Hon Janet Ecker, Minister of
Education
Mr Maurice Proulx, ADM, French-language education and educational
operations
Mr Norbert Hartmann, ADM, elementary/secondary business and
finance division
Mr Aryeh Gitterman, director, policy and program branch
Ms Sue Herbert, Deputy Minister
Ms Nancy Naylor, director, education finance branch
Ministry of Health and
Long-Term Care
Hon Elizabeth Witmer, Minister
of Health and Long-Term Care
STANDING COMMITTEE ON
ESTIMATES
Chair /
Président
Mr Gerard Kennedy (Parkdale-High Park L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough-Rouge River L)
Mr Gilles Bisson (Timmins-James Bay / Timmins-Baie James
ND)
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough-Rouge River L)
Mr Gerard Kennedy (Parkdale-High Park L)
Mr Frank Mazzilli (London-Fanshawe PC)
Mr John O'Toole (Durham PC)
Mr Steve Peters (Elgin-Middlesex-London L)
Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough PC)
Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Brian Coburn (Ottawa-Orléans)
Mr Joseph Spina (Brampton Centre / -Centre PC)
Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford PC)
Clerk pro tem/ Greffière par intérim
Ms Susan Sourial
Staff / Personnel
Ms Anne Marzalik, research officer,
Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1546 in room 228.
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
The Vice-Chair (Mr
Alvin Curling): We'll recommence consideration of the
estimates for the Ministry of Education.
At this time we'll just do
some housekeeping. We've got about an hour and 32 minutes left.
We ended off yesterday with the Liberals, and we will start with
the Conservatives.
Mr Gilles Bisson
(Timmins-James Bay): Do I look like a Conservative?
The
Vice-Chair: You're so far right, you're left.
We will start with the NDP.
Twenty minutes to the NDP, 20 minutes to the government side and
20 minutes to the Liberals. That will leave us with approximately
32 minutes.
I want to ask if you approve
that we have 10 minutes each to wrap up afterwards and then have
the vote. Could I have consideration of that? Any consensus?
Mr Bisson:
No. Rotation.
The
Vice-Chair: You want rotation? Rotation it'll be.
Mr Gerard Kennedy
(Parkdale-High Park): If I could speak to that, it would
disadvantage our party. In the last estimates we did, we split
the remaining time equally among all parties. I hope that's not a
petty consideration. I think we should be willing to make sure
everyone ends up with the same time.
Interjection: Speak to Mr
Bisson.
Mr Bisson: I
might just allow that to happen, depending on the answers I get
from the minister.
The
Vice-Chair: I'll take that up later on, then. Mr Bisson,
you've got 20 minutes.
Mr Bisson:
Welcome to the estimates committee, Minister. It's always a
pleasure to have you with us. There are a couple of things I want
to bring to your attention in regard to what is happening, or not
happening in some cases, with education in my part of the
province, in northern Ontario. In no particular order, maybe
we'll just get started. If you'll put the translation on-this is
in relation to francophone issues.
Hon Janet Ecker
(Minister of Education): Certainly.
M. Bisson :
Vous savez qu'un des effets de la formule de financement que vous
avez mise en place c'est que, dans les communautés comme
Raymore, Iroquois Falls, Val Gagné et d'autres
communautés comme Opasatika, les petites écoles qui ne
sont pas pleines à capacité, selon votre formule de
financement, sont en danger de fermer l'année prochaine.
Dans les conseils public et
séparé francophones de notre région, les conseils
ont fait des manoeuvres pour pouvoir garder les écoles dans
ces communautés. Mais, comme vous le savez, puis je sais que
vous avez ce dossier à coeur, quand on reste dans une
communauté de 600 ou 700 personnes, on a l'école à
laquelle on peut envoyer nos jeunes et on trouve, parce que la
population de la communauté rétrécit, qu'il est
très difficile de remplir ces écoles.
Dans la situation
d'Opasatika, on trouve une école où peut-être
60 % de l'espace est rempli par les élèves. À
cause de ça et de la nouvelle formule de financement qui
exige que les écoles sont remplies à surcapacité,
ces écoles sont en danger de fermer.
Je veux savoir, de la part
des étudiants, des enseignants et enseignantes et du village
d'Opasatika, comme Val Gagné et d'autres communautés
à travers la province, quel plan vous avez en place pour
nous assurer qu'on ne va pas fermer ces écoles, qu'on va
permettre à ces jeunes-là, au moins ceux dans les
premières années, de continuer leur éducation dans
leur propre village, et qu'on ne va pas les mettre dans des
autobus pour les envoyer 60 ou 70 kilomètres sur les chemins
hivernalux du nord de l'Ontario pour aller à l'école
ailleurs.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Merci, monsieur Bisson. The rural communities,
you're quite right, are a very important priority. One of the
reasons we are doing the work with school boards right now is to
take a look at some of those issues. We've asked school boards to
submit to us their long-range capital plans and some of the
challenges they see in terms of meeting those. There's no
question that to have effective programming, you need a certain
number of students in order to provide that. On the other hand,
there are communities where, because of vast distances, it's very
difficult to provide students with that schooling.
We're looking at those issues
right now to see if we can better support boards in making
decisions about accommodation. They are very difficult, and for a
smaller community in a remote area they are extremely
important.
M. Bisson:
Mais je pense que vous allez accepter qu'à la fin de la
journée, c'est une question de financement. Soit on a une
politique dans la province qui dit que notre gouvernement provincial, qui est responsable
pour l'éducation, est engagé à s'assurer que les
communautés comme Opasatika ont le droit de garder une
école dans leur communauté, ou on a une politique qui
dit qu'on ne va pas prendre cette responsabilité.
Moi, je sais sur quel bord je
tombe sur la question. Je comprends. Ça veut dire, que oui,
on va avoir des écoles qui vont être moins pleines, et
quand on regarde le coût par étudiant de l'école,
il va être beaucoup plus élevé. On sait ça.
Ma question est, si à la fin de la journée vous vous
rendez compte, comme moi, que ça va être une question
de plus de dollars, votre gouvernement est-il prêt à
adopter une position qui dit, « Oui. On reconnaît
que dans ces communautés il y a un fait bien différent
des communautés comme Timmins ou Kapuskasing. Comme
province, on est préparé, au moins, à financer ces
écoles-là dans ces villages pour les plus jeunes dans
notre système d'éducation » ?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: First of all, the way we fund school boards
recognizes, right out of the gate, that the costs are higher in
northern communities and in rural boards with big geographic
areas. There is a bias, if I may use that phrase, built into how
we fund, to give those boards additional monies on many different
factors because of those vast differences.
Our first priority is to make
sure all children are getting the education they need. We
recognize that in northern communities that may well cost more. I
can't prejudge what changes, if any, will be made for the next
round of funding, but I can say we know that we need to make some
changes in funding for northern and rural boards. We realize
there are a series of issues we may need to change to support
boards better. That's one of them. I don't want to prejudge what
those consultations will do, but I acknowledge it's an issue that
needs to be dealt with. I'm sure that over the next couple of
months you will be hearing, either from us or from the board,
where we end up on that.
M. Bisson :
C'est un peu encourageant, madame la Ministre, je le dis encore,
que vous êtes en train d'accepter un peu le point de vue de
ces communautés qu'il est important qu'on garde ces
écoles.
Je veux que vous compreniez
très clairement qu'il y a une réalisation dans ces
communautés qu'on ne peut pas avoir, possiblement, un
système qui va donner de la prématernelle au
12e ou 13e année pour les prochaines
couples d'années. On ne le fait pas présentement, et
personne ne demande qu'on donne une éducation jusqu'au
12e année dans ces communautés-là
où elle n'existe pas. Ce dont on veut s'assurer, au moins,
c'est que dans les communautés comme Opasatika, là
où on a les plus jeunes dans notre système qui vont
à l'école présentement, on va leur permettre de
continuer leur éducation dans leur communauté.
Quand ils sont un peu plus
vieux, c'est moins inquiétant pour les parents que ces
enfants embarquent sur un autobus et partent sur les chemins
à travers notre province, mais je veux m'assurer qu'on va
essayer de protéger au moins les plus jeunes dans notre
système d'éducation, qu'on accepte qu'ils restent dans
leur communauté pour faire l'éducation primaire
jusqu'à une année qui fait du bon sens pour eux.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Actually, I agree there is a difference between
elementary and secondary, and is a factor that, if it's not part
of our deliberations, should be. Thank you for raising it.
M. Bisson :
J'ai une autre question qui a été soulevée par les
profs du niveau de la 10e année. Vous savez qu'il
y a le nouveau curriculum. On y a fait des affaires
intéressantes et justement je suis d'accord avec certaines
parties de ce curriculum. Mais il y a une partie qui
m'inquiète un peu comme législateur. Vous savez,
j'imagine, comme députée provinciale, qu'on est
invité, comme le sont tous les membres de l'Assemblée,
d'aller présenter aux 10es années et aux
années précédentes, dans leur programme
d'histoire, ce qu'on fait ici à l'Assemblée
législative. Jusqu'aux dernières années les profs
d'histoire de la 10e ont toujours fait le programme de
citoyenneté et c'était mandataire quand ils prenaient
ce programme. On me dit que dans le nouveau curriculum ils ont
enlevé le programme de citoyenneté hors des classes
d'histoire et ils l'ont mis dans un programme à
lui-même, séparé, et c'est un programme d'un
demi-crédit. J'ai un problème avec cet aspect-là
parce que j'ai vu cette année que, parce que ce n'est pas un
programme mandataire, on a beaucoup de jeunes qui n'optent pas
pour ce programme.
J'aimerais que vous me
clarifiiez quelle est la position du gouvernement : est-ce
que, premièrement, ça doit être mandataire ?
La deuxièmement partie va dépendre de votre
réponse.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I'm going to ask Maurice Proulx, our assistant
deputy minister, to deal with that issue for you.
Mr Maurice
Proulx: Good afternoon. Maurice Proulx, ADM,
French-language education and educational operations.
M.
Bisson : Excusez-moi, monsieur. Parlez-vous
français ?
M.
Proulx : Excusez. Oui, s'il vous plaît.
M.
Bisson : On a le droit de parler français
ici.
M.
Proulx : D'accord. Anciennement on avait le cours
d'histoire et de civisme, comme vous l'avez indiqué,
réparti en deux. Mais la partie qui est consacrée au
civisme n'a pas été réduite par rapport aux
années précédentes. Alors c'est sans doute la
raison pour laquelle de la part des enseignants d'histoire on n'a
pas eu de réactions, parce qu'on n'a pas diminué le
temps qui est consacré à l'enseignement du
fonctionnement du gouvernement ou du civisme.
M.
Bisson : Je veux comprendre quelque chose, parce
que je suis justement en train de me préparer cet automne
pour aller parler aux 10es années. On me dit
qu'ils ont enlevé ce programme et qu'ils en ont fait un
programme séparé. Est-ce que c'est un fait ?
M.
Proulx : Oui. C'est enseigné en deux sections,
mais la durée du programme de civisme n'est pas
diminuée par rapport à ce qu'elle était
auparavant.
M. Bisson : Mais c'est un
programme séparé de l'histoire et un programme d'un
demi-crédit.
M.
Proulx : Oui, mais il faut comprendre
qu'auparavant, l'ancien cours de civisme était Civisme et le
Canada au 20e siècle. C'était un cours d'un
crédit sur l'année mais il y avait toute la partie
Histoire du Canada au 20e siècle qui comportait
ce crédit-là.
M.
Bisson : Oui. Je suis très au courant. La
question que je pose c'est, est-ce que la politique du
gouvernement est d'assurer que ce programme est
mandataire ?
M.
Proulx : Effectivement, oui.
M.
Bisson : OK. Il semble y avoir certaines
écoles qui ne comprennent pas cette situation. Je vous
préviendrais que ce serait une bonne idée que vous
clarifiiez ce point avec les commissions parce que les jeunes
auxquels j'ai parlé au 10e année dans une
couple d'écoles secondaires dans mon comté ont dit
qu'ils optent de ne pas prendre ce programme. Ça me fait
quelque chose parce que, comme politicien, je comprends qu'il est
important que nos citoyens comprennent le système politique
pour pouvoir faire des choix informés.
M.
Proulx : D'accord. On va certainement apporter les
précisions nécessaires.
Mr Bisson:
Minister, I just-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I was just going to say that if you could give us
some specifics on that, we will follow up, because I agree with
you.
Mr Bisson:
The other point, on the question of citizenship classes-should we
have taken it out of history and put it as a stand-alone
program?-is for another debate. But on the program itself, it
really bothers me, and I think a lot of members here probably
have the same experience as I do. You get asked to go into a
school to speak about what legislators do and explain a bit the
roles of provincial, federal and municipal governments, and
school boards as well. I think we've got to do some rethinking
about how we do that, because there's really a large lack of
understanding on the part of young people as they come through
our school system. I don't want them to understand the political
process and how the rules work in the assembly; that's not what
we're trying to do. But I would hope we could get kids coming out
of our school system who understand that Canada is governed by a
Prime Minister, not a President; that we are not a republic but
provinces.
When I go into some classes,
some of the comments I get from kids really amaze me. They get a
wrong impression about our system of government by watching
American-dominated television and don't understand that we do
have a very different system of government here. I think we
really need to do a much better job, not only as legislators but
also at the ministry, in trying to convey to students how the
political process works, so that when they come out and become
voters, often while they're in grade 12, they're able to make
better decisions about who to vote for, and hopefully get
involved themselves in the political process.
1600
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Actually, Mr Bisson, you make a point that is
certainly very near and dear to my heart. This is a democracy and
we should be training our young people to be literate consumers
of that democracy and participants in that democracy. One of the
changes in the curriculum is to focus much more not on Robert's
Rules of Order but the whole process.
As you were speaking, one of
the things I may go back and talk to my staff about is-I know a
number of us get invited to come in, especially in part of the
grade 5 class. We may actually want to do a specific course
profile, if you will, for MPPs.
Mr Bisson:
For members. That was my next point.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: That would be an excellent suggestion and I think
we'll take a look at it. We all get invited into classes. I think
it's a good thing for us and the kids. I find their questions to
be wonderful. They sometimes ask the toughest questions. So that
would be a good suggestion.
Mr Bisson:
The part that always amazes me is that they say to us, "Why is
it, sir, that when we watch the parliamentary channel, you
politicians are all acting like a bunch of kids?" until I
organize them into a question period, and then there's a real to
and fro and I say, "Hey, what did you guys say at the beginning
of this?"
I just want to come back to
this real quick, just to make the one point. The suggestion I was
going to make is that it would be really good if the ministry
were to put together some sort of kit that members-or teachers,
if members are not able to attend-could utilize to better explain
how the Legislature works. It should include, in my view, some
sort of video presentation-we certainly have the capacity here
with our parliamentary channel to provide the feed and some of
the expertise necessary-and secondly, to really have some
information that we can give students, so they take it away and
say, "Now I understand how our government works, the different
levels, what the power of cabinet is, the power of the Prime
Minister." It would just make it that much easier. If you want to
make any comments on that, that's-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Good suggestion.
Mr Bisson:
This affects both French and English schools, but I'll try to do
the best I can. You know that last week I asked you if you would
be willing to meet with a group of students out of the Timmins
area who were quite concerned, as students here are, about what's
happening in the extracurricular activities. Our students at
Timmins High and Vocational School, l'école secondaire
Thériault, O'Gorman High School and Roland Michener High
School all participated in a student protest, I guess we can call
it-I wouldn't want to call it a strike because that wouldn't be
very nice-protesting the actions of your government when it came
to the decision to force teachers into what they do already. I
don't want to get into the politics at this point because I'm
looking for your help. I asked you at the time if you would be
prepared to meet with those students and I'm wondering if you would publicly put on the
record that you are prepared to do so.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I've encouraged the students in a number of
communities. I understand their frustration. As the Minister of
Education, it's a little difficult for me to condone walking out
of class, but I have encouraged them to meet with their student
trustees and I am prepared to meet with the student trustees. I
don't know if it will be one meeting or several meetings or
whatever, but I'm certainly prepared to do that. I've met with
and talked to students on a number of occasions just in the last
little while and I look forward to doing that.
Mr Bisson:
There's something I don't understand in this debate. Let's get
into the politics of this, because we are practitioners of that
honourable profession. I understand it's one of the oldest
professions existing. From a political point of view, as a
government, why would you actually decide to pass that
legislation and do what you did when it came to trying to force
teachers into what they already volunteered for? I'm trying to
get above the politics here. We know and you know that 99% of
teachers are doing this stuff not because they are paid, not
because they are told to do it but because they want to. It seems
to me, and I think it seems to a lot of reasonable people out
there, that you were looking for a fight. I'm wondering if you
can explain to me and to others why you would want to get into
this fight in the first place when it's not necessary.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I appreciate the concern that parents and
students have around this issue because extracurricular,
co-instructional activities, everything from parent-teacher night
to commencement exercises to Remembrance Day ceremonies to
coaching the soccer team, all of those activities are extremely
important to students and they very much add to the educational
experience. There is no question that all students did not do
them, that all teachers did not participate. But there is a
sizable proportion of the student body and the teacher body who
did do it. Teachers did it because they saw it as part of their
job, they enjoyed doing it, and they knew it benefited
students.
Unfortunately, what we have
seen over the past couple of years is that whenever there is a
dispute between a local union, for example, and a school board,
or an overall provincial union and the government or whatever,
one of the things that frequently suffered was a withdrawal or a
partial withdrawal or a threat, "If the board does this or if the
government does that, we won't be able to do extracurricular
activities."
As you know, Durham region is
the worst but not the only community that has experienced this
difficulty. I have met teachers across the province who have had
serious repercussions from colleagues and union representatives
when they did try, during various disputes of one kind or
another, to keep extracurricular activities going. I had said for
many months after I became minister that parents and students had
said, "Enough," that this was not an acceptable thing whenever
anybody had a fight, to not do it. I said very clearly that if it
continued, the government would have to take action. I was very
clear about that.
Mr Bisson:
Pardon me, Minister, it's a little bit-
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Bisson, you've got a couple of seconds
left.
Mr Bisson:
Very quickly, it's like going after a fly with not a flyswatter
but a shovel. It's not the huge-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We didn't legislate that every teacher had to do
extracurricular. We didn't legislate that teachers had to be on
call seven days a week or anything like that. We put in
place-
The
Vice-Chair: I think that's the time, Minister.
Mr Bisson:
You're very good as a timekeeper.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I know. He's quite aggressive on that.
Mr Joseph N. Tascona
(Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford): Minister, I just want to cover
an area involving education funding. During this estimates
committee there have been several numbers rambled off by the
opposition that are simply inaccurate. In particular, there have
been improper allegations by the opposition that you have cut
education funding. This government has demonstrated time and
again our commitment to publicly funded education. In my own
riding, I have seen some positive changes to education since this
government has come into office.
I think it would help the
committee if you could dispel the myths and give us the real
picture regarding education funding in this province.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We certainly have tabled some information. As I
said, we'll be tabling other information during the course of
estimates.
Mr Kennedy has made a number
of allegations about dollars. Unfortunately, the analysis he, or
whoever has provided it for him, has done makes a number of
incorrect assumptions or assertions. For example, you can't say
that the decrease in the proportion of property tax to education
is a cut in education; it isn't, because that decrease in
property tax going into education has been more than made up for,
dollar for dollar, by increases in education, general provincial
revenues, grants.
There is the issue of the
social contract, for example, that a previous government before
ours had brought in as a way to try and find savings within the
system. Boards did find savings. Many of them did it through
different efficiencies or other targets. It depended on how they
did that. Mr Kennedy is suggesting, as I understand what he said,
that because we haven't reimbursed them for the savings they had,
that somehow or other that's another cut. So that's not accurate
either.
As I said at the beginning of
these hearings, as I've said many times, overall funding for
education in Ontario has increased. It was about $12.9 billion in
1995, or a little under $12.9 billion. It is now $13.5 billion.
Again, Mr Kennedy on the one hand has said that we haven't
factored in enrolment, but we have. The whole formula is based on
enrolment growth. For example, since 1995, growth in funding is
running well ahead of enrolment growth: a 5.4% funding increase
versus a 3.2% increase in
enrolment. This clearly was something that we committed to voters
we would do. We are shifting more of that dollar that is in
education into the classroom. We have been very clear about that
and the need to do that because when we looked at education
spending in the past, or you talked to people in the system,
there was a great increase in administration spending. There was
not an equivalent increase within the classroom. There's at least
$700 million more actual in classroom funding when you compare to
1997, when the system changed.
1610
The other area where we have
increased is in special-needs funding by 12%; that's just one
year. That's the third year in a row we've increased
special-needs money. Per pupil spending also was at the highest
level since 1995. We have several charts that we will table with
the committee that highlight some of those numbers, and I can let
staff table those with the clerk and deliver them to the
members.
We have been very clear in
the commitments that we made to the voters, both in 1995 and in
1999, vis-à-vis education funding, and we will continue to
be true to those things that we said we would do.
Mr Brian Coburn
(Ottawa-Orléans): Minister, back in our ridings
when we have consultations and discussions with our constituents,
one of the overriding concerns of parents and students is that at
the end of their education they are prepared to successfully
compete in the global economy. Certainly it's my view and our
government's view that the very significance of the public
education system is to prepare our students for a world they have
to meet when they graduate from high school.
One of the challenges or one
of the concerns we hear constantly is the commitment to literacy.
When you go into workplaces and talk to a lot of employers and
businesses, this is a real concern, and certainly to students
themselves. It's one of the building blocks in how we prepare
students throughout their education. It isn't just something
that's a one-shot deal, that you're primed and away you go. Are
we committed specifically to improving the ability of students to
be literate upon graduation? Is it something that we promote and
have we made a commitment to that throughout the educational
period of their lives?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I know you have spoken to me about this before,
Mr Coburn. It's certainly an interest of yours, as it is of mine,
to make sure that students are getting the building blocks, if
you will, in literacy and numeracy skills-reading, writing and
mathematics. If they don't master those in the early grades,
we're setting them up for failure wherever they go, either
throughout the school system, in post-secondary or directly into
the workforce.
There are a couple of steps
we're taking to increase the ability of our young people to have
good reading, writing and mathematical skills. First of all, it's
built right into the curriculum from kindergarten right on
through. A focus on English and French literacy skills,
mathematical skills, reading, comprehension, writing-those are
all built right in. For example, I had the opportunity to attend
one of the summer institutes for teachers. We've put on some very
successful training experiences for teachers on the new
curriculum. They were explaining in the math class why it is they
require the children in one of the junior grades to write out the
math problems: not only are they teaching math, they're also
helping reinforce the writing and comprehension skills, the
literacy skills, at the same time. That's built right into the
curriculum.
Secondly, we test to make
sure we are actually doing the job, that the system is indeed
managing to impart those skills-so grade 3, grade 6, grade 9.
Today we started the grade 10 literacy test. So there are tests
on those literacy skills and numeracy skills in 3, 6 and 9.
One of the reasons you test
is to have information so you know if you are teaching these
skills; if you're not, you've got the information to fix the
problems. We've taken a number of steps already. I anticipate
we'll be taking more as we learn more about how best to support
good teachers in doing this.
There are additional monies
this school year-$70 million-for literacy from kindergarten to
grade 3-those important early years-so we know that students are
getting supports to get good literacy. If there are problems,
teachers are able to identify that there is a young child with
potentially something that might be a disability, for example.
They have the ability to do that, that the supports are there.
That's one important improvement. So that was one $70
million.
Secondly, $25 million this
year went into remediation for some 80,000 students in grades 7
through 10. That is to help them get extra help, to pay for extra
teachers, for example, and time for those teachers to give extra
help to students in those grades who might need it on a range of
things. But again, the focus is very much on literacy.
The teacher adviser program,
again, is something where you have one teacher working with a
small group of students to help them in setting their educational
goals each year, achieving those goals, making good decisions
about courses and where they want to go and the kinds of things
they need to do to succeed. We also have special remedial courses
and classes that are part of the education curriculum we offer. I
must say, when I did the consultations to give me guidance and
input on this year's funding, that was an important priority for
many teachers, many parents, many school boards and whatever.
It's certainly something I'm hearing a lot about again this year,
so I hope we will be able to continue this focus on those good
building block skills that our students need.
Mr R. Gary Stewart
(Peterborough): Before I ask the question, I just want
to make a comment, if I may. I just got the list today of 45
students from my riding that have been granted scholarships by
Aim for the Top. I just think it says wonderful things about the
quality of students that we have in the system and their ability
to aim for the top with good, hard work.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: That's our new scholarship program.
Mr Stewart: Yes. I just think it
was absolutely wonderful. These students will get up to $3,500 to
go into post-secondary education. It's a wonderful program. I
think this year it's something like $8 million and by 2003 it
will be $35 million. It certainly gives those students the
opportunity to move forward and get the education that we all
want them to. That's kind of a sideline and I know it's not your
ministry, but I was pretty proud to-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: That's another commitment we said we would
do.
Mr
Stewart: Absolutely. I'm pretty proud that 45 students
qualified from my riding, my riding being 40% rural.
I know there was
discussion-I guess it was yesterday or the day before-during the
estimates committee regarding the remote and rural grant. It's my
understanding that there is a considerable amount of work being
done to improve this grant because, certainly, for rural Ontario
and for some remote parts of northern Ontario, this is a major
issue, I assume. The cost, in fact, for boards in those areas
certainly is high. Can you give us an update on what's being done
in the ministry to help remote and rural school boards?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: It's an important priority for many communities.
Some of the school boards do have great, vast land masses, if you
will, within their boundaries between schools. It's something we
recognize specifically in how we fund boards, that there are
specific grants, monies that boards get to compensate or support
them in delivering education in remote and rural areas.
For example, we have a
small schools allocation, a remote and rural allocation, a
geographic allocation, additional funds for boards that have
small schools, and in remote communities. This school year we
also increased resources for principals for small schools because
one of the challenges is that-it may be fine in a downtown area
to have one principal, with vice-principal support, looking after
two schools, but if those schools are several hundred miles
apart, it doesn't work. Therefore, we gave boards more money to
hire more principals this year for small schools.
1620
In addition, my colleague
Ernie Eves, the finance minister, had a special $600-million fund
for Ontario small-town and rural development initiatives. One of
those initiatives specifically targeted for education was
additional monies on transportation devoted almost exclusively to
northern and rural boards, again to recognize the challenges they
face in transportation. As I said to Mr Bisson earlier-and I
think this came up yesterday as well-it is one of the issues
we've asked school boards to give us their advice and input on,
how we can continue to improve that grant or those series of
grants for boards with rural and northern challenges.
Long-range capital plans:
boards are giving us that information and we'll be looking at
that. We're looking at the transportation portion and if that is
working as well as it could be. So there are a number of things
we're doing the work on now to see if we can better support
boards in these areas.
Mr
Stewart: Just a supplementary, if I can. I mentioned to
you the public board in my area. Probably 40% of my riding is
rural, and certainly other parts of the Kawartha Pine Ridge
board. Can you tell me what the criteria are to be classed as a
rural school board?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I can certainly do it generally, and if you'd
like, my assistant deputy minister can go through it in more
detail. It has to do with the distance between the board area and
large urban centres. That has been one of the criteria we have
used for that. Some school boards have said, "We should qualify.
That board qualifies, this board doesn't qualify." So we're
looking at the criteria that we have and, if it's not working the
way it should, do we need to change the criteria.
Those are some of the
issues, and I think Norbert Hartmann could maybe give a little
better, refined explanation for how that works.
The
Vice-Chair: Please state your name again.
Mr Norbert
Hartmann: I'm Norbert Hartmann, assistant deputy
minister, business and finance. The geographic authorities grant
is made up of three components. There is the small schools
component of it, and that has three factors in it. There is a
school factor, which looks at the number of students in each
grade, because the smaller the number of students, the more
expensive it is to operate a school. There is a remoteness
factor, and that looks at the distance between schools in the
jurisdiction or twin schools in the jurisdiction. Then there is
an enrolment factor in that portion of the grant. So that's one
of the three components in the grant-to-small-schools
allocation.
The second piece is a
dimension that tends to measure how remote and how rural the area
is, and that too has three components in it. There's a distance
component that measures how far away the geographic centre of the
school board is from major urban centres. Then there's an urban
factor in it, which is used to discount when qualifying boards
have a large urban centre with a population of more than 25,000
in it. Then there's the pupil sparsity number, which actually
looks at what the distribution of pupils is across the
jurisdiction of that board. The more widespread they are,
obviously the more difficult it is to serve, the more
transportation costs and so forth. So that makes up the remote
and rural allocation.
Then there is also a school
authorities grant, which deals with the remotest and sparsest
areas of the province.
Mr
Stewart: Do you have to-
The
Vice-Chair: I just want to say that we hardly have two
or three more minutes and Mr O'Toole had indicated-
Mr
Stewart: Sorry.
Mr John O'Toole
(Durham): Thank you for that explanation, Mr Hartmann. I
have written to the minister on the Pine Ridge board decision,
with very large geographical equations, and I am
confident-there's a task
force, I guess, looking into that model. I just wanted to put
that on the record here today.
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Stewart, you've still got some time.
Mr
Stewart: Does a rural board have to qualify for the
total criteria or do you look at just portions of them?
Mr
Hartmann: Those factors play independently of each
other.
Mr
Stewart: Of each board.
Mr
Hartmann: The sparsity factor could put you in, for
example-
Mr
Stewart: Transportation, all of them, then. So that's
how they did it. OK.
Mr Wayne Wettlaufer
(Kitchener Centre): How much time do I have, Chair?
The
Vice-Chair: About a minute.
Mr
Wettlaufer: That's not much.
Minister, in 1995, I
campaigned on improving the prospects for young people, because I
consider, as our government does, that they are our greatest
resource. We hear much talk about high-tech needs, but the
employers are telling us that we have to balance this off with
communication skills as well, and our students can improve their
communication skills with real-life experience. Many of the
constituents in my riding feel that we're not doing enough to
enhance real-life experience. I wonder if you could comment on
what we're doing to increase that and what the plans are in the
future.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Wettlaufer, it's a good point. I think all of
us remember our first job interview, where we walked in the door
and the first thing the potential employer said was, "What's your
experience?" "We don't have any." They won't hire us without
experience, but nobody will hire us to get the experience. So
it's a bit of a vicious circle.
One of the things we're
doing-and it's a joint initiative of both myself and Minister
Cunningham, both our ministries-is working in co-operation with
school boards, community agencies and private sector employers to
give young people in high school more exposure to the world
outside, if you will, in terms of things like co-op programs,
job-shadowing opportunities, experiences to acquaint them with
the kinds of jobs, positions, careers that might interest them,
that might be out there. The community involvement that is
required of high school students, the minimum 40 hours that they
do, also exposes them to a network of people who may be of
assistance to them in the future. They start to do things within
the community. They start to learn a little bit about what they
like to do, what they may not like to do, what their skills are.
All of those initiatives are taken to help them make the
transition from school to work.
The initiative is called
Passport to Prosperity. We have a wonderful group of school board
and private sector leaders who are helping us, school board by
school board, to expand the number of opportunities that our
young people have to get that experience regardless of where they
go-university, college or directly into the workplace.
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, I want to come back to your funding
information in a moment. I just want to reiterate again, though,
that you were going to provide funding reports that show the
impact of inflation and enrolment. That's not what you provided
today. Are those available today?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I just tabled information that funding has
increased-
Mr
Kennedy: No, specifically-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Kennedy, you're asking me a question. Let me
finish the answer, please.
Mr
Kennedy: Madam Minister, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I
just want to make sure I'm asking the right question.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Chair?
Mr
Kennedy: Mr Chair, through you, I just want to clarify
my question-
The
Vice-Chair: I just want a good dialogue happening, and
if it starts again, I'm going to ask you to direct your questions
to me, and the response back to me as well.
Mr
Kennedy: I just want to make sure there isn't any
mistake about the question, Mr Chair. I'm asking for figures
which the minister promised us earlier that would show the
ministry's assessment of their funding, through schools to
students, with the impact of inflation and enrolment factored in.
I'm asking specifically whether that's available, and I'm going
to bundle the question, because the question is very simply
answered. We were also going to get some information on
extracurricular activity collected by the ministry. We were also
going to get information about advertising detail, including who
in the ministry has sign-off for that. We were going to get
information about six out of eight and what that would cost, and
the number of teachers. The number of teachers was asked last
time. Some of these questions have already been asked since the
26th of this month. I'm just asking a simple question, which I
believe is a yes or no answer: Is any of this information that
I've enumerated available to us in this committee today so we can
properly discuss it in the context of these estimates hearings?
This is our last opportunity.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: In answer to the specific question on enrolment,
if Mr Kennedy was listening, I said that our funding has gone
up-I don't have the number right here in front of me, but it's on
the record-some 5%. Inflation has gone up about 3% from 1995
until now. So that information is tabled. We've also provided
other information.
1630
I also said to Mr Kennedy
that because extracurricular activities are a voluntary activity
that vary from school to school and board to board, we have not
officially requested boards to file reports on extracurricular
activities. So there is no report on extracurricular
activities.
However, as Mr Kennedy well
knows, there is information from school boards and also from the
principals' council that has talked about their perception of
what is or is not happening on extracurricular activities.
If Mr Kennedy would like
us to ask boards for official reports and to file that, that is
taking extracurricular activities into a different kind of
activity. I didn't realize he thought we should go there, so that
was not a commitment that was made.
Mr
Kennedy: With respect, all of that would have been more
succinctly answered in the negative. I think it's a fair
question. I appreciate there is some commentary you wish to make,
but I think in answering questions you could respect us all by
either providing the information or telling us when it will be
available, and if not, then I think we want to move on.
Quite frankly, this is
incredible to me. You have a number of very talented civil
servants here today. They've been here for three weeks. We are
unable to get the most basic information from your ministry, and
I think that's regrettable. We've been over this before. I've
raised this every time to give you the opportunity to show us. I
don't want to spend more time on information the minister refuses
to provide. I would hope this information will be
forthcoming.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We are not refusing to provide, for example,
information on extracurricular activities. We do not collect
official reports from school boards on extracurricular
activities. I've answered that question before.
The
Vice-Chair: Minister, please.
Mr
Kennedy: Moving on to an area where I hope to get an
answer, I'd like to ask specifically about some of the concerns
of diverse communities in Ontario. There was a concern by these
communities that equity doesn't have the place it had in the
curriculum. It was one of the four principles before. People see
that as a diminished emphasis in the new curriculum.
Very specifically, Mr
Curling, in his capacity outside of the chair, Dalton McGuinty
and a number of people met with concerned parents around the new
safety policy the government has put forward. Specifically, they
want me to ask you, Madam Minister, about that part of Bill 81
that refers to suspensions for different classes of people. It
allows you to set in regulation different responses for what they
see as offensive language, as dangerous language. I think it
would help them to hear directly from you about why in that
section, which is subsection 307(3), it talks about a regulation
power that would set different standards, varied by regulation,
established for different circumstances or different classes of
persons. They are particularly worried that will stigmatize
certain people and it will be misunderstood. I'm wondering
whether you've heard this concern before and whether you have a
response to those parents, which is one subset of their concerns
about your so-called safe schools legislation.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I'd like to ask Aryeh Gitterman, who is in charge
of this area, to explain what the legislation means.
Mr Aryeh
Gitterman: Aryeh Gitterman, director of the policy and
program branch. What the amendment to the Education Act provides
for is, in the future, an ability to accommodate special
circumstances as the new requirements are implemented.
Mr
Kennedy: Mr Gitterman, I guess what I was asking is, is
this new information for the minister? I was hoping the minister
herself had become aware, but I think in the absence it means she
hasn't yet. But has the ministry heard-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: That's not an accurate statement, Mr Kennedy.
Mr
Kennedy: Thank you, Madam Minister. I'm happy to have
your response on this. I'm looking forward to it. But just to
make sure, the concern in a number of diverse communities is that
the particular language that prescribes different classes of
persons could be used against people who see themselves in
different classes. I wonder if you've seen that concern. Is there
a way that concern is going to be addressed specifically, as
specifically as you can answer? I think that's all I can seek
today.
Mr
Gitterman: "Classes of persons" is a term used by our
lawyers and other legislative support to describe categories or
groups specifically for legal purposes. It does not refer to
"class" with any other meaning associated with it. It's purely a
way to describe a grouping of people, for example, special
education students. It's generic language used for that
purpose.
Mr
Kennedy: Again to my question, has the minister heard of
this concern before? You're saying in that answer it's groundless
in the sense that you're saying it's only a technical term. But
have you heard this concern? Have there been any meetings,
discussions, any efforts made to assure parents who are concerned
seeing this language in the context of a bill, which they're
concerned could end up stigmatizing certain students
unfairly?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: It's not designed nor could it be used to target
particular categories or groups. That's one of the reasons the
ministry has taken great care to work with school boards to phase
in this legislation. That legislation has been vetted as
appropriate to make sure that language is standard legislative
language that meets all of the different requirements around
human rights etc that any government would want to meet. One of
the reasons we are phasing in the requirements in the Safe
Schools Act is to ensure that principals and teachers have the
ability to deal with this well.
The other concern that this
accommodates is the special circumstances that some special-needs
students may well require, and that is clearly provided for not
only in the legislation but also in the policy and procedures we
are following.
Mr
Kennedy: I appreciate, in the generality, what you said,
that this is something that will not be used for that purpose.
That's the assurance people want to hear, and I think they will
be holding you to that. I know their concerns and I didn't get
quite the response, but these are very sincerely held concerns. I
want to convey that on their behalf. This is not something that
is lightly taken in a number of those communities.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We have, for example, a special education
advisory committee of people who represent special-needs organizations and special-needs
students. They have been part of the policy development around
this, for example, so I think you can ease your mind about this.
The legal protections are indeed there, as they should be.
Mr
Kennedy: It's not my mind that needs easing,
Minister.
Mr
Tascona: It's Alvin's mind.
Mr
Kennedy: It's parents who find this is a particular
difficulty. I wouldn't make light of it, members opposite. These
are parents who don't believe this legislation, safe schools, is
well put in the sense that they have seen and they see, in the
way that this is going forward, that it may indeed disadvantage
certain kids. I think that at least has to be accepted as a point
of view, I'd say to the members opposite.
I'd like to ask a question
around the literacy tests today. You mentioned in response to
what I'm sure wasn't a prearranged question, but which had some
nice symmetry to it, on the part of one of the members opposite,
a commitment to literacy. In this past year, you have made a cut
of about-we can guess because you will not give us the
figure-$150 million, taken away from the value of the time you
say teachers cannot spend-about 25% less, half of the time-with
students. You give them 25% more students and half the time.
That's what your Bill 74 does.
Here we are in a year where
it's least likely-what the students sitting behind you told me
this afternoon was the in-between time. The students sitting
behind you from Rockland are saying it's the hardest year ever to
have in-between time, which is to catch teachers between classes,
to get those extra questions answered. That's what you have taken
away, what is basically the remedial time teachers provide to
people who are in difficulty.
I want to ask you, are you
prepared at this time to specifically-especially given the fact
that your total resources to schools have been cut since
1995-commit that if the literacy tests, when they come back,
demonstrate problems for specific students in specific schools,
that you will be allocating specific additional resources to
those schools in order to address the function of those schools
to be able to address students' needs?
I want to say that out
there in the real world schools are looking at this test as
highly disruptive. They've had to pay supply teachers. In some
places, they've had to rent desks to hold these in gymnasiums.
Some of them have had to postpone or rearrange other classes.
They want to know if you're really committed to this better
literacy for students and this isn't a see-you-later kind of test
for students who won't get any help. Will you today tell us how
much additional funds you will be providing to schools and to
students who, through this test, are shown to be struggling with
their ability to be literate?
1640
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Chair, first of all, I'd like to express my
frustration. I don't know why we bother to table the information
that we table when the honourable member continues to make
inaccurate statements. There has been no-and I don't know what
figure he's talking about-$150-million cut to education; again,
another figure pulled out of the hat that has no bearing in
reality in terms of what's going on in the funding in the
education system. We have talked about that. It is more, not
less. Again, we have another figure pulled out of a hat.
Secondly, the grade 10
literacy test is consistent with the kind of testing that many
jurisdictions around the world do, to make sure that they are
indeed providing their students with the literacy skills they
require. The reason we increased monies this school year for
remedial help for grades 7 through 10 was to deal precisely with
this issue, if there are students who require remediation.
The second thing is that we
specifically added into the definition of "instructional time"
"remediation," because we quite recognized that is an important
activity of teachers and that is specifically recognized. We put
money in to make that happen as well, because we recognized that
resource is required. Those monies are already allocated.
We are in the process
again, as the honourable member knows, since I explained this to
him the other day, of consulting with our education partners
about funding requirements for next year, as we do every year. He
may think we should pluck a number out of a hat. I think it's
more important for us to continue to work with our education
partners to set appropriate resource levels not only for
remediation but for other important priority areas.
Mr
Kennedy: Madam Minister, I'm sorry you're not willing to
make commitments, as you haven't been all along, to do some of
the things that you purport you're supposed to be doing.
You don't have any
curriculum for basic-level kids in the schools. That was your
choice. Every school I've visited has said they have to make up
their own curriculum for basic-level kids. Anywhere from 15% to
16% or 17% of kids have been left out. The $150 million that you
want to ignore-you won't table a figure for what it would cost us
to do six out of eight. You, after three weeks, are too afraid to
put on the table the cost of moving to six out of eight in the
school system. You are afraid of that, apparently. We'll deal
with the funding that you've been afraid to tell us about, that
you won't table the figures for.
I would ask you
specifically, if you're not going to give basic kids their own
curriculum, if you're not going to recognize that 15% of kids
have struggled-they were recognized by previous curriculums-if
you're not going to provide that and you're going to have a
literacy test and you're not going to attach specific funds yet-I
heard with slight hopefulness that you might be-to their outcome,
are you not just saying to kids who are struggling, "We don't
want you in school"? Minister, I ask you, how many kids are going
to want a big "L" on their forehead, to know that they failed a
literacy test and they will not get extra remediation as a direct
result, that they will not have a much better prospect?
That is a difficulty for kids who are already
struggling. You aren't providing for basic-needs kids who are
struggling in the system. You took away the extra time they used
to receive from some of their teachers this year and you're
bringing in this test. I'm asking you, will you ensure that these
basic-level kids get some extra resources in order to succeed
rather than being intimidated out of school?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: As I stated before, we have already put new money
out for this school year specifically for remediation. I don't
know how many more times I can tell him this, Mr Chair, but we
have indeed-
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, it's in night school. You're giving
it for continuing education.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No, no. That money is specifically targeted, If
he's saying a school board's using it for something else, that's
another issue and we can deal with that. But that money is
specifically targeted for students-there are some 80,000
students, grades 7 to 10-for remediation. That's what that
money-
Mr
Kennedy: Twenty-seven million for continuing ed is what
you've put out there.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No. Mr Kennedy, would you stop misreading the
information? It is $25 million for remediation. It has nothing to
do with-
Mr
Kennedy: After school, after school.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Kennedy, no, it does not. The school boards
have a great deal of flexibility. If he likes, we could go out
the door and say, "No, no, no. You can only provide remediation
this way as opposed to that way," but if we did that, he would be
the first one saying there we go, dictating to boards. That's not
appropriate.
The school boards are
receiving additional monies for remediation in a variety of
different levels. When you're doing curriculum that provides our
students with what they need when they leave high school, we
don't sit there and say, "We're going to write off 15% of the
students. They're not able to learn things." That's what he is
suggesting. We do not agree with that.
No student should have big
letters stamped on their forehead, Mr Kennedy. That is not the
policy. We have curriculum that has been carefully designed to
provide our young people with the information and knowledge they
need, whether they're going to university or directly into the
workforce, wherever their destination is. More resources have
been and are, as we speak, being provided for school boards to do
remediation. It is specifically recognized in the definition of
"instructional time." As I've said here earlier before, the
change in instructional time works out to an average of 20, 25
minutes. I'm sure Mr Kennedy is not asking us to believe that
schoolteachers out there only did 20 minutes worth of
remediation.
Mr
Kennedy: Because it's such an important question, Mr
Chair, I had asked-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Teachers out there did much more and do much more
than they ever do in classroom on remediation, and we
specifically recognized and provided funding to help support
that.
Mr
Kennedy: I appreciate the minister-
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you, Minister. As you said, it's
important, but you'll have to wait until the next 10 minutes come
around. We've got about 30 minutes left, and I'm going to say
that we'll have 10 minutes for the NDP, 10 minutes for the
government and 10 minutes for the official opposition. Mr
Bisson.
Mr Bisson:
No.
The
Vice-Chair: You're not taking your 10 minutes?
Mr Bisson:
No. Twenty here, 10 left over there. You can do what you want
with the last 10.
The
Vice-Chair: No, no.
Interjection: That's the rule,
Chair.
The
Vice-Chair: As I stated, there's 30 minutes left and I
will divide it up in 10 minutes here, 10 minutes here and 10
minutes here. The Chair has the right to do that.
Mr Bisson:
That's interesting. All right.
Ms Frances Lankin
(Beaches-East York): Mr Chair, may I? Excuse me coming
in at the last minute, but as I understand the rotation, it would
be the opportunity for the New Democratic caucus to have 20
minutes at this point in time. Your decision-and you're
exercising your discretion, as you say-is actually taking time
away from our caucus and our questioning in the overall estimates
in terms of the fair share of it. I would ask you to reconsider
that. We've just had an opportunity for the Liberal caucus to
exercise a 20-minute rotation. I think that had you decided at
that point in time to split what was left on the clock three
ways, that would be one thing. But now that we're beginning with
the New Democratic Party and our turn for a 20-minute rotation,
it's actually an unfair application of your discretion.
Mr Bisson:
Just further to the point, Chair, we started off this meeting at
the very beginning where you asked for unanimous consent and I
refused, and I still refuse. So it's 20 minutes and I will
start.
The
Vice-Chair: I did ask for unanimous consent, but as a
matter of fact-
Mr Bisson:
You can't change the rules midstream, Chair.
The
Vice-Chair: May I? I gave you your chance, Mr Bisson.
Will you allow me?
Mr Bisson:
And I'll challenge the Chair.
The
Vice-Chair: You can also do that.
Mr Bisson:
Very good.
The
Vice-Chair: It's stated here-and I can read it for
you-
Mr Bisson:
Then the problem is that if you're going to come in and chair a
meeting you should understand the rules before you come in and
not change them halfway through the process.
The
Vice-Chair: I didn't. I asked-
Mr Bisson:
What was supposed to happen-you asked for unanimous consent at
the beginning. I did not give you unanimous consent. I was clear
about it at the beginning, and for you now all of a sudden to
learn the rules halfway through the process is not acceptable.
Either you know them coming in or you don't.
The Vice-Chair: May I respond?
Mr Bisson:
You're being-
The
Vice-Chair: I am responding now. Could you give me a
chance? It's stated here, "...estimates is allowed not more than
30 minutes for a right of reply. Thereafter, the Chair of the
standing committee on estimates shall ensure that the members
adhere strictly to the vote and item under consideration and
shall apportion the remaining time among the recognized parties
on the committee." The remaining time is 30 minutes. I therefore
apportioned 10 minutes, 10 minutes and 10 minutes.
Mr
Kennedy: Just a point on that question. We have done
this with every caucus fairly, sometimes disadvantaging or
advantaging, but whenever we've had fraction time remaining, we
have always allocated it between the three. This is what we have
done in this committee for some time.
Mr Bisson:
I pretty well see what the hell's going on here.
Mr
Kennedy: We did this with the last ministry.
Mr Bisson:
You can't all of a sudden come in, Chair, and say you want
unanimous consent at the beginning of the committee, then change
the rules because your caucus is disadvantaged. That's what
you're doing. You're being extremely partisan in what you're
trying to do here.
Mr
Kennedy: Last time we advantaged your caucus-
Mr Bisson:
The point is, this committee was asked to deal with unanimous
consent. I refused; I still refuse. Quite frankly, I'm dismayed
that you would try to come in here and utilize your position to
give your caucus another 10 minutes, because that's what you're
up to.
The
Vice-Chair: I resent that comment.
Mr Bisson:
Well, I damn well mean it.
The
Vice-Chair: The fact is that you think I'm using this to
give an advantage to my caucus.
1650
Ms Lankin:
I think the point I want to make is slightly different than what
I've heard, although I will reiterate my colleague's point that,
having at the beginning asked for unanimous consent to split the
time three ways, having that denied, and then reverting to the
20-minute rotation, you did set a precedent for the way this
meeting is conducted.
I would suggest that if
there is, as Mr Kennedy has said, a fraction of time left, that
it be split three ways. That might happen after the New
Democratic caucus has completed its 20 minutes. Whatever time is
left on the clock at that point in time, it would be appropriate
to split it three ways. I am sure there would be unanimous
consent at that point in time to do that.
The
Vice-Chair: Let me explain this. Initially, I asked for
consent, that we have 30 minutes and could we agree on that? It
wasn't within the rules; it was just my way of having it fairly
done. They said no. The rules here state specifically-not the
rules that I "make up"-that the remaining time may be distributed
equally. I understand that the Chair's ruling is not debatable,
but you may appeal my ruling.
Mr Bisson:
Listen, Chair, I'm not going to argue, because it's taking time
away from the estimates. I'll agree to consent, but I'm telling
you, you can't come in here, not know the rules, ask for
unanimous consent, and all of a sudden, when you figure out your
party's been disadvantaged, come in and decide to play by the
rules. That's what has happened here and that's what I take
exception to. If you want to ask for unanimous consent I'll give
it to you.
The
Vice-Chair: What we're getting into is a debate on my
ruling, and the ruling of the Chair is not debatable. If you want
to appeal my ruling, fine, but I won't allow a debate to
continue. Are we going to debate or are we going to continue?
Mr
Kennedy: For the record, Mr Chair, I am assuming that
this is a result of a calculation by the clerk of fair allocation
to all three parties over the course of this hearing. Rather than
the grandstanding that we're getting here, how much time overall
went to the NDP, to the Liberals and to the Conservatives?
The
Vice-Chair: I'm not going to allow any more sorts of
points of order or debates or so on. I've said that the ruling is
not debatable.
Mr
Tascona: On a point of order, Mr Chair: To try to speed
this along, we consent. So let's get started.
The
Vice-Chair: You're giving him your 10 minutes?
Mr
Tascona: No. I consent to let's get going, to equal
allocation.
Ms Lankin:
You consent to the Chair's ruling. That's nice.
Mr
Tascona: Well, Gilles has consented. We're going to
consent too.
The
Vice-Chair: Are we proceeding?
Mr
Tascona: We're ready to start, Mr Chair.
Mr Bisson:
Thank you. So how much time do we have now?
The
Vice-Chair: Ten minutes.
Mr Bisson:
You would know that a program that exists that's been put in
place by the Legislature for some time is the Ontario young
travellers program. You would know what that's all about: young
people from northern Ontario who want to come by here with their
grade 8 or grade 7 classes, travel down to the Legislature in
order to participate and look at what happens in this Legislature
in the springtime. You would know that the money that is
allocated for the young travellers hasn't been changed in
numerous years.
One of the complaints I've
received from many of the schools and principals from across my
riding has been that, because everybody is out fundraising,
trying to raise dollars for all kinds of reasons because of a
whole bunch of other policy decisions your government has made,
they're finding it very difficult to raise the necessary dollars
to bring these children down to Queen's Park.
I am wondering if your
ministry, or you, as minister, have actually looked at the issue
of trying to increase the budget for the young travellers program
so that it more closely reflects what the actual costs of travel
are today.
Hon Mrs Ecker: I have certainly
heard a concern raised, and if you would like to provide us with
information about what's happening in your community, that's
certainly something I can ask staff to take a look at. As I said,
we're in the process now of making decisions for the next round
of funding, the next grant reg, so this would be a good time for
us to take a look at that.
Mr Bisson:
When is that decision going to be made?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: The usual process is we go out the door as early
in March as we can get out the door. I was out-
Mr Bisson:
But the decision for this year's budget, that's what I'm
asking.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Oh, for this year's budget?
Mr Bisson:
The money that will be allocated-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: For the current school year we're in right
now?
Mr Bisson:
Yes.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I'll ask the deputy if she has any further
information on the process on that.
Ms Sue
Herbert: The budget has been structured for this year,
for 2000-01. The consultation process we do through the fall is
for next year's school year budget. We go through a fairly
rigorous consultation process for about three or four months in
the fall and that leads into the government decision-making
process over the early winter and spring.
Mr Bisson:
So we have time if we get it in before Christmastime?
Ms
Herbert: Yes, you have time.
Mr Bisson:
I just want to get a sense that we're not going to be doing this
and spinning our wheels and not going anywhere. I know you take
this issue seriously. I think you believe, as I do, it's
important to give young people the opportunity to see what
happens here. I just want to know that if the principals follow
up with the suggestion they've made to me, which is to actually
provide this information to demonstrate that it's costing more-as
you well can understand, the price of gas, rental of buses and
all that is much more expensive-there is actually going to be
active consideration to increase the funding to the young
travellers program. I'm looking for no other answer but yes, and
if you give me that, I will make sure to provide you with that
information.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Yes, serious consideration. I can't say whether
we will or we won't, but we'll certainly look at material that
they provide, and I certainly hear the concern that's been
expressed.
Mr Bisson:
That's fair.
The other issue we had
raised last year, and unfortunately it wasn't resolved, is the
issue of attracting teachers to James Bay. If you remember at
estimates last year, there was a whole issue where isolate school
boards used to get money from the provincial government in order
to offset the cost of trying to get rental accommodation in a
community like Moosonee or Moose Factory. I don't need to explain
to you that it's fairly difficult to get accommodation in the
first place.
Second of all, if you're
just paying teachers the regular rate of pay that they get to
teach in Timmins or Toronto or Oshawa, it's pretty darn hard to
attract them into Moosonee or Moose Factory to teach our young
people in those communities. At that time there was going to be
an undertaking to take a look at the possibility of providing a
continuation of the program to help subsidize the rent as an
attraction to be able to attract those teachers into the
communities. I am wondering if we can get a bit of an update as
to where we're at with that and what we can expect.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I will ask Nancy Naylor to give us an update on
this.
Ms Nancy
Naylor: I'm Nancy Naylor. I'm the director of education
finance for the Ministry of Education.
The subsidies that you're
referring to are commonly referred to as teacherages. There are
37 school authorities and we fund them on a slightly different
basis than we fund school boards. It's done on a fairly
negotiated basis. Their circumstances tend to be so idiosyncratic
that finance officers from the ministry work directly with the
staff of the school authorities and negotiate a budget that works
for that year. They do it in reference to the funding model that
applies to the school boards, but they have the flexibility to
approve a budget that takes into account their particular
situation.
So on a year-to-year basis,
depending on the housing needs of the teachers that that school
authority has hired for that year, they would take into account
those costs. The finance officers would have a certain amount of
discretion to approve what was appropriate. If there was a school
authority that had a particular concern about it, we'd be happy
to look into it.
Mr Bisson:
To clarify, just so you understand-
The
Vice-Chair: At this point, you have about a minute. What
we have done is cut back everyone for the time remaining to seven
minutes a round.
Mr Bisson:
Very good. You do an excellent job, Chair, playing with time.
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you. You're so co-operative.
Mr Bisson:
No wonder they didn't make you Minister of Education or
Finance.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Bisson, we need to follow up afterwards with
you on this.
Mr Bisson:
Yes. I just want to be clear, though, because there was a fear on
the part of those isolate boards that those dollars that are
specifically directed towards the teacherage grants would
actually be reduced or eliminated. There's still that rumour
circulating.
Ms Naylor:
That's right. This issue was raised last year and we made the
finance officers aware of it so they could pursue that.
Mr Bisson:
So the answer is yes, the funding will continue.
Ms Naylor:
Yes.
Mr Bisson:
The answer is yes.
Ms Naylor:
That's correct.
Mr Bisson:
Thank you.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very
much, Mr Bisson. Mr Tascona, seven minutes.
Mr
Tascona: Certainly during the estimates we've been
provided with information from the ministry. The graph with
respect to multi-year history of school board spending,
provincial grants and property taxes, shows an increase from
1995, when it was at $12.8 billion, to the 2000-01 projections at
$13.5 billion, which is a significant increase.
Also the chart we've been
provided with, the history of classroom versus non-classroom
allocation, shows that that has been increasing also over the
periods of 1997 versus 2000-01, and in fact the classroom
spending has been increasing and is the lion's share of spending
in terms of the allocation.
1700
We also have the chart with
respect to multi-year history of total board administration and
governance, and that shows that that has been decreasing
significantly. In 1997 it was at $599 million and in 2000-01
projections it's at $442 million. So there's less money that's
going into that area, at the decision of the school boards
obviously.
We received yesterday the
special education allocation, which shows that for every school
board in the province they have received an increased allocation
over 1999-2000. For the 2000-01 allocation it has increased over
the previous year. As the minister has indicated, the government
currently provides in excess of $1.35 billion for special
education across the province, more than any other government in
Ontario's history, and this is an increase of 12% over the
1999-2000 period.
I want to ask the minister
a question on special education, if I may. Minister, the
opposition has improperly alleged repeatedly that the government
has cut special education funding since it came into office. You
tabled a chart yesterday on the special education allocation for
each school board, as I just referenced. The chart clearly
demonstrates that every school board in this province has
received a significant increase in special education funding. I
know this government has been working to improve special
education in this province. In January of this year you indicated
that this government would invest an estimated $40 million to
increase the intensive support amount, which is the ISA. In fact,
this government has invested $43 million. So can you tell this
committee what you're doing to improve special education across
the province?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: This was when I met with teacher federations last
year. One of the priority issues for increased funding and better
standards and programming that they highlighted, as did parents,
was the special-needs area. So we have indeed increased funding
again this year and, as the chart shows, there have been
increases to school boards on special-needs funding.
It's also important to
recognize that we went to school boards when we were designing
the new way to fund school boards. We went to school boards and
said, "What do you spend on special education?" That was the
basis upon which we started. Because of concerns from boards that
that still was not enough, we topped it up the first year, we
topped it up again last year, and we're topping it up this year
12% just in a one-year increase. We provided guarantees for
boards to try and provide some stability.
I specifically asked our
partners, as we go through the consultations in terms of
improvements for succeeding years, "Do we still require money in
two ways-one, in a very flexible grant?" "Yes," they said, so
that they indeed get that through what we call SEPPA. The second
thing was, "Do we still need a process by which we recognize the
number of special-high-needs students that a board has?" They
said, "Yes, we need that process; we need to have a way to
identify and determine that need from board to board," although
they also asked for more flexibility in how they could spend that
money, and we did that this year, again at their request.
We also know that we need
to continue to take steps on designing with school boards what
good special education programming is, because that's one of the
things that boards had said would help them in doing a better
job. Parents certainly have said they'd like to know what they
should be expecting, especially when you look at what needs to be
done for certain children with certain exceptionalities. In some
cases this is work that no other jurisdiction has done, to
actually sit down and say for a child of particular
exceptionality, "What should a school or school board be
providing this child to help them achieve their educational
goals?"
It's exciting new work,
it's important work, and it will allow us to use those increased
resources in a much better fashion as we work with boards to meet
their educational needs for those students.
Mr
Tascona: How much more time, Mr Chair?
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Wettlaufer was asking for some time, and
you have two minutes.
Mr
Wettlaufer: Madam Minister, Mr Kennedy was talking
before about grade 10 literacy, the amount of work that's going
into it and why it was needed. It's obvious that we're not
getting through to them and perhaps to members of the public as
to why we have improved the curriculum, why we're putting stress
on literacy.
I can recall that prior to
1995 many of the university professors were so disgusted with the
level of literacy of the high school students that many were
incorporating into their own system a literacy test for students
before they could take the courses that they wanted to.
As recently as about 18
months ago, Jim Downey, who is the past president of the
University of Waterloo and a very harsh critic of the education
system under the previous governments, complimented us on our new
curriculum and what we were doing with the education system. He
said it much more amply prepared the students for university.
God forbid that we fail
anybody, because they might think that life is a bowl of cherries
and that they can't fail even in life later on, but I would like
you to mention again, because I couldn't hear the figures with
the amount of time that
you were being interrupted by Mr Kennedy-not everybody should
fail, but what are the dollars being put into remediation for
those students who don't make it?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: The special monies that went in for remediation
for students from grades 7 to 10 this year are $25 million. That
was to recognize the need for more resources in that area, so we
have indeed done that. There are also-
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Minister.
Mr Kennedy, you've got
seven minutes.
Mr
Kennedy: I want to come back to where we started off,
Madam Minister, and that's funding. You can say you gave this or
you gave that, but the fundamentals are, you're giving back
little trinkets compared to what you've already cut.
Minister, you made a
commentary, but you did not produce any counter-figures from your
ministry at all about whether your share of funding, which I
think you're perhaps confusing with the total funding-but your
share of funding has gone down. There's more reliance on the
property tax since you've come into power than there was before,
if you take out the download.
Minister, what I want to
come back to you and ask you about-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Well, we just tabled the chart for you, Mr
Kennedy, that has those figures on it.
Mr
Kennedy: -the elemental thing for this government-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I'd be glad to give you another copy if you've
lost it in the last hour.
Mr
Kennedy: If I don't have you jumping in, Minister, I'm
going to come back to you right on those numbers that you say
you've given to us, and I want to ask you about them. I want to
ask you why you think schools are immune from inflation, that
those numbers shouldn't be taken into account in terms of looking
at what their costs are.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: First of all, none of us is immune from
inflation.
Mr
Kennedy: In other words, that's not the reason why you
haven't included it.
Minister, you show here, or
at least your staff show, board administration and governance. I
think the deputy has addressed this question before, but he'd
promised to come back with some more specifics. Deputy and
Minister, this is a copy of a Ministry of Education and Training
funding report, and it indicates that the spending in 1995-96 on
board administration and governance was $415 million. You've
given us a chart today that says, in 1995, $600 million; in 1996,
$581 million.
We've raised this question
before. The figures I referred to earlier depend on your detailed
figures. Do you have with you today some detailed figures that
reconcile this previously published report and the figures that
you've given us today, something very specific so we can
reconcile that? Otherwise, Minister, it looks like you're padding
the administration and governance figures from before, because
this is the only published study that we know of. What that
shows, just to show you the importance of those figures, is, if
we took your published study at face value, it suggests actually
that spending on administration and governance by boards has
increased. Further, if you apply the fair test, which we think is
to include inflation and enrolment, then in fact, yes, there's a
decrease, but it's minor. In the whole province you've only been
able to reduce administration and governance by 4%, or $26 a
student, while you're cutting $918 a student.
In Mr Coburn's area in
Ottawa-incredibly, because Mr Coburn spoke favourably about your
policies-$1,423 per student has been cut. As Mr Coburn knows,
they're being cut again next year. Mr Tascona talked about
special education, and I guess he thinks that if his area is cut
by $450 a student, that's OK, too. But the money's not coming out
of board administration. There's a discrepancy in these two
figures and I wonder if we could have the specific figures in
front of us that would reconcile your published data with the
table you just gave us, because it's out by about $170 million or
$185 million dollars.
1710
Hon Mrs
Ecker: First of all, we'd be quite happy to have Nancy
Naylor from the ministry discuss this, but I find it a tad
interesting that on the one hand we're getting criticized because
we're not providing information, and yet the honourable member is
sitting here with stacks of paper-
Mr
Kennedy: That contradicts, Minister.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: -that he has received from this ministry, with
tables and information that are available to him and to members
of the public, that talk about our spending and our funding. So I
would like to turn this over-
Mr
Kennedy: If our figures are completely accurate, then
that's fine. We'll leave them to the public record.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: -to Nancy Naylor, who can answer the question
that Mr Kennedy has put forward.
Ms Naylor:
I'm Nancy Naylor. I'm the director of the education finance
branch. With respect to the definition of administration and
governance, you are comparing two numbers that aren't strictly
comparable. The document you have in your hand is one that was
published in 1997. It's the 1995-96 report on school board
spending. That was one of the first publications the government
produced that attempted to define classroom and non-classroom
spending, an issue that was first raised by Mr Sweeney in the
task force on school board amalgamation. In that report, the
government relied on Mr Sweeney's suggestions around the
definition of administration, but it's a fairly narrow one in
that respect, and you're right, it does add up to $400 and
something-I'm sorry, you quoted the figure and I'm presuming that
you're right.
What the government did
when it finalized the student-focused funding model is adopt a
much broader definition of administration and governance.
Effectively, anything beyond the principal is administration and
governance. That
includes the board, the trustee expenses, the supervisory
officers, what's referred to as instructional supervision in
those reports. All of those functions-
Mr
Kennedy: I'm going to interrupt you, just through the
Chair. I want to ask very clearly-because we won't have time to
hear it listed here today-will you table a reconciliation of
those numbers, if it exists? And, Ms Naylor, I want to ask you
very directly, do you have a reconciliation for all of the
categories before the new funding formula and post the new
funding formula? I have asked for those; they haven't been made
available. I want to know from you specifically, because you are
answering on the minister's behalf, do those categories of
reconciliation exist and can those figures be tabled so we can
see for ourselves what the difference is now that you've changed
your definition of board governance? If the Minister would like
to answer as well, I'm looking for board governance and all of
the categories, because what you've done is restated what board
administration is. I think we need to see how you've done that.
I'd also like to see how you've restated other categories so we
can compare what you've cut with what actually is there today.
Can we have those from either the minister or Ms Naylor?
The
Vice-Chair: I think with that statement-
Mr
Kennedy: Just a yes or no, Mr Chair.
The
Vice-Chair: -we have concluded the estimates for
education and we shall proceed to the vote.
Mr
Kennedy: I guess the minister's afraid of it; I don't
know. Just a yes or a no?
The
Vice-Chair: Now that we've concluded the estimates for
the Ministry of Education, we should move to the vote. We've got
two votes to do.
We shall vote on 1001. Is
that vote carried? Carried.
Now we shall vote on 1002.
Carried.
Shall the estimates-
Mr Bisson:
Recorded vote. I want a recorded vote.
The
Vice-Chair: Shall the estimates of the Ministry of
Education carry?
Interjection: No.
Interjections: Carried.
The
Vice-Chair: I heard it should be carried, so I presume
we should ask for a vote. All those in favour?
Mr Bisson:
It's a recorded vote. All those in favour of supporting the
estimates?
The
Vice-Chair: You want a recorded vote?
Mr Bisson:
Yes, I do.
AYES
Coburn, Stewart, Tascona,
Wettlaufer.
NAYS
Bisson, Kennedy,
Peters.
The
Vice-Chair: It shall be carried.
Shall I report the
estimates of the Ministry of Education to the House? I think I
hear a yes. Carried.
That concludes it. Thank
you very much to the minister and the staff who have been so
patient. I appreciate very much your co-operation. It has been a
gruelling test of time. Thank you very much.
I ask for a 10-minute
recess and then we shall resume with the Ministry of Health.
The committee recessed
from 1715 to 1725.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND LONG-TERM CARE
The Chair (Mr
Gerard Kennedy): I call the members to order. Thank you
very much, Minister, for your attendance today. It's time to at
least begin. As everyone knows, we're here for the consideration
of the estimates of the Ministry of Health. We commence with vote
1401, item 1. We begin with a 30-minute statement by the
minister, 30 minutes for the official opposition, 30 minutes for
the third party and 30 minutes for the government. Then the
minister has 30 minutes to reply and the remaining time, out of
the total of 7.5 hours, will be apportioned equally among the
three parties. Just as a prelude to that, people who were at the
last session, we will keep a running total so that everyone is
apprised of how that split works out in advance and there won't
be any surprises.
Ms Frances Lankin
(Beaches-East York): I just wanted to indicate that when
we reconvene next week-I'm expecting that today we will just have
the opportunity for the minister to make her statement-we would
certainly be willing at that point in time, as opposed to doing
responses, to move straight to questioning. I just put that on
the table now. It's something that other caucuses-I think Mrs
McLeod is of the same opinion. Perhaps the government caucus may
want to consider that and we may at that point in time request
unanimous consent. But I just put it on the table as an
opportunity.
The Chair:
There are two ways for that to proceed. I think in the past it's
basically been up to the agreement of the minister and it hasn't
had to go to a formal discussion. But at that time we'll
certainly turn to that and see how the minister is disposed and
see how the committee is disposed.
Minister, without further
ado, I'd like to welcome you and invite you to make your opening
statement to the committee.
Hon Elizabeth
Witmer (Minister of Health and Long-Term Care): Thank
you very much, Mr Chairman and members of the committee. I'm
certainly very pleased to be here to review with you the
estimates for the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care for the
year 2000-01. With me today is the assistant deputy minister.
I appreciate the
opportunity to discuss with you some of the achievements that
have been made this past year with respect to Ontario's health
and long-term care system. Certainly I'm pleased to be able to
outline for you some of our future directions.
Since taking on the responsibility for this
portfolio three years ago yesterday, I have spent a considerable
amount of time seeking the views of people in this province,
particularly those people who have a direct stake in the system,
be they providers or patients. I'm pleased to say that as a
result of those discussions and as a result of input, there seems
to be consensus on the progress we are making in regard to health
system reform and also in regard to the basic principles that
shape our vision for the future of health services in
Ontario.
Some of those common
principles would be that there is support for accessible,
integrated, quality services provided across the broad spectrum
of our health system. There is certainly support for enhanced and
accessible community-based services; there is support that we
would continue to reform our system in a way that we would move
forward with primary care reform; and there is support that we
would improve coordination among the health stakeholders and also
for better utilization of services.
There is support for
enhanced use of information and information technology to improve
our decision-making capability and support that there be
accessible health information provided to people in this province
in order to help them to make better choices, more informed
choices and decisions. Certainly there is the anticipation that
we will move forward with providing health services that are
going to be capable of meeting the needs of our growing and aging
population.
1730
As a result of the fact
that there is general support for these principles, we as a
government will be continuing to carry out the most ambitious
reform of the provincial health system that has ever been
undertaken, not only in this province but in Canada.
In order to realize our
goals, we've had to make some very difficult decisions, but I'm
also pleased to say that as a result of some of those decisions,
we have been able to work co-operatively with our health care
partners and, as a result of the advice and input, we have been
able to achieve some very good and very positive results,
recognizing that there is always more work that needs to be
done.
Let's just take a look at
some of the events that are unfolding as we take a look at the
health care system. I mentioned that there is general support for
primary care and I'm pleased to say that at the present time we
have seven primary care pilot projects in place throughout the
province. As you know, as a result of the recent agreement with
the Ontario Medical Association, we are able to move forward and
hope to move forward over the next four years and at the end of
the four years have approximately 80% of the eligible family
physicians moved into primary care. That will improve
accessibility to primary care services and it will mean there is
24-hour care seven days a week. Also, within those primary care
networks we hope to have different health stakeholders working
together.
We see one of the key
health professionals who will play a very important role being
the nurse practitioner and the nurse, and of course others that
may be involved would be psychologists and social workers and
certainly other health stakeholders as well.
I think that is an exciting
move that we're going to be making in order to improve
accessibility to services throughout Ontario. As I say, there
will be considerable movement in the next four years, as we move
forward to ensure that 80% of our family physicians who are
eligible move into primary care networks, and that will be a team
of health professionals working together.
As you know, we also set up
43 community care access centres. We moved from a situation where
people had access to different centres of information. We now
have what we call one-stop shopping, and people have indicated
it's much easier to get information about community services and
long-term care services. We're presently doing a review of those
community care access centres because we feel that they've been
operational for about three years, and I think we have to take a
look to see if they are indeed achieving the goal, if the level
of service that is being provided is appropriate. We need to take
a look at the strength of that particular system and I think also
take a look at where there are opportunities for improvement. So
we look forward to working not only with those involved within
the community care access centres but also with stakeholders who
use the system-whatever we can do to better achieve the
objectives.
We're continuing with
hospital restructuring, and I think for anybody who is out
travelling through the province, we've not seen this amount of
construction for a long, long time. We have new hospitals being
constructed. In fact, Mrs McLeod would certainly be aware of the
fact that in Thunder Bay there is a new hospital. We have one in
North Bay and we have others that are requesting new hospitals.
Peterborough has been given a new hospital as well. But we also
have about 56 hospitals that are expanding their emergency rooms
and we've been able to fast-track those emergency rooms. We are
constructing three new cardiac centres in the province, in York,
Peel and the region of Waterloo. We have five additional cancer
centres that will be available to meet the demands of patients.
It's all part of bringing these services closer to home. Those
are in Waterloo, Peel, Durham, Sault Ste Marie and St
Catharines.
We're expanding other
cancer services as well in the existing centres, because
unfortunately we are seeing an increase of about 3% in the rate
of individuals who are getting cancer. We need to make sure we
have the space available to provide the treatment. At the same
time, we're moving forward with the human resource strategy in
order to ensure we have the oncologists, the physicists and the
radiation therapists.
As you know, we are
recruiting these radiation therapists from overseas and from the
United States. But I know as recently as last week, when I met
with my colleague health ministers, we're all in competition
because the shortage of radiation therapists is one that is
being experienced by
all of us across Canada. Although we're now paying ours a very
competitive rate with very good benefits, there is a tremendous
number of people coming in and out of the system. We will
continue to focus on ensuring that we have the human resources to
staff our centres.
I'm also pleased to say
that we're looking at further ways to increase the number of
educational opportunities for radiation therapists. We have
increased the class size from 50 to 75, and we're looking now at
ways to expand even beyond that and hopefully make that program
available to people in more parts of the province. It's presently
concentrated primarily in Toronto.
We are moving forward.
We've put a lot of money into priority programs. Priority
programs are programs where we have a tremendous amount of need.
I've spoken to you about the increased access we're providing for
cancer care and cardiac care, but unfortunately we're also seeing
an increased number of people with diabetes, about 10% per year.
We are making sure there are facilities to treat those who have
some of the consequences. We are making sure that dialysis
centres are available throughout the province. I think we've
added about 30 dialysis centres, and we hope to be in a position
in the near future to speak about further plans that we would
have to bring this service closer to home.
I think anybody who has the
need for dialysis recognizes the toll it takes on their personal
life. We're doing everything we can to move as many services as
we can as close to home as possible so that whether you live in
the north, the south, the east or the west, hopefully you can
easily avail yourself. I have certainly been touched by many
people who have suddenly had dialysis services available close to
home and no longer have to travel. They're just absolutely
thrilled that they can get on with day-to-day living without
having to worry about the winter driving, the whole day driving
back and forth or staying overnight. I can assure you our
government will continue to increase access to dialysis
services.
Hip and knee is another
priority program. Unfortunately, with the aging population we
have many people who need hip and knee replacements.
Ms Lankin:
Minister, careful what you say about aging. I just had my knee
replaced last year; it's not always a function of age.
Hon Mrs
Witmer: I would agree. We can be any age and we
certainly do want to make sure that whatever age you need this,
it will be there. Those are some of the priority programs where
we've spent a considerable amount of money in recent years.
Part of the problem is in
increasing the number of physicians in the province. As you know,
we've had a long-standing problem, not only in Ontario, but again
last week it was an issue on the table for the health ministers
in Winnipeg.
We are seeing a shortage of
not only physicians, but nurses across Canada. Again, we tend to
rob from one another and this, unfortunately, has quite a
negative impact. We want to make sure we have more health
professionals available in the province. When it comes to
physicians, we have increased the number of medical spaces this
year by 40. That was what the schools were able to accommodate.
We did this because I decided not to wait for McKendry's report
and the subsequent expert panel report which came out of the
McKendry report. So when I asked the schools, "What could you
accommodate on very short notice?" they indicated to us they
could accommodate 40.
1740
But we hope that when Dr
Peter George releases his expert panel report, he will indicate
how many additional spaces are required in our medical schools.
There has also been interest expressed by northern Ontario and
Windsor about taking a look at expanding some medical school
space into those areas. Again, we recognize we need more
physicians, so we will move forward in accordance with the
recommendations.
We're also looking at more
opportunities to bring foreign-trained doctors into the system. I
think we have quite a number and, again, we look forward to the
recommendations of the expert panel. At the same time, of course,
with nursing we're working with the RNAO, the Registered Nurses
Association of Ontario. They've been given, I believe, $50,000 in
order to recruit and retain nurses in the province. If we need to
expand the educational opportunities, we certainly are quite
prepared to do so. We absolutely want to ensure that we have the
adequate number of health professionals required to meet the
demands of our population.
I just want to speak about
our population, because really what's happening is to a very
large degree being motivated by the fact, not only that our
population is growing, but our population is aging. At the
present time, we're spending $22 billion on health. As you know,
that's considerably more than we had anticipated we would be
spending at this time, but the needs are there and we are
responding to those needs.
However, 12.6% of our
population is using $11 billion. Those people, the 12.6%, are
those over the age of 65. When we talk about the fact that we're
going to see an increase in the number of people over the age of
65 in the next few years, particularly in the next 10 to 11 years
when the baby boomers reach that age, we know the need for health
services will continue to increase and we need to be prepared.
That's why we're doing the short-term, long-term and medium-term
planning to respond to those needs.
We are moving forward and,
as I say, we've done a considerable amount of work. We do see our
health costs rising continually, and I don't see any change in
that. We have new medical technology and new medical equipment.
It's very, very expensive. There are very high public
expectations simply because people have so much access to the
Internet and other forms of communication, so that when there is
the technology or a piece of equipment made available in another
part of the world, people demand that we provide that type of
service here as well. All of this is very expensive. It's
expensive to buy the
new equipment and the technology. It's also expensive to operate
the new equipment.
At the same time, we have a
lot of new drugs that are appearing on the market, drugs that
really can make a difference in the quality of life for people in
this province. But unfortunately again, the new drugs are very
expensive. Our drug costs are tracking about 14% to 15% each year
over the year before. That is having a tremendous impact on some
of our health costs, and of course utilization is increasing. We
need to be aware of that. Not only is this province prepared to
provide additional money for health care, but we're going to
require, over the next five years, an additional $36 billion from
Ottawa just to keep pace as well.
We move forward with a
plan, recognizing what the needs are of our population, and with
a vision. Our vision is one of a system that would be accessible
and integrated and would provide quality service for all
Ontarians, no matter where you live and at every stage of
life.
The fact that we're
expanding the dialysis, the cancer and cardiac, the fact that we
have a Healthy Babies, Healthy Children program and that we're
building 20,000 long-term-care beds all speak to that vision of
what it is we are attempting to do.
But certainly one of the
first steps we had to take was to secure our health budget here
in the province. So we had to make sure the federal government
returned to us the transfer payments that had been taken away and
withheld for five years. I'm pleased the federal government has
taken a good first step. I can assure you, however, that we will
continue to urge the federal government to move to contribute at
least 18% of the country's total health bill. We believe that's a
very modest request. This is long overdue money, but any money we
receive from the federal government will help us accelerate the
pace of health system reform with such priorities as hospitals,
home care, primary care, long-term-care beds, prevention
initiatives and the drug benefit plan.
I want to focus for one
minute on prevention initiatives. During the past three years, we
have been trying to shift the focus at the Ministry of Health and
Long-Term Care away from illness to prevention: injury and
illness prevention and health promotion. Initiatives such as the
Healthy Babies initiative, the stroke strategy, heart health and
the tobacco strategy all speak to the need to better educate the
public and encourage individuals to take greater responsibility
and accountability for their own good health. We will continue to
focus on prevention, because we believe this is going to improve
health outcomes for all Ontarians and it's going to improve their
own personal quality of life. People are living longer today, and
they're going to be living about four years longer in the future.
Obviously we want to make sure that as people get older their
health is as good as it possibly can be.
Again, just a reminder:
although we're spending $22 billion this year on health, more
than any other government in the history of this province, we
believe that by the year 2003-04 that figure could easily reach
$24.2 billion. But I'd like to review with you now what the $22
billion does provide.
It provides for 161
hospital corporations on 210 sites. It provides for health care
providers such as 20,000 physicians, 80,000 nurses and 23
regulated health professionals. It provides for mental health
services, which include nine psychiatric hospitals, five
specialty psychiatric hospitals, community health programs and
homes for special care. Of course you're well aware of our
movement away from institutions and into community care. But we
have assured the public that there will be no closure of
hospitals until we have those community supports in place.
Drugs: We have more than
3,000 prescription drugs listed on the Ontario drug benefit
formulary. We've actually added about 1,890 drugs since 1995.
In the way of community
services, we have our 43 community care access centres. We have
1,100 assistive device vendors. We have 1,200 long-term-care
agencies, 55 community health centres, 385 clinical laboratories,
1,011 independent health facilities and 160 agencies for drug and
alcohol treatment services.
That gives you somewhat of
a snapshot of what is available to meet the needs of our
population. But I would just hearken back to the fact that demand
for services will continue to increase, and we're going to
continue to ensure we can respond to that demand.
1750
I've talked about the
increased need for cancer services and the increasing incidence
of diabetes. I also want to speak to another health cost that is
skyrocketing. Again, you don't have to be old, but we're seeing
that 15% to 20% of Ontarians today have arthritis. In fact, that
is the province's leading chronic disease and cause pain and
disability. So that is a pressure we need to recognize.
We move forward to address
the dynamics of demand, the issues of accessibility,
accountability and affordability. As a result we're taking a look
at the health system, thinking about how we can organize health
services differently, how we can deliver them and how we can pay
for them. We move forward to ensure that health providers are
held accountable for the resources they use and the outcomes they
achieve because, as most of you know, more than 90% of our
resources go to our health providers. We simply provide funding
for them to provide the services.
We want to ensure that
people have an opportunity to take advantage of the new
technology and treatment, but we want to make sure that as people
do access this new treatment and technology, there is informed
decision-making. So we need to promote the effective and
efficient use of information technology across the system. We are
also quite determined to ensure that we work in partnership with
our doctors, nurses and other health professionals, our community
services, long-term-care facilities and our many volunteers. I
think it's important that we do that.
We're moving forward to modernize the system,
and I've spoken to you about how we are attempting to do that. As
we talk about modernizing the system, we might want to stop and
recognize that, as a result of the advances that have been made
in new drugs and technology, Ontarians today are spending much
less time in the hospital than they did in the past. But that
means we have to have the home care and community-based services
available.
I'd like to share with you
the fact that today 70% of all surgery happens on an outpatient
basis. That is quite a shift from what happened in the past. So
not only do we have to have the community services available, but
we need to make sure we've got the long-term-care services
available. As you know, we did make a $1.2-billion commitment to
build 20,000 long-term-care beds. Originally we said we'd build
those in eight years. Since then we have accelerated the process,
and I can assure you those beds will be up and operating by the
year 2004. We have already made available 14,500 of those beds,
and the last 5,500 will be made available through an RFP later
this fall. So we're going to see a lot of openings of new
long-term-care facilities next year, the year thereafter and
until the year 2004.
We also have new design
standards for people living in long-term-care facilities. You're
no longer going to see wards with more than two people in them,
people having to go down the hall to the washroom, people having
to be taken by elevator to the ground floor or elsewhere. The new
long-term-care facilities are designed to enhance quality of life
for people as they get older. They are units of 32. People are
either in a private room or a room for two, with their own
washroom, their dining room and their living area. They all have
access to the outdoors as well. We really hope that as a result
of these new design standards, the quality of life for older
people will be enhanced. We also hope it will encourage their
families to continue to stay in touch with them in order that
they have that support which is needed. There's tremendous
progress being made in that area.
I'm just moving forward
here, because I see that I've spoken to a lot of what is in my
notes.
The Chair:
You have approximately two minutes, Minister.
Hon Mrs
Witmer: Maybe I'll mention as well another exciting
initiative that has been set up, and that is the telephone health
advisory service in northern Ontario. It allows people to call an
experienced triage nurse to provide them with health information,
advice and referral. We are expanding that service to the greater
Toronto area early next year, and eventually to all communities
across the province. It will improve access to primary care
services as well. I think that is quite significant.
We won't have time to go
into all the prevention initiatives, but I've certainly spoken to
those.
I would conclude that we've
made some exciting strides in mental health. We introduced
Brian's Law. Actually, the government was recognized at the
International Academy of Law and Mental Health, and we were
presented with the Phillipe Pinel award for our work on the
implementation of Brian's Law this past summer. We're moving
forward to enact that legislation.
As a government, we want to
remain steadfast in our commitment to the health of Ontarians.
When we took office in 1995, we brought with us a significant
list of aspirations, and at the present time I'm pleased to say
we are turning many of those aspirations into achievements. But
it wouldn't have been possible without the help of people in this
province. We look forward to continuing to establish policies and
programs that will extend the frontiers of health and the
well-being of the people we serve.
Ms Lankin:
Mr Chair, would it be possible, since the minister didn't have a
chance to cover all the details in her notes, that she might
provide a copy to the clerk, if she's agreeable?
The Chair:
We understand from staff that that will be provided, and in that
event we will be getting copies.
Thank you all. I look
forward to our convening again next week.
