[Report continued from volume A]
ORDERS OF THE DAY
INCOME TAX AND ONTARIO PENSIONERS PROPERTY TAX ASSISTANCE STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE L'IMPÔT SUR LE REVENU ET L'ALLÉGEMENT DE L'IMPÔT FONCIER DES RETRAITÉS DE L'ONTARIO
Deferred vote on the motion for second reading of Bill 31, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act and to provide an Income Tax Credit to Seniors and to phase out grants under the Ontario Pensioners Property Tax Assistance Act / Loi modifiant la Loi de l'impôt sur le revenu, prévoyant des crédits d'impôt sur le revenu pour les personnes âgées et visant à éliminer progressivement les subventions prévues par la Loi sur l'allégement de l'impôt foncier des retraités de l'Ontario.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): There will be a deferred vote on the motion for second reading of Bill 31. Call in the members. This will be a five-minute bell.
The division bells rang from 1554 to 1559.
The Deputy Speaker: Will the members please take their seats. The member for Downsview, we're waiting for you.
Ms Wark-Martyn has moved second reading of Bill 31, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act and to provide an Income Tax Credit to Seniors and to phase out grants under the Ontario Pensioners Property Tax Assistance Act.
All those in favour of the motion will please rise.
Ayes
Abel, Akande, Allen, Bisson, Boyd, Buchanan, Carter, Charlton, Christopherson, Churley, Cooke, Cooper, Coppen, Dadamo, Drainville, Duignan, Farnan, Ferguson, Fletcher, Frankford, Gigantes, Grier, Haeck, Hampton, Hansen, Harrington, Haslam, Hope, Huget, Jamison, Johnson, Klopp, Lankin, Laughren, MacKinnon, Mackenzie, Malkowski, Mammoliti, Marchese, Martel, Martin, Mathyssen, Mills, Morrow, Murdock (Sudbury), O'Connor, Owens, Perruzza, Philip (Etobicoke-Rexdale), Pilkey, Pouliot, Rizzo, Silipo, Sutherland, Swarbrick, Ward (Brantford), Waters, Wessenger, White, Wildman, Wilson (Frontenac-Addington), Winninger, Wood, Ziemba.
The Deputy Speaker: All those opposed to the motion will please rise.
Nays
Arnott, Beer, Bradley, Callahan, Caplan, Conway, Cousens, Cunningham, Eddy, Elston, Eves, Grandmaître, Harnick, Henderson, Jordan, Kwinter, Mahoney, Marland, McLean, Miclash, Murdoch (Grey), O'Neil (Quinte), Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt), Poole, Runciman, Sola, Sorbara, Sterling, Stockwell, Tilson, Turnbull, Villeneuve, Wilson (Simcoe West), Witmer.
The Deputy Speaker: The ayes are 64, the nays are 34. I declare the motion carried.
Shall the bill be ordered for third reading?
Hon David S. Cooke (Government House Leader): Mr Speaker, I believe there's unanimous consent to do third reading and record the vote as the same as the vote that was just taken.
The Deputy Speaker: Agreed? We will now vote therefore on the third reading of the bill. Ms Wark-Martyn has moved third reading of Bill 31. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?
On the same vote? On the same vote. I declare the motion carried.
Be it resolved that the bill be entitled as in the motion.
Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: We were here earlier to have question period. I'm now asking unanimous consent for the Minister of Community and Social Services, who could have been here earlier and has now joined us, to make a statement about the intent of her statement in the press of today.
The Deputy Speaker: Is there unanimous consent? No.
KITCHENER-WATERLOO HOSPITAL ACT, 1992
Mr Cooper moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr21, An Act respecting Kitchener-Waterloo Hospital.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
Interjections.
The Deputy Speaker: Can we wait for a few minutes until we have a bit more order in the House? Those who want to leave, please do so now.
P.J. CONSTRUCTION LIMITED ACT, 1992
Mr Elston, in the absence of Mr Cordiano, moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr35, An Act to revive P.J. Construction Limited.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
ONTARIO BUILDING OFFICIALS ASSOCIATION ACT, 1992
Mr Martin moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr40, An Act respecting the Ontario Building Officials Association.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
TORONTO ATMOSPHERIC FUND ACT, 1992
Mr Marchese moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr45, An Act to incorporate the Toronto Atmospheric Fund and the Toronto Atmospheric Fund Foundation.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
TOWN OF LINCOLN ACT, 1992
Mr Hansen moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr58, An Act respecting the Town of Lincoln.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
CITY OF TORONTO (NATURAL GAS PURCHASE PROGRAM) ACT, 1992
Mr Marchese moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr61, An Act respecting the City of Toronto.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
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MODERN OPTICAL LTD. ACT, 1992
Mr Cousens moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr63, An Act to revive Modern Optical Ltd.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
INSTITUTE FOR CHRISTIAN STUDIES ACT, 1992
Mr Marchese moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr64, An Act respecting the Institute for Christian Studies.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
CITY OF LONDON ACT, 1992
Mrs Cunningham moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr65, An Act respecting the City of London.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
RAINBOW HALFWAY HOUSE ACT, 1992
Mr White moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr68, An Act to revive Rainbow Halfway House.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
WOMEN IN CRISIS (NORTHUMBERLAND COUNTY) ACT, 1992
Mr Elston, on behalf of Ms Fawcett, moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr71, An Act to revive Women in Crisis (Northumberland County).
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
CITY OF YORK ACT, 1992
Mr Rizzo moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr73, An Act respecting the City of York.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
CANADIAN MILLERS' MUTUAL FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY ACT, 1992
Ms Witmer moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr75, An Act respecting The Canadian Millers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
CITY OF TORONTO ACT, 1992
Mr Marchese moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr78, An Act respecting the City of Toronto.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
DUCLOS POINT PROPERTY OWNERS INC. ACT, 1992
Mr O'Connor moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr79, an Act to revive Duclos Point Property Owners Inc.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
APOSTOLIC CATHOLIC ASSYRIAN CHURCH OF THE EAST ACT, 1992
Mrs Marland moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill Pr83, An Act to revive Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
The bill was also given third reading.
TOBACCO TAX AND LIQUOR CONTROL STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT (RETURNING RESIDENTS), 1992 / LOI DE 1992 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE LA TAXE SUR LE TABAC ET LES ALCOOLS (RÉSIDENTS DE RETOUR)
Mr Wiseman, on behalf of Ms Wark-Martyn, moved third reading of Bill 85, An Act to amend the Tobacco Tax Act and the Liquor Control Act to provide for the Payment of Tax and Mark-ups by Returning Residents of Ontario / Loi modifiant la Loi de la taxe sur le tabac et la Loi sur les alcools de façon à prévoir le paiement de la taxe et des marges bénéficiares par les résidents de retour en Ontario.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Do you have any comments? Do you wish to debate?
Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): This bill has been introduced in order to help curb cross-border shopping and it's my pleasure to have been able to act on behalf of the Minister of Revenue in this endeavour.
The Deputy Speaker: Are there any comments or questions? Further debate?
Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
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LONDON-MIDDLESEX ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 SUR LONDON ET MIDDLESEX
Mr Cooke moved third reading of Bill 75, An Act respecting Annexations to the City of London and to certain municipalities in the County of Middlesex / Loi concernant les annexions faites à la cité de London et à certaines municipalités du comté de Middlesex.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Minister.
Hon David S. Cooke (Minister of Municipal Affairs): I don't have any additional comments. I made a lengthy speech on behalf of the government at second reading and I commend the bill to the Legislature.
The Deputy Speaker: Are there any questions or comments?
Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): With so many controversies surrounding this bill, I find it very difficult to understand how it is the minister hasn't got any other comments to make to the great citizens of the county of Middlesex. I'm quite shocked and surprised, appalled even, but in any event I would ask him to reply as to why he feels it is unnecessary to explain his totally unexplainable and unacceptable actions in this regard.
The Deputy Speaker: Any further questions or any further comments? Minister, you have two minutes to reply.
Hon Mr Cooke: I'd refer the member to my second reading speech, which was a lengthy speech that went through the rationale and the need for this action. I've visited London on many occasions with regard to this matter and explained why we are moving in this direction to the people in London as well. There is a time when politicians have spoken enough and we just need to get on with it, and I think the time on this bill is now.
The Deputy Speaker: Are there other members who wish to participate in this debate?
Mr Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa East): I'm not surprised that the minister doesn't want to address Bill 75. He's had a great week. He's failed on market value assessment; now he's failing the people of London-Middlesex. He's batting 1.000.
A lot of things have been said about this government, that it can't organize a two-car funeral, but let me tell you that it has added a third car. The first car this week was the MVA car, the second car is the London-Middlesex car, and naturally you need a lead car, the clowns, and that's the Minister of Municipal Affairs this afternoon.
The minister has said on many occasions that governments have spent enough time on Bill 75 after 11 years of negotiations, that we should go through with this expanded expropriation; I call it expropriation.
I think the people of London-Middlesex will remember this day for as long as they live. Personally, I think they're being betrayed by the Minister of Municipal Affairs. Imagine tripling the size of the city of London.
Back in 1988, the people, the city of London, Middlesex and the surrounding communities, were quite satisfied to accept between 22,000 and 25,000 additional acres. But this is a major annexation, maybe one of the largest this province has seen, 64,000 acres of land, and prime agricultural land. Most of this is prime agricultural land.
Why are we doing this? For the sake of growth.
I find it very difficult to believe that the minister would fall for this kind of approach when his own people are saying, "We should stop the sprawling effect of our communities." In fact, I have a copy of a very interesting comment from John Sewell, introducing some tough recommendations to control urban sprawl:
"John Sewell told delegates that cities wanting to expand should be intensifying rather than expanding boundaries and bulldozing farm land.
"'City densities have fallen incredibly in the last 40 years,' said Sewell, who used the city of London as an example of a city that should be intensifying rather than expanding."
Listen to this, Mr Speaker:
"The city of London is preparing to annex 64,000 acres, including prime farm land, which would increase London to 80% of the size of Toronto.
"London had a population of 10,000 per square mile in the 1950s," and Mr Sewell continues, "'If cities are going to expand, they have to expand in a way that has a medium density in areas that are contiguous to the city.'" John Sewell said it; I didn't.
Why is the minister going against the John Sewell report, the John Sewell commission? He was appointed by this government to prevent this type of sprawl, yet the minister is not saying too much about the Sewell report because he knows very well that our municipalities are fast expanding and the costs of these services are very, very expensive.
Let me tell you what AMO had to say about the type of rush of the ministry and the Minister of Municipal Affairs, or what kind of a dirty job they were trying to do on the London-Middlesex people. This is dated May 1992, Municipal World, a magazine that's recognized throughout our 834 municipalities in the province of Ontario:
"From democracy, to autocracy, to hypocrisy
"Disrespect for elected municipal office
"Is democratic provincial government still a reality in Ontario? Or is the word 'democratic' now only to be used as convenient self-serving rhetoric to assist in disguising autocratic intentions?
"Government by the people; that form of government in which sovereign power resides in the people and is exercised either directly by them or by officers elected by them.
"Proposals made by the greater London area arbitrator would see recently elected members of council in the town of Westminster, and members of the public utilities commissions in both the town of Westminster and the city of London, arbitrarilyremoved from office on January 1, 1993," after serving only one year of a three-year mandate, and "the town would be represented until the next municipal election by one person selected by the arbitrator," not the people of London-Middlesex.
"The endorsement of this travesty by the Honourable David Cooke, Minister of Municipal Affairs, exhibits an arrogant disregard for democracy and the equality of rights of Canadians. If unchallenged, these proposals leave all municipal elected offices in this province vulnerable."
The minister appointed a sole arbitrator when the municipal boundaries act failed to resolve a very serious question, but the mandate of Mr Brant, the sole arbitrator, had some very specific or determined points to show. He was given total authority, "Bring me back recommendations, no matter what they are, and I will implement them." So after five months of review, the minister accepted every one of Mr John Brant's recommendations. But the minister had to explain his action to the rest of our municipalities in the province of Ontario, and what he decided in July of this year was to send a letter of apology to every mayor, every councillor, in the province of Ontario. It says:
"It is absolutely clear that the arbitrator's solution for the London/Middlesex area could not be duplicated anywhere else in the province. The geography and the demography of the London/Middlesex area are unique, and the circumstances do not resemble any other area across the province."
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Well, I'd like to remind the minister that every municipality in this province is unique, and I want to remind the minister that the people of London-Middlesex are very unique people as well. They need to make their own decision, and this was not provided to them. I realize that the sole arbitrator, Mr Brant, did hold some public meetings, but I can tell you that I've received over 500 letters from people or groups against this type of unneeded annexation.
My colleague the member for Brant-Haldimand back in June spoke for 90 minutes on this issue, went through the bill with a fine-toothed comb and exposed the bill for what it is. I don't think this minister is realizing the impact that it will have on London-Middlesex. This is a precedent. It's never happened in this province before, and I think this decision today will have a mark on the rest of our municipalities in the province of Ontario.
I continue with the letter of apology from the minister: "I would like to give you my personal assurance that no other area in this province will experience the scope and size of the annexation that was necessary in London." Well, I think the mayors and councillors of our municipalities have lost confidence in the minister for making this type of decision without really attempting or maybe intervening in the process to find a real solution.
I realize that the compensation package will be given to the municipalities affected, and I think it's on page 31 of the bill, if I'm not mistaken -- page 29, section 48: "The city of London shall pay the county of Middlesex, as compensation for a reduction in the county's assessment base, assistance grants totalling $3,600,000 paid as follows," and it goes on and on until 1997.
Well, I call this expropriation. That's what it is. When you expropriate people, you compensate them, and the minister didn't have the foresight or the good judgement to call it expropriation. He still calls it annexation.
The county will lose 35% of its tax base, but at the same time -- I want to go back to the reason why this larger annexation is taking place: It was to provide the city of London with more developable land. I repeat myself: A good percentage, maybe 35% or 40% of the annexed land, is farm land, and he's put a buffer around the total annexation to prevent further annexation.
Well, I think it's a coverup for the simple reason that these farm lands will disappear in the next 10 years. It's true that in the bill the ministry provides for some kind of protection for the next 10 years, but dealing and wheeling is going on right now in London-Middlesex. We are losing farm land every day and this minister will not intervene, and yet this government believes in protecting farm land. They wanted to amend the Planning Act to protect our farmers, and yet today, by introducing third reading of this terrible bill, he will kill most of the good farm land in the London-Middlesex area.
Another thing I'd like to remind you of is that while we were discussing second reading of this bill -- we were in committee going through this bill clause-by-clause -- his transition team was putting in place his new London-Middlesex. How can a committee listen to the concerns of our citizens in London-Middlesex and at the same time be implementing, through his transition team, the very same proposals that we see in the bill?
This annexation will go down in the annals of this province for a good number of years. The minister reminds us every day and every minister reminds us every day that they have to create partnerships. "We have to work together." I have an article from a magazine published by Municipal Affairs that's called Up Front, and here's what the minister has to say:
"During the past two years, I have tried to approach my tasks keeping three things in mind: The role and authority of locally elected governments must always be recognized and respected. The provincial government has a responsibility to help ensure that municipalities have the tools they need to plan their futures. And, perhaps most important, if governments at all levels are going to overcome the economic and social challenges facing us in the '90s, we must work together as partners.
"I believe we have made a good start during the past two years in establishing a relationship of trust and respect." Well, I want to tell you that close to 700 letters on my desk are not very respectful of the decision of the minister. "As the provincial government continues with its ambitious" -- imagine -- "reform-minded agenda, I look forward to hearing from you."
The very same people who wrote to me wrote to the minister and never got full satisfaction. Even people appearing before the committee told us time after time that this minister, this ministry, has not listened to the people of London-Middlesex, and Mr Brant never reflected the ideals and the approach that the people of London-Middlesex wanted their future city to look like.
Again, I think abolishing a duly elected commission like the PUC and appointing members, not electing members, will reflect on the future decisions of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. I think our mayors and our councillors throughout the province of Ontario are keeping an eye on this House this afternoon. They want to see what the ministry and what the minister are doing and will do again; will repeat the same procedure. If the minister doesn't approve of the Municipal Boundary Negotiations Act, then he should amend it and amend it in the House and not name a sole arbitrator to do a hatchet job like Mr Brant did.
I think the environmentalists of this province are keeping an eye on this annexation. I think John Sewell is keeping an eye on this annexation, but he won't have too much to say, for the simple reason that all of this annexation will be in place by January 1. It reminds me of the MVA debates that we've had in this House when we reminded that very same minister: "You do have a Fair Tax Commission in place. Why don't you listen to them before we go through with Bill 94?" Finally, he saw the light at the very last minute and pulled the bill.
I'm asking the minister today to pull Bill 75 and revisit the bill with people in the London-Middlesex area so that we can reach a compromise that will be favourable not only to his ministry but to the people of London-Middlesex.
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The Deputy Speaker: Are there any questions? Are there any comments? There being none, are there any other members who wish to participate in this debate?
Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I'm pleased to rise today and be part of this debate with regard to the annexation of London-Middlesex, Bill 75.
I've noticed through some of the debates that have been held and the meetings that were held here at Queen's Park in committee, the amount of amendments that were dealt with within that committee. During the two days of hearings, with the minister and the four MPPs representing the affected areas, they heard 63 presentations on the legislation and there were many people who came before the committee to deal with it.
Earlier today, somebody indicated -- I believe it was the member for Middlesex -- there are 28 members in her party who are opposed to this legislation. It will be interesting today when we vote on this legislation to see out of the amount of members who are here, the amount of members who are going to take part in that voting procedure.
When the hearings were held, there were many people who came before that committee. One of them was Roger George, who is president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. Some other people were with him who made presentations to the committee. Their point of view was from the agricultural point of course. Most agriculture-oriented people are interested in retaining good farm land.
They indicated that the size of the annexation was not justified. That was what we heard of most. When we look at the 64,000 acres, predominantly class 1 and class 2 agricultural lands, it gives cause for concern.
When I read some of the Hansards on some of the presentations that were made -- I refer to Dr Andrew Sancton. He's a resident of the city of London. He's employed by the University of Western Ontario where he teaches in the political science department and his specialty is local government. He was accompanied to that meeting by a councillor. He wanted some time to be able to put his points of view on the record.
He said, "You have, I believe, my written brief that was sent before you decided on the extra day of hearings.... I want to make three major points and two minor ones. The first is the lack of research that has been done on this large annexation. The second is the lack of support for the large annexation. The third has to do with joint servicing agreements. These are all issues which have been talked about considerably," but never really addressed, Mr Speaker.
We look at the annexations that have taken place in many areas without previous planning. The minister now indicates, "We will give you so much time to put your plans after the annexation is done." But what planning was done and what research was done to indicate where the boundary lines should be or where the most appropriate place would be to draw the lines and thereby leave those small municipalities with at least a viable municipality to continue, which they have not done, which they have totally, in a lot of cases, taken away.
The first major point he wanted to talk about was:
"I believe we are in this mess, and I think it is a mess, because the previous Minister of Municipal Affairs, Mr Sweeney, decided that London's 1988 proposals were not sufficiently comprehensive. I searched in vain for evidence or research that supports this position. There were no public hearings prior to this conclusion being arrived at and no comprehensive research was commissioned."
That's telling us the start of some of the problems.
"That particular study says -- and I'm only quoting this because we're trying to find some real research that's been done here and it's hard to find it -- 'The best option for Westminster's sewage is a new large treatment plant south of Lambeth that would discharge the sewage directly into the Thames River or into Lake Erie.' But it says, 'We can't look at this because it would cost too much, it's not a serious proposal,' and no further study was done."
What study has been done to indicate where the sewage is going to go and all the problems and expenditures that are foreseen with regard to the builtup areas? I observed within the document with regard to the real estate agent that had made presentation on behalf of some 1,400-plus people in the real estate industry that she was looking at.
But anyhow he goes on and he talks with regard to:
"The report goes on to say: 'A preferred option is the collection and pumping of virtually all town raw sewage into the city of London for treatment by their facility. Although this option may not be politically feasible, it is technically, financially and environmentally sound. If some form of negotiation and agreement are to result, this option should be investigated further.'
"I might be wrong, of course, but I see Minister Sweeney's intervention as an attempt to make this option politically feasible, but without allowing for joint servicing agreements. Of course, I want to talk more about the joint servicing."
Servicing is one of the major issues in annexations. I've seen a lot of annexations that have taken place and I look back at the Barrie-Vespra-Innisfil one, whereby there was $27 million given to Innisfil township. The city of Barrie got major concessions with regard to the amount of infrastructure that it was going to have to put in to service the lands that needed service. But the interesting part of it all is, most municipalities that are annexing abutting property have land within them that is on septic systems already, and here they are saying, "We've got to have all this area for proper planning."
You know, Mr Speaker, most rural municipalities are not opposed to being annexed. They're not opposed if it's right, if it's proper and if it's appropriate, but if it's within the reason of that municipality that wants that land to use it.
The other day I drove through Barrie and I looked at the areas where the line was drawn where that annexation took place. Today the city is built to that line. I understand what's happening there. Now they need more land. Now is the time then to proceed and, if they need more, to extend it. But that was done, I think, at that time right. But the large land grab that London is asking for, in my opinion, is not right.
All official plans and zoning bylaws have to be approved by the minister, so it doesn't matter whether it's within the rural municipality or whether it's within the city. The controls can be put on regardless. So the reason to annex 64,000 acres more than what the city, more than what the county wanted to agree to is far beyond anybody's belief of why they would want that large acreage.
It draws me to the other annexations that I have seen that have taken place in the county of Simcoe now. They call it restructuring, where the municipalities have agreed, but there are some that have not because of the boundaries. I urge the minister and his staff to make sure that those municipalities can sit down together and come up with a regional solution to it. By doing that, you do it through planning and you do it through your zoning.
They don't need to be five miles or three miles outside of the town of Midland in the township of Tiny because they say they want to control the land. You control the land through zoning and official plans and it all has to be approved by the minister anyway. So when we look at the London-Middlesex annexation and that 64,000 acres, it's beyond anybody's comprehension of why this would be allowed to happen.
Not only that, the other part that I want to discuss briefly is the fact that one individual was appointed as an arbitrator to bring in a report; one individual. What is now going to happen with the Sewell report and the Sewell recommendations that are going to be coming in? There's a lot more to this annexation than meets the eye.
I read somewhere that there were several amendments that were brought in. There were over 20. The ministry incorporated over 20 amendments to be reviewed and approved by committee during the clause-by-clause hearings -- 20 amendments. Was that because of the committee hearings that those changes were made? They wanted the city of London to adopt an official plan by January 1, 1995, two years from now. This bill also gives the minister power to no end through regulation and that's something that we have discussed in this Legislature on many occasions: the amount of power through regulations that, after bills are passed, the government has.
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It gives the minister the powers to identify an urban service, to define what costs of the city of London will be related to that urban service, to designate upon what area or rateable property, including business assessment, the related costs shall be raised, and to require the city to levy a special rate on that area or rateable property, including business assessment. These are giving the minister all of those powers.
I look further to the remarks within the committee by Dr Andrew Sancton, who, as I mentioned earlier, was at the University of Western Ontario. He teaches political science and his specialty is in local government. He was the one who was saying, "Why so much land?" We all realize that London has to grow. We're not opposed to that. I don't know of anybody who is. But it's the process that's gone on and it's the amount of land that's being taken that makes one want to participate in a debate like this. He said: "No one, and I repeat, no one I know of wants an annexation this large. As a political scientist, this is an absolutely fascinating process. We seem to be lurching towards a conclusion that no interest wants and so -- it was a question that was asked before by Mr Grandmaître -- one has to wonder."
He says: "If in fact the two alternatives are what's in Bill 75 and no annexation, I will tell you that I support the city's position. I've many friends in Westminster and they probably hate to hear me say that, but that's my position. London needs more land for growth." He supports that position, which we all do. "But it is absolutely ludicrous to say that there are only two alternatives. There is a vast range of alternatives in between, including the city's original 1988 proposal, which, I repeat, has now got the support of the county and the town of Westminster as well."
There were also some issues raised with regard to the airport. Where the airport is already serviced by the city, why do they want to put it within the city boundaries? It's already being serviced. Was there a need for that? Is it because of the person who was there as an arbitrator thought that was appropriate?
Dealing with Bill 75 is going to be part of a bill that's going to be introduced with regard to the county restructuring in the township of Tiny. To see what's happened here, I hope that the annexation and the restructuring taking place in the county of Simcoe will be handled in a different manner. It is being handled in a different matter to a certain extent, because it was the county that adopted the report. Although not all municipalities agreed to it, it was the county that adopted it. The minister had indicated very strongly and he says, "The province accepts the final reform package." He's relying on the county council's decision. But this London was totally different. It was one individual who made the decision of where it should be changed.
I said to the minister's parliamentary assistant with regard to the county restructuring, if there's some agreement that can take place between the township of Tiny and the town of Midland, I would hope that they would be able to proceed in a manner that would satisfy those municipalities. I want to say here, the bottom line is, with the London annexation there is nobody that I know of who is opposed. We know they need it, but the fact of the matter is -- and my colleague the member for London North is supporting it; I understand that -- it's the process and the way it was done that I'm concerned about, and I want that changed for the next process that we're involved in. The amount that's being taken is totally unacceptable because, as I have said, the minister has the final say whether he wants to zone it in regard to planning or with regard to official plans.
Those people in rural Middlesex don't want this annexation to take place. They would say, as any reasonable people would say, "If it's right and appropriate, we will agree to it," because they're reasonable people in rural Ontario, the ones whom I know. They will accept a lot smaller proposal, which they indicated that they would before in the agreement with the city of London.
So I think if reason would prevail, this boundary line would be an awful lot smaller and it would be to the satisfaction of everyone. I know the member for Middlesex has spoken on this in the Legislature, and I read her comments. She indicates there are some 28 of her colleagues who are also opposed to it.
The old saying is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." But if it's broken, you should fix it, and I believe that's what should take place here.
The Deputy Speaker: Are there any questions or comments? Are there any other members who wish to participate in this debate?
Mrs Irene Mathyssen (Middlesex): It's with profound regret that I rise to speak to the third and final reading of Bill 75, the London-Middlesex Act. During the election campaign of the summer of 1990 I stated that a limited annexation was the best solution. I reiterated that position in correspondence and conversation with the minister through the late fall of 1990 and, indeed, through all of 1991.
I must say that in the last two and half years I've heard a great deal about the history, the obstacles, the possibilities, the salient points regarding the resolution of the London-Middlesex boundary dispute. At the end of the day I am still absolutely convinced that the only sensible, fair and workable solution is a limited annexation with coservicing.
Two proposals have emerged in the last few weeks and the minister has rejected both on the grounds that there will be problems regarding implementation, that the work to enact Bill 75 has gone too far, that a great deal of money has already been spent, that people in the area will not accept the changed and reduced annexation. The fallacy of this position is that it ignores the many and serious problems that Bill 75 creates, ignores that it is never too late to change a bad decision, that a mistake does not cease to be a mistake just because it's an expensive mistake, and that the majority in London and Middlesex -- and it is the majority -- have stated that there must be a limited annexation. Even now, after months of pain, months of argument, months of anxiety, that majority would welcome a reduced annexation as an act of courage that came from honest listening and sincere re-evaluation by a government searching for a fair solution.
In 1988 the city of London put together an annexation package that it believed fair, workable and affordable. The Liberal government of the day rejected that package and did so because the Liberals said it wasn't comprehensive enough. The city of London and the county of Middlesex were told to go back to the table and find a solution that contained a larger annexation. The reasoning was that unserviced industrial-commercial development on the fringe of the city must be serviced and would best be serviced by the city of London.
The reaction of the council of Westminster was a clear refusal to give up its significant tax base. The town of Westminster depends on it to maintain the village of Lambeth and rural communities. In point of fact, the assessment of the town of Westminster is about 20% of the county of Middlesex's tax base, but the 1988 proposal was, and has again, been rejected because London was to provide servicing to the industrial and commercial development in Westminster.
The argument was that it would make sense for land serviced by London to be in London. This is a significant part of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs' rationale for annexing Westminster out of existence, because without its tax base, Westminster has conceded it could not remain as a viable municipality.
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The irony of all of this is that London will not be able to service this area of Westminster. The reality is that because of the watershed and topography of the area in the southwest part of London, London would need to build a new sewage treatment plant in the southeast of the city. The city can't afford this, and it can't afford it for a number of reasons.
First, the cost of this annexation is going to put a great deal of stress on city coffers. Full costs have not clearly been determined, even now. The city will need two satellite police stations, and more personnel on both the police and fire departments; $34.5 million for compensation to the county; $1 million in perpetuity for suburban roads; there will be increased road maintenance and snow removal costs; sewage service must be provided to South Winds and Canterbury Estates; the wages of city and PUC employees will need to be harmonized, and displaced Middlesex staff have to be employed by the city of London; London must finance the cost of a new official plan; the London Board of Education will need an additional secondary school, and London will have to provide for expanded library service. The list is very long, and the lion's share will be borne by London taxpayers.
I rather suspect that the members of London council, who joyously embrace Bill 75, will view things quite differently when faced with the fiscal realities of this excessive annexation. The chickens may well come home to roost in the city of London, in more ways than one.
London cannot afford this southeast sewage treatment plant. In addition to that, the topography in the southwest corner of the city dictates that only limited sewage treatment is possible. It cannot extend beyond the needs of South Winds village.
Bill 75 has also dictated that no future development can occur unless it is on urban services. That's the laudable part of this legislation. We must protect our environment better than we have in both Middlesex and London.
That brings me to a rather curious part of the MMA argument for annexation. There is the repeated contention that Westminster must be annexed to London to prevent undesirable development. This was stated in remarks made on November 19, 1992, to the standing committee on finance and economic affairs, and I'd like to read them into the record.
"The position of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs in so far as joint servicing is concerned is that we feel it's not good long-term planning for two reasons: One, we feel that the people should have a vote for the government that provides their critical and basic services and, two, we feel that it encourages continued fringe development, which, regardless of the user-pay for hard services, does result in increased use of the host city's soft services by users who aren't paying for them."
Since the geography of the southwest prevents further development, then why annex it? It can't be developed; Westminster cannot participate in further fringe development. Second, the people who live in areas surrounding London are not users feeding on the host municipality. The people in and around the city work, shop and seek recreation in the city of London; we contribute substantially to the economic vitality of the current city.
Those are some of the reasons that London put forward a proposal for a limited annexation, with coservicing, in 1988. The city knew it could not afford a massive annexation and the servicing costs in the midst of the boom of the mid- and late-1980s. It surely can't afford it now in the recession of the 1990s.
The passage of Bill 75 signals a loss of a unique opportunity, a chance to lift municipal boundary decisions out of the archaic mindset that dictates that pipes, rather than communities of interest, determine municipal boundaries.
We had a golden opportunity to forge a new vision for Ontario's communities. We had a chance to encourage them to flourish in a cooperative, cost-effective way that would have respected the differing aspirations of rural and urban residents. Westminster could have continued as a distinct community and been an effective partner in the economic renewal of the London-Middlesex area.
The payoff would have been that London would have had more than ample room for planned growth. The county of Middlesex would have retained a significant tax base, compensation costs would have been far less, cooperative planning would have delivered services in a cost-effective manner and, most important, the people of the area would not have faced the serious dislocations that are about to become a legislated reality.
Those dislocations include the shift of a rural population into an urban centre, displaced Middlesex municipal employees, disruptions to students and staff of the Middlesex County Board of Education, increased urban pressures on rural communities and a profound sense in the rural community of disenfranchisement.
I'd like to briefly touch on some of those dislocations. The London and the Middlesex county boards of education are still negotiating the options available to resolve the problems created by changing boundaries. Three options are available: one, to retain current board boundaries; two, to establish new school boundaries; or, three, to effect total amalgamation of the two school boards.
The first option creates problems connected to the rights and expectations of newly annexed students. If they reside in the city of London, they have the right to attend city schools and benefit from extensive city board programs.
Option two creates financial hardships for the Middlesex board. The loss of tax base and assessment is a serious problem. In addition, some 307 students could be transferred from their current schools to London Board of Education schools. More than 20 teachers and three support staff would be compelled to transfer to the London board. Many questions have yet to be answered regarding the transfer and transportation of students, as well as the salaries and job security of staff.
The third option would require the London board and its tax supporters to help finance about 30 additional schools, 1,100 students, 617 teachers and transportation costs. The London board is extremely reluctant to enter into amalgamation because it will require extensive restructuring at significant cost.
Displaced municipal employees are still experiencing varying levels of duress regarding their job offers from the city of London. In fact, two of those employees have been given titles without any job descriptions. There is real fear regarding their job security.
The regulations for the rural advisory committee to the council of the city of London have yet to be tabled. There has been reference made to the committee that will participate in planning and land use decisions in Bill 75, and that's fine. Unfortunately, what has been forgotten are the daily needs of a rural community. Municipal councils respond to concerns about fences, drainage, animal control, weed control and dust problems. The rural advisory committee must have the authority to function like a municipal council to meet those needs. If it does not, the people in the annexed areas will indeed be disenfranchised. The city has stated reluctance to provide the committee with any real authority. That is an issue I intend to continue to pursue.
I would like to remind you that these are all dislocations that would have been avoided had the effort been made to pursue the more creative route of a reduced annexation.
Before I close I would like to address one last point. It has to do with the proposed regulations to protect agricultural land, more than 100 working farms that will now be part of the urban centre. These must be very stringent regulations indeed and, even more important, there must be an ongoing political will to enforce these regulations. I'm afraid I have limited faith in that ongoing political will.
I'd also like to talk about what has been happening in the newly annexed areas -- for quite some time, in fact; certainly it's been accelerated since the second reading of Bill 75. Speculators have increased their activities in the area. I ask you to consider the long-term effects of such speculations. These investors, as they call themselves, come along with their options to buy and farmers begin to rethink their plans for the future.
Farming requires a long-term commitment to the land, a commitment that spans generations and involves considerable investment of money, time and hard work, often at a very low rate of return. The option to buy casts a shadow on that commitment, and the effects become increasingly apparent. Farm buildings are not maintained, fields are not planted or the soil not properly maintained. The land is compromised and the farm declines. That is a situation that no one can regulate. This is a legacy of which no one can be proud. I'm aware that time is short. In fact, for many in Middlesex it has indeed run out.
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I'd like to finish by saying that in the last year I've desperately searched for the right words, the arguments that would turn aside this decision, that would pave the way to another resolution to this boundary dispute. In the past two years, I've provided information, arguments, suggestions and solutions regarding the London-Middlesex dispute. Quite frankly, what I've said has been discounted. There have been times when I felt utterly powerless in all of this. It's a strange feeling for one who came here with such high hopes and with such a wish to help make the kinds of decisions that would have strengthened and benefited my community.
I've searched for the words, the way to turn aside this annexation, and now I'm desperately searching for a positive side to what has happened. Perhaps there is: Perhaps there's some hope, perhaps there's some good that can come from this, and if there is, it truly rests with the people of Middlesex. Those people, my constituents, have united in a strong network of support and collaboration throughout all levels of the community, and it is this strong network that we must now rely upon to make sure that the city will indeed pay attention to the rural needs, the rural interests, the rural aspirations that have made Middlesex county a unique, a remarkable and a wonderful place to live.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): I wish to thank the honourable member for Middlesex. Questions and/or comments?
Mr Ron Eddy (Brant-Haldimand): I have a few minutes left, but perhaps I should just sit and meditate on this matter and hope that the other members --
No, I commend the speech of the honourable member for Middlesex to the minister, and I hope the minister for municipal affairs -- or minister against municipal affairs, whatever the title should be -- takes the time to read that. I appreciated very much all the work done on that, a lot of good facts, and I'll certainly back the member's request that the area be changed. I think that's the key to it, and it could be done so easily and it could be done now. I wish more of the members had listened to that speech.
I don't like to be personal. However, the minister has been very personal with me. I well remember, when I started as the first speaker against this bill at second reading, that I had said a few sentences, and in the London paper issued that afternoon was the accusation by the minister that the Liberals were holding up the act and some other things. However, we'll go on.
I was interested in the minister's speech the other day when he was withdrawing the bill on market value assessment for Metropolitan Toronto. He was doing it because he'd listened to the people and it had an effect on him; he responded to the will of the people. It appears to me that he has not listened to the citizens of the city of London, the citizens of the county of Middlesex, its constituent municipalities, and indeed he is not even listening to 28 or 29 of his colleagues. That's most unfortunate.
I agree with the comments of the member for Ottawa East, who said, "It's not really an annexation at all; it's an expropriation," because that really is what it is. Maybe it's a gift. It's more of a gift.
The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments? If not, the honourable member for Middlesex has two minutes in response.
Mrs Mathyssen: I'm sorry, Mr Speaker. I will admit to a certain emotional involvement that sometimes causes me to drift off. I really have nothing to add, other than that I do regret that there hasn't been the possibility for a creative solution.
When the arbitration process began last January, I thought: "Finally, the people have been brought into this process. They will be given a chance to speak and they will be given a chance to provide the kind of wisdom and input that only people who have lived through the turmoil the Middlesex constituents have endured could put things into perspective."
I trusted the arbitrator would hear them and I trusted that the arbitrator would find creative and new ways of settling this boundary dispute, because the old ways don't work. I referred to them in my speech as archaic, thinking of the past. I was looking for something for the 21st century, something that didn't create walls.
For the last while, I've been thinking a great deal about one of my favourite poets, Robert Frost. One of his more famous poems is Mending Wall. In that poem, the line is, "Good fences make good neighbours," but if you read the poem, you discover that fences only create prisons. Good fences only allow us to insulate ourselves and not communicate and respond and react outwardly.
I think that's been the legacy of this bill and this boundary decision.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate on third reading of Bill 75?
Mr Eddy: As I was saying, it's not an annexation by the city of London, because the city of London never applied to annex these lands. It's not an annexation by the village of Belmont, which is in another county, because the village of Belmont council didn't pass a bylaw to annex these lands. And of course it's noted that only Middlesex lands are going; no Elgin county lands are going. It's a mess all around.
So we're back to Bill 75, third reading. I would hope the honourable minister would see fit to make a change, because if he made a change he could have a signing ceremony, he could have the mayor of London and the mayor of Westminster and all of the other officials at a signing ceremony signing the agreement. However, that apparently isn't going to happen.
We're back to Bill 75, the barnyard bill, as I call it. I want to tell you why I call it the barnyard bill. The bill is unilateral, it's dictatorial, it's unfair, it's flawed and it's foul, and it should go to the barnyard and be disposed of in the same manner as other materials in the barnyard are.
We had hearings. Yes, there were hearings by the finance committee and many people appeared, and they opposed the annexation of 64,000 acres. Not everyone opposed it, because there were people there who made presentations who are anxious to get on with the transfer of lands to the city of London. And there are certain environmental problems that need to be faced, and there are servicing problems that need to be corrected as soon as possible. We know that and we should get on with that.
Mention was made of the amendments that were proposed in the committee. There was a considerable number, over 50; believe it or not, two got through. One was to call a by-election for the citizens of the annexed area so they would have the democratic opportunity to elect their representative. I proposed it and, thank heavens, the government members saw fit to be fair and democratic on this occasion and approved it, whereupon the minister phoned the mayor of Westminster that night to announce that I had done that and to apologize because the government members had been fair and democratic. He apologized to him.
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The mayor of Westminster said to me: "Ron, I told the minister it was the best thing that could happen, because there is so much controversy in that area that it's far better for me to run in a by-election. If I'm elected, I'll represent the people, and if I'm not, someone else will. It's democratic. I approve it." I said at that time that if the honourable minister would talk to more people, he might find more easy solutions. I think he would have and could have. It's awfully important.
There was one other small amendment, but that was one we got through, and it's most unfortunate that some of the others -- the main one, of course, being the area. It's the area that needs to be changed. It's the very great land mass -- 64,000 acres is a very large area in anyone's reasoning -- of productive farming; a lot of it is productive. It's a shame and I disagree with it. I think it should be changed now.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and/or comments?
Mr Robert V. Callahan (Brampton South): Just very quickly, I'd like to congratulate the two members. To the member of the government, it takes a great deal of guts to go against your government, yet it's something I think all of us can learn from, that we, as members of the Legislature, are elected to represent the people of our own communities. If the government got that message, a government of whatever stripe, we'd have far better representation in this province in terms of ensuring that the people who elected us can rely on us to vote our conscience and vote their needs, not in all cases but in many cases, as opposed to always being joined at the hip and feeling that we have to vote the party line of the government to ensure we might have an opportunity for cabinet.
I hope the member of your party who had the guts to speak out for the people in her community will not suddenly be elevated to the back row and have her rights to cabinet denied. I think that she, as has my colleague on this side, has expressed a view that is representative of what the people in this province want us to do as elected members of this Legislature.
Finally, in the spirit of the time, once again, I'd like to wish each and every one of you the compliments of the season. Merry Christmas. We'll see you, hopefully, very early in the new year.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and/or comments?
Mr Grandmaître: I'd like to commend my colleague the member for Brant-Haldimand, who has worked very hard on this bill. Clause by clause, you could depend on the MPP to bring up his views, and he knows the area very well. He introduced proper amendments that would have improved the annexation model or program introduced by the minister.
I want to take advantage of the one minute left to commend and congratulate the member for Middlesex. I think she has done an excellent job, not only in committee but in defending the people of London-Middlesex, and by introducing a proposal which was turned down by her colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs. I think she deserves a lot of credit for standing up for what she believes in, and that's a fair deal, not only for the people of London but the people of the county. I think this annexation will go down in history as the worst annexation -- maybe I should take that back -- expropriation, as I mentioned a little earlier; I call it "expropriation."
They tried to buy not only votes, but they tried to buy some of the farmers who were really upset because they were losing their farms, and they will not succeed because the people of London-Middlesex will remember the actions of this government.
The Acting Speaker: Further questions or comments?
Mr John Sola (Mississauga East): I too would like to congratulate the member for Brant-Haldimand for an excellent presentation on Bill 75, and I want to say that if anybody in this House knows what he's talking about when it comes to Bill 75, it's the member for Brant-Haldimand.
He worked in that area as a staff member. He worked at the political level. He was involved right from the beginning of negotiations, right now to the final conclusion. That's why I must say that I was deeply offended when the member for Brant-Haldimand, when he was still sitting two seats away from me, got up to speak on second reading -- he had just made his introductory remarks and I don't think had even gotten into the first five minutes of his speech -- and the London Free Press carried the headline that the Liberals were filibustering Bill 75. Then we read that the accusation was made by the government House leader. This was after, I think, they had passed the legislation limiting our speeches to 30 minutes. If anybody in this House had something concrete to offer, had some in-depth knowledge to give to that bill, it was the member for Brant-Haldimand.
I would like to again congratulate him on giving us his expertise, on giving us some input into the experience he has had in negotiating this deal and in knowing it right from scratch, down to the present, being involved every step of the way. Had the government listened to some of his suggestions more closely, it probably would have avoided some of the negative ramifications that it is experiencing as a result of this bill.
The Acting Speaker: We can accommodate one final participant for questions or comments. Seeing none, the honourable member for Brant-Haldimand has two minutes in response. No response. Further debate?
Mrs Dianne Cunningham (London North): I would like to sincerely thank the members for Ottawa East and Brampton South for introducing me this afternoon, because I will be speaking on behalf of my constituents, which I was elected to do, just as the member for Middlesex has done, and I can appreciate her point of view.
The city of London views annexation as the key issue facing both London and Middlesex. There were municipal elections held about a year ago now and the mayor who was elected was voted in clearly on the issue of annexation.
I should tell you that in the region of southwest Ontario, there is a need for planned urban growth to meet the economic, environmental and social wellbeing of not only the city, but of the London-Middlesex region. Over the period of time, I can tell you that many of us have had to sit back and listen to the concerns of many citizens, mainly from the county of Middlesex, because there were three things that I would have hoped would not have had to happen in the way they did, and I'm going to say them first and then I'm going to talk about why I think they did happen.
I did not expect that the PUC would have been abolished by arbitration. However, there has been an agreement, and all sides seem to be agreeable with the final solution.
I personally did not think for one minute that we would have been facing such a large annexation, and I think it's true that because of the size of this annexation, we're going to rely more than ever before on a very professional, responsible transition. So far I have to tell you that in speaking to the members of the transition team from all sides that they've been very pleased with the negotiations as they took place up until the end of last week.
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Most of the issues to do with employment, to do with the committees that are going to be struck, to do with the fine lines that have to be negotiated around small boundaries that affect individuals, have all been talked about and people are well on their way, I think in a very positive way, to solving the problems that have been raised by the citizens. But I will also say that one of the downsides, again, for me was the need to appoint an arbitrator in the first place.
I moved to London at the end of the 1960s, in 1969, and I moved into an area called Orchard Park that had been annexed in 1962. I very quickly, in 1973, became chairman of the Board of Education for the City of London, and I can tell you that in the 30 years since annexation, London has grown carefully. It has been planned. The school board hasn't been faced with undue costs. They have worked on the schools that were annexed to upgrade them over a 30-year period. Just this year, one of the major secondary schools, Oakridge Secondary School, will in fact be receiving for the first time some major alterations.
So it hasn't been a city that could be accused of a very quick, uncontrolled growth. It has been a city that has been controlled, that boasts its fair tax rates. People like to live there, and I think they will love to live there in the future.
With all due respect, the real issue before us today is the question of urbanization, and that means orderly urban growth. I think that with this annexation, although the disappointments I have mentioned are not going to be easy to overcome, they can only be overcome in the days and weeks and months ahead. That's going to take the elected representatives of both the town of Westminster, through a by-election, and the city council of London working very closely with the members of Middlesex to make sure that everything moves forward in a planned way.
We have never seen an annexation that hasn't been objected to. I was reading the debates in the House for the annexation in 1962. I have to tell you that the member of the day, who was the Minister of Agriculture of the day, Bill Stewart, faced the same challenges that the member for Middlesex, Mrs Mathyssen, faced, and he faced them with the same kind of grace and dignity. I have to say he became a very big part of the process after the annexation and earned the right to be elected again because of his ongoing interest.
I will say that he didn't have to face the issue of the school boards, because the school boundaries were a part of the annexation. There was no discussion as to where they would be. They became the same boundaries as the land that was annexed. I would urge the negotiators, the local negotiators, if they don't want an arbitrator again, to for heaven's sake get on with it and negotiate locally.
But I would urge, on behalf of employees and parents and school board trustees, that these be open, honest negotiations. London has a precedent for these kinds of negotiations with the Robarts school and again with the provincial school out at the Children's Psychiatric Research Institute, CPRI, so it isn't that London, Middlesex and the London-Middlesex Separate School Board haven't had a great deal of expertise. I hope they will look back to the other negotiations, where they clearly set out the areas of dispute with the employees as well as the trustees for public scrutiny.
There is a wide range of sensitive issues involved in this land use, but I do think that this inclusive bill that actually dictates the committees that are to be struck will solve, I hope, the problems faced when we look at land use, environmental controls, social planning. All of these issues must be addressed, and I think there were amendments made and suggestions made at the public hearings that we had in London in the fall that have been addressed with this legislation.
Some of the amendments to the initial arbitrator's report have to be as a result of those public hearings when the minister did appear in London and listened very carefully. What we were afraid of was a shortsighted, piecemeal solution. It's simply not adequate for London and Middlesex or southwestern Ontario, nor is it adequate for any other jurisdiction.
We firmly stand behind Bill 75 for the city of London, because it does propose what we wanted, which was a one-tier government system responsible for a large urban area, for several reasons, including a reduced cost in delivery of service and duplication often found in two-tier systems. I know that we will be proud to have that kind of government, because other large governments, Metropolitan Toronto and regional governments, have failed. This will not be a regional government; it will be a local government.
Bill 75 accomplishes a broad spectrum of answers to serious concerns that we've been facing over the last decade. It places lands having the greatest potential for industrial development, lands along the Highway 401, 402 and 100 corridors as well as the London airport area under the city's control, thereby improving viability of servicing for these areas and taking full advantage of the city's economic development services and programs. We believe London is in the best position to provide services efficiently and reap the benefit of economies of scale necessary in this competitive marketplace.
In recent months, and I think this is very important for all members of the House to note, the positive impact of Bill 75, the fact that the government said it would move forward with it, has already come to the forefront. Although there are negatives, and I've spoken strongly about them, I think we have to understand that in today's world we are looking for investment in our municipalities and we're looking for jobs for our people.
Dimona Aircraft of Austria has purchased a vacant manufacturing facility and will begin the construction of light aircraft, hopefully within the year. This plant requires municipal water, sewers and services to become operational, services that only the city has the wherewithal to provide. It was a key element in them choosing to come to Ontario and Canada as opposed to going somewhere else.
Without the boundary adjustment, this facility and the potential for literally hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in investment would have been lost not only by London but by our entire region and Ontario. It is the confidence of investors like Dimona that built this province. We simply cannot lose sight of that in an economy that is facing unprecedented challenges from a global market.
I think after today we will move on in a positive manner. I know that the member for Middlesex talked about the costs and they are of significant concern. The last numbers that we got from the city of London were 2% to 3% increase maximum, with that going back with no cost over the next decade.
Only with the support of our communities, with the support of Middlesex county, with the support of all the committees and the city council working together can we continue to be a vibrant city. Although many of our people are without jobs and we're suffering the same losses as other areas during this tremendous time of challenge, I would hope that the real reason for this is planned growth and an economic future for yet another part of Ontario that over the last 10 years quite frankly has been stifled.
It is my responsibility to stand here today and voice my opinion on behalf of the citizens I represent. I think I have done that over the years and there would not be a change in that today. However, I do understand some of the objections from some of my rural colleagues. I guess my great hope is that they get as involved as we try to be in our community. I have to say with regard to some of the Liberals who have spoken, they had an opportunity to fix this three years ago, even four years ago, and they didn't do it.
Right now, I would plead with all the municipalities that are looking at annexation processes to get their work done locally with the people who were elected to make decisions.
Thank you for the opportunity to put my remarks on the record this afternoon.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and/or comments?
Mr Eddy: I of course listened with interest to the remarks of the member for London North, representing the city of London. It's true that it's a large, single-tier urban government which has many advantages for servicing and indeed I guess that's really the problem. It's a large urban government that is now going to have some 64,000 acres or somewhat less than that that is rural land to govern.
The member stated that it was the only municipality that could provide the services, but I'd like to point out to you that the towns of Strathroy, Westminster and Parkhill, the villages of Lucan, Ailsa Craig and Glencoe all have sanitary sewer systems and municipal water supplies and they're much smaller than the city of London. I'd like to point out that indeed the water that's used by the citizens of the city of London is not city water; it's provided by a provincial pipeline that comes from Lake Huron. Everybody along the way that uses it pays a share of the pipeline the same as the citizens of the city of London.
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Indeed, there are several townships that have municipal water supply. The most northerly township, McGillivray, has almost as many miles of water pipeline in the municipality as it does roads. What does that tell you about a rural municipality and rural government? Rural governments can also face the problems and meet the servicing requirements and do the proper thing and there are many examples in this province. So it is a provincial pipeline. Everybody pays its share and, yes, the city gets it and sometimes areas beyond the city. But most municipalities get it before it ever gets to the city of London, so certainly the city has had a unique opportunity in that regard.
The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments?
Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): I don't profess to be any expert on this matter of the London annexation, though I have certainly had an opportunity to hear from a number of people in that part of Ontario. I know the member for London North is obviously very familiar with this matter, particularly how it will affect her urban municipality.
In looking at the bill and in listening to a number of the submissions one of the aspects of this whole policy that would certainly attract my attention if I were a taxpayer, a ratepayer, in the city of London is what the downstream consequences in terms of tax increases are going to be, because there is no question this is a very significant annexation. There will be real and growing pressure in the annexed area for city services at city prices.
I can say this, whether from the current New Democratic government or any successor Liberal or Tory government, there is not going to be and no one should expect there to be very much money coming from Queen's Park to assist the city of London in paying for the expansion of high-cost services into the annexed area. If I were a resident of the city of London, if I were on London city council, I would want to know more than I know now about who is going to pay the bill three, five, eight and ten years from now, because I can tell you this, it will not be the provincial government.
We are broke today and it is likely that we are going to be even more broke three and five years from now. So we celebrate a great annexation in Bill 75, but for the taxpayers of the city of London this bill is going to occasion significant tax increases and cost pressures that I don't think we fully understand at this point.
The Acting Speaker: Further questions or comments? Seeing none, the honourable member for London North has two minutes in response.
Mrs Cunningham: Just in response to the member for Brant-Haldimand and his remarks about water, if it was water that we were concerned about, I can assure you that we wouldn't be looking at an annexation. But it's planned urban growth with respect for environmental services, education services and social services as well, obviously, as sewers. There's no doubt in my mind that if we were just looking at water, he's quite right, we would not be looking at annexation because that would be the wrong reason to annex a large piece of property.
I was convinced by the member for Renfrew North that he's quite right, he doesn't know very much about this annexation. I appreciate his standing in the House to say that today because not too many people have got that kind of courage. But I will say --
Mr Elston: Oh.
Mrs Cunningham: Well, he's being fair. I'm not being facetious. He's being fair. This is a very difficult issue. But I did take the time last week to take a look at the financial projections on behalf of the joint committee that's looking at this transition, and the best numbers they had was a 2% to 3% increase. These are the same arguments that were made 30 years ago and London enjoys a very fair and modest tax rate for the services that they provide because they have had a very well managed municipality. I see no reason for us not to continue in that regard and quite frankly, because of the remarks from the member for Renfrew North, I think that's a challenge to us to make sure that we don't.
Therefore, all I can say is that these kind of things only work when people work together. Even some of the people who were against it are down there working on side now to make this transition smooth and to make the future management of this enlarged city one that we can be proud of, as we have been in the past.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate on third reading, Bill 75.
Mr Dennis Drainville (Victoria-Haliburton): It gives me great pleasure indeed to follow in the footsteps of the honourable member for Middlesex who has, I believe, outlined her point of view so well today and has given us an insight into some of the complexities of this very difficult bill. I rise today to look at three issues and I'm going to do that in about five minutes.
Firstly, in terms of process, one thing that I think is absolutely essential for us as legislators, as we attempt to respond to the needs that are expressed to us on the part of various communities throughout the province, is the importance of government to be listening and responding to people.
I believe that in this Bill 75 the process has not been a good one. In fact I believe I would even go so far as to say philosophically, in terms of legislation and how we prepare legislation, that if there is bad process, it will result in bad legislation, and I think that is an indication that we have in the bill we have before us today.
I read for a moment from the Hansard from the committee that was looking at this particular bill, Bill 75. Michael Troughton, a professor from the department of geography, University of Western Ontario said:
"May I add that I personally believe that the arbitration process came to be a flawed one. I sat through most of the hearings. I heard may of the people who made presentations. In my opinion, the recommendations of the arbitrator, as reflected in Bill 75, in no way reflect the majority opinion which was sought during those hearings. So there is to me a tremendous discrepancy between the stated purpose of the arbitration hearings, to get public opinion and input, and the results that came out at the end."
This is often the case in government, period, but more to the point here in terms of Bill 75, we have, I believe, a bill that is flawed and essentially flawed in many different ways. Not to belabour that point, I move very quickly on to the document that was sent to I think all the members from the county of Middlesex on the impact of the annexation on the county. For instance, and I think this bears reading into the record, "The annexation of the amount of land recommended by John Brant will result in Middlesex county losing 35% of its property tax base and 20% of its population."
We go on to read that:
"Middlesex county will still be expected to deliver quality health services, despite the reduction in the county's tax base. The London-Middlesex health board will also be abolished. Further, Middlesex county will lose 64,000 acres of agricultural land. Middlesex county is consistently one of the top three counties in all of Canada in terms of the value of agricultural assets, $1.3 billion, and agricultural output, $350 million."
I would like to just say in that regard, this is precisely the point that so concerns me as a member of a rural riding. I believe that the flaws in this bill are significant flaws, that with all the protestations swept aside for a moment, there is no committee that can be set up which is going to ensure that agricultural land is protected adequately. To put that into the hands of a municipality is like putting a lamb in with a lion. We know, in terms of the holy scriptures, that that is something that may happen at the denouement of the age, but I want to say, it is not something that I would recommend at the present time.
So I want to say that this is a bill which is flawed. It is a bill that I personally will be voting against, and I am sure that the member for Middlesex has persuasively said to the members of this House that we must continue to ensure that if we're going to put forth bills that have a significant effect on agricultural land we need to ensure that those bills reflect to the greatest degree possible the needs and aspirations of the agricultural communities.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and/or comments?
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Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I compliment the member and join those who believe in preserving agricultural land in our province. For a number of years I have been one who has been in this Legislature to help protect agricultural land from being encroached upon by development. Here's a good example where we have an opportunity to save some agricultural land, very good, productive agricultural land, and we have, of all governments, an NDP government allowing it to be gobbled up by an urban municipality.
I've sat on the stage with the member for Welland-Thorold on many occasions, the member for St Catharines-Brock, the member for Lincoln, the member for Niagara Falls, even the member for what used to be Erie, Niagara South now, where we've talked about preserving agricultural land. I've always known these people to be strong defenders of that, so I'm anticipating that each one of us from the Niagara Peninsula will likely be voting against this particular bill which enables a large city to gobble up top-notch agricultural land, class 1 agricultural land.
One of the things I think people were attracted to with the New Democratic Party, even when it didn't win but got a significant portion of the vote, was the stand of the New Democratic Party on preserving agricultural land. I happen to have been attracted by it over the years, not enough to tow me into the party but certainly to pass compliments to them and to work in conjunction with NDP members when in opposition, particularly the former member for Welland-Thorold -- and the present member has the same views -- in trying to preserve agricultural land. We've had many a discussion in this House on that, which is why I cannot believe that this government would now be entertaining a bill which would allow good agricultural land to be gobbled up. It's a resource that we must preserve for the future. It's a resource that we must preserve not only for ourselves but for people around the world. I implore members to vote against this bill.
The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments? The member for Renfrew North.
Mr Conway: I just want to say a couple of things, because this bill is not one that I'm going to have an opportunity to speak to. There has to be an annexation in London; I don't think there can be any question about that. It's been observed earlier that previous governments struggled with that and didn't come to any conclusion. I know something of the history of that, and I won't bore or embarrass people as to why that was the case, but it's certainly my view that there has to be an annexation.
The member for Victoria-Haliburton is quite right: What we've got here is a very dramatic incursion of the city of London into the county of Middlesex. I defy anybody who knows anything about that county to tell me what kind of viability is left when Bill 75 passes. I mean, in my area, if you know anything about the old county of Carleton, after the urbanization that has developed around Ottawa in the last 25 or 30 years what is left now of the old agricultural county of Carleton is, I suspect, what we will have left in the old county of Middlesex. I can imagine, though I don't live in the area, some alternatives, but I personally do not believe that there will be very much integrity in terms of an organizational unit to the county of Middlesex once the city of London is expanded pursuant to Bill 75.
I just can't believe that there's any thoughtful person inside the Legislature, inside the government, inside the London-Middlesex community who imagines that when you expand the city of London, as we will with this bill, there is going to be much of Middlesex left. I say again, I'm from Missouri: I am very sceptical. I hope the member from London is right. I hope there are very modest and moderate tax increases, but I say again, my guess is that on the basis of past experience the taxpayers in London are in for some very stiff increases down the road.
The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments? Seeing none, the member for Victoria-Haliburton has two minutes in response.
Mr Drainville: I have no further comments to make.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr David Winninger (London South): I too would like to commend the member for Middlesex for the fortitude and unflagging determination with which she has represented the interests of her constituents in her riding.
It's no secret that London is one of the fastest-growing areas in Ontario, if not in Canada. I think it's an attractive place for investment, and earlier this year it was found to have the lowest unemployment rate of any municipality in all of Ontario and the third-lowest unemployment rate in all of Canada.
It's a well-managed city. As the member for London North just observed, it was recently found by the Financial Post to be the best-managed city in Canada in terms of delivering services for tax revenues collected.
Growth is certainly required for London's economic prosperity, but at the same time, that economic growth has to be balanced with sound social planning and with environmental and agricultural protection. It has to be managed growth. The official plan must highlight this province's commitment to compact development, to residential intensification and protection for environmentally sensitive areas and valuable farm land by reducing urban sprawl. As one of the presenters noted, Carol Small from Middlesex county, I believe, "A country without farms is a country without a future."
We must have comprehensive planning to prevent piecemeal development we have been all too guilty of in the past, and that not only applies to London but to some extent the surrounding area.
As the city prepares its official plan, due by 1996, for the expanded area, the regulations must spell out mechanisms for mandatory public and provincial participation, providing for meaningful involvement by a wide variety of local area interest groups and consultation with our provincial ministries.
For example, my friend Sandy Levin of the Thames Region Ecological Association and others involved with TREA are working with the transition team, headed by Grant Hopcroft, a member of our board of control, to ensure that environmentally sensitive areas are not only identified and inventoried but are also protected.
Social activists, like my friends Charles McNeil, Susan Eagle and Gina Barber of the London Social Planning Council, are working actively with the transition team to ensure that there are adequate components of social planning in place for the annexed area, and they include affordable housing, social services, child care, health services, fire and police protection, education, including adult education and retraining, transportation, including Paratransit, recreation areas, community meeting centres, arts and cultural programs and multicultural services. These all must be addressed in visionary planning for London's long-term future.
We must work to ensure that no one loses his or her job as a result of the annexation or the change in the public utilities commission. We must protect seniority, pension rights and other benefits. A steering committee is working towards this protection, which can be granted under a minister's order.
I was pleased that the hearings that were held last September in London and the public hearings held here at Queen's Park, extended as they were to include many of the deputations that wouldn't have been included had the hearings not been extended, resulted in a commitment to address my concerns and many of the concerns addressed by the presenters at the hearings around social, environmental and agricultural planning, including the establishment of the Rural Issues Advisory Committee.
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I would have preferred that a local solution had been arrived at, but the planning needs of London and the surrounding area unfortunately can't wait another 40 years. But the solution must not be without provincial involvement to protect our concerns around planning -- which I'm confident will be echoed by the Sewell commission, which reports next year -- and not without a strong input from community interest groups.
London deserves not a quick short-term fix but a long-term visionary plan, and I'm confident that in working as a province with the municipality of London and surrounding townships and community groups that we can achieve that vision.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and/or comments?
Mr Conway: Boy, my friends in Middlesex should be so happy. It's so wonderful now that the member for London South has come with his beneficence to bring these poor souls out of the dark age or they would never prosper. To hear this submission is to imagine that these people in the county of Middlesex were really in some kind of, as I said earlier, dark age. I just find some of the suggestions in the honourable member's speech a little bit hard to take.
I heard the member for Middlesex make her argument, and she is obviously in a difficult position. I accept that there must be an annexation. I'm not quarrelling about that, but I'm telling you, I just find it a little hard to accept the notion that somehow this is the only measure of progress, that this is the only mechanism for orderly development in that area.
To give any urban municipality substantially more than it asked for is, in my experience, unprecedented. Bill 75 is going to be unprecedented inasmuch as it is going to set a very interesting example that I suspect a lot of other urban municipalities are going to want to copy. They're not going to want to go through the regular channel. Why would they? Why would they, when they can now hope that they will get what London has received in Bill 75?
I simply want to make the point on behalf of the good people of Middlesex that I do not believe they were in as underdeveloped a condition as some of the implication of the honourable member's submission would suggest.
The Acting Speaker: Further questions or comments?
Mr Eddy: I was not going to speak further on this matter, but, considering what's been said just a few minutes ago, I think it's necessary.
Planning has been mentioned. It appears that some of the speakers may not think there's any planning in Middlesex county, but every local municipality, every rural township save one, have official plans, have updated their official plans and they're into the planning situation. It's true that there are some severances in rural areas, but around the city there's been a development freeze for some three years with no development and no services.
In addition, the county has an official plan. I just say that the county waited a few years, till the provincial government allowed counties to become designated municipalities, to have an official plan. There are social amenities out there. It's not a wasteland, I assure you. There are multicultural centres, there are museums, there are small art galleries throughout the county in some of the urban areas.
The other thing I must speak to is the point that was made that the city could not wait another 40 years; I think it was 40 years. The city did not need to wait another 40 years. I wanted to point out that the honourable minister had an alternative. Instead of one arbitrator, a city arbitrator who knew very little about country government -- in fact, I was asked, "How does the county impose its will on the local municipalities?" which it doesn't -- he could have appointed a three-person board of arbitration, one representing the county, one the city, one the province, in the same time frame; or he could have said to the municipal leaders, "I will give you so many weeks to come to a solution, or I will appoint it." There were all kinds of alternatives that could have been used.
The Acting Speaker: Further questions or comments? The member for London South has two minutes in response.
Mr Winninger: I won't require two minutes, because I haven't heard any of the members opposite disagree with my observations that community growth has to be balanced with sound planning.
I, unlike the member for Renfrew North, do not have a crystal ball with which to divine the future, but I sincerely hope that other communities across Ontario are more successful in reaching a local solution and an effective solution than my own area has been.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate on third reading of Bill 75? Is there no further debate? Seeing none, Mr Cooke has moved third reading of Bill 75, An Act respecting annexations to the City of London and to certain municipalities in the County of Middlesex. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?
All those in favour, please say "aye."
All those opposed, please say "nay."
In my opinion, the ayes have it.
Call in the members; a 30-minute bell.
Interjection: A 10-minute bell.
The Acting Speaker: Do we have unanimous agreement? Agreed. It will be a 10-minute bell.
The division bells rang from 1808 to 1818.
The Acting Speaker: All those in favour of third reading of Bill 75 will please rise one at a time to be recognized by the Clerk.
Ayes
Akande, Allen, Bisson, Boyd, Buchanan, Carter, Charlton, Christopherson, Churley, Cooke, Cooper, Coppen, Cunningham, Dadamo, Duignan, Farnan, Ferguson, Fletcher, Frankford, Gigantes, Grier, Haeck, Hampton, Hansen, Harrington, Haslam, Hope, Huget, Jamison, Klopp, Lankin, Laughren, Mackenzie, MacKinnon, Malkowski, Mammoliti;
Marchese, Marland, Martel, Martin, Mills, Murdock (Sudbury), O'Connor, Owens, Perruzza, Philip (Etobicoke-Rexdale), Pilkey, Pouliot, Rae, Rizzo, Runciman, Sutherland, Swarbrick, Tilson, Turnbull, Ward (Brantford), Waters, Wessenger, White, Wildman, Wilson (Frontenac-Addington), Winninger, Wiseman, Wood, Ziemba.
The Acting Speaker: All those opposed will please rise one at a time to be recognized by the Clerk.
Nays
Arnott, Bradley, Callahan, Caplan, Conway, Cousens, Curling, Drainville, Eddy, Elston, Henderson, Jordan, Mahoney, Mancini, Mathyssen, McClelland, McLean, Murdoch (Grey), O'Neil (Quinte), O'Neill (Ottawa-Rideau), Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt), Poole, Ruprecht, Sola, Sorbara, Stockwell, Wilson (Simcoe West).
The Acting Speaker: The ayes are 65, the nays are 27. I declare Bill 75 carried. I resolve that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.
Mr Elston: On a point of order, sir: It is getting close to the end of this session. I think it ought to be brought to the attention of the Speaker of the House that there is but yet one vacancy by way of retirement from this House. The riding of St George-St David has been vacant since September, and as a result the people of this province are going without representation. The Premier is here in this House and I would ask that he tell us when the by-election is going to be called.
The Acting Speaker: Thank you. It is not a point of order.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Order, please.
Hon David S. Cooke (Government House Leader): I'd like to call the 28th and the 36th order, with unanimous consent, at the same time.
The Acting Speaker: We had unanimous consent yesterday to proceed with item 28 and item 36.
PAY EQUITY AMENDMENT ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR L'ÉQUITÉ SALARIALE
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 102, An Act to amend the Pay Equity Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'équité salariale.
PUBLIC SERVICE STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE LA FONCTION PUBLIQUE
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 169, An Act to amend the Public Service Act and the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur la fonction publique et la Loi sur la négociation collective des employés de la Couronne.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Do we have opening remarks? We are into debate. The honourable member for Oakville South had the floor when the House was closed down. Do we have further debate on item 28 and item 36? Is the House now ready for the question? Agreed. One at a time.
Mr Mackenzie has moved second reading of Bill 102, An Act to amend the Pay Equity Act.
Is it the pleasure of the House that Mr Mackenzie's second reading of Bill 102 pass? Agreed? No.
All those in favour please say "aye."
All those opposed please say "nay."
In my opinion, the ayes have it.
I declare Mr Mackenzie's motion carried.
Shall the bill be ordered for third reading? Agreed?
Hon David S. Cooke (Government House Leader): Mr Speaker, the standing committee on justice.
The Acting Speaker: The bill will be going to the standing committee on administration of justice.
Mr Silipo has moved second reading of Bill 169, An Act to amend the Public Service Act and the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act.
Is it the pleasure of the House that Mr Silipo's bill carry?
All those in favour please say "aye."
All those opposed please say "nay."
In my opinion, the ayes have it.
Call in the members. A 30-minute bell.
We have a request. Do we have unanimous consent for a 10-minute bell?
We now have a request for a five-minute bell. Do we have unanimous consent? Agreed. A five-minute bell.
The division bells rang from 1827 to 1832.
The Acting Speaker: Could all members please take their seats. Please take your seats. We are now moving to item 36. All those in favour of Mr Silipo's Bill 169 will please rise one at time and be identified by the Clerk.
Ayes
Abel, Akande, Allen, Bisson, Boyd, Bradley, Buchanan, Caplan, Carter, Charlton, Christopherson, Churley, Conway, Cooke, Cooper, Coppen, Curling, Dadamo, Duignan, Eddy, Elston, Farnan, Ferguson, Fletcher, Frankford, Gigantes, Grier, Haeck, Hampton, Hansen, Harrington, Haslam, Henderson, Hope, Huget, Jamison, Johnson, Kormos, Lankin, Laughren, MacKinnon, Mackenzie, Mahoney, Malkowski, Mammoliti, Mancini, Marchese, Martel, Martin, Mathyssen, Mills,
Morrow, Murdock (Sudbury), O'Connor, O'Neil (Quinte), Owens, Perruzza, Philip (Etobicoke-Rexdale), Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt), Pilkey, Poole, Pouliot, Rae, Rizzo, Ruprecht, Silipo, Sola, Sorbara, Sutherland, Swarbrick, Ward (Brantford), Waters, Wessenger, White, Wildman, Wilson (Frontenac-Addington), Winninger, Wiseman, Wood, Ziemba.
The Acting Speaker: Thank you. All those opposed to Mr Silipo's second reading of Bill 169 please rise to be identified by the Clerk.
Nays
Arnott, Callahan, Cousens, Cunningham, Eves, Harnick, Jordan, Marland, McLean, Runciman, Sterling, Stockwell, Tilson, Turnbull, Wilson (Simcoe West).
The Acting Speaker: The ayes are 80, the nays are 15. I declare the motion carried.
Shall the bill be ordered for third reading? No.
Hon Mr Cooke: Standing committee on justice.
The Acting Speaker: The bill will be going to the standing committee on administration of justice.
CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY
Resuming the adjourned debate on concurrence in supply for the following ministries:
Ministry of Agriculture and Food
Ministry of Health
Ministry of Education
Ministry of Housing
Ministry of Transportation
Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology
Ministry of Community and Social Services
Ministry of the Environment
Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations
Ministry of Natural Resources.
Ministry of the Solicitor General
Ministry of Tourism and Recreation.
Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): Point of order.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): On a point of order, the honourable member for Bruce.
Mr Elston: Mr Speaker, in the standing orders there is a provision which deals with decorum in the House. I felt that maybe at this point if I offered the best wishes of the season to the members of the other caucuses from the Liberal caucus's representatives, perhaps that would help the decorum of this House. May I wish to all the best and most prosperous aspects of this holiday season.
The Acting Speaker: As the member for Bruce knows, it was not a point of order, but it's a very timely point of the season.
Mr Ernie L. Eves (Parry Sound): Point of information.
The Acting Speaker: To the honourable member for Parry Sound, on a point of information.
Mr Eves: On behalf of our caucus --
Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): Including Stockwell?
Mr Eves: Even including the member for Etobicoke West. I know you find this hard to believe, Mr Speaker, but everybody in our caucus would like to extend to not only the public but each and every single member of the Legislature nothing but the best of the season and a very happy, healthy new year.
The Acting Speaker: I see the Premier. The Premier is recognized by the Chair.
Hon Bob Rae (Premier and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): I represent the spirit of Christmas future. Let me express, on behalf of our caucus -- I've had a chance, I think, to say hello to most of the people tonight -- to say how much we want to wish everyone a very happy holiday season, time to spend with your families and time to be able to reflect on the year that has passed, marvellous -- mirabilis -- as it has been, and also to reflect a bit on the future and say to members of my own group that we still have some work to do tonight and we will see the session through, but to wish the very best and also to say to the member for St Catharines how much I'm looking forward to listening to what he has to say.
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The Acting Speaker: Now we move back to the business at hand. The honourable member for Algoma-Manitoulin had the floor when we last debated concurrences. We continue in the rotation.
Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): I'd like to participate in the debate on concurrence in supply for the ministries. Specifically, I'm interested in the Ministry of the Environment and how some of the policies of the Ministry of the Environment are affecting my riding of Dufferin-Peel.
I'd first like to make a few general comments. Many of the comments that I make I'm sure affect all of us in all of our ridings.
The transfer payment issue, of course, has given us all great concern on how it's going to affect us in all of these different ministries that are before us, how it's going to affect the municipalities, the school boards, the hospitals, the colleges and the universities, all of these people.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Dennis Drainville): Order, please. The honourable member for Dufferin-Peel has the floor. Could I ask those members who are presently in the discussion mode to please remove that discussion from the House and respect the honourable member for Dufferin-Peel in his remarks.
Mr Tilson: I've been indicating that the municipalities, the school boards, the hospitals, the colleges and the universities, all of these groups are absolutely incensed, not only in my riding but in all ridings around this province on the government's breach of promise that was made to provide the transfer payment increase of 1%, 2% and 2%. That has been changed, of course, now that there will be 2% next year and minus 2% the next year.
I must say that certainly the three school boards that I have in my riding -- the school board for the county of Dufferin, the separate school board for Dufferin-Peel and of course the school board for Peel, all of these municipalities -- are no different than many of the municipalities around this province that are trying to plan ahead on fiscal policy. They are gravely concerned as to where they're going on their policies because of this breach of promise.
There's no question that the fallout there will be with respect to property tax hikes, program cuts, longer hospital waiting lists, bed closures and loss of possible hospital jobs are giving people in my riding of Dufferin-Peel grave concern.
The government of course has scrapped the $241-million grants program for college and university students. Tuition for our young people who are attending universities has been hiked by 7%, and this was despite a party policy to eliminate tuition. We recall their promises during the election to eliminate tuition. Student groups and many students in my riding are simply saying that because of the policy of this government, post-secondary education will simply become too expensive and that education will become something for the rich and that the average person in this province, who is perfectly capable of attending university, is going to have grave concern in attending our universities.
The whole subject of job losses and the fiscal policies of this government, I submit, certainly the issue of the recession and policies of other governments within and without this country, have caused concerns, but there's no doubt that when we look at the various bills that have been put forward in this House there is very little to encourage investment, not only in my riding of Dufferin-Peel but in other ridings throughout this province, specifically because of the pro-union extremist philosophy which is not helping the encouragement of investment and the creation of jobs in this province.
I emphasize that jobs and educational quality are both threatened by this policy. All school boards are saying this and all school boards are concerned. If the Treasurer continues with this process of cutbacks in education funding, then boards will obviously have no choice but to reduce school programs, and that in turn affects the creation of jobs, the loss of jobs and the quality of education in this province, which we've always been proud to boast of around the world, as to the quality of education in this province. It gives the people of Dufferin-Peel grave concerns with that issue.
I must make a brief comment. This appears to be the last day of this House, although I've learned in my short experience never to rule anything out. It appears that we're going to end this session this evening and I must say I have been waiting for a decision on the subject of Sunday shopping.
I know this is very difficult for many members in this House, on all sides, and there appears to be wide-open Sunday shopping in this province, notwithstanding the fact that the bill has never been voted on. The bill that was introduced by the government has never been voted on. We're under the old law, so technically all the businesses that are operating in this province on Sundays are breaching the law, and of course that law is not being enforced. I don't know what the government intends to do with Sunday shopping, whether it intends to just let things go and perhaps deal with it next March or April or May or June or just forget about it, because we in effect have Sunday shopping in this province and have never had an opportunity to properly debate it.
I have grave concerns on the lack of responsibility of this government. Whether you're for or against it, we've never had an opportunity in this House to debate that issue. I think the government has breached its obligation to the people of this province, again whether you're for or against the issue.
I will say that I believe there are probably as many people in my riding who are for Sunday shopping as against Sunday shopping, but the fact of the matter is, that bill is a very important bill to many of the people in this province. That law is a very important law to the people of this province and it's a major departure from where the philosophy of this province has gone.
There are many workers who have approached me in my riding and have said they are being forced to work on Sundays. I know what the government says, "Oh, well, we're going to have a law that's going to protect those people," but the fact of the matter is we're here on the last day of this session and that issue has never been disposed of. I must say it gives me grave concerns, notwithstanding the hundreds and hundreds of petitions that have been filed in this House objecting to the whole philosophy of Sunday shopping. Those have been presented in this House from many ridings and from many members on both sides of this House.
The subject of auto insurance: We're proceeding into public hearings. It appears they're going to start on January 24 or 25 -- someone could correct me, but I think it's January 24 or 25 and I have grave concerns on that subject. We've spoken on that and I won't spend anything further other than the fact that if any members of the public wish to appear before that committee, they should immediately contact the clerk of the committee and indicate their willingness to appear and make their submissions to the committee.
I have grave concerns about the whole philosophy of this government on gambling casinos, the implementation of the pilot project in Windsor. I can't for the life of me, listening to the philosophy of the New Democratic Party at its conventions, listening to members in this House, reading Hansards on the whole subject of gambling, on the whole subject of how they were opposed to lotteries -- and now we're starting a project on casino gambling in the province of Ontario without any impact studies.
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I represent a semi-rural agricultural community in Dufferin-Peel. Many of the people in my riding rely on the horse racing business, the agriculture that is required for supporting the horse racing industry, whether it be the feed people or the farms that care for the animals, the tack people and all the various industries that are connected to the horse racing industry. We have a track in Orangeville. I hope my prediction is wrong, but if gambling casinos develop, as it appears this government has indicated that it intends to do, I have grave concerns about what effect it's going to have on the horse racing business in the town of Orangeville and all the industry that surrounds it.
This government appears to be going willy-nilly, without any conceived plan. They've got some sort of project team wandering around Windsor trying to determine which direction they're going to go on gambling casinos. Are they going to get into a Teranet joint venture with some large corporation, from Atlantic City or Las Vegas or one of those people, to develop a casino? We hear of possible casinos across the river in Detroit and whether that will affect the gambling business in Windsor. The whole concept just doesn't make any sense.
The minister herself has stood up and said: "We're going to have this pilot project and we'll see how it goes. We'll put something forward and we'll study it." Well, there have been no studies to date. This has already cost the province of Ontario the $2.5 million the Treasurer has put towards this project, and that's before a shovel has even been put in the ground. We have no figures, we don't know what it's going to cost, we don't know the impact it's going to have on charities, we don't know the impact it's going to have on the horse racing industry, on the agricultural industry.
I do hope that between now and next March the government has second thoughts on the implementation of its gambling casino policy. I know that -- I shouldn't say I know. I cannot believe that the caucus of the New Democratic Party isn't gravely split on this issue of gambling casinos in the province of Ontario, and I hope that those who are opposed to it continue to work within your caucus and persuade the Treasurer and the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations to change their minds or at least slow down that whole issue until we can see where we're going.
I wish to spend the next 15 minutes, which is all the time I hope to address the House, on the issue of the environment and where the Ministry of the Environment is going with, unbelievably, millions of dollars that are being spent on the issue of disposing of our waste.
Bill 143: We spent a lot of time in this House in debate, which was eventually closed down through closure. We spent much time on hearings, although at that time we didn't know the sites, we didn't know the 50-odd sites spread around this province. I can assure you, with that and the dictatorial powers Bill 143 gives the Minister of the Environment, there would have been much more objection and much more opposition to Bill 143, because now the people of Ontario realize the unbelievable powers the Minister of the Environment has in that subject. They are worried not only for environmental reasons but for all kinds of others reasons.
The minister refuses to look at the whole subject of incineration. I'm not saying whether incineration is good or whether it's bad. I will say that it is inconceivable that this province will not look at that subject. There is an incinerator in Brampton, and the emissions coming from that incinerator are less than the emissions coming from the traffic around that incinerator.
I know that the Minister of the Environment has opposed the whole incineration process since she was a municipal councillor in Etobicoke or wherever she came from. I hear the stories that that's how she got into politics, to fight an incinerator that was being developed in her ward, or her riding, whatever it was at that time.
Incinerators have changed unbelievably since then. I have emphasized in this House that the incinerators that are being put forward in Europe, Japan and the United States appear to be working. Again, I emphasize that the very least we should do is look at that subject.
The northern half of my riding is the county of Dufferin, of which the main municipality is the town of Orangeville. The town of Orangeville does not have a landfill site and hasn't had one since the early 1970s. For a time, it was disposing of its waste in Keele Valley, until I guess Keele Valley suddenly realized we were putting our waste down there and cut us off. Then we've gone to different places such as Innisfil and places like that. Currently, the town of Orangeville is shipping its garbage to the state of Michigan.
I'm a member of the GTA group that the Minister of the Environment speaks of. I represent the northern half of the region of Peel and I represent the county of Dufferin. Her philosophy is that each area must get rid of its own garbage, the GTA must get rid of its own garbage, yet when you just step over the border from the town of Caledon into the town of Orangeville, which is literally a step, there is a municipality which, under the guidance and direction of the Minister of the Environment, is shipping waste to the state of Michigan. That has been going on for some time, and it appears it will go on, because there's no other place to put the waste. The county of Dufferin is in the process of finding a landfill site. That's a very lengthy process, as well it should be, because we need to be concerned about where we're going to place our waste.
The town of Caledon originally had 15 of the 21 sites that were chosen for the region of Peel. That now has been short-listed in the region of Peel to five landfill sites, two of which are in the town of Caledon. I would like very briefly to refer to those two sites. One site is called C-48. It is between the 3rd Line and the 4th Line on the south side of the 5th Sideroad, which is Healey Road. This area is just north of Bolton, which is at the southern tip of my riding of the town of Caledon.
The other site, which is called C-34b, is on the 5th Line of Albion, just south of King Street. Both of these sites are essentially in the old township of Albion. This Bolton-South Albion community is a closely integrated and highly populated area of approximately 15,000 people. When combined with Toronto Gore to the immediate south, it has over 18,000 people.
If one of these sites is chosen, which the minister has given projections of being chosen possibly in the next number of years, it's estimated that the combined population in this area, before the site opens, will be over 24,000 people. Most of this area, including Bolton, is serviced by wells. Both of these sites are located in or near the middle of the area and the population centres. One of these sites, by itself, essentially covers one half of the land area of Bolton.
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It's not wanted, and it's not a NIMBY attitude. We're looking at the whole philosophy of a rural community in this area that has been a agricultural community since the 1800s and perhaps earlier.
Both sites have active farms. People by the name of Piercey own one farm, C-48. C-34 is owned by two people by the names of Jefferson and Wilson.
Both sites are within the flight paths of Pearson International and Bolton heliport, so there's a grave concern with the issue of birds that are attracted to landfill sites and the safety of airplanes flying into Pearson International Airport and the Bolton heliport. I believe the federal Department of Transport, has regulations prohibiting -- I shouldn't say "prohibiting"; not regulations, but rules. They're not a violation, but certainly principles have been set forward by the federal ministry suggesting that landfill sites should not be constructed within a certain radius of a heliport or airport, and both of these sites are within those regulations. It's most inappropriate, certainly as far as the federal regulations are concerned.
C-34 has a permanent stream located on site and is a wetland, has a habitat for wildlife. C-48 is beside the west branch of the Humber River and has much wildlife in the ravine. I would encourage members of this House, particularly those of you who are interested in the environment, to drive through these areas.
Estate lots have been built. There are beautiful homes in this area. Some of them haven't even been finished. I'm talking about substantial, large homes. I don't know where in the world the government is going to get the funds to expropriate these homes. That's not including the beautiful homes that are to the edge of them that won't qualify for expropriation. They're going to be in the path of the 700 trucks a day that are going to be coming from south Peel to the town of Caledon to dispose of their waste in our beautiful community.
It's predicted with respect to C-34 that significant groundwater drainage would be required. C-48 has no sanitary sewer system in the immediate area. I don't know who's going to pay for all of this. I suspect this government will say that the people of the town of Caledon are going to have to pay for it, that the property taxpayers are going to have to pay for it. They'll say, "We don't have any money to do it; you'll have to do it."
And not only that: The provincial government will say that either it or the IWA -- which I believe will become the PWA, the permanent waste authority -- will retain the tippage fees. Anyone who dreams that the region of Peel is going to get the tippage fees is simply in a dream world, because it's just on the line, and either the province of Ontario or the IWA will be receiving the tippage fees.
Where's the money going to come from, the millions of dollars that have been spent? Do you know that in a search for a dump in Caledon $8 million had been spent by the taxpayers of the town of Caledon before this terrible group of people got into office? All that money, all that research has simply been thrown away. It's not being used; it's simply being thrown away, $8 million. It's inconceivable, the hours that have been spent by the staff of the municipality of the town of Caledon, all for naught, all because these people come up with the bright idea of putting garbage dumps in the middle of prime agricultural lands. It's inconceivable.
The haulage costs to the Albion sites over 20 years are going to be substantial. You're taking it to the furthest part of the region of Peel, particularly as all of Brampton's and one third of Mississauga's residential garbage is incinerated, and most of Peel's industrial area is south-central Brampton and south-central Mississauga. I've spoken of the very large number of homes that are on both these sites, and of course C-34 is very close to a prestige industrial area, which will be hard to develop near a major dump.
The whole concept of planning, if you're going to have a landfill policy, if you're going to ignore the issue of incineration, if you're going to ignore the issue of the long rail haul, notwithstanding that there are areas such as Kirkland Lake -- and I want to emphasize again: Most members of this House know that I, together with a councillor in the town of Caledon, Mr Frost, attended Kirkland Lake and looked at the Adams mine site and talked to the councils in this area, and they want it, they want the government to at least look at it and do environmental studies to see if it's possible.
You know why? Because they're concerned about the economy in Kirkland Lake. They're concerned that the unemployment in Kirkland Lake, which is now somewhere between 40% and 45%, is going to increase. They want to be certain, of course, that if a landfill site were put in the Adams mine it would be safe. That's all they're asking the ministry to do, to look at it. But this government won't even look at it, notwithstanding the fact that an arrangement had been made with Metro and the Kirkland Lake area to ship the garbage there. They simply canned that deal and said, "Sorry, GTA must get rid of its own garbage," notwithstanding the fact that people in my riding, in the town of Orangeville, are sending their garbage to Michigan. It doesn't make sense.
It is felt by all of the residents in the Albion area that it will certainly destroy the community, a very stable community over the years and an agricultural community. It's a very close-knit area. It's going to affect, I will predict, the water of Bolton. I don't think the people in Bolton have realized that, and I think we're going to have to talk about it more.
The minister says, "Oh, well, the IWA is going to do all kinds of studies." But you know what they did? They took a picture of the area in the wintertime, and that's how they picked the sites initially. They have no idea about the effect these sites are going to have on the agricultural community, on the water and on the ecology of this area.
It is really quite tragic. If you drive through both these areas and look at these sites and listen to the people in these sites, it is tragic, because their lives are absolutely ruined. There are people in these areas who have been living there for 20 to 25 years, or longer, and have moved from the area, but they had wanted to retire in this area. Now they're going to live right next to a superdump. Why would you do that?
Why would you put a superdump in an area that contains agriculture? Why? Particularly when all our governments, whether it be the New Democratic Party, the Liberals or the Conservatives, have always emphasized the importance of agriculture, the food lands policy, to our community. We've all done that. It's as if that's just been thrown out the window.
There's no question that political rather than environmental concerns have taken hold of this government. This is the party that I've always thought was concerned with the environment. I must say, until I came to this place I didn't know the minister. I read her speeches. I listened to her on television and to her criticisms of the Liberal government. It's as if black has become white and white has become black; it's just opposite positions. It's inconceivable, when I hear this minister stand up in question period and answer very simple questions being put, not just for the region of Peel but all areas, on: Why are you choosing this? Why won't you broaden your thoughts? Why won't you look at everything? Why are your decisions political and not economic?
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I'm going to close. I could spend considerable time expressing my concerns. I see the Premier's in the House. I can't resist standing here and reminding him, as he is reminded constantly, of how he stood in Whitevale and said, "There will be no dump in Whitevale."
Hon Mr Rae: Not without an environmental hearing.
Mr Tilson: Well, here we are. The short sites have now been chosen and guess where we now have sites? Guess where? He says, not without an environmental hearing. Well, we are going to have an environmental hearing under Bill 143. God knows what's going to happen there. Who knows what the minister's going to do there, under the powers she has? The Minister of the Environment, Mrs Grier, has set the ground rules for the IWA. She's banned dumps outside of Metro. She's banned incineration. She's banned alternatives such as Metro's plan to haul trash by rail to Kirkland Lake or any other sites. For the Minister of the Environment to call this process fair is like picking all the good chocolates in the box and telling us to pick from the rest any we want.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I appreciate the opportunity this evening, on, unfortunately, the last day of the legislative sitting of the Ontario Legislature, to offer a number of views on a number of different subjects. You won't be surprised to know that the first I will discuss will be those which will be rather parochial, parochial in the sense of my own community, but those which are shared across Ontario.
I'm going to deal initially with the automotive industry and the significance of the automotive industry to our province and our country and, in addition to that, the real need to attack the problems that are out there that are threatening the automotive industry today.
In my 15 1/2 years in this Legislature, I have spent a good deal of time raising the issue surrounding the automotive industry, indicating to members of the Legislature its importance to our province, not only in terms of the direct jobs that it provides in various communities but also the indirect jobs.
I can look around the Legislature on any given day and see people from various communities who are reliant in one way or another on the good economic health of the automotive industry. If I look across at the members from Hamilton, I know that the steel industry, for instance, supplies a lot of materials that have gone into vehicles over the years; a diminishing amount as vehicles have been forced to be reduced in terms of their weight, but nevertheless there is a significant component that is from the steel industry.
If I look at the people from northern Ontario, where we have the resource extraction industry, we know that people who produce nickel, copper, iron and other products, who extract those from the ground and process them, are dependent to a certain extent on the good health of the automotive industry.
If I look to the people from Sarnia and the people from the Brockville area, where we have the plastics industry, we'd recognize once again that these are people who supply goods to the automotive industry.
There are those who directly supply the plants with gloves, with uniforms for people, with equipment they must use in the construction of automobiles and the development of new technologies, in the production of parts for those automobiles. That's where a lot of the jobs are in this province, in a lot of the smaller plants as well as the larger plants.
So there's been a recognition in this House by people from a variety of communities that the automotive industry has great significance, a great impact economically on the entire province.
For those of us who reside in an auto town such as Oshawa or St Catharines or Windsor or Oakville or, in some cases, London, which has a plant, St Thomas and so on, we recognize the importance to our own community. St Catharines in many ways has been labelled as a GM town or as an automotive town, I think with some significance and some relevance, because we have our major employer being General Motors, which has employed close to 9,000 people from around the Niagara region and some who come from outside of the region.
We have Hayes-Dana in Thorold, adjacent to St Catharines, and TRW, which are both involved in the production of parts in the automotive manufacturing industry, and they are significant employers in our area. We recognize as well as anybody the importance of this industry, and that is why we express a good deal of concern about its future when we see some of the ominous signs which have shown themselves over the last several months.
One of the pluses, I thought, for the automotive industry was the 1965 auto pact which was signed by Prime Minister Lester Pearson and President Lyndon Johnson. It was a controlled free trade, if you will, within one sector, sectoral free trade, which allowed goods, parts and whole vehicles to be transported back and forth across the border without the kind of impediments that were there previously.
The auto pact has been good for Canada. Many people in the United States say it's been good for the North American automotive industry. It's the kind of agreement that I believe is more constructive than I saw in the last free trade agreement between Canada and the United States.
In the autumn of 1991, members will recall, I began to ask a number of pretty direct questions about the future of the automotive industry to the Premier, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology and the Treasurer specifically about the future, and I mentioned at the time the engine plant and the foundry specifically in St Catharines.
I think there were a lot of people in the news media and elsewhere focusing on Oshawa, because you have a very large complex there and because it was believed it might be vulnerable to a cutback on the part of General Motors International in terms of its operations. Yet I could see that even our community could be vulnerable, despite the fact that our foundry is one of the most efficient foundries you can find anywhere in the world, despite the fact that our workforce is an excellent, well-trained, well-motivated workforce that has a lot of pride in the product it produces, despite the fact that we're making profits here in Canada.
Anyone who observes the automotive industry through the pages of various newspapers and other publications or watches documentaries on it, recognizes that it's a very complex industry and it's not always as predictable as all of us would like it to be. But one of the things I think everybody recognized was that there was going to be an overcapacity problem in the early 1990s. Virtually every economist, every person expert in the field, was saying this was going to happen.
Finally, in December 1991, when Robert Stempel, the then top person in General Motors, made the announcement that some 84,000 jobs would be eliminated and a large number of plants would be closed. It naturally brought shivers of fear to people in Ontario, some of them in St Catharines, although I think many people thought they would be less vulnerable, perhaps, than the other operations in this province. I wanted to see the government take certain steps on those occasions to try to prevent this from happening.
Ontario is only one player. The federal government is a player, local governments have a role to play, and certainly international circumstances are very significant in this regard. But when I was suggesting that we could be extremely vulnerable in St Catharines, I was hoping it wouldn't happen. There are some predictions we make that we like to see come true and some prognostications we hope will never come true.
People who sit on all sides of this House, people sitting here today, the three parties who have held the reins of power and been in office over the last 10 years, each of the parties -- I always had the feeling that people in the opposition, although they asked direct questions of government, never really wanted to have to capitalize on the hardship that would be confronted by people in a community. We hope we can encourage governments to take the appropriate action, to be a positive factor. I don't think anybody wanted anything bad to happen in these communities.
On February 24, 1992, we got the shocking and bad news -- I tend to keep more old newspapers than I should, I'm told; in my constituency office I have a number and at home I have a number and in my office here I have a number. In fact, it is alleged that one needs a map to get around each of those places from retaining these.
Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): You're the one hurting the recycling industry.
Mr Bradley: I recycle most of them, of course, but there are a number.
The news was not very good. The St Catharines Standard said on Tuesday, February 25, the next day after the announcement: "Decision Final, CAW Told." "Shocked Union Will Seek Alternative to Closing" and "GM Cuts Will Cost Other Jobs." "City Urges Federal-Provincial Assistance." Of course, it's not a very pleasant headline that you notice in our local newspaper. Nevertheless, the news is the news.
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Many of us got together, people from all different political parties, people from various levels of government, civil servants, representatives of CAW Local 199 and those who were in support in the trade union movement -- that included everybody -- and representatives of the company, to determine what we could do to try to turn this decision around. Certainly, the initial message was blunt and bleak, that this was a final decision and that no amount of lobbying on the part of government or anyone else could reverse it, that in effect the problem was capacity, not the efficiency of the foundry and the engine plant -- they're both extremely efficient -- not the workforce, not the motivation of the workforce, not the training that was there; it was just a business decision.
Many of us could not accept that, because of all the work that had gone into it: the large investment by General Motors and the large investment of time, effort, energy and lifetime, in many cases, of people who had worked in those particular facilities. So we formed a committee under the leadership of CAW Local 199, which was, if you want, the Fight-Back Committee or the Save-the-Foundry Committee, to try to find some alternative uses or to try to determine whether we could encourage General Motors to keep the facility open.
People who know the business and know General Motors well know that where they were moving the business, the efficiency could not be guaranteed. And we recognized the importance of the loss of the foundry for the following reason: If you are making the moulds in your own community, you can control the quality and you can control the timing and you can control the cost. Quality, timing and cost were extremely good in terms of that modernized foundry with an expert workforce.
When we heard that it would be moved elsewhere, that the moulds would have to be brought in from somewhere else, that the foundry work would be done somewhere else where we could not control the quality, where we could not control the timing, where we could not control the efficiency and the costs, I think a lot of people were quite apprehensive.
When we lost one of the lines in the engine plant, there was a feeling that perhaps this was just the beginning of what was happening. But people were determined to fight back on that occasion. They had a demonstration at Plant 2, where a lot of people were out there speaking against the closing and encouraging others to work in favour of keeping the operation open. That particular effort continues.
For those of us who are in our own communities -- you know, you watch it on television when it's somebody else's plant. If it's in Kentucky or in Ohio or in South Carolina or in Michigan, one tends to be sympathetic and watches the interviews and understands that those people are going through great stress and dislocation. But when it's your own friends, when it's your own neighbours, when it's your relatives, when it's the people you see every day in your community, it has a different impact. That's what we're talking about in St Catharines, the members from the Niagara Peninsula, St Catharines and the rest of the peninsula, when we see some pretty worried looks on those faces.
For myself, it's people who perhaps are in a service club I'm involved in, the Grantham Optimist club; some of the people there are affected. It could be young people I taught at one time, who are making their way in life, who are married and have a young family and a mortgage and other financial commitments. It can be people I have coached in various sporting organizations, or simply people I've been associated with in my neighbourhood. To see the sadness on their faces, to see the look of apprehension as they see the plant in St Catharines, the operation, being dismantled piece by piece, when they see the bleeding that's taking place on an ongoing basis, it's understandable that they are very frustrated.
A new announcement was made very recently, in December of this year, that the axle plant would be sold. The Premier came down to St Catharines on that day and experienced some of the frustration. I thought it was a difficult time for a Premier to be there, when people feel very strongly about losing their jobs. There's a tendency to strike out at the first person they can see, particularly someone in government. So when the Premier went down, I think it's safe to say -- I can't speak for him -- he experienced that kind of frustration and worry that was there.
I have a belief that we have to go from here to try to turn those decisions around. I have no doubt that today the government of Ontario, through the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology and other ministries, is working to save the operation in St Catharines, either to find a buyer for the axle plant, another organization that might be prepared to operate it and/or to find someone else to operate the foundry or to get General Motors to maintain that foundry operation.
These are not matters that the Premier or I or any member of the House, the Treasurer or the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, can talk about in as open a fashion as all of us would like. Obviously, governments have to be involved in negotiations with individuals. Obviously, members of government aren't going to give away their game plan. But I do implore the government, and I expect that this is happening, to make every effort to maintain those operations in our community for the sake of our community and for the sake of our province.
In the summer of this year, on July 9, I introduced a resolution in the Legislative Assembly which received unanimous support. I was pleased with that support. I thought, by and large, it was a relatively non-partisan occasion, as private members' hour tends to be. I see there was one speaker who spent a lot of time attacking the government on that occasion -- I guess some people will use any occasion to do so -- but generally I found that it was a relatively non-partisan occasion.
Mr Elston: It must have been a New Democrat.
Mr Bradley: In this case, it was not.
The resolution read as follows:
"That, in the opinion of this House, since General Motors announced its intention on February 24 of this year to close its St Catharines foundry, eliminating over 2,000 employment positions in addition to 750 women and men who were to be laid off indefinitely as of March 1 and over 100 people who will lose their jobs as a result of the decision to discontinue the 3.1-litre V-6 engine; and
"Since the St Catharines General Motors foundry is a cost-competitive, world-class, high-quality operation with a highly skilled and motivated workforce; and
"Since the loss of these jobs will mean the loss of $130 million in wages and salaries to the economy of the Niagara region and the province of Ontario; and
"Since the implications for businesses and industries that service and supply the auto sector are extremely negative and serious; and
"Since whenever a production line and a significant part of a plant shuts down, the fixed cost of maintaining the rest of the operation increases and the quality of components from elsewhere cannot be guaranteed;
"The Legislative Assembly of Ontario should urge General Motors to continue the operation of its foundry in St Catharines."
That was supported unanimously. There were some good speeches that afternoon from some of my colleague in the peninsula and others who were supportive of that initiative.
That sends a message to General Motors. I'm not saying that's a message which automatically changes its mind, just as when the Premier speaks to General Motors and the various people in General Motors, even when he speaks to them, as the top person in the province and a person who is obviously going to be concerned, there's no guarantee that we're going to see a change of decision.
I think it's important that all of us in this House unite behind an effort not only for St Catharines, but I notice that Windsor is being hit by some layoffs as well; that we also stand behind the workers, the employees and the people of the community of Windsor. They are experiencing a retooling, which in many ways is good news, because one would hope that would ensure the future of that operation. But it also means that some 1,200 people are going to be out of work for 18 months, and one has to wonder why it takes 18 months to retool, when normally it takes about half that time, I am informed by people who know the industry well. So we worry. We know that when the retooling is finished, there will be fewer workers. This is always a dilemma for a trade union and it's always a dilemma for those who work at a plant, to accept the fact that there's automation.
I've had a chance, as Minister of the Environment, to tour the Hilton steelworks in Hamilton, and the works as well in Nanticoke, and there's a significant difference. Although Hilton is modernized, you go to Nanticoke and you walk through and you ask, "Where are all the people who work here?" They're essentially in a closed-in, glassed-in area operating a lot of equipment down below with automated machinery, computerized.
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The same when I went to Clara Belle in Sudbury to watch the Inco operation. I thought they were shut down. I walked through the plant and I asked, "Where is everybody at Clara Belle?" because I used to live in Sudbury at one time. I'm informed by the member for Nickel Belt that some 11 people, I believe he says, work in that place at the present time. This is a huge plant and they essentially operate it from a glassed-in cubicle with all kinds of computers and gadgets that operate the entire mill.
So I think there's a recognition in Windsor that when they come back, there are going to be fewer jobs. They are going to be even more highly skilled jobs, but there will be fewer of them. For the Windsor economy, that doesn't bode well, although we are thankful for small mercies these days.
I thought that some of the material that Local 199 has produced has been very helpful. We had a press conference on Tuesday that I had a chance to attend, and at that time, there was an establishment of the purple ribbon campaign. The P in "purple" stands for plant closures; U for unemployed; R for recession; P for people; L for leadership, and E for employment. "It's about people being unemployed during a recession which is caused by corporate policies resulting in plant closures. The solution requires leadership from all concerned to realize full employment in our communities," says a flyer which is put out.
The purple ribbon is really more than simply the foundry or the engine plant or the axle plant. It's fighting back for jobs in the Niagara-Hamilton area, an area where jobs have been eroded over the years, if I think of Stelpipe in Welland, for instance; Foster Wheeler in St Catharines today announced some layoffs. All of this we see in the midst of a recession, and these people are saying we have to fight back together as a community.
You know, when this happens, there's often almost a feeling of glee in the minds of some people; ill-conceived, in my view, and unfair, in my view. There's almost a glee from people who look and say: "Well, they are people who were well paid over the years. I never made that much money. Why should I be sympathetic?"
Those are people who don't take into account the personal tragedy that is facing each one of those individuals and families when there are layoffs, particularly when they're potentially permanent layoffs that are taking place. And it's shortsighted in that it does not recognized the impact on a community. Ask any retailer in St Catharines, ask any retailer in Windsor, what the impact of the payroll for General Motors or of any of the other companies has on that community. It's a very significant impact.
That's why I think we have to address this problem as a coalition in our community and as a coalition in our province, finding the most positive ways to address it.
One of them that I have suggested -- and it's not the only solution and the Treasurer has not accepted it so far, but where there is life, there is hope -- is that he will abandon the ill-conceived so-called gas guzzler tax. There are many people who try to advance this as a tax which is to help the environment. I recognize it largely as a revenue producer. I don't want to be provocative this evening; it's the last day of the session, unfortunately, and I don't want to talk about tax grabs, so I'll say it's a revenue producer for the province.
Now, if it indeed achieved what it set out to do or at least what it is stated to set out to do -- that is, to significantly improve the environment and fuel efficiency -- I might say that I could understand why the government would implement it. But the best way of cleaning the air of this province would be for everyone to replace the old clunker with a brand-new car. Why is that? First of all, the new vehicles are all more fuel-efficient than the older vehicles. Second, they all have far superior pollution control equipment on them.
If people saw that the government wanted to remove taxes from automobiles, if it lowered the price of those automobiles, they would make new purchases, improve the environment and, of course, as far as GM workers and other automotive workers are concerned, it would spur the need for new vehicles to be produced, and the parts for those vehicles.
So the winner is the environment and the winner is the economy at the same time, and that's what the Ontario Round Table on Environment and Economy was to be all about: synchronizing the two and indicating that one was not independent of the other.
One of the suggestions I have for the Treasurer in his next budget -- perhaps earlier, if he sees fit, in a mini-budget when we return in January, as I assume this House will be returning in January to address the needs of the province -- is that the Treasurer withdraw that tax. I will be the first to applaud him as he does so.
He had a partial withdrawal of it. He had a lot of heat from Local 199, St Catharines, from the automotive industry, Bob White and others that put a lot of pressure on him, and he tampered and tinkered with the tax that he brought in previously. But if he were to withdraw it entirely, that would be a very positive move.
Second, I think the province could also temporarily suspend the application of the sales tax to new vehicles being sold in this province. I recognize that the Treasurer needs revenue. I recognize that on a long-term basis the government is going to continue to tax all of those products, but I think it would spur the economy rather significantly if, for a period of six months or a year, the Treasurer were to suspend the provincial sales tax on automobiles.
That's two taxes that could be removed, and it would make those vehicles cheaper and would allow people with more modest incomes to make the purchases of new vehicles and improve the environment and the economy in our province.
In addition to that, others have a role to play, not only the provincial government. I speak of the provincial government because I believe that those of us who are representatives should address issues which are within our own jurisdiction. One of the easiest things to do as a politician is simply to say what somebody else should do. In opposition, that's quite easy; you can say what the government should do. But governments tend to say that politicians tend to sometimes dabble in issues that are not within their jurisdiction, and I don't think that's particularly productive. If I were in the federal House, however, I would be imploring the federal government to take similar action to assist the automotive industry.
When Ste Thérèse in Quebec was considered to be an operation in considerable trouble, the federal government and the provincial government put together a package which made Ste Thérèse an attractive place for GM itself to invest more money, and it saved the future of it.
Governments are going to be naturally reluctant to put a lot of money into private sector operations, but if it's the only game in town, it's the only game in town. I suspect that our government in Ontario has made some offers to General Motors. I don't want the Premier or the Treasurer to have to reveal to anybody in the province how much it was or what actually happened, but I suspect that does take place.
If it's necessary to expand the foundry in St Catharines and it requires an investment of tax dollars, I can assure you that it would be a productive expenditure on the part of the government, because it would mean the saving of an operation, perhaps the expansion of an operation and of course all kinds of tax revenues for this government, for the federal government and for the municipal government. In addition to that, of course, people would have money in their pockets to be able to spend on consumer goods and to be able to invest in other little businesses within the community.
I think it's going to be exceedingly important for the government to take that into consideration. I would not be critical of the provincial government for doing so.
There is a fear, and I think a legitimate fear, that we are seeing the dismantling of the St Catharines operation piece by piece, appendage by appendage falling off. Gabe MacNally, who is the vice-president of CAW Local 199, noted in his initial reaction that we could have about half an operation left, that about half of the 9,000 jobs will be left when we are finished with the latest round of layoffs and cutbacks. And this would not be attractive for St Catharines and it would cause apprehension. When you start taking away certain parts, the question comes, "Well, why do you need any operation in St Catharines?" That's what we're fearful about, and that's why we have to arrest the bleeding, stop the bleeding that's taking place in our community.
The government to a certain extent has implemented this subsequent to the first round of layoffs, the first announcement of the closing of the foundry. I have advocated and continue to advocate a separate, independent department of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology, whose mandate it would be -- and Bob White said this in the Local 199 News, April edition: "Ontario should establish an auto department to assess on an ongoing basis the industry's weaknesses and strengths, to keep up with international developments and to monitor and initiate policy."
I would say that's a good suggestion. I think it's very important that the government have an independent department to deal with strictly the automotive industry because of the problems it's experiencing. The initial step has been the employing of Mr Armstrong in the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology to deal with automotive matters. I like the fact that we would have an independent division to come up with a strategy to maintain present operations in our province and to attract new business to our province. I think that would be very wise.
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I've also called upon the Premier on a number of occasions -- and he may have his reasons for not doing this or doing it -- that the Premier himself go to Detroit to meet with the very top people -- I suspect he will be able to do so when the House is shut down -- and talk to the very top people to put forward Ontario's case. He would find that he has a lot of support in the province for that. I would certainly be praising that action on his part, just as I have been critical of his not doing so to this point.
I like to be fair to the Premier on occasion, as many occasions as possible, and I would be delighted to be able to say my Premier -- because he is my Premier as well as everyone else's Premier in this province -- is going to bat for us in Detroit and is putting forth the best possible case. He'll want to assemble the best material that will tell people why Ontario should be a good place to stay and a good place to come to in the future. We would all want to see that. If he wants to put forward a financial package that may be of assistance, I certainly will not be critical. I would be quite supportive of that.
We recognize that the government's mind cannot be completely open to financing the entire operation. There are limits to what we can do in terms of financial assistance to any corporation, because it becomes very competitive within those corporations.
The press conference I attended on Tuesday, December 7, had some interesting suggestions for people: "We call upon the federal government to join with the provincial and municipal governments and local company and union officials to put together the strongest possible package of incentives to convince General Motors to maintain or expand the St Catharines operations." Those incentives need not be monetary alone, although that should not be excluded, by any means.
"Second, we call upon Premier Bob Rae to form a broad-based task force from business, community and social and labour leaders and any necessary experts from across the Niagara Peninsula and Hamilton to study the cause and effects of the deepening economic and social decline and make recommendations for positive renewal."
Here they're talking not only about the automotive industry but about other industries, because what's misunderstood in many cases is that the Niagara Peninsula is not part of the Golden Horseshoe. If it is, it's the tarnished end. The unemployment rate in the St Catharines-Niagara area -- and that's how they classify it -- has consistently been among the highest in this province, and even in the country, over a rather lengthy period of time. Even in good times, we have not always enjoyed the lowest rate of unemployment in the province, but in bad times we tend to soar above others. So we will need some special assistance.
There used to be a Department of Regional Economic Expansion federally that declared certain areas eligible for special funds. One of the things, no doubt, that the government will want to consider and is considering is how it can assist our part of the province without setting precedents which are going to tie it down.
I asked the Treasurer a question the other day about this, and he was certainly supportive and positive in his response, but did caution the House that, as a member of a government, he was leery of setting precedents. For instance, it was suggested by our city council that we have a Niagara heritage fund, as opposed to a northern heritage fund. I would like to see us get some assistance. I can understand how the Treasurer would be a bit reluctant, because he would feel: Would there now be a Windsor heritage fund? Would there be a Chatham heritage fund? But I do believe we should be eligible for some special assistance, the main criterion being that we have experienced chronically high unemployment and a rather bleak future in terms of our economics.
I also make the plea that we not abandon the smokestack industries, the traditional industries. There are some people who say, "The only way to go is simply to abandon the old-time industries and go on to something else." That's easy to say if you're representing the Ottawa Valley, where there's some new, high-tech industries. Where you haven't had the automotive or the steel or the resource extraction industries, it's easy to say that. But if you do, as I do and other members of this House, represent communities that have relied upon those traditional and perhaps older industries, certainly you do not want to see those abandoned. We may have to adapt, we may have to change, we may have to modernize, but I don't think we should simply give up on those industries. People who work in them certainly don't want to see that happen.
To go back to the press conference and what the CAW had to say on that occasion: "We join in and support the Fighting for our Working Future Niagara-Hamilton campaign. A symbol of the campaign will be a purple ribbon. We strongly urge all residents of Niagara and Hamilton to wear this ribbon as a symbol of our determination to survive as a growing and prosperous area of Canada." That's why I wear the purple ribbon today, as I have since that meeting, and why others in the peninsula will be doing so.
They go on to suggest: "There will be a future meeting of a broad coalition in the Niagara Peninsula, and a public demonstration will be held this coming Saturday, December 12, at 12 noon on Ontario Street at the GM plant. This event will be a kickoff for this campaign of renewal. We urge all citizens of Hamilton-Niagara to take part in this event."
Saying "all citizens" is important, because it isn't simply those who work in the plant. Those people, as I've mentioned, are relatives of a lot of people, friends and colleagues and neighbours and people they meet on a daily basis. Everyone in the community has a vested interest, everyone in the Niagara region. I discussed this with the member for Welland-Thorold the other day, because he has many people who reside in his riding who work at General Motors, that it's important that our whole community support that particular demonstration on that day.
Our city of St Catharines put forward some suggestions that I won't read into the record; I gave a copy of them to the Treasurer the other day when I asked him the question. I think they're very useful and I may come back to those.
Buzz Hargrove, who is the new president of CAW in Canada, wrote a letter to the Premier which I think had some good suggestions and implored the Premier to take certain actions. He made some rather interesting points. I would like to share this with members of the House. I don't think it's particularly embarrassing; I don't do so to embarrass the Premier or anything like that. It's pretty straightforward. It says:
"Dear Mr Premier: I'm writing to you concerning the latest blow to the workers and community of St Catharines, the addition of the axle plant to the 3.1 V6 engine and foundry as casualties of GM's restructuring.
"To your credit, you went directly to St Catharines to hear and respond to the pain, frustrations, anger and growing fear that even the closures to date are just steps towards the total closure of the entire GM engine complex in St Catharines, but something more must be done. We must try to reverse this.
"As you well know, these workers want to use their skills to provide socially useful products. They don't understand, and neither do I, the logic of closing facilities, removing tools and equipment and denying workers a chance to produce goods in a world where so many needs go unmet. They also can't see the social logic of economic restructuring in the name of efficiency when it only leads to more people having no jobs and no job opportunities, and therefore representing the greatest waste and inefficient use of human resources.
"They don't understand how Ontario can accept the loss of such a key production centre as St Catharines when auto is repeatedly referred to as one of the few areas where we are alleged to have a competitive advantage. They have been told that the quality of their work and the quality of their products is excellent, but that isn't good enough. They are aware that they have a labour cost advantage of $9 an hour relative to locations where the jobs will move, but this too isn't good enough. Nine dollars an hour represents $18,000 annually per worker and $56 million per year for the 3,100 workers facing announced layoffs.
"The response from GM to all of this is that it's simply a matter of St Catharines not having enough capacity. Well, that raises a very direct solution: Develop the capacity here.
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"I am therefore calling on you to convey to GM that (a) they have a responsibility to this community and must pursue a reasonable alternative to simply closing these facilities; (b) they join us in immediately establishing a committee to carry out a study with federal, provincial, community and union involvement to move towards expanding capacity in St Catharines so the operation can survive and prosper; and (c) the Ontario government is prepared to assist financially and in gaining federal assistance to achieve such an expansion. Such a committee would have to be put together right away. It would have to report very quickly if GM's decision is to be reversed.
"I look forward to a positive response as soon as you possibly can.
"Sincerely yours,
"Basil (Buzz) Hargrove, President, CAW."
It's a very reasonable request that he has made. I think the Premier feels it's a very reasonable request that he has made. It's a cry for assistance from the various levels of government to expand our operations.
Mr Hargrove, Mr White and others who have represented people over the years in the trade union movement have seen the number of jobs shrink in industries for which they've had responsibility, not because of their activities but because of modernization, automation and computerization. They're trying to address this in as positive a way as they possibly can and seek the assistance of our provincial government in doing so. I certainly would recommend and support that particular suggestion and the other suggestions that have come forward in this regard.
There is much more that could be said of this, and there's much more that will be said. There's a postcard that is sent out to the three levels of government, to Premier Rae, to Prime Minister Mulroney and to John Smith, the president of General Motors, largely from people who are working at General Motors and who want to send a message to each one of these people on what they believe they can do to assist people within their communities.
I implore the government to continue its efforts. I ask that the Premier himself take on the operation. This is not to say that his ministers are lacking in their desire to be of assistance or lacking in competence, simply that the top person often has to deal with the top people. The Treasurer would be interested. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology certainly has been. Dr Allen, the Minister of Skills Development and Colleges and Universities, has developed some interesting packages in terms of assisting the automotive industry in terms of retraining. That is a positive direction, in my view. I think most fair-minded people would say this government deserves some credit for that. I'm certainly prepared to say very publicly that it's a positive initiative that's going to be essential for the future. That announcement I greet with applause.
I know our own community is going to look beyond that. The Premier, when he was in St Catharines, made some comments to the effect that the community must look at other avenues of job creation as well as the automotive industry. He suggested that there be an effort to try to diversify and attract other industry, as well as maintaining what operations we can in St Catharines. I think our community has to do that. That's why it's extremely important that we move the Ministry of Transportation to St Catharines at an accelerated rate to that which was contemplated, and the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation to Niagara Falls; that we speed up that movement, that we ensure it's the full announced movement that was contemplated previously.
The government's in some significant financial problems. I know some of the members on the government side are somewhat annoyed that I would suggest that there would be any chance that these ministries would be scaling back their operations or moving at a slower pace. But I happen to know -- I've sat in government -- what goes through the mind of government when it wants to save money, and that's why a member of the opposition has to put that before the public, has to say it's important that we keep an eye on the ball, so to speak. I know there may well be people within government who don't even like the policy of moving ministries out of Toronto; not everybody is in favour of that.
I do hope the government will accelerate that move to St Catharines. In the material provided last Monday night to members of St Catharines city council, there were many suggestions on how the Premier and his ministers might be able to advance that movement and help to diversify our economy locally.
The Minister of the Environment is here today. I would just like to make a couple of comments to her, because I heard an earlier speech that was somewhat an attack on the Ministry of the Environment around environmentalism, I thought. They were talking about how the Ministry of the Environment had too much power. My view is that that is not the case, that indeed the Minister of the Environment should have more power.
While the Premier is here -- he probably has to go to some event this evening, so if he does wander out, I certainly won't feel offended. It's very kind of him to be here to listen to the comments. I will do the Minister of the Environment a favour by saying that I believe the Premier should not allow other ministers to wrest from the Ministry of the Environment the power and jurisdiction it has now.
I am very pleased to see that the previous government moved the responsibility for the Niagara Escarpment Commission to the Ministry of the Environment and that the present minister has, despite a lot of flak she gets from around the province, maintained a desire to protect the Niagara Escarpment.
There's something else you'll have to watch for: that her colleagues don't do her in, because there's a lot of pressure out there on the Premier, the Treasurer, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology and others to start developing every last inch -- I should say centimetre nowadays -- of the province of Ontario, including some attractive areas in the Niagara Escarpment.
I hope her colleagues will support as she attempts to protect that, just as the Minister of Agriculture and Food will want to try to protect farm land in this province.
I'm concerned about Project X revisited. I recall, when I was the Minister of the Environment, that there was a large kerfuffle about the possibility of taking away some of the powers in terms of planning from the Ministry of the Environment and giving it to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs or, heaven forbid, turning it back to municipalities.
I warn you, members of government -- as the Minister of Municipal Affairs walks in, with a perhaps a bit of a different agenda -- that you shouldn't allow that to happen. So while the Minister of Municipal Affairs and the Minister of the Environment are here, I implore you not to give more powers to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and taken them away from the Minister of the Environment. That's going to happen. I warn the Minister that there are cells within this government that exist -- I say that generically: within this government of Ontario -- that have a vested interest in kicking aside the Ministry of the Environment so they can do what they wish.
Hon Mr Rae: One of them's now in London, so I think we're all right.
Mr Bradley: Well, they come back into style. Believe it or not, the ministers' faces may change, but the viewpoints of some of those who advise them do not change significantly. So I hope your colleagues will not reintroduce Project X, that they will not turn over to the municipalities all these powers to develop their own communities. Often, that could be very shortsighted.
I want to deal with a number of other issues on briefer basis than I have the automotive industry. One of them is the rule changes in this House. I happen to be opposed to those. I attribute motivations to them once in a while, but I won't do so. I just happen to hope the government will change its mind on some of those rule changes and allow members an opportunity to speak at greater length, as this particular debate allows.
To put more power into the hands of individual members, the person who's in the chair today, Mr Drainville, who represents Victoria-Haliburton, has advanced some ideas on how the House could be more relevant. Those ideas are never popular with government House leaders, I assure him; I say that again generically, as opposed to personally. He will find there is considerable resistance within the cabinet to doing those things, but I think he, by his vote today, for instance, as a matter of conscience against a bill which would, in his view, no doubt not be positive for farm land in that area and for the community surrounding -- that has to happen once in a while in this House and more power has to be given to individually elected people.
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I also want to talk about the developmentally handicapped for just a moment. I've often said that those of us who get elected to the House -- I can perhaps speak personally more than for everyone in the House, but I suspect it's true of most people -- are elected to represent those who cannot represent themselves: the people who are most vulnerable, the people who don't have money, the people who don't have influence and the people who don't have a position of privilege. A lot of those people can look after themselves. It doesn't mean we should ignore their needs and it doesn't mean we should legislate to destroy those people; it simply means there are certain people in our society who require the assistance of individual members of the Legislature.
One of the groups of people I've been concerned about all my life has been the developmentally handicapped people. They've had less attractive names applied to them in years gone by; I'm pleased to see that many are changing those names and those attitudes, and that many of those people who are developmentally handicapped, who have not been able to attend regular schools, so called, are moving into communities at the present time. I think that's quite positive.
I was very concerned when I saw about 3,000 or 4,000 of those people, the people themselves, the people who work with them and their families, demonstrating out front against cutbacks by the government. I know the government is pressed for funds and that people in opposition can often make a case for spending more money, but I do hope that when the government establishes its priorities it never forgets the developmentally handicapped, people who often cannot speak for themselves and require others to assist them.
I certainly will be a champion of the developmentally handicapped for many years to come, as long as I'm in this Legislature, because I think they need our help and assistance to live a dignified life and to live a productive life and to live a life they could never have contemplated, just a dozen or 15 years ago, within institutions.
I must deal with casinos. Again, the gentleman in the chair at the present time has read many petitions in the House on casinos. The member for Windsor-Riverside can have his casino in Windsor-Riverside because --
Hon David S. Cooke (Minister of Municipal Affairs, Chairman of the Management Board of Cabinet and Government House Leader): Actually, it's Windsor-Sandwich.
Mr Bradley: -- well, in the city of Windsor -- because I don't want one in the Niagara region. That's probably contrary to the viewpoint of a lot of people. When you're down in terms of jobs, people are attracted by casinos and so on, and local municipalities often are. Speaking personally, I do not want a casino in my community. I think casinos draw criminals; I know you're going to try to set it up so it won't, but they attract the criminal element. They are the worst kind of gambling because they're the most attractive kind of gambling, the highest class of gambling. People are addicted to it, and there are many in our society. I know they gamble on other things, but this is the most attractive type of gambling we have in this province.
I urge you to abandon it. I know you've got one, but I hope you will abandon your move towards more and more gambling, which is essentially a tax on the poor and those who are addicted to that particular affliction.
Bob Rae, I'm told by former members of the Legislature I've chatted with, was one of the strongest opponents of casino gambling in years gone by, and I admired that point of view at that time. I hope the government will rethink this policy. When you do rethink it I will say you should sound the bugles of retreat, but I'll be saying so in a positive fashion and a complimentary fashion as opposed to a negative fashion.
I also want to touch on Sunday shopping, only very briefly, to say that I intend to vote against your bill that would permit Sunday shopping simply because I happen to believe that there should be a common day of rest for people to spend with their families, to spend at home, and I believe that the government should maintain its previous commitment to those people.
I also happen to believe, on an economic basis, that it makes very little difference whether or not you're open Sunday, that people simply spend in seven days what they previously spent in six days.
Automobile insurance would take too long for me to deal with this evening, so I'll avoid that particular issue.
The grants to municipalities -- I'm going to be specific on this -- for sewer projects and water projects: I hear a lot of talk about capital works in terms of roads being paved and so on. I hope you would not exclude, when you're contemplating a capital works program, water and sewer works, which are extremely important. The funding for those has declined rather dramatically, as you have had to face the realities of not many revenues coming in. As a former Minister of the Environment, I think that's a very positive expenditure and that the time to do it is in a time of recession, so that when you come out of the recession you will be in a position to have those facilities in hand.
I can tell the Minister of Municipal Affairs that the federal government has not given money for a number of years to those kinds of projects in any significant amount. They attract the Minister of the Environment of Ontario to sign these glamorous agreements, and when you look at the fine print you find out there isn't much money.
Hon Ruth A. Grier (Minister of the Environment): I have not signed any. You signed a number that I'm still living with.
Mr Bradley: Positive: It brought all that federal money in, as you can see.
Hon Mrs Grier: I have yet to see it.
Mr Bradley: Family and children's services in the Niagara region needs new facilities in Welland and in St Catharines. The people who are working with those people, with their clients, are in abysmal circumstances and buildings. I urge you, when you're establishing your priorities -- I'm not asking you to spend more money in the province -- to look carefully at the Niagara region and the family and children's services buildings and the potential for the replacement of those so they can serve people better.
Port Weller Dry Docks: I urge you to build another ferry boat at Port Weller Dry Docks, as you did for the Pelee Island situation. I know that Mr Mancini, the member for Essex South, is strongly supportive of that.
As well, potentially the ferry that goes to Wolfe Island around Kingston may need replacing. Port Weller Dry Docks is the exact place it should be. They also need a wall built so they can do some repair work and some new work at the same time, a wonderful investment on the part of the province of Ontario to ensure jobs in the future. I would never criticize the government for this and I would urge it to seriously contemplate that.
The hospitals in our area have a great appetite for more money because they want to service people in a better way. I urge you, when you're looking at your priorities, to provide additional funding.
We have a second CAT scanner in the region now. We have a renal dialysis unit that has been given some approval and that has made me just delighted. It used to try the patience of the Speaker. I have been trying since I've been in opposition to have that second CAT scanner. When we were in government, I think the first CAT scanner came into operation. I was supportive of the first one as well in St Catharines.
By the way, I should say the member for Welland-Thorold was very kind when I was down there for the ribbon-cutting. The member for Welland-Thorold didn't know I was there at the time and spent about a minute and a half talking about the fact that I'd raised this issue in the House a number of times. He's always very fair to the opposition. He was when he was a minister, and he is now, in terms of the role they play. I pay tribute to him for that, and to all ministers who do that. Some ministers do it better than others. I must say that Peter Kormos has always been very fair to me in that regard. No matter where it's been, he's been more than fair in giving that kind of credit to that kind of role being played.
I must mention that Brock University and Niagara College are always looking to meet their own obligations. Brock University feels it's going to have to start turning students away if it doesn't receive adequate funding from your government. The students who are there are worried that their tuition is going up and are worried that they won't be able to get grants any more, but simply loans that they have to pay back later on. I urge you to address that.
Destreaming, no credits and violence in schools: That would be a half-hour, but I don't have half an hour. I simply urge real caution with your government in proceeding with destreaming. When you have the president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation calling upon an NDP Education minister to resign, you know that you have encountered considerable resistance, because I could never accuse the leadership of the OSSTF, over the years, of being unkind or unfriendly to the New Democratic Party. When Liz Barkley says that the minister should resign, you know the federation is exercised over this. I think your implementation is significantly flawed and you should consult with the teachers on that particular issue.
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Hon Mr Cooke: Do you agree with the principle?
Mr Bradley: Actually, as a teacher, I would find that very difficult. It may work in certain circumstances, which is why I would appreciate and accept pilot projects, to establish whether it does work. Whether it does will be determined by those pilot projects, but I don't think the pendulum should simply swing back and forth all the time. For the life of me, I will never know why you want to abandon credits in grade 9, because that is certainly not the correct direction to go, in my view.
In terms of violence in schools, it's becoming an increasing problem. There are some people out there who say we have a generation out of control because they haven't had to face the kind of discipline that there used to be in schools. Many parents worry about that; some students worry about that. I simply say it's an issue this government is going to have to address. I may in another debate have some suggestions on how you would do it.
One of the issues that has affected my community perhaps more than any other has been the death of certain people by violence. Kristen French is probably the most notable person who has died at the hands of murderers.
I can remember one day being in the House and the Treasurer was bringing down his budget. Everyone in the province was probably concerned about that budget. I turned on the local news media, the radio stations, the television stations and so on. Nobody had the budget as the first story because that was the sad day when Kristen French's body had been discovered. She had in fact been murdered. Her parents had been very strong through this issue. It's been very difficult, and I hope that our police forces will continue to have the resources to fight this kind of crime. I hope we'll be able to address the issues of crime and violence as they affect young people like this, violence against women particularly. I'm against all violence, but to see a young girl, in her own neighbourhood, going through a church parking lot in the middle of the afternoon being kidnapped and eventually murdered is something that causes apprehension for all of us and certainly sadness in our hearts.
The sales tax on used cars: I would have thought today that the government would have been involved in a retreat, that the Minister of Revenue would have announced that they had finally reached some rational solution to the used car sales tax. Just as the gas guzzler tax is a tax on auto workers, the used car tax is a tax on poor people who can't afford expensive cars. I hope they will make the necessary modifications, because it's just been a bizarre implementation of that tax. There isn't a member here who doesn't know that, and I urge the government to change that.
In terms of patronage, I've dealt with that before. We had a want of confidence or non-confidence motion in the Legislature on the Piper affair and other scandals, and I'm not going to dwell on that tonight. I know that some of my other colleagues may well wish to deal with those matters, but I will not do so.
The Minister of Natural Resources was here a while ago. I hope he continues to buy seedlings and to plant new trees in Ontario, because there are many people who are concerned, in the north particularly, but in other places, that this government is abandoning that program of replanting trees. I think that's been beneficial to the environment and beneficial to the economy, and I urge the government not to abandon that.
In terms of saving agricultural land, as I drive between Toronto and St Catharines, I notice that more and more of the agricultural land is disappearing, that there are warehouses, that there's new construction taking place on the lush agricultural land. Combined with the excellent climatic conditions, that land is disappearing; the agricultural aspect is disappearing. I know the Speaker who sits in the chair now, the member from eastern Ontario, Mr Villeneuve, is concerned about agricultural land and will want to see it saved.
My voice is beginning to give out, which is probably something that will please most people here, but I did want to mention TVOntario. When I was in government, I used to turn on the television set at 11 o'clock at night and watch question period. It was on at 11 o'clock on the French channel, La Chaîne, and at 11:30 on the English channel, TVO. If you want to watch question period, now that the NDP is in power, those ministers are sheltered because one has to stay up till almost 1 o'clock in the morning to watch it.
Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): Auto workers don't have a problem; they work afternoons.
Mr Bradley: For the member for Chatham-Kent who enjoys that kind of entertainment, that might well be fine. I urge the president of TVO -- we've not got a new president of TVO -- to abandon the policy. He's teaching grammar at 11:30 at night or showing you how to fish, or something like that, when there are important issues of the day being addressed that should be taking place at that time of night because, heaven knows, we can't rely on CBC radio with their various programs. CBC radio news is fine, but we get Radio Noon -- as I call it, NDP Noon, NDP Morning and NDP 4 to 6.
Hon Floyd Laughren (Deputy Premier, Treasurer and Minister of Economics): Don't forget the NDP Star.
Mr Bradley: No, no, that's not it. I'm talking about what I pay for with my tax dollars. Now, I exclude CBC television at 6 because they're very fairminded people. Of course, the coverage is fine. What I'm annoyed with -- the Minister of the Environment's here -- is that I used to have to answer to Christopher Thomas every lunch-hour. He always had someone. It would be a woman with three children who had a disease from a plant and that same plant was moving to Ontario and what was I going to do about it.
He doesn't seem to be calling any more, even though we know the Treasurer, as president of the treasury board, is depriving the Minister of the Environment of the resources to do her job appropriately; even though he's doing so, Christopher Thomas is talking about bird calls. What was on today? There was something else on today. What do you think of Chuck and Di? That was today's. What was your first prom date like? Can you really tell a bird by the noise it makes? These are the hard-hitting subjects on Radio Noon today.
That's why, with the Minister of Culture and Communications here, I hope to see -- she can't interfere -- TVO put the question period on at 11:30 at night. I'm getting calls every day from people who want to see it and they can't stay up that late at night and they can't afford cable TV. Therefore, I would like to see it even earlier in the evening if I could, right after the CBC national news or whatever it's called now. I'd like to see that happen.
The last thing I'm going to talk about, because some of my colleagues are interested to get on tonight -- I see a sign here that says, "Please tell me when you have 10 minutes left."
I would simply like to talk about ethics in government in a very general sense. When I talked to people during the last election campaign they said: "Look, we don't believe the NDP can particularly manage the province well economically; not great managers; nice people; well meaning; not great managers." They've proven to be right. "We don't necessarily agree with all of their policies. Some of them are pretty radical and pretty well off the mainstream, but we're still prepared to vote for them because we think they're ethically superior and morally superior to the other parties."
I invite the viewers watching this and the members of the House to simply review the government's record over the past two years and we will see they have certainly not been that. One of them I talked about was polling. When Premier Rae was in opposition, he was critical of governments that ruled by polls paid for by the taxpayers. I agreed with him. I was a person who said, "I agree with Bob Rae when he says governments shouldn't rule by polls." Now, I find out from order paper questions, this government is buying polls and keeping the information to itself. We have a government simply watching which way the sail is heading and the wind comes along, a puff of wind of public opinion comes along.
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I admired them when they stood on their principles, the kind of principles that Peter Kormos stands for today and that Mel Swart and Bob Carlin and Stanley Knowles and Harold Winch and H.W. Herridge and Arnold Peters, Douglas Fisher, M.J. Coldwell and Jolliffe stood for, all these great icons of the CCF and NDP. They were people I admired very much and I followed their careers well, and if I were to look at this government's policies I would never believe that we have an NDP government. I might still disagree with some of the things they would do, but at least I would say they were standing for principles they believed in and were prepared to fight for. I suspect the member for Chatham-Kent believes that to be the case as well in his heart of hearts.
As I conclude this evening -- and I would like to have gone on in much greater detail on some of the problems that were there, but time does get on and, being fairminded, I want to see other members with a chance to speak -- I simply want to take the opportunity to convey to all members of the House my own personal very best wishes for a restful holiday, for a happy holiday season, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I do not ever wish even those who are my political adversaries anything bad. To people who are experiencing health problems, to people who are experiencing other problems in their lives because it's a very stressful occupation, I wish them the very best in the new year, because I want to see us all come back in a healthy and happy state and engage in the kind of productive and useful and acceptable political debate which advances the cause of democracy in our province and in our country.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Further debate in concurrences in supply for the ministries.
Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): In rising to speak in this debate on concurrence in supply, what it really means, of course, is that we either concur with the expenditures of the ministries or we don't, and frankly, when I look at the ministries that are listed here, I have a lot of difficulty in concurring with the spending of the majority of them. Of course, particularly I have difficulty with the expenditures of the Health ministry in terms of its prioritizing, but I want to go down to the fourth ministry listed here, which is Housing.
Obviously, based on the questions which I raised in the House earlier today, I have a lot of concern with the expenditures of the Ministry of Housing. When we have a system that encourages the establishment of non-profit housing, at the wish of this government and supported by this government, in many areas of this province through many public and private non-profit housing agencies, on the surface it sounds as though it would be an ideal way to provide housing, particularly affordable housing, but the really sad truth, and becoming more and more evident, is the fact that the non-profit housing program under this socialist government is simply not working. It's not working because it is running away with the taxpayers' money. There are simply not enough controls on how the program is administered and in sheer economics it isn't working to provide the largest number of homes that it could provide for the largest number of people at the same expenditure.
I have stood in this House a number of times in this past year and questioned the Minister of Housing about why, instead of the government owning and operating housing, it will not give direct shelter subsidies to those people who need the help and let those people decide where they want to live.
What we have in Ontario today is something that's ballooning totally out of control under the guise of non-profit housing. We have a situation, unfortunately, which is being exploited by a large number of people. We have a Minister of Housing who stood today in answer to my very serious questions about a particular example that I gave her, which is namely the Woodgreen community housing project on Pape Avenue.
I think what I should do, Mr Speaker, is tell you exactly what I did raise with this minister today so you will know how serious this particular example is. It's an example that is raised today in a publication in Ontario. As far as I know, it's not a partisan publication, so it's not an issue that was raised originally by me, so it can't be perceived that that's a Conservative criticizing the current Bob Rae socialist government.
This is in a magazine called Eye, and it's an article written by Paul Palango, which I have copies of here. It's a very lengthy article; it's about 3,000 words. I think Mr Palango is just touching the tip of the iceberg in this article, but in it he raises many troubling facts about the Woodgreen community housing project on Pape Avenue.
Also, some residents of this neighbourhood have contacted me and shown my office their research, and they found that investment firms flipped properties for large profits by buying them after the project's conception, then selling them to Woodgreen nine months later once Woodgreen had received approval from the provincial government to buy them.
Apparently, according to the information we've received, the principal of one of these investment companies is also president of a real estate firm. A realtor from the same firm acted for Woodgreen by offering to buy another property and sought a 5% commission. It seems that Woodgreen is padding the pockets of this investment realtor. The Woodgreen Settlement Corp, the trust arm of Woodgreen, bought a property for $300,000 and sold it on the same day to Woodgreen community housing for $247,500. The trust fund absorbed the loss of the $52,500 because Woodgreen was overbudget for the project. It's my understanding that the trust fund is made up of moneys from many community sources, not the least of which are contributions by the public.
When I asked the minister if she would investigate the matters I have outlined, especially before an OMB hearing, which resumes on January 25, 1993, an OMB hearing about this project, I want to tell you what the minister's answer was. The minister said she hadn't read Eye magazine today, and with all the staff that this Minister of Housing has, you would think that if there was something as touchy and as critical an issue as these allegations raised in this magazine her staff would have raised those issues with her. It's our understanding that ministers are usually briefed before question period, but she said she hadn't had the benefit of reading it. She obviously also hadn't had the benefit of being briefed on it either.
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She said, and this is the part that I found really interesting, "I want to point out to her" -- meaning myself as the person asking her the question -- "that this project is one which was approved before this government came to office. I'd be quite glad to give her whatever follow-up is available through the ministry."
This government has been in office two years and three months and this minister sort of palmed off this answer, that whatever was going on with this project, it was approved before her government came to office. That is totally unacceptable. The current Minister of Housing has to know what's going on in her ministry. She has to know what's going on with non-profit housing programs across this province, because she is responsible for them. The flipping on the sale of these properties that I was questioning her on didn't take place when the Liberals were the government. They in fact took place this year, albeit some of them in 1989, but some of them this year.
This is the same minister who thought it was okay to fund a non-profit housing project in Wawa at the time there was a 23% vacancy rate in Wawa. She actually gave taxpayers' money to build a non-profit apartment building of 40 units when there were two apartment buildings with empty units. That's the kind of lack of responsibility and lack of accountability this government seems to think is okay.
I am standing here saying that this is not okay. It is not acceptable to us and the Progressive Conservative caucus and it certainly is not acceptable to the people of this province, many of whom cannot afford any kind of housing or any other forms of food or shelter for themselves and their families. This government thinks this kind of thing is okay? I'm sorry; it is not.
I also said earlier this afternoon that, as the minister knew, my party had requested, through the freedom of information act, financial data on the non-profit housing program as a whole. We've just received information that there are more than 500 projects which have been approved for construction in the past 14 months funded by the taxpayers of this province when there is an alternative to providing housing for people who need it and who are eligible for subsidized shelter.
The information that we received through the freedom of information act has turned up some incredible facts. We have former ministry and city employees apparently acting as consultants. They expedite non-profit projects for large fees. Apparently one consultant guided 37 projects in Metro Toronto alone through the system in the past year. Our estimate is that this person could possibly have earned in excess of $2 million in fees. We also have examples of non-profit corporations buying properties for three times what they were recently purchased for.
The list goes on and on. As the Provincial Auditor confirmed, the program is totally out of hand. While I'm commenting on the Provincial Auditor, I think something that is very significant and, I may add, pretty scary, is the fact that we now have learned that there were comments in a memo to the Minister of Housing from the Provincial Auditor about how bad the operation of the Ministry of Housing is, articles on risky land purchases, comments on acquisition of professional services, comments such as -- this is again from the Provincial Auditor -- "We found that in 5 of 12 projects reviewed in the central region, the development consultant and architect were the same individual or firm or were otherwise related. While such a relationship can be beneficial, the potential for conflicts of interest is high and could contribute to higher costs.
"In one of these projects, the development consultant had the following involvement:" -- Mr Speaker, listen to this -- "acted as the real estate agent for the non-profit group in the purchase of the site and received a 5% commission," probably the same example I gave earlier, "was a director for the construction company building the project, held 50% of the voting shares," but apparently was not entitled to share in the profits from the project, "and was the property manager for the building as well as for several other projects completed by that non-profit group."
These comments go on and on, but what is really significant is that those comments I've just read into the record were omitted in the auditor's final report. Now that's the scariest part of all.
I think that the Minister of Housing has some answering to do and I would suggest that perhaps the Provincial Auditor would like the opportunity to explain why these comments were in a letter to the Minister of Housing, and yet not in the final auditor's report.
The auditor did, however, confirm in his public report that the non-profit housing program is out of hand. There are many people feeding at the trough, making a profit at the expense of Ontario's taxpayers and the people who need affordable housing.
Speaking of apparent conflicts of interest, a staffer in the minister's office is married to a key member of the Co-operative Housing Association of Ontario, which receives provincial subsidy dollars and loans.
Because of all this totally unacceptable mess in the non-profit housing program under this Minister of Housing, I asked the minister this afternoon if she would hold a public inquiry into the non-profit housing program, and if would she also conduct a thorough review of this program and remove those players who are in conflict of interest and lay charges where necessary.
Her answer was really very disappointing. She suggested that these questions I was asking were: "This is indeed a florid attack on the non-profit housing program." You bet your shoes it is, because those of us who are paying for the non-profit housing program in this province do not agree with this kind of situation existing. If this minister wants to think this is a florid attack, she hasn't seen anything yet.
She said in her answer this afternoon, and I thought this was really interesting, "I'd like the member to remember that the information which she requested under the freedom of information act, and received, is quite different in nature from that reviewed by the auditor."
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Now, one has to say, why is it different? Isn't it interesting that the minister herself doesn't know anything about the article in Eye magazine that's criticizing the Woodgreen community project, but she happens to know in detail what the information is that I've requested under freedom of information. I think that is very interesting.
She has also said, and this is one of the best answers from the minister, where I asked about the conflict of the person who is on her ministry staff who's married to the key member of the Co-operative Housing Association of Ontario: "I would also like to make it very clear that the member of my office who has a marital relationship with a man who works in the co-op housing field has had her situation and any element of possibility of conflict of interest checked very thoroughly, and has declared any potential interest. There is none. That's a very unfair and ungrounded kind of thing for her to be saying."
If it is so unfair and is so ungrounded, then why would they have had it checked? Simple question: Why would they have had it checked, and "having declared any potential interest," and, "There is none?" It's pretty messy, muddy stuff.
If this Minister of Housing thinks this is a joke, I want to assure her that the taxpayers of this province do not think this is a joke. The taxpayers of this province think it's a scandal that we are spending $2 billion a year operating these non-profit housing programs, that the government is the landlord. The government is in the housing business instead of letting these people choose where they want to live and letting the private sector make the investment in building those units.
It is absurd that the money out of the taxpayers' pockets is building these apartment buildings and these other types of units and continuing to pay the subsidy and the operation on those buildings. It simply doesn't make sense and we know, not from me but from the Provincial Auditor, that the program is out of control.
If this minister sits here smiling and laughing, as she is this evening, then she has to deal with the taxpayers at the next election. In the meantime, I would suggest she has to be accountable to the Provincial Auditor. If this minister thinks that's acceptable to their socialist government, that's up to them. It is not acceptable to us.
All the years we've had criticism about the old Ontario housing development. That's what we're back to under this socialist government. This socialist government is now developing, building, owning and managing the same kind of thing we used to have in the old Ontario housing.
Non-profit housing programs are not the way to go. If people need to have assistance with their housing, as we have said, it is far fairer, if they are eligible for that assistance, to give them a direct shelter subsidy allowance and let them take the cheque and choose where they want to live.
They don't want to live in buildings that are labelled, they don't want to be in an identifiable project that's owned and operated by the government and, most of all, the Ontario taxpayers don't want the added expense when for the same money we can look after four times the number of people.
This Minister of Housing thinks it's okay to subsidize bachelor apartments in Toronto to the tune of $2,100. At the same time, on the same day that project was approved, there was a high vacancy rate of bachelor apartments, an 11% vacancy rate, in Toronto. There were bachelor apartments available for $420 a month. If they're really bent on spending this much money, they could look after four occupants for the price of one $2,100 subsidy.
The other area that is really of concern, especially to the city of Mississauga, is the fact that it wants to manage its own affairs. The city of Mississauga has written to the Premier, as of October 20, 1992, and asked for a meeting with both the Premier and the Minister of Housing, because the city of Mississauga wants to decide for its municipality where the allocation of non-profit housing units in the region of Peel will go. Therefore, they passed this resolution requesting a meeting with the Minister of Housing and the Premier of Ontario.
Whether that meeting will ever take place is probably questionable, because it's like everything else that the city of Mississauga has been trying to do on behalf of its constituents. They sometimes, in the past year, have never received a reply from a minister. I think frankly that when a mayor represents 500,000 people, the very least these ministers could do is respond to Mayor Hazel McCallion. They do not respond. They do not choose to answer her letters.
Hon Evelyn Gigantes (Minister of Housing): That is just not the case.
Mrs Marland: I have. If you want to see examples, I have a letter here that went to the Minister of Housing six months ago. Six months ago, I wrote to the Minister of Housing because of a policy that her ministry has about the kinds of windows that go into its non-profit buildings. This is really interesting. First of all, the minister chooses not to even acknowledge my letter, let alone respond to my question, in six months.
One thing I will give the Premier's office full marks for is that if we write to the Premier's office, we get an answer in a month. It took us 10 months to get an answer from the Minister of Education, Mr Silipo. I must mention that the Minister of Culture and Communications has a policy of getting back within a month to six or seven weeks. But not so with the Minister of Housing. Six months later she has not answered this question, and this was a question that was raised to me --
Mr Elston: What's she hiding, Margaret?
Mrs Marland: What is she hiding? Only she really knows the answer to that question.
I have a letter from Mr Pollard of Pollard Windows in Burlington, and I suspect he's probably a constituent of the member for Burlington South. Mr Pollard points out that he has not been able to bid on the windows for any provincial government non-profit housing projects because the specifications are very narrow. Get this: For instance, the window frames have to be black, bright red or royal blue. He points out that such windows are primarily produced outside the province. Therefore, the government is missing the chance to create employment opportunities for Ontarians. This is the government that does this big fanfare of announcements of Jobs Ontario, and it's not even allowing an Ontario firm to bid on windows for its non-profit housing projects.
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Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): You should send that to the minister.
Mrs Marland: I sent it to the minister six months ago.
Mr Phillips: What did she say?
Mrs Marland: I haven't had a response. This is the kind of accountability -- total lack of it -- we're talking about here.
In case you think I'm only picking on the Minister of Housing in terms of her response, I'd like to refer to the Solicitor General. I notice his concurrences are on the agenda tonight in this debate, and I don't concur with the Solicitor General's operation either. In his case, I wrote to him six months ago.
Mr Phillips: What did he say?
Mrs Marland: Of course I still haven't had either a reply or an acknowledgement. In this case it was a letter to him following a board meeting of the Regional Municipality of Peel Police Services Board on May 15. The Peel police services board simply called on the provincial government "to establish a more equitable funding formula that recognizes population growth as an integral factor in determining transfer payments to municipalities for providing police services and that recognizes additional funding must accompany additional responsibilities demanded by provincial legislation and regulation."
Mr Phillips: What did the Solicitor General say?
Mrs Marland: There has been no response to this request from the Peel police services board. There is no acknowledgement by this government that a high-growth area like the region of Peel needs any different funding formula, let alone the funding formula in a vacuum that currently faces these organizations.
Another letter I wrote to the Solicitor General is five months old. I still don't have an answer to this, and guess what? This letter is about casinos -- interesting. This was a resolution passed by the city of Mississauga on May 25 wherein the resolution by the city of Mississauga reads as follows:
"Whereas the provincial government has indicated a strong interest in legalizing casino gambling in Ontario;
"And whereas the introduction of casino gambling could result in increased costs for local agencies which would be responsible for the monitoring and policing of such establishments;
"And whereas casino gambling could result in an increase in criminal activity,
"Now therefore be it resolved that prior to any decision to legalize casino gambling in Ontario that the provincial government enter into full consultation with police agencies and local governments to ensure that such a decision does not result in a potential increase in criminal activities or a substantial increase in cost to local agencies which would be responsible for monitoring or policing such gambling activities."
That is a very significant resolution passed by the city of Mississauga on May 25. I referred this resolution to the Solicitor General five months ago. In none of those weeks and months since then have I received either an acknowledgement or a reply.
This government is so far out to lunch it can't even manage its correspondence. Those are very serious, very significant questions that are asked in that resolution by the city of Mississauga. They want to know. They want to be consulted. If we're going to have casino gambling in this province, they want to be sure that for any increased costs associated with those operations, like police costs particularly, there would be money forthcoming from the province to help with the added burden on the local municipality. But of course this government doesn't really care about that.
I have to mention that I find it very disturbing that I asked the Minister of Housing a number of questions in the Housing estimates in August and I still have not received the answers to those questions. If this minister is going to operate her ministry responsibly and gives me the assurance in estimates that I would get answers to my questions and then doesn't have staff who ensure that those answers are forthcoming, then I think it's an insult to the whole process. I think we might as well stop holding the estimates committee hearings. The total system becomes a farce.
If we ask questions on behalf of our constituents, agencies and different levels of government around this province to these ministers and they choose to ignore those letters -- they ignore our letters; they ignore the letters of our mayors of municipalities as large as Mississauga, as I said, with half a million people -- then this government is just operating in a vacuum. They don't really care to hear from anybody. They have their own ideological agenda. They have got their ship set in one direction and everybody else has to fall behind in the wake of their voyage -- their voyage to destruction of this province. Thank goodness we are at least halfway through this trip of trepidation for the socialist government in Ontario.
I have a concern and I have asked this question a number of times in a number of different forums and I still haven't had answers to this question either, and that is about the fact that we have so many children on waiting lists at our mental health centres. We have, in fact, a confirmed number of 6,847 children on waiting lists for service; 6,847 children on waiting lists for mental health service.
Those children have all kinds of unbelievable difficulty in coping on a day-to-day basis. Many of them are victims of child abuse and other terrible situations in their family life and we can't get them help through mental health services because this government doesn't make it a priority.
The other area of concern to me is that we have in my riding a home for the aged called Sheridan Villa. I have written to the Minister of Community and Social Services and so has Emil Kolb, the chairman of the regional municipality of Peel, to ask for money for the renovations to Sheridan Villa -- acknowledge that we have money coming from the government, which was started by the Liberal government, to renovate Peel Manor, the other home for the aged operated by the region of Peel.
In the summer, especially in the heat, the situation in Sheridan Villa is grim and totally uncomfortable for the people who work there -- and I would have thought this government would have been interested in the people who work there because they are, for the most part, members of different unions -- and particularly also very uncomfortable for the residents who live there 24 hours a day.
As Emil Kolb said to Ms Boyd, the minister, in a letter on July 30, 1992: "I must also remind you of our joint pledge to provide a safe and caring environment to our seniors. Sheridan Villa has legitimate renovation needs that will require addressing and, while I appreciate the fact that you may not be in a position to commit for 1993, I also look to you for some leadership in setting in place a process for planning and prioritizing capital projects that will allow us to plan for such future renovations in Peel and elsewhere in Ontario."
That letter is over the signature of Emil Kolb, regional chairman and chief executive officer, July 30, 1992, but again, no response from the Minister of Community and Social Services.
I think any government which cannot set priorities in terms of human need is a government totally without heart.
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Are you leaving, Mr Premier? The Premier is giving me the sign to shut down, and I'm not at all clear whether it is that he can't bear to hear the truth about his government or his government members are anxious to leave. I think this evening all of us would rather be somewhere else than in this House, but these issues that I am placing on the record are issues of major concern to the taxpayers who live in this province, who work in this province and whose children also are trying to cope on a daily basis with many different challenges.
I have spoken a lot in the past two weeks about developmentally challenged children and adults. I've mentioned the fact that we had the big rally here on the front lawns of Queen's Park three weeks ago today, as a matter of fact.
One other facility that I have not talked about before except in passing is the last one whose story I want to leave with this House tonight. When we do not have enough money to do everything, we have to help those people who need help the most. I have said so many times --
Interjections.
Mrs Marland: Mr Speaker, it's very hard to talk about a subject as serious as this in this atmosphere of laughter and visiting.
The Acting Speaker: Could I call everyone to order, please. I know everyone is milling around and chatting, and it is late at night, but the honourable member for Mississauga South does have the floor and is making her point on concurrence.
Mrs Marland: I can understand that the government members don't want to listen to me, but I really think that if they don't wish to listen, they could adjourn their celebrations and their visiting to somewhere else in this building than in this chamber at this time.
I feel very strongly about a facility in Mississauga known as Erinoak. Erinoak is also known to some of these members who represent Halton. I think that these backbenchers in the government should be doing exactly what I'm doing, which is trying to point out to the government, namely the cabinet, that we have to spend in terms of priority of human need. These children who are dependent on Erinoak will not survive without this help. We have thousands of children facing all kinds of difficulties in this province and, to varying degrees, some of them will cope; some of them will survive.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Order, please. There is a great deal of noise. The Speaker is having difficulty hearing. Please allow the member for Mississauga South the opportunity to participate in the debate.
Mrs Marland: When we talk about young people with physical disabilities, we talk about the most challenged individuals there are. The fact that they have physical and developmental disabilities as children means that they will have that situation for the rest of their lives. It is even worse than adults with the same challenges and problems.
Erinoak is classified as a group K public hospital, providing coordinated, integrated habilitation, rehabilitation and support services to children and young adults with physical disabilities. Erinoak's government funding sources are the Ministry of Health, the principal source, and the Ministry of Community and Social Services. Their service capacity is enriched by the United Way of Peel region, active fund-raising and volunteer recruitment activities. Erinoak is a specialized regional resource, and there are no other similar agencies in Peel and Halton.
Erinoak is currently serving 1,158 children and their families. It is a remarkable facility. Their challenge is to assist all children and young adults with physical disabilities in Peel and Halton to participate to the fullest in society through the provision of adequate and equitable levels of necessary services.
The problems that face Erinoak are the following: On the basis of information received to date about the 1993-94 and 1994-95 Ministry of Health funding, they believe they are facing the prospect of having to reduce their clinical staff complement and, as a consequence, having to reduce planned service levels. In addition, they understand that massive funding cuts by the Ministry of Community and Social Services are imminent.
The continued viability of their services, even without the anticipated reduction, is a very serious concern for the following reasons: Case load growth is steadily increasing, currently at the rate of 200 clients per year. Erinoak does not have the option of referring children and families to other service providers. There are no other agencies providing specialized paediatric rehabilitation services in Peel and Halton regions. Service levels for clients are being steadily eroded.
Erinoak has one of the highest ratios of children with complex conditions -- for example, cerebral palsy -- on its case load. Erinoak has the lowest percentage of children receiving active, once a week or more, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. In other words, children are receiving less treatment in terms of attendance days than any other serviced area in the province. Erinoak has one of the highest ratios of cases per therapist, whether it's physiotherapy, occupational therapy or social work.
The number of children requiring acute-level rehabilitation, which would be perhaps head injury or post-surgery, has increased dramatically in the last few years due to earlier discharge from hospitals. We all understand that; we all hear about the earlier discharges from hospitals. The only way earlier discharges from hospitals can work, just as the only way this goal of bringing everybody home and out of our institutions can work, is if the community resources are there. Erinoak is an example of one of those community resources.
Erinoak has diligently pursued strategies for coping with increasing client-staff ratios. Productivity levels, using weighted units as the indicator, have been steadily improved over the years, currently higher than provincial averages for all disciplines. They lead the province's centres in obtaining service leveraged through the Ministry of Community and Social Services' special services at home program and community funding adapted to sports-leisure programs.
The mediator training service model is used wherever practical. Steps towards developing equity and growth funding formulae for health services provided by children's treatment centres have been initiated by the Ministry of Health. They also understand that similar action for social services is planned by the Ministry of Community and Social Services. While these initiatives are encouraging, they have serious concerns about the time frame required for implementation.
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If this government cannot look after these children, then I wonder what the priorities of this government are. Of all the areas I have touched on very quickly tonight in terms of the concurrences of the ministries that are before us in this debate, for me, and I think for most of us, there is no priority greater than our children and adults with special needs. This government will never hear any criticism from us, if it will only prioritize on that basis. We can't pretend we're caring if we're not. You can't be a government that pretends to have compassion and meets with the officers of the Ontario Association for Community Living and pretends it understands the concerns and then demonstrates it by making cuts to their budgets. You can't do that. You cannot pretend to be one thing when you are something else.
This government seems to have some kind of licence on charades. This government, in opposition, put itself in a position where it was the ambassador for everybody who had a need. They were the spokesperson for every person with special requirements, for every person in difficulty. Now, in the grey light of dawn, the reality has hit them that you can't be all things to all people; especially you cannot be that in a recession.
We understand that, and we're not asking this government to spend more money, Premier. I'm impressed that you've sat here all evening. We're not asking you to spend more money. We're simply asking you to stand on the public platforms around this province and announce funding in terms of priority of human need. We will stand there with you if you will make those decisions that you will look after the people who in no way will ever be able to look after themselves, if you will look after those people first. The taxpayers of this province have no difficulty with that, but they have a lot of difficulty with some of the examples of wastage which I have given you tonight in terms of the non-profit housing program.
And there are other ministries with other programs we can all live without. We can all manage with some of the other cutbacks. There are many areas in the world where people have far, far less than we do in this province. We are still a wealthy province. We are still a "wealthy" government. We still have revenues coming in here. But our challenge to you is how those revenues are spent. Frankly, I don't see those revenues, the income of this government, being spent on a priority basis. When I see grant moneys being allocated to unions to write their little union songs, that's just one little example.
Hon Mr Rae: Through the Ontario Arts Council.
Mrs Marland: Yes, albeit through the arts council. But how do you think that single mother feels who has no money this year to buy anything to go under the tree and no tree to put anything under for her children, when we know there is money being wasted and being misspent? Other colleagues in our caucus have certainly given you examples in the past six months of where money has not been spent.
It's not a priority to move ministries out of the greater Toronto area to other locations in this province in a recession year. It's not a priority to spend millions of dollars moving, for example, the Ministry of Transportation to St Catharines. The irony is that when these ministries move, it's always in the guise that it's going to provide jobs in the local area. I'd like somebody to explain to me how that happens, because the ministry staff either move with the ministry or give up their jobs. Who is going to give up his job rather than move with the ministry, so how does that create extra jobs in the area they move to?
Most importantly, there's a time to make those kinds of decisions, there's a time to make those kinds of expenditures. I respectfully suggest that that time is not now, it is not in the recession of 1992. But the time is now to look after these children and frail, fragile, vulnerable adults I have addressed and not waste money that exists in the treasury today.
In the interest of time, I will end my comments now in this debate on concurrences. I am not happy with the expenditure, as I said earlier, of most of those ministries with which I am familiar, and I hope the Premier will pay heed to the concerns of the people who need the most help first and forget about the frills and trying to be the fairy godfather who goes around the province dropping pennies here and there to try to please everybody, because in reality it will all come back to haunt him. It will certainly come home to roost when the taxpayers of this province look at how their money has been spent at the time of the next provincial election.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate on concurrences?
Mr Elston: I won't be very long, although I had understood that there would be one more speaker from the third party.
Mrs Marland: No.
Mr Elston: Oh, that has changed. I won't be that long, although there are a couple of things I'd like to put on the record of why we're going through supply.
These are very interesting times for the people of Ontario and no less interesting for the people in Bruce county. We have an interesting economy in our area, one that is dominated, it's fair to say, by the nuclear industry, with the Bruce nuclear power generating stations, both A and B, and heavy water plant located between Kincardine and Port Elgin being the focal point of a lot of economic activity. The men and women who work there are highly skilled and trained and well-paid members of our communities, and in fact stretch into the ridings of Huron and Grey and into other areas as well as they perform their jobs at the Point, so-called, producing electrical energy to be consumed around the province.
It is with great concern that we have been hearing about the postponements of the rehabilitation and maintenance activities around Bruce A because it has caused us a great deal of concern about the future of the jobs that are in our community. Our community, while dominated by Hydro, is made up of an interesting mix of economic players. The next largest, I suspect, is probably government or near-government activities; I include in that hospitals and schools in municipal, provincial and federal government undertakings. And then probably we get into agriculture and tourism, all the types of activities that the Speaker will be well aware of in his riding, which used to be called Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, before the traditional name was changed by the current member.
Things aren't going that well for us, and things didn't need to be made that much worse to cause a tremendous difficulty for the men and women who own retail outlets in the riding of Bruce. We just heard what I thought was probably one of the best speeches that has been delivered in the House, for content, by the member for St Catharines as he displayed a very deep knowledge --
Mrs Marland: Oh, I thought he was going to say the member for Mississauga South.
Mr Elston: Actually, I thought the member for Mississauga South's speech was not quite equally as good but was actually full of some very interesting points. She was very good, but the speech by the member for St Catharines I thought presented an extremely balanced, detailed presentation of the problems that are confronting his community and in fact the whole of the Niagara Peninsula as it deals with the difficulties in GM.
It was one of the best speeches I have heard for some time, not because it was made up of a whole lot of light-hearted gibes or any of that stuff. It was all presented with a sort of classic touch of interest, dispassionate in some ways but full of passion and emotion with respect to supporting the men and women who are going to be thrown out on to the streets as a result of some decisions to be made by a corporate entity.
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In the riding of Bruce we are equally in extremis because of the probability of decisions to be taken by another corporate entity, but this corporate entity, rather than being in the private sector, rather than being sort of out of reach of government or out of any kind of influence of government, is the government's own corporate agency that produces electrical energy in the province of Ontario, and this moves it just that much closer to the Premier and to the Minister of Energy and to the men and women who serve on the government benches as they start to look at the problems associated with throwing women and men out of work at a plant that has traditionally provided a lot of economic activity for the people of Bruce county.
It's an interesting problem for us in Bruce county, because while we have those electrical workers, or the people who work at the electrical site -- not all are electrical workers; some are maintenance, some are security, some are labourers -- those people all provide electrical energy at a price to the other men and women who live in my riding and around the province who own businesses, both small business manufacturing and other types of retail outlets and larger businesses that are producing in our area some of the key elements for the production of other manufactured goods around the province and indeed even outside our province, and also the electrical energy at a price to the men and women who are involved in farming activities or who are involved in tourist activities.
So we have an interesting problem. We need electrical energy at a reasonable price in this province so that we can remain competitive, and everybody knows the problems associated right now with the economy, the depressed state of our consumer confidence, the depressed nature of the prices that affect almost all of the agricultural sector -- the Minister of Agriculture and Food is here and has been here most of the night, I must say -- with perhaps the exception of milk and some of the other supply-managed commodities. But all of those people are confronted by increasing costs of hydro.
It's interesting that the men and women who are working at the plant are not asking for special deals or special consideration with respect to their operations at the Bruce A generating station, but they are asking for a very positive and public display that the considerations of Bruce A and the future of the rehabilitation and maintenance at that place will be done in a fair and thorough way.
Right now the biggest concern is that there is an agenda which is attached to a political party that now governs this province that reflects a totally anti-nuclear bias.
Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): But it's a good government, eh?
Mr Elston: Well, the member from Kapuskasing has had his scare with respect to a total plant shutdown in Kapuskasing, and I congratulate the government for helping the folks in Kapuskasing come to grips with a possible plan shutdown. But for him, it seems to me, he is able now to relax in a way the member from St Catharines is not able to relax, or he is able to relax in a way I am not able to relax, because there is an anticipation of the loss not only of economic activity around our part of Ontario but because we have the possibility of a whole series of other problems associated with loss of activity at the plant. I can't relax.
Just as the member for Cochrane North would expect a fair hand and an openly public fair hand to be displayed by the Premier and by the ministers who are interested in the population in Kapuskasing, I in Bruce am looking for a public and open display of fairness from the Premier, from the Minister of Energy and from the new chair at Hydro when it comes to assessing the future viability of my workers at the plant.
It is extremely important for us if we have that demonstration, because the headlines today, as a result of the interviews of Maurice Strong in the agencies committee yesterday, were such that it has caused considerable pain for the people at home, considerable dislocation for the men and women who had just recently moved to the Bruce and who have purchased houses.
You see, the people who work at the plant are relatively well paid, in fact very well paid, by comparison to a lot of other workers in the province. But they're just like everybody else. They have families to feed, they have houses to pay for, they have education to look out for. And now, when it seemed that everything was falling into place for a large number of those women and men there, they have the anticipation that their cheques will be cut off.
Indeed, for some of them it may not mean the loss of a job, but it will mean that they will have to sell their houses in our area to move to the places where the jobs are available, because the contracts that employ them allow them to bump others around the province. While the jobs will be lost, perhaps, at the Bruce plant as a result of some decisions to be taken, all the fallout will not occur in Bruce county or Grey or Huron. The bumped positions will be lost in other centres -- maybe in Pickering, maybe in Darlington, maybe in Sarnia, maybe in Nanticoke; I don't know.
But the pain will be felt most severely in Bruce, Grey and Huron counties, because that's where the value of the real estate will be affected; that's where the value of the retail outlets on the main streets and in the malls of my part of the country will be affected; that's where the consumer confidence has been dampened. And that already is the place where in fact there have been cancellations of construction projects, which has produced unemployment for men and women in the contracting businesses.
You will bear with me for just a couple of moments if I put those facts on the record. I join my colleague the member for St Catharines, who so vividly put the case for all of us, I think, when he said, "When we suffer a problem locally, then surely we must suffer for all of the folks in Ontario." The result of the loss of one more job in this province is devastating, in my view, to a tremendous extent on all of us, the costs associated with it: the loss of economic activity, the loss of the ability for people to earn and generate their own income for their own families. If we rest easy because we settle our one plant problem, then it seems to me we betray the position we have been elected to as members: to represent all the people of the province of Ontario.
While some of us in opposition can't, perhaps, do as much as others can -- some days we can do more than some backbenchers on the government side; I've had some experience in dealing in things like that -- all of us have an obligation, it seems to me, to work towards ending the prospect of unemployment in this province. I have a big problem right now, and I want, more than anything else, I guess, to have something said which will provide some public assurance just prior to Christmas for the people who are at the plant.
Before I go any further, Mr Speaker, and I won't go much longer, I would like to say a word about the agricultural sector in Bruce county. I know that you, as the critic for your party, sir, when you're not in that chair, will agree with me, as probably the minister does, that this is the worst time that you've probably seen -- it is certainly for me the worst time I've seen -- for agriculture in terms of weather. I've seen bits and pieces of problems where you have some weeks of bad weather, but never whole summers. It just has not been very good at all. We are in a crisis situation.
I was pleased when the Minister of Agriculture and Food said today that they were looking at ways of being extremely flexible with crop insurance in helping people to pay some of the added expenses of salvage operations for the meagre yields which await the farming communities as they go out into their cornfields. While we're being attacked tonight by snow, which is not a very good result for those of us who live in the snow belt and in other areas where the corn is at risk already, I congratulate him for being flexible. I congratulate him for pursuing all possible ways, which I'm sure he will, with the Treasurer and the Premier to provide some cash flow for our farming community -- not only in Bruce, although that's my interest area; it is needed right around the province of Ontario if we expect to have an agricultural economy that is going to help us move slowly but surely out of recession.
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So while I commend him, I would ask him, since we're going to be away from here for maybe two or three months -- although I notice the member for St Catharines had invited the Premier to call us back in January to look after the various difficulties which are pressing, I suspect it'll be two or three months before we get back here, and I know that although we won't be here, there will be letters and there will be meetings that will require some work to help our agricultural sector.
Just one other point: There is such a short time. I'm always impressed with the fact that right now we are besieged by so many complaints about so many parts of the operations not only of our economy but of the elements that come together to produce what has traditionally been known as a very vibrant economy in Ontario -- our education system, our health system, our social support system, all of those. But it seems to me that one of the places where we get most of the complaints -- I don't want to minimize the calls that I have received from other areas of concern -- is our education system.
Our education system right now is besieged in a way which I have never seen it being besieged. So many concerns have been built up, and I know that while the Minister of Education is here, he agrees that money is always an issue that is focusing the attention of his bureaucrats and others, particularly as they run up into a new budget year. I think the thing that has got to be addressed in our minds is what we intend to accomplish in our education system.
Perhaps our institutions now that provide education for our children, which extend even into post-secondary, but when I say "education," primarily elementary and secondary level education, have the sense that our schools are being asked to do every job in our society in a way which is so complete that they cannot ever accomplish them. It doesn't just teach reading and writing and arithmetic, like we used to think of them in the old days, even, I dare say, in the days when I attended SS No 7, Morris township. "Stone school," it was called. It isn't even that.
Now there are so many other items which have to be dealt with. There are issues of parenting, there are issues of counselling, there are issues of providing a sense of socializing, I guess, in the schools. There is an athletic component, there are components that require our teachers to do almost everything, integration of pupils into the system who hadn't previously been in the system.
I only raise this as an issue because if we are ever to understand what it is that our education system is to provide our young girls and boys, from whom we are expecting so much as older people -- they're going to have to carry us when we're out of here -- if we are ever to figure out what our schools are going to do for those people in training them to become better citizens and better prepared to deal with the new pressures, then in my view we are going to have to fundamentally rethink all of the tasks that are associated with our schools, both elementary and secondary.
While money is always at issue and while the professionals are always concerned about curricula, it seems to me that those concerns cannot nearly come to a positive conclusion for the students if we are unsure of what that end result is to be that we expect the institutions to deliver. Is it just reading, writing and arithmetic? At this point, it isn't just that, although there are variations of those curricula and expansions of those curricula right around the province.
So I want some time to be taken, not only by the government but by the people generally. Goodness only knows, as a parent I have concerns about the education system, but when people think about those concerns, I want them not just to be critical without trying to understand what it is we're asking of our elementary and secondary systems.
I know that may come as a bit of a surprise to the Minister of Education, but I'm not going to complain about the lack of money or needing more buildings here or there; heaven knows, we need them in Bruce as well. I want people to really focus their attention, for maybe the first time in this last decade, to the real task at hand for those institutions. I will say no more there.
Finally, what I need to tell the people is that there is probably hope for our economy. As politicians, we tend to hear almost all the bad stories, and we hear tremendous amounts of dislocation associated with our economy right now. I find myself going out to speak at various events struggling to make sure that my remarks are not just a recitation of all of the bad things happening in this province. And there are a number of them, a tremendous number of those dislocations, but from time to time, as politicians, I think we must point out some of the good things that are happening.
While there is good, there is inevitably a bit of a bad side. Mr Bradley, the member for St Catharines, again spoke about the retooling down in Windsor that was perhaps in the long run going to help the auto industry in Windsor, for which we're quite grateful.
Taking a look at my own community of Walkerton, Ontario, people will probably be surprised to know that Walkerton, with a population of about 4,700 people, is the home of a nationally recognized producer of batteries. Everybody recognizes the name Energizer, and we have the Eveready plant in Walkerton. While they have been going through some tremendous difficulties there in meeting the pressures of all the trade issues that affect all the other manufacturers, Eveready has been toiling to try and maintain the home of production for eastern Canada, the Energizer, in the town of Walkerton. They have a wonderful plant, they have a very productive work force.
I guess it is a job of a local member to become parochial for just a moment. I suggest that when you go out to purchase a few of those battery-operated toys you're going to give away at Christmas, or when you're giving away the new toys to the charitable organizations in your own home towns, make sure you buy some Energizer batteries to go along with them. I heartily recommend them, and not only do I recommend them but they're produced and made by men and women who live and work not only in Walkerton and surrounding area but in Ontario.
If we can do anything that helps our local economies and if the member can do anything that helps the local economy to advertise how good the products are that are made at home, I think perhaps that would be a boost to a lot of the local economies right around the province. There are some interesting ads appearing on TV, or on the radio; I don't see a lot of television. I'm not sure by whom they are being sponsored, but they talk about shopping in your own home town. While I resist telling people to shop only Canadian, I certainly am a hearty endorser of shopping for everything we make here in Canada, but more particularly in Ontario, because I know of the quality associated with that production. I know it has a very positive effect on our economy.
I commend that as a trademark, I hope, of the members of this Legislature, that we'll buy Ontario products where possible and will buy them in a way which will assist our economy to get going, to assist the men and women who need the confidence those purchases will provide.
So when I mention that Eveready is manufactured in Walkerton and is a big part of the community, a very positive corporate citizen of our town, involved in various activities, sponsoring various organizations, and is composed in workforce terms of men and women from right around the area, I only put in a pitch to say that while they are good and worthy members of our society, they need your help as people in Ontario to buy what is a very top quality product. I fully endorse the Energizer to your consideration at this time of the year.
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Finally, in regard to the Health ministry, I have to say that I was a Health minister at one time. When people go through their time as minister, they certainly become aware of a fact that, once a minister, they never really lose; that is, the connection to the ministry. The member for Carleton was closely associated with freedom of information for years and years. He knows and has become one of the resident experts here because he worked so closely in putting some of the foundations in place with respect to freedom of information here.
With respect to health care, more than anything else -- while I spoke about education and rethinking, or at least thinking about the fundamentals, the foundations of our education system -- I think we really must be careful about doing things that either give the perception or actually undermine the confidence of the people in our own health system. I understand how much we're under pressure economically, but my view has been and will continue to be that if we have an educated and a healthy population, we start at so much a greater advantage than any other of the economies around this world.
I tell the Minister of Health, I tell the Treasurer and I tell the Premier that from my point of view, if you have to do anything with respect to cuts -- and I understand you don't want to be unfair to any of your ministers or your ministries or their worthwhile or worthy projects -- I urge you to take every caution against dismantling the system that has been, by and large, the hallmark of our society and the envy of the people around the world when it comes to providing care for our people.
I am concerned and really taken aback a little bit by some of the growing trends which I fear may augur poorly for the health system. I notice that some medications have been taken off the list; there may be a way of justifying that those medications fall off. I note that people are being given less money to be out of the province in the hospitals, and that may be okay. But when you apply with a very broad brush a policy that affects everybody, you invariably hurt some people in some parts of our province.
I take for an example the people up in Rainy River, up in Fort Frances. When it was discovered that there was no more drug and alcohol abuse treatment being paid for out of the States, that community lost its primary, almost its sole access for the men and women who found themselves dependent on various substances, to receive treatment. I really express a concern to the leaders of the government to make sure they don't undo a lot of the good things that our health system has provided.
At this juncture I also want to mention one thing, and this is the end of it --
Hon Mr Laughren: Are you sure?
Mr Elston: Well, very close to it. This was something I was not going to mention, but I feel very strongly about this, because I note that people generally think of us as politicians and that we're somehow immune to a whole series of difficulties that other people feel and suffer from.
Actually, there are two or three people who are ill, but one of our colleagues here is quite ill. I have been watching the member for Don Mills, and I am very much impressed with the type of person I have watched as she struggles with her difficulties. It is the single most important signal, in my view, to all the people in this province that we as members display the type of humanity that takes into consideration the suffering of those among us. The degree of tenacity with which they carry on, in a way which is most difficult but which has offered a bearing and an example to all of us, is worth sitting back and digesting. I really pay tribute to that member.
I pay tribute to the people around the province who are likewise suffering under those sorts of disabilities. I wish to finish by saying that, this Christmas season, all of us should think of people like that and the great example it sets for those who suffer from other problems.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): The time allowed for these concurrences has now expired. The first question is, concurrence in supply for the ministry --
Mr Elston: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I ask unanimous consent to have all the concurrences passed with one vote and to consider the concurrences moved with one motion.
The Deputy Speaker: Agreed? Agreed.
So the question will be concurrence in supply for the ministries of Agriculture and Food; Health; Education; Housing; Transportation; Industry, Trade and Technology; Community and Social Services; Environment; Consumer and Commercial Relations; Natural Resources; Solicitor General; Tourism and Recreation. Agreed? Agreed.
Mrs Marland: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: One intention I had when I was on my feet earlier was to thank our unseen support staff, namely the people who put up with all of our speeches and questions and deliberations in this House. I'm speaking of our electronic Hansard people, who follow us through these black boxes on all sides of this chamber. I think it would be great if, instead of applauding, we might all wave and express our appreciation and good wishes of the season to all of our people in the camera booths. Thank you for all your help.
The Deputy Speaker: We're always on camera, and I hope that members of Parliament realize we're always facing the camera. Over 400,000 people every day watch television. Of course we communicate a message. The work performed by all the people, from Hansard and from the table, will have to be congratulated.
SUPPLY ACT, 1992 / LOI DE CRÉDITS DE 1992
On motion by Mr Laughren, the following bill was given first reading:
Bill 117, An Act to authorize the payment of certain amounts for the Public Service for the fiscal year ending on the 31st day of March, 1993 / Loi autorisant le paiement de certaines sommes destinées à la fonction publique pour l'exercice se terminant le 31 mars 1993.
Mr Laughren moved second reading of the bill.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Shall the motion carry?
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Mr Robert V. Callahan (Brampton South): Mr Speaker, I don't want to frighten the House by saying that I'm going to speak very long, but I have been here all evening and I did ask my House leader for a few minutes to say a few things.
I could talk to you about the fair share for Peel and the question of how Peel does not receive its fair share, in terms of population, of grants in all areas, be it education, health and so on. I have a very brief period of time -- I'm glad to see the Premier is here -- and I want to raise an issue which I think is of some importance in terms of what is going on in our society, and that very issue is the question of justice.
Very little concern is given to justice. We are seeing a society today that is very much more angry, very much more difficult, very much more about death, assaults and so on that are occurring in our society.
I want to put an oar in the water for justice because justice happens to be not a terribly sexy political issue. It's one of the areas for which people like my good friend the Attorney General in your government, the Attorney General in our government and I'm sure the Attorney General in the Conservative government found it very difficult to pry any bucks out of the usually parsimonious treasurers who have existed. I caution you that this is a very dangerous precedent.
We have emerged from a Toronto where you could walk the streets at night. We have emerged from many communities around this province where you could walk safely at night. We no longer have that privilege. We are now facing situations where people are subject to being raped, assaulted or murdered.
I suggest that it becomes very important, in order to preserve and maintain the integrity and the safety of our communities, that we give a significant concern to the question of justice. Justice can no longer be the poor boy or girl on the block. It has to be a matter that is going to be funded in relation to the importance that each and every one of us puts on the safety of ourselves, our children and our loved ones.
I recognize that it doesn't win a lot of votes. It's not a terribly sexy political issue. It's one that attorney generals have to struggle for. It's one that ministers of corrections and solicitor generals have to struggle for. But I will tell you, and I've said it many times in this House, that we are going to face continuing serious crime in the midst of our communities that will affect not just the adults but will affect the children of our communities. Unless we're prepared to put the dollars there, even though it's not a sexy political issue, we are going to find that it's going to become ever increasingly more difficult to overcome the problems we've got.
I guess I could have started off, "'Twas the night before Christmas," since this is the last sitting of this Legislature till perhaps March or April, but I think it's very important that we take that message away with us and remember that it's fine to look after all these sexy political issues and that it's fine -- I notice we have a new member of the press gallery -- to deal with all those things that you think get you votes, but in the final analysis, if you want to be safe in your beds, if you want to be safe in leaving your door open, if you want to be safe in letting your daughter or son go down to the store, then we have to put a real priority on the question of funding of justice.
We've already seen how our courts are being just penny-pinched. We're not looking after the question of bringing people out of the correctional system with some degree of remedy to their problems. We're just doing a revolving door syndrome. I hate to sound like -- I'm trying to think of the guy who made predictions -- but if you don't do something about it, if you don't address the question of drug abuse and alcohol abuse, and that's part of the justice system, if you don't address the adequacy of judges, courtrooms, policemen and all the rest of it, then everything we do in this Legislature will become totally of no use whatsoever because we will become prisoners in our own Legislature. It will not be safe to leave here unless we go in groups, and you just have to look at New York, Chicago and the major cities -- this is exactly what happened.
I urge you to think about it over the intersession and decide that that's going to become an important issue because if you don't, I can tell you, I will predict that five years from today, you'll have a similar session ending and you people will not leave this building alone. You will leave it en masse. You will leave it probably under guard. You can say that I'm predicting something that's foolish, but I'm telling you it's going to come. We're bringing all sorts of things in here that are going to make it worse: casino gambling and so on.
Interjection.
Mr Callahan: I know; I got you.
I leave you with that message, that for our children's sake, for our spouses' sake, for the safety of this community, the Treasurer, the Premier and all those decision-makers in this government and any other government that follows better start putting a lot more concern into the question of how we look after law and order and the safety of the citizens of our province.
Having said that, I wish every one of you compliments of the season and a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I do that to all of my constituents.
Mr Norman W. Sterling (Carleton): I think it's important for the public of Ontario to understand what we are doing at this moment in our history, An Act to authorize the payment of certain amounts for the Public Service for the fiscal year ending on the 31st day of March, 1993. We are tonight authorizing the payment of $36,971,884,500 to be paid out of the consolidated revenue fund by this government.
The way we have seen this government manage the bank account of the province of Ontario will lead this party to oppose the payment of that amount of money out of the consolidated revenue fund. We would normally pass this kind of legislation on a reasonable nod. Our concern is that much of this $36,971,884,500 has been wasted by this Treasurer and this Premier over the past nine months and we have no prospect of it being spent in a more prudent manner over the next three months.
Mr Laughren has moved second reading of An Act to authorize the payment of certain amounts for the Public Service for the fiscal year ending on the 31st day of March, 1993. Shall the motion carry? Carried.
Mr Laughren moved third reading of the bill.
The Deputy Speaker: Shall the motion carry?
All those in favour of the motion will please "aye."
All those opposed will please say "nay."
In my opinion, the ayes have it. I declare the motion carried.
Be it resolved that the bill be entitled as in the motion and be carried.
Hon David S. Cooke (Government House Leader): Mr Speaker, if I might, I have three motions to move.
STATUS OF BUSINESS
Hon David S. Cooke (Government House Leader): I move that, notwithstanding the prorogation of the House,
(i) all government bills except Bill 20, An Act to amend the Education Act, Bill 81, An Act to revise the Condominium Act, Bill 168, An Act to amend the Pay Equity Act, Bill 171, An Act respecting Algonquin and Ward's Islands and respecting the Stewardship of the Residential Community on the Toronto Islands;
(ii) all government orders with respect to committee reports;
(iii) the following private members' bills ordered for second reading: Bill 5, An Act to provide for Vehicle and Pedestrian Safety, Bill 13, An Act to provide for the Protection of Financial Consumers, Bill 33, An Act to amend the Representation Act, Bill 36, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act and the Education Act respecting School Bus Monitors, Bill 62, An Act to amend the Environmental Protection Act in respect of the Niagara Escarpment, Bill 67, An Act to require the Minister of the Environment to direct an Investigation into the deleterious human health effects of exposure to Radon in indoor air, Bill 69, an Act to require the Minister of the Environment to direct an Investigation into the deleterious human health effects of exposure to Abrin, Bill 70, an Act to require the Minister of the Environment to direct an Investigation into the deleterious human health effects of exposure to Benzoapyrene, Bill 83, An Act to amend the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act respecting Fees Charged for Access to Records;
(iv) the following private members' bill referred to the standing committee on resources development, Bill 82, an Act to amend the Employment Standards Act and the Workers' Compensation Act;
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(v) the following private members' bills referred to committee of the whole House or pending third reading: Bill 9, An Act to amend the Representation Act, Bill 35, An Act proclaiming Agnes Macphail Day, Bill 98, An Act to provide a Consumer and Business Practices Code for Ontario, Bill 155, An Act proclaiming Earth Day, Bill 22, An Act to provide for Certain Rights for Deaf Persons, Bill 87, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act with respect to Volunteer Fire Fighters, Bill 124, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act, Bill 154, An Act to prohibit the Charging of Fees for the Cashing of Government Cheques;
(vi) all private bills referred to standing committee on regulations and private bills;
(vii) all other matters referred to or designated in any standing committees;
remaining on the Orders and Notices paper at the prorogation of the second session of this Parliament be continued and placed on the Orders and Notices paper of the second sessional day of the third session of the 35th Parliament at the same stage of business for the House and its committees as at prorogation.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): I hope you'll excuse the Chair. Sometimes we're given certain words that are really tongue twisters, and it's very difficult, unless you refer to your book, to remember them all. But the act did pass.
Interjection: Dispense.
The Deputy Speaker: Dispense? For the following I'm about to read, it is dispense?
Interjections: Dispense.
The Deputy Speaker: Therefore, it is dispensed.
Shall the motion carry? Carried.
Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): I'd like to comment on the motion at some considerable length.
Before I get into that, my plane was cancelled on the runway. We were all pulled off the aircraft, the plane to North Bay. I'd like to say hello to my wife, Janet, and family, who are expecting me home tonight. The next flight out is actually tomorrow morning at 7 am.
Before I get into some debate on the motion, which I do wish to talk about, as I said, at some length, I would like to wish everybody a Merry Christmas, all of those who I know will be with us even tonight, who watch the Legislature and watch the proceedings.
Let me hope and really pray that 1993 is a little more prosperous than 1992 was for the hungry children who have been going to school in the absence of a school nutrition program. Let me hope that we can do better for you in 1993, and for the homeless, for the single mothers, for those who didn't get any increase in welfare payments this year.
It's ironic that so many of the higher-income groups that the government is responsible for got 1% or 2%, but those on welfare, the most vulnerable in our society, found out today for the first time in the 11 1/2 years since I've been elected that they'll get zero per cent next year. That really is a disgrace. For a government to be so anxious to get out of here a week early and leave those most vulnerable in our society with absolutely nothing when the new chairman of Hydro just went from $260,000 to $425,000, when many in our civil service at the high end are going up the merit pay increases, the bumps along, and yet those on welfare are getting nothing --
I hope 1993 is a much better year, particularly for the most vulnerable in our society. Many have lost hope, and I say to them that there is hope, there is opportunity, this is still a great province, and if we can get a change in direction from this government, I am very confident that we can get Ontarians back to work. If we could get, for example, Bill 40 scrapped, some of the very onerous and punitive legislation, we could then get investment coming back into this province, which right now is going to Frank McKenna's province, a very progressive Premier in New Brunswick. It's going to Alberta, it's going to British Columbia. So I do wish all a happy Christmas and I hope a more prosperous 1993 than we've had in 1992.
Now I very much would like to discuss the motion that has been put forward by the government House leader. We just heard bill after bill after bill after bill being carried over to the next session. We heard for the first two years that it was an obstructionist opposition; that's why they couldn't get everything done. So then they jam down our throats rule changes that allowed them to do virtually anything they wanted in the shortest possible time of any Parliament anywhere in Canada; and now, in this session, with these new rule changes, we have even less accomplished by the government. We have less legislation passed; we have less dealt with.
Because of all these bills that are being carried over, we are now left with the only conclusion: that the government not only is incompetent running the province, incompetent running Hydro, incompetent running virtually every ministry; it is incompetent in running this Legislature, so we are now left to debate a motion asking us, "We want to prorogue."
We know why they want to prorogue: to try to draw a line and get out of here as soon as they can, have as long a period as they can to regroup, and then they want to bring all these bills back.
These are bills that should be dealt with now. There's absolutely no reason why we shouldn't be sitting next week, as we always have. This will be the first year we have not sat the last week before Christmas in the history of this Legislature. I find that abominable, when you consider perhaps a few more days were required to come up with some kind of modest increase for those on welfare, who are facing a very, very bleak 1993.
I understand the Premier. He runs away from the media. He runs away from this Legislature. I understand why he's running away now. I understand why the Premier ran away to Asia. I understand him running away from all the problems, because he doesn't know what to do. He either is so incompetent or those around him have absolutely no ability to manage the affairs of this House, they have no ability to manage their various ministries, to run this province, that they run away from the problems.
I was taught by my mother and my father and by the values I learned as I grew up that you don't run away from problems. You don't run away from them. You meet them head on. You deal with them. You seek and search and consult wide and far to find solutions.
I understand the Minister of Agriculture and Food leaving, running way, because he completely blew an opportunity for us to have stable funding for our farmers, a bill that is now dead, and the poor farmers of this province lost an opportunity to have stable funding. Again, total incompetence: He introduced a bill and then asked us all to vote against it because he didn't like the bill the very same day it was introduced.
I think it speaks reams to the incompetence of this government, with the rule changes it got, that they're now asking us to carry over all this legislation so they can run home to Christmas a week early, leaving all this unfinished business, leaving those on welfare, leaving the most vulnerable in our society, on their own, and for many of them it is a bleak Christmas.
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So I wanted to get those few thoughts on to the record. I suggest to the members of the government, when they go home over this Christmas holiday, that they reflect on the most vulnerable in our society and the back of the hand that they have received from this government in 1992. I ask them to reflect on that as they regroup and want to come back for 1993. I ask them to reflect on a new agenda to give hope and opportunity and put Ontarians back to work, because of the nine things that you've tried, out of 10 possibilities, none has worked.
There is still a solution. There is still the New Directions series that I and my caucus have put out that points the way to recovery of this province. I ask you to think about that on Christmas Eve.
I ask you to think about that over the holidays while you are enjoying that time. Many of you who perhaps are heading south even as I speak, think about those who don't have enough money to pay the hydro bills. Think about those who don't have enough money to eat. Think about the most vulnerable, as I say, in our province, and let's hope that you can come back in 1993 with a totally different agenda. If you would like help with that, I am available next week, because I plan to be working myself next week. If you would like some advice on the agenda that should be brought forward in 1993, I would be pleased to offer any of the solutions that I possibly can.
The Speaker (Hon David Warner): I thank the honourable member for Nipissing, the leader of the third party, for his contribution and invite further debate.
Mr Robert V. Callahan (Brampton South): I find it passing strange. I'm up here speaking about justice, which I think is the most important issue in this province. I'm having my chain pulled by one of his members to shut up, and the leader of the third party comes in here and goes on at great length. I have a few more things to say, if that's the case. I understand that His Honour is perhaps a little delayed, so I'd like to talk about some of the important issues in this province.
I'd like to talk about the fact that we have sat here tonight and we have passed untold numbers of bills. We have demonstrated that when we all want to get out of here the legislation seems to pass like that. "Everybody's here, let's go home and let's get all those bills through."
The people of this province expect us to be doing our job every day in this Legislature, expect us to be talking about meaningful things, expect us to be looking after the needs of the people of this province, and in fact what's happening is, it's not happening.
So it becomes passing strange that we as legislators, who are well paid for our jobs, while there are people out there who are on food banks, who are being thrown out of their homes, who do not have enough money to feed their children and do not have enough money to perhaps even go out and look for a job -- I know people in my riding who can't find the car fare to get down to find a job. I know people who are disabled who perhaps have been cut off in terms of the funding they get.
It's all very nice for us to go home to our nice Christmas and our fat turkey. It's almost like Scrooge telling his young clerk he can't throw another coal on the fire. I think that's marvellous. I think it's nice to go home to my warm home, my warm bed, while there are people in this province who are looking to us as legislators, looking to us as the people they elected to look after our responsibilities and to make certain that we are looking after their responsibilities.
I look forward to the next sitting of this Legislature in terms of it being productive and that there will be issues brought forward before this House that will in fact address the immediate, emerging and important concerns of this province instead of just selecting things out of the drawer of some political guy or woman who thinks it's sexy in dealing with it. I think everybody over on the government side, the people in the New Democratic Party who fought while they were in opposition to make certain that these issues would be addressed, are prepared to go along with the nature of, "Well, if it's politically sexy, let's do it; but if it's important for the people of the province of Ontario, it might be risky to do it, so let's not do it."
I see the Treasurer there, who is a man having grave difficulty. I feel very sorry for you, Mr Treasurer. You are going through a period as Treasurer that no one would want to go through. But the fact is that we have to use our dollars in a very much more imaginative way. We can no longer afford to have services that perhaps are not serving the people of this province.
So I urge you as legislators -- and I say this every time I get a chance to speak in this House. God knows how much longer I'm going to speak in this House, because quite frankly it becomes a terribly frustrating experience. It becomes an experience where you've got the numbers; we haven't. You pass what you like --
Hon Floyd Laughren (Treasurer and Minister of Economics): You were there.
Mr Callahan: I realize that, Mr Treasurer. The Treasurer says I was there, and I was. I have to say to you, it was a very frustrating experience. I was elected by the people in my riding to serve their interests, not to serve my own interests. I think that's the responsibility of every member of this Legislature. As we go home to our Christmas turkey, our warm house, our warm bed and all of the luxuries we have, I think we have to recognize that fact. We cannot come back here in the next session just simply "business as usual." There has to be a reform of this place. It's totally an anachronism and makes no sense. Anybody out there who knew anything of how this place works would be down here trying to throw us out of office, trying to take away whatever we're entitled to as members.
I found it passing strange that the leader of the third party said, "Why don't we sit next week?" Nobody wants to sit next week. Are you kidding? That's such a crock, it's incredible. Yet he comes in here because he says his plane has stalled on the runway and he wants to sit next week. What a crock. We know for a fact he didn't want to sit next week.
So I find it's time to start talking to the people of this province in spades; none of this garbage that gets knocked around in this place, all of this so-called trained seal nonsense. Let's get down to business. Let's start looking after the business of this province.
We all know in each of our individual communities that there are people who are hurting, and I think we owe a responsibility to them. If we don't fulfil that responsibility, we don't deserve to be here. I suggest that at some stage of the game, all of these cushy seats we've got here are going to be gone. Many of us will be gone. We'll be gone because we're not looking after the needs of our community, and the needs are growing ever more every day. If someone will tell me when His Honour is coming, I will take my seat, but he's not here, so I'm going to take this opportunity --
Hon Mr Laughren: He's on the roof.
Mr Callahan: The Treasurer says he's on the roof. I think you might be called to order for that.
When I look at the province of Ontario today, I say to myself, what has happened to my Toronto, my Ontario, my Canada? We're talking about casino gambling. This is the new way of funding the province of Ontario. We are going to turn people into gambling addicts. We are going to take people and we are going to have them cash their cheques --
Interjections.
Mr Callahan: You know my friend Mr Gilles Morin? You know that guy, the guy who occupies the chair from time to time, a most honest guy, a most down-to-earth guy. He tried to get a bill through this Legislature to close those cheque cashing outlets that are going to be open 24 hours a day with the flashing lights, "We cash cheques." Have you ever been to Las Vegas? That's exactly how employees are able to lose their wages on the way home from work. They go in and cash the cheque; they spend it in the casino. I tell the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations -- Madam Casino, Madam Bingo, whatever you want to call her -- that is exactly what the people in our province are going to do.
You're opening up a whole new era, a whole new thing. We're talking about other areas that are new to this province that are totally innocuous. We're talking about Sunday shopping. We're going to take our people away from their children on Sundays. You people haven't had the guts to pass the legislation yet, yet you're out there prosecuting Paul Magder and trying to take his entire business away from him. At the same time, you haven't got the guts to bring the bill forward, to stand before the people of the province of Ontario and say, "This is our bill; this is what we stand for." What you're doing is to allow these people to operate in the badlands with no law, nothing in existence at all.
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What have you done to the province? You've got schizophrenic people under a Mental Health Act that you people destroyed, and you tell people, loved ones of families, that they don't have to take their medication. They're wandering the streets of Toronto, they're wandering the streets of this entire province, and their loved ones are at home worrying about them. What are you doing about it? Where are the amendments to the Mental Health Act to ensure that these people take the medication that will keep them at least at a degree of sanity so they can stay at home and be dealt with by their parents? Why don't you deal with the issues that are important? I don't think you are.
I think it should make every one of you uncomfortable. I tell you, you have to become uncomfortable right now, because the longer you sit over there the more comfortable you will become in your pew and the more comfortable you will become in terms of receiving your emolument and doing zippo for it.
Your conscience starts to lose its ability to feel empathy for these people, because you figure: "They're out in the streets of Toronto and I'm here in this plush, magnificent Legislature of Ontario and nobody can call me back. I have the right to be here until 1995." There's no right of recall. Nobody can pull your chain and tell you to come back or you can't be a member of the Legislature. Some of you have had your first opportunity, and probably your last opportunity, to sit in this august chamber. For God's sake, while you're here do something so that when you leave here, when you're defeated in the next election, you can at least say, "During the time I was here, I served the people in my riding who voted for me.
The Speaker: I thank the honourable member for Brampton South for his contribution. I invite further debate.
Mr Norman W. Sterling (Carleton): I want to talk a little bit about this motion tonight. I want to talk a little about some of the events that have taken place in this Legislature. While we wait for the Lieutenant Governor to arrive -- I understand he's tied up in traffic because of the snowstorm which is occurring outside our walls -- I thought it might be important to mention my concern over a piece of legislation which we passed in this Legislature I believe in 1987, but it was talked about for a dozen years. I'm talking about the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
When I was appointed to the cabinet as a minister without portfolio in 1981, I was given the task of trying to bring forward freedom of information and privacy legislation to this province. My concern at that time was that it was somewhat new to this province, and I was also concerned about political responsibility for ministers, ministerial responsibility for saying no to someone who might want to seek information about what a government might or might not have done.
I studied the topic very much. I read a great deal about freedom of information and privacy legislation. It's interesting to go back in history. Freedom of information and privacy legislation started in the European countries in the late 1960s. The genesis of freedom of information legislation started in Sweden, and it wasn't to provide information to the public; the original intent of freedom of information legislation or legislation dealing with giving information of the government to the public was to revamp its confidentiality system. In fact, the first law which was brought forward in Sweden was called the secrecy law.
When that law, the secrecy law embodied in the legislation in Europe, was transferred over into American politics, when it was brought across the ocean to the United States of America, I guess in their unusual and entrepreneurial fashion the Americans took that notion of law and transformed what we would know as secrecy law into freedom of information law; in other words, instead of saying the government has legislation which says, "No, you cannot have this information," they turned it around and said, "You can have this type of information."
As I got into the legislation and studied it in depth and brought forward a bill in May 1984, I thought the public would accept a bill which said to the public, "You have a right to demand the information," and that if a minister turned the information down, then he would be responsible to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario for turning that information down. I didn't get my way. That bill never saw the light of day. The government changed shortly after I introduced that legislation in May 1984; in fact, the government changed in June 1985.
Mr Ian Scott, the former member for Rosedale, or St George-St David, who resigned this past summer -- and we continue to wait for an election to be called so we can elect a Progressive Conservative to that riding -- brought forward a bill in this Legislature in 1987 which in my mind had a lot of problems associated with it. It had a different concept with regard to seeking information. I was very much aware that civil servants, bureaucrats, agencies, bureaus, all really didn't want to give up information, so it required a very strong minister to say, "You must, in fact, give up this information."
We have seen a number of examples in which the government has started to use a law, which is now only four or five years old, much more as a shield than an opportunity to give information out to the public, which was its original intent.
The first example where government used the freedom of information and privacy law to shield itself from the public, really knowing what was going on, was with regard to the Polaris system in terms of our registry offices across this province. The former Liberal government gave to a private concern the right to have a monopoly in the information relating to titles surrounding different pieces of land in our province. Our party has tried to seek the names of the people who were involved in that endeavour, what the deal was that the government of Ontario made with those people, in order to protect the public and that in fact a competent deal was made.
Most recently, we have seen the Premier use the freedom of information act as a shield to prevent the opposition and the public from knowing what happened with regard to Carl Masters.
I think the freedom of information act has become a farce. I don't think the title "freedom of information act" any longer reflects what that act was originally intended to do. The freedom of information act was originally intended to provide the people of Ontario with access to information to call the government to account. Now we see a government which is throwing up the freedom of information act to prevent the opposition parties, which are elected to seek information from the Premier of this province about what has happened with regard to contracts etc, from finding out information about them. I'm very much concerned that what was a concept to deal with freedom of information has now turned into a secrecy act.
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We've gone full cycle. In the late 1960s, Sweden introduced a secrecy act that was brought across the ocean to the United States of America and was called freedom of information. Canada and Ontario adopted parts of that act and called it a freedom of information act. We now have a government which has changed the whole focus with regard to those laws. We have come full cycle, from secrecy act to secrecy act. Therefore, I'm very much concerned that we now have a piece of legislation which appears to have placed our province in the position of having passed a law --
Interjection.
Mr Sterling: The Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations wants me to adjourn the debate. I'm very tempted to adjourn the debate so I might have the opportunity to finish this with some degree of ability and attention of the Legislature.
I want to indicate that I believe the interpretation the Premier of Ontario is putting on the freedom of information act is attacking that act and its original intent. In fact, what has happened is that I have now come to the conclusion that as an opposition politician I would be better off without a freedom of information act than I am with one.
The Speaker: I thank the honourable member for Carleton and invite further debate. Is it the pleasure of the House that Mr Cooke's motion pass? Agreed.
Hon Mr Cooke: I move that the following committees be continued and authorized to meet during the recess between the second and third sessions of the 35th Parliament, in accordance with the schedule of meeting dates agreed to by the three party whips and tabled with the Clerk of the Assembly, to examine and inquire into the following matters:
The standing committee on administration of justice to consider Bill 102, An Act to amend the Pay Equity Act, and Bill 169, An Act to amend the Public Service Act and the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act;
The standing committee on finance and economic affairs to consider Bill 164, An Act to amend the Insurance Act and certain other Acts in respect of Automobile Insurance and other Insurance Matters and matters related to pre-budget consultation;
The standing committee on general government to consider Bill 61, An Act respecting Algonquin and Ward's Islands and respecting the Stewardship of the Residential Community on the Toronto Islands;
The standing committee on government agencies to consider operations of certain agencies, boards and commissions of the government of Ontario and to review intended appointments in the public sector;
The standing committee on the Legislative Assembly to consider the development of a policy with respect to the recognition of religious holidays in the legislative calendar;
The standing committee on the Ombudsman to write a report to the House;
The standing committee on public accounts to consider the reports of the Provincial Auditor;
The standing committee on resources development to consider Bill 96, An Act to establish the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board;
The standing committee on social development to consider Bill 101, An Act to amend certain Acts concerning Long Term Care.
The Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
Hon Mr Cooke: I move that committees be authorized to release their reports during the recess between the second and third sessions of this Parliament by depositing a copy of any report with the Clerk of the Assembly, and on the second sessional day of the third session of the 35th Parliament, the chairs of such committees shall bring any such reports before the House in accordance with the standing orders.
The Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
Hon Mr Cooke: Mr Speaker, the Lieutenant Governor awaits.
His Honour the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario entered the chamber of the Legislative Assembly and took his seat upon the throne.
ROYAL ASSENT / SANCTION ROYALE
Hon Henry N.R. Jackman (Lieutenant Governor): Pray be seated.
The Speaker (Hon David Warner): May it please Your Honour, the Legislative Assembly of the Province has, at its present meetings thereof, passed certain bills to which, in the name and on behalf of the said Legislative Assembly, I respectfully request Your Honour's assent.
Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Journals (Mr Alex D. McFedries): The following are the titles of the bills to which Your Honour's assent is prayed:
Bill 26, An Act to provide for the Regulation of Gaming Services / Loi prévoyant la réglementation des services relatifs au jeu
Bill 31, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act and to provide an Income Tax Credit to Seniors and to phase out grants under the Ontario Pensioners Property Tax Assistance Act / Loi modifiant la Loi de l'impôt sur le revenu, prévoyant des crédits d'impôt sur le revenu pour les personnes âgées et visant à éliminer progressivement les subventions prévues par la Loi sur l'allégement de l'impôt foncier des retraités de l'Ontario
Bill 74, An Act respecting the Provision of Advocacy Services to Vulnerable Persons / Loi concernant la prestation de services d'intervention en faveur des personnes vulnérables
Bill 75, An Act respecting Annexations to the City of London and to certain municipalities in the County of Middlesex / Loi concernant les annexions faites à la cité de London et à certaines municipalités du comté de Middlesex
Bill 85, An Act to amend the Tobacco Tax Act and the Liquor Control Act to provide for the Payment of Tax and Mark-ups by Returning Residents of Ontario / Loi modifiant la Loi de la taxe sur le tabac et la Loi sur les alcools de façon à prévoir le paiement de la taxe et des marges bénéficiaires par les résidents de retour en Ontario
Bill 92, An Act to amend the Ontario Lottery Corporation Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur la Société des loteries de l'Ontario
Bill 108, An Act to provide for the making of Decisions on behalf of Adults concerning the Management of their Property and concerning their Personal Care / Loi prévoyant la prise de décisions au nom d'adultes en ce qui concerne la gestion de leurs biens et le soin de leur personne
Bill 109, An Act respecting Consent to Treatment / Loi concernant le consentement au traitement
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Bill 110, An Act to amend certain Statutes of Ontario consequent upon the enactment of the Advocacy Act, 1992, the Consent to Treatment Act, 1992 and the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992 / Loi modifiant certaines lois de l'Ontario par suite de l'adoption de la Loi de 1992 sur l'intervention, de la Loi de 1992 sur le consentement au traitement et de la Loi de 1992 sur la prise de décisions au nom d'autrui
Bill Pr3, An respecting the City of Burlington
Bill Pr19, An Act respecting the City of Ottawa
Bill Pr21, An Act respecting Kitchener-Waterloo Hospital
Bill Pr35, An Act to revive P.J. Construction Limited
Bill Pr40, An Act respecting the Ontario Building Officials Association
Bill Pr44, An Act to revive Pinecrest Community Association
Bill Pr45, An Act to incorporate the Toronto Atmospheric Fund and the Toronto Atmospheric Fund Foundation
Bill Pr49, An Act to revive Eilpro Holdings Inc.
Bill Pr52, An Act to revive Grand River Home Improvements Building Products, Supplies & Services Ltd.
Bill Pr58, An respecting the Town of Lincoln
Bill Pr59, An Act to revive Peterborough Social Planning Council
Bill Pr61, An Act respecting the City of Toronto
Bill Pr62, An Act to revive Fefferlaw Developments Limited
Bill 63, An Act to revive Modern Optical Ltd.
Bill Pr64, An Act respecting the Institute for Christian Studies
Bill Pr65, An Act respecting the City of London
Bill Pr67, An Act to revive Lambda Chi Alpha Alumni Association of Toronto (Incorporated)
Bill Pr68, An Act to revive Rainbow Halfway House
Bill Pr70, An Act respecting Nipissing University
Bill Pr71, An Act to revive Women in Crisis (Northumberland County)
Bill Pr73, An Act respecting the City of York
Bill Pr75, An Act respecting The Canadian Millers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company
Bill Pr78, An Act respecting the City of Toronto
Bill Pr79, An Act to revive Duclos Point Property Owners Inc.
Bill Pr83, An Act to revive Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East.
Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): In Her Majesty's name, His Honour the Lieutenant Governor doth assent to these bills.
Au nom de Sa Majesté, Son Honneur le lieutenant-gouverneur sanctionne ces projets de loi.
The Speaker: May it please Your Honour, we, Her Majesty's most dutiful and faithful subjects of the Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario, in session assembled, approach Your Honour with sentiments of unfeigned devotion and loyalty to Her Majesty's person and government, and humbly beg to present for Your Honour's acceptance a bill entitled An Act to authorize the payment of certain amounts for the Public Service for the fiscal year ending on the 31st day of March, 1993.
Clerk of the House: His Honour the Lieutenant Governor doth thank Her Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, accept their benevolence and assent to this bill in Her Majesty's name.
Son Honneur le lieutenant-gouverneur remercie les bons et loyaux sujets de Sa Majesté, accepte leur bienveillance et sanctionne ce projet de loi au nom de Sa Majesté.
His Honour the Lieutenant Governor was pleased to deliver the following speech.
Hon Mr Jackman: Mr Speaker, members of the Legislative Assembly, ladies and gentlemen:
The second session of the 35th Parliament has been productive, albeit in difficult times.
The people of Ontario and the government have dealt with the most severe recession since the 1930s. We are not alone; economic activity has slowed throughout the industrial world. Global pressures have dramatically affected the structure of Ontario's economy. Although there are now signs of improvement, economic recovery will be gradual.
Le gouvernement a réagi en s'attaquant à la récession, en créant et en protégeant des emplois, en investissant directement dans l'économie et en encourageant le secteur privé à faire de même, en intensifiant son engagement en matière de formation professionnelle et en préservant les services à caractère social, tout en contrôlant le déficit de la province.
The government's 1992 budget continued this approach. The budget focused on creating and supporting jobs, maintaining public services for people and controlling the deficit. Focusing on jobs, services and controlling the deficit reflects the concerns that Ontarians have made clear and also responds responsibly to the government's tough financial situation.
The length and depth of the current recession have cut government revenues at the same time as people are in greater need for services such as social assistance. Part of the government's response to this financial squeeze has been aggressive internal cost-cutting measures, and it's working. For every $1 of new revenue the province raises this year, we have found $4 of cost reductions inside government.
Health care is the most dramatic example. Over the last 10 years annual spending growth in the health field averaged more than 11%. Last year the government brought that down to less than 2% at the same time as we have maintained these essential services to Ontarians.
The overall rate of growth in total spending in the 1992 budget, 4.9%, is the lowest in 39 years. Excluding public debt interest, operating spending will grow by only 2.8% this year.
The April 1992 budget also announced the Jobs Ontario funds. The $1.1-billion Jobs Ontario Training fund will support job creation and training for 100,000 Ontarians who are receiving social assistance or have exhausted unemployment insurance eligibility and training for 80,000 others.
In addition, 20,000 new subsidized child care spaces will be created to meet the needs of participants, many of whom are single mothers.
Contrary to recent media reports which were based on results for the first three months alone, the fund is moving aggressively. The government expects that more than 10,000 person-years of employment will be created by March 1993.
The Jobs Ontario Capital fund will invest $2.3 billion over five years on capital investments like public transit, environmental projects and roads to support Ontario's transition to a more productive economy. Over $370 million is already committed this year.
The Jobs Ontario Homes fund will generate more than $2 billion of work in the construction industry by supporting 20,000 more non-profit housing units. These are in addition to the 10,000 new units provided by the 1991 budget. The government's housing policies created 27,000 construction jobs in 1991.
This past summer, Jobs Ontario Youth invested $20 million and created 8,800 new summer jobs for young people. Five thousand of these jobs were promoted heavily to black youth. Total spending for summer youth employment programs was $45 million this year, an increase of 73% from last year.
In addition, $3.4 billion in regular capital investment means 67,000 jobs as a result of construction and renovation of infrastructure like roads, sewers and public buildings.
The 1992 budget announced a number of tax assistance measures to foster private sector investment and help create jobs. These include tax cuts and incentives benefiting manufacturing and processing industries and small business.
The budget also eliminated or reduced Ontario income tax for an additional 120,000 low-income Ontarians and enriched support for low-income seniors. As a result, benefits were increased for over 350,000 senior households with an average increase in benefits of $135 for seniors with household income of $23,000 or less.
Legislation to establish the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, OTAB, is now before the Legislature. OTAB is one part of a comprehensive reform of Ontario's training and adjustment programs. Its central objective is making the design and management of training and adjustment a partnership among labour, business, training providers, educators and community-based groups.
OTAB, the Canada-Ontario labour force development agreement and other initiatives add up to training expenditures of $930 million this fiscal year, an increase of 24% over last year, and the most ever spent by an Ontario government on training and adjustment for workers.
The government released an industrial policy framework. Unique among recent efforts in this field, the framework rejects the winning sectors/losing sectors approach. Instead, it identifies six "competitive fundamentals," that are key to business success and greater competitiveness. My government will work in a variety of ways to support these fundamentals and orient the economy towards higher-value-added activities. The most important of the initiatives announced in the framework paper is the sector partnership fund, a three-year, $150-million fund to enhance competitiveness and higher-value-added activity at the sector level. This is the principle supporting the work of almost two dozen sector strategies now being developed in various ministries.
In addition to $35.5 million in emergency financial assistance for farmers in 1991, my government has announced a five-year, $120-million agricultural investment strategy which will work towards long-term stability for farmers and rural communities. The first of its kind in Canada, the agricultural investment strategy includes:
-- the commodity loan guarantee program to provide financing early in the season, as well as security from crop failure;
-- the rural loan/agricultural mortgage pool program to encourage investment in agricultural projects and provide farmers with alternative low-interest credit;
-- the private mortgage guarantee program to attract investment to agriculture;
-- the farmer apprentice program to give new farmers experience and the opportunity to build equity for the eventual purchase of a farm;
-- the agricultural expertise and education program to give credit unions a greater role in farm financing and help farmers resolve financial problems.
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Mon gouvernement est parmi ceux qui assurent aux travailleurs et travailleuses la meilleure protection qui soit en Amérique du Nord, démontrant ainsi qu'emplois et justice ne sont pas des éléments contradictoires ; ce sont des objectifs qui, avec le temps, se renforcent l'un l'autre.
After a lengthy period of public discussion, which included four months of consultation on the contents of a discussion paper and five weeks of legislative committee hearings across the province, amendments to the Ontario Labour Relations Act were passed and will take effect January 1, 1993. The new act will: allow employees to organize who are currently prevented; limit the use of replacement workers during strikes and lockouts; make it easier for workers to organize -- especially women, new Canadians and part-time workers, many of whom work in the service sector; and speed up labour board processes, including the arbitration of first-contract disputes.
A further set of amendments to the Labour Relations Act (Bill 80) is now before the Legislature. Bill 80 will promote greater democracy and local control in the relationships between internationally based parent construction unions and their Ontario locals. Ontario-based construction locals have long expressed a desire for greater control over their own affairs.
The worker investment and ownership program received royal assent in July 1992 and is retroactive to October 1991. It establishes tax incentives for investment by workers in Ontario businesses. One part of the program complements existing federal legislation and provides tax credits to workers who invest in labour-sponsored investment funds; another part provides enhanced tax credits to workers acquiring control of their employer's corporation through direct investment. By enabling worker investment in Ontario companies, the program keeps jobs and investment in Ontario, especially in small- and medium-sized businesses. The worker ownership part of the program has already been used by workers in Kapuskasing, when they acquired control of the Spruce Falls mill.
Following the release of a public discussion paper on employment equity in late 1991, my government introduced legislation that will increase fairness in the workplace for women, aboriginal people, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities. My government remains fully committed to legislated employment equity and will be proceeding with the legislation as soon as the drafting of the regulations that give effect to many of the bill's provisions is complete.
Legislation to extend pay equity to cover an additional 420,000 women is now before the Legislature. Its enactment will mean fairer wages for women who work in jobs that, until now, did not qualify for pay equity increases. This will be accomplished by adding proxy and proportional value comparisons to the original job-to-job comparator method of calculating pay equity contained in the original 1987 law.
The government is active in pursuit of environmental and justice objectives as well.
The draft environmental bill of rights, released for public review, reflects a consensus of business and environmental groups. It aims to give people new powers to protect the environment. The Ontario Round Table on Environment and Economy report sets out a strategy for sustainable development in Ontario that my government is eager to follow. The government has renewed the mandate of the round table.
The Waste Management Act has been proclaimed. This statute provides greater authority for initiatives to reduce, reuse and recycle materials.
The government has concluded an historic statement of political relationship with aboriginal people. We are pursuing self-government, land claims and quality-of-life issues with Ontario first nations on a government-to-government basis.
To empower and offer protection to vulnerable persons, a system of non-legal social advocacy will be established under the Advocacy Act.
Legislation has been introduced that aims at eliminating sexual abuse in health care and removing limitation periods for civil lawsuits by many sexual assault victims.
Rent control legislation was proclaimed. This ends high rent increases for tenants and ensures better maintenance and repair of rental buildings.
Amendments to the Planning Act and Municipal Act were introduced to allow home owners to create an apartment in their house.
The government maintains its commitment to protecting essential public services and managing the difficult fiscal challenges in prudent ways.
By reforming the health care system, we are ensuring we can enjoy its benefits at an affordable cost in future years. The Ontario Medical Association and the government have committed themselves to mutual efforts to control costs while maintaining quality services. The government has improved the management of the Ontario drug benefit program to help reduce the spending growth rate of this program.
The government introduced the Long-Term Care Statute Law Amendment Act as part of a comprehensive reform. This initiative will integrate and improve the services supporting elderly persons and their care givers, adults with physical disabilities and those who need health services at home.
Honourable members, I commend your achievements this session. In closing, may I take this opportunity to wish you a joyous and happy holiday season.
Au nom de notre souveraine, je vous remercie. In our sovereign's name, I thank you.
Je déclare cette session prorogée. I now declare the session prorogued.
Hon David S. Cooke (Government House Leader): Mr Speaker and honourable members of the Legislative Assembly, it is the will and the pleasure of His Honour the Lieutenant Governor that this Legislative Assembly be prorogued and the Legislative Assembly is accordingly prorogued.
His Honour was then pleased to retire.
The House prorogued at 2258.