Journal des débats 1986-oct-21 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr. Swart: At this time, I call upon the Minister of Health (Mr. Elston) to review with great care the recommendation of the Niagara District Health Council to reject additional chronic care beds for the Welland County General Hospital.

The situation there is extremely serious. At present, 60 of the 158 surgical and medical beds are being occupied by chronic care and extended care patients. This is causing a tremendous backup through the system, with surgery being postponed and unreasonable numbers of people being kept in emergency on stretchers. In September, a total of 103 patients waited on stretcher beds for an average of 19.8 hours each. Obviously some of them waited for several days with little comfort or privacy.

That situation is intolerable and must be rectified. The hospital board has asked the minister and the health council to provide immediately an additional 25 chronic care beds, with provision for another 25 by 1989-90. The minister must know that partly because of the long downturn in the south Niagara area, the Welland district has a higher than average ageing population. The 11.9 chronic care bed formula cannot be applied indiscriminately across the province or even in a region.

There may be need for the allotment proposed by the health council of 80 additional chronic care beds for Niagara Falls, 30 for Fort Erie, 25 for Port Colborne and 12 for Grimsby, but the need in Welland is comparable.

EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN'S WEEK

Mr. D. R. Cooke: Some of us are being approached today to discuss the issue of alternative and independent schools. I do not want to confuse my comments with their arguments. My point is quite different.

This is Exceptional Children's Week in the region of Waterloo. Exceptional children may be recognized as children with special needs because of physical or mental impairment, communication disability, social and emotional maladjustments or enriched intellectual and creative ability. An ability or disability becomes a handicap when the child is unable to cope with daily life and develops negative feelings of self-worth.

The Canadian Council for Exceptional Children is meeting this week in Kitchener with the theme "Challenging, encouraging and caring." The Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) and the member for Middlesex (Mr. Reycraft), the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Education, are joining them.

The Canadian Council for Exceptional Children is an organization that promotes the advancement and education of all exceptional persons through the enhancement of community awareness and the development of special needs programs so that a community is always challenging, encouraging and caring for all its exceptional persons. We wish them well.

THOM COMMISSION

Mr. Gordon: The government has just admitted that we may see the Thom commission's report by the end of this year but that it could take even longer. The inquiry has already cost taxpayers more than $2.5 million. The Globe and Mail reports an aide to the Minister of Housing (Mr. Curling) as saying, "If we don't like it, we'll dismiss what he says." I think the landlords and tenants of this province have a right to know where this report is going and what its purpose is.

In 1984, after volume 1 of the commission's report was released, the Premier (Mr. Peterson) stated that the government should scrap any further inquiry. With the government's agenda of passing Bill 51, what possible purpose could Thom's massive report serve? Has the government not already made its decision on rent controls? Is Mr. Thom's report not merely the flogging of a dead horse? Why is the government continuing to pay Mr. Thom $250 a day to prolong a redundant inquiry, which by the Premier's own admission should have been scrapped two years ago?

After submissions to the inquiry ended in 1985, we were told that the Thom commission would be ready by this past summer. What happened? Why has the government not told Mr. Thom to hurry the report? More important, why is the government condemning years of testimony and analysis to a dusty bookshelf?

I think I can answer those questions. The government is appearing to favour an objective inquiry when it has already made up its mind on rent control. I ask the government, is this open-minded? Is this democratic?

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr. Martel: I recently received a report in a brown envelope concerning health and safety in Ontario and the swamp. It involves the role of various officials in the Ministry of Labour in their attempts to keep these cases under wraps. I have the documentation on each of the charges levelled against ministry staff, the names of those staff and so on.

The charges of coverup and failure of government, including the Attorney General (Mr. Scott), to respond are so serious that hearings are being held and lawyers do not even show up at them. Can members imagine? There is constant interference by directors against their own inspectors in the ministry. Orders have been issued by the inspectors, and supervisors on their own, without advising the inspectors, revoked the orders.

I suggest the little inquiry that is going on by Coopers and Lybrand was ordered to prevent all this material from coming to the fore. It is my intention over the next couple of weeks to raise these issues one by one, all 27 of them, and the coverup, so that we get a proper inquiry into the conduct of senior Ministry of Labour staff.

ONTARIO ROAD MAP

Mr. Sheppard: It was recently brought to my attention that on the 1986-87 official road map, the hamlet of Codrington was moved from Highway 30 to the junction of county roads 25 and 27, about seven kilometres west of its actual location. Furthermore, if one is looking for the hamlet of Morganston, one will not find it, because on the map Codrington is where Morganston should be. Confused? So am I.

Despite the fact that Codrington is home to only a handful of individuals, those people still have families and friends who would probably like to visit some day. It is perhaps a bit unnerving to discover that Ontario road maps are not as trustworthy as we all assume.

With the government's emphasis on tourism, especially in the east, the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation "offers incentives to major public and private tourist operations in an effort to attract more people to eastern Ontario." What good will that do when visitors become confused about where they actually are? Ontario -- now that is what I call incredible.

I therefore invite all members of the Legislature to take a good look at a map to make sure that all the hamlets in their ridings are in their proper locations. I will send this small road map over to the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Fulton) so he can see.

PENSION FUNDS

Mr. Warner: The government's inaction on protecting workers against pension theft -- corporate piracy, as the courts have called it -- is inexcusable. An individual by the name of Bill Sinclair purchases a company, MAN Lepper, one day and sells it the next day. For owning a company one day, he is ready to help himself to $1 million in the surplus in the pension funds. The Pension Commission of Ontario finds that its hands are tied in assisting the workers, because we do not have adequate legal protection for the workers in the province. Those employees stand to lose what is rightfully theirs.

Individuals such as Mr. Sinclair and others are free to exercise their piracy in helping themselves to workers' pension surplus, and the government sits idly by and allows it to happen. In the old days, I suppose, piracy on the high seas was acted upon by having capital punishment. We do not do that any more, but the least the government could do is to bring in the necessary legal protection so that workers are no longer subjected to the piracy that is being practised on them through their pension plans. This government stands condemned on the pension issue.

NORTHERN REGIONAL TREATMENT CENTRE

Mr. Gordon: I would like to address my opinion to the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. Keyes) and ask when he is going to put the treatment centre, the prison for psychologically disturbed prisoners, in the Sudbury region. For him to go in and tell the city that the site it has offered him for $1 is too rocky is ludicrous. The north is rock. When is he going to act on this? This is long overdue, and it is a shame he has taken this attitude with the region of Sudbury.

14:13

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL ARBITRATION LEGISLATION

Hon. Mr. Scott: Later today I will have the pleasure of introducing the International Commercial Arbitration Act. This act will implement in Ontario a model law on the subject prepared by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law. Implementation of the model law will make the Canadian law more favourable to international arbitrations for the benefit of Canadian businesses that face arbitration clauses in most of their foreign contracts.

Our business people will be both more familiar and more comfortable with the new arbitration procedures. In addition, they may benefit from having arbitrations take place here rather than abroad because of our modern and internationally recognized code. In this connection, I advised the House earlier this year that I was appointing a committee to advise me on whether the new climate we are creating for international business in Ontario would make it desirable to set up an international arbitration centre. This has the potential to facilitate further international business by Ontario firms.

The proposed act is made necessary in Ontario by the outdated provisions of our present Arbitrations Act. Unlike the existing act, the new legislation strictly bars the courts from intervening in the course of an arbitration or from considering the merits of the dispute between the parties. The philosophy of the model law is that, to the greatest extent possible, arbitration should be recognized as a private means of settling a dispute. The parties who have agreed to arbitrate should not be able to delay proceedings by dragging them into court.

The Foreign Arbitral Awards Act, 1986, which was Bill 98, passed by this House in July, provided for the enforcement of awards from arbitrations conducted outside Canada. The proposed act goes further by prescribing rules for conducting such arbitrations in Ontario. The model law will be a complete consolidation of all provisions relating to international commercial arbitration, and in fact it will include the provisions enacted in Bill 98 last July. Bill 98 was needed to meet a federal deadline and now can be repealed in favour of our new statute.

By providing the most modern rules for international arbitration, ones recognized around the world through the offices of the United Nations, we will keep Ontario competitive with the other provinces and a leading participant in the development of private international law in the field of arbitration. I invite the House to act and carry out this proposed regime.

Mr. O'Connor: By way of brief response to the announcement by the Attorney General, I would comment with interest on one point he makes in his statement. He says the necessity for this law is brought about in part by a desire to serve parties who have agreed to arbitrate and to ensure that they not be able to delay proceedings by dragging them into the courts.

I wonder about that statement coming from the man who is in charge of our court system. If it is such a threat that people can be dragged into the courts, and if there are delays in the court system sufficient to trigger this kind of legislation, why does he not do something about the delays in the court system? Why has he not done something about them to date?

I wonder too about the incompetence of this government in bringing forth this legislation approximately six weeks or two months after having passed a previous piece of legislation designed to take care of this problem. As the Attorney General admits in his statement, part of this bill will be to repeal the previous bill.

The model law to which this is designed to give effect is the United Nations model law, which has been in effect for several years. The Attorney General knew this model law existed in the early part of this year when he introduced the Foreign Arbitral Awards Act. Why go through the process of three readings in the House only to repeal it six weeks later and start all over? Can they not get their act together over there?

Ms. Gigantes: A word in response to the announcement by the Attorney General of the international commercial arbitration bill, which we will be considering. On behalf of my caucus, I am sure I can say we look forward to dealing with this bill. We will subject it to the thorough review it merits. Our approach is quite different from that of my friend in the Conservative party, in that we are very much in favour of staged progress in this process. As we stage these little fillips that we provide for business to make business life more orderly and easier in Ontario, we expect the passage of this bill will provide us with the next step in our equal pay legislation, and so we welcome it doubly.

ONTARIO PUBLIC LIBRARY WEEK

Hon. Ms. Munro: It gives me great pleasure to rise today to announce to my colleagues the second annual Ontario Public Library Week.

This year, Ontario Public Library Week runs from October 20 through October 26. This initiative will show the people of this province the quality and value of Ontario's public library system.

Our motto is "Celebrate Ontario Public Library Week," and our theme is "Libraries are more than just books." Yesterday my ministry launched the week with a fashionable look at libraries, a presentation highlighting the variety of programs and services available through our public library system. Ontario's libraries offer a diversity of materials and entertainment that accurately reflect the nature of our province and the world in which we live.

Whether as a source of information or as a centre of community activity, Ontario public libraries make invaluable contributions to the high quality of life we enjoy in Ontario. Ontario public libraries play a critical role in the development of our social and cultural consciousness. They are an essential part of our identity as Ontarians.

Ontario can be justifiably proud of the fact that public libraries reach 99.56 per cent of our population. There are more than 400 public library boards across Ontario, with 1,738 outlets or branches serving Ontarians. During Ontario Public Library Week, many of these boards and outlets will hold their own events.

I encourage each one of my colleagues, along with every resident of Ontario, to join us in celebrating Ontario Public Library Week and to discover the wealth in Ontario public libraries.

Mrs. Marland: In rising to share in the recognition of Ontario Public Library Week, I wish to say there is an omission in the statement, which does not recognize that public library boards are generally filled totally by volunteers. Some library boards, as we know, have elected officials on them, but in the majority it is volunteers who serve as members of those boards and commit a great deal of their personal time, wisdom and knowledge for the benefit of everyone throughout the public library system.

We are well aware that there is a tremendous concern of librarians all over this province about the shortage of funding. Is it not a shame that this announcement could not have included the same commitment to funding that the former government recognized in the needs of libraries and the people who use them?

Mr. Warner: I welcome the statement made by the real Minister of Citizenship and Culture with respect to the public libraries. I hope the government shares the view that libraries have a tremendous challenge ahead of them in the next decade, the challenge of making sure our libraries are relevant to all our communities, not just the Anglo-Saxon community. They must respond to the very individual needs of every one of our multicultural communities. They have a very active role to play with respect to the cultural community, meaning the arts community as well.

The underfunding is something that cannot be ignored. The former government did not have the kind of enthusiasm I think should be reflected in government policy. This government has a challenge to meet the necessary funding levels. If it fails, then we do a great disservice to generations to come, because the building of libraries is not something that can be done every 10 years. It is an ongoing process; therefore, it commands a certain high level of funding every year.

I hope the government will be up to this challenge. So far, there is not the kind of indication about which I believe we could all feel confident.

14:23

ORAL QUESTIONS

TARIFFS ON SOFTWOOD LUMBER

Mr. Grossman: In the absence of the softwood brothers, I have a question for the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. We noted in the Globe and Mail this morning that the Premier was trying to run quickly from the inaction of his colleagues on the softwood lumber issue. We looked back at last Thursday's Hansard, in which the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. O'Neil) said, "Our officials have been working very closely with Miss Carney and we feel we have had a lot of input."

How does the Premier reconcile that statement, which, I remind him, was made two and a half weeks after the federal minister indicated her willingness to accept the 10 per cent surcharge, with his attempts to suggest that his government was snookered on this issue?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: In my capacity as the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, I am very happy to respond to the honourable member's question.

By way of preamble, the two ministers are at this very moment meeting with Miss Carney and other federal and provincial industry officials with respect to developing some sort of coordinated response.

I do not see the discrepancy that the member points out. When those discussions were going on, the Ontario view of the situation was very clear to us and to others. The view, and the advice we gave, was not to negotiate that particular situation. That is clear.

The member will be aware that Miss Carney went to Washington and announced to the world that she was prepared to negotiate the situation. It came as a complete surprise to Ontario officials and, I assume, to a variety of others. Clearly, a number of Industry, Trade and Technology officials were also not aware of it. There were subsequent meetings and, in the interest of presenting a united front and not a divided front, Ontario went along. However, I do not want the member to get an erroneous impression of what transpired over that period.

Mr. Grossman: Clearly, what happened over that period was that Ontario perhaps objected at first to the suggestion that there be an offer, but ultimately, instead of speaking for Ontario and fighting hard against the imposition of a tariff which will cost more jobs in northern Ontario than a lottery office in Sault Ste. Marie will create, the Premier decided to go along.

The minister indicated yesterday that the government was prepared now to fight what it endorsed a couple of weeks ago. With that in mind, can the Premier tell me the details of the major meeting that was held on this very question in Washington yesterday, what it was about and who represented Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Ontario did not have a representative at the meeting in Washington yesterday, if in fact there was one in Washington.

There were meetings here in Toronto yesterday with officials, represented by the Deputy Minister of Natural Resources, the Deputy Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology and industry representatives. There were meetings this morning with the same officials, I believe, and this afternoon the ministers are meeting. There are ongoing meetings with respect to this issue.

Mr. Grossman: After the handwringing the minister went through yesterday about this problem and assuring everyone that he would fight hard to reverse his earlier decision, I am shocked that the Premier would rise today and indicate that no one spoke for Ontario, that no one was there yesterday representing Ontario's interests at a key meeting in Washington. Let me tell the Premier what he, his trade minister and their officials missed.

Mr. Speaker: By way of supplementary, I hope.

Mr. Grossman: Yesterday there was a disclosure conference at the International Trade Commission offices in Washington to give the factual basis upon which they reached their decision.

That would allow the Premier and his trade minister to mount the case to defend Ontario's interest and point out that the 15 per cent levy should not be put in place. After having assured the House yesterday, again, that he would fight, he did absolutely nothing. He did not even go to get the basic information upon which he could protect Ontario's interest.

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Grossman: Can the Premier explain to the House why it was that yesterday, at this major disclosure meeting in Washington, he did not even arrange for a single Ontario official to be there to get the details which will allow him to --

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Premier.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: With great respect to my friend opposite, who will want to take his views to his federal kissing cousins, who have been in charge of carriage on this matter -- and he will want to do that and discuss it with Miss Carney, who is in town this afternoon -- that is about the silliest suggestion I have heard from him in a long time.

The meetings were here yesterday with industry officials, federal officials and others. They are meeting again today. We have copies of the judgement that was brought down by the ITC. I think that he, in candour, should probably stand up in this House and apologize for what some of his members were saying yesterday in quoting only parts of the judgement.

14:30

On page 17 of the judgement, it said Ontario was the only province that provided full information. One of the members, the one who is wagging his head, inadvertently gave incorrect information to this House yesterday. I think he will want to stand up and say Ontario was the province that was forthcoming in this regard and that it carried its case extremely well. This case has been well handled by our officials in charge of it. They are on top of the situation on a daily basis. I regret the way this has turned out. I think the member will want to take some of his suggestions to his federal brethren.

Mr. Grossman: The Premier will recall lauding the Prime Minister of the country so generously for bringing Canadians together. Of course, the Premier was in Tokyo at the time. I invite the Premier to get his staff, each of whom earns at least $57,000 a year, to get a copy of this before the end of question period and send over page 17. Then we will have an opportunity to see whose information is correct.

IMPORT SURTAX

Mr. Grossman: With regard to defending Ontario's interests, we know the United States is entering into even more steps with regard to defending itself against imports from a lot of countries, including Canada. Can the Premier tell us specifically what representations his government has made through the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs or the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology with regard to the Heinz-Murtha bill?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The honourable member attacked me in this House for being generous or complimentary to one of my peers in this country. It would serve him well to have a generous thought about someone somewhere in this country at some time. I am one of those people who believes in being constructive where one can possibly be constructive and not destructive on all occasions, as seems to be the member's particular wont.

We are very much aware of what is happening in the United States. I was talking to Mr. Clark with respect to Ontario initiatives a few moments ago before I came into the House. We are very concerned about the potential impact on Ontario. It would be substantial. We are making our views known on that subject. If the member is telling me to stand up and shout and scream the way he is wont to do, I do not think he is being constructive.

Interjections.

Mr. Grossman: That is his imitation of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. O'Neil).

I will take the Premier's advice. This afternoon I want to laud John Turner for his continuing support of freer trade negotiations in the light of recent developments. I invite the Premier to join in supporting all Canadians who want to negotiate so that these kinds of things do not happen. I laud Mr. Turner. The Premier should take his advice once in a while. My question to the Premier is this

Mr. Speaker: Was that not your supplementary?

Mr. Grossman: That was not even close to an interrogatory.

Mr. Speaker: I was listening carefully.

Mr. Grossman: The Premier assured us a moment ago, as if he knew what the bill was all about, that he was going to protect Ontario's interests. Can he outline for us which interests he thinks are under attack and threatened by the Heinz-Murtha legislation?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: First, the member invited me to comment on Mr. Turner's approach to free trade. I am very interested to hear the new approach of the Leader of the Opposition. This is a man who has changed his mind on free trade about three times. His position is different from that of the members of the committee. The problem is that none of them, and particularly his, is credible on these issues. He keeps changing his mind. When Ontario speaks on trade issues, Ottawa listens, as do the other provinces; they do not when the member speaks.

I cannot add to the former answer. The member heard the minister speak yesterday about the question of the imposition of a flat import duty to the United States. We are discussing that with others, as well as making representation to the extent that this province has a voice in Washington.

Mr. Grossman: The United States Congress has been invited by the Heinz-Murtha bill to slap serious additional quotas on key Canadian products. The Premier does not even know what the bill is. He has taken no action and he does not even have the decency this afternoon to stand up and say he is going to request some information and going to fight it.

If he will not do that, I will repeat the question. Will he stand up this afternoon and say, in spite of his protestations that he will defend Ontario's interests, that candidly he does not know what the Heinz-Murtha legislation is and he has not taken any steps to inquire about it, and that a good period of time after it has been introduced, his Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology has not acted on it? Will he stand up and tell us what the Heinz-Murtha legislation is or tell us that he has done nothing about it?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I find the member's approach in this House rather strange. He is not really interested in the information; he is interested in dragging people down to his level. I am not prepared to do that. He knows where we stand on these issues. He knows what has been done and he knows the public statements by the minister and myself on this matter. We will continue to do that.

NURSING HOMES

Mr. Rae: I have some questions today for the Minister of Health. I want to ask him some questions relating to the report of the Nursing Homes Residents' Complaints Committee, which bears the date of March 1986 but which was suppressed by the minister until its publication in September.

Was the reason the report was suppressed and not released until the minister felt he had some good news to report the fact that the report stated, for example, that the committee has found some homes that spend as little as $2.10 per day on food? Can the minister tell us how this expenditure on food per day compares either with a general hospital or with what the Ministry of Correctional Services regards as acceptable in its detention centres?

Hon. Mr. Elston: I cannot tell the honourable member what the comparison is. I know all of us are concerned by that aspect of the report, and I want to indicate to the members that an expenditure of $2.10 per resident per day is not an acceptable level. The report was quite interesting from several standpoints with respect to the overall industry. I can tell the member it has been very helpful from my standpoint as an internal document and for the people who have seen it since its release.

Mr. Rae: It is not an internal document, and the minister suppressed it. He suppressed it for a period of months because it contained some bad news that he did not want people to hear. He knows that, everybody knows it and it is time somebody blew the whistle.

For the minister's information, the Toronto General Hospital in October 1986 spends $5.28 per day per patient and Ontario jails, detention centres and correctional centres spend $4.29 per day per resident of those institutions. Given this appalling contrast in a comparison between a hospital and the nursing home figures that were released by Dorothea Crittenden in her report, would the minister care to comment on the following quotation from that report?

"In a profit-oriented system, operators are motivated to decrease costs -- in this case food, staff, time, luxuries, etc. -- in order to increase or maintain their profit margin. As a result, many aspects of the industry do not reflect the expectations of Ontario society in 1986."

Is that why the minister suppressed the report for six months?

Hon. Mr. Elston: I did not suppress the report. The member ought to know the report goes on to indicate that the industry does have some very fine examples of people who provide top-quality care. He might want to indicate that is part of the report as well.

14:40

I am concerned about the parts of the report that indicate very strongly there are large concerns about the manner in which some facilities carry on. There is no question that is a concern to us. That is why we are moving to change the way the nursing home industry is administered.

The fact that we are going to have people who will be acting solely as consultants and others who will be looking at ways of enforcing the legislation is a clear indication of our commitment to ensuring that we have a role to play in upgrading the way these facilities are operating. We will continue to do that.

There are some concerns, but having spoken with Dr. Dorothea Crittenden, I must say she has indicated there are some very good performers inside the system as well. I know the member would want to indicate that clearly to the people of the province.

Mr. Rae: The report was suppressed by the minister. He had it in his hands in March 1986. He released it as part of a so-called good news package in September 1986. It is time the public knew what was in this report. It is a devastating critique of our nursing home industry. It is a devastating critique of the quality of life to which seniors are being subjected in many of these institutions that are run on a private-profit basis. The minister knows it. He sat on the report. He suppressed it. He did not release the information. Those are the facts, and they are on the record.

Is the minister aware that the report states that the average found by Dr. Crittenden for nursing homes was between $2.50 and $2.60? What does he intend to do to ensure that residents who are living in nursing homes are not subject to these substandards, these standards that are below a quality of life any reasonable person in Ontario would expect? What does he intend to do about it?

How does the minister justify the suppression of this information, together with many other clear-cut criticisms of the way in which this so-called industry is being run at a time when his government says: "We are an open government. We are a sunshine government. We want to helps seniors"? He sat on a report for six months and did nothing about all the evidence

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Elston: The honourable leader of the third party is wrong. We have moved to deal with several of the items in there. The document has been of use. We have put together several responses to it. We are continuing to work with the amendments to the Nursing Homes Act.

The people of the province will be proud of the nursing home operations. We are amending, we are moving forward with many of the incentives to make sure that the people in our nursing homes are well cared for. Our commitment is for no less than that.

This government is also committed to do what it can to help people remain in their homes. We are going to deal with this very sensitive question on many fronts. We will not give up or let up on our activities; we are committed to improving the lot of our seniors.

EXTRA BILLING

Mr. Rae: I would like to ask a question of the Minister of Health with respect to the continuation of extra billing and other practices by individual members of the medical profession.

Recently our office received a call from Gord Lake of Stouffville, who felt his wife, Audrey, was being refused surgery, or at least was being treated in a different way, because the doctor said he could not extra bill for the operation. This charge was sufficiently serious that my office phoned the doctor directly to inquire about what precisely had gone on.

The doctor stated that he would receive about $450 for a cataract operation but only about $240 for implant surgery, which he described as an operation of equal risk. Therefore, he said, he would not do the implant surgery because he felt it would "only make her more comfortable."

When we asked the doctor involved whether he would do it if the Ontario health insurance plan were to pay $450, he told my staff, "It would be reasonable to do it for a higher price." He also said he knew of several doctors who were refusing to do so-called low-priced surgery.

Is the minister aware of the situation described by this doctor where certain doctors are declining to do surgery because they feel it is not sufficiently lucrative for them to do it?

Hon. Mr. Elston: Over the past several years there has been some indication, which has not changed over the past several months, that some practitioners are concerned about the level of benefits as set out under OHIP. I have not been aware until now of any physician who has said specifically, on that basis, that he or she will not perform surgery that is medically required.

Perhaps the member will tell us when he made these inquiries and how long ago it has been, so we can check into it. I am not sure, but we might be of some assistance in obtaining a referral, some other physician who would take on the medical procedure. I do not know. I do not have enough of the facts to go much further with this inquiry. If the member could share some of these examples with us in a timely manner, I am sure it would help us deal with the needs of the patient.

Mr. Rae: The information is being gathered by my office all the time. The minister will appreciate that it is of a sensitive nature. He will also appreciate that, obviously, no doctor is going to say, "I am refusing to perform a medically necessary operation because of the money involved." It appears to be the case in this instance that a doctor is saying the way he practises medicine is determined by the fees he receives. That causes me very deep concern, and it should cause the minister concern.

Will the minister comment on the letter that is sent to patients by Dr. Lorne M. Tarshis in Toronto, which states that he does not deal directly with OHIP but will deal directly with patients? I quote:

"OHIP allows a physician to charge patients directly for `noninsured services.' Dr. Tarshis's fees include this charge. You will be responsible for payment of Dr. Tarshis's fees, but if this presents any financial hardship, please discuss the matter and the account will be adjusted accordingly. Payment of this account would be appreciated at the time of your visit to the office or following the rendering of services."

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Rae: Will the minister comment on the practice of doctors who put all the administrative fees in one bundle and say these fees will be charged to patients and the only basis upon which the fees will be removed is if patients have a financial discussion with their doctors?

Hon. Mr. Elston: I must ask the gentleman to share with us when this information came to his attention. If we are to deal with these incidents, which he is alleging are causing difficulties for patients, we must do so in a timely manner. Yesterday the member read to us from a letter he received July 16 and was unable to bring to my attention until yesterday. That is suppression of a kind we would have some concern about.

The honourable gentleman knows full well that when patients are in difficulty, I would like to know about it in a timely fashion. When people lump things together, I do not think it is appropriate that they do not provide some detailed information for us so we can determine exactly what is happening. The gentleman knows that is the case; I will look into those situations if he can provide for me some disclosure of these items in a timely manner.

Mr. Rae: The minister knows perfectly well that he has correspondence from members of our party dating back to August to which he has failed to respond. If he does not believe me, we can document it for him. The instance I raised in my first question was a case that was brought to our attention and we discussed with the doctor this week. I say to the minister --

Mr. Speaker: Please ask the minister.

Mr. Rae: Is the minister aware that there are literally countless examples of doctors practising in Ontario who are routinely insisting on administrative fees as a matter of right in terms of the care they will give, that there are obstetricians who are as a matter of general practice and general rule insisting on a so-called standby fee that does not offer any guarantee with respect to service --

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Rae: Is he aware of those things that are taking place in Ontario today, October 21, 1986?

Hon. Mr. Elston: I am aware of the examples that have been brought to my attention, and we wish to pursue them. I invite members to keep those examples coming. Examples have been brought to my attention by various members, and we respond to them. The member knows we will look into each of those situations.

I can tell the members and the public that through our meetings with the Ontario Medical Association and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, we are addressing these types of situations, which indicate that there is no clear definition of what is being charged and how it is being charged. When we have the detailed information we need to proceed against these situations, we will take the necessary steps.

I thank the honourable gentleman and all members here for bringing these items to my attention, but I must say there has to be timely disclosure so we can work away and full disclosure so we can work at this to protect the patients.

TARIFFS ON SOFTWOOD LUMBER

14:50

Mr. Pope: I would like to pose a question to the Premier. It has to do with the softwood lumber issue in the United States and here in Ontario.

The Premier will be aware from his recent study of this issue that, going back to 1962, the chief complaint in the US Congress and to the International Trade Commission emanated out of the stumpage and crown dues practices of British Columbia. He will also be aware that Senator Packwood was instrumental in having the House committee on ways and means request the ITC in 1982 to do an investigation and have public hearings on this matter in Portland, Oregon, with a specific emphasis on the Pacific Northwest and the British Columbia stumpage practices, and that this complaint is the major complaint today of the American producers.

Does the Premier not agree -- and I acknowledge it is in hindsight -- that it was a mistake for Ontario to link itself to the British Columbia position? Would it not be wiser for Ontario, while arguing the Canadian case that there was no subsidy in stumpage policies, to protect itself and claim an exemption for producing companies in Ontario because we do not have the same nature of policies that British Columbia does?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member raises an interesting question. He will be aware that our stumpage is roughly double that in British Columbia and in Quebec. I am aware that since the majority of the exports come out of British Columbia, the majority of the attention is on that area. We are second, roughly equal in exports with Quebec, even though Quebec has substantially lower stumpage than we do.

Because these things are not directed against particular provinces, but against countries, the question in national terms is, what was the best approach in this matter? Miss Carney, as well as federal officials, had carriage of this matter. The member can second-guess the decision and say that perhaps we should have gone to the US with two or three different positions or with a united position. I suspect that had we gone with a divided opinion, he would have been the first to stand up in this House and castigate us on the approach that was taken.

Frankly, our approach is to deal, where possible, on a national basis and to give the best advice we possibly can. Let me assure the member we did that. But when things happen, such as policies being announced in Washington by Miss Carney unbeknownst to us, they obviously put pressure on the situation.

As a former minister and having spent some time on this issue, the member is knowledgeable on this issue. I hope he will use the great credibility he has in this House as a former minister and as an outstanding member of the Progressive Conservative Party to phone Miss Carney, tell her exactly what he told me and give her some advice on this matter.

Mr. Pope: I will be happy to try to do the Premier's job for him if he does not feel he can do it.

I refer the Premier to page 67 of the decision and indicate that he is obviously unaware of the suspension of liquidation provisions that are available to anyone who appears before the ITC. Why did he not avail himself of those provisions and help Ontario workers and industries?

Because he opted to go along with British Columbia and Quebec in the national consensus he went along with, can he tell us what proportion of the burden of the eight to 10 per cent solution is going to fall on Ontario workers and industries? Did he make a specific deal that Ontario would be exempt from the burden of that eight to 10 per cent solution?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: In the interest of causing a political fuss, the member, as is his leader, is making in his statement a bunch of assumptions that are not particularly valid in the circumstances. He is entitled to second-guess what has been done, but he should not for a minute pretend that what he is saying is the truth in these matters or that it would have absolutely happened, because he is quite wrong in the circumstances. I know exactly what he would say to me if we had taken different approaches in this matter. We gave the very best advice we could possibly give, but no one can say for sure what effect the indication made by Miss Carney to the US cabinet minister had on the ITC.

We are studying that judgement in great detail. The advice we are getting is that it is legally flawed and that there are ways in which it can be attacked. Our approach is to attack it legally, diplomatically and in every single way we possibly can. It is not our approach to try to negotiate a solution to this in the sense of admitting guilt. We have to fight this thing, because we believe it is wrong. That is the advice we are taking to the federal representatives, to the other provinces and to others.

My honourable friend, who used to have some friends in the industry and used to know them reasonably well, should avail himself of all the facts in this circumstance and talk to the industry about the role Ontario played in this matter. They will tell him, the ones who know the issue even better than he did when he was their lackey in 1983 and went down there -- he was making the case they suggested to him; he was carrying their message; he was acting for them; he was not acting for the government. Let me tell the member --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

PENSION FUNDS

Mr. Mackenzie: I have a question for the Premier, who has received a large number of letters from steelworkers, auto workers and other union members concerning a potential flaw in early retirement pensions for workers in the province.

The modification of the Canada pension plan to allow for early retirement at age 60 can be totally negated if early retirement benefits in existing private plans are able to take advantage of this incentive by reducing the private bridging benefits dollar for dollar. This can destroy the incentive for early retirement, which opens up employment and creates more enjoyment in the golden years.

Is the Premier prepared to respond positively and quickly to end this loophole in the plans?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I have not seen the letters the member talks about. It may very well be the case. As the member knows, I get thousands of letters. I will take the point the honourable member raises in this House under advisement, I will review all the aspects with the minister responsible and the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) and I will share the information from that review with him.

Mr. Mackenzie: I hope the Premier's staff will show him some of the hundreds and probably thousands of letters that have been sent to him on this issue.

Does the Premier not agree that Ontario should offer at least the same protection to its workers that Quebec did when it brought in such protective legislation in conjunction with similar modifications to the Quebec pension plan in 1984?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: We are reviewing the entire matter of pensions at present. We will be seeing legislation in the not-too-distant future.

If the member is asking me whether we should have the same legislation as Quebec in all regards, the answer is probably no. Quebec is looking at Ontario to do some of the things we are doing here. We have to tailor our solutions to the individual situation here.

As I said, I will take the point the member makes under advisement and share the results of our review with him.

SALE OF PATENTED LAND

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Municipal Affairs has a response to a question previously asked by the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel).

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: In response to the question concerning the sale of leased lots on Fairbank Lake by Falconbridge Ltd., I want to reiterate my previous answer.

As the legal land owner, Falconbridge Ltd. has the right to subdivide and sell lots subject to the Planning Act approval given by the regional municipality of Sudbury. The authority to approve plans of subdivision in Sudbury was delegated to the regional municipality of Sudbury on August 1, 1978. The approval of the Falconbridge subdivision is entirely within the jurisdiction of the region. My ministry has no direct involvement or authority in this matter.

15:00

Mr. Martel: Since Inco, Falconbridge and other mining companies own hundreds of thousands of acres in the province, is this government prepared to remove the surface rights from the companies when we are talking about mines patent, so that they have only the mineral rights and so that where there is not going to be any surface work, they do not have the right to that? When we try to open even a dump up in the north, we have to get permission from the mining companies. Is the minister prepared to remove that right if they do not need the surface rights for mining purposes?

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: I have already spoken to the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) about this problem. This problem started about 50 years ago, when the government of the day gave those mines the right to subdivide these lands. I am talking with the Minister of Natural Resources about that problem.

HOSPITAL BEDS

Mr. Callahan: About two months ago, the Minister of Health, in announcements regarding new health facilities, allotted some 380 acute care beds and 200 chronic care beds to the region of Peel. Peel Memorial Hospital in Brampton still requires 120 acute care beds to complete its acute care allocation.

All of these matters were subject to the district health council reporting to the minister. That report was to be received some time in October. I would like to ask the minister, have we received the report from the district health council on that item yet?

Hon. Mr. Elston: I thank the member for his question. It is important for all of us to understand that the process of planning for the institutional revitalization of our hospital sector has been progressing on par with what we had hoped. All of the health councils have indicated they will be meeting their objective of reporting back to me by the end of October. I am expecting very shortly a number of reports with respect to the allocation of those resources among communities.

I have to say to the honourable gentleman, however, that I am not aware at this point that the recommendations of the council in his area have come to the ministry. I will check on that to see whether they have been received in the last few days and get back to him with that advice.

Mr. Callahan: In addition, the minister indicated at the same time that there might well be an innovative health facility in that area. We have embarked upon a consultation report, which was referred by the Chinguacousy health services board to the district health council. That again was subject to some comment by the district health council to the minister. I would like to inquire whether that report is in yet.

Hon. Mr. Elston: At this point, I am unable to advise the honourable gentleman exactly what the health council has taken into consideration, although I am sure it is quite willing to do so and probably did take into account several proposals around its area of planning authority. I suspect that this was probably one of the items that came to its attention.

I am unable to tell the member today the extent of the recommendations, but I will check into it and see what the status of that report to me is and then get back to the member, so that he can have some idea of the time frame within which the ministry will be making a response.

FLOODING

Mr. Brandt: In the absence of the Minister of Natural Resources, who is undoubtedly working out a new position on the softwood lumber industry with his colleague the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. O'Neil), I will address my question to the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

The minister is undoubtedly aware of the extensive damage that has recently occurred as a result of high water levels in the Great Lakes system. That damage has involved extensive cost and erosion to shorelines. Some roads have had to be completely abandoned in my municipality. There have been a great number of costs associated with the damage that has been done. While all this has been going on, we have been waiting somewhat patiently for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, in concert with the Ministry of Natural Resources, to give some response to individuals and municipalities that have experienced this extensive cost related to the high water levels.

Will the minister indicate today what his ministry is prepared to do to undertake some form of co-operative partnership with municipalities to assist them in these tremendously high costs associated with the recent high water levels that we have just experienced and that we can anticipate we will be experiencing in the future as well?

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: This government already did something about it four or five months ago. We have extended the program until March 31, 1987, and we are now looking at a long-term policy. There is a short-term policy in place and we are looking at a long-term policy. Any municipalities that are having a flooding problem should address the ministry. We have responded to every municipal concern.

Mr. Brandt: The short-term policy is inadequate and the long-term policy is not going to help those who are experiencing very critical problems at present.

Is the minister indicating to me that if municipalities are experiencing above-normal costs associated with flooding in the Great Lakes system, they can make application to his ministry and he will work out some subsidy program to assist those municipalities? Is that what he is saying in terms of an immediate response to a critical problem?

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître: We are doing this daily. We are trying to assist municipalities that are faced with flooding problems. We are doing it every day. I agree with the member that the guidelines are poor, but we inherited these guidelines. Now we are trying to improve them.

PENSION FUNDS

Mr. McClellan: I have a question for the minister responsible for pension policy, who is also the Treasurer, arising out of the answer tabled yesterday to question 335 in Orders and Notices, asking for information about surplus pension fund withdrawals from the Pension Commission of Ontario. The answer indicates that if a "plan is in surplus, then the employer may apply that surplus against the required current service cost without application to the pension commission."

In other words, companies can rip off the surplus of a pension fund as a substitute for their regular employer contributions. Is it the intention of the government -- surely it is not -- to allow that additional piece of legalized theft to continue in the Pension Benefits Act?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The honourable member is referring to a situation where a surplus above and beyond the 125 per cent required under the regulations exists and where additional payments from the company concerned are forgone, so that the surplus above that point does not accumulate. I believe that is the present policy, but as the Premier and the minister have indicated, the matter is under review and we hope to have legislation before the House for consideration.

Mr. McClellan: Let me get this straight. The government is proposing a pension reform law which does not provide inflation protection, does nothing to end the legalized theft of pension surpluses and fails to protect workers against the kind of ripoffs that my colleague from Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) identified this afternoon. Even the vesting provisions are not retroactive, so all moneys invested until the end of this year will still be subject in perpetuity to the 10-and-45 rule. Is that the government's idea of pension reform? Is that the best it can come up with?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I do not know how even the fevered mind of the member could draw that conclusion from my answer, which I thought was rather innocuous. I indicated that we are aware of the situation the member brought to our attention, that we are concerned about it and are reviewing it and that we hope to introduce legislation.

15:10

TREATMENT OF PRISONERS

Mr. Sargent: For the record, I want to convey to the Solicitor General, for whom I have the greatest respect, my concern about the local jails up our way taking prisoners who have to go to hospital or to a funeral in handcuffs and leg irons. It is a system that is very medieval and we should put a stop to it. I hope the Solicitor General will have a look at that.

Mr. Speaker: Minister, will you have a look at that?

Hon. Mr. Keyes: I will be happy to have a look at anything the honourable member puts forward. May I suggest that we must look at such issues as the offence for which a person has been brought into our keeping. We try to use common sense and discretion at any time when restraints are needed. We are always looking.

Mr. Sargent: The fact behind this is a young chap who is in jail. His grandmother was dying. Two guards took him to the hospital in handcuffs and leg irons and he had to shuffle to the bedside and kiss her goodbye with handcuffs on. All our staff in the penal system should be aware that there should be a sense of decency in everything we do.

Hon. Mr. Keyes: I did not hear a question.

SCHOOL FUNDING

Mr. Davis: I have a question for the Premier. There seems to be a significant difference of opinion between two members of the cabinet, which is not unusual. In March, the Minister of Education (Mr. Conway) told the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation provincial assembly, "We do not intend to fund private schools." In April, the Solicitor General (Mr. Keyes) told the Kingston Whig-Standard, "I presume we will be providing funding in the private schools in the not-too-distant future." Will the Premier indicate to the House today which of his cabinet ministers was speaking for the government?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: l will be happy to do that if the honourable member will tell me which of those guys opposite speaks for his party. Mr. Speaker, you can imagine the frustration for a government in a minority situation that is attempting in a spirit of generosity to work with all the parties in this House, trying to accommodate their individual needs and their particular views on issues. Believe me, to have 17 different views on every single issue from the party opposite causes frustration for the government.

I want to be very clear. My colleague to the right is not a shrinking violet. He speaks for the government on educational policy. The member will be aware that he is in possession of the Shapiro report. The government is looking at it at the moment. It is not the government's policy at the moment. If the member has any further questions, he should direct them to my friend beside me.

Mr. Davis: On April 28, 1985, the Premier was quoted in the Toronto Star as saying, "The Liberal Party has advocated the establishment of a select committee of the Legislature to conduct open and public hearings into the manner in which public funding might be extended to alternative and independent schools." Now that the Shapiro report has been tabled, will the Premier give an undertaking to this House that the committee will be established prior to the spring session?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: As I said, this is an open government. We are always looking at any good suggestions that are around. I have no problems with committees examining this or any other subject around here. I just hope we can get on with some of the legislative work we have at hand. I ask the member to tell his colleagues that if we could avoid the backlog that is developing around here, and if they could help us out in getting some of the work done, we could examine some of these problems that are facing this province.

POLICING ON RESERVES

Mr. Pouliot: I have a question for the Solicitor General. The minister will be aware of the shocking and appalling incident that took place on May 16, when an elder, Moses Anderson, was assaulted and badly beaten in the remote northern reserve of Kasabonika Lake. The minister will be further aware that the number of reported, documented and serious violent incidents at that reserve has increased from two to 19 in less than a year. For nine years, the people of Kasabonika have asked the government to comply with the most essential of services, which is police protection; yet in this incident it took people under his ministry, the Ontario Provincial Police, more than two days to acquiesce and to make a physical appearance on the reserve. When can we expect that the people of Kasabonika Lake will be given the attention and the services they deserve?

Hon. Mr. Keyes: The matter of special constables for reserves is one, of course, that has a high priority in the government. As the member knows and as the House may well know, we have 132 of those constables at present.

The matter of funding for these constables is jointly shared between the federal government and the provincial government historically and has continued to be for some time. We have just recently been able to get the federal government to sign the 1985-86 agreement, which has now almost gone by. As late as September 25, we met with them on the 1986-87 agreement. To date they have not agreed to sign the agreement, because they insist on a clause that says "if funds are available." That is rather difficult.

Kasabonika Lake is the top priority for additional constables. We are personally committed to this as soon as we can receive funding and agreement through the federal government.

Mr. Pouliot: I have a letter dated May 29, 1986. It comes from the office of the great hope and beloved leader, the Premier (Mr. Peterson). It tells us again "in the not-too-distant future." We are about three steps short of eternity. The future can last a long, long time when we get letters from people such as the minister.

With respect, what is needed is not a compromise with the feds. Let us not bring in the Conservatives; let us not bring in the feds. The minister should do his job. He has that mandate. He has that responsibility. He should give us police protection.

Hon. Mr. Keyes: Once again, I did not hear a question, Mr. Speaker.

COURT FACILITIES

Mr. Callahan: My question is addressed to the Attorney General. As the Attorney General will be well aware, the city of Brampton and the region of Peel, as probably the fastest-growing community in Canada, has a great need for courtroom facilities. I had an opportunity to attend at these courtroom facilities about six months ago with the Assistant Deputy Attorney General. I understand the Attorney General himself has visited my riding with reference to this matter. I would like to have an update on where we are with reference to the additional court space for Peel region.

Hon. Mr. Scott: When we came into office, two courtrooms were on the list for Peel, which were required by the district court. The estimated value of that is $5 million, which is about a quarter of our budget.

The honourable member will be interested to hear that I went to Peel county and met the judges. We found two courtrooms they were not using, one in the basement of the sheriff's building and the other downtown in the old courthouse. Therefore, we are not going to be building those courtrooms, because they are not necessary.

In the provincial court, there is no doubt that the system is operating at capacity, and as the county grows -- and it grows annually in very large amounts -- we will have to develop a plan for the medium term. I hope very shortly to be able to announce to the House a program related to courtroom and courthouse construction.

Mr. Callahan: Since probably one of the answers to the problems would be to put all the court facilities together, I wonder whether the Attorney General would consider in his deliberations -- assuming it is agreeable to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Kwinter) -- moving the registry office out of the northerly building and locating it somewhere else. That would provide additional space of some considerable size for further courtrooms without the immediate expenditure of those funds at this time.

Hon. Mr. Scott: We will certainly consider that.

SMALL CLAIMS COURT

Mr. O'Connor: I also have a question for the Attorney General. Some 14 months ago, I brought to the Attorney General's attention the severe discrimination suffered by citizens living outside Metropolitan Toronto by virtue of the fact that, in dealing with their small claims court system, they are less fairly treated than those living inside Metro. As we know, within Metro, one can process small claims debts up to $3,000, but outside Metro that is not available to our citizens. The Attorney General assured me at the time that he was looking into the matter and would be taking care of it soon. Can he tell us when he might be taking care of that situation?

15:20

Hon. Mr. Scott: To be candid, the last time the honourable member asked me, I said I would be looking into the matter; I did not say the rest. I have looked into the matter, and the provision of this important service outside Metropolitan Toronto would be very expensive because it would involve the appointment of a substantial number of new judges to service the work, which is not necessary inside Metropolitan Toronto.

As a matter of budgetary constraint, we have to look very carefully at programs of this type. They are important, but they have to be weighed carefully against the needs of health care, education and a variety of other services. That is why we are not building the two courtrooms in Brampton. We found two others, and we are trying to be as careful as we can with the taxpayers' money. They pay taxes and they expect us to provide that careful consideration of need.

This is an important request, and we will try to evaluate carefully, along with other budgetary obligations of the government, if it is going to serve the people's interest properly, which we believe we are going to do.

Mr. O'Connor: This sounds like a broken record. This is what the Attorney General said to us 14 months ago.

Does the minister not understand that by implementing the higher level outside Metro there would be increased revenues to the small claims court system and decreased revenues -- savings, in other words -- to the higher court system? Further, in some cities, specifically Hamilton, Ottawa and Niagara Falls, there are already judges available to hear these cases and there would be no significant increase in costs in those areas and perhaps in some others.

Hon. Mr. Scott: When we have a supplementary question, I expect the honourable member to ask a different question from the first question. The member simply repeated the first question, and in the past 35 seconds or so my answer to it has not changed.

Let me point out what the honourable member knows, if he can remember back to the estimates process. To carry this program beyond Metropolitan Toronto, we would have to appoint approximately 17 new judges to do this work. With those appointments, we would have to make appropriate additional appointments in the court system. We would have to create more courtrooms.

The project is not a simple or cheap one to undertake. There are other competing demands on the taxpayers' dollars, and we are trying to evaluate this one and put it in priority against those other important demands.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Ms. Gigantes: My question is to the Minister of Labour. In April 1986, workers were injured by exposure to coal tar contamination at the Lees Avenue site in Ottawa. I ask, on behalf of those workers and the interested public in Ottawa, where is the health and safety inspection report?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I will have to check into whether an additional report was done, but I believe the honourable member may find that much of the matter that concerns the Lees Avenue site is a problem that falls under the jurisdiction of my colleague the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley). However, I will take the matter under advisement and check.

Whatever our responsibility is in the matter, I can assure the member that if reports needed to be done by our ministry, as opposed to the Ministry of the Environment, they were done. I will check into it and share the results with her.

Mr. Speaker: That completes the allotted time for question period.

I have had a number of notes from members complaining about the heat in the chamber today. They certainly have a right to make some comment. It is extremely high. However, I must inform members that some time ago the fire alarms were going and we cleared the galleries. Nothing in particular took place. There might have been some factor that contributed to the trouble we are having with the cool air that is supposed to be coming into the chamber. I hope it will be redirected by tomorrow.

TABLING OF INFORMATION

Mr. Harris: On October 15, I raised the issue of the delay in answering questions. On October 14, in response to a statement, the member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies) made reference to questions concerning computer contracts, the answers to which were promised by October 10. When the member for Brantford raised that, the government House leader held up a stack of answers, which have not appeared in Hansard. At that point he held them up and said, "Here they are," but they were not in there.

The questions involved serious matters of computer contracts that were let by the government and that were of serious concern and the subject of allegations during committee hearings this summer. I would like to know when the stonewalling and coverup are going to cease. They have had lots of time to get the files and table the answers on those contracts.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Maybe the member could control himself and not get too hot under the collar with the hot temperatures we have in here. I hope the government House leader will take note of the request regarding the outstanding questions, as I am sure he has done in the past.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I have certainly taken note of that, and I have heard the question asked before. I will respond as soon as I possibly can. I will be sure that the ministers responsible --

Mr. Harris: When the member for Brantford asked the question, the government House leader said, "Here they are." There is nothing in here.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The debate is completed.

PETITIONS

NATUROPATHY

Mr. Barlow: I have a petition signed by some 258 residents, mostly from Cambridge, but some from the suburbs, including Kitchener, Waterloo and Guelph.

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

"We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

"Whereas it is our constitutional right to have available and to choose the health care system of our preference;

"And whereas naturopathy has had self-governing status in Ontario for more than 42 years;

"We petition the Ontario Legislature to call on the government to introduce legislation that would guarantee naturopaths the right to practise their art and science to the fullest without prejudice or harassment."

SALE OF BEER AND WINE

Ms. Hart: I wish to present a petition in respect of Bill 134. The petition was signed by 70 people in my riding of York East. The petitioners are all employees of Loblaws Ltd. on Moore Avenue.

The petition requests that the government of Ontario in An Act to amend the Liquor Licence Act not exclude their place of business from the opportunity to sell beer and wine and that their grocery store be included in the definition of food stores eligible to sell beer and wine.

INTRODUCTION OF BILL

INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL ARBITRATION ACT / LOI SUR L'ARBITRAGE COMMERCIAL INTERNATIONAL

Hon. Mr. Scott moved first reading of Bill 139, An Act to implement the Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration, adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law.

L'hon. M. Scott propose la première lecture du projet de loi 139, Loi concernant la mise en application de la loi type sur l'arbitrage commercial international adoptée par la Commission des Nations Unies pour le droit commercial international.

Motion agreed to.

La motion est adoptée.

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY RETIREMENT ALLOWANCES AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. McLean moved first reading of Bill 140, An Act to amend the Legislative Assembly Retirement Allowances Act.

Motion agreed to.

PUBLIC SERVICE SUPERANNUATION AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. McLean moved first reading of Bill 141, An Act to amend the Public Service Superannuation Act.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. McLean: This private member's bill is designed to prevent what we refer to as double-dipping. It simply means that a member of this Legislature who retires cannot be appointed to a salaried position on a board or commission and continue to collect his or her pension benefits while being paid at the commission rate.

Ian Deans, the New Democratic Party member of Parliament, is a classic example of the type of double-dipping or, in his case, triple-dipping. I am trying to prevent this. He gets a pension from the Ontario Legislature and a pension from the federal government, and he holds down a $90,000-a-year federal appointment. There are other examples I can give members.

Mr. Speaker: With respect, we can accept a brief explanation, but I believe you should leave some of the other information until the bill is discussed on second reading.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

TORONTO HOSPITAL ACT

Hon. Mr. Elston moved second reading of Bill 129, An Act to amalgamate Toronto General Hospital and Toronto Western Hospital.

Hon. Mr. Elston: Last February, the directors of Toronto General Hospital and Toronto Western Hospital publicly announced their desire to amalgamate. To make this possible, I then tabled Bill 129, which received first reading on July 10. We are now ready to proceed with second reading.

The two hospitals are among the finest in Canada. Both are excellent teaching institutions and are well known for their pioneering work. Just this month, on October 2, Toronto Western celebrated the 20th anniversary of its kidney transplant program. Toronto General has a long and impressive list of "firsts." Just this month, it began installing 1,000 computer terminals for Canada's first bedside patient information system.

Under this proposed legislation, Toronto General and Toronto Western would continue as public hospitals offering a broad range of health care services, but they would be governed by a single board and would be known as the Toronto Hospital. The objective of this amalgamation is to streamline their administration and produce significant savings, which the hospital plans to use to improve and expand service. The Ministry of Health supports that wholeheartedly.

I would like to note that these savings will come from more efficient administration and purchasing. A policy covering job security and seniority was passed by both hospital boards and distributed to every hospital employee. It states, "No employee shall lose their employment as a direct result of the merger."

This issue has been discussed by my officials and hospital representatives. It is also covered very clearly in the new hospital's personnel policy. Provincial labour law requires that existing collective agreements be respected in any amalgamation.

We are proceeding with this legislation because we fully expect that the amalgamation will improve the administration of both hospitals, that their employees will be adequately protected and, most important, that it will free up millions of dollars that can and will be put to use providing better health care for the people of the province.

Mr. Andrewes: I wish to indicate to the minister and the government that we will be supporting this bill. I took very seriously the comments of the Premier (Mr. Peterson) earlier today when he indicated his concern about the lack of progress with legislation. I want to indicate to the government, the government House leader and the Minister of Health that we will be supporting this bill. In the interests of making progress, we hope we will move through second reading today and perhaps to third reading at some point this afternoon, if that is the government House leader's wish.

There are a number of reasons, as the minister indicated, why it is necessary to expedite this bill and why it would be appropriate to move quickly. The examples of cost saving are rather encouraging. We are told that these cost savings could amount to as much as four or five per cent. On a combined budget of $250 million, the immediate savings could be as much $3.5 million to $5 million.

The minister mentioned the consolidated purchasing currently going on with the two hospitals. We are told that has already saved in excess of $400,000 and could lead to as much as $1 million in annual savings. The minister has indicated to the hospitals that any cost savings that result from the merger will be retained within the hospital's global budget and will not be taken back by the ministry or used to reduce the hospital's global budget in any way. In effect, that means better service, a better-equipped hospital and an improvement in the all-round health care delivery provided by those two excellent hospitals.

That sort of substantive evidence should be enough to encourage members in all parties to move quickly to have this bill receive third reading and royal assent and proclamation. We understand the government is going to allow this bill to go to committee for public hearings. I am not sure what the concerns are on the government's side, but we hope and trust that those who wish this bill to go to committee will indicate their support for that activity in the usual way, which I assume is 20 members standing in their places.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: We will be supporting this bill on second reading. I want to make a few comments about the process leading up to the debate on this bill today and about why I think the bill should go to one of the committees of the Legislature for public hearings.

This bill was first shared with members of the opposition the day before the Legislature adjourned in the spring. At that time, there was an expectation that the bill could be introduced and somehow sent through first, second and third readings before the Legislature adjourned. Where that expectation came from and how anybody in his right mind could have thought we could pass a bill very quickly that was going to amalgamate two very large institutions is beyond me. It will be the first bill of its kind, given the size of these institutions, and may set a precedent as to how these matters are dealt with; there are other institutions in Toronto looking at amalgamation.

15:40

How we can pass it that quickly is beyond me. It seems to me the attitude some at the hospital have taken is that we should pass the enabling legislation and leave this autonomous board to do, in terms of policy, what it wants with jobs and how this matter is implemented with regard to its employees. As the people who are going to pass this piece of legislation, we have an obligation to make sure it is done right. As the body that funds hospitals in this province, we have an obligation to make sure it is being done properly.

We have an obligation to discuss this matter with more than just the hospital board. There are employees and unions involved. Has the minister ever met with the unions involved in this amalgamation of the two hospitals? I met with the unions back in early September. To my surprise, the unions had never been invited in by the administrations of the hospitals to discuss exactly what was going to happen and how it was going to affect them. There had been no negotiations about how amalgamation was going to take place.

At that time, the official policy of how to deal with personnel matters had not been passed by both boards. There had been, through newsletters and so forth, some indication of how personnel matters would be dealt with but no direct communication with the representatives of the various unions or employee representatives at the various hospitals. Yet the hospitals expected us to pass this piece of legislation weeks before September even occurred.

Apparently, there now has been one meeting and some discussion with the various unions, but I am not convinced that those were satisfactory. I understand that when this Legislature dealt with regional government legislation, there were all sorts of guarantees built into the legislation about how employee groups were going to be dealt with and offering some guarantees. I think a committee of the Legislature is going to have to look at things such as contracting out and whether or not we can insert this employee policy into the legislation, to make sure that policies the hospital boards are offering its employees are put in legislation.

Policies can be developed and approved one day and changed the next day. Legislation is much more difficult to change. If the hospitals are willing to offer these kinds of guarantees to its employees, perhaps as many as possible should be inserted into the legislation to offer the employees the kinds of protection the hospital boards say they are willing to offer. I do not think there has been adequate consultation with the unions and the employee groups. I do not think there has been adequate discussion here in the Legislature. I ask the minister, how much is the combined budget for these two hospitals?

Mr. Andrewes: It is $250 million.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: We are talking about $250 million, we are talking about many employees and we are talking about communities. I think there needs to be some discussion about how this is going to occur. I would like to look at the membership of the board of directors of this hospital. I notice there is no change in how the board is going to be selected. When I look at hospital boards across this province, I am not convinced they adequately reflect the communities in which they reside.

I just went through a lengthy process with one of the hospitals in my home community to try to get it to accept one labour representative on the hospital board. The only way we got that accepted was that they were trying to raise $11 million locally for a new chronic care hospital, which the minister will be announcing tomorrow in our home community.

The minister's staff phoned my staff yesterday to invite me to go to Windsor with them since there was going to be some announcement made. They could not tell us what the announcement would be, but the press in Windsor have all been told by somebody in the minister's office. The press phoned, told me that the Ministry of Health people told them what the announcement was going to be tomorrow and asked for my reaction. The minister's staff cannot share that with the local members, but they can share it with the local press.

However, with regard to hospitals, I think we have to look at opening up the process. It seems to me that in some cases, hospital boards think or try to operate as private corporations when the reality is they are public corporations. Information should be shared with communities, which should be able to participate in developing those criteria and policies if hospitals are to be community-based and have a partnership with the community.

I believe very strongly that in the rationalization of services the amalgamation of hospitals does make sense in certain circumstances. In my own community, if we had one hospital board instead of four, there would be better planning on a local basis and less competition between hospitals. Instead of every hospital wanting to have a computerized axial tomography scanner, where if one hospital gets one, the next one needs to have it -- and the competition seems to exist -- there would be more rationalization and rational planning on a local basis. When we are dealing with huge institutions, teaching hospitals such as the Toronto Western Hospital and the Toronto General Hospital, the accrued savings will be substantial.

I want to make sure that the process we go through as legislators and the legislation that is finally passed -- and it will be passed -- will be adequate and will be model legislation for other hospitals that may be considering the same type of action.

I do not expect this bill will have to remain in committee for a long time. I am told by the chairman of the social development committee that next Monday and Tuesday will be available in this committee. I believe we can listen to the management of the hospital and the employee groups in the committee next week, deal with the bill clause by clause and report the bill back next week. We are really only talking about a delay of one week from the time the bill was introduced in the spring. We are not talking about a great delay.

I understand the original plan was to have the founding meeting of the new hospital board tonight, but it was not our responsibility to make sure that the legislation was the number one priority when the House reconvened. Revenue bills were put in Orders and Notices last week, not the Toronto Hospital Act.

We are dealing with it today, and it would be unreal for anyone to expect that we could go through second and third readings of this bill on the same day. That is not even provided for in the rules. It would completely bypass one of the major partners in this process, the employee groups. After all, if this is going to work, obviously the employee groups have to be fully behind the amalgamation. By referring the bill to committee, there will be a better understanding of the process, where the savings will accrue, how they will accrue and what the employee policy that has been passed by the boards means to the employees of the two hospitals.

Hon. Mr. Elston: The honourable gentleman has raised a number of issues of which there will be some discussion. There are also two or three housekeeping matters, a change of words or something, that will have to be looked at when this matter is in committee, but I expect the debate concerning the passage of this bill on second reading will find that all parties are in favour of it and we should probably proceed with it.

I have one comment with respect to the system of public hospitals. The system itself is based upon autonomous boards. Each of us at any given time has made speeches in support of that system and that style of operation of our hospital system in Ontario. We must always keep in mind that those boards must be allowed to act as freely and as independently as possible, to make those wise management decisions which they, as trustees of their communities and of public facilities, deem to be in the best interest.

That being the case, I urge all members to vote for passage of this bill on second reading and I look forward to seeing it move to the social development committee afterwards.

Motion agreed to.

Bill ordered for standing committee on social development.

15:50

MEMBERS' ANNIVERSARIES

Mr. Foulds: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: Before we proceed with the next item of business, I found it disturbing and passing strange that none of the House leaders of any of the three parties saw fit to recognize the 15th anniversary today of nine members of the Legislature who were first elected on October 21, 1971.

I can understand the government House leader failing to mention the occasion, because there are no Liberals on that particular list, but I would like to pay tribute to the following members in alphabetical order: the member for Ottawa South (Mr. Bennett), the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds), the member for Algoma-Manitoulin (Mr. Lane), the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren), the member for York West (Mr. Leluk), the member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller), the member for Prince Edward-Lennox (Mr. Taylor), the member for Don Mills (Mr. Timbrell) and the member for Lanark (Mr. Wiseman), all of whom are celebrating their 15th anniversary in this crucible of democracy, the Ontario Legislature.

Hon. Mr. Elston: Same old gang.

Mr. Foulds: It may be old, but it is not a gang. I just want to say it has been a personally rewarding experience for me and, I think, for all members of the Legislature. Few people recognize just how rewarding an experience public life is.

I want to pay particular tribute to the member for Algoma-Manitoulin, who is here with us today, because I believe he has served northern Ontario well and because he is the only other one of my colleagues who were elected on that day who is in the Legislature at this moment. I am sure all of the others are attending to legislative and parliamentary business in other forums at the present time.

Mr. Harris: On the same point, on behalf of our party, I too would like to proffer congratulations to those who are on the cash-for-life program. That is the 15-year achievement award for years of very difficult service on behalf of their constituents.

The member for Port Arthur has read the names into the record and I will not re-read them, but let me indicate, as he has mentioned, that he was surprised that none of the House leaders mentioned this earlier today. I know these members all wanted to participate in the debate today. To ensure that, we were going to do this at 6:30, at which time I was sure we would have full attendance and they would all be here to hear it.

However, on behalf of our party, I join in congratulating the survivors. As a member from northern Ontario, I offer special congratulations to the member for Port Arthur and to the member for Algoma-Manitoulin as the two members from northern Ontario. We work twice as hard to represent ridings in northern Ontario, and that is equivalent to 30 years of service. Special congratulations to those two members.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I would certainly like to join the other two honourable members in extending congratulations. I am sorry the Liberal list is somewhat deficient in this regard.

Mr. Foulds: We are not.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: That was not one of our banner election years, if members want to know the truth, because that was the one when the then Premier, William Davis, said there would not be another nickel for the Catholic schools. Actually, he made that announcement, then called a press conference and an election, and said he hoped separate school funding would not be an issue.

Certainly, his spirit was in the right place. In the event, we did talk about it a little bit, and the more we talked about it, the more members we lost. However, we survived, and here we are with that issue established to the satisfaction of all.

Mr. Harris: Mr. Speaker, I rise to correct the record. I should have mentioned the member for Nickel Belt as one of those who put in 30 years of service in that 15-year period as well.

INTERIM SUPPLY

Hon. Mr. Nixon moved resolution 8:

That the Treasurer of Ontario be authorized to pay the salaries of the civil servants and other necessary payments pending the voting of supply for the period commencing November 1, 1986, and ending December 31, 1986, such payments to be charged to the proper appropriation following the voting of supply.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I want to say to the honourable members that this is a routine motion and that the period of time envisaged in the motion is well within that which is enabled by the rules. We expect during that period of time about $5.1 billion to be spent on the routine expenditures referred to in the motion itself.

I know the honourable members will confine their remarks to the specific aspects of the interim supply and not allow themselves the luxury of branching out and talking about anything that comes to mind. With that pious hope put before the members, I sit back with a blank page ready to make notes so that I can respond to the matters they wish to raise at this time.

Mr. McCague: I ask the Treasurer whether he happens to be dreaming when he says that everyone will stick exactly to the subject. That they will do, but many things are also of interest to us as members and as legislators that are directly related to the motion he has just put.

I am sure there is a history to it, but it is always interesting to me that the motion starts off by mentioning that we will pay the salaries of the civil servants and other necessary payments. I am not sure what the proportion of salaries is in the total $5.1 billion we are being asked to vote today, but I am sure the other payments are much more significant in amount than the salaries are.

I have yet to be able to extract from the Treasurer an explanation of the moneys he has asked us to vote towards hospital construction for this year. He made much of the $850 million he was putting into hospital construction, but he has never really been able to clarify for us whether it is the same old program and he has just extended it for a full eight years, or whether new money is going into the construction of much-needed hospital beds. At the speed at which the Minister of Health (Mr. Elston) is travelling with his approval of beds, be they acute, hospital or otherwise, I doubt very much whether any additional money is being spent in this fiscal year or whether it is as much as has been the norm in years past.

I brought to the attention of the Treasurer and the Minister of Health the very urgent need for the funding of 10 more beds in the Collingwood hospital, beds that are very badly needed. People are spending as much four days in the hallways or in the emergency ward.

The ministry has also been very slow, probably because of lack of funding, in paying attention to several requests for approval to proceed with the planning for a new Orangeville hospital some years down the road, a very urgent need in view of the condition of the present facility.

16:00

The Treasurer has all kinds of windfall money this year, as he has already acknowledged, yet I have had great difficulty in persuading the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation to approve a grant for the construction of a new arena in the town of Stayner. The arena there has been condemned, and this is causing many young people in the area to go without ice sports this winter.

I am sure the Treasurer has a nest-egg nicely hidden away that he will use for whatever purpose happens to come up in the next 18 months. He has higher-than-expected tax revenues and higher-than-expected transfer payments. He has not told us what he intends to do with those funds.

I will suggest some things he might do with some of the $5.1 billion. I do not know whether any of that is not dedicated at this time. We heard much from the Treasurer in years past about the employment and unemployment situation across the province, in particular in Brantford, very close to his home. I suggest to the Treasurer that there are as many people under threat of layoff and laid off in northern Ontario as there were in Brantford at that time. He does not seem to have the same concern for municipalities in northern Ontario that he explained to the Treasurer of the day in regard to Brantford.

The now Treasurer was very interested in whipping Ontario Hydro into line. If he has been successful in doing anything, it is not obvious to anybody on this side of the House or, I suggest, to any taxpayer in Ontario.

The Treasurer has from time to time talked about the credit rating, which he was singularly successful in having lowered. He takes some pride that it is costing only $6 million to $10 million to fund that lowering of the credit rating. With his increased revenues this year, I would have thought that with any kind of prudent budgeting we would by now have had our triple-A credit rating back.

He mentions paying the salaries of civil servants. That, of course, we must do. We must also pay 1,500 more civil servants than was the case in 1985. The Treasurer will be well aware that the government that preceded him was very cautious and earnestly did what it felt the population of Ontario wanted, which was a lowering of the number of civil servants. Over a 10-year period it was reduced by some 7,000.

However, since the new government took over, the number has increased quickly from 80,142 in 1985 to 81,592 in 1986. It would not surprise me in the least that the number would be even greater than that if we were able to get the most up-to-date figures. One of the reasons this is the case is that it is said the combined cost of the budgets of the Office of the Premier and the Cabinet Office have risen by 45 per cent over the past year. I can only presume that part of the 45 per cent is in salaries.

The Treasurer always had a great love for the dome, or the stadium corporation, as it is known. I hope he is diligent in his determination that not more than $30 million of provincial funds will be dedicated to that project. I suggest there is a way the Treasurer could use some of his windfall profits or income this year to do some things not only in my riding and his but also in the other 123.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: There is nothing in mine. The member is getting a courthouse.

Mr. McCague: That is correct. I want to thank the Treasurer very much for that. That was a well-orchestrated deal. After seven years, I am glad to see they will be breaking the sod next Monday. If the Treasurer has not been invited, they would be very happy to have him hold one end of the shovel; I am not sure which end.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I am better with a fork.

Miss Stephenson: We know. We know what kind of fork too.

Mr. McCague: The previous minister always speaks with forked tongue.

Miss Stephenson: No; straight tongue.

Mr. McCague: Although we will go along with this, with the desire to have such an open government, I hope that during the consideration of the Treasurer's estimates much more information will be forthcoming on what he has in unanticipated increased revenues and how he intends to spend them. Will he please tell us at some point during those estimates what the actual dollars are for health, how he intends to spend that money and whether he sees any delay in the spending of those funds?

Mr. Dean: I will hardly be as succinct and to the point as the member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. McCague) -- I always think of him as the Chairman of Management Board, but it is out of his control now, unfortunately.

I wish to make a few comments at this point about some of the Treasurer's policies as reflected in the activities or lack of activities of some of the other ministries. Two are of specific interest to my own riding of Wentworth, and the third is of interest to every riding in the province. In fact, the first two should be also, because they are an indication of the kind of foot-dragging and inattention we seem to be getting from this government in so many ways.

As for the motion we are debating, I agree that we have a liability, as an assembly, to make sure that those who work for us in the other programs that go on are paid. I am not saying the motion is inappropriate or should not be supported -- it should be supported -- but there are some things it does not mention that should be brought to our attention.

The first item I want to speak about -- please do not take my water away. Never take water away from a speaking member, especially when it is this hot.

Mr. Foulds: Go ahead; take it away from him.

Mr. Dean: Does the member mean I might --

Mr. Breaugh: Yes, take it away. I do not think he deserves water -- no water, no food, nothing.

Mr. Dean: Solitary confinement. That is a foreshadow of what would happen if a certain party were in power.

Mr. Breaugh: We would put the member in a jail cell and make him listen to his own speeches for 30 days.

Mr. Dean: I would rather listen to those than some others I might mention.

16:10

The first item is a matter of interest for the Minister of Health. It involves what is known as the St. Joseph's ambulatory care centre. It is located in the part of Hamilton-Wentworth that at the moment is in the riding of Hamilton East but under redistribution will be in the riding of Wentworth East. That is what my riding will be called following the next election.

St. Joseph's is a very innovative health care centre. It is an alternative to a full-fledged hospital, which some people would like to see constructed at some point but which is not justified at present, according to the standards the Ministry of Health imposes. This is not an expensive structure, in the style we have seen in health care nowadays. Its total cost amounted to a mere $15 million, some of which will be raised by the very interested and concerned local population.

If members of the government besides the Minister of Health are not aware of St. Joseph's, they should refresh their memories on the nature of this health care centre. It will combine in one location not only the sort of emergency and ambulance services we expect in smaller health care centres but also many other services, such as diabetic care, audiology and mental health services. The district health unit will be there as well as many other things that I will not take time to mention now.

This new centre was booming along in its development and progress until May 1985, when something seems to have cast a blight on it. Since that time, not much progress has been made because of terrible delays on the part of the officials of the Ministry of Health in approving each succeeding stage of the planning.

Prior to May 1985, we had the personal commitment of both the then Premier, the member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller), and the Minister of Health of the day, the member for Cochrane South (Mr. Pope), that the province's share of the funding for this excellent and efficiently designed facility was taken care of. This followed a great deal of study and planning to see what should go into the unit.

Since the present government took office, mum has been the word with regard to getting any kind of hard and fast assurance that the necessary funding is secured. What is needed is direction from the Treasurer. Although he is listening to another member of the family over there, I know he is hearing what I have to say. He should direct the minister to take a personal interest in this important facility and speed along the approval stages. It has been as slow as molasses so far, and our people deserve better than that.

Of a more local nature, the second item that needs government action is what is called locally the Red Hill Creek Expressway. For those who are not familiar with it, this is a main road that is needed in the Hamilton-Wentworth area for about 22 kilometres, eight of which would be of freeway style and the balance of which would be an urban arterial road. It would make a connection from the Queen Elizabeth Way at the east end of Hamilton, circuiting south and east out of Hamilton to Highway 403 as it travels between Hamilton and Brantford. It is a roadway that has been under study for longer than I like to mention. It has had at least 10 years of extensive study.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Not back to when the member was a Liberal, I trust.

Mr. Dean: Not quite that far back, no. Those were ox-cart days, with politics to match.

Miss Stephenson: The member for Wentworth is younger than the Treasurer.

Mr. Dean: I thank the member for York Mills for what I hope was a compliment.

In any case, without going through all the details of this again, it had extensive professional study, political input and decision-making over that period. This process culminated in nine months of public hearings before the consolidated hearings board, which as many members may know is a combination of the Ontario Municipal Board and the Environmental Assessment Board.

This was the first of the consolidated hearings in Ontario, as a matter of fact. Perhaps that accounts for some of the time that was consumed in the hearings. It extended for nine months, with expert witnesses from the side of the region of Hamilton-Wentworth, which was the proponent, and some kind of evidence and a lot of cross-examination by solicitors for certain people who objected. The decision was made by the board almost exactly one year ago; I think it was October 25, 1985. It was immediately appealed to the cabinet of this province by two or three of the objectors.

How long does one expect an important issue for the second largest region in Ontario to be sitting on the shelf or in the drawers or behind the backs of the members of provincial cabinet? Where is the positive action, and where is their commitment to the continued funding of this?

I hope I am not being deliberately partisan or parochial on this, but it appears to me the government is deliberately ignoring the region of Hamilton-Wentworth. Perhaps they are jealous of its success in spite of government indifference. I do not know why.

This continued delay and inaction is almost worse than action in the wrong way, because one does not know where it is, although I am not suggesting for a minute that action in the wrong way is acceptable. This slowness impedes growth and progress in the Hamilton-Wentworth area, especially in the continuing, almost superhuman, efforts of the regional economic development people to attract business and industry to Hamilton-Wentworth.

It should all be considered as part of a longer-term strategy, which was well in place under the previous government, to de-emphasize the attraction of Toronto and its surrounding region -- not that there is anything wrong with that, but the size of Toronto and its suburbs already causes unique problems. There will be help, not only for the rest of the province but also for the city and surrounding boroughs of Toronto, to encourage and speed up the development of facilities and projects that will make it more attractive for industry and business to go elsewhere.

In saying this about the Hamilton-Wentworth region, I am well aware that the same needs are present in the regions east and north of Toronto and in the areas of Ontario farther west. I am using this as a symptom and a symbol of the kind of attention that should be paid by this government to major programs and projects that are required and sometimes have no direct, immediate effect upon the centre of the universe here at Queen's Park and in the city of Toronto.

The third item I wish to touch on briefly, which has a very important bearing on the funding and which is noted in the resolution we is care for the elderly. All the members of the Legislature will know our caucus has had a task force studying the matter of care for the elderly, holding many hearings around and about Ontario and getting valuable input from the people of all parts of the province, stretching from Thunder Bay to Ottawa and from London to Barrie.

All parts of Ontario can contribute to the study of what is required and what is most needed for the elderly in a period just before, as we are now well aware, there is going to be a burgeoning development in numbers of those over 65 in our society. It is important to know, because all the things that are going to be required will need some funding, with the exception of some of the volunteer services that will be offered gratis by some of us perhaps and certainly by many people in our respective communities. I want to touch on just one part of it because it is a very broad subject and I do not want to spend all the rest of the afternoon talking about it.

16:20

Particularly, I want to talk about home care and institutional care. Most people who study the issue recognize that the more we support home care so that elderly residents can stay in their own homes as long as they are capable or so desire and the less emphasis we put on institutions as the first line of service to the elderly, the better off everybody is, particularly the elderly themselves, and their families as an immediate byproduct. Eventually, all of us benefit.

I will not go into the reason for all that -- some of it is self-evident -- but all of us have an innate feeling we would like to stay in our own homes as long as we can. When we become part of the group we are discussing now, I think we will still feel the same way.

The government has said home care has to be beefed up. We support that. As a matter of fact, our discussion paper on care for the elderly came out with a very strong recommendation for that prior to the present government making its position known. It must be beefed up all over Ontario, not only in actual quantity but also in the way in which it is available.

On the task force on care for seniors, one of the things we heard consistently wherever we went was that home care in all its different aspects is available too little of the time. A person can be eligible for it for a certain number of hours a day or week under certain conditions, but there are times when it is hardly available at all. This is a definite blight on the way in which those who are tempted to stay at home as long as possible look at their lives. They have this uneasiness about whether anybody will be around to give them the extra help they need.

That is the first thing I will say about home care; that it needs to be made available more hours per day and more hours per week.

With regard to institutional care, we are not going to get away from having institutions for some time. I hope nobody is under the illusion that home care, even if it were immediately doubled or tripled, would remove the need for institutions. We hope people will be able to stay in their own homes much longer and therefore not require institutional care until later in life, but there will come a time for many of the residents of our province when they will need some type of institutional care because the home setting will no longer be appropriate.

Home care is going to be an add-on in many respects. The recognition that we also need more institutional care has to be dealt with in the budget, in the payments the Treasurer has to look after. The use of institutional care that readily comes to mind, besides hospitals where chronic care is given, is the nursing homes and their neighbours, the homes for the aged, whether they are operated by municipalities or by charitable institutions.

As many members know, there is a discrepancy in the amount of support the government provides for a resident in a nursing home compared to a resident in a home for the aged. It amounts now to a difference of between approximately $49 a day and $66 a day. That kind of cost and support, a portion of which is paid by the government, will have to be amended if we are going to succeed in increasing the quality of care we expect from nursing homes. Many of them were never designed physically or in a programmatic way for the kind of residents they now find themselves forced to accept.

That is going to go on at an accelerating and heavier rate as the years unfold, because if the government does succeed in bringing in home care to the much greater extent desired by a lot of people, and as our caucus urges, then more citizens are going to be staying in their homes longer and will probably be in a frailer and less healthy condition when they finally go into homes for the aged or nursing homes. We are talking about more dollars, and the discrepancy at present between the subsidies for the homes for the aged and the subsidies for nursing homes should be eliminated. We are talking about roughly the same kind of care to the same sort of residents.

While I am still considering that aspect of care for the elderly, nursing homes themselves, as well as homes for the aged, are in short supply. There is hardly a community in Ontario where there is not a pent-up demand for some kind of location where elderly patients can go to receive the kind of care it is no longer possible to give them in their own homes.

In Hamilton-Wentworth alone, there is an identified need for 150 additional nursing home beds. This is not a figure that just came out of the sky. We have a district health council which takes a great deal of interest in this kind of need amongst the other things it deals with, and we also have the first and one of the best assessment and placement co-ordination services in Hamilton-Wentworth; so I am confident this figure is the result of careful study and diagnosis of the actual needs of the patient.

I say to the Treasurer and the Minister of Health, who is not here at the moment, that the people of Hamilton-Wentworth appreciate the 212 additional chronic care beds the minister announced in August, I believe, at Chedoke-McMaster Hospitals and St. Peter's Centre in Hamilton. Those are badly needed and will help to alleviate the shortage because of the domino effect from patients being inappropriately placed when we do not have enough beds of the right kind.

However, that is only a start, and I want to leave the Treasurer with a question. Considering all the other responsibilities, some of which are listed in this resolution we have now, that are important in his role, when is he going to do his part to break the logjam in providing increased and improved care for the elderly?

Mr. Ashe: I hope I will have the attention of the Treasurer in this important debate for interim supply. I have a few observations I would like to make and a few questions I am going to leave him with. Knowing how accurate, complete and judicious he is, I am sure he will be able to respond in due course to all the questions I pose.

I suppose one of the first things we have to be considering when we are talking about the authorization for government to spend another $5.1 billion is to look at the man who oversees this kind of money, the Treasurer, who has asked for this authority.

I took the opportunity, at least in a roundabout way, of going down to the local service station in downtown St. George recently and asking people quite familiar with a local neighbour called the Treasurer, the House leader, the acting Chairman of Management Board and so on, what kind of person was he compared to the kind of person he currently is?

It was a rather a long dialogue. I must say there were some who generally had a lot of good things to say. There were a few on the other side. I guess when it came right down to it, they said: "We used to know a fellow who was considered frugal, who really worried, we thought, about everybody's money, including his own. We thought he would be the kind of person to whom we would entrust the taxpayers' dollars in this great province of ours."

16:30

Where was the difference? Obviously, this was it. When they saw the budgets the Treasurer brought down, when they read in the paper and heard a few things from the opposition from time to time about the moneys that were being spent by the government and about the overhead costs of running the government, they were not quite sure this was the same member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) whom they used to know.

I assured them that though he has a little different prodding, a different direction and gets pushed hither and thither, he is the same guy. Maybe he has lost some of the frugality, if that is the right word -- and I will ask the former teacher in that regard -- the frugality of younger days in running the family operation and the personal pocket book when it comes to administering and overseeing the great sums of money that are the responsibility of the provincial Treasury.

What bothers me and what I hope in short order will bother the people and the taxpayers of Ontario is the philosophy this government picked up very quickly. Knowing where some of its advice came from, we know how it happened. It used to be carried on by an administration that gratefully came to an end in Ottawa in early 1984. I purposely did not say the fall of 1984; I said early 1984. That was an era that started in about 1968. It put in place and showed to the people of Canada and the taxpayers of Ontario the philosophy of spend, spend, spend, the philosophy that if you have a problem and throw enough of the taxpayers' money at it, maybe it will go away.

Now it is leaking out that a lot of the advice about setting up the new administration came from people who were considered major advisers and backroom boys of that administration in Ottawa. They helped to set the foundation of the present administration. We know where the philosophy came from. We all thought -- the people in the Shell station in downtown St. George thought -- and hoped on behalf of the taxpayers that a frugal Treasurer would avoid that kind of advice and take care of the taxpayers' money in Ontario as though it were his own. This has not happened.

I will be very honest. Some of the next things I am going to say are somewhat repetitive. I said them last time. I asked the questions the last time we talked about the budget and discussed interim supply. It is really to ask the overseer, the acting Chairman of Management Board at the moment as well as the Treasurer, how he can substantiate in his mind the growth in size of the public service in his short-term administration to date, how can he justify and oversee the growth of ministerial office staff throughout government.

Mr. Martel: Instead of by contract? You did it by contract if you could not cover it.

Mr. Ashe: It does not matter how it is, contract or as civil servants. The Treasurer should take the trouble to look at each and every contract and each and every civil service position, if any, in effect within the ministers' offices, not just his own. He probably runs a relatively frugal one, although I understand one of the ministries he is overseeing is far from frugal. It is the one just down the hall from the Treasurer's office. I understand there is a huge staff still sitting around there, even though there is no minister. In any event, I am getting a little off the subject.

I sincerely feel the Treasurer would be amazed if he took it upon himself to get the facts on the size of the staff of the various ministers' offices and those of the parliamentary assistants and the greatly increased, grandiose dollars being paid to those staff, considering the fact that virtually right across the board the salary ranges were increased by about $10,000 after the present government came to power, compared to the previous administration's comparable salaries. His frugality would once again come to the surface and he would want to do something about it.

I appreciate he may not have the figures, and I do not expect the answer today, but I am interested in seeing not only the growth that has taken place, which I think is substantive in numbers and is surely substantive in dollars, but also the amount that may have been expended in the past year for changes in those same offices. In many cases, I suspect it is to expand the size of the offices to handle all these new bodies, but that is another figure I am interested in seeing.

Some may say, "What does that have to do with interim supply?" We all know that the $5.1 billion that is being asked for by the Treasurer is to pay the bills, and I am talking about some of the bills that, in my view, do not have to be and should not have been as high as they are.

I will not go into any great detail about the golden and platinum handshakes of late, let us call them. Those issues have been addressed on other days, but there is no doubt that there is a lot of extra money going there. A reasonable percentage of that $5.1 billion may be going to satisfy those commitments.

I can tell him one of the things I have done. As we all do as members, I run across business people, private citizens and those involved in various agencies, social and otherwise, and I have given them advice. I have said that if they have a great idea, or a crackpot idea, whatever it may be, whatever they need money for, now is the time to go to government to ask for a grant, because the philosophy is to throw money at it and the problem will be taken care of. It is most likely to be satisfied right now.

Some of these people are taking my advice. Mr. Speaker, let me give you an idea. If we have been around government for any length of time, we all know the paper war overtakes us. In my nine and one-third years around here, I have never seen as much paper in the way of press releases coming out of ministries as I have seen, I will not even say in the past 15 months, but I will say in the past six months. It has been as never before.

Mr. McClellan: This is the guy who could not even give away money.

Mr. Ashe: Always thinking of the taxpayers. When we look at all these reams of paper that come in each day, we have a tendency to look at them a little more closely when they talk about giving away money. I would like to rhyme off a few. Granted, these are for relatively few dollars compared to $5.1 billion, but I would like to give an example: $9,960 to Planned Parenthood to cover the cost of francophone theatre activities; $16,000 to cover the cost of purchasing equipment for a day care centre; $9,500 to cover the cost of translation of documents for the annual meeting of the association; $3,500 to set up a library centre and advertising the service; $5,500 for a monthly newsletter and the organization of various meetings and consultations; $9,000 to organize a co-op play group project; $8,000, again establishing day care services; and $16,500 for a regional promotion program.

Last but not least, while this is not a grant, it sure is the spending of taxpayers' dollars. It comes under the heading, and we have seen it in various firms, of Darts for the Day. This was a dart in a Toronto newspaper known to be rather favourably inclined towards the current administration, and I put that in a very charitable light. Let me read you this one:

"Darts: To Premier David Peterson and his former Northern Affairs minister René Fontaine, for foisting the August by-election on Cochrane North constituents after Fontaine was accused of conflict of interest and resigned not only his cabinet position but his seat. The price tag" -- and here is where the relevance comes in - "is now in. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars in taxpayers' hard-earned money went for this meaningless piece of grandstanding."

16:40

I have picked out just a few. I could have brought a pile so high it would have taken the rest of the day. The few I rhymed off total only some $250,000. In the context of the moneys that are spent opposite and in the context of $5.1 billion, I acknowledge and agree that $250,000 is, relatively speaking, petty cash in the eyes of the government.

It is the principle of how this administration is spending those taxpayers' dollars that we should be concerned about. I honestly hope that once we approve this -- we will; the civil servants' salaries and our bills have to be paid. We know the credit rating slipped a little last year; we do not want it to slip again this year because the government does not pay its bills. We are going to approve this motion.

In the meantime, I hope the Treasurer will again take on the mantle he once wore at the local service station in downtown St. George, a former stop of the current Treasurer, of being a frugal and wise individual in the handling of taxpayers' funds.

Mr. Foulds: I initially thought there was going to be a brief debate on this matter. However, it is my understanding that, come what may, it will last until 6:30 p.m. That being the case, a number of my colleagues have indicated an interest in speaking in this debate. I think I should respond initially for our party and indicate a number of things.

First, I believe this motion should be supported and passed before the end of today. I do not think anybody in this House wants to hold up the legitimate payments of the government to its civil servants and its other obligations. Anybody who does think that should say so loudly and clearly.

Second, some payments are being made that are questionable, to say the least. I suppose the most outstanding example we have had is what my colleague the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan) has called the platinum handshake of a grotesque payment for the former Clerk of the Legislature.

An hon. member: Obscene.

Mr. Foulds: The word "obscene" has been used about this.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Stick with "grotesque."

Mr. Foulds: "Grotesque" is the one I find more appropriate, as does the Treasurer. I find it difficult to understand why there could not have been a legislative solution to this problem. We all know that the legislation passed under a majority Conservative government in 1974 is at least partially responsible for getting the government into this problem. I underline that: the legislation passed by a majority Conservative government in 1974 got us into the problem.

However, over the years since then -- I remember discussions that took place after 1975, some time during the minority government of a Conservative stripe, somewhere around 1977 or 1978 -- it was my understanding it was the agreement of all three political parties of the Legislature that the Clerk of the day had given good and faithful service up to that point, was past the age of 65 and deserved retirement. It was my understanding that all three political parties, including the Conservative government party of the day, agreed that would happen. It never did.

I never understood or found out why that never happened, but it seemed to me that if there was an agreement, there could have been a fiscally responsible money package put together by the government of the day that would have been supported by the two opposition parties. If it was necessary, the previous Conservative government could have put together a legislative package that would have seen the gentlemanly and honourable retirement of our former Clerk at that time.

What I understand happened with the change of government is that, once again, all three parties agreed that there should be an honourable and fiscally responsible retirement of the former Clerk. I do not see why the present government could not have put together a fiscally responsible, as well as a legislatively responsible, package. It is not beyond the wit of man, if it is necessary to change something legislatively, to bring in those legislative changes.

The present government has been in power for more than a year and has had the wit of the Attorney General (Mr. Scott), which is known throughout the province --

Mr. Martel: Far and wide.

Mr. Foulds: -- far and wide, lo, even to the university audiences of Boston. The government has had his ingenuity to put together a legislative solution to the problem, so why do we find ourselves, and why does the government find itself, in a crisis management situation with regard to this matter?

They are questions that I raise and that I honestly do not know the answer to, and I think we deserve an answer. Frankly, it is unacceptable for a Treasurer who prides himself on fiscal responsibility not to use both approaches. If he needs to have a settlement, that is fair enough; but if he knows and suspects he is going to be blackmailed unduly and unjustifiably, it is then also justifiable to seek a legislative solution.

It is even more justifiable to seek that legislative solution while the Treasurer is not seeking a legislative solution to increase the benefits of ordinary pensioners in this province.

It is entirely justifiable to raise these questions when the question of the raiding of pensions that is taking place by corporations in this province is defended by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Kwinter) instead of his bringing in a legislative solution to that problem.

This government has yet to learn and it must learn that it has two major legislative tools in a democracy. One of them is spending and the other is legislation. Neither should be authoritarian, neither should be dictatorial; but neither, if I may say so, should be as liberal -- libertine, I might say -- as the settlement with the former Clerk was.

Mr. McClellan: Lascivious.

16:50

Mr. Foulds: No, I would not go that far.

I say this in a context where we have a golden handshake, as my colleague the member for Bellwoods pointed out, to a former semi-crown corporation chief executive of the Urban Transportation Development Corp. When the final facts of that case are unearthed, the information I have indicates that the golden handshake will be far in excess of what the Premier admitted to the other day, and actually in excess of what my colleague initially alleged.

Mr. McClellan: In fact, in excess of the value of the UTDC.

Mr. Foulds: As my colleague interjected, in excess of the value of the UTDC. One of the strange things about the whole UTDC finalization -- and this is where there is a very real danger signal for the Liberals -- is that the Liberals were so ideologically committed to selling off UTDC --

Mr. Martel: They would have given it away.

Mr. Foulds: Not only would they have given it away, they have given it away. The taxpayers of Ontario are going to continue to subsidize that corporation. We are going to finance that sale. It is going to be the Treasurer's budget and these interim payments -- just so you think I am in order, Mr. Speaker -- that are going to allow that deal to go through and they will be able to say they got rid of it. That is what they did, just at the time when that crown corporation and the taxpayers had invested a lot in research and a lot in development and at a time when it could be profitable.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: No way.

Mr. Foulds: The Treasurer mouthed at me, "Oh, come on," and he provokes me. The reason he provokes me is that he knows, John Kruger knows and the Premier knows, or should know, that a company such as Lavalin would not buy the technology if it did not think it was going to be able to make money on it in the next 10 years. When it is in a period where it could be making money in the next 10 years, those guys sell it off because they have an ideological commitment against crown corporations.

That, it seems to me, is fiscally irresponsible. Once the taxpayers of this province have invested and taken the losses, and when there is an opportunity -- with new management, I agree; with a new structure, perhaps -- to regain that investment by the taxpayer, it was fiscally irresponsible of this government and this Treasurer not to carry on with that company as a crown corporation. Modernize it, reinvest in it, but make it progressive and part of the public sector.

We are voting today to allow the government to pay the obligations it has undertaken, and one of the things I regret is that it is going to be using money it got under other pretences to pay this amount. I am, of course, talking about the lottery funds that are in the general consolidated revenue of the province. I want to indicate that for this Treasurer it is only a venial sin, although there seems to be some chicanery and manipulation, but it was a major or mortal sin on behalf of the previous Tory government in the use and manipulation of those funds.

The fact of the matter is there is an accumulated amount approaching $500 million -- I think it is $490-odd million -- that has not been spent on the purposes for which the lotteries were devised. The thing I found most disturbing in the whole scene has been that the Treasurer told us in the budget the major reason he wanted to bring in the amendments to Bill 38, which undesignated the funds -- if I can use that terrible word grammatically -- or dedesignated the funds, is that he wanted to use the funds for such other worthy purposes as capital expenditures for hospitals, cancer research and so on.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Is the member against cancer research?

Mr. Foulds: No, I am not, but the Treasurer knows and I know that the interprovincial lottery funds, which had been designated for those purposes under an order in council, were undesignated for those purposes by this government on May 26, 1986, after his budget. There was a bit of sleight of hand; on the one hand, he was saying he needed to make this legislative change so he could get money into the hospitals and the health care facilities and for environmental research, and on the other hand, behind the scenes, by an order in council, he is taking away the designation by order in council from the interprovincial lottery funds for those very purposes.

Then he indicates he needs to change the act. His act needs to change on this matter.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The member should think of all the people watching this play on television who are liable to believe him.

Mr. Foulds: Does he believe me? I can produce the order in council and the changes therein. My friend and colleague, although my political opponent, the member for Victoria-Haliburton (Mr. Eakins) says: "Look at the record. We have given more money away to art and culture and recreation than the Tories did in a comparable period of office."

That may be true, but the fact is there continues to be $130 million of moneys raised through the provincial lotteries which are still designated for recreation, culture and sports that have not been spent on those purposes and they have already been swallowed up by the general consolidated revenue fund.

Let us not fool around. There are two deficits. There is the accumulated deficit of the total lottery funds, interprovincial and provincial, of approximately $500 million that has not been spent for the purposes of recreation, culture, art, health care, environmental research, etc. There is $130 million of the specifically designated funds for culture, art, sports and recreation that have not been spent. One of the major reasons it has not been spent is that the previous government also refused to spend it on those subjects when it was in power. It was using it to shore up the consolidated revenue fund. It was as fiscally irresponsible as the present government.

17:00

That $500 million has not accumulated in the past year. That $500 million has accumulated over the lives of the lotteries.

Miss Stephenson: No.

Mr. Foulds: Oh yes, it has, I say to the ex-Treasurer. We have traced these funds through the annual reports, the public accounts and every other damned way on a year-by-year basis. This is not a one-year accumulation. I will not let the Tory party try to weasel out on that.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Where is the repository of virtue in this House?

Mr. Martel: Guess where.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Morin): Order.

Mr. Foulds: As I said yesterday when speaking on the emergency debate with regard to softwood lumber, I am in difficulty when I find myself in a Legislature where the Liberal government and the Tory opposition point fingers of blame at each other and try to score cheap fiscal and political points instead of trying to put the money where it deserves to be spent and should be spent.

If the Treasurer wants to say up front, "We do not think any of this money should be designated; we think lotteries should become part of the general taxation revenues of the province," let him say that clearly and then let him go back and read the speeches he made in the Legislature in 1974 when the lottery corporation bill was first passed.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Has the member read the speeches I gave?

Mr. Foulds: Not lately, but I remember them well.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I said very clearly that the moneys would go into the consolidated revenue fund.

Mr. Foulds: It was very clearly established by all three parties, and as I recollect only the then member for Yorkview, Fred Young, spoke in any way against what would happen with regard to the development of the lotteries. At that time we all said in varying ways that it should not become part of the general taxation of the province; it was merely mad money and was for special projects.

If the Treasurer genuinely believes lottery funds are a tax and should be considered a tax and should become part of the general taxation of the province, I want to point out to him that it is a terribly inefficient way of collecting taxes.

In the last fiscal year, 1985-86, I believe -- and I may be out a few million or so, but proportionately I am not wrong -- of the total revenues of $750 million for the Ontario Lottery Corp., only about one fifth found its way into the coffers of the province. In other words, of about $750 million that was gathered in by the Ontario Lottery Corp., only about $250 million went into the Treasury of the province. Of that, only about $120 million or $130 million was spent.

That is a terribly inefficient way to collect or administer a tax. About $250 million is spent in prizes and $250 million is spent on various overhead costs, including advertising. Any tax that costs $250 million to administer, collect and so on is a very expensive tax.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The member is setting up a straw man. People like to play the game.

Mr. Foulds: The Treasurer says people like to play. I say to him very seriously that may be fine for those of us with middle-class incomes and for those of us with more than middle-class incomes, but one of the very shocking and real things about lotteries is that poor people buy tickets.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The member voted for them.

Mr. Foulds: Hold on for a moment. One of the reasons they buy the tickets is that it is their only hope of getting out of the kind of miserable life they lead. Frankly, the Treasurer and his colleagues are not doing enough to change the economic system of this province so that those people have other roots of hope.

Any administration that believes, rather flippantly, that lotteries are okay because people enjoy them should look seriously at the aggressive advertising the Ontario Lottery Corp. engages in. It is, if I may say so, advertising that borders on the dishonest and the sleazy. Its promotion of the gambling ethic is as disturbing to me as the beer ads promoting the drinking ethic that this government does nothing to curtail and the promotion in the lifestyle advertising in both cases of the so-called good life.

I did not expect to speak on this matter as long or as heatedly as this, but I say all these things with great seriousness. Not only do they have to be said but they should be said, and I hope the Treasurer will consider them seriously rather than flippantly.

I want to say two final things. First, and I want to approach this as carefully and as delicately as I can -- I mean that -- the government, including the Treasurer himself, prides itself on being an open government. I believe that intention is sincere. However, I find it disturbing that the information that is available about budget bills, aside from the budget itself, is not available as readily or as easily as I thought it would be. Let me give a couple of examples.

I had absolutely no problem when I asked for the compendium of information about the Assessment Act amendment bill. That was forthcoming and it was great. There was information of all kinds; obviously, it was briefing notes for the minister. I do not see why those kinds of briefing notes should not be available to members of the Legislative Assembly who want to discuss those things intelligently. I was told there were no such briefing notes or compendiums for the other bills.

When it came to the Retail Sales Tax Act, no such compendium was available. However, because I happened to be lobbied by a group about a certain section of that act over the weekend -- too late, I would think -- it seemed to me they had appended to the material they gave me briefing notes for the minister or for the ministry, and this material was not available to members of the Legislature.

I do not know whether we phoned the wrong folks -- i.e., the people in Treasury, who I would have thought might know these things -- or whether we should have phoned somebody in the Ministry of Revenue. It startled me that when we phoned people in Treasury, they said they did not know. I would have thought that there would have been some communication between the two ministries and that the people in Treasury who devise the policy, although it is carried out by Revenue, would know why they actually proposed certain changes to the act, which loopholes they were trying to plug and which information would be available.

Once again, I do not have those bills and my notes before me, but it is my understanding that, for example, there were a number of cases under the Retail Sales Tax Act where they felt that organizations were taking undue and illegitimate advantage of charitable status. We were told there were no such examples available. If they had those suspicions, there must have been examples available.

If we are going to have an intelligent clause-by-clause debate of these bills, it would be very useful that this information be available to members of the Legislature who wish it. It would also be useful to have this information well in advance so that one can make recommendations to one's colleagues on second reading. Why wait until the very end to have that information available?

17:10

I want to speak very briefly, because this is not the occasion, about the economic situation in which we find ourselves. We find ourselves in a province that has two economies. The Liberal government has not been able to respond to the plight of northern Ontario, where we have an unemployment rate that continues at twice the provincial average, where some communities, such as Atikokan, have real unemployment rates of 35 per cent and where many one-industry towns face that kind of unemployment rate unless this government is willing to take action and take action soon.

The government failed to take action in advance with regard to the softwood lumber issue. It is once again into crisis management. It has failed to take action with regard to the threatened closure of the Kimberly-Clark mill, which would mean layoffs and shutdowns, in the riding of my colleague the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Pouliot). It has failed to take action in any fundamental way with the economy of the north.

The government is projecting its revenues, with which it will pay interim supply, by the so-called buoyancy of the southern Ontario economy. I do not want to be a Cassandra, but I warn the government that it had better take a pretty hard look at where the growth is coming in the economy of southern Ontario.

I am afraid that unless strong action is taken now, three years down the road the government is going to see the kinds of layoffs, closures and contractions, particularly in the auto sector, it is seeing now in northern Ontario. We are in grave danger of developing overcapacity for the market available to us in southern Ontario.

Finally, therefore, I say to the Treasurer, let us look at some fundamental realignment of the economy, let us look at taking some fundamental steps to change the economic direction of our province and let us try to diversify not only the economy of northern Ontario but the economy of the rest of the province as well. In particular, let us try to diversify our markets, because although we are a free trading nation, we have a good domestic market, which should be the basis of our export market.

We cannot and should not continue to pursue this will-o'-the-wisp of free trade with the United States, because a bilateral trade agreement with one nation will not be our economic salvation, as much as the Premier (Mr. Peterson) and Brian Mulroney would like to believe that. We are going to have to trade with all nations.

As the chairman of standing committee on finance and economic affairs told us earlier today, the Americans will never give up the right to countervailing duties. They believe they must have those as an integral, internal and national right, and any bilateral, so-called free trade agreement will still be subject to that and we will get no advantage.

Mrs. Marland: I believe it is significant at this point in the debate to read the motion that is before us, because some of the preamble of the former speaker perhaps left out the intent of the motion.

The motion says, "That the Treasurer of Ontario be authorized to pay the salaries of the civil servants...." I wholly support that portion of the motion. There is no question that on the whole the civil servants in Ontario are people of whom we are proud and for whose commitment and dedication to the professionalism of their jobs we are grateful.

However, the motion goes on to say, "...and other necessary payments pending the voting of supply for the period commencing November 1, 1986, and ending December 31, 1986, such payments to be charged to the proper appropriation following the voting of supply." It is on that point that I would like to express my concern.

I wish that in voting to support this motion for supply -- and of course, we will, because we wish the business of the province to continue -- that is what the end result would be. There is some irony in standing in the House today, October 21; it is exactly five months to the day since I stood in this House and spoke on the budget. Five months ago, there were many areas of concern about the lack of supply that I addressed in my budget speech to the Legislature. Today we are voting on supply, and those needs, those voids, those shortages have not been addressed yet.

I found it interesting earlier this afternoon to hear the Attorney General answer a question by one of his own colleagues in the government party regarding the availability of courtroom space in the region of Peel. During the past year and some months of the Liberal government of Ontario, there never seems to have been any recognition that Peel is not only the fastest-growing regional municipality in Ontario but also contains the fastest-growing city in Canada, namely, Mississauga.

In identifying our tremendous growth, it was very disappointing to hear the Attorney General say earlier today that he had found two additional courtrooms in Brampton. Although one of them happens to be in the basement of the old courthouse, according to the Attorney General's information this afternoon, he seems to be quite satisfied that he has found two additional courtrooms.

I am not satisfied for at least one major reason: those courtrooms are in Brampton. As I recall, the population of Brampton is something in the area of 160,000 people, whereas the population of Mississauga and the riding that two members on this side of the House have the honour to represent -- I am very happy to see that my colleague the member for Mississauga East (Mr. Gregory) is in the House this afternoon, because I know he shares my concern for the lack of sufficient or appropriate courtroom accommodation within Mississauga.

For the Attorney General to say, whoopee, he has found two additional spaces in Brampton, one of them in the basement of the old courthouse, does nothing to resolve the concerns I have for the people of Mississauga and in particular for those people who for one reason or another need to travel all the way to Brampton to hearings in those courtrooms.

17:20

I would also like to reiterate my concern about the lack of capital funding to the boards of education. In addressing that subject, particularly for the region of Peel and my city of Mississauga, I note we have two regional school boards, the Peel Board of Education and the Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board. Both of those school boards have experienced the impact of the lack of capital funding in this past year from the Ontario Liberal government. There is no question that the impact on those students will have grave ramifications.

It is not a pleasant environment for students to spend all of their elementary school years in portables, but we have many examples in both the Peel public school area and the Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board where that is the case. In fact, the Dufferin-Peel separate school board has one entire school which is in portables.

The government's spending priorities have not seen fit to recognize the needs of these students throughout the region of Peel. While the overall government expenditures rose by 7.8 per cent -- I wish to emphasize that -- over 1985-86, transfer payments to the post-secondary institutions rose by only four per cent. The elementary and secondary institutions have the same tremendous figure. This contrasts with an increase in expenditures of more than 300 per cent in the offices of the Premier and of the cabinet. While talking about the increase in the offices of the Premier and of the cabinet, we should mention that we have a tremendous concern in the Progressive Conservative Party about the fact that while nurses and day care workers continue to be grossly underpaid, the Liberal government has given ministers' staff grotesquely large salaries.

Special assistants earn up to $48,000 per year and executive assistants earn up to $57,000 per year. I wonder how those salaries compare to the private sector. In recalling those salaries and those positions of assistants to the government, I can recall the discussion on one of those assistants who was living in subsidized housing. I hope that has been addressed by now.

Another concern for all of us in the city of Mississauga is the lack of accommodation for the victims of family violence. I recognize that the government has announced funding for counselling of families that are victims of family violence, and I commend it for finally recognizing that there is a need for that counselling so that those families can ultimately end up being reunited in a healthy family environment.

However, the concern I have is the immediate urgency of so many hundreds of those victims of family violence to escape the situation in their homes, to escape to a shelter. Although the region of Peel has a population now coming close to 600,000, it has only one shelter for the victims of family violence, that being Interim Place in Mississauga. For every family that is admitted to Interim Place, there are two families turned away. I would rather have seen this government make a commitment to the urgency and the desperate plight of those families that now need that accommodation. Then it could continue with the repair program, which is the counselling of those families.

I certainly heard in the budget speech a promise to do something about family violence and all the problems associated with it in this province. However, we do not see a solution or a remedy coming forward. That remedy is very easy. It is simply providing additional shelters.

The further irony on the subject of accommodation for these families that are victims of violence is that when they get into a hostel such as Interim Place, which happens to be in my riding of Mississauga South, they cannot get out of it, because there is no low-income housing available for them. While that facility has accommodation for approximately 18 wives, mothers and children, the waiting list to get in there grows daily. It grows daily because, as I have just said, the people who are in cannot get out.

That brings me to the next concern I have. We are aware that this government has done a great deal of talking about the issue of housing. I have lost count of the number of pieces of legislation that have been introduced in this House to try to address the problems of housing. To this date, there has been no solution to address the problems whatsoever. The problem of low-income housing is the most major problem we face today. We have bills that are currently being debated in committee which address the issue of rent controls versus no rent controls, but the absence of low-income housing is still the major problem before us.

I wish this government would show a commitment to the people of this province who need its help the most. Those are the people who cannot generate the funds to have a down payment on their own homes. They do not have the income to provide for renting other people's homes and they do not have the income to pay the exorbitant rents that already exist in many apartment buildings.

If one cannot buy one's own home and cannot afford high rent, one becomes a low-income tenant. If one cannot find accommodation as a low-income tenant, one is given the choice that exists today. In many examples I am aware of, social services end up funding these young families to live in a motel. When those young mothers leave a shelter such as Interim Place and go with their young children to a motel, I have to ask the Treasurer, the Minister of Housing (Mr. Curling), and the Minister of Community Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) whether that is the best they can do for these young families in our great and rich province.

17:30

In a year when we have been in a surplus position with the kind of windfall the Treasurer received, it is a grave disappointment that these needs have not been addressed or, from anything I have seen, even recognized.

While the survival needs are not being addressed with funding by either the Minister of Housing or the Minister of Community and Social Services, the Liberal government has a minister who seems to have money up his sleeve, the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure you are aware of the interest of a major private sector developer in coming into Ontario. I am referring to the Ghermezian brothers, who I think are known as the Triple Five Corp. and who are the developers of the great megamall in Edmonton.

From the outset, the Ghermezian brothers have been greeted with open arms by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. In that greeting, he seems to have failed to consider or recognize that he has a tremendous responsibility to the people of Ontario, particularly to the people who already have commercial and retail investments in southern Ontario.

He has a tremendous responsibility to these people to analyse any adverse impact. I have not studied the project. I am not presuming to suggest there would be an adverse impact, but any major development of that type and size has an impact. We are told it is a far bigger mall proposal than exists today in west Edmonton. If that is the case, it would have to have some kind of impact. If it had a positive impact on everything that already exists in the area of commercial and retail space, that would be great. If, after tremendous study and analysis, it turned out it had a negative impact, that would have to be heeded very closely.

However, the government seems to have given the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations enough confidence to encourage this development before he has information about the impact. That is tremendously interesting, because I would challenge what input the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. O'Neil) has had in the whole subject of the Ghermezian mall.

The developers have selected a site in Mississauga. If the Ghermezian proposal were to come to southern Ontario and were to be advantageous to the existing industries and trade, would it not be great to have at least the analysis of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology to assure people who are already trading and doing business in Mississauga, Metropolitan Toronto, Brampton, Etobicoke, Oakville and all the surrounding areas that this would be an advantageous development? Instead of that, unfortunately, we seem to have a minister who has encouraged this development to a degree no one really knows. We do not know the degree, because we have not been told the facts and figures.

I may add that I was told by the minister indirectly. It was reported at a meeting at which I was not in attendance that the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations said, "Mrs. Marland will be given the information when the time is appropriate." As a representative for Mississauga South, I found it very interesting that there was going to be an appropriate time for me to have the same information the government has on a development that may or may not take jobs away from people who live in my riding. It may or may not provide competition for existing commercial and retail businesses in my riding and it may or may not have an adverse impact on Ontario.

I am simply giving that as an example of how this government seems to have money to encourage some areas, without having all the facts available. If it had done its homework and research and found that a megamall had an overall advantage for everybody in southern Ontario, then that would be the time to show encouragement to the developer. However, the same government does not seem to have the money to deal with the survival needs of the people I have addressed who need shelter, such as Interim Place and low-income housing.

While we talk about the lack of accommodation, I would like to reiterate the concerns we have about the lack of chronic care beds. In many hospitals throughout this province, we have an unfortunate situation where extended care beds are being used by chronic care patients. That is because we do not have anywhere for those chronic care patients to get out of the hospitals and into the chronic care facilities that are needed. If there are chronic care patients in extended care beds, then it also follows that there are surgical patients staying longer in their beds when they need extended care, and then there are people who cannot get in for their surgical procedures because of the lack of beds.

November is Alzheimer's month. If we are talking about a shortage of accommodation in terms of beds, I would like for a moment to address the plight of the Alzheimer families. Our party has announced we would like to see a $15-million fund established to address the needs of the Alzheimer patients. In addressing those needs, we have to give tremendous consideration to the families of Alzheimer patients. There is a stage when Alzheimer patients can still live at home, but when they pass that particular stage of deterioration of their health through the disease, they can stay at home only with extra assistance.

This government does not seem to recognize the need for funding this area of assistance. We need more programs that address the type of thing that a respite resource program provides, where families of Alzheimer patients are able, in the ultimate, to get away for a vacation, but to a lesser degree even get away for a weekend, a day, a morning or an evening's shopping, visiting or entertainment.

This leads me to another program I would like to see this government recognize a need for; that is, a seniors' day care program. We live in a socioeconomic climate today where both members of the majority of families need to work. Therefore, if they choose to have their parents or other elderly members of their family living with them in their homes for as long as possible, they need some form of day care for those seniors while they are at work.

I saw a very fine example of a seniors' day care program two years ago in California. At that time, I was on a visit with Jim Crozier, the commissioner of social services for the region of Peel. Mr. Crozier said that was his dream, to establish a seniors' day care program where people who did choose to work, but who also chose to keep their relatives at home instead of having to put them into some kind of public institution, would have the assistance of being able to leave their seniors at a day care centre during the day.

17:40

It would be great if this government could fund those kinds of survival needs, as I said a few moments ago, instead of wooing the private sector, which in turn might provide competition for existing private sector enterprises.

Earlier this afternoon, a member from the New Democratic Party started to address concerns about lottery funding. I must re-emphasize, as I did in my budget speech in May, my concern as opposition culture critic. I obviously have a special interest, on behalf of our party and on behalf of the people of Ontario, in seeing that the funding from the lotteries is guaranteed, and guaranteed through the Minister of Citizenship and Culture.

I have no doubt about the sincerity of the Minister of Citizenship and Culture (Ms. Munro), who I am happy to see has just returned to the House, when she said she intended to see that culture gets the attention it deserves as an economic development priority. The concern I have is not so much with her statement as with who is going to decide what culture and the arts deserve in this province.

While we speak about culture and the arts, we can also perhaps address, in the same subject area, recreation and sports. Last evening I attended a very large meeting here in Toronto which was organized by a group which has a tremendous concern with Bill 38, recognizing that Bill 38 is the bill that plans to remove the designation of where lottery funds may be spent. It is a bill that will in fact open up a whole Pandora's box of uses for lottery funds. It is a bill that purely and simply, if it were to pass through this Legislature and receive royal assent, would be nothing more or less than another form of taxation. The worst of it is that it will be a taxation on those people who can least afford it.

There is a Decima Research report that addresses very clearly who it is, in the majority, who buys lottery tickets in Ontario, and it defines clearly that the people who buy the smallest number of lottery tickets are the people who earn in excess of $50,000. I will not comment any further on that subject, because it also goes on to say that women buy the fewest lottery tickets. That is a suggestion that those of the male gender of our province are indeed the gamblers.

Miss Stephenson: Women obviously have more logic and more sense.

Mrs. Marland: It probably is, as the member for York Mills says, that women obviously have more logic and more sense.

An hon. member: What about bingo?

Mrs. Marland: At the meeting last night, we had representatives of 82 groups from around this province speaking on behalf of thousands of Ontario residents. They went to the meeting last night to say to the government of Ontario, "We are very much concerned with Bill 38." That is why they went to the meeting. They also invited the Treasurer to attend and, for whatever reason, neither the Treasurer nor any other member of the cabinet saw fit to attend the meeting. Obviously, commitment to the concerns of these people was not on their list of priorities.

When one looks at the people who are committed to culture, to the arts and to recreation and sports in this province, one sees that to the greatest extent the majority of them are volunteers. We are talking about taking away the funding of programs that survive today only because the majority of those programs are staffed by volunteers, particularly in recreation and sports where we obviously have all the coaches, managers and referees.

When we get away from the sports area, we are into areas such as guiding, scouting and many other similar kinds of programs which in the past have been great beneficiaries of the funds available through Wintario and Lottario.

Last night these people came to the meeting with tremendous concerns and they left the meeting with tremendous concerns. In the meantime, they heard a presentation by the member for Halton-Burlington (Mr. Knight). Unfortunately the member was not able to address the concerns or even alleviate the level of concern in any way whatsoever for these people.

At the end of their meeting, they passed a unanimous resolution, which the Treasurer will be receiving very shortly, asking that the government withdraw Bill 38. They understand that the Treasurer has said he is not bringing it forward, but that is not good enough for those people who are concerned about spending in this province. They are asking that the bill be withdrawn.

The argument about lottery funding will be dealt with at a future date. I will not extend that discussion at this time, save to say that in this day and age people are willing to contribute to the wellbeing of their communities, to the pleasure and enjoyment of recreation time, whether it is through the performing arts, visual arts or recreation and sports. The leisure time of the people of this province is the best investment the province can make in trying to deal with health care costs.

There is a certain irony in hearing the Treasurer, as he did a little while ago in this House, ask a member of the New Democratic Party if he was against cancer research. I think that was the question. If we could do more in the area of recreation, whether through sports, through culture or the visual and performing arts, we could have a healthier province and could lower the health care costs. I see that as being a very realistic route for any government to follow.

If the government is telling people they need not be concerned about Bill 38 changing its commitment to those programs, then it could demonstrate that simply by saying: "We need to use these funds for other things as well as the areas they have been used for. We will leave the wording as it is but we will add other areas."

There are people who would buy lottery tickets for hospitals and other health care institutional causes along with the recreation, the culture and the arts.

17:50

The other area of concern I would like to raise is that of the small business person in this province. Small businesses in Ontario have received little assistance from this government even though they account for 90 per cent of all the new jobs created in the province. The new ventures program gives assistance up to only $15,000, which is hardly enough to allow a new business to get off the ground.

Changes to the Small Business Development Corporations Act announced in the budget will mean fewer incentives for businesses in central and southern Ontario and no increase in those available for small businesses in eastern and northern Ontario. That is a major concern for people in that area.

I appreciate the opportunity to address some of the concerns on the subject of supply this afternoon in this Legislature, but I would like to finish by saying that in voting to support this resolution, I hope the government will take heed of some of the concerns I have addressed. I have addressed only a very small portion of the concerns I have, not only for the people in Mississauga South and the region of Peel but also for the people in our great province.

The Acting Speaker: Are there any questions or comments?

Mr. McClellan: I did not have any questions or comments. However, I wanted, if time permits, to have a short --

The Acting Speaker: Are there any questions or comments? If not, are there any members who wish to speak on this bill?

Mr. McClellan: I do not intend to take very much time, but since these are a part of the responsibilities of the Treasurer, who is paying acute attention to the proceedings --

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I am.

Mr. McClellan: -- that is what I said -- I want to raise a number of concerns I have with respect to one of his areas of responsibility; that is, pension policy. Once again, during question period today, the Treasurer indicated he had an open mind with respect to a number of issues that still have to be resolved in the government's bill to amend the Pension Benefits Act. We read daily statements of the bizarrely reactionary and neanderthal statements coming out of the mouth of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations who has the carriage of the pension benefits amendment legislation.

I want to stress again to the Treasurer, who has the responsibility for pension policy, that the opportunity for pension reform in the private sector pensions of this province is a window that will be open for a very short time and then it will be closed, probably for another decade. The issues the government is failing to address are issues that will affect an entire generation of our citizens. The government refuses to accept the recommendation of the select committee on pensions, which was an all-party consensus of this Legislature -- one of the members of the committee being the Premier -- which recommended inflation protection for private sector pensions.

Surely the Treasurer is aware that every $100 of deferred pension benefits a person owns today at age 30 will be worth $25 when that person retires. That is the reality, and it is beyond me how this government has moved away from the all-party consensus that existed in 1981 to require an inflation adjustment provision to make private sector pensions a reality to be incorporated into the Pension Benefits Act. It is simply a hoax for most people that the money they invest in their prime earning years, in their 30s and 40s and even in their 50s, becomes, even at today's rates of inflation, which are at an all-time low, relatively meaningless during the lifetimes of the employees.

That is why the issue of surplus pension withdrawal is so important. So-called actuarial surpluses in the pension funds, which are, after all, the deferred wages of workers, have to be available for inflation protection. That is where the money will come from and that is where the financial cushion can be found to protect pensioners from the ravages of inflation. As long as this government continues to allow companies either to steal the money the way Conrad Black did, or, what is apparently more routine, to use the surplus funds to avoid having to make their annual service contributions, as long as the government allows employers free access to surplus funds it will not be possible to build inflation protection into our private sector pensions using the so-called excess interest approach. It is all set out in the select committee's report.

Mr. Haggerty: Financial institutions call it stripping of pension funds.

Mr. McClellan: Of course. Companies are bought and sold, as the Treasurer knows, to get access to pension funds so they can be stripped. That is precisely what Conrad Black did, and Conrad Black is simply the most odious example of the practice, which involves in its routine procedure taking surplus funds to pay off the annual service contribution. We stress again to the Treasurer that there is a historic opportunity for Ontario to become a leader in pension reform by using so-called excess interest -- interest above and beyond the rate of inflation, which guarantees a fixed rate of return -- interest above those amounts can be used to provide inflation protection.

It is all set out in the select committee's report. There was a consensus. What boggles my mind is that five years ago, when we held hearings on this issue, there was a consensus that extended not just to the three parties but to virtually all the witnesses, including the witnesses from the finance industry, who came before the committee. This is again a matter of documented public record. There was no opposition, not even from executives of some of the trust companies and the other financial institutions who had stories to tell about their employees, even at the middle management and executive levels, who had retired on what they thought were generous private sector pensions only to find that time and inflation made a cruel mockery out of their well-laid plans and financial arrangements.

I am sure most members of this assembly can speak of examples from their own families -- even of their own parents -- who made what appeared to be prudent and sensible provisions for their retirement only to find that after they had been retired for 10 years or so their pensions were just cruel jokes. This is certainly true of members of my family, and I know of many of my friends as well who have parents and relatives whose financial arrangements were simply blown to dust by the kind of inflation we experienced during the past 15 years.

Again, I plead with the Treasurer to use all his influence within the cabinet and with his colleagues to address these two most important issues, which are linked together. Unless we can come to grips with the surplus pension fund withdrawal issue, we will never be able to achieve inflation protection. They are both absolutely essential.

18:00

While I am at it, I will say I do not understand why the vesting provisions of the pension bill are not retroactive. I did not realize this until very recently, but my understanding is that the two-year vesting and portability provisions will apply only to funds that are invested in the pension plan after January 1, 1987.

All moneys that were invested prior to that date will remain subject to the 10-and-45 rule in perpetuity. There is no retroactivity. All the money that we -- not we, because we have our own unique arrangements -- all the money ordinary people have invested in private pensions until the end of December 1986 will remain subject to the rule of 10 years of service plus age 45, even after the act comes into effect. In other words, it will take an entire generation for the two-year vesting plan to come into effect. I confess I did not realize that. I do not know whether my understanding is still faulty. I ask the Treasurer to look at that very carefully.

We heard from the clerk of the select committee in 1981 that under the 10-and-45 rule, most people never collect a dime. I know in my constituency, where people work in the building trades, nobody works for the same company for more than two or three seasons. As the work is seasonal, virtually nobody has a private pension he can collect, even though everybody contributes to private pensions throughout all his working life. Most people are members of unions that have private plans. They make their contributions, and they lose them. They lose virtually every dime of the employer's share. When they retire, after a full lifetime of working and contributing, they are totally dependent on the Canada pension plan, the old age security program and the welfare supplements, the guaranteed income supplement and the guaranteed annual income system.

This is a stupid and fundamentally wrong situation. If the Treasurer does not make his vesting provisions retroactive, at least to some degree, it is going to be an entire generation before the new legislation is actually of benefit to many people in their 30s, 40s and 50 s who are now in the work force.

There are some serious problems with pension policy as it has been presented in the draft legislation. If this is the best the government can do in the area of pension reform, it leaves open to question its commitment to doing anything at all. The basic questions have still not been addressed.

Mr. Andrewes: I do not want to make extensive comments because my colleague the member for York Mills, in her capacity as the Treasury critic, will no doubt have some more extensive remarks she may wish to make.

I feel somewhat inadequate in rising to participate in this debate. When I came to this House in 1981, I used to marvel at the manner in which the government House leader, Treasurer and Minister of Revenue rose in these debates. He would open his copy of Hansard and his copy of the bill and speak extensively. Occasionally, he was even on the topic at hand. However, he spoke extensively and it was amusing. We were all amazed at his accuracy and his ability to draw on a number of issues, whether or not they were appropriate to the bill at hand. He often provided a thoughtful contribution to the debate and occasionally provided some useful advice. I am sure he would agree. I want to try to live up to the tradition he established for us when we first came to the Legislature. Given his long history here, I am sure he had been doing it for a number of years prior to that.

This is a debate on interim supply, which means we should be talking about monetary matters that pertain to the operation of the government of Ontario. In a statement in the House yesterday, I raised my concerns with respect to a monetary issue that falls heavily on the shoulders of the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley), that is, the whole question of intervener funding.

I am delighted the member for Lakeshore (Mrs. Grier) is here, because it was her question of about 12 months ago that introduced this subject and this debate to the House, with particular reference to a case the chairman of the Environmental Assessment Board refers to in the board's annual report.

It seems that in a consolidated board hearing into the Red Hill Creek expressway in Hamilton, to which my colleague from Wentworth (Mr. Dean) alluded earlier, the board exercised some judgement it felt was appropriate on its part in providing intervener funding to a group or an organization that wished to appear before the consolidated hearings board on that issue. Of course, the costs involved in the intervener funding were assessed to the proponent -- in this case, the region of Hamilton-Wentworth -- and it took the issue before the courts for a judicial review.

The note that the chairman of the Environmental Assessment Board makes in the annual report is this: "It should be noted that this judicial review was heard by the court in conjunction with the stated case from the Ontario Energy Board, essentially on the same question. The court reached a similar conclusion concerning the energy board's jurisdiction and indicated on the record that the issue (intervener funding) was fast becoming one which should receive early legislative consideration."

When my colleague the member for Lakeshore raised this issue with the minister about a year ago -- and I do not propose to pull out Hansard and read the verbatim discussion -- she got a reasonably comforting answer from the minister that he was having a look at the whole issue.

Subsequently, during the hearings conducted by the select committee on energy, we were treated to a presentation by the Canadian Environmental Law Association representative Mr. Shrybman, who made quite a pitch to the committee on the subject of intervener funding. The logic of that pitch was that one ends up with a better hearing.

He used as an example the hearing that was held into an energy-from-waste plant that was proposed to be built in conjunction with the London Victoria Hospital rebuilding program. Because they were not funded up front and did not have the resources to do the research or to hire the engineers and consultants to review the information that the proponent put forward in defence of the proposition, they were forced to come to the hearing and ask the questions, which led to a very lengthy hearing.

18:10

The logic put forward by Mr. Shrybman was that intervener funding provided a better hearing, a more expeditious decision and a fairer and more effective environmental hearing process. I offered the criteria that Mr. Shrybman gave us in the committee to the Minister of Environment during his estimates when we pursued the issue of intervener funding in the instance of the proposal by the Ontario Waste Management Corp. to construct a liquid industrial waste treatment storage facility in my riding.

I offered these criteria to him because this is an issue about which my constituents feel very strongly. The Minister of the Environment has comfortingly addressed on many occasions the question of intervenes funding. Dr. Chant, the chairman of the crown corporation known as the OWMC, has on many occasions said that the corporation is prepared and willing to provide, and interested in providing, intervener funding for the environmental assessment hearing into this project.

Now where are we at? The courts have said it is time the government addressed this issue in legislation. I refer members to the report of the Environmental Assessment Board. In the case of the OWMC, we have both parties, the minister and the chairman, saying it is time we moved on this issue. We have the chairman of the corporation saying, and quite rightly so, that we should not be judge and jury, we should not be the ones setting the criteria for funding. We, as the proponents, are obligated to provide the funding, but someone has to set up the rules.

We say to the Minister of the Environment, "Let us get on with setting up the rules," because there are a number of groups out there, particularly in the Niagara region, who are preparing or are wanting to prepare for this hearing. They are looking for direction, they are looking for criteria and they are looking for some determination of what sort of resources they might expect to support their case, to do their research and to prepare for this hearing, which is vital, if we are to believe in the process of the Environmental Assessment Act that the OWMC itself has gone through to arrive at some determination of the appropriate site for this undertaking.

When these proposals come forward, not only do we anticipate but also we hope and pray, and my constituents will as well, that the Treasurer will move swiftly, expediently and fairly to resolve this issue.

The Minister of Health is here, and I am delighted because there are a couple of health issues I want to touch on while we are going through this debate. Now he is going to leave.

In June, we reluctantly passed Bill 94 in this House after a marathon session, and the Minister of Health followed the passage of this bill with a whole series of announcements. First, he announced that all $100 million of the lost revenue on which the government predicated its actions when it brought in Bill 94 was being recouped from the federal government, which would enable the government to enjoy some greater flexibility in the health care system.

After this, we heard a whole spate of announcements from the minister of major capital improvements in the hospital area: "$200 million for Redevelopment of Cancer Treatment Centre." "Health Minister Announces New Hospital Beds for Westcentral Ontario." "Minister Announces New Hospital Beds for Southwestern Ontario." "Northern Ontario Hospitals Get 176 New Chronic Care Beds." "Minister Announces New Hospitals for Southwestern Ontario." "Health Minister Announces New Hospital Beds for Eastern Ontario."

We had this spate of announcements that almost reminded us of the days of election campaigns, the minister with his dog-and-pony show travelling the countryside, distributing the paper and all the good news he could bring to the people of this province in preparation for events to come. We learned where the beds would be. We learned when the beds would be built. I think we learned that, though I am not sure we learned that. We now are left to applaud the initiative -- the member should not look so surprised -- of a five-year to seven-year program. It was welcomed by the people of this province and it was needed.

What is it? It appears to be no more than an extension of existing programs that were in place in the previous two years. I think one of my colleagues touched on that issue earlier today. It is a continuation of a necessary and ambitious capital construction program that was initiated in 1984.

I am not complaining and I am not castigating the government for the package it has put together. The minister has said it was needed. I agree it was needed. I am not questioning the need. I might perhaps question the integrity of the manner in which the announcement was made. However, we are politicians and we are inclined from time to time to do political things, particularly if they involve cutting ribbons or handing out cheques. It was interesting that this whole spate of announcements came following the antagonism the minister and the government had raised among the medical profession as a result of Bill 94.

Some might suggest the government was trying to rub salt in the wounds and rub it in a bit deeper, perhaps inviting further public venom by saying, "We care about people." I do not want to get off into that kind of tour at the moment, but I can unequivocally guarantee that when those beds are built, those beds will be full. The boards of hospitals being boards of hospitals, and hospital administrators in the province being hospital administrators, they will make sure of that if the minister gives them the operating budget to do it. I guarantee that the government will gain political points. It will have ribbons to cut and it will get all the congratulations it wants from this set of announcements.

18:20

Let us analyse why the beds are needed. My colleague the member for Mississauga South (Mrs. Marland) touched on this. It is the wrongful placement of many elderly people who find themselves occupying an acute care bed in a hospital when they probably should be in some other institution. They might even be healthy enough to be at home.

Unless something is done and unless the government makes a move to change that, it still has a problem. If 30 per cent of 2,000 beds in a particular district are occupied by the wrong patients and the government builds 1,000 more, it will still have 30 per cent of them occupied wrongly, unless the government moves to change that.

What changes? We have talked about geriatric assessment centres and the role they have. There is an excellent example in Ottawa with Dr. Dall. We have talked about giving elderly people in this province the choice of living at home. The government provides the care and the conditions so they can make that choice. It attempts to remove the barriers for those elderly people who are making those choices. We talked about the emphasis on rehabilitation, giving them some stimulation so they continue to show a will to live.

If the government is truly concerned about the rising cost of health care -- and perhaps that is the purpose of some of this debate -- it has to examine what is driving the system to get at the root of the problem, because as long as it continues to build the beds, those beds will be full.

I will touch very briefly on the second health issue, which deals with the passage of two bills, Bill 54 and Bill 55, in this Legislature in July. They concern the profession of pharmacy versus the Minister of Health, or perhaps it is pharmacy versus the Deputy Minister of Health; I am not quite sure.

Those bills received second reading in this House, and when we went through the second-reading debate, I indicated to the minister that if there was one thing he and I might agree on -- and he did not speak to the contrary; so I assume we agree -- it was that something had to be done about the Ontario drug benefit plan. I may have disagreed with him on his methods, but we did agree on the fact that the issue needed to be addressed.

Those bills went through a number of amendments in committee, which speaks well to the process we are all engaged in here. They were brought back here in July for third reading, when we were able to express some further concerns about the legislation. They were concerns that were felt very deeply by our members and in some cases by members of the New Democratic Party. These concerns were not addressed in further amendments, but they are on the record.

All the while, the minister continued to hold to ransom the pharmacists of this province. He held them to ransom on the basis of an old formulary that had not been updated, although the drugs they were dispensing under that formulary had gone through a series of price increases. He held them to ransom on the basis of an old dispensing fee that had been put in place in January 1985.

In September 1985, he indicated to the profession that he would attempt to publish a new, updated formulary. Two weeks later, he wrote to them and said he had a court case which prevented him from doing that; fair enough. That issue was settled in February 1986.

When we had the debate on third reading in July 1986, he indicated to us again his intention to publish an updated formulary. In August 1986, he wrote to all the pharmacists in the province and said once again, "It is my intention to publish an updated formulary and to deal with a number of these issues." Still we have seen no action.

We still see the same problem of holding the pharmacists to ransom. They are disgruntled. They are losing money. They can document that, and their role in the health care system starts to be jeopardized by that inaction.

This issue is further aggravated by the fact that we now have a number of newer, more effective drugs that are not listed in the formulary. We have a number of generic drugs that also are not listed in the formulary. We have the same group of consumers out here in the province on whose behalf the minister stressed he was introducing this legislation, and they are now being hung out to dry, along with the pharmacists.

While the minister and his staff try to bargain away those aspects of Bill 54 and Bill 55 that they do not like, the consumers of this province are being held to ransom, along with the profession. I say to the Treasurer, it is time we got on with that job, because the minister is failing the profession and he is failing the public, whom he claims to serve.

The Deputy Speaker: In recognizing the member for York Mills, may I draw the member's attention to the clock?

Miss Stephenson: You may do so, Mr. Speaker. I do not intend to talk out the resolution of the Treasurer, since we do intend to support it, but I would like to make one or two brief comments, and they will be brief because of the shortness of the time available.

First, I suggest strongly that it would be well if the Treasurer were to use his own capability and his own talents, which I have construed to be singularly significant over the past 11 years and one month, in the kinds of negotiations this government appears to be undertaking on behalf of the people of Ontario.

If they are going to sell off crown corporations, they should not send a little boy to do the job; they should send the Treasurer to do it. In that way, the people of Ontario might recoup a few cents out of the skill, the talent and the technology that were developed and expanded in this province on behalf of the people of this province. By hiring a gun, we have lost a huge amount of money because of the ineptitude of that negotiation.

I prefer to believe it was the absence of the Treasurer that led to the absolutely disparaging remarks that have been made on all sides of this House regarding a man who has served this Legislature well for to almost half a century. Perhaps because the Treasurer was not here to carry out those negotiations, the ineptitude of those whom the government hired to do the job has demonstrated clearly that they cannot manage any kind of closure on anything.

I am particularly concerned, and this is one point I would like to leave with members, about the fact that what the Treasurer has done in the past 17 months is to increase significantly the burden of taxation on the taxpayers of Ontario. I am not talking about the corporations. He has increased the taxation on the general taxpayer, the income-tax payer, more significantly in the past 17 months than has been done anywhere in Canada during the past decade. I hope he is feeling badly enough about that to consider seriously the possibility of using more wisely the funds that are being made available to him by means of interim supply, so he might reduce the burden of that taxation on Ontario taxpayers, who now are second only to the taxpayers of Quebec in terms of the total tax burden upon them.

That does not speak well for Ontario, it seems to me, and most of that burden has occurred very recently, unhappily. I believe firmly that something must be done about it, because the middle-income people, upon whom this province depends, may decide they will no longer contribute quite as vigorously as they have in the past and will slow down their efforts. I should hate to see that happen, because it has been the efforts of those individuals that has made this province great.

I will retire right at this moment hoping that the Treasurer, in moving this, will consider seriously some of the aspects that have been raised in debate this afternoon.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 6:30 p.m.

21 octobre 1986