L074 - Mon 6 Jun 1988 / Lun 6 jun 1988
NIAGARA COLLEGE OF APPLIED ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY
MARKHAM LIBERAL ASSOCIATION MEETING
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT
RETAIL BUSINESS HOLIDAYS AMENDMENT ACT
The House met at 1:30 p.m.
Prayers.
LEGISLATIVE PAGES
Mr. Speaker: I would like to introduce to all members the next group of legislative pages to serve in the spring session of the 34th Parliament. They are:
Allyson Campbell, Frontenac-Addington; Attilio Commisso, Oakwood; Lanna Crucefix, Halton North; Keith Davison, Niagara South; Heather Evans, Simcoe Centre; Hope Evans, Leeds-Grenville; Amy Halpenny, Ottawa West; Neil Hennessy, Brampton North; Bradley Hopper, Scarborough Centre; Brett Kilian, Norfolk; Sandra Kroeker, St. Catharines-Brock; Amédé Lamarche, Welland-Thorold; Louise Lannan, Cochrane North; Carl Lem, Eglinton; Som Mukherjee, Brampton South; Darren Nelson, Lake Nipigon; Joan Post, Port Arthur; Paul Pusey, Scarborough-Agincourt; Robin Spano, Riverdale; Rami Tabello, Etobicoke-Rexdale; Charles Tepperman, Middlesex; Michelle Thorne, Prince Edward-Lennox; Steven Volpini, Sudbury East; Rachel Walters, Kitchener; Jennifer Washburn, Essex South, and Vanessa Wilson, Dufferin-Peel.
Please join me in welcoming the pages.
MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS
NIAGARA COLLEGE OF APPLIED ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY
Mr. Swart: The government of this province would like the public to believe that community colleges are independent bodies, that they make their own decisions and that if they have problems, it is their own fault. In general, of course, that image which the government portrays is false.
Take Niagara College, for example. The present executive council of that college proposed three options to a high-level group within the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. The ministry ruled out option 1 in total. They said they could not accept option 2 in its entirety. On option 3, they made very specific statements about which program cuts were acceptable and which were not.
The ministry has now sent out a memorandum dated May 18 to the presidents of all colleges and universities stating it is inappropriate to use the revenue and expenditure -- that is, of course, the cost-effectiveness of any particular program -- to determine whether it should be cut. The ministry says that approach could eliminate programs with high student demand and good employment opportunities for graduates.
That is pretty obvious. Yet this is exactly what Niagara College has done and it has done it in consultation with and approval by the ministry. The theatre arts, dental hygiene and library technician programs all fit into this category. Surely the ministry is talking out of both sides of its mouth at the same time. The bottom line is that it is responsible for everything that is happening at the colleges with regard to cutbacks and other problems.
Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has now expired.
Mr. Swart: This minister ought to deal with and resolve those problems and quit the game --
Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for Nipissing.
Mr. Swart: -- she is playing.
BUDGET
Mr. Harris: Canadians are realizing what Ontarians discovered some weeks ago, that the fiscal policies of this government are a millstone around their necks. Like that other millstone the Premier (Mr. Peterson) liked to talk about, this government, through its trade and tax policies, has given the finger to the economic aspirations of every province, to every consumer, exporter and home buyer.
Most recently, the chairman of the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association and the Premier of Quebec have joined with over 120,000 Ontarians in protesting the Liberal budget. They have noted the inflationary impact of the Ontario budget and the upward pressure it puts on interest rates. For some reason, the rest of the country does not understand that this government in Ontario intends to try to wrestle inflation to the ground by putting taxes and spending through the roof.
For some reason, Canadians find it objectionable that it will cost more to finance a home in Halifax because the government in Toronto cannot give up its tax-and-fiddle approach to economic policy. The Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) of this champagne government defends his policies by pointing out that the province has cheap beer. Thus, all Canadians, who will pay through, higher interest rates for this government’s lack of discipline, will come to know Ontario as the province of cheap brew and cheap shots.
CANADA FLAG DAY
Ms. Collins: I wish to inform the House that this coming Saturday, June 11, the city of Stoney Creek will celebrate the 20th anniversary of Canada Flag Day.
Twenty years ago, the Kinsmen Club of Stoney Creek organized a parade to honour the adoption of the new Canadian flag. These festivities were attended by a number of prominent figures, including the Honourable George F. G. Stanley, the creator and designer of the flag, a distinguished historian and writer, an honorary colonel in the Royal New Brunswick Regiment and, since 1982, the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick.
The Canada Flag Day parade is now an annual event in Stoney Creek, capping a week of activities, including the Fifth Lincoln Militia’s re-enactment of the battle of Stoney Creek from the War of 1812.
To commemorate the 20th anniversary of this uniquely Canadian event, the organizers have invited Colonel Stanley back to participate in this Saturday’s parade. In so doing, they have drawn attention to a truly outstanding Canadian, whose flag design is now an instantly recognizable symbol of our country throughout the world and a priceless addition to our national heritage.
I congratulate the people of Stoney Creek for organizing this important event and for reminding us of our national debt to Colonel Stanley, the man behind the flag.
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UNIVERSITY FUNDING
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Today the Ontario Federation of Students brought out the latest indictment of this government’s policies on post-secondary education in a paper called Cut to the Bone, which I would recommend as reading to all members of the Legislature.
We now have the situation where accessibility is an academic question for kids, not a question of their academics. Many of them will not be able to go to university this year even though they are qualified to do so. It is no longer a question of quality on the one hand or quantity on the other. While we are reducing those numbers of students who are going to be able to go, we are also in the position of watching the quality of our universities diminish.
We are in need of replenishment of faculty. We need thousands of faculty to get back to the kinds of ratios of students to teachers we had in the past. We have a situation which will be an enormous difficulty by the 1990s.
As I have shown in this House before, we have a problem with our library system deteriorating and crumbling before us without a reinvestment, even though that is the core of university learning. Many professors are actually turning to textbook learning instead of giving reading lists, which are more of anthropological interest these days.
It is ironic that the richest province has bake sales by students, leaseback proposals for libraries, and condos and luxury apartments being built by universities in order to provide the kinds of programs and buildings they need. It is a crying shame.
MARKHAM LIBERAL ASSOCIATION MEETING
Mr. Cousens: The member for Durham-York (Mr. Ballinger) received front-page coverage in the Markham Economist and Sun this last weekend when he backed out of the Markham provincial Liberal meeting last Thursday, after he, the member for York Centre and Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) and the member for York North (Mr. Beer) had accepted invitations to attend the Markham Liberal meeting.
This was the Markham Liberal association’s opportunity to meet three MPPs from the region. The Minister of Labour, unfortunately, had to cancel. As the paper says, he had to work out some major changes to the Workers’ Compensation Act. Anyone who monitors his schedule knows this can easily happen.
I was then invited by the president to attend the Markham provincial Liberal association meeting in place of the Minister of Labour. This was a first for me and I was pleased to accept. I even had my red tie ready to wear.
Then the member for Durham-York heard that I would be attending and he, who had previously agreed to attend, backed out of the meeting and the meeting had to be cancelled. The paper goes on to explain in greater detail.
Where last week the member for Durham-York made accusations of me, the one thing I can say of myself is that I am not a coward.
MORQUIO SYNDROME
Mr. D. R. Cooke: Tomorrow, nine-year-old Brent MacKay of Kitchener will undergo delicate and dangerous spinal surgery of about eight hours’ duration in Towson, Maryland, near Baltimore, to prolong and enhance the quality of his life in an operation that has never been performed in Canada.
Brent suffers from a rare genetic disease called Morquio syndrome, a type of mucopolysaccharide disease, also known as MPS. MPS is a life-threatening disease that attacks children and causes severe, progressive, physical and mental handicaps. Children born with these diseases cannot produce certain enzymes which are necessary for the correct chemical changes to take place in their bodies. Therefore, complex sugars are stored in all types of tissues and cause progressive damage.
This disease is particularly tragic because few of its victims ever reach adulthood. It has left Brent stunted in body but indomitable in spirit. I have had the pleasure of meeting Brent at A. R. Kaufman school and found him to be a delightful and outgoing young man.
This operation is both pressing and urgent in order to save his life. I strongly encourage more medical research to be done to help Brent and other young people in this province who suffer from this disease. I want to send our prayers to this plucky young lad and his family for the difficult and uncertain days ahead and for Brent’s speedy recovery, and to wish him a happy 10th birthday, which he will be celebrating in the hospital next week.
VISITOR
Mr. Speaker: Just before I call for ministerial statements, I would ask all members of the assembly to recognize in the Speaker’s gallery, from South Australia, the Minister of Housing and Construction, the Honourable Terry Hemmings. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Hemmings.
ACCESS TO INFORMATION
Mr. Sterling: On a point of personal privilege, Mr. Speaker: Last week I referred to the fact that the Minister of Education (Mr. Ward) was delinquent under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. I have now received a response from the Minister of Education wherein he or his staff are now calculating what it is going to cost me in order to receive information from his ministry.
I think the privileges of every member of this House are impugned by this move. A point of privilege, and a valid point of privilege, is bringing to your attention a matter which keeps me from doing my tasks as a member of this Legislative Assembly. Surely if the Minister of Education is asking me now for money for public documents to be produced for me, that is a valid point of privilege.
I would ask you to refer this to the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly so that it can be clearly put forward as to whether an MPP has to pay for information under the freedom-of-information act, because that is what the Minister of Education wants to do to me.
Mr. Speaker: I listened carefully to the member for Carleton (Mr. Sterling). The request was for me to place it before the committee. I am quite sure the member is aware it is not a privilege of the Speaker to place it before a committee. I will, however, review his comments because in my experience here I have not come across a similar case and I would like to review the comments made by the member and report back to him.
TABLING OF INFORMATION
Mr. Harris: On a different but very similar point, Mr. Speaker, once again on standing order 88(d): The problems my colleague is having in getting information, highlighted by the fact that he even has to go the freedom-of-information route and then has to pay, are problems we are having under standing order 88(d). You will recall that it is the same standing order I brought to your attention last Wednesday.
Standing order 88(d) states: “The minister shall answer such written questions within 14 days unless he indicates that he requires more time because the answer will be costly or time-consuming or that he declines to answer, in which case a notation shall be made on the Orders and Notices paper following the question indicating that...an interim answer” has been given, “the approximate date that the information will be available, or that he has declined to answer, as the case may be.”
Last Wednesday, I brought to your attention a dozen questions which were in violation of the standing order. At that time, I questioned whether the proceedings of this House could proceed while such a gross violation of the standing orders existed. As of six o’clock last Wednesday night, this government has failed to meet the deadline for responses under standing order 88(d) of a further 124 order paper questions. These questions deal specifically with the financial administration of this government. They deal with the ministry budgets of this government for the past two years. I do not want to read into the record all 124 questions at this time, although I think I would be within my rights to do so. Nevertheless, my concern still remains.
This government has failed to provide adequate opportunity for the opposition parties to scrutinize ministry budgets under the estimates process for the past two years. Now it has failed to respond to what I believe are very responsible and legitimate questions about this government’s financial administration.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, one of the historic rights and responsibilities of parliament is to scrutinize the expenditures of the crown. This government’s disregard for the importance of the estimates process and now its blatant disregard of our legitimate requests under standing order 88 indicate to me that this government is either not interested in being accountable for its expenditures or is deliberately avoiding that accountability.
I ask you again, Mr. Speaker, can this House continue to sit while such a gross violation of the standing orders, under which we presumably are operating in our sitting, continues to exist?
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Hon. Mr. Conway: If I may just very briefly speak to the point of the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris), because I had some inclination that he might be raising this question again today, as a result of the discussions here last week -- I think it was last Wednesday -- I have looked at the order paper questions myself.
As of June 1, 1988, there were some 316 order paper questions before us. On that date, some 107 of those had been responded to with final answers; some 16 interim answers were tabled; 45 answers were still being prepared within the 14-day rule provided by standing order 88(d); 10 were scheduled for a response on that day, June 1; 14 were outstanding.
When one sets aside the 124 questions that are on the order paper, to which the honourable member has made specific reference, I ask any member -- and you included, Mr. Speaker -- to look at Orders and Notices. Some 124 questions are very detailed. They are certainly going to be responded to as quickly as we can. I must say that it seems to me those questions are the kinds of questions that we would ordinarily want to take up in estimates, though I certainly realize the desire of honourable members to have responses.
It is the intention of the government to answer those 124 questions with a response as quickly as it can, though I would ask every honourable member to look at the pattern of those 124 questions and wonder whether or not a more appropriate place for that discussion, once those answers are provided, is in the estimates debate.
Mr. Harris: If I might speak on the same point, I think it is particularly relevant. The government House leader has said the appropriate vehicle is estimates. These questions deal with the last two years. The estimates are gone. He refused to give us the time in the committees for estimates, so that is now past.
The questions are four very simple, direct questions to each ministry. They are all the same. We are asking each ministry, if it is half serious about the estimates process, to give us the information that it would surely have ready and was prepared to go with on the estimates anyway. There should not be any time involved in finding these answers, if in fact the government ever intended to do the estimates in either of the last two years.
Mr. Speaker: I think we are really debating the point of order now. I listened very carefully. The member for Nipissing, I believe, made two points in his opening comments. The one point was, of course, the number of questions that have been unanswered, and the government House leader has responded. I am certain the government House leader has again been served notice and will do his best to make sure those are responded to.
As far as the other point made in the member’s opening point of order is concerned, he asked the Speaker whether the House can sit under such conditions. I see no way that the Speaker would have any authority under any of the standing orders to adjourn the House for such conditions.
STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY
1989 ONTARIO WINTER GAMES
Hon. Mr. O’Neil: I am pleased today to announce that the city of North Bay has been selected to host the 1989 Ontario Winter Games. I congratulate his worship, Mayor Stan Lawlor, and the games organizing committee on the excellence of their bid.
Thousands of Ontario athletes have benefited from my ministry’s summer and winter games program. Over the years, these championships have attracted more young people to amateur sport, and some of them have gone on to make their mark in national and international competition.
Hosting the games is indeed an honour and also brings substantial economic benefit to a community. At the 1989 Ontario Winter Games, North Bay will welcome 3,000 competitors, coaches, trainers and officials, as well as thousands of visitors who will come to cheer on the athletes.
These athletes, aged 14 to 20, will compete in over 20 events and each event will be the Ontario championship for that sport. Hosting provincial competitions on this scale demands a high level of civic spirit and the hard work of hundreds of volunteers. I have full confidence in the spirit and energy of the people of North Bay, and I am sure they will make the 1989 Ontario Winter Games a tremendous success.
RESPONSES
1989 ONTARIO WINTER GAMES
Mr. Breaugh: We are pleased to welcome the announcement by the minister this afternoon. I must say that one of the things Ontario does well is quite an outstanding effort at putting together showpieces for athletic competitions such as this one, and they are worth while.
They are opportunities for our young athletes to compete in a setting that is sometimes unfamiliar to them but is precisely the kind of competition they require. It offers many of our municipalities the opportunity to highlight their athletic facilities and their ability to sponsor and co-ordinate events of this nature, which are, as I know as one who has been involved with them in the past, not easily done but certainly worth while doing.
There is just one thing that is missing for an amateur athlete in Ontario and that is the strong support many other nations and many other provinces offer to their athletes between competitions of this nature. I know the minister is aware of this problem and is working on it. I welcome his announcement today of the Ontario Winter Games. I would simply like to remind him and all other honourable members that athletes who participate in showpiece events such as this get one day of glory. The problem is that the rest of the year they have to work and train under very difficult circumstances.
While I welcome the showpiece events, I would simply like to remind the minister that there are young people working out today, very hard, all day, every day, trying to qualify for events of this nature. If he would support them on the other days as he does when these major events are on, they would be much better athletes, much better able to compete on an international level and we would all be very happy.
Mr. Harris: It is difficult for me to get up and slam the minister today. Although I am sure if I put my mind to it I could find hundreds of areas where the ministry, this minister and this government should be criticized, today is not one of those days, obviously.
I want to congratulate the selection committee on recognizing what we in North Bay have known for a good deal of time, and that is the considerable expertise that exists in our community to host an event of this type. I speak of the North Bay parks and recreation department, particularly Alderman Don King who heads up that department and who has been a driving force for recreation in North Bay and area.
Mr. Wildman: Mike, I thought you made this announcement on Friday.
Mr. Harris: We were not going to get into that today. The minister and I have made a deal.
Alderman Don King, really over a great number of years, as the former reeve of Widdifield township and now as chairman of parks and recreation for the city of North Bay, has spearheaded a drive for excellence in staff and facilities and in co-ordinating volunteers throughout our city. I congratulate him for that.
I also want to comment on Murray Shave, David Saad, Jamie Huston and Terry Talentino, staff of the parks and recreation department in the city of North Bay, people we are very proud of in our community.
I want to congratulate the minister and this government for carrying on the tradition of excellence among athletes in Ontario that has been started, to thank them for carrying on the tradition of the summer and winter games throughout the province and to say, of course, that we are delighted to be able to play host, as the minister has said, to some 3,000 athletes, coaches and parents who will be visiting our community next February.
In the seven years I have been a member, I think there is one person who has consistently provided me with information and research and writes a lot of the material I use. He has pointed out to me that at one time or another I have mentioned in Hansard some 50,000 people who live in my riding and I have never mentioned him. That is Bill King, my executive assistant, who was a participant in the 1974 winter games. He tells me what a wonderful program it was and how delighted he was to share in that experience as a young curler from West Ferris Secondary School.
I have now accomplished that. I do not have to get his name in the record before the next election.
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There is a gentleman who still remembers very vividly that experience of some 14 years ago. These games do have a significant impact, not only for athletic excellence but also for the friendships with the other people and other athletes they meet across this province, and visiting other cities and other ways of life.
I congratulate the minister, obviously, on the selection. More particularly, I congratulate the host committee. The one person I have not mentioned, to whom the games are going to be turned over to co-ordinate, is a gentleman by the name of Arnie Schmidt, who is well known in our community, a very active Rotarian, head of the boys’ choir in the city of North Bay. I can think of nobody more qualified than Arnie Schmidt. I know his organizational abilities at first hand. I witnessed them in 1981, 1985 and 1987. Nobody is more qualified than he is to organize an event of this magnitude.
I look forward to welcoming all of the members of this Legislature to North Bay next February.
ORAL QUESTIONS
UNIVERSITY FUNDING
Mr. B. Rae: I have some questions today for the Premier, in the absence of the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Mrs. McLeod).
The Premier will know that at the end of next week, students, some 55,000 strong, who have applied to our universities will be hearing from various universities as to whether or not they have got into university. Also, we have today a report sponsored by the Ontario Federation of Students entitled Cut to the Bone.
As a result of the cuts which have been instituted by his government in terms of real funding in comparison with real costs, and as a result of the increase in applications from students, the Premier should know that there are many within the Council of Ontario Universities who are estimating that as many as 1,000 students who have applied to university will not be able to get into university or into anything like the university of their choice and, as a result, will not attend.
When he was standing in this place, the Premier had some very hostile things to say about a government which betrayed its promise to women, which betrayed its promise to newer Canadians, which betrayed its promise to many of those who would not be able to get into university. I would like to ask the Premier why he has not made good on the promises that he made to the young people of this province that there would be places for them within our university system.
Hon. Mr. Peterson: With great respect to my friend opposite, I completely disagree with his analysis of the situation. I ask him to look at the facts, at what has happened in the last three years in our three budgets and at the increases in funding. We have made post-secondary funding a priority. I agree with my honourable friend that prior to that there was a real cutback and things were in some trouble. I think if he looks at the trends, we have reversed that very substantially.
Mr. Jackson: You need 85 per cent to get into Queen’s, for God’s sake.
Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member for Burlington South (Mr. Jackson) is sort of mumbling in his beard over there, but he must be embarrassed to do that as the Education critic now, because we have made real increases.
Let me say that in the last three budgets the increase has been some 25 per cent for operating funds, which is roughly double the rate of inflation, so I do not think my honourable friend can stand in this House and legitimately use the word “cutbacks.” Those are real increases beyond the rate of inflation.
Mr. B. Rae: The bottom line for how well the government has done is whether students in the next two weeks are going to hear and are going to be able to get into the university of their choice. That is the bottom line and that is the message from this government, that in fact that is not going to happen.
When the Premier looks at the report from the Ontario Federation of Students, he will perhaps be able to answer this question. If he has funded the universities so well, and if in fact there have been the kinds of increases that he has indicated, can he explain why the share of spending by this government is 22 per cent less than it was by the Tory government back in 1977-78 when it comes to all of the provincial budget? Can he explain why the University of Toronto library is having to cut 1,500 journals a year from its purchase program; why there are examples contained in this report of labs having equipment that is 20 years out of date; of students attending classes sitting in the corridor having to listen to lectures --
Mr. Speaker: Order. The member has asked three questions.
Hon. Mr. Peterson: My honourable friend is aware that the universities are autonomous and make their own spending decisions --
Interjections.
Hon. Mr. Peterson: -- but let me say, just look at the facts. The facts are there. As I said, the operating funding has gone up at roughly double the rate of inflation. You have seen for the first time a long-term capital program in place; some $400 million over the next little while. You have seen enormous infusions of capital and operating funds into the centres-of-excellence programs. You have seen the Ontario student assistance program increase, I think by some 34.2 per cent in the last three years.
I say to my honourable friend that I just do not think his characterization is quite correct and I think in fact we are seeing some major progress being made in restoring quality to our post-secondary system. You can always make the argument, and he always will, in this and anything else, that it is not enough. That is fair enough; that is one of the joys of standing in the position that my honourable friend does; he can always argue that whatever it is, it is not enough.
I say to him that we are making real progress in that regard. We have started to pull the system out of the trough. I was at the opening of the Institute for Space and Terrestrial Science and I can tell him that there is enormous enthusiasm in the academic community about the major progress that is being made by this government.
Mr. B. Rae: Let me then ask the Premier another question. If he is unable to answer the earlier two, let me ask him this one. Can he stand in his place today and make a guarantee on behalf of the government of this province that as of September there will be a place in our universities for every single student who is qualified to attend? Can he make that commitment?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: The universities, obviously, make their determinations on who is qualified and that kind of thing. I think and we believe that our post-secondary system will accommodate all the students who are qualified and wish to go. I cannot argue that everyone will have his first choice of university and/or faculty, but we believe the system will accommodate them.
INDEPENDENT HEALTH FACILITIES
Mr. B. Rae: I have a question to the Minister of Health concerning her bill on the commercialization of health care and the funding by the government of Ontario of that commercialization and of private profit medicine.
What good is her preference, so-called, going to be for nonprofit care when, since 1971, funding for private profit nursing homes has increased from some $30 million to some $367.4 million; when in fact 93 per cent of the money that is going on extended care for nursing homes goes to private profit operators?
I wonder if the minister can tell us how seriously we should take the so-called preference stated in the legislation for nonprofit care when we consider the gross commercialization of care for the elderly that has taken place under both Tory and Liberal governments, at taxpayers’ expense -- commercial care, in many cases poor care, which is being offered, subsidized by the state? Why should we believe the minister is going to do any better when it comes to so-called community care?
Hon. Mrs. Caplan: I think the Leader of the Opposition has missed the point of the legislation. Compared to the situation that exists right now, where there is absolutely nothing in place which prevents an American for-profit company from establishing in Ontario, this legislation clearly states a not-for-profit Canadian clause.
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Mr. B. Rae: It does not state it. If the minister will read the legislation, what she will find is that instead of saying no to commercial care, instead of saying no to American-based care, all she says is that either Canadian commercial companies or nonprofit companies will be given something called a preference.
Well, that was her policy on nursing homes. Fully half the licences which the ministry has awarded since the Liberals became government in the nonhospital sector have gone to for-profit care when it comes to nursing homes in this province. That is the government’s so-called preference.
When it comes to labs, the share of government money going to private for-profit labs has increased from 30 per cent in 1974 to 40 per cent in 1985. We have seen that kind of increase in labs. We have seen that kind of increase in nursing homes. Why should anybody take the minister seriously when it comes to care in the community? We know perfectly well that this is a foil not for less commercial care but in fact for more.
Hon. Mrs. Caplan: In fact, this legislation is not at all comparable to the Conservative government’s nursing home legislation. This has a clear preference for nonprofit Canadian proposals.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: What about your record?
Hon. Mrs. Caplan: As far as our record goes, I am very proud of the fact that we are making progress and that 66 per cent of all the beds that have been awarded under nursing home proposals have gone to nonprofit: 66 per cent of all of the beds awarded have gone to not-for-profit organizations. I am proud of that record. Previous to that, we know that some 96 per cent of nursing homes were in the private sector. We are making progress and we have clearly stated a not-for-profit Canadian preference.
Mr. B. Rae: Can the minister tell us why her legislation, which she has said provides so much protection for people, establishes under section 33 the following weasel-word and sucker clause? Wait for this one. Do the members want to know a loophole? The Attorney General (Mr. Scott) outdid himself. When he looked up the book in his library under “loopholes,” he pulled out a whopper. It says: “The Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations, (1) exempting any health facility or class of health facility from the application of this act or the regulation or any provision thereof...” What it says is, “This is the law unless we decide that this isn’t the law.” That is what this says. You could drive a truck --
Miss Martel: Without brakes.
Mr. B. Rae: -- without brakes, through this loophole which the government has established here.
What is the point of asking us to pass legislation when the government is giving itself, the Attorney General, the Premier (Mr. Peterson) and the minister in the cabinet, the power to exempt any facility it decides? If the government wants to exempt Extendicare, Para-Med or anybody else, it can exempt them.
Mr. Speaker: Do you have a question?
Mr. B. Rae: Does the minister not think it is disgraceful to come to this House and pass legislation and give the government the power through executive fiat to exempt the whole law? Does she not think that is a bit of a joke?
Hon. Mrs. Caplan: I have said a number of times in this House that I think the reasonable comparison for the Ontario health care system both in per capita funding and in our general regionalized system of a national health system is Sweden. I have come across a quote that I think might be of real interest to the Leader of the Opposition, whose philosophy might be said to be similar to the Swedes’. This is from The Swedish Health Services in the 1990s, by the National Board of Health and Welfare Sweden:
“Privately run medical services supplied mainly by full-time doctors and physiotherapists are a valuable complement to public health services. This segment should continue to receive public funding via the public health insurance scheme. However, the prime requirement still remains to achieve a fair allocation of health resources to ensure that the entire population receives an equal share of the services available.”
That is from Sweden.
BUDGET
Mr. Brandt: My question is to the Premier and it relates to the position that is being taken by many economists and many business people in Ontario relative to the high dollar value of Canadian currency which we have at the moment and also the high level of interest rates. Some of these spokesmen have indicated that Ontario stands to lose many millions of dollars in export sales as a result of that two-pronged attack on the competitiveness of Ontario’s position, namely, a high Canadian dollar and high interest rates.
Would the Premier concur that that position is one he shares relative to the viability of our continued export sales to not only the United States but also to other countries in the world?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: In response to my honourable friend’s question, which I am sure is a setup for a supplementary, let me say that I agree with the honourable member in that regard and I have spoken out on this on several occasions, as he may well know.
The Bank of Canada is running a high-interest-rate policy now, some 275 basis points higher than that of the United States. One of the concomitant effects of that is to drive up the price of the Canadian dollar and that is worrisome obviously to anyone who cares about the trading position of this country.
The member and I have talked about this in the context of the so-called trade agreement. People tell me that far more important than the trade agreement -- even its supporters tell me -- is the fact that our currency is reasonably well priced vis-à-vis the United States; the dollar has gone up from 70 cents to 80 cents or 81 cents in the last year and a half. The Bank of Canada seems intent on driving that up, and I believe that is worrisome.
The member has heard the western premiers speak on that subject; he has heard Premier Bourassa and he has heard me speak on that subject. Now the Bank of Canada is arguing that there is some, shall we say, overheating in the economy of southwestern Ontario. But I would argue that is not the case across the country and that the bank should be more sensitive in that regard.
I also do not believe that a government should be running a high-interest-rate policy that will prevent capital investment and, on the other hand, trying to promote trade. If the federal government is going to turn over the economy of this country to US market forces, it has to have reasonable interest rate policies in order to invest now, to be productive in terms of plant and capital. That is why we brought in a capital cost allowance and a research and development super-allowance in the last budget, to make sure that our companies are in a position to invest, to be competitive internationally.
Mr. Brandt: It was not in fact a setup question, as the Premier suggested, but there is a linkage between what I intended to ask by way of a supplementary and my lead question. That is to simply remind the Premier that his government plays a major role in the determination of what happens both with respect to the value of the dollar and, perhaps even more directly, with respect to the level of interest rates.
It is interesting to note in an article in today’s Toronto Star, if read carefully, that it talks about what we admit is currently a boom in Ontario but it also suggests that Quebec is concerned about Ontario’s present affluence driving up the interest rate level that is affecting the rest of the country.
The article goes on to say that Quebec did its share by bringing in a budget that was in fact less than the budget brought in the previous year. So the Quebec government has lowered its expectations as a government, rather than increase its expectations, which is the case on the part of the province of Ontario.
By way of question to the Premier, I would just like to remind him that Raymond Pinard, the chairman of the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association, has stated that, Ontario’s “inflationary budget in an overheated economy” is forcing up interest rates. Since that is one of the factors that is causing high interest rates, would the Premier not agree that a more modest budget with smaller increases would have helped to keep interest rates down in this country?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: First of all, one has to understand, and I am sure my honourable friend does, that it is not the government of this province that determines interest rates; it is the Bank of Canada. I say with great respect to Mr. Pinard that he is talking through his hat.
I invite the honourable member to look at what we did in the last budget in fiscal terms. We have substantially reduced the deficit and the net cash requirements to the lowest level in some 19 years. This is, by any standards one wants to use, anti-inflationary. I say to my honourable friend that compared to the other provinces, the total revenue taken as a percentage of gross domestic product is the lowest in the country at 15 per cent here in this province.
I ask the member to look at inflation last year in this province, about 5.2 per cent. Our projections are it will be about 4.6 per cent next year; in fact, in April it was 4.2 per cent. So inflation is coming down in this province.
I say to my honourable friend that he would want to look at all of the facts attendant thereto and he would find that we are, I think, meeting the needs of the people of this province of Ontario in a financially responsible way, with reduced net cash requirements, reduced deficit. Our net cash requirements and our deficit are much, much lower as a percentage of our gross domestic product than those of Quebec or the federal government or most other governments, for that matter.
So I say to my honourable friend that I think we face the future with far more financial flexibility than we have in a very long period of time and we are meeting the legitimate needs of the people of this province in a fair taxation environment.
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Mr. Brandt: I think the Premier is well aware that the only way in which he reduced the deficit -- and he still has $500 million to get out of his current budget in order to bring the deficit down to the announced figure -- but in order to do that, he had to increase taxes at a historically high rate.
Could the Premier perhaps share with this Legislature and the people of Ontario why it was in 1972 that the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon), who brought in this past budget, indicated that the last increase in sales tax, which went to seven per cent at that time, was in fact an inflationary measure on the part of the government, whereas his increase in sales tax from seven to eight per cent in 1988 is not inflationary? How can he bring those two positions together and hope the people of Ontario are going to believe him?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: I cannot speak for what my honourable friend the Treasurer said in 1972; I was not here. But I know that he has for a long period of time pronounced very wisely on the events of the day. The member will recall that in that year Mr. White brought in a two-point increase in the sales tax on that particular occasion.
My honourable friend is upset with sales taxes and the kind of taxation we do to meet what we consider to be the legitimate needs of the people of this province. On one hand, he says our taxes are too high and, on the other hand, he is saying we should be spending more for hospitals, universities and anything else that hits his fancy. What he may want to do, because I know how close my honourable friend is to the federal government, is to address his mind to some of the problems they have presented, as well.
The federal government, with sales taxes, has taken more out of Ontario with its last budget than our entire budget. Its telecommunications service tax of 10 per cent will take $348 million, a flat tax. The federal sales tax rate of 15 to 18 per cent on liquor and tobacco is taking $70 million. The paint increase from eight to 12 per cent will take $24 million. The federal sales tax rate increase from 10 to 11 per cent and to 12 per cent on April 1, 1986, will take another $890 million, and its gasoline tax, another $120 million. Through the sales tax mechanism, it has taken $1,452,000,000.
If my honourable friend is concerned, he will want to share that with his close friend Michael Wilson, who, I assume he would believe, is creating inflation in Ontario.
Mr. Brandt: Michael Wilson would want me to share with the Premier --
Mr. Speaker: New question. To whom?
Mr. Brandt: -- the fact that his expenditures went up five per cent last year while the government’s went up over 10 per cent. He would want me --
Mr. Speaker: The question is to -- Order.
RETAIL STORE HOURS
Mr. Brandt: My second question is in fact for the Premier, as well. He indicated some time ago that the Retail Business Holidays Act was too complicated and too unworkable to continue for this province and that he had to bring in new legislation. Can the Premier explain the relationship between the legislation he proposes to have passed by this House relative to the Sunday shopping question and the impact of that on counties, regions, local councils and unorganized northern municipalities?
I ask that question because there seems to be some confusion as to who in fact has the responsibility for making a decision relative to Sunday openings. Could he share that with us?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: There is no confusion at all. I am sure if my honourable friend attends the debate to be introduced this afternoon, the honourable minister will explain all that to him. I know he has been too busy to read the bill, but I think he will find it brings a real new simplicity and a fairness, and supports the concept of local option where individual municipalities can make their own determinations. I am sure my honourable friend, on reflection, will find it fair, understandable and enforceable.
Mr. Brandt: I am sorry the Premier has not had an opportunity to read the bill, because he could not give me an answer. I only have to say that it was about a week ago that my colleague the member for Carleton (Mr. Sterling) asked a question of the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith) with respect to this very same matter. The member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay (Mr. Black) had some confusion in his mind relative to the same question.
Mr. Eves: That is not unusual.
Mr. Brandt: Some of my colleagues are suggesting it is not unusual for the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay to be confused about a vast array of issues. I would not take that position. However, I say to the Premier, if there is that much confusion among his ministers and back-bench members relative to who has the authority and responsibility in connection with this very important question, could he perhaps share with us how he expects the rest of the people of Ontario to understand it when the minister sitting right behind him and a member within two rows of him do not understand it? How does he expect Ontario citizens to understand it?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: I think the whole matter is quite clear, and I guess my honourable friend opposite is speaking to his own confusion on the matter. I do not think there is any confusion on this side of the House or that end of his side of the House. I think that this government and this caucus is quite clear on the matter.
[Applause]
Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member can hear that anybody who claps understands the bill, so I do not think there is any particular confusion. He will have an opportunity to go into this in some detail and depth this afternoon, and it is going to be in committee. If my honourable friend has worries, he can express them then or bring forward any amendments that he has.
Mr. Brandt: I have raised this question with the Premier before. Recognizing that we have religious leaders in this province, organized labour, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the retail business community and a high percentage of the people of this province who have indicated very clearly to the Premier that they do not like his legislation, they think it is wrong and they feel that he is threatening a day of rest, a day of pause, in this province -- in light of the tremendous opposition and the thousands of petitions which he has received and which we have placed before this House relative to this very important question -- why does he not simply back off of legislation that he knows to be wrong for this province?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: I appreciate the honourable member’s advice, and I understand that there are certain people who disagree with the approach this government has taken, but one of the things we have found is that there was an enormous emotional reaction at the beginning, perhaps fuelled by misunderstanding. I know some politicians who felt it was their responsibility to create some misunderstanding about this bill, but when people fully understand the implications of local option, when they realize that communities are different, when they realize that each community is now empowered to make its own decision -- if Sault Ste. Marie, for example, wants to be open, why should it not be? If Niagara Falls has special consideration, or Point Edward, people are very comfortable with that concept.
They are understanding now that it was not the bill as originally characterized by some. Then they are seeing some of the other provinces adopting the same kind of status, for example, Saskatchewan. My honourable friend, I know, is a great admirer of the politics of Grant Devine of Saskatchewan. There are a lot of similarities between the two of them, I have noticed on many occasions, and he has introduced a bill very similar to ours in that regard. Again, I think it shows that Ontario respects democracy, it respects the local communities and, again, Ontario is in the forefront of policy leadership across this country.
Mr. Philip: Since the Premier obviously cannot answer the last three questions, I will see if the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith) knows the bill a little bit better.
The minister will be aware that, in 1987, the Nova Scotia government found it necessary to introduce legislation repealing the municipal regulation of Sunday shopping. In repealing the legislation, the Attorney General, the Honourable Thomas Donahoe, complained that the municipal-option route created a patchwork quilt of what would be open. Can the minister tell the House why residents of Ontario should expect anything different in Ontario in introducing this kind of legislation, the very same type of legislation, to Ontario?
Hon. Mrs. Smith: The member for Etobicoke-Rexdale will be very aware of more than one aspect of this. In the first place, it is quite demonstrable that, in this province, we already have quite a patchwork of legislation, basically opened under the onus of the tourist exemption clause. He would know, as well, that any municipality in this province can, indeed, call upon that one clause and open as it pleases and add to the patchwork as it pleases. But I would point out to the member that there is some value in the patchwork as well because, in this province, we have very different neighbour-hoods and very different communities, which indeed have different needs.
Tourist areas may very well need to be open during the tourist season and to have Sunday shopping available if they are to survive as communities. On the other hand, that same situation may not apply at all to an area such as my own, London et al., that may prefer to see it closed Sunday, as they have said. We therefore think that because of this variety within the province, the local municipalities can best address the problem for their own area.
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Mr. Philip: It may come as news to the Solicitor General that there are different areas in Nova Scotia. They are quite different from one another. There are actually tourist areas in Nova Scotia also. Why would the minister introduce legislation which was such an abominable failure in another province that it had to be repealed only two years later? Why is she trying to impose on Ontario the same kind of legislation that failed so obviously elsewhere?
Hon. Mrs. Smith: Nova Scotia is a province that rules itself according to its own needs. We have looked very closely at the needs of our province. We have spoken to people everywhere. We have looked at what is fair for the people of this province and we have made a decision based on the needs of this province, which is way larger, has much more variety and has much more diversity. Many of our communities border on American cities and this is not the case in Nova Scotia.
PHYSIOTHERAPISTS’ FEES
Mr. Eves: I have a question of the Minister of Health. Two years ago, on May 22, 1986, her predecessor promised the Ontario physiotherapists fair and equal treatment with respect to Ontario health insurance plan fees. Physiotherapists, the vast majority of whom are women, are being paid considerably less for physiotherapy treatment than is being paid to the medical profession, to doctors. The ministry has not closed the gap after more than two years, and negotiations, which started last fall, have now broken down. When is she going to live up to this commitment and close the gap?
Hon. Mrs. Caplan: My primary concern is for fair compensation to be paid to the physiotherapists working in private clinics. The clinic owners have been asked to allow the ministry access to their financial records to ensure that any increases would be directly passed on to their clinic workers. They have not agreed, and negotiations have broken off.
Mr. Eves: The ministry has offered to close the gap only if the physiotherapists are willing to submit to two unprecedented, and in their minds, unreasonable requests for confidential information that her ministry does not demand of any other health care professional.
Why is the minister picking on the physiotherapists? Would it not seem reasonable to her to treat them the same way she treats other health care professionals? When is she going to step into the picture and live up to the commitment that was made more than two years ago and reiterated by her in this House on December 16, 1987, to close the gap and treat physiotherapists in the same manner she treats other health care professionals in the province?
Hon. Mrs. Caplan: First, it is not my position to negotiate in public. I want to make that very clear. We are willing to meet at any time with the Ontario Physiotherapy Association, but it is important to note that 80 per cent of the physiotherapists in this province work in hospitals and on other than fee-for-service methods of payment. The member is now at this point in time talking about negotiations between the ministry and clinic owners whose clinics, I might mention to the member opposite, would fall into the category of privately run facilities, if you will, as opposed to nonprofit facilities.
We are open to coming back to the table at any time. Let me state again that my concern is to make sure that any increase goes directly to the physiotherapists who work in those facilities, so that there is fair compensation. I am very concerned that we portray this issue accurately for what it is.
TRADE WITH UNITED STATES
Ms. Hart: My question is to the Premier. It concerns the recommendations of a report about United States legislation implementing the Canada-US trade agreement. The joint recommendation of the US Senate finance committee and the House of Representatives ways and means committee calls into question Canadian federal and provincial rights to have a homegrown trade strategy.
The two committees have commissioned from the Office of the United States Trade Representative an audit of all Canadian federal and provincial trade practices and the legal authority for those practices to enable Congress to retaliate quickly where it feels American companies have been disadvantaged.
The recent Premier’s Council report, Competing in the New Global Economy, emphasizes the need to foster Ontario high-technology companies, particularly by tax incentives for their research and development efforts --
Mr. Speaker: Do you have a question?
Ms. Hart: Yes, Mr. Speaker -- and for their encouragement by means of government procurement. Does the Premier see any unresolvable conflict between Ontario’s aspirations for globally competitive Canadian companies and the attitude of Congress towards the Canada-US trade agreement?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: Let me thank the member for the very thoughtful question. I think the question draws attention to one of the unfortunate offshoots of this particular trade discussion that has gone on with the United States, and that is that we have now invited more scrutiny of a number of the things that are going on presently.
The honourable member refers to a report commissioned by Congress to go into detail on all the things that we are doing now to assist our industries to be competitive, presumably with the sense that the Americans are going to come after us if we do not comply with their particular hopes for us or if they do not feel we could come under the trade agreement.
We believe, as a government, that there are a number of things we can do and we should be assisting government with, be it research and development or technology questions and, as in the last budget, helping small and fledgling companies with engineering support and assisting from a tax point of view. We think all of those things are very helpful.
Those now may be seen as subsidies under the trade agreement and we could invite attack by the United States. I find that an unfortunate offshoot of this particular discussion and, in a sense, it was unnecessary. The entire pressure is going to be to try to harmonize with the United States and play by the same rules it does, even though it subsidizes its companies in other ways. But we always seem to be the demandeurs, and not they.
I think the honourable member points to one of the pressures that we have willingly subjected ourselves to. It is most unfortunate because we will lose our capacity to assist our own industries and engage in regional development, something that is important to our Canadian economy.
Ms. Hart: As if it is not enough to neutralize our own companies’ efforts at research and development, the two committees also take aim at Canada’s ability to impose any performance requirements on US subsidiaries in Canada, including technology transfer and research and development. They want it eliminated. Can the Premier comment on what effect this elimination would have on our Ontario companies?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: One of my concerns with the trade agreement is that I think it will tend to reinforce this country as hewers of wood and drawers of water. We are already running a very large, high-technology deficit with the United States at the present time. We believe that the future of our country and its material wellbeing are going to be a function of its ability to handle the intellectual-value-added information revolution that comes along.
I think that this will hurt us, as we try to help those companies. Who knows? They may come after our centres of excellence. Who knows? The discussions on regional development will go on over the next five to seven years. Under the terms of this agreement, they may say there are certain things we cannot do in New Brunswick or Newfoundland or certain other provinces that do need help regionally.
This government has always supported the principle of regional development right across this great country. We want to help other provinces to build their industrial infrastructure. We are assisting in buying coal in western Canada. We have assisted in lending money to Newfoundland and will continue to do so because we believe in equalizing opportunity for all Canadians. But this may well prevent that kind of action from taking place, and I think it would be regrettable for our entire country.
WATER QUALITY
Mrs. Grier: I have a question for the Minister of the Environment. Last week we heard that the toxics in the Niagara River were increasing. The week before, there was a toxic spill from Polysar into the St. Clair River.
Mr. Brandt: No, that is not right.
Mrs. Grier: An alleged toxic spill, says the member for Sarnia.
Mr. Brandt: No, no, come on now. The spill never reached the river.
Mrs. Grier: Both of these have made the people in the province apprehensive about the quality of their drinking water. Is the minister satisfied that existing guidelines are sufficient to ensure the protection of the drinking water in the province?
Hon. Mr. Bradley: As the member would know, the Ministry of the Environment conducts, under its drinking-water surveillance program, a survey of a large number of municipalities in Ontario, to look at the treated drinking water to determine whether it meets the health guidelines of Ontario, and we have found indeed that is the case.
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We have, in addition to that, undertaken a program which we call the plant optimization program, which ensures that those plants that are in existence in Ontario to treat water for the purposes of drinking have people there who have taken any of the specialized courses which are necessary. In other words, we are trying to assist them to upgrade in that regard, but the equipment itself is in the best of working order, and if there are any capital works that are required, those capital works are undertaken.
Certainly we do very extensive testing. The member would know we test for over 100 chemicals, for instance, to determine whether there is a presence of those. My thrust, as the member knows -- and I think she agrees with this, although she will certainly speak for herself -- is to get at the sources. We are at the present time getting at the sources of contamination across Ontario. We cannot control the international sources but we certainly make an attempt to persuade our neighbours that they should do so.
Mrs. Grier: What I asked about was the existing guidelines. When I introduced the safe-drinking-water bill in 1985, the minister told the House that he was working on a drinking-water strategy. When the question was raised again in December 1987 and he was asked about the drinking-water strategy, he said, “It certainly is well along the way.”
Can the minister tell us today why, in June 1988, we have in this province no legislated standards for drinking water but guidelines which were established in 1978, which are unenforceable and which cover only 42 of the substances found in the Great Lakes?
Hon. Mr. Bradley: As the member would know, for instance, her favourite program, the municipal-industrial strategy for abatement, is in the process of developing a regulation in terms of monitoring and then of abatement which will have the result of cutting off the sources of contamination to major waterways in this province.
She would know as well that if we compare the quality of our water to others, it is generally better than others. It is not perfect in Ontario -- I do not want to suggest that is the case -- but we find in our comparisons and with all the testing that we do that we have a high quality of water. I was listening to a program as I was coming in today on the radio where an independent person -- independent of us, that is -- was making exactly that point.
This does not mean we are not always striving to do better. We are always striving to perfect the equipment that we have in place. We are always striving to bring about the kinds of measurements which are necessary to ensure that we have a good quality of drinking water for people in this province, but I do not want to take off the emphasis on getting at the sources of contamination.
We can build up all the defences we want -- and yes, they are important and we have done it over the years -- but the key is getting at the sources, and that is what our very tough regulations in this province are doing at the present time.
USE OF GOVERNMENT AIRCRAFT
Mr. Harris: I have an article I would like to talk to the Minister of Natural Resources about, from the Daily Miner and News of April 15.
“Kenora MPP Frank Miclash recently completed a tour of northern communities in his riding. The focus of the tour was to meet with community leaders to discuss their views and concerns.
“During the three-day tour, which began March 15, Mr. Miclash visited constituents at Weagamow Lake, Sandy Lake, Sachigo Lake, Muskrat Dam Lake, Bearskin Lake” -- a few others, Red Lake and Sioux Lookout.
“‘The northern tour provided me with an excellent opportunity to meet with native leaders to discuss a variety of issues and government programs.’...‘Tours such as this will enable me to better understand and, therefore, better represent all of my constituents.’”
I would like to ask the Minister of Natural Resources: in view of the fact that northern members have a $2,500 northern travel allowance to pay for this kind of travel, can he tell this House when the government decided that back-bench members of the Liberal Party could requisition Ministry of Natural Resources government aircraft for constituency and political business such as this?
Hon. Mr. Kerrio: I would have to get back to the honourable member when I am able to examine the question that he raises. Of course, I do not have the material with me here.
Mr. Harris: I guess what the minister is saying is that he has not changed the policy or he did not approve the trip.
Let me say that I do not think anybody objects to a member meeting constituents, but I would like to ask the minister, while he is waiting to check into it, whether he thinks it is appropriate that back-bench members can requisition Ministry of Natural Resources aircraft.
The news report goes on to state, “Mr. Miclash was accompanied by two representatives from the Sioux Lookout district of the Ministry of Natural Resources.” They accompanied him on this three-day tour of the riding.
I think it is bad enough that his travel agency flies a Liberal MPP around in a government plane for three days, but how can the minister justify sending along two MNR civil servants as tour guides, and will this travel service for airplanes and staff be extended to all members of the Legislature?
Hon. Mr. Kerrio: I certainly took the question as notice and I am very much prepared to get back to the honourable member. But just to make a couple of comments that come to mind, one answer that comes to mind right now is that it is about time northern members began to go across northern Ontario to see what is in the best interests of the people of northern Ontario.
That has never been done before, except for maybe one of the people the previous government had up there who was supposed to act like the governor in northern Ontario and not really do the kind of job that is being done by the northern members right now. I am proud of the way they are examining the problems of northern Ontarians and reporting back to this government, which is going to do something about it.
Interjections.
Mr. Brandt: The applause was a little weak on that one.
Hon. Mr. Kerrio: What a ridiculous question from the member for Nipissing, and he knows it.
Mr. Brandt: You even embarrassed the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Grandmaître) when you answered that one.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The minister has completed the answer. The member for Sarnia has already asked questions.
1996 OLYMPIC SUMMER GAMES
Mr. Callahan: I have a question for the Minister of Tourism and Recreation. In the light of the minister’s statement in the House today that North Bay was receiving the Ontario Winter Games, it brought to mind a concern I had meant to ask him about on an earlier occasion.
Recognizing the fact that Toronto is bidding for the 1996 Olympic Games, I would like to inquire of the minister whether or not he is following this in co-ordination with Toronto and whether or not it would be the intention, should Toronto be successful, that it would use satellite facilities.
The reason for my asking that is that Brampton, the city I represent, has very excellent facilities that would be of assistance and I would like to inquire of the minister whether or not satellite game sites will be employed, should Toronto be successful in getting the 1996 Olympics.
Hon. Mr. O’Neil: I can tell the member that it is the intention of this government, and I believe also of the Toronto Ontario Olympic Council, that should we be successful in obtaining those games, we will certainly be hoping to spread the facilities where the games and the different events will be held throughout parts of the province. I can certainly tell the member that Brampton will be considered in those discussions.
Mr. Callahan: My supplementary may not be as good as my first question, Mr. Speaker, but I would like to inquire of the minister whether or not, recognizing that existing communities around the Toronto area will be used as satellite locations, there will be consideration of any additional funds to assist those communities in upgrading or establishing additional facilities to be used, with reference to the uses suggested, as satellite communities.
Hon. Mr. O’Neil: As the member and the members of the House should be aware, I think last year we put approximately $28 million into our capital conservation and new capital program, but I can tell the member also that in the studies that we are preparing for the Toronto Olympics, we are consulting within our ministry and with other people within the government and people outside the government as to what type of facilities would be required. I can certainly tell him that we are also looking at the funding aspect.
ZOO LICENSING
Mr. Philip: I have a question to the Minister of Natural Resources. The minister indicated on May 18 that he was studying the possibility of bringing in some regulations to regulate private zoos. On Friday I visited a zoo north of Barrie with zoologist Dr. Ron Orenstein, at which time we identified at least three different situations which are potentially dangerous to the public, particularly children.
Since the minister is not prepared to introduce any legislation at this time, what does he intend to do to protect the public from situations that are potentially dangerous to them in these zoos?
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Hon. Mr. Kerrio: Of course I did not say that I was not prepared to introduce legislation. We are very much willing to do that. The legislation that I am going to introduce is certainly in keeping with looking after the wildlife in the province of Ontario, not only that native to Ontario but also the other wildlife that is imported from offshore. I told the honourable member that. I am very pleased that he would be supportive of such a bill; he has taken an initiative that is quite important.
The other thing I might mention now, while we are talking about that aspect of it, is that we are also examining a wildlife bill that will properly look after some of the areas that have not been taken care of in the past. Those two are in the works. I am going to share, and I will share particularly with the member because of his interest, what the initiatives will be.
Mr. Philip: The minister refused to share his ideas with the zoologists, veterinarians and others who invited him to meet with them on Saturday.
Pending the legislation, which hopefully the minister may introduce in the fall or at some time after that, would the minister be willing to visit each of the nine private zoos in Ontario accompanied by a qualified zoologist, identify the situations that are potentially dangerous to children and other visitors and meet with the zookeepers to see, at least until the legislation is introduced, if they can correct the situations that are dangerous to the public and to the visitors who are coming there?
Hon. Mr. Kerrio: In response to that aspect to the question, I certainly would be willing to meet with those interested parties. That would be in keeping with introducing the kind of bill that would reflect the kind of situations the member has described.
I would not suggest that I visit them all, but I would be prepared to visit some, and of course staff people make certain we visit them all. We have been looking, in drafting this legislation right now, and have met with many people in that field, and certainly we would be prepared to continue in the whole format. Yes, I would be willing to do that.
TEMAGAMI DISTRICT RESOURCES
Mrs. Marland: My question is to the Minister of Natural Resources. Unfortunately, on the subject of the Red Squirrel Road extension, the Ministry of the Environment actually bungled the entire issue because a full environmental assessment hearing was not held. It should have been held two years ago, and now that it is too late they have decided it is going to go ahead.
My concern with the Ministry of Natural Resources, however, is that we understand from the press release that was given on the day of the joint press conference between the two ministries that the Ministry of Natural Resources studied all the aspects of the road’s impact for 22 months.
My question to the minister today is, since the public has not had a fair or full hearing on both sides of this issue, could he tell me if there is a cutting plan for the Red Squirrel Road extension and the area south of the park such that all the merchantable lumber will be able to be harvested by 1994, which is the end of the period that is being granted as we understand it?
Hon. Mr. Kerrio: Certainly I would not be prepared to agree with the honourable member who has described one of my fellow ministers as handling something in less than a responsible manner.
If she were properly apprised of the whole circumstance in the area of Temagami, the member would know there was a management plan quite a while back when the logging was removed from Lady Evelyn-Smoothwater Provincial Park and that we were very much prepared, because of some misunderstanding, to do things that had not been done before. Not only did we have a voluntary environmental assessment there, but also we put in place Dr. Daniel with people from the north who are very familiar with all aspects of the use of the particular area.
We are also going to put in place on July 1 a committee that will make that into a model forest management unit, and certainly there has been adequate ability for people at those various forums to be heard as to their interest in that particular matter. I think in fact that it was not only handled well, but extremely well.
The jobs that are to be protected there, the northern environment for people who enjoy the parks, all the things that need to be done in this model management area are being done, and they are being done in co-operation with the Ministry of the Environment as well as my ministry, the Ministry of Natural Resources, I think in the best interests of the people of all of Ontario to make certain that we have a wood supply.
In fact, a very interesting comment I might make right now is that the Saturday edition of the Toronto Star consumed 42,000 trees. We are not here to look at the lumbering interests. We are looking at providing newsprint and we are looking at providing wood for building homes, and we are looking at the things that people enjoy and somehow we have to make certain that happens in a controlled --
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mrs. Marland: I hope I have equal time to the response of the minister because, unfortunately, he has not answered the question.
The point is that when timber is harvested it is done through the process of cutting plans, and the reason there are cutting plans in the province is that in this way the forest values are protected. In fact, it looks after all the areas that are of concern to everybody, the lumber companies and the environmentalists. Forest values include nesting areas, deer parks, recreational sites, cottages, campsites, regionally significant vegetation areas; that is why this question is so important.
The minister has now agreed to grant this extension to this road. My question, and I repeat it, is: is there a cutting plan for the Red Squirrel Road extension and the area south of the park, and will the minister table those cutting plans in this House in order to protect the environment while the work is being done?
Hon. Mr. Kerrio: I have to tell members that there is kind of a question to a question here. We would not even be contemplating the Red Squirrel Road if we did not have a plan to go in and take the timber. I thought that was a given which the member would understand. The reason for the road in the first place is to harvest the timber; not only to harvest the timber, but to do things which are being done which were not done to the degree that satisfied me by her former government. That is, then, that the roads will be used for replanting those trees, tending those trees and tending them until they are free to grow, so we can count them in the inventory and not just put two in the ground and forget them, as was the practice of the former government.
Those things, of course, are being done now. It is going to take a while for some of the people to be aware that those things have been changed so radically and are being done, but I guess that is the job of my ministry, to convince people that we are doing the management plans in an extremely good way, which will augur well for all of the users in that particular part of Ontario.
MINIMUM WAGE
Mr. Morin-Strom: I have a question for the Minister of Labour regarding his announcement last week that the minimum wage in Ontario is going up by 20 cents an hour, the smallest percentage increase we have seen in the last three years. The minister must be aware of some of the consequences of low-income and poverty levels on families in this province, particularly when one looks at some of the data on children, who have twice the infant mortality rate, are twice as likely to get leukaemia, three times as likely to commit suicide and five times more likely to die in an accident.
Does the minister agree that the minimum wage in Ontario today falls far short of providing an income above the poverty line for the working poor? If he does, why has he not done anything about it?
Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I think I made rather clear when I made the announcement about the increase in the minimum wage that it was not an initiative designed to eliminate poverty, particularly among the working poor, nor was it the basis for restructuring our whole social service safety net within the province. I think my counterpart the Minister of Labour in Quebec, in making the similar announcement, was not then attempting to do that either in Quebec.
We had undertaken some two years ago to ensure that there was an annual review of the minimum wage and that that review would lead to some initiative by the government. I know the member for Sault Ste. Marie is as concerned as I am about issues relating to poverty, issues relating to illness, issues relating to the instance of illness and particular social problems among the working poor, and I share his concern in that regard.
I simply tell the member that the minimum-wage provision governed by the Employment Standards Act is something that this government is committed to look at on an annual basis and to revise as the government thinks appropriate. In this case, we felt it was appropriate to raise it by the percentage point.
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Mr. Allen: It is obvious the minister apparently does not believe in a living wage. What he is proposing is that the solution has to be some kind of add-on that obviously will be social assistance of some kind or welfare.
The minister must know that he would be solving a great problem for the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney), with his employability programs, if in fact he had a minimum wage at an adequate level, because all we know about the employability programs is that women and men cycle back on to welfare as a result of the minimum-wage situation.
We also know from studies of children on welfare, for example, that the rates of psychiatric disorders for six- to 11-year-olds are 40 per cent among boys and that poor school performance on welfare is at a rate of 27.8 per cent. That is the result of being in a welfare-type situation. The psychology is inescapable.
When is the minister going to do something about the minimum-wage rate that will give working-poor families a reason to be in the workforce and not on some form of social assistance?
Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I simply tell my friend the member for Hamilton West that the initiative we took was not designed to address those very large problems. I also tell him that neither his party nor any particular member in this House has a premium on concern for the working poor.
The member will know that my colleague the Minister of Community and Social Services has undertaken a very large scale review of those very problems. For this member to suggest that we simply solve those problems today by a major readjustment of the whole approach to the minimum-wage issue is facile. Perhaps it is politically advantageous for a question in question period, but on a realistic base it does not make any sense at all.
PETITIONS
TAX INCREASES
Mr. McLean: I have a petition signed by 1,000 irate taxpayers in 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. McCague: 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 wish to support the battle against wide-open Sunday shopping.”
This is signed by 60 retail members of the Collingwood business improvement area. I should sign that.
Mr. Morin-Strom: 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:
“Whereas it is the stated intention of the Liberal government of Ontario to change the legislation governing the conduct of business on Sundays; and” -- etc., etc. We will get to the final line: “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.”
This petition has been signed by 14 residents of the province.
Mr. Brandt: I have a series of petitions.
The first, to the Lieutenant Governor in Council, is signed by 35 persons from the Delta United Church in Hamilton, Ontario, and reads in part as follows:
“This declaration of intention by the government of Ontario represents a major threat to what is still, in the main, a commerce-free Sunday in Ontario.”
I have a petition for the Lieutenant Governor in Council, signed by 66 persons from Morningside-High Park Presbyterian Church in Toronto, which reads in part as follows:
“We wish to express our objection to any expansion of Sunday shopping within our community and province.”
I have another petition for the Lieutenant Governor in Council, signed by 16 persons from the city of Kingston and area, which reads in part as follows:
“Such a move would destroy Sunday as the common pause day for family and friends to share together. This should not be a matter for municipal governments to decide. It must be the responsibility of the provincial government of Ontario.”
I have another petition, again to the Lieutenant Governor in Council, signed by 173 persons from the town of Alymer, which reads in part as follows:
“That the council of the corporation of the town of Alymer register its strong opposition to Sunday shopping in this municipality and so advise the provincial government of council’s opposition.”
I have a further petition, again to the Lieutenant Governor in Council, signed by 140 persons, members of the Redeemer Christian Reform Church in Clearwater, Ontario, which reads in part as follows:
“The Ontario government should revise its current legislation in order to uphold more strongly a common pause day across the province.”
Here is another petition to the Lieutenant Governor in Council, signed by 52 persons from Tillsonburg and area, which reads in part as follows:
“We are opposed to open Sunday shopping and want to retain a common pause day in Ontario.”
I have a petition from seven persons from the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Hamilton, Ontario, which reads in part as follows:
“We the undersigned do not support the extension of Sunday shopping and we also consider that the legislative authority regarding Sunday shopping should remain the responsibility of the provincial government of Ontario.”
That concludes the petitions I have, but there are many more coming in every day.
Mr. Wildman: I have a petition:
“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” -- I apologize for the split infinitive – “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.”
I support the petition.
Mr. McCague: I have a petition to the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 150 families of the town of Collingwood.
“The people of Collingwood want their right to a common pause day protected.”
I am pleased to present their petition, which I fully support.
TRITIUM
Mrs. Grier: I have a petition addressed to the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:
“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:
“Whereas one billionth of a gram of tritium can cause cancer; and
“Whereas the transport of heavy water containing tritium could be eliminated by building additional removal facilities at the Pickering and Bruce nuclear plants; and
“Whereas tritium can contribute to nuclear weapons if exported;
“Therefore, we, the undersigned residents of Ontario, oppose the transport of heavy water containing tritium and the export of pure tritium.”
There are 631 signatures on this petition, and they come from Guelph, Kitchener, Fergus, Elora, Alliston, Orangeville, Hamilton, Brantford, Burlington, Oakville, Mississauga, Brampton, Toronto, Peterborough, Ajax, Oshawa and Bowmanville.
TAX INCREASES
Mrs. Cunningham: I have a number of petitions signed by some 2,000 irate taxpayers. They live all over Ontario. The petitions read 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.”
I have signed the petition, and I will turn it over to the House for the record.
TEACHERS’ SUPERANNUATION FUND
Mr. Pollock: 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:
“To amend the Teachers’ Superannuation Act, 1983, in order that all teachers who retired prior to May 31, 1982, have their pensions recalculated on the best five years rather than at the present seven or 10 years.
“The proposed amendment would make the five-year criteria applicable to all retired teachers and would eliminate the present inequitable treatment.”
It is signed by teachers from the greater Peterborough area.
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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:
“Whereas it is the stated intention of the Liberal government of Ontario to change the legislation governing the conduct of business on Sundays; and
“Whereas the Premier and other members of the Liberal government have stated the government’s intention to repeal the Retail Business Holidays Act and to dump this responsibility in the laps of the municipal governments, who have already indicated they don’t want it; and
“Whereas the Legislature’s select committee on retail store hours, representing all three political parties in the Legislature, reported unanimously to the Legislature in May 1987 as follows: ‘The committee supports the principle of a common pause day in 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.”
I agree with this petition signed by one resident of the city of Burlington.
Miss Martel: I have a petition signed by residents of my home town of Capreol, and the petition reads as follows:
“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario:
“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 and that the act remain under the jurisdiction of the Ontario Legislature rather than be transferred to local municipalities for administration.’”
The petition is signed by 30 residents. I have added my signature, and I agree with them.
Mr. Swart: I have a petition addressed to the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and it reads as follows:
“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:
“Whereas the Premier and other members of the Liberal government have stated the government’s intention to repeal the Retail Business Holidays Act and to dump this responsibility in the laps of the municipal governments, who have already indicated they don’t want it; and
“Whereas the Legislature’s select committee on retail store hours, representing all three political parties in the Legislature, reported unanimously to the Legislature in May 1987 as follows: ‘The committee supports the principle of a common pause day in Ontario’; and
“Whereas the report also said, ‘The committee unanimously rejects the notion of wide-open Sunday shopping for Ontario’; and
“Whereas the report commented as follows on the impact of wide-open Sunday retailing on working people and working families: ‘The committee strongly believes that wide-open Sunday shopping in Ontario would represent an added pressure in our fast-paced society and a strain upon the family structure’; and
“Whereas it continued: ‘This strain would be imposed particularly on the families of retail employees, many of whom are women, who might then be required to work on Sunday. The committee also believes that wide-open Sunday shopping would have an adverse impact upon common time together for primarily female-led, single-parent families’; and
“Whereas the report continued as follows: ‘Similarly, it is recognized that on Sunday, child care facilities are not generally available, public transit operates on reduced schedules, and open Sundays could lead to the need for more publicly sponsored family support services. All of these factors would impose unwarranted and unnecessary strain upon the family, which is regarded as a key pillar of Ontario society’; and
“Whereas the Ontario government submitted a report prepared by its own women’s directorate to the 1987 annual conference of ministers responsible for the status of women, and that report noted the need for greater government sensitivity to changes in hours of work and hours of business in terms of ‘recognizing the need for time to be set aside when all families can be together’ and the need to ‘ensure that common time off is set aside when all families can be together’; and
“Whereas the government’s stated intentions can only increase existing pressures on working people and working families and result in less fairness for them;
“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.”
It is signed by Eugene Ellman and M. R. Holder, both of the city of Toronto, and I have endorsed this.
Mr. Speaker: This might be the appropriate time to once again remind members regarding the standing orders and the presenting of petitions. It is certainly within order to present to the House the material allegations made by the petitioners. However, it is not necessary to read in all the reasons for that. In other words, what I am saying is that it is within order to read the “therefore” but not necessarily all the “whereases.”
Mr. Mackenzie: I am sure the Speaker knows that some of these people feel so strongly about this that they want their reasons known to the Speaker, but I have a short one here this time; it is a petition:
“To the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:
“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:
“Let’s not leave this issue up to the municipalities. This is the responsibility of the provincial government. We say no to Sunday shopping.”
It is signed by 80 people in the Hamilton, Caledonia and Oakville areas. I agree with it and I have signed the petition.
Mr. Charlton: I have two petitions on the issue of Sunday shopping. The first:
“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 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.”
This is signed by one resident of the city of Hamilton. I have added my signature to it.
The second petition:
“To the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:
“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:
“Let’s not leave this issue up to the municipalities. This is the responsibility of the provincial government. I say no to Sunday openings.”
It is signed by 98 residents of Hamilton-Wentworth and surrounding areas.
Mr. Allen: I beg leave to present a petition to the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario which is signed by 125 signatures. It reads:
“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:
“Let’s not leave this issue up to the municipalities. This is the responsibility of the provincial government. I say no to Sunday openings.”
I have endorsed this petition and, of course, I support it.
REPORT BY COMMITTEE
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT
Mr. Mahoney from the standing committee on general government presented the following report and moved its adoption:
Your committee begs to report the following bill as amended:
Bill 106, An Act to amend the Municipal Elections Act and the Municipal Act.
Motion agreed to.
Bill ordered for third reading.
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ORDERS OF THE DAY
RETAIL BUSINESS HOLIDAYS AMENDMENT ACT
Hon. Mrs. Smith moved second reading of Bill 113, An Act to amend the Retail Business Holidays Act.
Hon. Mrs. Smith: Ontario is a province of growth, of opportunity and of diversity. Our province is constantly changing, constantly adapting and constantly accepting new challenges. The diversity of our economic development and our cultural makeup is constantly expanding. Our strength is in this diversity and in this ability to change. Our viability is in our ability to adapt and to take advantage of the wide range of opportunity that this vast province offers.
Over the last several years, we have seen communities grow and prosper because of their local character and attractions. Communities like Niagara-on-the-Lake and Stratford have prospered around their theatres. Many communities around our Great Lakes have expanded their economies because of their attractive beaches. Recreational attractions like Canada’s Wonderland, Georgian Bay’s ski hills and the lakes and forests of the north have also generated prosperity for communities.
In some cases, this development has gone hand in hand with the local decision to maintain a quiet and traditional Sunday, from a commercial point of view. Indeed, Meaford, in the midst of ski country, has so far chosen largely to retain its closed Sunday.
Other communities, such as Bayfield and Port Stanley, towns along the edge of our Great Lakes, have developed streets of small boutiques which open on Sunday quite legally because their local governments chose to allow this under the present tourist option. In eastern Ontario, Gananoque has declared itself a tourist area. Temagami, Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay have all developed local bylaw solutions to their own tourist situations.
This orderly development represents the intention of the old Retail Business Holidays Act. It also demonstrates that in actual fact, as we have repeated time and again, the local option, which the Association of Municipalities of Ontario has so strongly resisted, already exists and has existed all along. There are at least 24 municipalities that have taken advantage of the tourist option to open. Once again, any municipality having tourism needs can do so.
However, some of these local bylaws clearly do not reflect the intentions of the present law and are, in fact, abuses of it. For example, we have a fruit stand in the regional municipality of Peel declared a tourist attraction by that municipality. We have a hand-made furniture store in Scarborough allowed to open while another furniture store just down the street must close. We have a community like St. George, which is not really tourist-oriented, declaring itself a tourist area.
There is no way that this province can prevent this abuse by defining tourism. There is no definition broad enough to cover all the legitimate tourism needs of this diverse province that could, at the same time, be part of a meaningful, enforceable law that will stand up in the courts.
There is another important element about this existing law that must be emphasized. As history has clearly demonstrated, this law is unenforceable. You may wonder, Mr. Speaker, why this law is under the umbrella of the Solicitor General. It is because, in fact, this law is primarily concerned with enforcement. It is essential to this ministry, to the police forces and to the citizens and retailers of this province that whatever law is on the books, whatever law we expect our police forces to enforce, is indeed both fair and enforceable.
Unfortunately, as I stated, this is not the case under the existing law. We have grocery stores larger than the allowable convenience stores roping off areas, putting up artificial partitions on Sundays and competing unfairly with grocery stores that are obeying the intent of the law and staying closed. We have drugstores open and we now have mini-department stores calling themselves drugstores and providing unfair competition to neighbouring stores, such as hardware stores. We have stores openly defying the law because fines are inadequate and can be considered a nuisance cost of doing business. We have roping off, which gives unreasonable and unfair advantage to one merchant over another.
Along with enforceability, fairness must be instilled into the law, and it must be a fairness that is apparent and legally defensible or the courts will force us to do what we should have done for ourselves. This is why we are introducing this newer, fairer, more enforceable bill. Let me tell members what specific steps we have taken in this bill to make it both fair and enforceable.
First and most important, we have recognized that many communities will want to maintain the status quo but under a law that provides for stricter enforcement. We have therefore left in place a provincial framework law that will be in effect unless and until the local government enacts bylaws to take advantage of its right to adjust that law to local conditions. This provincial framework will do away with the oversized drug stores, with roping off and similar abuses.
Second, we have recognized that the present tourist option provided a local option through the back door. For those communities that wish to alter or not to adhere to the provincial framework, we have made fair and upfront provisions so that people can understand that it is through their local or regional governments, and these governments only, that laws can be written which either keep closed or open up their community according to the needs of that particular community.
In Thunder Bay, the people of that community can decide what Thunder Bay needs, and these needs may be far different from the needs of the people of London. In border cities like Windsor, residents can decide what Windsor needs, and their needs may be far different from those of the people of Peterborough.
We recognize the variety of needs and situations in this huge province. Many areas depend on holiday tourism and special tourist attractions for their economic survival. We recognize that any municipality must be able to pass its own bylaws with regard to Sunday and holiday shopping, as indeed they presently can and do to set hours of retail business for other days.
These new municipal bylaws may define size restrictions, time restrictions, seasonal restrictions or any other legally defensible restrictions that differ from the provincial framework. So indeed a local government may pass bylaws declaring Sunday completely open -- as some have already done -- or they may allow specific hours, staffing and sizing that adjust the provincial framework to their particular needs. At the same time, the bill ensures that religious rights of retailers will not be overridden by a municipal bylaw.
Third, as under the existing law, we have given regional government the power to control the law within a region.
To further improve upon the present law, we have increased possible fines and required the courts to examine any evidence of total sales in setting these fines; and very important, we have introduced injunctive power for the courts to order that a store close on a holiday to ensure compliance. As well, we have provided that advertisements may be used as admissible evidence that the law is being broken. We have done all these things in order to make it more possible for those communities that wish to maintain a common pause day to do so without abuses abounding.
Ontario is not the only province now moving to provide municipalities with discretion in the regulation of Sunday and holiday shopping. Saskatchewan also plans to institute very similar legislation. Its urban affairs minister, Jack Klein, explained his government’s decision as follows:
“Any legislation will have to recognize local market conditions, which vary enormously from community to community. The municipalities are in a better position to deal with the question.”
Three other important freedoms are recognized here today.
First, the rights of religious groups are recognized. Any retail business may open on Sunday if it closes year-round on any other one day of the week because of the owner’s religion.
Second, it is clearly set out that a mall owner cannot require a tenant to open on Sundays or holidays, even if the mall itself is allowed to open under local bylaw. This is a new protection that extends to all tenants, including those in existing open malls.
Third, this bill gives rise to an accompanying bill that protects, for the first time, all retail employees, including those in currently open businesses. The proposed changes will protect all retail employees against unreasonable requirements to work on Sunday. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) will enlarge on this, but I wish to emphasize now that thousands of employees presently working for businesses legitimately open on Sunday will have new protection.
Tourism is the number two industry of Ontario. It provides $9 billion each year in volume and provides over 400,000 jobs. Tourism also generates an estimated $1.3 billion in government revenues each year.
Any bill introduced in this House must recognize these facts and must recognize that those areas with the highest unemployment rates -- eastern and northern Ontario -- also have great tourism potential. So we have brought forward a fair and enforceable bill that allows for the development of that tourism potential as well as for other unique community needs and values of individual communities.
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As past government whip and as a past member of several committees, I am convinced that committees, by travelling and listening closely to people across the province, can come up with useful improvements to any bill. It has always been my intention to encourage such interaction in the consideration of this bill. I welcome and encourage the committee members who address this bill. I will listen closely to their recommendations. I also welcome and encourage the participation of all community groups and individuals so that the diverse nature of this province will be properly addressed in the final bill.
I would ask that such groups and individuals consider my remarks today, because the only inflexibility this government has is its determination that our bill will indeed be fair and enforceable and will address the economic and cultural needs of all Ontario.
Mr. McLean: I just want to comment briefly on the opening statement by the minister. As the minister is probably aware, in the past week we have been dealing with Bill 106 in committee. It is a municipal bill, a government bill that has had 30 amendments brought in by the government to amend its own bill. She is now indicating that she wants to travel the province and have input from the people in the province.
The Association of Municipalities of Ontario sent in all kinds of resolutions relating to the previous bill I am speaking about. The government did not accept any of those recommendations. There are other people who wrote in, legal people, with regard to recounts. The government did not listen to them. Here today the minister is telling us that she wants to travel the province with this bill and listen to what the people of the province have to say.
I have to tell the minister that I do not believe one word that this is what she wants to do. She has that bill laid out and that is what she intends to do. She will travel for as many months as she wants and I do not think it is really, truly the information she is looking for.
Mr. Philip: The minister says she encourages input by the committee’s travelling throughout the province. I ask the minister, what assurance can she give that any kind of listening will be done to people who will make presentations to the committee when in fact she was a member of a committee set up by the Premier (Mr. Peterson) that travelled the province, that had input, that made specific recommendations that she personally signed, and she is now introducing legislation that is diametrically opposed to those very recommendations? If she did not accept the recommendations that she signed herself, why would she accept the recommendations made by a committee of which she is not a member?
Mr. J. M. Johnson: I think this afternoon the question was asked about a comparison to Nova Scotia and the minister said that it was a hodgepodge affair. I think the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Mr. Eakins), who is also the former Minister of Tourism and Recreation, said to the rural section of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario that the current situation is a hodgepodge. “The tourist operation is open and important because of the emphasis on tourism in Ontario. If you do not want to be open you do not have to be.”
Would it not be more of a hodgepodge affair after she allows hundreds of municipalities to individually choose whether they want to remain open or not? If it is a problem now, will it not be much worse after? I would think if each municipality exercised its option and determined whether it wished to stay open or not, we would indeed have a very serious problem across the province.
I fully support the idea of local autonomy, but if she is going to give local autonomy, why does she not give it where it is meaningful, in land use and in some controls of planning and in some of the things municipalities have asked for? Since municipalities have voted nearly unanimously to oppose this, why then say: “That is your local option. That is what you are going to have for this year. Next year we may give you some other token recognition factor”?
I think the message should have been loud and clear to all the members. I certainly know the House leader is aware of the concerns in rural parts of this province. They are saying quite clearly that they do not want that option to make the decision pertaining to the Sunday shopping issue. They are satisfied with the present legislation with slight changes that are needed to bring it into accord with law.
Mr. Swart: I would just like to pursue a little further the comments and questions of the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale (Mr. Philip) and just ask the minister a few questions and hope she will reply in her comments.
When she says she would like to have the input and welcomes the input of people across this province, of course we all recognize that she did not want to have unlimited input into this bill. There were certain pressures brought to bear which caused her finally to capitulate, but it was not her wish.
The question I want to put to her, and hope she will answer, is: is she prepared to consider, if the committee recommends -- or even if the committee does not recommend, if she has overwhelming representation -- to change the fundamental principle of this bill, that of transferring it to municipalities on having open Sundays, making any changes to those fundamental principles?
Mrs. Marland: In light of the promise to hold public meetings, I want to formalize and put on the record for the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith), since, as the representative for Mississauga South, I have personally tabled in this House over 10,000 names of people who are not only concerned but concerned to the extent that they are totally opposed to Sunday shopping, that I would request on their behalf that some of these public meetings which are being promised to be held around the province would indeed be held in Mississauga.
Mississauga is not a suburb of Metropolitan Toronto. It is no longer convenient for the residents of Mississauga to commute for hearings in Toronto. We are a city of 400,000 people, and I think the current Liberal provincial government might show those people in Mississauga some respect by agreeing to hold some of the public hearings in that city. In fact, it would be a very good catchment location for some communities to the north and to the west because it would not drag those people to otherwise drive into downtown Toronto where it is $5 an hour to park, among other things -- that is if they can find the parking. I would hope the Solicitor General would heed the request for hearings in the great city of Mississauga. Thank you.
Hon. Mrs. Smith: I wish to respond to the member for Simcoe East (Mr. McLean), the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale and the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) more or less in one on the bulk of what they said by reminding them that the select committee on which I sat based its whole recommendation on a definition of tourism for the whole province into which all the various areas would opt. This indeed became a legal stumbling block, as I said in my speech, if the members had taken the time to listen.
A definition of tourism for the province which would have met the various needs of all the localities of this province would indeed have turned out to be so general as to be not enforceable in the courts or useful to the municipalities. At the same time, we could not rule out tourism as a very vital and important industry to many of the communities. It is, therefore, for this reason that we have to recognize both the need of those communities which are partly or wholly dependent on tourism and also the needs and wishes of those communities which wish to stay as closed as possible.
It is for the legal reason and a variety of reasons that we have to allow a variety of municipal rulings. In fact, this is so now because the tourist exemption in the present law allows municipalities to opt out as tourist options, which is what they are doing and which is the same as a municipal option.
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The member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick (Mr. Kanter) is on the committee and he will take note of the request of the member for Mississauga South (Mrs. Marland) about the location of one of the hearings. I am sure he will convey that message. To the member for Wellington (Mr. J. M. Johnson), I made no mention of “hodgepodge.” The member for Etobicoke-Rexdale referred to patchwork and I pointed out, indeed, the use of having some degree of patchwork within the province.
Mr. Philip: I find the minister’s last comments in responding to her opening comments to be somewhat humorous. The Canadian National Exhibition can define what a tourist is but the government of Ontario cannot define what a tourist is. I find that so preposterous that it boggles the imagination.
I do take pleasure in being the first speaker for the official opposition in a debate which has been raging for some time now. In my 13 years as a member of the Legislature, I know of no issue which has generated more mail or indeed more concern in the way of telephone calls or in the way of people stopping me as I walk through my riding and talk to my constituents.
It is because of this public concern on this issue that we in the New Democratic Party fought hard to have full public hearings so that the public might have an opportunity to express its views. This government with its large majority thinks it does not have to listen to the people of Ontario. It wanted two weeks of hearings and then back into the House for quick passage before the summer recess.
My colleagues and I believe that when a government makes a major change of direction, the public has a right to present its views and that is why for more than a week we continued to introduce petition after petition and eventually were able to force this government to hold hearings this summer.
I would urge all of those watching and indeed reading the debate who have concern on any side of the issue to call or write the clerk of the standing committee on administration of justice. They have a right to appear to present their views before the committee and to have their concerns heard.
In the view of New Democrats, these two laws are bad laws. They are both based on broken promises on the part of the majority Liberal government. Neither makes Sunday working any fairer for the many thousands of working families which are affected.
During the last election and after, the Liberals said that the current law was basically OK and did not need changing. Now they say that Ontario needs a new law, a law that passes the buck to the local governments; a law that allows different rules for Sunday working in every town and city; a law that allows different rules in different communities with regional municipalities or in different parts of any community; a law that lets local councils allow Sunday working hours according to specific holidays, specific times of day, retail store size, number of employees, type of business, location or any other criteria they decide might suit their whim or their notion.
The Liberals say we need new legislation because the law we have now is unenforceable. We say that if you have a law which is unenforceable, you do not cop out, you cop in, you correct the law. If you do not, you do not deserve to be the government.
On the examples of problems the Solicitor General has been speaking about in her leadoff address, she was a member of the committee which studied and indeed came up with concrete proposals on how to deal with those problems. To suggest that passing these problems to the municipalities will somehow correct them is simply absurd. It is simply not a way of correcting them; it is simply a way of multiplying them, of having, instead of one or two concrete solutions to a problem, multiple attempts at solutions, in fact, of creating anarchy.
It is the same Premier who established the select committee on store hours, a committee that toured the province and held hearings, a committee that made 17 specific recommendations which the Premier, before the election, said were acceptable to him.
The Solicitor General, who was responsible for this Sunday working legislation, was a member of that committee at that time. She signed the report. She helped draft the proposals which she thought were good proposals at that time. Now she has the audacity to bring in legislation that is in direct contravention of the essential principle of that legislation, which is that there is a need within people for a common pause day.
On that committee, I had an opportunity to travel with the member who is now the Solicitor General and we discussed how it seems interesting that no matter what religion you go to, there is written within it some law that says one out of every seven days is needed for a pause. Whether you are a theist, as I am, or an agnostic or an atheist, you have to at least recognize that there seems to be within all religions an innate kind of sensitivity to nature that says one out of seven days requires a pause, that there is a need to recycle, to rejuvenate.
I believed the Premier when, during the election, he stated that he believed in the principle of a common pause day. I believed the Premier when he stated that the select committee had a report that was acceptable to him, that we had offered concrete, positive, reasonable solutions. I believed the Premier so much that I telephoned the clerk of the committee and I said: “It seems fairly evident that this will not be another issue for at least the next decade, maybe decade and a half. Nobody will dare raise the issue of opening up the large grocery stores and supermarkets for another decade. Do you have a copy of all the presentations in the archives so that they are easily retrievable by any member of the House?”
When I was told they did, I said, “It will not be necessary for me to keep all the copies.” Indeed, my assistant and I discarded much of the information rather than hold on to it, assuming we would not be faced with this debate at least for the next decade or so.
I guess, like so many others in this province, I now realize that my trust in the Premier was misplaced. How can you trust someone who says one thing during an election and does exactly the opposite after the election?
The very first and second recommendations of the select committee read as follows: “The primary responsibility for the administration of the Retail Business Holidays Act or other legislation relating to retailing on holidays should remain that of the provincial government. In exercising its administrative responsibilities, the Ontario government should formulate the general framework and policy standards for the operation of the Retail Business Holidays Act.” It is fairly clear. The report the minister signed says that Ontario has to exercise the responsibility, that it cannot be passed to the municipalities.
Mr. D. S. Cooke: What did it say?
Mr. Philip: If the member wants me to read it a second time, “The primary responsibility for the administration of the Retail Business Holidays Act or other legislation relating to retailing on holidays should remain that of the provincial government.”
The person who signed that was the Solicitor General. In looking at that report, the Solicitor General will remember that there was a need to put that as the first recommendation because it was the cornerstone of the report. Because it was the cornerstone, we put it as the first recommendation. Now the minister violates that report, violates the very essence of what she stood for.
These were the recommendations signed by the Solicitor General and endorsed by the Premier. The Solicitor General knows full well from her experience as a member of that select committee on retail store hours that the municipal option in British Columbia simply meant wide-open shopping. She was told by deputations that came from there, indeed small businessmen who had gone bankrupt, that the moment Vancouver opened, North Vancouver had to open whether it wished to or not, because in fact, once money started going across the border, then it simply was forced to open.
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We heard that the council in North Vancouver had democratically decided not to have a wide-open Sunday. We heard that the people in North Vancouver did not want it. We heard that the merchants did not want it. We heard that they even took democratic votes saying they did not want it. But the moment you have the municipal option, the moment one municipality opens, then you simply have the domino effect.
In announcing the government’s decision on providing the municipal option on Sunday shopping, the Solicitor General stated that the government had concluded that the recommendations of the select committee were unworkable. But she was the minister who signed the report only months earlier. If they are unworkable now, why were they not unworkable when she signed that report? She was the one who strongly supported the committee’s recommendation against widespread Sunday shopping.
Furthermore, it is this same Solicitor General who, in comments prior to the government’s recent Sunday shopping decision, described the municipal option as the chicken option. Well, that is what she has done. She has chickened out. She is afraid to enact legislation, and therefore she decided to pass the buck to the municipalities.
I happen to believe that the Solicitor General still believes in the report that she signed. I think she was outvoted in cabinet and she is an awkward position now, defending what she realizes is the indefensible.
She also knows that the municipal option was tried in Nova Scotia and failed. Let me remind the Liberal members of this House of some of the comments made in the Nova Scotia Legislature during the debate on the legislation which had to be introduced to reverse the earlier legislation that gave the municipal option.
Let me remind the Liberal members what the Attorney General of Nova Scotia said on May 20, 1987. The Honourable Terence Donahoe said, and if the minister wants to check it out, it is on page 2924 of the Legislative Assembly debates of Nova Scotia, “All members will be aware that earlier legislation was introduced and passed.”
The earlier legislation that the Attorney General of Nova Scotia is talking about was the 1975 legislation that gave the municipalities the local option.
“In that earlier legislation, there were a number of provisions whereby the local municipal units had an opportunity to exercise certain activities and controls over the way in which legislation would apply. In particular, in section 4 and subsequent sections of the existing legislation, there were definitions of business, there were provisions relative to the issuance of permits by a council of a municipality by way of bylaw.”
So there was very real and considerable municipal capacity in relation to what went on in terms of uniform closing-day shopping activity across the province.
“All members will be aware that over the course of the last year or so, as a result in particular of a whole range of different kinds of decisions taken by different municipal units, we were fast getting to the point where we were developing very much a patchwork quilt of what would be open.”
The Attorney General, in introducing and reversing the original legislation, is in fact saying the municipal option creates anarchy.
Indeed, if we go over a couple of pages, we have some interesting comments by the NDP critic of the Attorney General, Bob Levy, who says, basically in agreement:
“I want to rise in support of this bill” -- that is, the bill to reverse the kind of legislation which the Liberals in this government seem to want to introduce – “and note how difficult it perhaps may appear, even with hindsight, to have addressed and comprehended this problem and to have dealt with it adequately in the first place. This whole phenomenon of Sunday openings by large stores was thrust upon us somewhat quickly it seems and the Legislature made what I believe to be a good-faith effort in 1985 to be sensitive to various problems surrounding this and to enable the matter to be dealt with on a local basis. Experience has proven that for one reason or another it just didn’t work.”
So there is not only the Attorney General, Mr. Donahoe, and not only the government, but also the opposition saying: “Look, a mistake was made in 1975. The municipal option does not work. We are going to have to reverse it.”
“As an aside,” Mr. Levy goes on to say, “it is a bit of an interesting case study in legislation in response to perceived or actual social problems, and there would be much in it, I would think, that would be of interest to students of the legislative process, how government responded and how they had to respond and the problems of how limits were tested, and how loopholes were found very quickly, and how various decisions were made by various municipal units and not made by various municipal units pursuant to their own beliefs. I believe it makes for a fascinating study of the legislative response or the legal response to a problem.”
The Solicitor General suddenly tries to tell us that our problems are going to go away if the municipalities are given the local option. Here we have a province that has tried that, and we have the members of that Legislature pointing out very clearly that it created even more loopholes because there are even more people out there at a local level looking for the loopholes. So she is creating an even greater problem.
The only thing she is doing is trying to get it away from the responsibility of the provincial government and make the local municipalities deal with the loopholes, and that did not work. It did not work in Nova Scotia. We can imagine that if it did not work in Nova Scotia, how much more difficult it will be to make it work in a province like Ontario, with its complicated infrastructure and, indeed, with large municipalities side by side, across the street from one another, with borders across which commerce can easily flow back and forth.
In announcing their legislation, the Liberals promised that no retail worker would have to work if he or she did not wish to do so. That was part of the rationalization they used to soften the political outcry of their having deceived the electorate during the election campaign. This was one of the rationalizations made to ease the public outcry of yet another flip-flop by the Peterson government.
But what do we see when we finally get the bills before us? We see that, under their proposed law, retail workers will be able to refuse Sunday work that they consider unreasonable, but the law sets out a whole range of factors that can take away most of that right to refuse. What is left is the right of retail workers, most of whom do not have a union to support them, to take on the boss for not being reasonable and let the government mediators referee and decide. If the minister cannot define “tourism,” then how does she expect to define “reasonable”? She wishes her mediators then to define “reasonable”? What she is going to do is have a whole series of unreasonable decisions by people who will make capricious decisions or poorly founded decisions based on their own personal backgrounds rather than any kind of objectivity across the board, or, indeed, any regulation or statute across the board.
Furthermore, the government, or at the very least the Solicitor General, is aware of the testimony given before that select committee, of which she was a member, testimony by people such as the managers of Canadian Tire stores across this province who said: “You can pass any labour law you want on this. If we are faced with a crunch, we can easily force a person to work. We are not stupid enough to deliberately violate a statute. All we have to do is say, ‘Mrs. Smith, I want you to work on Thursday night.’ The manager knows that Mrs. Smith has her Girl Guide group that she has been active in for the last decade on Thursday night. ‘Mr. Smith, you have to work on Friday nights.’ He knows that Mr. Smith has one course left that he takes on Friday nights to complete his bachelor of arts degree at the local university.”
All of those things can be used to coerce the person into working; and, indeed, as the Canadian Tire store managers have pointed out, there is the mere knowledge that refusal to be co-operative, that refusal to be a company man, is enough to simply make it impossible for you to get a promotion.
Indeed, the minister will remember that the very argument that the Canadian Tire store operators made was that there was no law that could be passed in this regard that they could not get around. Not that they wanted to get around it, because the Canadian Tire store managers, as the minister will know were, as a group -- every single individual one of them -- opposed to this legislation.
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I know government members must have received letters or telephone calls from their own constituents. I have received calls from small businesses. I talked about the Canadian Tire store operators. I have received similar calls from hardware store operators. When you get into a business like a Canadian Tire store, a hardware store, a jewellery store, you cannot simply hire students to man the stores on Sunday. Either you have a security problem in the case of jewellery stores -- and we had jewellery store operators come before the committee and express that concern -- or in the case of Canadian Tire and hardware stores, you have a problem that you need people who have a knowledge of the inventory in order to serve the customers. Simply hiring a student does not relieve you of the problem that you need knowledgeable employees, probably at the management level, to man the store whenever it is open.
Indeed, that was the very case that the Canadian Tire store operators made to us. They said: “We do not have trouble competing. We have massive advertising budgets at our disposal. We can compete with anybody out there. We may even, as a result of Sunday opening, get an extra piece of the action by taking away from some of the small hardware stores.” What they are concerned about is that they are going to have to have some of their key people working on Sunday because there is no other option, and they are worried about staff turnover as a result of that.
They pointed out to us that indeed it costs a lot of money to make a person knowledgeable in the trade, only to have him go down the street then to a position where he can work five days a week at perhaps the same salary or maybe a little less, maybe a little more. They are worried about not only what this will do in terms of their employees and the morale of those employees, but also what it will do in terms of the service to the customer. If you have a higher turnover in these stores, then you are going to have less service to the customer.
The minister talks about the need to make it illegal for the shopping mall owners to discriminate against stores that refuse to open. She can introduce that legislation, fine. But the fact is that there is nothing under present law that gives a store owner in a mall the same kind of protections that are given to a tenant under the Landlord and Tenant Act.
There is absolutely nothing that says a mall owner has to renew a lease at the end of that lease. There is nothing under present law that says that if I do not like what a store owner is doing, I have to sign a new contract with him. There is nothing that says I cannot charge him three times the rent of the store owner next door. To the small store owner, knowing that a large corporation can often be fairly forceful in how it achieves its objectives, that alone is enough of a coercion to force the store owner to stay open when the owner of the mall comes over and says: “Gosh, why not be part of the gang? Everybody else is going to open, and we really do not like the fact that you are closing on Sunday.”
That means that in a mall where you have some specialties, such as an optometrist, even the optometrist is going to have to remain open on Sunday. Optometrists have told us that when it was tried in tourist areas or in other areas, in fact they were lucky if they sold a pair of sunglasses on Sunday. People who shop on Sunday are often out for recreation, rather than making a conscious effort to go and buy a specific item.
But of course, under Ontario law, if you have an optometrist’s store you have to have an optometrist present, so it may absolutely not make any economic sense to you. Most people who are going to have their eyes examined and thereby buy glasses the way that I did only last week, make an appointment, go to see an optometrist at a particular time, get their eyes tested and then find out whether they need any change in their glasses.
They do not just drop in the way that someone will on a Sunday. The only ones who benefit from all of this are, of course, the mall owners. We have been told that the way in which the malls collect their rent is a flat rate on the square footage and then a percentage of the gross amount that comes through the door, not on the profits but on the gross.
Even though it may not be in the economic interest of the small store owner to remain open on Sunday, it is in the interest of the mall owner. Even though the owner himself may realize that it is costing him more to remain open seven days a week than six days a week, the mall will benefit by the little extra bit of business that may come into that mall, perhaps at the expense of the small businessman elsewhere.
So what we have then is that the only winners are the owners of the mall or, indeed, as we found out in the British Columbia case, The Bay -- a company that was having real financial problems, that needed to get an extra share of the market and, in fact, through Sunday opening, managed to get a larger share of the market at the expense of the small business people.
I have received numerous phone calls, as I say. I will not read all of them, but let me give you an example of the kinds of letters that I have received. I received a great number of letters from single parents. In my riding, I have talked to a number of them. Many of them are either managers or salespersons in particular grocery stores or department stores.
They say to me very simply: “It is difficult enough, with one parent, to bring up our children. We are not home on Thursday nights. We are not home, usually, on Friday nights, because of our occupation in the store. We are not home all day Saturday. The children are home on Saturdays and Sundays. For heaven’s sake, at least give us one day when we can be with our children.”
The government members argue that somehow in the United States, by having wide-open Sunday shopping the fabric of the family has not broken down entirely. But surely, as I made the point yesterday to a group that I was speaking to on Sunday morning -- a group that invited me to speak in the Pentecostal church on Steeles Avenue in the riding of Etobicoke-Rexdale -- with all the pressures that are on the family why add one more?
I do not know whether you can prove scientifically that this is going to hurt the family; but I do know that, if I have a number of variables, a number of pressures, and I can remove one of those pressures at a time when the family is under pressure from various sides, that it makes some sense to do that.
The Premier has stated publicly that members of this House who believe in a common day of rest are living in the past. I have an interesting response that was written by the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers. It points out that the early settlers in this province legislated Sunday as a common day of rest primarily for religious reasons, so that families could worship together.
“Times have changed and the makeup of our population now embraces many religious groups for whom Sunday bears no particular religious significance.
“As a consequence it is very easy to argue that the old reasons for having Sunday as a common day of rest are no longer valid and therefore should become a day like any other day of the week, when people are free to engage in the full range of commercial activities.
“We suggest to you, however, that although the religious reasons for maintaining Sunday as a common day of rest may no longer be applicable to the whole of the Ontario population, there are nevertheless good reasons for maintaining Sunday as a day when the majority of the citizens in this province are not required to be at work and therefore can engage in family activities.”
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It goes on to say, “Modern lifestyles with husband and wife at work and children either in day care or at school, have already reduced the opportunities for the family unit to be together. Of course, part of the appeal of Sunday shopping among certain segments of our population stems from the very fact that in many families both husband and wife, are now working. Therein lies the dilemma. If asked, many people will say that they welcome the opportunity to shop on Sunday. At the same time those same people will also indicate that they would be most upset if they were called upon to work on Sunday. As provincial politicians, we believe it is your responsibility to look beyond the perceived immediate desires of certain members of the population and ensure that legislative changes are in the interests of all Ontarians -- not just of this generation, but of generations to come.”
I have received many letters like that, and it just seems to me that the minister has failed to listen to that social-worker priest in Windsor who made a plea to her and to other members of the committee not to bring in legislation which is going to put extra pressures on families that are already overburdened. She has failed to listened to that.
A number of friends of mine are managers, or indeed in the case of one an owner of retail grocery stores. I have a number of Italian immigrants, particularly, who came to this country many years ago and whose families operate very successful businesses -- Ferlisi’s, to name only one of them, on Albion Road near my riding office.
All of the merchants and all of the trade associations that have come before us have said the same thing, “It is going to increase the cost if we remain open seven days a week.” They admit that they are going to obtain some business from the small mom-and-pop stores that sell groceries locally, but they also say that extra little bit of volume will not make up for the amount of extra costs that they are going to have to pay in wages.
We have a situation then where the very people who are running the businesses are saying to this government: “Look, put in the changes that the select committee has recommended. Don’t allow somebody to open up a grocery store and pretend that it’s a drug store. There are ways of dealing with that. But, for Heaven’s sake, don’t create a situation where we have to open up seven days a week, because the extra cost can only mean one thing: less salary to our employees or, more likely, higher costs to the consumer.” Various estimates range between 6 per cent and 9 per cent, or even as high as 15 per cent.
Small businessmen that I have talked to in the riding know that they will be affected. The Solicitor General was there when the Korean Businessmen’s Association appeared before the committee; indeed, in different cities, there were different branches of it. They pointed out that in British Columbia many of their members faced grave financial losses; indeed, some had to go out of business and relocate in Ontario after Mr. Vander Zalm decided to use the municipal option and they had the kind of things that happened there.
I happen to think that small business is important. Some of these people have come from other countries. They have PhDs, MDs and law degrees, but because of circumstances and the difficulties of getting accreditation here, and in some cases because of language, they have been able to support their families by operating small stores. These people now, having lost their businesses in the west, are going to face the same thing in Ontario, thanks to this silly legislation by the Solicitor General.
What we are also facing is a ripple effect when it comes to who will be working on Sundays. We had mall owners tell us that if the small malls have to remain open on Sunday it means extra costs to them. It means there are extra security costs. On a wider scale, it is fairly clear that increased Sunday shopping can only mean increased work for police, public transportation and day care services, all of the extra services that then will be needed as a result of the extra day of work.
Indeed, at a time when this government has cut back on its portion of what it --
Interjection.
Mr. Philip: Well, if the member wants to speak, maybe I will sit down then and let him speak. I would like to have an opportunity to continue my speech.
The Acting Speaker (Miss Roberts): Order. Go ahead, please.
Mr. Philip: It is fairly clear that here we have a government that is cutting back on its grants to municipalities as a percentage of the local tax it is paying, and at the same time it is putting this extra, increased burden on the taxpayers municipally. You cannot have all these extra services without it coming out of somewhere and these are the very services that are paid municipally.
The irony is that this will actually mean less service to the public. Even the person who says, “Well, I’d like to be able to have the convenience of shopping,” is going to be faced with less service rather than more service as a result of this option. We have heard what has happened already in Alberta. The Alberta merchants, faced with the increased costs of salaries of staying open that extra day, in fact are cutting back in the evening hours. It is now less convenient for many people who would otherwise have an opportunity to buy something on the way home from work if they are working late, to shop, because the stores are now closed earlier in order to stay open on Sunday.
The minister and the Premier somehow try to say that this is an exercise in local participatory democracy by allowing the municipalities to make the decisions. Well, if it is really participatory democracy, why do they not give them the local decision-making on the areas they have asked for? This is not one area they have asked for.
The 675-member Association of Municipalities of Ontario has overwhelmingly voted against this legislation. They are saying: “We don’t want it. Let it go away.” What kind of participatory democracy can we have if you say, “I want to give you something,” and I say, “I don’t really want it,” and you say, “You’re going to take it anyway whether you like it or not”? That is not participatory democracy; that is authoritarianism of the worst kind.
If one is going to be logical then, if one wants to go that route with participatory democracy, what is next in store? Are we going to have local safety laws designed by the municipalities? Is that the way this government wants to go? Are we going to have local environmental laws?
The government will say: “Gosh, we’ve got an environmental problem in southern Etobicoke that we can’t handle. Let’s take the municipal option. We couldn’t handle Sunday shopping centrally and we found a way of copping out of that one. We gave that over to the municipalities. Let’s give the environmental problems over to the municipalities. Let’s give any other problem we can’t solve over to the local municipalities, so that we don’t have to deal with it.”
I say to the government that it was not given its large majority to cop out that way. It was given its large majority to consult with people, to listen to them -- it obviously has not listened to the municipalities because they have said they do not want this bill -- and to show some leadership.
Let me conclude by saying I believe that in this society in Ontario, and indeed in Canada, we have created a society that is different from some others. I remember as a young boy, when we first got our black and white television set, watching Bishop Sheen on TV. I only remember one line out of that. Out of all the sermons -- he was tremendously dramatic and I guess I enjoyed the theatre of what he was saying -- I remember only one thing. He said, and I remember the line over and over again and I have repeated it over and over again, “We mustn’t create a society where it’s anything for a buck.”
He was talking about the United States. I think when we go to the United States -- and I have relatives there and I deeply love my relatives there -- the Americans have created a society where materialism is more important than the things of the spirit or the things of the human person. I say to the minister that, in going this route of materialism, this is exactly what the minister is doing.
She does not believe it. I know she does not believe it. She signed a report that said that she did not believe it. If I were in her shoes, I hope that I would have the guts, I hope that I would have the moral fortitude, to say: “I cannot go ahead with this kind of legislation. I will not usher it in, Mr. Premier. If you want somebody to act as your voice in the Legislature on something that I so diametrically oppose, I am afraid you will have to get someone else to do it.”
It deeply disappoints me that she has not had the courage or, indeed, the moral fortitude to tell the Premier what to do with what he wanted or what the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) wanted. Instead she is acting as a mouthpiece for a cabinet that is forcing something on her that she obviously does not believe, or at least that she did not believe six months ago.
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The Acting Speaker: Does any honourable member wish to comment upon the remarks made by the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale? The member for Eglinton.
Ms. Poole: I just want to briefly touch on a few of the comments made by the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale. First of all, I think anybody who knows our current Solicitor General knows that she is not a mouthpiece for anyone except Joan Smith. She is bringing in this legislation because she believes in it, and if she did not believe in it, she would have convinced her cabinet colleagues otherwise. So please do not impugn the integrity of our Solicitor General.
With reference to the tourist exemption that the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale said was so easily defined that even the Canadian National Exhibition could define it, if that is the case, I am wondering why either the member himself or his party has not come forward with that “so easy” definition?
In fact, the current law with reference to the tourist exemption simply does not make sense. Why should one side of the street be closed on Sundays and the other side of the street be open because it has a tourist exemption? Why should stores in Harbourfront be open on Sunday because they have a tourist exemption but the Eaton Centre stores be closed because they do not, even though they are one of Ontario’s greatest tourist attractions. So the tourist exemption was not a fair and enforceable mechanism. It should have been changed in the legislation and it is being changed.
Second, the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale quoted the Solicitor General as saying that responsibility for Sunday openings should remain with the province. I submit that is exactly what this government has done. The new legislation still provides a provincial framework. Stores are closed in this province unless specifically exempted in the act or unless the regional municipality proactively brings in its own legislation to change it.
The Acting Speaker: The member’s time has expired. Order. Does any other member wish to comment upon the remarks made by the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale? The member for Wellington.
Mr. J. M. Johnson: I would like to rise and support the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale’s comments. Many of the comments that he made are very similar to the comments that I intend to make at a future date, possibly today or tomorrow.
I would like to say that maybe there is a misunderstanding and, if there is, it could be corrected. The previous speaker just mentioned that the Solicitor General did not say that it was a chicken way out or imply that. I would like to just read into Hansard what I understand the Solicitor General to say.
She did indeed say that “the nature of this report is to keep Sunday recreational and not very open.” She went on to say that “it would be a chicken way out if it were turned over to the municipalities to make the decision.” Maybe that is incorrect, and if it is by all means correct it. Then she went on to introduce legislation doing that very thing.
It is my understanding that the legislation would allow municipalities to limit openings to specific hours, to open any part or parts of the regions, to restrict openings or require closings during specific periods of the year, to classify stores by size, number, etc. It is a very complicated issue. We have several hundred municipalities that will go in several hundred different directions. Is that going to make a more uniform policy?
It is asinine, and I do not how you can draft such legislation; or does the minister propose to tell the municipalities exactly how they will draft their legislation? Is the minister going to leave it up to them? The minister can reply, but I would like to know if the minister is going to leave it to the municipalities to draft their own. For example, if they have a referendum, would the minister prepare the referendum for them or would they have different referenda?
Mr. Mackenzie: Briefly, my colleague referred to the integrity of the Solicitor General on the issue, wishing she had the courage to stand up and take the position she had taken previously. That seemed to spark the defence of the member for Eglinton (Ms. Poole) that the Solicitor General was not a spokesman for anybody and she was bringing this bill forth because she agreed with it.
I am wondering if we could have from somebody here in the House an explanation then of whom she was speaking for when she was so solidly opposed to it just a few short months ago and was part of the committee that recommended against it.
The Acting Speaker: Does any other honourable member wish to comment? Madam Minister?
Hon. Mrs. Smith: I will wait. Go ahead.
The Acting Speaker: It is a rotation. If the minister wishes to speak, it is her turn to speak.
Hon. Mrs. Smith: Then I will speak briefly at this point to point out that indeed the province has left in place a provincial framework. What we have changed fundamentally is that instead of making tourism the rule by which people can vary to their particular needs, we have made it clear that they can vary it by their own statement. The option was always there under the guise of tourism.
If the Canadian National Exhibition can declare what a tourist is very clearly, it is because when the CNE is not open there is nobody there, and therefore everybody who comes is a tourist. It is easy.
If I go to Grand Bend, I am a tourist. If someone from Grand Bend comes to London, is he indeed a tourist in London; and if so, then is it not so that a tourist, as the member says, who comes to Toronto, can then go to the Eaton Centre as a tourist, just as I can go shopping as a tourist in Grand Bend?
It is not that easy; it is not that definable. London can decide whether it wants to stay open for that person from Grand Bend, just as Grand Bend may be able to decide that it needs that business from me and the people from London.
We depended on a definition of tourism which was not able to be found. The abuses prove that you cannot define tourism, and therefore we fully recognized that there must be variety in the province because of the economic variety of the province and that there must be room for Sault Ste. Marie to make one decision, Peterborough to make another decision and Toronto to make another decision.
We have put in there -- as the member has referred to Vancouver and North Vancouver and so on -- we have given regional government the overall stand for the very reason that was suggested to the member in discussion of Vancouver and North Vancouver. We feel it will give better stability in a bigger area to have the regional government in control.
The Acting Speaker: Two minutes for the honourable member in reply.
Interjection.
The Acting Speaker: No, that is the fourth speaker.
Mr. Philip: First, to the member for Eglinton --
Mr. McLean: On a point of order, Madam Speaker.
Mr. J. M. Johnson: He gets a chance to respond.
Mr. McLean: He certainly does, but we can have more than one member on our side who would like to comment, and I am sure that we have the opportunity to do that. Is there a time limit on the amount of people who can respond?
The Acting Speaker: There is a time limit on the response, and that time limit is two minutes for four people to respond. Four people have so responded. There is now two minutes for reply, and I am sure the honourable member wishes to do that.
Mr. Philip: The clock has been reset. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
In response to the member for Eglinton, she says that the Eaton Centre is not open. Well, the Eaton Centre is not open for two reasons. One is that the Eaton’s company does not consider that it wishes to open, and it has made that view known; indeed, the municipality has decided it is not a tourist centre, and that is fairly clear. That is under our present act, and it seems to work well. If the member for Eglinton does not agree and wants the Eaton Centre to open, then maybe she should contact the Eaton’s corporation and ask it to make an application under the present act.
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In terms of what I said about the Solicitor General, I have a lot of respect for the talents of the Solicitor General. I just happen to believe that she believed, and I know she believed, in what she signed six months ago. I think that when a minister or anyone else does so obvious a flip-flop, a complete about-change, as the minister has done, then there has to be some reason. I have to believe the reason is not that she was incompetent, because I do not believe she is incompetent, six months ago and did not know what she signed or did not know what she was doing. Indeed, she was one of the most active members of the committee and contributed greatly to that report. One can just say then that she must have been overruled by the cabinet, and I am terribly sorry that has happened.
The member for Wellington has made some interesting comments. Basically, what he says is that there is no real definition of what powers are going to be given to the municipalities. There are a whole lot of powers being given, and if you look at those powers, they are the same powers that the Nova Scotia government gave to its municipalities and that it had to rescind because it found out they created a hodgepodge in that province.
In terms of the solution to the problem, I would
--
The Acting Speaker (Miss Roberts): The member’s time has expired.
Mr. Philip: Thank you.
The Acting Speaker: Does any other honourable member wish to participate?
Mrs. Cunningham: I would like to begin my observations this afternoon by making the point that Sunday shopping was the largest single issue in the March 31 by-election in London North. I think the citizens of London North spoke strongly and very clearly on the issue of wide-open Sunday shopping. In fact, they obviously are not in favour of wide-open Sunday shopping.
When I first started the campaign as one of the candidates, I was quite surprised to have to listen to the citizens at the door on this issue of Sunday shopping. I can remember returning to my home after a couple of days out and saying to my family that I could not believe how concerned the citizens, parents and young people, were about this particular issue. I feel somewhat honoured and privileged to have heard first hand the concerns of many families across one of the larger ridings in Ontario.
I must honestly say to this House that it was very seldom that anyone spoke, at least in the riding of London North, in favour of Sunday shopping. I am sure that was conveyed through the vote of the electorate on the day of the by-election when we overcame the previous huge Liberal majority by some 3,500 votes.
The real issue as the citizens put it to me at the door was not so much Sunday shopping, although of course that is an issue, as it was the fact that people did not want to work on Sundays. Even those who were working who were members of the caring profession and who were very much a part of working on Sundays, because they were involved in necessary services, suggested they really had to jockey around the hours they had with their families through the week. It was a chosen profession on their part and they knew when they were accepting the responsibility of that work that it would entail some working on Sundays. They suggested, of course, that if they could avoid it, they would, and that it did impact negatively on their lives and the quality of life with their families.
In response to the concern over the definition of “tourism,” which seems to be of real concern to this House, I suggest that a lot of time has been spent on this issue over the years. Looking at the research dating back to 1973 that we have had the time to look at since the election, and certainly within the last two or three years as committees have sat and as people have spoken on this issue across this province, I am sure a lot of sincere work has been done.
My great concern now for the committee going out this summer and listening to the public is that I hope that committee will be listening to the citizens of the province, and I say this directly to the Solicitor General, who is usually noted for her ability to listen honestly and openly.
I must say that it is not with a great deal of confidence -- certainly during the by-election the citizens advised me that they were not particularly confident that this Liberal government is listening to the public, and I will be speaking to that further. My work on some of the committees, as limited as it has been, does not give me a lot of confidence that committee members are open-minded. I think sometimes they do not want to listen to the information. We certainly had a point and a concern at the meeting of the standing committee on public accounts.
The erosion of family life caused by a government which prefers to pass the buck to the municipalities when it is politically convenient, and which prefers not to pass the buck to the municipalities at other times when it may be politically convenient, is of concern to all of us.
I think I will just begin with an overview of the issue of Sunday shopping, based on my experience in London North and on some of the material I have been able to look at both as put forth by the government and as put forth in previous reports to this Legislature over a period of some 10 years.
My concern now is that despite widespread opposition from labour, retailers, church, quality-of-life groups, municipalities, and the 300,000-member Coalition Against Open Sunday Shopping, known as CAOSS, the government has forged ahead with its unpopular decision to enact legislation to permit wide-open Sunday shopping in Ontario. The citizens are confused and they are concerned. I am sure it will be hearing from them during the sessions that will be allowed this summer, and I use the word “allowed” carefully.
On April 25, after I was sworn into this House, the Liberals introduced both Bill 113, the Retail Business Holidays Amendment Act, and Bill 114, the Employment Standards Amendment Act. These companion bills were introduced, we were told, to ensure that retail stores can open Sundays and that retail employees are prepared to go to work on Sundays. The government has consistently maintained that it will heed public opinion and consult all concerned groups; but I think in typical fashion more recently, and certainly as a result of the September 10 election, the government has not kept its word. It certainly has not listened and it definitely has not consulted.
The proof of the pudding is that CAOSS, the umbrella group for all opponents of Sunday shopping, who have a right to their opinions and who should be listened to, has been refused an audience with the Premier. Not once did the Premier meet with CAOSS, nor did he meet with any of the quality-of-lifers and church groups which, combined as the interfaith committee, drafted a public statement to elicit some form of reaction from the government. Still the government refused to listen and it refused to budge.
The Premier’s only movement was a computerized form letter. I could be mistaken and I stand to be corrected, but in looking through all of the materials I was able to obtain from the government and -- a computerized form letter, and I am talking about the Premier: “No new legislation has been introduced as of yet and we are currently consulting with a number of groups on this important subject. Please be assured that your views will receive my careful consideration.”
Certainly, many groups in London have not been consulted with, and they have advised me so in some 27 letters; 27 separate groups which asked to have input have not had input.
The coalition and the opposition parties ask the government, whom did it consult? That is what I would like to know before you put this legislation forth. And how does total evasion constitute careful consideration? I think it would have been more honest to say that this government just has forged ahead because this is something it believes in strongly, but it should not use the words “consultation” and “careful consideration.”
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If the Liberals have an open and consultative government, what is a closed one? As the Coalition Against Open Sunday Shopping has noticed, the government’s listening skills are severely undeveloped on the Sunday shopping issue.
I believe in moving forward and not dwelling on the past, and I would like to say that thousands of petitions against Sunday shopping have poured into Conservative MPPs’ offices since March. Despite these thousands of tangible protests, the government is determined and dogmatic about its decision to inflict its prejudices and injustices upon the people it has refused to listen to.
It was the Attorney General who first announced the Liberal plan to bring in legislation eliminating the common pause day. At the time, the government maintained that the final draft of the Sunday shopping legislation would meet the concerns of CAOSS and also fix the government’s problems with the existing Retail Business Holidays Act with Bill 113.
The government assured all concerned parties by simply urging them to wait and see. This assurance came with ongoing requests for consultation, which the government repeatedly branded premature. Instead of consultation, the government went ahead and introduced the controversial amendments to the Retail Business Holidays Act, which passes off the burden of Sunday closing decisions to the local municipalities, and the Employment Standards Act in which the government boasts new protection for retail workers who are opposed to working on Sundays. I use the word “boasts” advisedly.
These amendments fly in the face of earlier Liberal promises to support a common pause day, and I think that perhaps the citizens of this province may have a longer memory than this government in fact gives them credit for. They certainly had a very long memory on March 31.
In opposition, the Liberals were against expanded Sunday shopping. No one is saying anything on that one. That is the past I am talking about. During the 1985 election campaign and up to November 1985, the Premier stated categorically that the Liberal government would not abandon the common pause day. No comments from the other side on that one either. OK; in December 1986, the Liberals said they felt the current law should be upheld. No comment.
In January 1987, although Sunday shopping had already been analysed by the PC task force, the Liberals sent the issue to a committee of the Legislature for study. The committee issued its report in May 1987 and recommended that Sunday be maintained as a common pause day and rejected the notion of wide-open Sunday shopping for the harm it would incur for family life and recreational pursuits.
Obviously, that report influenced the electorate of London North and the people I was able to talk to at the door. They either felt it themselves, believed in it themselves, or they had confidence at that time that someone was listening to them.
In November 1987, the Solicitor General said that choosing the municipal option would be the chicken way out. Certainly in London, the Solicitor General is on record as opposing open Sunday shopping, at least when she was an elected official of the city of London. People have a right to change their minds given information, and the citizens of London will be waiting to hear from the Solicitor General, as she probably will be on the committee this summer, since it happens to be such an important one.
What have the Liberals done? They have changed their tactics and reasoning entirely and have decided that their previous promises and commitments were unimportant, and we are looking for the wonderful reasons. I can assure them that not being able to define “tourism” will not be one that will be accepted by the citizens of the province of Ontario.
They have refused to accept responsibility in resolving the Sunday shopping issue. We ask ourselves the question: what compelling factors caused the Premier to change his mind? So far, there is no clear explanation. It appears to be a classic case of the Premier absolving himself of the responsibility for controlling a sticky situation, one which historically has fallen under provincial jurisdiction in this province.
I might add that one of the issues that came to light during the by-election was that the citizens of Ontario enjoy living in Ontario and enjoy the quality of life we have here. They are not particularly interested in the quality of life in Vancouver where there is wide-open Sunday shopping. Those who want to shop go to other parts of the world where there is shopping on Sundays. To tell us that it is working elsewhere is of no consolation to people who do take very seriously and cherish the quality of family life in this province.
The Liberal position: is it fair and enforceable? The Liberals seem anxious to pass the proposed Sunday shopping legislation without recognizing the cost to the people and society at large. They claim their proposals will establish fairness for religious minorities and employees, and contend that the so-called local option allows a municipality to adapt the law to its individual needs.
They proclaim the Retail Business Holidays Amendment Act as a fair and workable alternative to current problems, such as roping-off practices by retail stores and arguments concerning what stores qualify for the tourist exemption. They herald the Employment Standards Amendment Act as a creation of historical new protection for retail workers by introducing the right of refusal for Sunday work which, in their view, is unreasonable.
Mr. Ballinger: Right on.
Mrs. Cunningham: I can assure the member that we will be waiting to see how enforceable this new legislation is.
Enforceable in the mind of one young man who spoke to me on Saturday, a young fellow who was working in a mall called Masonville Mall in London, one the Solicitor General knows fairly well: he described to me how he was asked to work on Sundays during a trial period at some time during his school year last year, I think probably leading up to Christmas. When he advised the employer that he was not available to work on Sundays because of family commitments and church commitments, he was advised that instead of having the 16 hours per week as a student that he had worked up to over two years, he would only be able to work some 10 hours a week.
That may not seem like a lot, but it was a point of principle that he was drawing to my attention as I was in that mall on the weekend, not particularly doing anything but doing some work and having a little look around with my family.
Mr. Ballinger: I hope it wasn’t Sunday.
Mrs. Cunningham: No, we are not open on Sundays in London and so I do not have that concern. I would not have been in a mall on Sunday anyway.
Our position, that of the Progressive Conservative Party, is that the original Retail Business Holidays Act, supported by all three political parties and passed by the Ontario Legislature in 1975, provided for a common day of rest, and we are very proud to have been part of that, with exemptions including a Saturday option or a Sabbatarian exemption allowing certain stores to qualify for Saturday closing and Sunday opening and a formula for the designation of tourist areas.
Widespread and outright violation of the RBHA by retailers became commonplace, particularly in Metropolitan Toronto and on Boxing Day in 1985, and we were aware of that. Recognizing an ever-increasing dissatisfaction with the current retail laws, the Progressive Conservative Party commissioned a task force, which I have referred to previously, to study Sunday shopping in 1986. In April 1986, this task force revealed in its findings that the majority of Ontarians are opposed to wide-open Sunday shopping, but are in favour of some progressive changes. There were many progressive changes put forth to the recent task force that were listened to by the committee members and that were taken into consideration when those recommendations were made.
Considering that for hundreds of years Sunday has been a family day or a day of rest and relaxation, the Progressive Conservative Party supports the Committee Against Open Sunday Shopping and the principle of a continued common pause day for the good of families and maintenance of the quality of life in Ontario.
[Applause]
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Mrs. Cunningham: It is not so much tradition that is important as the basic human need to have at least one day of the week to rejuvenate both mind and body and to spend time with loved ones and friends. I am glad that you gave the Coalition Against Open Sunday Shopping the applause that you gave it. I am sure they will be very much appreciative.
A day of pause has a restorative effect on the human spirit and helps people to keep the remainder of the week in perspective. We value that in Ontario, and we plan to keep it. As a result, it also enhances productivity during the work week, and there is much research that would support that statement.
We can talk also at this point in time about students who work, both in school and in part-time jobs, whose parents very much appreciate the fact that there are retail employers now who are able by law -- and who do -- give them Sundays to stay at home, do their homework and catch up with the news and relationships with their family.
Single parents are also in the retail workforce, and they are very appreciative of the fact that they are able to be home on Sundays and are quite concerned and somewhat disheartened by this legislation being introduced, because they know what kind of effect this will have on their families over a period of time.
Above all, it is women who have these part-time jobs and who are already looking for baby-sitters and support in their families when they are working on Saturdays, when children are not in school. They are now going to have to look for those kinds of supports on Sundays.
I think it is a shame that we should be looking at an extension of open Sunday shopping.
The member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt) has commented that what the government is proposing is not fair; it is not right; it is offensive to literally thousands of families in this province. It is going to represent a hardship and a burden on working people and their families.
In so far as Bill 113 is concerned, the Progressive Conservative Party would favour some changes to the existing law, such as permitting shopping on some Sundays prior to Christmas and better definition of tourist areas currently exempted from Sunday closing laws. We are convinced that the definition of tourist region or tourist area is something that we could tackle in this joint committee. We hope that we will be allowed to do that and that it will be an open committee, a committee that is looking for new ideas and solutions to problems.
At this point I am going to convey, at least to the citizens who are getting in touch with me, that that is the intent of the committee, because that is the way it is going to be and we may as well trust that something good will come out of that committee. I hope that the government will be listening to whatever does happen, with open arms and open heart, and be prepared to do something that the citizens want, for a change.
Regarding Bill 114, the Progressive Conservative Party favours genuine and substantial protection for all workers. Bill 114, despite the government’s claims, favours employees who prefer to work on Sundays. It is very clear as one looks through that legislation, and in the introductory speech the Minister of Labour said, “I am confident that all employees of Sunday opening retail establishments, including those, like students and some part-time workers, who prefer Sunday work, will stand to benefit.” That was a direct quote.
The minister admits that the legislation helps those who wish to work Sundays, but offers nothing short of hardship for those who prefer not to work Sundays, those who must work to support their families, not those who choose to work to supplement an income or choose to work because it is a fun thing to do to get experience, but those who must work to support their families.
With the establishment of a mediation process, no doubt an onerous and friction-causing system, Bill 114 offers retail employees no protection. In this system, the independent referee from the Ministry of Labour has all the power and the worker has none. I am sure we will be hearing more about that as we go through the province asking for input from the citizens of Ontario.
I could go on and talk a lot more and give more arguments against Sunday shopping, but I would like to summarize by making some four statements.
The quality of life for families will be impaired if we extend open Sunday shopping. Students and young people will be spending more time away from their homes.
Churches are very much concerned about the lack of quality of life nowadays in our society and are working very hard to have young people and families come back to the churches, and this makes it even more difficult for them.
The rights of workers have always remained at the provincial level to ensure that workers across the province can share and have equal access to the same rights, and we are concerned about this legislation with regard to Bill 114.
I think the government is using the excuse that only in a perfect world could everyone agree to a common pause day. We do not live in a perfect world, but I think we should be working towards that end. This legislation is not going to assist us in achieving that common pause day for families. It is going to erode it, and it is very destructive.
Mr. Dietsch: I would like to make a couple of comments on the member’s remarks. Quite frankly, there seems to be a misnomer in the member’s comments dealing with the bill, that we are proposing wide-open Sundays. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have been on the record a number of times as being in opposition to wide-open Sundays. This is not what we are talking about. We are talking about local opportunity.
I want to assure the member that this province does not gyrate on the hub of Toronto. Each municipality in this province has an opportunity to dictate its own future. Niagara-on-the-Lake is not the same as Thunder Bay and Kingston is not the same as Windsor, nor can we get a direct piece of legislation that deals with the province in terms of its diversity throughout the whole.
I can assure members that I, as the member representing the area I represent, and others here recognize that some of the points which have been made are valid points. We are not suggesting that there be wide-open Sundays. What we are suggesting is that each individual municipality has that local option to take into consideration those areas. We have to zero in on those areas of this bill that are positive, and there are many. We are dealing with the rights of workers. We are dealing with the leaseholds in the bill. We are dealing with a number of areas that are positive, and I would suggest that the member take those into consideration.
Mr. Philip: Perhaps in her response the member would like to give the previous speaker a lesson in geography in Ontario. The fact is that Vaughan and the regional municipality of Peel are right next to the municipality of Etobicoke or of Metropolitan Toronto. The fact is that the municipal option was tried in British Columbia and that regional municipalities which did not want to open had to open the moment they found that the adjoining municipality opened up and commerce went across the border.
Mr. Dietsch: The fact is that part of St. Catharines is open and part of St. Catharines is closed, part of Niagara is open and part of Niagara is closed --
Mr. Philip: The member for St. Catharines-Brock (Mr. Dietsch) does not want to listen to facts. If he had been on the select committee the way the minister was, he would know those facts of what happened in British Columbia and what happened in Alberta.
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Mr. McLean: I just want to comment briefly on the previous speaker. I enjoyed her comments very much. They were right to the point and they were right on. I have to tell you why I say that. When I hear people talking about the wide-open Sunday option, well -- I have to say that I was involved in municipal life for 15 years before I came here and when you pass a bylaw for one side of the street and not the other side of the street, you can guess what is going to happen to the side you did not pass it for.
You say that it is right across the province. Somebody had mentioned earlier here that they will not bother. I have to say that it is a bother and it is a concern to me. The statements made by the previous speaker were to the point. They were precise and they were telling it the way it is.
When you look at section 4 of the bill, it makes you wonder where the good sections in it are. The previous speaker for the Liberals had just indicated we ought to talk about and zero in on the positive side. Well, I am going to say I do not know where the positive side is. It is maybe on the right of me right now but I am not sure. It could be. I have to say that when we look at the clauses in this act, the member for London North (Mrs. Cunningham) brought them all out, and very precisely, and spoke of the way it was.
I remember, when we did the task force on Sunday shopping and travelled the province, what results we got from that. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario was supportive of our position. It is not supportive of your position by a long shot. I have to say that this bill is very badly flawed. You can travel the province all you want, but we know right here from the previous studies which have been done what we should be doing with this piece of legislation.
Hon. Mrs. Smith: I happen to share the same community with the past speaker, and I do not know whether she has managed to confuse the mayor or the mayor has managed to confuse her. This bill has nothing to do with wide-open Sundays.
In the city of London, which is rather typical, the day this bill passes, if the city does absolutely nothing, this is what will happen. Herbie’s will close. A couple of other stores which are chained off or roped off will close. The oversized drugstores will close. The penalties which anyone has to pay will go way up. Not only that, they will not have to wait around till they are dragged to court two years later when a judge may not give them a big penalty. The judge will have to look at the volume of work they did to define their penalty. In the meantime the police will get a court order to close the store. They will not just keep doing business until such time as they get to court.
If you have this straight in your mind, I wish you would now go and tell the mayor. He keeps trying to confuse the poor people of London with this ridiculous expression, “wide-open Sunday.” If he would just sit down and go home and look after his new baby, London will be more closed rather than more open and everyone will have just what you seem to want anyhow.
Mr. Brandt: I wanted to respond in part to some of the ridiculous arguments put forward by the Solicitor General. She indicates that my colleague, the member for London North, is perhaps misguided with respect to this question. Let me tell her that all of her arguments are predicated on not making some of the very positive changes which the opposition has suggested to the minister. If she would in fact alter the legislation to firm up the stores which can legally be opened on Sunday, to strengthen the tourist exemption, which we have supported, she would not have the kind of fiasco she has right here at this particular time. Let me say that the kind of legislation she is proposing to bring forward and which she wants this House to endorse is legislation that will cause nothing but chaos in this province. It will cause nothing but chaos.
Mr. Ballinger: Baloney.
Mr. Brandt: My honourable colleague says, “Baloney.” Let me tell him that he will have perhaps no difficulty purchasing bologna on a Sunday and he may need to because they shoot a lot of it over there.
I want to tell the minister, with the greatest of respect, that the vast majority of people in this great province of ours want controls on Sunday shopping. All they are asking her government to do is to not pass the buck; not, if the minister will pardon the expression, take the chicken way out. Remember that phrase? I remember a certain minister who used that phrase. She sat close to where the minister is sitting now when she indicated that passing it over to the municipalities was wrong. Well, we say to her again that it is fundamentally wrong. She is going down the wrong path with this legislation. She is causing great, great confusion in Ontario. I want to say, by way of closing, in the last second that I have, that she will pay a political price for it.
The Deputy Speaker: The member’s time is up. There is no more time. The member for London North would like to respond.
Mrs. Cunningham: The member for St. Catharines-Brock talked about my misconception about wide-open Sunday. I will not back off. I believe that is what will happen if this legislation is passed. In fact, I know it will. All I can say is that part of St. Catharines may be open now and part of St. Catharines may be closed now, but in the future it will not be.
To the Solicitor General: I will go back and I will say to the mayor that wide-open Sunday shopping will most likely lead to price increases anywhere from 6 per cent up to 15 per cent. This is because of the extra cost of labour, depreciation on equipment, larger electric bills and because the cost of doing business in general will increase. Because of the need for increased services -- and I am now talking about bus service, more cost to the municipality; daycare, more cost to the municipality -- taxes will go up across this province and taxes will go up locally to the municipality; and that is what the municipalities are concerned about. It is a service that no one is asking for, Sunday shopping; nobody wants it.
The poor Liberal candidate in the by-election on March 31 had to tout the Liberal line on Sunday shopping. I did not think she would win, but I did not think she would lose so badly. It was because of this issue. The public does not want open Sunday shopping. They had an opportunity to listen to the Liberal line. They heard things like “local opportunity.” They did not buy it. They did not buy it on March 31 and they will not buy it in the next election. So beware and start listening to the public that has elected members to take their concerns to Queen’s Park. We are against wide-open Sunday shopping.
The Deputy Speaker: Thank you. Do other members wish to participate in the debate? The member for York Mills.
Mr. J. B. Nixon: I, probably like many in the House, am opposed to wide-open Sunday shopping and, in fact, I just have to reiterate what so many will reiterate over the next several months. This law, Bill 113 has nothing to do with wide-open Sunday shopping. What it does do is establish a set of laws which are fair and equitable, clear and concise. They provide a provincial framework which will regulate the province, which is enforceable. Within the context of that provincial framework there is an opportunity for a local municipality to deviate and close down on Sunday or open up further on Sunday.
Be that as it may, what I would like to deal with in my short time is drawing the attention of the members of this House to an element of Bill 113 which I think is particularly important. That is the dramatically wider freedom of choice afforded to every community, business and person affected by this bill. Let me provide five examples of this freedom of choice. Quite clearly, this is a party that stands for freedom of choice. The two opposition parties wish to impose their will unilaterally on the entire province, something which we, as Liberals, find unacceptable. Indeed, the diversity of views put forward and represented in this House clearly indicates the diversity of the views in the diverse communities of the province of Ontario. I say, as an elected politician, “Respect that.” These parties say, “We will impose on them what we want regardless of the wishes of the local community.” Let me speak to that.
The first choice, Mr. Speaker, if not the foremost, is the choice afforded all municipalities.
Mr. Philip: You are the one imposing it on the municipalities.
The Deputy Speaker: Order.
Mr. J. B. Nixon: They abide by the provincial framework respecting holiday shopping, and need not pass any bylaws to change the provincial framework. On the other hand, municipalities are free, if they so wish, to pass bylaws altering the provincial framework. They may relax the provincial rules and permit an increased level of holiday shopping or they may close more stores than the provincial framework allows now.
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I would like to take the members on this side of the House who belong to the other two parties, particularly the official opposition, back to the debate of 1975. George Samis, the former member for Cornwall, commented then on what was known as the municipal exemption:
“The question of municipal exemptions, I’m afraid, leaves us wide open to the possibility of abuse... Our concern is that we have a situation where two municipalities within close travelling distance would possibly be in competition for the same tourist dollar. If one had special attractions, the other might be very seriously tempted to designate itself as a tourist area and therefore allow all sorts of stores to open up to try to catch up with the competing municipality in terms of business and attracting customers.”
That is the domino theory 13 years ago. It did not happen then; it will not happen now.
The second element of choice that I would like to deal with is that a municipality that does choose to make its own rules with respect to Sunday and holiday openings is accorded the greatest freedom in doing so. Each municipality may choose in accordance with its own requirements to make rules regarding store closing or opening which takes into account such diverse matters as the time of day, the time of year, the size, the character, the location of the operation or the store, the number of persons employed or indeed any other criteria. I think it may be said that a municipality and its citizens cannot possibly be granted a wider freedom of choice than is afforded to them under the bill.
The mayor of Ottawa, Jim Durrell, encouraged the province to provide this opportunity, and I think he said it quite well. “It is better that municipalities be able to decide on their own rather than have a decision imposed on them by the province.”
Once again, I would like to take the members back to 1975, when the original Retail Business Holidays Act was debated. The former member for Burlington South, the Honourable George Kerr, minister of the crown, said in reference to the green paper on store hours and store closing: “If the honourable members will refer to the green paper, they will see that one of the options is that the municipalities themselves, reflecting the habits of their consumers and of the stores, could in fact regulate store hours during the week. This has been done in the Hamilton area and with some success.”
He goes on: “It has, for the most part, been successful, particularly in other areas such as Stoney Creek and Dundas and Burlington. That is one of the reasons why we have brought in this legislation,” referring to the Retail Business Holidays Act.
Again, another minister of the crown -- my friends in the third party might listen to this -- the former Solicitor General the Honourable John MacBeth, said: “On tourist areas, we were relying on local autonomy. There are possible further answers to that as well. You’ll note how we separate regional governments from local municipalities in that bill. If the municipality is a part of a regional government, the decision would have to be taken by the larger or the regional area to declare a tourist area. That presents certain problems for the north. We were content to rely on the wisdom of the municipality as such itself on the basis of local autonomy. That too can be considered.”
What can be more reasonable than a principle that goes back in our liquor legislation to the 19th century, a principle which former Premier Leslie Frost was very proud to espouse when he dealt with the Sunday opening issue in the 1950s? He believed in the virtue of the local option, the local autonomy of a local municipality to make its decisions reflecting the diversity of that individual community.
I also point to the freedom of choice guaranteed to persons who observe their holy day on a day other than Sunday. They will be free under this bill to open their stores on Sunday when they close on another day in accordance with the dictates of religious freedom. I believe that such freedom recognizes and endorses, as it must, the principle of freedom of religion enshrined in our Charter of Rights.
Some of the members may recall, again, the Retail Business Holidays Act in 1975 being debated and there was no provision upon its introduction for the Sabbatarian opening. It was the former member for Wilson Heights, Phil Givens, who rose to make a plea for the people in his riding, “particularly the Seventh-Day Adventists, because they have a general hospital on the border of my riding, Branson Hospital; and for the people of the Jewish faith who genuinely and sincerely spend their Sabbath day on Saturday in observation, contemplation and prayers. They feel that it is a very serious disability, and a very serious imposition on them, if they cannot keep their businesses open, particularly on Sunday.”
This bill reflects the religious diversity of Ontario and specifically allows for the choice of individual store owners, store operators and employees to exercise the Sabbatarian exemption.
The fourth element of choice found in this bill that I would like to refer to is to point out that there is freedom afforded to retailers who are tenants or franchisees. No longer will tenants or franchisees be forced to open their stores on Sundays. This bill guarantees them a freedom of choice to open on such days where permitted to do so by law or not to open. They are not obliged to accept the dictates of the franchisor or the landlord, and the landlords cannot force such an obligation upon them.
Back in 1975, again when the Retail Business Holidays Act was debated, the issue was not raised clearly in the Legislature, but it certainly was recognized by the former member for Grey-Bruce, Eddie Sargent, commenting on the bill tabled by the former government. The motivation behind this bill, he says, “might also be to help the small independent, fast becoming another endangered species. And if this is so, I suggest that we’re not correcting it by allowing Becker’s Milk and Mac’s Milk to run high, wide and handsome because in effect they have a blank cheque in this legislation.”
The former member for Parkdale from the New Democratic Party commented on the proposed bill by saying, “The Conservative government in the past has always legislated in favour of the monopoly operations.” Among other things, I assume he was referring to the franchisors who operated Mac’s Milk and the landlords who operated super shopping malls, all of whose franchisees or tenants are forced to stay open on holidays where the landlord or the franchisor chooses that they be open. No longer will that be so. Bill 113 gives a new and very specific protection to tenants and franchisees, the independent small businessmen and small businesswomen who provide so many of our new jobs in this province.
Fifth, and very important, retail workers are afforded the freedom to refuse work on Sundays and holidays when they consider such work unreasonable. Conversely, retailers may anticipate that their requirements for holiday staffing will be met so long as those requirements are not unreasonable, and that is a legal requirement.
Quite clearly, the former legislation was entirely inadequate in its attempt to protect workers. The present member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) recognized that during the course of the debate in 1975, when he commented on the existing Progressive Conservative legislation “in terms of the rights of those people who are employed in those stores, many of whom who are not organized in labour unions. They are entirely on their own and are subject now to some rather loose labour legislation which is quite open to abuse.”
I agree. That was the status of the Retail Business Holidays Act and 13 years of Progressive Conservative government. We have sought to change that. We have changed it. The Minister of Labour has introduced legislation which will provide clear protection.
Finally, in sum, it is fair to say to all citizens of Ontario that we are attempting to provide them, as a diverse community, with the widest possible freedom of choice on this important issue.
My friends to my right in opposition comment and make their rallying cry the phrase “a common day of pause.” To the members, particularly in the New Democratic Party, I remind them of some words said in 1975 by the former member for Riverdale, Jim Renwick, a man for whom I have a lot of time. Commenting on the Retail Business Holidays Act, he said: “In summary, I say to the government, as has been pointed out, that you can’t isolate this matter into something called a day of pause or a day of rest. Our society is much too complicated. You have selected the simplistic issue.”
I could not say it better.
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Mr. J. M. Johnson: I would like to be critical of the member for York Mills (Mr. J. B. Nixon) making the comment that Bill 113 will not lead to wide-open Sunday shopping and tell him that I think he is very naïve.
If a municipality allows the stores to open on a Sunday, then the next municipality has to allow the same for its retail merchants or penalize them. Once it starts, there is no stopping it, so it will lead to wide-open Sunday shopping.
If members have any idea of the retail business, where one has competitors, as all merchants have, one realizes that once the opposition opens up, the retail merchant then has no choice but to follow suit. It is either that or they lose a percentage of their business. If there is so much business being transacted in six days and you spread it over seven, all you are doing is adding to the costs; you are not increasing sales. It just does not make sense.
In regard to the member saying the government is giving local option to the municipalities, I would like to read an editorial from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. It is a message to the Premier and to the executive council of Ontario. It says, “Be advised that the Association of Municipalities of Ontario maintains its position that municipalities should not be charged with the responsibility of regulating retail store openings on Sundays and holidays.” They want the government to look after that responsibility, but this government does not have the political courage to do so, so it sloughs it off onto the municipalities and says it is not going to have any impact on Sundays.
The government is not even realistic, it does not understand the problem and it does not have the courage to face up to the fact that the people of this province do not want this legislation.
Mr. Philip: The member for York Mills says the legislation guarantees that the small store owner will be protected under this act from being forced by the large mall owner to open on Sunday.
Perhaps I have not read the act carefully enough. Perhaps he can point out to me in this act where it requires a large mall owner to renew a lease with an unco-operative tenant. Perhaps he can show me in this act some clause that would give the small owner the protection that tenants have in a housing development that their rents could not be arbitrarily tripled or quadrupled if they do not co-operate with the mall owner and stay open on Sunday.
Perhaps I have missed that in the act, because I just do not see that in the act. What is to prevent a mall owner from simply getting rid, at the end of a lease, of anybody who does not prove co-operative and does not stay open on Sunday when the mall is open?
He says that somehow he objects to the use of “a common pause day.” That is the same wording that was used by the select committee. One of the reasons it was used by the select committee is that the wording used in the Alberta act was found to be unconstitutional on grounds of religious discrimination. Therefore, the use of the words “a common pause day” is the use that is preferable, and, indeed, those were accepted as the preferred words by the Attorney General and by the previous Attorney General. I wonder what his objection is to having a common pause day for all of Ontario.
The other question I would ask him is: If this does not lead to wide-open Sunday shopping, why, when the municipal option was introduced by the Vander Zalm government in British Columbia, has it led to wide-open Sunday shopping in western Canada? What is there so different about Ontario that suggests it will not happen here?
Mr. Pollock: I just want to comment briefly on the remarks the member for York Mills made as far as leaving things up to municipal option goes.
The government has not left things up to municipal option in regard to land severances. You can hardly get a land severance on class 5 and 6 land out there. You have to go through the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, and usually they turn it down. On the other hand, there is a situation where there are multimillion-dollar land developers around Toronto who are taking hundreds of acres of prime farm land for subdivisions. There is no municipal option there.
Also, this government has always stated it is in favour of promoting the tourism business. I have been told by some of these tourist operators -- and bear in mind the fact that my particular riding is a vast rural riding -- that if some of the bigger centres stay open, the people will not come out and patronize some of these tourist areas. That is a major concern to them. I just want to put that particular point on the record.
Also, there has been some talk here about saying that one side of the street was open and the other side was not. That is still going to be the way it is, because I have places where on one side of the street it is one municipality and on the other side of the street it is another municipality. If one goes for the local option and Sunday shopping and the other one does not, you are still going to have the same situation: One side of the street is going to be open and the other side of the street is not. I really do not see how this bill is going to fix things.
Mr. J. B. Nixon: I want to deal with two comments very quickly. One is the irrational belief that this is a bill about wide-open Sundays. It is clearly not and neither was the Retail Business Holidays Act previously passed in 1975 a bill about wide-open Sundays.
In 1975, people said it would lead to wide-open Sunday shopping. They cried and they complained that one street would force the next street to open up and sooner or later the entire province would fall. They said it in the 1950s when Leslie Frost argued for local option for Sunday sports events, and it did not happen then. When will they stop promoting these irrational beliefs and accept the historical evidence which we know has built up over a century in Ontario?
The second thing is that my friend the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore talks about contractual relationships and when will we legislate that a landlord or a franchisor must renew the contract. The problem is that he is dealing in legal sophistry. If he has read these leases, if he has read these franchise agreements, then he understands that they are very complex matters that provide for rights of renewal, consent not to be unreasonably withheld, and clearly those matters are dealt with between the two parties during the course of negotiations with full legal advice. You cannot unilaterally just terminate a contract because you do not like the way someone is behaving, specifically when the person has a legislative right to do exactly what he set out to do.
We have irrational belief on the right, legal sophistry on the left. What we have in the middle is a piece of legislation that respects local communities, local autonomy and local diversity, and I suggest it deserves the support of all three parties.
Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: The member mentioned the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore (Mrs. Grier). In fact, the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore made no comments on his silly speech.
Mr. Dietsch: That was a silly comment.
Mr. Mackenzie: I do not know if that comment was any sillier than the last speech I just heard. If ever there was a case where the domino theory is to be feared, I think it is in this particular piece of legislation.
I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill 113, but as I said in the last round in this particular fight, I am also sorry it is necessary. I think this is one issue in which the proverbial Liberal position of being all things to all people has ended up with this Liberal government being hoist with its own petard in this issue.
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First they were agin it. I refer members only to the comments that were made so strongly by the Solicitor General on that committee, and I believe other members supported the position that she took just a few short months ago that this would be wrong. I recall the comments in the House that were made as well by government members.
Then what happened? It is a little bit difficult to understand, because it also was a position that they were not going to open up Sunday shopping during the election campaign, but all of a sudden we find that we have these bills before us and we hear that the government is going to go for local option.
I do not know whether it was that the Premier felt he might lose some votes on this particular issue, that their position had been stated too toughly by the all-party committee previously. I do not know whether it might upset the sort of yuppie image he was trying to create in this province or what; or maybe it was the Attorney General who just lost the stomach to continue fighting with the Magders of this world and never could seem to bring that issue to a close, or maybe he just figured he was not a good enough lawyer to handle it. I do not know. But all of a sudden we have this magic solution. Instead of being against the idea of wide-open Sunday shopping, we are going to offer the local option and give somebody else the responsibility.
Then, of course, I suppose the game plan is to try to claim credit from all sides. I do not know whether the extended honeymoon went to their heads over there or whether they simply miscalculated, but when they talk about “This is not wide-open Sunday shopping,” and they are being almost dishonest in making this kind of a comment, I would point out that AMO vote I think was something like 57 to 3. They do not want the responsibility either. They want nothing to do with it. I do not know who is asking for the responsibility. It is not a municipal responsibility basically.
If I can, I would like to read into the record a few short paragraphs in the brief of the Coalition Against Open Sunday Shopping, which some members over there found funny earlier. I do not know why, it is a pretty broad coalition of church and other groups, the CAOSS. I thought that their argument, their summary of this government’s argument and then change of face, was right on. If I can read to you the comments they have made here on page 2 of their brief, just the one bit of it, they say:
“Laws protecting the rights of workers have always remained at the provincial level to ensure that workers across the province could share and have access to the same set of rights. Those labour rights have devolved to municipalities. It appears that the Attorney General agrees with this principle in some places...the district court of Ontario...but not in others, the Legislature of Ontario.
“When Paul Magder appealed his conviction for opening on Sunday, Attorney General Ian Scott defended the conviction by presenting the following argument” -- and let me give it to members:
“‘The evidence “overwhelmingly” indicated that there was a need for a legislated pause day due to a reluctance on the part of many industries to regulate themselves in accordance with this objective.... There is an accompanying erosion of the opportunity for retail workers to participate in leisure activities with family, friends and others. A uniform pause day was needed to allow the pause day of retail workers to coincide with that of their school-aged children, spouses and friends and community events. A quality common day of recreation was needed for as many of Ontario’s citizens as was possible.
“‘Employees in the retail sector were viewed as being in need of a statutorily mandated day of rest. Without such a regulation prohibiting Sunday openings, the vigorous competition for market share would force many retailers to open. Retail employees are generally nonunionized, have low job mobility and few, if any, mechanisms for the redress of grievances. As a group retail workers are not “in an economic position to negotiate a satisfactory financial arrangement for Sunday work” and are “subject to subtle economic pressure to work, particularly in large establishments, where employee resistance to management decisions to open would be met simply by replacing the resisting employee.’”
“The Attorney General very effectively summarized for the district court all of the arguments that CAOSS has been making since they announced their intention to reverse their policy. It is interesting to note that the court agreed with the Attorney General, at that time and upheld the conviction.”
I hope all the members took the time to listen to that a bit or will read it in the Hansard following. But then, on April 14 in the Legislature, the same Attorney General ignored his own previous arguments by stating: “This change recognizes the value of community autonomy and local choice in the matter of regulating Sunday and holiday shopping. Ontario is a vast and diverse province. The regulation of store openings must be sensitive to this diversity and recognize the differences among our communities.”
Forgive me, Mr. Speaker, but you know there are some people who might say, “Boy, there’s a healthy dose of hypocrisy in those two positions”: the one argument, which is the summary of all the arguments we have been making and was made by CAOSS and used by the Attorney General in the conviction of Mr. Magder and upholding it, and then an exact reversal when he gets into the Legislature here and decides he wants open Sunday shopping.
Let the Attorney General tell me where he stands on this issue and how he can argue with a straight face when he reads that and reads the position that was taken in convicting Mr. Magder and now the position he has taken on this shopping. I am simply saying that there is, somewhere in this House, some real hypocrisy.
Let me make a couple of other very small arguments, but I think they are worth making. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union has come out with a leaflet, and obviously its members -- and most members are not organized in this field -- are arguing against the Sunday-work legislation.
It is a question-and-answer leaflet, but I am going to give you the question and answer only on two of the several questions it asks.
First, “Who loses with Sunday shopping?” That is the question. The answer: “Retail workers and their families are the big losers. That is over two million people in Ontario. Workers who support retailing, public workers, maintenance staff, delivery drivers, etc., also lose. That is another 250,000 people. Small businesses which are family owned and operated will never get time off. Furthermore, most couldn’t compete fairly with the big retailers for the Sunday shopping dollar. Communities lose as well, because of higher taxes and more family breakdowns.” I think that is a valid question and answer, whether you agree totally with it or not.
But the second question I want to quote is, “Who wins?” The answer is: “Large mall developers, such as Cadillac Fairview, benefit the most. Since Sunday shoppers tend to shop in the larger malls, mall owners typically get a percentage of all sales. Seven per cent is the average in the province. And it won’t be the shareholders who are working on Sundays. Large, big-city newspapers, such as the Toronto Star, favour Sunday shopping because of the potential for higher ad revenues.”
I think the points made in both of those questions and both of those answers are real ones we should take a look at.
Workers: I guess we will have a separate debate on that particular bill, but when you have to have reasonable cause and when most of the workers in this trade are not organized to begin with, do not try to tell me -- and the government will not get away with it; it does not believe it itself -- that they have protection under that particular bill before this Legislature. They do not have it.
In any event, how do you prove it, when there is already, among many of the larger retailers, a substantial move away from full-time to part-time employment and a substantial saving on benefits as a result? I have had complaints, as I have stated in this House before, from workers who were cut back from 26 or 28 hours to 22 or 18 hours. So these workers refuse to work Sunday. They do not have to say anything else to them, but all of a sudden, maybe even a month down the road, they are only working 12 hours or 16 hours or 10 hours.
I have had cases like that where they did not want to fire somebody openly. Tell me how the government is going to protect that worker. It is as simple as ABC to discipline the workers who decide they are not going to participate in the Sunday shopping. They will not have the protection.
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I guess when I started I had thought of reading into the record a large number of letters I have had. I will not, but I am going to read two or three because they were not the standard form letters and I think they also tell the tale in terms of what the people want in this province. On this issue, when I said that this government hoist itself with its own petard, I think it has made a mistake and miscalculated what the people want in Ontario.
Let me read one here first, very simple and very well done:
“We, the undersigned, do not support the extension of Sunday shopping, and we also consider that the legislative authority regarding Sunday shopping should remain the responsibility of the provincial government of Ontario.
“First, we do not support Sunday openings. Sunday openings provide for potential threats against those values and enhancing features of our present way of life, as well as against the rights and needs of minority religions. Our legislation needs to maintain limits to the importance of commerce in our society, it must protect persons from unwanted conflicts of conscience between work and religion and family, it needs to maintain family togetherness and the general benefits to everyone’s physical, emotional, spiritual health in an increasingly stressful and materialistic environment. For all these reasons, we do not support the extension of Sunday openings.
“Secondly, we do not support that the provincial government delegate the responsibility for the legislation to regulate Sunday openings to the municipal governments. By reducing this legislation to the responsibility of the municipal governments, the provincial government of Ontario is unloading itself of a contentious issue and making it more possible for those interests favouring Sunday shopping to achieve their ends by picking off municipalities one by one and using each compliant municipality to put pressure on its neighbours to comply also.
“Thus, for the sake of preserving and protecting those values, needs and rights which a commerce-free Sunday provides for individuals, families and minority religions, we oppose the extension of Sunday shopping and ask that the legislative authority regarding Sunday shopping remain the responsibility of the province of Ontario. We ask that you tend to this matter quickly and effectively.”
I think it is a very well done letter and it is signed by the School of Sisters of Notre Dame, 96 Barons Avenue South in my riding and signed by the seven sisters, well respected in that particular organization.
Another one, very simple:
“Dear Sir:
“I am concerned about new Sunday shopping laws that have been proposed. This is the only day of the week that I am able to spend with my family. I have worked in retail for 15 years on a full-time basis and have no problem in getting all of my own personal business in order, such as banking, marketing and personal needs attended to.
“I now have a day off during the week and Sundays. If the new law is passed, I will be in a position to work on this day. My feelings are, anyone that wants Sunday openings do not work and do not need this additional day of work. Sundays off mean too much to those of us who use them.”
This is the third and last one. I have read these only because of the literally hundreds, in my office alone, of form letters that came in, which in many cases were well done. This is a lady on Rosseau Road. The other lady was on Queenston Road in my riding.
“I am a part-time employee of a retail store, and I am writing in regards to stores opening on Sundays. I would like to state that I am strongly against them being open on Sundays. The extra day will not create any extra jobs. There will not be any more staff hired. It won’t even give more work hours to the part-time employees. If consumers think that it is difficult to find sales help now, it will be even worse if the stores open Sundays.
“I have to work evenings and Saturdays, as well as daytime. My children attend school during the week. When will we be able to spend time together? When can I help them with their homework? What about when they have problems and need emotional support from their parents?
“Sunday is the only day we have to visit grandparents and other relatives as a family. Opening Sundays would mean the end of the family life as we know it at the moment. Consumers will not have any extra money to spend simply because stores are open an extra day. Actually, by keeping stores closed, you may be keeping people out of debt.
“Sunday openings will also cause a need for even better transportation. Sunday bus scheduling is very minimal. Sunday store openings will cause problems for people needing child care facilities. The need for stores to open on Sundays is supposedly because of a lack of time throughout the week. Well then, does this not mean there must also be a need for city hall, banks, insurance companies, gas companies, hydro and telephone offices, lawyers and all businesses and services to remain open seven days a week? It must mean prime ministers, premiers, mayors and all politicians should be in their offices on Sundays also. There is no law, a bill, that you can pass that will help prevent us from being forced to work on Sundays.
“I am presently going to night school in order to complete my education. It is difficult to get the evenings off work for school. If I refuse to work on Sundays, I will be forced to give up night school. Tell me what bill will prevent such blackmail. Also, anyone who works part-time and refuses to work on Sundays will have their hours cut back. What are you going to do to help them?
“In summing up my letter, I just want to point out that my reasons for not doing business on Sundays are not religious but family. Religion does not have to be practised on a specific day, but family is every day and Sunday is the only day we all can count on being together. Please make your decisions intellectually and with your heart, not your wallet. I will be anxiously awaiting for your answer to all of my concerns.
“Sincerely” -- as I say, a lady on Rosseau Road in my riding.
I want to say just in closing that, sure, there is a convenience factor, but what are we looking for in society today? Just what are we trying to prove? Is it that the dollar is the only thing that counts? Is it that we want to follow so much of the American example, wide-open store shopping? Has it done anything better for them down there than it can do in our province or our country here and our ways?
I do not think so, and it is not a philosophical issue with me; I just think we should be looking at shorter hours and more family time. We have not made any moves at all in this province, in spite of my urging, I know, to shorter work weeks or to more vacation time or to easier time in this respect for working people and families in this province.
What, really, is there to be gained?
The arguments are there. I think they are overwhelming. It is not a question of not forcing additional Sunday shopping. We went through that experience, as I told this House once before, in my community. If you get a community made up of four major parts and one of them decides it is going to open, the pressure is immediately on those municipal politicians as well as from the merchants who fear they are going to lose some.
There are no extra dollars. If they are all open, nobody is going to make an extra dollar, as some of these letters indicate, but if only one of them is open, sure, there are some people who are going to take advantage of it, and that means there are some potential losers in the other immediately adjacent municipalities and the pressure is on.
I think the government really is copping out, because it really is a worker protection issue as well, when it turns this over to the municipalities. I ask them once again, as I did in my last speech, to reconsider their position. If they want the Liberal Party to make some real gains on this issue, I do not think they have the public with them. There are a few of them who have been honest or dishonest enough to sign petitions against this; I am not sure which is the case because I have not heard them speak out in the House, but I know some of their signatures are on petitions against this Sunday shopping.
For Pete’s sake, on this issue, put it on the back burner or back off for a while and take another look at it. You will win one hell of a lot more brownie points than you will if you continue trying to drive this legislation through. It will not solve the problems and will not give workers any protection and I do not think it will make us a better or more civilized society. I do urge the government to take another look at it.
Mr. Speaker: Are there any comments or questions?
Mr. McCague: I would like to compliment the previous speaker on his grasp of the issue as it affects the opinions of the people of the province. I know the honourable member cannot answer my question, but I just was wondering, who is here with any degree of authority monitoring what is being said on this issue by the government itself?
Mr. Dietsch: I’m here, George.
Mr. McCague: The member for St. Catharines-Brock is here. Well, yes; that really shows the interest the government has in hearing the opinions of the people around the province. After all, what we are doing on this side of the House is bringing to the government’s attention what people are saying about this legislation. I do not disagree with some of the things that are said by the government side, that there is some misunderstanding on this bill. That is true, but there are also an awful lot of realities in the things that are being said by the people on this side of the House who are, as I said, reiterating the points that are made by people out there.
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I have municipalities that are situated on the corner of four townships. The town, of course, has a commercial shopping section, but so do the four townships surrounding it. Now what do they really do if one goes for it and the others do not? Furthermore, what does a council do if it is petitioned by 15 businesses out of 50 in a municipality? They are almost obliged to try Sunday shopping. There is a lot more whipsaw effect to it than the government is prepared to acknowledge.
Mr. Speaker: Any other comments or questions? The parliamentary assistant.
Mr. Kanter: I just rise to comment on the remarks, I believe, of the member for Simcoe West (Mr. McCague) --
Mr. Harris: You cannot do that. You are supposed to comment on the remarks by the speaker.
Mr. Kanter: -- perhaps relative to the comments of the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) and some of the comments made in connection with his remarks, to indicate that the minister was indeed in attendance for most of the debate this afternoon and I have been monitoring the subsequent comments. The Minister of Labour was here for much of the afternoon as well.
I have been noting and monitoring the comments, including the suggestions as to where the legislative committee might attend. We have been listening with great interest. As has been indicated, the committee will travel -- it has a reasonable time period allocated to it -- and we are quite prepared to travel to various parts of the province to hear views. I have certainly taken note of the remarks of one of the members of the third party as to where we should indeed travel.
I can assure all members that we are listening, listening particularly for positive and constructive suggestions, and any that we hear we will take into account and try to incorporate, through the committee process, into the bill.
Mr. Speaker: Are there any other comments or questions on the remarks made by the member for Hamilton East? If not, the member for Hamilton East may wish to make a response for up to two minutes.
Mr. Mackenzie: My response is, as I ended up my pitch, that this is one issue where I think it would behove this government -- and I sincerely wish it would -- to take another look at the direction it is going in.
Mr. McLean: I am pleased to take part in this debate. I am sure that what I have to say about this bill will not be able to be all accomplished this afternoon. I would like to say that having the opportunity to get started is not really fair because I am only going to get warmed up, having been involved in the Sunday shopping issue for some 20 years now.
There is one part of this bill that I want to read into the record, and I think it is very important that it be done because I have heard a lot of talking here this afternoon about wide-open Sunday shopping and partially open Sunday shopping. I have to tell members one thing. If we allow one municipality to open, quite obviously the municipality next to that is going to open too. When that happens, it is a snowball effect and it goes right across the province.
Interjection.
Mr. McLean: One member says, “It is not the same in Niagara Falls as it is in Thunder Bay.” Well, it is only a matter of time until it will be same across the province.
Section 4 reads: “Despite sections 2 and 3, the council of a municipality may by bylaw permit retail business establishments to be open on any holiday or may require that retail business establishments be closed on any holiday.”
It goes on to say: “The Lieutenant Governor in Council may by regulation, in respect of retail business establishments in territories without municipal organization, exercise the same powers that a council of a municipality may by bylaw exercise under subsection (1).”
There was a speaker here this afternoon who indicated that they do not have to do anything if they do not want to. According to this bill, they shall pass a bylaw determining whether they are in favour of having their businesses open in that municipality or whether they are in favour of having those businesses closed in that municipality.
It goes on to say, in section 3, “A bylaw or regulation under this section may be restricted to one or more retail business establishments or to any class or classes of retail business establishments as specified in the bylaw or regulation.”
It is saying that every municipality, the 839 or 840, all have to pass bylaws to indicate whether they want their municipality to allow the stores to be open. Really, the onus is strictly on that municipality.
It goes on to say, in section 4: “A bylaw or regulation under this section, (a) may apply to any part or parts of the municipality or territory.” In other words, they can regulate it to certain stores being open or closed, but the essence of the whole bill is the fact that there has to be a bylaw passed.
It says: “(b) may limit the opening of retail business establishments on holidays to specific times or to a certain number of hours.” There are many ways they could pass a bylaw to extend the hours or to have the whole municipality closed. The concern we have in some areas is that the present law can be expanded to include specific times. We do not need a whole new Bill 113 to bring in specific times. That can be put in the present legislation already there.
It goes on: “(c) may permit the opening or require the closing of retail business establishments on certain holidays and not on others.” When we look at the sections, and there are about six of them in section 4, they give the municipalities a lot of alternatives of what they may want to do, but once there are three or four of them, there is going to be no end to the chaos within those municipalities.
You have a highway going through, with, on one side, the township of Tiny and next to that is the town of Midland on the other side of the road. If Tiny passes a bylaw to open, it is in the area of the town of Midland, so Midland automatically has to pass a bylaw because there is competition and it is going to be fighting the competition.
It also says: “(d) may restrict the opening of retail business establishments on holidays to specific period of the year or require the closing of business establishments on holidays during specific period of the year” and “(e) may classify retail business establishments by size, number of persons employed, character of business, geographic location or any other criteria.”
How many different criteria is the government going to have in all the different municipalities across this province? It is not understandable to me, and I spent 15 years dealing in municipal politics, that a bill of this nature would ever be accepted by the majority of the municipalities.
We just finished dealing with Bill 106 where the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and many municipalities had input. I did not see one of the amendments which were put forward accepted by the government, because it did not want them. It was our members who were putting the amendments forward which were established and recommended by AMO, the Rural Ontario Municipal Association, small urban Ontario and school boards. There was not one accepted by the government. I say shame. The government is supposed to be listening to the people and it is not listening to the people.
Mr. Speaker: I do not like to interrupt the honourable member but if he has further --
On motion by Mr. McLean, the debate was adjourned.
Mr. Speaker: Just before I adjourn the House, I would like to inform the members that there is an awards ceremony taking place on the main staircase. They might find it easier to get to the first floor by some other means than the staircase.
The House adjourned at 6 p.m.