Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 1332.

Prayers.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

COLLÈGES DE LANGUE FRANÇAISE

M. Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa-Est) : Les francophones du nord ont voulu rappeler aux ministres concernés en fin de semaine dernière que la période de trois semaines est passée depuis longtemps. Il est temps que le gouvernement néo-démocrate respecte son engagement de créer un collège francophone dans le nord de l'Ontario.

Le dossier des collèges francophones traîne sur le bureau du Ministre depuis des mois. Ça devait pourtant être réglé en trois semaines.

Le Ministre ne s'est pas gêné en juin dernier pour annoncer la création de deux nouveaux collèges francophones. Plutôt que de faire des annonces en l'air pour se faire de la publicité, le Ministre aurait dû s'assurer avant de la participation du fédéral.

Maintenant, qu'est-ce que vous faites ? Avez-vous exercé des pressions sur le gouvernement fédéral, ou avez-vous encore décidé tout simplement de laisser tomber les francophones du nord ?

Il y a plus de deux ans, vous avez promis la lune aux francophones de l'Ontario. Je ne pense pas que vous ayez rempli une seule de vos promesses. Il va pourtant falloir que vous fassiez quelque chose. Sinon, je vais vous dire ce que vous allez avoir sur la conscience : un taux anormalement élevé de chômage et d'analphabétisme chez les francophones et une escalade du taux d'assimilation.

Ce genre de chose-là ne profite à personne. Ce n'est pas productif. Un collège dans le nord, c'est sûrement un bon moyen de relance économique.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): I rise today with some suggestions for the Minister of the Environment on what she should do to get a handle on her waste management responsibility.

Waste management is undoubtedly one of the most difficult, controversial and potentially confrontational issues the provincial government deals with. However, if the minister were to follow some basic commonsense principles, she could minimize these problems.

First, she should devise, in consultation with municipalities, for land owners who are displaced by the development of waste management facilities, a suggested compensation policy which is fair and equitable and reflects the degree of inconvenience these people experience.

Secondly, she should redouble her efforts to explain the environment assessment process. Simply put, people do not presently understand it; consequently they have no confidence in it.

Thirdly, she should stop blindly endorsing the positions of the extreme environmental pressure groups. This prevents the minister from responsibly and fairly evaluating all waste management alternatives, such as energy from waste, state-of-the-art incineration and rail haul of garbage to willing host sites in northern Ontario.

Lastly, she needs to provide the leadership she promised in the 1990 election. Only her ministry, with an operating budget of $429 million, has the expertise and the resources to plan, develop and suggest to municipalities an ideal recommended waste management system. This would end the absolute duplication which is going on presently in Ontario, as dozens of counties and regions are presently undertaking long-term waste management master plans, each one largely duplicating the efforts of its neighbours. In Wellington county and the city of Guelph, the process, over 10 years, has cost $4.2 million to date.

Minister, there has to be a better way to do this, but you must provide the leadership. I respectfully request that you respond favourably to these suggestions.

ENVIRONMENTAL POSTER CONTEST

Mr George Dadamo (Windsor-Sandwich): Last week, you may recall, I praised several students at Prince of Wales Public School in Windsor for sending drawings depicting the way they viewed peace in the world.

Today I congratulate a La Salle student for her very sensitive view about keeping the environment clean. She along the way has captured first place in a contest sponsored by the Essex waste management committee.

I place forward the name of Camilla Mutak, an 11-year-old grade 6 pupil at La Salle's École Sacré-Coeur. She received first place for her entry in the school poster contest.

Camilla's poster has the caption "Keep the Pathway Toward a Greener Future Clean." Her poster depicts a brick path curving through a green parkland towards a brilliant sun. Camilla has also expressed a very sincere interest in working as an environmental activist in the future. Today she is a proud student in La Salle, and equally proud of Camilla are her teachers and, of course, her classmates.

Here are some of the other winners in the poster contest: from Windsor, Amy Benoit, Kelly Organ, Crystal Gauvin, Avani Patel, and also Scott Miller from General Brock Public School, plus Chris Reynolds from Prince Andrew school in La Salle. Honourable mention went to Kristi Hamel, Christine Dufour and Josie Breton from École Sacré-Coeur.

In all, 60 posters were received in this competition. I would like to congratulate all the students who submitted their posters for this contest.

EDUCATION FINANCING

Mr Charles Beer (York North): To the Minister of Education: Minister, there is a continuing crisis of confidence in your leadership of the educational system. The problem, quite frankly, is that no one believes in your promises any more.

Last April in this press release, you promised $50 million for the school boards of this province. They have not seen one cent, and it is rumoured that they won't see any of this money at all. Minister, you owe the educational community an explanation. You owe them a clear accounting in terms of what has happened to that $50 million.

Last week you took away your government's commitment to increase school board funding to 2% in 1992-93 and in 1993-94. Boards had planned on those dollars. They had made commitments with those dollars. They had signed agreements with those dollars. Now you say you have a $99-million fund which you might provide to those boards that meet your priorities.

Minister, will any of this money actually go to the education system? Are you going to meet with your so-called partners to look at ways they think they can best spend these dollars? How are you going to help the 17 or 18 school boards already facing deficits? How are you going to help boards implement your proposed curriculum changes, destreaming, junior kindergarten, special education and the adoption of a common curriculum from junior kindergarten to grade 9?

Minister, these are real issues and real problems. How are you going to regain credibility and ensure that we can all believe in your promises once again? Right now, all we have is a profound sense of betrayal.

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LANDFILL

Mr W. Donald Cousens (Markham): The battle to stop the dumps in the greater Toronto area is proceeding to the courtroom. The New Democratic Party has refused to hear the concerns about the dumps from the communities, from the property owners and from individuals, so now a judge will force the NDP to listen.

York region has an excellent case and will launch the courtroom attack on two fronts. First, York region will use the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to prove that it has been unjustly treated and forced to take Metro's garbage. Secondly, York region will argue under section 14 of Bill 143, the Waste Management Act, that the Interim Waste Authority should review the alternatives to landfilling, such as rail haul. Yet the IWA ignores these options, choosing instead to follow the commands of "meanster" Grier.

York regional council remains firm and has reconfirmed its support to continue the fight. In the words of Eldred King, the York regional chairman, "Not one ounce of Metro's garbage will mar the landscape of York region."

The New Democratic Party government is dumping on York region and Peel and York and Pickering, wherever, and treating all the communities unfairly. If it takes a legal battle to stop the IWA process and put an end to the NDP tyranny, I say charge ahead.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Mr Gordon Mills (Durham East): Today marks the beginning of White Ribbon Week. I'd like to stand in my place now and commend my executive assistant and others like him, who left their homes very early this morning and occupied strategic places in the downtown core of Toronto to offer literature and white ribbons to those going into their offices this morning to start work, to recognize and bring this to the forefront.

I have some things I would encourage members to listen to and the viewers who are watching to listen to and to pass the word. There are a few things we can do to stop the violence against women. We can wear a white ribbon from today through to December 6. We can get our male friends to wear a white ribbon. We can object to sexually demeaning pictures of women in the workplace, and we all know they exist. We can examine our own behaviour, how we might be contributing to the problem. We can contribute to our local shelter for battered women, rape crisis centre or other women's programs. We can join others in our community to insist that the police lay charges in all cases of wife assault. We can write to the media or to the advertisers to object to demeaning images of women that we see in our newspapers. Finally, we can make a small monthly contribution to the white ribbon campaign.

STABLE FUNDING

Mr Ron Eddy (Brant-Haldimand): Members of the Liberal caucus are shocked that the Minister of Agriculture and Food introduced legislation that will fine Ontario farmers up to $2,000 if they fail to register or pay fees under the NDP stable funding law. What is perhaps even more incredible is that the minister, minutes after introducing his bill, said that he was also shocked that the legislation contained the $2,000 fine.

What's going on? How could this have happened? How could the minister, on an issue as important and sensitive as this to the Ontario farm community, not know the details of his own legislation? The incompetence of this government becomes more obvious every day.

We in the Liberal caucus join with the farmers and farm groups across Ontario, including the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, in demanding to know what the Minister of Agriculture and Food is prepared to do to fix his shocking mistake. What amendments will be introduced to Bill 105? Will the minister tell us today that he will withdraw this offensive part of Bill 105 that would make it legal to fine our farmers $2,000 for not filing or paying fees under the stable funding plan? We will be watching the minister very carefully to see what his next move will be to clean up this mess which is of his own creation.

ST CLAIR COLLEGE

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): I stand in the House today to congratulate St Clair College of Windsor. The college has initiated Canada's first gaming and dealing program. The gaming assistant program began in October of this year, training students to deal and work in casinos.

It is a true pleasure to see our school system plan and prepare for the future while on the other hand we see this government continue to plow ahead without any planning or studies. The college approached the casino project team from the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations as opposed to the ministry seeing an opportunity to train and employ people for the positions that will obviously become available when the Windsor pilot project opens in 1993.

How ironic and laudable that the college saw an opportunity and capitalized on it. That almost sounds like free enterprise capitalism, those terrible words that this NDP government hates to hear. This NDP government has inadvertently encouraged a small example of free enterprise.

Perhaps we should pause for a few moments to reflect on this revelation. The pilot project is obviously going to go through with its plan to open the Windsor casino with or without an impact study on the repercussions of its actions.

I applaud St Clair College for its insight in preparing for the opening of the casino and wish it success with its new program. I only wonder how they are going to fund this new program when the government has chosen to cut funding to colleges and universities. Perhaps St Clair College in Windsor is the actual site for the pilot project, a perfect opportunity for co-op education. The unfortunate students will spend all their money gambling at the casino --

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): The member's time has expired.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Mr Drummond White (Durham Centre): I'd like to draw your attention to a Toronto Star article of last spring:

"The first shot hit her in the face. It was meant to kill her" -- the woman referred to was a Francine Nicholas -- "but it didn't. She was hit in the right shoulder blade, chest and twice in the backHer six children watched everything, screaming.

"On the Thursday before the shooting, she told [her husband] she had decided to leave him and move into Denise House." Today, that woman speaks to audiences about her 11-year marriage and how she was made to believe that the consistent beatings were her fault.

Between 1974 and 1990, 900 women have been killed by abusive men. Most of these women were killed as they were attempting to leave an abusive relationship, just as Francine did. It's at this point of transition that they most need our help and sensitivity.

I'd like to mention the courage that this woman, Francine Nicholas, daily evidences. I had the honour of meeting with her twice last week. She spoke to me of the many ways that our system fails women like her. She states that she was given false assurances by a counsellor and she demands that he be made accountable to her and to the very many other women whose lives and whose safety he may have endangered.

We have made our services accountable. We have to make those services accountable to these clients. Vulnerable clients of social services have every right that health professionals' clients should have. Social workers and their agencies should be regulated and made accountable for the quality and sensitivity of those services.

ANNUAL REPORT, PROVINCIAL AUDITOR

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): I beg to inform the House that I have today laid upon the table the annual report of the Provincial Auditor of Ontario, covering audits completed through August 31, 1992.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

NON-UTILITY GENERATION

Hon Ed Philip (Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology): I'm pleased to announce today the Ontario government support for a project that will create jobs today and protect the environment for the future.

Today the Premier is in Cambridge announcing details of provincial assistance to Nicholls-Radtke Group Inc of Cambridge.

Our assistance will help to create a new venture called Innovative Steam Technologies, IST, in Cambridge. My ministry is providing a $4.8-million loan which is contingent on the company meeting guidelines for capital expenditures and job creation.

Our assistance will enable IST to develop and commercialize a new technology for cogeneration equipment.

It's expected to create more than 230 jobs here in Ontario and to capture international opportunities in the cogeneration market.

The project involves an investment of $24 million over the next five years by IST's partners, Nicholls-Radtke Group and Solar Turbines Inc of San Diego. Innovative Steam is a 50-50 joint venture between these two companies.

IST will manufacture and market once-through steam generators in Ontario. Clients will be able to generate their own electricity using energy recovered from their heating systems.

In addition to improving energy efficiency, the technology provides a range of environmental benefits including water conservation, solid and liquid waste reduction and the elimination of chemical treatment of the feed water system.

Ontario's support for this project demonstrates our commitment to fostering a growing environmental and energy conservation industry in this province.

This project fits in very well with Ontario's green industry strategy. It will strengthen an environmental technology producer so it can serve an expanding market, both domestic and foreign.

This project encourages Ontario's participation in the development of non-utility electrical power generation and provides the additional business opportunity for Nicholls-Radtke to access other export markets. In fact, more than 90% of these generators will be slated for the US market.

Other benefits of this joint venture include spinoff jobs at the local level during construction of IST's facilities.

I am pleased that we've been able to join with Nicholls-Radtke and its partner, Solar Turbines, to help make this project a reality.

This project is an important step in creating jobs today and restructuring Ontario's economy so that we can compete in the emerging markets of high value added, environmentally friendly industries in the future.

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Mr Monte Kwinter (Wilson Heights): I'd like to respond to the minister's statement, and I want to preface my remarks by saying that any time anyone opens a plant in Ontario or proposes to open a plant in Ontario, I'm supportive. But I really do think this notice is somewhat overblown.

To propose that this is going to be, as the minister stated, "an important step in creating jobs today and restructuring Ontario's economy" is patently absurd. The number of jobs that are going to be created are maybe 230 over five years. That works out to 46 jobs a year. When you consider that every three days a plant closes in Ontario and every single day 500 jobs are lost in Ontario, to suggest that this is going to be something that is going to turn this province around, as I say, is absurd.

Another thing I think should be noted is that in the statement the minister states that this particular loan is contingent on the company meeting guidelines for capital expenditure and job creation. So we don't even know whether they will meet those guidelines. It would seem to me to be premature to make an announcement before you know whether or not it is going to happen.

Yesterday I questioned the Premier about a real investment opportunity, an investment of $500 million that Toyota is considering. I asked the Premier what the results of his deliberations were. He gave me a very noncommittal answer. I have since found out it was never even discussed. Now, here's an opportunity for $500 million to come into Ontario and this government is doing nothing about it. As I predicted yesterday, it will probably wind up in Mexico or wind up in Kentucky.

I welcome any initiative that is going to create activity in Ontario, but I think this government should try to put forward projects that are welcome but should certainly not portray them as being major steps in turning the province around in an economic point of view.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Further responses?

Mr Dalton McGuinty (Ottawa South): I want to take advantage of this opportunity to address the specific issue of cogeneration that's raised in the minister's statement. The minister tells us that he'll be promoting a cogeneration manufacturing industry in Ontario, and I hope that the sales are good outside the province, because there's no opportunity for sales within. That's so because at this time, Mr Speaker, as you well know, Ontario Hydro, with the consent of the government, has effectively put a moratorium on any cogeneration projects within the province except for those that generate less than five megawatts.

There are a number of proposals that are on the table at this time and a number of people across the province who have some exciting projects in terms of cogeneration, but they simply cannot proceed as a result of Ontario Hydro at the present time being unable to commit with respect to the specifics in terms of how much electricity we're going to need in the future and how much in fact we need at the present time.

One case in point deals with the project in Sudbury. That's an exciting project. It has some real possibilities, but we're somewhat confused in terms of the Minister of Energy's position. He told us in the House at one time that this project would not be proceeding because to do so would result in a commensurate increase in hydro rates for everyone else who remains on stream. But lately, as a result of, I gather, some pressure being applied to members in the government who hold their seats in and around the area of Sudbury, this government is now considering proceeding with the Sudbury project. The questions that we have are, of course: At what cost will this be to the remaining ratepayers and what about those people in other areas, like Kingston? What about Windsor and what about Toronto? All of these areas have come forward with various projects, and they're very anxious as well. I'm sure that those projects have a great deal of merit.

The minister tells us that he's interested in making an industry within the province competitive, and if he really has a sincere interest in doing that, then what he's got to look to is reducing our skyrocketing hydro rates, which will be going up effectively some 30% over three years. We're losing industry as a direct result of those skyrocketing rates, and in turn we are losing jobs. Hydro remains in a state of chaos. We've got an environmental assessment hearing proceeding at the present time. We're spending millions of dollars on that. It will take years, and all to consider a plan which has been effectively gutted and is only a shadow of its former self. I hope to see much more in terms of really making this province competitive.

The Speaker: Responses, third party.

Mr Gary Carr (Oakville South): I'm pleased to stand, and any time we can get 230 jobs it's a happy day in the province of Ontario. Unfortunately, we lose 500 jobs a day. It's interesting that we finally get a statement from this minister. This minister was in Ireland, he was in Pakistan, he was in India, and we thought he was going to come back -- with all the jobs and the projects that he had, there wasn't one statement out of this minister. I say to the minister, what did you do on your trip? Where were the jobs? Where were the investments in Pakistan, in Ireland and in India? Not one announcement. Quite frankly, he has been a disaster in terms of bringing investment to this province. Literally, as he is talking about this project, GM is saying it may have to move out because of hydro rates.

A year ago, in our first New Directions, not to be confused with our second New Directions, we talked about technology, pages 16 and 17, to create jobs in the environment. A year later, they start getting around to doing it. I say to this minister: Mr Minister, if you'd listened to us before, we'd be a lot farther ahead in the province of Ontario.

Mr Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): I would like to draw to the minister's attention the position that's been taken by the Ministry of the Environment on cogeneration. I wonder, really, whether these people are working together or strictly independent of one another, because here we have a $4.8-million loan going to this company for new technology to develop steam. What the new technology is, we don't have that information. Hopefully, it's something relative to solar, so that you're not putting more CO2 into the atmosphere and creating more problems with the ozone layer.

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The Ministry of the Environment is cutting off any consideration for the burning of garbage because of the emissions into the air, and here we are giving a $4.8-million loan to this company to create new technologies for steam. So I would like more information, Mr Minister, relative to those new technologies.

Our leader and the member for Parry Sound on three different occasions, Mr Minister, have been pleading with your government to support the industry at Sudbury. That industry in Sudbury, for cogeneration, would not only employ many, many people but would bring millions of dollars into the province, would provide a market for corn crops for the farmers in southern Ontario, and this project in Sudbury is being almost shelved by this government. I understood they had to make up their minds by yesterday if they were going to support the cogeneration project for the city of Sudbury. I hoped that today either the Minister of Energy or the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology would be able to inform this House as to their decision on that major project in Sudbury.

As to the cogeneration projects right here in Ontario that my colleague has mentioned, regarding Kingston and Toronto, these utilities have very sound cogeneration projects but are not able to proceed because Hydro has put a block in their way. There's no way that they, under the present Power Corporation Act, can proceed without Hydro's permission to develop those large and useful projects.

Mr Minister, we must also note that 90% of this product will be exported to the United States. That raises some question in our minds as to why, when we invest $4.8 million in loan money to develop a new technology, we can't make use of it here in the province of Ontario in trying to establish a stable and reasonable rate for energy in this province.

ORAL QUESTIONS

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): My question is for the Minister of Community and Social Services. Today, as everyone knows well, we received the auditor's report on the government's management of its financial affairs and we are concerned about a number of issues that are raised.

One of the issues of greatest concern is the indication of mismanagement within the family benefits program administration. I raise this question with the minister because she knows well that over the past two years, municipalities have repeatedly shared with her and with her government their concerns about the growing cost of welfare.

The Treasurer himself has often referred to welfare as one of the costs that is increasing at an unprecedented rate, and we all know the reasons for that. The Treasurer has clearly indicated that one of the reasons for his deficit being so out of control is the increased costs of welfare payments. Yet, despite all these concerns, the province seems to have taken no action at all to come to grips with the costs of welfare in the province and what it might be able to do to control unnecessary costs.

According to the auditor's report, more than $220 million a year is spent on unnecessary welfare payments. I would ask the minister, given all of the concerns about the costs of this program, can she explain why problems such as overpayment and fraud were not clearly identified by the ministry, and why steps were not taken to at the very least enforce existing ministry procedures?

Hon Marion Boyd (Minister of Community and Social Services): I certainly can't tell the member why this was not done in the past. I can tell her that it has been done in the present and that in fact the auditor's report acknowledges what the ministry has done over the last year in order to improve the situation.

I announced in this House last year, following the budget, that we would be hiring additional staff. This was the issue that was noted by the auditor as being the major problem, that the average case load of approximately 500 cases to one worker was the major problem we had.

We have hired, as of June 30, 200 additional staff, and the additional 250 that we were allocated will be in place by March 31. That was an investment, with the offices and all the equipment, of about $18 million. Indications are that for the cost of that investment that we made this year, we will get back approximately $300 million. So the auditor's report was right, that when you are properly staffed and can monitor a system properly, you can effect great savings. That is what we are doing.

Mrs McLeod: I acknowledge that in the auditor's report he recognizes a number of areas in which inadequate staffing has caused the problem to be even greater than it would be otherwise. I acknowledge the fact as well that the government did move very belatedly, in May 1992, to address some of the staffing problems. I would ask whether they could not have acted much earlier, given the fact that this concern has been raised over and over again for the last two years.

But I would like to draw the minister's attention to one of the issues raised by the auditor which cannot be addressed simply by adding new staff. That's the issue of fraud, which the auditor has identified.

The auditor estimates that fraud has cost between $70 million and $100 million annually. He cites examples of cases where the ministry staff was aware of cases of fraud but did not take action. I would quote from the auditor's report directly where he says, "The ministry has established guidelines to deal with fraud. [But] efforts to prevent and detect fraud were insufficient. Despite the existence of procedures to follow up on potential frauds, the ministry was not aggressive in prosecuting suspects or in obtaining restitution."

The auditor cites a specific example where a recipient and a spouse had worked full-time for over three years and had not reported all their income. That alleged fraud alone cost the ministry $25,000, and neither a civil nor a criminal case was pursued. The response of the ministry to the auditor was that the ministry offices said they did not prosecute frauds of this nature.

I ask the minister, why would your ministry not follow its own guideline to deal with very clear, known cases of fraud?

Hon Mrs Boyd: I think the member asks a very good question. I certainly was distressed to understand that this apparently had been the kind of process that was followed. Since June, we have put 30 new eligibility review officers into place with very strong instructions that if we are to maintain the integrity of the social assistance system, we must indeed show ourselves to be much more vigorous. That is actually an increase that brings the total to 54, so there were very few eligibility review officers there in place. I share the concern of the member.

I would like to say, however, that the auditor himself indicated that although the dollars involved are serious and we must take account of those, the rate of fraud is anywhere from about 2.5% to 3.5%. It's really important for us, when we talk about this issue, to accept responsibility for ensuring that we are acting effectively to prevent fraud, but fraud is not the issue in terms of the social assistance costs we face. It is only one of many issues. In fact, the recession and the job situation are the major problems that face the social assistance situation.

Mrs McLeod: I also want to raise with the minister another area the auditor has noted. That's the area of failure to verify the information provided by clients, that information on which the payments are assessed. The auditor indicates that actual costs were not verified in 27% of the cases he reviewed, and that in 12% of the cases, the recipients reviewed had dependents and even the birth dates of those dependents were not verified. The minister may suggest that this again was part of the problem with a lack of staffing, but I would suggest the government at an earlier stage made this particular situation even worse when it cancelled the home visits, which allowed some verification to be carried out.

I would ask the minister, in light of what the auditor has said about the failure to verify the information on which these payments are based, what steps she is now prepared to take to ensure that there are full verification measures in place so that payments are indeed based on need and so that the payments that are being made are going to those who truly need that money.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I think this is one of the more serious findings, because although indeed visual verification of documents has always been allowed under the system, the system has always required workers to document that they have seen, and to in fact clearly take responsibility for having seen. The documentation wasn't there and the auditor is quite correct that this at least ought to be done.

We have worked on the guidelines. The new staff that we're bringing in and the existing staff are being trained so that, very clearly, the documentation is absolutely necessary. We're also looking at an increase in the kind of documentation that may back up certain issues. There have been requests from our staff across the province that we require more official documentation in certain cases. I would cite child care receipts as one that our staff think ought to be required in a more concrete form.

We are working at that, but I share the member's concern. I think that does call into question the integrity of the system, and frankly, that is not something any of us want to see happen.

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TRANSFER PAYMENTS

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): We will return to other aspects of the auditor's report during question period, but in my second question I want to go back to another area that gives us great cause for concern and direct my question to the Minister of Colleges and Universities.

Despite the Treasurer's attempt to camouflage the 0% increase in transfer payments to colleges and universities, hospitals and school boards, the transfer agencies clearly understand that the so-called 2% announcement was worse than nothing. It created a completely false illusion that commitments for next year were still in place, and as the minister knows, that is simply not so.

We all know the Treasurer had a problem. He refused to acknowledge the reality of his financial situation a year ago, so he made promises that he now finds he can't keep and he has pulled the rug out from under his so-called transfer partners.

I would ask the Minister of Colleges and Universities today, did he make the case to the Treasurer on behalf of colleges and universities and the students in our colleges and universities? Did he challenge the Treasurer's approach and lose, or was he simply the bearer of the bad news?

Hon Richard Allen (Minister of Colleges and Universities): The ministers who are in charge of each of the transfer areas regularly make their case with the Treasury and with the rest of the government as to the needs of their systems.

Hon Gilles Pouliot (Minister of Transportation and Minister Responsible for Francophone Affairs): She knows that. The leader knows that.

Hon Mr Allen: You know that. You've been there. You've been a minister in my shoes in the past with regard to this and I'm sure that you did that then too. You also did it of course in your turn when government was rolling in money, and there were lots of things that you didn't respond to at that time. In fact, as I recall, you left this system funded 9th place out of 10 among the provinces of Canada and I don't think that was a very gracious gift to pass on to me.

I would say to you that I think you would equally expect me, as a minister, while on the one hand presenting the case for the universities and colleges, to recognize what the realities of finance are in this province at this time and to try to make the best fisc out of that for everybody. That's precisely what I did. That's what my transfer payment partners did as colleagues working for their sectors as well. That's essentially the response I have to you, Madam.

Mrs McLeod: I would put the record of our government in providing access to post-secondary education up against the record of this government any day, but I'm not going to take the time to do that this afternoon.

What I want to try and make this minister deal with today are the inconsistencies and the absolute impossible expectations which his government has created for the transfer partners in colleges and universities. Let it be absolutely clear to everyone, basic financial reality: You cannot use one-time only funds to pay salary bills. Let's take that as a given.

Then let me ask the minister to think about the fact that the community colleges' Council of Regents, under the leadership of his former colleague, Richard Johnston, has just settled a contract giving the academic staff of our colleges increases of up to 9% over three years. Quite clearly, despite the government's willingness to break promises, those agreements have to be honoured.

I ask the minister, how does he expect the colleges to keep these agreements with a 0% increase next year, and how many students does he believe will be shut out of our colleges and universities because of the decisions the Treasurer has made?

Hon Mr Allen: I've had predictions of lowered enrolments and lowered access from that side of the House ever since I became minister. None of them have eventuated. In fact, the marginal costs of adding students to both the university and the college systems has been coped with through the excellent management of college and university administrations, and I expect that to go on happening.

There is no reality that I know of that can change the fiscal circumstances of this province. When one has less revenue in hand this year than the year before, something has to be done to manage the systems through that crisis. The simple fact is that the systems will have a 7% increase in tuition fees. That's a $44-million transfer into their funds. As a result, they will have the equivalent, at the end of the day, of a 3% increment, given the 2%.

That's all intended to help them manage their way to what in fact will be a 0% increment in the 1994-95 year. There's no other way it can happen. People will have to put their shoulders to the wheel --

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Could the minister conclude his response, please.

Hon Mr Allen: -- and we will have to maintain enrolments and access as best we can.

Mrs McLeod: My question was, how many students does the minister believe will be shut out of colleges and universities next year because of next year's 0% increase, which is the reality that the colleges and universities are facing? I believe, if I heard correctly, that what the minister said was, "I hope there won't be fewer students in the eventuality of the admission procedures of our colleges and universities." It seems to me that's a little bit like building both a budget and a promise on a wish and a prayer.

Let me tell the minister that I believe there will be fewer students going to college and university next year. There will be fewer spaces in our colleges and universities because of a 0% increase. Higher tuitions and no grants will mean that the places that are available will be less affordable for many students. The other reality is that those students who can't get into college and university next year will not find work. They will join the ranks of the unemployed and our youth unemployment will be even higher than the 20% we have seen this year.

In the meantime, this government supports a $1.2-billion training program for the currently unemployed that simply doesn't work. I ask the minister, why would you keep in place a $1.2-billion training program that doesn't work while you bring in funding cuts that will put more students in unemployment lines instead of in our colleges and universities?

Hon Mr Allen: The reason I keep a $1.2-billion training program in place is precisely because it is working. This program is bringing in 300 to 400 new job offers from employers across the province every single week. We have now got up to 4,900 on register. We have 900 people placed. Those placements are happening day after day in a new program.

The leader seems to have bought that strange mathematics that inhabits the front pages of the Toronto Star, which tells us that we spent $1.1 billion and only got 600 jobs. If she wants to indulge in that kind of fanciful stuff, she's welcome to it, but the simple fact of the matter is that this is a widely praised program, it's highly ingenious, it gets value added for every person who goes into the workplace on the training credits program.

It's working now; it'll work tomorrow. We'll fulfil our targets. If she wants to wave her wand in some miraculous fashion in the future, then she's welcome to do that, but let me say that this is a working program and I like it, frankly.

HEALTH CARDS

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): In the absence of the Premier and the Treasurer on this, the auditor's report day, I have a question --

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): Are they not here today?

Mr Harris: I guess they don't care about all the waste. I'm not sure.

I have a question to the Minister of Health regarding the previous Liberal government's plan to fight fraud and abuse of our health services. It seems as though the plan has failed. The system has cost taxpayers $39 million. What do we get for our money? As much as 300,000 cards are unaccounted for.

Of the $150 million that at the time of the announcement of this system this was supposed to save, $137 million of that cannot be found. The system is such a bust that the auditor says, "The province's investment in the registration system is at risk."

Minister, how do you intend to recover the 300,000 missing cards and salvage a very expensive system that has run amok?

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Hon Frances Lankin (Minister of Health): I appreciate the opportunity to address this issue again. I think many of the questions that have been raised with respect to this by the Provincial Auditor have in fact previously been raised in this House by the third party and I think many of the responses that I have given still hold today in terms of the steps we have taken to attempt to address this.

The leader of the third party will know that we established a registration branch. Within that, there is a registration verification unit which has taken steps and has already very successfully started to do validity checks on a whole range of the cards that were out there. We also have an analysis unit which has been helping us answer some of the questions that weren't previously answered.

If you read the auditor's report, you will see that at the time the plan was considered, it is asserted that the ministry didn't adequately consider how it would maintain the accuracy, how it would get the cost benefits out of it, whether or not to use smart card technology, all of those sorts of things.

That analysis work that hadn't been done is going on. We do have a smart card pilot project going on which we are assessing. We are looking at photo identification.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Could the minister conclude her response, please.

Hon Ms Lankin: We'll be in a position to respond to a number of those issues with actual concrete steps very quickly. I would say that I think the member opposite will want to see good cost analysis done before we embark again on changing anything with respect to this issue.

Mr Harris: The minister will know that five years ago in North Bay, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Ministry of Health had a pilot project for smart cards. We don't need any more pilot projects.

Your deputy minister today, in response to the auditor's report, said, "The ministry maintains an accurate record and count of all health cards that are issued." That was your deputy minister's response today.

Madam Minister, I have here in my hand a health card. This is the one that gives the benefits when you reach age 65, so not only does this access all the system, but this gives full drug benefits as well. This card was issued on November 1, 1992; that's when it becomes effective. However, the lady for whom this card was issued died two and a half years ago. Two and a half years ago. Out automatically goes the new card: "Here you go. Free health care. Free drug benefits as well." You're quite right. Mr Wilson, the member for Simcoe West, has raised this issue with you since April, but you still have done nothing and, as of today, your deputy minister does not even acknowledge that there is a serious problem.

I would ask you this: In view of the fact that every time one of these lost cards is used, we have fewer resources for Ontarians who legitimately deserve health care, and the auditor says 300,000 missing cards -- now 300,001 -- could cost our system $430 million, how many more cards will be issued to foreigners, to ineligible people, to dead people before you're going to correct this leak in the whole system?

Hon Ms Lankin: With respect to the example that the member has raised, I have indicated to him that when the registration was done, there was no establishment of a link between information with respect to births and deaths and the issuance of cards. We now have established that with the registrar general, and I think that these sorts of issues will not happen in the future.

I would ask the member to send over at this point in time by page the card and the application there. I would like to take direct action with respect to that and I would hope that before the final supplementary he will send it to me.

With respect to his comments about North Bay and the smart card pilot project, I would ask the member to look at the fact that he is talking about Health and Welfare Canada, with Greenshield, with respect to issuance of drugs and tracking of pharmaceutical billings. It has nothing to do with the issuance of and tracking of information on smart card technology of the whole range of health issues. The reason that we need the pilot project with respect to that has to do with freedom of information and a range of things, policy considerations, that have to be correctly addressed.

I think the steps that the ministry is taking are very adequate and are comprehensive. I would offer to the member that the deputy and the ADM and the people who are involved in this area with myself would be pleased to appear before the public accounts committee to give you a fuller explanation of the steps that have been taken. I'm sure that you would be assured too.

Mr Harris: The member for Simcoe West not only identified the problem last April but also gave you some solutions to have signatures, to have photo IDs, to have cards verified before they can be used. I mean, even Mac's Milk here in southern Ontario and Eaton's, Sears and the gas companies require a card to be validated before it is used. He gave you those suggestions; you now say you're not going to do anything until 1993. I'm happy to solve your problem with one card. If you give me a week or two, maybe I can solve the other 300,000 as well. It's not that complicated.

By way of final supplementary, let me ask you this: Your ministry has been in hot water twice now in a major way for its lack of security since your government took over. I believe the current Minister of Housing could attest to that and I believe the Minister of Northern Development and Mines can attest to that through the e-mail leak.

Yet this $40-million system that you've put in place that was supposed to control health registration information, we now find out in the auditor's report, can be accessed by over 12,000 people. The auditor found these people could change registration information without authorization, and your ministry has still not assigned accountability for the confidentiality of the information from this system.

Let me ask you today: Minister, have you not learned anything about confidentiality since your government took over? What measures do you intend to put in place immediately to ensure the security of the health records of the people in this province?

Hon Ms Lankin: There are a couple of issues raised there. Could I point out to the member that we do have, at the very present time, parts of the province where we are utilizing a point-of-use verification of cards and the validity of cards, and we're hoping to be able to build on that. So I think there are steps that have been taken in answer to that question.

With respect to the issues of security, I think the auditor points out a problem that existed in the ministry. I think that has been admitted. We have taken a number of steps, and I think there are more steps to be taken. We continue to work with the advice of the freedom of information and protection of privacy branch within the ministry with respect to procedures, the institution of passwords and a number of particular security measures that I think have addressed the province by and large but can still be improved, and we are working on that.

I would ask the member for a second time to send the card and the application over to me by page at this point in time. That hasn't occurred yet, I would put on the record. May I say to him that with respect to the whole issue of cards, it is very difficult to hear the third party continue on this issue when concrete steps have been taken, when I have stood here and offered to have staff appear before public accounts to address this issue, when I know that the third party was responsible for the 25 million OHIP numbers that were in place that the previous government had to try and address at the time they introduced the new system.

The Speaker: New question.

Mr Harris: Obviously, the auditor still is not satisfied today, and the minister will know that I don't entrust these health cards to anyone and I will deliver personally the health card. If you will give me a week to put into place the suggestion of the member for Simcoe West, we'll solve the problem of the other 299,999 cards.

The Speaker: To whom is your second question directed? Does the leader have a second question?

NON-PROFIT HOUSING

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): This regards the black hole of government-subsidized housing. The auditor today raised an issue that I have been raising for three years now, ever since I assumed the leadership of the party, that I have raised as soon as you took office back as far as the 3rd of December, 1990, when I raised similar concerns.

The auditor says you've been paying triple the cost that you should be paying for land for your so-called non-profit housing. The auditor determined that in 1990-91 alone, you could have saved $64 million in capital costs in only three of the regions that they studied had you paid market value instead of what you pay.

Minister, $64 million of waste in one year would go a long way in shelter subsidies to house the 20,000 families, and growing, that are waiting for affordable housing in Ontario. I would ask you this: Are you, all your staff and the thousand employees over at the Ministry of Housing so out of touch with reality, with what's going on in the marketplace, that you could possibly authorize paying three times the market value price for land and not think there was a problem?

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Hon Evelyn Gigantes (Minister of Housing): The member is referring to a part of the auditor's report that deals with procurement for the purposes of development, and they're called turnkey projects. They became something which was available to groups who wanted to develop non-profit housing, particularly in the period when the market fell, after the peak of 1988-89; in other words, in the period 1990-91. The areas in which the auditor did his survey of the procurement cost for turnkeys were in the three highest-cost areas, the three highest-cost regions of the province.

I think what he points out are some serious questions about the whole issue of turnkey procurements. I would agree with the leader of the Conservative Party on that, and we are instituting under the program development for our new 20,000-unit Jobs Ontario Homes program a review of the turnkey procurement option.

Mr Harris: Use all the fancy names for it you want. It's government housing, and it's a disgrace what it's costing the taxpayers; that's just the land cost in only three regions of the province.

At a time when market costs for construction decreased by 16%, government costs increased by 10%. In 1991, this difference alone, for that one year, was $200 million. Minister, $200 million worth of shelter subsidies could be used to house over 60,000 families for a full year, three times the number now on your waiting list.

The waste in your government housing programs is growing. It proves that there is clearly both big waste and big profit in non-profit. Will you now accept what I told the previous government and what I have been telling your government ever since you took office? Will you accept this reality that there is big waste and big profit in non-profit? Will you scrap this abominable waste of taxpayers' dollars at the expense of a more modest system of shelter subsidies that will truly help the homeless and those who need help?

Hon Ms Gigantes: Again, I'd like to draw the opposition leader's attention to the specifics of what the auditor had to say, because I think what the auditor had to say was very valuable.

What he did was, taking 1990 as a base, he made made a comparison with what he felt should be lower prices in 1991. He did this using an index, which was a quite complicated index conversion from one-bedrooms to equivalent two-bedroom units, and he surveyed 241 projects that were given final approvals in the 1991 period.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Hon Ms Gigantes: In doing this comparison, he was trying to point out that when market prices for land were going down and construction costs were going down, as they were in 1991, our costs should have been lower, and he estimated that at $200 million.

I think the point he makes is a good one, and that the maximum unit price which was suggested for the programs, particularly in the high-cost Metro area, was one which was not sensitive enough, and in fact we are working very hard now to make sure that the new program design will reflect not only increases in maximum unit price, but decreases.

Mr Harris: I would say by way of final supplementary that instead of accusing the auditor of fudging the figures, you would be well advised to listen to what I have been telling you for three years and what the auditor is telling you today.

The Provincial Auditor also says, "Multiple waiting lists, inconsistent placement criteria and the referral practices make it unlikely that those in need of affordable housing will be treated consistently, equitably and efficiently."

Minister, I've been telling you that for the two years since you took over, and in those two years I've been telling you that the people who desperately need the most help are not getting that help, and that there is no way of knowing, after spending the billion dollars of subsidies and the billions in capital costs, far in excess of the marketplace, that the right people in fact are getting into the units, those who need help.

You wouldn't listen to me. You wouldn't listen to me as I raised it session after session, question period after question. Will you finally listen to the auditor? Will you now admit that the NDP and Liberal bent towards government-owned housing is a sham, a waste of money and not helping those truly in need? Will you look at a system of shelter subsidies to target that help to the neediest of families, so that with fewer dollars --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Mr Harris: -- we can take every single family off the waiting list and get those people who most need the help into decent and affordable housing? Will you admit that today as the auditor has told you?

Hon Ms Gigantes: Mr Speaker, do I get equivalent time?

I have not accused the Provincial Auditor of fudging the figures, not in the least. What I've said is that the message he is delivering about the way our programs need to change is a very clear one. These programs were six years old before they went through a final review by this government to try to improve those programs. In the meantime, over 40,000 units of affordable housing, which will remain affordable for 35 years and then be paid off and available at an affordable rate to people in Ontario, will be in existence.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Ms Gigantes: The leader of the Conservative Party is suggesting that in fact --

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): You waste the taxpayers' money and then get up and try to justify it. It's disgraceful.

The Speaker: Order, the member for York Mills.

Hon Ms Gigantes: -- people are not getting housing when they have the deepest need. The rate of rent-geared-to-income in the projects coming into our non-profit sector in Ontario is 75%.

We already in this province are spending over $2 billion a year in shelter allowances through our social assistance system. How much more money does he want to put in to not creating any new housing? We need affordable housing that will last.

The Speaker: New question, the member for Oriole.

Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): My question today is about gross mismanagement on an issue --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Just a moment.

Interjections.

ELEVATOR INSPECTIONS

Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): My question today is one of government mismanagement and an issue of serious public safety concern, and I address it to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations.

The Provincial Auditor noted that your ministry spends $4.5 million annually to ensure that the 35,000 elevators in Ontario are safe and that they meet the required ministry standards. We know, Minister, from the Provincial Auditor's report that your inspections are inadequate to ensure that your own safety standards are being complied with. Forty per cent of Ontario's elevators are overdue for inspection and, according to the Provincial Auditor and admissions from your own ministry, as many as 10,000 elevators in the province of Ontario may not meet those safety standards. Eighty per cent of the resources that you collect in licensing fees are actually going to fund those inspections.

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Minister, the lives of millions of Ontarians depend on the inspections that are carried out by your ministry, yet what we hear from the Provincial Auditor is that those funds are not being properly used. What I ask you today is, what do you say to the millions of people in the province of Ontario who pay licence fees for inspection and who pay tax dollars expecting that your ministry will ensure that the elevators are safe? What do you say to them when the Provincial Auditor tells us that those inspections are not taking place?

Hon Marilyn Churley (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): The first thing I'd like to say to the member and anybody listening is that elevators in Ontario are safe, and I can say that categorically. There is no reason for the public to be alarmed. I want to put this issue in perspective a little bit, because the reality about elevators is that they're very sophisticated and they have a lot of built-in backup equipment that are safety features.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Hon Ms Churley: In fact, the Ontario safety record relating to passenger elevators, as you know, is one of the safest and the best in North America. Fatalities over the last five years have been less than one, and these tragic accidents have been less than one, and they have not been due to mechanical failures. This is a very important issue, because it does alarm people when it's put in the perspective as the member for Oriole put it.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Ms Churley: The reality -- and this is quite important for people to listen to -- is that 90% of elevating devices are checked once a month and inspected by the contractors who --

The Speaker: Could the minister conclude her response, please.

Hon Ms Churley: -- in fact are hired to do that. What the ministry essentially does is give backup support to that. The reality is that most of these elevators are checked once a month. I think what we're getting on to here are some serviceability issues that have been raised in this House before. In fact, the ministry is in the process of hiring nine new inspectors to help deal with that kind of problem.

Mrs Caplan: That answer is absolutely outrageous and is an insult to the people of this province. It also does not abide by the minister's own standards. The people of this province expect that elevators will be inspected every two years. They rely on that inspection for public safety. Your answer today in the House is little more than a wish and a prayer.

The Provincial Auditor today in his report was very, very clear: 10,000 elevators in this province may not meet the required safety standards. Now, that's according to the Provincial Auditor, and for you to stand in your place and not acknowledge what he has said is outrageous, Minister.

It is common knowledge that your ministry continues to raise licensing fees, and people expect that as a result of those licensing fees you will live up to your responsibility and ensure that the elevators are safe and inspected. Minister, there are people in this province who rely on your ministry to do that. The expectation is that it will happen every two years. What we know is that almost a third of the elevators are overdue for inspection.

The Speaker: Would the member place her supplementary, please.

Mrs Caplan: Most elevators are actually only inspected once every five or six years. Four thousand elevators installed in the last four years have never been inspected since the day they were first put into place.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Mrs Caplan: I would ask you on behalf of the people of this province and the taxpayers, what are you doing with the money you collect from those licensing fees if you are not doing your job and using those resources to inspect the elevators and ensure public safety?

Hon Ms Churley: I'd ask the member to calm down here. The reality, as she said and as I have acknowledged, is that there are 10,000 elevators that have electronic components that have not been doublechecked by the branch. It doesn't mean they have been inspected along the way. On the issue of inspections for every two years --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Ms Churley: -- there was a time when this was done on a two-year cycle. Given the changes in technology of today and the number of elevators that need to be assessed, to meet such a need would not be the best use of our resources right now. In fact, what we are doing is inspecting on the assessment of need. Some elevators are being inspected every six months; some elevators are being inspected five to six years.

In this day and age, with so many devices and so many being built all the time in the building boom we had, we had to come up with a system that works. The reality is that we are inspecting the ones that most needed to be done first, and we are advancing that system and will make sure --

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

Hon Ms Churley: -- that those inspections continue on that basis. As I said, we are hiring nine new inspectors and will bring the level of inspectors up to the level it was some time in the 1970s. And I will add that they really were reduced under the Liberal regime, and we are building it up again.

SKILLS TRAINING

Mrs Dianne Cunningham (London North): My question is to the Minister of Labour. Mr Minister, the Transitions program was established to assist older workers who are currently receiving unemployment insurance in accessing training programs in order to prepare them for today's changing workforce.

We know that in mid-October some 230,000 more Ontarians were on unemployment rolls than in September 1990, when your government took office.

Mr Minister, by word of your own ministry's correspondence, dated November 10, we're now telling people who are involved in training in Ontario that training proposals cannot begin until mid-March. But more importantly, people who are unemployed, on unemployment insurance right now, will have to wait till August before they can become part of the training programs in Ontario; older workers.

I would like to ask you what specific measures, since you're aware of this, you have taken to eliminate these excessive and depressing backlogs.

Hon Bob Mackenzie (Minister of Labour): I want to make it clear that Transitions is not an income support program. It provides a $5,000 credit for laid-off employees, 45 years of age, to retrain. This year we will assist more than 9,000 unemployed older workers into training.

I also want to make it clear that the program has been very successful and that we are in a sense, I admit, a victim of our own success. It is unfortunate that because of demand, the time it takes to process applications has increased. We recognize that: To meet the demand, the government has tripled its financial commitment to the Transitions program to $10 million in the last two years.

Mrs Cunningham: I would suggest that the older workers in Ontario right now who have been allowed to at least present their application forms to your ministry, who are told that they will have the opportunity to retrain -- in your last budget you said that jobs were the most important issue for your government. I would suggest, Mr Minister, that this is inexcusable.

In fact, right now many of us in this House from all parties are receiving letters and meeting with individuals who are on this waiting list, and that's the only hope they've got.

As a matter of fact, one of the letters brought to my attention this week caused me to raise this question today. This letter is from a gentleman who knew someone who was told that he could be in this Transitions training program. His unemployment insurance had just disappeared; it vanished. Then he was phoned about a month later and told he couldn't be there. This gentleman's friend actually has taken his own life.

Today I thought it was important that if the government is going to stand up in this House and talk about a program that is so successful that it's the victim of its own success, it ought to take a look at the real message it's giving to Ontarians. If they don't have a program that works, they shouldn't get people's hopes up and have them sit back waiting for something that won't happen.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Would the member place her supplementary, please.

Mrs Cunningham: Mr Minister, given this advice that you've received today -- and I know you've heard about this before -- what are you going to do about these long waiting periods? Are you going to tell the public of Ontario that this program no longer is working and in fact it won't exist, and you'll consider it in the next budget perhaps a year from now? Tell the truth.

Hon Mr Mackenzie: I would hope the member would not be suggesting that we dump a program that has been successful. I want to say that the government has tripled its financial commitment to the Transitions program to $10 million in each of the last two years. We have also recently doubled the staff in the Transitions program who are trying to deal with this problem. There is not an unlimited amount of money out there and we're doing what we can to meet this. But this is one of the programs not affected in terms of cutbacks, where we have been trying to meet the increased demand.

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RENT REGULATION

Mr Gary Malkowski (York East): My question is for the Minister of Housing. Last Thursday, I saw a full-page advertisement in the Toronto Star, paid for by the city of Toronto, which warned tenants of the increases they can expect if Metro's proposed market value assessment comes into being. It said things like tenants will receive rent hikes when there weren't supposed to be any, and that there will be no rent decreases when many were promised.

Tenants in my riding of York East have been calling, very concerned about what this means to them. Can you tell us what Metro tenants can expect if MVA becomes a reality?

Hon Evelyn Gigantes (Minister of Housing): I saw the same ad and was concerned also. The Rent Control Act, which became effective in August, does offer protection for tenants. A landlord, for example, in a situation where the taxes have increased, may apply for an increase in the rents above guideline, but only if there has been what is defined in the act as an extraordinary increase, which means that the rate of increase would have to be more than 50% higher than the rate of increase that is included within the three-year rolling average within the guideline. Effectively, that means, for example, that at today's rates it would be an increase of over 12%.

I would draw to the member's attention that in the case of an increase there will be a cap, as with all the other increases above guideline, of 3%, so no tenant will see an increase over 3%. In the case of most tenants, an increase of 5% in the tax rate, for example, might justify something like a 1% increase over guideline in the rent.

Mr Malkowski: What about tenants who live in buildings where landlords receive tax decreases? Will tenants benefit from that change?

Hon Ms Gigantes: Again, the Rent Control Act prepared for this eventuality. There can be an automatic pass-through of rent decreases to tenants if there is an agreement worked out with the municipality, in this case the Metro Toronto region. Currently, the Ministry of Housing staff who are involved with this element of the Rent Control Act are working with the Metro representatives to see how this might be worked out in the Metro area.

STABLE FUNDING

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): In the absence of the Premier and the Attorney General, I will have to ask my question today of my friend the Minister of Agriculture and Food. I have Bill 105 in my hand, and I'm reading from section 53 of the farm organizations legislation. Section 53 of the minister's recently introduced legislation states that Ontario farmers will be guilty of an offence if they do not file an annual farm operations statement and/or if they do not pay the annual farm organization fee, and that they will therefore be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine of up to $2,000.

Minister, is the Rae government serious about this provision? Do you honestly and really intend to fine Ontario farmers up to $2,000 if they do not file the annual farm operations statement or if they do not pay their annual farm organization fee?

Hon Elmer Buchanan (Minister of Agriculture and Food): I'd actually like to thank the member for the question. It will allow me an opportunity to clear the air on this issue.

This bill was introduced over a period of two years, with maximum consultation with farmers and farm groups across the province. Throughout those consultations, the decision was made that this would be a mandatory registration fee. Staff were instructed that this was going to be a mandatory system. The penalty for not registering would be that they wouldn't be able to participate and receive funds from the provincial government if they didn't register.

It's unfortunate that I did not follow up, and I believe I would accept fault for that: not looking at what "mandatory" meant legally. To legal counsel it meant that there had to be a penalty if you did not register. That was not my intent and that was not the intent of the farm organizations. I did consult with his colleagues and with the other opposition party on introducing this, and I have promised that any threat of fine will be removed before it's passed in this House.

Mr Conway: I just want the House to be clear. I have in my hand a government bill introduced last Thursday by the Honourable the Minister of Agriculture and Food, and it's very plain. It indicates in section 53 that it is the stated policy of the Rae government, in respect of this very sensitive legislation -- I will quote again if I have to, but it couldn't be clearer that the policy which the minister is advancing in Bill 105 intends and clearly states that farmers who do not file an annual farm operation statement or who do not pay the annual fee will be eligible for a fine of up to $2,000.

Now I'm told by the sponsor of this bill, the ink of which is hardly dry, it having been introduced here last Thursday afternoon, that I should not believe what is before me. People say this government is incompetent, that they are the Clampetts. Well, I'm telling you: more evidence.

Minister, if I am not to believe what is in your bill, let me ask this question: How did section 53 get into this bill which you introduced last Thursday and, specifically, what do you have to say to the scores of farmers who are phoning my office today in a perfect outrage about this particular part of this very interesting bill?

Hon Mr Buchanan: I think I made it clear in my response to his first question that financial fines or penalties will be removed from the bill. The member should take note of the fact that this is not the first piece of legislation that has been introduced to this House that required amendment. I recall previously many pieces of legislation that required amendments, and clearly this is an amendment that will be made. I made that commitment immediately upon introducing this legislation.

I already explained that legal counsel, when "mandatory" was mentioned, thought there had to be a penalty. It was my intent and the intent of farm leaders that there would not be any kind of financial fine or penalty. The penalty would simply be that there would be no access to government funds. That is the penalty, and I would be glad to have an amendment from the honourable member to take that section out of the bill.

WCB PREMIUMS

Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): My question is for the Minister of Labour. Minister, it appears that this government is doing everything possible to threaten job training. The Workers' Compensation Board has recently indicated that it will be introducing a policy which will require employers to pay WCB premiums for community college students who are obtaining on-the-job experience through work placements. This will create a very serious problem, particularly for students in the health care sector, such as nursing, emergency care and medical technology, that require hands-on experience to graduate.

The hospitals are concerned that they're going to have to use scarce health care dollars to pay for these new WCB costs. The Kitchener-Waterloo regional ambulance service has indicated that it can no longer afford to pay these premiums and that it will have to refuse to take any more students. This means that the students will not be able to obtain the hands-on experience needed to graduate.

Minister, this is a very serious problem for students in this province. I'd like to know what you intend to do to resolve this matter.

Hon Bob Mackenzie (Minister of Labour): I want to tell the honourable member across the way that I will get back to her with an answer on that within the next day or so.

Mrs Witmer: Minister, that's a totally unsatisfactory answer. This issue has been boiling for a month now. The community colleges, the students in the colleges, are very concerned. They want you to step in. They want you to assure the students that they're going to be able to obtain the hands-on experience they need to graduate. They want an answer now. They don't want an answer tomorrow. Minister, when will you come back to this House with an assurance that employers and students will not be penalized and these costs given to the employer?

Hon Mr Mackenzie: As I indicated, I will come back to the House tomorrow with an answer, not necessarily with what the member wants, but with an answer to the question.

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WASTE MANAGEMENT

Mr Gary Wilson (Kingston and The Islands): My question is for the Minister of the Environment. Madam Minister, your ministry is cooperating with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs in drafting legislation that will give municipalities the powers they will need to implement effective waste reduction and management practices in their municipalities. As you know, the proposals are set out in a discussion paper called Municipal Waste Management Powers in Ontario, released by Municipal Affairs in the spring.

The municipalities of my riding all face problems of one kind or another involving waste management. I know they would benefit from legislation that would strengthen their power in dealing with waste. Minister, they are anxious to have this power. What has become of the discussion paper and when can my constituents expect to see some legislation address this issue?

Hon Ruth A. Grier (Minister of the Environment: There has been great interest all around the province from municipalities and environmentalists in the paper that we released earlier this year with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. I'm delighted to be able to tell the member that we are in the process of reviewing the comments and the responses that have come back and that I hope to be in a position to announce the elements of the legislation very shortly.

Mr Gary Wilson: Madam Minister, as you know, Kingston is a separated city and as such does not fit into a county structure, nor is it part of any regional municipality. Because of its size, there is no room within its borders for a landfill. This means it must seek the cooperation of neighbouring municipalities in finding a suitable landfill. What will this new legislation referred to in your first answer mean for separated cities like Kingston?

Hon Mrs Grier: The purpose of the legislation is to clarify which level of government does in fact have the responsibility for waste management, the regional county or the area municipalities, and in the case of separated cities, as the member has pointed out, they don't quite fit into either category. But the intent of the legislation is to ensure cooperative waste management planning between municipalities to avoid the kind of conflict that has prevented us from coming to a conclusion on waste management master planning in the past.

I can say to the member that it is certainly my intention that this legislation will facilitate separated municipalities such as Kingston in implementing coordinated waste management master plans.

PETITIONS

STANDING ORDERS REFORM

Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas Premier Rae, the Premier of the province of Ontario, has forced upon the Ontario Legislature a change in the rules governing the procedures to be followed in the House; and

"Whereas Premier Rae has removed from members of the opposition the ability to properly debate and discuss legislation and policy in the Legislature by limiting the length of time that a member may speak to only 30 minutes; and

"Whereas Premier Rae, who once defended the democratic rights of opposition and utilized the former rules to full advantage in his former capacity as leader of the official opposition, has now empowered his ministers to determine unilaterally the amount of time to be allocated to debate the bills they initiate; and

"Whereas Premier Rae has reduced the number of days that the Legislative Assembly will be in session, thereby ensuring fewer question periods and less access for the news media to provincial cabinet ministers; and

"Whereas Premier Rae has diminished the role of the neutral, elected Speaker by removing from that person the power to determine the question of whether a debate has been sufficient on any matter before the House; and

"Whereas Premier Rae has concentrated power in the Office of the Premier and severely diminished the role of elected members of the Legislative Assembly, who are accountable to the people who elect them;

"We, the undersigned, call upon Premier Rae to withdraw the rules changes imposed on the Legislature by his majority government and restore the rules of procedure in effect previous to June 22, 1992."

I affix my signature hereto.

GAMBLING

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): I have a petition and it reads as follows:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the NDP government is considering legalizing casinos and video lottery terminals in the province of Ontario; and

"Whereas there is great public concern about the negative impact that will result from the abovementioned implementations;

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

"That the government stop looking to casinos and video lottery terminals as a 'quick-fix' solution to its fiscal problems and concentrate instead on eliminating wasteful government spending."

I support this petition and I have signed it.

PINE GROVE FOREST

Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): I have a petition for the preservation of Pine Grove Forest.

"Whereas the Pine Grove Forest is a significant wetland forest complex, a portion of which is designated an area of natural and scientific interest on the east bank of the Rouge Valley, a part of the Petticoat Creek watershed in Pickering; and

"Whereas the Pine Grove Forest is an essential gateway to the Rouge-Duffin corridor, thereby providing a crucial link to the Altona Forest, Petticoat Creek and Duffin Creek as well as the Lake Ontario waterfront and north to the Oak Ridges moraine; and

"Whereas the Rouge Park advisory committee has recommended to the province of Ontario to include all of the Pine Grove Forest within the future Rouge Park,

"We, the undersigned, urge the Premier of Ontario and the ministers of Natural Resources, the Environment and Municipal Affairs to protect the Pine Grove Forest by ensuring that the province includes this significant area in the national-provincial Rouge Park. We strongly oppose any urbanization of this natural area."

I affix my signature.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr Hugh P. O'Neil (Quinte): I also have a petition which I would like to read from the riding of Quinte regarding the amendment of the Retail Business Holidays Act for proposed wide-open Sunday shopping and the elimination of Sunday as a legal holiday. It reads:

"I, the undersigned, hereby register my opposition in the strongest of terms to Bill 38, which will eliminate Sunday from the definition of 'legal holiday' in the Retail Business Holidays Act.

"I believe in the need of keeping Sunday as a holiday for family time, quality of life and religious freedom. The elimination of such a day will be detrimental to the fabric of the society in Ontario and cause increased hardship on many families.

"The amendment included in Bill 38, dated June 3, 1992, to delete all Sundays except Easter (51 per year) from the definition of 'legal holiday' and reclassify them as working days should be defeated."

I've signed this and I would like to present this to the Legislature.

CONSENT TO TREATMENT

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): In recognition of AIDS Awareness Day, I have a petition from about 250 young people from the community of Burlington. It's a petition to the Legislative Assembly:

"Whereas the Consent to Treatment Act, known as Bill 109, is presently awaiting third and final reading before the provincial Legislature;

"We, the undersigned, believe this bill prevents doctors and other health care professionals providing treatment unless consent is received from a capable person. Persons under the age of 16 years are presumed not to be capable and will require the consent of parent or guardian. We believe treatment such as AIDS testing is a private matter between physician and patient regardless of their age. Protection of privacy will encourage young people to seek help and early testing can aid in slowing the spread of this disease."

This has the signature of my support and some 250 to 300 signatures from young people from the community of Burlington.

LANDFILL

Mr Larry O'Connor (Durham-York): I have a petition here:

"Whereas the town of Georgina has traditionally been a mixture of agricultural, residential and recreational holiday land, both areas would be drastically affected by a megadump; and

"Whereas the Interim Waste Authority has identified sites in the town that would consume large tracts of number 1 and 2 farm land, the areas identified by the Interim Waste Authority would disrupt the vibrant agricultural communities. The farm families in those areas have continued to invest large sums of money in their farms. These communities would be destroyed by the Interim Waste Authority's putting in a megadump;

"Whereas most of the people of Georgina depend on groundwater for their drinking water and a dump would threaten their clean supply of water;

"Whereas the effects of a megadump would destroy the local economies of the communities;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly as follows:

"We oppose the Interim Waste Authority's proposal to take prime farm land and turn it into Metro and York's megadump.

"We further petition the Legislative Assembly to renew its efforts to seek and entertain alternatives to landfill and implement progressive reduction, reuse and recycling programs."

I affix my name to this.

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CONSENT TO TREATMENT

Mrs Joan M. Fawcett (Northumberland): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas the Legislative Assembly of Ontario will be reviewing Bill 109, consent to treatment legislation, in committee of the whole on Thursday, December 3, 1992; and

"Whereas this legislation has undergone some 200 amendments from its introduction; and

"Whereas the presumed age of consent of 16 years was removed from the legislation through these amendments; and

"Whereas the removal of the age of consent interferes with the necessary role of parents in Ontario to support the medical, dental and mental health needs of children in Ontario;

"We, the executive directors of children's aid societies in the province of Ontario, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"(1) To make the families of Ontario aware of this legislation;

"(2) To reinstate the age of 16 as the age of consent."

I have signed this petition.

GAMBLING

Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas it is against United Church of Canada policy to indulge in any type of gambling

" -- Gambling casinos bring crime to a community

" -- Not everyone has the self-control to limit their betting

" -- Low-income people will suffer from unwise use of their resources

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

"Be it resolved that the Toronto Conference of United Church Women do strongly object to the Ontario government's proposed legislation to promote offtrack betting, sports lotteries and gambling casinos."

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr Larry O'Connor (Durham-York): I've got a petition here to the members of the provincial Parliament.

"I, the undersigned, hereby register my opposition to wide-open Sunday business.

"I believe in the need for keeping Sunday as a holiday for family time, quality of life and religious freedom. The elimination of such a day will be detrimental to the fabric of the society in Ontario and will cause increased hardship on retailers, retail employees and their families.

"The proposed amendments to the Retail Business Holidays Act, Bill 38, dated June 3, 1992, to delete all Sundays except Easter (51 per year) from the definition of a 'legal holiday' and reclassify them as working days should be defeated."

It's been signed by a lot of people from the Uxbridge area and Woodstock, but the majority of them coming from the Uxbridge area -- Greenbank, Port Perry. I affix my signature to this.

POST-POLIO SYNDROME

Mr Robert Chiarelli (Ottawa West): I have a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario signed by a number of people from the Ottawa area.

"Whereas post-polio is a new phenomenon to attack survivors of polio; and

"Whereas the Ottawa and District Post-Polio Association has been formed to help survivors of polio; and

"Whereas most family practitioners do not have the specialized knowledge to treat post-polio symptoms effectively; and

"Whereas we, the members and friends of the Ottawa and District Post-Polio Association, wish to emphasize to the Ontario government the need to fund a post-polio clinic in Ottawa; and

"Whereas a formal request was presented by the Ottawa and District Post-Polio Association to the Ottawa-Carleton Regional District Health Council in May 1988 and received a top priority at that time; and

"Whereas the Rehabilitation Centre of Ottawa-Carleton has presented a proposal to the Ministry of Health for funds to establish a post-polio clinic; and

"Whereas there are at least 1,000 known polio survivors in the catchment area of the rehabilitation centre who need the immediate services of a clinic; and

"Whereas there are at least 5,000 polio survivors in Ontario; and

"Whereas there is only one formally constituted post-polio clinic, which is in Toronto and which has a lengthy waiting list; and

"Whereas the cost and difficulties of several trips to the Toronto clinic and staying overnight each time are often insurmountable for a disabled person; and

"Whereas polio survivors who had no paralysis from the initial attack of polio are not immune from developing post-polio symptoms of varying severity; and

"Whereas research indicates that 80% of polio survivors may develop post-polio symptoms anywhere from seven to 71 years after the initial attack; and

"Whereas post-polio symptoms are not related to the aging process; and

"Whereas, because of immigration, the post-polio population will not diminish;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to establish a post-polio clinic in the Rehabilitation Centre of Ottawa-Carleton for the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of patients and to disseminate information so that the estimated 1,000 known polio survivors in the centre's catchment area can receive adequate treatment and that the medical profession be educated regarding the post-polio syndrome."

I agree with the petition and have affixed my signature.

EDUCATION FINANCING

Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the British North America Act of 1867 recognizes the right of Catholic students to a Catholic education, and in keeping with this, the province of Ontario supports two educational systems from kindergarten to grade 12/OAC; and

"Whereas the Metropolitan Toronto Separate School Board educates more than 104,000 students across Metropolitan Toronto, and whereas these students represent 30% of the total number of students in this area, yet have access to just 20% of the total residential assessment and 9.5% of the pooled corporate assessment; and

"Whereas the Metropolitan Toronto Separate School Board is able to spend $1,678 less on each of its elementary school students and $2,502 less on each of its secondary school students than our public school counterpart,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to act now and restructure the way in which municipal and provincial tax dollars are apportioned so that Ontario's two principal education systems are funded, not only fully, but with equity and equality."

I have affixed my name to this petition.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr Noel Duignan (Halton North): I have a petition addressed to members of the provincial Parliament regarding amendments to the Retail Business Holidays Act:

"I, the undersigned, hereby register my opposition to wide-open Sunday shopping.

"I believe in the need for keeping Sunday as a holiday for family time, quality of life and religious freedom. The elimination of such a day will be detrimental to the fabric of the society in Ontario and will cause increased hardship on retailers, retail employees and their families.

"The proposed amendment of the Retail Business Holidays Act in Bill 38, dated June 3, 1992, to delete all holidays except Easter (51 per year) from the definition of 'legal holiday' and reclassify them as working days should be defeated."

This is signed by a number of people right across Ontario and I affix my signature to it.

EDUCATION FINANCING

Mr Tony Ruprecht (Parkdale): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the British North America Act of 1867 recognizes the right of Catholic students to a Catholic education, and in keeping with this, the province of Ontario supports two educational systems from kindergarten to grade 12/OAC; and

"Whereas the Metropolitan Toronto Separate School Board educates more than 104,000 students across Metropolitan Toronto, and whereas these students represent 30% of the total number of students in this area, yet have access to just 20% of the total residential assessment and 9.5% of the pooled corporate assessment; and

"Whereas the Metropolitan Toronto Separate School Board is able to spend $1,678 less on each of its elementary school students and $2,502 less on each of its secondary school students than our public school counterpart,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to act now and restructure the way in which municipal and provincial tax dollars are apportioned so that Ontario's two principal education systems are funded, not only fully, but with equity and equality."

I have affixed my signature to this petition.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): I acknowledge the patience of the member for York Mills, but alas, the time allotted for the presentation of petitions has expired.

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ESTIMATES

Mr Jackson from the standing committee on estimates presented the following report and moved its adoption:

Pursuant to standing order 60(a), the following estimates (1992-93) are reported back to the House as they were not previously selected by the committee for consideration and are deemed to be received and concurred in:

Office of the assembly program, $87,563,600

Office of the chief election officer program, $668,700

Ombudsman Ontario program, $7,231,500

Office of the Provincial Auditor program, $6,225,800.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Pursuant to standing order 60(b), the estimates not selected for consideration by the standing committee are deemed to be concurred in.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

DUCLOS POINT PROPERTY OWNERS INC. ACT, 1992

On motion by Mr O'Connor, the following bill was given first reading:

Bill Pr79, An Act to revive Duclos Point Property Owners Inc.

CITY OF TORONTO ACT, 1992

On motion by Mr Marchese, the following bill was given first reading:

Bill Pr78, An Act respecting the City of Toronto.

ONTARIO BUILDING OFFICIALS ASSOCIATION ACT, 1992

On motion by Mr Martin, the following bill was given first reading:

Bill Pr40, An Act respecting the Ontario Building Officials Association.

CANADIAN MILLERS' MUTUAL FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY ACT, 1992

On motion by Mrs Witmer, the following bill was given first reading:

Bill Pr75, An Act respecting The Canadian Millers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

METROPOLITAN TORONTO REASSESSMENT STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE LES NOUVELLES ÉVALUATIONS DE LA COMMUNAUTÉ URBAINE DE TORONTO

Deferred vote on the motion for second reading of Bill 94, An Act to amend certain Acts to implement the interim reassessment plan of Metropolitan Toronto on a property class by property class basis and to permit all municipalities to provide for the pass through to tenants of tax decreases resulting from reassessment and to make incidental amendments related to financing in The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto / Loi modifiant certaines lois afin de mettre en oeuvre le programme provisoire de nouvelles évaluations de la communauté urbaine de Toronto à partir de chaque catégorie de biens, de permettre à toutes les municipalités de prévoir que les locataires profitent des réductions d'impôt occasionnées par les nouvelles évaluations et d'apporter des modifications corrélatives reliées au financement dans la municipalité de la communauté urbaine de Toronto.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): We have a deferred vote on Bill 94, deferred from yesterday. There will be a five-minute bell. Please call in the members.

The division bells rang from 1523 to 1528.

The Speaker: Would all members please take their seats. I'd ask all members to please take their seats.

All those in favour of Mr Cooke's motion should please rise one by one.

Ayes

Abel, Allen, Bisson, Boyd, Buchanan, Caplan, Carter, Charlton, Christopherson, Churley, Cooke, Cooper, Coppen, Cordiano, Curling, Dadamo, Drainville, Duignan, Eves, Fletcher, Frankford, Grier, Haeck, Hansen, Harrington, Haslam, Hayes, Hope, Huget, Jamison, Johnson, Jordan, Klopp, Lankin, Lessard, Mackenzie, MacKinnon, Mammoliti, Martel, Martin, Mathyssen, Mills, Morrow, Murdoch (Grey), Murdock (Sudbury), North, O'Connor, Perruzza, Philip (Etobicoke-Rexdale), Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt), Pilkey, Pouliot, Rizzo, Runciman, Silipo, Sterling, Stockwell, Sutherland, Swarbrick, Villeneuve, Ward (Brantford), Wark-Martyn, Wessenger, White, Wildman, Wilson (Frontenac-Addington), Wilson (Kingston and The Islands), Winninger, Wiseman, Wood, Ziemba.

The Speaker: All those opposed to Mr Cooke's motion should please rise one by one.

Nays

Arnott, Beer, Bradley, Brown, Carr, Conway, Cousens, Cunningham, Eddy, Elston, Fawcett, Grandmaître, Harnick, Jackson, Mahoney, Mancini, Marland, McClelland, McLean, Miclash, Offer, O'Neil (Quinte), Poirier, Poole, Ramsay, Ruprecht, Sola, Tilson, Turnbull, Witmer.

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 71, the nays 30.

The Speaker: The ayes being 71 and the nays 30, I declare the motion carried.

Shall the bill be ordered for social development committee? Agreed.

Hon David S. Cooke (Government House Leader): I'd like to request unanimous consent to move a motion dealing with the bill we just approved for second reading.

The Speaker: Unanimous consent to revert to motions? Agreed.

MOTIONS

COMMITTEE SITTINGS

Hon David S. Cooke (Government House Leader): I move that notwithstanding any standing order or previous order of the House, the standing committee on social development be authorized to meet on any day of the week at any time until 10 pm, according to a schedule agreed to by the committee to consider Bill 94, An Act to amend certain Acts to implement the interim reassessment plan of Metropolitan Toronto on a property class by property class basis and to permit all municipalities to provide for the pass through to tenants of tax decreases resulting from reassessment and to make incidental amendments related to financing in The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Mr Cooke moves --

Hon Mr Cooke: Dispense.

The Speaker: Dispense? Agreed.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): Mr Speaker, I'd like to speak to the motion. I won't be long, and it's obvious the motion is going to carry. I just hope, because there's a great interest in the House about efficiency and regularity, that everybody understands what the passage of this motion is likely going to mean: that we're going to sit Saturday, I gather, and Sunday. We're going to sit Sunday, I want to say to my common-pause-day friends on all sides of the House. For the first time in my memory here, a committee of this Legislature is --

Hon Gilles Pouliot (Minister of Transportation and Minister Responsible for Francophone Affairs): So?

Mr Conway: Well, I just think we should not pass this kind of motion on the nod, without there being some understanding of what is being done. I understand, as a member of this Legislature, the pressure of time, and, believe me, I understand the exigencies of this particular issue. But we are apparently going to endorse unanimously a motion that is going to see this Legislature sit on Saturday and on Sunday. I believe, if I'm correct, that we're going to sit as late as 10 o'clock on Sunday of this week. I may stand corrected in that respect.

But it is, I think, useful for people to understand how this place is now operating. I certainly won't be here on Saturday and Sunday, though I expect other very hardworking members are going to be here. But my friend the member for St Catharines has been pointing out that when we come back as late as we do under the new arrangement --

Interjection.

Mr Conway: My friend opposite says it has nothing to do with this. Maybe it doesn't. I'm just observing that I'm being asked this afternoon, for the first time in my 17 1/2 years, to endorse a motion that's going to bring honourable members to this place on Saturday and on Sunday. I say, particularly for my friends in the new democracy, that they were the ones, in the main, who made passionate speeches about the need for a common pause day.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I'm telling the member for Victoria-Haliburton --

The Speaker: Order. The member for St Catharines, come to order.

Mr Conway: I don't know whether our friends opposite are going to want to engage this debate, but let me just say for the record that when you come back as late as we did under the new calendar; when you take a week out of the fall sitting, as I believe we should, for Remembrance Day and the week around that --

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): Two weeks late in April.

Mr Conway: And when, as the member for Mississauga South observed, we come back now as late as we do in the spring.

Mr Ernie L. Eves (Parry Sound): And we leave a week early in December.

Mr Conway: And we leave a week early in December, because the plan is to be out of here on December 10, the earliest predicted adjournment in memory, is it any wonder, in the face of the kind of legislation we've got? I understand the pressure the government is under, not just with market value assessment but with the farm legislation, with the long-term care initiatives, with supply, with a variety of other issues that I'm told we must have at least --

Mr Drummond White (Durham Centre): In closing --

Mr Conway: Pardon me?

Is it any wonder, when we allow for about -- what would it be, Ernie? -- seven weeks, eight weeks of fall sitting that we're now reduced to coming back on Sunday to hear from the scores of people who I know are anxious to address this particular legislation?

I'm simply observing that we continue to set precedents in this place. It will be a precedent-setting day, I believe, when this Sunday people are gathered together -- and the staff. I mean, normally what one does here is beat one's breast about the inconvenience this will occasion for the men and women who serve us at the table and in committee; good people, I say to the Clerk and his staff.

Let there be no mistake about what this innocuous little motion is about and let all members reflect upon where we now find ourselves in respect of House business. While I'm making parish visits on Sunday in the great constituency of Renfrew county in the Ottawa Valley, I will not forget that for the first time -- is it the first time ever? I bet you I'm right in saying that it's the first time ever that this assembly will have actually had a proceeding on a Sunday. I know some of the bell ringing and some of the other obstructions we've had have kept a skeleton staff here on a Sunday.

Hon Mr Pouliot: We're just trying to accommodate the Liberals. Come on, get your act straight, Sean.

The Speaker: Order, the Minister of Transportation.

Mr Conway: And we now have the spectacle of the minister of highways --

Interjection.

Mr Conway: No, you don't have to pull the motion at all, I say to my friends opposite. I don't care whether there was --

Hon Bud Wildman (Minister of Natural Resources and Minister Responsible for Native Affairs): You were the guys that asked for this.

The Speaker: Order.

1540

Mr Conway: Listen, I'm just making the point, and as a private member I think I have the right to observe. I'm asking, is there a precedent? I don't think we've ever sat on a Sunday before, and I suspect that's where we are now in this place. I expect with some of the requests we're going to have, we'll probably be sitting here more frequently on Saturday and Sunday to accommodate a very, very short parliamentary calendar. That's my real point.

When you come back as late in the spring and come back as late in the fall and plan to adjourn on the 10th of December, it is almost predictable that you're going to face these kinds of pressures. I resent the suggestion that it's somehow the opposition's fault because we have to accommodate men and women who want to come to participate in the public hearings process for this or any other legislation.

I say to my friends opposite: Let the motion pass. I will congratulate those people, those members who will be here on Saturday and Sunday to do the good work that has to be done, but I simply rise today to observe what we're doing. We are going to be here on this weekend and on Sunday, I believe, in part because we've winnowed down the number of sitting days to such a relatively small number that these kinds of pressures are going to build, and not for the first time will we be debating motions to bring us back on a Sunday.

The Speaker: Further debate? Is it the pleasure of the House that Mr Cooke's motion pass? Agreed.

ONTARIO TRAINING AND ADJUSTMENT BOARD ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 SUR LE CONSEIL ONTARIEN DE FORMATION ET D'ADAPTATION DE LA MAIN-D'OEUVRE

Mr Allen moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 96, An Act to establish the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board / Loi créant le Conseil ontarien de formation et d'adaptation de la main-d'oeuvre.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Does the minister have any opening remarks?

Hon Richard Allen (Minister of Skills Development): I'd like to indulge in a few remarks as we engage in what I think is an historic debate, and I look forward to the thoughtful and carefully considered analysis and debate that I'm sure honourable members will undertake in examining this bill.

Je suis convaincu que les députés feront une analyse approfondie de ce project de loi et qu'ils en discuteront attentivement.

Around the world we see the indications that the economic maxims on which we have relied are in real danger of being overtaken by the strategies of other economies where the utility of innovation and cooperation is better understood and, moreover, where the concepts are converted into real competitive advantages.

But challenges exist on a variety of fronts. We see our economy challenged by the cheap labour costs and the abundant and inexpensive natural resources of many newly industrialized countries. We see the elimination or reduction of trade barriers that exposes our traditional markets and traditional trading patterns to tougher competition from more and more economic players.

In the face of this competition, we can either learn to work smarter or jeopardize our social wellbeing and economic prosperity. Surely the easiest part of our task is to recognize the need for change.

I challenge any member of this House to find a matter of social and economic policy around which there is greater consensus than in the area of labour market development. Where is the employer who doubts the value of being able to avail himself or herself of a vast pool of highly skilled workers? Which industry does not need the competitive advantages that well-trained staff have to offer? Is there a worker or potential worker in Ontario who would decline the opportunity of greater employability, greater job security, better wages and a more rewarding and meaningful vocation that having the right skills can provide?

We have a responsibility to do what we can to help make Ontario competitive by implementing a sound industrial policy framework. One key part of that is closing the skills gap that we face so that the workforce of Ontario will be a beacon to investment in high value added activities.

We must not overlook the advantages that we already have here in Ontario: first-rate infrastructure; first-rate health care; quite a number of mature and successful industries in high value added sectors; an excellent public education system; and a standard of living that we all know makes this province one of the best places in the world to live and work and do business.

Robert Reich of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government has observed:

"There are only two ways in which a government can attract global capital to its country. One way is saying: 'Come here because it is so cheap to do business here -- low wages, low taxes, low regulations; you can pollute as much as you want.' That is the low-cost-of-business route.

"The other way of attracting global capital and global corporations to Canada or to the United States is saying: 'Come here because we have a first-class workforce and a first-class infrastructure, and our human capital and infrastructure, combined with your knowhow and financial capital, will generate human returns.'"

Here at home, the Canadian Manufacturers' Association advises: "The skills of our people are our single most important competitive advantage. We must make an aggressive commitment to building an educational and training infrastructure equal to the best in the world."

We will do this by means of coordinated, cooperative action, because we understand that our collective wellbeing requires that we take a collective approach to finding solutions. There must be a partnership between governments and all our labour market partners.

Une étude minutieuse du projet de loi que j'ai présenté permettra de constater ce que je viens d'expliquer. Ce projet de loi a été préparé en étroite collaboration avec les personnes représentant les partenaires du marché du travail de notre province. Le processus de recherche et de consultation qui a précédé l'étape que nous franchissons aujourd'hui a permis d'inclure les diverses perspectives du patronat, des travailleuses et travailleurs, des groupes représentant les femmes, les minorités raciales, les personnes handicapées, les francophones, des diverses personnes et divers organismes de l'Ontario, du gouvernement fédéral, des administrations municipales et de l'ensemble du secteur de la formation et de l'éducation.

I would draw members' attention to the purposes of the act, which are as follows: first of all, to enable all the partners to play a significant role in the design and delivery of labour force development programs and services. We are convinced of the need for this, because these are the people who know best what is needed, so that it is a consumer-driven system based on the needs of the economy, employers and workers.

The second purpose of the act is to give employers, workers and potential workers access to publicly funded labour force development programs and the services that will lead to the enhancement of skill levels, productivity, quality, innovation and timeliness, and to the improvement of the lives of workers and potential workers.

This is the marriage of an employer's need for skilled labour with a worker's or potential worker's need for the skills that are in the greatest demand. This stems from the simple reality that good training has positive impacts on both employers' ability to compete and on workers' lives.

The act's third purpose is to recognize the principles of access and equity in labour force development. This is a laudable social objective, but is equally an economic objective, with direct bearing on the question of making our economy efficient. How could it possibly be economically prudent to overlook the contributions that can be made by all our people: by women, by racial minorities, by people with disabilities and francophones?

Well, of course, it is neither possible nor prudent to do so, and yet we see in our current range of programs and services systemic and attitudinal barriers that are hampering our ability to make the best use of Ontario's human resources.

The fourth and final purpose of the act is to ensure that labour force development programs and services are designed and delivered within a framework that is consistent with the economic and social policies, including the labour market policies, of the government of Ontario, and also to ensure that this framework promotes Ontario's linguistic duality and recognizes and supports the diversity and the pluralism of Ontario's population.

As I have suggested, our purpose here is to ensure that OTAB operates within an economic and social policy framework established by government.

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One of OTAB's greatest advantages is that it will lead to more effective and efficient use of our existing provincial training and adjustment resources. Currently, programs and services are spread over several ministries across the government with the result that our province is ill served by a largely uncoordinated and inefficient system of delivery.

By bringing many of these programs together under OTAB, we will have a single agency with a clear mandate to undertake this coordination and develop new ideas where necessary. This will mean improvements in services, not huge increases in budget but by better usage of existing moneys and staffs. OTAB will result in a leaner and more efficient system than we have today through the minimization of overlaps and duplication.

Our new training and adjustment system must be built not only on the continuing collaboration and consensus of the labour market partners but on appropriate and sustainable levels of investment. The facts suggest we can do much better in this area. Statistics from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development indicate that Canada's investment in labour force development has been "at best modest and at worst anaemic." In terms of active labour market measures, Canada ranked 14th out of 24 OECD countries, as measured by that organization.

Canadian private sector training investment amounted to less than one quarter of 1% of the gross domestic product of this country. American companies spent twice as much on training, and German firms channelled four times as much money towards in-company training programs. The same statistics suggest that by the year 2000, our workers will need much more than basic literacy and numeracy skills. Two thirds of the jobs that will be created will require more than 12 years of education. The facts are clear. Employers need better trained employees and they need to participate more in this training.

The rapid change that is under way means that every employee's skills are becoming outdated. It has been estimated that even the individual who stays with one organization will have to learn five different jobs in the course of his or her career, and that each of us will have to undergo total retraining at least three times in our working lives. In the new workplace, continuous learning will be part of the job. Clearly, we are not spending the training dollars needed to keep pace with our competitors in the global marketplace. The bottom line is that we must invest more in our human resources.

Notre gouvernement donne l'exemple. Cette année, nous avons augmenté les fonds consacrés à la formation professionnelle : le financement des programmes de formation et d'adaptation est passé de 751 millions de dollars l'année dernière à 940 millions de dollars cette année. En octobre, le ministère de la Formation professionnelle a consacré des fonds supplémentaires de 13,6 millions de dollars dans le but de revitaliser et d'étendre les programmes d'apprentissage.

Nous avons pris des décisions malgré les pressions fiscales énormes qui existent présentement. Néanmoins, nous sommes convaincus que la mise en valeur de la main-d'oeuvre est la seule voie prudente à suivre.

But a highly skilled workforce cannot result from the government's efforts alone. Everyone has an important contribution to make, and that is why a critical objective of OTAB is to promote and secure appropriate and sustainable investment in labour force development from the public and private sectors.

But more money alone is not the answer, and we cannot merely train for the sake of training. We have to create mechanisms for ensuring that we get a better return on our dollar. So that we may determine what skills and occupations are high priorities for labour force development, we will need to collect comprehensive and detailed information about the labour market. We will also need to link this information with the province's broad economic priorities. OTAB will help collect this information and will provide this link.

While providing OTAB and its governing body with enough authority to undertake fundamental reforms in the labour force development system, the government is taking very definite steps to ensure that the agency remains accountable to the people of Ontario. I will outline the accountability mechanisms that are provided for in this legislation, as I know they are of great interest and of great importance.

OTAB will operate within the parameters of the economic and social policies of the government and within the government's accountability framework. They will have no blank cheque; there will be no carte blanche. OTAB legislation sets out specific reporting and auditing requirements for the agency. For instance, OTAB will be obliged to provide multi-year corporate plans and annual operational plans for the government's approval. They will also be required to present written spending estimates every year. There will be a designated cabinet minister responsible for OTAB, who will have the authority to issue directives to the governing body and to request a report at any time on any aspect of OTAB's mandate, powers or duties.

In addition to the requirements set out in the legislation, OTAB will be required to enter into a memorandum of understanding with the government. This memorandum of understanding will outline very specifically the policy objectives of the government, what the minister responsible for OTAB will provide to and expect from the agency, and in turn what OTAB expects from and must provide to the government. This agreement will clearly define the roles of the minister, the governing body cochairs, OTAB's chief executive officer; the operating, administrative, financial, control and reporting relationships; the government's requirements for staffing, audit and conflict of interest.

To ensure effective and efficient use of public funds, OTAB will furthermore be subject to review by the Provincial Auditor and other audits as required by the minister. As a crown agency, OTAB must comply with all the relevant Management Board, treasury board, Human Resources Secretariat directives, with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and with the French Language Services Act.

OTAB's legislation specifies that those who will lead OTAB have a primary responsibility to serve the public interest. Although governing members can seek information and guidance from their supporting reference groups, composed of representatives of their various labour market partners, they have the responsibility to make decisions that will serve the public good of Ontario. OTAB will be an agency of the government, and although it will give labour market partners the necessary authority and responsibility, its staff will be civil servants, not private sector employees.

Government will develop the policy framework within which OTAB will operate and will examine the various reports from OTAB as called for in the act. The government will also retain its responsibilities for federal-provincial relations and any agreements, such as the Canada-Ontario Labour Force Development Agreement.

When this act was introduced into the Legislature, the honourable member for Scarborough-Agincourt urged everyone in the House to take a very close look at the part of the bill dealing with accountability. That is excellent advice, and I am confident that such an inspection will allay any fears members may have about the government having "virtually no control" over OTAB, as the honourable member phrased it.

I would like to take a moment to address concerns expressed by some members about the consultation process for this initiative, because the consultation was indeed truly extensive. In September 1991, I formed an OTAB external consultative committee, composed of leaders from business, labour and community groups. This committee suggested to me that if OTAB was to be a different kind of approach to the labour force development issue, we would need a different kind of approach to the OTAB consultation.

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In November 1991 we distributed more than 40,000 copies of the OTAB discussion paper. I travelled to a number of communities across Ontario to personally receive direct input on the OTAB proposal. We then started up steering committees in January of this year: steering committees for business, labour, women, racial minorities, people with disabilities, francophones and educators and trainers.

We invited these committees to help us refine the OTAB model, which they did. These committees met repeatedly with government, with each other and with the broader labour market partners they represent. The staff of the OTAB project took part in literally hundreds of community discussions organized by interested organizations across Ontario.

In addition to the OTAB consultation process, there was a separate consultation process, you will remember, Mr Speaker, that took place this past spring, dealing with the proposed network of local boards, and in that context I would have to say the issues of OTAB were discussed again in that setting. This involved 55 meetings in 23 locations across Ontario. There were 925 verbal presentations at these meetings, with over 3,000 other people attending as well. Over 900 written briefs were received.

While we did limit the length of verbal presentations at these hearings so that everyone would have an opportunity to speak, we did that so there would be more time for group discussions at the end of these meetings. All who attended these meetings found that the group discussions were particularly helpful in clarifying issues.

The local board initiative is progressing in cooperation with Employment and Immigration Canada and the Canadian Labour Force Development Board. OTAB's governing body will take part in that further initiative as well, as it is organized.

With respect to the OTAB consultation process, let me give some examples of how we have listened to the concerns expressed by the labour market partners and refined the OTAB proposal. We have added a seat on the governing body for francophone representation, as well as a non-voting seat for municipal representation to match the non-voting provincial and federal seats.

We reworked and refined the mandate of OTAB in order to reflect the partners' objectives, and that is evident in this legislation. We spelled out the role of reference groups more clearly at the behest of the labour market partners and we developed principles in consultation with the partners for the drafting of the legislation before the actual drafting commenced.

So I can tell the members of this House that we have listened very carefully to labour market partners and have responded to their suggestions, and I know they will attest to that. As a result, I can say with great confidence and satisfaction that this act to establish the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board is a responsive and important document that will greatly assist our collective effort to develop and maintain a top quality workforce in Ontario.

I want finally to say that I will not be responding piecemeal as we go through the debate, which I look forward to very much. I will be gathering all the comments and responding to them globally at the end. Of course, in the intervening period of time, as we proceed through the debate, various members of our caucus as well as members of the opposition parties will rise to make their points with respect to this issue, and I look forward very much to hearing the contributions of all honourable members.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Before we proceed to further debate, I would like the Legislature to acknowledge and receive one of the reeves from Glengarry county, the reeve of Kenyon township, Wilfred Vallance, in the west gallery.

Further debate, the honourable member for Timiskaming.

Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): I appreciate the minister's opening remarks. I've long awaited this moment so that we can debate in a little more detail than we get in the thrust and fro of question period an initiative that's very, very important and a subject area that I'm sure not only all the members of this House but certainly by now the people of Ontario truly understand the importance of.

I think I'd like to start today by laying out the ground, if you will, if you pardon the farm talk, because I think it's important to understand how we got here and why we need to be going where we are in the future and how we do that. Really, it starts with the Ontario economy and why it's so strong and why we've been so lucky to have such a strong economy here in Ontario.

Quite frankly, Ontario has been and continues to be blessed with a wonderful abundance of resources and a wonderful geographic location for those resources that have enabled us to develop a tremendous economy in the last century and up till now. But as all the members of the House understand and realize today, Ontario no longer appears to be the engine of the Canadian economy.

We developed our economy primarily because we were blessed with such natural resources. To put it in a very simplistic way, all we basically had to do in Ontario was literally scratch the ground for our living over the last 100 years. We have wonderful forests in northern Ontario, an area I'm privileged to live in, and we have made a tremendous living from the forests of northern Ontario. I would certainly hope that this government would not cut down on the reforestation that it's been doing, so that we can continue that. The forests of Ontario and this country have provided a very big engine of growth for this country.

Similarly with the geological formations in this country: The minerals that Ontario and Canada have been blessed with also have provided our economy a very strong base. We have been able to mine not only the precious metals such as gold and silver over the years but industrial metals such as nickel, which is required obviously as an alloy in the making of high technological steels that are needed in the aerospace industry. We've been very lucky for that, but basically we didn't really have to do much and we really didn't have to know too much to do that work.

After the Second World War, because of the tariff situation in the world, because of our geographic location, we were very lucky to inherit a branch plant economy, an economy that we had no control of, an economy that really just fell upon us because of our geographic location and tariff regulations. Now, with the era of free trade, we find ourselves in a position where countries from around the world have free and easy access for their goods into Ontario. We no longer have that barrier of tariffs to protect our jobs.

The nature of work is changing in Ontario. It has come on us very suddenly. As a supporter of free trade, I felt that free trade had to come on in a gradual way and had to have the programs for transition that supported the people as we moved towards a freer trading climate. That did not come. We have hurtled down the slope of free trade very quickly and it has hurt many women and men in Ontario, good working men and women of Ontario who now find themselves out of work.

We now find -- and I started out in an auto plant in Oakville right after high school, working my way to get to university -- that it's no longer possible to have just an elementary school or even a secondary school education and really make your way in this life any more. That used to be possible when I came out of high school some 25 years ago. One could come out of high school almost at any grade and if one was lucky enough -- and at that time there were just about five jobs for every one of us coming out, a very different situation than there is today -- we could find our place in a good industrial manufacturing job in southern Ontario. In the north you could get into a mine, into a mill. Working in the lumbering and mining industry, you could make a very good living. You could take care of yourself, you could raise a family, you could support a family.

Those were great times. Those were great affluent times and Canada did very well, but what we were doing was selling our resources and relying upon an economy in southern Ontario primarily based, as it still is today, on the automobile assembly industry and the parts manufacturing industry. There really wasn't control by Canadians. As long as those tariff barrier walls were there, we could survive; in fact we could prosper.

But that is not so today, and so we find ourselves with hundreds and thousands, in fact 609,000, women and men in Ontario without work. Most of those people want to get back to work and most of those people understand today that they probably require some additional training in order to access the jobs that are now available. That is what has changed. Instead of harnessing and exploiting our natural resources, we have to harness and exploit our intellectual capital. We have to do that by working smarter, and to work smarter we have to be more highly trained.

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That starts with the education system, because today we can't just talk about retraining and training people with secondary school education and post-secondary school education, as we need to do; we also have to get to the fundamentals of our education system. I think we have to be brave and start to give it a very hard look and to ask ourselves the question, is the education system in our province and our country failing us? The evidence is mounting and continues to mount that it may be failing us, and I think as politicians we're going to have to start to ask some questions about the education system. I'd like to start to do that today.

I believe first off that there is a crisis in our education system today. When I travel across this province and talk to employers who fortunately are in a position to hire people, they are astounded and quite frankly shocked at the level of literacy and numeracy that our young children, all our kids who are graduating in Ontario high schools have. It is quite shocking.

Really what business people, the people who create the jobs in this province, are telling me is that we are running out of qualified people for the jobs that are now starting to come on stream. In fact, when we see the economic statistics that come out now every month, we are starting to see some growth in the economy but we're starting to see that growth in areas of highly skilled work. We are not seeing that growth at all, and in fact we're seeing it in the other direction, in regard to resource extraction and manufacturing. That is the problem.

It has been said that probably the greatest threat to our national security and our economy might be our education system. I think this is time to sound the alarm. I don't just say these things without some factual backup. I would like to put on the record statistics that have been issued by our own Ministry of Education in regard to the skills assessment of students in different countries around the world. I'd like to just take a couple of examples of a couple of areas that I think are extremely important, and that is in mathematics and in science, for it is going to be very important for our young people, in fact all our working people in Ontario, to reach and attain a degree of much higher sophistication in mathematics and science.

In the latest summary of tests that were done in various countries around the world, Canada stands about ninth, for instance, in mathematics testing of age 13 students. We stand behind Korea, Taiwan, Switzerland, the Soviet Union, Hungary, France, Italy and Israel -- then Canada comes -- with an average percentage correct on those mathematics tests from the high of Korea at 73%, down to Canada at 62%, followed by Scotland and Ireland.

Then we have Ontario English-language schools below the Canadian average, coming in at 12th position in mathematics for age 13. I would have to say that this is not good enough. We as concerned public officials, and I think more importantly most of us as parents, want to make sure that our children can attain excellence, because I think our children have to be the best in the world.

What's interesting is that when we break down the Canadian average we find that Ontario is near the bottom when we compare our standing among all the Canadian provinces. In that same mathematics testing of 13-year-olds in our schools, Quebec French-language schools scored the highest. Saskatchewan French-language schools came next, then British Columbia, Quebec English-language schools, Alberta, Manitoba French-language schools, sixth, Saskatchewan English-language schools, New Brunswick French-language schools, then Nova Scotia, then Newfoundland, then Ontario English-language schools, coming 11th in Canada.

That is just not good enough. I want better for my children, I want better for my province, Ontario, and I certainly want better for my country, because I want to make sure that there's a place for my daughter, who's in Queen's this year in her first year, who would want to be a teacher. I wish her well. I hope she can turn on the young people she'll be teaching in a few years, hopefully finding a teaching job, and to help raise those standards as we all are going to have to do in partnership.

When we look at science testing of school children around the world, we find a very similar situation. In 13-year-olds Canada comes ninth, and in the breakdown of Canadian provinces within this country we find our English schools scoring eighth among Canadian provinces.

When it comes to mathematics of nine-years-olds, again it's very similar: eighth place in mathematics, again fifth in Canadian provinces. By the way, that is actually only out of four provinces, but it becomes fifth when you break down some English and French school systems in different provinces.

We are not performing very well in Ontario, and I certainly don't have all the answers for that. I don't know where all the blame is, but in some of my remarks further on I certainly will touch upon some of that.

The point I'm making is that we must not abandon our schools to mediocrity, and that's what I'm very concerned about. I'm very concerned that with destreaming, that's what we're going to do. The laudable goals of destreaming are correct. We have to make sure that all our children, of all nationalities, races, creeds and colours, feel there's a strong place for them in this country, in this province and especially in this metropolitan area.

But I'm not sure destreaming is the way to do that. All our children require different levels of care and attention, and I think destreaming is not the way to go. What we do need is some immediate action, or we are going to end up with large segments of our community uneducated, untrained and, unfortunately, unemployed. In the workplace of tomorrow, perhaps those people will even find themselves unemployable.

I think part of the problem is the school system itself. The culture and the structure of our schools today are very much the same as they were in the beginning of the century. I believe it's the education establishment that is failing us, and I think the problem is that the education system has isolated itself from what's going on in the rest of the world. It has not looked at the real world. It has not realized what other progressive organizations in this country and in other countries have realized for the last 20 years and are starting to enact.

They have not realized, number one, that employees are organizations' most important asset and that employee involvement is crucial to solving problems. I think what's very important is the way to attract, retain and motivate good employees, and in this case I'm speaking of teachers: You must give to teachers more control of their working environment. When I look at our school system today I don't see that happening, and I would be calling today for the empowerment of our teachers.

I think what our education establishment also does not realize -- a point I want to make and, if you will, a bit of the theme of my speech in regard to my approach to the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board that we're speaking to here today -- is that rigid, bureaucratic, slow-to-change structures are the least effective organizational forms.

This is my main complaint with OTAB. I tell the minister now, and I'll tell him later on, why our caucus is not going to support this legislation. We feel very strongly that this is the wrong direction to be going in and that's why I will not be able to --

Interjection.

Mr Ramsay: There's no argument that we have a need for training, and what I'll be arguing today is how we go about that. I think the crisis came upon us very rapidly because, as I mentioned before, of a rapidly changing world. In the past, unskilled and uneducated people could find jobs, but today, as I've said, the workplace no longer has a place for those people. In tomorrow's workplace there's going to be a need for post-secondary education for just about every job. That's not quite true today and it certainly wasn't true in the past, but that is the reality of the future. If anything, I'd like to get that message across to the women and men watching today, the need for all of us to upgrade our skills, and I guess to make the point also that we probably have to get back to a greater sense of self-reliance, that as workers it's our responsibility to make sure we get that training.

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I think it's going to be government's responsibility to give some incentives to both the workplace and individuals and to make the access as easy as possible, but individuals are going to have to realize that there's no automatic work out there and that we're all going to have to strive to do better, to improve our skills; not to work harder but to work smarter in order to survive.

I don't necessarily like that. Quite frankly, I wish the world was the way it was 10 and 20 years ago. Most of us were doing all right and most of the people of this country and province were employed and things were well. But the state of the world has changed, and whether we like that or not, that's the reality. I think it's time politicians started to talk about the reality of what's happening and stand up and have the courage and start to talk about some of the solutions that are needed.

What has caused all of this? These changes have not come upon us because this is the way business wants to do business. They have been driven out of economic necessity. It's really not what business necessarily wants to do, but what it has to do to compete.

One of the main reasons this is happening -- and I think it's very important to talk about this, and this is sort of the positive side -- is that workers are being asked to take on more responsibility in the workplace. If you will, workers are being empowered to do more.

In old structures, workers could come into a workplace with not very many skills. They could pick up some training, but it really didn't matter how much training they had because we had many layers of managers. We had keepers and watchers, and then we had people watching over them; we had all these layers of management. And with the price we could raise with our resources in our manufacturing sector, we could pay for all this. When we see other countries evolving their business organizations, we now understand that in order to compete we will have to provide services and goods at a much better price. We can't do that with all those layers of management.

If you will, this is an opportunity for the liberation of workers to take on more responsibility. That's what businesses want. They're not necessarily, as employers, looking for you as a prospective employee to come in so they can find out, like in the old days, what ticket you might have, what diploma you have. What employers are most interested in is what skills you have: What can you contribute to this organization to make it effective and, in the end, make it prosperous by making it competitive?

This reduces the need for managers. That's one great, almost, class of worker out there that has suffered as much as anybody. Managerial levels, as the delayering happens, now we find not as important, because we are asking our workers on the line to start to make decisions, to be able to operate sophisticated equipment to produce the goods and services at that level that never was done before.

The positive side is that that's a wonderful opportunity, but right now, on the negative side, the transition, moving to that society, I think is going to be very difficult. What's happening right now and what is sad is the enormous toll in both human and economic terms this is causing; this is causing tremendous hardship among people as we're in this transition period. And it is very tough out there and it's very difficult to get our economy moving again with what is going on right now.

But in the end, I'm very optimistic. I think in 10 and 20 years we will start to have changed our working culture. We will have more flexibility in the workplace, we will have more highly trained workers and we will have empowered workers who take on much more responsibility with their skills. And we'll have much more flexibility in moving from job to job; in fact, in a more international world, we'll have some of our people working in other jurisdictions and some people from those jurisdictions coming to Canada.

But to do that -- and I applaud the minister for mentioning that today -- business in this country is going to have to take on a bigger responsibility. Quite frankly, the business community in Canada has been negligent in investing in skills training of its employees. When I talk to business people, they give a lot of reasons why that is so, and a lot of those reasons are going to have to be put aside. Business in this country is going to have to start to think more in terms of Canada and Ontario being a corporation, and that having a highly trained workforce in Ontario is beneficial to all of us and to all companies.

There are some very good examples of that. Most of us know IBM as the producer of office machines and certainly of computers, and of late of personal computer machines, but when you really look at what IBM does today too, it's in the training business. It's almost set up a university of its own in Newmarket, which I had the pleasure to visit in June of this year. They understand the culture of training. They understand the culture of workplace education. In fact, they make their courses available to companies around the world, and those people come to Newmarket, north of Toronto, to do that work.

I think that's very exciting. What they realize is that, when there are megaprojects in other countries around the world, sometimes the companies that have benefited from the IBM training come back to IBM -- because a lot of those people now have a bit of loyalty to their company -- and they make joint partnerships, joint ventures, with IBM and other companies and bid on projects halfway around the world. What we're doing in all of that is strengthening all our companies, strengthening all our workers. That's very important for our country.

Besides business taking on a greater responsibility, government also has to take on a greater role to make sure our citizens are trained. But as government we must ensure that when our citizens reach the workplace they have obtained an education level that will enable them to be trained quickly and efficiently. We can't expect our employers to be in the remedial education business, and this has happened on many occasions. When companies want to take over a plant and their idea is to modernize, to upgrade that, to put in high-tech machinery and equipment in that operation, in some cases that I'm aware of they have found that their workforce is basically illiterate, and they have found that the task of training their workforce to use that new machinery would be impossible.

We cannot expect business to raise the skills up to a basic level so that retraining can commence. We have to make sure our education system is sound. Our most valuable commodity will be knowledge and ideas and our ability to innovate. That's the direction we have to go as trainers.

I'd like to quote from a book by George Gilder, author of Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution in Economics and Technology. I think he said it best -- and this will sum up a lot of what I've said so far -- when he said:

"The central event of the 20th century is the overthrow of matter. In technology, economics and the politics of nations, wealth in the form of physical resources is steadily declining in value and significance. The powers of mind are everywhere ascendant over the brute force of things. Today the ascendant nations and corporations are masters, not of land and material resources, but of ideas and technologies. Wealth comes not to the rulers of slave labour but to the liberators of the human creativity, not to conquerors of land but to the emancipators of the mind."

That's what the revolution in the workplace is all about right now. It's about the emancipation, the freedom, of working people, of giving them the skills so that they can do the work that garners the high wages we are going to have to garner in order to support the social programs and the society we have built here. Because what's happened in that revolution, the revolution from resource extraction and manufacturing and heavy industry, is that we now have to work at a higher level to earn the wages of higher value so that we can support the tremendous system that most of us -- I would say all of us -- in this assembly care about and have fought for from time to time. That's what's going to have to happen, starting to work at a higher value, at a higher level, and for that to happen we need more training.

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I'd like to talk a little bit about OTAB now, about its history, where it's going and how it has evolved.

It's been over two years ago now that the Premier's Council, headed at that time by the Liberal government, recognized the fact that Ontario's approach to training really needed to change. The council at that time recognized that the type of skills needed by existing and emerging industries was changing and that the existing approach to skills development was not meeting their needs. The Premier's Council identified the need for workplace training and better education in our schools.

Since then, I believe the province of Ontario has made absolutely no headway in its approach to skills training. It has taken this government more than two years to produce something that will have the power to enable perhaps the most important key to our economic recovery: a training system. The biggest concern at this point is that if it took two years simply to get to this point, how much longer is it actually going to take to design and implement a massive system such as OTAB?

Currently, training is offered through several ministries including the Ministry of Skills Development. The system proposed will move all training into the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, which will control all training in the province of Ontario. I can see many problems with OTAB, and I'd like to begin with the question of what will be different from what we have today. The only difference I can see is that in comparison to the Ministry of Skills Development, this training approach has a board.

I'd like to talk about that for a minute, because what is presumed is going to happen is that basically, once OTAB gets established, the civil servants in the Ministry of Skills Development and civil servants involved in skills training throughout different ministries are all going to be coming to this new superministry, if you will, this crown agency that is going to be at arm's length from government. We're going to create this very big bureaucratic morass, as I see it, except that it will be given some direction by a board. But does a board guarantee an improved training regime?

The next question is quite simple: What guarantees do we have that this system will be better and more responsive than the existing training system? Why were other options not explored? I think we should have a discussion on that. We probably should be starting with the options that might be available out there and maybe look at other options. How can we be guaranteed that this will be a fair system if it's not comprised of a representative board? I'll certainly be talking a little more about that later.

This government was under pressure to come up with a training scheme because of the rapid decline in our economic growth. The legislation we are debating today, I believe, is incomplete and a feeble attempt to present an initiative that we should have seen 18 months ago. In fact, like so many of this government's pieces of legislation and policies, it seems to raise more questions than it answers.

I believe we have been led to believe that this board will be representative of the province and its stakeholders. Well, our next problem with OTAB begins right here, because OTAB is going to be dominated by big labour and big business. I don't see a place in OTAB for two particular groups that I think are significantly left out of this: small business and small or unorganized labour. I have a lot of concerns about that and will certainly return to that later on.

Small business is responsible for 80% of the growth in this province, yet it has no representation on this board. That is unconscionable, because small business has been the engine of economic growth in this province over the last 10 years. They do create 80% of the growth and they, more than the IBMs of the world, have tremendous need for assistance, for training, because the big multinational companies have budgets.

They've had the CEOs who have had the time to go off in a room and really think about the future of their companies and do that long-term strategic planning. They've understood that unlike the small business person who's maybe behind her cash register in her store, or is in small manufacturing operation, and is so intricately involved in the day-to-day operation of her business that she doesn't have that time to produce those plans, and certainly doesn't have the money and the wherewithal to produce a training program for her employees.

This is why small business has to be involved. Small business has to be brought into and made welcome in the training culture of Ontario. Small business has to be invited on to the OTAB board.

Given this fact, how can the board be representative? I've asked the minister, on a few occasions in question period, other questions about the representation on this board: "How is unorganized labour going to be represented?" The answer I got from this minister was, "Well, they should organize."

I believe in unionism. I believe it's beneficial in many circumstances for workers to organize. In some cases, it's beneficial for a lot of big companies to deal with a union in order to resolve workplace matters. But there are some segments of our society, sectors of our economy, that traditionally have not organized, for whatever reason. There are new sectors of the economy that are growing fast that aren't organized yet. I'm sure many of those, especially after Bill 40, will be organized, and that's fine with me. If the workers want to organize, that's great.

But what about those people today? What about those people who work in a non-unionized workplace? Those people need retraining too. Those people need a say as to what type of training they need. They need some input. I think that's a terrible deficiency in the makeup of this board. If the minister wanted to make sure that his board was inclusive of all the workers of this province, he would open that up and make sure there was a balance between unionized and non-unionized workers, so that it truly reflected the makeup of Ontario, and as the makeup of the Ontario workplace changes, he should then adapt to that.

Hon Bud Wildman (Minister of Natural Resources and Minister Responsible for Native Affairs): Who represents them?

Mr Ramsay: The member for Algoma asks across the way, who represents those unorganized people? I know that every time you ask a question of this government, it seems to pose a tremendous difficulty, because there is no organization in place, so that, gee, somehow you can't talk to people in the agricultural industry, to pick one sector that's traditionally not been organized. I think it's possible to talk to people in those industries that don't happen to be organized, to ask their opinion, to invite them on to the board and get their input.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think there are a lot of people out there who would like to help, who would like to make sure that skills training in Ontario was relevant for the people they could speak for, who share their same experiences in life.

I really don't think there's any way this government could argue that it is fair to hear, in regard to training, only from those workers represented by a union. Unionized workers only represent about 30% of the workplace in Ontario. In fact, 10% of those work in the public service, so we have 20% of the workforce in the private sector unionized.

That's fine, and because they are so well organized, I would even agree to a greater representation than their numbers of organized people on the OTAB board. But I just make a plea to the minister that he should make room for those other workers in other industries who don't find themselves organized, to make sure they have a say so that those very important sectors of the economy will benefit from the work that's going to be going on with OTAB.

I think the message this government is giving out is very clear. What the minister is saying, and he said it to me in question period, is basically, "Do what I say or else." That's what he's saying to the workers of Ontario.

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Many small businesses, for whatever reason, don't want to organize and that can be their choice. Some workers in Ontario don't want to organize, but that can be their choice too. The minister claims to be working with businesses, but here lies a very good example of a government that I believe is ignoring the needs of a community.

As a result of the next question, how will the training needs of small businesses, which make up 80% of business, be represented on the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, further questions come out of this. The question arises as to whether big business and labour will have a greater ability to place training dollars where they want them, thus ignoring the needs of a small business person and his or her employees.

That's a problem, because what we have now is a board that's dominated by big companies, a board that's dominated by big labour. They have the clout and they have the say, because as the members of the House know, they have the greatest representation on OTAB. There will be eight representatives from business and they will be from big business; there will be eight representatives from the workers' side and they're all going to be from unionized workplaces and organizations. So they're going to be able to dominate the direction of this board.

Where's the direction going to come from, where's the assistance going to come from for small business and for those workers who find themselves on the outside because, for whatever reason, they don't belong to an organized workplace?

The OTAB, to break it all down, is going to be represented by the two cochairs, and these two cochairs will come from the business and labour group. So then we have left the seven directors representing business, seven directors representing organized labour and two directors representing educators and trainers.

I won't address that right now, because that's a big concern. Not only is there an imbalance in the makeup of OTAB between business and labour because of the components thereof -- not small business, not unorganized labour -- but also there is not the proper balance, in my opinion, between the people who are involved in the workplace and those who traditionally and who will in the future provide training.

There are many partners that have been left out of OTAB. Educators have only been allotted two places, two spots on the board. Of course, in the consultative period there was much gnashing of teeth and fighting among all those educators because there were only two seats, and there certainly are more than two partners in the education community that would like to be a partner in OTAB because they are providers of training and education.

The two seats, it has been decided by this government, will now be reserved for representatives of school boards and of our community colleges in Ontario, and I certainly agree that those people need to be represented on OTAB. But there are also other players out there, other contributors to workplace training. In fact, I think there are some equally important players out there, contributors to workplace training and training in general, who have been ignored.

It's my experience that community-based training is probably the very best training to date, so far. People who have entered training programs have found their berth in the community, usually after a job loss -- a mine or a plant going down in the community -- through that training program; that's where they have developed their new-found skills. Community trainers are not represented on OTAB.

There are other people out there who are providing training across this province, and those are private trainers. There are companies that are making a living, that are hiring people and people are making a living from training people across this province. There are private colleges and schools.

It's even got to the point where there are franchise operations of training academies right across the province, where people have easy access to very modern programs of training that they can pick up and take at their own leisure; come in at any time of night or day and work on an integral basis with the instructors there. These people need to have some input into OTAB. These people have been supplying training to Ontario workers and to people who understand that they need to upgrade themselves. Those people have been shut out.

To continue with the board, we have one director representing francophones. We have one director representing persons with disabilities. We have one director representing racial minorities. We have one director representing women. I won't argue with the representation there of equity groups. I think in a modern workplace now's the time to start to make sure that representation is there, especially when we're talking about the future of training.

But again, nowhere on this list is small business or unorganized labour. I guess I have to ask the question: Are their training needs not as important as those people who find themselves in organized workplaces, who find themselves in small businesses or running or owning small businesses? I think they are. Again, I would ask the minister that he make a place for those people.

I'd like to stress again community-based trainers who are missing from this, because since I was named Skills Development critic I have travelled to different parts of the province to see how these community-based trainers are working. I have been most impressed by the success rate of these community-based trainers, such as the group in Brantford I visited, that this government tried to eliminate last spring. It was questions from this side of the House that probably saved that organization. How are these people going to be involved? It's going to be important for these people to be involved.

Also missing is the post-secondary education from the university sector. I think it's time we stopped thinking of the universities as the sort of ivory tower halls of learning that do not have relevance to the workplace. Universities are trainers also. Primarily, people go to university to be trained so they can have a job. It's not everyone who goes to university, who seeks out the academic life or is just going there for personal self-fulfilment, although those things come as byproducts of the university education.

I'm certainly happy that I have a university education, but universities primarily are there to provide training for jobs. I think universities in the past maybe weren't really on that track, but they understand that now. I think they're knocking at the door of OTAB. They want to be let in. Again, I ask the minister to open that door to our universities so they can be let in.

Not only do we need training, we also need jobs. We need new ideas which universities, colleges and centres of excellence in projects funded by the university research incentive fund may come up with. We need this expertise. We need these new ideas and innovations that we see our universities and community colleges bringing to the table on the OTAB table. They've got to be let in. I would ask the minister to let that university sector in.

The minister and staff keep claiming this will not provide a flexible system. I have to ask the minister, why is that and how can we do that? I would argue that in fact this system will be less flexible than the existing system because of the power that labour and big business will have. What we're going to ensure is that we are looking for the training needs of the province.

We have to make sure that the board and the people they represent can take off the hats they wear, shed the cloaks of the representation they have for the groups they represent and make sure they sit down at that table to represent the interests of all Ontarians. That's what we have to ensure, and I'm not sure how we can do that.

In fact, this is one of the fundamental flaws of this particular legislation, because what we're asking to do -- and if you read this on paper, it sounds very good; it's all motherhood. One of the nicest words we've talked about in the last few years is "partnership." Everybody believes we need partnerships; great stuff. I think everybody should be partners and we all should be working together to rebuild the economy. I'm sure the Premier says that, the minister says that, everybody in the House says that.

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But the problem with that is that we're expecting too much too soon from all these so-called partners, because the reality of the day is that these people have not been partners, and I think we had better take an incremental approach to develop that partnership. Because what we're saying with OTAB is: "We're going to bring all you people together, and we want you to work well together in partnership. We're going to give you a whack of money" -- maybe up to $2 billion, once you take the provincial and federal money and some private sector money coming in -- "and we're going to give you total autonomy for all training. We're now going to push you away from the government at arm's length, set you up in a little WCB type of operation, a crown agency of the Ontario government, and give you this responsibility for training."

I'm going to say to you that on paper this sounds very good, but, even though this came originally from the Premier's Council when the Liberal government was there, I think that idea has passed us by, quite frankly. I think it's too late for that, because what I can see is that it's going to take 18 months to even get the structure going; it's going to take another few years to get that partnership matured, to get those people used to working with each and seeing each other's side, as we need to do.

We could progress down that road, but I'd like to see us progress not with giving the authority to this group right off. That's the main argument I have with this minister. He's setting up a superbureaucracy and giving this power without any sort of assurance that there will be cooperation. In fact, if we look at the track records of other similar agencies, unfortunately -- and I wish it weren't so -- we do not see this cooperation. We've just had an example as of late in the occupational health and safety committee not getting along. When you push people into a room and basically force them to make decisions and work together, and they're not used to doing that, I have to ask, will we be getting the best decisions for all the people of Ontario when it comes to training?

Quite frankly, I think not. While it's crucial that today and tomorrow and next year we have the best training programs in the world in Ontario, I can see this OTAB board bickering behind closed doors as to how it's going to proceed. They'll be sitting down and for the first time starting to share their experiences and developing some friendships and through that developing a partnership, and that is all very well and good and that part of it should proceed, but in the meantime, where will the skills training programs be? Where will the workers of Ontario be in looking for that coordinating body to produce the training programs that are going to be needed by Ontario workers?

I think it's wrong. I think the idea has now passed us by. I think now it is too late to be setting up this superbureaucracy. I will talk a little later of what I think we do need in order to supply some skills training for the people of Ontario.

I'd like to ask the minister when we can expect to see some criteria for determining how funding is going to be allocated, because that is going to be one of the biggest questions of not only the people out there in the various sectors but of the people in the various geographic areas that will be subdivided into OTAB. I certainly want to talk about those local training boards later on.

The legislation also talks about OTAB as a board that is going to form these partnerships and is going to bring together all points of view in respect to labour force development programs and services. How is this government going to ensure that this will happen? Again, what criteria are going to be used? How will the points of view of small business and unorganized labour be represented when they are not on the board? This is a fundamental flaw of this legislation.

The legislation also talks of the minister's powers. What guarantee do we have that a secretariat will not be established? I want to talk about this a little bit, because we had an example, just a couple of days ago in the House in question period, of a question in regard to the Workers' Compensation Board that I can foresee is going to happen in a year or two years from now in regard to OTAB; that something major is going on in that particular crown agency, and the minister is going to get up, unable to give a good response, unable to say that he or she has a handle on this and that whatever is going on is wrong and that he or she is going to intervene and get this turned around. I have grave concerns that, just like the WCB is going to be building a Taj Mahal, maybe OTAB's going to build a Taj Mahal to the superbureaucracy for training.

This is the same sort of complaint I had earlier in my speech when I talked about the establishment of the education. I see the Taj Mahals of boards of education at the same time that I see our children in portables. That's wrong, and I can see that we're building an empire here. We've got another empire that is safe for government because we're putting it off to the side. The last thing we need in government organization, the last thing the Ontario economy and community needs, is another bureaucracy.

Right now, this government is unable to bring labour and business together to the table. What is going to happen if, once OTAB is established, such a dispute arises? Will any training efforts be halted until resolution? Quite frankly, are we going to get down to the lowest common denominator, where we have to come to a sawoff about what is needed? When each side gives and takes in the to and fro of bargaining, in the end the people of Ontario are going to be left with a deal that came out of the almost collective bargaining model OTAB is.

It reminds me somewhat of the referendum debate we had with the Constitution, because the Constitution that people were asked to vote upon came as a result of bargaining and dealing and negotiating over a period of a couple of years, at least.

I am concerned that we're going to be left with the very same when it comes to OTAB, that after the decisions are made, we're not going to be left with very much. That's not what our workers need in Ontario today.

Who's going to intervene if such a dispute occurs? Are we going to know about it? That's what I want to ask: Are we going to know about those disputes? Are we going to know what's going on over there? We're not going to be able to ask the minister of the day daily questions about this, because it's not in his ministry any more; it has been shunted aside in an arm's-length crown agency.

On page 9, under "Local Training and Adjustment Boards, Councils and Reference Committees," 18(1) states, "OTAB may designate local training and adjustment boards that have been established in accordance with the regulations made under this act."

Why is the word "may" being used? Is it not expected? What will happen if an area does not get a local board together? This brings me into the discussion about local boards. For the people that aren't as familiar with how the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board is going to be organized, it's going to be headed up by a superboard that has authority for training across Ontario, but in order to give regional representation, there will be local training and adjustment boards called LTABs. In the consultation period that happened this spring -- and I attended many of those meetings -- the minister's consultative committee went out to the various regions to ask them how these boards would be set up.

The number one problem we have is, what are the borders of these geographic LTABs going to be? What are the geographic boundaries going to be to set up these local training and adjustment boards in Ontario? There's great argument about that.

I'd like to say that it's not just a matter or turf or people being parochial, but it's necessary, I believe, for people to have a commonality of interest if they are to work well together, so I'm not sure you can shove steelworkers from Hamilton in with farmers from Haldimand-Norfolk. I'm not sure they have a commonality of interest. Both have legitimate concerns and desires and needs for upgrading of their skills, but I'm not sure they're in sync, that they're in gear with each other to be working as to what are the needs.

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I'm doubly concerned that if you have such a board that's proposed for that particular area and that if all the workers have to come from unionized workplaces, and traditionally agriculture has not been a sector of the economy that has been organized, then you're going to have an LTAB that's dominated by steelworkers in Hamilton hopefully trying to make some decisions for agricultural workers in some of the more rural areas of Haldimand-Norfolk.

We all know there's going to be and there is today tremendous need for training programs for steelworkers in Ontario. In fact, CSTEC, the Canadian Steel Trades Employment Congress, had been very successful in producing tremendous training programs in Timiskaming when my two iron ore mines went down about four years ago, and we know that with the layoffs that are happening in the steel industry at Dofasco, and unfortunately there may be more to come in other companies in Hamilton, we are going to need some good training programs and some good coordination as to how those programs will be delivered for steelworkers in Hamilton.

But if you were to throw all those people with their concerns and understand their parochial concerns -- and I would be too if I was there as a steelworker -- how am I going to make some judgements for agricultural workers down in Haldimand-Norfolk? How am I going to do that, especially when I and my friends are losing our jobs? First of all, I want to make sure we can try to get our own people retrained, and that's human nature and I accept that. But the other point is that I might not have the experience, the knowledge, the understanding of what agricultural workers need or what they're going through at this particular time.

That's why it's going to be particularly crucial that when the local training and adjustment boards are formed, they're formed geographically to ensure there's a commonality of interest among the working men and women and businesses in that particular area. Also, and I'll make the plea again to the minister, you've got to open up the worker representation to non-organized, non-unionized workers because you may find in some particular parts of the province, because a particular sector of the economy dominates that workforce, that there may not be very many eligible candidates and that they do not represent the majority of the work that goes on in that particular region.

So I'm asking for some understanding, for some flexibility and above all, a word that this government likes to use, some fairness, because certainly it is not fair to exclude 70% of the workers in Ontario from making decisions in regard to training and adjustment. It's all of their futures and again I ask the minister to reconsider that.

I have a lot of questions about the LTABs. We'll talk about a few of them today. How are the LTABs going to be funded? How are the local boards going to derive their funding from the main board of OTAB itself? What are the formulas that are going to be in place? Are we going to throw a lot of money into an area, because there's been tremendous job loss, to the detriment of another area that still needs to upgrade its workers? Are we going to be doing it on a per capita basis, just based on population, based on the people who are there?

Are we going to have other considerations because of large geographic areas and the difficulty of setting up programs, and maybe because there's a small pool of workers in a particular sector and it might be more expensive to produce training for those people because we don't have the economies of scale? How are we going to fund those organizations? If there's sort of the great northeast board and if I have my say, and many people in Timiskaming, and it becomes larger than was proposed, is that board going to have sufficient resources to produce the training programs for probably a small number of people?

We might identify in that vast region that maybe we need six meat cutters, for instance. Maybe to put on a course for six meat cutters might not be as efficient as it might be doing it in Toronto for 24 meat cutters at a time. But if that's what the need is and we find we have more cost, is there going to be the flexibility in funding the local boards in order to provide the training that is going to be necessary? I would hope the minister has some answers to those questions.

The legislation discusses its fiscal years, its annual reports, its accounting; it describes auditors and their function. What the legislation fails to provide is an answer about how the success of this system will be determined and at what stage. What I'm talking about is not just accountability, but to start, I am talking about accountability.

I'm very concerned, because of the arm's-length nature of OTAB, that it will be very difficult for me, as a representative in the Legislature of Ontario, to see the accountability of OTAB. It will probably be more difficult for workers out there and people in business to make sure that OTAB and the LTABs are accountable to the taxpayers of Ontario, because when you privatize this -- that's basically what you are doing, and I find it ironic that the Liberals are going to be debating with New Democrats against privatizing an important function of government, but that's what's happening here -- you take away a lot of the day-to-day accountability that this forum provides, because question period provides that day-to-day forum of accountability. Yes, I'm sure, as the viewers realize, this becomes the most dramatic part of what we do here in this assembly, but it also is a very important function of a parliamentary democracy.

As I said before, I can just visualize a question of the minister a year from now, or a question I might ask him in two years, and basically he just puts up his hands and says, "Well, this is a crown agency over here and I will see in its annual report that it's doing that and I will have to certainly make sure it lives up to its memorandum of understanding at the end of the year." But how are we going to know that in the day-to-day business this board is functioning for the people of Ontario?

More than just accountability, which is really just finding out what's going on and making sure they're doing things, how are we truly going to assess the worth and the success of this endeavour? How are we going to know that OTAB works? How are we going to know that it's working? Again, being at arm's length from the government, I don't believe the minister is going to be able to know on a day-to-day basis that this multimillion-dollar superbureaucracy at arm's length from the government is working, and I'm very concerned about that. I am doubly concerned, being an opposition member, that I will not have the ability to find out from this government whether OTAB, which is being funded by hard-earned taxpayers' dollars, is working for the people of Ontario.

If this were just some inspection agency or something like that, I might not be as concerned about this as I am, but I think all of us in this chamber appreciate the importance of skills training at this particular time in our economy. I think everybody in the province now understands the importance of skills training and the necessity for all of us to upgrade our skills. I would say that skills training right now is just about one of the most important endeavours of government today, at this particular time and certainly in this jurisdiction, where we find that perhaps many of us are a bit underskilled for the jobs that are starting to develop and will be developed in the next few years.

Accountability and the ability to assess the success of OTAB are absolutely fundamental, and I don't think there's enough there to give us that assurance it will work for the women and men of Ontario.

I guess I bring this forward because we are witnessing right now, and because it's out in the open we are able to witness it, the failure of another government training program; that is, Jobs Ontario.

I'm sorry it is failing, but because it's being carried out, is being administered through the ministry and we have public access to what's happening, we understand that, we know that and we can help the government do something about it. We can put some pressure on the government, if you will, to get the situation corrected. I'm sorry, again, that it's not working.

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Under 700 people have been placed in this program, which was to have placed, according to the Treasurer's budget, 10,000 people this year. That's a lot of people who are going to have to be established in a workplace, in a training program, between now and the end of this fiscal year which ends March 31. In a matter of four months, we are going to have to place 9,300 people if this government is to complete its promise to the people of Ontario through Jobs Ontario. I doubt that is going to happen, and that's sad because I wish we could have placed 10,000 people.

The problem is that the program has been ill conceived. In an economy that is not growing, it is very difficult, and as the stats show, it is next to impossible to provide an incentive to employers to bring people on stream into the workplace with a 35% wage incentive if they're not hiring people. If that's the only opportunity this government sees for training people, then we're not going to get people trained. That's what's happening. We have a target of 10,000 people and we've got under 700 people being brought in under this program.

No mechanism for evaluation appears to exist in that program either, and the same mistake cannot be made with OTAB. How will we all decide if it's working? How is the minister going to decide if it's working? What criteria will be used to evaluate OTAB?

How are we going to evaluate the local training boards? They're going to be even more difficult to get a handle on. They're going to be brought in over time. I hope the transition is going to be smooth. I'm very concerned about that transition, because today in just about every region of Ontario, we have organizations in place that almost fit the bill. We have community industrial training committees that were set up by the federal government, and in most areas they're working very well. They're working in a cooperative way in their communities, business and labour, getting people back to work and getting people trained.

With the introduction of OTAB of course, unfortunately we will scrap all of that. We throw the partnership that's already there out the window to establish this new partnership. I'm concerned about that. That may be even more difficult to get going than will be the main board, the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board. Already there have been some working relationships developed at the local level.

If all of that is scuttled and we try to rebuild that vessel, then I think there's going to be some animosity there that some of the old partners were included and some weren't. We're going to ask those people to reinvent that partnership, to get to know each other again, and in that interval, time will be lost and training opportunities will be lost. How are we going to get a handle on that? How are we going to measure the progress of that? How are we going to measure the success of that? How is this going to be measured?

I have to ask the minister if he will be doing a cost analysis of all this. I think today the one thing taxpayers ask me more than anything else is, "Are we getting benefit from our tax dollars?" As we've embarked upon the road of setting up this new superministry again, this superbureaucracy at arm's length from government, people are going to want to know if we're getting our value from it.

How are we going to know that? Will we get a cost analysis of OTAB so that we can see, for all the cost it's going to incur, that we're getting the value out of this, that we're getting women and men out there in the workplace who have been trained to a higher level of work? Are we getting the benefit? Is it cost-effective? Is it the best way to go? If the minister plans to do that, when? If not, I'd certainly like to know from the minister why not.

If an LTAB is proven to be ineffective, what action will be taken to correct the situation and who will take that action? I can foresee a question period not too far down the line when an LTAB gets established in some region of the province and some of the people on that board come to some of the members of the opposition and say: "This is impossible. We can't work together. Whether it's a personality conflict or whatever it is, this is not working. We're not getting any agreement. We're not getting programs out for the people who need them."

If there's a problem, how, when I bring that up to the minister in question period, is he going to deal with that? How is he going to make the correction that's going to be needed when we're going to get local people working together? How can we ensure that all this is going to work? I guess that's the fundamental question: How is all of this going to work? It has to work so that we can put people to work, but I doubt that this is going to work at all.

How is OTAB going to motivate business to invest more in job training? As the minister pointed out in his opening remarks and I in mine, business has been negligent in this country in investing in its people. Business in this country has to invest more in training, there's no doubt about it, and government has to make sure that business does that, if we're all to survive. But how is OTAB going to do that?

What is different about OTAB than from having all the ministries of government we have today with their message about investing in people, specifically the Ministry of Skills Development and its messages and programs to try to convince business to invest in people? How is that going to change? How is OTAB going to make that encouragement happen to business? What incentives does it have to offer? These are some of the questions I want to ask the minister.

There's another question I want to ask. I'm not sure if he's thought about this, but I'd like to know about some of the relationships that he envisions might happen between OTAB and other ministries. Now that OTAB will no longer be a part of a ministry of government, is it going to have the ability to communicate and function with other ministries of government? Will, for instance, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology have the ability to offer training incentives for new businesses as it does today, or will this be taken away from that ministry?

If we are to throw all sorts of training areas into OTAB, are we going to be hampering the ability of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology to offer incentives to businesses coming into Ontario: "We believe in training and we are going to put our money where our mouth is. We can offer a new business in Ontario some financial incentive in order to get workers trained so that we can establish a particular manufacturing plant or service industry plant in Ontario"?

I think that's an important question. If so, what would be the nature of these incentives? I think that's important and I ask the minister and his staff to address that, because there will have to be an ongoing relationship between OTAB and the government of the day. It needs to have the ability to function that way and interact with other ministries.

I guess one of the basic, fundamental questions is, what assurance do we have that training is going to occur? What level of training is anticipated coming from OTAB? There's nothing in this legislation that actually states that training must take place. I invite the minister to look at that.

How will sectoral needs be coordinated with LTAB? The minister is doing some things that I do like. One of those things, and I think one of the answers to the way to go for training in Ontario rather than establish OTAB, is to carry on with these sectoral agreements that the minister is embarking upon with the various sectors of the Ontario economy.

One of the latest ones that the minister announced a few weeks back in the House was a major sectoral agreement with the automotive parts industry. That is very important and that is not something you can deal with on a regional level; that is something you have to deal with at a province-wide level. But it's something in a very specialized field and a very important field, because the majority of the manufacturing sector still in Ontario is dominated by auto parts.

In fact, it's particularly significant, because what's been occurring in Ontario is that we have been losing the lower-skill-level jobs in the automotive industry to jurisdictions such as Mexico and other low-wage jurisdictions in the Pacific Rim. What we have to ensure is that we have auto parts workers and assembly workers who are not only highly motivated but are highly trained so that we can convince the big automobile companies of the world to do business in Ontario.

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If we show those companies that Ontario is willing to put the money forward to enter into those agreements with that particular sector, to take an example -- we need to do this with all sectors -- I think we can at the moment hold the remaining jobs we have and hopefully we can attract new jobs in that particular sector.

That's something that's very specialized and something that's ongoing, and it's in progress. How is the transition going to occur between what's happening in that sector and the development of OTAB as it starts to organize itself? I have a lot of concerns about that.

I would like to return a little to what's happening in the automobile industry. I still think that as we see many of these jobs going to Mexico, there's going to be a tremendous new partnership opportunity between workers in Mexico producing components for major appliances and for automobiles here in Ontario, and I think we can still carry on a majority of that work while taking advantage of lower-cost parts from other jurisdictions.

What happens when the sectoral needs and OTAB do not merge? What if OTAB goes off into one particular direction and we already have a sectoral agreement in place or another one is going to come into being? How are we going to coordinate that, and who is going to step in if agreement cannot be reached?

Whenever the issue of training comes up, the topic of education also arises. We cannot ignore the fact that earlier this year, as I said before, when we tested our students we did not do that well. I would say to the minister that we're going to have great difficulty in training and retraining people of all ages in Ontario if we can accept, as we have accepted and continue to accept, a dropout rate of 30% of our students from high school in Ontario. That is not acceptable; it is not acceptable at all.

In fact, I would like to see a lot more of the minister's energies addressed to what he has started to do, that is, really start to concentrate on apprenticeship programs. I think the answer is going to be making sure that every boy and girl who leaves high school has a skill to do work in the workplace in Ontario in the mid-1990s and also has the ability to continue to learn.

Right now, basically what we say to our children is: "If you can't sit in that seat for four to five years, tough. We don't have a place for you. Drop out." And where do they drop out? They drop out on to the street and they get picked up by the social services net, or they drop out on the street and they start getting into trouble and they're picked up by the criminal justice system.

That's not good enough. That's not good enough for my children, that's not good enough for the children of the people I represent in Timiskaming and I'm sure for all the children of Ontario. That's not good enough at all.

We have to ensure that we have new and innovative ways of imparting education and training to our young people. We've got to make sure that the rambunctious kid who can't sit in that chair for four or five years can be there for maybe a couple of hours in the morning getting some basic skills, but is out in a workplace in the community and learning how to be a tool-and-die maker or whatever job, but understands the habits of the workplace, picks up a skill that is useful and gets into the workforce.

That's where we have to concentrate, to make sure we don't just allow these people to fall through the cracks, because that's where we're so behind the eight ball, if you will, right now. So many people over the years have dropped through the cracks that now we're having difficulty finding a position in the workplace for those people. That's the problem, and we have to be really addressing that, starting with our young people and all the way through to our workers.

The problem with all that is that it requires money, and this government recently announced a 0% increase in transfer payments to education and the colleges and universities sector. We're going to have to set our priorities. I have great sympathy for the government and the position it finds itself in today economically, because there isn't that much money out there. The taxpayers of Ontario have had enough, they cannot pay any more, and I certainly hope we will not see any tax rises in the next budget. They've had enough, so we're going to have to manage with what we have. Until we can get the economy growing, we're not going to be seeing more tax revenues.

But it's a matter of priorities. Whether you stop planting trees in northern Ontario or you stop funding our post-secondary institutions, it's a matter of making choices. I think the education of our young people is not a place to be making that choice. We've got to ensure, because it's our future, that our young people are going to be capable of carrying the economy of Ontario. I ask the minister to look at that.

We're at a point now where we have legislation, we have a framework of what OTAB should look like, we actually have a minister who wants to proceed with setting up that board, yet we still don't have all the cooperation of all the players to get that board on line. This is a bit of sort of proof, I guess, of what's going on and what is going to go on.

I want to bring to the House's attention an interesting news clip that happened on the local CBC television station, CBLT, here in Toronto on August 19. I have the script of that, and it shows what I'm talking about, the different perspectives people are bringing to OTAB, the different perspectives by these different partners, and why I think it's going to be very difficult to get OTAB off to a smooth launch.

This is a report that was filed by Colleen McEdwards of CBLT. She starts off the show by saying that people enter a training program hoping to learn new skills to help them find jobs, and talks about how the government feels training is the answer. She introduces the idea of OTAB and states, "OTAB is the cornerstone of this government's economic recovery." Certainly that's what this government will tell you in answers to questions or in speeches.

Then we have Jim Bennett of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. He's here, by the way, and also representatives from labour are here, Mr Gord Wilson, and I'll quote from him in a minute. Mr Bennett said, and I'll quote exactly from what he said: "I'd say there are about half a dozen key issues that remain to be solved. Any one of them are fundamental after the thing and could fall apart."

Ms McEdwards talks about OTAB's governing body and how it wanted to get established by July and how the government's having problems getting it done by July. In fact, it's still not here and we're into the last day of November.

Mr Bennett goes on: "The government is trying to force large businesses into appointing its representatives on this training board before the detailed mandate of the board is worked out. We feel that that's like being asked to sign a blank cheque, and the business community is saying no."

Then Gord Wilson, who's the president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, says, "Well, it's not yet clear whether the positions taken by people around the table are planted in cement or whether there is some flexibility, and I think all we have to do is to try and find what it is we can all live within." Again, this is talking a bit about the compromise that might have to happen. Then he says, "If that can't be reached, then OTAB's life would be a very short one, I'm afraid." That's the president of the OFL speaking.

Then the reporter continues, "The minister responsible says OTAB is new, it's ground-breaking and there are going to be some growing pains." Mr Allen is quoted as saying, "It's quite normal that when you try to bring a series of groups together province-wide that have never worked together" -- as I have said -- "even in their own constituencies around training issues, it's not surprising that they need to feel their way, find their way and do it constructively and positively."

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I couldn't agree more with the minister. That's right. These people are going to need time. I'm asking the minister to give them time to get to know each other, to give them time to get to know their problems, their concerns and their goals, to give them time to try to find a resolution of the differences that may be there between them, so they can work together for the betterment of the people of Ontario.

To forge this group as a group of partners who don't have that experience of partnership, whose partnership will take, I think, years to mature; to give them all the money Ontario and the government of Canada will spend in this province for skills training; to give them full authority and autonomy; to sit them out at arm's length from government without that day-to-day accountability that this parliamentary system affords, is wrong. It's wrong at such a crucial time when we need to be working at skills training.

We need to come up with programs very quickly that offer flexibility for individuals and workers. We need, instead of building a bureaucracy, to be empowering individuals. We need to be looking at ideas such as educational and training entitlements where, from birth, people basically have a ticket that gives them entry into training facilities in Ontario, anywhere in this province, for what they need.

That is something that maybe needs to be examined at the elementary, secondary and post-secondary school levels: to empower people to make the choices, to empower trainers and people who provide training to make sure they are free to compete with each other, to make sure they can deliver the best training available. Right now anybody in business in Ontario understands what he has to do to become competitive. They understand the equipment and the machinery they have to purchase in order to be competitive. They understand the training that's going to be needed to make their workers productive, to make sure their workers will be successful. They know that.

Our job is not to tell them what to do, but to offer those incentives, to offer those encouragements. That's what we have to be doing. To build a brand-new superbureaucracy, pushing it out where we can't get at it every day, where the minister won't be able to supervise it, making it fully in charge of all skills training in Ontario, I think is a big mistake.

When it was first talked about in the late 1980s, it wasn't a bad idea. We still sort of thought that big governments were the answer, but quite frankly, I think it's an idea whose time has now passed. I think we need more flexibility. I think we need more immediate contact with the workplace. We need programs that truly offer an incentive, even in an economy that is not growing strongly, that can help our workers get retrained and help our employers get people in place in the workplace.

I will be discussing those ideas in the next little while. With members of my caucus, I will be talking to people across Ontario in the next four or five months, bringing together groups to hear their ideas of how we should be pursuing skills training. We'll be bringing those ideas forward in the next little while and I look forward to more debate on this. I'm looking forward to taking this into committee and making sure, through the committee process, that we get the input of all the people of Ontario.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Are there any questions or comments?

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): I must say I was a little surprised listening to the member during his address. I believe his caucus is going to oppose this legislation. Quite frankly, if that is the case, I find that rather appalling.

There have been more reports written in this province about the need for some type of overall plan for training. It was his government's report, the Premier's council on skills development, that said we need to set up the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board. It had people from business, labour and the broader community on that Premier's council. They studied other jurisdictions as to what they had done. He is saying that now they are opposing it, that now we should do some more consultation, present some new ideas on what skills development should be and what the opportunities should be.

I think the member was also full of contradictions. At one point he talked about how we can't use the old-fashioned structures we have used, that hard, bureaucratic structures wouldn't be flexible. Then he goes on to criticize because we're setting up what we believe is a more flexible-type agency than strictly a ministry trying to operate skills development.

The member also talked about reality and about how people, particularly in our high school system, need to be getting some of the skills, how they need practical work experience. I don't know which jurisdictions he's been in, but I want to tell you that in my county in Oxford co-op education has been alive and well for about a dozen years now. There are literally hundreds -- no, I would even go as far as to say thousands -- of students each year who are involved in co-op education. I make use of them in my own office, because I think those are the types of opportunities.

I am just appalled that the Liberal caucus is going to vote against this initiative. They are against a formalized training procedure in this province? That is absolutely appalling in this day and age.

The Deputy Speaker: Any further questions or comments? Mr Ramsay, you have two minutes.

Mr Ramsay: I welcome the comments from the member from the government party. Gee, that's what the system's about. I'm sorry he's shocked and appalled that maybe we don't agree with something this government's doing. We certainly stood in our place two years ago, when you first were elected, to say that you had to address the issue of skills training and that you needed to get on to it. It's taken two years and two months now to really come up with a concrete proposal of what to do.

Times are changing very rapidly. I don't think this is the idea that's going to be the right idea for today. I think we have to agree to disagree. I look forward, though, to hearing the input of people who are interested in skills training. I certainly would hope that we will see a lot more interest, with the introduction of this bill, in skills training. I think all of us on all sides of this House have to ensure that we heighten the interest of skills training with all the people in this province, because it is going to be one of the biggest issues that faces us. That's going to be one of our responsibilities.

I hope that, with the minister, we can get many weeks of committee discussion on this bill. Hopefully, we can get to other parts of the province too, to give people an opportunity so that they don't have to come to Queen's Park, so that we can get to the major centres of this province. I don't know if the minister's going to be up to it, but he can travel. They'd like to see him there and I'd like to see members from all parties, in a parliamentary committee, going to the major centres so we can get the input of people from Ontario so that we can see what the needs are.

If this legislation is going to get through -- the member shouldn't get too upset; he's got the majority government there -- at least we can bring some amendments forward that can make it the best that it is.

[Report continues in volume B]