Journal des débats 1985-nov-19 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Hon. Mr. Scott: The achievement of equal opportunity and social justice for all Ontarians is a fundamental and unalterable commitment of the government. For women, this must include employment equity in all its aspects.

On July 19 I announced the formation of an interministerial task force under my direction with a mandate to prepare a green paper on the implementation of pay equity. I am pleased to announce that the task force has completed the green paper, which I am tabling today.

The green paper examines in detail the component of employment equity that is also known as equal pay for work of equal value. Pay equity is a measure that is specifically aimed at rectifying the historical undervaluation of women's work. It is an extension of the long-standing statutory requirement of equal pay for equal or substantially the same work.

The government's commitment to pay equity rests on the principle that it is the value of the work and not the gender of the worker that counts. We hold that after nongender-based factors that influence pay are taken into account, work performed by women that is equivalent in value to that performed by men in the same establishment should be paid the same.

Pay equity is a positive remedy to wage imbalance, which has traditionally linked being a female employee with receiving lower wages. This imbalance is significant. In 1982 in Ontario the average annual earnings for a woman working full-time were $15,910; those for a man were $25,562. Full-time women workers therefore earned, on an average, 62 per cent of what men earned. This constitutes a wage gap of 38 per cent. When one considers that 44 per cent of Ontario's work force is female, such inequality cannot simply be ignored. Of the 2.1 million female workers in Ontario, 40 per cent are single, widowed or divorced, the sole support of themselves and their families.

Pay equity is a fundamental goal of the government. Let me make clear that the achievement of this goal for women is not at issue. The commitment to implement pay equity has already been made. Only the methods by which it will be achieved are open for debate and discussion and, finally, decision.

The green paper discusses implementation options in the broader public and private sectors. It outlines fundamental premises and suggests various models and possible measures for pay equity implementation. It considers the potential impact of pay equity upon Ontario's economy and on the collective bargaining process. This approach recognizes the complexities of pay equity. We are determined to address the long-standing injustice of pay inequity. We are equally determined to keep the economy of Ontario strong.

The economic impact on the labour market and the structure of the Ontario economy must be evaluated to ensure that the chosen implementation approach is sensitive to the particular needs of firms, industries and communities, and to concerns about the competitive position of the province's economy.

The concept of pay equity is not new. Other jurisdictions have had pay equity legislation for their public and private sectors. Now we intend to build on their experience to devise a system that is equitable, workable and fiscally responsible. We are committed to achieving a climate of equality and prosperity in Ontario that is second to none.

We do not ask others to do what we as a government are not prepared to do ourselves. Accordingly the Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye) has undertaken responsibility for implementing pay equity in the Ontario public service. My colleague will be making a statement on this aspect today.

We hope the green paper will serve as a focus for public discussion leading to the development of legislation. The task force that prepared it showed exceptional diligence in gathering information and reflecting the issues and priorities.

In addition to my ministry and the women's directorate, the task force included senior representatives of Treasury, Labour, Industry, Trade and Technology, Management Board, the Civil Service Commission, cabinet office and the Premier's office. At the time of its formation in July, I instructed the task force to have the green paper ready for presentation to the Legislature and to the people of Ontario this fall.

It seemed, and almost was, an impossible deadline. We were determined to show the people of Ontario that we intend to take prompt action to alleviate a problem that has been evident far too long. As Attorney General, I am well aware that others have said that justice delayed is justice denied. I would like particularly to thank all those who worked on the paper for their dedication.

We do not underestimate the complexity of the task that lies ahead. We must be diligent in choosing an implementation approach that maximizes the positive social and economic benefits of the policy. Those benefits are considerable. For example, more equitable wages could result in increased productivity of the affected workers because they feel more fairly treated. It could also result in lower turnover of employees, and thus in lower recruitment and training costs.

Pay equity could also have a positive effect on aggregate demand in the economy and, in the long run, pensions determined on the basis of earnings increased by pay equity compliance will enable female senior citizens to be more self-sufficient.

It will impose some costs, to be sure. However, in a democratic society market forces must be weighed together with objectives of social justice. This government cannot and will not accept the argument that profit is to be maximized at the expense of unfair discrimination against selected groups of workers.

As a single measure, pay equity legislation will not completely eliminate the wage gap, nor will it totally integrate the labour force. It is none the less a significant step. The government will continue to work on other initiatives designed to address equity issues, such as access to nontraditional jobs, the need for increased education, access to child care and so forth.

A green paper cannot attempt to answer all the questions. It raises issues that need to be resolved. The options for implementing the concept are open for discussion. The methods of application are yet to be chosen.

Vitally important questions will be addressed through wide public consultation beginning immediately after Christmas. We intend to hold hearings in centres throughout the province. This process will involve objective and capable leaders who will report to the government on the hearings. While we hope this will proceed expeditiously, we do want to receive the views of the public.

Through this green paper, the government offers the people of Ontario the opportunity to develop a better understanding of the concept and the consequences of pay equity. We invite them to share in the shaping of the implementation strategies that will carry us forward to a new era, we pray, of equality for all.

2:10 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: With the tabling of the green paper my colleague the Attorney General has today taken a major step towards the implementation of pay equity in the private sector and in the broader public sector in Ontario. I think we all realize the importance of this initiative. We are embarked on a process of rectifying the effects of discrimination against women in the work force that have systematically developed over generations. We should not underestimate in any way the magnitude of the challenge, the complexity of the job to be done and the significance of its accomplishment.

As members will know, while the Attorney General has had carriage of the development of the green paper on pay equity in the private and broader public sectors, I have been given the responsibility for developing the government's own program within our public service. Today, I would like to comment on the parallels and differences between these two initiatives.

Let me begin by identifying the strong and central common theme that runs through both exercises; namely, the commitment to full and open consultation. As my colleague the Attorney General has indicated, the whole purpose of the green paper is to stimulate public discussion on the important issues and options that arise from a consideration of pay equity and to provide, therefore, a focus for government's consultation with interested parties.

For our part, in the Ministry of Labour, we have also been engaged in an involved process of consultation with the parties of interest in a pay equity program within the public service; namely, the employer agencies and the public service unions. Though we have been engaged in developing our ideas for only a relatively short period of time, my officials have already had a number of meetings with both of these groups.

I think it is fair to say that the openness of our policy development in terms of our discussion and involvement with the public service unions is unprecedented. We have shared with them not only our ideas but also discussion papers elaborating the issues we believe need to be addressed in developing the public service program. They, in turn, have responded in an open and constructive manner with reaction to our ideas as well as suggestions of their own. This has not been a process of negotiation but, rather, a co-operative effort in policy development.

Up to this point, our discussions have focused primarily on the identification and elaboration of the issues, and I will have more to say on the relationship of this exercise to the green paper in a moment.

So the honourable members will know the nature of our discussions with the public service unions, I am pleased to make available the paper that we have circulated to the unions with whom we are consulting, outlining some of the options we think are available for addressing pay equity issues within the context of a public service program.

We will be meeting with the unions beginning next Monday to get their input and then, hopefully, to move forward to a resolution of outstanding issues and the formulation of a policy proposal. I hope this process can be expedited so I will be in a position to introduce a bill which is the product of our consultative process as soon as possible.

As I said, there is a major similarity between the government's approach to equal value in the private sector and broader public sector and the initiative for the public service in terms of our emphasis on consultation. There are also obvious parallels in the issues which must be addressed in both exercises. The issues identified in the green paper, the models canvassed and the implications for collective bargaining, for example, all arise in the public service context as well.

We are also grappling with the questions related to the definition of "gender predominance" for groups of employees; with the critical issue of how "value" is to be defined and determined; with the nature of pay adjustments required and whether they should include benefits as well as wages; with issues related to the scope of employee coverage and the allowable exclusions from the application of pay equity plans; and with the numerous practical problems of phasing-in a pay equity program in a way which is both prudent and expeditious.

Moreover, we must consider the major implementation options available: a complaint-based model along the lines of federal government and Quebec programs, a proactive approach such as has been enacted in Manitoba, or some integrated combination. Finally, we are grappling with the implications of a public service pay equity program for the structure and conduct of our collective bargaining.

It is not overstating the point to suggest, therefore, that essentially the same issues arise in considering pay equity initiatives in both the private and broader public sectors and the public service. For this reason, we have ensured that there has been continuous interaction between those developing the green paper and the group working on the public service initiative. This has been a productive exchange and has ensured that both processes have been comprehensive in their survey of the issues to be addressed and the options for dealing with them.

On the other hand, it is important to take note of the very substantial differences in the context of each separate initiative. As the Premier (Mr. Peterson) has indicated, the government is committed to setting its own house in order as a first priority. In conscience, we cannot and we will not ask the private sector and the broader public sector to do something which we ourselves are not prepared to do.

Therefore, I have been given the responsibility for developing, on an urgent basis, a public service initiative which will have far-reaching consequences for the way in which we deal with our own employees. This, in itself, will have a direct impact on approximately 80,000 workers in Ontario.

There are a number of important differences in context between the private and broader public sectors and the public service, aside from our direct responsibility for the latter. Let me articulate some of the most important in so far as the implementation of pay equity programs is concerned.

First, the nature of the problem to be addressed in the two sectors is quite different. As is made clear in the green paper, only a portion of the wage gap is susceptible to remedy through equal value programs. It is worth noting, however, that the magnitude of the total gap is very different in the private and broader public sectors from the gap in the public service. The aggregate earnings differential between male and female full-time workers in the economy as a whole, including the entire public sector, is about 38 percentage points. In the public service, however, it is only a little over one half as large, namely, 23 percentage points. There is, therefore, a considerably larger job to be done in addressing the wage gap problem in the private sector and the broader public sector than in our own public service.

Second, while the wage gap problem may be smaller in the public service than in the private sector, the setting within which it must be addressed is larger and more complex than is typically the case for private sector employers. There is no private employer in Ontario with as many employees or as broad a range of occupations represented in its work force as the Ontario government. Undoubtedly, because of the size and sophistication of the government as an employer, it is in a position to bring the necessary resources to bear on the problem of developing and implementing a pay equity program. The nature of the task, however, is commensurately more challenging than will be confronted by many private sector employers.

Third, at least when one considers proactive approaches and even in the context of a complaints-driven model, it is clear that the collective bargaining process can be utilized to develop and implement pay equity plans that would have the support of employers and workers alike. In the private sector, however, the scope for utilizing collective bargaining is much more limited than in the public service, in so far as a much smaller percentage of workers is organized. Only about one quarter of private sector workers are covered by collective bargaining agreements. By way of contrast, four out of five public sector service workers in Ontario are members of bargaining units.

As the green paper has noted, while collective bargaining may be a useful instrument for development and implementation of equal value approaches, problems do arise in reconciling collective bargaining structures and processes with the requirements of pay equity programs. These problems arise primarily where there are multiple bargaining units within an establishment. Again, there is a difference here between the public and private sectors in regard to the multiplicity of bargaining units. In the private sector, it is the norm for different types of workers to be represented by different bargaining agents. Within the Ontario public service, on the other hand, each employer deals with a single bargaining unit with only two exceptions, the Ontario Housing Corp. and the Ontario Provincial Police.

Fourth, while we are very conscious of our requirement and our commitment to be fiscally responsible, clearly the economic constraints faced by government, though real, are different from the competitive pressures encountered by private sector firms operating in an international marketplace. While governments have significant limitations on their financial scope to solve problems, they none the less do not have to make a profit to remain viable. This differential impact of pay equity on the public and private sectors needs to be considered.

Finally, we have to recognize that the move towards pay equity is an international phenomenon. While Ontario can be a pioneer in the scope and the effectiveness of its initiative, we are not the first jurisdiction to develop a pay equity program. In so far as there are precedents in other jurisdictions, however, and therefore experience on which we can draw, they relate primarily to public sector programs. Even in comprehensive programs, such as exist in Quebec and in the federal jurisdiction, the bulk of the cases thus far have arisen in the public sector settings. In developing a public sector pay equity program for Ontario, we can build, with appropriate modifications, upon the experience of Minnesota, Iowa and, now, Manitoba, among others. In developing a private sector initiative, on the other hand, we will be fashioning a program which responds to our provincial needs.

The conclusion to be drawn is that while there are significant similarities in the process we have undertaken in developing our public service approach and in the private sector and broader public sector initiative and in the issues that arise in both exercises, there are very substantial differences in the context within which each of our pay equity programs is being developed. This is why the government has chosen to have two separate initiatives, interconnected and coordinated, but with due recognition of the differences in requirements, capabilities and strategies that may be called for in the two different sectors.

2:20 p.m.

When I introduce our public service bill -- and I hope it will be on an early date -- my expectation is that it will address many of the issues that have been identified in the green paper exercise within the context of a public service program. Whether the public service program can serve as a model for private sector initiatives, however, is a matter for future consideration. It will depend, no doubt, on the nature of the program we develop; but, more important, it will depend on the circumstances in which private sector employers find themselves and the extent to which they can translate a public service prototype into a private sector context.

My own view is that because of the significant differences that exist between the two sectors, there may be very limited scope for wholesale application of a public service model within the private sector or broader public sector, but this remains to be seen, not only in terms of our own policy development but also in terms of what I am sure will be a most fruitful and effective consultation process with respect to the green paper.

ROMAN CATHOLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Hon. Mr. Scott: As members are all aware, then-Premier William Davis announced his government's policy in the Legislature on June 12, 1984, to extend public funding to complete the Roman Catholic separate school system. He said the funds would begin to flow to grade 11 commencing in September 1985, and accordingly, separate school supporters, teachers, parents and children began to make their plans based upon this assurance. Facilities were set aside, teachers were hired and children enrolled in separate school grade 11.

When this government assumed office on June 26, 1985, it faced a dilemma not of its own making. The constitutionality of Bill 30 had been questioned by some members of the public. Rather than proceed with legislation that might be unconstitutional, the government quickly referred the issue of the constitutionality of Bill 30 to the Ontario Court of Appeal. The matter has been fully argued before the Court of Appeal and the court's decision on whether the Legislature has the authority to pass Bill 30 has been reserved. This government's action was not a bypass of the judicial system, but rather a submission to it.

Returning to the situation of this past summer, this government still faced the other challenge: what to do about the thousands of high school students who were committed to commence grade 11 in the separate school system starting in September. All recognized that a judicial determination on the constitutional question could not be obtained by the beginning of the school year, and, indeed, we are awaiting that determination; an interim measure had to be adopted.

The traditional method of funding in the case of separate schools, which extends back to 1971 under the former Conservative government, has been to pass regulations pursuant to subsection 10(3) of the Education Act. This traditional method was the only practical way to balance the legitimate constitutional question which had arisen with the needs of separate school teachers and pupils.

Several weeks ago, while the constitutional question was under reserve by the Court of Appeal and after the pupils were in the schools, a number of groups made an application for judicial review to the Divisional Court for a declaration that this government's interim measure was not authorized by statute. This is so notwithstanding that the measure used was the one which had been adopted and was in place from 1971.

These groups made a motion to Chief Justice Parker of the High Court for a speedy hearing by a three-judge panel of the Divisional Court, and the Chief Justice refused on the basis that, at that time, there was no urgency. They then went to another judge, Mr. Justice Potts, and asked him to hear the application as a single judge on an urgent basis. Mr. Justice Potts declined to hear it on an urgent basis because he decided it should be determined by a full panel of the Divisional Court.

He ordered that the government not distribute any funds pursuant to its regulation until a full panel of the Divisional Court has decided whether the Education Act authorizes the government to extend funding by regulation. It should be noted that he did not hold that the regulation, the traditional and time-honoured method of school funding, was illegal. He simply held that it raised an important legal question which should be decided by the full court. In the meantime, he held that the "balance of convenience" favours a hold on the flow of funds.

This government will, of course, obey the court order. No funds have been expended pursuant to the amended regulation and none will flow while the order of Mr. Justice Potts stands. It is our view that the question of urgency has now changed as a result of Mr. Justice Potts's order, and we have asked Chief Justice Parker to convene a full panel of the Divisional Court as soon as possible. We are awaiting a reply to that request. This government will proceed with that hearing as expeditiously as possible.

The constitutionality of the government's position on Bill 30 will in the end be decided by the Court of Appeal for Ontario. What happened yesterday in no way alters that basic fact.

ORAL QUESTIONS

ROMAN CATHOLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Mr. F. S. Miller: My question is to the Minister of Education and it arises out of the matter just dealt with by the chief law officer of the crown.

I have to say before I start the question that I find it a bit difficult to listen to his statement when the judge said the minister had bypassed both the democratic and judicial controls on the exercise of government power. He jumped before the safety net was in place. He tried to act quickly without realizing that as a minister he is really restrained by the law.

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. F. S. Miller: Now that this decision of the court has put the funding in limbo, the minister has an emergency, admitted by the Attorney General (Mr. Scott). What kind of assurance does the minister have for the families and the children in those schools that the funding will go ahead and that they will receive this year's education as promised by his government?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I would like to remind all members of standing order 23(b), as I have done on previous occasions: "When a member is speaking, no other member shall" -- and I underline "shall" -- "interrupt him, except on a question of order."

Hon. Mr. Conway: I want to clarify what happened yesterday. It is important for this House, the separate schools and other aspects of the education community to understand what happened yesterday.

Mr. Justice Potts did not decide the question of the legality of the interim funding. Mr. Justice Potts decided that it was a matter he felt he could not decide upon and that another court, the Divisional Court, should rule upon it. He furthermore indicated that until the question of the legality of the interim funding had been decided by the Divisional Court, interim funding should not flow.

As a government, we feel very strongly and very positively about the rightness of our view that we do have the authority under the Education Act to flow the funds on an interim basis. We are most anxious to get to the Divisional Court to argue that case, because we believe it to be a strong, positive and just case that will be so adjudicated by that court at that time.

That is what I tell the separate school community and others in this province at this time.

Mr. F. S. Miller: That and a token gets one a ride on the subway. The people, the families and the children are not interested in the minister's legalese. They are interested in assistance at the school level. The minister should be specific. How does he intend to fund those schools legally?

2:30 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Conway: I simply say to the Leader of the Opposition we feel very confident that the legal way to fund the extended separate school programs in grade 11 in 1985-86 is through the amended regulations we have executed under subsection 10(3) of the Education Act. As I said to the Leader of the Opposition moments ago, we are most anxious to argue that case, about which we feel so very positive, at the earliest opportunity at the Divisional Court.

I want to say two things in conclusion. This is a government that will abide by the law. This is a government that is sincerely and absolutely committed to the welfare and education of the thousands of separate school students who are at issue in this critical debate.

Mr. Rae: It is ironic. Lawyers for the government were arguing throughout September that it was not an urgent matter. That is one of the reasons we are in the pickle we are in right now, and the minister knows that. Mr. Justice Potts referred to that irony in his decision.

I do not think any of us is going to sleep much easier tonight with the minister's reassurance that he has an ironclad case in December before the Divisional Court. What I think the parents and the students who have enrolled in grade 11 are eager to hear from the government is a simple statement from the minister. Can he provide today the assurance that those families and those boards will not suffer economically as a result of having relied on the government's assurance that funding for grade 11 would proceed in September 1985?

Hon. Mr. Conway: In response to the leader of the New Democratic Party, I note that Mr. Justice Potts in his decision yesterday is at issue with the decision earlier by Chief Justice Parker, who took a different view on this matter. I simply note that on the urgency question we have two learned justices who have taken different views, and that was noted in the decision yesterday by Mr. Justice Potts.

I will say again that this government is absolutely committed to the welfare and the educational situation of the thousands of separate school students, and we are determined to meet the requirements of those students within the law. We have said we intend to fund through the traditional, time-honoured mechanism of subsection 10(3) of the Education Act. We feel this is the most practical and effective way to deliver the assistance. It is that case we are most anxious to argue at the earliest opportunity in the Divisional Court, because we are very confident that the case will be found in our favour and that the needs and the requirements of the thousands of students will be met in that way.

Mr. Jackson: We have heard many times from this new minister on this very issue. It appears he gave a lot more clarity outside this House in response to this question before the standing committee on social development. At that time he gave many assurances to the parents and students of the Catholic community who appeared before him.

My question has to do with why he continues to abdicate his responsibilities to the ministers around him. Why does he allow the Commission for Planning and Implementing Change in the Governance and Administration of Secondary Education in Ontario to decide education policy, the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Nixon) to decide funding and the Attorney General to address the legal issue?

Mr. Speaker: That seems like a very good question.

Mr. Jackson: When will he make a clear statement to the children of this province about how he is going to provide financial accountability to them?

Hon. Mr. Conway: I find it passing strange that my learned friend the member for Burlington South and all his colleagues would now question a mechanism they used routinely for the past 14 years. They, it seems, were the last to complain about this.

I will say to my learned friend, who has been a very constructive member of the standing committee on social development, which has been looking at this very important question, that I as Minister of Education am quite prepared to accept and discharge my responsibility, and I intend to do so sensitively and within the context of the law.

I say again, we feel very strongly, on the basis of practice and precedent well and often established by my learned friends in the Progressive Conservative Party, that this mechanism will be found to be quite legal and quite proper. I cannot wait to get to Divisional Court to argue that case.

COMMISSIONER FOR RACE RELATIONS

Mr. Gillies: I have a question of the Premier regarding the rather shocking firing of Dr. Bhausaheb Ubale as race relations commissioner for this province. Dr. Ubale is well respected in the multicultural communities of Ontario. He has been widely credited in his six years as race relations commissioner with stemming the tide of racial discrimination that was evident in our city in the late 1970s.

Mr. Speaker: Therefore you have a question.

Mr. Gillies: Therefore I have a question. We know for a fact that the order for this firing came directly from the office of the Premier. Why did his office instruct the Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye) to fire Dr. Ubale as race relations commissioner?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: With great respect to my learned friend opposite, nobody was fired. He just was not reappointed.

Mr. Gillies: I take from the Premier's token answer a rather token commitment to the multicultural community in Ontario. When the Deputy Minister of Labour informed Dr. Ubale of his firing, he told him: "We do not want to do this. It is on the instructions of the Premier." I say to the Premier --

Mr. Speaker: By way of question.

Mr. Gillies: By way of question. Let us talk about open government. From the day Dr. Ubale came under the administration of this government, for the past five months, he has sought a meeting with the Premier, to whom he could not get access. Dr. Ubale has also sought a meeting with his own minister, the Minister of Labour, and was not granted that courtesy.

Mr. Speaker: Place your supplementary, please.

Mr. Gillies: By way of supplementary, we also know the Premier's officials are looking for a Liberal replacement for him. My question --

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is the last time I am going to ask whether you are going to ask a question.

Mr. Gillies: My supplementary question is, will the Premier rescind this very unwise firing and immediately move to reinstate Dr. Ubale?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The honourable member has chosen to discuss matters of personnel in this House, and that is fine. I will respond. He suggested we are looking for a Liberal alternative; so I guess he is implying Dr. Ubale is a Conservative. Is that what he is saying?

The member used the word "firing" very promiscuously. It was an order-in-council appointment which I understand expires at the end of this month. Yesterday it was made public that there are literally thousands of order-in-council appointments made by this government and by the Premier, who has a certain prerogative on some of them. As one goes through that list, one will see most of the delegates who were at the Tory convention last weekend in that book of boards, agencies and commissions. The member will be aware of that more than anyone.

We have looked at those appointments made on a nonpartisan basis. We do not ask how people vote. We only ask if they are competent. I am sure the member would be the first to attest to the competence of a number of people we have appointed.

Dr. Ubale's appointment expires at the end of this month. If the member is asking me to reappoint him for a third term, he is entitled to do so. His own government had a rule that each person was generally qualified for one reappointment, that is, six years, not nine, 12 or 15 years. That was a rule followed by the member's government.

2:40 p.m.

Dr. Ubale has been offered other employment in this government because we value his abilities. The member has embarrassed him by bringing up the matter, but I am willing to share the information.

Mr. Gillies: We are not talking personnel; we are talking about the Premier's commitment to multiculturalism in this province.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I gave the honourable member latitude last time.

Mr. Gillies: I assume the Premier does not deny the fact that neither he nor his minister met with their own race relations commissioner for a six-month period.

In view of the fact that the standing committee on procedural affairs and agencies, boards and commissions is meeting this fall to devise new guidelines and a new openness with regard to government appointments, would the Premier at least not agree to rescind this dismissal until such time as a committee of this House can examine the entire smelly matter?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member chooses to embarrass himself in this House by asking ridiculous questions. We have asked the procedural affairs committee to review the entire matter. We have made public all the appointments to agencies, boards and commissions, something they never did on their side. They kept it secret and only appointed Tories.

We invite their ideas. I have been asked by members of his party and others to make appointments. We have and will continue to do so. He will notice that we have treated every single person who was previously appointed with kindness. We have not been kicking anybody out. We have been trying to be kind. We are looking for the very best people to serve, and I am most anxious to get the recommendations of the procedural affairs committee with respect to this matter. It is my view we must get the very best and brightest of this province to serve in all of its various agencies. I have a very different view from that of the previous government, which used this process as a graveyard for retired Tory warhorses.

EQUAL PAY FOR WORK OF EQUAL VALUE

Ms. Gigantes: Mr. Speaker, I am sure you have noticed we are neatly sandwiched between early fall and the next new moon and we finally have a green paper on the private sector for purposes of equal pay for work of equal value legislation, but the process the Attorney General has described so roughly seems very open. I would ask him to tell us in very firm terms how long the consultation around the green paper is going to go around this province. When can we expect the tabling of legislation?

Hon. Mr. Scott: I have been asked this question by the leader of the third party on October 15 and by the member for Don Mills (Mr. Timbrell), who pointedly asked, if there is going to be consultation and legislation when would we have the bill. I made plain to them that we would allow a reasonable consultation period so that everybody who wanted to make relevant and useful submissions would be fully heard. Then cabinet would make the choices, the decision, and introduce the bill. I cannot tell the member with any more precision than that when the bill will be introduced. The consultation process will take place; it will be full and fair, but I hope it is not going to be extravagantly lengthy.

Ms. Gigantes: I do not think the statement that the process will not be extravagantly lengthy is what we are looking for in this House. We expect some leadership on this question. I would like to ask the minister responsible for women's issues whether he can be any more definitive in the area of legislation for public sector workers.

Hon. Mr. Scott: On that subject I will have to defer to the Minister of Labour, who is dealing with that position paper.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: As the honourable member will have heard in my statement, this next stage of the consultation with the public sector unions begins Monday next. We expect that, while it will be thorough, the matter will move somewhat more rapidly because of the narrower focus than in the broader public sectors and the private sectors.

I did indicate earlier today, as the honourable member knows, that it may be useful for me to hear some of the early feedback from the green paper initiatives. I cannot give a time because there are complexities in certain areas; but because of the narrower focus, we should be able to move forward perhaps more rapidly than in the broader public and private sector initiatives. I cannot give the member a full moon or a half-moon time or a date for the decision.

Mr. Partington: As a supplementary to the Attorney General, he and his government made a firm commitment to equal pay for work of equal value. All he has given us today is a paper that tells us what we already know. He has indicated he cannot give us a timetable for the legislation.

Can he confirm to us today that he will have full and open hearings on these matters and that he will give us a timetable for the completion of these hearings so we can immediately get on with the legislation?

Hon. Mr. Scott: I am grateful for the question and I am impressed by my friend's knowledge that there is nothing in the green paper he did not know. There is certainly a lot in the green paper I did not know, and I think other members of the House will find it contains a lot of useful information they did not know. I think members of the public will find the same thing.

The honourable member will not have to come to the consultation because he has obviously got it all down pat, but I would be grateful to know what his policy is on this question. He is the one who is ready to decide. We are going to have a consultation process so we can get the feedback of those people who are learning something new as we go along every day. I cannot tell him when it is going to end any more than I can tell him the next time it is going to rain, but I can tell him it is going to rain within the next 30 days.

Ms. Gigantes: The minister said in his statement that justice delayed is justice denied. I wonder whether he would give a commitment to the House that one of the things he will consider doing is backdating the legislation he finally brings to this House so the sectors that do not want to see equal pay legislation will not have an incentive to drag out the consultation process, to which he currently sees no end.

Hon. Mr. Scott: I cannot give that undertaking. I will expect the honourable member to make that submission to the committee that is going to be hearing the matter. Then we will review it at the appropriate time, when other people have had the right to make a comment on it.

ST. CLAIR RIVER

Mrs. Grier: I would like to address a question to the Minister of the Environment once again on the question of the St. Clair River.

In response to questions yesterday, the minister confirmed that the existing regulatory system was totally inadequate and did not allow him to control illegal discharges properly. Can the minister tell the House what changes in legislation and regulatory procedures he will make, in addition to examining the certificates of approval, to ensure that when there are spills of hazardous contaminants, investigations will result in evidence and evidence will result in convictions?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: In regard to the statement the member says I made about the certificates of approval and the control orders, I do not recall saying they were a complete disaster or whatever she said. I said I was not satisfied with them. Two weeks ago, before the members opposite started asking questions, I had indicated we were undertaking these programs to bring about the kind of activities that would improve that area.

There were two parts to the question?

Mr. McClellan: The minister has talked himself into complete incomprehension.

2:50 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: Oh, yes. I recall now what the other part was. How are going to ensure that we get convictions? Are we going to change legislation?

I cannot assure the decisions of any particular court, but I can assure the member that with our investigations and enforcement branch becoming deeply involved in matters of this kind and with our legal services branch dealing with matters of this kind in the future, we will be gathering all relevant information which would allow us to determine whether charges could be successfully pressed.

If there is any kind of case to be brought before a court that can be successful, I assure the member there will be a necessary charge laid and they will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. If the member is asking whether the present laws are sufficient with respect to the penalties --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Supplementary.

Mrs. Grier: The minister may not have said yesterday that the regulations were totally inadequate, but he did say he was not satisfied with them. He admitted he had no rules and regulations for hazardous contaminants and he admitted he could lay only one charge from 11 spills. If that is not saying they are inadequate, I do not know what is.

My question is very specific. Does the minister intend to bring in changes in legislation? I gather the answer is no; so let me try to phrase it another way.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps let the minister answer.

Mrs. Grier: I am trying to interpret for the House what I thought the minister told me.

Mr. Speaker: The minister would like to try too.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: The member has asked a question and I will give an answer which I hope she will consider adequate.

First, the certificates of approval review, the control order review, the point source review, the monitoring and the testing do not require legislation. All that is required is an indication from the Minister of the Environment that he wants that done. That is why it is all done.

Now we get to the specific legislation. If the member is asking -- I think she is -- whether I feel the penalties that are in effect at present are sufficient to deter people once the prosecution has taken place and is successful, the answer to that is no. My ministry is in the process at this time of providing me with information which would lead to legislation significantly to increase those penalties.

Mr. Brandt: My understanding is that the certificates of approval for the operation of plants in the Sarnia area and in other parts of this province are in place now and that control orders are used by the Ministry of the Environment to indicate when there are problems or to tighten up further on situations that do not meet with the ministry's agreement.

Could the minister indicate to this House whether he has issued any control orders in the Sarnia area which would be a direct indication that those plants are in violation of their certificates of approval?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: I personally have not ordered the issuance of any control orders that I can recall since I became the minister. I have, however, indicated I am reviewing all the circumstances that exist at each one of those plants. Where it is determined that a certificate of approval is not tight enough, I want that certificate of approval tightened where necessary.

Where I feel a certificate of approval is not sufficient to ensure that the effluent going into the river is acceptable, then I will see that a control order is imposed. I will follow the new method that our ministry is following now of consulting the public before and during the process.

Mrs. Grier: I will accept the minister's statements of good intentions for the future, but let me ask him very specifically about Canflow, a company he has told this House is under investigation, but a company that is open today for business.

If the minister has the power to issue control orders, as he has just indicated to the member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt), can the minister please tell the House why he has not revoked the certificate of approval that has been issued to Canflow?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: It probably falls under the category of innocent until proven guilty. Until such time as we have sufficient evidence to take specific action --

Mr. Brandt: Now that the spills bill is proclaimed --

Mr. Speaker: Please disregard the interjections.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: The member is still defending the major polluters of the province.

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

TOYOTA PLANT

Mr. F. S. Miller: I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. We asked him a question yesterday about Hyundai and the reason he lost it. We got no answer, none at all. I want to talk today about Toyota. I am almost afraid to ask him whether he has been to Japan lately. One trip to Korea and we lost Hyundai. One trip to Japan may do the same.

Hon. Mr. Van Horne: I thought that is where the member was a couple of months ago.

Mr. F. S. Miller: I managed to bring a few deals back, my friend.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I believe I heard a question: "Were you in Japan lately?"

Mr. F. S. Miller: I did not finish, Mr. Speaker. I want to pose this question. What personal action is the minister undertaking right now to bring Toyota to Ontario?

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: Thank you for the question. To you, Mr. Speaker, my apologies for yesterday. They did provoke me, but I believe you are doing a great job and I am sorry for my part in what took place yesterday.

I would just tell the Leader of the Opposition that we are working night and day on this matter.

Mr. F. S. Miller: Let us be specific. When will the minister next be meeting with the people from Toyota? Will he report this to the House? Will he promote all communities in Ontario, not just a favoured few?

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: I can tell the Leader of the Opposition that, as I said, we are working literally night and day. As late as yesterday, my staff met again with the staff at Toyota and were meeting until late last night on that same project. We are working very hard.

Mr. Foulds: Can the minister tell us what criteria he is using to promote communities in Ontario for this kind of development?

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: I would be very pleased to. Unlike the federal government, I believe the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology in Ontario must make sure the site selection is made solely by Toyota. They have asked for locations, and our staff have given them assistance on any they have asked about. I have even asked that I should not be notified as to the locations they are looking at so the selection will not be biased in any way.

I can assure the member it is being dealt with in a very fair manner.

LEGAL FEES

Mr. Rae: I have a question for the Attorney General in his role as the guardian of the public interest in all matters relating in any way to the legal profession, which the Attorney General will know is a part of his responsibilities under the Law Society Act.

I have just received a letter from the treasurer of the Law Society of Upper Canada. It says that for lawyers who participate under the terms of a plan that would prepay legal services involving the United Auto Workers, Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, under the current circumstances their participation may constitute professional misconduct.

I assume every lawyer in the province got one of these letters.

Hon. Mr. Scott: I did not.

Mr. Rae: Maybe the Attorney General did not. They must have left him off the list. I do not know.

I would say to the Attorney General --

Mr. Speaker: By way of question.

Mr. Rae: -- as the guardian of the public interest with respect to matters of the legal profession, what does he intend to do about this kind of totally antediluvian attitude with respect to the reduction of legal fees in Ontario?

3 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Scott: I did not receive a copy of the letter. I presume it went only to relatively new Queen's counsels such as my learned friend, the leader of the third party.

I am aware of the content of the letter. As the honourable member will know, under the statute this House has passed, the passage of regulations relating to professional misconduct is the preserve of the Law Society of Upper Canada. I am looking at that act to determine whether it should be reviewed in the circumstances. When I have something to report to the House, I will do so.

I am conscious of the concern the leader of the third party has with respect to that letter. I am concerned about it myself and I am looking at the issue from the same perspective as he is.

Mr. Rae: I have no way of knowing since I have never understood the Attorney General's perspective.

Here we have an instance where a group of people have come together in an effort to reduce the burden of legal fees and provide affordable legal fees and services prepaid on an insurance basis. That is something all of us would like to encourage.

This is exactly the same kind of stunt that was pulled by medical associations when they were fighting medicare back in the 1950s and early 1960s. What is the Attorney General doing to stop this kind of intimidation, particularly of younger lawyers just starting out in the profession, and to make it clear to the law society that reduction in legal fees, prepaid legal services and insured legal services are the way of the future and not of the past?

Hon. Mr. Scott: I have told my honourable friend I am looking at it from precisely that perspective; slightly keyed down, I may say. I will report to him when I have something to report to the House.

Mr. Mancini: While I support the prepaid legal system that is to be set up and while I support the effort for lower legal fees and for making legal services available to the largest number of people, I want to ask the Attorney General --

Interjections.

Mr. Mancini: If members opposite would just hold it for a second, I would like to ask the Attorney General -- I guess members opposite are not interested.

Mr. Speaker: Place your question.

Mr. Mancini: I would like to ask the Attorney General whether he agrees with me that the policy of having a closed panel, where only a limited number of lawyers can be used by thousands of people, is detrimental to the public. Many members of the public may have an established relationship with lawyers who are not on the panel.

Hon. Mr. Scott: The problem presented by all these questions is that, on the one hand, we have the power under the Law Society Act of convocation of the law society to pass rules respecting professional conduct and misconduct. We have a rule the society has now passed, as that letter indicates, that some members feel may not represent sound public policy. I share their concern. We are looking at the question from that point of view. When we have made a decision as to the appropriate course, I will report to the House.

TEACHERS' LABOUR DISPUTE

Mr. Ferraro: My question is directed to the Minister of Education and pertains to the high school strike in my community of Wellington county which also affects the ridings of several other members. The strike is in its 46th instructional day. Quite honestly, it is a new experience for me and it is one I hope no member in this House ever has to experience again.

The ramifications are starting to tear my community apart. What can I tell the students and their families and those so seriously affected by this strike today? What can I find out from the minister about the course of action he is prepared to take to end this strike?

Hon. Mr. Conway: I thank my colleague the member for Wellington South for his question and his constant consultation on this difficulty in Wellington county.

Out of my concern for the welfare of the 8,200 secondary school students in Wellington county, I have this morning asked the Education Relations Commission to bring both parties in Wellington county to Toronto immediately so they can undertake intensive negotiation under the watchful eye of the mediator, Norman Bernstein. Under those conditions they can do what must be done to ensure that the best solution is achieved: namely, a locally negotiated settlement.

Mr. Ferraro: I thank the minister for his comments, but can he clarify for me, first of all, what authority we have? Can we actually force the people to come here to negotiate? Second, what is the timing? What does "immediately" specify?

Hon. Mr. Conway: I indicated to the Education Relations Commission that I wanted those parties brought to Toronto immediately, and I expect that intensive negotiations will be under way within 24 to 36 hours.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: I am pleased the minister has taken some action. I asked him that very question two weeks ago.

Having said that, my concern is that we had an election on November 12 and there has been quite a substantial change in the board. The new trustees do not take office until December 1. Is he dealing with the old board or the new board? Will the new board respect the wishes of the old board, which could not settle it in 18 months?

Hon. Mr. Conway: I have asked the representatives of both parties. The party for the board is the negotiating team from the board. The board is the board that is currently in place, and that is the old board.

I want to say to my friend from Mount Forest, out of respect for the many comments we have shared during these past weeks about this difficulty, that I cannot easily believe -- in fact, I do not want to believe at all -- that either party in the great county of Wellington is so insensitive to the situation in which those 8,200 students now find themselves that they will not, in the interests of those students and of local autonomy, get to this table and resolve this in their own way as quickly as they can so they can live with a settlement they work out. I am very confident about the good judgement and the good sense of the good people of Wellington county.

TRADE MISSION

Mr. Runciman: My question is to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. It deals with last week's trade mission to Israel and with the actions of its leader, the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Kwinter), better known as the minister of hot dogs and salami relations.

While that minister was in Israel, a Canadian newspaper revealed his hidden agenda: selling his family's meat products. How does the minister feel about his colleague using a trade mission paid for by Ontario taxpayers as a vehicle for selling his family's wares?

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: I have the highest regard and respect for the member and for the minister who led that delegation.

Mr. Runciman: With a token, that will not even get a ride on the subway. It is obvious that the operative words for this government are "incompetent" and "sleazy." This example of self-serving politics makes a joke of the minister and of the government.

Will the minister, whose colleague has abused his office at the expense of his brother's competition, assure this House that future trade missions will be on behalf of all Ontarians, not just the families of cabinet ministers?

3:10 p.m.

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: I can assure the member again that trade missions are always on behalf of all people in Ontario and Canada.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: Mr. Speaker, may I rise on a point of personal privilege? I think the members will agree I have had an attack made on me and I think I have a right to respond. That is the lowest thing I have seen in a long time.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Briefly, I would like to hear your point of privilege, yes.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: When I returned from my mission to Israel, I read comments made by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. F. S. Miller). I have never read a sillier comment, and now it has been followed up by my critic. I should tell the honourable member that number one, my brother's company has no jurisdiction to ship out of Ontario; so there is no reason I could have possibly sold it. Second, if the member knew anything about Jewish family life, he would know that I have a daughter in Israel and I took her two salamis as a present, period. That is the basis for the accusation, and I ask that the member withdraw it.

Some hon. members: Withdraw. Apologize.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Runciman: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege --

Mr. Speaker: On the same point, I hope.

Mr. Runciman: Yes, it is. This was the quote of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, and I think it should be read in response to what he was saying:

"I aim to expose Israeli palates to first-class Ontario meat products.... I simply defy anybody to sample Kwinter salami, hot dogs and pastrami and claim they have ever tasted any that are more delicious."

If that is not selling products of his family, I do not know what is.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. First of all, it is not a point of privilege --

Mr. Mancini: The member's leader would be proud of him.

An hon. member: The minister should pay for that trip.

Mr. Speaker: First of all, it is not a point of privilege. I think it is very close to a point of order. I do not know the exact words the minister requested be withdrawn. I was listening very carefully. I feel some very unfortunate comments were made regarding the government. I heard those. I also heard some comments that were very close to being very personal, insulting and abusive. I do not know the exact words. Can the honourable member help me?

Mr. Hennessy: Why are you asking him?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I do not remember the exact words, but one of them was certainly "sleazy."

Mr. Speaker: I heard that word particularly, and I listened very carefully. He said it was "a sleazy government."

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. My task is to listen, I hope carefully, to what is said. I remind all members that we are here as elected people, representing people, and I hope we will contain our language in a most civilized way.

The member for York South; a new question?

Mr. Rae: No, Mr. Speaker. I have a supplementary that I would like to redirect to the minister, because I do have a specific question that I want to ask him, with his permission.

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary?

Mr. Rae: To a question that was asked of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

Mr. Speaker: You will have to ask it of the minister, and he may redirect it.

Mr. Rae: I will ask it of the minister and ask him whether he can redirect it.

I have received concern expressed by the manufacturers and owners of companies that operate in direct competition with the Kwinter company with respect to the article that appeared in the Canadian Jewish News and the remarks attributed to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Would the minister like to clarify the purpose of his trip to Israel and can he explain the comments which have been attributed to him in the Canadian Jewish News? It is not a trivial matter.

Mr. Speaker: The question has been asked.

Mr. Rae: It is important. I have received complaints about it and I would like to get an answer from the minister.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I believe that was to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: I would be very pleased to redirect it.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: To answer the first question asked by the leader of the third party, the purpose of the trip was to lead a group of Ontario businessmen, who are in the high technology area, to Israel.

As to the comments, I must admit I have not read them, so I do not know. However, the specific situation is that I have a daughter who is a student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. When I went to see her, I decided to take something she could not get in Israel, some of my brother's products, two small salamis.

On the basis of that, I had an interview with Frank Rasky, who was on the trip and is still in Israel. I said, "I have to get to my brother's place because I have to get some salamis for my daughter." He asked, "Can I come along?" He went along on my visit to the plant and took the picture. I went to Israel and gave the salamis to my daughter, who gave them to her kibbutz parents, and they said, "Is that not great you are bringing us some products from Ontario?"

I would like to reiterate -- and this is absolutely essential -- in order to ship any product out of Canada, one must be inspected by the federal government. The Kwinter plant is not. Even if it wanted to, it could not ship, so it is a nonissue.

Mr. Martel: Now that we are rid of the baloney, I have a question that concerns my friend, Russell Ramsay-Wrye.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Polsinelli: On a point of order: As a new member of this House, perhaps the Speaker can give me an explanation. It seems to me that in the proceedings today a member from the opposition has impugned the personal integrity of a minister of the crown. The minister has asked for an apology and the opposition member has not delivered it. I would perhaps request an explanation regarding the procedure.

Mr. Speaker: I would like to inform the member that matter was being discussed a very short time ago. I felt I dealt with it, as I had to.

Mr. Polsinelli: With the greatest of respect, my question is directed --

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Harris: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.

Mr. Speaker: Is it on the same point, because I felt I dealt with that and I was not going to stop again at this point?

Mr. Harris: It is on a different one. We are in question period. We have gone now for about 10 minutes. The members of the government party continue to get up to eat up more time out of question period. You have already ruled there was no point of privilege or order, and I ask if you would add 10 minutes back on to question period.

3:20 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: I thank you for your point of view.

EMPLOYEE HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr. Martel: I want to question the Minister of Labour regarding Allied Heat Treat Ltd. Can the minister verify there are holes in the roof of that building due to the corrosive effect of cyanide salts? Can he verify there are no hoods or ineffective ones on 13 of the 15 furnaces, some of the hoods not being connected to anything? Is the minister aware the following substances are used: ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, polycyclic hydrocarbons, sodium and potassium cyanides, carbon monoxide, asbestos and sodium carbonate? Can the minister verify that the company dumps these untreated toxic wastes and the toxic liquids from the acids directly into the sewer? Finally, can the minister verify that there is no ventilation?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Minister?

Mr. Martel: If the minister can verify all these things, can he tell me what action --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Minister?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I am not sure which of his 16 questions the honourable member would like me to address, but in general, some of his suggestions appear to be wrong according to the latest information I have received from my inspectors from both the industrial health and safety branch and the occupational health branch who visited the plant on the Monday following the member's press conference. My colleague the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) and officials from his ministry also visited the Allied plant, but I have not received a report from him as to whether any such dumping is going on.

I will tell the member that a number of orders, although not for hoods, have been issued under section 145 of the regulations for personal protective equipment, quick-acting deluge showers and eyewash stations. Significant testing was done last Friday, because that was when the operation was fully up, as opposed to earlier in the week. We have placed the company on a three-month cycle, and we are undergoing an asbestos assessment. I believe a joint committee will be formed shortly.

Mr. Martel: I can show the minister the pictures. There are hoods that go nowhere. But be that as it may, given the fact I have photos of the interior of that building and given the fact these photos were taken only weeks after the minister's inspectors were in last year, can the minister tell me how his inspectors could miss all those violations and why the inspectors did not issue a single solitary order at that time? What the hell gives with that ministry anyway?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I want to share with my friend the fact that I have some of the same concerns about the visit last September --

Mr. Martel: Same old gang: they do nothing; they say nothing.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: Just hold on a minute. It occurred shortly after an anonymous individual called the ministry and raised these matters. The first indication I have is that a number of the matters the member raised at his press conference do have some substance to them. What this has pointed out, I believe, is that we may need some changes in the kind of personnel who are going in on various issues. We are taking a very careful and sympathetic look at that.

The inspector who came to the plant in September 1984 appears to have done as thorough a job as he was capable of. Whether that was thorough enough with respect to some of the issues that were raised by the anonymous call, I frankly question. That is why we are looking at having some different procedures and putting them in place very quickly. The issue of Allied raises a wider and more important issue.

Mr. Gordon: When is the Minister of Labour going to stop turning a blind eye to the kinds of infractions we have here in Ontario with regard to occupational health and safety?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I am almost astounded when I hear that kind of nonsense coming from that honourable member and from that party. I expect to announce very shortly some major reforms that are long overdue, long needed and were totally ignored by the official opposition when it was over here. There will be many more to come.

PSYCHIATRIC PATIENTS

Mr. Turner: I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Health. Since doctors have taken job action in various Ontario psychiatric hospitals in Whitby, Queen Street in Toronto, Hamilton, London and St. Thomas, will the minister be good enough to inform the House what action he is taking to ensure that psychiatric patients will receive the care they deserve despite the breakdown between his office and the physicians?

Hon. Mr. Elston: I thank the honourable gentleman for the question, but there has not been a breakdown between my office and the psychiatrists. He will know the psychiatrists have indicated they will be delivering service to their patients as usual. They are taking job action in respect of administrative items, but I have received assurances through the ministry staff that the patients being treated by psychiatrists at this point will continue to receive that treatment.

Mr. Turner: Is the minister going to take action and establish a framework so this kind of disruption of our province's psychiatric care system does not happen again?

Hon. Mr. Elston: I am not exactly sure what sort of disruption the gentleman means. If it is with respect to the administrative work, I can tell him I have met with a group of psychiatrists representing their colleagues and they have indicated to me that they are underpaid; that is the item at issue. I understand that when they were in negotiations they felt there were certain difficulties in the discussions with members of the government's settling committee -- not my staff, as was indicated earlier -- with respect to the manner in which the final amounts were worked out.

I cannot guarantee there will not be disagreements as to the amounts to be worked out in the future; however, I can tell the member and the people that the treatment and care of the patients in the province, which I am extremely concerned about, is being maintained by these people on a very high professional level and is not being affected by the current work disagreement.

Mr. Speaker: The time for oral questions has expired.

NUMBER OF QUESTIONS

Mr. Speaker: There have been some comments during this question period and others regarding the number of questions. I did a little research last week. I noted that we varied from six to 11 questions, other than the leaders' questions. When I did a little study of the questions that were actually asked, however, the number varied from 29 to 71, because many were two-part, three-part or four-part questions. If some of the members see me standing up in the future, I hope they will realize I am trying to keep them down to one-part questions.

Mr. Villeneuve: How many answers did you count?

Mr. Speaker: I have not done any research, but I will look at that too.

UNITED WAY CAMPAIGN

Mr. Speaker: The members may be interested to know that very recently we had a campaign in this building for funds for the United Way. The objective was $20,000. We reached $28,806, which is close to 50 per cent in excess. On behalf of all members, I would like to say thanks to those who contributed and to those who participated in the collection of the money.

Hon. Mr. Elston: Since we are extending thanks for participation in the United Way, I have received unofficial confirmation that the campaign for the United Way in the government of Ontario has exceeded its target of $1.2 million. That is an incredible commitment by the people who work in the government. I want to extend my thanks to those people and to the members who participated in a number of United Way events.

There will be an official, final accounting of everything that appeared within the government of Ontario with respect to the United Way fund-raising, but as the minister hosting the campaign this year, I want to express my pleasure for that incredible commitment by the people who work for the government of Ontario.

PETITION

MARKET VALUE ASSESSMENTS

Mr. Haggerty: I wish to table a petition, which reads as follows:

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

"We, the undersigned, as residents of Ontario, ask the Ontario government to rescind market value assessment."

3:30 p.m.

This is signed by 490 petitioners.

ANSWER TO QUESTION IN ORDERS AND NOTICES

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day, I wish to table the answer to question 78 standing in Orders and Notices [see Hansard for Friday, November 22].

MOTION TO SET ASIDE ORDINARY BUSINESS

Mr. Harris moved, seconded by Mr. Davis, that pursuant to standing order 34(a), the business of the House be set aside so that the House might debate a matter of urgent public importance, that being the acute situation affecting semester and full-year high school students in the county of Wellington as a result of a 10-week teachers' strike.

Mr. Speaker: This notice of motion was received at 11:55 a.m. It complies with standing order 34(a); so I will listen to the member for Nipissing for up to five minutes and to representatives from the other parties for the same length of time.

Mr. Harris: I will be relatively brief. I think there is much to debate and that a considerable number of members would like to enter into this debate this afternoon.

Forty-six days of school have been missed. We are talking about a semester school system for most of the children. We are talking about a strike starting two weeks after school had begun, a most critical and crucial time. We have asked question after question in this House to receive any kind of assurance from the Minister of Education (Mr. Conway) that: (a) he cares; and (b) he cares enough to get involved personally as the Minister of Education to try to bring these two sides together.

We have heard answers from the minister such as, "A negotiated settlement is the best solution." We all agree a locally negotiated settlement is the best solution, but it has been very apparent for some time now that a locally negotiated settlement is not forthcoming in this matter between this group of teachers and this board.

We have what is in effect a lame-duck board now because it has gone on so long. Had the minister intervened a month ago, perhaps pressure could have been brought to bear. I believe that had the minister taken a more personal interest, he could have brought more pressure to bear along those lines.

We heard from the minister that in Sudbury the strike went on for 56 days. As I understand it, that is essentially true; it did go on for 56 days in Sudbury. That was at the end of the year. The month of June, when not much instruction goes on, was included in that. The students were primarily on a full year, not on a semester year. I submit that 56 days in a full-year program might translate into the equivalent of 112 days in a semester program or, if one likes, that at 28 days one starts to enter into the same kind of jeopardy.

What has bothered me about the 56 days and the answers that have been coming back from the minister is that every situation is different. The minister has to look at the situation that existed in Wellington; he has to look at the likelihood of a settlement; he has to look at what kind of bargaining was going on or was not going on. It was an election year; that is something quite different. It was at the start of the year; that is something quite different. We were also dealing with semester students; again something that is quite different.

I got the distinct impression that this minister wanted to set a record, that perhaps he was shooting for 57 days. It bothered me when I heard this minister answer in that fashion. He will tell me I am wrong, but I caught the tone in his answers on many days when he talked about 56 days. I hope that was not the intent. I am sure it was not the intent of the minister, but it sounded that way.

Now we are dealing with a situation where parents do not know where to turn. This morning the minister indicated, perhaps in response to our notice for this emergency debate, that now, after 46 days, he has called the sides together for good-faith bargaining in Toronto. I am told that as of noon today, neither side in the Wellington-Grey strike had been contacted by the Education Relations Commission. I presume that at some time after the notice of motion went in, which was before noon, this was becoming an emergency that required the attention of this Legislature.

We need to hear today from the minister and the members who are representatives in this area as to the seriousness of the situation. I remind the minister that during the Sudbury strike, at some time around 42 days, his leader of the time started comments in the House something like, "Resign!" That was after 42 days. That is what the Liberal government said in Sudbury after 42 days. Another thing said by the then Liberal leader was, "Will she" -- the Minister of Education -- "impose compulsory arbitration there and in any other school strike in Ontario and bring such strikes, which are harmful to students, to an end?"

All we have asked for is the minister's interest, and I am ashamed it has taken this emergency debate today to bring the minister's interest to bear.

Mr. Allen: On behalf of the New Democratic Party in this House, I rise to state that we are not unwilling to have a debate proceed on this issue. I want to state immediately, however, that the reason we are taking this position is that a teachers' strike and the called-for legislative intervention raise very important issues and charges that always need discussion and questions that need answering.

This party has never been prepared to support arbitrary, third-party intervention or legislative termination of disputes. That does not mean we are not sensitive to the human issues involved in this event. It is true there are about 520 teachers who obviously are disaccommodated in their own way by their own actions in some respects but also by the actions of trustees. There are about 5,000 students and their parents who are upset by what is going on.

It is important for this Legislature to take a very deliberate and calm view and to ask itself what the long-term results of artificially and arbitrarily bringing a dispute of this nature to an end will have on the future of collective bargaining in a jurisdiction such as this. We know what the problems were prior to the introduction of Bill 100. We know that after the introduction of the procedures laid down by Bill 100, the circumstances surrounding collective bargaining improved dramatically, conflict was reduced and over the long haul there have been fewer strikes.

3:40 p.m.

With respect to the specific situation, let me observe there is still the making of a local solution. For example, the neighbouring Grey-Bruce board has come to a tentative agreement. That should provide a good example. The issues were monetary and very similar, and the boards are very similar in their demography and legislative grant situations and so on.

Second, last Sunday Mr. Nelson offered a proposal which was tabled for the two parties. The teachers said it seemed to them to be a good basis upon which to resume negotiations and it was one that came close to meeting their needs.

I would submit that suggests the board itself ought to be looking at getting back into active negotiation. I was pleased to hear that the minister himself is bringing the parties together at a propitious time such as this to encourage them to proceed towards a locally determined solution.

Third, there are major changes in the school board in that area. About 10 or 11 of the trustees are new and the chairman himself, a pretty hard-liner on this dispute, went down to defeat. I think a public judgement has been given to the board that the public wants it to get back to the negotiating table. They will probably heed that, certainly with the minister's assistance.

The Education Relations Commission, to my knowledge, has been very actively involved in this dispute. They have a policy, which is very wise, that local disputes should be locally resolved. They do not want to go back to that first year under Bill 100 in which there were six or seven disputes and all of them were resolved by legislation. This House got caught up in dispute after dispute. They do not want to return to that and this party does not want to return to that situation either.

While we may feel very strongly and deeply about the plight of the students and about the difficulties they will have in meeting the demands of their year, it seems to us it is not the better part of wisdom to proceed as a Legislature to force the parties back to the table in an artificial and arbitrary way. Because the issues are so important and because they are ones we do need to wrestle with and for which we need to give public explanation, this party feels we are prepared to see this debate proceed.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: We are certainly not unwilling that this debate proceed. I just want to point out, as has been pointed out by other members, that this strike has gone on for a large number of days. A problem I experience as House leader is that, while I think it falls into all the categories one would be looking for, from my point of view, this is an inconvenient day.

We have one day of the week for legislation. Monday we do estimates, Thursday we do private members' business and Friday we do estimates. This is the one day we do legislation, and there are very important things with which we want to proceed. However, if I am asked specifically, I believe the application and the motion fall within the ambit of the rules and we are not unwilling that the debate proceed. My point is that yesterday or Thursday would have been preferable.

Mr. Speaker: I have listened carefully to the three members who have spoken and, as I said earlier, the motion was placed in my office on time. I do have some question because I believe one of the criteria is that if this matter cannot be adequately raised on other occasions, this is the place and time to do it. It has been raised quite a number of times in question period; however, it appears that all members are in favour of having the debate continue. Therefore, I will place the question, shall the debate proceed?

Motion agreed to.

COMMITTEE SITTING

Hon. Mr. Nixon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Under the rules the standing committee on social development will not be able to commence its hearing this afternoon unless the House either by unanimous consent or by motion approved of its doing so. The committee is dealing with Bill 30 and has delegations that are already awaiting the committee. I believe there is consent among all parties that the committee proceed in another place. Is it sufficient that there be unanimous consent here and a motion is, therefore, not required?

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: I understand the House will give unanimous consent to the request that the committee may continue and sit this afternoon.

TEACHERS' LABOUR DISPUTE

Mr. Davis: This strike began on September 16, 1985, and 46 days of school have now been missed. I understand the two sides last met on November 10 to consider the mediator's proposal. Neither side found the proposal acceptable. There is no scheduled date for any other meeting, except that we have been informed the minister finally decided to take some action as of 12 noon and has asked the two sides to meet with him.

According to the chairman of the board, Paul Nelson, the board does not know whether the mediator will return. Mr. Nelson says the school year is in severe jeopardy and describes the situation as tragic. He feels the government should have intervened some time ago, and I agree with him that the government has let this strike go on too long. He spoke to the Minister of Education (Mr. Conway) last night and the minister still refused to intervene; although again, as I said, at 12 o'clock -- my notes are out of date -- he did agree to meet.

The communities, the teachers, the students and we on this side of the House are disturbed at the attitude of the minister, especially in the light of his remarks a couple of years ago, when he stated in this House that teachers should not have the right to strike. In the words of the director of education, Mr. Forsythe, this issue is standing still.

The board has requested that the Education Relations Commission hold jeopardy hearings to determine whether the students are in jeopardy of losing their school year. I would point out to the House and to my colleagues that this question was raised on this side of the House. We received no direct answer from the Minister of Education.

We asked the Premier (Mr. Peterson) to intervene, as he intervened in the transit strike here in Toronto and as he suggested he would intervene in the transit strike in Mississauga, to take a personal stance in this particular situation. He refused to answer the question. It is apparent, in my opinion, that the students are in jeopardy of losing their school year.

The chairman of the board wrote to the chairman of the ERC, Dr. Bryan Downie, on November 1. On November 12 there was a request that hearings be held. On November 18 the director of education for the Wellington County Board of Education wrote to the chief executive officer of the ERC, Mr. Field, to reiterate the request for jeopardy hearings. The board received a request for further information from the ERC but has heard nothing else. This only goes to illustrate that the ERC, because of the kind of guidelines under which it operates, becomes an ineffective instrument in situations like this.

The board has not yet taken the time to discuss methods of saving the students' year. It has been concentrating on trying to resolve the strike, and any method of saving the students' year would be determined by the date on which the teachers finally return to work.

I would point out that five of the nine secondary schools of the board are on the semestered system. Arthur District High School has 316 students, Centennial Collegiate and Vocational Institute in Guelph has 1,570 students, Erin District High School has 428 students, Guelph Collegiate and Vocational Institute has 1,600 students and Mount Forest District High School has 303 students, for a total of some 4,200 students who are on semestered programs.

I do not think it is important to point out to the minister what a semestered school system is, but for clarification to my colleagues in the House, and maybe for further edification of the minister, I should do so. A semestered school is based on the presumption that the student will finish four credits -- he could take five, but normally he takes four -- from the beginning of the school year to the end of January and another four from February 1 to the end of the school year.

3:50 p.m.

The Education Act requires that a student take 120 hours in order to receive a credit. The students have missed roughly 10 weeks of schooling already. A student does six hours of a credit per week. That student has already lost 60 hours of his credit. I understand the formula for granting credits is that there is a 60 per cent mandated kind of criterion a teacher must fulfil and the other 40 per cent can be fulfilled with a teacher's own expertise and creativity.

Those students at a semestered school in Wellington county have already been placed in jeopardy. They have lost more than the 60 per cent that is required for a credit. The minister sat there the other day and heard his own colleagues, the member for Wellington South (Mr. Ferraro), the member for Grey-Bruce (Mr. Sargent) and the member for Grey (Mr. McKessock), point out that the universities and the colleges in this province have said those students will not be treated with the same equity any other student will be treated with in this province when they make application for university or college entrance. The minister must be concerned.

When one talks about quality of education and equal opportunity, those 4,200 students no longer have equal opportunity and they will be unjustly treated. The minister refused to say what kind of action he would take on behalf of those students to gain admittance for them to the universities.

When two sides are arguing and there is no agreement and no forthcoming decision, it is the student who suffers. The Minister of Education's primary responsibility in this province is not to ensure that negotiations continue on for ever, but to ensure the students' welfare and wellbeing. I dare say the minister has abdicated that responsibility.

I could quote from the member for Kitchener-Wilmot (Mr. Sweeney), who was once the Education critic on this side of the House, when he spoke to the then Minister of Education in the Sudbury strike after 47 days and asked for that minister's resignation. I will not do that. What I would like to say to the minister is that to be Minister of Education in this province means more than having a name on the door. It means more than having a title. It means more than consulting with the officials of the ministry and with the Education Relations Commission. It means imagination, creativity, vision and decision.

I believe the minister is well enough informed to realize that those students have been placed in jeopardy. He should not and must not find himself pulled and bound by federations of this province or by his colleagues on the opposite side, who fear any kind of legislation that orders people back to work.

I would point out to the Liberals on the other side, who purport to be the government, that when they sat on this side of the House during strikes they continually pleaded with the Conservative government of those days to bring in binding arbitration to end strikes.

I suggest to the minister in all due respect that he read the comments of his colleagues and of the former leader of the Liberal Party, Stuart Smith, on the strike in Sudbury in 1980. In one of those statements he asked: "Does the present minister have to wait for someone to tell him when a student's year is in jeopardy? Can he not demonstrate some initiative and leadership in this matter?"

I would urge the minister at this point, after he meets with the representatives of the board and of the teachers' organizations, not just to urge them, but to inform them that if they cannot bring a resolution to this matter by the end of this week he will come to this House and ask this House to order those teachers back to work. In those villages and towns there is resentment and concern. I wish to end by pointing out to the minister that the important persons are being forgotten.

On television the other night a young girl sang a song asking the government whether it had forgotten about students. I would say the present government has forgotten about students in this province and especially the 8,000 students in Wellington county.

Mr. Allen: I would like to expand on the comments I made earlier in supporting the decision of the House to hold a debate on this subject.

The question that has to be addressed is not simply a question as to whether the students are now in a position of some difficulty. I think everybody, including the minister and the Education Relations Commission that monitors this matter on a day-by-day basis, is quite aware that students in Wellington county are not having an easy time of it with regard to their year's prospects. There is no question about that.

The question that has to be decided in the minds of members of the House is what will be the long-run impacts upon collective bargaining, in the education field and more broadly, of this House moving into disputes of this kind and legislating an end to the conflict. It would be very easy. The calls for intervention in such disputes begin almost on the days the strikes occur.

Recently, I have been through such a strike in Hamilton. It began late in the last academic year and went on through the rest of the academic year and for much of the summer. The public in Hamilton, the parents in particular, sat on the edges of their seats wondering just what the disposition of that strike was going to be. As it turned out, there was a local solution, not without the encouragement and involvement of the Education Relations Commission and the careful watching of the ministries of the day.

A local solution was achieved and the Hamilton educational scene is much healthier, happier and more stable for that having been the way in which that dispute was resolved. Although there was a lot of acrimony in the course of that conflict, at this point feelings are very much assuaged. They have worked themselves out. The process of local resolution has produced a kind of catharsis.

That is the way we should go if at all possible. There may come a time when intervention from the Legislature is called for, but at this point we are not anywhere near that position.

In all honesty, one has to give the new board and the new trustees a chance. As I indicated in my earlier remarks, the recent civic elections have virtually worked a revolution in that board. In one way or another, they have disposed of more than half of the trustees. A new chairman will be produced. The chairman himself went down to defeat in that contest. It would be an unfortunate circumstance for us to put the new board and new trustees in a position where they will be compromised by legislative intervention, where they will be seen not to be able to resolve a local dispute.

It would make a great deal of sense for the Legislature to back off from the issue. If one thing is certain, it is that this constant suggestion, intimation, proposal and challenge to the minister to intervene, produces on the part of sitting trustees an attitude of simply waiting for perhaps another few days or for another week or two or perhaps longer for the intervention that will surely come, an attitude that surely one can count on the minister, as a caring minister, not to stand by the wayside and let this thing simply roll on and on and students be submerged by the juggernaut of encounter that has taken place in the local board.

4 p.m.

That is not the psychology we in this Legislature wish to promote among the boards and the trustees across this province. As sure as anything is certain, if the Legislature begins to intervene in disputes of this kind that is what will happen. We shall promote that kind of mentality.

As I also suggested in my earlier remarks, there are other reasons to think the dispute may well be near resolution, not just the example I indicated of the neighbouring county which is also suffering a strike. It is a similar county in many respects; the teachers are not striking for precisely the same contract, but for issues very like those in Wellington county.

Both sets of teachers are essentially arguing they should receive at least the average wage teachers across the province receive. It is surely a reasonable argument. In the case of Grey-Bruce, they are suggesting an average across-the-contract package which meets that kind of scale. With respect to the Wellington county teachers, their objective is to secure at the end of the term of the contract they are negotiating a rate of pay equal to the average across the province as a whole.

Those are not extravagant demands. They are ones a self-respecting board really ought to try to meet. Yet the board in question, unfortunate to say, has tended to negotiate downwards from the average, rather than trying to bring its teachers up to the average. I do not think that is a posture we would want to encourage.

Taking the kind of action that is being promoted by this kind of constant questioning in the Legislature, holding out the possibility the government might intervene, holding an emergency debate that would try to press it in that direction, hoping the ministry will intervene in that fashion, simply does not work towards either a just solution or an appropriately contrived local solution. On most of the counts on which one would wish to discuss this particular dispute, intervention or termination by the Legislature would certainly be a most unfortunate precedent for this new government to embark upon.

The processes by which dispute resolution takes place in the educational community in this province have been worked out very carefully. They are ones with a step-by-step procedure and at every step it is possible for a reference to third-party resolution and what have you. There are a great many mechanisms available to both boards and trustees on the one hand and teachers on the other.

In addition to those devices, there sits at the cap of it all an Education Relations Commission. It is not simply a body. I know we do not hear from it a lot. Even as these disputes go on, one does not hear in the news every day that the Education Relations Commission or some of its staff have been out in the field doing this or that, have been on the telephone conversing with this or that party, urging this or that, or that it has even been responsible for the appointment of the fact-finder, mediator, etc., that goes into the whole process of dispute resolution. Yet that activity goes on constantly through a dispute such as this and has been going on in the case of the Wellington county board.

The ERC is monitoring the dispute day by day. It has been receiving occasional representations from local citizens and others, arguing it should consider the students are indeed in jeopardy. As a knowledgeable group, familiar with the situation and aware of the possibilities of local resolution and ail the rest of it, it has concluded the students' academic years are not in jeopardy at this point.

The students themselves have had the opportunity to attend school on a periodic basis and to get assistance from substitute teachers and others provided by the board to give them suggestions about how they might approach their studies and keep their work up to date. No one would suggest that is an adequate and complete solution to the problems they have in the midst of a strike situation.

A commission headed by Dr. Burt Matthews five years ago reviewed all those procedures very carefully and came to the conclusion they were adequate to the task at hand; namely, monitoring, supervising and judging the progress and impact of local strike situations in the education community. It therefore seems to me most ill-advised for this House to urge the minister to intervene arbitrarily and frame back-to-work legislation to move those teachers back into the classrooms.

Hon. Mr. Conway: I cannot say it is a pleasure for me to participate in this debate, because, quite frankly, I am not happy that the situation has developed to the point where members of this Legislature feel that a debate of this kind is necessary. Let me say that most sincerely at the outset.

Mr. McLean: It is different when one is over here.

Hon. Mr. Conway: That is true.

I respect what the opposition House leader has to say, because he had long experience in matters of education before his election to the Legislature in 1981, but I do not accept the comment he made some moments ago about there being something in the tone of my voice that led the opposition House leader, and perhaps some of his colleagues, to think that somehow I intended to set a record for instructional days lost in Wellington county. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that is absolutely not true, and I deeply regret that any member of the House would conclude that on so tenuous a ground as the tone of the minister's voice.

The member for Scarborough Centre (Mr. Davis), who I know has left the assembly to retire to the standing committee on social development to do his duty there -- and I accept that -- has made his comments. I note as well that he seems to feel that somehow this minister has not been interested in or concerned about what has developed in the counties of Grey and Wellington during the past number of weeks. That is just not true.

My colleagues the member for Wellington South, the member for Grey, the member for Grey-Bruce, and yes, my good friend the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel (Mr. J. M. Johnson), have almost on a daily basis impressed upon me their deeply held concern about the growing impact of these two disputes in their counties. I have been listening to what the members have been saying, and I want those members and this House to know that.

I have some personal sensitivity to the difficult situation in which they now find themselves, because some seven or eight years ago, in the spring and early summer -- but largely in the spring of 1978 -- as a private member I experienced a secondary school dispute in my own county. I can say from personal experience that I have some feeling for the pressure under which the honourable members find themselves.

As I indicated to the House today, I have been in communication with the chairman of the Education Relations Commission as recently as this morning, and I have asked him to bring both parties in Wellington to Toronto immediately so they can undertake intensive negotiations under the able leadership of Norman Bernstein, the ERC mediator in Wellington, and under the watchful eye of the commission and of the minister to see whether we cannot do what we all must know is the best thing in the Wellington dispute, and that is to arrive at a locally negotiated settlement.

I hear what my friends in the Progressive Conservative Party say when the member for Scarborough Centre draws to my attention the pain and difficulty that the 8,200 students are experiencing; I know what they are saying and I hear it very clearly. But as I said to my friend from Mount Forest earlier this afternoon in question period, surely other people who have a mandate under our system and under our legislation are listening very carefully.

4:10 p.m.

I cannot believe, because I know Wellington county too well for this, that the duly elected members of the old board and the members of the new board, as with every member of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation negotiating team, are not listening, are not watching and are not feeling what those communities and those students are experiencing.

In regard to the educational situation of the 8,200 students in Wellington, I cannot believe the good people of that county, as represented on the two negotiating teams, are not prepared to do what their neighbours next door in Grey did last Friday night, which is to work it out together. I have too strong an opinion about the good judgement and the good sense of the people of Wellington county, as represented on the two negotiating teams, ever to believe they want the pain and the suffering, to which the member for Scarborough Centre and others have so eloquently referred, to carry on.

As has been noted by the previous speaker, we have had more than 10 years' experience with Bill 100. It is not perfect, to be sure, but it has resolved far more than it has left undone. We know from 10 years' practical experience that if one really wants the issues that lead to the dispute in the first place to be resolved and not to reappear in a year's time, it is absolutely essential that both the parties, recognizing all the local situations, work it out between themselves, and then very carefully monitor the situation it is true.

I chatted last evening for some many minutes with Mr. Paul Nelson of the Wellington county board and I hope I made it as clear as I can possibly make it that this minister expects responsible local authority, to wit in this case both negotiating teams in Wellington county, to get on with their job in the interests of their community. Some say, "It cannot and will not happen," but people were saying that of Grey last week and they worked it out in Grey county. I am sure it was not easy, but they worked out a tentative settlement that is to be ratified by both parties tomorrow evening.

The member for Scarborough Centre talked about jeopardy. The member is a very experienced politician in school board issues, and I have a lot of respect for his experience and the judgement he has developed from that kind of experience, but he knows what the legislation says about the jeopardy process. There is a clear responsibility placed on the shoulders of the Education Relations Commission to make a finding of jeopardy. As of this day, November 19, the ERC has not made a finding of jeopardy in Wellington.

I do not want to be provocative, because I might elicit very incisive intelligence from my friend the member for Burlington South (Mr. Jackson). If I did wish to be provocative, I could recall to mind for the benefit of the official opposition the reality of Renfrew in 1978 and of Sudbury in 1979-80, where a finding of jeopardy was made by the ERC. The then Minister of Education said, "I do not intend to intervene, because I want both parties to work this out between themselves," and in Renfrew county they did work it out after a finding of jeopardy was made. It is very important that we understand our responsibility, that we follow practices and procedures that have in the vast majority of situations in this province over the last 10 to 11 years resolved these, I will admit sometimes very difficult situations.

This minister shares the concern of his colleagues the member for Wellington South, the member for Grey, the member for Grey-Bruce and certainly the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel.

I want a resolution as quickly as possible, but I am under no illusions about the best solution. It is the one that I continue to emphasize as the preferred course of action. That is why I expect, within the next 24 hours to 36 hours, when both parties from Wellington gather together under the watchful eye of the Education Relations Commission, they will be very anxious to get on with their job in the interest of their students and their communities. Under that condition, this situation will be solved by them, not just for today but for the longer term.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: I hope the watchful eye will be the minister's eye and no one else's.

I have concerns that we are dealing with -- if I can use the term -- a lame-duck board and not the new board, which will not take office until December 1. I feel this strike is not going to be resolved by the old board. It has not done so in the last 18 months and I see no possibility of a change coming now.

The minister has encouraged me for the past several weeks to be patient; that a locally negotiated settlement is best. I would appreciate and even hope that such a thing would happen, but unfortunately it has gone on too long. Both parties are too set in their ways and they are not going to give. I do not see it happening.

We are simply denying the students of Wellington any hopeful means of achieving this school year. We are driving some of them out of the school system. They will never return and we have to accept the responsibility for doing that by abiding by a piece of legislation that possibly needs some changes.

We have 4,217 students in the semester program. After 46 days, the minister would have to agree there is not much hope they can make up this year. If they do, then the school may be meaningless. What do they teach them?

I have had letters from young people and their parents pleading with us to solve the problem, to get both sides together. The minister, on many occasions, has told the members who represent Wellington and Grey that we should exert pressure at the local level. We have, on a continuous basis, tried our best to encourage both sides to give and neither side will budge.

We have a position that is not going to be resolved unless the minister takes action. Two weeks ago, I requested he invite both sides to sit down with him, possibly not together, but on an individual basis. He could listen to their presentations and decide in his own wisdom if either side appeared to be willing to compromise in any meaningful way. The minister has suggested that the negotiator, Mr. Bernstein, is now going to supervise this hearing or meeting that will be coming up. He has not been able to solve any of the problems to date, and I do not think he is going to be the one who can do it now.

I appeal to the minister once more that it is his responsibility as Minister of Education to provide the opportunity to the young people of Wellington to have access to education that is being denied them now. All members of this House can take credit for the good points and the bad points of the legislation we have now, but it is not satisfactory to solve the problem we have.

4:20 p.m.

I asked the minister several weeks ago if he would give consideration to setting up an all-party committee to review Bill 100 and the Morrison report with the hope of making some small amendments or changes to the legislation that would allow more protection for the rights of the students.

Under the bill we have given many rights to the teachers and the board, but we have totally ignored the concerns of the students who are paying the price for this controversy. It is my feeling we should have an all-party committee review it. We should listen to both sides of the issue as well as to representations from the parents and the students.

The strike is in Wellington county today; it is still in Grey county. We hope it will be resolved tomorrow, but on another day and at another time it is going to be another county. It is an ongoing problem we are going to have to face. I feel there has to be a better mechanism of solving problems of this nature without making our young people pay the price.

I said to the minister that we introduced legislation that guaranteed every child in this province an education that would meet the expectations of his or her parents. That came into play this September. I do not think my people in Wellington county feel there is anything of that nature in existence today.

We also have legislation that requires young people to attend school until they are 16 years of age. As I mentioned earlier, we have the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I ask the minister to have the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) determine whether the students are being deprived of their rights by Bill 100.

It is time we took a look at the legislation. Maybe there is no other mechanism that can replace it, maybe it is the best we can draft; however, I do not think there is anything wrong in taking a look at any piece of legislation every 10 years or so to see if we cannot update it to meet the needs of the changing society we live in.

I would like to mention that I have received countless petitions and resolutions from the municipalities in Wellington county. The one I will quote is from the Wellington county council.

"That the Wellington county council supports the stand of the provincial members of the Legislature in this area and requests the province of Ontario to hold a jeopardy hearing regarding the status of secondary education in the counties of Wellington and Grey, and that the resolution be circulated to the Premier of Ontario, the Minister of Education and all members of Parliament concerned."

Similar resolutions were endorsed in nearly every municipality in my riding. The town of Durham in Grey county passed a similar resolution that nearly all the municipalities endorsed as well.

There is a tremendous feeling of hostility in the county that the students have to go through this type of exercise. We seem to have lost sight of the fact that education is basically zeroed in on the students. I fail to understand how we as legislators can live with a piece of legislation that does not give more rights to the students of this province.

I believe one of the problems we have is that since it happens only occasionally and each member perhaps has to go through it once, we are not as concerned about it as we would be if we felt it would be a repetitious event. However, going through it once is once too often. I went through it with the Peel board a few years ago; this is my second time around. I feel the time has come at least to look at changing the legislation to better reflect the position of protection for the students.

I submit that the minister, the Premier, the Wellington County Board of Education and the Ontario Teachers' Federation have all failed the students of Wellington county in their joint responsibility to provide access to an education to these young people.

We have to make a substantial change in a very short time. If we do not make the move until the new board comes into place on December 1, the minister will have to assume responsibility for having failed the children of my county.

Mr. Mackenzie: I want to make a few brief remarks in this debate; I had not intended to do so earlier, but it is one that is close to my heart.

To begin with, anybody who has concern for people and for the institutions in his community is always going to agonize over difficult labour situations. I have never questioned that the process may have to be looked at from time to time and may have to be adjusted occasionally. The problem I have found in my career in the labour movement up until now is that very few organizations of workers, whether they be industrial trade unions or teachers' organizations, feel there is objective fairness and equity in any enforced settlement.

I also sometimes wonder why, when we get into trouble like this, the call is always for the government to order the teachers back to work. I sometimes wonder what would happen and what would be the attitude of the boards towards settlements in situations like this if the minister had the authority to order from time to time that the contract demands of the teachers be implemented. I suspect one or two examples like that would very quickly change the attitude of a recalcitrant board. I do not know whether that has been done in this province, but I do know of a number of cases where workers have been ordered back to work.

I submit to the members of this House, and with respect to some of my Tory colleagues, that we are reaping some of the results of a rather disastrous last few years of ordering workers back to their jobs. I can think of teachers, transit workers and any number of groups the Conservative government ordered back to work, in at least one case before the strike had even started. As a result, I can also recall that the destruction of collective agreements through restraint legislation did not add to the respect that workers have for free collective negotiation.

When one has a government that has been very free in the last few years to order workers back to work, which certainly does undermine the entire free collective bargaining process, it does not build up one heck of a lot of respect, and it sets some very dangerous precedents, which are what concern me. If we indicate, as we have, that when the going gets a little bit tough we are willing to deny the whole free collective bargaining process and order workers back to work, then there is no incentive, or very little incentive, for a board to reach settlements.

As I say, I do not like a long, difficult labour situation any more than any other person in here. Maybe one gets a little better perspective if on one or two occasions in one's lifetime one has been involved in and has had to tough out a fairly long labour dispute. However, I give the minister and the government credit up until now for trying, I hope, to reverse the process we went through with the previous government during the last few years of immediately ordering workers back to work -- in some cases, as I say, very quickly -- and for trying instead to make the parties realize that today one has to give the free collective bargaining process the opportunity to work and that this has to be understood as the route we are going to go.

The government may go through a couple of rough periods until that feeling is re-established and some trust in that process is re-established, but once that has happened we will see that only in an extremely explosive situation will the sides dig in, as seems to have happened here.

I think the government is right in calling the two sides together; that is a move with which I have no difficulty. However, I would hate to see the policy of the previous government reopened by this government in terms of ordering workers back to work immediately there is any trouble.

4:30 p.m.

Mr. Ferraro: Perhaps much to the chagrin of my good friend the Minister of Education, I am grateful to the members of this House for allowing this debate to continue. It is selfish for me to say that, because it is an experience I am having for the first time. Many members have experienced it many times.

The reality of the situation is in all probability one of the worst experiences any member could have. The philosophy being expressed today by various members can be debated at length, some might say ad nauseam. My philosophy on this issue would bore some of the members as well. The realities do not leave much room for philosophy.

The realities of the situation are that I have a divided community. I am sure my friends the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel and the member for Grey fully realize the wounds are extremely deep. I have teachers crying in my office. I have parents, children, people who have had to change churches because they cannot go there and talk to their friends. I have neighbours, politicians and municipal and township councils that are not talking. I have had strong labour collective bargaining rights activists tell me the only solution is legislation.

It is unfortunate that we have two sides in the situation, both of extremely high intelligence, an elected body on one side and a professional group on the other, and after 18 or 21 months they cannot come up with a solution. However, the reality is that the buck stops here.

The minister and this House know that, selfishly perhaps, I have advocated the teachers should not have the right to strike. It is not the position of the minister, and I respect that. In my heart, I know he is right, because in the present system that would complicate future negotiations. If a government gives the right to strike and then legislates people back too quickly all it is doing is saying it has a new agenda and that is to legislate strikes.

I have some difficulty with where this House exercises its right, quits passing the buck and takes a position. When it comes to our children, all members will agree it is a responsibility that has to stand in the forefront.

How does one speak to a kid -- as I did last night when I went to buy a hamburger, going to my office to answer about 50 or 60 calls -- who says, and this is the attitude now: "You might as well take your time and not worry about legislating them back to work. I am in grade 13, and quite frankly I cannot apply for university because in my heart I know I do not have the education"? One runs out of rhetoric.

What does one say to a taxpayer who says: "You collect taxes from me, and there is a law that they have to go to school, but there is another that says people in capacities to teach have the right to strike. I respect the law; however, one law negates the effect of the other"?

I do not want to argue philosophy here, but the system is wrong. There is no question the system needs changing, whether by an all-party committee or not. It is an inconsistency that there are mediators from the Education Relations Commission who are paid by the hour. The perception may be misleading, but that is reality.

It is distasteful, indeed dreadful, that students have to go around in a state of complete disillusionment and apathy. Some have quit school. I had a call the other day about one student who ran away. In my view, it has gone beyond the point of rhetoric. Perhaps selfishly, I say something has to be done.

I am grateful to the minister for the support he has given. I am grateful he has taken the action he did today. I am hopeful that cooler minds will prevail, that sensitivities will prevail. The unfortunate thing about it is the timing. There is a board that is fixed, there is an election and there is a system that demands time; but there is another system, and indeed there are lives, that do not have that time to give.

Let me conclude by saying I wholeheartedly endorse any action the minister takes. I am appreciative of the decision he has made today and hopeful that a resolution will come. I have my doubts in the light of what I have experienced and what I know. Perhaps it is presumptuous on my part, but I am quite concerned as to how the system can be changed and, more important, how I and the people in my constituency can begin to heal the wounds that are so deep.

Mr. Jackson: I would like to acknowledge the member for Wellington South and the very sensitive and obviously heartfelt comments he has made in the House. I dare say they are similar in nature to the ones from the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel on our side of the House. The honourable member raised the most important issue and is probably one of the few speakers on that side of the House who has addressed the very important issue of what is happening to the students in Wellington county.

I was concerned that he required a question during question period to his own minister on this very important issue. I was equally concerned that after November 1, when there was the first evidence from his local jurisdiction that a resolution was being sought from the Education Relations Commission, the new Minister of Education in his wisdom chose to wait 18 days before reacting to that in a meaningful or even positive way.

4:40 p.m.

I am concerned that the member has such deep feelings about his party's position in this matter. I deeply miss the attendance in this House of Mr. Elgie, and on behalf of my party, I quite openly invite the member, because we agree on that very important issue, to join us on the very important point of who in this House is speaking on behalf of the children of Wellington county for an immediate and direct resolution.

I am impressed by the new Liberal government and its ability to procrastinate on this issue. I am equally impressed by the New Democratic Party's ability to posture on the issue. We have heard very eloquently from my colleague on the standing committee for social development, the member for Hamilton West (Mr. Allen), who was prepared to raise the issue in debate today, but quickly hastened to add that his party has never been a party to support third-party or legislative intervention.

Mr. McClellan: That is right; that is what he said.

Mr. Jackson: One of the few times I listen is when an education-related matter comes from the NDP caucus.

Following those comments, he went into a grand discussion about free collective bargaining in this province. In the midst of a crisis in education in this part of the province, he wants to have an ethereal discussion in this House about Bill 100 and the workings of the Matthews commission on school board-teacher relations.

Mr. Foulds: You want to abrogate the legislation.

Mr. Jackson: The Matthews commission was a document and a review of Bill 100. I know; I was a trustee of the Halton Board of Education for 10 years and chairman of the salary negotiating committee for six years. I was appointed to serve on a committee to make recommendations to the then minister. Unfortunately, the areas of jeopardy, of third-party intervention, the point at which a student's education is in jeopardy, were not given justice by the other two political parties of that day.

Mr. McClellan: We were not the government.

Mr. Foulds: I thought the Tories were the government.

Mr. Jackson: Of course we were.

Mr. Foulds: And what did you do?

Mr. Jackson: The New Democratic Party has said that it was encouraged -- in fact, relieved -- that the trustees had moved on this important issue. This is further evidence of the fact. No reference to any movement on the part of the --

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Morin): Would the member please address the chair?

Mr. Jackson: Thank you.

Mr. McClellan: He is attacking Tom Wells.

Mr. Jackson: The New Democratic Party clearly stands for the labour components of this crisis and not on behalf of the children of Wellington county. The Liberal Party appears to stand for everybody, and in the process is standing for no one. Only on this side of the House have we raised the important issue of who is standing on behalf of the children.

There is only one issue, which is that in any conflict worthy of a resolution the students must continue to receive their education. In all efforts by this House, in this debate, in the minister's activity -- and I would ask his colleagues to advise him of my suggestions since he has left the House -- we should do all in our power to ensure that their post-secondary education is not in jeopardy.

Finally, I reiterate, on behalf of the students of Wellington county, that I encourage the member for Wellington South to join with the voices from members on this side of the House who are speaking his message backed up with our convictions.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Grey-Bruce.

Mr. Andrewes: Come on, get your act together over there.

Mr. Sargent: Look who is talking.

While the clock is ticking, 13,000 of our kids are in a grave chance of losing their year. Time is of the essence. I think of the doctor in Owen Sound who gave a guy three months to live. The guy did not pay his bill; so the doctor gave him another three months. We do not have that luxury here.

Mr. Andrewes: Was he opted out?

Mr. Sargent: The information out is that Grey has been settled. With all respect to the minister, we hope he is right when he says that. The Education Relations Commission was involved with a commitment from the four members concerned, the member for Grey, the member for Wellington South the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel and myself. We had an understanding with the ERC that it would make a movement prior to tomorrow, at which point there would be more positive action on behalf of the government members on this matter. It would seem the ERC has moved in on Grey, and there is a tentative agreement which is not approved by the board.

This is for the record only, to say that I trust the man who heads the ERC. He gave me the belief he has things in hand. We hope he has.

In so far as the problems in Wellington go, there are real problems with a new board coming on there. Whether the new board will assume the obligations of the old board is a tough matter for the minister and the member to sort out. At two o'clock today, our very able minister -- I will tell members how able he is: he called me one night at 12:30 in the morning to get back on a phone call he had not made earlier. He has been going night and day on this matter. I do know he is trying to play the game by the rules laid down by the archaic gang over there. They had 42 years and the best thing they could come up with was this ERC deal we have now, which is truly a joke.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: Let us change it then.

Mr. Sargent: I want to say the whole system set up by the former government is archaic. We have inherited this thing and now we have to come up with some intelligent answers.

Even the taxation system is wrong. They charge the whole bill for education against the home owner. Think of that for a moment. The home owner is paying the freight here. If there are two people, one with $50,000 in cash and the other with $50,000 in real estate, the person who has the $50,000 in real estate has to pay 50 per cent of his taxes for education, while the man who has his wealth in the form of cash pays nothing towards the cost of education. There must be a better way to revise this whole system.

Grey county has about 4,800 students. The issue appears to be money. The teachers there now receive $42,000 basic and $46,000 tops, plus increases. The average wage in our area is $14,000. Bill 100 is the creation of the past Tory government. It is chaos for the minister and this government to try to come up with a viable solution.

4:50 p.m.

The ERC system of jeopardy is wrong. The students are made the pawns in this battle by teachers for making more money. I think possibly we must have some protection in the Charter of Rights in this country. I have asked the Attorney General's office whether we can get some ruling whereby the students collectively could have a class action against the boards and the teachers. Somewhere along the line we have to think of them as important. I firmly believe teaching is an essential service and teachers should not have the right to strike.

Interjections.

Mr. Sargent: In this free country, one can say what the hell one likes. That is what I feel like.

Mr. Foulds: The member is lucky he is not serving as the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Education.

Mr. Sargent: I would get a good education if I did.

I believe teachers are a very special class of people. Teaching is a very demanding job. Most teachers I know are dedicated and do not want the right to strike.

Mr. Warner: Does the member want to run that by us again?

Mr. Sargent: Most teachers I know have told me they do not want the right to strike.

Mr. Warner: The member does not know very many teachers.

Mr. Sargent: I am looking at a certain class of guys who do want to strike.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Sargent: I never got too far in high school, but the word "salary" is a derivative of a Latin word meaning "worth your salt." Anyone in the teaching field who can appear at the front of a classroom every day is worth his salt and has a right to a fair, good salary, but not to holding our kids at ransom. There has to be a better way.

I am hopeful by Wednesday we will have good news from Grey county that they definitely will be able to go back. I certainly hope the problems of the students represented by the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel and the member for Wellington South will be solved in the same way, by having the Education Relations Commission make a deal with the negotiators.

Mr. Barlow: I do not know whether I can add very much that is new, but I would like to reiterate a few points I feel are of great concern in this strike that began on September 16, some 46 days school days ago now. That is really more than two months that the strike has gone on.

Everybody has agreed the students should be involved. I do not think there is any dissenting voice on that. There are more than 8,000 students involved in this particular strike and somewhere around 500 or 600 teachers who are trying to negotiate with the board.

As the chairman of the board, Mr. Nelson, said, he feels the students' year is now in serious jeopardy. These are the people about whom we really have to be concerned, particularly those in grade 13 who have a desire to go to university. As my friend the member for Wellington South said, they now feel their chances of getting to university ate pretty slim at present, because they have not had the background or education they require to move on to a school of higher learning. Those who are involved in the semester system feel the first portion of their semester is just about shot. They can certainly salvage the other half, but that is not going to do them a lot of good.

There are a few suggestions that could be brought forward to help them survive. The semester could perhaps be offered through two shorter terms. That may help them. Removing the semester program and putting them all into the full school year program could be an alternative, but the thing I think we are all concerned about is getting those students back to work.

At this time, both sides -- the teachers on the one hand and the board on the other -- have their own opinions. They are at the logjam now. It appears that neither one of them wants to budge, because neither side accepted the most recent offer proposed. It is now a matter where we really have to take a look at having the students get back to school.

My friends on the far left have suggested: "Wait till the new board comes in. Let the new board have a chance." That is another two weeks away. The new board is going to have to sit down and be brought up to speed on this. It could be another month before it has an opportunity even to negotiate with the teachers. I think that has to be the wrong solution, the wrong approach.

I certainly agree with what the minister has been saying every time he is asked a question, and he has been asked many times in the House. A negotiated settlement is the best settlement. I do not think there is any question about that. A month ago that was a great answer. Nobody was arguing it at that time, because there was still an opportunity to salvage the school year; but now, two months later, the time has come where the students must be looked after. Over the next couple of days negotiations are going to take place in Toronto. If those are not going to bring any results then they just have to be brought back.

I have here a bunch of clippings from the Daily Mercury in Guelph, which has run many editorials. There are many different comments of various writers and the editor. They all have real concerns, and the concerns are primarily those of the students, and of the parents who pay their taxes to have their kids go to school and receive a proper education. There are many letters to the editor. I think it is called the Citizens' Forum in The Daily Mercury. There are many letters suggesting that the two sides quit playing games with the future of their kids. That is really what it all boils down to.

A number of citizens of the Wellington county community are really getting very -- I suppose to say they are getting angry would be putting it mildly. I know the Grey strike appears to have been settled. I guess we will know what the outcome is tomorrow. That community has been left divided because of the negotiations that went on there, using the students in that system as pawns in a chess game. It is wrong.

It is the same thing in Wellington, as the member for Wellington South has said. It is dividing the community in Guelph and throughout Wellington county, because these people have become so hard-nosed on this whole matter. In many cases they are not able to talk rationally about it now. It is just a case of saying: "Get our kids back into the school and let them have a decent chance at continuing their education. For those who are in grade 13, if there is any chance at all of their going to university, fine. If not, then let the rest of the students complete their year successfully so they can go on and be prepared for future education."

5 p.m.

I was going to read some of these quotes from the Daily Mercury in Guelph, but I do not think there is any need to do that. Probably what members have said throughout the course of this debate is sufficient, but I do want to assure members that these quotations are all here. Mr. Speaker, if you like, I could hand them down for perusal at your convenience. I am simply pleading with the minister to give these kids an opportunity to get back into school within the next couple of days. He should take some action.

Mr. Foulds: I would like to state very clearly I do not believe this Legislature should bring in back-to-work legislation in this dispute. One of our party's speakers consistently opposed back-to-work legislation and I will get into the reasons for that in a few moments.

Let me also say, right off the top, I understand fully how difficult the situation is in Wellington county. Although I am not a native of Guelph or of Wellington county, I understand as a parent who has kids in the school system, through having been a teacher before there was collective bargaining between teachers and boards, and as a person in public life in this province.

Public sector disputes are the most difficult with which to deal. Public sector disputes in education are even more difficult because, in Ontario's history, education has always been of great importance to the populace. We are quite a unique jurisdiction in that respect.

We think education is so important we not only have a Ministry of Education centralized here in Toronto with the government but also, before Confederation and after, we have had democratically elected school boards to administer education and deliver educational programs at the local level. The reason that has happened historically is we have understood the diversity of interests and regional differences in this province.

We know very well that if a human being is to be fully and properly educated, he must not only understand his position in our province and country and internationally, but also he must try to comprehend it at the local level. Therefore, we have given democratically elected school boards tremendous responsibilities and duties.

As I have said, educational disputes are always difficult. They were even more so before Bill 100 was introduced because there was no clearly defined method of negotiation and resolving disputes. Although the School Boards and Teachers Collective Negotiations Act is not perfect, by and large it works fairly well.

No piece of legislation devised in this country, let alone in this Legislature, is perfect or has worked perfectly; and so we find ourselves in situations like these, with a dispute which has gone on for some 46 days; about which, of course, we feel anxious, as do the students and their parents.

However, I would remind my friends in the Conservative Party that in their more progressive days they brought in the act and it received approval from all three parties in the Legislature. The former government at no time amended the act. It has been 10 years now since it was brought in, and the Conservative Party has not amended the act.

I think that relatively few amendments need to be made, but I believe the processes, which include voluntary binding arbitration and final act selection arbitration as well as the normal collective bargaining procedures, are pretty good. What needs to be done in a situation like this is for the minister to take some action. The action I would suggest that he take is to call the two parties together, which I believe he has done, under the aegis of the Education Relations Commission, put them in a room with water but no food, lock the door and tell them, "Settle it, fellows."

I believe, as does the minister, that it is extremely important not to abrogate the right of local autonomy. I believe it is extremely important that the local people settle the situation. I have travelled to Guelph and to Wellington county a number of times and I believe there is enough wit and wisdom in the people of Wellington county -- and I suspect that the results of the last election show they have it -- that when a situation has got to the stage where it appears things are not working they will change the situation. I hope we do not take the step of abrogating local autonomy, because if we do it in this situation, even for good reason, where do we stop?

I was just doing some research. I was one of those, I admit, who, as Education critic for our party back in the early 1970s, first advocated that teachers and boards collectively bargain in a reasonable and organized way, and that they not use this old phoney technique of mass resignation at Christmas or at the end of the school year. By and large, there was a rough period once the legislation was introduced during which there were a number of disputes. Frankly, both parties probably sat back a little bit to see how it would work and to see whether the Legislature would legislate them back, and it did so on a number of occasions. There were 29 sanctions -- that is, strikes or work-to-rules -- in the three years before Bill 100.

An hon. member: Lockouts, too.

Mr. Foulds: Lockouts, and that was before Bill 100. In the three years before it there were about 29 various kinds of sanctions: work-to-rules, mass resignations and all of that stuff. But in the first six years after the legislation was introduced, there were only 29 sanctions in twice the time. That shows it has brought some orderliness to the situation. It is not perfect, but it has brought some orderliness.

I believe a number of people have said: "The government should change the legislation. It should do something to protect the children." I believe the people who are advocating that have a responsibility to tell us specifically what sections of the act the government should amend and what situations it should change. If they believe in back-to-work legislation, which I do not, I believe those who advocate it have a responsibility to spell out clearly the circumstances in which back-to-work legislation is required.

5:10 p.m.

I believe that in all situations we can come to reasonable agreement among reasonable people. Let me also say that education does not take place just in the school. Education is a lifelong process. Education is a process that takes place from the time one wakes up until the time one goes to sleep, and I suppose some psychologists would say even while we are sleeping.

I would hope, although the formal course of education has been interrupted in Wellington county, that the situation itself has been an educational experience for the children, the teachers and the people of Wellington county. The lesson they have had to live through will stand them in good stead throughout the rest of their working and living days.

Mr. Callahan: The particular issue before this House in this emergency debate is one that one would anticipate would be dealt with almost along the lines of how a problem which might arise within a family would be dealt with, in a very sensitive, compassionate way.

We have all heard the hurt that exists, not only from the members on either side of the House from a political standpoint, but also from the standpoint of being human beings concerned about children and their education. If we were discussing the question of a strike in some other sector that did not interfere with the education and wellbeing of human beings within the educational system, the family system, or as the member has indicated in terms of neighbours against neighbours, I am sure we could debate the issue with a far less compassionate, a far more objective, approach.

The minister has certainly been totally responsible in this area. He has advocated the local settlement of this matter which is where it should be settled. We have to recognize that within the course of this strike there are very severe difficulties going to arise for the teachers. We have to recognize they are sensitive human beings and cannot help but be affected by the length of time they are required to remain out.

Within the framework of these human beings working out this particular situation, we can hope with a good deal of positive cause that this will be resolved in the appropriate fashion, within the framework of healthy collective agreements. We do not want the opposite situation, where every time a problem arises that cannot be solved on a local basis it should be solved by this government. If we do it in this case, the next time it will be that much easier to have the collective process circumvented and have people look to the government to do the job. That certainly is not a healthy situation; it is not one that is productive.

One would have hoped this would have been addressed within a family-like atmosphere, in a sensitive manner, rather than one where one party might be trying to take a little bit of political gain out of the fact this strike has been going on.

I commiserate with the member for Wellington South that during the course of travelling around his riding he discovered little circulars showing up with the face of a member of the Conservative government in Ottawa. Written on the back page was something to the effect of, "We are keeping our eye on you, Rick Ferraro." It quoted all of the statements that my good friend from Wellington-Dufferin-Peel has made in the Legislature, but not one word by the member for Wellington South.

That is why I started off by saying one would expect, within the framework of the sensitivity and human suffering in this particular issue, that one party would not attempt to take political opportunism and try to win votes out of it.

Mr. Stevenson: The Liberals have never done that.

Mr. Callahan: The members of the official opposition have not approached this particular issue with the sensitivity and humanity that it requires. They have added fuel to the fire.

The official opposition in this case has not acted responsibly. It has not acted in a vein of trying to accomplish the resolution of this problem in the appropriate fashion.

Mr. Stevenson: Ask the minister.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member has only a certain amount of time. Would you please let him have that?

Mr. Callahan: Day after day the members of the official opposition have attacked the Minister of Education in this House while the television cameras were rolling, indicating that they were trying to be a responsible opposition. When they do this to a gentleman who is suffering through a strike in his own riding and then have the audacity to pass around a newspaper that is fueling the fire, they are not approaching it in a human fashion or sensitive fashion. They deserve to be chastised for that. I suggest to all members of this House that if, in the past --

Mr. Cousens: Who comes first; the chairman or the minister?

Mr. Martel: The member's government allowed the strike to go on in Sudbury for 56 days. Did the member forget those 56 days?

The Deputy Speaker: Order, the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel). I said order.

Mr. Callahan: In the interest of the children who are being affected by that strike, we should put behind us the opportunism that has been used by the members of the official opposition and try to join together as a family to resolve this sensitive situation because it does involve children. It does not involve the running of the Toronto Transit Commission or a factory. It involves human beings. I suggest to my friends opposite in the official opposition that they take that view and not attempt to subvert this entire process for their own political opportunism by passing out circulars in the riding of a man who is already bleeding.

Mr. Cousens: This is a very important day. I am pleased the Minister of Education is staying here for the entire debate and listening as carefully as he seems to be. I hope he will be able to take some action from the advice that we are trying to share with him and his ministry, because we are facing a very serious crisis that is getting worse by the day. It was 46 days yesterday, 47 today, by Wednesday it will be 48 days, 49 days on Thursday and 50 days on Friday. With two and a half months in a semester system, what does that do to the young people? What happens to them in the middle of a strike like this?

I suffered through a couple of strikes. There is one that I will never forget, which is well recorded in the Hansard debates as it affected us in 1974 when the York County Board of Education had its great altercation. The teachers and the board had gone through many days of negotiations. I remember as one of the negotiators, that we spent more than 70 days trying to work it out ourselves.

The board suffered, the teachers suffered and the community suffered, but the major suffering group during that strike was the young people. Many are still feeling the effects of it. Many of their lives were altered for ever because of what happened in that strike.

They are the young people, the children, the boys and girls who were in the school system, who were ready to go to school and who wanted to go. Some were going on to post-graduate work out of high school, some to community colleges and other places. The sadness is that some of those young people quit. Some of them opted out of the school system because they did not feel there was enough confidence, in their own minds, that the school would be open. They quit school and went out and worked.

Mr. Philip: What about all --

Mr. Cousens: Would the member be quiet? He has no respect for anyone else who is talking.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. Would the member for York Centre please address the chair?

Mr. Cousens: The reason for that is his ears and mouth do not know how to work together; one should stop and let the other work.

5:20 p.m.

When we start looking at the number one effect of a strike such as this, it is the young people who are affected. If the Minister of Education were to go through Wellington-Dufferin-Peel and speak with the people involved, he would witness the kind of anguish this is causing them. It is a long-term suffering; it is not just now. The marginal student decides, "I am not going to stay in school." He quits and goes to work. Another student who is thinking of going to university says, "I will go and work for a while." He enjoys the job and then does not go back to school. Some other person might become confused about the whole thing, lose confidence and away that person goes.

The clock is ticking even now as we talk and the young people are still out of school. The member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds) says, "Do not bring in back-to-work legislation." It is back-to-school legislation; it is something to allow these young people to get back where they should be, where they are gaining and growing, where the school system can do what we want it to do.

We are talking about a very important process in Ontario, in which all parties came together and put together the legislation, Bill 100, that has been in place now for a number of years. It has been good legislation. It has allowed the negotiating process to be carried out between school boards and teachers so they can come to a conclusion. However, at one critical point the Minister of Education can intervene; he can bring legislation to this House when, as a result of the recommendations received from the Education Relations Commission, he concludes irreparable damage is being done to those children.

I genuinely believe the Minister of Education has to respond today. I am delighted, as are all members of this House, that he took the action at noon hour to bring both negotiating bodies together in Toronto. We hope he will have a chance to speak with, counsel and listen to them and maybe get a feel for where they are coming from. Through that personal contact, the minister will sense some of the problems between the boards and teachers and whether there is any possibility of a solution in the time frame that is facing us.

Once the minister has had the chance to listen to them, to get the feel for the negotiating process and to influence their thinking, he has tomorrow to let them carry out further deliberations and discussions. It is to be hoped we will get what we are all aiming for, a negotiated settlement they are able to come to themselves. We will give the minister the credit. I will stand up with anyone else and say: "The Minister of Education has helped to solve it. He is a little late, but he has helped to do it."

If by Thursday at two o'clock there is no action, the Minister of Education can come to this House and bring before us legislation that will bring the bodies together by compulsory, binding arbitration. That is the time to do it. We have the opportunity to bring that in on Thursday afternoon. It could be passed quickly so the children of Wellington-Dufferin-Peel have a chance to go back to school by Friday. I am sure we could accelerate this process and not break the 50 days.

Then we would be in a position where, we hope, another strategy would go into effect. I believe that strategy will be there, not only in the dedication of the teachers and young people but also because they will find a way to make up as much as possible of the time already lost during the 46 days. Then we are in a position to see our system of education, in those communities that are so seriously affected, on its way to a long-term recovery.

I do not think any of us would want to be in the shoes of the members of the Legislative Assembly whose communities are so seriously affected by this. I know the pressure that comes out of a strike, the hard feelings and the hurt. The teachers will not feel right about themselves, about their profession or about the trustees. There is the same feeling within the administration of a board; and the parents become more and more riled.

It becomes almost impossible to do anything about the situation unless there is leadership. That leadership can come now from the Minister of Education and the government through their action of bringing legislation to this House. That leadership will bring relief to everyone involved in this impasse. The teachers, students, administration, parents and trustees will all have a sense of relief that someone has given the needed leadership.

We are talking now about the leadership of the Minister of Education, who by the way has exercised his duties well in very many ways. I would like to compliment the minister for the way he gave attention last week to the people of my riding when they came from the York Region Board of Education and the York Roman Catholic Separate School Board. He listened and showed them he cared. The fact he would take three hours out of his schedule for that is something I have publicly acclaimed in my riding.

He has shown that generosity of giving time. We also want to see some generosity of money, and I suspect he will find a solution to that one. Now is the time for him to make the same kind of effort in Wellington-Dufferin-Peel to effect a permanent solution to this impasse.

Please do not listen to the New Democratic Party, which has a position one can predict totally and completely. If the minister listens to them, he will not do anything because they do not want him to do anything. They will be so happy if he just lets the strike go on and let things go on and try to beat Sudbury's record. The minister should not listen to his cousins there, but listen to this Cousens. We have --

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Would the speaker please direct his comments to the chair?

Mr. Martel: He should withdraw that remark about us being happy.

Mr. Cousens: I am asking the minister not to listen to this group because it is trying to destroy young people by the kind of action it is suggesting.

Mr. Lupusella: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: The honourable member should withdraw that statement and that accusation against the New Democratic Party. The fact that the NDP members were in favour of this debate shows our willingness and our deep concern about the issue.

The Deputy Speaker: I do not think that is an appropriate point of order. He was not addressing any honourable member.

Mr. Lupusella: We clarified our position.

Mr. Martel: This is relevant. According to the rules of this Legislature, a member cannot impute motives to another group. My friend said we were happy with that strike and wanted it to continue. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to get him to withdraw. That is imputing motives, and you had better make him withdraw.

The Deputy Speaker: May I advise the member that it refers to imputing motives to any other member. In this case, he imputed --

Mr. Martel: That is right. That is 25 of us, not one, Mr. Speaker, and I ask you to get him to withdraw.

The Deputy Speaker: That is not an appropriate point of order. It was a party that the member was referring to.

Mr. Martel: It is certainly a point of order. Mr. Speaker, you get him to withdraw because he was imputing motives to members of this caucus, saying we wanted that strike to continue. I want you to ask him to withdraw that.

The Deputy Speaker: Your point of order is not appropriate since he did not refer to any members by name or identification. He referred to them only by party.

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: It is not permitted in this House to make the kind of remarks the previous speaker made with respect to any matter. That is very clear. You know the appropriate sections of the standing orders and you heard what the honourable member said. He was clearly imputing motives. The application of the imputation was to my colleagues in the New Democratic Party from the Sudbury area.

5:30 p.m.

My colleague has asked you to ask the member to withdraw the remark. I ask you to reconsider the decision you made a moment ago. If you need more time to review Hansard to make sure exactly what was said, I suggest you take the advantage of time to obtain the Instant Hansard and come back before 6 p.m.

Mr. Cousens: Mr. Speaker --

The Deputy Speaker: Excuse me, the member for Bellwoods still has the floor.

Mr. McClellan: Somebody who is a former Deputy Chairman should at least have the courtesy to listen to a point of privilege.

The Deputy Speaker: Would you please address the chair?

Mr. McClellan: I suggest you obtain the Instant Hansard and review what the member actually said before you make too hasty a decision on this very important subject.

Mr. Cousens: If the members feel so touchy that I have imputed motives to them in any way by remarks I have made, I will withdraw any imputation, because I am more interested in seeing the debate continue with honour and distinction, even though I know they would like certain things to happen that I would not like to see happen.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for this opportunity. If I may have a few seconds to close --

Interjections.

Mr. Cousens: They took time with this procedural wrangle. I hope that when this is over we may look at Bill 100 again and find some way of tightening it up and to look at ways in which there can be time constraints brought to bear.

Mr. Martel: I must say I am offended not only that the honourable member would impute motives, because standing orders 19(d)8 and 9 say one cannot impute motives to another party. Although you accepted his withdrawal, Mr. Speaker, the way he did it put it right back there; he left it exactly as it was. If you are not astute enough to notice that, then that is not my problem.

I want to talk about strikes, as a former teacher and principal and as a father of four. I also want to talk as someone who went through the longest strike in this province -- 56 days -- in which I did not hear one Tory, not one Tory, get up and say in this Legislature that Dr. Stephenson should legislate the teachers back to work. Not a single solitary one of them got up and suggested that.

That was okay; it was the Tories in power, and the rules we played by were somewhat different then, were they not? They should change now when it affects someone else's riding because the Tories are not in power. We should play a new set of rules, we should ignore Bill 100. As my colleague the member for Port Arthur said. We had far more disputes and unrest prior to this legislation than we have had since.

I always worry when people want to get involved. Sure, it is tough. It is not easy. I understand what the members are going through, because I went through 56 days of it. My colleague the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) and my colleague Bud Germa, the former member for Sudbury, toughed that one out. It is not easy.

I am not quite sure it does as much damage as my friend says, though.

Mr. Cousens: Have you ever asked?

Mr. Martel: I have kids at school, my friend. To look at education in its broadest perspective, if my friend says the whole educational system is going to collapse as a result of missing two to two and a half months of school, then the 12 years leading up to grade 13 have been pretty frail and fragile.

Two months can wipe a kid's career out? I do not buy that as a teacher. I do not buy it at all, and I suspect most people in the teaching profession would not buy it. There are no statistics I know of which show the kids are damaged. It might cause some problem. It might cause a lot of extra work once the kids get back to school.

I refer to another point my friend made -- I wrote it down when he was saying it -- "The marginal students quit in grade 13." I do not know how many marginal students make it to grade 13, quite frankly. As a teacher, I have not seen marginal students who get to grade 13. They just do not go. The marginal students do not make it to grade 13.

Let us stop being ridiculous. When one gets to grade 13 in Ontario, one becomes part of a small group that intellectually is kind of elitist, because they were able to make it successfully. A lot of marginal students will never see grade 13. That is unfortunate. There are those of us who were able to get through; I always thank God we had enough God-given talent to get through. However, there are some students who cannot do it. My friend should not tell me about the marginal students in grade 13 who are dropping out, because they are relatively few.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The member intimidated the teacher.

Mr. Martel: Maybe that was the reason.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: They promoted him out the other end.

Mr. Martel: It took me a long time; it took me more than 13 years. I was a slow learner. I admit to my frailties. I am not like my friend the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon).

I want to tell members what happens in a strike. My wife was in the middle of a teachers' strike in the middle of the last provincial election; it was the separate school strike, the first in the history of the Sudbury district. It was very unpleasant. In the middle of a strike in the middle of an election one usually has to take sides. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to be pro-labour and I was on the picket line. A picket line involving a group of teachers is not the most popular place to be in the middle of a provincial election, because we always hear the same cry: "The students are the victims."

This went to arbitration, and what has happened? The arbitration has been a disaster. I venture to say there will be another strike in the separate school system in Sudbury this spring, because the arbitration did not resolve a thing. They sent all matters to be resolved to an arbitrator. None of them was resolved to anyone's satisfaction, and the hostility is as great now; in fact, it is worse, because they went through 21 or 22 days of strike to have it go to arbitration and it was not resolved to anyone's satisfaction. We are worse off now. We are going to have a rerun because, unless people sort it out among themselves, things that are foisted on them do not resolve the issue in the long run.

What happens is that teachers start to pull back services. They are not as generous with their time, because they ask: "What the heck is the sense of being generous with my time? Why should I stay after school? Why should I do this, that and the other thing when the board does not even care what we do?"

Let me give members the fine example that is going to lead to the thing in Sudbury. They have a clause in there providing two days for personal leave. Whether you agree with personal leave or not is immaterial; it is there. The number of grievances that are going to arbitration now is quite astounding.

For example, last Thursday a young man whose wife is in hospital phoned to have the day off. They said: "Fine. You can have the day off as a personal leave day. But if your wife does not have the baby before seven o'clock at night, you do not have a personal leave day; you have lost a day's pay." Is that a resolution to the problem? It went to arbitration and there was no resolution to it.

Mr. Pierce: Has she no control over these things?

Mr. Martel: No, she had no control, unfortunately. Mother Nature had a lot more control than she. That is the sort of silly resolution one gets when it goes to arbitration, and it does not help anyone. It exacerbates the situation.

My wife graduated from university in the spring. She wanted a day off when my daughter graduated from St. Michael's College. My wife took a day off because, even though she has personal leave, she cannot have a day's personal leave to come and attend her daughter's graduation.

Do members know what they said to her last week when it went to a hearing? The board negotiator, the lawyer for the board, asked, "Do you really feel it was necessary for you to attend your daughter's graduation?" She could not even get a half day off for her own graduation.

Now the school system is saying to teachers, "You really should be going to university." It is encouraging them and pushing them. If they want to maintain their job and if they do not have a degree, they push them to get it. She wanted half a day off to graduate and they said no.

Those are the types of things that come from arbitration. They are not sensitive, they do not meet the needs and, in fact, they create all sorts of other problems. It festers in the classroom. It also festers in the teachers' room, where most of the problems are resolved among teachers.

5:40 p.m.

We have to understand teachers. They are the last group in the world who want to strike. Have members ever tried to talk to teachers about a strike? My God; they think that is the worst thing possible. I have not found a teacher who wanted to strike. They have to have their backs to the wall to strike, because they know they are dealing with children and they feel it. For the women in particular -- men are a little bit more rambunctious than women -- these kids almost become an offshoot of their families. They become so close to the kids. They do not want to strike, but forcing them back to work is not going to resolve a thing. Those people should learn that. If they do not learn it, that is too bad. If they think a two-month gap in an academic career is going to ruin the children, then our educational system is in dire straits.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: It is.

Mr. Martel: If it is, then maybe we should start from scratch -- close the doors for two years, decide what is going on and start the whole process over again. I do not happen to agree with the member. It may be because I am a former teacher, but I think we do a pretty good job in Ontario. I may be biased, but I think the teachers give a lot of their time. If we had to, we could not even start to pay for the hours that teachers put in on behalf of children in this province.

Mr. Sargent: Ah, come on.

Mr. Martel: The member for Grey-Bruce should go and blow his horn. They are there every night. They do not get overtime as he does.

Please look carefully at what is being said when we talk of legislation. We resolved the Sudbury strike when we asked the then minister to do what I told this minister he should do 10 days ago, namely, bring both sides in when he reached the appropriate time. I congratulate him on doing that.

Mr. Mancini: I would like to join this emergency debate today, which has allowed members to discuss the situation in Wellington and Grey counties. I have quite a bit of feelings towards the members --

Mr. Philip: Here comes the conservative position.

Mr. Mancini: The member for Etobicoke (Mr. Philip) feels exercised about something. Is he busy?

Mr. Philip: I said, "Here comes the conservative position." Does that bother the member?

Mr. Mancini: No. I just was not sure what had been said. I am always curious about what the member says.

I have a lot of feelings about the difficulties, problems and personal experiences the four members are going through at present. Some of the members who spoke today referred to their personal experiences in going through a strike in their own communities. During my tenure as the member in Essex county, I have been through two teacher-school board strikes. It takes two parties to cause a strike, just as it takes two parties to reach a settlement.

My experiences during those very lengthy strikes were ones which I would not like to recall. I do not like to recall the parents' demonstration that took place in front of my office in Leamington; the very nasty phone calls I received from mothers and fathers; some of the comments made by individual teachers who felt we were not giving them enough support for one reason or another; or the involvement of the Ontario government at that time.

What the member for Sudbury East says is correct. We who have gone through these particular strikes feel somewhat curious today as we hear the Conservative members speak, because the member for Sudbury East is right when he says not a single member of the government of that day showed any concern whatsoever about a 56-day strike in Sudbury.

As I recall the Sudbury strike, the facts will show that the Education Relations Commission did rule that there was jeopardy. The commission actually told the minister -- the member for Sudbury East may recall that -- that there was jeopardy. The minister of the day said: "The Education Relations Commission says there is jeopardy. So what? As the minister, I do not feel I should have to do anything about this particular subject." And she did not do anything. I believe more than 100 students left the school system because of that strike.

There has been and there will be a lot of personal suffering in teacher-school board strikes, as there is a lot of personal suffering in any industrial dispute that takes place. I have not been witness to a strike yet where there has not been tremendous suffering unless the strike was settled within 24, 48 or 72 hours. I have seen many industrial strikes, some of them in my home town, lengthy ones, and they are not easy to live with.

I know exactly what the member for Wellington South is going through. He has the right as the representative of the people of Wellington South to question the minister on his activities, on the ministry's activities and on the activities of the ERC. He has that right, which he has exercised, and he has done his duty on behalf of his constituents. A personal attack from any individual or any party, especially an organized attack, on what that member is doing or has done in no way helps the situation. It causes me to give grave thought to the motives and to the real care and concern of the people who are exercising what they consider to be whatever duty it is.

I was sorry to hear such personal attacks were going on. I was sorry to hear they were actually distributing a pamphlet. Imagine that. In the middle of a strike that has gone on for 46 teaching days, 46 school days, some organization that may be affiliated with the official opposition would do that. Can members opposite stand up in the House and say they want to align themselves with people who want to orchestrate such activities? I do not think they do.

I do not think the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel does. I know that member very well and I do not think he would do it, not the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel.

One of the questions I was asked a lot after the school strike in Essex county, which lasted some 40 school days, and I still grapple with this question, was how is it possible to lose 45, 46, or, as in the case of Sudbury, 56 school days out of 180 teaching days -- I think the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) will agree that is correct --

Mr. Breaugh: About 189.

Mr. Mancini: -- and at the same time be able to complete everything one is asked to do in a school year when losing 25 per cent or 35 per cent of the actual teaching time? I know some of it is made up by extra hours and less vacation time; probably the professional development days are eliminated. We may be able to make up for half those days.

5:50 p.m.

At the same time, I have to say on the record that the general public has a difficult time understanding how all this time can be made up. If it can all be made up, they cast aspersions on what goes on in the school during the day.

I have to agree with the member for Sudbury East. Teaching is not a nine-to-five profession. If one wants to do one's profession correctly, it is not a nine-to-five profession. The teachers do look after their students, especially the students who need more help; they give them the help they need. The teachers involved in athletics spend hours and hours of extra time on football, hockey, gymnastics and all of those sports.

I do not think we should be here today so much to question the motives of people who are involved in this particular dispute. We should be urging, as the minister, the member for Wellington South and others have done, that it is their job to negotiate and to settle the strike as soon as they can.

I was delighted to hear the Minister of Education announce that both parties have been called to Toronto for an extensive round of talks under the supervision of the Education Relations Commission. I believe the doors should be locked and they should be held without food and water until the strike is resolved.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: I have a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Would you state your point of privilege?

Mr. J. M. Johnson: I want your advice.

Mr. Speaker: I will certainly listen carefully.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: Maybe I misunderstood the member, but did he imply I was responsible for distributing some literature?

Mr. Mancini: I want to make sure my very good friend the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel understands that in no way did I impugn him. As a matter of fact, I said he would in no way be involved. I said just the opposite.

Mr. Gillies: I join this debate, as it comes to a close, with a great deal of shared concern about what is indeed an emergency in the Wellington County Board of Education.

Mr. McClellan: Maybe it is the member for Brantford who is distributing the literature. Is he distributing the literature?

Mr. Gillies: Mr. Speaker, if the member for Bellwoods wants to say on the record he thinks I am distributing the literature, I think he should do so.

Mr. McClellan: No, I am asking. I would never say that.

Mr. Gillies: One thing has been demonstrated by this debate this afternoon, and that is that, regardless of any interchange between members earlier, it is very evident that all members of this House in all three parties have a grave concern about this strike and about the wellbeing of the thousands of students involved.

In reference to the recent speech by the member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini) I would suggest that, while I am sure he was not directing any suggestion that my colleague the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel was distributing any literature, I believe he said he thought this might have been done with the sanction of the official opposition or, by implication, that it had something to do with the official opposition. I think that kind of comment is below even the member for Essex South.

The strike we are dealing with has now gone on for 46 days and involves some 8,110 students.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Martel: I am going to go before I get sick.

Mr. Gillies: It is very frustrating, Mr. Speaker. We not only have to endure 10 minutes of the member for Sudbury East in his own time, but we have to take about five of it in my time, too.

Mr. Martel: I am going back to my chair. The member has provoked me.

Mr. Gillies: I did not mean it. Leave.

Out of these 8,110 students, we have to be particularly concerned about the 4,000 or more students who are on a semestered program. Although semestering is somewhat new to the education system -- it was coming in around the time I was in high school -- I am sure members will know that semestering is a method of concentrated teaching. The periods are longer. They are 80 or 90 minutes. The work is all taken in a half-year term, and not in all cases is the subject matter, the work the students want to take, available in both semesters. In some cases it may be that a course of particular interest or importance to a student is available in the fall term but not in the spring.

While we have a concern, which has been expressed by various members in debate, for all the students and all the families involved in this, we have to be particularly concerned about the students in the semestered system who may well have already lost any number of credits that may not be available to them in the latter part of this school year.

I have some acquaintance with teaching strikes. We had an elementary public strike in Brant county in 1980. It was before I was elected to this chamber, but I was involved inasmuch as both the teachers' federation at that time and the board asked me to moderate a series of debates between the two parties that led up to some of the later bargaining and the resolution of that dispute.

These are matters of tremendous sensitivity. I do not personally see a direct analogy between an industrial dispute and a teaching strike. An industrial dispute is certainly a serious situation for the families involved, the employees and their families, but other people who depend on a particular service or product of an industry that is not producing at that time have options; they have elsewhere to go.

That is not the case with a teaching strike. I heard a number of members from the area earlier expressing their concern, and I do not recall many occasions in this House when I have heard the kind of articulate and heartfelt plea I heard from the member for Wellington South earlier this afternoon. You could have heard a pin drop in here, Mr. Speaker.

The member for Wellington South, the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel, the member for Grey-Bruce, who spoke earlier, and the member for Grey, who has asked many questions on this matter with great concern, are saying their community is being affected tremendously. Families are being hurt and communities are being hurt. I heard a tone in the voice of the member for Wellington South this afternoon that I have seldom heard in this House. He was saying very clearly: "Enough is enough. We have to look at the greater good of the greater number of people in that community."

Who would dare dispute that it would be preferable to have a negotiated settlement? I urge the minister, who I know has tremendous sensitivity and tremendous concern in this area, to keep up his efforts to bring the two parties together and to seek a settlement and a resolution at the bargaining table; but I would also urge the minister to listen to his colleagues, listen to the members in this House who have spoken this afternoon.

If that negotiated settlement is not forthcoming in the near future, I think the minister knows what he has to do. He knows that sooner or later the burden of responsibility and the burden of decision will fall into his lap. I know this minister pretty darned well and I happen to think he is up to that decision and up to that responsibility.

Much has been said earlier of what was said in past disputes, what was done and not done in the case of Sudbury. I brought up the Brant county strike, and other strikes have been alluded to, but the responsibility of government is now the minister's. The responsibility of decision is now on his side of the floor.

One may look back and say, "Look, your government did not bring an end to this strike or that strike." I do not think such comparisons and the bandying about of the number of days that various disputes have gone on are useful. We have heard from the members. We have read the editorials in the Daily Mercury and elsewhere. We know what the people in those communities want. They want a settlement.

If we are going to go back, and I do not want to be overly political about this, it is not so many years ago that we heard the kind of pleas many members are making today from senior representatives of the Liberal Party. I can quote from Hansard of April 15, 1980, when then Liberal leader Stuart Smith was questioning the then Minister of Education, the member for York Mills (Miss Stephenson). He said:

"With respect to the strike in the Sudbury secondary school system, does the honourable minister agree that this strike, having gone on for approximately 42 school days by now...needs to be brought to an end? Will she impose compulsory arbitration there and in any other school strike in Ontario and bring such strikes, which are harmful to the students, to an end?"

That was the question; that was the plea at that time of the then leader.

Mr. Breaugh: Give us the answer.

Mr. Gillies: I do not have that here. At that time, the leader of the Liberal Party thought that was a legitimate and pressing plea. I would remind my friend the present minister that kind of plea and that kind of action would be just as justified today.

Mr. Speaker: That concludes the allotted time for debate on the motion placed by the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris).

The House recessed at 6 p.m.

19 novembre 1985