Journal des débats 1987-nov-30 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr. Allen: A constituent of mine, Mrs. Kenny, has a newborn baby that needs to be on oxygen and a heart monitor and to have 24-hour attention for two months.

Problem 1: how to get the other young child back and forth to junior kindergarten. The board of education offered neither help nor advice. The child had to be disabled, according to the board, to get assistance. Mrs. Kenny’s night nurse’s mother’s boyfriend, who is a Mason, secured transportation via his Masonic lodge. Full points for relatives, friends and Masons; no points for the board.

Problem 2: how to pay for the oxygen and the heart monitor. The Ministry of Health was prepared to absorb three quarters of the $1,200 cost. Mrs. Kenny had difficulty financing the balance. Would the ministry not cover the remaining $300? No, said the ministry, but they could keep the baby in hospital for the two months. The cost: $400 per day, for a total of $24,000. Finally, the supplier, Medigas Ltd., offered to absorb the $300 cost. Full points for Medigas and a big rhubarb for the Ministry of Health and its costly inflexibility.

But the question for all of us surely is, why must people in Mrs. Kenny’s situation have to fall back on catch-as-catch-can charity by voluntary groups and businesses?

DOUGLAS DOWNEY

Mr. Pollock: I would like to ask all members of this House to join me in paying tribute to Douglas Derwood Downey. Doug Downey was one of eastern Ontario’s native sons. Born in Huntingdon township and educated at White Lake Public School and Madoc High School, he worked at several jobs but eventually purchased a fuel oil business in Kingston. He was best known for the contribution he made to the Agricultural Societies of Ontario.

Doug Downey served as president of the Kingston Fair Board. He was also a director of district 3 for several years and, in 1981, served as president of the Agricultural Societies of Ontario. It was at one of these district meetings on Thursday, November 26, after making comments from the podium, that Doug Downey suffered a fatal heart attack.

I am sure all members of this House will join me in extending our deepest sympathy to his wife, Vivian, and their seven children. May he rest in peace.

FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS

Mr. Tatham: This statement comes from the Globe:

“As citizens of the province of Ontario, we are called upon to frame our own policy with reference to our provincial rights and interests and to conduct our own affairs, and we deprecate, nay more, we protest most strongly against any interference. We equally protest against the proposition that the provincial government ought to interfere as a government with the affairs of Canada or any of the other provinces.

“Occasions may arise, as occasions have arisen, in which the rights of the province have been infringed. Upon such occasions, of course, it becomes the duty of the province to act as it did, upon my motion, with assent of gentlemen opposite, in order to prevent the infringement of provincial interest, of which we believed ourselves to be the guardians.”

The date was December 23, 1871, the report of proceedings in the Ontario Legislature on December 22. The speaker was Premier Edward Blake.

In other words, the Premier of the day suggested that, while desiring friendly relations with the government of Canada, Ontario would not be subservient to Ottawa nor permit any interference with what it considered its own particular interests.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr. Swart: It is sure a weird and amazing insurance system this government defends in this province and continues to defend. Even more weird and amazing have been the pronouncements coming from the government in contradicting itself about the value of a rate review board and whether caps are in effect.

The minister responsible to the insurance industry has been convinced by that industry that they are voluntarily complying with yet-to-pass legislation requiring the capping of rates, rollbacks and refunds. In fact, the minister said publicly he was not putting capping in the new bill because insurance companies had complied voluntarily and it was not necessary.

The people of Ontario know better and, what is more, they do not trust the insurance industry any more now than they did before the current minister became their apologist.

A young man from the greater Toronto area just called my office, saying he had not received his 10 per cent refund for males under 25, although many of his friends had. His premium is $1,137 every six months with no collision coverage. He called his insurance company, Progressive Insurance -- what a name -- and was told the law had not passed and until it does they do not have to give him a cent. He did not want his name used, although I have it, because he is concerned that his insurance may be dropped if he complains publicly.

The insurance company is, of course, correct. They do not have to refund the young man any portion of the usurious premiums they have extracted from him. However, it is less than honest when both the industry and the government tell young men there is compliance with a capping bill that was not passed.

TOURISM INDUSTRY

Mr. McLean: My statement is for the Minister of Tourism and Recreation (Mr. O’Neil). According to a recent newspaper story in the Collingwood Enterprise Bulletin, the Georgian Triangle region is facing a serious labour shortage in the tourism and hospitality industries. I am certain other areas of this province are facing the same problem.

The executive director of the Georgian Triangle Tourist Association and Convention Bureau says the shortage of people who work in the tourist and hospitality industries will reach crisis proportion this winter unless solutions are found. The association says innovative programs are needed from the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation now; otherwise, we could very well see a drastic decline in the number of visitors in Ontario.

Why does the minister not consider innovative programs, establishing a busing program that would bring workers into areas with a labour shortage from areas facing high unemployment rates? Why not establish programs that increase the awareness of desirable jobs in the tourist and hospitality industries? Why not create a four-semester education system that would create a pool of youthful workers? Why not establish tourist- and hospitality-oriented courses at the secondary school level?

These are only a few of the innovative programs the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation could develop to end the labour shortage in the tourism and hospitality industries. It is apparent there is no ready pool of labour to supply these hotels. I say to the minister we want to keep our 30 per cent and he must take immediate action.

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CHIEF DOUGLAS BURROWS

Mr. Callahan: It gives me great delight, on behalf of myself and all other members in this House from the Peel region, to say a few words with reference to our retiring chief of police, who is present in the gallery, Douglas Burrows, along with his wife, Roberta, and his son Jonathan.

The chief has been chief of the 1,103-member Peel Regional Police Force since its inception on January 1, 1974. He has spent 32 years, including four years with the Ontario Provincial Police and 28 years as a police officer in Peel. He spent five years with the naval air service serving in Korea.

The chief has extensive background in criminal investigation and has received a number of awards, including the Queen’s Jubilee Medal, for service to the community; an award from the Canadian Bankers’ Association for bravery; a 30-year, long-service medal; the Ontario Medal for Police Bravery, and a civic group award for outstanding service to the community.

On behalf of all the members of my region, I congratulate the chief for service well done on behalf of the community and wish him well in his future retirement.

I would also note that, although his son Jonathan is the only one in the gallery, he also has a daughter, Gentry, who is a policewoman -- she is not here today due to ill health -- and two other children, Shelley and Matthew, who are out west.

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION BOARD

Mr. R. F. Johnston: l am pleased to see that the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) is here today. I am sure he would be outraged if he knew that a group of workers in Ontario, by a foul hand of management, had lost a week’s pay in this coming year, and I know he would want to look into that kind of concern.

I would like to bring to his attention a memo from the Workers’ Compensation Board to all its management staff which tells them that it has moved to a bi-weekly basis for their pay rather than a weekly basis and that they are all basically going to lose a week’s pay this year.

It is ironic. Not only has this been dictated to them, but also they are being told that it will be done by direct deposit and there is no choice involved. Of course, there is a union involved as well there. They have the right to negotiate and to try to stop this kind of high-handed management practice, but what does the management of the board do?

Perhaps the Minister of Labour will look into their complaints.

Mr. Speaker: It appears that completes members’ statements. There are just five seconds left.

Mrs. Marland: Mr. Speaker, if I may for five seconds?

Mr. Speaker: Well, those five seconds have elapsed. It might be more interesting to the House if you had your full 90 seconds tomorrow.

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY

POLLUTION CONTROL

Hon. Mr. Bradley: Today I am tabling in the Legislature proposals for a fundamental reform of Ontario’s air pollution control law. The air in Ontario is a precious resource which must be protected from the thousands of polluters spewing contaminants into the atmosphere.

The green paper I am releasing today, and the comments of interested parties and the general public over the next few months, will help us rewrite the existing air pollution rules, specifically regulation 308 under the Environmental Protection Act. The old regulation is outdated and provides inadequate protection for the people and the environment of Ontario. We need a law that addresses problems such as the long-range transportation of air pollution and the ability of some of these chemicals to persist in the environment, accumulate in living things and climb the food chain.

First, we must apply bottom-of-the-stack pollution controls in proportion to the hazards they intrinsically present to human health and the environment. The reforms we are proposing would require every significant air polluter to cut contamination to the level attainable by the appropriate level of pollution control technology.

Polluters emitting the most hazardous contaminants would meet the most stringent abatement levels. Substances with high toxicity, such as those with the ability to induce cancer or mutate genes and toxic substances which do not readily break down in the environment or which tend to bioaccumulate, would be rated as high-hazard contaminants. Examples would include lead and dioxin. Polluters emitting these contaminants would have to reduce them to the levels attainable by the best removal technology known anywhere in the world.

Substances rated as medium- or low-hazard, such as carbon tetrachloride and total reduced sulphur respectively, would be subject to levels of pollution control appropriate to the risk they pose.

Under one option presented for public comment, medium-hazard pollutants would require reductions attainable by the best generally available technology which is economically achievable, or as it is known, BAT-EA. Low-hazard pollutants would require reductions attainable by technology generally demonstrated as acceptable. Under another option, both low-and medium-hazard contaminant emitters would have to meet the BAT-EA levels.

Our proposal would adopt as a second line of defence a system of enforceable ambient air standards to replace the current point-of-impingement system. These standards would be supported with advance computer models to predict more accurately the effect of each source on local air quality. If the bottom-of-the-stack pollution controls called for do not adequately protect local air, further abatement would be required.

Upon adoption, the new regulation would apply immediately to the 1,200 new and altered sources which require approvals annually. It will be phased in to cover the most hazardous 10,000 existing air polluters within five years and the remaining 10,000 significant existing air polluters within 10 years.

Under the plan, all certificates of approval would also contain operating requirements to maintain a high level of pollution reduction efficiency. Our proposal would make certificates of approval for processes and equipment renewable every 10 years, so that air polluters would regularly be required to match the emission performance levels attainable by the latest techniques.

Our air pollution proposal is designed to deliver Ontario an ever-cleaner environment. It joins two other basic reforms, the municipal-industrial strategy for abatement, which aims to stop water pollution at its source, and Bill 112, which makes it cheaper to comply with our environmental laws than to pay the dramatically higher penalties for the polluters.

We are trying to put into place reforms that will stand the test of time. We seek public scrutiny of these air pollution proposals and whatever advice, comments and criticisms that flow from that scrutiny. I invite all interested parties to make written submissions to me by March 31, 1988.

RESPONSES

POLLUTION CONTROL

Mrs. Grier: We on this side certainly welcome the minister’s announcement today. A review of regulation 308, or our air pollution control policies in this province, is very long overdue. I am very glad we finally have at least the beginning of it, because we and every environmental group in the province have been saying for a long time that the point of impingement to which standards were related was completely unenforceable.

My concerns are what has taken so long and how very much longer it is going to be before we are controlling those industries which are at this very moment polluting the air of the province.

We have before us today a discussion paper which has just been released. We have a framework within which responses are going to be received to that paper but no indication from the minister when we might actually see a regulation promulgated. Some of the groups that have been involved in discussions with the ministry indicate that it may be two years before we have a tougher regulation.

In the interim, the industries will be continuing to pollute, as they are now, and I suspect there will be no enforcement of the existing regulations and very few charges laid against those industries. The phase-in the minister has described in his announcement means it could be 10 years before the existing 20,000 polluters are brought under control.

I also am concerned about the phrase “best available technology economically achievable.” When we first began to talk about cleaning up the environment in this province, we talked about the best available technology. Now we are talking about the best available technology economically achievable. What is that going to mean? Are we watering down the best technology instead of really controlling the pollutants?

The minister speaks about MISA, Bill 112 and stricter penalties in this province. He did not mention Countdown Acid Rain. Perhaps it is worth pointing out that the other two major initiatives announced by this minister, MISA and Countdown Acid Rain, when subjected to scrutiny, revealed a plethora of loopholes. It was only after a committee of this House had reviewed Countdown Acid Rain that those loopholes were plugged, and we are still struggling to get the 11,700 industries that will not be covered by MISA covered by the minister’s program.

I suspect that when we subject this discussion paper to scrutiny, we are going to find just the same number of loopholes. I want the minister to know that while he is seeking advice and comments, he is certainly going to get them in the weeks ahead.

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The other point that has not been taken into account in the minister’s statement, but that I hope is contained in the discussion paper, is the recognition that health is affected by air pollution. There have been recent studies that have shown that hospital admissions have increased when the air pollution index is high.

I hope we will get the best available technology and the technology generally demonstrated as acceptable, subject to levels of pollution control appropriate to the risk that pollution poses, and that all of those weasel words are going to take into account that the health of the citizens of this province is being affected now, will continue to be affected while we are discussing this paper for the next two years and will be even more affected if in fact the minister does not speed up the timetable and get those controls in place long before the 10 or 20 years that he is contemplating.

CHIEF DOUGLAS BURROWS

Mrs. Marland: Just prior to my response to the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley), I would like to share in the good wishes and the congratulations to Chief Doug Burrows on the occasion of his retirement, effective next year, from Peel Regional Police. Chief Burrows has certainly been an individual who has shown exemplary leadership in this province through his many professional associations and in his personal commitment and compassion as the leader of the most superior police force in Ontario, perhaps in this country, because of the particular ability and the particular compassion of this individual.

POLLUTION CONTROL

Mrs. Marland: I guess my reaction to this statement of the minister today would have to be simply that I am tremendously disappointed. I am also somewhat amazed because I thought what we were waiting for were new air pollution guidelines. I did not think that we were waiting for yet another study, yet another green paper, yet another two years.

It is very interesting when we talk about the leadership that is supposed to be demonstrated by this particular minister. He talks about thousands of polluters spewing out contaminants into the atmosphere. I do not see him mentioning anything about the users of leaded gasoline in their automobiles.

I also find it interesting that he says this paper will help us rewrite the existing air pollution rules over the next few months. How much time does this minister need to rewrite those air pollution rules? It is so in line with the style of this government where we have another study, another investigation, another point of discussion, but that is all it ever is. It is study and it is discussion. It is never a factual remedy.

If in fact we did have air pollution guidelines, we would then have air pollution protection. At this point we do not have any of those things. It is interesting that when I look at what is said in this statement today, I see nothing to answer the question I brought up in this House last week, when I asked a question about the fact that we have an environmental assessment going on right now in the cities of Brampton and Mississauga as it pertains to a incinerator proposed by Petro-Sun.

It is rather interesting to recognize that the Petro-Sun incinerator is going to be either approved or rejected -- against what? It is going to be approved or rejected in the absence of air pollution guidelines for those particular types of emissions, and I would have thought that to wait even until March, the minimum time stated in this statement, will in fact be not soon enough for the problems that may or may not be associated with the Petro-Sun incinerator. We do not know, because we have no benchmark by which to go. We also do not hear anything about where this discussion paper will perhaps address the problems associated with the Commissioners Street incinerator in Metro.

Quite frankly, two years from now is simply not soon enough, and l would challenge this minister. If it is not going to be two years, we will be delighted; but in any case, whether it says two years or not, the point is it is already two years too late. It is interesting how long we have waited for this, and yet it is just a further discussion of purpose.

If the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) says that it does not say two years, that it is not going to be necessarily two years, then I would challenge him to do now something that he has been promising to do for two years, instead of just bringing us another green paper for discussion.

Mr. Sterling: We see today the announcement by this government about a great air pollution control mechanism, yet it fails to do anything about the principal problem we have with air pollution in Ontario. Of course, I happen to be speaking about second-hand smoke. This government has done nothing to protect the many workers or the many people who try to enjoy a meal in a restaurant or anything else. We have a minister who stands up and talks about bottom-of-the-stack pollution control. What we need in this province is bottom-of-the-butt pollution control.

ORAL QUESTIONS

EDUCATION FUNDING

Mr. B. Rae: I have a question for the Premier. On August 6, at the outset of the election campaign, the Premier gave a speech in Ottawa in which he outlined his policies on education. The Premier got many headlines for that. The Toronto Sun, for example, had a full headline saying, “Peterson Boosts Schools By $297 Million.” The headline in the Toronto Star read, “Peterson Promising 4,000 New Teachers and Smaller Classes.” The headline in the Globe and Mail was, “Liberals Pledge More Teachers, Learning Aids.”

It was a very detailed commitment, Mr. Speaker. I am sure you were reading it with interest in a constituency of which we are all aware. It is one that was accompanied by a major policy paper which was very detailed and very specific in terms of the amount of money that was to be spent, the amount of money that was to be allocated in each year and specifically where this money was to go. It called for a $297.4-million program “in the first year of its implementation. “I want to quote those words again, because they are important: “in the first year of its implementation,” $297.4 million.

On Thursday, the Minister of Education (Mr. Ward) made a statement to the House in which he committed the government to spending roughly $60 million in keeping with the commitment which he said the government had made during the election campaign. I wonder if the Premier can explain this $230-million betrayal which his government has just attempted to foist on the Ontario public.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I will refer that to the Minister of Education.

Mr. B. Rae: You made the promise, not him, my friend. Haven’t you got the guts to get up and answer your own questions?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Premier has referred the response to the Minister of Education.

Hon. Mr. Ward: I am pleased to have the opportunity to reiterate once again for the Leader of the Opposition our commitment to begin the process of implementation of the many commitments that we made in the throne speech, including the commitment to a reduction in classroom sizes in grades 1 and 2, moving from the present average of approximately 30 to one down to 20 to one. This year’s general legislative grant provides an amount of money necessary to begin the process of implementing those changes in the coming school year.

Mr. B. Rae: The minister has been told to answer by a Premier who has not got the courage to admit that he completely and utterly misled the people of this province on August 6, 1987, when he made his statement.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Would the honourable member reconsider the word “misled”?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Would the member withdraw the word “misled”?

Mr. B. Rae: I did not say he misled the House. I never said he misled the House. What I said was that when the Premier made his statement on August 6, it could only be described as misleading. I do not think there is anything unparliamentary in that remark.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Would the member reconsider and withdraw?

Interjections.

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Mr. Speaker: Order. Would the honourable member withdraw the word “misled.”

Mr. B. Rae: Mr. Speaker, do you want me to say the Liberal Party misled -- how do you want me to put it -- during an election campaign?

Mr. Speaker: I just want you to withdraw.

Mr. B. Rae: If you want me to withdraw the words in this House, in this place, right now, I will withdraw them.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

Mr. B. Rae: I wonder if the minister can explain how it is possible that, on computer hardware, the Premier promised specifically, very categorically and clearly, a commitment of $94.5 million; the minister delivered $10.4 million in what he said would be the first year, and they promised $31.5 million a year for three years. On computer software, the Liberals promised $13.9 million; the minister allocated $3 million. On textbooks and learning material, the Liberal promise, the Peterson promise, was $38 million a year; the minister allocated $16.8 million plus six. On intermediate science, the Peterson promise was $13 million, the minister’s promise was only $3 million. On teacher training on computers, the election promise was $6 million; the minister did not allocate a nickel to teacher training on computers.

Can the minister explain the incredible disappearance of literally hundreds of millions of dollars from commitments which his leader, his Premier, the leader of the Liberal Party in this House and outside, made on August 6, 1987?

Hon. Mr. Ward: I would just like to point out to the Leader of the Opposition that indeed the costs of sustaining and maintaining the programs which were announced last Thursday are estimated to be approximately $290 million annually once fully implemented. If the leader wishes, I would be happy to run through those items on an individual basis, but I would point out that it is anticipated that the funds that were made available in the general legislative grant allocation last Thursday-for instance, on the additional teachers required to achieve the 20-to-one ratio-represent one third of the total annual costs from September to December 1988 for in excess of 1,100 new teachers in grades 1 and 2.

On the issue of the computer hardware, I would point out that the funds being made available this year are in addition to the funds that were available on last year’s base amount, and it is anticipated that we will meet or exceed our commitment for 100,000 computers, mostly in the elementary panel, over the course of the next three years.

With regard to the funds that are made available for educational software in elementary schools, the $3 million allocated for this purpose will in fact provide for an orderly phase-in strategy that does reflect the availability of educational software at the elementary level.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I think the minister knows that what he is suggesting is totally preposterous and that he cannot say he is on line in terms of teacher training for computer literacy when he has not spent one nickel in that area. He has also subsumed money from last year’s special grants for sciences, for affirmative action, and put that into the base budget this year so that the school boards are now going to be stuck with those costs that he gave them last year.

Did the minister not realize when he was taking on the job as minister that he would have to deal with this memo from the Liberal Party on August 10 to the Ontario Public Education Network: “On August 6, 1987, Premier Peterson announced an 11-point action plan which would cost $297.4 million in its first year of implementation.” Did the minister know when he took the job on as minister that he would have to break that promise?

Hon. Mr. Ward: Again, I would like to reiterate for the member for Scarborough West that indeed we do recognize that the costs of sustaining these programs once fully implemented do exceed $290 million. Again, I would just like to say to the member that we are not weaselling out of anything; in fact, we are proceeding immediately in the coming school year with the implementation of those commitments.

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION

Mr. B. Rae: A question to the Minister of Labour about the Workers’ Compensation Board. The minister may or may not be aware that tomorrow the Workers’ Compensation Board is about to announce a new policy with respect to the payment of supplements to workers who are in receipt of permanent pensions. These supplements are known as the subsection 45(5) supplements, which are extremely important for those workers who are receiving them.

I wonder if the minister would care to explain why it is that the board is about to announce a policy that restricts those supplements, that further restricts the number of people who will qualify for them, both in terms of numbers and in terms of the length of time they are able to stay on those supplements, and that this in fact will mean that the board is spending less on supplements and less on rehabilitation than prior to the announcement of this policy tomorrow.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I am well aware of the intention of the board to announce what can only be considered a new view of subsection 45(5). I can tell the Leader of the Opposition that this new view is based on legal advice which the board has received and considered, and has considered authoritative. The decision, as I understand it, is not a decision of the board but of the administration of the board that the correct interpretation of subsection 45(5) is to limit the payment of supplemental pensions in the way the member for York South has described.

It gives me a great deal of concern that the interpretation of the act is as issued by the board, and if indeed that is the case, then we may have to consider making sure that section 45(5) reads in a different way before too long.

Mr. B. Rae: As the minister expresses his concern, I want him to know that he joins a long line of concerned ministers of Labour in this House. I cannot remember one who has not been concerned. Russ Ramsay was concerned. Mr. Guindon was concerned when he was the minister. We have had a long line of concerned ministers of Labour. That is not the problem. The problem is not concern. The problem is what is happening to workers who right now are in receipt of supplements which allow them to carry on.

I wonder if the minister can explain why it is that when the board -- and it is the board: the minister says it is some administrative action, it is a decision of the board with respect to a major policy question affecting over 4,500 workers in this province who are in receipt right now of pension supplements.

I wonder if the minister can explain how it is possible that when his government has just received a report, An Injury to One Is an Injury to All, which documents clearly how more money has to be spent and more focus and attention has to be paid to the problem of rehabilitation and the problems of workers who are on permanent pension -- last week we had the disastrous policy with respect to gold miners, and this week it is workers who are in receipt of their supplements.

I wonder how the minister can explain why it is that when that report is there, clearly categorizing just how it is that workers are not being treated fairly by his government, his government can preside over a regime at the Workers’ Compensation Board that ends up cutting down and cutting back and hurting workers who are injured. How can he explain that?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: By virtue of the fact that we elected 95 members, we have the responsibility to preside over that board.

My friend the member for York South is not putting all the facts on the table. The fact is that what the board has decided in its interpretation of subsection 45(5) is that supplemental benefits are to be paid during periods when the worker is involved in a rehabilitation program, and the board has decided as a matter of policy that there is not enough room in the act under subsection 45(5) to use that section as a permanent wage top-up system.

He should not suggest, in this House or elsewhere, that this will result in less money being spent on rehabilitation. What the board has said in its policy is simply this: that section is designed as a supplemental during the period in which a worker is undergoing a process of occasional rehabilitation. That may or may not be the correct legal interpretation. The board seems to think it is. He and I know that some workers, as a result of that interpretation, may lose supplemental benefits.

What the board has said is that this represents a wage top-up system. The act does not yet provide for that. I think the question that he should be thinking about and that I should be thinking about is whether or not we will proceed to a new system of permanent partial disability so we can realistically deal with the problem.

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Mr. B. Rae: The government has its 95 members. If it is so proud of itself, why the hell does it not do something for the workers in this province? It has the means to do it. Why does it not step in and pass some amendments to the Workers’ Compensation Act? The government can do it. Nobody is stopping it from doing it. Is the minister going to blame the 35 members of the opposition for the fact that the Liberal government has not got its act together in order to do something on behalf of the workers of this province? Just try it.

The minister said I am wrong when I say that less money will be spent on rehabilitation. Can the minister deny that a result of this policy will be that workers who are now in receipt of benefits could be cut off and that less will be paid out in supplements than is being paid out now?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: It is quite clear that in some cases benefits will be cut off and less supplements will be paid out. He knows that; I know that; we know that. The board says the problem is with the act. It is a problem with the act, but it is not a problem with vocational rehabilitation.

If all the facts are going to get out, let us make it clear what the board said. The board said supplements are to be paid while an individual injured worker is undergoing vocational rehabilitation.

It would be my expectation that more would be spent on vocational rehabilitation and not less. I think the member and I are ad idem on that and we have to start working on that. But let us not suggest that, as a result of this interpretation of the law made by the board, individual injured workers are going to be cut off the vocational rehabilitation, because that is simply not the case.

EDUCATION FUNDING

Mr. Brandt: My question is of the Premier. In 1984 and again in 1985 during the election campaign of that year, he promised that educational funding would under his government be increased to 60 per cent of net operating costs.

At the time his government took over with the co-operation and support of the now official opposition, his government was funding some 47 per cent of the cost of education, and that number has subsequently gone down to an estimated 42 per cent.

If I can get the attention of the House for a moment, and there are some other conversations going on: with respect to that constant reduction in the percentage of funding on the part of the province, and we have raised this question before, the government’s response traditionally has been, “Oh, yes, but we have spent some extra money on capital funding or on some other program.”

The fact of the matter is that the Premier did promise 60 per cent funding on the part of this province if he became the government. He is now the government. He has 95 members. What is his intention with respect to increasing educational funding on the part of the province to 60 per cent?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I will refer that to the Minister of Education.

Hon. Mr. Ward: I want to assure the leader of the third party that this government remains committed to the principle of reducing the burden of educational costs on property taxpayers. We will continue to work towards reducing that burden.

Mr. Brandt: That is absolutely no commitment whatever. To remain committed to the principle of is not what the government said in the 1985 election campaign. In 1987 it repeated that commitment and now, it appears, it is taking a completely different stance altogether.

Let me ask the Minister of Education, since the question was referred to him, about his announcement of last Thursday of some $60 million in funding, if I have the day correct, as I was not in the House on that particular day. On Thursday, when he indicated that some $60 million in additional funding would be provided, he inadvertently forgot to mention that there was some $200 million or more in additional funding that has not yet been accounted for.

By the estimates I have taken, he has committed this government to about 22 per cent of what the government said it was going to do in the last election campaign. What is the minister’s time frame for delivering the last 80 per cent of the program he promised the people of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Ward: I would point out to the leader of the third party that the announcement that was made on Thursday was for a commitment in excess of an additional $260 million through the general legislative grants for the coming year.

With reference to the throne speech initiatives and the amount of funds that were made available through the grants for those purposes, as I indicated to the House on Thursday, the amounts that would flow this year represent approximately one third of the total cost of those commitments, bearing in mind that the grants for 1988 only apply for a four-month period. We anticipate that fully implementing all of the many commitments made in the throne speech should be completed within a period of three years.

Mr. Brandt: Out of frustration, I am going to try a different way of asking the question. Will the minister commit himself today to this House and to the people of Ontario that he will see that no additional costs with respect to passing on programs from the province to local school boards, and therefore to local municipal taxpayers, will occur during the course of his ministry in this government? Will he commit himself that those additional costs, which we add up to some $200 million or more, will not simply be passed on to the local levels of government?

Hon. Mr. Ward: I would like to point out to the leader of the third party that the initiatives that were announced in the throne speech to which he referred are being funded by additional general legislative grants above and beyond the base level of support that has traditionally flowed.

SKILLS TRAINING

Mr. Jackson: My question is for the Minister of Skills Development. In this morning’s Globe and Mail, we read that the minister has been criticizing the federal government on its plan to cut spending on job training. Specifically, the headline reads, “Ontario Protests Federal Plan to Slash Job Training Funds.” His own ministry’s spending estimates indicate he has underspent by $64 million this year. When I raised this matter in this Legislature on November 19, the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) said, “We gave them too much.” Is the minister not being rather hypocritical to criticize the federal government for cutbacks when his own ministry is being cut back?

Hon. Mr. Curling: Not at all, because the responsibility of training is a federal responsibility. We feel that if there is a commitment by the federal government to spend $2.2 billion for Canadian Jobs Strategy and at the moment it has been cut back to $1.5 billion, and also if it changes the rules as it goes along, putting apprenticeship programs in jeopardy and some of the programs we have targeted as shortages; it is not at all hypocritical while we have put more money towards training in this province in ratio to what the federal government has done.

Mr. Jackson: I think the minister should start listening to what his own cabinet colleagues have been telling him. It was in this House that the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) and the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) criticized his ministry for the lack of programs and delivery here in Ontario. One of the other cabinet ministers was the Minister of Culture and Communications (Ms. Munro), who has made some comments about the dire straits of some laid-off older workers at the Hamilton Firestone plant with respect to the fact that the older workers’ programs provided by this province are being cut back.

In his report last week, the Provincial Auditor referred to his ministry as a mess. He said its Futures money was going into buying refrigerators and microwaves, that his office was not complying with ministry guidelines and that eligibility data were not being checked. I say to the minister that people in glass houses should not throw stones. Is it not hypocritical to criticize the federal government --

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Jackson: --when the auditor and three members of his own cabinet are saying his ministry is a mess?

Hon. Mr. Curling: I think the honourable member has read a part of the auditor’s report. It also stated that we had proceeded to correct some of the discrepancies that had been discovered and cited in the auditor’s report. Like any auditor’s report, it will identify things that could be better. The auditor also mentioned, if the member had read it in detail, that we have proceeded to correct some of the discrepancies that were identified in the report.

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Mr. Jackson: The minister cannot react fast enough to the problems that are being uncovered in his ministry. I want to remind him that it was his Liberal government that cut off the $2,000-special incentive grant program to employers who hire older, laid-off workers. In Hopedale Mall in Oakville, there is a branch of the 50-plus program that is going to be closing its doors at five o’clock today. This program, funded and created through the ministry, met the needs of 250 older workers in the Halton region. Those doors are closing at 5 p.m. today because they need $15,000 to extend the program.

Is the minister not being hypocritical to criticize the federal government, when his own refusal to extend funding to the 50-plus program in Oakville will force the closure of its doors in less than three hours?

Hon. Mr. Curling: The honourable member has raised the point a couple of times, and I am sure he is quite familiar with our program for older workers in which we give $5,000 in training vouchers to people who have been laid off for economic reasons. Also, there is the POWA program, I think it is, funded by the federal people, which looks after older workers over 50. We do not want to interfere with some of the federal programs.

Let me address for a moment the point on which he says we are hypocritical -- cutting back our programs while criticizing the federal government for cutting back. In this province, we are trying to establish a training culture. We realize, too, that with the technological changes happening, we have to train --

Mr. Jackson: Talk to the member for Oakville South (Mr. Carrothers). You cut off his program. Tell the member for Halton Centre (Mrs. Sullivan). You cut off her program. Tell the members of your own caucus why you cut off their programs.

Hon. Mr. Curling: I do not think the honourable member wants to listen. He keeps babbling without wanting the answer.

Mr. Speaker: The usual procedure in this House is for the question to come through the chair and the response to come through the chair. I think it is time for a new question.

CANADIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE

Mr. Hampton: My question is for the Premier. Earlier this year, probably in September, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service requested that the provinces enter into agreement with CSIS to provide CSIS with confidential information on individuals, gleaned from provincial government departments and agency files.

Has Ontario entered into such an agreement with CSIS and, if so, when did it enter into such an agreement? If the province has not yet entered such an agreement, at what stage are the negotiations at this time?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I have just asked the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) and the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith) if they had heard anything about it. To the best of my knowledge, I am not familiar with the question of any negotiations. l will look into it further, but the ministers do not appear to be aware either.

Mr. Hampton: The government is saying no approach has yet been made by CSIS or, if an approach has been made, no negotiations are under way. I want to bring the Premier and, in this case, the Attorney General up to date on a couple of things and ask a further question.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s review committee has completed a review of CSIS and found it has 30,000 files on individuals across Canada. If one translates that into CSiS’s domain and its reason for being, it would tend to indicate that there must be 30,000 subversive people in Canada or 30,000 people who are acting against Canada’s national interest. It also found that CSIS has investigated individuals who have been merely associated with trade unions or peace groups.

My question is, and the Premier, the Attorney General or the Solicitor General can answer this -- in view of the colourful activities of CSIS and in view of the activities of investigating people who are not subversive in any way, is the Ontario government going to enter into negotiations with CSIS at this time or at any time in the future on this issue of providing government files?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I am not aware, as I said, that there have been any attempts to enter into any negotiations. Perhaps there have been. I am not aware of them, and the Attorney General and, I gather, the Solicitor General are not aware of any. That being said, it is possible there has been some approach at a bureaucratic level. There may well be something that we are not aware of.

I cannot give a categorical answer to my honourable friend. Frankly, I do not know what he is driving at. I think that probably his questions are more appropriately directed through his federal counterparts to the government in Ottawa.

SKILLS TRAINING

Mr. Jackson: I have a question for the Minister of Skills Development. Last week I raised a question with him with respect to when he would begin operations of his Transitions program. He stated in this House that the program was in operation and was working.

As a result of that response, my staff started calling all of the various locations which he indicates are sources of information for this program for unemployed older workers in Ontario. What we discovered was that the Ministry of Labour’s plant closure and employment adjustment branch had application forms, but it had just received them in the past two weeks. What we found out when we called the universities and colleges, most notably the University of Toronto, was that they had not even heard about the program.

When my staff called the Ministry of Skills Development and asked for information on the program, it mailed by Priority Post this package of photocopied materials at a cost to the taxpayer of about $6. The person is a student. He will not even be able to go on the program for another 16 years.

Does the minister really understand and know the true state of the Transitions program and its delivery in this province?

Hon. Mr. Curling: Last week or the week before, when the question was asked of me about when I was going to announce the Transitions program, I was going on the assumption when the honourable member got up that he knew the Transitions program was in operation. He has found out it is in operation; he has done his little investigation, as he said, and found a place where maybe it is not known.

I do not attest to the fact that every individual in this province knew about the Transitions program, but I know that over 6,000 people -- and I stand to be corrected -- in that region have been helped by this program. If that individual or the location the member pointed out is not familiar with the program, I am prepared immediately to direct my staff to get that information there and dispatch one of the civil servants there immediately to explain this program in absolute detail.

Mr. Jackson: The minister should be mindful of the fact that the Premier (Mr. Peterson), while in Hamilton starting this recent election campaign, promised the older unemployed workers in Hamilton that he was committing $32.5 million over two years. In the first year, the minister has pledged $14 million, according to his own ministry. I am just simply telling him what his ministry is telling me. It has $1.8 million -- that is all -- targeted for this year, and that is just the target. But the ministry does confirm that it has spent nearly $1 million setting up the bureaucracy and in bureaucratic costs associated with this program.

The minister stands there and says he has helped close to 6,000 people. His ministry says that if we look hard enough, we might find one individual who has received funds under this program. That came from his own ministry.

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In light of these facts about the mismanagement of his ministry, why is he being dishonest about his actual commitment to the unemployed workers in this province?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Really, we seem to be having a little trouble today. Maybe some of the questions are going on a little too long and some of the responses are a little long.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Would you just withdraw that please?

Mr. Jackson: I will withdraw it, because what I meant to say was --

Mr. Speaker: Thank you very much. Order. Would the honourable member take his seat? I appreciate what he has done.

Hon. Mr. Curling: I know that with the member’s eagerness to perform he sometimes gets carried away with his words. We all are honourable men.

I just want to remind the honourable member that $14.8 million was allocated to that program. In taking a look at my briefing notes too, I notice that at that time 550 applicants were received.

Mr. Jackson: You said you have helped 6,000 people. That is what you said.

Hon. Mr. Curling: I stand corrected. We are all honourable men.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Interjections are out of order. If you wish to complete your response through the chair, fine.

Hon. Mr. Curling: As I said, the commitment made by the Premier was honoured, and I think very shortly afterwards that program was in place and operating.

As I said, the honourable member stated the last time that the program was not announced. Now he is saying he has investigated and found out that the program is working. I am explaining to him that applications have been received and members have benefited from that program.

POLLUTION CONTROL

Mrs. Grier: Last week I questioned the Minister of the Environment about the enforcement of pollution guidelines against the 300 companies that discharge directly to the province’s waterways and about which the Provincial Auditor had remarked in his report. The minister, in response, told the House how the number of prosecutions started by his ministry had greatly increased. Specifically, he said, “In the first six months of this year we have initiated 114 prosecutions.”

Can the minister tell the House how many of those 114 prosecutions were against the 300 companies about which I was questioning him last Wednesday?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: I would not be able to tell the member exactly whom those prosecutions were against, except they are against those who have been found to be in violation of the environmental laws of Ontario. Where the evidence has been gathered, it was determined that a prosecution would be a reasonable course of action on the part of the investigations and enforcement branch.

As the member would know, first of all, we have our investigators go out. Then the consultation is made with the legal authorities within the ministry to determine whether there is a case to be made. If there is, they proceed.

I indicated to the member in answer to her question last week that my view is the system has to be changed so that there are enforceable standards as opposed to guidelines, which as she knows are not easily prosecuted within the courts unless one can determine and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there has in fact been damage to the environment.

I could not give her the specifics of that, other than to say that our prosecutions are based on the information which is gathered by the investigations and enforcement branch.

Mrs. Grier: My question was very specific last Wednesday, and it related directly to the industrial dischargers, 300 of which discharge into the waterways of this province. The minister responded that he had laid 114 prosecutions.

We have reviewed that list of 114 prosecutions. One is against a Keswick resident who constructed a well without a licence; 20 related to the sale of soft drinks in refillable containers; one was against a farmer in Burgessville who allowed manure to flow onto a neighbour’s orchard.

There are two possible explanations for the minister’s answer to my question: either, despite his patronizing homilies to me in this House, he does not really understand how his department works, or he was attempting to blur the issue. Can the minister tell us which it was?

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: I missed the last part of that, but it is probably good that I did.

The member feels that she can make a very strong case in the House and I am simply supposed to sit back acquiescently and take all the abuse that is thrown to this side. I well recall my eight years in the opposition when I did so.

There are a couple of things that I should mention to the member. She has of course selected very carefully the cases that she feels are of significance. Let me point out a few things to her. First, this is the very member who has complained for some time that the Ministry of the Environment must, and I agree with her in this, ensure that the soft drink container legislation is enforced and that the big companies who are involved in the violations of that be brought to task, and we have done that.

In regard to those who are spilling manure, for instance, and I do not want any interjections from the other side, that can cause problems for streams. But what the member did not mention is that Courtaulds Canada was --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Maybe the minister could send it over.

ROUGE VALLEY

Mrs. Marland: Unfortunately, my question is also to the Minister of the Environment. It is certainly interesting to hear the minister say that he spent eight years slinging abuse on this side of the House. I take exception to the suggestion that the two Environment critics are slinging abuse. We are simply doing our job.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mrs. Marland: On November 18 of this year, the Minister of Housing (Ms. Hošek) indicated to my colleague the member for Markham (Mr. Cousens) on the question of the Rouge Valley lands that several ministries were currently reviewing the possible use of the Rouge Valley lands for development purposes.

The Minister of the Environment was not actually listed as one of those ministers to which the Minister of Housing had referred the matter. Since he was not specifically mentioned as part of these negotiations, can he confirm his participation and tell this House just what his views are with respect to the development of the Rouge Valley lands?

Mr. Brandt: Yes or no.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: The member’s leader wants me to answer yes or no, and of course the question requires more than a yes or no answer.

Mr. Breaugh: Which leader?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: The member of Oshawa says, “Which leader?” It is one of the ones here.

Mr. Speaker: Order. In response? Fine. Thank you.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: In response to the member’s question about the Rouge Valley, of course she would expect, and I think all members would expect, that the Minister of the Environment would be making comments upon any proposals which would affect this particular land, one of the good reasons being that a good portion of this land is owned by the government of Ontario.

The Minister of Housing will be balancing this off against the very dire need for housing in Ontario and, in particular, housing for low-income people in Ontario. I recognize that the people who live adjacent to this or in the neighbourhood are going to be concerned about preserving this segment.

The member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore (Mrs. Grier), however, faced a similar circumstance where in her constituency there were many people who wanted an entire park to be devoted to environmental purposes. The member recognized that there was also a need for low-income housing to meet what her friends in her caucus have referred to as a housing crisis.

I want to assure the member that I will put forth the environmental point of view when the discussions on this matter take place in the cabinet.

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Mrs. Marland: The minister has just said that the only good reason is who the owners of those lands are. I certainly hope the reason that the Minister of the Environment would comment on anything does not depend on who owns the land, for goodness’ sake.

The Rouge Valley, as the minister knows, is a rare ecological preserve containing 5,000-year-old archaeological sites, 35 species of fish, 21 species of rare plants and it provides a corridor for migratory birds. I ask the Minister of the Environment -- and I emphasize “environment” -- for his assurance that he will oppose any development and commit to ensuring the security and preservation of the Rouge Valley lands.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: That is an interesting contradiction that the member puts forward because as one of the members of the opposition -- we listen to the members of her caucus on a daily basis make representations, as they should, to the Minister of Housing.

Mr. Brandt: The housing does not have to go there. There are lots of other places for it to be put.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: Hold on.

They cry about the fact that there is not adequate housing in Ontario for people, and particularly for moderate- and low-income people, and generally they support the concept that government land should be utilized for the purposes of housing. They balance that against their contention that all of this land should be retained for environmental purposes only.

I assured the member that I will put forward in the discussions that take place in cabinet the point of view which is an environmental point of view, bringing to the attention of all appropriate ministers who are in attendance all of the environmental factors.

Then the government will have to make a decision, as the member’s caucus some day will have to make a decision, on whether it is going to provide housing for people in this province, where it is going to provide it and what environmental lands are going to be retained for specifically those purposes.

PENSION FUNDS

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I have a question for the Minister of Financial Institutions. The minister will be aware that the hospitals of Ontario pension plan, to which all hospital employees belong -- there are about 70,000 workers who currently are contributing to the plan, 18,000 are retired and the average pension benefit for someone who retired in 1986 was $436 per month.

Is the minister aware -- I am sure he is -- that the Ontario Hospital Association has recently announced that it will forgo making contributions of $80 million, while its employees will have to continue contributing to the pension plan? Does he agree with this decision by the Ontario Hospital Association, or does he agree with this party that it is a withdrawal of surplus pension benefits through the back door?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I am familiar that the association has taken the decision. They did it without consultation with the minister. In investigating, I am told that the surplus is sufficient for any kind of reasonable indexing that might be a part of our legislation once the Friedland report is available to us and the legislation is amended to take it into consideration. There is ample money there for the payment of any fixed benefit plus reasonable indexation in the future, and on that basis the law of Ontario permits a holiday of contributions, just as it did in the General Motors case and in Ontario Hydro. That case went to the courts for judgement under those circumstances.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: The minister will also be aware that when one case went to the courts, one of the dissenting judges made the statement, “I can see no difference between Hydro giving itself an accounting credit in the fashion described and removing the equivalent amount from surplus without the consent of the Pension Commission of Ontario.”

If the minister and the government have in fact agreed with us, as they did, that surpluses should not be removed from the pension plans because that money belongs to the workers, why is the government allowing the Ontario Hospital Association to remove $80 million of workers’ money by not contributing to the pension plan next year?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Under the statute and the regulations, it is not the same thing. There is a freeze on the removal of surplus until our legislation is complete and we have the advantage of hearing what the Friedland group tells us and it is presented to the House for the disposition of the members here. Certainly the actions taken by HOOPP are within the laws and regulations of the province. They have been tested in the courts, and I understand that the next payment from the hospital members is due about the end of February.

GREENACRES HOME FOR THE AGED

Mr. Cousens: I have a question for the Minister of Community and Social Services having to do with the town of Newmarket and the Greenacres Home for the Aged, which is owned and operated by Metropolitan Toronto. It is an outstanding facility serving continuing and chronic care patients, a facility that has 650 beds in it but is presently serving only about 400 patients. Could I ask the minister why this facility has been frozen so that there are no new patients being allowed into the facility when there is an ever-present need for more beds and more places for people who need this kind of facility?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: As the honourable member perhaps knows, although Greenacres is not situated within Metropolitan Toronto, it is in fact owned and operated by Metropolitan Toronto homes for the aged. They have taken a decision that it is inappropriate for them to place their residents in a home facility beyond their municipal jurisdiction. They have come to this ministry and asked for support to build two smaller homes for the aged, one in Scarborough and one in Etobicoke.

That approval and the financial support have been tendered to Metro. As a result of that, they have established a policy, which we support, that no further Metro residents will be introduced into that home. At the same time, given the fact that the home is located in York region, there are ongoing negotiations with York region for it to take over the operation of that home and in fact to operate it, but not at its full capacity; it is far too big for a home for the aged, given the new principles and philosophies of this ministry and of the government and, I would hope, of the honourable member. Until that happens, there will continue to be a freeze, although there are -- and I am sure the member is aware of this -- some York region residents in that home.

Mr. Cousens: I am asking the question about more than just York region. I am also critic for the elderly, and I am concerned that we are dealing with a facility that is one third empty yet fully prepared and able to provide excellent service to seniors. We are talking about a need, where doctors cannot find places to send chronic patients, continuing care patients.

I have a letter, of which I can send a copy to the minister, from a multidisciplinary treatment team from the psychogeriatric unit in Whitby. They are expressing grave concerns regarding the current closure to admission and the proposed closing of Greenacres Home for the Aged in Newmarket. We are talking about a great number of people who are concerned with the fact that we do not have space in York region.

Three hundred new beds have been promised by the Ministry of Health, and yet they will not be ready for 24 months. Meanwhile, 250 beds are going unused; they are not available. We are talking about people who need spaces. There is a seed of possibility in the minister’s answer.

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Cousens: Yes, Mr. Speaker. There is a seed that maybe the minister can do something for us. Could he make a commitment to try to open up those 250 beds in Greenacres for continuing use rather than see them closed down?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I am sorry. At this point, I cannot make that commitment, for two reasons.

Mr. Villeneuve: Are you saying no?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I am saying no.

An hon. member: What does it mean?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I cannot make the commitment. No, it does not mean the same thing.

About half the home has been renovated to today’s acceptable standards, the other half has not been. I would suggest that if the honourable member were to visit the facility, he would find that the current residents are in that section of the home which has been upgraded and renovated.

At the same time, we have already entered into negotiations with York region to renovate its existing home, which I think has about 200 beds, and to plan with York region the building of a second home in the south end of the region, which is not served at the present time. Greenacres will be part of that total complex.

One of the other provisions that we are looking at is for a multi-use centre at the Greenacres site for geriatric purposes and for the purposes of the disabled that will cover many different uses. It would be inappropriate at this time simply to convert it to a use that is not deemed to be desirable.

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POLLUTION CONTROL

Mr. Lupusella: I have a question for the Minister of the Environment. Can the minister explain how his air pollution --

Mr. Laughren: Why not Labour?

Mr. B. Rae: I thought you were going to talk about the Workers’ Compensation Board.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: This is your maiden speech as a Liberal.

Mr. Lupusella: The members do not mean what they say.

Can the minister explain how his air pollution proposals will affect the neighbourhoods adjacent to Toronto Refiners and Smelters; and can the minister explain if lead emission will be more strictly controlled as a result of the pollution proposal?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: The member may remember in my statement that one of the substances I made reference to, which was in the realm of high toxicity, or in the realm of bioaccumulation, or does not easily break down in the environment, was that of lead. One of the substances which would be a priority substance, in terms of the new air pollution regulation which would flow from the green paper and the comments that we get from it, would be addressing the problem of lead in our society.

Of the two sources, one of them being the mobile source, which is automobiles, the federal government is making some efforts to address that. In the case of the stable source, such as battery refineries, the lead that is emitted from those would be subjected to this particular regulation, and we would see a tightening of that to the extent that much of the problem would be removed.

ABORTION SERVICES

Mr. Reville: I have a question for the Minister of Health relating to abortion service. The House has had before it for some time the report from Dr. Marion Powell, which points out serious problems that women have in getting access to abortion services. We have heard a little bit of chat from the minister and in the press about 12 women’s health clinics that may or may not appear. Will the minister share with the House her comprehensive strategy to ensure that women in Ontario do indeed have access to abortion services?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: Let me say first that I recognize that the issue of abortion is a very sensitive issue which evokes very strong personal feelings. Abortion is just one component, in my view, of comprehensive women’s health care. This government is committed to ensuring access for women in need, not only to therapeutic abortion services but also to a comprehensive range of women’s services across this province. I am hoping in the very near future to have an announcement in this House of the first of the women’s health centres that we propose to fund.

Mr. Reville: While all of us in the House will welcome a comprehensive approach to women’s health, the question relates to access to abortion services. Given that the 12 health centres do come into operation, will the minister guarantee that no woman in Ontario will be denied access to abortion services, and does the minister now agree that at least 6,000 women each year are unable to get access to the services that are in place?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: In Ontario, the issue is one of access. This government intends to ensure that the women of Ontario in need will have access to therapeutic abortion services within the framework of the general federal legislation. Let me go one step further in answering the honourable member’s question, and that is that we believe the proposals as laid out one year ago in our plan to have comprehensive women’s health centres across this province will respond and meet the needs of women, not only those seeking therapeutic abortion services but also those in need of women’s health services generally.

PALLIATIVE CARE

Mr. Villeneuve: I also have a question for the Minister of Health. Can the minister tell this House if provincial funding will be provided to the palliative care unit at the Hotel Dieu Hospital in Cornwall, which will be discontinued unless funds are forthcoming; it will be discontinued this coming March?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: I am aware of the issue of palliative care and I share the concerns of the member. It is something that has been under review by the ministry for some time. I am looking at the instance the member has brought to my attention and will be reviewing that with ministry officials.

Mr. Villeneuve: I appreciate that the minister and the ministry are looking at this. Hotel Dieu Hospital is now raising funds for a chronic care addition. Cornwall General Hospital has a renovation drive on and is looking for funds. Donations are severely stretched. In the last four years, the Hotel Dieu unit has helped over 500 patients and there is a definite need. I can tell the minister that our own family was helped by the palliative health care people.

Given that this government claims to recognize problems in eastern Ontario and is paying some lipservice to eastern Ontario, can the minister tell this House that she will be providing financial help to the Hotel Dieu palliative care unit?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: Let me say that the ministry has not refused to provide funding. Hotel Dieu Hospital in Cornwall has not submitted a proposal for a palliative care program to the ministry under the district health council’s guidelines for new or expanded hospital programs. As I said to the member earlier, I am aware of the need for a comprehensive palliative care policy in this province. We will be reviewing same and will be considering that program.

PETITION

THERAPY FOR ABUSED CHILDREN

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I have some more petitions asking that the mandate for the children’s aid societies be extended to cover mandated programs for child abuse, physical and sexual. There have been some petitions like this tabled already and I table more.

MOTION

ESTIMATES

Hon. Mr. Conway moved that the estimates be referred to the committees as indicated in the allocation statement printed in Orders and Notices today; that any supplementary estimates presented to the House be referred to the same committees to which the main estimates have been referred for consideration within the times allocated to the main estimates; and that any order for concurrence in supplementary supply be included in the order for concurrence in supply for that ministry.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: I would like to remind all members that the House is still continuing its business. If you could keep your private conversations as low as possible, it would be helpful.

INTRODUCTION OF BILL

CITY OF TORONTO ACT

Mr. Kanter moved first reading of Bill Pr56, An Act respecting the City of Toronto.

Motion agreed to.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS IN ORDERS AND NOTICES

Hon. Mr. Conway: Before orders of the day, I want to serve notice that I am tabling the interim answers to questions 3 through 16 and 17 standing in Orders and Notices [see Hansard for Monday, December 7].

POLLS

Hon. Mr. Conway: I am also tabling a number of public opinion polls.

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ORDERS OF THE DAY

SELECT COMMITTEE ON CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM (CONTINUED)

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for the appointment of a select committee on constitutional reform.

Mr. Speaker: I believe the member for Brampton South (Mr. Callahan) adjourned the debate.

Mr. Callahan: I do not intend to be much longer.

[Applause]

Mr. Callahan: I knew I would draw applause with that one.

Much has been said in this House, and I think I started off by saying that the recognition of the Meech Lake accord is really a recognition of the fact that we have come a long way since Confederation. We have also come a long way in terms of how we should view ourselves and how we should be viewed in the context of the overall federation of provinces.

The Fathers of Confederation spent a considerable period of time, I am sure, giving and taking, in order to form a strong Confederation of provinces. The provinces that came into Confederation thereafter were required to look at the content of the distribution of powers and decide whether they wished to join the Confederation or wished to remain outside. As we all realize, historically, Newfoundland stayed outside of Confederation for a considerable period of time. I feel quite good in reviewing the process that took place to arrive at the Meech Lake accord, that it was not simply something that took place --

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry to interrupt the member, but several other members are having private conversations at extreme levels. The member for Brampton South will continue.

Mr. Callahan: It was not a matter that simply took place without some discussion or without some decisions being made about what to give and take. In fact, the powers that were arrived at under the British North America Act were subject to a tremendous amount of litigation that took place over the years to determine just who did have the power and who did not have the power. I suggest that in some respects this is just a growing process, the continuation of a growing process, the recognition of the maturity to which this country is coming and the recognition of the maturity to which provinces are coming.

It is also important to recognize that, contrary to some statements made in this House and to the impression the public perhaps has, this matter did not occur just on one day or over a weekend. There was considerable meeting of the ministers before an accord was finally reached. There was considerable give and take.

The emphasis seems to be placed on the question of Quebec getting a better deal than anybody else. I suggest that if one reviews the negotiations that went on, one will find that Quebec got its absolute minimum in terms of its demands.

There were other benefits achieved by all of the provinces, in terms of their maturity, of allowing them to participate more fully in the makeup of their own house. I would submit that any growth factor or any efforts that are successful in bringing us together on a negotiated basis, as opposed to a confrontational basis, is beneficial in developing harmony within the family of Canada.

On the final bringing together of Quebec, something that was very saddening on April 17, 1982, as I stood on the lawn of the Parliament Buildings and watched the Constitution signed, was the fact that Quebec was not a party to that document.

Some people will look at this and say -- and I suppose the criticism will depend upon the view they take of the circumstances and perhaps how open-minded they are prepared to be -- that Quebec came out of this ahead of everyone else. I submit that if the document is examined in a fair, open way, without being terribly legalistic or being pessimistic over the outcome and decisions that will be made by provinces in the future, one will find that this document in itself is a further step, and a very important step, towards the maturation of this country.

I find it interesting that at one point one of the members speaking against the Meech Lake accord said this is something that was construed without any public input, simply signed and delivered to the people of this province.

I find it very difficult that the member is also speaking in favour of free trade, because that is exactly the statement we are making, that free trade was negotiated over a period of three days, 20 minutes before the carriage was going to turn into a pumpkin, and then submitted to the people of this province. I suggest you cannot have it both ways. You cannot argue that point on the part of free trade, in favour of it and against Meech Lake.

I submit that in the final analysis the people of this province will have an opportunity to present their views with reference to Meech Lake. I recognize the factor that there is a time frame within which this has to be approved by the 10 provinces of this country. However, I am sure, recognizing the considerable input that we will receive from individuals, they will come to understand that in arriving at this particular accord a number of views were taken under consideration.

They will recognize over a period of time, I would submit as well, that the accord itself represents the best that human beings are able to do. No constitution is perfect. Constitutions are not documents that are to be construed simply for the present. They are growing documents and they are documents that will serve Canada in the next 50 or 60 years, and perhaps will even be developed further and enlarged upon over that period of time; but I submit that the direction of any constitutional change should be towards making Canada and making the provinces stronger and more responsive to the individual needs of Canadians.

Mr. Sterling: I would like to comment briefly with respect to the comparison made about the time for public input, the time for negotiation with regard to the Meech Lake accord and the free trade agreement.

The last speaker tried to compare the same by saying there were only three days in which negotiation took place with regard to the free trade agreement. I wonder what Simon Reisman has been doing then for the last year or so if he has not been negotiating. Of course he has been negotiating, and there have been many occasions on which people have had the opportunity to have input with regard to the free trade agreement.

I would like to also compare that with the Meech Lake resolution, which was decided behind closed doors in a period of about 20 hours with no public input as to what was going to be decided when those gentlemen walked out of that room.

The other thing to be compared is the type of documents we are dealing with. With regard to the free trade agreement, the present free trade agreement can be cancelled on notice. It can be cancelled on notice by either party.

When you are dealing with constitutions, constitutions are very difficult to amend and change once a right has been given in a constitution. In that regard, I would like to talk about our preoccupation in Canada with our Constitution and the seeming need that we have to amend it from time to time. Over the past five or six years, I believe we have had five or six different meetings by the first ministers of our country to attempt to amend our Constitution in various different ways.

Quite frankly, I do not think we in Canada treat the matter seriously enough when dealing with our Constitution. I believe we should change our Constitution or consider changing our Constitution when we have a very great need to do that, when there seems to be in front of the Canadian public a compelling reason to do it.

In 1982, the compelling reason at that time was to bring home our Constitution to Canada from Britain. There was at that time, I thought, a compelling reason to change our Constitution.

Now we talk about the reasons for changing our Constitution with regard to the Meech Lake accord, and the reasoning put forward by those who were a party to this accord was that it was necessary to bring Quebec into Confederation. In 1982, the Supreme Court of Canada said that Quebec was bound by the Constitution even though it had not formally signed the document.

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Quebec has taken the position that it is not subject to the Constitution, and therein lies a dichotomy or a contradiction. In order to make the amendments of the Meech Lake accord part of our law, the Constitution needs the signature of Quebec. In other words, we will have a province that has to act in accordance with the Constitution, i.e., sign it, to become a party to it, but claims it is not subject to that Constitution. It is quite a fascinating dichotomy.

The whole reasoning behind having this constitutional change was a symbolic matter to bring Quebec within the Constitution of Canada or to make it sign the Constitution. I believe that is an important symbolic gesture, but how important is that reason in determining the other side of the argument, in dealing with the changes the Meech Lake accord brings to our country?

I believe our Constitution, the federal system of government we have in Canada, requires that the central government be able to deal with national issues. In 1982 our Constitution Act was weakened in its final stages by what is known as the Lougheed formula. This is the section whereby a province can opt out of certain parts of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms when it is dealing with areas of jurisdiction within the provincial ambit. This is abnormal in terms of a country that is putting a charter in its constitution. The Meech Lake accord further weakens the Charter of Rights and the power at the centre by saying not only, “You can opt out,” but also, “We will pay you to opt out.” There is even an incentive for provinces to opt out of what the central government is doing.

I also have concern over the Meech Lake accord when it talks about the Senate and how senators are appointed. The reason I am concerned about it is that we have lived with this body, this upper House, in our federal Parliament without really trying to determine what the Senate is supposed to be doing. Before we determine how we are going to appoint the people who sit in the Senate, we should determine what they are going to do in the future, because our Constitution is for a long time. To date, the Senate has been fairly docile in how it has treated various issues. Frankly, over the last 30 or 50 years, it did not feel it had a mandate to deal with an issue in a political sense.

Also, history in Canada has shown us over the past 30, 40 or 50 years that, generally, provincial governments were of a different political stripe from that of the federal government. Under the Meech Lake accord, we give the provinces the right to put forward the names of senators. I draw several questions that result from our past history and what the Meech Lake accord proposes. If the provinces appoint senators or put forward the names of senators, does this mean the Senate becomes in effect a provincial House, which is to deal with, not national issues but issues of a more parochial or provincial sense than it does at this time?

At present, our senators have tread softly with the powers they have. Only recently, during the Senate’s consideration of the drug patent law, have we seen an exhibition of the potential power of our Senate. In that particular case, the Senate held up for a very long period that piece of federal legislation. Whether or not you agreed with the drug patent law which was put forward by our federal House of Commons, I really do believe that the Senate, this appointed group of individuals, abused the power it has resident in our Constitution.

If senators appointed by the federal government believe they have a mandate to stop and stall the federal government unreasonably, what will new senators appointed by provincial houses think their mandate might be? I believe such senators might be under the impression or misunderstanding that they have a mandate put forward by the electorate, which is not so. They might feel that because a provincial government of a different political stripe appointed them, they have a mandate earned by that particular provincial government to take with them to Ottawa and bring forward in the Senate of Canada.

Perhaps the Senate will have new life as a result of provincially appointed senators and perhaps that is something to be desired, but if the Senate is to have new life, I think we should decide before we change this method of appointment what that new life will be. If we decide to let the Senate even retain the powers it does have, I think the time has come that the Senate be elected.

The Meech Lake accord further diminishes the power of our central government. I have mentioned two matters already. But in other areas such as the appointment of Supreme Court of Canada judges -- that those names can be put forward by the provinces -- and the right of all provinces to veto certain matters to be decided in the future with regard to constitutional matters, there is also a further weakening of the power at the centre.

What really has been gained in return by the central government at the expense of the provinces? On the one hand, we have had the bringing of the province of Quebec into this Constitution and having it sign in a symbolic way, but virtually nothing has been gained at the centre at the expense of the provinces.

I would like to make two suggestions in this regard. I know that this Premier (Mr. Peterson) is very, very reluctant to accept amendments to the Meech Lake accord, which I think is wrong. I think the matter should be dealt with in some detail and all good suggestions should be brought forward to a table and considered seriously.

One matter that I think is very, very evident at this time in our history is that dealing with commerce in our country. In the United States, for example, the Congress of the United States has the power, along with the President, to make a treaty dealing with trade matters with other countries, and each of the individual states, all 50 of them in the United States, must fall into line.

In spite of which side you support in the present free trade issue, I believe we must appear to be together as a country when we make a deal. I think we must appear a little ridiculous to other countries when we have our federal government, which is supposed to be the spokesman for Canada, indicating that we have made a deal and then we have the largest province in population indicating that there is not going to be a deal.

If we are going to have a country that is credible in the world of international trade, then our central government should have a stronger mandate in dealing with trade issues.

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I would also like to strengthen our Charter of Rights. When we sat down and drew up our Charter of Rights, we borrowed much from our American neighbours in drawing up those particular sections of our Constitution. As many will know of course, Britain does not have a Charter of Rights in its Constitution. While drawing many of the words from the United States in creating our Charter of Rights, we have learned little from the history of the United States in this regard. In the United States, under amendment 14 which was ratified as long ago as 1868, and I will read in part, “No state shall...deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Also, within the same article, the United States did exactly the opposite to what we did. It said the federal Congress of the United States has the power to enforce that article of the amendment, notwithstanding the split of jurisdictions between the federal power and the provincial power in the United States. In other words, a state cannot opt out of a matter dealing with civil rights in the United States. It was only through amendment 14 that the civil rights struggle in the US was won. Martin Luther King would never have won his struggle had amendment 14 not existed in the United States. That is how the southern part of the United States was turned around and the southern part of the United States was basically won.

The 1982 Constitution Act, in my view, and the Meech Lake accord, when put together are a throwback to the concept of the American Articles of Confederation when the United States was originally set up. As long ago as 200 years, the Americans met in Philadelphia to amend those Articles of Confederation because at that time they realized that there was a weakness in the union of the colonies of the United States. But instead of amending those articles, they wrote a new constitution which has lasted over 200 years. I believe it is the longest-living constitution in the free world.

I feel the Meech Lake accord, coupled with what it was necessary to put into place in 1982 in the Constitution Act, does take us in the opposite direction. I believe we should learn from our neighbours that we need a strong central power and that we need a strong Charter of Rights. The Meech Lake accord, in my view, at this time makes an unstable structure of sharing powers an even worse scenario.

In conclusion, on the one hand we have the reason for the Meech Lake accord to come into being; that is, to get Quebec to sign the Constitution, and most people have acknowledged that as a symbolic gesture, important as it is. On the other side we have a number of negatives which I believe this Meech Lake accord puts into the structure of our country. We have a further weakening of the Charter of the Rights. We have an uncertainty of what the Senate may do in the future. We have the right of the provinces to appoint the Supreme Court of Canada judges and the right of veto to each and every province in certain matters.

I believe the negatives at this point in time outweigh the positives in terms of carrying the Meech Lake accord through to be part of our Constitution, but l am not going to be completely negative and say I will not vote for the resolution in the final analysis when this comes to the final vote in this Legislature. I do not want to be accused of the same tactics that the Premier of this province has taken, that while he will let us discuss it, he will not change his mind when dealing with the Constitution and the Meech Lake accord.

At the present time, I feel it is difficult to support the Meech Lake accord, but I look forward to hearing my colleagues in this Legislature convince me that either the Meech Lake accord or an amended Meech Lake accord will be right and proper for a strong central government in our country.

Mr. Eves: It is my pleasure to rise today and participate in this debate with respect to the forming of the committee to look into the Meech Lake accord.

While I am pleased to be able to join in this debate and I look forward to sitting as a member of the select committee which will consider the accord, I suspect that I may be embarking upon an exercise in futility. I can only hope that my suspicions turn out to be totally unfounded.

Today I would like to respond to some of the comments made last week by the Premier and the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) who spoke initially for the government on this resolution. First, I would like to address the very nature of this resolution.

While I am glad that the government has agreed to strike a select committee and has finally agreed to hold public hearings, I sense that this government does so halfheartedly, not so much in the hope that they can learn from the public but in the hope that this committee will be a vehicle to convince all others of the rightness of the actions they have already undertaken.

For example, the Premier said he will send the committee across Canada so we can see the national picture which he believes justifies what he has done. He has said he is holding these public hearings because he has promised to do so. This is the same Premier who has refused a free vote on the issue and has let this Legislature know, in response to a question I asked last week, that he intends to use his majority to ram through his unqualified support for the accord.

I sincerely hope the government members of that committee thoroughly enjoy their trip across Canada because it would appear that they will be surrendering their right to form their own opinions on the legal and political nature of the country in which they live. Instead, they will be spending their time trying to justify and find things which will justify the Premier’s actions in May and June of this year.

Should the Premier choose to appoint members of his caucus who have any sense of integrity and self-respect whatsoever to sit on this committee, I am sure they will find that the price of their cross-country tickets is a very painful and high one indeed.

I would have felt a lot more optimistic about the possibilities of the task had I and the other members of the committee heard about what we are about to undertake, heard the Premier or the Attorney General saying that they were holding public hearings to determine what they could learn from the public and the people of Ontario. I did not hear that. What I heard was, “We are holding hearings because we promised them, what we did was right, and we are going to do whatever we have to do to make everyone agree with the position we have taken.”

I can sympathize somewhat with the Premier. I am sure he is doing what he thinks is right under the circumstances, but I just hope he is not trying to stack the deck so he is vindicated whether his position deserves to be or not.

As the Premier knows, all parties, his included, are divided on this issue, federally and provincially. I think that serves to demonstrate the importance and the complexity of the issue with which we are dealing. The Premier has responded to criticism from within his own caucus by saying that everyone is entitled to his own opinion, although he does not share the views of his two caucus members who so far have spoken out, that they have a right to hold and express these opposing views.

These are grand words, but does the Premier believe in this right strongly enough to appoint even one or, shall I say, both to the select committee? Does the Premier believe in his rights strongly enough to allow the members of his own caucus to vote their own conscience on this issue? No. He has said that this issue is not that important. He will not allow a free vote, he will tell his members how to vote. If that is the case, they turn out to be hollow grand words indeed.

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The Premier and the Attorney General said that we must keep the overall goal of national reconciliation in mind. From the federal hearings and the public comments which have been made so far, we know that many groups are deeply offended by this accord: women, native groups, members in ethnic communities, people in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, francophones outside Quebec and anglophones within Quebec. I do not understand how an act which alienates so many groups in our country and society can be labelled an act of national reconciliation.

Make no mistake about it: as the accord stands now, it may well not turn out to be an act of national reconciliation. It may well be an act of Quebec reconciliation, but it may also be one which unreconciles a number of previously reconciled groups and further alienates those, along with Quebec, who have been looking for reconciliation within Canada for some period of time.

The Premier and the Attorney General ask that we defer desired changes to the accord until some vague point in the future. Does this not amount to asking that we place ourselves in some sort of vicious cycle of national reconciliation, that at some further point down the road we will nationally reconcile those groups that have been alienated by this particular national reconciliation, one by one?

The Attorney General and the Premier ask that we consider the effect that any changes made to the accord would have on the reconciliation of Quebec. In other words, would any such amendments scuttle the deal? Well, I do not feel that this question is necessarily a wrong one to ask, but I must admit that I am mystified as to how the members of the select committee will ever be able to answer that question, given the ground rules the Premier has laid out. Will members of the committee be making recommendations to a Premier who is then willing to go back to the bargaining table and be in a position to tell us if such a change would scuttle the deal?

For example, our party raised the issue of the immigration clause in this House and eventually forced the Premier some months ago to recognize that the clause said “guarantee” Quebec a set portion of immigration and not “target” a portion of immigration for Quebec. At that time, one of the Attorney General’s advisers told one of the reporters at Queen’s Park that it was a mistake: the accord should in fact have read “target.”

Well, can the Premier now return to the bargaining table and say, “Listen, we want to substitute the word ‘target’ for the word ‘guarantee’ because ‘guarantee’ will adversely affect immigration to other provinces and create an actively discriminatory immigration policy”?

Can he then report back to the House that the change is indeed agreeable to Quebec, or that Quebec now objects on certain grounds and that such a change would scuttle the deal? The Premier cannot, under the ground rules that he has laid out. He cannot, because he did not even suggest when he participated in the final drafting of the accord that the premiers take the final draft back to their provinces, gain public input and then return to the bargaining table one more time to discuss possible changes. Nor has he since that time suggested that the premiers meet even one more time on the accord, although he has had ample opportunity to do so.

If the public hearings really meant something to this Premier, if he really believed that he even might, just might, learn something from public hearings, he would request such a session. He would work hard to ensure that whatever input he received at those hearings would be channelled into the process.

The Premier obviously does not want to expend that effort. Perhaps he feels he can learn nothing from these hearings. Perhaps he feels that he spent 48 hours discussing the future of the country and that is all the time he is willing to devote to it. If the Premier really wanted to give public input some meaningful role in this process and conserve his energy at the same time, there was a very easy solution: he could have agreed to hold public hearings in May, the one month which existed between the first and final draft of the accord. But he would not agree to hold such hearings last May.

Our party repeatedly pressed for such hearings, even moving a resolution to that effect.

What did the Premier say to that request? He said the constitutional experts would be drafting the final accord and the matter would be debated in the Legislature, so there was no need for public hearings.

He even went on to say: “The member,” referring to Mr. Grossman, “gave the impression in his remarks that someone would come in and give an idea into the committee to change the wording. Can he imagine the strange situation into which that would develop? If some province has a hearing and somebody has an idea to change the wording, it comes back, brokered through the House presumably, and then goes to the other first ministers. We would be forever bringing Quebec into the Constitution.”

What a strange situation indeed. Can members imagine it? A member of the general public could actually make a suggestion to improve upon the wisdom of the premiers. How bizarre. If members can possibly in a million years believe this, the Legislature might agree to the change. Then, heaven forbid, the other premiers would actually have to spend some more time considering -- this is just beyond belief -- a suggestion made by an ordinary member of the public.

In other words if the committee the Premier is now striking should recommend changes to the accord based upon what it has heard from the public, then the Premier would call that a strange situation. Hardly the words of a man dedicated to taking the words of the public seriously.

The refusal of the Premier to truly listen to public input on the accord troubles me for another reason. He seems blissfully unaware that under the circumstances he should be willing to listen more carefully than anyone else. He did not have a mandate to do what he did and has yet to seek one with respect to the constitutional accord. These hearings will provide the only formal public direction he has ever received on this issue.

Both the Premier and the Attorney General have said there is no need to insert a clause which says that nothing in the interpretation of the distinct society clause can adversely affect the rights and freedoms under the Charter of Rights. They say such rights already cannot be adversely affected.

My colleague the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris) last week referred to the Supreme Court of Canada ruling on separate school funding. The Attorney General knows full well that the Supreme Court ruled that even if the charter were violated, such violation could not be used to prevent a government from exercising powers granted to it under another section of the Constitution.

Even if the Attorney General does not want to admit that such a ruling could be extended to the distinct society clause, I have a further problem with this whole argument. Why object to putting something down in writing which the Attorney General and the Premier believe already exists? If all it does is clarify the situation, why would anybody object to that? Surely Quebec would not object to that; surely none of the other provinces would object to that.

It is in fact this reluctance, if not outright refusal, on the part of the Premier to entertain such changes that encourages people to be suspicious about the accord, to worry about its impact. How can the Premier expect people to believe changes will be possible later, when the most innocent of changes are not possible now?

The government says that attempts to change the accord will be seen as saying no to Quebec. How can putting down in writing a protection which it believes already exists be construed as saying no to Quebec? There is no suggestion that the distinct society clause be altered or people be extended a protection they do not already have, at least according to the Attorney General and the Premier, so how could that possibly harm Quebec? How could they possibly object?

What I hear the Premier and the Attorney General saying is, “Love this accord completely or it means you hate Quebec, and Quebec will never sign the Constitution.” This attitude is nothing less than emotional blackmail. It attempts to intimidate all those who would dare question the wisdom of the premiers. It ignores the fact that many groups and individuals in society want changes to this section of the accord that have nothing to do with Quebec or that would not in any way affect the stated purpose of that section.

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If the premiers meant target instead of guarantee, why do they not simply change the words? Does that refusal mean that, just maybe, Quebec meant “guarantee”, or that having inadvertently got a guarantee it will not now surrender it? To my mind, the Attorney General and the Premier should have very little if any objection to these kinds of changes and should be worried instead about changes which would seriously change the nature of the accord. I can understand how those kinds of serious changes could threaten the deal.

The Premier and the Attorney General suggest that we need not worry about the new amending formula and point to the accord itself as proof that total agreement is possible. I would remind them that since the draft was signed in the first week in June, one provincial government has changed and that provincial government is now saying that it is far from willing to be supportive of the accord as it now stands. So much for total agreement.

As both the Premier and the Attorney General know, the approval period for any constitutional amendment is some three years. Even if total agreement is possible at the outset, a lot of governments can change over the course of three years, and since, as both the Premier and the Attorney General have admitted, constitutional amendments are seldom perfect, I can imagine it will be pretty difficult to maintain total agreement through a succession of new governments over the next three-year period.

However, the Premier and the Attorney General assure us that we should not worry because this total amending process will only apply to certain institutional issues like the Queen, the House of Commons, the Senate, the Supreme Court of Canada and new provinces and territories. These strike me as pretty important institutional ideas and issues. l know a lot of people who care about them a great deal. In fact, I imagine that the reasons the amending formula has been made more severe for these issues is because they are so extremely important.

My colleagues last week and today have very clearly outlined some of the concerns and problems with the accord, and many groups and individuals have also identified other concerns. I am not here today to reiterate those concerns. I think the members all know them.

I look forward to hearing the views both negative and positive of others during public hearings. The Premier thinks it is important the committee hear the viewpoint of other provinces and I will happily listen, but I also think it is very important, and the Premier should not forget it, that we are here to hear the viewpoint of Ontarians with respect to their role in the future of Confederation.

Perhaps some of the best words I have heard with respect to the proposed draft of the Meech Lake accord were issued to the Ontario Legislature on May 26 by the then leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. Ontario Progressive Conservatives “believe this debate should be different: different because of the subject at hand, Confederation...the way in which Canadians live together,” the way in which our duly elected federal and provincial governments co-operate together.

“....my colleagues and I are delighted the Prime Minister of Canada and his colleagues were successful in achieving an agreement in principle to bring Quebec into the Constitution. We want to see the province of Quebec join in the Constitution and charter legally, formally and willingly. We want to see the commitments with respect to free movement of capital, goods and people...apply in Quebec....We want to see the other provisions of the 1982 agreement apply in Quebec....

“More significant, the Meech Lake agreement in principle achieves political legitimacy for these elements in Quebec. That...is very important to Canada....

“It was never my view...that this kind of achievement could be made without some cost in terms of the final shape and scope of the agreement itself.

“It was Premier Davis, I think, who said there was no value in a Confederation that confined the role of the government of Canada to that of a travel agent for the provinces. It is still in the philosophy of Progressive Conservatives in Ontario to support a strong central government for this Confederation. I believe most Ontarians, regardless of partisan provincial political affiliation, share a philosophy of nationhood in that Conservative sense....”

We “do not believe a nation is simply a hotel in which provinces happen to be pursuing individual goals....It is very much a part of Canada’s national definition that we pursue the task of self-definition on an ongoing basis.”

But often a quick agreement is not the best agreement. The quick accord is not always the right accord. “In the one-day” -- and now two-day -- rush of the Meech Lake accord, have we in any way diminished the essence of what Trudeau, Davis, Chrétien, McMurtry and Romanow spent two years considering...and debating?”

Public debate is a part of the process for provincial ratification and is very important. My colleagues and I in the Progressive Conservative caucus offer our co-operation, our goodwill and our earnest commitment to work with government members and those in the official opposition. Canada deserves no less from the province of Ontario, the House deserves no less from this government and the people of Ontario deserve no less from the Legislature.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Morin): Hon. Mr. Conway moved, on behalf of Hon. Mr. Peterson resolution 5:

That a select committee on constitutional reform be appointed to consider and report on the 1987 constitutional accord, signed at Ottawa on June 3, 1987, and tabled in the House on November 23, 1987 (sessional paper 74), and matters related thereto; that the committee submit its report to the assembly before the end of the spring sitting of the First Session of this parliament, provided that if the House is not sitting, the committee have authority to release its report by depositing a copy of it with the Clerk of the assembly and upon resumption of the sittings of the House, the chairman of the committee shall bring such report before the House in accordance with the standing orders; that the committee have authority to sit concurrently with the House and during any adjournment of the House, subject to the approval of the three party whips; and that a full Hansard service be provided for all of the proceedings of the committee.

Motion agreed to.

INTERIM SUPPLY

Hon. R. F. Nixon moved resolution 1:

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 December 1, 1987, and ending December 31, 1987, such payments to be charged to the proper appropriation following the voting of supply.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I think the honourable members are aware that this is a routine motion put before the House at regular intervals.

The only thing that is a bit different this time is that the normal timing was disrupted by the election so that this year we now have already spent $7.3 billion under the authority of the initial special warrant, $9.9 billion, the actual expenditure between June I and October 31 under the interim supply motion already approved by the House. We have a current special warrant of $2.7 billion and the amount expected to be spent under the authority of the resolution put to the House now, which will really just be for the month of December, will be $2.8 billion.

The members might be interested to know that if they approve the resolution, which I hope and trust they will do, tomorrow we intend to make 2,500 payments under the Ontario Drug Benefit Act, amounting to $20 million, and there will be 100 payments to school boards amounting to $75 million.

On Wednesday, there will be 10,000 payments to Ontario hospital insurance plan recipients, mostly our good friends the medical practitioners and others, for $140 million; and mental health facilities, 120 payments for about $20 million. On December 3, nursing homes will receive, through 700 individual payments, about $35 million, and on December 8, colleges and universities will receive 46 payments amounting to about $100 million.

On the other hand, if the members do not choose to carry this motion, then we will have to do something else.

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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Morin): Questions and comments?

Mr. Laughren: I was hoping the Treasurer would tell us just what he saw the options as being if we decide to either vote against it or continue debate until tomorrow. I put that in the form of a question of the Treasurer.

The Acting Speaker: Are there any other questions or comments?

Mr. Laughren: So don’t answer; be arrogant.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Does this funny rule apply to opening statements on resolutions?

Mr. Breaugh: Yes.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Oh, well, the alternative is simply to debate it tomorrow and the day after and I am quite prepared to do that because it is very interesting.

Mr. McCague: I am not exactly sure what we are doing right at this very moment. Maybe the Treasurer could help me. Is this question period time or is this comment-on-the-motion time?

The Acting Speaker: It is questions and comments. Members have two minutes either to comment or to ask questions.

Mr. McCague: I want to speak to it for two hours later.

The Acting Speaker: No questions or comments. Does the minister wish to reply?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I have a feeling we are off the rails here just a little bit. I made a very brief opening statement, and I think the budget critic for the official opposition, sitting as he does in a very special place in the front row, got up under our rules to ask a question or comment under the 90-second rule. I commented on his question, not realizing that there were others, so I have nothing further to say at this time but I await with a great deal of anticipation his more formal remarks, if any.

The Acting Speaker: Are there any other members who wish to participate in this debate?

Mr. Laughren: We have now moved on to the more formal part of the debate. I am glad the Treasurer now understands that. I did not realize how confused he was.

We are going to support this motion of supply but some of us are very concerned about what happens in the next four years. I understand that this motion itself does not deal with the next four years.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: The member does understand that. He has his confusion level reduced to that point.

Mr. Laughren: Confusion reigns supreme on that side, not on this side.

There are some concerns I would like to put at this first opportunity in dealing with the supply motion and there will be many of them during the next four years.

My concern is simply to what extent this government intends to use the money we vote through these supply motions and to what extent it wishes, despite its massive majority, simply to be a caretaker kind of government. My concern is all the more real because of the reputation of the Treasurer for really being a Tory and that he simply stumbled into the Liberal Party because of family connections, rather than by conviction. I am concerned that the Treasurer will provide leadership to the government, as only he can do, in a way that is more reminiscent of the past than what I think should be an indication of the future.

In other words, is the Treasurer simply going to look at the funds as they pour into the consolidated revenue fund and then parcel them out to the municipalities, to the school boards, to post-secondary education and to social programs, or is he going to treat the next four years as an opportunity to do something different in Ontario with the moneys that come to him?

I put to the Treasurer that in view of his government’s opposition to free trade -- it has made a statement, his government has made the statement that, in its belief, the invisible hand of the marketplace is not appropriate in Ontario, that it does not really trust the marketplace to look after the needs of Ontario citizens, that it is worried that the invisible hand of the marketplace could become the incredible finger of the marketplace and that it is simply not prepared to allow the marketplace to determine the priorities in Ontario. I think that is appropriate.

But I can tell the members that I will be disappointed if, having rejected free trade and having rejected the marketplace as arbiter of decisions that affect the economy, and through it the way people can live in this province, the Treasurer or his government simply leaves it at that and does not set up what I would call an alternative to free trade; in other words, start doing some things that say, “Look, we have rejected free trade because we do not believe the marketplace can look after our problems.” I can tell members that we believe free trade is a very powerful ideology and that to reject it without saying we have some alternatives to that kind of ideology is simply irresponsible.

I think the Treasurer understands, as most of us do, that once you say the marketplace cannot make the decisions, then you have to make them. Who else is going to make them if you have decided the marketplace is not going to be the organization that makes the decisions? Then who is going to make them, because you have rejected that ideology?

I simply hope the Treasurer will recognize that there is an added burden on the government. It is an enormous responsibility to interfere in the marketplace once you have rejected the marketplace, so I hope the Treasurer and his government will understand that while the marketplace obviously has an enormously important role to play out there, it will provide only the kind of decisions that are acceptable to a minimum level.

The marketplace will reject decisions that deal with sovereignty, for example. The marketplace could not care less about sovereignty. I suggest that the marketplace will allow all sorts of distortions in the sectoral sense out there. The marketplace does not care if there is a mining industry in northern Ontario; it could not care less. The marketplace does not care if there are regional disparities. Those things are left to the movement. So I would say that if the government is concerned about regional disparities, about cultural and economic sovereignty and about vacuums in the sectoral or economic development of the province, then there is a responsibility on the government, having rejected free trade and having rejected the marketplace, to step in and fill the void.

I feel very strongly that those things that exist out there, the regional disparities, the lack of economic sovereignty and the lack of strong sectors, particularly the important manufacturing sectors, are because the previous government believed very strongly that the marketplace would make the best decisions. The previous government believed that while there might be some distortions, the marketplace provides rough justice, and therefore, the less we interfere with it, the better off we will all be.

I do not think I am unfair to the previous government. It is a free enterprise party which believes the marketplace should be tampered with only when absolutely necessary to provide a minimum level of acceptable social, health and educational services to the people of Ontario. That is why it, I think quite legitimately as a Tory party, believes in free trade, and I commend it for sticking to a constant ideology in that regard.

The present government, though, is in a tough spot as a Liberal government. It is tough being a Liberal in this country. Even though they are the natural governing party, it seems, in Canada, they have to make some tough decisions. They have some tough decisions to make. Well, once you have rejected the marketplace, you have accepted responsibility for making the decisions that it would otherwise make. That is what this government has done and I support that rejection of the marketplace as the final decision-maker in our society, but I can tell members that the government is going to have to step in and take up the slack.

I will be specific in a couple of areas, very briefly. One is housing. The government has accepted the fact, surely, that the marketplace is not going to provide affordable housing. You certainly do not have to look outside Metropolitan Toronto, but you can go anywhere in Ontario and the marketplace is not going to provide affordable housing. The marketplace will not look after those distortions in sectors. For example, I mentioned mining machinery in northern Ontario. To this day we remain the number three producer of minerals in the world and the number one importer of mining machinery. Surely that does not make sense. To the marketplace it does, but to us as a sovereign nation it should not make sense.

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Government procurement: I hope the government will come up with some important statements on government procurement. To date we have not had any. I know that is contrary to free trade, but surely the government has already stated its opposition to free trade and therefore now must say: “We are challenging that whole ideology of free trade and here are some ways we are doing it: We are going to aid and abet sectors in which there are now gaps, or even a complete vacuum. We are going to use government procurement to stimulate Canadian industry, not just Ontario industry. There are areas where we have a large domestic market and huge imports. We are going to move in and do something about that as well in order to create jobs and to reduce regional disparities in Ontario.”

I think that in a funny kind of way we owe the federal government, and the Prime Minister in particular, a vote of thanks because he has raised the political debate in this country to a level that deals with the reality of different ideologies that we must confront in this country. I think that is healthy in the long run although I am passionately opposed to the whole idea of free trade. In this country we have a long history of combining private enterprise and public enterprise in order to do what is best for the country.

I was reading a book that came out about 1974, A Nation Unaware: The Canadian Economic Culture, by Herschel Hardin, writing about Canada. He says this, and it really struck home with me:

“Canada, in its essentials, is a public enterprise country -- always has been and probably always will be. Americans have, or at least had, a genius for private enterprise. Canadians have a genius for public enterprise. Once the powerful impulse of Canadian nationalism combines with a liberated public enterprise culture, Canada will experience a golden age of entrepreneurship, because nothing in modern times is quite so creative as practical self-discovery.”

That struck a responsive chord in me because I think what it states is that if you look at the history of Canada -- and I will not go into all that about building our railway, our transportation system, Air Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. -- those things were done with public enterprise. In Ontario, I guess it was a Tory government that created Ontario Hydro, as a matter of fact, but there is nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to be surprised at when we look at the history of the country or of Ontario to see the role that public enterprise played.

I hope that in the next few years the Treasurer and his government will see what they have done as a challenge, not simply to oppose free trade. I hope it was not opposition simply to stake out a party position for the Ontario Liberals, but rather that it is part of a game plan that says: “We do not believe that free trade is best for Ontario and there are some things we have in mind, since we have rejected free trade. We simply cannot reject something; we have to stand for something as well.”

If the Treasurer wants some suggestions at any point, I would be very happy to lay out before him what we see as good and responsible, always keeping in mind, of course, the need for fiscal responsibility. I do not have to remind the Treasurer of that but some of his back-benchers might not appreciate the responsibility of the Treasurer always to adhere to that dictum. It was even in the accord that the New Democratic Party and the Liberals signed a few years ago: Everything must be done within a framework of fiscal responsibility. I think the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) would agree that was in there.

Mr. Breaugh: It was written in.

Mr. Laughren: It was written right in there, at our insistence, I assume.

Mr. Breaugh: We wanted it there.

Mr. Laughren: I assume the Liberals might not have worried about it, but we insisted that that be in there.

I will conclude my remarks and just hope that the Treasurer, in these early days of the new government, sees that we are giving him a gentle reminder that he is indeed a Liberal, both big-L and little-l.

The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I just want to thank the honourable member for taking on the special responsibility of being the conscience of the Treasurer, rather like Jiminy Cricket. I appreciate his offer to extend the helping hand of advice on all occasions. He indicated he would not give me advice unless I asked for it. If l can have that in writing, I would certainly appreciate it.

His reference to the marketplace is interesting and I think he is correct when he says that in some areas of important endeavour, the government, both the present one and our predecessors, has moved into an area where the marketplace in other jurisdictions has had complete control. He mentioned Hydro and he mentioned rent review. Further indication is the fact that we are going to be debating later this week a bill that will give a board, separate from government, the responsibility of deciding what automobile insurance rates are.

But I am glad he also indicated we have a commitment to a more mixed economy and that we do rely on the marketplace, in great measure, to govern its own affairs. In the long run, we have not rejected, as the honourable member’s party has, the possibility that the marketplace can deal effectively, fairly, with equity and simplicity and in an understandable way with the best interests of the community at large. In that way, the individuals in the community have some input, as individuals, in what that marketplace does, just as they have -- and the honourable member has shown it himself personally -- as individuals an input in decisions made by this body.

I will have an opportunity, I think, at the end of my remarks, to deal more fully with his references to trade and government procurement, all of these matters of importance.

Mr. McCague: It is always a pleasure to speak in this particular debate because I was on the other side of the House for a few years when the Treasurer was about the only guy on this side who would stand up and say something, and he would make it very humorous. Last year, on one of these motions, I read back to the Treasurer some of the things he had said. I chose not to do that this year but l can tell you that the number of them is voluminous.

However, I do recall the Treasurer criticizing very highly the same thing he did today, when he took the liberty of reading into the record all the things that were not going to happen because we might not vote this money today. There are many, many more things that are not going to happen because the Liberals are the government.

When I was over on that side, there were many times I thought it would be a great idea to have the present Treasurer over there, too. At least it would have kept him quiet on these quotes I am talking about. Now that I am on this side, I would not even want to go over on that side and associate myself with all those nasty things he said. I am sorry the Chairman of the Management Board of Cabinet (Mr. Elston) is not here.

The members know those warrants and things the Treasurer stands up with every time and presents as signed by His Honour the Lieutenant Governor with his own hand. I can recall dozens of times when the Treasurer would stand up and say: “What an outmoded idea. If we ever get over there, we will change it.” Well, I do not know when he is going to change it. He is probably going to take away the QCs and get rid of the special warrants at exactly the same time. It was easy to criticize at the time. It is much more difficult to act at the present time, as the Treasurer has found out.

So all those things that are not going to happen, the Treasurer would just raise the devil about when he was on this side. I just tell the Treasurer that we do not like those threats, but we do appreciate the almost two hours that we have to discuss the matters at hand now.

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I guess one of the things that provokes me about the present government more than anything else is the way it has let the civil service grow. We spent a lot of years as a Conservative government cutting back on the numbers of civil servants to a level which we thought was acceptable to the general population, and the Treasurer -- whether it is he or some of his cabinet colleagues -- says, “Let the numbers grow by leaps and bounds.”

One thing I would call a bit of trickery -- the present Premier (Mr. Peterson), when he took office, made a big thing of the size of his cabinet and then when he got a small cabinet, each minister got a big staff.

Interjection.

Mr. McCague: Oh, yes. The Treasurer does not need this.

Now, I will admit that the Treasurer is trying to set a bit of an example, but it just ain’t working. He did not have too many people for the workload he was carrying, for the first couple of years especially, but a lot of the ministers do. But what does the Premier do? He appoints another 10 cabinet ministers, and they all think they need the same size of staff as was the previous case. Then he appoints parliamentary assistants for everybody, whether they have got anything to do in the first place or not, and he gives them staff. If that is not truly trickery, I miss my guess.

Mr. Breaugh: It is not a successful trick, but it is trickery.

Mr. McCague: It is trickery, yes. That is right.

However, now that he has all those people, it would be a great idea to put them to work. Lots of things come to a member’s attention regarding things that just do not get done in a government. That probably applies to most governments.

But here are two letters, oddly enough, received two days apart. One states that he applied to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations on August 7 for a change of name. I guess somebody wanted to change his name; the letter was dated November 23, and nothing had happened. It is just a whole series of lack of action. We were fortunate. We got in touch with the ministry this morning and got the fellow’s name changed. At least, the ministry told us it would have the documents in our hands tomorrow. That was August 7.

Later in the mail today comes another one. In this one, it was on July 31 that the application was submitted for a change of name. Still, nothing has happened. Of course, this gentleman makes a point that, “lf the civil service is understaffed or so inept at handling these applications, such that it takes five or six months to effect a Change of Name, I am wondering why this procedure was taken out of the hands of solicitors.”

If one knows the Treasurer, one would not be surprised at anything the Treasurer would take out of the hands of solicitors. However, I just say to the Treasurer, can we not deal with these things as a Legislature or as the government a little more expeditiously? Now that the government has a cabinet of 30 or so --

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Twenty-nine.

Mr. McCague: Well, 30 or so. That is more or less, you know? Thirty, more or less.

Hon. R.F. Nixon: I think you say “25 or so” when it’s 29.

Mr McCague: Well, whatever.

Today in this gallery there was a group of people from the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses, a group that the minister is responsible for. Apparently, one by one, they were all too busy to meet with the group today. I understand they notified all members of this Legislature some three weeks ago -- would that be fair? -- or four weeks ago by letter that they were coming and would like to see either the caucus or the ministers. One of the members, I think, met with the group -- the member for Halton North (Mr. Elliot), who used to be in the good country and slid south a bit, but he will be back up there some day.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: He ran up there one time.

Mr. McCague: He did. Yes, that is right.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Very good candidate.

Mr. McCague: He is a very outstanding fellow, but he did not win.

Interjection.

Mr. McCague: Yes, I know you have been coaching him. That is what helped us.

Anyway, they wanted to meet with the Liberal ministers and they wanted to tell them about where some of this money that the Treasurer is asking us to vote on today should go. They are a little upset about proposed Bill 60. They say they need legislated services, but their main concern is the lack of funding and housing.

It is my understanding that in May of this year the government promised to announce the funding formula. That has not been done yet. Of course, the election intervened, but I guess now the Treasurer must have a terrible time juggling all of the promises the Premier made when he got out of the Treasurer’s sight. I know that can be very difficult.

The Treasurer announced, as all treasurers have traditionally done over quite a number of years, that he was going to take $350 million in restraints out of the budget from the various ministries’ appropriations. I know how difficult that is for a Treasurer. He just says to the Chairman of Management Board: “We need $350 million. Do it.” Then a minister goes to the Treasurer and says: “Do you know what he is trying to do? He is trying to take some money from me.” The Treasurer says, “Isn’t he a nasty fellow?” It is a very supportive role that the Treasurer plays in all of this. I am well aware of it.

However, given the fact that the estimates are being introduced at this particular time, I would have thought that by now the Treasurer would have had the opportunity to identify some of these constraints. Of course, I know he has a lot of juggling to do to make the Minister of Education (Mr. Ward) look good -- and he is looking terrible -- and to try and spend the money on housing so the Minister of Housing (Ms. Hošek) does not look terrible; just a whole multitude of problems that he has.

I will be telling the Treasurer tomorrow about a situation that I am familiar with where the number of portables in a board has increased 100 per cent under his regime as government. That is quite a tribute to him.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Well, we got that big factory up in your riding there.

Mr. McCague: The big factory is not causing the problem. We may have to use it for a school if he does not hurry up.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: It is your constituents who are so healthy and active.

Mr. McCague: That is true, too. However, I have been trying to persuade the Minister of Housing that a lot of the small municipalities like St. George, and those that are a little bigger, like Paris -- I drove through that beautiful area and was surprised to find out that the Treasurer is quite popular down there. I was just doing a checkup in Delhi. I did not get to Earl’s Shell, but I knew if I did, I would get some really firsthand information. I guess St. George probably does not have a council. Does it?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: No, South Dumfries.

Mr. McCague: South Dumfries. We have places like Creemore, Stayner, Tottenham, Beeton and so forth, and in those municipalities one gets interest groups of very capable people who are interested in building housing for those who need it: assisted housing, low-rental, housing for handicapped, housing for seniors, rent-geared-to-income, all those. Yet every time a good proposal is put in to the ministry, there is some problem. Either the water and sewage infrastructure is not right, or they wonder about the capability of these people to operate a group of apartments, or they wonder about the need.

I have 72 people who, in one case, signed up for the questionnaire. The ministry experience is that probably 30 per cent of those will sign up when the facility is there. That is still in the neighbourhood of 30, so what is the matter with that? Why does the government fuddle-duddle with the money and these people do not get anything? I think the government’s priorities are in the wrong place.

I am quite aware of the fact that the government I was a part of stopped the seniors’ housing program, but that does not mean this government cannot start it up again. I think it was one of the best programs that we had. They are small apartments, granted, but --

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I did not know you had stopped that.

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Mr. McCague: Oh, yes. I did not stop it.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I’ll have to change that letter I’ve been sending out.

Mr. McCague: It is in the Treasurer’s letter. He should not kid himself. Nobody missed that point. He never misses those points, but some time he is going to have to stop talking about the last 42 years and get on with the work he was elected to do. He cannot blame everything on the New Democratic Party now. It held his government up for two years. I do not mean they held the Liberals up with a gun, but they kept them off the floor.

Interjection.

Mr. McCague: Yes, “prop” is the right word. Thank you. They propped the Liberals up for two years, but now they have it all in their hands, so why do they not get on with it and do some of these things? I would not feel a bit annoyed if they took a program that we stopped and started it again. That is fair ball. It was an excellent program, and I commend it to the Treasurer’s attention.

Why did the Treasurer not define for us some of the constraints that he is going to impose when he tabled these latest estimates? I think that would have been the appropriate thing to have done. The people who are responsible for education in the province, the people who are teaching and the people who are knowledgeable about his largess in terms of transfers are very upset by the minuscule amount he is doing.

The Treasurer is very careful to announce his 6.9 per cent, and that looks great on the surface, but what he has done is to say that the government must offer this program, this program and this program. When they divide that small pot up into all those programs, they really do not have a whole lot left. There is a bit of an anomaly there. The boards say they do not have enough money, they do not have anything left, yet I know everybody is pushing the Treasurer for school capital.

In areas I represent, in Simcoe West, Collingwood, Alliston, Tottenham and Beeton, the growth is phenomenal, and more so than in the area the Treasurer happens to come from. I know that he will tour my part of the riding if the event happens to be political. It would be nice to get the minister up there just to show him around.

He showed me through his riding one day. We were in a bus and he was telling me how everything was so good there. There was just the proper amount of rain and the crops were growing great, but he had gone zooming along Highway 401 when he was driving his own car for a lot of years. Now he does not have to do that. When we got out off the bus and looked at the crops, they really did not look very good, did they? The Treasurer had to admit that. There was even water lying in them.

We do not have any of that up in our part of our country until we have the next flood, but I would like to take the Treasurer for a tour of one of the best parts of the province some day. I am sure he would want to do that now that his duties have been cut back and he does not have as many ministries as he did.

However, we will be supporting the motion. We will not deny the civil servants their salaries and we will not deny the transfers to the hospitals, to the school boards or to that big list the Treasurer tried to scare us with. But the one beauty of the list is that if anybody now wants to talk about any aspect of this motion that is before us, he has laid the groundwork for that. I just encourage the members to do so if they have any problems in their ridings.

The Treasurer could come up to Collingwood and give us money for that addition to the hospital we want. I know that he has assisted Barrie and Orillia, but I have to speak about my hospital in Collingwood. We need some money for that. If we had some money for the Collingwood hospital, if we had a bit more lottery money for various projects around the riding and if we had some more housing --

Mr. Laughren: I give you credit for being consistent.

Mr. McCague: Well, I am.

Mr. Laughren: You are being inconsistent.

Mr. McCague: That is true in this particular case, but we have to give them hell on the Treasury side and then hope the Treasurer will give us some money on his good-natured side. He is a bit of a Progressive Conservative in a lot of ways, but I know he has 95 members over there who are hard to satisfy. I think he has really passed up an opportunity to come closer to balancing the budget. He has record revenues, and I mean record; this is one thing he cannot deny. If there was ever a time when it would have been easier, at least, to come out with a balanced budget, he had the first opportunity --

lnterjection.

Mr. McCague: No, not in my area it is not. That is what is killing me, the member is right. It is killing me.

But the Treasurer had a golden opportunity to balance the budget, one which he passed by. To be honest with the Treasurer, I do not have too much faith in the fact that he is going to find that $350 million in constraints. I have a funny notion that when the end of the year comes, there is going to be sufficient revenue there to make it kind of look fuzzy enough that he hopes the opposition will not find what he really did and that the constraints are not there at all. He may -- I have heard of this before -- identify the constraints on, let us say, March 1 and give the ministries a little more money during March. I am not sure just what he will do, but I would not put it past him.

Mr. Laughren: I think you have headed him off at the pass.

Mr. McCague: Do you think I have headed him off? Oh, I doubt it very much.

Anyway, we will be supporting the Treasurer’s motion to do all these things and not disappoint all these wonderful people, but maybe he could do a little better in his next budget, which we will look forward to in the spring.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Just briefly, if I may, the honourable member will be interested to know that I get more criticism from trying to keep the deficit down than from having it too high. I am interested in that. Actually, the cash requirements as a proportion of our gross provincial product are as low as they have been in many, many years. So while it would be nice to have everything perfect and everything coming out to zero or some kind of positive balance, still a lot of people feel that what we are doing is just about right.

I am also interested to hear the honourable member’s suggestion as to how to handle what he conceives to be a problem in getting the $350 million in constraints. I have a feeling that his previous experience as Chairman of Management Board may have led him to suggest that I might do something that he would consider nefarious or heinous or somehow inappropriate. I must look into how that little procedure that he described works, because we may have to use it.

In fact, my colleagues in cabinet are extremely helpful in accepting their fair share of the allocation of constraint, but it goes on over the full budgetary period. You do not do it by big chunks and set it aside, like storing pieces of pork in a barrel or something like that. It has to be done in small amounts and with very careful administrative procedures so the Treasurer can properly announce at the appropriate time what the sum total of our efforts is.

We think we are going to achieve that goal without distorting the spending priorities of the province and still serve the community in a responsible and effective way.

Mr. McLean: Just a comment on my colleague’s knowledge. During his comments, where he discussed very much in depth with regard to the Liberal financial record over the past three years, I did not hear him say very plainly -- or did I hear him? -- with regard to the $35-billion budget that he has, where his revenues are up over 30 per cent; where his retail sales tax revenues have increased by 41 per cent; where in his personal income tax he has taxed the people of the province by an additional 59 per cent; where land transfer tax is up some 223 per cent; whereby revenues will be about $450 million in that area this year. Overall, he has a total tax increase to the taxpayers.

Surely, the Treasurer should not have any problem paying the estimates he is wanting to deal with here today.

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The concern I have, which the member did not mention, is how tough the Treasurer is being on the people of this province by asking them to pay an extra 30 per cent, when the actual fact is they are only getting a four per cent or 4.7 per cent salary increase. Here, the Treasurer has taken 30-some per cent out of their pockets in the last three years. Some of these new members may not be aware of what he has done in the 1986 budget, but the taxpayers are. He should not have any problem in being able to pay these amounts that will be discussed over the next three days.

I just wanted to make sure for the record that people did know the Treasurer has taken a good, heavy increase.

Mr. Neumann: It gives me pleasure, as the newly elected member for Brantford, to rise in support of this motion for interim supply by the Treasurer. He is a colleague of mine in the House and is certainly well known in the community of Brantford. I am delighted that I have the opportunity to make my first speech in the House participating in a motion initiated by the Treasurer of Ontario.

Our community is a very vibrant community today, and I would like to take this opportunity to dispel the image it received during the recession period of the early 1980s, when we suffered a major dislocation in employment. Today things are considerably improved and we have diversified the economy to a great extent through determination and hard work, new investment and recovery under the leadership of the Treasurer and the government we have in Ontario.

Our community is known for its innovation and entrepreneurship going back to the 19th century. At the turn of the century, it was one of the largest manufacturing centres in Canada; in fact the fourth largest producer of exported manufacturing goods. It is also known for its innovation and inventiveness, the invention of the telephone and new types of farm equipment in the 1870s and, in modern times, the invention of the electron microscope by James Hillier.

Today this is represented in activities such as the small business centre in our community, partly sponsored by the government of Ontario and the city of Brantford to encourage initiative and innovation in our time, and companies such as Summit Engineering, which are involved in creating new types of manufacturing processes and equipment to improve the productivity of our manufacturers in Ontario.

The traditions of the neighbouring riding represented by the Treasurer, the reformed Liberal traditions of many decades, are well known. Perhaps some of my colleagues in the opposition parties here, in thinking about Brantford, do not think of those same Liberal traditions. Certainly, I follow in the footsteps of names like Phil Gillies, Mac Makarchuk and Dick Beckett, and they made a considerable contribution to this House and a considerable contribution to our community. However, they did represent the Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party in their respective areas.

I would like to point out that despite the traditions of the past 20 years, the city of Brantford, and previously the town of Brantford, in the ridings it was chosen to fall into in its representation since Confederation, has a very long Liberal tradition; in fact, in 65 of the 120 years since Confederation it has elected Liberal governments. Of the 39 elections, 21 were won by Liberal candidates. Indeed, even if you look at the 42 years of the most recent Tory rule, in 19 of those 42 years it was represented by a former colleague of mine, George Gordon, who was a compassionate, caring individual who represented the people of Brantford very well.

I would like to add to this Liberal tradition and point out to the House that we have before us a motion by the present Treasurer. I would like to mention that the very first Treasurer of Ontario was in the cabinet of John Sandfield Macdonald and he was the member for West Brant, a man by the name of Edmund Burke Wood. So we are following a good tradition in the Brant area.

Also, I would like to point out that we have the distinction of having Harry Nixon, the provincial Premier for a time, from our area. In the city of Brantford, we were at one time represented by a provincial Premier, none other than Arthur Sturgis Hardy, the member for South Brant, which included the town of Brantford. He served in this Legislature for more than 26 years and during his time was responsible for bringing in a lot of progressive legislation. He served as Premier from 1896 to 1899, succeeding Sir Oliver Mowat.

He was elected and served for more than a quarter of a century, and served in several cabinet positions. During his more than 25 years in this Legislature, he introduced 150 bills, some of which were involved in improving the efficiency of the divisional courts and creating provincial parks, such as Rondeau and Algonquin.

The long Nixon tradition in our area, near Brantford, started in 1919, when the United Farmers of Ontario sent Harry Nixon to this Legislature. In that same year, the people of the city of Brantford elected Morrison Mann MacBride as a Labour member. He served for four terms in this Legislature, two as a Labour member, one as an independent and then in 1937, joined the Mitch Hepburn cabinet as Minister of Labour as an independent Liberal.

These are some of the people who served as part of the Liberal tradition in our community. I am proud to continue that tradition in my representation here in the Legislature.

In this debate today on interim supply we are approving the support of the Legislature for the Treasurer to continue providing the services, through the various ministries, which this province needs. This government has a commitment to getting things done and our community is in support of the reform programs of this Liberal government led by the Premier. We need to get on with transportation linkages, important post-secondary improvements, quality of education, affordable housing and many other programs which are going to be of benefit to the people of this province and to my community of Brantford.

I am proud of the leadership this government has shown over the last two and a half years and the commitment it has given to continuing this type of leadership to Ontario. The tradition of openness and accessibility and accountability is certainly reflected in the policies and programs of this government.

I could not help thinking as I was listening to the member for Simcoe West (Mr. McCague) talking about the need for expending more funds and getting on with the program, that I hear also from the same group the need to reduce the deficit, eliminate the deficit. There seem to be considerable contradictions implied there.

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We need to get on and continue the pace of reform in this province. Many areas cry out for reform and for improvement, and as we prepare for the coming decade of the 1990s, leading us into the 21st century, I am sure we can count on the continued leadership of the Liberal Party in this province to provide the type of reform and improvements that we need.

l am in support of the motion. l believe that while it is for a short period of time that supply is being requested, the programs supported by these funds reflect the broad, general direction this government has shown in improving the quality of life, in addressing the needs of the people of this province in a sensible and rational way and in being very, very sensitive to the needs of those less fortunate.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me this opportunity to address the House this afternoon and to say why I am proud to represent the people of my community in this Legislature. I pledge to represent Brantford with distinction and dignity and to bring to the attention of this House with forcefulness the needs of our community.

Mr. Laughren: May I first congratulate the member on his maiden speech in this assembly. He picked an appropriate topic on which to do it.

I just had a question of the member. I was very impressed with his knowledge of Liberal traditions in the province. The only question I had for him is whether or not he could tell us if he did his research on the Liberal traditions before or after he switched parties and joined the Liberals.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Perhaps l could put a question to the honourable member, who is going to be responding to the first question. When he was doing his research, did it go so far, for example, as to find out that one of his estimable predecessors, also a former well-respected mayor, Morrison Mann MacBride, had also moved in his political philosophy from a rather benighted and restricted approach to one of burgeoning liberalism of a type that was found to be in the best interests not only of the taxpayers of Brantford but also of the people right across the province?

Mr. McCague: I thought that my comments annoyed the member for Brantford (Mr. Neumann), so I thought I should explain the scenario to him. I would have thought that if the Treasurer had not been so anxious to get another almost 10,000 civil servants around him, he could have put that money towards having no deficit and still, at my insistence, have had the money to do a few programs in my riding that I would like to see.

The Treasurer mentioned, and it is a jazzy figure, the relationship of the revenue today to the deficit. I might be wrong, but l have often heard the figure that in Mr. Frost’s early days as Premier of this province, the deficit was equal to between three and four years’ revenue. That was the total deficit. I would have told people in 1984 that the total deficit was now less than one year’s revenue.

I see the Treasurer has picked up on that and is using it to his advantage still.

The Acting Speaker: Are there any further questions or comments? If not, does the member for Brantford wish to reply?

Mr. Neumann: Yes, for a few moments, Mr. Speaker. First of all, with respect to the question about the switching of parties, I anticipated that, on my first occasion to rise in the House, someone from the official opposition might rise with this question, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to answer it.

I was attracted to the Liberal Party in this election by the openness, accessibility and reform tradition which was exemplified by the Premier as he served the province. I found an openness to reform within the Liberal Party more refreshing than my experience in the previous party I had been in.

While l could argue on a technicality that I did not switch parties because I had not been involved in a political party and had served the people with distinction as mayor and on the council for 10 years in a nonpartisan fashion, when I was approached by my honourable friend the Treasurer, by a local riding association and by the Premier, I certainly looked on this with great favour.

The helpfulness this government has provided to my community and the reform package which has been put forward to provide leadership for this province into the 21st century attracted me to the Liberal Party, and I am not in any way ashamed of that. The honourable member who asked the question should start asking other questions as to why other members of his caucus also saw that reform tradition in the Liberal Party and were attracted to it.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: l appreciate the comments made by the honourable members. There was a reference made by the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) to our approach to the matter of trade. It is worth reiterating that the government, along with everybody else in the province, really is very anxious to improve our trade, not only with the United States but also with our other trading partners.

I believe that is one of the outstanding reasons why the Premier has emphasized our position vis-à-vis the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which he feels is the healthy alternative to the present trade deal of which he and the government are critical in the light of its effect on this province and, to an important degree, its effect on Canada.

The member for Nickel Belt also talked about government procurement. That was also of interest in the trade deal that has been initialled by Washington and Ottawa and that is so much under discussion. Government procurement on a broader scale is, of course, extremely attractive to manufacturers and people who offer services in Ontario. Even though that is a part of the deal, it is still substantially restricted.

One of the interesting things that came up at the first ministers’ meeting at the end of last week was the need for us to set aside those barriers among the provinces of Canada so that things like government procurement are not going to be artificially skewed in the availability of people to perform services and provide material for the provincial governments.

We are hoping that aspect having to do with procurement is going to improve our ability to compete in this province. Essentially, though, procurement has to be based on the tendering process, which is extremely important if we are going to be able to face the taxpayers with the contention that we are handling their money, our tax revenues, in a way that is fiscally responsible.

The member for Simcoe West mentioned a number of things of significance and the inadequacies of some of the public service offices. He particularly mentioned the change-of-name difficulties. It is something that I guess is bound to happen. Delays should not happen, and I will bring that to the attention of my colleague the minister and he can follow it up.

The member also referred to the need for housing programs that are better financed and better organized. In both instances, we have shown that the administration is strong and improving. As far as financing is concerned, the allocations for housing have gone up by about 37 per cent over the last year. The difficulty, which has been pointed out in question period on a number of occasions, is to get this money into proper allocation and get the housing units readily available.

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I am glad the honourable member specifically mentioned programs for seniors in the areas not in the large metropolitan areas. I would agree with him that I do not know of any particular, specific program, other than the provision of sewage disposal services, frankly, that has had more of an impact on the smaller rural communities. It has really meant that seniors, our own parents and soon to be ourselves, have not had to make arrangements to leave our own community so that we could live comfortably on our restricted pensions in the future. I really do agree with him that anything that is going to foster a continuation and even strengthening of the provision of senior citizens’ housing should be supported.

I appreciate the comments made by the honourable members. We will be returning for additional supply before we leave at Christmas, and at that time it is my intention to ask the House to approve supply to the end of the fiscal year.

Motion agreed to.

ONTARIO LOAN ACT

Hon. R. F. Nixon moved second reading of Bill 11, An Act to authorize the Raising of Money on the Credit of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: The 1987 Ontario Loan Act will provide the government with the authority to borrow up to $1.6 billion for provincial purposes. These funds will be used to meet financing requirements, including the repayment of the principal of maturing debt.

The primary source of borrowing under this act will be the teachers’ superannuation fund. Provision is also made for the government to borrow from the Canada pension plan investment fund or the public capital market, should that be appropriate. The province is currently issuing Treasury bills and intends to continue tenders at current levels. The act also provides that any unused borrowing authority will lapse on September 30, 1988.

I should just say before I resume my seat that the date of September 30, 1988, is well beyond the end of the fiscal year but it gives an opportunity for continuity in the borrowing authority, while any subsequent loan acts may be debated by this House. The authority some years ago did not lapse, and I can remember the discussion in the House that resulted in the government of the day deciding that the bill ought to have a provision that the authority would lapse after a reasonable period of time.

There is some additional information I might just put to the House as I introduce the bill. The $1.6 billion that is referred to is the smallest borrowing authority that has been requested since 1979. During the difficult years in the early 1980s, the borrowing authority had to be expanded as the cash requirement went up substantially so that the government of the day could meet its commitments under different economic circumstances. As a matter of fact, in 1983 the bill that was carried at that time was for $3.7 billion, more than double the amount that is requested now.

The borrowing program of the province is reasonably well known. It has been a number of years since we have gone to the public markets for our requirements, except for the guarantees under Ontario Hydro, and even the utilization of the funds available from the Canada pension plan is not required since there are sufficient funds from the contributions paid to the teachers’ superannuation plan to meet, it is expected, almost all of our borrowing requirements during this year.

The interest payable to the teachers’ superannuation plan is established on a formula which is, in my view, reasonably generous. Certainly for the last few months it has been an interest rate substantially higher than we could have paid if we had simply gone to the public market, but of course these funds go into the teachers’ superannuation plan, and its benefits are well known; it is a reasonably generous plan, although the teachers and the government negotiate on a regular basis for certain improvements.

The Canada pension plan moneys, which would normally come to us under the agreement, I think established in 1963, are not required. Even there, the interest payable would be at least as high as, if not higher than, we would pay on the open market. Any capital that is available in the Canada pension plan that would normally come to Ontario that we do not use is offered to Ontario Hydro, and we borrow it on their behalf, if they can use it; but they too can borrow more cheaply on the open market. So those moneys are left with the government of Canada to finance its own cash requirements.

It is interesting that even the government of Canada could borrow on the open market at a rate higher than the rate that is established to be paid into the Canada pension plan fund. But naturally that is internal debt and so that is not a matter of serious concern, other than for bookkeeping purposes, I suppose. Once again, I ask the honourable members, having given consideration to this bill, which is a routine bill but a very important one, for their favourable consideration.

Mr. Laughren: I wonder if there is a reason why the Treasurer did not tell us who would not benefit if we did not support this.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: If we were not able to borrow these funds, it would be difficult for us to continue with the budgetary plan, which I hope and expect is going to be the basis of our economic operation until the end of the fiscal year. That is kind of a weird question, actually.

Mr. Laughren: I do not know why the Treasurer would think it was a weird question. In the debate on the supply motion the Treasurer took some time to tell us who would not get paid if we did not pass it, and this time I noticed he omitted to do that.

These funds are basically deferred earnings by people, not just in Ontario but in Canada, and so there is every reason why the Treasurer should have to come before this House and tell us what his plans are. I noticed in the explanatory nods that there is a reference to the fact that the borrowings would come primarily from the Canada pension plan and from the teachers’ superannuation fund, as opposed to the public capital market. I wonder, when the Treasurer is responding, if he could be a little more specific in terms of the amounts of money, or if he knows that at this point.

Since we are dealing with public funds here, which these pension plans certainly are, I think the Treasurer could tell us in a more specific way some of his plans for expenditures. He has been very vague. When he made his economic statement a couple of weeks ago, there was not much of a hint as to what the Treasurer’s plans were. I think we have a right to know more than he is telling us. He is being very shy, and it is not in character for the Treasurer.

Mr. McGuigan: It’s a sign of good government.

Mr. Laughren: Well, good government means open government, as the Premier (Mr. Peterson) has been known to say, and I think the Treasurer is not being particularly open with us. There is a sense out there in Ontario now that people want to know a little more about what the plans of this government are. For example, one of the organizations that is very close to me -- it is so close to me I cannot find its name – the Northern Ontario Chamber of Commerce, has sent in a motion:

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“Be it resolved that the Northern Ontario Chamber of Commerce urges the Premier of Ontario” -- we know the Premier does what the Treasurer tells him, so we could substitute “Treasurer” for “Premier” there -- “to take the necessary steps binding the government” -- I do not know who would want to bind a government that was bound up, but anyway – “to formulate a provincial vision within which northern Ontario has a viable and equitable future; and that the responsibility to formulate and co-ordinate a strategic plan of action for economic development to be ready for public discussion and input within a year.”

I think that is a responsible, very serious and reasonable request that the Northern Ontario Chamber of Commerce has put. What they are really saying is: “It is time that the government came clean and told us its plans for northern Ontario. You have made a lot of talk. You have had two conferences up in northern Ontario” --

lnterjection.

Mr. Laughren: One last year, yes. I heard good reports about it.

There was one last year in Sault Ste. Marie and one this year in Thunder Bay. So far, though, we are not getting much in the way of specific plans for development of northern Ontario. We had a promise in the election campaign for some more money for highways. The throne speech even mentioned a particular bypass in Sudbury, as a matter of fact.

That is fine but that is hardly economic development any more than the transfer of civil servants from one part of Ontario to another is. I do not think even the Treasurer would call that an economic plan.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Yes, I would. There will be 1,100 permanent jobs. Who else is going to do that?

Mr. Laughren: The north has not said yet that it is going to accept these civil servants.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Oh yes, they are.

Mr. Laughren: I think I can speak for the north when I say that they will.

The Northern Ontario Chamber of Commerce, I think most appropriately, is saying to the Premier: “What have you got in mind for northern Ontario? Where do we fit in the grand plan for Ontario? Is there a grand plan for Ontario, and does northern Ontario fit into it?”

There has been a lot of talk over the years and a lot of ad hockery, but to this day there is an alienation in northern Ontario. I am sure northern members from other political parties would agree that there is alienation in northern Ontario and a growing expectation that governments will put an end to that. But it is not going to be done by sitting on the sidelines and simply having conferences. There has to be some concrete action taken.

The Northern Ontario Chamber of Commerce is saying it wants to know what it is. They want it out there for debate. They are being very responsible in terms of time. They are saying that the responsibility to formulate and co-ordinate a strategic plan of economic develop merit to be ready for public discussion and input within a year.

The government now has two economic conferences behind it. They have had input from the northeast and the northwest. Surely to goodness, it is not asking too much that within a year there be a plan laid before people in northern Ontario and in this Legislature so we can determine just what plans the government has. Right now, there is a sense that, aside from the movement of the civil servants to places like Thunder Bay, the Sault, Sudbury and North Bay, the government is being rather vague and indeterminate about its plans.

Most people in northern Ontario recognize that moving the civil servants to the north is a good move. We in this party called for that and supported it, and we are not quibbling about that at all -- but nobody is pretending that is the answer to economic diversification or economic development in northern Ontario or an end to regional disparities in regard to northern Ontario. We await with some interest the Premier’s response, which I assume the Treasurer will draft, to this request from the Northern Ontario Chamber of Commerce.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I would just say in response to the honourable member’s specific comment that the pool that develops from the teachers’ contribution to their superannuation fund in this year is expected to be $1,625,000,000, so it is a little bit bigger than even we can take up. By law, we have to take it all and it will simply be taken into our -- what do we call them? -- liquid reserves.

I should also say, since I have another few seconds, that the blinding vision the honourable member is recommending on behalf of his chamber of commerce friends is interesting, I suppose, because during the election campaign the Premier, I believe, brought a very visionary approach to policy, particularly in northern Ontario. He made a commitment of time and philosophical effort to exposing in northern Ontario the views of the Liberal Party. While we might have done better, we did not do badly. Most of the people in the north supported his leadership and his visionary approach to northern development in a rather effective way.

The honourable member was good enough to refer to the northern development conferences, last year in Sault Ste. Marie and the one just completed in Thunder Bay. Although I was not able to attend, my colleagues who were there said that it was outstanding and that the people felt they had a direct contact to open government and that the ministers there were responsive. I have already talked to a number of my colleagues who have indicated the role the Treasury would play in this, not so much in dollars as in moral support, which the honourable member knows is extremely important in this regard, although there will be many dollars involved as well.

Mr. Laughren: For the second time today, we have heard a minister of the crown indicate under questioning, “Things must be all right, look at all the members we have.” The Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) did it during question period when he was asked about a specific policy. The Treasurer now says, “You can talk all you like about northern Ontario, but look, we did pretty good up there, you know.”

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I believe in democracy.

Mr Laughren: Of course. I believe in democracy too. But if the government is going to start falling back on the number of members it elected this past election as an answer to problems in the province, then it will not elect nearly so many members the next time, and many of the people I see sitting across the floor and to my left will be one-trippers, as we call them around here. But that is not a bad experience to have.

Mr. Sterling: I want to say to my colleague from the north that if he does not think there is a vision about the north, he should come to the east. He will see not even an attempt to put forward a vision in terms of eastern Ontario. We have not had the same benefit of these economic conferences put on by the government.

Actually, there has been a conference in the last two weeks, which my colleague, who is with us, the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry (Mr. Villeneuve) went to -- he is also the member for East Grenville; I represented that area before, so I cannot forget those people -- expecting to see hordes of new Liberal MPPs. There were none.

Mind you, the year before, going into the election period, we found very many Liberal candidates. We had two Liberal cabinet ministers there, all attentive and hearing about the problems of eastern Ontario. I guess what happened is that they decided to reject what was found a year ago, because in the throne speech of last spring, the budget speech of last spring and the throne speech of this fall, mention of eastern Ontario was almost lacking. The only thing we heard was a regurgitation of how they were going to build Highway 416.

This debate is about an act that is going to give the government the authority to borrow $1.6 billion. This government needs to borrow $1.6 billion. I thought they always argued that they were going to have a deficit of less than $1 billion, yet they are coming here and asking us for the right to borrow $1.6 billion. That means they are spending $600 million on new office staff and new limousines for those new ministers and all of those kinds of things.

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I can understand the rhetoric that was carried on during the election, but when we got the second quarterly report from the Treasurer with regard to what has happened in the second quarter of 1987-1988, which actually is the period of time during the period of the election -- July, August and September -- we found that this government collected an extra $355 million.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Oh, no, that’s what we expect to collect over the whole year-extra.

Mr. Sterling: OK, they expect to collect $355 million extra this year, the principal amount coming from retail sales tax, a nonprogressive tax, but what are they expecting to do with that $355 million? Are they going to pay down the debt? Are they going to try to balance the budget? Are they going to try to lay a little away for the time when we may be headed for a recession, when we are going to need that money in order to help out our people in Ontario?

No, they have not done that at all, They are projecting, of the $355 million they will have as extra money this year, that they are going to spend $348 million of it, so they have $7 million out of $355 million to pay down the debt.

That has been a trademark of this government. As we know, over the past two to two and a half years government revenues have risen by almost a third, 32 per cent, and the expenditures of this government have risen just as fast. They came into government with a deficit which was a little higher than they have now, but they have an additional $9 billion to almost $10 billion more than they had when they got here two and a half years ago with which to try to attempt to do something meaningful about the deficit in this province. All they have taken it down by is less than $1 billion.

I really feel we should probably vote against this bill because there is no excuse for this government to be operating at a deficit at this time. If they had been prudent with their money, if they had been careful with their money, they could have stayed with an increase in expenditures not exceeding inflation by more than twice the amount and probably could have come to this Legislature at this stage in time, if they had been prudent, and not needed this bill to borrow money at this time.

I know this is usually a matter of just carrying this piece of legislation through, but because of the tremendous increase in revenues of this government, I think it should be pointed out to the Treasurer that this party is not satisfied that he has not balanced the budget at this time.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Morin): Questions and comments?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: If I might make a comment, the member makes a good point that it would be nice if the budget were balanced, but I just want to point out to him that this year we are committing well over $2 billion in capital purchases in construction. These are university buildings you can walk in and roads you can drive on and dams that hold water back. They are not some ethereal commitment of capital for accounting purposes.

We are borrowing less than $1 billion in support of our funding mechanism. It seems to me that it is quite a rational approach, one that most businesses would envy; not that I feel government has to be run, so to speak, like the corner store, because we have much broader social responsibilities than just a profit.

I would also like to point out, for example, that in 1983 -- was the member in the government that year?

Mr. Sterling: Yes.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: He was doing freedom of information then.

In 1983, the cash requirement was $3.7 billion, which if you were to convert to 1987 dollars would be $4.2 billion, which is more than $500 per capita. This little lending bill is only $160 per capita. I wish it were smaller but it is better than it was. That is what Liberals believe in, the ultimate perfectibility of mankind, and we are moving in that direction.

Mr. Sterling: To try to compare 1985, 1986 and 1987 to 1983 is really sleight of hand. In fact, the Treasurer admitted to the media not two or three weeks ago that had he been the Treasurer in the Conservative government -- God forbid -- he would have undertaken the same spending practices the Conservative government did at that time. So for him to now stand up and criticize something he has --

Hon. R. F. Nixon: You were criticizing me.

Mr. Sterling: I think we have valid reason for criticism at this time. When he took over the Treasury, he had revenues of $26 billion. Now he has about $35 billion or $36 billion. Two years, and unfound prosperity.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: That’s called good management.

Mr. Sterling: He has revenue but he sure is spending it quickly. What is going to happen when we have a bit of a slump or a slowdown in the economy?

With regard to the $2 billion he spends in capital, that has always been included, as the Treasurer knows, as an expense in the government expenditures. It has never changed. He also knows that he does not get an opportunity to write off the expenses as he would in terms of depreciating an asset in the future.

The last thing I must say to the Treasurer is, $2 billion in capital, great --

Hon. R. F. Nixon: No, it’s $2.6 billion.

Mr. Sterling: It is $2.6 billion? That is even better. How about a little in eastern Ontario? How about a little for our schools in the Carleton Board of Education area? We got 15 per cent of what we asked for last year. The Toronto area got anywhere from 50 to 100 per cent of what it asked for. It is time we were treated fairly in eastern Ontario. I will continue to mention it until we are.

The Acting Speaker: Do any other members wish to participate in this debate?

Mr. Neumann: Having got my feet wet with my maiden speech, I felt I could rise a second time and get into the mood of things here.

I would like to commend the member for Brant-Haldimand (Mr. R. F. Nixon), the Treasurer, on his bill. Having just completed a little over a decade of experience on municipal councils, I must say that this Legislature, the province of Ontario, the government of Ontario, requires municipalities to balance their budgets every year. That does not mean you cannot go out and borrow money. You go out and borrow money for capital works. But on the operating budget, you balance the budget. This Treasurer has achieved that at the provincial level.

I always used to think it was a bit hypocritical for provincial and federal governments to impose balanced budgets on all local governments and not do it themselves but in this case we have a Treasurer who believes in fiscal responsibility, who has balanced the budget on the current account. The borrowing that is being done is for very good capital projects.

I am getting a little tired of these Conservatives to my right who continually rise up day after day in this Legislature suggesting the government should be spending more money here, there and everywhere, including the member for Carleton (Mr. Sterling), who just said we should be spending more money in eastern Ontario on capital works, and at the same time suggested the deficit should be reduced.

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There are many needs throughout Ontario and the government must balance all of these requests for funding in a sensitive manner, and at the same time, do this within keeping to principles of fiscal responsibility. I want to commend the Treasurer for doing a very fine job with that balancing act. The members opposite should recognize that they cannot speak out of both sides of their mouth and continually ask for more things for their riding, more things to be done, ask, “Why is the government not spending more money?” and then say, “Balance the budget, balance the budget” at the same time.

The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?

Mr. Sterling: If this member is going to get tired of our saying a few things about this government and how irresponsible it is with regard to fiscal management, he is going to get a lot more tired over the next four years.

I can only say this to him and to the Legislature. We in eastern Ontario do not want any more than any other part of the province, but I know you, Mr. Speaker, represent the same area as I do in terms of the Carleton Board of Education and the Carleton separate school board, and never have two boards of education which are expanding, bulging at the seams, ever been treated more poorly by any provincial government over the last 15 or 20 years. I will go back in history and show that to anybody in terms of the figures. Now I do not know whether the Speaker would agree with me, because he sits on the other side of this Legislature. All we want in eastern Ontario is a fair shake out of the $2.6 billion; that is what the government is going to spend.

Secondly, while the Treasurer says that this $2.6 billion is being spent on new buildings, he is not telling members about the other side of the equation; that is, when the buildings break down, when the roads break down, as they are doing across Ontario, if he were being fair, he would be depreciating that side of the equation. I wonder whether there is not more depreciation going on at this stage of the game, particularly with regard to our highway system, than there is added capital that is being put back in.

So they can play with the books all they want, and we have seen a Treasurer who is quite good at doing that over his past budgets, but I want to say that we on this side of the Legislature want responsible fiscal management and will continue to demand it regardless of what government members say.

Mr. Neumann: I commend the member for Carleton for standing up and bringing to the attention of this House the needs of eastern Ontario. I think it is the duty of every member to do that. The only thing I was pointing out is that there seems to be a bit of a contradiction here, perhaps a considerable contradiction, in continually rising in this House and asking the government to spend more money and then harping on getting the deficit down. The deficit is eliminated other than for capital works. That is a fiscally responsible approach to the management of this province, and this government is sensitive to the needs of all regions of the province.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I appreciate the comments made by the honourable members. As usual, they were cogent, to the point and helpful. I always like to hear from the chamber of commerce -- at least, their views as filtered through the socialist critic. It will be interesting to compare them with their actual recommendations.

But these matters are important. Naturally, this bill does not allocate the expenditure particularly. The program was put forward in the budget and my colleagues in the ministry from time to time make appropriate announcements. So I appreciate the fact that these bills were passed in a timely fashion, that no cheques had to be stopped or anything like that and that we will be able to get on with the legislative programs starting tomorrow.

Motion agreed to.

Bill ordered for third reading.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I wonder, Mr. Speaker, since we have a few minutes remaining, if it might be appropriate, and with unanimous consent, that we simply give the bill third reading at this time.

An hon. member: No.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: OK, we will not do it. Can we do it anyway?

The Acting Speaker: Is there unanimous consent?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Do we need unanimous consent? Never mind, we can do it another day.

The House adjourned at 5:26 p.m.

30 novembre 1987