out of the golden horseshoe?

Mr. Riddell: Don’t be so political, get on with the answer; it is getting a little tiresome.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That’s precisely what it said: Prescott Journal, August 23, 1978.

Mr. S. Smith: You want to keep it all out of northern and eastern Ontario; you want it all in St. Andrew-St. Patrick, I suppose.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: But of course the member was in Prescott that day, he wasn’t in Hamilton, If he wants to encourage industries to move out of Hamilton, as he told them in Prescott, then let him stand up and say that in Hamilton, not just in Prescott.

Mr. M. N. Davison: I would like the minister to inform the House as to when his officials last met with representatives of Local 504, United Electrical Workers, in Hamilton to discuss this matter; and furthermore, I would like to know why he and the officials in his ministry are sitting so quietly on the sidelines while Westinghouse continues to try to get rid of and bust up Local 504 UEW in Hamilton?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: If the member has any evidence that that is occurring then perhaps he will send it across to us and I will work on that with my colleague the Minister of Labour and Manpower (Mr. Elgie). I am sure if the member has any evidence that that has occurred he has already referred it to the Minister of Labour and Manpower. Has he?

Mr. M. N. Davison: Open your eyes. Look at the record.

ILLEGAL DUMPING OF LIQUID WASTE

Mr. S. Smith: A question for the Minister of the Environment: Has the minister now spoken with the three staff of his ministry who were originally involved in denying that a meeting took place in December of 1976 in which his regional staff was made aware of certain illegal dumping going on at the Upper Ottawa Street site in Hamilton? Has he spoken with his staff now that a member of his Stoney Creek regional office has admitted that he and two other ministry staff met with certain haulers and were told at that time that liquid wastes were being dumped illegally?

What kind of disciplinary action is the minister going to take with his staff? Does he have results from the samples that were presented to his staff in December of 1976 when they were told of illegalities, and what exact action has he taken since the matter has finally been revealed in the newspapers, even though he himself never was able to find out about it?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, obviously I expected this question, or one of related concern, and it would be easy for me, sir, to stand and say that since there are 139 charges laid on this particular instance, it is sub judice and I should refrain from comment. However, I think that that would not be fair to this House and I won’t do so. On the other hand --

Mr. S. Smith: That is rubbish and you know it. Just be honest.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Let him speak.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Are you ready to listen to the answer or have you continually got your mouth in motion before you’re ready to listen?

Mr. S. Smith: Just stop congratulating yourself for something you should know anyway.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Yakabuski: Slippery Stuart’s had a bad day. Go easy on him.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: What I was going to suggest to the leader of the Liberal Party was that we have heard a great deal on this subject, and indeed a great deal from the member himself. I think it’s time that two things happened. One, in the next day or two, perhaps Thursday or Friday morning, I will give a carefully considered response to his question, a response that will reflect not only our concern but a statement of the facts, and make sure that I do not make any utterances that would prejudice the fair trial of this case.

On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, we have heard so much from the leader of the Liberal Party on this particular item of a hearsay type of evidence -- like for instance, if I might make the case, material in a Coca-Cola bottle presented to our regional office -- which really, as he well knows, would not stand one second in a court of law. It is one thing to be suspicious, it’s another thing to have the kind of evidence that will stand up in a court of law.

As the leader knows, I have asked him in the name of the public interest on this significant issue to come forward with factual information; and I would say, since there are 139 charges pending, it would be a darn good idea for him to come forward now, not with hearsay evidence but with factual information that we could take to the courts. On Thursday or Friday I will make a much more detailed statement on the question.

[2:45]

Ms. S. Smith: Supplementary: Is the minister not aware that a member of his own office in Stoney Creek has now publicly admitted that such a meeting took place; the meeting at which the sample in the Coke bottle, whatever he wants to call it, was in fact handed over? He has admitted this publicly in the newspapers. Has he not found out about that? And will he check and find out just who was at the meeting; what the sample, if any, contained; what report was made following that meeting; and can he explain to me why it is he’s still talking of hearsay when the matter has been confirmed from within his own ministry?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The Leader of the Opposition does us all a great disservice by confusing it so much. Is he prepared, on a matter of principle --

Mr. Roy: Try to answer the question. If you want to ask them, get out of there.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: -- that someone should be able to bring in an unidentified, unmarked, unsworn piece of evidence and say that’s enough to take a court action on any particular company?

Mr. S. Smith: Court action? What court action?

Mrs. Campbell: What court action?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Is that his concept of justice? That’s precisely what happened, precisely what happened.

Of course I know of that meeting, and of course I followed in great detail --

Mr. S. Smith: Why did they deny it happened at first?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: -- those accusations the member has made. But he’s talking about something that concerns all of us, concerns us a great deal. I don’t think it’s very wise of the Leader of the Opposition --

Mr. S. Smith: Why didn’t they follow up?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: -- to threaten the things he has threatened in this province in the name of gaining something politically.

Mr. S. Smith: Why didn’t they follow up on it? Two years --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, order.

Mr. S. Smith: You’ve turned a blind eye on it.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I rise on a point of privilege. I ask --

Mrs. Campbell: No, it isn’t.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: No, I won’t ask. I guess that’s not my privilege. Surely, when we have 139 charges --

Mr. S. Smith: Those are minor waybill matters that came out of your report, for heaven’s sake.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: -- on this issue, no one can say we have turned a blind eye.

Ms. Bryden: I have a supplementary question of the Minister of the Environment.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Ms. Bryden: I would like to ask the Minister of the Environment, since he is taking court action, when is he going to bring in legislation to increase the fines for illegal dumping and such practices as are being alleged in connection with this affair?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I answered that question some time ago in committee, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure we’re going to do it this session of the Legislature. I did tell committee that we’re seriously considering that possibility. We’ll be bringing in spill legislation -- not related, I know, but it’s perhaps a time when we can consider the type of penalties that should be imposed for those who pollute and are found in violation of our acts.

PHYSICIANS OPTING OUT OF OHIP

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: First of all, Mr. Speaker, let me say on this question of the calculation by individual city I had a chat with the member’s friend from Oshawa at noon hour, over radio, and I will check with my staff on those figures, inasmuch as to my knowledge we have not been keeping them by city. We have been keeping them by county, region and district, inasmuch as all our planning is by county, region or district, or by hospital centre. But I’ll check that.

Based on my discussions with a great many physicians around the province over the last year or so, I would have to say that they are concerned about whether or not the administrative procedures of the health insurance plan are unduly bureaucratic --

Mr. McClellan: And they are.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- the expression that is used from time to time is “bureaucratic harassment” -- and there is a perception on the part of some of the profession that the

schedule of benefits is not fair.

Mr. Nixon: Does the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) remember when she was president of the OMA? Those were the good old days. The government knew what to do then.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Let me deal with the latter first. There have been all kinds of studies written from various points of view on the question of physician compensation, and you can find a study to support just about any point of view you want to expound. It is pointless to try to settle that today. What I have asked the medical association to do, and it has agreed on this, is to work with ns to see if we can find a way to improve the existing structure for the negotiation of the OHIP

schedule of benefits --

Mr. Nixon: Where is Richard Potter now that we need him?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- so that it not only is fair, both to the taxpayers who through their premium’s and taxes are footing the bills and to the profession in compensation for its training and its skills, but also so that it is seen to be fair.

To deal with the second issue, the question of what is from time to time referred to as bureaucratic harassment, we have for the last six or eight months been working with the medical association reviewing all of the administrative procedures, because I put the challenge to them that I would like them to identify where they feel we are being unduly or unnecessarily bureaucratic. If in fact we can satisfy our mandate as described by the legislation and as overseen by the Legislature, we’re prepared to change our administrative procedures if we can make the day-to-day practice of medicine less bound by tape, forms and bureaucracy.

I think it’s better, looking at the whole province, to tackle those problems head on. I say to the member again that I feel the question of opting out has peaked inasmuch as we know that with the expiration of the Anti-Inflation Board controls there would be an increase. That has been borne out by the figures I gave members today.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: Since a review of the structure of the OHIP fees was a recommendation of the select committee that met a year ago but was rejected by the Minister of Health, is the Minister of Health now prepared to stop any further opting out from OHIP until those discussions with the medical association have taken place? If not, can the minister explain what specific individuals and specific communities should do when they are faced with almost a solid wall of opted-out doctors?

Specifically, for example, what should people do in the southeastern end of Essex county where all six doctors in Amherstburg have opted out and where three of the four doctors in La Salle have also opted out, leaving only one out of 10 doctors in the region in OHIP? What should people in the Hamilton area do where 100 doctors opted out of OHIP on January 1, and where doctors in the Stoney Creek area are apparently not accepting patients who want to transfer from opted-out doctors? What should those specific individuals do in those specific situations when they find that the ministry’s averages don’t apply to them and they have not got universal access to insured medical services?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: First of all, both Hamilton-Wentworth and Essex are well below the provincial average of opting out or well above the provincial average of opting in, depending on your point of views

Mr. McClellan: Let them eat averages.

Mr. Cassidy: Let them eat averages. Tell them that in Amherstburg. Where are their transit services to Windsor?

Mr. Bounsall: Answer the question. What about Amherstburg?

Mr. Warner: You’re distorting again.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: The provincial average is 82.1 per cent of doctors hilling the plan directly --

Mr. Cooke: Answer the question.

Mr. Warner: Try answering the question.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- and in Hamilton-Wentworth it’s 88.1 per cent, and in Essex it’s 89.8 per cent.

Mr. Cooke: What about Amherstburg?

Mr. Cassidy: What about Amherstburg? What about those people?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: In those particular cases, and in any situation initially of course, we expect that the doctors and the patients will discuss the fees.

Mr. Warner: You don’t intend to do anything.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: The member knows, of course, that not every opted-out doctor charges above the OHIP schedule. In fact, in many cases, they charge only what OHIP would reimburse, depending on the individual circumstances.

If the member knows -- well, obviously, the member has come across these particular cases. We will take them up with the medical association to see if something can be done.

Mr. Swart: Half a man. Cap in hand.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I would have to say though that inasmuch as I have not heard -- and I will check my files to verify this -- complaints from that area, people are apparently finding that it is not depriving them of medical care. They are able to work this out with the physicians in the community or they are travelling to other centres.

Mr. McClellan: Why would they write to you? You won’t do anything anyway.

Ms. Gigantes: You have told them it is no use complaining.

Mr. McClellan: So much for the principle of access.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker: Accepting the minister’s premise that on a province-wide basis the universality of a plan is not threatened; and accepting the premise that in many situations in most areas of the province, if a patient is faced with a doctor who has opted out he can go elsewhere: can the minister explain the basis for saying universality is not threatened, in the case of a particular city and a particular county -- how far does universality go?

Is the minister suggesting, for instance, that if one can’t get the services of a specialist in Peterborough, the choice is to come to Toronto or Ottawa or elsewhere? Where does the minister draw the line on this famous principle of universality?

Secondly, would the minister tell us -- he has been Minister of Health for a while -- why he has not resolved the problem with the doctors on the question of bureaucratic weight, red tape and so on?

Why has the minister not resolved the problem of certain specialties within the profession? They apparently are getting more than their fair share of the fees,

whereas the general practitioner is the one who is not being treated fairly.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: If I may deal with that last point first, in fact in the last two rounds of negotiations with the medical association -- first the negotiations which resulted in the average 6.25 per cent increase last May 1, and then the negotiations which resulted in the average 6.6 per cent increase on January 1 of this year --

Mr. Cassidy: That is more than you gave the hospital workers, too.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- the general practitioner was, in fact, given more than the average. In 1978 that was done by introducing what is known as the intermediate assessment and in 1979 by a further weighting of the increase.

The average increase for the GP will thus be somewhere around eight per cent plus increasing utilization, plus the increase in population; it will be well beyond the eight per cent

In the last couple of years, in fact, that direction has been very clear. We want to see more directed towards the general practitioner. This was a point, I think, raised by the member for Ottawa Centre. That was a point made by the select committee when they reported in October and a point with which we agreed.

Regarding the question of bureaucratic harassment: that committee first got going last June or July. They met on a number of occasions. They met as recently as this morning. I would anticipate resolving, in the not-too-distant future, some of the issues they have currently reviewed before they go on to some others. So we are making good progress there.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: On two grounds, I guess: first, on looking at the larger picture and the growth and the use of the health care system it certainly does not indicate that people are being deterred from using it; and, secondly, on the basis of what people tell us.

Interjections.

Mr. Cassidy: How do you know we have had a 70 per cent increase in opting out?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: We have not been hearing from many people about problems of access; in fact, very few.

WESTINGHOUSE CANADA

Mr. Cassidy: I have a question for the Minister of Industry and Tourism.

Given the fact that all evidence indicates that the Westinghouse switchgear operation in Hamilton is profitable; that the company was investing substantially in new facilities in that operation on Aberdeen Avenue up until three or four weeks ago; and that productivity is as high in Hamilton as in the counterpart United States plants: Will the minister at least undertake to ensure that the 700 Hamilton workers in that plant who are affected by the threat of layoff will be able to participate fully in the studies that the company is now undertaking; that they will have access, not just to public relations figures but to all the books on that operation so as to be able to determine how it can be kept going as a viable operation?

[3:00]

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Now, obviously, as the leader of the third party knows, I can’t ensure that any company, any union, any private individual in this country, must turn over bank accounts, private books and records to anyone else in this free democratic society. I’m not about to stand up -- and, for good political reasons, that happens to strike the fancy of the leader of the third party -- offer to change that fundamental principle, as we see it in this party, for this particular situation.

Mr. McClellan: Ask Norton about it.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I’m not sure where the Leader of the Opposition is on this issue. I read him as saying both things during question period today. But I want to make my position perfectly clear. There’s no legislation which would require them to do that at this time, nor am I contemplating any legislation that would force them to do that.

Now, a study is going on. I think it’s only fair to point out that Westinghouse might have done what other firms, both multinational and Canadian, have done on other occasions: that is, begin by announcing a layoff rather than begin by announcing that a study is going on; announcing a layoff rather than begin by pointing out the good and bad parts of the current situation; and then pointing to the future in effect, saying, “Listen, there are some difficult times coming. We would like some co-operation from all those involved in this plant in this study and the study will be completed later this year.”

I can also add that if Westinghouse acts the way other companies have, most of that information ultimately is made available to us on a confidential basis. I might add that I’m quite proud of the record and the member’s seat mate, the member for -- where is he from? -- Sudbury, whatever, will be aware --

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is becoming a speech rather than a direct answer to a specific question. Do you have a supplementary?

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, given that the minister is not prepared to confront the multinational corporation which is threatening to take a major part of Hamilton’s economy away; and given the fact that Ontario Hydro and many Ontario firms arc major customers of the Westinghouse operation, is the minister prepared to bring in legislation to this House in order to prevent the switchgear operation being closed, and to compel Westinghouse Canada to make it available as an ongoing operation to some other company, if Westinghouse is not prepared to keep in the business themselves?

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Really, I’ll presume that was a serious question and answer no. We’re not prepared to bring in legislation to stop Westinghouse from closing any particular operation. Nor am I prepared to recommend legislation which would stop any company or, indeed, any citizen of this country from changing its, his or her place of operations.

I might suggest to the leader of the third party that to be consistent he should suggest that we ought to bring in legislation prohibiting certain parts of the labour force from uprooting and moving to different communities, simply because that would cause a disruption to the labour force and the industry in that particular community. We’re not going to dictate to firms and we’re not going to indicate to labour people where they should work, either.

PROPERTY TAXATION

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Premier in the absence of the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Maeck).

Given that the Minister of Revenue invoked

section 86 of the Assessment Act which equalizes assessments within classes, and which is his prerogative; given that 13 municipalities in Ontario have implemented

section 86; and given that there are a great number of increases in property taxes and assessments within these municipalities -- in fact, in two cases, the increases have been over 1,000 per cent -- is the government giving consideration to developing a formula whereby these people, these various property owners, are going to have to increase their taxes by only a certain amount per year?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, there was a supplementary from the member for Frontenac-Addington (Mr. McEwen) which is the first supplementary I have heard from him in my whole career here.

Mr. Riddell: Just answer the question.

Mr. Wildman: Tell us about the Argonauts, Bill.

Mr. Makarchuk: You mean there is a member there?

Mr. McEwen: Point of order.

Mr. Speaker: There isn’t a point of order. There is nothing out of order.

Mr. McEwen: I was only interjecting that the procedure of the government side of the House is to increase each one by 1,000 per cent.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will spend the rest of the afternoon trying to sort out what the honourable member really meant by that observation.

Mr. Martel: That was a former Tory. Did he belong to you fellows at one time?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am very careful, I would say to the honourable member --

Mr. Speaker: Please don’t say it. Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, you do a terrific job here. You are quite right. I will try to direct my attention to the question.

As I recall the question, there is some suggestion that the minister invoke

section whatever on the Assessment Act. I think if memory serves me correctly, the minister was requested to give the municipalities permissive opportunities to introduce this approach to market value assessment. I think the honourable member himself has, in terms of principle and philosophy, supported this. His party has been ambivalent in that maybe they want it and maybe they don’t, depending on where the by-election is, et cetera, et cetera.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am being interrupted by the member for Niagara Falls.

Mr. Speaker: Just ignore the interjections, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I can’t ignore him. I mean he’s such a delightful fellow. He’s probably in the conservative element of the Liberal Party. In fact that probably applies to about 50 per cent.

Mr. Martel: I was going to ask which ones weren’t.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don’t know that you have any cause to suggest anything today.

Mr. Martel: Well, I don’t belong to that motley group.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am not familiar with the exact provisions of the act but the honourable member has pointed out one of the complexities in the introduction of market value assessment. I have been in a community where we had market value assessment introduced some 10 years ago and there is the difficulty in the first six months or a year of sorting out some of the changes that take place.

I am not sure of this but I will check with the Minister of Revenue whether the municipality has the right to phase in some of these new tax situations. I think maybe they do. But I will certainly ascertain that from the minister and have him communicate directly to the member. I have read about some of the concerns in his particular community. The only encouraging thing for me is that he supports what is being done so enthusiastically. when we go to that great part of the province we say the local member is in favour of market value assessment and the municipality had followed his direction in seeing that it was introduced.

Mr. Roy: You might as well say that. You’ll never win --

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, given that the municipality of which I speak is not one that I represent but is in the same general area, in order to correct the record, and given that the Premier on many many occasions in his speeches across the province makes the contention that his government is such a great --

Mr. Speaker: “Given” is not a question. where, when, why, how.

Mr. Epp: In view of the fact that he contends that his government is doing such a great job in administering the affairs of this province, how does he reconcile these preposterous, these tremendous increases in these various municipalities with that kind of contention that he’s a good manager of the affairs of the province?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will take the first “given” as the part of the question that is most relevant -- where the honourable member does endorse the fact that we do a tremendous job in the governing of the affairs of the people of this province. I accept his congratulations and best wishes.

As it relates to the other part of his question, this is one of the problems that we raised in this Legislature. It’s one of these matters that was discussed, It’s interesting to see the leader of his own party wandering in to Scarborough West where his candidate can’t be elected, according to him, as a Liberal candidate; he has to run as an independent.

He is talking about the province imposing real property assessment when some of these members were in support of moving it ahead, Some of them were not, but I think it’s really a little bit strange to hear him come into this House now and tell us of the difficulties. we know of them and it’s up to the municipalities and ourselves to work together to see how we can assist in this rather complex issue, we have never minimized them. That’s why we didn’t move ahead on a province-wide basis, in spite of the fact that some people opposite have suggested we should in some areas of the province.

Mr. M. Davidson: Supplementary: Is the Premier aware that in the city of Kitchener alone taxes on some small businesses have increased by as much as 1,200 per cent, and municipal land held by the city of Cambridge in one instance rose by some 11,000 per cent? All of this in itself is imposing a great deal of hardship, not only on the community which must set its own tax base, but within the residential community on senior citizens who have been hit by maybe not quite as large an impact as that, but by a great percentage increase in many cases.

Rather than ask the minister as to whether or not there is a means whereby municipalities can implement the increase over a period of time, would the Premier suggest to the minister perhaps that where the situations are so serious he should be informing the municipalities that they should bring those increases in over a period of time rather than through a sudden increase?

Mr. Worton: Tell him how high is high.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I just want to make one thing very clear so that there is no misunderstanding. I’m sure the member didn’t mean to imply this in his initial question, but it wasn’t a case of the minister invoking or insisting, we were requested by the municipalities, which are presently faced with these difficulties to move into this at their initiative. It was their initiative.

I think the very distinguished member who asked me the question in the first place was perhaps part of a delegation that came to see us about it. I think I’m correct in that. Certainly he gave it his support; I can recall that.

Mr. Epp: That’s because the government froze assessments for eight years.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No one ever suggested there wouldn’t be some of these very obvious difficulties that have been related both in the press and here.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I’m sure the minister and his officials will be delighted to sit down with the municipalities to see what means can be developed to mitigate some of the major increases or escalations that take place. But the members opposite should understand that it’s great to talk in terms of principle and it’s great to be critical of us with respect to real property assessment or market value assessment, but it is incorrect, when the crunch comes, when we have done it on a voluntary basis, to come in here and try to tell us that we should have done it on a universal basis, or that we didn’t warn people as to the difficulties that are inherent in this.

Everybody talks about real property tax reform. A lot of people are in support of it, but it’s a very complex issue and one where I think we are wise in having certain municipalities move ahead to see what the problems are and see how we can assist them in straightening them out. I can assure the members the minister will be more than pleased to sit down with the heads of the municipalities and some of their officials to see in what ways we can be helpful. I lived through this for two years in my own area. I know some of the problems and they are not easy, although ultimately we were able, at least in that great region, to sort the vast majority of them out.

CO-PAYMENT FEES

Mr. Warner: I have a question of the Minister of Health. Since the decision regarding the placement of a patient should be based on a medical judgement, and for a chronically ill person that judgement should involve consideration of a chronic-care wing of a hospital, nursing home or a home-care program, and since this government has not provided these three basic types of care throughout the province, will the minister now withdraw his punitive $9.80 daily charge on those who are chronically ill?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I never cease to be amazed --

An hon. member: By trash.

Mr. Cassidy: We get amazed at the minister.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- at the antics of that party opposite, a party which in October --

Mr. Pope: Page 46.

Mr. Cooke: Read the whole thing.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- page 46, thank you very much -- caucused over the then draft select committee report. Finally, the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere and the member for Hamilton East on behalf of their caucus signed the report, which recommended that there be a per diem charge in chronic facilities to equalize the burdens of nursing homes.

In fact, we didn’t take their recommendation, inasmuch as it would have had the effect of charging from day one regardless of ability to pay, as in the case in some other provinces where, if one can’t pay, one goes on welfare.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That was the NDP Magna Carta.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Instead, we’ve come up with a system for chronic units or a chronic hospital which provides for a number of exemptions, particularly for those who are going to be rehabilitated back to the community, and is equitable and fair in comparison to a nursing home.

[3:15]

Mr. Riddell: That recommendation was made on the basis that there were other facilities.

Mr. Cooke: Or that there would be.

Mr. Warner: Continue with your distortion. Go ahead.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: In those cases, as we have said repeatedly, we are prepared to approve additional chronic or extended care beds where the need is identified through the local planning process. That has come to being in Ottawa where recently we announced the approval for the conversion of the Ottawa General Hospital for 200 chronic beds; it has come about in Windsor where, through the agreement of the hospitals with the health council, additional chronic care facilities are being provided; and it will come about in a great many more areas as soon as the need is identified.

We are prepared, Mr. Speaker, as well, as was indicated in the speech from the throne, to expand the chronic home care programs this year in a number of areas. I will I have more to say on that later in this session.

Mr. Warner: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: To the minister who refused to debate the report on the select committee on health care costs, does the minister realize that the committee agreed unanimously on page 37, and I quote, “that user fees by definition shift costs to those who are sick and therefore undermine one of the basic foundations of the scheme, but the committee contends to further penalize those who are sick, usually a condition beyond the control of the patient, would have a very adverse compounding effect upon what are already unfortunate circumstances”?

And, further, the committee realized and agreed that there is no need for this callous penny pinching binge that the minister is on, since the committee agreed unanimously that our health costs in Ontario are not out of line, in particular when compared with the United States --

Mr. Speaker: The question has been asked.

Mr. Warner: -- they are considerably less, because we have a public health care system and they have a private one --

Mr. Speaker: The question has been asked.

Mr. Warner: -- but the minister is out to try to destroy it.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, this grand con job on the member’s

part isn’t going to work. He knows as well as I do --

Mr. Cassidy: Don’t you speak of a con job. Hon. Mr. Timbrell: He knows as well as

I do that that

section of the report was referring to the various submissions the committee had had, that it recommended a dollar per service -- a couple of dollars per service and real user fees.

Mr. Cooke: Read the whole report.

Mr. Warner: You never even read the report.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: The member cannot escape the fact that the committee, after due consideration, and the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere in particular and his colleague, after caucusing the report, recommended that there be a per diem charge in chronic facilities.

Mr. Riddell: If other facilities were made available.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Warner: The minister continues to twist and distort. Twisting and distorting isn’t going to win you anything.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Read the report.

Mr. Mackenzie: On a point of personal privilege.

Mr. Warner: You know it was done in the context --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere sit down?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: And resign.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Does the honourable member for Hamilton East have a point of privilege?

Mr. Mackenzie: I think so, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Eaton: Trying to get out of what he signed. now.

Mr. Mackenzie: Well, we will find out. I think it is a point of privilege, because I consider a slur on my position on that committee the comments just made by the Minister of Health.

Mr. Eaton: You signed something you didn’t really mean to sign.

Mr. Mackenzie: If the Minister of Health has discussed with his colleagues on that committee he will understand that the discussion on that $9.80 -- and there was never a figure on it -- that went on in that committee dealt very specifically with what was a loophole in the legislation that allows a family to put into an active treatment bed a person who should be in a nursing care bed when there are not enough facilities for those beds and get away with pocketing the money. That was the context of the argument and he should understand it.

Interjections.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: That’s not true.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Order.

I am sure that the honourable member and all honourable members realize that when a member rises on a point of privilege he has a responsibility to indicate which of his privileges have been abrogated. I fail to see that you have.

FARM TARIFF CUTS

Mr. Rollins: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Agriculture and Food. In view of the announcement of the federal government on reducing tariffs on farm commodities, what consideration will be given to the producers in the province of Ontario?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Honourable Jean Chretien released the tariff report in Ottawa. There were some reductions. It is quite interesting to note that, not because of any particular time limit, the reductions became effective as of midnight last night

It is also interesting to note that the tariff equities that we have been fighting for for three and a half years are going to be changed from a cents per pound or fixed rate to a percentage. We do commend the federal government for that.

On the reductions, I only have to look at today’s paper: “Tariff Cuts May Squeeze One Cent Off US Orange Juice.” May I remind members we are interested here, in Canada and in Ontario, in selling our products. When we find our products, like carrots, selling at half the price of imported carrots today, apples at almost half the price of imported apples, onions at about half the price of imported onions, that is the sort of thing they should be working on, and we should all he drinking apple juice, tomato juice, or grape juice here in this province.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary: Can the minister inform the House if the other side of the federal announcement -- that is, increases in certain tariffs -- will be made applicable to protect some of the tender fruits and particularly the strawberry industry here? It is interesting to note that 90 days from now, unless something is done, the strawberry crop in this province will be lost unless there is some tariff protection. Is the minister using his good offices to apply this new policy to protect our own farmers?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, it is just unfortunate, as I said, the announcement last night said the reductions took place at midnight last night. The new increased protection or equities that we are asking for will not become effective until October 1, and will have to be done by legislation. So there will be less protection for our horticulture industry in the province of Ontario this summer than we had last summer. I think that is atrocious --

Mr. Nixon: I do, too.

Hon. W. Newman: -- when we have been fighting for this thing for thee and a half years.

JOB CREATION

Mr. Haggerty: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a question to the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, as it relates to the mineral policy paper number 4, put out by the Ministry of Natural Resources, Towards Nickel Policy for the Province of Ontario. There are a number of proposals that were recommended by the study; seven in all.

I want to know for example, if the minister has given any consideration to implementing some of them, such as to “encourage the refining in Ontario or Canada of the byproduct platinum group metals,” and to “intensify diversification of the Sudbury manufacturing base by encouraging the importation of Inco subsidiaries’ technical and nickel manufacturing expertise acquired through recent diversification, not now employed in Canada, for the purpose of creating new industry and employment in Sudbury”?

Has the minister accepted any of these proposals, or when can we look to the minister to implement some of these recommendations to create jobs in the Sudbury basin?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I will be discussing the matter further with my colleague, the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Auld), and I would expect he would have more to say to the House on that subject at a later time.

HOTEL DIEU HOSPITAL

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Health: Is the minister aware of the fact that on February 21 of this year 14 patients in Windsor had to stay overnight in Hotel Dieu’s emergency room because there were no beds available in the hospital, and that in order to get rooms available the following day other patients had to be released before they were ready to be released? Further, is the minister aware that in the opinion of Dr. Frank L.

Manforton, president of the Hotel Dieu medical staff, medical and legal risks are being taken in sending patients home prematurely, as well as in not admitting patients who should be admitted? Is this what the Minister of Health calls restraint of spending without a decrease in the quality of care?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: The honourable member will know that at this particular time of the year, during the winter period, many hospitals experience their peak utilization of any point during the year.

Any decision to discharge a patient must be based on medical judgement. Of course, no physician is going to put a person in jeopardy. Likewise, the decision to detain a person in emergency overnight would be based on the best interests of that patient. But I ask the member to recognize that at this time of the year we do face these peaks in utilization that will result in some inconveniences --

Mr. Wildman: What about reserve capacity?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- however, I am confident that the quality of the system is, in fact, being maintained.

MEDICAL SCHOOL ACCESS

Mr. Pope: My question is directed to the Minister of Education and Colleges and Universities. It arises from the Ontario medical school application service instruction booklet for the 1979 entering class, which is a guide for applicants to all medical schools in Ontario.

Of the five schools, three of them have geographical preferences. These preferences are set out in this pamphlet and in their own calendar material. The University of Ottawa openly gives preference to students who reside in the Ottawa-Outaouais area --

Mr. Speaker: Question?

Mr. Pope: McMaster University gives preference --

Mr. Speaker: Question?

Mr. Pope: My question is, how long has this open and co-ordinated discrimination existed against otherwise qualified students who reside in Ontario from Barrie to Moosonee and throughout most of eastern Ontario? Will the minister end it? Will the ministry compensate areas which have not had such favoured status by implementing compensatory geographical weighting factors of its own? Will the minister ascertains along with the Minister of Health, whether or not these policies have had an effect on the availability of trained medical personnel in northern Ontario, eastern Ontario and central Ontario?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: We will certainly attempt to determine whether, in fact, the policies which are enunciated now in these brochures have had any such effect.

I am aware that the University of Toronto and Queen’s University have no specific geographical policy in terms of the regions of Ontario affected.

It is my understanding that the universities, through the council of faculties of medicine, have attempted to ensure that there would be equal access to faculties of medicine for all students within the province by arranging that their catchment areas would be those designated within the document mentioned by my honourable colleague.

The University of Western Ontario specifically serves southwestern Ontario initially, then the remainder of the province. The university at Hamilton, known as McMaster, serves the Hamilton area, specifically, first and then northwestern Ontario. The University of Ottawa specifically serves the Ottawa-Outaouais region, which means, of course, that it is looking specifically as well at some students outside the province of Ontario. The faculties of medicine at the University of Toronto and Queen’s University state that they are to serve all of the students within the province of Ontario, with certain provisions made for some students from outside the province of Ontario.

If this in any way has proved to be an inhibition to the possibility of medical education for students from north-central Ontario and northeastern Ontario, we shall most certainly report this to the House. We will undertake that study.

Mr. Speaker: The time for oral questions has expired. I would just like to call members’ attention to the fact that we spent 43 minutes today on leaders’ questions and supplementaries.

Mr. T. P. Reid: How much on the answers?

Mr. Riddell: Is that the reason I can’t get a question on?

Mr. Speaker: That’s probably the main reason.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

FAMILY BENEFITS AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Peterson moved first reading of Bill 11,

An Act to amend the Family Benefits Act.

Motion agreed to.

[3:30]

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I axe sure the minister is going to support this because it is something we feel very strongly about on this side of the House. It is a bill to provide equal status under the Family Benefits Act for men and for women who are parents of dependent children. We have an anachronistic law now and unfortunately, my bill does not clean up all of the irregularities in the Family Benefits Act by a long shot, Mr. Speaker, but it does go to address a specific one.

There are a number of specific cases in this province at this time that need this help and I feel very confident the minister will address his mind to this and will support it because it is just and it is equitable and it is the only fair thing in the circumstances.

LANDLORD AND TENANT AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Warner moved first reading of Bill 12,

An Act to amend the Landlord and Tenant Act.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Warner: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the bill is one with which the committee agrees unanimously. It is to ensure that a landlord cannot prevent tenants from using a common room in order to meet with political candidates nor their representatives or those who are elected to office. It is introduced --

Mr. Eaton: We already did that in the act, what are you trying to pull?

Mr. Warner: -- because the present bill will not be through the House until after the by-elections. We ask that this bill be put on the order paper and dealt with by Friday.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Resumption of the adjourned debate on the motion for an address in reply to the speech of the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.

Mr. Eaton: Better get rid of your leader.

Mr. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, the speech from the throne contained, as we have come to expect over the last several years, very little of direction, very little that is new, and very little to indicate to us the government has a sense of what’s wrong in Ontario and a plan for how to cope with it.

One could, of course, speak at length on a great many issues touching almost every aspect of life in the province and certainly every ministry but surely, in the amount of time that is reasonably at our disposal, the public would be better served and this House would be better served if in reply to the motion and in reply to the speech if we were to focus in greater depth on one or two matters rather than try to cover the broad waterfront of issues that affect us all.

I think the two matters which I would particularly like to share with this House, the matters on which I have some thoughts to present at this time, are fundamentally to do both with the industries upon which we all depend in Ontario; and the second matter, to do with the matter of electrical generation, the situation of Ontario Hydro.

Let us deal first of all with the question of our industrial situation in this province. We know that Ontario is the manufacturing heartland of this country and yet we know also that we have been losing manufacturing jobs in Ontario at an enormous rate. The thousands and thousands of jobs that are leaving Ontario and that are disappearing from the manufacturing sector have been well documented by the Science Council of Canada in recent studies. There seems to have been a kind of de-industrialization, about which I spoke in last year’s speech, in similar circumstances to those we find ourselves in today.

This de-industrialization finds us relying more and more, as a nation, on our raw resources and less and less able to compete in the world in the field of high technology manufacturing -- any kind of manufacturing for that matter. This is a very disturbing matter for Ontarians in particular, because we are, after all, the province that depends mostly on manufacturing.

It is interesting that as we have been sort of churning through this heavy going on industrial strategy, we have finally come to a real parting of the ways between the government of Ontario and the party which I have the honour to lead. We find two fundamental issues upon which we have very important differences of opinion and of policy. The first has to do with what I call corporate responsibility.

Let me take you back for a moment, Mr. Speaker, to the fundamental question of what is a corporation. A corporation is not a person. It should not be regarded as having the human attributes that each person has, each of us sitting here would have, each person going about his daily work would have. A corporation is a device, it is a means to an end; the end, of course, is the more efficient production of goods and services in a society and one hopes, ultimately, their faker distribution as well.

But the means to the end is, of course, the corporation by which we permit large aggregations of capital to occur with certain protections by law, certain protections with regard to tax, with regard to liability, and we allow these capital aggregations to come together with expertise, with initiative, with labour, to produce goods and services efficiently in a competitive enterprise for the good of society.

Let’s remember that. It must be for the good of society, and what we in the Liberal Party have said, for lo, these many years, is that there has to be an element of corporate responsibility, that the notion that corporations are fundamentally out to maximize profits for their shareholders is an accurate statement of how a system works and how, if you will, it is fuelled. That’s the motive source but it’s not the purpose of the system. The purpose of the system must still be the efficient production of goods and services and their rational and fair distribution in the society.

Mr. Wildman: In order to maximize profits.

Mr. S. Smith: My friends in the NDP feel profit is the end of corporations and I would suspect it is the only goal that would probably be seen by the Conservatives as well, but I don’t believe that. I believe the corporation is a device that serves society, and I believe that the seeking of profit, which is an excellent motive, is the motive force which allows corporations to, in fact, produce more and be efficient. If they did not seek profit then there would be no incentive to be efficient.

Having said that corporate responsibility is one of the things that divides the Liberal Party from the Conservative Party in Ontario, I want to expand on that a bit. We see corporate responsibility in a number of areas, but primarily four.

The first is responsibility, of course, to the planet, to the environment. It would be unthinkable that corporations should be allowed to despoil the planet, to render inhospitable the very means of existence, the very surroundings upon which we expect our children and their children to depend for life and for sustenance. So clearly corporations must have environmental responsibility as, for that matter, must all citizens.

Secondly, and this was at issue during our discussion during the question period and the ministerial statements today, there must be a community responsibility on the part of corporations. The tremendous investment which communities must make when corporations locate there are much clearer to see in small towns, in one- or two-industry towns, where, as we all know, the sewers and roads have to be put in, houses have to be built for the workers, schools and playgrounds have to be built for the workers’ children, and so on.

We can see very plainly in the one- or two-industry towns the enormous public investment that exists in a corporation. Of course, one can become a little more abstract and refer also to the educational endowment which is given to corporations, inasmuch as the people working there have been educated at the expense of the community. It is not difficult to see.

Sometimes, when you get into larger cities and when the infrastructure seems almost to exist separately from the industrial needs, it is not as easy to see that there is a community investment in each corporation. But there is indeed.

There are times in free enterprise when it is necessary to abandon a factory, when it is necessary even to abandon a whole industry. These are very unfortunate times, but they happen. If you did not have a free enterprise system which permitted this to happen, you would artificially try to keep alive enterprises which in fact were not producing well for society, and no one would be the long-term gainer in that situation.

None the less, there must be an accounting. There must be a way in which the investment of a community in a factory can be calculated and compared to the differences in profit that might accrue by closing down a plant in one place and opening it in another.

To take an extreme example, it would not be sensible to move a plant to make an extra $1 million for a corporation if it is clearly going to cost society $50 million to have that move occur. There has to be some kind of an accounting, some way that we rationalize these matters.

We see, therefore, that the time has come to recognize that communities have responsibilities to their corporations; that governments have responsibilities to treat corporations fairly, to recognize how the system works and to help them prosper; but also that corporations have responsibilities to communities. That is a very important matter. When the time comes that a corporation feels it must close a major plant, the day should be over when it can do that simply as a corporate decision, without any consideration for the community responsibilities which exist.

A third responsibility of corporations must surely be the responsibility to the labour force of the corporation. Over the years I have seen the barricade mentality by which the workers on one side and management on the other view each other with distrust and use whatever kind of protective and offensive devices they seem able to obtain by means of law or by means of persuasion. I find it very sad.

If this country is ever going to survive internationally, particularly in manufacturing -- upon which Ontario depends -- there is going to have to be a sense of partnership, a sense of mutual loyalty, between corporation management and worker. That is not going to come when corporations feel they can just shut down a plant and ignore the investment which individual working people have made throughout their lives in that corporation and in that plant.

Similarly, it is not going to come if labouring people insist on always being counted out and counted as outsiders when it comes to having to make some tough decisions to keep corporations viable. There must be a sense of mutual involvement Part of that can be sharing information with the representatives of workers. Part of that can be profit-sharing. Part of that can be share distribution. Part of that can be seats on decision-making boards and so on.

But surely the government ought to start to take some initiative to break down the barriers and to create an atmosphere of more mutual work, rather than antagonistic concern.

[3:45]

The fourth responsibility of corporations, I’m not ashamed to say, must surely be a patriotic responsibility. It must surely be a responsibility to the nation in which the corporation is attempting to prosper. It grieves me to see what has happened in that regard, but I’ll have more to say about that in a little while.

I said, at the outset, that there were two very important differences between the Conservative Party of Ontario and the Liberal Party of Ontario. The first is our sense of corporate responsibility. The second is the degree to which we are very deeply worried about, and very determined to do something about, the extent of foreign domination of our economy. I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that it has never been clearer that there is a very major difference between the government of Ontario and ourselves.

I have made some statements in recent days concerning the need for a code of behaviour for corporations, so that foreign-owned corporations would conduct themselves in a manner conducive to the benefit of Canada and of Ontario. These have been regarded with some derision and some fear on the part of the government, the fear being that -- and I quote the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman) -- “in the international community, we will not be able to attract more branch plants to Ontario.”

I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that we do not need to attract more branch plants to Ontario; we need to help the Canadian companies that are struggling here now to get on their feet and become corporate enterprises that can compete in Ontario, in Canada and in the world.

Everyone knows it would make a lot of sense for this country to have a policy of lower interest rates so as to encourage more investment, so as to encourage more renewal of plants, so as to encourage more construction of housing and so on. We all know the benefits lower interest rates would bring; yet we’re locked into a situation where we have to have, over and over again, higher interest rates. What is the reason for that?

The reason given by the governor of the Bank of Canada is that our balance of payments deficit is so great that the only way we could keep from having a massive run on the dollar would be to raise our interest rates sufficiently that foreign money, mostly American, would come into the country to take advantage of these high interest rates, and, in coming into the country, would temporarily restore a balance which otherwise runs against this country in terms of our current accounts.

Yet why is money leaving this country so rapidly year by year that we require high interest rates to bring money in to balance that? What is the reason for the outflow of the money in the first place, the outflow that prevents us from having the kind of economic policy that would help us grow?

The reason is not a trade deficit because in trade at the moment we’re running a small surplus. Unfortunately we export mostly raw materials and that’s not good for the future of the country; but still, it’s a small surplus.

Hon. Mr. Davis: There’s a slight tourism deficit.

Mr. S. Smith: There’s a slight tourism deficit, indeed. There is indeed. People are fond of referring to it; it certainly is a problem, but it’s nothing like the real problem --

Mr. Nixon: All those Fort Lauderdale condominiums.

Mr. S. Smith: -- which is approximately $5 billion leaving this country in dividends, interest and service charges, management fees and other service charges, and profits, and going to those who own the bulk of industry but who are not themselves Canadians. That is the main drain on the economy of this country.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You are going to end up voting for Joe. You really are.

Mr. Nixon: You may end up voting against him, if you know what’s good for you.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I read Mel’s speech to your convention on the weekend. I said to myself: “The Liberal Party of Ontario now appears to support the Tories federally.”

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Roy: Not quite.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Did you read what he said?

Mr. Roy: The federal Tories have no economic policy.

Mr. Young: Bill, he is just trying to separate himself from the federal Liberals; that’s all.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. S. Smith: The $5 billion which is being drained out of this country year by year will increase as each year goes by, so that added billions will be leaving our country. In order to make up for that, we will have to have massive trade surpluses or, of course, continue to increase our interest rates -- hurting our economy -- to attract more and more short-term or medium-term capital to temporarily balance the flow.

The investment we once needed in this country now has grown to the point where we are being drained daily by our foreign owners. We have come to the sad state of affairs where we must hope to raise our own interest rates high enough that the people to whom we owe all that money will be willing to lend some of it back to us temporarily so we will look okay on the balance sheet for the moment, knowing full well that means we will owe them even more a few years down the road. That is the terrible downward spiral that our country and our province are on.

Ontario, as a manufacturing centre, suffers the most from these high interest rates and from this drain on our economy. Ontario should therefore not be encouraging more branch plants in the province, but should be encouraging Canadian-owned enterprises to grow and to prosper.

These are two very vital differences between the government and the official opposition in Ontario: corporate responsibility and our attitude towards foreign domination of the economy.

Mr. S. Smith: Yesterday I spoke of the need to have a code of corporate behaviour. I was told by the Minister of Industry and Tourism that he would like to see such a code. Such a code, said he, is just some type of silliness which would frighten away foreign investment. Heaven knows, we have enough foreign investment; but he does not want to frighten it away. He feels that kind of code would make us uncompetitive in seeking branch plants -- and he likes branch plants.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You don’t like branch plants, but I tell you there are a lot of people in Brampton who are delighted to be working at American Motors.

Mr. S. Smith: I will present to you today, Mr. Speaker, that code of behaviour for corporations.

The Premier went to Japan, and he came back terribly enthusiastic because Panasonic, if I remember correctly, was going to assemble a few pieces and possibly put them in a package in Ontario. He thought that was a wonderful thing: “Think of the jobs it would create.”

There are all kinds of Ontario industries dying to get the kind of backing and support so that they can go out and make an assault on the markets of the world, and they don’t get the support of the Premier. But Panasonic thrilled him.

Hon. Mr. Davis: We didn’t give them a nickel.

Mr. S. Smith: Unfortunately, he is not ahead of his time; he is well behind the times.

I want to set out today some of the main elements of our approach to economic policy. The first is to reiterate the industrial strategy which our finance critic, the member for London Centre (Mr. Peterson), and I have been speaking about for years now, from one end of the province to the other and in the Legislature.

There are nine major points and, at the risk of repeating some of the material that was in Hansard a year ago and two years ago, I am going to underline the nine major points of the industrial strategy which we are recommending.

First of all, we believe there must be, as I was saying earlier, support for Canadian-owned business. We must favour Canadian-owned business. If we are giving out money, it should be to Canadian enterprises. It should be for the clear purpose of making these Canadian enterprises truly competitive and making them the kinds of enterprises that will provide a future for our children. That’s the first element.

Secondly, there must be a code of behaviour. If foreign-owned companies are to be part of a general industrial strategy, then they must abide by a code of behaviour in which they act as Canadian companies should act. I’ll give an example, Honeywell has discovered and invented in Canada a certain device that has to do with lighting and lighting intensity. They can market that device throughout the world. Their parent company is apparently willing to do the research here, to let them do their own product development and market the product back into the United States and around the world.

If they’re willing to do that, then I would feel that they are acting in the Canadian interest with regard to that product. Under such circumstances, I am prepared to treat Honeywell or any other foreign-owned company on the same basis as a Canadian-owned firm. The key element for me is that the foreign-owned company would have to abide by a set of criteria which would indicate that its behaviour would be that of a Canadian-owned corporation. I’ll set out these criteria in a moment.

The third aspect of the industrial strategy concerns purchasing policies. The government of Ontario must adopt purchasing policies which are “buy Canadian.” I don’t simply mean putting up signs saying, “Shop Canadian” or “Turn Over a New Leaf.” That’s not the issue. The issue is to use the purchasing power of this government, Ontario Hydro, the municipalities, hospitals and school boards to buy Canadian.

Furthermore, we should also use the power we have over large mining corporations and large paper companies to make them buy Canadian pollution control equipment, and to make them buy Canadian in their pulp and paper equipment wherever possible. Give them whatever incentives are required to make them buy Canadian because it’s a good deal for us. In fact, the Canadian Science Council recently released a study to indicate that even if the product cost 76 per cent more, it’s more advantageous to the society as a whole to purchase the Canadian product than the foreign-made product. Their figures may be out, hut it’s obviously a good deal to buy Canadian.

Look for a moment at what we’re losing. A billion dollars is going to be spent this year on pulp and paper to renovate old plants and to buy new equipment. Yet about half of that money will go outside the country. Why should we have to import equipment for the forestry industry? Why should we have to import mining equipment, as we now do with regard to almost every large piece of mining equipment, when we used to export on a large scale? What happened to these industries in Ontario? How could the Conservatives for the last 36 years sit back and watch us lose industry after industry in the manufacturing sector in Ontario and still claim to be economic managers? We must purchase in Canada.

Fourthly, our industrial strategy must allow for specialization. We’re not going to get anywhere by simply supporting every kind of corporation in every kind of area. We must specialize in those things that we can do well in this country. To begin with, we should choose those for which there is a large domestic market. We’re a small country in terms I of population but we have a large domestic market in mining, forestry, agriculture, communications and transportation. There are large domestic markets in areas related to energy, to fisheries, to oceanography and to aeronautics. In areas such as those, we must focus I our strategy.

Fifthly, there is research and development. We must protect a certain portion of our home market for labour-intensive industry. But in terms of world competition the Third World will almost always be able to beat us in a labour-intensive sector. What we must concentrate on is technology-intensive industry. That means a vast increase in research and development. That is where we should be put ting government money. We must bring together the universities, the research establishments and the large companies with the potential suppliers to those large companies.

Bring together Inco with the pollution control manufacturers. Bring together Texasgulf with the mining-machinery maker. Bring the universities in so they can do their research the way that fits our industrial strategy.

[4:00]

Sixthly, we have education and manpower planning. There is no point getting into manufacturing if we don’t have the people to do it. What an abject failure of the system of education in Ontario it is that even for the manufacturing jobs that are available today there aren’t the people available to fill those jobs, while hundreds of thousands of people are without work in Ontario. What an ironic tribute to the man who is now Premier and was Minister of Education that the education system that has cost us billions and billions of dollars has not prepared the people for the jobs that we knew perfectly well would exist. That’s what has happened.

We have spoken about apprenticeship. We’ve spoken about on-the-job training. We’ve spoken about the need for skilled trades and the need for polytechnic education where one can have a job-oriented education at the same time one is getting a good, reasonable, liberal arts type of education. What’s happened? We have one polytechnic in Ontario at a time when high-technology industries should be our salvation. We have one polytechnic at Ryerson. It is now seriously threatened in terms of its financial viability by the shortsightedness of the Davis government.

The seventh point has to do with financing. We must have a program that encourages our financial institutions to lend money to small and medium-sized Canadian enterprises. I hear so many times about the Canadian company that gets a loan to start up a business of $10,000, $15,000 or $25,000. They work really hard at it. They finally develop a business, refine a product line, start to make contacts, get the feel of where they’re going and see an opportunity for their product. Then they go back to the bank and say:

“I’ve got to get into production. I need $150,000 or $250,000.”

The bank says: “My goodness, you already owe so much, and you don’t have much in the way of assets that you can borrow against. Really, you don’t have a track record! Frankly, what have you ever done? You don’t have a great record of achievement, and that’s a pretty risky thing. I’ll tell you what my friend, why don’t you get some managerial expertise?” For which we may read, get an American buyer.

He comes back with a big American purchaser -- sometimes a Canadian purchaser, but more often an American -- who is willing to guarantee the loan. The loan is given to the American company, using Canadian money to buy out the Canadian company, so that this guy can finally get into production. At that point, if anything good comes of the product, it’s taken back home by the American company and further developed in the American home industry. That has happened time and time again. That is the story of industrial development in Ontario.

The province of Ontario has not so much as lifted one finger to do anything to get the financial institutions of this province to start to favour the new enterprises that are Canadian

Mr. Cassidy: How about the federal Liberals who revised the Bank Act?

Mr. Bounsall: That’s the Liberals’ fault.

Mr. S. Smith: -- and the small and medium-sized Canadian enterprises. They have done absolutely zero. They have not so much as spoken to the financial institutions about it, let alone introduce tax changes or other changes that might have encouraged the banks and trust companies to start to take a different attitude towards emerging Canadian businesses.

Mr. Cassidy: Why don’t you confront the Liberals up in Ottawa?

Mr. Eaton: They are the ones who control the Bank Act.

Mr. S. Smith: The eighth point has to do with an attitude --

Mr. M. N. Davison: Why leave the seventh point so quickly?

Mr. Cassidy: Yes, you were doing so well.

Mr. Kerrio: My God, they are awake.

Mr. Breithaupt: There are not many of them but they are at least awake.

Mr Watson: Seven is a lucky number.

An hon. member: Who wants to talk to Jack Homer?

Mr. Eaton: Some of your pals are falling asleep back there.

Mr. S. Smith: I take it that the members of the other two parties have detected that there’s a certain difference between the policy I’m putting forward and the policy that has been adopted by successive federal governments over the years. They’re quite right. There is, in fact, a difference. There is no doubt that the comments I’ve made about foreign domination of the economy represent a certain difference, but they most certainly also represent a very severe difference that we have with the government of Ontario.

There were the comments of the Minister of Industry and Tourism who was worried about whether or not the international investment community would take offence at a code of corporate ethics and perhaps not locate branch plants here. He expressed that worry only yesterday. There is a very severe difference between us.

If I may get to the eighth point in our industrial strategy -- and this point is a little less easy for us to deal with in government -- it has to do with the attitude of Canadians. Nothing got me angrier in the last little while than the fact that, one week after the United States recognized the People’s Republic of China, they bad Coca-Cola trucks there; they had an agreement to put in satellites and to teach them how to open up educational television channels.

What have we managed to do with China in the eight years since we recognized them? Sell them wheat. It would take a pretty inept individual to be unable to sell wheat to a hungry person.

What have we done? What has the government of Ontario done in its Ministry of Industry and Tourism? What has happened? Why could we not be opening up educational television channels in China? We have the expertise; we have trained teachers looking for things to do because of declining enrolment. We have lots of things we could have been selling to China, but we have not been doing it.

We have not been aggressive enough. It did not take the Americans a week before they were in there with all their products. They will have a McDonald’s in China pretty soon.

In Ontario, we are somehow just not in the game. A lot of that is attitude.

Maybe some of it is a reflection of a school system that has downgraded the idea of competition and produces people who think of themselves mainly as having a future working for large corporations, government, and service industries, rather than as entrepreneurs. Even our business schools hardly ever produce entrepreneurs in this province and in this country.

We could see this happening to us, and yet in our educational system we have done pitifully little in Ontario. We have not given guidance to people to lead them into entrepreneurial and aggressive, competitive kinds of occupations. We have been quite content to sit and bask in the enjoyment of this beautiful province without ever thinking about the future.

The ninth point has to do with labour-management relations. As I have said earlier, we have to change our system of labour relations. Employees have to be brought in so that they truly understand the financial position of the company they are working for. We cannot expect unions to settle for low wage increases on the basis that the company needs to be competitive, if the union members do not believe what the company is telling them and if the union members have never had the opportunity to be given reason to believe what they are being told. Unions should have a stake. Workers should be represented; they should have access to genuine information.

We should all be getting away from the barricades which, as I said earlier, have operated in the labour-management field. Neither unions nor management wish to do this. Many of the unions say they will be co-opted; they would rather be on the outside and fighting. Many management people say they do not want union people messing about with the decision-making of a company.

Today there is even an editorial in the Spectator saying that such a suggestion that working people might actually have a say in the affairs of a company is tantamount to socialism. In fact, they say I should apologize to the leader of the third party for stealing what they consider to be his ground.

Mr. Cassidy: When you come to the crunch, you never stand with the workers; everybody knows that.

Mr. S. Smith: There. You have just heard from the leader of the NDP -- did you hear that? -- if it comes to the crunch, will you stand with the workers? The old barricade mentality. Neither of the other parties and neither management nor labour seems to understand that we have to get away from the polarization; we have got to get away from the barricades. We are all in the same boat, and it is about time we started working together.

Government could give incentives to those companies that have share distribution plans, that have profit-sharing, that involve their workers in decision-making. There are things government can do in this regard.

That represents the nine points of industrial strategy which I am happy to share with the members of this House.

I promised the Minister of Industry and Tourism that I would present a code of corporate behaviour for foreign-controlled firms operating in Ontario. What I am putting before the Legislature is not intended to be a fully comprehensive code, but rather a framework in which such a code can and should be developed. The code would include at least the following components:

First of all, subsidiaries of foreign multinational corporations should at the minimum undertake research and development activities in Ontario in industries where the Canadian domestic market is large enough to justify such operations. I give as an example electrical generation, which of course we are talking about in Hamilton. Subsidiaries must be permitted to design, develop and market new products rather than only market existing products which involve no innovative research and development. That is the first sentence I would have in a code of corporate behaviour for foreign-owned corporations.

Secondly, subsidiaries should be permitted by the parent corporation to buy component parts and services under the most competitive market conditions, rather than being locked into mandatory purchasing agreements with the parent corporation. Frequently the subsidiary in Canada simply acts as a customer for the parts, components, design, services and management that are so-called expertise that it has to buy from its parent company. If the parts and components are available elsewhere, the company in Canada should not have to send large sums of money across the border unnecessarily; it should be able to buy at the most competitive price and value situation.

Thirdly, subsidiaries should be in a position to allow products developed in Ontario to be exported freely to all international markets, including the domestic market of the parent corporation. We shouldn’t just have companies interested in putting things out in a mediocre way for the domestic market. If they have the talent, if they have developed the products, they should be free to market these things on behalf of Canada, for the good of Ontario, elsewhere in the world including the home market of their parent company.

Fourthly, subsidiaries should ensure that Canadians form a majority on their boards of directors.

Fifthly, subsidiaries should be prepared to plough back profits into their Canadian operations in order to assist their growth and development.

There are two additional conditions that are part of this corporate code of behaviour which would apply to foreign-controlled and Canadian corporations alike. Firstly, corporations should acknowledge their responsibility to the communities in which they are located, and recognize that those communities have a vested interest in those factories and plants that cannot be moved or shut down with impunity. I spoke about that at the beginning of my response to the speech from the throne when I started earlier this afternoon.

Secondly, corporations should also acknowledge their responsibility to their work forces. Corporations contemplating disruptions to their work forces should be obliged to discuss any changes with their workers. They should not be allowed simply to announce layoffs or cutbacks, even in accordance with the law, and assume no responsibility for the impact of their decision.

Those seven points -- five that apply particularly to foreign-owned corporations and two that apply to both kinds of corporations, foreign-owned and Canadian -- represent for me the outline of a code of corporate behaviour, something the Minister of Industry and Tourism may scoff at but which I say is long overdue in Ontario.

All of the components I have outlined and possibly others could be worked out in consultation with labour and business leaders to ensure an environment is created that will provide the greatest benefit to the economy of this province.

Compliance with this code of corporate behaviour would be sought first through the use of moral suasion. I hope most foreign-owned corporations in Ontario have a large enough stake in this province to want to fulfil their role as good corporate citizens.

However, secondly, the government of Ontario must have a meaningful buy-Canadian policy. Non-Canadian firms would only be eligible under this policy if they demonstrated their willingness to behave like Canadian companies. In other words, if a company failed to adopt the corporate code I am recommending, then the government would not give it the favourable treatment it ought to be according to Canadian corporations, and which it would accord to such corporations under the industrial strategy I outlined a little earlier.

[4:15]

If the foreign-owned corporations are to participate in any of the benefits -- any of the investment changes, any of the tax changes, any of the purchasing policies -- then they will have to abide by the corporate code of behaviour. That is reasonable.

After so many years as a client state, surely the time has come for this country and this province to stand on their own feet and say to these people, who seem to own so much of our industry, particularly in manufacturing, “Look, we appreciate that you came in with your capital when we needed it. Now we want to work together. But we want you to act like good corporate citizens of this country and to take your responsibilities very seriously, indeed.”

Mr. Nixon: Come on, Jim, you agree with that.

Mr. S. Smith: An economic strategy for Ontario must be based, of course, on good government management --

Mr. M. N. Davison: What happens when they ignore your code?

Mr. S. Smith: -- of those economic and industrial resources under its direct control.

Mr. M. N. Davison: What happens when they ignore the code, Stuart?

Mr. S. Smith: I am being asked a question, Mr. Speaker, by one of the members of the third party. He wants to know what happens if they ignore the code. Basically, I thought I answered that question. But, for his edification and clarification, and because I appreciate his interest, I will simply say this: If they ignore the code, they carry on doing business, but they cannot get any of the benefits I am suggesting will accrue to Canadian-owned corporations as a result of a “buy-Canadian” policy. They cannot get any of the benefits in financing which will accrue as a consequence of our policies.

They would not get any outright grants or any particularly favourable loans from the government of the province --

Mr. Watson: The Liberals would cut them out of the ballpark.

Mr. S. Smith: -- they would, in fact, continue to do business as it is everyone’s freedom and right to do; but they will, in fact --

Mr. M. N. Davison: Larry Grossman has nothing to worry about, then. That’s not going to scare anyone.

Mr. S. Smith: -- they will in fact not get the benefits that I have outlined.

The member says the Minister of Industry and Tourism will have nothing to worry about. He is quite right. Since there is no policy in the government of Ontario to favour Canadian businesses, there is no reason in the world why a multinational branch plant should have to worry about the government’s opinion of it. But, once you have a proper “buy Canadian,” “favour Canadian,” “support Canadian” industry policy, it becomes meaningful to be classified with those particular corporations. Then, I tell you, Mr. Speaker, the branch plants will be happy to respond to a proper code of behaviour.

If they do not do so, they are on their own. They can expect nothing in the way of special treatment that the government will offer Canadian enterprise.

I think I have shown sufficient respect in taking a little time to answer the member’s question. I hope members will permit me to continue my remarks, because I want to move on to another topic.

As I say, an economic strategy for Ontario has to be based on good government management of those economic and industrial resources under its direct control. It is counter-productive, to say the least, to try to excite and influence the private sector of the economy into certain directions if, in the public sector, the government is stumbling in the opposite direction.

As I have already indicated, the most important economic resource under the government’s direct control is tax and fiscal policy. Eighteen per cent of Ontario’s gross provincial product is controlled by the Premier, Treasurer and cabinet of this province. Their record, of course, is one of gross overspending in relation to revenues, and a tremendous year-over-year building up of provincial debt. It would be absurd to expect the Ontario economy to be more efficient, to be more competitive, to be more investment-oriented, to be less inflationary, as long as the government of Ontario continues to drown it in red ink.

The practice, if not the policy, of the Davis administration has been to throw life preservers with one hand while pushing us under with the other. We have had countless protestations of reform and improvement but, every year, after the propaganda fog lifts, we see that the ocean of red ink is larger than ever.

Now we have a new Treasurer and his first major initiative is to throw a $100-million lifeline to the pulp and paper industry, an industry which, with rare exception, is enjoying good cash flow and profits, paying high dividend