Hansard Transcript 1998-Nov-03 vol. a | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Mr Mario Sergio (Yorkview): For the House and for the benefit of the Premier, let me read from a letter I received from a seven-year-old student in my area, in the neighbourhood of the Venerable John Merlini Catholic School, which is one of the schools on the chopping block.

This is what the seven-year-old says. I'll just read some parts of the letter:

"I have Prader-W" syndrome - I cannot read all the words because it's been faxed to me - "and I am in the developmentally delayed class there.... My mom has been told that you may close down my school." She's talking about you, Mr Harris. "I know it was very difficult for my mommy and daddy to find this wonderful school for me. Our family was so fortunate that our local school was able to take me and make me feel wanted there."

It continues, "My schoolmates are learning how to understand how I talk (not so good) but they really try to accept me for what I am. Also, they look out for me, because I don't understand things like safety rules and crossing the street and not wandering off by myself."

It's letters like this that make us understand what it means to close a local school. I'm calling on the Premier to -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you.

VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): I address the Solicitor General and the Minister of Labour very specifically. This province is at great risk of losing its volunteer firefighting services and it is putting volunteer firefighters at great risk.

Let me tell you specifically why. This issue was raised by volunteer firefighters from Pelham before their town council during the course of this week.

Under the new so-called Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, a volunteer firefighter who is injured in the course of performing his or her volunteer firefighting duties is excluded from any what we called historically workers' compensation protection or coverage. You know who these women and men are. They selflessly and with great commitment volunteer their services in communities across Ontario, and I can speak highly of those in Niagara region and those in Pelham. They're extremely concerned that should they be injured - and the risk is considerable; they perform very dangerous work - their workplace-provided insurance will not cover them and that they've been omitted in their unique role as volunteers from consideration in the new Workplace Safety and Insurance Act.

I call upon the Solicitor General and the Minister of Labour to respond very promptly to this concern. It's important if we're going to protect volunteer firefighting services, if the communities that are served are going to be able to maintain their role and if the concerns raised, as they were in Pelham, are going to be addressed very specifically and clearly, without equivocation.

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): Mr Speaker, on a point of order: The member for Welland-Thorold has made a very good point. I know he wants to support my Bill 75, which corrects the problem he is articulating, which I introduced -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you. Statements.

EGG PRODUCERS

Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): I was most pleased this morning to host a breakfast reception put on by the egg producers' association that was well attended by people from both sides of the House.

The Ontario egg producers represent 635 egg producers, including 14 successful operations in my own riding of Brant-Haldimand. The egg industry is worth $300 million a year to the Ontario economy and represents some 3,000 jobs. The egg producers are self-funded and self-policed, with mandatory egg safety programs to ensure consumers receive a high-quality product at a good price.

Ontario egg producers are preparing for the World Trade Organization talks set to begin in late 1999. They will be making their position known to the Ministry of Agriculture over the next several months as it develops Ontario's position on the World Trade Organization talks to take to the federal government.

In the meantime, Mr Speaker, I can tell you that Ontario egg producers are meeting current World Trade Organization commitments in terms of increasing market access and reducing tariff levels.

They will be looking to this government to carry the message to Ottawa that, above all, trade must be fair and equitable among all partners and that Ontario's egg marketing system is working well to meet the consumer's need for a safe, high-quality product at a reasonable price.

SCHOOL CLOSURES

Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): Last week it was announced that six schools in my area have been slated for closure and many students, parents and teachers are very upset and concerned about the impact this will have on the quality of local education. In the S-D-G area, 17 of the 22 high schools are the only facilities in the community. Therefore, the proposed school closures will have significant consequences.

Upper Canada District School Board vice-chair Art Buckland states, "It shows it's the beginning of the end of rural schools."

From closed Ministry of Natural Resources offices to the consolidation of services at the Cornwall General Hospital to the proposed closure of six area schools, residents in my area are protesting this government's cuts.

When will Premier Harris and S-D-G member Noble Villeneuve listen to the residents and organizations like the Ontario Federation of Agriculture who are calling for a moratorium on rural school closures until a thorough impact assessment has been conducted?

On behalf of the residents of the greater Cornwall area, I urge this government to reconsider its education funding formula and recognize the special circumstances surrounding rural schools in the greater Cornwall area and across the province.

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WINDSOR-ESSEX COMMUNITY CARE ACCESS CENTRE

Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Riverside): A long and bitter strike by administrative workers at the Windsor-Essex community care access centre is now over. This was a strike that lasted much longer than it had to because of the Mike Harris approval of the use of replacement workers.

We are thankful to people like June Muir and her colleagues from the Canadian Union of Public Employees for drawing a line in the sand and saying to this government: "Enough is enough. We won't stand for the privatization of our health care system through the back door."

These courageous workers have also illustrated problems related to our local community care access centre. While CCACs in other parts of Ontario engage in outreach activities, ours has a bunker-down mentality. They refuse to make public minutes from their meetings. While others encourage membership in the CCACs, you can't even get a membership form from ours.

An audit has been conducted by the minister responsible for long-term care of the Windsor-Essex CCAC, but despite repeated requests from me, it still has not been made public. Calls to the deputy minister have gone unanswered.

My question to the minister responsible for long-term care is, what is in that audit? Why isn't it being made public? Minister, what is it that you're afraid of? Patients in our community need -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Member for Northumberland.

GROWTH IN NORTHUMBERLAND

Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): I rise in the House today to recognize the growth of small business in Northumberland.

Last Tuesday the Honourable Al Palladini spent a day in Northumberland, met small business people and spoke to the Port Hope and Cobourg chambers of commerce in Port Hope.

In my riding of Northumberland, small businesses employ hundreds of people and contribute significantly to the local economy. Over the past few years many businesses have experienced tremendous growth.

For example, Merv Heffernan, owner of Quinte Bumper and Fender in Trenton, has watched his business expand from his garage to a large industrial facility. Kokimo Candle Works in Cramahe township has gone from a part-time activity for the Quinn family to a full-time going concern. Electrocables in Trenton has grown rapidly. Peter Davis, the owner of Electrocables, has seen his plant double in size over this past year. Cam-Tran, located in Colborne Industrial Park, is also growing. Two weeks ago the company announced a $1-million industrial expansion which will lead to further employment opportunities. This is one of six expansions in the past 14 years.

These are just a few of the small businesses in Northumberland that have benefited from our government's economic policies. By cutting taxes, eliminating red tape and putting the economy on the right track, small businesses in Northumberland have been able to thrive and prosper in Ontario's economy.

LINDA AND DONALD LETOURNEAU

Mr Pat Hoy (Essex-Kent): Many friends and neighbours have worked tirelessly with Linda Letourneau to force the government to pay attention to her husband's need for the drug Neupogen. The public support that the Letourneaus have received has resulted in a victory for Donald. He will be receiving Neupogen through the Ontario drug benefit plan.

I would like to publicly thank Rev Dave Williamson from Chatham and Linda's neighbour Eric Rice, who accompanied Linda to London to intercept the Premier, and the many other friends and neighbours who have helped. Thanks also to the many journalists who have brought this story to public attention and forced the government's hand.

But this victory is not the end of the story. The courage of Linda and Donald Letourneau in taking on the Harris government for this miracle drug is not restricted to their own need. Donald wants to ensure that all patients who need Neupogen will get it. He does not want anyone else to experience the delays, the agony of uncertainty and the exposure of their private lives that the Letourneau family has endured. It has taken three tortuous weeks of anxious waiting and undue delays to force the government to do the right thing.

The Ontario drug benefit plan must provide the drug without restriction to all patients who need it. We cannot and must not have two-tier health care in Ontario.

We all appreciate Donald's deep concern for other patients.

GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING

Ms Frances Lankin (Beaches-Woodbine): I would like to read three quotes from a document to you.

The first one: "The opposition has quickly realized the powerful resonance that pending school closures have with the public. We can expect them to use school closures as a symbol of the government putting a higher priority on cost-cutting than providing a quality education for kids."

The second one: "The emotional impact of our advertising is perhaps even more important than the content of our copy."

The third one: "The tone of advertising should be designed to help the target audience believe that our government is fair and reasonable, confident and optimistic, having the guts (or the courage) to do the right thing."

You would assume that this comes from the Conservative Party of Ontario caucus, their party operation, but no, this comes from the Premier's office about government, public-taxpayer-paid-for advertisement, talking about how to position against the opposition, talking about how to win the hearts and minds of the public, how to manipulate emotion and about the kinds of lines they should use, like "having the courage to." How many times have you heard ministers answer questions here and say, "We have the courage to"?

Last night on CFRB, the Minister of Community and Social Services said it four times. The moderator said, "He has the courage" -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you.

DONALD DAVIS

Mr W. Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): I rise to commemorate one of the pillars of my hometown of Smiths Falls in the riding of Lanark-Renfrew and Bob Runciman's riding of Leeds-Grenville.

Donald Davis passed away October 10 at the age of 76. He was born in Smiths Falls in 1922 and lived there most of his life. Mr Davis was employed for many years with Ontario Hydro, and though his job often took him to other towns in Ontario, he always returned to Smiths Falls, the town and area he loved.

Don always worked for the good of his family - his wife, Lois, and his children, Brenda, Russ and Keith - his friends and his community. He served as a trustee on the Leeds and Grenville County Board of Education for 33 years. The board named the Don Davis Resource Centre at Lombardy school in honour of his outstanding service.

He was a deacon and trustee on the board of the First Baptist Church and was recently recognized for his 65-year church membership. Mr Davis was also a long-time member of the Masonic Lodge, Tunis Temple and Land O'Lakes Shrine Club. As well, he spent 43 years as an amateur beekeeper, though managing 200 hives sounds like a full-time job to me.

Mr Davis served overseas in Germany and Holland during the Second World War with the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders.

For all his dedication and love of the area, Mr Davis was honoured with the Canada 125 medal in 1997 for his achievements within the community.

CORRECTION

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I rise to correct my record. You will note that on page 3136 of the Hansard record of House debates from yesterday, it reads, "I have a petition which was circulated by Mrs Margaret Pigeon of Goulais River. It is signed by 1,718 residents...." In fact, Speaker, it should have read, "It is signed by 2,718 residents."

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you. I was on pins and needles and I was wondering when you were going to correct that record, member for Algoma.

ANNUAL REPORT, PROVINCIAL AUDITOR

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): I beg to inform the House that I have today laid upon the table the 1998 Annual Report: Office of the Provincial Auditor, who just happens to be here in the Speaker's gallery today. Welcome, Mr Peters.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order with regard to the subcommittee of the general government committee. That subcommittee decided on hearings for the apprenticeship legislation as per the order of the House. The subcommittee reported to the committee, and I read from the subcommittee report:

"That the committee will hold four days of public hearings. The committee will spend one full day in each of the following cities: Toronto, Sudbury and Ottawa. Furthermore, the committee will divide one single day in order to hold hearings in Hamilton, and Windsor."

When that subcommittee report, which was unanimous involving the members of all three parties and the Chair, was submitted to the full committee, there was a motion put by one of the government members that the committee go to London. That was defeated and then subsequently another motion put that would require the committee just to spend one day just in Windsor and not go to Hamilton, and that was carried.

My question is this: Why is it, when there is unanimous agreement in the subcommittee, that a committee would reject the report of the subcommittee and arbitrarily decide to prohibit people from the Hamilton-Niagara region the opportunity to make presentations on this legislation on apprenticeships in Ontario?

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): That's a point that you have to bring up at the committee level. It's not something I could even entertain to rule on.

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INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

CITY OF TORONTO XXIX SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES BID ENDORSEMENT ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 APPUYANT LA CANDIDATURE DE LA CITÉ DE TORONTO CONCERNANT LES XXIX^e JEUX OLYMPIQUES D'ÉTÉ

Mr Kells moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 77, An Act to endorse the proposed bid of the City of Toronto to host the XXIX Summer Olympic Games / Projet de loi 77, Loi visant à appuyer la candidature que se propose de présenter la cité de Toronto pour accueillir les XXIX^e Jeux olympiques d'été.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Mr Morley Kells (Etobicoke-Lakeshore): The bill endorses the bid that the city of Toronto proposes to make to host the 29th Summer Olympic Games in the year 2008.

The bill recognizes that Ontario's participation in the bid process is a necessity if it is to be successful. This involvement can only be sustained through mutually acceptable terms enshrined in the agreement between Ontario and the organizers of the Toronto proposal. It also asks all municipalities in Ontario and citizens of Ontario to voluntarily support the bid.

If I may, I've already had an opportunity to visit the riding of Kingston and The Islands and tour the facility there. I'm sure that when this bill comes up for debate, the honourable member from that riding will be talking favourably about that facility. I've also been to Oshawa to see the facility down there for skeet shooting.

I'm sure that by and large all the members will join in support of this bill.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

PERSONAL SUPPORT WORKERS

Hon Cameron Jackson (Minister of Long-Term Care, minister responsible for seniors): Today I had the opportunity to listen first hand to several care workers, people like Linda Kong at St Paul's L'Amoreaux Seniors Centre in Scarborough. These are people who bring vital services into the homes of our seniors, to persons with disabilities and those recovering from surgeries. They have an aptitude for helping people, and they have a vital role in the restructuring of Ontario's health services to ensure that those services meet the needs of the individuals instead of forcing the individual to fit the services.

This government has made a number of tough decisions that bring Ontario closer to a vision for health services for our future: more integrated, community based, high-quality services. We know that quality health care isn't just about technology and buildings; it's about compassionate service that meets people's needs. That's why our plan focuses on individual care that's closer to home and part of their community.

We are funding several key initiatives that put our long-term-care services on a new, more integrated path. After 10 years of promises, this government created 43 community care access centres to provide one-stop shopping for home care and other community services. Funding for these centres and other long-term-care community services has in fact increased by 40% across this province in three years, and 70% right here in Toronto.

The front-line home care workers I met with this morning provide these essential services in their community, and there are thousands more like them all across our province. They are very proud of the job they do and, more importantly, of the lives they touch. They are valued by the people they serve for the caring, personal and professional attitude and attention they provide.

The people they care for may be frail, may have some trouble climbing stairs and may take a little longer to remember things. Some are recovering from surgery and they may be unable to perform the simple acts of daily living. They have a right to that kind of help with day-to-day living. That help is best given not by a doctor but a caring, capable and well-trained woman or man who visits their home to do those basic things necessary to allow them to be as independent as possible. These workers become a vital part of the lives of our elders and people of all ages who need support to live independently in our society.

The practitioners of this service are called personal support workers, or by their old name, homemakers, but I have heard them called friends by the many people they serve on a daily basis across Ontario.

Their work is not recognized by our federal government under the Canada Health Act, but that has not stopped our provincial government from making them an important part of the restructured health care services here in Ontario. Without any recognition or funding from Ottawa, the government of Ontario has increased significantly the level and quality of services so that today we provide the highest levels of access to home care in all of Canada. Like other provinces, we do not impose an income test, an asset test or a means test in order to access these services. In fact, on July 13 this year, I flowed a further $83 million to expand access to visiting nursing therapists and personal support workers.

Today I am announcing details of plans to put more funding into the training of attendant and personal support workers contracted by community care access centres across this province, a plan to enhance the quality of these vital services.

One year ago, all 27 Ontario community colleges and 47 private vocational trade schools and several boards of education began offering a new personal support worker education program. This was an improvement on the several homemaker training programs that were taught across the province. Depending on where the course was taught you were given a different course of study, making it difficult to transfer your credits from one school to another.

To fix that previously confusing system, our government, with the help of the Ontario Community Support Association and the Ontario Home Health Care Providers Association, brought together educators, personal support workers and service providers to create one standard program. Graduates will be awarded a certificate of completion for personal attendant, and with further studies a certificate of completion for personal support worker.

We are now making this training available to existing workers, like the people I met with this morning. To do that we are increasing funding to this program by approximately 50% to $10 million for each of the next five years. We are paying for their tuition, their travel and their books as well as their salaries in order for these workers to enrol and take this program full-time across Ontario.

It's what we call a bridging program, and it's an initiative specifically designed to provide some 10,000 workers across this province with an opportunity to expand this important training. It allows them to provide a more broad range of services, handle more difficult and challenging situations, understand people with Alzheimer's and related dementia and offer the flexibility to meet the needs of individual consumers.

The president of the Ontario Community Support Association, Elizabeth Fulford, summed it up: "Well-prepared staff is the key to quality care. We are pleased that this government is committed to support the training for personal support workers."

These individuals are our partners in this journey towards a long-term-care service that offers more independence, personal choice and dignity. On behalf of a grateful province, especially the citizens they care for on a daily basis, I and members of this House wish to thank them and the thousands of fellow workers they represent for providing us with the kind of personal care and attention that affords the independence that is so valued by the people they serve.

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Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South): The people watching might have heard a hubbub in the House of maybe other conversations going on and people not necessarily paying attention to the honourable minister here, and this minister has something important to say today, the minister of part-time health care, maybe the wannabe Minister of Health, the minister of window dressing for the cuts to the hospital sector. We hear him say today that there's new money coming for certain kinds of workers. Let's look at what exactly this is about. This new PSW, the only difference between that and the home care worker in the past is that it has a medical component to it; in other words, it touches on some of the things currently being done by RNs and RPNs, by highly trained and highly skilled nurses.

We're encouraged to see that workers can improve their skills, but the government has not matched this training initiative with any money to actually pay these workers. In the actual real world where patients get treated, we have agencies, some of which I believe are here today, that have to offer a base wage of $9.15 to $11 an hour. Why would a government train people to be more skilled and not give any more money to receive in more pay? They don't get any benefits, and a lot of agencies can't pay mileage. When I attended the board of the Ontario Community Support Association, they told me they are having trouble attracting and keeping people. The result is because of a lack of government commitment to really good care for people.

We have a window-dressing announcement today with a major problem that the new graduates who are not working in the community are being gobbled up by nursing homes; they're not being available for home care. This does nothing to address that, because it doesn't deal with the salaries of those workers and, more importantly, the protections for the patients who need the help.

The PSW graduates are trickling into the community. Why would they work there, Minister, if they don't get better wages and if they don't get better working conditions? Your very privatization of these services, for-profit services being given an advantage in these areas, is taking away from their ability to provide for people. That is your move, Minister.

The existing workforce in homemaking can go back to school on a part-time basis. Just so you know how much of a public relations manoeuvre this is, to the very large number of concerned backbenchers in the government, each agency shares the government funding based on a percentage of the services they provide. Under the current system, that means it would take 35 years for the workers to actually be retrained. So we know how limited the commitment of this government is, because it has essentially reduced the amount of time it would take to get those people through the system to about 25 years. So if you're in a bed right now, if you're at home waiting for homemaking services, like 2,000 people are in Kingston - which, incidentally, they're not going to get, because they've been cut off under this government's lack of funding and commitment to the Kingston CCAC - if you're waiting, though, for your homemaker to get these additional skills, you're going to wait a long, long time under this government.

We've got a make-work project from the Tory government for some people and a subsidy for for-profit agencies, but what does this really mean for people out there in the field? It means these new PSWs are going to be bumping nurses, RPNs and RNs, from roles they currently have. Instead of actually providing for new care, it is squeezing money out of the health care system by finding cheaper methods to perform roles that were once associated with nursing care. This minister should hang his head in shame for the reductions, for the deductions and for the discounting that he's doing on the health system in this province.

Minister, next time you stand up to give us an announcement, I want you to talk about the people whom you're supposed to be taking care of, like Ian Strathern in Niagara Falls. The Strathern family is paying $1,500 a week trying to get care that your ministry is denying them and is taking them to court to make sure they don't have. All across this province there are people, families, sadly paying the price for your smokescreen, for your being the minister of flim-flam, for your bringing down the standards. Just like you'll take away chronic care beds and bring us long-term-care beds with one third the funding, you want to bring us people who would like to have jobs at a good rate of pay but you've created a competitive environment which drives their salaries down. Now you have the audacity to say somehow trickling some training to them over a period of time will do anything except take away highly qualified nurses and give these people no real prospects in terms of how to improve a profession which, the one point we can agree with you on, is badly needed in Mike Harris's Ontario today because more and more people are being kicked out of hospitals quicker and sicker, and they need the support of good homemakers. What they don't need is the diffident interest of this government in providing anything but cut-rate health care.

Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): This is the kind of announcement that makes it extremely difficult to keep a straight face, particularly with the minister responsible for long-term care, because although at the kernel there is some little grain of hope for people in this province that care in the home setting is going to be offered in a better way, most of this is sheer window dressing, self-advertisement and a very crass attempt on the part of the minister to try and paper over the fact that the polling his party has done shows exactly what we know, what everyone in the province of Ontario knows, that people are desperately concerned about the quality of care that is being offered to ill people at home.

Everyone in this province wants those who are able to be at home to be there to receive their care, but not at the cost of the quality of that care. The minister is quite right that some kind of training program, some kind of way for people to upgrade their skills, is a very important part of that. I want the minister to know that I support the idea that people who are working in the field be constantly upgraded. No one here disagrees with that. The concern we have is a legitimate one: Where are the standards of care? Where is the regulatory body that is going to ensure that the people who are offering this care are accountable for that care? None of that is here.

What we have is a laudable attempt to bring together those programs that have developed so that at least you know what the course content is, at least you know what education a person has if they get one or the other of these certificates. But once in the home, people are extremely vulnerable. They are vulnerable to caretakers who may try, because they want to help, because they are compassionate and caring, to take on tasks that belong to professions that have much longer training and much more technical expertise. Frankly, it happens every day in this province that well-meaning, caring, compassionate long-term-care workers find themselves in a situation of having to choose whether to do something they technically are not supposed to do or seeing that person not receive those services.

We begged the government to put into effect our patients' bill of rights in the home so that we knew what the standards were, so that there was some regulatory mechanism for people to complain when those standards weren't met. This may be a small initial step towards improving some of the training for some of the people, but it certainly is not adequate to deal with the needs out there in our community.

The minister talks in glowing terms about having talked this morning with a few people who provide this care. Well, I've spoken to people providing this care all over the province, and I know how many of them are in tears daily because they know they are not able to provide the kind and the level of service their patients need, who go home drained, who wonder about whether they should continue in this field, who worry about whether they are actually collaborating in making people believe that the quality of care is better than it is.

The people who are doing this work are very remarkable people, but they are remarkably unsupported by either appropriate remuneration or benefits or timetables or security. Much better than speaking in glowing, wonderful terms about how marvellous these people are, you, Minister, have it within your power to ensure that standards are set for home care, to ensure that home care workers are regulated properly, to ensure that they see, in tangible terms, how grateful all of us are for the work they do day to day. This is a tiny, little step and I would not want the minister to think it's not a good step, but I certainly can't let him fool the people out there into thinking this is somehow going to solve the quality-of-care problem in home care.

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ORAL QUESTIONS

SCHOOL CLOSURES

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): My question is for the Minister of Education. Our leader, Dalton McGuinty, is spending his afternoon visiting some of the Toronto area schools that are faced with closure. He's talking with students, staff and parents who are frightened about what will happen if their school is shut down and who are angry that your government is forcing this to happen.

One of the schools that Dalton is visiting is Givins Shaw Public School. This school is in the heart of downtown Toronto. It has a rich history going back to its founding in 1848 by Colonel Givins, who was a military attaché to General Brock. The school is celebrating its 150th anniversary on November 14. For 150 years, Givins Shaw has served the needs of an increasingly multicultural community. Givins Shaw has a large number of children from new immigrant families, so it needs some extra space to provide extra support, English-as-a-second-language programs, and it does cost a little bit more to maintain because it is an older school. So it doesn't fit your bottom lines, Minister, and according to your formula it has to go.

Minister, do you think Givins Shaw school should shut down because it costs more than your formula allows, or will you provide some additional money so Givins Shaw can stay open?

Hon David Johnson (Minister of Education and Training): These community schools are very important. My first school back many years ago was a traditional, two-room brick schoolhouse. I and students in grades 1 to 4 occupied the one class; students in grades 5 to 8 occupied the other class. It was a very important school to the local community, and it remains an important school now. That school actually is 150 years old. These are the kind of schools that indeed are important to communities all across Ontario.

I have written to the various school boards across the province urging the school boards to look at other ways and means to deal with their schools rather than closing them down, and I've suggested to the school boards that they shouldn't close them, that they should look at other uses, sharing the facilities with the other school boards, sharing them with colleges or daycare centres or other community uses, and keep those schools open.

Mrs McLeod: The letter you sent out to school boards confirms the fact that all you're providing is $5.20 for 100 square feet of space for each school. That's it in elementary schools. Givins Shaw can't survive as a school if you're only going to give them $5.20 to maintain 100 square feet for each of its pupils.

Another of the schools, Minister, that Dalton's going to be visiting this afternoon is Ogden Junior Public School. Ogden's a fairly small school, but it is almost full. It's only 25 students short of being full even under your formula. The problem is your funding formula requires that every school be 100% full. Ryerson school, which is the nearest school to Ogden, can hold another 300 students, according to your numbers and your formula. So Ogden school is likely to close and the students are likely to be sent to Ryerson, and Ryerson will have 900 elementary school students crammed into the limited amount of space that your formula allows for each student.

Minister, I ask you today for a straight answer: Do you think that Ogden school is too small to stay open because it only has 300 students and do you think Ryerson will be too big if 900 students are crammed in there? Just answer.

Hon David Johnson: I just want to correct something that the member opposite has indicated, that there's not additional support for schools with specific circumstances. I am pleased to inform her that the basic funding formula does provide $40 million to support small schools across Ontario, and indeed the funding formula also contains some $90 million to support remote and rural schools.

Here in Toronto, since she has raised the issue of a Toronto school, there are monies for learning opportunity grants. These monies are for children at risk, and in Metropolitan Toronto there are more children at risk in proportion to those in boards in other areas. The Toronto board gets monies from this particular grant to assist them in the operations of these schools. They also receive a large proportion of the English-as-a-second-language grant. So there are different funds to assist boards in different circumstances and schools in different circumstances.

Mrs McLeod: Let me correct you. Ogden school in Toronto can't possibly qualify for a small school factor, because it says here it has to be more than 80 kilometres from all other elementary schools before it can even qualify. I don't think that's in the rules for Ogden school to stay open. My question is still, Minister, do you think the small Ogden school should close and the students should be rammed into Ryerson?

Another school that Dalton's visiting is St Raymond separate school. St Raymond is a large physical building - get the picture - that has 320 students in it. Your formula says you should have 700 students in St Raymond school, because your formula doesn't allow St Raymond to have an art room or a social science room or a family studies room. You think there should be full-time classes with 25 students in every one of those rooms. Any actual vacant classrooms in St Raymond are being well used by daycare students, by adults in continuing education classes, by ESL classes.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Answer.

Mrs McLeod: Minister, you don't count any of that. Will you change your rigid rules, change your inflexible funding formula so that community uses are recognized in a school like -

The Speaker: Thank you. Minister.

Hon David Johnson: What I was trying to imply is that there are different circumstances right across the province and there are different amounts of money that support different circumstances. The two schools -

Interjections.

The Speaker: Minister.

Hon David Johnson: The Toronto schools mentioned will certainly get their share and more of the language grant and the learning opportunities grant. But the Toronto board has a choice. They can pursue the Nyberg list of closing schools or they have another choice. Their other choice is to reduce their administrative costs, their other choice is to reduce the costs it takes them to run the schools, which is far beyond the provincial average, and their other choice is to look at other uses to fill those community schools. I say the Toronto board, in pursuing the Nyberg list to close schools, has made the wrong choice.

GOVERNMENT CONSULTANTS

Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): My question is to the Minister of Finance. It has to do with the Provincial Auditor's report that was issued today, quite a condemning report, I might add. I want to take one specific aspect of it. The auditor has pointed out what can only be regarded as the sweetheart of all sweetheart consulting deals. The minister will be familiar with the fact that Andersen Consulting was awarded a contract of $180 million by the government. Here's what the auditor said about $180 million:

"They found the ministry could not demonstrate that it selected the most cost-effective proposal or that the agreement would result in value for money for the taxpayer. The ministry could not provide the basis for paying $180 million. A starting point for measuring the benefits had not been adequately established.

It goes on to say that to get money into the consultant's hands by March 31, 1998, the consultant was paid $15.5 million for $2.5 million worth of work.

It is a boondoggle. My question to you is this, Minister: How could you approve, on behalf of the taxpayers, this sweetheart deal for Andersen Consulting?

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Hon Ernie L. Eves (Deputy Premier, Minister of Finance): I refer this question to the Minister of Community and Social Services.

Hon Janet Ecker (Minister of Community and Social Services): First of all, in answer to the honourable member's question, I'd like to say that as a taxpayer I welcome the recommendations of the auditor and the job that he does.

Laughter.

Hon Mrs Ecker: They may find that humorous. I think someone watching over the taxpayers' money is an excellent -

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Minister.

Hon Mrs Ecker: It's interesting that the opposition over there seems to think it's humorous that a check and balance to protect taxpayers is somehow worthy of derision.

The second point I would like to make is that reform of the information technology that supports delivery of the welfare system is extremely vital. This is an old system. It's been tinkered with for over 30 years. It's in danger of crashing. There are over a million people who depend on that system to give them their benefits when they need them. So the reform of this system was extremely important. Actually it was the previous government, the NDP, that recognized that reform was beyond the ability of the ministry to do it, so we sought expert advice.

As for the specific recommendations of the auditor, I'm very concerned. The mismanagement of this program - this project has been mismanaged - is unacceptable. It should have been handled better and I've directed the deputy to take the necessary steps to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Mr Phillips: To get back to mismanagement, I think the deputy may have to go to the cabinet table because that's who signed the deal. It was the cabinet that signed the deal.

I just want to say to the minister, Andersen Consulting made you look like a fool. They estimated the cost of this project at $50 million to $70 million, maximum. You went out and signed a contract for $180 million. You look like a fool on it. They then increased their rates. By the way, this contract was signed 18 months after you came into office. It wasn't something done the next day; it was signed in 1997. They estimated the cost at $50 million to $70 million; you gave them $180 million. They estimated their fees. Then they increased their fees since they signed the contract by 63% and you approved that. You're paying clerks on this project more than you're paying the deputy minister on the project. I repeat, you look like a fool on this.

Are you prepared now to renegotiate this contract and get the taxpayers out from under a burden that you put them under?

Hon Mrs Ecker: I'd like to remind the honourable member that one of the values of this particular kind of procurement process is that the risk is borne by the private sector partner. They pay the upfront cost, not the taxpayer. They get paid -

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Minister.

Hon Mrs Ecker: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. As I said previously, they are bearing the costs of this program. They only get paid if there are savings. That's a very important protection for the taxpayers. The other thing the honourable member isn't mentioning is that there is a cap on this. They only get paid if there are savings up to a maximum amount.

But as I have also said, the management of this project was unacceptable. We have a new team in place. There are new rules, tighter rules, to verify the cost. We have directed that Andersen renegotiate the rates to ensure that we are indeed getting the best value for money for the taxpayer.

I would also like to repeat that the reform of this technology is extremely important. If the honourable members would like to -

The Speaker: Final supplementary.

Mr Phillips: The tragedy is that there is not a cap on the $180 million. They can actually get more than $180 million. There is not a cap on the $180 million, tragically. If you want to have almost an SCTV skit on how not to engage a consultant, it would be this.

Again I say to the minister, one of the key criteria for selecting these people was the people involved in it, and then over half of them left the project. They estimated the cost at $70 million. You said: "We'll be pretty tough with you. We'll only give you $180 million and a little bit more." Believe me, you look like fools on this, and it was done 18 months into the government.

Will you undertake today to go to the cabinet and say: "Listen, somebody here goofed; the cabinet goofed. We are going back to Andersen Consulting and on behalf of the taxpayers we are going to get on our knees and say, `We're sorry we signed this contract; will you let us off the hook so the taxpayers aren't embarrassed by this government?'"

Hon Mrs Ecker: I'd like to remind the honourable member it was an open bidding process that selected this particular partner.

The second point -

Interjections.

The Speaker: Minister.

Hon Mrs Ecker: The honourable member seems to think that somehow or other that system that over a million people depend on should have been allowed to decay, as they allowed it to decay. If they think allowing that system to sit there until it crashes and a million people in need can't get the cheques they need when they need them, they should say so. We knew reform was needed. We knew the ministry did not have the expertise to do that reform on its own. That's why we went out and got expert opinion to do that.

I repeat: Only if savings are achieved does the company get paid. Secondly, the mismanagement of this project is unacceptable. That's why we have taken steps to fix it, so it will not happen again.

The Speaker: New question, leader of the third party.

Mr Howard Hampton (Rainy River): My question is to the Minister of Community and Social Services. This corporate boondoggle is so good I have to get in on it too.

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We raised this issue with your government over a year ago. We pointed out that Andersen Consulting has a terrible record and the Provincial Auditor has confirmed today that this is an all-time corporate welfare boondoggle, because the Provincial Auditor confirms that you have paid Andersen $15.5 million, even when their costs are only $13.1 million; that Andersen has gotten more than 90% of the so-called savings from social assistance, even though they have had virtually nothing to do with it; that you have paid them $1.25 million in expenses without any receipts; and that you're going to keep on paying them to the tune of $180 million, even though the Provincial Auditor found no basis for the fee.

Minister, you're good at attacking poor people, unemployed people. Will you do the taxpayers a favour and get rid of this corporate boondoggle?

Hon Mrs Ecker: The honourable member well knows that that computer technology is in serious danger of crashing. The risk was so high that his government started the process to bring in a private sector partner to try and fix the technology.

The agreement is very clear. Andersen only gets paid if there are savings, and it was very clear on that, because they are paying the costs of this program, as they should. They're bearing the risk. If there are savings, they then get paid up to a cap, so it was very clear.

We would also like to say that because of the policy changes and the legislation changes and our welfare reforms like Ontario Works, our work-for-welfare program, we have already saved the taxpayers $2.8 billion. We are continuing to move forward with our welfare reforms because, one, we know we've got to get people off welfare and, two, we know that the technology that supports that program has to work.

Mr Hampton: The minister tries to avoid the question. The question here is about getting Andersen off the corporate welfare. No one else designed this boondoggle. Your government, and your government alone, has designed this boondoggle.

It gets even worse. Even more incredible, whenever Andersen Consulting wants, they can raise their hourly rates that they charge the taxpayers of Ontario and you, the government, can't do anything about it, and so Andersen has. They've raised their rates already by 63% from the original proposal. They're now charging $575 an hour, six times higher than anybody in your ministry gets paid on an hourly basis. The original corporate welfare rate was bad enough, $300 an hour. It is demonstrated by the auditor that they are not saving you any money in social assistance, that those savings are happening because of other things.

My question to you, Minister: Will you end this corporate boondoggle?

Hon Mrs Ecker: I would, with respect, disagree with the honourable member. The Andersen project has saved the taxpayers money. If it hadn't, they wouldn't have been paid one red cent, but because there have been savings and there will continue to be savings to the taxpayers, that's how they get paid and that's where they get paid.

As I have also indicated here in the Legislature, we are having the rates renegotiated. I have also said and will say again because I believe it very firmly, this project was mismanaged. It should have been done better. One of the reasons the auditor had some difficulty assessing those costs was that there needed to be a better process in place.

I repeat, there is a new team, there are new rules, they're reporting on a more regular basis to senior management to make sure that this very important reform is managed in a way that better protects the taxpayers and also moves forward with a reform that will protect those million people out there who depend on the system from being left high and dry.

Mr Hampton: The minister tries very hard to ignore exactly what the auditor has said. He said there is no connection between any so-called savings in social assistance and anything that Andersen has done. That's the essence of his argument.

Further, we raised this issue over a year ago. We told you: "Why don't you go look at the auditor's report from New Brunswick where they say the McKenna government has quietly been paying Andersen Consulting over $1 million for services they haven't performed." Or even the good old boys down in Texas, the Texas auditor's report says: "Originally, Arthur Andersen committed to an $11-million contract. It ballooned to $75 million." That was all there. You could have seen that.

Here's the problem. They're going to continue to milk Ontario taxpayers for a further $165 million at least, unless you do something. Minister, I'm going to ask you for the third time: Will you end this rip-off of Ontario taxpayers? Will you end this corporate welfare boondoggle for your corporate friends?

Hon Mrs Ecker: Will we end a reform that is going to protect a million people out there who depend on that technology? Absolutely not. Payments are only made under this agreement if there are savings. I think the honourable members recognize that.

Second, we are not backing away from a reform initiative that desperately needs to be done. We recognized and we knew that the ministry did not have the expertise that was required. We put out an open bidding process. We consulted with jurisdictions, quite frankly, around the world that have used this particular company. They are producing savings for us. That is what they are supposed to be doing. We will not back away from that reform.

In terms of better management for this program, absolutely: It was mismanaged, it is unacceptable, and that's why we've put changes in place. I have directed the deputy to put changes in place that will fix that mismanagement so that we can ensure that the taxpayers are indeed protected and that, again, the auditor has an appropriate documentation trail so he can make an assessment and a judgment about what is happening.

EDUCATION FUNDING

Mr Howard Hampton (Rainy River): My next question is for the Minister of Education. Last week the Minister of Education made an admission. He admitted that across Ontario under his new funding formula, funding for school operations and maintenance has been cut by 1.5%. It's time to get some more figures from the minister today.

Your government hired the firm of Ernst and Young to write a report on school board spending. They came up with the concept of the median board, that board that was halfway down the list when you went from the biggest boards to the smallest boards. One half were above this median board, one half below. Will you confirm that in your new funding formula most of the grant categories are based on expenditures by your new statistical invention, the so-called median board?

Hon David Johnson (Minister of Education and Training): What I will confirm is that this government is intent on improving the quality of education in the province of Ontario. We're intent on focusing the resources that are available into the classroom, increasing funds available for teachers, for textbooks, for supplies, for all of the essentials within the classroom.

Then I'll confirm that outside of the classroom, in order that we have those monies to invest in the classroom to improve the quality of education, I will confirm that we are expecting reductions in the non-classroom activities, in the administration, in the bureaucracy.

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The member opposite has questioned about the Provincial Auditor. The Provincial Auditor has raised the issue of the running of the schools. The Provincial Auditor believes the schools can be run more efficiently and effectively. I don't think reducing operations by 1.5% is asking too much efficiency of the school boards across Ontario.

Mr Hampton: The minister tried very hard not to answer the question, but unfortunately one of his officials did answer this question under oath in the Bill 160 court case. The ministry official admitted under cross-examination that your funding formula uses norms based on this so-called median board - this invention - as a tool "for driving down funded spending." That's what he said.

Minister, since we now know that's the truth, will you confirm that one half of the school boards that existed in 1997 - the one half below this so-called median board - actually represented only 11% of Ontario's student population?

Hon David Johnson: I will confirm that there are many large boards and small boards both above and beyond the median line. The Hamilton board, for example, can operate at about $4 in terms of their operations, whereas the Toronto board is operating at about $2.50 above that.

The question is: If some large urban boards, for example, can be efficient, can be effective - and the auditor believes that school boards should be asked to be more efficient and effective - then why is it a crime to ask school boards across Ontario to be more efficient and effective in the way they run schools and to take that money and invest it in the classroom, in textbooks, in supplies, in computers and in teachers in the classroom? I think we've put the focus exactly where it should be: on quality in the education system.

Mr Hampton: Minister, you can repeat that rhetoric all you want; none of the people across Ontario believe it. They know your real agenda is getting the money out of the schools to finance your income tax scheme, and that's what's happening. When you follow the funding formula you see that, because the reality regarding this so-called median board you invented is that only 11% of the students are above that median figure; 89% are on the wrong end. What it means is that, by inventing that median figure, you are actually cutting the investment in the education of 89% of the students in this province. That's your mathematical wizardry. You invented this phony concept, and 89% of the students in this province are experiencing a cut in operational school funding because of it. Minister, will you confirm that 11% of students are at one end of this median and 89% are at the other?

Hon David Johnson: I'll confirm a couple of things. I'll confirm that 100% of the students in Ontario will see more monies into the classroom across the province, and that's exactly where the money should be spent.

I'll also confirm that there will be more money spent this year in the education system across the province than there was last year or the years before. Over $15 billion will be spent on the elementary and secondary system in Ontario. The taxpayers deserve good value for that money. The taxpayers, parents, teachers and students want to see those resources focused in the classroom, and that's exactly what we're doing.

SCHOOL CLOSURES

Mr Dominic Agostino (Hamilton East): My question is to the Minister of Education. Minister, your real agenda in school closures is starting to come through clear, day after day. In my own community, potentially up to 40 schools are on the cutting block, and because the board of education had the guts to say no to you and your stupid formula, you are punishing them to the tune of $3 million a year right now, which is going to cost students in the community dearly. But, Minister, what is more disturbing is now what is clear is the agenda of your ministry, of your government, of yourself in regard to this. You're insensitive to community schools, you are uncaring about community schools and you simply show a lack of compassion to those schools.

Let me read what your member for Hamilton Mountain, Trevor Pettit, said to the editorial board about a school in his own riding: "To suggest that Thornbrae school is the heart of the community is a joke. A lot of the people who show up once you start hearing about...school closing...you will never see at a parents' council, a fundraiser, hot dog day or any other function that the school ever has." This is one of your backbenchers.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Question?

Mr Agostino: Minister, why do you allow your government and your backbenchers to attack neighbourhood schools, the kids, the parents and the teachers in those schools -

The Speaker: Thank you. Minister.

Hon David Johnson (Minister of Education and Training): The priority of this government is to improve the education system. The priority of this government is to invest in the classroom, in teachers, in textbooks. That's why we instituted the $100-million fund to purchase textbooks for the elementary students, for the kindergarten students, to purchase science equipment, the computer software that the kids need in the classroom. That's why we have reduced the funding outside of the classroom in administration and non-classroom activities and put that money into the classroom, because we believe that our children in the province deserve a better-quality education system and that each and every child deserves to have the same opportunity of an excellent education system right across the province. That's what we're doing. That's what our policies are directing us to do in how to invest in the education system.

Mr Agostino: Your lack of an answer and the fact that you refuse to answer the question is clear: You support that statement, you support the attack on community schools and you support the attack on those students and those teachers, or you now would have taken your member to task, which you failed to do.

It gets better. Clearly, you don't give a darn about how these school closures as a result of your stupid funding formula are affecting communities. It gets better. You want full control of education, of funding, but you don't want any of the responsibilities. The quotes get better. Let me read you another brainwave in the same interview with the editorial board of the Spectator. Your member from Hamilton Mountain, Trevor Pettit, says: "Maybe the next step is to eliminate the boards. That's my personal opinion. The boards have to go." That is the view of your member for Hamilton Mountain. Not only do you attack the students, the neighbourhood schools, the parents and the teachers, now it's the school boards.

Minister, answer directly: Do you support the attack on neighbourhood schools and do you agree with the statement by your member for Hamilton Mountain that your next step is to eliminate school boards across Ontario?

Hon David Johnson: I have indicated before that I and the members on this side of the House believe that neighbourhood schools are most essential and should be supported. In confirmation of that, I have written to the school board chairs across the province suggesting ways and means they should look at, initiatives they should pursue to bring community activities within their schools to help share in the responsibilities of the schools and to keep the schools open. I've written to them asking them to pursue these various ideas such as daycare, such as looking at colleges.

I will say, since the member for Hamilton East has asked about his particular schools, that in terms of the monies we're making available for the operation of the schools, in the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board -

The Speaker: Answer.

Hon David Johnson: - there is more money, some 18% more, and in the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board some 3% more to help those two boards, more money to maintain -

The Speaker: Thank you. New question, leader of the third party.

Mr Howard Hampton (Rainy River): To the Minister of Education again: We come now to the issue of school closings. Everyone knows that your funding formula is the problem here, but we need to get to the heart of it.

You say that the Toronto District School Board would not have to close schools if only they acted like the Catholic board. The Catholic board, which is much smaller than the Toronto District School Board, has to close 29 schools as well. How does acting like the Catholic board save schools from closure? They're different in size. The Catholic board will have to close 29. The much larger Toronto District School Board, using the same formula, is going to have to close a lot of schools as well. Can you explain how the Catholic board is somehow going to save a lot of schools from closure across the province and in Toronto?

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Hon Mr Johnson: No school board has to close schools. These are decisions that boards are making whether it's appropriate or not appropriate. When the members of the NDP were in power, school boards chose to close over 100 schools across Ontario. These are decisions that each individual board is making in the context, I might say, of the over $15 billion that we're providing to the schools.

Specifically in the custodial and maintenance area, if the Toronto public school board pursued the same methods of efficiency that the Catholic school board has, based on a proportion, they would save almost $80 million a year, if they pursued the same techniques as the Catholic board. That would go a long way to reducing the Nyberg list of school closures.

Mr Hampton: When the minister says, "If the Toronto board followed the Catholic board they might be able to save some money," what he leaves out is that they'd still have to close over 100 schools. That's the nature of this. No matter how you try to slide it by people, your funding formula is going to close hundreds of schools across this province.

Minister, the other rhetoric you're spouting out there is that the Toronto board should sell off any surplus schools that they're using for administrative purposes now. But here's the problem: When we read your Bill 160 and the regulations under Bill 160, if they close those buildings, your Bill 160 says they can't use any of that money for operating funds; they can only use it for the construction of new schools or the repair of old schools. Who is right? Your law, Bill 160, and the regulations, or this nonsense rhetoric that you've been spewing across the province?

Hon David Johnson: Just a couple of relevant facts: The Toronto school board already has some 80 schools apparently that they no longer use for public school purposes. Perhaps they should be looking at them. They could reduce their administration space. There were seven major administration buildings from the previous seven boards. How many major administration buildings do they have today, 10 months after amalgamation? They still have the seven major buildings today. Could they not reduce that space and save money? Sure they could. Could they not have more community uses within their schools, as I've encouraged them to do?

On the sale of property, the Toronto school board is free to sell their property, keep the money and use the money to build new facilities that they may need, new additions to school space, new schools, major renovations. These are the capital programs that they're going to need to do and they have -

The Speaker: Thank you. New question.

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): My question is for my honourable friend the Minister of Education. I want to start by thanking him for the terrific job he's doing.

In my area there are about a dozen schools identified for possible closure by local school boards. Parents are very concerned over the possibility that these small-town schools, some of which -

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members for Hamilton Centre and Lake Nipigon, come to order, please.

Mr Arnott: - are full to capacity, may be closed by as early as next June. As a parent, I can relate to these concerns. Some school board officials are playing politics and blaming their proposal to close schools on the province's new funding formula for education.

It's my understanding that December 31 is the date which has been established for school boards to submit their proposals regarding their plans for the use of their schools. I also understand that school boards are required to undertake meaningful consultations with parents before they close any schools. Will the minister advise me what I can tell the residents of my area to reassure them about the future of our rural schools, and could the minister explain the purpose of the year-end deadline?

Hon David Johnson: I'm pleased to respond that, yes, the community consultations are required. It's a requirement that we placed on boards. In terms of the December 31 deadline, it's a date up to which the boards across Ontario may reduce their space if they choose to and be eligible for more capital monies to assist in future construction.

But I will say in the case of my colleague that the boards he represents, the Upper Grand, the Wellington Catholic, the Waterloo region and the Waterloo Catholic, are all eligible for new pupil places, all will receive capital monies, and those capital monies will support some $28 million worth of construction in those boards in the first year, and in the third year an additional $27 million worth of construction, and that will support accommodation for over 5,000 pupils in those four boards.

Mr Arnott: I appreciate the financial commitment that the minister has made to ensure that students in Wellington and Waterloo region have a fair and equal opportunity for a high-quality education, irrespective of where they live. The school boards in my area have yet to make a compelling case that there is an immediate need to close schools. I'm disappointed that instead of being prepared to work with me to find a local solution, some school board officials have instead blamed the government, with the result being a proliferation of fear and rumours sweeping through our schools and our communities.

I think there is still time for our area boards to change their course and keep schools open. For example, the Avon Maitland and Thames Valley public boards each had plans to close a significant number of schools. However, after re-evaluating the situation and after seeking input from parents, these boards cancelled their plans.

Our rural and small-town schools have unique characteristics which require recognition in the funding formula. My question is this: Is the government providing sufficient funding to the school boards in my area to keep the schools open and properly maintained, and do the boards have other options?

Hon David Johnson: I thank the member for Wellington for his question and I assure him that the agenda of the government is to improve the quality of education in Ontario and to ensure that each and every child has a fair and equal opportunity at that higher-quality education right across the province.

In terms of the funding for the four boards that the member for Wellington represents, I will say that each and every one of those boards will receive more monies in the classroom. On this particular issue, the issue of the operation of the schools, three of the four boards will receive additional monies. The total flow of additional monies into those four boards altogether exceeds $6 million, over $6 million of additional operation monies into those boards, because those boards have been frugal in the past. It's my hope that they will continue in that vein and serve the students well, with our higher quality of education.

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LONG-TERM CARE

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I have a question for the Minister of Long-Term Care. He will recall that Dalton McGuinty and I have raised the situation facing Ian Strathern of Niagara Falls. As a result of an athletic accident, Ian is a life-support-ventilated quadriplegic. He must rely upon health care givers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Strathern family must pay $1,500 per week for nursing care for Ian.

David Strathern approached Premier Harris at a Conservative fundraiser in St Catharines on May 7 of this year and the Premier promised he would not rest until he had helped Ian. All of us have been very patient waiting for the Premier to keep his promise to Ian Strathern. Instead, the Mike Harris government has embarked upon a legal fight against the Strathern family.

Minister, at a time when the Mike Harris government is embarking upon yet another advertising campaign, this time a $4-million television advertising campaign, why is it that your government is denying Ian Strathern the home care he so desperately needs?

Hon Cameron Jackson (Minister of Long-Term Care, minister responsible for seniors): I want to thank the member for the question. He has raised it in this House on a previous occasion, as he indicated. I want to share with the member opposite the fact that we had indicated at that time and will again indicate today that this province, like all provinces in this country, provides a full range of support services to families who have met with these kinds of tragic accidents. Unfortunately, none of these services are covered under the Canada Health Act and none of them are recognized by the federal government in terms of funding eligibility, so provinces are left on their own to work out the very best, most sensitive set of options and programs available to individuals.

There are several options that have been offered to this family and to the thousands of other Ontarians in similar circumstances. In the supplementary, I'll be pleased to address the issues you're raising about the appeal.

Mr Bradley: Apparently the Harris government has $4 million for its new health care commercials but not enough money to meet Ian's needs. Not only has the Premier not fulfilled his promise to Ian; his government has hired a downtown Toronto law firm to try to stop Ian from even having the opportunity to appeal his case to the Health Services Appeal Board.

Ian's family has to pay $1,500 a week, $6,000 a month, for his health care. Now the family has to hire a lawyer to defend Ian against the government-paid lawyer just to fight for the chance to appeal to the Health Services Appeal Board. This is totally bizarre.

You've sicced the legal hounds on the Strathern family, you've forced them to pay $1,500 a week for home care, you've forced them to pay for a lawyer, yet you are paying big bucks for a lawyer, you are spending $4 million on a TV advertising campaign, and the Strathern family heads for potential personal bankruptcy.

Minister, will you call off the legal hounds? Will you at least allow the Stratherns to appeal, or better yet, will you finally provide the care that Ian Strathern needs and deserves?

Hon Mr Jackson: First of all, I want to share with the member opposite that the issues under appeal are not an appealable item under the current legislation. That has been shared with both legal parties, with the family, and has been openly shared in this House. The family does have the right to proceed on any legal matter, as they proceed on any matters that might be relevant to the accident itself and potential liabilities and legalities that may flow from that. The government isn't stopping them from that process.

Rather, I want to share with the member once again that there are three or four ways in which we can assist families to provide as much care as possible, but there are thousands of people in this province who have specifically said that they would like to hire four or five people to work full-time as their yearly occupation -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Answer.

Hon Mr Jackson: - to live aside individuals. There are thousands of them in this province. I ask the honourable member, if he as committed in his question, is his leader -

The Speaker: Thank you.

VISITORS

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce, in the Speaker's gallery, a group of interns from Ottawa who have joined us today for question period. I'd like to welcome them, too.

PROPERTY TAXATION

Mr Gilles Pouliot (Lake Nipigon): I have a question for the Minister of Finance. Today we have with us the mayor of the largest municipality in the great riding of Lake Nipigon, Her Worship Mayor Pat Richardson. As her representative, I am simply asking for your help.

In 1997, municipalities in the province of Ontario were advised to do more with less, a situation that the township of Marathon is most familiar with. They've been doing more with less since 1992. They've cut services, increased water rates, trimmed staff positions, increased the paper user garbage program etc.

Alice, the sky is about to fall because a few weeks back the largest employer, James River, has received through the courtesy of the Ontario Municipal Board a tax rebate. They won their assessment appeal. It means $1.607 million -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you. Minister.

Mr Pouliot: The total revenue -

The Speaker: That's it. You can get a supplementary.

Hon Ernie L. Eves (Deputy Premier, Minister of Finance): I am well aware of the case of which he speaks. As a matter of fact, Her Worship and others from Marathon have been talking to not only representatives from the Ministry of Finance but the Ministry of Education. I have talked to my colleague the Minister of Education this morning, as a matter of fact, and I don't see any reason why the province should deny the request that Marathon has made for $721,000 in education taxes of the $1.6 million, and I am willing to work with the municipality of Marathon to see what we can do about the balance.

Interjection: You're halfway home, Gilles, don't blow it.

Mr Pouliot: Don't worry. Mr Speaker, I want to thank the ministry. This is straightforward, it's most appreciated, most welcome. But Minister, since I have already prepared a supplementary, I want to ask it.

You will realize the high debt load: 1997 average in Ontario, $847 per household; in Marathon, it's $2,453. Reserves: across the province, $1,500; $373 for Marathon. Ours are special situations.

Minister, will you guarantee that the very good response to the township of Marathon could perhaps, because everyone is appealing, apply to sister municipalities spread over the great riding of Lake Nipigon? You've already made that commitment.

Hon Mr Eves: Mr Speaker, was that a hypothetical question? Really, the municipality of Marathon does find itself in a very unique circumstance. Any time a municipality loses well over 25% of its tax base, approaching 30% of its entire tax base, it is indeed a very serious and crucial situation. I believe that we as provincial representatives have the responsibility to alleviate that as much as we can.

AMATEUR SPORT

Mr Tim Hudak (Niagara South): My question is to the Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation. As a former amateur sports coach and referee, and in fact somewhat of an athlete before taking this job, I take a great interest in amateur sports. Canada has a well-recognized tradition, both nationally and internationally, for its amateur sport. Randy Burridge and Stan Druhlia are two young men I grew up with who made the big leagues in the NHL. One thinks of young Matt Desrosiers, a star athlete from Fort Erie who is on a full scholarship at a division one university, and hopefully as well joining his colleagues in the NHL some day. This attests to the strength and the capacity of Ontario's amateur sports sector. We have a high calibre of athlete and I would say we would likely have a bright future in amateur in Ontario. My question to the minister is, could she apprise the House of recent developments in amateur sport in the province.

Hon Isabel Bassett (Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation): I want to thank the member for Niagara South for the question because I'm certainly pleased to report that the provincial strategy for amateur sport is moving forward. The cornerstone of the government's strategy is to build a strong and self-reliant amateur sports strategy. We support amateur sport here in Ontario.

I want to bring to the attention of members in the House a brand new sport organization, the Sport Alliance of Ontario. Members of the board are sitting in the gallery today. They are going to be speaking with one voice for the sport organizations in Ontario. In fact they will ensure that our 82 provincial sport organizations move into the millennium totally equipped and ready to host, I hope, the Olympic Games in 2008. So things are looking up.

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Interjection.

Mr Hudak: The member for Niagara Falls brings up a supplementary. I'm curious about the future of amateur sports in Ontario, especially if I consider making a comeback someday.

Hon Ms Bassett: I want to say to the member for Niagara South that the future looks bright for amateur sport in Ontario. Together with the Sport Alliance of Ontario - the SAO - we are focusing on five priorities that include increasing participation among children and youth; supporting strong, self-reliant amateur sport organizations; developing athletes from the novice to national level; developing a safe and accessible environment; and lastly, developing leaders in amateur sport.

In addition the SAO will focus on helping establish new partnerships with the private sector, which is so important for the vitality of sport and recreation in the province. So I hope the members in the House wish the SAO well.

PETITIONS

CHILD CARE CENTRES

Mr David Caplan (Oriole): I've been working with George Smitherman, community activist, regarding day cares in his particular community. This petition is from the Lord Dufferin Community Day Care centre and it reads:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas providing day care spaces is critical for the families in Toronto that need access to them; and

"Whereas the well-being of children should not be sacrificed to tax cuts; and

"Whereas the provincial government has significantly cut the budgets for the Toronto school boards; and

"Whereas under the provincial government's ill-conceived Bill 160 there is no flexibility for boards to make up for the cuts; and

"Whereas day care spaces in schools are now threatened by these cuts with the prospect of full-cost recovery arrangements with day care centres and the threat of school closures;

"Therefore, be it resolved that we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly to repeal Bill 160 immediately, and further be it resolved that the Legislative Assembly of Ontario instruct the Minister of Education and Training to restore meaningful and flexible funding to the Toronto school boards to ensure that they are able to continue to accommodate our community day cares; and

"Further be it resolved that the Honourable Dave Johnson, Minister of Education and Training, takes responsibility for his government's funding cuts rather than passing the buck to local school boards who have no control over provincial government spending cuts."

I wholeheartedly agree and affix my signature.

COMPENSATION FOR HEPATITIS C PATIENTS

Mr Tim Hudak (Niagara South): I am pleased to present a petition from about 400 residents of Niagara South dealing with fair treatment of all hepatitis C victims. It reads as follows:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas many Ontarians have been infected with the hepatitis C virus as a result of transfusions using contaminated blood; and

"Whereas the current compensation package only provides funding for those people infected between the years 1986 to 1990; and

"Whereas in Canada there are at least 20,000 surviving victims who were infected with hepatitis C before 1986, who placed their faith in the blood system and are now suffering;

"We, the undersigned, respectfully petition the Legislature of Ontario on behalf of the victims and their families to support the Ontario government's call for a compensation package for Ontarians who were infected with the hepatitis C virus through the blood system prior to 1986, and we further petition the Legislature of Ontario that pending a resolution of the federal liability for the contaminated blood problem, Ontario agree in the interim that such new package be funded by Ontario and the federal government on the same basis as the federal-provincial agreement covering 1986-90."

They support Ontario's leadership on this serious issue and -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Petition.

PROSTATE CANCER

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): This petition is to the Ontario Legislature.

"Whereas prostate cancer is the fourth-leading cause of fatal cancer in Ontario in 1996;

"Whereas prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of fatal cancer for males;

"Whereas early detection is one of the best tools for being victorious in our battle against cancer;

"Whereas the early detection blood test known as PSA (prostate specific antigen) is one of the most effective tests at diagnosing early prostate cancer;

"Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, petition the Ontario Legislature to encourage the Ministry of Health to have this test added to the list of services covered by OHIP and that this be done immediately in order for us to save lives and beat prostate cancer."

Because I am in support, I affix my signature to this petition.

TAXATION

Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the Mike Harris government has cut the provincial income tax rate by 30%, as promised in the last provincial election; and

"Whereas a family of four earning $60,000 a year will get a tax cut worth $1,210 in provincial income taxes this year and $1,385 next year; and

"Whereas 90% of Ontario taxpayers will see a cut of 30% or more; and

"Whereas the 30% income tax cut will result in a combined tax savings of $147.5 million for the people of the Niagara region; and

"Whereas the Mike Harris government's commitment to lower commercial and industrial tax rates to the provincial average over the next eight years means that industries in the Niagara region will save $12.4 million over this period; and

"Whereas the Mike Harris government has cut taxes 66 times since coming to office; and

"Whereas the best job creation program is a tax cut; and

"Whereas these tax cuts have encouraged the creation of hundreds of thousands of new jobs in Ontario;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to continue to lower taxes in order to encourage the creation of new jobs and to leave more money in the pockets of Ontario taxpayers."

I'll affix my signature as I'm in full agreement.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Petitions? Member for Yorkview.

Mr Mario Sergio (Yorkview): I have 40 petitions addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas your tax reform has created innumerable and gigantic problems;

"Whereas your tax reform will displace pensioners, single wage earners and tenants;

"Whereas many business owners can no longer afford to pay from 10% to 500% increases;

"Whereas the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the Minister of Finance and even the Premier said that indeed `taxes should come down by at least 10%;'

"Therefore, we ask the Premier and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to alleviate the burden of your tax reform and offer assistance and reduce taxes."

I concur and I will sign my signature to it.

PARKING FEES

Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): I have a petition presented to me by a number of employees at the Newmarket courthouse and land registry office. I've discussed the matter with the Attorney General, and I wish to read this petition into the record today.

"The undersigned wish to express our outrage at the proposed imposition of a monthly parking fee for employees at the Newmarket courthouse. There is no functional need for paid parking at this courthouse. There is never a shortage of parking space. There is no indication of misuse of the parking by individuals who are not attending the courthouse. Clearly, the intention of paid parking is to generate revenue for the government.

"We refuse to accept what amounts to a significant wage decrease. This will constitute a significant hardship for many of the undersigned employees and users of the courthouse."

I affix my signature to this.

SCHOOL CLOSURES

Mr Tony Ruprecht (Parkdale): I have a petition addressed to the Legislature of Ontario that reads as follows:

"Whereas Mike Harris is cutting the heart out of many communities by closing hundreds of neighbourhood and community schools across Ontario; and

"Whereas this massive number of school closings all at once will displace many children and put others on longer bus routes; and

"Whereas Mike Harris promised in 1995 not to cut classroom spending, but has already cut at least $1 billion from our schools and is now closing many classrooms completely; and

"Whereas Mike Harris is pitting parents against parents and communities against communities in the fight to save local schools; and

"Whereas parents and students in the city of Toronto and many other communities across Ontario are calling on the government to stop closing so many of their schools;

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

"That we demand that Mike Harris stop closing local schools."

I have attached my signature to this.

PALLIATIVE CARE

Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): I have a petition here today that I'm presenting on behalf of the member for Markham, the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Read it, then.

Mr Newman: I'm just starting to read it, Mr Speaker. It's sent to him by Anna Jennings, RN. She's the administrator at Markhaven Inc.

The Speaker: Read it.

Mr Newman: It has to do with palliative care, and I'm presenting it on his behalf today.

The Speaker: I'm sorry. Thank you. I apologize.

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ROAD SAFETY

Mr David Caplan (Oriole): I have a petition regarding red light cameras at intersections. It reads:

"To the Legislature of Ontario:

"Whereas red light cameras can dramatically assist in reducing the number of injuries and deaths resulting from red light runners; and

"Whereas red light cameras only take pictures of licence plates, thus reducing privacy concerns; and

"Whereas all revenues from violations can easily be directed to a designated fund to improve safety at high-collision intersections; and

"Whereas there is growing disregard for traffic laws resulting in serious injuries to pedestrians, cyclists, motorists and especially children and seniors; and

"Whereas the provincial government has endorsed the use of a similar camera system to collect tolls on the new 407 tollway; and

"Whereas mayors and concerned citizens across Ontario have been seeking permission to deploy these cameras due to limited police resources;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Ontario Legislature as follows:

"That the province of Ontario support the installation of red light cameras at high-collision intersections to monitor and prosecute motorists who run red lights."

I affix my signature hereto.

VANDALISM

Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): I have a very unusual petition. With your permission I will read it into the record.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"This petition is put in writing, outlining our fears so that when an incident occurs there is a record.

"We are the residents 61 Ash Street, Port Perry, a seniors residence, situated behind the burned-out Catholic church and Immaculate Conception School. We border Poplar Park.

"Several cars have been vandalized, a glass bottle containing gasoline with a rag stopper found by a car, and several Canadian flags have been stolen. These are some of our concerns.

"In the park, liquor parties go on. They leave bottles and we hear the noise at all hours. This park has a bylaw posted closing at 10 pm, which is never enforced.

"As of late, on a Tuesday night, a group of younger children (10 to 14 years), including three older girls wearing similar jackets, have been seen taunting, mooning and racing between the cars in the private parking lot. We feel intimidated as this group is becoming bolder, ie, pushing the automatic access button on our front door. This went on from dusk until 9:30 pm. Calling out to them and asking them to leave results in abusive language and gestures etc. Nobody in this building does anything to provoke these kids.

"Residents in the building are intimidated. They are afraid the kids will take revenge on their cars, so they are reluctant to call the police. By the same token, the police and council need documentation for any resolution.

"Mr Carruthers has listened, knows there is a problem, and will work to resolve it. The burning of the church, with the fire marshal's report pending, makes residents very uneasy. To go to bed with keys, purse and jacket handy is not the way to spend our senior years. We are intimidated and they know it."

This was sent, Mr Speaker, with your permission, to the mayor, to myself and to other councillors on behalf of Cecilia Ryan."

SCHOOL CLOSURES

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): This petition is to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas due to the Harris funding cuts to education district school boards across Ontario are being forced to consider the closing of both elementary and high schools, both public and Catholic high schools, all across Ontario before next September; and

"Whereas the parents of the people in these schools do not want their schools closed, because they are operating at full capacity, and fear the further chaos and crisis the Harris government is imposing on the education of their children will hurt their children's education; and

"Whereas there is apprehension and turmoil in our communities due to the government rules which determine that those students will have to find new schools to go to by next September;

"Now, therefore, we, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislature of Ontario as follows:

"We call upon the Minister of Education, who has the primary responsibility for providing a quality education for each and every student in Ontario, to:

"1. Listen to the views being expressed by the parents, teachers and students of these affected schools;

"2. Recognize the fundamental importance of our local schools to our neighbourhood and to our community; and

"3. Live up to its commitment to provide adequate funding for the important and essential components of a good education and not allow the massive closings of these schools all across Ontario."

Of course I affix my signature to this petition.

PROTECTION FOR HEALTH CARE WORKERS

Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): I have a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas nurses in Ontario often experience coercion to participate in practices which directly contravene their deeply held ethical standards; and

"Whereas pharmacists in Ontario are often pressured to dispense and/or sell chemicals and/or devices contrary to their moral or religious beliefs; and

"Whereas public health workers in Ontario are expected to assist in providing controversial services and promoting controversial materials against their consciences; and

"Whereas physicians in Ontario often experience pressure to give referrals for medications, treatments and/or procedures which they believe to be gravely immoral; and

"Whereas competent health care workers and students in various health care disciplines in Ontario have been denied training, employment, continued employment and advancement in their intended fields and suffered other forms of unjust discrimination because of the dictates of their consciences; and

"Whereas the health care workers experiencing such unjust discrimination have at present no practical and accessible legal means to protect themselves;

"We, the undersigned, urge the government of Ontario to enact legislation explicitly recognizing the freedom of conscience of health care workers, prohibiting coercion of and unjust discrimination against health care workers because of their refusal to participate in matters contrary to the dictates of their consciences and establishing penalties for such coercion and unjust discrimination."

I affix my signature to this petition.

HOTEL DIEU HOSPITAL

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): My petition is for the government of Ontario about the Hotel Dieu Hospital.

"Since the Hotel Dieu Hospital has played and continues to play a vital role in the delivery of health care services in St Catharines and the Niagara region; and

"Since Hotel Dieu has modified its role over the years as part of a rationalization of medical services in St Catharines and has assumed the position of a regional health care facility in such areas as kidney dialysis and oncology; and

"Since the Niagara region is experiencing underfunding in the health care field and requires more medical services and not fewer services; and

"Since Niagara residents are required at present to travel outside of the Niagara region to receive many specialized services that could be provided in city hospitals and thereby not require local patients to make difficult and inconvenient trips down our highways to other centres; and

"Since the population of the Niagara region is older than that in most areas of the province and more elderly people tend to require more hospital services;

"We, the undersigned, request that the government of Ontario keep the election commitment of Premier Mike Harris not to close hospitals in our province, and we call upon the Premier to reject any recommendation to close Hotel Dieu Hospital in St Catharines."

I affix my signature as I am in complete agreement with this petition.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

NORTHERN SERVICES IMPROVEMENT ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR L'AMÉLIORATION DES SERVICES PUBLICS DANS LE NORD DE L'ONTARIO

Mr Spina, on behalf of Mr Hodgson, moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill 12, An Act to provide choice and flexibility to Northern Residents in the establishment of service delivery mechanisms that recognize the unique circumstances of Northern Ontario and to allow increased efficiency and accountability in Area-wide Service Delivery / Projet de loi 12, Loi visant à offrir aux résidents du Nord plus de choix et de souplesse dans la mise en place de mécanismes de prestation des services qui tiennent compte de la situation unique du Nord de l'Ontario et à permettre l'accroissement de l'efficience et de la responsabilité en ce qui concerne la prestation des services à l'échelle régionale.

Mr Joseph Spina (Brampton North): I am pleased today to lead the debate on this third reading of Bill 12, the Northern Services Improvement Act. First, I thank everyone who has been involved with this important piece of legislation, important for many of our northern Ontario residents.

Today we take another step down the legislative road that will give northern municipalities an optional governance tool that will allow them to deliver better and more efficient services at a lower cost to taxpayers.

My colleague Chris Hodgson, the Chair of Management Board of Cabinet and Minister of Northern Development and Mines, reintroduced the Northern Services Improvement Act earlier this session, meeting this government's commitment to help northerners help themselves.

While we are bringing meaningful change to the way local services will be delivered in the future, we're doing it with legislation that reflects the ideas and recommendations of northerners. In crafting and developing this Northern Services Improvement Act, we consulted extensively with our northern partners. We met with both opposition parties more than a year ago. We met with umbrella associations - the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities, FONOM, and the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association, NOMA - and in the formative stages we were involved in an ongoing dialogue with a group called Team North, northern representatives who were specifically called together to consult on this legislation. They ranged from people from North Bay to Kenora. We hosted delegations from individual communities during the Association of Municipalities of Ontario's annual meeting and met with representatives of many unorganized communities as well.

When Bill 12 was referred to the general government committee for public hearings, we listened to many presenters in Kenora, Thunder Bay, the Soo and Timmins. We listened and we learned. I particularly thank members of the opposition and the third party for their diligent and at times spirited participation in those hearings and the subsequent clause-by-clause review, particularly the member for Cochrane South, who was very passionate about getting what we felt was the best bill possible for the people of northern Ontario. We debated numerous proposed amendments and adopted several, and by doing so we feel that we've made a good bill better.

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Bill 12's excellence, more than all else, I think speaks to the insight, guidance and tenacity of our municipal leaders in the north in preparing and moving this bill along. In fact, the bill was modelled very much along the lines of some of the proposals brought forward to the minister before this bill even became a bill. I share the minister's sense of pride in knowing that Bill 12 has been developed through a process defined by co-operation and partnership.

The most important component of Bill 12 is the provision for the establishment of service delivery bodies called area services boards. ASBs will provide an alternative for delivery and funding of certain key services in northern Ontario. I can't stress enough that this is enabling legislation. Bill 12 will allow municipalities and unincorporated areas in the north to consolidate the delivery of core social and community health services as well as a range of optional services if they so desire. Area service boards are optional. They will be created only where groups of communities want them.

Where approved, these ASBs will be responsible for delivering Ontario Works, child care, social housing, land ambulance, public health and municipal homes for the aged. These new service delivery bodies will be administered by a board consisting of elected representatives and having direct taxing authority over time to recover costs for those services delivered, and only for those services delivered. ASBs would make it easier to achieve greater efficiency and cost savings in service delivery by consolidating a number of single-purpose bodies into one effective, locally accountable delivery agency. That is what we strive towards.

Currently, the northern municipalities are organizing themselves into district social services administration boards for the delivery of a number of social services. We hope that many of them can look to this act to achieve even greater efficiencies on a broader basis than the DSSABs.

With Bill 12, northern municipal leaders will be able to bring forward local governance proposals tailor-made to suit the needs of their communities and the unincorporated areas. Area service boards are unique. They're unique because they can be framed to meet particular local needs in that area, designed and desired by the residents. Municipalities will select boundaries that result in the best balance of cost-effectiveness and cost fairness in the face of local realities. Northerners told us time and again that they require flexible legislation to deal with the issues. They don't want a Queen's Park solution, a Toronto-made solution for northern issues and northern problems. They want a northern-developed, northern-designed solution to address the needs of northerners, and this bill will give them that.

Flexibility is the hallmark of this legislation. Equally important, this legislation decrees that ASB representatives would be drawn from the ranks of existing elected officials across northern Ontario, and again not by Queen's Park appointment. It is not our intention to create new bureaucracies. Like the other service delivery initiatives introduced by this government, ASBs will make it possible to find savings by reducing waste and duplication at the local level. Northerners can customize these delivery agents to meet their local needs where they choose.

It's also significant to note that ASBs would be directly accountable to the municipalities and unincorporated areas that they serve. Our government has always maintained that accountable governments are good governments, and services administered at the local level are likely to be of a higher quality, more relevant and more responsive to the local constituents.

The Northern Services Improvement Act contains provisions to reform the local services boards in the north, to provide them with the authority to deliver road and library services. Again we have tried to respond to the need identified by northerners for a more coordinated approach to a local service delivery. These changes are designed to lower costs and lessen volunteer workloads in communities where no municipal government may exist in an organized way. Clearly the result can be better services to all those northern taxpayers.

I appreciate having the opportunity to participate in this debate. As a northerner, born and raised in Sault Ste Marie, I truly appreciate the needs, the desires and the objectives that our northern people require to be able to have a better lifestyle. I urge all my colleagues on this side of the House, particularly those fellow colleagues from northern Ontario who represent the north, and across the House floor to support the passage of this enabling legislation that our northern communities have asked for and our northern communities so rightly deserve.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Questions and comments?

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I want to thank the parliamentary assistant for the fine compliment he afforded me in regard to my spirited participation on the committee. I just want to say to the member, and also to other members of the Legislature, that it took a little bit for some of the members on the government side of the committee to understand that some of us from northern Ontario who participated in this process - all of us, I would say - take it very seriously.

When we saw the original bill, we thought it was going in a general direction that was OK, but there were some problems in how the bill was put forward and how it was drafted. We brought forward a number of amendments, which I must say we were successful in getting, that will allow the municipalities a bit more flexibility when it comes to their ability to carry through with an ASB, as well as very important amendments for the francophone community in northern Ontario.

I just want to say to the parliamentary assistant, you were saying in your wrap-up comments that you're looking forward to municipalities utilizing this legislation to design their own solutions, and I only hope you allow them to do so. You would know that in our district, the Cochrane district, because of the latest letter from the Minister of Community and Social Services, they are forcing municipalities into a district services board arrangement quite contrary to the wants and needs of the municipalities involved, both the city of Timmins and those municipalities along Highway 11 from Hearst to Matheson.

I only hope that the government will see their way to the positive result of accepting our recommendation, which is that you give an indication to the local municipalities along Highway 11 that they would be allowed under ASB legislation to control and create their own area services board, less the city of Timmins, and allow them to do what they need to do between the two of them in a more co-operative effort. I can tell you that the other way, the DSB solution, is not to the wants or the needs of any of the people involved. I hope this bill will give them that opportunity.

Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): I'll be speaking on this in a little bit more detail later, but I would like to remind the parliamentary assistant that during the visit to Kenora he was reminded on a number of occasions of the flexibility that local services boards would be looking for in this legislation. He was reminded by a good number of presenters that this is a new concept that we'll be venturing into in terms of unorganized areas within the region.

The government is certainly going to have to look at flexibility not only in terms of this new legislation and changes that may come about when they find that some of the things just aren't working, but in terms of funding as well. There were a great number of comments regarding the funding and that when area services boards were to take control of various services within their areas, they would have to take a look at who would be paying. Of course, that would be the local taxpayer within that services board region. The presentation in Kenora, as he will remember, was around who will fund this, will we be taking a look at funding from the natural resources that come out of the area and exactly where the dollars would be coming from.

Something that I pushed for a great deal was for committee hearings when it came to Bill 12. I must say that, as I travelled with the bill in northwestern Ontario, we certainly heard a good amount of very helpful input into Bill 12 which led to third reading here. I just hope the government heeds the experience we listened to and the great amount of comment and input we received during those travels in northwestern Ontario.

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Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): Just briefly on the speech from the parliamentary assistant, I also travelled around the province in northeastern Ontario and northwestern Ontario on Bill 12, and there was a lot of concern. Some of the concern was on the dumping and downloading, and now Bill 12 is supposed to take care of some of those problems that were created by Mike Harris and the Minister of Northern Development and Mines and Natural Resources dumping all these additional services on to the property taxpayers. As a result, Bill 12 was supposed to be enabling legislation to have these services delivered in an efficient manner. Whether that's going to be the case or not, we know that with the DSSABs the local agreements the people wanted were being overruled by the minister, Janet Ecker, deciding that the local communities along Highway 11 could not form their own board without being included as part of Timmins. That created a lot of anxiety.

At the same time as Bill 12 and the DSSABs were being discussed, there were attempts made at forced amalgamations within the areas and this was creating concern. It's all because of the government dumping and downloading and wanting the taxpayers to pay for services, whether it be in organized areas or unorganized areas, that normally are paid for out of the general tax revenue. Now they're saying, "If we have to give a 30% tax break to the wealthiest people in this province, we have to find a different way of raising money." Bill 12 is one of the ways of raising revenue from unorganized areas and delivering the services, and taxpayers - property owners - are going to pay for it.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Marcel Beaubien): Parliamentary assistant.

Mr Spina: People ask me if I was parliamentary assistant for northern Ontario because I'm from the riding of Brampton North, but I would like to think it was for other grandiose reasons. That's where my mother and my family live. In any case, thank you to the members for Cochrane South and Cochrane North and the member for Kenora.

Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): The shores of Hudson Bay.

Mr Spina: The member from Scarborough is all too accurate with his comments sometimes.

I appreciate the comments of the members. We heard these discussions through the hearings, through the clause-by-clause, and we debated these issues very clearly and I think succinctly. We kept in mind the objective of this government, that we were trying to do things more efficiently, trying to achieve a more efficient delivery of services of all levels of government. That's why we got into the whole Who Does What exchange. It wasn't simply a downloading or a dumping as the member for Cochrane North says, but really there was a problem in the past.

One of the problems that concerned the unorganized, if I can just draw the members' attention to it, was that they didn't want to actually formally amalgamate to a community, and this opportunity to create an area services board will allow them to still remain as part of an unorganized territory and yet be able to pay for the services that can be delivered for them when and where they choose.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate? The member for Sudbury.

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will be starting off our caucus's hour. However, we will be sharing the hour among the five of us and that will be the member for Kenora, Mr Miclash; the member for Algoma-Manitoulin, Mr Brown; the member for Port Arthur, Mr Gravelle; and the member for Timiskaming, Mr Ramsay, in that order.

I too am very happy to be able to take part in this debate. I have serious reservations about this bill. I have had them from the first meeting the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines and I had last Christmas. Certainly nothing that's happened over the course of the last six or seven months has stopped the fears I have with this piece of legislation.

The parliamentary assistant suggested this is enabling legislation. It is defined as enabling legislation but in reality it is conflicting legislation, and the potential here for conflicts between the Ministry of Health, between the Ministry of Community and Social Services, between the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines is paramount in importance as we debate and finally vote on this bill this evening. What has happened with the Ministry of Community and Social Services in trying to create the DSSAB is what's going to be happening here through the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines when we try to create these area services boards.

Speaker after speaker after speaker brought this to the government's attention as we travelled northern Ontario, and I'm suggesting to you, Speaker, and to the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines people that what we're going to see here is confusion reigning supreme. It isn't enabling legislation at all. It is conflicting legislation and it's going to be legislation that forces groups to become part of an area services board, even though they won't want to. They will have no option, except to take part in this area services board.

I would suggest to you, as several presenters said, that Bill 12 is a part of a disturbing pattern of creating very large units for governing northern Ontario. I believe the pattern threatens to reduce the level of services in northern Ontario and the ability of citizens to have a say in how they are going to be served and how they are going to be governed.

There is absolutely no question in my mind that this is the imposition of another level of government, and I thought that was contrary to the fundamental philosophy of the Mike Harris government in that they wanted and they espoused lesser government or less government involvement in people's lives. Well, clearly this legislation increases government in people's lives. Despite the fact that the Harris government claims that these area services boards are not government - they refer to them as corporations - the reality is that they have the power of taxation and as such will require a bureaucracy, and as such this is nothing short of more government.

This extra level of government is going to have a profound influence on the lives of many people. I just want to talk about the people in the regional municipality of Sudbury for an example, one of many. The reality is that we have a regional form of government already and this area services board is a regional form of government. The parliamentary assistant and the members of the committee heard that from so many people across northern Ontario as we travelled in committee. This is an extra level of government. It is a redundant level of government, especially in the regional municipality of Sudbury because our region is already providing the services that this area services board legislation would deem to allow an affected area.

The logical conclusion then would be to exclude the regional municipality of Sudbury from this legislation as it is the only region in northern Ontario. That was an amendment we put forward. It was an amendment that made complete sense to the members of the official opposition and to the members of the third party. We saw it as increasing the amount of government for the regional municipality of Sudbury residents. However, the government refused that amendment. So what we have now is not enabling legislation any more, but conflicting legislation among ministries. That will not enhance the service level or the delivery of services at all, but will in fact cause more problems down the line.

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I suggest as well that there are still many groups that are not satisfied with what happened during the committee or after the committee. I'd like to spend just a few moments talking about the OMA's presentation, which took place on August 11 in Kenora. The OMA has reservations about Bill 12, but it thought the government would listen to its recommendations and in fact the president, Dr William Orovan, suggested that Bill 12 could be a good piece of legislation if the government chose to listen and make the proper amendments to the legislation to ensure public health needs were protected, enhanced and enshrined.

The reality is that didn't happen. In fact, every one of the recommendations made by the OMA with regard to the power of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines in competition with or in conflict with the Ministry of Health was not accepted. The reality that there would be an enshrining of the Health Protection and Promotion Act was not accepted. There was a concern on the part of the OMA that the area services boards undertake the provision of public health services, that the area services board must be deemed to be a board of health within the full meaning of and fully subject to the Health Protection and Promotion Act. Again, that was an amendment that wasn't accepted.

We're hearing from the parliamentary assistant that this is a government that consults widely. The problem that is in place now, the problem that has been in place since 1995, the reality, is that this government doesn't listen to the people who are most affected by the legislation they bring forth. Because they haven't listened, Bill 12 is a little weaker than it could have been if they had listened to the many recommendations we've heard.

I want to address the French-language issue for a second, because that was certainly a concern of ours and indeed of the third party. We now have French-language services being provided in the form of what we'll call a letter of intent. I don't think that goes far enough in protecting the services. I would hope that people across northern Ontario would agree with me that if you want to protect something, you put it in legislation. The government refused to do that. They refused to enshrine French language rights in that legislation. Although - and I'll give full credit here - Mr Bisson fought very hard at ensuring that was a part of the legislation, the reality is the government said no to that and put it in the form of a letter of intent. I would have felt a lot more comfortable if that were enshrined in the legislation.

The regional municipality of Sudbury certainly has trouble with 3(a), the accountability, and section 2(a) with regard to efficiencies, and section 2(b) with regard to public access and participation. Recommendations were made but weren't put forth by the government in the form of an amendment. In fact they were voted down.

I suggest, as I wind down my time, that it is very important for the people of northern Ontario to understand that the reason for this legislation is purely and simply the result of very ill-conceived and poorly thought out downloading initiatives on the part of this government. A KPMG study would indicate that all 11 northern Ontario municipalities are ranked among the 25th percentile of municipalities with the highest cost. Whether you look at per capita cost of downloading, whether you look at per household cost of downloading, whether you look at the education tax available, you will find that the most negatively affected area of this province is consistently northern Ontario municipalities.

If you want to compare the regions of Ontario, the picture is even worse. If you look at the regional municipality of Sudbury, the only region in northern Ontario, the per capita cost ranking is the second hardest hit, per household cost is the second hardest hit, education tax available is the hardest hit, reliance on the municipal support grant is the hardest hit, and in regard to the most savings required, they rank first in having to achieve the most savings.

I don't believe that Bill 12 will meet the needs of northerners. I don't believe that Bill 12 will be able to provide those services the way it should be providing services through the use of area services boards. I would suggest to the House, I would suggest to the parliamentary assistant for northern development and mines and I would suggest certainly to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines that had they listened to the people of northern Ontario, had they taken the advice and the recommendations they heard throughout northern Ontario, had they listened to the two opposition parties in offering viable alternatives to their legislation, the reality would be that I would be able to stand up and say I can support Bill 12. The real reality is that's impossible because this government again didn't listen to northerners.

Mr Miclash: I too am privileged to participate in the comments made about Bill 12. I was happy, as I indicated earlier, that Bill 12 did go to committee and did come into northwestern Ontario. As I indicated earlier, we heard a good number of very positive comments in terms of Bill 12 and in terms of its being a move in the right direction. We listened to one presentation in Kenora by the mayor of Jaffray Malick, who talked about governance. He indicated that the Northern Services Improvement Act was a move in the right direction and he suggested that it would consolidate services and eliminate the duplication of services at the local level.

But he also brought out a very important aspect and suggested that one size does not fit all, and we've heard this a great many times. I, as a northern member, have brought that to the House on more than, I would say, a thousand occasions, since we know it's important that people in the north actually get a say over what is going to happen in terms of how government is going to affect them. The mayor of Jaffray Malick made that very clear in his remarks to the committee.

We also heard a good amount about flexibility. I mentioned that a little bit earlier about the people in terms of these new area services boards having the flexibility to make changes as they move into this, a new type of government. That came up a number of times as we heard about them coming into the unorganized areas, the unincorporated areas of the province.

It was suggested that the board should have flexibility to tax for the services they were going to be providing. With flexibility to tax, who are the people who are going to pay the taxes? Of course those are the folks located within that area services board. That argument arose a good number of times as well, as to where the dollars would come from. A good number of people, in particular mayors and reeves of the region, whether the president of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association, Mr Canfield, or the president of the Kenora District Municipal Association, Mr Valley, who made a presentation, talked about control over the natural resources revenues.

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As we know, a great number of provincial dollars come from the revenues in our natural resources, such as our mining, our forestry, and dollars that come back into the provincial coffers from these. There is a real concern in northern Ontario, particularly in northwestern Ontario, that we see that money flowing from our region into the general revenues of the province, but we don't see much of it flowing back. Mr Speaker, if you were to take a look at the dollars that are generated in terms of these very important economic producers in our region, you too would soon find that it's a very unbalanced flow.

The president of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association made a great presentation to the committee. We should be listening to what he had to say in terms of his experience not only as a reeve, a mayor, a councillor in one of our municipalities but also as the president of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association, and I'd just like to read into the record what he had to say:

"If this is strictly a downloading exercise to put the costs on the areas where they're incurred, the reality is that we'd basically be a Third World state if we had to pay the full cost. It's just not feasible unless there is some type of revenue passed down from our natural resources, whether it be mining, forestry or whatever it might be."

The president of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association is certainly saying that, yes, we're going to have to take a look at some revenue that will come back from the government coffers in terms of our natural resources and what they contribute to the general revenue.

There were a good number of presentations made during the committee's travel throughout northwestern Ontario, but I think what we heard was the concern about how we were going to move into Bill 12 and what it recommends in terms of area services boards. I know the folks at the Kenora District Municipal Association and the District of Kenora Unincorporated Ratepayers Association were quite concerned about the flow of governance from what we call the DSAABs that are presently set up to deliver some of the services to the area services boards. This was certainly a concern that was brought to our attention a number of times. They were looking for the mechanism and they felt that the mechanism had to be articulated in the bill in terms of this travel of service from one group to the next. They were talking about that as well as who would pay for those services.

Another excellent presentation was from the Oxdrift Restructuring Committee. We had the vice-chairman, Mr Robert Wall, present to us, and he suggested that this would be the way to go and that we would have to watch the cost in terms of the services that were being offered and be aware of the powers that would be given to the local services board and, again, who would pay for those and where those particular dollars would come from.

The Kenora District Municipal Association president, Roger Valley, whom I mentioned earlier, the mayor of Dryden, indicated that he was happy with the way the local services board was heading and he suggested that their service or responsibility would possibly - and this was one of the negative things he said would happen with that - that the structure of these might stand in the way of restructured local government. We listened to some of his concerns as well, when it came to the development of the area services board.

I would like to wrap up by saying that there were a good number of presentations given in northwestern Ontario and a good number of concerns expressed, concerns with the downloading and the dumping. We've heard many times in the House as well a lot of concern about what is being dumped on the local taxpayer. We can remember back to 1995 where the now Premier, Mr Mike Harris, said there's only one taxpayer in Ontario. It's we as members in northern Ontario who go back and face that one taxpayer as they realize the increased downloading, the increased dumping.

I've brought to the attention of the House many times what this is doing to them. Their 30% personal income tax reduction provincially is doing nothing. For example, an issue we brought to the House last week, people having signs on crown land along the highway got a bill in the mail. Last year they may have been paying $300. The government was saying, "This year you're going to pay $900." It wasn't until I brought that to the attention of the Minister of Transportation and the Minister of Economic Development and Tourism that we actually got it changed. But here we have government trying to slip in another user fee and trying to dump this again on to the local taxpayer in northwestern Ontario.

It was nice to have the committee in northwestern Ontario, and it was certainly nice for them to listen to some of the concerns. I just hope they did that. I hope they did actually listen to the various presentations given to them and the concerns they heard.

Mr Len Wood: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I believe we have a very good debate going on Bill 12. It's a very interesting debate, but we don't have a quorum. Would you check if there's a quorum, please?

The Acting Speaker: Would you please check to see if we have a quorum.

Clerk Assistant (Ms Deborah Deller): A quorum is not present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

Clerk Assistant: A quorum is now present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate. The member for Algoma-Manitoulin.

Mr Michael A. Brown (Algoma-Manitoulin): Thank you, Mr Speaker, it's a delight to see you in the chair.

I have to open this debate on Bill 12 from my point of view by saying this is just impossible to support. This bill is about the downloading of costs to the property taxpayer. Make no mistake about it, that is the only reason this bill exists. In the areas I represent, this bill will increase the cost to the property taxpayer by considerable sums. It is a downloading of provincial responsibility to the property taxpayer, who will now have to foot the bill for many services that he or she thought they had already paid for, and I think they have.

The second thing you could say about Bill 12 is that it is about big government. It is about Big Brother telling you how you must do something, telling you how you have to pay for it.

The government tries to frame this as something northerners wanted. Well, nothing could be further from the truth, and my friend the member for Brampton North knows that. Northerners did not want these costs downloaded to them. Northerners believed that this was a bad trade. Remember way back. The situation was that the government said: "We will take all the education tax off the local property taxpayer and you will get these services instead. That will be the trade-off and that will be," to use a bad phrase, "revenue-neutral." For goodness' sake, it isn't revenue-neutral. Through the area I represent of Algoma-Manitoulin, in many cases, because it was an average of 50% of the residential property tax that was supposed to be deducted, it didn't work out even to be the 50%; it worked out to be 70%. The government loves to use the word "average," but average is just that: Some people will pay more and some people will pay less.

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In the district of Manitoulin, for example, we know, because we've seen the bills come in, that the bills for education are 70% of what they used to be, and now we have a new level of government being imposed upon us. We didn't ask for it, but we're having a new level of government imposed upon us. So local people will have very little control, because the provincial bureaucracy really decides where everything happens; you just get to pay for the administration of it. In many cases in the district of Manitoulin and along the North Shore, they will have some representation, but it will be indirect at best and it will not be accountable to the local councils which will actually be paying the bills.

So we have a situation where we have a big, unaccountable body being set up out of nowhere to deliver services to the people of northern districts. The district of Manitoulin was the only district that was denied its request by the Minister of Northern Development. The minister had the opportunity and said he would not impose a particular model unless it was agreed to by local folks. In the district of Manitoulin's case, it asked to be by itself. The minister said: "Not for you. You're the only one. You can't have it. Everybody else can have it, but you're going to be with the district of Sudbury whether you like it or whether you don't." That's what he told them. What do you think the local folks thought about that? Well, they didn't think a heck of a lot of it.

I have some press reports from the Manitoulin Recorder. That's printed in Gore Bay, as everyone would know. We have the reeve of Assiginack township, Dave Ham, saying: "I am continually surprised when I think of the province feeling bigger is better; in this case it sure as hell is not. By having our own DSSAB another half million bucks will be saved. I am perturbed with the provincial government's Common Sense Revolution when I don't hear any common sense...."

We have Perry Anglin, the reeve of Central Manitoulin. Perry Anglin made a terrific presentation to our committee, by the way, when it travelled to Sault Ste Marie. Mr Anglin said: "Manitoulin Island is in too large a DSSAB area. Having said that, I'm not suggesting that we feel our own DSSAB will do it, but we have captured their attention. The minister has heard that Manitoulin Island will, in effect, be subsidizing the welfare rolls in other northern districts."

The minister, Mr Hodgson, totally ignored him, but at least he talked to him. Mr Anglin and some of our other reeves spent some money and went over to a Conservative fundraiser and actually talked to Mr Hodgson. It didn't do them any good, but at least Mr Hodgson talked to them. They wanted to meet with the Minister of Community and Social Services, and that meeting was refused repeatedly by the minister. I can't understand why that would be, other than that her mind was made up and meeting with her would have been futile.

The reeve of the new township of Burpee-Mills, my friend and curling colleague Les Bailey, said, "I don't think we know what we would all be getting into if we joined this large board." I think Mr Bailey is expressing the views of many northerners that believe we are buying into a pig in a poke. Les would like that; he used to raise hogs. He's kind of the squire of Burpee township.

The second reason the people particularly in the district of Manitoulin, but I'm sure in Espanola and along the shore, have some real problems with this is that they've seen the creation of new, gigantic, distant governments for other things. We have seen the Rainbow board of education created out of the old Manitoulin, Espanola and Sudbury public boards of education. We have seen the most astounding decisions by the Rainbow board of education.

We have seen a decision which said the clients of Hope Farm could no longer ride on the school buses to get to Hope Farm. As people would know, Manitoulin Island is a big area, with no public transportation other than school buses. For the clients to get to Hope Farm, which is located in Mindemoya, right in the centre of the island, they have traditionally gone on the school buses. The school buses don't have to go off any existing route; they stop where they would normally stop. It's no big deal. But the Rainbow board of education said: "Those clients of Hope Farm who need transportation can't ride on our buses. You can't do that."

Now, other boards do it. Haldimand does it. Waterloo does it. But not the Rainbow board. And why? Because it wasn't the policy of the Sudbury school board. So what the policy of the Sudbury school board was is now the policy of Manitoulin, and I've had some calls in Espanola about the same issue. They don't respond to what the local people want, because it's way off in Sudbury, 200 kilometres away. What do they care?

The CCAC, community care access centre, would not appoint a member from Espanola or from the island until I complained and I complained and other people complained. Finally, so many people on Manitoulin were upset that they signed up, joined the board and elected two members. But without that, it seems to me there would still be no representation on the Sudbury Community Care Access Centre, the one that looks after our long-term care. That board, off in Sudbury, making its decisions, has decided that the nurses who provide home care on Manitoulin Island are not providing a good enough service. They're going to fire them all. They're all out of there. Two years from now all the nurses who have provided care to our elderly are out the door because they're going to contract with somebody else to provide the service.

I don't think that's a decision that would have been taken locally; I know it wouldn't be taken locally. But it's a big, impersonal board, headed by a club of people in Sudbury, a group that is not familiar - with the exception of the newly elected people from Manitoulin - with any of the rural issues, and they're going to do it regardless of what anybody else says.

We see the big boards and distant boards provide usually more expensive services, but you get fewer services. That's why our people don't believe the DSSAB will provide services to Espanola or Manitoulin or Massey in a way that is reasonable.

I only have another couple of minutes, but I want to go back to Perry Anglin's presentation. His presentation was probably the most powerful any of us heard as we went across northern Ontario. He says, "Bill 12 is part of a disturbing pattern of creating very large units for governing northern Ontario."

Mr Gilles Pouliot (Lake Nipigon): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I apologize to my friend and colleague. It's so intriguing and interesting, but the government has failed in its duty to provide us with a quorum. Would you please call for a quorum?

The Acting Speaker: Could you please check to see if we have a quorum in the House.

Clerk Assistant: A quorum is not present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

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Clerk Assistant: A quorum is now present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Algoma-Manitoulin.

Mr Michael Brown: It's good to see that the government is at least now feigning some interest in these issues.

Mr Anglin pointed out in his brief to the committee, and I think it is worth repeating here:

"The provincial government has said that it wishes to consolidate services regionally in order to achieve administrative efficiency and to improve service. Unfortunately, area services boards under Bill 12 will do neither; nor will their predecessors, district social services administration boards.

"I believe that it is widely understood by experts on public administration across Canada that new regional governments do not save money by delivering services more efficiently. Area services boards would in fact break up efficient, province-wide administration for programs such as police, ambulance, social housing and public health. Right now, the administration of these programs is tailored to efficient administrative districts, with common management and political direction from Queen's Park. In what you could call `deconsolidation,' the government is creating 11 new governments in northern Ontario, and adding responsibilities, each with its own overhead costs, to about four times that number in southern Ontario. The government is then force-fitting all programs into the boundaries of the new regions, regardless of what makes sense for each program."

Mr Anglin has it right.

The other presentation I heard in Sault Ste Marie that was most forceful was David Court's. David Court, who is now the administrator of the district services board for Algoma, a well-experienced, knowledgeable gentleman, came to say that the cost of these DSSABs will be the largest single expense for property taxpayers above all else; above education, above roads, above everything else. He even went so far as to suggest that maybe we should just have the DSSABs send out the tax bills, because they were the major beneficiaries of the dollars.

Bill 12 is unsupportable in any form. This is a bad bill. Northerners do not want another level of government. Northerners don't want Big Brother dictating to them how much things cost and where their property taxes are going to go.

Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): I'm pleased to stand up today and speak on behalf of our party and specifically for the constituents I represent in the Timiskaming constituency, who also will be very much affected by this downloading exercise of the Harris government. It's curious, the long, very flourishy and flowery titles of these acts. To explain to the people at home, I'll just read the title. It says, "An Act to provide choice and flexibility to Northern Residents in the establishment of service delivery mechanisms that recognize the unique circumstances of Northern Ontario and to allow increased efficiency and accountability in Area-wide Service Delivery."

Mr Michael Brown: Who could be opposed to that?

Mr Ramsay: On first blush, it looks pretty good. It looks like motherhood. As my colleague from Algoma-Manitoulin said, who could be opposed to this? The problem, and why we are opposed to this, is that this is a force fit, as my colleague said in the previous remarks, of a second tier of government. In the north, unlike in southern Ontario, where there has traditionally been a county system - so two tiers of municipal government, both county and local, being either a town or a township - we have only had one tier of government, just being the local government. Our territorial districts of northern Ontario have had no political organization. They are basically geographic boundaries and judicial boundaries and had no political organization at the municipal level.

Now what the Harris government is proposing is an additional level of local government imposed upon the area of northern Ontario. This is really surprising in an age when I thought the Harris government was into efficiencies, into simplifying government and getting rid of red tape. But because of all the downloading exercise and all the new functions that municipalities now have to be responsible for, the government started to realize that the municipalities in northern Ontario would not be able to handle this downloading on their own, and I suppose also because of our unique circumstance of having something that doesn't exist in the south, what we call unorganized areas, that is, vast regions of the north where people live but there is no local government. They live there without any local government. I guess that's a sense of freedom that maybe some of us have in the north, and that will no longer be the case in that they will all come under these new area services boards.

This, like many other bills of this government, such as the municipal property tax series of bills, is in a bit of a mess in that this is not the initial bill to organize this. There already has been an organizational change in the north, which my colleagues have referred to as DSSABs, which stands for district social services area boards. They now are beginning to be or are already in place in northern Ontario. These social services area boards are starting to act in place of these new area boards to start this downloading that is now the responsibility of municipalities this year, thanks to the Harris government.

What we're talking about is the establishment of these area services boards throughout northern Ontario, and they are being charged with providing services in the areas of child care, social assistance, public health, social housing, ambulance service and homes for the aged. It's interesting to note that most of these downloaded services are not services that northerners asked to have downloaded. These are services that the vast majority of northerners - I know every one of my colleagues in the Liberal caucus - believe should be at the provincial level.

What we're seeing is that already, with the new pressures of property assessment, the increases in the new commercial taxation and residential taxation at the municipal level in northern Ontario, pressure is already starting to develop at the council level - ironically, not at Queen's Park but at the council level - with people coming forward and saying: "I wonder if we really can afford in Town X this level of ambulance service that we've been used to. Maybe we can't have 24-hour-a-day ambulance service in our town. Maybe we'll have to have an on-call system for 18 hours a day."

These are the beginning of suggestions that local councils are being presented with that start the pressure of the deterioration of basic, fundamental services that northern Ontarians, like all Ontarians, have come to expect. What we're going to see is the establishment, I would say the furtherment, of two levels of services in this province.

As we've seen already in an Ontario Hospital Association study released this week, northerners are more sick than southerners; the entrance to hospitals in northern Ontario for heart disease and for asthma is two to three to four times that of the rate in Toronto. It's really ironic that we feel very proud, partly, I suppose, because of the lack of industry, that our air is a little cleaner in the north, yet we have four times the asthma rate at hospital admission than they do here in Toronto. Something is very wrong in northern Ontario with regard to health provision.

Here now, through this bill, we are getting more responsibility for basic health, public health, social assistance, child care, social housing, ambulance and homes for the aged. It's wrong. It is not the way to go. These are fundamental services that the province should be handling, not the local level. In northern Ontario we do not have the assessment-rich municipalities that can generate the revenue to support these services. These are services that should be funded through revenues derived from a progressive income tax system that we have in Ontario, so that the more money you make the greater contribution you make to these services, not based on maybe the present value of a home. You might find yourself now a widow in that home and unable to keep that up by paying the current taxes.

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We have to remember that these taxes are going to increase. With this downloading, the initial shock, though tremendous to some, is not what it's going to be in another year or so when the transitional funding stops. The government put a huge cushion forward to the municipalities to cushion the blow of the downloading called transitional funding, but they said in their announcement that it would only be there for two years. It's kind of ironic, because isn't it next year that maybe an election is going to be held? It looks like the transition funding would cover the election year, but lo and behold, the year after the election the municipalities will no longer have that transitional funding. That means the full impact of the downloading will go on the backs of the women and men in northern Ontario, on their property taxes. That is what's going to happen.

What do we have here? Another layer of government that is going to add additional costs to administer these services to the people of northern Ontario. It's interesting to note that this new level of government will collide with the overall vision of this government that we should be simplifying government. What the next step might be is that if this government gets re-elected, they'll take a look at these two levels now of municipal government and probably start to say: "Why do we need these two levels of government in northern Ontario? We probably should get rid of those towns and townships." I think that's what is on the agenda here. Basically this is the first step. Rather than going to amalgamations, it will just be across-the-board elimination of the lower tier of municipal government in northern Ontario, and the new area service boards will be the municipalities of the north. That will then make way for organizations that would be capable of taking further downloading, if this government gets its way and convinces the people of Ontario for a second term. More and more provincial services will be downloaded and there will be about 12 municipalities in northern Ontario that will be charged with the delivery of that.

When I look at the study that the region of Sudbury had commissioned through KPMG, it shows that any way you look at it, whether it's a per capita or per household cost, it's the northern municipalities that suffered the most in this downloading exercise. There we are and people would say, "There is a northern member standing up and complaining again about unfair treatment," but the facts belie the case. We were treated and are being treated unfairly. By this independent study, four of the five municipalities with the highest costs are located in northern Ontario, but all 11 northern municipalities are ranked among the top 25% of municipalities with the highest costs.

Looking at per capita cost of the downloading, Manitoulin district is number one, with additional costs of $869 per person. Kenora district is next, with $694. It goes on to Rainy River, Haliburton, and then there's the area I represent, number five, Timiskaming, an additional $671 per person to be able to manage these downloading costs.

This is really just not acceptable by the people of northern Ontario. We should certainly not accept it, but unfortunately this legislation is basically a gun held at the head of the area municipalities. All of the 27 municipalities that I currently represent in Timiskaming have been forced to organize themselves into a district social service assistance board, and once this legislation is passed, will have to convert that DSSAB, as it's called, into this area service board. That is going to take place, and I would think that once that is done, the government getting over an election, if it is to get back, would start a continuation of more downloading of costs to northern Ontario residents. For that reason I will not be supporting this bill.

Mr Michael Gravelle (Port Arthur): I am pleased to have an opportunity also to speak on Bill 12, perhaps our last opportunity to express some of the many concerns we have relating to this bill. It might be appropriate to start by simply reminding people - I know the people of this province have heard an awful lot about downloading - that it was January 1997, I believe, when the government shocked everybody and announced this massive process of downloading responsibilities on to the municipalities, which we have learned in the last year and a half is going to have a devastating impact on communities all across the province. I think what you've heard today from my colleagues in the Liberal caucus is the disproportionately large impact it has on northern municipalities. As a result of this downloading, it sort of became the process by which Bill 12 was born.

We also know that in a way there is warring legislation going on here. We have Bill 152 which created DSSABs, and we have Bill 12 which creates area service boards.

Interjection: - ministerial fight.

Mr Gravelle: There is a ministerial fight. We know that in essence, if indeed an area service board is not created with the minister having complete power to create one, although he says it will be done with local consensus, if that's not the case, a DSSAB, district social service assistance board, will simply be imposed. It's a situation where once again we're seeing the bullying by this government, where they put the municipalities in a very difficult situation, where they are forced to choose the lesser of two evils.

There's no question that when we look at the downloading reality, the downloading of responsibilities to municipalities - this of course includes the financial downloading they've got to handle. We look at ambulance service, social housing, welfare administration, highways, public health, the Ontario Provincial Police - the list goes on and on. One of the more alarming things as well about Bill 12 is that the process could very much continue to the point where we will have these massive, basically upper-tier, governments - regional governments. Here's the government of Ontario today talking about how they want less government and they're keen to propose that there be less government, yet they're in essence forming this upper level of government, although they choose not to call it that. This is of extreme concern to us and something that we really are fighting vigorously.

I know my colleague from Sudbury talked about some of the amendments that we tried to put forward to at least make the act more palatable and how they were all rejected by the government side. There's a long history with public hearings that are not particularly successful in terms of the government listening. But in this case there was an honest effort made to make some of the changes that would at least make it easier for the municipalities to deal with this.

Another issue that needs to be talked about is the fact that the restructuring, the formation of area service boards, will only occur, they say, if there is local consensus. There are dozens of models for these new boards that could be considered by northerners, and in many areas there is little consensus on how to proceed.

Interjection: There's no consensus.

Mr Gravelle: There's no consensus at all. So the minister and the act itself can say, "We're going to decide what will be done by local consensus," but we've seen what's happened all across this province when they try to act as if there has been some local decision-making. What has happened is that this government simply has imposed. We know about the megacity debate in Toronto. We know about Chatham-Kent. We know about the amalgamation of municipalities that was simply imposed by this government. The fact is that this government didn't consult them. We have great worries about the consultation and actually allowing local consensus to hold sway here, and we don't have any real faith that's the case, that that will happen.

There are so many areas, and the whole history of this is so interesting. We know the bill was brought forward last December - Bill 174 I think it was called then. We were actually saying to the minister, "If you're going to bring this forward, bring it forward so we can see it." In fact what we said was, "Would you at least let the municipalities in northern Ontario have a look at what you're planning to do?" Under that kind of pressure, they brought something forward. Unfortunately, they had no intention of pursuing it at that time.

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I think the municipalities in northern Ontario recognize that it was, in that sense, a false move by the government, one to show some kind of intent. So we went through the winter break, came back in the spring and the bill has gone forward. We had public hearings. I was fortunate enough to attend a number of them, and found the process pretty interesting, watching what happened. We heard so many issues of people who were very concerned about the fact that this is an imposition by government, essentially another bullying tactic by this government, and one that actually is being forced on the northern Ontario municipalities, one that they're in essence forced to try to deal with, because the provision of services under this downloading exercise would make it impossible to do it municipality by municipality.

It's going to be difficult to see how it does end up sorting out. The bill says that one municipality can ask for the formation of an area service board and they can determine how big that board will be. It's going to be very difficult. Certainly when I look at the situation in Thunder Bay and in the district of Thunder Bay, there are a lot of real difficulties. The fact is that the city of Thunder Bay has a population of 115,000 people and has some very real interests and concerns. Then when you go and look at the region, which is made up of so many important, fine communities, they want to be sure they have an appropriate say in the decisions that are made. It's going to be very difficult to make this all happen in a process that's (1) amicable and (2) actually works for the entire area. The Thunder Bay District Municipal League had some real concerns about this from the very beginning. I've spoken about it many times. As I say, I'm glad to have an opportunity to speak about it again.

When we look at the overall process, what seems fascinating to me, going back to the downloading, is that so much of the downloading is simply wrong. One area I've spoken on a great deal in the past, and one that I think this government actually acknowledges is wrong, has been the downloading of public health. The fact is that public health truly should be a provincial responsibility. It's very clear that communicable diseases do not respect municipal boundaries, and it's acknowledged that public health is something that should be managed by the province, should be financed by the province. There is no question about that.

We had extremely strong lobbying put in place to try to fight for that, to have the province maintain that. Having said that, there was a recognition that this government wasn't going to back down. We had some presentations, in Thunder Bay by Dr David Williams, from the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, who spoke eloquently, as he has in the past, about how the downloading of public health was wrong, but if indeed this was going to happen there needed to be a recognition that public health could not become the weak partner in this process. There had to be a recognition by the province that the Ministry of Health needed to be very much a legislative part of Bill 12 in order to maintain the protection of the people in terms of health care in northern Ontario. Dr Williams spoke about that.

Then in Kenora Dr William Orovan, who is the president of the Ontario Medical Association, spoke very eloquently about the fact that he and his organization had worked very closely on Bill 152 - that's the warring piece of legislation that formed the district social services assistance boards - how he had worked to try to at least make public health work within the framework of that, and now how Bill 12 was going to basically override some of the measures that had been put in place under Bill 152 to protect public health under a DSSAB or area service board model. Dr Orovan, whom my colleague from Sudbury talked about earlier, recommended some amendments that had to take place, that needed to be in place. They were ones that made a great deal of sense. Unfortunately, during the clause-by-clause process this government wouldn't accept any of them, including the ones that Dr Orovan was very clear about the need for in terms of people being protected.

I don't think one can underestimate the extraordinary importance of this. We argued, and will argue again, that public health should not have been part of the downloading. The fact that it is in place means we have to find ways of making sure that indeed it is protected under this process.

If I had more time, I could certainly go into great deal on why other aspects of downloading are harmful.

Mr Bartolucci: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: This is very important legislation for the people of northern Ontario and for this House to debate today. I'm concerned that this is the third time we're going to ask if a quorum is present.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Could you please check if we have a quorum.

Clerk Assistant: A quorum is present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Port Arthur.

Mr Gravelle: I guess they sneaked back in the House. It is a very sad reflection that a piece of legislation like this -

Mr Bartolucci: Noble Villeneuve just came in.

Mr Gravelle: We are very pleased that they got back in the House. I'm very pleased that the Minister of Agriculture made his way back in here. This is an important piece of legislation. It's unfortunate that we have not been able to maintain a quorum. The government members obviously don't think it's that important. Look at that; there goes my time. It's even more reduced because there's no quorum. It's very depressing.

The fact is that there are a lot of areas that give us great concern. We have worked very hard. I was talking about some of the amendments Dr Orovan had put forward. One of the very strong concerns is that the decision-making powers for public health in the north reside with the Minister of Northern Development and Mines. There is no legislative requirement for the minister to involve the Minister of Health or obtain the approval of the Minister of Health. That's clearly wrong. The fact is that an amendment was put in place to try to change that. It was rejected by the government.

There are other issues in terms of public health that they had great concerns about. All I can tell you is that I have dealt with the municipalities in my part of the province, largely through the Thunder Bay District Municipal League, and there has been nothing but a great deal of concern about this process. The process of consultation was not thorough. In fact, when we were having our public hearings we wanted to get to many more northern communities. We wanted to have an opportunity to have more people understand what the implications of this bill were. We are not going to support this piece of legislation, because we made every attempt on a number of occasions to persuade the government there needed to be changes to make this process work if the municipalities were going to be forced into this.

We know what has happened in terms of property tax increases for our northern communities, and they're massive. They were as a result of this particular legislation as well. We felt very strongly you needed to support some of these amendments in public health and in many other areas. We did our best to put those forward. We were not listened to by the government. We will not support this piece of legislation, and we will continue to fight regardless of where it stands.

The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?

Mr Bisson: I'll comment a little bit further later when I get my opportunity to speak to this bill. I just want to remind people where we're at. It was raised by a number of members in the official opposition caucus. That is simply that the government has started a process of downloading. They went to ads across Ontario. They said to northern Ontario communities, "We're going to transfer a whole bunch of services down to municipalities," and we'll list those later, when we get into debate, but including things like daycare and housing and welfare and other services.

The problem was that in northern Ontario there is no county and no district government structure. So to download those services on to northern Ontario, just to the local level of government, would have created a whole bunch of duplication of administration that quite frankly wouldn't have been accepted by northerners. The government's response at first was to introduce DSSABs, the district social services boards, to administer these services. We in the NDP said, "That's not acceptable; we don't like the structures of the DSSABs," for reasons I'll talk about later in the debate itself. "We need to have something that's different, something that enables municipalities to find solutions that are specific to them." That's why the government brought the ASB legislation back this fall, because northern municipalities managed to get the government to listen to them to a certain extent, to bring forward this legislation.

We have a number of amendments that were proposed at second reading to the bill. Most of the amendments that we in the NDP caucus had put forward were accepted by the government, and we thank them for that. To me, the real test is going to be: Will the provincial government actually allow municipalities which put forward a plan the ability to form an ASB? That's the question I want to raise later when we get into debate, because I'm beginning to wonder, as we get late into the process of DSSABs, if the government is going to be willing to listen to any ASB proposals.

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Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): I'm very pleased to comment on the points made by the Liberal opposition party today. As you know, the member for Durham-York was co-chair of the general government committee. She chaired all of the hearings that were conducted in Timmins, Kenora, Thunder Bay and, I think it was, Sudbury or Sault Ste Marie. As Chair of that committee, I know just how hard the member for Cochrane South made a number of very important points about the legislation and how it addresses the issues he's addressed in his comments, more specifically the French-language services component in the north of Ontario.

I just wanted to dwell on - there were a couple of points during the discussion when quorum was called. I don't know if it's appropriate or not, but there were only three and a half Liberals and, I believe, three NDP members in the House at the time. Of course, three and a half could be explained because one of the members has perhaps belonged to more than one caucus. We're not sure exactly which caucus he is in at this time.

The member for Timiskaming in his comments mentioned that he was not in support of this bill. I thought Bill 12 was a very important agreement among all three parties, respectfully to the north, and I learned a great deal chairing those hearings. I believed there was unanimous consent or endorsement of that report which I presented to the House a week or so ago. Of course it's very difficult to reach consensus when people want to make a very specific cry for a very specific area. I think we all work very hard in that committee for all of the people of Ontario and, to respect the people in northern Ontario, indeed the delivery of services is different.

Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): Let me just continue where the honourable member from the government side has talked about respecting the individuals from the north. We in the Liberal Party, Mr Speaker, and you know this very well, have one of the best representations in the northern part of Ontario. These individuals have represented the constituencies with such remarkable knowledge and insight and sensitivity, and that is why they feel very strongly about Bill 12. They feel, very much so, that this amalgamation is being forced upon them. They understand that. They understand that the services must be delivered in a very sensitive way. It cannot be done the way it is in Toronto. It's a different place in the north. This is the emphasis that the northern members have placed before this government.

This government, which has refused to consult in any way - because consultation means getting in touch with the concerns of the individuals upon whom most of these issues and policies will have impact. Without proper consultation, you cannot have proper policies. But again, our members in the northern area, who have told them over and over again that this downloading exercise not only will not deal effectively with the financial situation in the north, but the burden of all those new services - the vast mass of land that is there has to be dealt with in a completely different manner than down here.

I would appeal to the government members, given that we have this wonderful talent over here representing the north, that they should listen carefully, because the fact is that they are bringing knowledge, some inspiration and some sensitivity about the north. Ignoring that is ignoring the real aspect of what is best for a government.

Mr Len Wood: I listened very attentively to the five members from the Liberal caucus bringing forward their comments on Bill 12. As you're aware, and everybody throughout this province is, since Bill 26 there have been a number of forced amalgamations. The megacity in Toronto is one example. There was an attempt to amalgamate some municipalities in northern Ontario, and through court challenges they dropped that. But last year there was a bill sitting in the Legislature, I believe it was Bill 59, which dealt with the same thing that Bill 12 is dealing with right now.

Mr Bartolucci: Bill 174.

Mr Len Wood: Bill 174. It died on the order paper, and they brought forward Bill 12, which is going to take care of what the Conservative government feels is a megacity merger, where you take 85% of the land mass of northern Ontario and you split it up into different areas. They have their representatives who are going to be out there collecting taxes from unorganized property owners that normally would be sent into the Ministry of Finance and redistributed back.

But with the dumping and downloading that is taking place through OPP services, land ambulances, public health - public health was one of the big areas of concern that came up in northeastern and northwestern Ontario. If you split up responsibility for public health into 10 or 11 areas or regions in northern Ontario, what kind of public health responsibility do you have when you dump this on to the property owners?

There is a concern out there that this is not the best solution for the land mass in northern Ontario, but the government is going to try to push it down everybody's throats.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Sudbury, you have two minutes to reply.

Mr Bartolucci: I hope everyone in the House understands that this bill is not needed. The reason for this bill is because of the massive downloading the government imposed on all of Ontario, which impacts on northern Ontario the most and in the worst way. Because of this massive downloading, Bill 12 is supposed to cure the ills found in northern Ontario.

The reality is, Bill 12 is going to make northern Ontario not as viable a place as it is and was before this government decided to implement its massive downloading. The reality is, northern Ontario municipalities did not ask for Bill 12. The reality is, underserviced areas, unorganized areas, small municipalities know that the effects of Bill 12 are going to be very negative to them in the form of dollars they're now going to have to pay for the implementation of Bill 12.

I would suggest that the members in this House should be very concerned about what effects Bill 12 is going to have on the residents of northern Ontario, especially those residents who will not have an honest, fair representation on the area services board, and the reality is that they've heard repeatedly from presenters that there is an unfairness attached to Bill 12 in representation.

I only want to make one comment about the member for Durham East in his two minutes. I'm glad he didn't spend time talking about his northern development and mines minister who didn't grace any of these hearings with his appearance.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Bisson: I want to, first of all, say at the outset that our caucus will be supporting this legislation. I would also ask for unanimous consent to allow us to split our time in our caucus between myself and a few other members of our caucus.

The Acting Speaker: Agreed? Agreed.

Mr Bisson: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I want to say at the outset that we in the New Democratic Party caucus are taking a different approach to this bill than has just been put forward by the Liberal Party. I respect their position. They have their convictions or their beliefs, whatever they might be. I might agree or disagree.

Hon Noble Villeneuve (Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, minister responsible for francophone affairs): You're giving them credit for nothing.

Mr Bisson: I'm being told by the minister opposite I'm giving them credit for nothing, but those weren't my words.

I think we're in a situation here where we need to make some decisions in opposition. Let's be very clear what this bill is about and why it's here. The government has decided by way of policy to transfer a number of services on to municipalities that used to be provided by the government of Ontario, those services having to do with welfare, daycare, housing and a whole bunch of services which I'll name later.

I personally in our caucus oppose the direction the government is taking vis-à-vis the downloading of services. I don't believe for one second that downloading housing as a municipal responsibility is in any way, shape or form going to make that system more efficient. Neither in my view will that enable us to have policies that are conducive to policies that apply across the province so that if you live in Toronto or you live in Manitouwadge or you live in Hearst, you have an ability to benefit from what is a provincial policy -

Interjection: Or Kapuskasing.

Mr Bisson: Or Kapuskasing.

By downloading services on to municipalities and giving them the responsibility, it means the same municipal governments are going to be making decisions that will in effect over a period of time make for different policies when it comes to certain programs from region to region within the province.

Initially, the government is going to say, "That's not the case. We're going to establish provincial standards and everything will be wonderful," but you know and I know if the municipal governments are made to pay for a service and made to deliver a service and they're not getting the dollars from the province, they're going to do what the provinces are doing to the federal government when the Liberal government dumps its responsibility on to the provincial government. That is, they will go to the provincial government and they will say to the Premier of the day, "Listen, you're not paying for this any more. We want more say," and over a period of time municipalities will go out and they will get greater say with those services and we will end up with services that are less functional from a provincial policy standpoint.

That being said, and saying clearly at the beginning of this debate that I oppose the downloading agenda of the Harris government, I have to deal with it. I'm an elected representative from the riding of Cochrane South and my job is to come here and to try to advocate on behalf of the people who are from my community. What is happening in this case is that the government is saying: "Mr Bisson, if you like downloading or don't like downloading, that's not your decision, that's ours. We have a majority, the Tory majority in this House, and we're going to do it."

How do I respond as an opposition politician? I could, as the Liberal caucus has done, say: "I oppose it. That's it. I can't do anything about it. I'm just going to oppose the bill and I'll be seen as being an opposition person and a voice against what the government's doing." Sometimes that may be necessary, but I think in this particular debate we have an opportunity through this bill to try to make it a little bit better for northern municipalities. This bill may not be perfect. Lord knows, no bill that has ever been passed in this Legislature under any government has been perfect -

Mr Pouliot: Especially this one.

Mr Bisson: Especially this one.

The point is that this bill goes a long way to being able to fix some of the problems that the government is finding are being created as we download services on to municipalities.

To be clear, I oppose the downloading agenda. I think it is wrong. If given the opportunity to govern, that's something I think we need to go back and look at: what should properly be done by the province and what should properly be done by the municipalities. I don't believe that this wholesale transferring of services in the long run is going to benefit Ontarians, I think it'll hurt, but the government has made a decision and I have to deal with that.

I can sit here and I can oppose all I want, but do you know what? I'll be spinning in the wind. The reality is, Harris has a majority in this House. He is going to decide what policy initiatives he's going to take. In this case he says, "I'm downloading," so as the local representative I've got to deal with that. What we did was simply this: We listened to what people in our communities had to say across northern Ontario, and what people said was, "We don't like the downloading agenda" - municipal politicians, by and large. "We need to find some kind of solution that allows us to deal with how we deliver these services in as efficient a manner as possible so that we're not downloading individually into each municipality a duplication of administration when it comes to all these services."

The initial response by the provincial government was to create what are called DSSABs. You get into these debates and these politicians, you know, are all the same, right? DSSABs, ASBs, all kinds of acronyms about everything. Let's just keep it really simple: When the government downloaded its initial services on to the services of the municipalities, they had to figure out a way to create in northern Ontario some sort of regional or county government structure so that when those services are into the north they're administered not in each and every individual municipality but in some sort of a governance structure that is larger than what exists now.

The problem the government had is very simple: In northern Ontario there are no county or district governments per se other than the city of Sudbury. So the government had to find a way to create structures that allow the delivery of these services to happen. The initial response of the Harris government - we're learning something from the Harris government over a period of time. When they do things, they do things really quickly and a lot of times they mess them up, and that's what their initial response to this was.

They said: "We're going to transfer over initially to the municipalities welfare, child care and public health and we're going to create what are called DSSABs, district social services administration boards, under Minister Ecker, the Ministry of Community and Social Services. We will allow that ministry to create 11 district services boards in northern Ontario that have the ability to deliver these services in the end."

What did we find? Almost everybody in northern Ontario was upset as heck. Municipal politicians were saying, "Hang on a second. You're imposing a solution on us that we think is not workable," for all kinds of reasons having to do with the composition of the new DSSABs, how many municipal representatives would be on them, from what areas, what the services should be, how you're able to purchase services or not purchase services. A whole bunch of issues had not been thought through by the Conservative government of Mike Harris. So the government put forward this district social services boards legislation. They enacted the legislation and they started the process of foisting on to municipal governments this whole DSSAB process.

I've got to tell you, where I come from, people in northeastern Ontario and the Highway 11 corridor between Timmins all the way up to Hearst are mad as hell about the whole DSSAB process. In my area, you've got the city of Timmins, which represents better than 50% of the population in the area, wanting to have a DSSAB formed in a certain way that would give them a majority of control on that board, because they feel they represent, as a municipality, more than 50% of what would be the catchment area of the new DSSAB.

But on the other side, and the side that I'm sympathetic to, you've got the Highway 11 municipalities, which are Hearst all the way down to Smooth Rock Falls, Cochrane, into the Matheson and Iroquois Falls area, which are saying, "Hey, we are a number of smaller municipalities and we want to have equal control, if not better, to make sure that we have some control in smaller municipalities about how these services will be delivered." Where will the offices be of the various services being delivered? How many staff will there be? What will be the type of services delivered? How will it be organized? Those municipalities have concerns about how that's going to operate.

Under the DSSAB structure, neither the city of Timmins nor the municipalities along Highway 11 are happy with what's going on because it's an imposed solution. The Ministry of Community and Social Services, Minister Ecker, walks in and says: "Bam, here it is. If you don't like it, lump it. I'm going to put a plan in place for you. You're stuck with it and there's nothing you can do about it."

Mayor Power in the city of Timmins and Councillor Bisson and Councillor Laughren and Alderman Battochio and others are mad as heck at the provincial government, and rightfully so, about this whole DSSAB process. On the other side, on Highway 11, if you speak to the mayor of Hearst, Mr Blier, if you speak to the mayor of Kapuskasing, M. Caron, if you speak to the mayor of any municipality along Highway 11, they're mad as heck at this government over the DSSAB process. That's the context in which we find ourselves when we start dealing with Bill 12.

The government started to hear prior to last winter sometime the problems they were getting into with the DSSABs, and we in the NDP, along with the local municipalities, were pressuring the government to try to find some sort of alternative solution. The government came last winter and introduced Bill 174, which is a forerunner of this bill. It died on the order paper and that's why we're back here today with Bill 12. They came in and introduced what was Bill 174, which was grosso modo, as we say, which is basically what Bill 12 is today.

The idea was quite simple. I give the government credit for what it does right at times. They said, "We will create enabling legislation that allows municipalities, if they choose" - and those are the key words - "to form an area services board," which would allow them to decide more or less for themselves to a certain extent what it is and how they're going to structure themselves when it comes to these downloaded services.

Interjection.

Mr Bisson: Well, the unorganized I will get to in a moment, because that's the other part of this bill that I think needs to be spoken to. But grosso modo, what happened is that the government created this legislation that's enabling.

The problem is that if you look at the original draft of the bill, Bill 12 as it was originally drafted, I can tell you there was a whole bunch of problems in the way the government had drafted its initial bill. For example, under subsection 41(1) of the bill, the government said: "If you municipalities decide to have an ASB, we're going to mandate you to create the six essential services. You will have to deliver child care, assistance under Ontario Works, public health services, social housing, land ambulance and homes for the aged under the Homes for the Aged and Rest Homes Act." Those were three more additional services than what were found originally under the DSSAB. But the big clincher was that, if required to by an order under subsection 41(2), the minister had the ability to say: "Oh, by the way, you're over here because you want to plan to get an ASB with the six core essential services in 41(1). I'm going to impose on you some of these other services that I have listed in the bill."

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Those services were economic development offices across the area of the ASB; airport services - for example, in my area I can think of five municipal airports, one of them about to be a municipal airport in Timmins, that could have been transferred to the ASB without even a request from the ASB itself; land use planning, in other words, where you go to get your building permits and other things; administrative functions under the Provincial Offences Act, the whole issue of local tickets by police; waste management, garbage pickup, all those kinds of things; police services under the Police Services Act could have been transferred to the ASB; emergency preparedness under the Emergency Planning Act; roads and bridges.

Mr Speaker, along Highway 11, do you know how many roads and bridges there are? That one was enough to make the horse choke. We have hundreds of miles of highways in the Highway 11 corridor that would have been within our ASB, and do you know how many bridges, how many miles of highway those were? Technically, the minister could have said: "By the way, you've got this ASB and I just thought I'd throw something in for good measure. Have Highway 11." What municipality would ever have signed on to this Bill 12? They would have said: "Never. You're asking us to buy a pig in a poke. You're saying, `Take the six services,' but once we have our plan in, we can be forced to accept services that are basically services that we didn't ask for."

Then there was paragraph 41(2)9. I love paragraph 9. It was originally, "Any other service designated by the minister." Wow, was that something. "Do I have a deal for you," would say Chris Hodgson. "Here, use my enabling legislation. Come in, trust me. Come on, come under subsection 41(1) of the bill. Pick these six services. You want a little bit more flexibility when it comes to administration? I'll give it to you, no problem." But all of a sudden, wham, you get all those other services that the minister could decide by way of this bill and there's nothing the municipality could have done.

We in the NDP proposed an amendment, and I've got to give the government credit. They listened to the people of northern Ontario in this particular case, something that's odd for this government at times. But I've got to give credit where credit is due. The parliamentary assistant for northern development did a very good job on this bill. I've got to give him credit. I think he wrestled his minister and wrestled other people on his committee in order to say, "Listen, guys, this is an important bill for northerners and we need to hear what they're saying here."

They accepted one of our amendments that said, no, a minister cannot download additional services other than the six prescribed in subsection 41(1) of the bill unless the municipalities ask for it. Now under the bill, and we've got to give the government credit, if you go and form an ASB, you'll get those first six services, no question, but you're not going to be forced to take on additional services under subsection 41(2) of the bill. That was a huge amendment and we give the government credit.

There was another amendment that the government accepted that I think was a good amendment, and that was in the area of being able to make alternative arrangements when it comes to the delivery of services. Under the original form of the bill, the ASB itself, the area services board created under Bill 12, would have had to deliver these services. That may not make sense.

For example, in our area, as in most other areas, we have a public health unit that represents and organizes public health for what would be the ASB, the area services board: Matheson, all the way up to Moosonee, and Highway 11 to Hearst, and then fly another 300 miles and you get to Moosonee, because there are no highways there. But that will be for another debate. I think we should push a highway up to Moosonee. That's something I'm in favour of, something I think we need to do. My good friend Mr Pouliot's plan was after Highway 407 to build Highway 408 that would have gone from Hearst all the way up to Moosonee, I'm sure. Anyway, back to the debate. I'm digressing here.

Under the bill, the municipalities would have been forced to deliver public health where you already have a structure that exists and that has its own administration which is very efficient, very lean and does a very good job of delivering public health services within our communities. So it made no sense to us, and neither did it make any sense to most municipalities, to say to the public health: "You're no longer in business. The ASB has to do these services for you."

One of the amendments that the government accepted was our amendment that said, allow the area services board, if it chooses, to say: "We want to keep public health where it is. It's one of our responsibilities and we'll accept it. We will pay the per capita costs and we will levy the money necessary through our tax base to assure ourselves that that money goes to the public health to deliver the mandated programs that they have to do, but allow them to deliver themselves." Because the ASBs have said: "We don't have a medical director of health. We don't have doctors on staff who can head up a health unit such as we need. We don't have the expertise. We don't want to get into that business."

The government accepted that amendment, that I think was a very important amendment, to allow municipalities a little bit more flexibility. For example, in our area, the area services board, if it was created, could decide to say, "We're going to enter into an arrangement with the public health unit," and allow the public health unit to manage those services for the ASB. When it comes to, let's say, something like welfare, if there was an ASB created, let's say, for Highway 11 and none for the city of Timmins, they could enter into an arrangement between the city of Timmins and the ASB to deliver welfare, because there are some very unique situations in welfare alone that are a huge source of contention on the DSSAB boards themselves.

Just to put it quickly, because I don't have a lot of time, because the geography is so much larger along Highway 11 as compared to the area in the city of Timmins, the staffing ratios per client - I think there's about a 100-per-client difference in ratio between client and service deliverers as compared to the city of Timmins. There are some good reasons for that. The DSSAB legislation would sort of force them to go the way of standardizing everything across the new DSSAB, which would mean for the people on Highway 11 that they may end up getting fewer services and then they end up having to pay more money as compared to the city of Timmins.

That's what the initial consultant's report found under the DSSAB, that the welfare costs for the city of Timmins would go down. At the other end, the welfare costs for the other municipalities along Highway 11 would go up. That's not fair. That's the fight that's going on at the DSSAB process. Not only that, the services may change from what they're now getting in the Highway 11 corridor.

We saw this bill as the ability to try to fix that, to say that if the municipalities choose, they may want to enter into an arrangement with the city of Timmins to co-manage some sort of service that takes into account the differences between the city of Timmins and the Highway 11 corridor ASB. I'm going to come back to this point in a second because, for our area, it's a very important point. That is, we have asked the Minister of Northern Development and Mines and we have asked the committee to allow the municipalities in our area to create their own area services board along Highway 11, excluding the city of Timmins, and allow the area services board itself on Highway 11 to determine how best to deliver those services that are downloaded, possibly with arrangements with the city of Timmins where it makes sense and not where it doesn't.

When it comes to public health, I would think that the area services board along Highway 11 would probably decide to utilize a public health unit. To me, that seemed like an option that was far better than what is being proposed under the current DSSAB legislation that we're now having to go through.

To digress one second, because I think this needs to be said, the municipality of the city of Timmins and the Highway 11 group, led by J.C. Caron, the mayor of Hearst, sent a letter to Minister Ecker saying: "Would you allow us to form two separate DSSABs, one for the city of Timmins and one for the Highway 11 corridor?" The minister came back and said no. That didn't surprise me, because I expected the minister to say that.

That's the reason that I and my colleague Len Wood have asked the Minister of Northern Development and Mines, once this legislation passes, to allow the municipalities in our area along Highway 11 to form their own area services board, to allow them to determine how to deliver services, to partner with the city of Timmins where necessary, but leave the city of Timmins outside the area services board, because there are very huge differences between the needs of the city of Timmins and the needs of the Highway 11 people. I think you need to respect that, and that's something that we've asked for. I look forward to a positive response from the Minister of Northern Development and Mines to that particular proposal and will be following up on that in the next couple of weeks, for sure, further to the letter and the request that we made to him about a week and a half ago.

The other amendment that we got that is very important, c'est l'amendement qui traite la question des services en français. On sait que dès le début ce gouvernement, temps après temps, quand ça vient au délestage des services aux municipalités, n'a pas accepté que les services doivent être transférés avec la protection de la Loi 8.

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On sait que les années passées, sous un autre gouvernement, le gouvernement de M. Peterson, on a adopté une loi ici en Ontario appelée la Loi 8, Loi sur les services en français. Comme vous le savez, monsieur le Président, parce que vous étiez ici à ce temps-là, quand on a eu ce débat et on a eu le vote sur cette loi, tous les députés de la Chambre, libéraux, NPD et conservateurs, avec Mike Harris dans le temps, ont accepté la Loi 8 comme principe de la province de l'Ontario qui dit : «N'importe quel service donné par la province dans une région désignée, tant de pourcentage de francophones dans cette région, on va s'assurer que le gouvernement provincial donne ces services en français.» Si on était francophone et qu'on allait avoir son permis de conduire, ou si on a besoin des services à l'hôpital ou n'importe quel service donné par la province, on peut avoir ce service en français.

On a fait pas mal vite des pas et on a été capable d'augmenter les services en français pour les francophones. On a trouvé, en 1995, que la plupart des services dans ces régions désignées ont été donnés en français. Il y a toujours eu de petits problèmes, mais pour la plupart ça a marché pas trop mal. Mais ce gouvernement, quand ils ont transféré ces services aux municipalités dans toutes sortes d'autres projets de loi, dans la Loi 108, par exemple, sur les services juridiques, on a vu que le gouvernement n'a pas accepté de garantir les droits linguistiques aux francophones - en d'autres mots, quand le service est transféré à une municipalité, que les services en français soient respectés sous la Loi 8 et les garanties de la Loi 8 soient transférées avec le service.

Après seulement un an de débats dans cette Chambre, et la lutte que moi et mon caucus NPD y avons mis auprès du gouvernement, le gouvernement a finalement accepté un amendement à la Loi 108 qui protège, dans mon opinion, de façon minime les services en français pour les francophones dans les services transférés à travers les services juridiques. Le gouvernement a accepté un amendement avec l'AJEFO que je pense n'être pas assez clair, mais tout de même ils ont fait quelque chose un peu plus positif comparé au commencement.

Quant à tous les autres services jusqu'à date, quand le gouvernement a transféré les services aux municipalités, on n'a pas donné de garantie législative. Je regarde le ministre délégué aux Affaires francophones, qui est ici aujourd'hui, et je veux lui donner un message : que son gouvernement est le premier à dire que l'on ne transfère pas ces services avec les autres services transférés. On a travaillé trop fort comme francophones, M. Villeneuve, comme vous le savez. Vous êtes francophone et fier de l'être, j'en suis sûr, comme tout francophone, et il est très important que l'on garde ces garanties législatives qui nous ont été donné. Ce qui est arrivé c'est que, quand le gouvernement a présenté le projet de loi 12, il n'y a pas eu de clause qui disait qu'aucun service transféré à travers la loi 12 aux municipalités dans les régions désignées allait être couvert sous la Loi sur les services en français.

Nous, les NPD, avons proposé un amendement que l'on a emmené au comité. On a fait le débat pour la plupart d'une journée ou deux, je ne me rappelle pas exactement, où moi et mon collègue M. Blain Morin, nouvel élu de Nickel Belt, avons poussé très fort M. Spina jusqu'au point où M. Spina et le restant du comité étaient pas mal écoeurés de m'entendre parler. Mais finalement le gouvernement a dit, «Écoute, on n'est pas prêt à vous donner un amendement dans la législation, mais on est prêt à vous donner une lettre qui dit que l'on va protéger les services une fois que les ententes seront signées avec les municipalités.»

Je veux dire très clairement que ce n'est pas la manière de laquelle je préfère faire les affaires. Je pense qu'une garantie législative premièrement est plus pratique, et deuxièmement, c'est plus concret. Il n'y a pas question, avec une garantie législative, qu'un gouvernement de n'importe quel parti peut aller rechercher ou ôter des services que les francophones ont déjà dans leur communauté. Mais le gouvernement, après l'ouvrage que moi et M. Morin avons fait au comité, a dit, «On vous donne cette lettre signée par M. Hodgson, qui va être le ministre responsable de signer toutes ces ententes une fois que les services seront transférés aux municipalités.» Le ministre nous dit tout simplement dans cette lettre :

«D'une façon semblable, j'ai l'intention de maintenir les services bilingues. Lorsque les circonstances l'imposent au moyen de l'arrêté de l'établissement des régies régionales des services publics, l'arrêté» - ça veut dire l'entente - «du ministre couvrait les services en français au fur et à mesure que l'on évalue chaque programme conformément avec la politique provinciale. Évidemment» - et c'est ça l'important - «une considération particulière serait de mise dans le milieu où la population recevait déjà des services en français en vertu de la Loi sur les services en français.» On parle de la Loi 8. «Nous nous assurons, au moyen de l'arrêté du ministre, que les services fournis à la collectivité francophone avant la formation des régies régionales continuent.»

Ça, c'est du moins quelque chose. On a un ministre qui nous le dit à la Chambre, et un assistant parlementaire qui le répète à beaucoup de reprises au comité, et on a la lettre du ministre qu'on va garder pour nous assurer, qui dit qu'à n'importe quel moment que les services seront transférés aux municipalités, le ministre va s'assurer que si ces services-là sont en français, désignés sous la Loi 8, une fois transférés aux municipalités à travers la régie régionale qu'on va créer à travers ce projet de loi, il va s'assurer que les services en français seront respectés. En d'autres mots, si une municipalité ne garantit pas les services aux francophones, «no deal». Rien ne se passe. L'entente ne va pas être signée. Il va exiger que ces services-là soient protégés.

Je veux seulement dire deux choses sur ce point. Comme j'ai dit, ce n'est pas mon approche préférée. J'aimerais mieux avoir une entente dans la loi qui nous donne quelque chose de concret, mais c'est du moins quelque chose.

Une affaire que j'ai apprise est que des fois on apprend des leçons politiques et ça prend longtemps, hein ? On sait tout en tant que politicien. J'ai appris des fois qu'on peut pousser tellement loin, mais quand on a une manière de victoire, des fois il faut faire ces pas vers cette victoire-là pour avoir quelque chose qui est pur. La réponse pure est de protéger les services à travers la loi, mais dans ce cas-ci, le gouvernement nous a donné du moins quelque chose. On va survivre pour avoir la bataille un autre jour. Ça va prendre un autre gouvernement, je pense, un gouvernement NPD, qui va revenir à l'Assemblée pour nous assurer que les droits des francophones sont respectés dans la loi.

Sur ce point, comme on le sait, monsieur le Président, parce que vous avez été approché, ainsi que M. Villeneuve, notre ministre, il y a beaucoup de francophones dans la province qui trouvent qu'il est temps que l'Ontario se déclare officiellement bilingue. Une des raisons pour lesquelles les francophones dans la province commencent à parler comme ça, c'est qu'ils commencent à avoir de plus en plus peur qu'avec les actions du gouvernement Harris, les droits des francophones commencent à être érodés.

On voit l'hôpital Montfort. On voit ce qui est arrivé à travers la loi 12. On voit beaucoup à travers d'autres entreprises du gouvernement provincial, la gestion scolaire - monsieur le député, je vous donne le crédit où c'est dû, mais sur beaucoup d'autres planches, votre gouvernement l'a vraiment échappé belle et vous avez érodé les services aux francophones dans la province. Vous n'êtes pas capable de dire autrement.

Dans le passé, avant que vous soyez venus -

Interjections.

M. Bisson : On voit un ministre qui n'aime pas ça. La vérité fait mal, mais la vérité, c'est que le gouvernement a commencé à prendre des pas en arrière quand ça vient aux services en français pour les francophones. C'est pour ça que notre parti est d'accord avec Opération Constitution, parrainée par M^me Lalonde et autres, M. Cousineau, qui demande à l'Assemblée législative d'adopter une motion qui demanderait au gouvernement fédéral de faire des amendements à notre constitution pour faire comme au Nouveau-Brunswick et s'assurer que l'Ontario devienne une province officiellement bilingue. Je suis fier, comme néo-démocrate, de dire que notre caucus et notre chef - il est le seul des chefs qui ont été approchés ; ni M. McGuinty ni M. Harris n'a accepté cette proposition. Il n'y a que notre parti qui est carrément en arrière de cette proposition, et nous, on pense que c'est à peu près le temps.

Je veux mettre sur le record que je suis convaincu que n'importe quel gouvernement qui est là, si on n'a pas ces protections dans la constitution, il est trop facile de prendre des pas en arrière. Il y a beaucoup de fois que les gouvernements de toutes couleurs ont un peu peur de prendre l'avant sur certains dossiers comme les droits linguistiques. Je pense que c'est à peu près temps qu'on donne les garanties constitutionnelles dont on a besoin, et je suis fier de dire, comme néo-démocrate, que c'est notre parti qui prend cette position. On vous assure, comme gouvernement, qu'une des affaires que nous sommes intéressés de faire, c'est d'adopter une motion ici dans la Chambre - si on a une majorité, on pourra la passer - qui dira au gouvernement fédéral qu'on veut faire un amendement à la constitution pareil au Nouveau-Brunswick pour nous assurer que l'Ontario deviendra officiellement bilingue.

I also want to raise one other issue that I think needs to be raised. The member for Algoma raised it earlier when I was at the beginning of my speech, and that's the issue of what this means for the unorganized communities. If there is one part of this bill that I have great difficulty with, it is what it's going to mean to the unorganized communities.

I find myself in a position of having to balance off a number of interests as a legislator, and that's what happens in most situations here. You have to ask yourself a question as a northerner - you have in northern Ontario a number of areas that are unorganized. The government by way of this legislation, in effect putting the unorganized communities inside area service boards or district service boards, whatever the case may be, is going to substantially be raising the taxes paid by those residents. If you presently live in an area that is within a district services board, your new district services board, within a couple of years of forming that board, is going to charge you the same level of taxation that people are paying within the organized communities.

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I know for some municipalities that is a very popular thing. I know M. Caron in Kapuskasing is in favour of that, I know Mayor Power and others are in favour of that, because they feel, from their side of the argument, that people who live in unorganized communities don't pay the taxes but they come into the community to utilize the services. I take an opposite view. I disagree in this case with M. Caron and Mr Power. I believe that people who decide to live in unorganized communities pay enough of a cost to live there and it's a choice that they make.

For example, I grew up in a place called Kamiskotia Lake which used to be outside of the unorganized community of the city of Timmins. We paid to the provincial government a yearly tax in order to have our house built on Kamiskotia Lake. At the time, my parents did not pay municipal taxes. Eventually we were annexed by the city of Timmins and we paid the level of taxes as you do within the city of Timmins.

But what do you get in return? There was no garbage pickup until about 15 years ago and the garbage pickup you do get is not what you would normally expect to see within the city of Timmins. There's no water and sewer system. If you want water and sewer, you provide your own. In some cases that's tens of thousands of dollars. The snow removal is not to the same level that you would see within the city of Timmins. It used to be fantastic for Kamiskotia when it used to be a provincial highway, but the government has seen fit to transfer that over to a municipal road and we're not getting the type of snow removal that we used to get under the responsibility of the province of Ontario. And the list goes on.

I think people who live in unorganized communities understand that, yes, they'll pay less municipal taxes for going there, but that's offset by the services that they don't receive by living in unorganized communities. If you want to go to a skating rink, it's a question of half a tank of gas to get into town to do what you've got to do. You just don't pick up the vehicle and run into town all of a sudden to participate in community events. It's much more difficult. You don't have the level of services within the unorganized communities and that's why we never got charged a municipal level of taxation.

I think one of the things that's going to hurt for the unorganized communities is that you're stuck with the DSSAB, so there's nothing we could do through the ASBs to fix that problem. The government will, through the district social services board, charge you a municipal tax for those services under the legislation brought by Ecker, so we know that's the case. This particular bill doesn't make better and doesn't make worse that situation; it just carries on what is I think a bad policy by the provincial government. I wanted to put that on the record.

I want to get back again to what this means for the people of my community and I want to be really clear about this. I said at the outset of my speech that when you're elected to the Legislature you come here and you do the best you can given what you have before you at the time. The decision I had as a legislator for Cochrane South was a very simple one. The government has decided to download services to municipalities. They are downloading a number of services that I listed earlier: welfare, ambulances, daycare, housing, and the list goes on. I don't like that. I am opposed to that. I think that's a step in the wrong direction. But the question I have to ask myself is, if the government is going to transfer those services and I lose the battle as an opposition politician to stop the download, where do I go from here? I've got to try to find a way, as the local representative, to make the best possible deal I can in the legislation for the communities I represent. That's why I was elected.

In this particular case, when we saw Bill 12, we said, "We have an opportunity to amend the legislation to try to make it better for our local municipalities." So we proposed a number of amendments that I talked about earlier. I just listed three of them but, by and large, those were the three stumbling blocks that would keep me from voting for this bill. Because of the public hearings, the government finally went out to committee - Mr Speaker, can you believe it? - and they listened for a change. They came back and said: "We've been impressed. People of northern Ontario have spoken."

I went to that committee, along with Blain Morin and Len Wood, and we put forward arguments as best we could to the government, and the government committee eventually said: "Yes, OK, those are reasonable amendments. We'll accept them." So what do I do at that point? It would be hypocritical on my part to say, "You've accepted my amendment; now let me vote against it." That would be a very dishonest position for me to take.

I went into that committee saying to myself, "If the government moves forward on these three issues, I'm prepared to support the legislation and I'll make that recommendation to my caucus," and the government did it, so we got the best deal we could for our municipalities. We're not happy as far as the downloading; we'd rather not see that happen. We're not happy when it comes to the unorganized communities; we'd rather not see that happen. I can tell you, those would not happen under an NDP government, but this government has made a decision, and we have to find a way to make it as plausible or acceptable as we can to municipalities in how they're going to deal with these services.

We have taken a position that is very different from the Liberal Party's. The Liberal Party is saying, "Oppose, oppose, oppose," and I think in opposition at times we have to oppose if it's philosophically in the opposite direction. For example, your government took away labour rights through Bill 7. Darned right I'll oppose that, and I'll oppose it as long as I can and as strongly as I can, because ideologically it goes in the opposite direction to what the New Democrats believe in.

But in this particular case we know the downloading is going to happen. It's a question of saying: "We got some amendments. It makes it a little bit better. It gives an opportunity to municipal politicians locally to find their own solutions. We will support the legislation." That's the position New Democrats are taking. We believe it's incumbent upon us as New Democrats not just to oppose what the government does; when we're disagreeing with them on major ideological battles, yes, to have that political fight, but where we think we can get amendments to make it better, it's our job to go out there and do that, and I think that's what has happened in this case.

I want to say to members on the opposite side of the House, please learn by this process. I know that in government, because I was there, you tend to think, especially if you're a first-time politician, that the opposition is only playing games on this side of the House. None of us play games, your side of the House or mine. Yes, we're politicians; yes, we politicize the debate; yes, we have very strong positions, be it on the Conservative side of the House or the NDP side of the House. You believe in weaker labour laws; to the core of your soul you believe in that. I don't believe in that. Yes, we are going to have fights politically on those issues, but never sell short the integrity of members in this House to do what is right for their communities. We do what we think is right, as best we can. As we say en français, nous prêchons pour nos paroisses, and that's exactly what we've done in this particular case.

I want to say a couple of things to the government in the five minutes that I have left, because my good friend Mr Pouliot, the member for Nipigon, has some issues that he wants to put on the record, and as always, he will eloquently put those on the record and he will tell us what he thinks of this legislation.

The first thing is that I have no doubt this legislation will pass third reading. The government will vote in favour of the legislation, the NDP will vote in favour of the legislation and the Liberals will vote against. The math is really simple; this bill is going to pass. But I ask the government to make darned sure you proclaim the bill. I'm beginning to wonder if the government intends to proclaim the bill - I certainly hope you do - so I'm going to take a positive approach. I'm not going to say I'm not voting for this because you won't proclaim it; I'm going to say I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. I have to believe that if the government introduces a bill and the government allows it to come to third reading for final passage, you will proclaim the legislation. That's the first thing I ask you: Make sure to proclaim the legislation. And you know what? Don't wait until January 1. It is imperative that you proclaim this bill early enough to allow municipalities to utilize the rules under the area services boards to be able to go out and find their own solutions to what is a very difficult situation when it comes to downloading: How are they going to organize those services?

The second thing I want to say to the government is very simply this: Minister of Northern Development and Mines, when the cities or municipalities in the northern part of the province come to you and say, "We have a plan to form an area services board; we have structured something, maybe not in total detail, but at least so you know where we're going," accept the proposals by the municipalities. I worry that in the end the municipalities will not be able to get a clear enough response from the minister to allow them to go forward with an area services plan. So I say to the people in the Highway 11 corridor, Highway 11, Cochrane North and Cochrane South, please allow the municipalities the options of utilizing this bill.

The key component for us in my area is to allow Highway 11 municipalities from Matheson to Hearst to form their own area services board that excludes the city of Timmins, and then allow Highway 11 to decide how they want to deliver their services. They may very well choose that they want to deliver those services, when it comes to public health, through the public health unit in a partnership with the city of Timmins. They may decide in the end to run land ambulance services together because in the amendments in this legislation we have allowed them to make those arrangements. If you allowed the amendments, allow the municipalities to use those amendments.

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I say to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines, I've given you a letter on behalf of my colleague the member for Cochrane North, Mr Len Wood, and myself that says, "Municipalities, once this bill is passed, are going to be asking you for a general OK about their ability to form a Highway 11 ASB and please allow them to do so."

They will not come to you initially with the fine-tuned final results of what their ASB looks like. They will just ask you the basic question, "Will you allow us to form a Highway 11 ASB?" understanding that they're going to have to take the services under section 41 of the bill, which are the six services, and then get back to them and say: "Yes, we can live with the concept. Come back with a further proposal that refines that and defines that to a greater extent." Then that will give them the green light to go out and organize themselves and spend the money they need to spend to build what will be a final proposal they will bring to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines. But they won't do that if you don't allow them to get past base one, because otherwise they'll be stuck with a DSSAB.

I've got to tell you, the question of DSSABs is totally unacceptable to the people of northern Ontario. That's why my caucus voted against that legislation, and if I had to do it again, I would vote against it because I thought that legislation was too restrictive. At least with Bill 12 we have given some ability to the municipalities in this piece of legislation to organize themselves in a way that's a little bit more flexible.

I ask the minister to make sure he tells the municipalities straight out, "Yes, I'm prepared to accept or not accept a Highway 11 ASB that excludes the city of Timmins." If he does that, they will then go back and work on an ASB proposal at the same time they work out their DSSAB arrangements and by January 1 or shortly thereafter allow them to go into an ASB arrangement. Maybe give them a month or two extra that they'll need to do this. It's not the end of the world. The province has survived up to now without DSSABs, so it's not going to come to the end of the world by January 1. That's what I would ask you to do on that particular thing.

I say this to the parliamentary assistant because I think this is important: The parliamentary assistant said that he's giving northerners the tools to build their own solution. Mr Parliamentary Assistant, if you're going to give them the tools, make sure you give them the keys to the tool box. Follow up on what I've told you. You've given them the tools, we've done good work here in this House and we have developed, I think, not bad legislation. It's not perfect but it's at least in the right direction. If you're going to give them the tools and you're going to say that's your position, allow the municipalities to have the key to that tool box so they can say, "In our case we are forming a Highway 11 corridor ASB that excludes the city of Timmins and we will arrange among ourselves, the city of Timmins and this new ASB, what services they want to deliver conjointly, if that's what they decide to do."

With that, it wraps up my comments on this legislation and I invite my good colleague the member for Lake Nipigon to take the floor, but before he does, I just want to say I know that if there had been a Highway 408, he would have built that highway to Moosonee, I'm sure.

M. Pouliot : Monsieur le Président, bonne fin d'après-midi.

Bill 12 speaks mainly to local government. In our special part of Ontario there will be some support. There shall also be some opposition, some opportunities no doubt and some dismissal of opportunities as well. It speaks of voluntary compliance. Our party, when we weighed the benefits of the bill, the opportunities it presented and warned the government about potential shortcomings and perhaps pitfalls, has opted to support the government legislation.

It doesn't take place on a daily basis. We evaluate in a constitutional monarchy. The very structure of this House, the very element of our exercise in democracy demands that the opposition oppose and question the government on legislation. It's our job; it's our duty as parliamentarians.

Vous allez sûrement me permettre, parce que mon collègue et ami M. Bisson l'a mentionné, et je suis tout à fait satisfait de la présence du ministre des Affaires francophones et de l'Agriculture, voici ce qui se présente. Vous avez ici un transfert de responsabilité, de capacité juridique, d'un état, d'un système à un autre. Parmi les plus petites communautés de notre province, nos plus petits villages, souvent ce sont des gens chez qui un système d'égouts ou d'eau courante n'existe pas. On adhère à la fosse septique, on demande peu de services et on en reçoit peu aussi. C'est une mode de vie. C'est la façon dont on a choisi d'y être.

Le ministre nous assure que dans cette transition, dans ces changements, c'est que les services fondamentaux, sûrs d'avoir le droit d'avoir accès aux services en français chez nous, soient garantis, fassent partie de ce projet de loi. Hélas, il ne faut rien prendre pour acquis : la bonne volonté du ministre, la promesse. Vous savez, chez nous, chez les néo-démocrates, gens de bonne volonté, nous voulons bien croire les propos du ministre, lui faire confiance. Mais quand on regarde de plus près, on s'aperçoit que le budget des Affaires francophones au fil des trois derniers ans a été coupé, décimé de plus de 50 %. Avec toute la bonne volonté, avec toutes les promesses, toutes les assurances du ministre, en fin de journée, en fin de compte, est-ce qu'on va pouvoir s'assurer que les services en français y sont maintenus ? C'est un droit fondamental, non un privilège, nous sommes ici chez nous 550 000 Franco-Ontariens. Nous représentons tout près ou un peu plus de 5 % de la population totale de la province. Depuis des décennies on s'est battu pour avoir droit aux services comme les autres. Enfin, au fil des ans, nous avons reçu ces services. Il s'agit maintenant de les maintenir, donc nous allons regarder attentivement ce qui est écrit sur le papier, sur le projet de loi, et nous allons surveiller.

Nothing will attest to the concern and the need of the community vis-à-vis what is being proposed in Bill 12 better than a very candid presentation by the very special people who occupy the community of Silver Islet. It's a campers' association. The letter is straightforward. It tells of a special way of life.

"Silver Islet is one of the oldest communities in northwestern Ontario. It was established in the late 1860s after silver was discovered on a small island about a mile out into Lake Superior. The mine operated until 1883 and at the time was the richest silver mine in the world." Interesting, isn't it? "Most of the camps have been passed down from generation to generation and have been carefully maintained for over a century. While a secondary highway now makes our community easily accessible year-round, our creature comforts," a turn of phrase, "are few. There is no electrical system, no municipal services and no telephone. Even cellular phone service is spotty," sporadic, "in the area."

"...we provide for ourselves and take care of ourselves."

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It goes on to say, "The government's proposal to allow for the creation of area service boards...will have a serious impact on all recreational cottage areas in the northwest....

"We will of course pay taxes to both the ASB and our municipalities in the communities where we live most of the year and where we receive the vast majority of the services that our society provides."

It was one of the 10 or 11 presentations that we received in Thunder Bay when the committee was travelling. Most expressed some interest in the formation, in the implementation of Bill 12; most expressed some reservation; and all cautioned not to proceed too quickly.

It was this afternoon during question period, representing the township of Marathon, that I had the opportunity to ask the Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance - Marathon is in dire need, as you know.

Interjection.

Mr Pouliot: Well, not appalled and shocked because that's his job and I must give him credit, must give the government credit. Mr Eves answered to the needs of the people of Marathon. He listened, saw the human dimension, looked at what was happening.

The people here are saying: "If from time to time we hit upon bad times because of the downloading and because of Bill 12, will you be there as our representative? Will you do that? Will you respond to us in the same fashion that you responded to the member for Lake Nipigon speaking on behalf of the constituents?" Nothing else matters. Not only is it good politics, there is a human dimension here. It's the essence of life.

I don't have much else to say. I want to wish the government well. This is not catalytic in terms of bills, but it's hopefully a step forward in better government management and may the opportunities, the positive side, give the people who are represented under Bill 12 a chance to look to the future with more confidence.

The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?

Mr Spina: I am pleased with the comments, or most of the comments certainly, made by - and I want to say merci à mes collègues du troisième parti. I appreciate the comments that they made. I think they understand that, as other legislation in this world is not perfect, this perhaps may not be in their eyes, but at least, as the member for Cochrane South indicated, it's in the right direction.

I just want to make a quick comment that many of the Liberal members harked upon the issue of Big Brother telling you what to do, and the situation exists like that now. Unorganized territories pay provincial land taxes where? To Queen's Park. Decisions are made where? Queen's Park. The whole idea of the exchange of services from the province to the municipalities was to empower those local municipalities to be able to make decisions, to find solutions to local problems.

For years, I grew up in the whole mentality of northerners saying: "We don't want to be told what to do, how to do it and when to do it by Queen's Park. Leave us alone. Let us decide and make our own decisions as to how we want to run our municipalities." This legislation allows them to do that in specifically that way.

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I wish that what the honourable member has just said was in fact reflective of the whole legislation that's before us. The government would like us to believe, and I believe the members of the third party might like us to believe, that this builds in some element of choice for northern communities to determine what works best for northern communities.

Because I only have a couple of minutes, I'm not going to get into the fact that the original downloading of responsibilities on to the municipalities from the provincial government and the cost of providing services that has been downloaded is not something that was a choice given to northern communities. We know that northern communities have had to absorb a much greater impact of that downloading than anyplace else in the province. There certainly was not an element of choice given to northern communities when it came to accepting the download of services.

The question in this legislation is, how are the downloaded services going to be delivered? Here again, there are unique realities in northern Ontario that make the delivery of service very challenging. We have very large areas of now unorganized territory in which there are very few numbers of people. That's the basic concern for any model that's going to be designed in Queen's Park and laid upon northern communities. So, yes, northerners are saying, "Let us decide for ourselves the best method of organizing to deliver these services."

The bill says that where there is a consensus you can make that choice as a group of communities, but where there is no consensus Big Brother is indeed going to tell you what it's going to look like. In my community there has not been a consensus. There has not been a consensus because a single model will not work. Our communities have asked this government to amend the legislation so that there can be more than one model within the area to be serviced so that we can develop a workable model. The government has insisted that that isn't possible, that there must be one single delivery model to handle these downloaded services. In my community they're saying that just can't work and therefore this legislation can't be supported because it doesn't give northerners a choice.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions or comments? If not, the member for Cochrane North.

Mr Bisson: South.

The Acting Speaker: Cochrane South.

Mr Bisson: Soon to be North as well, called Timmins-James Bay.

Premièrement, je veux remercier l'assistant parlementaire pour ses commentaires. C'était un processus intéressant dans le sens qu'on a eu certains amendements qui sont très importants pour la communauté francophone, mais d'autres amendements qui sont importants pour les communautés du nord.

I want to thank the member for the work he has done on this committee as the parliamentary assistant. I found him informative as far as understanding this legislation. He did his homework and tried to accommodate some of the wishes of the opposition, in this case the third party. I want to thank him for the ability to make those amendments that were so necessary, hopefully to find local solutions in our communities.

You thanked us as the party in third place. I have to say to the member for Brampton North, I remember not too long ago the Conservatives were in third place and are now in first place, so I would think that is still a possibility for the New Democratic Party. If ever I'm the parliamentary assistant or minister, I'll make sure to assist this fine member in the work that he does.

To the member for Fort William, I've got to say you can't have it both ways. The Liberal Party is trying to play both sides of the fence at the same time, on the same issue, almost every time we deal with legislation in this House. You can't do it both ways. At times you've got to take a position, you've got to make some decision and you have to decide what you're going to do when it comes to advocating for the people of northern Ontario. Just to sit there and criticize, I think, is not responsible when it comes to our responsibility to the opposition.

I say, as in most other issues, we hear the Liberals talk like New Democrats, but in the end they're nothing but a bunch of Tories in Liberal clothing, and the sooner people understand that, the better off we're going to be and we will get back to some real sense in the province of Ontario by electing New Democrats en masse in the next election.

The Acting Speaker: Mr Spina has moved third reading of Bill 12.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour say "aye."

All those opposed say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Call in the members. This will be a 30-minute bell.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: A 30-minute bell. You heard me right.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Pursuant to standing order 28(h), I would like to request that the vote on Bill 12, the Northern Services Improvement Act, be deferred until Wednesday, November 4, 1998.

Thank you for your assistance in this matter. The vote is accordingly deferred.

Mrs McLeod: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Will that be immediately after question period tomorrow?

The Acting Speaker: It's deferred until Wednesday, November 4, under deferred votes after question period.

It being 6 o'clock, this House stands adjourned until 6:30.

The House adjourned at 1800.

Evening meeting reported in volume B.

November 3, 1998

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

SCHOOL CLOSURES

VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS

EGG PRODUCERS

SCHOOL CLOSURES

WINDSOR-ESSEX COMMUNITY CARE ACCESS CENTRE

GROWTH IN NORTHUMBERLAND

LINDA AND DONALD LETOURNEAU

GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING

DONALD DAVIS

CORRECTION

ANNUAL REPORT, PROVINCIAL AUDITOR

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

CITY OF TORONTO XXIX SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES BID ENDORSEMENT ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 APPUYANT LA CANDIDATURE DE LA CITÉ DE TORONTO CONCERNANT LES XXIXe JEUX OLYMPIQUES D'ÉTÉ

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

PERSONAL SUPPORT WORKERS

ORAL QUESTIONS

SCHOOL CLOSURES

GOVERNMENT CONSULTANTS

EDUCATION FUNDING

SCHOOL CLOSURES

LONG-TERM CARE

VISITORS

PROPERTY TAXATION

AMATEUR SPORT

PETITIONS

CHILD CARE CENTRES

COMPENSATION FOR HEPATITIS C PATIENTS

PROSTATE CANCER

TAXATION

PARKING FEES

SCHOOL CLOSURES

PALLIATIVE CARE

ROAD SAFETY

VANDALISM

SCHOOL CLOSURES

PROTECTION FOR HEALTH CARE WORKERS

HOTEL DIEU HOSPITAL

ORDERS OF THE DAY

NORTHERN SERVICES IMPROVEMENT ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR L'AMÉLIORATION DES SERVICES PUBLICS DANS LE NORD DE L'ONTARIO

CITY OF TORONTO XXIX SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES BID ENDORSEMENT ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 APPUYANT LA CANDIDATURE DE LA CITÉ DE TORONTO CONCERNANT LES XXIX^e JEUX OLYMPIQUES D'ÉTÉ