L041B - Thu 8 Oct 1998 / Jeu 8 Oct 1998 1
The House met at 1830.
Ms Frances Lankin (Beaches-Woodbine): On a point of order, Madam Speaker: There obviously isn't a quorum of government members. Would you ascertain, please.
The Acting Speaker (Ms Marilyn Churley): Clerk, can you check and see if there's a quorum, please.
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: Orders of the day.
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.
The Acting Speaker (Ms Marilyn Churley): We'll resume. I believe the last speaker was Mr Duncan from the Liberal Party. Responses and comments?
Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre): I'd like to comment on the remarks of the members from Windsor-Walkerville and Ottawa Centre. During their remarks they focused on a key issue that we feel very strongly about, and that is the need for public hearings.
We know this government has a disdain for the public. God forbid working people having a say in the important business of Mike Harris's agenda, but the reality is that you owe it not just to the workers who are now in the trades, the apprentices who are in the trades, but anybody who's watching in terms of their children having an opportunity to have a fair and appropriate apprenticeship system that at the end of the day gives them the skills and the qualifications they need to uphold the tremendous tradition tradespeople have in Ontario. That can only be done if those individuals and their representatives get an opportunity to see what's inside Bill 55, have an opportunity to voice their opinion on the importance of having and continuing an effective apprenticeship program for the young people of this province.
The government likes to talk about the fact that they care so much about young people. They can talk about the fact that they recognize that the rate of unemployment among our youth is higher than any other age group, but when it comes to the rubber hitting the road and actually doing something, the words mean nothing. Once again, anything to do with working people, their working conditions, their ability to have decent wages and decent benefits, is under attack by this government. We challenge you and say you have an obligation to provide public hearings.
Mr Tom Froese (St Catharines-Brock): We heard just a second ago from the member for Hamilton Centre. The bill, the Apprenticeship and Certification Act, does exactly the opposite of what he says. It actually provides flexibility in apprenticeships and the certification system. It provides workers and employers with excellent programs in existing - and, most important, I think the bill addresses those emerging skills markets or skills opportunities or occupations. It streamlines and clarifies the roles in allowing specific requirements to be determined outside of the new act and regulations. Rather than putting it in the act, it provides the opportunity to make those through regulations.
The member for Hamilton Centre made reference to youth unemployment and actually the current act itself creates barriers for the participation of youth. He says he's a champion of youth and the unemployed. We have 14.5% youth unemployment in the province. I would think he would embrace this act which provides more opportunity for young people to consider more trades that are there. What it really does is provide more flexibility.
Ms Frances Lankin (Beaches-Woodbine): On a point of order, Madam Speaker: Would you ascertain whether or not there's a quorum?
The Acting Speaker: Clerk, could you check and see if there's a quorum, please.
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: Further questions and comments?
Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I must say that the speeches I just heard from members of the Liberal caucus - in fact I heard them last day - on this subject were outstanding. They made all the salient points that were to be made and I really believe they understand fully the implications of this bill.
One part that I will isolate is that of tuition because we know the history of tuition with this government. If you want to find a comparison, look at the tuition for community colleges and universities, which is now sky-high - in fact, the sky's the limit - because we have a situation where it's deregulated. Some people within the university community - not the students - have applauded this and said, "This is great because we need the money." Indeed, universities must be adequately funded, but here we are going to the hard-pressed students, those who might be affected by this particular bill, for instance, those who need the jobs, and we're saying to them, "You have to pay a higher and higher tuition."
What is the consequence of that? There are two sets of people who will be able to access university and community colleges and perhaps, if it happens, an apprenticeship. Those two sets of people are going to be (a) the very, very clever people who have the marks which will allow them to obtain scholarships, and that's fine; and (b) the very wealthy people. But for those who come from a house where there's a modest income - perhaps there will be three or four children in the family and not a very high income - they're going to have to put themselves into such debt that they won't get out of debt for years and years, because this government is saying that tuition shall go up. The rising tuition is going to bring us back to the 1940s and 1950s, where only the very best students academically and only the very wealthiest students will have access to our education system.
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Ms Lankin: I'm pleased to respond to the comments from the member for Windsor-Walkerville. In particular, I want to address the need for public hearings on this bill. While there are a number of issues, there are four key issues I would like to raise, because I think it's important for legislators to hear from members of the public and particularly to hear from those who will be affected by this legislation. They're very aptly contained in a letter from a woman whose name is Colleen Twomey. She's a 35-year-old hospital worker who was laid off and has gone into an apprenticeship now.
The first point she makes is her concern that the government's plan to target apprenticeship programs to the youth sector will exclude someone like her. She goes on to say that the government's desire to transfer the responsibility for setting wage levels for apprenticeships to employers and workers to discuss will result in her being trapped in low-wage jobs through that apprenticeship.
She already had to take a major cut in pay, being laid off from her hospital job, to go into an apprenticeship. She's trying to get her life back together and to retrain. She's doing the right thing, but worries about whether or not there will be fair treatment of apprenticeships with respect to wage levels set out; and with lower wage levels that are attendant with that proposal, the impossible situation people will be in trying to pay for user fees or tuition fees in order to enter the apprenticeship, which is another part of the proposal that's not been clarified by the minister in terms of levels but that is of great concern and is seen as a potential barrier to participation in apprenticeships.
Of course the fourth point is the proposal to phase out regulated journeyperson-to-apprenticeship ratios and replace them with voluntary measures and guidelines. This I think is nothing more than an invitation for a full journeyperson's wages and people to be replaced by apprenticeships. It's open to serious abuse. Those are the things we need to hear about and it is very important that we hold public hearings on this bill.
The Acting Speaker: The member for Windsor-Walkerville.
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville): I appreciate the comments of my colleagues from Hamilton, Beaches-Woodbine, St Catharines and St Catharines-Brock. I wanted to remind members, particularly on the government side, that what I spoke about last night was the impact these changes have not only in terms of accessibility but, moreover, in terms of quality of apprenticeship and ultimately what effect that has on Ontario's competitive position.
I remind members, as I said last night, that in terms of ISO 9000 quality ratings, Ontario is the highest jurisdiction in North America. Yes, we agree there is need for change in our apprenticeship program, but we believe the steps you have taken are ultimately going to lead to a diminution of quality which will leave Ontario in a less competitive position.
From a legislative perspective, hearings are extremely important. I'm given to understand that there may be a flicker of hope, that as a result of the persuasiveness of our House leader and of the arguments made by the Liberal caucus in demanding these hearings -
Ms Lankin: Oh, please.
Mr Bradley: And the NDP.
Ms Lankin: Thank you.
Mr Duncan: - and the NDP, the government is indeed contemplating public hearings. I would urge the government, as the Liberal caucus has urged, as my House leader has urged, as we have urged in our speeches, that public hearings are a necessity. Let's give people an opportunity to have real input into this legislation. It's important that as we proceed with this piece of legislation these hearings happen. It's also important, I would suggest to the government, that if you have hearings, it might be a good idea to let us know what's going to be in the regulations as well, so that all the issues can be on the table, so that a full debate can happen, so that the government's full position can be put forward. We look forward to those hearings and welcome the government House leader's -
The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. Further debate?
Mr Christopherson: I want to begin by picking up again on the important issue of public hearings. It really is a shame that at this point in the evolution of democracy the opposition has to spend so much time and effort asking for nothing more than the opportunity for people who are affected by this legislation to have their say.
I would remind the government members and I would remind anyone watching this evening of the track record of this government when it comes to public hearings. People will remember Bill 7, not just amendments to the Ontario Labour Relations Act but a completely brand new act in total from front to back, a totally new Ontario Labour Relations Act, a bill that took away successor rights from OPSEU, which you didn't campaign on in the election. It's not like you had a mandate and you could claim that you had the mandate to do it. You didn't tell anybody you were planning to do that to them. They're the only group of workers in the province you did it to.
You made scabs legal again in Ontario, a disgraceful act that has had thousands of workers out on the street and their families without income longer than would ever be necessary because you said to employers, "Not only is it legally okay, but please, please, go ahead and hire scabs to go in and do the jobs of those workers who are out on a picket line fighting to get a decent collective agreement." How many public hearings did you give to a bill that did all of that? None. Not one week, not one day, not one hour.
I would remind members of the government that at the time you rammed that bill through, the bill I just spoke of that did all the things that I've just said, that you rammed through second reading, committee of the whole and third reading in one night - Halloween to be exact. The bill was introduced, I believe, on October 4 and by October 31 it was law. Not one minute - unheard of in the history of Ontario, never before. A Tory, NDP or Liberal government had never changed even a comma in the Ontario Labour Relations Act without serious, meaningful consultation with the Ontario Federation of Labour, the body that represents the labour movement at the provincial level - never done. You rammed that bill through and said, "That's fine. We don't need to hear from anybody."
Bill 26: You not only changed the whole structure of governing in this province by virtue of all the laws that you took out of debate from this place and sent into the secrecy of the cabinet room by making them regulations - a mammoth bill. You tried to ram it through at the end of the year, just before the Christmas break, when you were hoping everybody was watching somewhere else. You tried to ram that through.
I would remind you that Bill 26 also created the Health Services Restructuring Commission, which has wreaked havoc in all our communities, every single community, after your Premier said during the campaign, "Oh, I have no plans to close any hospitals." But you made sure the restructuring commission was closing them for you. You created it, you appointed those people and you're closing those hospitals just as much as the people signing those papers. Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital, for example, in my own community is on the chopping block for that reason. It reached the point where, believe it or not, the Liberals and the NDP actually worked together and hijacked this place.
Mr Douglas B. Ford (Etobicoke-Humber): No kidding. That's a true story.
Mr Christopherson: You're darned right it's true. We hijacked this place, and why would we do it? It's certainly not because there's any great big love affair between these two parties. It was because it was the only way we could force you to recognize that you had an obligation - a moral obligation, an ethical obligation and a traditional obligation - to allow people to have some kind of say. All it really got at the end of day was a couple of more weeks, but that represented a doubling of what we had before. Even then, there wasn't enough time for people to take in all of what that bill did. You wonder why we stand and spend so much time asking and demanding and pleading - you've got the majority - to give people their fundamental democratic right to be heard.
Bill 99: You promised to give us province-wide public hearings. You gave us six measly days in the middle of summer - unheard of again for a bill that mammoth.
Bill 31: Just a few months ago, before the summer break. That is causing all kinds of chaos in the construction industry that is going to lead to the watering down, if not the elimination, of province-wide agreements. All of that happened in another bill and you didn't give one minute of public hearings to that bill. You rammed it through in the final day, again hoping nobody would pay any attention - it was the final days, just before summer - that you could get away with it. That's exactly what you did. So on this bill we again say to you, you have an obligation. Whether you like working people or not, you owe it to them to have a say on something that affects the young people of our province as fundamentally as Bill 55 does.
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The government member for St Catharines-Brock, when he commented earlier, said in terms of my comments in responding to previous speakers that I had it backwards, that no, this wasn't going to hurt the young people, this wasn't going to hurt apprentices; this was going to be good for them. You've said that about every piece of labour legislation you brought into this place. It wasn't true on any of those and it's not true on this one. You have done nothing in this Legislature, in terms of laws that affect working people and their rights and ability to have a decent wage and decent benefits for the work they perform, that hasn't hurt them, and hurt them dramatically.
As we ask questions of the Chair of Management Board about the report in the papers today about the government's possible use of scabs in the upcoming negotiations if there happens to be a strike with OPSEU, I couldn't help but recall that the last time -
Hon Janet Ecker (Minister of Community and Social Services): Point of order, Madam Speaker: I do believe we're supposed to be debating Bill 55, the apprenticeship act. I've heard very few comments from the honourable member that are actually addressing the very important -
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Order. I'm listening carefully to the member's speech and I'm asking all members to remember what bill we're debating tonight, but I must tell you that I've heard the member repeatedly come back to that particular bill this evening.
Mr Christopherson: It's important that we understand the context of this bill in terms of what you've done to labour legislation up to this point in time, to understand that you have done nothing to help working people at all in legislation you've introduced, and this is the same thing. I've said to the minister before, who suddenly has gained such arrogance, that she hasn't done nearly enough positive work in this province to acquire that kind of arrogance that she shows in this House day after day, and the contempt she shows for opposition and our rights in this place.
In terms of remembering where we've been, I raise the issue of what happened when we talked about the OPSEU situation and the possible use of scabs, because scabs affect the work world that these apprentices are going into. It led to blood on the streets. That's the truth. There was blood on the streets as a result of Bill 7 and the strike you caused with OPSEU. We told you it would happen at the time and we are telling you now that there's nothing in Bill 55 that's good for young people and good for apprentices.
How can it be good for them that you're going to raise tuition fees? How is that possibly good for young people, who oftentimes barely have enough money to survive? How is that supposed to help anybody? By that theory, they ought to go talk to the seniors who are paying the higher copayments - which is just another word for "user fees." Ask them how that has helped improve the lives of seniors in our province. It hasn't. Increasing the tuition fees on apprentices, introducing them in the first place and raising them to the levels you're probably thinking of, cannot be helpful. It doesn't make common sense that if you charge apprentices more money, somehow their life is better.
What else are you doing in Bill 55? No longer will the legislation state what the wages are going to be. I had some experience of this when I was working at International Harvester and I was an elected labour representative there. We had apprentices under the collective agreement. They had a guarantee through that collective agreement - by the way, the only people who are going to have the same kinds of rights that apprentices have now under the current laws after you pass Bill 55 are people who are lucky enough to have a collective agreement where it spells out the privileges they're entitled to and the rights they're entitled to and the wages they're entitled to. If you don't have a collective agreement and you're thinking of going into an apprenticeship after Bill 55 passes, you're going to lose, because no longer will the law tell employers that you have to pay a certain percentage, depending on what time of the apprenticeship you're in - and it increases with each year of experience, because obviously the employer is getting more benefit.
These apprentices are working on the job; they're performing duties. They're being supervised by journeypeople and they're paid a percentage of that journeyperson's wage rate. As the apprentice learns more and can contribute more to the profitability of the firm, they are paid a higher percentage of that journeyperson's top wage. It worked; it was a good system; it was a fair system. It gave us the most skilled workforce in the world. We can put our skilled tradespeople up with anyone else in the world. That system served us well, served our young people well, served business well. Now there's no longer a guarantee.
Now what are we going to do? Now we're going to say to employers and apprentices, "You can negotiate what this rate is going to be." Right. So now we've got in most cases a young person who's thankful they've got an opportunity to be an apprentice, and somehow they're expected to go in and negotiate with their employer something close to what the legislation provides them in terms of the wages they get, the percentage of the journeyperson's top rate. Come on. The boss there, of course, is worried about the bottom line. That's their job. That's why they're there. That's either why they own the company or why they are management for the company. So of course they're going to go in and keep that rate as low as they think they can get away with. Anybody can see that. It's going to result in apprentices making less money.
All the benefits to changes you make go to those who already have, and those who are on the weaker end of the equation get less again. In this case you're going after the vulnerability of apprentices who, quite frankly, at the beginning of their apprenticeship, have little or no bargaining capacity. If you've got an unskilled worker walking through the door, how do you leverage that against the next person behind you who also has no skills, because that's why they're in an apprenticeship. So it's going to be cap in hand, "Please, sir, pay me a decent wage for the work I'm doing." That's what you're doing. That's the reality of taking it out of the law, that has served us so well, that says, "You will pay this percentage at this point in an apprenticeship training period."
That fits with you folks, doesn't it? Anything that lowers wages, lowers the value of labour, whether it's public sector or private sector. That's why you did what you did to OPSEU; that's why you've done to municipalities what you have in terms of putting them into financial constraints in terms of how it affects CUPE; that's why you've made scabs legal again, so in the private sector they can negotiate down wages and benefits of workers.
That's what you're doing. You do it at the same time that you stand up and say that you care about young people, that you care about skilled trades. You really are good at the words, but anybody who's living out there under your laws, where it affects them or their family members, knows that it's empty words.
I speak of the pride that our skilled trades have in Ontario. I want to say to you that they take as much pride in their profession as most of us should as elected representatives, certainly as the good doctor across the way takes in his profession, and any lawyers who are sitting over there. You take pride in your profession, you take pride in the job you do because of the years it took you to learn that job, learn the skill. You apply yourself. You sacrifice a lot of your life to make sure you are a professional.
Our skilled tradespeople in Ontario take just as much pride as any of you in terms of the careers you currently have or those you've had before. Why? Because they know that when they compare their skills and ability and the kind of craftsmanship and the kind of work and the kind of safety they can bring to their job - because how they do their job has a lot to do with how safe our buildings are, how safe our electrical systems are, how safe our bridges are. They're a key part of this, and one of the things you're going to change is one of the cornerstones of creating that kind of pride and that kind of skill and that kind of public safety. I think someone who's repairing a large truck on the highway has as much to do with safety as anybody else, for obvious reasons.
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What are you going to do? You're going to provide guidelines. Here we go again with guidelines, self-reliance, self-regulating. Everything is over to the industry because you're just convinced they'll do a good job. You're going to provide guidelines about the ratio of journeypersons to apprentices, and instead of saying very clearly in legislation, "Thou shalt have, in any given trade, X number of journeypersons per apprentice," you're going to replace that with, "Gee, friends," - and they are your friends - "we'd really appreciate if you'd sort of keep an eye on the ratio thing so it doesn't get too far out of whack, if you could just sort of take care of that."
Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): Come to my fundraiser.
Mr Christopherson: Yes, "We'll talk about it later at my fundraiser next week."
Ms Lankin: Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Mr Christopherson: My colleague from Beaches says, "Nudge, nudge, wink, wink." That's what's going to happen.
Again, I was there. I know how this works. The reason you have these kinds of ratios is that people are busy, they're working hard. Those journeypersons are busy, and they're performing their skill. They're applying their knowledge on the job, and at the same time they're expected to keep an eye - they and their colleagues - on these apprentices, both to make sure they're doing the job correctly and learning the right kind of procedures and methods so they'll be good, skilled tradespersons and also so the job site is safe. If they're installing gas pipes in a public building, we want to make sure - every one of us - that job is done safely and properly.
If you leave to the whim of employers what the ratio will be, at the end of the day we're going to water down the skill of those apprentices, because there won't be as many journeypersons around them. There will be more apprentices around, and there will be fewer journeypersons.
It's like - I don't know, Doc, let me ask you. In my mind, it would be like lopping off a year of med school and saying, "Well, you don't need that much concentration; you can get away with a year less." If you've got fewer tradespeople and journeypeople around you to give you hands-on and you've got other apprentices around you, you're not going to learn as much. The job won't be as thorough, the job won't be as safe.
I'm wrapping up because we only get 20 minutes. You've cut back the democracy in this place.
If you disagree with that so much and you think that I and the others are so wrong, then take it out to public hearings. Come on out for public hearings and really come and beat us up. Show us where we're so wrong. I say the opposite is true. Let us get out there and talk to the people who know this business, and they'll prove that you're the ones who are wrong with this bill.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): I'm pleased to make a few comments to the member for Hamilton Centre. I agree with some of the things he said.
Mr Christopherson: Do you want to reconsider?
Mr Carroll: I don't agree quite that much.
I agree with the fact that we have the best-trained workforce. I agree with the fact that our tradespeople do quality work and they should feel proud. I agree with the fact that safety is important and we must protect safety in the workplace. The thing I don't agree with is when he tells us that our current system has served our young people well. It has not served our young people well. As a result of that, we have an enormous number of young people who in fact do not have the skills and cannot find the ability to get the skills.
He talked about an unskilled person having no bargaining power. Of course they have no bargaining power - that's the problem - because they're unskilled. We need to give them the skills through an apprenticeship program so that they in fact have some bargaining power so that when they come to the workforce they can say to the employer: "I have these skills. They're documented in my apprenticeship. I now command so much money." Our old system has not served our young people well, and we need to change that.
He talked about there being fewer journeypersons around. Maybe there will be, but only for a short period of time because we need to train some more. The object of the game here is to train some more people in the skilled trades. We have a shortage now. I'm sure he's aware of the fact that we have a shortage, so I'm surprised at him arguing against a plan that is designed to create more skilled workers and more skilled labourers. When they have those skills and they can then come to the workforce, his unions can sign them on and can get them to pay their union dues and can bargain on their behalf, but the first thing we need to do is train them so they have some bargaining power and they can find productive work.
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): I would just like to concur with the speech from the member for Hamilton Centre. He always talks about these kinds of issues in a very passionate and forceful way.
The area I would like to talk about very briefly is this whole notion of tuition fees and tuitions for training.
Hon Mrs Ecker: We are debating apprenticeship.
Ms Lankin: A part of the bill is to set out tuition fees, Janet. Read your briefing note.
Mr Gerretsen: Maybe if the minister would read the bill before coming into the House and starting to heckle people, then she would know a little bit more about it rather than accusing other people of not having read the bill.
It seems to me that just about everything this government does is making it harder for people who are trying to advance their education in one way or another, trying to advance their life skills and their educational skills. They're making it tougher and tougher. We've seen it in the adult education area, where whole groups of people will no longer be eligible for adult education. You can deny it, but come to my school board and talk to some of the people in their 20s there who are no longer able to take adult education courses currently because the funding is rapidly disappearing. You're doing exactly the same thing here.
We all know it's tough to get apprentices into a program. One of the reasons is the fact that labour rates frequently are quite a bit higher or just about at the apprenticeship level. How are you going to get young workers interested in actually learning a trade, which is going to take them a certain period of time while they're apprentices, when at the same time you're demanding tuition fees from them? Why are we making it tougher on young people in this province to in effect better themselves?
Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I want to congratulate my colleague the member for Hamilton Centre for laying out quite clearly what this is all about. This has nothing to do with trying to provide more training opportunities for young people through apprenticeship programs. That's utter nonsense. That's not what this is all about.
It's clear the legislation, when you read it, is basically about deregulating the wage structure within the apprenticeship program, deregulating the ratios of how many apprentices to journeymen so that we can have far more apprentices, unsupervised, on their own, doing their own thing, not being properly supervised by journeymen and, more importantly, it's about multi-skilling.
This is Mike Harris's hand-off to Sears Canada. That's the way I see it. Sears wants to be able to sell somebody an air conditioner and have it installed in their house by one multi-skilled person rather than having people who are qualified to do the work do the work that needs to be done.
Basically what he's doing is a hand-off to the private sector, saying: "You can fragment the skills. The air conditioning people, fragment out part of that skill so that we're able to train that person also to do a little bit of electrical, a little bit of mechanical and maybe a little bit of welding to go with it so you can have one person do all of the work." In the end, if let's say you even agreed that was a good idea, it means less workers. Less workers, worse economy. But what scares me is that you're going to end up in a situation where you're going to have people who are unqualified in industry doing things that are quite dangerous.
I would suggest to the parliamentary assistant, who's a veterinarian, the following: How would he feel, and where would that leave us, if we were to deskill the veterinarians in this province, if we were to hand off that only certain vets can deal with one half of the horse and the other veterinarians can deal with the other half of the horse? I wonder what side of the horse the member for Northumberland would be working on if we were to deskill his set. I would suggest his skills would be towards the back end of the horse because this is where this legislation is coming from and it should be put real quick in the back end of a horse.
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Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): It's nice of you to mention the profession of veterinary medicine. I can tell you that we don't have unions; it's not necessary. What we have is a college, to which we're required to belong to get a licence. The lobby group is a volunteer organization and members belong to it because they want to, because it's a worthwhile organization. If unions were in the same role, that their members wanted to belong rather than had to, it would raise tremendously their credibility in the eyes of the public in general.
I've heard the member for Hamilton Centre talk a lot about scabs and I can only assume that "scabs" is an acronym for "special citizens assisting bosses." I have no idea where else "scabs" might have come from but it just has to be an acronym such as that.
I hear the members of the NDP talking an awful lot about apprentices getting less money and that people just can't take less money, that they don't want to. As a matter of fact, what people in this country are happy for is a job. That's why the so-called term you use of scabs going across the picket line - they're just happy to have a job. It's very satisfying to have a job in this country.
You say that this government has done nothing to help workers. What did you do to help workers? You managed to create, net, minus 10,000 jobs. We have created approximately 400,000 jobs. Why? Because we've stimulated the economy, we've cut the income tax by some 30% in Ontario, we've cut corporate taxes and we've cut payroll taxes such as the employer health tax. That's what's stimulated the economy and created the close to 400,000 jobs. We have not come along in the style of an NDP government and lost some 10,000 jobs as your government ended up doing.
Mr Bisson: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: You would know, and I need your guidance in this, the standing orders are quite clear, that when members of the House are speaking here they have to be truthful and make sure that everything they say is not a falsehood. I would wonder how you allowed that former speech, considering everything he said was untrue.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Cochrane South, you're out of order. I have to ask you to withdraw that.
Mr Bisson: Withdraw what part? I didn't hear you, sorry.
The Acting Speaker: You know what you said and I ask you to withdraw it.
Mr Bisson: I withdraw.
The Acting Speaker: Response?
Mr Christopherson: I thank my colleagues for at least the interest in responding, if I'm not all that enchanted with the comments themselves.
I would point out to the parliamentary assistant, the member for Northumberland, two things. One is that you go talk to the workers at Provincial Papers or de Havilland and ask them about the approach of our government in terms of maintaining and creating jobs versus the approach you're taking and we'll see what they have to say.
I know there are an awful lot of people who care about labour laws in this province who are watching this debate. I would urge them to pay particular attention to the argument coming from the parliamentary assistant, because when he talks about volunteer organizations, he's talking about eliminating the Rand formula. Make no mistake about it: Any kind of re-elected Tory government means the elimination of the Rand formula, and that means the elimination of the modern-day labour movement, and it means the elimination of the ability to have decent wages and decent benefits, and he knows it. People ought to read that directly into what he said there.
Let me also thank the members for Cochrane South and Kingston and The Islands.
I want to spend a moment on the comments of the member from Chatham. He kept talking about training and he really sort of typified the spin you're putting on this, that this is going to create more apprentices and you're going to create more training and that whole line. The reality is that although it sounds the same as when the Minister of the Environment -
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Order. Stop the clock. Take your seat. I would ask the government members to come to order, please. I couldn't hear the member. Thank you. Start the clock, please.
Mr Christopherson: I would mention to people that just like when the Minister of the Environment stands up and says the environment is better because we've improved the legislation, when the Minister of Education stands up and says we've made things better in terms of education and we support teachers and all that garbage, the fact of the matter is that anybody who's in those worlds knows that the opposite is true, and the opposite is true in terms of how this is going to hurt apprentices.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Hon David Johnson (Minister of Education and Training): There is one thing that the member for Hamilton Centre and I would agree upon, and that is that the member for Chatham-Kent I think has sized up this issue quite nicely in his two minutes of response: that the apprenticeship system as we know it over the years has not produced the total results in Ontario that we need. We simply do not have enough people becoming involved in the apprenticeship system and gaining the skills we need within our economy in Ontario.
You can argue that one way or another, and this goes back years and years - it goes back decades - way before I was ever involved in education or the apprenticeship system, but people would say that we need skilled workers in certain trades in Ontario. Where were they coming from? Not enough of them were coming from Ontario. In many cases we went abroad, and people from overseas, from Europe, were required to come into Ontario to provide the skills in our economy because within our own borders we didn't seem to have a system that trained the people, that produced the people we need within our economy.
The people of Ontario know this is a basic fact. This is a basic fact of life. We've been well served by many people who have come from abroad and who indeed have become citizens of Canada and made wonderful contributions to our economy and to our country in many different ways. Nevertheless, should we not have a system within our own boundaries that gives the opportunities to our young people to have the skills that are in demand? Do we not owe it to our young people to develop a system that does that? I think that's what the member for Chatham-Kent is saying and that's exactly what we're doing.
Mr Christopherson: It's not what you're doing.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Hamilton Centre, come to order.
Hon David Johnson: The member for Kingston and The Islands made a comment with regard to the funding. I will say that he's absolutely right to raise the funding issue as well. I was a little busy here and I didn't catch all of his comments, but I'm sure he was alluding to his concern that over the last three years, and up into the middle of next year, the federal government has reduced its funding from $42 million a year in the apprenticeship program in Ontario to zero. That must have been what the member for Kingston and The Islands was referring to. I'm sure that's what he was referring to.
Mr Gerretsen: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: The minister knows quite well I was not talking about funding. I was talking about tuition.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Kingston and The Islands, that is not a point of order.
Hon David Johnson: I didn't quite hear what the member was referring to. Probably what he was referring to then was that during that same period of time, the provincial government increased its allocation of funds to the apprenticeship program. Or perhaps -
Mr Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, on a point of order: I have just indicated to the minister that I did not talk about the funding, so he should -
The Acting Speaker: That is not a point of order. Perhaps later you'll get the opportunity to correct your record.
Hon David Johnson: If it wasn't the federal reduction or the provincial increase to the apprenticeship program, then maybe he was referring to the overall federal reduction of $2.4 billion in health, social and education programs in Ontario. That's probably what he was referring to.
The apprenticeship program is part of an overall training program that we are developing in Ontario, so that the apprenticeship program -
Mr Bradley: Oh, the amount you're throwing away on the tax cut to the rich.
Interjection.
The Acting Speaker: Order, please. Member for Scarborough-Ellesmere, member for St Catharines, come to order.
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Hon David Johnson: The apprenticeship program -
Interjection.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Hon David Johnson: Can we have a little order from the member for St Catharines?
The apprenticeship program is part of an overall screening program in Ontario. I would commend to the members on both sides of the House a brochure we have released entitled Better Skills, More Jobs: Ontario's Plan for Tomorrow's Job Market. This brochure outlines the vision of the province of Ontario to train, with the new integrated system, 750,000 people a year under a labour market agreement with the federal government.
The member for St Catharines and the member for Fort William the other day raised the issue of, have we been able to come to an agreement with the federal government, and the answer is no. The federal government has not come to the table to deal with Ontario.
Mr Gerretsen: Why not? Everybody else has.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Kingston and The Islands, come to order.
Hon David Johnson: I would seek the support of the members opposite to insist that the federal government, your colleagues, allow Ontario to have the same sort of arrangements that the other provinces have had. Frankly, it's a travesty that the federal government has been willing to negotiate deals with all of the other provinces but will not negotiate a deal with Ontario. I'm sure it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that they have 101 members in Ontario and enjoy the opportunity for the ribbon-cutting ceremonies etc associated with their portion of the training. I'm sure it would have nothing to do with that. I feel quite certain, now that the provincial Liberals are aware of this problem that we face, they will fight with us, will fight arm in arm with the federal government to get the same kind of labour market agreement that the other provinces have.
This will be important because within the context of an integrated agreement, we can deal with all the training needs of the people of Ontario in a reasonable fashion, avoid the duplication and overlap that exist in the programs and put the proper emphasis on all the training programs, including apprenticeship and other skills training, literacy, on-the-job training, all the various aspects that will be needed.
I'm very pleased that there's been a great deal of consultation. The issue of consultation has arisen. There's been a great deal of consultation. This consultation, I must stay, predates me considerably, but even this year there have been six meetings, for example, with the Council of Ontario Construction Associations, COCA; three meetings with the Ontario Federation of Labour; a meeting with the Canadian Auto Workers union; meetings with the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association -
Mr Christopherson: The OFL? You didn't have any meaningful discussion with them.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Hamilton Centre, come to order.
Hon David Johnson: - five meetings with the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council, and on and on it goes, meetings this year and many meetings before this.
Ms Lankin: After you wrote the legislation. "This is our consultation. This is what we're going to do."
The Acting Speaker: Member for Beaches-Woodbine, come to order.
Hon David Johnson: Notwithstanding that, this government certainly does not have any objection to public hearings. I imagine these public hearings will be arranged with the House leaders' office. I will certainly be looking forward to public hearings across the province.
Ms Lankin: Is that a commitment? There will be public hearings?
Hon David Johnson: Absolutely. We are most interested in continuing dialogue with the people of Ontario, as we are on all pieces of legislation. We're most anxious to carry on the consultation process, most anxious to carry on with the public hearing process.
Mr Christopherson: What happened with Bill 7? What happened with 26? What happened with 31?
The Acting Speaker: Member for Hamilton Centre, come to order.
Hon David Johnson: I'm very confident that the House leaders will be able to arrange such a public hearing process and I certainly look forward to it.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Etobicoke-Humber, come to order.
Hon David Johnson: I would like to say that there's a good deal of support for moving ahead and I think we'll see that support at public hearings. We've certainly seen that support through the public consultation process. I know, for example, that the president of the Canadian Tooling Manufacturers' Association is in full support of Bill 55 and looks forward to continuing involvement. Charles Greco, the chair and president of the Ontario Hostelry Institute, not only supports Ontario's apprenticeship system, but it moves beyond that and is the underpinning of building blocks for job creation in this province. You know that the hospitality sector is the second-largest employer in Ontario, and they are in full support of moving ahead. The Ontario Trucking Association, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, COCA, the Labourers' International Union of North America, these are all organizations concerned about the adequate supply of well-trained individuals and giving our young people opportunities to strengthen their skills and participate in the economy of Ontario.
Our goal is to double the number of apprentices coming into the system. Currently we have, unfortunately, only about 11,000 a year coming into the system. Our goal is to double that to 22,000. Through this bill and other measures, I believe we can reach that goal. There are difficulties that the current legislation has. Bear in mind that the current legislation was put together in 1964. That means it's over 30 years old, and a lot has changed in the last 30 years. We need to deal with the realities of 1998.
The current legislation requires an apprentice, for example, to spend a specified amount of time. It does not speak to performance measures, as an example. We believe that apprentices and their workers and their employers deserve better than that. So we intend to work with the industry to create a more rigorous training system, a system in which apprentices tackle clear learning benchmarks that are set by the employers and the workers in that trade. That is a key proposal of the approach, that the industry be instrumental in determining what makes most sense for that particular industry. By the industry, I'm not only talking about the employer but the workers. The unions, the employees are involved through the provincial advisory committees and they will have a say -
Mr Christopherson: Why do you oppose it if it's so wonderful?
The Acting Speaker: Member for Hamilton Centre, come to order.
Hon David Johnson: These committees have been asking for more authority, more say. They are in support of more authority and more say.
Mr Gerretsen: Why do you oppose it if it's so wonderful?
The Acting Speaker: Order, member for Kingston and The Islands.
Hon David Johnson: This is what we have determined through the consultations and this will assist their industry in having more flexibility to deal with their particular situation.
Mr Bradley: I remember when he was mayor he always used to tell the truth.
The Acting Speaker: Take your seat for a moment. Member for St Catharines, you have to withdraw that.
Mr Bradley: I simply said whenever he was mayor -
The Acting Speaker: Member for St Catharines, just withdraw it.
Mr Bradley: I withdraw that he always told the truth -
The Acting Speaker: Just withdraw it.
Mr Bradley: There it is. I did.
Hon David Johnson: There are some particular issues that have been raised. I can't possibly deal with all of them.
Interjections.
Hon David Johnson: It's a little hard to concentrate in here with the din. Can we have some order?
The Acting Speaker: Just take your seat for a moment. To the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere, don't tell me how to do my job. I would ask all people to come to order, from all sides of the House. The minister is right: There's a lot of noise, there is a din. And don't you tell me how to do my job again. Thank you.
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Hon David Johnson: One concern is with regard to the ratios. The provincial advisory committees feel they're in a position to offer advice in terms of the most appropriate ratios within their organizations. This is a safety issue; this is a quality issue. These are the people who are best positioned to understand the needs within their particular industry. These are the employers, the workers, union members and non-union members who are involved and who understand within their particular industry what are the appropriate ratios.
The current regulations, for example, although they establish ratios, do not prevent apprentices from working on one site and the journeypeople on another site or do not prevent apprentices working one shift and the journeypeople working on another shift. There is no assurance of quality, there is no assurance of safety, and we are going to fix that. The way we're going to fix that is by having confidence in the knowledge and ability of the people in the industry.
Obviously the members opposite feel they know what's best for each and every one of the numerous industries in the province. I guess they know what's best for the ironworkers and the tool and die makers and the cooks and bakers and all the different industries, but there's obviously a difference of opinion. We feel the industries themselves, the workers and the employers in the tool and die industry, in the hospitality industry, are the people who know what makes sense in their industries. These are the people who can establish the rules and regulations for us, what makes sense to attract more people into their industry, to attract more employers to train. That's what the whole approach will be. We respect their opinions and we will give their opinions more authority and more clout under the new set-up.
There are some other myths that have been posed in regard to the situation. One is that the minimum age requirement will be changed. In fact, the minimum age requirement of grade 10 is not in the current legislation; it is in the regulations. We will be making no change to the legislation with regard to grade 10. There's a concern with regard to the minimum age. The minimum age will certainly remain at 16. Bill 55 will ensure that 16 is the minimum age for an apprentice to sign a training agreement. So these myths have been spun out there in terms of discrediting the legislation, but I think we'll find as we go through the public hearings and continue consultation that they have been dealt with in a satisfactory fashion.
I see I'm down to two minutes. I'll only say that my experience - and I've had a couple of excellent experiences recently, in the last several months, with regard to the apprenticeship program in terms of an auto parts manufacturer in Newmarket. This auto parts manufacturer is a small firm with about 100 people, training a number of apprentices. They can't get enough skilled people into that plant, which is creating auto parts in Ontario, so much so that the apprentices, after five years, were making about $70,000 a year in this plant. Four of them were actually making over $70,000 a year after five years and some of them were making over $100,000 a year because of all the overtime they had to put in, because there is a shortage of skilled employees.
There are wonderful opportunities in the tool and die industry, wonderful opportunities in the automotive parts manufacturing field, where some 40% of the skilled people in that industry will be retiring over the next five or six years.
We have a big job to do in terms of improving the skills in the province, in terms of meeting the needs of the employers in the province. This bill will allow the flexibility to do it. This bill will be the first update of the apprenticeship bill in 30 years. This bill will call upon the people who are in the industry, who have the skills and the knowledge, to play a higher profile to assist in creating those extra-skilled positions and those jobs.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mr Joseph Cordiano (Lawrence): Yet again the minister proves that this government is really determined to water things down in Ontario. By watering it down, you're watering down the standards. You're ensuring that we're not getting the kind of highly skilled tradespersons we need in Ontario.
Mr Bradley: Mississippi North.
Mr Cordiano: Thank you.
Mr Bisson: You heard that?
Mr Cordiano: That was an unqualified support for what I was saying. Of course, one wonders if this is not the same thing that's being done over and over again. It's the same formula you're using. You're doing it to our schools. You're doing it to our hospitals. You're doing it in every aspect in our lives in Ontario.
But what's been the hallmark of this province and its success around the manufacturing sector has been the fact that we've had very highly skilled tradespersons. We've had the highest level of training. We've had a sector that others have looked to with envy because we had that high level of skills in the province.
What you're doing with this apprenticeship program is not making it possible for people to enter into these fields, not making certain that we are improving accessibility, that we're going to get even better, more highly trained, skilled persons. This bill fails to do that. This bill ensures that in fact we will not get that high level of skilled tradesperson, and that's why I think you're getting such objections to it from groups out there.
I understand that there's a need for a greater number of people to enter into these skilled workplaces and into these trades. There's no doubt that is an ongoing concern, but change for the sake of change which makes things worse is not acceptable in Ontario.
Mr Christopherson: In response to the minister's comments, first of all, in part of your remarks, Minister, you said that you want to respect the opinions of people who are affected by this, and yet earlier in your speech you talked about consultations and the fact that you'd met with so many groups.
The reality is that when you started to talk with any kind of seriousness, or wanted to, with the Ontario Federation of Labour, you'd already written the bill. The bill was already written. That's not consultation. That's just to give you the ability to stand up and read off a piece of paper, just as you did, "I had X number of meetings." That's not consultation, calling people in and saying, "I've already written the bill, but what have you got to say?" That's not the way we do things. At least it's certainly not the way that things used to be done under all three parties in the past. Only under this weird creation of Reform-a-Tories we've got over here do we get into this kind of bizarre world.
All of the things that you did talk about, you know what you didn't talk about? You didn't talk about the tuition fees. You didn't talk about that. You didn't answer those accusations, that that was going to be hurting apprentices, and answer how that was supposed to be helpful to apprentices.
You didn't talk about the ratios. Those ratios are crucial to maintaining the skills level of our journeypeople that you and your colleagues stand up and so blithely say you care about. Without those ratios we will not have the same quality and high-calibre tradespeople we now have, period. We won't.
You didn't talk about the fact that apprentices' wages are going to be less. That's just a sop to your business friends so they can have cheaper labour. That's all that is. You didn't address that, about the fact that it's your friends who get cheap labour and those apprentices get less income.
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Mr Froese: I would like to do something a little bit different than the opposition do when they just criticize and really don't come with any alternatives. I'd like to commend and thank the minister for his concern for our young people in Ontario. We're looking at how best we can educate our young people, how best we can train our young people, and looking at ways to ensure that our young people get the training and the skills needed to get well-paid jobs and, at the same time, meet the ever-growing skills shortages in many sectors of our economy today.
I'd like to commend the minister for his balanced approach, especially in this bill. He's done that in a number of areas in the Ministry of Education, but when we talk about the Apprenticeship and Certification Act, having flexible time with some of the restrictions that are there, in doing that, the apprentices will be able to go through their training at their own speed rather than at a set format, and keeping pace with the changing times as well, which will provide greater flexibility for employers to introduce new occupations under the apprenticeship program.
He mentioned how he's worked with the industry, and that's great, with the employers and the employees.
To continue the funding, the $42 million that we're doing - the member for Lawrence talked about funding. He should go back to his Liberal cousins in Ottawa. They took the funding away from this program.
Mr Bradley: As I was saying of the Minister of Education, at one time I used to enjoy his repartee, when he was the mayor of East York. I found him in those days to be an individual who was accurate in the comments that he made at all times, I thought. Now that he's become Minister of Education, he is compelled to provide the information which is provided by people such as Guy Giorno and the other backroom boys in the government.
Hon Mrs Ecker: What do you have about Guy Giorno? Are you jealous? You keep mentioning his name.
Mr Bradley: I keep mentioning the name of the king of the backroom boys because I want to point out to the people of this province that really the decisions are made largely with the advisers to the Premier of this province. If you quietly canvass some of your members who have not made it to the cabinet yet, you'll find out that they agree that the non-elected people who advise the Premier have far too much influence on this government. I don't expect they're going to get up and say that. In fact, I won't invite them to say it.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Order, order. Come to order.
Mr Bradley: But they know very well that much more power resides in the unelected people, the whiz kids in the Premier's office -
Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener): It must really have rankled you that Peterson's only adviser was his wife.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Kitchener.
Mr Bradley: - than reside in the caucus. I think the Premier would be far wiser to consult individual members of the caucus rather than simply having Guy Giorno and other whiz kids provide notes for various ministers to read in this House containing information which I consider to be inaccurate information, which I think is quite legal to say in this House.
The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Minister.
Hon David Johnson: It's with some sadness that I listen to the comments from the member for St Catharines, who is an individual I've always had a great deal of respect for even up to this very moment. But I think he does a discredit to the many people who have been involved in developing this approach to apprenticeship, which has involved consultations with a huge number of different groups and organizations across Ontario. To suggest that any one individual has had an undue influence on this I think does a discredit to the involvement of people from the automotive parts association or the Council of Ontario Construction Associations or indeed the Canadian Auto Workers union or so many other individuals across the province.
The hospitality industry is another one I mention in particular, having attended at the Royal York, seeing some of the young people training in the kitchens of the Royal York Hotel.
This is a sincere attempt to bring the apprenticeship system up to date. The member for St Catharines-Brock mentioned new occupations, and I just have a couple of examples: horticulturist, landscaper, greenskeeper is a new apprenticeship which was developed in 1986; network cabling specialist, developed just last year; information technology support analyst, help desk, developed about three years ago. These are indications of how our economy is changing, how our skills needs are changing, how our young people need the advantage of a more flexible system, how we need input from people across Ontario, people involved in these industries, to help us develop the kinds of approaches and programs.
Those are the real issues in this bill. That's why we're proud of this bill and intending to proceed with it.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Bradley: I notice that under the new rules written by Guy Giorno and others, the debate has now shrunk so that individuals who wish to speak on the bill are not allowed even 20 minutes, which is less than the half-hour they used to have, but 10 minutes. You can see how the government wishes to limit and shrink debate on all important legislation. It's unfortunate that more people in this province are not aware of that and that editorialists find it to be boring stuff to deal with.
In the limited 10 minutes that I have, I must say to the minister that I think the consultations are taking place tonight at the big Conservative fundraiser that is being held, where the Premier is attending. While he is speaking about the apprenticeship program and receiving the thanks of those who think they're now going to get lower-wage people to work for them in their industry, I'm wondering if he's going to be speaking to the executives of the oil companies in this province about the fact that they have again raised gasoline prices for the long weekend. I heard the Premier huffing and puffing in this House about what he was going to do, but when it comes down to calling them on the carpet, the only carpet they're on is the carpet at the fundraiser, and then everybody is back-slapping. I'll be interested to hear tomorrow from anybody who was at the fundraiser tonight whether the Premier calls to account the executives of the oil companies who just jacked up the gas prices in this province. But that is only peripheral to this bill. I want to deal with the provisions of this bill and what I'm concerned about.
First of all, overall the policies of this government, particularly as they relate to the employment force in Ontario, seem to want to make this province Mississippi North. In other words, instead of looking at a common denominator which is high, where we have highly skilled individuals who are able to obtain remuneration which allows them to raise their families and perhaps have some of the amenities that others have in the province, this government seems to want to crush that group and have a large number of people who are paid very little while the wealthiest people get wealthier because of that. That's most unfortunate, because I think we want to see everybody have that opportunity, not simply have somebody stand on somebody else's head in order to step up. I think we like to see people work together so that we have as many people as possible who are making those good wages and those good salaries in this province and are allowed to be trained.
Apprenticeship training is something we're all concerned about, quite obviously. I think we are always seeking answers which are going to allow more and more people into the workforce with the skills we hope they can acquire. There's no question about it, if you look at the demographics in some specific areas, we find that we're going to need a significant number of skilled people. I recognize that by the time they get into industry particularly, there are going to be changes in terms of automation that take place that may require fewer of those individuals. There are some people who applaud that and say, "That's progress, that's great stuff; we've downsized," or as they would say, "We've right-sized and we've shoved these people out the door while the profits go higher." That's one of the problems we've described from this side of the House.
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First of all, I should say that people understand. They don't like it and they feel saddened by it, but they understand that when a corporation is not making money or is losing money, the workforce is likely to shrink, that there's likely to be a situation where there are going to be layoffs. Nobody likes to see that but they understand it. What they don't understand and what they reject is those businesses which make unprecedented profits while they're rolling the bodies out into the street, the bodies being those who are no longer needed to perform services and work within that company.
I remember the Premier was attending a conference in Davos, Switzerland. The people who were there, some of the brightest people in terms of business and economics in the world, got together and one of the things they said they had to address was exactly that problem.
I see it in the banks now, for instance, where more and more the banks want us to use the machines. They're not going to need many apprentices in the bank for anything, if they ever needed apprentices in the bank, because they constantly pressure us to use the banking machines. They shrink the hours in which you can get at live employees in the bank, to deal with them, to talk to them, and they tell everybody, "If you go to the automated teller machine, it's much cheaper."
I know there are some people on the other side who think this is great stuff. It allows for higher and higher profits because there are fewer and fewer workers. But I ask the question, where are people going to work then? Not everybody can be out there in the stock market as a stock broker. Not everybody can be a member of the Legislature. The number of opportunities that are going to be there, particularly for people who don't have a privileged position where they know somebody so they can get a good job, or who don't have a high level of education for one reason or another, those people are going to be placed at a distinct disadvantage. Does this bill help those people? I don't think it does.
We have to have an emphasis on apprenticeship training. I think some of the members who have debated this bill in the House have made this point and it's a very valid point. But I don't think we should ever devalue work that is done with people's hands. Just because we happen to have a white collar or have a job where we work not with our hands in terms of manual work, it doesn't mean that kind of work should be demeaned in any way. It's been unfortunate over the years to watch people channel people into areas where they feel everybody is going to be a doctor or a lawyer or a political representative or some job where they don't have to work within an industrial setting. That's wrong. There are many skills that are needed out there, there are good jobs out there, and what we want our apprenticeship program to do is to allow as many people as possible to acquire those skills.
What this bill seems to be doing is lowering many of the standards, and that's standard practice with this government in so many areas. That's why I said what you want is Mississippi North. In some of the southern United States, in the sunbelt down there, people will say: "Isn't that great? They're leaving the north and going to the south." But of course the labour laws are such that they've diminished most workers' rights in many of those states. They have brought about conditions where people can hardly make a decent living at many of the jobs that are there. I want everybody in this province to have a chance to make that kind of decent living. That's why I think if we could develop an apprenticeship program that would bring about those skills for those folks, that would be great.
In terms of hearings, we should have hearings. We had a meeting this morning of the House leaders and it appears the government House leader has now conceded. The two opposition parties made representations to the government for hearings and we said, "Not just here in Toronto and not just when the House is sitting, but let's go across the province." There may well be a period of time in the month of November where we'll be able to have those hearings so that people who have all kinds of views may express them. That's the best way of dealing with legislation. But the hearings are more meaningful if the government hasn't made up its mind. If the hearings are only tonight at the fundraiser, where the people who are there are going to have the ear of the government, or at the Cornerstone Club that the member for Kingston and The Islands mentioned, where you pay $500 to join the club and then $350 and you have direct access to decision-making, to decisions where the speakers are -
Mr Wettlaufer: Come on, Jimmy, tell everyone that yours is $1,000.
Mr Bradley: Here we have a situation in Ontario, under the jurisdiction of the provincial government - the member for Kitchener can run federally if he wants to; he's now in the provincial House - where the consultation that will take place on legislation of this kind will in fact be the people who paid $850 in order to be able to get together with the ministers intimately and with the policy advisers to make decisions, as it says. So I'm glad to see that there's a possibility there will be hearings across the province.
I want to say lastly that I'm very concerned about the component that allows for tuition fees. That's because, once again, this becomes a block to some people being able to take part. Those who have the money will be able to pay the tuition fees; those who do not, have two courses of action: They either have to incur debt as they borrow to be able to do this or, second, they will have to give up the opportunity to take advantage of an apprenticeship program. If an apprenticeship program is going to be successful, it must have maximum accessibility. The tuition provision you're building into this bill will not allow for that kind of accessibility.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments.
Ms Lankin: I'm pleased to respond to the member for St Catharines. In particular, I want to talk about the issue of consultation and the issue of the public hearings. I was glad to hear the minister say in his comments that he thought there probably would be public hearings, and I understand from the House leader of the Liberal Party and today from our whip, who attended the House leaders' meeting, that the government House leader indicated there probably would be public hearings.
I wish we could get to the point where someone would say, "Yes, there will be, and we agree to travel and we agree to this many centres." The sort of games-playing going on that continues the debate on this is only because the government wants to bring in time allocation and control all the pieces of this. They don't care. They're going to force it through time allocation anyway. I wish we could get to that point; there would be some surety around it.
With respect to consultation, the member for St Catharines is quite right. If this is an empty process in which you're not going to really listen to people, you have to question some of the comments the minister made about how open they are to hearing from people and to the process of consultation. In listening to the remarks tonight from the member for St Catharines and from the minister, to the minister, you didn't address any of the issues of concern that have been raised. Many of the points you brought forward might be things that members of the opposition actually agree with, for example, the addition of some new occupations. We agree that the bill is out of date and that updating it is probably a good thing. No disagreement there.
But the issues of concern we raised with respect to tuition fees, you didn't respond to. The issues with respect to the ratios between journeypersons and apprentices, you didn't respond to. The issue with respect to whether or not employers will have to pay fair wages or whether or not they will abuse this as cheap labour, you didn't respond to. If you don't respond to them through the public hearings as well, it will be, once again, simply a sham.
Mr Froese: It is a pleasure to speak about or talk about or say something about what the member for St Catharines talked about. If it sounds like I'm talking in so many words and there's not really any substance to what I'm saying, I guess I'm doing this the same way the member for St Catharines does. He has a great ability to talk about nothing. Madam Speaker, you certainly have given him a lot of flexibility in talking about the apprenticeship bill.
I must commend him, because this is probably one of the few times that I've really heard him say something about the bill. But I wish he would have talked about the need to update the apprenticeship act, the old one, to update legislation that has not been updated for 30 years, has not been touched. It's really outdated. There needs to be change to meet the needs of what's happening in the workplace in 1998.
He didn't talk about the stronger role for the industry or more flexible time restrictions, allowing apprentices to do things at their own pace rather than on a restricted schedule. He didn't talk about expanding apprenticeship training to new trades - I wish he had talked about that - or a more flexible, accountable system. He didn't talk about industry setting the education standards, not government. He didn't talk about what his party is doing in Ottawa. He always talks about not enough funding. His own party in Ottawa has cut the funding for apprenticeship programs. I'd like to know what he's going to do to help the young people. Is he going to go to Ottawa to get those funds reinstated so that the young people of this province will have the funding to ensure that they get jobs?
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Mr Colle: I'd like to stand and thank the member for St Catharines for his usual insightful analysis and basic dissection of bills. He has certainly an experienced and, as I said, very insightful view of most things. The critical point he made is that there is, you might say, an underrated importance given to this whole field of manual labour, apprenticeships, the trades. That's why this bill requires a series of public meetings, public hearings across this province, because really this may not be updated for another 30 years. So let's do it right. Let's listen to all the stakeholders, making sure there is full and adequate input on behalf of the people who, I think, have a direct stake in it. That's what the member for St Catharines was saying.
He said that as a society we sometimes take for granted the contribution that people who work in trades make. I know there's a lot of work to be done also with young people in our schools, where there are opportunities and jobs in the trades and in apprenticeships. Sometimes they are not aware of the opportunities that exist. There are good-paying jobs and fulfilling careers in the trades. That's why I think it's critical that we do it right. That's what we're saying. That's what the member for St Catharines said very eloquently. He has always been an advocate of full public hearings on important bills. This bill is important to young people especially. That's why I fully endorse what the member for St Catharines said, and I think we should pay heed.
Mr Bisson: I listened to the member for St Catharines talk in his presentation a little bit about what the minister had mentioned earlier, which I think is quite telling. The member mentioned that the minister has said that the reason they want to bring forward this act is that they believe they need to modernize what is an old act, that is some 30 years old, and create more jobs.
But what was really interesting was that not more than five or 10 minutes before the minister was up giving his presentation I distinctly heard him talk about workers in a particular plant earning $70,000 a year as journeymen. He went on at some length to talk about how that was a bad thing and then said, "Oh, my God, imagine, some of them with overtime even make up to $100,000 a year."
I think that's the cat out of the bag. That's really what this is all about. This government doesn't believe that workers should be able to make a half-decent wage. They're horrified at the prospect of some journeyman or some worker working in some plant somewhere working overtime, or working extra hours of any type, making $70,000 or $100,000 a year, and they want to roll back wages. That's what this is all about.
This government wants to be able to say they want to create more apprentices. All they're talking about is that they want to dilute the apprenticeship program and the journeyman program, so that you have a whole bunch of unskilled people making, rather than $70,000 a year, $30,000, $40,000, $20,000, who the heck knows? That's what this really is all about.
I say shame on the government. There is nothing wrong with working people getting a good wage for the work they do. That's how our economy works. When this government starts to think for some reason that some worker making $70,000 a year is somehow a bad thing, boy, are we in trouble, because they really don't understand what the basis of this economy is all about, that is, workers having an income that they can then go out and spend and keep the economy going by purchasing other goods and services.
The Acting Speaker: Response?
Mr Bradley: Thank you for the input from each of the members who had spoken. I want to say to my friend the member for St Catharines-Brock that I always wonder why a federal government of any stripe would send transfer payments to a provincial government that simply gives them away in a tax cut. They send the money to the provincial government, and then they take the money and give it away in a tax cut which benefits the richest people in this part of the country here in Ontario. I always wonder why that would happen.
To the other members, I think the member for Cochrane South has put his finger on what the real issue is here. Sometimes members let something slip out that they don't want to let slip out. When the minister seemed to lament the fact that somebody who is an industrial worker might make $70,000 a year, it was quite clear he was talking about some of the people who work very hard in our industrial concerns.
There are members of the Canadian Auto Workers in my constituency who sometimes have to work seven days a week and 12 hours a day, so of course the overtime is going to accumulate. These people are making some significant sacrifices to do so, time they would like to spend with their family, time they would like to spend in recreation, time they would like to be doing other things, perhaps even rest, but they have spent that time on the job and have been remunerated for that. I don't think anybody here should be criticizing people in that position.
I recognize that there has to be updating of a bill, but it's like saying, if you take the example of a car, somehow the car needs some work, so we're going to put in a new engine even though it's an air-conditioning system we need. What I'm saying is, simply make appropriate changes and not just change for change's sake.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Ms Lankin: I say to the member for Hamilton Centre behind me that I'll be a little less boisterous but as passionate as he is in his defence of workers with respect to this bill and its effect on apprenticeships.
Mr Bradley: He's still not as loud as Cliff Pilkey.
Ms Lankin: He's trying, though.
I want to say to the minister that I really wish when we're having these debates and he spends some time in the House that he actually would listen to some of the arguments and concerns that are raised, instead of just brushing them away like anything that's said on this side of the House has no merit.
I say to the minister that there are aspects of updating apprenticeship legislation with which we would agree. Looking at many of the new occupations that have emerged in the over 30 years since the legislation was put in place, it is reasonable to look at bringing them in. Some of those things have been done in the past by regulation changes. We don't have to get into a lot of detail; there have been a number of updates done in that way. But it's not a bad idea to look at the framework for legislation to update the framework. That's what the minister says he wants to do. In that respect, there are some aspects with which we could agree.
But if he had been listening, he would have heard from members on this side of the House, from my friend the member for Hamilton Centre and yesterday evening from my friend the member for Cochrane South, that there are certain aspects of this bill that cause us great concern, and we wish even now that the minister would listen and would respond in specifics to those aspects. I'm going to try to outline four of them. There are some others that I think will emerge through public hearings when we listen to the people who are most directly affected, but there are four in particular that I want to speak about.
First is the issue that the government is looking at reorienting the apprenticeship program and directing it almost exclusively towards the youth sector. You've got to look at that. You've got to question what you mean. I personally, for our caucus as youth critic, have a fair number of things I would like to say to the government about the lack of action on youth unemployment. It's still sitting at over 15%. So if there is an opportunity to expand apprenticeships in Ontario, although, contrary to what the minister has said, the provincial government has cut funding for apprenticeships - but I do agree with him that that has been compounded by a $40-million-plus cut from the federal government - it will be interesting to see how this expansion can really take place, unless of course it takes place by virtue of downloading the cost of this on to individuals. I'm going to get to that in a moment when we talk about lower wages for apprenticeships and about tuition fees and barriers like user fees.
But an orientation to youth, who are the majority of people who already make up apprenticeships, misses a whole group of people, particularly in the kind of volatile economy we have experienced in the last decade or so in this province, where we have seen large numbers of older workers lose their employment and have to start over again. They're not at a point where they can simply move out into early retirement, either economically or perhaps even in terms of their age. They have to start again, and many of them choose to go into apprentice trades. If it isn't open and welcoming and accommodating to that group of people, you have continued putting older workers at risk. I would mention the decimation of the program for older worker adjustment that we've seen under this government. This is another kick at that population who are quite vulnerable in terms of their ability to access other employment. That's number one that I hope the government will address.
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The second area - and this is part of the overall deregulation that I have a concern about with respect to the bill, things that are being taken out of legislation and put into regulation or not addressed at all - is with respect to the issue of wage setting. As people who have experienced the apprenticeship program in the province will know, apprenticeship wages have traditionally been set at a percentage of a journeyperson's wage for year one, year two, depending on the length of time of the apprenticeship. By completely deregulating it, this government seems to be using language, if I understand your argument, that this will create more opportunities. It sounds an awful lot like those people in the hospitality and tourism industry - the minister mentioned the hospitality industry - who are always opposed to any increase in minimum wage because they say that's going to cause a loss of jobs. They'd like to see the minimum wage driven down.
In effect, deregulating the wage level for apprenticeship seems to me to be an opportunity to drive those wages down. I can't see any other outcome that will come of this. I don't believe there are employers who will increase the wage levels there. Why would they? It's not consistent with the bottom-line operations of their business. By deregulating it, by having a downward pressure, you create a cheap pool of labour. You create a situation where people may spend longer in apprenticeships than is needed.
There is already an abuse on work sites, where you have people at the last stage of their apprenticeship who do not take the final step to become a journeyperson because their job would disappear. They've got that threat from the employer. There's already an abuse, and you don't think that will get worse if you deregulate wages? This is simply creating a cheap pool of labour and creating a downward pressure on the journeyperson wage. I think you have to look at that; that will be the inevitable result of this.
There's also the issue of phasing out the regulated journeyperson-to-apprentice ratio. That's X number of journeypersons on the site per number of apprentices, for reasons of safety, of quality of workmanship and of appropriate training of the apprentices.
I was shocked to hear the minister say that the current legislation doesn't say anything about that fact that if they've got two job sites operating, maybe they'd put all the journeypersons on one site and all the apprentices on the other. Well, if you've experienced that out there, if you think that's happening, then put in place the regulations to stop it. Don't deregulate further and say, "Because they can already do that, therefore we're going to let them set the numbers themselves."
Once again, if you're in a very competitive industry and you're trying to cut corners and bring costs down, don't you think there's going to be incredible pressure on those contractors, those employers - because it's not just in construction - to increase the number of apprentices they have per journeyperson, even if they don't want to? How can you guarantee that the appropriate level of supervision and therefore the appropriate quality of workmanship is going to be done? This is something we should be concerned about, as the member for Hamilton Centre said, from a public safety point of view, as well as from an appropriate training point of view, as well as from a fair employment condition.
The fourth issue I want to touch on is the introduction of user fees and tuitions, payment to register training agreements and what I see as potential barriers for participation in apprenticeship.
Earlier on, when I was speaking in response to a member's intervention, I referred to a letter from Colleen Twomey. This woman is 35. She's talking about having lost her job in the hospital sector, how she feels about having gone back to restart her life and gone into an apprenticeship - she's already earning less as an apprentice than she was in the job she lost - and on top of that being faced with the prospect of having to potentially pay tuition fees to participate in this training opportunity. It becomes for her a barrier that might well stop her dead in her tracks, and many other workers, stop them from being able to pursue this option.
What options are left for those people, people who have had a career, who have lost that through institutional downsizing or corporate downsizing, who are trying to find their way back through training, doing all the right things, and you're putting barriers in their way?
The minister says: "Some of these concerns, particularly with respect to tuition fees, may be addressed through the regulations we've set up. Maybe you won't feel so bad." Well, time and time again with this government we see you taking protections out of the law and putting them into regulations that can be changed at a whim behind closed doors with the signature of five cabinet ministers. It is only fair, if there's going to be good public consultation, as the minister alleged, if there's going to be proper debate in committee hearings, that those draft regulations be released.
That's the last thing I would say to you: Please give us a clear commitment not only that you will hold public hearings around this province but that you will release the draft regulations so that people can see the whole package and can make the argument about where the regulations fail and where it must be written into the protection of the legislation. Let's make sure that if we are going to rewrite a 30-year-old law, we do it together to improve the situation for those apprentices in this province and not to worsen the situation, which I fear your bill does.
The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Questions and comments?
Mr Carroll: I always enjoy the comments of the member for Beaches-Woodbine because I really respect her sincerity and her wish to get it done right. She and I don't always agree on what that way would be to get it done right, but I believe very much in her sincerity.
She talks about the emphasis on young people and her concern that we will be abandoning people who have been displaced and need to be retrained. I share her concern about those people, because quite frankly we have a lot of people who already have a skill, but a skill no longer in demand in the workplace, and we need to retrain those folks to acquire a new skill. I agree with her that we can't abandon those people. I don't see anything in this act that says we will be abandoning those people.
She talked about the tuition issue, and this was mentioned by members of the Liberal Party too. I'm not really sure how an apprenticeship program with a tuition attached to it is a whole lot different from a co-op program. In each case, we're encouraging somebody to learn on the job as well as have a school component, and we're asking that person to contribute to the cost of the school component. I think it's fair that we ask everybody to participate to some extent in the cost of their continuing education or their apprenticeship or whatever. I don't see the big to-do about the fact that we're asking somebody to participate in tuition.
The other thing I think we have to remember is that all of this is geared not only towards creating better training for our young people but also to making our industry more competitive because we live in this world economy. That industry needs more workers. We live in a free enterprise economy. It has worked, sometimes not as well as it should, but that free enterprise economy demands skilled workers with good trade skills so that they -
The Speaker: Thank you. Further questions and comments?
Mr Caplan: I'd like to congratulate the member for Beaches-Woodbine for her remarks. I find it amazing that the member for Chatham-Kent starts talking in code: "a competitive environment." I think it confirms what the member talked about as a pool of cheap labour. That's what the intent of this legislation is all about. Obviously, the code for cheap labour is "competitive industry." Isn't that very interesting?
As well, the member for Beaches-Woodbine made a very good point when she talked about older workers. There's a part of this bill which talks about part-time, contract and self-employed people being able to do apprenticeship. I've asked this question before, and I wonder if any member of the government bench or maybe from the New Democratic Party - the member for Beaches-Woodbine might want to touch on this herself - could answer: How does a self-employed person become an apprentice? Who would supervise them? Where would they get their mentorship from? How does that work? That seems counterintuitive. You can't be self-employed, because the nature of apprenticeship is a mixture of on-the-job training and instructional training. That's the way it works, so absolute nonsense is trying to be passed off to the people of Ontario in that section of this bill.
As well, the member mentions tuition. By the government's own user survey, when they asked the question to apprentices in Ontario, "If we imposed tuition upon you, would that prohibit you from going into the trades?" 50% of them said, "We would not have entered the trades." Is that removing barriers? No. You'd have half as many, so of the 11,000 apprentices we'd have 5,500.
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Mr Christopherson: I am pleased to rise and commend my colleague from Beaches-Woodbine on an excellent overview of the concerns we have about this bill and also the lack of response on the part of the government, particularly the minister, who is in the House at this time, to the key issues we're raising. You're still dancing around them.
When the member from Chatham rose saying that this was somehow similar to a co-op program, you've got to wonder just how much understanding there is about apprenticeship programs and journeyperson programs and how all this works in the real world. Remember the real world, folks? It's outside the boardroom; it's where people live and work.
He also raised the word "competitive," which of course got a lot of his colleagues buzzing away, just as you would expect when that word gets raised. But it got me thinking, if I were sitting over there with the warped sense of how the world works from their point of view, what would that mean in terms of raising the issue of competitiveness? It ties to what my colleague from Beaches-Woodbine raised when she talked about the fact that all you're really trying to do with the changes to how wages are set for apprentices is to lower them.
In terms of being competitive, it seems to me that given the fact you can't move the work offshore, by and large - a lot of it is construction work, so it's got to happen in the geography of the province regardless of who does it. It's got to happen here. So what's competitive? Now that you can have as many apprentices per journeypersons as you want, I guess competitiveness means stuffing lots of apprentices in there with fewer journeypersons. Competitiveness would also mean lowering the wages of those apprentices lower than your competition.
At the end of the day, you've got more apprentices, few journeypersons supervising them and lower wages being paid, and that's how you're going to be more competitive. How is that supposed to help the apprentices of this province?
Mr Froese: I agree with the member for Chatham-Kent: I too appreciate the comments the member for Beaches-Woodbine makes. To her credit, I really don't know of anybody else in this House who actually studies and reads a bill before speaking like she does. She takes what she feels is positive out of the bill and expresses that she can agree with those issues and those items, and she also tells us where she disagrees. Sometimes she's more passionate than other times.
In her comments she mentioned that she was concerned about the wage provisions and how she feels there will be a reduction in wages if this bill gets passed. I have those same concerns. I disagree with her: I don't see where those wages will be reduced. I think wages and ratios can be set by the industry through either the guidelines for skilled trades or through collective bargaining. We have examples of that already. If we look at the tool and die makers, at the wages that wouldn't be in regulations, minimum wage is $6.85 an hour so at 50 hours it's $17,125, but the actual salary they're getting now is $26,000, so there's a great difference there. It's the same with an automotive service technician. At $6.85 an hour at 48 hours - that's the average - it's $16,097, but the actual salary is $27,000. I see that continuing.
The Speaker: Response, member for Beaches-Woodbine.
Ms Lankin: Let me say to the members opposite that when you talk about competition, you put it up on some altar like it's an icon to be worshipped. I believe in good competition. I spent two years as Minister of Economic Development and Trade promoting industry in this province, promoting a competitive atmosphere. But if you're talking about unfettered, unchecked competition, if you're talking about unfettered, unchecked capitalism, then no, I don't agree. Take a look at where it's got us in the United States. The President of the United States has a problem with self-control and the whole world's markets are in the dumper. That's what you believe in in terms of unchecked capitalism? Give me a break.
There is only evidence to support my contention that if you deregulate those wages the only pressure will be a downward pressure on those wages. You say they'll be protected in collective agreements. There are 48,000 apprentices right now working for 26,000 employers in this province. The majority of them are non-union. We'll get out there and work with people to try and change that, because we'll have to; that will be the only way to protect these people. But it used to be that apprenticeships were understood to be a contributor to the workplace, to the employer, as well as a learning opportunity; not a pool of cheap labour that you're going to set out there for employers to abuse in order to bring down wages of journeypersons. That is what this agenda is.
You know what you're doing? You're following these absolute measures that have been taken in places like Alberta and in places like the southern US, and in each of those areas, you know what happened? It led to a worsening skills shortage and now they're looking at rebuilding the programs they dismantled. We will have to do the same thing here in Ontario. After you guys are gone, this program will have to be rebuilt, because apprentices will be protected in the future.
The Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Ted Chudleigh (Halton North): I'm not sure that the compliments the earlier speakers paid to the member for Beaches-Woodbine might be withdrawn after those passionate remarks.
I'd like to start my remarks tonight by saying that I wholeheartedly support the fundamental principles of this bill which I believe will help make Ontario more competitive. That word "competitive" is a word that I particularly have a great deal of respect for, because the alternative to being competitive is being out of business. If someone doesn't recognize that competitiveness is a necessity in the business world, they're going to be out of business. Perhaps that explains in a small part why, when the third party in this Legislature left government, they left the province with a $100-billion debt and 10,000 fewer jobs in this province than when they started, because they didn't recognize the necessity of the word competitiveness.
Bill 55, if passed by this Legislature, would play an important part in helping the government achieve its goal to strengthen education and training services, including the acquisition of skills needed in the workplace. Our province has undertaken necessary major reforms of its educational and training systems. At the core of these reforms is the determination to create a system in which every student is prepared for success: in the classroom, success in the workplace and success throughout life.
Bill 55 would help strengthen this goal. When passed by the Legislature, Bill 55 would help provide more opportunities for young people to learn specific skills that are in demand. Bill 55 would help the government achieve its intentions to double the number of apprenticeships in the next two years, as pointed out by the minister previously.
It would also provide the framework for reform of the apprenticeship system, which has not been significantly revised since 1964. We are a world away from the type of economy this province had in 1964, and our training and educational systems need to reflect that.
Jobs requiring high-level skills that are learned primarily through on-site experiences are essential to Ontario's industry. People with these skills include tool and die makers in manufacturing, industrial mechanic millwrights in pulp and paper plants, and master chefs in the hospitality industry. All these groups have shown support for this legislation that we're debating here tonight.
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If current Ontario employers require people with these specialized skills, companies new to Ontario, companies that help fuel our economic growth in this province, will need them as well. However, we need to increase the availability and support of these types of learning situations, and Bill 55 seeks to address that by creating a climate supportive of training for highly skilled labour, which will improve Ontario's ability to maintain its skilled labour force and attract growth for Ontario.
The Ontario government recognizes the critical importance of skilled workers to our economy. Since 1990, all new jobs on a net basis have gone to workers with a high level of education and job skills. In fact, jobs requiring higher levels of education and training are forecast to contribute nearly half of all new jobs in Ontario between 1995 and the year 2005. Representatives of the manufacturing industry, hotel industry, automotive sector and institutions of higher learning have all voiced support for this bill. While employers are looking for skilled workers, the supply of people with these skills is not keeping pace. Shortages of people with the right skills are already critical for some sectors and will become widened in others.
For example, in the auto parts industry, a sector which is a large employer in my riding of Halton North, employers are concerned about a shortage of skilled workers. One particular company, Karmax, which is a subsidiary of Magna International, has for years sourced its tool and die makers in other countries: in England, in Germany, in Italy and even as far away as South Africa.
The industry also expects that more than one third of people currently working in the industry will retire over the next 10 years. In the auto assembly industry, about 40% of its workers will reach retirement age by the year 2000. The same situation is occurring in construction trades. The workforce is aging and not enough young people are training to become tomorrow's highly skilled workers.
While some of the problems are common between various industries, Bill 55 will allow each industry to determine the best method to apprentice its workers. At the same time, the legislation will allow smaller skill sets to be recognized, making them portable between specific operations. The bill also encourages youth employment, a situation which needs to be addressed.
Ontario's highly qualified workforce is one of the province's major selling points for new investors, which means new jobs in Ontario. A 1997 study by Goldfarb Consultants for the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Tourism found that the availability of skilled, educated workers was one of the main reasons that companies invest in a province, and that investment means jobs, new jobs for Ontario. Each one of those jobs means new dreams for the people who take them.
The Ontario government recognizes that a serious, prolonged skill shortage in high-investment sectors of the economy could affect Ontario's reputation as a place to do business. When passed by the Legislature, Bill 55 would provide a framework that would help ensure the supply of skilled workers that employers need to compete in the marketplace. This bill would encourage more employers to get involved in the training process. It would eliminate unnecessary red tape while maintaining the government's role in protecting the quality of training. The bill would create a more flexible training system that would encourage apprenticeships to be extended to new jobs and industries. At the same time, the bill would ensure that the existing excellence in apprenticeship is not harmed. High standards of quality and safety would continue for employers, workers and consumers. Employers, workers and unions would receive greater responsibility for training.
Bill 55 would also encourage more young people to participate in apprenticeship training. In June the government announced it is strengthening the Ontario youth apprenticeship program. This program helps young people begin to train for an apprenticeship while completing their high school studies. The program helps to strengthen co-op education, which is also an important goal of secondary school reform. An important part of reform to our high schools is providing teachers and guidance counsellors with the information that students need in today's world. Through a stronger Ontario youth apprenticeship program, through expanded co-op opportunities and through other resources such as Career Gateway, we are giving young people more opportunities. We are giving them more opportunities to understand the wide range of careers that is available to them and to make informed decisions about their future and the future of Ontario, to keep Ontario growing and to make Ontario the best place in this country to live, work and raise a family.
The Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mr Tony Ruprecht (Parkdale): I have listened very carefully, and some of the points the honourable member is making are actually not bad, but let's try to remember that Bill 55, as has been said previously, has no teeth, and let's remember above everything else what you have done to destroy the competitive edge in Ontario. Look across the issue of tuition fees. Our universities have been on the edge not only of research but on the edge of producing new ideas for the future certainly in terms of competitiveness when we compare Canada to the rest of the world.
The G-7, as an example: Who is spending the most money for research and development across the G-7 countries? What standards do we use in Canada, specifically what standard is this government using and how much money are we spending for research and development? Today we're talking about apprenticeship programs, but how can you have an effective and efficient apprenticeship program when you are cutting off the very legs of a system of education that all of this apprenticeship program has to be based on? I'm saying to you today that if you want to give Bill 55 some teeth, you certainly have to look at the budget and increase the spending for education and research and development. Increasing tuition fees really means cutting the legs off any program that could be efficient in terms of an apprenticeship program.
Mr Caplan: Very well said.
Mr Bisson: I'm a little bit worried, after the comments of the member of the Liberal Party, that somebody said, "Well said." What he said was that some of the points the government has been making aren't bad and that the legislation has no teeth. I would suggest that this legislation is bad, and God, I don't want to give it any more teeth than it's got, because we know who's going to get bitten. That will be the apprentices and journeymen of this province.
I get back directly to the comments of the member from the government party. You're saying that each industry can best decide what skill sets it needs, sort of insinuating that what you can do after this legislation, let's say in the mining industry, is say, "When it comes to millwrights, we're just going to give them these very narrow sets of skills that are necessary for our industry to be competitive." Somehow the government members try to make it look as if this is a good thing because, after all, it's going to mean blah, blah, blah, all that stuff they're saying on the other side.
The point is there are a couple of problems with that. First of all, none of those skills will be transferable to the extent that we now have under our present apprenticeship program. We don't train part of a millwright, when we train a millwright in Ontario, specifically for just the mining industry. We train millwrights as complete millwrights so they can transfer those skills to whatever employers might need them in Ontario. Be that in the construction industry, be it in the pulp and paper industry or be it in the automotive industry, that's a good thing.
That's what makes our economy strong. That's what makes it good. But you're talking about limiting the skill sets that we're going to give individual workers when it comes to their trades so that they can be ghettoized into one industry. That's not only bad for that industry but it's also bad for the economy overall, because we need to ensure that we have highly qualified, skilled and motivated workers in Ontario to make our economy work. What you're doing is going to put it way back in the Stone Age, and in the end it's not going to bode well for the economy of the province.
Mr Galt: I'd like to compliment the member for Halton North for just an excellent presentation, very thoughtfully put together and presented. In his opening remarks he talked about how the apprenticeship bill, Bill 55, is going to improve the competitive edge of the province. I don't think there's any question that he's dead-on, that by providing more training, double the number of apprentices who will probably be training in Ontario, getting that kind of skilled labour into the market, that's the kind of competitive edge the industry and economy and the province desperately needs. It's been sliding for some time.
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You look at this particular bill, and it's upgrading from 1964. That's 34 years ago. Think of cars in 1964, a nice car costing something like $2,500, something that's almost impossible for most of us to remember, those kinds of prices and the kind of cars we had in that era. That is really what the old apprenticeship program was based on, what we were doing in 1964, and that's certainly not meeting the needs and the wishes of the people of Ontario here in 1998.
The member for Parkdale was talking about education. "Cutting the legs right from under it" I think was his term, as I remember, when in fact what we've been doing for education is bringing in all kinds of standards: standardized report cards, something your government could have been doing. We've brought in curriculum that's going to be used across Ontario. We're testing the grade 3s and now the grade 6s. We're requiring specific time with teachers, with students. Those are the kinds of standards and those are the kinds of legs that we're putting under our education system.
Mr Cordiano: The members opposite really are deceiving themselves, because they are saying that in effect you're making things better when you actually haven't realized that you've made things a lot worse in some areas. This is one of those areas where you've made it a lot worse, in education.
You talk about standardized curriculum, standardized report cards. You can take some of the credit for that, but remember it was the NDP who established the Royal Commission on Learning, and everyone endorsed the findings of that commission. All three parties have done that. Yes, you happen to be coincidentally the government and happen to embrace those ideas, and I give you some credit for bringing those forward, but don't stand up and try and say that what you're doing now is going to be a milestone, it's like the event of the century, my God, what you're doing in terms of apprenticeship programs.
People have real concerns about those standards that are being actually reduced. Would you not agree with me that Ontario has had some of the finest skilled workers anywhere in the world? You cannot deny that, you cannot deny the fact, and that was built by successive Progressive Conservative governments. I'm willing to say that. The wise governments of the past knew that this was important.
Interjections.
Mr Cordiano: Given what you have done with respect to increasing tuition fees in this area as well, and increasing tuition fees at our post-secondary institutions, you must admit, you have to agree, that it's going to hurt people, that it makes it a lot more difficult for people to go on and to continue.
It's the same thing with this bill in terms of increasing tuition fees. You're making it much more difficult for people to get into these programs.
The Speaker: Responses?
I just might add that if you have a question or comment, it would be probably good if you waited for the response.
Mr Chudleigh: I thank the members for their comments. The member for Parkdale, I would remind you that the competitive edge in Ontario is alive and well. As I walk down Main Street today in Milton or Georgetown or Acton, the shops are all full. When I was campaigning in 1995, half the street was empty. When the companies in Milton are looking for further employees, they have to go outside of town to find someone because everybody in Milton is almost fully employed. The country is booming, the province is booming, and I don't think our competition is destroying our province.
The member for Cochrane South indicated that we are moving away from the tradition of training people. Yes, perhaps we are. But the world is becoming an increasingly specialized place, and a millwright working in one location may not serve in a different location. So as we enter into these more specialized forms of training, for us to stay on the leading edge of the 21st century, where Ontario wants to be, where Ontario must be, we're going to have to adapt.
As the doctor from Northumberland pointed out, 1964 was a great year. I had a 1964 car and it was a very nice car, but it certainly wasn't anything like the cars we buy today. The cars today are very much more specialized, the same way that the trades in the future will have to be very much more specialized than they are today, with a great deal more knowledge of individual areas rather than a broad knowledge, a broader mindset.
I want to thank the member for Lawrence for recognizing and giving us credit for our educational policies and recognizing that our skilled workers are world-class.
The Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Mario Sergio (Yorkview): I want to try and dwell for a few minutes on Bill 55, the so-called bill to provide, if you will, a revision to the Trades Qualification and Apprenticeship Act.
Unfortunately, the minister has left. I was pleased that he was in the House most of the afternoon and evening, and I think it's great that he spent some time to hear what other members in the House have to say with respect to his own proposed legislation. I don't think it is so much his own legislation because I know that when he delivers something in the House he means well, but of course he's got directions from the Premier, Mr Mike Harris. Sometimes I know he must feel very uncomfortable because I'm sure he does not fully believe that this piece of legislation will deliver the impact that they wish to accomplish with this piece of legislation.
For the people at home I have to say that this is not a repeat; this is something coming straight, live, from Queen's Park. It's dealing with an important piece of legislation which deals, I would say, especially with those at the age of 25 or 26. I hope the members of the government side really make note of that, because at the age of 25 or 26, men and women are ready to face life, to have a family, to get on with life and build on that.
Mr Minister, Mr Premier, this is not the way, to tell 25-year-olds, 27-year-olds, "We are going to train you through some private people, private companies, and you're on your own." That's practically what this proposed legislation does, because there is no commitment on the part of the government to overview the skills that those young people, so-called apprentices, would be gaining through a private firm, an employer.
It's not that I don't trust, by all means, the employers out there, but what would be in the best interests of the employer, to train journeymen - now we call them apprentices - to what stage? To the stage that they need them to do certain jobs that suit themselves in their place of employment.
I would ever hope that there were other incentives provided by this government telling employers, "We want you to have these people under your wing, and when they come out in two or three years we want to see them fully trained, fully skilled, so just in case they are left without a job, without a position within your place of employment, they would find employment in any other place." If there is one thing I agree with, not only with the last speaker on the government side but with all the others, it is that there is a shortage of skilled, qualified tradespeople in our province, and it's a problem.
Mr Premier, Mr Minister, you can't have it both ways. You can't have on one side cuts, cuts all over the place forcing those people to drop off in the middle of their best school years, and then say, "We don't provide for you any additional measures, funds, so you will be on your own."
I have to say that with all the good intentions of the minister, this piece of legislation falls way short of the goals that he intends to accomplish.
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Perhaps they are thinking that they will expand workfare. Let me tell you, between workfare that you have provided and this piece of legislation there isn't a heck of a difference, and this is where you want to channel those young people. You fail to realize that you're dealing with the future livelihood of those particular young people. "Reform," you say. Yes, of course, reform, but when it's in the best interests of the recipients. This one here, I have to say, is not. It is certainly not in the best interests of those so-called journeymen or apprentices.
The bottom line, therefore, is that unless there is a solid commitment from the government to fund some programs, to throw in some incentives, employers will not dedicate themselves, because it takes time and it takes money on their part. Then we may have to go into another portion of fees and tuition fees and stuff like that - absolutely not. Unless there is some regulation, legislation, some direction and control as well by this government, it isn't enough to say, "You're on your own, you're going to the private force." Unless there is some control, some direction, some legislation by this government, we will not see a reasonable numbers of apprentices coming out with skills from any employer.
Let me tell you that I'm terribly disappointed in the Premier and the minister producing this piece of legislation, because they are passing up a wonderful opportunity to say, "You know, we have a 14% to 18% unemployment rate among young people" - and I would include in that particular number the 25-, 26-, 27-year-olds. I call those young people. You're missing a wonderful opportunity to provide some solid, long-term employment for those people.
I speak to a lot of young people, unemployed people, and they have all the best intentions in the world. They say: "I want a job, but I want a job with a future. I have just got married and purchased a house and I don't have a reliable job." This does not offer any comfort to the future of those young people, and I'm really surprised that the Premier and the minister are not taking that into consideration.
You have abandoned your responsibility for making provisions, making sure that the young ones who will go through the treadmill don't come out as semi-skilled workers. When times are good, well, times are good and employers most likely - look what you have done with your own laws. The employers command the salaries. They have to work overtime, they've got to work on Saturday at the same pay in the same conditions. I don't think that is an advantage for those particular young people. In tough times they downsize, and who do you think the first ones to go will be? Those with fewer skills, fewer trades. They may be paid less compared to some, but they will be the first ones to go. We will continue to compound an existing problem that we have today. We will continue to compound the unemployment rate among our young people. We have a government that, on one hand, is pushing them out on the streets and, on the other hand, does not make any provisions.
As an example let's take the squeegee kids. You don't like to see the squeegee kids at the various street corners? Well, what are you doing for those young people? Maybe you should take a little bit of a lead from Mayor Lastman. At least he has done something about it. At least he has been pulling a few people off the streets. What is this government doing about it?
Mr Ford: Planning to move to California.
Mr Sergio: The member says they come from California, or whatever. The fact is that when you are in government and you are faced with a problem, you've got to come up with a solution. You have abandoned your responsibility to our young people, to give them a solid future with a trade, with something that they can look forward to in the future and say, "If this doesn't go, I will find another job." You people haven't recognized that. What you have failed to recognize, what you have failed to assume the responsibility for is to make sure that those providers of some skilled trades will do it in a comfortable atmosphere, with regulations, with impositions, with controls, with a mechanism in place here, from this legislation, and not in the boardroom of the employers out there.
Mr Speaker, I thank you for my few minutes, as my time unfortunately is up.
The Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mr Bisson: The member spoke very briefly about one aspect of this bill that we really haven't talked about in any detail, and that is the whole issue about how this government is changing the system in such a way that it will discourage apprentices from going off to trade school. Presently there are regulations that basically say that if you're going through, let's say, an electrical apprenticeship, you go to school three times: basic, intermediate, advanced, each of eight weeks. Under that provision, if my employer says, "I don't want you to go," I'm able to force the situation and force my employer to release me so I can go off to trade school and get the training that I need. One of the things this government is doing will make it easier for employers to intimidate apprentices from going to school, where they do get full apprenticeships. How they're doing that is by a couple of things.
First of all, they're going to limit the amount of money that the apprentice makes while the apprentice, he or she, is in trade school, so that's an economic barrier right there. Second, they're going to turn around and say to the apprentice, "You are now responsible for paying a tuition fee for you to go into your trade school." So the little bit of money that you do get from the EI fund for going into trade school is going to be gouged even further back by the amount of money that you're going to have to pay in tuition fees towards the provincial government.
The other thing now, which is really scary, you're going to make it possible for the apprentice, by way of regulation, to decide when he or she should go to school, if at all. The danger with that is, if you put that kind of freeness inside the regulation, as I might call it, employers are going to intimidate apprentices into choosing not to go to trade school.
That in the end is a loser for everybody. It's a loser for the apprentice because the apprentice doesn't get the skill set that they need through the actual training that they get at the community college level system. I think in the end it might be a short-sighted gain for the employer, but in the long run for industry it's going to mean we're going to have fewer trained people. If you think you've got an apprentice shortage now, you wait about 10 years down the road if you pass this legislation.
Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): It's my privilege to respond to the member for Yorkview and his comments. I must, however, for the viewers, share a very important situation in Durham. The Speaker would probably know that the Durham University Centre, the skills training centre located in Whitby, is very highly recognized and it's providing a very important resource for the youth and indeed the skilled workers that Durham and in fact all of Ontario need.
The skills training centre is under the capable leadership of the president, Gary Polonsky, a person I have a lot of respect for. In fact, you would know, Mr Speaker, that a few weeks ago the Minister of Labour, the Honourable Jim Flaherty, who's from Whitby riding, Durham Centre, was there to present a cheque in the amount of $5 million for the joint partnership that the university has formed with York and Trent.
A student doesn't have to leave Durham any longer - we don't have a university, or we didn't - to get a full education. They can take the skills training that the college offers, and most important at the skills training centre in Whitby, but augment that at the college level. They have training in robotics, the very latest numeric-controlled machinery and equipment, and they're working in partnership with the private sector.
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I think it's important for members to take a little departure. We know how long the apprenticeship legislation has been in need of reform, but indeed the whole world of work is, you might say, in the area of reform. The Minister of Education has put out a very interesting document called the Future of Work in Ontario. I would encourage people to phone the ministry, phone my riding office in Bowmanville, and get a copy of this important piece of discussion paper. In this discussion paper - it's about the future of work with very interesting statistics - it tells us about the skills training that's needed for the future of Ontario.
Mr Caplan: I'd actually like to pick up where the last member, the member for Durham East, left off. He talked about training centres. There are many training centres. In fact, some of the unions have, not all of them, excellent training facilities and it would be interesting for the members to know that oftentimes, particularly in some of the construction fields, as part of the dues that you pay, that money goes into the training centres. Those training centres have up-to-date equipment, have all the very latest instructional methodologies, all the very latest in emerging technologies and sectors for retraining, upgrading, reskilling. That's the kind of thing that somebody like Hugh Laird has said, that this proposal, Bill 55, could mean the death of his training centre, and I don't want to see that happen. I don't want to see that happen if they have one that's working well in Durham. I don't know the particular site, but that's the potential that is going to happen as a result of Bill 55.
There are a couple of other interesting aspects of the bill. There's a change now from employers who will hire apprentices to sponsors of training. Who is a sponsor of training? What will that mean? Does that mean that a municipality that's going to hire a workfare participant, for example, is going to now become a sponsor of training?
I once again pose the question to the government members or to all members. This legislation says that self-employed people can become apprentices. I challenge any member of this Legislature to tell me how a self-employed person becomes an apprentice. Who supervises them? Where do they get the skills from?
Mr Bradley: I enjoyed the speech because it pointed out some of the problems with this legislation and the fact that indeed there are some people out there who would like to see a change in legislation, and I agree with updating, everybody agrees with updating, but it's the way you're doing it. You usually want to get for the province by far the highest quality you can. Instead, I think some of the consequences of this legislation will be a diminishing of the quality, a diminishing of the standards. There may be some in the province who'll be in favour of that.
What you will find, however, is that enlightened members of the business community - and I found this, I must say, in the field of the environment - enlightened members of the corporate sector will want to see the very best individuals coming to work for their companies. That means they're going to have to have standards which are acceptably high; that means they're going to want to ensure that everyone from all walks of life will have an opportunity to take part in an apprenticeship program and that some will not be prevented by the fact that they do not have the money to pay the tuition.
Tuition scares us over here in the opposition because we've noted what this government has done with tuition for those going to community colleges and universities. Many people are calling into our constituency offices today very much saddened by the fact that their young students are unable to go to either university or to a community college because of the cost. They recognize as well this government has removed rent control, so that is having a major impact on students as well.
The Speaker: Response.
Mr Sergio: Thank you to my colleagues who have responded to my comments, especially the members for Cochrane South, Durham East, Oriole and St Catharines.
I was particularly pleased to hear the member for Durham East mention the skills training centre. There you have an example that if you have a particular place that is working out well and it's a skills training centre, why remove the incentives of centres that are producing exactly what the government intends to do? Instead, they are finding ways to dismantle them to go somewhere else where they will have no control, where there will be no regulations, as a matter of fact deregulation again, and I don't think this is the proper way to go about it.
I was here when the minister said he's willing to look at public hearings. I think it's wonderful, but I would like to remind the Premier and the minister and the members on the government side that on all previous bills - and I say that without exception - they have gone through public hearings and they brought back into this House only the changes the government wanted. They did not listen to the people; they did not include the changes that were supposed to improve whatever particular bill. While I'm positive and looking forward assist in the public hearings, I don't have much faith in the government, that they will do the right thing on this one as well.
I cannot be so positive when the government wants to leave it to the private sector without including any legislation, any regulations to have control as needed.
The Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Marchese: Thank you for this opportunity to speak to Bill 55. I want to congratulate a few people for being here: Sandra Clifford from the Ontario Federation of Labour, who's the education director; Ron Groulx, who represents the employers, boilermakers, training coordinator; James Moffatt, who is a training and trades coordinator, and I thank them for having the emotional fortitude to be here and accept with grace much of what has been said by the Tories in their comments and their speeches. I want to congratulate you too, Mr Speaker, because you look so fresh in the chair, but I have to tell you I'm not so fresh-looking and I think you can tell. Speaker, I think you can tell from that distance that I'm not so fresh-looking. In fact, for me it is very difficult to endure this political Conservative putrefaction that comes from this place. I know they don't like this language because it's hard to follow. I appreciate that. I am personally drained by it but I'll do my best to make some remarks on this bill.
The members for St Catharines-Brock and Halton North love the opposition members when we're polite, when we have nothing nasty to say about them, when we make some useful suggestions. When we're passionate, they don't mind that, as long as we're passionate but agree with them. But if we are passionate and disagree with them, they begin to dislike it. They say: "You're negative. You have nothing good to say." I'm sensitive to that because a friend of mine the other day said, "Rosario, you should think of saying something nice about them every now and then because if you say something nice, people will listen to you." I desperately try to look for things that I could say about this group of people that might be nice, not to talk about their policies; those I find difficult to accept or to say anything positive about. At the individual level some of them are good folks. I've got to say that.
Interjection: They like cats.
Mr Marchese: This is true. But I cannot for the life of me, on anything they have dealt with here by way of bills or policies, say that I like anything, so it's very difficult to be positive about anything they produce in this place. Would that I could find something, but unfortunately I can't.
Coming to this bill, because the members for St Catharines-Brock and Halton North used the word "competitiveness" - they're not the only ones of course. Every Tory uses that word. For me it has a significant meaning. When Tories use the word "competitive," what does it mean to you, Speaker?
Mr Wettlaufer: It means quality.
Mr Marchese: The member for Kitchener says it means quality.
Mr Marchese: It doesn't really mean that, Speaker. You and I know. You've been around. Sorry, Mr Ford?
Mr Ford: It means expand free trade, PST, GST.
Mr Marchese: What it means is that people are getting less money, are going to be getting less money for the work they do. Isn't that what competitiveness means to you? Sure it does. That's what it means. But you see, I've got no problem with Tories actually saying that. Why can't they say, "We want and accept competitiveness, which actually equates to lower wages for working people"? Say that. Then we can debate it honestly and openly. But when you, the minister and all of you, clothe yourselves in an impenetrable oil that I can't get to, it's difficult to debate. Just shed the oil. Exfoliate yourselves so that we can be clear. You've got to be able to do that with the general public.
Interjection: That's his word for the day.
Mr Marchese: Speaker, that is a fair word. You know that. Thank you, clerks. If you expunge that kind of language, we're in big trouble.
Then you have the member for St Catharines-Brock, who says this bill is good for apprentices. How? Explain it, member for St Catharines-Brock. How is it good for apprentices?
Speaker, you were here, because I heard the speech from the member for Beaches-Woodbine. It was a great speech. She says, how is this bill that permits employers to pay apprentices less than they now earn better for apprentices or apprenticeship programs? I don't understand it. Do you? Does the public? How?
If this is good for apprentices, like the member for St Catharines-Brock says, is it good to begin to force apprentices to pay a fee? Some of those guys there say, "What's wrong with that?" I know my friend Jack Carroll from Chatham-Kent says it's not such a bad thing to allow people to pay; what's wrong with having people pay?
There is a problem with it. The average age for most of these people involved in apprenticeship programs is 27 to 35, possibly older, which means that people are coming back into a profession or a trade and also means that they're probably unemployed elsewhere. It means very likely they don't have a lot of bucks. M. Carroll from Chatham-Kent says it's not so bad to get these people to pay for their own apprenticeship programs. Well, it might be. It could very well cause problems for a lot of people who are looking for these educational opportunities and who might have been laid off by some of your buddies and need a break. But the member for Chatham-Kent says that's not a problem; it's good for apprentices.
The member for St Catharines-Brock continues and says that if we do this, replacing regulated journeyperson-to-apprentice ratios with voluntary guidelines for employers, in his view it must be good.
Speaker, you were here when the member for Beaches-Woodbine talked about that particular problem, and the member for Hamilton Centre spoke to this as well. At the moment there are ratios that are manageable. It permits those who are learning to learn in a small, educational kind of setting. The more you include in that educational setting, the more difficult it is for those journeypersons and those people trying to learn the trade. Would you not agree? It's a simple little thing to understand, I would think. It's like having 40 people in a classroom versus having 10, versus having five. I'm sure it's quite clear even to the Tories to understand this principle.
How is it better to eliminate standards, where you remove regulations and replace them with voluntary guidelines on employers? Why is that better for apprentices, M. Ford, you smiling man, you? He's always smiling. I like him. He smiles in this place. He cheers me up. How is it better?
You have the Minister of Education saying, "We do not have enough people and so we need to reform the system." Change the system so that you can have more people being trained, but why destroy what in large measure has worked well? They say it's got to change. "Why does it have to change? Because we say so." Why? I wasn't entirely clear, given the number of problems that have been identified by many of our members in the NDP, and others, of course. It hasn't been made clear to me, so how is it that whatever you're doing is going to be better for someone out there, apprentices or society in general, except your buddies, the ones who bring the big bucks to your fundraisers? It's only good for them. It's not good for working people.
I've got to tell you, Speaker, the minister should go and negotiate a deal with the federal government now. He should not be complaining about the Liberals at the federal level cutting $43 million. I recall those Tory members on this side - you will too, Speaker; you were here - when they used to say to the NDP: "Don't whine about the federal government. You've got the wheel; you're in charge." Now you have the Minister of Education saying, "Why don't you guys go complain to the feds about the $2.3 billion that hasn't been forthcoming?" Isn't it funny how the tables turn?
Go and negotiate a deal so we can get the money for training that we need now, here in Ontario, instead of attacking them. The money is there. Go and negotiate a deal and bring it to Ontarians. We don't need a Bill 55 that will harm the apprenticeship program as we have identified.
M. Ford, that smiling man over there, I like him a lot. He's always smiling. I want to hear his views.
But that's what I want to say to them. Quebec negotiated a deal that gives Quebec more money than it actually pays in contributions. Let's go, Ontario, and negotiate a deal for us that gives us money so you don't have to force people to pay tuition.
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): So why didn't you do that?
Mr Marchese: You've got the wheel now. You can do it. We were trying to do that before we were unelected. You've got the wheel now: You do it.
The Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mr Carroll: I can never resist the opportunity to comment. The member for Fort York is actually my member. Where I live in the city of Toronto, the member for Fort York is actually my member. So I'm glad to see that he supports me so much.
He comments about, "Go and negotiate a deal." He knows, because his government was there, you can't negotiate a deal with those federal Liberals. You guys tried; you failed. We're trying. They won't negotiate. We're doing the same thing you tried to do and having the same results. We'd be pleased to figure out some way to do that, and you can help us with that.
He talks about the average age of apprentices being 28 to 35. I think right there it tells us what part of the problem is. What happened to those people before they got to be 28? They have been poorly trained; they have been unskilled. We want to get to these people before they're 28 to 35 and teach them the skills so that they can become productive.
You talk about and your members talk about a cheap labour pool. That's what we have now. We have a cheap labour pool of unskilled workers that we haven't trained. That's the problem we're trying to solve. The only way we can solve that, and I'm sure the member for Fort York understands this, is we have to train these people. We have to get them into apprenticeship programs. We have to get them in early. We have to get the trade union movement, the management, everybody to co-operate in helping these young people so that they're not later on in life by the time they find a trade.
I'm delighted with the member for Fort York's passion, and he talked about the passion of his members. I love to see it. It's great to see how he represents constituents in his riding.
Mr Caplan: I want to congratulate the member for Fort York for his remarks. They are always very flamboyant.
He did talk about competitiveness, and we heard that competitiveness mantra from the government when they talked about Bill 31, how that was going to create a competitive environment for Ontario. Obviously they didn't read the remarks of their own member for Eglinton, who talked about how Ontario was one of the most competitive environments in the world already. That is a fact.
The other aspect that the member talked about was the ratios. The ratios are very important. The reason is because you require supervision to be able to learn the skills, to be able to know how to do the job properly, because public safety is potentially at risk if those people are doing the work as they learn.
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There's another aspect to the ratios, though: If you have more apprentices per journeyperson, what happens to those people when they get their qualifications, when they get their certification? Is there a job for them afterwards? The answer is no, there is not, because those jobs are being filled by apprentices. You want to create an environment where you have a balance, where you have the ability for people, once they've gained their qualifications, to get jobs. That's a key aspect of apprenticeship training.
The member for St Catharines mentioned another thing: The labour market is very mobile. You have to be able to move. With the changes to rent control that this government has brought in, people moving from place to place are no longer covered by rent control, so they're facing increased costs for their housing and their accommodation. When you look at it, this government is -
The Speaker: Questions and comments? Member for Cochrane South.
Mr Bisson: To my good friend from Fort York, I want to pick up on three points. The first point he made was that this government likes to hide behind the buzz language they happen to be inventing that particular day. In this particular case they're trying to make us believe that somehow this legislation is going to make apprentices and skilled tradespeople in this province much more competitive. The reality is that when you undress the legislation, you find out it's quite the opposite. What they're really going to do is lower the wages of apprentices, lower the skill sets that apprentices are able to get and lower their ability to get the kind of training they need to do the job they've got to do with the trades they're supposed to be working in. As the member points out, and I think he's quite right, this government tends to hide behind language that means quite the opposite.
The other thing he touched on, and I think it's really important, he challenges the Conservative government to go to the federal Liberal government in Ottawa and negotiate the best deal we can. I think that's a really good point. The Conservative member got up and said, "Well, what did you guys do when you were in power for five years?" We went and negotiated with the federal government. I was part of one of the teams that went to negotiate with the federal government, over $100 million, so we could create the francophone community college system that we created in Ontario. If we had sat and whined about it they way you guys are, we would never have been able to get the money that we got to create le Collège Boréal et le Collège des Grands Lacs.
But no, we said: "We're not going to sit here and just whine about the federal Conservatives, at first, and then the Liberals. We'll try to negotiate." Sure, we were unhappy with them; sure we felt that Ontario wasn't getting its fair share. I still feel that now, but that doesn't absolve you from the responsibility you have and have been charged with by the people of this province to go out and negotiate a good deal. In fact, we were negotiating with the federal government exactly what you failed to negotiate in the three years you've been in government, and that is, dollars for apprenticeship training.
Mr Bradley: I enjoyed the remarks of the member because he didn't mention that they were whacking these people as he usually does.
What's quite obvious in the consultation process is the people with whom they've consulted. The people who will be happiest with this legislation are at the Conservative fundraiser tonight with Mike Harris, because they are the people who were consulted. What we were looking for was a widespread consultation in the province with people directly affected, people who have had some experience in the field of the delivery of apprenticeship programs in the province.
Nobody here, not anybody in any of the three parties, believes that the present act, as it is constituted, is satisfactory. We want to see the changes take place. What we're concerned about is that you're trying to lower the standards, as you are with the environment, if I can draw the comparison, Mr Speaker, knowing of your great concern for the environment. There is a comparison there. When you come to environmental regulations, we have the government pulling away all the regulations that would protect the environment. We have the government taking away 40% of the staff and 33% of the budget, or vice versa; in other words, tremendous cuts taking place there. I see the same thing happening in this bill, and it must make you mighty sorry to see that happen.
I know the constituents of the future riding of Etobicoke Centre are going to be extremely concerned with the kind of provisions that we find within this bill. That's why it's going to be essential not only that you go across the province and have your hearings in various communities but that you actually listen to the input and modify your legislation so that all of us can applaud it and say, "It is truly a progressive measure."
The Speaker: Response?
Mr Marchese: I want to say that Germany has one of the most effective apprenticeship programs in the world. The reason for that is is because employers and unions work together and they spend billions of dollars. The private sector itself, not the government, spends billions of dollars. We don't do that here very well at all. We don't have that kind of collaboration between government and labour. With this government, we are at odds all the time. We are polarities. Unions and government are constantly at the other end.
Mr Froese: So are you.
Mr Marchese: That's not true.
It's sad because it means we, the workers, and society, lose in the end. I say to you, go and negotiate a deal with the federal government. There is money there to be had so that we can support our workers in this province. Go and negotiate a deal. Stop blaming the federal Liberal government on this one. Negotiate a deal.
Furthermore, I would say to you, this bill doesn't deal with better wages for workers, better training for apprentices, better provincial protections for them, better ratios of journeyperson to apprentice. It doesn't do that. Therefore, the bill is flawed. Something gives about this bill that people should mistrust.
I want to remind the public who are watching that these ministers and these men and women on the other side are clothed in oil and you've got to wash the oil to see them clearly. I urge you to urge them that we have public hearings in order for our concerns on this side of the House to be raised; not just our concerns but the concerns of people in those trades. They need to be heard. We need widespread hearings across Ontario, and I hope this government delivers on that.
The Speaker: It being nearly 9:30 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 of the clock on Tuesday.
The House adjourned at 2127.