L040B - Wed 7 Oct 1998 / Mer 7 Oct 1998 1
The House met at 1830.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
APPRENTICESHIP AND CERTIFICATION ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR L'APPRENTISSAGE ET LA RECONNAISSANCE PROFESSIONNELLE
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 55, An Act to revise the Trades Qualification and Apprenticeship Act / Projet de loi 55, Loi révisant la Loi sur la qualification professionnelle et l'apprentissage des gens de métier.
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I don't think we have a quorum here.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Would you please check if we have quorum.
Clerk Assistant (Ms Deborah Deller): A quorum is not present, Speaker.
The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.
Clerk Assistant: A quorum is now present, Speaker.
The Acting Speaker: The member for Windsor-Riverside.
Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Riverside): It's good to have had an opportunity to have a break and recharge my batteries so that I could get back here tonight to talk about Bill 55, the bill to completely overhaul the apprenticeship training program that we have in Ontario, a program that, by and large, as we've been hearing from the people who have been contacting us, has been working fairly well for a great number of years. Of course it hasn't been perfect. It's been around for 35 years. It could benefit from a little bit of change, as many things do, but what we're talking about here is a complete overhaul. It's just throwing out the system we have currently to bring in an entirely new scheme of apprenticeship training. I think a big part of the reason for this change coming in is to satisfy the Tory tax scheme to give their rich friends a tax credit and to throw out a lot of protections that apprentices had in the past in the name of red tape.
What this bill is going to do for the first time is require apprentices to pay tuition. We've seen what's happened to students in the last couple of years with respect to increased tuition, the problems they've been having getting student assistance as well, and now apprentices are going to be faced with the burden of a huge debt load after they're finished their training.
Employers are going to be able to pay lower wages to apprentices as well. I ask anyone out there who's thinking about becoming an apprentice, why would you think about doing that if you are going to be faced with the prospect of having lower wages in the future than apprentices get right now?
The regulated journeyperson-to-apprentice ratios are going to be replaced. That's going to be thrown out the window so that on job sites we're going to have less-trained people dealing with apprentices. Health and safety are going to be compromised and the quality of the training is going to be compromised. This is really part of the government's agenda to lower standards, it's part of a race to the bottom, and the reason they're doing it is all to help out their friends in the corporate sector who need a tax break and less regulation. But it's apprentices who are going to have to pay the bill for that. I believe that is unfair and that the majority of people in Ontario think that is unfair as well.
I've been hearing from a number of people who agree with that position. We have a number of them here with us this evening. We have people who represent the Ontario construction industry's labour-management health and safety committee. So this isn't representative of just employees who are saying that what is happening here is going in the wrong direction but also of labour-management committees, committees that are made up of employees and employers.
This is a letter from Dan Lyons, who is the chairperson of the provincial health and safety committee, and Bryon Black, the co-chair of the provincial labour-management health and safety committee, calling on the government to have public hearings. They want to ensure that this bill gets the proper public consultation that it demands.
I've got another letter, from the Ontario Sheet Metal Workers' and Roofers' Conference. This one is addressed to the Minister of Education and Training, Dave Johnson, who I hope has an opportunity to join in the debate this evening. It refers to the comments that were made last night by the member for Simcoe Centre, Joe Tascona.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: The members for Nepean and Sault Ste Marie and Grey-Owen Sound.
Mr Lessard: I think it's important that we refresh ourselves about the comments Mr Tascona made. He said: "The bottom line is there was a lot of opportunity. I indicated the number of consultations that were done with a number of unions. They will have an opportunity if they want to speak on the bill. There will be public hearings and the unions can have their say in the normal process."
Today we expected that the minister was going make an announcement with respect to public hearings. As yet we haven't had that announcement, but we look forward to it. I'm sure the minister will join us this evening and make the announcement that there will be public hearings, because that is something we're going to be calling for. There needs to be an opportunity for people who are going to be impacted and affected by this legislation to have their say. We've heard from the parliamentary assistant that there have been some consultations, but those consultations, by and large, have been meetings that have been set up for the ministry staff to brief people but not to receive any input from them.
Correspondence, letter after letter, that I've been getting has been very critical of the minister's treatment of those stakeholders who are going to be directly impacted by this. I've got a letter -
Mr Martin: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: My colleague here has a lot of really important things to say about this bill and I don't think there's a quorum in the House.
The Acting Speaker: Would you check if we have quorum, please.
Clerk Assistant: A quorum is not present, Speaker.
The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.
Clerk Assistant: A quorum is now present, Speaker.
The Acting Speaker: The member for Windsor-Walkerville.
Mr Lessard: It used to be Windsor-Walkerville, Speaker; it's now Windsor-Riverside.
The Acting Speaker: Windsor-Riverside. Sorry about that.
Mr Lessard: I have a letter from James Moffat, who's with us here this evening, and jointly signed with Frank Seip as the co-chairs. That's from the provincial advisory committee for the trade of sheet metal workers. In that letter he is asking that the Ministry of Education and Training have public hearings with respect to this legislation, and I just want to quote from this letter:
"As you are aware, we are a compulsory certified trade and the committee represents thousands of sheet metal employers and workers in the province of Ontario. It is clear to us that Bill 55 will have serious negative consequences for apprenticeship training in this province. The construction industry as a whole has been telling the government that Bill 55 in its present form will weaken the current apprenticeship system.
Mr Martin: Withdraw the bill. Do something. Nobody in the industry wants it.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Sault Ste Marie.
Mr Lessard: "To ensure our apprentice system remains among the best in North America, public hearings must be held."
That's the very least this government can agree to. We would much rather that they withdrew this bill, that they go back to the drawing board, that they have meaningful consultations with stakeholders, apprentices and people in the education field and come up with a solution that is really going to encourage young people to engage in a certifiable trade and have the potential to make decent wages at their occupation. That should be the intention of any changes being made to the apprenticeship act. Quite frankly, that's not what we're seeing the direction to be here, and it's unfortunate.
I also have a letter from Dan Schmidt and Paul Graveline. They're with the provincial advisory committee for the trade of roofers. They are making a similar request that there be public hearings as well. They say: "As concerned industry representatives we plead with you to conduct this consultation process on a province-wide basis. It is essential that the construction industry and other sectors in Ontario can continue to rely on the availability of highly skilled and qualified men and women. Presently we have the most highly skilled construction workforce in North America. The government of Ontario must not do anything to destroy that."
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I can only emphasize that final point, that the province of Ontario shouldn't be doing what it's doing, which is going to result in the destruction of the apprenticeship program and the process that has served this province so well and has provided a skilled and qualified workforce, by and large.
I would like to support the call for public consultation and also the request I made last week, that the regulations that are going to accompany this bill be tabled, because we see that this bill is only a framework, with a lot of the details left to be determined at a later date.
We have Ron Groulx. He's the apprenticeship and training coordinator with the Boilermakers, local 128. He's the employees' representative on the apprenticeship committee. We have Bud Calligan. He's the secretary-treasurer of the carpenters' district council of Ontario, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. We also have Robert Hill, the executive chair of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on the Construction Council of Ontario, and also James Moffat, the training and trade coordinator with the Ontario Sheet Metal Workers' and Roofers' Conference. I want to welcome them to the Legislature. I see we have Sandra Clifford here from the Ontario Federation of Labour as well.
They're all here because they see that what this government is doing with apprenticeship training is really going in the wrong direction. It's not going too far or too fast; it's going in the wrong direction and it's going to do nothing to improve opportunities for young people to be involved in apprenticeship in Ontario, and is actually going to do much to destroy the process we have had in Ontario.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Members for Nepean and Sault Ste Marie, order, please.
Mr Lessard: I have another letter. It's from Bob Hill, who's with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and Mike Galley, an employer, Cyril B. Smith Electric, of the electrical provincial advisory committee. They said to the minister on October 7:
"Dear Mr Johnson:
"We, the undersigned, as authorized representatives of the electrical provincial advisory committee, respectfully request the provincial government to call for public hearings regarding Bill 55 prior to third reading."
It's not just the NDP calling for public hearings on this bill; it is the representatives of thousands and thousands of workers in Ontario and also representatives from employers. They're saying to this minister: "You're going too fast. You're going too far. You're going in the wrong direction. Let's step back. Let's have some meaningful consultation and make sure the changes we bring in are done right." There's a good reason for those changes to be done right, and that is, we want to ensure that not only are young people encouraged to take up apprenticeship training positions - and that encouragement should come by ensuring that they don't have a big debt at the end of it - but at the end, when they do become qualified journeypersons, they're able to do their job in a way that is safe, they're not going to be subject to injury or death on the job and the work they do is safe, and we as consumers and the people we represent don't find ourselves exposed to unsafe situations, as they were as a result of work that was done by Bensa Electric.
That's a case I'm sure you're aware of. In February of this year they were fined $50,000 for a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Fines under that act aren't all that unusual, but I thought it was important to bring to your attention that in this case what happened was that Domenic Pecchia of Toronto was relocating lights and fixtures in the ceiling area of an industrial building in Thornhill. He died as a result of an electrical shock he received while he was on the job. The company pled guilty to assigning electrical installation work to a worker who was not an electrician certified under the Trades Qualification and Apprenticeship Act. He was not an apprentice electrician with equivalent qualification by training or experience.
This was a situation where a company put an unqualified worker on the job and as a result that worker met his death. That is a situation we don't want to see happen in the future. I can see that this legislation, watering down standards, eliminating the ratio of supervision and encouraging employers to actually undertake this sort of action, is going to result in more injury, more death and unsafe conditions for consumers. That's something I don't want to see us as legislators encouraging.
There's another example I'd like to bring to your attention as well. This is from the London Free Press, Saturday, September 26, a very recent example. The headline says, "Londoner Electrocuted at Truck Parts Plant." In that case a London man was electrocuted while doing electrical work at a St Thomas truck parts plant. This was being investigated by the police. It goes on to indicate the type of work he was doing, but I think the final paragraph of the article is important: "Bob McClelland of the Ministry of Labour said the investigation will try to see if Grummett was properly trained for the work he was doing and if appropriate safety precautions were in place."
That's the sort of thing we need to be looking out for. We need to ensure that workers aren't putting themselves in unsafe positions. We need to ensure that there are more inspectors out there ensuring that workplaces are safe and that there are enough supervisors for persons who are apprentices so they don't expose themselves to unsafe working conditions. The last thing we want to do is encourage employers to try to have work done by people who are uncertified to do the work.
I've got an interesting ad that was in the Expositor last year. It's entitled "Public Safety, Consumer Protection and Environment Under Threat." It says:
"Ontario has one of the best apprenticeship and skills certification programs in the world. Ask yourself, `Why is this government attempting to destroy it?' Deregulation of the program will kill skilled jobs."
This is from the Ontario Pipe Trades Council, the Mechanical Contractors Association, the Canadian Automatic Sprinkler Association and the Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Contractors Association - once again, representatives of employers in the province. They make the point by saying:
"If you were undergoing surgery, would you like to have an unskilled `handyman' install the medical gas piping systems?
"Do you know that your drinking water can be contaminated if systems are improperly installed by unskilled persons?
"Do you want improper installation by untrained persons of refrigerant systems causing immediate danger to the public and the environment (depletion of the ozone layer)?"
These are the kinds of real concerns that people in the industry have with respect to the reforms that are being brought forward by this government.
We know that part of the reason they're making these changes is as a result of the cuts by the federal government anticipated in 1999 and the fact that there isn't an agreement with the federal government. I thought the minister responsible for intergovernmental affairs made a good point this afternoon when she said that one of the ways we as legislators and others can try to ensure that there is an agreement signed, that the federal government does live up to its obligation to provide funding for apprenticeship and other training through the employment insurance fund, is to write to our Liberal MPs and ask them to ensure that the federal government puts employment insurance funds where they belong: in place to get people who are unemployed through no fault of their own back into the workforce. That includes training programs as well. That's something that we should be encouraging people to do.
This government makes a lot of claims about what is going to be accomplished or achieved as a result of this legislation. They say that deregulation is going to be good, is going to create jobs, but we have to ask ourselves, if there are so many people on waiting lists to become apprentices, so many people on waiting lists down at the hiring hall in the construction trades, where are these opportunities going to be? Where are the training positions for apprentices going to arise?
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Sadly, we see, especially in the construction trades - and this is what people are telling me - that there aren't those opportunities opening up now, and they're certainly not going to open up if you lower the wages and increase tuition for people who have to pay for training to become apprentices. That isn't going to encourage anybody to get involved. What this government needs to do is to have a strategy to create jobs. There aren't going to be any people becoming apprentices if they don't think there are going to be any jobs at the end of it.
I remember the Common Sense Revolution talking about some claim that they were going to have 725,000 new jobs by the end of the their mandate, but they have failed miserably when it has come to performance on that. We have to ask ourselves, how is it that these reforms of deskilling, deregulation and increased fees are going to improve that situation?
I have an interesting report. It's from the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers committed to improving public policy. This is an American study that investigates what happened in the southeastern United States when they decided that they were going to undertake this deregulation of their apprenticeship program. They found that it just didn't work. It didn't have those results that were touted at the beginning. I just want to read one quote from page 6.
It says, "Although apprenticeship training in the union sector is well established and funded through collective bargaining agreements, the number of apprentices now being trained is substantially reduced as the union sector has experienced the effects of decreasing market share."
What they ran into there was that the unionized sector had good training programs, but because the non-union sector was able to bid on many of those jobs, they got all the work. In the non-union sector they didn't have that same encouragement or that same responsibility or that same obligation through collective agreements to put in place good training programs, so guess what? They didn't do it, and it's no surprise. What happens is that instead of being involved in their own apprenticeship training programs, they just raid from other companies and steal their apprentices. That's not going to help with the skilled worker shortage that we are soon to be faced with here in Ontario.
Finally, I want to refer to comments that were made by John Cartwright, the business manager of the construction trades council. He represents 40,000 tradesmen and women in the greater Toronto area. This is somebody who knows of what he speaks. In the title it says, "How to Create a Semi-skilled Workforce." I don't think the government needs any lessons on that; I think they've got the blueprint and that's what they're following. In it he states:
"The Harris Conservatives are about to wipe out the standards for apprenticeship and trades qualifications in Ontario.... It's all in the name of US-inspired freedom and deregulation."
He says that our employers are full partners in the previous successful experience, and as a result, employers don't support Bill 55 as well. He says they don't support it because, "They have seen what has happened in other jurisdictions where apprenticeship has undermined." He says that as a parent that's not what he wants for his child's future, and that's not the future I want for my son either.
The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?
Mr Bill Grimmett (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): I'm pleased to make a few comments on the speech from the member for Windsor-Riverside. I noted in his comments several comments about the ozone layer.
He talked at length, reading letters from some of his select friends in the labour movement. Perhaps they're the people who provide him and his party with much of their party funds; I don't know.
He certainly had a lot of negative comments about the bill. I listened closely, and to my knowledge he didn't speak at all about the content of the bill, although his comments on the ozone layer seemed to be quite well informed. There was really no mention of any provisions of the bill itself. We're here to debate Bill 55 and -
Mr Lessard: There's nothing in it. That's why. It's just a skeleton.
Mr Grimmett: The member says there's nothing in Bill 55. I wonder whether he's read it.
There was nothing in his speech about the well-documented shortage of skilled, trained workers in the North American economy and certainly in Ontario. It's well documented that there is a distinct shortage of skilled workers in Ontario. The bill here proposes to double the number of people in apprenticeship programs.
The member was a member of the Bob Rae NDP government, I understand. There was no mention in his speech of what that government did in five years to improve the apprenticeship system in this province to deal with the shortage of skilled workers and to provide more workers for the very unions on whose behalf he purports to speak.
There were no suggestions in his speech for improvement of the bill, but there is a blanket suggestion by the member that we withdraw the bill. I'm very disappointed. The member could have used his time to provide us with some positive suggestions on what else we might do in the bill, if he doesn't support it.
Mr Jean-Marc Lalonde (Prescott and Russell): Looking through this bill, I notice that in subsection 8(3) we have completely forgotten to include the grandfather clause. It says we could have equivalent qualifications. If we are going to go that route, we should specify the grandfather clause because I believe that is what the government wants to refer to.
Also, I'm very surprised that we have not included in this bill that it is a must that everyone who receives certification should have followed the health and safety courses. This is the most important part, especially in the construction industry.
I was just looking this afternoon at the fact that when Quebec residents have worked in Ontario, this government has paid over $50 million of WCB in the period of three years.
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa-Rideau): Repeat that. Just repeat that.
Mr Lalonde: Over $50 million, for accidents, was paid to Quebec resident employees who worked in Ontario. But we completely forgot to put in this bill that it is a must that we have to take a course in health and safety.
Another section that really hit me is subsection 9(3), no renewal: "A letter of permission is not capable of renewal, but the director may issue a new letter of permission." What we are getting at in this point is, who do we know to have them renew this letter? This is definitely not clear. I think the government should go back to the drawing table and revise this section immediately.
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Mr Martin: I want to commend my colleague from Windsor-Riverside for an excellent speech, both last night and this afternoon, pointing out to the government the flaws in this bill and why they should withdraw it - no more talks, no more consultation, no more discussion about this; just withdraw it. Let's get back to developing an industrial strategy for this province, a jobs strategy, that actually puts people to work. We're still suffering in this province with over 15% unemployment among young people.
The only thing that's really sad about the member's speech here last night and today is that the minister who is running this bill through this place doesn't have enough respect for the Legislature to be here to hear what the member has to say. Where is the minister? He wasn't here last night. He's not here today. The member has a lot of important things to say. He's speaking on behalf of industry, on behalf of young people out there and workers across this province. He wants the minister to hear and he's not here.
Hon Cameron Jackson (Minister of Long-Term Care, minister responsible for seniors): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: The member is aware that it is unparliamentary and it is outside of our House rules to refer to the attendance of ministers.
The Acting Speaker: I agree.
Mr Martin: OK, I won't talk about the minister. I had to call a quorum twice tonight to get enough members across the way to keep this place open. You can't even get 16 of you guys in here to listen to the member for Windsor-Riverside as he talks about this diabolical -
Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener): You only had three members here.
The Acting Speaker: What's happening? Please, we had peace a minute ago. Let's keep it that way.
Mr Martin: What I'm saying is, withdraw the bill. Bring enough members in here to hear us when we say to you, withdraw the bill. It's useless. It's not going to do anything. Bring in an industrial strategy, bring in a real job strategy for this province and then we'll talk.
The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Peacefully, the member for Northumberland.
Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): That performance from the member for Sault Ste Marie would have to be at least a 5.8. It was an exceptional performance. Even though he got beat down a couple of times, the performance was exceptional.
I have to agree with the speaker from Windsor-Riverside on one point, and that's about the $40 million, all the money that was being given by the feds into the apprenticeship program - they're the Liberals, first cousins to the Liberals in the province of Ontario. They're taking that $40 million right out of the apprenticeship program. They have no interest in apprenticeship programs in Ontario whatsoever. That's terrible. I have to agree with him on that one.
But I disagree with him on the point he made on consultations, that it was only some bureaucrats. I can tell you, the member for Wentworth North, who was parliamentary assistant for education in the winter of 1997, is just a little upset with those comments, because he spent a lot of days out on the road in consultation in connection with this particular bill on apprenticeship programs. He did a great job, and I think it was very unkind of you to make that kind of comment.
I can't help but wonder, when you and the member for Sault Ste Marie were here in government, what you were doing for five years when the apprenticeship act was so outdated; it's now 34 years old; it was passed the last time in 1964. You have so many good ideas, so why wouldn't you have done something? In your last year in government, you only spent five weeks here in the Legislature. You had all kinds of time to have done these very worthwhile things that you were making reference to.
Just winding up, I'd like to remind the member about what the unions had to say about your government: that you were the most anti-labour government in the history of Ontario, that you broke every collective agreement with the public service and you cut their salaries by some 5%.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Windsor-Riverside, two minutes.
Mr Lessard: I want to thank the members for Norfolk, Prescott and Russell, Sault Ste Marie, and Northumberland for their comments. For the member for Norfolk and the other government members, I thought that maybe in their two minutes they would take the opportunity to announce tonight that they were going to have public hearings with respect to Bill 55. That's what people are asking for, some real consultation.
One of the members said, "Why didn't you refer to the details in the bill?" There's a very good reason for that. It's because the bill is only nine pages long. It is a mere skeleton of the changes that this government intends to bring into effect. There's hardly any detail in there. We don't know what they have in mind other than to reduce wages, reduce health and safety standards, increase tuitions for apprentices. All those things, I think we can all agree, are not going to encourage opportunities for young people to undertake apprenticeship.
What this government really needs is a real jobs strategy, something that is going to result in those 725,000 jobs they promised in the Common Sense Revolution. They need some real consultation, not this phony consultation that they had before, where they invited people to meetings, briefed them about what the government was going to do and then went away. People are saying that this is the wrong direction. The government needs to go back to the drawing board, as the member for Prescott and Russell has said.
We need to have the minister listen. The minister should be here listening to what people have to say tonight. I don't know why he's not here. He wasn't here last night. He's probably out putting out fires caused by the closing of schools as a result of Bill 160.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Grimmett: I'm pleased to speak to Bill 55 and to indicate that I'm very happy to see that the government has chosen to revise the Trades Qualification and Apprenticeship Act. This is the first significant rewrite of that legislation since 1964. In fact, Bill 55, also known as the Apprenticeship and Certification Act, is for all intents and purposes a replacement of the old legislation.
My friend from Windsor-Riverside indicates that the bill, in his opinion, is too short. That's the reason he wants it withdrawn. But I would challenge the member to read through the bill and compare it with the present legislation, and then later in my remarks I'd like to take the House through a layperson's understanding of the changes proposed in the bill and how they would affect the average person who is considering going into an apprenticeship program.
Before I do that, I would like to comment briefly, within the context of discussion about the bill, on what our government has been doing in regard to apprenticeship programs for youth in the schools. The Ontario youth apprenticeship program has been around since 1989. It was brought in at that time to allow students who are in high school to commence an apprenticeship program while they complete their high school studies. At that time, the government established enough funding for the program that it has averaged about 1,000 students per year. About two thirds of the district school boards in the province take advantage of that program.
Recently, our government announced that we are investing a further $1.4 million into the Ontario youth apprenticeship program in an attempt to increase the number of high school students involved in this early experience with apprenticeship program.
That sets the context for this legislation, which is an attempt by our government to address a concern that's out there. I can tell you, it's in my riding. There's a concern throughout the province and really throughout North America that there is a lack of skilled workers to work and for employers to hire in our rapidly expanding, changing economy.
In my own riding, I've had an opportunity to speak to many of the people who are involved in manufacturing especially. For example, there's the Hughes Leitz factory in Midland, which currently employs around 650 people, maybe more. That is a high-tech operation. They are an internationally recognized manufacturer of high-tech equipment, and they have indicated to me they have a shortage of skilled workers available to them. They have to go far afield to find them. Weber Manufacturing, another manufacturer in Midland, indicated to me that they have to go to Europe to find skilled workers capable of stepping right in and answering the kinds of demands they get in this economy. As many of us are aware, in the economy now, companies have to move quickly to adjust to the demands in the marketplace and to adjust to different economic cycles.
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Another manufacturer in my riding, Algonquin Industries, which has been expanding very rapidly and which supplies parts to a number of the leading manufacturers in the automotive industry, has indicated to me that they have a demand for a certain type of skilled employee, someone who is skilled at using computer technology to design engines for auto parts. This is actually an industry that is rapidly expanding. Ontario is becoming a world leader in the computer design of automotive parts and automobiles. I know there are a number of community colleges in Ontario that are attempting to set up and establish programs so they can train people in this.
We also require that the apprenticeship systems in the province are more closely aligned to needs in industry. One of the things I notice in Bill 55 is that it is geared to involve labour and industry in designing the apprenticeship programs that are available to people who wish to work in those kinds of high-tech jobs that apprenticeship programs are required for.
As I said, I thought I would talk from the perspective of a young person, or maybe a couple of young people who were contemplating perhaps upgrading themselves for a job that required some apprenticeship training. I went through the act and I jotted down a few notes to compare the current legislation with what is proposed in Bill 55. I think it gives you a flavour of the practical impact that this bill would have, particularly for a young person who is thinking of getting into a higher trade.
For example, if a young person was working in a hotel kitchen as an assistant to a baker or a chef and they wanted to become an apprentice pastry chef or cook, here are some of the changes this bill contemplates. I think a key word that you have to keep in mind is "flexibility," because one of the things this bill does is try to provide flexibility not only to potential employees and apprentices but also to employers and trainers.
Currently, people who have a high school education and previous work before they enrolled in an apprenticeship program get no credit for that. Bill 55, the Apprenticeship and Certification Act, is designed to take into account any training that the applicant for apprenticeship has received up until then, either in a practical work location or in some program they were able to involve themselves in. It also takes into account in-school classroom training they might have received. I think that is an obvious improvement because there is no reason why a person who has had a job skill as an assistant to a baker or a cook shouldn't have that taken into account when their apprenticeship program is designed.
The next point I'd like to make has to do with the flexibility of the training agenda. Currently what happens is that an apprentice enters into a contract of apprenticeship which is signed by the employer and the apprentice and is based on arbitrary time requirements. The Apprenticeship and Certification Act indicates that a training agreement could be developed which is based on industry-approved standards. That would assign clear responsibilities to the sponsor of training and the apprentice and would allow for flexibility in the pace of training. That is a critical issue in this bill that is currently not addressed in existing legislation: the need for flexibility in the pace of training.
It's a different world now. We have people who may want to upgrade their activity, upgrade their ability, their skills, and they may want to keep working at an existing job. They may not have the ability to spend full time at an apprentice position. The act would allow them to have a more flexible work schedule not only for their practical experience in apprenticeship but also for their in-school apprenticeship training.
The issue of quality in terms of the training that's provided is currently not very fully monitored under the existing legislation. There is really no training course for the person who is sponsoring the training under current apprenticeship rules. In the future, if this legislation goes ahead, this act would require that anyone training an apprentice would have to be tested. They would have to undergo periodic review to have their ability as a trainer assessed. I think this is going to lead to improved quality training and provide more assurance to employers that the graduates from these apprenticeship programs are well prepared for the working environment they are moving to.
Another issue that has been raised with regard to the current regime for apprenticeship is that the classroom training is too rigid, that it's scheduled by the government and it's based on group purchases of classroom seats from the trainer. That's really the only option available if you want to go into apprenticeship. Under the proposed act, Bill 55, the Apprenticeship and Certification Act, the apprentice would decide when to take classroom training according to the workplace needs. So there would be flexibility again and they could work out with their employer what would be an appropriate time to do the in-school portion of the apprenticeship program. There would be no disruption of work patterns, of productivity or of the workplace-based training that the employer or the sponsor would provide.
As a second aspect of that schooling, currently there are only a limited number of sites where the in-school part of the apprenticeship program is offered, at sites that are approved by the government. This legislation, Bill 55, An Act to revise the Trades Qualification and Apprenticeship Act, allows that the trainer who has signed up to provide the apprenticeship training has to meet the criteria endorsed by the industry as far as the location where the learning would take place.
This would allow for distance education. Anyone who is familiar with distance education knows that it is the use of technology especially to train people who are in remote locations. They don't all have to come to Toronto; they don't all have to go to a central urban location. This is certainly something that I'm sure industry would find very interesting and very easy to support. The trainer would be able to provide distance education and computer-assisted learning rather than have all of the classes taking place in a traditional classroom somewhere in Toronto or London or some large urban centre.
I think the obvious benefit of that provision in the bill is that the apprentice would be better able to attend classroom training without any financial or personal hardship or disruption of their lives or work, especially if they took advantage of the distance training and were able to receive it in some remote locations in northern Ontario or other parts of the province. They would have more training formats that would be available to meet their diverse needs as learners. I think that's something we all recognize has already been brought into the education system at other levels, and there's no reason why it can't be brought into the apprenticeship system.
The issue of how the school is paid for - and here I hearken back to the comments made by the member for Windsor-Riverside, who made the very good point that the federal government has indicated to the province of Ontario that it will be withdrawing its funds from the apprenticeship training program. The estimate is $30 million, and it could be as high as $40 million, that will be taken out of the apprenticeship program. Here we are in the midst of trying to design an apprenticeship program that will satisfy the needs of industry in Ontario and we're hit with this sudden loss of financial support from the federal government. So we've had to design the program accordingly.
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Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): Is that the Liberal government?
Mr Grimmett: The federal Liberal government has withdrawn the funds, and they have indicated that in the next fiscal year we'll have $30 million less, minimum.
Mr Guzzo: The same amount they gave Castro.
Mr Grimmett: The program is being designed despite that loss of revenue.
Under this program, rather than having the employer or the taxpayer pay the entire amount, the apprentices would also contribute their fair share to the cost of training, and they would be helped by financial assistance from the government, which is currently not available under the regime. The training would be more client-focused and the client would pay, and I can tell you that if they are going into the kinds of jobs that I mentioned in my riding that are provided in these industries that are looking for highly skilled employees, it would be a good investment on the part of the trainee to enrol in these programs.
Another area that's been an issue under the current legislation is that an apprentice has to obtain tools for their trade, and up to now they have had to pay for it entirely on their own without assistance from any other source. The legislation indicates that there would be loan assistance available from the provincial government to buy tools that are essential for training.
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): A loan? Why don't you just get rid of the tuition and then they could afford to buy their tools?
Mr Grimmett: The NDP has a way to do this, but they had five years to do that and they did nothing.
Mr Wildman: We didn't impose tuition. You are imposing tuition on these people.
The Acting Speaker: Order, member for Algoma.
Mr Grimmett: As I've indicated, there are numerous practical examples of how this legislation addresses real problems that exist with the current apprenticeship regime in Ontario. Present with us this evening in the gallery is Cosmo Mannella, who is the director of the Labourers' International Union of North America. He has indicated his support for the legislation, and I'll quote him: "The main feature of this legislation is that it puts apprenticeship training back into the hands of industry partners, employers and employee representatives. Industry is best suited to drive the training response to the human resource development needs of the workplace." That is a comment from Cosmo Mannella, who is the director of the Labourers' International Union of North America.
We've also had comments from industry people about the legislation. I'd like to quote the president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, Gerald Fedchun, who said, "We have a tremendous shortage of skilled trades in the parts industry." That is something that I indicated at the beginning of my speech. In my riding it's an acute problem. I'm sure it's even more significant in some parts of Ontario that are even more reliant on high-tech industry. All of them, I think, have experienced a shortage of skilled workers in the last decade or so. He goes on to say: "One third of our skilled workers will be retiring in the next 10 years, and this legislation will help us." That is an endorsement from industry.
I'd like to conclude my remarks by saying that I think I've provided some good practical indications tonight why this legislation will address some of the needs that are out there not only in industry but also in terms of the labour market. They need to acquire the skills to get into these kinds of jobs. Industry needs a better apprenticeship program in Ontario, and I believe Bill 55 goes a long way to addressing those concerns.
The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?
Mr Alex Cullen (Ottawa West): I listened to the government side, and the government has I think correctly identified that there is a problem here, there is a skills shortage, and there needs to be an effort to deal with it.
The problem with the legislation being produced here by the government is that it contains in reality some barriers, some real hindrances to achieving this goal. How can the government on the one hand start talking about trying to improve access to apprenticeships, trying to expand the program, and on the other hand impose new tuition barriers for people to engage in this program, to participate in this program, because they are now going to have to pay tuition?
Anyone who understands the economics of this knows that as soon as you put a price on something, you create a barrier. People will have to fork the money out, find it from savings, borrow, what have you, and some people who ought to be participating in this program will have to make other decisions because they can't afford to do it. I think this is wrong.
As well, we have the removal of the minimum education standards. That's not going to relate to the access of people into the program, but it certainly will deal with the quality of the product coming out of the program. There's no point in us participating in a program where there are no minimum standards, because in the end we may find ourselves with inferior products that will hurt the Ontario economy, hurt the Ontario workforce, and certainly hurt the public interest as a result.
The other item deals with the deregulation of mandated wages for apprentices. This is obviously a gift towards industry because it means they can put down the wages for the people who are participating in this program. We want to have a fair program here. People should be justly rewarded for the amount of time and effort they put into learning these skills and also providing the work for industry.
So this legislation requires improvement.
Mr Martin: I want to say that the member for Ottawa West is absolutely right and that the member across the way, no matter how reasonably he presents himself or sounds here, he's wrong.
Mr Wettlaufer: Tony, you came back. How nice. I'm glad you came back.
Mr Martin: He's wrong. In fact, what this bill is about - and I hope that some of the members, including Mr Wettlaufer, are sincerely interesting in hearing what's wrong with this bill. I would hope you would talk to your caucus and your government and tell them to withdraw this bill, because it's not in the best interests of our economic future, the future of young people and the future of work in this province, and I'll tell you why.
In summary, for the first time in the history of Ontario, apprentices will be forced to pay tuition. Employers will be able to pay lower wages to apprentices. The regulated journeyperson-to-apprentice ratio will be replaced with guidelines for employers. Guidelines. Compute that to mean more and more apprentices to journeypersons in the workplace. The two-year minimum for contracts is going to be dropped. The current system of compulsory certification for the trades will be undetermined.
Put that together with a move last spring by this government to introduce new fees and increase other fees already paid by apprentices. We hear the member across the way talk about the paltry sum that they may put out to pay for the tools of apprentices if they ever get into apprenticeships in the first place when they look at the wall that's being built against them, when you consider the tuitions and you consider the debt they will have at the end of the day. They may pay for a few of their tools. When you stack that up against the tuition fees and against the new fees that were introduced last spring and the other fees already paid by apprentices, it pales in comparison.
The only right thing to do in front of this legislation, Mr Wettlaufer, if you'd only talk to your government members, is to withdraw the bill.
Mr Baird: I'm pleased to have the opportunity to respond to my colleague the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay. The member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay always does his homework and has researched these issues considerably, and he's actually read the bill, so he's very well aware.
Two things that I know are important to constituents in the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay's riding and mine are the youth apprenticeships for secondary school students - I noticed he made some reference to that, and that's something that is indeed important for young people in my constituency - and distance education. A lot of the technology that's used in distance education was actually researched and developed right in my constituency of Nepean and indeed in our region of Ottawa-Carleton. So I know he thinks that's important.
I was, however, particularly struck at the member opposite reporting to the House the federal Liberal cut of $30 million to apprenticeship reform. The federal Liberals keep cutting programs for the unemployed. That's all they keep doing. The member for Ottawa-Rideau was pointing out that that's the exact same amount of money that they are giving in foreign aid to Castro this year. So they have more money for Communist dictators than they do for apprenticeship students in Ontario. That's something we've come to expect from the federal Liberal government in Ottawa, because they seem to have more money for pepper spray than they do for apprenticeships, not just for Castro but to help our friend Suharto out.
I, like the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay, am concerned about the raid on EI funds paid for by hard-working Ontario workers and small business people. We want them to have that money back. Yesterday we had a rare moment in this country: We had all four political opposition leaders at the federal level come together to fight. We thought, "If they can do that in the House of Commons, we can do that here." So we said, "Let's get all three parties together to tell the federal government not to raid the EI fund, to help Ontario workers, to help Ontario's small businesses." But they didn't. The Liberals wouldn't even get up and speak to it. Dalton McGuinty wouldn't even stand up. To give the NDP and Howard Hampton some credit, at least they are prepared to join Mike Harris in fighting this fight.
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Mr Martin: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: In the spirit of the member opposite, I would like to move a motion for unanimous consent to withdraw this bill right here, right now, tonight. How's that? Can we do that?
The Acting Speaker: This is not a point of order. Take your seat.
Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I would have been prepared to give that unanimous consent. I think the member is calling the bluff of the YPC from Nepean who used to protest at Queen's University at one time. The Fraser Institute sends these people out and they send the message forward.
I was wondering why the member didn't mention tuition during his speech, because that is what is happening. These people are now applying tuition to this. I should tell you that what they are doing with tuition right across this province is something to behold. They are allowing tuition to go sky-high, so that the YPCs, those who are rich, those who are powerful, will have the opportunity to acquire a post-secondary education, but the person of modest means will not be able to do so. That is the Reform-a-Tory way. That is the way of the Harris government, not the way of the Davis government.
The Davis government had to ensure that we had the Ontario student assistance program, OSAP, and they were generous in that. They recognized that to be mainstream in this province you have to help the people who are at the lowest end financially. They recognized that a publicly funded education system is there to provide equality of opportunity. Not equality of outcome - we can't make sure of that - but equality of opportunity.
Now only will the very rich be able to have the best graduate programs in university, only the very rich will be able to afford to have community college and university education in this province, unless of course they are brilliant students and are able to get scholarships. That's what the Conservatives are all about.
The Acting Speaker: The member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay, you have two minutes.
Mr Grimmett: I want to thank the members from Ottawa West, Sault Ste Marie, Nepean and St Catharines for their insightful comments on my remarks earlier.
I did want to address the points raised by the member for St Catharines because today we had the opportunity to meet with representatives from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. They provided us with some very intriguing and surprising information that resulted from a survey they commissioned from an independent polling firm. Environics did some polling for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. What they were looking at was youth unemployment and the views of youth on the employment situation in Canada.
It's very insightful and for most of us at the meeting it was very surprising. In fact, when the general populace is surveyed on youth employment there is a feeling that youth employment is a problem and the prospects for youth getting employment are not very good. But when youth in Canada are themselves surveyed on this issue, they actually have a very positive outlook on their opportunities for getting employment in the future. This is by an independent pollster. My understanding is that Environics does a lot of polling for the NDP as well.
The polling also indicated that when youth were asked where the main responsibility was for finding employment and generating opportunities for employment, it showed that youth thought that the main responsibility was their own. The lowest of all the categories that they were asked about, as far as who had responsibility for finding them employment was concerned, fell on government itself. They see their own responsibility and that's why we have come up with an apprenticeship program where the apprentice has to take some responsibility.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): I want to say what a privilege it is for me to speak on Bill 55, the Apprenticeship and Certification Act.
Maybe it's important to put certain things in perspective because of some of the comments. We want them to be quite relevant and focused.
As you know, apprenticeship is a training program that really combines workplace experience and some academic institutions. We have about 48,000 apprentices working for more than 26,000 employers in Ontario. Approximately 11,000 new apprentices come into the system each year. They may enter through contracts with employers that outline some of the commitments, both of the apprentice and the employer, terms of the apprenticeship that will provide more or less a basic accountability.
Between 75% and 90% of apprenticeship training takes place on the job, with apprentices working under the direction of a skilled journeyperson. The reason I mention that is because this government is going to tamper with part of that structure, which is working well. The other 10% to 25% of the training takes place in the classroom, in the community colleges or other classroom environments. The community colleges deliver about 95% of that training. Therefore, most of that money that goes to institutional training goes towards community colleges, more or less to in-school instruction. I'm quite familiar with that. In my background as an administrator in a community college, I've seen that and seen how it works effectively. Of course, it could be improved more as we go along.
All this training is based on provincial standards and it's important that we have provincial standards. Furthermore, I have some concern that some of those standards should be more national. I'll get to that later on, how important it was when the federal government was a part of this, because it was able to institute and maintain some national standards.
There are currently about half a million certified skilled workers in Ontario sharing about 67 trades that are designated as regulated. When you think about apprenticeship, they would like you to believe that apprentices are individuals who are young people. The average age of an apprentice now is about 26. Therefore, it will be long after they finish their formal education, in some respects, that some people enter into apprenticeship. I want to come to that later on. This government is bragging about the great change to this apprenticeship act, how it is going to improve it. I'll show you it will not improve it, how they're tampering with it.
As you know and as many people have commented here, the federal government has indicated that it was not going to advance the funding for apprenticeship. This government took the opportunity to tamper with it further. I, for one, am not quite happy that the federal government is not playing a very strong role in apprenticeship, because national standards are extremely important. We are in the country of Canada and it's good to know that skilled workers can move around to any part of Canada and not be restricted to one specific province. Therefore, my sentiment about national involvement or federal involvement is that it's important. I'm disappointed that this is not so. The federal government is offering loans and grants to help in some of the training.
One of the concerns I have, which is a consistent concern of many of the members of the opposition when it comes to discussing legislation or having it available for consultation, is the limited way in which this government operates. First, they will hint about what they want to do, leak what they want to do, and then when it does come out and it comes as any sort of a bill in the House, they restrict it in many ways and put closure on it.
Here we are, struggling around trying to get consultation, because this bill needs extensive consultation. As I mentioned before, there are 67 different trades involved in this. Therefore, a thorough consultation must take place to see that we cover all the trades and that they have their input. The tradesmen and the professionals out there know what a trade is all about and we need to hear from them. But this government doesn't do that. They will leak it and then ram it through the House, force it and put closure on it. That's typical of their way: no consultation whatsoever, or minimum consultation. I have great concerns about that.
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Because of the short time I have, let me just mention some of the things that would adversely affect this apprenticeship program. As I said earlier on, the government intends to eliminate the journeyperson within the system who would more or less monitor the new apprentices coming in, replacing the regulated ratio with voluntary guidelines for employers. In other words, they want the employer to monitor this.
Working along with an expert - not with a company, which somehow would not be paying full attention - it will be about what the employer wants. So it will be employer-driven; not really what the economy or what the workplace wants, but how that specific employer will drive the direction of the learning process.
One of the concerns I had when I was in the college system was that sometimes when we had business influencing the worker, they would decide that some things were unnecessary - maybe English was not necessary - and they would take off what they call the liberal studies aspect of it and focus basically on hands-on kind of stuff without having a whole educational process. It's important. What happens most of the time is that when that apprentice gets out in the workplace, sometimes they can't even read a blueprint well, or what have you. Therefore, it is important that the national government plays a very important role, with national rules and regulations, and not the workers themselves.
The journeyperson is a hands-on individual who can give a lot of guidance. I think we could have less supervision and therefore inferior training.
They want deregulation of the mandated wages for apprentices. Here is the catch now. These workers' employers are going to reduce that to a point where maybe it is below minimum wages I'm sure. Many of the folks, the people who get into this apprenticeship are, on average, 26. Many of them have formal education and they will be exploited because they want to get into a trade and the employers are going to regulate it from the point of view that the wages are far less. That itself bothers me enormously.
The part that grabs me more so than anything else is the removal of the minimum education standards. Right now the minimum standard to enter into apprenticeship is grade 10. While the fact is that most professions one goes into require more formal education, now we're going to drop it to less. Health and safety: This is not a good way to go. The technology of today is so advanced and so quick-changing that we need people who are educated. Many students may be jumping out of classes before grade 10 hoping to go there with far less formal education. I can't understand. No wonder the consistency of this Minister of Education, who somehow doesn't seem to want to build a better education system. He is diluting the process right here and diluting to where health and safety will be jeopardized. As a matter of fact, I would think that formal training, formal education, assists in more efficient training.
Tuition for training: Let me go to another point. Tuition fees are one of the sort of write-offs for this government. Since it has been in power it has increased tuition fees to over 60%. Access to training: For those who haven't got the funds, what's going to happen is that they will decide or realize they cannot enter the field.
OSAP: They said they were going to give a contribution in regard to OSAP. They haven't even worked that out yet. They're waiting to see what the feds will do before they do something and then they will come here bashing the feds. In the meantime, the student or the apprentice will be sitting there waiting for these two governments to work out their issues.
Tuition fee increases do not work to help and assist access to training. That increase impedes. It's time this government understood that. As a matter of fact, tuition fees today - my kids have a greater debt on their heads, an OSAP loan, more than the mortgage when I owned my first house. That's only for tuition fees. Can you imagine a 22-year-old coming out of university owing maybe $25,000 to $30,000? My other daughter, who has her master's, is worried mad now about how she is going to pay for that. She's in debt right up there.
The fact is that this government, which says, "We cannot put debt on the back of our children," is deliberately doing that. I don't know if you knew this: There's a change in OSAP that states very precisely that if a student wants to declare bankruptcy, they cannot include their OSAP loan in that. The fact is that they will burdened for life, even though they can't pay. The government has cut a deal with -
Mrs Helen Johns (Huron): Aren't you paying for your kids to go to university? Shame.
The Acting Speaker: You're not in your chair.
Mr Curling: The government has cut a deal with the banks because they're going to guarantee that. The member over there asked, am I not paying for my children's education?
Mrs Johns: You should be. That's a disgrace.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Huron.
Mrs Johns: Sorry.
The Acting Speaker: Remain quiet in your chair.
Mrs Johns: No.
Mr Curling: You see, these Tories, who have their pockets financed by many corporations in many ways, feel that everyone in politics is supposed to be as rich as they are. I'll tell you, we are working-class people too. We are working-class people who represent our people here. As to whether I pay for the education of my children, I do contribute to the education of my children. So you could get off that one.
Mrs Johns: - take away our pension, you'd be a wealthy man.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Huron, I don't need to tell you all the time. Don't challenge the Chair, please.
Mr Curling: I think a lot of the Conservatives feel they are the Titanic and they can't sink, and they will challenge any authority, even you, Mr Speaker, for whom I have tremendous respect, especially the position you hold.
Who supports this thing? Let me read a letter from Interior Systems Contractors Association of Ontario. They wrote to me and they sent their document, "Research Brief Tuition For Life."
"I believe that the government-contemplated tuition for apprentices would do irreparable harm not only to my training centre but to all apprenticeable trades in this province.
"The Interior Finishing Systems Training Centre is a jointly funded centre by the International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and the International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades, Acoustical Association Ontario and Interior Systems Contractors Association of Ontario.
"I would greatly appreciate some time from your busy schedule" - of course I will meet - "so that I may answer any questions that may arise from the reading of this document."
They are extremely concerned. But as I said, while this government is hurrying it through, they would like to speak to you in consultation and they would like to make sure that the harmful, dangerous direction in which you're going in apprenticeship is not the way in which to go.
In summary, I would say that all of this that you're doing is not healthy. You talk about creating jobs. It's not a way of creating jobs. Let me tell you too that access to many of these trades is being impeded by the way things are done.
There was a wonderful study that was done about access to trades and professions. Many people have found barriers getting into these trades. I had hoped that when they were addressing the apprenticeship program they would look at the access, but what they have done is built more barriers - not providing access but building more barriers to apprenticeship.
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It's important. We know where the economy is going. We see the boom and some people want to plug into the system, but oh, no, they can't. Our diversity, our multicultural province, if you want to call it that, asked us to be much more sensitive in how we utilize many of those people who have come to Canada as their new home and have skills and want to be accepted. This government should start looking at removing those barriers, making sure we can utilize many of those people - not like the Minister of Community and Social Services, who comes in here bragging and talking about how many people are off welfare.
Many of these people who are off welfare, she said, have jobs. She may feel that they're walking around with jobs and briefcases. Do you know what their briefcase is? Their briefcase is this. Many people out of jobs are going to the food banks. They're going there looking for food.
While this minister comes in and talks about people on welfare, that with the reduction it's the lowest since 1991 - they don't know where they are. I invite many of those members to get out of their Tory Bastille to look at the grilles and the vents outside, where people are lying who are disillusioned or discouraged or have been bullied by our government, which doesn't look after the most vulnerable in our society.
That's where government is more sensitive. You'll be judged by how you treat people. Access into jobs for those who - we're not very concerned about the rich, who can easily pay tuition and go somewhere else and get great training and all that. Those individuals who need access to training, who need access to apprenticeship, don't need an increase in fees and don't need for it to be handed over to the employer to say, "You handle that." They need a government that is sensitive and understanding of the diversity of our province, to find out how best we can utilize that.
Mrs Johns: Aren't you paying for your kids to go to university?
Mr Curling: One asks, "How can you pay for that?" Let me tell you who can pay for that.
Mrs Johns: You should be paying. That's a disgrace.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): Member for Huron, come to order.
Mr Curling: When you take the tax cut and give it to the rich - if you had taken the tax cut from the rich and turned it back to them, maybe we would be better off today. The member who yells over there has no idea at all, doesn't even know that those individuals out there on the streets with their briefcases are looking, as I said, for food banks and feeling, "Our situation is much lower today." It's because you, the Harris Conservative government, have turned to the most vulnerable in our society and cut 22% off their subsidy.
Mrs Johns: Oh, talk about a vulnerable society. That is why -
Mr Curling: As the member for Huron yells over there, I would ask her to contribute 22% of her salary back, just like your minister cut the most vulnerable in our society, and then we will tell you how it feels. These are people who cannot even afford affordable housing. If you want people to have access to training, get to the Minister of Housing, who has demolished all affordable housing and has these people on the grilles outside. If you want people to have access, get to the people who are really sick and maybe someday can't afford medicare. They can't get the service, so the poor will be suffering. If you want access to training, make sure that the vulnerable in our society get justice, that when they go to court it's not dragged out for a long time, or lawyers, through their fees.
That's how we measure a government: who looks after the most vulnerable, not those who go about giving tax breaks to the rich and then say, "How wonderful we are."
I want to say that this legislation they're bringing forward has done nothing for those people who need it most.
The Deputy Speaker: Comments and questions?
Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): I agree with our Liberal friend here that Bill 55 does nothing for the apprenticeship program. The provincial and federal governments are cutting back on apprenticeship funding, and now they're going to bring in user fees and tuition fees.
In my other life, I went through an apprenticeship program in the millwright trade at Spruce Falls Power and Paper Co and became a millwright, working on the paper machines and repairing elevators. I know what the program is all about and how it should be expanded instead of cut back, as we have now.
There should be a regulation or a law saying that all garages should have a certain number of apprentices in their workplace so they can train on the job and make sure they have mechanics there when needed, rather than cutting back on the programs and then when the need arises, when there's a boom in the economy, having to go outside the province or outside Canada to find skilled tradesmen, when it could be done right within Ontario. Ontario is the engine of the economy in Canada and we should be expanding it.
We know that youth unemployment is well over 15%. It's probably 20% or 25% in northern Ontario, but it's well over 15% on average. This government is doing nothing to create employment for them. As a matter of fact they're not going to be anywhere near the 725,000 jobs they said they were going to create during their first term. Since August, Ontario has lost over 22,000 jobs. Now Bill 55 is going to make it even worse in terms of losing jobs in Ontario. It's a sad situation.
Mr Bruce Smith (Middlesex): The member touched on a number of issues. The one that comes to mind immediately is his reference to the removal of standards. I want to draw the member's attention to subsection 5(2) of the bill, particularly where he made reference that we're affecting the minimum age requirement. I'm going to read to the member what subsection 5(2) says. It says, "An agreement shall not be registered unless the individual who is to receive the training is at least 16 years of age." The whole issue of a minimum age requirement is captured in this bill. I want to draw that to the member's attention because I'm sure, upon reflection, he will give consideration to that issue.
Second, it's not about bashing the feds. My colleagues in the NDP, and myself last night, simply are raising a reality here. We're clearly seeing from the federal government a reduction of some $30 million in funding to the province with respect to training. Very clearly the evidence is there: They're withdrawing their services as applied to training in this province. Given the contribution we make in terms of EI benefits to the federal government, we want a fair-share agreement for this province, given the percentage of the labour force we have here. That's one issue that the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs said today in question period we're anxious to negotiate - albeit we're the last province to have a training agreement in this country, coincidentally - one we're anxious to negotiate on behalf of workers in this province.
Lastly, he made some very specific references about OSAP, much to the concern of my colleague from Huron. I want to remind the member that OSAP funding in this province is up some 33%. Access to funding, from 1995 to 1999, increased by some $364 million. We are providing an additional $87 million in student aid through the colleges and universities, and we've provided new scholarship opportunities and permanent trust funds in the amount of $600 million.
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville): I want to respond to my colleague's comments today about this important piece of legislation. I want to begin by saying that regardless of partisan stripe, this colleague of mine has done more than any other person in this House, I would suggest, to remove barriers, to work with communities. He has done as much as anybody in this House has.
Oftentimes when you hear the kind of despicable comments from government members about ability to pay - because that's what it's all about for the member for Huron. It's about ability to pay. If you can afford the tuition, you'll get to university. If you can afford the health care, in the member for Huron's lexicon, you'll get the health care. If you can't afford it, you're a big joke and you're a big laugh. Well, the big joke and the big laugh is an elected member of this House who would look down her nose at people like that, who would say: "If you cannot afford tuition, ha, ha, ha, too bad for you. You've got to have the debt. If you can't afford the debt, you can't get an education." That tells more about the member for Huron and what that government is about than any piece of legislation and any statement and any numbers ever said. That member says: "If you can afford it, if you can afford designer clothes, if you can afford the best of everything, you can afford university tuition, and if you can't afford it, too bad. If you can't afford health care, too bad." We've got it: I've got it, the member for Huron, we can access it. Too bad for the rest of you.
Students, your debt load has doubled, your tuition has doubled under this government, almost as much as it went up under the NDP, almost as much. So let's talk about it. This government's about people who can afford it, and you don't care about people you can't. You should be ashamed of your comments. You're disgusting.
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Mrs Johns: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I think that I was very badly misquoted there. What I was saying was that anyone in this House who makes the dollars that we make should be paying for -
The Deputy Speaker: Order. That may be a point, but it's not a point of order. And I would like to remind the member for Windsor-Walkerville that we do not make comments to other members that are unparliamentary.
I recognize the member for Cochrane South.
Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I listened with great intent to the comments from the member for Scarborough North as he spoke on this particular bill. It is awful hard to take the Liberal Party when it comes to a number of issues in this Legislature, but on this one they've got no credibility. Their federal cousins, the Jean Chrétien Liberals in Ottawa, are the people causing this problem in the first place. The Tories are just as bad, but the Jean Chrétien Liberals are the government that is cutting the funding going to community colleges in this province and to the apprenticeship training program, which in the end is hurting the apprentices of this province.
It doesn't stop there. The Liberal Party of Canada, in power under Jean Chrétien, are the ones who have made the reforms to the EI program. Do you remember unemployment insurance? I see apprentices in this room. I went through an apprenticeship program. When I did, we used to get paid the full eight weeks as we went through our apprenticeship training and community college for basic, intermediate and advanced. The Jean Chrétien Liberals have taken away the two weeks at the beginning of the program and say that it has to count as your waiting period. So you've lost two weeks right off the top; you're only paid for six.
Then I hear the member for Windsor-Walkerville, or whatever Windsor riding he comes from, talk about how the member for Scarborough North has done more for equity in this Legislature than any other member. The member for Scarborough North voted against employment equity, the very bill that would have given people access to the workplace across this province. The member for Scarborough North voted against it.
"Oh, I care," says the member for Scarborough North, "about all those people who got a 28% decrease on their welfare payments and their FBA payments by the province of Ontario." What did they call their promise in the last election? Mandatory work opportunity. A bunch of phonies: Liberals standing up trying to convince people that they care about them, but in the end, they're nothing but a bunch of Tories, the same as Jean Chrétien.
The Deputy Speaker: The member for Scarborough North, you have two minutes to respond.
Mr Curling: How happy I am to respond to many of the members. I just want to correct the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay. I didn't say "minimum age"; I said "minimum wage." The fact is that I was talking about minimum wage instead.
I want to thank my colleague from Windsor-Walkerville for his excellent presentation.
Let me address my good friend from Cochrane South a little. It was not my party that shattered the collective bargaining agreement, actually attacked labour, so they had to bow their heads in here in shame.
Let me tell you now about access. We talk about access to trades, access to opportunities, employment equity. That is the party that built walls around employment equity. That is the one that cut the deal with the unions about seniority rights, that nobody may be promoted unless they're senior. That is not employment equity. That is the kind of employment equity you're trying to tell us we must support? We support access and employment equity that is fair to all people regardless of unionization, regardless of individuals. We want fairness and access for all.
That's the kind of government that the people threw out, because they could see the kinds of things they were doing. They weren't real. They fought so much for labour but then went back and really attacked the labour movement and took away the bible itself, the collective bargaining agreement.
Let me tell you, the apprenticeship program you are setting up will not be effective. It builds walls and it will not give access to those who need it more. The government in here must make sure that people have access to opportunities.
The Deputy Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Bisson: In the 20 minutes I have, I want to start by saying that the Liberals have been anything but consistent when it comes to employment equity. They voted against it when we introduced it as government, and then they voted against the government when they repealed employment equity. If anybody can figure out if there's any consistency in that - I don't know.
I'll say another thing. Vis-à-vis the social contract, far better a Rae day than what the Mike Harris government has done to the workers of this province.
Now on to the bill. The Tories are bringing forward a bill that they say is necessary to give the employers of this province the competitive advantage and the competitive edge they need to be able to create opportunities for employment for young workers in Ontario. If you listen to this speech long enough, you almost start to think, "Maybe Mike Harris has got something here." You listen to it and you really think, "My Lord, maybe Mike Harris has got something here." The spin is so good, the spin is so fantastic. It sounds like, "You know, if the government passes this bill, there will be all kinds of jobs created and apprentices across this province would prosper and they would do so well and the employers would be great."
But my Lord, when you look at the details of this bill, you find out it's quite the opposite of what the Conservatives are trying to put forward in the arguments of the debate. Let's look at some of the details of what this government is trying to do.
I'm fortunate. I'm one of the few people in Ontario who has gone through an apprenticeship training program. I joined Pamour Mines in 1980 or 1979 and went through an electrical apprenticeship training program through what was then Pamour Mines, now called Royal Oak Mines in Timmins. I was fortunate enough to go through apprenticeship training that said five years of experience on the job supervised by tradespeople who are qualified, and then strengthened by experience that I would get from the community college system - eight weeks at basic, eight weeks at intermediate, eight weeks at advanced and another eight weeks on top of that for your electronics endorsement - to be able to write my exam as an electrician.
At no time during that former apprenticeship training system that the Tories are trying to say is no good was my life put in danger because I didn't know what I was doing or was the employer's equipment put in danger because maybe I wouldn't have known? That's because the system is set up in a way that it is an apprenticeship system in reality, that when the apprentice works on a piece of equipment, he or she is supervised by a qualified tradesperson. That qualified tradesperson passes on the skills set that the new apprentice needs; they learn how to use the tools, learn how to use the equipment, learn how to fix whatever it might be, electrical, mechanical or whatever apprenticeship training you're going through. All of that's strengthened by a strong community college program that gives us apprentices an opportunity to learn the technical skills we need to know to do our jobs well.
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What does that mean for me as an apprentice? It means that (a) I become qualified, and (b) I can do my job safely. What a wonderful idea, saving money from workers' compensation premiums and, more important, possibly saving lives or injury on the job.
What does it mean to the employer? It means the employer ends up with qualified people who can do the job. What's wrong with that? Employers are investing millions and billions of dollars in equipment in the mining industry, forestry, pulp and paper, automotive, the trades, and the list goes on. What you've got is qualified people to work on that equipment, to first of all install it in the construction trade and then to make sure that once the papers are signed and we give the plant over to the operator, the stuff works and there are some qualified people to be able to maintain it to make sure the stuff works right. What's wrong with that? It's called good business; it's called safety; it's called a bit of common sense.
But this government says, "No. We're going to do away with this system that we have in Ontario," that is, quite frankly, one of the best apprenticeship training programs in the world. It's not perfect. There are things that I would like to see if we were really talking about strengthening apprenticeship training, that I would like to bring in a bill. Part of that was started under our government with the OTAB program and others. But this government says: "No. We're going to talk the line about making a better system," but really, when you look at what they're doing and the meat of it through the bill, we find out the government is doing exactly the opposite.
Let me give you a couple of examples of what they are doing. The first thing that these guys - and I say "these guys" because this government is made up of nothing but a bunch of old, grey-haired guys, by and large - are saying is, "We are going to make ourselves a system where we're going to allow cross-trading in regulation and in legislation in the industry of Ontario."
I've got to tell you, as a journeyman electrician and also as a citizen, cross-trading sounds like great talk when it comes to industry and it sounds like great talk when it comes to people who don't understand what this is all about. It actually sounds as if it might be something good: You can go and get all kinds of training and you're going to be so smart. You know what it means? It means you're going to end up with people in industry who have a little bit of training in a whole bunch of different things but in the end are not specialized to work in any particular trade. I'm proud to say I'm an electrician. It took me five years of apprenticeship training and schooling to be able to get that trade. I renew that licence because it's something I'm proud of.
But this government says: "We're not going to value the training; we're not going to value the trades of mechanics and machinists and millwrights and all of the other trades that are included. No. We're going to allow for cross-trading. We're going to allow for multi-tasking, multi-trading," whatever it happens to be called in industry.
Interjection: "Deskilling."
Mr Bisson: Deskilling is the long and the short of the story.
But what that means in practical content is this. You have an industry. I come from Timmins. By and large it's mining, pulp and paper, the sawmills, and a waferboard plant. What you're going to end up with - it's already started in industry, because the industry has been pushing to a certain extent to cross-skill in this province - are situations where you're going to call in a mechanic who has maybe two weeks or three weeks of training to go in and pull the disconnects on a 4160 motor. You say: "What's hard in that? It's just pulling three fuses." My friends, I've got a good buddy of mine who was a mechanic who got cross-skilled who is now dead because of that.
I'm taking this seriously because I remember Rudy Konegan quite well from Wawa. Rudy was a fellow I had met through the BEST program when I was an instructor with the BEST program, or a coordinator. Rudy at the time was a mechanic, worked at the Wawa mine. I hope I got Rudy's name right; I believe it was Rudy Konegan. It's a lot of years ago. Rudy basically came to me and said: "Gilles, my employer wants to go to cross-trading. They're going to say to me that I've got to go and do the job of an electrician to a certain extent when I'm called upon to do it." You know what they did to Rudy? They sent him into a substation in Wawa at the iron ore mine operated by Algoma, I guess it would be, had him go in and clean out a substation.
Most people say: "What's so complicated about taking a broom and going to clean out a substation? You don't need a lot of skill sets to take a bit of dust off the floors of an MCC unit or off the top of a bunch of MCC - how much training do you need for that: a day, two days maybe if you're quite lucky?" Do you know what happened to him? He went and cleaned that and never walked back out again. He got electrocuted because he didn't understand the danger of what he was working with. It's not because Rudy was an unsafe worker; it's not because Rudy was trying to take a shortcut. It's because Rudy wasn't trained in the skills necessary to work safely around high-voltage equipment, and he died.
As a journeyman, I had apprentices with me when I worked in mining. I'll give you one example. I had an apprentice at one time, a first-year apprentice. Same story. My supervisor says to me, "Gilles, have him go in and clean the substation and the link house and the crusher station." I says, "Bill, I ain't sending that guy in there; he's dangerous. I've worked with this guy for about three weeks. I'm sure that if he can find a way to get himself hurt, he will." He didn't have the skill sets necessary. The employer tried to force me to do it. I refused under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
They gave him another job cleaning something else, which was the top of a crane. He was on top of a crane trying to clean off the insulators and forgot to turn off the power. He grabbed a 550-volt tri-line cable off a crane. Luckily for him there happened to be a box underneath that was protecting one of the top ends of the conveyor belt. When he got electrocuted, he managed to pull himself away and drop only about 20 feet on to the box. He didn't get hurt too bad. He only dislocated his shoulder and broke his knee. According to the employer, it wasn't a bad thing. This guy had injuries for a period of time and the employer ended up paying lost time, but in the end the situation could have been a heck of a lot more serious.
I only point that out because if this government says cross-trading, multi-skilling, deskilling is a good thing and it don't mean anything, let me tell you: It means a hell of a lot. You cannot have people who are unqualified to do what is very skilful work and very meticulous work that needs a certain amount of training to do.
I'm not a mechanic. You try to send me to do something with a pump and say: "Gilles, it's not a big deal. You know how to disconnect the wires. Go and take the belts off and then put another shiv on there and put another flywheel and everything will work fine." Wow. Can you imagine what kind of danger I could do with that? I'll blow the whole head end of the pump if I don't know what I'm doing. Mechanics, millwrights are trained to do that kind of work - machinists, all of them, the same thing.
When this government tries to tell us, "This is merely in order to give an opportunity for young people to have better work and go into industry and get jobs in the multi-skilled trades," give me a break. This is about saving the employer some money. This, Mike Harris's bill, is, "I'm sucking up to industry to give them an opportunity to cut some wages." That's what this is all about.
The other thing they want to do is to deregulate the wage rate for apprentices. I was fortunate. I went through the system. When I was hired as a first-year apprentice, there was a ratio of what I should be paid as compared to a journeyman electrician. Then as I progressed through the apprenticeship program, my wage rate increased according to where I was within my apprenticeship.
The government will say: "That's a terrible thing. The employer has to pay too much." Excuse me. If the employer's got to pay me some dollars, they're going to make darn sure they are getting something out of me, so they're going to train me. They're going to put me with the best journeyman they can so they can get me making money for them as quickly as they can as they're paying me that rate. Same thing in the building trades. But this government says: "Oh, no. This is good for business. This will create more jobs." It's not going to create more jobs. All it's going to do in the end is lower the cost to certain employers.
Mr Lessard: Maybe some minimum-wage jobs.
Mr Bisson: Minimum-wage jobs. But I have to say there are employers out there who are quite concerned about what this government is doing. I have to put on the record that it's not every employer across the province who agrees with what this government is doing when it comes to the apprenticeship training program. There are a number of employers who are saying, "Hey, in the long run Bisson's right," as far as my argument; they haven't said that to me personally. "In the end, we will become more uncompetitive because we will have less skilled, less trained people doing the work. This is maybe going to cost us more money when it comes to compensation premiums. Overall, we're not going to fare any better as industry."
Our economy is based on what? It's based on a properly and well trained set of workers within our workplaces. We cannot compete with the Mexicos of this world or with Taiwan. They pay people dirt-cheap wages, lots of workers. If they kill four or five a week, it don't matter; just bring four or five more in and away you go. Eventually you'll get your product out. Ontario's economy doesn't work that way. The sooner this government figures that out, the better off we're going to be. We are a high-wage, high-skilled economy. Get that through your heads. That's what this is all about.
What you guys are trying to do is make us compete with Mexico. You'll never compete with Mexico by deregulating trades and pushing people down to minimum wage, because I'll tell you what: Their wages are even lower. What kind of an economy would we have in Ontario if we were paying people the wages that they get in Mexico and Taiwan? People couldn't afford to buy cars, Ski-doos, cottages, all the things that keep this economy going. Get it in your head: We're a high-wage, high-skilled economy. Please react that way.
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The other thing the government wants to do - this is really dangerous - is deregulate the ratio of journeymen with apprentices. The government will say, "I'm the minister and I say this is a good thing, because that way we can get more young people into the workplace." Excuse me. Can you see industry, some of whom are irresponsible employers - not all, because there are some responsible employers and I can think of a number of them. As a matter of fact, the company I was with, Pamour, was pretty good at that.
Mr Lessard: Chrysler is responsible.
Mr Bisson: Chrysler was responsible. They do it right. Why? Because by and large, unionized employers make sure that those things get done.
But do you know what's going to happen, especially in the non-union sector? I can see it in the building trades first. They're going to say, "We're going to build a cogen station." I just can see this coming. They're going to say: "There's an opportunity somewhere along the pipeline. We're going to build a cogeneration station, and this legislation says I don't have to have a one-to-one ratio or a two-to-one ratio," depending on where people are in their apprenticeships and how many tradespeople you've got. They're going to say, "We're going to save money." Rather than paying $22.50 - what is the rate now for an electrician? Quickly. Three to one is the ratio. So they will not have to pay basically for a number of electricians.
This is how it works now: It says you have one apprentice to three journeymen. That makes sure the apprentice is protected by the skill sets of the journeymen and that the journeymen are properly supervising the work of the apprentice, making sure that the equipment being installed by the building trades is done right and, once installed, properly maintained.
The government says: "We're going to get rid of that ratio. We're going to deregulate it." Do you know what that means? It means that soon the employer will be able to say, "Ten apprentices, one journeyman." Can you imagine what's going to happen on some of these job sites? There are all kinds of fly-by-night wannabe contractors, not the professional ones, because by and large they're trying to do right, but there are wannabes out there who are going to say: "I'm going to go out and undercut Bluebird Construction. I'm going to get the mechanical work and electrical work up in Hearst where they're doing some work, and I'm going to show that Bill Moffat guy I'm smarter than he is. I'm going to walk in with a whole bunch of one- and two-year apprentices who don't have the skill sets that are required." You'll end up with, let's say, four apprentices to one journeyman.
Do you think that's off? I don't think that's off. I think it's pretty close.
Mr Lessard: Maybe some self-employed apprentices.
Mr Bisson: Or some self-employed apprentices as well. That's the other side of it. But what you're going to end up with are some unqualified people -
The Deputy Speaker: I would caution the member not to involve others in your debate. You're protected by our rules, but they aren't, and I might have to enforce those. Thank you.
Mr Bisson: I'm trying to engage the government in this debate. I was looking at the rump over here, because they're paying attention very closely to what I'm saying. There are Conservatives on this side, and that's who I'm looking at, to try to get them to understand that what they're doing is dangerous.
Mr Baird: We're listening. I'm listening.
Mr Bisson: Back to the ratios. What's going to end up happening is that you're going to have some wannabe contractor, and you know it, because what ends up happening is, to get a contract you've got to bid low. How do you bid low? You've got to control costs in some way, and one of the ways you can do that is by what? By cutting wages. Then you're going to say: "Three apprentices or four apprentices to one journeyman, and instead of paying $22.50 an hour, I'll pay $15.60 or $13.12. That undercuts Bill Moffat and Bluebird Construction by so much. I've got the contract."
Then they go in to do the work and there's hell to pay. The equipment will not be properly installed, because apprentices, on their own without being properly supervised by journeymen, quite frankly are not properly trained to do the work that has to be done in installation. Or you're going to end up in a situation at Kidd Creek Mines or Placer Dome or Mallette waferboard or wherever it is where the employer after a while says: "We're having to compete with lower world prices. We've got to cut prices in some way. We've had three journeymen leave and go somewhere else or retire. We're going to replace them by lower-skilled workers," on some sort of haphazard apprenticeship training program, and they're going to try to save dollars.
What's that going to mean? It's going to mean unsafe workplaces, and quite frankly, in the long run, it's going to mean an added cost to the employer by having both shoddy work done if not properly supervised and having an unsafe workplace.
I tell you, the government can talk the line all they want. In the end, all this thing is doing is making it possible for people to come into industry and into the construction trades and not ensure that we have the quality of workmanship that we have today and the safety that we have today in those industries.
I want to come back to a point I made in the beginning. I know the Liberals don't like it when we talk about their federal cousins in Ottawa, but the federal government has a responsibility, and I want, once, our federal government, the Jean Chrétien Liberals, to say, "We buy into the apprenticeship training program in Ontario and we buy into the college training system in Ontario," and to properly fund those. If they don't do that, then I think it's a great disservice to this province.
I also tell this government you're the only government that has not gone to the federal government to negotiate an agreement around the apprenticeship training program. What the federal government wants to do is use the surplus within the EI fund to be able to fund the apprenticeship training stuff. I say it would be a hell of a lot better for us to use the surplus from the EI fund in order to train apprentices in this province - I wouldn't argue all of it, because we should be making sure that people are properly compensated once unemployed and not kicked off the system because of the rules that the federal Liberals have invented - than to give people a stupid tax break here in Ontario or to advocate, as I heard Mike Harris say, taking the surplus from the EI fund and forcing it back into a tax cut for people who are paying taxes to the federal government.
I say two things to the provincial government:
Do your responsibility. Sit down with the federal government. Negotiate the fairest deal you can in order that we can tap into that surplus of the EI fund and redirect those dollars back to the province so that we can support our apprenticeship training program. That's the very least you can do.
Number two, this bill is going in the opposite direction to that which the province has to go, so we need to have public hearings on this. We need to have an opportunity for people to come forward and to say what they think. Those hearings should not be three days as you have been doing normally; there should be extensive hearings on it.
The last point I want to make is that the minister is giving himself way too many powers in this bill. The minister is saying, "By way of regulation I will be able to regulate the trades altogether without anybody being the wiser, because all of it will be done behind the closed doors of the cabinet room." You cannot give yourself those kinds of powers, especially when you're trying to ram this bill through the House without doing the proper consultation that has to be done at the committee level.
I look forward to the responses from the government as they finally come to their senses for once in the last three years.
The Deputy Speaker: Comments and questions? The Chair recognizes the member for Niagara South.
Mr Tim Hudak (Niagara South): Thank you, Mr Speaker. We're both pleased to rise today in response to the comments of the member for Cochrane South.
Probably the most interesting thing in his comments was his description of the Conservative government as a bunch of grey-haired old men. Speaking on behalf of the old man club over here, I would ask the young whipper-snapper to have some respect for his elders, because even for old men like myself, I can come up with some pretty good new tricks.
I'll tell you one of the new tricks I'm very proud of. Let's list them off, and we'll compare our new tricks to those of the young backwoodsman from Cochrane South.
First, 300,000-some-odd new jobs across Ontario compared to the NDP record of I think it was negative-10,000 jobs.
It's interesting too that they're putting their training program, widely known as Jokes Ontario, up against our achievements in terms of 300,000-plus jobs, the biggest drop in the welfare rates in years, more than 200,000 people off welfare, moving into the workforce.
Again, I think we do have to brag about our new trick, Better Skills, More Jobs: Ontario's Plan for Tomorrow's Job Market, the plan to help create jobs and make sure people are trained for these jobs. In fact, the goal of this bill is to increase the number of entrants to apprenticeship programs from 11,000 to 22,000. If people watching at home are interested in obtaining this booklet, call 1-800-387-5514. Those at home can join in and see the Conservative government's plans, the new tricks of the old dogs to create and to build on the 300,000 jobs created across the province so far compared to Jobs Ontario and negative-10,000.
Mr Cullen: I'm here to stand and comment on the remarks made by the member for Cochrane South, but I have to compliment the member for Niagara South. He is the first member of the government to avail himself of free advertising time compared to the $6 million of taxpayers' money that has been spent this year on funding educational propaganda. He gets the award of the night for using public air time to promote yet another propaganda piece, but at least the taxpayer isn't paying for it.
Coming back to the issues at hand here, the member for Niagara South talked about the 300,000 jobs that his government has created, and this bill, if I heard earlier, is supposed to help people get employment through better access to the apprenticeship program.
Why is it, then, that this government at the same time imposes tuition barriers? We know that as soon as you start making people pay for things and they start realizing, "Oh my God, can I afford this?" the people who are best able to utilize these programs will not be able to do so. As a matter of fact, if the member for Nepean had had to pay today's tuition charges when he went to university, would he be here today? Would he have been able to get his degree? We simply don't know. But the fact remains that every time tuition goes up, people have to make choices and people with skills, with ability, are forced away from their ability to pursue their future.
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Is this the hallmark of this government? Is this the way to increase skills, to increase jobs? This government is going to fail and fail miserably in achieving its Common Sense Revolutionary target of 750,000 jobs. You've got, what, a year and a half left of your mandate. You're not going to make it, and this program here, this Bill 55, is not going to help you. Think it over. Make it a better program. The people of Ontario deserve no less.
Interjection.
The Deputy Speaker: Order.
Mr Guzzo: Rae sent them all to Buffalo, and he was part of the Rae government.
The Deputy Speaker: Order. Member for Ottawa-Rideau, please come to order.
Mr Ed Doyle (Wentworth East): He is an old guy with grey hair over there.
Mr Bisson: Touché, or toupée, I should say.
The Deputy Speaker: Order.
Mr Lessard: I want to express my sincere congratulations to the member for Cochrane South for his remarks. I think what he did was really narrow in on the important issues in Bill 55, and that is the massive deregulation of the apprenticeship program in Ontario, the elimination of standards and minimum requirements and also allowing tuition fees to be charged to apprentices and the lower wages that are going to be permitted to be paid for apprentices. He talked about competing with Mexico and Asia as far as wage rates. That's not going to get us anywhere. This is all just part of the Tory initiative, part of that race to the bottom, eliminating standards, reducing wages, all in the guise of reducing red tape but all to pay for their phony tax scheme.
But what is really needed to ensure that there are opportunities for young people to be encouraged to be involved in apprenticeship training is to make sure that there are jobs at the end. They need to have a positive outlook as far as jobs and know that they're going to be decent-paying jobs. But right now we have seen absolutely no commitment from this government as far as their job creation strategy. They said they were going to create 725,000 jobs and we have seen nothing like that.
We don't need any propaganda campaigns like the member for Niagara South is talking about. What we need is a job strategy. What we need is for the federal Liberal government to live up to their commitment to provide training for workers in Ontario. What we need are public hearings. What we need are the regulations to be tabled. We need to have an announcement on that tonight.
The Deputy Speaker: Comments and questions? The member for Cochrane South has two minutes to reply.
Mr Bisson: Questions and comments or responses? I take it it's a response. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.
I thank the members from the other two parties and my good friend Mr Lessard from Windsor for commenting. I just want to say again that I was hoping the government was going to stand and say at the very least that they were going to have some public hearings. I was hoping they were going to say, "We believe in democracy and we believe that people have to be heard." Not a word from the government. The government is basically remaining silent on that. We heard yesterday from one of the government members that they were going to do that, but no confirmation today. Tomorrow I will be at the House leaders' meeting, as the deputy House leader for our party, and I will be asking this government to make sure that we get some public hearings on this bill, no two ways about that.
The other thing I have to say to this government is, you are going down a very dangerous road by way of deregulating the apprenticeship training program in this province. Allowing multi-trading, allowing the ratios to be changed from journeymen to apprentices, allowing a lower wage structure for apprentices is a recipe for disaster both when it comes to a safety aspect and also when it comes to the economic well-being of the employer.
I know there are employers out there who want to do the right thing. I can think of people like Bluebird Construction, Royal Oak Mines, Kidd Creek and a few others who are trying to do the right thing, but there are a lot of non-unionized employers out there, by and large, who are going to try to take advantage of this bill, if it passes, and we will end up with less-trained, less-qualified people doing the work in industry tomorrow after this bill is passed.
I've got to say to this government that this is wrong. I repeat, we are a high-wage economy based on high skills. When this government starts taking away those skill sets and taking away the ability to earn a good wage from workers, it is a recipe for both economic disaster and human disaster when it comes to this province.
The Deputy Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Galt: It's a pleasure for me to be able to enter into the debate on Bill 55. Skills shortages that we're experiencing indicate a mismatch between the skills that employers want and the skills of job seekers. Bill 55 will ensure that apprenticeship training can bridge that situation effectively and efficiently.
Apprenticeship training prepares our young people for the job market. Bill 55 is really all about preparing our young people for the job market in the 21st century, and it's time we got on with this job. Change is certainly going to be needed to bring this about, as we look at an act that's been in place, the status quo, for some 34 years now. Our young people need jobs. Employers need skilled workers. We need to equip more young people with the skills to find a job.
Many in this House have regularly heard someone say, "I have two university degrees, or three university degrees, and I can't get a job." They have some tremendous training, they have some great skills, but they're not trained in an area that an employer is looking for. They have to match those skills with what employers are looking for out there or there are no jobs. It's understandable. What this bill will do is help match the skills that young people have with the needs of the employer, and that is indeed tremendously important.
We often hear about the need for tool and die makers, and what happens? We go to other countries and have them come in to do those jobs because they're not trained here for those kinds of skills. We hear that there is all kinds of work in the computer field, but they're not trained, and because of this bill they will be in the future. This will offer a tremendous improvement in the apprenticeship program and job skills in the future. Some 50% of the jobs are there for managerial, professional and technical jobs in the skilled trades and there will be roughly 50% between 1995 and the year 2005, during this particular decade.
There has been an alarm sounded that Ontario faces a shortage of skilled workers by organizations like the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, the Canadian Advanced Technology Association and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. A letter written by Judith Andrew, the executive director for provincial policy from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, states:
"Concerning the new funding model, CFIB supports the objectives of creating an apprenticeship system that is both cost-effective and supportable in the long term as well as being equitable to all players. We appreciate that the government has acknowledged the tremendous financial and time commitment given by business to the system."
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The letter winds up saying:
"In summary, CFIB supports the proposed legislation for renewing the emphasis on vocational education as a realistic option for young people. Given the increasing skilled labour shortage in this province, it is a prime responsibility of government to create the necessary framework to permit young people to secure the training that will propel both their careers and the industries of the future."
From Dave Parke, automotive service technician on a provincial advisory committee:
"Reform of the apprenticeship system is long overdue. This legislation will provide new opportunities for apprentices. The system, as it now stands, with its outmoded regulations and requirements has ceased to meet the needs of employers and apprentices. This legislation brings the system into the '90s. Bill 55 will allow industry to adapt to changes such as new technologies and improve the quality of skilled trades."
Third and last, I'd like to quote from a letter from the Ontario Trucking Association:
"Re: OTA response to Bill 55.
"The Ontario Trucking Association supports the apprenticeship reform efforts as outlined in recent announcements made by the minister and contained in Bill 55. As transportation technology advances it becomes ever more critical to have sufficient technicians with the necessary skills in the workforce.
"This government has shown considerable willingness to create an apprenticeship model that is responsive to the needs of industry. OTA anticipates working with the ministry in implementing the reforms in the context of the regulations pertaining to restricted skill sets employed by the trucking industry."
It's unfortunate to find in a survey in 1997 that 35% of the companies had vacancies for skilled workers but the people out there, the young people, did not have the skills to fill those vacancies. In that survey, some 77% of the companies forecast that they will have an increase in demand for skilled positions over the next two years. Indeed, skills training is a real priority for this government and it's a real priority for a competitive labour force today. The result if we don't meet the skills challenge is that we will face some heavy economic costs, social costs, personal costs, lost productivity and unfilled potential.
Change is very necessary for these reasons as well as for the $40 million that the federal government has cut out of the apprenticeship programs. I would think that the provincial Liberals in Ontario would want to be doing something, would be lobbying with their first cousins in Ottawa, but it doesn't seem that they're really interested in supporting apprenticeship programs. They're happy to see that $40 million drift down the drain and just let it go.
Presently, there are some 200 apprenticeship trades in Ontario. There are some 48,000 apprentices working for some 26,000 employers. There are about 517,000 certified skilled workers in Ontario's workforce. In my riding, in my area of Victoria-Haliburton, Peterborough and Northumberland, there are approximately 1,400 apprentices on the job right now. They require some 75% to 90% of their time. Their training is on the job and 10% to 25% is formal secondary school education. It's based on provincial standards developed by the industry. Provincial standards define specific skills that the apprentice must learn before being certified.
The present act that we are changing was last revised back in 1964, some 34 years ago. I hear a lot of complaints from the opposition, particularly from the NDP. You'd be rather surprised that they were there for five years and didn't do something about this particular act. In the last year they were here they only sat for some five weeks. They certainly had all kinds of time to do something, to bring in a bill that would revise the apprenticeship program.
The minister appoints various provincial advisory committees. There are some 30 of these committees in Ontario. They develop the training standards, the classroom curriculum, the exams and training standards, and are made up of an equal number of employee and employer representatives. The act now limits industry committees to providing advice only, even though their involvement is critical. They should be more involved than that. The act regulates some 200 skilled trades, of which 19 are compulsory.
The act unfortunately contains some unintentional barriers, interprovincial barriers and barriers to youth participation in these apprenticeship programs. It also contains a cumbersome process for designating a trade in Ontario as interprovincial. It undermines labour force mobility, and the act is often inconsistent with its regulations. As a result, we have to bring in ad hoc measures that have been going on for some 30 years.
The bill that we're putting forth is about preparing our young people for the 21st century. Certainly the time has come, and it's not too soon, for Bill 55. It could have been brought in in the early 1990s, when the NDP didn't have too much to do in their last year, and it's here to bring the Ontario apprenticeship system up to date. The regulations in the current apprenticeship legislation are indeed too rigid to meet the needs of a competitive economy and a wide range of employers. There is no question that today's industry needs the flexibility so they can change from time to time rather than be held in this rigid system that came in in 1964.
We've been accused that with this bill standards will drop. I think what the opposition is looking at is "one size fits all," when we know that one size doesn't fit all. That old cookie-cutter approach just does not work and they seem to have difficulty bringing a little bit of flexibility into the system.
The apprenticeship system serves a wide range of industries and sectors. During the consultation with training partners the government listened to many groups and people involved in apprenticeship training. I was particularly impressed when I chatted with the member for Wentworth North when he was parliamentary assistant for education, the extensive consultation that was carried out for this bill to look at apprenticeship training and how it was being used in Ontario and the direction it should go.
Extensive consultation has been a hallmark of this government. We've had more committee time than any other party in government. They keep criticizing that we're not consulting, when in fact we've consulted far more than the previous NDP government or the previous Liberal government.
The message this government heard loud and clear during the consultation was that it's time for change. It's time to replace 30-year-old legislation. It's time to clear away the unnecessary red tape, to encourage more employers to train, and it's time to give industry greater input for setting training standards. At the same time, it's time to reaffirm the government's commitment to high-quality training and to ensure high standards and safety for employers, workers and consumers. It's also time to provide employers with the ability to focus training on our skills for specific jobs.
I'd like to give you an example that we all experienced in the early part of this government and the reason that flexibility is really needed. A few years ago our highways were plagued with poorly maintained trucks, flying truck wheels being a very deadly highway hazard. I'm sure that everyone in this House will recall the headlines we were seeing in the media about flying truck wheels injuring and killing people. Something had to be done, and our government moved quickly with the industry and with trainers to create special training for the installation of wheels and rims. Higher standards were introduced. Improved skills training, along with tough law enforcement, tamed a very deadly menace. A targeted apprenticeship training program helped to make our highways safer. What happened? More employers were training, we got rid of some of the red tape and we focused on skills and on safety.
The major goals that we're looking at and that would be achieved with the passing of Bill 55 are that more employers will be training, there will be less red tape and the focus will be on skills and safety. Also we'll be aiming to double the number of apprentices out there, and we'll be matching the skills of job seekers with the employer's skill requirements.
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Bill 55 would also provide the framework through which a revived Ontario youth apprenticeship program would flourish. It would help provide more opportunities for young people to train for good jobs in skilled trades and complete high school.
This government has brought in a tremendous number of reforms that have improved education over the last three years. It's going to set us into the 21st century as we move along.
We've heard from university professors saying that the quality of students arriving at university has been deteriorating. We've been doing a lot of things to improve that. We've been coming out with standardized report cards. From the time I was on a board of education back in the late 1970s, it's something that parents have been asking for, standard report cards: "I'd like to know how they compare. I'd like to have some consistency across the province."
Now, with a standardized report card designed by the teaching profession, we have that very thing in place, a tremendous improvement in education along with regular testing in grade 3, and now we're bringing it in in grade 6. It tests not only the students but the school and the system and the board. We know who is doing well and we can reward excellence. At the same time we can also identify where there are some problems and try and improve on some of those difficult situations that teachers and/or students and/or schools may have. It's not meant to be a witch hunt. It's meant to reward excellence and also assist those who are having difficulties.
There's been a lot of talk about the updating of curriculum. We move from back in the early 1970s, when each teacher designed their own curriculum, to when each school designed their own and then each school board designed their own. The public have been asking for a consistent curriculum all across the province. A few people seem to think that politicians have been designing this curriculum. Not at all; it's been the teachers themselves who have designed the curriculum and it's gone over extremely well. I have a daughter who's a vice-principal and she thinks this new curriculum that's out is the best thing since sliced bread.
With Bill 160, we've brought in requirements for more teacher time with students and limiting the average class size, something that's been way overdue for some time. The previous governments were happy with pupil-teacher ratio and administration could siphon off all kinds of people to use for their purposes. Teachers just weren't in the classrooms. The number and size of classes just kept getting bigger and bigger as the result of negotiations. The union kept looking to siphon off the dollars to their own benefit.
All of those things, along with Bill 55, are doing a tremendous amount to improve education in Ontario, to help our students be in a better position to get jobs in the future. In the competitive society we live in, that's what it's about, having our students, our graduates able to do a better job than most of the other countries that we're competing with. We need to have those kinds of products going out or we don't compete. It was talked about a few minutes ago that this is a country with high-paying jobs and high skill sets, but if we're not doing the training, we're just not going to be in that particular position.
For many reasons I'm proud to support second reading of Bill 55. I certainly urge all members on both sides of this House to join me in supporting this legislation, in supporting legislation that, if it's passed, would provide opportunity for our young people, in supporting legislation that would help employers keep pace with the global economy and in supporting this legislation that would provide a passport to jobs, opportunity and growth.
Bill 55 is about preparing our young people for the job market of the 21st century. Indeed it's a bill that I believe is long overdue: An Act to revise the Trades Qualification and Apprenticeship Act. I believe that once this bill is passed and in place we're going to double the number of apprentices who are in training. We'll get more people with the kind of skill sets that are needed to land the kind of jobs that are available in this country. There are a lot of jobs out there. Young people have not had enough of the proper skill sets to be able to go and land those jobs. I see Bill 55 as a bill that, once it's passed, will help to prepare our young people for the job market of the 21st century.
The Deputy Speaker: Comments and questions?
Mr Cullen: I listened to the comments from the member for Northumberland with interest. I know that all members of this House here want to ensure that there are opportunities for our young people to get jobs and contribute to our society. I know it's the object of all members of this House here to ensure that we have in place the policies to improve the quality of life in our community in Ontario.
When I hear the member opposite say that this government has engaged in consultation, I then have to wonder why, when this government was supposedly engaging in consultation, the report was written before the consultations finished. I have to ask myself if there's a difference here between rhetoric and reality. Are we not all sharing the same common objective? Why would the report be written before the consultations are finished?
Then we see the bill before us. Members on this side of the House have asked to ensure that there are public consultations because the government knows full well that the wisdom out in the community is greater than what can be found on the government benches. There's an opportunity here to perfect the bill. We have pointed out, and others have pointed out, some of the barriers to the very objectives this government is seeking.
This government is seeking to ensure that young people have the ability to go into the apprenticeship program to get the skills Ontario needs. Yet people in the industry, in the working professions, out in the community, have pointed out various things that would work against the government's very laudable objectives. Why won't the government commit itself today to hold those public consultations, to send the bill to committee so we can hear how to ensure that we can achieve the government's, and indeed this House's objectives? All of us here want the program to succeed.
Is the government willing to listen to those who can provide that advice? Give us that commitment today, would you please.
Mr Lessard: It was interesting to hear the member for Northumberland express that waving some kind of a magic wand was going to make all of our wishes come true, that saying we were going to create more spaces for apprentices and increase participation of young people getting involved in apprenticeships was somehow going to make it all come true.
I ask the member: How is it that reducing wages and increasing tuition fees for young people is going to encourage more people to become apprentices? We know that under the current system there is a shortage of people, especially in the Windsor area, in areas like tool and die making and mould-making. It's been a chronic shortage for years. How is this system that's being proposed going to encourage more young people to become tool and die makers. I'd like to hear him address that.
He talks about how rigid the current system is right now and says that we need to provide some more flexibility. The translation means: reducing standards, reducing wages, putting health and safety at risk. I don't think that's the right way to go.
It's interesting to hear this government arguing against rigid standards when it comes to apprenticeship training, but when it comes to funding for schools, rigid formulas are OK. It's going to lead possibly to the closing of schools in Windsor like Lowe and Walkerville. In a lot of rural areas, schools are going to close because of that rigid approach to funding formulas in schools. What we need is to either go back to the drawing board and start over again, consult with the stakeholders - meaningful consultations - or at least commit tonight to having public hearings on this bill.
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Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): It's always a pleasure to rise and make some comments when the member for Northumberland makes a speech in the House. As I listened to what he said - he talked about doubling the number of apprenticeships available in the province, he talked about more opportunities for our young people - I couldn't help but think about the situation that exists in my riding and my own experience where I employed many automotive technicians. We were always desperately short of automotive technicians in the town of Wallaceburg, which is famous for its mould-making companies and its tool and die shops and there was always a need to go overseas to find technicians to work in those shops. I often hear about the city of Windsor with its hospitality industry and its desperate need for chefs and sous-chefs. At the same time I hear about our young people, especially those living on the streets, and one distinguishing characteristic of many of them is their lack of skills and their lack of training. At the same time that we have skilled jobs going wanting for workers in our province, we have young people to whom somehow we just have not been able to give the training.
We can talk about the old system. The old system did not work. We had ample evidence all across the province where it didn't work. We need to do some things to change the apprenticeship system so that organized labour and management, government and the educational system all participate, along with the apprentices themselves, so that everyone participates in providing training for these young people that will lead them to productive jobs, will lead them to a productive life in our province rather than a life that many of them are committed to now of a bit of education but no training and no jobs.
Mr Michael Gravelle (Port Arthur): I'm glad to have an opportunity to comment on the remarks by the member for Northumberland. I was listening to him wax on about Bill 160 and some of the changes to curriculum and some of the other aspects and how important he thought it was. I'm sure he means what he says, but it seems quite ironic when one looks at some of the aspects of this bill. For example, the elimination of minimum education standards in this bill gives us some concern and should give him some as well, so it seems to be wanting it both ways. I think this only speaks to the fact that we need to look at various elements of this legislation and make some important amendments, and indeed public hearings are something that should take place. We know that the member for Simcoe Centre yesterday indicated there would be public hearings, and I think it's important that the minister confirm that. That aspect is an incredibly important part of it.
Again, you talk about your educational goals and some of the things you plan to do and you conveniently forget to talk about the aspect of tuition fees, and the fact is that you're going to be in essence making accessibility more difficult for those who are trying to have apprenticeship training. This is truly an issue of accessibility. You say it is and I think we say it is. The important thing to note is that there are a number of barriers to accessibility that are set up in this piece of legislation that concern us a great deal. I trust that you'll recognize those barriers are there in the legislation. If it is indeed about accessibility, I think you've got to recognize there certainly is not a great deal of trust about the aspect of tuition fees. We have watched this government and the previous government increase tuition fees to an alarming degree, so certainly accessibility is something where the definition has truly changed. If that's what happens as a result of this legislation as well, we've got to have some great concerns.
There are other aspects of the bill. The deregulation of the mandated wage rate is a great concern. If people end up ultimately being forced to survive on minimum wage, they may have real difficulty.
I hope you will confirm that public hearings will take place and that you will recognize there are some changes needed to the bill.
The Deputy Speaker: The member for Northumberland has two minutes to respond.
Mr Bisson: Mr Speaker, on a point of order: You would know that the member for Northumberland is a veterinarian, and I would like to move a motion that we deregulate the veterinary profession to see how he would vote on that motion.
The Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order. The Chair recognizes the member for Northumberland.
Mr Galt: Thanks to those who have responded, particularly the member for Chatham-Kent, who supported the problems we have identified with this particular bill: the shortage of automotive technicians and having to bring them in from overseas, and talking about the kids on the street lacking skills to be able to get jobs. That's exactly what Bill 55 is all about.
It's interesting to hear the member for Port Arthur and the member for Windsor-Riverside talking about the increase in tuition fees. Here we have a party that doubled spending during their term. Then we have a party that doubled the debt during their term. There's $9 billion to $10 billion a year going out in interest because they were into taxing, spending and borrowing, doubling the debt, doubling the spending. Imagine what that $9 billion to $10 billion would do for education in this province if those dollars weren't going out in interest because of your mishandling of the economy of this province.
Here is a party that during its term, five years, lost 10,000 jobs, net 10,000 jobs disappeared. They talk about Ontario doing well - "Oh, that's because of the international economy." But what's happening to the NDP government in BC? Companies want to move out. Small business wants to move out. What about Saskatchewan? The same thing. The health costs have gone out of sight. The lineups in hospitals have gone out of sight. Why? Why are there no jobs there? The NDP government's philosophy of tax to the limit, let the debt go, borrow all you can and just drive the jobs out of the country. They're just pleading to bring in some responsible government both in Saskatchewan and in BC. If I had a little more time, I'd talk about the provincial Liberal governments.
The Deputy Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Duncan: I ask unanimous consent to share this 20-minute period with my colleague from Ottawa Centre.
The Deputy Speaker: Agreed? It is agreed.
Mr Duncan: I want to speak to this bill. I've had the opportunity to meet with a number of the various unions that have an interest in this, as well as employers, and I want to talk about the substance of the bill and about some of the debate that went on here earlier tonight.
First of all, I think we're all in agreement that the apprenticeship system was in need of a massive overhaul. This need has been characterized, I might say, by the auto industry in my community, by the tool and die industry, the plastic injection mould industry. Most recently, one of the members opposite cited the shortage of chefs and sous-chefs at the Windsor casino. In fact, as recently as last month Casino Windsor was advertising in Asian trade papers to get new chefs.
When you proceed with legislative change of this magnitude, I think you have to get off the polemics and you have to focus in on the facts.
Mr Bisson: Have you got a dictionary? I want to know what "polemics" means.
Mr Duncan: One of the issues that hasn't been raised tonight is the quality of our workforce. I read an interesting discourse last evening that said Ontario industry has the highest numbers of ISO 9000 certifications of any jurisdiction in North America. What does that mean? That means that by and large this province has the highest standards of all. I think that's the result of a number of things. One of those things is the high quality of our skilled trades in this province and how they work.
There are a number of changes to the bill that I think ought to be reviewed quickly. The elimination of the journeyperson-to-apprenticeship ratio: That replaces the regulated ratios with voluntary guidelines for employers. What does that mean? That means less supervision for those in training. What does that do?
Mr Bisson: Poleaxe, polecat...polemics.
Mr Duncan: You need to be able to spell it properly, Gilles, in order to look it up in the dictionary.
The regulated ratios replaced by the voluntary guidelines means there will be less supervision. What does that mean? That means lower quality. One of our competitive advantages, I would argue to the government - and government members put a compelling case around the need for Ontario to be competitive in a whole variety of fields. That will lower quality and lower standards. So I say to the government the bill is flawed in that area.
The deregulation of mandated wages for apprentices: The legislation removes mandated wage rates. What does that mean? It means we don't put as high a value on our apprentices as we should. Government members will argue, "We'll let the market look after that." It won't work. The reason we've evolved this system and the reason successive governments haven't touched that is because of the nature of the apprentice system itself.
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The removal of the minimum education standards: The current standard was the minimum grade 10 in the regulations. Now there will be no standard - well, we don't know for sure, because we haven't seen the regulations, the government won't share the regulations. I submit that before a proper debate on this legislation and its impact can be held, those regulations ought to be distributed.
The bill allows part-time contract self-employed workers to become apprentices. There are real concerns about supervision and training of those who would be there only on a part-time basis. Again I say to the government members, trying to speak in your terms, quality is an important component of competitiveness. When you look under the hood of a Ford Motor product in this province and you look at where the engine was built, if the engine was built in Ontario versus Cleveland, the quality of the product will be higher. That's acknowledged in the industry. It's acknowledged by anybody who has built those engines, as I have. I say to the government members, when you tinker, when you tamper, when you undermine the system the way you are with Bill 55, you threaten that.
Changing the role of the provincial advisory councils: You really don't define a new role in terms of enforcement of standards. Again it's a standards question and it's a competitiveness question. When we lower our standards, we lower our competitive ability. It's important to have a highly trained, well-supervised apprenticeship program with motivated workers, which we have had, in order to remain competitive.
What will be the impact of tuition fees? I think we all understand that it lessens accessibility at a time when we ought not to be lessening accessibility. The government has not been clear about what those levels of fees will be or how they will be paid. They said they'll set up different assistance plans for apprentices. The government's record on post-secondary tuition should be a very good indication that those tuition rates are going to be high and are going to rise quickly. So there is the question of accessibility.
The issue of the minister making changes through regulation: The legislation will allow the minister to make regulations concerning industrial committees, programs, criteria for certification, recognizing the qualifications, once again a concentration of power in the hands of the minister. We're not surprised by that because of the government's overall track record in this area of concentrating power in the hands of ministers, but we believe as an opposition that this is not in the best interests of the province.
The government is trying to construct an argument that they have consulted far and wide. My colleague from Ottawa West pointed out that the contents of the legislation were written and disseminated in a leaked document prior not only to the consultations finishing but prior to the consultations beginning. This notion that we have had a broad and wide consultation is simply not accurate.
I want to address two other issues. The question of a 1996 federal budget announcement: At that time the federal government announced they'd be withdrawing their EI contribution and offered in place the skills loan and grants program as part of a move to transfer training to the provinces.
Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): Encouraged by the provinces.
Mr Duncan: This, by the way, was asked for and encouraged by the provinces. I hope the federal government doesn't sign an agreement with the Harris government. That in my view would be a serious mistake. What we need before that kind of an agreement is signed is a meaningful commitment to apprenticeship in a system that will establish high standards and high qualifications.
It's amusing that the NDP would want the federal government to enter into an agreement with the Harris government. In the housing area they don't want the federal government to enter into an agreement on the downloading of co-op housing. I guess all that whooshing tonight is the sound of sucking and blowing by the NDP.
In conclusion, before I yield the floor to my colleague, we all agree that there is a need to reform the apprenticeship program. The challenge is in the detail; the devil's in the detail. The detail of this bill tells me that this is a recipe that (1) will undermine the quality of not only our training but finally the end product, and (2) will ultimately lead to a diminution of Ontario's competitive position in the global economy.
I ask my colleagues opposite in the government to reconsider this legislation and give some thought to bringing in meaningful change that will give real opportunity to young people and allow us as a province to maintain our competitiveness in this world economy.
Mr Patten: I'd like to carry on and compliment my colleague from Windsor-Walkerville. I think he gave a very astute analysis, and some of my other colleagues as well who have pointed out numerous things.
I believe that what is most important, and you've heard this by members on this side of the House, that comes from employers and from employees and federations and advisory councils is the importance of hearings. The importance of hearings of course is to listen. It's that part of the democratic process where you supposedly listen to the stakeholders or people who have a point of view or something to offer.
Seeing that in the consultation process before the general consensus seems to be there wasn't too much listening, this is now quite important, as a matter of fact so important that within a day, within 24 hours, what do we have but letters to the minister. This particular letter is from James Moffat, who is in the House this evening from the Ontario Sheet Metal Workers' and Roofers' Conference and is the training and trades coordinator.
He says on behalf of his particular conference, "I would like to thank you for agreeing to have public hearings on Bill 55, An Act to revise the Trades Qualification and Apprenticeship Act. Last evening...in the Legislature Mr Joe Tascona, PC, MPP for Simcoe Centre, acknowledged during the debate that public hearings will be held." He went on to quote. This is a quote from the member for Simcoe Centre. I won't read the whole thing because it would take too long: "There will be public hearings and the unions can have their say in the normal process. The bottom line is, when you're dealing with that type of approach, the unions have been a part of this process and. as far as I'm concerned, they'll continue to be a part of the process."
James Moffat wasn't the only one who sent a letter. There was another letter sent by Dan Lyons, chairperson for the provincial labour-management health and safety committee, and the co-chair, Bryon Black, which asked for the same thing and an opportunity to make sure - the provincial labour-management health and safety committee, which is very concerned about the impact of Bill 55, will have a health and safety conference and this conference, this special meeting, will be held on November 4. They will be reviewing this bill in the light of health and safety. They're asking that this bill not be passed in totality before that conference takes place.
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We're told that the consultations have already happened, but I implore the government to listen. As a matter of fact, I would ask that the member for Middlesex, who is the parliamentary assistant - I don't know if he's in the House at the moment.
Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte): He's right here.
Mr Patten: He's right here. He's standing up there. The member for Middlesex - the minister has not yet appeared - seems to be carrying the ball. Perhaps in one of the two-minute responses, the member for Middlesex will confirm that indeed there will be hearings and an opportunity for those who have a stake, a very serious stake and an important part to play in the improvement of quality in this province, to put on the record their views.
I'm not going to address the issues that have already been raised by most members, the deregulation of wage rates, the adequate supervision, the accessibility issues etc, except to say that there is enough information from all sides - the government likes to talk about unions. In many of these instances, we're not talking about unions. Many of these councils are made up of employers and employees. Is that not correct, Mr Moffat? Yes, they are. These are made up of the people who have to carry out these responsibilities. They are saying to you, come back and take a second look at some of these things.
Most would agree with your objectives. Most members, if not all, would agree with the objective of increasing the standards of our workforce in all the trade areas, in all the disciplines. I think everyone would agree. But what, I ask, is the sign of a good manager? A good manager, in my experience - and I place the government in this position. The government is charged with managing the Legislature and managing legislation that it puts forward. One of the most crucial elements of a good manager is, yes, to put out a viewpoint, but second, to listen and to incorporate ideas. The concept that a manager can do everything by himself or herself is nonsense. It's an old-style thing; it has gone out, gone out with sliced bread. The member for Northumberland talked about sliced bread. If you look at sliced bread, it's the worst bread you can eat nutritionally. It's all enriched and refined; take a look at it. It's a terrible analogy.
A sign of a good manager is one who incorporates ideas, listens very carefully and even says: "You know what? I'm going to change my mind on this because this will achieve my objectives better, the suggestion from party A or party B or individual A or individual B." I think people gain respect for people who manage in that fashion. They say that someone is big enough not to be so ideological and so convinced they're right that they cannot incorporate the views of others, especially when the views are coming from the stakeholders.
There's a pattern here that I think is important. We saw this with Bill 26. We saw this with Bill 31. There's sort of a déja vu concept here, because I can remember the requests for hearings on Bill 31, and what happened? We didn't get them. So please accept the validity of some degree of nervousness on the part of stakeholders outside the government who are worried that the government will not have hearings.
Of course the worry also is that more and more of the regulations, the decision-making around levels of wages, the ratio issues, the tuition areas etc, will not be made in the House, will not be made in public, will not be for all to see and hear and comment on. It will be done by the ministry and then by cabinet, by regulation. That is a pattern on almost every single major bill. What does that mean? It means there is a diminution of the role of this Legislature, which, in my opinion, diminishes the role of the people who are representing the people of Ontario, and I say this for all parties.
This is true; there's a pattern there. Responsible government means that the government should put forward its program, allow a chance for debate and a chance, often, for subsequent hearings, and - a tiny step - an opportunity that once those hearings are complete, you aren't given until just the next sessional day, by 10 o'clock in the morning, to respond to depositions, in numbers of 80 or 90, and draft in legalese your response to what you've heard from most of the depositions and presentations, which were very thoughtful; a chance to incorporate those. That makes sense. We hadn't heard that before. That is something that should be added.
This particular group may be affected adversely. Ah, the government hadn't thought of that. Here's a suggestion. Here's a way of getting around it. That's the beauty of the process, the absolute beauty of democracy, and yet it is undercut.
We have a Legislature in Canada that is employing closure and time allocation on every single major bill, more than any other Legislature, and we have the most undemocratic Legislature due to the rule changes of the House that this government brought in. I feel very embarrassed about that. I have to tell my constituents about that. Believe me, if there's a change in government, we are going to change that. Our leader, Dalton McGuinty, has said that he will bring about changes to make sure that this particular Legislature is redemocratized and modernized.
The Deputy Speaker: Your time has expired.
Mr Baird: He's promising to get rid of the rule changes.
The Deputy Speaker: Would you please find a seat.
Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey-Owen Sound): Give us five minutes.
The Deputy Speaker: No. Would you please take a seat. It being almost 9:30, this House stands adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.
The House adjourned at 2127.