Hansard Transcript 1988-Nov-02 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Mr. Speaker: I wish to inform the House that the Clerk has received a report from the commissioners of estate bills with respect to Bill Pr9, An Act respecting the Charlotte Eleanor Englehart Hospital.

Accordingly, pursuant to standing order 78(e), the bill stands referred to the standing committee on regulations and private bills.

USE OF TIME FOR MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

Mr. Speaker: I would like to inform the members that yesterday the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris) raised a point of order relating to a statement that had been made by the member for Norfolk (Mr. Miller), the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture and Food, during the period known as members’ statements. The honourable member complained, “My concern is that the parliamentary assistant for the Ministry of Agriculture and Food is abusing backbench members’ time to make ministerial announcements.”

In reviewing this matter, I have taken into account our standing order 27(a) as well as that part of the report of the standing committee on procedural affairs and agencies, boards and commissions in November 1985 which proposed this new procedure. That report has suggested that even ministers be allowed to make statements as long as those statements did not relate to the ministers’ direct responsibilities: “Statements could be made by members who are ministers but such statements could not relate to the member’s responsibilities as a minister of the crown.”

Taking into account the spirit of that report, even though the House did not choose to adopt all the recommendations giving this right to ministers, I think it appropriate that in the future, parliamentary assistants should not make statements using this procedure if the proposed statement is one that could just as well be made by the minister.

In other words, parliamentary assistants can still make statements dealing with the special matters for which they have special responsibilities, but that statement should not constitute an announcement or a series of facts that should be more properly situated in the statements-by-the-ministry section of our proceedings.

While there are no specific rules and guidelines attached to this procedure, this ruling constitutes a second restriction on the use of members’ statements. The first one, to recall it to all members’ minds, was brought to the attention of the honourable members in a ruling I gave on April 30, 1986, in which I said that members’ statements should not be used for personal attacks on other members.

I would like to thank the honourable member for bringing this matter to the attention of the House.

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE DETACHMENT

Mr. Wildman: I rise to express a concern about inadequate Ontario Provincial Police staffing in the Sault Ste. Marie detachment in my area. That detachment covers approximately 115 miles from Montreal River to Pine Island in the Sault Ste. Marie area and the OPP detachment is particularly short of staff on weekends.

For instance, last Saturday evening in Batchawana Bay, a constituent of mine called the OPP after he had been threatened and felt that he was in danger. He called at 8 p.m. Two hours later, when he still had not received any response from the OPP, he called again. Still nothing happened. By the time he retired at approximately 2 a.m., he still had received no response.

The next day he phoned the OPP to find out why no one had responded to his call and was informed that there were only two officers on duty that evening and one was north of the Sault and one was east of the city and they did not have enough staff to respond to his call.

We are fortunate that the threat was only that and was not carried out, and that no injury or worse occurred, but it was not because of the OPP. The Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith) should look into this to ensure that there is adequate staffing for the detachment so it can respond to calls when they are made.

NATIONAL SALES TAX

Mr. Harris: The national election and the sales tax issue have transformed the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) from the tax dragon of St. George into a coy coquette.

The Treasurer says he raised the issue because he wants people to know what is going on. Too bad he did not have the same concerns last September when he somehow forgot to mention he was going to hike taxes by $1.3 billion in his next budget.

Too bad his concern for the effect of a national sales tax on new home buyers is not reflected in his own tax policies, which have substantially increased the cost of home ownership. Too bad the Treasurer has not been as quick to speculate about the implications of the proposal of the federal Liberal leader to scrap the national sales tax and tinker yet again with the regressive manufacturers’ sales tax.

The Treasurer has never ruled out participating in a national sales tax program and, in fact, at one point speculated the idea was attractive to him and that the federal proposal could cut the provincial sales tax rate, which at that time was seven per cent, not the eight per cent it is now. Too bad for the taxpayer that the Treasurer has forgotten that.

Too bad for the taxpayer that what is really going on is political doubletalk instead of any serious debate about tax reform and tax relief for the middle-class and lower-income groups.

MADAWASKA HIGHLANDS REGIONAL TRUST PARK

Mr. MacDonald: I would like to take this opportunity to speak on the issue of the Madawaska Highlands Regional Trust. A proposal has been set forth to establish the Madawaska Highlands Regional Trust, controlling an area of approximately 4,000 square kilometres of land. This area affects the county of Lennox and Addington, as well as Hastings, Renfrew, Frontenac and Lanark counties.

I wish to state that I support the decision of the Ministry of Natural Resources to continue to responsibly manage this area under the current land use guidelines. As this is an issue of continuing concern with many of my constituents, I am pleased to report to them that the Ministry of Natural Resources is definitely opposed to the establishment of this proposed trust.

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SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

Mr. Allen: Sheila Crowe Perfitt is one of many who urgently require that the government implement stage 1 of the Thomson social assistance reforms immediately. A 38-year-old divorced London woman on general welfare, Sheila has $2 left for food, etc., each month after basic shelter expenses have been met. She began a training course, but illness, probably due to malnutrition, forced her to drop out.

The $105 per week she was to receive on the course was to be offset, dollar per dollar, against her welfare cheque, but one payment overlapped her regular welfare cheque and repayment was demanded. The collections office declared there was no way it could even process the $2 per month payment she could afford and so sent the file back to welfare which simply began deducting 10 per cent or $47.50 from her next month’s cheque.

Sheila appealed to the Social Assistance Review Board that the $105 training money should be treated as employment income so she would not be worse off on training than on welfare. Further, she should have been advised to go on vocational rehabilitation, which would have given her a higher rate of assistance plus an education allowance that would have avoided all of these problems. Sheila will probably lose, but in the meantime she has to borrow money that she cannot repay so she can survive the deductions welfare is imposing on repayment.

The Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) can cut through the tangles of convoluted regulations by implementing the first stage of the Thomson report. Why will he not act?

EDUCATION FUNDING

Mrs. Cunningham: This government prided itself by making a press release last November that announced a general commitment in the 1988 legislative grants to school boards. This is really nothing but a public relations exercise and is only useful for rough estimates and not at all helpful to the budgetary process for boards.

The current fiscal year for school boards, from January to January, continues to cause significant problems for school boards across Ontario. Currently, although the fiscal year begins in January, it is not until March that the school boards actually find out how much money in grants they will receive. This means that well into a board’s fiscal year, trustees are speculating on how much money they will receive.

Having a fiscal year that does not coincide with one’s operational year defies the basic rule of good accounting. A fiscal year should coincide with an operational year. Students begin their school year in September. A fiscal year that relates to good management for education should also begin in September. The minister should change the fiscal year for our local school boards to September to coincide with the school year. This will allow school boards to plan effectively and hence to require that our young people receive the quality education they deserve.

CONFLICT IN LEBANON

Mr. McGuinty: Recently, the Friends of Lebanon in Ottawa held an event to draw attention to the plight of their homeland. One of the most vicious civil wars in this century has raged in Lebanon for 14 years. The Lebanese people have lived under gun law and political violence. Entire villages have been destroyed, thousands left homeless, and 150,000 people, mainly civilians, have been killed.

Prior to this war, Lebanon was a nation prosperous and developed, contributing to the world economy and to world peace.

That is why the Friends of Lebanon urgently called upon the Canadian International Development Agency to review the status accorded Lebanon and to include Lebanon among those nations considered to be in need of assistance, and called upon the Canadian agencies for international relief to do their part in coming to the rescue of Lebanon, and upon the Canadian media to heighten awareness of this humanitarian issue worldwide.

If these goals are achieved, Lebanon, within its borders and abroad, with the help of the international community will begin the process of rehabilitation in order that the sufferings of Lebanon and its peoples come to an end.

In our world, no man is an island. The plight of any nation is our plight. The rights of all are diminished if the rights of any one are violated. The sufferings of the Lebanese people should be our concern. No one ever made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

ONTARIO-MICHIGAN MARITIME ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Hon. Mr. Fulton: Earlier this year, the Premier (Mr. Peterson) signed a memorandum of understanding on maritime commerce with Michigan Governor James Blanchard. That agreement called for the establishment of an advisory committee comprising four representatives, one from each jurisdiction. The committee’s main role will be to co-ordinate information and recommendations on federal, provincial and state policies related to transportation activities on the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

I have the honour today of announcing this province’s four appointees to this committee. They are: David Cree, general manager of the Windsor Harbour Commission and director of the Detroit-Windsor Port Corp.; Peter Cresswell, vice-president and general manager of the marine division of the Algoma Central Railway; Brian McKeown, vice-president of Morterm Ltd. and the Essex Terminal Railway Co. and a member of the board of governors of the University of Windsor, and Norman Mealing, executive director of the provincial transportation division of the Ministry of Transportation.

These appointments reflect a mutual agreement to ensure membership on the committee from the private, public and academic sectors of both jurisdictions. We believe these four individuals will provide Ontario with experienced and capable representation in matters which will have a serious impact on the future of our maritime industries.

Through the memorandum of understanding, Ontario and the state of Michigan will pursue joint initiatives aimed at improving maritime commerce. Among the important issues which may be considered are international marine trade development, research requirements, marketing, Seaway tolls, pilotage, winter navigation and coast guard services.

On behalf of the Ministry of Transportation and the new appointees, I would like to express our eagerness to work with our colleagues in the state of Michigan.

I hope this memorandum of understanding will lead to more joint efforts among the jurisdictions which have a vital interest in the future of shipping on the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

ANNUAL REPORT, ONTARIO ADVISORY COUNCIL FOR DISABLED PERSONS

Hon. Mr. Mancini: I am pleased to table today the 13th annual report of the Ontario Advisory Council for Disabled Persons, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of my advisory council for assisting the Office for Disabled Persons in working towards integration and equality for Ontario citizens who have disabilities.

I am especially pleased to acknowledge the contribution and the leadership of Ron McInnes, who is serving his fourth term as chairman and who is present in the Speaker’s gallery today. Thank you for coming, Ron.

As members will read in the report, the advisory council’s activities have included promoting fair employment and accessibility to education, identifying services for hearing impaired persons, holding community consultations in Thunder Bay, and participating in the work of a wide variety of committees and task forces such as the Ontario Standing Committee on Barrier Free Design and the Metropolitan Accessibility Study Group.

The focus of the council’s work this year was independent living, as reflected in the discussion paper Independent Living: The Time is Now. The paper, published by the council, explores current and future methods of obtaining personal assistance. It addresses the provision of a direct funding option to allow consumers to manage their own assistance.

I am pleased to state that the members of the advisory council are now studying and also researching the crucial topic of employment and disability, including skills training and employment incentives. I look forward to their contribution on this subject and I wish to thank the council for all the work it has done on behalf of the citizens of Ontario.

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RESPONSES

ONTARIO-MICHIGAN MARITIME ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Mr. Morin-Strom: I would like to respond to the statement by the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Fulton) with regard to the appointments to the Ontario-Michigan Maritime Advisory Committee. I would suggest that this type of international co-operation is in fact of vital importance to Ontario and Michigan and is the type of co-operation we hope would be forthcoming in other areas of transportation services as well.

We have some serious concerns about the shipping on the Great Lakes system, particularly with regard to the decreased levels of shipping on the Great Lakes. My understanding is that the Great Lakes system is operating at about only 45 per cent of its capacity right now. As a result, we have a lot of jobs that have been lost and are threatened across our province, most particularly Thunder Bay. We have a serious impact on that community as a result of lower levels of operation of the whole St. Lawrence Seaway system.

I would hope that this type of advisory committee could come forward with worthwhile recommendations in terms of how we can make the system a better one, one we can get back to higher levels of operation, because certainly we know that shipping, vessel transportation, historically has been the low-cost source of transportation in a central portion of North America. We have an asset there that should be more fully utilized.

As well, we have concerns in terms of various areas of the St. Lawrence Seaway, including the fact that today in the most important canal system on the Seaway, right in my home town of Sault Ste. Marie, we have the federal canal on the Canadian side not in operation. It was taken out of commission after nearly 100 years of operation, and the federal government has not found a way of getting it back into operation. It is still unresolved at this point what is going to happen with the Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, lock system. We are totally dependent on the American lock system at this point. I hope this committee can come back with recommendations from the perspective of both Michigan and Ontario, in terms of what the future of that lock system should be, because it is on the border between those two jurisdictions.

I look forward to seeing the work of this advisory committee and hope that it will come up with recommendations which will see us improve our transportation system, reduce shipping costs to the users of the system and generate more jobs for all of us in Ontario.

ANNUAL REPORT, ONTARIO ADVISORY COUNCIL FOR DISABLED PERSONS

Mr. Allen: I would also like to join with the Minister without Portfolio responsible for disabled persons (Mr. Mancini) in complimenting the Ontario Advisory Council for Disabled Persons and, in particular, its chairman, Ron McInnes, for the excellent work it does year by year in advising the ministry and indirectly, of course, advising this House on matters that pertain to the disabled. The members of that council are themselves deeply involved day in and day out with affairs concerning the disabled. The reports they provide us with are certainly invaluable for us when we look at such issues as transportation for the disabled, independent living and now the study they are going to engage in that relates employment and disability.

I might, however, comment that the council’s second-last study, “The Freedom to Move is Life Itself,” was not entirely responded to by the government. The disabled community said, through the council, that the fundamental basis of any response in the transportation field is that the government lay out its agenda for integrated transport for the disabled. That has not been done, although some steps have been taken on a piecemeal basis in other respects in special systems.

Second, with regard to the most recent study, Independent Living, Beryl Potter of Action Awareness commented, when the minister suggested there should be a further study of this matter, that there had been many studies and the time had come for the government either to act or to say it was not going to act on this matter of independent living. I must say that when it comes to the question of employment and disability, skills training and employment incentives for the disabled, certainly this party is with the council in everything it will do in that regard, but I would simply like to suggest that perhaps the council might principally underscore the provisions of the Thomson report with respect to the disabled and disability and the relationship of that to employment issues. That would be a long way --

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has expired. The member for Lanark-Renfrew.

ONTARIO-MICHIGAN MARITIME ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Mr. Wiseman: I would like to make a few comments on the statement by the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Fulton) today. I am very pleased to see that he has brought forward this committee of four individuals who come from varied experiences and should bring a lot of expertise to this committee. Coming from an area that is served by the St. Lawrence and hearing some of the problems over the years that we have had with the operations of it, I am sure that this committee will bring in recommendations that will make it a more useful system than it is at the present time.

As was mentioned before, it is very inexpensive when we can ship by the Seaway or by the Great Lakes, so I think anything we can do to speed that up and to enhance it would be appreciated. There has been some trouble over the years with the piloting of some of the boats through the canal, and we have seen some problems in and around getting in and out of the locks, things of that sort, as well as when to cut it off at the end of the season. On all these things and others, I would hope this committee would report back soon so that we can enact some of these changes it will be bringing forward.

It is always nice, too, when we work with our neighbours across the border and let them know that we can work together. Some would have us believe that a certain thing called free trade would not work, but this is working together and I am sure it will work out to the best for both sides.

ANNUAL REPORT, ONTARIO ADVISORY COUNCIL FOR DISABLED PERSONS

Mrs. Marland: In rising to speak on behalf of our caucus this afternoon, I too would like to take pleasure in expressing our appreciation to the members of the Ontario Advisory Council for Disabled Persons and, in particular, thank you for the leadership of Ron McInnes.

Having worked with Mr. McInnes on the selection of recipients of the disabled awards around the province, I have had the privilege of getting to know him in a very small way, but my encounter with him proves that we are obviously very fortunate to have a man of his ability and his commitment to work in this particular area of leadership with that council.

I hope eventually that the Minister without Portfolio responsible for disabled persons (Mr. Mancini) will be put in a position by the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) to do more than receive these reports. These are very comprehensive reports. They represent a great deal of work on behalf of the members of that advisory council for the disabled, and it must be discouraging for them to now bring forth a third report and not really see any action -- and I am speaking only in terms of my limited experience in the last three years.

I hope the minister will look at some areas of implementation. I realize he needs the funds to do it. I think this Liberal government should not have any difficulty in prioritizing in terms of human need. The human need of disabled people in this province has to be a priority. It is certainly a need beyond all others, in my humble opinion. If we do not help the people with different disabilities around this province, then, as far as I am concerned, we should not be considering helping people who are able to help themselves.

I think one of the things we should be looking to -- and I have spoken about this before in this Legislature -- is that we have to secure transportation. My colleague in the New Democratic Party caucus talked about the integration of transportation systems. That is something that has to be a reality in Ontario. We also have to look at deeming the Wheel-Trans and similar services around this province as essential services so that they are not interrupted by the kind of labour disputes we have had in the past.

I would also like to suggest that money should be given to the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) so that the implementation of more home care through the Red Cross --

Mr. Speaker: Thank you. That completes the allotted time for statements by the ministry and responses.

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ORAL QUESTIONS

WATER TRANSFER CONTROL

Mr. B. Rae: We know that this government is planning next week to introduce Bill 175 to the Legislature for debate. My question is to the Minister of Natural Resources. This is the bill about which, when the minister introduced it in the House on June 29, 1988, he said, “We believe the failure to expressly exclude water exports from the agreement,” referring to the free trade agreement, “opens a door we think ought to be closed.”

When he closes the door, I wonder why he would use the following technique, and I am quoting from section 4 of the bill: “The minister may approve a transfer of water out of a provincial drainage basin subject to such conditions and subject to the payment to the crown of such amount as the minister considers appropriate.” If the minister is not contemplating the sale of water out of the province of Ontario, why would he introduce legislation which specifically grants him the power and grants him the means to sell that water and even talks about payment to the crown?

Mr. Reville: It must be a swinging door.

Hon. Mr. Kerrio: Of course, we on this side have grave concerns about some of our natural resources being incorporated in a free trade bill. In order to do what we could to protect this particular commodity from being exported, we decided that we would put such a bill. The fact of the matter is, if there were water to be transferred in any way out of the basin, interprovincially or anywhere else, we felt that we should have some ability to put a price on it.

I want to tell the Leader of the Opposition this so there is no mistake. If he or the other party were to move an amendment to make it absolutely clear that I am not concerned about putting that caveat in the bill and that he could improve the bill so that water cannot be exported, I will accept that kind of amendment.

Interjections.

Mr. B. Rae: The minister has got to be kidding.

All right; he is the one who presented the bill; he has his majority of 94 and he presented a bill to sell water, not a bill to protect water. That is exactly what his government did; that is precisely what he did.

Section 17 of the bill, just so we know how far this government is prepared to go in selling out Ontario’s water, says:

“The Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations,...

“(f) Prescribing methods of calculating the amount of the payment required to be paid to the crown for a transfer of water under this act,

“(g) Prescribing the terms of the payment required to be paid to the crown for a transfer of water under this act;

“(h) requiring that security be deposited by a person who has obtained an approval and prescribing the form, terms, conditions and amount of such security.”

This is a bill whose purport, whose intent, whose content, whose direction and whose meaning is to sell water in the act. Can the minister stand up and deny that simple fact?

Hon. Mr. Kerrio: Absolutely. I would say that the bill was put for a very important purpose. If the member opposite wants to turn it around, that is his prerogative. I thought, in a sense, that we were on the same side in protecting some of the resources of this country. It appears that he wants to play politics rather than protect the resources of this country. That is what he is about.

Because his leader in this race is falling so far behind he is going to come here to try and support him. I am disturbed that he would even try that tactic, because it is not going to work. He is so far back it will take a bus to catch up to the leader, Mr. Turner now.

I want to tell him something. The bill was put there for a very good purpose. Mr. Crosbie reacted by putting an amendment to the free trade arrangement to protect that bill. I am going to tell the member something. He said it did not need to be done, but he did it. I will tell the member, we forced him to do it. I am pleased that we did. I would look for the support of the Leader of the Opposition to protect the integrity of Canada, of Ontario, of our water and every other natural resource.

Mr. B. Rae: That is why he has it on the agenda for next week. It is on the Orders and Notices paper for next week. The minister is the one who has put this bill directly into provincial politics. The minister says I am making a political issue out of this. He is darn right I am making a political issue out of the sale of our water by his government.

If the minister were interested in closing the door, instead of establishing a revolving door, which is what he has done, can he explain why he would say, “The amount to be paid to the crown for a transfer of water under subsection (1) may be a lump sum, a fixed periodic payment, an amount calculated according to the quantity of water transferred...”? Why did he not put that it could be MasterCard, Chargex or American Express? He might as well, because that is what he has done. He has put in the bill that he is going to sell our water. I would like to ask the minister why he would disagree with W. A. C. Bennett --

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

Hon. Mr. Kerrio: I want the House to understand that there is no misunderstanding about why the bill was put, as has been the case with this government of Ontario making every attempt to protect the natural resources of this province.

Mr. Wildman: Withdraw the bill and redraft it.

Mr. B. Rae: Withdraw the bill if it is such a bad bill.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr Kerrio: Why does the member not just be quiet for a minute and let me explain what I want to tell him.

The fact of the matter is that I am putting a bill to protect the natural resources of this province from export to the United States of America. The fact of the matter is that the bill would be debated. As I said before, and I do not know why he had such a big laugh about it, I am prepared to accept his amendment; I am prepared to accept an amendment from the other side. If he thinks we should be doing something to protect our waters to a greater degree, I am making an undertaking that I am perfectly willing to do that.

The big thing that happened -- and do not pass over it so lightly -- was that Mr. Crosbie put an amendment to the free trade act, and he put it there because we were putting this bill. Make no mistake about that.

Mr. Speaker: New question, and to which minister?

Mr. B. Rae: Mr. Speaker, if the bill is so bad, tell the minister that he can withdraw the bill. Let him withdraw the bill if that is what he is saying.

Hon. Mr. Kerrio: I want to protect the water; you don’t. You want to play politics. Don’t hand me that.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. B. Rae: That’s why you are selling it: you want to protect it? That’s why --

Hon. Mr. Kerrio: No, I’m not selling it.

Mr. B. Rae: The whole thing is a bill of goods.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. You have wasted another two minutes. New question, the Leader of the Opposition.

NATIONAL SALES TAX

Mr. B. Rae: I do not have a quote from Wacky Bennett. I do have some questions, though, for the Treasurer concerning his musings over the question of a national sales tax and Ontario’s participation in such a tax. I know the Treasurer commenced these discussions as a public service, not because he was taking a position. Somebody of his political inexperience would not be somebody to do that in the middle of a federal election.

I want to ask the Treasurer, what is he saying? Is he saying that he thinks the federal proposal for a national sales tax is wrong and unfair? Is he saying that Ontario will not participate in such a plan? Just precisely what is the nature of his musings with respect to the national sales tax?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I advise the honourable member to read Rosemary Speirs. She got it about as close as anybody can get it. In response actually to a question put forward by his colleague, the Treasury critic of the official opposition, I said last Thursday that we had made no decision about a national sales tax, that we had a sales tax that was mature and productive here, although it is not totally popular in all areas. It is hard for me to find anybody now who does not approve of raising money for this purpose as long as it is allocated to the programs of the province in a fair and judicious way, the way it has been over these many years -- like three.

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Mr. B. Rae: The Treasurer might like to pretend that he is as innocent as Bambi in this regard, but in fact he is a co-conspirator with respect to the sales tax. He has been involved in these discussions from the very beginning. He is the senior financial spokesman for the largest province in Confederation. He has a role to play with respect to the development of the national sales tax.

The question I have for the Treasurer is this: Given what Judge Thomson had to say in his report, where he was particularly critical of an overreliance on sales tax and in particular critical of the recent increases that took place in the Treasurer’s own budget, which led to an eight per cent sales tax rather than seven per cent, I wonder if the Treasurer can tell us why he is so reluctant now, after all this time and all these discussions, to take a position on behalf of the people and the taxpayers of Ontario and say that he does not think that a national sales tax is a good idea.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Judge Thomson also recommended that an additional $1.3 billion be allocated, through the very effective ministry chaired by my colleague the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney), to programs that we all hope in the future to improve substantially. My job is to assist my colleagues in making the judgements necessary in government, and then in return to provide the funds that support those programs.

I simply say again that we have a mature sales tax system here that is well administered and productive; the government of Canada, unfortunately, does not. The present Minister of Finance has indicated his desire to lower taxes, which he has done before the election, and increase the revenue from sales tax after the election.

He is very careful to say that those additional funds will be dished out to taxpayers in other forms, Certainly, I do not question his statement in that regard, but for anybody who is interested, a nine per cent federal sales tax on a broad basis, including everything, goods and services, except groceries, pharmaceuticals and one or two other important items, we expect would double the revenue they presently receive from the federal sales tax, when it is fully mature.

Mr. B. Rae: If the Treasurer is saying that the person with whom he has been having discussions for several months, indeed years, with respect to the national sales tax is now contemplating a tax that will effectively double the revenues to the federal government, I wonder what is holding the Treasurer back. Would he not agree with me that if the Treasurer of the province of Ontario were to say no to a federal-provincial national sales tax, there could be no such tax? Why does he not exercise that Power if he finds it so objectionable that Mr. Wilson in fact is planning to do this?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Unfortunately, the Leader of the Opposition does not understand the situation. The government of Canada, whatever its political stripe, has to look after its own revenue. He is quite aware, I am sure -- certainly the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party is aware -- that it is their intention if they are re-elected to increase the sales tax revenue and distribute that revenue in a variety of ways. That is their responsibility. Whether or not there is room for Ontario or New Brunswick to participate is something to be considered in the future. I have already told the honourable member that we have a mature sales tax system here and we think it is working efficiently.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps we could have the attention of all members. Order.

YORK REGION LAND DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Brandt: My question, in the absence of the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell), is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs. It relates to a letter dated October 28, 1985, from Foodland Ontario to his ministry. I quote from that letter, and this is apropos the discussions we have had with respect to York region developments and the 1,000 acres specifically that have come under some question in this House.

“From our review of the proposed amendment and the limited documentation provided in support of the amendment, we” -- being Agriculture and Food -- “are not satisfied that the need for the development of these lands has been demonstrated.” It goes on to say, “In the absence of adequate documentation, we are concerned that this proposal is premature in view of existing undeveloped areas within the south urban area of Richmond Hill.”

The Minister of Agriculture and Food obviously indicated, on the basis of this letter, that he was against the Bayview Hill project. The letter was sent to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. Can the minister tell me what discussions took place between Agriculture and Food and Municipal Affairs to allow this development to proceed as expeditiously as it did?

Hon. Mr. Eakins: I hoped the member would read all of the letter he was quoting from, because the Ministry of Agriculture and Food put its views in the context that the previous government, of which he was a member, had already approved this area being designated as “future urban” in July 1982. That is why the Minister of Agriculture and Food said, “We recognize the policies of the official plan allow the town to proceed with respect to this proposed amendment.” He was part of that government. He passed it.

Mr. Brandt: I am going to start to read from where the minister left off.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary?

Mr. Brandt: By way of a question, the very next sentence in that same letter says, “We are not prepared to support the proposal.” The minister is fully aware that when an official plan is approved by a municipality, that plan requires the specific approval of his ministry for detailed aspects of that official plan. He should not try to hide behind an official plan from 1982, approved by a previous government, when he knows full well it still requires his approval. Why did he approve it?

Hon. Mr. Eakins: I feel the leader of the third party should take responsibility for the actions he brought about while he was a member of that government. The member should also be aware that when he reads the letter from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the ministry also recognized that additional servicing capacity for the area had been found.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Food referred to this fact because it was aware, and I am sure the honourable member is aware, that a letter from his former leader, former Premier Bill Davis, in April 1983 said to the region, “If, through the program, it can be demonstrated that there is additional capacity which can be satisfactorily used, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing would be prepared to accept amendments to the local official plan to permit additional development.”

Therefore, under the framework established by the previous government, this amendment was inevitable.

Mr. Brandt: It is interesting to note that the minister very lightly slipped over the word “if.” He knows full well that the former Premier’s letter is no kind of guarantee, none whatever.

Interjections.

Mr. Brandt: Smirk, all who know so much about official plans.

Let me just tell members that Ag and Food made it very clear on October 28, 1985, that it was not prepared to approve of or to recommend this particular project. It talked about concerns related to the density of the project. It talked about the fact there were other lands that were not developed in the area. It listed a whole series of concerns, all of which this ministry and the cabinet of this government, in some fashion, overruled. Who, in fact, overruled Ag and Food? That is the question I want to have answered.

Hon. Mr. Eakins: I think the member is finding some fault with the words of his former leader, the Premier. The Premier established very clearly that it was the region and the local municipality that would determine the servicing capacity, and in that light, that designation which the member supported stands. It was inevitable that it was going to proceed and it was in that light that the Minister of Agriculture and Food spoke as he did.

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CIVIL SERVANTS’ LEGAL FEES

Mr. Runciman: My question is for the Chairman of Management Board. As the minister is undoubtedly aware, the Ministry of the Attorney General has paid, up to this point, $47,000 for legal fees for one Casey Hill, who is suing the Church of Scientology, the Globe and Mail and other members of the media. After four years, the case has not gone to trial and we do not know how many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars may ultimately be billed by the lawyers.

It is of vital importance to protect public money against an open-ended legal bill. Is it the policy of Management Board to approve in advance all arrangements to pay employees’ legal fees, and what does Management Board do to protect the taxpayers against an open-ended commitment to pay the costs of a lawsuit?

Hon. Mr. Elston: I am not familiar in all details with respect to the particular issue that has been raised. I am familiar enough to know that the action was initiated under the auspices of, at least with the consent of, Mr. McMurtry, a previous Attorney General. It has been ongoing.

Like the member for Leeds-Grenville, who raised the question, I would like to look into it more deeply. I can tell the honourable member that with respect to information that is required in terms of spending through the Ontario legal aid plan, we require projections and updated information about what the legal aid plan will consume, but once the matter has progressed, it is up to people in the legal aid system to review from time to time the progress of a case and to make a determination if in fact there is merit that warrants the support of the legal aid plan.

The honourable member will likewise know that the plan is basically operated through local offices with respect to the legal aid designations of money. I can tell the honourable gentleman that I will be pleased to look in more detail at the reasons why this particular piece of litigation has been ongoing and why the funding has mounted to $47,000 and report back to him.

Mr. Runciman: That is not a very reassuring answer to the taxpayers of Ontario, and I am not talking about the legal aid plan. I am concerned as well, and I mentioned this in my original question, about how we get our money back if the employee loses the lawsuit. Surely the taxpayers are entitled to an ironclad guarantee that the employee will pay the money back in the event he loses the lawsuit. Is it the policy of the government to obtain such a guarantee from the employee before advancing any money?

Hon. Mr. Elston: I have been told indirectly across the floor that the honourable member did not refer to the legal aid plan, and if that was the case, I was mistaken.

I have given my undertaking to look into the matter more thoroughly and report back to the honourable gentleman. I cannot speak for why certain arrangements were made by other people with respect to previous commitments, but I certainly will look into protecting the taxpayers of the province. That is my role, as he has rightly pointed out, and we in fact have done a fair bit of work in that regard by cleaning up some of the messes that we inherited, and we intend to catch up to all of those as they come forward.

I can tell the honourable gentleman that with respect to this particular matter, I will make as full and complete a report as possible and answer those particular questions as soon as I have had a chance to discuss them with the Attorney General’s department.

Mr. Runciman: I do not know how long they are going to continue to dump their garbage on the doorstep of the former government.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Runciman: The minister wants to investigate the situation and wants to indicate to the House that it is the responsibility of a previous government. I have a letter here dated February 16, 1988, from David Attley, in the criminal law division, to one Douglas Hunt, assistant deputy Attorney General, about this case, pointing out clearly that there are no funds to pay for this. Further on in the letter, it says, “It is felt quite strongly that this money should come from some general fund within the ministry that should not be identified with the offices where these individuals work.”

Later, we got a receipt through the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act that those fees, the $47,000, were paid under the general accounts headed “Travel.”

This is just one other area that is causing a great deal of concern. Members of the Attorney General’s office were concerned they did not have funds. They have now attempted, I believe, to conceal them. The public is entitled to judge for themselves whether or not this minister --

Mr. Speaker: Does the member have a supplementary question?

Mr. Runciman: Is the minister prepared to table all agreements that the government has with Mr. Hill with respect to payment of cost in this lawsuit, or would he prefer to hide the whole situation from public view?

Hon. Mr. Elston: The honourable gentleman is making wild accusations again, as he usually does. In fact, he is developing a reputation for being wildly imaginative in the words he chooses to describe the activities of this government.

He is not a credit, in my view, to is party, nor to his previous role in this particular Legislative Assembly, which had been to provide some very reasoned and worthwhile debate. The honourable gentleman knows that the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) has provided information to him. I can tell the honourable gentleman that we will --

Mr. Runciman: He was forced to through the freedom-of-information act.

Hon. Mr. Elston: He was not forced to through freedom of information. The member asked a question. He provided it, as the legislation is supposed to work. It did work. The member has the material in front of him. It has been identified for him.

It seems to me that the honourable gentleman has some information. I am prepared to take a look at other material because it is my role. Any time somebody brings to my attention the fact that there are expenses that one thinks are outrageous or whatever, I will examine exactly where they came from and how they were put.

I will provide further material to the honourable gentleman, but I cannot at all think that this gentleman is serious in the wild accusations he is making. I can tell the honourable members that I will, indeed, look into this further.

ROUGE VALLEY

Mrs. Grier: My question is for the Minister of Transportation. It concerns the Rouge Valley, an area with which I am sure the minister is very familiar. On October 20, the Premier (Mr. Peterson) told the House: “It is the government’s intention, and always has been, to preserve the Rouge. There is no question about that; there never has been.” Can the minister tell us whether or not he agrees with that position?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: The proposal in question was one that was put in place by the previous government in 1971. We recognize there are a multitude of transportation needs throughout this province. We even go to the expense for the taxpayer to provide transportation and roads for these people to come back and forth here on a daily basis, although some days I wonder why.

That corridor is there and is protected for eventual growth. We are working very closely with the city of Scarborough and other interested parties to discover whether or not there are options, but until such time as options are made available, the corridor, unbuilt, is in place.

Mrs. Grier: The minister must surely know that the city of Scarborough has said the corridor is no longer needed, that it can accommodate the anticipated growth in traffic on its arterial roads, and that Metropolitan Toronto wrote to Scarborough in June 1988, stating that the inclusion of the corridor in MetroPlan is the result of provincial input and was specifically included at the request of the then Minister of Transportation and Communications.

Surely, if this government really means to preserve the Rouge Valley, it must realize that such a corridor, freeway or expressway is entirely inconsistent with preserving the Rouge Valley. Why has the minister not requested Scarborough and Metro to delete the corridor from their plans? That is how one preserves the Rouge.

Hon. Mr. Fulton: I would like to remind the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore that the corridor in question is not in the valley. It is some substantial distance from the valley. It is not a similar situation to the Don Valley Parkway traversing the valley. It is a corridor that is aligned as close to the western limits of the study area as is physically possible. Scarborough’s own roads plan probably has greater impact on whatever may happen in that study area than any corridor we are looking at.

METROPOLITAN TORONTO HOUSING AUTHORITY

Mr. Harris: My question is to the Minister of Housing. The Metropolitan Toronto Housing Authority’s policy regarding tenders in the area of property management states that bidding companies must have a minimum of three years’ experience and also that the Metro Toronto Housing Authority will deal only with principal companies, not agents. Both of these policies were contravened by the Metro Toronto Housing Authority board in September, in order to award a lucrative contract to a company owned by Elvio DelZotto, the president of the Liberal Party of Canada (Ontario). Does the minister have any concerns with the Metro Toronto Housing Authority decision and the two breaches of its own policies in awarding this contract?

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Hon. Ms. Hošek: Members should be aware that operational decisions are made by the Metro Toronto Housing Authority and by the Ontario Housing Corp., and the decision in relation to this particular contract will be made according to the guidelines and by the board of MTHA and the board of OHC.

Mr. Harris: Yesterday, I asked the minister if she could offer the House a single good reason why she fired John Sewell, which she could not do. Mr. Sewell thought the policy contraventions were unacceptable and he opposed breaching the rules of the public authority for the benefit of a private company. Does the minister believe that Mr. Sewell was right to be concerned about the legitimacy of this series of events, or will the minister confirm today that perhaps it was because Mr. Sewell tried to maintain the integrity of the Metro Toronto Housing Authority tender and contract process, making things difficult for the minister’s friends and supporters, that she had to fire Mr. Sewell?

Hon. Ms. Hošek: These decisions are all made by the board as a whole. The board of the Metro Toronto Housing Authority has three groups that are members of it: those appointed by the Metro Toronto government, those appointed by the federal government and those appointed by the provincial government, a third each.

This decision, like all decisions, must be made according to the guidelines. If any member of the Metro Toronto Housing Authority board has any concern about those guidelines, and certainly the chairman has every right to be concerned if he wishes to be, he can raise those concerns in the board as a whole.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Mr. Daigeler: My question is also to the Minister of Housing. I think the question will be a little bit less aggressive, but nevertheless equally important.

Mr. Speaker: I suggest you place it.

Mr. Daigeler: The city of Nepean has just received an excellent consultant’s report on the establishment of a mobile home park. According to this study, modern mobile homes and mobile home communities can offer an economical, attractive, and acceptable alternative to conventional housing forms. However, manufactured housing has never been a strong force in this province and municipal opposition to this form of housing is still widespread, although I am glad to say not in my community. Can the minister advise this House whether she shares the reservations about mobile homes or whether she sees them as one of obviously many viable avenues to provide more affordable housing?

Hon. Ms. Hošek: The member is right. There is a variety of forms of housing, prefabricated housing, various forms of manufactured housing that we have been looking at in our consultations with the private sector and with the building industry as a whole. We are prepared to talk to the building industry about various forms of construction and innovative ways of building housing.

However, when it comes to our nonprofit housing program, we are not interested in pursuing that particular route for nonprofit housing. We are interested in talking to the private sector about any innovative ideas it may have about housing construction, including prefabricated and modular housing.

Mr. Daigeler: In this case, it is not the private sector that is interested in the construction of a mobile home but in fact the nonprofit corporation set up by my city. Nepean would be very interested in working with her ministry on a demonstration project that could include a mobile home park in our municipality. May I ask whether the minister is open to discussions with my city, with my mayor in particular, on establishing a mobile home park that would provide affordable housing for a fair number of people?

Hon. Ms. Hošek: I would be very glad to have my officials meet with the officials of the city of Nepean. As the member knows, we are working actively with a variety of municipalities to sign housing agreements with them. We would be glad to discuss with the city of Nepean the whole question of a housing agreement to deal with a number of issues that we are concerned about, and in that framework we would be perfectly willing to discuss this as a possibility.

But I should say to the member that our approach in the nonprofit sector has been very much to use a more conventional building method in the nonprofit sector of our building. None the less I would be very glad to have our officials discuss with the officials of Nepean whether we might be able to work out a housing agreement.

METROPOLITAN TORONTO HOUSING AUTHORITY

Mr. Breaugh: I would like to return to the Minister of Housing concerning the awarding of the contract by the Metropolitan Toronto Housing Authority. I would like an explanation of this, if she can.

In the tender evaluation that was submitted to the housing authority, two other bids were disqualified because of technicalities. I will not bother reading it all. I think it is fairly straightforward that two companies had submitted a bid, and their bids were declared invalid because of technicalities, wrong officers signing and things of that nature. It was also noted that DelZotto Enterprises Ltd. was barred indefinitely by the Ontario Housing Corp. board in 1976.

Despite the fact that some companies were barred because of these technicalities, and that this same group of companies was barred previously; despite the fact that it did not meet their own rules and the fact that they took the final decision, according to our information, by a telephone survey where not all the board members were present, nor did all of them vote, can the minister explain how this company still got the contract from the housing authority?

Hon. Ms. Hošek: The question about whether the company was or was not eligible was a matter that MTHA was concerned about and forwarded to the board of the Ontario Housing Corp. for a decision. The board of the Ontario Housing Corp. decided in August of this year that the 1976 order no longer applied to Del Property Management.

However, I should say to the member that there is a procedure established for making these decisions, and if there is any question of ambiguity concerning the MTHA decision, then the next stage is the OHC board is supposed to make comment. If there is any ambiguity concerning the decision, the OHC board can consider that ambiguity in making its recommendation. It can make one of two recommendations: either to accept its recommendation or to send it back to the MTHA board for further consideration.

Mr. Breaugh: I am afraid I have to pursue this a bit. It was not, in fact, Del that got the contract; it was a numbered company that was set up by the DelZotto group, so that is the first little mistake that should be corrected.

I have read to the minister the litany of companies that were disqualified from bidding for this particular contract because the wrong person signed the form or they did not have the right letter accompanying their bid. Some companies were disqualified because of technicalities. It was noted in evaluating this that this group of companies in fact had been barred from putting forward bids since 1976. It was noted in this report that they did not meet the current rules of the housing authority.

Despite all that, which is here in writing in the tender evaluation that was put forward in front of the board, this particular company, breaking all of the rules, and despite the fact that others who broke only technicalities were discarded, this company got the contract. How did that happen?

Hon. Ms. Hošek: No company has the contract yet. What is happening now --

An hon. member: Give me a break.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: I am very glad to answer the question, gentlemen. No company has the contract. The next stage of this decision is that it is supposed to go to a committee of the OHC board. The committee of the OHC board is the one that makes the final decision. It has two choices in this matter, according to its guidelines. Its choice is either to accept this contract, which it has not yet done because it has not yet met, or to send the whole matter back to the Metropolitan Toronto Housing Authority board for a final determination. Those are the procedures and they will be followed.

APPRENTICESHIP TRAINING

Mrs. Cunningham: My question is to the Minister of Skills Development. Two weeks ago the minister announced that the province would provide $5 million for the 5,000 apprentices who are waiting to start, or complete, programs that have been postponed. Yesterday the minister could not tell me when he was going to implement these programs

Is the minister able to implement the apprenticeship programs that 5,000 people are waiting for, and when is he going to do it?

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Hon. Mr. Curling: I thought I had made it pretty clear yesterday that when I get a commitment from my government, it will be carried out. I got a commitment from Management Board to expend that $5 million for those 5,000 apprentices who were waiting for those programs, and I do not see what the holdup is in the community colleges. These things were not postponed.

I have to make it pretty clear again that the $5 million that was being expended on that program was due to the fact of the shortfall of the federal government, which did not come through with the apprenticeship funding. They have been doing this funding since 1944 and unilaterally just cancelled out and did not come through with the apprenticeship program.

I want to make it pretty clear to the honourable member that those people who are waiting to get into those programs can go right ahead. The community colleges know that.

Mrs. Cunningham: I would not be asking the question if the community colleges knew that. I would only like to remind the minister that we do have plenty of announcements and this is one I am concerned about. We have policies and programs that this province needs, but right now we have waiting lists for child care and hospitals and now we have waiting lists for apprenticeship programs.

I would like the minister to tell me, even in one instance, some specific program that has been given the go-ahead to proceed with even part of this $5 million that was announced two weeks ago.

Hon. Mr. Curling: Each region or each community college has its specific programs. I cannot say to the member what program is available and what is being held up. It is the community college in that region that identifies those needs and then it offers those courses. For me to tell the member specifically -- maybe later on, if she so wishes, I can meet with her and tell her some of the programs that were on hold at the time when those moneys were not being expended.

They are being offered. The $5 million is committed and will be spent as soon as those community colleges offer up those programs that are needed and it will be addressed accordingly.

RAIL SERVICES

Mr. Lipsett: My question is to the Minister of Transportation. Recently, the mayor of Hanover hosted a meeting in my riding of fellow mayors and reeves, area business leaders, two federal MPs and myself, as well as the proponents of Project ReRail, to discuss concerns about the abandonment of service, removal of tracks and dispersing of properties by both Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railway.

I would like to ask the minister, even though I recognize that this is primarily federal jurisdiction, is the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario exploring ways to maintain freight rail service as an alternative to increased truck traffic to many of our communities in rural Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: The member is correct when he addresses the issue as one of federal jurisdiction, but it seems increasingly that we are required to give the federal government direction from this province. He is quite correct in his reference to the added truck traffic as well.

Certainly we have a great interest in the issue of the rail-line abandonment and retention of services. Particularly with reference to the member for Grey and his riding, in that general area of western Ontario we have intervened on the retention of rail lines in Owen Sound, Kincardine, Wingham and Southampton.

We have also provided some funding for some of the groups who have an interest in this particular issue, and I can tell the member that we have already arranged a meeting with the Project ReRail group in December.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Lipsett: Has the Minister of Transportation considered asking the federal ministry for a moratorium on branch-line abandonment until it is determined which rail lines are essential to the continued economic growth in the affected areas?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: I think it is unfortunate that some members opposite choose not to pay attention to what is essentially a very important issue to the people of Ontario and across this country, which is the abandonment of not only freight lines but also passenger services.

I can tell the member that I, indeed, met with the federal minister in Halifax about a month ago, and he did agree to consult with myself and other provincial ministers across the country prior to any abandonment because he, at least, unlike the members opposite, recognized the impact on communities across this province.

Mr. Speaker: New question, the member for Hamilton West.

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

Mr. Allen: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to address this to the Minister of Community and Social Services, and I simplify this case which is rather complex.

Sheila Perfitt, on general welfare in London, has $2 left each week after she meets only her basic shelter costs. She began a manpower training course but had to drop it because of illness which was due, in some respect, to the malnutrition she had been suffering. One week’s training allowance of $105 overlapped her welfare cheque and repayments from welfare were demanded to the tune of 10 per cent of her welfare cheque, even though -- and I emphasize this -- the collection agency itself said she was too poor to pay and returned the file to the welfare office.

Sheila has appealed to the Social Assistance Review Board, where she will likely lose due to the regulation as it stands.

How can the minister, in all conscience, sit there and tolerate any longer this hard-hearted system of convoluted values and bureaucratic absurdity when he has the Thomson report in his hand and could even now be implementing the first stage of its reforms?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: As the honourable member was implying, several of the difficulties that he has just described, in fact, are addressed in the Thomson report and that was precisely why we had asked for the report. I have already indicated to the honourable member that fairly soon I hope to be able to come forward with an announcement as to how we are going to proceed.

With respect to the specific case that he mentioned, let me make two observations. Number one, from time to time, it is true that either family benefits or general welfare recipients do get an overpayment and the current legislation does require that it be repaid. However, we have, to the best of my knowledge, never failed to sit down with the particular recipient to work out a repayment plan that he can handle. It can be a very small amount. That is just the procedure at the present time.

The second point I could make is, as the honourable member has indicated, the appeal has gone to SARB. The honourable member knows that I do not make those decisions, but I can tell him that since the new board has been in place, the percentage of appeals in favour of the recipient has risen dramatically and there is good reason to believe that that might be the case in this particular situation.

Mr. Allen: In future days, I want to come back to some further SARB issues, but the minister knows quite well that under the first stage of the Thomson report, Sheila Perfitt would first receive 100 per cent of shelter cost and free up some money for food. Second, she would receive a training allowance, in addition to welfare, so her income would not decline through the additional cost associated with the training regime. Third, she would maintain her income status until an appeal is complete. Fourth, she would have an opportunity counsellor who would, in this case, have put her on vocational rehabilitation, where she would have had a higher rate of assistance and an education allowance as well, and would have avoided all this mess in the first place.

Is the minister going to get on with the Thomson report and its reforms or is he content that people like Sheila Perfitt continue day after day under the present system with the kind of insensitivity that she is facing and becoming poorer and more miserable in the process?

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Hon. Mr. Sweeney: Again, the honourable member has accurately indicated what the impact of the Thomson report would be on this particular client. I do not quarrel with that. I have indicated to him that I wish to proceed with as much of this as we can, as quickly as we can. That is still under discussion with my colleagues.

I am sure he appreciates that that is necessary. I also would expect he recognizes that the Thomson report itself very clearly says, in the main body of the report and in the releases that were accompanying the report when in fact Mr. Thomson did make it a public document, that a number of these facets had to be done together; they could not be done separately. That is one of the reasons we are working on it at the present time. I hope to be able to move as quickly as possible on it.

TORONTO AREA TRANSPORTATION

Mr. Cousens: My question is for the Minister of Transportation. In a letter of October 24, 1988, to the Toronto Transit Commission, the minister noted that his staff is “discussing the opportunity to extend the Spadina subway from Wilson to Sheppard, approximately one mile, as an immediate rapid transit project.” While this is a pleasant surprise to the Toronto Transit Commission, this letter signals a change in the long-range rapid transit development plans of the ministry and at the expense, possibly, of the Scarborough residents who have been anxiously awaiting a formal announcement of funding of the Sheppard subway line running east from Yonge Street to Victoria Park Avenue.

Given the fact that Ontario taxpayers will pay 75 per cent of the cost of rapid transit projects, will the minister stand in the House today and outline his ministry’s long-range transit development plans, rather than doing so through private correspondence, thereby laying to rest this possibility of a hidden agenda?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope they are not too long-range.

Hon. Mr. Fulton: I could make it as long as the subway line. I reject categorically that I, my ministry or this government have any hidden agenda with respect to transportation in Metropolitan Toronto and across this province. I dare say this government has done more to address the transportation needs of this entire province, and Metro as well, as any government in the history of this province, and especially the one the honourable gentleman was a member of.

I am not sure if the member wants me to include in my answer addressing those needs of York region and specifically his town of Markham. His question seemed to indicate that. What he seems to fail to understand is that the letter of correspondence between myself and the chairman of the TTC was simply a follow-through letter flowing from our announcement last May that we were going to get on with transportation needs and demands across the greater Toronto area in the four regions that comprise that area.

That does not only, or exclusively, mean building a subway line. It means a number of things. Many of those initiatives we have already put in place, if he would look at my announcement of just last week.

Mr. Cousens: What I am really seeing is that the minister does not have an agenda for transportation. The minister has not come forward with a comprehensive program to address the needs of transit riders in Metro. It is something again that is a hodgepodge -- he makes a plan here, he does something there. This $100-million extension paves the way to the extension to York University for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.

If the city of Toronto is successful, we will know in September 1990. Is that when he is going to make the announcement to extend it further up that way? When is he going to make the announcement to do any kind of subway work that is really going to begin to get people moving in Metro?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: I do not know whether the member was making a speech or asking a question, but he has chosen to read only one part of the letter. The other part, which is the operational part of the letter, is the next step necessary with respect to the Sheppard corridor to protect it, as well as other options that we are looking at, which he should be well aware of but obviously is not.

Mr. Cousens: Would the minister make the letter public?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I did not recognize the member for a supplementary.

NURSING HOMES

Mr. Reville: My question is to the Minister of Health. I understand that at the beginning of September the seven inspectors who used to do fire inspections under the Nursing Homes Act were transferred to the office of the fire marshal at the Ministry of the Solicitor General, the regulations under the Nursing Homes Act relating to fire safety are to be rescinded and all fire safety in nursing homes will be regulated by the fire safety and inspections service of the Ministry of the Solicitor General.

I would like to get the Minister of Health’s reaction to the problem this creates. At some great cost of lobbying, people interested in safety in nursing homes finally managed to get those inspection reports made public. Under the Solicitor General’s operation, those fire safety reports are not made public, and that leaves consumers of nursing home services with less information about the safety of nursing homes than previously.

Will the minister undertake to raise this matter with her colleague the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith) and urge her to require that her inspectors make fire inspection reports on nursing homes public as well?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: I want to acknowledge the interest and concern of the member opposite for residents of our nursing homes. I think he shares with me and with the members of the government the progress that has been made under the Nursing Homes Act to ensure that both quality-of-life and quality-of-care standards are made available. In fact, the residents of those homes have a greater say in the running of those homes and in their desires.

I think the point he makes is a good one. I think it is extremely important that information be made available regarding the inspections of nursing homes. I think the Nursing Homes Act is very clear in providing the information to be made available to the residents of the nursing home and I would assure him that we will make sure that the standards as established in the Nursing Homes Act are adhered to.

Mr. Reville: That was a lovely answer, but it kind of went a bit past my question.

There is a second problem that I would like to raise. A few years ago, an inquest into some deaths in nursing homes indicated that it might be appropriate not to have people requiring heavy care on the upper floors of nursing homes because of the obvious difficulties in removing people in that condition in the case of an emergency. That recommendation, of course, has never been acted on.

What would be required in this case is to bring the regulations and standards under the Nursing Homes Act into the Ontario fire code to ensure that we have the best possible standards. I am sure the minister would want that.

Will she, again through her good offices, urge the Solicitor General to give this House an early commitment to act on the recommendations of the inquest into the Extendicare deaths and bring forward appropriate revisions to the Ontario fire code so that we can ensure that our nursing home residents have the highest possible safety standards?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: I want to thank the member for his question, because it gives me an opportunity to restate in this House the fact that I believe my responsibility is to ensure protection of the public and quality assurance, whether our residents are in public hospitals, in independent health facilities, in nursing homes or in any of the government-funded programs across this province. I take this responsibility extremely seriously and can assure him that my priority will always be protection of the public and quality assurance.

NATIONAL SPACE AGENCY

Mr. Sterling: I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. Has he convinced the Liberal leader of the federal party, John Turner, to change his position with regard to the location of a national space agency, which he has said is going to be in Montreal if he is elected Prime Minister of Canada on November 21? Has he changed his mind? Has the minister talked to Mr. Turner about this and changed his mind?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I should tell the member from the third party that I am really concentrating my efforts on talking to the federal minister, Mr. de Cotret, who has carriage of this at the present time and who has declined to give me an answer.

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Mr. Sterling: I would like the minister to tell me when he first met with Mr. de Cotret with regard to this particular subject and how many times he has met with him --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Sterling: I am getting a bit of coaching.

Has he had meetings specifically to discuss this matter with Mr. de Cotret or any other minister in the federal government, and when were those meetings?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I cannot give the member the exact dates, obviously. I do not keep a diary so that I can do that. I can check on them and tell him. But I can tell him this: I have met, I would say, on at least five occasions with Frank Oberle, the Minister of State (Science and Technology). I have met with Mr. de Cotret as recently as a week ago Monday.

I have made representations and the Premier (Mr. Peterson) has made representations. We cannot get them to make a decision, because of the election. I predict that the day after the election they will announce that it is going to Montreal, if they win. That is, of course, something that is problematic.

PETITIONS

PESTICIDES AND HERBICIDES

Mrs. Marland: I have a petition to His Honour, the Lieutenant Governor, which reads:

“We, the undersigned, are concerned about the frequent use of pesticides and herbicides (plus their solvents or carriers) by the companies which spray lawns, the hydro, the parks and recreation departments and the ministry of roads and transportation.

“We believe they are harmful to ourselves and our environment. Therefore, much stricter laws should govern their use, safer alternatives must be substituted and until safe alternatives are used, all areas sprayed must, by law, be posted with warning signs and watering down after application be strictly adhered to.”

This petition is signed by 284 people from a large number of towns, cities and municipalities across Ontario.

Mr. Speaker: I would just like to inform the House that I found it very difficult to hear that last petition. It would be much better if we kept the private conversations down.

SCHOOL OPENING EXERCISES

Mr. J. M. Johnson: I have several petitions, bearing a total of 288 signatures of concerned citizens from many parts of Ontario, mostly from the area of Alma and the county of Wellington. The petitions read as follows:

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

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

“We, the undersigned, would like to see the Lord’s Prayer and Bible reading reinstated as part of our education system.”

I have signed these petitions.

ROUGE VALLEY

Mr. Faubert: I have a petition to the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, hereby petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

“The undersigned strongly object to the alignment of the east Metro transportation corridor through the natural heritage park proposed by the Save the Rouge Valley System Inc. and request the provincial government to seek to study alternative alignments.”

This petition is signed by 30 residents of Scarborough. I have appended my signature thereto and hereby submit it.

REPORT BY COMMITTEE

STANDING COMMITTEE ON REGULATIONS AND PRIVATE BILLS

Mr. Furlong from the standing committee on regulations and private bills presented the following report and moved its adoption:

Your committee begs to report the following bills without amendment:

Bill Pr42, An Act to revive Rockton Winter Club Inc.

Bill Pr53, An Act respecting The Peterborough Historical Society;

Bill Pr55, An Act to revive 288093 Ontario Limited.

Your committee recommends that Bill Pr17, An Act respecting the City of Toronto, be not reported.

Your committee further recommends that the fees, less the actual cost of printing, be remitted on Bill Pr53, An Act respecting The Peterborough Historical Society.

Motion agreed to.

INTRODUCTION OF BILL

ONTARIO ENERGY BOARD AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Charlton moved first reading of Bill 184, An Act to amend the Ontario Energy Board Act.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Charlton: The purpose of the bill is to give the Ontario Energy Board additional powers to regulate rates and to investigate matters such as capacity, price and source of supply

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THIRD READING

The following bill was given third reading on motion:

Bill 180, An Act to amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 162, An Act to amend the Workers’ Compensation Act.

Mr. Speaker: I believe the member for Oshawa has some further comments to make.

Mr. Breaugh: I want to put on the record some concerns that I have about this particular bill. I will not try to do an analysis, as the member for Sudbury East (Miss Martel) did, because I think it would be folly to try to match the effort she put into that. It was just an excellent analysis of what a bill purports to do, what it will actually do and what alternatives might be put in place.

I do want to join with many other members who have expressed their concerns about this purported reform to the system and about the basic system itself. I think most members here will have several experiences that they simply cannot get out of their minds.

I recall the first occasion when I had the chance to sit at a kitchen table with a widow of someone who had died, in this case at Johns-Manville, a plant that was located in Scarborough. Many of the people who worked in that plant lived in the Oshawa area and throughout the region of Durham. Even though it has been some time now, and even though the company itself has moved out and many of the workers have moved away from our area, I still recall the anguish that was on that woman’s face as she tried to understand, in the first instance, what had happened that would cause the death of her husband and, in the second place, why something that every one of them knew was not being accepted by the Workers’ Compensation Board.

That is a difficult thing for me, as a member, to recall. It is much more difficult, obviously, for that woman and her family and for those other workers from that same plant who still have not, in their estimation, had their cases resolved by the Workers’ Compensation Board.

It is a tragedy that the company is no longer in business here, has in fact gone back to the United States, and the agency that is set up by the government of Ontario to deal with those questions has not managed to get a resolution of the problem to what the workers themselves would consider to be a reasonable level.

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One of the things I think many members will experience is that, unlike in many other kinds of constituency work they do, it would be highly unusual to find a constituent who is happy with the decision of the Workers’ Compensation Board.

Most of the agencies that adjudicate, as they do, will provide the spectrum of people who think they have been dealt with fairly, those who think they got a just settlement. The one exception to that rule, I think, is still the Workers’ Compensation Board, and it will remain so under this proposed legislation. It is the one thing that is clear in its consensus: that it does not do what it purports to do, although it has been said since the board itself was founded that if there is to be an error made, it should err on the side of the injured worker. I think the actual experience by almost everyone who has come in contact with the board over its years, no matter what the rules were, no matter who chaired the board, is that it rarely, if ever, does that.

The great tragedy, of course, is that there are those who have suffered death because of industrial accident or industrial disease, and even though the people have died, the board refuses to acknowledge that it had much to do with its area of responsibility. In part, it is because it is not an easy matter to adjudicate these things. In part, it is true that it has been difficult for a long time to gather the information, the scientific evidence.

But it is not true to suggest for a moment to widows of miners from Timmins that they do not know what caused the death of the miner. They do; and it is evident to them, to their families, to the community in which they live and, I dare say, to the representatives who are here at Queen’s Park from those areas. That is known by them. It can be denied by a great many other people, and it is; but the great tragedy is that the compensation board and its processes have been unable to deal with those matters over long periods of time.

I want to cover a couple of other things that are part of this bill and this process.

There is a centre in Downsview called a rehabilitation centre for injured workers. One of the most difficult things I believe any member has to do here is to try to explain to his or her constituents that there is a necessity for them to go to that rehabilitation centre. In many of our communities the word is out on that centre, and has been for some time.

It has been the subject of inquiries; it has been the subject of newspaper reports; but worse, and perhaps more effective in terms of having people form an opinion, is that among the workers of Ontario, the centre has probably the worst reputation I can think of. It is a place that has caused great pain and great misery to a number of people over a long period of time.

It is not particularly that the people who work there do not try or that there is not some effort made to rehabilitate people. I think it is perhaps that the reputation of the centre itself has something it cannot get over, and that is despite the fact that, once again, attempts have been made to reform it.

I recall in the last year sitting down with a couple, and in this instance, it was the wife who had been asked to go to the rehabilitation centre. Her husband and she herself were both most dismayed that she would have to go, and it was my task to try to explain to her how the workers compensation process works.

I tried first to explain to them that this was not like the country they had originally come from, where being sent to a government institution has a far different connotation to it. I tried to explain that they did not really have to go, in the sense that she was being sentenced there, but I did try to explain to her that it would make the compensation process very difficult if she did not attend.

Of course, the husband was very worried because at that time the newspapers were full of reports of problems at the rehab centre. The word in the plant where he worked was that it was not a very nice place to be, and of course, the wife, who was the injured worker in this instance, was nervous and upset, first of all because she was in pain and second because she was asked to leave her home, her family and her personal support system to receive care in an institution about which she had great doubts.

In the way that ordinary people often do, she put some very sensible suggestions. She wanted to know, for example, if this was a place where you received care and treatment, why could you not go to the Oshawa General Hospital? That, of course, is a very good question. Why is it necessary to leave your home, to leave the doctors you know and you trust, to leave your family, who could visit with you, to leave your own bed? Why did you have to travel to some place in Toronto?

That is a good question. Why do workers have to travel from all over Ontario, on occasions

when they are in physical pain and under great emotional duress, to one centre?

The truth is that I could not explain that to her, because I do not believe that there is a good reason. I do not know why they do. I do not know why workers have to go to one central rehabilitation centre. I do not know why they cannot go to a local hospital. I know if they fell on the street, if they had any other kind of accident in the community where they live, they would go to the closest source of treatment and they would be able to be treated there by people whom they know, people they trust; by a doctor they might not have dealt with before, but a physician whom somebody in their community knows.

That is basically, in my experience, how people sort out something like the medical profession. It is unreasonable to expect that my constituents all know who is a great surgeon in Oshawa, and they will not be able to grab that surgeon’s certificates and sort out who has the best training. What they care about and what they know about is: Has anybody whom they know been treated by this person, and were they treated well? Were they given some measure of respect? Was the operation successful? Was the rehabilitation something that worked? Were they able to get this care in a setting they understood?

There would be my first suggestion for the government. I do not know why, traditionally, people are sent from all over the province to one centre. I do not believe that is necessary. I believe that they have talked about it for some time and they do in fact encourage people to get second opinions, and you need that if you want to go through the appeal process. I do not know why the travel is necessary. I do know that, whatever might be done in that centre, it will be almost impossible for this government to turn around the opinion of workers across Ontario that that is a bad place and that an alternative must be found.

I want to speak a little bit, as others have, about rehabilitation, both vocational and physical. Some will argue that the rehabilitation centre is necessary because a specialized set of skills will be developed. I am not convinced in the least that that is true. I do know the fear that people have about going to that centre. I do know that in many ways people’s emotional status and the attitudes that they bring to a treatment facility are in many cases as important as the physical treatment that is provided. I think there is a need to look at rehabilitation in a different light, both physical and in terms of vocational.

I want to speak just briefly about vocational rehabilitation, which is kind of an ugly word for taking someone who has been injured in the workplace and trying to get him ready to go into a different kind of workplace. In many places that problem used to be resolved by the fact that there could be, for example in General Motors, a main production line, and around that line there were a lot of odd jobs that had to be done. People had to do tidy-up jobs; people had to do cleanup jobs; people had to do general maintenance jobs; people had other departments that they could go to. So if you were an injured worker at General Motors in Oshawa, for example, it was not uncommon that somewhere in your first seven years of employment on the line you would suffer an injury, or some kind of debilitating set of circumstances would occur that meant that you physically could not do that job on the line any more, but there was an array of other jobs in the factory that you could do. That array of other jobs has diminished substantially over the years. There is not the variety of types of employment, the kind of lighter work, the kind of seniority jobs people could gravitate into should they suffer an injury.

I noticed that much discussion in our caucus, for example, has centred on the idea of dual awards and whether that is a good thing or a bad thing or whether the particular types of dual awards that are in this bill are supportable or not. I think the basic problem that I would face with this is simply that, in principle, there is nothing wrong with the idea of dual awards, different types of awards being given. What I think most people are saying is that you cannot do that kind of adjustment to the process when you have not made a substantial change in both the attitude and the way in which the board works; that there is no amount of renaming, of providing different classifications of awards that will substantially alter the circumstances under which an injured worker must live the rest of his or her life.

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That, in a nutshell, is the problem. It is not a problem of the principle of different kinds of awards being made; it is a problem that the credibility of the system is at stake and that there are no substantive changes being proposed that the people who will be the recipients of this system either understand or accept as being worth while. That is the problem.

The problem basically is that this is not considered to be a revenue-changing process that is under way. I believe the term being tossed around these days is that it is revenue neutral. There will be adjustments made. As soon as people understand that, as soon as they read that, they then know it does not really matter how they jigger this thing around; nobody is getting anything more out of the system.

That, I think, is one of the major mistakes in this proposal. If the minister had said to injured workers in Ontario, “You are finally going to get something which is akin to justice,” they might be prepared to listen to any change in technique, any change in the kinds of awards that the minister wanted to discuss with them. But until he is prepared to acknowledge that they have for many years paid a hard economic price for the sole problem of being injured at work, they are not going to be very receptive to any proposals of this kind.

I have listened for some time and I have seen people go through what are called rehabilitation programs of a different kind. Again, it is not that they cannot work; it is just that they never have -- at least, not for very long or certainly not for very many people. One of the basic problems the government has to face is, essentially how realistic is it to take a worker in his or her 40s or 50s and train him or her for another job?

I have seen rehabilitation programs run by the Workers’ Compensation Board that attempted to take workers, for example, from the Johns-Manville plant who were not well educated in the traditional school sense, who had worked in one industrial setting for 20 and 30 years and who were in their late 40s and early 50s, and send them, under a rehabilitation program, to Durham College of Applied Arts and Technology.

For many of us, particularly if you deal with it as an academic exercise, that sounds like a reasonable thing to do. Where it breaks down is simply that when you talk to those workers, they more than anybody else know that this is a farce, that sending them to Durham College at that stage in their life with their type of education and their type of work background is foolishness.

They took it because they had no other choice. They did it because they knew that is what they had to do. They had to play the game, they had to play along with the system, They went there and they knew there was no sane reason why they were at that college. They knew there was no chance, coming out of that program, that they would get another job. They knew that no such job existed. They knew, in fact, that they could not be retrained.

One of the things the government has to do -- and it is not done in this bill -- is to recognize that there are some workers coming off injuries who cannot be retrained. Mine is an industrial area, so we have had this unfortunate situation too many times. You cannot take a worker who has spent 30 years in one plant doing one job, who does not have elementary skills in literacy, who cannot speak his own language comfortably, much less another language, and reasonably say to him at the age of 49 or 50 or 52, “We can retrain you to do something else.” They know better than that. That concept has no credibility with them.

I think the government is, at some point in time, going to have to deal with the matter of what you do with injured workers at a certain level in their lives. Male or female, it does not matter where they are or where they work; there are some to whom it has no credibility to suggest, “Just hold on and we will retrain you.” They know better than that. Sadly, they probably know better than that because something has happened in their community to someone they know in the last little while where he too was supposed to get retrained.

It is not the compensation board alone that faces this problem. This is one that is shared by a number of other government agencies responsible for employment, retraining and a lot of other government programs. The fault is not a fault, I would say, of those who try to run the programs. It is not a fault of the idea; it is not basically that it is wrong. It is simply that people often do not want to recognize that this does not work for everybody. We should know enough about it now to simply acknowledge that one hard fact, that there are some with whom we cannot really fool around and say, “We’re going to retrain you to go to a job which does not exist.”

One of the things that has been discussed for some time, here and in other jurisdictions, is some sort of universal scheme that does not necessarily mean you have to go through a process like this. One of the things that concerns me a lot is that if you took all the energy, money, expertise and people devoted to the Workers’ Compensation Board and tried to turn that into a positive experience, you would have a tremendous resource at your disposal.

One of the things that always makes me very angry is the amount of money, personnel and resources this government and the previous government and many other governments around the world put into maintaining a system. I do not know that it would be a consensus in this chamber, but many members would think that this system is nonproductive. It does not do anything for anybody. I would classify these changes as being ones that are hopeless in the face of that background. They cannot work, simply because there is a level of understanding among injured workers in Ontario which creates an animosity.

They see how the other side lives; they also see it as the other side. That is part of the problem. They do not see this as a place where you go for fairness. They see this as a place where you go and are treated with no respect. It works on a system that you do not understand. It is an adversarial system and it works against you, the injured worker. It begins with a very negative attitude.

One of the things that I think is most difficult for members is to try to be fair, because it would be wrong to rail against the compensation board and the people who work there as being evil. They are not. One other little example that I would like to put on the record this afternoon remains in my mind, much like sitting at the kitchen table of Jean Rozema, the widow whose husband died at Johns-Manville.

On one other occasion, one of the things I did was that, during the course of a mail strike, I was asked to go and pick up some cheques for some injured workers in my riding. I went to the compensation board headquarters on Bloor Street. I cannot quite forget the way people were treated there, the way they were literally herded about the building, the way their names were yelled in the midst of a mass of people, the way they had to stand in line on their crutches to get their handout from the government, the way people looked at them, the way people said their names and the hatred they had in response to that system.

That kind of stuff is scary. It is scary from a number of points of view because, as a member of the Legislature, I know that the people who were working there that day, the people who were handing out this mail, these cheques, were frightened, as frightened as the injured workers who were standing in front of them. They too were uncomfortable. They did not know how to handle this. It was as awkward a moment for them as it was for the injured workers. The difference, of course, was that there were guards standing around the room, there were guards standing around the lobby of the building. It is difficult for many of us to understand the attitude of many injured workers who come from different nations and the reaction they have to any kind of guard. It is quite a different experience and it is quite a tragic one.

Let me conclude with another of my consultants, a guy named Wilf Duffield, who worked for a long time at General Motors in Oshawa and who has developed over the years a certain expertise in how to deal with the compensation board. I must say that Wilf Duffield, like many others, has developed his own little sense of what the compensation board is. I know of no one else who so understands the ins and outs, the rules and the regulations, the procedures and the way the board works. He is not a lawyer. He has worked at General Motors all his life and he is now retired.

Even in his retirement, people turn to Wilf Duffield because they know he understands the process. He always has time for them and he has never charged anybody a cent in his life for helping, advising, going to a meeting on their behalf or seeking more medical opinion on their behalf. He knows where to get that information. He knows how to use it. He knows how to appear in front of a tribunal. He knows because of his long and experienced years in the trade union movement. He knows the opportune moments to take a break. He knows when to talk to somebody who is making a decision. He knows how to talk to him. He has all those skills that someone who has negotiated in the trade union movement will gather around him over 30 or 40 years.

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His comment on the bill was simply this. He said to me the other night at a dinner in Oshawa: “You know, the old rules used to be wrong, but one thing they had was that you always had a chance to go in and make an argument about the person who was sitting before the tribunal that day. You had a right to make your case, and no matter what anybody else did, no matter what other rulings were brought forward, maybe this guy was a little different. Maybe his case was a different. Maybe they ought to listen to circumstances surrounding this individual human being.”

In many ways, it reminded me of conversations I have had with lawyers about the judicial process. In their world, they argue cases and precedent and they bring forward facts, statistics and analyses, but in the end, that whole judicial process is about making sure that one individual is brought before the courts and is given a reasonable chance to explain his or her side of the story.

Wilf went on at some length to explain to me that one of the things that is wrong with these proposed changes, this set of reforms, is that it will diminish the right of an individual to make his or her case heard before the Workers’ Compensation Board.

I think he has a point. Certainly, if I were hiring or advising, one of the things I would want to get in terms of expertise on the board is people around Ontario who have spent their years fighting the board.

I do not begrudge anybody a nice office, nice furniture or a good place to work, but one of the things that does bother a lot of injured workers in Ontario is that when they come here, they go into downtown Toronto to a big office building to see where the Workers’ Compensation Board is situated. That bothers them.

One of the things that disturbs them is that they cannot figure out why almost every other kind of service is available in some degree in their own community, and the Workers’ Compensation Board is not. They want to know why they have to drive in and out of Toronto all the time to present evidence, to appear at hearings, to appear in front of the board’s doctors, to appear at Downsview. They do not understand that, and neither do I. I do not understand why they have to leave their home community to come to one central source. In the past few years, the board has tried to address that problem by moving to regional centres, and it has some difficulty with that. I do not pretend for a moment that is an easy thing to do.

But I offer in conclusion this little bit of advice. The compensation board has been seen for a long time now as the enemy of the injured worker, and no matter what you do, it never will overcome that. It never will become an efficient and effective mechanism of seeing that injured workers do not pay an economic price for their industrial accident, it never will get to that stage, until the government first gets it to cease to be seen as the enemy, as it is now. It never will get anywhere until it leaves downtown Toronto and gets out to where people live and work in Ontario. Whatever the government does, it must do that.

There are many people, for whatever reason, who associate coming to Toronto with evil things, with bad things, with not being a pleasant experience. There are others who see it in quite a different light, but I think this: If I were in pain, if I were injured, if I were threatened with economic loss for the remainder of my working career, I do not think I would like someone to say to me, “You have to leave home and go elsewhere, to a strange city, to a strange group of people and explain your case to them.” I do not think you could reasonably expect me to feel other than anger and hurt that I am the injured party and I am the one who has to inconvenience himself and his family to go to a situation where it is unlikely any kind of justice is going to be given to me.

There is, among many other things, a perceptual problem about the board. The main problem, for me, in this bill is simply that the bill does not pretend to do very much and it does not do very much. It does not pretend to do much other than to jigger the system once again, and that is not what is required. It does not do much to convince injured workers that they are finally going to get some measure of respect for what has happened to them.

There has been talk for a great deal of time now about industrial accidents and industrial illness, things that happen in the factory and in the workplace. I think all of us who have observed that for a while know that in many workplaces workers are safety conscious, companies are safety conscious and people are trying to prevent industrial accidents. Not all of them can be prevented. If they could be, we would never have highway traffic accidents either, but you cannot; they do happen.

What happens after that point is what becomes critical, and what does not happen with this bill is probably more significant than what does. In my view, and in the view of many people I represent, it does not do anything of any great significance. I know the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) would not agree with that, but in my instance, I am not particularly worried about what he might say. I am more concerned about what my own constituents say about this.

In a nutshell, exactly what they have said is that they want simple things. They want some respect, they want some justice and they do not want to pay an economic price in addition to the physical and mental anguish they go through.

I think many of us who have observed the system for a while would give this as kind of the concluding observation about the Workers’ Compensation Board: If you have an accident at work in Ontario, you are lucky if it is a clearly defined, physical problem that emerges.

To go back to what is not going to be called the meat chart any more, but is a meat chart, the best route is to lose a finger or an arm or a leg. The compensation board seems able to deal with those types of injuries. The worst injury is to strain your back or your knee, and worse yet is to do it over a long period of time. Even worse than that is to have some kind of an accident or illness that is caused by a minute amount of aggravation over a lengthy period of time. They seem unable to cope with that altogether, even when you die. That is sad.

I think many of us had great hopes that after all we have learned, after all we have studied, after all we have argued about the Workers’ Compensation Board in Ontario, we would have come forward this time with a reform of substance, with a change of a substantial nature.

I would say that the first test of that has been for the government’s proposals to fail, because the people it has to please are not us. There are very few members here who will appear as a victim before the compensation board. The people the government has to impress with this are the injured workers of Ontario and they have already given the government its first response.

The second instance will be when the bill goes for public hearings, as I am now told it will. It will be critical now that the Minister of Labour and his staff listen carefully to what they have to say and try to find ways that in some small sense reach out to them, because if you had a court system that was in this type of situation, if people going to court felt they would never get justice, if they felt they would never get respect, we would all admit that the judicial process had broken down. In many ways, the system of adjudicating an industrial accident or an industrial illness has indeed broken down totally.

We look forward to the remainder of the debate, and I hope it will be a substantive one, and we look forward to what will often be a most difficult set of public hearings, but a most necessary one.

I do hope the minister listens and I do hope he learns as he goes through this process, because it is not an easy task to understand how the injured worker in Ontario feels about this system.

Once you get some understanding of that, which is a real abhorrence, a real feeling that there is a gross injustice under way, then you begin to understand why, even though the minister is proud of the reforms he has announced in this bill, it does not nearly begin to address the problems that are there for injured workers in Ontario.

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That is why we will oppose the bill on second reading and why we will try our very best to see, as it goes through public hearings, that at least there is an opportunity for the people who are directly impacted by this bill to put their case.

With the huge majority it has, the government does not have to listen to anything we say. It does not have to listen to any of the groups that come before that committee or any of the individuals who appear. But it will be to its everlasting disgrace if it decides that it has invented the only system that will work and that no further changes will occur. It will be to its everlasting disgrace if it turns out to be no better than the previous government in addressing the very serious problems these people have.

That is not a particularly pleasant thought to end on. I think I speak for many members on all sides of the House when I say that if there is one agency of the government of Ontario that needs dramatic reform, it is this one. If there is one agency that causes us a great workload in our constituency office; and perhaps more important than that, causes us great mental anguish; and even more important than that, causes our constituents mental and physical pain, it is the Workers’ Compensation Board.

It has been said to me and to many members that you begin this process by having physical pain, and that when you have dealt with the compensation board long enough, you begin to experience the mental and emotional pain that is caused by the process. It is far worse than any pain caused by an industrial accident -- a harsh statement told to me, consistently, in my constituency office and on the streets where I live. That is a scathing review of a process put forward by a government agency.

I wish them well in their job; it is certainly not an easy one. I hope the government listens to what members on all sides have to say on this proposal, on this bill. I hope, more important, that it takes heed, as it goes through the committee stage and the public hearing stage, of what people have to say about this process and about these proposed reforms.

It is not just that we are saying it is not enough. It is not just that we are saying that more money has to be spent. We are saying the process is fundamentally flawed and causes, at great public expense, great problems for the people we are supposed to serve. That is wrong.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. M. C. Ray): Are there any comments or questions pertaining to the speech?

Miss Martel: Just briefly, I want to thank the member for Oshawa for expressing some of his concerns here today about the bill. I want to pick up on two things he said. The first is this, that in terms of the right to appeal, which is a concern he has heard in his riding, he is very much correct. A worker’s right to appeal, under the new system proposed by the Minister of Labour, is dramatically curtailed.

That happens in two areas. There will no longer be an appeal to the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Tribunal in the areas of pensions and pension reassessments, and second, in the area of disputes between employers and employees about what constitutes suitable modified work.

I think the minister, in questions we have raised, has not yet responded adequately as to why that right is going to be curtailed. Why, for a system that we put in place in 1985 -- that is the appeals tribunal -- is he now allowing a spirit to undermine that agency and take away the right of workers to appeal in two very important areas under this system? He has yet to address that and to tell this House why he is doing that, and if in fact that is going to be the future move of the Ministry of Labour in terms of the response to WCAT.

Second, I just want to make a comment about what the member said in terms of the hearing process. He talked about that at length yesterday. I think members of this House should recognize that every time there have been substantial changes to the Workers’ Compensation Act, there have been hearings. Those hearings have taken place across the province. It was surprising to us that the minister would not agree immediately to those or that the government House leader could not agree immediately to those, when that has been the precedent set in this House in terms of compensation.

There are thousands of workers out there who will be affected by these changes, who are affected by the compensation board now. To even appear to deny them the right to a public hearing was beyond belief. It was too bad that the demonstration took place here last week and that that was the extent injured workers had to go to to ask for some respect and at least be heard on this bill. I certainly hope members of this House appreciate what happened last week in that regard.

The Acting Speaker: Does the member for Oshawa wish to reply? Do any other members wish to participate in this debate?

Mr. Adams: I am delighted to have the opportunity to participate in the debate today. Like the member for Oshawa and other members, my staff and I work with injured workers on a daily basis. We work with them, their unions, their employers and their physicians. My staff and I applaud every effort that is made to improve the Workers’ Compensation Board system. Today, I would like to address my remarks to the workplace integration features of Bill 162.

From the moment it took office, this government has made clear its concern about vocational rehabilitation and re-employment efforts on behalf of injured workers. In May 1986, the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye), then the Minister of Labour, appointed the Ontario Task Force on the Vocational Rehabilitation Services of the Workers’ Compensation Board.

The task force was asked to do a number of things. It was asked, “To examine the vocational services provided by the Workers’ Compensation Board.... To assess the adequacy of funds expended by the Workers’ Compensation board.... To explore strategies to identify, at the earliest possible opportunity, injured workers” who require vocational rehabilitation.

It was asked, “To examine approaches for providing ... rehabilitation services ... through the integration of vocational rehabilitation claims ... and medical services.” It was asked, “To examine the role of vocational rehabilitation in facilitating the hiring of injured workers. To explore the appropriate role for retraining and re-education.... To examine the extent to which the Workers’ Compensation Board’s vocational rehabilitation service is dependent upon vocational evaluations and to determine the” -- appropriate -- “role for the board, the private sector and nonprofit organizations in providing vocational evaluation services.” It was asked to examine other related issues the task force considered important.

As members know, the task force responded with a comprehensive report containing 84 recommendations. As one might expect, given its mandate, most of the recommendations dealt with administrative matters within the purview of the Workers’ Compensation Board. Indeed, the report contained only five recommendations that necessitate legislative amendment. I would like to address each of those five in turn.

First, the task force recommended that the board’s name be changed to Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Board. The government examined that. It would be great symbolism, but with what results? The government concluded that it would be far better to devote its efforts to actually enhancing vocational rehabilitation services.

The task force also recommended that workers have a statutory right to vocational rehabilitation. Bill 162 does just that. No, it is not an unlimited right. There must be an evaluation to determine whether a vocational rehabilitation program will be of assistance to the injured worker.

Third, the task force recommended that the act be amended to spell out the definition of what “rehabilitation” means. The task force’s clear intent was to ensure that the whole person is dealt with, not just physical impairment. With that we agree. We considered introducing a definition, but chose instead to maintain the current flexibility, to ensure that an individual’s unique needs can be addressed in a rehabilitation program.

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However, the bill does specify a number of services which may be included in a vocational rehabilitation program. These include vocational training, language training, general skill upgrading and employment counselling.

Before I go further, I would like to address the issue of who is eligible to receive vocational rehabilitation and whether there are any limits on the length of a vocational rehabilitation program.

Any worker who has suffered a lost-time injury is entitled to vocational rehabilitation services where such are appropriate. There is no statutory limit on the length of a vocational rehabilitation program. That is why, for example, Bill 162 provides for vocational rehabilitation supplements where an injured worker is receiving an economic award for wage loss.

The task force also recommended that all cases that have been open for more than 30 days be referred to vocational rehabilitation service. That was considered too, but we were reminded that there are many cases where a worker will recover fully but the recovery takes longer than 30 days. Automatically referring everyone for vocational rehabilitation after 30 days would therefore be inappropriate, impractical and a misuse of scarce resources.

The route we chose instead is to use a two-step process. First, the WCB is obliged by Bill 162 to contact the injured worker if he or she is still off work 45 days after the injury claim is registered with the board. The purpose is to determine whether the worker requires any vocational rehabilitation services, which could include social counselling. Indeed, the WCB has already provided for special counsellors to provide that sort of assistance.

Why 45 days, you might ask? The WCB has estimated that 80 per cent of injured workers return to work within 45 days of filing the injury claim.

As a second step, Bill 162 provides that where a worker has not returned to work within six months of the injury, the board is obliged to contact the injured worker and offer the worker a formal vocational rehabilitation assessment.

If at either stage the WCB determines that the worker will benefit from a vocational rehabilitation program, then the board is further obliged to consult with the worker and, where possible, with the employer and the worker’s physician in designing the program.

This involvement of the injured worker in his or her rehabilitation program goes beyond anything recommended by the task force. The task force recommended that where an injured worker disagrees with the vocational rehabilitation program being established, he or she will have the right to appeal. Bill 162 does not in any way preclude such appeals through the board’s internal appeal system or to the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Tribunal.

The task force further recommended that the WCB take a proactive role in promoting job modification by increasing its ergonomic staff. That is, of course, an administrative matter, but here again, the bill goes beyond the recommendations of the task force. Bill 162 specifically states that a vocational rehabilitation program may include WCB assistance to an employer to adapt the workplace to facilitate an injured worker’s return.

The task force also recommended that the injured workers should have a right to return to their pre-injury job or, where a worker is no longer capable of performing that job, the right to return to another job in the same enterprise.

Bill 162 acts on that recommendation and in some respects goes further. First of all, the bill obliges employers to reinstate injured workers in their former positions or, where that is not possible, in an alternative job of a similar nature and with similar pay.

Second, where the worker is unable to perform the essential duties of that position, the employer is obliged to offer the injured worker the first suitable position that comes open.

Third, and this is where the bill begins to go beyond the task force recommendations, the Workers’ Compensation Board is authorized to penalize any employer found in violation of this re-employment provision. The penalty is to be equivalent to 90 per cent of the injured worker’s net annual earnings.

Fourth, where the worker has suffered a wage loss as a result of the employer’s refusal to re-engage him or her, the WCB is authorized to pay over to the worker whatever part of the penalty is necessary to maintain the worker’s income at 90 per cent of pre-injury earnings, net of taxes.

Fifth, in addition, during an injured worker’s first year of absence from work due to the injury, the employer is obliged to maintain contributions to any workplace health care, life insurance or pension plan to which the worker belongs.

Not only does this provision protect the worker from an immediate loss of benefits for self and family, it also serves to strengthen the continuing employment link between the injured worker and the employer. This obligation, I should point out, is contingent on the worker maintaining his contributions where the plans so require.

The government is serious about doing all it can to facilitate the injured worker’s return to work. I believe the approach set out in Bill 162 will make a tremendous difference. However, a number of members in the opposition parties have been quite critical of these provisions. In part, this is because they are not open-ended and do not have time limits on them.

I would point out that reinstatement provisions are relatively rare in employment law. It is extremely difficult to force an employer to hire or rehire a particular employee. The bill provides that the reinstatement period will not be open-ended. After a replacement worker works for a time, a new employer-employee relationship develops. The replacement worker becomes part of the organization in his or her own right.

In this context, open-ended reinstatement is not appropriate. That is why the government has decided to limit the reinstatement period. However, we should not forget the impact of a wage-loss system on an employer. The longer an injured worker is off work, the greater is the cost to employers for the wage-loss compensation flowing to the injured worker. For those employers involved in an experience-rating system, this will have a very direct impact on their WCB assessments and on their bottom line.

Small business has the most difficult time coping with employee absences from work. That is why we chose to exempt employers with fewer than 20 employees from the re-employment obligation. Those small employers will, of course, still have the same economic, as well as moral, imperatives to re-engage injured workers.

Others in this debate have expressed concern with respect to the exemption of the construction industry. Again, we have tried to take into account the practical realities of the industry. For starters, this is an industry that does not have continuity of employment. A contractor only has jobs to offer as long as he or she has a construction contract to undertake. When he or she has such a contract, he or she must get on with it.

Construction workers tend not to build up a long-term employment relationship with any individual employer, as they move from contract to contract as work becomes available.

Furthermore, in the unionized construction sectors, construction workers are not hired by the employer, but through the hiring hall. We could hardly oblige the employer to reinstate an injured worker where the selection of the worker is determined by the hiring hall. An alternative would have been to interfere with the hiring-hall process. We chose not to disrupt that long-standing arrangement.

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As members know, Bill 162 contains a provision which would allow the extension of this exemption to all the classes of employment by regulation. We did that because we were concerned that there could well be other situations in which the tough reinstatement obligation set out in the bill would prove equally unworkable. Any extension of the exemption would require cabinet approval, and I can assure this House that such approval will not be quickly granted.

The task force also recommended that where an injured worker’s previous employer has gone out of business, the WCB should assist the worker to find alternative employment. We agree, but here again Bill 162 goes further than the task force recommendations. Bill 162 provides that wherever a vocational rehabilitation program requires a search for different employment, the WCB shall assist the worker for up to a year following rehabilitation.

The task force also recommended that section 9 of the Human Rights Code be incorporated into the Workers’ Compensation Act. In fact, that is not necessary. The Human Rights Code is an overriding statute and already has precedence.

Finally, the task force recommended that a tripartite committee consisting of labour, government and industry be established to convert the recommendations of the task force into regulations. We already have that body. It is called the Workers’ Compensation Board.

I would like now to remind members of the makeup of the current Workers’ Compensation Board in this province, The community worker representatives are Joe Duffy, Cliff Evans, David Mackenzie and Almerinda Rebelo. The community employer representatives are Chuck Hantho, Steve Hessian, Paul Richards and Michael Warren. From the medical community we have Dr. Maria Zorzitto. These are all hardworking, dedicated private citizens who serve on the board as part-time members in the interests of working men and women in this province and their employers.

In addition, the chairman of the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Tribunal sits on the board, as an ex officio member, in addition to his tribunal responsibilities. Of course, as everyone here knows, a graduate of this assembly, Dr. Robert Elgie, serves as full-time chairman, ably assisted by Dr. Alan Wolfson, who is president of the WCB.

Theirs is a difficult and all-too-often thankless task. The criticism notwithstanding, I can assure members that there are thousands of workers and families that do appreciate the board’ s efforts on their behalf.

The remainder of the recommendations set out in the task force report are administrative details which do not require legislative change. Indeed, the board of directors of the WCB has already taken a number of steps to give effect to the task force report recommendations. A new vocational rehabilitation strategy has been adopted and is being tested. This will pursue the regionalization and localization of services so strongly recommended by the task force. The board has already begun to purchase additional rehabilitation services in the community. As the capacity to deliver them increases across the province, the WCB is prepared to utilize them so long as the quality of service is maintained.

The task force called for vocational rehabilitation services to become one of the central thrusts of the compensation system; Bill 162 does that. The task force called for early intervention; Bill 162 does that and more. The task force called for workers to be equal partners in vocational rehabilitation; Bill 162 does that and more. The task force called for reinstatement; the bill does that and more. Finally, the task force called for revitalization and regionalization of board vocational rehabilitation services, and this is well under way. The member for Oshawa mentioned this.

The regionalization is something that my staff and I have been pressing for since I was first elected to this House. In Peterborough, we appreciate every move towards regionalization of WCB functions.

In conclusion, I am convinced that Bill 162 will have the desired results and will result in workers returning to the workplace much more quickly and in even greater numbers,

Mr. Wildman: Wrong again.

Miss Martel: I want to go back to exactly what Majesky and Minna said in terms of rehabilitation and reinstatement.

In the case of rehabilitation, they said there had to be a statutory right to rehabilitation for every worker suffering a serious injury. “Serious injury” was defined as a worker who was off work after 30 days. Nowhere in this bill is that guaranteed.

In terms of reinstatement, Majesky-Minna said there had to be a statutory right to reinstatement for all workers in this province. We look at the bill and we see that the bill does not apply with respect to the construction industry, establishments with fewer than 20 employees and any subclasses that may be exempted in the future. Already, we have 25 per cent of the population exempt from any type of reinstatement under this bill. That is a far cry from what Majesky-Minna said in their task force report.

Let’s go back to what else they said. The grave problem they saw at the board was that if the board did not have to provide rehabilitation services, then the board did not do that. They heard horror stories, thousands of them, of people who had never been offered adequate rehabilitation, because if the board had a choice it did not allow for that and it did not provide that.

Let’s go back to the bill. Subsection 54a(2) says immediately, “Where, in the opinion of the board, a worker should be provided with a vocational rehabilitation program.” It is completely left to the discretion of the board if a worker should have rehabilitation or not. Is that the answer to Majesky-Minna?

Let’s go on. The member talked about early intervention. It says in the bill that there shall be intervention within 45 days; it does not say that the worker shall be provided with services. It says, in fact, the board shall provide such services to the worker if the board considers it appropriate to do so. I am trying to tell the member that there is nothing in here that goes anywhere near what Majesky-Minna demanded.

The Minister of Labour, in this Legislature, had a golden opportunity to look at those recommendations from worker and employer representatives and move forward in rehabilitation. He failed to do so. He did not even have the courtesy to change the name of the bill, which would at least have given a symbolic step forward to rehabilitation in this province. I think it is a farce.

Mr. Black: I would like to commend the member for Peterborough (Mr. Adams) on his comments. Many of us listened with great interest as he spoke.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I would like to draw the member’s attention to the fact that he is not in his own seat.

Mr. Adams: As a still-new member of this House, I would like to comment on the fact that the member for Sudbury East and her colleagues in the official opposition seem to think that they are the only people who deal with injured workers and who work with and for injured workers. I have to say that in Peterborough, in my office, more than half of my time and the time of my staff -- and it happens that I am a member who has allocated most of his staff to the constituency office, not to Queen’s Park -- are devoted to these matters.

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I would like to say to the member for Sudbury East that, like her, I am very concerned about the problems of injured workers, but unlike the official opposition, I am interested in moving forward, albeit slowly, but at least moving forward to improve the system that we have, with all its faults.

I have to say that the improvements which are contained in this bill are both worth while and practical, and I think the members of this House and the people of this province know that both of those things are necessary. It is not enough in our society, where there is great competition for the few resources that we have, to have a good idea or an ideal one aspires to. The idea or the ideal has to be translated into practical reality. It is my view that this bill does exactly that for the Workers’ Compensation Board.

Mr. Wildman: Just before I begin my remarks, I do want to say that it is unfortunate that the member for Durham-York (Mr. Ballinger) should take exception to the way I was participating in a debate. I think it is most unfortunate that the member for Durham-York should be credited with the remarks that were made by someone else who was sitting in his seat. I know the member for Durham-York would not have reacted that way.

I do say, though, in participating in this debate, it reminds me a little bit of a French farce.

The reason I say that is that whenever we deal with the Workers’ Compensation Board it is like one of those plays, one of those theatrical productions where we have the script which is written so that it appears to say one thing but in fact everyone in the room knows that it means something else -- quite the opposite. That is what we have here in this legislation, Bill 162.

All of us in this House know the kinds of problems that workers experience in dealing with the Workers’ Compensation Board. We all agree that the Workers’ Compensation Board at present has a system which is arbitrary, unjust and demeaning to the injured worker. I do not think there is anyone in this House who will debate that.

The question then arises, as the member for Peterborough indicated in what I thought was a thoughtful presentation but one which I genuinely believe was incorrect in its conclusions -- because what we have is a bill which purports to improve a system which is beyond reform, which is not capable of being improved, it is so bad that --

Mr. Faubert: 0 ye of little faith.

Mr. Wildman: The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere says, “O ye of little faith.” I suppose since he has not been in this place very long and he has not had to deal with the compensation board as long as many of us in this House, he can still have some faith in the compensation board.

Mr. Faubert: I have 42 cases right now.

Mr. Wildman: If he has that many cases, how he could have any faith in the justice of the compensation system is beyond me.

Mr. Faubert: They are working.

Miss Martel: If they were working, they would not be in your office.

Mr. Faubert: We are resolving them.

Mr. Wildman: If the member is resolving them, I am happy. I am glad for the workers that he is able to help. I am glad; but the question then arises of why we have a system where workers have to come to their member of the Legislature to resolve their problems. Why is it that we have a system that is so unworkable for the worker and his union that he has to seek the intervention of a lawyer or a member of a workers’ help group or a member of parliament? Why is that? It is because it does not work.

The board makes a great to-do of the fact that only 10 percent of the cases it deals with result in problems for the worker. That sounds like an interesting statistic, until one realizes that 10 per cent of the current case load of the Workers’ Compensation Board amounts to about 40,000 workers, somewhere in that neighbourhood, a year. When one takes into account, all their families, one sees the tremendous number of people who are not being served by this system that the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere has so much faith in.

Mr. Faubert: I’m talking about the new one.

Mr. Wildman: When the member raised his intervention, I was talking about the current system, which I believe is arbitrary, unjust and demeaning. I think the member is talking about working to resolve cases in that present system. I hope he is, anyway, because if he is working on the basis of the new system which has not been passed into legislation, then he is not serving his workers very well.

I think Bill 162 is a significant attempt to change the current Workers’ Compensation Act, but I genuinely believe that this attempt to change the legislation should be rejected. I will explain reasons in a moment.

Since the change of government, we have seen some improvements to the workers’ compensation system. It established the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Tribunal, and we had the expansion in the Ministry of Labour of the office of the worker adviser. All of us in this House are aware of the tremendous backlog of appeals before WCAT, the formality involved in appeals to WCAT, the legalistic approach that WCAT seems to take. We are also aware of the tremendous backlog of cases for the worker adviser.

Also, we had the establishment of the office of the employer adviser. I do not think they have nearly the same backlog, but they are also swamped with work. The reason they are swamped is that the board is serving neither the workers nor the employers well.

In the time that I have been here, I have never met anyone in my riding who is satisfied with the workers’ compensation system. Employers are unhappy with the amounts they are being assessed. They are unhappy with how long it takes to resolve difficult cases where their employees are injured and off the job. Workers do not get their cheques on time. Even though the act says they are supposed to have the benefit of the doubt, they have a very difficult time proving that an injury, particularly a back injury, is in fact work-related and getting the compensation they deserve.

There are tremendous holdups. The whole system is frustrating and is designed, I think, in a way to make it very difficult for either the worker or the employer to get the kind of service he requires and should get from this system.

That is why, in this debate and throughout the years, this party has suggested a positive alternative, an alternative that would work better, we think, and would be cheaper both for the employers and for the government; that is, a universal sickness and accident insurance plan, one that would not be adversarial, would not require so many investigations, would not require appeals and quasi-jurisprudence; a system which would compensate people who are hurt, no matter how they are hurt or where they are hurt; a system that would provide people with the kind of benefits they require to support them when they are off work and give them the kind of rehab services they need to assist them to get back into the workforce.

It is not as if this is just some pie-in-the-sky idea, something we just came up with on our own. All of us in this House know that there is such a system working. We have suggested that the government should study the New Zealand system to see what aspects of it could be applied in our jurisdiction.

Of course it is not in the interest of the Workers’ Compensation Board to study this because, in essence, what it would do is debureaucratize the whole system. It would mean that the workers’ compensation empire that has been built up over the years would be threatened. So if it is left to the Workers’ Compensation Board we will never get a genuine study of a universal sickness and accident plan.

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That is why we think it is important that the government initiate such a plan. We are open to see what the conclusions of that study might be. We think they would be positive. But what is the fear on the part of the government? Why will it not initiate such a study? Other provinces have looked at it. Saskatchewan has looked at this and, prior to the change of government in that province, there was consideration of setting up a similar plan.

Why will Ontario not look at it? Instead, it brings forward Bill 162, which in our view is an outright attack on injured workers in this province. Instead of increasing the rights and benefits of workers, as the bill purports to do or as members of the government in this debate have said it does, it does the opposite. That is why it reminds me of a farce.

We just heard the speech of the member for Peterborough in which he talked about the Majesky-Minna report and he said this bill responds to the five recommendations with regard to integrating injured workers into the workforce; it does them all and more, except for changing the name. In fact, it does not at all. What this bill would do is increase the discretionary powers of the Workers’ Compensation Board.

Mr. Speaker, I do not need to remind you that the Workers’ Compensation Board already has significant discretionary powers with regard to how it treats injured workers. That discretionary power has not resulted up until now in fairness or justice for injured workers in Ontario. In fact, it has been the complete opposite. The board has continually used its discretion to limit benefits, to deny rehabilitation and to deny entitlement for workers.

The member for Peterborough argued that this bill has provided the right of rehabilitation recommended by the Majesky-Minna Ontario Task Force on the Vocational Rehabilitation Services of the Workers’ Compensation Board. My colleague the member for Sudbury East has pointed out that there is no statutory right in this legislation. In fact, even though the member said it did this and more, it does the opposite.

The Majesky-Minna report said the right of total rehabilitation -- physical, mental, social, vocational and economic -- should be established for every injured worker. But under this bill, further limits are placed for the first time on rehabilitation assistance for a worker seeking employment.

As the member admitted, it is a maximum of one year. He seemed to think the one year was a great thing. Knowing how long it takes the board to operate in this province and the length of time it takes to make decisions, one year is not very long. The worker can apply for a supplement only if he or she has already begun a rehabilitation program, whereas at present supplements are awarded if the worker is waiting to start a program. In other words, we have a board that has not nearly the number of rehabilitation programs and staff that are needed to provide adequate rehabilitation for injured workers in this province. They are not able to meet the need already.

We are saying that if the worker has not already started on a program, he cannot get the supplement. Unless there is a significant improvement in rehabilitation in the province, this is going to mean the denial of supplement benefits for many workers who are not being served properly by the rehabilitation department of the board.

The member for Peterborough made a great to-do about the fact that the bill says it will oblige employers to reinstate injured workers in their jobs. As the member for Sudbury East pointed out, the member did not talk about the exclusion. In this province, 25 per cent of the workers are excluded from that.

What I find particularly alarming, though, is that the bill states that classes or subclasses may be exempted in the regulations. We have no idea of what other groups will be exempted from reinstatement. The member for Peterborough said that if it was found that it was difficult or onerous -- I think those were the words he used -- to require a certain segment of the economy to apply this requirement, it could be exempted. He assured the House that this exemption would not be expanded easily. He said it would have to be approved by the cabinet. That is no great assurance to me or to the members of our political party.

Also, I find it very strange that a bill presented in this House which is in fact dealing with an adversarial system would have included in it a provision which says that the board can decide if the employer has met his obligations. If the board decides that the employer has indeed met his obligations, and the worker disputes that, the worker does not have the right to appeal to the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Tribunal, which is the highest stage of appeal under the current system.

Why on earth are we saying the board can decide and there is no right to question that at the highest level? Of course, as the member for Peterborough indicated, the employer’s obligation is not open ended. I think those are the terms he used. It only lasts for two years. An employee can be terminated six months and one day after being rehired, and the employer would then be seen by the board to have fulfilled his obligations. That is not fulfilling his obligations, in our view.

The member for Peterborough tried to argue that over six months there would be the development of a new relationship between the employer and employee and therefore it would be unfair to continue the old relationship of a required reinstatement in a job. Those are mealy-mouth words and they do not do any credit at all to the members of the House who are defending this legislation.

We have had a lot of discussion in this debate about the dual system of pension benefits. All of us agree that the meat chart is a despicable approach to dealing with compensation for injury on the job. We have all said that we should be getting away from the approach of saying so much for a finger, so much for an arm, so much for a leg, so much for an eye, and so on. We should be looking at actually compensating workers for their inability to support themselves, their inability to work, their economic loss.

The problem with the provisions of Bill 162, again while they purport to get rid of the meat chart and to deal on a fairer basis with the loss of economic power of the worker, is that we are going to see that many pensions granted under this new system are much smaller than the pension that workers are able to get at present. Nobody says they are adequate now.

The principle of a pension for life is destroyed under this legislation. I do not think that is acceptable. The further problems that have been mentioned in the debate are that only two reassessments are permitted, and only if a significant deterioration not anticipated at the time of rating occurs can there be a reassessment. Again, the amount of a pension decided by the board under this system cannot be appealed to the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Tribunal. Why?

Everybody here knows that it is a confrontational system. It is a system in which tribunals have to decide disputes. This again is an example of the Workers’ Compensation Board being given increased discretion on how a worker should be treated and denying the worker the right to appeal to a body that can decide at the highest level whether or not the worker has been properly treated.

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I am particularly concerned about the new benefit for the future loss of earnings under this legislation. According to the legislation, the amount payable is 90 per cent of the difference between what the worker earned before the accident and what the board believes he or she is capable of earning after the accident. In other words, the board has to decide what kind of job the worker is capable of doing after assessing his or her injury, the after-effects of that injury and the long-term effects of it.

If the board decides that this worker is capable of doing a certain job, then the board has to determine, through going to Statscan or whatever, what the worker’s earning power would be if that worker could get that job, and then determine the amount paid on the difference between what the worker earned before the accident and what the worker might get if the worker were getting that job.

The problem is that the worker may or may not have that job. In fact, in northern Ontario, the biggest problem we have is that many workers in small towns, usually one-industry towns, resource-based communities, who do not have a lot of formal education, in many cases do not have a great capability with the English language, when they are hurt cannot continue the job they were doing before, whether it is working in the bush or working underground in mines. But there are no other jobs. It is fine to say this person could drive a cab or this person could paint buildings or whatever; but if there are no cab drivers needed and if there are no painters needed, they are not making anything in the workforce. They are not in the workforce.

How on earth is a system that is set up in this way going to serve the workers of the small resource-based communities? I do not see how the member for Peterborough can justify his confidence. I have too many French-Canadian lumberjacks who made good money when they worked in the bush but who have broken their backs and can no longer work in the bush, have very little formal education and are going to get screwed by this provision of the board if this legislation passes.

Also, obviously, under the system that is being proposed under Bill 162, if the benefit is granted it is reviewed after two years and five years or whenever the board considers appropriate in the circumstances. Again, that is further discretion for the board. I do not apologize for not having any confidence in the board and the way it uses its discretionary powers.

The bottom line is that the change from the present pension scheme to a dual system represents a drastic cutback in workers’ benefits and dramatic savings to employers. That may please employers, but it is not going to make it any more of a just system for workers in this province.

In my reading of this legislation, it is an attempt to respond to the Minna-Majesky report. It is an attempt to make it appear that the government and the Workers’ Compensation Board are going to be doing more for rehabilitation of injured workers in the province to integrate them back into the workforce and to improve their pension benefits. In reality, it is going to have the effect of enhancing the discretionary power of the board, limiting the appeals allowed for workers and making it more difficult for workers to gain the kinds of benefits they need to support their families. It is not going to provide for realistic rehabilitation of every worker who is injured in this province, and it is certainly not going to provide for a system that will enable workers who are capable of working to get back into the workforce in any sizeable numbers.

I think the proof is in the pudding. The fact that there are provisions which will prohibit appeals to the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Tribunal indicates that the drafters of this legislation and the minister admit to themselves that this system is not going to serve workers properly, workers are going to be dissatisfied and they are going to want to appeal decisions, and so the minister and the people who drafted the bill for him have decided to cut them off at the pass. What this is going to say is that the board will be able to make decisions, and workers will not have the right to appeal at the highest level.

If they are certain that this is going to serve workers the way it is supposed to be going to serve workers, why do they fear the right to appeal to WCAT) In my view, this is one more example of doublespeak. We have a bill that says we are going to provide rehabilitation and reinstatement and more benefits for workers when, in fact, it is going to do the opposite. It is another example of tinkering with the workers’ compensation system, and I think it is doomed to fail, the same as every other attempt to tinker with that system has over the years.

In fact, we have a system that was first put in place in 1915 and has not changed a great deal in that time. In 1915 it served as a model for other jurisdictions as progressive legislation, but after more than half a century, I think it is time that this province and this jurisdiction, that this government took the opportunity to again bring in landmark legislation on how to deal with injured workers in the workforce, not just workers who have received a physical injury but workers who have sustained industrial illness because of their work, and also to deal with people who have been injured in other aspects of their lives and who, as a result, are not able to continue in the workforce.

It is time for this government to seize the opportunity and say, as a previous government did in the early time of this century, that we must do something that has never been done before in this province and in this country to provide for proper benefits for people who have been injured and who have sustained illness and who, as a result, are not able to support themselves as they have in the past.

We do not even have to go to the point of having new milestone legislation that has never been done before. All I am suggesting is that this government, if it is serious about responding to the needs of injured workers in Ontario, will study at least what has been done in New Zealand to see if it can be adapted to our jurisdiction and stop pretending that by making a few changes here and a few changes there to the Workers’ Compensation Act, it is indeed responding to the needs of injured workers.

All this is going to mean, I say to the member for Peterborough and his colleagues, is more cases in his office. I do not suppose that is a reason for voting against the legislation, but certainly if it means more cases in his office it means more problems for injured workers in all of our constituencies and more difficulties with an enormous bureaucracy that has tremendous discretion to decide on the future of lives of injured people in Ontario.

That is what is going to be the result of this legislation. Enough of these farces; it is time for innovative action. The government should at least study the possibility of a new system, a system that will properly serve the injured workers and the people who are unable to support themselves on the job because of sickness and accidents.

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Miss Martel: Very quickly, my colleague the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman) also picked up where I left off and talked a little bit about rehabilitation provisions in the bill. I want to encourage members of this House, if they do anything, to please pick up a copy of Majesky-Minna and read through the summary at the back, where they outline, in section 15, what rights should be available to workers in terms of total rehabilitation, what is needed to stop the problems that are going on in vocational rehabilitation at the board now. If they compare what it requested and demanded and said was needed to what appears in this bill, they will find out quite quickly that we are nowhere near where we have to be to respond to those concerns.

I repeat that nowhere in this bill is the statutory right to rehabilitation guaranteed. It was the principal recommendation of Majesky-Minna that there had to be a statutory right to rehabilitation for injured workers if we were ever going to get on to the business of retraining people and getting them back into the workplace. I encourage all members to take the time to read it and then compare it with what is in the bill. They will see why we are so concerned about these provisions in particular.

Mr. Campbell: I rise at this time to speak on this bill because, as my caucus knows, I spend a lot of time and energy on WCB cases. I currently have, at last count this morning, 261 cases. That is growing steadily.

With 261 cases, members can sense my frustration in dealing with a system that has been a difficult one in which to properly represent those injured workers. The sense I have is that with that frustration comes a desire and a need to reform the system.

I am concerned when I hear others speak about our needing a larger system, more bureaucrats dealing with, essentially, a system that needs to be more responsive. I believe that Bill 162 does begin to meet the needs and frustrations that many of us, as members, have. Every member of this House, regardless of partisan affiliation, has come to recognize through his or her everyday constituency work that the most frustrating and difficult bridge an injured worker must cross is that leading back to active participation in the workplace, and recognition of that fact in this bill begins to address the kinds of things we need.

The WCB has been providing vocational rehab services to injured workers since 1924. The scope of this vocational rehab program has broadened during the intervening 64 years to include a variety of occupational and social services, concurrent with increasing the standards of professionalism.

The system has to go further. In recognition of a reality, the WCB, over the last decade, has increasingly devoted greater resources to the expansion of vocational rehab services. The commitment is illustrated by the board’s expenditure in 1987 of $200 million on vocational rehab. Furthermore, 200 WCB staff are involved in the provision of vocational rehab services.

Bill 162, taken together with the recently announced vocational and medical rehab strategies, will substantially increase this commitment of resources. The result is a more progressive, humane and efficient system of workers’ compensation in Ontario that aims to dissolve paternalism and endow the injured worker with the dignity and respect owed him or her.

This bill before the House today is a product of a revitalization process that began in May 1986, when the former Minister of Labour established the Ontario Task Force on the Vocational Rehabilitation Services of the Workers’ Compensation Board. As was just previously dealt with in the House, the task force was co-chaired by Maria Minna and Wally Majesky. It has been quoted widely. In September 1987, 16 months later, this task force reported its recommendations to the government of Ontario.

A large number of these recommendations have been incorporated into Bill 162 and the WCB’s medical and vocational rehab strategies. We agree with the task force that the number one priority of the WCB should be to assist the injured worker to return to employment, and for that reason it should not be surprising that the most crucial and significant reforms in the field of voc rehab recommended in that report find direct expression in Bill 162.

Before I was elected to this House, I was chairman of the welfare board in Sudbury. If any of the members know about our community, they know what devastating economic problems we had in our community earlier this decade. We put together a task force to try to diversify our economy in Sudbury and we found a number of strategies we had to deal with. We had to study how we could, with all forms of help, deal with the kinds of things we had to deal with, especially people who were in the middle part of their life being dislocated severely, laid off from their jobs. We found that the single most important component was early intervention, the kind of early intervention called for in this bill.

The thing that amazes me the most is that, up to this point, it goes on and on with delays, and finally the worker is lost in the system, when in fact a number of occupational medical doctors in this jurisdiction and in the United States have said the earlier the intervention of medical strategies, the more complete the rehabilitation. I think it is important for us to realize that this kind of thing has to happen. There is no doubt that a number of people who are on this system experience delays.

A number of other cases have been solved. I am a former client of WCB. My case was not serious; it was not a type of injury we are talking about today. It was handled very quickly and expeditiously, and maybe that is the reason: It was simple and straightforward to handle.

A number of these recommendations, which are featured in Bill 162, are calling for better access to rehab services and earlier intervention, and that is the point I want to stress again. It is the early intervention that will straighten out a lot of these problems. Before anybody else says it, that it is not the whole answer -- I realize that -- but it is a step to getting the process going.

One of the major amendments will require the WCB to contact an injured worker within 45 days of the injury and provide proper rehab services if this is appropriate. Injured workers who have not returned to their pre-injury jobs within six months will have the right to a formal evaluation of their rehabilitation needs. Where an injured worker is to participate in a vocational rehabilitation program, it will be designed in consultation with the worker, the employer and the worker’s physician. We believe that the spirit and practice of partnership will result in more speedy recovery and return to active participation in the workplace.

The WCB is already responding to the early intervention theme of Bill 162. The board of directors has embarked on a number of administrative reforms that will revolutionize the medical and vocational rehabilitation services provided by the board.

Another key amendment that reflects the recommendations of the task force report concerns the reinstatement of injured workers. The intent of this amendment is, as much as possible, to return the injured worker to his pre-injury employment status.

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Where the injured worker has been with the employer for at least one year, Bill 162 obliges the employer to re-engage a recovered injured worker in his or her former position where he or she is able to resume the work. Should the worker not be able to perform the old job, he will be entitled to the first suitable job that becomes available. This obligation to reinstate will remain in force for up to two years after the injury.

Reinstated injured workers will be protected by existing job security provisions, but in addition, where the injured worker is dismissed within six months of the date of reinstatement, there will be a presumption that that action was taken in violation of the re-employment provisions of the act. The presumption in favour of the worker will be open to a rebuttal by the employer.

We have included in Bill 162 an incentive for employers to reinstate injured workers in good faith by requiring employers who fail to meet their obligations to re-employ to pay an amount equivalent to 90 per cent of the worker’s pre-injury net earnings for one year.

Bill 162 recognizes that a small business does not have the ability to shift human resources to fill a vacancy; nor is a construction firm able, because of the seasonal nature of much of the work and the specialized function of many workers, to allow a vacancy created by an industrial accident to go unfilled. Therefore, it should be noted that the re-employment obligation will not apply to establishments that employ fewer than 20 workers or construction crews.

It is expected that the obligation to re-employ the injured worker will make it less likely that an accident will result in permanent exile from the workplace, but as an additional bridging measure connecting the injured worker to his employer, Bill 162 will require the employer to continue to pay pension, health care and life insurance benefits for up to one year after the accident.

Bill 162 provides the injured worker who is undergoing vocational rehabilitation with additional income support, whether the injury is of a temporary or a permanent nature. For example, if an injured worker is temporarily disabled and is participating in a vocational rehabilitation program, he will continue to receive temporary disability benefits that will maintain the injured worker’s net earnings at 90 per cent of the pre-injury level. If the worker’s injury is of a permanent nature, he will be entitled to compensation under the new dual-award system, which will compensate for both lost earning capacity and non-economic loss.

All in all, these amendments mark a watershed in the development of vocational rehabilitation services in Ontario. The new system of vocational rehabilitation we are proposing in this bill seeks the active participation and input of both the injured worker and the employer, not in a relationship of master and servant but as equal partners in the process.

Miss Martel: I want to take a run at rehabilitation again, since it has been mentioned by the member for Sudbury (Mr. Campbell).

Let me go back to a couple of the points he made, the first in terms of early intervention. Certainly it was a requirement or a request made by the task force that within 30 days the board intervene to see if rehabilitation services should be offered, and then, correspondingly, to offer those services. If we look at the bill, we see quite clearly that within 45 days the board must contact the injured worker, but the board is not under any obligation to provide rehabilitation services. I ask the group over there, what good is it to have early intervention and then not be obliged as well to provide services?

Second, after six months the board shall contact every worker and offer that worker an assessment. If we look at the bill, an assessment refers to a study of the injured worker’s vocational characteristics, his age, etc. Again, even after six months, even after this assessment, the board is not obliged to provide rehabilitation services. What is being offered? It is no good to say that we have expanded rehabilitation, that we are making a commitment to rehabilitation when in fact there is no obligation on the board at any point to provide those services, even after an early intervention, even after six months.

If we go further, for the first time we see in the rehabilitation provisions that there are now time limits placed on rehabilitation services. For the first time ever the board will, for a period of six months, and perhaps a year if the board considers it appropriate, provide assistance to a worker who is seeking employment. That is the first time ever that there has been a time limit set on rehabilitation.

Second, if he goes back to subsection 54(a)(1), he will find out that this section applies only to workers who are on section 40 benefits. You can receive rehab only if you are on section 40 benefits. Those benefits last only 18 months. Again, for the first time ever, workers can get rehab for only 18 months, if they get it at all.

Mr. Adams: If I might comment on the remarks of my colleague the member for Sudbury, I think they illustrated a point I tried to make earlier. His experience on the welfare board and the experience in his office in the Sudbury environment are good examples of experience that members on this side of the House have in dealing with some of the most difficult injured workers’ cases in this province. The points that he made about early intervention -- the physical and psychological importance of early intervention -- the points he made about access to rehabilitation and the aspects of that which are dealt with through regulations in association with this bill, through the regionalization of rehabilitation facilities, are extremely important aspects of what we are discussing today.

Despite the remarks we just heard, I think the reinstatement provisions are among the more important in this particular bill, the rights that workers will have to their own positions or something very close to them. I would repeat, and my colleague from Sudbury recognized, that we know that in the most ideal and pure of all worlds there would be a different system. But this is a practical bill. It sets out things we can do and things that, if there is no obstruction, we can do fairly soon to improve the workers’ compensation system in this province.

Mrs. Sullivan: I want to respond to one or two points that were put forward by the member. I think one of the things we recognize is that there are barriers in terms of rehabilitation, which were raised earlier by the member for Oshawa. He talked about literacy, language and age, but one of the things this bill ensures that rehabilitation looks at is that vocational rehabilitation does not guarantee a magic cure for all workers. The decision as to who will benefit from voc rehab is a medical one and one that is best determined by the medical experience and the medical experts from the board.

The Acting Speaker: Are there any further comments or questions? Does the member for Sudbury wish to reply?

Mr. Campbell: The kinds of time limits to get someone into the system and going, instead of sitting and being constantly frustrated at a lack of action, are the start to it, because there is a double part to this thing. We found, for example, in a very parallel system -- and I want to say that it is not a lack of experience that leads me to speak to this bill, because of the experience we had in Sudbury, because the experience of early intervention meant that the recovery was more complete.

My colleague the member for Peterborough mentioned a psychological situation which, along with the economic situation in that case, was every bit as devastating. I think that to deal with an early intervention of the system makes the system work that much better, with more people through the system and fewer people who are on a long path that leads nowhere. I am concerned that we get moving with all of the rehabilitation medical knowledge. We know in North America and in Great Britain that early intervention means a more complete recovery faster, enabling the worker to get back into the workplace at a much faster rate. 1700

The Acting Speaker: Are there any other members who wish to participate in this debate? The member for Hamilton Mountain.

Mr. Charlton: I would like to start by extending my congratulations to you on your new appointment as Chairman of the committee of the whole House and wishing you the best in that job over the coming years. I hope that we do not, on every occasion that you are in the chair in this House, put you to sleep.

I would like to take a few moments to start my comments on Bill 162 by saying that, having listened not so much to the minister as to some of the government backbenchers speaking here today and last week, I guess I honestly have to conclude that there is some sincere interest on the part of individuals to deal with some of the problems that we have identified over the course of the last 15 years with the Workers’ Compensation Board.

On the other hand, having concluded that, I also have to conclude that these well-intentioned members do not at all understand the system into which they are dumping these injured workers, and this afternoon I am going to go through a number of cases that I have handled myself as illustrations of how this legislation will or will not work. Some of those constituents I will be able to identify; others, I will not, but I can certainly describe the cases, at least.

I think it is time each of us in this place, because this is an extremely important piece of Legislation, started to understand what the specific applications of this legislation will be, not just what our good feelings and intentions might be. I think injured workers have spent a long time listening to goodwill and good intentions, and they are still finding themselves in the position of having to come to this Legislature and to ultimately lose their tempers, as they did two weeks ago, in their frustration with trying to find some justice in terms of what they have already suffered, let alone what sufferings the future may hold.

In that vein, I want to say that the good intentions being expressed here indicate to me either that the members of this government party are not being straight with us totally -- -and because of the good intentions I have sensed, I cannot conclude that -- or that they just do not understand the system.

I listened to the minister, for example, in his opening statement, when he introduced the bill, talk about the injustices that injured workers have suffered, talk about the inadequate pensions that injured workers have had foisted on them under the current system and laud this bill as a remedy for that. I find it extremely strange to listen to both the opponents of this bill and the supporters of this bill, from outside of this place, at least. The opponents of this bill say that the pensions are not going to improve under this piece of legislation, and the supporters of this bill outside of this establishment also say precisely the same thing.

I just want to read a brief quote into the record. This is in a publication put out by the CFIB, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business:

“Some good WCB news, for a change, in Ontario. As a result of intense lobbying by the CFIB, in association with the Employers’ Council on Workers’ Compensation, Bill 162 proposed several significant changes to the Ontario Workers’ Compensation Act. The proposed WCB reforms include an Employers’ Council on Workers’ Compensation recommendation for a wage-loss system for permanent disabilities that provides for noneconomic loss in addition to projected wage loss.”

These people, the same as the rest of us, have looked through the legislation and have had lawyers look through the legislation to understand and interpret how it will be implemented and how it will be imposed on injured workers. This is the last part of the quote: “In addition to projected wage loss, this is an improvement over the current system” -- l want the members to listen to these words carefully -- "which overcompensates 80 per cent of existing injured workers on pensions.” It overcompensates 80 per cent.

Here is a supporter of the government commenting on this piece of legislation, which the government is standing here in this Legislature trying to sell as a package that is going to make a better deal for injured workers who have permanent disabilities; this is the government’s supporter. Yet the Canadian Federation of Independent Business is saying that this bill is an improvement because it is going to reduce pensions. They are saying that this bill is going to reduce pensions, and that is good because the current system overcompensates 80 per cent of those in receipt of pensions. This is the government’s legislation. This is the cure-all for injured workers in Ontario. Then you wonder why they are storming up the stairs outside. It is not just injured workers who know that this bill is not going to do what the government is telling us it is going to do.

The minister, in his opening statement, also talked about eliminating the meat chart, but he has not eliminated it; he has just moved it. He has not only moved the meat chart, he has moved it into this new noneconomic-loss category. As my colleague the member for Sudbury East said in her opening remarks last week, not only is the meat chart still there but, in the way it is now going to be applied, it is far worse than it ever was. Why is it far worse? Let’s run through some of that for a minute. I will start to pull in for the members some of the examples from cases that I have had of my own.

What we have here now is a noneconomic-loss provision to provide an injured worker with some compensation for the permanent nature of his disability: for pain, for suffering, for the loss in social and family terms that results from the permanent disability and so on. But it is going to be based on the medical extent of his injury. That is the meat chart. That is exactly what the meat chart is: a medical assessment of an injury.

So we still have the meat chart. We have moved it to a new place. Now it is going to provide less benefit than it did before, because the bulk of the benefit, theoretically, is going to be made up under the new provision on future loss of earnings. We are going to get smaller noneconomic pensions for injured workers based on the same meat chart that we have always had.

If any of the members have had any significant experience at dealing with injured workers with severe permanent injuries, they know that for the vast majority of them, they are being reassessed every two, three or four years, and their pension is being increased every two, three and four years, because they deteriorate, the pain gets worse and their ability to walk is sometimes lost.

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I have had one case where a gentleman, Claudio Rea, came to me first in 1978. He was a construction worker. It was a back injury. We all know that back injuries can be very deceptive because the human body still seems intact and we cannot see the nature of the injury when we stand and look at it. They still look like whole humans, regardless of what they may be going through inside in terms of pain, in terms of inability to sleep at night, in terms of their total inability to do the job they have always done and known, and in many cases, relating to the only skills they have. But they deteriorate.

This piece of legislation allows for an assessment of a noneconomic loss, presumably at the same point it has always occurred, when the doctors say they have recovered as much as they are going to recover and the rest of their disability is permanent in nature. That is the point at which they will be first assessed. Then this piece of legislation allows for two additional reassessments in their lifetime.

Since 1978, I have watched Mr. Rea deteriorate at a fairly significant and rapid rate. When he first came to me, his back was in bad shape but he could still walk. On a number of occasions, he even tried to return to his construction job.

Mr. Rea in 1988, 10 years later, is totally bedridden. With substantial help, he can get into a wheelchair for very short periods of time to get himself to the bathroom and to accomplish other functions like that, but he cannot even spend very much time in the wheelchair because sitting is a very serious and major problem for Mr. Rea.

Mr. Rea essentially has been reassessed almost annually since he first came to see me in 1978, and it is all legitimate reassessment, because he is deteriorating. He is getting worse each year. This bill, except for the two-in-a-lifetime reassessments, eliminates all of that for Mr. Rea.

I am not sure that it is even worthwhile in Mr. Rea’s case to get into a discussion of the future-loss-of-earnings question, because I am not sure just how, under the new system, the board would even try to assess what Mr. Rea’s earning capabilities are.

In the meat chart system Mr. Rea is not totally disabled, although in fact he is totally disabled. In the way the board operates, and I will demonstrate this in another example in a few minutes, Mr. Rea is not totally disabled. He could theoretically work for 20 minutes every once in a while when he is sitting up in his wheelchair if he could find a job that he could do just with his hands. His education is very limited and he has no other skills, so I am not sure exactly how the board would deal with the assessment of future loss of earnings in Mr. Rea’s case. I assume under the new system, if and when we have another Mr. Rea, and we will, they will have to try to figure out a way to deal with that question.

This brings me to discuss for a minute the future-loss-of-earnings provision in another specific case. In this case, I cannot use the name, but I can describe the case fairly clearly so members can understand it.

This woman worked in clothing and textiles. All of us have seen in the movies at one time or another some representation of that kind of work. Although somewhat better than some of the older movies we have seen of the sweat shops, in terms of the nature of the work it has not changed significantly in most of the textile and clothing shops, in this country at least.

This woman’s injury is lower back, neck and shoulder. She is unable to return to her former employment. We have a situation in a case like hers where she has language difficulties. She now has physical restrictions in terms of the kind of work she is going to be able to do. The board does accept that much, but not very much more.

This is the board, as one woman described the compensation board in the way it views situations like this, that the minister is asking us to trust in terms of questions like future loss of earnings and the right to and the need for rehabilitation. This is a woman who has no other skills; she has worked as a seamstress all her life. She has language difficulties and a limited education as well. Her former employer says: “Well, I have no work this woman can do. I can’t find any modified work in my case.” I will come back to the reinstatement question later because I want to deal with the future-loss-of-earnings question now.

We have had a number of government members, including the minister, stand up and describe for us how that future-loss-of-earnings stuff is supposed to work. Again, as my colleague the member for Sudbury East pointed out in her remarks, the board has already started to implement that system. So we do not want to listen to the minister over there about how he thinks it is going to work. We want him to listen to us in terms of how the board is in fact imposing it and implementing it already. They are already taking this section and imposing it on people and this is how they are interpreting the minister’s legislation. This is how they are foisting it on to injured workers.

As I have described, this woman is unable to return to her former employment. She has been assessed for a 15 per cent pension. She applied for rehabilitation. She has not yet been accepted into rehabilitation, but they have assessed her in terms of her earning capacity, even in view of her injuries. She was earning $19,000 a year working in the textile and clothing industry. The Workers’ Compensation Board, having taken into account her permanent disabilities, assessed her ability to go out and find another job at $21,000 a year. The board has said this woman is not eligible for any future-loss-of-earnings benefits -- zero.

She has no job. She has been out looking for a job. The rehabilitation counsellor who has talked to her -- although she has not been accepted into rehabilitation yet and she is receiving no rehabilitation supplement -- has told her, “Well, our assessment of $21,000 was basically based on our belief that you could work in retail sales.” I am talking about a woman who is about four feet, 11 inches tall, with serious language difficulties and back, shoulder and neck disabilities. They want her to take a job in retail sales where she is on her feet all day in a store, when she would have language difficulties with the customers, when nobody is likely going to hire her, but this is the way the Workers’ Compensation Board assesses a problem like this.

Why? It is partly because they are understaffed and the assessment is all a paper assessment. Nobody has ever sat down and realistically gone over the possibilities with this woman, because if they had, they would have very easily and clearly concluded that retail sales was out of the question. But that is the way in which this system is operating, and because they determined she is capable of making $21,000 a year, she gets no future-loss-of-earnings benefit at all.

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She has her pension. Under this system, though, the pension would not be as much as the pension she now receives. Fortunately, she has already got hers. It will not get reduced by the new legislation, but her equal in the next round will not even get as much as she got on the meat chart assessment for noneconomic loss and is going to get no loss-of-earnings consideration at all.

I would like to tell members about another case I have, because this one sort of deals with all three aspects of this piece of legislation. This is a gentleman named Alf Rogers. Alf was injured in 1972. I first got involved in Alf’s case in 1976, part of a year before I was even elected, and I have been handling Alf’s case ever since. Alf Rogers has been totally disabled ever since his accident in 1972. Alf Rogers receives from the Workers’ Compensation Board a 20 per cent pension. That is it, 20 per cent.

Alf has, for very short periods, actually worked since 1972. I think we have to start to understand that in the context of what totally disabled is and how the Workers’ Compensation Board assesses when somebody is totally disabled and when he is capable of doing some work. The reason Alf attempted to work for very short periods during that time was because the compensation board said he was not totally disabled and had to pursue work in order to get benefits. On every occasion he attempted to work he made his problems worse than they were before he attempted that work, but that is another question.

Those kinds of things have been described ad nauseam in some of the task force reports that have been done, including the one to which we have all been referring, the Majesky-Minna report. We have gone to appeal after appeal on Alf’s behalf. Finally, in 1994, after his fifth assessment at the Downsview rehabilitation hospital, the doctor in charge of his assessment at that point for the first time -- this is, I emphasize, 12 years after Alf Rogers’s accident -- has said in his discharge report that Alf Rogers is totally disabled. Unfortunately, he went on to say, “It is my view that all of his disabilities did not result from the accident in 1972,” so Alf is still on a 20 per cent pension. We presently have an appeal pending before the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Tribunal.

I raise this issue to deal with this question of whether or not the noneconomic-loss provision under this legislation should be appealable. The minister says it should not be appealable because it is just an assessment of medical fact. Bull. I take appeals of medical fact before the board and before WCAT on a regular basis and win, overturning the board’s medical judgement, because the Workers’ Compensation Board is making paper medical assessments of injured workers. It is not going to be any different under this economic-loss provision. This new legislation is not going to help an Alf Rogers.

Now, Alf’s doctors, including the family doctor, the specialists he has been to -- and they are numerous because for a long time they could not determine the total extent of his physical disabilities -- and the doctor he has been working with at the rehabilitation hospital at Chedoke in Hamilton, all of those doctors conclude that all of Alf’s disability, his physical disability and his accompanying psychological disability, are a result of the accident.

But as long as we have a Workers’ Compensation Board that says, “No, no, we’ll take credit for the physical only in this case, because we believe that Alf Rogers was a weak personality who had underlying psychological problems that were his and his alone and not a result of the accident.” Alf could work before the accident, and did for 30 years. He was not a bum; he was not a lazy man who stayed home and tried to milk the system. For 30 years Alf worked. He has been unable to return to work since his accident in 1972, though. But we have a system that says, “We don’t want to accept responsibility for a major portion of Alf’s problem.”

Now, I want to put this in a slightly different way so perhaps people can understand a little more clearly what happens in cases like this, because sometimes people have difficulty finding how the psychological and the physical mix or do not mix.

Let us just take two separate physical injuries to an individual, one of which happened some time ago, which was not compensable. It was an accident that this person had all on his own. Perhaps it was a back injury, perhaps a leg injury or perhaps a neck injury, but there was an injury. Maybe it was an auto accident, maybe it was a mountain-climbing accident or a water-skiing accident. I do not know; it does not matter. But we have an individual who had a pre-existing physical injury. That individual went through a recovery and returned to work. He or she was still able to work. Then we have the subsequent work-related injury, the injury that is compensable. It is also a serious injury, different in nature from the pre-existing injury, but serious none the less.

As a result of the combination of the two injuries, this injured worker is now totally disabled and cannot return to work. He could return to work after his first injury; he managed to do his job and continue to have an income. But this injured worker is now totally disabled because of the combination of the two injuries.

What does the Workers’ Compensation Board say in a case like this? I will tell members what they say. They say: “Well, that’s fine. Yes, we agree that, in realistic terms, this individual is totally disabled. But it ain’t all our responsibility at the Workers’ Compensation Board. Therefore, not only do we have to assume that he is only 30 per cent disabled, not totally disabled; we have to assume that he is able to return to work.”

So what happens with this, again, totally disabled individual? Because the board has to assume -- because it takes responsibility for only part of his injuries -- that he can return to work, then under the future loss-of-earnings provisions, it is going to have to assess what it is he is going to be capable of earning and determine whether he is going to get anything under this provision or not, even though he is totally disabled: flat on his back and cannot move.

At some point I would like somebody on the government side to explain to me how these changes that we have made here are going to alter and improve the situation for that totally disabled injured worker. The payment he gets for noneconomic loss is going to be smaller than the one he now gets.

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He is still going to be assessed, based on the meat chart, on the portion that the Workers’ Compensation Board takes responsibility for, not on the fact that the compensable injury added to his old condition has made him totally disabled. They do not take account of that at all. They are going to assess their responsibility for the portion of the injury that happened at work and nothing more.

They are going to give him a lump sum. They are going to assume he is capable of working, they are going to send him out on a job search for some mythical job that he cannot do because he is totally disabled, they are going to assign a number of dollars to that mythical job that he cannot do and decide he is going to get perhaps zero in terms of loss of earnings, or perhaps somewhere between zero and some number that will make up the difference between what he earned before his accident and whatever mythical job they assess him for, and he is going to spend the rest of his life trying to survive on that.

Can anybody on that side of the House tell me how this system deals with that huge economic problem that injured worker has? It does not deal with it at all. He is in exactly the same position he has always been in, and maybe even worse.

We have heard a number of people over the years comment -- and statistics do not lie. Facts are facts, but statistics get used in strange ways from time to time -- we have heard them say over and over, my colleague the member for Algoma mentioned it earlier, that at the Workers’ Compensation Board 90 per cent of the claims get handled without any problem and only 10 per cent of the claims that go before the board have a problem. That is a true fact, it is a reality, but I think if we want to understand the reality, we have to look just behind that reality and look at the 10 per cent that are problems.

What we find when we look at that is that not only do we have 10 per cent of the total number of claims being, in human terms, 40,000 people a year, 40,000 individuals in this province who have problems with their compensation claim, but we have to take it one step further. What kind of claims are they that become the problems?

What we find when we look at it is that somewhere between 75 and 80 per cent of those workers’ compensation claims where the injury is severe, resulting in significant permanent disability, are the ones that make up the 10 per cent.

The ones where the guy breaks his wrist, goes to his doctor, gets his cast on and perhaps can even return to his job and work during his disability, those are the ones that are not the problem. The people who break their legs, people who break toes, people who smash fingers, people who hurt their backs but fortunately recover because it was just a muscle strain or whatever, those are the people who make up the 90 per cent who do not have a problem, but the 10 per cent who have the problems are the serious injuries, the ones we should be helping the most, the serious injuries resulting in significant permanent disability, the ones we like to talk about that need rehabilitation. That is interesting, is it not?

I would like to tell members a little story about those injured workers with serious injuries resulting in significant permanent disability, the ones who end up in rehabilitation. We are talking about a piece of legislation here that is supposed to be putting the emphasis on rehabilitation. I want to tell members a little about the rehabilitation system which this piece of legislation is asking us to put our faith in.

I do not know if this is happening all over the province, but in the Hamilton compensation office they are doing a series of retraining programs; what they claim to be attempting to accomplish is moving people around through the system so that eventually everybody down there, except for perhaps the clerical staff, understands the whole system so that a claims adjudicator will understand what it means when he or she refers somebody to rehabilitation and vice versa.

They took a bunch of the claims adjudicators and moved them into the rehabilitation section and they are now working as rehabilitation counsellors. Again I cannot use any names, for obvious reasons, because they are employees of the Workers’ Compensation Board. A very short time after those moves occurred, we started to get calls from some of these new rehabilitation counsellors who were being trained. These are claims adjudicators who had been moved in to be trained as rehabilitation counsellors, and they started calling us and telling us: “These guys in the rehab section do not know anything. They don’t even know the legislation. These guys are flying by the seat of their pants. They’re winging it.”

This is the rehabilitation section that this government is trying to tell us is going to be the emphasis, that this government is trying to tell us we have to have faith in, in terms of early intervention -- rehabilitation counsellors who do not even know the legislation and what it is they are supposed to be providing to injured workers. Like I say, these are employees from inside the board. These are not just the comments of injured workers who do not think they got good service -- and there are hundreds of thousands of them; hundreds of thousands of them.

Let us talk a little more about rehabilitation. Rehabilitation, in members’ minds, I am sure, and certainly in my mind, is supposed to be a system that assists people to be rehabilitated based on whatever the physical requirements of their injury have limited them to. The vast majority of the rehabilitation counsellors will not even suggest to an injured worker what they think that injured worker should look for in the way of employment. They say: “I am not going to tell you what you should do. You tell me what you want to do.” That is rehabilitation counselling. Some injured workers, in fact, come up with a list and then get told, “You can’t do that one because we don’t cover that course, and no, you can’t do that one because there are no jobs in it after you have finished the course.”

Then the injured worker says: “Okay, I’ve had my shot at telling you what I want to do. Now tell me what I can do. Tell me what you’re prepared to rehabilitate me for.” They say: “That is not up to us. Why don’t you just go out and look for a job? As long as you are doing a job search, we can give you a rehabilitation supplement, as long as you are turning in the sheets.”

What does this piece of legislation do, with those totally inadequate rehabilitation facilities that injured workers are confronted with? What does this piece of legislation do? It even takes away their right, on an ongoing basis, for injured workers who cannot find work, to get a supplement while they are out looking for work. They are given 12 months and then they are thrown away.

We have a rehabilitation system presently which is not a rehabilitation system at all. There are no obligations to provide rehabilitation, and only in the most exceptional cases which get fought through appeals do workers seriously get rehabilitated by the vocational rehabilitation section of the Workers’ Compensation Board.

The government is handing them here a system which not only leaves the major loopholes in place, no statutory obligations, but it decides where rehabilitation is appropriate. The compensation board is the one that knows best how to rehabilitate injured workers. We will still leave it up to them, and they put limits and caps on the benefits that injured workers can get in that almost nonexistent rehabilitation system.

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This is a joke. If government members really believe it is going to work, then they just do not understand what is going on out there at all. They should take the time to sit down and just at random pick 10 injured workers who are presently active with rehab and see what percentage of the 10 is actually being rehabilitated. I do not know what the number will be, but I would guess it would be somewhere between one per cent and 1.3 per cent. I think that is probably a fairly accurate guess. As I said, I have not done a study because I do not see all the cases from across the province, but that would be my experience in terms of the hundreds and hundreds of cases I have handled over the years.

This is the rehab system the government is telling us is going to be the emphasis for the future, and yet it is not putting any new, major directions in this legislation nor any new, major rights for injured workers to rehab. We have a system that is not rehabilitation-oriented at all, and if we do not direct it to do that, it is not going to do it.

Reinstatement: We have heard a lot of talk about the tough, new reinstatement section in this piece of legislation. We have heard why you have to exempt the construction sector and we have heard why you have to exempt all the businesses that employ less than 20 employees. Then the government even throws in this catch-all clause that allows it, in the future, to exempt any other class or subclass of job from the reinstatement provisions.

Now, this is the one area of the bill that says to me the government does not know what is going on; either that or it does not care. I prefer to think that it really does not know rather than that it does not care, because then maybe if we can convince the government of what is going on, it will start to care and change the bill.

What we have is a whole lot of employers across this province. There are thousands of them. There are some good employers out there and some bad employers. There are some employers in Ontario who go out of their way, do headstands and backsprings, to reinstate injured workers when they have recovered to a stage where they can return to work, who go out of their way to find modified work for the injured worker when he cannot return to the job he did before he was injured, and who go out of their way, in some cases, even to create new jobs that did not exist before by taking bits and pieces of jobs that the worker can handle. I have seen employers like that. I have worked with them on some of my compensation cases. Yes, there are some good employers out there.

The Majesky-Minna report and the others who have said we have to have mandatory reinstatement have not said it because of those good employers. They ain’t a problem and they are not going to be affected by this section one way or the other, because they are already doing it. The demand for mandatory reinstatement was for those employers out there who want to get rid of injured workers just as quickly as they possibly can because they do not want what they believe is going to be an albatross around their neck for the future. Although there are some good employers in this province, there is also a fairly significant number of employers whose only objective, once any worker has had a serious injury, is to get rid of that injured worker as quickly as they can.

I want the government to think about the provisions it has put in this bill for reinstatement in the context of what I have just said, the kind of employers we are trying to deal with. Right off the top, the government has said: “Reinstate the employee. You have to keep him for six months; six months and one day and you can let him go. You will have fulfilled your obligation under the reinstatement.” That clause alone totally negates the claim on the part of this government that there is a mandatory reinstatement provision in the act.

Aside from the exemptions my colleagues have talked about, we are trying to deal with those employers who in the past have not wanted to reinstate an injured worker because they do not want that albatross around their neck. They believe that injured worker is going to be unproductive and therefore a drag on their business. That is what is going on out there. The minister should understand what the game is.

The minister sticks in a clause that says: “Okay, your obligation is to take him back. Keep him for six months. If it does not work out, you’ve fulfilled your obligation.” I am telling the minister exactly what is going to happen. In the vast majority of cases we need the reinstatement clause to handle, if they do not already fall into one of the other exemptions, they are going to go back to work for six months and then they are gone. That is what the minister has provided as a guarantee for the injured workers of Ontario.

Members should think about it and not just sit down and read the words and listen to the minister’s rhetoric, “We’ve provided mandatory reinstatement.” It is bull. It does not exist in this bill because he has not even thought about the problem he is trying to address. The same is true with the rehab sections of this bill. He has not thought about the problem we are trying to address. We are trying to address the problem that the Workers’ Compensation Board is not providing serious rehabilitation in Ontario.

Where in this legislation has he set out what his vision of rehabilitation is, what rehabilitation means, what it is that workers have a right to be rehabilitated for? Do any members really know how the rehab section currently works? Even when an injured worker is suffering from a very severe injury, hampered by language problems and any of the number of things we have described for members in the debate -- his age, whatever it happens to be -- where it is absolutely clear the injured worker is not going to find a job, the rehab section says: “Well, go out and do a job search for a year. If you still can’t find a job, we’ll maybe consider retraining.”

Is that the kind of sensitive vocational rehabilitation system we would understand from the term, the words on a page? No. You would think that a sensitive, caring, understanding and progressive vocational rehabilitation section would look at the worker’s medical records, have the worker in for an interview and say: “Jesus, there’s no way this guy is going to find a job. He’s got serious back injuries, one knee problem, and he can’t speak English very well at all. He’s got no skills training because he came out of construction as a labourer. What’s this guy going to do with a bad knee, bad back and language difficulties?”

He is going to do job searches. That is all he is going to do. That is going to be his employment for the rest of his life, the way the vocational rehabilitation section of the Workers’ Compensation Board operates. They send him out to do a job search for a year, hoping that he will go away or hoping that his brother-in-law gives him a job looking after his kids or something.

They do not seriously take his needs into account. They do not counsel him. Unless they end up with an MPP on the phone or an appeal, they do not send him for language upgrading and they do not send him for any skills training. Sure, there are lots of people who end up getting that, if they fight for it, but a vocational rehabilitation section should be assessing people at the outset and starting that process without putting the worker through the economic disadvantage of 6, 8 or 10 months of the appeal process, when he does not have any supplement at all.

That is the rehabilitation section at the Workers’ Compensation Board, though, that members opposite are saying is the cornerstone of fixing the system.

It will be a joke until they are prepared to sit down, as a government, and understand what it is they want vocational rehabilitation to be and spell that out in clear terms. As long as the approach they take is to say rehabilitation is at the discretion of the Workers’ Compensation Board and rehabilitation will be provided when the Workers’ Compensation Board feels it is appropriate -- what is appropriate to a system that does that to an injured worker, takes an injured worker who clearly and obviously is not going to find a job and sends him out to do a job search? What is appropriate about that? There is nothing appropriate about that. The government knows that.

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I guess what I am trying to say in the comments that I am making today is that the reason these amendments will not work and they do not do what the government believes they are going to do is that they have not gone out and assessed what it is they have to address. They have not realistically looked at what is really going on out there for injured workers. I go back to one of the other cases that I was describing earlier, Alf Rogers. As I said when I left off talking about his case before, Mr. Rogers is still in receipt of a 20 per cent disability pension, even though the board now admits that he is totally disabled and has disavowed itself of 80 per cent of his disability.

All of his doctors -- his three back specialists, his family doctor and the doctor in the rehabilitation centre at Chedoke Hospital -- say without any equivocation that all of Mr. Rogers’s disabilities are as a result of his 1972 accident. But the Workers’ Compensation Board, after a paper assessment of Mr. Rogers’s medical and psychological conditions, says that only 20 per cent of it is the responsibility of the Workers’ Compensation Board.

Yet this government can put out a piece of legislation that says Mr. Rogers does not have the right to appeal that. It puts right in a piece of legislation that it is when all of the individual doctors who are treating the patient say he is totally disabled. The Workers’ Compensation Board doctors, after doing a paper assessment of his medical and psychological conditions, say he is only 20 per cent disabled as a result of the work injury and, therefore, award his noneconomic-loss provisions. Mr. Rogers cannot appeal that to the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Tribunal.

Why is it that this government has been hoodwinked by the WCB into believing that the WCB never makes an error in medical judgement when assessing the extent of an injured worker’s injuries? Why is it that this government somehow has been led to believe that there is no need to appeal because it is a medical assessment and that the Workers’ Compensation Board is never wrong in judging the medical extent of an injured worker’s injuries?

Why is it that there is no appeal in this case when so clearly there are going to be thousands and thousands of injured workers who have been inappropriately assessed for noneconomic loss under this piece of legislation, who are denied the right to appeal and who also may get shafted by the sections that deal with future loss of earnings?

We have been through that, but I will just provide the members with the last specific example that flows out of this case. That is Mr. Rogers again. Mr Rogers is like the mythical gentleman I described before who had two physical injuries, one noncompensable, the other compensable. In this case, Mr Rogers has two components to his disability. The one component of his disability is physical. It has been rated at 20 per cent by the board. The other component of his disability is psychological. But Mr Rogers, even in the view of the board doctors now, is totally disabled. He is unemployable. Yet the board says all it is going to take credit for is the 20 per cent.

What is the board going to do in Alf’s case? We know what it is going to do in terms of the noneconomic loss. It is going to say he is going to be rated basically the way he is rated now, except that it will be a smaller amount. Then they are going to try to assess Alf Rogers again for what it is that Alf Rogers is capable of earning.

Already the board doctors have said that Alf Rogers is totally disabled; he cannot work. How is it, now that you have reduced his physical pension under the noneconomic-loss section, Alf is going to get even less than he is getting now? He will not, because his pension is permanent, but somebody else in Alf Rogers’s situation would get a smaller noneconomic-loss award than Alf now gets as a permanent disability pension, but he is totally disabled. He cannot work.

How is it that the board is going to assess what it is Mr Rogers is capable of earning when he cannot work? It is impossible. The task cannot be done.

How is it that the board is then going to determine what Mr Rogers should get in terms of loss of earnings? Are they going to give him dollar for dollar what he would have earned at the job he had prior to his accidents and give him an increase every time his union negotiates an increase?

There is nothing in the legislation that spells that out, because this government does not understand the kinds of situations that have to be accommodated out there. They do not understand the kind of complicated disability situations that these sections are supposed to be designed to address and do not address at all.

Mr Speaker, I am not sure which clock is right. Maybe I should just continue until you decide to see the clock.

That is the situation we have. We have sections here which mean they have not sat down and carefully looked at the problem it is they are trying to solve before they draft the section.

They have taken the heading out of a brief somewhere that says we have to address the question of economic loss. Somebody sat down and said, “Okay, I am going to draft a section that deals with economic loss,” but they have not taken the time to look at the specific kinds of cases that have been covered by that.

We have no provisions here to protect umpteen different kinds of situations that we have all seen at one time or another, and if we sat down and thought about it, we would fully understand that we have to deal with them if we are really going to make the Workers’ Compensation Act better than it presently is.

I go back to a comment I made a little earlier when I said that, of the 10 per cent of the claims that go to the Workers’ Compensation Board that become a problem, they represent 75 to 80 per cent of those injured workers who have received a serious injury that results in significantly disabling permanent disability.

Until this government understands that the compensation board, yes, is capable of dealing with the simple, straightforward, day-to-day claims that are of very short duration and very limited extent in terms of the physical and psychological and emotional damage that is done to an individual; until the Workers’ Compensation Board understand and this government understands that the WCB is not able to deal with the difficult cases, it is a compensation system that is not capable of dealing with the serious injuries in a sensitive, helpful and useful way; until this government understands that the 10 per cent of the cases that are problems are the serious cases and that the compensation board is not doing a good job of addressing those serious problems, the kinds of amendments that are set out in this legislation will not work and cannot address or reform a system that does not work.

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry to interrupt the member. I do not know if he has further remarks; if he has, he may wish to adjourn the debate.

On motion by Mr. Charlton, the debate was adjourned.

ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Speaker: I beg to inform the House that in the name of Her Majesty the Queen, His Honour the Administrator has been pleased to assent to a certain bill in his chambers.

Clerk of the House: The following is the title of the bill to which His Honour has assented:

Bill 180, An Act to amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The House adjourned at 6:01 p.m.

November 2, 1988

COMMISSIONERS OF ESTATE BILLS

USE OF TIME FOR MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE DETACHMENT

NATIONAL SALES TAX

MADAWASKA HIGHLANDS REGIONAL TRUST PARK

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ONTARIO-MICHIGAN MARITIME ADVISORY COMMITTEE

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ORAL QUESTIONS

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ROUGE VALLEY

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AFFORDABLE HOUSING

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ONTARIO ENERGY BOARD AMENDMENT ACT

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WORKERS’ COMPENSATION AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)

ROYAL ASSENT