Journal des débats 1988-mai-24 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr. Reville: We have had an opportunity recently in the House to find out how much too far the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) went. A number of the petitions actually were returned with letters appended. One such gentleman in Scarborough writes:

“This latest tax grab is simply another example of government imposing their will on the people rather than governing according to the will of the people. Until recently, most people have been in a state of apathy regarding government, but times are changing quickly. We have had enough. The anger you encountered the other day at Queen’s Park was merely a reflection of the growing attitude in this country.”

The gentleman goes on to say: “At a time when we should be getting something back, you jack up taxes even higher. Well, enough is enough. Crunch time is fast approaching. Remember the California revolt a few years ago? When crunch time comes in a democratic free society, whose head do you think it will come down on? Yours or ours? We may all end up being hurt because of your fiscal irresponsibility, but you are the one who will end up on his” -- expletive deleted – “on the outside looking in.”

Mr. Speaker, there are thousands of letters in that vein. We hope to have a chance to share some of them with you and the House.

Mr. Harris: Another round of Liberal tax increases comes into effect tonight, and it is all part of the price we must pay for the obscene spending spree of the Premier (Mr. Peterson). Government spending has increased by $11.4 billion since he took office three years ago, about double the rate of the federal increase in spending. That is more than $31 million a day, $1.3 million an hour, $22,000 a minute. These are the increases, close to triple the rate of inflation.

Despite “spending like a bunch of drunken sailors” -- Toronto Star -- in fact, probably because of it, this government has failed to meet challenges in the fields of health, education and housing, but we have now added 9,400 civil servants since the government took office in 1985.

Does this sound like a record we have heard before? Yes. This is how Trudeau and the boys started in Ottawa. It led to bringing this country to its knees financially. It starts with massive, uncontrolled spending, and throwing money at problems instead of ideas. Throughout all the financial chaos that is being heaped on the taxpayers of Ontario, the Peterson administration has continually rejected any and all suggestions to control expenditures.

As taxpayers are hit again tonight, they should join with the over 100,000 people who have said, “Bob Nixon and David Peterson, you’ve gone too far.”

BELL-NORTHERN RESEARCH LTD.

Mr. Chiarelli: Last week it was announced by Bell-Northern Research that it intends to hire 600 new people in the Ottawa area this year. This follows an impressive hiring spree of over 1,000 jobs last year and a massive expansion of what has become Canada’s largest private research laboratory. In total, approximately 4,000 people work at BNR’s nine locations in the Ottawa area, making it the second-largest private employer in the region, next to Bell Canada.

Combined with its parent company, Northern Telecom, this corporation has experienced an average annual growth rate of 15 per cent over the last 10 years. With such incredible growth statistics, it is no wonder that the recent Premier’s Council report highlights Northern Telecom and BNR as a major success story in the telecommunications field, with a model corporate strategy for others to follow.

A major part of its success is due largely to the fact that fully 10 per cent of Northern Telecom’s revenue goes into research and development. The recent budget includes provisions to assist industry through R and D incentives. The government strongly believes that success will come through joint efforts.

Northern Telecom has shown it can be done, a record that the Ottawa region and Ontario can be proud of.

TAX INCREASES

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I, too, would like to read to the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) and to the House some of the comments by people who responded to Garth Turner’s call for an uprising on tax increases to let the Treasurer understand how angry people are. A letter to Mr. Turner states:

“Friday morning at work, we had to take one of our fellow workers to the hospital. He was having a nervous breakdown. Here’s a man with a wife and two children. His wife can’t work because of a heart ailment. He is worrying about losing his house because with one pay cheque coming in he can’t keep up the payments on the mortgage and the car payments. We make less than $300 take-home pay. He bought the house back in 1973 when things were a little better. Now with this new tax increase and the cost of living so high, a lot of people like him don’t have a chance, including me. I’m so damned mad at these greedy politicians, I could cry. I think we would all be better off on welfare.

“Your sincerely,

“Ed Stanley.”

There are many thousands of people in the lower middle class who feel that way about the way the government unnecessarily ripped them off this year.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS DEVICE FOR THE DEAF

Mr. Pollock: I recently received a letter from a young lady named Jenny Lynch, a grade 8 student at Sir James Whitney School in Belleville, whose permanent residence is in my riding.

Jenny states: “I’m deaf. I would like to use a telephone the same as hearing kids. It costs a hearing person approximately $33 for the telephone. It would cost me between $245 and $550 to buy a TDD” -- telephone device system for the deaf -- “so I can call my friends or relatives, make a doctor’s or a dentist’s appointment, call the police, fire or ambulance services.”

Jenny cannot use the Bell Canada relay services without a TDD phone. Bell Canada operates a free special service to assist hearing-impaired people access voice-operated phones and vice versa. Special operators receive typed messages via a TDD transmitter and the information is transmitted by voice. A simple operation such as ordering a pizza or phoning a taxicab becomes possible for the deaf.

I believe the government should subsidize 75 per cent of the cost of a TDD phone the same way it does for hearing-aids. This is a fair and reasonable request by Jenny on behalf of all deaf people.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Mr. Faubert: They say it takes two to tango, that two heads are better than one, that united we stand and divided we fall. Obviously, the federal government does not believe in this approach when it comes to housing. I was shocked when I read in a recent Toronto Star article that Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., an agency of the federal government, financed fewer new units of housing in Metro last year than it financed in 1981.

In addition, the federal government is selling off acres of valuable land in the Metro area, apparently without regard or concern over whether the land or the proceeds will be used for affordable housing.

1340

In contrast, this government took the initiative last year to declare a Housing First policy, whereby all surplus provincial lands are considered first as potential sites for affordable housing. Just recently, the province has made available over 90 acres of land for affordable housing. If deemed inappropriate, the lands are sold and the proceeds are put into a fund to build low-cost housing elsewhere. I understand that 2,500 units were created by this initiative alone last year.

I encourage the Conservative members opposite to ask their federal counterparts to follow the sensible and effective leadership demonstrated by this government’s Minister of Housing (Ms. Hošek) and adopt a federal Housing First policy.

TAX INCREASES

Mr. Reville: I have got lots more letters here about the situation that people find themselves in in Ontario and the difficulty they are going to have paying the outrageous taxes of the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon). Here is a person who writes. “How would you like to be in my father’s shoes?”

He begins to worry about his own situation in the future: “How will I afford to live, buy a house, pay for the mortgage and taxes and still be able to feed myself and family? I think you are a very ignorant, self-centred person and you should realize what real life is all about. Oh, sure! It’s easy for you who goes home every night, sits down to a candlelight dinner and has three turkeys or roast beefs on the table, and, mind you, two of them probably get thrown out ‘cause you don’t believe in leftovers.

“Come on! Wake up!”

Another person just sends in his pay slip, which is really instructive. The earnings and deductions are very clear. The chap managed to pay $230.61 in deductions on one week’s pay, ending up with a net of $603.23. The implication is that the government already gets enough taxes from working people.

I think it is clear the Treasurer has gone too far.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

TORONTO AREA TRANSPORTATION

Hon. Mr. Fulton: Earlier today, I released the provincial transportation study, Transportation Directions for the Greater Toronto Area. It represents the culmination of almost three years’ work.

The study is the result of a process never before attempted in the greater Toronto area. It brought together planners, elected officials and transportation specialists from the regions of Peel, York, Durham and Metropolitan Toronto.

The study considered the maximum use of the great transportation investment made in these regions by all provincial taxpayers. It allowed planners from all regions to see at first hand the problems and opportunities confronting others in other regions.

It looked at fare integration, service coordination, rapid transit options, opportunities for GO Transit expansion and road and highway needs.

Because the statement dealt with these four regions and because it deals with existing technologies, I took the step of inviting my critics from the two opposition parties so that they could familiarize themselves with the details of the initiatives.

CROWN LIFE PARTICIPACTION CHALLENGE DAY

Hon. Mr. O’Neil: Tomorrow is the sixth annual Crown Life Participaction Challenge Day. That means millions of Canadians will be walking, jogging, skipping and stretching to promote physical fitness across the nation.

Because tomorrow is such a special day, I would like to issue a special challenge to my fellow members.

The Premier (Mr. Peterson) will lead his second annual challenge to members of the House. He will lead a light, informal workout on the steps of the Ontario Legislature, starting at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow.

I appeal to my fellow members to join the Premier’s challenge and to help ensure that this year Toronto brings out more fitness buffs than Montreal.

A noble goal lies behind the friendly rivalry between the two cities. Here in Ontario, the goal is to encourage all citizens to adopt regular exercise habits, to spread the fitness revolution from Cornwall to Kenora and from Metropolitan Toronto to Moosonee.

One and a half million Ontarians in 68 communities participated in Challenge Day last year. I challenge all members to show up tomorrow morning to make sure that even more citizens take part in Canada’s biggest mass-participation event. My staff and I will be there and I hope to see all my fellow members on the steps.

RESPONSES

TORONTO AREA TRANSPORTATION

Mr. B. Rae: I want to respond to the statement from the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Fulton). To put it mildly, it is rather remarkable that a minister would have launched such an extensive exercise of review of reports of reviews of reports and come up with so little.

This part of the province is literally strangling in traffic. What the minister has proposed is to delay the major proposals that have come to him from the areas with respect to mass transportation. The answer of this government is to put off the most difficult and important decisions with respect to urban transportation until some time in the 1990s, just after every single major planning person has put forward a view which says the decisions have to be made now if Ontario is to invest in the future in terms of transportation.

It is incredible to me, when we are facing as serious a problem as we are facing in this community, that the very best the minister could do would be to say: “When it comes to the Sheppard line, we will see. When it comes to the Eglinton West rapid transit, we will see. When it comes to the developments in Mississauga, we will see.”

I think it is fair to say that if we look, for example, at the Network 2011 report from the Toronto Transit Commission, which is before the minister, it produced some very specific priorities. These are priorities which were criticized by some in the regions, but I did not hear one of those critics say that none of the above should be done and that all the decisions should be put off until 1993.

This government has a massive majority. It has the ability and capacity to do virtually what it will. What we find is that when it comes to the toughest decisions as to what its priorities are going to be and how it is going to invest in the future, what this government does is simply put it off, constantly put it off and delay.

The decision to choose which urban transportation line to go for will be no easier in 1993 than in 1988. The problems will be even more difficult. The traffic will be even greater. The length of time it takes to travel around will be even longer. The degree of planning which has taken place will be even more schizophrenic and absurd. The amount of concentration downtown will grow even further. The process of choking and strangulation, which we see in every major urban configuration in the world, will be part of Toronto’s participation in a world-class society. And all this government says is, “Well, we want to keep our options open.”

It is not good enough. It is not good enough for the government to produce a report in which it has a list of things, in which it says: “The following projects are committed, most of which are roads. The following projects are planned, but we have no idea how they are being planned or what it means when we say they are being planned. And we have another category, which is options being kept open.”

The most difficult decisions are in the areas in which the government has simply kept its options open. I think it is fair to say this government has missed a historic opportunity to invest in its future. It has missed a historic opportunity to invest in a new generation of urban transportation in the greater Metropolitan area. It has missed the opportunity to take the tough decisions which need to be taken if we are to avoid the kind of traffic strangulation which has affected every major urban centre in the world and which is affecting Toronto and is visible, palpable and touchable for all of us to see and experience.

This government has missed the opportunity when it had the opportunity to do it. It will rue the day it decided in 1988 to put off to some unknown date the chance to do something about a problem which is going to get even worse by the 21st century.

1350

CROWN LIFE PARTICIPACTION CHALLENGE DAY

Mr. Farnan: As the Premier (Mr. Peterson) jogs on the front steps of the Legislature tomorrow, it is a good photo opportunity. It is a nice event. But I would like the government to remember the children at St. Vincent de Paul School who have no gym and who will not be able to take part in recreational facilities. Our fitness programs in our schools demand to be addressed. I say to the government, while we can participate in this event, we should look at the real problems of fitness in our society and provide adequate funding for physical education in our schools.

TORONTO AREA TRANSPORTATION

Mr. Cousens: I could tell by the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. B. Rae) that he was not all that thrilled with the report from the Ministry of Transportation, and we would like to share in his chagrin and his unhappiness. In fact, if we have as much progress in the next three years as we have had in the last three years, we will still be nowhere, because that is where we are at. There is nothing happening.

What we are seeing is no allocation of funds in a special way for the transportation problems of Metropolitan Toronto. This announcement is the gathering together of a series of other announcements, but there is no statement here of what the priorities are going to be. There are no priorities. We see a whole set of circumstances. The data are good. We all have to agree that we have problems. We know that. We just have to drive along Highway 401 and see that they are trying to do some reconstruction and they do not know how to handle that.

We know there are problems in trying to get the trucks in Ontario looked at. Ontario would not even participate with the United States in reviewing our truck services.

I do not see anything in here about the big problem next year when the domed stadium opens. There is no concept of how to get people in and out of that area.

We are talking about a failure of this government to really deal with the transportation issues and set priorities. The government has to do something and start with a stake in the ground that says, “Here is what we are going to do for the next short term and then the next short term.”

What we are seeing here is a massive overall review with no specifics. What I would like to see are some details forthcoming from the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Fulton). We would welcome his taking some of the time in this House to come forward with an action plan that tells us specifically what, how, when. We know why. All you have to do is live in Metropolitan Toronto to know you have a massive problem with transportation.

It is supposed to be a tourist mecca. I tell members, when the tourists get in here, they are not going to be able to get out because of the road construction. It is high time this ministry began to do what we have asked it to do and what it is charged to do.

I cannot help but throw in a small word for Highway 407. I just have to mention that. The member for York Centre, the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara), sitting beside the minister, should have more influence than he does, because I asked the question about Highway 407 over a month ago and there still is no answer.

We have concerns for other transportation systems, but I tell the minister to come on. He should not just come along and rehash the same old thing. He should come forward with an action plan, set some priorities and make it happen. He has the power. The Premier (Mr. Peterson) has 93 seats, including his own. There is something that could be done with this minister’s seat. He is not doing it; he should get to work.

Mrs. Marland: I have in front of me a piece of paper that says, “Statement in the Legislature by the Honourable Ed Fulton, Minister of Transportation.” I suggest respectfully that is the most blatant example of the Liberal government’s nonstatements that we have had the privilege of hearing in the last three years.

I also hold up this map. This map is called Transportation Directions for the Greater Toronto Area. On it are three regional names -- Peel, York and Durham; no other names, no other information. This map symbolizes what this statement and this report are all about -- absolutely blank.

How is it that the people who face the problems of commuting from all three regions on a daily basis do not yet hear any response of concern from this government for a solution? I see, as my colleague the member for Markham (Mr. Cousens) has already mentioned, that if we go forward in the next three years the way we have in the past three years, we may well be back to the horse and buggy.

I would also like to suggest that there is a very basic element here; that is, there is a tremendous traffic problem in Metropolitan Toronto because of what feeds into Metropolitan Toronto. The fact is, until we look at the source within Peel, York and Durham, solve the traffic problems within those regions and encourage people to get out of their cars -- because we are giving them additional GO service that means something, because we are going to build extended subway lines that will provide a service and encourage people to use those services -- until we decide that we are going to invest in a solution instead of just another report, we will never have that solution.

CROWN LIFE PARTICIPACTION CHALLENGE DAY

Mr. McLean: While I welcome the Crown Life Participaction Challenge Day, I only want to say that they should be starting at 7 or 7:30 am., not at 8:30 am. when we should be working. I will be up at seven. I will be ready.

ORAL QUESTIONS

TORONTO AREA TRANSPORTATION

Mr. B. Rae: My question is for the Minister of Transportation. I would like to ask the minister, when he presented his report to the House today and when he presented it to the public today, why was he not up front and clear about the fact that he has rejected taking a decision with respect to the proposals on new urban rapid transit lines in the Metropolitan Toronto area?

Why was he not straight up front, saying, “We decided not to go ahead on Sheppard Avenue, not to go ahead on Eglinton Avenue, not to go ahead with respect to Mississauga”? Why bury that? Why not confront that directly and say. “This is what we have done and this is why we have decided to do it”?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: I appreciate the Leader of the Opposition’s kind words earlier. I hope that before the day is over he will read the report. What he is missing is the fact that we are providing, for the first time, provincial leadership in the expenditure of in excess of $700 million a year around the four regions affected within the context of that report.

In the short term, we are going to implement increased rapid transit availability via the existing corridors, including connections in the city of York, which will give people out the member’s way access to rapid transit and GO trains.

Mr. B. Rae: We can all look around at the various sites and say, “There is a new building going up in Weston and a new building going up here and there.” That is not the issue.

What has been before the government for the past three years has been a major transformation in the nature of this region, the fact that planning is out of control, that it is more and more congested. There is too much in downtown Toronto and not enough outside. The minister has not addressed any of those problems or any of those issues in his report.

I make no apology for being critical of a government that is sitting on the biggest majority in Ontario history and has failed to take decisions that are critical to the needs of our citizens in the 21st century. I think that is truly appalling.

The minister has the reports before him that have talked about the need for the Sheppard Avenue line, the need for the Eglinton Avenue West line and the need for the line in Mississauga. Why reject all three of those proposals?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: I think if the Leader of the Opposition were to take the trouble to read the report and read the presentation today, he would understand we are not rejecting; we are putting into place some short-term measures that can be worked on soon, increasing the capacity of the Yonge Street subway, affecting the busway in Mississauga, affecting the widening of the Gardiner Expressway, the extension of Front Street, to name a few. There are a number of initiatives that will be not only commenced but completed.

I think the Leader of the Opposition misses the point of what has been going on and the lack of co-ordinated planning within the 22 municipalities that make up those four regions. For the first time in the past 50 years, the provincial government has managed to bring all these people together to deal with their respective priorities. That is what is before the House.

Mr. B. Rae: If the minister regards bringing everybody together in a three-year planning process and then producing commuter parking lots as his contribution to urban planning, I am sorry but I do not regard that as an advance. I do not regard that as leadership. I do not think the minister is serving the needs of our citizens in the 1990s and into the 21st century who will look to this date in 1988 and say. “Here was a government that dropped the ball.”

Why does the minister not have at least the straightforwardness to say, “We are putting off a decision on these three plans because we cannot decide, because the decisions are difficult and because it will take some courage, vision and foresight to make a decision with respect to building these new lines”? Why at least not do that instead of simply producing a commuter parking lot and saying. “Look, we have done our best”?

1400

Hon. Mr. Fulton: I think this government has shown a great deal of courage and foresight in a number of initiatives, not the least of which is transportation. The member sits there and criticizes government expenses, but he does not look at what we are able to do as a lower-cost option to provide for transportation throughout the greater Metropolitan Toronto area.

What he fails to recognize is the leadership needed for interregional transportation around the four regions. We are not simply building a parking lot. I would not expect the member to know about that because he is chauffeured back and forth. That is not what we are talking about and I suggest he read the report in detail.

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION

Mr. B. Rae: I would like to introduce the Minister of Labour to a member of the public who has a particular problem. I would like the minister to comment on it and to respond to it.

Mr. Giuseppe Ianuzzi is in the gallery this afternoon. He is a worker for some 30 years at the Toronto Refiners and Smelters plant in Toronto. Mr. Ianuzzi has been suffering from lead poisoning since 1984. He was on a workers’ compensation temporary benefits plan from that time until June 6 of this year, at which point he is going to be cut off with no pension, with no benefits, with nothing.

I would like to ask the minister how that is possible, given that Mr. Ianuzzi has blood levels of 60 micrograms of lead in each decilitre of blood, which is four times the acceptable level. Why would a worker with four times the acceptable level of lead in his blood not be given a pension under the Workers’ Compensation Act?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I think you know, Mr. Speaker, and the Leader of the Opposition knows that it would be singularly inappropriate to try Mr. Ianuzzi’s case here in this House. My friend the Leader of the Opposition has provided a few details for me on Mr. Ianuzzi’s case. Obviously, if he is really interested in my looking into the case, he would suggest that to me, I would get the details he has, have the case looked into in further detail and then give him a more complete response.

Mr. B. Rae: If we had a workers’ compensation system that worked in this province, it would not be necessary to bring each case up to the minister in the House, but that is what we have to do because we have too many workers who are being turned down.

I would like to ask the minister whether he is aware that the Workers’ Compensation Board has no overall policy with respect to lead poisoning and permanent pensions, that the board contends the problem with lead poisoning goes away when the worker is removed from the environment and that the board has no plans whatsoever to give Mr. Ianuzzi a permanent pension because it alleges that if he is away from the workplace, his blood level should be going down when that, palpably and clearly, is not the case.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: Once again, I suggest to the Leader of the Opposition that it is inappropriate to try to resolve Mr. Ianuzzi’s case here, but he raises the issue of whether or not there is a policy with respect to lead poisoning in the Workers’ Compensation Board. I tell my friend the Leader of the Opposition, although he knows it already, that it would be and is within the jurisdiction of the board to determine whether or not lead poisoning in the circumstances similar to the circumstances of Mr. Ianuzzi represent a compensable injury which would provide a case for a permanent pension.

I tell him as well that where the workers’ compensation system must go is towards a system where we are providing pensions for those whose experience in the workplace has reduced their ability to earn, and providing a system where we are assisting to the greatest extent possible every worker who is a claimant before the board to reintegrate himself or herself back in the workplace at the same or, indeed, at earning levels above what was the case preinjury.

Mr. B. Rae: I am bringing cases up to the minister now because I am telling him that the workers’ compensation system is not working, that more workers are being cut off than ever before, that the rehabilitation plan is not working and that there is a crying need for some justice in the workplace which just is not there.

Again, I would like to ask the minister, what does he intend to do personally about a situation where not only is Mr. Ianuzzi being cut off, but where there are more and more workers who are being denied benefits by the Workers’ Compensation Board because of increasing pressure from employers and where there is no plan in place to deal either with rehabilitation and reintegration into the workforce or with problems of long-term disability like the one suffered by Mr. Ianuzzi?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: If the Leader of the Opposition is suggesting in an indirect way through his question that a legislative agenda that would bring about some very substantial reforms to the workers’ compensation system is appropriate, in that respect I would agree.

I would not like him to base his case on an allegation that the workers’ compensation system is, as a whole, not working. The fact is that the workers’ compensation system deals with more than 400,000 claims on an annual basis and, by and large, those claims are quickly resolved, the injured worker is quickly back at work and the appropriate payments that need to be made are made.

That is not to say the system is perfect. That is not to say we do not need reforms in the area of the pension system for those who are permanently disabled and suffer permanent wage loss. That is not to say we do not need to do one heck of a lot more in the area of vocational rehabilitation. That is not to say we do not have to consider seriously how we are going to deal with the issue of the reinstatement of injured workers.

I suggest to the Leader of the Opposition that this is the agenda of this government. Those reforms will be contained, I expect, in a package that will shortly be presented here. I hope that within that package we can not only reform the system, but deal with --

Mr. Speaker: That seems like a fairly complete answer.

TRADE WITH UNITED STATES

Mr. Brandt: My question is for the Premier. Last Wednesday the Premier’s colleague Premier Getty of Alberta said he had spoken to the Premier of Ontario (Mr. Peterson) during the course of the previous week and that the Premier of Ontario said, and I quote. “He was telling me he did not intend to block the agreement,” referring to the free trade agreement.

Can the Premier verify that he was talking to the Premier of Alberta in the time frame I have suggested and did tell Premier Getty that, as Premier of Ontario, he did not intend to block the free trade agreement?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I was not talking to him in that time frame.

Mr. Brandt: It is interesting that the Premier would respond in that fashion, because my office was in fact in touch with Premier Getty’s office today to make absolutely certain that the quote on the part of Mr. Getty was accurate and that there had been a conversation. I have received a confirmation from Mr. Getty’s office that the quote is correct, and he states that the Premier of Ontario indicated in a conversation with him that he did not intend to block the free trade agreement.

Can the Premier clarify the difference in statements being made in Ontario and Alberta relative to this point?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member asked me if I had been talking to Premier Getty the previous week and the answer is no. I had not been talking to him the previous week. I talked to him some weeks ago.

Mr. Brandt: Perhaps we could get to the key part of the question then. Apparently there may be some modest disagreement between the Premier of Ontario and the Premier of Alberta relative to what was or was not said.

Mr. Wildman: Time difference.

Mr. Brandt: As my colleague points out, there is a time difference and that could add confusion to the circumstance. So that our western friends will know exactly what is the position of Ontario relative to this very important matter -- which is today being debated in the House of Commons, as the Premier well knows -- is it the Premier’s intention to take some action with respect to the free trade agreement where in fact Ontario would attempt to block the deal?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I said then and I say to the member now exactly what I have said before and what I shared with the federal minister responsible. Ontario reserves its right to take this matter to court. We have not seen the legislation. We perhaps will see it today. We will analyse it and share our views with him.

As he knows, there are a number of things in the federal jurisdiction. The question now is how that encroaches on provincial jurisdiction and what mechanism the federal government has used. But I say to the member, as I have said before, we disagree with that view. We do not think it is in the national interest. We think it is a mistake and we reserve our right to challenge this in court.

1410

WINE INDUSTRY

Mr. Brandt: As the Premier is well aware, whether or not a free trade agreement is successful in this country, under the GATT ruling, Ontario has to make some changes in its wine pricing and distribution system in this province. Can the Premier tell us what the impact of the GATT ruling will be on the wine industry and what plans his government has in place to assist the grape growers in the Niagara area to adjust to the implications of the GATT ruling?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: As the member knows, the GATT ruling, in a sense, is not finalized. There has not been a specific suggestion made with respect to the grape growers or the wine industry here. After the preliminary ruling, shall we say, by GATT, Canada has to the end of the year to respond. Those discussions are ongoing.

It is our belief that the provisions under the free trade agreement, the seven-year provisions with a 25 per cent knockdown in the markup for the first two years, would effectively take those -- what? -- 900 farmers, 25,000 acres of grapes, out of production, would wipe it out. There have been ongoing discussions between the government and the grape growers with respect to an adjustment plan over a longer period of time. It would phase down the markup and allow them to plant new grapes, new varieties, and to compete. We think our program is sensible and fair and it has been worked out with others.

If the federal government comes in and tries to supersede that with a seven-year program and knocks the industry right over, clearly it is its responsibility to compensate it for all the damage.

Mr. Brandt: As the Premier has stated, the responsibility to negotiate a settlement that is acceptable to GATT lies with the federal government. I fully appreciate that position as being accurate and correct, but I also think the Premier and his Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. Kwinter), along with the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell), perhaps have an obligation to that industry in some way to ease the brunt of the burden it is going to face, irrespective of how that final decision comes down with respect to GATT.

We all know full well that the federal government may not be able to negotiate a fully acceptable arrangement in so far as the Premier’s perspective on the issue may happen to be. Has his government formed a fallback position, a response, if you will, in co-operation with the federal government to assist that industry, which obviously is going to be under a great deal of stress, irrespective of how the GATT ruling goes?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The answer to the question is yes, there have been ongoing discussions in co-operation with both the wineries and the grape growers. We think the program that has been worked out is sensible and fair and is going to preserve a high percentage of the industry, not in the same state as it is now, but it is going to be fair.

I can tell my honourable friend those discussions have been going on for almost a year. If he talks to the grape growers, and I invite him to do so, they would tell him the ministers responsible have been extremely co-operative in working with them during this difficult period. I think they support the kind of approach we have taken.

On the other hand, if the federal free trade agreement comes along and supersedes that, it would virtually, effectively, knock out the industry. It seems to me that if the federal government is going to sign that away, in its wisdom -- and it knew our views when it was negotiating, just as I knew the views of others -- then it has the responsibility to compensate our farmers.

Mr. Brandt: I want the Premier to know I have spoken to representatives of the grape-growing industry and the wine industry in Niagara and they have legitimate concerns. Recognizing that the policies of this province have been unfair as they relate to pricing in the wine industry -- that has been generally accepted -- some changes therefore have to be made in response to the position being taken by GATT.

Irrespective of the free trade agreement, if the GATT ruling comes down, I want to ask the Premier again, is his government prepared to send a clear signal to those grape growers and the wine industry that he is prepared to work co-operatively with the federal government to subsidize that industry, recognizing there may well be some reduction in the size of the industry? To keep it as viable as possible under the circumstances will require the assistance of his government and, I might add, the assistance of the federal government.

I want the Premier to know our party will support that view and that position if he makes that decision. Is he prepared to make the hard decision and put dollars into the Niagara Peninsula?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: My honourable friend seems to be wanting this matter both ways. I understand that in a way, because when we inherited the situation -- and my honourable friend would stand in his place opposite and argue that there are unfair government subsidies being offered to the grape growers and the wineries through a particular system -- he will recall, as a former minister responsible for some part of it at least, that there were certain distinct and discrete promises made by his government that went unhonoured that put the credibility of his government at some issue in these international discussions. I am constantly reminded, as we are discussing these matters -- not just with the United States, but with GATT and other people -- of promises made by his government that were not honoured.

Mr. Brandt: We were protecting the industry as you are trying to protect the industry. There is nothing wrong with that.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: We have a program over a 12-year period. If my honourable friend wants to go into the history of this, how his government developed this industry and the pricing policies of his government, he probably is in the last position of anybody in Ontario to criticize what this government is doing. We are working closely with the industry. We have a 12-year period in order to do so. I think the grape growers feel we have been reasonable and that we are exercising leadership. But I say again, I cannot stand here in my place and see the federal government wipe out any industry --

Mr. Brandt: That’s not their intention and the Premier knows it.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Well, if it is not their intention, then they knoweth not what they do, because that is effectively what they are doing. As with other industries that are going to be wiped out under the trade agreement, it is their responsibility. I remind the House that the western premiers asserted last week that in those industries that are being hit because of free trade it is the federal government’s responsibility to compensate them. That is our view.

RENT REGULATION

Mr. R. F. Johnston: My question is for the Minister of Housing with regard to the pro-landlord bias of the Liberal government’s rent review policies. The minister is probably aware that this legislation allows landlords to pass through imaginary financing costs. Under regulation 29(2)(d), they are allowed to pass through costs that are not based on actual financing costs but on current market rates. Does the minister think it is appropriate that landlords can pass through 11 per cent mortgage financing costs when their actual costs are less than half of that?

Hon. Ms. Hošek: The rent review legislation we have is attempting to strike a balance between the needs of the people who rent in this province and the needs of the people who build and own buildings to make sure their buildings are able to be maintained.

The legislation tries to strike that balance and it has a variety of factors. There is the financing cost issue. There is also the cost of various forms of construction and maintenance. There are other balancing factors as well, including protection for tenants on the issue of maintenance through the Residential Rental Standards Board. That is the way the law works.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Some chicken, some neck, as somebody once said.

I want to bring to the minister’s attention two cases of limited-dividend buildings in my riding. In one case, residents of 25 Parkette Place have just had a 9.6 per cent rent increase retroactive to September 1986, when it was supposed to be capped at four per cent, she may recall. Their building has, at present, a Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. second mortgage at 4.6 per cent. A building at 821 Birchmount has just had an 8.6 per cent increase to the same retroactivity and there is a CMHC first mortgage at 4.25 per cent.

The reason for these increases was the mortgage pass-throughs of 11 per cent that were applied for by the landlord.

How many other instances of this kind of ripoff that her legislation legitimizes are there around the province that are making tenants pay twice as much as they should be?

1420

Hon. Ms. Hošek: As a result of our legislation, four out of five households in Ontario do indeed pay rent increases at or near 4.7 per cent. The ones the honourable member is discussing are dealing with financial costs and other issues as well. I cannot comment on the specific ones the member has given to me until I have looked at those specific ones. The legislation balances the need for maintaining the buildings and the financial costs with the work that the tenants need in order to make sure they have a good place to live.

RIVERSIDE HOSPITAL OF OTTAWA

Mr. Eves: I have a question for the Minister of Health. Riverside Hospital of Ottawa has a number of unfunded programs that are unfunded by the minister’s ministry. Can the minister tell us which of these programs she does not approve?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: We discussed this at some time last week. What I said to the honourable member at that time, as I am prepared to say today, is that Riverside is one of the hospitals under review. There are a number of programs in the Ottawa area which have been ranked by the district health council. One of the things I would advise Riverside is that if it has programs which it wants funded, it should take them to the district health council for prioritizing.

Mr. Eves: Let me read the minister a statement from her Touche Ross review of Riverside Hospital: “The hospital expressed concern with its inability to gain a clear understanding of life-support approval and funding criteria, despite many written requests to the MOH for clarification of their situation.”

Other programs in which they have experienced the same difficulty include chemotherapy and occupational therapy. The minister stands here and continually criticizes hospitals for implementing programs without ministry approval; yet her own approval process is not even at the point of approving last year’s proposal requests.

Will the minister please make it very clear to Riverside Hospital and others out there which program she does not intend to fund so they will know which patients they should turn away?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: We have said it on a number of occasions. I believe this is a very important planning issue for the province and that hospitals should have ministry approval before they begin new programs or expand their existing programs. One of the things we are determined to do is to make sure we have predictability in hospital funding and that hospitals are fairly funded. Where we find there are programs that have not been adequately resourced, we intend to make the appropriate adjustments. Where we find hospitals have not had approval before they begin new programs, we expect them to bring them in line with ministry approval.

We know that the majority of the hospitals in this province play by the rules and come in for approval before they spend money. They are telling me that if we reward those who begin their programs without ministry approval, then there is no incentive for good management in this province.

LANDFILL SITES

Mr. Mahoney: My question is to the Minister of the Environment. In the ongoing saga of hunting for a suitable landfill site in the region of Peel, some concern has been recently expressed by regional council about a staff recommendation from the minister’s ministry dealing with the buffer area around the proposed or existing landfill site.

Ministry policy 707 states that the ministry is concerned with any land use being proposed within 500 metres of the existing site. A new staff policy recommendation suggests changes within regulation 309 of the municipal section, to the effect that land within three kilometres of a proposed site should be specifically considered in the planning of a new facility. This obviously expands policy 707 substantially.

Mr. Speaker: The question?

Mr. Mahoney: Can the minister state whether or not he is requiring municipalities to create a three-kilometre buffer zone or is the ministry talking about studying specific land use concepts within that three-kilometre area?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: The member would know, as a former municipal representative, as I am, that one of the concerns people have when attempting to site a landfill is that if they attempt to site it in an area where there are existing residences there is always natural resistance to that, and if they attempt to site it in an area, a greenfield site so to speak, where there are not other residences or other uses, it is important that the municipality not allow subdivisions immediately adjacent to the dump site

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: Sorry, landfill site. The former Environment ministers know we are supposed to call them landfill sites. Everybody in the world calls them dump sites; so we call them dump sites.

As to what we are attempting to do in our ministry, first of all, to answer specifically the question, the answer is no, we will not be prohibiting any development within three kilometres of a landfill site. However, we do ask that municipalities take into consideration the land uses which are going to take place within three kilometres of the potential site. If the member for Burlington South (Mr. Jackson) would like me to elaborate further, I would be happy, because he is an individual who is --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary.

Mr. Mahoney: The supplementary is, the recent developments of the 500-metre buffer zone and the confusion --

Mr. Jackson: Hey, Steve, where is your ice-cream truck?

Mr. Mahoney: I left it outside. Would you like one scoop or two?

The confusion in some recent written documents that have gone to local municipalities has left a number of municipalities confused. Can the minister explain this to the municipalities, perhaps in writing, to clear up this confusion, so they clearly understand the new guidelines?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: I am always pleased to be able to clarify for municipalities any of the rules and regulations as they relate to the Ministry of the Environment landfill sites because, as the member knows, in many cases the problem that exists is the fact that the people at the local level will not select a site, necessarily, which is environmentally best. On some occasions, one strong municipal politician will say he or she does not want the site in that specific municipality. Another will say, even within a region for instance, “It’s not our municipality’s turn to have it.” It does not matter the environmental criteria, but “it’s not our turn to have it.”

I think what the member is looking for and what we are all looking for is a situation where the rules are clarified. I am happy to do that in a letter, in a situation where we make a decision which is based on the best environmental information available, as opposed to whether somebody on a municipal council wants it in a specific location.

FUNERAL SERVICES

Mr. Swart: I am just sending the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations a sales document that is used by Memory Gardens, a commercial cemetery in the Guelph area. Of course, that is part of the Memorial Gardens Canada Ltd. chain. This document dishonestly distorts comparison prices of so-called leading cemeteries with theirs so that it appears Memory Gardens is cheaper.

We have checked the municipal Woodlawn Cemetery, which is its main competition in this area, and this is what is found on the document which the minister has. Although they say there is a care fund of $490, there is no care fund charge at all. Although they say side-by-side spaces are $1,400, they actually are $780 at Woodlawn; and the average for Ontario, according to the minister’s own study of 4,500 cemetery lots, is $583.30. The real figure of the cost for the cemetery there is $2,260, compared to what they quote --

Mr. Speaker: The question, please.

Mr. Swart: -- of $4,290 for the competition. Yes, Mr. Speaker. I did want to say to the minister that he and the previous ministers --

Mr. Speaker: Your question would be?

Mr. Swart: -- have known about this kind of distortion of certain commercial cemeteries. Does he not think they are unethical, and why has he not stopped them?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I have just had a moment to glance at the number of figures that are scrawled here and I am trying to figure out what these figures mean. As I heard my friend’s question, he is suggesting that this alternative cemetery, Woodlawn, is in actuality charging less than its competitor claims it is and, presumably, he wants us to do something about that. I can take a look at this and see whether, beyond being unethical, any laws are being broken. If there are, we will have this matter investigated.

Mr. Swart: The bottom line, as the minister knows, is that there are special circumstances which do surround the bereavement industry. Frequently, the people approached are elderly citizens or else they are people that have suffered bereavement recently.

By way of supplementary, I want to ask him a simple, two-part question. Given these commercial cemeteries’ track record, is he prepared to give the commercial cemeteries the opportunity to take over the whole bereavement sector, as they want to do? Second, does he not believe, because of the special circumstances, that telephone and house-to-house solicitation should be banned in all sections of the bereavement industry?

1430

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I think I have heard my friend ask this question before and I think my friend will not be surprised that the answer today will be the same as the one I have given him on previous occasions.

I know he is very anxious that we get on with this matter. I would only say to him that this whole matter of cemeteries and the whole bereavement sector is under very active review in the ministry.

He asks a two-part question which really captures two of the fundamental decisions that have to be made; once those decisions are made and once cabinet has made its recommendations and its decision on these matters and we can bring these legislative changes to the House, he will see the options the government has decided to follow.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. Sterling: I have a question of the Solicitor General. Under Bill 113, the Sunday shopping bill, regional or district municipalities and the county of Oxford are given the right to make Sunday opening laws.

Can those regions and districts and the county of Oxford delegate the authority down to the local municipality if they decide to opt out, as she has chosen to opt out?

Hon. Mrs. Smith: The regional government has been given the prime responsibility in these areas and will have the right of final say on these matters. Of course, as they do with regional governments in other areas, they will negotiate and talk to them on these issues. The regional government, however, retains the right to say “no” to changing, to opening.

Mr. Sterling: I can well understand the confusion of the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay (Mr. Black). The Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith) herself does not seem to know the answer as to whether legislation can be delegated down to the local municipality, which is what my question was.

I understand that the whole reason for the change in this particular law was in order to clarify it for the people of Ontario. How does she expect the people of Ontario to understand it when neither the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay nor herself seems to know the answer to this particular question?

Hon. Mrs. Smith: The answer is quite simply that the regional government will maintain that right, as the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay and I have discussed. He is quite clear on the fact that the regional government will have it.

REFUGEE CLAIMANTS

Mr. Faubert: My question is for the Minister of Citizenship. As the minister is aware, the number of persons arriving in Canada claiming refugee status has increased sharply in the last three years, from 7,000 in 1984 to approximately 26,000 last year. As the minister may also be aware, Scarborough is the home of a large and growing multicultural community and, as such, this community is an attractive home for many refugees.

At present, it is estimated that across Canada there is a backlog of over 40,000 cases awaiting determination. Of these persons, 60 per cent reside in Ontario and the majority of these within Metropolitan Toronto. Can the minister advise what his ministry is doing to assist these refugee claimants while they are waiting for their status to be resolved?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: We are very much aware of the plight of the refugees and, while I think all members in the House would appreciate that this is a matter the determination of which is in the federal government’s hands, our ministry is moving to ensure that the necessary community support is there for refugees.

I might add that our Ontario Welcome House program accommodated approximately 8,000 refugee claimants in the last year, which is up about 30 per cent; so the welcome houses provided advice, as I say, for about 8,000 refugee claimants.

The second thing I would point out to the members is that we are fortunate in this province to have some very significant community groups which provide assistance. Our ministry core-funds or provides ongoing funding for about 80 such community groups that are providing support to the refugee claimants.

The second part that we are working with community groups on is English-as-a-second-language training. I think we have provided around 350 different grants to community groups to provide English-as-a-second-language training. About 120 of those grants were linked to preschool children’s training as well. We are, in both those groups, the welcome houses and the community support groups, providing, I hope, some of the necessary community support to a very important area, the refugee claimants.

Mr. Faubert: I have been made aware of a service provider in Scarborough which, as a result of the determination process backlog, has been greatly challenged by the demand for settlement services. Will the minister tell what his ministry can do to help this and like agencies meet the increased challenges to assist refugee claimants?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Again, the whole area of the number of refugee claimants is quite important and became a matter of some considerable interest as we looked at the backlog building. What we did was to survey the community groups to determine if there was a need for some special funding. We did provide that in March and April this year where we found there was a need for some emergency funding; and we funded, I think, about 14 or 15 community groups with incremental funding to help overcome what I hope will be a short-term need.

There were 14 groups, and I believe, if I am not mistaken, that one of those groups was in Scarborough. In addition to that, we provided some incremental funding to our welcome houses to also try to meet what I hope will be this particular short-term need.

ST. CLAIR COLLEGE OF APPLIED ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I have a question to the Minister of Colleges and Universities. The minister will no doubt be totally aware herself now of the impact of her underfunding on St. Clair College in the Windsor-St. Clair area. In view of the guarantee that her government has made in the past that everyone who is qualified to attend post-secondary education will be able to attend, does the minister approve of the likely areas where there will be cutbacks at our college, which will be in areas like English as a second language, remedial English programs, remedial math programs and programs to assist women getting into nontraditional work areas? Those are the likely areas of the cutbacks, because they are in the general education area.

Does she approve of those types of cutbacks? If she does not, is she prepared to come to the aid of this college to prevent these massive layoffs of 88 staff, 60 of which are teachers?

Hon. Mrs. McLeod: We are certainly committed as a government, and I am personally committed as a minister, to ensuring that there is accessibility to post-secondary students in this province to a full range of programs. That does not necessarily imply that all programs will be offered in all colleges or in all universities. However, in relation to the St. Clair situation, we will certainly be reviewing the proposed areas in which the St. Clair College board of governors has indicated that it will be cutting back.

If there is any support that we can provide -- information, suggestions as to alternatives -- we will be working with them in that regard. But, as I have indicated in the House before, we will also be supporting the St. Clair board of governors in its management of this situation.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: If the minister really wanted to support the board of governors at our college, she would support it financially. They do not want these cutbacks. She is imposing these cutbacks with a $3-million deficit and the lack of recognition that the enrolment has gone up 7.6 per cent at that college.

Community colleges are community based. They are not like universities, where students travel across the province to go to the university of their choice where there is specialization. Is the minister now saying that colleges are going to take on a different role in this province and are not going to serve regional students? Is she in fact saying that students have to travel way outside of their community to achieve access to community colleges in this province?

Hon. Mrs. McLeod: I am not making a statement which is directive to the colleges. In fact. I am very strongly supporting the role of each college’s board of governors in managing its particular situation. We do, however, review the situation so that we can ensure that across the province there is access to programs, and in the evolution of the colleges a number of colleges have offered particular areas of specialty.

I also want to indicate that we do believe, once again, that we are providing very substantial financial support to our colleges. This is the first year in which St. Clair College has experienced an increase in its enrolment and, as I have indicated to the House before, that increase will be reflected in its future grants. The college board of governors is well aware of that.

COURT RULINGS

Mr. Jackson: My question is to the Attorney General. The following quotations are taken from the reasons for judgement in three separate cases of sexual assault in Ontario. In 1980 there was forced sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old. The sentence was two years and the judge commented that the victim was “not a virgin.” In 1981 there were four sex offences. including repeated rape of the accused’s foster daughter. The sentence was two years less a day. The judge commented that the man was “a nonviolent and nonaggressive paedophile.” In 1988 there was a sexual assault charge. The sentence was 90 days, to be served on weekends. It was increased on appeal and the judge’s comments are well known. He said the attack was “short in duration” and the accused was “from a good family.”

1440

Does the Attorney General not agree that these comments, all by District Court Judge Vannini of Sault Ste. Marie, demonstrate the need for mandatory training and upgrading for all judges and crown attorneys who deal with victims of sexual assault?

Hon. Mr. Scott: The last example took place during my term in office and, as the honourable member will know, we appealed the decision to the Court of Appeal. The appeal was allowed and the sentence increased. I am very concerned, as I know the government is and other honourable members in the House are, about this kind of offence which is prosecuted in our courts.

There are programs that the judges run, consistent with their independence, which are designed to alert themselves to social problems of this type. It is not within the power of an Attorney General in a democratic society to run a program for judges, for reasons that honourable members will well understand. hut we do lend support to those programs where they exist and we encourage them.

Mr. Jackson: The Attorney General does have provincial court judges who fall clearly under his jurisdiction. I bring to his attention the case of Judge James Greco, also of Sault Ste. Marie. This incident occurred during his term as Attorney General.

On May 8, 1987, he fined Paul Levert $500 on each of two counts involving the planned and premeditated sexual assault of his two step-granddaughters. One of the girls suffered extensive psychological damage. Judge Greco said that “society’s abhorrence and revulsion were adequately expressed by this fine.”

The Attorney General is in charge of disciplining provincial judges like Judge Greco. Does he not think that this tiny fine, which the crown, the Attorney General himself, did not appeal, reflects an appropriate understanding of the seriousness of sexual assault? If not, what is he going to do about it?

Hon. Mr. Scott: When the honourable member speaks of disciplining provincial court judges, he of course entirely overlooks the right of the Attorney General, the right of the government and the important value of the independence of the judiciary.

As he well knows, there are two things that can be done. The first is that in an appropriate case where we think a good result can be achieved, we are entitled to appeal and we do that. In other cases where we believe that the judge has offended standards of propriety, we are entitled to complain to the Judicial Council for Provincial Judges, a council composed of the chief judges of the various courts. We do that as well in appropriate cases. To speak of disciplining the judges in a political forum like this is entirely inconsistent with the independence of our bench.

STEINBERG INC.

Mr. Mackenzie: I have a question for the Minister of Labour. Can the minister tell the House what role, if any, he is playing with respect to the possible dismantling of the Steinberg stores in Ontario and what effect this would have on the many employees who are involved?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I am not aware of the specific issue the member is bringing up. If he wants to provide me with some details in his supplementary, I will be delighted to answer them in the supplementary response or look into the matter and respond more fully later in the House.

Mr. Mackenzie: I am surprised that on an issue of this importance the minister is not better advised. The company is literally blackmailing the workers with demands for a one-hour decrease in the hours worked per week, a $2,000 cut per year in pay and a six-year guaranteed no-strike contract, on which basis they may keep the stores open. Otherwise, they are very likely to dismantle and close the stores.

Does the minister endorse this approach to labour relations and is he prepared to accept a Sunbelt labour movement in Ontario, or what is he prepared to do about this company threat?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: The matter the member for Hamilton East expounds a little bit about, the matters he is concerned about, obviously is a matter that I as well, as Minister of Labour, have to be concerned about. He raised a similar issue a few days ago in this House, referring in general and in specific terms to the nature of bargaining between parties in the collective bargaining process.

My answer at that time and at this time really has to be the same. The suggestion in the question of the member for Hamilton East really raises the issue of whether a corporation is bargaining in bad faith with a trade union, trying to reach a collective agreement. It would be inappropriate for me to comment on that bargaining except to say, to remind the member for Hamilton East and the trade union in the case, that the appropriate forum in which to resolve the issue of whether or not a corporation is bargaining in bad faith is before the Ontario Labour Relations Board.

There are specific concerns, specific issues he brings up that may well be appropriate as we consider amendments to the Ontario Labour Relations Act, because obviously the act creates a context within which the parties bargain. I am familiar with some of the suggestions my friend the member for Hamilton East has as we look at that act. I can tell him quite frankly that I invite his views and I invite evidence that certain sections of the act need to be amended as we go forward, considering a variety of things that need to be changed in that act.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Mr. Cureatz: I have a question for Jimmy “The Jet” Bradley, who is jetting away from dump problems as fast as possible.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: Throw him right out.

Hon. Mr. Kerrio: A one-way ticket.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: We want Dianne.

Hon. Mr. Scott: Let’s have Dianne. Put up Dianne today.

Hon. Mr. Kerrio: You were just grounded, Sam.

Mr. Speaker: Order. All members may place their questions through the chair to a minister.

Mr. Cureatz: Is that under section 24(b), Mr. Speaker? I have a question, then, to the person who is masquerading as the Minister of the Environment.

lnterjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Is there any other member with a question?

Mr. Cureatz: I have a question.

Mr. Speaker: You have a question?

Mr. Cureatz: A question to the Minister of the Environment. You are tough. Mr. Speaker, tough.

I am wondering how the minister can justify the fact of allowing the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Fulton) to give the go-ahead to Metro Toronto to begin soil tests on lots 27 and 28 in Darlington township, in my riding of Durham East, along the road allowance of Highway 401 for the preparation of the Metro dump site, which dump site is going to be bordered on one side by the Darlington generating station and on the other side, I say to the Minister of Natural Resources (Hon. Mr. Kerrio) --

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Cureatz: -- by the Darlington Provincial Park and Oshawa General Motors headquarters, and to the south by Lake Ontario. How can he justify the minister allowing Metro to begin these kinds of soil tests in a place where the dump should not be going?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: The member for Durham East is actually one of my favourite members in the House. How well I remember what an excellent job he did when he could occupy the chair on occasion; and when he occupied the chair just down from you, Mr. Speaker, how refined he was in his approach. It was an excellent job he did in that regard.

It is understandable and it is most appropriate that the member would express concern in the interests of the people of his constituency and I commend him for addressing a question of that nature. As the member would know, Metropolitan Toronto is looking in a number of areas for a potential landfill site to meet its needs, both within the borders of the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto and outside those borders. As part of that, they are doing drilling in various areas to see if the area is suitable environmentally. Obviously, if the area is not suitable environmentally as a result of the tests they take, they would discount that as one of the areas that would be at all appropriate.

I certainly understand the member expressing this point of view. When his party was in power, of course it permitted Metropolitan Toronto to look in various areas. They will still have to be looked at in an environmental light before any decision would he made.

1450

Mr. Cureatz: I am glad the minister has been so appreciative of some of my past experience in these chambers, because I have a small gift for the minister. This is a token gift of garbage. Since he is the Minister of the Environment, why does he not start doing something about garbage in the Golden Horseshoe? I say to the minister --

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary?

Mr. Cureatz: -- since he is the one responsible, why does he not start developing a policy with regard to garbage and landfill sites in the Golden Horseshoe? Is it not true that if Halton, Metro and Durham started building environmentally safe incinerators, the garbage problem would begin to be resolved?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Where is the question?

Mr. Cureatz: When is the minister going to take the approach and the initiative of solving these problems, which are going to be the biggest issue in these chambers in this term?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: During the member’s excellent question, I had a difficult time hearing it all because of the interruptions, but I will make an attempt to answer that which I heard.

Mr. Rae: You’re on the same wave length as Sam Cureatz. Now I’m really worried.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: The member was, as I say, asking a very legitimate question. From what I heard, one of the points he indicated was that there have been proposals put forward from time to time in various jurisdictions for the incineration of garbage. He asked when this is going to happen.

As the member would know, municipalities have a number of options available to them. He would share with me the viewpoint that all municipalities should be advancing as their first case the recycling and reclamation of material within their own borders. I think he and I would be on the same wavelength there.

I want to tell the member that despite the concerns of the leader of the official opposition, there are people who are as adamantly opposed to the construction of incinerators, even going through the environmental assessment process and even putting on the best available technology, as there are those who, going through the environmental process and using the best available technology in a landfill site, select that as a way of disposing of garbage. There are people who oppose both of those particular initiatives and it is never an easy decision for a municipality to decide which route it is going to follow, but it is our responsibility to look at those proposals and --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Another fairly full, complete answer.

DAIRY INDUSTRY

Mr. Wildman: In the absence of the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell), I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. Is the minister responsible for trade aware that because of the inability or unwillingness of the federal customs to enforce the 17.5 per cent duty on retail milk purchased by Canadians on the United States side, there has been a significant decline in milk sales in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, resulting over the last year in the loss of two jobs at a local dairy and a significant loss of local market for Algoma farmers to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan?

If he is aware of that, what initiative is he prepared to take with the federal government to encourage it to charge the duty?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I am not aware of this situation, but I will be happy to look into it for the member and get back to him.

Mr. Wildman: Also, the minister might comment on what he anticipates --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: It says, “Made in the USA.” Nice flowers though, nice bows.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Wildman: The Minister of the Environment would take up the time not only when he is answering questions but also when he is not answering questions.

I wonder if, in considering this problem, the minister will also comment on what he anticipates will be the result of the free trade agreement, if it goes through, for dairies and dairy farmers in Ontario, since this duty will be phased out over 10 years, according to that agreement.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: The member will know that we have expressed our concerns about several sectors in the agricultural field and how they are going to be impacted by the free trade agreement. What he has just brought up is one of the concerns we have.

We have been assured our marketing boards will stay intact. We have been assured we will have an adjustment program that will look after it. This is one of the areas we are watching very carefully. It is an area we are anxious to see when the federal government tables its legislation, to make sure we do what we can to protect Ontario farmers.

TABLING OF INFORMATION

Mr. McLean: I have a question for the Minister of Government Services. Since last December, I have had some questions in Orders and Notices and the minister has not seen fit to answer them. I want to ask the minister if he intends to answer these questions which concern a very important item the people in this province want to know. It has to do with the television sets and the office equipment people around this building have. I would like to know when the two lowest tenders were received and what they were. Is the minister prepared to table that?

Hon. Mr. Patten: It is my information that those questions, which I did see, have already been answered. If they have not, then I will check into it and I will get back to the member.

Mr. McLean: I appreciate that very much. Is the minister prepared to answer the other questions that are on the order paper before this session is done?

Hon. Mr. Patten: Yes. If the questions require us to do the research that would stretch out the time, and of course we have to estimate that. But I will be happy, within a reasonable time frame, to answer the questions the member has asked.

LEGISLATIVE DECORUM

Hon. Mr. Conway: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I am somewhat loath to do this because like all my colleagues in the House, I cherish the attendance and the intervention of the member for Durham East (Mr. Cureatz). But I must say that over the past number of weeks there have been a number of what might be construed as demonstrations in the course of the legislative debate and I think this afternoon --

Mr. Wildman: Stuart Smith used to do that once in a while.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Conway: I just want to say, very briefly and noncontroversially, to my friend the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. B. Rae), I would like the Speaker perhaps to reflect upon and to provide some guidance to the assembly as to standing order 9. I say to the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Pouliot) --

Mr. Mackenzie: It must be getting to you.

Hon. Mr. Conway: No, it is not getting to me at all. I think all honourable members expect there to be a certain decorum in this chamber. There are many, I think, who would view the sending across the aisle of green garbage bags as perhaps not their idea of legislative decorum.

I just thought today the member for Durham East, in his colourful way, provided an opportunity for all of us to reflect upon what appropriate decorum might be. If it is the view of this House that garbage bags of this kind and description are appropriately passed around during this sitting, then that is going to be the way it is, I suppose.

I personally am rather concerned at the trend I see developing. There are placards being waved around and about the place. There are garbage bags being sent from across the way. I just ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. B. S. Cooke: On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker: I think it would be appropriate for the government House leader, the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway), if he has a particular concern about a particular incident in the House, to raise that item.

It has become a tradition in this Legislature -- I remember when I was first elected, Dr. Stuart Smith on many occasions used props in the House. My colleague the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) has done a very good job of using props in the House in demonstrating the unfairness of governments.

I think it is very inappropriate for the government House leader to indicate that he is asking the Speaker to look at a whole bunch of incidents in this place over the last maybe 20 years. If there is one the government House leader thinks is inappropriate, then he should stand up and indicate the standing rule he is referring to and why he thinks it is inappropriate. Other than that, I think his intervention today was totally inappropriate.

1500

Mr. Harris: I too want to comment briefly on the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I want to indicate that the whole of the standing orders, the rules of the House are at this very moment, as we speak, under a major and extensive review. There are many appropriate forums for bringing forth the suggestion the member is bringing.

Specifically, and in general terms, I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that the comments of the government House leader today very properly belong in the sack that was presented to the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) by the member for Durham East.

Mr. Speaker: I have listened very carefully to the three members who have spoken on the point with reference to, I believe, standing order 9, which of course allows the Speaker the right, I suppose the opportunity, to try to maintain order and decorum. I would say that today the members might find it interesting that we were doing well in question period, when many members were able to ask questions, until we came to question 14, which took six and a half minutes for question and --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

I think the point made by the government House leader and the representatives from the other parties certainly should be taken under consideration by the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly at some time in the near future.

Mr. Harris: On your point, Mr. Speaker, I think you have inadvertently -- I applaud your efforts to get a number of questions on and I applaud your efforts to be critical if some members go on at length, but to suggest that the member for Durham East was the cause of prolonged time spent on a question, when you know the question was asked to the Minister of the Environment -- I would suggest six minutes is well under average whenever the Minister of the Environment is asked a question.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Speaker is not here to debate, and I did allow the member to go a little further than he probably should have at the appropriate time. However, I have suggested that the Legislative Assembly committee might look at that in the near future.

PETITIONS

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. Wildman: I have a petition signed by 28 residents of Ontario, to which I will affix my name. It says:

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

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

“We urge the Liberal government not to proceed according to the legislation it has announced, but instead urge it to strengthen existing legislation so as to retain under provincial jurisdiction legislation regulating Sunday work hours and strengthen protection for all workers who do not want to work on Sundays; to not pass the buck to local governments on this issue; and to give effect to a common pause day for working people and working families in Ontario.”

Mr. Smith: I have a petition addressed to the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly:

“We, the undersigned, oppose further expansion of Sunday shopping and ask you, our elected officials, to protect Sunday as the traditional day for rest, worship and family activity.”

There are approximately 98 names on this petition, and I have signed my name to the bottom.

TAX INCREASES

Mr. McCague: I have a petition signed by 1,000 irate taxpayers in Ontario which reads as follows.

Mr. Callahan: It’s upside-down.

Mr. McCague: It may look upside-down to him.

“To the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

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

“The Ontario budget contains excessive tax increases, which are a direct attack on the middle class. I object, and I demand that you repeal them.

“Bob Nixon, you really have gone too far.”

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Miss Martel: I have a petition signed by residents of the town of Spanish in the riding of Algoma-Manitoulin and it reads as follows:

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

“In recognition of the importance of a day of pause in our Canadian society, we ask that the Retail Business Holidays Act be maintained and strengthened; that the act remain under the jurisdiction of the Ontario Legislature rather than be transferred to local municipalities for administration.”

I have affixed my signature to this.

Mr. Miller: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: If a sign being used here in the Legislature has the member’s name on it, should he not be referred to as the member for the riding instead of by the individual name?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I appreciate the member’s comment. It is sometimes difficult for the Speaker to really ascertain whether the member is making a statement himself or herself or whether they are reading from it. If they are reading, I suppose it is very difficult for the --

TAX INCREASES

Mr. McLean: I have a petition here, signed by 1,000 irate taxpayers of Ontario, which reads as follows:

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

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

“Bob Nixon, you’ve gone too far.”

NATUROPATHY

Mr. McClelland: I have a petition addressed to the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, signed by 109 residents of Brampton and the surrounding area. It reads in part:

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

“ ... to introduce legislation that would guarantee naturopaths the right to practise their art and science to the fullest without prejudice or harassment.”

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mrs. Grier: I have a petition addressed to the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It is signed by 40 taxpayers of the town of Woodstock, with respect to Sunday shopping, and it reads in part:

I have affixed my signature to it.

TAX INCREASES

Mr. Pollock: I have a petition signed by 1,.000 irate ratepayers of Ontario, which reads as follows:

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

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

“Bob Nixon, you’ve gone too far.”

Mr. Speaker: Have you signed the petition?

Mr. Pollock: Yes.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. Sterling: “To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament as follows:

“We are opposed to the Ontario government’s plan to give responsibility for Sunday shopping to the municipalities because we feel it will result in wide-open Sundays. We request that the Ontario government pass legislation to ensure the people of Ontario a common pause day.”

This petition is signed by 440 people from the Kitchener area who have signed it through the stores of Kitchener Textiles Ltd. I have signed the petition.

TAX INCREASES

Mr. Cureatz: I say to the House leader, who is so sanctimonious today, that I, too, have a petition signed by 1,000 irate taxpayers of Ontario, which reads as follows:

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

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

“Bob Nixon, you’ve gone too far.”

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I have a petition regarding Sunday shopping. It reads in part:

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

“We urge the Liberal government not to proceed according to its recent statements of intent, but instead urge it to maintain and strengthen the Retail Business Holidays Act; to retain under provincial jurisdiction legislation regulating Sunday work hours; to not pass the buck to municipal governments on this issue; and to give effect to a common pause day for working people and working families in Ontario.”

1510

TAX INCREASES

Mr. J. M. Johnson: I have a petition signed by several hundred irate taxpayers in the province of Ontario which reads as follows:

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

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

“The Ontario budget contains excessive tax increases which are a direct attack on the middle class. We object and demand that you repeal them.”

I have signed the following petitions.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. Mackenzie: I have a petition.

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

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

“We urge the Liberal government not to proceed according to the legislation it has announced, but instead urge it to strengthen existing legislation so as to retain under provincial jurisdiction legislation regulating Sunday work hours and strengthen protection for all workers who do not want to work on Sundays, to not pass the buck to local governments on this issue, and to give effect to a common pause day for working people and working families in Ontario:

“Because, despite the claims of the Premier and other members of the Liberal government, this amounts to creating a local option for municipalities and, therefore, dumps responsibility for regulation of Sunday working in the laps of municipal governments, who have already indicated they don’t want it; and

“Because the government says it has adopted this approach because the current legislation ‘was becoming more and more impossible to enforce, particularly in many large urban centres,’ but plans, none the less, to proceed with legislation that may well result in different rules in different municipalities within a region and different rules in different parts of the same municipality, thus making the law more and not less difficult to enforce; and

“Because the government’s stated intention is a breach of the promise made by the Premier that no retail worker would have to work on Sunday if he or she did not wish to; and

“Because the commitment made by the Minister of Labour in regard to retail workers is a hollow commitment because it provides them only with the right to refuse work they consider unreasonable; and

“Because a substantial majority of workers in the retail sector in Ontario are not represented by trade unions; and

“Because work refusals will be mediated and, if necessary, refereed by officials of the employment standards branch, who will have a number of factors to weigh in deciding whether the refusal was reasonable, and the number and character of these factors weighs heavily against workers refusing Sunday work assignments; and

“Because even in sectors where workers have a long history of strong trade union representation, disputes over whether an individual’s and/or company’s actions are reasonable are notoriously difficult to resolve in favour of workers where it must be shown that the employer has not acted reasonably; and

“Because the time necessary for the investigation, mediation and, if necessary, refereeing of a refusal of a Sunday work assignment will be a considerable deterrent to workers seeking to exercise this so-called right of refusal; and

“Because it is reprehensible that any provincial government would seek to transfer jurisdiction over standards of employment to local municipalities in the face of many decades’ recognition of the need for standards as broad and general in application as possible.”

This is signed by 15 residents of the city of Woodstock. I have affixed my name to it.

Mr. Speaker: This might be the appropriate time to again remind the members that when they are presenting petitions, they might review the standing orders and refer to the material allegations, not necessarily all the “whereases.”

TAX INCREASES

Mr. Villeneuve: I too have a petition signed by 1,000 irate taxpayers in the province of Ontario, and it reads as follows:

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

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

“The Ontario budget contains excessive tax increases, which are a direct attack on the middle class. We object and demand that you repeal them.

“Mr. Treasurer, you have gone too far.”

I have signed the petition.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. Laughren: There seems to be no end to these petitions against Sunday shopping.

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

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

“We urge the Liberal government not to proceed according with the legislation it has announced, but instead urge it to strengthen existing legislation so as to retain under provincial jurisdiction legislation regulating Sunday work hours and strengthen protection for all workers who do not want to work on Sundays, to not pass the buck to local governments on this issue, and to give effect to a common pause day for working people and working families in Ontario:

I have attached my signature to these petitions.

TAX INCREASES

Mr. Cousens: I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of constituents across Ontario.

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

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

“Bob Nixon, you’ve gone too far. I am poor now. Give me a reduction, not an increase.”

This is signed by the member for Markham.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. Reville: I have a petition which reads as follows:

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

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

“We urge the Liberal government not to proceed according to the legislation it has announced, but instead urge it to strengthen existing legislation so as to retain under provincial jurisdiction legislation regulating Sunday work hours and strengthen protection for all workers who do not want to work on Sundays, to not pass the buck to local governments on this issue, and to give effect to a common pause day for working people and working families in Ontario.”

There are nine “becauses.” I will read the last one:

The petition is signed by nine residents of Woodstock, Ontario, and I am signing it as well, as is required by the standing orders. I agree with this petition.

Mr. Mackenzie: I have a petition to the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

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

“We urge the Liberal government not to proceed according to the legislation it has announced, but instead urge it to strengthen existing legislation so as to retain under provincial jurisdiction legislation regulating Sunday work hours and strengthen protection for all workers who do not want to work on Sundays, to not pass the buck to local governments on this issue, and to give effect to a common pause day for working people and working families in Ontario.”

And the last “because” is: “Because it is reprehensible that any provincial government would seek to transfer jurisdiction over standards of employment to local municipalities in the face of many decades’ recognition of the need for standards as broad and general in application as possible.”

It is signed by 10 residents of Woodstock, Beachville and Norwich. I sign it and agree with this petition.

ABORTION

Mr. Villeneuve: I have a petition addressed to the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. I fully agree with the petition, which reads as follows:

“Wherefore the undersigned, your petitioners ever pray and call upon parliament to pass into law legislation that will protect the life of the unborn child from conception and at all stages of development, with the exception of the extremely rare situation in which an abortion is performed in order to save the life of the mother, and as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.”

TAX INCREASES

Mrs. Marland: I have a petition, signed by several irate taxpayers in Ontario, which reads as follows:

“The Ontario budget contains excessive tax increases which are a direct attack on the middle class. I object and I demand you repeal them. Why don’t you give us a tax break for working hard instead of stealing our hard-earned money? You have lost my vote and my respect.”

Those are signed by three people in Mississauga, a Mr. G. Hills at 2235 Hurontario Street --

Mr. Speaker: Order. It is not necessary to read the petitioners.

Mrs. Marland: All right. I am happy to append my signature to this petition because I share the concern of these people.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you very much. I presume you are going to send down the whole petition.

Mrs. Marland: Yes, I am.

Mr. Speaker: Oh, there is another part, is there not?

Mrs. Marland: No, this is mine

1520

MOTION

DISCHARGE OF BILL 125

Hon. Mr. Conway moved that the order for third reading of Bill 125. An Act to amend the Education Act and certain other Acts related to Education, be discharged and that the bill be referred to the committee of the whole House.

Motion agreed to.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

TOWN OF MARKHAM ACT

Mr. Cousens moved first reading of Bill Pr20, An Act respecting the Town of Markham.

Motion agreed to.

BROCKVILLE ROWING CLUB INCORPORATED ACT

Mr. Runciman moved first reading of Bill Pr46, An Act respecting the Brockville Rowing Club Incorporated.

Motion agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Sweeney moved second reading of Bill 107, An Act to amend the Child and Family Services Act, 1984.

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: Some members of the House will recall that in 1984 the then members of this Legislature who formed the standing committee on social development met on numerous occasions, both privately and publicly, to draft and put together the child and family services legislation which was to replace the Child Welfare Act.

I notice that my colleague the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston) just entered the House. He will well remember those days. He and others will also remember that the main thrust of those public hearings and our private discussions was to try to bring into conformity with what was happening in our communities and in our society today the various pieces of child welfare legislation that were on the books at that time.

The general sense seemed to be that the existing legislation, as well as being very fragmented rather than coordinated, was also somewhat more restrictive than the rights-oriented kind of society in which we were living at that time and, I would suggest, still live in.

Therefore, the overall direction of the final legislation which was approved for third reading in the fall of 1984 and was, in fact, proclaimed by this House as legislation in November 1985, the overriding underpinning of that was to give children more rights, or to recognize more rights for children than had previously been the case.

There was relatively little disagreement among the various members of the legislative committee that that, in fact, should take place. I can quite recall, as a member of that committee, agreeing with that move in that direction.

What I want to bring before the members today is an amendment to that legislation that recognizes what in fact has happened over the past roughly two and a half years, and also to point out once again to the public of this province, as we frequently have to do in this Legislature, that our legislation is not carved in stone and that after a time of experience, if we find that things are not working the way we had anticipated they were going to, if we find that there are deficiencies in the legislation, if we find that we did not go far enough or that we went too far, this Legislature has always in the past brought the legislation back and amended it. That is what I am proposing on behalf of the government today with Bill 107.

It is a proposal to recognize that after two and a half years of the Child and Family Services Act actually being implemented in Ontario, we have discovered some aspects of it that are not working in the way in which we had anticipated. I want to underline the word “anticipate” because, as legislators, that literally is all we can do.

We can never know for sure, once we put legislation into effect, exactly what is going to happen. It is one thing for us to debate in this assembly; it is one thing for us to debate in the various committee rooms what we anticipate is going to happen, what we hope is going to happen and what we intend to happen. It is quite another thing to actually have the legislation in effect and then to find out what in fact is happening.

The second point I want to make with respect to that is that, as legislators, we have a certain intention. We put words into legislation and we intend them to mean certain things. We intend them to be interpreted in certain ways. But there are many members of this Legislature who have been around here for a few years who will recall on numerous occasions that despite our intention and despite our hope for interpretation, others outside of this Legislature do not agree with us. We frequently have judges in our courts saying to us indirectly, “That may be what you intended but these are the words that are in black and white and here is how I interpret them.”

We sometimes have our police forces saying, “That may very well have been your intention and your interpretation, but it is not the way that we interpret it.” The difficulty we have in a case like that is to stand firm and simply say to our judges, our police forces, the various providers of services and the parents of children in this province: “Well, that is too bad, isn’t it? We have done our job as legislators. We have drafted the legislation the way we believed we should, the way way we believed we were interpreting the feelings of the people of the province. If you do not like what we have done, too bad.”

We can take that position, but the difficulty I have as the minister responsible for this legislation and for the implementation of this legislation is that there are young people out there, there are children in Ontario, who are being disadvantaged by the way that other people choose to interpret and implement our legislation. We have young people out there whose best interests are not being taken care of.

It is true that their rights are being respected, but one of the things that we here in this Legislature must always be conscious of is our responsibility to tread a careful line, particularly when we are dealing with children -- we are not talking about adults here; we are talking about children’s legislation -- that balance, if you will, between the best interests of our children and the rights of our children. I do not pretend for a moment that is an easy thing to do. I do not pretend for a moment to say that as legislators we are going to, either in the past or today or sometime in the future, be able to draft legislation where we have done that perfectly.

1530

It has not been the history of legislatures and parliaments and I suspect it is not going to be the case today and therefore what I want to say to my colleagues is that we did, under the child and family services legislation, draft that act to the best of our ability at that time. We have found some flaws in it. We are bringing back an amendment to that legislation at this time to try to improve the legislation, to make it truly in the best interests of children where in fact we have found that is not the case.

One of the difficulties we have had was in the choice of the words, “substantial risk.” The existing legislation clearly says that when a child is in substantial or at substantial risk that the authorities, be it a police officer or a child protection worker, would have the right under that legislation to apprehend the child, to take him back to his own home or to take him to a place of safety or take him to a place of treatment, whatever the case may be.

We believed and I certainly believed at the time those words were chosen because we went over a number of words. I can remember the list of options that were available to us. We truly believed that the words “substantial risk” would be taken to mean real risk, risk with substance to it, not something frivolous.

However, it has been judged by our some of our courts and by some of our police forces that the term “substantial risk” is just too vague. It is too broad. It can mean too many things. On the basis of that, children who should have been apprehended for their own best interests and in most cases with the desire of their parents -- I am not talking about abusive parents here; I am talking of good parents -- in fact were not.

I need not remind my colleagues that on any day of the week they can go down the Yonge Street strip in the city of Toronto here -- and in many of our larger urban areas, but Toronto has always been a magnet or a focal point for young children who run away -- and see the number of kids on the street.

Again, I would repeat, we are talking of children. We are not talking of adults.

I suppose in many ways we are in competition with others who would not act in the best interests of our children. It has been pointed out -- for example, with some of the various service providers, by the police themselves -- that we are often in competition with the pimps, those who would exploit, those who would abuse, those who would use our children for their own selfish, personal reasons.

That is not a pleasant battle. We did not draw the lines. We did not make the game plan. That has been done by someone else. That is out of our hands. And despite the fact that through legislation and through the activity of our various police forces an attempt is made to control that activity, in fact it is not an easy task.

These amendments will go some way to making the battlefield a little bit more even, a little bit more level, but I would not pretend to say to any of my colleagues that we are going to solve that problem; we are not. However, in the field of human endeavours, in the field of legislative endeavour, we nibble away and we try to make things better, even though we know we cannot solve them completely. So I do not want to pretend that this is the answer; it is not. It is one of the answers.

We hope it is going to prove more effective than the existing legislation. Nevertheless, we do not fool ourselves into believing it is going to respond to all of them.

I also want to point out that members of my ministry, staff of my ministry in our head office and in our various area offices scattered around the province, genuinely try to work with the police officers who in fact apprehend children. We have genuinely tried to understand their concerns and resolve their differences with us over the last couple of years.

As a matter of fact, some members will be aware of this little booklet that we prepared in our ministry and distributed to all the police officers in Ontario with respect to the apprehension of children. It is of this size so that it would simply slip into their shirt pockets, and if they needed to pull it out and refer to it from time to time, it would be available.

But let me just point out some of the things that we said before we felt it necessary to bring in these amendments. I want to say clearly to my colleagues that we did not bring these amendments in lightly. If we could have resolved them without doing so, we would have. Let me point out to my colleagues some of the things that we have said in here,

“Police officers, in many instances, are given the same powers as a class of persons designated as ‘child protection workers.’” We wanted them to clearly understand their responsibility.

We also pointed out that we want them to use the least restrictive way of dealing with children. We pointed out that children are individuals with the same rights as the rest of us. There is no quarrel about that. We do not disagree on that.

We then went on to say, with respect to substantial risk, “The requirement that the risk must be ‘substantial’ means that it must be a real risk or an actual risk.” We clearly indicated what our intent was.

Then we went on to point out, “It is therefore intended that a broad view be taken of the grounds under which a child may be in need of protection.”

One of the points that we made clearly with respect to the danger that young children are in is this one: “In the absence of any further evidence, there is a presumption that a runaway or a missing child under 16 years of age is at substantial risk.”

Members will recall from previous discussions that we even put into it a proviso that would protect the police from any kind of liability or action. It is pointed out here. “The act gives police officers a new, specific protection from civil liability” to err on the side of intervention when they are in doubt.

I do not think we can be accused of not trying to use other mechanisms. We genuinely tried. All I can say to my colleagues is that after two and a half years, they simply did not work. Right now, in our judgement, there are too many children on our streets, particularly of our larger cities. The best estimate in Toronto today is 10,000 who are at risk and whose best interests are not being served by the existing legislation.

What changes are we proposing, then?

First, that parents and/or guardians may obtain a warrant. That warrant can be issued to a child protection worker or to a police officer to apprehend a runaway.

By the way, with respect to runaways, we are talking of those below the age of 16; in other words, up to the age of 15. We recognize that in Ontario a 16-year-old can legally leave his or her home, a 16-year-old can leave school, a 16-year-old can get married. We recognize that, and we are not in any way trying to interfere with that practice in Ontario. We are talking of those under the age of 16.

It is the normal practice in Ontario that those children under the age of 16 who do not live in homes where they are being abused are under the legitimate and legal protection of their parents. If there is abuse, we have other mechanisms to deal with that, and the members of the Legislature are well aware of those.

First of all, then, we give parents the right to obtain a warrant and to have their child apprehended and returned home if in fact he has run away.

1540

There is a proviso in there that, if the child protection worker or the police officer has reason to believe that the child might be returning to an abusive home, then he would not be taken home but would rather be taken to a place of safety.

Second, we are including an amendment with respect to curfew. Under the existing legislation it clearly says that a child under the age of 16 should not be in a public place between the hours of 12 midnight and six o’clock unless he or she is accompanied by a responsible adult. That seems reasonably straightforward. However, it has been brought to our attention that police forces and courts have had some difficulty in interpreting what we mean by a responsible adult.

We have been given some examples that we thought had stretched the interpretation a bit, but, nevertheless, that is what people are using out there. That is the danger that kids are in. Therefore, we have changed that wording to mean that a responsible adult is one who is approved by the parents.

I want to attempt to clear up one little problem here. A number of people whom we have consulted about this particular section indicated:

“Does that mean you are going to pick up any kid on the street between 12 o’clock midnight and 6 a.m.? For example, are you going to pick up a kid who is on his way home from a movie? Are you going to pick up a paper carrier at 5:30 in the morning who is delivering the Globe and Mail?”

That is not the intent at all. In fact, it is in the existing legislation. If anyone wanted to abuse that privilege, it is in the existing regulation. It is not being abused in that way, and we have consulted widely with the peace officers across the province and with child protection workers. We have been assured that, in fact, no one intends to use it in that way.

The peace officers simply want legislative authority to pick up kids such as a 13-year-old girl in downtown Toronto, Ottawa, London or Kitchener-Waterloo, wherever it happens to be, at two or three o’clock in the morning when she is in the company of someone who does not look to be an appropriate adult.

I want to clear up as much as possible the fact that anything can be abused. We know that, when we draft legislation, we have to make it as general as possible, but, in this particular case, we have been very, very careful to ensure that, in fact, it would not be misused.

The third amendment is with respect to a children’s aid society ward who has run away and who is apprehended and brought back. The new legislation makes it clear there would not need to be a second hearing to find a child in need of protection. That has already been done once. It does not need to be done a second time.

The fourth amendment is with respect to a child who is currently in open detention or open custody as determined by the courts. If a child runs away from one of those situations, with this amendment we are now going to permit the provincial director to move that child from open custody or open detention into secure detention only while he is awaiting a hearing before the courts again. That is quite a practical one, because, if you have a child in open custody or open detention and he insists on running away, you cannot tie him up. We do not have that right. We do not have those kinds of rights of restraint. Therefore, one has to do something while one is awaiting a court hearing. In that case, the provincial director, under this amendment, would have the right to place the child in secure detention.

A fifth amendment has to deal with secure treatment. This is one of the ones that was in the original act but was not proclaimed because there were some difficulties with its implementation. It was clearly brought to our attention by medical authorities like psychiatrists and the providers of secure treatment service such as those at Youthdale here in the city of Toronto that the provisions in the original legislation simply were not workable. The original legislation said you had to get court approval before you could put a child in short-term secure treatment, and I want to underline “short-term.” There is another procedure altogether with respect to long-term. With the backups in the courts, it simply was not in the best interests of children.

I would point out to my colleagues, and we have done a careful survey of this, that the majority of children who would be affected by this would be those who had been placed in a hospital because of a crisis situation, an emergency situation, and would have been there for three or four days while the crisis calmed down. Then the medical authorities would say: “This child must go into treatment immediately. He cannot wait for three, four or five weeks while some court decides it is time for him to go.” In most cases, under those circumstances, the treatment can be completed in two to three weeks. Therefore, the provision in this amendment deals with a maximum of 30 days.

There are safeties built into it right at the beginning. Within 24 hours, the office of the provincial child advocate must be advised and he must either come in person or appoint someone to speak to the child and be sure the child and his parents or guardians are fully apprised of their rights with respect to liberty. Within seven days, the office of the official guardian branch must make legal representation available to this child, if they want to take advantage of it. But this is for short-term, secure treatment; it is not for long-term.

Finally, there is an amendment, once again, that was in the original legislation but was not proclaimed, with respect to medical records. We are dealing here primarily with records with respect to emotional behaviour, psychiatric records, if you will. This amendment allows children to have the same protection as adults under the Mental Health Act, which means a physician would have the right to go before a judge in a private hearing to explain why the child’s records should not be made available in a public court hearing. The judge then has the sole authority to make the decision whether or not they would be used.

Obviously, the physician is only going to do this when he or she has reason to believe that it is not in the best interests of the child for these records to be brought out in a public court hearing or that there might be a danger to someone else, as the case may be.

In closing, I want to point out that we have passed out these amendments far and wide to all the people who we were aware would have an interest in them and who would be impacted by them. We have approached the police, parents, providers, judges and children’s aid societies. By far and away, we have a large degree of support.

We have two kinds of opposition. On the one hand, we have an organization known as Justice for Children that in fact clearly has said that we have gone too far, that we are interfering to too great an extent with the rights of children. On the other hand, we have had a couple of children’s aid societies who clearly have said that we have not gone far enough, that it is not good enough just to pick up these kids and take them home because they are just going to run again, and that we have to put in legislation something that is going to hold them once they are picked up.

Let me go back again. The whole purpose of these amendments is to try to strike a reasonable balance between the best interests of children -- our children, the members’ and mine -- and the rights of children in a society that values the rights of all people.

We believe these amendments are reasonable. We believe they meet the test of time of the past two and a half years that has allowed us to use the existing legislation to give it a chance to work. We believe it responds to other activities in which we have engaged to try to deal with these issues in other ways that just simply did not work.

I ask my colleagues to consider them very carefully, to consider that balance between best interests and rights, and to support this legislation on behalf of the children of Ontario.

1550

Mr. Allen: I rise on behalf of our party to comment upon the bill and to indicate that we are not going to be supporting the minister’s intent in all of these amendments. We do believe, in the words he used, that he has “gone too far.”

We understand that this is a very serious question. We understand the distress of parents which surrounds the absence of children and their disappearance when they run away from home. We understand the concern about curfew. We understand the concern for the apprehension of the children. We understand quite clearly that there are unfortunate things that do happen to children who have run away. Those are serious matters and we take them very seriously.

At the same time, I would want to say that there are many elements that go into addressing that situation, not simply the kinds of provisions and amendments that the minister is laying before us this afternoon.

The minister referred to the early period in which the Child and Family Services Act was in the process of debate and gestation; the committee hearings; the long consideration that was given to the paper that was developed by George Thomson, for example, and the way in which that was developed into legislation; and the contribution that my colleague the member for Scarborough West made to that process. He will be following me in this debate with some extensive comments arising out of his experience and his reflections in that earlier process: what was intended for this legislation, how it worked out and what his reflections are on the present amendments as well.

I would remind the minister of one thing. If one picks up those documents, one notes, for example, very early in one of the summary statements: “It is important to see the legislative proposals as only one part of a much more general approach to improving Ontario’s children’s services system. Thus the law should be seen in the context of the many nonlegislative policy, program and organizational developments within the ministry.” Throughout the consultation paper an attempt is made to put the legislative proposals into this broader context.

What I want to remind the minister and the government of is this. If we go out these days and discuss some of those other nonlegislative, nonlegal devices for responding to this problem, namely, the situation of children’s service workers in organizations such as the children’s aid society or Justice for Children, or if we look at any of the agencies that bear upon this particular problem, we find among other things a very consistent refrain, namely, a refrain of underfunding, inadequate provision for sufficient staff. Workers who are working with these very children, with their parents, with foster homes, with halfway houses and so on, simply find that their resources are so inadequate that they are burning out.

We know, for example, in relation to secure detention, that secure detention can be accomplished, on the one hand, by locking a kid up or, on the other hand, by making certain that the staff-child ratios are such that it is possible to maintain a constant watch on the development of symptoms and on the development of reactive behaviour and to respond to that at early stages, in such a way that it is possible to contain the behaviour and the young person. But we have found that in spite of the insistent demand of those agencies for adequate funding and staff, the response has not been forthcoming.

What we have in fact is a series of amendments that attempt, therefore, to strengthen the hand of the state instrument, of the police, of instruments of aid through professionals such as medical personnel and child care workers, in such a way as to artificially respond to this problem, if you like -- not really to meet it head-on in a fundamentally preventive and therapeutic way.

One notes, for example, in this summary and in the other documents such as the consultation paper on the Children’s Act, that there are a number of elements that went into the reflection around the legislation in the first place. For example, it was emphasized that the present definition of “child in need of protection” should be replaced by grounds that are more precise and objective and focus on the serious harm or risk of such harm to the child, and it goes on to list a whole series of potential elements of risk in the documentation that led up to the act.

While the minister has said that the intent in these amendments is to provide more specific grounds and to be more definite, I would certainly take issue with him that some of them are much broader grounds and much more general grounds than exist in the present legislation, that, therefore, they do in fact limit right in a much more precise and grievous way and that he is not in fact doing what he said he is doing.

I find, for example, that the recent editorial in the Toronto Star agrees with precisely that point: that it has not been a matter of precision, of tightening up definitions, of being more precise but that, in fact, the minister has opened up the act at these points in some unfortunate ways. One notes, for example, with respect to the question of the broadening of grounds -- and I will read a portion from the consultation paper because I think it is important that we go back to the mentality that lay behind the initiation of this legislation. This will be a fairly extensive couple of paragraphs, but I think it is important. It reads:

“The existing grounds for involuntary intervention are contained in the definition of a ‘child in need of protection.’ There are several problems with the definition:

“First, many of the grounds are defined in extremely broad and vague language. For example, the definition permits involuntary intervention if ‘a child is found associating with an unfit or improper person’ or ‘living in an unfit or improper place’ or ‘where the person in whose charge the child is is unable to control the child.’”

I would submit that many of those phrases are the kind of phrases the minister was using in his presentation this afternoon, and yet the commentary goes on:

“Such phrases are obviously open to a wide variety of interpretations. Case law has provided some assistance by establishing that, despite the vague language, a child should not be found to be in need of protection unless the care of the child falls below the minimum standard of care in Canadian society. However, this general rule fails to give parents and children fair warning when intervention may occur and fails to give adequate guidance to agencies and courts in their attempts to protect children. Without clearly defined criteria, agency workers, in particular, are put in the unenviable position of having to make extremely difficult value judgements, based on limited information, in deciding whether or not to intervene. They are often in an almost impossible, no-win situation. If they do intervene, they may be criticized for ‘needlessly disrupting families.’ If they do not intervene, they may be criticized for ‘failing to stop a preventable tragedy from occurring.’ Of course, it is neither possible nor desirable to eliminate all subjectivity from these decisions. They will always necessarily be difficult decisions and the present legislative vagueness can be reduced considerably.

“Second, most of the grounds fail to identify the specific harms from which children are to be protected. The examples given above are subject to this criticism. Another example is the clause that allows intervention if a child’s ‘morals may be endangered by the conduct of the person in whose charge the child is.’ Even if it were possible to reach an agreement on the meaning of these grounds, it must he recognized that they will allow involuntary intervention on the basis of parental behaviour or home conditions without requiring any showing that the child is actually being harmed (or that there is substantial risk that he may be harmed) by the behaviour of the parents or conditions in the home. The assumption seems to be that we can predict harm to the child based on parental behaviour. However, research indicates that it is very difficult or impossible to correlate such factors of parental lifestyle with specific harm to the child, especially if one is trying to predict long-range detriment to the child’s development. Thus, the risk of inappropriate intervention is increased.”

I would suggest, turning to the amendments, that those comments apply very much to the absence of definition of “risk” that the minister is now allowing with respect to where the child may happen to be if he is not in the parents’ home. The parent, having some concern that the child is not at home -- and obviously I, as a parent, sympathize with the kinds of feelings that a person might have and the kind of imagination that one might entertain as to what is going on in regard to that youngster, but that does not mean necessarily that the child is in fact at risk.

1600

With respect to the first proposal the minister has made regarding the apprehension of runaway children, this does move back in another way to the original situation we came from, where there was not sufficient definition of “risk.” For example, in this proposal there is no requirement that the child be in need of protection, that he is at risk and in any way endangered. There is no demonstration of that required for the parent to be allowed the luxury of a warrant for the apprehension of the child. There is no requirement that the child be a runaway as opposed to simply not being at home. There is no requirement that the child be below the age of 16 years. Parents are given an absolute right under this to control the liberty of their children and are invited to use the state to enforce that right. It might be the case that they are at risk, but there is no evidence necessary to be adduced to demonstrate that point.

It really does seem to me that this is an amendment we have to look at very carefully, because it could well be challenged under the Charter of Rights. It might well be an issue that would become the subject of some major litigation, and I think that we do not want that to happen with respect to an amendment that seeks to do some good and ends up doing otherwise.

It really does seem to me, and certainly the Star editorial writers who did some investigating on this subject agree with me and agree with Justice for Children, that the provision is superfluous. The children at whom the amendment appears to be aimed are not necessarily at risk or out past midnight. There is plenty of power in the hands of the police and the children’s aid society at the moment, as I see it, to apprehend any child under the age of 16 years whom they reasonably believe to be at risk. I have not seen any substantial definition or argument that that is not the case. At the present time, certainly in the difficult hours of the day when one would suspect that a child might be more at risk, namely, in the hours from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m., there is the capacity to apprehend children on reasonable grounds if they are not in the company of some responsible party.

When the minister presented this to us critics in his office a few months ago, he used the example that the police really felt they did not have power to intervene if a child seemed to be in the company of somebody in a pink suit alongside a stretch limousine of very fancy proportions. I would submit --

Interjection.

Mr. Allen: Oh, that was the member for -- l had forgotten. Yes, he was in the House earlier. I did not want to refer inadvertently to a member in the Legislature who might be misidentified, so I will take back the colour of the suit. I will not impugn the member for Mississauga West (Mr. Mahoney).

It certainly does appear to me that present legislation does allow that kind of apprehension to take place and that children who might be, for example, out with an older teenager over the age of 16 at 12:30 at night should not be at risk if they are on the streets and simply coming home late. They may be in wilful defiance of parental authority, that may be true, and indeed be out even later than that. But that does not necessarily mean they are at risk, and I am not sure that police should be invited to intervene in those situations.

It is not clear that all experience would indicate that when children run from home they are in a dangerous situation. It can certainly easily be that children may be staying at the home of a friend because they find a conflicted situation in their household, whether or not such severe conditions as sexual abuse or incest are involved. They may, for various reasons, be at an aunt’s home, an uncle’s home or a grandparent’s place.

It does seem to me that, for the parent to be able to secure a warrant, and indeed a warrant that does not necessarily have to indicate the place the child has to be apprehended, allows for too serious an intervention in that child’s life and in the life of a relative who may be performing a very helpful and well-meaning service at that time.

There appears to be some part of this argument which focuses on the consent of a parent in a situation where a child has withdrawn from the care and control of the other parent in separated-parent situations. It is unclear, certainly to me and to some others, why action should be permitted or necessary under this amendment in that case.

Generally, when a child runs from home, there are problems, and often very serious ones. I do not think the section really guarantees sufficient protection to the young person being apprehended and returned to that household situation. The minister has said that the guidelines, the protocols around that kind of circumstance, where a child runs from an abusive situation, will allow the police somehow to ascertain whether the child is being returned to a harmful situation.

That is not immediately apparent to me. It certainly seems to me unlikely that the young person being apprehended and perhaps apprehended in a fairly physical way is likely to communicate to the apprehending officer the nature of the problem he is fleeing. It is not necessarily evident that a police officer who believes in the discipline of a home and so on, in a too-firm kind of way, would necessarily listen if that were communicated to him.

It seems to me that there is, perhaps, in many of these instances the minister referred to of the 12,000 children who are runaways in this city -- I would personally like to know, and I do not think there is really any research that tells me, how much risk what proportion of those children are at and whether the risk they are suffering on the street is greater than the risk they may suffer at home. It is by no means obvious that that is always the case or even usually the case.

I remain quite unconvinced by this section that deals with runaway children and increasing the capacity of parents to secure warrants for their return without having to convince or provide substantial testimony to a justice of the peace or an apprehending officer that the child is at risk.

If the minister were to proceed with this section, and he probably has the numbers in committee and so on to do that if he wishes, it would be useful for him to look to a number of the elements of section 40c that certainly, in some specific form, need some attention.

For example, it would seem to be helpful to have the meaning of “parent” clarified. By subsection 40c(1), “parent” is defined to include “a person, other than an individual, that has custody of the child.” This is presumably not intended to cover wards of the children’s aid society, who are mentioned specifically under section 40a, so the purpose and intent with respect to this subsection are rather unclear.

The section also should specify that it applies to children under the age of 16 years. I have referred already to the fact that it does not do so, and that puts children who are normally not considered to be the subjects of this kind of legislation at risk in terms of their rights.

The legislation should provide also, I think, more amply for young people who are mature and who wish to present a case to a judge for a plan for their own independent existence. They may wish to pursue an independent life and they may, in fact, have the means to do so without being involved in circumstances of risk to themselves, morally, physically or in other respects.

1610

They should have an opportunity to make that case and to put it, because it might well be that they can handle their own lives, in point of fact, better than they are being handled in the home from which they have come.

Furthermore, and finally on this particular section, the section should require that all warrants to apprehend a child be made by a judge and be based on some objective assessment of the risk. I have already said why I think that is necessary. I think the section invites parents to use police intervention in situations where a young person is simply defying his or her parents’ authority or is returning home late and the child is being set upon by the police.

I do not think most responsible homes need to have apprehension of their children by the state in such circumstances and I think irresponsible homes are probably wise not to have that power. I have some serious problems with that section and, therefore, we oppose it.

There has been some reference by the minister and, of course, in this act to concerns that peace officers and child workers do not have sufficient protection against suits taken against them which put them in a liable position.

Again, I would simply have to say to the minister that I have not heard the arguments that really convince me that is the case. Those arguments, taken together with the arguments that he has been presented with by the police for their not acting as vigorously as they might in the apprehension of children really seem to me to beg the question as to whether someone -- the minister, perhaps the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith), perhaps the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) or perhaps all three -- ought not to have some long, heart-to-heart talks with the police commissioners, the chiefs of police and, through them, their police officers in terms of the implementation of the legislation as it exists.

I really do not buy the argument that is cited in the Toronto Star editorial: “The police say this curfew provision does not permit them to apprehend teenagers in the company of pimps. The police are afraid that a court might find the pimp or john to be ‘a responsible person’ as outlined in the law.” One would simply have to agree with the Star, for example, that a court that would actually rule this way really seems highly unlikely.

That would be, I think, to assume or to argue that our judges and our legal representatives involved in such cases really do not have their wits about them either, and I think that raises a lot of questions with regard to the justice system.

Might I then go on to another section of the bill, the detail that deals with the questions of secure detention and grounds for emergency admission? Here again, the legislation does not become more precise. It becomes more general. A young person who simply runs away from a facility, regardless of whether there is any demonstrable substantial risk, can now, under these amendments, be apprehended and put into secure detention simply on the grounds that he or she has made, in the heat of some argument at a halfway house, some threat. They may make a threat which appears to direct bodily harm at some other person or to express some threat to engage in some harm towards themselves.

It would seem to me that a young person in circumstances of normally open custody, open restraint, is often in a situation or could be in situations of altercation with workers in the home in question, in the place of residence, where those kinds of threats might be made, and made quite idly, but might be none the less accompanied by emotional outbursts and a departure from the place of residence.

I do not think that, in itself, should imply that the person is at risk to himself or a risk to others. I would like to hear more evidence that this would in fact be the case. Personally, I certainly would not want young people to be put in secure detention in those circumstances, and as I say, I would like to hear further argument to make it plain to me that would be necessary.

My impression is that with regard to grounds for emergency admission, these grounds could lie at some distant point from the moment at which the charge is made with respect to the risk that the person lays himself under that he might attempt to cause bodily harm. There is no limitation in time that makes the emergency detention closely associated with an event that demonstrates serious risk.

The amendment would seem, for example, to permit the application of emergency detention not just weeks but even months after the event in question. Surely the original legislation, as I remember it without having it all here before me, said that had to take place within a short time after the event in question. That now appears to have been removed. The circumstances have been loosened. In other words, the grounds have become more generalized and therefore the particular rights of young people in those circumstances are, I think, at greater risk.

I would also oppose the amendments to clause I 16(1a)(c) which provide that a physician, with the written consent of the administrator of the facility, could apply for an order extending a person’s commitment to a secure treatment program beyond the person’s 18th birthday without the consent of the person.

I am very, very unhappy, and my colleagues would be very unhappy, with any provision where an 18-year-old adult would be in fact confined in secure custody without his or her own consent. That clearly is contrary to law. If there are grounds for doing it, it can surely be done without the arbitrary extension simply on the written statement of a physician advising an administrator who gives a written consent.

That simply invites challenges in the courts which are unnecessary, and I am sure the minister can find other ways to help those in the field to find other ways to respond to that particular need, if the need in fact exists in a given case for further confinement beyond the 18th birthday. But it is quite illegitimate in law and we certainly do not support that provision as it stands at the moment.

1620

We have some concerns also with the notion that the Child and Family Services Review Board should be vested with the power to review a young person’s committal in a treatment facility. There are points and ways in which the children’s services review board or other agencies which involve social work -- for example, groups of social workers advising in the legal process -- and I think of the minister’s own recent moves in the direction of alternative measures, where certainly it facilitates the legal process and the young person’s best interests to have a process of intervention that does not necessarily go through the legal proceedings and through the whole process of court application and litigation. But where, in fact, one is providing for secure custody for young people and where, in fact, liberty is being deprived in an obvious physical way, regardless of reasons, it does seem to me that the court should be directly involved in that kind of a determination.

Similarly, again with respect to the proposed subsection 118(9), for example, where a child is in such secure custody, any review of that situation would have to be at the request of the young person, that is also, I think, quite inappropriate. There should be provision for automatic review on a short-term, periodic basis so that there is no place for intimidation, so that it does not rest upon the young person to have to initiate that kind of proceeding. There must be, from our point of view, a clear and obvious mechanism for that secure custody to be reviewed, the circumstances and the necessity for it to be determined and the continuance of it to be authorized in clear terms where it is necessary for that young person to remain in custody.

I do not want to say anything at this point about what the minister has proposed with regard to a child’s right to legal representation, but there are some concerns there and I want to hear more about that. It is for all of these reasons that we will want these amendments to go out to committee. But again, there are potential Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenges in the minister’s proposals and we want to be sure that there really are not grounds in fact.

I am not quite as concerned about the matters concerning psychotropic drugs and the question of risk. Some persons have suggested that the language of this amendment should refer to “any risks” rather than “the risks.” That is a fine point that I am not prepared to argue. I do not see that there is a great deal lost or gained one way or the other in that language.

The minister may smile that we are not quite as disturbed about that one as we are about some of the others, and we may let him get by on that one.

Finally, with respect to the disclosure of records, we all know what the records of our individual cases -- medically, legally, personally -- in the school system convey for our futures when they are indiscriminately used. I am sure the minister does not intend that any indiscriminate use be made of the records of the young people in question under this section of the act that he proposes to amend. None the less, it does appear to me that the records that may be transmitted in the cases in question will not be confined to purely professional judgement; the judgement, for example. of a physician with regard to the medical condition of the young person in question.

There is frequently a lot in those records that contains extraneous comment, anecdotal record and what have you. I am not at all convinced that this part of the legislation prevents that part of the record from being transmitted unduly to persons and places where it might he inappropriately used.

We have some very substantial and far-reaching concerns with this legislation. I know the minister has submitted the amendments to us with the best of intentions. I understand that he is trying to respond to difficulties in application and administration out there in the field, but I am not persuaded and my colleagues are not persuaded that this is the best way to respond to those objections in the field.

I will come back to my original point. For us, the first response needs to be making certain that the agencies that are out there engaged in this kind of work, whether it is the police, whether it is children’s aid societies, whether it is legal bodies in defence of children or others, have the personnel, have the resources at their disposal in order to do their job properly, and as a result, many of the problems in some aspects of the amendments that are put forward might well be obviated and the response of the minister and those who wish him to respond in this way not necessary at all.

We look forward to seeing this legislation go to committee. We feel it does need some very careful listening to groups in the community, even to parents who may feel they want to put their own arguments to us as to why they feel this is either the proper or the improper way to go with respect to runaways, curfews, etc. We will want to draw our own conclusions in the course of listening to those presentations as to whether we feel that our objections that we sense at this point to be quite well justified are in fact so justified.

I will conclude my remarks and hope that the minister will take note of the points that we have made and that we shall meet him on another occasion, in committee, listening to those who would wish to make further comment from the community on this very important legislation.

Mrs. Cunningham: I would take this opportunity to speak to the Child and Family Services Amendment Act and to commend the government for taking the time to listen to the concerns of the child protection workers, the departments of police, parents and certainly others who are working with children in our communities.

Although I am speaking in favour of the amendments that are put forth and asking ultimately that the bill be referred to committee so that those persons who have advised us that they have specific concerns will have an opportunity to present them to the committee, I would say that it is not that we are unaware that there are many support services needed in our communities to help these young children we are referring to this afternoon and to their families. On future occasions we will have many opportunities, I am sure, to talk to the Minister of Community and Social Services about concerns that do impact upon this legislation and other ways that we can help children who are at risk in our communities and families who are in need of services that are simply not there.

It is our understanding that the bill does provide for several changes in the Child and Family Services Act which will make it easier for child protection workers to apprehend runaways. It is furthermore our understanding that the ministry has been consulting with police forces and children’s aid societies since the act’s proclamation some four years ago. These amendments are as a result of these consultations.

We too have been in touch with many agencies and different departments of government that are working with families and certainly with children who are considered runaways. In response to their concerns, there are of course some objections that we would like to draw to the attention of the House this afternoon.

The bill does give the police and child protection workers authority to apprehend runaway children on their parents’ request. We think this is an addition to the present act and probably quite a responsible amendment. Provision is made for the issuance of a warrant on the parents’ information.

1630

The bill eliminates the need for a new hearing to determine whether the child is in need of protection if the child is a ward of the children’s aid society. We think this also is a step in the correct direction.

Of concern, of course, are the existing curfew provisions. They are somewhat strengthened by this amendment by clarifying that children under the age of 16 must be accompanied by a parent or by an individual 18 years of age or older who is appointed by the parent. These children are out between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. They are the ones who are of concern.

The amendments that seem to be causing the greatest concern to those people who deal with these young children are the curfew provisions, which have been referred to previously this afternoon. There is concern that they will interfere with employment for these young people, and those of us who are very much aware that young people under the age of 16 have jobs that keep them working in the service industries, on paper routes and other jobs that require them either to walk home or take public transit, hope that children who are acting responsibly and with the approval of their parents will not be apprehended for breaking the curfew provisions.

In accepting this amendment, at least until we hear further or can be persuaded otherwise, hopefully at committee, it is not without some reservations and with some trust, and that is trust in the persons whom we delegate authority to; namely, the police. We hope that they will use their good judgement and that they will respect the rights of children.

The reason the curfew provisions are being tightened is that as the act stands now, if a 12-year-old is accompanied by an adult whom he or she claims is responsible for him or her, the police cannot apprehend that young person and that raises some concern. As the minister introduced this bill this afternoon, he spoke to that concern in the House.

Child protection workers have advised us that they are in favour of the changes, because they will enable them to provide greater protection to child runaways, so we are interested in listening to the presentations by those child protection workers at the committee further down the road.

In talking to Inspector John Robinson of the London Police Force over a period of time as we have watched these amendments proceed, he feels in his work that it is appropriate that between midnight and 6 a.m., children should be under the supervision of someone who has been approved by a parent. He feels this will give him some support, or at least more support, in his work.

As I said before, young people’s rights must be respected and we trust common sense will prevail as professionals out there in the field carry on with their work.

We have also heard from a group called Justice for Children, which we have been in contact with. They are very much concerned about the curfew provisions. We are hoping that in the presentations to the committee this bill can be referred to, I think as quickly as possible, that particular group will raise its concerns so that if we have missed anything, we can support it in those deliberations.

I would just like to close by saying that we think the amendments are reasonable and that the judgement of those whom we trust to implement these amendments will be of the highest professionalism, so that the rights of children will not be taken for granted or challenged by those who do not always show the professionalism we would hope for. We will be watching very carefully during the committee hearings. I just offer those few words in speaking to the amendments that have been presented this afternoon.

Mr. Morin: I rise today to participate in the debate on Bill 107, An Act to amend the Child and Family Services Act.

The proposed amendments effectively address two important subject areas: first, the need for certain statutory changes regarding the apprehension and control of runaway children; and second, the need for a provision relating to the disclosure of records regarding a person with a mental disorder.

The amendments introduced by the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) provide a delicate balance between the rights of children and their need for protection. Bill 107 is the result of consultation with child welfare agencies and it represents an effort by the ministry to fine-tune the Child and Family Services Act after its first two years of operation.

Acknowledging a problem is the first step towards solving it. When our police, educators, probation and social service representatives come together in recognition of a problem such as runaway children, it is incumbent upon us as legislators to develop a reasoned response. This requires an ongoing review of legislation in order to make sure we are meeting our objectives. Experience with the Child and Family Services Act during its first two years of operation, as well as continued consultation with child welfare agencies, has identified the need for certain changes regarding the apprehension, care and protection of runaway children. For all of us, the proposed amendments offer a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel, reminding us that legislation is not carved in stone.

In Metro Toronto last year, police received 5,080 reports of runaway behaviour. Estimates suggest that between 60,000 and 100,000 children between the ages of 10 and 16 run away each year. These statistics are discouraging and frustrating and point most graphically to the need for the amendments the minister has proposed. It is against this onerous background that we have made some changes to the Child and Family Services Act.

We think it is wise, for example. to change the curfew law for youth in Ontario. Right now the law states that a child on the streets between midnight and 6 a.m. must be accompanied by an adult. That is simply not enough to prevent that child from facing a potential threat. Under the present legislation, a 13-year-old girl in the presence of a 35-year-old man at three o’clock in the morning is not against the law. In Toronto on a Friday or Saturday night, we have come to realize that this may not be in the best interests of that child, so amendments to the act will now require that the adult must be someone who is approved of by the child’s parents.

Up until now, police, parents, the crown and children’s aid societies have had an almost impossible task in getting many runaway kids off the streets and back into the safety of their own homes or shelters. Quite honestly, there was no appropriate mechanism to apprehend them. But under the proposed changes in the act, it will now be possible for parents and other responsible parties to have their runaway children apprehended following the issue of a warrant. If the child does not want to go home, because of parental abuse, then he or she would be taken to a place of safety. This is an example of how we have had to wrestle with the right of a young person and weigh that right against the child’s best interests.

1640

We have also made other changes in the act. These include a mechanism through which runaways who are wards of the crown can be picked up by the police or child care workers without first having a new hearing finding them in need of protection. Also, runaways and kids who have escaped from open detention or a custody centre could now be placed in a secure place of detention. Kids who are in need of a place to stay in an emergency will now find that they can be admitted more easily into secure treatment centres. Child care givers will be permitted to hold closed hearings to find whether a child’s psychological records should be brought into court hearings.

Sometimes, the laws specially designed to protect children and youth seem to make the job more difficult. I would like to quote Inspector John Dennis, head of family and youth services for the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force. Inspector Dennis welcomes the proposed amendments and states, “We need the power to act fast to break the runaway cycle.”

We have the opportunity to act positively to break the runaway cycle Inspector Dennis sees every day through his work with street kids. I believe we are fundamentally obliged to seize this opportunity and to take action to protect some of the most vulnerable members of our society. We are not always smarter than our children, but we do have the benefit of experience and hindsight. These amendments have been accurately described as a balance, and more important, a workable balance.

I urge all members to support these important amendments as we continue to seek creative and innovative ways to deal with the complicated problems of troubled youth.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Thank you, Madam Speaker, Madame la Présidente: I love it when they feminize the French terms these days.

I want to say a few words about this amendment which, on the face of it, may not seem to be that significant an amendment in the life of the Legislature. But as somebody who has been involved in the process of the revision of the old Child Welfare Act and the 11 or so other acts that were combined to make the proposed Children’s Act, and then finally the Child and Family Services Act, and was involved in that process in the standing committee on social development for almost three years -- two and a half years -- I want to speak at some length about the proposals and my regrets about the direction in which the government is moving.

Putting it in a bit of a historical context, if I might, as I know the minister himself did a little bit as he made his opening remarks, I just want to remind members about the process that was undertaken.

In the fall of 1982, this document, The Children’s Act, was produced, written by Dick Barnhorst and the work of a great committee of people, with the influence of George Thomson, the assistant deputy minister at that time, being evident in it in terms of its very progressive thrust.

It was an attempt to take this piece of legislation, the old Child Welfare Act and a number of other pieces of legislation, including the new young offenders legislation that was coming federally at the time, and put them together into a new omnibus bill reflecting the rights of children in our society, both in terms of need of protection and their rights within care, their rights within long-term institutions and in terms of their running afoul of the law.

The law we were dealing with at that time was not a very progressive law and only a few changes had been made to it in any substantive way prior to our starting to deal with this in 1982.

There is always a pendulum swing when it comes to this kind of legislation and I would term this to be a fairly right-wing, parental-control, authoritarian-style piece of legislation in terms of its notion of the role of children in our society. It was responded to in a very progressive way in this document and the swing was seen by some people to have gone far too far in terms of the rights of children. What took place in the next two years, from the time this was brought forward in October 1982 until it was finally passed as law late in 1984, was a rationalization, a move back to the centre, if I can put it that way, of the pendulum swing between the rights of children in society versus those of the state and of the various bureaucracies we have, whether it is the children’s aid society, the police or the mental health professionals of Ontario and their rights in terms of treatment and care or protection of those kids.

We spent a lot of time on it. The first thing that happened was that we held hearings in the spring of 1983, long hearings with many, many groups before us. I was just saying to the minister that I unfortunately filed all my documentation of this, presuming I would never have to fight the same battles again before I left politics, but since I am here today and the bill is here, I am forced to do so.

Coming out of that consultation process before the standing committee on social development, and behind the scenes with the Ministry of Community and Social Services, Frank Drea’s ministry, another document was produced about a year later, a draft piece of legislation, the Child and Family Services Act. That act, and I will come to this in a few minutes, made a number of changes from the approach Dick Barnhorst’s paper had taken, took a number of steps backward from the real enfranchisement, as I saw it, of children in our society and some real understanding of the needs of the various professionals involved with the protection of children and the treatment of children. It is my view it made some compromises I wish we had not made.

It was during a period of majority government. It was a tough time for a member of the opposition to try to bring the social development committee to the point of coming through with an entirely progressive piece of legislation, but by the time 1984 came around and we had a second set of hearings on this proposed legislation, we did come up with a good act. I just wish I had been there at the last. It was the time of my heart attack, and unfortunately I was not able to be there for the final debate in the House. I have since had concerns that perhaps if I had been there, some of the things that were not dealt with might have been dealt with. One always has these aggrandized notions of one’s effect on the process.

I want to put this new piece of legislation in this context. We spent a lot of time dealing with this. We heard from the psychiatrists and their views of what was involved with secure treatment, why psychotropic drugs should be used and the kinds of controls their communities should have in that area. We heard from the police and others in terms of what they saw as problems that might develop with the law. We listened a great deal and I thought we came through with a piece of legislation that was pretty good but had some flaws in it.

The minister says, and he is right, that no matter how well you write a piece of legislation, there is always need to reopen it because it is never going to be interpreted exactly as you would think. That is certainly the case in a dangerous situation when it is not interpreted legally by the judges in the way we had wanted it to be written.

But my view of what is taking place here in terms of this amendment is that we are not responding to that kind of legal interpretation of what we wrote, that the problems we are dealing with here are not judges’ problems. They are in fact problems the police have with the enforcement of this legislation and their interpretation of our present legislation, not that of judges; and it is an interpretation of the psychiatric community, which is what this present piece of legislation is trying to deal with and not, again, the real need for protection of rights or the lack of protection of rights that judges may have seen in terms of kids coming before them.

If we then have to deal with this legislation, as the minister has said, to deal with the deficiencies that may be there in the perceptions that are incorrect in terms of what we are after but need to be clarified, then I would just say to the minister that this bill should have been an awful lot bigger than it is today and should not have had the concentration that it has today.

1650

I would just remind members of what this large bill is about and what it talks about. It talks about the whole definition of a child in need of protection. It talks about the need for preventive programs to assist kids. If I look at what has happened to the children’s aid societies in the period of time since we passed this legislation -- or, even farther back, to when we were considering this legislation -- and look at the financial constraints they have been under and the way they have had to cut back on preventive programs, the kind of programs we said were crucial if this kind of legislation was going to work, I would ask the minister why it is that we have not seen major action by this government on funding to the children’s aid societies and on the questions of prevention? Why is there not the concentration, as far as amendments go, around the whole question of mandating treatment, of judges being able to actually order a children’s aid society to provide certain kinds of programs -- the kinds of things that were flaws that many of us saw in the way we developed this legislation? Why is it the minister has chosen the particular things that he has chosen to deal with here?

There is a whole section in here on adoption. Members should know that. This present set of amendments does not deal with the adoption sections at all and I would ask the minister again: if he is going to reopen this bill, rather than responding to what I consider the right-wing reactions of the police force to the legislation and a deliberate misreading of that legislation which we passed, why is it that he did not come in with the new changes to adoption procedures that we should see here?

I will take the members back, to make them understand that, as early as this consultation proposal in 1982, the idea of foster guardianship was raised, an idea which, because of reactions to it, was shelved during our committee hearings, but which is something which I think deserves to be looked at. If we are going to reopen this act, why did we not reopen that section and some of the progressive things that are being suggested?

Why is it we did not reopen the native sections? Why did we not raise again what Dick Barnhorst and his committee talked about? That is the notion of custom adoption, the fact that a band could adopt a child. It would not have to been seen to be just an individual adoption, as we do in white society. Why was that not, that very positive notion, an area of concentration for you when you reopened the bill? Why is it that we have to respond to the cops on this rather than to some of these other constituents who have problems with this legislation?

I will deal at some length with the whole question of substantial risk and just remind the minister -- I know he alluded to it -- that we spent two years debating whether or not we should use the word “substantial,” whether we should even use the concept of being at risk. There were those who did not want us to do that because they thought it would take away too much from the rights of kids. There were some who wanted us to leave it as broad as we could so that interventions can be made more easily. We tried to balance that, the rights of a child to be treated like the rest of us and to demand that the onus be on the state and the minions of the state to prove that there is substantial risk, rather than use a vague word like “risk” which could be interpreted in a really general way.

I worry that we have, in one little amendment here -- and this has been proposed -- now thrown into jeopardy that entire concept. There is a section in here which members should know about, which we did not enact -- a suggestion again from the Barnhorst paper -- around some of the treatments and adverse behaviour techniques that are being used in our children’s mental health centres around the province of Ontario. We did not, I want members to understand, do what they suggested, that is rule o ut certain kinds of treatments as being unacceptable for kids. The minister knows that.

We did not put the kinds of controls on the use of psychotropic drugs, mind-altering drugs, that this group suggested we should use. We pulled back from that, and, if I look at what the minister is suggesting today, he is not suggesting an expansion of the prohibited grounds in this piece of legislation he is proposing. Instead, he is giving extra powers to the psychiatrist, not fewer powers.

There is a major question that this government should be totally embarrassed about, and that is the question of the Young Offenders Act. We still have two ministries dealing with it. We still have two ministries dealing with young people in totally different ways in this province, even though that was not the intent of the federal act.

If we are going to reopen the Child and Family Services Act, why on earth are we not dealing with that? If we really want to look at what is wrong for kids out there in the system in terms of the legal and enforcement areas of our society, I would suggest that the problems lie with the difference of treatment that is provided depending on your age as a young offender, not on whether or not the police can actually intercede with a runaway or not. What we are dealing with, in a sense, is a straw man -- I will come back to that -- and not the meat of what the real problem is.

Do members know how hard we fought to deal with issues of whether or not a child should be put into secure isolation rooms, a practice that is used around this province in terms of fairly young kids? I will tell members, we spent a lot of time debating that and we made some positive changes in it; but there are some of us -- me included -- who would like to see even further restrictions on the use of that kind of punishment in the treatment of young people in this province. Why was that not reconsidered rather than again just a reaction to the lobby group of the police in terms of this act? This is a right-wing reaction that we are getting here. This is the pendulum swinging back, and there is nothing in this act that, for people like me, balances it with some kind of progressive move to greater rights in some of these areas that I am talking about.

The whole question of the right to treatment is not dealt with here and the right of judges to order treatment for kids who need it. It is a very emotional issue, about which members of the Liberal Party spoke as adamantly as I and other people did back a couple of years ago, and I am disappointed to see that it is not raised here.

I guess the government has chosen how it wants to reopen this bill, the limited fashion in which it wants to do it. I will tell members the two things the minister has done: he has decided he will respond to the false interpretation of the present act by the police, he responded to the pressure from the psychiatric community in the children’s mental health centres and he has responded to nothing else. I do not think that is a very positive symbol for a Liberal reform government to be pushing out there to society.

Let me deal with this whole question of responding to these two lobby groups.

The police: it was a couple of years ago, just after this act was completed, that I had discussions with the Deputy Minister of Community and Social Services and other high-ranking officials. They were under enormous pressure from the police in Ontario, especially in Metropolitan Toronto, to come through with the kinds of amendments that we now see before us today. They were worried about that. They did not want to see that happen. There was an awful lot of stuff in the press about it -- cases of young offenders not being identified, not being able to be picked up when they were on the prostitution track down here in Toronto and that kind of thing -- and a lot of pressure to move in this kind of direction in the bill.

I was asked and I volunteered to take on that battle if they wanted me to -- the minister was not involved in this discussion, I want to make clear, it was high-ranking officials in his ministry -- that instead of the minister having to take on the fight with the police, which would be a difficult thing for him to do, I would join in that battle to protect the legislation as it exists and to protect what we knew was the correct interpretation of that legislation, which was not being questioned by anybody else but the police in Ontario.

Well, that call to arms was never asked for, although I did a few interviews on my own during that period. But the government did come through with its own little blue book, and again I thank the minister for allowing me to refer to it, as he did in his statement. This was produced in 1985, partially to counter that first salvo of attacks by the police.

1700

I do not know what could be clearer to the police in terms of an instruction from the ministry about what the existing act said and what powers we were giving them. But I tell members, this little blue book, as far as I am concerned, does it. It explains that children are individuals, with the same rights as the rest of us. It explains that police officers are given the same powers as child protection workers. It explains what substantial risk is and that the requirement that risk must be substantial means that it must be a real risk or an actual risk. That was the definition that we provided for them.

And this is specifically said to them in private and then in this publication: “But when you feel that child is in need of protection, you can interpret those grounds in as broad a way as you need to in order to save that child. You will be considered as a child protection worker when you do that. You will not be liable for any kind of class action against you if you take that strong interpretation and haul that kid off the street because you think she is going to be used by some pimp.” That power is there within the existing act. It is simply necessary that the officer believes on reasonable and probable grounds that the child is in need of protection.

“You can err on the side of intervention when you are in doubt,” is what this says. This is a very specific response to the members of that lobby, the kind of thing that should have been said in this House to them, that should have been said publicly to them and that should have quashed any move towards the kind of legislative change that we have now seen. I really decry the day that in fact we have now given in to that pressure and have brought forward the kind of legislation that is presented today.

I have a more benevolent notion about the lobby of the second group and an understanding for the tense problems that the psychiatric profession feels when it is dealing with young people in terms of assisting them and hoping to keep them from the revolving doors of the psychiatric institutions that we have seen in the past decades.

While we were in our hearings process, they told us time and time again that they needed more control over the children. They needed certain kinds of rights and limitations of the rights of children to be released, etc. Without that, these kids would be in potential danger and not treated as appropriately as they should be.

Again, I believe we listened to all of those things, and I believe the act that we came through with was the best marriage possible of the rights of those children versus the rights of the professional to treat. Now we see that the government has decided to take from the children -- and I will come specifically to those matters that are now reductions of their rights and protections under law -- and to vest those rights in the psychiatric community and to say that in this Liberal government’s view that is where the weight of our legislative action should go, and it is worth while and necessary at this time to withdraw the rights of the children involved.

Without knowing how much time I will actually have, let me start with some of the things that members may not have noticed in this act and ask them to really reconsider these moves before we get on with the business of getting into committee and hearing again from the public.

Under the present act it is necessary, under section 118 -- this is just an example -- that a child would be released within five days after being admitted to secure treatment under subsection 2 unless -- and again the burden of proof is then put back on the institution -- that child should stay there.

Members should know that right has now been withdrawn. That section has been amended to take out any notion that there is an automatic presumption that the child shall be released unless the institution can prove that the child should stay.

Instead, we have replaced it with notice. Now what we have is the fact that under subsection 118(6), “The administrator shall ensure that within 24 hours after a child is admitted to a secure treatment program under subsection 2,” da-da, da-da; and it is notice to the advocate, it is notice to the official guardian, it has no automatic presumption of release within the five-day period, that disappears entirely.

One wonders why we have done that and wonders why, even if they are going to amend the timetable somewhat, that presumption should be taken away and why the onus should be reversed, which is essentially what takes place here.

Under the adult act, and I turn to my critic of the Ministry of Health to confirm this, there is a 72-hour process in which, automatically, the psychiatric professionals have to prove the need to have the person stay there or there is an automatic release. What we have done here is taken away the five-day period -- not a three-day period, but a five-day period -- replaced it with just a 24-hour notice and basically thought that is a progressive move. I would ask the Liberal reformers over there whether or not they like this particular change in terms of the rights to liberty of young people in Ontario.

We spent a lot of time on a previous section to this in our debates, because the old children’s mental health centres act used to have a horrible section in it which said that if a child threatened somebody -- in fact, these are almost the same words that are proposed in the new amendment -- if the child has, a result of a mental disorder caused or attempted to cause -- and this is the important part -- or by words or conduct made a substantial threat to cause serious bodily harm to himself, herself or another person, then you can just automatically keep that person in secure custody after that for an extended period of time.

We debated that and thought, “Well, this is unreasonable, and it could be badly abused.” A young person could be put into the position of a confrontation with a care giver and, in reaction to that confrontation, could explode and therefore this could be used against him. If it was done once, a year ago, six months ago, three weeks ago or four weeks ago in a moment of anger, that could be used as the reason automatically given for keeping that person in secure custody.

We took that out. I would just like to read the section, if I can. It is clause 118(2)(b), and it now reads, “The child has, as a result of the mental disorder, during the seven days immediately preceding the day of application, caused or attempted to cause,” etc. We decided it had to be something that was imminently a problem, that the child, very recently before the application to have that child stay in secure treatment, should have acted out in some way which was seen to be dangerous, but not an open-ended thing.

What this Liberal reform government has decided to do is to go back to the old law, to strike out any reference to time and leave it in the hands of the local professionals to decide whether something that was done 90 days ago or 180 days ago was something that should in fact be used as a reason for keeping this kid in secure custody from that time on.

I do not know what you think. This does not strike me as something that comes from a Liberal reformist, this strikes me as something that comes from a Conservative reactionary, and it is a very interesting change in the balance that has been made here between the rights of the individual to presume not to be put in secure custody and the rights of the professional to automatically put that person in there without any kind of justification. I just suggest that is a change which I regret a great deal and will, as forcefully as I can, speak against on a regular basis until, hopefully, they change their minds.

1710

The other thing we did in that legislation was to put some time limits on secure custody, the understanding being that we felt it was a pretty dangerous thing to have young kids locked up in secure treatment for extended periods of time. I remember bringing forward statistics which indicated that sometimes in Ontario there were young people who were in secure custody for an awfully long time in some of our institutions at that time. So a 180-day limit was put on. After that 180 days, there was an automatic review and that child would be automatically released from secure treatment unless the professionals could prove otherwise.

I suggest that if we read this legislation carefully, what has just taken place is that the 180-day limit has been lifted. There are references to it, but if you are one of those people who have a kid in secure treatment right now and, 150 days into their treatment, he acts out in some way or other, you can use the clause I just referred to, clause 118(2)(b), as a reason to have that child’s period of incarceration in secure treatment added to. At that point, there is no limit to how long it can be.

I may have read that incorrectly, but I would like to see a subsection after that which says specifically where that time limit is. Again, notification is given to authorities, but I do not see anything there which states specifically that there is an automatic time limit. That has been lifted by this progressive, Liberal, reform government -- terms which increasingly seem to have less and less connection with reality.

Can we just deal with the question of the curfew? This was a tough one for us a number of years ago. The old Child Welfare Act had this antiquated notion of curfew placed in it. It read as follows, in those days subsection 54(2): “No person under 16 years of age shall loiter in any place to which the public has access between the hours of ten o’clock in the afternoon and six o’clock in the morning,” except where accompanied by a parent, etc. Ten o’clock is what this thing said until we changed the law.

One of the bizarre things that happened during our consultation process, and I remember being blown away by this when it took place, was that when the draft legislation came down in late November 1983, the government added some things. “No person having charge of a child shall permit the child to (a) be employed in a place to which the public has access, loiter in a public place, be in a place of public entertainment, except as accompanied by the person or by an individual 18 years of age or older who was appointed by the person, between the hours of nine p.m. and six a.m.” They even took it back an hour. I ask members to think about the reality of young people’s lives in Ontario today and that kind of notion of curfew.

There was a lot of pressure from people to say there still is need to have an arbitrary hour put in, in terms of the right of adults to impose an hour, arbitrarily, without reason, for the protection of kids. So in the debate that took place, gradually, even though some of us moved that there was no need for this section, and I will come to that in a minute, there was a consensus on the committee that suggested we should go to midnight and that midnight should now be the witching hour,the magic hour upon which kids were suddenly in danger, automatically, if they are out there; not ten o’clock, not nine o’clock any more, but midnight. So a 15-year-old who is maybe out with her 17-year-old boyfriend is going to have to be in by midnight or be subject to being picked up by the cops automatically and taken to a place of safety, whatever that might be.

I think this is arcane legislation. I do not think it deals with the issue at hand. The minister, I hope, will remember our debate at that time. The debate around the whole piece of legislation came down to when is a child in need of protection. Is it because the clock strikes 10 or because a set of circumstances places that child in jeopardy? Surely it is the latter. There is nothing about the hour of the day which says anything about a child being in jeopardy, but there is a lot that can be said about where a child may be found.

When I drive home, often along Wellesley and before I turn down Parliament on my way out to the east end, of late I have seen at five, six and seven o’clock as I drive home, depending on the day, young teenagers whom I would presume to be between the ages of 12 and 15 -- it gets harder to judge ages the older we get, I find; I would judge that -- young girls who are clearly soliciting as prostitutes. The problem of their being in need of protection has everything to do with the fact that they are on the corner of that street and probably soliciting for some pimp. It has nothing to do with the fact that it is seven o’clock, six o’clock or five o’clock in the afternoon when I go by. They are as much in need of protection then as they are at midnight. For this bill to be rational, surely we have to understand that it is the need of protection that we are talking about and not some old-fashioned notion of magic hours that should be enforced.

There are problems with this that are just begging to be unleashed on our society. I ask the minister to think back just not too long ago about some of the problems we had, for instance, in Regent Park and Alexander Park between young black teenagers and the police: young black teenagers who are out on the streets at night in their communities, sometimes because they did not want to go home, because it was not a nice place to be; sometimes because of the enticements of being on the street; a lot of the time because there was nothing else to do and they were bored kids, becoming angry kids.

I worry. Who is this curfew aimed at? Is it aimed at the middle-class kids? Is it aimed at the kids from Rosedale who are going to drive to and from wherever they are going? Or is it aimed at the working-class kids in the city of Toronto, Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke: those people who are going to be out on the streets, who are still going to need public transit at one o’clock in the morning coming back from a date?

Why are we doing this? Why are we running against the principle of the legislation, which says that it is the question of whether the child is at risk, in need of protection, it is not anything else? I just have to emphasize that we took out all sorts of parts of the old child welfare legislation because they did not meet that standard. Yet we leave in this silly, anachronistic section and now, in fact, even want to tighten up the language somewhat to make it even more precise.

If some 20-year-old happens to be downtown with a 15-year-old and that 20-year-old has long hair and may not be at all friendly to some passing policeman, that kid can be accosted by the police, can be asked to identify himself and prove he has been given authority to have responsibility for that child; and can be harassed, frankly, under this legislation quite easily, when that child could have been his niece, his nephew, have not been in need of protection at all, because she or he was with the person that everybody presumed she or he was with.

The police phone home and the parents are not there. What happens then? Does this young man, who has long hair and an earring in his ear and who is unhappy in his presentation with the police, maybe gets a little obstreperous, get taken in? It seems to me he can be. The child can be taken to a place of safety. Do members know what a place of safety can be? Do members understand that for kids that can be the police station, the cop shop, as well as other places.

1720

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: No, it isn’t.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Yes, it is a part of the definition of a safe haven; the minister knows it is. In places like Metropolitan Toronto, it is unlikely that would be the location they would go to, but in other parts of Ontario that would be exactly where they would be taken because there are no other facilities. The member knows that is the case.

Mr. Pouliot: What about natives?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: The member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Pouliot) reminds me: what about native kids? We know now who is in our jails. We know now what happens to native youth. Why do we put in this kind of archaic, old Tory Ontario clause to deal with some real problems out there in terms of kids being used and abused on our streets? It is the fact that they are being used and abused that means they are in need of protection. It is not because we need curfew laws in Ontario.

To see the minister, whom I consider to be a fairly progressive individual, bringing forward this little collection of amendments with this kind of thrust to it rather than bringing in the kind of progressive amendments that are begging to be brought into this legislation really makes me worry about what has happened to Liberal reformism in Ontario.

Let us go to this question of apprehension of the young runaway. I defy anybody in this House to explain to me why the existing legislation does not allow a policeman to pick up a young runaway whom he considers to be in need of protection, broadly interpreted, as the minister’s own little blue handbook says, when there is no possibility of any civil action being taken against him for doing so. And why do we need to add in the new special phrases we are adding to this legislation, which must make us all worry a little bit?

I do not know of one example that has ever been raised to me by the police that that was not the most strict, narrow interpretation of what we were up to. And this blue book should have dispelled any kind of notion that that was a valid way of approaching it.

I do not think the minister has explained to this House -- and we need and deserve an explanation -- why he believes the existing law does not go far enough. I do not believe he believes it. I think he has just made these changes to get these lobby groups off his back. He thinks he has done them in a way that only the most ardently single-minded civil libertarian could be upset about, and that the rest of us in the realpolitik in the real world out there really could not be that concerned about it.

I do not need to go through all the arguments that have been brought forward by Justice for Children, whose history in terms of the rights of young people, I would suggest, has been exemplary.

There are sections here which really make me worry. I wonder why it is that we need such a blanket notion that a warrant need not identify the actual residence. I can understand that the police may very well want a fairly broad warrant for picking up a runaway on the street. They do not want to be too specific about identifying that location.

But let us understand that we are dealing here with what may be a sworn affidavit by a parent. If we take that at face value, it seems a fairly harmless kind of thing. But what we are not looking at is why do most kids run. Not from our care institutions -- that is whole other matter which I may come to in a minute. But why do they run from home? Why do the majority of them go?

If you then have the warrant issued by the parent and taken at face value, the warrant meaning the possibility that the police could go anywhere, there are a number of scenarios that could take place which I think all members should be concerned about.

It is not unusual for a child from an abusive home to run, and let’s remember that. Where there is no proof, there will be no allegations. The child runs instead of going to the police, whether there is physical violence against the child or whether there is sexual abuse, incest, involving the child. The child runs from home and perhaps -- it could happen in this benign a fashion -- runs to the grandparents’ house or runs to a friend’s house, where he or she knows he or she can at least find refuge. The abusive parent calls the police, signs a warrant for that child’s apprehension as a runaway and, as I read this legislation, could then direct the police to go possibly even to this friend’s house or the grandparents’ home and apprehend the child in that home and take him or her back to an abusive home.

Unless the child, during this apprehension, is willing to identify his or her parents as abusive, he or she could be going back to a very dangerous situation. If the child identifies his or her parents as abusive to the police, then the police, obviously, in terms of needing to protect that child, would take that child to the children’s aid society, one would presume, or to an appropriate agency. But if the child were still unwilling to deal with this publicly, I ask just what role we are now putting the police in. This kind of idea that wide-open warrants are necessary is something I really do have some difficulty with.

I have spoken for a long time and I will get my chance in committee to speak again. I know there are other members who wish to speak. If I were just to sum up, it would be this. There are people in this House, and I include myself among them, who have put far too much energy into bringing us a progressive piece of child protection legislation in this province to sit back quietly at this stage and watch the government bring in only amendments which erode the civil libertarian aspects of that legislation. It is a profound disappointment to me that this minister and this government would take this kind of action as a response to the kind of intense lobbying I know they have been under.

I know our chances of getting this amended are slim at best, that when these particular communities mobilize themselves, when worried parents, overworked children’s aid societies, the police who want more authority, the psychiatric community which wants to maintain control of its treatment programs, band together, it is a very small civil libertarian voice indeed which can rise against them and get the kind of changes we need.

Frankly, if this government and this minister had determined it was worth while to stand up against those kind of pressures in the name of the civil liberties we sought for young people, they would never have introduced this legislation in the first place.

Mrs. Marland: In rising today to speak to the second reading of Bill 107, An Act to amend the Child and Family Services Act, I want to say at the outset that I do support the bill.

I listened very carefully to the immediately previous speaker, the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston), who is someone for whom, in my limited three-year experience in the House, I have developed a great deal of respect in terms of his compassion and caring when it comes to issues of human need.

1730

I suppose I have to admit to being somewhat surprised, if these are not all the improvements he would like to see to the act, that he would not be willing at least to get some of these amendments passed and through the process we have agreed upon, which is that this bill will in fact go to committee.

The most critical thing that happens with Bill 107, in my opinion, is that it goes to committee very quickly and gets in and out of those committee hearings with enough time to give the members of the public who want to express their input to these amendments; that it gets through and proclaimed so that this summer we can possibly protect more children who are on the streets than we can without these amendments.

I do not think it is difficult to understand the concerns of those of us who agree with the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) that there simply are too many children on our streets today. I heard the minister estimate 10,000. That is a horrendous responsibility, I suggest, that falls on each and every shoulder, of all parties, in this Legislature.

If we have 10,000 children on the streets, to use the colloquialism which we all understand, we know very well that there will be a number of those children who can become self-sufficient. They are independent and able to make it -- make it on the terms that street kids make it. I think any one of us who has ever worked with street kids knows that there are some who develop a very strong ability to make it.

But for each one of those who survives and eventually comes around to a normal way of living as he or she gets away from those years and those ages of being street kids, there are many more children who are totally destroyed for the rest of their lives because of the experiences they have had at a time when perhaps just that further reach to bring them back into the fold at up to 15 years of age could have been their salvation.

We are not talking here about young adults, in a lot of cases. We are not talking about children who are old enough to make rational decisions for themselves. We are not talking about children who are old enough to leave school. We are not talking about children who are old enough indeed to decide whether they want to be married or whether they want to live at home. We are not talking even about 16-year-olds who fall into those categories. We are talking about children who are up to and including the age of 15.

There certainly would be some people today who say that 15-year-olds today are much older for their years, much more sophisticated, much more capable of making their own decisions than perhaps we were, because of the kind of education they get through the media, through life experiences, which we did not have. I suggest that those experiences and those forms of learning in fact do not make them any more capable of making the right decisions than the opportunities to make the right decisions that we had at the same age.

When we talk about the thrust behind these amendments, I know that to some people the use of the words “lobby groups” is perhaps questionable and perhaps offensive. I would hate to think that all our legislation, either original legislation or amendments to existing legislation, was just blindly being responsive to lobby groups.

I think the important responsibility we have as legislators is to listen to everyone. The day that we, as responsible, elected representatives of the people of Ontario in this House, in this assembly, stop listening to people who have something to tell us, then as far as I am concerned we forfeit our privilege of serving the public. With our privilege of serving the public goes the responsibility to listen. If we are not going to listen to the child protection workers in the best interest of those children, I would have to ask: to whom do we listen? To whom do we listen for the future of these children, if not those people who are professionals, who are working with them every day, who know every day what the problems are that those street kids face?

I am not denying the fact that common sense tells us a lot of these children, any number of them, are running from very bad situations in their homes. That is not the issue we are dealing with here. Even if it were, the fact is that the alternative to having a bad environment at home -- and I am talking about the very serious and severe environments where those children are abused in one form or another in their own homes -- even if we were dealing solely with that, surely to goodness we have a responsibility even more so to those children to provide some remedy, some refuge, some solution for them. After all is said and done, they are under 15 years of age.

In fact, where we are talking about the curfew aspect we are talking about, yes, the rights of children, but I would respectfully suggest that we are also talking about the rights of parents. I think it is very interesting how quickly we are inclined to dump on parents. We certainly heard that a lot last week with the tragedy that happened in Toronto as a result of a drug involvement of a 14-year-old boy. We heard that parents must be responsible for their children, we heard that parents must not let their children go to rock concerts because of the risk of drugs and alcohol abuse.

We heard it is the parents who must be responsible for these children and keep them safe. In fact, one of these amendments is simply giving the parents the opportunity to take on the responsibility the world is saying they have. With the responsibility of parents go also somewhat our rights as parents. I hope, if children are running for a number of reasons other than a violent, abusive situation in their home, that at least the parents would have the chance to have those children returned to them.

I do not know if any member of this Legislature has had a child run from home. I suppose, being the mother of three children, that I am very fortunate because I have not had that experience. But I have a friend who is currently in that experience, and I want to say that there cannot be anything more frightening for a parent than having a child run from home and the parent not being able to reach him or her. If this bill gives the police and child protection workers authority to apprehend runaway children on their parents’ request, surely to goodness, if we believe in the responsibility for children up to age 15, it is a provision that we want to support.

1740

We are not talking here about minor situations in terms of the gravity of what is involved. In fact, the bill does not even say “where children are at risk.” It says that the act presently does not give child protection workers enough powers to protect children who are at substantial risk. The description of risk is “substantial.” As the minister said earlier this afternoon, the risk is real. I suggest that professional child protection workers and professional police officers know very well what “substantial” and “real” are.

I guess we are very fortunate in the region of Peel because we have a police force that is headed up by one of the best police chiefs in the country, Chief Bill Teggart. I know the level of professionalism that is continually demonstrated by the members of the Peel Regional Police Force. I have confidence in those police officers. Those men and women serve as caring professionals. I do not have a concern that those individuals will pick up children who are out delivering their newspapers between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m.

I do not have a concern for the level of professionalism of the Ministry of Community and Social Services staff at the regional offices in Peel, nor indeed throughout the province, because I have confidence in those staff members. I feel that they are genuinely trying to work with the existing legislation, as the minister has said, but it is not working. Therefore, these amendments will only help them to do their job, which is in the best interest of these children, and that is the protection of the children themselves.

Obviously they are not going to force children back into homes where abuse exists. And obviously the fact that the curfew provisions are being tightened is because the act as it stands now says that if a 12-year old is accompanied by an adult whom she claims is responsible for her, the police cannot apprehend her. Obviously, that is not a satisfactory situation. That individual may be under tremendous fear and pressure from that adult who is accompanying her or him.

It seems to me that although nothing is perfect in legislation -- and the minister himself said that -- in fact I would say, perhaps somewhat humorously, since the member for Scarborough West said that this sounded like an old Tory policy, even old Tory policies which were not perfect withstood amendments as improvements could be made. Certainly this piece of legislation can stand these amendments and maybe more at some other time in the future. Obviously, at this time I feel very strongly that we must get on to it, because we have a responsibility to these children.

While nothing is perfect, and certainly those of us on this side of the Legislature would agree that nothing has been perfect in the last three years in the government of Ontario, I have to say that I think these amendments work towards, not the perfection of this legislation but the improvement of the existing legislation. Therefore, I support the bill in the best interests of these children.

Mr. Runciman: I have just a few brief comments. I noted a reference in the bill which I think gives me some opening to make some comments that perhaps are not directly related to the bill, but the minister is uncertain, so I think that would also provide me with a bit of an opportunity, and that is the fact that admission criteria for secure or locked detention facilities are broadened to include young people, etc.

The point that grabbed my attention was the broadening of the admission criteria for secure detention. I wanted to get on the record again the fact that it seems to be somewhat ironic that we are talking about broadening the admission criteria, and at the same time the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. Ramsay), who is responsible for another category, I guess, of young offenders in terms of provision of secure facilities, has for purely crass, partisan reasons decided not to proceed with a secure young offenders facility in eastern Ontario.

The facility was announced in 1985, and as late as August 1987 the former Solicitor General, the member for Kingston and The Islands (Mr. Keyes), indicated that the facility would proceed, but with a reduced number of beds, from 100 beds to 80 beds. That was in August 1987. Shortly following the removal of the member for Kingston and The Islands from that office and the current minister’s elevation to cabinet, we had a decision made for purely political reasons to cancel that secure facility.

The Acting Speaker (Miss Roberts): Order. I remind all members that if they are having private conversations, would they please do so in the hall or elsewhere in the lobby? I find it very difficult to hear the member for Leeds-Grenville.

I am also finding it difficult to determine whether or not the honourable member is talking about people who are under the age of 16 or persons who are over the age of 16, so he could proceed and try to keep within the principle of the bill itself.

Mr. Runciman: Madam Speaker, if you want to clarify that for me, as I told you, I approached the minister before rising and he was not quite certain himself, so I think you have to allow me some liberty.

I want to point out that we contacted the chiefs of police in Ottawa, Cornwall, Kingston, Brockville, Gananoque -- in that area -- in terms of their degree of satisfaction with what was happening with regard to the availability of secure facilities in eastern Ontario and they were all completely dissatisfied. It is creating innumerable problems for police departments throughout eastern Ontario.

This minister had the audacity to stand up and indicate that he was going to resolve the problem by the conversion of a facility in Cobourg, I believe, which he called part of eastern Ontario. I want to tell him and tell the House that those of us in eastern Ontario who have an understanding of where eastern Ontario begins and ends do not consider Cobourg to be part of eastern Ontario. That is a problem throughout the government, and I do not lay it at the doorstep of the current government, a problem that has been there for some number of years in terms of the definition of eastern Ontario.

Every ministry has a different definition of eastern Ontario, and as a result, eastern Ontarians generally suffer. The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. Kwinter), for example, thinks eastern Ontario begins at the eastern boundaries of Metropolitan Toronto, so it has been and continues to be a major problem and a concern for us in eastern Ontario.

In any event, I wanted to put those concerns on the record. I wish the Minister of Community and Social Services was responsible for this area as well, because I think he is the kind of individual who would put political reasons behind him. He would look out for the concerns of the young offenders and not be subjected to the kind of crass political persuasion or give in to the kind of persuasion that the current Minister of Correctional Services gave in to, obviously.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any comments or questions?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I want to comment on the member’s intervention because I know he had meant to indicate, now that some of the pages have been brought out of their secure areas and allowed into the House, that a survey of the pages was done earlier on and they thought it was preposterous to have this midnight curfew. I thought I would pass that on to the minister.

1750

Mr. Speaker: Are there any other comments or questions? Any further debate? The minister has some final comments.

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: It would appear that all those who wish to participate now have done so. Of course, everyone appreciates that it will go to committee and anyone who wants to make further interventions will have an opportunity to do so there.

There were quite a number of important and valid points made by the various critics. I do not have time to go through them all. I would like to draw a couple of points to my honourable colleagues’ attention for clarification.

The member for Hamilton West (Mr. Allen) referred to the fact that this legislation could affect custody battles between two parents for their own child. That is what I thought he said. I just want to assure him that this legislation does not affect that. The member also indicated that there were a number of things in the child and family services legislation that could have been brought in for amendment at this time, so I draw that to the attention to the member for Hamilton West.

The member for Scarborough West indicated that he had expected other kinds of amendments. I draw to his attention, as I have drawn to the attention of the critics when they were advised of this legislation, that there is another bill which will be introduced, hopefully in the fall, that does include a number of amendments. Some of them are along the lines that the member for Scarborough West indicated, particularly with respect to native people. I hope that at that time we will further respond to some of his concerns for other amendments.

That was not the intent of this legislation. Rather than wait until the fall and do it all at once, we had been asked to try to get this particular small section through as quickly as possible.

I also point out to the member for Scarborough West, and I think he may be aware of this, that there is an ongoing review taking place right now with respect to the whole area of child protection. It is being chaired by Colin Maloney, the executive director of the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Metropolitan Toronto. Once again, many of the very valid issues he raised will be covered by that particular kind of review.

I had indicated to my officials that we needed to take a look at the broader picture of earlier intervention, of prevention, of trying to spot these kids before they got into trouble, that we had to deal with them in that particular way.

I would point out again to the member for Scarborough West that I have a little bit of difficulty with his reference to lobby groups. I can assure him that I get lobbied by many, many groups and that I always listen to what they have to say. I do not always accept their advice. I do not think that would surprise him, but I do believe it is important that we be open to listening to them.

I was a little bit surprised at that comment from the member for Scarborough West, because he is perhaps one of the most skilful members in this House at using lobby groups to make his own points. That is valid.

I compliment him on that ability, but I would also draw to his attention that we cannot be seen to be selective as to whom we are going to listen to and whom we are not.

I want an opportunity, when we get at this again in committee, to refer to a number, as I say, of the other valid points the member has raised. but time is passing right now and I will use that opportunity.

1757

The House divided on Hon. Mr. Sweeney’s motion for second reading of Bill 107, which was agreed to on the following vote.

Ayes

Adams, Ballinger, Beer, Black, Bradley, Brown, Callahan, Campbell, Caplan, Carrothers, Chiarelli, Collins, Conway, Cooke, D. R., Cordiano, Daigeler, Dietsch, Elliot, Elston, Epp, Eves, Faubert, Fawcett, Ferraro, Fleet, Furlong, Grandmaître, Haggerty, Harris, Hart, Jackson, Johnson, J. M., Kanter, Kerrio, Kwinter;

LeBourdais, Lipsett, Lupusella, Mahoney, Marland, McClelland, McLean, McLeod, Miclash, Miller, Morin, Neumann, Nicholas, Nixon, J. B., Nixon, R. F., Oddie Munro, Offer, O’Neil, O’Neill, Owen, Patten, Pelissero, Phillips, Pollock, Polsinelli, Poole, Ramsay, Reycraft, Riddell, Roberts, Runciman, Ruprecht, Scott, Smith, D. W., Smith, E. J., Sola, Sorbara, South, Stoner, Sullivan, Sweeney, Tatham, Velshi, Wong, Wrye.

Nays

Allen, Bryden, Charlton, Cooke, D. S., Grier, Hampton, Johnston, R. F., Laughren, Mackenzie, Martel, Philip, Pouliot, Reville, Swart, Wildman.

Ayes 80; nays 15.

Bill ordered for standing committee on social development.

Hon. Mr. Conway: The Lieutenant Governor awaits to give royal assent to certain bills.

His Honour the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario entered the chamber of the Legislative Assembly and took his seat upon the throne.

ROYAL ASSENT

Hon. Mr. Alexander: Pray be seated.

Mr. Speaker: May it please Your Honour, the Legislative Assembly of the province has, at its present sittings thereof, passed certain bills to which, in the name of and on behalf of the said Legislative Assembly, I respectfully request Your Honour’s assent.

Clerk Assistant: The following are the titles of the bills to which Your Honour’s assent is prayed:

Bill 108, An Act to amend the Rental Housing Protection Act, 1986;

Bill 130, An Act to amend the Regional Municipality of Waterloo Act and the Education Act;

Bill Pr2, An Act to revive Big Cedar Association;

Bill Pr5, An Act respecting The Chartered Institute of Marketing Management of Ontario;

Bill Pr10, An Act respecting the Oshawa Public Utilities Commission;

Bill Pr11, An Act to revive L F P Management Limited;

Bill Pr19, An Act respecting the City of Sudbury;

Bill Pr22, An Act respecting the City of Mississauga;

Bill Pr24, An Act respecting the Hamilton Civic Hospitals;

Bill Pr25, An Act respecting Kingsway General Insurance Company;

Bill Pr27, An Act respecting the Ontario Municipal Management Institute;

Bill Pr28, An Act to revive Mid-Continent Bond Corporation, Limited;

Bill Pr29, An Act respecting The United Church of Canada and The Canada Conference The Evangelical United Brethren Church;

Bill Pr30, An Act respecting The General Hospital of Port Arthur;

Bill Pr31, An Act respecting the City of North York;

Bill Pr34, An Act to revive Machin Mines Limited;

Bill Pr37, An Act respecting the University of Western Ontario;

Bill Pr38, An Act to revive Prow Yellowknife Gold Mines Ltd.;

Bill Pr48, An Act respecting the Town of Oakville;

Bill Pr56, An Act respecting the City of Toronto;

Bill Pr62, An Act respecting The Windsor Utilities Commission;

Bill Pr67, An Act respecting the City of Hamilton.

Clerk of the House: In Her Majesty’s name, His Honour the Lieutenant Governor doth assent to these bills.

His Honour the Lieutenant Governor was pleased to retire from the chamber.

The House adjourned at 6:08 p.m.