CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES (CONTINUED)
CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES
The House resumed at 8 p.m.
CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES (CONTINUED)
Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, the estimates of the Ministry of Community and Social Services were passed very early in the year, which is different from a lot of other estimates we have done lately. We did, however, cover to a certain extent one of the topics in some detail last night. That was the situation regarding general welfare assistance and other income maintenance areas. As members will recall, that took all evening, so tonight I will not make many comments on general welfare assistance because, as I previously stated, it has recently been covered quite well.
I would, however, like to make some comments on certain areas of concern with the Ministry of Community and Social Services. There are many areas that concern all of us, because that ministry is a very important one in this province and provides a very vital service for people in need.
The first area of concern I would like to mention is that of child abuse. Not long ago, we saw the report on the Kim Anne Popen situation, a report that in my view took a very long time to prepare. We are not sure what it will achieve yet. During the press conference at which the Popen report was released, the minister himself said many of the recommendations had already been implemented. On the other hand, since the release of the Popen report we are seeing new cases which in many ways resemble this case, though of course they are not identical. Children are being abused and the situation has not stopped.
We also have a new Children's Act, which I recognize is only a consultation paper at the present time, and the minister is willing to consider everyone's opinion before making this into some form of legislation. The minister has used a very good approach in putting out a consultation paper. He has stressed to various groups that he is willing to listen to all kinds of opinions before coming out with the final draft of the bill.
It is good that he is stressing this, because there are quite a few people who, when they see new legislation or proposals, are always apprehensive that the minister may only be looking for confirmation of an existing opinion. From the way the minister has handled the new Children's Act, it seems obvious that is not what he wants. He wants a good and thorough discussion in all areas and I am glad to see that.
However, I do have one concern and this is not on any particular section of the act but rather on the philosophy of the act, which seems to be the preservation of the sanctity or the integrity of the family unit unless absolutely necessary for the state to interfere with that unit. That seems to be stressed at various places in the new act.
As I understand what we are doing without this new act, it seems to be the reverse. It seems to be the protection of the child first and foremost. I see a different thrust in this new legislation and many others have seen it that way as well. I am just looking at an editorial in the Ottawa Citizen of December 9 which is entitled, "The Family Versus Abused Children." I will not read this at length, because I have various areas that I would like to cover and I recognize we have only two and a half hours for all parties and all members to express their views on these concurrences, but I would like to read one or two paragraphs. They are discussing this new act that the minister proposes and it says the following:
"The ministry proposals as written appear to make that task more difficult." In other words, the task of protecting the child. "As George Caldwell, executive director of the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies has said, 'You can't provide adequate child protection if you don't have the authority to apprehend a child and bring it before the court except in high-risk cases. Unless the ministry can satisfy child care professionals that its recasting of CAS custody powers won't inhibit their ability to protect children, it should rethink its proposals before they are embodied in legislation next year.'"
That is a concern that various people have expressed. I was at the annual meeting of the Ontario Association of Children's Mental Health Centres and so was the deputy minister of course. Various people expressed that opinion there as well. They were concerned about what seemed to be a threat emerging from that.
I had a meeting recently with Dr. Cyril Greenland. I am sure all members will be aware that Dr. Greenland is a professor at McMaster University who has written numerous books on child abuse, mental illness and other areas of social policy. Dr. Greenland shares that concern and has expressed it to me and perhaps to other members. I would invite other members to state the case if they have experienced that concern with the proposed legislation.
Moving away from the Children's Act for a moment, in the area of child abuse we should discuss the child abuse registry. We know it has come under severe criticism over recent months because of its inadequacies and the fact that it is very seldom as complete as we would like that register to be. Because of the fact that it has such potential powers as a registry, there is a certain reluctance on the part of people in children's aid societies and other professionals to register people under that program.
That is a very big concern. If the child abuse registry is inaccurate, it does impede our task of trying to improve the protection of the child. We are going to have to come to grips with that issue. I do hope the minister will take one or two moments at the end to tell us if he intends to make any changes in that area as well.
We could spend the rest of the evening discussing the area of child abuse, but of course we will not. There are various other areas that I want to discuss as well and I understand that we are going to have our child abuse hearings in the next few months. I say this in all sincerity, notwithstanding some of the comments that the minister has made on our previous hearings. I hope we get the co-operation of all the members of this Legislature on the social development committee, which I believe did an outstanding job on the last report.
I know the minister does not share that view, or at least he did not share the view at the time he was asked the question in the House. Perhaps since then he has had more chance to peruse the recommendation and has come to a different conclusion. I hope he has, because I have looked through the report again and again trying to find out why the minister was very negative on the wife battering report and I really do not understand it.
8:10 p.m.
I think that report was a very good one. It is something that was done in a very nonpartisan way. The government members as well as the members of both opposition parties shared the views that were presented to us. We had full and thorough discussions on the issues. We made what I believe were very positive recommendations in improving the situation for women who are battered.
I know the minister has said in this House that men who beat their wives should be thrown on to the street with the muggers and all that stuff. Of course he is correct. Anybody who beats up his wife should not remain in the home situation. That is a very fine theory, except how does one achieve this? I thought our report addressed that and how that could be achieved.
We talked about morning-after court. We talked about the police laying charges. We talked about all of those things to try to resolve situations rapidly so that the woman can then return quickly to the home environment, where she should have been from the start. But one cannot evade the fact that a woman who has been beaten up at 3 o'clock in the morning on the third concession someplace in my riding or the minister's- -- I do not know if his has any rural component to it -- is in a very poor position to evict her husband from the home.
Given the staff the Ontario Provincial Police provides in many areas of this province, it would probably be five or six hours later before any police officer arrived. Not that the officers are not dedicated, but there are just not enough of them to go around. In northern and eastern Ontario, detachments are quite far apart. They are just not there to provide those services.
The minister's statements on the day he criticized the report on wife battering for not being as complete -- I think the terms he used were much more colourful than that -- nevertheless, he stated that report was not as good as he felt it should be; those statements were made in an erroneous manner. I hope he will address that whole issue of wife battering tonight, the sections in the report that deal with his ministry and what he thinks he can do to improve the situation, in particular, the transition house area and also public education towards the issue.
I recognize of course that much of the report does not even deal with this ministry, because it deals with a variety of areas, some of which relate to the Attorney General's and the Solicitor General's ministries, some with the Ministry of Education and some with the federal government. Nevertheless, many of the recommendations deal with this ministry and I would hope the minister would have a moment to address that issue later on.
I do think we should talk a bit about the question that was raised this afternoon by my colleague the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell) on the closing of the six institutions for the mentally retarded.
Shortly after the minister made his announcement in this House, we telephoned 20 of the 130-odd associations for the mentally retarded in this province. Granted, some of them were rather large associations -- some of them as a matter of fact were the largest -- but nevertheless, of the 20 we phoned we found there was a waiting list of about 519 people. Of course, there are still over 100 associations we did not phone.
If we have at least 500 and possibly 1,000 people on waiting lists now and we cannot find them a place to stay, it is difficult for anyone to believe the people who will be put out of these institutions will immediately be able to integrate in other places, will be able to reside in group homes and those other places the minister intends to put them. That would be difficult, looking at the 1,000 or however many there might be now on waiting lists.
The first thing that comes to mind is, if they can put those people in group homes, why are they not placing the ones that are on waiting lists already? It is a legitimate question. In the minister's answer today, I do not believe he responded to the part about the people who are already on waiting lists.
In other words, why do we not take care of the people who are on waiting lists and thereby possibly gain the trust of the community? They would then say: "It is quite obvious this is a very good move. We are taking care of the people on waiting lists and, because we have done such a good job of that, maybe we should close down more institutions and integrate them into the community." I believe the ministry has a credibility problem with some people outside.
I will read a Christmas card that was sent to me from Goderich, Ontario. It says: "Dear Sir, I hope you have a nice holiday. Make it one for the residents of the six centres Mr. Drea plans to close. Stop his plan. Anything you can do to protect the mentally retarded from being dumped out into the unprepared community will be deeply appreciated." It is signed by a person in Goderich. I will not read the name because obviously I did not have time to phone that person to ask his permission.
Various letters have been sent to members. I could have brought 30 or 40 into the House. I recognize some of them perhaps come from employees of institutions and they are acting to protect their jobs. I accept that, but we have also received letters from parents. There was an article in one of the Toronto papers about parents in their seventies who I think had a 49-year-old son. All of a sudden their son was going to be removed from an institution.
Basically they were saying: "Help us. What are we going to do?" What does one do with a 49-year-old son who suddenly comes out of an institution, especially when one sees there are already hundreds of people, and possibly more, on waiting lists? One becomes awfully worried that one's son will not find accommodation elsewhere. People who are perhaps 60 or 70 years old and are experiencing that type of situation have good reason to be worried. I hope the minister can reassure us tonight about all the steps he intends to take to reassure the community that if he intends to pursue this it will be done in a manner where there will be accommodation for all of them.
We are going to visit one of those centres tomorrow and one on Thursday to meet with the parents, staff and various groups in those communities. They have telephoned us over the last few weeks asking to meet us. We are going to two of them tomorrow and possibly try to see one or two more next week. Not all of them have contacted us, so we may not be at every one of those six centres but we are going to some of them, two of them this week. I wanted the minister to be aware of that before we go.
We should take a minute to talk about personal attendant care. This is an area that is not well known or well publicized in this province, as the minister well knows. Until the Advocacy Resource Centre for the Handicapped published its information package on this topic in April 1982, there was not much available information. This group claims -- and I hope the minister can elaborate on it in the House -- that there is not even a form to use to apply for personal attendant care.
They also indicate here that there does not seem to be a uniform way in which personal attendant care was adopted in the past. For instance, they adopted some on a one-year basis, some on a continuous basis; some that are rejected are very similar to some that are accepted. It seems to me that the written policy on that is not as clear, to say the least, as other policies within the ministry.
8:20 p.m.
One has to wonder why care has to be provided by an order in council. Why is there not an established program by which a person can apply and obtain the care if he meets the criteria necessary? Why does it have to be done on a one-to-one basis in a cabinet meeting? It is a difficult thing to understand, and perhaps the minister could explain the history behind this. When it started there were only a few of them in the province, but now we are getting more and more of these cases, so perhaps a more structured program would be in order. If such is the case, perhaps the minister could inform us when he intends to establish such a program for the people requiring personal attendant care.
Earlier in this session, I introduced a private member's bill in this Legislature. It does not exactly pertain to this ministry, of course, but it has some implications, and I hope the minister responsible for social policy conveys the message to other government members to support my private members bill when it is debated in this House. The bill is an act to amend the Election Act, and it is basically to provide a mechanism by which people who cannot go to a polling station are able to vote in their residence.
Manitoba has a system that operates through voting by mail, sending in the ballot by mail. It is now in effect in Manitoba; some 900 people used it in the last provincial election. We can only assume those are people who had not voted before. This bill is not meant to encourage people not to go to the polls; it is meant to assist people who cannot go to the polls, such as chronically ill people and severely handicapped people who have no mechanism of going to the polling station.
I want to be clear that is the intention of this private member's bill. Those people presumably do not vote now. If there were 1,000 of them in Manitoba and we have eight times the population in Ontario, there are probably 8,000 people here who could be helped in an election, 8,000 people who are now either voting by proxy or not voting at all.
I would suggest that although voting by mail is no perfect method for an election, it is certainly better than voting by proxy, which means they do not vote at all unless somebody else goes for them. If there is one voting mechanism that is not democratic, it has to be the proxy vote. In my view, this could very well replace the proxy vote.
The federal report entitled Obstacles, which was released last year and which I am sure the minister has read, advocated the establishment of such a voting system for the federal elections as well. I hope the federal government establishes a mechanism to allow people who cannot attend the polling stations to vote that way for federal elections, and I hope that all members of this Legislature will support my bill so we can have this for provincial elections as well.
I would like to take just one moment to discuss a case that happened in my constituency that has now been solved. I think it serves to illustrate a problem that was occurring in the Ministry of Community and Social Services.
I am referring to the case of Katie Hubbard of Vankleek Hill. She is a paraplegic who, through the vocational rehabilitation section of the ministry, took a course in day care in order to become a trained day care worker. While she was taking the course she worked at the Vankleek Hill day care centre. That sounds reasonable, as she was learning that kind of work. After completing the course she applied for a job at the Vankleek Hill day care centre. The municipality was very impressed with her qualifications and wanted to hire her, but the ministry would not allow it.
Apparently the ministry said she could not work in the day care centre because she was paraplegic, yet another part of the ministry had trained her, as a paraplegic, to be a day care worker. That is a very difficult situation. I wrote an open letter to the minister, which he will recall, and said that in my view in that case it was obvious there was a communication problem within the ministry. I used the expression that one arm of the ministry in this case obviously was not aware of what the other arm was doing. If it was, it was at least not respecting the opinion of the other arm of the same ministry.
In the last few years when we have had such an emphasis- -- maybe not enough but some emphasis anyway -- on assisting the handicapped people of this province, it is especially important now to become aware of those kinds of issues. If Katie Hubbard has had this experience inevitably many other handicapped persons also have.
Katie Hubbard had an experience like this with two different arms of the same ministry. Imagine if she had been trained by the provincial government and then sought a federal or municipal job or something else. This was the same government, the same ministry, but two different parts that had created the problem. It is very important for all of us to become increasingly attuned to some of the programs we have for the handicapped and how important they can be.
I would like to discuss very briefly with the minister an issue that involves a social policy. Perhaps the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) is the person who is stopping this issue from moving ahead or perhaps it is others in the cabinet. I am not sure. As the minister responsible for social policy is one of them, I would like to discuss the issue of the child-rearing drop-out provision of the Canada pension plan.
The minister will no doubt be aware it has been about six years since the federal government passed the necessary amendments so that we could have a child-rearing drop-out provision in the Canada pension plan. Provinces, one after the other, have opted to change the Canada pension plan to increase the benefit for women who leave the work force to raise their children.
For some members who are not aware of just exactly how this works, it is basically as follows. The number of years a woman leaves the work force to raise a child -- I believe the child has to be under the age of six or seven -- are excluded from the total number of years put together to calculate the pension that person will be entitled to when she retires. One after another, provinces have said this is a good idea. The ideal situation, of course, would be that women could contribute on their own when they are at home. But not even asking for the moon here, many people would be satisfied with saying: "At least, if the ministry did not penalize us for those years, we would be pleased; we would be satisfied."
8:30 p.m.
So provinces, one after another, have opted for this formula. The last one, I believe, agreed about this time last year. It was British Columbia.
Of course, all members would know that in order to change the Canada pension plan there has to be agreement of provinces representing at least two-thirds of the population of this country. If one excludes Quebec which has its own pension plan, Ontario has slightly more than one-third of the population of the rest of Canada put together. Therefore this government holds a veto in changing the child-rearing drop-out provision of the Canada pension plan. I am sure it recognizes that.
The Premier (Mr. Davis) has stated in various meetings that he was unwilling to make what he referred to as an isolated change in the Canada pension plan. This means, of course, that if other changes were made at the same time he might be more agreeable. One has to wonder what other change he wants. The one that stands out is the increase of the premiums to the CPP. In other words he is saying: "Give me more increases in CPP and I will go along with your child-rearing drop-out provision." If that is so it is a very sad example of what the Premier is doing to the women of this province.
It is very unfair, because what he really wants is an increase in CPP premiums. Then he would not have to give back the money his government owes to the Canada pension plan already. In other words the government is holding the women hostage until it arrives at an increase in premiums so it will not have to pay the money back. If that is the case, I hope the minister responsible for social policy will raise those concerns in cabinet and arrive at a change very soon. It is high time that was done in this province.
The minister will recall I raised the issue of low-vision people in this province with him this afternoon. As I stated then, some 80 per cent of the 4,000 registered legally blind in this province are not totally blind but have restricted vision. Their vision could be made more functional if only they received more assistance from this government.
At that time the minister indicated he would look into it to see what could be done. He would review the refusals that had been previously made by his ministry. Perhaps he has obtained that documentation and could report to us tonight. I hope he is able to do so. I also hope his response will be somewhat positive but of course I can only hope. I must wait to find out when he makes his statement later.
I do hope the minister had a chance to watch the Fifth Estate on television in December, a program that featured this group. It explained the problem they had quite well.
The problem does not specifically stem from his ministry. We all recognize that. Nobody is accusing his ministry of being the culprit in the situation that exists here. These people have a need that has not been recognized by anyone -- neither by the ministry nor anybody else. The situation could be corrected with a grant from his ministry to establish -- perhaps that is not the correct word because an organization is already established -- but to assure the proper and full organization of the Low Vision Association of Ontario.
A grant would enable them to produce catalogues of visual aids available and other kinds of useful documentation that they could then send to the blind people of this province, the 80 per cent who are not totally blind. Presumably 80 per cent of them could be assisted in regaining sight.
I illustrated for the minister some of the equipment those people require in order to see. Those visual aids I had in the House this afternoon are not terribly expensive. Some of them are only $100. That, while still expensive by today's standards, is not as expensive as one would think when seen in the context of being blind and being able to see for $100. It illustrates the importance of assisting a group that could circulate information to its membership and obtain a very necessary service.
The group was here this afternoon and they are with us again tonight in the gallery. I notice one member is looking at us now wearing a visual aid that looks very much like what we would consider a telescope but is really, for that person, his eye. Those are his glasses, just as the ones you are wearing, Mr. Speaker, are your glasses. With that equipment he can see a bus coming. Without that equipment he walks around with his white cane.
It makes that kind of difference and I cannot stress just how important that is when one cannot see. I can only think about it myself. I cannot fully comprehend the problem because I am not blind and, unless one is suffering from something that serious, one cannot really understand it well. I have been very impressed with the presentation that was made to me and I do hope we can obtain some assistance for them.
In conclusion, I have one more point to bring to the attention of the minister. This afternoon he challenged me to bring statistics that would illustrate that Quebec is doing more for the visually impaired than is his government. I will illustrate now what Quebec is doing and I hope in his remarks the minister will tell me how much better Ontario is for the visually impaired. I am not talking about the blind.
In Quebec the government has a well-organized program to assist visually impaired people. It has funding to help in the purchase of visual aids. In 1980-81 the program assisted 7,188 people. Perhaps the minister can tell us how many people he assisted with visual aids in 1980-81. The cost of the program was $571,533 and it was provided by the Quebec health insurance program.
People who are visually impaired in Quebec are getting some recognition and some assistance from the government of that province. I would like to invite the minister to do likewise. I am not asking that he spend $500,000 this year. That is not what was asked of him. This organization wanted $75,000; $150,000 over two years, so it is $75,000 or thereabouts to assist the visually impaired of Ontario.
I have to come back to the issue of wife battering for a moment and to the remarks the minister made that day when we presented the report in good faith in this Legislature. This report was done, as I said previously, in a nonpartisan way and in a constructive manner by members on all sides of the House in the hope the government would recognize its value. I was very disappointed with the remarks the minister made that day.
In many ways, I sometimes admire the style he has in dealing with issues. He is a scrapper who really attacks issues head on. He was known for that in his previous occupation as well. It is a quality I admire. But sometimes I have the feeling, especially when he is dealing with social issues, that he is a person who is trying to clean a chandelier with boxing gloves on. No matter what he does, when he has that kind of approach, he is bound to break something. I think his approach could be a bit more compassionate. I guess that is the word I want to use.
8:40 p.m.
Mr. Nixon: Je ne sais quoi.
Mr. Boudria: Je ne sais quoi? Perhaps. No, I would not say that either. I would just say he could do with a bit more compassion, especially when dealing with issues such as this. Members of this Legislature, in very good faith, prepared that report for the benefit of all, including the Ministry of Community and Social Services.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I have a few things this evening that are carryovers from last night's supplementary estimates that we could not get to. Particularly I would like a factual breakdown on two items other than welfare assistance. Could the minister let us know if the money for senior citizens is going as a regular transfer to homes for the aged, etc.? I would appreciate it if the minister would just fill that out a bit for us. Does the process allow the minister to deal with that before we go on, Mr. Speaker, or would you prefer it all to be done at the end?
Hon. Mr. Drea: If I could have a point of order, an agreement was struck last night in order to expedite the business of the House. Although the member for Scarborough West would have liked a very brief explanation concerning the other part of my supplementary estimates he stood down. I understand the rules of concurrence, Mr. Speaker, but I wonder if, for the purpose of clarification this evening, we might have a minute or two out of the concurrence? The member was generous in the allotment of his own time to facilitate the work of the entire Legislature so that item could be concluded last night.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): As long as the members of the House are in agreement, I have no objection to your making an exceptional response at this point.
Hon. Mr. Drea: In fairness to the honourable member, since he --
The Acting Speaker: Excuse me, I am guided elsewhere.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Perhaps I could rise on a point of order?
The Acting Speaker: I will accept a point of order.
Hon. Mr. Drea: While I discuss the point of order, I will tell the honourable member that I will take the time off any time I have of my own, because he was very generous last night -- not to the minister but indeed to the House. I wish some others could be like that.
If I understand it correctly, all the honourable member wanted to know was if the direct transfer payments involve co-payments, regular payments and so forth to homes for the aged. The answer is yes.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I thank the minister for clarifying that matter. A couple of other things I will couch in terms of my general remarks and he may or may not refer to them. It is up to his discretion.
I am going to start off my comments on concurrences a little reluctantly, with some criticisms of the minister himself. I feel a little reluctant to do that but I also feel it is crucial. I cannot help but feel that during the course of his tenure in this ministry we have seen a number of unfortunate developments in terms of procedures.
I think the attitude of the Minister of Community and Social Services, more than anything else, is causing more conflict than necessary in the debate. It is natural that the debate often will be highly partisan and at other times not so partisan. In the family violence situation I believe there has been a lack of openness within the ministry. There was less of the feeling of ease in discussion than there perhaps was with the last regime in the Ministry of Community and Social Services.
I look at some of the changes that have just taken place in the personnel of that ministry. Some of them are understandable. Deputy ministers are moved and go elsewhere. That is not necessarily the prerogative of a minister but rather is often the prerogative of the Prime Minister or the Premier. When I look at some of the people who have been there and have been involved in the development of some of the changes in children's policy and some of the other policy areas that have taken place over the last number of years, I see what can be considered kind of an exodus of people who played a major role.
I see John Anderson and Peter Barnes are gone. Judge Thomson, who I understand was on special assignment and was in charge of policy and program development, is gone. Glenn Grover is gone. That brings me to the point of how people leave and the kind of attitudes that are developed. Today the man who was the policy and program development head of the ministry was attacked by the minister in this House and I think unnecessarily so. It was unnecessarily provocative.
There are others if one goes down through the organizational chart comparing it year over year. Even during the period while this one minister has been there, and not even going back to when the last minister was there, one sees others who have left key positions and other positions which in this year's organizational chart do not seem to be filled at all. I sense there is a real malaise and that something is going wrong in the ministry.
I once facetiously raised the name of someone who had given me some information and then I sat back and said, "Oh, my God, maybe I should not name names because that person will not be there tomorrow." There is an air of confrontation and lack of discussion within that ministry itself. I get calls from people -- and I assure the members they are not New Democratic plants in that ministry -- who are concerned about the kind of process that has developed.
It used to be a free-for-all in that ministry in terms of discussion of policy development. There used to be an openness when I and my predecessor the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan) called trying to get information. That is not the case now. That attitude is just not geared to me as a member of the opposition. I can perhaps understand that after the confrontation that necessarily takes place here from time to time. It has happened between the minister and the very constituency he is supposed to work with and provide services for.
I cannot help but recall the confrontation -- that is all it can be called -- in front of this building between him and the family benefits mothers who were here protesting the change in family benefits. It was a totally and unnecessarily provocative interchange. It has been recorded well on radio. I remember hearing it for two days afterwards. I remember the response of the minister to the figures on the numbers of young people on welfare. Basically he was saying: "My God, we have to tighten this up. There are too many of them. They are sort of weekend welfare people almost." I have the quotes here some place.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: the member should please quote me correctly.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am going to try to find it.
Hon. Mr. Drea: That is one of the reasons the member might look at himself some time.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Which is another example.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Misquote me and then it is okay.
Mr. Stokes: Why have they all of a sudden become so ungenerous? Both of them. It was all sweetness and light here 10 minutes ago.
An hon. member: Where is the Christmas spirit?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Christmas is over.
The response from the minister in a report in the Toronto Star on October 29, 1982, basically suggested that approximately 565 teenagers are collecting welfare while still attending school. He was saying it is frowned upon, forbidden by the province, but for some reason it has started again. The minister had sent out a directive to all municipal welfare agencies telling them they are not to do it; if they did he would withdraw all subsidies.
8:50 p.m.
In point of fact, under the regulations it is quite possible to find extenuating circumstances. Only in cases involving unsuitable homes does the province allow teenagers to leave home, and go to school on welfare -- that is true. However the review has shown the vast majority of those 565 teenagers were kids coming from homes where there were severe problems.
The notion that was put across by the minister was that somehow the kids were leaving on the weekend because they had a slight run-in with their families. Look at the approach that was taken when I raised the question of the child abuse registry. The immediate response by the minister was to attack the credibility of John Byles's report. That is in Hansard. His immediate response was to do that, as was his immediate response to the Glenn Grover thing today.
I go back to the family violence committee that was mentioned by my colleague the member for Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria). The minister should have welcomed the fact that a committee had been looking at this in a very nonpartisan fashion. There was an initial kerfuffle maybe in getting it on the floor, but afterwards in terms of the meat of what we came up with, it was a very nonpartisan attitude, with good co-operation from the members of the ministry.
The basic report was in the minister's hands a good month and a bit before. If it was not in the minister's hands it was in the hands of people who were auditing the meetings and, therefore, should have been there and been passed on to the minister. The basic interim reports were in the hands of all members of his Tory caucus who were members of that committee and who could easily pass it on. If it had not been passed on to him it should have been a month or so before, because we were determined to get it out in French as well as in English.
The minister's immediate response was essentially to attack the report, not to welcome it and say, "I think this should be the concentration." He attacked it saying it was obviously not written by women. That was his number one response, as I recall. His second was that we had missed the essential point, which of course we had not. We had covered the essential point he then raised. I think we did it in terms of -- and I will come back to this later -- trying to move away from the area of responsibility we were asking from him in our report. This was for a major extension of hostels and emergency housing for women. It was just part of this series of confrontations.
Today I found it difficult to believe the minister's response when the matter was raised by the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell) about the deinstitutionalization of the mentally retarded. His response was to say the member had never been in one of those institutions except for a union meeting, generally speaking, and during elections. I think saying that to the member for Huron-Middlesex is pretty incredible. I do not believe it is true for a second, and I have talked to the member for Huron-Middlesex, who denies it. But even if it were true, is that the kind of response we necessarily want from a minister of the crown to somebody who is raising a very valid concern? The answer is that we do not. That is not the kind of attitude we want, surely.
I think of the time I raised a question about figures on day care and the special $11 million. The minister picked a couple of areas where he found some flaws, and there were one or two flaws. He turned the matter around in a very nastily worded attack and, in fact, blurred the truth. He did not have his new deputy then. I happened to have a written question on the Order Paper later on, and discovered they had caught themselves in -- I am going to use the word -- a lack of truth in the response by the minister. He blustered in his reply. He attacked first of all, rather than responding to a real concern.
Mr. Stokes: A lack of frankness.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: A lack of frankness has not been his problem.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): I would say the member is verging very dangerously on -- when you say a lack of truth, I would much appreciate your not making that kind of remark.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I look for your guidance. I found a major discrepancy between his initial response and the response of his deputy. How is that?
Mr. Stokes: Less than forthcoming.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Which was less than forthcoming. I would be glad to go back and pull that stuff out. The initial response, when the minister came back and confronted -- first pound the opposition -- use some truth and use other things he thinks are useful to him which later on prove not to be exactly the case.
The Acting Speaker: The honourable member is trespassing in the area which he should not. Please withdraw it.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I said, some things were truthful, factual --
The Acting Speaker: Please withdraw it.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: -- and other things were later contradicted by his own deputy minister.
This is the minister who has torn apart the children's services committee. This is the minister who is deciding on the deinstitutionalization of the mentally retarded and, I would suggest, cutting away the strength from even the working groups in the process. Even when he was standing up with a courageous response on the group home issue in High Park, he turned around and whacked us with a response that was unnecessarily in the street-fighter mould.
I look at this and ask, "Is this what we want from the Minister of Community and Social Services, the minister who is supposed to be protecting those who are most disadvantaged, generally speaking, in our society -- those disadvantaged physically, mentally or by income?" Surely that is not what we want in Ontario. Surely we do not want somebody whose immediate response is to bluster a counterattack against an allegation by the opposition. Surely we want somebody who appears to be sensitive -- at least appears to be, if nothing else.
This is not, in my view, the ministry where a street fighter is best used. Perhaps he was good in the Ministry of Correctional Services. Maybe the present minister should take up this kind of approach. Maybe it was even good in the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, although I wonder how the Cadillac Fairview shemozzle would have been handled in that kind of a fashion in the House if that were the case. I do not believe it is the response we want from the Minister of Community and Social Services. I do not lay that only at the feet of this minister. I lay that at the feet of the Premier. It is the Premier who chooses the Minister of Community and Social Services.
This Premier has made some really interesting choices over the years: Mr Grossman, senior, who had some fairly interesting approaches; the member for Prince Edward-Lennox (Mr. J. A. Taylor) known for his attempts to destroy the Ministry of Community and Social Services during that period --
Mr. Samis: An advocate of policies of the 19th century.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: -- and an advocate of policies of the 19th century, as I am reminded by the member for Cornwall, and then the present Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton). Perhaps that was at a time, dare I say it, when the government wanted to spend some money on community and social services and decided to put in their version of a bleeding heart, just to sort of space things out a bit.
But now we are back with a minister who adopts the kind of style I mentioned before. I have to ask why. Maybe it is because the Premier and the cabinet want somebody at the head of the Ministry of Community and Social Services at the moment who will not bend to the pressures from the bleeding hearts on this side of the floor who will be demanding more money for the handicapped, more money for the poor. Perhaps they want somebody instead who will take us on, fight us in the House, bluster away, play to the gallery as well as the rest of us do on this side and try to obfuscate the issues and try to make us miss the issues.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Better.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Yes, from time to time, he plays it much better and much more cleverly -- and he does diffuse the issues which do not deserve to be diffused but deserve to be confronted. I believe it is the policy of this government that they want this kind of a minister now when money is tough.
Today I attacked the Minister of Citizenship and Culture (Mr. McCaffrey) because of his acquiescence to the pressure to cut back grants to the Ontario Arts Council. That is his choice. They can get somebody who will just sit down, give in and ask the Ontario Arts Council and people who receive money from it, "How would you deal with a 15 per cent cut this year?" Or they put up somebody who will bluster away and try to defuse issues that way.
9 p.m.
I suggest it is a deliberate strategy of this government. Going back to the Engelsian concept of morality in politics, which I mentioned last evening, that verges on being a very dangerous kind of policy by this government. This is a time when people need help. They need a responsive minister. They need openness in that ministry. We need innovation in that ministry. That is not what we have been getting.
Look at some of the failures in income maintenance. I dealt with that primarily last night, and I do not want to spend a lot of time on it now, but the minister and previous ministers have never responded to the injustice of our approach to rent allowances and rent subsidy.
There has been no response to the business I raised yesterday about the fact that unless you are a single employable person who pays a rent of $75 or less per month, you never get 100 per cent of your rent paid.
Mr. Philip: Why should he take care of tenants now? He never did in his previous ministry.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): Order.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: There was no response to that attack last night. There was no response as to why, when this is all the money these people have, we expect them to dig into their food allowances to pay for their rent. Why is it that this ministry will not take another look at how we administer that program and at how we divine what it is people will receive?
There were other anomalies. This minister might want to get up and explain to us why it is that the maximum amount of money somebody receives for room and board, when there is profit involved, is $238 per month for a single employable. If he did, perhaps he could explain how much that leaves people, generally speaking. and confess to this House the abject poverty that leaves people in, in a place like Toronto.
As I tried to deal with yesterday, if a person is living in what is defined as a nonprofit location with family or whatever, that person does not get any increase this year. There is no rent subsidy. That is left to the discretion of the individual worker, who has to clear it through his administrator as if they had no other costs this year.
I would like the minister to explain the horrendous problem that exists when he put together the shelter and fuel subsidies business. Many people, especially families, are renting places -- houses, for instance -- and paying for the fuel costs separately. I get many calls from people in northern Ontario about this.
Under our system a person receives either the shelter subsidy for the rent he is charged or an allowance for the fuel subsidy, one or the other. There is no idea where the rest of the money is going to come from. These are people with no other source of income.
I would like to understand how it is just in our society that a maximum of $1,200 a year, $100 a month for fuel, can be picked up as a maximum. For people renting places in Sudbury or in Timmins, it is very possible their fuel will be higher than that; it is very possible that, on top of that, they will have rents that will be much higher -- double that.
It does not really matter where it is in Ontario. The point is that people are having to take money out of their food allowances to pay for one or the other of the two, whichever is less, and that is seen to be just.
When you have a minister whose job it is to hold the line and not make changes, not make waves except in areas where they are politically acceptable, as I said yesterday, then you will not see any changes here and you will get the $52-million boondoggle we got, making it seem that this was adequate for these people. Surely I do not have to remind the minister of the comparison between what those hundreds of thousands of people received there and what the doctors have received.
I will not go into any more of that side of things, but it is something I did not go into detail on last night, those other two portions of shelter and fuel, and the boarding home cost.
Basically we are accepting that these people should live in poverty and that they should take from food to pay for shelter. We have a minister whose job it is over there to make sure that nothing changes on that, that the basic inequity is not addressed and that we hand out a five per cent increase, to some an extra $11 and to others $25 more in shelter allowance, five cents on the dollar, so they still have to pay from their food.
This is the kind of innovation we get from this minister, but I believe it is just part of what the government wants. They want that man there to guard the gates. They are not letting any more money out than is absolutely necessary.
Let us look at the closing of the institutions for the mentally retarded. On the face of it, a person like myself would say deinstitutionalization is a wonderful idea. I look at the way it is being done. The minister accused me last night of disrupting his consultative process.
Hon. Mr. Drea: No. Today. Not last night.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Today; this afternoon then.
Hon. Mr. Drea: You cannot even remember that far back.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Well, tempus fugit. I am having a wonderful time and these things sometimes confuse.
The minister said today that I had disrupted his orderly consultative process in terms of letting the various people out there -- the associations for the mentally retarded, the working groups, the parents and the residents of the institutions -- know about his plans for deinstitutionalization.
The minister claims I ran up and down the halls handing out his submission to cabinet. In fact, it was Mr. Sean O'Flynn who broke the news that night; all I did was hand out extra copies to people.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Oh.
Mr. R. F Johnston: Well, I am proud to do it, sir.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Good. I am glad.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am very proud to hand those things out. But doing that did not destroy his consultative process. His consultative process was to happen after he made the announcement.
Hon. Mr. Drea: That is not true.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: He would let them know as he was doing the announcement. There was no consultation. "We will make this decision and then we will consult and tell them what we are doing." it is right in the text of that submission to cabinet.
Hon. Mr. Drea: But there was another one.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Then there was another one afterwards; well, wonderful. What has the minister done since? Has he been to Goderich? No, he has not. Has he gone out and talked to those people? No. He sends his minions out to talk to those people, but he has not been himself.
Let us talk about process and about openness. I guess the reason is that if the minister went to talk to them, he probably would end up in a confrontation with them. He charged the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell) with being a union lover. God help us!
Hon. Mr. Drea: He is at the moment.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Let us look at the suggestion that is being made in terms of the deinstitutionalization, this five-year plan. Has there been pre-organization done before the announcement of the intention to close down places like Bluewater Centre, the START Centre and D'Arcy Place? Has there been previous consultation with the parents in those areas? No, there has not.
It is stated: "We will close it down and then we will discuss with you how we are going to do it and try to establish a process. We will use the Brockville example to show just how wonderfully it is all done." It will be interesting to see how many of the people from Brockville end up in the Rideau Regional Centre and how many from Brockville end up in group homes. We will see how pleased we are with that consultative process. I remain to be convinced given that, as with most things, I expect three quarters to be bluster and the rest to be substantive.
In the past number of years this ministry has budgeted major increases in community support for the mentally retarded. The budgeted increases every year have been exponential, seemingly generous. Yet every year we see that they are underspent. Every year, as was the case last year, there has been an attempt to carry over a fair amount of this money.
9:10 p.m.
Mr. Boudria: Put it into day care.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am coming to day care in a little while.
For the past five years, according to ministry figures, the ministry has underspent its accommodation and community support budget by $18.7 million and $10 million. Yet this minister is expecting us to believe that his reason for closing these institutions is not to save money but to pour $33 million into extra community support.
There would be much more credibility out there in the community about that actually taking place if the minister's record and his predecessor's record over the past five years -- in fact, it would be longer than that; one could take it back to 1974 had not been so substantial, because in 1974 the shortfall was $20,372,000, according to the figures I have here.
Why did the minister decide to close down five of the smaller, more community-involved institutions? It was because he could show cost-effectiveness more easily. That is exactly why. If he closed out a few hundred beds in Orillia the savings, in terms of institutional operational costs, would not be as clear and as large as if he closed down one of these smaller institutions which has 200 and some spaces. That is essentially what is behind this. It is that straightforward.
If there were any real commitment to a genuine program of deinstitutionalization, I would suggest that we would have a much broader plan here before us than we have now. We would have some sort of discussion about what was going to take place with Rideau and Orillia over the next number of years. Those are two mammoth institutions.
I would also suggest that what would have happened would be that a paper of recommendations would have gone out to the various areas with some suggestions about directions we might want to take. Then a process of real planning for that, a real discussion, would have happened.
But that is not the way this ministry operates. Instead, what the minister is running into is a fairly large backlash from those communities that have these small institutions, communities that are responding not just because they are afraid of losing jobs in their communities but because they are concerned about the quality of care that is available for those people and because their involvement with the parents of those residents makes them understand the important relationship that the community has with many of those small institutions in those communities.
Instead of having a situation where the local union, the parents and the ministry are sitting down in an orderly fashion to plan how to provide those services in those communities, such as Goderich, what we have is a spectre of those jobs leaving Goderich with Bluewater being placed in the hands of the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. Leluk) or whomever, as a correctional institute at some time in the future. But those jobs of social workers and others who have been trained to work with mentally retarded individuals seem to be being lost. The connection in that community is seen to be being lost. There is no commitment to maintaining, in those communities, those individuals who now are being cared for there.
There are some very frightening implications, in my view -- and this is ideological, I understand -- of privatization in terms of the prospects of group homes and other facilities being made available without any notion of maintaining the expertise of those members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union at the moment who are working with those residents. When the minister finds himself under attack by a former policy co-ordinator from his ministry in terms of the decision that has been taken, he basically then turns on that individual in the House.
Still on family violence: I asked my colleagues in this party to sign a request for the referral of the annual report of the ministry last March so that the whole question of family violence could be discussed in committee. It was almost defeated on a technicality, but it did find its way to the committee.
In the committee there was some bargaining about how long we would discuss this, and there was a feeling that we would try to limit it as much as possible, just deal with the question of wife-battering and then end that sort of discussion. But in the process an education of all members of that committee took place. We began to understand just how important this whole question was, not just in terms of an individual minister and ministry and the kinds of specific changes that could be made, but also in terms of our whole social fabric, our attitudes and the kind of socialization that exists.
I notice at the moment that there are only male members of the Legislature in the House. In terms of our rights in this society -- our rights to be considered as heads of households, our rights to be the decision-makers in the family structures, our rights to exercise some form of discipline on our children and, if necessary, on our spouses -- I suggest that kind of socialization has taken place, to one degree or another, with all of us.
Such expressions as "the rule of thumb" are deeply entrenched in our society. The rule of thumb does not mean some ad hoc measurement, although that is what it has now moved along to be. The rule of thumb, as I presume most of us know, was devised many centuries ago as the right of a man to beat his wife as long as he did not use a rod that was thicker than the width of his thumb. There are our notions of marriage such as that one man, the father, gives a woman to another man and that the woman should become subservient to the man, even in the minimal symbolic way of taking on the man's name. There are the jokes we have in our society: "Oh, that's just like asking me when was the last time I beat my wife."
There are all sorts of expressions in our society which reflect socialization. Some of them can be looked upon seriously. Others can be looked upon as not having any real major impact. But when they are all added together and one looks at the attitudes to violence in our society, in terms of its acceptance within the sports field and in the glorification of war, one has to be very concerned about the ethos of this society in terms of the whole matter of violence.
When violence seems to have some kind of acceptance within a family structure, within that bonded structure we believe to be one based on love and affection, we should have very serious concerns about the impact on the rest of our society. When a father or mother lays a hand on their child in an act of discipline, we should be concerned.
I am sure it has happened to most parents: at some time or other, there has been a slap or some kind of physical discipline of the child. Most people in my riding, if I were to put the question on one of my riding reports, would also agree to the extension of that power over the child by saying that the school and the teacher, as extensions of the family while the child is in school, also should have the right to inflict corporal punishment on that child.
9:20 p.m.
No one has all the answers on this. The matter of family violence seemingly extends into our society and reinforces some of our attitudes towards violence. There are some bizarre notions of the acceptability of rape, for instance, which have been there for many centuries and which now as a society we are trying our best to break down. The notions of rape and pillage are there fundamentally. Through the spoils of war, men have had those rights over the centuries.
What is behind our little report is some very serious problems in our society and how it operates. It was an awakening for myself, and I think for other members of that committee, of an understanding that it is time we as legislators look to see whether there is something we can do. We may not have the power to change those ethics, it just may not be possible for us to be able to do it, but we have to look at it seriously.
After only two weeks of committee hearings, because that is all we allowed ourselves, and after considerable debate later on by members of that committee, we came up with this report. As a beginning, I suggest to all members of the Legislature that this report is a vital one for them to read. It does not have all the answers, and it reflects the fact that there were only two weeks of hearings and one or two weeks of deliberation. We deliberately did not want to wait, to call in more witnesses, and go back and start looking at the causation in real depth for fear we would not be seen to be moving and making a statement that as legislators we felt was important.
We introduced this in a spirit of nonpartisan agreement. We had a combined news conference, something I do not believe has ever happened before in terms of a parliamentary committee. We said that we thought these recommendations should be acted upon by the various ministers involved and that we as a Legislature should show leadership in this area.
We made a lot of recommendations, 47 in all. Seven were suggestions for a federal-provincial agenda, because some of these matters fall into both fields. We had a lot of suggestions that impacted upon the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Drea), the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson), the Solicitor General (Mr. G. W. Taylor) and the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry).
Our suggestion to this minister of the need for more spaces in emergency hostel care for battered women deserves an immediate response. There is a need for legislative changes. The minister may not agree with those we have suggested in terms of a new act to encompass the needs in this particular area.
The suggestion of somehow sending the batterer out to sleep on a park bench and allowing the woman to have access to the home is not the only solution to this problem. There is a need for hostels to be spread more adequately in a geographical sense around the province. There is a need for safe havens in places that cannot accommodate a hostel.
There is a need for the harriers of language to be broken down. Other barriers that prevent women from making their problems known are severe, such as economic restraints, the sanctity of the family and the utter shame of admitting that your marital relationship has fallen apart and you are a beaten woman.
There is need for a minister who will not say, "This report has obviously not been written by women and they have missed the point totally," but, "In the areas where they are asking me to look at this, I will look at it in a serious fashion."
That committee is now going to look at child abuse. The committee has decided that it does not want to stop, in the questions of family violence, with the question of wife battering. There was some intimation by the minister that we may not have the presence of members of his ministry to assist us, and I would like him to clear that up tonight, if he might. Dr. Guyatt was of particular assistance to us in our hearings. She gave us great guidance. I am sure Herb Sohn and others from the ministry would be very helpful to this committee in understanding some of the issues of child abuse.
I hope it is the kind of thing we can do co-operatively and not the kind of thing we have to do in terms of confrontation. Confrontation between the opposition and the government on this kind of issue may be good for us politically. It may even be good for the government politically in terms of image, politics and fighting back and forth. But it is not doing a heck of a lot for the people who need our assistance.
Surely we do not have to battle on each of these various issues I am raising. Surely something like an all-party committee that seriously wants to look at this matter of violence is something to which the minister should lend his assistance in trying to help us in our task.
I would be interested to know from the minister what is happening in terms of family counselling around the province. There are very disturbing headlines showing up in regional papers these days which say that local governments are choosing family counselling as one of their areas of restraint. I have seen things now from the Durham region, and I had another one here just tonight as a matter of fact -- I do not know whether it was Ottawa; I will try to find it as I go through things.
I would like to ask whether there has been any kind of communication between the provincial government and the municipal governments in terms of funding for or assistance to the family counselling services. Some of the information I have been receiving indicates that may be the case and, if it is, I would just like it cleared up. There is nothing I could possibly say or would likely assert in any terms of a surety. I am sure the minister will deal with it.
Mr. Piché: Get your facts straight.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Pardon, Mr. Jet.
Mr. Piché: What did you say?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Jet.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Mr. Piché: That wasn't nice.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Is that a low blow or a new high?
Mr. Stokes: Just call him "Dash."
The Acting Speaker: Just speak to the concurrence.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, our society is in recession economically and we all know that last night the minister agreed that the extra pressures and the need for extra supports are there besides just the need for income maintenance. I would suggest that the need is there, especially for such things as family counselling, and that the loss of the family counsellors in any numbers around the province -- Northumberland county is one of the others and, as I think back, I believe that Kitchener is also cutting back on its family counselling. That is one area where we cannot have a major reduction in the services that are being provided.
9:30 p.m.
I would like to talk a little bit about the family benefits transfer if I might. The process that was undertaken there was also one which I as a member of the social development committee did not find to be open and direct but found out about it through the fact that the minister had given a speech elsewhere.
The minister knows I have a fundamental disagreement with the philosophy of the family benefits transfer, not because I do not think it could not be administered well at a regional level, because I do, but because in the context of my comments on welfare, I do not believe that we should be moving income maintenance programs, in terms of their funding process and the eligibility standards and regulations, to a municipal level. The responsibility for that in good social policy should be at the provincial level as a minimum.
The minister will be hearing more in the next number of months about that transfer. I have his nonsubmission to cabinet with me tonight and I do not think it warrants going through, because I am sure there are others who would like to get involved. But it is clear to me that this is also a plan that was developed as a strategy for saving money at the provincial level, but in the long run, when it gets past the pilot project stage, the government is going to want some money from the municipal level. It will not continue to be 100 per cent paid. In my view, that is a regressive move by this government to add more people to the municipal tax burden.
I have huge concerns about the philosophical approach to eligibility and the definition of family benefits women recipients as employable. I see all sorts of potential for an abuse at local levels in terms of discretionary interpretation of that.
I see all sorts of pressure potentially being put on women to become informal child care workers and take into their homes the children of other family benefits recipients, thus getting the person who is providing that service off family benefits and then allowing the local social services agency to be able to say to the other women whose children are now in that informal day care, probably unsupervised situation: "Why aren't you out at work? You now have day care for your children. If you don't take this training course and indicate your real willingness to go into work, or if you don't take this job which we have found for you at such and such a location, we will cut you off family benefits."
It seems to me that is hanging out there as a possibility and the kind of background that is involved in that cabinet submission makes me believe that is exactly what is at hand here in terms of that legislation.
Although I agree with the need to develop incentives and to develop a network of support services to assist women who wish to move off family benefits and get into the work place, I am incredibly nervous about this particular program. I find it so ironic that it is being developed as a pilot project right at the time when we have our highest unemployment, our largest number of people on welfare, and we are expecting these people, many of whom will not have proper training, to be able to find themselves some way back into the work force.
Looking at the phenomenal -- and I say this sarcastically -- success of the work incentive program, seeing this new development in family benefits transfers, I am very worried about what is to take place.
I would like the minister to respond to a concern I have about the Children's Act which is coming up, which concerns the declaration of principles. First, I believe the general thrust of the proposed legislation seems to be very good. An omnibus bill to pull together the various acts is long overdue and the work that has been done by the people who have pulled this together is to be commended.
However, I am a little concerned about the declaration of principles. One of the first principles should be the protection of the child. There is much more in this declaration of principles about the protection of the family than there is about protection of the child. I am concerned about that in philosophical terms, in terms of how we deal with wife battering and the need to protect the woman first and then support the husband and the woman getting back together, if that is what they choose to do afterwards.
I am concerned that in the list we will not find the principle that a child should be protected. We find instead definitions such as: "If either voluntary or involuntary intervention in the life of a child or the family is necessary, the least restrictive or drastic alternative appropriate in the circumstances should be chosen. Children should be removed from their parents only as a last resort, even when parents initiate the request."
That notion needs to be balanced with some statement about the protection of the child because if it is not, there is the danger of leaving the child in a potentially dangerous situation. I would like some response from the minister as to whether or not there is some possibility of a greater statement of rights of children in the principles of this omnibus bill.
I would also like to know from the minister what the situation is in terms of the Young Offenders Act. The date for the Young Offenders Act coming into place now is next October. Have decisions been made in terms of which ministry will have primacy? Will it be the Ministry of Community and Social Services or the Ministry of Correctional Services? Would the minister give us some kind of briefing about the kind of dialogue which is going on between the various ministries which will have some play in this?
I presume the Provincial Secretary for Justice (Mr. Sterling) will be involved. I presume the Attorney General and the Solicitor General might be involved, but perhaps not. The Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. Leluk) and this minister will definitely be involved. I would like to know what is happening, because we, of all provinces, as was discussed before, have some of the biggest changes that have to be made because of being out of sync with this move to a team.
It is vital that the discussion become a public discussion at the earliest opportunity. I recognize there has been --
Hon. Mr. Drea: You don't want me to have it.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am most interested in your having it, but I have been hearing that this may not be the case.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Want to bet?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I have too many bets on tonight, as I recall. Rather than having a bet on the floor which the member for Yorkview (Mr. Spensieri) has learned is not the best thing in the world to do in the House -- would the minister just let me know how things are going; whether it looks like he will have primacy in this area, and what kinds of tradeoffs there will be with the Ministry of Correctional Services in terms of program?
Does the juvenile court look like a likelihood, or has the minister been involved in those discussions? Would he just give us a brief outline of where the interministerial play is at the present time? He could tell us how the battles are going and who is winning.
Speaking of battles, and I know the minister will respond to the word "battles," I wonder how the battle with the Ministry of Health is going on the question of the elderly. I have the sense that Larry Grossperson, the Minister of Health, is very involved in matters to do with the elderly. I have the sense that --
The Acting Speaker: The honourable member should refer to other honourable members of this House either by their seat or by their ministry.
9:40 p.m.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: The Minister of Health, the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick, is whom I was trying to refer to. I am sorry if I confused the Speaker by using a term of affection I have for that particular minister.
It is my understanding, from a few questions I posed to that minister during his estimates, that he covets somewhat the whole jurisdiction to do with the elderly. I had the sense from what he was saying to me that in some statement he is going to be making some time in February, probably more of a home support emphasis at that point, we may get some hints about that long-awaited battle between nursing home jurisdiction and homes for the aged jurisdiction that I have asked questions about over the last number of years.
Mr. Boudria: Homes for special care.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: There is also the question of homes for special care. The minister has hinted pretty strongly in the House that there will be some changes that will affect the notion, as the member for Prescott-Russell is just reminding me, of rest homes and boarding homes, and just where these jurisdictions will lie. I have the sense there is some kind of battle going on there. If the minister feels he would like to tell us anything about that tonight, I would be very happy to hear about it.
Hon. Mr. Drea: I take it the member would like me to have them too.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would feel much more comfortable with the Ministry of Community and Social Services having control of matters to do with the elderly than I would with the Ministry of Health.
Hon. Mr. Drea: We do not have a conflict.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am willing to be there, and again have no conflict with the minister in that area. After beginning my comments about the confrontational nature of this ministry, we may end up with a whole range of areas upon which we agree and move into 1983 with much more accord than we have had in the past.
I have some real concerns about what is going to happen with day care. Would the minister clarify for us tonight, in the matter of day care, whether we are going to see any standards, whether all the work that has been done on the development of standards is going to see the light of day, or is this ministry, in philosophical terms, moving away from the notion of regulation? Is it moving to the notion of deregulation of day care and more into private-home day care and away from what is obviously the more expensive style of day care that is often run by municipalities, often has unionized workers and is more expensive per space for society than private-home day care, especially unsupervised private-home day care?
Is there any intention by this ministry to move towards the British Columbia model of private-home day care, which essentially has nonsupervised private-home day care as the buttress of its day care policy? Obviously my concern here is to do with the quality of care that is being provided.
I am sure the minister would also like to tell us tonight what his plans are in the area of day care. I do not want to get into the statistical battle again, about things such as the number of spaces that have actually gone to Metropolitan Toronto this year. When we get into those wrangles, all we do is confuse the rest of the House if we do not confuse ourselves. I am not sure if sometimes I do not end up confusing myself on that issue.
The concern I have is that in the next year we may not see a major increase in the number of spaces in Ontario. We may not see a major increase in the number of subsidized spaces in Ontario, and the economic conditions, etc., will be used as the reason for that failure to increase, if there is not a direct cutback in the number of spaces that will be available across the province.
We are coming close to the end of this fiscal year. I am presuming there has already been a fair amount of planning by the ministry in terms of the amount of money that will be transferred, how much money will be available and whether or not we expect a major increase in subsidized spaces.
I have no particular reason to believe it, but I have a great unease at the moment about what we are looking forward to in terms of day care money in the next year. I am hoping this evening in his wrapup the minister will ease my fears about that and will assure me the increases in day care spaces will be meaningful this year.
For the last year or so, the ministry has moved in the area of homes for the aged in terms of an upgrading of the facilities of some homes. This is the first major move in that area that we have seen in the Ministry of Community and Social Services for a number of years. I would be interested to know from the minister how that has been going, how much of the money is gone, what requests he has up front from municipalities and charitables that would like some changes, whether or not charitables are involved -- I cannot remember that actually -- and what he perceives coming up in the year to come in that area.
Are there going to be any increases in the actual number of beds available in the domain of municipals in the coming year? What does the minister project those to be, if he has any idea?
This comes back to that matter of the nursing home situation. As he knows, I am concerned that that is where our growth has been in the last number of years in the Ministry of Health. I would really be interested to see what the --
Hon. Mr. Drea: Support me.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I have said in the past that I wish more control for Community and Social Services for homes for the aged and I will continue to say that.
Hon. Mr. Drea: For the elderly.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: For the elderly.
Hon. Mr. Drea: We already have homes for the aged.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: There are two things on that. I am worried that is going to be lost and, if we are on the offensive here, then I would be happy to assist in trying to get an extension of the role of Community and Social Services in terms of services to the elderly and in other kinds of residential settings. I would be pleased to assist.
I wanted to raise the matter of native children in a couple of areas. Last year, I raised a question about the number of juveniles in northwestern Ontario who, because of lack of facilities, had been put into adult detention. I received one response from the minister on the day when I unfortunately was not here -- I cannot remember where I was -- indicating there were only a couple of cases in that year. The next week I happened to ask a similar question of the Solicitor General (Mr. G. W. Taylor) and I received a list of 120 children -- I do not know how many months, I think it was in the course of a year -- who had been in one kind of a lockup or another. I would like some clarification from the minister regarding what is going on in that area and what the distinction is between those statistics.
9:50 p.m.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: The question was asked in the Solicitor General's estimates first, and not by the honourable member but by one of his colleagues. It was then asked of me later. We will stick by the reply we gave later. I can write it in some detail but we cannot solve that tonight.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I do not know whether one of my colleagues raised it as well but the Solicitor General responded to me directly in the question I asked him in his estimates. It was those statistics I was referring to. I would be happy to share them with the minister in case they are different from something he has already seen.
I also have a continuing concern about the whole area of children's aid interventions and other interventions with kids from reserves who end up off reserves. I was hoping we might get some kind of an update from the minister regarding the number of group home experiments he has told us a bit about in the past on reserves in northwestern Ontario. I would be interested to know what the situation is in the northwest on those projects.
I would also he interested to know what is happening in terms of the Kenora Family and Children's Services and the operations it was working with in trying to get native people working with them in intervening with kids on the reserves just outside Kenora. I have not heard much about this in the last little while. I have been somewhat concerned that maybe things are not moving as quickly as possible. I would like an update if possible.
The other thing I would be interested in knowing is what is happening in the tripartite discussions. I was talking to a native friend the other day. He was not directly involved but he claimed there was not a great deal of progress at the moment.
Hon. Mr. Drea: That is not true. It is being signed on the 28th.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: In terms of the Community and Social Services side of things?
Hon. Mr. Drea: It is done; agreed.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: December 28?
Hon. Mr. Drea: No, it is done; agreed.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: When was it signed?
Hon. Mr. Drea: They sign the 28th.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Did you sign on December 28?
Hon. Mr. Drea: No, this month.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: They sign this month. We have not got to the 28th yet. Okay, thank you.
Hon. Mr. Drea: It will be. It is agreed to be signed.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Excellent. When will we have an announcement about that or have we had one? I have not seen it cross my desk. I will be happy to get that information.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: The minister is not signing. The Provincial Secretary for Resources Development (Mr. Henderson) is the lead minister in the process because it involves other things and he will be doing the signing. I understand it is January 28. The agreement was negotiated in my office with the chief and his associates from the Whitedog reserve. It goes far beyond the group homes and some other things. That is the small tripartite agreement.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am sorry, there was some misunderstanding about what we were talking about. I will try to get hold of that as well. I was talking about the larger process -- the tripartite discussions which are happening in the general policy area. It is my understanding the Ministry of Community and Social Services was involved in it.
Hon. Mr. Drea: No.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would be pleased to be corrected if that is not the case. It is good to know the Whitedog one is agreed upon. I will be very interested to see the terms of that and to see what fruit that bears.
I have two last matters. They are short. The minister has no doubt been briefed on the CAS situation in Cornwall and the 15-year-old who wishes to have an abortion for what she claims is a pregnancy induced by rape. Her mother also wishes this but the local CAS has, the last I heard, determined it would not support her in this request. I would be interested to know if the minister might give us some information on that process.
Hon. Mr. Drea: I cannot.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: The minister cannot?
Hon. Mr. Drea: It is before the court.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: It is before the court? Excellent.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Yes. It will be.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I will be pleased when it does get before the courts. Unfortunately one of the problems has been the speed of getting it there. It does raise some interesting questions though.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, to clarify the point for the member, it will be Thursday in family court. We will talk about it after the family court. We are not a principal. We are not involved. It is my understanding it is going to family court there this Thursday.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister because I did not have that most recent information. I had hoped we might have a discussion, but not now because it does get confused with a sub judice ruling.
It seems to me it raises a number of very interesting questions regarding the rights of minors and the question of decisions about abortion, specifically in this case. I remember reading a press article about a decision involving a 12-year-old where there was a state guardian involved -- not in this jurisdiction I am careful to say -- who essentially did not accede to the abortion. The 12-year-old was obliged to have a child which she did not wish to have. It raises some questions that maybe we should look at in terms of the role of children's aid societies. That was the last matter I wished to raise, and because I did not know it was sub judice, we will not be able to discuss that this evening.
I have covered a whole pot-pourri, which is the sort of thing that is sometimes done in concurrences. Sometimes we just nod and say, "Let it go through for the year." It has been a year in which I have personally felt relatively frustrated trying to deal with this minister. I find, from time to time, we have a very easy rapport, such as we just had for a few seconds.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Never. I am just keeping you out of trouble. I know you did not want to do something sub judice.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Then the next moment, I begin to wonder if that is the case. The evidence is just before me again.
I would hope that in the coming year we might have a changed and more open approach on the part of this minister and ministry. I have not felt this has been there in the past and I hope I am proven wrong in my impugning motives of political strategy. I refer to my saying this is a decision by government to take this kind of approach in this ministry with opposition members. I hope I am proven to be wrong.
The challenges for the year are many. The challenges for this minister are many, as they are for myself as critic and for the critic for the Liberal Party. I am interested to hear the minister's responses tonight and it will be interesting to see how our relationship develops over the coming year.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, first I want to respond to some of the remarks made by the member for Prescott-Russell. Perhaps we can keep the other ones in order.
First, I want to make something very clear to both members concerning child abuse. The question that was asked of me in the House and to which I gave a reply -- and the member for Scarborough West apparently needs some clarification on it -- the way the question was asked was almost to the point of whether I would recommend to the standing committee on social development or back the social development committee in its desire to look into the entire question of child abuse.
My reply was -- and I think it was quite a proper one -- that I do not think it is up to the minister to try to tell a committee what it should study unless it is a direct referral from the ministry. If the committee decides to do that -- I know they tentatively had, and if we had had a more expeditious legislative session we would now be doing it. When this session will end no one knows; the members may not get around to it at this time.
Regarding co-operation: whatever the honourable member requests he will get, but I do think it is incumbent upon the committee to make the specific request. I want to make it very plain that this minister or this ministry -- in this case it is the minister -- does not want to be perceived as interfering with what is a legitimate study by a committee into a very difficult and complex field. I do not think I can say any more than that.
10 p.m.
I think that is the way the committee would want it. If the committee wants no help from the minister then it wants no help. If it does want some, the committee should state what it wants. I think that is very definite. Members will recall the remark I made when the question was asked, that surely members do not want the minister doing the thinking for the committee. That was not a derogatory remark but there is a perception and that was setting the perception straight. I trust the remarks I have made tonight will be perceived correctly by the members and by my colleagues who were here earlier when the question was first raised.
Regarding the Canada pension plan, I want to remind the member for Prescott-Russell that the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) spoke on this matter succinctly and straightforwardly. Perhaps the member was not here on that occasion. Also when my friend Monique Bégin -- she is my friend and I think she will tell her politically closer friend the member for Prescott-Russell that she regards me as such -- had her pension conference this year, this question was not even raised. I was there and I know all the rules. I refer the member to the Treasurer's position. I think on occasion the member's leader has asked that question of various people on the government front benches and has received a reply.
Mr. Boudria: He did not get a reply.
Hon. Mr. Drea: I think he got a reply. It may not be one the member liked or appreciated but he got a reply. I have replied to the member as well. I do not think I can say it any better than the people who were charged with the policy. Indeed we must respect that.
One thing the two members had in common was the question of protection of the child in the consultation document. The very fact they both raised that tonight shows the importance of consultation documents like this. They are meant to be discussed. The position we took was that it is inherent that there is an overriding concern for the protection of the individual child. That assumption is so inherent we did not think it would be necessary to say it. When I use the word "we" I am talking about all those who prepared that document. Obviously, we thought it was so inherent it did not have to be raised. Perhaps that is a problem in our society; if it is not there it is not perceived to be.
It is certainly because of a unanimity of concern and not because of newspaper reports. I have another newspaper that tells me I should remove children whenever the family wants them removed. I am surprised the member did not read me that one.
Interjection.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Yes; one of the member's friends, not one of ours.
It really has not come up too often before, but both members are dealing with it. We thought it was so inherent that it would automatically be assumed by people familiar with the field, perhaps not as professionals but from an objective level. If that is not there, then I can assure members that when the legislation comes in it will -- as I look around the gallery I see my deputy minister: I want this to be a government commitment.
Perhaps one of these days the fond wish of the member for Scarborough West will come true. Somebody else over in his dwindling little core may not like him very much at the time, however I say as a government commitment that when the legislation is drafted and comes in that will be specifically spelled out. It was not by neglect but by design. I consider it unfortunate in our society that unless it is written down it cannot be perceived to be there, but we live in society on a day-to-day basis and so be it.
The member for Prescott-Russell asked a question in the House this afternoon. I promised a reply tonight and I will give it to him. As I promised this afternoon, I wish to reply to the question raised concerning funding for the Low Vision Association of Ontario.
In Ontario, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind provides services to the legally blind. I understand that persons with low vision comprise a high proportion of persons registered with the CNIB. My staff has had recent discussions with both the CNIB and the Low Vision Association concerning services to the low visioned in Ontario. The CNIB are able to assess the needs of low visioned individuals and to train them in the use of technical aids.
While we are not able to fund this request, and that is the first request by the Low Vision Association of Ontario, in 1982 -- and we are talking about the fiscal year 1982-83 which is right now -- we have indicated to them we will consider it in the future. But we have to be very careful of any duplication of effort between the two associations that might arise. My staff have been working with the CNIB to review the needs for the low visioned throughout the province and we expect the services will continue to improve for this group of individuals.
I will be reporting further to the House, obviously not in this session unless members opposite talk so much that we go on into the spring. Certainly some time after the throne speech I will bring back some form of report. Probably we will take it as a reply to a previous question if that is all right.
The answer to the supplementary asked by the member for Scarborough West on this matter is a very complicated and a very detailed one because of the various assistive devices. Some are paid for and some are not, and some of these depend on the age of the person and so forth. It will take a few days for the Ministry of Health to provide him with that complete list. All I can say is that some are paid for depending upon age. I do not really know the technical names of the two devices the member showed today, but there will be a complete breakdown for him. If the member for Prescott-Russell wants it, he can have it as well.
I would also point out just one thing. When the member was talking today about the province of Quebec, this is under the Quebec health service --
Mr. Boudria: Yes.
Hon. Mr. Drea: That is a little different than the social service.
Mr. Boudria: Yes, I know.
Hon. Mr. Drea: I appreciate the document the member has given me and I assure him I will look at it, but I still stand by what I was saying today on the social service. If I want to combine the Ontario health insurance plan with a few others that are provided -- I am grateful for the time the member took to give me this.
Mr. Boudria: But they are not even asking for that right now. The only thing they want is money for their advocacy.
Hon. Mr. Drea: No, but I am trying to be nice. I am grateful to the honourable member for taking the time to provide me with this document because it is one that is somewhat all-encompassing. Indeed I am sure it will be very helpful to my staff who are trying to adjudicate and negotiate what, because of personalities, is a particularly difficult situation. I am very pleased that the member for Prescott-Russell was fair enough tonight to say that the minister was not the culprit. I do not want to go on any further. I think we all know and I appreciate it.
Mr. Boudria: But you could be the saviour.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
10:10 p.m.
Hon. Mr. Drea: I am going to talk very briefly about the subject of battered wives. I am going to stand by what I said before, but I want to point out something that may have been lost sight of at that time and before that. This ministry has been very supportive of all kinds of services for the female who finds herself in that situation, not only at the immediate time of the physical, emotional or mental assault but also for a period afterwards.
Since I have been asked what I am doing, I want to draw to members' attention that, first of all, we spent about $1.5 million this year directly on this service in the hostels, including a couple that are in special situations. We will spend more than $2 million in the next fiscal year. New hostels are likely to come on stream during 1983 in Scarborough that one, in my riding, is already there -- North York, Rexdale, Peterborough, Brantford, Kenora, Hamilton-Wentworth, North Bay, Kapuskasing, Brockville, Sudbury and Niagara.
Members will recall, and apparently it has been conveniently forgotten by the member for Prescott-Russell, that in reply to a supplementary to the member for Scarborough West, I said that by March 31, 1983, we would be in a position to assess many of the lesser-known parts of the committee's report. I was talking about the language issue and a number of things I was going to do: my concerns for women in rural areas. etc. We should have that done by the start of the fiscal year. It is really March 31; it was not intended that way. It was intended, in more normal times, as the start of the Legislature. So we will put it this way: it will be done by that time and we will be telling, doing or whatever we have to do, right in the first part of the next legislative session.
We have that commitment; it has always been there. I think that was lost sight of a bit tonight, although I am sure it was not by design; we are talking in terms of a ministry with a very vast scope, including spending of more than $2 billion.
I am not going to reply to the long series of harangues about me. I think my record as a minister of the crown stands for itself. From time to time there have been some pretty formidable things hurled at it, yet I am still here. I would like to point out that basically I am a very friendly and very fair person. I do expect, however, that those who use information, whether it is in the political context or in the personal context, will have it accurate. When it is not accurate -- I am not talking about interpretations or two viewpoints -- I think I have the right to say it is not accurate.
I do not think that is blustering. I am not going to read out, as I could tonight, a whole series of things about how some people were wrong and I was right. I know that occurs in the to and fro of the question period. However, as a minister of the crown, I do not think I have to sit here and take cheap shots. I never have and I am never going to. I can understand people's frustrations, but if they are going to get in cheap shots at me they are going to get a straight shot right back. If I were to cheap shot other people I would expect to get a straight shot right back.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would try not to.
Hon. Mr. Drea: What is that? The member would try not to give a straight shot back? Oh, please; if he thought he could, he would.
I would also like to get into the question of the young offender, because I think it is important. First, there is no fight between ministries, as has been reported in a newspaper. In fact, the person who wrote the article was told in December, at the time when I had made a speech about the rest home industry, that there was no fight.
Obviously the decision by the federal government -- which was a unilateral one; they did not tell us -- to raise the age to 18 does have some implications for services to children in this province, because up until now, and indeed because of work in the 1970s, particularly by my friend and colleague the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mrs. Birch), there was a great deal of work in consolidating, co-ordinating and putting the vast variety of children's services under one ministry: children's mental health, the developmentally handicapped, the juvenile offender -- virtually everything in terms of children's services outside of education.
If one is going to another model because the age has changed, then that has implications for children's mental health and implications all the way through. This has been the government's concern: not which ministry is going to have a mandate or have primacy there, but what is the proper decision to ensure the continuum within the parameter of children's services being provided in this province. That has yet to be determined.
There are obviously some significant concerns because we are dealing far beyond -- actually about 95 per cent of the population and the concern is outside of the offender area but it does have other implications. That is what is going on and I would think everybody would want a very thoughtful and full evaluation of that. That is precisely what is going on now.
I want to talk about the developmentally handicapped and the closing of the facilities right now. The member for Prescott-Russell, or was it the member for Scarborough West -- oh, he is touring tomorrow and he says I should be there. Tomorrow I am meeting here with people from Goderich.
Interjection.
Hon. Mr. Drea: No, no. He is going somewhere else but I am doing it right here; so do not tell me I am not meeting with parents or people from Goderich, because I am doing so tomorrow; and minions did not go there, my deputy went.
Interjection.
Hon. Mr. Drea: A deputy minister, I think, is a little bit above the perception of a minion.
I want to point out the number of beds. I will close in about a minute and a half, because I understand my friend from the Ministry of Correctional Services is on next and it will expedite the House. I will do what others did to me last night, although they were much kinder last night. I did not have to do as many straight returns.
If one wants to look at the five-year plan, taking into account the community, the allocations, the turnover and new beds, the following spaces will be available over the next five years: group home beds, including turnover -- those will be people graduating from group homes and going into more independent living, which is happening now -- 664; hard-to-serve children, that is beds, 200; hard-to-serve adults, 150; for a grand total of 1,014.
The projected distribution of those 1,014 beds is: 369 to facility dischargees, or current facility residents, and 645 to the community. Those are new; in a community those are people who never went to a facility. I take it that answers for all time the member's question on the waiting list.
10:20 p.m.
In addition to that, it does not include the 1982-83 allocation for community services which is currently being flowed and which will provide community living places for an additional 300 people. Again, that fits and far surpasses any waiting list the member has pointed out.
In addition to residences and workshops, the five-year plan will set in place community supports and other services designed to reduce the demand for residences, and that is 1,000 new clients.
The reason I was a little bit annoyed with the newspaper article was that it said categorically that I am only doing 88 new beds. The rest of it, fair comment, do what you want, but at least get the figures correct. I think they could have been obtained from a very close perusal of my statements.
I do appreciate the remarks that were made here tonight in the concurrences. We are a bit short of time. I will get the Hansard. There were some rather detailed things that I will give answers to in writing in the interregnum. In many cases I cannot give a cohesive answer now because the allocation has not been set. But I can tell the members that on day care there will be more subsidized spaces next year; there have to be, because all my integration projects carry those automatically.
I think this is a good point at which to thank the House. I do appreciate the concurrence.
Resolution concurred in.
CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, we were talking about plans for the Young Offenders Act. I wonder whether the minister can let us know a little bit about what has been happening within his ministry in terms of plans for some of the impact that will be put upon his ministry under this act.
Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, since the minister comes from close to the area which I represent, he no doubt will be aware of the concerns of the guards at the west end detention centre about overcrowding. Indeed, he has had representation from time to time concerning that and the possible safety problems involved in the very overcrowded situation, both there and in the Metropolitan Toronto East Detention Centre.
I wonder whether the minister can bring us up to date on what he may have done, what the situation is in each of these detention centres, whether additional staff has been added to relieve that problem and whether this problem of overcrowding is continuing or increasing, or what the status is at present.
Mr. McKessock: Mr. Speaker, I recently listened to a call-in show on a local radio station which had on the program a former resident of one of the correctional centres in Ontario; I am not sure which one. He talked about a drug problem in Ontario and about a drug problem within the jails. Does the minister know whether this is a problem and, if so, how do the drugs get in there?
He also talked about the problem of not having a really good rehabilitation program within the jail, that they were taken off drugs immediately and not tapered off. He said that for that reason they went back on drugs when they were released. He did not feel the program was proper to rehabilitate them to the extent that they would not return to drugs when they returned to public life again.
He also mentioned that there was no one-on-one rehabilitation program where they could get personally involved with the rehabilitator on a one-on-one basis, which he thought might be of some advantage.
Maybe the minister could tell us just a bit about what is going on.
Hon. Mr. Leluk: Mr. Speaker, in view of the four minutes I have left to me, I do not know that I can adequately deal with all three questions raised by members of the New Democratic Party.
Hon. Mr. Wells: Try.
Hon. Mr. Leluk: Well, I will do it. Maybe we could deal with the member for Grey's question first.
We do have some drugs that come into our institutions. These are brought in in various ways. Sometimes they are just thrown over one of the outside fences that surround the institution by members of the public who have access to the perimeter walls. They may be brought in by inmates who are on a temporary absence program; when they leave the institutions and come back they sometimes try to bring in contraband with them. We are dealing with this problem, however, and I think our staff do an excellent job in trying to curtail contraband being brought into the institutions.
As far as treatment is concerned, I think it is fair to say that we do have more inmates coming into the institutions today who have drug- and alcohol-related problems, and we do provide treatment for these people. They are sent to the Ontario Correctional Institute at Brampton, which is an alcohol and drug treatment facility, or to GATU. the Guelph assessment treatment unit, which is another treatment facility where we provide psychiatric and other medical treatment for people who have drug-related problems.
We also have in various institutions across this province various programs in conjunction with Alcoholics Anonymous and representatives from the Addiction Research Foundation who come in and have group therapy and even counselling on a one-on-one basis. In many of our probation offices across the province, we also have programs in place for people who are out on probation and who are required through an order of probation to visit our offices and to take part in programs that are offered there.
I do not know whether I have adequately dealt with the member's question, but I think in the time that is left I should deal with the overcrowding issue, which was raised by the member for Etobicoke.
It is true that we have had an overcrowding situation in our institutions, particularly in the Toronto-Hamilton corridor. I am sure the member for Etobicoke knows that my staff has been addressing this problem both in the short term and in the long term.
Just as of last year we increased security at Mimico Correctional Centre, in the south part of Etobicoke, from a minimum-security institution to a medium-security institution. With the available space that was there, we have provided for up to 150 additional selected inmates from the other institutions, the Metropolitan Toronto West Detention Centre, the Metropolitan Toronto East Detention Centre and the Toronto Jail, to be placed there. We have also opened the fifth floor in the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre, providing for an additional 60 spaces. So in the short term we have taken some of the pressure off the major institutions in the Toronto area.
We have also been looking at building our own relocatable, portable cells. A prototype is currently being manufactured at the Guelph Correctional Centre and soon will be in place at the Peterborough Jail. This is where we have inmates building their own accommodation at a tremendous saving to the taxpayers of this province.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, could we get that for the Sergeant at Arms here, do you think?
Hon. Mr. Leluk: I do not know that he needs one.
Mr. Philip: It is about the only housing project in this province that seems to be working.
Hon. Mr. Leluk: Anyhow, we are addressing that problem. In the long term we have been looking at the possibility of having to build a new maximum-security facility somewhere in the Hamilton-Toronto corridor, because our projections show that by the year 1985 we will have as many as 2,500 more people in our institutions.
Mr. Speaker: I direct the minister's attention to the clock.
Hon. Mr. Leluk: Are you asking me to wind up? I will stop then.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate it if one of two things could be done. Either we could give unanimous consent to allow the minister to finish in the next couple of minutes or we could have a commitment that there will be some kind of response made to the other questions raised that have not been answered up to this point. I would appreciate either one or the other.
Mr. Speaker: Is the member asking for unanimous consent?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would like to ask for the unanimous consent of the House to allow the minister to continue unless he will provide answers.
Hon. Mr. Leluk: Mr. Speaker, I will be more than pleased to provide written answers very shortly to the question I did not get to and to the other two questions asked by the other members.
Mr. Boudria: May I have a copy of that as well?
Hon. Mr. Leluk: Surely. I will be very pleased to provide the member with a copy.
Resolution concurred in.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, just before you adjourn the House, I thought I should indicate that the order for Thursday, January 20, is private members' public business in the afternoon. In the evening we are going to move to concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations. On Friday morning, January 21, we will deal with concurrence in supply for the Provincial Secretary for Social Development.
The House adjourned at 10:33 p.m.