Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

OFFICE RESPONSIBLE FOR WOMEN'S ISSUES

CONTENTS

Wednesday 20 October 1993

Office responsible for women's issues

Hon Marion Boyd, Minister Responsible for Women's Issues

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ESTIMATES

*Chair / Président: Jackson, Cameron (Burlington South/-Sud PC)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Présidente: Arnott, Ted (Wellington PC)

*Abel, Donald (Wentworth North/-Nord ND

*Bisson, Gilles (Cochrane South/-Sud N)

Carr, Gary (Oakville South/-Sud PC)

Elston, Murray J. (Bruce L)

*Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND)

*Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent ND)

Lessard, Wayne (Windsor-Walkerville ND)

Mahoney, Steven W. (Mississauga West/-Ouest L)

Ramsay, David (Timiskaming L)

*Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND)

*In attendance / présents

Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:

Haslam, Karen (Perth ND) for Mr Lessard

O'Neill, Yvonne (Ottawa-Rideau L) for Mr Ramsay

Poole, Dianne (Eglinton L) for Mr Elston

Witmer, Elizabeth (Waterloo North/-Nord PC) for Mr Arnott

Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:

Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND)

Clerk / Greffière: Grannum, Tonia

The committee met at 1537 in committee room 2.

OFFICE RESPONSIBLE FOR WOMEN'S ISSUES

The Chair (Mr Cameron Jackson): I'd like to call to order the standing committee on estimates. We've reconvened to complete approximately two hours and 47 minutes remaining for the office responsible for women's issues. By agreement, we will complete our estimates of this office today, barring any unforeseen problems that may call us to the House, but we're not anticipating them. So at this point I think there's consensus that we'll use the balance of today to complete this estimate.

I believe Ms Poole last had the floor, and I will recognize Ms Witmer in a moment, but I believe you and your staff have some of the responses that came out of questioning yesterday.

Hon Marion Boyd (Minister Responsible for Women's Issues): We do indeed. We've tabled with the clerk, and I understand copies are being made now, the following records that respond to the questions asked: first, the draft North American Free Trade Agreement Implications for Women paper that the Ontario women's directorate had done; second, a descriptive note on the Ministry of Education violence prevention secretariat; next, a list of the current OWD projects for girls and young women, particularly in terms of prevention of violence; the OWD education and training equity unit publications list, because again that includes some of the resource materials that have been done; a list of the audio-visual materials that have been selected for education and training equity; some information regarding the grant to the Kingston Area School to Employment Council which was requested; also, a detailed note around grant funding on the teen violence prevention program.

We've also tabled additional information on what proportion of crown attorneys have received training on violence against women issues and the information that the Ministry of Community and Social Services was able to prepare regarding child care centre closures.

I would say that the very detailed information that Ms Witmer requested regarding child care yesterday was indeed the updated request that was given to MCSS last year in its estimates. They indicated at that time that the amount of dollars to redefine their data in that format would be extraordinarily expensive and declined to answer in that format at that time and continue to do so. So that will be available.

Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): I have a letter here that was written to Mr Harris. It comes from the Simcoe Hall Settlement House in Oshawa and it reads as follows:

"We are writing to you in regard to a situation that has caused a great deal of distress here at Simcoe Hall Settlement House. Three years ago, a young woman" -- and I won't name her -- "came to our women's resource centre for help. She had left North Bay with her three-year-old child to escape the child's father because of an abusive family situation.

"A year and a half later, she returned to North Bay for a visit with her parents. Her husband had visiting rights. The young girl was left with him. When the child returned, there was evidence that she had been sexually assaulted. Pat took her daughter to the Oshawa General Hospital, who confirmed that this was indeed the case. However, this was not enough for the authorities in North Bay. They required that the child be re-examined in North Bay before a police officer. This was done and the father was charged and later served a six-month prison sentence.

"Two Christmases ago, she was ordered to bring the child to North Bay in order that the father could visit with her over the holidays. She refused and was served with a contempt-of-court order. She went into hiding and emerged in the new year to find that the husband had dropped the charges on the understanding that he could see the child on a regular basis.

"In the meantime, Pat and her daughter were building up a new life here in Oshawa. She returned to college and was due to begin the fall semester next week. Now she has been told to pack her bags and bring the child to North Bay so that the convicted husband can have his visiting rights resumed.

"The judge in this case has shown no consideration for the little girl. The visits will be conducted in the presence of a 24-hour third party, which indicates that there is indeed a threat to the child.

"Once again, we see how the offender takes priority in our legal system over the victim. On behalf of the mother and her child, we ask for your help."

What type of advice do you have for people like this? I know this is not an isolated case because I've had at least two women approach my office within the last year who have actually fled in order to escape an opportunity for the child to visit with the father, in this case because the mother did suspect sexual abuse, and unfortunately nobody was listening to the individual. What are we doing? Because these are not isolated incidents.

Hon Mrs Boyd: There are a number of things that are being done. First of all, judges are required indeed in their judgement to judge based on what is in the best interests of the child. Where there are allegations of sexual abuse or physical abuse or even emotional abuse, which obviously suggests that it might not be in the best interests of the child, we're in the same situation that we are whenever accusations are levelled and have not yet been proven. It's a very, very difficult situation for family court judges and one which I think causes them an enormous amount of distress in their work. They often talk about it as one of those very difficult issues that they have to deal with.

Even where there hasn't been a criminal charge laid or proved, many judges do what the judge in this case apparently did and say that since we know -- generally speaking, it's agreed by those who care for children that children also have a right to have access to both parents, that there can be later problems that arise when children are denied that access. They romanticize about what the parent would be like. All of our children find it difficult to get along with whomever they're residing with at any point in time and they may imagine themselves escaping to the heaven that's provided by the other parent, only to flee into real danger. We see that happen.

In this case it appears that, recognizing that, the judge has said it's important for this child to have access to her parent but it's not safe for her to do that alone, and therefore has ordered that the access be only within the context of supervised access for 24 hours. That, quite frankly, is what we would like to see, rather than just two-hour visits. It really gives a child the knowledge of what it is like to live with a person, which tends to cut down some of that romanticizing when it's someone who needs power and control, and usually people who are sexual abusers are people who need to exercise power and control over others.

Supervised access, we think, is the better route to go. We have only got the resources to provide a number of projects, which are scattered across the province. We're looking at the results of those, listening to victims' groups, to those who are advocates on behalf of children, to all of the players in the violence-against-women field to see how this is working. Frankly, the results are different, depending on the design of the program and the convenience to the parent, the cost of the program, because there are fees for some.

There are some private programs that are being developed, because many parents who do have the resources would prefer the convenience of having a private program. I know in my own city a group of people have started a private supervised access program.

Many people who are frightened for their children think that the solution is to isolate that child totally from the person whom they believe is abusing them. We really believe quite strongly that if we can find other ways to keep those children safe, where the abusive parent doesn't become a mysterious and sometimes romantic figure, it's safer for the children in the long run, if they're very young.

As children get older, increasingly the courts are beginning to listen to the choice of the child, and we find that when they're, I would say, anywhere from maybe 8 to 10, depending on the particular circumstances, their views are very much listened to by the court. Certainly if they have access to the official guardian and have their own legal counsel, very often they're represented in these hearings and their best interests are protected by their own legal counsel. So there are a number of things we're trying to do.

The frustrating part of it is that very often we suspect very strongly that there's some abuse; it can't be proven. In a society that believes people are innocent until they're proven guilty, then children may be in danger of being victimized because we cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that something has occurred.

Mrs Witmer: I know we do have a safe, neutral place in our own community for visiting, and it seems to be quite successful. Obviously that's not available throughout the province, so that's an area I do believe we need to take a look at, because I would agree with you, Minister. I think children should have the opportunity to communicate and bond with both the male and female parent if it's at all possible.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Yes. Some churches, I know, are setting up those programs on behalf of their parishioners, where a disinterested third party will accompany the child and be there. Sometimes exchanges of children, where there's a possibility of conflict during the exchange period, will be set up by community groups. I think particularly of churches because one of my own family members is involved as a supervisor in a church program. I think increasingly there's a recognition on the part of communities that this is a way in which we can help people.

Judges will accept a supervisor who is a friend of the family or a family member when they are able to describe very clearly what the responsibility is. Under the Child and Family Services Act, what they try to impress upon those people is that they're in the role of a caretaker for the child and therefore are particularly liable if anything happens to the child in their care. It's not quite as iffy as it sounds to make that kind of an assignment.

It's really up to the custodial parent and to the child, however, and always unfortunately is, to say how that's working and whether in fact the security is being provided.

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Mrs Witmer: Ours is in a church. The churches, I think, in all of our communities are certainly assuming some of the responsibilities they didn't have before in recognition of the fact they need to assume responsibility for the social issues.

I've had an opportunity to communicate with some of the people who are involved in providing shelter to women and children who have been living in an abusive situation. The one concern I'm hearing from them now is interesting because it's shifted: They are recognizing that money is no longer the number one concern. The number one concern appears to still be -- and I know you responded to us already -- about the justice system, the lack of sensitivity.

As I say, you've given us a response and you've told us how the crown attorneys do receive training on violence, but from all that I'm hearing, women still hesitate and would sooner make custody arrangements outside of the justice system, which can sometimes be dangerous too and not in their best interests. They're still not feeling comfortable. I want you to be aware of that, because I think it is important that these women still are feeling quite powerless and are not comfortable.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I think that's right. One of the things we do at the directorate is that we're part of the federal-provincial territorial group that is looking at the custody and access issues from the point of view of trying to resolve those issues in a less adversarial way. Very often, I think what distresses people is that even where there are real issues in dispute, the temptation to have children as pawns in that dispute is very great, unless everyone concerned -- all the lawyers concerned, the judges concerned, the social workers -- is really aware that the children are very fragile in this situation and often blame themselves for the conflict between their parents. They may be the last point of dispute, which is one of those issues. That's part of the reason they get the impression that they're the reason everything's falling apart, because they may be the last thing the parents are willing to talk about.

The other thing we're trying to do in the justice system is to look at that adversarial nature and see if there aren't better ways of alternative dispute resolution. I was in Kingston on Friday visiting the mediation service in the family court there. The family court in Kingston has had a mediation service for a very long time. There are ways in which you can defuse some of these situations and actually get some resolution to some of the situations prior to going into court. That often makes it easier.

Mrs Witmer: Yesterday I didn't have an opportunity to ask questions around children's health and I would like to. This is an issue I'm quite concerned about, particularly when I discovered yesterday, in reading my paper at home in Kitchener-Waterloo, that suicide is now the leading cause of death after accidents for people under 35 and that here in Canada we have the dubious distinction of having the third-highest suicide rate in the world for young people between the ages of 15 and 24.

We know this is a problem that's increasing. I'm sure every one of us in this room is aware of teenagers -- I know my son has undergone a few times where both males and females have taken their own life. I think it is a serious problem. I mentioned yesterday that there is a lack of mental health treatment available. In fact, in the paper yesterday as well it says, "For the first time in its 17-year history, the Cambridge Community Mental Health Clinic is turning patients away." There's a 60% increase from the same time period two years ago and in June they decided to stop accepting children's cases, except in emergencies, until the end of September, and 150 families were turned away. Now they are treating some kids with suicidal, homicidal and seriously ill -- but the others are just not getting help. They're also not dealing with people with marital problems, which, again, has an impact on the mental health of the children.

My questions are: How many children are waiting for mental health services? What action is being taken to ensure that these children do have access to mental health services in the future? Also, on the recommendations that were recommended following the standing committee on social development's Report on Children's Mental Health Services in Ontario in 1991, I'd like to know how many of those recommendations have actually been implemented and also what date they were implemented. As I say, I know that the provision of children's mental health services remains a major problem.

In many ways it relates to all of the other problems we're talking about today. We need to do something about providing timely access to services and relieving the burden on the schools and on the parents. I can tell you that I personally have been contacted by so many parents who just are beside themselves because there's no help for their kids anywhere. The system's just not dealing with them. I don't know if you have any further comments.

Hon Mrs Boyd: We'll certainly do what we can to get you those figures. I must say that, having worked with children's services, one of the things you know from a field worker's point of view is that parents are so desperate that they put their children on every list possible. So the lists often are considerably longer than might actually pan out if we could get the primary services for all the children.

My understanding is that the children's mental health centres don't automatically collect the waiting lists in a way that enables you to merge the lists and make sure you don't have duplications. The last year they did conduct a survey of the agencies, and that was 71 of their agencies, was 1989-90. My note tells me that at that point there were 6,847 children waiting for service. The caution on that from the association itself is that there's no control there for duplication of names and no control versus those who have been assessed as actually needing mental health services and those who have been unassessed.

That's an important issue, because one of the things that discourages me is that we seem to spend an inordinate amount of our resources assessing children. We assess many children in the school system, but in order to get admission to a children's mental health program they may need to be assessed again. If they don't fit that program, they may get assessed again. I have talked to parents many times where children have been assessed five and six times and never received one iota of treatment. That is the kind of duplication I think we have to avoid, and the only way we can do that is if we begin to integrate the children's services in a way that has some common protocols about how we deal with them. Certainly that is the recommendation that has come forward from the Sparrow Lake group. It is an effort that, when I was Minister of Community and Social Services, we tried to tackle through the interministerial committee, and I understand those efforts are still going on.

It is really a very difficult sort of situation. We don't know how many of the children who are seen and assessed need supports within their environment, as opposed to mental health services; we suspect many. The depression issues for young children may be specifically around feeling unsupported, alone and alienated in their situation. We're not sure how many of the children need direct services for sexual abuse, but we suspect a good many of them do. Our children's aid societies tell us that.

We don't know how many of the children have other problems that may look like mental health problems but may not be: chemical imbalances of one form or another, poor nutrition, that sort of thing. Those are all things we have to find out. Some of them we can prevent and some of them we can't. Early contact, early assessment, early work with kids and early supports throughout the system are the important ways to tackle the problem.

Mrs Witmer: I would agree with you and I really personally believe very strongly that we can't afford to wait any longer. We really need to take some action. It's a very serious problem. You have only to take a look at the increasing violence in the schools.

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Hon Mrs Boyd: I agree.

The Chair: Ms Witmer, thank you. Perhaps in the next rotation I'll have a question around the question you raised earlier with respect to support payment enforcement which I might take the opportunity to raise, but at this point in the rotation I'd like to recognize Ms Haslam.

Mrs Karen Haslam (Perth): I was taking notes yesterday when Ms Witmer was talking about women in the private sector versus women in the public sector and why tax dollars were only going into an expansion of the public sector. Am I correct in thinking that the women in the private sector, whether it's day care or health care, are not paid as well and that therefore some of the money going into the public sector area goes to better benefits and pay for the women in that sector?

Hon Mrs Boyd: I think we should acknowledge right off the top the very serious problem that's always been there for pay scales for women in child care, period. It is one of those areas where the pay equity issue is probably more blatantly obvious than anyplace else. That's why we have done very specific work as a government to try and raise that pay.

It certainly is true that on average, in many of the surveys that have been done, women working in the private sector have tended to have lower wages and lower benefits. That doesn't mean that's true in each specific case, because there are certainly many exceptions to that where private sector centres have provided exemplary working conditions for their staffs, but on average that tends to be the case. That's not surprising, because there also seems to be a larger number of people who work on a part-time basis. We know that part-time workers are seldom eligible for the same benefits, if benefits are available at all, and that of course their average wages per year would be lower.

So the comparison on a basis of hour to hour may not work out if we make assumptions about whether or not it's part-time. It is certainly true that the private sector is quite unlikely to be unionized and therefore not have the collective bargaining power that tends to increase wages and benefits and improve working conditions.

All of those things may very well impact those workers as well. It would be my hope that as people leave the private sector, if in fact private sector centres do close and move into the public sector to offer the services they're offering, they might see an improvement, because if that profit factor is not there and every dollar goes back into paying for improved programs, some of those dollars will go to the employees, some of them will go to improve program equipment and that sort of thing as well, but one would assume some of them would go directly to employees.

Mrs Haslam: There were a couple of other items I wanted to cover today. Number one, I'd like to talk about programs that are funded for men. In particular, I remember a gentleman and his wife coming into my constituency office concerned about a program he was in that was offering counselling for him. He said: "You know, it's like the steam in a tea kettle. I have counselling. I'm able to control my anger. The violence has gone down." The wife sat beside him and said: "This is the best way to work out this difficulty we're facing. The program is successful." But it was not being covered because of some cuts and the counselling services were not going to be there.

Are there programs for men funded under the Ontario women's directorate, and do you look at those programs as a certain percentage or are they more on an ad hoc basis? I would hate to see them not looked at simply because they deal with counselling men. I would hope that we're looking at the programs as benefits to women also.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Some of that $16 million that flows through the women's directorate to other ministries does fund some counselling programs for men, either through MCSS or through corrections, sometimes a combination of both and sometimes in conjunction with the United Way in a particular area or another kind of foundation. There is a list of programs that we're aware of and so on, and we'd be happy to provide you with the list.

The community counselling line in the Ministry of Community and Social Services budget, its base budget, is $10.652 million. That includes the men's programs. It also includes things like family service associations that provide in some cases individual counselling or group counselling to men alone or to women alone and sometimes couple counselling. My own family service association in London has offered a group couple counselling program in the past. I'm not sure that they're still offering it.

There are real concerns about the programs. There are claims on both sides, that they're successful, that they're not successful. We did a major examination of this through a symposium last year bringing together those offering the programs as well as those who do advocacy and counselling work with women, those who work in the mental health areas, the corrections areas and so on and really looked at some of the issues.

The women's community is very concerned because there's a complete lack of consistency around how accountable those programs are for the safety of the women who have survived violence with these men. Some of the women are living with their partners, some of them are separated, and there's a real sense that there isn't a consistent way in which we can measure the actions that are taken to ensure safety for the women when the men are in those situations.

When you talk about the steam in the kettle, you're right, except that if a man is in a program that is really helping him to control his anger and to really examine his feelings and to begin to change, he may stop being physically violent to his partner. She may then feel, "Okay, now it's my turn to express my view," and you may find people out of sync in another way and interacting unhealthily in another way. I certainly had clients who described that, that when the physical violence ended they thought, "Now I can start to express myself," and what it did was escalate the pressures between the couple.

Where couples are separated, very often the violence doesn't end. People make a mistake of thinking it does. Men often make the excuse, "I'm in a program, and therefore it's time you came back to me," or "I'm doing my thing. Why aren't you doing the same thing?" It can be very difficult.

What the upshot has been is that there is frankly a lot of controversy around the programs.

Mrs Haslam: Would it be safe to say that women in general would take the position, "I'd rather see the money in a women's program"?

Hon Mrs Boyd: Women who work as advocates would say that. The women themselves, from my own experience with my own clients, most of the women I worked with, whether or not they were living with their partners, wanted to have their partner stop his violence and learn different behaviour. They were always afraid that he might not be violent to them if he wasn't living with them, but he may be violent to somebody else. So my experience with women is, whether or not they want to live with that man ever again, they would like to see him get a chance to improve.

Mrs Haslam: So any funding through the OWD would be through some sort of pass-through into another agency, or are there some programs offered by the women's directorate?

Hon Mrs Boyd: There are none offered directly by the women's directorate. There are men batterers programs through corrections. There's a little over $800,000 that's funnelled through the dollars that come through us.

The paper that has been prepared from this symposium will be available, I would think fairly shortly, and what we then have to do is try and get a consensus within the community as to what those guidelines and that accountability framework might be like before we can begin to fund any more programs. We're not expanding the funding in that area until that kind of accountability is there.

Mrs Haslam: How much time do I have?

The Chair: Another 10 minutes.

Mrs Haslam: And there's another round?

The Chair: There will be two more.

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Mrs Haslam: Okay, good. Then I'll go on with another one of my questions while I have a chance. This also leads into an anecdotal situation that I want to share with you, but along the idea of where the women's movement is around some of these programs and around their feeling about some of these programs.

There was a breakfast in the north for some 700 women and a few men, put on by LEAF, I believe, and one of the organizers was asked if they would announce that there was an upcoming meeting coming into that area of the Ontario Advisory Council on Women's Issues. There was some partisan politics involved, which I'm not going to get into, but the point was that it wasn't announced. Here were 700 women at a breakfast meeting who could have been informed of the Ontario advisory council's upcoming meeting: "Let's support them, let's get out and meet them," and so on and so forth.

How can the ministry increase its efforts to have that network, the network of women out there, become more connected and more supportive? Because I think it should have been, "We are women in this together," not looking at other aspects.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Yes, I would agree with you; it's disappointing when that happens. I think we always have expectations that because we as women have many things in common, we have everything in common, and of course that's not true.

Whatever the partisan aspects of it would be, the Ontario advisory council is not a government organization. It is in fact an arm's-length advisory council, and the revised form of it is in fact to try and reinforce those kinds of networks. That's why there is regional representation and why regional meetings are what they are holding, and having part of those meetings open to the general public. This is the first one that has been held in the north. I think it's the one in Sudbury that you must be talking about, because it takes place tomorrow night, the open part of the meeting. The council is meeting today, tomorrow and Friday.

It was a real disappointment, I'm sure, if that couldn't be announced to a group of people who should be the natural constituency of the Ontario advisory council, and I'm hoping that we'll be able to influence those who share the common goals of improving the equity and status of women as time goes on.

The council has not always been seen as a progressive force by some people. Certainly the criticisms that we heard in the consultation we went through in 1991 to really look at the council and to look at the sunset provisions in the OIC indicated that many people felt it was a Toronto group that was removed from their interests and didn't really represent them. We've reformed the group, but many people still have those same old feelings, so it is going to take us some time to build with the council a better sense of rapport with its new mandate.

Mrs Haslam: I look forward to that because I think this was a very sad commentary on women in general, that we couldn't join together in support of other women and in particular an advisory council. I have a few more questions, but I know my colleague here has some and I'll save these for the next one.

Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): My first question has to do with women in banking, and I'll start it off by saying that the banking institutions in this country are absolutely horrific. They're not just horrific to women, although they are worse, but they are horrific in terms of what they are doing to the business community as a whole and what they're doing in terms of driving bankruptcies up in a needless way.

But what I would like is if you could perhaps comment on whether there have been any changes in terms of the type of attitude that women have experienced trying to go to the bank and keeping a loan that could not be cosigned by a male somewhere, or whatever. I think, in terms of starting a business, in terms of being independent, in terms of having an identity and a career and all of these kinds of things, that kind of attitude towards women is a real roadblock.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I agree with you, and I think when we get our Advisory Panel of Women in Business and Industry on Economic Renewal together, credit is always one of the issues that's at the top of its list to consider.

One of our members is a member of the bankers' association and in fact last time had some suggestions about what some of the problems are. It isn't just an issue of collateral. One of the issues she raised was the difficulty and the lack of resources that women seem to have to formulate good, strong business plans, business plans that look familiar because they're modelled on the traditional model of a business plan.

We certainly problem-solved around the kinds of resources the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade has that we certainly assist in helping them develop and deliver, how that could support that. We recognize that as part of really encouraging women we have to revitalize that whole area.

We did for many years offer that kind of assistance to women. Gradually it became generic in its nature, and as it became generic, fewer and fewer women participated. So we know that whatever the psychological factor is, when it's generic women don't seem to participate to the same extent, and we need to be mindful of that.

In terms of the actual availability of credit, I think the community economic development program that our government is putting into place will provide a lot of the very small seed money that's needed for a lot of the enterprises that women begin. Many women start their businesses in a very small way and are content to build at the rate that they can do that, partly, I think, because they often don't have the capacity to work 25 hours a day, seven days a week if they also have family responsibilities. They tend to start modestly and build, and often build very substantially.

When we talk about risk factors, women are, as the statistical evidence shows, less of a risk, because in fact more small businesses started by women succeed and are still successful a number of years later or else are sold as successful businesses. That speaks to the ability of women to do that. Part of our job is to really ensure that the investment industry begins to understand the job-creating capacity of women entrepreneurs, because they have a great job-creating capacity. They often create businesses that are particularly conducive to the hiring and the employing of women in ways that fit their own particular lifestyle needs.

Mr Wiseman: On page 11 of this rather thick document that you gave us today in response to my questions yesterday about the free trade deal, it states in the bottom paragraph:

"During the FTA negotiations, Prime Minister Mulroney promised `the best adjustment programs in the world.' Since then, no new help has been forthcoming. Indeed, `the federal government has reduced spending on women's training by more than $200 million or nearly 30% in the years since the FTA went into effect.'"

Then the next paragraph, to me, is somewhat disconcerting:

"While overall federal funding of training has increased, the federal government has decreased funding from federal tax revenue sources (consolidated revenue fund)."

Clearly, if money is going up, and the money for women has gone down 30%, what kind of impact is this going to have?

Hon Mrs Boyd: Sure, because they've pressed the program into the UI scheme and many women, because of their work patterns and so on, are less eligible than they've been. There's also been an absolute unwillingness to fund some of the programs that have been very successful in this province for training specifically immigrant women.

Again, it's this thrust towards generic programming that has created some of the difficulties of people saying: "We have a lot of jobless. They're both men and women. They both ought to be able to access these funds." The problem is that women who may not have had the same experience in the workforce, who may not have had the same training and, as we all have commented, may not have the same self-confidence and the same ability to protect themselves from harassment, may need greater supports in order to become trained and to become effective workers within a particular field.

We have seen very good agencies across this province that have had their federal funding withdrawn and are no longer able to offer programs that they had been offering in some cases for up to 15 years and that had a marvellous success rate in terms of getting women back into the workforce or into the workforce for the first time, into jobs that they could retain and continue to be productive and self-sustaining members of our communities. It is a great shame, because those women no longer qualify because they have not been recipients of UI.

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Mr Wiseman: Do you have any numbers? Have you been able to track at all? I know it's still relatively early in the process, but my suspicion is that the UI changes are going to be discriminatory against women, and families in particular, where a spouse has been transferred --

Hon Mrs Boyd: Yes.

Mr Wiseman: I may be wrong in my assumption on this, but I would assume that upper management transfers would be more male-oriented at this point in time because of the overwhelming numbers of males in those areas. But if you have a woman in a job, if she has to quit that job to travel with her spouse, then she is being discriminated against by the UI changes. Do we have any numbers about what kind of impact that can have and how damaging that might be to the overall economy in terms of the male now saying, "I'm not going because it's not to our economic advantage"?

Hon Mrs Boyd: It seems to me that Pat and Hugh Armstrong, who have done a lot of work in terms of gender issues around employment, unemployment, part-time employment and so on, have gathered some figures. I can't remember whether I've seen them in a newspaper article or a small article; I'll try and find that for you. There's no question but that the facile manner in which the federal government has talked about the mobility of the workforce under free trade has impacted very severely on families. It's based on a notion that you still have the white-picket-fence family: the one partner working, the other one staying at home, usually the male working and the partner staying at home.

The complexity, and we're experiencing this in government with the relocations, where you have two partners working in a family and you have children, very often teenage children who have jobs as well, to just pick up and move becomes a very difficult issue.

We could probably find out for you from Management Board secretariat in our own relocation plans whether there's a differential in terms of men and women accepting jobs in that relocation -- I think that would be an interesting thing for us to look at and I'd certainly be prepared to try and get that -- and what the salary factors are. Is it the higher-paid person who is accepting the job? Normally, it would be. Families can't take a chance, if they're reliant on two incomes and they have to move, that they wouldn't accept the greatest security they can have. I think that's something we're seeing in the manufacturing area.

Hydro is another place. We might be able to get some information from them because of the migration that happened from Pickering to Bruce to Darlington in terms of what happens with that, whether in fact that similar kind of thing has occurred. Families often break up because neither partner is willing to give up his or her career, and certainly members of provincial Parliament know how difficult it is to commute back and forth and try and maintain relationships. So it's not surprising that those stresses really impact on families.

Mrs Yvonne O'Neill (Ottawa-Rideau): I'm, as you know, just coming into this committee, Madam Minister. I do have my own committee responsibilities right now, although I'm very interested in what you've been doing and I've been reading the Hansard.

I wanted to start with the Grandview compensation package, if I could. I understand that the responsibilities do fall in your area as the Minister Responsible for Women's Issues, and I understand there has been a designated person from the directorate to be the intermediary. It's now almost an anniversary date, October 22, as you know, when I brought my bill and it was all-party agreement that there were certain compensation packages that needed to be looked at. I wonder if you can bring us up to date on where you are with the compensation packages, with whatever training opportunities, the legal aid costs and the therapy. I think that the girls are very interested and certainly we in our party are very interested in where those negotiations are and what has been provided throughout the last year.

Hon Mrs Boyd: The Grandview Survivors' Support Group, of course, is represented by counsel, Miss Susan Vella. She is in negotiations with Mr Tom Marshall of the Attorney General's ministry and with Diane Nannarone, who is the support person who originally came from the women's health bureau, I believe, and has been seconded to work with the group on not just the compensation package but any of the other issues that are arising for the women.

The interim measures, of course, are to compensate the women for counselling costs. There's been a protocol set up in terms of appropriate counselling, at their choice, and how to do that compensation. My understanding is that back compensation has been negotiated with some, not with others, and that's ongoing. Certainly, it's a clear understanding on our part that as the negotiations go on, issues come up and it's important for people who require and choose the support of counselling to have that as it goes on. That's an interim kind of measure.

The legal fees, I understand, for their counsel, at least half of those have already been paid out and there's a negotiation process and a bit of a process around accountability on the rest of those. There is a commitment, but because they need legal counsel, given the complexity of this issue, that is a matter that is certainly part of what we consider a responsible response to them.

There has been a lot of work on specific areas of an agreement. One of the major issues has been the whole area of definition. There are those among the group who believe that the very fact of ever having been assigned to the Galt girls' school, or whatever one wants to call it -- Grandview; certainly Churchill House -- ought to enable you to apply for compensation. That is not our view. We do agree that where there's been physical, sexual abuse, unwarranted cruel treatment, inappropriate treatment, we need to work that out. Those definitions have been worked on. I don't think there's final agreement yet, but certainly those who would be eligible, there are some eligibility requirements for the counselling program that are being worked out with the group.

I think that's important, because we found when we negotiated the agreement with the St John's-St Joseph's group, taxpayers were very concerned to be sure that eligibility was an issue that was clearly transparent, that people could not take advantage of a program if in fact their situation was not such as to warrant it. Certainly, we don't want to discredit this process any further by not being very clear. It's our sense that the survivors' group agrees; they would like to have very, very firm criteria that they also can count on because, as they reach out to other people who may not have come forward, they want to be sure that they can be very clear about what constitutes eligibility and what does not.

The actual parameters of what a compensation would be are still in negotiation. We don't have the luxury in this case, if one can call it that, of having a third party who is also liable. One of our concerns as the women's directorate is that given there is not a third party who might also be assessed liability and that it is a government responsibility, obviously we don't want to see the women disadvantaged by that. At the same time, we clearly have a responsibility to try to use our resources as sensitively and as sensibly as we can.

We're still far apart in some areas: the negotiation around how to compensate for training, what the best way is to do that. What the eligibility would be for things other than tuition and books, which we certainly are prepared to compensate for, has not been agreed on.

The issue of the kind of ongoing treatment facility that might be available has not been resolved. There are some fairly strong views on the part of the survivors' group which we have concerns about and we're discussing with them. I understand that I will probably be meeting with them some time over the next month to talk about some of our concerns about the model they've put forward and to try to work on that issue a little bit.

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They have made it very clear that they don't want the same process that was in place for the men at St Joe's and St Joseph's -- that is, going through an investigator and a criminal injuries compensation process. They prefer to have the situation done through a different kind of inquiry, probably led by a former judge or someone whom they agree they can trust to adjudicate appropriately. We're certainly looking at how that could most effectively be done and how we could have as little pressure on them as possible in terms of that process, because we all know that often revictimizes people when they have to go through a very detailed and very public kind of a situation. How much of the situation needs to be private hearings, how much of it could be done by affidavit, what kind of supporting issues to show substantial damages and so on, all of that we're trying to work through.

It's been a good process. I think it's long, but given that there are interim supports that are in place, we're hopeful that that will be useful for many of the women. The help line that's been set up certainly has acted as a bit of an outreach and a bit of an anchor to people, and I think the process in and of itself may in the long run provide some healing. It's been very difficult for women to trust a government agency after the kind of institutionalization they experienced. We try to be as sensitive to that as we can, on the other hand always recognizing that our responsibilities are responsibilities as an institution and there are going to be times when our interests are not the same.

Mrs O'Neill: Have you got any projection at all on the time frame? I know your intent was to have this negotiation completed.

Hon Mrs Boyd: It's very difficult with negotiations. There's give and take on both sides, and the delays certainly haven't all been ours. It is very difficult when you're acting on behalf of a group of people whose interests may not be identical to get any kind of consensus.

One of the things we do know in the agreement is that we're going to have to build in some flexibility. Everyone's case is not the same. There has been very, very different severity in terms of the allegations that have been made and the needs are very different. Some women never received any form of education and training once they were assigned to Grandview and other women in fact have been quite self-reliant, have managed to get substantial education and training, and yet still feel that they're entitled, if they choose to get more, to go further. So we have to have a flexible plan that's going to meet the needs of a group of people who have one thing in common -- they were in the same place at approximately the same time -- but may not have a whole lot else in common except the experience they shared there.

Mrs O'Neill: Okay. I thank you for that. The police investigation is dragging on; at least it looks that way. Is the same complement of investigative officers there? Have there been any changes in the speed in which that aspect of this whole thing is happening?

Hon Mrs Boyd: I wish I could answer that. I can't. I will try, again, to get that answer for you from the Solicitor General's ministry and from the regional police. As you know, it's a joint force kind of thing.

I should tell you the Ministry of the Attorney General is also quite frustrated. Part of our issue around the release of the Grandview report obviously is that we would like the investigation over so that in fact this information can be made public and so that we can get on with the prosecutions.

We have assigned additional prosecutors. We have assigned a victim/witness coordinator. We are wanting to move ahead with this as a ministry. Yet at the same time we know the difficulties of a police investigation that stretches back into the past, where records may not have been very adequate in the first place. Certainly we know that our whole scheme of recordkeeping has improved over the last 10 years quite remarkably, because of charter rights and so on, compared to what it would have been in those days, and also the difficulty of finding people.

Many of the folks who probably can give us the best information about what went on there may in fact not be readily findable. We know that people change their names; they may have changed their identities. Very often people who have been in this kind of circumstance hide rather than come forward to be witnesses. That is a real problem, I think, in a retrospective kind of investigation. At the same time, I wish we could get on with it as well.

Mrs O'Neill: I agree with you on that. You said in the House yesterday that you had difficulty with one of the statements. Have you been able to get any explanation of that statement?

Hon Mrs Boyd: Yes, I have. It was, as I suspected, that what they were talking about was the obligation under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act -- what they were talking about was not protecting the identity or the reputations of people in the sense of not being open about who was responsible for what, but the implication that someone who is mentioned is necessarily an accused.

There are, I understand, some problems about the way in which the report was written in the first place and that it is not always clear, when names are mentioned, whether those people were the informants or were not the informants. There is some lack of clarity, and I understand that was the issue that was being raised. I have not seen the transcript. I've asked for that transcript to be made available to me, and I'll make it available to you.

Mrs O'Neill: I'm not going to ask any more questions on that area. As you know, you and I have a very fundamental disagreement about the suppression of the report. I guess this particular appeal will settle that one way or the other. I don't think there's much further to go.

If I could go to another area that is certainly of great interest to me, that is the child care area. I was very interested in listening to what you were saying, and I'm sorry to be somewhat poignant in my remarks, but when you were talking about encouraging women in small business, I had some trouble since I was at the meeting this morning where there were a lot of businesswomen who are not being encouraged. You know of whom I speak: the independent day care operators.

They are still feeling extremely threatened. They indicated that they have had a great deal of difficulty meeting with members of your government and certainly in having any member of the government, including parliamentary assistants, come to an event or speak on behalf of the government. In fact on the last three occasions when I've been present, the most we could get at any time was an assistant from some minister's office, maybe yours; I forget.

In any case, they placed written questions. They were very frustrated and wondering how they are going to have any accountability to them about what's going on, because many of your government policies at least appear to have, and in many cases definitely have had, a very pointed effect on what they can and cannot do.

So I place before you the questions on conversion that are uppermost in their minds and certainly in mine. It's been very difficult to get any figures about how the conversion process is going, other than I think through the social contract discussions and through the budget we were able to find out that there were certainly several millions spent last year and $12 million-plus designated for this year. Yet we're hearing figures like 10, 12 conversions having actually finally been, what should I say, closed or having taken place.

I would really like to know what you can bring me up to date on and how that $12 million is being spent and how the nine point whatever was spent last year.

Hon Mrs Boyd: This was one of the questions that was asked yesterday and we did get an answer as of today. We were asked how many commercial operators or operations there are in the province, and as of June 30, there were 657 commercial licences issued in the province. The number of operators related to those 657 is actually 487. Many of these people own multiple sites.

The commercial operators in the province have submitted 162 letters of inquiry around conversion, and that represents 217 of those commercial operations. Of those letters of inquiry, 146 have been recommended for valuation, and that's about 191 of the licensed operations. The valuation firm has dealt with 76 of those operators to date, and 38 of those operators have accepted the valuation amount for conversion. There are still 38 that are in the process of looking at the evaluation and that sort of thing. At September 30, 22 commercial operators had converted, representing 31 different licensed centres. So that was the number that had actually completed the conversion at that date.

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Mrs O'Neill: How does that tie in with the figures then?

Hon Mrs Boyd: We didn't ask that question. It wasn't asked yesterday.

Mrs O'Neill: That's a very expensive operation. I mean, it comes down to about half a million dollars each.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I suspect it doesn't in any way account for the whole amount of money that was available. Remember, the amount of money was available over a period of five years. We knew it would take us a while to get going and that there would come a time when there was a real bump. So we could see what has been sent. I think that question was asked in the MCSS --

Mrs O'Neill: I think it's a very important question because these conversions in some cases are less than voluntary. They see it as their only option.

I have one other question that ties very closely to that and involves a lot of the women who were present today. That is, what kind of guarantee of security of tenure and mobility of benefits are you building into any of these conversions? Is this a condition? These are vulnerable people, many of them very vulnerable under the social contract, and I just wonder what kind of condition you're building into the conversion.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Certainly, where employees are unionized, there are successor rights that are built into the labour laws and they would be seen under those kinds of rules.

The other issues: No, there isn't a mobility aspect, as there is under the social contract. That is a very separate and negotiated agreement, as you know, particularly in the community services sector. I would hope, however, that as long as people are qualified and as long as it is a true conversion -- in other words, people are using the same premises in the same kind of situation -- that there would be no reason for a new community board not to want to take advantage of the kind of expertise and experience that people represent.

If there are concerns about qualifications or if the employees themselves do not want to work under those circumstances -- and that may be so; people do have their own belief structures and may not find that something that is conducive to their working conditions -- I don't think we could certainly guarantee that they would be able to continue to work there.

The Chair: Thank you very much. With the permission of my colleague, I just wish to raise a question building on the one she raised earlier with respect to supervised access and support orders, the two countervailing bookends of reforms for parents in conflict over their children.

Recently I received an inquiry which disturbs me, and I wondered if you might care to look into it on behalf of women in the province. It boils down to a husband, divorced, who for 15 years has not made any of his support payments. Under the new legislation he was sought out and the amounts were determined. His reaction to this was to go on welfare, and finally he ended up in court. As of last Thursday, with two counsel present, of course, the judge rduced the $26,000 in arrears to a figure of $5,000 and then written off completely. I'd be willing to share with you the case, and I have the woman's and her daughter's permission to have it looked into.

To go from that specific case to speak in more general terms, to what extent are we monitoring the response of using welfare as a means of avoiding the responsibilities of payment? To what degree is social assistance calculating payments that are or are not being made, and is there anything we can do, because this is only one more slap in the face of women who feel that all they're going to get out of this ultimately is toughened rules for access and not highly successful rules for ensuring support payment transfers.

I'm familiar with the program, as you know, and I don't wish to get into a debate on it. I think there are some tremendously positive elements of it, which I support, and I know that it has its bureaucratic challenges. Having said that, though, this is a completely new glitch that we may or may not have anticipated and I'm hopeful that from a policy perspective your government's examining it, because I would consider it a form of abuse but also further a slap at women who are sole-support parents even when there is a court-ordered support payment required, in most case and predominantly the cases of men not paying and women still left responsible.

Could you talk to us a bit about that area? I'll share with you the case because, quite frankly, I was very upset at getting these kinds of details.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I hope you will share the case because it certainly is something that we're interested in as well. It is extremely difficult for us to trace where someone is so vindictive and persistent, as in this case a non-payer, as to quit a paying job and go on to welfare. I mean, that is quite a remarkable level of vindictiveness, in my view. I think my mother's expression was "cutting off your nose to spite your face," that kind of response.

However, the reality is that if someone has in fact avoided paying for 15 years, the arrears are likely to be substantial. In this particular time it may appear to people that they will never catch up because the arrears are so enormous, and this is something that has concerned us.

Under the original support and custody orders enforcement plan, the flat provision was that when you owed arrears, you could have your wages garnisheed up to 50% no matter what your own needs were, in order to fill those needs. Certainly, in our experience, that meant that where someone's income was lower, where they had taken on a new family, often we were creating a new problem. So what we did was to make it possible for the family support office to work out a schedule of payments with people to try and discourage this kind of behaviour and to really take account of what the income was at the moment.

We've seen lots of families drop quite substantially in income during this recession. What we were finding was people who had always been good payers all of a sudden not able to pay at the level, not wanting to get a variance of the order because they agreed that it was appropriate for them to be paying at that level if they were earning at that level and so wanting a payment plan, still accruing some arrears for when they get their income tax rebate back or when things pick up in business and so on. We have organized that and we have found that has eased a lot of the tension in the system and has acted as a disincentive for this kind of behaviour.

We're also hoping that this long history that you describe, because we have the automatic wage deduction orders, won't happen for people. In other words, we won't be able to get people building up $50,000, $60,000, $150,000 bills because we haven't collected effectively over the period of time.

The Chair: I'm sorry to interrupt, Minister, because I want to pass back to my colleague, but I'm familiar with how the process works. I really was hoping you could just explain to me or to the committee if people who apply for welfare have their calculation -- are there any calculations, adjustments or transfers? It's impossible to garnishee a social assistance cheque.

Hon Mrs Boyd: That's right.

The Chair: So I was confused when you said the family support office works out various arrangements.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Not on welfare.

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The Chair: Okay. So I'm just leaving it with you --

Hon Mrs Boyd: Certainly on UIC.

The Chair: -- without getting a fulsome description of the process that both Mrs Witmer and I are familiar with, but can I leave with you this issue of judges who are responding in this way and, if I can leave with you, which is what I'd prefer to do, any form of tracking mechanism where persons on social assistance are now appearing before justices and using it? This was instigated by the male on welfare. He wanted to make his point, so he instituted the action in court to get all of his past history wiped out and that's why the woman felt stabbed.

I'd rather just leave it with you for you to examine and to monitor as one of the other statistics that you are monitoring in your capacity as the Attorney General through the court system, and also in your capacity as women's issues advocate. So if I could leave that with you --

Hon Mrs Boyd: I'm sure you'd rather leave it, but I would like to just say two things: Yes, we are monitoring it and, number two, judges have to take into account the availability of income and they are required to vary orders and to indeed look at the ability of people to pay the arrears. That is their job and we are looking at that. I understand how that feels to people, but if there's no money there there's no point in accruing a debt that's never going to be paid anyway.

Mrs Witmer: I'd just like some clarification from you, Mr Chair, as to how much time each one of us will have. We're going to be concluding this today?

The Chair: Yes, it was by agreement; we'll continue the cycle. I think we would only be short by 14 or 15 minutes, so we're just going to continue and the Chair will endeavour to make sure the time's spread equitably among the three parties.

Mrs Witmer: So there's no vote or anything?

The Chair: We will have a vote at 6 o'clock today to complete these estimates.

Mrs Witmer: Okay. Is there a vote in the House, though, as well?

Mrs Haslam: There might be.

The Chair: I indicated earlier that we're hopeful that we won't be called to the House until approximately 6, but we're watching that and we only have one vote for this office to complete tonight. You have 10 more minutes, Ms Witmer.

Mrs Witmer: This afternoon, my colleague Mr Harnick was in the process of asking you a question regarding the day care centre in his community. They've been trying to get some funding from the ministry and, actually, I think this follows in the footsteps of the concerns that have been raised by the Liberal Party and by myself as well.

The particular day care centre there, Little Prince, had already raised $200,000 of the $375,000 that was necessary to properly equip the centre and they were looking for some additional help. By the way, this is a non-profit centre and it was the private sector that had given them the money thus far.

Apparently, the city of North York has only half the number of infant, toddler and preschool day care spaces it requires. My colleague asked the minister to explain why they were giving $1.4 million to a day care centre in Barrie, $800,000 to a centre in King City, and yet they weren't able to find the funds for a centre in central North York, which would have allowed them to increase the number of spaces available to the children from 27 to 90.

Obviously, this community feels it is being discriminated against and, apparently, this evening North York council will be discussing a motion that is going to ask the minister to respond to the discrepancies in the funding practices.

Mr Harnick goes on to say in his question, which he didn't have a chance to do the second part of:

"Minister, your government has refused to fund the McKee McKids day care centre in my riding, you've put the private day care centres out of business, and now you refuse to adequately fund the Little Prince day care centre.

"Can you explain to the people of my riding what your government is doing to provide workplace child care services in central North York, where studies have shown" it is a priority?

I guess this is one of the problems I indicated yesterday. It's fine to drive the private day care centres out of business and to use the money, but the issue is that there just are not spaces for the children at the present time. Could you respond, or did you want to deal with that at another time?

Hon Mrs Boyd: Well, no. I'm happy to give you what I can give you, but just a reminder that I'm no longer the Minister of Community and Social Services. I can tell you the process that we put into place, which was indeed to try and attain some equity across the system.

If you look at the city of Metropolitan Toronto and you look at the number of spaces that are available, because Metropolitan Toronto has been a willing supporter of child care for many years, it has, on almost every occasion when new spaces are available, gobbled up 40% to 50% of the subsidized spaces that are available. That means that even though there's a huge need -- I recognize that there's a huge need and that there are waiting lists -- per capita the service in Metropolitan Toronto is considerably better than it is in some of the surrounding and growing areas. If you listen to the people like the Fair Share for Peel people in Peel region or the people in York region and they talk about the per capita availability of child care in that growing area and then we talk about fairness between the ministry putting its dollars into those very, very severely underserviced areas, we get a different picture.

Every one of our communities needs and wants more child care. In times of scarce resources there has to be a plan whereby you try to attain some equity for the various communities, and that's what the ministry is attempting to do. We've set up a management plan that is part of the whole structure of delivery. It works through the area offices. It is very much in touch with what's happening where child care centres are being built in schools, because that has skewed things. The building of the child care centres in schools without any kind of discretion has meant that we might end up with a child care in a school next to an existing non-profit child care. That was a flaw in that plan.

Mrs Witmer: It definitely was.

Hon Mrs Boyd: But we now are enabling school boards to switch that eligibility to other schools in order to spread out the amount of child care. We've learned a lot through our mistakes over a number of governments and a number of years to try and make this a better plan.

The last thing I would say to you is that because of the mixed responsibility and jurisdiction over child care, because we still share with the municipal sector 20% of the funding of any subsidized spaces that we do have and that sort of thing, it makes it very difficult to make these decisions either on one side or the other. Where there is a scarcity of child care and municipalities have refused to be players in the game, the province has stepped in and created provincially approved corporations to try and balance that out. Where a municipality is a player but is experiencing budget difficulties and is not continuing to access new spaces at the same rate, we have to respect that budget decision on the part of that level of government. So when we talk about unfairness, we really need to try and put it into that kind of perspective, and I'm sure when the minister responds in direct terms around the decision-making around those particular centres, he will be putting it in that context of a planning system.

Mrs Witmer: I think it's extremely unfortunate that this government has been so motivated to drive the private day care centres out of business and, as I indicated yesterday, many independent operators, the majority of whom were women, have had that opportunity taken away from them. The money, I believe very strongly, could have been better spent in providing subsidies to the children in this province who so desperately need the help.

I think we were doing a good job in this province of having both non-profit and private day care. I think the emphasis always needs to be on the quality of care we provide, and also we need to continue to allow parents to have a choice. Unfortunately, at the present time that's been put totally in the background and as a result we now have a lack of child care spaces available to people in this community of North York. I think it's a very tragic situation.

Pornography is an issue that has certainly been of great concern to not only women but certainly men as well. I think it's a problem that everyone recognizes is serious. I was certainly shocked to discover that there were a number of video games available, and I brought it to the attention of the House, that capitalized on violence against women and portrayed women as shrieking designated victims.

I guess my question to you, Minister, is, what specific action has been taken to limit or ban the use of these slasher video games that are so very graphic?

Hon Mrs Boyd: One of the issues for us is the extent to which we, as a province, can regulate this sort of thing. There's some, shall we say, ambiguity in our own provisions as to whether these fit or not, and we're getting a legal opinion on that now and as to what we can do.

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As you may know, the manufacturer of the particular games that you talked about has agreed to label those games, and at least that's a bit of a move forward. I frankly think, as I said at the time, that the most effective thing for us to do is to really work on the consumer aspect of this, try and prevent young people from purchasing them for themselves to the extent that we can. We know that there is certainly some indication that the same kind of bylaw protection that's there for video film may be there for video games, and that's something that needs to be looked at.

I'm hoping that the new parents' council and the local councils that we hope will evolve at the local level will act as real incentives for communities to look at our consumer patterning and how our permissiveness about the acquisition and the use of these kinds of things is partly a community responsibility.

I think you and I were agreed in the House that as parents we have a responsibility, as a community we have a responsibility, and that when laws are failing us then we have to take some action as communities, and we often are more effective in that way. That certainly is a very important part of our task from our perspective at the women's directorate in terms of encouraging women's consumer groups, like Media Watch, like CASandRA, to continue their lobbying efforts with advertisers, with manufacturers, and to work with them, where we can, in the regulation of these things.

Mrs Witmer: I recognize that communities have to play their part, but I really do believe very strongly that this is an issue that the women's directorate needs to be dealing with. I think the government needs to give some very strong direction that this is not acceptable, and I hope that whatever information you do receive will enable you to plan a course of action that will eliminate these video games from our shelves.

Ms Christel Haeck (St Catharines-Brock): My apologies for having to take care of a couple of constituency questions earlier, for not being able to ask this sooner.

There's an issue that keeps coming up in the riding that I'd like to raise with you, and it relates to an agency that is doing very good work. It's called Design for a New Tomorrow and it is providing counselling to women who have been involved in an abusive relationship and are trying to get themselves on to a new footing.

The thing that is interesting to me about this particular agency is that it's also trying to deal with the abusers. They are, in fact, trying to provide counselling for men who are abusing their partners, and they find themselves quite challenged in maintaining the funding for that, which we all realize is a major issue for every agency that is out there. But they also do encounter a certain bias about the fact that within the larger community, if government funds this particular agency, somehow women are denied the service.

I'm curious really as to how to make sure that we are dealing with the abuser as well as someone who has been abused, and how we build that balance to make sure that as a society we are trying to improve the situation.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I wouldn't pretend that in any way we have built the balance that a lot of people think ought to be attained, although from a feminist perspective, since the balance has all been in the patriarchal direction in the past, the fact that the resources in a program that's under $100 million primarily go to women and children is understandable, and I think we need to be supportive of that.

The women's directorate does not have a mandate to directly fund programs for men. We certainly have an interest in trying to persuade those ministries, particularly MCSS and MCS -- corrections -- to, when they fund these programs, fund these programs in a way that is accountable to the women.

One of the very good things about Design for a New Tomorrow is that because it offers both services, it has an integrated approach which clearly talks about the necessity to be accountable for the safety and security of women and children in these situations and it has designed its program specifically with that in mind.

Unfortunately, because we put a moratorium on additional funding, without having done the work we have done and are in the process of doing to evaluate and adjudicate what makes a successful program and how we monitor that and so on, they've been caught in the same moratorium as other programs.

I appreciate their difficulty and certainly I've known their work for a long time, particularly with women. Certainly the video they produced is used in many school programs because it is such an excellent way of talking very frankly about the problems for women and children in this kind of situation. The sensitivity with which they regard all of their clients is well known, so it is by no means a reflection on their program that they also are in the situation of not being able to get increased funding even though they can certainly show increased need.

Ms Haeck: They do find themselves in the awkward position of having, say, judges, as a result of these cases, coming to court and ordering the abuser to go into the program, and obviously the whole process of trying to get in is a lengthy one. In fact, some males have called in advance realizing that they are continuing a long-standing habit of abuse and have tried to stem that by calling in advance to basically deal with the problem and they've obviously had to wait six months in order to deal with this. So there have been a number of family breakups, even though they've realized that they're into the program.

If I may make a pitch for my local program, I --

Hon Mrs Boyd: Could I say to you that one of the issues for us is the whole issue around court-ordered treatment. That is an issue, to begin with. Speaking as the AG, how can we assure judges, who see this as an appropriate sentencing mechanism and who are encouraged by the training they are increasingly getting to look at this as an increased possibility of changing people's behaviour, of the quality of the program to which they might send somebody? That's number one and that's an issue.

Number two, is it appropriate for someone to access that treatment prior to a trial or is that an effort to convince the court that there's real change when in fact there may not be? It may simply be a change while people are awaiting trial.

Ms Haeck: If I've led you to believe that it's strictly -- not to suggest there aren't instances of that, but very clearly, in speaking to the agency, it has encountered people who definitely have come to a crunch in a relationship and have come to that self-consciousness that they have a problem and they would like to undertake to do something about it.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Which is the best prognosis for success. Our problem is, what if that person can't access treatment because a court-ordered person who is not a good prospect for treatment gets the first place? These are the kinds of questions that we have to answer. What is the balance between mandated treatment and voluntary treatment, particularly when we know, from what has been done, that in most cases voluntary treatment is going to be something that is more successful?

The last thing is, how do we make sure that people don't measure the success of one of these programs by whether or not the marriage stays together? It has to be balanced on whether or not the violence stops. That may mean that the violence stops and the marriage doesn't go on or the marriage may go on and the violence occur to somebody else. That's the issue, and that's not always true. When we get evaluations of programs, we don't always know what the measurement is. If this is successful, on whose judgement, and has the woman been asked whether it's successful for her? Has the violence stopped towards her or, to her knowledge, to anybody else? So those are all questions that need to be asked, and in this particular program there's a real willingness to ask those kinds of questions and to be accountable. I want to stress that.

But that is not true across the board. We have some instances of programs that frankly have become part of the problem in communities because they have lulled the community into believing that they have the answer to violence and in fact have acted as a licence to do more violence.

Ms Haeck: So a review of these different programs is ongoing?

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Hon Mrs Boyd: As part of this overall consultation and base program review that we're doing, one of the issues we have to resolve is that, and what the role of the directorate is in terms of men's programs. We believe we have a role in terms of making them accountable and in trying to help integrate them with the services of women so that in fact they are responsive to the needs of women and children, but should we be providing them? Is that where that appearance comes that money is being taken away from women and given to men who are the perpetrators? We have to remember that victims all over this province believe very strongly that we put more of our resources into perpetrators than we do into victims, and that's a very big sore point among victims.

Ms Haeck: I don't know if any of my other colleagues have a question at this point, but I did quickly want --

The Chair: Ms Haslam has a brief one when you're done.

Ms Haeck: Okay. Through, say, corrections, where someone has in fact been sentenced, is there a program that is dealing with the abuser in a way that would hopefully lead to this person having a better understanding of his problem?

Hon Mrs Boyd: There are programs. We do live in hope. Some of them are not institutional programs -- they're part of community programs -- and part of them are institutional programs. There is great scepticism within the feminist community that this is done on a gender basis and that it is an analysis of power and control issues, partly because of the system within which it resides.

Mrs Haslam: I have a couple of areas. How much time do I have, Mr Chairman?

The Chair: About four and a half, five minutes.

Mrs Haslam: All right. I'll go with one, then, and possibly get into another one later. They're both close to my heart and it's hard to pick. Let's go in with long-term care, an issue that I'm following and very involved in.

Women tend to statistically be shown as care givers at the end of their lives. They tend to be the stronger ones. They tend to be the survivors. They tend to be the care givers for a lot of seniors, mates and spouses, who are experiencing difficulties in their senior years. So when we look at long-term care -- and I agree with the direction the government's going in accessing programs within the community and making it easier for the seniors to remain out of institutions and closer to home and closer to family and, as a result, less expensive to the overall health care system -- it does concern me that women will be the care givers in those home situations. Do you see this as a future problem, or how can you, as the women's advocate, do some advocacy for this group of women, the seniors, in the future?

Hon Mrs Boyd: As someone who is involved as a primary care giver for my own parent --

Mrs Haslam: That's right. I'd forgotten, yes. Sorry.

Hon Mrs Boyd: -- it's something that's very important to me personally, and I can advocate not only in a theoretical way but in a very real way.

We have a very close concern about this issue because we have the prime responsibility not only within Ontario but, frankly, federally, provincially and territorially around the whole issue of work and family responsibility. We see that as being not only a responsibility to children but a responsibility to adults who may be disabled, to partners who may be disabled, and obviously to elder care as well.

We have had a number of meetings with long-term care providers, people who work within the provision community who are extremely concerned that most of their workers are women and are in a low-paid and low-status kind of occupation. Their concerns expand to being not just for themselves, because as they go in on an itinerant basis, often a couple of hours a week, maybe an hour a day, what they see is that that care giver in the home who is the primary care giver for most of the time is a woman, and so they're advocating on behalf of that. There's a group of senior women who have met with us who continue to be concerned about that.

We all acknowledge that because of our longevity women are most likely to be the ones in the long run, once we get community care established, to benefit the most from being able to stay in their own homes. Right now, what happens to women is that they care for somebody, as my mother did for 20 years, and then in their senior years find themselves all alone in the house and everybody says, "You should go to an institution." They say, "I've been cheated, not only of the 20 years of looking after somebody else, but now here I am going into an institution and I want the care to stay in my own home."

We have a conundrum: The care givers and a large, large group of the care recipients are women. How do we resolve this? Obviously we can try and increase the number of hours and the kinds of supports we can give.

One of the things that I am really, really regretful that we have had to at least reduce, if not absolutely do away with, is the home share program, because I think that in the long run finding ways people can share not an institutional setting but a home in those circumstances may help and may be better for us, but we just haven't had a community-building process that has really built that.

I don't think we've got the answers; I'll be quite frank with you. We see women more and more stressed out. They're sandwiched between their own families, their own children, sometimes their own grandchildren and their parents and sometimes their grandparents, trying to work, trying to give to the community and being really stressed as a result. Much of the work that's been done on stress for women has centred around that kind of work.

We do have some respite care. I think respite care is a very important issue; not only, you know, two weeks in the summer but a couple of hours every day, so that you can at least have some time to do your own thing, even if it is to sit with a cup of tea or have a bath.

Particularly with Alzheimer's patients, it's extremely important for someone in that circumstance, because the danger to the person needing care of being left alone is so great that people neglect themselves. We met with a woman who had a full-time job and gave that job up and yet was not able to be paid, because she was a family member, for care giving, either through the insurance program which her parent had, because care givers cannot be family members under most insurance programs, or under our own program.

Those are all things we have to look at, and we are only at the beginning. They've all been brought up in the consultations on long-term care. We have some very good ideas about how we might tackle them. They're going to be different for different communities, depending on the infrastructure we have. But we certainly are working with that, with our friends in Health and Community and Social Services and the seniors area of Citizenship.

Ms Dianne Poole (Eglinton): I'm assuming we have, what, about 12 minutes left per caucus?

The Chair: You've got about 16 minutes.

Ms Poole: That's considerable. I have actually a series of questions I would like to table with the minister. Obviously, she may have some time to answer them after I finish the complete list, but in the event that they are not answered at this time, I would ask for the minister to provide a written response to them through the committee Chair.

Secondly, Mr Chair, I wonder if I might suggest, since we have had three days of hearings on women's issues estimates and we haven't yet received the Hansards from them, if within the next week or so after we've received the Hansards, if we have additional questions, that we could table them with the committee clerk for provision to the minister. Would that be acceptable?

The Chair: That's an awkward request. Let me try and be brief in my explanation. We have a mechanism to pursue those questions, and that is order paper questions. That is a mechanism available to all members when the House is sitting right through. In fairness, if the minister is willing to, but if the minister was to as well ask me, "Is it required," I'd have to rule in that way. I'm not called upon for a ruling, I'd prefer I wasn't called upon for a ruling, but the Chair suggests that there is a mechanism called order paper questions. The minister and her staff, to the best of their ability, it's my opinion, have responded quickly with what material they could and have undertaken to return with -- there have been requests and there are more requests. I'll let the minister respond briefly now.

Hon Mrs Boyd: My only concern is that order paper questions have to be directed to the ministry which is involved. We've taken great latitude in providing for you, with the cooperation of the other ministries, what we can in this process, because we are so tied into those processes that we felt that was the appropriate way. But I would think the order paper questions would probably garner you more direct information and be more accountable for the information.

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Ms Poole: Just very briefly, my experience with order paper questions has not been positive as far as time lags are concerned, notwithstanding the standing orders.

The Chair: To be fair, you can approach the Speaker with that, but my responsibilities in my capacity are far more limited than the Speaker's. I think you've got a better chance with him, is what I'm saying.

Ms Poole: Perhaps what I will do then -- I have most of those questions right now, and it would be very few that we're talking about -- is just simply write the minister and ask for her response to me as an individual and as critic for women's issues.

I must compliment this minister on her responses. They have been timely and they have been quite fulsome generally, which is not always the happy occasion. I will give the list of questions where I'd like further information.

Concerning slasher films and slasher video games, I think the minister shares our concern about this particular form of so-called entertainment. We would like the minister to furnish any copies of letters to the federal government in this regard, including responses. We would also like the minister to outline what she believes could be done at the provincial level, within the provincial mandate, to resolve this particular problem.

Serial killer trading cards: I would like the minister, as Minister Responsible for Women's Issues, to give an explanation -- and also, if she wishes, as Attorney General --

Hon Mrs Boyd: I am one person.

Ms Poole: You can wear either or both hats to answer this particular question, Minister -- of why it is not appropriate for the provincial government to regulate the retail sales of these particular cards and, secondly, what the Ontario women's directorate is doing, both on this issue and on the slasher films.

The third question is about Jobs Ontario Training. The minister made a statement in the House some time ago about the fact that Jobs Ontario Training would be a very positive initiative for women and was specifically geared to women, and yet the figures that we had out of the Ministry of Education and Training showed that a disproportionate number of the jobs were actually going to males as opposed to females and that this did not seem to be holding true.

I would like the minister to give us up-to-date statistics in this regard, whether there has been improvement in that regard and what the involvement of the Ontario women's directorate has been with Jobs Ontario Training in ensuring that it's very sensitive in meeting women's needs.

I would ask the minister if she could provide us with up-to-date family support plan statistics. I understand it's not as minister of women's issues that you would have these, but I'd appreciate that provision.

Hon Mrs Boyd: That's fine.

Ms Poole: Also, could the minister elaborate on the announcement she made in June about the ministry's actions to remedy some problems in the program and what progress has been made to date.

I was hoping we'd actually have an opportunity to go into judges' training today, but time doesn't allow. I mentioned in my opening comments the federal-provincial report on gender equality in the Canadian justice system. I would like the minister to give us her response to that report and some of the things we might be implementing provincially with respect to the recommendations in that report. Secondly, could she provide us with information as to how many judges have undergone training with respect to the issues of sexual assault and wife assault and what proportion this is of the -- I don't want to call them provincially controlled judges, but judges under the mandate of the Attorney General.

Hon Mrs Boyd: No one controls judges.

Ms Poole: Absolutely; one should never try.

With women's centres, concerning the stabilized funding, two questions: Could the minister tell us which ones received the $1 million in stabilized funding and whether indeed this $1 million is in each of the two years or $2 million total? Secondly, BC gave a core funding model, and we would just like your response to that particular model, which has been quite heavily lobbied for by the women's centres.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Which we modeled ours on.

Ms Poole: Yes, but I believe the BC model is actually core funding, not for a two-year period but actually a commitment for annual core funding.

Hon Mrs Boyd: It's the delivery of ours that is to be reviewed in two years; not the actuality of it, but the delivery of it, whether OWD continues to do that as an on-line ministry. In my understanding, and certainly what we have been saying to the centres, it is permanent funding. It's only the delivery that will be reviewed after two years.

Ms Poole: I have only a couple more questions. When we discussed the home workers, the minister reaffirmed her commitment to trying to resolve the inequities they face. We would ask if the minister would inform us as a committee of her discussions with the Ministry of Labour in this regard, particularly relating to a time frame.

We would like to again reinforce Mrs O'Neill's question about private sector child care workers and any guarantees of security of tenure and freedom of mobility that the minister could elaborate on, whether they will be forthcoming.

I would like to know what actions the Ontario women's directorate has taken with respect to police sensitivity training relating to victims of violence. As for as the advisory council on women's issues, the minister, I believe, did announce it'd conduct only six regional outreach meetings per year. Will we be made aware of these meetings and what other outreach activities are planned?

Two final questions relating to questions by Mrs Haslam and Mr Wiseman: Mrs Haslam brought up a concern that I share about some of the male batterers programs and counselling. I would ask the minister if, when the symposium paper is available, she could share it with us and also perhaps a bit more elaboration on her statement about the lack of accountability for the safety of the spouse, since I believe that if the couple are residing together, there's already a safety problem and the counselling may very well be the best safety mechanism one could have.

Finally, Mr Wiseman brought up the problems that women have had historically in banking and that still seem to continue, perhaps to a lesser degree but very much there. Women still seem to have problems breaking through as CEOs. The Ontario women's directorate grants focused on quite a bit of union activity, such as the Women in Steel program, which was $50,000 to the United Steelworkers of America. It's not that I don't support that kind of training for leadership roles in the union, but I wonder if the minister could tell us if these types of programs are, first of all, available in areas such as banking, CEOs and the business sector and, secondly, if they are available and applicable, are we getting applications and why are we not seeing any results?

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. Is there any time for the minister to respond?

Hon Mrs Boyd: Some of the things are very readily available and we should be able to get them to you very quickly, because they're just part of the ongoing monitoring work that we do with our interministerial groups on a lot of these things. What we can provide for you we will as quickly as possible.

I'd like to make a little comment on the gender issues in the justice system, because you have raised it and I do owe you an answer on it actually. We're deeply concerned. Every study that's been done, whether it's Bertha Wilson's study, whether it's the Canadian Bar Association -- Ontario study that was done here in Ontario prior to that, the feminist analysis group that has done some work with our own law society here, the employment systems review that we're doing in our own ministry at the present time, consistently we are seeing issues of gender as very important. The federal panel on violence identified many of those same issues. It is an area of deep concern.

As we go through this session, many of the amendments in the Courts of Justice Act we'll be bringing forward are designed to remedy some of those situations. We're working with the CBAO and with the Law Society of Upper Canada on their discipline measures and on some of the gender issues that were raised during that study, because it's of great concern to them as well, with a view that at some point there will have to be some adjustment in the Law Society Act, probably around discipline processes, which has been asked for. The same is true of course in looking at the effect of gender in terms of the justice system. Are women treated the same when they are offenders? There's been some work done there. It's obviously an area that's really close to my own heart, and we'll be working very hard on trying to do that.

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With the judges, in terms of the details of their training sessions, we can get you some information, both federally and provincially, on some of the curriculum materials. I'm not sure I can tell you how many have been trained because I'm not sure the chief justice or the chief judge would make that available to us. We can ask.

Mrs Witmer: I have some concluding remarks I would like to make. First of all, I would like to express my appreciation to the minister. I have always found you extremely approachable. Although we do have some different viewpoints, I don't feel that prevents us from communicating and talking and doing something about the concerns we share. I appreciate that and I respect your point of view.

I hope that the last three days will allow the women's directorate and the minister to recognize that there are women within the province whose voices have not been listened to in the past. There is a feeling by, I would say, a majority of women in this province that the women's directorate does not represent their point of view and I hope that as a result of this discussion and this debate we will become more tolerant.

As I said in the House the other day, I think we need to reject the image of the female as being the victim and as being powerless. I think we need to recognize that women have strength. They do have power. They should be working together. I believe it's extremely important that we refocus our thinking. To continue to be defensive and angry at the way women have been victimized is a waste of our energies. It is time to start celebrating our successes, and I believe that's extremely important. When I talk to females about our successes, they come up afterwards and they're proud. Young girls don't feel good and there's no point in continuing to tell them how we've been victimized. Let's tell them what we're doing that gives us power and that's going to allow us to achieve equality with men.

Let's refocus our thinking and let's also be considerate of all the viewpoints. I believe that's something that's not happened in this province at times. There are women who support abortion; there are women who are opposed. That's up to the individual. Please don't put people down for their viewpoint. I felt put down the other day by a member of the government for the questions I was asking, and for many women it would stop you from even asking your questions if someone is ridiculing you as you make an attempt. That was of concern to me. So I plead for all parties in this House and all people to be considerate of all viewpoints. We might not agree, but please do be considerate. I ask you to have an open mind and I ask all women to recognize that if we work together with our male colleagues, we will have power. It's time to welcome men, it's time to work with males and I think it's time to recognize that there are priorities for women that need to be addressed. I believe it's time to stop portraying men constantly as being domineering and aggressive.

I'm concerned sometimes about the portrayal. I can tell you that my daughter, when she saw that one commercial -- and I've had mixed response. It was the one where there's a little girl, and she says, "Tell me why Daddy doesn't pay his support." Her question to me was, "Are all daddies like that?" I was a little bit concerned. I know that it had some impact, but I hope that all females in this province didn't get the impression that all daddies were bad and didn't pay their support. I have some concerns about the way we portray men and fathers as not paying their support. I'm not sure what type of impression it's creating. We want to make sure that the issue is resolved, but I would suggest that we be sensitive and that we perhaps encourage other means of getting our message across.

We need to encourage each woman in this province to express her personal opinion and we need to listen to that opinion. Again, I say be tolerant. Women need to make their own choices about their sexuality, and also about their appearance, and also about the issues that are of concern to them.

Most women would agree that at the present time there is disproportionate male power in our society. We recognize that is wrong, but we cannot attack men on the basis of gender. We need to work, as I say, together and we need to ensure that women in this province and women throughout the world get more respect, more self-respect, more education, more safety, better health care and better government representation. I feel very strongly that if we're ever going to have legislation that addresses the concerns of women in this province and this country, it's going to happen because our numbers increase within the legislatures. That's an area that gives women power. That's an area where change can take place and we can all work towards making that happen.

Whether or not we all agree, I believe also that money gives women power. We need to ensure that women are put into positions where they do have access to money and positions of responsibility. We mentioned the CEOs. You can have a great deal of influence when you're in that particular position.

We now have a female director of education within our school system, and it's a woman whom I'm proud to know. I can remember sitting on a committee when she was first appointed superintendent. She will have an impact on that board of education because she is a role model in a position of power, and women and females will see her.

So I urge you to be tolerant of other beliefs and other lifestyles. We might not agree -- that's okay -- but we are all entitled to our own beliefs and our own lifestyles.

I hope that as a result of these deliberations we all come away knowing there are issues that need to be addressed, and also knowing that together we do have an opportunity to make this world a more equal and fair place for women in our society.

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I'd just like to pick up a little bit on what Mrs Witmer was saying, because I think it's a point that probably needs to be discussed a bit more. A comment was made, and I think it relates back to the question of the advertising that passed through the AG's department, I guess last year, over the question of support. You were saying that your daughter had asked you, "Do all men not pay support?" because of that particular ad. I hear what you're saying, but I've got to say that, on the one hand, when it comes to equity issues we really need to take them head on.

Far too often the compliance of not saying anything or not challenging anything sometimes when it comes to equity issues, not only for women but all those equity issues out in our society -- things are allowed to keep on going as long as we in society don't challenge them. I think one of the things we need to do on all sides of the House and in all classes of society is to take on some of those views that are not necessarily about making sure people have equal access and equal say.

I relate to a personal experience of my own. I originally came out of college and went into electronics and ended up working in a male-dominated workplace; there were no women where I worked. When you work in a male-dominated workplace such as that, you develop views over a period of time that are not healthy, to put it quite bluntly. I remember applying for a particular job that I was qualified for and ended up being selected, but the place where I went to work had an affirmative action program where it said, "We're hiring eight people, four of which will be women, four of which will be men." I remember thinking distinctly back then, "My God, imagine, there's probably all kinds of young qualified males that can get these jobs, and only because they're women are some women going to get the jobs."

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It took me that experience of somebody putting it right in front and stamping it on my forehead and saying, "Stop and think," to start realizing that women were just as equal to me and probably better in some areas than I was, and that we shouldn't be barring people because of who they are, what they look like, what their sex is, what their religion is, what their preferences are or what the colour of their skin is; it's that really we need to be bold and we need to challenge the things that have been the barriers in the way of people over the years. I know people don't like this, but sometimes you've got to hit them between the eyes so that people sort of stand back and go, "Oh, maybe we can move on."

The Chair: You meant that figuratively, I hope.

Mr Bisson: Figuratively, obviously. I can relate through personal experience, and it's only because somebody at one point made it an issue with me that I finally started realizing that my views were not correct, and if I was going to be anywhere near the human being that we all should try to be in this society, I had to change. It was because people brought it head-on.

The second question is that of the Legislature. That is one that has concerned not only me but I know it's concerned the minister directly, because I've had chats and I know it's a concern to other people on the other side of the House, around the whole question about how women are treated in the Legislature, not only how women are treated sometimes but how people who are untraditional are not seen as fitting into the mould of this pink palace: people with disabilities, people of different colour, people of different languages, different backgrounds sometimes. If they don't fit into the mould that belongs to this place, quite often it could be a fairly intimidating place for people to be able to express themselves, for people to find their way and to contribute fully, equally, along with all of their colleagues.

I think there is a big job of education to be done around this place on all sides of the House. I watch what happens in question period and quite frankly I can understand why my children come to me and say, "Dad, it's a zoo." I understand this is politics and this is the art of politics as practised at Queen's Park, but sometimes it's brought to the extreme.

I know this has been an issue that has been a concern to you, Minister, especially around the question about how people are sometimes shouted down and heckled. Some of the comments have been made around question period -- hopefully they don't show up in Hansard -- where people say things under their breath or they heckle across the House when a female minister is answering to the crown. What I would ask the minister in the form of a question is what the minister has tried to do, through the women's secretariat or any other forum through the government, in order to try to deal with that whole issue about how we sometimes educate our own politicians.

Hon Mrs Boyd: We had an agreement when the federal report came out under the minister responsible federally, as women's issues ministers across the country, that we would approach our own Speakers and talk about the issue of decorum within the House and the way in which women were treated in the House. I came and testified in front of the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly about that and can provide you with the Hansard of that.

I remain convinced that the adversarial nature of what we do in the House gives rise to behaviours that most of us secretly are very well aware are not very appropriate in this day and age, particularly when our constituents can bring us into their homes very easily. I need to be frank: I am embarrassed when I see school children up in the balcony watching us as role models. I find that embarrassing.

I would also say that it's not just the other side that makes noise when women ministers try to answer questions.

Mr Bisson: I agree.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I think that this is not something that can be looked at in a partisan way. We are all responsible for our own behaviour and we need to be working within each of our caucuses to really talk about whether we're being respectful to one another.

Equity and sameness are not equivalent, if you like. It's very hard to get that out without repeating words. The variety of representation that has been chosen by the people of Ontario ought to be respected by us. Our constituents elected us. They elected a variety of people who have different genders, different race, different languages, and that needs to be respected. It's really difficult, I think, the task that we do if we aren't conscious of the need to be more respectful of one another. We need to model that more to one another and certainly to all those who watch, otherwise we will find that this is a very unattractive place for people to come. It will become less and less the centre of our democracy unless it is seen, within itself, to be a democratic place where people are respected. So that certainly is my view. I speak it very strongly. I talk about it as being a violent workplace. I would, if I were doing a safety audit in this place, give it a failing grade.

The Chair: Ms Haslam, and then I have Mr Hayes. You've actually got five minutes between you.

Mrs Haslam: I'm going to ask my question very quickly, because I agree with Mr Hayes's question and I don't want him to miss his chance. But my concern is that I was reading in your facts and figures that 60% of the users of community information centres are women. I know that as the Minister of Culture and Communications I fought long and hard for core funding for community information centres, and part of the discussion was where that left women's centres, and did they not provide similar information? It wasn't the same, but it was almost an adversarial situation about who was going to get the funding. I am only saying that if 60% of the users of community information centres are women, then that shows the value of community information centres, and I would hope you would be advocating for continuing the funding of those in the future.

I'd like to pass and let Mr Hayes ask his question at this time.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Let me just say that of course I will, because you know I was your greatest advocate on treasury board.

Mrs Haslam: To put it on the record, I happen to feel that if it wasn't for the women's advocate, I would not have been quite as successful in obtaining that funding for community information centres. So I hope you will continue that advocacy role.

Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): In this draft document, and I'm on page 14, in the centre, the third paragraph down where it's highlighted talks about: "Business organizations like the chamber of commerce invoke free trade competition to demand Canada's tax rates be brought into line with Mexico. In doing so they know very well that this would reduce the revenue base on which social programs are built."

It goes on to talk about how "Women have benefited from legislation and regulation designed specifically to address their disadvantaged position." Then, "Under NAFTA, labour market programs such as pay equity and employment equity may be perceived, by employers, as extra costs that limit their ability to compete." It goes on to talk about how it may put pressure on the government to reduce interventions in the labour market designed to address women's disadvantaged position, and how "the agreement will exacerbate the economic inequality of women."

It is one of my concerns when we talk about the different groups. I know Ms Witmer talked about, and I certainly agree with this, how we have to get more women in government, more women in top executive positions, more women in the labour movement in some of the top positions, but it also kind of bothers me when you see a group like the chamber of commerce support free trade and NAFTA. I guess really my question is, maybe to all the women in this room: Do you think maybe we should have more women in such organizations as the chamber of commerce so we'll have people evenly across the board who would truly represent women's issues and women's concerns? Because we do know that NAFTA certainly drastically affects women's social programs and the number of women who have lost their jobs as a result of the free trade and also the threat of NAFTA.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I would hope we would have many women who would advocate on behalf of our being able to have supportive programs that benefit women. One of our fears, obviously, with NAFTA is that it would limit our ability as a province to provide that kind of protection for our own citizens, and that clearly is the jurisdictional issue that we see as being an issue.

I guess I have to, since I am the women's advocate for the whole province, remind everyone that we are all women, we have that in common, but we are certainly not totally homogeneous when it comes to our viewpoint on this. Some of the most vehement speakers in favour of NAFTA and free trade have in fact been women involved in business, and we are all aware of that.

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We as ought not to expect that we are always going to philosophically or politically take the same viewpoint. We have suffered from a viewpoint that has said we can't make changes because we as women are not unanimous in what change we want. We will never be unanimous. We are 52% of the people and we have differences among us that are reflective of our whole community. While I hope too that we will have many, many more women active in all these areas, we would be naïve if we expected that women will ever adopt a uniform political or philosophical position in terms of the way in which they respond.

As women we very much represent a great diversity within this community, and I would agree very strongly with Ms Witmer's statement that one of the things we need to do is to celebrate and support that diversity. We don't need to be the same in order to gain equality. What we need to do is have the same opportunity to make choices, and rather than talking about it as "experiencing power," I would say "attaining positions of authority." I think that's one of the changes we as women have. Authority's different from power. Power is power; however, authority is an agreement that we have authority and can exercise that and must not abuse that authority. It's not quite the same as exercising power.

I would just say to you that yes, I think we will have a stronger community when women are in great numbers in similar positions, but we must not assume that will change the political nature of things. Nellie McClung and Emily Murphy and so on all thought that if women got into Parliament prohibition would immediately be here for ever, there would be no more poverty and we would be sure that every one lived a nice, white, middle-class life. That was not a very realistic picture of what happens. We also have differences among us and need to be able, as Ms Witmer suggested, to express those without thinking that there is only one narrow vision that we have to have.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Minister. That more or less completes the time.

Mrs Haslam: If I can have a point of clarification, there were a number of questions from the member opposite. Am I to assume that the answers would be shared with all committee members?

Hon Mrs Boyd: Absolutely.

The Chair: All responses go through the clerk and the Chair, and then they'll be distributed to committee members.

Ms Poole: On a point of order, Mr Chair: I was going to call it a point of clarification, but I'm not sure, technically, that exists.

The Chair: I'm still waiting to hear your point of order.

Ms Poole: When I asked if I could submit a list of written questions and have them distributed through the estimates committee, you stated that the appropriate procedure would be to go through an order paper question. That wasn't my recollection of how I had dealt with Housing estimates in the past, so I did have the Hansard from July pulled. At that time, you said that it is "the custom to treat these kinds of requests in a form similar to an order paper question, and that staff be given sufficient time to prepare responses." Then you went on to say you'd like it to be "circulated through the clerk of the committee." I'm just trying to clarify whether I should put the written questions that I was going to do to Marion as minister for women's issues through the clerk of the committee.

The Chair: To put a fine point on the ruling, and based on my previous ruling, that ruling was to receive questions from you that were directed to the Minister of Housing with Ministry of Housing estimates. If you examine the estimates of the Office Responsible for Women's Issues, we're dealing with predominantly administrative dollars. The Chair would be more than willing to accept questions in the same vein as an order paper question directed to the minister for the expenditures under her responsibility as Minister Responsible for Women's Issues.

The minister, to her credit, has a varied background in cabinet and therefore has responded most generously to a lot of questions in those policy areas. But, frankly, these were the estimates of the office for women's issues. If the questions are of a philosophical nature, then I'm sure the minister will have no trouble getting back to you on them. But for me to impel this minister and her staff to seek out answers in other ministries is both an unfair and onerous responsibility. It has only surfaced since the governing party asked that these estimates be done. If this were the Ministry of the Attorney General, we wouldn't be having this discussion, and any questions that were directed to the Attorney General for the Minister of Housing would have been circuited in such a fashion. So that was the reason for my ruling and I appreciate your giving me an opportunity for giving a fuller explanation of my ruling.

Ms Poole: Actually, the bulk of the questions that I had remaining for written questions were to do with administration policy of the Ontario women's directorate.

The Chair: We'd be more than pleased to accept those and the Chair and this committee will ensure that those are forthcoming, but you've been so advised. I got a sense that you were differentiating your questions immediately after my first ruling to bring forward questions of that nature. That's what I sensed you were doing and I apologize if --

Ms Poole: Moi?

The Chair: Yes.

Ms Poole: Sanguine moi?

The Chair: Can I please call the vote while we can still get it completed today? Is that sufficient, Ms Poole? Then thank you.

This is deemed by the committee then to complete the time that we wished for consideration of the estimates of the 1993-94 estimates of the office of the Minister Responsible for Women's Issues. I will now call the vote.

All those in favour of vote 3201 of the estimates?

Opposed, if any?

That's carried.

Shall the 1993-94 estimates of the office responsible for women's issues be approved?

All those in favour?

Opposed, if any?

Carried.

Shall we now then report the 1993-94 estimates of the office responsible for women's issues to the House?

All those in favour?

Opposed, if any?

It's carried.

This meeting stands adjourned until Tuesday, October 26, at which time the committee will consider the office responsible for francophone affairs.

The committee adjourned at 1757.