Hansard Transcript 1993-Jul-05 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): I'd like to take this opportunity, on behalf of the members of this House and the people of Ontario, to thank Lou Parsons, whose term as chairman of GO Transit has not been renewed by Bob Rae.

Mr Parsons, who is a resident of Mississauga, has served as chairman of GO Transit for the past 13 years. He's a knowledgeable and hardworking businessman who applied his business acumen to running GO Transit. The result was a well-run transit system that has served the people of the greater Toronto area well.

We all recognize that this is a political appointment. Mr Parsons was first appointed by Premier Davis in 1980, but he took his appointment very seriously. He applied his business knowledge to the smooth operation and development of a first-class transit system in Ontario, and he did so in a non-partisan way.

In 1990, Premier Peterson recognized the fine job Lou Parsons was doing. He understood that his first responsibility was to the people of Ontario and he reappointed Mr Parsons.

If I could offer some advice to Bob Rae, and the way things are going he could use advice from any quarter these days, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Lou Parsons has shown class in accepting the Premier's decision. Bob Rae has shown that he is simply running out of jobs for NDP hacks.

Lou may lose this job, but the people of Ontario are losing a loyal servant who has transcended partisan politics to do a superb job as chairman of GO Transit. Lou Parsons has served this province well and I congratulate him and extend my best wishes to him in his future endeavours.

ONTARIO FILM REVIEW BOARD

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): I call on the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations to hold a public inquiry into the operations and mandate of the Ontario Film Review Board, for the following reasons:

First, the OFRB fails to reflect community standards when classifying adult sex videos. The chair of the board received hundreds of letters protesting the board's plans to loosen the guidelines for what is allowed in these videos.

Second, the board does not consider public input. When the board met to consider the guideline changes, only a couple of these hundreds of letters of protest were distributed. The chair of the board treats the public with contempt, calling her critics fascists.

Third, the board's first, direct service is to the distributors, while it's second, indirect service is to the public. This is an unacceptable mandate for a government agency.

Fourth, it is the board's legal opinion that the OFRB is not required to apply the criminal law test of obscenity. How ridiculous, when violent and degrading pornography has been linked to increased violence against women and children. If every citizen is expected not to commit a criminal act, then the OFRB can be expected to apply the criminal law test of obscenity.

Public hearings into the OFRB must occur before the board's planned review of its guidelines for violence in films and videos. Our society's safety and wellbeing are at stake.

CANADA DAY

Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): There was warm sunshine, a party mood and smiles on thousands of faces as people jammed Optimist Recreation Park on Dorchester Road in Niagara Falls for Canada Day. Nearly every group in the city was there to provide music and many activities. To quote the Review, "More than 10,000 people shook the recession blues and turned out for a gala birthday party, many wearing patriotic red and white."

I want to thank the organizers of this event and congratulate all those receiving good citizenship awards.

The theme of the opening ceremonies honoured the 200th anniversary of the anti-slavery legislation in Upper Canada. This was enacted July 9, 1793, in nearby Niagara-on-the-Lake, then known as Newark. This was 40 years before the British Emancipation Act and 70 years before the US.

We can certainly be proud of the principles on which our country is based. We must now show that women, visible minorities, aboriginal people and disabled are in fact equal and valuable members of the workforce as well as in our society.

In Niagara Falls, we have the unique pleasure each day of reaching out to people from around the world who visit our world-famous falls and showing our hospitality. I invite everyone listening to also enjoy the beauty of the falls this summer. Something new has been added this year, every Friday night at 11 pm, fireworks over the falls. What could be more romantic?

SOCIAL CONTRACT

Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): Today, Bill 48's debate will continue in committee of the whole, yet no one, including the Conservatives, seems to understand the Tory position on the legislation. On the television show Focus Ontario, Mike Harris said, and I quote --

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Mrs Caplan: -- his caucus "very likely won't support" the social contract legislation "on third reading."

I hope this means that the Tories are starting to see the light and are listening to me. The original Conservative view was bang, bang, bang. "We'll support your legislation," Harris told Premier Rae. Then the Tory caucus said Bill 48 is bad, bad, bad legislation.

By voting in favour of Bill 48 during second reading, the Conservative caucus gave the social contract legislation credibility it simply did not deserve. I hope the Tories have finally realized that no amendments can fix this flawed legislation.

I say to the Conservative caucus, stop adding confusion to the chaos. Stop the maybes, the ifs, ands or buts, the very likelys or perhapses. Tell the people of Ontario that you will not support Bill 48, that no amendments can possibly fix this bill, and join Lyn McLeod and the Liberal caucus in defeating Bill 48 and this government. Vote with us on third reading against Bill 48.

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RACE RELATIONS

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): On June 6, the Jewish National Fund of Canada, Hamilton branch, held its annual Negev dinner to honour the achievements of Gerald Swaye, an outstanding Canadian, and his deep commitment to the people of Israel and our community.

The Jewish National Federation is worthy of the strongest possible support by all Canadians. Now that the same kind of terrorism the people of Israel have had to live with is beginning to show its ugly face here on our continent, we realize that Israel's battle is ours as well and that what Israel suffers is what we must all share in.

We have been witness to an alarming rise of anti-Semitism, especially here in Ontario. Last December, it took eight days for a swastika painted on the side of the Legislature to be removed. Recently, skinheads broke into a Kitchener store and viciously attacked an elderly Jew. Ernst Zundel has already received too much notoriety in the press, while we are informed that not enough evidence exists to put a stop to it.

In times like these, we as legislators must become more vigilant against anti-Semitism. If our laws against it aren't strong enough, then we must strengthen them, along with our commitment and our resolve. To do nothing is to condone anti-Semitism by our silence and our inaction. If not us, then whom? If not now, then when? Now is the time to send a clear message that anti-Semitism will not be tolerated, not in this province, not in this country, not anywhere.

On behalf of the Ontario PC Party, I congratulate Gerald Swaye and I renew our pledge as legislators to the entire Jewish community to oppose all forms of racial and religious hatred everywhere.

New year in Jerusalem.

BUFFALO DAYS

Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): I'd like to extend an invitation to all the members of the Legislature, their families and their friends to a celebration in my riding which is called Buffalo Days. It's going to be a celebration from July 14 to 18. It is in Ridgetown, the friendliest town in Ontario.

There are a lot of activities going on, such things as a golf tournament, buffalo foods, a tour of a buffalo farm which is in my riding, and also a tennis tournament, pony rides, a blacksmith demonstration, barn-raising, street dancing and lots of music. There are many other activities.

The town of Ridgetown is situated in the agricultural heartland of southwestern Ontario and it offers visitors a comfortable and relaxing atmosphere. It's located close to Lake Erie and Rondeau Provincial Park, which provides excellent fishing, bird-watching, swimming from long stretches of sandy beach and also camping facilities. You can take a walk along our picturesque main street and experience Ridgetown's combination of rural charm and urban vitality.

I know I only have a minute and a little bit, but I'd like to certainly extend the invitation to people to come and join the celebration of Buffalo Days. If you can't make it this time, drop in any time.

SOCIAL CONTRACT

Mr Ron Eddy (Brant-Haldimand): The government's social contract legislation is causing much confusion, deep concern and even hopelessness in hundreds of small and rural municipalities throughout Ontario. Elected and appointed municipal officials of many of the smaller municipalities throughout Ontario are in a quandary more serious than ever before because of the requirements of this provincial government's so-called social contract.

Several hundred Ontario municipalities have few, if any, employees earning over $30,000 per annum. If a municipality has no employee earning over $30,000, or only one, or even a few, how can it bear the government's forced reduction without reducing or indeed eliminating services?

I compliment the many, many municipalities of the province that have already, in a concerted effort to bring in budgets with zero mill rate increases, and in some cases, several years in a row, reduced services, reduced expenditures, reduced staff, held the line on staff salaries, wages and benefits, and reduced precious reserve funds.

How can these hard-pressed municipalities cope with the government's social contract requirements? This government must end the constant confusion that is created with its muddling-through approach to financial management and must open up the communication lines.

SIMCOE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): The Simcoe County Board of Education is facing budget cuts of more than $12 million as part of the NDP government's so-called social contract. The board recognizes and accepts the need to reduce the cost to present and future taxpayers in Simcoe county, but the board is also looking for recognition of the fact that cost-cutting measures have already been undertaken by the Simcoe County Board of Education.

The board trimmed $4.9 million during the 1993 budget deliberations, and that is expected to have an impact of $9.3 million on the 1994 budget. As part of the reduction program, the board has managed to obtain a reduction in hours worked; wage packages; staff, through attrition and retirement; and the plant maintenance budget.

The board had originally budgeted for a $2.4-million restructuring grant from the province, and then the Treasurer turned around and chopped $2 million from that original $2.4 million. The Simcoe County Board of Education now faces the unpleasant possibility of slashing a further $12 million without ever getting credited for the proactive approach it has taken in its recent budgetary policies.

The Minister of Education and Training must give the board the opportunity to demonstrate how cost reductions have already been achieved and to make its case that the Simcoe county board should be recognized as meeting the requirements of the social contract. The minister has an obligation to ensure that some flexibility is built into the Social Contract Act. Be positive, not like the bang, bang, bang of the member for Oriole.

CANADA'S POTENTIAL

Mr Gordon Mills (Durham East): I want to share part of an editorial that appeared in the Canadian Statesman, a well-known and respected newspaper in my riding. This is what they said:

"Canada has made yet another birthday. But is there anything left to celebrate? It depends, we suppose, on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. Factories continue to close, farmers can't get a decent price for their crops, and droves of middle managers are finding their jobs on the chopping block."

If you are pessimistic, like my friends across the way, you will see little to cheer about. But if you're an optimist like I am, you will see that this country, despite recent setbacks, remains full of potential.

We are a nation of greatness. We have first-class health care, excellent educational opportunities and talent abounding in sports and the arts. We have freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of association. Everything we need for success --

Interjections.

Mr Mills: Mr Speaker, they're hounding me unmercifully. Everything we need for success is right before our eyes. We seem to spend more time listening to self-appointed proclaimers of doom. It's time to pick up the pieces and get back to work building this country up rather than tearing it down. Above all, I appeal to everyone in here: Let's all be optimists.

VISITORS

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): I invite all members to welcome to our assembly this afternoon, seated in the Speaker's gallery, Mr Ernest Smith, MLA, Legislative Assembly, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; Mr Jean-Robert Gauthier, Member of Parliament, Mr Eugène Bellemare, Member of Parliament, and Mr Richard Dominique, all from the House of Commons, Ottawa. We are joined as well by M. Jean-François Gautrin, MNA, Mme Louise Harel, MNA, and Ms Line Béland from the National Assembly, Quebec. In addition, Mr Fred Gingell, MLA, British Columbia; Mr Len Evans, MLA, Manitoba; Mr Neil Windsor, MHA, Newfoundland; Mr Danny Dumaresque, MHA, Newfoundland; Mr Brent Taylor, MLA, New Brunswick; Loredana Catalli Sonier, Newfoundland; Mr Henry Zoe, MLA, Northwest Territories, and Mr Alan Downe, Northwest Territories.

Please join me in welcoming all of our guests to our assembly.

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ORAL QUESTIONS

SOCIAL CONTRACT

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): My questions will be for the Premier.

Day after day, we have raised our concerns about Bill 48, the government's social contract legislation. Our concerns are real, they continue to be real, even though we receive no answers, and every day brings us new questions about this legislation.

We have consistently raised our concerns that this bill does not achieve restraint in the short term, and we are deeply concerned that in fact this bill simply defers significant costs to some government in a future day. The legislation has created an unprecedented atmosphere of confusion and confrontation and even has led to divisions within the Premier's own caucus and cabinet. We have continuously suggested alternatives because we believe there is a better way to meet the goals of restraint, and this Premier has refused to listen.

I say to the Premier, surely you understand that you have gone to the wall for flawed legislation that will not achieve any of your own goals. Do you not care that you have set up a ticking time bomb that is going to lead to billions of costs for future governments? Do you not care that three weeks after your legislation was introduced, there are still no meaningful negotiations to achieve your financial targets for this year? Why do you refuse to look honestly at the implications of this disastrous legislation that you've brought forward?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): I particularly appreciated the Leader of the Opposition's concern about the state of health of my caucus and party. These are the kinds of well wishes that even Job could have wished for.

I would say to the honourable member very directly that, first of all, there are a number of negotiations that are under way, I will have the member know. Those negotiations are proving to be very productive and they are going to prove to be ultimately successful in a great many sectors. That's a fact.

Secondly, I would say to the honourable member that her view that this bill is one that simply defers costs is not our view. That's not the purpose of what we're doing. It's not the purpose of the legislation. It's not the purpose of what's in place. We are going through a period of adjustment in the province in which the size of the public sector and the size of public sector compensation is going to have to come down.

The honourable members says she's made a number of useful suggestions with respect to how one could produce restraint. I haven't heard one suggestion from the leader of the Liberal Party with respect to the issue of public sector compensation. I haven't heard her say a peep about the compensation of doctors. I haven't heard her say a peep about the compensation of anyone else working in the public sector. I haven't heard her say a word. I haven't her say boo on the subject of how you would arrive at this. All she does is go around to the municipalities and everyone else and say: "Oh, don't touch me. Don't touch him. Don't touch me. Don't touch the person behind the tree." That's the position of the Liberal Party of Ontario.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Would the Premier conclude his response, please.

Hon Mr Rae: It's a classic of the oldest of old politics, and it won't work in the new Ontario. It won't work.

Mrs McLeod: Still no answers to questions which are clearly unanswerable. At the very least, the Premier should have checked Hansard from last week, when his own Finance minister at least acknowledged that the issue of deferred cost was indeed an issue, although he personally didn't think it was a problem because he thought our calculations of the cost were somewhat excessive. I say to the Premier that even with the amendments that were brought forward last week, there are more questions that are being raised.

And when you say, Premier, that we have not given any alternatives, I take you back to the end of March, when we said: "Bring in your financial targets. Negotiate with your own employees to achieve those targets. Let other public sector employers and employees do the same thing." That would have worked, Premier, and it would still work.

But instead of that, we find that last week, in an attempt to somehow appease or amend this flawed legislation, you introduced an amendment to section 33 of the bill. This amendment seems to provide for the unilateral extension of existing collective agreements until 1996, although apparently only for those groups that have the right to strike.

I realize that this may seem like a somewhat technical question, but it has very great significance. It would seem to us that while employers are still hoping to work out local solutions, those local solutions that we believe could be found to achieve restraint through the negotiating process, your amendment is going to tie their hands.

Premier, I ask you to help us understand this amendment to section 33. Why is it there? Who does it apply to? What is it meant to do? How do you expect people at the local level to be able to work out long-term solutions to restraint while you stifle the collective bargaining process?

Hon Mr Rae: We're not stifling the collective bargaining process. You asked me, what's the purpose of the amendment? The purpose of the amendment is to deal with the very real concern that exists that because of the application of the law and because of the climate of restraint in which we're working, where there will not be, by definition, bargaining over wages for a period of time -- the concern has been expressed that this will therefore allow employers in some instances, in some cases, where there's great inequality of bargaining power, to effectively go in and totally gut the collective agreement, which is what we don't want to have happen.

So we're putting forward that proposal as a way of ensuring that important contract language, that important issues that have been there for some time cannot simply be taken away unilaterally by the employer.

Mrs McLeod: The nightmare of this legislation just keeps getting more and more bizarre. Under Bill 48, this government is clearly prepared to override every single collective agreement in the public sector in this province, and now the Premier says they have brought in an amendment in the name of somehow protecting collective agreements. But those are the same collective agreements they have already unilaterally interfered with by the fail-safe, broad-brush provisions which build in their own inequities, and the amendment itself actually suspends the collective bargaining process unilaterally.

It seems that out of the total confusion this creates, I can find only one clear question. Why is it that unilateral changes that you propose as government to collective agreements are somehow okay, but you want to stop people at the local level from trying to negotiate restraint measures that work through their own collective bargaining processes?

Hon Mr Rae: Nothing could be further from the truth. What we want to do is to allow bargaining to take place in which both sides are working from a basis of mutual respect and in which there can be successful bargaining at the local level, and what we're looking for is successful bargaining at the local level.

The whole premise of our approach has been to ensure that people, within a framework that ensures a certain protection, are able to bargain successfully locally. That's the whole premise of the approach.

COMMERCIAL CONCENTRATION TAX

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): With a certain amount of reluctance, I turn in my second question to another disastrous piece of legislation. In this case, it was a piece of legislation which ironically we had hoped to be able to support, because I think the Premier is well aware that we were prepared to support the removal of the commercial concentration tax. In fact, we wanted to see that measure instituted as soon as possible, and we wanted to support a bill which contained this measure specifically.

The Premier will also know that Bill 29, which stands in the name of the commercial concentration tax, also contains amendments to 12 other acts, many of which are totally unrelated in any way to the commercial concentration tax and which are extremely significant in their own right and which require debate and examination.

We will ensure our support for the swift passage of the repeal of the commercial concentration tax if you will allow us to deal with other parts of Bill 29 in a fair and democratic manner. I ask, will you support the commercial concentration tax sections of this bill so that this House can pass the repeal of that tax measure without delay?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): I'm sorry to have made the life of the official opposition so very difficult. Having brought in the commercial concentration tax, having argued in favour of it, having brought it in, having imposed it on the greater Toronto area, they now want to have the opportunity to do their mea culpa, and somehow, for some reason, they feel we've taken it away from them. I'm very sorry for the Leader of the Opposition. Sometimes life is a little bit hard.

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Mrs McLeod: I think it's unfortunate that the Premier has chosen this particular issue on which to provide a purely flippant response, because I can assure the Premier that in raising this question, we are raising an issue which we believe is fundamental to the integrity of the democratic process as well as to the openness of this government.

I draw the Premier's attention to just one of the sections of Bill 29 which happens to be of particular concern to us, section 12, and section 12 gives this government tremendous power to make decisions about the Ontario drug benefit plan. It gives the government the power to decide on everything from what drugs will be on the plan to whether there will be user fees for seniors.

The Premier will surely be aware that for the past three years his government has actually been working with pharmacists towards a joint consultative committee so that jointly, with professional and objective advice, there can be a determination of the most cost-efficient way of providing pharmaceutical care to the people of this province. Now, just as you did with Bill 50, you have thrown the process out and all of the work that had been done. You have done it with no consultation and in fact you have done it without notice.

I ask the Premier, can you tell me, firstly, why have you done this and, secondly, why have you done it in this way? Why have you tried to sneak in major changes to our health care system through the back door?

Hon Mr Rae: The idea that something has been snuck in, the idea first of all that this government could successfully sneak in anything, given the current climate and reality -- talk about trying to sneak something in -- I spoke about the subject of drug reform and debated it in an open forum at Toronto city hall last week, so this isn't exactly something we're trying to keep under the carpet.

We are dealing directly with the commercial concentration tax, we're dealing directly with the problem of drug expenditure, we're dealing directly with the problem of public sector compensation, we're dealing directly with the question of expenditure reduction. You want to play political games saying, "Premier, you've taken away my chance to cherry-pick your legislation." You can't cherry-pick; you have to make up your mind. Are you in favour of taking these measures or aren't you? If you're opposed, fine, stand opposed, because that's what the Liberal Party's been standing for for the last two years. "No, no, no, no, no." That's been your position.

Mrs McLeod: Obviously, it's "My terms or no terms; our health system or no health care system. Do it our way, people of Ontario, or you won't get the service at all."

I simply cannot believe that the Premier doesn't understand how betrayed the professional pharmacists of this province feel at the total abandonment, without notice, of the consultation process that they were genuinely working towards.

I say to the Premier that there are two issues here. The first is that once again this government is taking unto itself unilateral powers to decide what is medically necessary for the people of this province, and that is intolerable.

The second issue is that this time you have indeed tried to do it through the back door under a piece of legislation that is called the commercial concentration tax, and that is indefensible.

This bill gives this government unprecedented powers and I say to the Premier that you cannot take these kind of draconian measures without full public debate, without full committee hearings so that the people of this province can understand the full implications of what this government is doing.

I ask you once again, will you separate the commercial concentration tax from the rest of the bill so that we can act on that measure quickly, and will you then allow us to have full and open airing of this government's continued attempts to unilaterally and arbitrarily direct our health care system?

Hon Mr Rae: The short answer to the question is no. A slightly expanded answer has to do with the fact that it is not at all unusual for a government, as a result of a budget, to bring forth a measure that contains a number of the proposals that are contained in the budget. For her to suggest, and if she wants me to go back and look at the budgets of her predecessor which she was ready to stand up and support, "Ready, aye, ready," she now wants a chance --

Interjections.

Hon Mr Rae: She was there standing in her place in favour of the commercial concentration tax. Now she wants a chance to do her flip. Let her do her flip. And if she's not prepared to do her flip because she can't deal with the pressure from the pharmacists or anyone else, well, I'm sorry; I can't help her.

SOCIAL CONTRACT

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): My question is to the Premier. Throughout the social contract process we have offered encouragement and support for your efforts to cut the size and cost of government. Premier, you would know that we have concerns that it be permanent cuts in the size and cost of government.

We have offered advice. We have, as you are aware, offered alternatives, and last week tabled amendments that would make the restraint legislation itself fairer and which would not leave any financial onus, if you like, on successive governments after the control period ends.

But, Premier, we were a little shocked on Wednesday when we found out that you intend to arbitrarily bring an end to debate on the social contract legislation without allowing us to debate all our amendments. So, Premier, for everyone in Ontario who is counting on our amendments, could you tell us if you have any intention of giving serious consideration to those amendments?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): I refer it to the Minister of Finance.

Hon Floyd Laughren (Minister of Finance): I did appreciate the serious attempt by the Conservative caucus to make some amendments to the legislation, as opposed to the official opposition, who decided to bail out of the process entirely.

I've looked at each one of the amendments which the Conservative caucus has brought forward and it was my hope that we would have been able to get to the various sections that included the Conservative caucus's amendments. We have some government amendments as well, and there are one or two that are of particular interest to me.

That is why I was somewhat dismayed on Wednesday that we didn't get anywhere last Wednesday afternoon, didn't get anywhere on the debate, that the opposition simply debated sections 1 through 4 and didn't get to any conclusion whatsoever. It's very difficult to get to deal with your amendments if we're not making progress on the bill. I certainly don't feel any responsibility for not getting to the amendments that you've brought forward.

Mr Harris: Treasurer, the social contract legislation needs work; we all know that. Less than an hour into committee of the whole discussion, you tabled the closure motion. Less than an hour was spent on a very substantial bill, a bill that you and your officials acknowledge was hastily drafted and has flaws.

Treasurer, we've received countless phone calls, just for one example, and letters from small municipalities and school boards which say they cannot meet their reduction targets without layoffs because so few on their payroll make over $30,000. The Ministry of Finance officials acknowledge that this is a flaw in the legislation. But they have told transfer partners, such as Leeds and Grenville County Board of Education, that even though they admit it's flawed, it's too late to make any adjustments.

I say to you, Treasurer, you and I know it's not true. It is not too late. We have tabled an amendment that specifically will deal with that, and I would ask you directly, will you support that amendment?

Hon Mr Laughren: Just to put things in perspective, given the preamble of the leader of the third party, the government House leader did offer an extra day of hearings in committee of the whole, and no agreement could be arrived at with the two opposition parties. Secondly, you're quite right that the time allocation motion was tabled on Wednesday afternoon, and despite the tabling of that motion, it didn't seem to bring any particular discipline to the debate, because the opposition continued to ramble on in a very general way between sections 1 and 4 and all aspects of the bill. So I think it's unfair to say that we unduly or prematurely served notice of time allocation. There was an opportunity on the part of the opposition to have a more fulsome debate in committee, and no agreement could be arrived at between the opposition parties and the government.

Mr Harris: Once again, that's not correct at all. What we were offered was this: We were offered two days in committee of the whole and not one word on third reading, or one day in committee of the whole and one day on third reading. That's what we were offered, and quite frankly, that's not acceptable to us. That is not acceptable to us.

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We've heard the rhetoric. Less than an hour into amendments on a flawed bill, that you admit is flawed, that your officials admit is flawed, that we all know is flawed, is not providing a proper opportunity for the amendments. You've done nothing to send any kind of signal that you intend to support, or support even parts of, any of our very substantive amendments, and I tell you this: Your move to close off debate so quickly, quite frankly, is a slap in the face to all the other groups out there that have proposed amendments, that have talked about flaws in the legislation.

We want to ensure that the legislation is able to pass. We want to ensure, though, that the legislation that passes will not hamstring successive governments. We want to ensure that it will be fair, and we want to ensure that it will be fair to all groups as to the size and scope of reductions. So I ask you this: Will you talk to the House leader about giving ample time or enough time or reasonable time to make sure we get debate on all of the substantive amendments?

Hon Mr Laughren: I find it amazing, passing strange even, that the leader of the third party, who only about three weeks ago was saying, "Bring in the bill; bang, bang, bang, and we'll get this legislation through" -- that's what he was saying -- now suddenly wants a more fulsome debate.

I believe as well that the official opposition at one point said, "Bring in the bill; we'll deal with it today." That's what they said. I'm telling you, Mr Speaker, we are truly getting some wonky messages from across the floor.

GAMBLING

Mr Ernie L. Eves (Parry Sound): I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Minister, when I asked you several weeks ago about the possible increased criminal activity as a result of locating a casino in Windsor, Ontario, and relayed to you the statistics with respect to increase in crime in Atlantic City, you said, "It is probably not reasonable to compare Atlantic City with Windsor." Minister, have you ever been to Atlantic City?

Hon Marilyn Churley (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): No, I have not been to Atlantic City. I am aware of the 12 casinos that exist in Atlantic City in a very small population of, I think, 35,000.

Mr Eves: That answer explains a lot of things to me about the proposed casino project in Windsor, because I can assure you, Minister, if you had ever been to Atlantic City, nobody would wish that on the citizens of Windsor.

I would like to quote you from the president of the Atlantic City Merchants Association: "The right way to do it is to revitalize the downtown first, that way you already have something that can induce people to come out of the casinos."

Could you tell me what steps your government has taken to totally revitalize downtown Windsor before the casino goes into operation?

Hon Ms Churley: I think the member is missing the point here. Let me explain again to him that in fact the casino that will be built in Windsor is exactly the opposite concept from the 12 casinos that were built in Atlantic City, without any consultation with the downtown. Those casinos are designed to bring people in and keep them in there. The Windsor casino is designed in such a way, with a small complement of stores and restaurants, so that visitors to Windsor will be able, and will in fact be encouraged, to go out into the downtown of Windsor and enjoy the stores and the restaurants and the entertainment centres in the downtown.

Mr Eves: Again, in the minister's answer, I think she has unwittingly put her thumb right on the problem. The problem is exactly what you just said. People are going to come by bus from Detroit to Windsor, go into the casino, gamble and leave again. That is going to do absolutely nothing for the downtown core in the city of Windsor.

Thomas Carver, president of the Casino Association of New Jersey, is quoted as saying that "the huge expectations for downtown growth have often failed in cities ambitious for casino-initiated change.

"It's human greed and public greed basically. The real problem is that the government gets so greedy and wants so much. I see this repeated over and over again."

Can you not see that's exactly what your government is doing with the Windsor casino project? You haven't taken any steps to revitalize downtown. You're not doing anything to keep the public in Windsor. You're going to transport them by bus over the bridge or under the tunnel. They're going to get back on their bus and go home a lot poorer, and you have accomplished nothing except bringing all the bad points that casinos bring to the city of Windsor. Can you not see that?

Hon Ms Churley: I believe the member is not hearing what I'm saying. I said exactly the opposite of what he said. When we decided to build a pilot project in Windsor, we consulted very closely with the city council and with the downtown business people of Windsor, and studied how casinos were built in other locations and the kinds of planning processes that took place. Let me repeat again that the problem with the casinos in places like Atlantic City is that they built up to 12 casinos, huge casinos, in a very, very small town. The object in mind is to bring those people into those casinos and keep them in there. What we're doing in Windsor is the exact opposite of that.

SOCIAL CONTRACT

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I have a question for the Minister of Natural Resources, but he appears to be AWOL. He was on the list here to be here today, so I guess I'll have to ask the question to the Premier.

I was reading the weekend paper and I was surprised to hear this, but I just want to get the Premier's comment on this. It says: "An NDP cabinet minister said Friday he's not sure whether he or the Ontario government caucus will support Premier Bob Rae's controversial wage freeze legislation. Natural Resources minister Howard Hampton admitted his discomfort with the bill, which would chop $2 billion from the government's $43-billion public sector payroll for each of three years." His quote that really has me interested is: "I've always been a team player, but nobody is comfortable with this bill. Many of us won't know what we'll do until the deadline arrives."

I presume the Premier talked to Mr Hampton on the weekend. Could the Premier tell us whether Mr Hampton will be joining the member for Perth and the member for Peterborough in opposing this bill?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): I haven't had a chance to speak to the Minister of Natural Resources, but I'd be very surprised if he wasn't supporting the legislation.

Mr Bradley: In light of the fact that he has been publicly quoted and one would anticipate that he is not --

Hon Bud Wildman (Minister of Environment and Energy and Minister Responsible for Native Affairs): Read the rest of the story.

Mr Bradley: If the Speaker would let me, I would do as Mr Wildman has asked me and read the rest of the story, but you won't let me do that. When he says, "Many of us won't know what we'll do until the deadline arrives," now that the Premier is apparently losing the support of the Conservative Party, which is going to change its mind and vote against this bill on third reading, is the Premier contemplating withdrawing the bill rather than losing it on a vote in this House?

Hon Mr Rae: Actually not.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Mr Gary Carr (Oakville South): My question is to the Premier. The Premier may be aware that the Secretary of State for External Affairs has indicated that Canada could move quickly to remove sanctions against South Africa. It has been the policy of Ontario to support this federal position. I was wondering, Mr Premier, could you tell us today what Ontario's current position on sanctions against South Africa is?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): I appreciate the question from the honourable member. There's been, I think, a consistent development of policy over the years, which is that we have essentially worked with the federal government, and not only with the government of Canada, but under the leadership of the federal government in this area, with a number of other Commonwealth countries. Any change of our policy with respect to expanded trade or commercial or financial relationships would obviously depend on a signal from Ottawa and other Commonwealth countries with respect to changes. Having said that, let me also say that I look forward to a supplementary question and a chance to respond further.

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Mr Carr: I understand from that answer that the position is the same. I will say that a cabinet submission in 1992 states, "Ontario endorses a ban on the purchase of supplies, equipment and services originating in South Africa." That's why we find it curious, Mr Premier, that officials in your government, officials from the Ontario casino project, would meet with the Sun Corp of South Africa, operators of the notorious Sun City entertainment complex, regarding the casino project in Windsor.

My question to the Premier is this: Can you tell me if the government endorses this ban on South African services, and if not, why did officials from the Ontario casino project meet with the people from the Sun Corp of South Africa? Can you explain that, please?

Hon Mr Rae: I wasn't aware of any commercial dealings with any particular corporation. I'm not aware whether there were conversations or there weren't. All I can tell the honourable member is that the government's position with respect to commercial contracts and with respect to commercial dealings very much remains in place.

WATER SUPPLY

Mr Paul R. Johnson (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings): My question is for the Minister of Environment and Energy. The village of Bloomfield has been trying for many years to improve both the quantity and quality of its water supply. The village has secured all the necessary agreements. However, Bloomfield was passed over for funding under the Jobs Ontario Capital program earlier this spring. They have the engineering design done for their project, which will bring Bay of Quinte water from Picton, and they are ready to begin construction as soon as funding approval is received from the ministry.

Can the minister give me some idea of when this funding will be available to the village so they can begin construction? The residents of Bloomfield too want to know when they will have a reliable source of good, clean drinking water.

Hon Bud Wildman (Minister of Environment and Energy): The member will know, as all members of the House are aware, that there is legislation before the House on the formation of a number of crown agencies, one of which is the Ontario Clean Water Agency, which will have responsibility for these matters once legislation is passed.

The current schedule, as I understand it, is that the Ontario Clean Water Agency will be mailing out application forms this month. We expect the municipalities to return them by early fall, in September, and then beginning in October, the clean water agency will be evaluating and making decisions with regard to its capital plans for the next year, and new projects will be announced in January 1994. So Bloomfield, I hope, will be able to participate and perhaps will be one of the new projects in the fiscal year 1994.

WAGE PROTECTION

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): My question is to the Minister of Labour. You will recall that on June 23 I asked you a question about your decision to abolish the employment standards program committee, a committee that was working to collect money for workers who were paid under minimum wage, or for companies that had gone out of business and neglected to pay their holiday pay, and was a very worthwhile, successful collection committee on behalf of the people of Ontario. In fact, you'll recall that in the three months leading up to March 31, the committee had collected some $901,000 on behalf of those disadvantaged workers.

You said at the time that the collections function will be turned over to the field officers, and that the field officers will do a much better job. That was your answer.

I have here a memo from one of your staff, Minister.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): A secret memo?

Mr Mahoney: Well, it sort of came under my door in a brown envelope. The gentleman who sent the memo is an employment standards officer and a steward of OPSEU Local 585. He states in this memo:

"It is unfortunate that the minister was seemingly misinformed and led to make statements and decisions which are embarrassing to us all. The committee has been discussing the future of the collections function with no clear terms of reference nor idea of its mandate," and he goes on with a number of other rather startling statements that they have not made a decision, and you have just unilaterally come out and told them that they're out of business.

Minister, what kind of labour relations is this for a Minister of Labour of this government to be shoving down the throat of their own employees?

Hon Bob Mackenzie (Minister of Labour): I think first I should add a point that I failed to mention when we had this question before us a week ago, and that's that at least seven of the eight people who have been laid off from the agency to collect the money that's there are now working with the Finance ministry. So they have had other jobs; they haven't lost their jobs.

I can also tell him that the intent is very, very clear; very, very clear that the employment standards officers are in the field, that part of their responsibility was to take a look at this, and they will be doing the collecting. As I mentioned before, we have some 50 or 60 additional employment standards officers in the field.

The three people who lay out the cases where we may have to go to court are still with the ministry and are still responsible for making sure that we've made the arguments necessary to collect the money, and we think it will be a more efficient operation.

Mr Mahoney: Just very briefly, let me read you a quote from Hansard, and then we'll play a little game and you can say, "Who said that?" It says here: "What you've done here is you've eliminated an agency that actually makes money. On top of that, out of the seven full-time permanent positions, you've moved six of them into the Ministry of Finance."

Mr Bradley: Who said that?

Mr Mahoney: Well, I think it was me, actually. You may have neglected to inform the House, sir, because I had to tell you that that's in fact what you had done. You missed the point of my question. You have a steward of OPSEU, Local 585, saying here that the ESPC, the committee, is having discussions on the future of this function, and that they are still pending; that's one scenario. The other one: He says, "Or someone forget to tell the ESPC that it is simply spinning its wheels in the mud."

Minister, you've made a decision unilaterally. Either you forgot to tell the members of this committee, this very successful collection agency, or your staff forgot to tell you. I don't know what's going on. I didn't make this up. This is a memo from your own people saying they're embarrassed at your answer.

My question, very simply: As the Minister of Labour, what kind of message does this send to your employees doing a good job successfully collecting funds on behalf of workers who have been shafted, one way or another, by the people they work for? You just shut the whole program down, even though it makes money, and then in a stroke of labour-management, said simply --

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Could the member conclude his question, please.

Mr Mahoney: We're all unable to understand. You don't even communicate with your employees. How can you truly represent yourself as the Minister of Labour with that kind of behaviour?

Hon Mr Mackenzie: We never said that they weren't doing a good job or hadn't improved the collections. What we did say very, very clearly was that we think we have a better and a more efficient way of doing it, with fewer people involved in the Ministry of Labour. That's part of our responsibility, to see that we get the most efficient operation in the ministry, and that's what we intend to do.

SENIORS' HEALTH SERVICES

Mr Jim Wilson (Simcoe West): My question is to the Minister of Health. The Ontario drug benefit program announcement of last week confirmed that when it comes to health care and user fees, seniors should know that the NDP will say one thing in public and end up doing just the opposite behind closed cabinet doors.

During the last election, the NDP was critical of those of us who were honest in discussing the need to reform Ontario's health care system. When the Liberals brought in user fees in long-term care, and I checked Hansard, Bob Rae pounded his sanctimonious fist in this House. In fact, I say to you, Minister, you are in power today because your party ran around the province in 1990 telling people that David Peterson was a liar, and you falsely labelled the leader of the Ontario PC Party with respect to the issue of health care reform.

Minister, explain to this House why you decided to level user fees on to the backs of seniors when your party has repeatedly argued, both in opposition and in government, that user fees are ineffective and serve as a deterrent to accessible health care.

Hon Ruth Grier (Minister of Health): I would say to the member that there are a number of services related to the health care field which are not free and universal: For assistive devices, for example, the people who benefit pay some portion of the cost, as, as he has said, in long-term care and in nursing homes.

The Ontario drug benefit plan has been a plan that has been universal only to those over the age of 65 or to those on social assistance. The result has been that there have been two million people in this province who have no coverage for drug benefits because they're not employed by somebody who provides it.

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What we have done is to release a consultation paper in order to have a public debate about how we can in fact make the program fairer, and we believe making it fairer means extending the eligibility to everybody who needs drugs. In order to contain the cost, which I would say to the member has been rising at more than 16% per annum over the last several years, we believe it is appropriate to discuss sharing in that cost by everybody who benefits, and by that we mean the manufacturers and the pharmacists as well as those who benefit from the program.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): When we say it, it's user fees. When you say it, it's sharing.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order, the member for Etobicoke West.

Mr Jim Wilson: That's a very interesting response, because in the last election, I recall the NDP going around saying that it would expand drug coverage to the working poor. What they didn't tell the seniors of this province is that they were going to take away their drug coverage. The minister and her colleagues from the New Democratic Party went around the province fearmongering and saying that Progressive Conservatives were solely interested in dismantling the health care system, yet it is your government that continues to apply user fees in a clandestine and systematic fashion.

In August 1992, the former NDP Health minister, Frances Lankin, was quoted in the Globe and Mail as saying, "We will not be introducing user fees to help pay for the drug plan." Well, after last week's announcement, we know that this simply is not true.

It's all very well that you've recently released a discussion paper concerning the Ontario drug benefit plan, but the fact is, you've already made the key decisions. You've already decided that user fees will be introduced into that system, and many seniors simply won't be able to afford it. I ask you with respect to your discussion paper, what do you expect seniors to discuss when you've already made the essential decisions behind cabinet doors?

Hon Mrs Grier: I take it from the member's question that his party opposes any kind of user fees and would in fact expand the Ontario drug benefit plan at no cost to any of the participants. I find that interesting in view of some of the comments that certainly the Prime Minister and others, who also belong to his party, have made.

I would point out to him that Ontario is the only province in the country that doesn't have some kind of cost-sharing mechanism for its drug benefit plan. We certainly wish that the finances of the province were such that we could expand the program to cover the working poor without at the same time looking at how we can contain the costs at the $1.1 billion they now are.

What we have done in our consultation paper is talk about much more than merely the cost of the program, but how we can reform the program to make sure there is appropriate prescribing, not overprescribing, and appropriate use of other professionals in the system, namely the pharmacists, so that their counsel and information can be available to people. What is the objective is to make sure that everybody gets the appropriate medication and that nobody is denied it because of the cost, and we have heard in this House much discussion about people who are unable to get any drug coverage because of the nature of their disease.

CONTAMINATED SOIL

Mr Larry O'Connor (Durham-York): I've got a question for the Minister of Environment and Energy. I've got five municipalities in my riding -- it's rather a large riding for one being so close to Toronto -- and I like to represent all the municipalities within my riding.

A proposal has come to one of the townships in my riding, Uxbridge, that they would put in a processing plant for petroleum-contaminated soils in a depleted gravel pit. On June 14, the town passed a resolution asking for an environmental assessment, and on June 15, a letter went to one of your offices at the central region on Overlea Boulevard asking for that environmental assessment. The people of my community want to know -- as you can see, it's front-page news -- whether you're going to have that environmental hearing that's necessary for the protection of the environment.

Hon Bud Wildman (Minister of Environment and Energy): I hope my response will also be front-page news. The fact is that we've received a large number of concerns and complaints from interested groups and individuals and property owners regarding things like truck traffic, the proximity of a school, and the possibility of contamination of groundwater. We've also received the resolution from the township of Uxbridge requesting an environmental assessment hearing. Because of these concerns and the resolution passed by the township council, I agree that we should have an environmental assessment hearing and one will be held.

Mr O'Connor: I'm glad to hear that the minister has confirmed that, because not only is it front page news, but people like Steve Nuris are writing to newspapers, letters to the editor, saying that we have to make sure that spillage of contaminated soil that could occur as it's being transported through the town needs to be taken into consideration, increased volume of traffic, the safety of the Goodwood public school will be jeopardized, the groundwater could be affected. There are some questions they have, like, "Who's going to buy my property in the future if the water is contaminated?" and "How can we live where the water is contaminated?"

What I need to know, Minister, is will this provide the opportunity for my constituents to come forward with all their concerns? I only raised a few of the concerns, but as you can see by the length of this letter, which I'm not going to take up the time of the House with, they've got a lot of serious concerns they want to have raised because of the threat to the water quality. Will they have that opportunity to do that?

Hon Mr Wildman: I really appreciate the interest of the member and his concern for his area and for his constituents. I want to assure him that all of the concerns that have been raised, both by him and by others in the area, can be brought forward before the environmental assessment board for its hearing. The evidence will be evaluated and decisions will be made on the basis of that, particularly the concerns with regard to truck traffic, noise, the possibility of contamination of groundwater, particularly as it relates to the protection of the Oak Ridges moraine, which I'm sure all members of the House are determined must be protected. The environmental assessment hearing will make it possible for all of those concerns to be dealt with in a fulsome and proper manner.

DAY CARE

Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): I have a question to the Minister of Community and Social Services. Minister, you will be aware that your social contract legislation, Bill 48, has had a devastating impact on the 932 family day care spaces in the region of Peel. As a result of Bill 48, the family day care program will be eliminated this September 3. This action affects not only the providers of family day care spaces but also those who require the services, primarily the single moms who have made a go of it and have found jobs. The dilemma they face is that there are not sufficient day care spaces available in Peel to meet the 932 space needs. In September, they're going to have to leave their jobs.

I'm receiving a number of calls and letters. A constituent writes:

"I am a divorced mother with two small children. I am currently involved in the family home day care program. I've been involved in the program since October 1991 and it has enabled me to get off the mother's allowance program and be in the workforce to support myself and my children. The day care program allows us to go to work and to keep our skills up to date to stay in the current workforce. I myself will find it very difficult, if not impossible, to continue my job."

Minister, what do you say to this person and the many others who depend on that very important service?

Hon Tony Silipo (Minister of Community and Social Services): I want to correct something in the member's question. I think at the outset he said that the social contract legislation had brought this event about. I want to be very clear that it is my understanding that in fact this decision has nothing to do with the social contract legislation; it has everything to do with the regional municipality of Peel's decision in this case, as part of its way of having to deal with the cost reduction, the cost constrainment, to shut down this program. That's a decision they are making as a way of controlling their costs. It is not related to the legislation in any way whatsoever.

They have made a proposal to us which we are looking at, but I have to say that my inclination would be to indicate to the municipality that this is a program we would want it to continue and that we hope it can find ways it can indeed continue this program. We certainly intend to continue providing our support in terms of the 80% of the funding that we provide to the municipality for it to maintain this program.

Mr Offer: Minister, when you say that this is not a result of your social contract legislation, with respect, I think you're absolutely wrong. This is what has been put on the region of Peel as a result of Bill 48, your social contract legislation.

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You shake your head, but I would like you to respond to this. The region of Peel has provided an option as to how it can continue this particular program. They requested a meeting with you and your staff last week, which was cancelled. They requested a meeting with you and your staff today, which was not forthcoming. They are requesting a meeting with you and your staff to decide and determine how this very essential program can be continued. To date, you have not met with them and you have cancelled appointments. I think it's somewhat irresponsible for you to stand up today and to say how much you care.

If you really care, commit today to meet with the officials of the region of Peel with a view to saving this essential service so that people who have found jobs can in fact maintain those jobs this September 3.

Hon Mr Silipo: I certainly expect to be meeting with representatives of the municipality or at least to be speaking with the regional chair by telephone, because I know we've had some problems in trying to schedule a meeting.

But let me be equally clear that as to the proposal they are putting before us, I would have great difficulty recommending to my cabinet colleagues that we accept it, because the proposal that is being recommended is for us in effect to credit back to the municipality a portion of the dollars it believes we are going to be saving if it cuts this program.

Well, the bottom line is, we don't want them to cut this program. We're not interested in not spending the 80% of the dollars that we spend in providing this program. We want to continue providing the program, and we want the municipality to continue providing it. The answer is not in us looking at a roundabout way to cut their target of the expenditure reductions. The issue is for them to look at other ways in which to make those savings.

DRIVERS' LICENCES

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): New question? The member for Etobicoke -- the member for York Mills.

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): Almost got you that time, Mr Speaker.

My question is to the Minister of Transportation. If you can cast your mind back two months ago, Minister, before you went off on your expensive junket to Spain, you announced with much fanfare the introduction of graduated licences. At the time you introduced it, I asked you why you didn't come forward with legislation for at least first and second reading before we rose for the summer. Are you going to come forward with that legislation?

Hon Gilles Pouliot (Minister of Transportation): First, on the comment which is only too facile, vis-à-vis what the member of the opposition said, and I'm trying to quote verbatim, about a "junket to Madrid, Spain," it wasn't. Let me set the record straight.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, will be hosting the next Olympiad of Transportation, the International Road Federation. It's held every four years. It will bring 3,500 full-fledged delegates to the city of Toronto, and they will spend more than $7 million. So $7 million vis-à-vis $2,000 to go and get the flame, go and get the torch and bring it to Toronto, is good value for money.

The question itself: A graduated driver's licence was introduced by this administration with the help of all three parties concerned. What it says is that you have an obligation, an increased obligation, not a reverse onus, with due respect; the component of mobility, the thin line between a right and a privilege to access the roads of Ontario. We're not going to make it tougher, but we're going to make it more onerous in terms of its obligation.

If you wouldn't stall the legislation at every opportunity, the graduated driver's licence would be the order of the day today, not in the fall session like we intend to introduce it.

Mr Turnbull: In his inimitable way, the minister has once again failed to answer the very simple question.

The fact is that when the minister came forward announcing this, concurrent with a lot of very unpopular announcements they were making, we recognized that this was a smokescreen. This is what in the navy in the Second World War they used to call "making smoke"; in other words, you blow a lot of smoke to put people off the other issues of the day.

Minister, you have just admitted in your answer that there is broad acceptance and support from both the Liberals and the Conservatives for this legislation. The Insurance Bureau of Canada, at the time of your announcement, said it was supportive of this legislation, but what they are saying to us specifically is that they are not supportive of you going out to committee without seeing the draft legislation so that people are speaking to the specifics, not some smoke that you're blowing out at us.

My question is, why don't you bring forward the legislation now? In October 1992, your ministry said that they had almost finished drafting the legislation --

The Speaker: Would the member place his question, please.

Mr Turnbull: You have support; why don't you bring forward the legislation today?

Hon Mr Pouliot: As a normal course of events, we readily acquiesce that before we go to committee, and it's only commonsensical, that all parties that have requested that the draft be put forth -- so not only in intent and spirit, not only in terms of the compendium, but that the very words that are in the draft be examined, be scrutinized meticulously, so that people afford themselves a better opportunity to come up with amendments that will make the legislation better.

Simply put and by way of conclusion, the draft will appear in short order; then we will go to committee for consultation; amendments will no doubt be introduced; then we will table legislation; then finally all Ontarians will benefit from that legislation.

SOCIAL CONTRACT

Mr Dennis Drainville (Victoria-Haliburton): I'd like to address this question to the Minister of Finance.

OPSEU has identified several billions in cost savings which could do away with the need for payroll reductions and still allow budget targets to be met. In return for cooperating in achieving these reductions, they're asking for collective agreements to be respected until their expiry. After these agreements expire, they're prepared to cooperate in cost reductions in return for a no-layoff clause and protection of the level of public services. Yet government negotiators are saying they aren't prepared to listen to OPSEU unless they throw existing collective agreements into the open.

Why is it that this government is unwilling to respond directly to these positive cost-cutting proposals, and why is it that the New Democratic government refuses to listen to the positive solutions brought forward in good faith by the leadership of OPSEU on this critical issue?

Hon Floyd Laughren (Minister of Finance): This government, for a couple of months now, has been doing a great deal of listening to OPSEU and to other people in the public sector about how to effect savings, and we take those suggestions seriously. There are, however, some projections of cost-savings that simply don't add up. Also, there are some projected cost savings that would take a long time to be realized and we simply have to achieve the savings that we've targeted for the social contract for this fiscal year and the two subsequent fiscal years.

While I don't for a minute dismiss the positive suggestions being brought forth by OPSEU -- as a matter of fact, I appreciate very much their suggestions -- at the same time, we've got to get on with the task of achieving $2 billion in savings in public sector compensation. That doesn't mean that we rule out those other savings in efficiency and costs by any stretch of the imagination. We take them very, very seriously.

Mr Drainville: Does not the Minister of Finance understand that there is a contradictory message being sent out here, and that is, on one hand, the Premier has tried to have us believe that he's encouraging the public sector unions to work together with the government in a spirit of cooperation and, on the other, when they find solutions, those solutions aren't being taken seriously.

In good faith, the leadership of OPSEU has indicated a willingness to pursue more open discussions with you because it has been increasingly concerned about the variance between what you seem to be saying and what the Premier seems to be saying and what is communicated to the negotiators. Quite frankly, there are many who are wondering whether you're truly bargaining in good faith.

Why is it that there is a variation between what the Premier says in meetings with Mr Upshaw and what your negotiators say once the Premier has left the room?

Hon Mr Laughren: That is simply nonsense. This government has taken them very seriously. But I'll tell you, when someone comes forward with a suggestion that there is $700 million in savings in OHIP card fraud, then you can't take that particular suggestion seriously because it is totally out of line, and anybody who thinks that there's that level of savings simply isn't dealing with reality. We know that there is an element of fraud, but it's not a fraction of $700 million.

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We have worked extremely hard with OPSEU to achieve savings, and I would remind not just the member who asked the question but everyone else as well that when we went through the expenditure reduction exercise this spring, the largest single reduction was in the government's own operations, to the tune of over $700 million in savings in this fiscal year alone. So anyone who says that we're not achieving savings within our own ministry simply hasn't been following the efforts that we've been making. I think most fairminded people understand that.

Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): Smoke and mirrors, like your $17 billion estimates. It was all smoke and mirrors, Floyd.

Hon Mr Laughren: Unlike the Liberals when they were in office, we have finally got a hold on our expenditures; and for the former Minister of Health to be complaining, who ran up health care expenditures at an average increase of 11% a year and drug benefit increases of 18% a year, is to laugh at how serious she really is.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): The time for oral questions has expired. Motions?

ROLE OF THE INDEPENDENT MEMBER

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: The normal rotation in this place during question period is to allow each party to ask questions in order. The member who just asked the question sits --

Hon Floyd Laughren (Minister of Finance): Eighteen per cent a year, Elinor. You call that responsible management?

Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): Never enough for you.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Would the members for Oriole and Nickel Belt please come to order so that I can hear the point of order.

Mr Mahoney: The member for Victoria-Haliburton has asked a question and jumped into the rotation, which then took a great deal of time of course for the Treasurer to give a non-answer to. But my point of order is that the rotation, without any agreement on non-aligned members having been arrived at in this place -- and you know yourself, sir, those discussions are currently going on as to what role a non-aligned member might play in this place and on committees. None of that has been resolved, and in my view we've been shortchanged an opportunity to ask another question by the official opposition because this member was recognized in his non-aligned format, out of the proper rotation.

The Speaker: First of all, the member for Mississauga West is absolutely correct: He has a point of order. Indeed, I recognized the independent member for Victoria-Haliburton. If at that point, some member had risen on a point of order, of course the member would not have been allowed to ask the question unless by unanimous consent. I recognize the difficulty both in the strictness of the rotation, as spelled out in the orders, but also we have three independent members, none of whom under the current rules has an opportunity to ask a question in the House.

On the last point, the member will know that, had the member for Victoria-Haliburton not been recognized, a member from the government side would've been recognized, thus utilizing the last amount of time, not penalizing this side at all.

The House, obviously through the committee, will have to come to terms with the responsibilities and opportunities for independent members, and this House will at some point have to decide whether or not those who are independent will indeed have an opportunity to ask questions in the House.

Mr Mahoney: Mr Speaker, on the same point: If I understand you correctly, you unilaterally made the decision to recognize the non-aligned member to ask a question and you're suggesting that I or someone else should have risen at that time to raise a point of order and you would've then bypassed that member and gone back into the normal rotation. Is that, sir, what I understand you to have just said? I need to understand it.

The Speaker: To the member for Mississauga West, I think I was quite clear in my explanation. What I am saying to the House is that at some point the House needs to come to terms with the roles, responsibilities and opportunities for independent members. Indeed, at any time any member may be recognized -- perhaps the member would take his seat -- by way of unanimous consent, as members on occasion have asked and in fact granted opportunities for members outside of question period to ask a question by unanimous consent in the House.

Mr Dennis Drainville (Victoria-Haliburton): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I think there is a certain sense of unfairness to you in this capacity as Speaker, because I think perhaps the House needs to know that the three House leaders have met in a meeting and discussed this issue and there was some agreement between the House leaders -- I'm sure those House leaders who are here will jump up and correct me if I'm wrong -- that there will be times when, according to the discretion of the Speaker, like in the House of Commons in Ottawa, an independent member can be allowed to ask a question.

That was agreed upon by the three House leaders. This is the first question, in all these many weeks, that has been attempted by an independent member, the first question to be recognized in this particular way.

Mr Drummond White (Durham Centre): Your first day.

Mr Drainville: I'm afraid you don't know what you're talking about, sir.

I'd like to say that the point at issue here is a very serious one because what is happening here, and what this House has to consider, is the reality that there are independent members in this House and that those independent members have said very straightly that they deserve to have the same rights as other members in this House. The government House leader and the other House leaders have met to discuss this. It has been put in front of the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly.

I might add that the reality is that we as independent members, and certainly I as an independent member, have not been pushing this House. I have not been getting up and refusing unanimous consent to the honourable House leader, which I have every right to do and which I will do unless these changes are made, Mr Speaker. I would ask at least that there be some reasonable consideration of the rights of members in this House.

The Speaker: The member has made his point.

Mr Monte Kwinter (Wilson Heights): On the same point of order, Mr Speaker: The member made a comment that causes me some concern. Although I don't want to speak specifically to the incident in question, there is a basic question that I would like to ask. Mr Speaker, without trying to speak exactly what you said but to paraphrase, you stated that had someone arisen when the member stood up you would have ruled the member out of order and would have continued in a rotation.

The concern that I have is that it is my understanding that the role of the Speaker is to maintain order in the House. It causes me some concern to say that that order could only have been maintained if a member brings it to the attention of the Speaker. It would seem to me to be the Speaker's role to make that decision, without another member standing up and bringing it to your attention, that the speaker in question was not following the rules of the House and was in fact out of order. That was a decision for the Speaker to make and was not dependent on a member's standing and bringing it to the Speaker's attention.

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Government House Leader): Mr Speaker, I hadn't intended to rise on this point, but I find myself compelled to rise, to pick up on the point that the member for Victoria-Haliburton has raised around this point of order.

The three House leaders, as you are aware, sir, did meet with you and discussed this matter at some length about, I believe, six weeks ago. It was agreed that the Legislative Assembly committee should deal with the matter of non-aligned or, as the member for Victoria-Haliburton refers to them, independent members, in all respects, in terms of the House and in terms of committees and so on and so forth. The committee, as I understand it, is now doing that.

You, sir, put to us that if we had no objection, you would, in your discretion, consider both questions and statements, private members' statements, from the three non-aligned members. We responded, sir, that we had no objection to that so long as you ensured that no non-aligned member at any point got greater service through that process than the average member in this House.

Members, before they go dealing with points of order and questions to the Chair, should understand that and understand that fully, that the three House leaders in fact agreed, on an informal basis, to allow that to happen while the matter was being discussed in committee.

The Speaker: I trust that in part that may answer the question posed by the honourable member for Wilson Heights. I may say to him that in a sense he is absolutely right. The House has a very difficult task of coming to terms with a set of rules designed on the basis of parties. The rules do not recognize independent members. At the same time, members are here to represent their constituents.

I was attempting to test the House in a sense and I know that the committee is seized with this matter and will work on it diligently and, hopefully, an agreeable answer will be found. I appreciate the matter raised by the member for Wilson Heights.

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WRITTEN QUESTIONS

Mrs Barbara Sullivan (Halton Centre): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I have a point of order under section 98 of the standing orders. On June 16, I had placed before the House an order paper question of the Minister of Health. I received response number 223 on June 30. The order paper question which I placed was with respect to physician resources, planning, cost benefit analyses and other materials. What I received, however, in the response package was a package of the minister's itinerary and briefing notes for a trip to northern Ontario, to Timmins, Cochrane and other northern areas.

While there may not have been an intentional breach of the standing orders here and that material will certainly be useful to me, I am asking that the Minister of Health provide me with the appropriate response which was indicated in the index to the answer which I received.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): It sounds like there was a mistake. I don't know if the member for Halton Centre was looking forward to joining the minister on the trip north or not, but perhaps that matter now has been addressed in the House and the Minister of Health will be able to respond.

PETITIONS

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I have a petition from a number of people in the Niagara Peninsula who are concerned about the Retail Business Holidays Act. It reads as follows:

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

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

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

I affix my signature to this petition and have voted in the House against Sunday shopping.

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I have a petition re the amendment to the Retail Business Holidays Act, proposed wide-open Sunday shopping and elimination of Sunday as a legal holiday.

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

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

There are 160 signatures from Orillia, Severn Bridge, Barrie, Midland, Hawkestone, Warminster, Waubashene, Oro township and Orillia township, and I have signed my name to it.

SCARBOROUGH BLUFFS CONSERVATION

Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): I have a petition signed by about 180 constituents who put in a lot of hard work over this nice weekend.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas it is in the interest of all people of Ontario and all of our future generations to preserve the beauty of the Scarborough Bluffs; and

"Whereas the province of Ontario, the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto and the Metropolitan Toronto Conservation Authority commenced the construction of breakwall and roadway to stabilize the bluffs and create a waterfront trail; and

"Whereas erosion continues at an alarming rate in areas where the breakwall is incomplete thus threatening the safety of homes near the bluff edge; and

"Whereas some homes have already been expropriated due to erosion at great public cost;

"We, the undersigned, call upon the Minister of Natural Resources to make the securing of the bluffs an immediate priority and to enable the Metro Toronto Conservation Authority to proceed with the necessary construction to complete the lakefront breakwall and roadway between Rogate Place and the Bellamy ravine."

I'm pleased to affix my signature to this.

HEALTH CARE

Mrs Barbara Sullivan (Halton Centre): I have a petition which reads as follows:

"As patients, we are concerned about the proposed NDP government decrease in radiology technical fees for general radiology, ultrasound and nuclear medicine examinations. These cuts will have a severe impact on health care services. It will result in waiting lists, layoff of staff and limiting access to newer and continually improving diagnostic technologies. These services are necessary to ensure that Ontarians receive high-quality health care that is delivered effectively and efficiently."

The petition is signed by people from Bramalea, Toronto, Oshawa and Burlington. I have affixed my signature to it.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr Jim Wilson (Simcoe West): I have a petition that's addressed to the members of provincial Parliament re the amendment of the Retail Business Holidays Act, proposed wide-open Sunday shopping and elimination of Sunday as a legal holiday.

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

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

That's signed by a number of good people from the Collingwood area and throughout my riding of Simcoe West. I too have affixed my name to it.

SOCIAL CONTRACT

Mrs Karen Haslam (Perth): On behalf of the member for Brantford, I have a petition to present.

"To the Honourable Lieutenant Governor and Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the Parliament of Ontario as follows:

"That free and open collective bargaining for public service employees be restored and be returned to its honourable position in Ontario;

"That the social contract in its present form be destroyed and that the valuable programs and services in the public sector be maintained for the betterment of all Ontarians;

"That the government withdraw Bill 48 and in place of this bill the government work cooperatively with the public service unions to find an equitable solution rather than eliminating valuable public services."

I affix my name to this.

HEALTH CARE

Mr Ron Eddy (Brant-Haldimand): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas proposals made under the government's expenditure control plan and social contract initiatives regarding health care in the province of Ontario will have a devastating impact on access to and the delivery of health care; and

"Whereas these proposals will result in a severe reduction in the provision of quality health care services across this province;

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

"The government of Ontario move immediately to withdraw these proposed measures and reaffirm its commitment to rational reform of Ontario's health care system through its obligations under the Ontario Medical Association-government framework and economic agreement."

It's signed by 183 constituents of my riding, and I add my signature in support of the petition.

GAMBLING

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): I have a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the Christian is called to love of neighbour, which includes a concern for the general wellbeing of society; and

"Whereas there's a direct link between the higher availability of legalized gambling and the incidence of addictive gambling (Macdonald and Macdonald, Pathological Gambling: The Problem, Treatment and Outcome, Canadian Foundation on Compulsive Gambling); and

"Whereas the damage of addiction to gambling in individuals is compounded by the damage done to families, both emotionally and economically; and

"Whereas the gambling market is already saturated with various kinds of government-operated lotteries; and

"Whereas the large-scale gambling activities invariably attract criminal activity; and

"Whereas the citizens of Detroit have since 1976 on three occasions voted down the introduction of casinos in that city, each time with a larger majority than the time before;

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

"That the government of Ontario cease all moves to establish gambling casinos."

This is signed by 84 members of my constituency, to which I, too, affix my signature.

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RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr Bob Huget (Sarnia): On behalf of the member for Frontenac-Addington, I have a petition to the members of provincial Parliament regarding the amendment of the Retail Business Holidays Act, proposed wide-open Sunday shopping and elimination of Sunday as a legal holiday. It reads as follows:

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

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

It's signed by 142 constituents, and in keeping with procedures of presenting petitions in this House, I affix my signature.

GO BUS SERVICE

Mr Charles Beer (York North): I have a petition here to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

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

"We oppose the provincial government's cancellation of GO bus route number 6565 (Newmarket, King, Maple, Yorkdale). To many of us, this is the only means of transportation. To the elderly, possibly the only means."

I have affixed my signature thereto.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): I have a petition of 109 signatures from my riding of Dufferin-Peel. It's with respect to an amendment of the Retail Business Holidays Act, proposed wide-open Sunday shopping:

"I, the undersigned, hereby register my opposition in the strongest of terms to the proposed amendment of the Retail Business Holidays Act.

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

I have signed this petition.

CHILD CARE CENTRES

Mr Stephen Owens (Scarborough Centre): I have a petition on behalf of over 1,000 constituents from the riding of Scarborough Centre, as well as constituents from the riding of Downsview:

"We, the undersigned, support the Student Centre Child Care in their attempts to be exempted from the payment of property tax. The government's attempts to extract excessive taxes from non-profit child care centres is yet another example of the lack of governmental support of education in our province and we protest this most strongly.

"Should a child care centre face annual payments of property taxes, the continued success of the centre will be severely in jeopardy and the university students, staff and faculty who use the centre will face higher fees and possible closure of the centre."

I affix my signature in support.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mrs Joan M. Fawcett (Northumberland): I have a petition here from many people from Cobourg, Port Hope, Campbellford, Hastings and Warkworth. It's a petition to the members of the provincial Parliament re the amendment of the Retail Business Holidays Act, proposed wide-open Sunday shopping and elimination of Sunday as a legal holiday:

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

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

I have signed the petition.

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

Mr Gary Carr (Oakville South): A great number of constituents from my riding of Oakville South and the surrounding area have asked me to table a petition which reads as follows:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas psychiatric hospitals' expertise should be utilized as the nucleus to coordinate mental health services delivery; and

"Whereas it is unconscionable that the largest cuts in the mental health budget be extracted from the psychiatric hospitals; and

"Whereas 11,000 people in psychiatric facilities and in the community will suffer without adequate care,

"We, the undersigned, demand that the government not reduce the funding to provincial psychiatric hospitals."

HEALTH CARE

Ms Jenny Carter (Peterborough): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas proposals made under the government's expenditure control plan and the social contract initiatives regarding health care in the province of Ontario will have a devastating impact on access to and the delivery of health care; and

"Whereas these proposals will result in a severe reduction in the provision of quality health care services across the province,

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

"That the government of Ontario move immediately to withdraw these proposed measures and reaffirm its commitment to rational reform of Ontario's health care system through its obligations under the 1991 Ontario Medical Association-government framework and economic agreement."

This is signed by about 121 residents of the Peterborough area.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr Charles Beer (York North): A petition to the Legislative Assembly and the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario:

"Whereas the people of Ontario are undergoing economic hardship, high unemployment and are faced with the prospect of imminent tax increases; and

"Whereas the Ontario motorist protection plan currently delivers cost-effective insurance benefits to Ontario drivers; and

"Since the passing of Bill 164 into law will result in higher automobile insurance premiums for Ontario drivers,

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

"That Bill 164 be withdrawn."

I have signed this petition, and it contains several thousand signatures.

TRUCKING INDUSTRY

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It reads:

"Whereas currently in Ontario the maximum length of a tractor pulling two trailers," that being a double trailer combination or truck train, "is 23 metres, and the four western provinces, Quebec and the entire US interstate system have adopted a 25-metre overall length standard, posing a trade barrier to Ontarians; and

"Whereas adoption of a 25-metre overall tractor-trailer combination length would enhance highway safety by encouraging the increased utilization of the safest and most stable double trailer combinations; and

"Whereas the extension will also accommodate the use of 9.1- to 9.8-metre trailers and lead to a 10% increase in cubic capacity, with a resulting saving in transportation costs and a reduction in congestion as fewer power units would be required to remove the same amount of freight; and

"Whereas longer trucks consume less fuel on a tonne/mile basis than conventional units and also produce fewer pollutants; and

"Whereas an increase in the maximum semitrailer length from 14.68 metres," 48-foot trailers, "to 16.2 metres," 53-foot trailers, "would play a significant role in enhancing the competitiveness and the revitalization of the Ontario economy without compromising highway safety because the productivity gains that the 400 cubic feet of additional cargo space available through the use of these trailers will offer will contribute to significant transportation cost savings; and

"Whereas these more productive trailers, by requiring fewer trucks to haul the same amount of freight, will also contribute to reduced congestion and lower fuel emissions, and evidence from the jurisdiction where these 53-foot trailers are used suggests that they have an impeccable safety record; and

"Whereas longer truck lengths will stimulate productivity in the transportation sector, reduce transportation costs to Ontario manufacturers, retailers and shippers and enhance the overall competitiveness of the Ontario economy with estimated annual transportation cost savings to Ontario businesses being $100 million, which will help keep jobs in Ontario; and

"Whereas an inefficient gap in the Canadian transportation system exists because Ontario has just joined the western provinces and Quebec in adopting longer equipment standards, and this significant interprovincial trade barrier should be dismantled;

"We, the undersigned, respectfully petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to pass a bill to increase the overall tractor-trailer combination length from the current maximum of 23 metres to 25 metres, and to increase the maximum semitrailer length from 14.68 metres," 48-foot trailers, "to 16.2 metres," 53-foot trailers, "as recommended by the RTAC, Road and Transportation Association of Canada, study on uniform truck configuration."

This is signed by 38 people from the trucking industry, and I too attach my signature to it.

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INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE L'ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE

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

Bill 58, An Act to amend the Legislative Assembly Act and the Legislative Assembly Retirement Allowances Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'Assemblée législative et la Loi sur les allocations de retraite des députés à l'Assemblée législative.

Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Walkerville): This bill would amend the Legislative Assembly Act by eliminating severance allowances for members who resign unless there's a serious medical reason for the resignation. It would also amend the Legislative Assembly Retirement Allowances Act by providing that members who retire on or after the day on which the bill becomes law would not be entitled to be paid their pensions until the earlier of the day on which they reach the age of 55 or the day on which their age and years of service total 70.

If a member dies before attaining the age of 55 or before becoming eligible under the 70-year rule and leaves a surviving spouse, the spouse would not be entitled to be paid the retirement allowance until the day on which the member would have attained the age of 55 had he or she lived. However, if such a member leaves a surviving child or children but no spouse, the children would still be entitled to an immediate survivor benefit.

The bill also suspends pensions while a person is receiving compensation for acting as a member or officer of any government agency, commission, board, committee, office or organization.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

TIME ALLOCATION

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Orders of the day, Government House Leader.

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Government House Leader): Government notice of motion number 8.

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I understand that under standing order 46, 46(c) in fact, this motion can be moved. But it seems to me that under the auspices of your chair, you should have the prerogative of undertaking an examination of whether or not this particular legislation has had any ample time whatsoever for debate.

I understand you are not in a position to anticipate whether this motion will pass, although, if we cast our eyes around the room and see how many government members there are and how many opposition members there are, it would seem to me that probably this motion will succeed late in the day, as is required.

However, Mr Speaker, that will mean we have had nowhere near the three days of second reading debate usually required as a minimum before a time allocation motion has been passed. We had but one day in committee of the whole and we had, as you understand very well, no time whatsoever in a standing committee to discuss this or to take public deputations.

I raise this because this seems to be, in my opinion anyway, an indication of an exceptional circumstance in which the role of the Speaker as the arbiter of matters which come to offend the rights of the minority -- must sit and make a decision in favour of that minority's right to carry on the debate on bills like Bill 48.

This really, as a result of all the time that has elapsed -- which is very little -- on Bill 48, means that there has been an exceptional move here to bring closure at a time when we have had far less than three full days of debate on this particular matter. I would ask you, Mr Speaker, just to turn your mind to the question of whether in fairness you can allow this particular motion to be moved.

Even though it stands within the ambit of all the words we find under 46(c), I do believe that the riders that talk about a minimum of three days' debate on second reading and the need for fairness for discussion of what is a very major public issue ought to be brought to your attention and you ought to intervene at this time to protect the rights of the minority.

The Speaker: To the member for Bruce, I understand full well his point and understand the importance of the legislation. The member will know that under the standing rules, time allocation has been moved following second reading debate, and there is no provision in the orders that will assist the member for Bruce in accomplishing what he wishes to accomplish. I understand his concerns, but there isn't anything in the orders which would assist me in assisting the member for Bruce. The time allocation motion is in order and we should proceed.

Mr Ernie L. Eves (Parry Sound): On that point of order, Mr Speaker: I believe the member for Bruce does have a valid point. If we would go back to when we negotiated these rule changes, I think you will find ample examples in Hansard. If there is a minimum of three days of debate on second reading, that was discussed. We also discussed putting time limits on how long a significant bill would be sent to committee, and I believe the time lines thrown around at that time were something like no less than two or three weeks of committee time on a bill of significance.

The then government House leader said no government in its right mind would dream of proceeding with a significant piece of legislation unless a bill went to committee during the break for at least two or three weeks. I guess we either have a retraction, a total reverse of position by the governing party, or we have a government that's out of its mind, in the words of the former NDP House leader of the day.

I would have thought the government at the very least would have sent Bill 48 out to committee for public hearings and input from the public. Seeing as how they're going to affect the wages of some almost one million public sector employees in the province of Ontario, I'd have thought they would have wanted to hear from those people at the very least, even if they didn't decide to change their legislation. I would have thought the bill would have been in committee where it could have received very proper clause-by-clause deliberation for a number of weeks when the House was not in session.

That not being the case, the bill now being in committee of the whole without ever having gone to committee to start with, I'd have thought the very least the government would have wanted to do was to let the time be spent on at least the 10 significant amendments it has itself and 10 our party has. Even at an hour an amendment, which I'm sure everybody would agree is not a great deal of time if you split it among three political parties in the chamber, that would be a minimum of 20 hours of debate, and I don't think that's unreasonable at all.

Seeing how they've totally bypassed the three weeks the previous government House leader thought would be appropriate, seeing how they've totally bypassed public hearings, seeing how they've totally bypassed the committee stage, I'd have thought they might want to spend more than two or three days, in an afternoon of two and a half hours of length apiece, in committee of the whole if they were serious about entertaining any constructive amendments or suggestions to the legislation at all.

Hon Mr Charlton: It's interesting to listen to the comments from the two House leaders opposite this afternoon on Bill 48, and the tack they take in this debate. In a technical sense, the House leader of the official opposition is correct in terms of three sessional days. I remind you, though, that a normal sessional day amounts to two and a half hours of debating time, not eight and a half hours, and that Bill 48 on second reading was debated for the equivalent of about three weeks of House time on a normal basis. I think we need to take that into account when we understand the comments that are coming from the other side, I think in terms of trying to leave the public with the impression that the debate on this piece of legislation has been very contracted. Three full weeks of debate on second reading under normal circumstances is what we went through on this piece of legislation.

Mr Speaker, I can recall being in this House, as you will, when we, from both of the parties opposite, had to return to this House on an emergency basis to legislate workers back to work, emergency legislation which was passed at first, second and third reading within a week without any public hearings, without any deputations, without any extensive time spent on clause-by-clause. Well, here under this circumstance we didn't even try to sell this legislation as an emergency of that nature, and we have spent now several weeks on this legislation.

But when it went past the right of members opposite to refer it out to committee, the members opposite declined to do so, not that this government forced it past that stage, as would be implied by the House leader for the third party. Our standing orders, as you well know, clearly set out a right on the part of either of the opposition parties to refer this legislation out to a standing committee for hearings for clause-by-clause and the rest of the appropriate processes. The opposition parties declined to use those orders to accomplish that purpose because they understood the important nature of this legislation and because they understood the importance of getting legislation, which will impose certain penalties on people come August 1 without a negotiated settlement in some cases, passed and in place.

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I just have to say to you, Mr Speaker, that this motion is in order. It's a motion that's been carefully considered, based on what happened both in my discussions last week with the opposition House leaders and in terms of what happened here in the House last Wednesday afternoon, the first afternoon of clause-by-clause, when we spent the entire afternoon on four sections of the bill around which nobody has proposed any amendments and we wasted that entire time when we could have been dealing with either amendments from the official opposition, if it had moved them, or the amendments which the third party has brought forward, or perhaps even our own amendments to the bill.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): Mr Speaker, I'd like to make a couple of comments before you make your ruling.

Firstly, we in the opposition parties did not send this out to committee. It's the ultimate irony, I would say to you, when we assisted the government in some fashion by not sending this specific bill out for committee, that we would have this thrown back in our faces as some reason why we should not be debating this or asking questions to a greater degree at committee of the whole and in fact see a time allocation of third reading. That argument I think is unreasonable and unfair to us in the opposition, considering we were trying to assist the government in putting this bill through as quickly as possible.

Secondly, we can talk about single pieces of legislation being brought through this House on an emergency basis, and that argument is very fair, except those pieces of legislation order people back to work. We're dealing with very specific groups, very specific unions, with very specific job responsibilities. May I suggest to you, Mr Speaker, this Bill 48 deals with nearly a million people. It's not ordering anyone back to work; it's taking money out of their pockets and in fact not paying them the wages they have collectively agreed to. To make the argument that this is similar to ordering people back to work in special emergency legislation again is a ridiculous argument, considering the scope and span of Bill 48, comparatively speaking, to ordering people back to work.

Thirdly, Mr Speaker, I want to note this. I've read the standing orders, and your comments to the member for Bruce, the House leader for the Liberals, are in fact correct. You can't point to any specific standing order that could assist the member for Bruce's arguments. But contrarily, you can't point to a standing order that says, "No, you can't in good conscience, hearing from opposition members and their concerns surrounding a bill and the very limited amount of time this bill has had for open, public discussions, not rule in their favour."

May I say, Mr Speaker, if your argument is simply, "I can't find a standing order to assist you, nor can I find a standing order that says you're wrong," I think you're abrogating your responsibility as Speaker in assisting the minority people in this place to have proper airing of maybe one of the most important pieces of legislation this chamber has seen in this session and may well see over the five-year period.

Mr Speaker, I say this: Anyone who would suggest to you, and I speak directly about the government House leader, that Bill 48 is only worthy of three weeks of debate is, I think, not giving you fair information. Furthermore, the government House leader has the audacity in this place to suggest that there was a filibuster of some sort in committee of the whole and that nothing was being accomplished, when we all know full well, before an hour of committee of the whole, he had filed his motion for time allocation. Again, the three arguments he makes to you to defend his position are the most ridiculous, inane arguments, considering the fact the motion's been filed not 50 minutes into the debate in committee of the whole.

Mr Speaker, it is not only incumbent, it is also important on your basis to rule in favour of the member for Bruce's position, simply because it is the most important piece of legislation we have dealt with and probably will deal with. If you, in good conscience, think three weeks, through the distorted time measurements of the House leader, are enough, then I think our privileges as members of the opposition parties have been seriously usurped, not only by the House leader but by the Chair too.

The Speaker: First, to the member for Parry Sound: Indeed, I understand his argument about putting in specific amounts of time with respect to when a time allocation motion can be moved, and that does take effect with respect to second reading, but the orders are silent on any other stage. That's not to say that the House shouldn't consider such limitations, but they are not in our standing orders.

To the government House leader: Indeed I recall not one but two instances to which he replies -- unhappy instances they were for all members, I'm quite sure.

Finally, to the member for Etobicoke West: I trust that he would not want the Speaker to rule something out of order which was in fact in order, and this motion is in order.

The government House leader moves time allocation. Does he have any opening comments?

Hon Mr Charlton: I think I should move the motion.

I move that notwithstanding any standing order or any special order of the House, in relation to Bill 48, An Act to encourage negotiated settlements in the public sector to preserve jobs and services while managing reductions in expenditures and to provide for certain matters related to the Government's expenditure reduction program, one further sessional day shall be allotted to consideration of the bill in committee of the whole House. All amendments proposed to be moved to the bill shall be filed with the clerk of the assembly by 4 pm on the sessional day on which the bill is considered in committee of the whole House following passage of this motion. Any divisions required during clause-by-clause consideration of the bill in committee of the whole House shall be deferred until 5:45 pm on that sessional day. At 5:45 pm on such sessional day, those amendments which have not yet been moved shall be deemed to have been moved and the Chair of the committee of the whole House shall interrupt the proceedings and shall, without further debate or amendment put every question necessary to dispose of all remaining sections of the bill and any amendments thereto and report the bill to the House. Any divisions required shall be deferred until all remaining questions have been put, the members called in once and all deferred divisions taken in succession.

That, upon receiving the report of the committee of the whole House, the Speaker shall put the question for adoption of the report forthwith, which question shall be decided without debate or amendment. No deferral of any required division shall be permitted.

That one further sessional day shall be allotted to the third reading stage of the bill. At 5:45 pm on such day, the Speaker shall interrupt the proceedings and shall put every question necessary to dispose of this stage of the bill without further debate or amendment. No deferral of any required division shall be permitted.

That in the case of any division relating to any proceedings on the bill, the division bell shall be limited to five minutes.

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The Speaker: Does the government House leader have any opening remarks?

Hon Mr Charlton: Yes, Mr Speaker, thank you, and just very briefly; I don't want to take a lot of the House's time this afternoon.

As I suggested a few moments ago to a point of order that was raised, we spent in debate on second reading on this bill the equivalent of some three weeks of normal House sitting time, and in the last week and a half the three House leaders have been through a number of discussions about how to proceed in committee of the whole with this bill and its amendments. The leader of the third party, for example, this afternoon in one of his questions to the Premier suggested that in fact we had tabled the time allocation motion before we had seen the whole of last Wednesday afternoon, and that is in fact correct.

What isn't correct in what was implied, though, is that there had been no discussion about how committee of the whole would be handled with the opposition House leaders prior to the tabling of that motion. It was clear that the House leaders were and would be unable to reach an agreement, although as late as Wednesday evening of last week, when we had a special House leaders' meeting because we weren't going to be here on Thursday because of the Canada Day holiday, I put it again to both of the opposition House leaders that although the motion had been tabled, if we could reach an agreement -- an agreement that would have had two additional days for clause-by-clause and a day for third reading instead of one additional day for clause-byclause, one day to deal with this time allocation motion and a day for third reading, which is what we're going to end up with -- I said we could have two days on clause-by-clause in committee of the whole House if the opposition House leaders were prepared to reach an agreement to that effect. The offers that I got from the other side were offers to debate each amendment for two hours or an hour and a half or an hour, which would have taken somewhere between 20 and 30 hours of House time, or the next month.

We all know, and what the member opposite from Scarborough West doesn't seem to understand, when I compare this legislation to other emergency legislation which has been imposed in the past, I compare it not in the sense of its specifics or necessarily its magnitude but of its urgency. We have unions out there, some of which are negotiating, some of which are still reluctant to negotiate and some of which are informally having discussions with government negotiators privately, all of which, though, at the end of the day, because we have an August 1 deadline, have a right to know at the end of the day what the final rules are for this set of negotiations, or lack of negotiations but imposed fail-safe.

I think it's the responsibility of this government to ensure that this legislation is amended and passed as quickly as is possible, so that those parties to this legislation, those parties that will be impacted by this legislation, whether the employers or employees, will fully understand the context in which either a negotiation and a settlement will be reached or an imposition will be imposed. It's important that it happen fairly quickly, to leave the greatest amount of time possible for those negotiations to occur.

The House leader for the third party suggested we should have had public hearings on the legislation. The input we want to see and hear is at the bargaining table, not in an all-out effort to defeat this legislation in a legislative committee, but in an all-out effort to negotiate a package that's most appropriate in the sector and the set of circumstances that confront that sector, to deal with the reduction in costs, the expenditure pressures that the government is forced to seek here.

Mr Stockwell: Why don't you just extend the sitting hours? Could have it done in three days.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Have you got a point of order, the member for Etobicoke West? No.

Are there any other members who wish to participate in this debate? Are there none from the official opposition, none from the third party? Therefore, I will recognize the member for Victoria-Haliburton.

Mr Dennis Drainville (Victoria-Haliburton): I'm glad to lead off this debate on this side of the House about the motion that has been put forward by the honourable government House leader.

I think it is important and it is certainly interesting to note that again the government is introducing time allocation. Last Wednesday, when we were debating in committee of the whole and dealing with the issue of Bill 48, what we saw was that within a very few minutes of beginning that process, the government again initiated time allocation.

People have a very important role here to ask some questions of the government, and I would say to all those who are listening to this debate and to those who are watching what the government is doing on this issue that they need to ask one very important question. That questions is: What is the government trying to do by introducing time allocation at this point?

It's very interesting that when I sat with the government not long ago, in fact a year ago, I remember all the discussions we had around the rules that were going to be brought in, and I remember asking a lot of questions because I was concerned about some of those rules that were brought in by the former House leader.

At that time I asked questions, and the questions that I asked were: How often is this time allocation going to be used by the government? If we're going to be curtailing the amount of time that members have in this House to make their points in debate, if we're going to be changing the rules so that the government, in a sense, constantly has a hammer to hammer the opposition when it wishes to, how often is this going to be used? I remember very clearly that the House leader at that time said to me: "Oh, well, it's not going to be used all the time. It's going to be used judiciously and carefully."

Every major piece of legislation that's come into this House has been dragged through this House with time allocation. They've done it specifically on those issues that were so sensitive and so contentious and so important for the people of Ontario that they couldn't have a reasonable debate. What they had to do was ensure that they were pushing this legislation through, regardless of the views of the people of this province.

As we look at what the government has done with this Bill 48, we know that of all the legislation it's put forward in this House, it is the most important piece of legislation. It has profound effects on a million workers in this province. It is a bill which is dangerous, which is arbitrary, which gets rid of due process of law. It is a bill that not only the public service employees are concerned about, but also many people throughout the province of Ontario.

What do we see? We would think that commensurate with the importance of this bill, we would have a government that would afford the Legislature and the members of this Legislature the amount of time that they need to go through this legislation and to talk about this legislation and put forward substantive amendments that would help to change this legislation and make it better.

What in fact we see is that, as usual, the government is trying to destroy the democratic process. They are not indeed allowing adequate debate on Bill 48. They are not allowing for public hearings. They are in effect not even allowing the people of the province the opportunity to have this looked at through the eyes of the public.

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There are no public hearings, so what we have in effect is a government that is saying to the people of Ontario: "We do not care, John Q. Public or Jane Q. Public, whether you have an interest in this legislation. We don't care if we might help to make sure that you don't have a job in the future. We don't care if we open up collective bargaining in the province of Ontario. We don't care about any of those things. What we care about is the direction we are going in."

So it is that the government has initiated this policy and has decided for itself that it is going to continue on this policy and take away from the members of this House the opportunity to discuss this issue in a reasonable way.

I'd like to talk a little bit about the kind of importance this legislation has and how it becomes, if you will, an example of the kind of problem that we will continue to have with a government that cares not a whit for Parliament and not a whit for the process of Parliament. Every Parliament is based upon at least one factor and that is that there has to be mutual sense of cooperation. If indeed the government is to govern, as it should govern, as it should by law govern, it must try to cooperate with those members who offer the alternative view or alternative views.

Indeed, what we see in this House continually is that the government is pushing through legislation which is going to have a very major effect on people, legislation that is going to affect what people make, what people's seniority is going to be like in the future, what kind of collective agreements they are part of. They are in fact taking away the very process of law that defends those people and gives them an opportunity of being protected in their jobs and in their earnings.

What do we have then? We have a government that cannot be trusted, we have a government that cannot be believed in terms of the kinds of priorities it puts out there, but more than that, we have a government that has believed in a total lack of faith in the parliamentary system and how that system can work in this place between all the parties.

What this brings us to is a statement that this motion that is being put forward by the honourable government House leader and by the government is basically a motion which says: "We want no more debate. We absolutely believe that the direction that we're going in with this government, that the direction that we're going in with this particular bill, is the direction that we are committed to. We do not care" -- in other words, this is what the government says -- "that there are significant problems out there with this bill. We do not care that workers are being hurt. We do not care even that those workers feel they have not had access to ensure that their views are known to this government and to this Parliament."

We have a government that does not care. Now, we have seen that in fact. We've seen it in their attitude. We've seen it in the kind of legislation that they're willing to put in. The workers' party is not the workers' party any more. It is not the workers' party any more. Rather, it is the party --

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): Oh, please, what about Bill 40, Dennis?

Mr Drainville: -- it is the party of those who would continue to trample on the rights of workers. They have changed their orientation.

Mr Sutherland: What about Bill 40? What about the wage protection fund?

Mr Drainville: They call themselves a social democratic party. They are not a social democratic party. They are nothing of the sort. They have moved so far right that at this point in time, they might as well sit in the back row of this side of the House because it is their row by right. So I say to the honourable members, it's too bad that you have not been able to serve the people of Ontario the way you said you were going --

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. If you want to hold some conversations, I would suggest that you go outside the House. The member for Oxford, please refrain from interjecting. The member for Durham East, if you want to --

Mr Drainville: Mr Speaker, I'm not going to belabour the point. All the catcalls to the contrary, all the honourable members have to do is walk down the streets of their villages and their towns and their ridings and talk to the people of Ontario. If they find among the people of Ontario that there is great support, that indeed the people are ready to say, "Bill 48's great and every other thing this government has done is great," then they can rest secure and easy in the future.

But I would say that they should not rest so easy and secure, that the future is fraught with many dangers for a government which has turned its back on the things it said it believed in. So it is that this government is headed into a new direction.

We read in the Star just recently a wonderful article that said that Mr Rae, the Premier of this province, has a new vision for the New Democratic Party. I would say it's a disastrous vision. Until they come back to the roots they believed in, in terms of the NDP and the CCF, then we're going to continue to have problems, and the sense of betrayal about this party and this government which is rampant in the land now will only continue.

Mr Elston: On behalf of our party, I'm pleased to rise and speak to this motion. All too often now in this Parliament we have been beset by motions brought by the current government House leader, and by the previous one too. The hallmark of the New Democratic Party's reign of terror in Ontario will be its lack of interest in pursuing in a reasonable and progressive fashion the debates on important pieces of legislation.

There is, in my view, very --

Interjections.

Mr Elston: Mr Speaker, there seems to be a bit of a fight breaking out between these New Democrats and anybody who resists them.

The Deputy Speaker: Could you take your chair, please, member for Bruce. The Chair hasn't been informed if the time has been divided between the two parties. Is there an agreement?

Mr Elston: I request that it be divided between the two opposition parties, in accordance with an agreement.

The Deputy Speaker: Do we have unanimous consent? Agreed?

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Did I hear "no"?

Mr Gregory S. Sorbara (York Centre): No, you didn't hear "no."

The Deputy Speaker: Agreed.

Mr Elston: Thank you for reminding me of that, Mr Speaker.

As I was about to say, in the beginning of the New Democrats' reign here in Ontario there was some expectation that we would find a new democracy, that those people who were excluded from discussion and debate would have received a new platform, a new place to have their say in the public affairs of Ontario.

In fact, as I recall, there was great fanfare, about the end of September or early part of October 1990, as Bob Rae, in his throne speech, in his initial speech to the people as Prime Minister of this province, indicated that there was a new democracy on the horizon, that there would be new days for those people who wanted to express their views and have their say on the public policy of this fair province of ours. It has been borne out that indeed there is a new democracy.

I can tell you that I've been here since 1981. On March 19, 1981, there was an election in which the then Premier, Bill Davis, was returned for what would be his final Parliament in the legislative annals of Ontario's history.

In those days, there was a big majority of Conservatives who did certain things in this province to deal with what was then seen to be an economic problem. Bill 179 was one of the first bills that I as a new member recall coming forward here. Mr Speaker, I can tell you that if there is a fair comparison to be made between any piece of legislation done prior to this time and this current Bill 48, there was a considerable amount of debate, and much of the debate was led by the New Democrats and several of their allies in the pubic or quasi-public sector. They went on not for days or weeks, not for a matter of five or six or seven or eight hours, debating Bill 179; they went on for many days in second reading, and then a number of weeks in committee as it was referred out for public hearings and then clause-by-clause.

On some of those days, I remember that the committee's clause-by-clause consideration of Bill 179 encompassed many long speeches by several members of the opposition. There were very few, if any, interjections by the Conservative Party. They merely bided their time and let us have our say.

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While we did not, in my view anyway, have a satisfactory resolution of the many questions which were raised about Bill 179, and later about Bill 111, which was the successor to 179 in the Davis years, I can tell you that at least there was a lot of time for us to put the case, and to put the case in a way which ensured that it was not only thorough but, I am sure, the people who would read the debates now would say it was a nauseating re-expression of several of the cases that had already been put before the public agenda in the committee.

Here we have Bill 48, and it has been brought on to implement what has been described by several in the government as the keystone of its mandate to govern for this current time.

Interjection.

Mr Elston: Mr Speaker, may I ask that we have some order here? The ministers are all busy giving instructions to their underlings.

Hon Gilles Pouliot (Minister of Transportation): Jump in the lake.

Mr Elston: The attitude of the government members to this has just been nicely expressed by one departing member as telling the opposition to go jump in the lake.

Mr Sutherland: Would you like some cheese with your wine, Murray?

Mr Elston: Mr Speaker, either these guys are going to sit here and listen -- of course, they don't have long to sit and listen. We'll only have a couple of more hours; it's not going to take very much time. I just ask for their patience and I ask them to let me have my say on this particular afternoon, as you're shutting the entire debate off.

The member for Oxford is an interesting guy. He probably won't remember when he was in student politics and when he got to have his say in all of those committee discussions at the student Parliament at the University of Western Ontario, probably when he would make great speeches about democracy and the ability to speak freely either for or against motions. Any time a member stands up in this House and raises a voice of protest, like the member for Victoria-Haliburton did just prior to my taking the floor, these people yell and scream and hurl all sorts of insults at us, tell us to go jump in the lake or whatever because we dare to resist the overwhelming numbers these people have.

I should remind all of the people who are listening today that the motion which is being brought is really being brought under the auspices of the new rules of the New Democrats. It has been used, rather than "sparingly," as was the word used by the member for Windsor-Riverside when he was the House leader for the New Democrats -- it has been used regularly, frequently and to great effect, because what it really does is ensure that no bill of any importance is left to be seen on the public agenda nor is any bill left to be examined by the public for any length of time at all, when you really think about what the parliamentary procedure is.

I was in government, along with a number of my colleagues who are now on this side of the House. The Tories had been in government, and some of their members who are now sitting here in opposition likewise shared in cabinet deliberations with Bill Davis and other people. We understand there is a public consultation that develops prior to a bill coming into the place.

The bureaucracy and the political party in power will undertake very wide deliberations, but none of those deliberations are as open to the public as the deliberation here in the people's council chamber. That's all this place is. It's a council chamber. It's an open forum where people can bring their issues to be aired. Here the real business of the day is brought to this place by the executive council.

The Premier, through his Finance minister, has brought Bill 48, which is designed to deal with the remuneration paid to some 950,000 public servants or quasi-public servants, and they have determined that, after all the time they have taken, they now are going to prescribe that we have less time to consider it, that the public has less time to understand each of the clauses than they themselves have taken.

I even think there are a number of members from the New Democratic Party who would like to have some of the answers that have not yet been forthcoming from either the Finance minister or the Premier. I was interested in examining some of the Hansards of the past days when Lyn McLeod was putting very specific questions to the Finance minister and to the Premier about the operation of the Bill 48 clauses. As I examined all of those cases, the one thing that became very, very clear indeed was that there was not one whit of a sense that the Premier or the Finance minister had of how these were really going to function in the real world. There isn't a sense that they know what is going to happen when the new amendment to section 33 is brought forward that talks about those people in the broader public sector and in the public sector employment forces who are going to have the ability to extend contracts up to March 31, 1996, if they have the right to strike.

Here's a very simple question, a straightforward question at least. It may not have had a simple answer in reply, if an answer had been given, but the Premier decided that he would just fly off the handle, that he would turn to yelling at my leader, Ms McLeod, because she had dared to ask him to account to the public for how his legislation was going to act. That is the only thing that has occurred so far in this chamber. When we have put questions, there has been an attack of a nature which I have not seen from a government for many days, for many years, in fact, in my time in this House. But that is what the Premier is doing. He lashes out at his critics. He pooh-poohs those people who ask questions about how this will function in an Ontario that has a fairly long history of collective agreements governing our workplace activities. I don't understand it. Members of my caucus and members of the caucus to my left physically, to my right philosophically, don't understand it either.

I have got countless pieces of correspondence from people who represent a number of the affected groups, who are basically asking the question, how can we accomplish this task with Bill 48 being the guide we are to use? I have no intention of reading any of these letters. I don't think that would be productive, because a number of the questions have been raised by my leader, Lyn McLeod, in her questioning of the Premier. But basically they say: "We can't have a collective agreement. It's overridden by 48. We don't know what the targets are any more because there are moving targets that the government has put up. Sometimes you can get a benefit if you come to an agreement locally early. Sometimes you will find that you will be discounted in the amount of money that you will be expected to find and turn back to the provincial coffers, but if you do that, there's no indication of where the balance of the money will be made up." There are questions about how Bill 48 -- this is the bill right here -- how this bill will actually operate in the real world.

I had a series of amendments, which I see unfortunately I have misplaced, but a huge number of amendments have been raised by the government. That is not to mention the additional ones which have been raised by the third party, but those amendments have been brought forward more to salve the uneasy conscience of those people who supported the New Democrats on second reading.

The third party knows full well that it has very little, if any, prospect of having any serious consideration of its amendments by the government whatsoever, basically because it has been moving in its amendments that certain sections be deleted and otherwise, before any of its other amendments can have any force or effect at all. We know the government is not planning to play along with this third-party game in filing these amendments. We know that Mr Rae refused to accept any of the amendments today in the House. We know that the only thing the government is willing to pass is Bill 48, with a few other changes which the government, even as late as last week, discovered had to be made to make its bill somewhat more palatable to some of the affected groups.

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As the government goes on from day to day finding new batches of amendments to bring forward, it is telling the public, by bringing this motion, that there is nothing further to discuss with respect to Bill 48.

Now Bill 48 will be given, after today, one more day in committee of the whole to deal with the vast number of amendments which have been brought forward by the Minister of Finance and the amendments brought by the third party.

We in the Liberal Party knew very well that the government would not have any time whatsoever to consider anything from the opposition parties. We knew that the bill itself was in such a state that it could not be repaired by any number of amendments, even if the government were willing to accept those amendments being brought forward.

There are so many places that have caused concern in the administrator's heads out in those sectors, whether it be the municipal sector or the hospital sector or the public sector, that nobody right now has an understanding of how they are to attain their new goals, yet we find that we cannot go ahead and ask, section by section, for the Minister of Finance's explanation as to how this bill would affect our new world.

This is an unusual time for us in Ontario. We had in 1984 a Canada which was just newly coming to grips with the election of Brian Mulroney, and some of us here are wise enough to keep the old clippings in which he talked about sacred trusts and talked about guarding the integrity of the programs which many of our senior citizens and others in the country of Canada have not only come to expect to be there to bolster them against problems which they have not foreseen, but those programs which have become part of the culture and character of a Canada which has become known throughout the world as a very caring society.

Well, we saw what happened with Brian Mulroney. His sacred trust soon evaporated as he played his numbers in Ottawa and as he took aim at some of the groups that were least able to protect themselves against the Tory onslaught. It hasn't been that long ago that I heard a number of federal Conservatives talking about reinstituting user fees. Can we recall just for a second how the new Prime Minister, Kim Campbell, and the then contender for what has become her place, Jean Charest, both volunteered that user fees were something that was on their minds?

Today in this House, as a result of the social contract and related matters which are being sponsored more or less under the auspices of Bill 48, we heard Mr Wilson, the member for Simcoe West, asking the Premier and others -- it ended up that the Health minister answered, I guess -- about user fees for seniors and the costs that were going to be associated with the new world of New Democratic Party support in the health policy field.

You see, the sacred trusts of the Brian Mulroneys of our history have now become the sacred trusts of the Bob Raes of our present. The sacred trusts, the universality, the accessibility of health care to all, have crumbled in the face of pieces of legislation like Bill 29 and, more specifically, under the auspices of Bill 48, which really provides the framework for cutting away at the very basics of our society.

Bill 48 is really not a shot across the bow of those people who administer public programs and who ensure that we are able to receive as citizens the assistance of the public purse to defend ourselves against problems that are not of our own doing.

Who in this country could have thought that the New Democratic Party, which spawns such interesting programs in the province of Saskatchewan and other places, which have been followed in other areas, would have found the New Democrats in Ontario pulling them apart, tearing at the very fibre of those social support systems which I would have thought to New Democrats would have been described likewise as sacred trusts?

Who would have thought, when you looked at 1984 and the great hue and cry that was raised by my friends in the New Democratic Party who sat in the third party position in 1984 -- that was before the 1985 election when we were the official opposition, Liberals. New Democrats were in the third party under Michael Cassidy, now down in Ottawa someplace. I guess he's actually up here in Toronto sitting on the board of directors of Ontario Hydro, yelling and screaming about the sacred trust and the violations which have occurred under the auspices of Brian Mulroney. Well, here with Bill 48 is not a shot across the bow of our social support system but a shot amidships, one designed to explode the entire system that we now know.

There isn't much to be said about the dedication of the New Democratic Party, as we now find it today, for the sacred trusts which all of us shared so dear. They have today not only said they are not interested in preserving the sacred trusts -- the supports for health care and social services, the support for assisting people who need a little bit of help to make sure they can do the best they can -- they have instead filed this motion with the table last week and now moved it today, under the auspices of the government House leader, to make sure that their worried consciences will not be bothered by too long a public deliberation over the ramifications of Bill 48. That is probably one of the worst condemnations for any political party, that it is unable to accept public debate over its public policy.

I was, as I have said before, a member of the Peterson government. I was proud to serve with David Peterson in times that were seen to be economically very good. We had certain initiatives which we were able to take and in fact in those days, as Minister of Health and then later as the Financial Institutions minister, I was condemned roundly for not doing enough for people; that there were more things that ought to be done; that there was more money to be put into all kinds of programs. Those people in the New Democratic Party were leading the charge.

Not far behind them were the Tories. The Tories have always been a little slow off the mark on social contract issues but, in any event, they were there. All three parties were pushing for more to be done and we broadened the base of our social support systems, never dreaming that a mere five years later the New Democrats would be tearing entire strips out of the very heart of our social support programs by refusing to tell us the real world was about to disappear under their --

Mrs Irene Mathyssen (Middlesex): Try to get it right.

Mr Elston: Oh, the member for Middlesex is grumbling again. She, like Bob Rae, has a real badge to wear. She's torn apart Middlesex county. She assisted in making sure it was all annexed, and in those days there were certain steps taken to make sure we didn't have a lot of time to debate the Middlesex county bill. Well, it's just another example of how little concern they really have --

Interjection.

Mr Elston: Oh, and the member for Oxford speaks up again. He has arisen from his sleep. He doesn't want to read the debates that were printed before about the speeches New Democrats made about how debates should go on and be free and open. I'm glad he's here today and I'm glad he will be back to vote in favour of closing off the debate on this, because it will look good on his CV when he goes back to the people in Oxford, when he goes to tell those people at the Oxford Centre just exactly what he did to defend them and to defend the people who are there, when he goes to defend himself for the types of problems that are going to be the result of Bill 48.

What clause-by-clause is supposed to do is to examine each of the sections of this bill one by one so that people can understand what will take place. When we were dealing with sections 1, 2, 3 and 4, we did not get very many good answers. In fact, very few answers came from the Finance minister and from the member for Oxford, because the member for Oxford, you see, is the parliamentary assistant and he stood in for the Finance minister.

I watched with great delight as he leaned over the table to accept his advice from the public servants as to what he could say and what he couldn't say in regard to Bill 48. In any case, if we look at his answers, we'll find there aren't too many solutions being provided by the material that was pulled from the New Democrats on Wednesday last as we examined Bill 48 in clause-byclause.

That was the day, by the way, that we had gotten government notice of motion 8 tabled.

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Mr Peter North (Elgin): This is a filibuster --

Mr Elston: The member for Elgin is asking some questions, Mr Speaker, and I think that the member for Elgin ought to ask some questions.

If we could be involved in committee of the whole House, if we had committee of the whole House in which to pose those questions, he could get some answers that I'm sure would help him and would help the member for Middlesex, who is again sort of agitated over something. It's probably because she's part of this whole crew that has decided that there will be an end to freedom of speech, and she is in fact probably going to be one of the ones who will vote in favour of cutting off public debate. That's the way this world is turning under the New Democrats. I can remember when members of the OSSTF and their group would have stood up and said something about the end of public debate and the end of discussions that allowed the public to be involved in them, but the member for Middlesex now will probably vote in favour of 48 because it serves her purposes, and it serves the purposes of the government, because the government cannot tolerate dissent. A group that was built on the whole basis that they had a different idea about the way this world would run has exhibited the least amount of patience with dissent that I have ever seen in this House.

As I said, I was elected in 1981, and I happened to be here when Bill Davis's group had an outstanding majority, a huge majority. I think there were 34 Liberals and I think maybe 20 -- I'm not sure. I don't see any of the then members of the NDP caucus opposition here, but I think there were about 20. But all the rest were Tories. There was a huge number. There were six Liberals elected brand-new members in 1981, and 22 new Tories were elected, but I'll tell you, they went at their business the way the executive council told them.

But there was one thing that I have to give Bill Davis credit for. Bill Davis let us talk. He let us have our word. He didn't much give us our way, but he at least let us get in this place or in the committees downstairs, and we could bring in as many witnesses as we wanted, we could have as long to discuss the issues with those witnesses as we wanted and everybody could say at the end of the day, "While we were not allowed to have our amendments passed, we were allowed to have our amendments presented," almost without exception. There were, I think, at the tail end of some of our debates on 179 and 111 some motions to rise and report, as I recall, which closed off our debate, and we had, I think, the usual and obvious interjections from the opposition parties, including New Democrats, who talked about Bill Davis being heavy-handed.

I'll tell you, Mr Speaker, nothing that was done then compares to this. Here we are with what is really the cornerstone of this government's current agenda, and we are told that one day of committee of the whole is all that we can have following this motion.

That's important for the people in the Ontario public service sector to know, and the health sector to know, the community services sector to know, the schools sector, the colleges sector, the universities sector, the agencies, boards and commissions sector and the municipalities sector. I've read from Bill 48, section 3; that is the list of the sectors that will be affected by this particular legislation.

This legislation, by the way, is a fairly unusual departure from the collective agreement world that we know, as I said once before, but it's so much more an unusual departure because the New Democrats are moving it. The New Democrats are putting an end to collective agreement in this province, at least for the time being, as we know it.

Heaven help us if the New Democrats are ever able to get re-elected, because there will be a total end of all collective agreement. There will not be a need for any kind of collective coming together, because the New Democrats want to control everything. There is not a single iota of evidence that would suggest that these people will not abandon their old ways. They are in fact proving that they have abandoned their old ways. They have totally, totally negated any of the previous -- what is it, 35 years since you changed your name from the CCF to the New Democratic Party? Is it 35 years ago that you tried to preserve your birthright by changing your name, and now, under a new name change, you have sold your birthright for power? That's what you've done.

You've taken away the ability of people in this place to speak, and if there was one thing the founders of the CCF wanted to protect, it was the right to speak, it was the right to dissent; it was the right for New Democrats and for Liberals and Tories and those people who didn't have any affiliation with a political party to speak out against what were seen to be excesses in government, the excesses of the executive. Well, there is, here in this forum, a place for us to speak out against those excesses still, but not very much of a place to speak out, because the new standing orders put in place by the member for Windsor-Riverside and his cohorts in the New Democratic Party have really provided a contained way of dealing with legislation.

They no longer think it's right that anybody should talk against their legislation. If you talk for more than a couple of days at a time, these people bring in a time allocation motion not unlike the one that we see here. The only difference, of course, between this one and the other ones is that this one has been brought while we're in committee of the whole House, and generally they only let us get to second reading before they time-allocate us. In that situation, I have to say that with respect to other bills they at least let us go to standing committee under the auspices of the time allocation. Here, we didn't take an opportunity to go to standing committee on Bill 48, and these people still bring in time allocation. I don't understand exactly what these people expect us to accomplish in examining these clauses if they are to close us down at the first sign that we have some real, penetrating questions about the operation of any of their sections.

I think you should go back and examine the Hansard of last Wednesday, because you would have seen that there were a number of very good questions asked about the operation of this act. There were a number of questions asked about how people were going to reach the targets that were being set by the Minister of Finance, and when he was here he was grappling, diligently but not very effectively, with the question of how you deal with the exemption of those people making $30,000 and less from the target, or at least from the operation of the constraint package which he had formulated.

There are still a number of questions outstanding about how this operates. For instance, what happens if I share a job with a person and that job together really only gives us $58,000 total, but as a result of the division we only make $29,000? It's interesting to note that there has not yet been a definitive answer given on how that affects us. It would seem that if I'm the administrator of a particular school or hospital someplace that was trying to understand how the $58,000 salary was to be addressed, I would probably be told that it is going to be subject to a reclaiming of compensation by the province. But because the two people who are working there are supposed to not be affected adversely by this legislation, it would seem that I could appeal, as a member of the workforce, to a better adjudication of my rights under the legislation. But that's an outstanding question, a question that is not answered, a question that will remain unanswered.

What about the question of how the hydro rates are going to be affected by the $100-million target that has been added to their constraint package? As you know, I represent Bruce county, in which the Bruce nuclear power development is located. Today, there will be a meeting of the members of CUPE and others as they examine the very issue of how the social contract, so-called, is going to be affecting their livelihoods and futures.

As you already know as well, those people, the members of CUPE and the members of the society, are already working in concert with the management to restructure Hydro in a major task which has been designed to yield to the people of the province a 0% increase in their rates. Well, they are a long way down that road. There were targets set of some 4,500 people being let go from Hydro or retired or whatever, or at least no longer being employed there because of severance packages and whatever. But on top of that target now falls $100 million, and the people up in Bruce county are saying, "How does this affect us?"

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When I asked that question and when my leader, Lyn McLeod, asked that question, there was no answer, just a bunch of verbiage which said: "It will be done. We believe in the goals of Hydro and we believe in blah, blah, blah." But there was no advice from the Premier when he was asked; there has been no advice on that issue from the member for Nickel Belt, the Finance minister, on that issue.

What about the case of the Bruce County Board of Education? The Bruce county school board has been busy trying to trim back, not unlike the trimming back that has been occurring in the Simcoe area and was raised in a statement to this Legislature earlier in the day by the member for Simcoe East. We have found several hundreds of thousands of dollars, in fact I think it goes very close to $1 million, in Bruce county, on deliberations which preceded the implementation of the whole series of discussions that have been described as a social contract.

The issue is, are those findings that have been located by the people in the Bruce county board to be part of their target under social contracting constraint? Are they going to be credited? If they are not to be credited, how in the world are they going to find more? How are they going to find more when they are being required to deliver certain programs which the government says we cannot cut?

What is it that these people are afraid of when we ask such good questions like the question raised by my friend the member for Mississauga West the other day? Last Wednesday, in his place, he stood and said to the Premier: "Under the auspices of Bill 48, certain things are to occur. If, as is the case in Mississauga, a $6-million target cannot be discovered under the ambit of all the provisions of Bill 48, and there is a problem as a result of those people who work in the municipality who earn $30,000 or less, what are the things that can be done to make up the difference?"

The Premier had no answer. It was a reasonable situation for him to be in, because the answers that have been given by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs to whom the Mississauga people had resort were that they could lay off people, that they could negotiate more than the 12 days which have been prescribed by legislation, that they could cut programs or that they could raise taxes. All of those things were suggested by the public servants at the Municipal Affairs ministry to members of the staff at the municipality of Mississauga.

All of those areas are areas in which the Premier or the Finance minister or one of the people in the caucus had from time to time made statements about: "You're not supposed to give more than the 12 days off. You're not supposed to be able to do that because the legislation says 'up to 12 days.' You're not supposed to cut service." In fact, I have talked to a number of people in the hospital area who have been told they can't do certain things, that they must provide the services that are there.

We're told that they're not supposed to lay off people. I remember that statement being used the last time there was a settlement with the nurses in the Bruce county area. The Premier said, "There will be no layoffs." He just forgot to say, "By the way, we're not going to pay for it." In the end, there was no money in the hospital sector and a good number of women in my area were laid off. They were terminated. They lost their jobs as a result of Bob Rae and his people refusing to come through with the money which would fulfil the contractual obligations of the hospitals to nurses. What happened? As a result of those layoffs, service levels have been cut in various ways as the belts tighten in those particular areas.

What's the final option? The final option is to raise taxes. Well, Bob Rae is not raising taxes after his budget, he said. Remember Spot-on Floyd, the Finance minister? "Spot-on" was his favourite word a while ago. Well, Spot-on Floyd has said several times that this was a very aggressive taxing budget. He knows it, he's honest enough to say it and I applaud him for saying that. But then he said afterwards that there will not be tax increases levied against the people of the province. Uh-uh, not by Floyd, but under the auspices of Bill 48 the only option that municipalities or school boards have to make sure that the level of service is maintained is either to lay off some people, which cuts services, or basically to raise property taxes.

Floyd is right. Spot-on Floyd won't raise any taxes in this province after his budget, but he's going to force municipalities to raise taxes if the level of service is to be anywhere close to the level that it has been. He's going to force the school boards into finding more money, in fact, paying him money back, and the only way they can do that, under several of the options I have seen for the boards in my area, is to ask for more tax revenue from the people of Bruce county. So Floyd's not raising taxes but he's telling municipalities in Bruce, "Raise your taxes," and he's telling school boards, "Raise your taxes."

Conservation authorities: Does anybody remember conservation authorities in all this social contracting? They're not getting any help. They're getting their conservation land tax rebate program cancelled -- you know that -- under the auspices of one of the other programs that has been part of the Finance minister's great game here in the province of Ontario.

They have a special provision. What are their provisions that they can resort to? They get their money from very specific places, like levies from municipalities. If they don't get the conservation land tax rebate program, then they're going to have to go back in one fashion or another to municipalities, and they will probably raise their taxes or there will be a huge deficit. Under the auspices of all those, the scenario is not to have the Finance minister raising taxes.

Under Bill 48, it looks like the answers to those questions are fairly obvious, that Floyd won't raise taxes but that he will force other people to raise them for him. The reason he's raising them is because he's telling those individual municipalities and school boards to send the money back to Queen's Park, "or, in another way, we're cutting you off."

In fact, they started July 1, Canada Day. What an ironic time to start a new tax grab.

Not only did he cut the transfers, but he also inserted a double whammy on those of us who receive paycheques. Instead of a 3% yearly surcharge increase, it is at 6% to make sure that he gets us for the entire year. That first cheque in July is going to be an interesting one for those of us who look at the various areas in which the provincial share will be set out. Actually, I hope there is on some paycheques someplace in this province a line that says, "This is due to Floyd's increased taxes." It's a double taxation that is really part of this whole Bill 48 operation.

I'm concerned that in the end what will happen is that this bill will go through without several important questions being asked. We have started on sections 1 through 4 and we asked a whole series of questions, some that were very unsatisfactorily answered. We have the first amendment to section 5, and we go on from there, section after section with bits and pieces. I think it goes all the way up to section 51. In fact, it does. The only section we won't pose a question on is section 51, and that's the section that says, "The short title of this act is the Social Contract Act, 1993."

To be quite honest, we've already determined a long time ago that there is nothing about this particular legislation that should allow it to masquerade as a social contract. This is actually a social assault, that's what it is; a social insult as well, if I might add. Throughout the rest of it, we have questions about every section that appears in here, and section after section is leading us to believe that this is a fundamentally flawed piece of legislation. Our examination of section by section we are sure will show the government how badly it is deceiving itself if it really thinks this is going to deliver anything like a real saving to the people of the province.

Some of us have been in this place longer than others, which is a very interesting observation, I'm sure, to everybody, but when you have some history in this place, as you have, Mr Speaker, when you have had some time to listen to people debate when I think the speakers were really good speakers -- I think you will remember, I think you were here, Mr Speaker, when Jim Renwick was in his best days.

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Jimmy Renwick was the member for Riverdale, and he was a fellow who I liked to listen to. When we were allowed to debate in this House, Jimmy Renwick was great. He was able to resort to all of the arguments about the ability to speak freely. The member for Riverdale for the New Democratic Party was generally the person who stood up and talked when the Conservative majority in those days was trying to beat down Her Majesty's loyal opposition, the people who were guarding the public interest against those fiends who were occupying the executive council chair. In fact, in those days we even saw ourselves as helping the backbenchers for the Tories, because we would give them all the good lines they could use back in the back roads of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, as it was known in those days, Mr Speaker.

Jimmy Renwick made some great speeches, and I wish you would go back as members of the government party now and read some of Jimmy Renwick's speeches, because he is one of the few people I served with who, when making an argument, could almost move you. He had a great passion for the type of freedoms which he believed in and which actually brought him to the New Democratic Party. I don't know that he was always a New Democrat, but he certainly was a New Democrat, and he stood in his place and he held forth in such a way that you would have thought that even Bill Davis would have voted for him. In fact, Bill Davis probably was watching in his office and decided not to come down to debate it, because Jimmy Renwick would have won the day as he held forth.

I used to enjoy listening to Mel Swart when he was making those arguments when we were being cut down, cut down in the sense of debate time. Mel would stand up over there and would get up on his feet and would go right at the Conservative government of the day and tell them what a nasty bunch of people they were for cutting into debate time. I'm not speaking for Mel. Mel is with us and well; at least I'm hoping he's well. He can deliver his message personally to the New Democrats of the time.

I liked to tell Mel Swart that he was an inspiration to me, if not my guiding light, because while I liked his enthusiasm, I didn't always like the direction in which his enthusiasm went. But there was one thing about Mel: He had his say and he stood his ground. I served in committees where he stood his ground nobly, because he was allowed to in many ways by a government party that resisted putting the boot down too early. No matter when the boot went down under Davis, we always thought it was too early, because we thought that we had more good things to say. But it was never so early as it has been under the New Democrats. It was never so early under the Tories as it has been under Bob Rae and the people who no longer believe in allowing individuals to speak their mind against them, or those people who believe it's necessary to point out what is wrong with their legislation.

This legislation has been well described by my leader. Lyn McLeod said in the opening of this committee of the whole debate, as she observed on sections 1 through 4, that the fundamentally flawed nature of this bill makes it imperfectible. You just cannot make this thing work. No matter what you do to it, you really have to scrap the whole thing and throw it out and then come back with a new arrangement.

Had the arrangement been, as was suggested by my leader, Lyn McLeod, about two and a half or three months ago, that you would set your targets and let the local organizations all sit down, employer and employee, and arrive at their own local decision, then this whole shemozzle wouldn't even have had to take place. Lyn McLeod had the right idea and she continues to put it, just so that Bob Rae, when he stands and blathers away about not having any helpful advice for his purposes, is reminded that the solution to his problems are found at the local level and are found in the sage advice of my leader.

What we have instead is Bob Rae being uneasy and unwilling: uneasy about our criticism and unwilling to accept our criticism. He is unwilling to find out section by section that there are holes in this particular legislation of a sort which will make it fundamentally unworkable. It's unthinkable that because of that uneasiness he has decided that he will shut off all debate. There was even some suggestion that some of the late amendments that hit us last week have come from the fact that he thinks he can buy some goodwill of some of the groups that have told him they are not interested in his social contract and the discussions at some of these social contract tables.

There is some suggestion that there are things that Bob Rae believes he can sort of drop out in the public that will solve all of his problems. If he believes that, if he thinks he can solve his problems, I would suggest that Bill 48 will leave problems for all of us in this House. As legislators, each one of us will be getting letters from our school boards, from our health units, from our hospitals, from our municipalities, from all of the social service agencies that will be unable to find the dollars that Floyd Laughren and Bob Rae want to have brought back to Toronto.

Already we have heard from a couple of New Democrats about some of the issues in their areas, but most specifically we are hearing more and more from Liberals and Conservatives just how difficult it is for people to comprehend how their worlds will work under the auspices of Bill 48. When we stand in our place in committee of the whole House and ask a question on section 1, which really sets out the purposes of this bill, and we ask the Finance minister to answer some of these questions, we are merely repeating some of the questions that have been put to us as legislators or that have been written to us in correspondence from various people who are involved in the public sector or the broader public sector in providing services to the people of this province.

I don't know how anybody could accept that, under section 1, the purposes clause of this bill, we are encouraging employers, bargaining agents and employees to achieve savings through agreements at the sectoral and local levels primarily through adjustments in compensation arrangements. This doesn't encourage it. In fact, with some of the amendments that are being proposed by the New Democrats, it will prevent anybody from really coming to a table and sitting down and locally defining how they're going to work their way out of this, because this really overrides all of the collective agreements that we have in the province of Ontario.

I think most of us laughed as we read the last part of section 1. Paragraph 4 of that section reads, "To provide for a job security fund." There was a good question asked by my friend from Scarborough-Agincourt last week, really asking the Finance minister to agree that the job security fund has nothing to do with job security whatsoever. You see, the job security fund is designed to top up unemployment insurance. It's designed to pay people not to work. It's designed not for job security but for the insecurity because of the lack of a job.

When we ask questions like that, we are trying to flesh out the real meaning of this bill and the operation it will have for people. There are some people in the public sector who say, "Bob Rae says there's a job security fund; ie, my job will be secure." But that's not true, and in clause-by-clause examination we discovered that in fact this isn't a job security fund, this isn't a fund that will help people retain their jobs.

If we cannot have some time to examine other sections, the truth won't come out about this bill. The operation of this bill and the way it will confuse the delivery of social services and public sector services won't be known by the public for several months. We will see people disappearing from their positions of importance in delivering public services. We will see that the offices where people used to be will be vacant and that phones will go unanswered. We will see that there will be problems in conducting police services in our places, and we all know how important policing and fire services are to municipalities.

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In fact, I should just relate that as I was going about my duties on July 1, Canada Day, when we were renewing our faith in Canada by celebrating our 126th anniversary, I was able to stop in to several municipalities and I had, as I was doing some other business, a chance to speak to some local police officers in one of my municipalities. They indicated they have been through a long series of discussions in the municipality designed to protect the local taxpayers against huge tax raises. So what happened was they took a freeze on their salaries and they have not filled some of the positions.

Their questions to me were: "What do we do now that we've taken a pay freeze? And since we must have police services, how can we take days off when it's going to cost us more to pay our replacements than for us to be there? How can we guarantee the local citizenry that their policing service will be available when it is most needed?" They are confused about the operation of this bill, and there are other places in which that confusion also reigns supreme.

For me, this motion is ill-timed. One day is all we spent. Less than an hour in committee of the whole was all that we were given before this motion was dropped on us. It was the heavy hand, and I urge all to vote against this type of democracy.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): I wish to thank the honourable member for Bruce for his participation. Further debate.

Mr W. Donald Cousens (Markham): I don't think it's for me to comment on the Liberal position or lack of position. In fact, having listened to the last presentation, it's obvious the Liberal Party has not supported any of the government's initiatives over the past period of time. They fight the social contract. They have fought the expenditure control plan. They fought the budget. They've offered no alternatives. So to comment further on their position is to just use time unnecessarily.

My plan here at this time, first of all, is to make it very clear that I'm extremely unhappy on behalf of our party that the government has felt it necessary to bring in a time allocation motion which will end the debate on Bill 48 as of tomorrow for the committee of the whole and on Wednesday, or whenever they call it, it will be all finished at third reading. We seriously oppose this, and we felt that there would be an opportunity for debating our amendments and other parts of the bill and that time just doesn't seem to be made available to us.

I want to make very clear as well in prefacing my remarks today that I really have no desire to support, prop up or back the Bob Rae government in any way. I find the government has been detestable in the way in which it's run this province down over the last couple of years since it's been in power.

Notwithstanding that, when the government brings forward any bill or any amendment, I'm prepared, and our party is prepared, to back it if it's the right thing to do, and that was very much the case that our party had, as the member from Oakville will testify. We were prepared to go on record as supporting the right thing the government is doing, and are still prepared to do that, based on what happens in the deliberations on third reading.

The government has truly offended our sensibilities in so many things. They brought in a budget which is the largest budget in the history of the province for tax increases. Over $2 billion will be collected. They brought in a budget that spends more than last year. Many people don't remember this. The government today, in spite of the $6 billion that is being saved through the social contract, through the expenditure control plan and the other $2 billion in additional taxes, is still spending $160 million more this year than last year. In other words, the government is spending some $6 billion more with all these control programs. I mean, it's just an incredible situation that we've got.

I'm not able to support a government that has done so much damage to health care, to the environment. Bill 143: Don't call yourselves environmentalists. There are enough issues -- Bill 40 on the labour legislation. I can think of a hundred reasons I would vote against any bill this government brought in, yet out of a sense of conviction that there be honesty and integrity in the House, our party supported second reading of Bill 48 to give a chance to see if the intention of the government is truly honourable and the government is going to try to save some $2 billion out of the whole broader public service; then we would be part of that kind of saving.

What has happened is that, since then, the government has brought forward its bill, and we have a series of amendments that would very definitely affect the bill. What I want to do today is spend the time, because of the limitations imposed upon us tomorrow and the next day, to describe our positions in some detail.

The Social Contract Act, Bill 48, is deficient in a number of respects, but most criticism from our party has been focused on three major areas. Briefly, these are:

(1) The bill gives too much power to the Minister of Finance, particularly with regard to his authority to designate sectoral frameworks. The minister's powers are extensive and our amendments, as you will see shortly, are in some way to take away those powers of the minister so that he does not have such a huge megapower as this bill has implemented.

(2) The bill's provisions for the negotiation of the sectoral framework will allow public sector unions to win concessions on management rights which will outlive the restraint period and undermine the ability of public sector managers to manage. Why do we want to allow the government at this point to make fundamental changes in negotiations over the long term which really have little benefit in the effort of the government to save $2 billion through the social contract per se? Rather than open up the agreements to such an extent, rather than changing the fundamental framework under which our unions are working with the government, let's remove that opportunity for the government to do some changes which are again against the best interests of the long term.

(3) This Bill 48 will not achieve any permanent reductions in the cost and size of the Ontario public sector but will simply defer costs to after March 31, 1996. At that point, public sector employers will have to confront a large cost overhang caused largely by the special leave provisions and the suspension, as opposed to the cancellation, of pay increases due after the freeze date.

It's just the accumulation of all the moneys that are going to have to be spent out at the end of this three-year term. It really means you're going to have a pent-up spree ready to take place. We're concerned about the short-term, panic nature of the bill and would be much happier to see more of a long-term revision of expectations of public spending.

The amendments that are being brought forward -- and I have some 18 that I'm going to touch on now. The amendments of our party will address and, if adopted, would rectify each of these major problems by:

(1) Establishing an objective test of the level of employer and employee support for a plan which the minister must apply before he can designate a plan as a central framework. Our point then is that there is an objective test, a framework in which the minister has to work. He can't just come along and use his emotions or, again, his political sense. He's going to have to look at a scientific, technical approach to considerations when decisions are being made on the sectors.

(2) Our amendments would eliminate the Trojan Horse. It's a section in the bill which presents a very real threat to management rights and has nothing to do with reducing compensation costs. So we're seeking to eliminate a very large section of this bill.

(3) We want to strike out the costly, awkward and complex leave and special leave provisions and impose instead a hiring freeze stringent enough to achieve real and permanent reductions in the size and cost of the public sector but flexible enough to protect essential services.

(4) We want to make the restraint program more accountable and transparent by imposing on the minister a reporting requirement. There has to be some coming back to the Legislature, so we have put together a very special motion there which will again allow the government on a regular basis to report back to this House, which should be kept informed on all that's going on through this process.

(5) Broaden the focus beyond compensation costs through the establishment of an expenditure review committee with a mandate to, among other things, evaluate all government programs and develop a priorities list for cancellation, cutbacks or privatization.

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That's really one of the long-term objectives: We have to continue to look for ways of making government more effective. Not to do so is to fail to look at the opportunity we have right now. The private sector is doing it. The private sector has to do it. The private sector doesn't have the money to continue to operate in the way it has in the past, and so it's being forced to streamline, cut back and do things differently. What we want to do is to see something of the same kind of business methods being applied inside government. Let government look more like business, not get more into business. This is some of the thinking behind our amendments.

There are 18 amendments in all. The first one is still in draft mode and it will have to do with section 7 of the bill. What this will do is it will mean that the government, as it pertains in particular to the medical community, will not be able to cause the medical community -- that's doctors and health care providers and various groups -- to be affected by more than 5% of a reduction. It will limit the reduction to 5%, rather than going beyond that number.

Therefore, the 5% figure which has been presented by the government would be equitable all across the government and not something that is going to be applied differently for one group or another. Therefore, our first amendment will restrict the amount of reductions the government can go to for any group to 5%, and therefore would remove some fundamental inequity that is part of this bill.

As we look at the different sections of the bill, and because I want to put this on the record to make sure that people are aware of some of the content and the thinking behind our amendment, I will go through them, try to explain them briefly. If we have an opportunity tomorrow, when the House is looking in committee at the amendments, I might have a chance to move them more quickly. I know, by virtue of the way the debate is structured, that we are going to be very, very limited in how much we can do in the time that's allotted.

Our second amendment has to do with subsection 11(3), where I will move that subsection 11(3) of the bill be amended by deleting the words "in the opinion of the minister." In removing this section, what we're saying is, again, that the minister has such tremendous freedom to do what he wants. Rather than just giving him -- or it might be her at that time. Rather than giving the minister such unlimited opportunity to play with the legislation, to play with the intent behind the legislation, to do things that are not said right now, we would rather have things defined, delineated and clear here in the Legislature so that we then know for sure what it is the minister's going to do.

Therefore, our effort in our second amendment is to remove some of the tremendous scope of freedom that the Minister of Finance would have in this bill, to remove the words "in the opinion of the minister." That means he's going to have to tell us beforehand. In fact, the bill itself would have restricted him by the limitations therein.

Our third amendment has to do with paragraph 11(3)1 of the bill. This has to do with the framework of the whole bill. In Bill 48, this paragraph says that the minister may designate a plan as a sectoral framework if, in his opinion, there is sufficient support for the plan demonstrated during the negotiations.

There is no threshold test imposed on the minister, no indication that the plan would have to have the support of a majority of the employees or employers in a given sector before the minister could designate a plan. So the minister is able then to again, if he just has a sense of certain things -- I asked him about this in the finance and economics committee the other day and he almost just gave the answer as, "Well, trust me."

Rather than trust him, what I want him to do in this amendment is to bring in -- a shortcoming that we see -- "The minister shall not designate a plan as a sectoral framework unless the plan is supported by 50% of the employers who among and between them employ 50% of the employees in the sector in which the plan is intended to serve as a sectoral framework."

Therefore, if you took the teachers' bargaining sector as a unit, if the minister thought, "I see that Metro is coming this way and York region and Peel; I think we can call them a sectoral framework," no; we would then, by this amendment, make it necessary for the minister to look at, as it would say in the motion, "...the plan is supported by 50% of the employers who among...them employ at least 50% of the employees in the sector for which the plan is to be designated as a sectoral framework."

The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that there is a solid foundation for a plan in a sector before the plan is designated as a framework. The amendment is based on the assumption that it will be easier to implement measures to achieve the expenditure target if those measures are genuinely supported by employers and employees in the sector. So the framework would be more clearly defined as to who then can be considered by the minister as a sectoral group. Our amendment to 11(3)1 of the bill would cause that to take place.

Our fourth amendment is to paragraph 11(3)5 of the bill and has to do with the treatment of different classes of employees.

This subsection of the bill states that before the minister can designate a plan as a sectoral framework, he must be of the opinion that, "The plan treats different classes of employees in a fair and equitable manner." That's the exact wording that he has here within the bill in paragraph 5, "The plan treats different classes of employees in a fair and equitable manner."

When he's describing the sectoral framework, what we really start worrying about is when you're saying, are you going to treat some people differently? What classes of people are you talking about? What is fair and what is equitable? Is this the kind of clause in a bill that leads to litigation by other groups wherein people come along and say, "I don't know what you mean by it"? Is it any wonder that it might have different interpretations?

What we have done is that the PC amendment would strike out this fine-sounding but vague provision and our amendment simply is: I move that the bill be amended by striking out paragraph 11(3)5. What that would allow us to do is cause the government to remove that from consideration. At least we'd be voting against it and this is one way of doing it.

As we proceed, the fifth amendment is to subsection 11(4) of the bill dealing with special circumstances. This subsection says that the minister does not have to apply any of the criteria for designation of a plan as a sectoral framework. Do you get that? He doesn't have to apply anything that's there in writing in the bill. The minister doesn't have to be of the opinion that sufficient support exists for the plan or that it treats different classes of employees fairly or otherwise. If the minister is of the opinion that -- this is a quote from the bill -- "special circumstances apply and it is desirable to designate the plan as a sectoral framework,'' then he can do it.

The term "special circumstances," which is part of this bill, is not defined. While the government will argue that the intention is to provide flexibility, the effect is to give the minister the authority to designate a sectoral framework where none exists in fact. Thus the minister can pre-empt the fail-safe simply by saying that in his opinion, because of the special circumstances that exist in his own mind, it makes it desirable to have a framework in place. That special circumstance may have more to do with the political interests of the government in avoiding the fail-safe as often as possible than with anything else.

The PC amendment would strike out this section and thereby deprive the government of its political convenience. Very simply, this section of the bill would be struck out. That's subsection 11(4) giving the minister special powers.

I'm moving through it, but some of these become very cumbersome and large. Our sixth amendment has to do with section 12 of the bill. It's a very large section of the bill that deals with the sectoral framework. This section of the bill sets out the provisions which may be considered by persons seeking to negotiate a sectoral framework. These provisions include organizational restructuring; improvements in productivity, including the elimination of waste and inefficiency; alternate work arrangements; binding resolution of disputes; sharing of information, including financial and planning information and decision-making by employers and employees; sectoral bargaining; sectoral and local-level joint committees; pensions, including joint trusteeship of pension funds; and any other provisions proposed by a party to the negotiations.

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Some background: When the social contract process was initiated in March of this year, our leader, the member for Nipissing, Mr Harris, warned that one of the dangers of the process was that it could be used by the government to achieve measures which would make it more difficult for public sector managers to manage and to implement the deep structural reforms needed to improve the cost-effectiveness of the delivery of publicly funded services and programs. That is, in order to achieve short-term concessions on compensation issues, public sector employers would have to yield on issues like contracting out, job guarantees and repatriation.

Section 12 of the bill shows that these concerns by Mr Harris were very well founded when he talked about them some time ago, because this section now legitimizes the negotiation of all these matters and other matters as part of the sectoral framework process; any of these other issues that shouldn't necessarily be on the table when you're dealing with a financial concern or financial cutbacks can now be placed on the table during these negotiations.

Because many of these issues have little to do with the primary objective of the bill, to save money by reducing compensation costs in the broader public sector, our amendment would delete this section. We would vote against this section.

Matters dealt with by the section which would reduce cost, protection for the whistle-blower and sharing the rewards of initiatives which eliminate waste and inefficiency with employees are covered in other amendments we'll be bringing forward.

We see this section 12 as the Trojan Horse. It is this one section that the government can use to play games with the whole public service over the next couple of years. This is the section which can advance the union agenda in the province of Ontario in a way that has never been advanced. We see it as a Trojan Horse in this bill: By bringing it into the bill, it will allow them to creep out along the way with all the socialist union agendas that we are opposed to. It is extraneous to the legislation; it is not necessary to the legislation. We would therefore see section 12 of the bill deleted.

After all that, our few words really amount to this, as our sixth amendment: I move that the bill be amended by striking out section 12.

But all that is just to explain why we are opposed to section 12. Section 12 is the Trojan Horse of this government. We see section 12 as a very dangerous set of provisions where the government can then allow a lot of things to go on within the central framework that have not got anything to do with the financial concerns that are really the intent of this bill. So that is how we would deal with our sixth amendment.

I'm now on to our seventh amendment. Our seventh amendment has to do with another clause in the bill. I will refer to it specifically, number 7, and I point to this section.

Mr Sorbara: Press the rewind button and go back to the beginning.

Mr Cousens: It was just outstanding, wasn't it, Gregory?

Section 23(2) of the bill has an awful lot to do with very special circumstances. Throughout the bill, if, within a sectoral agreement, the government is able to have people live within the context of those people who are under $30,000 in income per year so that they can be considered to be protected under the bill, then let that be the case. But there are situations, there are people within different municipalities where they are not protected.

Indeed, I have a quote from the mayor of Woolwich. The township of Woolwich "has 46 full-time employees, but only 17 of them earn more than $30,000, meaning the majority are supposed to be exempt from the provisions of the province's so-called social contract. Woolwich, however, is being asked to reduce its payroll by $115,494. That leaves 17 people who would have to bear the brunt of the whole" cost reduction for that township. What's happening is that in the township of Woolwich it's impossible, under the guidelines of the bill, for that township to be able to fulfil the intent and the terms of the bill with the number of people who are making over $30,000 a year.

We've asked that this section of the bill, which is subsection 23(2), be removed, struck out from the bill. It would mean that small municipalities, where the bulk of the employees make under $30,000 a year and where those smaller municipalities have to make up the 5% on a smaller compensation package, could in those circumstances cause even those who are under $30,000 a year to participate in the cost reduction.

That being the case, it would mean they don't lose their job. It means they don't lose their job. We're more interested in people having a job when this is over and continuing to do something rather than see people suffer and be hurt. That's part of the reason for this amendment. You can't just start saying "to hurt people"; that is not where we're coming from.

It's something that becomes part of the whole bargaining arrangement; everyone would participate in the cost reduction, Removing this section of the bill would make that possible. So that is our seventh amendment:

I move that the bill be amended by striking out subsection 23(2).

Our next amendment, number 8, is a very large amendment, with a considerable amount of discussion that would have to take place on it. As we begin to look at it, what you're really talking about is that the rollback of 5% -- the goal of the government in the social contract is that there would be an across-the- board rollback on the part of all groups in the Legislature and the province of Ontario, in the broader public service; that everyone would be somehow backing out from this. There would be a 5% saving for all.

What we are saying is that the rollback would be applied to all groups so that the wage component for the provincial transfers would be frozen at a level 5% below current levels. What we're really trying to do is give an incentive to employers and employees working together, who can apply wage savings to financing increases in compensation at the local level, with the amount and distribution being negotiated by the employer and the employee. In that way, the wage savings would be distributed.

I want to read this amendment, because the chance of getting to it later -- I'm worried.

I move that the bill be amended by striking out section 24 and substituting the following:

"Wage rollback

"24(1) Subject to subsection (4), the rate of compensation of an employee who on August 1, 1993, is bound by a collective agreement is, for a period of three years beginning on the first anniversary of the agreement falling on or after August 1, 1993, fixed at a rate 5% lower than the rate that was in effect immediately before that anniversary."

This is a 5% rollback. As we look at what the 12 days amounts to, this is another way of accomplishing the saving for the province of Ontario. The government, as you will see in the next motion, is bringing forward the 12 days, which is just not going to satisfy the long-term goal.

"Employees not bound by collective agreement

"(2) Subject to subsections (4) and (7), the rate of compensation of an employee who on August 1, 1993, is not bound by a collective agreement is, for a period of three years beginning August 1, 1993, fixed at a rate 5% lower than the rate that was in effect immediately before August 1, 1993.

"Reductions in transfers to employers

"(3) An amount that is payable by the crown in right of Ontario or by the government of Ontario to an employer for compensation purposes shall be reduced by 5% on the first anniversary date of the collective agreement falling on or after August 1, 1993, in the case of employees subject to a collective agreement, or on August 1, 1993, in the case of employees not bound by a collective agreement and shall be fixed at the reduced level for a period of three years from that date.

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"Increase in compensation

"(4) During the three-year period established by subsections (1) and (2) employers and employees may apply any wage savings realized as a result of improvements in productivity and the elimination of waste and inefficiency to financing compensation increases, with the amount and distribution of the increase to be negotiated by the employers and the employees."

In other words, other moneys that can be saved and found can be applied to the social contract. The government has resisted looking at that. Continuing:

"Promotions

"(5) Nothing in this section prevents increases in compensation as a result of a promotion or acting promotion of an employee to a different position.

"Existing agreements

"(6) If a collective agreement existing on August 1, 1993, provides for increases in compensation after that date, those increases are cancelled."

"Expired collective agreement

"(7) If a collective agreement has expired before August 1, 1993, and on that date the employees that were formerly bound by it are without a collective agreement, the compensation of these employees is fixed at 5% less than the amount that they were receiving under the last collective agreement in force before August 1, 1993.

"No first collective agreement

"(8) If employees are represented by a bargaining agent and a first collective agreement has not been concluded before August 1, 1993, the compensation of those employees is fixed at an amount 5% less than the amount that they were receiving immediately before August 1, 1993."

That amounts to our amendments on section 24. We would strike out the existing section 24 and substitute the above for that. What we would have accomplished then is that there be a rollback across the board -- hard, painful, but at least everybody holds on to his job. It's another way of accomplishing this without the problems that you're going to see that are all part and parcel of the next stage of what the government's looking at.

There is a great deal of confusion out there. When we look at some of the correspondence I have -- I have a letter here from the chief executive officer of the Georgina Public Libraries. He said:

"There are five employees here who will have to bear the brunt of a $22,000 cut as a result of the social contract.

"To translate that net result, that means the five employees will have 23.48 unpaid days between now and the end of the year!

"Where is the justice in that?

"Is this the true intent of Bill 48?"

What we're trying to do, instead of having that kind of example -- I mean, that's real life out there, where the only way in which they can accomplish the goal of the government in the reductions that have been proposed is that they would have some five people taking 23.48 days off. It just isn't possible. It isn't practical. Why then not look at another way, which would be, as painful as it might be, a 5% rollback? That is part of what we've suggested there.

I have more examples of it, but because of the time limitation I want to continue with our other amendments.

The other amendment we have, proceeding to our ninth amendment, is to sections 25 to 32 of the bill. These have to do with leave and special leave provisions and the hiring freeze and expenditure review committee. These sections of the bill, which provide for up to 12 unpaid leave days a year and for the special leave provisions for essential service personnel, are among the most contentious elements of the legislation. The leave provisions, if the full 12 days are taken, amount to a 5% pay cut --

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. On a point of order, the Minister of Transportation.

Hon Mr Pouliot: I have studied with a great deal of zeal the standing orders of this distinguished Legislative Assembly of Ontario and, alas, I'm somewhat appalled and shocked for I see under committee of the whole House that the mace should be in a different position and you should be closer to the table, Mr Speaker, because although I listened very intently, the member for Markham keeps introducing amendments and we're not in committee of the whole House. I'm seeking your direction --

The Acting Speaker: Order. The direction of the Chair is that we are not in committee of the whole. We are debating the government House leader's motion to limit debate and I believe that the member for Markham's participation is very much relevant to that. Please continue, the member for Markham.

Mr Cousens: The issue is that these are the reasons why our party would very much like to see a continued debate to this bill, and because of the closure motion we are not going to have another chance to put them on the floor of the House. Therefore I'm taking advantage of this very short period of time in order to at least put on the record the intent of our caucus in supporting the second reading of this bill, our hope and sincere expectation that the government will look at our amendments and will support them, and that being the case, we will be able to accomplish the objective of the social contract and proceed.

As I continue now on our ninth amendment, what I wanted to talk about is that the sections of the bill which provide for up to 12 unpaid leave days a year and for the special leave provisions for essential service personnel we believe are among the most contentious elements of the legislation. The leave provisions, if the full 12 days are taken, amount to a 5% pay cut for affected workers, and the special leave provisions will contribute significantly to the cost deferment imposed by the bill since the special leave day off can be banked and carried forward when the compensating days have to be given with pay. So at the end of the three-year period, how many -- and I don't know, but how many -- employees in the broader public service will have been able to accumulate 36 days off with pay, which then have to be paid three years hence?

The PC amendment to section 25 would strike out the leave and special leave provisions and substitute instead a stringent freeze on hiring in the broader public service, which would realize significant and permanent compensation savings and literally force the broader public service institutions to restructure their operations.

Our amendment, the Progressive Conservative amendment, would allow for staff complements in essential or regulated services to be maintained through an exemption from the freeze, but the exemption would only apply to positions designated by cabinet.

Third, the freeze would use the attrition rate instead of the leave provisions to reduce compensation costs. The attrition rate in the broader public service is approximately 2% annually, which over a three-year period would cut the size of the broader public service in Ontario, where there are more than 900,000 people, to some 56,000 positions less, or about 16,000 positions more than the government says would have to go to hit the expenditure restraint target. These 16,000 positions would be used as a cushion to maintain staff levels in essential and regulated services.

In the third year, the freeze would save more than $2 billion in compensation costs, and the cumulative savings over the full three years would be in excess of $5 billion.

So this motion, which is a very serious amendment, would be a hiring freeze across the broader public service, allowing the government to have a cushion to hire where necessary.

To that end, the PC amendment to create a new section 26 of the bill calls for the establishment of an expenditure review committee with a mandate and a timetable. This expenditure review committee would:

(1) Develop a method of preventing year-end burnoff. What a shameful display of burnoff we saw in the Ministry of Housing, where we've had our leader raise this question, and a member from Mississauga, on the whole business where it's recorded in minutes of Housing agencies where they want to get rid of all money left over near year-end. Our motion here would do something to prevent year-end burnoff.

(2) It would do something to protect people who are trying to improve the system. It's called by the unions whistle-blowers' legislation. I'd rather think of it as being something more to protect people who can make constructive suggestions to help things go better.

(3) Reward employees who make suggestions which help eliminate waste and inefficiency.

(4) Conduct a broad program review and make recommendations for reductions, cutbacks and privatization.

I don't know whether I can get all of this amendment into the time that I have, but our amendments to sections 25 to 32 of the bill would be that we strike out sections 25 to 32 of the bill and substitute for them a number of different sections. A section on restriction on hiring:

"25(1) Subject to subsection (2), no employer shall, during the period of three years beginning on the date on which this act receives royal assent, employ any person who was not employed by the employer immediately before that date.

"Exceptions

"(2) An employer may employ a person described in subsection (1),

"(a) if it is necessary for the employer to do so in order to comply with a provision of an act of the Legislature or the Parliament of Canada or a regulation made under such an act that requires the employer to employ a specified number of employees; or

"(b) if the employer would not be able to provide an essential service unless the employer employed the person.

"Designation

"(3) Clause (2)(b) does not apply to allow an employer to employ a person unless the position in which the person would be employed is one that has been designated by the Lieutenant Governor in Council or is one that is a member of a class of positions that has been so designated.

"'Essential service' defined

"(4) In this section 'essential service' means a service that is necessary to enable the employer to prevent,

"(a) danger to life, health or safety;

"(b) the destruction or serious deterioration of machinery, equipment or premises;

"(c) serious environmental damage;

"(d) disruption of the administration of the courts; or

"(e) disruption of any publicly funded service."

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There is enough scope in those provisos that would allow the government to carry on business even through attrition and through not hiring. There would be that opportunity for the government, where necessary, to bring other people in as per those provisos.

Then we would also set up an expenditure review committee.

"26(1) A committee to be named the expenditure review committee in English and Comité d'examen des dépenses in French is established.

"Composition

"(2) The committee shall be composed of three persons appointed by the Minister of Finance, one of whom shall be designated by the minister as chair of the committee.

"Exclusion

"(3) The minister shall not appoint any person who is a member of the Legislative Assembly or an employee of the crown.

"Appointments

"(4) The appointments shall be made not later than September 1, 1993.

"Member unable to serve

"(5) If any member of the committee becomes unable to continue to serve on the committee, the Minister of Finance may appoint a substitute."

Now let's look at what the expenditure review committee would do.

"Duties

"(6) The committee shall" -- these are very important amendments to the whole intent behind this social compact, the legislation. Dig this, Mr Speaker, the government has not begun to look at some of the restructuring that needs to go on in a modern public service.

"(a) conceive of a method of preventing administrative units of the government of Ontario that have their own budgets from attempting to spend to the limit of their budgets if such spending is not necessary to the performance of the tasks assigned to the units, particularly where such spending would occur near the end of a fiscal year."

That's the proviso that would end year-end burnoff.

"(b) conceive of a method of protecting employees of government institutions from reprisal on the part of the institutions for having disclosed the existence of acts or omissions that constitute gross mismanagement or that cause a waste of money or other resources."

This is a way of protecting those people who would have suggestions to bring in. In fact, during the social contract discussions before this became a bill that was brought to the House, a number of suggestions were brought forward by people and yet the government hasn't looked at it, and I think people are reluctant to bring them forward. This would be a way in which the expenditure review committee could look at those suggestions and bring back proper recommendations for cabinet to consider.

"(c) conceive of a method of rewarding employees of government institutions who, individually or collectively, make recommendations that lead to a reduction of expenditures or a conservation of resources through the elimination of waste or an increase in the efficiency or cost-effectiveness of the operations of the institutions."

In other words, let's try to get people to help us run the government more efficiently and effectively. That's what this kind of committee would be doing.

"(d) review all programs" -- and this one bears repetition.

"(d) review all programs administered and services provided by the government of Ontario and identify any programs or services that should, having regard to the desirability of efficiency and cost-effectiveness, be,

"(i) eliminated,

"(ii) reduced in scope or scale, or,

"(iii) transferred to the private sector."

That's the kind of thing that the member, Mr Carr, has brought forward in our caucus, saying: "Let's not try to have government try to do it all. Get the private sector involved and let's allow people in government to review programs, review what they're doing." So this whole business of reviewing all programs would be a very, very important part of what this government should do.

People forget. The government keeps spending our money. It keeps on adding new programs. There is never a sunset clause. We want to have some way in which we look at the whole picture of the province of Ontario. This kind of committee would begin to do that.

"Report

"(7) The committee shall submit a report to the Legislative Assembly,

"(a) on the matters referred to in clause (6)(a), on or before December 31, 1993;

"(b) on the matters referred to in clause (6)(b) and (6)(c), on or before March 31, 1994;

"(c) on matters referred in clause (6)(d), on or before March 31, 1995."

What we've done is to say over the next three years, the next two years, there would be sufficient time for the government and this committee to look at ways of eliminating services, reducing services, scaling them down or transferring them to the private sector.

Finally:

"Definition

"(8) In subsection (6), 'government institution' has the same meaning as 'institution' in the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act."

That is our ninth amendment.

Our 10th amendment is one of those that if the government accepts our previous amendments -- it has to do with subsections 33(3) and (4) of the bill -- they wouldn't be necessary and they would therefore be removed.

Our 11th amendment is where the bill will very seriously look at what's happening with OHIP. One of the major fears we have is that the government has been dealing with different groups differently. Instead of just limiting the scale-back and reductions to 5% across all groups, what they're doing is picking on the doctors or picking on the pharmacists or picking on some other subgroup. Maybe it's the teachers. So a number of our amendments, as we look at section 36 of the bill, will protect those groups so that they're not going to have more than the 5% tacked on to them.

The chance of ever getting anything done in the House with the narrow, short time frame that we've got will mean that it's going to be next to impossible to do. It therefore becomes necessary to put these motions on the table today, otherwise they will be lost to the Legislature.

I move that the bill be amended by striking out subsection 36(1) and substituting the following:

"Reduction of OHIP fees

"(1) An amount that is payable to the Ontario health insurance plan for an insured service rendered by a physician or practitioner or in or by a health facility may be reduced by the amount which the joint management committee determines is necessary to achieve a reduction in total OHIP fee payments equal in percentage terms to the compensation reductions in other sectors."

In other words, rather than take the chance that the government is going to pick on the doctors, we're putting the word in here so that the government can only reduce to the amount of 5%. That's one they should accept. It's going to be fun to see what they do, because I can see by the smile on Mr Mackenzie over there, the Minister of Labour, that he thinks, "Cousens, I don't think I'm going to do anything for you." But I don't know. I'll tell tomorrow.

The second one has to do with another amendment to protect health service operators. It's subsection 36(2) of the bill, "reduction of similar payments."

I move that the bill be amended by adding, following the words "prescribed amount" the words "to a maximum of 5%."

What we've really done again is for people in health service operations, if this amendment is accepted, and we will move it and seek to have it moved. We will be supporting it as our caucus. I wonder what the Liberals will do. I'm not going to worry about them. They'll probably be voting against everything. At least when the legislation comes in, it would be nice to see some protection for different groups across the public sector.

Our 13th amendment is to subsection 36(3) of the bill. It has to do with independent health facilities. Again, it's self-explanatory.

I move that the bill be amended by adding following the words "prescribed amount" the words "to a maximum of 5%."

In other words, independent health facilities will not be cut back more than the 5%. That's what this amendment would cover there.

Our 14th amendment has to do with pharmacists. It's to subsection 36(4) of the bill, reduction of dispensing fees.

Any chance of getting any motions in this House with this time limitation is very restricted and that's why I am taking this opportunity to do it now.

I will be moving that the bill be amended by adding, following the words "prescribed amount" the words "to a maximum of 5%."

Part of the concern that we have is that the pharmacists have really had some very, very serious problems with this government. If you'll notice the Ontario Pharmacists' Association, it withdrew from the social contract and drug reform talks. It had to do with Bill 29 and what the government is doing in another bill, unrelated to this.

I quote from their news release. It has given the government "complete power to unilaterally set the professional fee paid under the Ontario drug benefit program to pharmacists, even on the basis of where the pharmacy is located, despite any agreement that may have been reached between the association and the Ministry of Health."

In other words, the government throws away all other agreements, sets them aside and does what it wants. Is it any wonder that the pharmacists have removed themselves from the social contract considerations? It's no wonder at all. What we want to do is to find some way of protecting the pharmacists. There isn't one of us who doesn't have to go to a drugstore and there isn't one of us who doesn't want to be able to look them in the eye and know that those people are there to serve our community. Why does this government want to pick on them? Why? Maybe they'll support our amendment, that the bill be amended by limiting to a maximum of 5%. The pharmacists have been blindsided by this government in Bill 29, a completely different bill. We want to do something here to protect them and help them out.

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I'm running short of time because of the number of amendments we've got.

We have another amendment, and this amendment is subsection 37(1) of the bill.

"Reduction of OHIP income levels

"37(1) If a maximum amount payable by the Ontario health insurance plan in respect of services rendered by a physician, practitioner or health facility during a given time period has been established by agreement, the maximum may be reduced by an amount to be negotiated by the joint management committee but the amount of the reduction shall not exceed five per cent."

In other words, once again the medical profession needs to have some protection on this. Everybody thinks they're rich. They're just as poor as the rest of us, and it's a matter of working it through in fairness.

Mr Drummond White (Durham Centre): Oh, yes, yes.

Mr Cousens: Aha. See, there they are; the New Democrats, let it go on the record, are saying, "Get the doctors." Who was it who said that? Indeed, Drummond White, Durham Centre. Don't come along and think you can start picking on any group more than another.

Mr White: Don't say that. Point of order, Mr Speaker.

The Speaker: The member for Durham Centre, do you have a point of order?

Mr White: The member opposite has identified me by name and not by riding. Secondly, at the point that he was saying something, I agreed with him. I said, "Yes," with what he was saying. I don't know how the member can interpret that as in any way defaming any group in our community. For the member to make a false statement such as that on the floor of the Legislature, besmirching another member's honesty --

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): Drummond, travel the 12 feet. Don is travelling the 12 feet.

The Speaker: The member for Markham indeed has indicated his apology, but it would be helpful if the member for Markham would direct his remarks through the Chair.

Mr Cousens: That's fine. It's good that you've made that statement. I'm delighted. We sometimes worry about people attacking other groups in society, and you've made it clear that that's not your intention, and I thank you for saying that.

Our 16th amendment has to do with Ontario drug benefit plan limitations, and we will move that subsection 37(2) of the bill be amended by adding, following the words "the prescribed amount," the words "but shall not exceed five per cent."

In other words, again the bill will restrict the government from going beyond 5% with these groups. We have evidence that the government is going after some groups more than others. Let's protect them. Put it in the legislation so that they're not being picked on.

Our 17th amendment, clause 41(1)(e) of the bill, moving that the bill be amended by striking out clause 41(1)(e) and substituting the following:

"(e) designating a position or class of positions for the purposes of subsection 25(3)."

This is a consequential amendment that has to do with the others being successful. I don't even understand that one myself.

The 18th and final amendment that our caucus will be putting forward is quite an important amendment in that what we're asking for is a new section to the bill, section 48 of the bill, which will be a requirement for an annual report.

The bill does require that the administrator of the job security fund report to the Finance minister annually on the operation of the fund. However, there is no requirement for the minister to make a report on the overall program back to the Legislature.

Our amendment will force the government and the Minister of Finance to make an annual report to the House on the status of the restraint efforts, including on the progress being made towards achieving the sectoral expenditure reduction targets and on any changes to the targets which the minister believes are necessary.

Our amendment is a very simple one, moving that section 49 of the bill be amended by adding the following new section:

"Annual report

"49. The Minister of Finance, for as long as this act is in force, shall table in the Legislative Assembly an annual report on the progress made by the government and the sectors towards meeting the expenditure reduction targets, any recommendations concerning adjustments to those targets which in the opinion of the minister are warranted, estimates of the number of jobs lost as a consequence of measures implemented pursuant to the act and any other information which, in the opinion of the minister, is relevant to providing the Legislative Assembly, the sectors and the public with an objective assessment of the effectiveness of the restraints imposed by this act."

If we can have accounting by the government on an annual basis, what may happen is that the government may withdraw this bill. In two years from now we may not need Bill 48. Things may be picking up, and so if we have an accounting along the way next year and the year after -- mind you, it might be an election in 1995; there has to be one by then anyway, when the New Democrats go back to the public -- at least there would be a public accounting here in this House, in this assembly, so that we'll know how the program is working. It would then give us an opportunity to make amendments or other changes as we saw necessary. It would give us a sense of how many jobs were lost, how much hurt was done, what is really happening in the province, so I sincerely hope and believe there's going to be a forum of participation by the government on our amendments, that this one amendment which will cause the government to have an annual report on the progress that is being made with regard to Bill 48 will be something we have before us.

Eighteen amendments by the Ontario PC caucus: I want to thank our leader, Mr Mike Harris, for the excellent leadership he has been demonstrating in this House, as painful as it is for him to support Bob Rae and this government on second reading. We wanted to put on the record that at least the government was moving in the right direction to reduce the deficit by $2 billion and that every one of us, members of the Legislature and members of the broader public service, would participate in an honourable and honest way in order to see that those reductions are made. Our amendments are an effort to address those concerns and are an effort to make it equitable and fair for all and an effort to get the government to where it really wants to be.

The Speaker: I thank the honourable member for Markham for his contribution to the debate.

Mr Charlton moved government notice of motion number 8, standing in his name, a time allocation motion with respect to Bill 48. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour will please say "aye."

All opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Call in the members; a 15-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1747 to 1802.

The Speaker: Would all members please take their seats.

Mr Charlton moved notice of motion number 8 which stood in his name, a time allocation motion with respect to Bill 48.

All of those who are in favour of Mr Charlton's motion will please rise one by one.

Ayes

Abel, Allen, Bisson, Boyd, Carter, Charlton, Christopherson, Churley, Cooke, Cooper, Coppen, Dadamo, Duignan, Farnan, Fletcher, Frankford, Gigantes, Grier, Haeck, Hampton, Hansen, Harrington, Hayes, Hope, Huget, Jamison, Johnson (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings), Klopp, Lankin, Laughren, Lessard;

Mackenzie, MacKinnon, Malkowski, Mammoliti, Martel, Martin, Mathyssen, Mills, North, O'Connor, Owens, Perruzza, Philip (Etobicoke-Rexdale), Pilkey, Pouliot, Rae, Rizzo, Silipo, Sutherland, Swarbrick, Ward, Wark-Martyn, Waters, Wessenger, White, Wildman, Wilson (Kingston and The Islands), Wilson (Frontenac-Addington), Winninger, Wiseman, Wood, Ziemba.

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

Nays

Arnott, Beer, Bradley, Caplan, Carr, Conway, Cousens, Cunningham, Drainville, Eddy, Elston, Eves, Fawcett, Grandmaître, Harris, Johnson (Don Mills), Jordan, Mahoney, McLean, Morin, Murphy, O'Neil (Quinte), O'Neill (Ottawa-Rideau), Offer, Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt), Poole, Runciman, Ruprecht, Sorbara, Stockwell, Sullivan, Turnbull, Villeneuve, Wilson (Simcoe West), Witmer.

The Speaker: The ayes being 63 and the nays 35, I declare the motion carried.

It being 6 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 of the clock tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 1807.

July 5, 1993

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