Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 1330.

Prayers.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr Cleary: While the Ministry of Labour currently assists 16 help centres in the province, I am concerned that eastern Ontario is not being serviced.

The Minister of Labour is aware that Cornwall and surrounding area has been exceptionally hard hit by the economic downturn. One local survey has indicated that 23% of the area's unemployed are between the ages of 45 and 64.

As the help centres, targeted at the older worker, offer services such as job placement, personal counselling, vocational testing, job training and contact with local industries, it is clear that Cornwall would be an obvious choice. In fact, a number of local residents have been attempting to secure a help centre for Cornwall for over two years.

I would like to take this opportunity to implore the Ministry of Labour to respond to the needs of eastern Ontario's unemployed workers and establish a permanent centre in the Cornwall area.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Mr Cousens: Today we begin debate on Bill 143, an act respecting the management of waste in the greater Toronto area. It is another kind of act, an act of desperation by this government. They have promoted the 3Rs, which we all agree with -- reduce, reuse, recycle -- but let's talk about the 3Rs they have forgotten about.

Recovery: If only this government could understand that there are other ways of recovering energy from waste. It is an option they have excluded and thrown out. They have ruled out other options that allow there to be a true recovery from waste such we are seeing in Japan at garbage dumps.

Realism: What is the realistic time frame for this government to start to deal with the problems, the realism that deals with the cost of land in Metro versus the cost of land in Kirkland Lake, a willing host for garbage? What about the realism that has to do with really finding sites in the Metro area and in the regions around Metro?

How about rights? That is the third R. The first R is recover, the second R is realism, and what about the rights of people in Ontario, where this act of desperation by this government is going to take away personal rights of people as to their property rights? It is going to take away the rights of municipalities, which will lose the right to appeal. They will lose their rights under the Municipal Act. They will lose their rights under the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act.

We are talking about the disappearance of fundamental rights and a government that needs to learn three new Rs: recovery, realism and rights. It is high time they started to listen.

ALCOHOL AND DRUG TREATMENT

Mr Mammoliti: On behalf of the task group of parliamentary assistants, I have delivered to the minister responsible for the provincial anti-drug strategy a report entitled Caring For Each Other: The People of Ontario Respond to Alcohol and Drug Treatment Problems. The task group was formed to seek public response to the recommendations contained in the final report of the Advisory Committee on Drug Treatment: A Vision for the '90s.

Between February and April, we held forums in 13 communities across the province and received 275 submissions from concerned individuals, agencies and institutions. These people welcomed the recommendations of the Vision document. Many viewed it as a blueprint for change.

Our report of these consultations supports our government's recent announcement of a $9.4-million expansion of addiction services in Ontario. As the report bears out, the public and the government are in agreement. The flow of a vast amount of money to for-profit health centres in the United States must be stemmed. At the same time, services in Ontario should be expanded, and can be, for much less than the cost of US care. Our government is committed to both.

The report also gives the government a tool for the future. It can help in our assessment of programs already announced and it can be used to assist further reforms as fiscal resources become available. Additionally, this report speaks to our government's commitment to public consultation.

We are pleased to share this report with members during Drug Awareness Week. We are hopeful this release will help bring greater attention to an issue that has a profound impact on our society.

HAZARDOUS WASTE

Mr McClelland: On November 7, I brought to the attention of the Minister of Energy the fact that a substance containing PCBs exceeding provincial guidelines had been disposed of in the Keele Valley landfill. The minister was given the certificate number and the date the material was transported through the streets of Toronto. Ministry of the Environment staff knew of the incident, as did the landfill managers.

The Minister of Energy told the House that the facts would be checked and that he would confer with his colleagues on this matter and take appropriate action with them. He ended his response with the following lofty statement: "Situations like this will not be tolerated in Ontario, if in fact that is the case."

It has been two weeks and there has been no indication that the government has done anything to address the fact that these PCBs are there and the threat that they are raising by being knowingly exposed to the environment. I have raised this issue in the House again today because when it was raised earlier, neither the Minister of Natural Resources nor the Minister of the Environment was in the House, and I want to be sure that they are aware of the situation.

I remind the House that the waste water, runoff and leachate collection system is connected to the municipal sanitary sewer system, which has its ultimate outlet into Lake Ontario. I would remind the minister responsible for the GTA and the Minister of Natural Resources that Keele Valley is located at the head of the Don River.

It is nice to know that the Minister of Energy feels the situation should not be tolerated. The people of Ontario and members of this House want to know what has been done and what is going to be done.

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LABOUR LEGISLATION

Mr J. Wilson: Eleven days ago the Minister of Labour unveiled his proposed labour relations blueprint that will ultimately wipe out any hopes for Ontario to climb out of the current economic recession. Since the minister's announcement, I have received several inquiries from business people in my riding who are deeply concerned that this government either does not care or does not understand the extent to which Ontario's economic future is in jeopardy because of the NDP's plan to amend the Labour Relations Act.

Collingwood's industrial base has been devastated by this recession, and the minister's labour relations agenda will only serve to further imperil the town. One construction firm which has been in Collingwood for some 62 years doubts it will make it to year 63 if the Labour Relations Act is amended along the lines proposed by the government. The owner of this business writes:

"I could not believe that it was possible to make the Labour Relations Act worse, but this is incredible. If these recommendations are approved and another organizing attempt by another union was to be made on this company, I would have to very seriously consider whether or not to continue business in this province under your government."

If this Collingwood construction firm pulls up its stakes and moves to another jurisdiction, the government will have to explain to some 175 workers just exactly how its Labour Relations Act changes helped workers in Ontario.

This legislation will not help workers and it will not help employers. It will do nothing to improve business-labour relations in Ontario. The only investment it will generate is south of the border and in other provinces.

BASEBALL HALL OF FAME

Mr O'Connor: In the difficult times in which we find ourselves today, it is important to take note of the positive steps being taken by smaller communities in attempting to improve their situation.

I was very pleased to see it publicly announced recently that Stouffville is bidding for the Baseball Hall of Fame to be located in that town. Stouffville is an enthusiastic baseball town and would warmly welcome the many visitors the Baseball Hall of Fame would attract. Stouffville is very close to Toronto, where the Baseball Hall of Fame is currently located. Space at the Stouffville Fitness Centre is now immediately available for occupation. Once the town has found a new site for municipal offices, the Baseball Hall of Fame would take over the current town offices, making the town square a focal point for the entire community.

The business community in Stouffville is very excited about the benefits this new tourist attraction offers. The Baseball Hall of Fame would offer a much-needed economic boost to the area and a great opportunity for the town to become more visible in the greater Toronto area.

I strongly support this bid for the Baseball Hall of Fame. I think it will add terrifically to the community. The community has terrific support for this, and I support it wholeheartedly.

ATTENDANCE OF PREMIER

Mr Daigeler: Mr Speaker, do you believe the member for York South, as opposition leader, would have tolerated the Premier's absence from the province for more than two weeks while Parliament was in session? By now he would have had several fits of apoplexy at this unprecedented snub of the Legislature.

Ostensibly the Premier is overseas drumming up business for Ontario -- and the Deputy Premier better listen. I have no problem with that, yet he could have easily done that during constituency week. Why did the Premier fail to return today? Is he afraid to face the House at Queen's Park because he cannot boost business right here in Ontario?

What is keeping business away from Ontario is the Premier's own misguided priorities. With his labour and rent control reforms, he is making life miserable for employers and investors. Rather than reduce government regulations and the tax burden, he plans to increase unilaterally the power of unions and to halt rental construction through his cap on capital cost allowances.

It is time for the Premier to face the music at Queen's Park, lest the voters play him a very disagreeable tune at the next election.

JOHN COUCH

Mrs Witmer: Remembrance Day ceremonies in my community took on a special relevance and significance this year. This year the men, women and children in Kitchener-Waterloo took time not only to remember those who had died defending their county in war but also to pay tribute to the courage and self-sacrifice of a native son, Captain John Couch, whose heroic efforts to help those who survived the crash of his Hercules transport plane in the high Arctic resulted in the supreme sacrifice, his own tragic death.

Captain Couch died of exposure to the Arctic cold after working feverishly for about 24 hours to help those who had been injured. The fact that 13 of the 18 people aboard the flight survived is due in no small part to Captain Couch's valiant efforts. To help ensure we never forget his self-sacrifice and concern for others, the Waterloo branch of the Royal Canadian Legion will provide a $600 bursary each year from its poppy fund to Captain Couch's high school, Bluevale Collegiate Institute in Waterloo.

At this time, on behalf of the members of this House, I would like to extend our sincere sympathy and our condolences to Captain Couch's widow, Carol, to his daughters, Melissa and Rebecca, and to the other members of his family. As Canon Ladds said in his homily at the funeral: "John was always the kind to put people first.... The example of his heroic courage will remain as a legacy."

SHELTER FOR WOMEN

Mr Winninger: I rise in the House today to recognize the work of the Atênlos Native Family Violence Services in London, Ontario. This recognition is particularly appropriate since November is Wife Assault Prevention Month, but the work of Atênlos in building a caring community to stop wife assault among first nation peoples is year-round.

Yesterday the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses identified housing for battered women as a primary need. It stressed that shelters should be administered at the grass-roots level: run by women who are survivors of family violence.

Atênlos currently provides confidential crisis and support counselling to first nations people in the London area, 90% of whom have been emotionally, physically or verbally abused. This coming spring in the riding of London South, Atênlos will officially open London's first seven-bed native women's shelter. Some 14 to 18 native women and children will receive and build the support they need. The Ministry of Community and Social Services will contribute substantially to the operating cost of this shelter.

We often talk about native self-government within a constitutional context. It is also appropriate to see urban native people providing a place of refuge for urban native women as an act of self-government. I laud this initiative and urge the support of all parties in recognizing the need for grass-roots native family violence services in responding to the distinct needs and safety issues of native women and children.

Mrs Caplan: I rise today on a point of personal privilege and I would ask that the Speaker intervene to secure an apology for me.

Shortly before members' statements began, the Minister of Health made a statement in the press gallery that the former minister had made a decision, although not communicated, regarding a request from Hemophilia Ontario. The minister neither discussed this with me prior to her statement nor had any way of knowing what had taken place. She was incorrect and I request an apology.

The Speaker: That is not a point of privilege.

VISITOR

The Speaker: I invite all members to welcome to our midst this afternoon the former member for Ottawa Centre, Mr Richard Patten, seated in the members' gallery west.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

TAX REVENUES

Hon Mr Laughren: Last week, the province was informed by the federal government of a decline in personal income tax revenues estimated at about $2.1 billion, most of which occurred in the 1990 tax year. Because we are eligible for various federal adjustments, we must make up a net loss of $670 million in this fiscal year. This afternoon I am providing the people of Ontario with details on the actions we are taking to manage this change in our revenue picture.

This revenue loss is yet another example of the price we are paying for the recession with its plant closings, job losses and overall weak economic performance. The recession Ontario experienced has been aggravated by federal government fiscal and economic policy. Our revenue shortfall demonstrates that its effects are deeper than we anticipated, with the result that they will be felt for quite some time to come.

Interjections.

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The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Laughren: I know the Conservative opposition does not like any references to its federal counterparts, but it is unavoidable.

Mr Cousens: Don't talk about the feds.

Hon Mr Laughren: I will not talk about them. I will try to avoid mentioning the member's federal cousins.

Instead of implementing policies to counter the recession, the federal government clung to a high dollar and a high real interest rate policy which deepened and prolonged the recession and its effects on people, businesses and governments. This legacy, combined with free trade and the GST, weakened consumer and business confidence when the opposite was needed.

The recession hit Ontario hardest. We have absorbed more than 80% of all recession-related job losses in Canada. As a result, more than one million Ontarians are now on social assistance. This number is expected to grow another 20% next year, in part because of reduced unemployment insurance benefits.

The increased costs for social assistance combined with the federal government's policy which caps its contribution to this program have had an enormous impact on Ontario's budget. This policy of limiting federal contributions will cost Ontario an additional $1.6 billion this fiscal year. This cost will continue to grow unless the federal policy is changed.

Therefore, we are urgently pursuing with the federal government a retroactive change in its policy of capping contributions to Ontario for social assistance payments. I am tabling correspondence with the federal Minister of Finance which seeks his co-operation in addressing our concerns and in participating meaningfully in the renewal of Ontario's economy.

We are also expressing interest in working with the federal government and the provinces to address the shortcomings of current economic and revenue forecasting. It is imperative that we improve the information available to all provinces to undertake effective fiscal planning. I hope to be meeting soon with the federal minister to discuss our position.

I have indicated that federal adjustment payments will help to offset some of the revenue loss. We anticipate receiving $585 million through the stabilization plan. Another $585 million comes through adjustments to the established programs financing for health and post-secondary education, which automatically take place because of the personal income tax revenue change. We will also take advantage of the opportunity, through the federal-provincial tax agreement, to make $300 million in payments in the next fiscal year.

These offsets total $1.4 billion. That leaves Ontario with a net shortfall of $670 million which we will manage this fiscal year in order to meet our budget plan.

Last week, I said we intended to manage the personal income tax revenue loss to meet the financial targets of our current budget plan so we can continue to build on its anti-recessionary strategy and maintain support for Ontarians hurt by the recession. I am reaffirming this commitment today. To do this, we have initiated a number of measures.

Effective immediately, all ministries are rigorously reviewing their discretionary spending. Until April 1992, there will be a freeze on the purchase of vehicles, furnishing and consulting services, except in exceptional situations. This action is in addition to the $100-million reduction in ministry operating budgets which I announced in my October 2 statement. Through it we are estimating a further saving of $50 million.

We are reviewing our capital spending program and will reduce it by $200 million. The funding for projects affected will be absorbed within our capital program next year so they can proceed. In taking this measure, I note that our commitment to Ontario's infrastructure remains strong, with capital expenditures totalling almost $4 billion this year, the highest level ever for Ontario. Furthermore, the $700 million dedicated to our anti-recessionary program remains intact.

Other offsets to the shortfall include additional revenues. The sale of the province's share in SkyDome will contribute a minimum of $150 million to help address our deficit target.

As well, additional revenues under the established programs financing will provide us with a further $200 million this year. This amount reflects new support for temporary residents, higher population estimates and increased cash transfers associated with earlier downward revisions in corporate income tax revenues.

Interjections.

Hon Mr Laughren: I will speak a little more quietly because I do not want the members opposite to have to yell to be heard when they are interjecting.

Finally, we estimate that we will receive $70 million through the sale of assets such as surplus properties and the receipt of dividends from crown corporations.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Would the Treasurer take his seat. With the co-operation of the House, we can hear the remainder of the statement and any other statements which are to be made this afternoon. There will be an opportunity, under the standing orders, for both opposition parties to respond.

Hon Mr Laughren: We are confident these measures will enable us to manage this unforeseen revenue shortfall this year. We will monitor closely our revenue and expenditure projections and take further actions if required.

We must be realistic about the future. Ontario is facing a serious fiscal challenge. It requires that we all work together to maintain programs and services and to build a strong, sustained economic recovery. But the personal income tax revenue loss has very significant implications for next year's budget planning.

Based on this year's experience, we currently estimate Ontario's gross personal income tax revenues will be between $1 billion to $2 billion lower than previously projected for next year. There will be offsets to this decline and we intend to deal fully with this pressure in our 1992 budget in order to meet next year's targets. Furthermore, we have put into place a series of strategies which will now begin to address this fiscal challenge head on.

1. My colleagues and I over the past several months have been communicating with our partners in the broader public sector about the serious fiscal problems we are facing and seeking their co-operation in a number of areas. On behalf of the Chair of Management Board, I am tabling a letter he has written to our agencies, boards and commissions asking that they adopt a salary freeze for all executive positions, just as we have put into place for our senior managers, political staff and members of the Legislature.

In addition, we have been speaking to all our major transfer payment partners about the need to implement similar measures in their organizations. We are also asking that consideration be given by all to the seriousness of the fiscal situation and the importance of negotiating lower wage settlements throughout the public sector.

2. Given the financial pressures we face, we must be realistic about our ability to increase funding levels to our transfer payment partners next year. In the measures announced today and those which were outlined in my October 2 statement, we have been able to minimize the impact of fiscal pressures on our partners next year.

Clearly we must manage within an environment of reduced financial flexibility. I am indicating today that it will be very difficult to significantly increase funding to our transfer partners. Thus, any increases in transfer payments for 1992-93 will be very limited.

We recognize the difficult circumstances our transfer partners are facing and we will continue to work closely with them through these difficult times and ensure effective levels of service.

We will endeavour to get full information to them as early as possible for their planning purposes. I hope to provide our transfer partners with the government's early direction on major transfer payments by the end of this calendar year.

3. As members are aware, policy and program expenditure reviews are now under way as part of our 1992 budget planning. These reviews are being co-ordinated by the new treasury board. Programs and services are being scrutinized for their effectiveness, cost-efficiency and consistency with this government's priorities of economic renewal and social justice.

We are committed through these reviews to achieve cost savings and to ensure that spending meets the priorities of government. The reviews are critical to determining what government does and does not do in the future. They will help to direct its reshaping, make it more effective and ensure that priorities are implemented.

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4. Through the Management Board of Cabinet, we will be accelerating our ongoing program of increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the public service. A number of approaches are being considered. We are looking at administrative processes, some restructuring and changes in the organization and operations of government. In addition, through attrition and streamlining, a range of positions at all levels will be eliminated in order to meet the objectives of this strategy. Changes which are made will be in the spirit of co-operation and participation with employees and bargaining agents. We will carry out our role as employer with integrity. This measure, while contributing to some savings this year, will have its biggest impact in the next fiscal year.

These are difficult fiscal and economic choices to make. They can best be determined by working together to plan and implement solutions. Pre-budget consultations, which will begin in January, will enable Ontarians to participate in the process of finding solutions together to address the fiscal and economic challenges we face.

This government is committed to leading and acting; to working actively with labour, business, communities and other governments to build a sustained economic recovery and to secure our goals of economic renewal and social justice. We have introduced and will be introducing other legislative and program proposals which will support investment, job creation and training opportunities. These initiatives will be the basis of Ontario's economic renewal and the restructuring of our economy. They are the basis of our agenda for getting Ontario working again.

The measures I have detailed will support the management of our fiscal pressures. They will enable us to meet our budget plan, continue its anti-recession package, build strategy and build towards recovery. We are strengthening our position to meet the challenges of our next budget and to continue to pursue a strategy of economic renewal and greater equity and fairness for Ontario.

RESPONSES

TAX REVENUES

Mr Phillips: I say to the Treasurer that today's announcement is very serious, very troubling and a cause of some considerable concern to us. As far as we are concerned, it is a government that has lost its way. This is not the first statement the Treasurer has made. Many people said the budget was wrong. This government said it was the only government in this country that was right, that everybody else was wrong. That was six months ago. A month ago the Treasurer said he had a $670-million problem. Today we see another $600-million problem.

I can tell the Treasurer that the people of this province are troubled and extremely concerned about this announcement today. They are worried about the problem because it was six weeks ago that I said in the House to the Treasurer, if he remembers: "I think there is a problem with the personal income tax. Look into it." We were assured there was not a problem then. Six weeks later, we see a $2-billion problem. We said six weeks ago we thought there was a problem here.

The solutions: One is that I will ask the Treasurer to check carefully into the fiscal stabilization plan. He says he is going to get $585 million out of that. We want to have some assurances that he has checked with the federal government and that this has some sense of reality. Certainly when we look at the fiscal stabilization program, we are not at all sure he is going to get $585 million out of that.

We see a government that has lost its control, lost its way, and frankly, if I can say this to the Treasurer, is beginning to lose the confidence of the people of this province. No one mistrusts the Treasurer's own personal integrity, but what we are seeing is a financial plan that is out of control. People are starting to worry, "Where will it end?"

On the fiscal stabilization program where he is calling for $585 million, we raise the question today, and we would like some assurance soon in the House that this has some sense of coming true. On provincial sales tax revenue, we have said before there is some concern about the numbers he has in his budget. This would have been the time for the Treasurer to come forward and say, "We've reviewed them, we've taken a look at them and perhaps they're too high."

Fundamentally, the Treasurer is giving us a plan we are not certain he is going to be able to stick with for the rest of the year. We are getting it one step at a time. We said the budget was wrong. We raised questions with the Treasurer in October, if he remembers, and said, "Will the provincial income tax be on?" He said, "Yes, we think it'll be fine." There is a $2.1-billion problem there.

It is interesting. As one of my colleagues asked, where is the Premier today? We are facing an economic problem here in the province. The unemployment rate went up substantially a week ago, and where is the Premier? He has chosen to be out of the country.

The concern we have is that the Treasurer has now put on himself about a $2-billion problem for next year, unless I have his numbers wrong; he is saying a $1-billion to $2-billion shortfall in revenue next year from the projections he had previously. I think that is correct. I believe he delayed about $350 million in his October 2 announcement, and in this announcement there is another $300 million. It is either a $1.5-billion or $2.5-billion problem that he has transferred to next year, if I am not mistaken in his numbers. This year we have a problem. This is the third announcement he has now made, and we are worried that this announcement will not hold and that he has created a substantial problem for himself next year.

Our concern is that we would like to see the full picture. We did not see the full picture in October. We are worried about this fiscal stabilization program. We are not sure that is going to come true, and we now see for next year a $1.5-billion to $2.5-billion problem he did not anticipate.

All of this, I say to the Treasurer, is creating an element out there that, first, is making it difficult to have confidence in the government's fiscal plan, and second, the real solution is to get the economy going. Believe me, that is the solution. But when people look at a government that cannot manage its fiscal affairs, they begin to lose confidence in its willingness to invest in jobs and job creation in this province. One goes hand in glove with the other.

As I said at the outset, we are troubled by this announcement. We predicted much of this might come true. We asked him to look at it, and indeed it did come true. Frankly, we are concerned that more bad news may be ahead that we have yet to see. We would like to have seen that today so we could have the full financial picture for the people of this province, so that they could have some confidence this government knows what it is doing in its fiscal affairs.

Mr Harris: I am really shocked today. We heard some rumours coming out of the NDP caucus that this was going to be a really serious announcement, that there were going to be some serious cuts, that there was going to be some sweat and blood and tears as a result of the Treasurer's sweat and blood and tears over the last weekend.

I have looked at this announcement. In the way of cutting their $53-billion expenditures, I see a 13.7% increase. I see a plan that says, "I hope, maybe by reviewing, we might be able to reduce expenditures by $50 million," or 0.1% off a 13.7% increase. That is all that is in the Treasurer's statement today. It is not even there. It is, "I hope that by working together and reviewing we can cut 0.1% out of our 13.7% increase we brought in the budget." That is what this announcement is today.

When we examine it and look at $200 million of deferrals to next year, that makes the problem even worse next year. Instead of taking the $150 million from the SkyDome and reducing our deficit, he says, "I'm going to use that." That means another $150-million problem next year. We see the feds are giving him $1.5 billion more and then another $200 million. We appreciate that from the feds. He says $70 million from a fire sale of assets in the middle of a recession.

No company, no family, no business would ever do that unless they were bankrupt, without examining every other alternative. Can members imagine a family or a company, in the middle of a recession, saying, "We're going to carry on giving 16% increases in total salaries to ourselves"? Can members imagine them saying, "We're going to carry on our spending at a level close to 14%, but we're going to fire-sale some of our assets, those things that help us generate the revenue." It is absolutely ludicrous that the Treasurer is heading anywhere close to this direction.

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I want to talk about the phoney announcement about salaries. Here they are, a 16% increase in the public service last year, and the Treasurer is saying, "We are going to freeze ourselves and senior management." Now to the transfer agencies he is saying, "You'd better be careful next year, and we're asking about 1% of you to take a wage freeze." But all the unionized employees go ahead as if it is business as usual. The government makes statements that it hopes they will bear the reduced revenues in mind. Do they think the trustees of the school boards, the municipalities, the hospitals that are negotiating, have been saying, "Go ahead, take whatever you want; it doesn't matter"? They are doing their very best and they are crying out to this government for some leadership.

I quote to members what really bothered me from the Chair of Management Board in the Globe and Mail today when we found out school settlements are 6.1% on average. The Chair of Management Board, who is also the Minister of Education, said, "Yeah, I'm kind of worried. Something needs to be looked at." This is the response from the Treasurer.

Now I want to read members a quote from the head of a union. It is Robert Garthson, begging, pleading, asking them to legislate a freeze. This is a vice-president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation. He said "it is 'simplistic' to look only at wage settlements" -- he said that is "only" at; he is agreeing you should look at them -- "and he said restraint measures 'have to be applied across the entire spectrum of society.'" He is asking for this. The union is asking for this. If the government had a wage freeze today in the broader public sector, it could save $1 billion over the next year. They could start to address the problem.

This announcement today by the Treasurer says to me that next year there will be $2 billion minimum in tax increases in the next budget. It says to me there will be double-digit increases in municipal taxes, in school board taxes. That is exactly what the Treasurer is saying. He has cut nothing. He has said, "I hope we can cut $50 million if we apply our best efforts." I say to the Treasurer he is closer to Bill Vander Zalm than I thought yesterday. He is living in Fantasyland and this is a Fantasyland statement made by him today.

VISITOR

The Speaker: I invite all members to welcome to our midst this afternoon another former member of the assembly, the former member for Halton North, seated in the members' gallery west, Mr Walt Elliot. Welcome.

LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION

The Speaker: I beg to inform the House that Mr Bradley, the member for the electoral district of St Catharines, is recognized as the leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition. Does the member have a few comments?

Mr Bradley: Briefly, I am delighted to have the confidence of my colleagues in the Liberal Party to serve as the leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition. I almost said "royal opposition," because that has been a matter of great contention recently. But I look forward to being able to question the government from a new position and of course to having so many colleagues who are so capable of providing support to the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr Harris: I have given these speeches to the new leaders of the Liberal Party so many times I am reluctant to take up too much time of the House. I know for sure I am going to be called on to do another one come February, and my caucus voted today; they figure it is 50-50 there will be at least one more before then.

However, I want to welcome and congratulate the member for St Catharines. I look forward very much to working with him for the period of time he will be in this role and position. He will gain an appreciation very quickly in this position that it is not nearly so simple as it looks from the outside. The grass always looks greener over on the other side. It is true that it is much greener over on that side versus this side -- we understand that -- both in terms of the salary increases they have all enjoyed since the last election and, more important, in terms of the fun and enjoyment and challenge of carrying out policy. However, he will find that as well, just from the shift in his role.

We congratulate him. I understand it went to three ballots. I know that creates a lot of tension in the morning. We wish the member for St Catharines very well.

Hon Mr Laughren: I too would like to congratulate the member for St Catharines. I think I speak for my entire caucus when I say that we all look forward --

Mr Christopherson: No, you don't.

Hon Mr Laughren: I confess this can fall apart in a hurry.

Mr Scott: You're learning about that, aren't you?

Hon Mr Laughren: Yes. I welcome, however, the advent of a kinder and gentler opposition with the member for St Catharines. I know he will do a fine job.

I want to say a brief word about the previous leader, my favourite storyteller, who said he would never be a candidate.

An hon member: That was then and this is now.

Hon Mr Laughren: I understand the difference between what was then and what is now. That is not a problem. I want to express my appreciation for the job he did in this House of keeping us on our toes. I know the member for St Catharines will do the same.

ORAL QUESTIONS

TAX REVENUES

Mr Phillips: My question is to the Treasurer. As I said in my comments on his statement, I think he can appreciate that the confidence of the people of Ontario in the ability of the government to manage its fiscal affairs has been considerably shaken.

On October 2, when he announced a $600-million problem, some of us raised the issue of provincial income tax shortfalls, I believe on that day, and suggested that the Treasurer might want to check on that. Seven weeks later we now find there is a $2.1-billion shortfall in provincial income tax revenue. Did the Treasury, or the Treasurer himself, inquire of the federal government as to the status of provincial income tax revenue? What was the response the Treasurer got?

Hon Mr Laughren: I was somewhat surprised when the member for Scarborough-Agincourt responded to my statement. I thought he was somewhat unfair, because all this fall when I have responded to questions about our revenues, I have been saying that it looks as though our own sources of revenues seem to be on target but I did issue three warnings or cautions: (1) that a large portion of retail sales tax revenues did not come in until January, because of December shopping; (2) that corporate income taxes, because of the way they are reported and collected, do not get reported back in until February or early March, and (3) that the income tax revenues the federal government collects for us and then gives back to us over a two-year period have been historically incredibly volatile.

For those reasons, I was expressing caution about our revenue figures. Other than that, all I can tell the member is that we were getting some disquieting rumbles. There were press reports about income tax revenues.

The Speaker: Would the minister complete his response, please.

Hon Mr Laughren: We did not get anything official from the federal government until last week.

Mr Phillips: I take it, if it is not too unfair, that the Treasurer had some indication, but not an official indication, that there was a shortfall. We see two additional problems on the horizon which I would like him to comment on today, not unlike the ones we raised six weeks ago. The Treasurer has indicated that the fiscal stabilization plan will give him revenue of about $585 million and that he will get an additional $785 million from the established programs financing. Has he had some assurance from the federal government that both of those things are a likelihood?

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Hon Mr Laughren: Yes. It is my understanding there is no reason for us to believe we will not get that money, no reason whatsoever. Now, of the numbers the member mentioned, one is the $585 million for the established programs financing and the other is the $585 million for the stabilization plan which kicks into place when there is a dramatic downturn in a province's economy. It has happened in other provinces as well -- British Columbia and Alberta, I believe -- so we have no reason to believe we will not get that money from the federal government. I will be meeting with Mr Mazankowski to make sure these things are nailed down, but since we are clearly entitled to them, there is no reason to believe we will not get them.

Mr Phillips: I hope the Treasurer has actually had some conversation with the federal government and has gotten some assurances. As I look at that plan -- I have to look at it myself; I do not have a large Treasury staff -- I have some questions about it. I believe it is not $585 million from the established programs financing; I believe, from the Treasurer's statement, that it now is $785 million. Again, I will leave those two things with the Treasurer. The reason I raise them is that six weeks ago I raised the provincial income tax matter and now we find the problem.

I think it is now clear that the people of Ontario have some significant reservations about the Treasurer's fiscal plan. I do not think there is any doubt about that. Today's announcement will just cause further disquiet. We see now that he has added at least $1 billion to next year's problem.

Will the Treasurer undertake, not in April but in the next few weeks, to bring forward to the Legislature a new fiscal plan so that the people of Ontario can see all of this laid out and can have some confidence that he has looked at the total program and now has his fiscal house in order? Can we now have an undertaking that we will not wait until April for a budget but rather will have a fiscal plan out of this government that the Treasurer can live with and that the people of Ontario will understand is his fiscal plan?

Hon Mr Laughren: I am a great believer in the budgetary process and so I do not want to bring down a budget in the next month. I do not think that is necessary. However, I assure the member for Scarborough-Agincourt that we do hope, as part of the pre-budget consultation process, to put more information out there for the people of Ontario and the people of the assembly than has ever been put out there before, so that they get a better sense of exactly how difficult the problem is.

I take issue with the member for Scarborough-Agincourt on the whole question of how we are managing our fiscal plan. Exactly opposite to what the member for Scarborough-Agincourt is saying, despite a very severe recession, despite very severe cuts in federal programs, despite the fact that we had this income tax hit that nobody could have predicted -- it happened in previous years to the former government; I am not blaming it; that happened -- despite all that, we are managing our fiscal plan to make sure we are in keeping with the targets laid out in the spring budget and are going to continue to do that.

Mr Phillips: In all sincerity, the Treasurer is delaying his problems to next year. That is the reality.

ONTARIO ECONOMY

Mr Phillips: My second question is to the Treasurer. The key solution for Ontario is to get the economy rolling. Many of his fiscal challenges would be solved if he could get the economy rolling. The Premier, wherever he is -- he is travelling more than George Bush -- promised us on September 23 that the government would bring forward an economic plan to this Legislature. He said that it was his highest priority and that the ministers would be announcing their economic plan. When can we expect the comprehensive economic plan to be laid out for the people of Ontario so that we can have some confidence that the government can get the economy rolling at last?

Hon Mr Laughren: The renewal of Ontario's economy will not come in a blinding flash of light. It is going to come as we come out of this recession and as we, as a government, make sure we do not panic and overreact to the fact that it is a severe recession.

We have already taken a number of measures that will help us in the economic rebuilding of this province. We are going to transform the training system, which I think all members agree needs to be transformed. Training in this country is inadequate and is not well co-ordinated. We want to bring some coherence to the training plan. That will be out in the not-too-distant future.

We have taken some moves on encouraging workers to invest in the economy themselves through the worker ownership plan. I think that is a very important initiative we have taken.

This is a contentious issue among some members, but I think reforming the labour legislation of this province will also go some way towards rebuilding the Ontario economy and making sure there is a sense of security among workers, which they presently do not have.

We are determined to move ahead with reform of the social assistance program so that people on social assistance get back into the workplace. We are going to put a lot of emphasis on that in the next year.

I can see the Speaker is looking edgy, so I will sit down.

Mr Phillips: I think the answer indicates the problem. There is one thing that will divide labour and the business community at this critical point in time. We have a firestorm out there. We have a recession that is under way and needs to be fixed. The government frankly has started a fight between the two groups that can stop the fire the best.

The Treasurer should believe me. If he looks at the business groups and labour in this province, where are they going to be focused in the next six months? Where is the Ontario Federation of Labour holding conferences across the province? What are they doing it on? The labour relations stuff. What is the business community doing? They are focusing on that when we should be focusing on getting the economy rolling.

Will the Treasurer at this time, recognizing his fiscal problems, recognizing the need to get the economy rolling, undertake at least to set the labour relations legislation aside? Let that be dealt with when we get the economy under control and it can be debated in a rational forum. Will the Treasurer at least undertake that one thing to get the economy moving?

Hon Mr Laughren: We are not prepared to set aside the labour legislation. I know members opposite would never proceed with these kinds of labour reforms. I understand that. Having put out a discussion paper, and having labour and business discuss the paper that has been put out and get back to the Minister of Labour with their suggestions, we will see what develops from that consultation period. But we are determined to move ahead with labour reform. We think it is long overdue in this province and we have no intention of setting that aside simply because the Conservatives and some members of the Liberal caucus would like to see us do that.

Mr Phillips: When the Treasurer announced his budget, I think he said: "Every other province is wrong. The federal government is wrong. We're right." I think that is the case. The Treasurer may argue no, but that is what was said at the time, "We know best." Can the Treasurer lay out for the Legislature now the evidence that his plan is working where the other plans are not working? What is the evidence now that he was right and everyone else was wrong?

Hon Mr Laughren: I must say that in the budget in the spring we put out some numbers that bothered a lot of people. They were tough numbers but they were realistic numbers. When I look across this land at other provinces that put out numbers, they were not very realistic numbers. I do not like to step back in time too often, but I remember a year or a year and a half ago when that party was in power and it said, "We're going to have a surplus," which suddenly turned into a $3-billion deficit.

The member opposite cannot have it both ways. We put out numbers that we knew would upset some people but that we thought were realistic. We put out numbers indicating what our fiscal plan was for the next three years as well. A lot of people did not like that, but we had an obligation to indicate how we thought we were going to come out of this recession and how, in some cases, we intended to make sure we invested in this province in a way that made sure we were prepared to come out of the recession in a healthy way.

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TEACHERS' SETTLEMENTS

Mr Harris: I find it ironic that the Liberals and the NDP are arguing about who was more incompetent or who is more incompetent. Why do they not both admit they are incompetent and let's get on to a new direction? Obviously they are both incompetent when we look at the spending they have initiated.

The Treasurer's announcement today, this wishy-washy statement on transfer payments, is not acceptable. Contracts are being settled now: 7% increases, 6% increases are being settled. The vice-president of the union representing teachers, Robert Garthson, has come forward and said: "We need some overall leadership, not just one group of teachers, not just one group in society. We are begging. We are asking for some leadership from the top."

Will the Treasurer today give that leadership from the top and let teachers, unionized workers, non-unionized workers, transfer agencies, arbitrators and employers all know that there is no money for any increase next year?

Hon Mr Laughren: There is no question that this government does things differently than the Tories do. There is absolutely no question about that. I want to assure the Tories in this House that this government will never ever manage the economy in the way Tories do in Ottawa. We do not need any lessons from Tories on how to manage an economy.

I say, on a very serious note, because I think the leader of the third party asked a serious question and deserves a serious answer that is non-partisan in nature, that when we make our transfer announcement, which I indicated in the statement I wanted to make before the end of this calendar year, and that does not leave us a lot of time -- we want to make that announcement, but I think we are already sending signals to our transfer partners out there that there is not going to be much money announced in that statement.

Mr Harris: Teacher settlements are averaging 6.1%. We have a strike on in Elgin and the offer on the table is close to 6%. Can the Treasurer today tell the taxpayers all across the province, all those who are in the middle of negotiations with teachers, how much he is going to transfer to cover the cost of those increases in salaries?

Hon Mr Laughren: As I indicated in my first response, it is our intention to do that as quickly as possible. What we are doing is evaluating, through the treasury board, all our expenditure programs in government. That has never been done before, never in this province. I confess we do not have a draconian, ham-fisted way of looking at fiscal problems. We are determined not to overreact in the short run, but rather to do it in a methodical, planned way so that when we approve the estimates process for 1992-93, it is done in a more thoughtful way than has traditionally been the case.

Mr Harris: The total cost, year over year, to the Ontario taxpayers for the civil service was 16.1%. Inflation for that period of time, I think the Treasurer will agree with me, will be somewhat under 6%. Inflation next year will probably be in the 2% to 3% range. Does the Treasurer see any need for an additional increase this year, given the 16% overall in new money that has gone towards the civil service this year, either in new civil servants, pay equity, merit pay or increases, and given inflation somewhere under 6%, and 2% to 3% next year? The two-year average will still be 8% if he says it is zero today. Does he see a need for more money there?

Hon Mr Laughren: I think the leader of the third party is confusing the Ontario Public Service with the broader public service that is in hospitals, schools boards and social agencies all across the province. This year when negotiations occurred through the collective bargaining process, the increase that was negotiated with the civil servants was 5.8%. Since then we have asked each ministry to absorb 0.8% of that, so really it came down to a 5% increase. When those settlements occurred, inflation was running at a rate of 6.1%.

Hon Mr Laughren: I confess that the easiest politics in the world is civil service bashing. That is the easiest thing in the world to do. I do not think it has much to do with rebuilding the economy of this province.

GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Mr Harris: Today in his announcement the Treasurer indicated he would not touch one cent of the capital spending that is in his recovery package because that was important spending, because that was creating jobs in this recession. He is going to cut $200 million in other spending. He is not going to touch this spending over here because that is creating jobs, but he is going to cut $200 million this year out of capital spending in other areas. Could he tell us how many jobs that will cost?

Hon Mr Laughren: A lot of the capital measures we are taking are measures that were not going to get off the books this fiscal year anyway. There will be some others, but not all of them have been identified. We have determined that we are going to find $200 million in capital spending. I could not give the leader of the third party a list of every one of them at this point, but we are determined that they will be either put off until next year -- I am sure there will be some that will simply be cancelled because of our fiscal problems. It goes without saying that we cannot do it all. Even having said that, approximately $4 billion this year is the most in capital expenditures that has ever gone on in this province.

Mr Harris: The Treasurer is not cutting some capital spending because it creates jobs in the recession, but somehow or other he is cutting $200 million. I asked him how many jobs that would cut. It is a pretty straightforward question. If he knows how many he will save by not cutting here, surely he knows how many he will lose. Obviously he is going to lose a substantial amount of jobs.

Could the Treasurer tell us if the the people of St Catharines, the people of Windsor and the people of Niagara Falls can still expect substantial capital investments to relocate ministries to their communities?

Hon Mr Laughren: First, I wonder if I could put the record straight, because I think the leader of the third party is confusing our anti-recession package of $700 million, which we put in place this spring and which is very largely under way now and mostly will be completed by the end of this fiscal year. I hear what the leader of the third party is saying. I think he would like to see us end those capital expenditures in those communities that are expecting relocation of civil servants but I do not --

Mr Turnbull: Like to see you resign.

The Speaker: The member for York Mills.

Hon Mr Laughren: I think the leader of the third party is not quite sure whether he wants us to continue with spending or whether he wants us to cut all the spending, because I get a mixed message from him. Perhaps if he has another question he could make it clear which it is he wants.

Mr Harris: The question was pretty straightforward. I asked what capital the Treasurer was going to cut and he would not tell me, so I tried to identify capital expenditures in the future and he still will not tell me. The reason for the question is so he cannot keep talking out of both sides of his mouth. That is the problem. The Treasurer has not cut a single thing and he will not identify anything.

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We told the Treasurer that his budget was 180 degrees in the wrong direction. The people of this province told him that. We laid out a document, New Directions: A Blueprint for Economic Renewal and Prosperity in Ontario, and we asked him to consider this. He has still ignored all this advice.

The Treasurer's announcement today means a minimum of $2 billion in new tax increases in his April budget. It means a minimum of billions of dollars of tax increases in municipal and school board budgets next year by not taking action today. Particularly after today, we have absolutely no confidence in the Treasurer. The people have no confidence in the Treasurer. The working people and those who are not working, unionized and non-unionized, have no confidence in the Treasurer. We will be moving that motion of non-confidence.

Mr Speaker, you are going to ask me if there is a supplementary here, and there is not. I am wasting my time with the non-answers.

Hon Mr Laughren: I detected a rhetorical question in that statement. I regret very much that the leader of the third party does not have --

Mr Eves: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: There was no question. How can the Treasurer answer a question that does not exist? Is this a ministerial statement or not?

The Speaker: I will allow the minister to respond.

Mr Cousens: No way. Come on. That was not a question.

Hon Mr Laughren: He was on his feet. Of course I have a chance to respond.

Mr Speaker: Order. I realize the phrasing did not seem to suggest an interrogative. On the other hand, the minister has the opportunity to respond to what he determined or at least thought was a rhetorical question included in the wording. I will allow a supplementary.

Mr Harris: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I would like to inform you that I waive my right to the last supplementary. There is no question.

Hon Mr Laughren: I think the leader of the third party has a problem.

Mr Cousens: This is terrible. Come on, no question.

Mr Tilson: We sure don't want an answer.

Mr Villeneuve: You want to hang yourself, Floyd.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. When the House comes to order, we will hear a response from the Treasurer and then we will move on.

Hon Mr Laughren: I will try not to be provocative.

I regret that the leader of the third party does not have confidence in me as Treasurer, because I have confidence in the leader of the third party to bring to this assembly all the policies that are important to Tory parties all across this country. I have confidence in him doing that. I have confidence in the leader of the third party to wipe out his party's deficit in the next couple of years. I have confidence in the leader of the third party. What I do not understand is why he is so angry and upset that, despite the fact we are in a very severe recession, we are able to manage according to our targeted figures in the budget. I think what is really bothering him is that we are succeeding in doing that.

Interjections.

The Speaker: The member should take her seat.

Mr Sterling: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Under standing order 32(a), covering question period, which we are now undertaking, there is no provision for a minister to stand in this place and make a statement in the midst of question period when a question has not been asked. Therefore, I ask you to replace the time on the clock taken by the Treasurer in response to no question, as he has used up the time of the opposition to ask questions as provided in the standing orders.

Hon Mr Cooke: Mr Speaker, on the same point of order: I do not think there is a provision for the leader of the third party to stand up and make a statement without a question either.

The Speaker: The leader of the third party, to the same point of order?

Mr Harris: Yes, Mr Speaker. To the point of order -- I think it was a new one -- that was raised by the House leader for the New Democratic Party: If I was out of order, I apologize and withdraw all I have said.

The Speaker: I remind the leader of the third party that I did recognize him to place a question. The member for Brampton North.

Mr McClelland: I have a question of the Minister of the Environment.

The Speaker: To the member for Carleton, I am sorry, I should have explained to you. I am very pleased to review what has occurred, but I am not adding time to the clock. I allowed the question because the member asked to be recognized. Therefore, there was the opportunity to place a question to which the minister had an opportunity to respond. We now move on to the next in order while the clock continues to tick by, I remind you.

Mr Sterling: On a point of order, Mr Speaker --

The Speaker: Is this a new point of order?

Mr Sterling: This is a request for a ruling on the request I brought before you. I would like you to identify where the member for Nipissing placed a question to the Treasurer. That is what is provided for in the standing orders and it is your duty to protect the members of the opposition under the standing orders.

The Speaker: To the member for Carleton, I recognized the leader of the third party so that he could place a question. Therefore, the member to whom he placed the question has an opportunity to respond.

ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION

Mr McClelland: My question is to the Minister of the Environment. Her environmental equivalent to the War Measures Act, Bill 143, in my view is the height of hypocrisy. An official from her legal services branch told me yesterday that the reason this bill was introduced under the office of the greater Toronto area was one of mere convenience. In fact, part IV of this very important act, the Environmental Assessment Act, deals with environmental protection initiatives. It is an environmental protection act which clearly falls under her responsibilities as the Minister of the Environment.

Will the minister not agree that this bill would be better dealt with in two separate bills, and will the minister agree today to sever part IV of Bill 143 and introduce it as a separate piece of legislation since it is clearly not the minister responsible for the greater Toronto area but the Minister of the Environment who should be dealing with part IV.

Hon Mrs Grier: Whether I introduce legislation as minister responsible for the GTA or as Minister of the Environment, what is very important, critical and new about this legislation is that for the first time a government is looking at waste management in an integrated way, recognizing that you do not solve waste management problems by merely looking for disposal sites. You have to look at the 3Rs in waste reduction and at the same time find disposal sites for the residue after you have reduced the waste as much as possible. That is what this legislation will accomplish and, frankly, I am not sure it particularly matters under which hat it rests.

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Mr McClelland: It matters because this is clearly the most heavy-handed piece of legislation ever introduced by a Minister of the Environment anywhere. It is shocking to me to think that the minister, who was once an advocate for citizens' rights, the same Minister of the Environment who introduced an environmental bill of rights, the same minister who stood with the Premier and said there would be no expansion of existing landfill sites without a full environmental assessment, would write such hard-handed, ruthless legislation.

The minister has clearly attempted to use these waste management reduction measures she talks about to disguise her draconian and heavy-handed measures. Her environmental war measures act wipes out the very rights and principles she once personally championed. I ask the minister again to sever part IV of the bill so that it can be dealt with in the way it should be and proceed, while the other sections of the bill receive the public scrutiny and the input they require and deserve.

Hon Mrs Grier: I find the analogy between a waste reduction bill and the War Measures Act extremely offensive, but let me say to the member that it is about time somebody in this province waged war on waste, and if his government and previous governments had done it over the last two decades, then this government would not be forced to manage the crisis in the way we are.

ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROME

Mr J. Wilson: My question is for the Minister of Health, who I think just slipped out for a moment. Perhaps she will be back if one of the members of the NDP could get her. She was here a second ago.

My question concerns the request for compensation for haemophiliacs in Ontario who contracted HIV through the province's blood supply. I say to the minister, who is back in, I appreciate her concern for rising health care costs in Ontario, but she will also be aware that a six-year-old haemophiliac, a little boy who contracted the AIDS virus through the Australian blood supply, was awarded compensation by the courts in the amount of $875,000. It cost the Australian government $15 million to fight this case, and now that government is being forced to settle, as a result of the court case, similar cases out of court.

As of this morning, 18 lawsuits have been filed by persons with haemophilia who contracted HIV through Ontario's blood supply, and each names the government of Ontario in its suit. Why is the minister refusing to act responsibly and provide catastrophic relief to haemophiliacs in Ontario who contracted HIV through our blood supply?

Hon Ms Lankin: I do not think we are refusing to act responsibly at all. In looking at this issue, I think I have confirmed the position the ministry had taken in the past.

Let me say briefly to the previous Minister of Health under the former government that with respect to comments I made today, I clearly said that the ministry had taken this position in the past. I do not attribute this directly to the minister having made a cabinet decision, but in terms of documentation and letters, many positions had been taken by the ministry with respect to not dealing with the issue of catastrophic relief for haemophiliacs suffering with HIV until a comprehensive strategy dealing with the Prichard report and response in general was done. I have, in fact, copies of that in writing, but I apologize to her for having attributed remarks directly to her. It is not in fact what I said, although I understand she understood that.

I can say to the member opposite that we are committed to providing benefits and support to all people in this province suffering from HIV and AIDS. We do not see in the provision of health care treatment that there should be a distinction based on how the individual contracted the disease, and I think we have to be very careful with respect to this. In fact, the federal government has been very careful not to tie the kind of compassionate compensation that it forwarded to any indication of culpability on the part of the blood supply. The response we have taken in Ontario is not a unilateral response; in fact, it is shared by every province in the country at this point.

Mr J. Wilson: The minister is aware that there are some 375 haemophiliacs -- many of those people are children -- who are now living with the AIDS virus simply because they placed their faith and trust in our health care system and in Ontario's blood supply. The Australian example makes it clear that the fiscally responsible thing for her government to do -- she should never mind what the Liberals did not do -- would be to compensate these people now, rather than spend millions of taxpayers' dollars fighting this issue in court. Why would she rather see our scarce health care dollars given to lawyers than to people who only placed their trust in our health care system and in her government?

Hon Ms Lankin: Whenever a legal issue is raised, it is very easy to say you should settle on that legal issue, irrespective of what the principles involved are; to spend money in that way rather than spend it on court costs. I suggest the member has to take a look at the legal issues involved. What I think we should be spending the money on, all of it, is delivery of services to the people who have this disease. That is not categorizing one group of people who have this disease.

With respect to the issue of the blood supply itself, we are talking about a national issue. We have had a response from the federal government and from every provincial and territorial government that is involved with the process that there is not a legal culpability involved in this. What we have is people suffering from a disease who need treatment and who need benefits and expansion of the services in that area. That is the right way to spend the money.

AGRICULTURAL LAND

Mr Hansen: My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs. Farmers in the Niagara area have been looking at ways to help ease the tremendous financial hardships they have encountered over the past few years. Recently the regional municipality of Niagara voted in favour of relaxing its land use policies to allow farmers to sever lots from their farms to help raise funds to cover costs. This decision has not been supported by the government and the ministry has said it will send all severances to the Ontario Municipal Board. Will the minister and the Minister of Agriculture and Food meet with the Niagara farmers and the Niagara regional representatives to listen to their concerns and requests?

Hon Mr Cooke: I appreciate the question and the interest the member has shown in this very difficult issue. We in this government understand the very serious situation the farmers are experiencing in the Niagara Peninsula and we certainly understand the motivation behind the decision regional council made to try to help out the farm community, but we had to make a decision in this government of how we would protect agricultural land, and the decision has been made.

I have spoken directly with the regional chair, and I know the Minister of Agriculture and Food has spoken to representatives of the farm community. We are going to meet, because we have to find long-term solutions for the farmers in that community. We want to do that with the farm leadership and with the municipal council leadership. A meeting has been set up for December 17 when we hope to begin that dialogue.

HEALTH SERVICES

Mr Scott: As members undoubtedly know, the riding of St George-St David numbers among its population some of the poorest and most disadvantaged people in the entire province of Ontario. My constituents in St Jamestown and Regent Park, the largest public housing project in the country, would have been shocked, I think, to see the government backbenchers give a standing ovation to the Treasurer when he said he was managing the services of the province efficiently.

My question is for the Minister of Health. Last week, and this is why my constituents would be concerned, they read in the press that the Deputy Minister of Health, Michael Decter, a mandarin from Manitoba, had indicated: "We are looking very hard at the type of services delivered and what are the outcomes. For instance, we spend large amounts of money treating lung cancer, which frankly does not do much good." He went on to give other examples of services that might be cut out. He spoke of heart bypass surgery and organ transplants for people over 70 years old.

The serious question I have for the Minister of Health is, are these things Mr Decter speaks about being actively considered in the ministry? Does the deputy minister in that respect speak for the government?

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Hon Ms Lankin: As we review how our health dollars are spent, we are committed to trying to put in place a process that ensures every procedure is evaluated based on health outcomes. We think that this is an important way to go and that there have been some pilot projects within certain hospitals with respect to total quality management and continued quality improvement which suggest that those are really important elements to an evaluation tool.

Recently the Canadian Cancer Society, with respect to the studies that have been done in a co-operative, broad-sector way, in the Cancer 2000 report has suggested that we need to look much more at the prevention issue rather than treatment with respect to lung cancer, that we need to shift those resources.

The particular cases I think were used as illustrative of the kind of debate we need to have in our society with respect to which kinds of health care procedures we continue to invest in, in our new procedures that we bring on line. They are not considered at this point in time a list of actual items that within a month or two I would be announcing any changes with respect to.

Mr Scott: I want to thank the minister for the completely candid answer, because I take it to be entirely clear that Mr Decter does speak for her and the government when he says this government is actively considering whether OHIP services should be provided in respect of certain cancer treatments, bypass operations for the elderly and organ transplants. There has been a reflection of that in today's press, no doubt connected with what Mr Decter said, when the Toronto Hospital, which is a hospital upon which my constitituents are directly dependent, as members can imagine, announced that transplants, for example, for which it is well known, might be cut.

Dr Hudson, the new president of the hospital, said patients will be turned away. "'We would have to say' -- speaking of organ transplants -- 'trash the organs; we're not going to use them, we haven't got any money.'... Patients will be told: 'Sorry, you're going to die.'"

The other half of the riding, north of Bloor Street, numbers some of the richest citizens in the country. They will be able to get this kind of treatment and surgery, if not in Ontario then in Quebec or in Philadelphia or in New York or in Dallas. In light of the needs of my riding, what is the minister going to say, in light of what Dr Hudson has said, to constituents in the south end of the riding who are going to suffer from this destruction of the health care plan under which they are presently the beneficiaries? It is an important and very troubling question. I ask the minister for a candid answer.

Hon Ms Lankin: I appreciate the opportunity to give a candid answer. I think I have been very candid on this issue all along. I believe that there is a great deal of room within our health care system and within the hospital system for restructuring that will provide service in a better co-ordinated way across the region, and we will make some good decisions about how and what we are providing within our hospitals.

I hope -- I have to say I hope -- with respect to what has been quoted by Dr Hudson in this article, that in fact he said much more that was much more balanced in his approach. I am quite shocked by the quotes that are here. In discussions I have had with the OHA and with other hospital CEOs, I think we have a very co-operative approach that has been established. That has not been reflected in the headlines. Let me tell the member that those kinds of comments, which I will say directly are outrageous -- I certainly hope they were put forward in a much more balanced approach -- are the very kind of thing that leads to panic in the member's community and in other communities. I would like to say that I hope we can quell that panic, and I look for the member's assistance in doing that.

I received a letter by fax, very shortly after the paper was out today, from University Hospital in London and from the co-ordinator of the multi-organ transplant service.

Mr Scott: My constituents do not live in London; they live in Toronto.

Hon Ms Lankin: Perhaps the member could listen to the response.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Ms Lankin: The chief of the multi-organ transplant service, who is working with the ministry task force with respect to this issue, was shocked at those kinds of comments being made and wanted to assure the people of Ontario not to panic and not to have fear, that these kinds of statements go far too far with respect to what the situation is.

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

Hon Ms Lankin: Let me also say that I think the Ontario Hospital Association and its leadership should be listened to. I will just quote right from the weekend, where Mr Timbrell said: "'Will patient care be jeopardized?' he asks. 'No. Will there be waits? No. Will there be a compromise on quality? No. Will there be a change in how we receive services? Yes.'" I think we are going to try to manage that change.

NORTHERN HEALTH SERVICES

Mr Eves: I have a question for the Minister of Northern Development and Mines. I am extremely disappointed to hear that after some discussion, the Minister of Health has unilaterally decided not to consider any threshold exemptions beyond physicians who are currently in the government underserviced area program. I am concerned that this ill-conceived decision is going to have a very negative impact on the accessibility to health care services in northern Ontario.

Can the Minister of Northern Development and Mines give this House, and more particularly the residents of northern Ontario, her personal guarantee that this decision by her government will not adversely affect northern Ontario residents?

Hon Miss Martel: I think the member would understand that I could not give a personal guarantee regardless of if it were a question of medical care or anything at this point in time. We are under a great period of fiscal restraint in the province. All of us, in terms of our various ministries, are making every effort to maintain the basic services that we have to maintain our programs, but we will all have difficulty this fiscal year to try and do that.

I should talk to the member in particular about the specific case, the dermatologists in northeastern Ontario, whom I am sure he has a concern about, as I and my colleague the Treasurer do. Yesterday my ministry talked directly to the Deputy Minister of Health. We asked that a meeting be arranged with respect to Dr Donahue. Those arrangements are being made right now.

Second, there is a second meeting that will occur between the OMA, this government and the doctors, which I will be attending in Sudbury, that have a concern specifically about the shortages in cardiology and in obstetrics so that we can talk to all of them about what can be done. I look forward to having those discussions. The meetings, as I understand it, were trying to be arranged as soon as possible.

Mr Eves: I talked to some of those doctors whom the minister and the Treasurer apparently talked to late last week. Their version of the meeting is not anywhere near the same as that of the Minister of Northern Development and Mines. Dr Donahue is not the only specialist in Sudbury who has a problem. These people are generally concerned about the needs of their patients as northern Ontario residents, as a result of the decision of the Minister of Health.

Dr Abdulla, who is the cardiology chief at Sudbury Memorial Hospital, is concerned that the government's decision may force him to move south. He is the only qualified nuclear cardiologist in all of northern Ontario. He is one of five serving a population of 600,000 people that should have 10. Dr Cheung, also of Sudbury, the minister's home town, is the only full-time neurologist practising north of Parry Sound in the province. He may also be forced south, he says. He is extremely concerned about the ramifications of the government's decision on his patients and his staff.

When is the minister going to realize that the government's decision is placing the health care of northern Ontario residents in jeopardy? Is it not the intention of the government to provide those first-class health care services in northern Ontario? That is why we build centres like the Sudbury cancer centre, so people can be treated there, not so they can be paid under the northern health travel grant program to ship them all to Toronto because the Minister of Health is cutting out their services and forcing them to move south.

Hon Miss Martel: It certainly is a priority of this government to provide those services, especially in Sudbury, and that is why I and my colleagues the member for Nickel Belt and the member for Sudbury have fought so hard on behalf of the cancer treatment centre and other specialists who are located in Sudbury. I remind the member of that.

Also, if he listened to the first answer -- he obviously did not -- I said that we were in the process of arranging a meeting between the Ministry of Health, the representatives from the OMA, my office and the cardiologists and obstetricians who were at the meeting in Sudbury on Friday, and requested a meeting and that their concerns be aired.

If the member had listened to my first response, he would have heard me say clearly that we understand it as not only a problem with the dermatologist Dr Donahue; it is also a problem with the others. We are undertaking as soon as possible to have these meetings.

I would also say, with respect to the situation of Dr Donahue in particular, that I asked him very clearly at the meeting on Friday if he was prepared to open his books and have a meeting with the ministry because none of us, in terms of those he has asked some help from -- that is myself and the Treasurer -- in none of the letters he sent to us did he indicate what his costs were or what his problem was. In none of the letters he sent to us did he indicate what his costs were or what his problem was, so we have asked very clearly that if we are going to come to a meeting with him, and we intend to do that, will he in turn open his books? I hope he will do that. That is the basis upon which we are now arranging those meetings.

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LABOUR LEGISLATION

Mr Abel: My question is for the Minister of Labour. My riding of Wentworth North --

Interjections.

Mr Scott: Let that guy ask a question. Give him a break.

The Speaker: Order. The Speaker would appreciate the assistance of all members, not just the member for St George-St David.

Mr Abel: I am grateful to the member for St George-St David for taking care of my best interests here. As I began to say, my riding of Wentworth North consists of three towns, Dundas, Ancaster and Flamborough, and in these three towns there are several shopping malls and plazas. Several of the shop owners from within these malls and plazas have contacted me with some concerns regarding the proposed changes to the Ontario Labour Relations Act, specifically picketing on third-party property. My question to the minister is, will the proposal to allow picketing in shopping malls interfere with businesses not involved in a labour dispute?

Hon Mr Mackenzie: I think it is a good question and useful to get rid of some of the scare tactics that are used in terms of this legislation. Incidentally, I was going to make the point that we are --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Mackenzie: As I was just going to say, Mr Speaker, what we are looking at is a discussion paper, not legislation as yet. We will not know what is in the legislation until we finish the discussion process. I think it is a point, however, that there is not a fear as is raised by some of my colleague's constituents who are concerned.

The current state of the law allows for workers to picket at the entrance to the mall or in the parking centres, and that can often lead to real problems with a number of people who may be involved in the malls. The change would allow for picketing inside at the actual store that was being affected by the labour dispute, and I think that will be a lot easier than previously.

Hon Mr Mackenzie: I think allowing --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Would the minister take his seat, please.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Minister.

Hon Mr Mackenzie: I think the final point is that the proposals in the discussion paper, which still has to go through the discussion process, will allow peaceful picketing directly at the business involved, and attempts to picket them all generally would be illegal, as they currently are.

TEACHERS' SETTLEMENTS

Mr Beer: My question is to the Minister of Education. In an article in today's Globe and Mail, it is reported that the minister has told Ontario school boards that they need to show more restraint in wage settlements, which are currently running on average at 6.1%.

Last month, as Chairman of Management Board, the minister intervened in discussions between the Council of Regents for Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology and their staff and stated that they ought not to offer any settlement above 2.7%.

Is the minister prepared to give this same message clearly and firmly today to the leadership of the teachers' unions in this province?

Hon Mr Silipo: I think I said earlier, and I will continue to say, that I believe and this government believes in the collective bargaining process and in that process continuing. What I have also been saying and will continue to say is that we have some realities that we all need to deal with, and very clearly the area of wage settlements is an area that everyone needs to look at, whether it is in the school board sector or in any other sector. That is the kind of message I have been giving out, and that is certainly the kind of message I will continue to give out.

Mr Beer: That really is no answer at all. The minister is quoted in the Globe and Mail as saying: "It concerns me...something needs to be looked at...without being too firm...we will need to be sharpening our message."

It seems the minister is quite prepared to sharpen his message when it comes to the community colleges, but he ducks the issue and is afraid to make the tough decisions when it comes to discussions between the school boards and the teachers. What is happening here is that the minister has also indicated that school boards can expect 3% or less in transfer payments, and yet it is clear from what is going on in terms of these settlements that there simply will not be money for the wage settlements.

What is the minister going to do? Will he state today how he is prepared to protect the Ontario property taxpayer if, on the one hand, he is not prepared to give the school boards the money to run the schools of this province, and second, he does not seem to have the wherewithal or the courage to stand up and state clearly and categorically the wage limits that will be permitted?

Hon Mr Silipo: Although I note with interest the settlement reached for the colleges' support staff of, I believe, 3% for next year, I also, as I say, believe very clearly that school boards, teachers' federations and other employer organizations have a clear responsibility to continue the collective bargaining process and find solutions to the fiscal problems that we have through that process.

I met yesterday with representatives from the Ontario Public School Boards' Association. I will be meeting with representatives from other trustees' associations, as well as with teachers' federations and other employee groups and representatives, to discuss with them very clearly the kind of situation we are all living under. It is the kind of restraint, quite frankly, that everyone will have to show.

The Treasury has already indicated we will be making our transfer payments announcements before Christmas as a way also to indicate very clearly to the municipal level, school boards and other transfer payment agencies the kind of support they can expect from this government. It is a time for all of us to look very clearly and very realistically at what we can achieve.

Mr Beer: I would like to state that the answer is not acceptable. It is purely a lot of gobbledegook, and I invite the minister back at 6 o'clock for the late show.

The Speaker: I assume the member for York North will file the necessary document.

GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Mr Eves: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I did not want to pursue this, because I did not want to take up any more time of question period, but as he stood on his feet for his second supplementary on his second question, the member for Nipissing indicated that in view of the fact that he was getting non-answers from the Treasurer, he would not be placing a second supplementary question.

I may be wrong, but I for one did not hear a question, Mr Speaker. I would ask you to review Hansard to see if in fact one was placed, because I believe -- and again I may be incorrect -- that you permitted the Treasurer to respond to the member's question. Well, I do not think there was a question. I would ask you to review Hansard, and if in fact there was not a question, why was the Treasurer given an opportunity to respond to a non-question?

Mr Conway: Mr Speaker, on that point, I listened with some interest to the exchange this afternoon between the member for Nipissing and the Treasurer. I do not want to prolong the point, but it seems to me that surely the Treasurer has a right, and any minister of the crown has a right, to respond to a question. But it seems to me that if a member of the opposition bench has the right to get up -- and I think any Chair has to exercise some measure of latitude. It is not an easy task; I understand that. But on the basis of what I heard this afternoon, I would certainly support a ruling by the Chair to allow some latitude whereby one might hear a rhetorical question.

It seems to me that if we in the opposition, as members of the Legislature, are going to stand up and make a statement as part of a routine question time, it is not unreasonable that a member of the government who is clearly going to be engaged in that process -- after all, that is the informing logic of this process. I do not like to disagree very often with my friends in the third party, but I would simply say as a member of this Legislature that in what I heard this afternoon, when a member of the Legislature stands and puts a point, though it may not be as purely interrogative as the rules would anticipate, it seems to me that, mens rea, if that is the legal term, the reasonable thing would be to allow some kind of response, if only in the anticipation that there was a rhetorical question contained within the submission.

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The Speaker: First of all, to the member for Parry Sound, I appreciate your having brought this concern to my attention. I certainly listened quite intently to the comments by the member for Renfrew North. I did make a ruling on this earlier. I will, however, be pleased to take another look and will report back to the member for Parry Sound later.

PETITIONS

OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

Mr J. Wilson: I am pleased to present a petition to the Legislature of Ontario that reads as follows:

"Whereas the Queen of Canada has long been a symbol of national unity for Canadians from all walks of life and from all ethnic backgrounds;

"Whereas the people of Canada are currently facing a constitutional crisis which could potentially result in the breakup of the federation and are in need of unifying symbols;

"We the undersigned respectfully petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to restore the oath to the Queen for Ontario's police officers."

I am pleased to say that I have affixed my name to this petition, as have my good friend and colleague the member for York Mills and a number of good people from my riding who live in Wasaga Beach and Stayner.

Interjections.

Mr J. Wilson: I hear a lot of heckling from the opposition because they wonder why every single day since the government took away the reference to the Queen in the police --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Will the member for Simcoe West take his seat, please.

ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION

Mr McClelland: I have a petition signed by over 700 people in opposition to Bill 143. It is signed by 700-plus people from the Maple and Vaughan areas who are asking if the government of the day would put a stop to Bill 143. I will sign that petition so it can be introduced.

CLOSING OF TREE NURSERIES

Mr Miclash: I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario and it reads:

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"We oppose the proposed closure of the bare root section of the Dryden Tree Nursery due to the loss of substantial employment...Dryden Tree Nursery purchase of materials and services, income dollars spent locally and the MNR local presence in the community."

That is signed by some 112 residents of the area, and I too have attached my name to that petition.

GASOLINE PRICES

Mrs Y. O'Neill: I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario which reads as follows:

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly as follows:

"Whereas gasoline prices are significantly higher in the Ottawa area than those in southern Ontario;

"Whereas such a price disparity discriminates against Ottawa area consumers;

"The Legislative Assembly of Ontario should urge the Ontario government to correct this injustice for Ottawa area motorists."

This is signed by 150 people, and I have affixed my signature.

CHRONIC FATIGUE IMMUNE DYSFUNCTION SYNDROME

Mrs Mathyssen: I am presenting a petition signed by 2,988 people from all over southwestern Ontario who request that:

"The Ontario Ministry of Health take steps to establish a clinic in one of the London, Ontario, teaching hospitals for the appropriate assessment, treatment and clinical research for chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome.

"These signatories further request that the Ontario Ministry of Health provide the necessary funding to establish a critically needed permanent regional information centre in London, Ontario.

"These signatories would like the members of this House to understand that very little is known about this debilitating disease. It strikes people in every age group and leaves its victims with cognitive dysfunction, memory loss, difficulty with concentration, sleep disturbance, physical pain and extreme prolonged fatigue. A conservative estimate of those afflicted in Canada is about 100,000 victims, an estimated 10,000 of whom reside in southwestern Ontario.

"Despite the horrendous cost to the health care system, the inability of sufferers to continue to work or attend school, no Canadian epidemiological study has been done for CFIDS."

On behalf of all those concerned members of this Legislature and the many victims of this disease, I respectfully submit this petition, to which I too have signed my name.

GASOLINE PRICES

Mr Grandmaître: I too have a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, similar to that of my colleague from Ottawa-Rideau:

"Whereas gasoline prices are significantly higher in the Ottawa-Carleton area than those in southern Ontario;

"Whereas such a price disparity discriminates against Ottawa area consumers;

"The Legislative Assembly of Ontario should urge the Ontario government to correct this injustice to Ottawa area motorists."

This is signed by 127 people living in the Ottawa-Carleton area, and I have affixed my signature as well.

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

Mr Kormos from the standing committee on resources development presented the following report and moved its adoption:

The committee begs to report the following bill without amendment:

Bill 126, An Act authorizing the Filing of Information in an Electronic Format under Statutes administered by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations

/Projet de loi126, Loi autorisant le dépôt de renseignements au moyen d'un support électronique dans le cadre de lois dont l'application est confiée au ministre de la Consommation et du Commerce.

Motion agreed to.

Bill ordered for third reading.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

Mr Cooper from the standing committee on administration of justice presented the following report and moved its adoption:

Your committee begs to report the following bill, as amended:

Bill 115, An Act to amend the Retail Business Holidays Act and Employment Standards Act in respect of the opening of retail business establishments and employment in them/Projet de loi 115, Loi modifiant la Loi sur les jours fériés dans le commerce de détail et la Loi sur les normes d'emploi en ce qui concerne l'ouverture des établissements de commerce de détail et l'emploi dans ces

établissements.

Motion agreed to.

Bill ordered for third reading.

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INTRODUCTION OF BILLS GOVERNMENT CHEQUE CASHING ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR L'ENCAISSEMENT DE CHÈQUES DU GOUVERNEMENT

Mr Morin moved first reading of Bill 154, An Act to prohibit the Charging of Fees for the Cashing of Government Cheques

/Projet de loi 154, Loi interdisant de demander des droits pour l'encaissement de chèques du gouvernement.

Motion agreed to.

Mr Morin: The bill prohibits any person from charging a fee for cashing a cheque issued by the government of Canada, the government of Ontario or a municipality.

CHURCH OF THE TORONTONIANS ACT, 1991

Mr Harnick moved first reading of Bill Pr104, An Act to revive the Church of the Torontonians.

Motion agreed to.

Mr Harnick: This bill is to revive the charter of a corporation.

The Speaker: It is a private bill for which there is not normally an introduction.

CITY OF NEPEAN ACT, 1991

Mrs O'Neill moved first reading of Bill Pr110, An Act respecting the City of Nepean.

Motion agreed to.

EARTH DAY ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR LA JOURNÉE DE LA TERRE

Mr Christopherson moved first reading of Bill 155, An Act proclaiming Earth Day

/Projet de loi 155, Loi proclamant la journée de la Terre.

Motion agreed to.

REDIRECTION OF BILL

Mr Runciman: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Bill 126 was moved on to third reading earlier. I am given to believe there was an agreement with respect to this bill going to committee of the whole. I am looking for the consent of all three parties in the House to redirect that piece of legislation to committee of the whole.

The Speaker: Is there unanimous agreement to send Bill 126 to committee of the whole?

Hon Mrs Grier: I am not aware whether there have been discussions with the government House leader. Could I ask that we stand down this decision until I get some sense of what in fact has been discussed?

The Speaker: This matter can be dealt with later on. We note there are no House leaders present in the chamber at this time. We can set this aside for now and the member can come back later when we have had an opportunity to determine what can happen with this.

NOTICE OF DISSATISFACTION

The Speaker: Pursuant to standing order 33, the member for York North has given notice of his dissatisfaction with the answer given by the Minister of Education to his question concerning transfer payments and teachers' salaries. This matter will be debated at 6 pm today.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR LA GESTION DES DÉCHETS

Mrs Grier moved second reading of Bill 143, An Act respecting the Management of Waste in the Greater Toronto Area and to amend the Environmental Protection Act

/Projet de loi143, Loi concernant la gestion des déchets dans la région du grand Toronto et modifiant la Loi sur la protection de l'environnement.

Hon Mrs Grier: I am pleased that debate on waste management in this province is about to begin. In my six years in this Legislature I think this is the first time members have had an opportunity to debate a comprehensive approach to waste management, despite the fact that the issue of waste management has preoccupied many of us and the time of this House in question period. There has not been a comprehensive piece of legislation getting to the heart of the matter that is beginning to deal with the problem.

In Ontario, as in the rest of Canada, our quality of life and prospects for economic prosperity have traditionally been rooted in an advantage that few other jurisdictions on earth enjoy. We are a community of approximately nine million people occupying almost 900,000 square kilometres of land rich in resources.

But we have long been aware that this abundance is not without limits and that we have been straining those limits. That is the hard fact that underlies the evolution of environmental protection in Ontario. It has been addressed in legislation and in programs developed and refined over the past quarter century by a series of governments.

In spite of current economic conditions, public concern for the environment remains high. In fact, it has strengthened in focus. The public has adopted recycling as part of everyday life wherever recycling systems have been put in place. They are becoming more selective as consumers, creating a demand for environmentally friendly products. The greening of public attitudes is manifest here and around the world in disapproval of some of the products and byproducts from industries, businesses and institutions that are often seen to be harming the environment.

For their part, many in industry, commerce and institutions are thinking and working in more environmental ways. They are quick to recognize the advantages in cost and efficiency of low-waste, low-pollution operations and also the marketability of greener, environmentally friendly products.

We are now building on the foundations of environmental legislation established in Ontario and launching major new environmental initiatives to address the public's environmental and economic concerns.

Today I am pleased to introduce the Waste Management Act, 1991 for second reading in the Legislature. This is our government's first milestone in refining the province's environmental laws so that we may maintain a level of environmental quality which will nurture a healthy, productive society and a strong, sustainable economy.

With this legislation we are beginning to implement an environmental strategy which is based on four major policy directions.

First, this is a green government. The environment must be taken into account by all ministries in every policy and program that is decided upon.

Second, stewardship: Everyone has a stake in the environment, a responsibility to protect it and a right to enjoy its benefits.

Third, conserving: To create a sustainable environment, we must transform ourselves from a consumer society to a conserver society.

Fourth, prevention: Our programs have a double focus, to develop strategies to prevent further damage and to clean up existing problems in our environment.

The Waste Management Act, 1991 addresses urgent environmental issues facing this province and provides the government with the legal authority to resolve them and begin implementing strong and consistent environmental policies.

The act provides a framework within which we can accelerate the transition from a consumer society to a conserver society strongly based on the 3Rs -- reduce, reuse and recycle -- with the emphasis on waste reduction.

This legislation is the foundation for implementing a series of regulatory initiatives for waste reduction, the first of which I released for public consultation last month. This legislation is the means by which we intend to achieve more than 25% waste diversion from disposal by 1992 and more than 50% by the year 2000, goals that have been espoused for quite some time but for which programs and policies were not put in place to enable us to reach them.

We are tackling a waste management system that has traditionally been heavily weighted in favour of simply finding disposal sites instead of reducing the amount to be disposed of in the first place. With this legislation, and regulations and programs to follow, we intend to require municipalities to account for and maintain records of the full cost of waste management facilities and to establish disposal fees which are substantial enough to reflect those true costs.

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At the same time we will expedite approvals of 3Rs facilities, such as composting and recycling plants, to remove some of the barriers that have impeded their establishment up to now.

This act will help us to improve the public's ability to carry out the 3Rs so that waste reduction measures are consistent across the province. This means mandatory recycling and leaf and yard material composting programs in all the larger municipalities. This will allow more people to share the benefits enjoyed by those who live in our already waste-conscious municipalities.

In the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors, which account for some 60% of the solid waste now going to disposal, the act will allow the province to require annual waste audits, implementation of waste reduction action plans and recycling programs in designated larger operations. A growing number of companies and institutions are already doing these things to achieve substantial waste reduction as well as significant improvements in operational efficiency. This legislation will help us in bringing the rest along and establishing a fair and competitive environment.

This legislation also extends our ability to deal with packaging and containers, which make up an estimated 21% of our waste stream, and in addition, to deal with disposable products and products that pose other waste management problems. Here too we expect to develop an effective program of waste audits and waste reduction action plans.

Sections of the act focus attention on the greater Toronto area where we have close to four million residents making up about 44% of the total Ontario population. It is in the GTA consequently that we find the greatest need for solutions to deal with disposal sites that are rapidly reaching their original design capacities. At the same time, this concentration of population and economic activity provides the greatest possible opportunities for success in 3Rs initiatives.

We have established the Interim Waste Authority to provide provincial leadership to the GTA in establishing long-term waste disposal facilities and seeing them through the environmental assessment process. The act before us today provides some of the authority essential to achieving this goal.

The act also provides for implementation as required of some of the interim GTA waste disposal decisions which have already been announced and discussed in the Legislature.

Current estimates of waste disposal indicate that capacities at the Keele Valley and Brock West landfill sites are greater than were expected some months ago. Ministry staff are evaluating these latest estimates, and I look forward to seeing how they hold up. Obviously those estimates have significant bearing on the need for actual use of the interim capacity measures, specifically for example, the need for one transfer station in Durham region and the need for a lift at the Keele Valley landfill site.

Regardless of changing estimates, however, all our information does point clearly to a need for a lift at the Britannia Road landfill site in Peel region starting next year. The risk of not preparing for interim capacity at Keele Valley and Britannia Road is one I cannot take for the sake of both the environment and the economy of the greater Toronto area.

The act before us today reflects in varying degrees all four of the basic environmental policy directions this government has established.

It encourages a green government approach to waste reduction at the regional and municipal level in tune with provincial initiatives, including the waste reduction efforts led by the Ministry of Government Services.

It helps provide a better environment for stewardship, with opportunities for industry, commerce and institutions as well as the general public. The consultation we have begun on the proposed 3Rs regulations ensures full public access to the process of developing the forms this stewardship will take. With the strong emphasis placed on waste reduction, we are implementing conservation over consumption and creating conditions more favourable to conserver approaches.

Similarly, the act will help us prevent pollution. It will help us guide the public, governments, industries, commerce and institutions in anticipating and reducing the production of waste materials and diverting others from disposal into productive use. These basic policy directions will continue to be paramount as I bring forward further legislative initiatives, policies and programs.

These approaches have been incorporated into the municipal-industrial strategy for abatement. The MISA program is focused at more than 300 industries discharging directly into our lakes and rivers and more than 12,000 industries which tie into our sewer systems. We have strengthened that program to emphasize pollution prevention and to reduce the discharge of persistent toxic contaminants by reducing the use of these contaminants in the first place.

These new directions I am implementing share the values and reflect the principles adopted by the Ontario Round Table on Environment and Economy, which I am privileged to chair. The government is continuing to look to this multistakeholder group for the strategic planning essential to the development of a conserver society in an environment that will nurture and sustain quality of life as well as healthy economic activity.

As a government, we are convinced that solutions to environmental problems cannot wait for more prosperous times. The challenge before us is to develop creative programs to respond to the need for immediate and strong action and to do this in a way which is fiscally responsible.

When we look at the role of various economic sectors in environmental protection, we are looking to more than just reducing the environmental problems they create. Now we are seeing the greening of industry, which in turn has led to green industry, where pollution prevention is the key principle. The government is working with business and industry to increase their competitiveness in a world market for environmental expertise which could exceed $200 billion.

In developing comprehensive programs which emphasize pollution prevention as well as the other policy directions I have outlined, the Ministry of the Environment is providing a spur to all industries to come up with technological advances to meet our regulations. The ministry wants to establish an environmental climate which will encourage industry to bring about this kind of development.

The government is on the road to providing the people of Ontario with the quality of life to which they aspire, in an environmentally sustainable economy. Reducing the amount of waste we produce and disposing of the residue in an environmentally sound way is an important step along that road and I welcome the opportunity to debate those principles and this legislation in this Legislature.

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

Mr Sorbara: I want to advise my colleagues in the House that I intend to speak at some length on this bill.

An hon member: Surprise, surprise.

Mr Sorbara: There is the say-nothing member for Middlesex shouting out her insults again, sent in my direction during --

Mrs Mathyssen: Mr Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker: Please take your seat. Yes, I understand. You were not the one.

Mrs Mathyssen: That is right.

The Deputy Speaker: Take your seat, please. It was not the member for Middlesex; it was another member.

Mr Sorbara: Then I would apologize to the member for Middlesex. I am so accustomed now to hearing insults hurled at me from her during the course of deliberations in the standing committee on administration of justice that I just naturally assumed, and that was in error.

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Interjections.

Mr Sorbara: I guess we are going to have a lot of interjections through this. I will just try to ignore them as best I can.

I plan to speak at some length on this bill. Members will be hearing through the course of a very long debate arguments that I think will establish conclusively that the best course for the Minister of the Environment would simply be to withdraw this bill and start again. I will be making submissions to the House as to why I consider that to be the only appropriate course.

I want to say at the outset that the members will be hearing very strong arguments from a number of our members, not just members from ridings in the greater Toronto area but from members representing all parts of the province, because in our view the draconian nature of this bill can and will have implications for every single community in Ontario and indeed beyond that to the whole course of solving our environmental problems and working out environmental solutions in Ontario.

It is difficult for me to believe that the Minister of the Environment, the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore, could actually allow her name to be associated with this bill, and I say that as honestly and as straightforwardly as I can. I have several reasons for saying that, but the one I think is paramount in my mind is the extent to which the Minister of the Environment, when she sat on this side of the House -- I think the Chair was just directly in front of me here -- was an outspoken, articulate, powerful and respected advocate on issues relating to the environment.

It went beyond the role her leader, the now Premier, had assigned to her as Environment critic. You could tell, particularly in the interchanges between her and the member for St Catharines, while he was Minister of the Environment, that she understood the issues. In particular, she understood the extent of the right to be heard that the laws of the province had vested in the people of Ontario, which was paramount in her understanding of environmental issues: the right to be heard, the right of a community to participate in the decisions that would affect them.

She went so far, during the course of the last Parliament, as to introduce an environmental bill of rights. That legislation was never passed, but it vested in individuals and groups in a community the opportunity to take their case to an independent tribunal and to have it deliberated upon.

The essence of Bill 143, the bill she introduced in this House a few days ago and now sponsors in second reading, the kernel of the bill, is to abrogate the rights of citizens in virtually every respect and virtually every law that has governed environmental protection, I say to the minister, since we started legislating in those areas in this Parliament. She laughs. When I say that, she laughs. I am going to get into why that is the case, but I will just set it out for the members, because it is important we get to that matter urgently.

This bill provides that, by order, the Minister of the Environment can, under her pen and under the authority of Bill 143, order that there be an additional capacity at the Britannia landfill site and order that there be additional capacity for Metro's garbage at the Keele Valley landfill site, without the ability of the citizens of this province to be heard on the matter.

This is how far it goes. This bill allows that the order of the Minister of the Environment bypasses the Environmental Assessment Act, which she used to believe in, the Municipal Act, the Planning Act, the Ontario Municipal Board Act, and even beyond that, the rights that accrue to municipalities under private contract.

What are we left with? I will tell members what we are left with. After her order comes down, under her signature or the signature of one of her directors, the people of the province have an opportunity for 21 days to express their view in writing, and that is it. After that the matter is closed, and after that the garbage trucks come, and after that her will shall prevail. This is rule by royal prerogative and it looks very bad on the now Minister of the Environment, a former champion of environmental rights: 21 days to respond in writing; no hearing.

I, as a representative of the people of York Centre and the Maple community and the Vaughan community, and thousands of others who might have something to say in the process of a hearing, are told that we have no right at all to be heard. All our democracy, all our rights legislation, everything we believe in as legislators, is based on the right to be heard and she has presented us with a bill that says: "You shall no longer have those rights. I can personally order the expansion of a dump. I can personally inflict that on the people of a community" -- Peel, York region, and by extension really anywhere else. If this passes, this sets one of the most dangerous precedents in environmental regulation and environmental management of any jurisdiction in North America, the denial of the right to be heard.

Imagine if in this Legislature the government were able to bring forward a bill and say: "There's going to be no debate. If you have a concern about it, write us a letter. Send us your views by mail."

I want to tell members what that is like. My constituents have been writing the Minister of the Environment for months. They have been communicating by mail. They are not given an opportunity to meet her personally. That would be too much. But they have been writing her. Do members know what they get? No answer at all; no response.

Let me just give members one example. This hero across the floor, who talks about the 3Rs --

Some hon members: Heroine.

Mr Sorbara: I do not want to make it a sexist differentiation. This hero or heroine of the environment proclaims that she is going to implement the 3Rs in Ontario. Let me just tell her a little story or two about that.

In the municipality I live in, York region, they are anxious to get on with the 3Rs. In fact, they are anxious to build a recycling depot and a composting depot. Do members know what? They cannot do it, and they cannot do it because under the Regional Municipality of York Act, passed by this Parliament, they do not have the authority to do it. They need a change in legislation. It is not a big change in legislation; it is a very small amendment to the York region act.

They bought a building to get on with their plans for dealing with her majesty's 3Rs. They paid money for the building. They developed plans to use that building for recycling and composting, but they need authority to do that. They were limited in their authority and asked the previous minister, the member for St Catharines, for that authority. He said, "Yes, we will bring forward legislation." Then there was an election and he was no longer the Minister of the Environment. That gives members a sense of how long ago this matter emerged.

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They needed the authority, so they wrote when the new minister was sworn in. They asked that a bill be brought forward by her or the Minister of Municipal Affairs to empower them to do this. The letter came from the chairman of York region, as would be appropriate. Do members know what the Minister of the Environment said? Nothing. There was no response whatever, no letter back saying: "Thank you for your letter. I understand. Yes, I'm in favour of the 3Rs," or: "No, I'm not in favour of the 3Rs. That will be very difficult. The legislative calendar is very busy." Nothing, no response whatever.

The chairman of York region wrote a letter and asked the Premier to ask some minister to get on with that, with a simple amendment to the York region act. Do members know what the chairman of York region heard from the Premier in response? Nothing. No letter, no phone call, no postcard, no suggestion that, "Yes, we'll deal with that down the road." Nothing. Do members know what? The bill is still not in the House.

The Minister of the Environment, who stands up here and unabashedly proclaims her belief in the 3Rs, has not got the decency to advise York region whether she will bring forward such a measure. I find it hard to believe. It is a very good example of the extent to which what this minister and this government say about environmental issues contradicts what she and her government actually do.

Now, as she perhaps exits from the chamber, I would like to tell my colleagues in the chamber how we got into this mess in the first place. It is a mess. If any members were at the demonstration outside this morning and saw the hundreds of people who were here from the the city of Vaughan and York region and the locality of Maple, they could see the anger and the resentment in their faces, all of them working men and women who have other things to do than come down here and protest. When a community rents buses and books off work and arranges to come down here for a demonstration, there is something seriously wrong.

Let me explain to my friends what went wrong. I want to take members back to the election campaign of the summer of 1990. Very serious environmental issues arose at that time. I do not want to go through every single promise the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore, now the Minister of the Environment, and the member for York South, now the Premier, made during the course of that election campaign. I think, though, of her promise to immediately bring in an environmental bill of rights.

I too will be signing Christmas cards during the course of the next month and a half, but not during this debate, I say to the Minister of the Environment.

I want to take her back to the election campaign. There was concern at that time that our government was going to take measures to identify a landfill site in Whitevale in the community of Durham or in my own home community.

Hon Mrs Grier: Where was the public process then?

Mr Sorbara: The Minister of the Environment asks, "Where was the public process then?" I want to tell her that in saying that, she admits there is no public process in this bill.

Let's go back to that election campaign. Concerned that the government was going to put into place a public process for consideration of a landfill site in Whitevale and the expansion of Keele Valley and perhaps Brock and Britannia, the Leader of the Opposition at that time, the member for York South, the person who is now the Premier, visited every one of those sites. Our friend the member for Durham West was there, so he knows the lie. He knows the extent to which the Premier and the Minister of the Environment and the government of which he is a part broke their word.

Mr Wiseman: No, they didn't.

Mr Sorbara: My friend the member for Durham West says, "No, they didn't." I have the transcripts.

Hon Mrs Grier: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Will you ask the member to withdraw that allegation, please?

The Deputy Speaker: I frankly did not pay total attention. If there was an offence, I am sure the honourable member will recognize it.

Hon Mrs Grier: The member used the word "lie," Mr Speaker.

Mr Sorbara: There is no offending statement, Mr Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker: I will review the transcript, but if there was an offensive word used, I am sure and positive that the honourable member will withdraw it. Please continue the debate.

Mr Sorbara: There was nothing offensive in what I said. I am simply putting the facts on the record in this House. Talk about offending statements. Let me defer for a moment. The now Premier, in launching his campaign, said to the people of Ontario, "David Peterson lied to you about automobile insurance." I am quoting the now Premier.

Hon Mrs Grier: What about the deficit? What about the surplus and the deficit?

Mr Sorbara: No, I am quoting the member for York South. A year later, the Premier, without any embarrassment, without any shame, without an apology to David Peterson, simply withdrew his plan for public automobile insurance. We now have the bill that David Peterson and the member for Bruce brought forward and passed in this Legislature.

There is nothing offensive in what I said. I am just putting the facts on the record. The facts are these: The now Premier stood in my riding, at the edge of the Keele Valley landfill site, and promised to the people of my riding that an NDP government would not allow any expansion of the Keele Valley landfill site without a full hearing and assessment under the Environmental Assessment Act. That is what he said. That is not conjecture. It is not faulty memory.

Mr Stockwell: Verbatim.

Mr Sorbara: It is verbatim. That is what he said.

Just to build the argument, the now Premier of the province also said, when asked about the cynicism about politicians, and I am quoting more or less verbatim, "I think it comes from politicians saying one thing when they're in opposition and another thing when they're in government." There is no more startling example than the betrayal -- is that unparliamentary, I ask the minister who is signing Christmas cards during this debate? -- of the word given by the Premier of the province to the people of Maple about expansion of the landfill site. He did not qualify it. He did not say, "We're going to examine the extent of the emergency, and if there's no emergency, then we will have a full EA."

That put us on a little bit of a spot. We were in government and we had a responsibility to make sure to the people of this province that we brought forward policies that were both realistic and vested real rights in the people. So we said, and we took our hits for this: "We're not going to go through a process under the Environmental Assessment Act. We will go through a process under the Environmental Protection Act."

There are all the same opportunities for a hearing and to submit one's case that exist under the Environmental Protection Act. The only difference between the two acts in that regard is that under the Environmental Assessment Act a review has to be undertaken of all the other options and alternatives to using that site. Under the Environmental Protection Act, you have to be as scrupulous, thorough, scientific and environmentally correct in the choice of sites as the other act. The only difference is that you do not have to look at alternatives, other locations or other technologies. During the campaign we undertook to do just that.

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The now Premier was more absolute in his undertaking, in his promise to the people. He said, "We are going to have a full hearing of the kind that the people of Maple want and expect." It is now one year and four months since that time. The Premier broke his word. The Premier and the Minister of the Environment are doing exactly what they said they would not do, that they would not abrogate the rights of the people, that in fact they would turn to the act that vested the most thorough and comprehensive rights this province has in environmental legislation to protect their interest.

This was the Premier who said David Peterson lied. This is the Premier who said we had misled the people. Bill 143 is a great fraud on the people of Ontario. It is the most serious deception one could imagine from a minister who used to enjoy some confidence on environmental issues.

Let me explain why it is such a fraud on the people of this province. It has all the rhetoric of good environmental policy in three of its four parts -- unnecessary, by the way, because what the minister wants to accomplish through this bill in the area of the 3Rs, reduction, reuse and recycling, is all possible without this legislation. She has the authority to do it right now. One of the reasons we have a bill here is because her plans are not ready, so she delays with legislation.

All of this nice rhetoric contains a poison pill so serious that it will destroy her credibility and the credibility of her government for the balance of its term in office during this Parliament. I vow to my colleagues in this Parliament, I vow to the people of my community and I vow to the people of Ontario that I will move heaven and earth, I will do everything in my power to make sure that discredit, which is so deserved now because of what has happened, becomes a reality.

How did we get into this mess? I think the first mistake happened on September 6, but that is now history.

Shortly after the Minister of the Environment was sworn in, she began making statements setting out her government's policy on garbage and waste disposal. In every single instance she wrapped her words in fine rhetoric. Maybe her time in opposition was just a matter of fine rhetoric too.

I go back to November 21, 1990. The minister made her first statement in the Legislature. She revealed her conserver action plan. This plan reordered the 3Rs, putting priority with reduction first, then reuse and, as a last resort, recycling. Very fine words. Then comes the beginning of the poison.

She said there was going to be an Interim Waste Authority to look for a permanent site. She said at that time as well: "We are not going to consider Whitevale. We do not need to consider Whitevale." She said with such gall in this Legislature her plans would be so successful that there was going to be no garbage gap. That is to say, there would be no need for an interim site while her Interim Waste Authority found a permanent site, no gap. She said it in here, and I will sit down and take my seat if she wants to stand up and deny she said it. She said, "There is going to be no garbage gap." I see she is not asking for the floor. She is still signing Christmas cards.

In her November 21 statement, the minister made statements indicating there would be no garbage gap in the GTA because her waste reduction regulations were going to be effective and she was sure the people of the GTA would be successful in diverting enough waste from landfill to extend the lifespan of the current landfill sites until long-term sites were approved. Now we know that was not true. She said there would be no gap, and now we are debating a bill which clearly acknowledges that there is a gap, that we are going to need some interim capacity and that she will, by divine right, determine where that garbage shall go.

She has determined now that it is going to go to Maple, a riding represented by a Liberal, by the way. It is very interesting. It is not going to go into Whitevale because the Premier stood there as well. "If you are going to take a hit, take a hit in a Liberal riding," says the Premier. "My God, let's not take a hit where we won a seat. Take a hit in a Liberal riding. After all, they've had garbage there for 20 years so what difference does it make." Take the hit in the Liberal riding and do it under Bill 143 in a way that does not give the people the right to be heard.

It is not going to work. The people of Maple are going to be heard. The people of Vaughan are going to be heard. The people of Ontario are going to be heard. The minister cannot rule by divine right of kings or queens any more. That is what Parliament was all about.

She says she needs the bill by Christmas. That is three readings. "Get this over with. Just get me out of here. Get the Legislature closed down. I need the bill by Christmas." The minister has not yet abrogated the rights of parliamentarians to be heard in the Legislature, and we will be debating this bill long after she has been discredited by every environmental group, not only in Ontario but in Canada.

If the minister presents a bill that says the people of Maple will not be heard, we have to speak for them. We have to talk and talk and bring it to the attention of every group, of every community, that the Minister of the Environment now rules by what she thinks is best.

It was back on November 21 when the minister first said there would be no garbage gap and no need for an interim study. We said then that we hoped she would be right, that we hoped we could have a new place to dump this garbage that is being produced so rapidly. We said then we wished her well on that agenda. We do wish her well on that agenda and we want her to get on with that agenda.

But we said at that time as well, "Now, look. You have taken Whitevale off the list of possibilities. So that means, by extension, that you have reduced the number of sites that might be suitable for interim capacity. Even if you don't need them, get on with the hearing process. Start one now. Identify and admit that there is a possibility."

She refused to do that. She said, "No, I don't need that." This was a year ago today short two days; it was November 21, 1990, when she said: "No gap. No need for a hearing. It's okay. I am going to look after this with my 3Rs. We don't have to do this." A year later a bill comes before this House with a poison pill in it that abrogates the rights of citizens right across Ontario to be heard.

We will not even ask for the Environmental Assessment Act any more. That is what they promised, but we will not ask for that. No. It is okay. Just give us something. The Environmental Protection Act: There is a law they are responsible for. Let us be heard. Let us make our case.

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I want to tell members why the minister will not do that. It is very simple. Because if anyone put forward a proposal to expand the Keele Valley landfill site and increase its capacity for garbage, it would never survive a hearing. It would be rejected by just about any environmental panel we could put together. It would not survive it. It would be rejected. It would not pass. It would not come up to speed. It would not meet the standards we now put in place to determine where our garbage should go, to the extent that it goes in a hole in the ground.

The minister would lose. Metro Toronto would lose. The panel, after hearing all the evidence, would say: "Sorry. That site is not appropriate." So the way you get around that if you are the Minister of the Environment is you say, "There's going to be no hearing." Now it starts to make sense why this whole thing is there: "Liberal riding. The people have had garbage in their backyard for 20 years. I don't upset another community. I know it won't pass the standards that apply to these sorts of things, so I'll take away the right to be heard. I'll even take away the rights that accrue under a private contract."

The minister can, just with the stroke of a pen, eliminate a private contract. By the way, there is a contract between Metro Toronto and York region and the city of Vaughan, and do members know what that contract says? When the current capacity is met, they will never apply for additional capacity. That is what the contract says. That is what a judge would read when he read that contract when someone came to ask him to enforce it.

So this minister says: "I have to find a place for garbage. I've got a garbage gap. It's not like 1990 when I said there was no gap." She actually believes that if she says there is no garbage gap, there is no garbage gap, and when she says there is a garbage gap, there is a garbage gap.

We could have been a year into the hearing for the expansion of Keele Valley by now. Do members know why the minister would not allow that hearing and now presents a bill that says such a hearing will be illegal? Because it would not pass the standard. It is simple. It would not pass the standard.

Why would it not pass the standard? I will tell members why. Generally, in Ontario and in Canada, we do not put garbage sites in the middle of cities, in the middle of urban areas. We do not do that. Actually we have never done that. It used to be, when Ontario was basically a rural province and most of our forefathers lived on farms, there was very little garbage, and to the extent there was garbage there was the back-40. You dug a hole and you put the garbage there and no one ever thought about it again.

Now we still look for some sort of 1991 version of the back-40, and that is not in the heart of the city. Let me tell members what has happened in Maple since the dump that is now in existence was approved after a hearing. Since then an urban community has grown up all around the area. Thousands and thousands of people have moved into the area. Under laws passed by this province -- the Planning Act, the Municipal Act, the Regional Municipality of York Act and the Township of Vaughan Act -- laws that allow for communities to grow, an urban area has grown up.

In fact, the city hall for the city of Vaughan is directly across the street from this landfill site. All of that community grew up on the basis that a private contract and the laws of this province would provide for the closing of that landfill site some time in the 1990s and no later than the year 2003. People moved there on the basis of that undertaking. People bought houses. They brought their children to schools. They set up businesses. It is an urban area now. I used to live there. It is a beautiful community. Thousands and thousands of people have moved in.

There are a lot of things that go towards the setting of standards you apply in determining where a landfill site should go, but one of the first is that you do not put it in the middle of a builtup area. That is why the minister will not have a hearing, because it is a builtup area now. The dump is in the middle of a city. I invite any member who is interested to come out and see. You do not need to fly over it to see. You just have to drive there. On the one side are city hall, houses, schools and businesses, and on the other side of the street is Canada's largest dump.

Mr Stockwell: Bob Rae saw it.

Mr Sorbara: The Premier was there. He saw it. He was probably encouraged to make that kind of commitment because he knew this place would never pass the scrutiny of any hearing process under the Environmental Protection Act or the Environmental Assessment Act.

Let me tell members something else. This site sits on top of the headwaters of the Don River system in southern Ontario. It is in the Oak Ridges moraine. This government put special protections in for the Oak Ridges moraine. So we have a landfill site on the Oak Ridges moraine and the headwaters of the Don. They tell people they want to clean up the rivers, yet they are going to pile a huge new capacity for garbage right on the headwaters of the Don.

Everything we know about dumps says it does not matter how much clay you put in, sooner or later they leak. Sooner or later the effluent goes through the clay and into the ground water below. That is why when we were in government we put in special protections for the Oak Ridges moraine. That is why we began that process. Now the Minister of the Environment, knowing that an expansion of Keele Valley would not survive a hearing process, brings forward a bill that says, "I'm ordering that Metro Toronto do all the engineering to expand it and I'm going to prohibit a hearing." This is the most offensive kind of injustice that could ever be done to the people of the province.

We were at November 21, 1990. Things proceed apace. The minister slowly started to intimate in speeches and announcements: "My goodness, maybe there's going to be a waste gap, a garbage gap. Maybe we'll need additional capacity." So her next strategy was to wrap the next announcement in language that made her look progressive to a very small group of people in Ontario. She said the garbage had to stay in the home communities.

This is interesting, because Metro Toronto had spent about $10 million developing a plan to transport its garbage by rail to a site in the Kirkland Lake area, not in the community of Kirkland Lake but in an abandoned open-pit mine in the Kirkland Lake area, an area so uninhabited that it is not organized into any municipality whatever. I am not saying that was an answer to the garbage problem; I am simply saying Metropolitan Toronto was working on plans to do that and was preparing to bring a submission to a hearing to determine whether that was an acceptable solution under environmental principles.

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The Minister of the Environment did not tell them not to do it when she took office. She did not say, "No, don't spend that money," until April 2. That was the day the Minister of the Environment really screwed up the works. She said to Metro Toronto: "Just cut that out. Cut out that business of sending garbage to Kirkland Lake. Don't even think about it. Under my plan garbage stays in your own municipality." She would not even allow Metropolitan Toronto to have its proposals considered under a hearing process.

This is the minister who wanted an environmental bill of rights. This is the minister who used to champion the rights of citizens to be heard. So citizens in Metro said: "We take her at her word. We want a hearing for this. We don't demand that this be the solution. We just want it to be heard." She said again: "No hearing; that doesn't fit within my plans. I've got a different plan. The garbage stays in the backyard."

Her announcement at that time was very interesting. She said the people of Peel region would have to find a site in Peel region for the garbage they produce, that comes from their homes and their businesses. "We want a site in Peel for the garbage Peel produces."

She said to the people in Durham: "You will find a site in Durham to dump your garbage. You're going to keep your garbage at home. That's going to force you to reduce and reuse and recycle. You have to find, I say to the people of Durham, a site there."

But she said to the people of York region that they would have to find a site in York region not just for the garbage of York region -- that would be easy -- but that the people of York region would have to find a site for all the garbage of Metropolitan Toronto. How fair is that, talking about fairness, the party that champions fairness? I want to make the point again. Can members imagine that by fiat of the Minister of the Environment, York region is now responsible for having a site within its borders to deal with all the garbage generated by 2.5 million people in Metropolitan Toronto? Why York region?

If you believe in environmental principles it does not make any sense. Even if you were going to be fair, if you were going to be stupid and fair, at least you would say the garbage from Metro Toronto would be equally allocated in Peel, Durham and York. Those are the three municipalities that border Metropolitan Toronto. That would be stupid but it would be fair, I think.

We could not believe it that day when she made that announcement. We could not believe she would be so utterly arbitrary, insensitive and vicious to the people of York region. Yes, there are two Liberal members representing that area, but surely the minister is not so crassly partisan as to take that into consideration -- or maybe she is.

I have been pleading since that announcement for one justification as to why York region becomes the situs for the landfill facility for Metropolitan Toronto, and I have never been given an answer, not even the courtesy of a reply. Why not Durham? Are there too many NDP members from Durham? Why not Peel? Are there too many NDP members from Peel? Why not Simcoe? Why not Essex? Why not Kent? Why not Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry?

Mr Villeneuve: It's too far -- and East Grenville.

Mr Sorbara: Now the member for S-D-G & East Grenville says it is too far. I think it probably is too far, but why York region?

Let me put it this way: Let's examine the standards of the Minister of the Environment on this basis. Let's assume that just across the border from York region there is a site that is A-1. It is perfect. It has all the geological and geographical attributes that make it the site for garbage. Let's assume that site exists out there, somewhere beyond the boundary of York region. The Minister of the Environment says, "I prefer a second-class site in York region over a site outside the boundary that is environmentally superior."

How can that be? How can a minister who says, "We want to base our environmental initiatives on the highest of standards," say that an inferior site in York region shall be preferred to a site outside York region that is superior as far as garbage is concerned? How can she do that? What are her standards? Are they just political? Is it just convenient? Is she saying to the people of Maple: "You've taken garbage for 20 years and you're represented by a Liberal. We've got to put it somewhere and there is a garbage dump. Sorry for the mistake I made back in November 1990. We're going to have to do something about it and we can't have a hearing because that site couldn't pass a hearing, so I'll bring forward Bill 143"?

Bill 143 says that all the standards, the rights, the processes we have had to make sure we do the right thing are hereby abrogated. They are denied. They are withdrawn. "Do not look to the Municipal Act. Do not look to the Environmental Assessment Act. Do not look to the Environmental Protection Act. Do not look to private contract. Do not look to anything. I hereby order," says the Minister of the Environment, "that the garbage shall go there. I hereby order Metropolitan Toronto to do the engineering studies. I hereby order that any additional garbage capacity that emerges before the long-term site in York region is identified shall go in the backyards of the new community of Maple.

"I hereby order that," she says to the people of Maple. "I order it. It shall be done," she says, "and I'm going to bring forward a bill in the Legislature that is going to cut off your right to a hearing. You can write me. You've got 21 days to write me and it doesn't matter what you say in those written submissions. After that it is going to be a done deal. I'm tired of this garbage mess," she says. "I've been in hot water on it for a whole year. I can't stand the pressure. I am going to rule by fiat. Rights are denied. Forget about a hearing. Don't write submissions; it's not worth it. The law is going to pass and I'm going to order it."

I cannot believe it. I just keep thinking, is this the same woman who introduced an environmental bill of rights when she was in opposition? Is this the same woman who used to chastise the member for St Catharines for even the most minor exemption from the Environmental Assessment Act? Is this the same member who used to stand in her place and condemn a government for even the smallest exemption when she knew that the exemption was minor and it did not affect anyone?

Now she is going to expand Canada's largest dump sitting on the headwaters of the Don River in the Oak Ridges moraine. She is going to abrogate a private contract, a solemn undertaking, that the dump would not be expanded. This is interesting, because years ago, when the people of Maple used to raise their concern about the possibility that Keele Valley would be expanded, I used to say to them I thought not because there is a contract, signed by Metropolitan Toronto, that is enforceable in courts, saying that it would never seek expansion. The only way to get around that contract is to introduce a law in Parliament abrogating the rights that exist under those contracts, so I said to them not to worry, that I could not see the then minister ever doing that, that it would be draconian.

Do members know what? Here it is, Bill 143. Part III of this act says she can order it, and she will order it, notwithstanding private contracts. Those private contracts will not impair her ability to order an expansion of the site. What other private contracts will we see the Premier and the member for --

Mr Scott: Where's Bob Rae?

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Mr Sorbara: I tell my friend the member for St George-St David that he should not ask where the Premier is. He is somewhere in Europe campaigning for Glenda Jackson to get a seat in the House of Commons. I do not expect to see him back here, given what the Treasurer just did on the budgetary process. Members should forget about the Premier; he is hiding out in Paris, the good life.

My goodness, these guys have come to power and they are just loving it. The Premier is campaigning for Glenda Jackson. Wowee. The Fabian socialists are going to take up new seats, thanks to the Premier over there in jolly England. He is in Paris. He is having a great time, he sends his regards.

The Deputy Speaker: Please speak to the bill.

Mr Stockwell: The only one who doesn't need Prince Charles is Peter Kormos. The only one who's safe is Kormos.

Mr Sorbara: My friend the member for Etobicoke West says the only one who is safe is the member for Welland-Thorold. I am not sure how safe he is. It may well be that this government, in the way in which it now abrogates rights, might just abrogate the right of the member for Welland-Thorold to effectively represent his constituents. They threw him out of cabinet.

The Deputy Speaker: Please, I would ask you to speak to the bill.

Mr Sorbara: I will indeed speak to the bill. We were at April 2 when the minister, of her own accord and without consultation -- this is the most amazing part. She did not even phone up or write any political leader in York region or Metropolitan Toronto. She just decided, after thinking about it perhaps after a cocktail party, that Metro's garbage would go to York region. How is that a reasonable environmental decision?

Garbage created by 2.5 million people needs a pretty good place to put it, if you do not use modern technologies, which is what she should be doing. You need a pretty big hole. She decided that it was York region. She said: "No hearing on the Kirkland Lake proposal. That's too far away. You've got to have it in your backyard. After all, Metro's got few sites, so I think Metro's garbage is going to go in York region." Now she is passing a law to make that a reality.

Do members know what? It is not going to happen, because we are going to fight, we are going to oppose and we are going to object. Members probably heard the demonstration here today. That was small; that was peanuts compared to what is going to happen down the road. She cannot just take away people's right to be heard. She cannot just do that. Members should imagine if they are charged with a criminal offence and the prosecution lays out the case before the judge and then the Minister of the Environment says: "Excuse me; the defendant is not going to be heard. The judge shall make his decision based on what he's heard so far from the prosecution."

That is exactly what she is doing in the area of environmental rights, and it will not survive. This bill will not survive if we in the opposition have anything to do with it. I remember the Premier saying "We'll fight this thing till hell freezes over" when he was in opposition.

Mr Stockwell: It must be chilly in Hades.

Mr Sorbara: It is getting awfully cold and it is not just because it is November 19 and winter is approaching. This is a fight. The Minister of the Environment has waged war on the people of Maple, on the people of Vaughan, on the people of York region and on the people of Ontario and we will not tolerate it. Her bill, by the way, says, "You can write us within 21 days with your views on what we decide to do."

I guess that is one of the biggest offending parts of all. If you talk to any individual or group involved in these sorts of matters, you will know, Mr Speaker -- and I know that you are interested in this -- given the complexity, the scientific information, the environmental information of the documentation in support of a submission or an application for a landfill site, those documents cannot even be reviewed to find out what they really say within 21 days. That was made clear to me by representatives from the municipality. Even in an application for a minor amendment, a variance, before a committee of adjustment, they give you more than 21 days. But these documents are this high. The scientific information is very complex, and often you cannot even understand it unless you are able to cross-examine the scientists who wrote it.

We cannot be heard, we cannot cross-examine. We cannot phone up and say we would like a discussion. She says, "No, no; no hearing." It is clear from everything I have seen and heard on this thing that from day one, from the day she was appointed as Minister of the Environment, someone has whispered in her ear that, come hell or high water, we are going to put garbage in Maple.

She said once that there was no garbage gap; then she said there was a garbage gap; then she said, "We're going to put Metro's garbage in York region," then today the bill comes in for second reading and it is there. It allows the minister to make an order to Metro.

This bill, by the way, does not ask Metro to consider Keele Valley; it orders Metro to spend the money to do all the engineering studies preparatory to putting another so-called lift on the Keele Valley landfill site. It does not provide Metro with any money to do that; it does not allow it to consider additional sites, it does not allow it to consider additional technologies. It does not allow any of that. It orders them to do that.

Do members know what one of the other great ironies is in this? The scientists -- not the politicians who tell you one thing one day and another thing another day in accordance with convenience -- say there is another six years' capacity at the Keele Valley landfill site. That is to say, there are six more years that we could be taking garbage there without any application to expand it.

The minister nods, "Yes, that is right." Well, then, why does she not allow a hearing on expansion? She has six years to mount that hearing.

Interjection.

Mr Sorbara: The Minister of Health, signing her letters, expresses her disappointment.

The Minister of the Environment has six years to allow for a hearing. We asked her to call for a hearing a year ago. We asked her simply not to expand it, but if she was even thinking about it, to allow for a hearing. She said no. Then in April, when she said, "There's going to be an interim site, and it's probably going to be Keele Valley," we said, "Let's have a hearing," and she said no. Now she introduces a bill that says, in law, "There shall be no hearing. There is going to be none. We are not going to allow that."

I say to the minister that she will not get away with taking away people's rights. It will not happen.

The Deputy Speaker: On a point of order, please, just to interrupt you for a few minutes: I have reread what was said and I do not find anything offensive to the standing orders. But I would just like to bring to your attention that sometimes we play with words and it may attract or raise the ire of people. I would just caution you to be careful. Please continue.

Mr Sorbara: Mr Speaker, I invite you to come to your own decision on what happened. The words you just reviewed had to do with what happened during the election campaign. I put before you the fact that the member for York South, then Leader of the Opposition, went to the Keele Valley landfill site --

The Deputy Speaker: The decision has been rendered and there is no point in elaborating on it. I ask you to continue to debate on the bill.

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Mr Sorbara: I put it to you that I did not say the Premier lied to the people of the province at that time. I just put the facts before you and I will let the people judge. But I remember that during that campaign, the current Premier cavalierly called anyone who got in his way a liar. That is what he did.

Now his Minister of the Environment is introducing a piece of legislation that takes away the right of the people of Ontario to just a hearing; it takes away the right to a hearing. Can members imagine that, that this is sponsored by New Democrats who used to champion fairness and the right of people to be heard? Has the government discussed this in its caucus? Has it any idea what a terrible precedent this is? There are 100 landfill sites in Ontario that are scheduled to close over the next two years.

Hon Mrs Grier: Eight hundred.

Mr Sorbara: The minister corrects me: It is 800. Does that mean that in each case when they have not got new capacity, the minister is going to order their expansion with her new divine right of kings power and prohibit a hearing? That is what I read.

Hon Mrs Grier: That's the legacy of mismanagement we inherited.

Mr Sorbara: Boy, oh, boy. I will just tell you, Mr Speaker, that is terribly offensive. She says, "It's the mismanagement we inherited." Give me a break. The Minister of the Environment says this is mismanagement. A year ago she said there was no garbage gap. Now she says there is going to be a garbage gap. I ask you, Mr Speaker, where the mismanagement is, where the lack of understanding is.

We said when we were in government that there might be a gap and that we would provide for it and let people be heard. She waited two years. She changed her mind over and over again, and then she says there will be no hearing, and she says it is because of mismanagement back then.

Is that the style of the minister? Is that the policy of the government? If it finds mismanagement, it takes away people's right to a hearing. That is good. Let's apply that to the justice system. There is mismanagement of the courts. Perhaps we were in part responsible for that. So we will take away the people's right to a hearing. We will take away a defendant's right to defend himself or herself. Let's apply that to the Ontario Municipal Board. The municipal board is mismanaged. Perhaps we are partly responsible, so you know what? "We will take away the right to a hearing." That is what she says.

Maybe this is just the beginning. Maybe this is really what this government is all about. It will point to mismanagement when the Tories were in government and when we were in government. It will go back as far as it can. Remember, this is the Premier who said in this House not very long ago, "We have to stop the finger-pointing." She just pointed her finger at me and interjected and said, "It's because of the mismanagement you guys were responsible for." But that is not finger-pointing, by a minister who said a year ago, and less than a year ago: "There's no garbage gap. We have it all solved."

Maybe it is just taking her a little bit longer to get into her portfolio than we had expected. We thought she believed in rights. We thought mismanagement was not the criterion to determine whether or not people had rights. We thought that a Parliament in a democracy was about creating rights and empowering people and investing rights in people. But now we have something different from the Minister of the Environment. She is the leading edge of this government, because she says her bill is leading edge. This is great stuff, she says, Bill 143, "Boy, it allows me to do all sorts of things on recycling."

Talk about mismanagement for a moment. The Minister of the Environment, shortly after she was sworn in and started down this road, promised this Parliament that she would introduce a bill creating the Interim Waste Authority in the spring of 1991. She said, "I will be introducing a bill to create this new corporation that is going to solve our problem." She promised. Talk about mismanagement. She accuses us of mismanagement. Six months later we have a bill. Talk about mismanagement. What about doing what she says she is going to do?

I kept asking for the bill during the spring session. "I really do not need it," she said, "in order to create the authority." I said, "But what about what you said in the House about the fact that you would present a bill, that you would not do this except under legislative authority?" "I am sorry; you are not getting a bill."

My constituents wrote; they did not get an answer. I wrote; I did not get an answer. Talk about mismanagement. Talk about pointing fingers. The minister blames this on us. They have been in power now some 15 or 16 months and she is still talking about mismanagement.

We said there was maybe going to be a garbage gap. We said that people had a right to be heard, that they would be heard and that there would be no expansion of the Keele Valley landfill site except within the context of a full hearing. We believed in people's rights.

This minister says it is okay to take away people's rights if we can point a finger at mismanagement in the past. I think that is a shocking admission. I think that is the most cavalier denial of democracy anyone could ever come up with.

Hon Mr Laughren: Oh, shocked and appalled.

Mr Sorbara: Well now, there is the Treasurer interjecting, not from his seat. I do not want to get on to what he did today. Talk about mismanagement, and there is the Treasurer. If we talk about mismanagement, two weeks ago --

Mr White: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I believe we were supposed to be speaking about Bill 143.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve): That is not a point of order. The honourable member is basically on topic.

Mr Sorbara: The Treasurer asked for it. The member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore, the Minister of the Environment, says this is all because of Liberal mismanagement. Then the Treasurer, from some seat somewhere in this House, shouts in agreement. Talk about mismanagement: $2.1 billion in mismanagement. He says it is the feds' fault. He says he is going to go, cap in hand, to the federal government to ask for $585 million. He is going to do that, and he says he is going to do that in the same speech in which he condemns the federal government and accuses it of being the source of much of the problem.

I want to tell the Treasurer something while I am on the point. The federal government has a discretion as to whether or not to provide the Treasurer with the $585 million. If it has any discretion whatever, his little finger-pointing exercise at the federal government is not going to stand him in good stead when that government is thinking about whether or not to salvage his budget, which is now in total disrepair. Talk about mismanagement.

Interjections.

Mr Sorbara: Yes, indeed, I think we need to put the environmental assessments in the hands of the Treasurer, who is a champion in the area of management.

We were travelling through time and I now take you, Mr Speaker, to August 16, 1991. That was the day the minister -- outside the House, because of course the House was not sitting in mid-August --

Mr Grandmaître: She never makes an announcement in the House.

Mr Sorbara: My friend the member for Ottawa East says the minister never makes an announcement in the House. That reminds me of something I wanted to get on the record, the fact that when this bill was introduced on October 24, the minister did not have the courage simply to stand up during the period set aside for ministers' statements to say what has been normal and customary during all the five or six years I have been in this Parliament, to stand up and say words to the effect that: "Mr Speaker, later today I will be introducing a bill to deal with waste management in the greater Toronto area and to amend the Environmental Protection Act. That bill will blah blah blah" -- you have heard them over and over again, Mr Speaker. The fact that she did not have the courage to stand up and do that and that she just quietly introduced it later on in the day suggests to me she is running scared.

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You do not get away with that in parliaments of this sort. When you offend the opposition and you thumb your nose at the opposition, you are in for trouble. I tell my friend the member for Ottawa Centre that her colleague the Minister of the Environment is in for trouble on this bill.

I want to set out to members my position and the position of our party on this bill. We will fight it. We will oppose it. We will urge the minister to separate off and segregate part III so that we can get on even before Christmas with the passage of the rest of it, which is all sweet and honey and offensive to no one. It does not really do very much. They are nice words. We will get on with that to sever off this part and withdraw.

On that basis we would be willing to go forward with Bill 143. On the basis that in this sweetness and honey the minister has put forward a bill that contains a poison pill that is deadly when we think about the rights of citizens, I want to let her know now this bill will be debated and debated and opposed by this party and this opposition for as long as is necessary to convince the government it has made a terrible mistake.

Mr Cousens: The previous government has a certain amount of accounting to do. My friend the honourable member for York Centre -- they have two or three over there.

An hon member: That's it.

Mr Cousens: "That's it," they say. You are not sure in this business until election day.

The Liberals developed this whole Interim Waste Authority. I am interested in knowing why they call it the Interim Waste Authority. Is there not a better name? There is nothing short term about this thing. It is long, long term and it looks as if this government is following right through and making it even longer term. That is a short question for my dear friend.

Hon Mrs Grier: Let me congratulate the member for York Centre on the impassioned defence of his constituents. I can understand the position he is taking. Nobody, I can agree with him, wishes to have waste disposal in their particular area. It is unfortunately a reality of our system that we have to find somewhere to dispose of waste.

I want to point out to the member when he makes the distinction between the actions this government has taken and the policies of the previous government that the policies of his government were to open new sites on greenfields without a full environmental assessment. The choice I made -- not a choice I particularly enjoyed making, let me assure him -- was that it was better for the environment to continue using existing operating sites for which there was no evidence of environmental damage, and to order studies to make sure there was no evidence of environmental damage, rather than to open up new sites without due process, of which I am very supportive, as he knows.

These are not easy decisions to make but the absence of any decisions over the past 5, 10, 20 years about waste management is what has contributed to the position we find ourselves in today.

Mr Stockwell: I want to correct the record on a couple of points the Minister of the Environment brought forward.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve): We are addressing the honourable member for York Centre.

Mr Stockwell: And to comment of course on the comments made by the member from the Liberal Party. I am not here to defend the Liberal Party, but I think the record should be set straight on a few of these issues. I was a member of Metro council when these negotiations were taking place. The suggestion is there were greenfield sites the previous government was going to approve without any environmental assessment hearings or public hearings. That simply is not the case. It is simply not true to suggest there were going to be no public hearings or a shortened environmental assessment process. Those hearings were going to take place.

The minister can ask the member who was elected last election and who was at one of these sites where the hearings were and where the drilling and all the scientific evidence was being assembled by Metropolitan Toronto.

I suggest it may not have been a perfect solution. No one was suggesting at the time it was a perfect solution. But I have not seen a single person come forward and suggest that the minister's alternative of simply expanding sites with not one second of public hearing is an acceptable approach to an environmental assessment process. It sickens me that the minister, who stood for all the goodness that was involved in the environmental assessment process, stands in her place and defends a system that allows two sites in the greater Toronto area to be expanded with not a second of public process.

When I sat on Etobicoke council with the Minister of the Environment, she would not allow a basement apartment approval without a process of more than 21 days to be heard. Now she is going to expand dump sites by literally millions of tons with 21 days to write a letter. The minister should not cast stones; she is living in a glass house.

Mr O'Connor: I want to thank my colleague for participating in this debate. One point I would like to bring to the attention of the House is that the regional chairman of York has had an opportunity to meet with the Minister of Municipal Affairs on a number of different issues. The Minister of Municipal Affairs meets with regional chairmen on a regular basis. Meeting with the regional chair from York, the minister had an opportunity to discuss a couple of different points, one being the 3Rs program and the other one being the 911 system for York region.

There have been things discussed with the government. Maybe the member did not realize those discussions had taken place. I wanted to clear the record and say that the government is aware of some of those problems and has talked about them quite openly. I have contacted the regional chair's office and suggested perhaps we can get together and discuss a few of these concerns in greater detail.

Mr Sorbara: My neighbour the member for Markham is in error. We did not create the Interim Waste Authority. He is right; it is not interim at all. It is a permanent plague on the province of Ontario right now.

I want to thank the member for Etobicoke West for his kind support and for correcting the record in respect of what was happening in Metropolitan Toronto.

I have one final word for the Minister of the Environment. It really saddens me that she would so cavalierly condemn our record and the record of the member for St Catharines on environmental issues. I do not want to give us an A-plus. I rarely talk about our record, but the minister should look at the blue box program which we put into place. She should look at the fact that we increased expenditures on waste management from $800,000 in 1985 to $54 million in 1990.

The minister should look at the fact that it was the member for St Catharines, as Minister of the Environment, who really began the 3Rs process within industry. He put into place home composters. He began to provide financial assistance to municipalities. He began the municipal-industrial strategy for abatement program. He worked harder than any other minister in the cabinet I sat in. For the minister to stand up and cavalierly wipe away the record of the member for St Catharines, the former Minister of the Environment, and say, "All my problems as Minister of the Environment have to do with the mismanagement of Jim Bradley," stands in the face of times when she stood up in this House and congratulated him on his progressive measures. It is offensive. It is the kind of arrogance that is going to fuel us and make sure her bill never passes.

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Mr Cousens: Bill 143 has been given the wrong name, An Act respecting the Management of Waste in the Greater Toronto Area and to amend the Environmental Protection Act. It is an act of desperation. That is the real meaning of this act. It is a time when the Ministry of the Environment and the combined ministry within the greater Toronto area have no answers any longer and they are about to bring forward some of the most draconian legislation we have ever seen in this House.

People watching the channel will think, "Oh, those politicians are exaggerating." They will come along and say, "Why would you want to argue with someone as credible as the Minister of the Environment?" The fact of the matter is, once we have looked at this bill and studied the issues, the people of Ontario will hopefully have a sense that this bill will seriously undermine previous legislation which has clearly been written to defend the rights of municipalities and people across this province. It is the exercise of power, but when you start seeing power abused and power misused, it has to do with the exercise of judgement.

I really believe that when we start dealing with this bill, we are going to be looking at an issue where the rule of law means something. It either means a great deal or it does not mean a thing. If this bill is able to throw aside significant pieces of legislation and agreements that have heretofore been made in good faith, you are now dealing with something that is called within the legal network the estoppel doctrine, where you are changing agreements and acts without a firm commitment.

Mr Wiseman: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: This member has used the words "Gestapo doctrine." That is an offensive phrase in this House.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): The member has no point of order.

Mr Cousens: Mr Speaker, estoppel is spelled E-S-T-O-P-P-E-L. I am talking about a doctrine that is accepted within the legal community, and I for one have not used that term. In dealing with the estoppel doctrine, we are talking about quite another form of understanding that is the basis of legal doctrine.

Interjections.

Mr Cousens: This happens in the Legislature.

I would like to touch on a number of aspects with regard to this bill. First, as I watched the monitor and listened very carefully to the presentation by the Minister of the Environment and minister responsible for the greater Toronto area, I have to say there is no doubt that this minister comes across as a very credible person. With her background as the critic for the Environment when the New Democrats were in opposition, there is not a person in Ontario who did not see her as a strong advocate for environmental change and improvement.

The problem we have with opposition is that we are always criticizing, and people see this adversarial system in the Ontario Legislature and in the parliamentary system as something that is destructive. When you look at the comments that were made by the minister, I would like to say that I agree with a great deal of what she has to say when she is dealing with her policy directives and and her policy plans.

The minister talks about it being a green government in her opening comments, where every ministry has to begin to have its own environmental policy and its green plan. I have to say that I think every one of us in this Legislature has to have an environmental sense about ourselves. Certainly it is a credit that every ministry is making that effort to show it is into environment, more than just lipservice and words. I have to commend the Ministry of Transportation. I see initiatives there where they are actually trying to plant trees and they are trying to extend the green areas around roads and there is an emphasis on cleaning up. So there are instances within the ministries. I see the Ministry of Correctional Services having a way in which people who are interned have a chance to start getting involved with some environmental projects. The greenness of government is not something that is a special preserve of the New Democrats, but it is a policy I support. I think we had the beginnings of it with previous governments, but the fact that we are saying it is good.

When the minister talks about stewardship, I agree with her. There is not anyone who cannot begin to admit and to say strongly in the presence of this House and to everyone who will listen that we all have a stake in the environment. When the Minister of the Environment says that, I want her to know that when I get negative in a few minutes, I agree with that principle. I think our stake is bigger than many people would ever believe.

When the minister talks about it being a conserving society -- I sometimes wonder what the minister means by a sustainable environment. Is she going back to Schumacher, where small is beautiful? Is that one of the documents she goes back to? He is certainly one of the gurus who talks about sustainable development.

I happen to believe there is a truth there. That does not necessarily answer all the questions that have to do with our long-term plan for protecting Ontario's rights, but everything is interactive. There is a sense that if you can work within your own small unit in your own household and do things correctly there, or within your community or within the greater Toronto area or in the Sudbury basin or in any other area, then you have begun to accept responsibility for the environmental mission we all have to have.

That follows through naturally as you reduce, reuse and recycle. All these begin to have more meaning once you have begun to understand that you have to have your own personal house in order, and then as you have that in order, you can go beyond.

I think Canada had a lot of credibility when we went to the United States and worked on the acid rain amendments to the Clean Air Act because we had taken leading positions and moves within our own environment to reduce acid rain emissions. When we went beyond our borders, we could stand with pride and say, "Look, we're doing something about it." The United States bought into it eventually, so we got the Clean Air Act passed. It would not have happened if we had not been setting an example in the first place.

To the extent that the minister talks about a sustainable development and setting an example within your own home and your own place, I see that as one of those fundamental rules of society. I wish the minister had taken on that conservation attitude, because the Minister of Energy and the people in Energy I think talk a merry tune when they talk about conservation and energy. Certainly our critic, the member for Lanark-Renfrew, understands conservation, but he also understands many other areas that have to do with the whole development of an energy policy for this government, which is lacking.

The minister brings forward what I call credible points of view, and if one were to disagree with them, I do not think he or she understands the policy position she is coming from. I just want to go on record as saying I too believe in a conserver society. Any plans and any proposals and any criticisms I have with regard to her policies and this bill certainly do not represent a disagreement on the fundamental principle of conservation as a conserver society.

Then as the minister goes on indicating another policy this ministry and government are really strongly proposing, that we want to prevent further damage to the environment, I think that is critical. If there is one thing I want to say, it is that I know the Minister of the Environment certainly does believe that. She has always had that sense of evangelical zeal about protecting the environment over the long term.

So when you see the Minister of the Environment stand up in this House and say, "These are policy statements of our government," I too, as the critic responsible for Environment for our caucus -- and I am confident as well our critic for the greater Toronto area -- would share those very genuine concerns expressed by the minister. I think what comes out of that are strong, consistent policies of a government that says, "We are then going to take strong action on it."

As I listened to the minister with her presentation, she put a very powerful presentation, as she has on previous occasions, about the 3Rs. I am satisfied that the 3Rs are important. Unfortunately, since she has become known as the minister of garbage, she has really become associated with only the 3Rs. There are a few other Rs I would like to see her think of.

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One is "recovery," the recovery of waste. There are examples now in Japan. It is not necessarily our system but there is a sorting through of garbage that allows people to find waste within existing landfill sites that they are able to recover and find other uses for. I just wonder. If we look at recovery from waste, there are so many things that can be done. I know there is not universal support for it and I will come to that later in my address, but there is energy from waste.

This summer I visited a site in Minneapolis where they were able to generate enough kilowatts of power from waste -- it was a whole special system where they separated out ferrous and iron products and glass. They have an active blue box program in Minneapolis. Through this energy from waste they were able to generate enough power for 30,000 homes.

Though this government does not have a policy supporting that kind of initiative, it is being done in other jurisdictions and is worthy of consideration. I am saying we should recover if there is something to recover. What can we recover from oil waste? There is some of it happening now and more and more should. We see it in garage stations. We see people saying, "What can we do with used oil?" They can come back, clean it up and then reuse that oil.

We can see other forms of recovery that can go on. Tires have many other purposes once they have been used as much as they can be on the roads, and that is not to have them stored in huge tire dumps. If the government could use some of the $200 million that has been collected through the tire tax, then we would begin to see the use of these tires for other purposes.

Recovering useful, beneficial aspects of these products for society is something I strongly support the minister having a look at. We can add another R to the 3Rs, and that is "recover."

"Realism" is my fifth R. What is missing within the legislation before us, Bill 143, and in so much of the quick planning of the ministry, is that it is reactive and does not understand something of the larger time frame required for people to deal with and respond to these issues. It has to do with education. It has to do with getting them to buy into it.

The minister should understand the realism of the cost of land. There is nothing within the Ministry of the Environment that understands the cost of land in the greater Toronto area versus Kirkland Lake. The cost per acre in the greater Toronto area far exceeds the cost per acre at the Adams mine site in Kirkland Lake. The ministry is saying the greater Toronto area must solve its environmental landfill problems within the greater Toronto area and not look outside of the GTA for that. Realistically there are alternatives that can be looked at, that should be looked at and that are worthy of consideration outside of the boundaries which have been struck in the minister's own mind.

I believe the minister needs this R of "realism" because what she is doing is not living up to the expectation that it is going to be difficult to find sites in the greater Toronto area. If we can find hosts willing to take Metro's garbage on a short-term basis, a long-term basis or any basis, is that not something worthy of consideration? Is there not some value in having that included in the minister's thinking?

This government has closed down those options. They have closed down the option of looking outside the greater Toronto area, so if anyone happens to find a landfill site that is a possible opportunity for getting rid of waste but is four feet outside of the boundaries of the greater Toronto area, that cannot be included in the thinking provided by the minister. It is restrictive thinking and it is not realistic when we consider all the implications.

I talked about recovery. Surely we could look at ways of recovering from the waste that is generated as it is. Surely we could have more realism in the policies of the Ministry of the Environment. The other R I would like the minister to look at is "rights," the rights of the people of Ontario. When I call this an act of desperation, I begin to draw in some of the frustration that surely must exist within this ministry because it has not been able to come up with any better solutions than the draconian methods they are going to institute through this bill that will take away the rights of citizens and municipalities.

You do not believe it until you start to see it within the bill, but the fact is that a number of sections within this bill will begin to wipe away previous rules that have been made. I refer particularly to section 17, where the ministry says that any agreement that has been made in good faith with any municipality, any of the agreements that are inherent in the Municipal Act, the Regional Municipality of Durham Act, the Regional Municipality of Peel Act, the Regional Municipality of York Act and the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act are superseded by this bill.

Not only the ones in legislation that has been agreed to previously, but any agreement, for instance, between the municipalities of Mississauga and Peel. A typical agreement they would have had would have been where there were certain contours agreed on for the Britannia landfill site and those contours then became part and parcel of the understanding not only with the neighbours who live next to Britannia but also in the official plan for the region. Now, because of this bill and the plans within it, all those previous agreements that have been developed over time can be pushed aside and not dealt with in any way.

I find that reprehensible. I find that a removal of rights of people that had been defined, delineated and agreed to earlier. It has to do with estoppel and that whole doctrine of rights that are being removed by government. I have to believe that when people elected their municipal governments last week, they gave them certain responsibilities for things in their communities. What I now see happening is that the Ministry of the Environment and the ministry responsible for the greater Toronto area, one and the same, are going to come into those municipalities and bring about changes in the legislation that will take away the level of responsibility those mayors and councillors previously understood they had. It truly makes you wonder whether this whole system of local government is going to work or be worthwhile when so many of the rights they have worked on and developed over time can now be shoved aside without debate. The only debate that will be held on it is the debate held around Bill 143.

As we listen to the honourable Minister of the Environment, I do not think there is any doubt that she comes forward with a mission and is going to do what she can to support environmental matters. What she failed to develop in her opening presentation to this bill was the nature of the way in which this bill is going to have a long-term impact on the people of Ontario. I do not expect that we have all the perfect answers. I believe there is a need for extensive dialogue on the proposals that have been made by the minister. There should be an opportunity for municipalities and the public at large to have some opportunity, through public hearings, to participate in this debate. We in the Legislature will have a chance for the next several days -- as long as we are allowed to, I suppose -- at least to outline our views.

I will come back and hope that we will be able to persuade this minister to allow public hearings. Hopefully this will be referred out to committee and then there will be an opportunity for the people who came this morning. Some 250 were in front of the Legislature from Maple, Vaughan and the south York region. May they also have a chance to come and talk. Indeed, that is part and parcel of the letter that was sent by the mayor of Vaughan, who is calling on the minister to have those public hearings.

We are talking about a bill that has very serious implications for our future. I would like to comment first of all that I am surprised the bill is not broken into at least more than one part. Certainly, as a minister of the crown, the Minister of the Environment can bring this forward as a greater Toronto area bill. But what often happens is that when a bill such as this includes key amendments to the Environmental Protection Act, there are sections within the bill that someone who does not realize that the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore is not just taking her role as the greater Toronto area minister but is also wearing the hat of the Environment minister might miss.

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I know that it sounds small, but this bill does refer to the county of Oxford. It is cleaning up a certain element of the bill, but the fact is, it does not just deal with the greater Toronto area; it deals with issues and communities outside of Metropolitan Toronto. So for the sake of people who are following this process, maybe in the future the minister, when she brings forward bills, might have some way in which she acknowledges the fact that she is dealing with more than just the greater Toronto area. But it is also the Minister of the Environment talking, so the issues that are brought up in the bill that refer to other areas, the people who read Hansard or get copies of the bills will then be able to know.

I also disagree with the Liberals in that I think the minister has every power to do what she wants to do as a minister of the crown. I do not think there is any doubt about that. She is agreeing with me. But the danger that comes out of it is that the Minister of Natural Resources might come along and start bringing in matters that pertain to the environment. But that is true, and that is what will happen, because there is not one ministry that does not overlap with another. When you are dealing with money, they are all spending money. When you are dealing with environmental matters, certainly municipal affairs are involved, and certainly the other ministries have something to do with it.

Why then should the Minister of the Environment not be named on this bill as a key player in it? She is. It says "The Hon Ruth Grier." Anyone who knows that knows that she is the Minister of the Environment. But I suggest strongly that, in the future, the government make it a lot easier for people who do not understand what is going on in this House by indicating exactly how the breakdown is taking place.

I have trouble. It is all in the way one words things. If you want to give someone a bitter pill, you just put a little sugar around it and then they do not realize just how noxious it is. Interim Waste Authority Ltd: What a name. It sounds as if it is something that is going to be here -- what is an interim? I did not get my dictionary out. I should get my honourable friend who is so good with words over there to dig up the definition of "interim." He might have one.

Interjection.

Mr Cousens: Oh, no. Do not say that, my honourable friend the member for Simcoe East. You will get us kicked out. Interim. There is nothing short-term about the Interim Waste Authority. The decisions that are being made by this authority are having long-term ramifications on our communities, especially wherever the government decides to place this garbage. To me, how interim is interim?

I will be quite candid with you, Mr Speaker. I have got enough other amendments to this bill that I am not going to try to change the name of the Interim Waste Authority Ltd, because I know it is not going to go anywhere. But I want to at least go on the record. There is nothing interim about the Interim Waste Authority. Its time limit could go for a long time, and the people who are looking at this government for solutions, maybe it is only going to be good at short-term solutions. I do not know, but it certainly has a long term ahead of it as we deal with this agency now known as the Interim Waste Authority, a crown agency which is granted the power to expropriate lands for the purposes of establishing a long-term landfill site.

What I see happening here -- and there will be an opportunity to touch on it throughout the deliberations of this bill -- part I of the bill deals with this whole business of expropriation, and it goes on further in the bill. I wonder how a Minister of the Environment who talks so much about people's rights and the right of the public to be protected can start to bring in the Expropriations Act and put it into the words of this act without necessarily bringing in extra protection for the people whose properties are going to be expropriated. I mean, you are talking about the New Democrats who have always articulated so clearly the importance of having people's rights protected. Well, I tell members, by bringing in the very wording of the Expropriations Act to this bill, it removes the rights of people to challenge what is really going to happen with regard to neighbouring properties.

To me, what we are seeing is a certain amount of confiscation of rights of the public through the introduction of expropriation-right principles of the government on those whose rights might be interfered with. That has to do with injurious affection. What I want to deal with at some point is the effect of injurious affection as it is now understood under the Expropriations Act. Though I am not a lawyer, I have enough understanding to know that you really have only one year during which you can apply for some kind of settlement or recover some lost moneys through injurious affection. If in fact you are only limited to a shorter period of time when you are dealing with some of the environmental issues that will come out of landfill sites, you are not just talking a short period of time; you are talking about damages that could have, over a longer period, quite a significant impact on neighbouring properties.

It may not be right away that the rats start to appear at the landfill site. It may not be right away that some of the pollutants begin to leach through and become a plume underneath someone else's property. It may not be immediate that you begin to see the effects of those things. If that is the case, what we have really got to make sure of is that we do not take away everybody's rights. This government is going to assume the right to be able to go on someone's property when it wants and for whatever reason through a warrant, but you are not going to be able to stop it. You are not going to be able to stop this government from saying, "Look, that property that belongs to whomever is going to be analysed and assessed for this landfill site." Whether or not it is -- that is yet to be proven -- they will get on there and they then have the right to do test holes; they can do just about anything on that property.

I think there is going to be a way for restitution, where the government returns the property to its original state. There are a number of questions that come through on that. What I see as a problem, though, is that there is a sense in which the government is gaining power to go on to people's properties and do surveys and assessments and tests far beyond anything that has ever happened before. Certainly this bill is going to give that power to the government.

I see the Interim Waste Authority now having the power to acquire land outside other areas of jurisdiction within the government and having all the same powers it had before, yet not giving any extra compensation to the people who are involved in the neighbouring areas.

Part I of this bill raises some questions, certainly not as many as the other parts of the bill. As I begin to look at the other parts of the bill, we deal with part II, which concerns waste disposal sites and where we see the Interim Waste Authority. The minister then says, "Three landfill waste disposal sites are required: one in Peel-Durham and then Metropolitan Toronto and York." What she is looking for is something that is going to last for 20 years.

Indeed we all know there has to be a long-term solution to our problems around the whole problem of disposal of waste. The human being seems to be very good at developing it. We are not the conservative society that we dream about, so we have got to come up with practical, real solutions. But the way the minister starts to go about it is that she has developed a policy, and this bill will put into a sacred trust the policies that are developed by the minister in her own wisdom over a period of time. They then become part and parcel of government policy and this bill.

When you start asking, "What are those policies going to be?" they have to do with the minister who says here in section 14, "An environmental assessment...is not required to contain...any description of, or statement of the rationale for...any description or evaluation of any matter relating to" -- and here is where it comes to -- "an alternative of waste reduction or reuse or recycling if that alternative would involve incineration of waste or the transportation of waste from the primary service area to another area."

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What I am concerned about is that the minister has, without regard to an environmental assessment, without discussion of other jurisdictions that have not accepted incineration -- which is a bad word in the minds of many environmentalists -- as an alternative. I have to be careful on this, because I do not think there is anyone who says incineration is perfect. I happen to believe there has to be something right, though, when you see other jurisdictions finding ways in which incineration is at least an option worth looking at. You will see that in Japan, in Sweden, Switzerland, Bermuda. I do not think Detroit is a good example, there are some pretty bad ones out there.

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): Order. The member will address the Chair. I should also add, we will have no interjection from the minister.

Mr Cousens: I did not hear it. When we have this person in the chair, we just have to behave ourselves. I am not going to make any comments about the Speaker because he has ultimate authority and I am not interested in starting a war with the Speaker.

As we look at this issue of incineration, I wish there was some way the ministry -- probably just the minister -- could at least look at options so that there could be some consideration, rather than just saying within the bill that there will be absolutely no consideration of incineration.

I respect the fact that there are certain members of my own caucus -- there has not been a perfect consensus around incineration and I do not want to say whether it should or should not be something we do, but I would like at least to have the option explored that incineration could be considered if it becomes something where there can be a recovery of energy through waste. Is that something that could be looked at?

All I would like to do is have the opportunity of considering, rather than having a decision made by the minister that does not explain her position or where she is coming from. She may well be dealing with incidents that go back many years when, if you had an incinerator and were putting anything in it, then you were going to get something out of the chimney. But if you know it is going into the incinerator and you have scrubbers that control the emissions coming from it and you know what is going in, you can tell what is coming out. It would be cleaner than coal, I am told. In that case, why not look at it?

If you were to look at that, it might be that you could see methane created in a landfill site. I have a paper I want to refer to before I am finished that deals with the issue of methane and the energy that could come from it. Could that methane in some way be harnessed for energy for other purposes?

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): The member for Durham West has interjected. I have counted five interjections since I have been in the chair. Interjections are never appropriate. Sometimes, if they are relevant and witty, they may be accepted. I have to inform the member his interjections are neither relevant nor witty.

Mr Cousens: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I just hope I can behave as well as you are expecting him to behave when I am sitting down listening to someone else. I appreciate where you are coming from, Mr Speaker. I will go back to the issue and talk to you on the issue. I was dealing with this bill and, oh my goodness, I know what is going to happen now. But I would at least like to review some of the concerns I have about incineration.

There are at least three incinerators in Ontario right now which accept solid non-hazardous waste. We have Victoria Hospital in London, we have the solid waste reduction unit in Hamilton --

Mrs Marland: Which has problems.

Mr Cousens: Obviously. There are three facilities recovering energy from waste here in Ontario. Ford in Oakville and General Motors in Oshawa operate their own incineration facilities and do not accept waste from other sources.

What we have to deal with is the technology available to deal with this as an issue. Whether a well-operated, state-of-the-art incineration facility could meet Ontario's air emission standards and regulations is something I would like to see explored, discussed and reviewed by an environmental assessment. That may not be the one that says, "Hey, that's the way to go." I am not what you would call a technical person who is able to develop these issues, but I am at least saying, if other jurisdictions have done it, is it not something that could be done in our area?

I am asking the minister, rather than making a policy decision which is buried right in the bill, whether we can begin to look at some other options that allow recovery, as a possible argument, and whether landfilling and the 3Rs cannot be considered as the only methods for municipal waste disposal.

Are there other technologies we should look at for waste disposal and resource recovery opportunities? Certainly one of those has to do with the way methane can be taken from a waste site and something developed from it.

The minister has gone on record regarding this. It concerns me that the point she has made has not allowed the total subject to be analysed and assessed. If it turns out that she is correct, then the environmental assessment will confirm that. If she is wrong, it opens up another option that might reduce some of the bulk of the waste. It might find energy from waste that could be considered. All I want to do is allow certain things to be decided, rather than the technopeasant approach which just excludes consideration because it is a policy that has been developed.

A friend of mine has just returned from Nuremberg. Greenpeace sponsored and supported a very large energy-from-waste facility in Nuremberg that it has endorsed. If that has happened there, it would be worth while looking at other examples across the world that might allow us to consider this.

Another issue implicit in the minister's plans and where this bill gives the Minister of the Environment tremendous power over waste disposal sites is regarding the transportation of waste from the primary service area to another area.

First of all, this minister has been inconsistent with that position because she has said Kirkland Lake cannot be considered as a willing host, even though it is. She has said Kingston can ship its garbage to Carleton Place, even if it is only for a short time. She has allowed Kingston to ship its garbage to Carleton Place, yet will not allow the greater Toronto area or Metro Toronto to ship its waste to Kirkland Lake, even though we are talking about a host that has looked at the subject and given consideration to it.

It is going to have a number of impacts on Kirkland Lake. In December 1990, Kirkland Lake agreed to convert a closed mine into a centre for sorting, recycling and dumping Metro garbage with the ability to handle something like 30 million tonnes. The deal was worth approximately $450 million to Kirkland Lake. It was going to bring millions of dollars to Kirkland Lake and provide jobs in an area that is extremely hard hit by this recession. Yet the Minister of the Environment killed the proposal in April 1991, even though Metro and Kirkland Lake politicians condemned her decision.

Environmentalists applauded the minister's decision not to allow the transportation of garbage to Kirkland Lake, yet the issue has been played out again in the elections that just took place last week. In Kirkland Lake the incumbent mayor, Joe Mavrinac, supports a new proposal to bring Metro garden waste north to Kirkland Lake for composting. A plebiscite question was placed on the municipal ballot in the election last week. It asked whether or not voters favoured an environmental assessment hearing for the plan to import Toronto garbage. The Metro garbage issue did not play as large a role in Metro's elections as it did in Kirkland Lake because the mayor was re-elected to that post, and the voters were overwhelmingly in favour of having an environmental assessment to hear about the benefits or disadvantages of importing Metro garbage.

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What I am really saying is that the mayor hopes the result of that plebiscite will cause the honourable minister responsible for the greater Toronto area and the Minister of the Environment -- one and the same person -- to rethink her position on the shipping of Metro garbage up north. Why should the ministry force Metro to get rid of its garbage in a highly populated area within Metro and York region and the greater Toronto area, where land prices are among the highest in the country, if in fact we have a willing host, where property values are not the same as they are here, that wants to have it?

Metro Chairman Alan Tonks has stated that the Minister of the Environment's decision will cost Metro Toronto hundreds of millions of dollars. He has said her approach is crisis management as opposed to managing the issue. I challenge the minister to rethink this whole position on the shipping of garbage outside Metropolitan Toronto. Kirkland is a willing host. Many residents support the proposal because they feel it will boost their failing economy through an infusion of capital and jobs.

We come up to the other side of the issue. I, like my former colleague in this caucus, Jim Pollock, was very concerned. He was concerned about Madoc, which was a site that was being considered at some time, an unwilling host. I do not think there --

Mrs Fawcett: It was Marmora.

Mr Cousens: Was it Marmora? Yes, it was Marmora, and I thank the member for Northumberland. It was Marmora that was being looked at as an unwilling host. Then let it not be there. But if there is a willing host, then may that be something that is at least allowed to circulate through the mind of that minister. Why not at least hold an environmental assessment hearing to see if the proposals are at all feasible? What I am saying is, should not the Minister of the Environment and the minister responsible for the greater Toronto area pay attention to what the residents of Kirkland Lake are saying?

As we look at this bill -- we are talking about Bill 143 -- I have great concern that the minister is bringing to it policy positions that have not been subjected to a detailed analysis and evaluation. What I would like to see, if possible, is the minister open up those issues so that they can have a full environmental assessment on it.

Then we come to another part of the bill, probably the most dangerous part, that really has offended so many people who are just beginning to understand what is happening. First of all, they have not had much of a chance to respond to it. The minister tabled the bill on October 24, 1991. She tabled it less than a month ago and did it without any fanfare and announcement. It just sort of came in, slipped on the table, and now we are into a position where the minister would like to have this bill passed and in law before we rise for Christmas. I find that extremely fast acting, especially when we start looking at the rights of the municipalities that are going to be impacted by the bill itself.

The bill goes on, and here is what it now begins to do. As we look at part III of the bill, the regional municipalities of Peel and Durham and the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto are required to implement reports made by the minister under section 29 of the Environmental Protection Act. These reports state that the Keele Valley and Britannia Road landfill sites will require one lift each, an increase in the height of the garbage; also, that a transfer station be built at the Brock West landfill site. That is Durham region's waste, which can then be moved to the Keele Valley site via the Brock West transfer station.

This bill, as we look at the details of it, will remove all legal impediments to the implementation of the reports that are referred to in this bill. I reiterate that. This bill removes all impediments. The funny part of it is that I do not think there is anyone who does not want to see the process streamlined and speeded up.

If there is any way in which we are able to move more quickly in determining where landfill sites are going to be and how we are going to do it, it has to do with the good faith that takes place when you are a politician. It has to do with the Premier, who was then Leader of the Opposition, who was within a short distance of the Keele Valley landfill site and said that site would never be expanded without there being a full environmental assessment. No one has disputed that fact. I raised the question to the Premier in the last days of the House before we rose in June: Did he or did he not say in the situation as Leader of the Opposition that he would not expand Keele Valley without a full environmental assessment? He has not disagreed with it and I have enough witnesses to prove that he said it.

When he said that, there was a sense in which the people said: "That's what he's saying before he goes into office. When he gets into office, I'm sure that a man as honest and credible" -- anyone who has gone so far as to call the previous Premier of Ontario a liar would never be called a liar himself, so there would not be any sense that the person who was calling the kettle black would do the same thing himself. But the Premier, who was then Leader of the Opposition, made it clear there would be a full environmental assessment for the Keele Valley landfill site before there would be any kind of change to that site. That was implicit as well as what would happen with the Britannia Road site: no expansion without an environmental assessment, absolutely none.

Now, a year and a half later, this same government, led by the Premier, is bringing forward changes in the law that will allow it to expand and change the contours and configurations of those dumps without so much as a full environmental assessment. When we see the draconian measures now in this bill that are going to give the government the right to forget about all previous agreements it has made regarding those sites, they in themselves downgrade the whole importance of previous agreements, previous laws and previous arrangements that have been made in those communities.

It is serious. That is why we had some 250 people out here this morning and that is why I think the government is going to get thousands of letters, not just from one community, not just from south York region, not just from Peel, but from those hundred other communities where landfill sites are just about full. It has to do with a breach of promise.

On the grounds of what this man who is now Premier said, he and his government are retracting that to such a degree that the future rights of those municipalities and the people involved will be removed by this legislation. All legal impediments to the implementation of these reports will be removed through this section of the bill. The designated municipalities are required to carry out the reports even though doing so may require the consent of another municipality or may contravene a municipal bylaw, agreement, statute or regulation. In other words, anything that has been done historically in the past, agreements that have been made, now means nothing. They are thrown out, and that speaks to the larger issue.

There is a solution and it does not have to be in the removal of those rights. We could do it through changes to the Environmental Assessment Act. The government should change the way in which people can protest or disagree with what the government is doing. They should allow it to be streamlined. The member for Nipissing, my leader, brought that up as a major issue in the last election.

What he was calling for was that there be some way in which environmental assessment is allowed to proceed over a shorter period; let there be the full opportunity for anyone who wants to disagree with it to explain that view, have it heard, but not allow it to be protracted over a long period of time, the way it is now through the Ontario Waste Management Corp, an example where the environmental assessment laws in Ontario are wrong.

What we really need to do now is see within this government another approach to it, not a matter of just taking away rights of municipalities, but instead another approach to allow us to --

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): Order. The member will have the opportunity to continue the debate.

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REFERRAL OF BILL 126

Hon Mrs Coppen: Earlier today Bill 126 was ordered for third reading. I would ask for the consent of the House to have Bill 126 referred to the committee of the whole House.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): Is there consent that Bill 126 be sent to the committee of the whole House?

Agreed to.

Bill ordered for committee of the whole House.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): Pursuant to standing order 33, the question that this House do now adjourn is deemed to have been made.

TEACHERS' SETTLEMENTS

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): The member for York North has given notice of his dissatisfaction with the answer to his question given by the Minister of Education concerning transfer payments and teachers' salaries. The member has up to five minutes to debate the matter, and the minister may reply for up to five minutes.

Mr Beer: The reason I asked to have this slotted for the late show is that when one looks at the statement made by the Treasurer earlier today and then looks at the meeting which the Minister of Education -- perhaps I should say the part-time Minister of Education and the Chairman of Management Board of Cabinet -- attended yesterday, one recognizes that a tremendous load is about to be shifted once again to school boards.

I think the minister has a responsibility to answer in this House and to the people of the province exactly what is going to happen in terms of transfer payments to school boards and how those boards are going to be able to meet all the pressures they are currently facing.

I would like at the outset to read what the Treasurer said in his statement today. He said: "In addition, we have been speaking to all our major transfer payment partners about the need to implement similar measures in their organizations," meaning wage controls. "We are also asking that consideration be given by all to the seriousness of the fiscal situation and the importance of negotiating lower wage settlements throughout the public sector."

Yesterday the Minister of Education met with representatives from the Ontario Public School Trustees' Association. In that meeting what the public school trustees said to him was that if the provincial government is not going to pay a greater share of education costs -- we know that this government, with its last budget, lowered the percentage it is paying; it is now just 40% of total educational costs -- then the school boards were saying it should lower its demands on the local taxpayer. But what the minister is suggesting, and it was also reflected in his meeting with the trustees and in the discussion with the media afterwards, is that the government is looking at providing the school boards, through transfer payments, with 3% or less for next year.

We already know that the demands in terms of salaries that the school boards are facing are running at an average of 6.1%. What the minister has to make very clear is: How is it, with all of the various things he is asking the school boards to do, he can simply say, "By the way, for any of those salary settlements, you simply pick it up through the property tax base"?

If there is a message school trustees have received during the last several months leading up to the elections for the new school boards, it is that the property taxpayer already has had more than enough. People are saying, "We're not prepared to accept double-digit rates of increase." I think that message has come through very clearly. If the minister had attended any debates within his community he would have heard that.

Now, as the school boards come, saying, "What are we going to be receiving for next year?" what has been indicated to them is that they are going to have very little money. Unless the government is prepared to lift some of the pressure from them, we are going to see a great number of boards with even more difficult situations where they are going to have to go into a deficit position, which legally they are not allowed to do, and where then the ministry is going to have to find ways of helping them more directly.

The relationship here is simply this: The minister in his comments does not seem to understand the seriousness of the situation. He talks about being concerned. He talks about, "We don't want to be too firm in the directions that we're giving." Again, what the public school trustees said was very clear. Their boards request the minister to be tougher, to really set out some clear public sector wage guidelines, that the minister is going to have to get directly involved, "using all the moral suasion he can" to convince teachers -- not just trustees, but to convince the teachers' organizations -- "that they must scale down the demands that they are making."

This is a serious matter of public policy, because the provincial government cannot sit back and simply tell school boards, municipalities, other transfer agencies -- we have seen it with hospitals -- "It's up to you to do this. We're going to look after ourselves by providing a lesser rate of grant."

I say that the government is failing in its obligations to protect the property taxpayer. We need a clear statement from this government as to exactly what it is going to do with school boards and how it is going to ensure that the property taxpayer is not hit again next year with double-digit increases.

Hon Mr Silipo: I want first of all to wish the member for York North -- the part-time member for York North, to pick up on comments that he made at the beginning -- I wish him well in the leadership race that he is involved in, that being what I think makes him, to some extent, a part-time member here. I know that he believes very clearly the things he has said to us today, although I am, quite frankly, a little bit surprised that the leadership race would bring us to the point of having to stay here past 6 o'clock for me to give an answer that I think I gave this afternoon.

The member complains about the responsibility we have as a government and I have as a minister to deal very directly with the fiscal problems we have and in ensuring that we tell school boards and teacher federations and others the reality we are facing. I thought that is exactly what I said I have been doing and will continue to do. It is incumbent upon this government, and certainly incumbent upon me as Minister of Education in this particular area, to be as clear as I can be with school boards, as the local municipal level partner in the governance of education with us, as to what fiscal realities we are facing. That is exactly what I did in meeting with the representative of the Ontario Public School Boards' Association yesterday. It is what I did this afternoon in meeting with the representative of the Ontario Separate School Trustees' Association. It is what I intend to keep doing in meeting with other representatives of the trustees' organizations and it is certainly what I have been saying to teachers' federations and what I intend to continue saying to teachers' federations.

Within that, the member opposite and people in this House need to understand that we as a government are committed to the collective bargaining process. We are also committed to the local level of governance in education. Those two principles, side by side, indicate very clearly to me, as Minister of Education, as a minister of this government, that we believe therefore very clearly that we have to allow the latitude at the local level for negotiations to continue and for negotiations to be carried out, however, in the kind of fiscal framework we are living in. I think it is therefore my obligation, my duty, my responsibility, which I think I have been carrying out and will continue to carry out in a reasonable fashion, to say to all the parties involved what the kind of fiscal reality is and what they can expect from us a government in this next year and over the next couple of years to come.

I hope that over the next number of days and weeks we can get a little clearer about that. The member opposite would know, as a former minister, the kinds of processes we go through in setting budgets and setting the process of establishing the transfer payment amounts. As a relatively new minister, while I understand that process and the kind of secrecy all of that has to be shrouded in, I am also quite frankly a little bit puzzled as to why all of it has to be shrouded in quite the amount of secrecy it is. I have said clearly to the trustee organizations and to my officials that I also want to look at ways in which, over the next few weeks and months, I can be working much more closely together as a minister with the local people, the people who are responsible for the local governments, the trustees and other people involved in education, to see how we can demystify this whole process.

Within all of that will be very clearly the recognition of our responsibilities as a government towards not only the local level of government and the collective bargaining process but also our understanding of the fiscal problems the school boards face and the pressure it puts on local property taxes.

The member opposite knows my position as a former school trustee on the inequities that exist through the present funding structure. As I have been saying also to people and have been working away at, I am very committed to the kind of restructuring of the financing of education that I think we need to bring about. That is not going to happen in the short term. It is going to take us a little bit of time to do.

Quite frankly, in the short term we do have some major problems to deal with. The only way I think we can deal with them is by being very upfront with people and very direct about the nature of the problems we are facing. That is what I have been trying to do and that is what I will continue to do. I think that approach is bearing some fruit and that is exactly what I intend to continue doing.

The House adjourned at 1812.