Hansard Transcript 1988-Apr-07 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

That, in the opinion of this House, recognizing that more than 1,000 Canadian workers are killed on the job in each year; and recognizing that hundreds of thousands more are injured on the job, thousands of whom are permanently disabled; and recognizing that thousands more suffer and die from disease caused by exposure to toxic substances at the workplace; and further recognizing that the memories of the workers who have died and the suffering of the still-living victims must be honoured; therefore, the government of Ontario should declare the 28th day of April in each year as a day of mourning and recognition for the victims of work-related injury and disease, to be observed by a minute of silence and the lowering of flags to half-mast.

Mr. B. Rae: I think all honourable members have, in their own experience and in their own lives, come face to face with the meaning of the resolution I am presenting to the House today. I know from my own experience that one of the most troubling parts of my own work has always been, even before I was in politics, when I was working for one of my first employers, who happened to be the father of the member for Mississauga West (Mr. Mahoney) -- and what an experience it was when I worked for the United Steelworkers of America or when I worked as a legal aid worker for the Union of Injured Workers -- to find families that were literally devastated, lives that were transformed and changed, and people who had in their early years great hope and prospects finding them cut off because of an accident at work.

Indeed, I can recall that one of the very first cases I encountered, when I was working at the corner of Dovercourt Road and College Street in Toronto, was a young man from Ecuador who was 26 years old, who came to me with three fingers missing on his right hand. I asked him how long he had been in Canada, and he said, “I have been in Canada for three weeks.” He then told me the story. He went to work in a small woodworking plant. The plant had no barriers on the saws they were using and, as a result of that very basic lack of health and safety, he had permanently lost the full use of his right hand.

I can remember just thinking to myself and talking with this young man what a tragic impression he must have had of the country to which he came looking for opportunity and advancement, as all immigrants to this country have done. He found instead in a bucket-shop operation the kind of injustice that I am sure all members of the House would want to see ended.

The significance of April 28 as a day of recognition is quite simple, and it is one I think all members of the House can readily relate to. The significance of April 28 is that it is the day on which in 1914 the first Workers’ Compensation Act in Canada was passed, and I remind honourable members that it was passed in this chamber. It was passed, I might point out, by a government which had a Conservative majority at that time. There was a consensus in society as early as 1914 that this province needed to create a framework of law that would provide a semblance of justice and care for workers.

The system itself has not been dramatically changed since 1914. The basic principles of the law have remained intact. Yet what is so troubling is that despite that consistency in the law, the number of accidents, the number of deaths and the number of people who face illness at work have not decreased. Indeed, they have gone up.

In a moment I want to talk about the families I have met, and I am sure other members can talk about the families and situations they have encountered, but I first want to talk about the sheer size, the dimension of the problem.

In 1983, there were over 300,000 accidents. In 1984, there were nearly 400,000. In 1985, there were over 400,000. In 1987, there were nearly 500,000. The problem has simply grown. It has grown in a dramatic way without, I might add, any significant or dramatic increase in the size of the so-called blue-collar workforce. The number of deaths per year has now reached the point where we in Ontario can say that every working day someone will die as a result of industrial accident or disease. That statistic has been startlingly, depressingly constant for the last five years. In 1987, 238 people died as a result of an industrial accident or a disease flowing from conditions at work.

The purpose of this resolution is to give the province, for one day, a chance to focus its attention on this problem, which has been for such a long time, in a sense, an invisible problem, one which people are not sufficiently aware of or sufficiently alive to. It is a chance for us -- not to make a particularly partisan point, though there will be many cases in this House on which all of us will want to do that; I think it fair to say that for decades members of our party have been focusing public attention on this issue, on the need for us to change the law. We have reason to believe that the law is going to be changed once again, very soon, because of the pressures we have brought to bear.

Notwithstanding those partisan battles and the criticisms we have made of employers, the criticisms we have made of a government which has failed to enforce the law and which has failed to maintain standards that would make good health and healthy lives possible, this day is a chance for all of us, regardless of political background, and for all the people in the province, to pause for a very brief moment and to recognize those people who have built and made this province.

If one were to go through the archives and the roll books of the Workers’ Compensation Board and look at those who have been injured and those who have died, one would find really a history of the working people of this province. One would find bush workers who, young and healthy at 16 or 17, went into the bush and lost an arm or a leg at 23 or 24 and spent the rest of their lives on a pension. One would find steelworkers who worked in coke ovens in Algoma Steel who for a generation were breathing poison and whose lungs were destroyed by breathing that poison.

One would find the Italians and Portuguese who, since the great immigration in 1945 to 1965-1970, have built so much of this province. One would find people whose lives have literally been devastated because they worked and who, because work is the central activity for all of us outside of our family life, through working have put themselves in danger and put themselves at risk.

1010

I am very proud, and I hope we will get some movement from the government and a recognition from all members that this is a right thing to do, of moving this resolution. It may be funny for the Leader of the Opposition to say this, but I do move it in a way I hope members will see is really intended to be nonpartisan. The concept of a day of mourning is one that has been endorsed by labour federations across the country and by the Canadian Labour Congress. It is the hope, I know, of a great many people in those organizations and in the labour movement that April 28 will become a national day of mourning. But because of the nature of our structure as a country and because of the federation we are, it is important for all of us in each provincial level and in every province to recognize this in a special way.

Madam Speaker, I hope you will permit me, in the few minutes I want to take before reserving some time for my response, to recall the courage and the dedication of those workers who have given so much. I think without question one of my best memories of a political campaign was in the last election when I sat with Mrs. Larcher and a group of women whose husbands had all died underground. I had known Mrs. Larcher for some time. We had met on many occasions in Timmins and we met when she came here to campaign on behalf of those miners who died underground because of breathing that noxious cocktail that exists in so many of our mines. She simply told her story. She told her story to a group of reporters, many of whom I am sure had never been in Timmins before and many of whom had never encountered this situation before. In telling her story I think it fair to say people were genuinely moved. It was a moment, as it were, outside the partisan oneupmanship we all associate with an election campaign.

Those women together, all of them in their 60s, 70s and 80s, reflected an experience of such an important part of this province, men and women who came to towns like Timmins, Kirkland Lake, Sudbury, Elliot Lake and Red Lake, from all across the north, northeast and northwest, who have not just for a few years, but if one looks at the history of this province for 100 years, been working underground in the most dangerous of conditions, the most insecure of work, living the most rugged lives that one can possibly imagine.

Those widows still had exuberance, still had an enormous sense of the wonder and joy of life and they also had a fair share of anger. There was no sense of mournful sadness. There was a sense rather, as I say, of joy and anger. There was great humour in their presentation, great realism in their portrayal of what losing a husband at 50 or 55 meant for them and their families; a great sense for Mrs. Larcher who, as she pointed out, lost not only her husband but a son and two brothers to mining accidents.

Outside of the experience of many other families with war, I can hardly compare that experience to anything I had seen. I know from talking to my grandmother that within a week she lost two brothers in the First World War. When she told me that as a small boy, I regarded that as just one of the saddest, most difficult things I could imagine. Here I was 35 years later listening to a woman talk about the loss in her family, and what was that loss? It was not caused by warfare but caused by simply going to work every day in an Ontario mine.

I must say that in honouring these families and in remembering them, I hope we will do what we do on November 11, that is, in remembering the sacrifice, we also say “Never again.” I do not think governments should simply point to the statistics about employment and to the statistics about the number of jobs that are created and to all those other statistics which they release from time to time in budgets. I think governments ought to say, “We have reduced dramatically the number of people who have died at work and that is because of the policies we have followed.” That is the kind of thing governments ought to be able to say. Right now, they cannot say it. Right now, governments cannot say that.

And so the purpose of this day of mourning and of recognition is for us as individuals to remember. All of us in this House, because of the work we do and because of the kind of contact we have with working families, will have particular people we will want to remember. Families who have lost someone will be prouder, I think, of at least the sense that the sacrifice their husbands and wives made was finally being recognized for what it is.

I hope very much that this resolution will have the support of the House and I hope very much that, having passed this resolution, the government will move immediately to implement it. We are not asking a great deal. We are asking that people pause for a brief time during the day to recognize that sacrifice and to recognize those who have suffered.

We are also suggesting that flags of the provincial government, flags over which we have some control, should be flown at half-mast for that day so that if a little boy says to his mother or father, “Why is that flag being lowered today?” people can talk about what happens to people at work, people can talk about the fact that people who work in many of our plants and mines have been forced to breathe stuff that is poisonous. They can talk about the fact that our doctors and scientists estimate that as many as 6,000 people in this province die every year from occupational disease. To use the old Latin phrase, it may be that to work is to pray, in the sense that it is a ritual and a key part of our expression of our personality, but it is a tragedy if in working we are forced to die.

That is something every child should know about, that is something every person should know about and that is something we should all be working to change.

1020

Mr. Pollock: I am pleased to join in this debate and I would like to compliment the member for York South (Mr. B. Rae) on his resolution. It is my understanding that there are well over 1,000 people who die in the workplace across Canada, and that is totally unacceptable. We should endeavour to do anything we can to cut back on that loss of life or injury in the workplace.

There are a couple of things the member for York South mentioned. One of them was people in the workplace. I looked it up in the dictionary, and the dictionary’s interpretation of “worker” mentioned the fact that it is someone who worked in a plant or in an office building. Another interpretation in another particular dictionary is a person who belongs to the working class.

I question that for the simple reason that in some of the printouts I have of the fatalities which have taken place across the country, they list all these different occupations: agriculture, forestry, fishing, trapping, mining, quarrying, manufacturing, construction, transportation and communication and other utilities, trades, finance, insurance, real estate, service industry, public administration and unspecified industries, and I hope that group even includes the housewife.

I appreciated the member’s comments on why he chose the day of April 28. I really did not know his reasoning for choosing April 28, and his explanation, I thought, was extremely good. I was a little concerned about having April 28 to recognize those workers who died in the workplace, because it is only two days from the May Day celebrations in Russia and I would prefer not to align ourselves with another country’s political philosophy. However, we all know that this bill was actually passed in 1914, which was before the Bolshevik revolution. Therefore, I think he has a good point when he brought forth April 28 in that respect.

I actually heard a person say that he was in a plant and they had a demonstration in this particular plant. They actually blindfolded the workers and asked them to do some of their daily chores. One of the things they asked them to do was to put toothpaste on a toothbrush and brush their teeth. The person who witnessed this demonstration said they had toothpaste all over the place. The reason for this demonstration was to bring home to those workers how important their eyes are and that they should always be wearing their safety goggles or their safety glasses.

I firmly believe that particular type of demonstration would bring home to more workers the importance of safety in the workplace than a whole lot of fancy speeches in this particular assembly. I think that same point could be made about one’s hearing. I agree with the member for York South when he mentioned that safety shields should be kept on motorized and mechanized machinery, and that in itself would cut down on quite a lot of injury.

We all expect that the people who look after our highways, our county roads and our township roads should be out and have those roads sanded and snowplowed. Not only do we expect it, we demand it. But those workers who are out there sanding when the roads are glare ice or in a blinding snowstorm are also putting their lives at risk. I think we owe a word of gratitude to those people too, because there has been loss of life in those particular cases.

Also, I was a charter member of the Rawdon township volunteer fire department and I served in that capacity for 17 years. I can recall going to fires and wondering what kind of situation we were going to run into. I can recall answering a fire alarm one night; actually, it was 3 a.m. It was a house fire. We eventually got the fire out and then there were places that were still smoking. One of my fellow firemen was up on a ladder, trying to wiggle a piece of steel loose because there was some smoke coming from underneath it. All we had for light was the flickering light of a flashlight, and as I said, it was cold and three o’clock in the morning. All of a sudden that piece of steel came loose. He fell off the ladder. Luckily, he was able to land on his feet or he could have been seriously hurt.

We also know that professional firefighters, along with the volunteers, have lost their lives in the line of duty. We know that policemen, in their line of duty, have been gunned down on the streets or in their line of work.

One of the groups of people that very seldom ever gets recognized is our game wardens. Game wardens have to go out there in the bush, all by themselves in most cases, and enforce our game laws. Everybody believes that we should have game laws, but there are a lot of people out there who think those game laws are for the other person, not for them. To walk up and charge somebody who is possibly poaching and that person has a .30-30 in his hand -- or as some people refer to it, a small cannon -- is a very touchy business, because some of those people who are involved in poaching are not our ideal citizens.

Even for the people who work in our health care system, doctors and nurses and our lab technicians, there is more risk being involved there because of radiation, for one thing. Now when you take a blood sample there is a possibility that person you are taking the blood sample from could have the acquired immune deficiency syndrome virus.

I might say that there is an ad coming across the radio, put on by the Ministry of Health, which says the only way you can get AIDS is by sexual intercourse. I was always of the understanding that you could get AIDS from blood transfusions, you could get AIDS from using unsterilized needles, if you were actually a drug addict, and from various things, so I have questioned whether that particular ad is correct.

Also, I have been in a doctor’s office at five o’clock at night and that office would still be full. I do not know when that doctor got through, so there was a certain amount of stress involved with his job, plus the fact that doctors in small-town Ontario are usually involved in or usually give 24-hour service. They have to go out, when they are called, in blinding snowstorms and icy roads and that sort of thing.

I agree with the member for York South that we should pay tribute to all those who have sacrificed their lives on the job in providing service to other people.

1030

Ms. Collins: As a member who represents a riding with a strong labour base, I fully appreciate and support the labour movement’s desire to formally recognize workers who die on the job.

However, no one group has a monopoly on concern for workplace health and safety. Everyone in this province has a stake in improving our occupational health and safety system. Everyone loses when a worker is injured on the job or contracts an occupationally related illness. Everyone gains when a workplace is a safer place to work. Thus we are not talking about remembering injured workers for one day of the year. We are talking about making improvements to the workplace health and safety system to prevent the occurrence of these injuries, illnesses and deaths 365 days of the year.

This government is committed to making these improvements. The objective of this government is to ensure that workers return home safely from their jobs at the end of the day. Real progress in achieving this goal will come about only when we succeed in creating an environment in which both workplace parties in each and every workplace of the province accept full responsibility for workplace health and safety every day.

The fundamental prerequisites for that kind of co-operative undertaking are a commitment and a willingness on the part of labour and management to join forces to prevent occupational accidents and illnesses. To facilitate progress along these lines, the present Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) is holding ongoing discussions with representatives of labour and management on these issues. This consultative process is essential to obtain the commitment of both workplace parties to make the health and safety system work. This commitment forms a necessary cornerstone of a truly effective health and safety system.

In the near future, this government will introduce legislation that will put Ontario in the forefront of occupational health and safety reform. This comprehensive reform package will reflect the concerns and aspirations of the workplace parties themselves for a health and safety policy that strengthens their duties and shared responsibilities. It will result in real progress in preventing precisely the kind of workplace illnesses and accidents referred to in this resolution.

So far as the resolution itself is concerned, I may not agree with the tone of the preamble. However, I do support the substance of the resolution. It is important to mourn for the victims of work-related injury and disease. However, a one-day remembrance will have little meaning if it does not lead to an everyday improvement in workplace health and safety.

Mr. Mackenzie: I would hope that all of the members in this House will support the resolution that has been put forward by my leader and colleague. The proclamation that has been called for by the Canadian Labour Congress and the Ontario Federation of Labour and by workers in Ontario at convention is not one that stops all the things that have been mentioned by the member for Wentworth East (Ms. Collins) that the government could be doing, but it certainly gives a bit of a focus and a day on which we can remember one of the groups that probably gets the least recognition for its contribution to society and for its suffering in terms of their contribution to society.

I think the proclamation that came from the labour movement in this country is useful to read into the record. It simply says:

“Whereas every year more than 1,000 Canadian workers are killed on the job and whereas thousands more are permanently disabled and whereas hundreds of thousands are injured and whereas thousands of others die from cancer, lung disease and other ailments caused by exposure to toxic substances at their workplaces; and whereas April 28 of each year has been chosen by the Canadian Labour Congress as a day of mourning for these victims of workplace accidents and disease, a day to remember the supreme sacrifice they have been forced to make in order to earn a living, a day to renew approaches to governments for tougher occupational health and safety standards and more effective compensation, a day to rededicate ourselves to the goal of making Canadian workplaces safer; I do hereby proclaim April 28 as an annual day of mourning in recognition of workers killed or injured or disabled on the job.”

Surely we are not asking too much when we ask to set aside a day that does allow us to charge ourselves with a renewal of our efforts in the field of health and safety in Ontario and in this country of ours. Surely this initiative should have come from government, be it federal or provincial, and should not have had to come necessarily from the trade union movement. If the government wants to pick another day, fine, I guess it could have; but they have taken the initiative and have promoted it right across this country of ours.

I think the statistics speak for themselves in terms of what is still happening when it comes to health and safety in the workplace. I think some of the background and some of the history is worth remembering. I can recall in my early days in this House the fight which had been going on for a long time then, of the Johns-Manville workers. I think most of you know that better than 60 per cent, I think it is actually over 70 per cent, of all the workers in that plant suffered as a result. The number of deaths there from lung disease was unbelievable, yet it took not months, not years, but decades, to win the fight and establish the fact that it was a workplace hazard causing the problems.

We look around us even today. I happen to have had an annual meeting in my riding last night, where we elect our officers for the coming year, and four of the active people and four of the participants standing for elected office in my riding association are injured workers or workers who are on or had been on or are still on workers’ compensation as a result of workplace injuries. I think you do not have to go far in our community and in our society today to understand the effect that injuries in the workplace have had and the fact that we have not given it the attention we should.

The government is taking a number of initiatives. Where it does, I congratulate it, but there are a number it has not yet taken. We have had one raised, for example, in this House in the last session, and one that caused some heat. I am talking about construction sites. When he was the Minister of Labour, the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye), at building trades conventions I have attended where we have both spoken, was urging and promising additional protection for workers on construction sites.

I am using this only as an example. We have two construction sites in Ontario where we have mandatory health and safety committees: the bank and the SkyDome project down here on the waterfront; two. The building trades in this province have asked for mandatory health and safety committees on major projects, major building sites, for at least four years now, that I know of, through their conventions and through appeals to the government and to the ministers of labour, both the previous government and this current government in Ontario. Yet we have today two major construction sites in Ontario with a mandatory health and safety committee on them in spite of the strong request from the workers involved.

Why is that? What is the holdup? What is so difficult about that particular issue? Why should that not be brought to the attention of members of this House? Is it because the other side, which is the contractors, has steadfastly argued against and fought against mandatory committees on construction projects? One has to wonder if contractors have not had one heck of a lot more influence with governments in Ontario than the workers have. Usually it is not the contractor himself who will end up with a back injury or a death, whether it is a wild elevator ride or what have you; it is the workers on those construction sites.

What is wrong with us taking a day during which we have a moment’s silence and recognize that better than 1,000 workers are dying each year in work-related accidents and that those in the thousands are affected with work-related diseases? What is wrong with taking that minute’s silence on a set day each year? Also, what is wrong with lowering our flags to half-mast on that particular day? How does that in any way whatsoever stop us from doing the things that should be done on a day-to-day basis and as a commitment and initiative of a government in Ontario?

As a matter of fact, I suggest, in as restrained a way as I can, to all members of this House and to the member for Wentworth East, after her few remarks, that setting this kind of day to recognize the contribution workers make, the negative contribution in terms of their lives and their health, and lowering those flags to half-mast and taking a minute’s silence may indeed force all of us to have a little more respect for things like health and safety in the workplace and a little more commitment to doing the kinds of things that are necessary for healthier workplaces.

1040

We could have been very tough in terms of our feelings and our comments on this. I want members to know that if one goes down to a labour convention, one thing they are really getting into the swing of things on is the health and safety conditions they have to work in -- and these are large plants, small plants, construction sites and industrial sites right across this country -- the kind of protection they have, what is there and what they can do to prevent the disastrous effects that have been there for previous workers and their widows, who are suffering because we did not have the kind of safety and health legislation we should have in Ontario.

They understand it, and when they talk about safety and health in the workplace the terms they use are to prevent and stop the slaughter in the workplace. They are not doing it for effect of words only. They are doing it because the workers in those plants have had situations where they have had to deal with accidents and injuries, where they have had to handle the compensation claims and the efforts to establish a pension for the widow of a worker who has been injured. God only knows -- one can take a look at nothing but the fight in the mines, to try to establish pensions for the workers in the mines, to know that it does not come easy.

I can recall sitting in the Ministry of Labour estimates in this House in 1976 when officials of the Ministry of Labour told us we were nuts when we were trying to make links between the death of gold miners and their work in the mines and there was absolutely no proof and nothing we could say that would convince them -- and these were ministry people -- there really was a connection which should mean quicker action in deciding that the widows of gold miners were deserving of pensions.

We had the same thing, maybe not quite to the same extent, in terms of some of the uranium miners. Just within the last year or two, as all members in this House know, we now know there is a clear connection, something we knew 10 or 12 years ago when we were arguing this issue with members of the government at that time. But we could not move them on it.

Surely we need some kind of a symbol. The symbol itself does not do it, but I think it is a marker, something that gives us that little jab we need every once in a while to realize that all of us in this House have a real obligation in terms of our commitment to the kind of legislation that makes it better and safer for workers in the workplace.

Surely it is not asking too much for the unanimous endorsation of this resolution and the follow-up which sees that we do take that minute’s silence, do lower our flags to half-mast and do recognize on that day that we have an obligation, a job which is not yet finished.

Mr. Cordiano: I rise today to speak on this resolution as one who has been touched personally by tragedy. My father, who was killed on the job some 29 years ago as a very young man -- he was about 28 years old -- came to this country as many other people have, as an immigrant, and found his new place in this country with tremendous opportunity for many, many people. But he lost his life on the job. It is certainly the case that there were very few safety procedures in effect at that time. The efforts that have been made since then, while incremental, certainly have gone some way to reducing the fatality, the loss of life and the toll that has taken on our society.

I did not know my father. I was but an infant and had just had my second birthday when he died, but I can tell members and recount some of the suffering my family had to undergo. My mother, who then became a widow, certainly suffered quite a bit. I say that because I understand the countless numbers of people in my constituency who go through similar loss and similar suffering. There is not a person in this House who has not seen that toll take effect on his constituents. Some of the newer members, if they have not seen it already, will see it some time in the future, and hopefully not too much of it.

There are numerous workers out there who are injured on the job, as has been said earlier, almost daily. We should not pride ourselves on that. We should look back and say that our work is ongoing, it is never complete. There is a lot we can do in this area to further the cause. When we look at the people who have suffered, this is the very least that we can do for them. I urge the members of the House to support this resolution unanimously, as the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) has hoped.

I do not want to go on any further about this. I just want to say that I support and commend the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. B. Rae) for bringing this forward. It is certainly long overdue. I stand here partly saying to myself that perhaps I should have done a little more to further this endeavour. I would like to say today that I will continue to support the efforts in this area to further the cause and advance safety in the workplace, trying to reduce the number of injuries. I thank all the members and hope they will support this resolution unanimously.

Mr. Farnan: Just briefly, I would like to focus the issue as far as I see it. The motion put forward by my leader and colleague is one that simply says, “Let us remember, and let that memory influence the decisions that we make.” In a nutshell, that, to me, is what this day of memory, this one minute of silence in the workplace, symbolizes. It symbolizes one moment in the year when the family of Ontario, the family of workers and individual families, will reflect upon its experience.

As families, we celebrate moments of happiness and moments of joy. As families, we also come together to remember those moments of pain and sorrow. To deny that life is made up of both joy and sorrow is to deny the reality of life. In putting forward this motion, my leader is saying: “Let us stop for one moment in the year. Let us pay tribute to all of those men and women who go to work every day.” It is not only those who are injured and who die. There is also a sense of celebration that there is the living as well, because many people do work in a hostile environment. Sometimes the very nature of the job demands that there be risks. Our job as legislators is to ensure that those risks are minimized to the greatest possible degree.

I think all members of this House can bring together the statements that were made this morning, the statements to remember and to work towards improving the environment. There is no dichotomy of view between us, as the arm of government working for better legislation in the area of health and safety and recognizing on April 28 the workers who have died and the workers who have been injured and, in a sense, celebrating the workers who are living.

1050

Mr. Runciman: I know Conservatives are frequently painted as people who do not care about the workers of this province and I think that is certainly an inaccurate perception that is sometimes put before the electorate. I want to just make a few brief comments in complimenting the Leader of the Opposition for introducing this resolution and indicating, certainly, my personal support and I believe the support of all of my colleagues in the Progressive Conservative Party.

I have had some experience going back a number of years in dealing with the problems of injured workers and in dealing with workers who had to go to work on a regular basis in very hostile environments. This is something that I have not talked a great deal about in this House, but my experience was as a union president during some years of startups of chemical plants when we were dealing with hazardous conditions on a 24-hour basis and fought to ensure that practices and procedures were put in place to ensure as best we could the safety of the people involved in those plant operations.

I also personally suffered a very serious industrial accident a number of years ago when I was sprayed with liquid urea. Fortunately, at the time I was wearing safety goggles while watching an employee perform a duty, but as a result of a faulty pressure gauge I suffered a serious industrial accident. Fortunately, my eyesight was saved and I have not suffered any scarring from that incident but I have suffered from skin cancer as a result over the years.

I was also on a shift a number of years ago when a fellow worker was caught in the conveyer system and, over a period of half an hour, slowly lost his right arm -- he was a right-handed individual -- to that conveyer system. The employer was very supportive of that individual and he is back gainfully employed in another work area in the firm and doing an outstanding job.

Certainly, we have a great many people in this province who have to work under difficult circumstances. Although this is a symbolic gesture on our part, I think it is an indication to people across the province that we care, that we are going to, on a regular basis, do the best we can to improve their lot right across this province. Again, I want to indicate my personal congratulations to the Leader of the Opposition for bringing this forward and indicate our support.

Mr. B. Rae: I am obviously happy with the response which the resolution has received. I will write down the number of occasions upon which members have congratulated me and those words will appear in all my future leaflets. This happens so rarely that I am obviously very pleased.

Mr. Runciman: That might do more harm.

Mr. B. Rae: No. I say to the member for Leeds-Grenville, there are people in my constituency who I know will be affected by his words and I need all the help I can get, as I might note he does as well, if we look at our mutual results in the last election.

Seriously, I do want to thank the members for their participation in this moment and to say that I hope very much that, as a response to the passage of this resolution, the government does, in fact, take steps to see that on April 28, this month, we do signal to the workers of the province our commitment to remember and recognize them in our workplaces and throughout our daily activities.

I think the words that have been spoken by the member for Lawrence (Mr. Cordiano) and the member for Leeds-Grenville in terms of their own experiences are a far more eloquent statement of our common situation as the family of Ontario than any words, either loud or quiet, that I might utter this morning. I think it is the experience of the families of this province that speaks to this issue. It is that experience that we have to reflect in our work and in our endeavours.

The member for Lawrence said he wished he had done more. I do not think there is a member in this House who could not honestly say those same words. Of course, we all wish we could do more. Some of us wish we could be in government so we could in fact do more, but still we have a common obligation as members to do more.

That is really what this resolution is about. It is a chance to remember, to reflect as a common family in this province our experiences, our loss, our sadness and yes, our recognition. Yes, it is a chance as well for us to all say to each other we can do more. We can do better. We can protect life and health better. We can advance it better. All of us have a common obligation to do that.

ORDER-IN-COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS

Mr. Runciman moved resolution 15:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government of Ontario should immediately implement the 1986 recommendation of the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly to provide that all order-in-council appointments be subject to review by a committee of this Legislature.

Mr. Runciman: I am going to try not to be too partisan in my comments today in respect to this subject, although when one is talking about patronage it is certainly difficult to avoid that totally.

We are here really to talk about the appropriateness of what is occurring with the government of Ontario in terms of the order-in-council appointments -- not necessarily the appropriateness of those appointments, but the fact that the government, a number of months ago and following election to office, and prior to that really in the accord with the New Democratic Party, indicated that we were going to be looking at significant changes in respect to the appointment process. In fact, I believe there was a commitment in the accord that significant change would occur.

In December 1985, the Premier (Mr. Peterson) said: “This government makes its appointments on the basis of merit alone, on the basis of what a person can do rather than on whom a person knows. This government intends to appoint the best people regardless of political affiliation to assist us in the business of government.”

We have a number of other quotes from the Premier over the past three years dealing with the patronage-appointment issue. The reality is that the rhetoric just does not line up with the actions and deeds of this government in respect to its appointment process.

We have talked about a number of things on occasion, such as the social assistance review board, and I want to talk about that at some length. We do have, and this was in 1976, an all-party committee report dealing with the appointments process which was supported by the Liberal members of that committee. Granted, it was during a minority situation, but I do not think that should deter the members across the room from considering the position their colleagues took in 1986 and the validity of the comments made in the report respecting the appointment process and the changes that could help us all, and certainly make the government much more accountable to the people in respect to the appointments they make to agencies, boards and commissions in the province.

I hope that we are not simply going to hear from the Liberal members who are going to be speaking on this issue today some of the defensive pap, if you will, churned out by their speechwriters. I hope we are going to deal in a meaningful way with the recommendations of the legislative committee. If there are some criticisms and some weaknesses that the government perceives in the recommendations of the committee, let us hear about them. Let us bring the report forward. It has never been dealt with by the Legislature. If the government sees some weaknesses there is certainly nothing to preclude amendments or changes in respect of the recommendations, but let us get on with the job of making these appointments reviewed, in any event, and much more accountable to the people of Ontario.

1100

We had another comment from the Premier in June 1985 when he promised to replace the spoils system with the merit system, which in essence is much like what he said in December. The reality is that the government has been on something of a binge of patronage appointments since July 1985. That is the reality if anyone really cares to look at what is there to see. Regrettably, very few in the media have bothered or cared to look.

Unlike what has been happening in Ottawa, where practically every appointment is examined under a microscope by members of the press gallery there, here at Queen’s Park our gallery members, with a few exceptions like Jim Coyle, Rosemary Speirs and Eric Dowd, have been content to ignore reality, in my view, and thereby give public credence to the big lie that this regime is squeaky clean when it comes to dispensing patronage favours; or they have done what we have witnessed in today’s Toronto Sun by Lorrie Goldstein, probably the best investigative reporter in the gallery, who has spent his time criticizing the leader of my party for commenting on a recent appointment, tearing us apart for what took place in the past and reviewing ad nauseam appointments of known Progressive Conservatives to agencies, boards and commissions in the province. Maybe that is fair ball and perhaps we deserve some of the criticism Mr. Goldstein is directing our way.

The reality is that we, as a party, are committed to the recommendations contained in the 1986 legislative report. We are prepared to support them in this House and support legislation in that direction that the government would bring forward. That is the reality. We are prepared to support it. If Mr. Goldstein wants to take a close look at us, he and other members of the gallery should also be taking a look at what has been happening since July 1985 in respect to the appointments patronage machine that has been churning away in the back rooms of Liberal Party headquarters and the Premier’s office. I think that is fair ball.

Let us take a look at the reality. In the past I know members are quite aware that I have raised a number of questions about appointments to the Social Assistance Review Board. The majority of the new appointees to that board are very clearly associated with and identified as members or supporters of the governing party. We see the print apologists, such as the Toronto Star and the Ottawa Citizen, having the temerity to suggest that these appointments were open and above board. We have the Toronto Star article of November 25, 1987, dealing with this question of the Social Assistance Review Board.

The second-last paragraph is that the government appointments process in respect to SARB is a fair process of public advertisement and impartial selection. In my view, that is real neglect on the part of the author of that article in terms of her responsibility to take a look at what exactly has happened in those appointments. I think it is very accurately reflective of the cursory look the media has given to the patronage network the Liberal Party has built up over the past three years.

Another article in the Globe and Mail of January 2, 1987, is written by someone I consider to be an excellent reporter, but this again is reflective of a very careless look, if you will, at the reality of the appointments process. Mr. Sheppard makes mention of how fair the Liberal government has been. One of his examples is that Douglas Creighton, president of the Toronto Sun newspaper, “a relentless critic of the Peterson Liberals,” has been named to a select panel to advise the Premier on compensation levels in the civil service and for cabinet appointees.

Of course, the reality is that we know whom Mr. Creighton and the Toronto Sun supported in the 1987 election. They certainly did not support the Progressive Conservative Party. They supported my friends across the aisle.

That is an indication, in my view, of the rather cursory look the gallery has been giving to what is occurring in the appointments process within the government of Ontario.

I want to talk a bit more about the Social Assistance Review Board process. The government did go through what I think was a charade in terms of public advertising for this position. They advertised across the province indicating some 12 jobs at $55,000 a year. I gather there were over 1,500 applications for those positions. What happened in terms of the selection process? The people who were ultimately selected for interviews were interviewed in the presence of the assistant to the minister, which certainly lends credence to the fact that political influence played a role.

When we take a look at the final decisions, and we have to acknowledge that a majority of the successful applicants had connections to the Liberal Party of Ontario, I think we have to be pretty darned naïve to believe that is just a coincidence that about eight out of the 12 have clear ties to the Liberal Party of Ontario.

Do members call that a fair process of public advertisement and impartial selection? That is what the Toronto Star has suggested it was. Talk about operating with blinders on. They are really not taking a good look at it, or at least most of the members of the gallery are not taking a look at it.

That in itself is bad enough, but the fact is that this government, through its patronage machine, deceived in reality probably close to 1,500 people who believed what the government was saying publicly about opening up the process and basing its selections on merit. They believed it and put in their applications and résumés -- very well qualified people, many of them, indeed. What happened? They did not have ties to the Liberal Party, so many of them simply were not given the look they merited. That is something that, again, has been up to this point ignored.

I think that the media have let the Premier off on this one. They have continued to portray him as a straight shooter in terms of political appointments, and I am sure that is going to be reinforced by my friends across the row when they make their comments.

Mr. Wiseman: When they try to get into cabinet.

Mr. Runciman: Yes, that is right, but the reality is dramatically different from the rhetoric.

Interjection.

Mr. Runciman: We have an interjection about what Mr. Davis did. I do not know; the member must have been absent when I made my comments earlier that I am not here to defend --

Mr. Sterling: Nothing has changed; that’s the problem.

1110

Mr. Runciman: Some criticisms are probably justified. What I am saying is that the member’s leader has made some very public commitments to open up the process and to make it a merit-based process and system, and he simply has not done it. He is making public statements getting on his soap-box and saying, “We’re squeaky clean”; but at the same time, he has the big red patronage machine in the backrooms in high gear, that is the reality.

We have an all-party committee that has recommended changes. I have said, and I will say it again for the benefit of my friend across the way, that we are committed to supporting that so that governments from this day forward will be committed to that kind of a review process. We support the recommendations of that committee, like the members of his party who sat on it just a year and a half ago.

Again, I do not want my comments to be perceived as suggesting that in respect of the Social Assistance Review Board those individuals who were appointed were not qualified. I really do not know. I hope my comments are not interpreted as a negative reflection on those individuals. They may well indeed be qualified people, and I certainly hope so for the sake of the individuals appealing before them and the municipalities administering the social assistance programs across this province. Time will tell.

I think that certainly there is a role for political appointments. I am not and I am sure many of my colleagues are certainly not dead set against the idea of patronage appointments. I think it makes some degree of sense that people who share your views and philosophy are the people you want to have, to a substantial degree, participating in those agencies, boards and commissions of the government. At the same time, I think it is for the benefit of all taxpayers and all citizens of the province if we open up the system to ensure that appointees have qualities that are useful to those boards and commissions and are not there just because of a history of service to the party.

I think it takes a load off the government as well. It is not going to have to be subjected to this kind of criticism as the next three years go by. It is going to have this process available. All parties are going to have the opportunity to sit down and review the appointments recommended by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. It is eminently fair, as the member’s colleagues agreed just a few short months ago. What could have changed in the interim to have them saying something different today? I am going to be very optimistic that what we hear today is going to be supportive of that unanimous recommendation of 1986.

On my way in here, the member for Durham-York (Mr. Ballinger) and I were briefly speaking about the resolution, and I inquired as to what position the Liberal Party, the government party, was going to take. He indicated this was a totally free vote. “We do not receive any direction, Bob.” I will buy that when I see the results of this vote, because let us face it, if they reject this today, they are rejecting the recommendations of their colleagues from 1986, they are rejecting the recommendations of the other two parties in this Legislature and I think they are rejecting the wishes of the people of this province.

They want to see the process opened up. We have seen the criticism that Mr. Turner was subjected to in 1984 because of the flood of patronage appointments when Mr. Trudeau was leaving office and Mr. Turner was succeeding him. We have seen the criticism Mr. Mulroney has been subjected to. I think people right across this country, and not just in Ontario, are sick and tired of these blatant appointments where merit is open to question. I think we can remedy that in Ontario. We can open up the process. The government has talked about no walls, no barriers, opening this up to the public, opening this government up to the public. Let us see, just once, that it matches its deeds with its promises.

We have had a series of broken promises, and up to this point in time this is just another one of those broken promises. I am again urging my colleagues. I know my colleagues to the right are going to be supporting this. They are going to be consistent with the recommendations of the report. I urge my colleagues across the floor to do likewise.

I gather I am going to have a little additional time and it may be beneficial to tack that on to the end so I can respond to the comments that come forward, especially from the government side of the House.

Mr. Cordiano: I just want to say that I will attempt to be as nonpartisan as possible in the spirit of what my colleague had said earlier. Here it goes; let me try.

I want to refer back to the committee report tabled in June 1986. I gather that is what my friend is referring to. I just want to read a passage from that report, because I think it is important to note that while there was a consensus taken on the report, there was not necessarily agreement on all the recommendations made in that report. I want to read the paragraph which states:

“The recommendations contained in this report represent a consensus of opinion rather than complete agreement on every issue that was before the committee. While each member of the committee may not agree with every recommendation, your committee is pleased to present a report that each member can support.”

There you have it. There were members of our party on that committee who supported the overall consensus that was reached, but they certainly did not agree with each and every one of the recommendations made in that report. I just point that out for clarification.

Let me carry on from there, because there are a number of issues I would like to touch on with respect to the report. For example, let us deal with the principles in the report, the real heart of the matter, as I would like to put it: first, that the process be open; second, that there be fairness and equity and that appropriate qualifications be a central component of each of these positions to be filled; and, finally, that there would be some accountability.

Let me deal with each one of these three principles, on which this report, issued by the committee which my friend was talking about earlier, was based.

Openness: I would say that with the number of appointments we have made, there has been an open process. We receive almost daily hundreds of résumés for each of the positions which are available. I want to point out that at this time there are something like 4,800 order-in-council appointments the government can make. If you use the fact that each one of these appointments is for a three-year period, then each year you would be talking about approximately 1,500 appointments.

The member referred to the Social Assistance Review Board. I was parliamentary assistant at that time for Community and Social Services. I want to look at that process because it is very pertinent. He says the majority of the appointees were Liberals. I am going to deal with that in just a moment, but let me look at this fact. There were 1,800 applicants for 12 positions, 1,800 résumés. Each one of those résumés was screened and each one of those résumés was given some consideration. There were 70 interviews, no less, 70 three-hour interviews for each one of those applicants that made it past the first stage and into the second stage. Finally, 12 members were selected.

I would like to look at the composition of that board, pointing out that at least one of the members -- and there were many more who certainly were not Liberals; if some of the members were Liberals they certainly were well qualified. I am not saying that none of these people was a Liberal. You have to understand that the majority of people in this province are now Liberal, so some of them are going to come forward. A person of note who is not a Liberal and a very high profile person on that committee, my former colleague, the member for Bellwoods, Ross McClellan, was selected for this committee.

There are a number of appointments this government has made, and we stand up for each one of those appointments. We have been as open as possible in screening the applicants. We have been as nonpartisan as possible. We have selected a number of very high-profile people for various positions in this government -- high-profile Tories such as Bob Elgie and a number of others from the New Democratic Party, just to name a few. I will not go through the whole list because I know some of my colleagues will mention those other lists. Some of my colleagues will mention those other members and I am sure they will get the message.

1120

We have certainly been as open and as fair and as nonpartisan about this process as one could ask. I do not think there has been a government that has been more open and nonpartisan. The people we have appointed have come from all walks of life, from all parties. This process has been a very fair one. We have appointed people to represent a broad cross-section of this province, something that was not done before. I speak from experience. The new face of Ontario is well represented in this government. There have been a number of people from various backgrounds, various walks of life and all kinds of professions who have been appointed to various boards, agencies and commissions of this government. That is an undeniable fact.

If as my colleague pointed out the media have given a cursory look at some of these appointments, could it be that they perceive this process is a fair one? Is that a possibility?

Mr. Sterling: There is no process.

Mr. Cordiano: Come on. There is a process that is in place. We do have --

Mr. Sterling: You’ve published a list; big deal.

Mr. Cordiano: Let me deal with the summary of the recommendations from the committee report. The government makes available a list of potential appointments. This government has done that. We have fulfilled 12 of the 20 recommendations put forward by this committee report. We have carried those out.

Mr. Sterling: Tell us about recommendations 8 and 9, where the guts of the report are.

Mr. Cordiano: I will deal with those in just a minute. We have dealt with all of the recommendations that do not specifically refer to the review process. I will tell the members why: because it is unworkable.

Mr. Sterling: The federal Parliament is doing it. The House of Commons is doing it.

Mr. Cordiano: Can the member imagine dealing with 1,500 appointments each year? Can he imagine a legislative committee sitting down and going through a review of each of these appointments? I think that is what the member is asking for, and I think it would be impractical, virtually impossible, for all the applicants who come before the government now to be dealt with by the committee. It would be an unworkable and untenable situation.

Mr. Sterling: There are more in the federal Parliament, and they are doing it there.

Mr. Cordiano: They are certainly doing it. We will find out how the process is working. The majority of members on that committee happen to be Conservative.

I do not know that the process the member is talking about -- that is, that the committee would screen these applicants -- would depoliticize what happens. That is a bogus review process that we are talking about in Ottawa, a very bogus one because, as I say, the majority of members on that committee will still be Conservative.

Mr. Sterling: That’s what we’re asking for here. Give us the bogus process.

Mr. Cordiano: It is not going to solve the problem. As I say to my friend here, it will not solve the problem. We have been open. My friend talks about accountability; he can bring whatever he wants to this House and stand up in this House and be heard by all, saying that we have been unfair or that we have been whatever he wants to say, criticizing this government.

Mr. Wiseman: Come on; you don’t really believe that.

Mr. Cordiano: He is saying the House is not accountable. Is he saying that we are not going to be accountable from now on in answering questions, putting before the Legislature whatever proposal he would like, whatever criticism he would like of the government of the day? That is what this Legislature is all about.

I say to the members that the situation which the member is talking about, a review process, would be very unworkable, untenable and highly impractical. What the member is talking about could not be carried out for 1,500 appointments. It just could not be done. It would be bogged down.

Mr. Sterling: They are doing it in Ottawa; they are doing more than 1,500.

Mr. Cordiano: I do not think so. As I say, it is a bogus committee which is not working. I do not believe that it is going to depoliticize the --

Mr. Daigeler: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Will you please rule whether it is in order that the member for Carleton keeps interrupting the member who is speaking.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The chair recognizes the member for Lawrence.

Mr. Cordiano: My friend the member for Carleton can speak until the cows come home, but I just say to him that I do not mind his interjections; they spur one on, especially when it is the member for Carleton.

Anyway, let me just sum up and say to the member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Runciman) that we have given careful consideration to the recommendations made by the committee and we do not think some of these recommendations are workable. The review process would be a very impractical thing to go to a committee. This government has carried out a number of the recommendations of that committee. We have a data bank, which is in effect now. The process is more open. We have a broad cross-section of Ontarians being appointed to these boards. I think that is more than the former government or any government before it can say.

Mr. Philip: The comments of the member for Lawrence (Mr. Cordiano), that somehow this motion should be rejected because this government is somehow less corrupt than the previous government, are so completely erroneous that I do not think they bear any kind of comment or any kind of respect. That is basically what the member is saying.

He is also saying that somehow by doing a head count we are dealing with the issue. In other words, if we deal with a head count, and say X number of Liberals, X number of Conservatives and X number of New Democrats have been appointed by this outdated system, somehow we are dealing with the process problem that this resolution addresses itself to. Of course, it does not, because if members look at some of the European systems that use the head-count system of appointments, they have some of the most corrupt, most patronage-ridden, most inept systems of appointing people into high places of responsibility. It does not work there and this kind of system does not work here.

Appointing three good people does not mean that somehow the government is doing a service to the public because it is allowing a whole bunch of other incompetent people to be appointed or to go to the trough. That simply is an erroneous idea and does not deal with the essence of the report the motion addresses itself to.

I would like to deal with this in the context of what I think is happening in North America, Australia and Europe at the present time, a process happening in this country to a very great extent and to the credit, I think, of members of this House. Perhaps Ontario is helping to lead the way, although the federal House of Commons certainly has been doing an awful lot.

As chairman of the standing committee on public accounts, I know we have a great number of public servants appearing before me, usually in distress because they are in some kind of trouble. But let me share one of the interesting things I have discovered. I just had a comment from the member for St. Catharines-Brock (Mr. Dietsch) this morning about my sending a note to him about the excellent job he was doing as a government member on that committee in dealing with some sensitive issues and in asking some tough questions. The public accounts committee is struggling with the way of operating in a nonpartisan way so it can deal with issues that are of concern to all of our constituents, whatever our political persuasion.

What we have also in the standing committee on the Ombudsman is a committee that has operated for the most part in a genuinely nonpartisan way, maybe one or two members excepted. Certainly the chairman, who happens to be a Liberal, has operated in a completely nonpartisan way. I think the committee is operating very well. There is a trend in that committee also to deal with issues in a nonpartisan way in a complex society.

The member for High Park-Swansea (Mr. Fleet), who is in the House, chairs a committee and has been doing an excellent job; an excellent report, I think, will be coming forward from his committee dealing with private bills and regulations. We are in the process of drafting what I think is a very constructive, positive report on how there can be more accountability in terms of regulations, which affect so many people’s lives, that the bureaucracy can often draft without the knowledge of the minister who is responsible for a particular ministry. These can often affect people in a way that is even more dramatic than the legislation we may debate in this House.

The standing committee on the Legislative Assembly is preparing a report now on ways of making the Legislature more workable, but also making the bureaucracy more accountable. We see this across the country. What we see is a pattern of concern about accountability. I believe it stems from the complexity of society. It does not stem necessarily from a whole bunch of politicians deciding, “Gosh, wouldn’t it be nice to be nonpartisan for a while?”

What is happening is that society is becoming so complex that many of the issues cross party lines. There is no Liberal solution to a particular problem, there is no Conservative solution and there is no New Democratic Party solution. There is a solution that reasonable people, looking at a problem, can bring themselves to and then hold the bureaucracy accountable for what is a reasonable solution to a particular set of problems.

1130

On May 9, I have the honour of being the guest speaker at a convention in Montreal of the Financial Management Institute of Canada. I will not recycle my speech, but I will just give you the headings, the kinds of things they asked me to address and which I will be addressing. Who is being held accountable? What should the standing committee on public accounts hold the government accountable for? To whom is the government accountable? How is accountability ensured?

This resolution is part of that process. It says: “Look, people can operate in a nonpartisan way and appoint good people who will in fact be responsible for enacting the will of the Legislature, the will of the people who have been elected to serve their interests.”

Among the conclusions and recommendations which I will be dealing with in the Montreal convention will be certain processes that we are looking at in the standing committee on public accounts to make it even more nonpartisan, to make government members feel that they are there not just to defend the government but to deal in a reasonable way with problems that exist in any bureaucracy under any government of any political stripe.

In the United States -- and I am just back from Washington where I met with several congressional committee chairmen -- we saw that the big issue in Congress is oversight. You look at one committee after another and they are dealing with the problem of oversight. What happens when legislators who are democratically elected have passed certain things and the bureaucracy or the administration manages to subvert that? That essentially is the question. The member for High Park-Swansea will confirm this. That is the major question that is being dealt with in his committee at the moment.

What we have is a system in which we are looking at different ways of dealing with a complex society that has created a huge government, many agencies and many things that are then not accountable. At the top of these agencies we have people who are appointed who must have integrity but who also must have accountability, in the United States to Congress -- and that is why they have such an elaborate system of screening appointments -- and in Canada to Parliament, not to the government but to Parliament. That is what this resolution deals with.

This matter is of such importance across the country that in July the mover of this motion and I, along with the chairmen of two other public accounts committees and Aideen Nicholson from the Liberal Party in the House of Commons, who is the excellent chairman of the public accounts committee there, will be presenting a major report on how to deal with it from a public accounts point of view. That was a request of all of the provinces -- not just one but all of the provinces -- that wanted to deal with the issue of how to make things less partisan and more workable and how to make the bureaucracy more answerable.

This is part of the question. I say to my friend that one way of dealing with this is to get this report into the House. The member for Lawrence says that it is a consensus report, it is not an absolute majority report. There may be some dissenting opinions on one item or another; and that is fair, society is complex. I do not know any major important issue where members of my own party can agree on every item, let alone members of the House. We all have our own backgrounds, our own professional development, our own experiences, that allow us to look at complex problems in just a slightly different way. But the way is not to shirk it, as the member for Lawrence would say, saying: “Well, it won’t work. It seems to work in Ottawa, but it can’t work here. It seems to work in Australia, but it can’t work here.” It works in British Columbia in the most polarized parliament in this country, where members of the opposition and members of the government will not even stay at the same side of a cocktail party together, and yet they have developed a system in the Ombudsman’s committee where the Ombudsman is appointed by consensus -- not by majority vote but by consensus. And it worked very well, thank you.

I say to my friend that if it can work in the most polarized province, British Columbia, it certainly can work in Ontario, which is less polarized. This is part of a process that is ongoing. Do not stand in the way of a historical process, one that is so necessary for the people of Ontario.

Mr. Sterling: As a member of the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly which drafted this particular report, I want to rise and speak in support of it.

Let me say this at the beginning. I do not think that people who get involved in politics in an open fashion should be discriminated against when it comes around to appointing those people to agencies, boards or commissions of this government or of any other government. I do not think that we should be embarrassed, as politicians, to appoint our own kin to boards and commissions. Therefore, I do not object when the Liberal government appoints a Liberal to an important post. I just want them to be up front about it and open, and acknowledge that they are doing the very same thing that we did when we were in power for 42 years.

What this particular report does is take on the public’s objection, the legitimate objection, that incompetent people are being appointed to various positions, be they Liberals, be they Conservatives or be they New Democrats. That is what the committee is trying to prevent, and in fact it is trying to help this government appoint competent people to important posts.

I think that when a new government goes into power, as we had the Liberal government go into power a few years ago, it has every right to appoint Liberals to a number of positions. If, as they have, the people of Ontario have elected a new group of people, represented by the Liberal Party to represent them, then part of that mandate is to have its way of thinking -- if anyone can ever discover what it is -- and it should put its own people in those important positions so that its philosophy, its way of thinking and its way of governing can filter down into these very important bodies that it makes appointments to.

I have no objection to them appointing -- in fact, I think in a lot of ways, this government has been fair to a number of former colleagues in this Legislature, for instance. They have appointed a number of them to responsible positions in a nonpartisan way and I congratulate them for that. But they are missing the point with regard to this particular report, and I wish they would talk to some of their federal colleagues in the House of Commons, because our federal Progressive Conservative Party, which we agree with on this particular issue, on all fours, has implemented under the present government -- although it has not received much notoriety -- a review process for every appointment that is made by the cabinet of Canada; that goes before committees of the House of Commons.

Here in Canada every appointment is reviewed by various committees, if they so desire. The system is working, and the system that they are using is very similar to this system, except that their system has the opportunity for greater review than this system. What this system does is permit a committee first of all to examine an appointment if it wants to examine it. I expect that in most cases, as is the case with the Canadian parliamentary experience, most appointments would not be reviewed because there would just not be time.

1140

Secondly, under this particular system members of a committee can do only one or two things. They can say, “We concur with this appointment” or “We do not concur with this appointment.” They cannot say, “This guy is a Liberal hack,” “This guy is a Conservative hack” or “a New Democratic Party hack. He is incompetent. He is bankrupt. He or she has nothing to offer.” All they can say is “We concur” or “We do not concur” and they report to the House.

Now, the Premier and his cabinet do not have to accept what the committee says. They can stick with that particular appointment. So the process of the review, put forward by the committee as a matter of fact, is a weaker process than the one that is place in Ottawa now.

Therefore, what we are asking for here was approved by all of the members of that committee, and while the specious argument was put forward before that all members of the committee did not agree with all parts of it, there is an obligation on a member of a committee to write a dissenting report if, in fact, he differs with the guts of that particular report.

When we talk about the guts of this report, we are not talking about the phoney argument the Liberals put forward that they have done a lot of things by publishing a list of the agencies and that they have set up a place where you can apply. Big deal; that was done before under our government. We did not advertise and we did not publish a list, but the step that they have taken is virtually nothing. We agree with that step and we should have done that, but the guts of this report is a review process.

We had four Liberals sign that. We had the member for Carleton East (Mr. Morin), and Mr. Newman who is no longer with us in the Legislature. We had the member for Chatham-Kent (Mr. Bossy). We had the now Minister without Portfolio responsible for disabled persons (Mr. Mancini) also sign this particular report or agree with this report.

Hon. Mr. Mancini: On a point of privilege, Madam Speaker: So that the honourable member does not in any way mislead anyone in the House, particularly the new members, it should be stated that all the former members of that particular committee did, in fact, sign the report, with the waiver that we did not necessarily agree with the report in its entirety.

Mr. Sterling: There is an obligation on us here in the Legislature if we want to be honest with the public. One cannot sign a report and say later, “I did not agree with the guts of it anyway, because I did not agree with all of it.” That is phoney.

I would like to go to one other point and I hope the Premier and perhaps some of the people within his office would take this into consideration. I think it is important and I think the members of the committee felt it was important that the review process be put into place in order to maintain some element of political integrity in terms of the appointment process.

In the Liberal political party and the New Democratic political party and in the Conservative Party, we all have people who believe that because they have been associated with us in some manner they have earned an appointment to a very important post. When they come forward to the Premier or to any one of the Liberal members, it is very difficult, with somebody who has worked very hard, let us say in a political campaign or has worked very hard for the party in another manner, to turn that person aside and say, “Joe, you really did a good job for us but you are incompetent.” You cannot really say that to a person who is your friend and who has supported you but who has not got the skills that are necessary in order to take on an important appointment.

Therefore, once you have a review process in place it does two things. It makes the government of the day much more careful how it appoints people and whom it appoints, and it gives it a very much needed out to say to people who have been good to the party and good to them in a political manner: “Joe, you have done a good job, but you are going to be put in front of a committee. You are going to have to prove yourself in front of a committee. You can be cross-examined and we do not want to subject you to that.”

Mr. Black: It is a pleasure for me to participate in this debate. I am pleased that the member for Leeds-Grenville in introducing his resolution noted that he was trying to act in a nonpartisan way. I want him to know that I accept that from him, although I must tell him that there will be many members of this House who will have difficulty with that. I do accept that. We recognize his intentions are the best.

There may be some people who will ask, for example, “As a member of the government in his previous life, did he introduce a similar kind of resolution at that time?” There may be some who will ask, “As a member of the executive council, did he work within the government to bring about the changes he proposes today?” I am not one of those. I will not ask those questions. I take the member at his word. I accept the fact that he is acting in a nonpartisan way, but I want him to know that I cannot support his resolution and I want to tell him why I cannot support his resolution.

First of all, I want him to know that the resolution is no longer required. There was a time in the history of this province when there was a need for such a resolution. We had 42 years of Progressive Conservative government and let me tell the members that during that time there was a need, and it was a need that was well recognized in a government that for 42 years fuelled its election program at the patronage pump. Now the question we must ask is, where was the member for Leeds-Grenville during that period of time with his views? Indeed, where was the member for Carleton (Mr. Sterling) with his views during that period of time? We know where they were.

Mr. Sterling: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: This particular document on which the resolution is based was done in 1976 and I believe the Liberal government has been in place at least since that date.

Mr. Speaker: That is a point of information, I gather, not a point of order. The member may continue.

Mr. Black: I did not realize the Liberal government had been in power since 1976; however, I am prepared to accept that.

We know where the member for Leeds-Grenville was during that period of time. We know where the member for Carleton was during that period of time. They were getting an insider’s view. They were looking at the question of patronage from a close-up perspective.

There is another reason I am not going to support this resolution. This government has been sensitive to the patronage issue in a way that no previous government in this province has been able to claim it has. Unlike previous governments in this province or unlike our current cousins down in Ottawa, we have given some sunshine and some fresh air to the appointment process.

We have placed an emphasis on ensuring that we have the brightest and the best people. I must tell you, Mr. Speaker, that our attempts to appoint the brightest and the best have been made somewhat easier in recent years because the people of Ontario solved the problem themselves: they made sure that many of the brightest and best from the opposition parties are now available for government appointments.

I want to read into the record some of those appointments. Our friends in the Progressive Conservative Party would have us believe that our record is similar to theirs. I want to make it very clear that our record is not in any way similar to theirs.

There are names such as Joanne Campbell on the Social Assistance Review Board, Odoardo Di Santo on the office of worker adviser, Donald MacDonald as chairman of the Commission on Election Finances, Elie Martel on the Environmental Assessment Board, George Samis on the Ontario Highway Transport Board, John Sewell on the Metropolitan Toronto Housing Authority and Dorothy Thomas on the Rent Review Hearings Board. Those are not names which are familiar to all Liberals, but they are familiar to people in the New Democratic Party.

There are names such as the Reverend William Davis on the rent review board; Frank Drea as chairman of the Ontario Racing Commission; Robert Elgie on the Workers’ Compensation Board; Mickey Hennessy on the Assessment Review Board; Morley Kells on the rent review board; and Frank Miller as chairman of the Ontario International Corp. board of directors, a former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, a man who, to their everlasting shame, they could not find a position for or could not give recognition to.

1150

I want to make the record very clear. We will not be associated with previous governments of this province in terms of the way we handle appointments.

A third reason we are unable to support this is because what is being proposed is unworkable. As my colleague the member for Lawrence has pointed out, there are over 2,500 order-in-council appointments. Many of those are for three-year terms. That would mean that an average of 800 names would have to be reviewed annually by committees. I have sat on committees with the member opposite and I know the kind of workload they shoulder when they sit on those committees. I know how busy they are. I would not want anything to add to that workload, which they find so heavy.

We have been offered the alternative, the model of the Mulroney government. We have seen the record and we have seen the practice of having a committee to review appointments. I am somewhat shocked, I must say, that members of the provincial Progressive Conservative Party want to associate themselves with that government and its record of patronage appointments. That comes as a shock to me, as I am sure it does to many members of this Legislature.

I want to point out that in introducing his resolution, the member for Leeds-Grenville made reference to statements by the Premier in 1985. I want to stress to everyone in this House that if we want to make comparisons, we would be happy to compare the record of this government and the public perception of the record of this government in terms of patronage, to any government which has previously governed Ontario or to any government which previously governed or presently governs Canada. We will be only too happy to have that comparison made by any unbiased source. I am sure that all members of this House will be as pleased to see the results of that comparison as anyone.

In conclusion, I want to tell my friends opposite that this will not depoliticize the process. Not all committees are nonpartisan, as much as people might like to think they are. It has been known in the history of this House, and in the not-too-recent past. Although some of us were not members at that time, we read with great interest in the press how reviews undertaken by committees of this House had been conducted in a supposedly nonpartisan fashion. I think we would question whether, in fact, that was done.

We would argue, for example, that the American model which has been presented to us and held up to us on occasion does not depoliticize the process. We would point out that we have all had the experience in recent months of watching the appointments to the US Supreme Court and watching what happens to individuals who fall victim to that process.

In conclusion, although we recognize that the member for Leeds-Grenville is a nonpartisan person, we recognize that his motives are the best -- although his record may not be as clean as he would like to suggest -- we are unable to support his resolution.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Beaches-Woodbine. I believe there are about three minutes available.

Ms. Bryden: In those three minutes I want to express my support for this resolution. I think it is a very important part of opening up government. You will recall that in May 1985 the New Democrats and the Liberals signed an accord which facilitated the change of government. Open government was one of the important parts of that accord. Let me read what it said on that subject: “Establishment of a select committee on procedures for appointments in the public sector to recommend changes in the system of recruitment and selection of public appointees.”

The government did follow through on appointing the select committee. We now have the report of the committee -- it is a standing committee, rather than a select one -- and it is time to move on to the next step of implementing that report, because we will not have open government and the removal of the appearance of patronage in appointments until we do have the process set forth in the committee report.

I think it is time that we got into step with what is being done in Ottawa, in the United States and in other jurisdictions, reviewing all appointments by order in council to agencies, boards and commissions, and even crown corporations where we have a majority share ownership.

I say full speed ahead, and let us make sure that these positions are advertised so that the public knows when the vacancies occur and that the qualifications, if there are specific ones, are set forth and the rates of pay are available. I think Topical would be a good place to advertise every two weeks what vacancies are coming up, so I urge that as a possibility for the committee to consider.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Leeds-Grenville for one and two-thirds minutes.

Mr. Runciman: Really, Mr. Speaker, I thought I had more than that. I had set aside three minutes. Just as a point of order, I requested three minutes at the outset.

Mr. Speaker: A member can certainly request. However, if more than the allotted time is used up, then the remaining time is available.

Mr. Runciman: I will just try to deal briefly with the comments made. The member for Lawrence was certainly grasping for straws suggesting that there was a way out in terms of the wording of that report. He had a very long reach indeed in implying that the majority of Ontarians are Liberals based on the results of the last election. I certainly was not talking about their political voting patterns; I was talking about very clear connections to the Liberal Party of Ontario.

We talk about the process being unworkable. I am suggesting if the government wants a review process we can make it workable. We do not have to review all the 1,500 appointees in terms of interviews and appearing before the committee. The process can work. That is an argument that does not stand up to scrutiny.

Interjection.

Mr. Runciman: There are more weasel words from that member who signed the report; now he is trying to back out of it.

The member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay (Mr. Black) said there is no need, but as was emphasized by the member for Carleton there was clearly a need in 1986, supported by members of that party. He talks about the number of nonpartisan appointments. They are window-dressing; we know they are window-dressing. I am not prepared to go back over the previous years. I can mention Jim Breithaupt, a very high-profile Liberal whom we appointed. There are all kinds of them.

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has expired.

Mr. Runciman: This government has a shabby record.

Mr. Speaker: Order. That completes the allotted time for debate on the two private members’ items.

DAY OF MOURNING

Mr. Speaker: Mr. B. Rae has moved resolution 18.

Motion agreed to.

1204

ORDER-IN-COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS

The House divided on Mr. Runciman’s motion of resolution 18, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes

Allen, Brandt, Breaugh, Bryden, Charlton, Cooke, D. S., Eves, Farnan, Hampton, Harris, Jackson, Johnston, R. F., Laughren, Mackenzie, Marland, Martel, McLean, Philip, E., Pollock, Pouliot, Rae, B., Reville, Runciman, Sterling, Villeneuve, Wildman, Wiseman.

Nays

Ballinger, Black, Brown, Carrothers, Cleary, Collins, Cordiano, Daigeler, Dietsch, Elliot, Faubert, Fleet, Kozyra, Lipsett, Lupusella, MacDonald, Mahoney, Mancini, Matrundola, McGuinty, Miclash, Nicholas, Nixon, J. B., Offer, Owen, Pelissero, Poirier, Ray, M. C., Roberts, Sola, South, Stoner, Wilson, Wrye.

Ayes 27; nays 34.

The House recessed at 12:08 p.m.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1:30 p.m.

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

PLASTIC EMI SHIELDING INC.

Mr. Breaugh: I want to say a few words today about a company in Bowmanville called EMI. I know several of the ministries are involved in this. It is certainly a rather strange situation. It is a company which has manufactured hoods for computers rather successfully, we thought. The province has, I believe, about a $3-million investment in this firm. There is an air of secrecy surrounding what is happening with it now. We know the company had some labour and management problems. We know the company has closed its doors. We know the company is in receivership.

What we do not know is what the role of the province is in all of this. We do know, for example, the Ministry of Labour is obviously involved in this matter. We know several other ministries are a party to some kind of negotiations.

I am asking today for the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara), in particular, to take the lead and to make a statement as soon as he can, so that the people who are affected by this plant closure have some knowledge of what is going on. It is complicated, we admit, by the fact that the people who own the company seem to be somewhat confused themselves about what they need, what they want and what a government can do; but I am asking today for the Minister of Labour to take this matter under consideration and to respond as quickly as he can with the details of what precisely the province is doing now and what it should do to rescue this very important operation in a small town like Bowmanville.

RECYCLING PLANT

Mr. McLean: A recent announcement that a recycling plant employing 350 people will be built in Whitby has been called “a boon to environment and the pocket” by a spokesman for the Recycling Council of Ontario, which advises the provincial government on waste disposal issues. This plant, which will remove ink from newspaper, could use up much of the surplus 300,000 tonnes of used newsprint per year which otherwise would be dumped in our landfill sites. These plants also create jobs.

The minister should throw his support and assistance behind more such plants which could recycle plastic, glass and aluminum, as well as paper. The minister must be aware that recycled plastics can be used for strapping for shipping boxes, plastic lumber for fences and boat docks, paint brush bristles and fibre filling in jackets and pillows.

Recycled glass can be made into new bottles, glasphalt for road paving, bricks, tiles and reflective paint for road signs. Recycled aluminum can be used for new aluminum cans and other items such as lawn chairs, window frames or castings for car parts. Recycled paper can be used for game boards, record jackets, egg cartons, book covers, paper matches, gift boxes and a large percentage of grocery store food boxes.

A similar plant owned jointly by Quebec and Ontario Paper Co. has been in operation for several years.

STUDENT RESIDENCES

Mr. Adams: Only the community colleges in northern Ontario are authorized to establish and operate student residences. This is a regulation which is out of phase with the province-wide, national and international roles of most, if not all, of Ontario’s colleges.

Permission to establish student residences would enhance the status of the colleges of southern Ontario, would provide a valuable service to out-of-town students and would add a new dimension to college life. In addition, in many of the smaller college towns, the availability of student residence space would relieve pressure on much needed low-income housing. In short, authority to establish residences would be a simple, progressive step towards allowing our colleges to further strengthen their place in the province’s education system.

I urge the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Mrs. McLeod) to give all community colleges in Ontario permission to establish, and where necessary operate, student residences.

HOSPITAL FUNDING

Mr. Farnan: I wish to bring to the attention of the Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan) and this House the totally unacceptable funding situation under which the Cambridge Memorial Hospital is being asked to function. The hospital administrator, Mr. Robertson, in a recent press conference asserted, “We are reaching the stage where we cannot continue to operate at the continued level of government funding.”

As of March 31, the hospital had a deficit of $1.8 million. Unless the government provides the deficit funding, hospital spokesmen are predicting that they may have to close beds and shut down some of the services presently provided.

The minister must be aware that the population of Cambridge is growing dramatically, with increased demands being placed on all hospital services. According to Mr. Robertson, the hospital has run out of answers and money.

The consultants hired by the province to review operating efficiency have concluded that the Cambridge hospital “seems to be justified in providing the services that it is and is operating efficiently.”

This information has been in the hands of the minister for some time. Surely the hospital administration should be immediately informed, at the very latest when it meets with the ministry on April 19, that it will receive the $1.8 million. The minister cannot afford to stall.

Failure to do so would be tantamount to forcing Cambridge hospital to break the law. The minister must surely be aware that the government legally requires hospitals to provide certain services. Without the $1.8 million necessary to provide these services, it is impossible for the Cambridge Memorial Hospital to maintain its present quality of care.

NURSING HOMES

Mr. Wiseman: I would like to bring to the attention of the House the very serious problem of improper funding of nursing homes. I know from meeting with operators in my riding that the situation is causing grave concern in two nursing homes in my area, Riverview in Smiths Falls and Almonte Nursing Home in Almonte.

I also know this problem is not limited to Lanark-Renfrew. It is a worry everywhere in the province. As most members know, there are waiting lists for chronic care beds all over the province, and because of the lack of space nursing homes are being forced to admit chronic care patients. These patients require more looking after, in most cases, than do extended care patients, yet the government provides the same $58.53 per day for food and nursing care for these people as it does for those more able to fend for themselves.

I sincerely believe we are doing our people a great disservice with this practice. I call upon the government, the Premier (Mr. Peterson) and the Minister of Health -- who I see is talking to the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) at this time; a good opportunity to get some money -- to rectify this unacceptable situation.

CROATIAN NATIONAL DAY

Mr. Sola: In Croatian history, April 10 is a day of great significance. On that day in 1941, after 839 years of foreign occupation and control, the people of Croatia realized their dream -- freedom.

In the face of an Axis invasion, the Croatian people, en masse, refused to defend the tyrannical Yugoslavian regime that had been imposed upon them after the First World War. Instead, they proclaimed their independence and even dared to outlaw the Nazi Party. In opposition to the Axis occupation, many Croatians began resisting the foreign troops, and soon Croatia had the largest anti-Fascist resistance in the world, some 280,000 strong. Meanwhile, the much-heralded Tito could muster no more than 10,000 into his ranks.

It is significant that today Croatians throughout the world, including those who fought on opposing sides during the war, recognize, celebrate and accept April 10 as the most significant date of their heritage.

This weekend, Canadians of Croatian descent will celebrate this date. While enjoying the advantages of our adopted home, we would hope that the most cherished elements of our Canadian heritage -- freedom, independence and self-determination -- were available to all the subjugated peoples of the world.

Too often, this event is taken out of context and misunderstood.

LABOUR DISPUTE

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I want to bring to the attention of the members of the House the 11-week strike at Lily Cups in my riding, a company which for 35 years has been operating there with only two small work stoppages. It is now 11 weeks long and it is a harbinger of free trade woes to come on the labour front, and I think members should all know about it.

1340

A company, Fort Howard from the United States, which is used to working in right-to-work states, is taking away six weeks of holidays from its workers, has unilaterally reduced the work week and has taken away floating holidays retroactively. I ask the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) if he will not pull in that company and explain to it that coming here union-busting, and bringing the United States approach to labour legislation, is inappropriate in Ontario.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

CHILD CARE

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I have two statements today. The first one refers to direct grants for child care.

I wish to bring members up to date today on the status of direct grants for child care centres. As members will be aware, last June I introduced the government’s comprehensive plan entitled New Directions for Child Care. In that paper we announced our intention to provide direct grants to nonprofit child care centres beginning in the 1987-1988 fiscal year. I am pleased to advise the House that cheques are now being issued to more than 1,600 nonprofit day care centres and private-home day care agencies across the province. These cheques cover the period between January 1 and March 31, 1988. This expenditure is cost-shared by the federal government under existing legislation.

At the time of our announcement, we also indicated our desire to provide equivalent direct grants to the profit-making sector. We said in our document, “The province is prepared to extend these grants to the existing commercial sector, provided that the current federal restrictions are removed.”

Last December, along with my counterparts from other provinces, I met with the federal Minister of National Health and Welfare to consider a new national child care strategy. The Canadian government agreed in principle to share the cost of direct grants to the for-profit sector and the Ontario government later indicated its desire to begin these grants on April 1, 1988.

I have repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, sought guarantees from the federal government that cost-sharing of direct grants to the for-profit sector would be retroactive to April 1. While the national government has indicated its intention to introduce a new child care act this June with the degree of retroactivity we have requested, it is unable to offer any guarantees of the passage of that legislation at this time.

This puts Ontario in a very difficult position. Providers of for-profit child care are expressing alarm. Some are already reporting the loss of staff to the nonprofit sector, which is able to pay higher salaries using the very direct grants that we are now distributing. Parents who have made the decision to place their children in a profit-making centre fear an erosion of the quality being offered to their children as the two sectors compete for capable staff in an environment where the nonprofits are more richly funded.

In the absence of federal government movement on its legislation, Ontario’s child care system as we know it is threatened. A large number of spaces, some 40 per cent of the total, are at risk. We have said repeatedly that we will extend direct grants to the existing for-profit sector only if the federal government restrictions are removed, but our government will not stand by and risk the loss of the services being provided by this for-profit sector. Accordingly, I would like to assure members that Ontario is prepared to proceed with its share of the direct grants to existing commercial child care centres retroactive to April 1, 1988.

The Ontario government recognizes there are limits on what it can do on its own. Direct grants to individual private centres will only be the equivalent of 50 per cent of the grants being given now to nonprofit centres. However, we are determined to keep our promise. We are depending upon the federal government to eventually pass its legislation and to make its cost-sharing retroactive to April 1. Only in this way will both nonprofit and existing commercial centres in Ontario and the families they serve be treated in a just manner. I believe that it is incumbent on all of us to raise our voices together to counsel the national government to make an urgent priority of its new child care strategy and to resolve these issues.

Parliament must be given the opportunity as soon as humanly possible to consider this new legislation and to make a reality of what is now only a proposal. In this way, we can ensure the viability of a part of our child care system which offers support to thousands of families across this province.

CHILD PROTECTION

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I have a statement with respect to amendments to the Child and Family Services Act.

I am pleased to introduce today proposed amendments to section 40 of the Child and Family Services Act. My ministry is strongly committed to developing a social service system in Ontario that is truly responsive to the needs of vulnerable children and young people. This requires an ongoing review of legislation in order to maintain a workable balance between the rights of children and their best interests.

Experience with the Child and Family Services Act during its first two years of operation as well as continued consultation with child welfare agencies have identified the need for certain changes regarding the apprehension, care and protection of runaway children. I would like to advise the House of the major changes to the act that I am proposing today.

First, the amendments will permit police and child protection workers to obtain a warrant allowing them to apprehend runaway children on their parents’ request and return those youngsters either to their own homes or to a place of safety.

Second, runaway wards of the crown or a children’s aid society can be apprehended without a new hearing finding them in need of protection.

Third, young people who have run away or attempted escape from open detention or custody facilities can now be admitted to secure detention.

Fourth, young people needing an emergency, short-term stay can be admitted more easily to secure treatment facilities.

I also propose to strengthen the existing curfew provisions in the act. We will clarify that children who are in public places between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. must be accompanied by their parent or an individual 18 years or older who has been approved by their parent.

Finally, in order to bring the legislation in line with the Mental Health Act, I propose to permit care givers to initiate a closed hearing to determine whether records of mental disorders should be disclosed in court hearings.

These proposed changes are the result of a lengthy and intensive reassessment of the Child and Family Services Act. The consultation process was exhaustive, and I urge all members to support these important amendments.

We shall continue to search out creative and innovative ways to deal with the complicated problems of troubled youth.

BUDGET

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I would like to advise the House that I intend to present the 1988 budget to the Legislature on Wednesday, April 20, at four o’clock in the afternoon.

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION

Hon. Ms. Hošek: I want to take this opportunity to inform the House of our intentions regarding the Rental Housing Protection Act.

Over three million people across Ontario live in private rental housing. It is the largest single source of our affordable housing supply and an irreplaceable asset for the province. We must work hard to assure its future. The role of the government of Ontario is to provide a framework for protecting tenants and providing fairness to landlords and to pursue the long-term public interest in preserving existing rental stock.

Originally, this commitment took the form of the Rental Housing Protection Act, which came into effect on July 10, 1986, and placed stricter and more extended controls on all types of conversions, demolitions, renovations and severances of rental housing stock in Ontario’s larger municipalities for a two-year period. Although the act has been successful in reducing the loss of affordable rental stock, it was designed as an interim measure and carries a repeal date of June 30, 1988.

In the course of our consultations, it has become clear that we must work towards the development of a new policy, one that offers long-term security for both rental property owners and tenants. Further work is necessary and further discussions must take place before such a policy can be established. Later today, I will be introducing an act which proposes to extend the Rental Housing Protection Act for a period of one year. This legislation would provide a new repeal date of June 30, 1989. I look forward to all members supporting an extension of the current act so that we may continue to provide effective protection for tenants.

1350

On the basis of our consultations thus far, the government believes that any future policy must encompass the following general principles: first, the protection of our existing rental housing stock; second, the protection for tenants now living in our existing rental housing; third, the encouragement and provision of suitable opportunities for home ownership; fourth, the assurance of proper maintenance and the upkeep of general standards of all rental housing; and finally, the equitable treatment of all rental property owners.

While a range of future approaches may be considered, there are two options which do not meet these principles. Allowing the Rental Housing Protection Act to lapse with no alternative measures is simply not a viable option in the present housing situation. The other extreme, which is to place an absolute prohibition on certain changes to the rental housing stock, would greatly discourage investment in rental property and endanger the quality of our housing. The government, similarly, does not believe this alternative to be a viable policy response.

There are, however, a number of possible future approaches which would fall between these two extremes. The government believes it is possible to develop solutions which are both creative and practical and will address the various interests concerned with this issue. In order to help further the consultation process, I am releasing a discussion paper entitled The Rental Housing Protection Act: Future Directions, which outlines alternative approaches for the future.

This discussion paper will serve as a consultation document. All interested parties will be invited to submit their views to my ministry by July 1, 1988. My parliamentary assistant, the member for Chatham-Kent (Mr. Bossy), will be working actively with ministry officials in reviewing the submissions and meeting with interested parties.

I know that members here present will have practical proposals of their own. I welcome these, either as part of the immediate consultation process or, of course, during the legislative process.

Our challenge is to find a new direction, one which addresses the concerns of all members of the rental housing community. I am confident that the action being taken today will enable us to respond to this challenge.

RESPONSES

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION

Mr. Breaugh: I would like to reply briefly to the statement by the Minister of Housing (Ms. Hošek). It is a little bit unfortunate that after a year of study what we have is a discussion paper of all the things we knew a year ago. Most people I know who are aware of the problems and benefits of the bill in question are thankful that there is some piece of legislation there but sadly and critically aware of the loopholes in the current legislation. I am concerned that the minister did not take some steps to at least alleviate some of the rather embarrassing loopholes that are in the law.

The problems that surround vacant buildings now are getting worse. It seems to me, as one observer of the system, that when a building is vacant it serves no useful purpose save and except one thing, which the minister did mention in her statement today in her concerns about investment in real estate. I caution the minister that one of the things she has to do is to kind of set aside her concerns about investing in real estate and get a little more concerned about tenants who need a place to live, and that is particularly the problem we face with this.

We have no difficulty in saying the bill should be extended for a year, but it would have been nice to have been able to say today not just that we have a discussion paper of all the facts that we knew last year; it would have been nice to be able to acknowledge today that we have learned something in the process, that there are some major loopholes in this legislation which need to be plugged now, either by means of legislation -- or perhaps one constructive suggestion I could make to the minister now: is it not about time that the minister and her ministry officials went to municipalities and asked for a little bit of uniformity across Ontario so that the law is applied equally from one municipality to another? This bill certainly does give the appearance of a bill that is in force if the local municipality feels like it and not in force if it does not.

CHILD PROTECTION

Mr. Allen: Responding to the two statements by the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney), first with respect to the announcement regarding runaway children and the Child and Family Services Amendment Act:

I understand there have been some problems and concerns that police forces have had in Ontario with respect to the problem of being sued in their apprehension of young people who are runaways and in the discharge of their duty. At the same time, I want to say we have some reservations with regard to some of the proposals. I know that they have undergone extensive consultation, but with regard to questions such as making it easier to admit young people to secure treatment facilities or, for example, those surrounding the question of existing curfew positions, I would hope those would be submitted at least to the standing committee on social development of this Legislature for some review and consideration before the minister proceeds further in this direction. I want to make those reservations clear and to suggest that procedural item.

CHILD CARE

Mr. Allen: May I say with respect to the proposal to augment, in the absence of federal funding and support, the grants for the profit sector in the day care program, it seems to me that the minister has really not resolved an ongoing policy dilemma around private profit and not-for-profit day care centres.

The day care coalition in this province has affirmed time and time again the superiority of not-for-profit day care in this province. If in fact the private for-profit sector finds it difficult to compete with the not-for-profit sector, it would appear to me that one ought to let nature take its course and let the not-for-profit sector triumph and win in that contest, if indeed it has that superiority and that additional support which makes it possible.

I appreciate the problem of individuals in that setting, but none the less it seems to me that affirms the policy direction that ought to be taken.

Finally, by providing additional support unilaterally, the province is sending unfortunate signals that will come back to haunt it under the free trade agreement where, on the basis of national treatment, private profit day care operators in Ontario may well be able to find a way, as American suppliers move in, to capitalize on this kind of a proposal. That issue still hangs out there and the minister still has to face it directly. There are problems with what the minister has proposed and I sympathize with his difficulty. The federal government will not define its position at all to give him some margin of operation.

CHILD PROTECTION

Mrs. Marland: In the main, the amendments to the Child and Family Services Act do make sense. I do want to be sure that the section dealing with the curfew is very clear in that it is only children up to 15 years of age. Also, where it says “must be accompanied by a parent or an adult,” we are not going to have parents and adults going out on the paper routes at three o’clock in the morning with these youngsters. I think there has to be some give and take in that section and I am sure the minister and his staff are well aware of the strength of that and not the misuse of it.

CHILD CARE

Mrs. Marland: With the statement on the direct grants for child care, I must say it is very exciting in this House on Thursday of this week to find that there is a statement in response to my question of Monday this week, and I thank the minister for his rapid response to this week’s question.

I would like to say, however, that this statement is a result of several months, many months. Last fall I stood in this House and asked what was going to happen to the funding for the not-for-profit sector and for the for-profit sector in child care. The minister addresses in the statement the very words that I have used about the concern of the erosion of quality in both sectors because they will compete for competent staff.

While the government says it will not stand by and risk the loss of services being provided today by the for-profit sector, I must say that when we look at this whole subject of funding not-for-profit or for-profit child care, we really should be addressing the fact that unfortunately this government seems to think that profit is a dirty word. In fact, there is no evidence to support the argument that the not-for-profit day care sector provides day care for children at a lower cost than do the for-profit centres.

When the minister says that the families they serve must be treated in a just manner, I think if the minister is really committed to serving these families in a just manner, the families from both those sectors, first of all he would have funded them equally from January 1 of this year, as he did the nonprofit sector, not just from April 1.

I think it is time we looked at what the cost is to the families. If the cost differential between the families is not there, then I think they should both be equally funded. While we are dealing with the subject of the federal money, of course, we are dealing purely with the subject of a pass-through to the provincial Treasury, not a pass-through to those sectors that provide day care in Ontario.

1400

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION

Mr. Cousens: The issue on housing continues to be an increasing surprise to all of us who have listened in the past. If you just go back to some of the lines from the Premier (Mr. Peterson), two years ago he said: “I can tell you the government is going to take a very tough line. We do not want to see the loss of any more rental housing stock.” That was with the Rental Housing Protection Act two years ago.

Here is the next little quote from David Peterson on the same day, “The legislation” -- the Rental Housing Protection Act -- “was introduced as a short-term measure to combat the real crisis in terms of affordable housing in Ontario and will be replaced with a new housing policy after two years.”

Now, we can count. We are close to the two years coming up to the May 6 time frame, and we have not seen the housing policy. When the government comes forward with bringing it back it is doing two things. One is to delay, and when the government wants to delay it brings out another study paper. I do not mind studying. We have all been to school before. We are going to have a chance to submit things to the minister and we are going to have a chance that the minister or her parliamentary assistant might read them.

The problem we have is that we do not trust this government to take seriously the crisis in housing in Ontario. We do not believe the government is not in a position, having promised two years ago to come out with a statement, to solve the problem.

It is not going to be easy to solve, and we want to help the government address that solution. There are ways of going about it. My leader and I have discussed it. We know there is an approach to be taken. We have been waiting and waiting. I think what is going to have to happen is that the bluff is called. Two years have passed; the government has done nothing. It is perpetuating a bill that is already flawed. It is putting everybody in a bind. What is going to happen a year after that with this problem? More of the same.

ORAL QUESTIONS

RENT REGULATION

Mr. B. Rae: I have some questions for the Premier. He will no doubt recall the infamous flips of Cadillac Fairview properties when he was occupying the seat which I now have in the House as leader of the official opposition. He will no doubt remember that his criticism of that flip was that it would produce speculative increases for tenants which would literally be out of control.

I wonder if the Premier could comment on increases such as the ones I am going to describe to him: 101 Gloucester Street, 22 units, sold November 26, 1985, to 407430 Ontario for $305,000 and resold on August 28, 1987, to another well-known landlord, 713711, for $990,000, which is a 224.6 per cent increase in 21 months.

How does the Premier feel, for example, about the building at 105 Isabella Street, which is 220 apartments, whose price increase went up in the space of 27 months by 124.3 per cent, from $3.9 million to $8.7 million in one transaction?

Can the Premier tell us what he now intends to do about a rent control law which, instead of providing protection for tenants, has obviously signalled to landlords -- indeed signalled to landlords but particularly to speculators -- that there is a market to be had there? What is the Premier going to do to stop this?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: My honourable friend is drawing some conclusions there that I am not sure can necessarily be drawn from the facts that are presented. I do not know if my honourable friend is saying that we should prevent people from selling things to each other. I am not sure what my honourable friend’s point is in that particular regard.

In the absence of knowing the facts that my honourable friend has in his hands, I cannot comment on the specific situation. I say to my honourable friend, we have a rent review situation in this province and in most cases it is working pretty well.

Mr. B. Rae: I say to the Premier that his government is sitting on a time bomb. Through the economic and financial loss provisions in their law, they have created a recipe for speculation and speculators are now taking advantage of it. If the Premier does not know it, there are bidding wars now going on for buildings. I would suspect that some of his cabinet members who have a better idea of what is going on in the street can tell him precisely the same thing.

I wonder if the Premier would like to comment on a building at 1050 Broadview Avenue in East York, 112 units, that sold in November for $4.7 million, resold in December for $5.3 million; the landlord then applied for a 15 per cent rental increase, claiming financial loss and relief from hardship, as allowed under the Liberal’s rent review law.

Just what kind of protection is there going to be for tenants in Ontario once the government has started this recipe for speculation, which is precisely what Bill 51 was? We warned them of it when the Liberals and the Tories joined together to pass the bill over a year and a half ago.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I would say to my honourable friend that I am not in a position to comment on the specifics of the point raised by my honourable friend. I will happily look into it and give him my thoughts on it.

Mr. B. Rae: If the minister thinks it is an exception and the Premier thinks that what I am quoting are not typical examples, I want him to rest assured; we will be here day after day with case after case of precisely where this is taking place.

Just one more example, Mr. Speaker, just so the Premier knows what is precisely the problem he claims to know nothing about: 5 43rd Street in Etobicoke, 108 units, sold May 27 for $2.3 million, resold on October 2 for $3.5 million, an increase of 50 per cent in less than five months.

I wonder if the Premier does not recognize that the Rosenberg price per unit, which he complained about in 1982, was $45,000 per unit. That was seen by the Premier and by everybody else as an entirely speculative price. He must now understand that that price is being exceeded --

Mr. Speaker: And the question?

Mr. B. Rae: -- in sale after resale after resale. The Liberals have created an environment for flips in their own law --

Mr. Speaker: The question?

Mr. B. Rae: -- and that is what tenants are going to have to pay for, thanks to the negligence of David Peterson and his government in passing Bill 51.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I do not accept the analysis that my honourable friend wants to bring forward in this particular case. He knows the pressure in the housing market, I know the pressure in the housing market, and I think we all understand that. The minister has been applying her mind to it, as has this government.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I say to my honourable friend that I think in general terms the --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Let me respond to him and say that I think the rent review situation that was put together and passed in this House a couple of years ago, by and large, has substantially moderated the rental situation.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. New question.

Mr. B. Rae: The Premier knows perfectly well that if a landlord knows he can get 15 or 20 per cent per year, they are building speculation right into the price of every unit. That is precisely what they have done. They have a weak rent control law, and that is what shafts people.

Mr. Speaker: The question?

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. B. Rae: My second question to the Premier is this. With respect to the question of Sunday working, he has stated on a number of occasions, as has his Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) -- though I notice that we do not have any indication from the minister as to what the protection is going to be -- that it is the intention of the government to introduce legislation which would protect employees.

Given the information that I provided the House with yesterday about the leases which many small businesses are having to sign in large shopping plazas, can the Premier tell us precisely what protection does the small business person have who owns his own store or business, who operates that business on his own or perhaps with one or two employees, if it is the decision of the municipality to proceed with a Sunday opening law? Can the Premier tell us precisely what protection those people have from having to work on a Sunday?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: They do not have to open.

1410

Mr. B. Rae: Can the Premier confirm that the only protection those people have is to lose market share to those businesses that decide to stay open on Sunday? Will the Premier not admit that what he is in fact saying is that with those people who, for religious or other reasons, family reasons, decide that they cannot open on a Sunday, the cost of their doing so is going to be to lose business to those businesses which decide they can operate on a Sunday? Is that not what he is saying?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member understands that operates now under the Sabbatarian exemption, where certain people choose to open Saturdays and certain choose to open Sundays. If the member wants to get as excited as he wants and extrapolate that into a general theory, I think he will find it works out quite well and that the fear he would like to create among people in this situation is not in fact justified.

Mr. B. Rae: The point about the current Sabbatarian exemption is quite different. It allows people to choose. The Premier has a Sunday shopping law, the one he is contemplating, from what we understand from all the statements he has made.

Interjections.

Mr. B. Rae: The Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) is choosing to speak from his seat, where he makes more sense than when he stands on his feet. He is certainly allowed to do that. I encourage him to do that.

Mr. Speaker: And the supplementary?

Mr. B. Rae: I say to the minister that all I have to go on --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps you will speak to the minister later and address your question to the Premier.

Mr. B. Rae: I wonder if the Premier, in responding to what is going on in the province, would care to comment on a letter he received, of which I received a copy, from Mrs. Lee of Stoney Creek, who writes as follows, talking about her husband, who is a retail store manager:

“Recently, he has been required to keep the store open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. five days weekly, and 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturdays. Under these new hours, we have seen a dramatic increase in his work week, a total of 60 hours on the average. We have three small boys who see their father one hour in the morning, an average of four hours Sunday afternoons after church attendance and perhaps two evenings weekly for two hours. We get minimal time together now, and I can assure you that Sunday shopping will destroy our family intimacy.”

Mr. Speaker: Question?

Mr. B. Rae: What can the Premier say to the Lees to assure them that they are going to be able to spend more time with their father on Sunday without having their father lose his business?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I am sure that if the member talks to my wife, his own wife or the wife or spouse of many people in this House, they would all say they would like to spend more time with their spouses. I am sure that is the case.

Mr. Breaugh: That is not what my wife says.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: There might be some exceptions in here. As a matter of fact, there are some people in here I would not want to spend any time with. I can, however, speak categorically for all members and all spouses of the Liberal Party.

I think the member will see, when this bill is brought in, that it will address a number of the situations and inequities that now exist. He is talking about a current situation, not a future situation. He will recognize again that no one is forcing that store to open at any time.

RENT REGULATION

Mr. Brandt: My question is for the Minister of Housing. It relates to a property I had the opportunity to visit some days ago in the very attractive town of Paris. I am sure she is aware of the location of Paris. The particular building in question there is called Telfer Place and it is a residence for senior citizens.

This particular property has now undergone a rent application on the part of the owners of this building of 9.7 per cent, which was applied for in February 1987. There was a further increase of 9.7 per cent applied for in 1988. I would like to ask the minister why in fact it is necessary for the residents of this building to pay the 9.7 per cent increase on their apartments prior to the application being heard by the rent review branch of the Ministry of Housing?

Hon. Ms. Hošek: The way the legislation was designed, those buildings that brought forward their application for an increase before a particular date in 1987 were expected to pay for that to begin with and then deal with the responses later. After a certain date, they are not. There is a cutoff date in the middle. It depends on the date on which the application came in.

Mr. Brandt: As the minister is aware, that subjects these tenants to an increase prior to the application even being heard, which brings me to my supplementary. In July 1987 the minister admitted that there was a backlog of 23,000 cases, and in November 1987 she said, “The rent review process is going more slowly than we wanted, but we are adding staff to the tune of a 25 per cent increase and that will considerably speed up the process.”

It was reported in a local newspaper known as the Toronto Sun -- or the Toronto Star, excuse me -- on March 28 that her staff --

An hon. member: What is the difference?

Mr. Brandt: There is a difference between the two. For the record, let me reassure members, it was the Toronto Star in which this report was released. It indicated that the minister’s staff had increased from 300 to 400, the budget had gone up three times and the backlog is still 23,000, the same as it was 10 months ago. When can we expect a speeding up of the backlog of cases that are on the minister’s books?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: The honourable member does not want us to hire more staff.

Mr. Brandt: They have already hired more staff. They are hiring more staff and the process is slowing down. My question to the minister is when --

Mr. Speaker: Order. I thought I heard the question. The question has been asked.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: I want very much to provide both tenants and landlords with some certainty in this situation. Our process of resolving the backlog in rent review is indeed gaining speed and momentum. However, I share the concern. It is clear that we have a very serious problem. We have devoted significant resources to solving the problem and we are working very hard to make sure that it is resolved in a timely fashion.

If the member opposite is saying that this is not a very cheerful story, I agree with him. If he is saying that this is taking much too long, I share the same feeling. However, what is very important is that we are devoting significant resources and effort to clearing up this problem.

Mr. Brandt: As we all know, the problem is not with the landlords or the tenants. The problem really is that both groups are frustrated with the lack of any speeding up of the review of those particular applications. In the applications that I brought to the minister’s attention today in question period relating to both 1987 and 1988, let me make a suggestion by way of a question.

Why would it not be possible for her ministry to deal with the 9.7 per cent applications over two years at the same time, in the interest of getting a decision from the Rent Review Hearings Board to the landlords and the tenants? The minister could expedite the whole matter very quickly and give the tenants at least some indication of what their rent increases are going to be.

My suggestion, very directly to her, is to deal with both applications at once. There must be other buildings throughout this province, and I know there are, that are in exactly the same position.

Mr. Speaker: I believe the suggestion by way of question has been made.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: I thank the member opposite for the suggestion, which is worth examining in greater detail. I should tell the member that I understand the frustration of the people involved in this situation because I speak to people who are dealing with this every day. I know the kind of frustration this uncertainty places them in. We have implemented a variety of administrative measures to try to speed up the process as much as we can. I will certainly take very seriously the suggestion of the member opposite.

UNIVERSITY FUNDING

Mr. Jackson: My question is to the Premier. Last year the member for Parry Sound (Mr. Eves) pointed out in this House that this government had instituted a new funding formula for universities which effectively limited the increased enrolments which universities could accommodate, and that as a result thousands of qualified young people in our province would be turned away from our universities.

The Premier’s personal response was, and I quote Hansard, “That is nonsense.” The government’s response was with an accessibility fund which we were assured would allow universities to accept all qualified students.

We now discover that the member for Parry Sound was absolutely correct, that what we had predicted did occur, and today in the paper we read that the Council of Ontario Universities says that one in 20, about 2,500 qualified students, were in fact denied a university education last year.

1420

Mr. Speaker: The question would be?

Mr. Jackson: The council predicts that one in 10, about 5,500, will be denied this year. The government’s funding formula has flopped, its accessibility fund has flopped --

Mr. Speaker: Does the member have a question?

Mr. Jackson: What is the Premier going to do this year to ensure that thousands of students in Ontario receive the education they qualify for, that they want and that they richly deserve?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: We have made a commitment to accessibility in our colleges and universities. lf my honourable friend does not know, I would be very happy to tell him of the expenditures that have been made in the last two or three years to fulfil that commitment. We are seeing a dramatic increase in enrolment rates across the province. We consider that to be a sign of success.

Obviously, it puts financial pressure on the system, but we think we are coping with that and will continue to cope with that in the future.

Mr. Jackson: The Premier was wrong last year. He is going to be wrong again this year. The consequences to Ontario students are obvious. Last year, according to the Western News, the University of Western Ontario was forced by his government’s inadequate funding level, and faced with record applications, to raise its basic entrance mark to 75 per cent average.

Western was not the only university. Unless the Premier agrees to change the formula and to change the accessibility envelope, students in this province who have attained a solid B average or even 75 per cent will be denied access to education at a time in our history when a university education is imperative for us to remain competitive around the world.

His accessibility did not work last year --

Mr. Speaker: Do you have a question?

Mr. Jackson: It is not going to work this year. When is he going to change it? What is he going to do about it?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I have to say I differ from the interpretation of my honourable friend. I would think the significant increase in enrolment is a manifestation of the success of the programs we have, in fact, been running.

Obviously, we are committed to accessibility. We are committed to the maximum number of young people receiving post-secondary education. If my honourable friend looks at the facts, I think he will see there has been this major commitment of funds over the last little while.

Frankly, I say as kindly as I possibly can, his party is not credible on the issue of post-secondary financing. It left a hell of a mess for us to clean up and we are doing it and I will give him the facts as they develop, if he would like to hear them. But I say to him, look at the commitments, and I say to him that we are meeting those objectives. We are seeing increased enrolment. We are very happy to see this demonstrated success of our programs.

Mr. Jackson: London is not alone. In the Premier’s second home town, according to the York Gazette, last year, as a result of his government’s underfunding, York University was able to increase its acceptance rate by only 1.7 per cent with an unprecedented increase in applications.

We are looking at 5,500 students being denied access to Ontario universities. They are asking the question of the Premier today in this House if he will honour the promise he made in Hansard of June 15, 1987, when he said, “I will give the member the guarantee that every qualified student will find a place in a post-secondary institution in this province this fall.”

Those students are asking him when he is going to keep that promise.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I will say that the fact is we have kept the promise, in spite of the member’s view that we should be cutting our spending, presumably, and not spending more in post-secondary education.

I say to my honourable friend, university operating grants have increased 24 per cent over the last three-year period. College grants have gone up by 35.6 per cent. The Ontario student assistance program has gone up by 26 per cent. The faculty renewal programs have added 500 new professors to the system. The Premier’s council is committed to $200-million worth of funding to fund excellence in our universities.

Indeed, the list goes on and on and on of the major new infusion of life and excellence and accessibility into our system. I say to my friend, I do not deny there are pressures on the system. There are and will continue to be. The pressures are a sign of success. We will meet them as a government. But I say again, that government left the post-secondary system in a mess, by any objective assessment one wants to use. That is absolutely the reality of the situation, and my honourable friend should be embarrassed, pleading for more on one hand and, on the other hand, asking us to cut back.

INCOME TAX

Mr. Laughren: I have a question for the make-the-pay-poorer Treasurer.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: Make the poor pay.

Mr. Laughren: Make the poor pay.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: He makes the pay poor too.

Mr. Laughren: Yes, he does that too.

Mr. Wildman: What he really meant was the poor Treasurer.

Mr. Laughren: I have a two-part question for the Treasurer. I would like to ask him, first of all, who he thinks should pay the most income tax between these two groups --

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Is he talking about the Tories and the NDP?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sure it is a very important question. Please allow the member to place his question.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: He’s done way too much research.

Mr. Laughren: It is not too much research; it is just good research.

First of all, who should pay the most tax? Then I want to ask the Treasurer who he thinks does pay the most.

Interjections.

Mr. Laughren: I am going to need your protection, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I remind members that we try to get in as many questions as possible. It has already taken about a minute and three quarters to even think of the question. Would the member place it?

Mr. Laughren: It is giving the Treasurer time to think of an answer.

On one side is an Ontario family of four at the income level of $21,700. On the other side is Brascan, an Ontario-based company with 1986 profits, the latest that were available to us, of $136 million; Cadillac Fairview, also an Ontario-based corporation, with 1986 profits of $58 million; Xerox, the same year, with profits of $59.7 million; and the Toronto Stock Exchange, which had 1986 profits of $6.1 million.

Which does the Treasurer think should pay the most income taxes: that family of four at the poverty level or those companies? Second, who does he think really did pay the most?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, do you have the feeling that is a loaded question?

Since I think I know the answer, I will tell the honourable member that, like him, I am very much in favour of a fair and equitable distribution of taxation responsibilities across the whole spectrum of the taxpaying public, both individual and corporate.

Mr. Laughren: May I take that answer to mean that in the Ontario budget which will be brought down on April 20 there will be for the first time in Ontario a minimum corporate income tax so that there is a more appropriate sharing of revenues raised in this province than there is at the present time?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Actually, following on the lead of the previous government, which established a capital tax, we have expanded that to some extent and all corporations at the present time pay that, whether they are profitable or not, even the ones that the honourable member would designate as highly profitable.

Because they have followed the lead of initiatives established by the government of Canada, both the present one and the previous government of Canada, designed to stimulate investment and to produce jobs in Canada and Ontario and even in Sudbury, these people have been able to defer a certain degree of corporate taxation on that basis.

The honourable member may feel that it has been unnecessarily to their benefit, but in fact these have been alternatives and tax preferences made available by decisions of government, I think it would be fair to say mostly at the federal level.

Mr. B. Rae: Loopholes.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Some people call them corporate bums, and I am quite prepared to hear those speeches again. But in fact the alternatives and tax preferences were designed to stimulate investment in our economy, which has created jobs. I understand even the principal employer in Sudbury has started to rehire.

1430

QUEEN’S PARK CHILD CARE CENTRE

Mrs. Marland: I would like to ask the Premier a question. In so doing, I would first like to remind him of what must have been very much a red letter day in 1986. That is the date of March 4, the occasion on which the Premier opened a centre which he referred to as a shining example of workplace child care and encouraged all companies to follow the government’s lead.

This is the Queen’s Park Child Care Centre. It is now operating with a $37,000 deficit. As of January 1, 1988, it has increased its fees by 25 per cent. What kind of example does the Premier think he is giving the public sector with a facility running with a $37,000 deficit, or is this the new Liberal style of deficit leadership?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: It is run by an independent board, as the member obviously knows. I am told it is working very well. I am not sure of the financing of the particular situation, but I will pass on any remarks the member has about its financial competence to the independent board that runs it.

Mrs. Marland: I would like to help the Premier with how it is running. First, it receives free rent and free telephone and its furnishings have been paid for by the Ministry of Community and Social Services. Obviously, because it is a nonprofit centre, it has recently begun receiving retroactive grants to help cover its salaries and reduce the fees. With all of that help and the fact that the grants were to help reduce the fees, it is experiencing a $37,000 deficit.

Will the Premier provide this House with a full report as to why his flagship child care centre is operating in a deficit position while being funded with public money?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: We have just announced that all day care programs will be financed with public money. That is part of a very strong commitment that the member has. I am not embarrassed at all to stand in this House and say we do have an outstanding day care facility in this House and it is for people who work in this facility. It is run by an independent board and it is its responsibility, obviously, to do that. We fund it the same way we fund other day care facilities. If the member is against that day care facility in Queen’s Park, she should stand up and say so.

TRANSITION HOUSES

Mr. Miclash: I have a question for the Minister of Community and Social Services regarding the new funding formula for emergency shelters for battered women. Members will know that there are growing demands for the services provided to victims of family violence by the province’s interval and transition homes. Can the minister tell the House what steps his ministry has undertaken to stabilize the core funding of emergency shelters?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: Members will be aware of the fact that about a year and a half ago our ministry did a survey of all 78 transition houses in the province and attempted to find out exactly what their needs were. In addition to a child care worker for the centres, they put stabilizing of their funding as very high on their priority list.

As a result of that, we have just recently completed an analysis and put together a proposal whereby the ministry will be funding between 80 and 100 per cent of their total costs. We have met with the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses and presented this proposal to it. It is in the process right now of analysing it for itself and coming back to us with a response.

Mr. Miclash: Will the minister update the House on the progress of the implementation of the new funding formula?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: The concern of the association is that there be stabilized funding, that there be help for children in the centre and that there be counselling services available. I point out to the honourable member that about a year ago the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) and I made a joint announcement that we would be making funds available for all of these. At the present time, we have indicated to all of the transition houses across the province that we are prepared to negotiate their budgets with them immediately, using this new stabilizing formula. We do understand, however, that some of them wish to delay the signing of their current year’s budget until after the Ontario association has had a chance to review our proposal and come back to us.

In addition to that, in order to enable them to carry out that function, we are providing $10,000 to the association so that it will have the resources and be able to communicate with its various members so as to let us know whether they have alternative arrangements. In the meantime, we are not delaying our budget approvals for the houses that are prepared to go ahead. I expect that --

Mr. Speaker: Order. It seemed like a fairly full answer.

HOME CARE

Mr. Reville: My question is for the Premier. I want to take him on a very quick tour of some hospitals. If we stopped at Humber Memorial, we would find 87 patients occupying acute care beds because there are no chronic care beds available. If we went to Cambridge and stopped at Cambridge Memorial, we would find 39 patients occupying acute care beds because there are no chronic care beds available. If we go up to Ottawa, at the Riverside Hospital there are 45 patients, and at the Ottawa General 40 patients. At Mount Sinai Hospital there are 27 patients, and at Toronto East General 87 patients.

I wonder if the Premier does not believe it is now time, after this quick tour, to stop talking about home care services and actually make some available.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: We introduced the integrated homemaker program a couple of years ago. We are now serving, I believe, 18 communities at a cost of some $58 million. We are committed to expanding that.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: That’s $58 million out of $120 million.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: My honourable friend is squawking. He does not think it is enough. Obviously, one can make that argument about any program we have, but I say to the member that we recognize the need and are responding to that need.

Mr. Reville: Mr. Speaker will not be surprised to know that I think that is an astounding answer. On the one hand, we have about $6 billion invested in hospitals, and that is where beds are being inappropriately used. On the other hand, we have this mingy -- that means very small -- amount of money being spent on homemaker services, a tiny, tiny fraction.

We now see the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) beginning to wonder about maybe we should charge senior citizens for integrated homemaker services. These are the same services the Premier calls the cornerstone of his community care policy. That is some cornerstone. I hope the Premier does not think community care is something we should charge people for. Is that what the Premier is planning to do, to shift the burden of the health care costs on to the shoulders of senior citizens?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: We all pay for the health care system through the taxation system. My honourable friend has asked me about our homemaker programs, and they are increasing, expanding. They are enormously expensive, as my honourable friend knows. We are trying to balance the needs to address the problems the member talks about, people inappropriately placed in beds, and I recognize that is a problem.

At the same time, one has to keep up with the need for institutions as well. It requires a balanced system, and there is no one quick solution to the problem. I say to the member that if he looks at the progress we are making, a reasonable assessment would say we are moving ahead.

COMMUNITY SAFETY

Mr. Eves: I have a question of the Minister of Health. Yesterday, London city council sent a resolution to the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith) calling upon the government to initiate an inquiry into the assault of a London girl by two residents of the St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital and to immediately suspend all temporary absence passes pending the outcome of such an inquiry. As well, London city council called upon the Minister of Health to undertake a review and revision of the policies and procedures of Lieutenant Governor’s warrants in this province.

Frankly, I find it strange that when a number of incidents arose where public safety was threatened by residents of halfway houses under the jurisdiction of the federal parole boards, the minister’s government demanded that the federal government launch an immediate inquiry into the system, which it has done and has completed. Yet when the member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Runciman) behind me --

Mr. Speaker: Are you coming to the question?

Mr. Eves: -- asked the same thing of her government in a provincial matter, the minister’s response was, “We are reviewing the particulars of this case.”

1440

Will the minister commit to this House today that she will launch an inquiry into the policies and procedures of Lieutenant Governor’s warrants in this province -- not on a federal basis -- and that pending the outcome of that inquiry she will impose an immediate freeze on day passes?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: As I said to this House the other day in response to the question from the member opposite, and as the member opposite, I believe, knows, the Lieutenant Governor’s Board of Review is an independent body required under the federal Criminal Code, appointed by order in council as this independent body is required. It consists of a judge, lawyers, psychiatrists and members of the public. It reviews these cases individually.

I have just today received correspondence from the London council and have referred its comments to Mr. Justice Callon, a respected member of the Supreme Court of Ontario who heads up the Lieutenant Governor’s Board of Review, for his attention.

Mr. Runciman: That response reinforces a growing perception that this minister is naïve and ineffective on this issue. She expects the people in organizations who may have made the mistake in this case also to tell her what went wrong and how to fix it and she will not take any temporary measures to protect the public.

The system is rife with dubious decisions. At the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital, a man who committed two brutal hatchet murders less than three years ago has the master-key to almost all the wards in the hospital, and we do not know how many more cases there are like that.

It has now been a week since the London incident. Will the minister tell the House why the St. Thomas hospital thought it was safe to give a pass to the two accused in the London abduction? Tell us.

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: I would caution the member opposite from giving inaccurate information to this House without checking the facts; and second, remind him that the particular case in London, which we discussed the other day and one which I have expressed my own personal concern about, is under review by the hospital in St. Thomas, as well as Mr. Justice Callon who has responsibility for the Lieutenant Governor’s Board of Review.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for Leeds-Grenville has asked the supplementary.

PROTECTION FOR HOME BUYERS

Mr. Carrothers: I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. While this House was in recess, I held a forum in my riding with new home buyers and discussed some of the significant problems many of my constituents are having with the quality of new home construction and the difficulties they are having in getting their new home purchases closed on time.

I wonder if the minister could tell us what he intends to do about the activities of certain irresponsible builders in this province whose actions are ending up financially damaging many constituents in my riding, and whose actions are also tarnishing the reputation of many reputable builders in this province.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I want to say first of all that the honourable member was kind enough to invite a member of my staff to attend that forum. Certainly, his part of the province is one of those -- not the only one, but one of those -- which has been undergoing some very considerable pressure for a long period of time and that pressure seems to be continuing. There was a very good attendance and, I am told by the member of my staff, a very useful dialogue.

The member raises a very good point. We have been meeting with builders and builders’ associations for a period of time to express our concern and to discuss with them solutions to the problems of delayed closings, the problems of incomplete work on closings and improper substitutions, among others.

I have had discussions with my colleague the Minister of Housing (Ms. Hošek), because the last thing we want to do, from a consumer perspective, is take a solution which drives up the cost of housing, which is already, I think all members would agree, quite substantial, particularly in the Metro area.

I think we are very, very close to a solution and I expect that by the end of this month we will be able to announce some initiatives which I believe will offer and afford some real protection for consumers in the province.

Mr. Carrothers: At that forum, it also came to light that there were many problems with the new home warranty program and that it was not operating as one might like. I have written documentation which outlines that builders have suggested to home owners that they not take the benefit of the home warranty plan when they have problems, and also letters which confirm that many builders have failed to complete documentation that would allow the new home buyers to gain the benefit of that plan.

I wonder if the minister can outline any changes he intends to make in that new home warranty plan that would make it more effective.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: The honourable member raises a very good question, and he shared with us the documentation he just spoke of in his question. I would say a couple of things. I would be the first to admit that the Ontario New Home Warranty Program needed some rejuvenation, some freshening up, and I believe that is now well under way under the able leadership of Mr. Rose, who is the new executive director. As well, the government has hired new staff so that we can get on with investigations and try to move these problems to a solution just as quickly as possible.

The honourable member also raises the issue of what we can do against certain builders who may be taking actions that are quite inappropriate. I can say to the honourable member that we are reviewing the act. We intend at some point, as soon as possible, to bring in amendments. In a conversation I had with a major builder as recently as this morning, we discussed the need for new penalties, and that builder indicated he certainly had no problem because those who would be affected are the very builders who are giving good, honest builders a very bad reputation.

HAZARDOUS WASTE TREATMENT FACILITY

Mrs. Grier: Can the Minister of the Environment tell the House whether or not, when the Ontario Waste Management Corp. has completed its processes and has established a facility for the disposal of liquid industrial hazardous waste, that facility will accept waste from jurisdictions other than Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: There will be a hearing, first of all. I do not think I can prejudge what the Environmental Assessment Board will do in terms of the presentation of the proposal by the Ontario Waste Management Corp. Part of the discussions that will take place at that board hearing will certainly revolve around the sources of materials that would be going to any site they might propose in Ontario, the kind of materials, the kind of facilities to treat and dispose of those materials. I think the board will certainly be in a position to make a recommendation in that regard.

The purpose of having such a facility in Ontario is to look after the waste that is generated in Ontario. As the member would know, at the present time, a good deal of contaminated material from Ontario goes to other jurisdictions. Some of it even goes overseas. Some of it goes to the United States and some of it goes to other provinces which have facilities.

We want to be able to look after our own problems. I think the board will be in a good position to make a judgement as to any proposal the OWMC would put forward.

Mrs. Grier: I do not know that Ontario is a major exporter of industrial hazardous wastes. I know we do send some of ours to other jurisdictions, but I also know that since the signing of an agreement between the federal government and the United States in October 1986, this province has been very much a net importer of liquid industrial hazardous waste.

Given that the Ministry of the Environment has spent millions of dollars and put the people of the Niagara Peninsula through the agony of major hearings on a disposal facility, and that ministry has not used the ability available to it under the transboundary agreement to stop any of the waste that is now coming into Ontario, what assurance can the minister give this House that when and if OWMC constructs a facility, it is not going to be literally swamped by waste from the US and not have any capacity available to deal with the very real problems in this province, problems which the minister has not yet dealt with?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: Whatever decision the board eventually makes is going to be largely dependent upon what I would say is judgement based on the evidence which is presented. We know there will be people who are opponents to this particular proposal which OWMC has put forward. Dr. Chant and his group have developed this proposal; it is being scrutinized carefully and there will be appropriate hearings.

The purpose of establishing the Ontario Waste Management Corp. was to look after the waste generated in Ontario. Certainly, our government would see that as being the priority of that facility.

I wonder whether we can ever get into a position where we say there will never be a crossing of any provincial boundary, for instance, of material going from one province to another, because at the present, the minister -- that is a little slip there; well, she assists the minister very often -- the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore (Mrs. Grier) would probably know that a good deal of biomedical waste leaves Ontario for other jurisdictions. Whether in Canada we would close our interprovincial borders, I certainly doubt that would happen.

1450

EDUCATION FUNDING

Mr. Sterling: I have a question for the Minister of Education. As a result of his announcement a week ago, the Carleton Board of Education will be receiving $6 million less than it anticipated from general legislative grants for 1988. Actually, the provincial share of costs under the Carleton Board of Education will be less this year than last year in actual dollars.

The shortfall raises the projected tax increase for property taxpayers from about five per cent to 11 per cent, with possible increases in some of the rural townships hitting 15 or 16 per cent. In one year, the provincial share has dropped from 48 to 43 per cent of the cost of education in Carleton. How does the minister justify this?

Hon. Mr. Ward: As the member for Carleton will know, the general legislative grant formulas are structured in such a way that the funds available to various boards of education throughout this province vary on the basis of the amount of commercial and industrial assessment within a board’s jurisdiction. They vary in accordance with increases or decreases in enrolment. This year they will also vary as the result of the utilization of updated equalization factors, an initiative we undertook this year in the interest of achieving greater fairness across this province in terms of the distribution of grant revenues to various boards.

I think the member will recognize that the grant differences experienced by the Carleton board this year are not the result of any one of those particular factors but a combination of all three. The way the grant formulas are structured, it is done in such a way as to provide equitable funding for all boards in this province. As a result of increased commercial-industrial assessment in this region, the board does have a broader revenue base with which to meet its expenditures. As a result of the new factors, it is getting less revenue as well.

Mr. Sterling: What I recognize is that last year this government put it to the people of eastern Ontario with regard to capital funding. Last year the Carleton board, although recognized by this government as one of the four largest growing boards in Ontario, received only 15 per cent of what it requested. The Roman Catholic school board in the same area received only about the same, 15 per cent of what it requested. This year what the government is doing to them is in terms of their maintenance of existing programs.

The Carleton Board of Education’s enrolment is up by 1,000 students this year, yet this province is going to give them less money this year to educate all the students they had before plus 1,000 more students. Is this the minister’s idea of a commitment to the people in the Ottawa-Carleton area? Next year we are going to have the francophone board to deal with and the funding of that area.

When is the minister going to give a fair break to the people of eastern Ontario? Can we at least ask him for a fair break when it comes down to capital commitment --

Mr. Speaker: That is about the third question. Order.

Hon. Mr. Ward: I do want to indicate to the member for Carleton that not only he but several other members of this Legislature from the Ottawa-Carleton region have on repeated occasions made well known to me their needs as they relate to the capital expenditure program. As the member knows full well --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I would remind some members in particular and, of course, all members of standing order 24(b). I wonder if you would look at that very carefully. When a member is speaking, no one shall -- and I underline shall -- interrupt.

Hon. Mr. Ward: The member for Carleton knows full well that one of the great difficulties that we as a government face is the tremendous pressure that is being placed on the capital budget, partly as a result of many years of neglect during his time as a member of the government. He will know that for a three-year period up until 1985, capital funds for school purposes were frozen at a level that is something like one third of what it is today.

I can assure the member for Carleton that we are well aware of the need in the Ottawa-Carleton region for additional facilities and we hope to be able to address it in a fair and equitable way.

1996 OLYMPIC SUMMER GAMES

Mr. Adams: My question is for the Minister of Tourism and Recreation. There is considerable interest in Toronto’s bid for the Summer Olympics. What is the status of the province’s involvement in that bid?

Hon. Mr. O’Neil: I thank the member for Peterborough for that question. I can assure him that both the Premier (Mr. Peterson) and the members of the Ontario government are working very closely with the Toronto Ontario Olympic Council to do what they can to attract the 1996 Summer Olympics to the city of Toronto. As he is aware, Ontario will provide $3.1 million towards this bid process. We continue to work in attracting the International Olympic Committee delegates to visit the province and do what we can to bring that great event to Ontario.

Mr. Adams: I have heard Paul Henderson, who is one of the organizers of the bid, talking about designing a decentralized games. As I understand it, that will mean that communities like Sudbury, Peterborough, Kingston, London, Guelph, Belleville, Lindsay, Hamilton and so on will be able to participate in the games, either by hosting a team or by hosting an event. Has the minister given consideration to spreading the benefits of the games across the province in that way?

Hon. Mr. O’Neil: First of all, I would like to thank the member for Peterborough again for some of the information and requests he has made, in particular to such communities as he represents. I can assure him that both the members of this government and the two committees are looking at this process. It is our feeling that not only the city of Toronto should benefit from obtaining the 1996 Olympics, but some of these events should be spread throughout the province.

PENSION FUNDS

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I have a question for the Minister of Financial Institutions. I would like to ask the minister if he can explain to the House and to the 70,000 hospital workers in this province what the practical difference is between a contribution holiday of $80 million to their pension plan and an $80 million withdrawal from a pension plan surplus. If the minister is opposed to pension plan surpluses, can he give us the rationale for why he would support pension contribution holidays?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: The honourable member is undoubtedly referring to the hospital plan. I think he is aware that, as minister, I have frozen the withdrawal of all other funds from plans but have permitted contribution holidays on the basis that the regulations of Revenue Canada do not permit contributions to be made to plans that are fully funded to the extent that they have two years minimum surplus of their requirements when the plan has been reasonably upgraded. Therefore, under the federal rules, it was not permissible to allow more money to be put into the plan, particularly at a time when we are reviewing the whole matter of indexing with legislation which the House has already debated, the details of which will be before the House, we hope, in the next couple of months.

1500

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I still do not think the minister has answered my question of what the difference is. In the Friedland task force report, it states, “Although funding holidays look very much like withdrawals of surplus, symbolically they are different.” Is that not what it is all about for the Liberal government, that it is symbolism which is important; and protection of the pension plans and the workers owning their pension plans and controlling them really does not matter?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I think Professor Friedland’s report was a good one, but certainly the government has not pronounced itself on which of its recommendations we think should be acceptable. I say again that I think it is a good report. I have to tell the honourable member that my own view is that we will continue to review it until such time as we will introduce legislation. The difference with contribution holidays is as I have described it. Most of it is predicated on the regulations of the government of Canada, which really has a good deal to say about the extent to which contributions can come in above and beyond what is needed to fulfil the requirements of the plan.

ONTARIO FARM MANAGEMENT, SAFETY AND REPAIRS PROGRAM

Mr. Villeneuve: I have a question of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. On March 22, the minister announced that the funds had all been allocated on the Ontario farm management, safety and repairs program. Can he tell the House how many applicants and applications will have to be turned down because of lack of funds?

Hon. Mr. Riddell: I do not have that information at hand, but I will take the question as notice and get back to the member. I have no idea at this time how many applications we have received which we will not be able to honour due to the fact that the funds ran out.

Mr. Villeneuve: Since $20 million was allocated and spent and in this upcoming fiscal year $30 million is allocated and available, would it be possible that some of those applications be taken from the fiscal year last year into this one?

Hon. Mr. Riddell: There was $20 million allocated for the first fiscal year of the program and $30 million for this year, but I have to tell the honourable member that we have received so many applications that we have now asked that no further applications come in, because we know the number of applications we have now will spend all the money that is available. In other words, it will spend all of the $30 million that is available for this fiscal year.

VISITOR

Mr. Brandt: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: Due to the unexpected and untimely death of the mayor of Sarnia, which occurred a couple of weeks ago, the city of Sarnia was charged with the responsibility of fulfilling the term of the mayor with a newly elected individual, who is here in the House today. As a point of personal privilege, I would like to introduce to the House the newly elected mayor of Sarnia, Ron Gordon.

Mr. Speaker: I remind the member that we do not have such a thing as a point of personal privilege.

PETITIONS

NORTHERN ONTARIO TOURISM

Mr. Owen: I have a petition to His Honour the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario signed by 48 persons as follows:

“We, the undersigned residents of Ontario, being frequent users of Ontario’s crown land, strongly oppose some portions of the Northern Ontario Tourist Outfitters Association’s white paper, entitled Northern Ontario Tourism Strategy. We find the suggestions regarding privatization and control of access roads by private companies, the establishment of tourist management areas with exclusive user rights for commercial entities and the exclusion of roads built with public money from official Ontario maps particularly offensive.

“We vigorously urge the government of Ontario to keep our crown lands and roads open for the recreational use of its residents.”

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

Mr. Adams: I have a petition from residents of Cavan township concerning an aspect of the widening of Highway 115.

They, farmers on Highway 115 between the Cavan-Manvers boundary road and the sixth line of Cavan, while supporting the widening of the highway to four lanes, wish to make known their strong opposition to the use of an earthen median on their section of the highway. This will result in the unnecessary loss of productive farmland. They respectfully suggest that a concrete barrier be used to separate traffic flow, thus allowing farmland to remain in production.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: I believe there are other members who would like to present petitions if the members would allow them to do so.

NATUROPATHY

Mr. Sola: I have a petition which reads as follows:

“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

“Whereas it is our constitutional right to have available and to choose the health care system of our preference;

“And whereas naturopathy has had self-governing status in Ontario for more than 42 years;

“We petition the Ontario Legislature to call on the government to introduce legislation that would guarantee naturopaths the right to practise their art and science to the fullest without prejudice or harassment.”

It is signed by 200 signatures.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. Reycraft: I have a petition signed by 165 people. It is addressed to His Honour the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It reads as follows:

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

“We are opposed to open Sunday shopping and want to retain a common pause day in Ontario.”

MOTION

COMMITTEE SITTING

Hon. Mr. Conway moved that the select committee on education be authorized to meet following routine proceedings on Wednesday, April 13, 1988.

Motion agreed to.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Sweeney moved first reading of Bill 107, An Act to amend the Child and Family Services Act.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Speaker, you will recall that in opening statements I indicated the contents of this bill. I will not go through that again. I would like to take the opportunity in the House, however, to thank members of my staff for their contribution to this endeavour.

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Ms. Hošek moved first reading of Bill 108, An Act to amend the Rental Housing Protection Act.

Motion agreed to.

1510

ORDERS OF THE DAY

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 77, An Act to amend the Municipal Elections Act and the Assessment Act.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Markham had made some introductory remarks yesterday. He might wish to continue.

Mr. Cousens: I know there is a great deal of urgency on the part of the government to rush this through. Since they took so long to get it in the House, they want to get it out of the way just as fast as they can. I have no desire to hold up that process, but I have a number of concerns that I tried to lay on the table yesterday, so that the people of this province will understand that a lot of significant changes are taking place.

There is no grand, cohesive scheme that puts them into a sense that many people will understand, and who knows what new bill they are going to come out with tomorrow that will change the way in which we have done things for a long time. I am not opposed to change, but if we are making changes, let us do them with the right spirit and the right things in mind, so that as we plan for the future, we are able then to take advantage of some of the things that are available.

I think that to change the time for the election from 21 to 28 days is not wise and is not smart. We will be considering amendments that can do something about that. Going four weeks for a municipal election rather than the present three I know is going to be an experience that those who want to run for election really do not need. They can use electronic media. They can use the newspapers. Their signs have to stay up that much longer. Why is it that this government has to extend the length of time for municipal elections from three to four weeks? It just does not make sense in this age of high technology and electronic media to be doing that.

I tried to express that yesterday. I think the electorate will become bored with politics if that is the way it is going to be done. I think we have to make it exciting and interesting, and if they know it is going to be there for a three-week period, then it can be a very effective time frame for the public to really complete their decision-making process and cast their ballots intelligently.

This bill has a number of major concerns to it and they all fall in place with the form that the government has used to collect the data. It is called a municipal enumeration notice. In fact, I have circulated it now in the press gallery. I trust people are going to want to see just how bad a job the Liberal government has done in not promoting the democratic municipal process by virtue of the way it has put together this form.

I see this as a most abominable attempt to discourage people from becoming involved in the electoral process. I see this document as something that was put together by people who do not know how to motivate the public when it comes to becoming far more involved in that great electoral process.

Hon. Mr. Conway: How do you do that? I am interested in your --

Mr. Cousens: I am coming to that. Thank you.

We are here today as politicians who have become elected because when we sent out our brochures and went out to the public, we knew that if we went and had our brochures all crammed together people would not read them. So we get bigger print. We get them so they have a little colour to them. We get them so that people are going to want to read them. That is the way the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Mr. Eakins) got elected. He has been here longer than many of us have and knows that to be a good communicator he has to use professional skills, professional techniques, in order to get people to respond in a positive way.

If this government wants to have people involved in municipal politics, in municipal elections, what they are going to do is receive a form and every elector in Ontario, hopefully, will have his name on the enumeration, the poll list, and be enumerated so that he can vote in the election on November 14. That is the election day this year.

Why not do a little bit more around the whole subject of elections? The first time someone is enumerated, he is going to look at this. There is no notice when the election is going to take place, and yet we all know, and it has been legislated for some length of time, that the municipal election is going to take place on November 14. Is that not what this is for? Sure, it is. This enumeration is for the municipal elections across the whole of the province that take place on Monday, November 14. Why not have some indication of that on this form?

In fact, to go a step further, why not have some way in which people are going to want to become far more involved in the democratic process at the local level by having a form that is attractive and says to people, “Look, what you do, your presence, your signing up, is important”?

What instead is on this form is more of a threat. There are many people who do not know the laws of the land. In fact, many of us who have been in this House still do not understand everything we pass. Worst of all is you have right at the very top of this form an indicator of just what is required. It says, “You are required by section 14 of the Assessment Act to complete and return this notice.”

Why do they not put “or else,” and what the guidelines are? Are you going to be sent to jail? Are you going to have the right to vote taken away? Are you going to be put in a position where you cannot vote again? Are you not going to have another chance to be enumerated if you do not fill out this form? Why does this form not make clear what is meant by the Assessment Act? We want people to subscribe, we want them signed up and we want them on the list because we want them involved in municipal politics. We want them to look at who is going to be their mayor, their reeve, their councillor.

They want them to know that there is a school board election and a hydroelectric commission election. But this is just threatening them by saying, “Hey, you are required by section 14 of the act to fill out this form.” Why not have a little bit of explanation that if someone is away and misses the time frame when you expect to have it back, there is a sense that, “If this form is not completed, you will have a certain amount of time and we will be following through”?

The act provides for a follow-up on people. We know that. But what it is saying to the person who gets this form is something quite else. Because of those people who do not know the Assessment Act, I am sure there are going to be many people who will phone the regional assessment office and say: “What happens if I do not fill it out? What does it mean by that statement ‘under section 14 of the Assessment Act’”?

There is a whole concept that goes into what government can do for the people and what we should not do is be old-fashioned. Here it has a chance. It has 94 seats with a huge majority. It can do what it wants. This legislation will pass today and what we say and what we do on this side really only gives a chance at least for someone to speak up on behalf of the people who otherwise would not have a voice.

May I suggest that here is a chance to come forward with a new approach to a government form, an approach that says to people who may have different backgrounds, different nationalities -- language might be a problem for them. I venture to say there is going to be a real problem with this form when it arrives in at least 10,000 homes in the riding of Markham. Markham is a community now of 125,000 people, and in Milliken and that area, in a five-kilometre radius, we have over 50 nationalities, and for many of them their first language and second language are neither English nor French.

They get a form like this. The print is small. It has terminology and ideas that might be very strange to them. Then when they do not know the laws of our land and they hear that they are required by section 14 to do whatever section 14 requires them to do, to have this completed and returned, it is just another one of those things where the government says, “Hey, boy, we’re big, you’re small and we’re going to push it through.”

What the government wants to do with the people in Ontario is get them to want, get them to have a desire to sign up. We know how the enumeration has to go and how fortunate we are that we have a democratic land in which people can vote. But we have a problem. There are so few people who vote in municipal elections. In the riding of Markham, in the municipal elections you are lucky if you get 33 per cent of the electors out to vote.

An hon. member: Not in Middlesex.

Mr. Cousens: How many turn out in Middlesex?

An hon. member: Sixty-five.

Mr. Cousens: Sixty-five at municipal elections? How many in yours?

Hon. Mr. Conway: Probably 50 or 60.

Mr. Cousens: That is good. I am sure that if we did a poll around the room, it would vary. Maybe we are on the end that needs a bit more encouragement and maybe that is why I am a little bit more sensitive about it. I would like to see it so that we have as many people as possible in Ontario voting on election day at every level and so that people could come along and understand how important it is to take part in some way in this democratic process.

Who knows? They might get involved and help a Liberal or a New Democrat or a Conservative. Who knows how interested they will become? Who knows if they will even decide to run? But if they vote and they are interested enough in that, let us encourage that.

1520

Why not use this form to help get people involved in that process? Why not say: “Hey, voting day. We know what it is already when the form comes out. It is going to be November 14. Something else we can tell you: By signing this you are beginning to become involved in the municipal electoral process. It only applies to municipal elections but we want you and we need you. In order to have a strong community, we want to make sure that the government is encouraging people to take part”?

They are not. What they have done is put together a format that is going to frighten and scare people off, especially when they start having the reaction that many of them are going to have to some of the content of this form.

I had no idea that this format that had been developed was so poor. This morning when I phoned the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, I asked for 200 copies of it so I could circulate it to the press gallery and a few others so that they, personally, could see how bad it was. I got a call back that I would have to get it through the Ministry of Revenue. When I called the Ministry of Revenue, it was able to give us one copy. I am most grateful for that.

Why was a copy of that form not circulated to all the members of the Legislature prior to the review of this bill, since the minister is trying to rush it through? Why was there no chance for all of us to get a sense of what it was the minister was trying to do? These are the regulations. This is the implementation of Bill 77. Why not have it circulated so that we knew what the minister was really up to?

Now that I have it, I have tell you, Mr. Speaker, that there are more things in it that are bad than just the one item I have talked about. I am talking about the format of putting together any kind of form. R. L. Crain Inc. has all kinds of guidelines that it has put together to assist people when they are putting forms together.

There are certain things you can do to make a form attractive. There is the screening, and I think the screening on this one is good. There is the density of it. The quality of the paper can be something. I know there are certain dollars-and-cents considerations that go into the preparation of a form, but what the Minister of Municipal Affairs has tried to do is cram everything on one page, both sides.

Why not have a bit more space so that we can do some of the other things I am talking about: explain the rules; explain the guidelines, explain the law; explain the rights, so that a person who is filling out the form is not somehow intimidated because it says on the top of the form, “You are required to do this.” I am suggesting that if the government were to take some of the advice of some of the companies out there that specialize in how to prepare forms, we could break away from some of the ways in which we have -- tax forms are a classic. We end up having to go outside and have an accountant or a specialist help us fill them in. This one has the same kind of look to it: “Oh, my goodness, I am almost intimidated. Whom should I ask to give me a hand with it?”

I could go on and on about some of the suggestions that have been developed by R. L. Crain and some of the other companies on the development of a format that would be more readable.

May I suggest there are some things that are so basic you do not even have to go to them. There is the size of print, which I commented on briefly yesterday. There are many people who are visually impaired in Ontario. In checking with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind this morning, there are 119,000 people in Ontario who are visually impaired. I venture to say some of them are so visually impaired that they would have difficulty filling out a form with even larger print, but can we not look at the concerns of seniors as well, whose eyesight may be failing and who also have difficulty reading small, fine print?

Would this not be an opportunity then to make it easier, to have the size of print a little larger and maybe the page a little larger so that people can read it more easily? The print is small. It is hard to read. There are those who are almost turned off when they get a form that is that way inclined, but then they are also frightened because the first line they are going to read is “you are required.”

If the government wanted to do it right and was saying, “We want to have the people of our municipalities far more involved in local government,” it might have had a two-page or four-page format where you could rip off the back page and there would be a number of items there that began to explain to the people of Ontario what this was all about.

This is a new approach, a new way of gathering information. Does it say that anywhere on here? No. It could have an idea there that tells them, “Here is the election day; here is what is involved.” Then they would want to become more involved as electors.

May I suggest as well that if one looks at the back page of the form, there are several concerns there that again bring out the problem. There is an example on how to make corrections. It is so confusing. If someone makes a mistake on the form and does not have a second one or a third one, if he makes more mistakes and needs more than one copy, the example on how to make corrections of any mistakes that anyone happens to make on the form are absolutely impossible to decipher or understand. I do not know what they mean and I am sure there are going to be many others in Ontario who will have trouble understanding the example on this form. It is confusing. It does not need to be.

Why does the form not go on to tell people some of their rights? Is it not true that a person who owns more than one property in Ontario can vote in more than one municipality if that property is in another municipality? I am sure there are many property owners who do not realize that when they have a cottage property and a Toronto property or a property somewhere else in the province, if they are in different townships or municipalities, they have the right to go and vote in two municipalities. The minister, with all his property holdings, could probably vote in many different communities across the province because I know he is a very wealthy man. What happens then? Why not have a statement in here that tells people their rights?

I know that in my riding I have many very successful new Canadians who own more than one piece of property. They own property in my riding but also in Scarborough and other municipalities. When they get this form, are they reminded of the fact that they can vote in another community? Under residency, where it says, “If you live in another municipality, check box 3,” why not have an explanation? Do not forget that if you have property in another area, you will want to fill out the form. You do not have to have your name on just one roll. You may well want to make sure that you get the enumeration for that area so that you can vote there as well. Does this not make sense?

I am pleased to see that the minister nodded and agrees. The form, unfortunately, does not manifest that possibility.

I am concerned with the section here that gives notes and background information on the instructions on school support. I want to read into the record just what it says here. It says:

“The option to be a separate school elector/supporter is available only to Roman Catholics. This includes Greek and Ukrainian Catholics in union with the See of Rome. The Education Act permits Roman Catholics who own or rent property located in a separate school zone to direct the education portion of their property taxes to the separate school board if they so choose.

“Any Roman Catholic living in a separate school zone may be a separate school elector if he/she so chooses.

“If you have any questions about school support, please contact your local separate or public school board.”

I meant to read the one on French-language education rights because that one came across fairly well. It does explain the law in a succinct way. I think many people have some concern about the Education Act and so on, and that does not pertain to this. I apologize. My point had to do with the next item, which is French-language education rights.

It says, “In communities where a school board operates both French and English schools, trustees will be elected to the school board to represent the minority-language group (French or English).”

How will a person know whether or not his community operates a French board or an English board unless he has been there an awfully long time or is very much in tune with what is going on in that board? For instance, does York region provide such a system? Does the Renfrew area? It probably does because there is a large French-speaking group in that part of the province.

1530

People will not know what their rights are by the way this very section is conveyed. I go back to the letter that came from the Carleton Board of Education. There is a note in a letter that the board sent to the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Grandmaître), who is now the Minister of Revenue, but it is something that could have applied to the Minister of Municipal Affairs as he was at one time.

The letter is saying, without detracting from the major issues, “I also highlight that the proposed form contains a few errors which should be corrected.” Is there time to correct those errors? I doubt it. None the less, here we are at the last minute, about to pass new legislation for a new enumeration form, which I am satisfied is the pits, and we are about to come along and have something that at least one of the reputable boards of the province feels has some errors.

Let me put this on the record: “Explanation number five: In 1988, trustees will be elected to represent the minority-language group not only in communities where a school board operates both French and English schools, but also where a board ‘enters or has entered into an agreement or agreements with another board or boards to enable a calculated enrolment of at least 300 resident pupils of the board” -- or at least 10 per cent of the pupils -- “to receive instruction in one or more French-language instructional units operated by the other board or boards.’” That comes from the Education Act, section 277d.

“The wording in the form” -- and I am quoting now again from the letter from the Carleton Board of Education -- “is thus misleading and incomplete.” I repeat, “The wording in the form is thus misleading and incomplete.”

To continue reading this document: “We also question the need to include this information as it seems to imply that the identification of French-speaking persons is only useful in areas where there will be French-language sections. Identification of French-speaking voters will also be essential in other areas for the election of French-language advisory committees, for requesting French-language instruction and for statistical data. The opening statement in explanation number five seems to imply that French-speaking persons should only identify themselves in communities where a school board operates both French and English schools. We believe this to be misleading and conducive to reducing the number of identified French-speaking ratepayers and/or electors. This is clearly unacceptable.”

Let me read further, but just stay on that one: “I am very, very concerned with people who will not know what is being provided within their own communities.” Therefore, when you are asking them to fill out a form saying, “In communities where a school board operates such-and-such and so-and-so,” should there not then be some way of personalizing this so that York region residents will have some kind of information inserted or sent along with it, or people in Mississauga or Peel or Durham or any other area?

It is a failure in this form and it is a failure of this government to deal with and reckon with the problems that people have in getting a government form when they do not know all the things the government takes for granted that they know. How can they be expected to know some of them? In a community such as mine, we have about a 20 per cent turnover every year. There is a huge, huge turnover with the number of new families and new homes coming in.

Why not help them to be part of the process? Invite them to participate and give them the information they need so that, when they are filling out this form, they will not have to just guess about it or they will not have to go and make a phone call or two or three phone calls or a number of phone calls in order to keep things going.

We are just seeing the member for York Centre (Mr. Sorbara) leaving the building on a very busy mission. He is an honourable member, too, which is more than I can -- never mind. I have nothing to say against this honourable member, the Minister of Labour, because we happen to be long-time friends, except when it comes to these forms.

We did miss the Minister of Municipal Affairs yesterday. Here we were dealing with this bill and we were stuck with only his parliamentary assistant. He did a fine job listening, but there was no comment, there was no nodding. We did not have the sense of the magnanimous presence we have today with the minister.

Mr. Ruprecht: Are there any other comments you have?

Mr. Cousens: Yes, I have, on explanation number four. This comes again from the Carleton Board of Education. I am quoting from the board’s letter:

“We would appreciate if the section would be more specific in stating that Roman Catholics can also support public boards. We would suggest the following as more appropriate and neutral: ‘The Education Act permits Roman Catholics who own or rent property located in a separate school zone to direct the education portion of their property taxes to the public school board or to the separate school board. Any Roman Catholic living in a separate school zone may be a separate school elector or a public school elector.’ We would also request that the French version be appropriately amended.”

What they are adding there is that after property taxes, it would also give reference to the public school board, so that people would again understand their options. I think that what the Carleton Board of Education is asking for is to make the form so people understand; make sure they know what their rights are. I think we assume an awful lot of the time that everybody knows everything that is going on. I do not think they do. The more that we as politicians in government help explain how it is, the more people who understand it can skim it and go right to the form and they can do just fine.

There is one other final comment on this letter as well, and one of our honourable members, the Speaker, who is a francophone, may want to read this. Maybe we could ask you for your services, in that the ministry may not have the kind of services you could provide. It suggests as well: “We would appreciate that all language errors be corrected before final printing. The French-language version, in particular, contains some obvious errors.”

Does the minister know that? Would the minister comment on that when he is making his closing remarks? I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that you would take personal offence if there were obvious errors in language that could easily be corrected. If this form has already gone to the printers and is printed in mass production and those errors have not been corrected, that again is a tremendous waste of taxpayers’ money and another sign of the inefficiency we are beginning to see more and more from this government.

I come back to it. I have pointed to a number of the problems that exist with this form alone. There are probably more: the problem of the size of the print; the readability, the ability for people to understand the intentions behind the act which have caused us to implement it; the failed opportunity to tell them about their rights as citizens in the province and the failed opportunity to involve them more and more in the electoral process; the failed opportunity to really come out there and get people excited about the electoral process.

I would say the way this government is operating is as if it is taking people for granted. It is almost putting things aside as if they are not important. I see this as an important document. It touches every home, every apartment in this province. Why not put our best foot forward and why not be progressive in the way we are going about it? We are not with this one.

I have tried to document a few of my concerns in a press release I have given now to the media. I have said in it that the Liberal government of Ontario has missed a real opportunity to promote the democratic process. This form that I have just referred to will turn people off, not turn them on. A document could have been developed with more space, bigger print and more information that would help encourage people to be interested and involved in municipal elections.

1540

Knowing now that it is too late for the minister to do anything, could we get some commitment from him today as to what he will do to try to help respond to the concerns I have tried to present, the concerns of the people of the province, so that they will know when the election is going to be, how they can become involved, how important this form is and will understand what their rights are? I would like to have some sense of commitment on that before the day is over or before the bill is finally passed.

There are many things in the bill. At least I happen to support the idea of the process that is being encouraged. I think it can be a good one. Hopefully, we can capture everyone on the data banks and the data files so that we will have --

Mr. McCague: Capture?

Mr. Cousens: “Capture” is a data processing term to describe when you get people’s names and addresses and you have the right number of people for a street in a community, so that you have your lists accurately put together.

The problem you have is that this government has done such an abominable job with the Ontario health insurance plan. I mean we are now up to -- is it? -- 14 million people on OHIP and the population of Ontario is only around eight million. Let us hope that when it has systems in place to record these enumeration lists, everything is followed through. I think there is enough sensitivity, fortunately, from the town clerks across the province and the municipal clerks and the administrators that they will be watching for that.

In the meantime, the government is going to rush it through. It is another opportunity for it to do its own thing. It is another time when it has lost an opportunity to make sure that the people of Ontario were being better served, that those people of Ontario had a better chance to understand what this electoral process is all about.

May I challenge the government to find better ways of reaching out to those who are visually impaired or to those who are of senior years and cannot easily read the very fine print there is in this? Can I challenge this government, which says it is so open, to come forward and start putting out statements for people so that they know what their rights are, instead of confusing them and frustrating them as it is doing with this?

Let there be ways on this form that allow for the people from my riding who have multi languages as first and second languages but neither English nor French. I venture to say there are thousands in Metropolitan Toronto and urban areas who will not know how to begin to deal with this form. Let us begin to provide these services. We are doing it in other areas. We are doing it when they go to the courts, the labour office or for workers’ compensation. Why can we not have something in there that says, “If you do not understand this form or if you need some help with it, call this number”?

I take very seriously, as our party does, the democratic process and the rights of people. Let us do our best to build upon that and make it a stronger and better province. Let us do our best to get people involved. By having just another stale, stagnant form without any beauty to it, without any kind of design criteria, without any kind of sense behind it, then you have just turned them off. Let us turn people on to the rights and privileges they have in this great province.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I do want to raise a couple of matters which have been put forward here. I welcome some of the analysis of the problems with the form and hope that, as I mentioned in my speech, there will be some response about some of the difficulties in definition that are on the form.

I have one particular problem I would love the member for Markham (Mr. Cousens) to elucidate a bit more fully. He does not think the municipal level of government is important enough to have an election that runs longer than 21 days. He thinks 28 days is too long for electors to have their attention put to municipal matters, even though they have to deal with school boards, councils, utilities, all sorts of other broad concerns, more than they would in a concentrated federal or provincial election.

In his remarks, he actually made it sound as if people would become bored if they had to pay another seven days’ attention to an election in Ontario. I find this absolutely dumfounding when I then consider that the rest of his speech was all based on the importance of democracy and why in fact this whole enumeration process has to be done correctly as the basis for the underpinning of that democracy at the local level, an underpinning which, I presume, he would rather have reduced even further.

I heckled yesterday when the member was speaking on this, to say that if he thinks the municipal election should only last 21 days, as complicated as it is with all the different players, perhaps he thinks the provincial election should be reduced to 15 days and therefore give all incumbents a huge advantage that would be insurmountable.

Mr. Breaugh: In his remarks the member for Markham went on at some length about the information process and there is, of course, the usual brochure in two languages, with errors, prepared by the ministry. I wonder if he has looked at this.

One of the things that concerned me a bit when I first took a look at it about two minutes ago -- I had it hand-delivered by the parliamentary assistant and I now know what parliamentary assistants do. I have been here 13 years and never knew the answer to that question. Now I know; they deliver pamphlets.

The thing that concerned me a little bit about it was the statement in bold type that you have to, by law, complete this form by May 12. The inference is pretty clear that if you do not do this by May 12, something evil will happen. It does not tell you what evil deeds will befall you if you do not fill out the form or if you screw it up, but the implication is clear: You really have got to do it.

I would be interested in the member commenting briefly, and it would be a good first step for him to do that about anything, on the kind of information package that goes with the form and the implication.

I have talked with a number of my own constituents, for example, who are immigrants to Canada. Their attitudes towards governments seem quite different from mine, for example. Where they come from, if they get a notice from the government that says, “You had better do this by May 12 or else,” the consequences are really quite different than we would normally contemplate here. They would be quite intimidated by statements such as are on this form, and I would be interested in the member’s brief remarks on those facts.

Mr. McCague: I was not privileged enough to receive one of these forms from the parliamentary assistant but I was able to get one from my colleague the member for Markham.

The minister is a very understanding gentleman, from anything that I know, but this is going to scare the hell out of a whole lot of people, and I mean that sincerely. My mother, who is 85 years old, will receive this. What will she do with it? She has the privilege of having five children right close to her and we will help her fill it out.

The minister does not even say on this form that if you are going to have difficulty with it, somebody will be around in the six weeks that follow the enumeration period to help you with it. My heavens, how can he? The minister knows better than that. There is nothing on there for people who are over 65 years old to take any consolation from. They will be scared out of their wits by the thing, and the minister knows it. They will be saying: “My heavens, if I don’t fill this thing out, they’re going to cut me off my pension. What do I do? Maybe I should call my lawyer to see if he can help me fill the thing out.”

What other form does any resident in Ontario receive that he has to fill in that looks anything like this one? It would scare you. Why not simplify it or at least put on the envelope or in there somewhere, “If you can’t fill it out on your own, there will be somebody around to help you with it in the six weeks that follows the period.”

That is just one of the many things that the minister did not think of. He is rushing it through far, far too quickly.

The Acting Speaker (Miss Roberts): Does the honourable member wish to reply to the statements that have been made?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: He better had.

Mr. Cousens: The remarks by the member for Scarborough West do not deserve a response. The dripping sarcasm and the feeling that we are trying to do something wrong is absolutely out of the way. The people are intelligent in this province. It just gives those guys more chances to change their minds on issues if they have an extra seven days. We can at least get a better hold of them in 21 days.

1550

Mr. Breaugh: Sounds like a physical threat.

Mr. Cousens: No, I would not threaten the member for Scarborough West.

But let me just deal with the point by the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh). I am grateful for the fact that at last the people of Ontario can now see this little notice that accompanies the form. Why did the minister not do it earlier? Where the Sam Hill has he been? Here we are in the House, in this Legislature --

Interjections.

Mr. Cousens: Well, he was not here yesterday. We want to deal with this properly and intelligently, and he comes along at the last minute and sends it over with his parliamentary assistant. He is a good runner, but I wish the minister had run a little faster.

I am just telling the members and people of Ontario that we are being pushed around as the opposition in this House. We have not been given all the facts. They have suddenly started to dribble in, in the middle of the debate on this, and we do not like it. We do not trust the government. We do not feel it is doing it right for the people of Ontario.

Let us come along and start to do something for those people. When the member for Simcoe West (Mr. McCague) talks about his mother, my mother is three years older. I will go down there and help her with it for sure, so if she is watching this afternoon, I will be there to help her do the form. But I do not want to start doing it for everyone else’s mother. So who is going to help the mothers? I think it is high time the government got out there and started helping all the people of Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Eakins: I am delighted to have the opportunity to make some comment today. There was some question as to where I was yesterday. I want to tell the honourable members that I was here on Tuesday, prepared, according to the orders of the day, to proceed with Bill 77. We were very supportive of the opposition in order to make available time to discuss the Sunday shopping issue.

In the meantime, I had agreed to meet with some 250 municipal people discussing the questions of municipal actions and other items of business. I had in this Legislature a very capable assistant, my parliamentary assistant, one who has a great deal of municipal experience, who has the answers and who was quite able and capable of replying to the members.

I am sure that the honourable members here would not want me to turn down an opportunity to meet with the municipal people, because that is what we are talking about here, as the member for Markham mentions, trying to create interest in the municipal elections that are coming up.

That is why I was meeting with them. I regret that I was not here to answer some of the questions, but we are here today. I want to make some comments and my parliamentary assistant is also going to reply to some of the information made yesterday.

I am pleased there is a general feeling that we are trying to improve the enumeration process. In regard to timing, this was introduced into the --

Mr. Breaugh: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I heard the minister say he wants to wind up the debate and then wants to let his parliamentary assistant wind up the debate. I want it on the record now that somebody can wind it up, but they both cannot wind it up, so they must make up their mind.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you very much. With respect to that, as the member is aware, the person who moves the debate is the person who winds up the debate, that being the parliamentary assistant, but the minister has a right to speak with respect to this.

Hon. Mr. Eakins: I am simply taking the opportunity to make some comment on this bill. There was some question of haste. Let me tell members that this was introduced on December 16 for first reading. At that time, all municipalities, school boards and public utilities commissions received a copy of the bill.

It was suggested that the ministries cannot be ready. For a long period of time, the question of this form of enumeration has been under way and a lot of discussion has taken place. The three ministries co-operating together are certainly prepared and ready to move ahead with this and have everything in place. On the question of this form, it has been pretested and has been found very successful indeed.

The member for Markham spoke about the length of elections, from 28 days to 21 days. I listened very carefully to this. I listened to a number of municipal people. Some said, “We want 28.’’ Others said 21. But let me say, there has not been a clear voice for change. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario did say it would prefer in some cases the 21 days, but then we have many others who say they prefer the 28 days, including his colleague the member for Cochrane South (Mr. Pope), who submitted a letter saying, “We want 28 days.”

Whether it is 21 or 28 days, that does not signal the start of a campaign. It simply means you can start the campaign whenever you want. In some of the areas across the province, the campaign starts several months ahead. For those who are incumbents, I suppose 21 days is sufficient time, but many people are entering the field for the first time. We encourage that, and I think they should have every opportunity to become involved in the process and have ample time to get their platform across to the people. That is why, unless there was some unanimous feeling that it should be changed, I feel it should remain as stated, at 28 days.

We want to create a greater interest in voting, and there was some question as to how we are going to do this. We do have a concentrated marketing campaign beginning with Local Government Week, which is next week. It is an opportunity to create interest in that. Besides that, the brochure, which will go to every householder, speaks about the upcoming municipal elections on November 14.

As outlined on both the brochure, for anyone who needs help with it or the form, all he has to do is phone a 1-800 number, or in his own particular area there is a telephone number at which he can receive assistance.

I may also add that the Ministry of Revenue will be mailing a voter identification notice to every household in late August. The notice will contain the following information: a person’s electoral rights, whether he or she is a public or separate school elector, that there is a French-language school board section in his or her area, and where and when revision is to take place.

With regard to the new form, the leaflet will be included with every municipal enumeration notice. It gives information about polling day on November 14, the purposes of enumeration and how to complete the form. The form has been proofread by staff of the ministries of francophone affairs, Education and Revenue.

There were a number of other questions which were raised yesterday, and my colleague the member for Brantford (Mr. Neumann) will respond to those. I appreciate the comments which have been made here, and I would hope, in the interest of being able to get the program under way and to notify the electors across this province, that the members of this House will give their support to this bill.

Mr. Cousens: The minister has not responded to too many of the questions we raised, the very question which has to do with the intimidation of people by virtue of having “you are required” and “by May 12 to have it completed.”

I would like to ask the minister, as well, why it is that the enumeration form was not circulated to all MPPs. Why is it that he did not circulate this form that has just now been released, less than five minutes ago, or just before the minister started to speak, so we knew what he was up to as well?

My last point is: What about the corrections? It has been brought to our attention, certainly in the references from the people of the Carleton board, that there are some errors at least in the French edition. The minister has not satisfied me that those errors have been corrected. He can say it has been proofread all he wants, but that does not mean to say they found the mistakes. Let us at least have some assurances that those concerns have been taken into consideration.

I would like to know further what it is the minister has done with the recommendations that were made by such boards as that, which were asking for extra clarification in the instructions regarding public school electors and separate school electors and French language rights? Can the minister, in this very short time which we are allowed, shed some light on this dark bill?

1600

Mr. Laughren: I was not going to get involved in the debate but the government, for some strange reason, seems to be wanting to prolong the debate by its behaviour. Yesterday we tried to debate it without the minister here. It always gets the opposition up in arms and prolongs the debate on any bill when the minister does not show up for the debate. Then today the minister comes in and announces that not only is he doing a nice little windup for the government, his parliamentary assistant is going to do one as well.

Also, of course, and perhaps this is what causes me the most concern, is the history of this minister bringing in bills. How do we know that when the minister is finished with this bill he will not do the same with it as he did with the lottery bill, in which case he said, “Well, we will go through all the agony of second-reading debate, we will send it out to committee and have committee debate and we will have appearances before the committee and it can even go to third reading, but we will never proclaim it.”

An hon. member: Right. He cannot be trusted.

Mr. Laughren: The minister cannot be trusted when it comes to dealing with legislation in this House. That is an accurate history, and to this day that lottery bill that went right through to the final stages was never passed and never proclaimed. That gives us pause for thought whenever this minister brings in a bill, we take the debate seriously and try to engage the minister in serious debate when we do not know what is lurking in the recesses of his mind. What does he really intend to do with this bill? I would like to have assurances from this minister that when this debate is finished he intends to carry this bill right through to proclamation.

Mr. McCague: I do not personal]y care how much proofreading people have done of the form. We are not worried whether the spelling is right and the commas are in the right spot. We are worried about the content of the form. Proofreading does not do a thing about that.

The minister said in his comments there was a form going out from the Ministry of Revenue. I know I cannot ask him questions here, but is this the form? He might nod his head. Is this the form from the Ministry of Revenue or is there another hidden one that we do not know anything about yet? We would like to know. This one does not say who did it. I have no idea.

The minister comes in this House and tells us that the reason he was not here yesterday was because he was meeting with municipalities. Great glory to him. What was he going to do if we started on Tuesday and went into Wednesday? He was not going to be here, so he should not give us that balderdash.

Mr. Morin-Strom: I am pleased that the minister is here today to at least give us a couple of minutes of responses, although his initial remarks did not address some of the serious issues that were brought up yesterday by opposition members regarding this bill; two specific areas, one of them French-language education rights. It appears, according to this, that we are going to be restricting francophones from being able to vote for their own councillors in this situation because certain exclusions are not being provided for.

In particular, cases where the individuals come to our country from foreign lands where they may have had another first language which is not French or English, but their second language is French, and they are not going to have the right to participate in the election of trustees. As well, I have concerns about the requirements on being able to vote for the Roman Catholic school board. There are cases where individuals are having their children go to the Roman Catholic school board but they are not Roman Catholics themselves and in some cases, in order to get certain programs, they have to send their kids to Roman Catholic school boards.

This board says that the ability to vote as a separate school elector is available only to Roman Catholics. How do we disfranchise people who have their children in those systems and take away their right to be able to vote for their representatives?

I would appreciate it if the minister and his parliamentary assistant would become more substantive in addressing this bill in the comments to come.

Miss Martel: I am glad to see that the minister is here. I must point out, though, that some of the concerns that I raised yesterday concerning this bill have not been addressed either.

First, I go back to some of the comments that my colleague made, in particular, about the comments made by the Carleton Board of Education concerning French-language education rights. Whether the form was well tested, as the minister has said, Carleton certainly did respond strongly in this regard. The minister has not moved any amendments to change that situation, and he will be disfranchising a large number of new Canadians who otherwise associate themselves with the francophone community. I say to the minister that I am dismayed that his ministry did not see fit to make the changes requested by the Carleton board.

Second, I want to point out that I asked yesterday what kind of campaign the ministry was going to be running in terms of advertising. I know the French teachers’ association in the Ottawa region wanted to run a parallel campaign to sensitize francophone voters to this type of legislation. I have not heard today what kind of campaign will be run on their behalf or with them.

I have not heard anything about a campaign for the ethnic community. In the minister’s statement when this bill was first introduced, he said that the ministries would be working with people whose first language was neither English nor French. I have not heard how that is going to occur and what groups have yet been contacted or if, indeed, a network is even there.

There are some serious problems that I do not think the ministry has dealt with, and I must say I am dismayed by what has happened over this bill.

Hon. Mr. Eakins: There were two particular items here which were raised. One was Ontarians whose first language is neither English nor French. I just want to say that with the assistance of the Ministry of Citizenship, the third-language media will be briefed on the new system and encouraged to explain it to their own communities in their own languages.

The ethnic organizations across the province will be sent material about the new process and will be briefed on this. They will also be asked to help members of the communities to fill out the forms. The Ministry of Revenue will be operating a well-publicized toll-free telephone service in English, French and several other languages for people requiring assistance with the form or just seeking general information.

Also, the question was raised regarding whether the forms properly provided for identification of francophone electors. The form was designed in accordance with the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Bill 75, the Education Act amendment dealing with French-language governance. The form has been reviewed by the Ministry of the Attorney General to ensure its compliance with the charter and Bill 75. The right to be a French-language elector is determined by the Canadian Charter of Rights.

Ms. Bryden: I am really shocked at this bill’s coming in during the dying days of the December sitting, when the government had two and a half years to redo the assessment system and electoral enumeration.

I think it shows the immaturity of this new government that it would attempt to put through a bill of this sort and this complexity in such a hurry, with so little opportunity for public hearings or for fine-tuning it to fit the visually handicapped or for looking at problems which have been brought to my attention where women are concerned about the posting of lists showing that women are living alone. We have not yet found a solution to the problem of how to protect those women from having it published to the community that they are living alone. Whether we need something like unlisted numbers or a record in the clerk’s office as to who is eligible, we have to look at problems like that and there has been no time to do that.

We all know that the previous assessment system was terrible. The government had been doing it, though, for about 10 years and had never managed to correct it, neither the previous government nor the present government. But this time, it is trying to ram through something that is ill thought out and it is just plain foolhardy to try to put this through so close to an election.

1610

As a representative for the Metropolitan Toronto area, I am particularly concerned about what this is going to do to the whole electoral process in the metropolitan area because we are going in for completely new boundaries and a new electoral system for the metropolitan area. That will create enough confusion in people’s minds without adding the confusion of a completely new method of assessment and a completely new kind of enumeration. I am sure many people will be disinclined to vote because they will be so confused by all the changes as to whether they are on the list or how they get on the list or why they have been left off the list.

As far as information goes, I had a member of my research staff phone the ministry asking for copies of the forms and for copies of the letters the minister had sent out to municipal clerks and to school board administrators explaining what was going on and how one would identify different kinds of school supporters. I never received any of the information that I asked for. This is the first time I have seen the copy of the form. Just looking at it, the form is enough to confuse most electors.

It seems to me that the government is showing it is foolhardy in proceeding with such a complicated change just before municipal-election revision for the metropolitan area goes ahead, and for all the other residents of Ontario as well, who have been used to a former system of assessment. They may not have liked its results entirely, but this is so different and so new that we really have to have a period of working out the bugs, hearing what the public thinks about the proposals and what it thinks about the forms.

Perhaps we have to have a period of enumerations that may or may not result in elections, where there is a chance to iron out the bugs. Rushing into a municipal election this fall is definitely going to mean great confusion in Metropolitan Toronto and across the province.

We should be making sure that the government shows its maturity by considering withdrawing this bill and then, after the various comments that have been made in the House have been reviewed, bringing in a new one which would take cognizance of those comments and then sending it to public hearings and putting it through the Legislature at a much more leisurely pace.

I will not go into all the shortcomings of it because my colleagues have done an excellent job in the course of the debate in pointing out the many anomalies. I think the members of the third party have also pointed out a great many of the anomalies.

The minister should be listening. It is really unfair to expect a minister who has just taken over a portfolio to put through such a flawed bill. He is being asked to sponsor this and to persuade the Legislature that this is a good bill, whereas instead he is really being the fall guy who has to put through a very bad bill just because the Liberal majority has decided that it is going to listen to the bureaucrats who have been planning these revisions for years, but that it is not going to give us a chance to modify and fine-tune the new system. That is why I say the government is showing its immaturity. It could show its maturity by withdrawing this bill.

Mr. Cousens: It is arrogance.

Ms. Bryden: It is both immaturity and arrogance, but I am afraid from past experience we expect arrogance from majority governments.

Mr. Cousens: We never had as much as this.

Ms. Bryden: Also, I do feel that the provisions for the francophone voters are very unclear, and that is a big area where we must have public hearings and more input from the voters affected, and also for all the separate school supporters, because they are also working through Bill 40 and the new changes there and there will be disputes and debates about who is a public school supporter and who is a separate school supporter.

This bill is really bound to cause more trouble than even the previous assessment system did. I know it put all sorts of dead people on the list. I have canvassed door to door with it and found that it had people who had left that residence 10 years ago. They put the form in and nobody returned the form and said that person was not there any more.

There is one clause in this bill that I think is very bad; that is, when the electors are notified of who is on the list, according to the proposed law, it is only necessary to send one copy to each household for all the voters in that household. How do we have any guarantee that people who are sharing a house will share that particular piece of paper and see who is actually on the voters’ list? Will the owner of the house post it in the hall so that everybody can read it?

I think every voter is entitled to a separate notice that he is on the list and what the details are about him, as to his school support and status as an elector. I think that one mailing per address, which is section 10 of the bill, subsection 23(4) of the act, is certainly something that should be wiped out if there are any amendments. I hope there will be no amendments, because I hope this bill will be as dead as a dodo next week.

The Acting Speaker: Does any member wish to comment upon the remarks made by the member for Beaches-Woodbine?

Mr. McCague: The opportunity arose when the previous speaker mentioned “dodo.’’ I do not equate myself with that, but I just want to reiterate for the minister -- and I would like to get his attention for a moment -- when we started this debate yesterday, we were told that he would be here momentarily, only to find that he did not show up for the whole day; only to find today that he stood in his place, said what he wanted to say, summed up and then told us that his parliamentary assistant was going to do the summing up for the ministry. Well, he has done that.

Hon. Mr. Eakins: I am going to speak again.

Mr. McCague: He cannot speak again. He can speak for two minutes now, but that is the only time he can speak again. That is shabby treatment he is giving the opposition, and he owes us an apology.

Mr. Cousens: I sensed in the remarks of the member for Beaches-Woodbine that she too is extremely disappointed with the minister, disappointed not only with the fact that he is treating us shabbily. The way the report came to her, she did not have a copy of it before now. Obviously, as an opposition member, she is being treated as badly as we are in the third party.

I think there is a sense here in which the ministry is not looking first to the Legislature, to this House in which to share and to involve those of us who have been elected to dialogue about the acts and the procedures and what is going on in this province. In fact, what is happening is that it was more important that the minister go and meet with a group of people yesterday than to be here and be involved in the important debate of the Legislature. It is more important that the minister go and finish off a statement, and he has now left the House -- he is out of his seat, talking to someone else, but not showing the concern and consideration that we are bringing to this bill.

I believe that we are seeing something happen in this Legislature with this bill that reflects an attitudinal problem of the government. I am sure that is the kind of thing the member for Beaches-Woodbine was referring to -- an attitudinal problem that says we do not matter and the people of Ontario do not matter. What that amounts to is arrogance.

1620

Mr. Black: You know all about arrogance.

Mr. Cousens: I am just telling the members something. It comes back to haunt anyone who ever has that, and the member knows that as well as anyone, when one comes up from Muskoka.

I am dreadfully disappointed at the shabby treatment that we are all getting in this House, and at this breach of tradition where now the minister has spoken as if to wrap it up and now he is going to have another wrapup from the parliamentary assistant. Have members ever heard of that before? I never have.

The Acting Speaker: Would any other member wish to comment on the comments made by the honourable member for Beaches-Woodbine? If not, would the member wish to reply?

Ms. Bryden: I certainly am pleased that the member for Markham and the other members --

An hon. member: The member for Simcoe West.

Ms. Bryden: -- yes, the member for Simcoe West -- appreciated that we have been shabbily treated as a Legislature in the handling of this bill. I think that is the important issue. It should be a lesson to the majority Liberal government over there that it should pay attention to this Legislature if it wants to get good legislation, because that is what we are here for: to bring various points of view to the legislation and to be constructive critics as opposition members.

The government is here to listen to what the people throughout the province are saying and what they want. I hope that when we hear from the parliamentary assistant he will suggest that the bill is so flawed that perhaps the government should consider withdrawing it.

The Acting Speaker: Would any other honourable member wish to participate in the debate? The member for Mississauga South.

Mrs. Marland: I think the unfortunate issue here is that we have now spent two afternoons in this Legislature discussing something that, if it had been prepared properly, could have been dealt with quite expediently. It is really of tremendous concern to me when I look at what we have before us from the standpoint of what it is we are dealing with. The funny thing is that generally good government, if it changes something, whether it is a process or introduces something as a new process, it is for a very good reason.

The concept of this is very good, the idea of it is very good, but that is, unfortunately, where this legislation ends, because in actuality all the good reasons for having this system in place fall down because of the system itself. If we are not changing something for improved function and improved clarity and easier understanding for everyone, then I have to ask, what is the point in doing it?

We are very fortunate because it is easy for us in this House to understand English. For some of us it is easy or reasonably easy to understand French, but I would like to know whether this ministry has on hand the numbers of languages and the numbers of people within those other language areas who are not going to be able to either read or understand these documents.

I also think it would have been a courtesy for the minister to have circulated these forms that we were all referring to yesterday and today. In fact my colleague the member for Markham who is a critic in one of these areas, did not even have the benefit of one of these forms yesterday. I think that if a bill is introduced and there is accompanying material, it may even be a positive move for the minister to say, “Be sure that all this material is circulated so that we avoid all the questions.”

It is interesting. If you go to the government bookstore there are all kinds of pamphlets available in all kinds of languages. I am disappointed to take note that the minister was amused just a few minutes ago. I do not know what it was I said that amused him, but if these serious comments on my part on behalf of the people of Ontario amuse the minister, then I think that is rather a grave injustice for the people on whose behalf I am speaking.

If you go to the government bookstore, Madam Speaker, you can pick up a copy of one pamphlet, perhaps in 30 or 35 languages. If it is important enough to do that on some subjects, I cannot think of a more important subject than this one. I think, too, the way this is worded is very intimidating and very fearful for some people. This is the form that is called Five Easy Steps to Complete Your Notice. First of all, you have to ask, “What notice is that?” Then you get further down and perhaps you do read where it says, “Municipal Enumeration Notice,” but the only bold sentence on this whole form is where it says, “You are required by law to complete and return this notice.”

That is a pretty intimidating statement. I recognize the necessity for ensuring that these forms are returned, but I think of people who do not have a faculty with either of the official languages reading, “You are required by law to complete and return this notice.” If they do not have a faculty with either of the official languages, first of all, they do not read that, and perhaps if they have a minimal faculty, that part is quite fearful for them.

Then, when you turn to the form itself, although it says on the front again, “You are required by section 14 of the Assessment Act to complete and return this notice,” on what I guess is the reverse -- unfortunately, I have only carbon copies of this form and I suppose it is a two-sided form; I would not know that, however, because the minister has not extended me the courtesy of sending me an original form -- but on what is either the reverse or the second page of the form, the first thing it says is that this form can be filled out by a responsible adult, etc. On one page it says “you are required,” therefore, it must be filled out; then they get to the next page where it says “it can be filled out.” It is a very confusing use of language, I would respectfully suggest.

Then it says, “Need help? Contact the regional assessment office at....” I am wondering if this is where the 800 number to which the minister referred a few moments ago is going to be published. Or is it going to be a long-distance number or a local telephone number? We do not have the answers to those questions, but if it is a typical government 1-800 number, I would respectfully suggest that those numbers are very difficult to get through on. They are generally busy, frequently busy. The system is just going to fall apart, because if people cannot get through when they cannot understand this form, they certainly are not going to bother returning it.

What gets tremendously interesting is section 3, particularly where they have to answer the questions about residency. What is the explanation about question 1: “Live in the unit described above? Live elsewhere in the municipality? Live in another municipality? Live elsewhere on this property”? I wonder how many people even in this Legislature today understand what those questions mean. “Live elsewhere on this property?” That is a very vague question.

Interestingly enough, when you go to what should be the explanation under “Notes,” it becomes even more complex:

“If you live in the apartment or house described in the section of the form marked ‘This notice is for,’ check box A.

“If you live elsewhere within the same municipality, check box 2.

“If you live in another municipality, check box 3. If you live in another apartment or house in the same property, check box 4.”

1630

Really, with respect, if the minister were in the House, I would be able to address my comments to him. Unfortunately, he is not in the House at this time, and I understand this is his bill. It is disappointing that the minister is not here. He is not in the House at this moment. What is disappointing, as colleagues in my caucus and members of the official opposition have said this afternoon, is that the minister was not here to present his bill and address the contents of his bill yesterday. Apparently, he is not able to stay here for any duration today. Does that mean that the priority of this bill or the priority of our questions is not very high on the part of that minister?

The good thing about our system of government is that we all have to be accountable. I would suggest that a minister presenting legislation should be able to be present at least one of two days and at least a total portion of the second day. Right now he is not here. I think that leads to the whole weakness of the process.

If this is a serious attempt to improve something, I think there should be a serious commitment on the part of the minister to indicate his sincerity on behalf of the people of Ontario. Fortunately for the people of Ontario, the official opposition and the third party are, in fact, belabouring this legislation, not because we want to be spending the time on it, but by necessity we are having to ask the questions and point out the fact that here we have a brand-new system of enumeration which is to go into effect for the municipal elections this year. These forms have to be returned by May 12, I think it is, and none of these questions that have been raised in the past two days have been answered satisfactorily or at all.

If those questions have not been asked, then I have to agree with the member for Beaches-Woodbine that to proceed with this form in this format is senseless because of the difficulty, and how complex what should really be a simple subject has become.

When you look through -- Mind you, when I say, “When you look through,” I am pretty fortunate, because I do not wear glasses. That is very small print, even for people with glasses. When you look through this, the residents who are fortunate enough to be able to read it will say: “Another form. So what? Something to do with enumeration. Does that mean whether I vote?” They are going to say, “Why bother?”

That is where we get to the most serious aspect of this whole piece of legislation, that is, that it is terribly important that people bother to vote. It is terribly important that citizens have the opportunity to vote. In order to do that, they have to be enumerated, they have to be successfully listed on a voters’ list. What I would suggest is that with this system as it is presently printed and presented, we are going to have fewer people on voters’ lists in the municipal elections in November this year in this province. The whole process of municipal representation through municipal government unfortunately is going to fail as a result of it.

The only way governments can work is with representation at all levels. The only way that works is if people can get out and vote and therefore indicate their support for the person of their choice. They cannot do that if they are not on the voters’ list. I suggest, with respect, that we are going to see far shorter voters’ lists this year than we ever have before. People will not deal with the complexity of this, because it is simply beyond them. They will simply set it aside as another typical government bureaucratic step. For what? Not for an improvement, because of the format and the complexity. It is really unfortunate because, in the long run, to have a voters’ list that is established within all municipalities for all levels of government will ultimately, I am sure, save money for those of us who are taxpayers in Ontario.

But if the whole system of government and representation falls down because people simply will not be bothered, although they are told they are required by law, how many people who are required by law to fill out this form and who do not fill it out are going to be processed through our courts? I would suggest, with respect, that it is rather a hollow warning to the public that you are required by law to fill out this form.

The accuracy with which they are able to fill it out makes the whole system fall apart. I hope before this legislation goes any further that the minister will reconsider the necessity to have the timing as it is. Personally, I think if we have waited this long for this format of enumeration, it will not matter if we miss one more municipal election.

What will matter is that when it is introduced it works and is effective on behalf of everybody who wants to be in a position to elect his or her municipal representatives.

M. Pouliot: Je voudrais faire un ou deux commentaires sur les remarques prononcées par la député de Mississauga-Sud (Mme Marland). J’aimerais attirer l’attention de la Chambre sur l’Avis de recensement municipal, qui est la formule en question, celle qu’on discute et qui apporte la question suivante.

Il est permis de se rappeler dans le cas éventuel, ou dirais-je plutôt dans le cas réel d’un contribuable, d’un citoyen dont la langue maternelle serait autre que l’anglais ou le français mais dont la langue seconde serait le français, que celui-ci se trouverait dans l’impossibilité, à cause d’une politique byzantine, à cause d’une politique ambiguë, désuète, périmée, dans l’obligation de ne pas être capable d’appuyer un conseil, une commission, des établissements scolaires de langue française.

Qu’il me soit permis non d’accuser mais de faire remarquer au gouvernement qu’encore une fois la francophonie, chez eux, passe au deuxième rang. On peut même aller jusqu’a se demander si ce n’est pas une mesure systématique, une mesure délibérée pour nous garder, nous, francophones, dans l’obscurité. Je n’y crois pas. Je demanderais donc au ministre de revendiquer les droits de la francophonie. Il pourrait le faire avec un coup de plume, avec un amendement.

Mr. Cousens: I would like to make just a brief comment on the very excellent presentation by the member for Mississauga South (Mrs. Marland). This is a politician who has served in the municipal government as a councillor for something like seven years.

Mrs. Marland: And four years on the school board.

Mr. Cousens: And four years on the school board, so she brings a wealth of experience to this office as a member of the provincial Legislature. I would like her, in her concluding remarks in response to this, if she would be so kind, to tell us if she has ever seen a municipality or a government or an opposition or anyone treated as shabbily as we are being treated here. I would be very appreciative if she could just give some comments on the effect this has on all of us.

I do not think the people out there in Ontario understand how important it is for the government to maintain a sense of communication, and that sense means there is going to be sharing of information, a tabling of it in time so that we have an opportunity to review it, understand it, analyse it and assess it. They have talked a good word. They have said this is going to be an open government, and what we have had in fact is a closed door to the truth, a closed door to what is really going on. I am asking the member for Mississauga South if she can give some comment on her reaction to this kind of treatment as a member of the opposition.

1640

I think the people of Ontario had better start paying attention to what is not happening, and what is not happening is that significant and sincere effort by this government to be honest communicators with all of us. What they have done is to go out to the rest of the world, share these data and then drop them in here when they felt like it. That is not the way to run a good system and that is not the way to get a good response back.

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has expired. Are there any other members who wish to make any comments or ask any questions directly on the comments made by the member for Mississauga South?

Mr. McCague: Mr. Speaker, I would like to do just that. Undoubtedly you had your speaker on in your office or you would not have raised that issue as I stood.

However, I want to remind the minister and the parliamentary assistant that the thing they probably said the most often during this discussion, debate or whatever you want to call it on the enumeration issue is that the enumerators found it difficult, in fact embarrassing, and so did the person who had to answer the question that was posed by the enumerator. That is the reason we are having a new system, along with, in fairness, the fact that the government wants a better database.

I suggest to the minister that the embarrassment which is going to be caused by this form is far, far greater than any embarrassment caused in the resident-enumerator discussion as to how the form was to be filled out. I wish he would consider that, and I am sorry we are not going to get an opportunity to hear from him again, because there are a lot of unanswered questions.

Mrs. Marland: The one thing about our parliamentary system in Ontario is that it has always worked and been accountable on a basis of government and opposition. What we are seeing here, unfortunately, is an example where we have a government with 94 seats. Fortunately, they were not successful last week in regaining a seat which they had from last September.

But what is very interesting is that they have not yet come to their senses, I suppose, nor has it sunk in that there was a message to them last week. That message is that if they do not read the writing on the wall and are not an accountable government, or in fact are not even a fair government where they listen to input from the opposition parties, they will fail and fall flat on their face.

I thought it was very interesting this afternoon in this Legislature to hear the Premier (Mr. Peterson) suggest that it is OK to operate a child care centre in Queen’s Park at a deficit. Is it not interesting, when we have such an open government, that we are saying it is OK to raise those fees for those parents at this child care centre 25 per cent, give it free rent, free telephone, free furnishings and operate at a deficit? It is interesting when you look at that kind of example of what this open government is about and then look at this kind of form to try to improve an enumeration process. All together what you get is a complete waste of taxpayers’ money, and I feel that is a very serious disregard to the people who live in this province.

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has now expired. Are there any other members wishing to participate in the debate? If not, the parliamentary assistant may wish to make some --

Mr. R. F. Johnston: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I believe it is customary in the House for members to speak from their own seats. I know yesterday the House leader for the government asked for unanimous consent for the member to cross and sit across the aisle. He then took the seat of the Attorney General (Mr. Scott). Now he has moved to the seat of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara). I am not sure we meant this to be a chance for him to check out all the government seats over there. I just wonder if we again have to give unanimous consent for him to take the Minister of Labour’s seat, or is he happy there?

Hon. Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, I think we should certainly accommodate the member for Scarborough West, who makes a very good point. I am perfectly content that the member speak from his own place. I sought unanimous consent yesterday for what I thought would be the convenience of the chamber, but I am entirely in its hands. It is quite clear that unanimous consent is required if an honourable member wishes to speak from a seat other than his own. If that consent is not offered, then I certainly will not seek it.

Mr. Speaker: I believe the member for Scarborough West was asking for unanimous consent?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Exactly. I was wondering if we had to reissue it each day or whether it stood for time immemorial, and therefore which seats he was going to fill.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you for your assistance. I really believe, if I recall from yesterday, that that was what took place, so I would ask if there is unanimous consent.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Oh, absolutely. We want to be helpful.

Mr. Laughren: Who would quibble about that?

Mr. Neumann: I rise to give some concluding remarks with respect to Bill 77, An Act to amend the Municipal Elections Act and the Assessment Act. I have learned a great deal listening to the debate yesterday and today, and I want to thank the members of the official opposition and the members of the third party for their constructive criticism and for their support of the general intent of this bill. I think all three parties are very positive in terms of the goal and the objectives of encouraging greater involvement at the municipal level, encouraging greater accuracy in the drafting of the voters’ lists for this fall’s municipal elections and elections for school boards and public utilities commissions across Ontario.

We heard speeches at the beginning of yesterday’s debate from both opposition parties indicating positive support, and speeches following that indicating some criticism and some suggestions for improvement. This may not be the best possible way of doing the job; there may need to be reforms in the future. But we feel as a government that this bill should be proceeded with, that it will be an improvement over the present system. We can watch what happens in the municipal election this fall and, if necessary, we can provide improvements in the future to provide further accuracy and further improvements to the system.

This is an important bill, and the timing of it is certainly not entirely optimum. However, I would point out that the bill was introduced in December. It was sent out to all of the clerks, all of the public utilities commissions and school boards across Ontario. They are anticipating this reform, they are anticipating these changes, they know what is coming and have made preparations. As well, work has gone on in the various ministries. The Ministry of Revenue in consultation with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and the ministry of francophone affairs have all been involved in the preparation for implementation of this bill.

A public relations campaign has been geared up and is ready to go. That will support the documents which have been spoken to in this House. There will be a multimedia campaign not only encouraging citizens to fill out the form and send it in but encouraging them to participate fully in the municipal election this fall. Our objective is to produce accurate lists, to produce a good participation by candidates in the election and to encourage a high turnout at the polls on November 14.

We feel that, quite rightly, as has been pointed out by the opposition, this bill is part of a package of reform in the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. We are proud of this thrust. We think it will work well and we are obviously open to suggestions for further improvement as time goes on.

I would comment very briefly, as the minister commented in his remarks, with respect to the change from 21 days to 28 days. I point out that the 21-day nomination period simply alerts the citizens of the community who the candidates are for each of the positions open for election. By changing it to 28 days, it means the citizens are aware for an extra week who the candidates are.

1650

That does not mean that signifies the start of a campaign. I am sure that in the larger urban areas the campaigns will have started well in advance of the official nomination, as indeed they do in provincial elections. The election campaign starts well in advance of the official nomination of the candidate for his name to be on the ballot. In the rural areas, the campaigns tend to be very short and can continue to be that.

The official nomination date is important to get the ballots printed on time, to give the clerks who supervise the printing and distribution of the ballots ample time to prepare them. In case there are any revisions with people dropping out and having to reprint ballots, they will have ample time to do that, which the clerks have been asking for.

In addition to the ministries I mentioned, there has been full consultation with the Ministry of Citizenship on the government’s across-the-ministries multiculturalism strategy. The Minister of Citizenship (Mr. Phillips) has reviewed the action plan to consult the various ethnic minorities in this province of ours to ensure that people who speak neither French nor English as their first language will have as much assistance as possible to complete the forms and will have the opportunity to get some assistance in filling out the forms.

To comment briefly as well, supplementary to the minister’s comments about the question of French electors under the legislation, as the minister pointed out, this is being done to implement the decisions of this House with respect to Bill 75, an amendment to the Education Act, to give French electors the right to elect their own boards. One of the main purposes of this bill is to implement that, and it is done in accordance with the definition under the Charter of Rights in the Constitution of Canada.

It may be that some members wish to expand the definition of French electors beyond what is in the Charter of Rights, but in this bill we are seeking to harmonize the bill in keeping with Bill 75, which was the decision of this House, and also in keeping with the Constitution of Canada.

In conclusion, I urge the members of the House to give approval to this bill. It will set the implementation plan in motion, once we have third reading and royal assent, to have the public relations campaign launched as part of Local Government Week, initially, to alert voters to the importance of local government across this province and then, on into the summer and in the fall, to encourage the voters to participate as candidates and as electors on election day.

Just to conclude on the procedures, the questionnaires will be mailed out to all households. They will have the opportunity to phone a toll-free number or a local number for assistance. If they do not return the form by May 12, then there will be a six-week period when people will go out into those homes and ensure that there is a proper registration of voters.

Then there will a further revision period in the fall so that there can be changes made to eliminate any inaccuracies. Even then, if, for whatever reason, at the conclusion of that process a person’s name is inadvertently left off the list or there is some inaccuracy, a person can go to the municipal clerk and get a certificate and submit that certificate at the polling station and be able to vote on election day.

We feel we have a lot of fallback steps within the process that will ensure that every person who is eligible to vote will be able to vote on election day and to make it as accurate as possible. We feel this bill is a first step forward in moving towards the idea of a more permanent voters’ list.

There has been consultation with the officials who do the enumeration for provincial elections to see whether or not in future years, if we can develop this system and update it annually from the information we have and the vital statistics and the assessment role, perhaps we can plug the provincial enumeration into this system and save some money in doing so in the long run.

I feel it is a good bill. It is a positive step and it is part of a package of reform in this ministry. I want to thank the minister for giving me the opportunity to assist in the Legislature yesterday and today in piloting this bill through. I say to the members opposite that I do not share the criticism of the minister in going to meet with officials in the municipalities. I know this minister believes very strongly in going out across Ontario and meeting directly with municipal officials, not just sitting around a table here at Queen’s Park and making decisions from afar.

Mr. Cousens: That’s just terrible.

Mr. Neumann: That is a very positive move. It means we are receptive.

Mr. Cousens: We are not sitting around a table. You just come in here to do the legislative work. That is just an outrage.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Neumann: I was not referring to the work in the House.

Mr. Cousens: You were so. Mr. Speaker, would you have him withdraw that? It is just an insult to the entire House.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps the member for Markham would remain in his seat.

Mr. Neumann: I was not at all referring to the work of the House. I was referring to comments I have heard my minister make on many occasions when he and I were visiting municipalities in different parts of Ontario when he said, “We have come out to talk to you because it is important that we as elected people do not just sit around our tables at Queen’s Park and fail to listen to the voters and the citizens directly.” I do not apologize for going out into the field and listening to the people out there.

I feel it is a positive step forward. It is part of a package of reform, and I am proud to be part of it.

Mr. Breaugh: On a brief point of order, Mr. Speaker: I am concerned somewhat that a remark made by the parliamentary assistant needs some explanation and there may not be an opportunity to get it later. He indicated in wrapping up that there has already begun a consultation process of sharing this information with other levels of government. I am concerned that in doing that he may have inadvertently misled us, because on the flyer, which he handed to me himself, it says very explicitly, “This information will be used for these purposes only. The confidentiality of all personal information will be protected under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, 1987.”

My point of order is that I would not want the record to stay as the parliamentary assistant has left it, where we have a brochure produced by the government saying the information will be used for these purposes only. In concluding the debate, the parliamentary assistant leaves the impression that they are already sharing this information with other people.

Mr. Lupusella: You missed some.

Mr. Breaugh: I did not.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not know if this is going to committee of the whole House, but if the parliamentary assistant wishes to correct the record, he has the right to do that.

Mr. Neumann: My remarks may have been misinterpreted, because I was not suggesting that the information that is being sought in the questionnaire, the information which the individuals will fill out, will be shared with other levels of government.

What I indicated is that there has been initial consultation between the people involved in this process and the people involved in the provincial election process to see whether at some point in the future we could have a common system, to have a voters’ list that would be common for municipal and provincial elections.

Mr. Speaker: The question before the House is --

Mr Cousens: Any chance for comments at all?

Mr. Speaker: None whatsoever. Being a former presiding officer, I am certain you will agree with me.

Mr. Cousens: I respect the chair.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you. The motion is for second reading of Bill 77.

All those in favour will please say “aye.”

All those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the bill be ordered for third reading?

Hon. Mr. Conway: Committee of the whole.

1700

Mr. McCague: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: The House leader has said that it should go to committee of the whole House. That might have been the intention earlier in the day. As far as our party is concerned, we do not think there is any use going to committee of the whole. We could not get the answers in debate; we will not get them from the committee of the whole; and the government has refused to consider any amendments, even though it was told so by people outside.

Unless the honourable government House leader has some reason he thinks it should go to committee of the whole, I suggest here that it should not.

Mr. Speaker: I wonder if I might once again place the question to the House. Shall the bill be ordered for third reading?

Bill ordered for third reading.

INTERIM SUPPLY

Hon. R. F. Nixon moved resolution 9:

That the Treasurer of Ontario be authorized to pay the salaries of the civil servants and other necessary payments pending the voting of supply for the period commencing April 16, 1988, and ending June 30, 1988, such payments to be charged to the proper appropriation following the voting of supply.

Mr. Speaker: Does the Treasurer have any opening comment?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Yes, I do. I want to inform the House that the resolution which would give us, as a government, the right to undertake the public expenditures until June 30 entails the expenditure of approximately $9.2 billion.

I would like to bring to members’ attention that the House, in its wisdom, gave interim supply to the government extending to April 15 and that was past the end of the fiscal year, which really means that the approval for last year’s expenditures is somewhat erratic.

The honourable members would remember that I presented a budget last May, followed by the tabling of the estimates. While we were well into the consideration of the estimates, the election of last September intervened. It is considered by those who know these things that the election itself was an indication of the acceptance of the budgetary position of the government presented last May.

However, the House has the disposition -- whatever the components of the various parties are of approval of the estimates and those have been before us now for a number of months. Even though all the money in those estimates has been spent and it has been spent under the approval of the House through interim supply, the experts who advise me and the other members of the government on these matters have indicated that the House ought to have a chance to give its approval or otherwise of those spending estimates, followed by the normal supply bill.

The supply bill is in the tradition of the British parliamentary practice. It is introduced by the government after the estimates are approved, and the bill normally gets first, second and third reading in one session and then the bill is offered to the Lieutenant Governor at the end of that.

It is, I suppose, a bit irrelevant that it is expected that in the long run we go through those procedures. I mention it only to indicate that there would be an opportunity for further debate on general expenditures, although it would be dealing with last year’s expenditure, as the motion for the approval of the estimates will be brought forward by the House leader after consultation with his colleagues.

I just wanted to set that forward, because it will be nice to get back into a more orderly procedure of the approval of our expenditures. But if the House gives interim supply on the basis of this resolution, it will approve the business of the government until the end of June.

It is my hope that soon after the presentation of the budget a week from Wednesday, on April 20, the Chairman of Management Board will be able to table the estimates of expenditure for this present fiscal year -- and it is fairly early in the year -- and that the House will undertake the review of those estimates in the normal course of events.

Meanwhile, I look forward to hearing the comments of the honourable members on the motion before us, which approves government expenditures until June 30.

Mr. Laughren: I was not intending to take part in this debate. However, I am provoked by the comment of the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) that the result of the election was a vindication of the budgetary practices of his government. I think what the election did was grant approval to the budgetary promises of the government, not what it has done since that time. Even government members will know there is a big gap between what was promised during the campaign and what has been delivered since then.

If there is any one common thread that runs through the administration of this government, it is a lack of direction. I think the government must yearn for the days of the accord. The government must sit there and wonder how it ever blew it and got such a big majority. Now, of course, we would not touch them with a 10-foot pole if they offered us an accord. They are on their own and we are going to see if they can fly. During those two years of the accord, we had some of the best government this province has seen.

Something else that surely must be understood by the members is that when the election occurred this past year, what the electorate was voting on was what had been accomplished in the previous two years. I do not think most members would disagree with that. Would they also not agree as government members that that two-year period was driven by an agenda written by this party and agreed to by that party in order to stay in power?

That is not even a debatable issue. Surely to goodness the members will all understand that. But now that this government is on its own and appears to have no agenda, it is floundering. It really is floundering as a government. I can assure members that is not a partisan comment. That is common wisdom out there in Ontario now. Without the agenda of the accord dictated by this party, this government has no idea where it is going, no idea whatsoever.

I can tell them where they are not going. What they do not understand is that we set them up for this big fall they are going to have in the next election. They have no idea how devious we can be on this side. That is what happened. I want to tell you, Madam Speaker, that you would really have to look long and hard to find out any priorities of this government. I have no idea what the priorities of this government are.

When I went back and looked at the agenda for those two accord years, it was so clear. It was an exciting agenda. It was jam-packed. We wondered at times whether we would get through it all. It did not all work out the way we wanted it. There is legislation we think is terrible.

Interjection.

Mr. Laughren: Yes, that is right. I am not even talking about the election results. I am talking about the legislation that was passed. It did not all work out the way we had intended it to, but I want to tell the members that the two-year period was an exciting legislative period in Ontario, but not now. Not now.

When I sit here and watch the government day by day flounder -- it really is floundering -- it is truly remarkable. They have had six months to get their feet on the ground. Previous to that, we gave them a two-year training program and they still are floundering. Somebody has got to take charge over there to give them some kind of direction because right now they have none.

There is an enormous difference between what was promised during the campaign and what has been delivered since then. We have tried very hard to establish priorities for the government. I think it is clear that the opposition has staked out the whole question of housing as a matter of very serious importance in the province. Those who are in the Metropolitan Toronto area surely must agree. It is a serious problem and yet we are not getting any answers from the government.

I thought it was so ironic. Someone handed me a clipping today about how builders were paying up to $160,000 for a 40-foot lot in Scarborough. That is right in Scarborough. Probably Scarborough-Ellesmere, if the truth was known.

1710

Mr. Faubert: Scarborough West.

Mr. Laughren: I see, OK.

The Ontario government itself auctioned off 250 lots in Scarborough’s Malvern community for prices expected to range from $140,000 to $160,000 for a 40-foot lot.

Do members know what the money from the sale of that lot is going to be used for? To build affordable housing for Metro. Is there not something ironic about the provincial government feeding the escalation of land prices in Metro for the purpose of building affordable housing in Metro? There is something strange going on out there.

And yet, when my leader stands in his place and reels off example after example of speculative housing sales in Metro that are leading to these outrageous house prices now in excess of $200,000 average in Metro, the government has absolutely no answer -- none.

We asked the Treasurer a year ago to put in place a land speculation tax. There would be a sliding scale that it was so much if you sold a house within six months and a little less in 12 months and so forth. It would not discourage people from selling a family home at all -- not at all. What it would do is prevent the kind of speculation that is now going on.

I had a friend who told me of a real estate agent who interviewed a couple from offshore and showed this couple 28 houses in Metro -- 28 homes. The couple then left and the real estate agent was disappointed that she had not made a sale. She got a call two days or three days later saying that they were going to buy 26 of those 28 houses.

This was an offshore couple buying 26 houses. Now, that has absolutely nothing to do with the provision of homes for people who want to live in them in Ontario in Metro Toronto. It is time the government understood what was going on out there.

You know, the argument I hear from the upwardly mobile trendies is that, “Well, that’s because we are now an international city, the way New York City is, the way Hong Kong is, the way Tokyo is, the way Paris is, London” -- did I say “London”?

That is not an acceptable answer.

Mr. Charlton: You forgot Cambridge.

Mr. Laughren: I forgot Shining Tree.

That is not an acceptable rationale for allowing that kind of speculation in homes. It makes no sense whatsoever. It is so far removed from the principle of home ownership that the government simply cannot continue just to sit there and watch this happen.

We understand there are enormous real estate pressures on the market. I think it was the Premier (Mr. Peterson) who said today, “Well, we know that there’s a lot of pressure on the housing market.” We all know that. What we are saying to the Treasurer in particular is, “You can do something about it.”

The money is not big in terms of revenue, and that is not why we are pushing it. It is because we think it would discourage the speculation on homes.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Your offshore friends would pay a land transfer tax.

Mr. Laughren: Whatever it took to discourage them from speculating in homes. It really is outrageous.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: A 20 per cent tax? We never had a land-spec tax that big.

Mr. Laughren: Maybe it is time that we did. But the government will always find a reason for not proceeding with the speculation tax, and it is all self-serving arguments.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: The reason to do it is it’s wrong.

Mr. Laughren: The reason to do it is that they hope to prevent the speculation in single-family dwellings in particular.

I tried to give an example today, as did the leader of my party, of the kinds of inequities that are out there in the system. The Treasurer occasionally talks about justice in our tax system, but does nothing about it. The Treasurer has had three years now, as the Treasurer, almost one -- well, since last September -- with a large majority, and to this point nothing is happening in terms of fairness out there in the system.

We will see. I do not want to prejudge what is going to happen a week from Wednesday when the new budget comes down, but I want to tell you, at this point in time, given the track record of the Treasurer, I have to assume that it will be more cosmetic change than fundamental change. But I do not want to prejudge.

A few months ago, it was not even a year ago, we pointed out some things to the government. I would like to point out some of them again and update them a little bit. Since this government came to power the welfare case load in Ontario has worsened by 5.7 per cent. The welfare case load is getting worse. There are, by estimates from Statistics Canada, 160,000 children in Ontario living in families below the poverty level. We know as well that this Treasurer insists on continuing to tax people whose incomes are at the poverty level established by Statscan; they are not my poverty levels.

The use of food banks has never been higher. Every time I see a promotion for food banks, I cringe. Are we really heading for a society in which we require food banks to feed our people? It does not make me proud at all when I see all the good people who are contributing. That is not what we built our system on. We built our system on our sharing through the tax system with those people who cannot get by, and a lot of those people are children. To me, the food banks should be an embarrassment to any government. Any government that sees food banks thriving, if I can use that term, should be terribly embarrassed that this is going on. What makes it doubly embarrassing is that it is happening in Metro Toronto.

Just today the Premier said: “Metro Toronto is a very prosperous community. It’s booming, it’s wealthy.” In the midst of all this wealth, we have the food banks. He cannot tell me that is either justified or necessary. Surely to goodness we do not have to tolerate food banks in the midst of plenty. I think it is truly outrageous. I do not mean to malign those people who are trying to put food into those food banks. What they see is themselves engaging in an act of private charity. There is nothing wrong with private charity, but surely to goodness the system should not have to depend on it like that because we have a kind of system that need not depend on food banks, not at all.

It is part of the inequity and the lack of sharing of our wealth in our society. I look at the unemployment rate. We all hear how the unemployment rate is so low in southern Ontario, and in Metro in particular. In northern Ontario it still flirts with 10 per cent. Windsor is up over 10 per cent, almost 11 per cent, I think. For young people it is still over 10 per cent. That is unacceptable. One thing I do give the government credit for is the movement of ministries and agencies to northern Ontario. I think it has just scratched the surface on that at this point, but certainly that is a move in the right direction.

If the government looks at Windsor, the city of Windsor has contributed to our economy over the years an enormous amount with the automobile industry, and now it seems we are forgetting about the city. There should be some diversification of government agencies and ministries to places like Windsor as well, not just northern Ontario. I say that so the government knows I am not being parochial about northern Ontario. It takes a big man to talk like that. I really do think we should think about diversification for other communities as well.

It is hard to talk about government policy without continually going back to housing. I will try, but the numbers I see are like 10,000 homeless people in Toronto. I cannot envision 10,000 homeless people. That is a very large-sized town. It is as big as the largest town in my whole riding.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: How big is Sudbury?

Mr. Laughren: The city itself is about 95,000 and the region about 150,000 or 160,000.

It is my understanding that last year the Ministry of Housing did not even spend all of its allocated funds. Where are the contradictions here? Why are there these contradictions? As a matter of fact, I think that they failed to spend about $50 million in the last fiscal year and $40 million in the provision for social housing. How does that make any sense when it is budgeted and you do not spend it?

1720

Mr. Pouliot: The northern Ontario heritage fund. I am sorry, I was provoked.

Mr. Laughren: The member for Lake Nipigon raises a good point about the northern Ontario heritage fund. I can only assume that the budget on April 20 will deal with the northern Ontario heritage fund.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: We will announce it again.

Mr. Laughren: They will announce it again, yes. I hope with considerably more money than the first time they announced it. Because, surely to goodness, that money has been piling up there.

Interjections

The Acting Speaker (Miss Roberts): Order, order.

Mr. Laughren: I was not going to talk about the north, but I must say that whenever I think about fairness and equity among persons, my mind often clicks over to fairness among regions or districts of the province as well.

In northern Ontario there still remains a sense of alienation from the power centre down here in Toronto.

Mr. Black: Not in Muskoka.

Mr. Laughren: Perhaps not in Muskoka.

Interjections

Mrs. Marland: Madam Speaker, do the members not have to be in their own seats in order to interject’?

The Acting Speaker: The member for Nickel Belt has the floor and if anyone wishes to make comments to the chair he or she may do so by way of a point of order. The member for Nickel Belt is expressing his views with respect to this resolution and I wish him to continue.

Mr. Laughren: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would not mind people heckling me so much if I heckled other people, but I do not.

When it comes to the whole question of northern Ontario, we saw a good example of this government’s bailing out totally a couple of years ago when it came to the lumber tax. We have an unbelievable situation going on with softwood lumber and we asked the Premier back in February to bring in some legislation that would challenge the free trade agreement before it became law.

What we said to him was that free trade threatens regional development programs; therefore, we wanted him to bring in legislation that would put in place a regional development program in anticipation of the free trade legislation, in case it became law in 1989.

We gave him some very specific examples. We gave him the heritage fund, which could be treated as a regional development program, and he backed away from it. We gave him the whole question of processing of our resources, because that is also going to be very difficult to do under the free trade agreement.

The Premier backed down. We said to him that what we wanted him to do was to, say for example -- we gave him an example -- look at Falconbridge that is selling its ores to Norway for refining, transferring them to Norway for refining. They have been doing it for 50 years now. Pass a law that says they must do that in Ontario. That would be a challenge to the free trade agreement when it becomes law. That is my interpretation of it anyway.

We said to the Premier: “Make that a law. Invoke that part of section 104 of the Mining Act. Invoke that. Make it real in Ontario and see what happens. If you are serious about opposing free trade, why don’t you do something that shows that you’re opposed to it and makes the other guys come to us for changes, not the other way around?”

And you know, the Premier would not do it of course. To this day, and presumably long into the future, Falconbridge will be sending its nickel to Norway for refining. Now, to me as a northerner, that is offensive that we are sending a raw resource offshore for refining when those jobs and that new wealth should be created here.

On softwood lumber the government caved in. Let me tell members how bad the softwood lumber arrangements are. Perhaps for some members who did not follow it in the early stages I could bring them up to date. The US government said that Ontario stumpage fees constituted a subsidy to the forestry industry and therefore they were going to impose an increase on the US side for softwood lumber sold in the US.

The government negotiated a deal with them -- and this government agreed with the federal government -- to impose a 15 per cent tax here rather than let the money be collected in the US. But listen to the conditions under which that tax was imposed. It really is offensive. By the way, that came to about $600 million a year in all of Canada and I think in Ontario it comes to about $50 million a year. I think they have collected roughly $30 million now, that 15 per cent it collects.

Canada agrees that it will not use the money from the export tax to assist the forest industry, for example by reforestation or building forest access roads; and also agrees it will police the actions of the provincial governments so they do not do this either. There are no constraints on how the US aids its forest industry.

Think what that is saying. We cannot determine what our stumpage fee shall be. We cannot decide to take that money, despite that it is our tax money. We cannot decide that we are going to subsidize the forestry industry through reforestation programs. We cannot decide we are going to put the money into access roads in the forest. I do not know how members feel about that but I really am offended that we have allowed that kind of intrusion on our sovereignty. That is part of the deal. This government agreed to it:

Canada will supply the US on a regular basis with detailed information on the forest industry, including industry-confidential material. There is no requirement that the US provide Canada with any information.

That is the kind of scenario we have set up with the free trade agreement. I understand that the Premier has announced he is opposed to free trade and the government is on record opposing free trade. But every time we ask the government to put into action what it is saying in words it backs down.

My colleague the member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Morin-Strom) had a resolution that called for the government to take some specific action. The government voted against it. Everybody voted against it. We asked the government just to proclaim legislation that is already there on refining resources. It backed down. We asked for legislation on the heritage fund that would treat it as a regional development program. It would not do it.

So the government wonders why we are so sceptical about government intentions or government proclamations that it is opposed to free trade. I do not think it is very opposed to free trade. Maybe some government members are, but I do not know how they can look at that lumber deal and not be offended as Ontario citizens. It truly is outrageous.

Under the accord that we talked about with such affection earlier, between the Liberals and the New Democratic Party between 1985 and 1987, one of the items in the accord was that there be an independent forestry audit undertaken. There was an audit of the Ministry of Natural Resources’ files. It was not really an audit of the forests. Nevertheless, a number of recommendations flowed from that audit, known as the Baskerville audit. To this day the government has not followed up on that audit. To this day the minister is not even replying to my letters requesting information on what he has done on the recommendations of the Baskerville audit.

Things that could be going a long way to turning around the economy of northern Ontario are not being done by the government. How could the government sit there on that heritage fund and not do anything with it -- nothing, absolutely nothing -- plus the $30 million from the softwood lumber tax? We do not know what the government is doing. We do not know if it has any kind of adjustment program plans. If it has we do not know what they are. There is unemployment in some of the sawmill communities in northern Ontario. I think my friend the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Pouliot) is going to speak on some of these matters on this motion as well. I hope he does. I do not think he intended to, but I think he has been provoked by somebody into doing that.

1730

When it comes to northern Ontario, this government that originally indicated it was really going to stake out its turf in northern Ontario and was really going to do something for the north so that the north would feel it had a new friend in Queen’s Park, has not done very much. It can say it is waiting for a more opportune time, not necessarily closer to the next election, but the longer the government puts it off -- it sure will not be any further away from the next election, will it?

I can see the wheels turning, slowly mind you, in the head of the Treasurer over there as he is thinking ahead.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: You can probably hear them.

Mr. Laughren: Hear them turning? Sawdust makes them quiet. I do not want to go on too long.

An hon. member: Hear, hear.

Mr. Laughren: They did it again.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I think he has been provoked.

Mr. Laughren: I have to pull the other speech out of my briefcase now.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: You’ve pulled all the other old ones out.

Mr. Laughren: All the other old ones out.

If there is one message that I want to give to the government on this supply motion, it is that it really does not seem to have any set of priorities whatsoever. Since the accord ended there is no agenda, no direction, no priorities. Nobody seems to know where this government is going. It made a whole package of promises during the election and it has reneged on them.

An hon. member: We know where we are going.

Mr. Laughren: No, I do not think they do know where they are going.

The Acting Speaker: I would remind all honourable members it is getting near the end of the day and the honourable member for Nickel Belt is attempting to complete his address. I would request that all members take note of that.

Mr. Laughren: It is hard for new members to remember all the rules.

If there is one message for the government, it is that it had better get its act together pretty soon. We have seen the ordering of the business around here in what I would gently call a shambles. Why was there such a panic, for example, on Bill 77, which we just finished debating on second reading this afternoon? That was downright silly. Over the Christmas period, why was there all that fuss about the two resolutions on free trade that threw this place into turmoil? Totally unnecessary.

I remind the members that the government sets the agenda of the House. The government decides when we come back into session. The government decides when we adjourn. Just remember, the government has no one to blame but itself if things go off the track. The opposition, small in number though it may be, has an obligation to make sure that the government does not behave as badly as the Tories did between 1981 and 1985. That is part of our obligation.

Mr. Mahoney: If we ever start acting like that, you tell us.

Mr. Laughren: We already are. The government is on notice that this is exactly what it is beginning to do, except that there is a difference. I think there was as much arrogance back in 1981, if not more, but I think the government then had an agenda. I do not believe these people have an agenda with any set of priorities.

The Acting Speaker: Would any honourable member wish to comment on the remarks made by the member for Nickel Belt?

Mrs. Marland: I really have held the member for Nickel Belt in very high regard because I have had the privilege of serving as a member of the standing committee on resources development, which he chairs. I really have not heard him make the kind of comments before which he has just made about the history of the Progressive Conservative government in this province. I may say that I do concur with his comments about the lack of direction of the current government. I think his comments about the promises, all the expectations for what we now have as the Liberal government in Ontario have fallen completely flat. There is no vision. I agree there is no direction.

In comparing the present government with the former government of this province, I hope other honourable members will hold, in truth and in fact, that the reason Ontario is indeed the premier province of Canada is because it has had vision, direction and management for 42 years. When we look at the renewed mandate of the former government, it has been recognized by the people of this province themselves. With respect, I think that although the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) did sound a little partisan this afternoon against my caucus, he will probably want to reconsider the words he has said somewhat by next week when he contemplates them over the coming few days.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I can understand the member for Nickel Belt feeling badly about the days of the accord being gone. It was the one occasion in the history of democratic socialism in Ontario when that particular tail had a little wagging to do. I think of those days with fondness as well because we used to go out and have dinner with some of the leading members of the New Democratic Party and exchange views. Of course, the member for Nickel Belt did not have the confidence of the other leading members of his caucus at that time and did not have a chance to participate, but I can see why there would be a general regret in this handful of remnant democratic socialists for those glory days.

I too look back on days of minority government as productive and stimulating. I have always said, and never ever denied, that the NDP and the Liberal Party, in drawing from our mutual campaign programs, had a program that was useful and recognized as such by any reasonable person.

But I cannot understand his feeling now that the government lacks direction and vision. I say, without fear of contradiction, that a large majority in this House feel that the direction from the Premier is visionary, strong and clearly understandable. He mentioned in the House today that when this government took office the expenditure of the province, compared to all other provinces in most of the important responsibilities that we have -- post-secondary education, provision of welfare services, building roads and so on -- on a per capita basis was one of the lowest in the whole of the country, and we have attempted to correct that.

We know it takes much more than money to correct it. It takes the kind of leadership and vision that the Premier has provided and that we are very grateful for on this side of the House, because we feel the province needed it and continues to need it.

Mr. Mackenzie: I was a little provoked too, but I think my colleague gave an excellent address. I think there are some comparisons that can be made between the 1981-1985 period, which was a jolt to most of us who came into the House in 1975; to have to literally, despite your best efforts, go to sleep because you had no input at all with the arrogance that was there. The unfortunate point is that is exactly what we have seen since the majority came in with the Liberals in 1987. If there is a comparison, it is of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and nothing is more obvious than that.

It also seems to me that if there is this great progressive leadership, with this kind of overwhelming support that the Premier has, I invite some of his caucus colleagues to get up and be a little more militant on the Sunday work issue and not leave him carrying the bag entirely, as they seem to be lately, on this issue. It seems to me that he was responsible for getting a lot of them elected, and yet I find an awful lot of them are not shouting very loud at some of the more bitter statements that are made.

They all seem to be coming from the Premier, “There is no way we will back off; no negotiating on this particular issue.” Maybe some of them should get behind him and show their support for the Premier a little bit more, rather than sitting back and trying to say to their constituents back home, “Hey, we’re really not on side on this particular issue,” as some of them have on the deal.

Unfortunately, I think we are going through a 43rd and 44th year of Tory rule in this province. That is the comparison, the Tweedledum and Tweedledee comparison.

1740

Mr. Villeneuve: May I also take a few moments to comment on the very fine presentation of my colleague the member for Nickel Belt. I was a bit intrigued that he gave us credit for having an agenda back in 1981. We certainly did have an agenda. The province went through many good years. However, the years 1981-85, economically, were most difficult. We all certainly will remember the interest rates of 1982-84, when they were over 20 per cent. Back in those days, yes, there was an agenda, a clear-cut agenda that brought the province through in relatively good economic shape.

The Premier admitted that he was very lucky indeed to have assumed power at the time he did, when the economic recovery was just beginning and doing very well. I think we have to recall that there was a 1984 federal election which contributed greatly to bringing some semblance of order and economic stability to Canada from a situation that was almost chaotic for many businesses and many farmers who went broke during the 1980-85 period when times were most difficult.

I certainly appreciate that the member for Nickel Belt recognized that there was an agenda. He said he was not partisan, but he was a bit partisan at times when he was speaking. However, he has to recognize that Ontario did come through most difficult times in pretty good shape under Tory governments prior to 1985.

Mr. Laughren: I do not really think I should have to apologize for being political in this chamber. I must say that when the Treasurer responded, he did say quite unequivocally that his government had a vision and a direction. I want to give the Treasurer the benefit of the doubt and encourage him to tell us exactly what it is.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any other members wishing to participate?

Mr. Villeneuve: I rise with some degree of interest to participate in this debate on interim supply, which I guess is to give the blessing to the Treasurer for having spent $10 billion recently. I guess this is a formality in this House. However, there are a few things I want to bring to the members’ attention and possibly to that of the people of Ontario.

I sat down last weekend and worked out my income tax, which I think most of us will either be working on or have done. When you go through your 1987 income tax, you look at what you did in 1986 and 1985. I suggest to members and to the public at large that if they still have the chart that says how much income tax they paid in 1984, for instance, and how much income tax they will pay or have paid in 1987, they should look at both the federal schedule and the provincial schedule. It is very interesting.

They will note on the provincial schedule a tremendous increase from what was paid by the taxpayers in 1984 in this province, when the province was just coming out of very difficult economic times, to what they will pay or have paid in 1987. I suggest that as an exercise that will be a real eye-opener. They will now see why provincial coffers have swelled by almost $10 billion on an annual basis since 1984.

The interim supply debate is always an interesting one because we can speak until doomsday and it will not make any difference; the money has already been spent. However, it is always intriguing. In my area of Agriculture and Food critic, I want to touch to some degree on the agricultural industry, which has been doing a lot of struggling during the past three or four years.

For instance, we find that agricultural real estate values have fallen tremendously in the last five years. Real value that farmers, agriculturalists, used to borrow money, indeed, the value of their assets, has had a tremendous decrease. This is supported by the annual report from the Farm Credit Corp.

It is a bit alarming, to say the least, to note that the less than three per cent of the population which produces all of the foodstuffs we consume in Ontario, and which has the capacity to produce considerable for export and does so, is not going through some very good economic times. I think the Treasurer knows that well, being a farmer from St. George himself. I think we have to address this, not on an ongoing basis but over the long term.

I think we have to look at alternatives for some of the agricultural products that are being produced. I know in Ontario we have a tremendous surplus of grains, corn in particular. Certainly, we have an air pollution problem, one about which we tend to point an accusing finger at our neighbours to the south. Indeed, we can do a great deal of improvement in that area.

I am talking about an ethanol-methanol mix in the petroleum we use. We all know that the octane additives at present are highly polluting materials. We have the technology and we have the home-grown grains that can be turned into an ethanol-methanol product, ethanol produced from corn. We could solve pollution problems, pollution problems which in my opinion are very grave. The more petroleum we use in this province and in this country, the more we pollute our air. We have to look at this in a very positive fashion. The ethanol which could be produced from home-grown grains right here in Ontario would be a home-grown solution to a pollution problem that will do nothing but get worse.

Certainly, I would like to see the Treasurer, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the Ministry of the Environment work together to provide a climate whereby investors would be attracted to producing an ethanol-methanol, octane-based fuel additive. We have many grain elevators throughout Ontario which could, at a reasonable cost, add the distilling equipment to start solving this problem.

Also, in that same vein, the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Transportation realize we have a major pollution problem with standard calcium de-icer on our highways. We could, again by using some home-grown grains, produce calcium magnesium acetate, CMA, which is only 10 per cent as corrosive --

Mr. Laughren: What about the salt mines?

Mr. Villeneuve: The salt mines will, I am sure, still have a great deal of use for the product they produce.

However, what we have in the calcium that is used on our highways today is a situation where the then Ministry of Transportation and Communications was found guilty of causing serious problems to some of our orchards in southern Ontario. I think it has to be addressed in a positive fashion.

The municipalities and the Ministry of Transportation are the large users of calcium. I believe there must be a clear message sent from this Legislature that municipalities and Ontario are quite willing to spend some additional money to use CMA, which would be only 10 per cent as destructive to our vehicles, highway structures and the highways themselves, let alone the great benefit the environment would have.

Mr. Laughren: Do you not care about Oshawa?

Mr. Villeneuve: Oshawa, I think, is doing very well, thank you very much.

Mr. Laughren: If the cars do not rust, they will not sell any new ones.

Mr. Villeneuve: That would be the aim. Certainly, as far as I am concerned, it would extend the duration not only of our cars but also of our highways and our highway structures and do untold benefit to the environment as a whole.

We have the technology. We need some incentives and some guidance from the ministries here at Queen’s Park, as well as from the government of Canada. Whether it is direct incentives or indirect incentives such as tax breaks, I believe it would be a great start in beginning to address these problems.

1750

In the area of agriculture, I questioned the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell) today on what turned out to be a very popular program, the farm management, safety and repair program; $50 million has already been allocated in one year and, indeed, it was supposed to last for two years. I think the Treasurer has to look at this and extend this program, at least in the area of safety and grain storage. I think it is most important. Farmers have sent the message out, “Yes, we will be using these grants” of $2,500 per farm as a maximum. I think these areas must be looked at.

For cream producers, they also have an incentive program to upgrade their particular areas of dairy farming. The program which was under the direction of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food has already run out; the time frame has run out. Many cream producers are still desirous of using this particular program to replace equipment and upgrade their buildings, and I believe the Treasurer should look at extending this program for at least one more year. Many of these cream producers just did not and were not ready to proceed with the capital expenditures last year. The program ran out on March 31.

Free trade is an area that I will not spend a great deal of time on, other than to refer to the fact that the Ministry of Agriculture and Food has put out a paper that says free trade will affect agriculture to the amount of $95 million annually.

I tend to be one who does not agree with that, and there are many areas that I think could be shot down, particularly where it affects certain commodity groups such as grains and oilseeds. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food says $30 million there. In effect, it is neutral and possibly a plus for Ontario.

In livestock and red meats, they have said there would be an $18-million gain. That is a very small-c conservative estimate, and I am quite sure that in the long run much more than $18 million of positive advantage will be received there.

It was suggested the dairy industry would lose some $10 million. I think in the most recent announcements by the Department of Agriculture in Ottawa, they say the dairy industry will not be touched.

What we have to watch is the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade decisions. We must be ready for some decisions that will affect us adversely. The free trade agreement, I firmly believe, is a positive move for Ontario. The GATT decisions are the ones that we have to monitor very, very closely. The GATT decisions will affect us, as they already have in the grape industry and the wine producing industry, and this is where this Treasurer, living right close to that area, has to provide some immediate assistance to those people who are in the grape producing areas. I believe they are very adversely affected, particularly by the recent GATT decisions.

As far as new crops are concerned, I believe Ontario, situated where it is with a very good land base, must explore new crops. I believe some crops have been experimented with. However, there is a great area of new crops, and not necessarily crops that will be produced as food. We all know that the primary area of concern for agriculture is that of producing food, but as I outlined earlier, I think we have to look at those areas that are not food-producing, such as the production of ethanol. In the production of ethanol, we will be producing a byproduct, the 28 per cent protein byproduct, which has tremendous export potential to Europe, probably to the Pacific Rim, certainly to those countries that have a livestock-based agricultural industry.

Locally, as far as the riding that I very proudly represent is concerned, we will be meeting with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food along with the Ministry of Natural Resources. The South Nation River Conservation Authority, one of the oldest conservation authorities in the province, has a very major project which it is contemplating. At present, there is repair work being done in the riding adjacent to mine, the riding of Prescott-Russell, in the area of Lemieux, where we have a very unstable type of terrain. There is a strong possibility that the small hamlet of Lemieux is on a very precarious perch on the edge of the South Nation River, and there is a good amount of money to be spent to stabilize the banks of the South Nation River in that area.

However, the major problem area for the South Nation River Conservation Authority lies in three distinct areas: the South Branch, which very badly needs to be dredged; the Plantagenet channelization in the riding of Prescott-Russell; and the problem area in the township of Cumberland and close to the village of Bourget. These three main areas require channelization and considerable work, to the extent of some $15 million. This is where we will be meeting with the two ministries in an attempt to put a long-range program in place so that within the next three to five years most of this work can be completed.

We have in the South Nation River conservation area watershed large areas of class 1 soil that floods not only in springtime, at this time of the year, but throughout the growing season -- major problems. We have many tile drainage systems in place that are not working well, because of high water and flooding. These farmers have already spent $300 and $400 per acre to tile-drain and, indeed, without adequate outlets they are going to run into some major problems. The tile drainage systems will silt in, and it will be money that has been spent and is certainly not benefiting them to the amount that it could and should be benefiting them.

The St. Lawrence Parks Commission is one of the nicest areas of eastern Ontario, and I certainly welcome all members at some time or other to visit Upper Canada Village and the St. Lawrence Parks system along the southern limit of the St. Lawrence River. St. Lawrence Parks has been requesting additional funding for two years now.

We have the Upper Canada Playhouse, a live theatre. It is in a very temporary building, one that may not even last the year 1988. If this Upper Canada Playhouse became part and parcel of the St. Lawrence Parks Commission, I think we would have every possibility of turning that area into what Niagara-on-the-Lake has with its Shaw Festival. I think we have every possibility there, with some assistance from the province.

When this government came to office, it accused the previous government of not knowing where eastern Ontario was. I think we are more in the wilderness now than we were back in those days when we were being accused of not knowing where eastern Ontario was.

The squire from Pembroke seems to be wondering what I am talking about. I think he knows full well what I am talking about. The northern and eastern sections of this province must be assisted financially by Queen’s Park. We have areas where the people who live there probably do not know --

The Treasurer has just told me that the clock has run out.

On motion by Mr. Villeneuve, the debate was adjourned.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Conway: I would like to indicate the business of the House for the coming week.

On Monday, April 13, we will deal with third reading of Bill 77, followed by any business not completed today; continuing through next week, as time permits, with government resolution 10 standing in Orders and Notices; followed by the supply bill to be introduced by the Treasurer, and thence to Bill 76 concerning trustee representation, and Bill 106, a municipal elections bill. Any changes or additions will be announced following discussions among the House leaders.

On Thursday morning, we will consider private members’ business standing in the names of the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick (Mr. Kanter) and the member for Sudbury East (Miss Martel).

Mr. Speaker: It being six of the clock, this House now stands adjourned until 1:30 of the clock Monday afternoon.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.

April 7, 1988

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

DAY OF MOURNING

ORDER-IN-COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS

DAY OF MOURNING

ORDER-IN-COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS

AFTERNOON SITTING

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

PLASTIC EMI SHIELDING INC.

RECYCLING PLANT

STUDENT RESIDENCES

HOSPITAL FUNDING

NURSING HOMES

CROATIAN NATIONAL DAY

LABOUR DISPUTE

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

CHILD CARE

CHILD PROTECTION

BUDGET

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION

RESPONSES

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION

CHILD PROTECTION

CHILD CARE

CHILD PROTECTION

CHILD CARE

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION

ORAL QUESTIONS

RENT REGULATION

RETAIL STORE HOURS

RENT REGULATION

UNIVERSITY FUNDING

INCOME TAX

QUEEN’S PARK CHILD CARE CENTRE

TRANSITION HOUSES

HOME CARE

COMMUNITY SAFETY

PROTECTION FOR HOME BUYERS

HAZARDOUS WASTE TREATMENT FACILITY

EDUCATION FUNDING

1996 OLYMPIC SUMMER GAMES

PENSION FUNDS

ONTARIO FARM MANAGEMENT, SAFETY AND REPAIRS PROGRAM

VISITOR

PETITIONS

NORTHERN ONTARIO TOURISM

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

NATUROPATHY

RETAIL STORE HOURS

MOTION

COMMITTEE SITTING

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES AMENDMENT ACT

RENTAL HOUSING PROTECTION AMENDMENT ACT

ORDERS OF THE DAY

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)

INTERIM SUPPLY

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE