Hansard Transcript 1986-May-05 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Mr. Speaker: Last Thursday, May 1, the member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon) took exception to a statement by the Minister of Housing (Mr. Curling), who said, "We are down to business in housing, unlike the past and his government, who were making many deals with individuals."

The member referred to it as a point of privilege; it is not. if anything, it is a point of order. As the minister made no specific accusation against any other member of the House, I find it hard to rule that the statement must be withdrawn. It was one of those general innuendoes which would be much better left unsaid as they tend to lead to disorder.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

PALLIATIVE CARE

Mr. Cousens: I would like to take this opportunity to address the very sensitive issue of palliative care, commonly referred to as "care for the dying." Many members of this House know that recently our party, under the auspices of the task force on human and social services of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Grossman), released a discussion pamphlet dealing with palliative care. In this document, we have proposed that immediate measures be taken to reorient and co-ordinate health care services to include the preference of the terminally ill patient. Whether that preference be the home environment, a hospital bed or respite care in a hospice, there should exist a choice. At present, the choice is virtually nonexistent, and 95 per cent of all palliative care is administered in a hospital setting.

In order to provide for the needs of the dying, we have suggested several concrete proposals that are not only cost-effective, but sensitive to the desires of the dying. These proposals include a reduction in the number of patients who are forced to die in an institutional setting; that moneys saved with this measure be applied to community-based palliative care services for people dying at home; implementation of a firm funding structure for palliative care providers, so as to introduce regional plans and reduce inefficiency; and, finally, education for health care professionals in the techniques of pain management, symptom control and bereavement counselling.

On behalf of my party, I am proud to say that care for the dying is an important priority, and we do care.

PROVINCIAL PARKS

Mr. Ramsay: I rise again on another parochial matter, Mondays being those days for me. I draw the attention of the House to Landmarks magazine. To the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio): it is a good magazine, Vince, but there is an article there about provincial parks and how accessible they are. All of them seem to cut off at North Bay and go the other way. The magazine mentions Marten River, but the text refers to Marten River Provincial Park being on Highway 69, just north of North Bay. That is Highway 11, my stomping grounds.

Vince, you wonder why we feel paranoid up in the north. We are overlooked all the time, and then the government publication overlooks us. We have many provincial parks right on the highway, and this article makes the point about accessibility. We would like to have that brought to the attention of the rest of the province. We are in the tourism business and we would rather not be overlooked; but it is a good magazine. Keep it up. Get the highways and the maps right and carry on.

Mr. Speaker: I remind all honourable members when they refer to another member to do so by the riding or ministry.

HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP

Mr. Ferraro: This is not the new Liberal emblem, even though the Tories feel they have been hit by a lightning bolt. What I proudly hold is the insignia of the Guelph Holody Platers, who as of last night are the Ontario Hockey League champions. It is with great pride that I stand here today and brag a little about my team, which over the season provided such excellent entertainment to the fans back home. They did so in a very unbiased fashion. They took on all parts of Ontario, taking on worthy opponents from Sudbury, North Bay, Windsor and last night Belleville. Even though I am from Guelph and am partisan, I think it is in order for us to wish them all the best.

I have collected 10 bucks from the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. O'Neil), with whom incidentally I did not make a bet. Nevertheless, let me congratulate Joe Holody, the owner; Rob Holody, the general manager; Jacques Martin; and all the members of the Guelph Holody Platers, who are on their way to Portland to defend the province and, we hope, to bring the Memorial Cup home to Ontario.

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr. Hennessy: I wish to make a few brief comments on a waferboard mill in Thunder Bay. One hundred and fifty people are out of work because Great Lakes Forest Products decided to close down the waferboard plant. Once again, the Liberal government has watched people lose their jobs without lifting a finger to help. The irony of their plight is that they lost their jobs on May Day, which is considered a big day for the workers.

Thunder Bay needs jobs. The Liberal government's neglect has let down the people of Thunder Bay again. First, there was the loss of jobs because of the Urban Transportation Development Corp. deal and now there is the waferboard mill. I understand the Premier (Mr. Peterson) has met with the mayor of Thunder Bay and the members of city council. I can only hope that the meeting was fruitful and that the Premier can assure the 150 people who lost their jobs that new employment opportunities will be made available.

EMERGENCY SHORELINE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

Mr. Wildman: I rise to make some comments about the emergency shoreline management program. Despite the assurances of the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) that the provincial government is extending the program to individual property owners in northern unorganized townships in the Great Lakes basin, ministry officials have informed me that applications from such property owners cannot be processed until the legislation has been amended by the Legislature.

It is imperative that the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Mr. Grandmaître) and the provincial government introduce the necessary amendment immediately and that its passage be expedited by the House to ensure that applications from northern property owners can be processed while sufficient funds remain available and before the assistance has been completely dispersed to applicants in southern Ontario.

I implore the House to move as quickly as possible on this amendment, to have it introduced as soon as possible and the House leaders to co-operate to expedite its passage.

MISSISSAUGA CITIZEN OF THE YEAR

Mr. Offer: It is a pleasure for me to rise today to pay tribute to the winner of the Mississauga Citizen of the Year award, Mrs. Velma Kennedy, who was honoured yesterday at a special ceremony when she received the Cordon S. Shipp Memorial Award for community service. Velma Kennedy is 70 years old, a mother, grandmother and a long-time city resident. She has devoted a good deal of her time to helping various community groups.

Velma Kennedy represents the most important individual in this province, the person who always finds time to help and contribute to others. Throughout many regions of this province, there are other persons who demonstrate the commitment of people such as Velma Kennedy. They provide the backbone, the inner strength, the spirit of this province. During a period when the world is undergoing a series of crises, it is refreshing to be able to report that the residents of Mississauga have again taken the time to recognize one of their outstanding citizens.

OSTOMY SUPPLIES

Mr. McLean: One of the main concerns I have is with health care in Ontario. I have been concerned for quite some time about the policies of this government. There should be more security for our senior citizens and for people who need services such as the ostomy program.

In my estimation, the government is not living up to the commitments it has made to the people of this province with regard to health care. Would the minister explain to the people of Ontario why we are the only province in Canada where ostomy supplies are not completely covered under the provincial health care plan?

Recently, coverage of this cost was changed to assist those up to the age of 21. This is covered by the Ontario health insurance plan under the assistive devices program. I had asked the minister to try to make complete coverage available to all those who need such assistance.

The Canadian Cancer Society spent almost $3.75 million on ostomy supplies for cancer patients in 1983. That cost is increasing year by year.

I am aware that there are advisory committees dealing with this matter and would like to know whether any changes are anticipated in the near future.

2:12 p.m.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

FAMILY MONTH

Hon. Mr. Ruprecht: I have the pleasant responsibility today of officially proclaiming May as Family Month. The goal of this special month remains to provide a common time for all Ontarians to focus on the importance of the family. Family Month helps all of us to acknowledge that the family is the fundamental social unit which forms our communities and provides our province with its special identity.

In 1986, the Family Month theme is "Every Family is Unique." This theme encourages all of us to reflect on the wide variety of family formations which prevail in our heterogeneous and multicultural society. In accordance with this theme, I have invited several families to attend the announcement of Family Month. These families come from a variety of backgrounds and symbolically represent the unique quality and importance of all Ontario families.

Our families evolve as ongoing responses to our individual abilities for communicating affection, understanding and care. Our potential for exchanging mutual support establishes the character and contributions of every family. Although there is not a common description of what a family looks like, we can all recognize and appreciate the family's universal importance. Many of us feel that family relationships call forth our need to give and receive commitment. The family also can enable us to experience the deepest level of human potential, a sense of personal interconnectedness.

During Family Month, all of us are encouraged to recognize these special qualities of our own families and strengthen family ties; further appreciate and honour the variety of family formations and values which friends, neighbours and other members of our communities have created; and affirm the contribution of Ontario's families as a common resource which enables all of us to participate more fully in building stronger communities and achieving our desired quality of life.

During the month of May, many of the members of this Legislature will have opportunities to speak at and participate in community activities. During these events, I encourage members to acknowledge the importance of the family and to request that all in attendance affirm and participate in the goals of Family Month.

Mr. Rae: I want to comment on the statement made by the Minister without Portfolio about Family Month and to say that it is astonishing to us that a minister of the crown in 1986 would make a comment about Family Month without talking about the realities of family life with respect to the need for a decent child care program or the need for us to provide the kinds of support that are integral to what the modern family is all about. The minister failed also to make any reference at all to the fact that there are a great many women in particular who are living in poverty because of low wages, poor working conditions and difficulties of organizing.

There is no reference to the reality of the modern family. What the minister is reflecting today is a very Victorian, old-fashioned approach with respect to the modern family, which surprises me given that this is May 1986.

ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION

Hon. Ms. Caplan: I am pleased to inform the honourable members of the substantial progress that has been made in the current negotiation of salary agreements with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. For the first time since 1982, settlements have been reached in direct negotiations with the union without arbitration or any form of third-party participation.

A strong factor in this success has been the co-operative response of the union representatives to this government's approach to employee relations. As the members are aware, we place great emphasis on human resources management which, I believe, is reflected in the current negotiations.

Agreements have been reached in five of the nine categories under review and these have been ratified by the 23,500 employees concerned. The categories are administrative services, maintenance services, general operational services, technical services and scientific and professional services.

These contracts are effective from January 1, 1986, to December 31, 1986, with increases for the employees in the five categories averaging 4.23 per cent. In addition, adjustments have been made to provide equity in certain classifications, involving mostly female workers, which will result in a total average cost of 4.49 per cent of current payroll.

Negotiations are under way on agreements for the correctional services, institutional care and office of administration category and instructors at the Ontario Police College. I look forward to reporting to the members as we continue to achieve progress.

Mr. Gillies: The chairman of the Management Board of Cabinet made a statement to the House about the adjustments being made to public service wages. First of all, we are very pleased the negotiations are going as well as they are. Buried in that statement is the rather startling fact that 0.26 of one per cent of the increased funding going to our public servants is going for the purposes of pay equity. I am sure the minister will agree with me that is not a particularly startling figure or one of which the government should be overly proud. Again it points to the need for broad public sector pay equity in this province. Our party will be moving amendments to expand the government's pay equity bill to the very broadest public sector.

I say to the minister, during the recession when the government saw fit to restrain public sector wages, her government supported that measure. Now that the time is here to extend a benefit to those workers, why will she not support that initiative?

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION LEGISLATION

Hon. Mr. Curling: As the members of this House are no doubt aware, there is an urgent need to preserve the existing supply of rental housing in many areas of our province, and to protect the security of tenants in this accommodation. The crisis we are facing today is the result of many years of inadequate rental supply programs and an insensitive rent review policy. We are now in the process of addressing those problems.

Last December, I announced a comprehensive series of initiatives to create a new supply of housing, to restore the quality of existing accommodation and to reform the rent review system. In my December statement, I also indicated that this government would be taking a strong stand against efforts to remove sound, affordable rental housing through conversion, demolition and other such measures.

At the same time, my colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Mr. Grandmaître) indicated his concern about these activities, which have contributed to the severe depletion of affordable rental housing in this province, particularly in our larger urban centres.

The government has expended considerable time, effort and resources to increase the supply of rental housing. At the same time, it is necessary to take measures to ensure the preservation of the rental stock now in existence. That is why I am introducing today the Rental Housing Protection Act, which will apply to all rental housing stock in municipalities having a population of more than 25,000 and those smaller municipalities which may be designated as having a rental housing shortage.

The legislation will not apply to residential complexes of six units or fewer; however, in all municipalities, municipal approval will be required prior to conversion of a rental property to a condominium, regardless of size. This legislation will be in effect for 24 months.

Under this act, a proponent of a conversion or demolition of a residential rental building will apply to the local municipal council, which will review the application and decide whether the application should be approved or rejected. Any person will have the right to appeal the decision of the municipal council to the Ontario Municipal Board. The OMB will then hold a hearing and make a decision on the appeal, and that decision may be appealed by petitioning the Lieutenant Governor in Council. This legislation will result in stricter and more extended controls for a two-year period, which will ensure the protection of Ontario's valuable rental housing stock.

The new legislation will authorize regulations to allow the approval of an application to convert or demolish a building under the following conditions: (1) where the proponent has provided satisfactory accommodation for the current tenants and has provided new rental housing stock at the same price in the same market area; (2) where it is demonstrated that the proposal does not adversely affect the availability of affordable rental housing; or (3) where, in the case of a demolition permit, a building is found to be unsafe.

This two-year time span will also provide the government with an opportunity to reassess the rental housing market and determine the approach most appropriate for preserving Ontario's rental housing stock.

Moreover, I wish to draw attention to the matter of severances, which enable the conversion of rental town houses to individual ownership. This is a practice already requiring municipal approval, and my colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs will be commenting on this matter shortly.

We recognize that some proposals to convert or demolish rental housing are currently under way, and I would like to comment on those now.

This legislation will allow projects which have obtained all required permits to continue. Proposals which have not been approved, however, cannot proceed without proper approval.

This means that following royal assent:

If a condominium conversion proposal for an existing rental building has not been draft approved or has not received a commitment for exemption from approval, it may not proceed without approval.

Where an owner proposes to demolish a building now rented or to renovate so extensively as to require that the unit be permanently vacated, it is only where the necessary building or demolition permits have already been issued that the demolition or renovation may take place without approval.

No notices of eviction may be served on existing tenants because of demolitions, renovations or conversions, except as approved by the municipality. If all permits have been obtained, however, notices may be served in the future. The act will also prevent a court from ordering that tenants be evicted for these purposes unless all permits have been obtained.

The offering for sale or sale of any interest in a proposed co-operative or other common ownership housing venture, other than a nonprofit co-operative, is also prohibited unless approval is given to the transaction.

If any conversions or other actions described are attempted without approval, a purchaser will obtain no interest in the land, and the parties to such transactions will be liable for financial penalty.

In the days ahead, together with the Minister of Municipal Affairs, I will continue to consult with municipalities and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. As well, I will continue to consult with landlord and tenant groups on ways to best implement this legislation.

I am confident that the Rental Housing Protection Act will enable us to accomplish a crucial goal: to preserve Ontario's valuable stock of rental housing.

The initiatives we have taken today are but one small part of the Assured Housing for Ontario policy announced in December. We will continue to move forward on all aspects of this policy, ensuring effective protection for tenants, just treatment for landlords and action to meet essential housing needs.

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: I am pleased to endorse the announcement which has been made by my colleague the Minister of Housing.

Our government has pledged from the outset to reverse decades of neglect in the rental housing field. In recent months, programs have been brought forward to increase the supply of rental accommodation, landlords and tenants have been brought together to reach a consensus on a system of rent review, and the groundwork has been laid for the builders to build once again.

Today our government moves forward again with measures to protect the supply of rental housing and the security of tenants.

As Minister of Municipal Affairs, I strongly support the key role that our municipal governments must play in this vital area.

All applications for the conversion or demolition of rental residential buildings will be considered by the local municipal council. Each municipality has a vital concern with the health of its rental housing market.

One additional activity that can contribute to the reduction in rental housing is the splitting of linked complexes of more than six units such as town house developments and other forms of row housing into individual ownerships through the land severance process under the Planning Act.

Municipalities have the power to approve land severances, so today I am requesting that all municipalities subject such applications to especially rigorous evaluation during the next two years. This applies to municipalities with a population of more than 25,000 and any other municipality where a critical shortage of rental housing exists.

During this period, my ministry will review any proposed consent approval creating individual ownerships to determine whether the public interest is being served.

Furthermore, I have today withdrawn the delegated authority from the 12 municipalities now exercising approval of condominium conversion. This action is being taken to facilitate the implementation of the new procedures under the Rental Housing Protection Act.

I am pleased to support the Minister of Housing in his initiatives, and I am confident the measures we have taken today respond to the urgency of the current rental housing situation.

Mr. Gordon: I have listened very carefully to the statements by the Minister of Housing and the Minister of Municipal Affairs, and I think they should hang their heads in shame. It is obvious that over the past 10 months -- and they should remember 10 months have gone by -- they have created a lot of confusion by the announcements they have made, particularly in regard to rent controls.

The private sector does not know whether it should go ahead and build. It reached the point where landlords started demolishing their apartments from within rather than merely renovating. We are at a point in this province right now where there are virtually no rental apartments being built. Take a look at the Renterprise program, which promises more than 5,000 units. Where are those units? The government has barely scratched the surface.

Now we get this piece of legislation which promises us studies. The government is going to study the matter for two years. That hardly sounds like a decisive government or a decisive ministry. When I look at this statement, the Minister of Housing says, "In my December statement, I also indicated that this government would be taking a strong stand against efforts to remove sound, affordable rental housing through conversion, demolition and other such measures." Then the minister stood back to the point where we had elderly women in this House because they were being evicted. The minister is not doing anything for them; they are gone. I do not see how the minister can feel he has done something decisive.

He continues, "The government has expended considerable time, effort and resources to increase the supply of rental housing." We do not see that rental housing; it is not happening out there. What we have instead is a major crisis in Toronto over condo conversions, and the minister has to take some responsibility for that.

Looking at page 4, a great deal of our housing stock in this province has fewer than six units. What does the minister hold out to these people? He says, "The legislation will not apply to residential complexes of six units or less; however, in all municipalities, municipal approval will be required prior to conversion of a rental property to a condominium, regardless of size."

The fact is that this government has determined it is going to decide whether there is going to be rental housing in this province and whether there are going to be conversions in this province. It is obvious that the municipalities are going to turn around and look to the government, which is going to be running the whole business from Queen's Park through order in council, through the cabinet. That hardly seems to me to be a way to decentralize the powers in Ontario. This is one more step in Peterson's Ontario. We have seen it before. We have seen how the government handled the doctors, the pharmacists and the solicitors. This is the way they are now going to handle the housing situation. When are they going to get on with building more housing in this province? That is what the people of this province want to know.

Mr. Reville: Tenants in Ontario have been waiting too long for a government interested in protecting them. They waited on the Tories for 42 years. They have waited on the Liberals for 10 months, and we still do not know whether tenants are going to be protected. We have 16 pages of words here. We will have to see whether these protections are real.

The Minister of Housing complained last Tuesday that I wanted the legislation to include everything and that I wanted it immediately. The minister is absolutely right. I do want it to include everything and I do want it immediately because the crisis in rental housing exists now. As long as any techniques exist that erode our rental housing stock, the government will have to be both vigilant and timely.

Until the government solves the problem of creating rental housing, we are going to be under increasing pressure. Rental housing is being lost at a rate far faster than it is being created. Each unit lost creates one or more casualties. We know, to our horror and to our shame, that people are being forced out of the housing market altogether. For some of those people, it is fatal. In Toronto alone, 16,000 units are under threat. If the government lets them go, it will be 10 years before we can replace them at the existing supply rate.

The 10-month delay has cost hundreds of tenants their housing. We do not know whether the Minister of Municipal Affairs is using empty words when he suggests that municipalities subject applications to rigorous evaluation. Of course they subject them to rigorous evaluation. Will the government wait until the last day in the two-year period to address its new policy on protection of rental stock so the demand is again pent up and so that municipal councils are subjected to the exercise the city of Toronto council has gone through? They debated the matter of Bretton Place for six hours on Thursday and are meeting again at three o'clock. What kind of provincial government is that?

Does the minister view the debate at Toronto city council as an exercise in a commitment for approval that he mentions on page 8? If that is the case, then we lose Bretton Place. Has he left loopholes in this large enough to drive a bulldozer through?

New Democrats believe people should have control over their lives. Housing is absolutely central to that control. Housing must be decent, affordable and secure. We will continue our fight until every single person in Ontario has decent, secure, affordable housing. We call upon this government to join us in that fight.

VISITOR

Mr. Grossman: I know all members will join me in welcoming a very fine Ontarian, someone who distinguished herself admirably over the past few months. Gina Brannan is sitting in the first row of the east gallery; it is not quite the seat we had in mind.

2:36 p.m.

ORAL QUESTIONS

EXTRA BILLING

Mr. Grossman: My question is for the Premier. Does he agree that by way of a letter dated Friday, May 2, from the Ontario Medical Association, interestingly not to the Premier or to the Minister of Health (Mr. Elston) but to the government's chief negotiator, the Attorney General (Mr. Scott), the OMA has agreed --

Hon. Mr. Kerrio: We are a team.

Mr. Grossman: They know who is in charge. The OMA has agreed that, should a negotiated agreement be available with the government, it would not extra bill senior citizens, people on Ontario health insurance plan premium assistance, general welfare assistance, unemployment insurance, disability pension, family benefits or vocational rehabilitation and any person requiring emergency treatment. Does the Premier not agree that, by way of that offer, it has well addressed the clustering phenomenon, which is the key problem to the extra billing question?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: There is nothing new. The suggestions the OMA brought forward in that letter were the same it brought forward two, three, four, even six or eight months ago, and this government does not accept them.

Mr. Grossman: The Premier has been saying he is making progress. It is quite clear that the OMA has made some concessions, whether it made them last Friday to the government's chief negotiator or previously. The OMA has now moved significantly and, in addition, has indicated in that same offer its willingness to discuss and try to resolve any other problems related to accessibility. Does the Premier not agree he has made some significant progress? The chief negotiator has now succeeded in reducing a large portion of the clustering phenomenon. Does that not mean the Premier ought to continue serious negotiations with the OMA instead of giving it the back of his hand?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: There is nothing new in this. It was discussed six or eight months ago. The government does not accept it. We hope there will be some other avenues of forward progress, but we do not consider these suggestions to be forward progress.

Mr. Grossman: Last week the Minister of Health, in response to a suggestion offered by the New Democrats, said he would approach the OMA to ask it to suspend all extra billing while the discussions continue. Therefore, I have a suggestion for the Premier.

Mr. Speaker: Is it by way of supplementary?

Mr. Grossman: Yes. Will the Premier now approach the OMA and say very reasonably that if it will immediately suspend extra billing the people it has offered to stop extra billing, he will suspend pushing through Bill 94, perhaps until the end of this year, so that reasonable discussions can take place with a view to averting a strike as soon as Thursday of this week?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I consider myself to be a very reasonable man. Obviously, the member would like us to do nothing in this matter. Our friends in the New Democratic Party would like us to have moved yesterday. We believe we are conducting these discussions in a way that is conducive to some kind of settlement. I am not sure how many times we have discussed this in the House, but in my view the member's suggestions today are not constructive in moving this forward. There is nothing new in his idea. He is asking us to back off, and the answer is we are not going to back off.

Mr. Speaker: New question.

Mr. Grossman: The Premier is bound and determined to have a health care strike because he seeks a political victory instead of looking after health care in this province.

Mr. Speaker: New question.

HEALTH SERVICES

Mr. Grossman: My question is for the Minister of Health, such as he still is. We understand the minister has been preoccupied of late, carrying the briefcase and briefing materials of the Attorney General (Mr. Scott). Today in Sarnia, there are 94 people who have waited 114 days for a chronic care bed. In Sudbury, there are 100 people who will have to wait six to nine months. In Barrie, there is a shortage of 112 nursing home beds. We know the minister will brush this off by saying he inherited the situation, but he also knows he has had one year in which to address this problem.

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Grossman: What has the minister done specifically in this year to alleviate that shortage?

Hon. Mr. Elston: My friend the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick, who was at one time Minister of Health, asks what was done and says nothing was done. We are moving to address the needs he has set out so well. In the speech from the throne, we indicated there will be longterm planning with respect to capital needs for construction in this province. We are moving ahead to make provision for the needs that have been identified throughout the province by such groups as district health councils and health care providers, including nursing home operators.

Mr. Grossman: Apart from the planning to which the minister just referred, apart from the white paper on which the Minister without Portfolio responsible for senior citizens' affairs (Mr. Van Horne) is still working and which still has not seen the light of day -- I might add we were able to write a better white paper ourselves and do it more quickly than he has been able to do in a year -- and apart from appointing Liberals to district health councils, will the minister explain specifically what he has done in the one year to alleviate these bed shortages? The people in Sarnia and Sudbury want to know what he has done to alleviate the shortages.

Hon. Mr. Elston: It is quite appropriate that this former minister asks me what we have done. He used to speak about taking pressure off demands on the institutional sector by introducing community services. We have already done things such as that in the 10 months I have been Minister of Health. For instance, we have put together a chiropody program that will help people to become more independent and more able to stay in the community. We have finally introduced and put into place the frail elderly program, which takes pressure off the institutional groups the member set out.

The Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney), who announced the frail elderly program, with the co-operation of the Minister of Health, who will be administering it, has done a great deal to advance the cause of keeping people in the community where they would like to be. Those are a couple of examples of what we have done.

In addition to that, we have attended various functions, for instance, at St. Joseph's Hospital, Sarnia, where we are well on the way to doing the planning that is required to put up buildings to house some of those chronic care needs in that area.

Mr. Grossman: We know the minister has been to lots of receptions and functions.

Let me quote the Provincial Treasurer (Mr. Nixon). In Brantford last week, he told the Kiwanis Club that when the Liberals were in opposition, they used to ask, "What is the delay?" He said tongue in cheek, "Now that we are in government, we say we are doing it as quickly as we can."

My question to the Minister of Health, reflecting the Liberal policy as outlined by the Treasurer, is this: Will the minister specify how much his boss, the chief negotiator, offered the Ontario Medical Association out of the $53 million recovered from the federal government under Bill 94 in order to pay physicians who ought to be earning more, more than they are currently being paid, and in order to establish a special fund to attract and retain world-class physicians?

Hon. Mr. Elston: Obviously, the former minister does not understand the negotiating process about which he used to wax so eloquent. That fellow across the way used to tell us: "Do not worry. It is in negotiations, and it would not be helpful to talk about negotiations in this forum."

We are carrying on negotiations in earnest. I can tell the former minister, the former Treasurer, who has very little to do but reflect now upon his former self, that we are moving ahead with plans to provide the necessary support services for the people of this province. We are working within our budget. As a former minister, he should not be concerned with the fact that we are going to run short, because we will provide services for our people. We have done that. We have expanded community services. We will expand the institutional services. He should not worry. As a former Treasurer, the member will be very happy with the way the Treasurer and I --

Mr. Speaker: Order.

EXTRA BILLING

Mr. Rae: I have a question for the Premier. Can the Premier tell us whether the Minister of Health (Mr. Elston) kept the promise he gave us last week? Was a specific request for a moratorium made to the doctors in the discussions on Friday night?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I honestly cannot answer that. I will refer that to the minister.

Hon. Mr. Elston: The request that was made here was relayed to the group, with whom we met on Friday evening. Although I do not think the exact words in reply would be appropriate for this forum, I was able to assess a very strong rejection of that request.

Mr. Rae: Given that fact, which I do not think comes as a shock to anyone in this assembly, and given the nature of the proposal made by the OMA on Friday night, of which I think either the minister himself or one of his assistants said in coming out of the meeting, "It is a rehash of proposals that were made four months ago," which is precisely the warning we have been giving the minister and the government with respect to that issue for the last four months, when are the cows finally going to come home? When is the minister going to seize the nettle, get on with this bill and stop allowing himself to be jerked around in these discussions?

Hon. Mr. Elston: The honourable gentleman will well realize, as I have said, that we have made progress. I felt the written proposal or position paper was just that: a position paper that reflected the situation as it had been several weeks ago. I felt it was a regression during the negotiations. I can tell the honourable members here and the people of the province that the expectations for our next meeting will be that there will be real and new proposals brought forward.

2:50 p.m.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: The minister indicated that the doctors very strongly rejected the idea of even a moratorium on extra billing. What leads the minister to believe, as of today and as of last Friday's meeting, that there is any possibility of negotiating an end to extra billing in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Elston: The position of this party has always been that negotiations on this item will be very difficult. That does not mean we will throw up our hands in despair. We will go the extra mile, as it were, to make sure we have canvassed every opportunity. We can tell the honourable member, as the critic for his party, which has been very consistent on this matter, that extra billing will be ended. It is a little more difficult to pick up consistency there, but we are committed to ending extra billing.

Mr. Rae: When, oh Lord, when?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: It will be very soon.

Mr. Hennessy: Here is the Lord.

Mr. Rae: I was not asking the Premier. I know it is going well, but it is not going that well.

DARLINGTON NUCLEAR PLANT

Mr. Rae: I want to ask the Premier a question about Darlington. In January 1984, he was quoted as saying that construction on the gigantic nuclear power station would be stopped in its multibillion-dollar tracks if the Liberals are elected.

We have questioned the Premier with respect to this project several times since the House has come back. The select committee on energy has made its recommendation with respect to a six-month moratorium on contracts for the third and fourth units at Darlington. Since the election, the government has spent at least $3 million a day on Darlington. What is the premier going to do to make a decision with respect to a project that Ontarians feel more and more is a colossal waste of money?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I recall the history of this matter very well, as does my friend opposite. I have spoken about this many times, going back almost a decade. I know he has done his research properly and he will be aware of the things I have said in the last year or two with respect to that. I said at the beginning I would not have built it. That being said, at a certain point it becomes less costly to proceed than to scrap the project.

The member will be aware that some $7 billion has been invested. Those interest payments are ongoing. This is no different from what I said during the campaign and prior to the campaign. I know he will want to check the record on that. Generally, he has pretty good research over there. He should check it out. That is the kind of situation we are in.

The cabinet is reviewing the matter and the minister is reviewing the matter. It is an extraordinarily complicated one with respect to the amount of money that has already been committed. Our job here, like so many other jobs, is to minimize the loss and optimize the opportunities for the taxpayers of this province.

Mr. Rae: To the same exalted gentleman, on June 30, 1985, $3.5 billion was spent and committed, not $7 billion. On October 30, 1985, $4.6 billion was spent and committed, not $7 billion. Those are the facts. Between June 30 and October 30, $1 billion was spent and committed. We do not yet have the latest update from Ontario Hydro, but we know it is very extensive because it has been spending money like crazy to get in before any decision is made.

Why has the Premier let this matter drift for 10 months? He has failed to make a decision with respect to the recommendation made by the select committee last December, although his Minister of Energy (Mr. Kerrio) said we will have a decision very soon. Why has he failed utterly to make any decision with respect to Darlington when it is costing us $3 million a day, an expenditure that may be unnecessary if he has the courage to make the decision that needs to be made in this province?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: My honourable friend will be aware that when a capital dollar -- any dollar, for that matter -- is spent in this province, because we are deficit financing, those interest costs run in perpetuity. Those are the realities. That money has all been borrowed in New York. If we cut it off tomorrow, I hope he would not want to give the impression that we are going to save all that money, because we will end up for a very long time in the future paying that interest.

If one is writing that off against a capital asset that is actually generating revenue, then it is a different situation, and that is all calculated as a factor. What one has to calculate, when one puts cost figures on it, is the interest that will run for ever against Ontario Hydro's capacity to borrow and charge consumers. What the member is asking for, in a very simple sense in that scenario, is dramatically higher hydro rates, and he is the first who likes low hydro rates, in order to pay for the long term. Those are some of the economic realities of this situation this government has to take into account, and we are.

Mr. Rae: The Premier is spouting the Hydro line hook, line and sinker, which is completely different from what he said when he was in opposition. The conversion has been total with respect to this issue. Does the Premier not recognize that, as a result of his decision, Ontario Hydro is going to be going from 40 per cent dependent upon nuclear power to 70 per cent dependent on nuclear power? That is something which is in his hands to change. He is in the position to do something about that. Is he standing in his place today and saying he wants Ontario to be 70 per cent dependent upon nuclear power by 1990? That is specifically the path he is now taking the province down.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: In fairness, the member would want to acknowledge that a number of initiatives have been taken by this government with respect to Ontario Hydro. There is the encouragement of cogeneration, of small-scale hydro development and others in northern Ontario that we believe in the long term -- one has to be fair -- are new departures for Ontario Hydro and will have an impact on the generation mix.

We inherited situations on which I think we have made an impact already. Particularly with a corporation of this scale, because of the long-term planning and the long time frame in which decisions have to be made, the member will see the results of our new influence in the years to come.

INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

Mr. Jackson: I have a question of the Premier. I was delighted to hear in the last question that he asked the House to please be fair. On Thursday last, the member for York North (Mr. Sorbara) advised us he would extend the closing dates for the Ontario public service internship program for his ministries because he was able to determine they were selectively posted. In the interest of fairness, can the Premier please tell us whether he has now ordered the rest of his ministers to follow that minister's lead with their internship program postings?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The answer is I have no idea what the member is talking about. I have not ordered anybody to do anything. I never do that.

Mr. Jackson: If the Premier was not listening in the House during the two times I raised the question, perhaps he might refresh himself with Hansard. Specifically, I had raised questions about the fact there were selective postings for approximately 120 highly sought after positions with this government for post-secondary graduate students in Ontario. I even cited four or five cases of postings that were going to close late last week. I further advised the Premier that his Minister of Housing (Mr. Curling) had four positions which were selectively posted to Toronto post-secondary institutions, including his former employer, Seneca College.

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Jackson: Will the Premier please investigate these practices of selective posting for positions in the specific case which has been brought to his attention and any other specific case within any of his ministries and report back to this House?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Now that the member has brought this matter to my attention, I will investigate. Is he suggesting there is some sort of unfairness in this`? It would bother me a great deal if that was the case. I will be happy to take his suggestion under advisement, if there is any substance to it.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr. Mantel: I have a question of the Minister of Labour regarding the fatality at the Stanleigh mine in Elliot Lake. René Perron died because of a malfunctioning pass gate at Stanleigh mine in Elliot Lake on September 4, 1985. Is the minister aware that four times in the month prior to René Perron's death he reported the malfunctioning gate, the gate that caused his death, to his supervisor? When is the minister going to get serious about the enforcement of the Occupational Health and Safety Act and ensure that equipment that is deficient is repaired quickly?

3 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I was not aware of the facts that the honourable member raises in this specific instance. I share with him his sadness that these matters did not get rectified, but I want tell him that we have already taken action.

As of November, and I think the plan is now well into effect, orders are to be written rather than avoided. The member is also aware, because I shared with him the new orders policy, that compliance dates are required for all orders. Orders are no longer reissued, which is a very important change.

I assume the two changes, ensuring that orders are written the first time and that the compliance dates are attached to every order, will begin to solve those kinds of problems and make sure those kinds of tragedies do not recur.

Mr. Mantel: Members of Local 5417, the United Steelworkers of America have asked that the investigation report by the Ministry of Labour be provided to them. That request has been denied. Can the minister tell me why that report was denied to the Steelworkers and, more important, why his ministry is not laying charges against Rio Algom for that fatality?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I cannot give the member any information today as to why the results of the investigation were not shared with the Steelworkers local, nor can I tell him why a prosecution has not been commenced. I will look into the matter and get back to the member tomorrow.

FREE TRADE

Mr. Jackson: My question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. Last Monday the minister stated that his government fully supported the auto pact, and last month the Premier (Mr. Peterson) also stated, "Ontario must force more intellectual rigour in this auto pact debate."

Will the minister please advise this House of his position in all talks with the federal government with regard to ensuring that the Canadian value added ratio is maintained in free trade talks to help secure long-term auto parts manufacturing jobs, or is it his government's position to ensure that only production ratios are maintained, enabling Japanese and Korean manufacturers to flood our markets with imported auto parts and putting thousands of Ontario workers out of jobs?

Mr. Speaker: Minister.

Mr. Jackson: Which position does his ministry support?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Minister.

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: We have made it very clear in the trade talks with the federal government concerning that matter, and it has always been our position, that we want to have the parts manufacturers or people coming from other countries producing as much as they possibly can in this province, to provide jobs for our people in this province.

Mr. Jackson: "As much as they possibly can" is what the minister said. That is really tying things down for Ontario workers. In answer to previous questions, the minister has indicated he was not a party to negotiations with Toyota Canada when it tied down its plant in Cambridge. The minister is no doubt aware that since that agreement, the president of Toyota Canada was quoted in the March 24 issue of Automotive News as saying: "The 60 per cent CVA is too high for Toyota. We cannot comply in the immediate future and it may take five years or longer because compliance is only a long-term goal ."

If the minister received no guarantees in the first round --

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member has already asked the question.

Mr. Jackson: With respect --

Mr. Speaker: About five more words and that is it. Make a question out of it quickly.

Mr. Jackson: I will make a question out of it. With respect to these negotiations with offshore manufacturers, what assurances do we have that offshore parts will not be brought into Ontario ensuring companies --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Minister.

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: The honourable member should be aware that to participate in the auto pact, these companies must reach that 60 per cent level. They have stated both to me and to the federal people that they intend to reach that level.

NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Pouliot: I have a question for the Premier. He will be aware that Darwin Smith, the chairman of Kimberly-Clark International, flew into the riding of Lake Nipigon last Saturday to make a startling announcement, an announcement that threatens the jobs of 2,000 people and the economic viability of towns such as Terrace Bay, Nakina and Longlac. While he was making the announcement, he said no additional money would be coming from the parent company in the United States. He further suggested very strongly that unless productivity is increased and costs are reduced --

Mr. Speaker: I suggest you ask a question.

Mr. Pouliot: Given the magnitude of the problem, surely the Premier is aware of the dilemma facing the people of the north. What is he going to do to stop American companies from deciding the future of northern companies?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I am very much aware of the situation the honourable member presents. He could easily place this in conjunction with a number of other very serious problems we face in northern Ontario at the moment. I do not mean to minimize them at all.

We are in contact with Kimberly-Clark. It has shared with us some of the problems it has shared with the member and people there publicly. It is a worrisome situation. I come today with no easy answers, but I can assure the member we are making the best efforts we possibly can to keep that mill going, now and in the long term.

Mr. Pouliot: With all due respect, I know the Premier is incapable of lying. I know that he has --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the honourable member place his supplementary immediately?

Mr. Pouliot: I simply ask the Premier to be more specific and to give us some sort of guarantee that the problems of the north will be addressed seriously, in an orderly fashion, so we will know soon where we are going in terms of economic prosperity and job guarantees.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: It is a top priority of this government. We are looking at all the options we have. I spent this morning talking to workers from Great Lakes Forest Products in Thunder Bay as well as the mayor and members of council. The minister is speaking today and tomorrow with people in Sault Ste. Marie and Wawa.

I wish I could wave a magic wand and tell the member I had the solutions to all these problems. We are attacking them one by one, as crises, and there are a number of them at the moment. In addition, we have made a major commitment to northern redevelopment and to broadening the economic base. We have discussed those in this House before.

It is a very worrisome situation in general and it has the full attention of this government.

SENIOR CITIZENS' SERVICES

Mr. Dean: I have a question for the Minister without Portfolio responsible for senior citizens' affairs. In view of his statement last November that he had given the Premier (Mr. Peterson) his report on services for senior citizens and that this report would be made public "in a month or two," can the minister give us now, some six months later, the date on which his long-awaited report will finally be made public?

Hon. Mr. Van Horne: The response is twofold. First, the report was given to the Premier in October. He and my cabinet colleagues reviewed it in complete detail. Having gone through the various committees of cabinet, the report has been put into the printing process. It is at the printers right now. The Premier will make the decision on the date as soon as it is available, but it will be very soon.

Mr. Dean: In view of that rather convoluted answer, will the minister tell us whether the six-month delay -- maybe seven months if it was October -- in releasing this report is a result of dissension within his party over the contents or simply that he could not persuade the Premier to look at it until now?

3:10 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Van Horne: On the contrary, the response in the first instance was not convoluted; it was very straightforward. Second, the Premier and my cabinet colleagues found the report so fascinating and found so many holes in the system left by the previous government that they and I determined to present a white paper that would provide a blueprint for curing the system. When the honourable member reads the report, I am sure he will agree this was time well spent.

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION LEGISLATION

Mr. Reville: My question is for the Minister of Housing. On Thursday last, my friend to my far right and I, asked him nine questions. It is going to be much easier today because perhaps some of the answers are in this document. I have one simple question for the Minister of Housing: Has he stopped the conversion of Bretton Place?

Hon. Mr. Curling: The new announcement that is in place today will require Bretton Place to go through the process in the same way as any other such case.

Mr. Reville: What that means, I believe, is that Bretton Place will be converted, because what is happening right now at Toronto city council -- and I am advised by some colleagues at city council that they have no messages from the minister -- is that it is making a commitment for exemption. Is that the minister's understanding, and will he not move now to stop the conversion of Bretton Place?

Hon. Mr. Curling: I thought the statement was quite emphatic enough to indicate our great concern for the loss of rental stock in this province. Having indicated we are that concerned, the process will be looking very seriously at situations such as Bretton Place. As my colleague has indicated, the Metro people no longer have the final approval; it will now come to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, where we will take the decision as to whether Bretton Place will be converted.

Mr. Gordon: Municipal councils currently have the power to stop conversions, do they not?

Hon. Mr. Curling: The municipalities have to make a recommendation to the region, or to Metro in this instance, for any approval or rejection.

Mr. Gordon: Again, do the municipalities not have the power to stop conversions, and specifically how does this change matters?

Hon. Mr. Curling: I will go much more slowly for the honourable member. At the moment, as he knows, the municipality does not have the final approval; it will have to refer that case to Metro. Municipalities do not have the final approval. That is what he asked me. No, they do not have that.

EQUAL PAY FOR WORK OF EQUAL VALUE

Ms. Gigantes: My question is to the minister responsible for women's issues. Concerning the matter of equal pay for the 98.5 per cent of working women who are not covered by the public sector equal pay bill, has drafting on a bill for equal pay for the rest begun?

Hon. Mr. Scott: The consulting task force that has been going across the province hopes to conclude its hearings with a final round of hearings in Toronto, I think on May 15, at which time the Equal Pay Coalition and the Ontario Federation of Labour will make their submissions. At that time, we anticipate the hearings will be completed and the consultators will thereafter make a report. We hope to have that report as soon as possible. We then propose to meet with the union consulting committee and the management consulting committee and bring in our bill.

Ms. Gigantes: I asked a simple question and the minister did not answer it. Perhaps he will answer my supplementary. Has the drafting begun and does he feel any concern about cabinet understanding of the basic principles of equal pay legislation, given that the Premier's comments concerning the Wheel-Trans workers revealed his conviction that wage parity could operate to bring wages down to parity rather than up to parity?

Hon. Mr. Scott: The drafting has not begun. It would be wrong to begin the drafting until we have had a full consultative effort. As the honourable member knows, we have not yet heard the Equal Pay Coalition submission, which we hope to have on May 15.

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION LEGISLATION

Mr. Grossman: I want to try to sort out this housing situation with the Minister of Housing. The member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon) was making the point that municipalities, whether it be the region or the local municipality, have always had the power and right to stop condominium conversions. Where such a bylaw has passed, that has always been appealable to the Ontario Municipal Board.

Therefore, as we read his statement, the only thing he has added to the procedure is to allow for an appeal from the OMB to the cabinet of Ontario. Will he confirm our understanding of the sum and substance of his statement? Is that right?

Hon. Mr. Curling: Maybe I had better step through the process. I take the case that is before us, Bretton Place. It went before the neighbourhoods committee. They recommended their decision for approval to the municipality.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Curling: In that instance, it is referred to the region for final decision. I hope that clears up the question. This falls under the portfolio of the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Mr. Grandmaître). If there is any question, maybe he can clear it up.

Mr. Grossman: Once again I say to the Minister of Housing, municipalities, whether the senior tier or the junior tier, have always had the right by bylaw to stop conversions. That has always been appealable to the OMB. How does his announcement today change the process, other than to allow an appeal from the OMB to the cabinet?

Hon. Mr. Curling: The legislation will allow for any of the parties, tenants or landlords, to make a further appeal from the OMB to cabinet.

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Reville: This is a very painful process as we all sit here and watch the Minister of Housing learn how governments work. Can the minister tell us clearly, does the Rental Housing Protection Act take effect today or does it take effect when it receives royal assent? That is a simple question.

3:20 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Curling: The legislation we introduced is not retroactive. We are asking the member and his party and this party to proceed quickly in approving the legislation presented.

On the other question, if I understood the member properly, the Bretton Place situation would have to go through the process as would any other. As I said, after it leaves the city, it goes to the regional government. Because of our concern to protect the rental stock in this province, we will look at it very seriously.

Mr. Reville: I am astounded that the way to keep the cows in the barn is to throw the barn door wide open. Does the minister not realize that he has just kissed goodbye to 16,000 units?

Hon. Mr. Curling: That is not the case. Bretton Place will be seriously looked at to protect those units.

Mr. McCague: Can the Minister of Housing tell me to what region a municipality in Simcoe county would go to apply for approval?

Hon. Mr. Curling: I will refer that to the Minister of Municipal Affairs; I am not quite familiar with the region to which it would be referred.

Mr. Speaker: Is the minister asking the Minister of Municipal Affairs to respond?

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: Can the member repeat the question, please? I have a list of all the regional municipalities in front of me.

Mr. McCague: It is a rather easy question. To which region would a municipality in Simcoe county go for approval?

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: Under the old Planning Act of 1983, all regional municipalities had the power on conversions; now local councils will be making that decision, and that includes all regional municipalities.

Mr. McCague: Do the two ministers to whom I have had the privilege of speaking understand that Simcoe county is not a regional government? Will they together undertake to get me an answer to this very important issue'?

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: I was trying to correct what was said in the House before on the question. Regional municipalities had the power to prevent conversions, unlike what was said previously. This is what I was trying to correct.

NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Wildman: I have a question to the Premier. He is probably aware that the vagueness and lack of full candour by Algoma Steel Corp. has led to serious concern and uncertainty in Wawa and Sault Ste. Marie. I know he wants his government to be clear and open with the public.

In that regard, can the Premier explain which deputy ministers form the committee that is visiting the Sault and Wawa this week; with whom they are meeting; the purpose of their meeting; and what they intend to tell the company and the municipalities with which they meet?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: It is my understanding that the Minister of Northern Development and Mines (Mr. Fontaine) and his deputy are in Sault Ste. Marie this afternoon and will be in Wawa tomorrow. A group of deputies is going from the ministries of Northern Development and Mines, Tourism and Recreation, Labour, and Industry, Trade and Technology. A variety of ministries are involved in the situation.

Obviously, we are concerned about the long-term viability of Algoma and the mine at Wawa, the impact on the railway and the great ripple effect throughout that entire area. I am not sure I have answered the honourable member's questions. We are very concerned about the viability and are willing to lend our offices to do what we can to keep up the employment and, at the same time, to broaden the economic base in the Sault Ste. Marie area.

Mr. Morin-Strom: More specifically, can the Premier give us an indication of what specific directions have been given to these deputy ministers, as well as to the Minister of Northern Affairs and Mines , with regard to the government's intentions for northern Ontario? In particular, for the Sault Ste. Marie region, what specific economic actions does this government intend to take to ensure the economic growth and viability of that community?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Very specifically, we have announced in this House before the northern Ontario development fund, a bold, expanded initiative, as the member knows, to broaden the economic base. We have talked about things in the tourism area and about a lot of other individual programs that we believe will have some impact.

Obviously, the big issue is the survival and in what form of Algoma Steel. We do not have simple answers. We are working with the company and the union. There will be wide meetings on the situation. The seriousness of our view of the situation is being conveyed, and we are going to be working with all of the people there to find solutions. That is all I can tell the honourable member.

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION LEGISLATION

Mr. Grossman: I have a question of the Minister of Housing. On page 8 of his announcement, it says, "This legislation will allow projects which have obtained all required permits to continue." It then goes on to say, "This means that, following royal assent, if a condominium conversion proposal has not been draft approved or has not received a commitment for exemption from approval, it may not proceed without approval."

Can the minister indicate which approvals this refers to? It would seem to us that the approvals that Bretton Place requires will all have been obtained under this exemption clause prior to royal assent.

Hon. Mr. Curling: As an example, Bretton Place has not received draft approval at this stage.

Mr. Grossman: Since the legislation is being introduced only today, since Bretton Place's solicitors are pushing this very quickly and since the municipal council is dealing with this either today or next week

An hon. member: Right now.

Mr. Grossman: Is it today? It is dealing with it this very day. Is the minister prepared today to acknowledge that there is a very great possibility that Bretton Place will receive all the draft approvals and thus escape any of the protections offered in this document, which, after all, involve only an appeal to the cabinet?

Hon. Mr. Curling: The city may be discussing Bretton Place at the moment, as the member says; then it will be sent to Metro. As the member realizes, my colleague has just announced that this authority has been taken away from Metro; so the matter must come to the minister for final approval.

INSURANCE RATES

Mr. Swart: My question is of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. I presume the minister knows that Eagle Transport, which was involved in the fiery accident that destroyed the James Snow Parkway overpass, had far from adequate liability insurance to cover the cost of replacing that overpass.

I ask the minister how he feels about the likelihood that the taxpayers of this province will have to pay much of the bill for replacing that overpass because he has been negligent in ensuring that there is an adequate insurance system in this province to cover something like this.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: The member raises a specific question. It is under current review. The determination of whether the coverage is adequate has not yet been made, and I am really not in a position to comment on it.

3:30 p.m.

Mr. Swart: I wonder whether the minister realizes that Eagle Transport paid $175,000 annually for its previous coverage of $5 million from Royal Insurance. That was cancelled just prior to the accident with only a few days' notice, and the only alternative was for Eagle to get one fifth the coverage on one half the tractors for $444,000, 2.5 times the rate, from his Facility Association.

Will the minister now admit that the Facility Association is in reality an association of his making to protect and benefit not the motorists or other insurers but the insurance companies, which can get a lot more revenue for less coverage? Will the minister be proposing some sensible alternative tomorrow to this ministerially endorsed insurance company ripoff?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: The member raises a couple of questions in his statement. He has referred to the fact that tomorrow we will be making public the report of the Slater committee. He will then have an opportunity to see what the recommendations are.

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION LEGISLATION

Mr. Grossman: I have another question for the Minister of Housing. The minister keeps talking about an appeal or a referral of the Bretton Place issue to Metro. Page 5 of his statement says, "Under this act, a proponent of a conversion or demolition of a residential rental building will apply to the local municipal council, which will review the application and decide whether the application should be approved or rejected." It makes no reference to appeal from the local to the regional government. It says, "Any person will have the right to appeal the decision of the municipal council to the Ontario Municipal Board." Can the minister explain to us the contradiction between what is on page 5 and his continuing insistence that this thing ends up at Metro?

Hon. Mr. Curling: May I again step this through with the honourable Leader of the Opposition? He is reading the new proposal, which says, "Any person will have the right to appeal the decision of the municipal council to the Ontario Municipal Board." The member is talking about the old proposal.

Mr. Grossman: Is it, therefore, the minister's opinion that the current situation is that when municipalities deal with or stop conversions, the decisions of the municipalities are not appealable to the OMB? Is that what the minister believes the current law to be?

Hon. Mr. Curling: My understanding is that at the moment, especially in a case such as that of Bretton Place, about which the member asks, when it goes to Metro --

Mr. Grossman: It does not go to Metro.

Hon. Mr. Curling: Under the old act, it is my understanding that this will go to Metro to be rubber-stamped. Under the new one we propose, it will go from the city to the Ontario Municipal Board.

INTERVENER FUNDING

Mrs. Grier: Last week I raised the question of intervener funding and was assured that a policy was in the works and that ad hoc approvals were being given in the interim. I would like to ask the Minister of the Environment whether this ad hockery will be extended to the citizens of Northumberland and Haldimand who oppose the enormous facility proposed by Consumers' Gas?

Mr. Andrewes: And Lincoln too.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: Does the member for Lincoln have an additional question?

Mr. Andrewes: I am not allowed a supplementary.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: He is not allowed that. With regard to intervener funding, we do not use the term "ad hockery." We use "designated" -- it is a better word -- or "case-by-case basis." This is for those who did not take Latin.

The honourable member raises a very good question, a very interesting question, to which I will provide an answer in the not-too-distant future. When there are matters where a number of issues of great importance must be raised, such as the site to which she makes reference, it is essential that the people who make representations which are opposed to the proponent's have an opportunity to do so with some assurance that they will have some funding up front and not simply have to rely on funding that may come later on, although very often that is forthcoming.

To do this, we have to ensure that these people are aware of this funding. I assure the member there will be an announcement made in the very near future in this regard. I think the member will smile when she hears this announcement.

Mrs. Grier: If that is the minister's opinion, I do not know why he cannot just say yes or no to my question. Let me put it this way. Is the minister aware that the citizens in that area have already raised and spent a considerable amount of money in their fight for the Environmental Assessment Advisory Committee and for legal advice? Is he aware that the citizens are the only ones in this hearing who are intervening on behalf of the environment? Is he aware that the hearing has already begun? Does he consider this David and Goliath struggle to be in the best interests of the environment?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: There were several questions involved in that. I could probably provide several answers, but I will try to be relatively brief, unaccustomed as I am. I like to give full answers to the member.

In answer to the question -- whether I believe there should be a so-called David and Goliath adversarial system, the member will know that we built a strong environmental component into the Ontario Energy Board hearing on this specific case. One of the reasons we did that was to allow the people in that area the opportunity to make effective representations. I recognize that this involves some expenditure of funds. For that reason, we have looked very carefully at the application and will be making an announcement very soon. I recognize the urgency of the situation.

PETITIONS

GASOLINE PRICES

Mr. Warner: I enter a petition on behalf of 261 residents of Scarborough:

"To the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario:

"We request the government of Ontario to reduce gasoline tax by 1.1 cents a litre from 8.3 cents a litre to 7.2 cents a litre immediately and to phase in further reductions over three years to 5.4 cents a litre by 1989."

Mr. Morin: I enter a petition on behalf of 294 Ontario residents:

"To the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario:

INTRODUCTION OF BILL

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION ACT

Hon. Mr. Curling moved first reading of Bill 11, An Act respecting the Protection of Rental Housing.

Motion agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)

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

Mr. Warner: I know the members will be disappointed to learn that I have only about 20 more minutes of contribution to make. Apparently, there are other members who wish to participate.

When I left off, I was discussing two sides of the issue about care for seniors. I went through the response I had prepared in some detail. I am quite surprised and rather shocked that the government with its huge bureaucracy and its power is unable to come up with a plan, while I as a single individual with no expertise in this area managed to put together a complex and all-encompassing piece of legislation in less than a year. That legislation is now before the House and is to be debated three weeks hence.

The flip side is the present care for seniors. The most glaring problem we face in Ontario remains the nursing homes.

3:40 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the member, but I counted about 12 private conversations and I find it very difficult to hear the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere. The honourable member has the floor.

Mr. Warner: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that, but I realize my colleagues were all hurriedly trying to make alternative arrangements so they could sit here and listen to my speech.

The nursing home situation has become increasingly difficult over the years. Unfortunately, the previous government was quite content to allow abuses to occur and recur in many nursing homes without any redress of the problems. That simply is no good. It has to stop. Elderly people, like everyone else, deserve a life of dignity and they deserve to be treated properly. Many nursing homes are simply warehousing people; they are not providing the kind of loving and adequate care that is required.

I want to turn for a moment to a number of other areas which, as far as I am concerned, were left out of the throne speech, or at least they were just mentioned in passing with no specifics as to how the government intended to handle problems such as insurance, which my colleague the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) has raised many times.

The insurance problems in this province continue to plague us. Car insurance has gotten completely out of hand; it has become totally ridiculous. The people in Ontario are far and away paying more than most people in the rest of the country, and there is no good reason for it. I have watched with interest how the people in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia over the past two years have received rebates on their premiums. I remind the members that premium levels in these provinces are already far below the levels in Ontario for the same coverage and they have been receiving rebates. Here in Ontario, drivers continue to see their premiums escalate.

In particular, the problems facing the under-25-year-olds, especially single males, are quite incredible. It is possible for such persons in this province to drive for seven years without an accident, with a clean record, and pay in the neighbourhood of $2,500 a year. A person of the same age and situation with the same coverage and living in a similar community in any one of the three western provinces would pay in the neighbourhood of $500 to $600, versus the $2,500 in Ontario.

Why? It is very simple. What the western provinces base their insurance coverage on is one's driving record. If one has a clean record, one gets the lowest rates. If one is causing accidents, then one is going to pay a penalty for that. That is not the case here in Ontario; the insurance companies decide to punish people for having clean records. Right from the start, when a young person begins to drive, he pays exorbitant rates. The government apparently has very little interest in doing anything about this, and that bothers me. We owe it to the people of Ontario. We know there is a better way.

For example, we know from the examination this Legislature made a number of years ago that the government-run programs in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia have been successful for 14 years -- in the case of Saskatchewan much longer than that -- and that they are cheaper and highly efficient. In fact, all three parties agreed, although the Liberals and Conservatives could not find it in themselves to put pen to paper when the crunch came, that those plans are superior to what we have in Ontario.

Equal pay legislation troubles me. I continue to be troubled about why the government is dragging its feet on equal pay legislation. It seems to me it is simply a matter of justice. I do not know how on earth we can countenance a situation in 1986 where women continue to be paid less for what they do when their work is essentially the same as that performed by men. I cannot understand why the government does not bring the legislation forward. Why does the government think it is necessary to separate people working in the private sector from those working in the public sector? In many cases, it will be the same task or one that is quite similar. The government sees it as important to separate them. For whatever strange reason, it does not feel it necessary to bring the legislation forward.

As I have mentioned on a previous occasion, the federal-provincial agreement with respect to skills training, a document recently signed by this government and the federal government, is a mistake of a magnitude that could eventually see the closure of some of our community colleges. As many of us are painfully aware, the federal government has decided to privatize the education field, a move that troubles me. Over the years we in Ontario have been well served by our educational institutions. Our elementary and secondary schools and our colleges and universities continue to provide excellent graduates and the skilled labour we require in our work force.

The reward for this appears to be that the federal government is determined to close down some, if not all, of our community colleges. It is doing it by a system of privatization. This is a dangerous move that should strike a bit of fear in the hearts of all members here, including those in the Conservative caucus. I remind the Conservative caucus members, if they do not know it already, that in many of their communities the community colleges are held in high regard for the work they do and the skills training they provide.

The federal government has this strange and quaint notion that somehow the private sector can do it much better. What does the federal government do? I will give the members an example. Drake Personnel receives a contract for $1 million to put on a secretarial course. Every community college in the province is running secretarial courses, but that does not matter. Being a private firm and not being accountable for the quality of its education, Drake Personnel can put on whatever program it deems appropriate. It has an opportunity to undercut the tuition fee put forward by the local community college. Unfair competition can run untrammelled and we have no say over the quality of education. That is a backward step.

The cut in manpower placements will have an immediate detrimental effect on the colleges as they see up to 40 per cent of manpower placements cut in the next three years. To some community colleges, that is as much as $400,000 a year cut out of their budgets.

We also see private companies taking on training. Money can be funnelled directly to a private company to do training on the job site instead of availing itself of the local community college with its trained staff. Again there is no guarantee of quality of education.

The government has made a mistake. It was not necessary to enter into the agreement immediately. Ontario was the first province to sign. Ontario could have refused to sign. Many other provinces would have been very happy about that. Ontario is viewed by many to be the key to industrial training. Had Ontario resisted this great opportunity to sign, I am sure many provinces, particularly Quebec and those in the Maritimes, would have been very grateful. Unfortunately, this government has entered into the agreement. As it learns the error of its ways, I hope it will withdraw from the agreement after the first year. I understand that is perfectly legal under the agreement. It can withdraw, and I suggest it should.

3:50 p.m.

I hear some disturbing words that the unemployed help centres across this provinces in places such as Windsor, Sault Ste. Marie and Ottawa are about to face the axe from this government. I know the background of this, as you do, Mr. Speaker. The federal government had the responsibility to fund unemployed help centres, but it decided that was no longer its responsibility and that it would remove the funding, which it has. That was a mistake, because clearly it does have the responsibility as far as employment centres are concerned. None the less, it withdrew the funding.

The province moved into that vacuum and supplied some money, which is appropriate. I applaud the provincial government for that. Now apparently Ontario is about to systematically shut down the unemployed help centres. That is a mistake, and it will be a disservice to the people in many of those communities, particularly to those in Sault Ste. Marie, which we know is going through the possibility of even greater dislocation. This was mentioned earlier today by my colleagues the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman) and the member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Morin-Strom). If anything, the unemployed help centre in the Sault requires more support, not less.

I want to talk about apprenticeships. This is an area of particular interest for me. As we know, the previous government showed it did not have the courage to complete what is so obvious: a three-way agreement on apprenticeships between government, business and labour in private industry. Unless we are able to fashion a three-way agreement with some kind of grant levy system, similar to what has been developed in West Germany and other parts of western Europe, we shall continue to flounder in the world of apprenticeships.

We have had this incredible situation for a number of years, and it continues. Every once in a while in certain areas we require more skilled tradespeople. We do not have them and we end up going elsewhere to obtain the necessary skilled people. In the area of carpentry, for example, I understand -- although the figures may be out a little -- that in Metropolitan Toronto over the next five years we probably will require in the neighbourhood of 700 carpenters. We have absolutely no idea where these carpenters are magically going to appear from.

Despite us having a complete college system consisting of 22 colleges, we continue to have fairly high unemployment but will end up importing carpenters. Why? Our apprenticeship system is a failure. The previous government knew that. It knew the answer, yet it could not supply it. It could not bring itself to do that. Unfortunately, I see no indication that the new government is ready to bite the bullet on this one. It too knows the answer. It knows the model and what has to be done. Unfortunately, what is required now is some political will to make it happen.

In brief terms, I wish to mention my concern about free trade. This province seems to have taken a number of different positions on free trade, which is unfortunate. I quite frankly defy any member of this Legislature, regardless of party, to stand up and say that he or she does not have some uneasiness about the way events are unfolding, because we all realize the Americans are interested in what they call "the level playing field;" that is, everything on the table, everything up for grabs. As well, I realize the Prime Minister of Canada does not have any problem with that. He wants to get rid of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. anyway. That is not a problem for him, but it is a problem for me and it should be a problem for anyone who is a good Canadian. Our cultural sovereignty should not be for sale, nor should our social programs.

To a certain extent, I do not care what the Americans think about our medicare program, our pension programs or our unemployment insurance program. Whether we supply unemployment insurance to fishermen in the wintertime is our business. Over a number of years, as Canadians, we have fashioned certain social and cultural programs for ourselves. They are ours, and they cannot and should not be tied to any free trade talks. Unfortunately, the federal government does not quite see it that way.

This government's role is to take a very firm stand on this and to say these programs are not negotiable, and if the Americans happen to think they are, they can jolly well trot off to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade table and try it out on a few other countries to see whether a subsidy for health care or unemployment insurance is an unfair trade practice.

The strange part of this is that 65 per cent of Ontario's trading now, I believe, is done on a nontariff basis. A huge chunk of trade is already being done without tariffs. I will not argue for a moment that we should not look for better trade possibilities; we would be silly not to. I want us to have good trading partners south of the border, on the Pacific Rim and throughout Europe and the rest of the world. It is marvellous. However, we should not go into trade negotiations with anyone by allowing the remotest possibility that they can have a say in how we develop our social or cultural policies. I urge the government to take a strong stand on this. It would be very helpful.

I am troubled by the reference in the throne speech, and subsequent to that in the announcement by the Minister of Education (Mr. Conway), to the designs to have the education system churn out a bunch of little entrepreneurs. In the education system, there is a far greater role to be played in attempting to develop co-operation. Surely it is better to develop a co-operative spirit among young people than to train them to take advantage of one another.

I ask the minister to rethink the path he is headed down. If he is bound and determined to have entrepreneur courses in the schools, at the very least he should allow equal opportunity for the opposition. If he is about to introduce these new and inventive ways on how to make money quickly, he should at the same time ensure that there will be courses in labour studies, the history of labour and the role of the working person in our society. Young people should be taught or at least allowed the opportunity to learn about our class society.

I have had the opportunity to visit many communities in this province during the past few months. I did a tour in which I visited community colleges and other places and discussed a number of items. One that came up constantly from the community colleges and others was a very deep concern about adult literacy. It is a problem that continues with us, one that is hidden to a large extent.

4 p.m.

A significant number of adults in our society in Ontario are illiterate. For an older person who cannot read or write and who is working, it is deeply embarrassing to admit that. However, the older person is increasingly in a work place that is more complicated today than it was 20 or 30 years ago, working with chemicals or working with labels that he or she does not understand and cannot read.

The adult literacy problem is a severe one, according to educators and other people working in communities. Unfortunately, as of today, there is no one minister of the crown whose responsibility is adult literacy. There is no one in charge. There are about 10 different ministries that each have a responsibility for adult literacy, but there is no one person who oversees it. We do not have any concerted effort to try to grapple with the problem of adult literacy. I hope the government will take that in mind and come up with something.

I want to mention a couple of things. One is the situation for Armenians. The Premier (Mr. Peterson) rightly and properly proclaimed Armenian Memorial Day for April 24. He sent copies of the proclamation to Ottawa, where a demonstration was held on that day. I for one appreciate his recognition of Armenian Memorial Day. It was the proper thing to do and I appreciate that.

I suggest, however, that the government needs to go a step further. It must make representations to Ottawa indicating that what the Canadian government has to do, notwithstanding its arrangement with Turkey and the fact that Turkey is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and is also considered to be a strategic ally of the United States, is to try to exact from Turkey an acknowledgement of the holocaust of 1915, an acknowledgement of the genocide and an apology. A plan should be constructed whereby there will be a homeland called Armenia again.

I want to close with a few remarks with respect to the situation of ordinary Ontarians and a new definition of obscenity. I knew that would catch the members' attention. One mention of the word "obscenity" and they are right there.

Mr. Barlow: Tell us what the old definition was.

Mr. Warner: The member wants me to review the old one first, does he?

Members from all parties of the House have attempted at various times to help constituents who have had difficulties receiving family benefits, single mums who lack adequate funds to raise their children, senior citizens who have only the old age pension on which to rely and, in some cases, injured workers who are attempting to get a disability pension from the Canada pension plan.

All of us have done that work. We realize when we are finished, if we are successful, we may have obtained for the individual a meagre amount, somewhere in the neighbourhood of $8,000 to $9,000. A family benefits recipient, for example, receives approximately $8,500. However, all the amounts, whether they are from CPP disability, the family benefits allowance or any of the other social programs, will be in the neighbourhood of $9,000. Somehow in this province we have determined that is an adequate sum.

We have said again today about Family Day that it is important to raise children. We think children should have at least one parent and, we hope, two, and care and attention should be paid to those children. They should be raised properly and well. Somehow that is to be done on $8,500 a year.

The folks about whom I am about to speak spill more than that. Some members, like me, I am sure, read the Globe and Mail this past Saturday. An entire page was devoted to the most recent corporate income increases. If one wants a definition of "obscenity," this is it. Some of these corporate people had been given an increase of in the neighbourhood of $200,000 to raise their salaries to anywhere from $600,000 per year to more than $1 million per year, and in addition to this perk, if one can believe it, a housing allowance. It is obscene that someone who gets $600,000 or even $800,000 a year requires a housing allowance on top of that, whereas I have constituents -- and probably each member, including some of the Conservatives, has constituents whose total income is less than $10,000 a year.

We have done something wrong when we have that kind of situation. That gap should not be tolerated at a time when government, both this one and the former one, was preaching, through the civil service and through employment in general, that raises should be in the neighbourhood of four to five per cent, all of which is generally predicated on salaries of $15,000 to $25,000. These folks at the top are getting even more, and the gap widens. The people at the bottom are lucky they do not starve to death. In fact, some do starve to death.

If the Liberals think that is acceptable, I feel sorry for them. The Tories, I know, believe it is acceptable. They are the ones who helped to create that system, and they will defend it. They think it is quite all right for someone to get only $8,500 a year and for some other person to get $1 million and then ask for more. That system is wrong and it needs to be changed.

There are a lot of challenges that this government needs to meet. Quite frankly, as I listened to the speech from the throne, I did not believe this government was up to meeting those challenges. I know our party is, and I look forward to the day when we will be on that side of the House and we will be the government of Ontario.

Mr. Callahan: It gives me great delight to rise and speak to the matter of the speech from the throne. Before I enter into the discussions about the specifics, I found it rather remarkable to sit here and listen to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Grossman) refer to this speech as one of the ones that was drawn out of the archives. I suspect this was probably the way it was done in the past and I suspect that the poll-makers and the poll-takers probably had a very great hand in writing the speeches from the throne.

4:10 p.m.

On the contrary, the speech from the throne that has been produced by this Liberal government can be summed up in a general fashion by the opening statements. They indicate that it is an agenda for the next decade. It offers a framework for long-term achievement rather than a list of short-term priorities. I suggest that, at least in the last 10 years, anyway -- I will not speak for the period before that, because I think in the period before that, in fairness to governments before that, priorities were on a longer range -- for some reason the people who conduct public opinion polls in this province were more significant than the people who had the knowhow, the expertise and the vision to come up with programs that might be put into a speech from the throne that would move Ontario towards the 21st century. It is fortunate that this task fell to a more progressive and more visionary government, namely, the Liberal government; otherwise, we would still be having polls taken and we would probably still be operating the way we were in the past.

Let me address generally a few of the problematic concerns in that regard. Number one is education. We were turning out, en masse, engineers, teachers, doctors, lawyers and people in various trades and professions. We were introducing children to the idea that they could get a job in a particular field without any possible futuristic approach of determining whether there were going to be jobs in that field. As a result, large numbers of young ladies and young men went through the education system, which was an exceptional one, without any clear direction and without the opportunities to use the technology of the present century and of the next century to be able to decide where they should direct their goals.

The throne speech addresses that in a very real sense. I suggest it addresses it in a visionary way in that it is going to set up computer terminals and is going to keep the standard up to date. I gather that those computer terminals and those computer activities can not only project for the present, but can also project an image of the future, so that young people getting out of school, graduating from secondary school, community college or university, will have an opportunity to address a job or to arrive at a job that is meaningful and that has some relevance to the courses they have taken or to the course of pursuit they have gone after.

Up to this point, that has not been done. What happened was simply that people were required to go to school and to stay in school for a specific period of time; there was no direction. That is a sad commentary, because probably the strongest and most essential commodity we have in this province, in this country and in this world is our young people. To have allowed them to continue in that vein without any direction, without any possible hope of getting a job when they got out of school -- unless they got lucky -- was a sadistic approach to the entire education system.

I am very enthused by the statements made in the throne speech. This is where I depart from the Leader of the Opposition, who looked at the throne speech and said there was nothing there. He should not only get contact lenses, he should get a new pair of glasses, because he missed the entire tenor. The entire tenor of this throne speech is futuristic.

I will go to the introduction. I quote pages 2 and 3 so that those Conservatives who did not wish to bother themselves with reading the entire throne speech can get a total picture of what was being presented by this government in terms of vision for the future. I go on to the next statement that was made: "It outlines some of the steps Ontario must take over the next decade to ensure its place as the world-class society of the 21st century."

This becomes particularly significant in the light of the headlong approach Mr. Mulroney, their kissing cousin in Ottawa, is taking towards free trade with the United States. Unless this province is prepared to have a vision, to try to adapt, to be flexible and to provide the investigation, research and development to be able to compete not only with the United States but with other countries around the world, we are going to be left behind. This is one of the things that is approached in the throne speech in a very significant way.

There is a recognition of another sector as well. The job sector is certainly one of the most important, but another sector is the question of how we deliver medical services in this province. We have an excellent health care system, probably the finest in the world. The delivery systems for that health care system have changed dramatically. The age of people in this province has changed dramatically. No longer can we look at the constant building of hospitals and at providing beds for people who are of an age category in which they would be better served in a chronic care facility.

This government in the throne speech addresses that issue. It says it is not going to do what the official opposition did. We recognize that the cost of health care to the provincial budget is some 31 per cent now; some $9 billion is being spent. If this is allowed to continue in the vein the former Conservative government would have allowed it to continue, it would have resulted in the year of 2001 in a doubling of that amount.

The Liberal government was not satisfied with that. In its throne speech it is saying it is going to look at different approaches because changes have taken place in Ontario society. Contrary to the approach that was taken by the former Conservative government, rather than going around and dealing with the question of budgetary measures by attempting to close hospitals, we are looking at buttressing the hospitals that are there now and introducing more visionary ways of dealing with them. I suggest the Leader of the Opposition missed that point, and it is a very significant point.

I suppose members will see what a throne speech is all about as they see it fleshed out. It is simply given in point detail at the moment. It will be fleshed out over the period of time between now and the budget. I think a significant feature of that is the recent introduction of an explanation by the Minister of Education. When did the Conservatives ever get the idea of introducing into the curriculum of a secondary school a credit course to allow young men and young women to learn how to be entrepreneurs? I know the NDP does not appreciate that, but they have to learn how to get jobs and the skills that are essential to be able to go out and get them. In a very large sense, this is what the job centres are doing throughout Ontario. They are required to do it because the educational system of the past, the nonvisionary approach, did not provide for that.

I was speaking with the Minister of Education the other day. This is not in the throne speech, but I suggested to the minister that perhaps we should look into the question of making public speaking a required course for every student in a secondary school in Ontario. In a very real sense, we are human beings and we do not communicate by concepts; we communicate by the verbal word. If you cannot speak, you cannot communicate. If you cannot communicate, you cannot get a job and you cannot do the job effectively.

Mrs. Marland: He cannot negotiate; he is down to only two members on his side.

Mr. Callahan: It is interesting that the member on the other side can actually count.

A most interesting idea is the Minister of Education's approach of dealing with it by introducing it as a credit course. I am sure we are well aware of people who have not only graduated from the secondary educational system, but also from university and some with postgraduate degrees, who cannot get jobs. I suggest that had they had the opportunity early on in their secondary education to take a credit course that would teach them the approaches to business, they would now have that opportunity. That is what the Minister of Education has done. That is futuristic. That is visionary. That is something that the former government had 42 years to do and did not do. They simply allowed these young people to flounder after they got out of school, or they would introduce some hot-shot program that was supposed to take these people over a short period of time, perhaps a summer or perhaps an even shorter period. That was unfair to the young people of this province.

The Minister of Education, in fleshing out the proposals in the throne speech, has been masterful in the vision he has shown in doing that. In his fleshing out of that statement, he also provides for the computer program, so young people can go to a library or any of these other locations where these computers are going to be set up and tap out not only what the job market is today, but also for the future. They can then plan their careers.

4:20 p.m.

When I was in university, everybody wanted to be either a teacher or an engineer. In fact, when I went to law school, we had fellows there who had received their engineering degrees and had come back to law school because there were no engineering jobs in the private sector or the public sector. We had people rushing off in a mad dash to take a particular course which led absolutely no place.

Today we have lawyers -- and I am sure the people of the nonlegal community will consider this to be appropriate -- people in the legal profession, who are not even practising in the legal community. They are practising in fields somewhat akin to social work. Some may even be working in fields that are totally divorced from the question of the legal profession.

Again, it was a situation where the former government and the former educational policy allowed these people to go on, take what they liked and take their chances that they would get a job when they got out.

Mr. Gregory: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: It is unfortunate that only two Liberals are in the House to listen to this great speech by the member for Brampton. I do not see a quorum.

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

4:24 p.m.

Mr. Callahan: I would like to see the Leader of the Opposition out here to listen to my speech. I will go on with the visionary items that are in this speech from the throne that the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick (Mr. Grossman) could not see. I am not sure he read it. It was either that or he was having some difficulty seeing it. It is full of visionary items, some of which I have already addressed.

Through this speech from the throne, this government has pledged to continue the openness with which it has approached government. Never before have the secret books of all the positions, the jobs, the dates that people's jobs are up and the salaries ever been taken out of the bowels of this House. They have now been tabled and are available to anybody in this province.

In addition, the appointments made by this government have been appointments of fine quality, disregarding the question of what party the appointees belong to. That is a visionary step on the part of this government in making certain that the people who are the beneficiaries of those actions are the people of Ontario and not some select group, some group which is owed a favour or which assisted in an election, but people who are excellent. That is a hallmark of the speech from the throne and a continued process that this government has pledged.

One of the other new items is the budget process. The Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) has invited people to participate and contribute to the budget process. This has not happened in the past. Only recently has it been tried in the federal Tory fiefdom but not with great success. This government has taken the opportunity to listen to the people of this province who will be affected by the budget and to introduce another degree of openness and fairness to the budgetary system and, in the final analysis, the taxation of this province.

In the justice system, the speech from the throne addresses probably one of the most lingering and difficult problems, which was never addressed by the previous government, the question of how one gets to trial without waiting two or three years to do it. I have had letters -- and I am sure every member of this House has had letters -- from constituents who found that a matter finally went to trial two, three or four years down the line.

In this speech from the throne -- and I am sure members will see it fleshed out by the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) -- are visionary approaches on how to speed up that system and how to make certain it is fairer. There is an old axiom, which I am sure my good friend the member for Carleton-Grenville (Mr. Sterling) would be aware of, which says justice delayed is justice denied. There is no question about it; witnesses die and witnesses lose their remembrance of what they saw. That is unfair.

Recently in the press -- and we do not know whether it is a fact yet because the details have not been fleshed out -- it was stated the criminal injuries' compensation maximum is being increased to $25,000. That was never done. It was $15,000 and had been since the institution of the entire process.

That is dealing with people in a much fairer approach and recognizing the fact that victims of crime are Ontario citizens who have had to pay for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or perhaps for having had the courage to assist another Ontarian who was in a plight. That is the hallmark of a civilized, sensitive, open and fair society.

The legal aid system in this province has been a good program, but it has been underfunded for a considerable time. As a result, we have lost some of our more senior members of the bar from representing people under legal aid certificates, and yet I have to return to the defence of the counsel whom I know in this province. I doubt there are any major contributors to counsel work in the criminal process, including Eddie Greenspan or Bob Carter, who would deny an Ontarian the opportunity for a full defence under a legal aid certificate. That is a recognition of the high degree of integrity that the legal profession has in this province.

It was high time that the legal aid tariff was enhanced, and it has been. We will find out the particulars of that through the speech from the throne.

During my campaign in my riding, I discovered that what had been overlooked was that Ontario had changed. Ontario is no longer the fiefdom of people who were perhaps born here. It has expanded and opened up to a myriad of cultures, to the benefit of this entire province. Because of that, interpreters are required to handle the difficulties in courts. To see that justice prevails, again in the speech from the throne we are told there will be total access to interpreters in whatever language the person speaks.

4:30 p.m.

Looking at it from the standpoint of a visionary approach, today we have something that is very significant, the question of battered wives. We had battered wives 10 or 15 years ago, but nothing was done by the previous government to address, zero in on that problem and try to deal with it. It simply tried to use the old wheels of justice, the old system, to address that problem.

I suggest that the net result of the delay in approaching that very sad problem, the flotsam and jetsam of it, was the young children who grew up and did the same thing as a result of seeing their fathers do it. The women who lived in sheer horror and fear are now going to have the opportunity, through the advertisements that are being put forward, the shelters that are being made available and the special crown attorneys who will be dealing with these sensitive cases, to come out of the closet and to stop this continuum so that future generations of young children will not be affected by it and will not perpetuate the process.

There is a statement in the throne speech that there will be consumer protection. This is also visionary. It is high time in this province that we reviewed the protections that are available to consumers, because the approaches, the techniques and the technology that have been introduced into consumerism and into the sale of commodities have moved into the future. Unless we move into the future with laws that protect the consumer in that regard, we will have done nothing for them; we will, in fact, have left them subject to people preying upon them in a dishonest fashion. This again is visionary.

I am really sorry the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Grossman) cannot be here to hear this, because when I listened to his speech, I thought to myself opposition, loyal opposition, Her Majesty's loyal opposition do not mean Her Majesty's loyal negativism. That is exactly what his comments were, totally negative. He could not find one good thing in the throne speech. He must have read the speech at a time when he really was not concentrating on it, because there are numerous visionary statements in it that are going to take us in a sensitive, open and just fashion into the next century.

The social assistance program in this province prior to the installation of this government was a hotchpotch. Just as a matter of curiosity, I took the book provided by the government and tried to go through it to find where the services were.

Someone would need a master's degree to find them, and when he got to them, he would probably find there were so many diverse programs that he could not possibly put them all together within his lifetime.

This is being reviewed with a simple, particular approach of justice, fairness and openness for the delivery of a system to the people that is meant to be delivered to them -- not a sham, not something that is set aside and about which we say, "It is there," but something we can talk about and say, "We have done this and we have done that." It is a system that is going to work and that is going to provide the necessary funds, with the least red tape, to the people of this province who need them.

I suppose the only way one can really appreciate the difficulties that existed under the old system was to have been involved as a municipal politician, as I was and as I am sure many of the people in this House were, trying to get some assistance for a particular constituent. By the time I got finished, I was not sure whether I had finished playing Password or some quiz program. I went from pillar to post and everybody gave me a little bit of information. Finally, if I was lucky, I was able to put it together and eventually get some results for my constituent. That cannot happen.

We are not dealing here with nonhumans; we are dealing with human beings, whose needs are immediate and whose needs have to be met in a sensitive fashion. I suggest that is exactly what this government is doing.

Let us take the question of senior citizens. When has there ever been a minister specifically responsible for seniors? If I may suggest it, that was a stroke of genius of this government because --

Mr. Barlow: Let us not get carried away.

Mr. Callahan: The problem with the former government was that it was all senior citizens. The approach will be for a single minister to go throughout this province and listen to the people who can provide the answers, who can resurrect the problems and who can tell the government where it should be going, in what direction, instead of what was done in the past. The former government probably got one of its pollsters to go out and ask four or five people or 100 people. It did not get a cross-section, a gathering of views of people throughout this province.

A white paper is going to be brought forward. I suggest this white paper is also visionary and is also a demonstrative recognition of the fairness and justice of the approach this government is taking. If that is not far-reaching, I am surprised the Leader of the Opposition did not see that. Maybe those pages got stuck together with peanut butter or something. I do not know, but he obviously did not see it.

On the question of entrepreneurship, we are going to give an opportunity to working people, to people who do not have their own businesses. We are going to take entrepreneurship out of the boardrooms and we are going to include the guy on the shop floor. That is an excellent approach. That may be a futuristic approach to the question of labour relations, not in total, but in part. If we can make that person an entrepreneur by giving him shares through the program suggested in the budget, we give him a little bit of the business he is working at. It makes him more attentive to the fact that companies cannot continue to raise wages to the extent that they cost themselves right out of the market. Maybe that is the approach to take. Maybe that is the start. Maybe that is the sparkle that is going to start a new change in the approach to labour relations.

I suggest that is visionary as well. It is something that should be applauded by the workers of this province, particularly in areas such as northern Ontario. If that program had been in place 10 or 15 years ago, and if it had been aggressively pursued through programs of the government, we might well have had employees who would have been in a position to have picked up the chips when the employer left, instead of being left stranded. Perhaps we would not have half the crises that have come before this House in the past week or two; very sad crises, with people losing their jobs. Perhaps if there had been some vision in the past and some such approach taken, we would not be facing that problem.

The farmers of this province and this country have never had a significant backup from the government. This government is trying to open up markets to them in the Pacific Rim countries. We can compete. We have some of the finest farm land in this country. We have the opportunity to produce and to sell far afield. There are provisions in the budget for providing the financing, the expertise and the information required by the farmer to do that. I suggest that is a sensitive approach.

I dare anyone to point to any government in Canada and perhaps in the world that has done more in the past year for the environment. The most exciting thing in carrying that forward is that within this throne speech we are talking about developing technology. Ontarians and Canadians can develop that technology. We have developed the Canadarm and numerous other technological advances. If we can develop the technological approach to enhancing and to making our environment better, we can market that. In marketing it, we may be able to convince our US neighbours, who thus far have not been convinced by moral suasion, to clean up their act. Perhaps we can provide them with the technology that will make it easier for them to do it, so that we can preserve the future heritage of this province for our children and our grandchildren. That is an exciting situation.

There were some chuckles about the fact that we are taking a new direction in tourism. I suggest that if members look at some of the ads on television today, they are a heck of a lot better than the "Preserve it, conserve it" commercials, which I always thought were nothing more than ads for the Conservative Party.

The new commercials are telling Americans, "Come to Ontario." They are trying to get Americans out of coming up here in the middle of summer with skis on their cars. We are going to tell them what Ontario is all about. In the past, for some reason, one got the feeling the previous government did not want Americans to come in. It did not tell them anything. How could that government have been in power for 42 years and still have Americans thinking Ontario is up around Alaska? There are people from the far south who believe it snows here 365 days a year. After 42 years in government, if the Conservatives could not sell a province that does not require a great deal of selling, because it is one of the finest provinces in Canada, they really lost the ball.

I suggest that in this throne speech is a different approach to tourism. It is an approach that is going to enhance the eastern and northern portions of our province, which we have to sell, where we have some of the finest lakes, some of the finest rivers and some of the finest areas for hunting or anything else. Those are important aspects.

4:40 p.m.

My friend the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere (Mr. Warner), who now is absent from the House, raised a question about literacy. I had my mind blown the other morning when listening to a group from Frontier College tell us about the number of people in this province who are illiterate, who cannot read a simple phrase and will not admit it. It is understandable they will not admit it. There are others who are illiterate in a different way. The fact this can occur in 1986 in Ontario in the country of Canada is absolutely incomprehensible.

Illiteracy did not develop yesterday or 10 years ago. Presumably, it was with us throughout the 42-year reign of the party that is led by the man who says he can see nothing in this throne speech that is exciting, imaginative or visionary. If I were standing there for Her Majesty's loyal opposition, surely to heaven I would say: "There is one thing that is important. The Liberal government is going to deal with the question of illiteracy."

There was not a word from him. I wonder whether he read it. I would not go so far as to suggest he cannot read it, but did he read it? Did he see that? Is he caring enough to realize that this government is going to deal with a problem that has lain dormant in the province for 42 years with no activity on the part of the government? Now it is going to be addressed by a government that cares whether a person can read the telephone book. The members should think how important it is to be able to read the telephone book in getting a job, assuming they do not reduce the size of the print, which they did recently. Assume one cannot read the telephone book or a road sign; then one cannot get a simple thing such as a driver's licence.

The throne speech suggests this is going to be addressed. It has to be addressed most specifically for the very reasons set out in the throne speech. We are moving into a stage of great technology, into an area where knowledge is going to be multiplied to the extent that for one to be able to assimilate it or even to carry out the most perfunctory job, one is going to have to be able to read. It is at the very root of Ontarians having not only the tools, but also the opportunity to participate fully in their province.

If one went back to the throne speeches of the former government, one would never see that. Why was it not there? Did they not care about it? Was it not something that was important to them? As long as they could all read and write, was it the heck with everybody else in Ontario? That in itself and without anything else is worthy of this being a fine throne speech. The Leader of the Opposition could have commented on it, but he did not.

They did not bother to look at the factor that the bringing in of this new, open, fair government perhaps has produced an atmosphere in the province that has allowed 170,000 new jobs to be produced over the past 12 months, with some 73,000 jobs introduced in the first three months of 1986 and an unemployment rate of 6.8 per cent, the lowest in Canada. They would like to say it was all a result of the workings of the former government. It is equally a fact that it is the result of an atmosphere that has been created in this province by the introduction of a new government that is showing itself to be fair, open, innovative and visionary. It has created an atmosphere in this province that has allowed these jobs to be created.

I have to come back to the question of the relevance of education in the job search. With all due respect, that has to be one of the most significant, innovative steps that has been taken. We are no longer creating courses or directing young people into courses where the job they are going to get is not there. This program of using computers particularly allows a projection to be made into the future and thereby allows a young person to decide what he will take and how he will get there.

The government has already shown its fairness and sensitivity in the introduction in the past week or two of certain items that were mentioned in the throne speech. The introduction of the French language into this province in places where there are significant numbers who require that service in their own language is fair. The former government dodged that issue for years. It jockeyed around and tried to avoid the shadows because it thought that was a political hot potato, but not this government, which said, "It is fair, it is just, it is going to be done," and it was done. That in itself is a significant feature of this throne speech.

We received questions on the pay equity bill from the member for Ottawa South, I believe.

Hon. Mr. Kerrio: Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Callahan: The member for Ottawa Centre (Ms. Gigantes) was drilling questions at the Attorney General this afternoon. I thought the Attorney General's reply was eminently fair. He said we are reviewing the situation, we have a group out there that is hearing from all concerned and when that report is returned, we will produce legislation. The member over there would like us to produce the legislation in advance.

The government is moving as quickly as possible on an issue on which the official opposition says we are not moving fast enough. They are just chafing at the bit to support this piece of legislation now. When it is introduced, they may decide to go against it to try to find an issue that they can jockey on, but at the moment they are suggesting we should bring it in. Why did they not bring it in? What did they do during the 42 years they had? How can they possibly come forward and criticize a throne speech that contains things they should have done?

I recall the second election I ran in Brampton in 1981. The then Premier introduced a bill with a great flourish, trumpets sounding: the 10 points of freedom for the people of this province. I remember the commentator suggesting that the Premier had gone into the refrigerator and got one of Leslie Frost's old election ploys.

If that is not cynicism, if that is not a way to approach a government that should be frowned upon and not considered to be sensitive, innovative and visionary, I do not know what is. How can the Conservatives stand there and try to criticize this government for the steps I have already addressed that have been taken in this throne speech and that will probably make it one of the finest, most visionary and most just throne speeches that has been put through this House in 42 years?

One thing I do not want to leave out is the approach to seniors in this province. It really concerns me because I am 49 now and as I fast approach that golden age, I do not want to be kept in that pumpkin shell in which the Conservatives kept seniors. It was like that. How does it go? "Peter, Peter, pumpkin shell?" Something like that. That is what they did. They put the seniors in a pigeonhole. They said, "When you turn 65 and you have no one to look after you, you can go into one of our senior citizen homes."

4:50 p.m.

From my observations and from the discussions I have had with seniors during the period I have been in public life, the return I always got was: "I want to be independent. I want to stay in my home as long as I can. Provide me with a couple of the essential services, such as snow shovelling, grass cutting and perhaps a few other incidentals, and I will stay in my home." However, that was not the approach. The approach was, "Sell your house and live in this institution."

That is the biggest kick in the face to one of the most significant commodities in this province; a natural resource and a source of wisdom, great expertise and experience, equal in significance to our young people. If that is not a kick in the pants, I do not know what is.

We have seen innovative measures here that recommend the independence of seniors be maintained wherever possible. We have seen innovative measures such as granny flats through the Ministry of Housing. Granny flats are a very significant way of accomplishing two ends. First, they provide a home for one's senior father or mother, or both. Second, they provide for the possibility of the expertise, knowledge and experience of the seniors being interplayed with one's own children in a very close relationship.

That is one of the things that is missing in this province. It was addressed this morning when the member for Parkdale (Mr. Ruprecht) suggested that family life in this province had gone down the pike. It is very necessary to return that to the forefront. I suggest part of that is this interplay between seniors and the family. It is gone. The family did not look after the senior. Because the province had provided accommodations through an institution, the senior went there and was visited perhaps once or twice a week. The programs that are being suggested provide a sensitive way of approaching and dealing with the problem, using the grey matter, the experience and the lovingness of those elderly people to look after and assist these children.

That in itself is visionary. It is sensitive, just and fair. It is the hallmark of this government and this throne speech. I doubt very much if this throne speech was pulled out of the word processor as being number one, two, three, four or five, as has been so in the past. It was written with a good deal of vision and care, trying to give us a peek into what would be fleshed out by the ministerial statements over a period of time as to the policies of this government. I am proud to be associated with a government that produces such a caring throne speech.

I am a bit miffed and I must say I sometimes wonder whether we are wasting our time in this House when the opposition approaches a throne speech in that vein, saying there is absolutely nothing in it and it is totally devoid of any possible worth. That is totally irresponsible. It may be the way things were done in the past and it may be the parliamentary tradition, but surely to heaven we are all adults here. We are here for a particular purpose. If these programs advance the cause and excellence of the people of this province, they should be supported, whether they are inspired by the opposition or by the government. They should not be totally negated. I hope my friends opposite take that message back to their leader. He may as well have stayed out playing basketball the day he delivered his speech. He could have sent it in a cloud of gloom and doom. That is all it was.

By way of trying to answer all the questions, so members cannot ask me any, I would like to close by saying this: The success or failure of this province to be able to compete in the 21st century, the strength it will need to resist any of the problems that may arise, if Mr. Mulroney speeds on towards free trade and puts everything on the table or certain things that we do not want on the table, are contained within the framework of this and other throne speeches. If we continue to deliver speeches from the throne as we have in the past, we will be caught up and swept right in as part of the United States. I for one -- and I am sure members in this House and Ontarians at large -- do not want to be part of the United States. We want to retain our specific Canadian identity. I suggest this speech from the throne is a vehicle in itself for carrying us into the 21st century, retaining that identity and avoiding that other possibility.

The Deputy Speaker: Are there any questions?

Mr. Gregory: I have a couple of quick observations after listening to the member for Brampton reflect on his cloistered past in Brampton.

He obviously does not know anything about government at all. If he wants to know anything about answers to speeches from the throne, he should read some of those given by Dr. Smith; the member for London Centre (Mr. Peterson), the present Premier, or the former Leader of the Opposition, the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon). I wonder about the state of naïvete that pervades in Brampton since the previous member is no longer there.

It brought to mind something that was mentioned by a member of the New Democratic Party today about how one gets the cows to come home. To get the cows to come home, one has to control the bull. The member might well have done that today. I have never heard more ludicrous and totally naïve statements with regard to a throne speech.

He is a little like the woman who visited the Pacific Ocean for the first time. She stood on the shore and said, "It is bigger than I thought." He is trying to make us believe the speech from the throne was bigger than we thought it was. There was certainly nothing in it. He commented on the wonderful quality of the filming done by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology. The other day his own minister said it was done by the previous government's employees' contracts. I do not know what his government has done that is so wonderful in this ministry, apart from the rest stops -- Peterson's potties, so to speak. I do not know what else it has done.

He mentioned his government is doing so much to aid senior citizens to remain in their own homes. Is the member at all aware of the guaranteed annual income system and which government brought it in? Is he aware of the property and sales tax grants and which government brought them in? Quite apart from the sales tax grants, is he aware of the exemptions for senior citizens on their properties and who brought them in?

The Deputy Speaker: Your time has expired.

Mr. Gregory: This government tried to keep people in their own homes.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mrs. Marland: Why has the member for Brampton not done what is traditional in throne speech responses and represented his riding? My understanding is that a throne speech response is an opportunity to represent one's riding. It was very interesting to hear the member for Brampton refer to the world-class society of the 21st century and say that the Ontario government will achieve that by the next decade. It has to be the greatest insult to the premier province of this country today to say that we have to wait 10 years to become what we are today, which is a world-class society.

Does the member for Brampton have no interest in representing his riding and commenting on the benefits to Brampton in the contents of the speech from the throne? He very strongly and extensively criticizes the educational system, which our party established and through which many millions of students have benefited in the past 42 years. He then goes on to say they are overeducated and then ends his speech complaining about illiteracy. It was the most incredible speech I could possibly have heard.

5 p.m.

I also ask him whether his resolution dealing with the restrictions on increases in honorariums for members of school boards and municipal councils, as listed in Orders and Notices, is his attack and his idea of how to improve education for the people who live in Brampton?

Mr. Barlow: I want to make a couple of comments. I listened with great intent to the words of wisdom -- and I use that phrase advisedly -- of the member for Brampton. He referred to the speech from the throne as the speech of the decade.

I believe he has heard this on more than one occasion, but it bears repeating once again, because I do not believe it has sunk in for the member or for any of the other members of the Liberal Party. After 42 years, I would have thought there could be a little bit more originality there. I am not talking about the future, but it is today that the New Democratic Party assisted the Liberal Party in forming the government. There are items that should be in the speech from the throne for today's life in Ontario. The government talks about what will happen in the future and not about what will happen here and now.

Had I been sitting in opposition in these chambers for the past 42 years, I would have had a better opportunity and a better grasp of what was happening and what should happen immediately.

He mentioned that we as a Tory party have been talking in a negative way about the speech from the throne. I have been here for just a little better than five years, and the members from the Liberal Party have been negative towards everything positive that was in any of our speeches from the throne or budgets in the past. I can see nothing in this speech from the throne for us to be talking against since most of the policies were developed by the Tory governments of the past.

He mentioned our health care system. I agree that the finest system in this country and probably in the world was developed right here in Ontario. However, his government is doing all it can to destroy that system.

Mr. Sterling: I had better get started because I have only one minute and 36 seconds left.

I congratulate the member for Brampton for a world-class speech, because it seems that everything within the speech from the throne was world class. I do not put any of his remarks any lower than anything that was said in the speech from the throne.

He talked about visions and the visionary aspect of the throne speech. I get the distinct impression that this government operates on visions. It does not operate on nuts and bolts, and nuts and bolts are what this government and this province need.

Outside of the very kind effort of locating a tourism station at the Quebec-Ontario border on Highway 401, eastern Ontario was not even mentioned in the speech from the throne. I heard northern Ontario mentioned six, seven or eight times, but the government seems to have forgotten eastern Ontario. I note his two colleagues from eastern Ontario, the member for Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Keyes) and the member for Frontenac-Addington (Mr. South), were there. I hoped they would have had more influence on the government with respect to dealing with that very important part of it.

In eastern Ontario, we need much more than just visions in the tourism area. We need a school for hospitality to teach young students how to operate properly in the tourism area. I ask the honourable member to go to his colleague the Treasurer and ask him to do something meaningful for eastern Ontario. We do not want more visions; we want action.

Mr. Callahan: First, I want to reply to the member for Mississauga East (Mr. Gregory). He said that negativism has been traditional over the years because Dr. Smith and the former opposition leader, now the Premier, were negative with respect to their response to a speech from the throne. Does he mean that is the way the people of Ontario are supposed to stand around and watch that performance, that charade?

Mr. Gregory: Do not ask me; ask them.

Mr. Callahan: Does anything ever get changed? I think it is visionary that parliament should be reformed in this respect. If there are good things there, they should be supported. The House of Commons, traditionally, does not put down everything the government proposes. It knocks the things where appropriate knocking is required.

To deal with the comment made by my colleague the member for Mississauga South (Mrs. Marland), if she is correct in saying that everyone here is supposed to stand up to speak about his or her riding during the throne speech debate, we would learn a lot about the ridings of everyone here, including those of people who might have been here for 10 years. Are we going to hear about them 10 times? I suggest to the member that what is a good Ontario will encompass a good Brampton. Brampton already is a leader in terms of the glowing success that the province could well emulate.

Mr. McFadden: When I listened to His Honour the Lieutenant Governor deliver the speech from the throne, I was reminded of Mae West. To paraphrase an expression used by that late great actress, I have never heard a speech from the throne I did not like, at least in part.

Typical speeches from the throne are full of platitudes and generalities which often are hard to disagree with. This speech from the throne is no exception. Perhaps the best way to describe much of the speech from the throne is something borrowed, something blue.

As our leader, the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick (Mr. Grossman), said last week, a large part of the initiatives set out in the speech was simply borrowed from past programs and proposals of the former Progressive Conservative government or lifted from the Enterprise Ontario program put forward by our party in the last provincial election.

This makes much of the speech both borrowed and blue, which contrasts with the government's program in the last session. That was essentially a borrowing and implementation of a large part of the New Democratic Party's platform. That could be described as something borrowed and something green. I can understand why the Liberal government reduced its borrowing at the NDP bank. It was because the voters were starting to turn green at the various proposals brought in.

It is remarkable that a government that is only one year old is virtually bankrupt when it comes to new ideas. The speech from the throne is a 36-page compendium of rehashed programs and concepts, mixed with some old Liberal ideas which are either wrong or out of step with the times.

There also are some major omissions in the speech which clearly point to a trendy mindset of a government that overlooks the needs of many Ontarians.

The first part of the speech focused on the government's prescription and perception of the needs and direction of Ontario's economy. The centrepiece of the government's economic strategy was the Premier's council, which has been charged with the responsibility "to steer Ontario into the forefront of economic leadership and technological innovation."

The speech from the throne then goes on to say that this council "will be chaired by the Premier and include as active participants several cabinet ministers and leaders of business, labour and post-secondary education." If there has ever been a sterling example of a political shell game being played by the Premier and his government, this has to be it.

The Treasurer announced last fall, with great fanfare, that the government was terminating both the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development and the Ontario Economic Council. BILD consisted of a number of cabinet ministers, all with economic portfolios, who had as their responsibility the planning and co-ordination of the province's economic programs.

5:10 p.m.

The Ontario Economic Council, consisting of leaders of business, labour and post-secondary institutions, was an independent forum established to provide the best possible advice to the government on economic policy. The work over the years of both BILD and the Ontario Economic Council played a very significant role in creating the kind of economic growth and development which we are currently enjoying in this province; but the record of achievement of BILD and the OEC were not to be recognized by the new government. The proposed Premier's council is essentially an amalgam of BILD and the economic council. The several cabinet ministers of BILD are simply merged with the leaders of business, labour and post-secondary education in the economic council.

One aspect of the Premier's council which I found disturbing was its purported mandate "to steer Ontario into the forefront of economic leadership and technological innovation." The clear reading of this passage from the speech from the throne is that the cabinet will abdicate, at least in part, its legal and constitutional responsibility to this Premier's council for the development and implementation of policy in this province. The operative word in this passage is "steer." Webster's dictionary defines "steer" to mean "to direct the course of; to pursue a course of action; to be subject to guidance or direction."

Under our system of government, the job of steering is the role of cabinet and this Legislature. The government cannot by fiat or by a speech from the throne transfer this power to a nonelected, nonresponsible Premier's council. This proposal, as it is set out and worded in the speech from the throne, is not only illegal but also unconstitutional.

With this particular proposal in the speech, one would have to ask how serious the government really is about the proposed responsibilities of the newly established standing committee on finance and economic affairs. Either the Premier's council and the standing committee will wind up duplicating a significant part of each other's roles and efforts or one or both of these bodies will be essentially window-dressing for image purposes, with the government having no real intention of listening to either or both of these bodies.

Much has been made about the $1-billion special technology fund to be supervised by this Premier's council. However, it now emerges on closer examination that this fund is really much ado about very little. Of the $1 billion, one half comes from existing money already committed by the province. In addition, the money is to be allocated over a 10-year period. When we add inflation to the length of time over which the money is allocated, this fund will have little real effect on the Ontario economy or on our place in the world. While the technology fund may be an image-builder among the uninformed, we would be dreaming if we believed this fund would have any significant effect on Ontario's place in the world economy.

The speech from the throne then goes on to touch on various areas of Ontario's economy. I am pleased to see the acknowledgement given to the growing importance of the service sector in our economy. As the members of the select committee on economic affairs will recall, I have raised on many occasions in that committee the crucial role of the service industries in our economy, a role which is too often overlooked by government. Fully two thirds of our work force is involved in the service sector, and this proportion is steadily rising year by year.

I am glad as well to see that the government will continue to pursue the course developed by the Progressive Conservative government to foster the growth of Ontario as an international financial and commercial centre. I look forward to the release of the government study of the Ontario service sector and the ways in which the province can help that sector prosper and grow.

I was also pleased to hear that the current government will continue the Progressive Conservative government's policy of encouraging small business and entrepreneurship and promoting international trade. While it is heartening to see the Liberal government endorse the kinds of policies that have brought such growth to Ontario over the years under successive Progressive Conservative Premiers, many of the actions taken by the government toward business and the professions since this government came into office indicate that government support for such economic programs is superficial and lacking in real commitment.

The speech from the throne goes on to discuss the future of post-secondary education. Few would argue with the position taken that "Ontario's ability to meet many of the challenges it faces depends on how well it can harness the full potential of its post-secondary education system." However, the speech raises some serious questions about the government's plans for our universities and colleges. The speech states: "My government is committed to enabling Ontario's universities and colleges to establish their essential place on the path to excellence in these and other targeted areas. This will involve determining the areas of specialty universities can master and the avoidance of unnecessary program duplication."

Who is to determine the areas of specialty universities can master? A clear and obvious reading of this provision of the speech indicates that the government will make this determination. What possible standards can the government apply to determine whether a university can master an area of study? This has always been the prerogative of the universities themselves since they are best able to determine the subjects in which they have the necessary commitment and intellectual capacity to develop and maintain specialized areas of study. For the government now to appropriate the role of determining areas the universities can master is a major intervention into the self-government of our universities.

Who is to determine unnecessary program duplication? This proposal in the speech should be read in conjunction with the stated objective of the Treasurer to rationalize Ontario's universities. It should be recalled that the October budget proposed the transfer of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education to the University of Toronto on the grounds of elimination of duplication. After days of hearings at the standing committee on general government, it is clear no duplication exists. Without exception, witness after witness before the committee and letter after letter sent to members of the committee proved that OISE provides an invaluable, cost-effective and unique service not provided by any other institution of higher learning in Ontario.

After this ill-conceived decision relating to OISE, every university in Ontario can only live in fear of what devastation this kind of policy could have on university faculties and programs throughout Ontario. Based on the experience of OISE, no university, no matter how good it might be, can rest assured that it will not be next on the hit list of the terminator, the provincial Treasurer.

5:20 p.m.

If this is not enough, once the government has determined the areas of concentration universities can undertake, as set out in the speech from the throne, the speech then says that the "government will support excellence through appropriate funding and measures directed towards institutional accountability." What does "institutional accountability" mean? To whom are our universities and colleges to be accountable? What are the standards and penalties to be applied?

It is clear that the government intends to develop a system that will force our post-secondary educational institutions to account for their programs to the government of the day. This is a major attack on the whole concept of university self-government. Is the government saying that universities and colleges have been irresponsible with their budgets, have been dishonest in their practices or have failed to account for their spending in the past? I find this particular proposal about institutional accountability to be insulting to the excellent boards and administrators of our post-secondary institutions throughout Ontario, who have taken their responsibility seriously and have been accountable in the broadest sense for their budgets and for the programs they manage.

This is not all. The speech from the throne then goes on to state that the "government will encourage the development of centres of excellence in Ontario's post-secondary institutions." The speech does not acknowledge that we already have centres of excellence. It implies that excellence will develop, only with the current government's encouragement, for the first time. This is also an insult to the many fine departments and faculties in our colleges and universities throughout Ontario, which already have centres of excellence in a broad range of fields covering everything from law and political science, history and studies in education to medicine, engineering, physics and mathematics. Many of the faculties in our universities and colleges are ranked as centres of excellence today, both in Canada and throughout the world. It is the height of insensitivity and arrogance to state that this kind of situation does not exist today. I submit that it is a gratuitous swipe at our post-secondary educational institutions.

Taken as a whole then, it would appear that the colleges and universities of Ontario have a great deal to be cautious about when they consider the philosophical thrust of the section of the speech dealing with post-secondary educational institutions.

While promises of additional funding may be welcomed by educational institutions, they will have to consider the price they are going to have to pay --

Mrs. Marland: Mr. Speaker, this member's speech should be observed by a quorum of the House, and at this point we do not have one that I can see.

The Deputy Speaker ordered the bells rung.

5:24 p.m.

Mr. McFadden: I am glad to see that some further members have come into the House.

An hon. member: The member had better start over again.

Mr. McFadden: Mr. Speaker, I will not start the speech all over again; I will carry on from where I left off.

As I was saying before we had the quorum call, while promises of additional funding may be welcomed by our post-secondary educational institutions, these institutions will have to consider the price to be paid and will have to read the fine print.

The government has put forward a series of proposals that could attack the foundations on which an excellent system of universities and colleges has been built. Based on what I have seen, intellectual creativity, independence and self-government, free from direct interference from government, are not happening to the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Our colleges and universities have a great deal to be concerned about when one reads carefully the proposals in the speech from the throne.

I now turn to a proposal the government persists in doggedly pursuing in spite of the growing body of informed opinion against it. I am speaking of the sale of beer and wine in corner grocery stores. What community or social value is being advanced by this proposal? Will family life be strengthened? Will underage drinking be alleviated? Quite the contrary. One informed organization after another has come out against the government's proposal. Such organizations as the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the Ontario Medical Association, the Addiction Research Foundation and distinguished physicians who are knowledgeable in the field of addiction have all come out against this proposal.

The problems raised by these various concerned organizations and professionals encompass everything from increased alcohol consumption to increased underage drinking, lost employment for young people and a rise in armed robberies in corner stores. The speech from the throne is a model of inconsistency; it rails against drinking and driving on one page while on another it proposes to make beer and wine available on every corner.

I now turn to health care. In the section entitled "The World-Class System of Care," the speech from the throne states that our system of health care "ranks with the best in the world." I agree with that sentiment; however, recent actions by the government threaten to jeopardize this ranking. A world-class system of health care depends on our ability to keep in Ontario and to attract to this province the best specialists available anywhere. It also depends on the goodwill and the morale of the physicians here and their commitment to service. The current war with our doctors over the Health Care Accessibility Act and the struggle with our pharmacists over Bills 54 and 55 have created an atmosphere of distrust, division and hostility that has undermined our health care system.

Whether the government will admit it or not, our health care system has been damaged by the current state of acrimony -- damage that could prove to be permanent. Future speeches from the throne may refer to the fact that our health care system once ranked with the best in the world, but deteriorated after 1985. I hope this will not occur, but to date I have little room for optimism.

5:30 p.m.

Finally, I turn to a number of important matters that did not even appear in the speech from the throne. In spite of the acute shortage of affordable rental apartments, the speech contained only a passing reference to housing. Hundreds and thousands of tenants, particularly senior citizens and those on fixed incomes, are being threatened with the loss of their affordable apartments because landlords wish to take them over and convert them into luxury units. Most of the senior citizens, such as those living at 11 to 25 Sherwood Avenue in my riding, who were here in the House last week, have absolutely nowhere to go if they are forced out of their affordable apartment units. They cannot afford to move to luxury units and there are literally no other places for them to move. This particular situation has become noticeably more serious over the past year or so.

While the provision of additional units of affordable housing is the answer in the long run, there is an urgent need to pass emergency legislation today to stop the renovation of existing low-cost apartments into high-cost units. It is socially and morally wrong to threaten with eviction, let alone evict, men and women in their 70s, 80s and 90s who cannot find other affordable shelter.

These senior citizens are frightened. In fact, I have known instances where they have been literally frightened to sickness and death by worry over their accommodations and the security of them. The government has an obligation to act. It is disturbing that this critical situation did not even receive an acknowledgement in the speech from the throne.

Another matter of great concern to many families throughout Ontario, which did not even receive a mention from the speech from the throne, is the growing problem of environmental hypersensitivity, sometimes referred to as 20th-century disease. In recent months, I have had the opportunity to meet with a number of families who have children suffering from this disorder. In some cases, victims suffer from respiratory congestion, runny eyes and nausea, which may keep them from school or work for several days. Other people who have an acute case of the disease are so seriously disabled that they cannot function effectively in our society.

Environmental hypersensitivity is very disabilitating to the person involved, who suffers from recurring bouts of illness and who must worry constantly about what he or she will eat, breathe or even wear. It is tremendously draining emotionally and financially on the families affected. The disease sufferers require special diets and dust-free and chemical-free homes, which are expensive to secure and maintain. They also require special care, often for long periods, when they have attacks. The people who suffer from this disorder and their families need help.

In November 1984, the government appointed a committee under the chairmanship of Judge George Thomson to study environmental hypersensitivity. The committee reported in December 1985 and made some 30 recommendations. It is important to note that this committee recognized the existence of this new disease and proposed a number of measures to assist the sufferers and their families and to further the study of this disorder. Unfortunately, the government has failed to take any action on this report to date, and the speech from the throne does not even mention any measures that may be contemplated.

The final area of concern that I raise is the proposed imposition of market value assessment in the city of Toronto. Assessment is now a provincial responsibility. The government has indicated that it endorses the Goyette report on property tax assessment and will act to force the Metropolitan Toronto municipalities to implement market value assessment, if they fail to move on their own.

The Metropolitan Toronto advisory task force on assessment reform, which was appointed at the government's urging, recommended market value assessment in its April report. While the goals of reassessment may have a certain symmetry and logic, the results of the imposition of market value assessment could be damaging, if not disastrous, for many home owners, particularly senior citizens and young families, notably single-parent families.

It has been government policy to encourage senior citizens to stay in their own homes and to live independent lives as long as they can. This object was reaffirmed in the speech from the throne under the section "Independent Living for Seniors." The imposition of market value assessment could result in such an increase in property taxes on many homes owned by seniors in north Toronto, for example, that it will turn out to be a deciding factor in forcing these seniors out of their homes.

Where can these seniors go? As I have mentioned, we already have an acute shortage of affordable apartments in north Toronto, and these seniors do not want to be forced to move miles away from their friends, neighbours and families. They would effectively be forced to change their whole style of life and their area of living late in life. That seems to be unfair and unconscionable.

A serious problem will also be created by market value assessment for young families, who have frequently invested every single dime they have in purchasing a home. These families also generally have substantial mortgages. As with the seniors, a significant jump in their property taxes could force them to sell their homes and move away from the neighbourhoods and schools where they hoped to raise and educate their children.

The imposition of market value assessment could cause a rise in property taxes on 75 per cent to 80 per cent of the homes in the northern area of Toronto and in various other areas of the city. North Toronto consists of older, stable neighbourhoods, which are attractive to people of all ages and all income groups. The proposed imposition of market value assessment could break down this diversity and force out many senior citizens and families on modest incomes. Before the government pushes Metropolitan Toronto any further to impose such a reassessment, it should consider the social cost in the neighbourhoods and among the home owners who could be affected adversely.

In conclusion, I cannot support the adoption of the speech from the throne, which is essentially a compendium of rehashed ideas and misconceived programs. I will support the amendment put forward by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Grossman), since it touches on the important areas that the speech from the throne neglects.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Morin): Are there any questions or comments?

Mr. Martel: May we ask questions, Mr. Speaker?

The Acting Speaker: Yes, you may for two minutes.

Mr. Martel: As my friend talks about hypersensitive environmental problems, I wonder what he believes we should do. I have a file a good three inches thick from writing to one Tory cabinet minister after another who rejected and refused to help all of these people. Maybe the member could tell us how that is done.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: Not one of them?

Mr. Martel: Not one of them. In fact, Frank Drea appointed all kinds of people to do a study, doctors who in fact were opposed. Members will be interested to know their names: Dr. Knight and Dr. Day. Those were the two birds. Both opposed it. They were the representatives of the Ministry of Community and Social Services. The member might tell me what his government was prepared to do. I would certainly like to hear it.

With respect to market value assessment, the Tories started fighting elections in 1967 -- I was there -- and have fought elections ever since on market value assessment. Just what is it they are after? Tell the House so we will know.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: The questioner should be addressing the question through you to the member.

The Acting Speaker: He is addressing me.

Mr. Martel: I am looking right at him.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: I think he is pointing at the honourable member.

The Acting Speaker: This is not a point of order. Continue.

5:40 p.m.

Mr. Martel: I was looking directly at the Speaker. One cannot even turn one's eyes sideways around here any more.

I want to ask my friend what the real position of the Tory party is, since it has fought six elections on market value assessment. Does it have another position?

The member might answer two questions. Why has his party refused to help people? I will give him my files, if he wants, to verify it. I could not get a decent response out of one cabinet minister, whether it was the then Minister of Health or the then Minister of Community and Social Services. We even used to pay for people's food at one time, and it was that member's government that cut out the subsistence allowance for people who had that disease. His party refused to change it. We hope the new government will.

Mr. Haggerty: I would like to direct a question to the member for Eglinton (Mr. McFadden), who mentioned the negotiations going on now with the medical profession on banning extra billing. In the Globe and Mail this morning there is a headline: "MDs Ask Ottawa to Drop Penalties." Can the member tell me -- and I know his government had been negotiating with the Ontario Medical Association for the past couple of years -- how he would approach the matter of obtaining the $100 million that Ontario is being penalized? The federal government has implemented the program that the Conservative Prime Minister has endorsed. How do we get that $100 million back into the province so that we can provide other programs for the seniors of Ontario, who have been neglected for years?

Mrs. Marland: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Can you clarify for the House the new standing orders? It is my understanding that there can be statements in this period, but that questions have to pertain to the content of the member's speech. Am I correct?

The Acting Speaker: Yes, you are correct. I have followed the conversation very closely, and it does pertain to comments and to questions.

Mrs. Marland: But the question was about an article that was in the Globe and Mail this morning.

The Acting Speaker: Order. The member for Eglinton has two minutes to answer the comments.

Mr. McFadden: I will start with the question of environmental hypersensitivity. I do not need a lecture from the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) about caring about people in my riding.

Mr. Martel: Do not give me that nonsense.

Mr. McFadden: Do not give me any more nonsense about this.

Mr. Martel: Why did the member's government not do anything?

Mr. McFadden: It was not my government; I was not a member of the cabinet at that time, to begin with.

Second, there was a tremendous amount of difference of opinion within the medical profession about whether this disease even existed. The reason the Thomson Committee on Environmental Hypersensitivity was set up was to settle the difference of opinion. In my view, the Thomson report has settled that debate and the government should now get on with providing assistance to these families.

I do not believe there is any sense in pointing fingers at what previous governments might have done. The Thomson committee has made a finding. Now the medical areas have agreed with that finding and, in my view, something should be done for these families. It is not satisfactory or even sensible to attack other members for raising matters that are of concern to them and their constituents.

As far as market value assessment is concerned, it was not the policy of our government to impose it across Ontario. It was left to local option by the province, as this House well knows. In fact, the former government made the decision not to impose market value assessment on Toronto because of the kind of impact that I pointed out already. That is why it was never introduced here.

As for medicare and the federal government, the current government has been talking about the $50 million that the province is foregoing. It has now spent it -- in more ways than one.

The Acting Speaker: Order. The member's time is up.

Mr. Mackenzie: I am pleased to take part in this debate on the throne speech and to add my comments and observations on what has been going on in this House. I might say as a start that the first eight or nine months of this minority government held considerable promise. The public, the voters of Ontario, liked what they saw, in my opinion. There appeared to be a desperately needed new direction for the majority of Ontarians.

Mr. Sheppard: What will happen after the next election? There will be only 10 NDPs left.

Mr. Mackenzie: Spit out the peach pits. That minority, that very special group of average citizens comprised of the workers of Ontario, who toil for a living and pay taxes -- heavy taxes in many cases and not very fair taxes at that -- the pensioners of the province, who were trying to maintain a standard and the worth of their standard of living on pensions which constantly slipped in purchasing power; the unemployed, the disadvantaged and the handicapped, who never had the full advantages enjoyed by the rest of us -- all of these people were looking for a possible new direction for the province.

It also included some environmentalists, certain professional groups in Ontario and tenants who cut across all classifications. All of them felt a renewed hope that issues they considered vital, whether to their own self interest or of wide vital necessity to our province, finally were going to be addressed and receive some action by the government of Ontario.

This hope -- and that is what it was, hope -- was triggered by two significant and truly unexpected events in the province. The first was the defeat after 42 years of a government which seemed to have forgotten that there were nine million people in Ontario. The polarization of that government's support for those who had it made and for some of the business interests in this province -- the establishment in Ontario -- was matched only by its arrogance. It had forgotten and did not deal with the vast majority of people in Ontario, whom it had chosen not to support, perhaps without even fully realizing it. In the last four years of majority Conservative government, I doubt whether there was an opposition member in this chamber -- certainly not in the New Democratic Party caucus -- who did not feel frustrated to a degree never encountered before. I know I have felt frustrated in the last four years I have sat in the House.

This arrogance was driven home to me in a way which defied common sense by an experience towards the end of that government's reign in the former standing committee on regulations and other statutory instruments. There, the former member for Humber, Mr. Kells, had decided that many apartments in the Etobicoke-Lakeshore area should be allowed to become adults-only apartments. He launched a campaign almost single-handedly, except for managing to convince the poor former member for Lakeshore, Mr. Kolyn, to side with him. He wrote literally thousands of letters to people in that constituency threatening that if his move to allow the conversion did not go through, apartment dwellers, particularly those who were slightly better off, were somehow or other going to suffer the consequences.

It was so obviously a Morley Kells promotion that one can only speculate on the reason. Every single group that appeared before that committee -- tenants, community organizations, children's aid societies, aldermen, even Tory aldermen, I might say -- desperately opposed the move that was being made by these members. These groups effectively pointed out the almost zero vacancy rate in the riding. The arrogance showed even to the extent that a young woman who worked for the children's aid society and who was working on a project about the effects of inadequate housing on children, was challenged on her right to work with such a group and appear before the committee on this issue. Most of the committee members could not understand the vehemence of the government member's position or even the move by another Tory ex-member, Mr. Rotenberg, who, supposedly trying to help, suggested that we stall the process in the House a little bit.

These former members are no longer in this House. In the case of two of them, there is no doubt in my mind that their actions in representing so well and so effectively only 20 per cent of their constituents, while giving the back of their hands to the other 80 per cent, are the major reasons to cost them their seats. It also typifies the Tory approach that we in this House went through and it proves the arrogance that bothered so many of us. It showed that no matter how powerful somebody is, that arrogance eventually comes home to roost.

5:50 p.m.

The Tories paid the cost in the last election; unfortunately, I have seen little evidence to date that they have learned a thing from their experience.

The second point that led to the change was the ability of the two former opposition parties, the Liberals and the New Democrats, to forge an accord to allow some degree of co-operation so that a new non-Conservative government could take power after some 42 years of Conservative rule in Ontario.

For the Liberals, I suggest it was not too difficult. They were second and very close to the Conservatives, however unexpectedly, and they could literally smell power. As well, they had run on a populist platform, much more so than was usually the case, which had registered with the public. Indeed, some of the issues they ran on were straight, long-time NDP issues that they had previously rejected. Banning extra billing by doctors is a case in point.

The issues the Liberals ran on in the election campaign may or may not have reflected a change in Liberal philosophy -- that will soon be apparent for all in Ontario to see -- but they did reflect the fact that the Liberals had read the danger to the Conservatives and the opening provided to the opposition by the march to the right of the Conservative government. In the mad rush by the member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller) to out-right the world's Reagans, Thatchers and Mulroneys, which was so obvious at the time and apparently now is obvious to the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick as well, the Tories insulted the voters of Ontario. They failed to note that the old pendulum had stopped its swing to the right and was slowly coming back to more common sense and to good judgement decisions.

For New Democrats, it was a little more difficult, but the decision to support the change could not be denied. The difficulty for us was, why should we trust the Liberals who in the past on issue after issue had been little different from the Conservatives? Why should we trust a conversion in policy on the road to an election? Would the support of the Liberals somehow compromise the consistency of the democratic-socialist principles most of us stood for? Would it compromise our consistent support for workers, tenants, the socially disadvantaged, environmentalists and organized labour? Faced with a history of nothing but arrogance from the Conservatives and promises in writing from the Liberals, it seemed worth the obvious gamble.

What sealed the deal as far as I am concerned was the reaction we all experienced on the election hustings last time around. I suspect a large number of members and candidates got the same response I did. In larger numbers than ever before, voters seemed to be saying, "The only time we get any attention is during a minority government." We heard that comment time and time again. It seemed almost as though voter cynicism was winning the political battle over any party's election promises, that only during minority government could some kind of wheeling and dealing work to the voters' advantage.

With that voter perception, we had to decide whether to try to make the minority government given to us by the voters work or whether our political purity was more important to us. There was nothing to expect or trust in the Conservative record and even less in the new Conservative leadership. There was at least on the part of the Liberals a correct reading of the public's perception, a populist campaign and a willingness to put an agreement in writing.

The course for New Democrats was clear, to negotiate the very best agreement we could, give it a time frame and then work consistently to make it work. We could not be sidetracked with worry as to who would get the credit for such an agreement. That is what the New Democrats have done. Part of the accord, which we signed for a two-year period, allows us to speak up with the strength of our convictions on issues when we feel the government is -wrong or is not carrying out those outlined in the accord. I do not think we have hesitated to do that so far in this parliament.

To return to my opening remarks, for the first eight or nine months things seemed to be on course. Things were not always exactly as we would have liked them to be in this House, but most of the items in the accord were either under way or being debated in committee.

I have a concern about the throne speech presented to this House on April 22, though I have been here long enough to realize that speeches from the throne do not always mean too much. I hope the budget, which will come down on May 13, will put this House back on track. Members will understand my concern with a speech from the throne that seemed to signal a change in direction. It was a speech that sounded, to me at least -- and I have heard other members say the same thing -- very much like the past 10 or 12 Conservative speeches from the throne to which I have listened in this House. It was a speech totally lacking in any clear direction, with verbiage that should bother all concerned and progressive members, entrepreneurial buzzwords that leave confusion rather than clear understanding, and no clear direction on any number of issues that are of concern and importance to Ontario.

One can be forgiven for wondering whether this government has decided in the most crass political terms that in the first eight or nine months it has initiated -- and note that I say "initiate," not "completed" -- most of the measures in the accord and enough progressive measures to calm the workers in Ontario for a time. It appears this government has decided the Liberals must get back to their more traditional business approach and should now be trying to solidify their position by winning some of the Conservative establishment constituency. That would be a betrayal of hopes, and I trust it is not really the case, although in political terms I understand the desire to take advantage of the obvious Conservative floundering in this House.

Let me outline clearly my concern over the issues that are so vital to all of us, but appear to have no place or focus in the speech from the throne. There was nothing to indicate any real action in terms of the continuing and disturbing patterns of corporate rationalization -- or is "restructuring" now the buzzword that results in plants being closed across this province?

We can accept that modern technology and changing patterns of ownership are a natural evolution if those changes offer protection for those who work for the companies involved, but that does not seem to be the case. We need only to look at some examples around us. The workers at Dominion Stores have suffered through the self-aggrandizement of one Conrad Black. Their company has been reduced from being a leader in the retail field to a poor follower. Their jobs are gone and even the surpluses in their pension fund have been skimmed off by Mr. Black.

Let us take a look at one of the examples with which I am personally familiar and which I have raised in this House a number of times. Two and a half years after the closure, there are still 30 to 40 older workers of Consolidated-Bathurst in Hamilton who are not employed. The vast majority of those who have gone back to work are working at considerably lower wages.

A decision of the Ontario Labour Relations Board, which awarded them $300,000 because the company was proven to have bargained in bad faith, was challenged by the company in the courts. Here is a company which conveniently decided during the negotiations for a new contract, six months or less before that contract was to expire, that it was not very important to tell the workers who had spent their lives with the company that it intended to close down the plant. So much for the importance of people in our province. Having been ordered to pay for this significant oversight, the company is now spending thousands of dollars fighting the Ontario Labour Relations Board decision in the courts.

6 p.m.

The ex-workers of Consolidated-Bathurst cannot resolve pension moneys where they do not have a vested pension, nor can they receive the benefits of the OLRB decision because of the company's current action before the courts. In many cases, they have spent their life savings. At least six workers that I am aware of -- and I knew two or three personally -- have now died and their families have not seen any benefits from the settlement. Their families are still waiting. One of the workers was a suicide thought to be caused by the closure and the disruption of his life since that closure. Where is the fairness and benevolence in our laws protecting workers in Ontario?

The Rexnord plant in Toronto closed down at the end of January. The Canron plant in St. Thomas is now in the process of closing down most of its operation. We were talking about the Great Lakes Forest Products waferboard plant today. In plant after plant, the workers are the losers. The workers in the steel mill and in the tube mill of Algoma Steel join thousands who have already received shabby treatment in terms of the importance of their life and contribution to Ontario. The cases that could be cited -- and I have named only four or five of them -- are legion. We see no move to make the workers in Ontario a top priority.

There is nothing that calls for earlier layoff notices; there is nothing that calls for any form of public justification for closures in Ontario, something the New Democrats have called for a long time. There is nothing in the way of setting up public enterprise centres, which might allow for the possibility of worker co-ops, alternative purchase or joint ventures to protect some of the workers in plants faced with closure.

There is nothing in the way of planning for import replacement to protect and provide additional jobs in Canada. There is nothing in place to try to stem, or even correct, a branch-plant economy in which many of the branch plants in this province can neither export nor do adequate research and development because of the rules set down by the head office in the United States or whatever the country of origin may be.

Our severance-pay provisions under the Employment Standards Act, which many of us had hoped would be the start of something good, are breached more often than they are practised. We see no real improvement coming at all. Where are the safety and health issues in this throne speech?

All of this points out the lack of any real plan for Ontario, of any industrial and economic strategy that clearly points the province in a direction that will allow us both to compete and to recognize that our most valuable resource is our people. This seems to be totally lacking in Ontario. This province does not recognize that competition without a major job protection component is as deadly and self-defeating as would be a retreat to the conditions of the last century.

There is none of this protection in this province and there is none of this planning in the throne speech we have just heard. I guess we are supposed to put all our hopes in a $50-million-a-year expenditure on technology. What is this expenditure to accomplish? What is it tied to in terms of existing or new industry or development? Will it make us more competitive with the United States, Japan or Europe, or is it simply an empty gesture? This is not a lot of money for this purpose, but what bothers me even more is that it appears to be tied to no specific plan. I do not understand what it means and I suspect that few other members in this chamber really understand what it means. I hope it works, but on the basis of what was in the throne speech, it seems as if we are being asked to accept yet another leap of faith in Ontario.

Perhaps the most disheartening point of all is one of the comments of the Premier himself. I sincerely hope the Premier's remarks were nothing more than a temporary lapse of judgement, which all of us can suffer from time to time. However, if they were not, then God help this government, for in my opinion, the comments give credence to what is lacking in the speech from the throne.

The comments seem to be defining a new word for the unemployed. It seems that the government does not want to talk about the unemployed any more. I shuddered when I heard the remark "unfortunate byproducts of an economic transformation" from the Premier of this province. I truly hope it is not his intent, because he is not going to stop the misery of unemployment by changing its name.

I looked in vain in the throne speech for answers to the phenomenon of part-time and low-paying jobs. I was hoping for a return to real apprenticeship programs based on the levy grant approach. As this House must know, we have fewer in apprenticeship programs now than we had two or three years ago.

With our ageing population well documented in the current demographics, I looked for details of a home care program. I looked for more extended care facilities to ease the pressure on our acute care beds in hospitals, and it is simply not spelled out in adequate detail. Additional assistance for older women and for those reduced to disability and welfare payments was not spelled out. Once again, people in need did not seem to be a high priority in Ontario.

I personally searched in vain for measures to increase the facilities and assistance for families with children suffering from dyslexia or for families in which a member is in need of special prosthesis equipment. My thoughts went immediately to a family in my riding, a steelworker who has just spent $13,000 to send his son to the Sheila Morrison School near Orillia because other facilities are not available and the waiting lists in Ontario are too long. My thoughts went to another family where an expenditure of $3,000 was necessary for a TENS implant, or transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulator, to allow this woman to carry on a normal life. The implant is not covered by the Ontario health insurance plan. The advice I got from the Minister of Health (Mr. Elston), when I wrote to him about the matter, was to suggest she canvass the service clubs in the riding to see whether they could give her some assistance towards the $3,000. I find that very difficult to accept.

I could go on, but the bottom line is there is no indication in the speech from the throne that people-oriented necessities were planned, specifically laid out or in some cases even thought of.

To make another point, an issue that has the potential to affect us more than anything is a bilateral free trade agreement with the United States. There is nothing to suggest that the Premier and his government take the federal Conservative initiative seriously. I am not sure the Liberal government even fully understands the implications of such a step. The Premier has the authority to stop these talks almost cold, but he has opted instead to accept that the talks are a good idea and that we can protect ourselves from any adverse consequences by negotiating out certain of our social, cultural and economic concerns. Every shred of evidence says that is not so or means that in the true sense of negotiations, when we achieve or get some benefit from the table, we will trade off some Canadian benefit to protect ourselves. Can the Premier tell us where the benefits will lie in such a negotiating stance?

Surely Mr. Yeutter's speech to the businessmen's club in Calgary on February 28 should have been warning enough. He said countervailing duties, the US protectionism measures, were not on the table, but everything else was. He said clearly we should not expect a five-year to 10-year phase-in period. What more does the Premier and this government need?

Here we are starting probably the most crucial negotiations in the history of our nation and we have already traded away several of our aces -- the Foreign Investment Review Agency, the national energy policy, cruise missile testing -- all the things that would have been worth their weight in gold to us in negotiations. It also looks as if the softwood lumber issue will join the list before we have even started the true negotiations.

Hundreds of thousands of jobs face dislocation because of these free trade talks, and absolutely no one I have heard has been able to identify the gains clearly. We are again asked to take a leap of faith in one of the most important and serious sets of negotiations we have ever entered into in this country.

It is not just jobs that will be lost. Even more important is the very direction and future of our country. On the level playing field we are asked to start from in the talks with our giant American friends to the south, we will have to discuss all the programs we fought so hard for that make us unique as a country. In effect, we will have to negotiate with a foreign power such things as unemployment insurance benefits, provincial workers' compensation benefits, a superior health care system and pensions, and the regional incentive programs that help to deal with high unemployment in certain areas of this country. Our basic culture, our very direction as a nation -- in short, the things that establish our Canadian sovereignty -- will be on that table. What is even more appalling is that this is not coming from Canadians or Americans or most of their politicians. It is coming from Mr. Reagan and his executives in the White House and from Mr. Mulroney and his Conservative Party. This is a deal cooked up at the Quebec summit meeting and launched during a rendition of "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling," a major move that was cloaked in as little information as the government could get away with. The Conservatives knew instinctively that the more Canadians understood what was at stake, the more they would oppose it. Therefore, it was, "Say as little as possible and if some of the negative information gets out, be prepared to do a selling job." All this was in the background papers we were given that were presented to the federal Tory caucus.

6:10 p.m.

It seems that deceit was part of that program. As far as I am concerned, Mr. Mulroney's free trade initiative is not far removed from treason against this country and all its people. What is disturbing is the almost casual way in which the Premier is treating such a fundamental move, which would affect the course of our country, our province and its institutions.

We have a commitment from this government and the throne speech to make beer and wine available in corner stores and probably to have a more open Sunday shopping policy. These are moves that raise more questions and problems than they answer. They are moves that threaten reasonably paid, permanent full-time jobs and at the same time increase the availability of booze for those groups that are most vulnerable, basically the young and those who already are heavy drinkers. Such moves would threaten the already weakened family day or day of rest, which is still basic to our values and cultural structure in Ontario.

My reading of the situation is that this is not one of urgent priority for the people of Ontario. A recent survey of the constituents in my provincial riding of Hamilton East indicated that 57 per cent of 1,045 respondents to the questionnaire we sent out opposed a more open Sunday shopping policy and 39.9 per cent supported such a move. Almost the same percentage applied in the case of the sale of beer and wine in the corner store. I might point out this was in a working-class riding which has a large number of shift workers. There was no strong indication of any support.

I will compare that, if I can, with the indication of support I got for public auto insurance, which was supported by 78 per cent and opposed by only 14 per cent of those responding to the questionnaire. Auto insurance is costing Ontario drivers a lot of money. There is a realization now across this country that it can be provided in a better way. Other provinces are proving it but there is no clear direction of this in the throne speech. Which would be more of a priority for people? Would it be beer and wine in the corner stores, Sunday shopping, or something of value, such as a public auto insurance plan?

Once again I ask, where are our priorities? Those same 1,045 responses to my riding report asked about indexed pensions. There were 89.6 per cent in favour and only 5.8 per cent opposed. When I think of what we have gone through with the Workers' Compensation Board and pensions generally -- and we still do not have that kind of legislation, but instead, we allow the surpluses to be skimmed out -- it makes me wonder whether we have started to lose sight of some of the priorities.

A limit on overtime is an issue that has been raised many times, and will be raised again with the Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye) in the next day or two. In those 1,045 responses, a total of 86.8 per cent were in favour of limiting overtime and 83 per cent said that current levels of overtime were not acceptable in Ontario. We asked separate questions, putting them in different ways. What is the government direction in this area? Incidentally, it holds a major promise in terms of spreading around the available work, something we need to do in Ontario, creating much needed jobs for the unemployed.

If I can be parochial for a moment, what encouragement can a heavy industrial city such as Hamilton read into the speech from the throne? I saw nothing to indicate an understanding of the major changes that would be needed to help cities such as Hamilton meet the challenge of a major restructuring and downsizing of employment in its traditional heavy industries. For example, there is no real encouragement for a major waterfront development in Hamilton. There are no suggestions for a steel labour institute such as some of us have requested for a long time. There are no innovative plans for enterprise centres that could provide the expertise and funding, as well as the physical plant, to design, develop and market some of the new ideas in technology that are coming from the research being done at McMaster University, both medical and scientific. There is no speed-up of the very essential GO Transit line from downtown Hamilton to downtown Toronto. It would seem that a major industrial centre such as Hamilton, which has specific problems, must take comfort in the very general rhetoric of the government's throne speech.

The biggest economic game in town, I suggest, should not be the latest corporate takeover battle which offers nothing in the way of jobs. In Ontario, the biggest game in town should be a very clear, economic and industrial strategy that would recognize people and their rights to jobs, education, health care and a clean environment as the rationale for any and all plans for development in Ontario and in this country of ours, Canada.

This is the direction I believe the voters of Ontario wanted a new government to take. The initial start was encouraging and has won some support. If, God forbid, this government now thinks it can chart a course on its own agenda without clearly following through on programs that establish people as a priority rather than the corporate bottom-line financial profit-and-loss statements, then it will pay a heavy price. It will not take 42 years or even a small fraction of that to destroy the renewed hope that we have seen in Ontario. It will also possibly develop a fatal system in terms of our political and democratic structure amongst the voters of Ontario. In other words, for a very short-term electoral gain, this government threatens us with paying a very severe price if it gets off track on the positive things that it started out doing.

With all the sincerity and co-operation I can offer, I urge this government to get back on course, putting people and a fairer society first, and indicate it very clearly in the budget, because it surely was not in the speech from the throne we had delivered to us on April 22.

The Deputy Speaker: Any questions or comments? There being no questions or comments, the member for York East.

Ms. Hart: It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak in support of the speech from the throne. For the first time in more than 80 years, the riding of York East is represented by a Liberal member. In the recent by-election, the people of York East were presented with excellent candidates from each of the three major parties, and yet they chose to exercise their franchise in a different way by exercising it in support of the government led by the Premier and to endorse the openness and responsiveness characterized by this government.

I am proud and honoured to be the new representative for York East and I will devote all my energies and abilities to showing myself worthy of the confidence demonstrated by my constituents. I am mindful of the responsibility and I welcome the challenge.

My community, the riding of York East, represents all that is richest and yet most problematic about our society. The richness is there in abundance, with the mix of ethnic communities sinking their roots into a community already deeply rooted in Ontario's history, the mix of young and old, of female and male, and the mix of the long-standing traditions of Leaside, the serenity and perfectly landscaped gardens of old East York and the vibrancy of the brash young upstart of the past 20 years of Thorncliffe Park, the place where all communities and ages come together.

All three communities display an uncommon interest in the issues of the day. Six community newspapers thrive, and every church and community centre is fully utilized all the time. I am pleased and proud to live amongst people with such strong traditional values and yet with the energy and foresight to create healthy, happy neighbourhoods that will serve our needs well into the next century.

The problems are there as well, although not as abundant, but they are important and deserving of our deepest attention. In a sense, the problems are the inevitable concomitant of the richness. There is the problem of ensuring that our population of seniors is not only cared for but also cared for in a way that preserves their dignity and independence and, most important, allows them to continue to contribute to the life of our society. There is the responsibility of ensuring that the members of all our communities are given the opportunity to put their talents and their energy to the best use for our society.

I believe our government in its short life has made an enormous contribution to solving these problems. The policies outlined in the speech from the throne indicate a continuing and deepening commitment to the resolution of those problems.

6:20 p.m.

Let me begin with the question of care for seniors. As the speech from the throne indicated, the percentage of seniors in our society is increasing yearly, so that by the end of this century approximately 41 per cent more of our population will be over the age of 65.

The implications of that number are several. In the first instance, our health care facilities must be upgraded and expanded to accommodate the increased care that an ageing population demands. To that end, the commitment contained in the throne speech to capital expenditures on hospitals, to assuring the quality of life of nursing home residents and to community support services for seniors is critically important.

However, my experience in York East has taught me that the needs of seniors cannot be met simply by more and better health care facilities. The burden on our government is at once more subtle and more profound. That burden is to ensure that seniors are able to stay in their homes and their communities for as long as they desire. More than that, it is to ensure that seniors are allowed to contribute to society in direct and meaningful ways for as long as they want.

The fulfilling of that burden draws the government to the core of its obligations. I am proud that this government has in its throne speech placed itself on the cutting edge of fulfilling those obligations by its commitment to developing the means to ensure the independence of seniors by its emphasis on programs to allow seniors to live independently in their own communities and by its support for community organizations in the development of recreational services and activities for the retired.

I would like to turn my attention to the environment for a moment. In our complex economy of today, we are faced with some very tough choices. Is the creation of a job worth the risk that a worker must undertake in handling dangerous substances in the performance of that job? Is the need for an industry providing taxes to the municipality overridden by the need for our neighbourhoods not to have dangerous substances travelling through them?

There are no easy answers to these questions. However, I am most encouraged to see the emphasis in the speech from the throne on environmental issues. The need to preserve our air, soil and water for future generations has always been a priority for me personally, and I look forward to participating in the process of finding innovative and effective means of ensuring their preservation.

Closer to home, I share the concerns of my constituents in York East about the proposed Torvalley Development of the brickworks site just south of Bennington Heights Crescent and the Governor's Bridge neighbourhoods. The north slope of the Don Valley has been designated for historic preservation by the Minister of Citizenship and Culture (Ms. Munro), but the issue is still undecided with respect to the valley floor. This government has shown sensitivity to the problem of the development of such an environmentally sensitive site. I look forward to working with my colleagues in bringing about a solution that will free these lands for the least damaging use possible.

York East is a microcosm of Ontario in its rich mix of ethnic groups. It is not enough to acknowledge the existence of these groups and, in so doing, to believe we have fulfilled our duty to them. No; more is demanded of our government.

In the weeks I spent talking with people in York East, no image recurred more frequently than that of the springtime of hope. That hope is born of the belief that the old barriers are gone and that all groups in our society can now contribute to the governing of their lives. I had not understood in a direct and visceral way how heavy was the dead weight of 42 years of governing by close connection to one group, how oppressive that had been to all those whose talents and ambition cried out for their rightful place in our governing structures. It was oppressive to the old, to the young, to women, to Canadians of Greek, Filipino, South Asian, African and Chinese descent, as it was to the members of all our ethnic communities and to all those not included in a tired, narrow, dispirited governing class.

I said during the campaign that the Tories governed by fear, that they governed by patronage and that they governed in secret. Until I talked to the people of York East -- the Judy Arrowoods, the Jack Prattases, the Bill Tatsious, the Mila Velshis, the Ray Edamuras, the Molly Washingtons, the Mel Catres and the Mario Bernardis -- I had not fully understood how that deadened the hopes and the aspirations of so many fine individuals whose energies and talents we desperately need.

I believe those days are gone and that they are gone because of the commitment of this government to openness, to advancement based on merit and to advancement regardless of sex, colour or national background.

I support our government's continued commitment to freedom of information legislation. I support the commitment contained in the throne speech to continue to make appointments to agencies, boards and commissions which ensure that those bodies are representative of all groups in society and of all walks of life.

Mr. Speaker, if you will permit me to conclude on a personal note, I spent yesterday afternoon in one of the parks in York East in an open air celebration of Greek Orthodox Easter. While applying the final basting to the spring lamb, which had been roasting on the spit since 6 a.m., my host, Sotiris Gambroudis, told me that for every one of the 11 years since his family had come to this country, it had gathered in that park for that celebration. It had done so in the rain, in the snow and, as it did yesterday, in the warm spring sunshine.

That tradition is not just a celebration of a cultural heritage; it is also in a subtle but profound way a celebration of a commitment to this province and to what it has to offer. I have been deeply enriched by the love and friendship of these people. I know all of us can be as well. This government truly opened its doors to all of our citizens and, in so doing, it has begun that enriching process. For that, as embodied in the speech from the throne, it has my heartfelt support.

On motion by Ms. Hart, the debate was adjourned.

The House adjourned at 6:29 p.m.

May 5, 1986

HOUSING POLICY

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

PALLIATIVE CARE

PROVINCIAL PARKS

HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP

UNEMPLOYMENT

EMERGENCY SHORELINE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

MISSISSAUGA CITIZEN OF THE YEAR

OSTOMY SUPPLIES

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

FAMILY MONTH

ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION LEGISLATION

VISITOR

ORAL QUESTIONS

EXTRA BILLING

HEALTH SERVICES

EXTRA BILLING

DARLINGTON NUCLEAR PLANT

INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

FREE TRADE

NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT

SENIOR CITIZENS' SERVICES

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION LEGISLATION

EQUAL PAY FOR WORK OF EQUAL VALUE

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION LEGISLATION

NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION LEGISLATION

INSURANCE RATES

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION LEGISLATION

INTERVENER FUNDING

PETITIONS

GASOLINE PRICES

INTRODUCTION OF BILL

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION ACT

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)