Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 1000.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

Mr White: Madam Speaker, I would like to indicate that there is an all-party agreement among the House leaders to change the order of this morning so that Mr Dadamo will commence and then Mr Stockwell will have the second hour.

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT (NOTICE OF TERMINATION), 1991 / LOI DE 1991 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LES NORMES D'EMPLOI EN CE QUI A TRAIT AU PRÉAVIS DE LICENCIEMENT

Mr Dadamo moved second reading of Bill 116, An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act with respect to Notice of Termination.

M. Dadamo propose la deuxième lecture du projet de loi 116, Loi portant modification de la Loi sur les normes d'emploi en ce qui a trait au préavis de licenciement.

Mr Dadamo: In the past year, we have experienced a tremendous amount of job losses, due largely to the major economic restructuring brought on by the current federal government. Policies such as free trade, high interest rates, the overvalued Canadian dollar and the GST combined are creating a shift in our economy that is hammering at the very foundation of Ontario's industrial strength.

The basis of our prosperity, which has been the twin pillars of a unionized workforce employed in large-scale manufacturing, has been fundamentally undermined by these economic policies. The results of that show quite clearly that the workers in this province are suffering, and changes are needed now to better protect our living standards.

Job loss resulting from plant closures and involving at least 50 workers is at a level above that of the 1982 recession. Layoffs occurring as a result of a reduction in plant operations are now also on the rise. Unfortunately, statistics for workplace closures of less than 50 workers are not required to be provided to the Minister of Labour. However, the closure-related job loss figures are staggering: in 1982, 11,150 job losses; in 1989, 12,684; in 1990, 20,554 job losses.

Industries especially hard hit by the increased closure activity are mining, food processing, transportation equipment -- including auto parts -- and electrical products. The impact is especially severe where closure occurs in single-industry communities.

In the last six months of 1990, 2,558 workers in the Windsor area were displaced as a result of their companies' closure. Many of these closures occurred with minimum notice, putting the burden of the adjustment on the employees and not allowing sufficient time to identify alternatives or facilitate any type of adjustment whatsoever.

If termination cannot be avoided, advance notice allows employees, employers, communities and the government to begin working on the adjustment process before unemployment becomes a reality. This bill will increase the amount of notice of termination required under the Employment Standards Act in cases involving 10 or more terminations caused by permanent discontinuance of all or part of the employer's business at an establishment. Twenty-six weeks' notice would be required if there were fewer than 200 terminations, and 52 weeks' notice would be required if there were 200 or more. The only exceptions to entitlement to the notice would be if the employee had been employed for less than three months or if he or she had been guilty of wilful misconduct, disobedience or wilful neglect of duty.

This amendment also removes the exemption of notice of termination, which is not required if an employee is laid off or terminated during or as a result of a strike or lockout at his or her place of employment. This exemption allows employers to defeat the intent of the Employment Standards Act, as employers can postpone terminations until after the commencement of a strike or a lockout in order to avoid notice requirements.

An example of this occurred in Windsor last August, when 295 employees of Wickes Manufacturing Co were locked out by the employer after General Motors had announced three months earlier that a major contract to produce bumpers was being transferred to another competitor. Negotiations with the Canadian Auto Workers were a mere formality that allowed the company to wait until it was in a legal position to lock the workers out and avoid paying the 12 weeks' notice that would have been required by the Employment Standards Act, had it not been for the lockout exclusion.

This amendment also requires employers to provide certain information to the minister about the planned terminations. This information must include the economic circumstances surrounding the intended terminations; any consultations which have been or are proposed with the affected employees or their agents or with local communities; proposed adjustment measures and the number of employees expected to benefit from each; and a statistical profile of the affected employees. This information has to be provided to the minister before notice to workers will take effect.

Advance notification builds on the assumption that the burden of adjustment should not be placed only on employees. At the same time, its purpose is not to penalize firms, but to allow sufficient time to identify alternatives or facilitate adjustment. Advance notice may allow, if it is accompanied by consultation, an exploration of alternatives to cutback or closure.

If termination cannot be advised, employees can begin implementing job search strategies, exploring available employment services and, of course, training options. Employees and employers can implement an adjustment plan which might include identifying skill shortages among affected employees and providing counselling.

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Government can activate programs to assist in worker and community adjustment, possibly through needs assessment, skill inventories, employment services, counselling and training. Governments and communities are given time to plan for decreased revenues and simultaneous increases in public expenditures. With advance notice, timely adjustment and appropriate support levels, workers may be less likely to have to rely on unemployment insurance for lengthy periods, and the stigmatization associated with being jobless might be reduced.

Notification legislation emphasizes the notion of corporate responsibility towards the workforce in case of downsizing. By complying, firms can enhance their image as responsible employers. To give advance notice of termination is in principle a cost-free obligation to the employer who complies with this legislation. This advance notice becomes a key component for an exploration of alternatives or for co-ordinating successful adjustment programs.

Advance notice legislation currently sets the lower threshold for mass termination at 50 employees. In small communities and single-industry towns, and in the case of overall deteriorating labour market conditions, terminated employees, especially those affected by closures involving less than 50 employees, can face the same difficulties of finding a new job as other workers involved in layoffs of 50 or more employees. It is for this reason that I promise a lowering of the threshold from 50 or more employees to 10 or more employees.

As I stated earlier, the purpose is not to penalize firms and cause more hardship. If the employer complies with the legislation, no money is paid out. The intent of this change is to allow more time for adjustment or alternatives.

These amendments were being looked at by the Ministry of Labour after holding meetings with labour, business and community groups in February and March of this year. They found that the current statutory projections are limited in scope; specifically, that the notice requirements are insufficient to allow workers to plan for this job loss and providers of adjustment services to implement them in a timely fashion.

The current legislation falls short of what is required of employers in the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, as well as the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, with respect to the threshold limits for mass layoff notification. It is obvious that the previous government showed a complete lack of regard for the plight of displaced workers by not addressing these inadequacies and that it did not consult properly. Unfortunately, workers are finding out how limited the legislation is at a time when progressive notification requirements would have been most beneficial. The lack of more advance notice is causing hardship for workers and their families because the minimum established by the previous government was so inadequate. Too many employees are excluded because of the poorly established threshold limits and also the lack of sufficient notice needed for proper adjustment.

This bill will bring us more in tune with some of the western European legislation that has created the most responsible adjustment programs in the world. I am confident that my colleagues will join me in supporting this very important legislation. Hopefully the members from the official opposition and the third party will also see fit to ensure that displaced workers will get the best job protection available anywhere in Canada.

Mr Offer: Let me say what a pleasure it is for me to join in the debate on the bill put forward by the honourable member for Windsor-Sandwich.

I am going to talk about a number of different aspects of this particular legislation, but at the outset I want to say I am a little concerned about the way in which the honourable member made his opening comments, because I believe they were founded on acrimony. I believe they were founded on an "us and them" type of camp. I do not know that this is necessarily correct. I do not know if this is necessarily the best way to achieve the type of protection that all members of this Legislature always work towards. None the less, that is certainly the way in which the member put forward this particular matter. He spoke not necessarily to the substance of the particular legislation. I think of three areas where the member spoke about the acrimony between labour on one hand and management on the other. He spoke about the difficulties between the government which he represents and the federal government and spoke also, and I took specific note of that, about a lack of consultation by the previous government, of which I was a member, with the labour sector.

The whole basis for this legislation that the member puts forward is one that is based on conflict, an "us and them" type of camp -- "If you're not with us, then you're against us" -- a finger-pointing type of exercise, that the cause of all of the problems in this province in terms of job loss is the federal government and its fiscal and monetary policies. I do not think the people in this province and the 250,000 who lost their jobs in the last year really do take great solace in the fact that one member of this Legislature stands up and says, "If not for the federal government everything would be fine." I do not believe that helps people at all.

Far be it from me to defend the actions of the federal government. I find them to be lacking, wanting, in many areas. But I do not think it is always the most responsible tack to take that no matter what the ills of this province are, they are always the fault of the federal government. I believe it certainly does take a substantial share in that, but I think there are a lot of people who might say the same about this provincial government, that indeed this government too must be concerned about what it has done in the area of job creation in this, the worst recession -- I believe the Treasurer has stated -- since the 1930s. In the last year, 250,000 jobs have been lost and bankruptcies are up in the area of 80%. There is a certain malaise which is affecting so many people in this province and the Treasurer has just recently announced a budget which carries with it a deficit of almost $10 billion.

Many people in this province are now saying: "Where am I in that budget? I don't see my interest being acknowledged in the budget, being advanced in the budget. I don't see one single job being created in the budget." They are not saying that is because of the federal government; they are saying that was a provincial budget, a provincial budget which does not create one single new job at a time when, in the words of the Treasurer, we are going through the worst recession since the 1930s.

By way of opening comment, I say that to bring forward this type of legislation in a way which says everyone belongs in one camp or another -- "You are either in the labour camp or in the management camp, you are either for the federal government or against it, you are either for the provincial government or you are against it" -- really does not serve people's best interests. It really does not promote the economic well-being and viability of the province and its future. It really does not send out a message that there is the need for consultation, that generally people do not want to be looked upon as being on one side or the other, that they do not really feel they are on one side or the other, that they do not really take much satisfaction in finger-pointing, in saying, "Gee, we're perfect except for the other guy," or some other type of area. That does not help when people are out of work.

I hoped the government would have put an awful lot more emphasis on the issue of job creation, on getting to how we can create real, permanent, good jobs in this province which will, in a very fundamental way, provide the basis for continued growth in our economy. But that is not here and that, I must say, has not been the action of the government to date.

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Having made those opening comments, what does the bill do? I have read the bill, and basically it talks about calling for substantial increases in the notice period compared to the existing legislation, it talks about recommending a slight change in the posting procedure and it talks about removing the right for employers to refuse notice to employees hired for a definite term; ie, contract employees.

I guess all of our concern and attention today is probably going to be on the whole issue of the notice provision. The member spoke about how he sees himself and his party as the holders of all that is good and virtuous and moral in terms of workers' protection. He seems to have forgotten that the severance and notice provisions which we, the previous government, put into the Employment Standards Act were the most comprehensive and generous in all of North America. That is not to say that more work cannot be done in that area, but I think that instead of taking this acrimonious type of position the member has taken, we have to say:

"Yes, good work has been done in the past. The enhancements, the provisions, the rights, the entitlements under the Employment Standards Act in terms of severance and notice provisions have been introduced by previous governments and yes, we have to continue to look at ways in which we can continue on in the work, if not in this area, then in occupational health and safety and a variety of other areas."

But the member just seems to put forward -- I will say confusing as opposed to misleading, because misleading might not be terribly proper -- certainly a confusing type of message. All governments have worked in terms of the Employment Standards Act. All governments have looked towards enhancing notice and severance provisions for employees. All governments have done that.

One of the things I think the member should be very concerned about is consultation. I hear two messages in terms of consultation in this province. One message which is heard in this Legislature, mainly from the Minister of Labour, is that they are conducting consultation extensively, broadly, with a variety of people across this province. It sounds very good in this Legislature, I must say, and probably there have been speeches to that effect. But the interesting thing is that when I go outside this Legislature and speak to a variety of people whom I thought would be the subject matter of the consultation, they are saying something very different. They are saying that there is not any consultation, that their views, their thoughts, their opinions, not only on labour-related matters but in the social service area, to name one other, are not being asked for and they are not even being approached. That is something that is of concern to very many people outside this Legislature.

If the government hopes to have legislation, of whatever nature and kind, that it believes is right and hopes to have some sort of approval, it must be based on real consultation. I will share two areas. The Minister of Community and Social Services, in terms of her area, and the Minister of Labour, in his, are falling very short of any type of consultation. I did not even use the word "meaningful," because I am talking to people all across this province who are saying there is not any consultation. They cannot get in the door. They cannot even share their opinion.

Before one ever brings forward legislation of this kind, it must be based on consultation. We have to have a very strong appreciation for the impact that this bill will have on small business. Small business creates more new jobs in this province than anything else. What does this bill do to small business? How is small business able, when one talks of a reduction to a level of 10 persons, to plan, to project for the future? What does it mean? What message does it send out? What does it do to the ability of small business not only to continue to exist but also to be formed in this province and, of major importance, to continue to be the job creator that it has been in the past?

This bill and the opening comments of the member just do not address those concerns. I think it is absolutely essential that before any particular bill of this nature is approved, we have to hear from small business just as one aspect -- what it means to it, what it means to its being able to continue in this province, how this will impact on its being able to grow and create jobs in this province. As such, I think this bill is premature in the extreme.

I also believe we have to take a look at what the government has done in terms of listening to those people who might be affected by this particular piece of legislation. I do not focus just on management; I also bring into issue labour. What type of consultation has been done prior to this bill being introduced in listening to how these types of proposals would impact on both management and labour? What does this mean in terms of accelerating closures? What does this mean in terms of creating new business, in terms of creating new jobs, in terms of building a foundation for the economic growth of this province of which we will all be the beneficiaries? This bill and the member's opening comments are silent on that aspect.

I am very concerned about a bill of this nature. I am concerned because the process by which it was formed leaves out so much. We leave out discussion and consultation with small business, with management, with labour. Before any bill of this nature can be approved, even in principle as we discuss here today, there must be the foundation of good, open, broad consultation. That has not happened in this bill, it has not happened with the Minister of Labour in all of his stated intentions, and certainly the Minister of Community and Social Services is following in the footsteps of no consultation. As such, I do not support this legislation.

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Mrs Witmer: I am pleased to have the opportunity this morning to join in the debate on this bill of the member for Windsor-Sandwich. I would like to preface my remarks by indicating that I appreciate the very sincere and very good intentions of the member in making sure the workers in this province are protected. However, I would also like to point out that although there are some cases where management perhaps does not treat employees fairly, I do believe that on the whole every attempt is made to deal with the individuals as fairly as possible.

I believe this legislation in the end will be very harmful to the economic climate of this province. I do support the fact that there does need to be reasonable protection for workers. However, I do not believe this piece of legislation does protect workers. I do not believe it will protect their jobs. In fact, I feel it could have a very serious impact and I feel it could discourage job creation and job retention in this province.

What is going to happen under this bill is that it is going to increase the notice of termination in the Employment Standards Act. Instead of having to give eight or 12 weeks' notice, now if you have less than 200 employees you are going to have to provide 26 weeks' notice, and if you have more than 200 employees, instead of giving them 16 weeks' notice, you are going to have to give them 52 weeks' or a year's notice. I have a lot of concern about the changes being suggested here.

I would also like to indicate I understand that what is being suggested here has been taken from An Agenda for People under the title "Job Protection." An Agenda for People promised "improving the severance and notice provisions of the Employment Standards Act to increase the protection of workers facing layoffs with lower worker threshold, a lower years-of-service threshold and an extended notice period."

Bill 116 deals with the notice of termination element of the Premier's election promise. However, I am concerned because this bill and the changes contemplated here today are unprecedented in any other North American jurisdiction and, as has been pointed out by the member, although they are part of the western Europe countries they are nowhere a part of any jurisdiction in North America.

It is going to represent a very substantial change, particularly for the small business sector, and I would have to ask the question, at a time of recession, can we afford this type of legislation? I believe it is going to have a very serious impact on the retention of jobs and the creation of new ones; we have to remember those new jobs are created by small business and this certainly does not provide any incentive to create those new jobs.

Another change in this act is the fact that before employers with less than 50 employees were not covered by regulation 286; now all businesses in this province, no matter how small, are going to be covered. This is going to have a very dramatic effect on employers who are struggling during the recession. It is going to force some businesses into premature insolvency because of the increased exposure to a termination pay liability.

I am going to give an example. There is a company that has 40 employees. They have to lay off half their staff because of declining sales or the bankruptcy of one of their main customers. Unfortunately, in these tough economic times, they were unable to give 26 weeks' notice, as is suggested here, because they had no way of anticipating that the other firm, upon whom they depended as a customer, was going to go bankrupt. The termination pay liability of six months' wages for each employee could force this second company into bankruptcy because 20 long-serving employees who earn $500 a week would cost $260,000.

If the second company goes into receivership and is unable to meet its wage, vacation pay, termination and severance pay obligations, then under the terms of Bill 70 the new employee wage protection program would be liable for this $260,000 in termination pay. Who is going to pay for that? The Ontario taxpayers.

Unfortunately, I believe this bill is punitive in nature. I believe it is going to further erode investor confidence. I believe it is going to discourage job creation and investment in Ontario.

I had a call yesterday from a businessman who was in the process of making an important decision. He had heard about this bill that was being discussed this morning and he was concerned about it. The very fact that this legislation was being considered was a factor he was taking into account this week in deciding whether he was going to close his business.

I do not know what decision he is going to make ultimately, but I would like to point out that business is very concerned about some of the initiatives that the government is taking at the present time. They do not feel they are being understood and they feel they are being treated in a very punitive manner.

There needs to be more consultation, real consultation. I believe the views of labour and management both need to be considered in the final pieces of legislation that are brought before this House. Only in this way are we going to have a healthy economy in this province, one that is going to provide well-paying and secure jobs for all the workers. We need to be concentrating on providing them with jobs and saving the jobs they have, and that is not what we are doing; we seem to be spending our time and effort on dealing with the layoffs.

I also want to point out that the length of the notice period needs to be examined. How realistic is it that a company can plan a plant closure one year ahead? How many of us know what is going to happen in our lives one year ahead? None of us. This bill is based on the erroneous assumption that a business goes bankrupt and knows about it a year in advance. Unfortunately, as I have pointed out, this is not always so. Businesses often collapse because of circumstances beyond their control and often quite suddenly.

I have talked about losing a major customer who goes bankrupt. Think about the government taxes in the policy. Consider the role of the workers and the changing nature of the marketplace. These are all factors that contribute to bankruptcy and, unfortunately, bankruptcy can happen very quickly and you cannot plan for it a year ahead. If that plant closure was due to financial distress, a year's notice would only send the creditors in to recover what they could from the remaining assets. Bill 70 in its original form prevented workouts of Ontario corporations, with the result that jobs that might have been saved have been lost.

Bill 116 is going to have the same negative effect on efforts of companies to reorganize a firm to save jobs. Now if a company with 200 employees did not give a year's notice, the termination pay liability could be $5.2 million, assuming the employees earned $500 a week and had eight years of service. Bill 70 is going to expose the Treasury to this termination pay liability of $5.2 million. I ask you, can we in Ontario afford this at the present time? Can the taxpayers afford it?

The liability exposure is so large that a company with 199 employees would be hesitant before hiring any more employees because one extra person, under this new legislation, would mean that the notice period is going to go from six months to one year. It is not going to encourage the expansion of any business or industry.

The budget has already predicted that an additional 184,000 jobs are going to be lost this year. I sympathize with the men and women who are going to lose those jobs. The negative signal sent out by the $9.7-billion deficit is already affecting investment decisions by Ontario businesses and, unfortunately, it is also contributing to the loss of potential new jobs.

To add these punitive labour law changes at this time, at the height of a recession, is only going to exacerbate the negative impact of the budget. We in this province simply cannot afford to lose one more job. We have to start creating an investment climate for business that is going to encourage the private sector to create jobs so Ontario can finally come out of this recession. Changes to the Employment Standards Act, as outlined in Bill 116, are going to have exactly the opposite effect. They will create a very powerful disincentive to doing business in this province. They are going to restrict new employment opportunities for the men and women in this province.

The workers in this province do not need more legislation that is going to cost them their present and future jobs. They need a government that is going to encourage job creation and retention, a government that is going to work with the business community, a government that will consult and take into serious consideration the views of all individuals, whether business, labour, management or whatever, and incorporate them into the final policy. They need a government that is going to provide a good economic climate for investment, provide incentives for business and encourage them once again to look at Ontario as a place for investment.

Unfortunately, we believe Bill 116, if passed, is going to cost this province present jobs and future jobs, and we will be unable to support it today for that reason.

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Mr Hope: It is my pleasure to stand here today as the sun starts to shine upon Queen's Park and the workers of this province start to be recognized and a foundation is being built.

I could not understand the comments that were being raised about there being no consultation. I reflect back on the five years of my time as a labour leader. I could be a little bit modest here and say there has been three years, but I know it is closer to five years, of consultation that has taken place on this piece of legislation because, as a worker representative, one of the key factors we tried to get across was notification.

We talk about a foundation. Let me tell the members this is a stronger foundation than the pyramids that the Egyptians built. This is a foundation that will build this province into making it what it should be. I want to explain why, because we have heard the negative points of view, and I would like to reflect the positive point of view because there are so many positive views in this piece of legislation.

To the member for Windsor-Sandwich, I say I am a little jealous. He had the opportunity to introduce this legislation before I did, because he comes from Windsor, where there is a large labour market that is losing jobs. We have waited too long for this. It is good to see, and I will not hold it against him; he has my 100% support on this bill, because it is something we have been looking for for a long time.

This bill will require companies to give employees longer termination notice. That will give employees the time to do an analysis and to find alternative employment or, more positively, to sit down with the companies and discuss the possibilities of being laid off. We talk in this government of bringing labour and management together. One of the problems has always been that one has not trusted the other. I do not want to point fingers -- do not get me wrong here -- but the government has to admit to some of that; it has created this confrontation.

This is a foundation because, as workers go up to a plant, walk in one morning and look up on the plant bulletin board, what do they see? A layoff notice. A lot of these people work and live from week to week on their paycheques. I could say they could depend on their savings account, but they never had a savings account. Most of us do not even know what a savings account is.

Let me explain why it is a foundation. As people are receiving notification of termination and do not know if they are coming back -- this is not a temporary layoff, this is a layoff; they do not know if they are coming back -- one of the things they are really focusing on is that it will give them the opportunity to sit down and discuss with management whether it is because of the marketplace or it is because of machinery. It is going to give them the ability to sit down and discuss with management the possibilities and alternative routes other than being terminated, which gives better planning for the company. It is a very positive foundation. Not all the time are you able to sit down and have a conversation without choosing sides.

But there is a conversation that will take place dealing with the family and preparing themselves because, as I indicated a little earlier, most of them live week to week on their paycheques. If they look up on the bulletin board and they are over a certain limit, they are entitled to 52 weeks. That gives that individual one year to plan his life, whether it be while he is currently still working to go and get more education, increase his education and maybe look at a skilled job -- there is so much possibility here.

There is a ray of hope for Queen's Park; I must add that. When I start to look at this legislation, we must take it in the context that it is a very positive piece of legislation. The limitations that are in this legislation is a foundation that I feel is very positive. As I look a lot at the brothers and sisters who are out there, who do not know from one day to the next because -- and everybody says, "Don't point fingers." Well, I must point fingers because of the content legislation we lost in the auto pact. We lost it because of the Mulroney brainstorm trade deal that was there.

Mr Kormos: Some brainstorm.

Mr Dadamo: Yes. It was a storm. It was like lightning that came down and hit the people. Because of that, workers need protection. They need an opportunity to expand their horizons. If they know there are no possibilities of diverting the layoff or the termination, they can, through the 52 weeks, go to community colleges -- excellent education, I must add -- and expand their horizons.

I know that other members of my caucus would like speak, which will reflect this province's concerns on this piece of legislation. The member for Windsor-Sandwich does not have to worry about my support. As I indicated earlier, I am very jealous that he got to to introduce it before I did, but he has my 100% support on this piece of legislation, and I encourage all members to take a closer at it, to quit doing the division of labour and management but to look it at in a more positive way as a foundation that builds this province.

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Mr Martin: This morning I would just like to make two points on this very important issue. They come under an examination of the climate within which business is done today in Ontario and the climate and the environment within which people work today. I would like to speak on how that impacts both on the worker and on business itself.

I think in front of this legislation we must understand that in today's work-a-day world none of us is ever more than a paycheque away from poverty, from not being able to pay the bills. The economic environment that faces the working person each day that he gets up and goes to his job is that if for one reason or another he loses his job or is without work, his family is then thrown almost automatically into a position of poverty because of the debt load that many of us in Ontario have been forced to accept in order to have a home to house our family, in order to be able to provide the transportation that we need to get to the things that we all take for granted as part of our quality of life and in order to be able to put food on our tables.

I think it is in light of this fact, the fact that we who are workers in our communities need to plan long in advance for any change in the economic situation in which we live, that this legislation makes a whole lot of sense. Not only does business out there have to plan in creative and ever more futuristic ways, but we, as people who work in our communities, who have families to support, who want to be constructive, contributing members of society, have to plan as well. It is difficult for us to plan if we do not know well in advance those things that significantly change any plans that we might have, so I support this legislation this morning in light of that.

The other thing I would like to comment on and challenge the members opposite and my own colleagues to reflect on is the fact that also in this day and age, businesses are more and more beginning to be able to make plans well in advance. They are being asked to put together business plans that speak to one-, two- and three-year, and oftentimes five- and 10-year, projections and plans. They know, more than ever before, well in advance what the future holds for them, they know what the economic climate is, they know what is coming down the pike. Certainly if they are experiencing some difficulties, if they are beginning to have some problems in any part of their operation, the banks are on their case to let them know if there are problems.

There is no real argument that they can present to us that they do not know, that the time we are talking about here in terms of notice to workers is too long. There is no argument in today's world. Businesses are well aware of what is coming. They are being told by their creditors what is coming, and just as they consider those folks in any decision they make, all we are asking today in this legislation is that they consider the workers as well.

Mrs Fawcett: Madam Speaker, could I have unanimous consent to use the two minutes and the few seconds remaining from the third party?

The Acting Speaker (Mrs Haslam): Is there unanimous consent?

Agreed to.

Mrs Fawcett: I appreciate my colleagues giving me the opportunity to place a few remarks on the record because I would like to reflect some of the concerns that many of the constituents have expressed to me regarding the NDP government's total disregard for small business and the manufacturing sector of the economy.

This government does seem to be fixated on job compensation rather than job creation, and certainly in the county of Northumberland we are experiencing the highest levels of unemployment in eastern Ontario. The latest data indicate that it really is over 15% right now and has been for some time. Coupled with that, over 2% of the entire population of Northumberland is on welfare, so the members can see that we are looking for some type of relief from this government in the form of new permanent jobs.

I look in vain to find anything in this type of legislation that would encourage manufacturing or small business to set up shop in Ontario, let alone Northumberland. Certainly the member for Windsor-Sandwich has not consulted with those industries from my riding. Really, if he or any member of his socialist government had talked to Frankie Liberty of the Diamond Triangle Economic Commission, he would have found out that this type of labour reform is a disincentive to manufacturers and small businesses.

The member may be trying to enact the legislation because he knows full well that his government is really driving business out of the province and wants to ensure that an employee's last paycheque is a good one, but I say that the employees in my riding want a paycheque, not a severance cheque. I really have a great deal of trouble trying to find solace in this type of legislation, so I do not feel that I can support it at this time.

Mr Kormos: I appreciate this chance to rise here in the back benches, among the Ws, to speak on this. Madam Speaker knows this, and the other members: Thursday morning is probably one of the most interesting times in the House, because what happens Thursday morning, as compared to what oftentimes does not happen during the rest of the sitting week, is that private members' business is dealt with.

What we are dealing with here, Bill 116, is a piece of legislation, amendments to the Employment Standards Act, which was authored by the member for Windsor-Sandwich. Every member of this Legislature can, as of right, present bills. Members know that. That is our right, and it is an unfettered right. But what is important is that Thursday mornings are reserved so that those bills which are presented are debated at the instance of the author.

Windsor-Sandwich can be very proud of its member of the provincial Parliament. Since the member's election on 6 September, he has been tireless -- and I say this as somebody who has been here for a few years longer than he has been -- not just in his pursuit of resolutions for issues that impact on Windsor-Sandwich very specifically, and I suppose that is the job of each and every one us, but there is nobody in this Legislature who does it more aggressively. In my opinion, there is nobody in this Legislature who does it as effectively as the member does for his riding.

So he comes here with a lot of talent, a lot of insight, but his efforts are not restricted to issues that are isolated or situated solely in Windsor-Sandwich. The member comes here with a strong background; he comes here with a social conscience. What more valuable trait could one expect for an MPP.

What we are talking about here is people and families and lives. We are not talking hypothetically; we do not have to. We can talk about factories. Down where I come from in Welland-Thorold, down in the heart of the Niagara Peninsula, we can talk about factories like Welmet. The folks down there know what Welmet was. It was a long-time industry, had been in Welland for decades and decades, and then it was gone, and those hundreds of people who had really intended to spend their working lives there and had made that commitment to Welmet, and their families and their children, were left in the lurch.

We can talk about Wabasso cotton down in the city of Welland where, once again, hundreds of employees had made a commitment. They were prepared to spend the rest of their working lives producing for Wabasso, but then Wabasso was gone and those hundreds of workers, those women and men who had made their commitment to Wabasso, were betrayed as well, and their families, their children or their grandchildren are left hanging in the wind.

We do not have to talk about hypotheticals; we are talking here about plant shutdowns. We are talking about a legacy of plant shutdowns that occurred not during the life of this government; we are talking about a legacy of plant shutdowns that occurred during the Liberal government that preceded this one for five years and during the Tory governments that preceded it. It is those previous regimes that generated the shutdowns. It is those previous regimes that generated the economic disaster that this government is attempting to cope with now.

Rather than fear-monger, as the Liberal critics and Tory critics have attempted to do, let's think about the lives and let's think about the human element. Let's think about the motivation of the member for Windsor-Sandwich for presenting this legislation. His motivation is to protect those workers and their families from the cruelty of arbitrary and, quite frankly, spur-of-the-moment plant shutdowns. Any caring person would support this legislation, Madam Speaker, as I know you do.

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Mr Dadamo: I would like to thank my colleagues for the eloquent words that they used this morning. Thank you to the members for Welland-Thorold, Sault Ste Marie and, of course, my dear friend from Chatham-Kent. As well I would like to thank the members for any of the comments from the opposition side this morning, as long-winded as sometimes they may have been. I just want to stress that if this goes on for committee work or for consultation further in the province, the sky will not fall and the sun will come out tomorrow and we will be fine.

I would also urge opposition members who are critical of Bill 116 to maybe come to Windsor some time and experience and see at first hand the 16%, 17%, 18%, 19% and 20% unemployment rate, all the plants that have closed in the city of Windsor and in all the area ridings in the last year and a half and two years, and the thousands of people who have been thrown out of work.

I put my hand out to Kenny Maheux, who is president of CAW Local 195 in Windsor, who has worked tirelessly endless hours, along with his executive, in the painstaking course that they have taken to try to put people back to work. Notice at 3 o'clock in the afternoon when the people walk in and their plants are closed.

Corporations in this province, little or large, know when they are going to make money. They also know when they are not going to make money, and they know when they are not going to make money well in advance. They should tell employees of this province that their plant is about to close. It is only the right thing to do, and sometimes we forget there are thousands of children in this province who are affected as well. I urge all members to support Bill 116.

GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Mr Carr: Madam Speaker, Mr Stockwell is late arriving. He was actually speaking about this point last night up in Thunder Bay and his plane was supposed to arrive, so obviously there has been a problem. I would like to have unanimous consent to begin the debate and then have Mr Stockwell finish up later on.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs Haslam): Is there unanimous consent?

Agreed to.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Oakville South will now move the resolution in his absence.

Mr Carr, on behalf of Mr Stockwell, moved resolution 17:

That in the opinion of this House, recognizing that the tax, borrow and spend policies of the government are undermining Ontario's economic competitiveness, discouraging investment, exacerbating the problem of cross-border shopping and that these policies will burden this and future generations of taxpayers with a massive debt, this House therefore calls upon the government to immediatialy introduce legislation: (1) to impose a 2% cap on wage increases in the broader public sector in Ontario for a one-year period, (2) to establish a budget stabilization fund to be financed through the allocation of any in-year revenue windfalls, (3) to hold its own direct operating expenditures at last year's levels, (4) to implement a program freeze.

Mr Carr: I am pleased to be able to speak on behalf of my colleague for Etobicoke.

I guess what we have here in this province is a continuation of the old and decidedly failed policies of the last government, the one that carried on the tax-and-spend approach that has been such a failure. In fact, over the last little while, the previous government had a 132% increase in taxes in this province and we, as we sit here today, are now not only the highest-taxed province in Canada but we are now the highest-taxed jurisdiction in all of North America.

In the past, we used to have a 10% advantage over Quebec. After 32 tax increases by the previous government, we are now the highest-taxed province in all of Canada. Yet the worst part is that the quality of our public service continues to decline.

When the last government came in, when the Liberal government took over from the Conservatives, they said, "We care more about people so we are going to spend more money on social programs and more programs for social assistance." Then in comes the NDP government and it says, "No, we care more about people so we are going to spend more."

But I say that the people of this province do not want more money spent. The people who are on social assistance, whether it be a single mother or a middle-aged man who has just lost his job, do not want social assistance. What they want is jobs. They want to get back into the workforce and get off social assistance.

So instead of saying, "We spend more. We care more so we spend more on it," I think most people in this province would believe that what we should be doing is seeing the amount and number of people we can get off social assistance. As for the amount of money spent on social assistance, we would be successful if we reduced it, not increased it, and we could do that by getting people jobs through training, retraining and apprenticeship programs.

As we sit here today, the big problem between this government and the ideas of the Progressive Conservatives is that it does not matter today how much we spend but it is where we spend the money that counts. If we can reduce some of the spending on social assistance programs and get people off social assistance, that is what people are looking for.

The last government spent more on the environment, they increased the amount that was spent, and yet the quality of the environment continued to deteriorate. They spent more on health care, they doubled the amount on health care, and yet we had waiting lists in this province under their regime, not only waiting lists for elective surgery but for life-saving heart surgery as well. When it came to education, they spent more and still the quality continues to decline.

All we have done over the last little while is replace one big, high-taxing government that spent and was beholden to special interest groups with another high-taxing, big-spending government that is beholden to special interest groups. That is not what the public of this province want.

It is interesting to note, and I will reflect on it a little bit, that a polling company did a poll and during that period of time they asked people -- and I will paraphrase it because the question they asked is fairly long -- "Basically, do you think your taxes are being spent properly?" The overwhelming majority, close to about 80%, said they were not. They honestly, truly believe in this province that we are not spending wisely.

There was another question asked: "Do you agree that they should limit increases in government spending in the budget that is coming down in the province of Ontario?" Fully 79% said that they should, that we should not spend more.

They actually asked the question of what party one supported and NDP supporters were right up there with everybody else saying that we should not spend more. The NDP supporters who helped elect this government, who said they voted for them, are the ones who said we should not spend more.

It is kind of ironic that in the throne speech, on the very first page, this government said it is a government that will listen to the people and respond to their needs to the best of its ability. They heard from the people -- Conservatives, Liberal, NDP, non-aligned people -- who said, "We do not need more spending." What do they do? A 13.4% increase, a $10-billion deficit.

Let's put that $10 billion into perspective. In the amount of time that we will spend here this morning, the two hours from 10 until noon, by the end of this mandate we will be spending $2 million -- $1 million an hour or about $15,000 per minute; $1 million an hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days of the year -- not to pay for health care, not to pay for the environment or social programs, but just to pay the interest on the provincial debt alone.

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What we need in this province is a comprehensive review to eliminate waste. During the last period of time we have identified some of the abuses that are out there, the wastes that are out there. We heard, during some of the questions earlier on in this Parliament, of the amount that was spent on speeches. The previous Premier, Mr Peterson, spent I believe in the neighbourhood of $7,000 just to have his speech written for him for Meech Lake when he was meeting with the other premiers. We heard as early as yesterday about the 17 letters sent to the same individual company, and we have the chairman of TVOntario who has nine TVs in his office.

In 1985 virtually 80% of the housing units built in this province were built by the private sector. Today it is completely reversed -- 80% are built by the public sector and only 10% by the private sector. What this government has done is thrown out the private sector, scared off the private sector in housing, scared it with its labour legislation.

What we need, as this motion says, is to take a look at a cap in spending programs and a program freeze as is advocated in point 4. I would ask any of the members to take a look at the estimates book in connection with point 1 which would impose a 2% cap on wage increases. The salaries that are listed in the estimates book are broken down by salaries and wages, in every ministry. One of the largest portions of spending is salaries and wages. You look through it and you see the percentages, you see the amount that is spent.

We are saying that in this day and age, when businesses, households and families have to control spending, they expect from this government that it will do the same thing. In a day and age when most people in this province are fearful for their jobs, and our previous debate was about jobs in this province -- whether they are at the low end of the scale, whether they are workers in factories, whether they are management, whether they are clerks, everybody in this province is fearful for his or her job except for the public service because they know they are safe -- what we are saying is that those people who have secure jobs at this tough economic time should be able to give a little bit.

For a party that historically has prided itself on being socialists and giving for the good of everyone, we say the public service should at this time be able to take a cap freeze because their jobs are secure. They know six months from now they are going to have a job. The workers at General Motors do not. The workers at the Ford motor plant in my riding do not know if they will have a job, but the public sector does, so they therefore are the ones who should be able to accept the 2% cap.

What we need to do, and what we should have done, is during the good times be able to build up surpluses. But what happened with the previous governments? They not only taxed us with 132% increase but do you know what they did with the money? They spent every last cent of it and then some, because they even ran up the debt totally, too. They spent every last cent -- the highest-taxed jurisdiction in all North America and they went out and spent everything. Yet when we sat here under their regime, the environment declined, there were waiting lists at hospitals, the quality of our education declined, and in all the fundamental facts and programs in this province, through all that, the quality of our public service continued to deteriorate. That, I think, is the sad part.

What we need to do, what we need to reflect on and what the people are saying out there -- and very clearly, as this poll indicated -- is that they do not believe the government is spending their tax dollars wisely. They believe there should be some controls. We need to have some reviews on these programs. These programs need to be reviewed in this day and age when businesses have to take a hard look at where their money is spent, when workers have had to be more efficient in their operations, when households have had to look at the cost of everything and where they are spending money and what money is going to go into the kids. Everything is being reviewed except in the public sector, except in the province of Ontario where tax-and-spend continues on like there is no tomorrow, like the money will never end.

So this particular motion was, I think, on behalf of the vast majority of the people in this province who are saying: "Get control of spending. Get control of your spending in the province." Hopefully this resolution will pass and the government will abide by the resolution that we are talking about today.

Those are a couple of comments and, as I said, I pass these on on behalf of my colleague who is coming in, having spoken on this last night.

Mr Huget: I am pleased to join the debate on the resolution put forward by the member for Oakville South on behalf of the member for Etobicoke West. Both members have some fairly strong views on this subject, but I know they will be fairminded enough to listen to a legitimate alternative.

The member's resolution clearly illustrates the difference between his party's view of what should be done in these tough times and the view of my government. In my opinion, it also seems to reflect a slash-and-burn mentality that his federal cousins have become famous for.

It is interesting to note that the federal government, in spite of its cutbacks and insensitivity to the needs of people, has made very little progress in controlling the deficit in this country and a lot of progress in increasing the hardship.

In my role as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Energy, I am pleased to say that our ministry is working diligently at helping Ontario prepare for a bright future by initiating programs in a number of areas, programs which cost money but programs which, we believe, are responsible and wise strategies, investments in the future.

Ontario has two hard realities to face. One is economic and one is environmental. Both are crucial and both are immediate. This government is committed to facing them both with equal determination. We have a genuine conviction that sustainable development is a common obligation, that our economy cannot thrive at the expense of the environment and that true prosperity must be durable. No truly thoughtful person and no truly responsible government can reject the idea that equal access to both prosperity and environmental security is a noble and achievable principle.

The people of Ontario deserve to share in a common wealth and that is precisely what this government will ensure. It means we are devoting enough technological muscle, scientific ingenuity and money to ensure that Ontario will have the most energy-efficient economy on the continent. The people of Ontario have faith in this government's energy strategy. It is a strategy that will make this province more self-sufficient, more prosperous and the North American leader in energy-efficient practices and technology.

I want to emphasize some of the energy commitments this government has made to the people of Ontario since last November, commitments which will help raise the confidence level in Ontario and make sound economic sense.

The provincial electrical utility, Ontario Hydro, will spend at least $3 billion during the next 10 years on conservation and energy-efficiency programs. In an energy-efficiency pilot project in Espanola, the community's response for a call to participate has been overwhelmingly positive.

To make sure our own house is in order and to be fiscally responsible, we have made a commitment to reduce energy consumption in all government buildings by a minimum of 20%. To ensure that, we have initiated a comprehensive energy audit program to cover all 8,000 buildings. To date, more than 780 of those buildings have been audited.

Over the past few months, the Ministry of Energy has consulted industry, labour, education, business and environmental and community groups on nearly 200 policy initiatives the ministry is considering for implementation in the coming months.

Just last Friday, the Minister of Energy hosted a policy consultation session with 150 representatives from various sectors of the province. The large industries were there, the environmentalists were there, the commercial sector was there, the independent power producers were there, the educators were there and the municipalities were there.

The purpose of this session was to listen to the ideas of the people, to open up the policy creation process to as many Ontarians as possible and to form partnerships to meet the province's energy goals. The response to this consultation was overwhelmingly positive. Participants welcomed the opportunity to work with their government and they welcomed the opportunity to contribute to the energy future of their province.

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The Ministry of Energy also launched its new program initiatives last Friday. These initiatives are possible only through the financial support of the Treasury. This support clearly demonstrates the government's commitment to investing in Ontario's economic and environmental future through energy conservation and efficiency.

The Ministry of Energy now has $10 million more to work with and it has already increased the number and scope of the programs it offers. The additional allocation of funds allows the Ministry of Energy to increase its energy-efficiency activities by almost 75% in the current fiscal year. These program initiatives will have the double blessing of putting the province on the cutting edge of competitiveness and of reducing greenhouse gas emissions dramatically.

These new and enhanced programs are inclusive. They are aimed at all parts of Ontario's society. They were developed through extensive consultation and they operate on the premise of a partnership with the people. As the ministry develops more programs, we will continue to listen to the voice of the people of Ontario. Through a combination of education, advocacy and incentives, discussions will continue about the best ways the government can work with the public to achieve the province's energy goals.

This week the Minister of Northern Development informed the House that the combined efforts of the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ontario Hydro, based on consultation with the north shore communities, has resulted in a $250-million economic diversification and adjustment package for the people of Elliot Lake.

This government sees its action as responsible, as making good business sense, as laying the foundation for long-term economic stability in an area that has been dependent on Hydro for its livelihood. Again, we have listened to the people and have responded to their needs. In the past 10 years, Elliot Lake uranium has cost Ontario's electricity consumers $1.2 billion more than if it had been purchased from other sources. The people of Ontario deserve a better deal and they will receive substantial savings from Hydro's new uranium arrangement.

This is only a sampling of the commitments this government is prepared to make to bring about prosperity and ecological security for this province. We make this commitment with the support of, and in partnership with, the people of Ontario.

We are confident that under the test of sustainable development our balanced commitment to economic security and environmental integrity will speak for itself. The leadership this government is showing on many difficult issues will help to ensure a better Ontario and will earn the confidence of all our citizens.

This government intends to continue investing in Ontario, in our communities, in our people and in our industries. It is a sound investment strategy and like all sound investments will pay off in the future. Cutting back now would only ensure that we are not prepared to benefit fully when this made-in-Canada recession comes to an end.

Mr McClelland: I found the previous presentation to be very interesting with respect to the energy policy of the government. I might add parenthetically that although I understand the link with respect to the motion before us this morning, I did not find it to be precisely on topic. But I do I believe the energy policy of this government and any future government will be vital to the economic development of this province.

Indeed, I happen to believe personally that the Ministry of Energy will become one of the most important economic ministries in future governments, whatever political stripe they may be, in Ontario. I would not want to put it above another, but I would say that it would be on a level with such senior ministries as the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology in terms of economic portfolios and, perhaps with the exception of Treasury, it will be the number one economic ministry in the future.

I understand where the parliamentary assistant is coming from in terms of speaking about energy and trying to tie it, in very general terms, to the resolution before us today. So I appreciate those comments, although, in candour, I found it difficult to tie it specifically to the resolution and the four points that are set forth. But I understand in general terms how very vital energy is to the economic development and prosperity of this province. We will have another day or two, I am sure, to discuss the energy policies of the current government and how they relate to the economic future and prosperity of this province. I look forward to that opportunity.

We could turn our minds to the resolution before us for a short while right now. I want to address briefly the resolution presented by the member for Oakville South on behalf of his colleague the member for Etobicoke West.

He said that one of the fundamental bases of the resolution is the desire of the electorate and people of this province that government get its spending under control. I do not think anybody would disagree with that on this side of the House and I feel very strongly that it is a vital theme to be pursued.

President Abraham Lincoln said over 200 years ago that governments ought not to do what people can do, and society can do, for themselves. I think that ought to be fundamental to our concept as we look to the future and what government has to do to respond to the changing pressures on society. The demands on government are going to be so very complex and excessive over the next number of years that they will create pressures that will require the wisdom of Solomon to be a Treasurer or any senior minister in any government. To balance the desires, the needs and the pressures based on the limited resources available will indeed be a tremendous task ahead for the government of the day.

I want to comment a little bit about the specifics of the resolution. The general concept behind it, I think, is wise if we tie it to the theme of getting control of government spending, but I think it is ultimately too restrictive. Governments clearly have the responsibility or are charged with the responsibility of adapting to and being flexible to the changing needs around them. I would find it difficult for any government -- and I suggest, with great respect, that so would a Conservative government, and certainly the history of previous Conservative regimes indicates that -- to change its spending patterns and positions based on the economy at the time.

We are clearly in a recessionary period right now in this province. I think the idea that the current government has about pumping money into the economy is laudable. I have considerable question and difficulty with where some of the money is going. I believe we now have an opportunity for charging the economy by building into the future of the economy, for example, land that is serviced and ready for future development and for the government to invest in capital expenditures that will be there for the future. Those are the kinds of things the government ought to be doing in recessionary times and focusing its energy to create jobs, to create opportunity and to get the economy kickstarted.

The rest of the country is slowly easing out of the recession. Ontario remains lagging behind. I think that is indicative of the fact that, I say with respect to my friends opposite, the huge deficit they have has provided them with an opportunity. I am completely against the concept of a deficit of that size and that magnitude. I think there are times that deficits are appropriate; I think they are the exception rather than the rule. But to set out and have a program or a plan that says, "For four years we're going to double the deficit of this province," I think is absolute folly.

I draw to members' attention again that it took 140 years for us to reach the current cumulative deficit in this province and they are going to double it in the projected life of their government. I find that just so remarkable, it is almost beyond comment. I think it is the height of absolute folly. It is going to mortgage our future and restrict whichever government is in power after the next election. Its options are going to be so very limited.

When they have hard times like they have now, they should look very carefully at where that money is going. I really believe they had an opportunity to kickstart the economy, to plug into infrastructure development and capital expenditure. That would really have done something positive and got men and women back to work. I think that opportunity has been missed.

I would say with respect to my friends in the Conservative Party who have put forward this resolution, I do not think they can say categorically that we are going to define what governments are going to do, as this resolution does. I think governments are required and have a responsibility to be flexible in terms of where their moneys are going to be spent. I find that problematic in the resolution that is before us.

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As for the imposition of wage increases in the broader public sector in Ontario for a one-year period -- the 2% -- I think a rate tied to inflation is reasonable. I think people ought to at least hold their own in tough times. Although I agree with the concept that we have to control the expenditure in the public sector, there is a sense of equity and fairness, that people ought to be given the opportunity to hold their own, if not have any advances. I would agree that we all have to tighten our belts a little bit and the public sector is no exception. I think holding it at inflation is reasonable.

Item 3 on the resolution indicates that there would be a resolution to hold the government's direct operating expenditures at last year's levels. Again I find that somewhat restrictive. I do not know what the member for Etobicoke West, in drafting the resolution, meant by that. If he meant line-by-line, I would have difficulty. If he meant in global terms, I would agree with it conceptually and think that it is a valid point. I wish he were here to flesh that out a little bit, and upon his arrival he may be able to shed some light on that.

Again I say that governments need to be able to respond and have the flexibility that is required of them to change from time to time. Throughout the course of a budget fiscal year, things will change. That is why we have supplementary budgets and interim supply.

It is the responsibility of government. It is the responsibility that falls at a very difficult time on our friends opposite. I wish them well in these difficult times. I say again with respect to my friends in the Conservative Party, the member for Etobicoke West and our friend from Oakville South, that I understand where he is coming from on this, that getting control of spending is vital. It is absolutely essential.

In summary, the resolution as worded is much too restrictive in terms of the responsibilities and reality of government. I think it has to have that opportunity to be flexible and to adapt to changing needs and changing circumstances. We applaud the direction that this would take us, but I feel that on the specifics of the resolution, I could not in good conscience support this particular resolution.

The Acting Speaker: Are there any other members who wish to participate? The member for S-D-G & East Grenville.

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. May I congratulate you on doing a masterful job this morning in opening the House for the first time in your capacity as the Acting Speaker.

I rise to strongly support the resolution of my colleague the member for Etobicoke West. As you know, I come from eastern Ontario and I have to put on the record a few of the problems we are having. Some of them are very much related to cross-border shopping, which is being addressed in this particular private member's motion in that at least the government should recognize there is a major problem and that the major catalyst bringing Ontarians to New York state or to whatever state it might be on some of these border points is the cost of fuel and the taxation of fuel here in Ontario. That is a very, very major problem. We are in effect going through a tax revolution. I believe the people of Ontario are in revolt and their revolt is being expressed by going to shop over in the US as opposed to shopping here in Ontario. That is very much a tax revolt.

We, I think, are fairly competitive, or have been reasonably competitive. The Tory task force that visited Ottawa and Cornwall several weeks ago made some important points, particularly when a tax consultant in Ottawa is suggesting to businesses that a more appropriate and gentle climate for business would be found in Quebec as opposed to here in Ontario. We had a 10% tax advantage as residents of Ontario prior to 1985. We are now at a 5% disadvantage in comparison to the citizens of Quebec. Given that, with a foreseen budgetary deficit to total some $35 billion by 1994, the climate for business can be nothing but negative and getting more negative. This is what my friend the member for Etobicoke West is addressing, and why he is attempting to get the government's attention.

I heard the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Energy -- and it is great to see the Minister of Energy here this morning -- going to great lengths patting himself on the back, to the point where I was afraid he might break his arm. We hear the rhetoric that they want to clean the environment. We hear the rhetoric that they want to reduce the greenhouse effect.

We know that ethanol as an additive to our fuel would do exactly that. It is a renewable resource produced by our farmers, a product of distilled grain, and it would reduce by at least one third the greenhouse-effect emissions in today's petroleum products. This must be addressed in the near future. It could replace 10% of the fuel that we now use and would reduce the very harmful emissions that MMT is causing now.

Now back to eastern Ontario. In an attempt to get severances, and this is becoming more and more of a problem, we have seen the Ministry of Agriculture and Food opposing vehemently the construction of an arena on the outskirts of the city of Ottawa, an arena that would take up approximately 100 acres of land. The government of Ontario is spending more than $1 million in attempting to fight and say to the owners of the new Ottawa hockey franchise, "You are not welcome in Ontario." They are effectively telling them, "Why don't you go elsewhere?"

If we keep on sending businesses to the United States or to the province of Quebec, I say in all sincerity, "Will the last one in Ontario please shut off the lights." That is what this government is doing. It is promoting entrepreneurship to go elsewhere. I am for ever and always fighting to get severances on some very marginal land out in rural Ontario where the municipality, the land owner -- we have a willing purchaser, a willing vendor, and will be taking no agricultural land out of production at all. This is marginal land growing nothing but willows, shallow soil, but because it happens to be in a so-called agricultural-designated area, they are saying no. The bureaucrats are driving by the properties, at best, and calling the shots from their ivory towers. No wonder lots are difficult to obtain and very expensive. They are artificially expensive because of the bureaucratic requirement.

Again, I am waiting from a call from Ministry of Agriculture and Food on several severances for which I, as a former real estate appraiser and as a farmer -- I think I understand the problem to a good degree -- am saying to the bureaucrats, "For goodness' sake, use common sense." In some instances they have looked at the wrong property and recommended that it not be allowed to have a store put on it, for example. That is terrible. It is happening under our eyes, with the last recourse being common sense. The bureaucracy is applied. They apply everything except common sense, and I cannot accept that.

It is simply interfering with the normal course of business. I represent a large rural area, and no wonder our population is going down. The government in its so-called wisdom is discouraging the movement of people to these parts of Ontario where lots are affordable, where the quality of life is excellent, but where the bureaucrats, in their so-called wisdom, stand in the way of progress.

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This motion from my colleague the member for Etobicoke West is attempting to address this, the large deficit that is not only forecast but will inevitably occur, probably more than $35 billion of additional total debt to the province of Ontario by 1994. We do not like to sound negative, but it is a very real problem being addressed. I hope this government will recognize that indeed it cannot continue interfering with business and hope that taxpayers will continue to pay taxes, because they are moving and looking to moving and looking to not setting up new companies and new businesses here in Ontario.

I am not being negative; I am simply replying to exactly what I hear out in the areas that I represent. I tell members, one week from today they will see some Bay Street folks here very concerned. Who pays the taxes and who provides employment? I ask this government, who does provide employment? It is not governments. Do members know who these people will protect? They will protect people without jobs. That is terrible. They are taking credit for that.

Before I antagonize them too much -- I think I have their attention; I hope they listen. This is a most important private member's bill. Members saw fit to refuse and turn down my colleague the member for Cornwall's private member's bill two weeks ago. For goodness' sake, members should reconsider, recognize there is a problem and do something about it. They are the government.

Mr White: I would like to commend the member for Oakville South for his contribution. In fact, in deference to the member's gentler, kindlier presentation, I have had to temper my own remarks.

Our government believes in real investments in our provincial economy. To make our economy and to make us viable and competitive in the global economy of the 1990s and the 21st century, not only will we as a government be directly investing, but we will also be encouraging investments by individuals and groups -- investments in their own skills and their own work and their own communities.

We do not hold some monolithic beliefs that only government intervention should be encouraged. We believe that we have a whole economy, a mixed economy. The resolution before us presumes that only private investments are to be cherished and to be nurtured and that the only way in which those investments can be made is by stripping bare the essential fabric of our provincial economy, the essential fabric of our communities.

The resolution presumes that only those investments are important, but we have a responsibility. We have a responsibility which is clear in our budget in terms of economic investment. We also have a responsibility which is clear in terms of programs. Before us we have a serious situation. We have a situation where we have been frozen out by the federal government, where we, the industrial heartland of our country, are the only region which is not represented in terms of economic interest within the federal cabinet. Somehow we have been neglected, we have been frozen out.

The member's resolution would say we should stay frozen, but we as a provincial government have a profound sense of our responsibility to deal with the economic recession that is in front of us. We are doing that through investment in infrastructure. We are doing that through investment in skills training, in helping people and families deal with the effects of recession through some social spending. Those are important investments, because we need to ride out this time and beyond that we need a vision for the 21st century. The members opposite would have us frozen, unable to deal with these issues.

One issue I would tend to agree with them on is that of past spending habits. We have also been responsible economically, and we have been showing that day after day. Just yesterday we saw a bill introduced that would save us some $4 million or $5 million in the Ministry of Revenue. We have seen important, significant cuts in Health to trim expenses, to ensure the investments we make are proper investments and the most effective possible. We have also seen very significant efforts in Education and Revenue.

We are showing how we can be responsible. We are not embarking on the overspending endeavours during boom times as we have seen in the past with the previous government. We are saying instead that we have to be able to be flexible, to make significant investments in difficult times. This is the worst of all possible times to be freezing. This is a time when we should be investing. This is a time when governments, people and businesses should be making significant investments to the best of our potential in our provincial economy. If we did not, the programs we can only now invest in would be unavailable to us in the future because those jobs would be lost. Those companies that are shutting down now are not coming back. The investments we are making now have to be made now. There is no alternative.

I would like to summarize by simply saying that we are being responsible both economically and socially and that this the worst of all possible times to freeze. I would also like to mention to the member that I do not think most people in Ontario would say the public servants of this province -- the teachers, the educators, the doctors, the nurses, the public officials -- are delivering poor service. I would think the member might want to consider those remarks. Generally, most of his remarks I would commend, because I consider them to be coming from a genuine point of concern.

I would like to summarize simply by repeating that we are being responsible. We do not have alternatives if we wish to have a viable economy into the 21st century.

Mr Callahan: Having reviewed the resolution by my friend the member for Etobicoke West, I guess I could rise in the House and be very partisan and emphasize the fact that prior to the government's budget, the Conservative government went from a $7-billion deficit to a $30-billion deficit. However, the NDP government is going to get into the Guinness Book of World Records because its deficit will even be greater.

Rather than be partisan, I would like to say that the big problem we have is that we run governments like it is our money. It is not; it is the taxpayers' money. They work hard for it, as was said. It is paid for not just by the workers but by every citizen of Ontario. We have to spend that money wisely and in a way that we would have to do if we were out in the business world or in the real world, or even in a home. We cannot just say, "Because I still have cheques left, I must have money in the bank." We have to approach it from the standpoint of using the money wisely, particularly in a time of recession such as we are going through now.

The recession is twice as bad in Ontario. The recovery time for Ontario is probably twice as long. We are losing jobs at a record rate. It is suggested that some 226,000 jobs may be lost in this province. Think about it. Just take it down to the simple fact if you were in your home and you were in tough times; surely to heaven you would not go into strong deficit financing, because it would wreak havoc on the confidence of the family. That is exactly what we are doing in this province: We are wreaking havoc on the confidence of the family of Ontarians.

Through this past budget, we have placed the equivalent of $1,000 on every man, woman and child in this province in terms of debt. We have mortgaged the future of this province. People looking from the outside, from the United States and other foreign jurisdictions, have to be worried about that. They have to be worried that this is not a fiscally responsible way to approach it.

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Even though the Tories were the ones that created probably the largest deficit next to the one this government is creating, we do have to change our approach. I think that takes a collective effort on the part of all members of the Legislature. We can no longer simply respond to the groups that pressure us the most -- an almost 6% increase for members of the public service, and pittances thrown to other people; $1 billion in taxes increased through the budget -- we have to look at it more responsibly and in a better way.

Finally, in the standing committee on public accounts we are receiving some very important information from the Donwood and Bellwood clinics, telling us that we can come up with better ways to deal with the question of drug and alcohol abuse and to deal with it effectively in this province and in a much more cost-effective way.

We are looking at taking a look at some of the facilities in the United States. But the Board of Internal Economy -- I applaud it if the reason it took this approach was to try to have restraints on spending -- would not allow us to even effectively carry out our mandate as the public accounts committee. So what are we doing? We are paying $500,000 to send some unfortunate young person to the United States where we could deal with an issue, and much more effectively here in this province, for about $7 million for the totality of people going to the Donwood or Bellwood clinics.

We require a reshuffling of money. It is not a question of taxing the taxpayers to death. What you do is you plan and reshuffle your money wisely. Some of the money now being spent in education perhaps could be spent more wisely in identifying young people with learning disabilities before they get to the point where they are asocial.

Some benefits could be given in the correctional system, rather than locking people up and passing legislation that may be politically sexy but providing no treatment or essentially very little treatment for people with drug and alcohol problems in our correctional system and simply having them in the revolving-door syndrome, coming back out equally as bad as when they went in, maybe a little dried out.

We have to spend our money wisely. We have to place it in the proper places. We can no longer be simply allocating money because pressure group A is stronger than pressure group B. Someone has to control what is happening. It cannot be a matter of helping your friends -- when you get into power, you help those people who are your friends, and then when another government gets into power, it helps its friends.

Mr Hope: Words to the wise.

Mr Callahan: Well, let me tell my friend, I am proud of the record of the Liberal government. They were able for the first time to reduce the accumulated deficit. They were able for the first time to come up with two budgets that had no deficit whatsoever. Granted, times were good when that happened, but still they were the first in history to have done that. That means that at least we were moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, the people of Ontario are being taxed to death by the federal government; they are being taxed to death by every jurisdiction going. I think they said, "Enough is enough," and we just happened to be the first live politicians to hit the bricks. They were really waiting for the Prime Minister but he would not call an election. We called it and, of course, they told us, up front, "We are tired of taxes, we are tired of seeing money being taken and the programs not being significant."

We were far more progressive in terms of the programs we brought forward; some of them this government is wise enough to carry forward, but others it is just sort of shelving, others it is just not introducing, and I suggest that this is not the way this House should work. I think we need a revamping of the system, and I will be debating that next Thursday in private members' hour.

Parliament is an anachronism. It requires a total overhaul. It requires a situation where members in this Legislature can act on the sacred trust that is given to them by their taxpayers to ensure that the economy is sound and vibrant and that we do not continue to pour debt on to the children of the future.

Mr Stockwell: I would like to deal with the four points brought up on the order paper today and in order from the top.

The first one I thought was rather reasonable, and it is pretty self-explanatory: "To impose a 2% cap on wage increases in the broader public sector in Ontario for a one-year period." It is not an extended length of time; it is for one year. Considering that everyone, including the Treasurer, has conceded we are in a recession and the debt we are piling up this year is record-setting -- no one would debate the fact that it is record-setting -- it seemed reasonable to me, probably very reasonable to the private sector, probably equally reasonable to those people who have lost their jobs, probably very reasonable to those people who did not get any pay increase at all, probably very reasonable to those people who operate retail stores in border communities, probably very reasonable to any of those people that a 2% cap on a wage increase did not seem to be much of a hardship for the bureaucracy to accept.

We were not saying, "No increase." We were not saying, "You're losing your job." We were not saying, "We're going to hold the line for four or five years." We are saying, "For one year, considering there's a recession, considering that it's difficult for the private sector, for ordinary citizens, for taxpayers to get by, maybe you'd consider taking 2%." It does not seem that unreasonable. But that is dismissed out of hand. The suggestion is made by the government, from the cabinet ministers to the seals, that it would be attacking the bureaucracy. I do not believe that is the case. In fact, I have talked to many people who work for the government and they have said, "It's unreasonable for us to expect an increase of 6% this year, when everyone else is suffering." They found it very difficult to defend to the people they were talking to.

The second point is "to establish a budget stabilization fund to be financed through the allocation of any in-year revenue windfalls." That is very self-explanatory again. Rather than being caught again in a position where the government would have to absorb a $9.7-billion debt in one year, it adopts a budget stabilization fund. Some of the members across the floor and some of the members on this side of the House have come from municipal councils. It is a very acceptable accounting function at municipal levels to adopt budget stabilization funds. They are called reserve funds. Those reserve funds are used during rainy days or possibly during periods when there is large economic growth and there have to be major infrastructures built. Those budget stabilization funds are used to offset the tax hike in a particular year.

We know about windfall profits from last year, the $1 billion or so increase in PIT. Why could we not take that money, rather than simply applying it to general revenue, when the government never expected to have it anyway, and put it in the budget stabilization fund? That is good, solid fiscal management. That kind of fiscal management makes for profitable, prosperous companies. That is not an unreasonable request; it is a request that probably all members' municipalities operate under, all sound businesses operate under, but not the province of Ontario, which considers it radical and without merit. It seems rather silly to me it is considered without merit.

Point 3 was "to hold its own direct operating expenditures at last year's levels." That is called a recession. We know this government is recession-proof. We know it does not even know there is a recession going on. We know when it gives 6% increases it does not even know that people are losing their jobs. We know they do not understand that people are getting held at the same rate as last year, that programs are being slashed in the private sector, that jobs are being lost. All we are suggesting is that when the government has program growth, it just hold the line for one year again. The private sector does it, other provinces are doing it and municipalities are doing it. What makes this government so special, so high and mighty that it cannot even look at reductions, restraints or cost-saving measures? It is unbelievable irresponsibility.

I bring these forward to make this government vote against them, to force its hand. When it goes back to the electorate and the electorate says, "Why weren't these considered good ideas in your caucus?" I want to see the government members fumble around like hopelessly inept dancers, and their seal-like barks will not be considered too valuable in their own municipalities.

To implement a program freeze is another acceptable approach during recessionary times everywhere except here, because the whole world is wrong except the Ontario socialists.

[Applause]

Mr Stockwell: They applaud this. Their socialist friends in France are wrong. Their socialist friends in eastern Europe are wrong. Their socialist friends in Ottawa do not want to have anything to do with this budget and their spending because they are embarrassed. It is rather humorous. Audrey knows how to do the moonwalk. That is what we are seeing, the moonwalk from the federal leader of the New Democratic Party.

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The Acting Speaker: Would the member for Etobicoke West like to wrap up his speech for the last two minutes of his time?

Mr Hope: Wrap up, will you?

Mr Stockwell: I am going to wrap up. I do not think these are the kind of recommendations that would be that difficult to accept. They are being accepted right across this country by governments. They are being accepted by municipal governments right across this country and in this province. They are being accepted by businesses large and small. They are being accepted by families at their kitchen table when they are working out their accounts and they realize they have to cut back during a recession.

Mr Hope: The workers, not the corporations. Look at what the bosses get paid.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Chatham-Kent will come to order, please.

Mr Stockwell: This request comes forward in the truest sense, in the sense that these are the kind of measures needed during recessionary times. This is the kind of help the taxpayer in this province is looking for. The taxpayer in this province is not looking for 13.4% increases in spending. The taxpayer is not looking for $9.7-billion deficits. The taxpayer in this province is not looking for a government to double its debt in four years when it took 125 years to accumulate.

The taxpayers in this province are looking for a break. They are not looking for a break from the socialists, which means -- hopefully in their case -- that everyone in Ontario would end up on welfare, thereby guaranteeing their re-election. What these people are looking for is a government that will allow them to compete, and to compete they must have the ability to produce. With this budget, by not adopting guidelines such as this, they have not allowed the people in the province to compete.

They are so out of touch with the people that they do not understand that the people are opposed to this approach. They would like the government to adopt this kind of alternative budgeting. In four years, I doubt it is going to have official party status.

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT (NOTICE OF TERMINATION), 1991 / LOI DE 1991 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LES NORMES D'EMPLOI EN CE QUI A TRAIT AU PRÉAVIS DE LICENCIEMENT

The Acting Speaker (Mrs Haslam): Mr Dadamo has moved second reading of Bill 116.

Motion agreed to.

La motion est adopteé.

Bill ordered for committee of the whole House.

Le projet de loi est déféré au comité plénier de la Chambre.

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GOVERNMENT SPENDING

The House divided on Mr Stockwell's motion, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes -- 13

Arnott, Callahan, Carr, Cordiano, Cunningham, Fawcett, Jordan, McLean, Murdoch, B., Runciman, Sterling, Stockwell, Turnbull.

Nays -- 36

Boyd, Buchanan, Carter, Christopherson, Cooper, Dadamo, Duignan, Fletcher, Frankford, Gigantes, Haeck, Hansen, Harrington, Hayes, Hope, Huget, Jamison, Johnson, Klopp, Lessard, MacKinnon, Mammoliti, Martin, Mills, O'Connor, Owens, Perruzza, Silipo, Sutherland, Ward, B., Ward, M., Wessenger, White, Wilson, G., Wiseman, Wood.

The House recessed at 1214.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1330.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

CARABRAM

Mr Callahan: In Brampton, balmy summer breezes on the first long weekend of summer mark the beginning of Carabram, Brampton's multicultural festival. For three fun-filled days, 5, 6 and 7 July 1991, the great city of Brampton and many, many visitors from other parts of the province will experience the magic of Carabram. People have an opportunity to savour the sights, tastes and sounds of this year's 17 countries without even leaving Brampton. It is probably the most successful multicultural festival in Canada. There are some 2,500 volunteers and I applaud them.

I am sorry to say I will not be able to invite members to a special kickoff which we have held for five years here, since the Premier and the Minister of Citizenship would not respond to letters or telephone calls, nor provide a few dollars to allow people to see these people from my community down here at Queen's Park. In any event, I invite each and every member to attend one of the most successful, if not the most successful, multicultural festivals held every year.

We will continue to hold it, and perhaps next year the Treasurer and the Premier and the Minister of Citizenship will find the goodness in their hearts to really support multiculturalism. Perhaps they will provide a little bit of an effort here at Queen's Park to allow members the opportunity to see some of the participants in Carabram in person, to talk to them, to enjoy them and perhaps to emulate that multicultural activity in other parts of the province.

EVENTS IN LANARK

Mr Jordan: Mr Speaker, 1991 is a very special year for the town of Perth and the county of Lanark, which form a major part of my riding, Lanark-Renfrew.

It was 175 years ago that Scottish settlers established themselves along the banks of the Tay River and made Perth their home. The town has been a pillar of strength in eastern Ontario and draws visitors from far and wide because of its people, its heritage, its charm and its markets.

The Perth Come on Home Corp will be welcoming former residents and all visitors throughout the year, but it has highlighted 14 to 21 July as the big celebration. Events such as an international grand prix featuring Perth's own world equestrian champion, Ian Millar, along with an international fastball tournament, parades, concerts and antique boat shows will highlight the activities. We are pleased the Premier of Ontario has accepted our invitation to participate in these celebrations.

The county of Lanark, also rich with history, will be 150 years old. From Maberly and Perth to Carleton Place, Almonte and Pakenham, there will be celebrations all along the way. Again, it is the people who will make the difference.

The separated town of Smiths Falls will kick off the celebrations with its own contribution on the weekend of 28 June to 1 July, and we have in the members' gallery today some students from St Francis de Sales School in Smiths Falls, representing the graduating class of grade 8.

WINDSOR-DETROIT INTERNATIONAL FREEDOM FESTIVAL

Mr Dadamo: I would like to take a few seconds to say thank you to the opposition members who this morning supported Bill 116 dealing with the Employment Standards Act and plant closure legislation.

I would like to take this opportunity to inform members of the Legislature about North America's largest international summer festival, the Windsor-Detroit International Freedom Festival, which begins tomorrow and carries on until 4 July.

The festival began in 1959 as a joint celebration of Canada Day and the American Fourth of July. In its 33-year history the festival has grown into a two-week extravaganza that attracts over three million annually. This festival is a celebration of the freedom and friendship shared by the USA and Canada, incorporating the two national holidays.

Most of the festivities take place along the Detroit River, which is the border between Windsor and Detroit. The Canadian portion of the festivities is located on the grounds of Windsor's beautiful waterfront parks. To start the festival's official opening, the freedom bell rings out in Dieppe Park on 21 June, followed by the lighting of a huge freedom torch and then a friendly tug of war over the Detroit River.

Canada's birthdate as a nation, 1 July, will open with the Canada Day parade, which has as its theme this year "Peace for All Nations." That will be followed by a family picnic.

I encourage members of the Legislature who could be in the area to participate in these festivities celebrating peace, freedom and friendship.

SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRY

Mr Bradley: The government of Canada is in the final stages of consideration of the awarding of a $450-million contract to construct 12 minesweepers for the navy. Over the years, Port Weller Dry Docks, owned and operated by Canadian Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd of St Catharines, has not received its fair share of contracts from the federal government, despite the fact that this shipbuilding facility is first class, the workforce is highly skilled, competent and reliable, and the designing engineers are among the best in the world.

In the midst of a recession which is the worst since the 1930s, at a time when the impact of free trade and the fiscal and tax policies of the federal and provincial governments are hindering business activity and competitiveness in Ontario, and in an era of great difficulty for the shipbuilding industry on the Great Lakes, the government of Canada should award this contract to a facility with a good reputation for reliability of price and performance and one which requires a shot in the arm to maintain its essential long-term presence in the Great Lakes region. That company is Canadian Shipbuilding and Engineering and that facility is Port Weller Dry Docks in St Catharines. Employment would be provided, high-quality ships would be built to defend our shores and an important industry would survive a devastating recession.

The Premier, the Treasurer and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology should all use all of their persuasive power to convince the federal government to support this Ontario industry.

ECONOMIC POLICY

Mr Carr: I am concerned for the workers in the business sector of my riding of Oakville South, and indeed all of Ontario. They are forced to work harder to cope with the current government's policies and the future of their companies than with increasing business and employment.

Procor is a major Canadian rail lessor, supplying and maintaining rail cars for industry. It is extremely concerned because the Ontario provincial taxation policies have made Ontario a relatively undesirable place to continue its business compared to the United States, Alberta or Quebec. Ontario's income tax is the most non-competitive in Canada and Ontario tax is applied to the largest portion of the company's income. Procor is under extreme pressure from the competition outside of Ontario.

A. G. Simpson is also feeling the pressure under the NDP policy. This privately held company that manufactures and supplies components to the automotive industry has six plants in Ontario. If the proposals of the Labour Relations Reform Act, along with the reforms of the Employment Standards Act, are enacted, they will have severe negative consequences in terms of employment and future investment.

We need a long-term plan to restore competitiveness and remove the pressure on our businesses to relocate. We need a more prudent taxing and government spending agenda and a consistent policy framework that looks beyond quick fixes and long-term deficits.

SENIOR CITIZENS

Mr Malkowski: As members are aware, my riding has the second-largest number of senior citizens in Canada, second only to Victoria, BC. I am pleased to rise to inform the House today of a significant effort to assist the seniors of York East to access government and community services.

Over the last month, my staff have been working on a booklet entitled the East York Seniors Information Handbook. This booklet will supplement the Guide for Senior Citizens produced by the Ministry of Citizenship and the Office for Senior Citizens' Affairs. Together these booklets will make it easier for seniors in my riding to obtain the services they need.

The East York Seniors Information Handbook will be available later this summer for residents of the riding. The response to this work from the community has been very enthusiastic, I must say, and we are now looking at ways to improve the services in the areas where gaps have been identified.

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SOFT DRINK CONTAINERS

Mr McClelland: The Minister of the Environment, who is a dear friend, has evidently mastered the art of avoiding ministerial responsibility. I am surprised, quite frankly. In response to my very direct question yesterday on whether or not the minister intended to carry through on her promise to enforce the 30% refillable quota, she responded by saying that this was not her responsibility but the responsibility of the investigations and enforcement branch of her ministry.

I recall quite clearly her speech last fall to the Recycling Council of Ontario in which she unequivocally stated that it was her intention to enforce the 30% sales in refillable containers. She stated "I will." That was her responsibility and her intention.

Now when it comes time for enforcement, when it comes time to carry through on the hard stand she took in the fall, it is no longer her responsibility but instead is the responsibility of one of the departments in her ministry.

We still do not know what the intentions of the minister are. Does she intend to maintain and enforce the 30% regulation or is it her opinion, as stated to the media, that "enforcement alone is not going to solve the problem"?

If it is not the minister's intention to enforce this regulation as she had previously stated, she should inform this House of the changes she is making to the regs. She may also want to inform the House of the outcome of the workshop she conducted yesterday with the waste reduction advisory committee, representatives of the soft drink industry, labour and environmental groups on this very issue.

If the minister is going to reverse her position and does not intend to carry through on the promises she has personally made, the people of this province have the right to know. Backroom deals are not acceptable any more; in this case, they cannot be tolerated.

GREY ASSOCIATION FOR DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH

Mr B. Murdoch: Today the Grey Association for Development and Growth felt it was necessary to come to Toronto and hold a press conference to express its concerns about the heavy-handed manner in which this government is dealing with municipal councils in Grey.

These people feel that the latest example of loss of local control was the order given to them by the Minister of Municipal Affairs, which, if carried out, will effectively stop all development in the county. They also cite the issue of the Niagara Escarpment Commission, which in their view is the least democratic body in the province and one which consistently abuses its mandate.

As well, they feel their democratic rights are threatened by the Ministry of Natural Resources, which has now decided that it and it alone will identify areas of natural and scientific interest on private property, with no legislative approval or owner awareness and consent.

The association raised the matters of the unpopular county restructuring scheme, misuse by various ministries of the Ontario Municipal Board, the Minister of the Environment reversing decisions made by her own staff, and several other examples of the lack of democracy shown by this government.

These people, and over 200 supporters outside the building, made this trip because they care deeply about individual rights and freedoms. They are serving notice to this government that they will not accept the dictatorship they see coming to the province as a whole. These people believe they should be consulted, their concerns listened to and their voices heard. If not, these people will fight. They will not give in.

CALVIN PARK PUBLIC LIBRARY

Mr G. Wilson: I had the pleasure of attending the 25th anniversary of the Calvin Park Public Library in Kingston last week. I was pleased not only because the essential service the public library provides the community deserves to be celebrated, but also because for the past 12 years my family and I have visited Calvin Park nearly every week.

Like all public libraries, Calvin Park has a collection of material that provides information and entertainment for all members of the family. We have used books and magazines to help us replace the water heater, repair bicycles and renovate rooms. Our daughters have been read to since infancy from books from the children's section and now avidly read on their own from the great variety of material they find in the library. And many of the activities around our house are done to the accompaniment of music from Calvin Park's cassette collection.

With 52,000 items in its holdings, confusion would reign were it not for the capable staff of the library. Indeed, the staff bring the collection to life as they help patrons find what they need. Members will be familiar with this type of service through their experience with the staff in the legislative library. I am sure they will agree with me that library workers provide an essential service.

Calvin Park has evolved to include a book club, the Kingston Heritage Quilters and the Read-Write Literacy Centre. The last organization will ensure wider access to the benefits of libraries, a goal we can all support.

I commend Pat Little, chair of the library board, and her fellow trustees; Lynn Jordan, new chief librarian in Kingston; Stella Carney and her staff at Calvin Park and the citizens of Kingston. With music by Quartessence and Paddy Stewart, good food and refreshment, they celebrated the anniversary in style. As a co-operative effort, libraries are a cornerstone of our democratic culture.

VISITORS

The Speaker: I invite all members to welcome to our assembly this afternoon, seated in the Speaker's gallery, a member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Anne Edwards.

Also seated in the gallery is a member from the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, Jerry Doyle.

Finally, seated also in the gallery today, Mieczyslaw Gil, member of Parliament, the parliamentary leader of Solidarity, Poland.

REPORT ON DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION

The Speaker: I beg to inform the House that I have today laid upon the table the Report on the Disclosure of Information in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario on April 18, 1991, by the former Minister of Health Evelyn Gigantes, MPP.

ANNUAL REPORT, OFFICE OF THE OMBUDSMAN

The Speaker: I beg to inform the House I have today also laid upon the table the annual report of the Ombudsman for the period 1 April 1990 to 31 March 1991.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

WORKER OWNERSHIP PROGRAM

Hon Mr Laughren: I would like to inform the members of the Legislature of the government's intention to introduce a new program to help Ontario's companies and workers respond to the challenges of the 1990s.

During the past few months, I have spoken with business and labour representatives about the current state of the economy. We are all aware that the Ontario economy is undergoing fundamental restructuring as a result of changing markets and growing international competition. To meet these new economic challenges, businesses need better access to sources of capital and employees need to be full partners in both the decision-making process and the opportunities that are being created. It is clear that new partnerships are required to ensure that employees and employers can work together to help Ontario companies keep pace with these economic realities.

The government of Ontario is prepared to introduce tax incentives that will encourage investments by workers in Ontario businesses to support these new partnerships. We will also be pursuing with the federal government ways in which this program can complement the existing labour-sponsored venture capital corporation legislation.

The proposal I am outlining today will provide workers with the opportunity to invest in their own and other companies and provide businesses with access to equity capital to modernize or restructure their operations. This program will consist of two parts. The first will provide a tax credit of 20% to workers contributing to labour-sponsored funds that invest in small and medium-sized businesses, and the second will provide enhanced tax credits to workers investing solely in their employers' corporation.

Worker ownership programs, combined with participating workplace organizations, are known to increase productivity. In addition, they can promote job creation and maintenance, stabilize local economies and improve labour-management relations. We are committed to creating the conditions where government, labour, business and other members of the community will come together to find solutions that work best for Ontario.

To encourage this, I will be releasing a discussion paper and draft legislation this summer which will outline details of this program. I hope all interested parties will take part in this consultation and I look forward to receiving their views and comments this summer. Following this review, I hope to implement the program later this year.

Ontario's success in meeting the challenges of the 1990s will depend on the ability of business, labour and government, working together, to increase the flexibility of our economy and its supporting institutions. Sustainable prosperity is possible only if everyone believes they will be full participants in economic and social change and will share the benefits of this participation. We believe this new program will be a strong step in meeting this challenge, and I am pleased and proud to be announcing it today.

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AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Hon Mr Cooke: Today I am pleased to give members details about a new housing program that was announced in the budget of 29 April -- the creation of an additional 10,000 non-profit and co-operative homes across Ontario. These homes will be created under the Ontario non-profit housing program, which will provide an estimated 10,000 person-years of employment in the construction industry and related sectors.

The Ontario non-profit housing program offers some significant changes from the previous non-profit housing programs.

First, we will require sponsors to make a minimum of 50% of the units in each project available to needy households. This replaces the current ministry requirement of 40% rent-geared-to-income units. I am pleased to report that the projects we have approved devote, on average, 70% to 80% of their units to families or individuals in varying degrees of need. As before, the remainder of the units will be rented at market rates, with no income ceiling for tenants, so that people can live in well-integrated communities with a healthy social and economic mix.

Second, priority will be given to sponsors who can start construction quickly so that construction-related jobs are created and affordable housing is built as soon as possible. In addition, priority will be given to groups who donate land, services and/or funding to share in the cost of providing social housing. This will reduce the government subsidy and save taxpayers' dollars.

A third feature is that new construction will account for about 80% of the units. Acquisition and rehabilitation of existing buildings will account for the remaining 20%. I would add that these numbers are targets. We will assess each proposal on its own merit.

I know many members of the House are interested in the status of the Homes Now program. I would like to say a few words about its progress. As members are aware, the previous government announced that 30,000 non-profit and co-operative housing units would be provided under Homes Now. As of 31 May 1991, 14,000 units have been committed. When this government came to power, we discovered that little more than 3,000 units had been committed. It was obvious that most projects would not meet the program's 31 March 1991 approval deadline. The rescue of the Homes Now program was the first thing we did, by extending the approval date to 30 September.

The second thing we did was to streamline the Homes Now approval process for some non-profit housing sponsors. We knew there were a number of non-profit and co-operative housing sponsors who would be able to start construction within a month or two if they had an allocation under Homes Now. However, to make this happen the Ministry of Housing would have to accelerate some parts of the approvals process. To get these units to the construction phase as quickly as possible, that is just what we did. To date, we have identified 2,800 units which will proceed under this quick-start approach, and that is over and above the 14,000 units I have already mentioned.

That approach will have several beneficial effects. It will stimulate the construction industry and it will allow sponsors and government to take advantage of the lower development costs reflected in today's recessionary market. As members can see, we are doing all we can to pull out the stops and reach the Homes Now target.

Under the Ontario non-profit housing program and with the changes in the existing Homes Now program, the ministry will increase the stock of affordable non-profit and co-operative housing across this province, and at the same time we will be creating thousands of urgently needed jobs in the building sector.

FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT

Hon Mr Wildman: I am releasing today for public comment a report which will assist our government in implementing a new strategy for wildlife in Ontario. The report, entitled Looking Ahead: A Wild Life Strategy for Ontario, was prepared by the Wildlife Working Group, which was appointed in 1989 by the previous government.

This report begins the process of developing and implementing a new approach to wildlife management in Ontario. We are at the crossroads of wildlife management and protection in Ontario. It is important that we take care for our wildlife resources now and in the future. Our wildlife resources are under tremendous pressure because of increasing land use activities and because Ontarians differ in their interests and objectives with respect to the values and use of wildlife. The challenge in re-examining our current wildlife management program is to work with the public to take greater care of the natural environment in order to ensure the sustainability of our wildlife resources.

Looking Ahead: A Wild Life Strategy for Ontario approaches wildlife protection and management in Ontario from an ecosystem perspective, which is reflected in the goals, objectives and a number of strategies and associated recommendations contained in the report.

The working group recommends that the goal of provincial wildlife strategy be a diversity of healthy ecosystems and associated wildlife populations and habitats which provide sustained social, cultural and economic benefits for all people. The group recommends that this goal be attained by meeting four objectives: maintaining biodiversity; rehabilitating degraded systems; treating all wildlife in a responsible and respectful manner; and attaining widespread appreciation of the importance of wildlife and healthy ecosystems.

The Wildlife Working Group's report is being made available for public comment. There will be a 90-day public review period during which I invite all Ontarians to share their views. The ministry will also hold public meetings across the province during September and October, and members of the public may complete a questionnaire on the report, which will be available shortly.

In addition, and in an effort to ensure that wildlife laws keep pace with evolving wildlife management and protection requirements, I propose to introduce amendments to the Game and Fish Act this fall, which will take effect in the interim period until this House enacts a new wildlife act.

I would like to thank the 11 members of the Wildlife Working Group for their dedication and commitment. Dr David Fowle is the chair of the committee and he is here with us in the gallery.

I would also like to thank all those who attended the workshops, interviews and discussions conducted by the working group, as well as those who wrote letters or telephoned to share their views. Our goal is that all current and future initiatives for wildlife be undertaken with the continuing consent and active participation of Ontario residents. Working together, I believe we can make a difference in the kind of natural environment we enjoy today and which Ontarians can continue to enjoy as we move into the 21st century.

RESPONSES

WORKER OWNERSHIP PROGRAM

Mr Nixon: I wish to comment on the Treasurer's announcement, since it resembles quite closely the enactment passed by the Legislature in 1989, which, as I recall it, provided a $600 maximum incentive for workers to invest either in their own company or in other companies.

I was interested to see the president of the United Steelworkers of America, Leo Gerard, urging the employees at Algoma to give over $3 an hour of their pay for four months. As nearly as I can figure that out, it would be about $1,500. If the minister's promise is carried forward, it would mean that each of those workers would get a tax credit of about $300, which is just about half of what was envisaged in the legislation that is already on the law books of the province.

It is not as generous perhaps as one would have thought, since the Treasurer and the president of the Steelworkers belong to the same party, if the Treasurer will permit me to say that. As a matter of fact, Mr Gerard is the vice-president of the party.

There is a line here that interests me, the very last line on the first page: "The second will provide enhanced tax credits to workers investing solely in their employers' corporation." In other words, it is 20% for some but enhanced for others, so it is quite possible the Treasurer is thinking of something somewhat more generous than the $300 that is basically a part of the announcement. We will look forward to his working paper and to studying it with a good deal of interest.

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AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Ms Poole: Our caucus welcomes the announcement today by the Minister of Housing that he is proceeding with the program of 10,000 units announced in the budget. Now is the time to build. Every member in this House should believe that, not only because now is the time when we need to create those jobs and save our construction industry but also because now is the best time when we can get good value for our taxpayer dollars in the building industry.

Day after day, since last October when this government was elected, I have come into his House and I have anxiously awaited the announcement of the 20,000 homes that it promised in its campaign speeches. It did not come. Day after day I kept coming in, but then the budget came in two months ago and I thought, "Aha, it's coming," or at least half of it, 10,000. Day after day I came in and again anticipated the minister would make it.

Finally, today, all my innermost fantasies have been realized and the minister has proceeded. But it is not all good news. I am disappointed that the minister is still playing with numbers and with words, because the minister has to admit he is not building the 10,000 new non-profit units he promised. He is building 8,000. That is what it says right in his own announcement.

The minister talks with pride about committing 14,000 units under the Homes Now program, but quite frankly he knows as well as I know that 99% of the Homes Now units had been allocated long before this government ever came into power. I wish the minister would be fair and recognize that fact.

I am very glad to see that the Minister of Housing has decided to speed up the processes within the Ministry of Housing. That will really be quite helpful. But I also hope he will use his powers as Minister of Municipal Affairs to make sure that the planning process under the Planning Act is also speeded up and that the ministry will get tough with municipalities that will not co-operate. That is going to be very important.

Finally, I am delighted that the minister has a quick start approach so that we will get some of those units built now, but let's not forget to monitor them to make sure we are spending those taxpayers' dollars wisely and well.

We commend the minister for his announcement. I do hope he will take my words of advice to heart and will make sure that other processes are speeded up so we can get help for the industry and get it now.

FISH AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT

Mr Elston: With respect to the member for Algoma's announcement, Looking Ahead: A Wild Life Strategy for Ontario of course was begun under the auspices of the member who was previously the Minister of Natural Resources, the member for Fort William, and has finally come for reply.

I wonder if it might not be of interest to all of us to ensure that there is a 90-day consultation period that is effective and that there is going to be a fair bit of distribution of information about the agreements to be made among the various parties that will be responsible for managing wildlife in Ontario.

While we look forward to the new initiatives here to protect wildlife in general, I think the new plans of other debates and other negotiations must also be available for the people to comment about.

WORKER OWNERSHIP PROGRAM

Mr Stockwell: The Treasurer tells us today (a) that he has an intention, (b) that he is prepared to introduce it, (c) that he is outlining a proposal, (d) that he will be pursuing, (e) that he will be releasing, (f) that he will have consultations on and (g) that he hopes to implement. I thank the Treasurer for not confusing us with too many details.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Mr Tilson: I would like to respond to the statement of the Minister of Housing. There is no question the Minister of Housing and this party certainly do have one area in common, and that of course is that there is a need for assisting the needy in this province. There are a large number of people who certainly cannot afford the housing they already have.

Having said that, as usual, he has his priorities all wrong. The taxpayers certainly know that the government has destroyed the private housing market in this province and that it is on the verge of creating the slums of Ontario with Bill 4 and Bill 121, as a result of the government's policies. The taxpayers are becoming increasingly annoyed with the government's policies of destroying the housing market in this province.

The minister talks of the province creating new jobs with this announcement he has made today. He has not even begun to restore the jobs and the contracts that were lost by Bill 4 and that will continue to be lost by Bill 121. They have not even begun. His statement is a sham. The minister has said that 50% of all units would be available to needy households. He has not defined what "needy" is. He knows that thousands of tenants in this province who are paying very little rent already cannot even afford the increases. They cannot afford the rent they are already paying.

The minister is telling the people of this province where they are going to live and: "If you don't like it, tough. You live where we say and that's that." That is not the way to help the needy in this province.

Knowing that the construction of government housing in this province is far more expensive than private enterprise construction -- those facts have been given to him over and over -- the minister continues to increase the construction of new, government-run housing. He has created a new black hole in this province for the taxpayer, and that is housing.

Why is the government pursuing the spending of millions of taxpayers' dollars on what I assume this statement has included, co-op developments -- he has not said it specifically, but I assume it includes co-op developments -- when they cannot even be filled? There are vacancies in both the Durham and Toronto regions. The co-op policy of this government is simply a make-work project for the NDP government, for its favourite architects, its favourite engineers and its socialist contractors.

Taxpayers cannot afford the government's plans to build more co-op units when each low-income family unit costs the taxpayer $2,000 a month. Someone who has an income of about $60,000 still has a taxpayer subsidy of about $1,000 per month. The co-op groups are now in competition with private enterprise. The taxpayers will not stand for this government subsidizing slack socialists receiving taxpayer handouts. Why in the world are we getting into more non-profit housing and co-op housing when there is a glut in the housing market already?

ORAL QUESTIONS

JOB SECURITY

Mr Nixon: I have a question of the Treasurer. He will have heard that the Minister for International Trade for Canada announced this morning that he was vetoing the proposal for the sale of de Havilland to European interests. That means the 5,000 jobs at de Havilland are once again very much in danger of being lost. The Treasurer will know that the leader of the government has indicated previously that he would take whatever steps necessary to safeguard the jobs.

The Minister of Northern Development announced yesterday, without any details, that the jobs at Kapuskasing were going to be protected by some sort of process whereby a worker buyout would be supported and these antiquated facilities restored to maintain jobs.

I suppose the real problem that must be on the minister's mind more than anything is the situation at Algoma, where the president of the United Steelworkers of America has indicated that the workers there would participate, to the extent of a maximum of $10 million, in the buyout of that facility, with bridge financing, which I frankly thought would be announced by the Treasurer today, to support that.

The problem here is that we are looking at 15,000 jobs, if we list that with the announcement yesterday at Uniroyal. These are specific ones that are on the tray of action for the ministers right now.

Does the Treasurer realize that all of us in this House share in a strong will that the jobs be protected and supported and that he and his colleagues consult with the House before he moves forward with programs that are going to commit the province for the next decade and longer? Does the Treasurer have the self-confidence in this regard to share with the members of the House, as well as the representatives of the workers, what he intends to do, which must require action in the immediate future, to see that the jobs are not lost and that we have a program in this province that is going to meet the requirements for maintaining employment?

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Hon Mr Laughren: That is a very comprehensive question, although certainly an important one. All of the examples the Leader of the Opposition used have different kinds of problems attached to them.

Mr Nixon: They are all there now.

Hon Mr Laughren: They are all there. They are all serious problems. They are all threatened job losses. We are very much aware of that.

In the case of Algoma, for example, there is a lot of work going on, as we speak, to try to see how the province can assist in that area.

With the de Havilland situation, I must say I agreed with Investment Canada's decision and with Mr Wilson's comments surrounding the refusal of that sale, but I think there is much more to be gained from de Havilland than was apparent in the plan that was being put forward.

The tire plant is also a different issue because with that one the company itself admits the problem is an outdated facility, a slump in car sales and international competition.

All the problems are different, no matter which plant you go to, and a common solution simply is not there for each of those situations. All I can say to the Leader of the Opposition is that we are working hard on every one of them.

The Premier met yesterday afternoon with the Uniroyal people and talked to them about their problem as well. He has made available all the facilities of the Ministry of Labour to help in that regard.

The Speaker: Would the minister conclude his remarks, please.

Hon Mr Laughren: I will await further instructions from the leader of the official opposition in his supplementary.

Mr Nixon: Probably the matter ought to be a subject of debate rather than in the question period because the reason I do not object to directing the question to the Treasurer, in the absence of some of his colleagues, is that the solution as far as he is going to find is going to be dollars. I do not think it is going to be any intricate two-step with labour unions, environmental officials or anybody else. It is going to be dollars.

Really, the minister is going to have to take the taxpayers into his confidence to some extent as he contemplates what these solutions will be. I have just made a list of the things that are of concern. There is not only the level of employment, which is most important, but the pension liabilities, which are frightening, particularly since the Treasurer operates a guarantee for those funds that are not available, an unlimited guarantee, and environmental cleanup liabilities, which in the case of Algoma might very well leave with the new owners, whoever they are. Whether it is a president with Leo Gerard down the hall telling him what to do, or whatever, there is an environmental liability -- the Treasurer is laughing.

The Speaker: The interrogative part?

Mr Nixon: The environmental cleanup liabilities are going to cost somebody, and in this instance he is going to take it out of one pocket and spend it in another way. The danger of countervail under international trade requirements and the fact that there are other people in the steelmaking business in this world who may very well decide that if he starts tilting the so-called playing field, they are going to require assistance and maybe close up some of their own things.

The Speaker: And the supplementary?

Mr Nixon: I wonder if the minister -- and I appreciate your difficulty, Mr Speaker -- can give us some further indication of the status of thinking of government in this regard and what sorts of time limits he has got, since his announcement earlier certainly did not have any pressure, as he is going to be dishing out a maximum of $300 to each of the steelworkers.

Hon Mr Laughren: I was not laughing because the problem is not serious and I think the leader of the official opposition knows that. I will confess to the leader of the official opposition that I knew we would inherit some problems last fall. I did not know how many. It has been tough trying to cope with these problems in the middle of a recession. Each one is extremely serious, very serious indeed, and has enormous impact on each of the communities in which those plants are located.

I think the leader of the official opposition understands that government cannot replace the private sector in every case when the private sector gets into difficulty. What we can do, however, and we will work very hard to do it, is to play whatever helpful role we can to make sure that as much as possible is salvaged out of each of those very difficult situations. I can tell the leader of the official opposition there is certainly no lack of effort on the part of the government to resolve those problems.

Mr Nixon: I can appreciate the fact that the minister and his colleagues must be spending long hours in that lovely room at the far end of the hall trying to come up with some alternatives and something workable. I also appreciate the fact that he would be the centre of attention because the only solution, in my view, will involve the Treasury of Ontario.

Would he be aware -- and I am sure he would be -- that since the beginning of the year, in the first three months that are reported, there were 1,015 bankruptcies all involving the layoff of employees? So the scope of the good intentions of the government and of all of us here has got to have some limitation.

There was a proposal put forward for Algoma that was rejected out of hand by Mr Gerard, a very intelligent person indeed, but rejected out of hand, saying they were going to pursue employee ownership in this regard so that no jobs would be lost.

The Speaker: The time.

Mr Nixon: The Treasurer -- I wish you would not get so nervous; half a minute -- in his answer indicated he would be doing the best he possibly could. In the case of Algoma, does his best mean saving all the jobs in spite of the circumstances that we all know prevail there?

Hon Mr Laughren: I do not think I or anyone else in government says that the solution for a problem in a place, whether in Kitchener, Sault Ste Marie or Elliot Lake, is always saving all the jobs. I think the reality of the world out there is that in many cases there has to be downsizing for all sorts of reasons.

I disagree with the leader of the official opposition. I think the leader of the steelworkers, Mr Gerard, understands that very well. As the leader of the official opposition indicated in his question, the steelworkers have already made a commitment in Sault Ste Marie. I think the workers and their representatives in the trade union movement understand very well what is going on out there. They understand very well the restructuring that is going on. We understand that as well.

I tell the leader of the official opposition we have no illusions that simply throwing money at all projects is the answer. I think the leader of the official opposition understands that, although from time to time I do wonder.

PURCHASE OF HYDRO PLANT

Mr Kwinter: My question is for the Minister of Northern Development. Yesterday outside of this House the minister announced her support for the employee group and the group's proposal for the Spruce Falls Power and Paper Company in Kapuskasing. The minister indicated that the government has a specific proposal that would meet the interests of all those involved.

Given her announcement yesterday and given the announcement of the Treasurer today, can the minister share with the House some details regarding how this proposal would ensure the continued viability of a worker-owned business?

Hon Miss Martel: I appreciate the question. I say to the member and to all members of the House, as I expressed to the press yesterday, the purpose of the announcement was to indicate very clearly to the community that the workers had accepted the PEG -- purchasing employees' group -- proposal, which was the option for an employee buyout. They had presented that proposal to government some months ago. We have been working on that draft trying to determine the feasibility and viability of it and made a decision yesterday that in our opinion that would be the most appropriate way for government to proceed.

At this time I am not at liberty to discuss with members the nature of the negotiations going on or the proposal the government has put forward. I only say to the member the government believes it has a proposal that will meet environmental needs, the needs of the employees and, further, that will ensure we will not be subject to countervail.

Mr Kwinter: The minister will be aware that one of the conditions the owning company now has set for handing over the mill to the employees is the sale of the Smoky Falls hydro dam for approximately $133 million to Ontario Hydro, but the decision on the acquisition of that dam is suspended in Hydro's demand-supply environmental assessment.

The minister stated in her announcement -- and I think this is quite important -- that Hydro must give a little. Given the new relationship the government has taken with Ontario Hydro and the fact that when it says it must give a little Hydro has no choice but to comply, could the minister tell us, given her announcement about Elliot Lake, is it the intention of the government to have Hydro pay up front for the dam now, even though it may not get the approval of the Environmental Assessment Board?

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Hon Miss Martel: I should point out to the member that I said yesterday that clearly a number of stakeholders had to give a little -- Ontario Hydro, the government, PEG and the owner, that is, Kimberly-Clark. I want to make it very clear that our proposal, which we hope will be acceptable to all, envisions a shared responsibility and everyone giving up a little.

As I said yesterday to the media and earlier in my response to the question, I am not prepared at this point to outline to the House the details of the negotiations going on. I think the member can understand why I am being very careful about what I say with respect to the plan. I can only repeat again that we believe the plan will meet not only environmental concerns but the concerns of continuing employment, and that we will not be subject to countervail.

Mr Kwinter: Another important aspect of the proposal is whether it is the government's intention to proceed with the employees putting money into this company and those proceeds going to the present owners. If any of these proceeds go to the present owners -- and it is something that will not benefit the plant because the money is just going to go to them and they are going to take it out -- how does the government envision capital being provided to keep this plant viable -- it is my understanding that her proposal will call for the employees to invest money into this proposal -- when you consider that a previous buyer contemplated that the capital required to make the plant viable was going to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $600 to $700 million? This is a pretty expensive neighbourhood. Could the minister tell us what the government is going to do to address this need for capital?

Hon Miss Martel: The employees have agreed that they have a vested interest in ensuring that this mill will continue, and I want to point out to all members that at this time the community has committed up to about $13.5 million as its share to keep that particular mill going. That is a significant commitment on their part and on the part of the government. I certainly want to congratulate them on their efforts.

I understand the member is trying to have me address a number of the concerns, which I am sure all the members in the House believe are important, but I say again the questions he is raising are very much part and parcel of the proposal the government believes will be satisfactory to all.

I am not prepared at this point to outline any of the details of those. We are in active negotiations now and we hope they will be successful. We have put forward a plan that we think shares the risks for everyone. When we have some details about how those negotiations have gone, I will be more than prepared to share them with the House.

ELECTRICITY SUPPLY AND DEMAND

Mr Jordan: My question is for the Minister of Energy. The recent changes to the Power Corporation Act give her new, sweeping powers over Ontario Hydro. I warn members that with these powers go immense responsibilities. In effect, the Minister of Energy is now the chief executive officer of the utility. It will be her responsibility to give the long-term planning and direction to that utility. I wonder, even as we have the minister in the past sittings of this House, even realizing the responsibility of the Minister of Energy without the extra power, with her new powers is it her intention to direct Ontario Hydro to continue to provide an abundant and secure supply of power at cost to the people of Ontario?

Hon Ms Carter: The answer to the last part of the question is absolutely yes. We have stated that right from the beginning in the throne speech and we continue to say it. There is no intention of jeopardizing the supplies of power to the people of Ontario.

In answer to the member's earlier remarks, I should point out that the government of Ontario has always exercised power over Ontario Hydro, which is after all a publicly owned corporation. That influence has very often been exercised in ways that were less than obvious to the public, through dinners in hotels and that kind of thing. We have brought this whole thing much more into the open. I would also like to point out that we have no intention of interfering in the day-to-day running of the affairs of Ontario Hydro.

Mr Jordan: The government has forced Ontario Hydro to contribute $65 million to the northern Ontario heritage fund. The ratepayers, through increased bills, will bear the brunt of this decision. The government, not Ontario Hydro, should be offering the assistance to Elliot Lake. When will the Minister of Energy let Ontario Hydro resume its work as a world-leading electrical utility and stop making it a social welfare arm of the Minister of Energy?

Hon Ms Carter: In view of the fact that Ontario Hydro over the last 10 years has spent $1.2 billion extra on its uranium supplies in order to make a contribution to Denison Mines and Rio Algom, I do not think the principle of power at cost was being carried out in a very fair manner towards the people of Ontario. If we had continued to buy uranium at the same sort of terms, Ontario Hydro would have subsidized those companies to the tune of another $2.4 billion over the next 10 years. Now, it is a fact --

Mr Stockwell: Why did you make the promise?

The Speaker: Order. The member for Etobicoke West is to come to order.

Hon Ms Carter: It is a fact that Ontario Hydro has a unique relationship with the town of Elliot Lake because, as we all know, that town has existed only because of uranium. It has been very much a one-industry town. At this moment Ontario Hydro is the only remaining customer of Rio Algom. The other purchasers have dropped out, and there really is a responsibility for Ontario Hydro to consider the fate of that town. I repeat that had we left things as they were, Ontario Hydro would have spent far more money in its purchase of uranium. The amount we are diverting to help the people of that town is only a fraction of what would have been spent due to the inflated uranium prices.

Mr Jordan: The mandate of Ontario Hydro is to supply energy to the people of Ontario in an abundant supply and at cost. How can she factor in welfare costs, contributions to a heritage fund, as the cost of generating and supplying energy? There is no relationship to it whatsoever, and that is independent of buying the uranium at Elliot Lake. She should not try to put the two of them together. They are separate.

The minister now has been given these powers as chief executive officer. She has to take the responsibility. Does she plan to set the rates for Ontario Hydro? Does she plan to set the policy for Ontario Hydro and be accountable for the unemployment she is looking at in the nuclear industry and for the loss of the special expertise that is not going to stay in this province, or does she plan to just move her office to 700 University Avenue and carry on a minimum-requirement electric service?

Hon Ms Carter: I would like to point out that I am not the CEO of Ontario Hydro and have no intention of becoming so. The new CEO, as we all know, is Marc Eliesen, who has just taken up his new post.

I do not feel it is legitimate to separate out the finances of this affair, as the member opposite has done. Why it is consistent with the dictates of selling power at cost to buy uranium at many times the market price, whereas it is not consistent to use part of the money saved by not doing that to help the people who have been dependent on those supplies is not clear to me. It seems to me that under previous governments the need to supply uranium for our nuclear development has overridden the public interest and we want to get away from that situation.

It is also ridiculous to suggest there is imminent unemployment due to our policy of a nuclear moratorium because nuclear power stations are supposed to have a life of 40 years. None of them is approaching that age and they are continuing to employ workers.

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MISS VICKIE'S POTATO CHIPS

Mr Villeneuve: The Minister of Agriculture and Food must surely find it troubling, if not alarming, when a program intended to protect Ontario producers ends up forcing processors to buy outside our province.

Example: Miss Vickie's chips in Simcoe county is forced to import potatoes from Florida instead of purchasing Ontario potatoes when they are available. The regulatory system now in place is very much biased against small Ontario processors and producers. This government is forcing Miss Vickie's to cross-border shop when indeed she wants to buy, she could and should be buying Ontario potatoes. Consumers support the Miss Vickie's organization in Simcoe county through their purchases.

Will his government and his ministry allow Miss Vickie's to purchase Ontario potatoes for her Ontario plant?

Hon Mr Buchanan: This government encourages and wants to sponsor and promote small business. We certainly want to support the consumption of Ontario produce, including potatoes. We very much favour that. To support small business and Ontario producers is an ongoing policy of this government.

Mr Villeneuve: If that is the policy, there is a problem with it. Miss Vickie's Quebec operation is allowed to purchase Ontario potatoes but her Ontario operation is not. Growers need financial protection and the problem we have seen is that the regulations as set by cabinet and government are indeed interfering with the whole process. This does not inspire confidence in the food industry, which is very basic to the economy of this province. The regulations work against our Ontario processors and producers.

Can the Minister of Agriculture and Food, supposedly supporting and assisting producers, provide Miss Vickie's chips in Simcoe county with a licence to purchase Ontario potatoes?

Hon Mr Buchanan: The previous government, when approached by the potato marketing board, agreed to set up a protection agency which would protect the producers so that in the event processors were unable to pay for the potatoes, the producers would get some payment for the potatoes. Part of that plan was to have a licensing policy in place so that the processors, large and small, had to show they were economically viable. We have simply continued to apply that protection program and we follow the same process in terms of licensing. The same regulations have been in place for several years.

Mr J. Wilson: The second supplementary is also to the Minister of Agriculture and Food. His answers verge on insanity. It is absolutely crazy for him to defend regulations put in by the Liberals that discriminate against small and medium processors in Ontario.

Miss Vickie's potato chips in my riding of Simcoe West employs 100 people. It buys six million pounds of potatoes a year. It is an incredibly large operation, and yet she cannot buy potatoes from neighbouring farms, from her own husband, Bill Kerr, because the minister is supporting crazy regulations put in by the Liberals which discriminate.

Officials from the Ontario Potato Growers' Marketing Board tell us they never agreed with those regulations in the first place. They were put in under false pretences, and we are asking you today to take action on behalf of processors in Ontario to change those regulations so that when Ontario potatoes are ready in just a few weeks, Miss Vickie's can purchase those, make them into a product and sell them across Canada.

Hon Mr Buchanan: The member is having some problem with his facts. The regulations and the protection board were put in place with the encouragement of the potato marketing board. There was consultation. It was for the producers that this was put in place.

Mr J. Wilson: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I know we agreed not to make points of order in question period, but I have not misinterpreted the facts, and I have done my homework, as has our critic for agriculture, and I ask the minister to withdraw --

The Speaker: Would the member take his seat? We frequently have discussions about points of view, and that is apparently what is unfolding here at this moment, with or without a discussion of who or what is sane or otherwise.

Hon Mr Buchanan: I just wanted to make sure the member understood this was put in place because the potato marketing board asked for it. In 1987 one of the processors in the province had a problem and had to close through bankruptcy. Several producers were left holding the bag without any financial protection. The board came to the former government and asked for that protection. Part of the protection for producers is to make sure processors have financial backing to pay the producers for their product. If the producers were not protected, I am sure the member would be the first to ask that we have protection for the producers. This legislation, partially licensing and partially protection, is there to protect producers and we intend to uphold that legislation.

PLANT CLOSURE

Mr Offer: In the absence of nearly everyone who has had any responsibility for this matter, I would like to pose my question to the Treasurer. Uniroyal Goodrich confirmed today it will be closing its largest plant in Kitchener, resulting in the loss of over 1,000 jobs. As the Treasurer knows, the initial announcement came last 4 June, when the Premier and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology stated they would do everything possible to prevent the closure of either plant.

Today we have the announcement. The evidence is clear, the Treasurer and his government have failed those workers. They would like to know exactly what steps the Treasurer took to stave off this closure. What did this government do?

Hon Mr Laughren: It is fine for the member opposite to stand in his place and in some strange kind of logic say that because a large company such as this, with worldwide operations, decides to downsize its operation and rationalize it, somehow we are to blame. For heaven's sake, go and talk to the Uniroyal people. They will tell the member why they are closing one plant and consolidating their operations into one plant. That is what they intend to do. Now surely to goodness the member is not suggesting that in situations like that we move in and guarantee employment for all the people in that plant. Is that what the member is implying? Because if he is, that is not our intention. We simply could not afford to do it, and quite frankly it would not be the right thing to do.

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Mr Offer: But surely to goodness what I am asking is that when the Premier and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology promise to do everything possible to prevent the closure of either plant, the Treasurer will be able to stand in his place today and share with us in this Legislature what he did. It is quite evident he has done absolutely nothing. One plant is closing and there is every possibility of the other plant shutting down. There is just no action taking place by his government.

I want to share some media information. "The plant" -- and they are talking about the newer plant -- "will be kept open if a restructuring agreement with the union can be reached," and a deal must be reached by mid-July. They are saying if no agreement is reached to keep the newer plant open, production will wind down over the next two to three years.

On 4 June, the member for Wilson Heights asked the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology a question and the minister responded, "This government stands ready to participate in any way it can to obviate any kind of negative announcement that may be forthcoming in that regard," whatever that means.

What is the government going to do for the workers in jeopardy at the other plant? Given its success at attracting new jobs and new investment in this province, what possible opportunities will the government have to offer those workers who are now losing their jobs?

Hon Mr Laughren: The member should know -- perhaps he does not know and that is why his question does not make too much sense. When the problem became evident, we offered our services in any way we could. Yesterday the company met with the Premier and, I believe, representatives of the union. The company met with the Premier this morning I believe and we have offered our services in any way we can.

Surely the member is not suggesting we move in and pre-empt the discussions and negotiations now going on. I think the member would be quite happy to see us move in and simply employ everybody who goes through a problem. That is simply not on.

In this province we cannot replace the private sector every time there is a problem. We will do whatever we can as a government to help in adjustment programs for those workers, to help in any kind of negotiations between the union and the company. If there is any meaningful role we can play, we will play it. We have offered the services of the Ministry of Labour mediation and adjustment services to the company and the union. We stand ready to do whatever we humanly can do to help the workers survive in that community.

OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

Mr Carr: In the absence of the Solicitor General, my question will be to the Deputy Premier. He may have read today's final edition of one of the local papers that says, "Ontario police chiefs today voted to ask the Ontario government to reinstate the oath of allegiance to the Queen for police officers." On behalf of the police chiefs across this province, will the government listen to the police chiefs and reinstate the oath to the Queen?

Hon Mr Laughren: I am wishing the Solicitor General were here today.

I am aware of the resolution. I should remind the member opposite, though, that before that regulation was changed, there was consultation very widely held --

Mr Turnbull: With Susan Eng.

Hon Mr Laughren: No, that is simply not true. The member is talking through his hat. There was very wide consultation before that oath was changed. It is not a case of the oath being changed because one or two people wanted it changed. That is simply not the case.

Mr Carr: In the throne speech this government said when it made mistakes it would admit them. Everyone realizes mistakes will be made. When they make mistakes they will admit them. Petition after petition has come in from the people of Ontario requesting the reinstatement. The police chiefs and, I might add, the Metropolitan Toronto Police Association president, Art Lymer, have also called for the reinstatement. The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police meeting in Sudbury was told changes were made without explanation. They also questioned why the police services had been singled out for this action.

Why will the minister not listen to the people who have sent in the petitions, the police chiefs, the police associations, admit he made a mistake and reinstate the oath to the Queen?

Hon Mr Laughren: It is my understanding -- and I will stand corrected if I am wrong on this -- that the police chiefs were consulted on this matter prior to the change being made. If indeed I am correct and the police chiefs did support the change in the oath, then I would be very interested in hearing the reasons why they have now changed their minds. I look forward to hearing from them in that regard.

RENT REGULATION

Ms M. Ward: My question is for the Minister of Housing. In my riding there is a group of town houses on Barrington Avenue where tenants faced a 17% rent increase in May 1990. These increases were attributed primarily to capital costs incurred by the landlord. The landlord of this complex has applied for a 25% increase for May 1991. I would like to ask the Minister of Housing how our proposed rent control legislation will affect these tenants.

Hon Mr Cooke: I appreciate the question from the member, who has been very involved in and supportive of the development of new and permanent rent control legislation for the tenants of this province.

I can indicate to the member that I would have to take a look at the specific application, but if there was an application put forward for May 1991 involving a 25% rent increase, it would be highly unlikely it would qualify for that kind of rent increase under Bill 4, since Bill 4 provides for rent increases on only such things as property tax increases, interest rate changes and so forth. There was not a provision for capital, as we have explained before, because of the transitional period. So I suspect the tenants in those buildings would be protected by Bill 4.

Ms M. Ward: In addition to these increases, the tenants on Barrington Avenue are also faced with serious instances of maintenance neglect. I would like to ask the Minister of Housing how the new legislation will help resolve these maintenance problems.

Hon Mr Cooke: One of the very important aspects of the new legislation we have proposed is one that provides that when there is are work orders put against a building, if the landlord does not correct those work orders in the 30-day period he has under municipal rules, there will automatically be a rent decrease in line with the guidelines. So there will be automatic penalties. That, I believe, is something that has been shared and has been encouraged by landlords and tenants, because landlords are embarrassed by landlords who do not take care of their buildings. They want to see the quality of the apartment stock in this province maintained. So I believe the provisions in our permanent rent control legislation provide better protection for tenants both in terms of rent and in terms of maintenance.

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WATER QUALITY

Mr Phillips: My question is to the Minister of the Environment. It has to do with a matter she would be aware of, particularly in Metropolitan Toronto and I think around the province. That is, we see headlines now of beach closings, of syringes washing up on the beaches. I guess what ring in our minds are some of the headlines that we used to see, "Chronic Beach Closings Must End," "NDP Proposes 5-Point Plan for Beach Closings." At the same time, the minister would be aware that in today's paper we saw a plan by the board of health in the city of Toronto to cope with this by lowering the standards, which will result, it says, in 30% more beaches opening.

Does the minister support governments that will deal with the problem by lowering the standards instead of dealing with the root cause of the pollution?

Hon Mrs Grier: Obviously the answer is no and I am glad the member in his question acknowledges that there are some very significant root causes that have to be addressed. We have begun to address them, as did my predecessor, the member for St Catharines, but that is not going to happen this year or even next year.

The news stories about the changing of the standards and the calculations flow from a decision made by the previous minister in 1988, when the Minister of Health and the Minister of the Environment agreed that the Ontario recreational water use objective should be revised. There have been, as I understand it, extensive studies and meetings going on. There is certainly no intention of lowering the standards. There is a question of revising the standards to try to make them more accurate, and I think the announcement or the statements by the medical officer of health in the city of Toronto did not quite reflect what it is the intention of our ministry to achieve.

Mr Phillips: If I might follow up on the comments the minister just made, I think it was her intent not to lower the standards but revise the standards. That is always an alert word for us, because we worry that "revising" means lowering the standards. I wonder if the minister might rather categorically today reassure the House and the people of the province that, contrary to rumours -- and we are hearing rumours and I think they have been in the media -- that the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Health have been working to, the minister calls it, revise -- we would say perhaps lower -- the standards, the ministry has no intention in any way of lowering the standards for measuring the quality of the water.

Hon Mrs Grier: We are into again a semantic argument because the standard is to protect health, and there is certainly no question in my mind that the protection of public health is paramount. The determination of that is left to the officers of health in the municipalities. The terms of reference of the committee that was established in 1988 and has been working in 1989 were to collect -- and I am having to quote from my briefing note -- the relevant microbiological information in a summarized form. One of the difficulties, and again I am not a scientist, is that there is an organism called Klebsiella pneumoniae which sometimes results from the food processing industries and the pulp and paper industries. It does not have a health significance, but when it is calculated in or part of the sample tested it boosts the count of fecal coliform. I am merely repeating what the technicians in my ministry tell me.

The intent of the exercise is to make sure we have absolutely accurate information in order that we can judge the health effects of the recreational water quality objective. That is what is paramount and that is what the member has my undertaking will be sustained.

BREWING INDUSTRY

Mrs Witmer: My question is to the Treasurer. He is aware that the ad valorem tax for domestic brewers which produce less than 50,000 hectolitres per year, which was reduced by 50% in June 1989, is going to be phased back to the full rate over the next three years, starting this month. These microbreweries in this province are small businesses which are barely holding their own during very tough economic and competitive times.

Any increase in their taxes at this time will, as the one brewery in my community of Waterloo has said, put the solvency of the company and other small brewers in question. The several hundred people who are employed by microbreweries in this province are at risk of losing their jobs if this tax for microbreweries is increased.

I would ask the Treasurer to reconsider this matter and I would ask him to make a commitment to help rejuvenate and support these small businesses in these difficult economic times.

Hon Mr Laughren: I appreciate the question from the member for Waterloo North. Several members of the assembly have approached me on this problem, including the member for Kitchener, and because I am concerned about it as well -- and I almost hesitate to say this because whenever I mention I am going to take a look at something, there sometimes can be wrong assumptions made about that process -- and because of the persistent delegations to me on this matter, I did ask the officials in Treasury to come back to me with an indication of to what extent the problems in the microbrewing industry are indeed tax-driven, because I think we need to sort that out.

I understand why no one wants to pay more taxes. At the same time, I felt at the time of the budget it was not an unfair change to make, but I do appreciate the member raising it.

Mrs Witmer: We have had an opportunity to dialogue with several of the microbreweries in this province and we are aware of the fact that at least one brewery did go bankrupt last year because of taxes. In fact half of the microbreweries did go bankrupt last year. As I have indicated, the remaining microbreweries are very sincere in their belief that the increased levels of taxation due to come into effect this month are also going to cause them to close their doors and lead to further job losses.

I believe the present reduced rate of taxation for microbreweries is a fair policy. It will help ensure the viability of the small-brewery business sector. I would like to ask the Treasurer if he would consider the permanent cancellation of the increases due to come into effect this month, at least until the matter can be reviewed by the government's Fair Tax Commission.

Hon Mr Laughren: I do not think this is a matter for the Fair Tax Commission to look at, quite frankly. Also, I would remind the member for Waterloo North that the microbreweries -- and I do not say this in any kind of satisfied way at all -- that went bankrupt in the past year went bankrupt with the lower tax regime. So it was not caused by going back to the regular level of taxation, which is one of the reasons I wanted to take a very careful look at the extent to which we believe or do not believe, whichever the case may be, the problems are caused by the level of taxation in the province.

I make a commitment to the member and to others in the assembly who come to me with this matter to take a very close look at that. I really do not want to give the impression that we are on the verge of changing the tax pledge in the budget but rather that we will take a careful look at it.

AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD PROCESSING INDUSTRIES

Mr Johnson: My question is for the Minister of Agriculture and Food. Recognizing that research is important to the continued viability of agriculture and food in Ontario, can the minister indicate what his ministry is doing to ensure research conducted is relevant to the agriculture community and the food industry?

Hon Mr Buchanan: Research in the agriculture and food industry is very important in order for it to continue to be viable and important in this province. The relevance is maintained through two different committees. There is the Ontario agricultural co-ordinating committee, which looks at all the needs and possibilities that come in to the ministry.

Through a number of subcommittees with representation from the agriculture community, the food industry and the research organizations around the province, they examine the needs and examine various proposals. Once they have determined what the needs are, they make recommendations to the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario, which again screens the needs and applications that come in and makes recommendations to my ministry so that we can fund the necessary research to maintain the ongoing viability of the industry in Ontario.

Mr Johnson: Can the minister indicate what support his ministry is providing towards agricultural and food industry research?

Hon Mr Buchanan: In terms of the dollars, we provide significant dollars for research in the agriculture and food industry in Ontario because it is the second most important industry in the province.

In fact, in May we announced a new $5-million program for the food processing industry. It will help the food processing industry, which has done research and development work, to expand its commercial production and help it to be competitive in this very competitive world we live in.

Further to that, we also provide $29 million to the University of Guelph through agreements we have between the ministry and the university to do research projects in the agriculture and food sector.

Finally, we also provide $15 million to the agricultural colleges to do research work, along with the Horticultural Research Institute of Ontario, which does research in the ag and food area.

I think these are significant amounts of dollars we are spending in an ongoing way to enhance the agriculture and food industry in Ontario.

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HOSPITAL SERVICES

Mr McClelland: My question is for the Minister of Health. On 13 December 1990, I asked her predecessor, the former minister, to reaffirm her ministry's commitment to the Chinguacousy Health Services Centre, which the minister will know is located in the riding of Brampton North. To date we have heard no specific mention of funding allocations for community-based health care organizations.

This is a very important project, not only for the people of Brampton North but indeed, as has been indicated by her ministry, one that could serve as a model for communities to follow right across the province and perhaps indeed across the country, and one that the former government had committed to see through to its timely completion.

It has been six months since I first put the question to the minister's predecessor. The response was, "We'll get back to you shortly and get back to officials at Chinguacousy." Will the minister today commit funding or indicate what she is going to do about funding and specifically allocate for this very important project so we can get on with it immediately? People have been waiting a very long time, as the minister knows. It is an extremely important project for the future of that community, and indeed for health care across the province. Is the minister prepared to commit today to fund this very important project?

Hon Ms Lankin: No, I am not prepared to commit today. I feel it is a difficult question to place in the House and to expect that kind of answer. I feel at a disadvantage because I do not know anything about this particular project; I will be honest with the member. I am sorry if he has raised that question with the former minister. It had not been brought to my attention. I will undertake to find out about it and inform the member early next week as to its status.

Mr McClelland: The minister will forgive me for being a little bit concerned. No personal anger is directed to her, but frustrated anger, quite frankly, that she is not aware of that, inasmuch as it has been said by her ministry officials that it is one of the most important projects in the province. If that is the case, I have to ask the question, why is the minister not aware of it? Her predecessor responded and said we would get a response and we have been waiting. Surely it was directed to her policy people. The people in Brampton have been waiting a long time. The population is projected to approach 400,000 people.

The minister made a commitment in a response to a question put by my colleague the critic for Health on 6 June. She said it is important that we build a consensus that community-based health care is important for the future of health care.

This is the project. It is important. This is the project that has been singled out as perhaps the most important, a 46-acre site waiting for development to provide an opportunity for her ministry to demonstrate what is possible, the leading edge of health care, and she is not aware of it.

I appreciate the fact that the minister will get back to me, and I am looking forward to that, but I can only stress that people are getting very frustrated and indeed angry about the lack of commitment and response from her government. There was a commitment from the former government to proceed.

The Speaker: And your question?

Mr McClelland: We have indicated it is important. Can the minister please do something to expedite this and get on with it? We have been waiting, with 46 acres sitting there. Can we get something very quickly, please?

Hon Ms Lankin: I did indicate to the member that I would get a response to him on the status of this early next week. I can understand the frustration he is expressing, given that he has raised this question in the House before, and I apologize for the fact that I am not aware of the project. I do not know if it is, as he indicates, the model project, the most important in the province. I am perplexed as to why I would not have been briefed on it myself, but quite frankly I cannot answer that question for the member.

We are certainly going through a process of looking right across the province in terms of the state of a number of projects that have been on the table for a long time and have had some indication of support. In general, let me say that his restatement to me of my commitment to community-based health care is well stated, and I will stand by that. I really am not in a position to be able to give him any more detail until I look into it, and I will do that.

RENT REGULATION

Mr Tilson: My question is to the Minister of Housing. As the minister knows, under Bill 4 many landlords were caught unfairly by his moratorium on capital expenditures. For example, take a landlord who applied for rent review under the Liberal legislation for rent increases due to necessary capital expenditures. This landlord would have received approval for those increases, borrowed the money from a bank to complete the work, and then he would have waited to hear from the Ministry of Housing about when he would be able to activate the increase.

In the meantime, the new NDP government changed the rules and imposed a moratorium on rent increases due to capital expenditures. Suddenly, the landlord who has borrowed the money and spent thousands of dollars on his building is out of work and faces bankruptcy.

In the House, throughout the hearings on Bill 4, the minister told us not to worry; Bill 4 was only temporary and the permanent legislation would provide relief for people who would be hurt by it. Why will the minister not honour that commitment to provide relief when he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that 3% will not meet this immediate need?

Hon Mr Cooke: The Conservative critic for Housing consistently raises questions in the House whereby he thinks the problems in the housing sector are going to be resolved by raising the price of housing to the consumers of this province. I do not believe that is going to solve the affordability problem at all. I think what we needed to do was to look for a fair rent control system that will work, will be responsive to the needs of landlords and tenants and will be fair. I think that is what we have done with the permanent legislation. It does address the capital needs of landlords in this province and it does offer real protection for tenants. Those were the goals, those were the principles that we followed and that is the bill we have delivered on.

Mr Tilson: That is not the question I asked. I am only trying to help the minister remove the tag he has on him as minister of slums. There is a way; he can resolve the issue of capital expenditures if he amends his legislation.

Under this legislation it is inevitable that some landlords will go bankrupt. I have heard from landlords who are on the verge of bankruptcy. The minister and I both know of at least one landlord who has already gone bankrupt as a result of Bill 4. It has been proven again and again that rent controls do not work. Presumably he and his colleagues have studied jurisdictions around the world and he knows they do not work. Buildings will close down and people will be forced to look for alternative housing. The minister knows this scenario will become a reality under Bill 121. What will he do with these empty buildings, and what will he do for the people who are put out in the streets?

Hon Mr Cooke: I simply say to the member that if he objectively looks at the initiatives this government has begun in the housing field, whether it is in rent control or whether it is in the supply of co-op and non-profit housing, there is only one conclusion he could come to, and that is that this government is not the government of slums; this is the government of affordable housing for the people of this province.

MOTION

REFERRAL OF BILL 25

Miss Martel moved that the order for third reading of Bill 25, An Act to amend the Planning Act, 1983 and the Land Titles Act, be discharged and the bill be referred to the committee of the whole House.

Motion agreed to.

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REPORT BY COMMITTEE

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON THE PARLIAMENTARY PRECINCT

Mr Duignan from the special committee on the parliamentary precinct presented a report on restoration proposals for the Parliament Building and moved the adoption of its recommendations.

Mr Duignan: At this time I would like to pay tribute to the other members of the committee, the member for London North, the member for Essex South, the member for Oxford, and you, Mr Speaker, as co-chair of the committee, for working in a very non-partisan way and coming up with a fine set of proposals and recommendations contained in the master plan.

The recommendations contained in the master plan will enable this building to be repaired and improved according to a vision collectively supported by all members in this place. I believe this is an historic and unique opportunity to plan for the future while preserving and respecting the rich history which has taken place within these surroundings.

On motion by Mr Duignan, the debate was adjourned.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

House in committee of the whole.

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT (MISCELLANEOUS) 1990

Resuming consideration of Bill 30, An Act to amend the Education Act.

Sections 5 to 7, inclusive, agreed to.

Section 8:

The Acting Chair (Mr Abel): Mrs Boyd moves that subsection 8(3) of the bill be struck out and the following substituted: "Section 4 shall be deemed to have come into force on 20 December 1990."

Hon Mrs Boyd: All of section 8 of this act governs the coming into force of the section. The first subsection deals with the items that are not related to the freedom-of-information section. All of those sectors would come into force on royal assent. The sections related to freedom of information retroactively come into force as of 1 January 1991, the date on which the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act came into force for the boards. The retroactive application is to legitimize the boards' collection practices for the purposes of the OSR, retroactive to the date the freedom-of-information act applying to them came into force and the date the OSR guideline came into force.

Subsection (3), the one with which the amendment deals, is dealing with the sharing ratio between public and separate boards of designated teachers' sick leave gratuities. That is covered under section 4 of this act. It was to have been retroactive to 1 January 1989, the reason being to accommodate boards that had already agreed between themselves to a sharing ratio different than the one in the act. Some of the agreements date back to 1989, and the boards are ready to pay out those gratuities. The retroactive application would legitimize their agreements.

The amendment by motion would make section 4 of the act retroactive to 20 December 1990, and the reason for that, as was the reason for the date change earlier by amendment, is that 20 December 1990 was the date that Bill 12 received royal assent.

Motion agreed to.

Section 8, as amended, agreed to.

Section 9 agreed to.

Bill, as amended, ordered to be reported.

PLANNING STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1991

Consideration of Bill 25, An Act to amend the Planning Act, 1983 and the Land Titles Act.

Mr Ferguson: This is but another fine example of this government's willingness to co-operate with both sides of the House. This bill should be subtitled "Co-operation not Confrontation," because this has been a fine example of co-operation between not only this member but the member for Grey, the member for Carleton, and the list goes on.

I would like to propose an amendment. It was the intention of this bill that it come into effect on 26 July 1990, and that is the key point behind the motion, which I understand has agreement from all sides of the House.

The First Deputy Chair: Mr Ferguson moves that subsection 49a(4) of the act, as set out in section 1 of the bill, reprinted as amended by the committee of the whole House, be amended by striking out "before the day on which this section comes into force" and substituting "after 26 July 1990 and before the Planning Statute Law Amendment Act, 1991 received royal assent."

Mr Ferguson: This subsection has been added to provide the Minister of Municipal Affairs with some discretionary authority to give effect to all or any part of a will proposing to subdivide land. As subsection (4) is now drafted, it would allow the minister to exercise this authority only for the wills of those people who died -- and here is the key part here -- before the day on which this section comes into force, that is, before 26 July 1990 and before the bill takes effect.

This of course is unnecessary and is not what any of us on either side of this House intended the bill to do. Rather the bill shall provide for the minister the ability to exercise this authority for the wills of those people who have died in the interim, that is, between 26 July 1990 and the time this bill receives royal assent. Accordingly, I have moved the same and I understand it has agreement from all three parties.

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Mr Sterling: This amendment was inserted in this act at our request and we appreciate the parliamentary assistant for the Minister of Housing making this change to reflect what was intended in this Legislature. We therefore support it wholeheartedly.

Mr B. Murdoch: I also would just like to echo that I appreciate the effort that went on with all parties to straighten this out. There was a bit of a problem at the start. We were concerned that some people might get caught in this act, that they might go for a will and get caught because legislation was going to be passed and retroactive. We certainly appreciate the work that went on with both sides and with the parliamentary assistant, the member for Kitchener, so this is happening now, and I support it.

Mr Bradley: I seek some clarification on this, having heard the two representatives of the third party speak on it. Our Municipal Affairs critic is unavoidably absent at a funeral today and cannot be here, so I am going to ask for clarification. Is this in fact casting a wider net or a narrower net? The interpretation I heard from the parliamentary assistant led me to believe it was a wider net, and what I have just heard from the members of the third party -- and I could be totally incorrect in this -- is that it narrows the net.

Mr Sterling: Since this was put in at my instigation, perhaps I can help the member for St Catharines. Really it narrows the net in some way, as the member has described, only in that if someone had passed away between 26 July 1990 and when this bill would receive royal assent, which would be today or some time in the very near future, and that person who had made his will prior to 26 July, he would have prejudiced himself because today if somebody is in that situation there is a valid severance, but the amendment which was put forward by the parliamentary assistant requires the municipality to pass a bylaw requesting the minister to okay what the will in fact has done during that period of time.

While it narrows the net, it also throws it back on the municipality and the minister to come to a combined decision that the whole idea of the will was not to avoid the Planning Act by setting up large subdivisions on the escarpment or anywhere else. It is somewhat of a sawoff as to what I sought and somewhat of a sawoff in terms of the minister trying to maintain the integrity of the Planning Act and avoiding this awful scheme that was dredged up by some people in Ontario to utilize death to avoid the Planning Act.

Motion agreed to.

Section 1, as amended, agreed to.

Sections 2 to 4, inclusive, agreed to.

Bill, as amended, ordered to be reported.

On motion by Miss Martel, the committee of the whole reported two bills with certain amendments.

TREASURY BOARD ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR LE CONSEIL DU TRÉSOR

Mr Laughren moved second reading of Bill 82, An Act to establish the Treasury Board.

M. Laughren propose la deuxième lecture du projet de loi 82, Loi créant le Conseil du Trésor.

Hon Mr Laughren: Bill 82 is an act to establish a Treasury Board in Ontario. Upon assuming office, the new government found that the budget, fiscal planning and expenditure management system in place was simply inadequate, particularly given the current economic and fiscal environment.

I would like to be specific. Responsibility for expenditure management and planning was fragmented and dispersed between the Ministry of Treasury and Economics and Management Board. That led to inefficiencies in budgeting and program management. No clear leadership was being brought to the expenditure management and planning functions of government. There was no effective mechanism for reviewing and evaluating existing programs and services to ensure that full value was being achieved for taxpayers' dollars. Financial and policy decision-making were not integrated well. Financial decisions were made in a longer-term framework. Often proposals would have minimum financial impact at startup but would be sizeable and significant in the longer run.

The new Treasury Board will have to deal with a major economic downturn, which is impacting severely on our revenues and our expenditures. The deterioration in economic conditions made it imperative that the provincial deficit be increased this year to fight the recession and to prepare the economy for recovery.

Moreover, it was also felt to be essential to reduce the deficit as the economy recovers. A three-year fiscal plan was presented in the 1991 budget to reduce the consolidated deficit -- by that I mean operating and capital deficit -- from $9.7 billion this year to $7.8 billion by 1994-95, and we have provided a commitment to eliminate our operating deficit entirely by 1997-98.

The medium-term fiscal plan presented in the budget provided for restraining expenditure growth from 13.4% this year to a range of between 6% and 7% in 1992-93 and thereafter. At the same time there will be continued expenditure pressures on government, including on our health care system due to the aging population, a continued need for welfare reform, rising public debt interest charges and a need to provide appropriate skills and job training, just to mention a few, all of which will need to be managed within the 6% to 7% rate of expenditure growth.

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It should be understood that this means average increases in most other areas will in fact be well below the 6% to 7% range. Within this context, it was clear that a fundamental reform was necessary if the new economic and fiscal realities were to be managed.

The bill before members seeks to establish the new Treasury Board to consolidate and assume all expenditure planning functions that currently fall under either the Management Board or the Ministry of Treasury and Economics. This will also involve the merger of the programs and estimates division of the Management Board secretariat and the fiscal planning policy branch of the Ministry of Treasury and Economics to streamline the expenditure management and fiscal planning activities of this government.

The government also faces the challenge of improving the way we deliver programs and services. We believe a stronger focus is needed on the operations of government. In this respect, Management Board will be reconstituted to provide a dedicated and strategic focus to the operations of government. I cannot think of a more dedicated, focused person than the present Chair of Management Board, who is beside me as I speak.

This is the enhanced role of Management Board: human resources and an enhanced employer role in the management of government and labour relations, information management, communications and technology, providing enhanced corporate policy, strategic direction and standard-setting, recognizing the critical importance of technology in improved service delivery and customer service, leadership in management practices and promoting increased management delegation of authority with a strengthened commitment to accountability.

The Chair of Management Board will be a key member of the new Treasury Board to ensure that these human perspectives are appropriately integrated with expenditure management.

As outlined in the act, some key roles and duties of the Treasury Board will include preparing and reviewing short- and long-term expenditures and expenditure commitments, directing and establishing policies for the preparation of estimates and supplementary estimates, controlling expenditures of public money within the amounts appropriated or otherwise provided by the Legislature and reviewing and evaluating new and existing programs of ministries.

It is important to emphasize that the Treasury Board will provide one of three focal points for the central strategic leadership and management of government. These focal points will be comprised of, first, the cabinet office and policy committees to direct policy, planning and development; second, the Management Board of Cabinet to lead the management of government operations; third, the new Treasury Board to oversee all financial and expenditure management and planning issues.

The new expenditure management and planning process that is to be implemented by the Treasury Board will serve to better integrate the policy and resource allocation decisions of government. The Treasury Board will also ensure a one-window approach for all financial management functions, which currently are dispersed and fragmented between Management Board and Treasury and Economics.

Similarly, the Treasury Board will act as a broader decision-making forum on the fiscal plan and framework that is currently determined primarily by the Treasurer. The new Treasury Board will also provide a much greater emphasis on multi-year planning and the review of base budgets and programs.

In conclusion, the new Treasury Board is a critical piece of the framework this government must put in place to effectively manage both its policy and fiscal agendas. It is also in keeping with this government's philosophy of meeting our social and economic priorities through effective fiscal management and a more open and democratic process. I look forward to the Premier's announcement of my other cabinet colleagues, besides the Chair of Management Board, who will be joining me in this challenge and serving on the Treasury Board.

Mr Bradley: I appreciate this opportunity. This has been a long-awaited bill in the Legislative Assembly even though, having watched the performance of this government in terms of fiscal management over the last nine months, I feel I would come to the conclusion that the problem is not whether it calls it Management Board or Treasury Board; the problem is that the people who occupy those positions are not sufficiently experienced or dedicated to the kind of efficiency that is necessary in government.

I have listened to the Treasurer go on at some length about the purpose of this. They have a Treasury Board federally. Frankly, despite his description of what the new duties and responsibilities will be -- the Treasurer will think I am cynical when I say this -- my guess is that the real reason for this is to cover up for the fact that they have done such a bad job of managing the expenditures of the government so far. For that reason, they thought they would set up a Treasury Board, calling it something different.

There is another theory some people would advance, that it is a move to strengthen the power of an individual within cabinet, that one person would have all the power within cabinet. I have speculated on many occasions that the Treasurer of this province will not necessarily be the member for Nickel Belt for ever, but the member for the eastern end of the city of Toronto who has risen to some prominence.

I saw a long article in the Toronto Star about her. They call that a puff piece that you get early on in your jurisdiction and your tenure as a minister. She will find that about four years from now they will not be quite so generous. But it is very nice when she is new to that responsibility that she should get that, and I do not begrudge that to the member for Riverdale

Hon Ms Lankin: Beaches-Woodbine.

Mr Bradley: Beaches-Woodbine. I knew it was one of those ridings where there was a long-time NDP member, a respected NDP member, and she is following in her footsteps to be an equally well-respected individual within the government caucus.

Hon Mr Laughren: Hear, hear, what a guy.

Mr Bradley: I am being uncommonly kind this afternoon. There were some hints of a good reason to be kind to the government, but I never see them come to fruition at any time.

Anyway, dealing with the specific bill that we have before us, there is certainly a need for some fiscal responsibility on the part of this government. I suspect, and I have said this in my budget speech and on other occasions, that what happened in the first crack at the job of government was that a bad job was done of evaluating each of the ministries.

I have said on many occasions as well in the House that I am not one who believes the government was not in a position to run a deficit in the midst of a recession, particularly a recession as deep as this. The quarrel is really over the size of the deficit. Now the Treasurer keeps talking about supply-side economics and accusing me of being a proponent of it simply because I do not want to see the Treasurer of this province tax people out of Ontario.

Wherever I go, whether it is in Azilda, Bismarck, St Catharines, or Beaches-Woodbine, the people say to me, "Our taxes are too high and we need a government that will evaluate expenditures very carefully and eliminate programs which are not necessary, and perhaps bring in new ones that are necessary."

The Treasurer calls that fine-tuning. Fine-tuning, of course, will be announced, I believe, next week in the House when the Treasurer announces the withdrawal or modification of his tax on auto workers that is so detrimental to the automotive industry in this province and does not solve any environmental problems.

This measure establishing a Treasury Board at least focuses some attention on the NDP government on the matter of fiscal responsibility. There are some new programs the government is bringing forward that merit the support of all members of this House and there is going to be a need for money for those programs.

The Chair of Management Board, who is here today, is also the Minister of Health. There is nobody who does not recognize that the costs of health care in this province are going to rise somewhat, particularly if all the necessary services are provided. If there is a new computerized axial tomography scanner, a second CAT scanner in the Niagara Peninsula, there may be some marginal increase in the costs, but there is a recognition that it is a needed and essential service.

If the Chair of Management Board and Minister of Health is going to have sufficient flexibility to introduce new programs or new facilities, then she is going to require a look at some of the other expenditures.

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We in the opposition will perhaps sometimes chastise when programs are removed. The Minister of Education has gone through this process. She has removed the Ontario scholarship awards in this particular year, and that was not an easy decision. I suspect she did not do that with a wave of the hand. I suspect there was a lot of discussion of that measure within cabinet. I am critical of it. I do not think it was a good move. Nevertheless, it is part of the process a government has to go through to weigh its priorities, and that is what I see the Treasury Board of cabinet doing.

Unfortunately, this year we have a $10-billion deficit. Next year, I see the Treasurer projects somewhere around $9 billion, and in the two years after somewhere around $8 billion. I would have thought, recognizing that we are in a difficult position economically at this time, in a recession, there was going to be a substantial increase in the deficit. I think to pretend otherwise would simply be overly partisan or unrealistic. I did not anticipate it would be $10 billion and I think that is exceedingly high for this province.

What I am even more concerned about is seeing the projected deficit next year and the year after and the year after, and the accumulated debt that brings to Ontario. We have in our gallery at the present time young people who are in the school system. I said at the time it would cost $5,000 for every man, woman and child in the province. A friend of mine corrected me and said: "Forget about every man and woman in the province. It is the children who will assume those costs." Part of those costs will be the interest payment on the debt.

I think the establishment of the Treasury Board, and the reason I will support this bill, will focus the attention of the government on government efficiency. I suspect what happened in this exercise, because the government had just come off the election campaign trail, was that all the ministers went to the Chair of Management Board, who is a generous person and an understanding person on many of the programs that people have put forward. I sat on the Management Board of Cabinet for years and if you are not unpopular with your colleagues, you are probably not doing an appropriate job. That comes with time. The first year you are more popular and in the years after that you get less popular. You certainly are not allowed to smile if anybody makes a presentation to the Management Board of Cabinet.

First, what is really required each year is a careful assessment of the programs. There are a lot of existing programs in government today about which you wonder why they continue to exist other than that they have been there for ever. It is very difficult to remove them, because if you remove them the opposition will be up to say, "You should not remove it because it is an essential service." You will have another situation where some members of the public with a vested interest will say: "You can't remove that program. Remove something else." It is a difficult exercise to go through. Nevertheless, it is necessary.

Second, in times when you are in a pinch for money, you have to make sure you do not necessarily introduce new programs that do not have to be introduced in that fiscal year. That is what Management Board was supposed to have been doing and that is what Treasury Board no doubt will be doing as one of its responsibilities outlined by the Treasurer.

The third thing is implementing programs in stages. Very often the minister who is proposing a program and the advocacy groups that are supporting it would like to see full implementation of the program in one fiscal year. Very often it is wiser to implement the program over a number of years so that the fiscal impact, the financial impact, is not so great. The other advantage of this is that the government then has an opportunity to see whether that program is going to bankrupt the government and whether it was ill-conceived in the first place, as I have described the tax on auto workers. We have to make sure that those programs, when implemented, are done in appropriate stages.

What they have to look at as well is the long-term implication of programs. The Treasurer mentioned it in his initial remarks and I think it is important. I wish he and his colleagues had done it this time. They have not. I am not necessarily predicting they are going to do it in the future, but at least they will have a mechanism to do it.

Again, various ministers bring forward a program. It may have been on the agenda for power that the NDP had during the election campaign. They may have a number of ministers say: "Look, we made this promise and it is an important promise. It is a good program." But the Chairman of Treasury Board, as I presume the person will be called in this case, will have to look at the financial implications of all those programs.

The Treasurer, now nine months into office, is no doubt becoming more unpopular with his colleagues because he is the person who begins to understand the financial implications of what they are proposing. I do not imagine there are too many of his colleagues coming to him saying, "Would you please spend less money in my riding, or would you please spend less money on this program or that?"

Interjection.

Mr Bradley: That is a definite change. The Treasury Board will have to look at those long-term implications. The Minister of Health is wrestling with the problem of long-term health care. It is a good move to move into long-term health care. In going into it, she has found it is not without its costs and that some of the initial start-up costs and some of the initial operating costs could be great in the long term. She has to weigh that against some of the other immediate pressures.

I can recall taking into account strikes that took place, for instance. If the public health nurses went on strike, they did not have the clout that others had to deal with these particular situations. There were not any people standing up clamouring to have the public health nurses back because they provided a different kind of service, some diagnostic health care, but largely preventive health care. I tell members that if people in the acute care sector say they are going to withdraw their services, the government moves quickly and there is a good deal of pressure on the minister, some of it brought by those of us in opposition, to increase expenditures for hospital purposes. She has to do this at the same time she is doing it for long-term health care, so we have to look at the long-term implications.

The other thing I hope would happen, and the Treasurer alluded a bit to this, is some co-ordination of expenditures and activities between ministries. I get the impression, and I have had it for some time, that there is some rivalry between ministries. The Ministry of Community and Social Services and the Ministry of Health have mandates that overlap from time to time. While some good efforts have been made to co-ordinate their activities, delineate their responsibilities and effect efficiencies while providing good service, I am convinced that still is not where it might be, that there is not that separation of responsibilities when necessary nor the kind of co-ordination and co-operation that is necessary. I hope the establishment of the Treasury Board will provide that.

But the establishment of this particular segment of government in itself will not solve the problems. It is a mechanism. It allows the Treasurer, the Chair of Management Board and whoever assumes this position of Chair of Treasury Board to be able to do what those of us in opposition have advocated and what some in government perhaps are advocating, certainly what those in the public are advocating, and that is to bring about efficiencies in government. Right now the expenditures of this government are out of control. I thought that at budget time the Treasurer simply went through the combination, opened the vault and every paw from every one of the ministers came in to grab a segment of money out of there. The money obviously was spilling on the floor as they were heading out and the expenditures grew over 13% to $52 billion.

I could be wrong in this, but I suspect the Treasurer may want to look this up some time and confirm or deny for me that the expenditure for the province of Ontario is about fourth in North America in size of budget; it would be the US federal government, the Canadian federal government, the state of California and I would suspect we may be fourth largest in our budgetary expenditure.

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One of the reasons is health care. That is a very good reason for our expenditure level being where it is, remembering that the state government has not nearly the health care bill we have here. I was looking at figures one day and saw that the actual health care component of our budget was higher than many state budgets, and that is because Canadians and the people in Ontario have indicated a desire to see expenditures in the field of health.

I indicated early on that I would not be speaking extensively on this particular bill. If it ever goes to committee, there will be an opportunity to discuss it further, or later on in other debates that take place, even if it is not a debate on this bill.

I think it is essential that there be an establishment of this kind of component. It really boils down to the will, the ability and the desire of the government to be efficient more than any mechanism. But if the establishment of this ministry or of this component of government will assist those who have the responsibilities of office today in focusing on that particular issue and doing that job better, then I do not think it would be very responsible of those of us in opposition to be opposing that effort and the establishment of Treasury Board. I simply hope that with the establishment of Treasury Board we bring about the kinds of efficiencies in government which will allow generous expenditures in the areas that are a high priority and very much needed by our population, and an elimination or limiting of those expenditures that are not essential to provide service to people in this province.

Hon Ms Lankin: I will respond as the Chair of Management Board. In general, I have to say I agree with much of what the member spoke to with respect to the need for vigilant review of expenditures on programs. We are no longer in a situation where we can look at new programs just as add-ons on top of what is there. There has to be a comprehensive program review and that is exactly what we are moving into.

There are two things I particularly want to touch on; first, the rather gratuitous comments about the process that went on this year at Management Board. I need to say there was a significant review of programs in the very first few months of government and getting to know ministries. We cannot ignore the fact that through that process $700 million was cut out of budgets. That is the largest amount of money ever found in any kind of program review in the history of the Ontario government. I think that is important, although I know the member often makes comments and has criticisms with respect to some of those areas of cuts we have undertaken. I understand these things are not always popular, but they are important.

Second, I could not agree more with his comments about the health care system in terms of the spiralling costs and our need to manage them. Those are exactly the kinds of measures we are putting in place.

Last, I just want to make a brief response with respect to the sole focus of his comments, the efficiency and management of our finances and the fiscal responsibility. The other equally important part of this is that there has not ever been a government that has spent the time, resources and energy in looking at human resources, information technology and the other important issues that need to be done that were buried beneath the expenditure control function of Management Board. I see that issue within the new or reformed Management Board as equally important to the creation of the Treasury Board.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve): The honourable member for Parkdale is not in his seat. Will you please resume your seat.

Mr Ruprecht: You have of course seen this immediately and I really appreciate that.

As our colleagues have indicated earlier, we are delighted that the Management Board will be reconstituted to provide for strategic focus and enhance corporate policy, but I expect that the new Chairman of Management Board or Treasury Board will not be chairing over the deindustrialization of Ontario. I think that should also be part and parcel of the focus of this new policy of Treasury Board. The question necessarily remains, what is the chairman going to do about stopping the haemorrhaging and bankruptcies and moving corporations south of Ontario, either to the United States or Mexico? They will need every aspect of thinking from Mr Laxer and other people who already have indicated the problem very specifically, namely that the deindustrialization of Ontario has to stop.

I think that chairman has to ask himself or herself later, what incentives will they produce? I know it is great that we want to introduce greater efficiency into the Treasury Board. However, the question still remains: What incentives will they produce? Will they reduce taxes on gas? Will they reduce income taxes? What will they do? Talking about efficiency, I hope they will also introduce some policies that they will address themselves directly to the kinds of issues that are essential in maintaining the jobs and the corporations in this province.

Mr Sutherland: I just wanted to make a couple of comments in response to what the member for St Catharines said. I too agree with most of what he said. I thought a couple of other comments were a little gratuitous, as the Chair of Management Board said. That was his comment about indicating that cabinet members were not dedicated in their attempt to control expenditures. Knowing fellow cabinet members, I would disagree with him on that.

He also made the claim that expenditures are out of control. I disagree with him on that unequivocally. I think there is a sense to control expenditures.

The member for St Catharines was in the House yesterday when his colleague the member for Renfrew North gave a very eloquent dissertation about the state of the economy and government deficits, indicating that no Treasurer would be able to get away with a deficit less than $7 billion, be it the member for Brant-Haldimand or any other Treasurer. The comments of the member for Renfrew North about funding issues and taxation issues were very well received and were good commentary.

I find it interesting that today, after hearing that, the member for St Catharines indicated that spending is out of control when we are in the worst recession since the 1930s. We have not seen a recession have such a severe impact on the people of Ontario since that time. There is no doubt that it requires a very significant response.

Overall, I think the idea of the Treasury Board is a good one. There is no doubt that as a government you have to make priorities and you have to make the tough decisions. Usually it is choosing between the lesser of two evils. I believe this Treasury Board will allow that to occur effectively.

Mr Phillips: I would like to commend the member for St Catharines for his thoughtful remarks and just say how much I agree with the comment he made to the Treasurer about the need to control expenditures. I think all of us acknowledge this is a tough year and that there needs to be a deficit. But looking ahead for the next seven years in the Treasurer's budget, the deficit never falls below $7 billion. The good times are coming, as the Treasurer says in his budget, but even in the good times the deficit never falls below $7 billion.

The debt will go from about $40 billion, when this government came in, to about $100 billion in 1997-98, an astonishing number. This is a point that I think the Ontario community is looking at. Yes, we can accept the need to have a significant deficit this year, but is it realistic to have deficits never falling below $7 billion year after year? That is what is of concern to the people of Ontario.

I make another point to the Chair of Management Board, who is also the Minister of Health. The Minister of Health will know that I think it is a mistake to have one minister responsible for both of those things, as competent as she is, and there is no question of that. I sent a letter to the Premier saying it is just not right for the Ministry of Health to have a part-time minister.

I say to the minister and the Treasurer that the cornerstone of restraint the Treasurer mentioned this morning was the new agreement with the Ontario Medical Association. I repeat for him that he has no control over that. The $5 billion will be determined not by the Treasurer but by an independent arbitrator. I just want to make certain we remind ourselves of that because in two or three years from now that is who will be the Treasurer's assistant.

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The Acting Speaker: The member for St Catharines has two minutes rebuttal time.

Mr Bradley: Thank you very much for the opportunity to do so. First of all, I want to say one of the reasons the government will have to exercise the kind of fiscal responsibility it has not this year -- and I anticipate it really did not intend to next year -- is because the Treasurer is not going to have an option, which has been available to other treasurers in years gone by. With the mood of the public right now, the Treasurer will not be able to easily increase taxes. In years gone by that was sustained. The public complained, but in the long run accepted tax increases. This Treasurer in the next few years is not going to have that luxury. That is why it is important the Treasury Board do its job appropriately.

Second, they are also under the handicap of having no business experience on that side of the House. I am not from the business community either --

Interjection.

Mr Bradley: It makes a big difference. This is interesting because they all moan. The teacher, the member for Middlesex, says, "You people, all you worry about is that." I am going to tell the members of this House that business experience is lacking. I hope they are able to elicit it from other sources because they do not have it. I do not have business experience either, but many of my colleagues do.

Last, I want to say something the Treasurer is well aware of in this province, he is going to find expenditures dictated by courts and tribunals he will have to meet. This is what the government will be faced with. He is going to be blamed, the Chairman of Management Board of Cabinet is going to be blamed and the Chair of the new Treasury Board. Courts and tribunals will be dictating to this government how it is going to spend its money. That is why it is so important this job be carried out appropriately with the new ministry.

Mr Stockwell: I am reminded about the comments of the now Premier, then Leader of the Opposition, when it came to conflict-of-interest guidelines, that it does not make any difference how the guidelines are if no one is willing to enforce them. The question that comes to mind is that, similarly, it does not make any difference how tough the Treasury Board is on paper, if no one is willing to make it stick then they will not make any tough decisions on spending. That is really what it comes down to.

It is not a question of which board the government and the members across the House set up, how many boards they have or how many people sit on those boards or commissions, it is a question of whether they are prepared to make the tough decisions that need to be made to reduce costs and spending.

The suggestion has been made by the members opposite that spending was not out of control and the budget was basically somehow being managed properly, I beg to differ. I think spending is out of control. Anyone in today's economy would probably say a 13.4% increase in spending is excessive. If the medium-term fiscal plan is any indication, the Treasury Board is not going to be very successful at controlling spending in its first few years because by 1994-95, the government will be spending nearly $65 billion. That is a few short years away. It is projected they will spend $65 billion and the deficit will be reduced, if you can call it that, to $7.8 billion.

Their suggestion today is that by striking a Treasury Board, they can fine-tune the spending. I think the Treasurer's comments were "fine-tuning." That is a favourite word of the Treasurer. In my opinion, fine-tuning is not necessary; some hard, tough decision-making is necessary. Whether they call it the Treasury Board or the Management Board, I would be perfectly happy for whoever makes those kinds of tough decisions to make them.

As I said before, it must be a little bit philosophical. I do not disagree with my friend from the Liberal Party who just spoke. There is some benefit to having some business background in making these decisions. I am not saying they all have to be business people or involved in the business community. Certainly we can have some union representation, some teachers, as he pointed out, and others involved in making decisions. But to simply suggest these decisions can be made exclusive from any business background, I think, is folly.

It seems to me that by setting up a Treasury Board or a Management Board without a single representative with some kind of business background on exactly what it takes to own and operate a business, or in fact work and operate a business from a management point of view, is folly.

The suggestion is that you consult and work together. I also agree with that. When you make decisions you consult with all parties, you take decisions and recommendations and you incorporate them in that. My only complaint is that there is no business person being put on this board who can give a different perspective. I am not saying it is the only perspective, but clearly it is a perspective that needs to be outlined.

The business community is not very pleased with this government, this budget, or the attitude this government has taken to spending. That is what the business community has said on an ongoing basis. I think it would be sensible if this government listened to some of those things. It says it wants to consult and listen. A common theme runs through the comments about this budget: it is not very responsible.

The government has before it a number of options for controlling its expenditures, and I think these are tough decisions: wage caps for the broader public sector, programming freezes, a freeze on direct operating expenditures, some of which have been debated in this House during this morning's debate. There is no indication the Treasury Board is going to be able to do the slightest thing to change this government's philosophy of trying to spend ourselves rich. It just does not work. You cannot spend your way to prosperity. That is where I think the business decisions need to be made with some background in the business world. As I said before, it does not have to be completely backgrounded by the business community, but clearly some would be nice, it would be useful.

I tend to be cynical when it comes to government boards and commissions that are set up. I find most government boards and commissions that have been struck to be --

Mr Owens: Like the CNE board.

Mr Stockwell: Yes, as a matter of fact, it does. So I guess the member struck out on that one.

I find most boards and commissions tend to waste a tremendous amount of taxpayers' money and accomplish very little. I can point to a number of occasions where we have struck committees, commissions and task forces, and we have reports this high and never is a decision made. Municipally, it works the same way; it is avoidance. In fact, it is avoidance from making a decision.

I also hark back to the throne speech of this government in which there was a tremendous amount of window dressing. The window dressing I have seen -- they call them puff pieces in the paper; I tend to call the window dressing fluff -- the fluff we have seen this government come out with seems to relate back to this kind of thing: we will organize a Treasury Board that will show we are interested in holding the line, interested in fine-tuning the costs or interested in saving money. They are really not interested in that at all. If they were interested in that, they never would have let the government go on a spending spree the likes of which we have never seen before.

We are going to accumulate $35 billion in debt in the next four years under the socialists. I suggest it is going to be considerably more than $35 billion. We are looking at $8 billion in new taxes. This government talks about a $5-million saving here and a $4-million saving there. It is a spit in the ocean, with all due respect to the government. If this is the kind of fine-tuning this government is talking about, it is simply wasting a lot of taxpayers' money and time, and creating the image that it is trying to fine-tune and make the government more efficient.

Some of the puff or fluff this government has gone through -- and this is another example: standing committee on government agencies reviewing the appointments of this government. It is another bit of window dressing this government does to pretend it has a holier-than-thou attitude than previous governments. It is so farcical because all it has done -- and this ranks right up there with the Treasury Board -- is to refer the cabinet appointments, in council as it calls them, to a committee made up of a majority of the members of the government. That committee then recommends who they would like to interview. They can interview only one person, recommended by the government to fill the position, which generally, but not always, looks like they favour the policies of the socialist government. I am not saying that is wrong, I think that is right. If you are going to make appointments and you are elected, then make the appointments. The puff package comes in where it strikes this standing committee on government agencies, refers it there and then says it has duly gone through the process, been vetted and approved, when all that has happened is -- and even the member for St Catharines can attest to this, never yet has a government member on that standing committee on government agencies voted against any recommendation the cabinet has made. It is pure puff; it is window dressing. It is laughable. Now they --

Hon Mr Laughren: Would you abolish the process?

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Mr Stockwell: I would abolish the process in a second, Mr Treasurer; it is a colossal waste of taxpayers' money. They go back to their communities and say: "We're holier than the Liberals and we're holier than the Conservatives. Our appointments aren't patronage because they go through an impartial, unbiased committee process."

Mr Hope: You finally see that now.

Mr Stockwell: Please stop. I said that before the government even started the committee. I said that is how it was going to operate. The government is wasting taxpayers' money. It is insulting to the taxpayers and it is insulting to me and this party. I believe it is probably insulting to the Liberal Party. Please stop it. If the government is going to make its appointments, make them, and stand up and defend them, but do not put it through this bit of fluff and pretend it is honest and sincere and these are not really patronage appointments.

Another fluff point they made -- and I classify this Treasury Board announcement or the Treasury Board Act as another piece of fluff -- is the Fair Tax Commission. This government got elected making promises on the tax system, promises that were impossible to fulfil, that in no way could be accomplished. So what did the government do? Rather than go ahead and do them, which it stated it would do in its agenda for power, agenda for landfill or whatever you want to call it, it struck a commission which it never mentioned once during the election, never once in the past 35 or 50 years it has been sitting in here. All it talked about was a corporate minimum tax, making the rich pay because they were not paying, the poor people getting ripped off, etc. It always spoke that way. When it had its opportunity to introduce it, it did not, it struck a commission it had never spoken about before in its life until it got into this House -- another piece of fluff.

The real laugh of all is that this commission was supposed to report back for the first time in six months, in 12 months, 18 months, then 24 months, and now it is not reporting back for three years. So all those promises the government made to the people of this province on taxes, which was really a foundation for it to be elected because I think people honestly felt they were being ripped off with their taxes, it will not even be able to implement until probably its last year and it will not get them fully implemented then. Its campaign rhetoric, I know, will be, "Vote us back in so we can implement the promises we made four years ago."

I have said all along the socialists got elected on Agenda for People. I dare them to implement Agenda for People. I challenge them to implement it. They do not have the intestinal fortitude to do it, they do not have the guts, because it is a hopeless document. It was a hopeless document thought up in a frenzy one weekend and written down by people who had no idea they were going to win the election.

Now we are coming to those three pieces of fluff: the Agenda for People, the standing committee on government agencies' review of government appointments and the Fair Tax Commission. What do we get to now? We get to a government which has been absolutely harpooned on its budget, its 13.4% increase, its $9.7-billion deficit, its $35-billion debt and its $8-billion increase in taxes in the next four years. It has been harpooned on this from all angles.

The Treasurer had the audacity this morning to suggest that business supported his budget and his programs. With all due respect to the Treasurer, that is a laugh. Business does not support his programs or his budget. Maybe it is important that we do go out on this committee to tour the province so they can be very clear and tell the Treasurer they do not support this kind of budgeting and they do not think it is a good idea. If the Treasurer really believes business supports his budget, he is sadly mistaken. That is not a question on whether it is a good budget. a bad budget, or a supportable budget. That is simply on stating this particular bit of information for him. Business does not support his budget. They think it is a bad budget and they think it is driving the business community out of this province and driving a wedge between him and the government.

Having said that, I will be very curious to go out on tour this summer with some of my friends opposite so they can hear directly from the people. Those people in the ridings across this province, probably some held by the members opposite, will be very clear, if they are business people or are involved in any kind of business where taxes have hit them and deficits are hard to accept, that they do not support it. Then when we get back into the House the next session, maybe the Treasurer can withdraw that statement, because, en masse, business does not support this budget.

Hon Mr Hampton: That is all that matters, eh, business?

Mr Stockwell: No, I never said that. I say to the Attorney General that is a rather unfair analysis of what I have said, and if he had been here during the whole period of time he would have seen that I said "one sector within the government," so maybe if he had sat here and heard it he would not have made that kind of silly statement.

I would like to make a couple of more points. The other argument put forward by this government is that there needs to be some human resource management. I will go on record as saying that whoever gets this responsibility -- apparently it is Management Board -- for human resource management, it is going to cost the taxpayers of this province a considerable sum of money. The savings they will accrue through the Treasury Board enactment, the savings they will accrue through making that board a going concern, they will easily spend, if not spend more, on human resource management. I know the socialists and I know how they like to spend on certain programs, and they love to give you all the rhetoric and they get into groups and they have group hugs and talk about all this resource management and the computer management and exactly how much money they are going to save you, when all that ever happens is they spend. They spend and spend and spend, with the thought that some day they will save some money. With all due respect, those savings never accrue and it costs a considerable sum of money to staff and pay for the program initiatives that are sponsored through programs such as human resource management.

Mr Speaker, I guess you were shocked at how fair and evenhanded I was in commenting on the Treasury Board Act, but after spending a number of years in local council and dealing with these kinds of issues, I always believed the system in place at the time was probably an efficient, effective system and anyone who wanted to expand that system was simply expanding it to cover up for shortcomings. If they were spending more money on staffing, which they would have to do, they would get back reports and ideas that they easily could have done through the old process, and what we are going to find here is something that will be very clear. In the next couple of years they are still going to spend $65 billion. In 1993-94 they are going to still have $35 billion in debt; I guarantee it, and it will probably be more. We are still going to see $8 billion in new taxes. We are going to see percentage increases in the double digits for the next three or four years.

The Treasury Board will be a dismal failure because of one simple reason. It matters not how many boards and committees you have. It matters not how you set them up. It matters not how they report. You must have a philosophical approach, when you are looking for cost reductions, to find cost reductions, and if you are not prepared to find them, you will not make them, and I will say categorically, the socialists in the province of Ontario are not prepared to make serious reductions in spending because they cannot help themselves. It makes them survive. They cannot stop spending.

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Mr Bisson: I, too, would like to be fair in this debate, the same as our counterpart the member for Etobicoke West. Just a couple of very quick points. One point was the question on the Fair Tax Commission. If he had taken time to at least peruse the budget he would have found out that indeed we did come through in some of the things that we talked about in the Agenda for People and what the Fair Tax Commission is set up for. If he would have read, the member would have noticed that people with incomes of over $80,000 per year had a tax increase in order for them to take up some of their responsibility, and those below some $24,000 are not paying any tax whatsoever to the province of Ontario. The whole question of the Fair Tax Commission is something that is ongoing and recommendations are coming forward over the three-year period and they will be implemented as we go along.

I then point back to the taxation system. I would tend to agree 100% with the point that we do have a regressive tax system, but I would point out to people that it was not New Democrats who put in place this tax system. I do remember 44 years of Conservative government and other governments in place that were not ours that put this tax system in place. We do intend to address that over the next four, eight, 12 years, whatever, by the grace of the voter.

The other thing is, I would point to the deficit. The question of the deficit the member is totally aware of. I did a little bit of quick mathematics and found out that the federal government has increased the federal deficit by an amount equal to our provincial government's total budget per year. Some $50 billion per year has been added over a period of seven years at the federal scene. This is by people, yes, who are from the business sector. It is not to say that the business sector does not have something to add to this government or any government, but surely it does not have all of the answers. I look back at our federal counterparts, who are primarily people from the business sector, who gave us such things as the dismantling of FIRA, the free trade agreement and all kinds of wonderful legislation that has put this province in the mess that it is.

He talks about group hugs. Yes, we do want to consult with the people out there, including the business sector, and it is not group hugs; it is working to be able to make a better Ontario.

Mr Cordiano: My colleague made some previous remarks with respect to efficiency and effectiveness of government spending. Obviously I would agree with him that efficiency and effectiveness are probably the most important priorities when we are considering government expenditures, but, my God, we have not seen efficiency and effectiveness in the last little while in this province and certainly we can say that right across the country.

At the national level we have not seen the efficiency, the effectiveness and most of all we have not seen productivity gains. Productivity gains should be the priority of this government's spending. The government cannot accomplish that without directing the kind of spending that it brought about in this budget to increases in the industrial sector and we are not going to see that with the kind of spending it is bringing about. We are not going to see jobs created, because there is no innovation in the kind of spending it has brought about. There is no meaningful innovation in the areas we are talking about for job creation on a daily basis, on which we have criticized this government. There is nothing there. It is just, "Hand out the money, write the cheques, here's a handout," instead of a paycheque.

Obviously that is not going to work. That has not worked over the years and we have come to the point in modern civilization, in modern economies, where productivity gains directly equate with a high standard of living. We see this around the world. The members opposite have not got the message yet. The message is quite clear. If the government does not bring about productivity gains, if it does not spend that money effectively retraining our workers and making the most highly skilled workers in the world -- quite frankly, we are not too far from that, but the government has not done anything along those lines -- I see the Treasurer coming in -- that is the one quarrel I have with his spending.

Mr Hayes: I really did not plan on getting into the discussion this evening, but I think I would really be remiss if I did not clear up a few comments from the member for Etobicoke West. He made comments about the standing committee on government agencies and on appointments and it is quite interesting how that member and some of his colleagues sat in there and went through the process and it was fine and dandy as long as we were appointing members from his party. We had one of the members come in for review and I thought it was really a disgrace how that member for Etobicoke West sat and put his back to the person we were interviewing and read a magazine. I have never seen anything so rude in all my life.

The members from that party over there complain about not having enough members on the committee and yet they only show up when they feel like it. There are several times in that committee when we sat in there without a member from his party even being there. The process is a lot better than it was before, because the two previous parties --

Mr Stockwell: The guy right in front of you is reading a magazine. Look who is calling the kettle black. Get a grip and sit down, you jerk.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member will have his chance to rebut. Order, please.

Mr Bisson: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I would just like to point out to the House some of the language that was utilized by the member for Etobicoke West across the floor here.

The Acting Speaker: I did not hear any offensive language. I am sorry, it is not a point of order.

Mr Bisson: I would put forward, Mr Speaker, that you review Hansard.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you.

Mr Hayes: The member can call me a jerk all he wants. If that is what I get called for speaking the truth, he can go ahead and do it. I wanted to wrap up very quickly here. That process we have now of appointing people is public, everybody sees it, and it is unlike before when maybe the Premier used to appoint people in the previous governments and the members from their own caucus did not even know about it.

Mr Ruprecht: I think the member for Etobicoke West should probably explain to the House a bit more what he meant when he said that the business community is not happy with the Treasurer, with the government, and probably with the new establishment of the Treasury Board. I wish he would expand on that.

I will throw out a serious challenge today to the Treasurer, who I have always thought was highly reasonable, and I know that he will take that point of view into account. The promise has been made, very directly, not only to the business community but almost to everybody, that this government and this Treasurer would consult. We hear, though, from group after group, from community after community, that consultation has not proceeded. In fact, we have heard that some groups or communities cannot even get to talk to some of the ministers. The Treasurer is probably a bit more open than some of his other colleagues, but nevertheless the challenge has to be that if you want to come up with an adequate policy, you have to consult and listen to the community and not engage in a policy that makes you frozen into inaction in terms of the communities that are engaged in wealth creation for this province.

The Acting Speaker: We have had our maximum participation in questions and comments. The honourable member for Etobicoke West for two minutes to rebut.

Mr Stockwell: I will deal first with the comments about implementing the tax policies and promises that this government made in the Agenda for People. Let's just examine some of the promises this government made. I happen to have a copy of the Agenda for People. It has been scratched out and said "Agenda for Power," then it was scratched out and said "Agenda for Landfill."

Minimum corporate tax: I did not see a thing about that. Funny, though, this government made that promise. Succession duties on estates of the rich and the super-rich: Gosh, I did not see that in the budget. It is kind of interesting. That is one for the government; two for me. Speculation tax: right up there on hit parade. This government was going to introduce a new speculation tax: 75% if you sold within three years, 50% in four years, 25% -- you did not see that in the budget. "The New Democrats propose raising the provincial share of education costs to 60% over five years." This government did not do that either.

One small recommendation this government made in the Agenda for People it implemented, but the five or six major promises it made it has not implemented, nor does it have any option to implement. So the suggestion that this government has implemented some of the tax requests it had in its Agenda for People is laughable. The member for Cochrane South should maybe pick this up in the near future and read it, because he has obviously forgotten what he wrote.

As far as the member for Essex-Kent suggesting that during a committee meeting I was reading a magazine with my back apparently to the deputant, I apologize for having my back turned, but with all due respect, I was probably reading about the accolades that were poured on the Treasurer during his recent budget announcement. I am not sure what it could possibly have been, but I am certain it was a worthy document. With all due respect, if the member had just looked down one aisle while I was speaking and others in this House were speaking, one of his very own members was reading a magazine the entire time. People in glass houses should not throw stones.

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Mr Sola: I just want to take a few minutes to put down a few of my ideas. The Treasurer has always been noted as a person of good humour and as a likeable guy, and I think this bill is just an indication that he wanted to have some fun with this House, because all he is doing is playing a game of ping-pong with a change of name. It used to be Treasury Board, it became Management Board, now it is going back to Treasury Board. When we take a look at the explanations for every change of name, it was always for the same reasons, efficiency in government and to allocate resources more effectively.

If the remarks of the current Management Board Chairman were accurate about how well that department functioned during the recent allocations of the moneys for the budget, there would not have been any need for a change in name. I am just wondering, there must have been something that was untoward in her Management Board decision-making process and that is why the Treasurer has to change it.

I would like to just pose a few questions. First of all, did the Chairman of Management Board complain of overwork or of too much responsibility? Why else would the Treasurer change the name and take the responsibility away from her?

Second, did the Treasurer lose a tug of war with the Chairman of Management Board? Because it seems to me that, in the allocations in the last budget and in the negotiations with government employees, the Chairman of Management Board won out in favour of the employees. Certainly a 6% or 5.8% increase in this time of recession is a little bit extravagant, I think we would all agree.

Third, will the Treasurer disband Management Board now that he has got Treasury Board? Otherwise what is the use of having a Management Board that will be performing exactly the same functions as a new Treasury Board? If not, the Chairman of Management Board will simply be getting her old job back, that being the job she had before she was elected when she was the chief negotiator for OPSEU, because if she is not responsible for the financial allocation of moneys, she is simply there as an advocate for OPSEU. Since nobody else has a place on Treasury Board as an advocate, I do not think OPSEU should have.

I think Bill 82 is nothing more than a lot of rhetoric to allow the Treasurer to staff the board with people who are more in tune with his dogmatic approach to the monetary woes of this province. He probably had a little bit too much flak from the present setup at Management Board and figured he needed a few more yes people in his board, and therefore along comes Bill 82, away goes Management Board, in comes Treasury Board.

The only thing is, I hope that with the change of name there will be a change in attitude and a change in budget so that the projected $35 billion over the next four years will be substantially less because, although politically it is favourable to us and the people on this side of the House, it would be a disaster for the province, for the people in this province. We hope he gets his act straightened out, turn the economy around and get things going.

Hon Mr Laughren: I do appreciate the contribution made by all members. They may find this hard to believe, but I enjoyed the debate.

I think members should understand that we are serious about attempting to get a handle on the control of expenditures in government. We know we cannot continue to have expenditures increasing at the rate they did this year. We are very much aware of that. We are very much aware that our very credibility depends on it, and second, that the province cannot afford those kinds of expenditure increases in the next few years.

I think most members were fair in the sense that they understand that we do need to get control of the expenditures. There is some scepticism, I think partly because of the 13% increase this year, that we are serious about it, but I can tell them that we all have more to do with our time than set up another board or commission on which we have to sit just for window dressing purposes. That is not the case at all.

The present Chairman of Management Board explained it very well when she responded to the member for St Catharines. She indicated there were pieces missing in the old system and that we really do want to get a handle not just on the multi-year planning but also on expenditure management, looking at entire programs. We are very serious about that.

I agree with what the member for St Catharines said when he said that a lot of our expenditures in the next few years will be driven by courts and tribunals, rulings that are made to which we must adhere. We must obey them. That is a concern to governments at all levels, I suspect. So I do not dismiss his concern there at all. I found his comments helpful and positive.

I have difficulty responding to the comments of the member for Etobicoke West because they were, quite frankly, phoney. They were laced with half-truths, if not untruths. He obviously does not know who is going to be on Treasury Board. That has not been announced, so how could he know that there is no one on Treasury Board with any business experience? As a matter of fact I, who will chair the Treasury Board, have had six years of business experience in the retail sector. I have a business diploma from Ryerson, on top of other things, and I have my business experience at which I worked very hard.

Mr Bradley: Selling encyclopaedias.

Hon Mr Laughren: No, it was in the retail sector.

For the member for Etobicoke West to stand in his place and pretend, state publicly, that nobody on the Treasury Board will have any business experience is at best a half-truth. It is not even that. I do not want to get into name-calling or I will be down to his level at which he called one of our members a jerk. I guess the loud and empty voice bespeaks the vacant mind, as Shakespeare once said. I am paraphrasing a bit, but I can tell him it simply is not helpful to the debate when he engages in that kind of name-calling and half-truth. It does not make this place function any better and it certainly does not help us as we try to put in place a Treasury Board that we are very serious about helping us control our expenditures in the next few years.

It is simply not true that we went on a spending spree this year. We inherited a huge deficit with built-in costs this year, driven by the recession and, quite frankly, driven as well by the restrictions on transfer payments by the federal government which affected health care, social assistance and post-secondary education.

I have not heard the members of the Conservative caucus telling me that we should be spending less on education. I have not heard them tell me we should be spending less on social assistance, which is a statutory requirement. As a matter of fact, I will be very specific. I have not heard the Conservatives tell us anyplace where we should spend less money. They just say, "Cut, cut, cut." I am being a little bit unfair, I am not talking slowly enough and I am getting ahead of myself. I will slow down a bit, because they have told me they thought we should freeze the civil service or at least reduce the increase to 2%. That is what they told us. They said: "That's what you should do. You should freeze the civil service."

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When I looked at the numbers in the civil service in this province, if we were to go even beyond what the Conservatives wanted us to do -- they want us to limit it to 2%, I believe -- we could have taken it to zero increase, frozen it and, for the direct employees of the government, that would have saved us $250 million out of our $9.7-billion deficit. That is exactly what it would have saved us. The Conservatives pretend that by doing that, certainly picking on people who are not responsible for the recession and saying, "We're going to make you the target, we're going to make you the scapegoat" -- I am sorry, that is not the way we function on this side any more.

I was also concerned about the member for Etobicoke West talking about the Fair Tax Commission. He said, "You promised all these tax changes and then, in the budget, you don't bring in the tax changes." That is what he said. Later on he said, "You're not consulting." When we established the Fair Tax Commission, we drew from all over Ontario. It is a very representative tax commission, and the business community does not disagree with that assessment of the tax commission. It is a very fair commission.

At the same time, when we announced that we were sending these tax measures to the Fair Tax Commission so it could consult widely in the province, we asked them to fast-track two issues for this fall. One was the speculation tax on land and the other was the minimum corporate tax. You cannot have it both ways. The member for Etobicoke West should not be able to talk out of both sides of his mouth and say, "You're not consulting," and when we say, "We are consulting," beat us up because we are consulting. That is hardly intelligent debate in this place. There is nothing token about that kind of consultation. I see the member for Etobicoke West has come back in the place. It is simply not true. We have worked very hard at consulting with the business community.

As well, when I appeared before the standing committee this morning, I do not recall saying that I said the business community liked our budget. That is not what I said. That is what the member for Etobicoke West is pretending that I said. I wish he would be honest when he is trying to tell people here what I said in the standing committee.

All I am pleading for is some honesty in this place when we are quoting other members. That is all I am asking. The member is entitled to beat me up, ideologically of course, and to be as critical as he is capable of being about me and the budget and the government. I recognize that, I accept that, I have been here a couple of years, but all I am saying is he should get his facts straight when he does so. That is not what he is doing.

This afternoon, as a part of ministerial statements, I announced the fact that we wanted to establish a worker ownership plan in this province and that we were not introducing the legislation now. We were going to have a consultation paper and a draft piece of legislation which would be sent out across the province this summer. We will consult widely with working people and with the business community. That is what I call meaningful consultation, not after the fact, before the fact. So I think that the members opposite should at least be fair.

The member for Etobicoke West is holding up An Agenda for People, which is a document of which I am very proud. There is nothing in the Agenda for People I would want to walk away from. I think it is a wonderful document. What I have said over and over and over again is that the Conservatives in this province --

Mr Stockwell: Read this; no substance, pal.

Hon Mr Laughren: I wish the member for Etobicoke West would listen just for one minute. What the member for Etobicoke West is telling us one day is that we are spending too much money and there is too big a deficit. The next day he is up on his feet challenging us to implement the Agenda for People. My friend should make up his mind. What does he want?

I want to wrap up before I get provocative in my remarks and provoke the member for Etobicoke West into some name-calling again.

I do wish to thank the honourable members. We are very serious about establishing a Treasury Board, which will help us to contain the expenditures in the province in the next few years. We regard that as a very important function and we will be taking it very seriously. I look forward over the next while to hearing some positive suggestions from the other side, and I mean this seriously, not in a partisan kind of way. I look forward to hearing from members opposite suggestions on how we can do a better job on expenditure management. I am not asking them to take responsibility for the expenditure controls we put in place. That is our responsibility. We will take the political heat for them. At the same time, we will appreciate any suggestions they have to help us do a better job.

Motion agreed to.

La motion est adoptée.

Bill ordered for third reading.

Le projet de loi devra passer à l'étape de troisième lecture.

Hon Miss Martel: There was a discussion earlier among the House leaders to do both Bills 108 and 110 together, so I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House to proceed in this manner at this time.

Agreed to.

SUBSTITUTE DECISIONS ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR LA PRISE DE DÉCISIONS AU NOM D'AUTRUI

Mr Hampton moved second reading of Bill 108, An Act to provide for the making of Decisions on behalf of Adults concerning the Management of their Property and concerning their Personal Care.

M. Hampton propose la deuxième lecture du projet de loi 108, Loi prévoyant la prise de décisions au nom d'adultes en ce qui concerne la gestion de leurs biens et le soin de leur personne.

CONSENT AND CAPACITY STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE LE CONSENTEMENT ET LA CAPACITÉ

Mr Hampton moved second reading of Bill 110, An Act to amend certain Statutes of Ontario consequent upon the enactment of the Consent to Treatment Act, 1991 and the Substitute Decisions Act, 1991.

M. Hampton propose la deuxième lecture du projet de loi 110, Loi modifiant certaines lois de l'Ontario par suite de l'adoption de la Loi de 1991 sur le consentement au traitement et de la Loi de 1991 sur la prise de décisions au nom d'autrui.

Hon Mr Hampton: I am pleased that all members of the Legislature have recognized the public importance of the principles embodied in Bills 108 and 110, before us for second reading. The Substitute Decisions Act and the Consent and Capacity Statute Law Amendment Act are two very important bills for all people in Ontario who are or have felt vulnerable in the past. The two bills, together with Bill 74, the Advocacy Act, and the Consent to Treatment Act, link the themes of liberty, empowerment, self-determination and the right to make choices through comprehensive legislative reform. If they receive second reading, I understand that they will be considered together, with Bill 74, by the standing committee on administration of justice.

Bill 108, the Substitute Decisions Act, is based on some important principles. One of these is the principle of self-determination that provides all adults the freedom to choose how to live. As members know, Bill 108 increases our self-determination by providing for powers of attorney for personal care. Under the bill, each adult can choose a substitute decision-maker to make decisions in the event that an adult becomes incapable, in accordance with his or her instruction and wishes. The bill recognizes the need for a number of safeguards, however, against abuse.

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Another fundamental principle of the bill is embodied in section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. The guardianship provisions of the bill and the establishment of the public guardian and trustee will advance those rights. It will help us to avoid and stop the financial exploitation and the neglect and abuse of people who are incapable of choosing to get themselves out of these situations.

Together with Bill 109, the Consent to Treatment Act, which provides for substitute decision-making for short-term health-related needs, we have, I believe, a complete package to meet the needs of people for principal substitute decisions.

I believe the members of this House agree that substitute decisions are a last resort. People must, if possible, make their own decisions. There must be support for people who can, with assistance, make their own decisions. There must be advocacy to empower people to have their wishes heard. In proceeding with legislation of this kind, it is vital that we base our decisions on the fundamental principles of our law.

Although both of the bills before the House today are the product of extensive consultation that spans three administration, I recognize that some of the issues involved are quite difficult. Therefore, I look forward to continuing the dialogue at the committee stage.

At this point, I would like also to thank the member for Carleton once again for his contribution in focusing public attention on these issues. He has also been gracious in deferring the public debate of Bills 7 and 8. In doing so, I believe he has clearly exemplified the proper spirit for consideration of these bills.

I am aware that there may be many members of the Legislature who have comments to make on these bills. I am aware that when they go out to committee there will probably be many interest groups who will want to make comments. So I will defer at this time.

Mr Cordiano: I am happy to respond to the Attorney General's Bills 108 and 110 on second reading. I look forward to the debate that will follow, along with debate on the Advocacy Act and the Consent to Treatment Act, which together address the rights of vulnerable adults and mentally incapable individuals in our society.

These pieces of legislation all together derive from a variety of reports commissioned by previous governments, as was pointed out by the Attorney General, in the three previous administrations. The Advisory Committee on Substitute Decision Making for Mentally Incapable Persons, which was called the Fram report after that, was commissioned by the Attorney General back in November 1985. As a result of that, however, there remained certain aspects of the legislation that I believe deserve quite a bit more attention.

Substitute decisions legislation was served to provide coherence to law in this area, allowing mentally incapable individuals to preplan for future incapacity, as well as providing for both temporary and partial guardianships where the capacity is not permanently lost. There are some concerns I have which I would like to take the time to address this afternoon.

First, as I pointed out in the debate on the Advocacy Act, there is the bureaucratic and formalistic approach that is being taken here, which de-emphasizes the role of the family. This, as members may remember from our previous debate on Bill 74, was a major concern for us in the Advocacy Act.

Second, as stated in the Fram report, as guardianship removes the fundamental right to self-determination, it should not be ordered easily. This is a recommendation I believe cannot be taken lightly. Guardianship removes the fundamental right to self-determination, and therefore every measure must be taken to ensure that guardianship is not overutilized.

Third, it is unfortunate, once again as I pointed out earlier, that the Advocacy Act could not be debated along with the bills we are discussing today, because there are gaps in the bills, which I think come together.

I will break this down into a variety of areas I want to address in my discussion here: the role of the family, as I pointed out in the Advocacy Act; protecting the right to self-determination; standard of proof; and the role of advocates in Bill 108.

At first glance, Bill 108 ensures access to a substitute decision-maker for those who have no family or friends to turn to and creates a public safety net through the newly formed public guardian and trustee. The public guardian and trustee, it is argued, has the role of guardianship of last resort. However, they are also given the power to investigate the conduct of private guardians. In fact, rather than being the guardian of last resort, the appointment of the public guardian and trustee is often the first stage taken in the proceeding under this bill. The public guardian and trustee is even empowered to apply for temporary emergency guardianship or emergency assessments when justified, and notice may be dispensed in urgent cases.

Although these powers are limited to cases of demonstrated need, family and friends are not similarly empowered, and therefore it makes the role of the family, as I say, de-emphasized and weaker. We can justify this approach by saying we would protect mentally disadvantaged persons against abuse and mental or physical deterioration, particularly when it is assumed we are dealing with an urgent case. However, it is inconsistent with the stated policy position of the government.

This concern is consistent, however, with the concern I raised with respect to the Advocacy Act, wherein the rights of families seem compromised in favour of the rights of the guardian or advocates. It would seem that in both instances, the supportive role played by families and friends is not recognized and could undermine the integrity of families and others, as it fails to create adequate safeguards against unwarranted interference by advocates. That is of fundamental importance.

I think respecting this legislation I would like to talk about protecting the right to self-determination, because I think it is also a fundamental tenet of what we are undertaking here with respect to Bill 108. Bill 108 redefines mental incapacity for both the management of property and for personal care. Section 6 reads as follows:

"A person is incapable of managing property if the person is not able to understand information that is relevant to making a decision in the management of his or her property, or is not able to appreciate the reasonably foreseeable consequences of a decision or lack of decision."

Section 46, which deals with incapacity in the area of personal care, defines an incapable person as one who is unable to understand information relevant to a decision concerning health care, nutrition, shelter, clothing, hygiene or safety or not able to appreciate the reasonably foreseeable consequences of a decision or lack thereof.

The Fram report in this instance stated that a person who can make a decision with assistance should not have his rights of self-determination removed. Guardianship should be used only when all other possible avenues have been exhausted, and that is of crucial importance with respect to Bill 108.

Province-wide standards, I believe, will need to be established as to who exactly will be able to perform assessments on individuals, complete with stringent guidelines and criteria declaring someone incapable.

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How will certain issues be considered, such as those who, for example, may be considered mentally incapable in some aspects, but have strong family support to assist them? Need they be labelled mentally incapable? Big question. There is the situation where the person can make the decision with assistance. How much assistance is too much?

Issues and questions such as these will necessitate the determination of standards across the province. I think this is of the utmost importance in this legislation, the right of self-determination. Furthermore, the formalistic and bureaucratic approach of Bill 108 emphasizes the judicial process and could lead to overutilization of guardianship orders that will now be easier to obtain under this bill.

This brings me to my next point: standard of proof. There is no mention of the standard of proof in Bill 108, although the compendium states that the standard of proof is the ordinary civil standard that is on balance of probabilities.

It is a rather curious omission, given that the importance attached to this in the Fram report was of a high regard. "The standard of proof determines the degree of probability that must be established by an advocate to evidence the party having the burden of proof to succeed in proving his or her case."

The Fram report recommended changing the standard of proof in different situations. For example, the committee report points out that, "Before appointing a guardian of property or of the person, the court must be without reasonable doubt that the person is mentally incapable of managing his or her property or personal care."

Again, I repeat, there has to be evidence that is "without reasonable doubt" that the person, the individual, cannot look after his own property, managing his own property and his own personal care.

To restore an individual's right to manage his or her own property, the Fram committee recommended that the person is more likely than not capable of management, the standard of proof being the balance of probabilities. To best protect this fundamental right of self-determination, it would seem that the standard of proof used to establish capacity of personal care should be lower than the one required to prove incapacity. In short, while it may be necessary to provide a substitute decision-maker for a person who is incapable of managing his or her own property, it should not be easy to do so.

The standard of proof used in this legislation should be contained in the legislation at the very least. There is nothing in the proposed legislation which explicitly states that the burden of proof is on the person alleging the incapacity.

I am turning my attention to the role of advocates in Bill 108. As I mentioned during the debate following Bill 74, it is indeed very unfortunate that these three pieces of legislation were not dealt with together. I keep saying that because it keeps coming to my mind that it was of the utmost importance to do so. However, here we are and we are dealing with Bills 108 and 110 together, at least.

When you read Bills 74, 108 and 109, it becomes clear that advocates have the most crucial role to play in these pieces of legislation. Under Bills 108 and 109, the advocates will be fulfilling the right of advocacy function, explaining the person's legal rights and options in the circumstances in which they find themselves. Bill 74, which establishes the Advocacy Commission and the role of advocates, specifically neglects to set up a rights advocacy program. I mentioned this in our debate earlier and I believe it is something that needs to be addressed.

As it stands, I believe the rights advocacy function is left to regulation. I appreciate that the bills will be going to committee, but I think the rights advocacy function is of crucial importance in protecting the fundamental rights of self-determination. For a person who is allegedly incapable, the visit of the rights advocate will provide him or her with unbiased information that could prove to eliminate the need for guardianship, and therefore very crucial.

Bill 74 deals with the advocate's role as it pertains to vulnerable persons, not mentally incapable persons. For this reason, I believe it is perhaps even more important that the rights of advocacy function be explained more fully and set out in Bill 74 in explicit fashion.

Finally, I think there is the concern that rights advocates in particular should be specially trained, as they could be the last opportunity an allegedly mentally incapable person has to retain self-determination, and that person will be found to be able to manage his own property or personal care. I mentioned this in our previous debate on Bill 74, but that is very important. If the training of rights advocates is to be left in the regulations, as was pointed out, then I think it follows that the inclusion and recognition of the critical role played by rights advocates in substitute decision-making should be found within the Advocacy Act. Their role, I believe, is far too important to be left out and I think that should be looked at in committee, and we will be following up on that in committee.

Let me turn my attention briefly to Bill 110 before I conclude. I would like to make a few comments regarding this piece of legislation, the Consent and Capacity Statute Law Amendment Act, which sets out the consequential amendments necessitated by the enactment of the Substitute Decisions Act. This act, Bill 110, amends 23 acts in this province and repeals the Mental Incompetency Act in its entirety.

This further demonstrates the concomitant nature of Bills 74, 108, 109 and 110 and, as I pointed out earlier, the need for these bills to be dealt with in unison because there might be omissions and contradictions that are difficult to foresee in dealing with these bills separately. I do not recall if it has been agreed that these bills will be looked at as an entirety, as one package. I hope that does happen.

I would like to conclude my remarks by emphasizing that the bills we are dealing with today are very timely. The years of study and consultation that took place by previous administrations were essential in leading to this point, bringing about legislation and bringing the bills forward today. I think the entire package introduces many positive changes in the empowerment of vulnerable persons and the manner in which their property is to be managed and in the personal care decisions of a fundamental nature that will be made on behalf of mentally incapable persons. I hope we have further opportunity to debate these bills in committee. Obviously, we will some time in the near future.

Given that these pieces of legislation are interwoven, as I have pointed out many times, I think it would serve us well if these pieces of legislation were dealt with together in committee. I think as well that to remove the Advocacy Act from the debate surrounding the other three and to look at it independently is quite difficult.

I think as well that future debate on the issue of substitute decision-making and guardianship, as with advocacy and the protection of the fundamental right of self-determination, should remain the uppermost thing in our minds. We clearly believe that while guardianship is essential, it should not be used unless we have exhausted all other measures, because as I said earlier, it is fundamental for a person to have the right of self-determination.

We should not be quick to judge a person incompetent or incapable of making his or her own decisions until we have exhausted all other avenues. I believe that is something that needs further work in committee. The regulations are to address that, but I am quite concerned that there is a great deal of vagueness in these pieces of legislation. That vagueness must be looked at with a view to overcoming the inequities and the omissions that have been made in these pieces of legislation.

I would like to say once again that the legislation is timely and I look forward to looking at those regulations as they are brought in. Hopefully, we will have a chance to look at those in committee in the not too distant future, and not look at those regulations some time a year later or six months later. I believe the regulations are of crucial importance with respect to these bills, with respect to the omissions and vagueness I pointed out time and again.

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Mr Sterling: I did not rise to compliment the member for Lawrence on his speech, but I do want to say that I thought it was well put forward in terms of touching a lot of the bases in Bill 108 and Bill 110. I believe, from his speech, that he has a good concept of what is being attempted here.

Bills 74, 108, 109 and 110 are intertwined to some degree, but they embody different principles, and therefore in debating these I thought it was perhaps inappropriate that Bill 109 be included with Bill 108 and Bill 110, and therefore requested that the Attorney General put forward Bill 108 and Bill 110, because I think there are some significant differences in dealing with the two pieces of legislation.

I think, first of all, the whole concept of bringing together the principles within one act -- the common law, the former statute law, dealing with business matters of incompetent people -- is probably a noteworthy achievement on the part of not only this government but the previous government in terms of the amount of work that goes into a piece of legislation like this. Because of that, I hope that the interest in this legislation by the people who are involved will be significant, and the people who are involved in this legislation include primarily health providers and also the legal community.

One of the concerns of course is that the whole concept of legislation as contained in Bill 108 and Bill 109 is the basic premise upon which it is based, and the basic premise is that the person who is no longer able to speak for himself or herself is to be protected.

Unfortunately, that throws upon the system or the people who try to craft this legislation the assumption that things have gone wrong in the past. I think it should be stated at the outset that there is no overwhelming evidence that there has been a significant problem in this province with the treatment of people who have been found incompetent, either by the legal profession, by families or by health care providers. I think it should be noted that I do not believe the present government should be blamed in any way, or any kind of an onus should be on it, to defend itself in bringing forward this legislation, because I believe it is brought forward in good faith to try to seek a proper balance between the rights of the incompetent and the ability of health care providers to take care of people who find themselves in problems, and the ability of the families and the legal profession to take care of the business matters of incompetent people in an honest and forthright manner, with the best intent of finding the wishes of the person who is incompetent and translating them into actions that are taken on their part, both in their personal care and in their business matters.

One of the problems I have found with both pieces of legislation, Bills 108 and 109, is that they seem to have gone too far in terms of trying to protect the incompetent patient or the incompetent person to such a degree as perhaps to make the legislation a nightmare to implement. During the time we hear particularly from health care providers, who are going to have to call the shot in the final analysis on whether treatment should be given or whether a transaction being taken on behalf of an incompetent person should or should not be done, and I am talking about the legal profession, perhaps. As we go through this process I hope we will say there is a balance to be struck here. We want to protect the incompetent person, but we also have to realize that our hospitals have to continue to run in a reasonably efficient manner so we can take care of the people in our hospitals.

I have a concern about the complex nature of some of these bills in terms of what they try to do -- the appeal mechanisms, the insertion of advocates in a number of instances where I feel it is perhaps not necessary and the frequency of the insertion of advocates, particularly in Bill 109, which I will talk about at a later date or perhaps later this afternoon if we get to it. But I want to deal particularly with Bill 108, which I do not have as much concern about as Bill 109. As members may know, Bill 108 has instituted or brought into effect a durable power of attorney that I have very much been an advocate of for a long time. This was contained in a private member's bill that I put forward to this Legislature and which received second reading, Bill 7.

Bills 7 and 8 are before the standing committee on administration of justice as well. Bill 8 embodies the living will. Quite frankly, when I drafted Bill 7 it was devoid of a lot of structure necessary to make it a meaningful piece of legislation. I welcome very much Bill 108 as a replacement for Bill 7 and find it much more complete. In fact, it is much the superior piece of legislation.

However, I say to the Attorney General that when talking about durable powers of attorney for personal care, I am concerned that perhaps he has gone too far in terms of some particular aspects of that procedure. My drive behind Bill 7 and Bill 8 was to have as many people in Ontario as possible draw a durable power of attorney to retain their autonomy past the time they are able to take care of themselves. They would pass on the right to another individual to say, "Norm Sterling, when he is no longer capable of taking care of himself" -- I would pass along to another individual the right to make decisions as to my treatment. Unfortunately, under this bill there are many requirements in order to make the durable power of attorney a good power of attorney that will be followed by a health care provider who is faced with the decision of taking care of me.

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The unnecessary step included in the Attorney General's legislation that I have heard some concern about relates to section 49 of Bill 108, the validation of the power of attorney. Under our present laws, if you make a power of attorney or a durable power of attorney, which is dealing with business assets, in other words, if you want to give to someone you trust the right to make decisions on whether to sell your property and sign a deed after you become incompetent, then you sign a power of attorney. The very fact that you have signed can be used by that person to sign that deed. The proof of whether it is valid or invalid falls upon the people who receive it. Under this bill there is a validation requirement. The attorney, the person who is entrusted with making the decisions, must apply to the public guardian, a trustee or a court in order to have the power of attorney validated.

My concern is that by requiring that kind of step or that kind of process we will not encourage people to use this type of instrument to make their wishes known as to how they might want someone to take care of them after they become incompetent, but that it will discourage people to use a durable power of attorney.

I have heard Mr Fram, the policy adviser on this legislation, say it is the intent of the government to encourage as many people in the province as possible to utilize this instrument. Now, the validation process brings a I number of questions to mind. For instance, if I want to make a power of attorney because I am going to have an operation and I need an emergency operation next week, how do I know whether I am going to have this validated by the public guardian or the public trustee by tomorrow when I have the operation? Or what happens if the operation is on the weekend if somebody has surgery after a car accident or after an emergency illness?

In my view the whole idea of validating the power of attorney is far too bureaucratic and I think unnecessary. As I said in my opening remarks, there is no overwhelming evidence that physicians, families and friends have acted in a negative way with regard to trying to follow the wishes of a person becoming incompetent, therefore the additional requirement of validating a power of attorney is unnecessary.

Perhaps an even more fearful thing about the validation process is the revocation of a power of attorney. In other words, if I have given to someone else the right to make the decisions about my personal care, before I become incompetent -- some might argue that I have reached that stage already; I noticed the previous speaker chuckling --

Interjection.

Mr Sterling: "There is a consensus in the House, finally," the Minister of Housing has said.

But perhaps the greater concern is subsection 51(2), which is very small and which I draw to the Attorney General's attention. "A revocation shall be in writing and shall be executed in the same way as a power of attorney for personal care."

I would like the revocation process to be as simple and as direct as possible. If someone made a durable power of attorney 10 or 15 years ago and then in an emergency, in a short period of time, knows that he or she is facing a situation of becoming unconscious or approaching a period of time when that is a very real likelihood, that person may want to do something very quickly in terms of appointing another person. I think section 49 and subsection 51(2) are deficient in allowing that process to take place.

Perhaps the Attorney General will consider a registration process that is voluntary, where registration would not be necessary in terms of validation of the power of attorney, and leave the decision of whether the power of attorney is valid up to the attending physician or health care provider involved and often the family. If, however, somebody wants to register a power of attorney, then so be it.

I am going to raise the same objection with Bill 109, but under Bill 8 I had put in a section that said the living will would not come into effect if the person who had signed the living will was pregnant at the time. The durable power of attorney does the same thing by giving to another person really very wide discretion in the treatment or withdrawal of treatment of a patient. Now there is some onus placed on the person who is receiving the power of attorney, the instructions to make decisions, and these decisions may include the withdrawal of medical services. Quite frankly, under Bill 109 there is a section that says the health care provider must follow the living will.

I envisage a situation that I hope would never occur, where a woman becoming unconscious in her fourth or fifth month of pregnancy had made a living will and the law says you must follow the living will. If that living will said the person wanted the withdrawal of medical treatment under certain circumstances, then the physician is obligated under that legislation to do so. Maybe a child could be saved if the woman were put on a life-sustaining apparatus until she were able to bear the child even though after that event she might never recover.

I therefore ask that the minister perhaps include such a clause in this legislation, and I will be asking the Health minister to make the same kind of inclusion in her legislation. I do not think that is going too far, and I think it will make clearer for the health care provider what he or she might have to do if faced with this situation.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the bill is fairly complicated. I look forward to the hearings we will have on it and hope that the Attorney General or his parliamentary assistant, whoever is charged with going through the hearings that no doubt will be involved in this bill, will listen to the people who come before that with two things in mind, one being to have an open mind as to which way the Attorney General should make his final decision on each and every section.

While this legislation was drafted with the greatest of intentions by a number of people who have been involved for a long period of time, the people who drew up this bill were not politicians. They were not people who represented people. Therefore, I do hope that on legislation like this, which is non-partisan -- nobody has a political stake in what happens on one section or the other section -- the Attorney General will be open in accepting amendments from members of the committee, and I do hope that when the votes come on the various sections, they will not be along party lines.

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Last, when these bills were put forward, they were put forward one day before the justice committee was considering my two private member's bills. I sent to each member of the Legislature a copy of my letter to the Chairman of the justice committee. There were 40 or 50 groups that had lined up to come before the justice committee, and these were groups that have great credibility: the Ontario Medical Association, the Ontario Hospital Association, the physicians, the nurses, many other health care providers, the Canadian Bar Association, many people who will be dealing with these and very many substantial groups.

I wrote to the Chairman and asked him to suspend the hearings on Bills 7 and 8 until these bills could get in front of the justice committee so that they could be considered together. I did that for two reasons. First, as I admitted in my letter, my bills were deficient in some ways. Bill 108 is superior in dealing with durable powers of attorney, and Bill 109 is superior in some ways in dealing with living wills. Therefore, I thought it was unnecessary and not fruitful that groups come and centre their debate on Bills 7 and 8. They should centre their debate on Bills 108 and 109.

I do hope that the Attorney General and the Minister of Health, when they are dealing with these two bills, will attempt to simplify them as best they can when we go through that process. They will look for ways and give up the idea that we can protect in every situation and in every way the rights of an incompetent person if it is going to mean that living wills will not be drawn, if it means that durable powers of attorney are not going to be drawn, if it means that our physicians and health care providers will not be able to interpret what we have said in law and implement it in our hospitals.

As was explained to me at a conference which I spoke to last Friday of health care providers and the legal profession, I do not want health care providers going around and acting as lawyers, trying to interpret what they should do next, and being more concerned about the legalistic aspects of this legislation than the care of their patients. The concern of the health care profession that I heard last Friday was that they were very much concerned that this was impractical in its implementation and that some doctors -- not all the doctors but even if it is 10% of doctors -- would act far too legalistically in their approach to these two pieces of legislation.

We will be supporting Bill 108 and Bill 110, which is the companion bill to this piece of legislation, on second reading. We do hope there will be an open mind, as I said, to amendment in the future. I was proud to be part of the lightning rod which brought some of this legislation perhaps higher on the public agenda than it might have been had I not brought Bills 7 and 8.

I do not take a great deal of credit in terms of these being fresh new ideas from the member for Carleton, because there are a lot of people who thought about them a lot in advance of me and there are lot of other people who put a lot more work into these than I did, but I do take some small piece of satisfaction being a private member in opposition and having some small impact on this issue.

Mrs Marland: I just want to take the opportunity to commend both the member for Carleton and the government in bringing forth these bills. The member for Carleton is being quite modest in saying that he does not take credit for them, but he did bring private member's bills to the floor of this House on these subjects. They are subjects that for a long time have been very difficult for everyone to discuss, I think particularly for politicians, because we make ourselves vulnerable when we deal with what can potentially be a controversial issue.

There are always those people who wonder, when we are dealing with something as sensitive as a living will, whether we are treading where angels fear to tread and in fact intervening in God's holy order for things, whether His plan is that we live our lives out in whatever condition that happens to be, and they start to exaggerate an argument against those kinds of issues. I think it takes special commitment and caring and interest on the part of the member for Carleton to have stuck by his guns and brought forward that subject in the form of a private bill, which is what he has done. It will result in a benefit to all the people of this province.

It is not that anyone is prejudging what our quality of life will be as we age and become frail for any number of reasons; it simply says that we will have some choices. We will help our families make some of those choices through the options that this kind of legislation will provide, and I congratulate again the member for Carleton.

Hon Mr Hampton: There were a number of comments raised by the opposition speakers and I want to respond to them as best I can. I do not pretend to give a full response but I do want to respond to some of their concerns. Just so we are clear, these bills will be going to the standing committee on administration of justice. I understand there was some confusion about that earlier, some concern. But they are going to the committee.

The member for Lawrence raised concerns that the role of the family is not fully recognized in the legislation. Personally I believe there is significant recognition for the family in the legislation. I also know, from the groups that had indicated they wanted to speak on the member for Carleton's private member's bills, that we will hear some representation on that before committee. There is certainly room to go over this once more.

The members opposite also raised the issue of the need for province-wide standards for assessment. This is a very important issue and assessment standards have to be developed and we will be looking at province-wide standards.

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There was also a question about the burden of proof. I think, fundamentally, what it comes down to is the legislation creates the presumption of capacity, and therefore anyone who wishes to overcome that presumption must obviously prove it. So I think that is essentially where that lies.

The member for Lawrence talked briefly about the issue of advocates. Although this is not directly under my purview, I can advise that rights advocates, in terms of the legislative scheme and the interplay of this with the Advocacy Act, are to be available in all of the instances.

The member for Carleton raised the issue of validation of powers of attorney for personal care. I can say this first of all: Validation is not necessary where it is a short-term treatment decision. I think I get the gist of his concern there, since he has a great deal of experience, and he has thought about these matters more than I have. We are open to being convinced about a simpler and less, shall we say, bureaucratic scheme.

Finally, the member raised the issue of the power of attorney in pregnancy. I think I should say to him essentially this: Powers of attorney are about the wishes of the individual. I do not think that this will make powers of attorney inapplicable to women who are pregnant. Women who are pregnant have, through a power of attorney for personal care, the capacity to state their wishes, and I think that is where the issue ought properly to be left.

I look forward to consideration of these bills by the standing committee on administration of justice, because my sense is that we will receive a great deal of public input, and it will be public input that has taken these issues to heart for many years, and therefore the groups and organizations that appear before the committee will give us valuable advice. I suspect the advice will be along the lines that we have dealt with these bills here in this House; that is, it will be non-partisan in nature and fully given with the intent of improving the legislation that we have drafted.

I thank all the members for their input, and I thank again the member for Carleton for his hard work and also for his consideration in withdrawing his private member's bills.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve): Mr Hampton has moved second reading of Bill 108.

Motion agreed to.

La motion est adoptée.

Bill ordered for the standing committee on administration of justice.

Le projet de loi est déféré au comité permanent de l'administration de la justice.

The Acting Speaker: Mr Hampton has moved second reading of Bill 110.

Motion agreed to.

La motion est adoptée.

Bill ordered for the standing committee on administration of justice.

Le projet de loi est déféré au comité permanent de l'administration de la justice.

CONSENT TO TREATMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR LE CONSENTEMENT AU TRAITEMENT

Ms Lankin moved second reading of Bill 109, An Act respecting Consent to Treatment.

Mme Lankin propose la deuxième lecture du projet de loi 109, Loi concernant le consentement au traitement.

Hon Ms Lankin: I am very pleased today to bring forward for second reading the Consent to Treatment Act. As honourable members will recall and have heard, this is the third part in three pieces of legislation: There are also the Advocacy Act, which received second reading on 10 June, and the Substitute Decisions Act, which has just in this past few minutes received second reading.

The Consent to Treatment Act will protect health-care consumers and providers by clearly defining their rights and responsibilities regarding treatment decisions. I think it is important to recognize that, as the health care system continues to evolve, we are placing much more emphasis on the very important role to be played by consumers. Knowledgeable consumers can make wiser choices regarding not only treatment, but the preventive aspects of health care as well.

This is a shift that I think together we can welcome, particularly because we are all consumers of health care. When it comes to health, consumers definitely need, all of us need to be fully informed. We want to know what our options are. As the population ages, it becomes even more important to address some of these concerns around consent and advocacy and substitute decision-making.

We must be prepared to deal with needs and the expressed wishes of individuals. Where a patient is mentally incapable, the act provides for treatment decisions to be made by a substitute decision-maker, with a system of safeguards put in place.

Consent legislation affects everyone, including the health care provider. We see this legislation as enhancing the relationship between the patient and provider. It defines roles and clarifies responsibilities for decision-making.

As this act receives second reading and proceeds to committee for discussion, we must acknowledge the work of a fellow legislator, and this has been done in speaking to the previous bill. I want to also say that we appreciate the member for Carleton's efforts in bringing forward Bills 7 and 8, which deal with powers of attorney and living wills. We also commend his decision to postpone his bills until we have had the opportunity to progress farther with the government's package.

With the introduction of the Consent To Treatment Act, the Advocacy Act and the Substitute Decisions Act, much of the discussion has focused on living wills and powers of attorney. These are very important ways for a person to ensure that his or her wishes are carried out when he or she is mentally incapable of making decisions. Expressing wishes in advance is an important component of the Consent To Treatment Act, but this act also addresses many other issues.

This legislation provides consent-to-treatment rules for all Ontarians. They apply to all settings and all health-related services provided by health practitioners. The requirements of consent and the elements of consent are codified. Mental capacity and how it will be determined are clearly defined. The determination of capacity is related to the particular proposed treatment. This is important because the act is designed to take into account the fact that mental capacity may fluctuate. As well, the degree of mental capacity required is different from situation to situation.

If a person suffers from a continuing mental incapacity to make decisions on medical treatment, the Substitute Decisions Act, which just received second reading, will apply. When a health practitioner finds a patient is incapable of making a particular treatment decision, an advocate meets with the person to explain the effect of the findings as well as the person's rights. The Consent and Capacity Review Board is established under the act. Anyone wanting to challenge a finding of mental incapacity may apply to the board for a review.

The act gives a list of people who may be entitled to act on behalf of an incapable person. It also provides a set of rules for determining who is so entitled. When no family member is available and no attorney for personal care has been appointed, the act ensures that someone will act on behalf of a person in need of substitute decision-making. In this situation, the public guardian and trustee will be the substitute decision-maker.

Under the act, a health practitioner may provide emergency treatment without consent if a mentally incapable person is otherwise likely to suffer serious bodily harm. However, if a health practitioner is aware that the person would not want treatment, he or she is not permitted to administer it. Health practitioners who act in accordance with this legislation will have immunity from civil liability.

The Consent To Treatment Act will enhance the rights of people to make informed choices when they are mentally capable of making those choices. It will also make certain that, where someone's wishes are known, those wishes will be respected by a substitute decision-maker if the person becomes mentally incapable.

During the development of this legislation we received input from many groups and individuals in response to consultation papers. The issues this legislation addresses are very important ones, and I look forward to the discussion of this bill in the House and to detailed study in committee. I welcome the input from all members and the input from all Ontarians as we fine-tune this legislation.

I am particularly pleased that the member for Carleton is a member of the committee which will be reviewing this, because the work and time that he has put into these issues over the years and his experience will bring to bear important information, important insight, as members of the public and professionals come before the committee to comment on this legislation.

The Consent to Treatment Act is necessary to improve the delivery of health care by clearly establishing the rights and responsibilities of the patient, the health care practitioner and the substitute decision-maker. Our ultimate goal is to provide the best possible set of circumstances to safeguard the rights of the individual in the health care system.

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Mr Phillips: I am pleased to participate in the debate and to say that we look forward to this bill going to the hearings for what I think will prove to be quite a lively debate. I do not think many of us would disagree with the principles behind the bill, but I think it is fair to say that the health professions that have looked at the bill have some significant concerns about it that I hope will be resolved at committee.

The bill must not only provide effectively for consent by the person who is getting the care, but also must be practical in the sense that our health providers are able to work with it. I think we will find in the bill as it is currently constructed a risk that it will not work well in hospital settings, that it will not work well necessarily in some of our various health institutions and that we are going to have to listen carefully to those people who are involved in the implementation of it. There is a risk that it is perhaps overly bureaucratic, that there will be several circumstances where I think all of us would want the health care provider to be able to act and the health care provider may not be able to act, following this bill.

The problem we face now is that there was a broad consultation, but I think in the drafting of the language in the bill, we may not have had as much input by some of the health professions -- the nursing profession and some of the other professions -- that will be required to implement the bill. Certainly the consumer advocates have had a fair input into it, but not necessarily the health providers.

We will be supporting this at second reading, because we agree with the principle of the bill, but we want to signal to the minister that, based on our analysis of the bill and on our discussions with some of the health professionals, there are some significant flaws in the bill that will need to be worked through.

I am hopeful that we will be able to do that in committee, and therefore we are quite prepared to see it move on from here to the committee, with the understanding that I think the previous two bills received, that there will be a broad opportunity at committee to hear from some of the people who will be truly directly affected, an opportunity to improve the bill at that stage.

With that, I think I have indicated our areas of concern, and we look forward, as I say, to improving the bill at the committee stage.

Mr Sterling: As we are getting closer to 6 o'clock, I will try to be as brief as possible. I do want to say a few things about Bill 109, which embodies a number of concepts. As the minister says, it includes the concept of a living will, but also goes much wider and deals with many more things.

Every member of this Legislature should be aware that some time during his life he is going to run into Bill 109, because if he has a parent or a relative or a friend who is in a situation where he cannot speak for himself, Bill 109 will directly reflect upon what happens to the member and the person he is caring for. Bill 109 in a lot of ways is more important to the average Ontarian than Bill 108.

As I indicated in the previous debate on Bill 108, I had the privilege of speaking to health care providers and patient advocates and the legal profession on Friday and listened to much of the debate that went on during that afternoon. There is a very real difference in the view of those who are patient advocates and the medical profession. The medical profession, I think quite rightly, feels that it has dealt honourably and in the best interests of patients who have been unable to speak for themselves in the past, with proper consultation in tune with the common law, to determine what should be done with a patient who cannot speak for himself or herself.

Therefore, there is this clash between those who would be advocates for patients and those who are actually administering the treatment. What is necessary is for us to come down in this Legislature with reasonable protection for those patients, but still allow our health care providers to act in a responsible manner, particularly in an emergency situation, where they have to make decisions quickly and they cannot be bothered with legal niceties when in fact the health of a particular patient is at risk. Remember that this bill does not only deal with terminally ill patients; it also deals with patients who are incapable but have a very rosy outlook for the future, and therefore this bill comes into effect in those instances.

I think all members of the Legislature should look closely at section 10 of this bill because section 10, in my view, embodies some of the problems with the bill. The use of advocates is far too extensive in Bill 109, and I will look for methods of limiting the scope of the use of advocates as we go through the clause-by-clause reading of this bill.

Can you imagine, for instance, under section 10 the situation where you are with your family members and your physician and you all agree that a certain treatment should be undertaken or should not be undertaken and your parent does not understand what the doctor is saying. Quite frankly, the parent does not understand what you are saying to her or him.

Under this bill the doctor is required, first of all, to try to explain it to your parent, which is understandable, but then the doctor is required to give your mother or your father notice in writing. If your mother or father cannot understand what you are saying to them, there is not very much hope that they are going to understand what you are going to give to them in writing.

Then, even though you and your physician and all the family members agree on what should be done, an advocate has to be called in and, in my view, could confuse your mother or father as to what is going on, perhaps frighten your mother or father if in fact that advocate does not really understand the family situation, or perhaps you get a bad advocate coming in, a person who does not really understand what is involved. In my view, we should try to limit the use of advocates as much as possible.

I have to tell the minister also that I am concerned with the expense that is going to be incurred in utilizing advocates across this province. We are talking about a significant expenditure, somewhere between $20 million and $30 million, which is not peanuts. That is the figure that was thrown around at this conference on Friday and if that is not the accurate figure, then it should be done.

I think we should strive, when we go through this particular bill, to limit the role of the advocate as to where it should be necessary. If there are certain treatments which are standard or which can be given on a short-term basis, and an advocate can come in later and advise the patient at a later date as to what this treatment does in a more routine manner, then perhaps those kinds of treatments should be outlined by regulation or whatever. In situations they describe, where a family physician and the family are all consulted, and we may be dealing only in those cases with a terminally ill patient, perhaps an advocate is not necessary.

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I have a great deal of concern that while I am sure 90% or maybe 99% of the advocates who are going to be hired under this particular legislation might have the right attitude when dealing with the patients and might have the best interests of the patient in mind, sometimes advocates -- as I have from time to time got overzealous with the cause I am representing -- may from time to time get overzealous with regard to what they are doing.

If you permit me to go on for a few moments, I can wrap up. One of the doctors speaking on Friday, when comparing the cost of providing advocates under this act, made a very valid comparison. In Canada, one out of 10 persons is touched by schizophrenia. In Canada, we spend a total of $1.2 million in research on the disease of schizophrenia. When we are spending somewhere between $20 million and $30 million to hire advocates to intervene on behalf of patients, he asked whether we as government are putting our priorities in the right places. The Minister of Health would know more about health priorities in terms of what money should be spent where, but I also put that question to her.

I believe advocates are necessary to represent incompetent patients who do not have friends, family or any other protective mechanisms in our society. I believe this is a bona fide attempt by the government to put forward a method to deal with a very difficult problem which the last government wrestled with and which the government I was part of in the early 1980s tried to wrestle with.

Therefore I do not condemn Bill 109, and we will be supporting it because it is an honest attempt to address a problem. We will fight hard and long, however, in the standing committee on administration of justice to limit the role of the advocate, to cut the cost of providing these advocates so that the money can be used in other areas which I believe would be more fruitful for the overall health of the people of Ontario, and so that the role of the advocate will not be to intervene in unnecessary situations.

Last, I would like to pay special recognition, when dealing with Bill 109 and the living will, to Marilynne Seguin, who is really the driving force behind the movement Dying with Dignity, which now has over 5,000 members across Canada. Marilynne Seguin started with one or two people in her group and pushed the whole idea of having autonomy till the very last moment of our lives. She is getting very little compensation in terms of monetary value for whatever she is doing. She is a registered nurse. She has long believed in advance directives, and I know she has been very supportive of Bill 7 and Bill 8. She is very supportive of Bill 109 and she would like to work in a positive and constructive way, as I and my caucus would, to make Bill 109 a real attempt at meeting this very difficult problem we have, to take care of people who are not able to take care of themselves.

Mr Callahan: I have never asked for this before in the six years I have been here, but I would like to ask for unanimous consent to have twice the time. I have something I think would be very meaningful to the House and I ask that I be given that unanimous consent.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve): Do we have unanimous consent for the member for Brampton South to have four minutes?

Agreed to.

Mr Callahan: I want to thank the House very much for this. The concern I have is in the legislation that previously passed. I had moved a motion in this House to amend the Mental Health Act by two very minor amendments and my purpose behind it was to simply get the matter to committee. Members will appreciate I did this in my own government to allow families whose children were schizophrenics to have an opportunity to appear before the committee and to tell the horrendous stories about what they go through and suffer as a result of the people they love not being able to get help.

During the accord, people had a very sincere desire to make certain, particularly David Reville, that people were not required to take treatments, such as shock treatments and so on, without their consent, and I applaud that. David had a very personal knowledge of that and obviously was very concerned about it. In the course of those hearings, we left schizophrenics right out in the cold. As I say, I brought this motion during the time I was in government simply to get it before a committee.

That is what this bill will do and I applaud that minister. These families will be able to come before members and tell us the horror stories, particularly when members recognize that the federal Criminal Code of Canada, which goes back to about the 1800s, in terms of insanity will not allow a lawyer to defend a person charged with, say, stealing a candy bar on the basis he was out of control when he was schizophrenic. If you do that and do not plead that person guilty, whether they had a defence or not, that person goes away at the pleasure of the Lieutenant Governor for a period far in excess of what he would get if he pleaded guilty to it, which would probably be a discharge or an absolute discharge. That is horrendous.

More important is the fact that these families, who have gone through living hell -- I am sure that is not parliamentary -- have never had a chance to speak to their elected representatives in terms of how we can deal with a bill that will allow those people to look after their loved ones.

I remember that in the House at one time we had people with schizophrenic children who would appreciate that. I have six or seven personal friends in my riding, which is unique, where I have either acted for them -- in fact one of them was accused of producing a knife before former Premier Davis in his house, and came from a family that got me into politics, absolutely beautiful people. They lived through hell because they could not help their son who is now about 35 and wanders around this province as a derelict and so on. That has to stop.

I do not think the intention of the Parliament of the day was to stop this; it was to try to help it, but we did not do it, so I applaud the ability, and this is why I have withdrawn my bill. It received unanimous consent of the House and then the election took place and I had to bring it back in. I have not brought it back in because I think the bill now getting before the House -- and I hope the members of whatever committee deals with this will clearly look at that issue and give these people an opportunity to have their say, because they have never had their say before to deal with people they love very much.

I told this to somebody from CFTO: "You guys don't get excited unless the person jumps off the bridge or kills someone, his family or a police officer. You get excited then, but you don't get excited when you see these people wandering along the streets begging for money, or whatever." There is a real care and concern there. With all the admonitions about partisan politics I have made of this government, I believe this government and its philosophy is to help these people.

I plead with the minister that this bill should not go beyond that committee without a strong invitation to these families to come before it and tell the horror stories they have. The Canadian Friends of Schizophrenics has problems with this bill. I hope the committee listens very carefully so it does not get into a situation where these people are not getting the treatment they require. It is very necessary.

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Mr Mills: It's time.

Mr Callahan: The member for Durham East is telling me it is time. He is right. It is time for me to stop talking. It is also time for these people to get justice.

Mrs Marland: As the spokesperson for people with disabilities for our party, I want to place on the record our appreciation of the intent of this legislation. We do, however, share some of the concerns that have been addressed by the member for Carleton.

There certainly are people in this province who are very vulnerable, frail and ill and in some cases elderly in combination with those conditions. As Father Sean O'Sullivan's report identified, all of us have a major role and responsibility in doing whatever we can to protect them because of the vulnerability of those people.

This legislation is excellent in providing someone to advocate for them when that is needed, but I think we have to be very cautious we do not end up as a paid advocate on behalf of a government agency and intrude into an area that is a family responsibility, that where there are family and relatives who are still providing loving care and attention to the needs of those vulnerable people, we do not have yet a third party, because the medical profession is obviously also performing its role.

My only concern, finally, is that section 10 of Bill 109 talks about everybody except the family. I look forward to the amendments that will be forthcoming as a result of the public hearings in committee.

Hon Ms Lankin: I will not take long in my comments. I think we will have much time to discuss this as it goes through the committee stage. I appreciate the comments made by those members who have participated in the debate here today.

I will say directly to the member for Brampton South that I appreciate the comments he made and the passion with which he made the case for how necessary it is for us to hear the stories of these families, the experiences they have had and to understand the concerns they have with this legislation and the way in which this will work for them as they, their children and those families access the health care system.

I am particularly concerned that as we go through the committee hearings, we have well-promoted consumer involvement. It is very important. We will hear from the health care professionals, and that is very important. We need to hear their concerns and talk through those concerns. We will hear in some cases from the advocates' groups. But there are, unrepresented and unorganized in some cases, health care consumers who are hard for us to reach. I ask the members of the committee to please think about that and to make an attempt to reach out to those people and invite them in. I will make sure I raise that issue with the Chair of the committee directly as well, because I think the points the member makes around that are entirely in keeping with my thinking in terms of the need for us to hear from those people directly.

The member for Scarborough-Agincourt raised the issue of the concerns that many of the health professionals have and that they have expressed, and I do not take away from those concerns or suggest that we should not listen to that. I do think that this is a complex piece of legislation, and needs to be, unfortunately, because of the subject matter we are dealing with, and that people will need to take some time to work through it, to ask questions and to have some of those questions answered. I hope with some of that exchange in fact some of the concerns will be alleviated.

Quite frankly, what we are doing is codifying the responsibility of health care professionals that already exists in common law. I think that is often overlooked. I think many patients do not know the responsibility the health care professional has to inform them entirely of all aspects of the treatment that is being suggested and inform them of all alternatives so that in fact they can make an informed decision, informed consent. In fact, that responsibility exists in common law and what we are doing is codifying it here in a way which helps to educate both the health care professional and the client, the consumer.

I also believe it is important that we recognize that health care professionals will be concerned and that we have built into the legislation a provision that if a health care professional is truly acting in accordance with the legislation, he will have immunity around those decisions. I think that is an area the professions do have concern about and we need to communicate that to them and try to raise their level of comfort with that.

I also just want to respond to one point the member made, that we all would know the situation where a health care provider would need to administer immediate care and would somehow be blocked from doing that by the provisions of this legislation. I address this too to the member for Carleton, who raised a similar concern in some of his comments. This legislation is not a bar to health care providers providing that necessary treatment if we are in an emergency situation. I see the member for Carleton shaking his head. If there is concern about that provision, then we will talk about that and we will address that, because the intent is not to bar emergency treatment in those circumstances, so we must ensure that in fact the legislation is worded in a way that satisfactorily addresses that.

To carry on and address some of the other comments made by the member for Carleton, he talked about the clash between the providers and the advocates. I think it is important for us to step back and to understand the role of the advocate with respect to this legislation, the consent legislation, because he talked about a number of situations where he raised the role of the advocate. I think it is entirely right for us to review something which introduces a new layer of government interaction with the public in an area in which, he has pointed out rightly, there will be costs. I think it is important for us to look at that, to review it and to ensure that it is an appropriate utilization.

But I think we also need to look under the act and be comfortable with what the act actually provides.

The member talked about section 10. He talked about the family with the aging parent who is in a situation of being incapable of making a decision, and the health care provider, along with the family, who all know the history and know the situation, somehow being placed in the onerous situation of having an outsider come in and intrude into that decision-making process.

I would just point out that I think the member would probably agree that in most of these circumstances where we have an aging parent who is in that situation, we would be facing a situation of a chronic incapacity. At that point, the Substitute Decisions Act, which we have already passed through second reading, would be the piece of legislation that would govern and the substitute decision-maker would be identified already in that situation and it would likely be the spouse or the child. It would be the family member in most circumstances.

The advocate under this legislation would come into play where in fact, with respect to a treatment at a certain point in time, a health care provider makes a finding that this patient is incapable, does not have the capacity to make a decision with respect to that treatment being offered at that point in time. It is around that finding of incapacity and whether or not that finding should be upheld that an advocate would intervene to inform someone of his rights to seek a review of that finding -- again, not an emergency situation, and not in a situation of chronic incapacity.

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The other thing I just want to pick up is that the member talks about the clash between the advocate, or the rights of patients, and the providers, who he quite rightly points out would feel that they have provided quality health care services, with conscience and with the best interests of the patient in mind, and would wonder at perhaps the suggestion they may feel is being made by this legislation, the requirement in this legislation.

One of the things that I think is very important, because it ties into the issues that have been of such concern to the member for Carleton, the issues he has done a tremendous job of raising and fighting for in this legislative arena, is the issue of understanding and respecting the express wishes or the advance directives of a patient in terms of what kind of health care treatment he wants to receive.

It is not just in a situation of terminal illness. It is not just in a situation of the living will, although that is very important and this legislation addresses that. There are many other kinds of health care treatments over which someone may want to express an advance directive, an express wish about how they want to be treated in a certain situation, about a certain kind of drug they may not wish to take or a myriad of examples we will try to bring forward during the committee stage so that members will see that. It is important that those express wishes can be known and that there is a directive that must be followed in a circumstance where the person cannot make his wishes known at the time of the treatment.

The other thing I would just say -- and I will wrap this up; I had not intended to go on so long -- is that I do not want people to lose sight of the fact that this legislation and the consent, this part of the three pieces of legislation, is not designed to deal solely with the situation where someone has been found not to have the capacity for decision-making with respect to the treatment being offered. In fact, we are talking about the legislative codified requirement in all situations of delivering health care treatment of what exists now in common law for the consent that is given to be informed consent and the responsibility of the health care profession to provide information about the alternatives with respect to the treatment being offered so that patients are in a situation where they can make truly informed consent about the kind of treatment they agree to.

I believe that is important, not just from a patients' rights point of view, but from a point of view of educating the health care consumer about our health care system and about the alternatives that are there, so that we have a healthier population that is more engaged with our health care professionals, our providers and with the whole of the delivery of the health care system. I believe that this legislation truly does contribute to that end.

I thank the members for their participation and look forward to the discussion of this piece of legislation in committee. I am sure, as I indicated before, we will hear from many people who will have many thoughtful items for the committee to consider. Again, I appreciate that the member for Carleton, as a member of that committee, will have much he can offer to the discussion and the deliberations of the committee.

Motion agreed to.

La motion est adoptée.

Bill ordered for the standing committee on administration of justice.

Le projet de loi est déféré au comité permanent de l'administration de la justice.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon Miss Martel: I would like to advise the House of the business for next week.

On Monday 24 June, we will be doing second and third readings of the following private bills: Pr31, Pr33, Pr34, Pr42, Pr50, Pr63, Pr65 and Pr75.

We will do third reading of the following bills: Bill 25, An Act to amend the Planning Act; Bill 30, An Act to amend the Education Act; Bill 36, An Act to amend certain Acts respecting Assessment; Bill 79, An Act to amend the Gasoline Tax Act; and Bill 82, An Act to establish the Treasury Board.

We will then begin second reading of Bill 121, An Act to revise the Law related to Residential Rent Regulation.

On Tuesday 24 June, we have a non-confidence motion in the name of the Progressive Conservatives.

On Wednesday 25 June, we will continue with second reading of Bill 121.

On Thursday, we have private members' public business standing in the name of Mr Callahan and Mrs Cunningham, and we will then move to a motion respecting the standing orders governing public appointments, a debate concerning the progress of the select committee on Ontario in Confederation and, finally, the motion for interim supply.

The House adjourned at 1825.