Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 1332.

Prayers.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

CROATIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY

Mr Sola: Once more 10 April is upon us, and this year Canadians of Croatian descent are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Croatian Independence Day. However, in light of the changes that have taken place since last year's internationally monitored free democratic elections, it can be given a much more objective historical analysis than before. Perhaps now we can get a realistic appraisal of the political, social and world conditions under which Croatia achieved its independence. This statehood was won in a bloodless coup, a national plebiscite which, to paraphrase the words of Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac: "It would be unfathomable for Croatian Canadians not to feel the essence of their people."

The tragedy of Croatian Independence Day lies in the fact that it did not survive, that all the Croatian political forces did not put themselves in defence of this indelible historical symbol, regardless of the fate of the governing regime. Even that wartime government must be viewed in more lenient terms given the terrorist provocation, manipulation and criminal intent of those elements in Croatia today who, as in 1941, will not and cannot accept the political will of the majority.

The fear of the Croatian community in Canada is that violence may be transferred from Yugoslavia to Canada, as evidenced by the vandalism and desecration of Our Lady Queen of Croatia Church in Toronto two weeks ago.

It is the hope of Canadian Croatians that all groups in Croatia and Yugoslavia have learned the lesson of wartime excesses and will learn to live with the freedoms and obligations of democracy.

COMMERCIAL CONCENTRATION TAX

Mr Turnbull: The previous Liberal government gave a last gift to Metro Toronto as a memento of its term in office: the commercial concentration tax, a tax levied on buildings over 200,000 square feet and on all parking lots.

We are aware of the public's response to the Liberals. They were turfed out of office. This nasty little gimmick, this final discriminating tax grab by the Liberals, is an invasion of the historic right of municipalities to tax property, the major source of revenue for cities.

What has been the effect of this money grab? The Toronto Transit Commission parking lots, full to capacity in 1989, lost 22% in business in the six weeks after the commercial concentration tax was imposed on 1 January. It has been estimated that the commercial concentration tax will take $2.8 million from the TTC coffers and another $100 million a year from Metro businesses. This odious tax has harmed the business community and the environment by reducing TTC ridership. The GTA contributes far more to the province than the province puts back. It is vital to keep a healthy and financially sound Metro Toronto for the wellbeing of the entire province. I urge this government to remove this negative and destructive tax in the next budget.

MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES

Mrs MacKinnon: Recently I attended the annual meeting of the Lambton County Municipal Association. It was a great pleasure at that time for me to present scrolls to six gentlemen who were retiring from their various positions of employment in municipalities within Lambton county. These six employees gave a total of 116 years of dedicated service to municipalities within Lambton county. Because of the pride these employees had in their positions, they left Lambton county a better place in which to live and to enjoy.

These men are: Ken Stutt, 26 years with Lambton county roads department; Clive Bennett, 21 years with the city of Sarnia works department; Gabriel Krammer, 23 years with the Petrolia works department; Don Gibb, 16 years, Moore township works department; Fred Baxter, 15 years, Bosanquet township works department; and Glen Syer, 15 years as road superintendent in Plympton township.

Congratulations to all of them on a job well done, and all the best in their retirement, as they have certainly earned it

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Ms Poole: At a news conference this morning the Cooperative Housing Association released a report confirming that one out of every three tenants, a staggering 477,000 of Ontario households, spends at least 30% of his or her earnings on rent, and one out of five pays more than 40%.

The need for affordable housing has never been greater, yet the Minister of Housing contradicts himself, day after day, as to whether the NDP will keep its promise on affordable housing. In the election they promised to build 20,000 non-profit units by 1992, but just last month in Belleville the minister was quoted as saying: "We won't be able to do 20,000 a year under the current fiscal situation. We simply can't afford it."

Last week when I asked the minister about the statement he made in Belleville, he would not admit that he said it, but this morning a representative from the Cooperative Housing Association confirmed that this is exactly what the minister said. Why the smoke and mirrors? The minister had no difficulty in making a simple promise. Why is he having such difficulty in giving us a simple answer? Will he keep his promise? Can he keep his promise? When will these units be built? The members of this House and the people of Ontario deserve an answer.

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ELECTRICAL POWER

Mr Jordan: "This province is finished industrially," said the chairman of the Association of Major Power Consumers in Ontario. In February, Ontario Hydro chairman Bob Franklin asked, "To what degree can we rely on conservation and non-utility generation and for how long can we postpone the date when we will need another generating station?"

During Energy estimates the government said the NDP policy would require monthly monitoring between the minister and Ontario Hydro. The minister should tell this Legislature, as a result of this monitoring process, how many megawatts have been made available to this province. The minister has told the media that she would worry if the new head of Ontario Hydro favoured building more nuclear plants.

How long will it be before this minister has a policy on the sale of tritium? At $29,000 a gram, it is estimated Hydro could add $25 million to its coffers over the next five years.

This government needs to give the people and industries of this province some confidence that their electrical future is bright. The minister should start by explaining this government's policy to the Association of Major Power Consumers in Ontario in her speech tomorrow morning.

MEMBER FOR YORK EAST

Mr Martin: I rise today to recognize my colleague and friend the member for York East. He was recognized this past weekend by his peers at Gallaudet University for the significant contribution he has made to the whole of the deaf community in North America and indeed the world. Gary was presented with the Outstanding Young Alumnus Award at Gallaudet University's 127th Charter Day and 22nd annual awards program of the university's alumni association on Saturday 6 April 1991.

The member's election to the Legislature in September 1990 was a very significant moment in Ontario parliamentary history. In itself, it says a lot about the people of Ontario, particularly the people in this riding, and the aspirations of the deaf community to be recognized and participate fully.

Gary has impressed and continues to impress all of us, his friends and colleagues. I was particularly moved by the activity generated by Gary as he served on the select committee on Ontario in Confederation and the consequent participation by the deaf community as we crossed the province. If that initial impact and participation is any indication of what is coming, then Gary surely will make and leave his mark.

Communication is one of the most fundamental needs and rights a human being has. Gary has moved that agenda forward for not only the deaf but other cultures, and we, along with Gallaudet University, today salute him.

TIMBER MANAGEMENT

Mr Miclash: The class environmental assessment on timber management is convening its 298th day. The first party in opposition to the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources' position, Forest for Tomorrow, has completed its case, and the intervention of the Northwestern Ontario Associated Chambers of Commerce begins tomorrow. They will be represented by Doug Scott, an NOACC member; Joy Neil, president of NOACC; and the reeves of Ear Falls and Golden, Mr Leschuk and Mr Hermiston.

The representative of the NOACC, presenting its case, has indicated that the principal focus of its brief is that natural resource policies should be regionally sensitive, that southern Ontario politicians should have less influence on northern resource policies, and that the economic and social impact assessment should be considered to be as important as environmental impacts.

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

Mr Arnott: Today I had the opportunity of meeting Harold Gilbert, chairman of the Better Roads Coalition and incidentally one of Canada's foremost authorities on transportation issues, and Art Frewin, chairman of the Citizens' Expressway Committee, to once again discuss the government's inexplicable and astonishing decision to withdraw funding from Hamilton's Red Hill Creek Expressway.

The government's explanation of its decision not to provide the committed funding for this project is totally irrational. The ministry's own data show the proposed route is the most environmentally benign. On 19 March the Premier assured this assembly that he was "prepared to put all the money that was supposed to go to the Red Hill Creek Expressway, all that money can go to other projects."

The Premier and the Minister of Transportation know full well that it will take years before any alternative projects are to be developed. They also know that there is no other feasible alternative north-south route for the expressway and they should be both ashamed of creating misleading perceptions that, by magic, alternatives can somehow be easily achieved.

With this decision, the government has given the regional municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth an economic kick in the teeth. I therefore call upon the Premier to admit his cabinet has made a mistake in its decision to withdraw funding for this project and urge him to give immediate assurance that the project will proceed as planned without further delay.

ONTARIO COALITION AGAINST POVERTY

Mr Owens: Today the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty came to the steps of Queen's Park to meet with MPPs from all parties to remind everyone of the important issues of hunger, homelessness and poverty. This coalition represents antipoverty groups across the province which come together each year to lobby and rally at Queen's Park.

John Clarke, a constituent of mine, is the primary organizer for this coalition. I have the utmost respect for John, who has demonstrated selfless dedication to the issues of poverty. He has a great capacity for work in an area that is notorious for burning out those who care.

As a government member, I see the great need to have groups like the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty press the government to move forward on issues of hunger, homelessness and poverty. Indeed, during these tough economic times the lobbying of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty is all the more necessary.

I, like my fellow members, am committed to the coalition's goals and principles, and while we may have been slowed by these terrible economic times that we face and the complete lack of support by the federal government, we will continue to strive to implement our goals in a timely fashion.

Mr Harnick: Unanimous consent is being sought to make a statement about Holocaust Day.

Agreed to.

HOLOCAUST DAY

Mr Harnick: According to the Jewish calendar, this evening at sundown Jews around the world will light candles which will burn for 24 hours to honour the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Together with memorial services and silent tribute, Holocaust Day will be marked by day-long recitations of the names of the victims of the Holocaust. Their names, birthdate, birthplace and site where they died will be recited aloud in synagogues, schools and public places throughout Israel and in Jewish communities around the world.

Under the slogan, "Unto every person there is a name," these recitations have become a focal point of Holocaust Day in commemoration of the six million Jewish men, women and children who died in Europe by the hand of Nazi tyranny and atrocity. From the ashes of the Holocaust the state of Israel was born in 1948. Since the Second World War, Israel has been and remains a haven for Jews, a home to go to, a place to seek a new life, a place where the desert has blossomed and where life has been changed from darkness to light.

The world today must continue to be ever vigilant to ensure that no tyrant or dictator ever again perpetrates such heinous atrocities on any group of human beings, wherever they may live. For the Jewish people, we will never forget the six million. May their memory be a blessing for us all.

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Mr Kwinter: I would also like to rise and join in what is a commemoration of what is known as Yom Hashoah; that is, the remembrance where Jews around the world weep for the six million who perished in Europe almost 50 years ago under the Nazi regime. Their only crime was being Jewish. There is hardly anyone in the Jewish faith who has not been impacted, who has not had a loved one, a friend who was slaughtered in this way.

For years I have heard of the horror camps of Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz, Treblinka and Babi Yar, and quite frankly they were names, and names only, to me. Two years ago I had the occasion of visiting Kiev in the Ukraine and the officials there made a point of taking me to Babi Yar. Babi Yar is a park and what it stands for is "baba," old lady, and "yar," a park, and that is where the old ladies used to congregate.

When the Germans occupied the Ukraine they sent a notice out to the Jewish community saying because the Red Cross had asked for the safety of the Jews, they were going to comply. They would ask that all the Jewish citizens assemble at Babi Yar, where they would be taken to safety. The irony of that story is that many of the non-Jews resented the fact that these Jews were given special treatment, so they showed up as well. When they showed up, over 100,000 of them were herded into the park, machine-gunned on the spot and bulldozers immediately covered them. To this day there is a memorial.

That tries to put some context as to the magnitude of what we are trying to commemorate. Today in synagogues and memorial services throughout the world there will be services held to commemorate and, more important, to ensure that we will always remember, so that the world will never forget.

Hon Mr Rae: I know that every member in this House will have some special thought or memory perhaps of friends or family. I can only recount to the House this day the extraordinary experience that my wife and I had last year when we visited Poland and Lithuania. My wife's father was born in the town of Radom in Poland and my wife's mother was born in a little village in Lithuania called Zidikai.

In Warsaw we were able to see the memorial to the ghetto uprising and to see a very small community of a handful, a few thousand who are left in that city where before the war the Jewish population was about 30% of the population of the city of Warsaw. Now it is a very few thousand. We visited the synagogue in Warsaw -- there is one that is there -- and had a chance to meet with some members of the community. Through interpreters we heard their story. We visited the concentration camp at Treblinka. What was overpowering about that experience was that we were the only people there visiting and one had an awful sense of the absence of memory, which is so troubling.

When we went to Zidikai, which was a tiny village, we were there on election day in Lithuania. So part of it was a celebration, because it was a chance for us to celebrate this expression of democracy in this town. The other part of what we wanted to do was simply try to talk to people about that community as it had gone through the war because this, again, was a village of about 1,200 or 1,500 and before the war the Jewish community was about 1,000-fold, about 300 or 400 families.

My wife's grandparents and her mother had come out in the 1920s to Peterborough, and there are others who have gone on to other parts of the world, but basically the community was there in 1941. We asked if there was anyone in the village who could tell us the story of what happened. We were invited to a very small kitchen in a tiny rural house in this Lithuanian village to meet a woman who would have been well into her 80s. She used to work in the post office. She knew everyone's name and she was able to recount. My wife, Arlene, asked if she knew any of the names of the people in her family and she knew them. She remembered them, she remembered who they were, she remembered the dry goods store and she remembered the stores that were on the street.

Then we asked the inevitable question, what happened? The Germans attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the Jews in Lithuania were rounded up with a brutality and a quickness which defies the imagination. We were told that people were corralled up together, taken to the synagogue, the men separated from the women. A couple of babies were spirited out and cared for by local families. But essentially, within three days this entire community was taken on a train to the neighbouring town, taken to the Jewish cemetery, lined up and shot, every one of them.

We asked if we could see the cemetery in Mazeiki, because it had been a community for hundreds of years. It was the middle of winter and it was across two farmers' fields and we could not go. We were very upset because we wanted to pay tribute. The people who were there said, "Is this very important to you?" My wife and I both said, "Yes, it's very important to us." They said: "Well, please trust us. When we can get across, when the weather improves, we'll take pictures of the cemetery and we'll send them to you." We said, "Has anybody been there?" They said: "No one has visited the cemetery for 50 years. It's untended."

We went away and it was obviously a day of enormous emotion. About three months later, a package arrived at my office. It was a package of photographs taken by members of the Lithuanian community who simply wanted to express their memory. It was an extraordinary moment.

We are living now in a prosperous community in which we often do not think of what life must have been like. We can remember best by paying tribute to those who died, to all those who have suffered discrimination, and by building a province and a country that knows not hatred.

The Speaker: If it is the pleasure of the House, I would offer an observation that the three members who have spoken today with their kind and thoughtful remarks have once again underscored how ably served, by all sides of the House, the people of the province are, with members who possess a great compassion and understanding. I for one appreciate it.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

ANTI-RECESSION PROGRAM

Hon Ms Lankin: The members of this House are well aware of the severe repercussions the current economic downturn is causing in homes across this province, and our challenge is to get people back to work today and provide them opportunities and training that will serve them into the future.

We made a major commitment to these goals in last November's throne speech when we announced a $700-million anti-recession program. Its aim is to alleviate some of the recession's hardship by creating short-term jobs through the upgrading or expansion of public buildings and other infrastructure.

As the members are aware, many announcements by my colleagues have followed. With the Ministry of Government Services projects that I am announcing today, the $700 million has now been fully committed to the anti-recession program.

With the program's emphasis on public facilities, my ministry has a natural role to play. I am pleased to advise the members that we have earmarked $36.5 million for 137 projects in 66 communities across Ontario. These include repairs to OPP detachments and correctional facilities, construction of four new OPP detachments, new travel information centres in Sarnia and Cornwall and new Ministry of Agriculture and Food offices in Clinton and Vineland.

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The funding also includes more than $3 million for special employment equity measures. My ministry will be encouraging contractors who wish to be considered for projects to provide apprenticeship and employment opportunities for women, first nations peoples, francophones, visible minorities and people with disabilities.

The key to this program is quick action -- job creation now. Many projects will begin in the next eight weeks and all will be completed within the 1991-92 fiscal year. In total, they will create more than 15,000 weeks of employment.

As Chair of both the Management Board of Cabinet and the operations committee, I am also responsible for overseeing the implementation of all the projects initiated by those ministries participating in Ontario's anti-recession program. I would like now to inform the House of our progress.

Twenty-two ministries are participating and they are undertaking more than 3,000 projects. As many as 14,000 jobs will be created by our investment in the public infrastructure. In total, 20,000 jobs will be created by all measures being taken by this government to counteract the recession.

On behalf of the government, I would like to thank the many municipalities and school boards, hospitals, colleges and universities and other local agencies which are working with us to implement and fund many of these projects. Our community partners are contributing over $200 million to this program, and they are contributing in bringing that combined provincial-local investment to more than $900 million.

Before providing you with some examples of the kind of projects being initiated, I would like to briefly inform members on the process we have followed in developing the anti-recessionary program.

The operations committee of cabinet is responsible for overseeing the program's development, implementation and follow-up. The committee has worked closely with ministries in identifying potential projects and establishing some of the selection criteria, including the following: Projects should begin as soon as possible, be labour-intensive and achieve significant public benefits; there should be no regulatory, design or other impediments to getting the projects up and running and completed; projects in areas experiencing serious economic problems should receive priority attention; and attempts should be made to offer employment opportunities to women, first nations peoples and other employment equity groups that might not otherwise benefit equally from the program.

Ministries have worked hard to select projects which meet these standards and will ensure that they are implemented as planned.

Members will recall that work on over 300 projects with a cost of $41 million was announced in December of last year. These diverse projects, which range from renovations to North Bay's Canadore College to forest management operations in the Cochrane area, are well under way and nearly 35,000 weeks of work are being created.

Many additional projects have since been announced, and jobs are being created and essential public services are being improved in many priority areas. Examples include: improved day care facilities; construction of expanded transition homes for abused women and children, such as Thunder Bay's Faye Peterson Home, to reduce overcrowding; upgraded energy efficiency in Ontario Housing Corp buildings to cut operating costs and reduce fuel consumption; upgraded water and sewer services to ensure safe drinking water and better waste treatment; renovations to improve fire safety and security in hospitals and homes for the aged; renovated educational facilities to improve learning environments for our children; and improved access to public buildings for the elderly and persons with disabilities.

In addition to the $650 million in funds allocated for capital projects, $50 million is being spent on special adjustment measures to open up employment and training opportunities, particularly for employment equity target groups. We want to encourage their fuller participation in the economy now and in the future.

For example, we are funding initiatives that will train first nations peoples to: manage local construction projects; use new automated library equipment in 43 public libraries; co-ordinate resource projects in Espanola; and act as apprentice health counsellors.

With the increase in welfare case loads across Ontario caused by the recession, we are hiring and training welfare recipients themselves to help social service agencies meet rising demands for service. Single mothers and others will gain valuable experience that we hope will be transferred to other permanent job opportunities. Social assistance recipients will also have access to child care training positions which will help them to pursue careers in this field.

In summary, the kinds of capital projects and special measures we are funding offer profound benefits whose impact will be felt well beyond the recession. Many basic repairs and renovations to our public buildings and other facilities, too long neglected because of insufficient provincial funding, will now be undertaken.

Above all, people will benefit, not only from their paycheques but from the new skills that many will learn. While the jobs will be short-term, we hope the results will be long-lasting.

I look forward to the continuing support of our funding partners and all members as we implement the anti-recession program and put people to work.

EMPLOYMENT EQUITY

Hon Mr Farnan: Today I am pleased to announce an employment equity regulation which will increase the representation of four prescribed groups in police services across Ontario. These groups are racial minorities, aboriginal persons, women and persons with disabilities. This regulation will provide for fair and equitable employment opportunities for civilian and uniformed police service employees. In particular, it will address past inequities experienced by the four prescribed groups.

In April 1989, the Clare Lewis Race Relations and Policing Task Force presented the Solicitor General with 57 recommendations. These covered the major areas of hiring and promotion, race relations training, the use of force and community relations.

My ministry is solemnly committed to acting on the task force recommendations. This is being done through the race relations and policing unit, which was established to help implement the task force recommendations, and through the new Police Services Act.

This employment equity regulation spells out to all police services and boards what actions are required of them and the time lines for such action. My ministry is also providing support for implementation of this regulation. Chiefs of police will be required to implement employment equity plans which detail specific goals and timetables to increase representation of the prescribed groups in their workforce. Sanctions will be applied to those police services which do not comply with the regulation. These sanctions range from the appointment of an independent employment equity administrator to suspension or firing of the police chief or members of police services boards. Every police service will make available, at no cost, information contained in its employment equity plan to any member of the public who requests it.

The Police Services Act commits the municipal police services boards and all police chiefs to submit employment equity plans and results to my ministry on a continuing basis, commencing in May 1992. Thereafter they will also submit annual results which will show how goals are being met within the specified time frames.

The regulation is broad enough to accommodate the needs of all police services across Ontario. It is also specific enough to ensure results throughout all levels of each police organization.

I am encouraged by the support this regulation has received from provincial organizations involved in policing. I wish to point out to members of this House that through an extensive consultation process, these regulations are fully supported by the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, the Municipal Police Authorities and the Police Association of Ontario.

Additionally, I know that members will be interested to learn that this regulation has been developed through broad and full consultation with our partners. These partners are the 140 police and community representatives with whom we consulted in discussion group sessions in Ottawa, Thunder Bay, Toronto and London. The regulation incorporates the spirit of co-operation exhibited at these meetings.

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I would like to recognize the efforts of our partners who worked with the ministry to develop this important regulation. Their sincere desire to improve the community-policing relationship and their dedication to fair and equitable employment has allowed the ministry to develop a regulation with clearly defined goals and objectives.

I believe it is appropriate at this time to recognize the presence in the assembly of some of those individuals who played a leadership role in the development of this regulation. I would ask to stand, representing the Police Association of Ontario, Neal Jessop, Gord Noles, Ted Johnson and Bob Morrison; from the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, Chief Harding; and from the Municipal Police Authorities, Mr Justice H. Ward Allen and Sandi Humphrey. To these and other members of my ministry's external consultative committee we owe a debt and a sincere thanks.

My ministry is providing comprehensive information packages to its partners across the province, in both official languages. Additionally, certain information will also be provided in a number of other languages, as well as on audio tape, to ensure that as many of the people as possible who are affected by this regulation are fully informed.

Employment equity for police is a province-wide issue. Police must become more representative of the communities they serve. This regulation will help the police and community to work together with increased trust and co-operation.

This regulation is the first of its kind in Ontario. It is my sincere hope that as it proves its success, it will become a workforce model for Ontario's public and private sectors. We must all commit ourselves to employment equity to enjoy the full rewards and benefits of a workforce which draws from the talents and skills of all people in Ontario.

RESPONSES

ANTI-RECESSION PROGRAM

Mr Bradley: It is interesting how the perspective changes when people change sides in the House. I can well recall some of the questions and statements which were made previously by the government on the issue raised by the now Solicitor General.

But I am going to respond not to the Solicitor General's statement but to the Chairman of Management Board's statement. I thought this should be a Treasurer's statement. I am really amazed that in fact it came from the Chair of Management Board, who it is alleged has aspirations to be the Treasurer of the province of Ontario.

The Minister of the Environment would be particularly interested in this statement, because it really incorporates a new set of four Rs, and I even wrote them down today: recycle, reuse, rename and reannounce. That is precisely what this government has done throughout this so-called anti-recession package.

If members examine the grants which would have been made -- and I want to give credit to my good friend the Minister of Transportation, who really let the cat out of the bag. I want to give him credit for his frankness and honesty in this, when he said in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record that there is nothing to force the municipalities to use the savings to create more jobs. In a municipal election year, some municipal councillors might be tempted to use any savings to ease property taxes. But he said that there are other incentives for them to use it for road work. What the Minister of Transportation is pointing out is, in fact, because many of us served on municipal councils, they will find the money welcome and they will not get an objection from those to whom they have transferred some of those funds.

I guess what we object to over here is that the government pretends it is doing something new and different. This is essentially an announcement for monthly publications, because it is old news. Many of them are programs which are reannouncements, not only from what they said when they first came into office, but also from what the previous government had already announced. So some of the work they are doing in northern Ontario, for instance, could easily be characterized -- and the northern members know this -- as work that is going to be done anyway.

The members should examine each one of these and they will find these are routine announcements they put out. They get away with it sometimes with some of the publications that do not know them well enough to know they are recycling these, but essentially this is old news. I am sure the critic for the Solicitor General's department will be equally constructive in his comments now.

EMPLOYMENT EQUITY

Mr Curling: I know how proud the Solicitor General is today that he has introduced this employment equity regulation and I share his pride too. Because it took him such a long time to introduce it, I hope it has been carefully analysed. I know it will be important to this community.

As you know, Mr Speaker, he had promised this from December 1990 and he is just now introducing it. I want to commend those who have partaken in bringing about this regulation. I want to recall and refresh the Solicitor General's mind. The present Minister of Transportation wanted most of these regulations to be passed through the standing committee on administration of justice, so that the elected members can have their contributions in open government aspects of it so he would have a better regulation. I have no doubt at all that thoughts have gone through it with his bureaucrats and some of the people he has consulted with. Of course, he said it is a very meaningful consultation process.

I had hoped some of the community people who have contributed would be here today to take their bows. I hope we could look forward to seeing him doing more about those regulations. We had many regulations he had promised to bring in today. We know he failed to introduce those regulations. There are some regulations on use of force by the members of the police force, which we have not seen yet. He had promised to bring forward the prescribing of a code of conduct on which offences constitute misconduct. That is not here yet. The police pursuit guidelines: We have not seen those yet.

It took the minister five or six months to bring this forward. We still hope, for that open consultation process and the way to draft this regulation, that when he brings the rest of the regulations, he does not make the same mistake of making it in a rather closed way. Give us an opportunity through the justice committee to partake with the rest of the regulations. We have been waiting a very long time for that. The people need it and I have my trust in him. He should not let us down.

Mr Carr: I welcome the opportunity to get up and speak about bringing various members of our community into the police force. I am very pleased to have my police chief from the Halton area here to see this. In fact, during the last period of time I spent some nights out with the undercover police. The sergeant and her partner who were taking me out, doing some of the most difficult and serious crimes, were both women. The sergeant and her partner did a very effective job, so I saw at first hand what women can do in the police force during very dangerous situations.

However, I am concerned about the rise and increase of crime in this province. I was out last night to the meeting at Metro's city hall. Women are affected by this crime in our streets. The aboriginal people are affected by crime on the rise in their communities, as are the minority communities. These are the factors that are not going to be addressed. I would hope he would work very urgently in this area to set quotas and to reduce our crime rates, so that the people, the minorities, the women, the disabled and the aboriginal people also are going to see that crime against those communities is reduced. That is very urgent. I would like to leave a little bit of time for the critic for women's issues to respond as well.

Mrs Witmer: As this government embarks upon a program of employment equity for the private and public sectors, I hope there will indeed be true and full consultation with all those involved. I hope the government will take a look at the elimination of the barriers that women, visible minorities, native people and people with disabilities face. I hope it will also fully utilize the educational system to provide these people with the skills and the training they need to become productive employees, and I hope there will be public awareness campaigns to change attitudes and educate people about the very important role each person in this province plays. I hope that is where the focus will be instead of mandatory quotas because, although we can legislate change, we must remember we will never achieve full and complete employment equity until attitudes in this province change as well.

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ANTI-RECESSION PROGRAM

Mr Turnbull: With respect to the announcements made by the Chairman of the Management Board of Cabinet and Minister of Government Services, I would just briefly comment that four months ago we heard their government announcing a $700-million package, an anti-recession package. We were given to believe this was going to be a labour-intensive capital project package. Today we find that it is now only $650 million, and $50 million has been bled off towards the minister's employment equity agenda.

That was then, this is now, and what will it be tomorrow? How much money is the government finally going to spend on job creation? It might be more appropriate to get the Minister of Housing to let some of the renovations go through and let them be charged back in the proper way.

Mr Tilson: With respect to the comments of the Management Board chair, it is certainly clear there is nothing new in what she has said and it is sad that when she cannot think of something to announce, she brings up old statements. What the chair has announced today, other ministers have already announced. The only thing that appears to be new is her repair projects across this province. The job losses under her direction are worse in the province of Ontario than anywhere else in this country. We have felt this recession more in this province than anywhere else in this country and it is all under her direction.

Where she is leading, of course, is in setting a terrible example with her jobs. The employment increases are up to 6% plus. She has set no standards at all. Quebec, on the other hand, has frozen its public sector salaries for 400,000 public sector employees. The chair does not appear to be studying that issue at all. All she is doing is spending.

ORAL QUESTIONS

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

Mr Nixon: I was interested that the honourable member for Scarborough Centre, I believe, who was in his place a moment ago, had made a statement on behalf of the government or perhaps on his own behalf, in response to the antipoverty coalition which is here today and after talking to a number of members, that the federal government is responsible for poverty and the difficulties caused by the recession and that in fact this government's hands are tied and the responsibility lies elsewhere.

We know that in this House the Treasurer has indicated he does not see the financing over the next five years to fulfil the government's promises in this regard. Yesterday, or the day before, I guess, the Minister of Community and Social Services indicated she has no plan to eliminate food banks during the term of this government, and yet the government has moved quite dramatically to increase the pay of civil servants, it has indicated it is ready, willing and able to reform teachers' pensions and there are even rumours that it is trying to scrape together $300 million in back pay for the medical doctors who have gone so long without any sort of a reasonable pay increase.

Since in his pledge to the people the Premier said, "I will not lead a government driven by a narrow and self-interested agenda, ignoring what needs to be done," I simply ask him, why does a government decide to do those three things and many others that I have not bothered listing, which have all been expensive and important in their own ways, but has neglected totally its promise and its initiative to end food banks and reduce poverty in any reasonable program in the government program, and particularly on the basis of the inadequacies of the funding that has been made available to the Premier's ministers in this regard?

Hon Mr Rae: First of all, I want the Leader of the Opposition to know that I do not regard this exclusively as a federal matter. I think it is fair to say that everybody has to pitch in, but we certainly take our responsibility seriously. We feel very strongly that we as a government do have a responsibility and I can point to several examples where we have already taken steps. I can assure the member that more has to be done and more will be done, within the limits of what can be done.

First of all, let me remind the honourable member that for people who are on welfare, we have increased benefits this year by some $286 million on an annualized basis which, I would remind members, is $100 million more than he allocated when he was Treasurer, to be spent starting on 1 January; $100 million more, money that was on the shelf, that stayed on the shelf and that was not being used effectively for the supports to employment program. In terms of getting back to employment, a $54-million fund was put into play by our government in response to the need that is very clearly there.

We are looking at providing some protection for tenants. It is controversial, but it is going to provide assistance to tenants that is going to be very substantial in terms of money in their pockets. We are dealing with the wage protection fund, and it is going to be coming down soon in terms of legislation. That will also have an impact.

These are examples of the things we are doing. I very much believe it is our responsibility to provide as much as we can for those people who are being affected by the recession.

Mr Nixon: I will not dwell on the extra $100 million the Premier indicated. I would not for a moment indicate --

Hon Mr Cooke: I wouldn't either if I were you.

Mr Nixon: Well, since the Minister of Housing, in his usual aggressive way, is asking for information, I would simply indicate that the $100 million has to be taken in the context of a budget for welfare services of about $5 billion. As a matter of fact, we had allocated a 5% increase and the government, gathering all its strength, all its sensitivity and all its generosity raised that 2%. I would suggest that if the minister thinks that is the solution to food banks and poverty, then probably he would be better back on the city council of one of the suburbs of Windsor.

I would like to say we are not in any way criticizing the intentions of the Premier or any member of this House in order to solve these problems. But certainly I, and on behalf of my colleagues, am critical of his priorities. For example, in November of the year, it is customary, not waiting for the budget, to present the allocations for community-based agencies, such as day care, children's aid societies, children's mental health centres and community homemaking services. We have heard nothing about this except the indications in the media that many of these services are being pressed to the wall and not able to live up to the heightened responsibilities they must serve.

I would not for a moment indicate that the Premier is responding with these hundreds of millions of dollars to those who have the most political clout and perhaps bought advertisements in his support during the election campaign, but how are we going to find out, during these economically difficult times, why the Premier is responding only to those people and those groups with strong, organized political voices, and not to those he felt he was a principal spokesman for when he was in opposition, not to the agencies and not to the poor people who are, God help us, suffering hunger and poverty?

Hon Mr Rae: I have heard the accusation from the Leader of the Opposition. I can only tell him it is quite unfair, quite unfounded and completely and totally inaccurate. It is not a reflection of the reality at all. If the member looks at the decision this government has taken, his government sat for five years and left workers who were laid off, at all levels of society, 60% of them without a trade union of any kind, bankrupt workers forced to go on welfare.

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We have said that workers who are affected by a bankruptcy will not be out wages in the province of Ontario, and they should not be out wages in the province of Ontario.

He had years to deal with that. If he looks at the steps the Treasurer has already taken in terms of the transfer announcements he has made, those transfer announcements are well above inflation and they provide for people at all levels of our society who are providing service.

If the former Treasurer, the Leader of the Opposition, is saying we could be doing more, I am sure that is a criticism which all of us can accept. There is more to be done and I can tell him that more will be done.

Mr Nixon: I am sure the Speaker is aware that during the years when the Premier said we should have been doing something, we created a net 700,000 new jobs in the province. During the six months the NDP has been looking after our affairs, we are losing an average of 1,600 jobs a day. I would ask the Speaker, in his position of fairness, to simply compare and indicate with a nod who did the better Job.

I would like to say further to the Premier, who keeps repeating about his anti-bankruptcy legislation, which he announced in a flurry of enthusiasm at the time he allowed his friend, Mr Rice, the president of -- what was that company? -- Varity Corp to move to Buffalo, that he was going to do this and, meanwhile, his Minister of Labour, struggling to stay awake during question period, still has not introduced the legislation. We thought it was going to be this week. Maybe it will be tomorrow.

What has he done? What has he done to improve the competitiveness of the Ontario economy? What has he done to create jobs? What has he done to retrain workers from sectors experiencing permanent job losses? As a matter of fact, I would ask him, what has he done, other than the oft-reiterated $700-million commitment which would make up for about two weeks of the jobs lost under his leadership, to improve the economy of the province, to feed the hungry and to improve the lot of the poor?

Hon Mr Rae: I suppose one could use this question period as a chance for us to simply exchange barbs back and forth, and there is a good deal of that that goes on.

I would say this to the Leader of the Opposition on this day, as I have said to him on other days and will say to him again. If he is saying, for the benefit of those who are watching and those who will be watching later on, that his government was exclusively responsible, his government in Ontario was exclusively responsible for the prosperity, that when he became Treasurer there was instant prosperity, and then arguing that on 6 September the recession began with the election of the New Democratic Party, I would only say to the Leader of the Opposition that that is the same kind of argument his former leader tried to use in the last week of the election campaign, and I think the voters of Ontario told him and his party exactly what they think about that kind of nonsense.

Mr Nixon: NDP times are hard times and the people are coming to realize that.

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON AIDS

Mr Nixon: I have a question for the Minister of Health, and she says -- I think she mouthed, "It's about time," but it could have been something else. You know what happened to Trudeau in that regard.

Accusations have been made in today's press that the Minister of Health has failed to meet with her own Advisory Committee on AIDS since assuming office. I want to just say a word about that committee. It is not a political group. Most of them were appointed under the previous administration. The committee is a broadly based group of about 70 experts with clinical, public health and community expertise. Yet in the first six months of this government's mandate, the minister has not met with her advisory committee nor given them any direction on the policy agenda and priorities that she will pursue.

Can she explain why she is failing to adopt a co-ordinated consultative approach to policy developed in this extremely important and sensitive area, and why she is ignoring the advice that her committee proffers?

Hon Ms Gigantes: The Leader of the Opposition will well recall that it was the previous government which in fact instituted the advisory committee. All of the appointments were made by the previous government, and I would agree with him that it is a group comprised of excellent advisers on the subject of what we should be doing in the province of Ontario to combat HIV infection and the spread of AIDS.

This committee has had one meeting. It meets on a quarterly basis. I do not know if he is familiar with the pattern of it. It meets on a quarterly basis. There was one meeting since the election, previous to the meeting which will be held tomorrow. I will be joining them at the meeting tomorrow. I did meet with representatives of the committee a few months back and I certainly have taken great care to pay attention to their recommendations.

Mr Nixon: I do not know the significance of the minister's comment that the committee was appointed under the previous administration, but it does lead to the question as to why --

Interjection.

Mr Nixon: Of course I said that. And then she said it. What was the point of that?

Perhaps she could explain why the members of this committee have indicated that the minister's response to their advice is insensitive and inadequate. There is an indication that a number of them will not be able to continue with their duties because of that insensitivity and inadequacy. Why can this sensitive and presumably adequate minister not give an appropriate explanation as to why these people, who are not political but are expert and deeply concerned with this matter, find that her leadership is inadequate?

Hon Ms Gigantes: The leader of the Liberal Party points out that I told him that this committee was appointed during the term of office of the government in which he served. He has suggested that some of the members were appointed during that term of office. I explained to him that all of the members were appointed, because it was the previous government which set up the committee. I hope he understands the purpose for which I explained.

There is no reluctance on my part to deal with the advice from this committee. In fact, I have studied the recommendations and the reports on which they are working. I have, as I pointed out earlier, met with representatives of the committee and I will be meeting with them this afternoon in their regular meeting.

Mr Nixon: It turns out that there are more than three pedagogues in the House, and now I add the minister to that list.

I do not know whether she is trying to say that there are only some of those people whose advice she would accept, or if she wants to adjust the committee in some way. The question really was to try to get her to explain why they are so disaffected with her leadership, to the extent that they have gone public. Was it to force the meeting that is going to happen today? Was it because the minister has indicated that she is not prepared to take action on anonymous testing, on northern travel grants, on using the Ontario drug benefit formulary to include new drugs? Is there some difficulty with the minister being too busy preparing for the answers to questions in the House? Why would she say that the AIDS community, at least their knowledgeable and principal spokespersons here, feel that she is inadequate in performing her responsibilities?

Hon Ms Gigantes: The leader of the Liberal Party is saying something which I do not think is accurate. Certainly, there has been one resignation to my knowledge by a member of the committee. This is normal in the course of events, where you have 20 members on an advisory committee, over a period of time.

I think members of the advisory committee are well aware of the fact that this government has been very intently working on a series of initiatives in the program areas the Leader of the Opposition has indicated and also in others. I will be taking the opportunity this afternoon to discuss those initiatives with them and also to discuss with them, because I feel they are highly qualified to give advice to this government and to any government, the work that needs to be done in this province on the subject of AIDS. I will be looking to them for recommendations about how their work in fact can become more effective in influencing the development of comprehensive policies and programs that will assist people touched by HIV/AIDS in this province.

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TIME ALLOCATION

Mr Tilson: My question is to the Premier. Yesterday, I spent some time with the parliamentary assistant for the Minister of Housing studying the question of fairness, and she had a great deal of difficulty understanding that question and perhaps defining it. I think I would like to have the Premier tell this House some of his thoughts on the issue of fairness.

Over six months ago, the Premier told us that his government was different. It was a government that was fair. it was a government that was accessible. I say hooey. His government is a government that is trying to muzzle the views of the province of Ontario. His government has the audacity to try this afternoon to bring an end to the debate on Bill 4, one of the most ill-conceived pieces of legislation, retroactive legislation, that this province has ever seen. I want the Premier to tell this House today what he meant when he promised us fairness.

Hon Mr Rae: I think the Minister of Housing deserves the opportunity to reply to the question.

Hon Mr Cooke: I appreciate the --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Are the members trying to tell us that they do not wish to hear a response? The question was redirected to the minister under standing orders. If you would like to hear a response, then perhaps you will all sit quietly and listen.

Hon Mr Cooke: The first thing I would like to say is that I, as minister, am very proud of the leadership that the member for Niagara Falls, my parliamentary assistant, has provided on Bill 4. We in this party have indicated right from the beginning that we are determined to bring in real protection for the tenants of this province. The first step of that protection is Bill 4.

The Liberal Party on second reading voted in favour of the bill. Since then, they have been speaking against it. I am not sure where they stand.

The Conservatives have been consistent. They have said from day one they are opposed to Bill 4 and they are not going to allow the bill to pass. They left us with no alternative. We have an agenda to protect tenants and we as a government are determined to do that. The Conservative Party is trying to prevent that from happening and that is why we have had to bring in time allocation today.

Mr Tilson: The parliamentary assistant did not know what fairness was, and obviously the Minister of Housing does not know what fairness is. I would hope the Premier would be able to tell us; however, he is acting more and more like the last government, as far as his conduct today is concerned. We call it the Peterson shuffle -- the Peterson shovel.

From day one this government has attempted to ram through Bill 4. We have seen that in the committee. We have seen that in this House. We have had to fight to send this bill to committee, and when we got there, we had to fight for a fair and open process, a process that despite our attempts turned away over 100 delegations. I want the Minister of Housing -- I would have preferred to have the Premier, but if he is shuffling it off to the Minister of Housing, I would like the Minister of Housing to tell us if he really believes that he has heard all there is to hear with respect to this piece of legislation.

Hon Mr Cooke: What I would like to hear is, if the Conservative Party has any other position than deregulation, maybe it can be of some help, too. But so far all they have said to the people of Ontario is: "We made up our minds long ago. All we believe in is deregulating rents and leaving tenants unprotected." We do not share that opinion, but we have presented a point of view through Bill 4 on a temporary piece of legislation. We have had public hearings through the general government committee right across the province. We have had extensive consultations with thousands of people on the green paper, and we are going to have public hearings right across the province on the permanent piece of legislation.

The critic for the Conservative Party said they had to fight hard to get Bill 4 out for public hearings. They asked once and we said yes. We know what it is like to have to fight for public hearings. We had to fight for them all the time.

Mr Eves: My, how times have changed. The former House leader of the New Democratic Party, now the Minister of Housing, standing up and talking about defending time allocations.

Mr Bradley: Do you have some quotes, Ernie?

Mr Eves: I have a little quote here from the honourable member. I am glad the member mentioned that. I just happen to have a few of them handy.

On 3 April 1990, the honourable minister said: "I would suggest that" -- time allocation -- "is incredibly unfair. It will result in the process not holding the government accountable."

The now Premier of the province stood in his place on 8 December 1982 and said that closure and time allocation had absolutely no place in the parliamentary process in the province of Ontario. Is this the kind of difference, fairness and accessibility that he promised?

Hon Mr Cooke: I think the position that I have certainly tried to take, and I know that other members of my caucus have taken, is that each case has to be taken on its own merits.

Interjections.

Hon Mr Cooke: It is true. If I could give an example --

Interjections.

Hon Mr Cooke: Just hold on. If I could give an example; if the opposition would let me give an example.

The Speaker: When I can hear it.

Mr Scott: Mr Speaker, on a point of order: Is it permissible to take this whole answer as given, as read, done, and then move on to something else?

The Speaker: That is not a point of order, but it may be a point of restoring order.

Hon Mr Cooke: If I might just give an example that I know the member would appreciate, when Bill 94 was brought in by the Liberal government, the legislation that brought in the ban on extra-billing, the Liberal government of the time was forced to bring in time allocation. We were the third party and we supported that time allocation because it was in the interests of the province.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Mr Runciman: My question is to the Minister of Correctional Services.

Interjections.

Mr Runciman: I will wait a while, because this is a rather serious issue.

The Speaker: The member is absolutely right. I think the atmosphere is nice and clear now. The member for Leeds-Grenville with his question.

Mr Runciman: A convicted rapist is living in a halfway house in the city of Brockville only two months after beginning to serve a jail term of two years less a day. William Uloth raped a 12-year-old girl last summer, and what made this attack even more tragic was that it occurred just months after the death of the victim's father. The victim's mother says: "What's to stop him from doing it again? He's out in the community and there are a lot of vulnerable young kids around."

Mr Uloth served his two months of so-called hard time in a county jail and then he was let out on to the streets of the same community where the 12-year-old victim lives, and the Correctional Services ministry did not even have the decency to inform the victim's family.

The corrections system has placed the offender's rights ahead of the victim's, an absolute disregard for the protection of society. Officials of the ministry put a man responsible for the violent rape of a 12-year-old girl back on the streets after two months in a county jail. Does the minister support that decision, and if yes, why? If not, what is he going to do about it?

Hon Mr Farnan: The primary responsibility of a minister in the area of corrections has to be the security and safety not only of those who are in our trust but of the community. I take that responsibility very seriously. I am very concerned with the facts that have been presented to me today and I intend to look into the situation. After I have full information on the situation, I intend to get back to the member and respond to his concern.

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Mr Runciman: I am astounded that the minister is not aware of this situation. It has certainly been in the eastern Ontario media for some days, and I do not think that he has a defensible position on this, or his ministry does. We are talking about a man responsible for the rape of a 12-year-old girl, a girl from a low-income family, a 12-year-old girl who had just lost her father.

I would like to put some comments from the victim impact statement on the record: "This 12-year-old victim suffers continual nightmares about the assault. She is trying to cope with feelings of low self-esteem and she is now being treated by a psychologist."

I would like the minister to stand up in this House today and indicate to this 12-year-old victim and her mother and countless other victims and their families across this province that he disagrees with what his officials did, that it was not okay, and that he, as the Minister of Correctional Services, does see something wrong with the rapist of a 12-year-old girl being out on the streets of her community after that individual served only two months of soft time.

Hon Mr Farnan: I will repeat for the member this fact. These are very serious statements that are being made in the House that cause me great concern as a minister. It is an issue I intend to examine thoroughly, and then I will get back to him.

Mr Runciman: The minister has been in office almost seven months and we are talking about the system. This is an individual case that I personally and I assume all members of the House are very much concerned about, but in my view and in the view of officials I have talked to around this province, the corrections system is a fraud. We have the Attorney General's ministry working to put people behind bars and, as soon as they are there, we have Correctional Services officials working like beavers to get them out, mollycoddling people who rape 12-year-old girls.

Violent crime is growing at a breakneck pace in this province. Just yesterday, a 19-year-old woman was raped after her car stalled near Stratford. The minister can start to change that if he genuinely cares about victims and victims' rights and he can commit himself to revamping the system that provides soft treatment for people like Mr Uloth, a revolving-door system of justice that places a criminal's rights ahead of the victim's and the community's at large. Will the minister commit himself to that today?

Hon Mr Farnan: The Attorney General, the Solicitor General, the Minister of Correctional Services and this government are vitally concerned to have a justice system that is sensitive, that works, that is effective. I thank the member for bringing this information into the House. It certainly makes for a dramatic moment in the House.

I would like the member to feel free to come to me any time he has information and any concerns, to come into my office with this information, so that we sit down, check the facts, discuss the facts and, if he has concerns at that stage, then I think it is fine. But I will say to the member again that it is my commitment, not only to him but to this House, that I will investigate this situation, because I think it is very serious.

WAGE PROTECTION

Mr Offer: I have a question to the minister of layoffs, also known as the Minister of Labour. He will recall that in the aftermath of the Premier's Massey-Varity sellout, it was announced at a ratification meeting of 19 October 1990 that a deal between the Canadian Auto Workers, Kelsey-Hayes and the provincial government had been struck.

As reported in the Windsor Star, "The agreement would allow workers to place their severance pay in trust with the Ontario employment standards branch." It was explained that putting the severance in trust would allow them to draw federal unemployment benefits immediately. The workers could then collect their money from the provincial trust once they found new work or UI benefits expired. That, they were told, would allow them to save thousands of dollars.

The problem is that this type of agreement is illegal and the Unemployment Insurance Commission is waiting now to confiscate the severance pay of workers who participated in the minister's scheme and collected UI. My question is whether it was either the minister's negligence in allowing his ministry to be part of this illegal agreement or, on the other hand, was it his incompetence in making such an agreement before checking with the UIC?

Hon Mr Mackenzie: I want to tell the honourable member that, as far as I am concerned, it was neither. The deal with the workers at Kelsey-Hayes is a deal that was worked out with their union, their legal representatives, the Canadian Auto Workers, and an effort was made to find a mechanism whereby the workers would not lose their severance pay. It turned out that particular method of protecting that severance pay was not upheld, and it is one of the reasons why we will be bringing in legislation that will correct that problem.

Mr Offer: I find the minister's response quite surprising, because in that particular report by the Windsor Star it goes on to quote Lewis Gottheil, the lawyer for the CAW's head office in Toronto, to speak about Buzz Hargrove, assistant to CAW president Bob White, and to state that there was a deal made, an agreement made between the CAW, the ministry and Kelsey-Hayes. In the minister's response he seems to be stating that his particular ministry was not part of that particular arrangement. This seems to fly in the face of the facts that have been brought forward on earlier occasions.

That particular agreement has been declared illegal by the UIC. The minister had an obligation, if not a responsibility, to inform the workers how the federal government views those particular severance payments as opposed to the UIC benefits. The minister had that obligation. He refused to do so. At the very least he had the opportunity to say, "We want to take that agreement before the courts and have the courts rule upon that." The minister has said no to the workers, he has said no to the agreement and he has said no in terms of his responsibility.

My question to the minister is whether he is ready to finally stand up and say, "I'm going to stand behind the agreement, have it determined by the courts, and let's see how it is decided." Let's see some action on his part.

Hon Mr Mackenzie: I can only tell the member that the effort to protect the wages of the workers was one that was entered into in good faith. It was not successful and that is exactly why we will be having legislation before this House to protect workers in situations similar to this.

LONG-TERM CARE

Mr Eves: I have a question for the Minister of Health. In a speech given to the Ontario Hospital Association on 28 November last year, the minister said that her government had a great commitment to long-term care in this province and that it would be proceeding. Can she tell us how it is proceeding?

Hon Ms Gigantes: I am pleased to report that it is proceeding very well.

Mr Eves: That was certainly a general answer given. The reality is that the same minister appeared in the Kitchener area during March of this year, last month, and indicated that because of federal restraints she was going to have to cut the home care program, and unfortunately it would be among the first fatalities in the Ministry of Health.

How can the minister suggest that she is proceeding with long-term care objectives in this province and at the same time be delivering a speech in the Kitchener area that indicates she may have to cut the home care program in that area? How can she do that?

Does she believe in the previous document, Strategies for Change, and what progress has she made? The minister says it is proceeding. That is very nice and that is a flippant answer, but there are a lot of people out there who need this service. It is about time maybe the minister got off her duff and did something.

Hon Ms Gigantes: I am sure the member understands that I can look after my own duff. I do not need his advice. I am glad he raises the question of the quote that was in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, because that was a very mistaken quotation.

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Mr Eves: Why, they all got it wrong.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Yes, the member says the Kitchener-Waterloo Record got it wrong, and in fact the Kitchener-Waterloo Record did get it wrong. It is key to what we are going to be doing in the long-term care program that we are going to be increasing the resources available for community-based programming. We have to build up those resources at the community base so that people can receive service and the support they need to be able to stay in their own homes, they are in supportive housing, and they will not have to be institutionalized at rates which are both unacceptable in terms of their wellbeing and in terms of the financial underpinning of our health programs in this province.

LAND USE PLANNING

Mr Duignan: My question today is to the minister responsible for the greater Toronto area. First of all, let me offer my congratulations to the minister for her recent decision over the initiatives on garbage removal and excluding Halton from that decision.

In the last couple of months I have been contacted by a number of people throughout the region of Halton who are concerned about the quality of life and the future of their community. As the minister knows, there are problems such as urban sprawl, accessible affordable housing, water quality and many concerns about the environment. Can the minister give some indication as to how and when these concerns are going to be addressed by the office of the GTA?

Hon Mrs Grier: I am glad to respond to this question and to say to the member that the issues he raises are going to be addressed both by the office of the GTA and by the region of Halton. The previous government had given financial assistance to the region to undertake a review of its urban structure, and I am delighted to be able to confirm to the House that this government is going to continue that financial assistance.

Last Saturday, I and other members of this House -- the member for Halton North, the member for Halton Centre and the members for Burlington South and Oakville South -- attended portions of a workshop put on in Halton by the chairman, looking at precisely the kinds of issues the member raises. As Halton region embarks on the second stage of its review, I am confident that those issues will be addressed.

Mr Duignan: Again, my question is to the minister responsible for the GTA. Many people in my region are concerned about the future of the regional economy and their ability to find good jobs close to home. Is the issue of how land use planning relates to social-economic planning going to be part of the Halton study or other studies that the office for the GTA is --

Hon Mrs Grier: One of the reasons that I am pleased to continue the support for the planning exercise the region of Halton is doing, is precisely because of the kind of holistic approach to settlement patterns that Halton is taking, looking at the development of the area for the next 20 or 30 years. They are examining the feasibility of a number of growth options and how they can avoid continuation of urban sprawl and development of precious agricultural lands. They are also producing the kind of plan that takes environmental considerations into account and a long-term regional strategy.

The other aspect of their plan, which I hope other regions will follow, is that there is extensive citizen participation. It is the kind of planning structure and review that I know all of the regions in the GTA will need to undertake and that, as the minister responsible for the office of the GTA, I am very happy to support.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Mr Kwinter: I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. During the free trade debate the then Leader of the Opposition, the now Premier, and his party vowed that they would fight the free trade agreement, that if they came into power they would not implement any of the provisions, and in fact they would do anything they could to thwart it. Notwithstanding that, they have already allowed many hundreds of permits for 54-foot trailers to go to the United States.

The Premier recently met with leaders of the Canadian steel industry, and they were complaining that they had a serious problem that could have a severe impact on the economy of Ontario. They found that imports of United States steel into Ontario and into Canada had gone from 6% to 15.1% in one year.

What has happened is that we are under a VRA agreement and we have a situation where -- notwithstanding that I am sure the minister is going to say he has no control over this, that it is federal -- this government, as recently as yesterday when they were discussing free trade with Mexico, said that even though it cannot do anything about it, it was going to intervene. They were going to make alliances with entities in the United States -- which they have not identified -- but that they were going to do it.

The question I have for the minister is: Could he tell me if he is prepared to make representations to the United States on the VRA, and more important, and I really want him to give me a definitive answer, at what level would he suggest that be?

Hon Mr Pilkey: The member for Wilson Heights quite appropriately identifies the fact that I cannot alter the programs or the initiatives of the federal government. There are, of course, many times and many instances that I wish I could. There seems to stem from the opposition benches the fact that they bemoan any criticism or concerns or reality of the federal fact in these situations, and there are many circumstances there which we, as a province, cannot override.

It simply is not just the members of this government suggesting that; those in the House may have recently recognized comments from Doug Peters, who is with the Toronto Dominion Bank, who is our chief economist, who appeared before the finance committee of the House of Commons, who suggested that "the federal government's single-minded attack on inflation will cause high unemployment, more bankruptcies and a stubbornly high federal deficit over the next few years."

He was also joined by Mike McCracken, another well-known economist, who suggested that he agreed that inflation targets by John Crow which have been established to reduce inflation in 1995 by 2% would result in four to five more years of nonsense that we have had in the past decade. I would simply suggest that many of the problems that are facing the steel industry in Ontario, whether it be Algoma Steel or Stelco steel or whichever, emanate from policies enunciated and held by the governor of the Bank of Canada and supported by Michael Wilson, the federal Minister of Finance.

Mr Kwinter: It really is sad that we have a minister who supposedly has responsibility for the economic wellbeing of this province who does not even know what I am talking about. If the minister wants to talk about bafflegab, that response -- I asked him a specific question. I said, "What level of VRA would you recommend?" and he totally ignored that.

Mrs Sullivan: He does not know what it is.

Mr Kwinter: I know that, but Stelco last year lost $197 million; Algoma lost $104 million; Dofasco has had to write down $700 million worth of investment in Algoma. We have not seen their results yet, but it is going to be devastating. It cannot help but be that with the $700-million write-down. We have one of the largest markets in the world to our south and all this minister has to do is get out of his office, go down, talk to the people. l have to say with some regret, and I say this and I am sure all members will join with me, that the leading spokesperson for the steel lobby, Senator John Heinz, was killed in an airplane crash last week, and that is too bad, because he is the man whom, had I been in the minister's position at this time, I would have called on the telephone and said: "We have a problem here. You guys are taking our market and you're not allowing us into your market."

I ask the minister one more time: What level of VRA does he think would be acceptable? I ask the minister not to give me any of this baloney and not to show me that he can read. I want to know whether he can think.

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Hon Mr Pilkey: There are many responses, perhaps, to that, but perhaps I could answer quite simply. I believe that I, and this government, can think to a consequence that perhaps will not lead this party to a defeat in the next election. I hope we can, through the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology, move forward in a variety of circumstances that will result in a more successful conclusion than many that have been left from the previous administration.

GARBAGE DISPOSAL

Mr McLean: My question is for the Minister of the Environment. The minister said the search for a long-term disposal site for GTA garbage will not be conducted outside of the GTA borders. Her announcement would indicate that the Uthoff quarry in Orillia township will no longer be considered as a dumping ground for Metropolitan Toronto's garbage. Will the minister now order Ontario Hydro to abandon plans to dump ash from its coal-fired generating stations at the Uthoff quarry?

Hon Mrs Grier: I am aware in a general sense of the proposal the member raises. I am not, I am afraid, at this point in a position to tell him whether an application has been made for an environmental assessment of that proposal or where it stands within the ministry, but I will be more than happy to find those details and get back to him.

Mr McLean: There are three sites being looked at -- Cayuga, Lincoln and Orillia -- for coal ash to be disposed of at those three sites. The question is: The minister has indicated that the GTA garbage will not be disposed of out of the Metro area. Is the coal ash from the Lakeview generating station classified as garbage, so the answer would be, no, it will not be disposed of? That is the question the community is asking. Can coal ash still come to Uthoff, yes or no? My people would hope the answer is no.

Hon Mrs Grier: The announcement I made with respect to the GTA was specifically directed at this point to municipal solid waste. The issue of coal ash, its designation and the kind of approval process required before a safe disposal site can be obtained for that is done in quite a different way and is a different exercise and a different proposal. I will look into the details and be specific with the member as to where it stands with respect to the Environmental Assessment Act and Environmental Protection Act as soon as I can.

SEASONAL CAMPING TRAILERS

Mr Waters: As a follow-up to my question of 2 April to the Minister of Revenue regarding the Assessment Act and seasonal trailers, I wish to address my question to the Minister of Municipal Affairs. A few days ago the Minister of Revenue pointed out that there were not going to be any changes to the Assessment Act which would affect the taxation of seasonal trailers. However, trailers that have been in the trailer park more than 90 days may be subjected to a permit fee, pending any changes to the Municipal Act. Is it the minister's intention to make changes to the Municipal Act to allow municipalities to apply for a permit fee for these trailers?

Hon Mr Cooke: I appreciate the interest that the member has shown in this matter in discussing this matter with the Minister of Revenue as well as myself. It is obvious that the opposition does not care about this, but most of us have received hundreds of letters over the last number of months about this issue. I want to assure the member that it is not our intention to change any legislation. We intend to, in this area, maintain the status quo, so the member's people can be well assured.

TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION

Mr Ruprecht: I have a question for the Minister of Transportation. As the minister will know, just yesterday the TTC made a significant announcement, namely, that it would severely cut service and employment, which led one important newspaper in Toronto, the Toronto Sun -- do not laugh, please -- to write that this kind of reduction in service is playing Russian roulette with the city's future.

The minister has an important decision to make, whether to increase the funding that his government and his leader and he himself promised throughout their campaign. I will read the promise: "The New Democrats think the provincial share to the TTC should be increased substantially." Will the Minister of Transportation stand in the House today or make an announcement before 12 May that will be specific, a plan that will say to the TTC, "I, as minister, and the government are willing to increase funding so that no one is playing Russian roulette with the city's future"?

Hon Mr Philip: All of us who are concerned about public transportation, including myself, are concerned about the layoffs and the possible effects on ridership. The fact is that this year we have substantially increased our grants to the TTC. The operating grants this year are $108.8 million in subsidy, which is an increase of 8% over last year. That is a substantial increase and is higher than the rate of inflation.

While the Liberals talk about job creation, their deregulation policies in the trucking industry have laid off hundreds of jobs in the transportation industry. They have got some nerve to get up here and talk about jobs in transportation.

Mr Ruprecht: Let me provide the minister with some important statistics that he may or may not be aware of. He realizes, of course, that Wheel-Trans, which comes under the jurisdiction of the TTC, has been rumoured to be going to have a reduction in service there as well, to the point where some disabled persons will not be able to go the doctor or shopping or go to important events. Last year over 8,000 calls which were made to Wheel-Trans were turned down. This month, I remind the House, there will be over 10,000 calls to Wheel-Trans which will not be answered, a reduction in service.

What I want to know is, when the minister says, "We're going to increase," when the minister says, "Oh well, we're going to keep our promise," is he ready to stand today and to tell this House that yes, he will promise that no disabled person is going to be left stranded on the sidewalks of Toronto? Is he going to make the commitment that no disabled person will be left stranded to the point where he cannot go to work, to the hospitals or to shops?

Hon Mr Philip: I have met with the disabled groups, I have met with the TTC, I have met with the representatives of the union which works with the disabled transportation and I can tell the member that we are committed to providing transportation for the disabled not just in Metropolitan Toronto but across the province. I will be making a major announcement in the near future.

I can tell him also, as the member for St Catharines knows, that the Pelee Island ferry, which the Liberal Transportation critic wanted to be built in the United States, will be accessible to the disabled as well.

JOB SECURITY

Mr Sterling: I have a question of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. I understand that Boeing has now sold its Canadian de Havilland branch to a European interest. What are the minister and his government doing to ensure that jobs are safe and the research and development which has been undertaken by de Havilland will remain in Ontario and in Canada?

Hon Mr Pilkey: We are, of course, quite interested in having de Havilland remain as a fully integrated company, complete with research and development facilities, here in our Ontario. The agreement has been inked today, apparently, between Boeing, de Havilland and the Aeritalia-Aerospatiale consortium.

I have contacted Benoît Bouchard's office this morning to ask for a meeting with him immediately, so that we might go over the details of this offer. We have also invited the consortium to present itself at a meeting in front of the task force, which is chaired by Tim Armstrong, the deputy minister in my ministry, to review this particular circumstance. I can assure the member of our continuing interest to try to find a solution to the circumstances that will not allow a tremendous amount of unemployment at de Havilland, and will maintain a viable company to help assure the suppliers that produce product to de Havilland.

This item, of course, will go to Investment Canada, where it properly belongs. My ministry and myself will have that circumstance to be allowed to comment and I can assure the member we will do so in the interest of Ontario workers.

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Mr Sterling: While this sale has evidently been finalized today, it has been known for some period of time that Boeing was interested in selling its interest in de Havilland. The minister has been in charge of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology for the past seven months and his government has been there for a period of time. Can he tell me, in view of the fact that there was widespread public opinion that our aircraft industry was having a difficult time being competitive in producing aircraft and undertaking research and development in our country and in our province, what steps had he taken prior to the signing of this agreement to encourage the competitiveness of our aircraft industry in Ontario? What positive steps has he taken over the past seven months to ensure that those jobs will stay there now that the ink has been signed on the dotted line? What steps has he taken to make certain that the research and development will remain here? I want to know what he has already done, besides contacting Benoît Bouchard today. What has he done in the last six or seven months?

Hon Mr Pilkey: This industry is not owned by the government of Ontario. We have a circumstance where we have a privately owned company, Boeing, which took over de Havilland some years ago. I understand that the productivity of that particular plant has in fact been increasing. Boeing took a decision as a private company to sell that enterprise. As they cast around the world for a purchaser, they came up with Aerospatiale and Aeritalia.

On hearing of the concern as to what this consortium may wish to do to de Havilland in terms of reduced employment levels and shifting supplier bases, we involved ourselves, on a voluntary basis in trying to protect Ontario jobs and Ontario interests. We have continued to do that by way of our task force and through the federal government and any other way we can to ensure our interests. We will continue to do that. We will be made aware of the details of this filing with Investment Canada within the very near future and will try to involve ourselves, as I said before, in Ontario's interests.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

TIME ALLOCATION

Miss Martel moved resolution 16:

That, notwithstanding any standing order or special order of the House, in relation to Bill 4, An Act to amend the Residential Rent Regulation Act, 1986, one sessional day shall be allotted to further consideration of the bill in the committee of the whole House. All amendments proposed to be moved to the bill shall be filed with the Clerk of the assembly by 4 pm on the sessional day on which the bill is considered in the committee of the whole House following the passage of this motion. Any divisions required during clause-by-clause consideration of the bill in the committee of the whole House shall be deferred until following 5:45 pm on this sessional day. At 5:45 pm on this sessional day, those amendments which have not yet been moved shall be deemed to have been moved and the Chair of the committee of the whole House shall interrupt the proceedings and shall, without further debate or amendment, put every question necessary to dispose of all remaining sections of the bill and any amendments thereto and report the bill to the House. Any divisions required shall be deferred until all remaining questions have been put, the members called in once and all deferred divisions taken in succession.

That upon receiving the report of the committee of the whole House, the Speaker shall put the question for adoption of the report forthwith, which question shall be decided without debate or amendment. No deferral of any required divisions shall be permitted.

That one further sessional day shall be allotted to the third reading stage of the bill. At 5:45 pm on such day, the Speaker shall interrupt the proceedings and shall put every question necessary to dispose of this stage of the bill without further debate or amendment. No deferral of any required division shall be permitted.

That in the case of any division relating to any proceedings on the bill, the division bell shall be limited to five minutes.

Mr Nixon: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I would like to bring to your attention that this time allocation motion, much to the surprise of those of us who have heard the NDP talk about these matters in the past, has been put forward with the minimum of notice possible under the rules. There was a time, Mr Speaker, which you may recall, when it was necessary for such an indication and notice to be in the Orders and Notices so that it could be read by the members of the House a full day before the government of the day brought forward the motion, which is a very sensitive and important one, one of particular importance in the democratic process, so that the members could review it before the matter came forward for debate.

Under our rules presently, sir, you will know and will have been informed, as I have been, that it is appropriate for such a notice to be laid upon the table before 5 pm the day previous. It disappears into the maw of the Clerkship and into the printing process and appears on the members' desks when an appropriate time is found, so that the members coming to the House see it on the order paper for the very first time.

Hon Mr Hampton: Who instigated these rules?

Mr Nixon: I gather the member's party did.

It might have been appropriate if the House leader had indicated to the other two parties what her intention was. Maybe she was just informed that was her intention a few minutes before 5 and simply went on about her business.

But I would say to you, Mr Speaker, that although I cannot bring to your attention that this is improper and inappropriate under our rules as they are and as they have been changed since you and I first had these matters brought to our attention, still it seems to me that in the interests of fairness, it would be appropriate if the government allowed the notice to be on the order paper one day so that members of all parties, but particularly the opposition parties, could look at it and get over their surprise that the NDP is resorting to time allocation and closure, something that they have deeply criticized both in this jurisdiction and elsewhere across Canada as something that was inappropriate and undemocratic. Then if the government, in its lack of wisdom, decided to proceed, at least the opposition parties would have had a chance to digest the complexity of this motion, look at the precedents and be prepared to undertake an appropriate discussion as will eventually ensue.

My real argument, sir, is that in looking after the basic rights of the members of this House and recognizing what I have already said about the rules -- I hope you agree with that -- this surely should be postponed at least another 24 hours for simply the decency of giving the honourable members of this House an indication to prepare for an important discussion that is based on this really surprising initiative taken by the New Democrats.

The Speaker: Do any other members wish to comment on the point of order?

Mr Elston: I do. Surely one of the points that has to be considered, along with that of surprise which has ultimately come to afflict all of us, in the fact that it has prevented us from properly preparing for the debate which is being requested for today, is the element about the abuse that is being heaped upon the minority within this Legislative Assembly.

It is an argument which is often and most fully advanced, I guess, by opposition parties in a House which is dominated by the governing party's majority. In this situation it is quite clear that there has been very little time spent in this Legislative Assembly, in committee of the whole House, dealing with Bill 4, and in fact there was some difficulty in dealing with this issue even in committee, bearing in mind the material which was provided ably by the member for Dufferin-Peel and his question today to the leader of the New Democrats, the Premier, who ducked the question, who refused to answer on behalf of the government why it was that he was prepared to trample upon the rights of the members to express their concern, their apprehensions about the bill.

In some ways, it also prevents them from telling the public about some of the parts of the bill which they find acceptable. There are parts in here which are not to be condemned, but there are things that can be improved upon in a way and a manner the public appreciates and expects the members to appreciate, in a way that would make this bill more workable and a better piece of legislation for the province as a whole.

We do have a role and a task here of putting the case to the contrary point where we see that there are problems with abuse, where there are problems with a taking away of the rights and the abilities of citizens of the province in a manner which must be demonstrated is open and available to the members when they see it occurring. We have to be able to put those points and we have to be able to do it on each section of the bill as it is being observed.

I do not want to interrupt your discussions with the Clerk, Mr Speaker. I am prepared to wait until you are finished. Can I --

The Speaker: Yes. I was listening.

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Mr Elston: I am sorry, I did not think you were. You were in consultation with the Clerk and I --

Interjection.

Mr Elston: Okay. This particular matter, Mr Speaker, is fully within your hands at this very moment. The point of order is with respect to the manner in which the members can prosecute their duties and obligations to their constituents, and indeed prosecute even a bigger duty, which is to the public of the province as a whole. There are certain things a member must stand in his or her place to deal with which transcend the duties that are dependent only upon his physical constituency. There are certain ways of doing business in this province which must be protected, there are certain ways in which the culture of this democratic society of ours must be upheld by the members, and when we see it necessary to speak out against it, we must fully speak out against it.

We are surprised that this event is occurring today. It could have been that while the Clerk's table accepted this motion, this resolution, from the House leader of the government party last night, the government House leader might very well have given us notice at the same time. It would have been no very big problem logistically to send a note to the leader of the third party or the leader of the official opposition or the House leader from the third party or the House leader from the official opposition to say, "Today, so that you will not be surprised and not be prevented from preparing your arguments with respect to the motion, we have laid on the table a resolution which will implement a process" described as the guillotine.

The guillotine is the most ruthless measure available to a majority government in this Parliament. It is the most final of all options available. It is the most unacceptable to the democratic process which we represent.

I agree that there are times when governments must proceed to do business. There is no question that they cannot be held up and hijacked by the minority. That business must be prosecuted goes without saying. I myself was in a position where many days were spent listening to the reading of telephone numbers by the member for Welland-Thorold. That member, now having departed from his cabinet post, I am sure will want to read some more telephone numbers when we deal with the government's version of its new insurance legislation. That will come another day.

But for today, it is enough for you to know, Mr Speaker, that while the Clerk received notice and while you received notice and while the government House leader had notice and her minister had notice and her Premier knew and the people who are members of the majority party knew, and perhaps even the independent member, although I suspect not, knew that this guillotine would be dropped upon the heads of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, we did not know and we could not prepare adequately enough to defend ourselves and also to defend the rights of the people, who expect good representation in this Parliament. If we are unable to prepare ourselves with precedent, with searching after the answers we seek as to why these people are able to proceed with this, then our debate will have been prevented from having been fully prosecuted.

I do not like that. But it does not matter whether I like it. It matters, Mr Speaker, that you, dealing evenhandedly, are able to stand in your place and say that there has been a fairness demonstrated in the way in which this debate has taken place to this point.

First of all, there was surprise, an attack in the night, as it were, a surprise for the morning. I must say that Mr Dee, who is a member of the House leader's staff, provided me with a copy of this at his first opportunity, which I think was about 10 minutes after 9 this morning, which was sooner than I would have gotten it otherwise, because it would have come to my office only by notice on Orders and Notices, I think around 10:30. He made the trip to my office at that earlier hour, but even that meant we were precluded from starting our search for precedent and other things which we could have worked at last evening and early this morning.

While it is important for you to know about the surprise element, it is important for you also to rule, Mr Speaker, about whether it is in order to jeopardize the rights of the minority.

This has not been here that long. This committee of the whole House discussion has not been going on very long.

An hon member: Three days.

Mr Elston: Three days.

Hon Miss Martel: Four.

Mr Elston: Well, the House leader from the government says four days. Four days, and there are important issues at stake for this society. The issue of expropriation is a matter on which some people would express their concerns about this particular bill. Is it fair, is it just that the views of the minority in this Parliament with respect to that important issue are held and prevented from being made openly in front of the people of the province?

My answer, of course, is no, that it is not fair in a society that sets up very, very long hearing processes to deal with expropriation of people's rights in other forums. It goes without saying, then, that this sort of bill presents itself as an interesting divergence from what has been traditionally the practice in the province of Ontario. To underscore that, it is necessary that we have our time on those clauses which point to an expropriation of people's rights. That is clear.

The issue of retroactivity is important for a lot of us who deal in the law and who deal in the law in so many other areas. We have always sought not to pass legislation in this House which had a retroactive effect. This one has such effect.

Sometimes we are pleased enough to introduce legislation that would say it comes into effect on the day it is first introduced; ie, if I introduced a bill for first reading on 1 October 1990, I might very well say, "This bill will come into force and effect as of 1 October." We do not see that as necessarily as difficult to deal with, because everybody has notice of the regime that is about to take place and we discuss the bill in the fullness of time and it will take effect on 1 October unless there is an amendment.

But when you deal with legislation that says, "We're introducing it today to take effect six months before," and people's affairs have been arranged in such a manner as to deal with the current legislative scheme and to comply with the rigid necessities of the legal framework of our land, then we say that creates a problem.

So it is necessary that the minority in this Parliament that stands with respect to the retroactivity of this legislation be allowed to take its place and speak openly against those clauses and to provide some kind of alternative to those clauses, because we respect the tradition of our society in that regard.

Those are two items.

We might want to also talk about the issues which affect agreements as between tenants and landlords, where people have come together to say, "This should happen with the building that we are associated with." This bill, of course, goes against those contractual agreements as well, because there is a very solid and firm set of principles set. This violates the principle of contract. Tradition in the province of Ontario has been a respect for contracts, and the minority should be able to speak to those clauses that prevent the fullness of contractual arrangements from being dealt with. It is an abuse of the rights of the members here not even to get to those clauses to express that concern.

I see you getting uneasy, Mr Speaker. You perhaps feel that I am going on too long in underscoring the problems which are associated with the traditions --

The Speaker: To the member for Bruce, it is not the length of time, but I would remind the member that the point of order which was raised was with respect to the notice provision of the time allocation. I very much would appreciate contributions by members to assist the Speaker in reaching a determination about whether this motion should go forward, and I would appreciate you addressing that subject.

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Mr Elston: Mr Speaker, I was just outlining some of the areas in which the minority in this Parliament wish to put their case, because we are charged with the obligation to deal with the changes this bill puts on our social and cultural context in this province. I was just going through those three very simple examples, very outstanding examples, of where we and our rights are being trampled upon by the government that refuses to let us talk to those. That was how I was dealing with the entire issue.

I will revisit my remarks, as I am sure you will when you consider this, but I really want to assure you, Mr Speaker, that there is real and legitimate work to be done on this legislation, and it must not be curtailed to the point where we have but one more day in committee of the whole House to study all of those clauses and one more day to deal with it on third reading, when there is an impossibility of receiving the answers that are required from the Minister of Housing and from his able assistant.

I agree with the Minister of Housing. I watched his parliamentary assistant yesterday performing here in the House and I noticed a desire on her part to do some real work on this bill and in fact to help process some changes into this legislation in a manner that would make it more fair. I have read some of her remarks; I listened to some of her remarks.

But surely if we are unable to put the case to the parliamentary assistant, knowing full well the Minister of Housing is not interested in listening, knowing full well that we are unable to put the case, how is it that she is able to react to our intentions to make this bill work better, to make it work more fairly, and how are our rights and obligations to be protected?

When we get into this debate a little more fully and the substantive issues surrounding the merits of this motion, I will tell you, Mr Speaker, about the number of days and hours and minutes which passed in other legislative crusades, and I will let you be the judge later on, and the public, about how quickly this government has moved to curtail the free voice of the minority in this Parliament.

That will come later, but it is enough for you now, I think, to deal with the issue of surprise and the issue of notice, which allows for preparation -- that is key -- and then also to deal with the issue of whether or not the people who are members of my caucus and the people who are members of the third party caucus have been able and amply able to put their points of view on the various clauses -- not just one clause or two clauses -- and whether or not this guillotine motion, which is the most severe in our Parliament, can be used at this time.

If perhaps you think we should move much more quickly, maybe you would agree that there are other options open. That is not what this government is about. It is their way or the doorway, obviously. I think that you, as a fair-minded individual, Mr Speaker, I know once a member of that caucus but now removed from the despoiling effects of continual chatter around a caucus table, will know much better about fairness and about the need to protect the rights of myself to put the case, just as you need to protect the rights of the others on this side. I know that there are a couple or three people over on the other side of the House who, if they had a chance, would be willing enough to speak but who know what happens to people in the New Democratic Party if they speak out of turn and out of tune.

Mr Stockwell: What about Dr Henderson?

Mr Elston: The member for Etobicoke-Humber spoke his will with respect to our legislation and is still with us and is very active and participates fully in our caucus. The member for Etobicoke West knows that. The member for Etobicoke West is of course showing the difference between the Liberal Party and the New Democrats. The member for Etobicoke-Humber is still with us in his capacity, and became a parliamentary assistant. The member for Welland-Thorold was on his way out the door when he spoke out of tune. I just wanted to bring that to the attention of my friend from Etobicoke, who is an extremely able and otherwise intelligent individual but who sometimes forgets from whence the real facts have arisen.

I think, Mr Speaker, I will stop there, because I may have been about as much help as I can be to you, although we will see by the results of my remarks whether or not I have provided enough assistance. I am certainly open to any other requests from yourself or any other member of the House to provide my views on how fair or unfair this is. I just ask you, let us have some time to fairly prepare our case.

Mr Sterling: I do not want to be long in terms of supporting the point of order in terms of dealing with the notice of motion, but perhaps it points to a weakness in the standing orders in terms of what happens after the notice is given to the Clerk or filed with the Clerk. Is the first time we see it as members of the Legislature the next day, when something comes across our desks, or we receive a phone call from a House leader, or whatever it might be? I think it has to be taken somewhat seriously in that view.

The actual section says, "All notices required by the standing orders of the House or otherwise shall be laid on the table or filed with the Clerk of the House before 5 pm and printed on the Orders and Notices paper for the following day." I think this probably leaves the table in a bit of a predicament. When they have received this at 5 pm the day before, they do not know whether they are obligated or whether it is within their mandate to go to the opposition benches and say, "This has been or not done." I would suggest, in spite of the ruling you might make, that perhaps the Speaker be required under this section to give notice if the House is sitting on that particular day, or that the Speaker give notice to the other -- well, we would have to be sitting that day if in fact it was going to be done the next day. I think the Speaker should give notice to perhaps the House leaders that it has been filed with him, if he or she is for some reason unable to give notice within the Legislature by 6 pm that evening that this has been filed.

I want to indicate that my colleague the member for Parry Sound also has a point of order, unrelated to the one brought forward by the opposition, with regard to whether or not this motion is in order, and he would like to speak to that after you have disposed of this matter.

Mrs Y. O'Neill: The point of order presented this morning certainly did take me by surprise. Open government -- empty words; guillotine -- it is not a very good fit, and that is what went through my head. I take this motion as being arrogant. It is a sad commentary on what I know and many know as a bad bill. It is an abuse of majority government. We are limiting debate on a bill that is not fair. It is retroactive. It has had incomplete public hearings. More people have been turned away from expressing a viewpoint on this bill than were received, and in every instance this bill is controversial. It has been the focus of two major marches to this Legislature, the only bill that has received that kind of attention in this province, so we are shooting down debate from the floor of this Legislature, while we are still listening to and discussing the very first amendment presented by my party. I feel this is an infringement of my rights as a member of this Legislature. The NDP government is acting exactly like the Mulroney government, "It is either our way or the byway."

The Speaker: Any other members who wish to be of assistance on this matter? No? Did the government House leader wish to contribute anything to this?

Hon Miss Martel: I would like to speak last on behalf of the government, and I am not sure if the --

The Speaker: No other members have offered to speak.

Mr Eves: I have a different one.

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Hon Miss Martel: A different matter? Then I will make a number of points with respect to the comments I have heard thus far, and members can use these in their deliberations.

The member for Brant-Haldimand has said that the real argument here is the question that surely this matter should be postponed, because in fact the opposition members did not have a chance to see this until this morning and it came as an utter surprise to them.

Let me respond in as frank a manner as I can. That is really hard to believe. The fact of the matter is that last Thursday I made it very clear to the House leaders that I would like to know when we could finish with this matter. I felt, and I said very clearly to both parties, that a great deal of time had been spent, that it was my opinion as government that we had had the fullest debate we were going to have and when they thought they were going to finish.

It was clearly told to me that the government would have to do what the government had to do. That was a pretty clear signal to me, and I think everyone around the table understood what that meant. What it meant very clearly was that the issue would be forced and we would have to bring in a time allocation motion.

I know, for example, that the Liberals sat here on Thursday night because they expected I might even get up and move that we sit beyond 6 o'clock, as was done to my colleague the member for Welland-Thorold some time ago. So there is no doubt in my mind that people were very much aware this was coming. I have the greatest faith that Liberal research, in very short order, could gather enough information to come into this Legislature and place its points with respect to points of order.

I see that the member for Parry Sound came into this assembly this afternoon and had comments from the former House leader for our party, who is now the Minister of Housing. His research staff certainly had enough time to take a look at the motion and respond to it. He came here today and used comments we had made in order to place his question.

Second, I think if we were really going to be frank -- and I am trying to be as frank as possible -- it is a little hard for me to accept that this was a total surprise and that we have never seen anything like it. If the truth were told, we copied the Liberal motions for time allocation and that is what we have presented here. So this is nothing new to the opposition parties. This is nothing we have not seen before. This is something that members are certainly very much aware of and knew was coming. I find it hard seriously to stand here and accept that either they did not have enough time, did not know it was coming, or the research staff were not competent enough to get something together in four hours this morning, which I am sure they are. So I cannot understand this.

Mr Speaker, I have to say to you that in my humble opinion, we did meet the standing orders. We have provided the notice of motion within the time allotted under the rules of this House, and we were in fact in under that deadline. There was no doubt in my mind that everyone knew this was coming. It was made very clear to people last Thursday; they had the utmost time to prepare, and I again point to the member for Parry Sound who did have time to prepare on this particular motion.

I want to say that in fact we are not making any progress on this particular matter. The member for Bruce stated that yesterday the parliamentary assistant for the minister was very progressive and progress was made on this bill yesterday afternoon. The parliamentary assistant has said clearly to me, "We didn't even get through an amendment yesterday afternoon," and that was day four of this debate.

So I say to you, Mr Speaker, that we put the notice in under the deadline with respect to the standing orders. People were very much aware this was coming. I have no doubt the research departments on both sides could have put something together. They could only have gone back, as we did, and looked at the three other debates we had in the last Parliament and got their arguments from there.

Mr Speaker, I submit to you that we should proceed with this motion. It is in order and we would like to get going on it.

Mr Mancini: We are not very happy with what the government is trying to do. This matter was referred to the standing committee on general government late last fall. We were told at the standing committee to make up a schedule for hearings. As Chairman, I presented a schedule to the committee for approval which was approved at the time and then changed. Then the government's green paper got involved with Bill 4 and needless to say, the time we thought we were going to get in committee we did not get because we were given two jobs to do instead of one. We co-operated with the minister and with the House leader's office, because they said their green paper was of vital importance.

The reason I am making this point, Mr Speaker, is to show you that we did not get all of the time we thought we were going to get in committee. This is a major piece of legislation that deals with the issue of retroactivity. Retroactivity from Bill 4 is going to bankrupt thousands of people who undertook repairs to their buildings when it was legal to do so.

Today we have a situation here in the House where we were not only denied the opportunity to hear everyone who wanted to be heard in committee, but now we are denying the members themselves the right to be heard in the Legislature. Mr Speaker, my case to you is that we have consistently been cut back on our time for this important legislation, not only here in the House but in the committee, so there is a pattern that has developed around Bill 4.

All we want from the government is an opportunity to properly debate a bill which is affecting thousands of Ontario citizens, many of them adversely. What the government is trying to do is unfair. It goes directly against everything it said prior to 6 September last. We heard quotes today from the honourable minister when he was the House leader of the official opposition and how he felt about closure, and I submit to you, Mr Speaker, because we did not get our time in committee, because we are not getting our time now, that the motion the government has put forward is in fact an injustice and goes against the opportunity of all members of the Legislature, particularly the members of the opposition who have a great deal to say and who have a great responsibility to bring the other point of view to the government.

The Speaker: The matter before the House is a substantive one and I take quite seriously the point of order raised by the Leader of the Opposition. The very reasoned argument that was presented is one that causes me some concern. I appreciated the contribution by the member for Bruce and of course the member for Carleton, as well as the government House leader. I will take this matter under advisement. I will report back to you tomorrow.

Mr Eves: A point of order, Mr Speaker. I have another point of order to make on the same government notice of motion. My point of order is based on the fact that I would ask you to look into whether the government notice of motion infringes upon the rights of the minority in the Legislature. I would refer you to page 1 of Erskine May, which is always a good place to start.

Mr Nixon: Page 1?

Mr Eves: Page 1. Some people do not want to start on page 1, but I prefer to start on page 1. It is a long book and this may take a long time; I am not sure.

Erskine May says on page 1, "the purpose of many of the rules is to safeguard the rights of a minority of the House: to guard against the development of an 'elective dictatorship' which some have predicted." It goes on to say further on page 1, "Above all, the balance between the right of governments to obtain their business and the right of the House as a whole to examine it...is maintained through the discretionary powers given to the Speaker."

Chapter 19 in Erskine May at page 400 says that closure and time allocation motions, often referred to as guillotine motions, "are felt to be an unfortunate necessity and to be justified only by the pressure of business or to counteract obstruction." On page 406 Erskine May says, "The intervention of the Chair regarding closure is restricted to occasions when the motion is made in abuse of the rules of the House, or infringes the rights of the minority." It is this infringement of the rights of the minority upon which I am speaking here this afternoon.

On page 410 Erskine May says, "An allocation of time order is not usually moved until after the second reading of a bill, and usually not until the rate of progress in committee has provided an argument for its necessity." I do not think the government can make that argument very well in the case of this particular piece of legislation, Bill 4.

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I am looking at several other pieces of legislation that have received time allocation treatment in this Legislature over the years. While the government House leader points out that there was some time on four separate sessional days spent on Bill 4 in committee of the whole, the total up to today, I believe, in committee of the whole in this Legislature is 10 hours and 33 minutes. I do not think that is a great or inordinate amount of time on a very significant retroactive piece of legislation in the province of Ontario.

The total time in the House, the time for second reading debate on this significant piece of legislation, was only some eight hours and 36 minutes. That means that the total time we have spent in the House on second reading debate and committee of the whole combined is just over 19 hours; 19 hours and six minutes, to be exact.

When you compare that, for example, to the Bill 94 debate which took place in this Legislature in 1986, second reading debate alone, Mr Speaker, was 36 1/2 hours, almost twice as much as the total combined times of this piece of legislation. Debate in committee of the whole on Bill 94 was 26 hours, as compared to 10 that we had with respect to this piece of legislation before us here today, of which, of course, this time allocation motion is the subject. Bill 4 is referred to and being dealt with by the time allocation motion before us today.

I think that your role as Speaker, with all due respect, Mr Speaker, is to make sure of the balance between the right of government to obtain its business and the rights of the minority. If the government can demonstrate that the opposition has been unduly obstructionist, that we have spent an inordinate amount of time on this piece of legislation, then I would quite agree that the time allocation motion as presented should go forward. However, I do not think that is the case here.

We have spent just a little over 10 hours in committee of the whole, and we have spent only eight hours in second reading debate. When you compare that to the time that was spent on Bill 94 debate, for example, in either one of those stages, the amount is about a third. I do not think we are asking much as a minority in the Legislature, to stand up and offer some constructive criticism, and in this case amendments, to a piece of legislation that we think is very seriously flawed and takes away some people's rights in the province of Ontario. Not only that, it does it retroactively to boot.

Beauchesne says that the principle that lies at the basis of English parliamentary law is to protect the minority and to restrain the improvidence or tyranny of the majority. Beauchesne goes on to say that privilege is the sum of peculiar rights enjoyed by the House and by members individually, without which they could not discharge their function.

As I have said, a very significant number of amendments have to be put with respect to this piece of legislation in committee of the whole. I believe we have only discussed two or three amendments to date. I know, speaking on behalf of our caucus, that we have not been able to introduce our amendment with respect to the retroactivity part of this significant piece of legislation. That is a very significant, perhaps the most significant, part of this legislation indeed, because it retroactively reaches back and takes away some people's rights in the province of Ontario. I think we should not move as legislators to do that except under the most unusual circumstances indeed, if ever.

The government House leader talks about whether the other two parties, and in this case the opposition parties, were surprised by the time allocation motion that she has presented here today. She relates to last Thursday's House leaders' meeting, in which she indicated that she asked whether we could be through committee-of-the-whole stage by this past Monday, two days ago. She is quite correct when she says the retort that she got from the opposition was that no, we did not think we could finish committee of the whole by Monday. This is a very significant piece of legislation. There are many amendments that have to be brought forward. There is no way that those amendments could have all been dealt with by 6 o'clock this past Monday, two days ago.

What the government House leader did not relate to the other members is that at the same House leaders' meeting, the House leaders, all three of them, agreed -- in fact it was at the request, as I recall, of the government House leader -- that yesterday, Tuesday, be spent on very important and significant Attorney General pieces of legislation that had to be dealt with.

I indicated on behalf of our caucus that we had not caucused these bills yet, that we would be happy to do so on Tuesday morning so that we could accommodate the government and accommodate the Attorney General and proceed with those pieces of legislation. That is exactly what we did, only to be finally told by the government House leader's office around noon -- there had been earlier discussions during the morning -- that unfortunately the agreement we had, that the government House leader requested, that we deal with the important pieces of legislation the Attorney General had, was going to be put on the back burner so we could do committee of the whole on Bill 4 yesterday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon.

Now I think we find out that the only purpose for that request was to give some cannon fodder to the government House leader to introduce the time allocation motion on Wednesday. I think that was the only purpose whatsoever in requesting that the important Attorney General's bills, which the government House leader had requested be dealt with, were all of a sudden now not so important after all.

One might almost think that the Minister of Housing had more to do with the ordering of the government business yesterday afternoon than the government House leader did. I think the Minister of Housing probably had some influence on his House leader and wanted to get on with the messy business of introducing time allocation or closure in the Ontario Legislature.

I find that to be rather unusual indeed, especially in light of the individual from whence it is coming -- the Minister of Housing, who of course used to be for a significant number of years the House leader for the New Democratic Party when it was in opposition. I must say that I have every faith in the Minister of Housing's ability as a House leader. He was in fact a very good one. I think it may help you in your deliberations to hear what he thinks about time allocation motions and their place in the Ontario Legislature, because on 3 April 1990, almost a year ago to the day -- we only miss by a week -- the Minister of Housing, when he was government House leader, stood in this place and said, "I would suggest" --

Hon Mr Cooke: I was not government House leader.

Mr Eves: House leader, sorry. "I would suggest" time allocation "is incredibly unfair. It will result in the process not holding the government accountable." He went on to say on the same day that, "this government, the majority party in here, is prepared to do anything to the standing orders in order to get its legislation through, even if it means changing the routine proceedings that we normally go through."

On the same day, in the Bill 68 auto insurance debate, which is where these quotes come from, the Minister of Housing was talking about what would be the appropriate time, if he ever had to introduce the time allocation motion, how much time did he think would be reasonable before he had to bring it in.

In this case he was talking about a filibuster during one stage of the bill. The government House leader has just told us that parts of four days have been spent in committee of the whole. Well, she is sitting across the aisle from the Minister of Housing. He thought a year ago today almost, "If the member thinks five days is a filibuster, then he has got something to learn about proper procedures and the role of opposition parties in dealing with controversial items like this."

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The Minister of Housing thinks that five days is not anywhere near enough time to start introducing time allocation motions for one stage of the bill, and now we have his government House leader standing up saying: "We have spent parts of four days on this, and we have got to get on with it. We need closure or time allocation to deal with this piece of legislation."

It might also help the Speaker -- although I am not suggesting for a moment that the Speaker may be influenced by what the Premier of the province thinks -- to know what the Premier thinks about time allocation motions.

From 8 December 1982, shortly after he arrived here, as I recall, a quote from the Premier during a time allocation debate: "It is not, I believe, open to the government to move a motion of closure unless it has the specific authority to do so from the standing orders of the Legislative Assembly. It does not have that authority. There is no mention anywhere in the standing orders about the allocation of time, and the government does not have the authority to move that kind of motion."

Well, I guess the Premier of the day, who was then the Leader of the Opposition, could use that same rationale and those same words to speak out against his own party's time allocation motion here in the Legislature of Ontario this afternoon. Presumably his principles and his commitment to the democratic process have not changed, and presumably he still thinks that time allocation has absolutely no place in parliamentary democracy or in the Legislature of Ontario. I am talking about the Premier.

On 13 July 1989, another piece of legislation to which the current Minister of Housing, the then House leader for his party, objected: This time allocation motion, if you peruse it, has reference to deeming amendments that have not been able to get on the floor during the time prescribed in the time allocation motion, deeming them to have been moved and passed anyway. In other words, they do not even get discussed. They do not even get on the floor. They are just tabled, if somebody wants to table them, and they are deemed to have been dealt with.

I want to read to you some advice from the current Minister of Housing, who says: "The Speaker must consider what this precedent would mean to the future of the Ontario Legislature. Deeming that amendments have been moved when they have not been moved makes a complete farce of the legislative process. Deeming that amendments have been moved when they have not been moved or debated destroys completely the role of the opposition and any accountability the government has to the members of the Legislature."

That is what the Minister of Housing thought about these deeming provisions in the time allocation motion on 13 July 1989. He did not think it had any place whatsoever. He thought it was most inappropriate in the Ontario Legislature that anybody would even think of such a motion being introduced.

I could go on at some length with quotes about what the current Minister of Housing and former House leader, and indeed the Premier of the province, think or have thought in the past about time allocation and closure motions, but I think I will spare both yourself and the other members as well as members of the public from reading all these quotes. Suffice it to say that the message is the same. They felt very strongly, always have felt very strongly, until today, that time allocation and closure have absolutely, under any circumstances, no place on the floor of the Ontario Legislature.

They have always thought that. Oh, except for, perhaps -- now, what debate was that? Bill 94, if my memory serves me correctly, was the only time they thought it was appropriate, when second reading debate was 36.5 hours and committee of the whole debate was 26 hours. We have not even got a third of the way there yet in either category, so I would ask you to take that under advisement as well, Mr Speaker.

There may be times, quite frankly, when time allocation and closure are appropriate, but what I am suggesting to you is that this is not one of them; that this motion is somewhat premature and by being somewhat premature and not permitting members of the Legislative Assembly to raise their amendments in committee of the whole, in fact this motion is infringing upon the rights of the minority of the members of this place. So I would ask you to consider very carefully before you rule this time allocation motion to be in order, because I think it does strike right to the very roots of our parliamentary democracy.

Ms Poole: I would like to support the very eloquent words of the Conservative House leader on the infringement of the rights of the minority. That is what the government is doing with this motion, and I support the Conservative House leader in his argument that that motion is out of order because it does infringe on the rights of the minority.

The NDP has set a very dangerous precedent with Bill 4 as to how the government intends to operate. Their infringement on the rights of the minority did not start with this closure motion; it started with their whole conduct in Bill 4. Eleven and a half days in committee, despite a number of motions supported by the Conservative and Liberal parties to extend hearings so that the rights of the people of this province would be protected; they did not listen.

I cannot believe the arrogance in their saying, "Yes, there are 150 people on the waiting list, but no, we are not willing as a government, we are not willing as a Legislature to listen to them." Those people were the minority, but their rights were abused, and now it continues with this closure motion. If I can paraphrase a quite famous saying by Patrick Henry, he said, "I may not agree with what you are saying, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." That is something --

Interjection.

Ms Poole: My colleague has just said that was Voltaire.

Mr Sola: A questionable source.

Interjection.

Ms Poole: But my colleague from Oakville has said I am right, so rather than get distracted in this debate over whether Patrick -- the Speaker has upheld my ruling. It was Patrick Henry who said it. Sorry, I say to the former Attorney General.

Mr Scott: First mistake I made since I came here.

Ms Poole: I think that is taking away somewhat from my point, which was that we do not necessarily have to agree with the points that a person or a group is making in order to support its right to put forward its position, and that is what I say to members today. I am disappointed that the Minister of Housing has not stayed for this debate.

Hon Miss Martel: He is right there.

Ms Poole: He is right there somewhere, somebody said.

Mr Sola: He's talking to the opposition, the third party.

Ms Poole: He is over here talking on the opposition side. Perhaps he is crossing the floor. He too cannot tolerate this closure motion because he knows it infringes on the rights of the minority. It was somewhat strange that a year ago the Minister of Housing, who was opposition House leader at the time, had quite an eloquent statement on closure and on the rights of the minority. On 3 April 1990, the same date that was quoted by the Conservative House leader, he said:

"Clearly, the government wants to shut down debate on this bill for political reasons. It is up to the Speaker to protect the rights of the opposition parties to have proper debate on controversial items that are before the public. They are using their majority to muzzle the opposition. There is no other way of describing it, Mr Speaker."

This was the Minister of Housing just one scant year ago, when he was opposition House leader. My, the times have changed, because that was then and this is now.

Then on 3 January 1989 when he was talking about closure on Sunday shopping the minister said: "Time allocation, I think it is a sad commentary on this government. It is a sad commentary on a majority that is more and more removed from the people of this province."

He went on to say: "I think what this government has done is use its majority to force these bills on an unwilling Legislature, which is very clear. But more important than the Legislature, the government is using its majority to force these bills on an unwilling public."

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Again, it comes down to a matter of trampling on the rights of the minority, and this from a government that was elected on a promise to be consultative, to be open, to be accessible, all these fine things. The Solicitor General today, the member for Cambridge, once upon a time believed that this was important. Back in January 1989, he said, "Why would the government force closure?" It is an interesting question, especially for a government that wants to be perceived as open and accessible, that campaigned on the premise that it was open and accessible. Why would this government call for closure?

I am afraid those words from two years ago can be brought forward again today. They can be brought forward today but with far more justification in 1989 than today because in 1989 we were talking about the issue of Sunday shopping. In 1989 Sunday shopping had been before the committee for six months -- 50 days of discussion in committee; 50 days, six months, plus all the debate in the House on Sunday shopping. But members cannot say that is true today. Eleven and a half days in committee and public hearings: That is what they offered us, and now they say: "I'm sorry, you have one day, only one day, in which to put forward all your amendments. No debate, no discussion, get them on there and at the end of the day those amendments will be deemed to be passed."

I find, as a member of this House, that that is totally unacceptable. We have minority rights not only as an opposition party here, but there are minority rights of the people out in the rest of the province that we are protecting. The way we are going to protect them is to say to the government, "Examine your own consciences as to whether this closure motion is in order and you will know that it is not."

It is very clear that they are violating those rights, but do they care? No, the government members do not care. They think it is amusing. I see a lot of smiles over there and I think it reinforces my point day after day that this is not the New Democratic Party, this is the non-democratic party. Harsh words, yes. The Minister of Natural Resources looks quite crushed and hurt, but they are true. So when members go home tonight, they should ask themselves, can they sleep knowing that they have changed their positions, the NDP position on closure?

Hon Mr Cooke: You opposed the bill on second reading. Don't talk to us about consistency.

Ms Poole: The Minister of Housing quite rudely interrupted what I was saying to bring up an entirely different matter, but since his words are now in Hansard, I feel that I do have to address them. He said our party has not been consistent.

The minister knows as well as I do that on second reading we are voting for the principle of the bill, and I have explained on numerous occasions, should he care to listen, why we supported his party -- at that time they were still calling themselves the New Democratic Party -- on this bill. But we did say that there were serious flaws that we intended to draw out during the public consultation period, during the public hearings, and to try to redress through amendments.

Now it really disappoints me that time and time again the Minister of Housing denies that the Liberal Party has been co-operative throughout this bill. Back on 28 November he said that he wanted to solicit the views, the advice and the assistance of all members of this House, and we have given that. The Liberal Party has said consistently from day one that our message was, "We are willing to support you on this legislation, but only if you make it fair and balanced, only if you do not infringe on the rights of the minority."

Hon Mr Cooke: We haven't been infringing.

Ms Poole: The Minister of Housing should learn not to bait the bears. It just prolongs the debate and we certainly want to get on with it.

Interjections.

Ms Poole: It is quite interesting how the perspective changes. The Minister of Housing, who implied that he was going to have a very full consultation period across the province -- he has said it time and time again -- suddenly turn that consultation process across the province into a mockery, a travesty and a sham.

Mr Elston: Well, at least he's consistent.

Ms Poole: As my opposition House leader has so eloquently said, at least he is consistent in that one area, but unfortunately, when something is a mockery, a travesty and a sham, it is not much of a case for consistency throughout his policies.

I would put to the minister that, if he is going to infringe on the rights of the minorities in this, his first major bill before this House, woe betide him for the rest of the time, because he will find that government gets harder, not easier and once he has infringed once, it is that much easier to do the second time around.

The minister may feel that it is fine to stifle debate, but the people of this province will be heard. They will be heard through demonstrations like yesterday's, which were quite demonstrative of how strongly feelings are running on this particular issue. But in the final analysis, the minister is destroying his own credibility by denying the opportunity for debate. Of those 10 hours that we have debated Bill 4 in committee of the whole House, I would ask the minister to go back and look at how many of those have been via the Liberal caucus.

We have been most responsible in this debate, we have kept our points to the issue, and I would be surprised if we have taken more than two hours of that 10-hour time period in the debate. We were not trying to stall the bill, but the minister did not listen. He did not want to hear what we had to say. As he said to me one day, "Dianne, the problem is, if you keep getting your message out too many times, people are going to begin to believe you."

The minister does not want them to believe me when I say that the amendment on retroactivity is unfair, unbalanced and undemocratic, again a case where the rights of the minority have been infringed upon for pure political motivation. They had to show the tenants of this province that they were prepared to hammer the landlord, that they were prepared to use this as an example of how they were keeping their election promise, because they knew in the final analysis, they could not keep that promise they made during the election, because it was unwieldy, it was unworkable, it was too simplistic and it was for pure political motivation.

But they also do not want to listen to our amendments on capital repairs which many tenants in this province are supporting, which the renovation trades, which are in dire straits right now because they are out of employment, are supporting, which this party should be supporting because of the fact that we could get workers back on the job, give them employment, give them security, give them the rights that they say in the NDP they support.

They could do that. They could do it by agreeing to the Liberal amendment, which is balanced, which protects tenants, which has a cap on, which refers to ongoing neglect in the building that can be used as a defence for the tenants as to why that landlord cannot get that cost pass-through to quality of repair. They could very easily have agreed to that. It is a very pro-tenant amendment. But their attitude was: "We are the government. The opposition is in the minority. Why should we give them any credibility for any ideas, any creativity, any ability to solve a problem?" So they refused to listen to that.

The final infringement of rights came in their utter disregard of what tenant after tenant came in the committee hearings and told us about the state of their buildings, about the state of maintenance, and again, the Liberal Party offered a very pro-tenant amendment which used the standards board -- already in existence, no new bureaucracy -- to give the tenants an immediate relief, not to go through a rent review system and wait another year but immediate relief, if they were not having work orders in their buildings attended to. Again, rejected by the government, and why? Because we are the minority.

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Mr Sterling: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I understand that this is a very important issue to this member, but I really wish we could stay to the point of order, and we are not talking about the issue. We will have the opportunity to talk about that, perhaps, when the motion is put.

The Speaker: I appreciate the member for Carleton's point. I have listened very carefully to the member for Eglinton and, quite frankly, she was straying slightly from the point of order that was raised by the member for Parry Sound, who questions whether this motion is, in fact, in order. Perhaps the member could get back on the path.

Ms Poole: I think, quite frankly, that I was speaking to the point of order.

I am really puzzled by the interest of the Conservative Party in my speeches. Every time I have spoken in this House on Bill 4, one of them has interrupted my speeches, usually to assist me, either on a point that there was not a quorum when indeed there was, or that there was not enough respect for the member for Eglinton because people were not listening attentively, and this was when they were. It is an odd thing to have happen in this House, but it does happen from time to time. I am wondering if they perhaps do not want the member for Eglinton to have a chance to put her viewpoints on the record. Such an infringement on the rights of the minority in this House should not be tolerated.

To go back to the point I was making: People in this province have rights. They have rights to be heard. They have the right to be empowered so that their feelings can be expressed through their government representation, but that is not what is happening here. The rights of those minorities, whether it be the small landlord who is going bankrupt, the person who is working in the trades and supplies industry and finds either that his business has just gone out of business or that his job has just gone down the tubes because he or she has been laid off because of Bill 4, their rights have been violated.

This closure motion is one more step towards taking democracy and rights away from those people. They have a right for their case to be presented, and I cannot understand a government, which purported to be a democratic party, which purported to believe in consultation and open and accessible government, on its first major bill bringing in closure after 11.5 days in a standing committee and after four days of debate in the House. I cannot understand it.

I wish the government House leader would perhaps tell us why she considers this not an infringement on the rights of the minority and why this closure motion should go forward. I think the member for Parry Sound raised a very valid point of order and I would certainly support him that the rights of the minority are being infringed.

Mr Sterling: I intend on approaching or just talking about the body of the motion. In concert with the member for Parry Sound's objection that it infringes on the minority, I want to talk about the minority of one, or a member of this Legislature, and how this motion, in my view, and the way it is set out infringes upon actually myself in terms of this bill, because within the motion it requires that after the motion is passed, the committee of the whole House would be completed at a quarter to six, or 5:45, of the same day that the motion was heard. So there would be from somewhere around 4 o'clock to 5:45 to consider all of the amendments which had been laid on the table. It might be another half hour, I might be out by half an hour, but the same point I am going to make would hold. All of the amendments which would have been laid on the table would be considered at 5:45.

Now, I have put on the table an amendment to Bill 4, to one of the later sections of the bill. We have at this time heard, I believe, two amendments to Bill 4, and by lumping all of the amendments together and considering them at 5:45, in effect the motion never allows me to plead the case for my amendment in this Legislature. Therefore I would perhaps ask the government House leader that when these kinds of motions are framed, they should take into consideration not only the whole process of what is left to be considered in the committee of the whole House but they should consider the fact that there are a number of amendments that have been placed on the table and that they should be given equal opportunity to have a time frame to be debated in the Legislature.

So the way that particular part of the motion is framed does, in fact, infringe on the minority of the House, in that the normal procedure is for the Chair to recognize the official opposition's amendments and then go to the other, if in fact they are dealing with the same section, or to go down section by section. But it does not really give equal hearing to a member who has interest in the latter sections of the bill to have his case heard.

What I would suggest perhaps, or would have liked to have seen, is that the committee deal with the amendments that have been tabled in equal time frames or as agreed by unanimous consent of the House. In other words, if in fact no one has an interest in presenting an amendment to a later section, then you could proceed as you might and just consider the amendments in the normal order. But once closure is introduced and the motion takes effect, then in fact within that motion you can have a very detrimental infringement on the rights of an individual member to have the minister hear his arguments about a particular section that he has an interest in and has taken the trouble to table an amendment to that section. So I would ask that you perhaps consider that when you are ruling on the matter raised by the member for Parry Sound. I do not believe that that point has been raised in his arguments or other arguments.

Hon Miss Martel: I have listened very carefully to the comments placed by the members in the opposition. I have two points to respond to what I have heard, and then I have some of my own remarks to place in argument as to why this motion should proceed and why it is in order.

First of all, with respect to what was said by the member for Parry Sound on a small point, he talked about the fact that in a debate which occurred in this House on 3 April 1990, my colleague, the now Minister of Housing, was quick to point out that five days was not a filibuster and if the member at that time, Mr Ballinger, had thought it was, then he had something to learn about proper procedures. I would point out that he then tried to refer that back to committee of the whole and suggested that four days in committee of the whole was in fact not very much if my colleague could argue that it was five days. I point out that that was five days' debate on second reading, not committee of the whole, and I will get to the point of how long we have spent on second reading, how long we have spent in committee of the whole, how long we have spent in committee on the road, in due course.

Second, just a small point: I would say that the argument that was used by the member for Brant-Haldimand was that in fact this came as a total surprise on the heads of the opposition party and they did not have time to prepare anything. I have just heard the member for Eglinton go on at great length, using quotes from speeches that were made in this House before -- and I would commend her research staff because they put something together rather quickly. I suggest that the arguments that were raised by the member for Brant-Haldimand were facetious at best.

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I want to make a couple of comments and put forward my arguments on behalf of the government as to why we are moving this time allocation motion.

First, it has been suggested by both opposition parties that this is a closure motion. I would like to read into the record what in fact a closure motion is and tell the members of the House very clearly that this is not what that is. Section 45, page 19, of our rules, I would point out, states, "A motion for closure, which may be moved without notice, until it is decided shall preclude all amendment of the main question, and shall be in the following words: 'That this question now be put.'"

I say to the members who are here, we are not moving a closure motion here today. I do not want the question to be put. We are going to allow for further debate on this bill, but we feel that we have given more than enough time for the opposition parties to deal with it and that in fact we have not infringed upon the respective responsibilities of the minorities in this House.

Mr Speaker, what we are doing, though, is that we have moved yesterday, under the rules of this House, to put forward a substantive motion, and we would like you to deal with this as previous Speakers have done in this House. I quote:

"46(a) A substantive motion is one that is not incidental to any other business of the House, but is a self-contained proposal capable of expressing a decision of the House. Examples of such motions are: the motion for an address in reply to the speech from the throne, the budget motion, want-of-confidence motions on allotted days, resolutions, motions for returns or addresses, and motions for the appointment of committees."

I would also point out to the House that the former Speaker, on 23 January 1989, ruled that this list was not exhaustive, and that is why we are moving this particular motion under that section of our standing orders today.

I want also to put on the record that this motion is one in a line of motions that have been presented in this House beginning in 1982. It is not a precedent that we are setting here today. In fact, we have quite a history of time allocation motions being moved. I would like to go back and just point out what those might be and make clear to all the House what is happening.

Under the Tories, there were three time allocation motions: the first on 8 December 1982, on Bill 179; the second on 15 February 1983, on Bill 127; and the third on 25 June 1984, on Bill 142. On 19 June 1986, there was a motion that was put by the Liberals. We supported that time allocation motion. That would be the debate on the ban on extra billing. In the last Parliament, under the Liberals, three time allocation motions were placed: the first on 23 January 1989, on two bills that moved together, Bill 113 and Bill 114; the second on 17 July 1989, closure on Bill 162; the third on 3 April 1990, with respect to Bill 68.

I point out that we have had a history in this House of these particular motions. Every Speaker who has had to rule on the time allocation motions has ruled that they have been in order. I would point that out to you, Mr Speaker, to bear that in mind, if you might, when you make a decision as to whether or not they are in order. In fact, if you look at every other motion that has been moved with respect to time allocation, clearly they have been within the established practices of this House and clearly every Speaker has ruled in favour and allowed the motion to proceed.

I would like at this point to take some time to look at this particular motion and the facts behind it.

Let us look first at the perspective of time, the time indeed that has been spent on this particular bill. In standing committee itself, during the break, when the hearings took place, 96.5 hours were spent dealing with this particular bill, and that was only up to 21 February. We are still missing from our list and our times 26 February, 27 February and 28 February. So the time was well over 100 hours spent during the break dealing with this particular bill.

When the bill was reported back to this House on 18 March, we spent two entire days dealing with the report of that back into this House. I suspect, Mr Speaker, if you would like, you could go back to a number of significant and controversial bills in this House and you would find that on no other was such time taken up to bring the report back into the House. This has been the longest.

Third, we have spent four days in the committee of the whole to date and I would point out that in relation to the three bills where time allocation was moved in the last session, two more days in committee of the whole have been allocated on this bill than on Bill 162, the workers' compensation bill, than on Bill 208, than on Bill 68 and than on Bill 47, which was the employer health levy. The fact of the matter is, Mr Speaker, we have allowed two more full days of debate in committee of the whole on this bill than anything we had from the previous government in the previous Parliament and I think that you would have to take that into account in your deliberations.

Further, we have proposed that under the time allocation that is here, we would spend yet one more day in committee of the whole, so that members can proceed to stall through that as well, and we will allow one more day for third reading of this particular piece of legislation. Mr Speaker, in terms of respecting the rights of the minority, in terms of allowing the opposition parties to have a full debate on this matter, I submit to you that we have done the best we could in trying to allow the maximum amount of time for that to happen.

Fourth, Mr Speaker, with respect to the clause-by-clause debate, I want to point out to you and to all members of the House that in fact the clause-by-clause debate on this bill was finished in committee during the break. We are not dealing with a whole set of new amendments that have been placed that no one has heard and neither party has seen. The fact of the matter is that the committee, without any restrictions, without limitations, was able to deal with every amendment that was put, both by ourselves and by the opposition parties during that time in the break. So I submit to you, Mr Speaker, that you have to take that into account, that, again, we allowed for both of the parties to have their say for their people to speak to the amendments, as we spoke to ours, and that matter was settled during the break.

Now we are in the position that the Liberals have nine amendments. They are all repeats from the amendments that took place during the break. We have seven Tory amendments that we are aware of: Five of those, as well, are repeats from the amendments that were moved and debated upon and decided in the break. We have only two new motions which the opposition parties would like to deal with in this House. I submit to you, Mr Speaker, that we are never going to get to all of those and the fact of the matter is we dealt as carefully as we could, with the greatest amount of time possible during the break, with these matters.

Second, Mr Speaker, I would also remind you with respect to the issue that was raised by the member for Carleton, because this was the very point that he was raising, that it was unfair in fact that amendments were deemed to have been put at the end of the day. I refer you back to the debate on Bill 162 and the time allocation motion on Bill 162 and you will see that in that motion as well all of the amendments were deemed to be put and were put at the end of the day. The Speaker of that day also agreed that was in order and we proceeded. I cannot speak to Bill 68, but I would also ask you to take a look at Bill 68, because I believe that is the case with that bill as well.

Third, Mr Speaker, the government has moved. We accepted two of the Liberal amendments that were placed, and I submit to you, as one who went through a whole exercise on Bill 162, that was a far, far cry and we were far ahead of the game in terms of dealing with the opposition as fairly as we could than anything I saw from the previous government. Mr Speaker, I submit to you that those amendments were significant, they were compromises for us, but that is as far as we are prepared to go. The amendments that have been placed further to that are not amendments we can accept. They would gut the principles of this bill and this government is not prepared to move in that direction.

Fourth, this is a temporary bill. This is a bill to place a moratorium until this government and this House can deal with permanent rent review legislation, which I think we would all agree is absolutely essential. We have spent a great deal of time on a bill which is important but, quite frankly, is going to need to be replaced with a much more significant bill that deals with the problems of tenants, that deals with the problems of landlords and one that we all agree must come. I say to everyone again that the longer this debate goes on, the longer it will take to get to the permanent legislation and the longer will be the grief that we will cause out there for tenants and landlords.

Fifth is the question of, is there an end in sight, can we find consensus? I submit to you, Mr Speaker, that we have made every attempt that we can to find a way to get an end to this debate. I pointed out very clearly in my earlier comments that yes, at the House leaders' meeting last week I made it very clear to the opposition parties that as the government House leader I felt that this bill had been dealt with for enough time and had significant time for all of the parties to place their concerns. I asked at that point how much longer it might take, how many more days, when we could get to the end of this matter, and I was clearly told that the government would have to do what the government had to do. That says clearly to me that there is no end in sight and that the government will have no choice but to have to deal with a time allocation motion because the opposition parties are not interested in finishing.

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That is fine. I respect that honesty. It makes my life far easier to deal with and to try and set the agenda of the House. But the facts of the matter are that the rights of the minorities have been respected, there is no end in sight to this particular matter, and now we have to do what we have to do as a government.

I just want to make some very general comments with respect to this particular decision to move with a time allocation. All of us who come here, I believe, and I believe this fundamentally, all of us who come here play a very important role, regardless of whether we sit on the government side or whether we sit on the opposition side, and I think it is significant that a number of us have a very interesting perspective in that we have sat on both sides of this particular issue in the time that we have spent in this Legislature.

I just want to share my perspectives, if I might, Mr Speaker, about how I felt in opposition with respect to significant motions that were moved in this House. Our party in the last session, when we were in opposition, in the last Parliament, made a significant decision with respect to three pieces of legislation. Those pieces of legislation for us were fundamental because they affected the rights and the conditions of working people, and we made a very significant and important stand on those pieces of legislation: Sunday shopping, workers' compensation and auto insurance. We went to the wall on all of them. I do not deny that. The people who were here before know, and they know exactly what I did on Bill 162 in committee.

But I recognized, even sitting in opposition, that at the end of the day, the government that was in place was democratically elected. Whether I liked it or not, whether I liked the fact that there were 94 Liberals at the time, they were democratically elected, the people had spoken and the government had a responsibility at the end of the day to get its legislation through. And the people at the end of the day would have to decide whether that was right or wrong.

I believe that with respect to Bill 4, we have made every possible effort to try and deal with the rights of the minority and allow it to have its say. The clause-by-clause in committee during the break was not limited, but the members of that committee managed to get through all of the amendments and had their say. We have had a significant second reading debate. We have had a significant debate with respect to the committee as it travelled, well over 100 hours. We spent two days in reporting the bill back, we have spent four days in committee of the whole, and I believe, as someone who tried to negotiate the time, that all of my efforts were spent trying to find a compromise, a consensus, and none can be reached in this case. There is not an option that we can come together in terms of the three of us and determine how much more time we need in committee of the whole. There is no room for a consensus here. That was made very clear to me.

I would say at the end of the day that the government did what the government had to do. We have moved this time allocation motion because we feel that we must get on with our own agenda, we must get on with dealing with this particular piece of legislation and then on to the more permanent rent review legislation.

I would say to you, Mr Speaker, to please bear all of my comments in mind with respect to this decision, to take a look at decisions that have been made by previous Speakers with respect to these motions, because I can assure you that in every case the motion was allowed to proceed.

The Speaker: To the member for Parry Sound, Erskine May and Beauchesne provide me with my bedtime reading. I certainly am most sensitive to the question about time allocation. It is an important issue for any Parliament, and it is a very sensitive one. I listened carefully to the contributions made by the members for Parry Sound, for Eglinton, the government House leader and the member for Carleton, and I will be back to you tomorrow with a ruling on both points of order which have been raised this afternoon, both of which I take quite seriously, because they do affect how this House functions and in particular how the opposition's rights as a minority are protected.

PLANNING STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1990

Mr Cooke moved second reading of Bill 25, An Act to amend the Planning Act, 1983 and the Land Titles Act.

Hon Mr Cooke: Actually, I have probably not done the procedure right. My parliamentary assistant is going to be handling the bill, so he will be speaking on second reading.

Mr Ferguson: As the minister indicated when Bill 25, An Act to amend the Planning Act, 1983 and the Land Titles Act, was introduced, the amendments will prevent the circumvention of the planning approvals process by prohibiting the division and conveyance of land by last will and testament. I will reiterate that the government is committed to stopping this abuse of the planning process. The subdivision of land must respect good planning principles in order to safeguard the orderly development of communities and the protection of our environment.

The legislation will not prevent individuals from giving direction in their wills regarding to whom they wish to bequeath their land, and it does not prevent the ability of wills to convey lots which already exist legally. If there are existing wills which attempt to subdivide land and convey lots to individuals, the bill provides that the entire property will be transferred to the intended beneficiaries as tenants in common. Those beneficiaries could then apply under the Planning Act to divide the property into lots in the manner which the testator intended. Alternatively, the property could be sold and the proceeds from the sale could be divided among the beneficiaries.

Our goal is to ensure consistent and fair treatment of all citizens of this province by insisting that everyone wishing to divide land go through the same process. I believe that the proposed amendments to the Planning Act will help us meet that goal.

The Deputy Speaker: Are there any questions or comments? Debate?

Mr Bradley: Is this speaking on second reading?

The Deputy Speaker: Yes, you have two minutes. Question?

Mr Bradley: Oh, no.

The Deputy Speaker: Are there questions or comments?

Mr Sterling: I just want to clarify for the public that the member for St Catharines cannot clear his throat in two minutes.

The Deputy Speaker: Are there any further questions or comments? Are there any other members who wish to participate in this debate?

Mr Bradley: Mr Speaker, if I can get a clarification from you, is this debate?

The Deputy Speaker: Yes, it is.

Mr Bradley: And why are we restricted to two minutes?

An hon member: You are not now.

Mr Bradley: I am not now, I take it.

The Deputy Speaker: We just had the member for Kitchener debating the bill.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The reason is that after a person debates, there is a period of 10 minutes allocated, and that is why I asked the question: Are there any questions or comments?

Mr Bradley: That is the new rules, right?

The Deputy Speaker: No, it is not new rules.

Interjection.

The Deputy Speaker: Are there any other members who wish to participate in this debate?

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Mr Tilson: I have a question. My question is to the --

Mr Elston: Point of order.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I asked the question, are there any questions or comments? Question, the member for Dufferin-Peel.

Mr Tilson: I have a question to the parliamentary assistant. I would like him to tell us the significance of the 26 July 1990 date. Why was that date chosen?

The Deputy Speaker: Are there any questions or comments? Please, we are not in committee of the whole. You have two minutes to raise a question or to comment on the comments made by the member for Kitchener. Is that understood? So you have two minutes to do so. You have already used 40 seconds.

Mr Tilson: I am gradually trying to figure out the procedure here. Can I ask a second question?

An hon member: Sure.

Mr Tilson: Thank you. My second question is, what happens to someone who has made a will in good faith before 26 July 1990 and has died before Bill 25 is enacted? Two simple questions.

Mr Sterling: Frankly, I think we have it on track now. The problem that my friend alludes to is, if somebody died after 26 July and left to his or her son or daughter a lot on the farm, let us imagine, and then that son or daughter sold that lot to someone else while this bill is waiting in gestation, what would happen to the person who bought that lot? As I understand it, what this bill now says is that the person who bought the lot, took good title under the laws of Ontario, would no longer have a good and valid subdivided piece of property. I guess our concern is with the retroactivity of the legislation.

In other words, the member is saying that when this bill receives royal assent, let's imagine on 1 May of this year, someone who has paid good money for a piece of property which was legally conveyed to him will be left out in the cold as far as his ability to carry on and build on that lot is concerned. Or perhaps he has already built his home on that lot and will find his home devalued because it becomes unsevered or becomes part of the adjacent piece of property. Our concern with this bill is specifically that retroactivity this government has placed in this Bill 25.

Mr Ferguson: I am glad to hear that the only question is the question of retroactivity and that all sides of the House support the principle of the bill. Let me tell you that 26 July 1990 was not a date that was pulled out of midair. In fact, it was a public commitment made by the previous Liberal government's Minister of Housing, the then Honourable John Sweeney. So it was not our commitment, it was the Liberal Party's commitment and it is a date that has been widely recognized by the legal community. It is a date that has already been widely recognized by municipalities and by the citizens at large. They recognize that some time ago 26 July was announced as the intended date for this piece of legislation to be retroactive to, and it has been widely accepted as a result of the previous announcement. All we are doing is living up to a previous commitment that has been made by a former ministry.

The Deputy Speaker: Are there any other members who wish to participate in this debate?

Mr Bradley: This is a piece of legislation which is very much required in the province of Ontario. The history of this goes back some considerable years, but there was a review of the Planning Act that took place in 1983, when there was contemplation of a number of changes which could -- the word used was -- "improve" upon the Planning Act that was in existence.

Many of the changes were not proceeded with. Some changes over the years have been proceeded with. I know there has been a concern, particularly among those in the legal community, that tampering with this particular portion of the Planning Act would in fact prevent people from legitimately exercising their right to pass on certain of their property to successors, to people they designate in their wills.

Members of the House will be aware there has been considerable pressure over the years on agricultural land in the Niagara Peninsula, probably since the Queen Elizabeth Way was constructed through prime agricultural land, the fruit land of the Niagara Peninsula many, many years ago. There has been development that has taken place along that corridor. If people could have devised a better place to put it, if they could roll back the years to do so, they probably would have constructed this highway on the top of the escarpment, as we call it, or south of the Niagara Escarpment, as opposed to north of it, because there are two special conditions which exist on the properties that are located in the north part of Niagara.

One is that there are some unique soils in certain parts of north Niagara which lend themselves to tender fruit farming; and two, there is a special circumstance that exists in terms of the climate in that area. I remember taking a geography class at one time where the teacher indicated there was either a 27- or 28-day difference between the growing seasons, that is frost-free days, at the bottom of the escarpment or the north portion of the Niagara Peninsula, and the top of the escarpment or the more southerly portion of the Niagara Peninsula. That is why you saw tender fruit surviving in this rather unique area of the province.

However, the construction of the QEW ensured there would be some development taking place along there and a significant portion of that land has already disappeared over the years, particularly in the northern part of the city of St Catharines, where prime agricultural land has been disappearing for some period of time.

I would express concern about that because where some of the best soils are, already we have houses, we have other dwellings, we have industrial land, we have commercial land, and a very unique portion of farming in this province, in this country has disappeared as a result. But there is still considerable land that exists in the Niagara Peninsula, land I happen to believe is worth preserving as agricultural land.

I have raised in this House on previous days the issue of farmers and the difficulty that farmers have of making a go of it, of having a viable operation in many parts of the Niagara Peninsula, for a number of reasons. One of the prime reasons, of course, was the signing of an agreement with the United States by our federal government, the free trade agreement between Canada and the US, which put some considerable additional pressure on farmers in our part of the province.

Back in 1975, when we saw the beginning of an expansion of some of the boundaries of municipalities in the Niagara region under the auspices of the regional municipality of Niagara, some of us who served in local government at that time expressed great concern and initiated action designed to restrict the growth of those boundaries. It was not a particularly popular position with many in our community. Most people at a municipal level like to see their communities grow, develop and gain what they would consider to be additional and beneficial assessment which, I suppose, would bring money and fame and fortune to a municipality.

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Some of us, however, believed that it was worth while saving the agricultural land in those days, and members would be interested that, on those occasions, the Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society was one group which was very instrumental in drawing this whole issue to the attention of people in this province, but there was a good deal of sympathy among farmers in our part of the province who were allies at that time of those of us who considered ourselves to be preservationists or conservationists in terms of the agricultural land.

So when that debate took place and the regional official plan was developed and the boundaries were to be decided upon, there were some conflicting points of view put forward. There was naturally the point of view that municipalities must have room to grow, and even then it was said that much of the agricultural land would not be viable in terms of the competition that existed then. Some of us pursued this issue nevertheless. I would like to see even more restrictive boundaries than we have in the Niagara region at the present time.

I remember the former member for Welland-Thorold, Mr Swart, was also a person who was a strong believer in agricultural land. We both have put before or discussed in this House, when we served previously in opposition, ideas that would develop the farm land for appropriate uses -- that is, for agricultural purposes in the viable sense -- and would prevent the erosion of that land and its turnover for development purposes to those who wanted to do it for those reasons.

This is not to say that everyone in the Niagara Peninsula who believes in the preservation of prime agricultural land believes that there should be no development at all. There are places in the Niagara Peninsula where development can take place and should be encouraged. The issue is where it should be and the amount of development which should take place.

There have been many, then, who have put pressure on over the years and have done so because they felt that there was a dollar to be made in it, first of all, and second, that it was ideal in terms of the location. So considerable pressure was put on to expand the boundaries, and governments over the years have resisted that particular initiative on the part of many to expand those boundaries. There have been demands for severances over the years. There have in fact been urban dwellers who have moved into the countryside.

I think all of us recognize the problem with urban dwellers moving into the countryside, which is that very often they want to enjoy all of the amenities of the city and the peace and quiet of the countryside. But the countryside is not always peace and quiet as far as farmers are concerned. Some of their operations tend to produce noise, some will produce dust, some will produce odours, and it is interesting that people who go out to the countryside often want to eliminate those particular aspects of country life while maintaining and adding to that which is already there in terms of urban services. That is why governments have to be very careful to restrict piecemeal development as well as approving large subdivisions when it is not good for agricultural land.

There is another part that is of grave concern. The member for Halton Centre has expressed this point of view in the past and has brought to the attention of various people the fact that even the Niagara Escarpment is under assault from those who wish to see development. This is where we get into the particular device which was used in this case to get around the Planning Act. As I say, to the credit of the governments which have been -- we have had three different parties -- in power over the last 10 years, all three, when the boundaries have been set, have been opposed to expanding those boundaries, have not entertained any significant expansion of boundaries, and have been pretty tough on severances, I think, if you look across the three parties which have ruled in the province of Ontario.

The fly in the ointment, I guess, if I can steer back to that one, is the economic circumstances facing farmers. That is why I think it is extremely important when we preserve agricultural land that we indicate a willingness to do one of two things. We can pay a higher price for the food that is produced, and I think politically that has never been popular in any particular country. If we look at some other countries in the world which today are raising their prices, we can see that people are almost in revolt over that, and we have resisted in Canada considerably. If we are not prepared to do that, we have to be prepared to compensate farmers in another way, whether it is by purchasing the land and leasing it back, whether it is by providing support payments, whether it is by providing some financing that can be helpful to them in terms of meeting the difficulties with interest rates or whether it is by promotion of the product -- which we think is important in our province of Ontario. There is the utilization of products by government institutions, for instance, penal institutions in the province of Ontario or other institutions under our control. All of these can utilize Ontario-grown food.

We have a few representatives in the House who share with me the role and responsibility of representing the Niagara Peninsula, who understand that very well, who understand the anguish of the farmers at this time. They will speak for themselves if they wish, but knowing them as I do, they are all people who believe in the preservation of good agricultural land. They are also people who know that we must be very strong in our support of farmers.

That gets to the bill itself in that the reason that people started to get around this was they could see that governments were going to resist, and justifiably so, the expansion of urban boundaries and unrestricted development taking place in the Niagara Peninsula and beyond the Niagara Peninsula -- into Halton region, for instance. So they found new ways of getting around the law, ways that the law as it existed did not really contemplate.

We had looked at people passing on to their successors, to their families, to whomever they saw fit, their property and their possessions. It was not for the purpose of getting around the Planning Act. It was in fact to allow for that logical transfer to another person in the family, for instance.

What we saw instead were people trying to get around the act, and I guess legitimately so, because the act had a loophole that allowed it. A lot of this began to take place in the province of Ontario almost without anyone knowing it. It was really not known that it was taking place until people started to investigate at registry offices and so on. I know that a reporter by the name of John Nicol with the St Catharines Standard did a number of articles that I remember clipping out of the Standard, and Carol Alaimo was involved as well in certain of the issues that are related to this. She dealt with a certain aspect of it and John Nicol dealt with the other aspect, which is a testamentary device system of getting around the Planning Act. To give credit to people, the news media can often find out and expose these problems so that those of us who are elected to public office can act upon them, and that is exactly what happened in this case.

The regional municipality of Niagara as well, and some of the local municipalities, expressed a concern because they saw all of the flak they had taken over the years for standing pretty firm against those who wanted to develop their land or sell their land for development. They saw people getting around this very easily and really felt that if there was going to be an easing of those restrictions, that that should be done in an orderly fashion by the local municipalities. Frankly, I hope there is no easing of those particular restrictions, but I do hope that we have excellent programs to help farmers stay in business and make that a viable operation.

So we came to the bill. The previous government, as this government -- this minister and the previous minister -- had it brought to their attention that in fact this was a problem, that we would see unfettered development taking place in the Niagara region and in other parts of the province as a result of this particular loophole in the Planning Act. That has ramifications which are significant for a couple of reasons. First, if you wish to preserve prime agricultural land in the province, it is going to work against that. Second, municipalities end up having to service land, or at least be under tremendous pressure to service land, and they had no intention of approving a subdivision for it. So it starts to distort their spending priorities and their obligations to their constituents, the individual members of local councils.

That is why this particular bill is very much required. Unfortunately, some of the people involved in it may not even have known that they were involved in a situation where government was going to react quickly to it, as governments should react quickly to it. I think it is going to be important that we examine not only this loophole in the act, although today we deal with this, but that when the government examines and the Legislature examines the entire Planning Act, we determine whether there are any other ways that people could get around the provisions of the Planning Act to in fact bring about this kind of subdividing.

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The other problem that exists in the peninsula is the amount of money. I mention that, first of all, the farmers are under pressure because they cannot make a heck of a lot of money on the farm; many of the farms are not viable.

The second reason is that the amount of money they are being offered is tremendous, and if you were a farmer who owned a piece of property that was not viable economically, that you could not make a living on, and somebody said, "I am going to give you $5 million for the property," it is mighty difficult to resist the temptation to sell off that land, even parts of that land, for subdivision purposes or for development purposes, particularly when you are perhaps facing financial ruin.

I believe the bill that was originated by the previous government, by John Sweeney when he was a minister, the bill which is carried on today by the new Minister of Municipal Affairs, is a bill which is deserving of the support of all members of the Legislature.

Those who are in the legal profession, and I am sure the government has examined this, may be in a better position to say a specific provision of the bill may be detrimental. This was one of the arguments made when this was brought forward. You will always hear members of the legal profession -- I do not say this as a putdown; I say this as people who are cautioning us -- saying: "Do you understand the ramifications of what you are doing on these bills? Is this overkill or it is not overkill?" To a layperson such as myself, it is not overkill; it is an extremely important provision which should be enacted as soon as possible.

The government cannot be accused in this case of being unfair in terms of retroactivity. They have announced already that there was a date that they were going to go back to, that anything after that would in fact be subject to the provisions of this bill. So those who would make the argument that this is unfair, I think, would not make a valid argument either in terms of the previous government or this government and the action that it is taking on this specific piece of legislation.

I think it is important for a couple of reasons, and one is, as I say, the overall policy of the retention of good food land in the province of Ontario. I have listened to people tell me that we do not need this food land, that we have got all kinds of agricultural land in this country. "What are you worrying about? You can buy the food from California or Florida or somewhere else in the world."

I think we must recognize that it is a pretty unique resource. We are on this earth not only to feed ourselves, not only to feed our own local jurisdiction or province or country; we also have some moral obligation, it seems to me, to share the assets that we have. If we can produce food in our particular country because we are fortunate enough to have the appropriate soils, climatic conditions and good farmers to do so, then it seems to me we have a moral obligation to provide food for not only ourselves but others in the world. I know you can make the argument that today we can get food somewhere else, but somewhere down the line we are going to have to provide food for other people in this world as well as for ourselves.

In a more parochial sense, one of the reasons that the prices of food are as low as they are in our country is because we have our own food to compete. If people believe for one moment that if we did not grow tender fruit in the Niagara Peninsula, somehow the prices of the imported food would be as low as they are today, they are fooling themselves. Those prices would rise.

We also have, looking at the whole Niagara Peninsula, something that is attractive not only in terms of agriculture, although that is the prime and most important reason, but also attractive in terms of our general living.

I remember speaking to a gentleman who is now the Senate majority leader, George Mitchell, who is a senator from Maine -- I dealt with Senator Mitchell on many occasions on the issue of acid rain; a very progressive and thoughtful individual. He spoke, in fact, here in Toronto; I remember making about 100 photocopies of his speech. I thought it was an excellent speech. I gave it to each of my colleagues and I should share it with more people in Canada. It was an excellent speech dealing with environmental issues.

One of the things that Senator Mitchell said to me, in some of the relatively brief meetings I had with him, was that he liked the way he perceived Ontario was dealing with its green land, the greening of the province of Ontario, with park land, with the Niagara escarpment, with agricultural land, and the attitude that people have in Ontario and in Canada towards matters related to the environment. He was quite impressed with that and had hoped that in Massachusetts they would be doing the same thing.

There are some, and my colleagues from the peninsula will know this, who are advocating certain provisions which have been invoked in the state of Massachusetts, as it relates to farm land, so certainly there is a lot that we can learn. Maine, of course, and Vermont and New Jersey have undertaken certain activities which have been designed to retain agricultural land.

I think it is an extremely important issue. When we get into a recession, everybody worries about the recession and the economic issues, and that is as it should be, but we should not shove aside environmental issues, conservation and preservation issues, just because we happen to be in the middle of a recession. The recession will be over. Everybody will work hard to try to get out of it. The natural cycle of economics as well will dictate that we will -- we hope sooner than later -- be out of this particular recession, and we will want to retain those lands for not only this generation but the next and the next and the next after that.

It is going to be important we do not allow these feet in the door, each time we have a foot going into the door with a new way of getting around the Planning Act. Whether it is trying to persuade elected politicians that we should change our policies and allow the development of this land or whether it is legal devices which are employed to do so, I think it is important that we make every attempt to retain agricultural land. I know that is something which is shared by at least a significant portion of people in the House. Not everybody has that point of view, and though I do not agree with others' points of views on it, I respect those points of view.

I mention the agricultural land because it is exceedingly important and it is something that I have dealt with for a number of years on a personal basis. I also know that those who reside along the escarpment -- and again, we in the peninsula have the escarpment going through the Niagara Peninsula. At least four of the constituencies in the Niagara Peninsula would have the escarpment going through them, and it is a genuine asset. As it goes around Hamilton and heads up through Halton and up into the Bruce Peninsula, it provides us with, again, something that is pretty unique, something that received the United Nations award. I remember when a major official from the United Nations joined us in the regional municipality of Halton, and we can look upon it as something that has global significance. When you see people who are going to attempt to use a loophole in the Planning Act to get around the retention of those excellent lands along the Niagara Escarpment, you have to become very concerned.

I know there is a division of points of view on whether the Niagara Escarpment should have any development or what kind of development. I have personally always been a preservationist and conservationist as it relates to that particular piece of property as well. Knowing that it annoys some people, knowing that there perhaps have been some instances where it looks silly or it looks unfair, I think on balance and overall it is important to retain that, and that is again why this bill will be essential, to ensure that kind of land is not going to disappear.

But this issue, though the pressure is on in the Niagara Peninsula and along the escarpment, is important to those areas. It is a device which could be utilized right across the province of Ontario in an attempt to circumvent the Planning Act. If people want to make that case, they are entitled to make the case to the provincial government, to the provincial Legislature, to individual municipalities, whether regional, county or area municipalities.

They have that right to make the argument to people that they want to see the designation changed. I hope there is resistance to that; however, I recognize their democratic right to do it. I do not approve, however, of a circumvention of the act by people utilizing provisions of the act, which were not meant to establish subdivisions, to establish other developments in this province.

For this reason, I think this Legislature would be wise to proceed with this bill, to give full support to this bill and to recognize that the implementation and the date that has been selected is one which is extremely reasonable, because that kind of warning has been provided to people who would be affected in a direct sense by this particular act. I urge members of the House to give it the full and speedy support that it deserves.

Mr Tilson: The question I have for the member is essentially the same question I asked the member for Kitchener. It would appear that the government has simply taken this bill from a drawer of the previous government and has now introduced it, and certainly I think we laud the general principle of it. They are trying to close a loophole that is in the act and I think we support that principle, but again, I suppose the comments that were made by the member for Kitchener that he has obtained the views of the legal community and the general public, I do not know how that information has come about.

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Second, the government had not even been elected, I do not even think the election had been called, by the time 26 July 1990 came about. So again, I am quite serious. I am very curious as to where 26 July came about.

Therefore, my question is to the member for St Catharines, as a former member of the cabinet, whether he knows of any rationale in the thoughts of the previous government as to why that specific date was chosen.

Mr Klopp: I too would like to rise and give support to this bill.

A number of good comments were made by colleagues all around this House. I am one who has been very clear in my time on councils and my time here that severances are something which we should be very much aware of and concerned about with regard to agricultural land. It has been brought up that in order to save agricultural land we do not just have to look at bills like this but we have to look at the ramifications of why farmers are having to be forced off the land and looking at these ways of getting around things.

This bill stops the greedy people of this province from taking advantage of loopholes. Really, it is the little old lady on the 6th concession who knows from her past that she does not allow her land to be severanced off so that future people do not have food. They realize that, so they do not take advantage of trying to find loopholes. But unfortunately, after those people are gone, the next generation, out of what I call greed and shortsightedness, maybe they can say because of tough times or whatever, but they look at these kinds of loopholes, and that is wrong.

I am a firm believer that we have to look at the whole ramification of what is going on and how come the farmers are having to look at these ideas of selling land. Indeed, the ministry is looking at that. This government has taken the bull by the horns. We have taken on Gary Davidson, a planning person from Huron county, who knows a lot of the ramifications and who is taking this issue right on; he is down in Niagara at this time and looking for the long-term ramifications.

Indeed, there is a very simple phrase, "If you want to save land, save farmers." I am glad the opposition members have mentioned this, and indeed our whole caucus believes very much that we need to get a price for the farmers' products, and we are not scared to say that. If we look at the Minister of Agriculture and Food's statements over the last while since we have got in, he has said that people have to pay for food.

Also, I am glad to say that it has also been mentioned that we have to take the environment in that. We just cannot overproduce and cause the problems that we have seen in Europe, and we have to take that into account.

I support this bill.

Mrs Sullivan: I wanted to congratulate the member for St Catharines for his thoughtful and informed comments relating to Bill 25. I think his discussion of the particular impact of this bill has added significantly to the level of debate in the House.

He spoke about particular areas which are unique, which through improper use of wills are endangered, through really under-the-table decisions that are being made to manoeuvre around the Planning Act. It has certainly been a matter of considerable concern in Halton, where wills have been used to thwart the planning process not only in lands in the escarpment area but in the agricultural community.

I concur with the member's remarks relating to the agricultural community and preservation of land. That is something of value to all of us and something that is of deep concern in my community. I also concur with his remarks that we must not only recognize the necessity of appropriate funding and support to the industry but we must also look at encouragement through perhaps other methods, including land trusts or whatever, to ensure that that agricultural land is maintained.

I believe when this information relating to this bill was made public by John Sweeney prior to the last election, he was responding to issues which were very specific to areas such as mine, such as the Niagara Peninsula and up through into the Bruce area, that have significant importance not only for today but for the longer term.

I believe this bill deserves support and I thank the member for St Catharines for his comments.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for S-D-G & East Grenville. I hope you realize that this is the first time that you are being referred to with this title.

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you, Mr Speaker, for being so kind and astute as to notice that and to recognize that, and I thank you for it.

I, too, want to participate for the very short time available in this debate. The member for St Catharines comes from an area where the land is excellent. I come from an area where we also have excellent land. We also have a lot of marginal land, and I certainly will be supporting this bill to block loopholes to go around legislation.

However, there is a much larger problem that must be attacked: that of returns to agriculture, and I speak of agriculture in general. In my days when I worked for the Farm Credit Corp we used to capitalize net income. In other words, you apply an interest rate to a net income to come up with a capital value. The problem we have in agriculture these days, and I even include some of the supply-managed producers, because if indeed you were to capitalize the value of the quota there would be very little net return to the land.

We have had long and harried discussions on retroactive rent freezes and what have you, and I certainly feel for the landlords. However, we are looking at agriculture in very much the same light. We are faced with a situation in agriculture where people are having to leave the land. Those who are producing in the grain section are producing for less money than they did 15 years ago, and that is unacceptable.

This government talks about increasing the minimum wage to our urban friends, and I suppose you cannot be against that. However, those in agriculture are faced not only with reducing but no net income. To break even in agriculture these days is doing pretty well. So I say we must address the major problem. Some of the marginal land that we have, certainly in eastern Ontario, should be allowed to produce other things than agricultural products.

Mr Bradley: I thank the members for each of the comments. The members who have indicated their position on this have obviously seen the difficulty that arises. The member for the newly named riding of S-D-G & East Grenville -- I have got it right -- is one who recognizes well the problem. The member for Huron has an agricultural background as well. I think we are seeing a kind of unanimity that I expect we might see on this.

My understanding is that the ministries of Municipal Affairs and Housing began to investigate this when some municipalities began to complain that in fact there was a problem. I cannot speak for the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, who was there at the time, but the problem that I understood was that they were worried -- and, again, legal people know more than I would know about this, and in the planning department of Municipal Affairs -- that somehow they would not want to affect all wills. In other words, there is an appropriate way of passing something on, I am told, through wills, and there was some concern about that.

The 26 July date, as I can recall, and Mr Sweeney would be in a better position than I to know this, would be the date on which cabinet made a decision, or the day subsequent to which a cabinet decision was made on this particular subject, and I think that was the significance, that they did not want to go back to a position before an actual decision in cabinet was made. That is my understanding of that. This certainly came as a result of news media reports and as a result of municipal people and people in Municipal Affairs and Housing recognizing that a problem was arising.

Mr Sterling: I do not know whether the members fully understand the argument on the retroactivity and I am going to go into that in a moment, but I think the member for Huron just went a little too far in saying that there are greedy people in the province who have utilized a provision which they have legally been entitled to do, and that is, draw on their will a wish to leave a portion of their land, which was not subdivided before, to someone else.

There are probably 10,000 wills in this province drawn up, in most cases, by farmers who have decided that when they die they want to leave their son or daughter a piece of their property. In fact, 18 years ago when I was practising law I drew up such a will. I did not feel that the farmer who had come to me and said, "I want to leave my son or my daughter a lot," was in any way contravening any laws. He was not going through any loophole, because the law of the land before this law is passed is such that you can leave a person a piece of land even though you own an adjacent piece of land. That is the law of the land.

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For people to stand up in this Legislature and assume that everyone who has made a will in the past with this kind of provision is a greedy individual who is trying to get around our planning laws is wrong, because our planning laws have not put a restriction on doing that in the past. This is not a phenomenon that was just discovered in the last year. Anyone who was a lawyer who did any practice in the country, as I had a small part of my practice when I practised some 14 years ago before I was a member of this Legislature, knew that this lack of provision in the Planning Act existed; so did my confrères. From time to time when a farmer came in and he asked me whether he could leave a lot to his son or his daughter, I would say: "Yes. The Planning Act may be changed in the future to restrict you from doing that, but that is your legal right. You can do that with your land if you want."

Now what has happened in the past year is that unfortunately some people who are greedy, who want to get around the intent of our Planning Act, have utilized this right that we have had in the past, to leave by our will to someone else a piece of land which has not been subdivided before, to perhaps too great an extent. They have tried to subdivide a whole host of lots out of a particular parcel of land. Therefore, it was the decision of the former government that it was necessary to restrict another property right that we have had in Ontario, and that is the right to sever a piece of land by will. That was a decision by the past government.

This government has said, "We want to restrict property rights," by doing this as well. We do not disagree with them. We think that because some people in this province have used this provision that we have had or this right that we have had in the past, to give a piece of land to your son or your daughter on the farm, has now fallen into a use which was not contemplated by former governments and former legislators and we now have to bring in another restriction to property rights.

Let's not get the idea that everybody who did this in the past -- and I estimate that there might be as many as 10,000 people in this province who have done this in the past and were accepted -- municipalities around the country said if somebody has made a will and left a daughter or a son a lot, that was acceptable. We accepted that as a society in Ontario. It was not raised as an issue. People knew that you could sever land this way, but somebody ruined it by subdividing, and subdividing by what I call a very brutal use of death and the testamentary disposition of assets.

My party, while it supports the intent and the principle of this, is very concerned about the retroactivity of this legislation. I want to graphically illustrate, through an example, why it is wrong to go back to 26 July. I want to utilize my knowledge, having practised law in this province and, to some degree, having had some experience with rural properties.

Let us take the example of John Doe who leaves to his son, Jake Doe, a lot. John Doe passed away, let's say, in August of this year. His son, Jake Doe, has received that lot basically in law as soon as John Doe has died. It actually becomes the son's lot when the will is registered in the registry office, so in, let's say, September the solicitor or somebody acting for the estate walked in with the will of John Doe and registered the will on the title of the property. In spite of the fact that this Bill 25 and the previous bill were in this Legislature, Jake Doe, the son, has a legally severed lot. I assume, of course, that John Doe has given the rest of the farm to his daughter, Jane Doe, so that Jane Doe has the remainder of the farm and Jake Doe, the son, has the lot in the corner of the farm.

The issue is more complicated by the fact that we had an election on 6 September, because in spite of the fact that the previous government had said this was going to go back to 26 July, Jake Doe does not know whether the government has any intention of reintroducing this bill. They do not know if they are going to choose 26 July as the retroactive day. They have no idea that the policies of the new government are going to be the same as the old government's. So Jake Doe goes to a real estate agent and he says, "I have a legal lot to sell." The real estate agent says, "Fine, I'll put up my signs," etc. In October, John Smith comes up to the real estate agent who shows him the lot that Jake Doe has for sale. They make a deal. They draw up an agreement.

Often with those agreements, as anyone who has had any transaction knows, a lawyer is not even consulted before the deal is signed. In Ontario, once the deal is signed, once the agreement of purchase and sale is signed, the purchaser is on the hook to pay the price if the vendor has a legal title to transfer. If the deal closed today the purchaser, John Smith, would have to pay the money, even if John Smith's lawyer had discovered that this legislation was before the Legislature and it was going to be retroactive to 26 July, because he had made an agreement to buy from Jake, the son, this lot, which he has a legal title to today because this legislation has not passed. Therefore, John Smith has bought a piece of land which was legally subdivided, and when this bill receives royal assent -- which will likely happen within the next week or two -- he will no longer have legal title to that property.

I do not think this has happened very often in this province of Ontario. What my party would like to do, and what we are going to do, is introduce an amendment to the bill. We would like to give the Minister of Housing the right to look at a situation that I have described which might have occurred in the last year. My amendment, or the amendment of my party or one of the members of my party, will say to the minister, "If you are satisfied, Minister, that the transfer of the property was done in good faith and the subdivision of the land would not have a major impact on the land use planning of that particular municipality, then you can give that deed the sanction it needs to become legal and proper." That is all we are asking.

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We are not asking that the minister wipe out 26 July altogether, because I think that it would be wrong to say to one of these subdividers who had subdivided a whole bunch of lots in the Niagara Escarpment or wherever that he can divide all these lots. We are concerned about the farmer who did what he was legally entitled to do, and that was to give his son or his daughter a lot, and he may not have sold it, but he may have built a house on it and put a mortgage on it and he may find himself when we give this royal assent with a house on a corner of a farm rather than on a lot which he is legally entitled to have today.

We are very, very concerned with the retroactivity of all legislation -- and we have talked about that in other legislation, Bill 4, in front of this House -- but we think that there is a real remedy here. I gave to the minister as long as a week and a half or two weeks ago a copy of my amendment, and I have said to the minister, "If this doesn't suit you, draft another amendment which will give the same kind of effect, either to yourself or to someone else, to remedy a situation where somebody is left high and dry because he did with his land what he was legally entitled to, he got himself into a situation because there was a change in government, he did with his land something because we have a piece of legislation before this House and it wasn't clear whether it was going to become law or not become law." Therefore, we think that the problem of the situation which I described can be overcome by giving this discretion to the minister of the government to carry forward.

My party feels very strongly on this matter. It may only affect one or two individuals in this province. I do not expect that it would affect much more than that number, but to those individuals it may mean their life savings. It means that they were acting in accordance with the law and are now being penalized, and we absolutely dismiss that kind of lawmaking in this province.

Therefore, I will ask, after we give this second reading, that the parliamentary assistant and the minister will consider a reasonable amendment, if not like the one that we have given him a copy of, something of a similar nature.

Mr Ferguson: I will try to be very brief. I do not want to give a historical perspective of what has happened to this point in time in the province and what prompts the government and necessitates the government to bring forth the amendment to the act, but let me tell members, in 1983, when the act was proposed, a number of people from the legal community as well as a number of municipalities apprised the government of the day, the members from the Conservative Party of the day, of some of the serious shortcomings of the bill. They stated at that point in time that there would be perhaps a point where this portion of the Planning Act was open for some pretty serious abuse, and of course that has come to fruition.

If you take a look at this map -- and it is a map that basically runs from Fort Erie and Niagara-on-the-Lake up to Hamilton-Wentworth -- you will notice the number of stars that are located on the map, and those are really the hot spots where the abuse is taking place in the province of Ontario today. Let me tell you that it is not only in this area where this portion of the Planning Act is not being used but severely abused that necessitates this amendment to the Planning Act, but there are other areas in the province as well.

Very briefly, in July of 1990, on 26 July, a press release was issued outlining that that would be the retroactive date for this piece of legislation. We think it is only fitting to uphold that date with this new piece of legislation.

In addition to that, it has been suggested to the members that people who have received lots created by wills from people who have died after 26 July are going to run into some difficulties. Clearly that is not the case, they are still going to hold the land in trust as common tenants, and I think that is important.

Mr Tilson: I do hope that the government will consider the proposal that has been put forward by the member for Carleton, because I think in addition to the situation that he has illustrated, innocent people could have made a will -- and in good faith, based on the law at the time -- and may indeed have passed away before, as I say, Bill 25 is enacted, and could have passed away certainly between 25 July and whenever the bill is enacted, in other words, the date of proclamation, in which case their bequest would be void and could cause considerable legal problems as far as their wills are concerned. So that is yet another example, in addition to the example that was given by the member for Carleton.

Certainly we do not live in a perfect world, and no amount of tinkering will make the world perfect. However, notwithstanding the fact that we do not live in a perfect world, I think that every effort should be made to make the world as perfect as possible. I am sure that is the ideal wish of this government. Clearly, by solving a problem that I think all members of this House agree with, I think every effort should be taken to solve a potential problem that this bill may have the opposite effect of creating. So again, our party is supporting the bill in principle but has that one major concern.

Mr Sterling: I just want to make it perfectly clear to the parliamentary assistant that he need not draw the evidence out again that this amendment is needed. We have said we support the principle of it, and when he holds up the map with the stars, I am as concerned about the stars or the dots or whatever it is as he is. I drafted the Niagara Escarpment plan, so I am very much concerned that that plan not be taken apart by abuses.

I do not make any excuses for what was or what was not done in 1983. That does not matter. The abuses were not taking place in 1983, they took place in 1989 or 1990 or whenever these people were abusing the law.

But for the parliamentary assistant, of all the things that he said, perhaps the most important one was that on 26 July a press release was given out by the minister. A press release is not the law. The law of the land is what we make in this Legislature. The law of the land will be the law of the land when we give royal assent to Bill 25. And not only was the press release not law, the press release was from a former government.

Therefore, what I am asking the minister and the parliamentary assistant is not a great leap of faith. What I am asking him to do is for the Minister of Housing, for a short period of time, from 25 July of last year to the date when we give this bill royal assent, to take some discretion to fix up the cases where we have unintentionally put people in a corner that they cannot get out of That is all we are asking.

The Deputy Speaker: It being 6 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.

The House adjourned at 1800.0