Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 1330.

Prayers.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

HEALTH CARE

Mr Henderson: In an era of prevalent doctor-bashing, I want to pay tribute to a very courageous doctor and patient who made history of sorts this Christmas in Parry Sound.

Clarence Draper is a 75-year-old gentleman who was taken to Parry Sound District General Hospital on Christmas Eve with no blood pressure and no pulse because of a ruptured aortic aneurysm, a bursting of a balloon-like dilatation in the main artery carrying blood under high pressure out of the heart. Dr Denys Hunt and his colleagues at the Parry Sound hospital set aside the temptingly safe but certain to be fatal course of sending Mr Draper to Toronto and performed a life-saving aortic aneurysm graft in Parry Sound.

Undertaking such surgery away from a specialist centre on a patient with no blood pressure and no pulse is a bit like repairing the engine of a DC-8 while the aircraft is plummeting towards the earth. Mr Draper owes his life to the skill and courage of Dr Hunt, to the Parry Sound surgical team, to the dedication of the nurses on the third floor, to his wife and daughters who provided round-the-clock intensive care following surgery, and of course to his own courage, faith and fortitude.

I want to applaud the courage, skill and compassion of the Parry Sound surgical team: Doctors Hunt, McFarland, Cooke, Donovan and Hunkin, and everyone else who participated in this surgical miracle.

TRAFFIC SIGNALS

Mr Cousens: Today is an unusual day in that I want to extend my appreciation to the Minister of Transportation.

[Applause]

Mr Cousens: Once in a while he will even get a clap from me.

This is the third Minister of Transportation I have pursued this issue with and until now have had a negative response, even from him in the early stages until the arm-twisting reached such excruciating pain for him last week that he had no choice but to use his common sense and do what was right.

I want to stand up in this House and extend my sincere appreciation and the appreciation of those people in Unionville who have been trying to present their case for some time to have a traffic light on Highway 7. Yes, another traffic light on Highway 7. The people of Unionville are in a position where they cannot get across the street because of the traffic. We need to have some way in which they can get to the bus stop and so that they can get out and get a haircut, so that they can get out of their place and do something.

Mr Mahoney: A haircut?

Mr Cousens: Well, I have had them before too. I remember what it was like to carry a comb; never mind. But the people of Unionville are better off than I am when it comes to that stuff.

It is just the fact that we in this province have to make sure that life is accessible to everybody. They were locked into this institution and could not get across the road. Now, because of everyone working together, the town of Markham, the seniors -- Anna Russell, Dennis Robbins, Margaret McLean, John Wilson -- the people in the shops at Unionville and the people in Markham, they have made it happen, and I thank the Minister of Transportation for helping out.

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM

Mr White: I rise to speak about the national dialogue presently taking place, which focuses on the very nature and future of Canada.

I had the opportunity recently of observing a forum held in Whitby. It was an interesting and important opportunity for people to exchange views, to help inform our community. We can only hope that these exchanges are to be part of a national dialogue which is intricately linked to the renegotiation and renewal of our national community. Like our own hearings of the select committee on Ontario in Confederation, the debate was lively and stimulating.

If such forums are only a preliminary and time-killing ruse, however, the hope and trust of the nation will again be dashed. If the later stages and the very decision-making process leaves out such direct consultation, then Canadians will again be disheartened and alienated by their very own political structures. The healing process that takes part in here does not end with initial exchange. Our whole community must be involved in setting goals and in solving the problems they have reached an impasse with.

I believe we need a positive vision of what our country and institutions stand for. Further, I believe this can only be achieved through a real involvement of the Canadian peoples in this vision. Only together can we join in the forging of a new consensus. Only with a real national dialogue throughout the entirety of this process can we reach this goal.

RACE RELATIONS

Mr Phillips: On behalf of myself and my colleague the member for Scarborough North, I would like to bring to the attention of the House this serious matter of hate literature distribution in Scarborough.

I think each of us has a vision of our Canada. I view it as a flower garden. Canada has been fortunate initially to have a beautiful flower, our native community, and then over the life of this country we have been able to attract from around the world the best of the flowers: the English and the French and the Greeks and the Italians, and of course from Asia, from India, from Korea, from the Philippines, from China. Now I think we have perhaps the most beautiful flower garden in the world, and indeed it is a role model for the world, but like with any flower garden, periodically a weed creeps in.

Right now we have such a weed and it is called racism and hate literature. Someone in Scarborough is distributing hate literature.

It is a vicious weed; it is spreading lies. Our Chinese community is a wonderful community, as the members know. It is a cowardly weed in that it attacks anonymously in the middle of the night with unsigned letters. It is a weed that I think all of us must attack, for while right now it is attacking our Asian community, it surely will spread if it is not checked.

For the province's part, I would hope that both our new race relations secretariat and the Human Rights Commission will apply the full strength of their operation to rout out this vicious Ontario weed as quickly as we possibly can.

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ELECTRICITY DEMAND AND SUPPLY

Mr Jordan: The Minister of Energy is continuing to shadow the need for immediate planning for new generation through conservation, demand management, environmental protection and non-utility generation. Industries are worried the provincial government's electricity saving projections of over 6,000 megawatts are too ambitious and Ontario will face even higher electricity costs and supply shortages in the mid-1990s.

The president of Falconbridge Ltd is very concerned. "If Ontario can sustain its economy and preserve the jobs of its people while phasing out nuclear generation, that's all well and good. But the government and the advocates of this course of action had better be very, very careful of the consequences if the approach is wrong. It will not just be wrong, it'll be disastrously wrong and ruinously wrong," he told 150 members of the Association of Major Power Consumers of Ontario.

When you are into a big energy consumption type of business, you are going to look to the area where you can get the best deal on power. This is no time to take entrenched, ideological positions. This issue has implications that transcend ideology. Is it not time the minister came forward with policy and leadership for the future of this province?

WINE INDUSTRY

Ms Harrington: The government of Ontario is pleased to support Ontario's grape growers and wineries in their efforts to promote Ontario wines. The members may have seen the new commercials on television this past week. We encourage Ontario consumers to buy Ontario-made wines. We ask restaurants and hotels to show support by highlighting and promoting these products in their businesses. All members of the House have an opportunity to promote Ontario wines by asking that they be served instead of imported wines at events which we sponsor.

Ontario wines are winning international awards and are being lauded by expert wine connoisseurs in Europe. In Niagara Falls recently, this past month, we had a grand cuvée, which was a very elegant affair. It was a competition for Ontario wineries.

We are proud that Ontario wines have come of age, and on behalf of the industry we invite people to visit the wine regions of Ontario, especially Niagara. Speaking of visiting Niagara Falls, it is almost blossom time, and that is another good reason to visit Niagara.

On behalf of the government of Ontario, I salute our province's grape growers and vintners and ask that members of the House encourage their constituents to support this important sector of our agricultural community.

CROSS-BORDER SHOPPING

Mrs Y. O'Neill: Last Friday the member for Mississauga North, the member for Brampton North and I travelled to Windsor on a fact-finding mission regarding the cross-border shopping crisis in that community.

What we saw and heard first hand is a courageous struggle by municipal leaders and small businesses to lead a fight, without any offer of aid or assistance from this NDP government, against an American retail system deliberately structured to pick them off one by one.

The people in Windsor have suggestions, as do people in the other devastated border communities: suggestions for solutions that could be implemented this summer at the height of our tourist season; suggestions that would give them the kind of level playing field needed to prove their ability to compete. They also know that only two obstacles stand in their way: this NDP government and their Tory cousins in Ottawa.

In Windsor they know the NDP continues to refuse to help them regain their competitive edge, saying it would cost the province too much money to review, revise or improve various components of the tax system. In Windsor they know it is costing the province too much and the people know it is costing them their very livelihood and their jobs not to review the tax system.

The people of Windsor have enlisted the co-operation of a professor from the University of Windsor to collect new data that will prove to their own provincial government that a crisis does exist. I hope the NDP government will listen to this new data and that it will act before it is too late for that community.

ACCESSIBILITY FOR THE DISABLED

Mr Turnbull: Under amendments to Ontario's Municipal Act that came into effect in December 1990, municipalities throughout the province are legally required to ensure that disabled persons have equal access to all polling stations for the municipal elections, which are on 12 November 1991.

This is a very expensive requirement. North York decided it could not afford the estimated $1.24 million to build permanent ramps. Instead, the city will reduce the number of polling stations. This will mean many voters will have to travel longer distances to vote, which could reduce the number of people voting in the municipal elections.

The city of Toronto is projecting that the construction of permanent ramps at polling stations will cost in the neighbourhood of $37.6 million. Temporary ramps will cost about $1.3 million.

When the Premier spoke at the opening of a county region's annual conference in mid-October, he said, "We want to make sure that governments that are responsible for the policy take the responsibility for paying for it."

The people in my riding are already paying too much property tax. I challenge the Premier to live up to his own words. He said he would pay for the cost of provincial initiatives. Will his government pick up the cost of municipalities meeting their obligations under the Municipal Act?

VOLUNTEERS

Mr Ferguson: Will Rogers once said that we cannot all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.

Yesterday in my riding I had the privilege and the pleasure to attend a celebration that paid tribute to the local heroes of Kitchener-Waterloo and surrounding area. Over 30 Kitchener residents who have chosen not to sit on the curb and watch the parade go by were honoured for their voluntary efforts in a variety of organizations.

I pay tribute today to these local heroes, who were recognized by the province of Ontario for their time, energy and commitment freely given in the delivery of a wide range of services to the citizens of their community. Joy and Therow Kramer of the K-W art gallery and the Multicultural Centre, Evie Hill of the Joseph Schneider Haus Museum, George Pepall of the Ontario Student Debating Union and Cathy Milloy of the Waterloo Regional Arts Council were but a few of the individuals recognized for the valuable and unselfish role they fulfil in our community.

Today I am sure my colleagues join with me in saluting these individuals who have made an immense contribution in building a more caring, compassionate and humane community in our corner of Ontario.

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STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY

ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROME SYNDROME / IMMUNODÉFICIENCE ACQUIS

L'hon M^me Gigantes : Monsieur le Président, je suis heureuse d'annoncer les différentes mesures mises en place par le gouvernement pour faire face au SIDA et répondre aux besoins des personnes atteintes de l'infection par le virus d'immunodéficience humaine.

Comme vous le savez, Monsieur le Président, une personne peut être infectée pendant des années sans qu'aucun signe ou symptôme de la maladie ne se manifeste. Il existe un test qui permet aux personnes se croyant être à risque de savoir si elles sont infectées par le VIH, mais nous croyons que le système utilisé et l'exigence de déclaration obligatoire en Ontario empêchent bon nombre de ces personnes de subir ce test. Elles ont peur de la maladie, elles ont peur d'être victimes de discrimination et elles ont peur que ces renseignements soient divulgués.

I am pleased to announce some measures we are taking to extend our government's response to AIDS and those affected by the human immunodeficiency virus.

As you know, people can be infected for many years without any signs or symptoms of illness. There is a test that will tell those who believe they may be at risk whether or not they are infected with HIV, but we believe that many are not coming forward to be tested because of Ontario's testing system and reporting requirements. They fear the disease; they fear discrimination; they fear loss of privacy.

It is extremely important that we encourage those at risk to be tested as soon as possible. With early diagnosis, people can receive the care they need to delay the onset of AIDS. They also receive the information and education they need to prevent the spread of the virus to others.

Therefore, I am announcing two important changes to Ontario's HIV testing and reporting system. We are expanding anonymous HIV testing, making it available in communities outside of Toronto; we are changing the mandatory reporting requirements for the other forms of HIV testing.

There are three types of HIV testing available in Ontario today: nominal testing, the most common, in which the physician requests the test using the individual's name; non-nominal testing, used for approximately 30% of all HIV tests, in which the physician uses a code known only to the patient and the physician when requesting the test; anonymous testing, now available only at Hassle Free Clinic in Toronto, in which the test is requested using a code known only to the patient and no one knows the identity of the person.

With anonymous testing, there is no way to trace the identity of the individual. With both nominal and non-nominal testing, physicians are required by law to report the identity of anyone who tests positive for HIV to the local medical officer of health. The person is then supposed to be counselled on the implications of the illness, and his or her sexual or drug-use contacts are also traced and counselled.

We believe these reporting requirements are preventing many who may be infected from being tested. Statistics gathered by Hassle Free Clinic, which is funded jointly by the Toronto Board of Health and the Ministry of Health, indicate that over the past five years approximately 10% of the people who choose anonymous testing test positive. This is much higher than the 3% rate from other forms of HIV testing. These numbers suggest that people are more likely to come forward when testing is anonymous.

And we are not alone in this view. Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner, in a report released last October, recommended that "anonymous testing for the presence of HIV antibody should be available for persons who wish to be tested." The provincial Advisory Committee on AIDS, community groups and health organizations have asked for greater access to anonymous testing as well.

As Minister of Health, my goal is to encourage as many people as possible to come forward for testing and to remove any barriers that may keep them from getting the help and care they need. Therefore, we will establish and fund anonymous test sites in communities across Ontario.

To ensure that the people of Ontario are aware of their testing choices, the ministry will work with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario to develop guidelines for physicians on explaining the different types of testing and counselling patients on their implications. To ensure that we can continue to monitor the spread of this illness, we will of course require anonymous test sites to collect non-identifying information, such as age, sex and risk factor, from those who come forward for testing.

In addition to expanding anonymous testing, we are also changing the mandatory reporting requirements to make testing more private and confidential. Physicians will now be required to report the name of someone who tests positive to public health authorities only if the physician believes the person may be putting others at risk.

We are committed to moving forward with these changes. We intend to consult Ontario's Advisory Committee on AIDS, public health officials, AIDS advocacy groups and women's and physicians' groups on the best way to implement this more private and confidential approach to HIV testing.

As Minister of Health, I am convinced this policy will balance the right of the individual to privacy with the responsibility to protect public health. By making anonymous testing available throughout the province and by changing mandatory reporting requirements, we will encourage more people to come forward for testing. They will then be able to receive the information and medical and social services they may need and we will come one step closer to stopping the spread of the virus.

Mr Speaker, I believe you and the members will agree that these steps are a basic, commonsense part of an effective AIDS strategy and that they should help us provide better services to those who need them.

RESPONSES

ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROME

Mr Phillips: I am pleased to respond and to say there is much in here that we can support. I guess we have one significant question in an area where perhaps there is further debate required. Certainly I think the experience of the Hassle Free Clinic here in Metropolitan Toronto has proven to be worth while, and I believe it is fair to say the previous minister had called for proposals for having similar clinics available to other people in the province. I am pleased to see the minister proceeding with that. I am pleased also to see that statistics will continue to be collected, as she points out here, on an anonymous basis and I think that is a needed aspect of the study.

In terms of considering ways this may be improved, I appreciate the need for anonymous identification of individuals who may have tested positive. The one question I might have, though, on the statement is just whether we should eliminate from this area the medical officers of health.

There is perhaps a middle ground that might be considered, the non-nominal identification of individuals who may have tested positive, just to ensure that the physicians and the medical officers of health are working together. Certainly some medical officers of health would suggest to all of us that they do not need to know the name of the individual, but what is a benefit to the individual and indeed the community is to have the medical officer of health aware there has been a positive test and in contact with the physician to make certain that physician is doing what is required.

It is possible, under this proposal -- and I realize that our physicians are dedicated individuals -- but things can fall between cracks. That would be one aspect of the statement I would suggest could require further discussion, the consideration of notifying the medical officers of health on a non-nominal basis that a positive test has taken place, to permit them to follow up with the physician so that we have two organizations working on it.

I guess the final comment I would make is that there are other aspects of this area that need further work, as the minister appreciates, I am sure, and we are looking forward to the more comprehensive plan I think she talked about last week. We are dealing in this area with an extremely sensitive issue that requires all of us to tread softly and with a good deal of thought as we try to ensure that we protect the rights of the individual and the rights of the public. Perhaps this is one of the most challenging areas, to ensure both those things happen.

We support much of what is in here. We would have one, I think, significant comment. I am pleased to see in the statement that it is the minister's intent for further discussion and dialogue on that, but I do appreciate the chance to comment and to be of help in dealing with this particular area.

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Mr Eves: I would like first of all to associate myself with the comments made by both the minister and the member for Scarborough-Agincourt this afternoon. I would also like to point out that there are other areas, of course, with respect to this problem that we have in our society today, education being one of them, that certainly need to be addressed so we can get to the root of the problem that we have facing society today.

A couple of other, smaller points. I am not trying to be critical; I am actually trying to be helpful here. A needle exchange program, which I suggested to the minister's predecessor many months ago, a year and a half or two years ago, I think would go a long way to solving a small part of the problem that we have in society today. I know the minister is aware of the northern health travel grant aspect of this problem, because I am aware that it was brought to her attention with respect to a particular individual back in late March, I believe.

She indicated that she would be looking into perhaps expanding that program, to looking after patients with AIDS who need treatment in a lot of those areas of the province where there really are not general practitioners who are used to dealing with this particular disease. These people have to come to Toronto in many instances and cannot afford to pay their way. I would appreciate it if the minister would look into addressing that small part, albeit an important part to those particular individuals concerned, of this problem as well.

There is one other thing that I would ask of the minister. I am sure she has already thought of it; in fact, she alludes to it on page 2 of her statement. She is putting a fairly heavy onus of responsibility upon physicians by saying that only if the physician believes the person may be putting others at risk will he or she be reported. I do not disagree with the statement the minister has made except that I am sure she is working -- I hope she is working -- with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario to be able to address that problem. I am sure there are some physicians out there who are going to be quite concerned about the liability they are perhaps placing themselves in, legal liability as physicians for having to make that judgement. I am sure they could use all the assistance and guidance that is available through the college and through her ministry to assist them in their endeavours.

Mr Cousens: In the last couple of days, the Minister of the Environment has been making statements outside the Legislature and not here. I would have expected that today we would have a statement on the shipment of garbage to Ottawa from Kingston --

The Speaker: Would the member for Markham take his seat, please. We were at the part on the agenda that called for responses to statements made, not the opportunity to make statements yourself, but it was quite interesting.

VISITOR

The Speaker: Before continuing, members may wish to welcome to our midst today the former member for Brantford, Phil Gillies, seated in the gallery.

ORAL QUESTIONS

DOCTORS' FEES

Mr Nixon: I would like to direct this question to the Minister of Health, who has been so effusive in her accolades to those members in support of the government who have negotiated an agreement with the Ontario Medical Association. I was rather surprised she was as specific as she was in saying what an excellent agreement it was, since I understand that the doctors have not yet accepted it, and she may even have the idea that she can speak to the press about this but not the House.

However, I would like to ask her, under these circumstances, what she can say about the situation involving the medical practitioners since, according to verified news reports, the government is offering binding arbitration, a closed shop and a settlement of between $200 million and $300 million. Could she indicate what the OMA in return is offering to the Ministry of Health and, through her, to the people of Ontario by way of a balance in an agreement of this import.

Hon Ms Gigantes: I am going to refer this to the Premier.

Hon Mr Rae: I am delighted to be able to answer. First of all, I want to say to the Leader of the Opposition that we have negotiated in good faith as a government over a period of several months. The negotiations have been difficult and they have been intense, but I believe they have been extremely productive. I would say to the Leader of the Opposition that we are not really in a position at this point to go into any of the details of the agreement for the simple reason, as the Leader of the Opposition will well appreciate, that the agreement has to be ratified by the membership of the OMA.

I would say to the Leader of the Opposition that the government regards the achievement of a balanced agreement, one which achieves a system which is well run and well managed in the interests of all the people -- as a genuine breakthrough for the province, something which has never been achieved successfully in the past and something which we look forward to with enormous anticipation as a government.

Mr Nixon: The Premier would be aware that such an agreement was reached in the past. I wish I could say that our government had done that because, as the honourable members would know, we had to take the rather difficult position of living up to the requirements of the Canada Health Act and, with the support of the present government party, we banned extra billing. This did not lead to a lot of brotherly love between the profession and the government of the day. But previous to that, the Conservative government did move into an "era of enlightenment" by giving the doctors a full 6% increase, somewhat similar to what it appears the present government is contemplating.

The Premier is shaking his head and will be able to say, when he takes his feet again, that he can give us no details on this, but the indications are that there is compulsory arbitration, a closed shop and a settlement which will cost between $200 million and $300 million.

I think it is important, since the Minister of Health has been so elaborate in describing this to the community at large, that the members of the House and the taxpayers know what the cost of this is going to be. Frankly, rather than just moving into an era of enlightenment and friendship between the leader of the government and those members of the medical profession who advertised extensively in support of his contentions previously, we would like to know what the positive aspects are in the agreement involving the OMA.

Hon Mr Rae: The fact of the matter is that the Leader of the Opposition can choose to throw around any figures he wants. I can only tell him that those figures are not an accurate reflection of the overall agreement.

Mr Mahoney: What is?

Hon Mr Rae: Then the member for Mississauga West shouts out, "What is?" He will appreciate, since he knows full well, having learned it at his father's knee, that it is not possible for me, before an agreement has been shared and ratified with the members. What I can say to the Leader of the Opposition is this: Our determination in going into the negotiations was to achieve a settlement that would be long-lasting, that would establish a clear sense of co-operation between all the partners in the health care system and that would assure the taxpayers of a well-run and well-managed system that would protect the future integrity of medicare as a system for the people of the province.

We believe those objectives have been achieved successfully in the negotiations we have gone into and we believe that it is a remarkable settlement on behalf of all the people of the province. That is why we are so proud of it.

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Mr Nixon: It interests me that the Premier has pushed his emphatic button today, mostly because he feels his position is somewhat weak since both he and the Chairman of Management Board and the Minister of Health have spent the weekend saying what an era of enlightenment they are leading the province into.

I would just suggest, since this is an open government and we do represent on this side of the House probably more than 60% of the taxpayers, that he, if not the Minister of Health, should be in a position to indicate just what the provisions are in this. If they are going to talk about how wonderful they are, maybe they should tell us just what the cost of this agreement is.

I do not mean just in dollars, and that is going to be a lot of dollars. In spite of the fact that the doctors have had no indication for two years of an increase in their basic fee schedule, the increases in their payments have been somewhere in the order of 7% a year, to the point that the average payout from the Treasury is about $225,000 per doctor, according to the numbers that are available from the government.

Frankly, I resent to some extent the fact that the Premier is stonewalling the House and the taxpayers of the province, particularly since the Minister of Health, who should be answering this question, has indicated that she, for example, is going to cut back on community home care programs and a wide variety of other programs so that there will be enough money to move into this era of enlightenment.

I wonder if the Premier can indicate that he has been able to negotiate here, through the Minister of Health and his other minions, an agreement that is going to be of the type that will leave him at least some room for the provision of modern preventive services in the community of the type that so far the Minister of Health has scoffed at and rejected.

Hon Mr Rae: The Leader of the Opposition's characterization of the position of the Minister of Health is absolutely and completely wacko. It has no relationship at all to the direction of the government policy. In fact, it is the opposite of what we are trying to do. I am using "wacko" in its technical sense.

What I want to say to the Leader of the Opposition is this: It is precisely because of our desire to free up funds in the future for community care and for community health that we have determined to negotiate a settlement with the medical profession that will provide for a degree of management of the system.

We found when we took office on 6 September that we had inherited a system which was paid for by the government but effectively managed by no one -- not managed effectively by the Ministry of Health, not managed effectively by the medical profession -- and it is precisely because of the need for that effective management that we have reached the settlement that we have.

Let me say that I think it is important for the medical profession to be able to determine its response to this historic, ground-breaking settlement free of political pressure and free of the kind of numbers being thrown around as they are by the Leader of the Opposition, and I am going to continue to take that approach.

Mr Nixon: The Premier may say that I am wacko in this regard, but we left in place for him and his minister a program for long-term care that was well established, well researched and well funded, and this government has stopped it; they have put it on ice. There is still half of the province with no long-term care at all because the minister scorns it and refuses to take action.

GARBAGE DISPOSAL

Mr Nixon: I have a question for the Minister of the Environment and Garbage Philosophy.

The minister took a stand that was applauded by some in the community that municipal garbage could not go across regional borders. She said the thought of any of this going into northern Ontario was, to use her word, "unthinkable." If the Minister of Transportation had been talking about it, he would have said it was "immoral," something the same.

Yet under the circumstances, we have noticed on the weekend, she has given her interim approval for Kingston garbage to go into Ottawa-Carleton, to a commercial disposal situation there.

I wonder if she can explain the unthinkability of her decision, or the immorality of her approach, in a situation that under her leadership is becoming increasingly confused and inadequate.

Hon Mrs Grier: I am sorry if the Leader of the Opposition is confused, but let me make it very clear to him that my position with respect to the disposal of waste remains exactly what it has always been, that communities have to look after the waste as close as possible to the source of generation and that, in the long term, sites will not be approved that are far away from the source of generation.

The situation with respect to Kingston is very much a short-term solution to a problem that I found waiting for me on 2 October, and let me just share with the Leader of the Opposition some of the details of that situation.

The city of Kingston and its surrounding municipalities take their waste to a dump in Storrington township. That dump reached its approved capacity in December 1988. It was given a contour amendment and an interim expansion from January 1989 to May 1990. It was given an emergency extension from May 1990 to 31 December 1990, and in November I met with the officials from that area and I said that I would give them another emergency extension to 30 April 1990, and that would be the last emergency certificate. In the interim my ministry would work with them to get going on the 3Rs and we would take a look at the environmental assessment application for a long-term site within Storrington that had been filed with my ministry in 1989 and not dealt with.

Mr Nixon: The Ministry of the Environment is approving the shipping of waste from Halton to Buffalo still, is it not? -- I ask the member for the area -- at a cost of something like $25 million. The minister is now approving the shipping of garbage from Kingston. How far? One hundred and twenty-five kilometres. According to the new rule which supersedes last week's rule, that is not too far. It is interesting that the honourable minister is making up policy and probably regulations as she goes along, when she said last week clearly that she would not permit the trans-shipment of municipal garbage from one region or community to another and under these circumstances she says, "Well, as long as the distance is not too far." I wonder if she would clarify that rule and indicate, is 150 kilometres the distance that she will permit now, or what are the adjustments going to be in the future?

Hon Mrs Grier: The Leader of the Opposition is once again characterizing something quite differently from what it really is, and he knows that very well. The position of this government is that we get serious on waste reduction and that we require municipalities to plan their waste management systems in such a way that their disposal sites are as close as possible to the source of generation. I have made no bones about the fact that in the short run, in cleaning up the legacy of mismanagement that I have inherited, I would make in each particular situation the most environmentally sound decision that I could make. Faced with a choice of giving a third emergency expansion to a dump that was filled three years ago or allowing that municipality to ship to the closest dump that retains capacity -- ie, the Laidlaw disposal site in Carp -- I chose to allow Kingston, if it so decides, to take that waste to Carp, and I think that is the best solution that could be reached in this situation.

Mr Nixon: I think the honourable minister means it is the only one she could think of in emergency circumstances. Would the minister not recall that my colleague, the member for Ottawa West, proposed legislation which would give significant control to the regions to prohibit garbage coming into their area? She dismissed that as being unnecessary because of the responsibility that she was taking under those circumstances. Now it appears that it is clearly necessary, since a private agreement involving Laidlaw, Ottawa-Carleton, and their Ottawa-Carleton dump site and the city of Kingston, has not only been approved, but in fact imposed by the minister. Would she not consider that she should be supporting the private legislation from my colleague, the member for Ottawa West, to provide a modicum of preventive care in that instance for the municipalities that are really going to be subject to the rather irresponsible decision she has taken in spite of her own rules?

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Hon Mrs Grier: I would be glad to expand on that, because one of the other factors in this particular situation is that both the city of Kingston and the area surrounding it, and the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton have contracted out to Laidlaw Waste Systems the disposal of their waste. Laidlaw, under some other government -- and I do not know which -- has a certificate of approval for its site in Carp that allows it to accept waste from all across the province. That situation concerns me and I was very happy that my ministry was able to facilitate the negotiations between the municipality of Ottawa-Carleton and Laidlaw that would allow the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton to in fact have some control over the final capacity in that waste disposal site. As part of their negotiations, the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton agreed with Laidlaw that, for not more than two years, waste from the Kingston area could be deposited in that facility, and that was the agreement that was arrived at last week.

Mr Cousens: The question is for the Minister of the Environment. It is obvious that the Minister of the Environment is no longer responsible for waste management in Ontario. Last week this minister was adamant that Metropolitan Toronto's garbage had to be looked after a certain way. York region would look after Metro Toronto's, Durham would look after Durham's. The government had a whole plan, which the minister announced with fanfare and with pride last week.

Last December the minister had in the back of her mind, gave some support to, the suggestion that Kirkland Lake could be considered as an alternative. It was left open as an option after considerable discussions had been held between Metro and Kirkland Lake. It was certainly one of those things that Metro was looking at. Then we come along last week; outside this Legislature this minister has announced, and is allowing to happen, that Kingston's garbage could go to Ottawa-Carleton. Also, we see the same minister making statements outside the House with regard to incineration as to what her position is or is not, but does not bring it back to the Legislature.

What we really need to have is, very simply and straightforwardly from this minister, a statement of the criteria she has for disposing of one's waste. What are the criteria she has?

Hon Mrs Grier: The waste management policies of this government are dependent, first of all, on the 3Rs. The people have to reduce their waste as much as possible, reuse as much of that waste as possible and then, failing that, to recycle their waste as much as possible.

In the announcements I made last February, I laid in place some very specific programs to take us in that direction. I announced the establishment within my ministry of a waste reduction office, which is working with municipalities to do that. It is certainly my expectation that this government will reach, and more than reach, the targets that have been laid down for the reduction of waste. That is our long-term strategy.

Mr Cousens: Those are not the criteria. The minister keeps on coming back, "We support the 3Rs." We all support the 3Rs, it is necessary -- but criteria, the way in which you make a decision. The minister comes along and in the greater Toronto area makes a decision: "Okay, we'll send it to York region, put it in Greg Sorbara's riding. Come on. Go and do what you want there." What are the minister's criteria when she comes along and says she is going to start sending Kingston's garbage to Ottawa-Carleton? What we are really trying to get to is, who is pulling the minister's strings?

Last week, when we asked a question, the minister said in response: "For everyone the member can quote who is unhappy with my decision, I can perhaps quote back to him, from Pollution Probe, from Northwatch, from environmental groups in Kirkland Lake, in New Liskeard, in North Bay and in Timiskaming, that feel the decision this government made yesterday," regarding its Metro garbage, "was the most appropriate decision for the environment. That is what matters." Those were the minister's words.

Now, in response to my colleague the member for Mississauga South, the minister stated: "The member says that this is not an environmentally supportive decision." Let me refer to the release today of Pollution Probe -- she was quoting Pollution Probe -- which says, "Environment groups have earned a victory with yesterday's announcement by Environment minister Ruth Grier."

I understand what 3 April brought, and so now today I am interested in the minister's comment on what her fan club from those agencies she so highly spoke of last week -- what do they say about the minister's policy last Friday to start shipping Kingston's garbage by truck or whatever up to Ottawa-Carleton? What does her fan club say about that?

Hon Mrs Grier: I am sorry if the member does not have a fan club. I can understand that he would feel lacking in that, but perhaps he will one day.

This decision that was taken last Friday, or in fact may well be taken by the city of Kingston when it arrives at its own decision, was to agree with the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton that in its negotiations with Laidlaw, the contractor who deals with both Kingston and area municipalities and the regional municipality -- that if they could arrive at an agreement with Laidlaw, this government would facilitate the expediency of that agreement and the introduction and passage of legislation that would allow the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton to charge a surcharge to those municipalities beyond its borders that we are using to cart dump. That was what happened last Friday, and the regional council at Ottawa-Carleton agreed with the negotiations that had taken place.

Mr Cousens: The garbage is piling up faster coming out of the Minister of the Environment than it is from Metro and Kingston combined. The fact is, she cannot come along and have one set of rules for Kingston and another set for Metro Toronto. It just does not wash, it does not make sense. I do not know where the minister is coming from.

When you start hearing what Paul Christie in Toronto says, a very enlightened person, he says, "bizarre and unbelievable." Let me add my word; I would say incredibly hypocritical to come along and have that kind of decision made for Toronto which says no to Kirkland Lake and then now in Kingston the minister says yes to Ottawa.

How can she in all good conscience justify her grandiose statement last week in the House saying that the GTA has to look after its own garbage and turn around and tell the opposite to Ottawa, outside the House? Why did not she at least make the intentions of what she is going to do in the ministry here in this place first?

Hon Mrs Grier: The member seems to have misunderstood what is in fact happening in Kingston and surrounding areas. Those areas have applied under the Environmental Assessment Act for a long-term disposal site for the residue of their waste within their own boundaries. That application has been before my ministry since 1989 and has not been dealt with. It is now going to be dealt with. I hope very much that hearings can start later this year and so those municipalities will have, as will the municipalities within the greater Toronto area, a long-term disposal site within their own jurisdiction.

In the meantime, we have to deal with the crisis that has been allowed to build and which starts on 30 April. The decision that has been taken is, in my opinion, the most environmentally sound decision for the next two years to deal with that particular crisis.

WAGE PROTECTION

Mr Stockwell: My question is to the Treasurer. Last week the Minister of Labour made the announcement on the wage protection fund to much fanfare, and it did not create one job. It was another new tax, I might add, too. The question that the business community has been asking, since the announcement has been made, is whether or not this new wage protection fund will be funded through some kind of business tax. Suggestions have been coming forward that the payroll tax reduces competitiveness, impairs job creation, hurts economic growth and puts the squeeze on small, medium and large businesses.

Will the Treasurer give the business community today his undertaking that he will not pass on another cost to the business community that it can ill afford and will not make this part of the business tax such as the Liberals did under the health plan?

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Hon Mr Laughren: I am somewhat surprised to hear the member for Etobicoke West cast his disparaging remarks about a fund that is designed to protect what working people have every right to have when they lose their jobs. I trust that when the legislation comes before this House, the member for Etobicoke West and his colleagues will be in support of the bill, and I want to reassure him that the funds for that program will be paid for this year out of the consolidated revenue fund.

Mr Stockwell: I would like to get that answer nailed down a little more. The Treasurer used his words very carefully.

Under the next budget, can the Treasurer guarantee the business community that he will not undermine the competitiveness of Ontario industries and that he will not pass another unneeded cost on to the business community today with another unnecessary business tax. When he announces his budget, whenever the heck that is -- it may be in May; it may be in June; I am not sure -- will he give me and the business community an undertaking that he will not include in that budget a process whereby the moneys raised for this job protection fund will come out of the business community payroll tax?

Hon Mr Laughren: Partly because of my years in opposition, I am still in favour of supplementary questions, even when they are repetitive. I want to reassure --

Mr Stockwell: If you don't answer the first question, they are repetitive.

Hon Mr Laughren: I answered it as clearly as it is possible to answer.

I think the member for Etobicoke West would agree, however, that there is a collective responsibility to look after workers who are not able to get wages or severance to which they are legally entitled. For those reasons, I hope the member for Etobicoke West will be in support of this particular legislation.

Finally, I will say again to the member for Etobicoke West that we do intend to fund that program out of the consolidated revenue fund.

Mr Stockwell: I am very pleased to hear today that the NDP government will not be including in the budget for now -- or I assume for ever if that is its policy today -- some process where it can raise the money for this already inflated program. It has gone from $145 million at the stroke of a pen to $175 million and will probably get close to $250 million before they are done. I am pleased they have assured the province of Ontario that they will not include this in their budget for this year or next year or at any later date, considering their policies today.

Would the Treasurer not agree, though, that the first priority should be to ensure that we keep existing jobs in Ontario? Would he not agree that it is important that we have job creation, not just processes by which people who lose their jobs can go and access money? I do not think anyone on this side of the House is arguing about that, but the question to come is, where is his job creation priority? Where is his priority to create jobs and will we see in this budget a specific outline for job creation and employment for people who are unemployed today? There is nothing more he can do for the people of Ontario who are on welfare and unemployment rolls than to create jobs. Will we see something in his budget, a specific policy outline, to give these people an opportunity for gainful employment?

Hon Mr Laughren: I am tempted to express my appreciation to the member for Etobicoke West for his abiding concern about severance for workers even when they move from one job to another. However, I am going to resist that temptation. I am also going to resist the temptation to write the upcoming budget here on the floor of the Legislature.

I encourage the member for Etobicoke West to be consistent when he is talking about what we should be doing on this side. One day I hear him telling us that we should not be raising taxes and the next day I hear him saying that we should be funding these kinds of programs out of taxation.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr Chiarelli: My question is to the Minister of Financial Institutions regarding the subject of automobile insurance. The government has repeatedly stated that it will be introducing legislation in June, and as we get closer to June, I am sure the people of Ontario are starting to enjoy some relief, because the government has finally said why it is going to introduce government-run automobile insurance.

On 30 March the Treasurer told the Sudbury Star that the public only wants a government auto insurance system "if the rates can be lower." On 4 April the current minister told the Toronto Sun that his government plan would generate "substantial savings that would be thrown into the consumers' pockets in this province."

In view of the above recent statements, will the minister now confirm to the people of Ontario and to this House that when his bill becomes law, automobile insurance premiums in Ontario will be lower?

Hon Mr Charlton: I thank the member for the opportunity to respond to this question. Our objective in pursuing the question of public auto insurance in Ontario is to try to provide the absolutely best possible insurance coverage to those who drive on the roads and suffer accidents in this province and to do so at the absolutely lowest price that we can achieve.

When all the decisions are made about the package, what it will be made up of, the benefits that will be included in it, when we are ready to introduce legislation, then I will be in a position to answer the member's question about specific premium rates.

Mr Chiarelli: Clearly the minister is contradicting the statements that the Treasurer made and that he previously made to the media. Clearly the minister and this government are not prepared to say that their government plan will lower insurance premiums in Ontario. In fact, based on some of the statements that the minister has made recently, the rates will probably increase for a significant number of people.

In a recent speech, on 4 April, and another one on 10 April, the minister advocated elimination of ratings on age and sex. Mr Justice Osborne's report stated clearly that, "Under such uniform classification of rates, senior citizens will definitely pay more and premiums will definitely increase for young women." I ask the minister to admit that it is very likely many premiums will increase under his government's public insurance scheme, particularly for young women and seniors.

Hon Mr Charlton: The member likes to engage in speculation that is likely to cause serious concern for a number of people in this province. I am not going to join him in engaging in that kind of speculation. The drivers of this province, including all those he mentioned, will judge our proposals based on their reality and not based on the speculations of himself and others in the media over the course of the last few weeks.

TORONTO ISLANDS COMMUNITY

Mr Stockwell: My question is to the Minister of Housing. Very recently he appointed Richard Johnston, an ex-NDP member of this Legislature. He was given 60 days to accomplish what three levels of government have not been able to in the last 35 years. He has been asked to resolve the Toronto Islands issue. After reading the minister's terms of reference, it is clear that there is going to be some government subsidy involved, considering the government's previous position and Richard Johnston's personal opinion. The islanders, as I understand it, will not be paying fair rent, as recommended by the Toronto city council, nor will they be paying fair taxes, as recommended by the Toronto city council.

I ask the minister, how much subsidy will these people on the Toronto Islands be getting and for how long? Why is it that these people need the subsidy, when there are so many out there who are in much greater need?

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Hon Mr Cooke: I appreciate the question but the question is based on the premise that a solution has been established and that there are going to be all sorts of subsidies. I have asked Mr Johnston to bring the three parties together, the region and the city and the residents on the island, to try to find that kind of consensus and finally, after 30 years -- some would say closer to 100 years -- this issue could be put to rest. Many local members, including members in the member's own caucus and previous caucuses, have said that there has to be a solution and that this matter has to be resolved. I agree it has to be and that is Mr Johnston's job.

Mr Stockwell: The minister's party has been very clear on this issue. He is maintaining the island resident community; he is maintaining it without taxes, without rent. They have no right to that property, as ruled by every court they have gone through in this country. What gives these people such special status to receive public park land to live on, at preferred prices? We have the islanders who are in need of financial subsidy: We have doctors, we have lawyers, we have NDP members of Toronto council, we have teachers, school principals, university professors, civil servants, therapists, consultants, psychologists, business people.

Will the minister give this House an undertaking that the island community will pay fair market rent and will pay taxes, as any constituent would pay taxes, on the homes they live in? What makes these people so different from the people who live in Windsor or the poor guy who is getting evicted from his house in Etobicoke or any of the other Ontarians around this province? Why do these people on the island have special status? The minister should tell me that when the report comes forward he will document who lives there, what their incomes are and why they get special status, why they get extra money that so many others need.

Hon Mr Cooke: Perhaps the member should talk to Larry Grossman and see what kind of position his party has traditionally taken on this issue.

When the member was describing the different types of people who live on the island, he was quite correct. There is a wide range of people who live on the island and it truly is a community. This party, when it was in opposition, took the position that this community should remain as a viable community. With that principle in mind, I have asked Mr Johnston to try to find a solution in working with the regional council, as well as the city council and the people on the island.

It is our position that the island community should be maintained. I hope we will be able to work out a compromise and a solution which will be acceptable to everyone in this community and in the tradition of all the MPPs who have represented that area, including Mr Grossman.

WASHROOM FACILITIES

Mr Perruzza: My question is to the Minister of Labour. With the construction season getting under way in Ontario it seems appropriate and necessary for this Legislature to address the issue of sanitary conditions on construction sites.

For many years carpenters, general contractors, cement finishers and others who depend on the construction trade for their livelihood have had to put up with substandard sanitary conditions at their work sites, and as is often the case, these men and women are forced to use less than adequate portable toilets, probable sources of contamination. Worse still is the fact that because these workers are only given 30-minute lunch breaks, it hardly allows them time to leave their work sites to have a proper meal in clean quarters, which means that they eat in less than appealing conditions, with nowhere to wash up.

Mr Scott: What page are you on, please?

Mr Perruzza: These are reasons enough for the government to act quickly in setting standards to promote sanitary work conditions for construction sites. Proper hygiene will decrease the spread of germs that lead to unnecessary sickness that directly influences productivity.

It is now up to the Ministry of Labour to ensure that portable washrooms have both water-flush toilets and hot and cold water basins installed in every construction project. My question is, when will the minister introduce legislation that will require --

Mr Stockwell: This is a speech. Even a curve ball doesn't take this long to get into flight.

Mrs Cunningham: This is ridiculous.

The Speaker: Relax. If the Minister of Labour would take his seat for a moment --

Interjections.

The Speaker: A lively group.

I offer two observations: First, that all members in the House are offered the same opportunity to ask questions of ministers; second, it is certainly appreciated if the questions are indeed just that and do not involve a great deal of speech-making.

I think all members may be interested to know, because some seem to have a slightly different version of how much time is utilized for questions and responses, that you will soon be aware of the timing that has elapsed for each and every one of the questions and responses. I have been keeping a little stopwatch on you folks and we will provide the results, then you can judge for yourselves. Okay?

Did the Minister of Labour get the drift of the question?

Hon Mr Mackenzie: No.

Mr Perruzza: It is interesting that the opposition is very interested in the subject matter. My question to the Minister of Labour is, when will he introduce legislation that will require work sites to install water-flush toilets as well as hot and cold water washbasins on all construction projects in order to guarantee that the men and women working in this industry have a clean and safe working environment?

Hon Mr Mackenzie: I think the question that my colleague has asked is an important one and certainly of importance to the construction workers across this province. I am pleased to be able to respond positively to this concern.

My ministry has just completed a complete overhaul of the regulations for construction projects under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. In these long overdue regulations, which we have been waiting for since 1984, we have clear regulations that require employers to provide or arrange for toilet and cleanup facilities for workers. Now, for the first time in Ontario, construction workers will have the right to clean, sanitary, private and well-maintained hygiene facilities on the job.

We are now developing the guidelines for the administration of this regulation, including guidelines for cases where it is not possible to provide all of these facilities. I can tell the honourable member that we will file this regulation by the end of this month and we hope to have it in place during this coming summer.

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HUNTING IN ALGONQUIN PARK

Mr H. O'Neil: Last week's edition of the Huntsville Forester contained the headline "Tourism Minister Gets an Earful About Algonquin." This meeting took place last week in Huntsville and was attended by the minister, the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay and 30 tourist operators. Can the Minister of Tourism and Recreation provide a brief synopsis of the tenor and content of the meeting and convey to this House what he told attendees about consultation between his ministry and the Ministry of Natural Resources?

Hon Mr North: I thank the member very much for the question. I do appreciate it. As the member is well aware, I did speak to him before I went up there and mentioned that I was going up there. We spoke at length about a number of different issues. I tried to talk to them about what I thought could be some things that could be positive, about aspects of native people working in the park or hunting in the park. I talked to them about a lot of different things.

The people up there, to say the least, were somewhat unhappy with what they figured I was not doing, but by the same token, they were happy that I had enough nerve to come, to face them, to speak to them on the issues and to be very direct. I believe that I had an opportunity to at least get to listen to their concerns. They did put them forth very directly and I appreciated those concerns. I brought those concerns back, I spoke to the Minister of Natural Resources on those concerns and I hope that in the future we will have an opportunity to speak to them again.

Mr H. O'Neil: It is obvious from the minister's own description, the newspaper and the minutes of the meetings, to quote Dan Quayle, that these people are not happy campers. Will the minister confirm that these statements were made at the 8 April meeting: by himself, "I'm very new and I don't pretend to know a lot about tourism;" by the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay, responding to why the Minister of Natural Resources was not available to speak to them, "Wildman is waiting until he has something more positive to say;" in response to a tourist operator asking whether the Minister of the Environment should be involved and whether they should press for the environmental assessment, by the minister "Yes, you're in a position to press for an environmental assessment?"

Are these statements true and is the minister going to be an advocate for the tourist operators to assist them in getting an environmental assessment?

Hon Mr North: On the first statement, yes, it is completely true that I said that I do not pretend to know a lot about tourism; that in fact I am very, very new. But that statement is taken out of context. I could just add what I said directly after that, that it was experiences like this that were giving me the experience to learn a lot more about the tourism industry and to be an advocate for the tourism industry.

I am the first to admit that I do not think that you can walk into any situation and say that you are the be-all and end-all of the issue and that you could be the fellow or the person who can tell them what they should do about their industry. I am willing to work with the industry. I am willing to try and help the industry to the best of my ability. As far as the statements go, anyone can write anything they want in a newspaper piece.

CROSS-BORDER SHOPPING

Mr J. Wilson: My question is also to the minister who is trying to be the Minister of Tourism and Recreation.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Meanie.

Hon Mr Laughren: Boo.

Mr J. Wilson: Well, the minister has been in office eight months. He should know something about tourism at this point.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of meeting with tourism operators and small business people in Fort Frances in the riding of Rainy River. I saw at first hand the devastating effects that cross-border shopping or, as they call it in Fort Frances, out-shopping is having on that community and many other communities along the border.

My question to the minister is, what specific advice, in his capacity as Minister of Tourism and Recreation, has he given to the Treasurer of Ontario in order to stop this economic haemorrhaging?

Hon Mr North: I would be pleased to answer the question. As a matter of fact, the member will be happy to know that Tourism Ontario has had a chance in the past week to speak directly to the Treasurer of Ontario and we had a very interesting conversation. Some things were done and some things will be done.

Mr J. Wilson: In a submission before the standing committee on finance and economic affairs, a consultant who was hired by some of the border communities, including Fort Frances, a fellow by the name of John Winter, told committee members that Ontario can expect to lose $1 billion in retail business and thousands of jobs because of cross-border shopping.

He went on to add that in the case of Fort Frances the cost of doing business is significantly higher than their competitors across the border in International Falls in the United States. This is due mainly to the fact that retail rents in Fort Frances are 50% higher than across the border. Business taxes and municipal taxes are five times greater in Fort Frances. High gasoline, liquor and resort taxes and high labour rates are all contributing to this devastating problem.

Mr Winter, who is a consultant, said that it is time to stop consulting, which is rather ironic. I do not think we have ever had a consultant appear before a committee and tell us to stop paying them to consult and get some action now. I want to know specifically what the minister is doing, what advice he is giving to the Ontario Treasurer to stop this economic devastation. The tourism industry and small business people cannot afford to wait while this government spends weeks and months consulting. We want action now.

Hon Mr North: As I said previously, I do not know what greater opportunity any group of individuals could have than to come before the Treasurer of Ontario and present its case. I do not know what the member expects someone to do that could be better for the industry than that. They had the opportunity to speak to the Treasurer and I am positive that they gave indications as to what they believed were the problems in the industry. The Treasurer was available, took the time to listen to what they had to say and will take it under consideration. I thank the member very much for his interest.

HYDRO PROJECTS

Mrs Mathyssen: I have a question for the Minister of Energy. Late last month, Dr David Suzuki presented issues of concern about the environmental impact of Hydro-Québec's James Bay II project. Does Ontario Hydro also have proposed hydro projects in the James Bay basin?

Hon Ms Carter: I thank the member for that question. I know there is a profound concern about the projected James Bay II development. Both Ontario Hydro and the government realize the importance of environmental protection. That is why Ontario Hydro put forward a project that consisted largely of redevelopment of existing sites that have been used for hydroelectricity already. This is also why the government is subjecting this proposal to an environmental assessment that is among the most rigorous on the continent. The environment continues to be a top priority for the Ministry of Energy.

Mrs Mathyssen: Will the concerns of environmentalists and native people be taken into account as this program is reviewed?

Hon Ms Carter: I am proud to say that a total of $21 million has been made available to the groups that are intervening in the demand-supply plan for environmental assessment. The lion's share of that money is going to native groups and to environmental groups, and I look forward to seeing their input into the full review of Ontario Hydro's proposals.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Mrs Fawcett: On the weekend, a woman died in Mississauga as a result of a domestic dispute. In the past 18 months five deaths have occurred in Keswick in Georgina township, all attributed to wife assault. My question is for the Minister of Community and Social Services. Considering the urgency of this matter and her government's commitment to combat violence against women, why has the minister not honoured the former government's commitment to expand shelters for abused women?

Hon Ms Akande: As a matter of fact, we have done our own study of the requirements and the needs for shelters. We have had ongoing input from various groups. We have extended. We do have 98 new beds, 11 new houses, and there has been considerable extension. We will continue to make that extension from now on.

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Mrs Fawcett: Words are not really going to help these victims of violence. There are some additional facts I would like to make the minister aware of. A Globe and Mail article dated 23 March noted that in Georgina alone they receive 10 complaints of domestic violence per 1,000 citizens, while the average for the region of York is 3.2. The staff at Martha House in Hamilton are fully employed, college-educated professionals who now qualify for the supports to employment program because the shelter has not received any provincial funding. They currently earn $9 an hour and most have not had a raise in over two years. My seatmate here beside me, the member for Kenora, tells me that at the Kenora Family Resource Centre the government's delay is jeopardizing capital funding from the federal CMHC program. Their deadline is mid-April. In Strathroy, rural women who are victims of abuse are forced to travel to Goderich or London for service.

The shelters' needs are urgent and they are waiting for funds already announced and in existing government allocations. Why was she able to find funds for the London Battered Women's Advocacy Clinic in London, where the Minister of Education used to be the former executive director, and continues to ignore the legitimate needs of the shelters in Keswick, Hamilton, Kenora and Strathroy?

Hon Ms Akande: Actually, this continues to be a concern of ours and in fact the member is quite right. The workers have been underfunded for the past two years and even before that, long before this government came into power. The other thing is that we have met with the Georgina centre --

Interjections.

The Speaker: If the minister -- are you completed? If you would direct your remarks to the Chair, perhaps they will be listening.

Hon Ms Akande: We have just recently met with the people from the Georgina centre and to that end have passed some funding to them, and recently, within the last couple of weeks, we have also just funded the Faye Peterson Transition Centre. There are several centres which continue to be funded, and I would suggest that yes, in London too there is wife assault, in London, in Kenora, in the Georgina centre, and it is the focus of this government and certainly of this minister to address myself to the needs wherever they occur.

ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS

Mr Villeneuve: To the Minister of Agriculture and Food: Two weeks ago he told us in this House that he was looking at the implications involved in the closure of the soybean crushing plant here in Toronto. This crushing plant handled about a third of the soybeans grown in Ontario. Last week his government announced a $175-million project to protect people who lost their jobs, and yet we have soybean growers who are ready to put in a crop, not knowing where the product will be processed. The minister has been consulting with farmers and with the industry. What is he going to do to assist farmers in having their soybean crop crushed this year?

Hon Mr Buchanan: We have talked with the industry. The plant owners who are closing down also have facilities in Hamilton. They are discussing the possibility of expansion of the plant in Hamilton to be able to crush the crop that will come off this coming year.

I would agree with the member, or maybe I can get ahead of his supplementary, that there may be a storage problem in the province. It is the storage problem that I believe we need to address most urgently, and we have had some discussions with some other producers and people who have capacity for storage. We will try to address that concern, because I think that may even be more of a concern in intent in the member's question and he did not get a chance to ask it at this particular time.

Mr Villeneuve: The 25,000 soybean growers we have in Ontario are very concerned, particularly those who are in eastern Ontario primarily. It means a lot more trucking when you have got to cross the city of Toronto, you are going to be deadheading a lot and the expense of hauling will be considerably more. Can the minister tell us that he is going to be taking positive steps oriented towards facilitating the crushing of this year's crop.

Hon Mr Buchanan: Yes, we have had and continue to have discussions with the growers and we will talk to the crushers to make sure. I would like to assure the member that we will also try and address the equalization in terms of extra transportation costs that will be faced by farmers in eastern Ontario. I am most concerned about the unequalization of opportunity if we do not address those needs in eastern Ontario.

The Speaker: The time for oral questions has expired.

QUESTION PERIOD

Mrs Haslam: On a point of privilege, Mr Speaker: This is the third day in a row of this session that the third questioner on the government side, who is usually a backbencher, has not had an opportunity to ask a question. I am the third one this time. My privilege has been breached.

They take time to do a background. They take time to read questions. They take time to read Hansard. They take time to read letters. They take time to bring on some information. Then they take time to harangue the government and then they get a question.

My privilege has been breached because I do not have an opportunity today to ask a question. It is the third day in a row that the government backbenchers have not had an opportunity to ask a question.

Interjections.

The Speaker: I appreciate the point raised by the member for Perth. The subject of question period is one that is always of intense interest, and no doubt --

Interjections.

The Speaker: I would appreciate the opportunity to address the members, and I will wait.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Every member in this chamber has the right to raise a point of order or a point of privilege. The Speaker has a responsibility to listen to that, and I intend to do so. I also intend to make sure that every member has that opportunity to place her or his point of privilege or order.

The question of question period itself is one that is of concern to me. It is, however, the question period belonging to the members, and the members collectively have to determine the flow and format that question period will take.

I have, as I mentioned earlier on, prepared some material, which I will be able to share shortly with the three whips, and when you have seen the material then you yourself can decide what course question period will follow.

I thank you for raising the point of order.

Mr Elston: On the point of order, Mr Speaker, I think the member for Scarborough-Agincourt certainly gave you a means by which you could cut down the answers of the ministers last Thursday when he addressed this House. The standard replies seem to be in vogue these days. In fact, uncommon as it may be, this is the first time I have seen a minister of the crown refer the matters of questions back to the Premier. I think if we had some shortened answers on the part of the ministers of the crown, the member for Perth might very well get her question on.

Otherwise, she might very well consider that she should perhaps get her question ranked one or two on the opposition benches. We likewise have problems getting our questions on. There is no question about that at all; we all would like to be on for question period, but it does take time and the standard answers proposed by the member for Scarborough-Agincourt certainly would go a long way to increasing the number of questions that would be allowed on the question period schedule.

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MOTIONS

COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP

Hon Miss Martel: I move that the following substitutions be made to the membership of the committees of the House: select committee on Ontario in Confederation, Mrs Mathyssen for Ms Churley; special committee on the parliamentary precinct, Mr Sutherland for Mrs Mathyssen; standing committee on estimates, Mr Ferguson for Mr Hansen, Mr Johnson for Ms M. Ward; standing committee on the Legislative Assembly, Mr Jamison for Ms S. Murdock; standing committee on the Ombudsman, Mr Kormos for Mr Duignan, Ms M. Ward for Mr Huget, Mr G. Wilson for Mrs Mathyssen; standing committee on public accounts, Ms Haeck for Mr Charlton; standing committee on regulations and private bills, Mr Hansen for Mr Johnson; standing committee on resources development, Mr Kormos for Mr Charlton and Ms M. Murdock for Ms Churley.

Motion agreed to.

PETITIONS

GARBAGE DISPOSAL

Ms S. Murdock: I am speaking on behalf of the constituents of Nickel Belt who are asking that:

"Whereas a proposal has been made by Schroeder Engineering to ship garbage to the vicinity of Sultan, Ontario, for landfilling; and

"Whereas the people of Sultan are dedicated to conserving the natural landscape and wildlife of their area and not polluting it;

"We the undersigned...call upon the Ministry of the Environment to reject this proposal and any others which would see garbage from southern Ontario shipped to Sultan or any other rural northern areas."

I hereto affix my name and ask that it be submitted.

NURSING HOMES

Mr Brown: I have a petition to the Lieutenant Governor and the assembly of Ontario. This petition is from residents of the Gore Bay nursing home and it concerns the inadequate funding of nursing homes in this province.

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.

Hon Miss Martel: I will be brief in making my remarks. I placed most of them last week in terms of the points of order that were raised. However, I would like to reiterate some of the points that I made during that particular debate as to the reason why the government has moved this particular government notice of motion that I am carrying today.

With respect to this particular motion, I think it begs the question again as to pointing out the length of time that we have spent on debate on this particular question, that is, Bill 4, how much time has been spent on it at this point in time, which we feel has sufficiently allowed the minority to express their concerns raised on behalf of their constituents as well.

First, in terms of the time spent on it to date, we have had well over 100 hours in the standing committee that during the break dealt with this particular bill. Members of the House who sat on the committee will recall that public hearings were held, that many days were spent listening to delegations, taking into account what they had to say, travelling about the province, and indeed deliberations on the committee when it returned to Toronto to continue with the clause-by-clause stage.

Up to mid-February, about 25 February, we had at that point some 96.5 hours in that standing committee. There were still three more days to go, and I expect that on each of those days somewhere in the order of six to eight hours were spent, so at the end of the day, well over eight hours spent.

Two days were spent in reporting this particular bill back to this Assembly. Most members of this Assembly who have been here before will recall that a notice in that respect bringing a bill back to this House, or reporting a bill back, would normally not take that long. However, the first two days that this session came back we spent two full days on that, and that was fine. The opposition had ample time again to relate its concerns with respect to the bill, with respect to the hearings, with respect to the legislation before us, with respect to retroactivity, etc. The government allowed a great deal of time for that to occur, and we feel we allowed ample opportunity for the government to come back and relate its concerns at that time with respect to how the hearings had gone and what people had heard.

We then went on to have four days in committee of the whole on this particular bill. I would remind members in this House that that is at least two more days than any piece of legislation dealt with in the last session of this Parliament, and I would remind members that many of those bills were also controversial. They included, for example, the Sunday shopping bill, the health and safety bill, the workers' compensation bill, which I was very familiar with, and finally, the Employer Health Tax Act, Bill 47. But in all of those cases, the committee of the whole debate that took place did so within two days and was completed. We have allowed for four days. There was no end in sight at the end of the four days. It became very apparent to me that there was no idea, no desire on the part of the opposition to progress, which is fine, but that at the end of the day we would also have to do something about that because it could not continue indefinitely. We have a piece of legislation this government has put forward which this government supports and we would like to get on with the business.

We have proposed in this particular notice of motion one more day's debate in committee of the whole and we have proposed as well one further day for third reading. We think that at the end of the day, given the amount of time spent in committee, the amount of time spent in reporting the bill back, the amount of time spent in committee of the whole before we move this particular motion, plus the two more days of debate we have outlined, will be more than ample opportunity for the opposition to state its case again, for those members who participated on the committee to state their case again and to make their views known. I think we have more than amply provided for that.

I would like to make a couple of other points. This is with respect to the clause-by-clause. Members of the House will know I said last week that one of the reasons this particular government notice of motion should be allowed was simply the fact that the clause-by-clause itself had also been completed during the break when the committee was in deliberations. All of the amendments that were placed by both the opposition parties and, I might add, by ourselves were fully canvassed. Members were allowed to put their cases forward. They did that. Votes were taken, and we finished the entire clause-by-clause process in committee before the bill was even reported back here.

In looking at the amendments that were placed last week in committee of the whole, I noted the Liberal amendments that were coming back to this House were the very same amendments that had been placed, debated and voted on in committee. Of the Tory amendments that were going to be placed in the House during committee of the whole, five of those seven amendments were repeats and again, all those five were very fully canvassed, reviewed, debated and voted upon in committee during the break.

It was my sense, because we did not get very far at all during the committee of the whole in this House, that at the end of the day the opposition was not particularly interested in proceeding any further and it seemed to me that all of the amendments had been placed, they had been debated, and any new amendments that were coming to the floor might well only be for the purpose of stalling the debate even further.

I also want to point out that the government has accepted two of the amendments that were put forward by the Liberal Party. We believe the amendments that were placed were important. They were important enough that we would consider supporting them. We thanked the member for Eglinton who moved them, but at the end of the day the other amendments that were placed are ones we cannot accept. We believe, as the government, that the amendments that have been placed over and above that would, at the end of the day, gut the principles of the bill and we would not be able to proceed. We are not willing to do that as a government. The bill is important. It is important in the sense that it will protect tenants of this province who have not had the kind of protection they require under the rent review system that has been in place in this province, and we intend that we should move on the rest of them in order to put that protection in place.

Third, I point out again to members of the House that this is a temporary bill. It is an interim measure. All members of this House who were here before remember very clearly that our party in particular raised again and again those cases where tenants were suffering all kinds of outlandish and outrageous increases in their rent, to the point where many of them were forced to leave on their own because they could not continue to pay the rents in those particular establishments. I think there was the general agreement of members who were here before that the rent review system that has been in place in this province is not working. It is not working either for tenants or for landlords in this particular province.

We have moved Bill 4 because we believe tenants need temporary relief. During the interim we can work on a permanent bill that we hope will fix the problems we have seen in this Legislature, certainly during the last government when this bill went through. It is our belief that the sooner we can get the temporary legislation into place, the sooner we can bring into this House a new rent review system on which we will allow for a debate again and for people to come and have their say, which is appropriate, and we can get on with the business of putting into place a permanent system that will benefit both tenants and landlords in this province.

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I also raise the point about whether or not an end was in sight. I look back again to some of the discussions that have gone on and I can tell you quite frankly, Mr Speaker, and the other House leaders agree, that there is no room for consensus. We have not been able to find a consensus in terms of how long it would take to deal with this bill in committee of the whole House. That is the reason I move this particular government notice of motion, in order to have some end to that particular process. Now that the motion is in place and we are going to start debate on that, I hope we can come to some consensus with respect to how long we will deal with this motion. I have put that question to my counterparts and hope to hear back from them on how we can reach a compromise with respect to debating this particular motion, then moving into committee of the whole and into third reading of this particular bill.

A number of comments will be made, I am sure, and I would do it as well if I were sitting in opposition, about how this infringes on the rights of the minority, about how the opposition members have not had their day in court, have not had enough debate to allow their viewpoints and the viewpoints of their constituents to be heard. I go back and reiterate the kind of time we permitted the opposition parties to state their cases on this particular bill. We did not have a limited second reading debate. It went on for almost nine hours during the course of the last session of this Parliament. People were very eloquent in making their cases and raising their concerns either via letter or telephone conversations they had had with people who were concerned about the bill.

Second, the clause-by-clause debate in committee itself was not limited. There were no restrictions placed by this government on how long that process could occur or when that bill had to come back. Full debate went on, the views were canvassed and people got to the end of their business in the committee when the committee sat during the break.

Mr Speaker, we again had two days' debate in the House reporting that bill back which, I would point out to you, is far in excess of what we usually have in reporting a bill back. That went on, and again the opposition was very free to express all of its concerns with respect to Bill 4, four days in committee of the whole, where we again started a repeat performance of what had gone on in committee, but allowed all of those members who wanted to have a say about this important bill to have their say.

We believe at this point the minority, the opposition, has had its say and has expressed its concerns on behalf of the constituents it represents, but it seems to me at the end of the day this government also has to get on with its business when it believes there is no consensus that can possibly be reached on how to deal with the matter at hand and get it done. That is the reason I move this government notice on behalf of the government. I believe that at the end of the day the government has to do what it has to do with respect to bringing forward the legislation in this Parliament and getting it through.

I believe the bill is very important. I outlined earlier that there is no one in this House who would think the present rent review system works. That is the reason we have put in Bill 4, so that we will have a moratorium and we will then in turn move to a more permanent system which we believe will protect tenants and landlords, will make for a workable system that is not in place now in the province of Ontario. I believe we should get on to that particular piece of business.

Mr Nixon: I regret very much that this early in the life of the New Democratic government we are debating closure, an allocation of time that was so strenuously objected to specifically and in principle by the spokespersons for the New Democratic Party for the years it was in opposition.

We know around here there is a little joke about the phrase "That was then; now is now." Sometimes it has application, but in this instance the matter was held as a matter of high principle by the New Democratic Party. I regret very much that those principles have fallen away so rapidly.

You, Mr Speaker, will be called upon to judge at the end of this debate whether or not the rights of the minority have been in any way infringed upon by the possible passage of the resolution. You are aware that even though a majority of the House might vote for it, at least before that vote is taken you can indicate that in your considered view, and compared with the precedents in this House, the minority requirements have not been adequately met. I suggest to you in this instance that that is a judgement that would be made.

I have listened to the litany of the statistics associated with the Bill 4 that the honourable House leader of the government has brought forward. She will recall that the debate on second reading was not unduly lengthy, particularly since little or no other legislation was before the House at the time, that the hearings held by the standing committee might have been long in the judgement of the minister. But you are also aware, Mr Speaker, that at least 100 groups which had applied to put forward their objection, or perhaps in some cases their support of the bill, were not granted that right because of the government's insistence that the committee move forward rapidly and report. We are aware that in the minds of the minister, this is all very orderly, that in fact this is interim legislation until we go on to what he perhaps might call the final solution.

Because we do not seem to understand the orderliness of the minister's proposal, his natural arrogance, his impatience and his autocratic approach to public service come forward in a way that does not become him or the government. I understand he is not taking part in this debate and I think he is very wise not to be present at all. He was not here when the resolution was introduced. This is the responsibility of the House leader. It is difficult for us to tell on whose initiative this resolution was entered into, but my own view is that the Minister of Housing, together with some of his political buddies in the NDP, has decided it is time for the socialist majority in Ontario to impose its will.

It certainly does not become those who wrote the book on obstructionism in this House. You will recall, Mr Speaker, over the last numbers of years, the NDP has pushed to the limit every possible rule that would stop legislation in its proper course of debate being democratically decided in this House. You will recall the debates went on for 24 hours on more than one occasion. On one occasion that certainly I will not forget, the obstructionism of the NDP meant that the Treasurer of the day -- it happened to be myself -- was forbidden to read the budget of the province to this House. Because of their position on those matters, I was forced simply to table the budget and let it go at that.

Frankly, it was a crime against the democratic process. The only thing I could say is that people do not seem to worry about those things. It really means that members on the opposition side should not hesitate for a moment to undertake as extensive a debate as they feel is appropriate in order to put the alternative view in this House and to the people of the province.

I frankly regret that the NDP has brought this forward, and I resent it because I have been present in this House while it undertook the kinds of antics that actually brought this House to a standstill, not for four days -- that is the extent of the debate in this House during this particular committee hearing -- but for weeks and months at a time. Who knows what ramification that obstructionism had to the welfare of the province and the evolution of appropriate and moderate political development. I believe it has had a deleterious and damaging effect on the processes here in this House and the welfare and the benefit of the province as a whole.

I feel very strongly about it. I understand the Progressive Conservative Party, in its previous incarnation as a government, and ourselves as Liberals, brought forward time allocation and moved the closure of the debate. Governments always have to make these decisions sooner or later. The sort of philosophical and intellectual virginity of the New Democratic Party that it has so successfully preserved over these many years in opposition must even give it a twinge as it throws that precious philosophical superiority to the winds, under these circumstances, after only four days of debate, and that is after question period which is often after 3 o'clock until 6 o'clock when we normally adjourn here. To say this is unconscionable prolongation of the debate is bad judgement indeed.

I want to thank you also, Mr Speaker, for taking the points of order raised by myself and the House leader of the Progressive Conservative Party when this resolution was put to the House first last week, on Wednesday. The House leader had gone to the very limits of reducing notice for the motion, putting it in at 5 o'clock in the afternoon previous to the day on which it was to be debated. It did not appear on the order paper until that following day and most of us only had one or two hours' notice that it was going to be presented. You ruled, Mr Speaker, that under our rules it was appropriate to do so. Before doing so, however, you took a day's notice to consider it. So whatever the upshot and whatever the validity of the rules as they presently are, which you made clear, at least we had an opportunity to look at the precedence and to marshal our arguments for this important debate.

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I understand that the majority will eventually out on this. I have already pointed out to you, Mr Speaker, that it is quite possible for you to indicate that the motion is premature, and that based on the precedence in this House where closure has been used back through the years under a variety of circumstances, I do not recall a situation when debate, just having been four days in the committee system, would elicit a motion of time allocation, possibly put to the vote by a motion of closure under these circumstances.

The responsibility lies with you and your advisers in that regard to a great measure. How much is enough? How much is too much? To decide that there is too much debate going on in this House in my view simply means that the person who makes that decision does not understand what we are here for.

I suppose obstruction occurs. Certainly, I have indicated that in my view it was the benchmark, the only parliamentary process that the NDP in opposition understood and used repeatedly. It did not matter what the bill was. It did not matter how outrageous the position was. Obstruction was the order of the day, pushing the government of the day -- and it was Liberal at the time -- so that its legislative program could not proceed.

We always had bills which were properly printed and available for the opposition caucuses to review well in advance of the debate. Since the New Democratic Party has taken over the power of government, that is not the case. Bill 4 is an important bill even though it is just an interim one, as the honourable House leader has indicated, and we are waiting for something in the future where the Minister of Housing, with his imperious approach to policy, will indicate how the democratic socialists are going to proceed to bring in this kind of socialist nirvana to the province of Ontario.

Little else is before us. We had an important announcement from the Minister of Labour a few days ago, but it is not possible for us to debate that until the bill is printed and reviewed by the various caucuses and we go forward. There are many routine bills -- important bills, but holdover bills from the previous government, that could be debated; that is true. But particularly from the Minister of Health there does not seem to be any push to get on with that particular business. We have to remember that this government has been in office more than six months. I believe this is the fourth week that we have been in session here and still the order paper is relatively bare. So the House leader cannot indicate that there is a huge pressure of business that has somehow been blocked.

This is important legislation involving draconian aspects indeed, having to do with removing the rights of the business people and others in this province to do business in an orderly way and changing the law retroactively, which according to many of them puts them in a position where they cannot continue. This is a matter of great importance to them, and to dismiss it with some sort of political gambit, in my view, is unworthy of the government and an abuse of the rules.

I can recall, actually -- and I do not want to remove from the discussion my concern about the resolution that is before us -- that we have had these debates before. The government of the day, from time to time, has felt that it simply must proceed when the time indications were such that it had to have the legislation for some appropriate reason.

The occasion that comes to mind is the decision made by the then government of the day, a Progressive Conservative government, to have what amounted to a sort of wage control situation that was once again important and draconian. The House leader's father, who was then House leader for the New Democratic Party, and I were very much opposed to the introduction of a time allocation motion. As a matter of fact, the debate became so acrimonious and heated that both of us were dismissed from the service of the House for the remainder of that sitting day. The members, however, realizing that they had made a mistake and in fact perpetrated a gross injustice, after they came to their senses and the steam evaporated out of their ears a bit, rescinded that motion and we were invited back into the House to take part in the debate under those circumstances. I hope my memory of that is reasonably precise, but anyway I was allowed back in. But of course I was a good boy.

Under the circumstances, it seems strange and somehow ironic that the honourable House leader would be put into this particularly difficult situation by her colleagues and particularly by the Minister of Housing. His impatience with the democratic process in a strange way was even evident when he was in opposition. It was always clear from our position in government that while the honourable minister did not lack intelligence or ability, he seemed to lack, strangely, an appreciation of the democratic process and what must go on in a Parliament which is designed for the expression of views. These are often violently or strongly opposing views, but still it is a place where these views must be fully expressed before the legislation proceeds.

I am concerned, again, that the list of business that is awaiting review by this House is not such that the House leader should throw up her hands in defeat and say that no amount of reasonable debate is going to move this forward to a conclusion. I do not believe that is right. Certainly there has been no concerted view in the Liberal opposition that we should do so. But I will tell members that I find it naive in the extreme for cabinet ministers in the New Democratic government to come forward and say, "when we bring in this important legislation we will expect rapid passage, because we have to get on with our important affairs." That sort of attitude is going to lead to a rather difficult situation in this Legislature, where our responsibilities are seen rather differently from the position of the government.

This House is not just a rubber stamp, in spite of the fact that the government is operating with a majority. That majority is based on the votes of only 38% of the electorate, which means that a large proportion of the electorate did not support the government. If the government has some sort of feeling that the people out there want to dismiss the Legislature and its process and somehow leave the arbitrary rule and authority with the Premier and his political minions, I would suggest that is a serious error indeed.

I think there has been a good deal of disillusionment with the New Democratic government since it took office. It is not my intention to spend time now in talking about the basis of that disillusionment, but we hear about it everywhere. Even many constituents in my own area who supported the New Democratic Party have indicated that they felt it was a mistake to do so.

As a matter of fact, I was listening to a spokesperson from Sudbury, probably a good friend of the honourable House leader, who said she became a New Democrat because she heard the revered and sainted Tommy Douglas deliver an allegory which, frankly, I had heard him deliver myself. It talked about a mythical kingdom called Mouseland where once every four years the mice got a chance to vote for a government, but the only people running were cats, white and black. They had a chance to change the government, but they could only vote for cats, never mice.

This lady, when she was interviewed, struck me in an interesting way. She said, "As much as anything else, this convinced me to join the CCF," and of course continue her allegiance with the NDP. Perhaps I am misquoting her, but she said: "Now that they're finally in power in the province of Ontario, we realize that the mice could have had a white government or a black government; they've still got a government of cats." She did not say this, but I said, "Yes, I suppose a government of pink cats, but still cats," cats who simply abandon their philosophy as soon as they step into the limos, as soon as they get the government credit card, as soon as they figure that only they know how to proceed with the establishment of policy for the good of the people.

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The idea that they would dismiss debate in this Legislature so summarily after only four days of committee review, even though there was extensive review previously, but even that was thought by many sensible people to be inadequate, is, I think, a disappointment to many of the people in this province.

As far as I am concerned, I have been in a position that the honourable House leader has been in, in support of a time allocation. There will be those whom, I hope, the government will give an opportunity to speak after me who will be able to put before you, Mr Speaker, the numbers of hours and minutes and so on. I do not believe there is a situation in precedence in our Parliament where the government of the day so summarily has moved to guillotine debate after it has proceeded only for what amounts to about 12 hours in committee.

If the honourable House leader has to report to her leader and to the minister that she sees no possibility of an end to the debate, I believe she is wrong. I believe she is pessimistic. There are other ways to proceed with a debate and to bring it to a reasonable conclusion after the honourable members have had a chance -- on all sides, by the way -- to express their views. There has been a remarkable scarcity of New Democrats joining in this debate. The minister has wiggled and fumed and fussed around and no doubt has given the order that he does not want any New Democrats speaking because the policy is established and he has written the policy and the whole thing is to get the opposition parties quiet and lined up.

I think that approach to the democratic process is wrong. I think it flies in the face of reasonableness of any democrat, whether new or old or even middle-aged. I think it is an unreasonable approach that the honourable House leader has been forced to take by pressures above and beyond her in her position as House leader. I do not expect her to be the authority on these matters, but simply to provide her views to cabinet and to whatever committee makes these decisions.

I say to you, Mr Speaker, that they have made a mistake, but the traditional responsibility lies with you. The responsibility is to safeguard the rights of the minority, the rights of the minority even to be boring, God help us, as we sometimes are as our comments go on. We regret that. Not everybody can have the electricity of -- I will not name a cabinet minister because they are all kind of electric in their own way. It is not a question that we are here to entertain. It is not a question of always bringing forward some new point. Reiteration for slow learners is something that any teacher knows is important.

I believe, Mr Speaker, that the responsibility lies with you to indicate that this motion is premature and to allow the debate to continue in an orderly fashion, to recognize that the duty of those of us elected in this House is to put forward in opposition an alternative which may or may not be positive. We try to be positive. In this regard I feel that the motion should not be allowed to proceed, and if it does, it should be struck down.

Mrs Cunningham: I cannot speak with the same degree of experience as the Leader of the Opposition did but I can speak with some experience. I will say that upon being elected to this House just some three years ago, I was invited to attend what I think some members would be very interested in knowing about. It was an organization of parliamentarians referred to as the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

There are in fact seminars that are presented from time to time by the Canadian arm of this association. In 1988, upon first coming to this House, some time in the spring later on I was invited to go and represent the province of Ontario as one of the elected representatives, along with David Smith from the Liberal Party and the member for Hamilton Mountain of the New Democratic Party.

It was an experience that I will treasure and one that gave me great insight and understanding around the whole issue that we are dealing with this afternoon. Time allocation in debate was the subject of the discussions. All provinces were represented. It was a wonderful opportunity for us to hear, especially from the Speakers, from members of the Senate, the House of Commons. Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Ontario, which I have already represented, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan and the Yukon were all members of this tremendous discussion in Vancouver, British Columbia around how important it was.

Mr Nixon: Vancouver. It's nice there.

Mrs Cunningham: Although we are making fun of some of the travels that members of the Legislative Assembly have in the past experienced as part of their work, this one I felt was very much work, but I also thought it was a tremendous learning experience. What I found is that the province of Ontario probably had the most progressive record on the whole issue of the use of time allocation in their House. In fact I delivered the paper, which I had the opportunity to do on behalf of our province, and we certainly spent a lot of time on it with the Speaker of the House at that time and the clerk. We did a lot of research into just how this allocation of time should be used in legislative assemblies.

We found out, of course, that the government from time to time may find it necessary to take certain steps to ensure the timely passage of legislation that is controversial or of particular importance, and it may become necessary to curtail debate on legislation using this process that we are discussing today.

I thought it was interesting the kind of homework we had to do. In presenting Ontario's case, all three members that were there agreed to present the case in the light that we felt it was a motion that had not been used very often. In fact, in the province of Ontario this process was used for the first time in 1982 and it was used, of course, by the Conservative government of the day. Bill 179, the Inflation Restraint Act, was the very first time that this particular motion was used. That particular bill was, I believe, debated, and I do not have it right at my fingertips, but it seems to me over 94 hours, just that particular piece of legislation.

At the time, the argument against that time allocation was one that was put forward by the leader of the New Democratic Party, the member for York South, and certainly by the Liberal Party's deputy leader, the member for Renfrew North. Their concern, I think at the time, was legitimate and certainly not the concern that we are facing today, in fairness, and that was that the motion was entirely out of order because there were no rules within our own Legislative Assembly for this particular action. Very quickly, I think, over the next few months the Legislative Assembly did put into our standing orders rules that govern this whole allocation of time.

It was most interesting to note the number of hours of debate, and certainly it must have been precedent-setting at the time to even enter into any discussions, because in the end the three House leaders did in fact agree to the time allocation motion and the time frames involved. It was something that was worked out as a necessity and, although it was spoken against by both opposition parties at the time, I think the key was that the House leaders worked out the rules of that particular first example in 1982.

It was not used again for a year, in 1983. This is the second time -- and I beg your forgiveness, Mr Speaker -- it was the second motion that had some approximately 97 hours spent on consideration of the bill in both the standing committee on general government and in the House before this motion was introduced. The former one that I talked about was almost as long, but this was some 97 hours, 15 February 1983, introduced by the Honourable Bette Stephenson, the then Minister of Education and Minister of Colleges and Universities.

In looking over the debate on that second time, it went on for some considerable days. It was Bill 127 at that time, An Act to amend the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act. The time frames again that were negotiated with the three House leaders were agreed to. It is rather fun to read the Hansards around this to see what people say. The argument at that particular point in time was that it was not in order, stating that there was nothing in our standing orders and even less in our practice save and except the fateful day in December 1982 that legitimized this practice. Those words were spoken by the member for Renfrew North at that particular time. The Speaker, of course, again without House rules, ruled it in order and it proceeded but not without considerable time.

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The third time allocation motion was in 1984. We are looking at some years, a couple of years, in between here. It was Bill 142, An Act respecting the City of Barrie and the Township of Vespra. This time the motion was worded as the first motion was in 1982. Again, it went on for some numbers of hours. I believe that one was over 60 hours of debate. We could check that, but in my recollection of doing this research, it was a considerable amount of time, not as much as the second time allocation motion but certainly considerable hours.

It was not until 1986 that the Liberal government introduced its very first time allocation on the consideration of Bill 94. That was the act regulating the amounts that persons may charge for rendering services that are insured services under the Health Insurance Act.

In summary, after looking at that debate, l can only put on the record these words, that it is clear that there are circumstances under which it is necessary for a government to impose a time allocation motion. However, it is also true that by consultation with all parties in the House it is possible, even on the most contentious of issues, to secure voluntary agreement to time limits. That, of course, is what has happened to this time.

On occasion there have even been agreements securing the timely completion of each stage of a bill in the interest of allowing the parliamentary timetable to progress. We have seen from the experience of the Ontario government in 1983 that even after an unsuccessful attempt to impose allocation of time on Bill 127, the government did succeed in securing the completion of the bill within the limited time by consultation with the other parties.

I am simply speaking here to the history of this Legislative Assembly and how governments have worked together after lengthy debate on pieces of legislation to work out the rules around a time allocation procedure.

I would stand to be corrected, but it is my understanding that only once has that not happened before. I believe that was on the Sunday shopping legislation. But even then, I am not certain because nothing has been documented. All we can do is take the word of the members who are presently here in the House as to what did happen at that particular period of time. Perhaps the government House leader can help me out on that one.

On this particular piece of legislation I do not think that the opposition parties would have been so strident in debate if it had not been for the public that came before the committee during public hearings across the province of Ontario. I have not taken the opportunity to speak to this particular piece of legislation in the past, directly in this House, although I have from time to time observed certainly my colleagues and the members of the government and the minister. But this is a piece of legislation that has incurred tremendous opposition, more opposition in numbers than even the Sunday shopping legislation that at that point of time I was very much a part of, and certainly very much more than the public debate on auto insurance as presented by the Liberals.

This one, I believe, is one that should be worked out with the government and with the critics around what is fair for the taxpayers of this province that we represent, whether they be home owners, landlords, tenants, private or public sector, people who are involved in providing affordable housing in the province of Ontario, and everybody knows we need it.

This piece of legislation is unfair because it is retroactive, a piece of legislation that affects the livelihood of individuals who have invested in their apartment buildings, in their housing units; who most frequently, with the advice and the consent and at the request of tenants, have entered into an agreement to complete certain refurbishings; who have agreed to repair both outside and inside parking lots and kitchens and stairwells, and who depended on each other to be able to get that work done.

In these times it is really difficult to see the lack of leadership on behalf of this government as it takes a look at a process that was not working, the rent review system, which was backed up, where decisions were not made fairly, where in fact perhaps the right numbers of persons to support the system were not there. But it is a system that if they do support it, they should have been putting their energies around fixing it first of all. That would be my first complaint.

Right now, today, this rent review system is in operation. People are still going before the committees; they are still submitting to the rent reviews. No one knows what is happening. This government has said that it would come forth with a housing policy. It is unbelievable that we could be standing here today looking at a piecemeal piece of legislation that is now being subjected to a rule in this Legislative Assembly that is used very seldom, and at the same time a very serious piece of legislation, when one cuts off debate by elected representatives. At the same time, we have got people out there who are waiting to get their parking lots repaired, who are waiting to have their units painted, who are waiting for repairs that have been promised. It seems absolutely insane that a government would bring forth this piece of legislation and at the same time have us looking at a long-term, permanent housing policy. It just does not make sense.

To come before the Legislative Assembly and stop debate on this almost seems as if it is a game, and this game is affecting people's lives. It is not only affecting the people who have to live in these apartments and live in these homes; it is affecting the people who had confidence in this particular government; it is affecting real workers in Ontario who would like to get on with the work; it is affecting investors in our province, not only people who live here, but people who live outside our province. I do not have to tell any member of this Legislative Assembly how often all of us have been approached on both sides of the House by people who say it is just not worth doing business in Ontario any more.

For young people I can only present during this debate this afternoon, I can only say on their behalf that they are losing confidence quickly. Many of them had hopes with this government. This bill is nothing but silly. It does not make any sense at all. Processwise, why would anybody introduce a piece of legislation and go to the public for their input -- the majority of the public said: "Why do this now? It is stopping us getting our work done. We cannot get our buildings fixed up." We have a rent review process in place. If someone is charging extraordinary rent, if the whole physical job of fixing things is too expensive, we have a process in place right now. It is not working. We have other processes in place that are not working: support and custody orders enforcement for one, the Workers' Compensation Board for another. They are not working.

We are not providing the kind of services out there that we should be providing to support families in this community. This bill is taking away even more services: the right for people to get their apartments fixed up, to come to some kind of an agreement with their landlord. Without agreement, they go before a certain board that we are still paying for. Then to have to sit back with all this happening with this piece of legislation and wait for some permanent housing policy of this government just shows that it is a government in its very early years that is sending out a message that it cannot manage.

I think the most important thing I can say today is that they do not listen. We listened to the public talk about the former government, the Liberal government, not listening. I think they took a toll because of it. This government now went around the province during the election talking about everyone else not listening, certainly the Conservative government before them, then the Liberal government, talked about how good it was going to be. We spent all this money on public hearings. I hope people are watching us here this afternoon. They get good advice and nobody is listening and that is what is wrong with government, and this government is no different.

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It is going to take a major change in process, in program delivery, to really meet the needs of families out there in Ontario who are looking for affordable housing, who are looking for housing that can be livable. When they go to their landlord and ask him to pave a parking lot and the landlord agrees and they agree with their rent, there has to be some process whereby that work can be done.

We are not just talking today about big apartment owners. We are talking about little people who have made their livelihood by renting rooms in their own homes, by renting units in small apartment buildings and who have been on my doorstep for some three years because the rent review process was not working. This bill is not making it any better; it is making it worse. That is why this retroactivity, the broken promise to people who had already had the rules set out, who understood what had to be done, who had a process to follow, which was not a great one but could have been fixed -- are so frustrated and angry about this legislation.

The private sector, which we have to depend on in Ontario because people cannot keep paying taxes to get all this work done -- people need jobs to pay taxes to get the work done -- is packing up and leaving. In the riding that I represent in London there are many of them that are doing that quietly. This government, they thought, would be different and it is not, because the worst promise it could have broken was not to listen.

I, for one, if this time allocation motion goes through, will also remind this government that we have had the least amount of debate on a bill before this House, both in committee and in committee of the whole, in this Legislative Assembly, less than in any other previous government. That may not sound like a big deal, since we have probably only had five or six time allocation motions in the history of this Legislative Assembly. By the way, this assembly is looked towards for leadership across Canada so that there can be public debate by public citizens, elected citizens, members of this Legislative Assembly that can in fact present the views of the people they represent. This time allocation order is one that is used only very infrequently, and I will add usually, with one exception, the House leaders have agreed that it should happen after timely and fair debate.

I will close on that note. We have not had timely, fair debate. This New Democrat government, this socialist government which promised to listen, has not listened on this legislation, because if it had, it would have withdrawn the bill, taken a look at the intent of the bill and put it as part of its permanent housing policy, as part of a strategy, as part of a solution to a very real problem. It has not done it and now it is using the last tack that it can in this Legislative Assembly.

I have no idea what the response to this will be, but I do know there will be some very long memories on this one and I wish them luck as they go around the province looking for good input on their housing paper. They will have to change their process on that as well. When you think that elected people who represent their ridings are not allowed to speak at meetings -- this is a government that wanted open government, that was going to listen. Maybe they are learning something, but they had better learn fast, because they are taking the province of Ontario with them. People are not investing, people are becoming less supportive of their policies, of the way they are operating, and most of all, in this Legislative Assembly today we are seeing some firsts: retroactive legislation, number one; House leaders have not agreed that we have had timely debate, number two; and number three, the first time we have ever had a piecemeal piece of legislation that is supposed to be part of a major policy where we are asked to vote on it in this manner.

Mr Speaker, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak to this particular motion. I am not happy that I had to rise and do such a thing, especially in the early months of this new government.

Mr Brown: I usually say, "It is a pleasure to rise and speak" to a motion. In this case, it certainly is not. To be standing and speaking about a motion for time allocation, especially on this bill, is repugnant at this point. It seems to me that in order to cut off debate to keep the members of this Legislature from being allowed to speak, there has to be some overwhelming, good reason. Quite frankly, I do not know, and the government has not provided any information on what overwhelming, good reason there is for stifling the debate at this point.

I heard some interesting comments from the government House leader earlier, and being one who was on that committee, l think maybe I should refresh her mind about what actually went on in committee. What went on was that we had five weeks allotted to the committee to discuss these issues. Of those five weeks, the government saw fit to use some of that time to bring in a green paper on housing. They broke the initial agreement for five weeks and used some of the time to bring in the green paper on rent review. What it did was take some time away from the committee time. It also meant that we did not have enough time to hear the presenters.

We worked as hard as a committee can work on the road. I see some of my friends on the committee from the government side are here and I think they could attest to that fact. We sat evenings when necessary. We sat one week five days of the week. We travelled. We did whatever was possible to do in the three weeks. There were no more groups that could have been heard during those three weeks than this committee accommodated.

Yet more people were not accommodated than were. There were 150 individuals or groups who were not heard on this bill; 150 could not put their views before their legislators, before the people who represent them. There were 150: "But that's okay," the government says. "You've had enough time. That's it. We don't want to hear from you."

We got down into committee to do the clause-by-clause. I do not think any objective observer would call either of the two opposition parties obstructionist during that period. There was no obstruction. The opposition had some important points to make; we made them. We moved through the business of clause-by-clause expeditiously. This would not, at least in my experience, be like, say, Bill 162, which the government House leader would be very aware of, where during clause-by-clause it was very normal to hear long debates over whether a comma was in the right place or if the semicolon was in the right place or if we could redefine "accountant" or some other term in the bill. We had all those very important, obstructionist proceedings on the part of the opposition.

The opposition clearly was not going to let the bill pass. That was their intent, that was what they stated from the outset and from their philosophic point of view, that was fine. But their intention was clear, and the government -- at that point I was sitting on its benches -- went through that process. We watched them call for 20 minutes every time there was a vote. For those who are unfamiliar with the process, a committee has the ability to ask for a 20-minute recess before every vote so that all members of the committee can be there or so that they can discuss their positions before taking a vote. Every clause required a 20-minute pause.

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This was not the case, I say to my dear friends in the New Democratic Party. This is not what happened. If they look back at the record, their caucus took 20 minutes more often than the opposition did to round up its members or to discuss their position or whatever you do during those 20 minutes. I would suggest that the idea that the opposition is being obstructionist here is just not on; it is just not the case. We have our points to make and there are some things we violently disagree with, but there has been no indication so far that we intend to be obstructionist.

No one here has said, "We will not allow this bill to pass because we are going to use every parliamentary device in order to keep it from passing." That was not our position. Clearly, as a Liberal, there is much in this bill to commend it. For example -- and I think Ms Harrington, the parliamentary assistant, who is here, will know -- we have agreed to the freeze. We think it is genuinely important that a new government take some time to review the old legislation and to improve it as it might. We agree with that. We have not objected to that whatever.

We have objected to some other clauses in the bill, in particular the retroactivity and in particular the capital pass-through during the interim period, and we have also objected because there was not sufficient tenant protection in regard to maintenance and other issues.

At no time have we indicated that the principle of the bill is something we cannot support. In fact, we do support the principle of the bill, but we cannot live with the bill the way it is. A responsible member of the Legislature must bring his point of view to the House. There are only 12 members who sit on this committee, and down in committee we may all know what is going on, but the rest of the members of this Legislature do not. This is an opportunity, in committee of the whole, to let all members understand what the points are about, why particular parties are upset with some particular part of the bill, and this is, I think, a democratic right.

Much has been said before me about previous closures and previous time allocations. I am not going to go into that, but I would say to the government House leader that this is truly unprecedented. It just is something that offends my right as a parliamentarian to put forth my point of view and the rights of members on her side to put their points of view across.

I have heard scarcely a word from the government back bench about this. There were six of them on the committee. They do not have much to say about this. I do not know why they favour putting 3,000 landlords into bankruptcy. I do not know why they want to do it. I have asked that over and over again. I do not know why in a time of recession they insist on putting thousands of workers out of work. We do not know that either. We do not know why they want to do that. I asked this question of the parliamentary assistant last week, I believe. We do not get any real good answers about this. Sincerely, we want to know what it is, why they want to do this. A satisfactory explanation to those points might move this business along, but we have not got it.

In talking about the committee hearings, l think that we also have to understand that we did not canvass Ontario's views very completely. We had difficulty. We could not get the government to agree to send the committee to Thunder Bay, for example. They would not do it, even though a minister of the crown, the Minister of Revenue, an MPP from the Thunder Bay area, requested that the government would do that. But no, we could not go to Thunder Bay. That was not something the government thought we could take time to do. It was not important to go to the northwest; it was not important to hear what northerners in that part of the north had to say. It just was not important.

The government House leader has the nerve to come in here and say: "The committee process worked just hunky-dory because you in the opposition were not obstructionist. You were not obstructionist so it worked well."

It is true: We were not obstructionist. We are here to make this place work. We do not see our role as being obstructionist, but we also think the tradeoff for that is that the government needs to give the bill the time in this House to be carefully considered by all 130 members. There are important amendments to this bill that need to be considered and, quite frankly, given the amount of time that the government House leader has allotted, I do not think they can happen. We are now debating a clause on retroactivity on capital, but there are many more amendments, many amendments we think are pretty important, and in the time the government is going to allow us these will not be debated at any length, and I would be surprised if some of them get debated at all. They will be deemed to pass when the time is up and they will not be discussed.

There are some important amendments, like the Liberal amendment which suggests that capital expenditure no longer be borne, and that means, for those who do not understand that, if a landlord has gone to rent review and got an increase based on spending capital dollars, that increase is rolled back as soon as the capital dollars have been amortized. That is essentially what it means. That is a help to tenants. It makes sense. Why should a cost that has been paid for continue to be passed through? But that clause probably will not receive much debate here.

There are other important amendments. There is an amendment which says essentially that if the quality and value for money of a repair are not proper, that cost should not be passed through. That is important to tenants. It is important that if they are to see their rent increase, or have seen their rent increase, they should not have to pay for something they did not really receive. I think that is terribly important.

There is another amendment that talks about maintenance. It says essentially that if a landlord has not provided adequate maintenance to the building, he will not be entitled to rent increases. We think that will help the maintenance in the system. We think that tenants will benefit because no landlord will be able to have an increase if the maintenance was not done.

In other words, I have a whole handful of amendments that will never be discussed in this place. They will not be fully aired before the people of Ontario, they will not be fully aired before the Parliament of Ontario, among the 130 members of this place, and that is, I think, going to be a hallmark of this government.

There is not, on the other hand, as my leader, the member for Brant-Haldimand, has pointed out, pressing government business in the Orders and Notices. What is there to debate? What is the government House leader going to call if we do not debate this? What is so pressing that she cannot give us a little more time to get forward? This government has not been prolific in providing legislation for the members to peruse and to debate and to understand. It just has not been there. It is almost as if on 1 October they came in and put the phones on hold and have yet to take them off. I do not know what the pressing government business is that justifies cutting off the opposition's time to discuss in this House.

It is not just the opposition. I have been looking forward to the New Democratic members who sat on the committee with me standing in this House and presenting their views. We want to know what they are about.

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Mr McClelland: They're not allowed to express their views. They're told what to say and they don't have a chance. They always agree, whatever.

Mr Brown: They are not allowed to express their views. They do not have much to say on this.

Now when we are talking about this bill, which is draconian, I should bring to the government's attention some of the things that were said in committee and, for the government House leader, some of the things that were said in Sudbury during the committee meetings there. I want to quote from Mr Desormeaux, a representative of the north central region of the United Tenants of Ontario. He had some interesting comments when he came before the committee. l think, if I might just have a moment, I will share them with members. He said:

"When I come down to meetings in Toronto about housing, there is very much a 'them and us' kind of feel to these meetings, and that is not right that it is a 'them and us.' I do not believe that tenants' groups and landlord groups have to be enemies. l believe -- this is personally -- that most landlords are basically good and they are trying to do their best and most tenants are basically good and trying to do their best and that it is -- well, it is kind of realistic at this point that it is assumed that one side is to blame and the other side is not to blame. It is kind of the way things work, but personally, from my experiences with the politics of housing, I think there should be like a no-fault housing situation where we can say it is not the landlord's fault, it is not the tenant's fault, it is not anybody's fault, but it is the housing that has to be created for the people who need it and cannot afford it."

I think that is one of the most sensible things that somebody has said while we were out on committee. This is not a "them and us" issue. Nobody is pro-tenant, nobody is pro-landlord; what we are, I think, if we are doing our job, is pro-Ontario. We are for the individuals who need the housing. We want to provide the housing, and what this government has done with Bill 4 is to totally divide this province into them and us, between the white hats and the black hats. That is what they are attempting to do, and it is certainly not constructive, not constructive at all.

While we were in Sudbury we also heard from Lucille Germain. She is a widow, she is a working person and she is facing very difficult financial times. She owns a small building and spends more on that building per month than she takes in in revenue. She recently did a number of capital expenditures which improved the building. The tenants were appreciative of them. She said to us:

"I am asking you, committee members, am I gouging my tenants? I have in fact been subsidizing my tenants at the rate of $570.12 a month for the year 1990. This represents 42% of my personal monthly income.

"If Bill 4 is enacted it would make it impossible for me to recover the cost of these repairs. I will not be able to carry on. I am facing bankruptcy. Those are facts. I am in a financial loss position. My personal savings are being eroded by this constant drainage on my savings to keep up the expense of this property."

That is what she says about Bill 4. She thinks that there needs to be a pass-through of capital expenditures. She understands that. She understands that retroactivity is wrong, retroactivity is bad. I would bet she agrees that we should be able to debate this fully in the House, we should be able to spend some real time understanding the real problems of the real people of this province. That is what she would like to do. She knows that this is bad legislation and she thinks it can be fixed, as we all think it can be fixed, given the time to have the government understand.

I wonder about the six NDP members on the committee. Do they not talk to their friends? Do they not talk to their pals in caucus? Do they not say: "Gee, this is what we're hearing out there. There's something wrong with this law"? Do they not even talk to their pals behind closed doors? I think, as my friend the member for Mississauga West said, there should be blood on the floor of that caucus as they debate the serious issues and the serious misdirection of this bill. I hope at least in caucus they have the nerve to stand up, the six of them, and say: "What we heard out there is totally at odds with what the government is doing here. It's totally at odds."

I might also remind the members that in the past the government party has been quick, when it was over on this side of the House, which was most of the time, to be appalled at this kind of motion. I might quote the Premier on this. He said, "The simple fact is that if this measure is to be allowed, the logical implication of accepting that argument would be that the standing orders would come to mean nothing when it comes to protecting the rights of minorities and regulating the way we do business here." That is what the Premier said about time allocation.

He also said, "It would be far better to have real consensus among all the parties as to how the business of the House should be ordered and some greater willingness on the part of the government to at least listen to those of us who are in opposition, to what we are trying to do." That is what the Premier said, but I guess that was then, this is now.

The Premier has a totally different view of this process, depending on the side of the floor. I am in the maybe unique position -- or not unique; there are a number of us in that position who have supported time allocation as a government, but we did that after a long, long period where the opposition clearly told us frankly, in this place and to the newspapers, that it was being obstructionist, that it would not allow the bill to be passed under any circumstances. They told us that it could not happen. In that instance, I think maybe a government has no choice, but I have not heard that in this place. Certainly, our caucus has been co-operative. Our caucus has tried to be constructive in this debate, has tried to further the needs of the people of Ontario, has not looked at it with ideological blinkers on, has looked at it from a practical point of view: How can we make Bill 4 work? That is just not something that I can see as being obstructionist.

The government House leader seems to suggest that we have been unusually obstructionist, but I cannot see any reason. l do not think the debates show repetitiveness. They do not show us holding things up unnecessarily. I really cannot understand why they want to do this.

Back up in Sudbury, because the government would not allow us to go to Thunder Bay, we had to fly a presenter from Thunder Bay to Sudbury. If the House would just give me a few moments to read this, l think this is a rather compelling bit of testimony on Bill 4. Vickie Marsh said to us, quoting the Minister of Housing:

"'In some cases, tenants have been required to pay rent increases of more than 100%. For many, this was tantamount to ordering them to leave their homes.' The dispassionate facts from the Ministry of Housing's own statistics tell quite a different story. Of Ontario's 1.2 million private rental units, in a given year more than 86% receive rent increases of under 5%. Less than 1% receive increases of 30% or more and only 7/lOOths of 1%, 84 units out of 1.2 million, fall into the 100% and over category.

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"These few 100% increases are then charged back in the press and by politicians to greedy landlords ripping off the system. Again, this is patently untrue. The very few large rent increases which do exist are almost always the result of a combination of at least two out of three important factors: extremely low base rents, a requirement for extensive structural renovation due to age and deterioration, and small building size, usually under 10 units. We ourselves manage a project which had two of the above requirements and had an over 100% increase. We applied for a low-rise rehabilitation program on a 30-year-old 152-unit town home project and, let me add, it was the biggest in Ontario to the time. We had government people coming out our ears up there. Starting rent at this project for a three-bedroom town house was $192 a month. Some $3.9 million and three years later, rents are now $405 a month. The units were completely refurbished both inside and outside, requiring the tenants to physically move out for three to four weeks, with an approximate cost of about $32,000 being put into each unit. Comparable rents on another three-bedroom town house projects we manage right now in Thunder Bay are $699 per month. We are still way under market rent.

"Further, of the 152 tenants only 28 left the project. Of these 28, 23 could afford to purchase their own homes.... These figures were kept by ourselves as we were interested in how a project of this scope would affect the tenancy. A rent supplement agreement was also entered into by ourselves with the Ministry of Housing to directly address and assist the problem of those who could not afford housing. Therefore we disagree with the statement that 'thousands of tenants are being economically evicted' by huge increases. Our own experience proves this not to be true."

That is the kind of evidence we heard day to day in the committee.

When we got to clause-by-clause downstairs in the committee, the parties worked well together. The government members had not much to say about anything, but they seemed to at least look uncomfortable when we brought about the retroactivity --

Mr Mammoliti: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I fail to see what this has to do with the motion. Perhaps the member could explain what all of this has to do. He just continually is off track.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs Haslam): Thank you for your opinion. Continue.

Mr Offer: Why don't you start from the beginning so he gets it right?

Mr Brown: He often had trouble in committee following the flow of events too.

I will tell the members that the committee process was very important. We heard a significant number of people, although not all those who wanted to have their views presented to us. I am certain that if we had got to some other parts of the province, we would have heard some views that we did not hear while we were restricted to the few centres the government would allow the committee to travel to.

When the opposition attempted to get this committee to move to other parts of Ontario, we were told over and over again: "This is impossible. We have a tight time line. This is important."

But guess what? This bill is retroactive. If we pass this bill tomorrow or if we pass this bill in two weeks, it makes no difference; it is retroactive to 1 October. So I want to know, what is the big panic over there? Why do we have to get the jackboots out? Why do we have to stomp the opposition? Why do we have to force the opposition to have only two days, one day in committee of the whole and one day in the House? I do not understand.

Mr McClelland: They are afraid of what they are going to hear, Mike. They don't want to hear it.

Mr Brown: They are afraid of what they are going to hear. The government is perhaps setting a precedent. I believe this is the earliest a new government has ever invoked time allocation. I think this is maybe a setting of style --

Mr McClelland: I think the former Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations called it intellectual totalitarianism.

Mr Brown: This is a --

Mr Offer: Is this a joint speech?

Mr Brown: Yes, this is seeming like a duet.

Mr McClelland: This is Mutt and Jeff.

Mr Brown: The government is maybe setting a trend. Maybe open and responsive means open and responsive to a particular segment of Ontarians, to a small group, to a group that knows the right handshake, knows the secret password. Maybe that is who they are open and responsive to, and to the rest of Ontario the socialists are saying, "Well, you really don't have the opportunity to put forth your point of view because we are going to put down the jackboots."

It is going to be interesting over the period of this Parliament to see if this is in fact a precedent, if the government House leader is saying to us, "Look, we have to put up with you guys over there, but that's all we're going to do. We're not going to listen to you at all. We're not going to listen to the views that are represented by the 62% of Ontarians who voted for the opposition. What we're going to do is do what we want to do and that's the way it's going to be."

If this is a trend by this government, then we are in big trouble. The people of Ontario are in big trouble, because a government that is ostensibly open and responsive appears to be only open and responsive to the select few.

I find that offensive. I find it difficult to work effectively as a member of this Legislature. I feel it impugns my responsibilities. I cannot put forth the views of my constituents the way I should.

I have a basic objection, besides the Bill 4 stuff, to just the fact that I think this might signal the opposition being muzzled. They do not want to hear it. That is why they did not want to extend the committee hearings, because when they went out, they inevitably got beat up by both tenants and landlords and anybody else who had an interest. That is why they wanted to cut that off, and that is why they want to cut this off. It is called damage control. "Don't allow people to put forth their points of view because we don't want to hear it. We don't want to know what the real world's about. We have our mind set, we know our ideology, and this is what we are going to do."

I think the most draconian part of this time allocation motion is what it is saying to the future work of this Parliament. It is saying, "We're only going to listen to those special friends of ours. We're not going to pay attention to the other people in Ontario." I find that and the party finds that -- and I am sure the Conservatives next to us -- totally unacceptable. Ontarians believe in a democratic process.

I would suggest, if the government House leader wants some helpful suggestions, that we could deal with this bill if she would only sit down with the other two House leaders and have a look at what clauses need serious debate, because she will have to agree that the majority of these clauses nobody is in violent disagreement with. As a matter of fact, in principle I think we let them go. If she looks at the committee hearings, she will see that on many clauses there were very few words spoken. There are some contentious ones. I do not know why the government House leader did not sit down with our House leader and the Tory House leader and say, "Okay, these are important clauses. Maybe we should have a couple of hours to do this one. The other one maybe doesn't need as much debate. It could have half an hour," and divide out the committee of the whole so that when we come out of this we have a bill that Liberals could support.

We went into this debate telling the government that we wanted to support this bill, that in principle we supported the rent freeze while it got its permanent legislation in place, but that it needed significant change. The retroactivity clauses had to go, the capital expenditure pass-through had to be changed, but essentially we agreed there needed to be a pause while we looked at what was happening out there and tried to devise a better system.

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The government House leader has a responsibility, I think, to meet with the other two, to sit down and say, "Well, gee whiz, on this clause I think we could have a debate that lasts 45 minutes, on the other one 15 minutes or a couple of hours on this one." I think we would all be agreeable in here. There is no indication whatever that our party has been obstructionist, and I do not think reasonable people should be put in this kind of unreasonable position.

As I wind up my remarks, I would just suggest that I am appalled by this. I do not think at this stage we are anywhere near where time allocation is needed. Reasonable people can work out a reasonable solution. I hope the government House leader will take my suggestions to heart, sit down with the other two House leaders and come to an appropriate decision on what time for which clauses needs to happen on this bill.

Following that, we can go back to having a reasonable debate, as I believe we were having before the government introduced this closure motion, and we can go through the business of the people of Ontario in an orderly fashion.

Mr Turnbull: I am pleased to speak on this important matter. In fact, I sat on the standing committee on general government, which agreed on the amount of time that was to be allocated to that committee to study this bill. Originally it was agreed we would have five weeks to study it in committee and we were clipped back to three weeks by the motion of the NDP people on that committee.

We had over 150 people and groups that were excluded from presenting their submissions to this committee. In fact, on a motion I made to get expert testimony from the trust companies of Canada with respect to potential bankruptcies of landlords because of this act, we were voted down by the NDP, that same group of people who ran last summer on a platform that they were going to offer open government. I guess that was then, but this is now.

They are saying no, they did not want the most qualified people to speak to the question of bankruptcies and mortgages. They did not want them to be heard. This strikes at the heart of open government.

I have to say, as a new member of this Legislature, someone who ran in the last election because I did believe there was something going wrong with government, that I object to the idea that we are being cut off from legitimate debate on this. It is very important that all sides of the issue be brought out. This is retroactive legislation, and retroactive legislation dates back to when they introduced it, so there is no question of urgency. Surely the extra days could be allowed to debate this.

In committee of the whole, we had 10 hours and 33 minutes of debate. That is surely not a lot of debating time compared with other bills that have been brought before this House in other times. Actually, in second reading we had eight hours and 36 minutes of debate. This is a very important piece of legislation. In fact, it is the major piece of legislation in terms of the impact on the province that this government has brought forward so far. Yet on the very first substantial piece of legislation the government brings forward it applies time allocation.

In the 42 years that the Conservatives governed this province, they brought in time allocation on three occasions, and on each of these occasions they consulted with the House leaders of the other parties. This government thought, after such a short amount of debate on the only substantial piece of legislation it has brought in after six months -- and in fact it is getting close to eight months since it was elected -- that it wants to bring in time allocation.

As the leader of the Liberal Party said, it is not as if they are backed up with a lot of legislation. We have a very light load in terms of the bills they have brought forward at this moment.

I would like to point out some of the things that in fact the Premier said with respect to time allocation. As I pointed out, there were three occasions when the Conservatives brought in time allocation in 42 years. There were three times that the Liberal Party brought it in in five years, and indeed the Liberal Party and the NDP seem to be accelerating this whole process. Now, after such a short amount of debate, the NDP is bringing in time allocation.

With respect to Bill 68, the auto insurance plan, on 28 March the former opposition leader devoted his two lead questions to it in question period and stated, "The reality is that this government believes it has the right to do whatever the hell it wants to do regardless of the views of the public and regardless of the views of those who oppose."

We were told by the NDP this was a government that was going to be different. If they were only elected, they would have open government, they would govern the province differently. In fact, the public was duped. This government is not governing differently. The minute it finds some resistance from the opposition benches who want to point out the mistakes in this legislation and bring in substantial amendments, the minute we do this, this government brings in time allocation.

The member for Windsor-Riverside, who is now the Minister of Housing, stated on 3 April 1990 about time allocation, speaking of the Liberals, "This government, the majority party...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." He also stated on time allocation: "I would suggest that is incredibly unfair. It will result in the process not holding the government accountable."

The member for Welland-Thorold stated on 17 April 1990, "We want to talk about the auto insurance legislation that the Liberals want to ram through this Legislature without any concern for tradition or procedure and without any concern for democratic function."

The Liberals here at Queen's Park and this government have demonstrated time and time again that they care not a tinker's damn for the role of the opposition. They have demonstrated time and time again their disdain, and indeed we see the tinker's damn that the NDP offers; the same kinds of circumstances, and yet this government brings in time allocation after considerably less debate than this House had even had for the Liberal legislation.

We will look again at what the Premier said with respect to Sunday shopping on 30 January 1989: "I think this imposition of the guillotine is unjustified. It is unworthy of the democratic process that we would come to expect in terms of the government using its majority to simply force through legislation."

The Treasurer said on 24 January 1989: "Fantasy be darned. This is reality. When I start fantasizing, it will not be about closure motions."

We see that the member for Renfrew North said, on the question of time allocation, "It reminds some of us of the happy compromises of an earlier day on important legislation that made this place work in the face of strong opposition and without closure." That was from Hansard of 16 February 1983. He also said, "The past practices in these cases have been for the minister to consider withdrawing the bill, not for ever but until such time as tempers cool, calm heads prevail and conciliatory amendments can be rethought, re-entered and reworked."

Why do we have a group of new people in this Legislature? The majority of members on the government benches were not elected before this last election. Why are they bending their principles, the principles that they said their party stood for, to bring in time allocation on an important subject? As I say, this is retroactive legislation and there is no way that if we all vote against that we can stop them. It automatically is enacted as of the date they made it retroactive. That is one of the things we have been fighting about.

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The NDP has made all kinds of promises, but it has not kept them. Do members remember the 10.5% mortgage rates that they were going to give farmers and small businesses and householders? They have forgotten that. But as soon as they get something where we make a little wrinkle in their view of the world, they want to bring in time allocation.

Indeed, I attended the House leaders' meeting where our House leader said to the government House leader, "We need more debate," and she said, "Well, how much?" and he said, "Well, until it's debated out; this is important legislation." And we said, "I guess you'll have to do what you have to do." Now, to try to take that out of context and suggest that we were telling the members opposite to apply time allocation is totally wrong. We expected them to keep to their word, the word of their Premier before he was Premier, the word of the Minister of Housing --

Mr Ferguson: Do you want to be debating it in June? Want him to talk about it in June?

Mr Turnbull: The member on the government benches is saying, do we want to be debating it in June, and I think that is a very good question. The same question could have been asked when they were debating extra billing, when they were debating Sunday shopping, when they were debating no-fault. All of those issues were debated more fully in this House before time allocation was brought in.

This is the reality, that we have had tenants who have come to us during the committee hearings and said, "We want this legislation, but we think retroactivity is wrong." It is in an embarrassment for the government that tenants' groups are saying it is wrong. It is an embarrassment that labour unions are coming and saying it is wrong, that they are losing jobs, that the time of a recession is not the time we should be reducing the amount of work that is being done on buildings. And yet the government has brought in legislation and they do not want any more debate on it because it embarrasses them.

Well, that is tough. In a democracy we are supposed to debate it, we are supposed to bring out the good and the bad and bring those forward for everybody to consider. By allocating time to this and cutting off debate, they are striking at the whole question of people's ability to be governed fairly.

We have seen absolutely no effort by the Minister of Housing to move forward to stop the backlog of applications with rent review and get those worked through. He has not added any extra staff to get rid of that problem that has caused retroactivity for tenants. All he has been mesmerized with is forcing through bad legislation that tenants' groups, landlords and building trades have all said is wrong -- the fact that it is retroactive. Why are the government members doing this? Are they not embarrassed to be here, to be doing the things that their party used to roil at and say: "This is wrong. We should have full debate"? Are they not embarrassed that they are doing it in a more expeditious way than any other party has ever done?

There has been no arrangement with the House leaders where they say, "Okay, we'll give you that many extra hours." They are cutting it off prematurely. We have not got all of the amendments on the table. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives have put forward amendments. Some of them are being reintroduced, yes, but some of them are new amendments. They do not want to hear those amendments because doing so does not fit with their agenda. Well, their agenda may be wrong and their timetable may be wrong.

The members opposite should listen to what the people are saying. We have a government populated by people who used to make all these incredibly sanctimonious statements when they were in opposition. The Premier and the Minister of Housing refused to go out to the demonstration on the steps of this Legislature where affected people were demonstrating against it, and yet that same pair were the first to criticize other governments if they did not go out to demonstrations.

Of course they do not like demonstrations. But the fact is, it is people expressing their frustration, and unless the government members are prepared to listen to the people, they are breaking their promise, the promise that they made in the election, in the Agenda for People. They are going to have to live with it in the next election.

But we are not just talking about the election. We are talking about the fact that people are going bankrupt. During all the hearings, everybody on the government side laughed about bankruptcies. Indeed, there are more apartment buildings in this city that are in power of sale at this moment than there have ever been in all of the time that I have lived in Toronto, which is since 1969, exactly as a result of this legislation.

Mr Mammoliti: Oh, you are exaggerating.

Mr Turnbull: I am not exaggerating. We have lots and lots of buildings in power of sale because of this legislation. The government has wiped off 25% to 30% of the value of these buildings.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: I would like to remind the member to direct his comments through the Speaker, as it is not a debate back and forth, and to stay on the topic, please. Thank you.

Mr Turnbull: Madam Speaker, I feel that this is very much on the topic, the fact that we want full debate on a subject which is important to a huge number of the citizens of Ontario. It is totally in compliance with the promises that were made by the NDP in the last election. The electorate has a right to expect nothing less and indeed every party should stick by its promises. But when a party is sanctimonious and suggests that it would have different sets of values if it were only elected, and then as soon as it is elected, it cuts off debate on the most substantial piece of legislation it brings forward, stops important deputations from groups --

Mr Jackson: Democracy takes a holiday with this government.

Mr Turnbull: It does indeed. We ask the members of the NDP to go back to their caucus and speak to the Premier and say, "We must have proper open debate." Otherwise there is, in this Legislature -- I believe I am not allowed to call anybody a "hypocrite," but certainly I would call the platform of the NDP hypocritical if they cut off debate on such an important issue, when all of the facts have not been brought forward, when all of the deputations have not been heard and when you contrast that with the fact that, in all of the 42 years that the Conservatives ruled, they only used time allocation on three occasions. There is indeed something wrong with this government if, on the first test of its promises, it completely swallows them.

Mr Offer: I am pleased to join in this debate, and I must be frank. I had not been planning to be part of this debate, but I have heard some very moving argument this afternoon by members, certainly of the opposition party, and indeed of the third party.

It is interesting that we have not heard argument by members of the government side, but not surprising. I imagine it is not surprising because they are the architects of this motion, a motion which is designed to gag the members of the opposition and the third party and, I must say, very much designed to stop input from the general public. We are dealing with this matter in two ways.

First, we talk about the substance of the bill. But, of course, I recognize that that is not proper, so I will not talk about the substance of the particular legislation which has caused a great deal of concern for a number of people in dealing with not so much the principle of the bill, but really trying to work with members of the Legislature, all members of the Legislature, to make it a better bill, a more effective bill, a bill which really does meet the concerns and the hopes of many people.

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The motion that we talk to today is not designed to speak to that substance. Today, what we are talking about is an attempt by the majority government party to stop debate in this House. I have not had time to check this out, but I have been informed that this may be the earliest time in the history of this Legislature that a closure motion has been invoked from an election. That is shameful.

What does that say? It says that there is a government in this province of Ontario that now holds the distinction -- I cannot say that it is very enviable -- of closing down debate in this Legislature; of closing down the opportunity for members of this Legislature to talk to the substance of a particular bill; of closing down the people of this province from using, as is their right, the members, duly elected through constituency offices, through the Legislative offices, yes, through committee, through committee of the whole, to bring forward their concerns about any particular piece of legislation.

Let us not make light of that because, when all is said and done, that is the most important function that we as legislators will provide: the opportunity for people to be heard, the opportunity for people to avail themselves of our service to comment for or against any particular piece of legislation, policy or initiative, or to bring forward their thoughts and opinions on how those pieces of legislation, initiatives and policies can be improved.

That is our job. That is why we were elected. Hopefully, that is why we stood and asked the people of each of our respective constituencies to vote for us, to say that we feel it is of first priority to be accountable, to be open to the people. This motion stops us from doing that function. This motion effectively curtails not only us from speaking on a matter of importance but, through us, the people of this province.

We have heard from previous speakers of past experiences in this Legislature. We have heard of quotes from speeches of members now in government when in opposition. We have heard of days where speeches and debates of great eloquence were made as to how important it is for us as legislators to be in fact legislators. This chamber does not work if we are stopped from speaking our minds. This chamber does not work if we cannot speak to you, Madam Speaker, and through you to the government, as to the concerns and the hopes of our constituents. This chamber only works when we can freely speak and use the time to bring forward those points necessary in a way which does credit to those who have shared their thoughts with us.

This is an important motion. This is a motion which should not be made light of because this is a motion which strikes to the very fundamental essence as to why we are here this very day at this very hour. We are here because we feel there is a freedom of speech, a freedom which will not be curtailed, a freedom to bring forward matters of substance on any particular piece of legislation. It is the government that, at a very early stage, is taking that away. That is not something that should be made light of. That is something which I believe will stick with this government for many, many years to come.

It will be members on the government side who will have to defend why their party has decided to stop debate. It will be members on the government side who will have to say why they feel it is no longer necessary to listen to the people of this province. It will be those members who will have to defend why discussion, not only on this particular piece of legislation but in principle on all pieces of legislation, is to be cut short.

There are many countries in this world that would very much appreciate having just a pittance of the type of freedom that we have in this province. They would look upon this in surprise. We speak many times, I think all members, about the freedom of speech, the freedom to share one's opinion, the freedom of our elections. Those from other countries look upon this just as a panacea of the very best that can be offered, and I think that they would look and say: "You have this freedom. Why would a government which has such a freedom and has used this type of freedom cut short that type of opportunity for all members of the Legislature?"

Why on earth would anyone think it is right and proper at such an early stage to cut debate in this Legislature? Why? I do not know why. I can hazard a guess, or a few, and I think I might.

An hon member: Please.

Mr Offer: I have been moved to explain maybe why the government does not want to listen to debate. Because it might not be the debate it wants to hear. It may very well be a debate of opposition to a particular piece of legislation on principle. It may be a debate of concern over some aspect of that legislation, but it would be debate, and I think that this government had better learn very quickly that when it brings forward legislation, as it is its right to do, and its obligation and its responsibility, there is also another right, responsibility and obligation on the part of government, and that is, after such legislation is introduced, to listen to comments on that legislation in principle, to listen to concerns on any particular piece of legislation, to listen to amendments, to suggestions for improvement. It is not to say, "This legislation which we have introduced is the very best that can be done and we will no longer listen to members of either the opposition or the third party or to the general public." That is an extremely important obligation on the part of government, and it is one that it has failed in.

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The House leader and all members of the government party have failed in this. It has nothing to do with the substance of the legislation; it has to do with the government's obligation as members of this Legislature to listen, to make themselves available to hear comments, concerns, and to allow full and open debate. They have not allowed that. They have followed the Premier or their House leader's whim when they came to the members and said: "Listen, they're making some points on the other side. People have great concerns."

I am so happy to see that the House leader has now come in. I hope that my entry into this debate has been the calling card for the government House leader to take her seat.

Unfortunately, members of the government side have listened to their House leader, who has said: "Listen, we've got to cut this thing short. We can't allow this opposition party, these members through their constituents, to continue to bring up the good points on the drawbacks of the legislation. We've got to muzzle them. We've got to gag them. We've got to gag and muzzle through them all of the people who are using them, as is their right and obligation, to bring forward comments and concerns."

I must say that I am amazed. I am shocked that the government, so newly elected -- not only newly elected but elected on that pedestal of open consultation -- would cut the means of communication so short and so viciously.

I guess I am not surprised. I guess it really does not surprise me. I know that there was a meeting in the city of Mississauga which was ostensibly a public meeting. I attended. I know the member for Mississauga South was in attendance. We were told of this meeting, but we were also told that we could not participate. This was a public meeting, but we could not participate and we could not ask a question. But we could walk through the doors, which I guess is a lot better than what happened to some other members, who were not even allowed to walk through the doors of these meetings.

When I got to that meeting -- and I know; I have spoken with the member for Mississauga South -- we shared our surprise, because this was not a public meeting. This was a meeting held through the Ministry of Housing where there were invited participants. I believe the number, if I am correct, was about eight or nine invited participants.

I have been a member since 1985 and I must say that public meetings are not meetings where there are eight or nine invited participants, where members of the Legislature are not allowed to speak. Public meetings are in fact public meetings, where people can come to wherever that meeting is held, where people can participate, where individuals can express their point of view on whatever the matter happens to be. So I say it is not surprising, because the subject matter of this particular piece of legislation emanates from that same ministry. I know that the House leader is the carrier of this motion, this guillotine motion, this gag order effectively stopping us from speaking.

But I have, and I am sure that all members of this Legislature will recognize it, confined my comments to the motion and not to the substance of the legislation. I have not taken the opportunity of reading a series of quotations, which I happen to have right here, from members of the government side when in opposition. They are very important and I truly hope that members of our side will do that.

This is not a light motion. In fact, this is a motion which very much addresses the very reason for our being here. It is a motion which stops us from expressing opinion. It stops us from working with the government to make a piece of legislation a better piece of legislation, a piece of legislation which addresses the concerns of many people who came before the legislative committee. This motion has said no to that; it has said no to me and all members here. But make no mistake about it, it has said no to the members of the opposition. It has said no to members being able to do what is so very important in their legislative responsibility.

I am very disappointed in the House leader, whom I have known for a number of years. I am disappointed in this motion's being brought forward at such an early time, before I, my colleagues and indeed her colleagues have had the time necessary to deal with this particular legislation.

This motion is not about a piece of legislation; this motion is about process. This motion is about the fundamental right that each of us has as a result of being elected, selected by the people in our ridings. This motion is stopping us from doing our job. It is with great regret that the House leader, the government has brought forward this particular motion. It is with great regret that I had to speak on this motion, because I would rather not. I would rather be debating the particular piece of legislation.

I note in passing that members of the government side have treated this in a lighthearted fashion, and it may be because they have just been newly elected, but it is crucially important as we proceed that we be able to proceed, that we are able to say what we feel on any particular piece of legislation and to do so without fear of being the victims of this type of closure motion. This is not a good day for debate in this Legislature. It is not a good day when we talk about not being able to speak. It is a day which is very serious. It is one which the government will long regret, because it is certainly one which I will never let it forget.

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Mr Tilson: When I look at this motion that has been made by the government House leader, as a new member my greatest surprise is the silence that has taken place in this government from the very outset, not only during the clause-by-clause debate of the committee, which we spent many weeks on, but also the clause-by-clause that has been proceeding with this committee and the silence of this committee. It is indeed the silence of the lambs, because there is silence over there. They just simply do not wish to discuss it.

They had made up their minds, I believe, at the very outset. I think their whole issue of consultation has been a sham. I do not think they intended for one minute to listen to the people of this province, to listen to the constructive criticisms that have been made by the opposition, the suggested amendments that have been made by the opposition, the people who have come to the committee and spent many hours not only preparing for those hearings but also making those deliberations.

There is no question that this government has from the very outset intended to ram this legislation through, and that is exactly what it is proposing to do with this legislation. They talk about how they intend to go out to the province and consult, how they intend to consult with people during the hearings, how they intend to consult with the green paper. That has been their philosophy all along. They are not consulting. They are not listening. They have a timetable, they have not really told us what they are doing and they intend to ram this through.

The green paper consultation that the minister has spoken about I think was the greatest sham of all. It started off that he and the member for Wentworth North and the member for Niagara Falls were to go around the province to different cities. Some of the meetings were alleged to be open; some of the meetings were not. We discovered that some of the open meetings were indeed not open meetings. Some of the members of the opposition have already spoken at length as to how they had difficulty even finding out where these meetings were being held. Our leader spoke of that problem. He had difficulty finding out where the meeting was going to be held in North Bay.

Then after, when it had been announced where the meetings were going to be held, they had difficulty speaking at those meetings. There was some question as to whether they could go to the meetings, but when they finally got to the meetings, there was a great deal of difficulty speaking at those specific meetings. In fact, I can tell the members at first hand from my office that a member from the Ministry of Housing contacted me, as I have indicated in this House in the past. Ministry staff contacted my office, and I believe the Liberal critic, the member for Eglinton, to inform us of specific meetings that we could attend. But at the same time it was made quite clear to us that we could not speak, we could not comment on anything that was going forward.

That is the type of consultation that this government has been developing from the outset. It clearly has used, l submit, tricks with respect to the clause-by-clause debate in the committee. The terms of reference of this whole subject were not only to discuss Bill 4 and to provide clause-by-clause discussion and listen to the people of this province and try to listen exhaustively to the delegations that would be coming to us, but also to discuss the green paper. That has never been done, and I question if it ever will be done. I think this government intends to simply ram Bill 4 through and then I believe it will simply introduce the permanent bill without the consultation on the green paper that it has promised the people of this province. That is how this new government proposes to proceed with one of the most serious economic pieces of legislation it has brought forward.

I think the whole problem with this motion that is before this House is that it is clearly getting too hot for the minister. I am not referring to the fact that he was burned in effigy at a demonstration just recently. I think it is quite clear from the reams of material that have come to him and members of the government from their own constituency offices -- people who have talked about how they are losing jobs, how their apartments are deteriorating in quality, how contracts are being broken between suppliers that were going to be providing assistance to the tenants -- it is getting too hot for them. They want to end it and that is how they propose to do it.

Clearly, I believe that they are is determined to do away with the principle of private enterprise in this province. This Bill 4 is the first of many pieces of legislation --

Mr O'Connor: Come on.

Mr Tilson: Well, show me why not, Clearly the government is not encouraging private enterprise to get into the apartment industry. Can the government tell me one new apartment building that is being constructed since it took office? I do not think there are any across this province, and it is because of their regressive types of legislation. I think it is quite clear that they plan to make this housing industry a public utility, and I for the life of me have no idea where they intend to finance it.

There is nothing to prevent them. They have talked about how the opposition is stalling the housing legislation. If this is interim legislation -- they have made it quite clear they are not going to listen to the people of this province; they are going to make it retroactive -- there is nothing to prevent them from introducing the final legislation. So what is keeping them? They simply really have not informed the public nor have they informed this House specifically where they are going with respect to their housing policy.

I look at the specific wording of the motion, and one of the items that gives me great concern is that it makes it quite clear that if there are any amendments to be filed, they must "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."

The difficulty I have with this clause in the motion is, as we are proceeding in the debate in the committee of the whole, whether it is the government, whether it is the Liberal Party, whether it is our party, the Progressive Conservative Party, whether constructive amendments can be made. Even the government, I hope, will not forget the possibility that even it can make amendments to the bill. But by that clause in this resolution, there is no way that that can be done. "It's our way or not at all." That is what they are saying and I think that is what they have been saying from the very outset. Specifically, I am referring to the clause-by-clause discussions that took place during the committee hearings.

The problem is that there are a great number of issues that need to be dealt with by further debate of Bill 4, and it is regrettable that they are taking the position that they are going to introduce closure to cancel any further debate on this discussion. Two days, the first with respect to this committee and the second with respect to the third reading, will not adequately deal with one of the most controversial aspects of the bill, the issue of retroactivity.

They simply have not listened to the great number of delegations that have come to us. Maybe they have watched it on television, maybe they have read all of the Hansard reports, but there have been a great many other reports that have been submitted to us that have not been read into Hansard; they have simply been filed with the clerk of the committee. That has to do specifically with the issue of retroactivity. This committee that has spent a great deal of time on the whole subject has not studied those matters to present to this House. It was all very hurriedly done and, as I indicated, even the green paper discussions were not pursued.

The whole issue of capital expenditures has not adequately been dealt with by this committee. Clearly, it has been made clear by Bill 4 that Bill 4 will not allow for capital expenditures, even in an interim period of two months, that must be maintained on a continuous basis to update the capital stock of the housing industry.

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There have been situations as a result of the retroactive aspects where people are going bankrupt because they have spent the money. They are under contract to do the work. Capital expenditures have been done but people are going to go bankrupt. The other more serious situation is, why would people make capital expenditures to their buildings? Why would they do that, because there is no way they can be compensated for it. There is no way they can get funding from the banks and that has not been dealt with adequately by Bill 4.

The whole issue of phase-ins of conditional orders has not been adequately dealt with at this level, and I think that to properly review Bill 4, to determine whether or not any further amendments can be made, a great deal of time needs to be spent on that subject.

We have repeatedly requested -- and I say we, the members of the third party -- have repeatedly asked for experts to come to us on economic aspects of the problems. That is our major concern with Bill 4, how this bill is affecting the economic aspect of the province of Ontario, with respect to jobs, with respect to investment, with respect to the maintaining of the housing industry.

We asked for that during the committee stages, and it would be hoped that this committee would enable members of the opposition, and indeed members of the government, to bring forward information that might assist the government to consider making potential amendments to assist in the detrimental effects this bill will have on the economic aspect of the province of Ontario. That is not sufficient time. Two days simply will not allow for that.

More important is that there were over 100 delegations who applied to speak to the committee and this government refused to hear them. Some of them have sent depositions for us, and of course we have been reading some of them into the record, but over 100 people and organizations who wanted to be heard have not been able to be heard.

Hopefully, because of that, the committee of the whole and all members of the Legislature would enable the members of the opposition and members of the government to repeat concerns that have been made by individuals in their own respective ridings. That is the biggest shock, that members of the government have not been responding even to comments that have been made from their own ridings. I know they are writing to them and if members have not heard comments from their constituents, I am sure they will. I am sure they will be phoning members. They might even be phoning members tonight to show their concerns as to how the government is ramming this legislation through.

The whole issue of extraordinary operating costs is an amendment our party wished to deal with and, specifically, I do not think there is adequate time to deal with all the issues as well as that.

The whole subject of tipping fees, with respect to waste, is a very important amendment that we feel should be included as a subject of extraordinary operating costs. There will be insufficient time to debate that, to present that information to the members of this committee.

Our party had put forward a democracy clause that would enable the majority, I believe it was 75%, of tenants if they supported capital expenditures that were put forward. Landlords could be able to make capital expenditures if the majority, 75%, of the tenants in a particular building agreed to making those expenditures. I doubt if we will be able to present that in an adequate fashion to explain the effect that will have on the capital expenditure issue of this bill.

The whole subject of increasing the size of the hearing board members: One of the issues that members of this NDP government made during the election, and our party made, was the increasing size of the bureaucracy of all of the rent review legislation. Clearly a proposed amendment by the government which I feel should be discussed further by this committee is increasing the size of the hearing board members, and the cost that is going to have on the taxpayers.

But this government does not seem to care. All it is going to do is spend. This is just a small aspect of their philosophy. They seem to think that money grows on trees and that is not how we are going to solve the housing crisis in this province.

How we are going to deal with it is by getting more people involved, getting private enterprise involved, groups that have been prepared, developers and landlords who are prepared to increase the amount of housing stock in this province, but the government is discouraging them. This government is discouraging them from building further.

The subject of job losses is perhaps another serious aspect that this committee has not adequately dealt with. There are thousands and thousands of jobs being lost. Evidence has been provided to our committee which we are trying to produce in this House which is directly related to Bill 4, about how people are losing their jobs specifically because of this legislation. We will be unable to adequately deal with that problem.

The subject of chronically depressed rents: That is a subject on which the member for York Mills has spent some time with respect to the committee, and we propose to put forward an amendment on the whole subject of chronically depressed rents. The government simply says: "Oh, tough. We will wait for our two-year moratorium period to run out and then we will deal with it." There does not seem to be any sign as to how it is going to deal with that subject.

Finally, most important is the whole effect of Bill 4 on the economy. From all walks of life and all aspects there does not seem to be any sign of listening to the many people who have shown a concern as to the effect of Bill 4 on the economy. The government seems to spend most of its time blaming it on the former Liberal government, blaming it on the federal government and blaming it on outside interests. That is not a concrete way of going about it.

I would like to refer to one specific area, as I indicated, just to show members an illustration as to how the whole subject of chronically depressed rents has not been raised properly with respect to this committee. In fact, it has not been raised at all, and if this motion passes, I doubt it will receive very much attention at all. It deals specifically with an article that was raised by Michael Bennett of the Toronto Sun on 10 April last in which he referred to an individual by the name of Harry Taylor, who was a carpenter and who had retired in 1987. He had a number of apartments. At that time, the tenants seemed to be satisfied and he seemed to have some ambition to renovate his property. He had purchased the 20 bachelor suites and six one-bedroom units at the end of the 1970s for $360,000.

The existing rent regulations, of course, we knew led to rent review, and I think the government has commented on it. The NDP has commented on the fact that there developed through time an animosity between the tenants and the landlords. Certainly that occurred with the existing legislation, and Bill 4 has accelerated that animosity between the landlords and the tenants. How are they going to work things out when this government has caused that animosity to reach a high-fever pitch?

With respect to the rent review, the animosity between the landlords and the tenants, Mr Bennett comments that, "It was caught in a maze of hearings on application for increases over and above the annual limit of less than 5%." Mr Bennett states that Taylor's building was home to what the bureaucrats called "chronically depressed rents," with a bachelor apartment going for about $320.

That was the type of testimony that we heard during our committee hearings, the chronically depressed rent, and that subject has not been dealt with under Bill 4. Maybe it is going to be dealt with under the permanent legislation, but why can it not be dealt with now? The government acknowledges that it is a problem, or if it does not acknowledge it, it should, because clearly it is a serious problem that is causing people like Harry Taylor and others to approach bankruptcy.

Mr Bennett relates the story of Mr Taylor's problem and talks about how he raided his savings account and scrimped on his city of Toronto pension to put $130,000 into improving his units. Taylor did everything by the book. He filed all the receipts and invoices needed to satisfy the board in 1988 and he was granted an additional 18%. That December his son, who was 25, and who I guess assisted Mr Taylor, unfortunately was killed in a snowmobile accident in Orillia, leaving behind him a house. The house was sold by the estate, by Harry Taylor for $150,000. Mr Taylor took these moneys, based on the existing legislation and his good faith for a $30,000 loan, and the $150,000, plus a loan of $30,000, all that went into the apartment building last year for modern appliances, plumbing and wiring, again based on the rules that existed today.

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The work had to be substantially completed -- and those of course are words that all of us are aware of in the current legislation -- before another rent review board would consider his application to recover the money in incremental rent increases. "This time," Mr Bennett continues, "Taylor wasn't taking any chances. He spent $2,000 on a consultant. He says all the paperwork was filed and recorded by last August 'when nobody thought we'd be getting a new government.'" The Liberals, and I think particularly the New Democratic Party, never thought we would be getting into the situation we are in now.

Soon after the New Democrats came to power on 6 September, Mr Taylor was notified that there would be no sudden changes in the proceedings. Then, of course, the Minister of Housing came along on 28 November and introduced this dreaded bill, Bill 4, which slapped a two-year moratorium on rent review awards. We have talked to some extent about the retroactive effect of that. It essentially stuck landlords, including Mr Taylor, with the cost of the repairs for any work that had been done to that date.

The quote of Mr Taylor that is related by Mr Bennett is: "'The sickening part is, if any of these 26 rents had been due to be installed before the deadline, all mine would have gone through,' says Taylor.

"With as many due dates as he had apartments, he tried to simplify things for his tenants. In the process, he may have lost his life savings."

Then a quote is made by Mr Taylor. He said he had an interview with the Minister of Housing and that he might as well have been talking to the wall. Of course we found out about all that with the green paper discussions; we might as well have been talking to the wall. The Minister of Housing has made up his mind, and that is what Mr Taylor found out.

He says, "His MPP, Marg Ward, told him the government had to do something to stop 'offshore speculators' from flipping buildings for fast profits." Can members imagine a member of this Legislature explaining to Mr Taylor that it is because of offshore speculators flipping apartments for fast profits that Bill 4 was implemented? We have never really had a chance in this resolution or in this debate to discuss this whole subject of why Bill 4 came into existence.

Mr Taylor concludes by saying: "All my tenants used to think I was the greatest guy in the world. Now I've got 26 people who hate my guts and I can't stand the sight of them -- all because this damn government got involved." Those are the words of Mr Taylor. He is probably going to go bankrupt because of this government, this do-not-care government, with respect to Bill 4. Clearly we are going to be unable to discuss the subject of chronically depressed rents.

Some time has been spent with respect to the previous use of time allocation motions. I would like to discuss some of that now. On Bill 94, which had to do with extra billing, in June 1986, the time allocation came in after 147 hours of debate; Bills 113 and 114, the famous Sunday shopping legislation, January 1989, that time allocation came in after 200 and 139 hours respectively for each of those bills; Bill 162, in July 1989, the Workers' Compensation Board legislation, a time allocation resolution was put forward after 163 hours of debate; auto insurance, which is the one that perhaps many members recall more recently in April 1990, the famous Bill 68, time allocation was put forward, and of course we have heard a smattering of comments made by the current government members as to what it thought of that. They gave these people an awful time. They thought what they were doing was a terrible thing to do. They did not have an adequate time to discuss the whole subject of auto insurance. Of course, the former Sunshine Boy spent a great deal of time on that, but that was after 123 hours of debate.

With respect to Bill 4, second reading debate took 8 hours, 36 minutes. The committee of the whole at that time took 10 hours, 6 minutes. The total debate time in the House at that time was 19 hours and 9 minutes; public hearings took 78 hours, 15 minutes; clause-by-clause, 26 hours, 37 minutes. The total debate time in the standing committee on general government was 104 hours, 52 minutes.

The total debate time -- and I would like members to refer back to the times I just gave them with respect to extra-billing, Sunday shopping, workers' compensation and auto insurance -- the total debate time with respect to House and committee was 124 hours, 1 minute. Yet this government was enraged, when it was in opposition of course, by the conduct of the Liberal government with respect to actions it was taking.

But this government seems to have a mind of its own. It is not prepared to listen and it is prepared to ram through the legislation, and that is regrettable. I would just like to refer to a couple of members of the government and how they feel about time allocation motions. Specifically, in July 1989, Bill 162, with respect to workers' compensation, there is an interesting quote I would like to refer the House to by the now Minister of Housing.

At that time he said: "This motion proposes two days in committee of the whole. I think two days to deal with 27 government amendments is unreasonable and, again, an abuse of the minority." He does not think so now. "I submit that two days is clearly inadequate and clearly an abuse." He does not think so now.

"The Speaker must protect the process..." and of course this was on a motion of order, but the concept of where the Minister of Housing was coming from at that time is quite clear. He continued: "The Speaker must protect the process and must protect the minority. This process should be democratic, and it is not democratic and it is not free when the opposition and members of the Legislature are unable to hold the government accountable."

That is all we are trying to do, to hold his government accountable. We can quite clearly see what they are trying to do. If they can shut us up, we will not be able to do that. The Minister of Housing continued:

"This motion puts limits on the committee of the whole that are totally unreasonable. I understand that the opposition parties have limits on them, but those limits, when they are put in a closure motion like this, must be reasonable. I submit that they are not reasonable at all when we are suggesting two days. We cannot contemplate and the government cannot contemplate how many additional amendments might be moved."

Of course, that was the point I was trying to make with respect to the time frame of submitting amendments. We do not know, but they are not even going to consider amendments. They are not going to allow any more amendments, only the ones that have been filed. That is all. Tough luck. Out.

The Minister of Housing continued:

"It may well be that we have 27 amendments; it may be that Liberal backbenchers have some amendments to put to this legislation." Again, I say it may well be that the New Democratic backbenchers will have some suggestions to this amendment, that hopefully they will not sit on their hands and again be "Silence of the Lambs."

"To try to deal in two days with a minimum of 27 amendments, and a maximum of I do not know how many, completely destroys the process.

"The final point I would like to make is that this motion presented by the government House leader prejudges the members of the Legislature. The government is assuming that there are going to be only 27 amendments and it is saying that two days is adequate to deal with those 27 amendments. We have no idea whether there will be additional amendments....

"How can we as a Legislature possibly deal fairly with an individual member's amendments if, at the end of two days, any member in this Legislature could have moved an amendment and there will not even have been arguments pro and con for that amendment, yet we as a Legislature are supposed to judge those amendments and get up the second sessional day under the motion and vote? I suggest to you, Mr Speaker, that this is unfair. It does not offer any protection for the minority in this place...."

Those were comments made by the present Minister of Housing, who is presumably in cahoots with the House leader in trying to shut up the opposition.

The minister continues: "...this is an unprecedented motion that prejudges the process and provides for closure not only on the bill itself but on every possible amendment and the amendments that have not even been dealt with or debated in a standing committee or in the Legislature itself.

"We also suggest that two days in the committee of the whole to deal with amendments is inadequate and does not allow the opposition to appropriately play its role of holding the government accountable.

"Finally, it prejudges individual members and members of other than the executive council and the role they are supposed to play in this place when we are dealing with legislation."

Those are the words of the present Minister of Housing, but he seems to have changed his tune since gaining power. He seems to have changed his tune. I can assure the House that I and members of my party are most concerned as to that position.

I would like to refer members to another comment with respect to time allocation. This was made, again, by the Minister of Housing and this was on Bill --

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Mr Cousens: What was his position at that time?

Mr Tilson: At that time he was just a Joe over there. He was discussing Bills 113 and 114 and this was in January 1989. He was speaking on time allocation and he said: "Time allocation, I think, is a sad commentary on this government. It is a sad commentary on a majority that has become more and more removed from the people of this province," and, of course, he was speaking about those people.

"There was not a lot of discussion on Bill 114. I think what this government has done is to use its majority to force these bills on an unwilling Legislature, which is very clear. More important than the Legislature, the government is using its majority to force those bills on an unwilling public."

Mr B. Murdoch: Who said that?

Mr Tilson: The Minister of Housing said that.

Then we had the current Treasurer make a cute little quote. This was in 1989 as well. He said on 24 January 1989, and I am referring to Hansard: "...the majority of members in this assembly were not on that committee and serve on other committees. It is very difficult for members of the chamber to serve on a number of committees, let alone go to one all the time."

I think the current Treasurer has made a very good point as to the whole process, as to what we are doing, and that is that all members of the assembly cannot go to the committee where we have these discussions. That is why we go in committee of the whole to further discuss it when we are all present. Clearly we are not being allowed to do that, and clearly even members of the government and members on the back benches are not allowed to do it. Clearly they have been instructed not to say anything as well because of their silence today and their silence on the committee.

I raised a question on the subject of fairness at question period recently. I asked specifically the member for Niagara Falls about the whole issue of fairness, and I do not think we had adequate time to talk about the subject of fairness with respect to this debate. I asked the member for Niagara Falls. I then asked the Premier, who then shuffled it off to the Minister of Housing. He did not know what fairness was either.

I asked him specifically what was fair, given that they submitted during the election that this government was different. That it was going to be a government that was fair, that it was going to be a government that was accessible. Members should keep in mind these words when they have seen the process of what this government has been doing with respect to Bill 4 -- not allowing 100 people to speak, not allowing the green paper discussions to take place. In fact the minister's so-called green paper discussions consisted of private meetings with tenants, private meetings with landlords and then some public meetings. Even at those public meetings, people were not allowed to speak. Members of this Legislature were not allowed to speak. The two opposition critics were not allowed to speak.

I think this government should talk to us about what it thinks is fair, because clearly when you start talking about retroactivity and the people who are going bankrupt, the jobs that are being lost, it is important to know exactly where this government stands on the whole subject of fairness. Now, the government members got a little excited a few minutes ago when we started talking about how the members of the government were going to make the housing industry a public utility. I do not know where they are going to get the money for that. I have raised in this House in the past the tremendous amount of money that has been spent by the province of Ontario with respect to housing, and it is going nowhere. Bill 4 certainly is not improving that situation; in fact, it is going the other way.

The Liberals committed $3 billion to construct 30,000 units under the Homes Now program, and they spent an additional $300 million in additional operating subsidies over 35 years. That was their commitment. So as to Homes Now, Project 3000, Project 3600, when these units come on stream, operating subsidies will reach over $875 million by 1993-94, with an annual mature cost of $1 billion. One billion dollars. This is an increase, as I have indicated in the past, of over 300% from the Ministry of Housing's 1985-86 budget of $243 million.

I, for the life of me -- and Bill 4 certainly is not revealing it -- do not know where this government thinks the money is going to come from. The taxpayers cannot do it. They have had enough. The people of this province cannot afford what this government has plans for with respect to Bill 4 and similar legislation. These costs that I have just referred to are all before the Treasurer allocates an additional $3 billion.

We cannot afford to build every housing unit in this province, and that is clearly where this government intends to go. We cannot afford it. This government must realize that taxpayers have been pushed to their limit.

I, for the life of me, have been asking this government, not only during the committee stages, but during this stage, to work with the private sector to build additional rental housing stock. I have specifically asked how it is going to encourage private enterprise, the developers, to build new housing. All that seem to be coming forth are the nonprofit housing, the Homes Now programs and some of these other government initiatives. There does not seem to be anything that the government has in mind, certainly not from Bill 4, and I think that two days to deal with the issues I have listed -- we simply do not have enough time to adequately deal with that whole subject. Clearly we need to rethink Bill 4. We need to spend more time on it, because it is only going to make things worse.

Several days ago, the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association called a press conference with respect to the state of housing in this province. They made it made it quite clear that there was a crisis on our hands.

The House adjourned at 1800.