Journal des débats 1989-févr-07 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr. Allen: There is more evidence that replacing the Minors’ Protection Act to protect young people from the ravages of tobacco is urgently needed. A McMaster University 10-year study of the effects of pollution on the respiratory health of children has concluded that the big cause of respiratory disease in childhood was whether the mother smoked or not.

But more directly to the question, Dr. Pengelly and his group confidentially surveyed about 2,000 young teenagers aged 12 to 16, and his figures about the incidence of teenage smoking are a new cause for alarm, because they are clinically more reliable and show 50 per cent more teenage smokers than other, more casual, studies of recent date.

“One in three are smoking at the age of 15,” Dr. Pengelly says, and notes a clear connection to increases in respiratory disease among both teenage males and females.

“The girls’ story is especially sad.” He says, “They have a twofold likelihood of smoking if their mothers smoke, and if their mothers smoke they have an early respiratory disease and their lung growth is affected.

“Girls also tend to smoke twice as many cigarettes as boys in their early years of smoking,” according to the study.

Pengelly’s findings reinforce the need to scrap the provincial Minors’ Protection Act with its ridiculous $50 fines and institute a licensing system for tobacco retailers with stiff fines and loss of licence for sales of tobacco to minors.

HEURES D’OUVERTURE DES MAGASINS

M. Villeneuve : Aujourd’hui, l’Assemblée législative va probablement adopter le projet de loi le plus déplorable sur le magasinage le dimanche. C’est un jour triste pour l’Ontario. C’est un jour très triste lorsque le gouvernement majoritaire démontre qu’il ne peut se montrer digne de ses promesses électorales ; c’est un jour très triste lorsque le Parti libéral et ses députés ignorent leurs électeurs. Ils ont manqué de protéger les électeurs qui devront travailler le dimanche.

J’ai toujours cru que nos municipalités locales et leurs organisations devraient pouvoir s’exprimer sur la gestion du gouvernement envers le magasinage du dimanche. Le présent gouvernement a tout simplement ignoré ces municipalités et leurs organisations locales.

Il est évident que l’option municipale réclamée par le présent gouvernement est en réalité du chantage municipal. Cette loi permettra aux municipalités d’être plus vulnérables aux pressions économiques connexes. Cela s’explique par la capacité des prises de décision locales, qui sera réduite par ce projet de loi.

Dans la présente Assemblée législative, les farces du premier ministre (l’hon. M. Peterson) ont donné une fausse idée de ma position à ce sujet. Je n’exige aucune excuse. Je ne peux pas prendre au sérieux les remarques d’une personne décrite par ses propres collègues comme manquant de vision, d’imagination et d’idées nouvelles, et n’ayant aucun ordre du jour. Le présent gouvernement a fait des municipalités ontariennes des bouche-trous.

MEDIA REPORT

Mr. Cordiano: Yesterday, an article appeared in the Toronto Sun decrying the participation of so-called ethnic Canadians in Canadian political life. The article was written by none other than the Father of Confederation himself, McKenzie Porter. This article comes as close to spreading hate literature as I have seen.

According to Mr. Porter, Italians “are not above paying Italian Canadians to vote for a given ethnic candidate.” Mr. Porter blatantly smears all Italian Canadians by suggesting that somehow the entire Italian Canadian community has conspired to circumvent the electoral process. Mr. Porter, on the other hand, is also benevolent enough to suggest that after white Anglo-Saxon Protestants and the French, Italians are his favourite Canadians.

Mr. Porter, where do blacks, Jews, Orientals and any other group fit on your most desirable list -- or do they? Mr. Porter further comments that the children of ethnic immigrants “despise their parents’ foreign accents and temperaments” and “ardently seek assimilation.”

I have a big surprise for Mr. Porter. My parents were both immigrants from Italy and I was born in Canada. I am proud of my parents with their foreign accents and temperaments. I am damned proud to be a Canadian and the son of Italian immigrants, and I am proud that in my country, Canada, it is possible for someone like me to be addressing someone like him from where I sit in this Legislature.

Mr. Porter even suggests it is time to take corrective measures against those ethnic groups.

Mr. Speaker: The time has expired. Thank you. The member for Cambridge.

CABLE TELEVISION

Mr. Farnan: Cable television companies are allowed to charge their customers for new channels installed without their prior knowledge or consent. The privilege of having these new channels is then absorbed in the monthly statement received by the customer. This negative option business practice is allowed to be inflicted on the unsuspecting consumers without previous knowledge or consent of what is available to them as the cable TV companies are autonomous and do not have to conform to any regulations set out by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for payment of services. It seems to me that cable TV companies are being allowed to become a monopoly at the consumer’s expense.

I believe the Ontario government should not accept this kind of business practice and should protect its consumers. One cable company in Toronto included a waiver card with the monthly statements, advising its customers that if they did not accept the new channels already installed they would be charged an installation fee as well as increased monthly billing should they decide to have them at a later date. This is an unfair business practice to consumers, in particular to the minority groups in Ontario. It is time that the provincial government exerted pressure on the federal government to bring this practice to an end.

SALE OF CIGARETTES TO MINORS

Mr. Sterling: Later today, I will be introducing a private member’s bill to provide for better enforcement of the sale of tobacco to minors. We saw very recently just how ineffective the Minors’ Protection Act really is: With fines presently ranging from $2 to $50, there is no economic incentive or sanction for retailers to comply with the law. The $25 fine to Shoppers Drug Mart will not, I am sure, cause Imasco shares to drop appreciably.

We have a 1892 act which, by its amendment in 1970 indicates its continued necessity, yet it has little consequence in today’s marketplace. The bill I am bringing forward this afternoon will not only amend the Minors’ Protection Act by substantially increasing the minimum and maximum fines to $200 and $5,000, but it will also amend the Retail Sales Tax Act to require tobacco authorization to accompany the vendor’s permit in order for a vendor to sell tobacco to consumers.

Should the vendor sell tobacco to a minor, the tobacco authorization could be suspended or revoked. The tobacco authorization will not mean more red tape for the vendor or a small business; rather it will be included as part of the vendor’s permit. It will not require a separate application.

I consider these changes to be vital if we are to continue our battle in attempting to encourage young people to stop smoking.

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DRUG ABUSE

Mrs. LeBourdais: Yesterday, I was pleased to attend a press conference held by the Metropolitan Toronto Police to announce the completion of Project Fall, the most recent in a continuing series of major drug seizures across Metro.

This particular operation in the northwest corner of Metro netted $18,000 to $20,000 in crack and cocaine, as well as a plethora of knives and handguns, including a semi-automatic rifle with three clips of ammunition, all taken from juveniles with an average age of 18 to 22 years.

I commend the Metro force for its efforts and I note the words of Staff-Inspector Jim Clark, who stated that although such efforts help to stall the ongoing plague of drugs on our society, ultimately it will be education and drug treatment programs that will provide the antidote.

This only strengthens the recommendations of the Black report on the abuse of illicit drugs: to use education as the ultimate weapon to keep our children safe and to provide the necessary programs and funding to implement expanded curriculum, staff training programs and policies to drive home to people of all ages that drugs shatter dreams, shatter families and ultimately shatter the lives of young people.

As adults and as parents, we must not only educate through our schools but we must educate by example. We must say, “Do as I do, not merely as I say.” Kids do not fall for that any more. Peer pressure is too great and the availability of free crack is all too prevalent.

DOCTOR’S BILLING PRACTICES

Mr. Reville: I have in my hand a copy of a price list that is similar to one that many patients in Ontario now have in their files. It is from a doctor in Peterborough who advises his patients that because of the banning of extra billing and because of the government’s refusal to give more than a 1.75 per cent increase in Ontario health insurance plan fees, he is going to have to get his patients to pay either plan A, which is $40 annually, or plan B, which is an itemized list of charges for separate services.

The government has been saying it is going to do something about this since June 1986. It has not done anything. What else is new?

ORAL QUESTIONS

GROUP HOMES

Mr. B. Rae: I have again today some questions for the Minister of Community and Social Services.

This morning, just before question period, a member of my staff had a lengthy conversation with a former employee of Kinark Child and Family Services in Midland. This employee worked in the home until fairly recently, in fact is no longer an employee there but worked with the accused young offender in the particular home in question.

She tells us that, as a member of staff, she was not told very much about the young offender; that is to say why she was a young offender. She was not shown any records or information with respect to her treatment and care and, generally speaking, was kept in the dark with regard to who this person was and why she was there.

The minister cannot tell us who this person is, but I wonder if he can tell us, first, how it is that the young offender came to be in the Kinark home; and second, why information with respect to this person was kept from the staff

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I will share with the honourable leader the information I have. I understand that this young offender was sentenced by the courts to 18 months in secure custody.

The Young Offenders Act, as the member may know, does provide for the staff of a facility or the guardian of a young offender to come back before the court once again at a point in time and ask for the disposition to be reviewed.

This was one of the few homes that accepted adolescents. The young lady was not sent there, nor was the other young boy, the 14-year-old, because they were young offenders but rather because this home had the treatment facilities, the treatment opportunities that it was felt they needed.

I am not aware of the information the honourable leader has given us with respect to the request that has been made. I can share with him, however, that over the past two years, the total budget of Kinark province-wide--and it is a block-funded agency; it is not a per diem agency -- has been increased by approximately $2 million, and $500,000 of that was for program improvements.

I am sorry that I cannot speak to the specifics the leader spoke of, but I certainly feel that would be one of the issues that should be considered in a review of the security process.

Mr. B. Rae: I think we need a public inquiry, because the staff have told us that they were reduced to jamming wood in the windows on the ground floor in order to prevent illicit entry, that there have been several break-ins in the place during the day and that they never saw a ministry official who contacted the home in the period they were there.

We understand there is a very real problem here. We have a situation where homes that were intended for emotionally disturbed children referred by children’s aid societies and others are now becoming a virtual dumping ground under the Young Offenders Act, which was not their original intention. Staff are not trained to deal with people, are not paid to deal with these people and do not have the security in the homes to make them appropriate places for people who are charged under the Young Offenders Act.

Just what was this young person charged with so that she would have a sentence of 18 months in a maximum security facility?

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Hon. Mr. Sweeney: Let me reiterate that the young lady and the boy who were there were not there because they were young offenders. They were there because they needed treatment. This was determined by a number of people: the courts, the children’s aid society. I think both of those had some sense about the people, as did the staff who worked at Cecil Facer Youth Centre, that this was a most appropriate placement for her in order to get that kind of treatment.

I would say to the honourable leader that these two people were not dumped there. As a matter of fact, very few young offenders are sent there.

To come back to what I said earlier, it was the most appropriate placement for her particular needs.

Mr. B. Rae: The minister still has not told us the nature of the original charge against this young person. There is no reason for that information to be kept secret. There is no reason why this House should not know that information and no reason why the workers who were in that house should not have been kept fully informed why she was there.

I have a follow-up question to the minister. He will no doubt be aware, though he has not given any report to the House, of a tragic event that took place last week in Toronto at Delisle House, which is also a home operated under his ministry. He will know that there was a 16-year-old young person with a history of serious emotional disturbance who was in that house. He was upset all day. There were renovations going on in the house. The young man took a power saw from the place in the house where the renovations were going on, locked himself in the washroom for several hours and at roughly one o’clock he committed suicide by beginning to cut his neck, as I understand it, with the power saw.

It is my understanding there was one person on staff the evening of this tragic incident. I wonder if the minister can tell us what he knows about this incident and what he can tell us about the kind of supervision, the kind of staffing arrangements in place at Delisle House last week.

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: My understanding of the situation is that this was a 17-year-old young man who was living apart from his family. I understand that his father was living in western Canada and that he was not living with his mother, although there was some infrequent contact with the mother, and that the young man had voluntarily booked himself into Delisle House because, as the leader said, he had some emotional problems and was looking for some assistance.

While he was at Delisle House, he was working outside in the community. He had booked himself in. There was a procedure at Delisle House that when the residents went in or out, they booked themselves in and out at the front door. He booked himself in from work at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday evening.

The counsellor who was responsible for the house knew he was in the house. He had seen him going to his own room and did not discover his body until later on in the evening. I am told that the fact there were renovations going on in the house was recognized and that all of the tools of the contractors were locked away with a fairly heavy lock in a basement room, but apparently he was able to get into the room and break through the lock. At the moment, that is the information I have.

Mr. B. Rae: I asked the minister what the staffing arrangements were that would have allowed this young person, as the minister himself described to have broken into what he described as a locked place without anybody being aware of that and then gone to the washroom and locked himself into the washroom. How long was it while he was in the washroom before he was dead? Can the minister tell us what staffing arrangements were in place at Delisle House on the night in question?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I understand there was one staff on duty and that he had booked the young man in and seen him go to his room. I also understand that subsequently the young man went down into the basement, locked the basement door behind him and then broke into the storeroom in the basement and stayed in the basement.

Mr. B. Rae: Can the minister tell us whether anybody called for help? In light of the incidents we have described and he has discussed, which all the province is now aware of, does he not think it is about time, instead of waiting 90 days before he deals with the staffing question, that he now deal with the staffing question and make it clear that as far as he is concerned, and as far as all of us are concerned, having one person on staff in any one of these homes is simply not satisfactory at any time, day or night?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: My understanding is that as soon as the body was discovered the counsellor immediately contacted the police. A sergeant came to the house, investigated the situation, got all of the information from the counsellor and indicated he would obviously notify the coroner, but made a judgement call on the site that he did not believe an inquest would be required. Obviously, that is the coroner’s decision, and I am not making any judgement on that. What it does say, though, is that when all of the information was made available, that was one person’s observation.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. Brandt: My question is to the Premier. The Premier was quoted yesterday as having indicated that those who oppose his plans to successfully pass Bill 113 and Bill 114, the bills on Sunday shopping, are engaging in “emotional hysteria.”

I would like to share with the Premier the names of some of the individuals who in fact oppose his plans: Emmett Cardinal Carter, representing the Roman Catholic Church in Canada; Most Reverend Lewis S. Garnsworthy, the Anglican Church of Canada; Reverend Hudson T. Hilsden, the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada; Bishop Sotirios, the Greek Orthodox Diocese of Toronto; Reverend Dr. Raymond Hodgson, the Presbyterian Church in Canada; Reverend David Jones, the United Church of Canada.

That is only a partial list. I have not included labour leaders. I have not included virtually all municipalities, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. I have not included retail workers, literally millions of people across this province, all of whom share the views expressed by this party through this leader and who do not join with the Premier in his obvious interest in having wide-open Sunday shopping in Ontario.

Mr. Speaker: Question?

Mr. Brandt: Does the Premier believe that all of these people, the names of whom I have shared with him today, are engaging in emotional hysteria?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I do not share the member’s view about this matter, as we have discussed for the last year and a half or so. I have said I believe there is a lot of misinformation about this, about what will result here from. We have heard all those arguments in this House and I was referring to that.

Mr. Brandt: Let me tell the Premier that some of the misinformation that has been in this House and that has been debated on this particular issue, which we are apparently going to bring to a conclusion today -- if he wants to talk about mixed signals, I remind him of the signal he sent to the people of Ontario in August 1987 prior to the September 10th election. He indicated two things in particular: first, that he was quite comfortable with the status quo; and second, that he wanted to preserve a day of rest and a day of pause in this province. What happened between August and September of 1987?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: We have been through this question on innumerable occasions and I think my honourable friend is quite familiar with the answer to it. We have examined the flaws in the old law, the wholesale abuse of that, and the imprecision in the drafting of the first one that did not work effectively, a fact that the member will recognize, I am sure. This new act cleans all of that up and there is a very clear framework that will apply.

Mr. Speaker: Final supplementary.

Mr. Brandt: It is probably too late to ask my final supplementary, but I will anyway, because we are moving down the road on this particular question. Since the Premier did in fact change his mind between August and September in connection with what we consider to be a very important question for the people of this province, will he do the right, honourable and proper thing today and simply advise his colleagues that he was misinformed about what would happen in connection with Bill 113 and Bill 114, and will he withdraw the bills?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Is the member serious? Honestly, I have laboured many years in opposition in this House and I have laboured many years in government. I have asked many inappropriate questions and I have answered a lot of questions inappropriately, but that takes the cake.

Mr. Speaker: New question.

Mr. Brandt: I anticipated that when we asked a serious question of that nature, we would get that answer. My next question –

Mr. Speaker: Question. To which minister?

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DRUG ABUSE

Mr. Brandt: I am sure the Premier is aware of the fact a police sweep code-named Project Fall recently took place in which 232 arrests were made with the police successfully coming to grips with some of the drug problem that has been impacting on our community, particularly here in Toronto. A great number of drug dealers involved in crack and cocaine sales were apprehended as a result of this sweep.

It is interesting to note that before the police could actually announce the details of the successful raid they were engaged in, two of the men who were involved in that sweep, who were apprehended and charged by the police, were back on the street before the police could even make an announcement. This is after, in one case, one of the individuals received a sentence of one week and the other received a sentence of some 14 days.

The crown -- Mr. Speaker, perhaps I might carry on for just a moment -- asked for 90-day sentencing in one case and six-month sentencing in the other. I would like to ask the Premier if he thinks that seven and 14 days respectively for these crack and cocaine dealers are appropriate sentences in light of the attempts we are making as a Legislature to fight the drug problem in this province.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Let me say that I sympathize with the question asked by my friend opposite. We, as a Legislature, as a government, all of us, try to address a number of these very serious drug and drug-related problems in our society. I do not know all the details of this particular case. I must say, in superficial terms, that I have the very same reaction as my honourable friend does.

I will ask the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) to review this matter and he will make a judgement on that. He is tied up, as the member knows, defending his wonderful reputation before the bar, but I will certainly pass on the comments of my honourable friend to the Attorney General. I do not feel I am personally competent to pass judgement on this, but I have the sense my honourable friend does.

Mr. Brandt: It seems like a terribly frustrating exercise to put close to 100 police officers on the streets in Metropolitan Toronto with the specific purpose of fighting the drug problem, of apprehending these people who are engaged in this type of criminal activity, and then when you actually get them into court, they are back on the streets as quickly as these two individuals and others seem to be in terms of the leniency of the sentencing provided by our judges.

I ask the Premier not only that he review this situation with the Attorney General, of whom I would have asked the question had he been available to be here with us in this forum today -- however, because of his unavailability –

Mr. B. Rae: He’s not available.

Mr. Brandt: I understand he is not available and that is why I am directing the question to the Premier.

Mr. Speaker: And the question would be?

Mr. Brandt: I would ask the Premier in the strongest possible terms, will he use his substantial influence to get the Attorney General to very carefully review these charges and see if we cannot bring the judges into step with the rest of the Ontario public?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: We in this Legislature are all hoping that the Attorney General will be free in the very near future. That being said, I will refer this matter to him.

I say to my friend that I am not sure whether this is a problem of the Criminal Code or a problem in the courts. My honourable friend has a right to second-guess a sentence imposed by the independent courts in this matter, and the Attorney General and his staff obviously have the right to review that and appeal the matter. I will convey the member’s impression to the Attorney General as he reviews this matter.

Mr. Brandt: The code does allow for sentencing of up to two years, as I understand it, in the two cases I have shared with the Premier today. I join with him in wanting to free the Attorney General, so that he can come back and contribute in his own modest way to the proceedings in this House.

I would like to refer, if I might, to another member very briefly, and that is the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay (Mr. Black) who reported to this House on the problem of drugs in our society and made a series, as I recall, of some 40 recommendations, 18 of which dealt with sentencing very directly and one of which called for an increased level of sentencing in many instances as it relates to the drug problem.

The Premier indicated he agrees with the findings and the recommendations in the Black report. As he agrees with the report and as he agreed to implement some of the recommendations in that report, could the Premier share with this House which of those recommendations have been implemented, which of those recommendations he continues to support and what progress we have made on this very serious problem in our society.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I do not think I disagree with my honourable friend in his concern on this matter. There were a number of recommendations the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay brought forward: health, education, a variety of fronts on which this issue has to be attacked. Many of those have been implemented. I can assure my honourable friend that a number more are being pursued.

This, however, as my friend knows, is a matter for the courts. He or I do not sit and pass judgement on these people; that is the independence of the courts. Perhaps from this Legislature should go forward a message to those who do pass judgement on others, i.e. the judges, that we feel they should he more harshly dealt with. My honourable friend also recognizes there is a history of independence of the courts. It is not politicians who sit in judgement on these people.

Obviously, should the Attorney General view it as the appropriate course of action, he can ask for an appeal in this matter. I agree with my friend that the strongest signals have to go out from all institutions and authorities in this province, be they educational, health care, community and social services, legal or otherwise, that this is behaviour that will not be tolerated. I think we have to send out strong signals through the courts as well.

GROUP HOMES

Mr. B. Rae: The Minister of Community and Social Services has not answered this question, and I have asked it of him in different ways today. I would like to ask him very directly. In my reading of section 38 of the Young Offenders Act, he is not allowed to release the identity of the young offender, the young woman, who was at the Kinark home and has now been charge with the murder of Krista Sepp. Nothing prevents him from telling us what she was charged with so that she was sentenced to 18 months in the secure facility at Cecil Facer Youth Centre in Sudbury. Will the minister now tell us what this young woman was charged with so that she was sentenced for 18 months in a security place in Sudbury?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: The legal counsel within my ministry has indicated that since this young girl has been charged by the police, it would be improper for me to make any comments at all about her personal background.

Mr. B. Rae: I do not know why the minister would be getting that kind of advice when surely this is information to which we are all entitled as a matter of public record. I will then, by way of supplementary, ask the minister: He has just told us that with respect to the tragic incident last week at Delisle House an inquest has not even been ordered or indeed requested by his ministry, or anything of that kind.

I am sure there will be lots more information coming from the field in terms of what happens when you only have one staff person on and in terms of what happens when you have people coming into these homes who it was never expected, when they were originally established, would be in these homes.

In light of what has taken place and in light of the information I have revealed today, why will the minister today not ask for a totally independent public inquiry into what is happening to our young people, what is happening in communities and what is happening with staff, so that we can make sure the interests of the public, of the staff and of young people are all maintained by having a full public inquiry?

Mr. Speaker: Thank you. The question has been asked.

Hon. Mr Sweeney: If I may correct the honourable leader, I did not say no inquest had been ordered. What I did say was that on the police investigation, he indicated the coroner would be notified immediately. He questioned whether an inquest might be necessary. However, as the honourable leader well knows, the coroner and only the coroner determines whether an inquest will be held. That is his decision; that is not mine. It is the coroner who determines whether an inquest will be held; that is his decision.

With respect to the second part of the honourable member’s question --

Interjections.

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Mr. Speaker: Order, if the members wish a response.

Hon. Mr Sweeney: With respect to the second part of the question, it has been my judgement that the 90-day review which I announced yesterday will enable us to get to the difficulty as quickly as possible. We have included the two ministries involved with corrections, my own and the Ministry of Correctional Services. We have included the Ontario Provincial Police. My assistant deputy minister met with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union people this morning and asked for their assistance in this. We are going to be contacting all of the various agencies that look after emotionally disturbed children or young offenders and ask them to participate. We think that is the most appropriate way to go at this time.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Mr. Harris: I have a question to the Minister of Housing. Her government and her Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) have indicated support for a national sales tax plan. The federal Minister of State (Housing), Mr. Redway, on the job for just one week, has enough clout in his cabinet to definitely be able to say that no new federal taxation policy will impact on the cost of housing. Can the minister give us the same assurance that if the provincial government goes along with the national sales tax plan, Ontario will support a mechanism to effectively exempt housing from that plan?

Hon. Ms. Hosek: I think the question of either a federal budget or a provincial budget is in the hands of the minister of finance of the appropriate jurisdiction. What I can say to the member is that this government’s commitment to making sure that housing is as affordable as possible is what I am most concerned about and it is that kind of goal that I speak to on all the opportunities that I have.

I think it is very important to remember that our government has made some commitments to make that possible through the various programs which I have detailed to the member in the past, in particular through the requirement in the land use policy that about a quarter of new units built should be affordable.

I think that the question of tax policy is best left to the ministers of finance of both jurisdictions to decide.

Mr. Harris: The federal government obviously understands a rather simple proposition, that being that if you add more taxes to the cost of housing, housing becomes more expensive and less affordable. In the federal government, both the treasurer and the minister of housing have stood up and said, “No way will we add anything by any way of tax burden that will increase the problem of housing affordability.”

I am asking the Ontario Minister of Housing to stand up and give us that same assurance that Mr. Redway has given us, that no new taxation, whether it be lot levy or whether it be by way of her participation in the national sales tax plan, will impact negatively on the cost of housing.

The bottom line here appears to be that the federal government understands and is willing to stand up and take a position on affordable housing and the minister and her government are not willing to do that.

Hon. Ms. Hosek: The member opposite has enough experience to know that he should not prejudge any budget until it arrives. If indeed the next budget of the federal government makes recognition of the housing needs of this province I will be extremely pleased, as will everybody else in this House and everybody else in this province.

The member also knows that the discussion we are undertaking with the development industry and with municipalities about the question of how to fund the infrastructure costs of high growth are going on right now. We are pleased to listen to any suggestion he might have to make about how to meet those concerns, together with the concerns with affordable housing.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

Mr. Chiarelli: My question is to the Minister of Transportation and it relates to Highway 416 in eastern Ontario. As the minister knows, some 16 months ago his ministry committed $140 million to this highway project. I wonder if the minister can give an update to the House on the status of this project.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: Now that you’re back in town.

Hon. Mr. Fulton: I have not been travelling quite as much as I normally do, but I have been travelling under different circumstances.

I welcome the member’s question. It is a very important one; it is very important to him and his colleagues from Ottawa and area and from eastern Ontario generally. I very much appreciate the input the members have provided me with over the past while, including a meeting in my office very recently when all members of the Ottawa caucus brought forward their continued interest with respect to continuing with Highway 416, a highway we consider of paramount importance in this province.

We are spending $3 million this year, as previously committed. We will be spending additional dollars next year, culminating with $58 million in 1992. The announcement was made in 1987. We are on schedule, we are on target and we will continue with the project as quickly as possible.

Mr. Chiarelli: The minister may be aware of the fact that the Junior Chamber of Commerce in Ottawa this week is starting a lobbying venture and publicity campaign with respect to Highway 416. They are particularly interested in the link from Century Road to Highway 401. Would the minister care to comment on that particular lobbying campaign and that particular link on Highway 416?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: The member would be aware that when we took office the previous government, in fact, had had this project on the books for some 31 years.

Mr. Brandt: That’s just a little bit of an exaggeration. Your nose is going to grow, Ed.

Mr. Pouliot: It’s been almost four years. Minister. Where have you been?

Mr. Speaker: Order. If there is not order, it might take 31 years to get an answer. Minister.

Hon. Mr. Fulton: I am advised by one of my colleagues that, in fact, the Conservative government got four elections out of that promise.

Mr. Jackson: You’re doing the same thing with hospitals.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Does the minister have a direct response?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: It is such a pleasure to be back.

To answer the member’s question, we are on record. We are committed to concluding Highway 416 from Century Road to Highway 401 in the area of Prescott as soon as possible. But what we are doing now, as we promised and are committed to do and will continue to its completion, is the most difficult and most cost-intensive section, which is from the Ottawa Queensway to Century Road. We will provide funds at the earliest possible opportunity for the balance of the section to Highway 401.

DEGRADABLE PLASTICS

Mrs. Grier: My question is for the Minister of the Environment and it concerns degradable plastics. During the discussion of the estimates of the ministry, the minister shared my concern about degradable plastics and said: “The great fad today is biodegradable and photodegradable. . . . If you wonder why we have not embraced it, it is because the jury is still out on it... . Our thrust there is recycling instead of biodegradable at the present time.”

I endorse that position taken by the Minister of the Environment. I would like to know if it is, in fact, still his position; and if so will he undertake to communicate with his colleague the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Wrye) who, under the guise of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, is circulating bags that say, “This bag is photodegradable to help our customers contribute to a cleaner and healthy environment”? What is the Minister of the Environment going to do about this distribution?

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Hon. Mr. Bradley: How long do I have to answer, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: I do not usually answer questions, but 48 seconds.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: The member is quite correct in saying that for those who have advocated biodegradable or photodegradable materials as the prime solution to the problem of plastics and the disposal of plastics. I do not think, with the evidence I have seen, that it is the answer a lot of people in this world seem to think it is. There may be a place somewhere along the line when the necessary tests have been done.

I happen to believe that recycling is the very best thing to do and there are many products that can be recycled. The member will know, for instance, that I have met with the Society of the Plastics Industry of Canada in the province and have indicated very clearly, and they agree with me, that recycling is the major thrust. Whether in the future there is a role for photodegradable or biodegradable products in specific instances remains to be seen. Of course, it is a message I am happy to share with everyone including people within my own ministry. I think within my own ministry there are people who have in the past looked at photodegradable or biodegradable –

Mr. Speaker: Thank you. The member may have a supplementary.

Mrs. Grier: I did not hear a commitment to ask his colleague to stop distributing these bags. The plastics industry itself is very concerned about degradable plastics. First Brands (Canada) Corp. who make Glad Bags have not adopted the technology. The Society of the Plastics Industry of Canada has not endorsed the process and the minister’s own recycling advisory committee recently urged the minister to place a moratorium on the use and marketing of degradable plastics until such time as sufficient research is conducted to evaluate the potential effects of their use.

The minister says and acknowledges that is what needs to happen. Can the minister accept this advice and tell us when he will prohibit the sale and distribution of degradable plastics in this province?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: I wanted to save my answer for the supplementary, because I wanted to hear the second question the member was going to ask. I would say to her, first, that the Ministry of the Environment is funding a study to see if plastics break down into harmless byproducts as some people contend. I want to assure the member that I am glad she is joining me now in this particular crusade to be very cautious about the potential use, which many environmentalists in years gone by saw as being a reasonable use, of biodegradable or photo-degradable products.

I would be happy to share with the Liquor Control Board of Ontario my point of view and the point of view the member shares with me, one which I think is being expressed far more by those in environmental groups. There are still people out there, I will say, who believe this is the answer to everything. I think she would agree that in the long term we have to look at those studies and see what they reveal. I can assure her that the major thrust I will push with the companies and with everyone in the province and North America and Canada and the world is that of –

Mr. Speaker: Order. It seemed like a very broad answer. New question.

VOTING BY PRIVATE MEMBERS

Mrs. Cunningham: My question is for the Premier. He stated in this House on January 12 to the citizens of Ontario that he is committed to allowing a free vote on Bill 113 and Bill 114. Does he still honour this commitment?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I think I said that every vote in this House is a free vote.

Mrs. Cunningham: The Premier’s response is most interesting. The chairman of the standing committee on administration of justice stated just a week ago in a letter dated January 20 that there was “never a promise of a free vote.”

He further stated that the Premier’s commitment on January 12 “did not constitute a freedom of members to vote their own views.” Will the Premier allow his members to vote their own views on Bill 113 and Bill 114?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have a point of order here.

Mr. Callahan: A point of privilege.

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry: I cannot accept a point of privilege during question period.

Mr. Callahan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: This member very nicely presented a press release to the press gallery this afternoon which represented only one half of a letter that I sent in response to her leader and she is about to ask a question based on that. In fairness, I think when one is going to quote a letter, one should quote the entire letter.

Mr. Speaker: Order. On many occasions, many members have their own points of view. I believe the Premier was ready to respond to that supplementary.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I think the member for Brampton (Mr. Callahan) responded far more ably than I could ever do.

IRRIGATION

Mr. Dietsch: My question is to the Minister of Agriculture and Food. The minister will recall that on July 27, 1988 and again in September, he met with a group of farmers on the irrigation committee from the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. We are now in the advertising stages of presenting a private bill entitled the Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake Irrigation Act, concerning the conversion of drainage ditches to irrigation ditches during the dry season, which will considerably improve the crop quality and the productivity for farmers who participate.

Will the minister please relate to this House his comments regarding this very worthwhile project in St. Catharines-Brock?

Hon. Mr. Riddell: I know of the member’s continuing interest in this matter, particularly after last summer’s drought, and the support he is lending to the producers in the Niagara region. I will say to the member that the conversion of drainage ditches into irrigation channels impacts on a wide range of statutes and the common law, and any act that proposes to address the situation will have to be carefully drafted to accommodate the existing legislation and protect the rights of all the property owners who may be affected by the conversion. My ministry will be reviewing the private member’s bill with these thoughts in mind.

Mr. Dietsch: The minister is certainly well aware of the benefits accrued from these types of co-operative projects and the need to be more innovative in the agricultural industry today. More particularly, I am asking if he would lend his support to this type of project, which I believe will be an innovative approach that will help against droughts and improve agricultural productivity throughout the whole of the province.

Hon. Mr. Riddell: For farmers wishing to use municipal drains for irrigation, a bill such as the one the member is proposing may be the best solution, given the local situation and the complexity of provincial, federal and international laws affecting water.

I do commend the member for his initiative in bringing local farmers and municipal officials together behind this bill in order to meet the needs of his area.

CHILD CARE

Mr. Allen: To the Minister of Community and Social Services: The minister cannot but be struck by the fact that the 1,600 inspection reports reviewed by the Globe and Mail abundantly confirm Sharon West’s study of last May that was presented to him on child care in Toronto, which concluded that commercial day care centres were less likely to meet the requirements of the Day Nurseries Act or more likely to have a complaint lodged against them than any other type of operator, and required more visits than any other type of day care centre.

In light of the growing evidence before us, why has the minister not put in place a time-limited program for the conversion of commercial centres to nonprofit status?

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Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I would point out to the honourable member that of the 22 centres that were identified in the Friday and Saturday versions of the Globe and Mail report, 10 were nonprofit and 12 were commercial. That is pretty close to a 50-50 split. In each case, the reporters identified a particular problem and in each case, as I recollect it, that problem was cleared up very quickly afterwards.

The honourable member is aware of the fact that exactly the same inspection procedures apply to both nonprofit and commercial centres. The honourable member is also aware of the fact that if any of our inspectors find a particular problem, they will go back to that centre, regardless of whether it is nonprofit or commercial, as many times as necessary to get the problem fixed or to close it.

Mr. Allen: The reply ignores the fact that the number of infractions per child care centre and return visits by inspectors to commercial centres in order to monitor compliance far exceeds those of the nonprofit sector.

The select committee on health of this Legislature recommended a conversion program to the minister regarding incentives, parent representation and time-limited implementation. The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care is now calling for a similar program to be announced by the minister within the next 30 days, if he can possibly meet that deadline.

Does the minister agree that the proposals of the child care coalition and of the committee of this Legislature provide a framework that will ensure better child care in Ontario, and will he put such a plan in place in the near future?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: It is very clear that all the new initiatives for the past two or three years in Ontario in terms of government funding have been for noncommercial centres. As a matter of fact, the member may be aware of the fact that when I became minister, the ratio of commercial to nonprofit was almost 50-50. I think it was 48 per cent to 52 per cent. Today, the percentage of commercial centres in Ontario is less than 40 per cent. It is down to about 38 per cent or 39 per cent. Therefore, there is obviously a very significant shift taking place.

The second point is that New Directions in Child Care clearly said that was something we would be prepared to initiate and encourage. The new legislation that is being drawn up at the present time will certainly require parent representation on all boards, whether they are commercial or nonprofit. As the honourable member well knows, even all nonprofit centres do not have parent representation on their boards.

However, the one thing I am not prepared to do, as I have already answered, is to buy out commercial centres and turn them over to nonprofit organizations. Quite frankly, with the dollars I have available to me now in that budget, every one of them –

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

TRANSIT SERVICES FOR THE DISABLED

Mrs. Marland: My question is to the Minister without Portfolio responsible for disabled persons. I would like to read him a brief quote from the Toronto Sun: “Wheel-Trans is in a mess and Metro’s disabled people are missing exams, job opportunities and appointments,” says Mona Winberg, columnist for this leading Metro newspaper.

She is not the only spokesperson for the disabled who has spoken out recently about the poor service disabled persons are getting when it comes to their transportation needs. When is the minister going to take a leadership role and remedy the transportation problems facing the disabled in Metro today?

Hon. Mr. Mancini: As the Legislature will know, this year Wheel-Trans has been taken over by the Toronto Transit Commission, which I believe is a good solution in the long term to the problems that existed at Wheel-Trans in the past.

I want to say to the honourable member that I have been well aware of the difficulties that the transition has caused. I have personally been on the phone to the most senior officials at the TFC to find out exactly what the problems were. They explained to me that the majority of the problems were caused by the transition. They felt that within a short period of time the transition would be over and they could restore service to an acceptable level. I am continuing to monitor the situation and I am hopeful that the acceptable level of transportation that we would want to give the disabled will in fact be in place in the very near future.

Mrs. Marland: In the fall of 1986, which is now two and a half years ago, this Liberal government established an interministerial committee to review transportation policies and programs for people across this province with disabilities. We have asked the minister on many occasions for the report of this committee, including last November during estimates at which time he promised it would be released very soon.

It is now February and we have not seen or heard a word about this interministerial committee report. When is the minister going to release the report, and will he act upon it or will it just sit on the shelf along with all the other reports that his ministry has commissioned?

Hon. Mr. Mancini: I do not know what the honourable member is talking about when she refers to reports which have been commissioned by the Office for Disabled Persons that are sitting on the shelf. That is absolutely not the case.

I want to say to the honourable member, as I told her in estimates -- we had quite a pleasant exchange during the estimates procedure, and I believe that I gave the members of the committee as much information, or at least all the information that I had -- the interministerial committee was working on this report, the report was near conclusion and as soon as the report was available for public consumption the report would be made available to all concerned. We have not in any way backtracked from our view that the report should be made public as soon as it is available.

PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Mr. McGuinty: In response to concerns from constituents of Ottawa South, and indeed on behalf of people in other parts of Ontario, I wish to ask the following of the Minister of Education:

Because of the growth of alternative and independent schools in Ontario, 205 schools with over 55,000 students, can the minister tell the Legislature when these schools will get a clear definition of their legal right to exist by changing the requirement for an annual intention to operate, which is now left to the minister’s discretion?

Hon. Mr. Ward: I would like to assure the member for Ottawa South that there is no question whatsoever as to the continuing right for private schools to exist in this province. I think this province has long recognized the fundamental right of parents to choose alternative forms of education, albeit at their own expense if they choose a school outside of one of the two publicly funded systems.

The member is correct in pointing out that the submission of a notice of intention to operate is a requirement of the Education Act, but far from being a vehicle for the exercise of ministerial discretion, I think the member should note that indeed it does serve a very useful administrative purpose in terms of the reporting and collection of data that are necessary to my ministry.

The member will also recognize that the province does have a constitutional obligation in terms of the provision of elementary and secondary education for each and every one of those children of school age in this province, that we do in fact have an obligation to make a determination as to a satisfactory level of instruction, and frankly we have an obligation to provide inspection. All of this is, I believe, part and parcel of the need for a notice of intent under the act.

Mr. McGuinty: In view of the fact that British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec now provide from 30 to 80 per cent of operating funds for alternative and independent schools, is Ontario contemplating doing the same thing?

Hon. Mr. Ward: The member will know that some two or two and a half years ago a report was undertaken, initiated by the former government, the Shapiro report on private schools, which provided us with a very excellent analysis of the many issues surrounding the provision of alternative or independent education in this province. I will say that I do not believe the approach taken by other jurisdictions in Canada is necessarily the most appropriate approach for this particular province. As I have stated on many occasions, our first priority is in terms of the funding of the publicly funded systems in this province, and beyond that we have no intentions at this time to provide funding to alternative schools.

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DETROIT INCINERATOR

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I have a question to the Minister of the Environment. I am sure the minister is aware that Greenpeace had a press conference this morning in Detroit, at which time it released statistics and information about the world’s largest incinerator, which is about to start up in Detroit. Is the minister aware that their statistics and analysis indicate that the ash at this incinerator exceeds levels set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency standards by six to eight times?

In view of the fact that the Premier (Mr. Peterson) and the minister himself have met with officials in Michigan and received assurances from Governor Blanchard that if this incinerator proved to be unsafe -- the governor of Michigan promised that he would enforce the rules and make sure that there were scrubbers put on this incinerator. Is the minister prepared to ask the Premier to contact the governor of Michigan to make sure that this promise and this special relationship is fulfilled?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: First of all, I know the member did not have time to indicate that the government of Ontario has been in the courts of the United States, and at a lower level of court, the judge –

Mr. B. Rae: You had Ian Scott there.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: No, we did not in that case. The judge ruled against us. The judge who was appointed at that time ruled against us. In fact, yesterday in the US circuit court of appeals in Cincinnati we made our case to the United States courts. We are the only ones in that court as far as a government is concerned, the member will know. No other government is involved in that particular court case. We hope to defend the people of Ontario and in fact probably the people of that area as well.

We have been in the forefront of fighting against the Detroit incinerator. Leading the way, we have not accepted any of the excuses. I have personally met with the mayor of Detroit to indicate very strongly the position of the province. There have been meetings between the Michigan and Ontario officials. I tell the member that such an incinerator could not be constructed in Ontario with the kind of pollution controls they are suggesting, and I tell him that we intend to pursue all of the commitments which have been made. Those commitments relate to contacts between the province of Ontario and the state of Michigan to ensure that the state fulfils the promises made to Ontario.

PETITIONS

TEACHERS’ SUPERANNUATION

Mr. Miclash: I have a petition which reads:

“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 on the present seven or 10 years.

“This proposed amendment would make the five-year criteria applicable to all retired teachers and would eliminate the present treatment.”

This has been signed by 231 people. I have attached my name as well.

MATHER WALLS HOUSE

Mr. Miclash: I have a petition which reads:

“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 Lake of the Woods Historical Society in their endeavour to operate the Mather Walls House as a historical exhibit activity centre. We feel to use the Mather Walls House as a bed and breakfast outlet is a very serious misuse of a beautiful heritage building. It would be of much more benefit to all of northwestern Ontario as a historical period exhibit.”

This has been signed by 241 people, and I have attached my name as well.

Mr. Speaker: I find that with all the private conversations, I have to turn my hearing aid up. Perhaps I could have the attention of all members. The member for Markham with a petition.

YORK REGION LAND DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Cousens: This is in proper format, unlike some of the other ones we receive.

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

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

“Whereas the dramatic growth rate in York region has placed extreme pressure on the municipal planning process and given that serious allegations have been made regarding the integrity of this process in York region, we strongly urge the provincial government to conduct a full and open public inquiry into the municipal planning process and land development practices of York region.”

These come from people in Markham, Unionville, Thornhill and even some from Richmond Hill and King City from the riding of York Centre.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

TOBACCO SALE TO MINORS STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Sterling moved first reading of Bill 215, An Act to amend Certain Acts Concerning the Sale of Tobacco to Minors.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Sterling: This bill puts some bite into a toothless law we now have in Ontario. It increases fines from a range of $2 to $50 to $200 to $5,000 for an offence in selling tobacco to a minor. It also introduces a measure of controlling the sale of tobacco to minors through the utilization of our vendor permit system under the Retail Sales Tax Act.

CROWN EMPLOYEES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. D. S. Cooke moved first reading of Bill 216, An Act to amend the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: Subsection 18(1) of the act provides that, “Every collective agreement shall be deemed to provide that it is the exclusive function of the employer to manage.. .” and that the employer has the right to determine specified matters as part of that function.

The purpose of the bill is to remove superannuation from that list of specified matters which would then give the union the right to negotiate pension benefits.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Conway: The order of the day is that last item of business consequent upon the passage of government motion 20, the allocation of time for the consideration of the two bills, 113 and 114.

As I call the third order, I want to indicate that I believe the whips have been discussing this matter, and the Clerk and I were chatting as well. I want to be clear as we now proceed this afternoon to this item of business that we are all agreed, because I think there is a general sense of understanding as to how we might do this. As I call the third order let me be clear, and then I will call the fourth order. Perhaps my friends opposite want to make some comment as we try to arrange the time this afternoon in a way that will be satisfactory.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I am not exactly clear on what the government House leader is doing, but if I understand him correctly he is calling the third order now. I would suggest that he call the fourth order at 5:30 and we can adjourn the debate on the third order at 5:30, but I do not think we should be doing two bills on third reading at the same time in the House.

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Hon. Mr. Conway: If I might, I simply want to remind everyone that the order that governs this particular business at the present time says, and I quote from the order that was passed in the House a week ago yesterday, I believe, on January 30, “Further, that there shall be one sessional day allocated to the consideration of Bill 113, An Act to Amend the Retail Business Holidays Act, and Bill 114” –

Mr. Wildman: That’s why it was out of order.

Hon. Mr. Conway: I just want to be clear that the order indicates that we shall do the third reading of the two bills together on the fourth sessional day that is set out in this motion. We had had some discussions. Quite frankly, the reason I am doing it this way is that I thought there was an accommodation. I do not think there is a problem here. I just want to make it easy for everyone.

Perhaps in interpreting this, Mr. Speaker, you can be helpful. It seems to me we have two choices within that possibility. My thought was that we would move the two bills together for third reading, because that is certainly the way the order is written, and then by an agreement among whips we would divide the debate accordingly. That would allow the two ministers to rise in their places and move the respective bills, resume their places and the third reading debate, which is quite clearly indicated in the order, could then take place.

I know my friends opposite have been talking about perhaps another way to facilitate something of the same end, which is what the government wishes in this respect, and I want to be clear. We want to be able to take the votes on the third reading of these two bills at 5:45 this afternoon. I really would like some comment, if my friends opposite want to speak to that.

Mr. Harris: I will be very brief. I think the situation we are in, and the point was raised by both of our parties, indicates the great difficulty in trying to do two bills in one time allocation motion. I understand, though, that motion has been passed and in fact ruled in order by you, Mr. Speaker.

I do not have a great hangup one way or the other. I am a little concerned about the precedent of actually debating two bills at one time; and I will be agreeable here, I think it is clear that we have passed a motion that there are going to be votes today and I do not see any way that I can precipitate anything that is going to change that.

I would offer as a suggestion as well that I would not be opposed, if Bill 113 were called, if there was some degree of latitude in the Speaker’s calling people to order if they are sensed to be straying into Bill 114 in their comments on Bill 113. I suspect that might be less of a transgression on the rules than doing both bills at one time.

Unfortunately, we just started to talk about this a few minutes ago. We would like to facilitate the time as best we can, and I do not think we particularly want two individual wrapups on two individual bills.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: It will take the wisdom of Solomon, I think, to sort this out, but it strikes me that the difficulty in trying to do both at once is that the language of the motion, as read by the House leader, does not say that these things shall be done at the same time, but rather that during that time period these things will be accomplished.

Inasmuch as, for instance, we did not deal with the two bills concurrently in committee of the whole dealing with amendments to each of those bills, at this time it would be very wise, it seems to me, to do what we have done in the past; that is to have the bulk of the debate here on Bill 113, on which it has all centred up to this point, and to have that end at a certain time; and then in a very perfunctory way have the second bill dealt with; and as the Conservative House leader has said, allow members some latitude in their statements making their case around the two bills.

That would be the easiest way of dealing with it, unless in your infinite wisdom and with the great assistance of the table you have an easier solution to it, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Conway: If I might, Mr. Speaker, I think there is a sense of this meeting and I would be quite prepared to simply recommend that the way we interpret the orders this afternoon is that we proceed with the third reading debate of Bill 113 along the line suggested by my friends the member for Windsor-Riverside (Mr. D. S. Cooke) and the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston), and agree now to conclude that not later than 5:30 p.m. In that way, we can at least have 15 minutes in which the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) can move third reading of Bill 114 and have at least a 15-minute debate so that we can conclude at least a short debate on Bill 114 and take, as the motion clearly indicates, all votes regarding the disposition of both bills for third reading at 5:45.

If that is agreeable, I would seek unanimous consent for that interpretation of this motion for today’s purposes.

Mr. Speaker: If I may just read the order as set out by the House:

“Further, that there shall be one sessional day allocated to the consideration of Bill 113, an Act to amend the Retail Business Holidays Act, and Bill 114, an Act to amend the Employment Standards Act, together at the third reading stage and that on that sessional day, the Speaker shall interrupt the proceedings at 5:45 p.m.”

That is the wish of the House. In order to maintain that wish, the Speaker feels that it would be best to handle them together. However, the request has been made for unanimous consent to deal with Bill 113 from now till 5:30 and with Bill 114 from 5:30 to 5:45.

Is there unanimous agreement?

Agreed to.

RETAIL BUSINESS HOLIDAYS AMENDMENT ACT / LOI MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LES JOURS FÉRIÉS DANS LE COMMERCE DE DÉTAIL

Hon. Mrs. Smith moved third reading of Bill 113, An Act to amend the Retail Business Holidays Act.

Mr. Speaker: Does the minister have any opening comments?

Hon. Mrs. Smith: I will reserve those for the concluding remarks.

Mrs. Cunningham: I guess this debate this afternoon will bring discussions to a close and I am certainly pleased on behalf of the opposition parties in the House to debate a bill that will go down in history in this province as a bill, we think, that will change the way of life and the quality of life for families in Ontario in a way that has never happened before.

I think that Bill 113, over a period of time -- slowly, for certain -- will definitely allow Sunday shopping to a much greater extent than we already have it in this province. It is one that will impact on families and on the way we live in this province in a way we will not be proud of.

For most of us who I think have been very happy with the way we have been allowed to manage our time in a very busy and changing world, it has been really wonderful to live in Ontario where we can be assured that only people in professions or in the workplaces who are very necessary to the management of our lives on a daily basis right now have to work on Sundays.

We do have in our province a Retail Business Holidays Act that does allow, for economic reasons more than anything else, certain retail stores to open on Sundays. Those retail stores that are open now are there in areas that are defined as tourist areas. They are somewhat controversial, but certainly governments of the past have thought it extremely necessary during the history of this province, for business purposes, for Ontario to be competitive and for us to support what we think is probably one of the larger, more important industries in our province, and that is tourism.

I do not really think that the public understands the far-reaching effects of this particular piece of legislation, because it is complicated and it is one that the public will not really understand until it affects it in its own neighbourhoods and backyards. But people who were involved in the tourist industry came to us and were well represented by their own groups and individuals, both large organizations and very small family businesses, and told us: “We just do not know where we stand. We have been put into a position now so that we cannot plan for our future, because this particular piece of legislation will allow municipalities to open, or close, retail businesses and any other kind of business that is open on a Sunday.”

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When it comes to openings on Sundays in the retail business world, our province truly now is in a state of chaos because people are not quite certain what the implications of this legislation will be. We know it will not be simple to solve the problems that will be brought forth with this particular piece of legislation.

I suppose the greatest disappointment today is that the position in which we find ourselves in Ontario could have been avoided. No longer will a common day of pause be entrenched in the legislation of our province, and that is why this particular bill is so historic. No longer will we be able to tell the citizens of Ontario that they can be assured of a common day of pause, of no more working than what we have now on Sundays, because of Bill 113, which of course is an amendment to the Retail Business Holidays Act.

If we take a look at the history of this particular piece of legislation, it is even more disappointing to have to stand here today and talk about democracy: a democracy that we have always taken for granted and have been very proud of. That is why we choose to live and work in this province. We are admired by people around the world because we have been, I think, an open government in the past.

We in this province have been proud to be part of the workings of the Legislature of this province. The one thing we did not expect at this particular point in our history was to be speaking to a bill that was one that was not expected and was promised would never be presented before this House, because during the election in September 1987, the Premier (Mr. Peterson) did state that he would be supporting a common day of pause in Ontario and that he would not be looking at a municipal option as opposed to legislation that supported that common day of pause.

It is true that the Retail Business Holidays Act, as it is presently written, does have a few minor flaws. Those flaws have been taken care of by the amendments to the bill as presented on the very first day of the introduction and through the deliberations of this bill before the standing committee on administration of justice. Very quickly we had a consensus among the members that one of the three problems could be dealt with, and that was, of course, the problem of enforcement. We know right now that there is power within the existing legislation that we are not taking advantage of. We know at this particular point in time that fines are not being levied to the extent that they could be.

We have a case in court in southwestern Ontario right now where a judge is being challenged on the amount of fines that were given to a particular business that flouted the law over a period of some months on nine different occasions. I stand to be corrected, but I think that particular business was levied some $900 worth of fines, if that. We do have the clout within the existing legislation, but we simply did not use it.

The government advised us that we had a real problem, and it also told us it wanted to increase the fines. We agreed with them, so that particular point was dealt with very quickly in the committee hearings.

Before we went out for public input across the province, we also talked about the problem of enforcement. The government advised us it would want a clause in the amendments that gave the government the power of injuncture. We agreed immediately to that. Therefore, over a period of a couple of days we agreed on two of what the government advised us were rather significant problems with the present legislation.

The third problem with the legislation was a problem for the government. This particular problem had to do, in their view, with the definition of tourism. I think we were misled in some ways on the very first day of the hearings, because the government advised us that this particular piece of legislation could not be upheld in the courts. Over a period of weeks and upon doing our homework and asking the question on a number of occasions, we were convinced that the present legislation could be upheld in the courts; the only real problem was that the definition of tourism had to be expanded and improved upon. Most members of the public who came before the committee advised us that they would be more than happy to assist us in a definition of tourism. They were not asked to assist at any time and they have not been asked as a result of the committee hearings.

There are those of us who gave up a number of weeks to hear the public because we seriously thought in the beginning that the government would listen if we did get a very loud response from the public on these different issues. I am sad to say, as a fairly new member to this Legislative Assembly, that I was very much disappointed, because of 500-plus presentations both oral and written, we saw the vast majority of people suggesting they did not want what we have commonly referred to as the local option.

The local option really means that instead of the province and this government taking a very strong stand on which additional retail establishments can be open on Sunday, it will delegate that responsibility to the municipalities. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what section 4 means. The province has decided that any additional openings or closings should be decided by the municipalities. That is the only part of the legislation we had a great deal of objection to.

In fact, the Premier stated on the third day of the public hearings that the local option was not negotiable. It was very disappointing to those of us who thought we were playing a big role in a democratic process to know that the Liberal members of the justice committee had been given their marching orders. In fact, they were given a document of questions and answers; all of us are aware of the document. I think that was an insult to the elected Liberal members of that committee who were there prepared to listen and to take a stand on their own. I would say quite frankly that they were not allowed to do so.

A little bit about the process, because the public should know that some tens of thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars -- we do not really know -- were spent on this process. People’s expectations were raised.

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That is a very real concern because when we take a committee out across Ontario, we ourselves are committing our time. That is what we have agreed to do as elected members of this Legislative Assembly. It is part of our job to listen to the public, to formulate our views and to take a stand, frequently based on what our constituents want.

As we travelled the province, the other part of this particular picture was the intensity and commitment to appearing before us of members of the public, sometimes on very hot summer days, sometimes travelling hundreds of miles, sometimes giving up their own days at work and holiday time because they felt so strongly about this issue.

I was truly amazed at the response we got. I was told that the only other bill that received more response was Bill 30. That was the act that extended funding to the separate schools in this province. I think that says something on behalf of the people in Ontario.

I should state that I said on a number of occasions as we travelled the province that the public is serious about this. They have been serious about important legislation in the past. Elected members will just have to suffer the consequences of their decisions. That is historical. It has been proved. This party knows that better than any other party, I suggest, and I think this strong, very large Liberal majority government will know how that feels after the next election. That is not my observation, but the observation of hundreds of members of the public who came and spoke to us and wrote this point of view to us in their correspondence.

I think the petitions that were read in this House represented the views of what the Premier would refer to as the little guy: the person who walked through a shopping mall and took the time to put his name to a petition, the worker who worked in a retail establishment who felt very strongly about the hours of work he was already prepared to perform on behalf of the public and in the public service as he works in a very large industry, the retail establishment.

I should go on to say that there were church groups, business groups, unions, small businesses, automobile dealerships, retail workers, students and teachers’ federations. I do not think there could be a larger cross-section of society represented in this debate. Without exception, they told us they liked the way things are now. They think we work and live in a different world, one that works more quickly and one that is more challenging. The challenge to the family in these times is enormous, it is intense.

In my role as the critic for the Ministry of Community and Social Services, I see almost on an hourly basis the concerns of families because of the challenges of today’s society, and I know the government hears them as well.

What have we done as we have tried to solve the problems we have been facing just this past weekend? We have been looking at the problems of families. We have been looking at young people who because of their troubled lives are no longer welcome to live in their own homes. We were looking at young people who in fact are in trouble and are put into locked institutions. We are looking at young people who are crying out for help.

We are looking at people who are being pressured, right at this very time, into making decisions for their own lives and trying to balance their school work around their studies. We are looking at young people who are struggling in young families to put food on the table and to buy homes. Because of that, we have families where two people are choosing to work so that they can buy that home.

The challenges to this government are significant. We should be spending our time today debating the cost of housing. We should be talking about building schools for our young children and families. The issues of the environment are overwhelming. Should I end by saying we should be talking about health care?

Most of us are representing the public. The public has put this forth on its agenda as being extremely important. We have received literally hundreds of thousands of names on petitions and hundreds of people chose to speak to our committee as it travelled across this province. We have had the kind of response to an amendment to a piece of legislation that we did not expect, quite frankly. We did not expect to get this loud, vocal response. This very small opposition caucus and our colleagues in the New Democratic Party opposition caucus have had to make it our business to represent the public in a way that we probably never have had to do in the past.

For some reason, during the reading of the petitions, we saw very few Liberal members reading their own petitions. In fact, on four or five occasions, I checked with Liberal members and read petitions from their own ridings. I am sure that is not something those particular members are proud of. We do not know what has happened to this government. We have no idea where the push for this amendment is coming from. We have no idea. As recently as yesterday the Premier, as he was speaking to a group of secondary school students in the town of Picton in southwestern Ontario, talked about opposition to this bill.

Mr. Campbell: In southwestern Ontario? You better tell her where it is. Did you guys move it?

Mrs. Cunningham: In southeastern Ontario; I stand corrected. I certainly know where Picton is. I spent many days there in my childhood.

At the same time, the members of the public who felt very strongly about their quality of life and their common pause day were referred to as participating in “emotional hysteria.” Those were the words of the Premier. That is not a very positive description of a very concerned public, the people whom we are here to represent and sometimes protect.

That is what this bill is all about. It is protecting people from having to work even more on Sundays. That is what this bill is all about and that is why we are speaking as strongly as we are today.

I should tell members there is a precedent for this amendment. The precedent for this amendment is in New Brunswick. We have been in constant touch with that province because we were very serious during the public hearings and during the deliberations of the standing committee on administration of justice to put forth amendments that would make a difference, amendments we could support and amendments we thought could work.

During that process, we in the Conservative Party put forth an amendment that would put the responsibility for more Sunday openings back on the province. That amendment allowed for public hearings and for an appeal process. It was an amendment that had been carefully thought out and changed over a period of time in consultation with other provinces, and in particular with the province of New Brunswick. It was an amendment that would have met the needs of the people of Ontario and that I think would have assisted the government in polishing and making better a piece of legislation it thought was not working.

We thought we were extremely responsible in coming forth with that amendment, which in fact was spoken to by one member of the justice committee. The debate took less than 15 minutes. I should tell the members, as the author of that amendment, that it took us literally weeks to put it together. There was no serious deliberation in that committee on some very important amendments put by both the New Democratic Party and by the Conservative Party, absolutely none.

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For many members -- I am glad to say it is not so today -- this legislation is one that has been joked about, one that has been spoken about in derogatory terms, one that has been treated extremely lightly and one that has no place on the public agenda of the Liberal government.

Happily, I think the Liberal members are having to think seriously about the way they are going to vote today. We tried earlier this afternoon to ask the Premier again, because we were confused, in all honesty, about what he meant by a free vote. We did have reason to believe certain Liberal members were not feeling comfortable in standing up and giving their point of view freely and representing the public that elected them. As we tried for clarification, which I think we got, the Premier certainly stated a free vote was in order. We are hoping we will see representation in this House of the people in Ontario as the Liberals place their votes.

It is a grass-roots fight. It is one the people feel very strongly about and one they will remember for a long time, not only politically but because of the fact we will see extended Sunday shopping. People refer to the effect of this bill as the domino effect. It is very sad to think right now that people are so tremendously unable to plan their own businesses and their own personal lives.

Interjections.

Mrs. Cunningham: When I say that, I think that is indicative of the way the government has been operating more recently. They continue to joke as I speak now about what we are calling management. I think they are having difficulty getting their particular management skills together in many of their portfolios, but why would they pass that problem on to the retail businesses across this province? The tourist industry is in an absolute uproar. They have no idea how long their industries will be allowed to operate in the way they are operating now.

There are other parts of this legislation we could be discussing today. We do not want to confuse the public any more than this bill confuses them by raising the issue of the size of drugstores, by raising the issue of the municipal option, by raising the issue of democracy itself. The public has spoken. They certainly spoke in London North in a very strong vote during a by-election recently. I am very grateful for this issue, one we did not expect.

Interjections.

Mrs. Cunningham: As we are constantly being interrupted this afternoon, I should say with regard to the interjections that if I were as uncertain about the way I were going to vote this afternoon, that is the stand I would take too. I should also say we will be looking with interest at the way the Liberal members vote as they represent the public. We certainly are expecting a full house.

I am not happy to be part of this debate this afternoon. It is a historic change for Ontario. I will close by saying we will no longer have the luxury, we will no longer have what I think is a very real need for families in this province and we will no longer have a common day of pause supported by this Liberal government.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. M. C. Ray): Are there comments or questions arising out of the speech by the member for London North?

Mr. Miller: I would like to rise and give a couple of comments on the statement by the member for London North. There is nothing in this bill that states anything about Sunday shopping. The bill clearly indicates it is to amend the Retail Business Holidays Act. I think the opposition has done a fantastic job of going around this province and not giving the proper information. I think the bill is clearly redoing legislation that should have been updated. It all came about because Boxing Day came on a Sunday about two years ago.

I think we are just relaying it. There is no possibility of change unless they want it changed. It goes back. If there are going to be changes, they can be made at the local level where the decision, in my view, can be the most effective.

In my lifetime, the businesses in the small communities have all organized their hours of shopping over the years. I can recall when Saturday night was a shopping night and they would stay open until 10:30, 11 o’clock and even 12 midnight. But the business people got together and decided they did not want to keep those kind of hours as things changed and unfolded. Nobody is pressuring stores to be open on Sunday if a community does not want it.

Again, the member has gone on for many months now promoting this and it is not really factual. I believe the bill is just upgrading the act and I am only too pleased to support it. It is going to fit into today’s society and make it more effective and efficient for the general public of Ontario.

Mr. Philip: I have some comments on the statement of the member for London North. The member for Norfolk (Mr. Miller) seems to take the same theme the other Liberals have been taking recently, namely, that the two opposition parties are so competent we are able to hoodwink the public into thinking this is wide-open Sunday shopping.

I ask the member for London North, does she not think we must be really brilliant when we were able to hoodwink the Archdiocese of Toronto? In their recent letter, they said this will lead to wide-open Sunday shopping from their studies of what happened in British Columbia.

Does she not think that we, both opposition parties, must be terribly good in being able to convince all the small business groups, the auto dealers, the major church groups, the workers in Ontario, the community organizations that have appeared before us, and indeed the municipalities that this will lead to wide-open Sunday shopping?

Are we not great communicators when we can put over this colossal hoax on all of these people, or is it possible in her opinion that perhaps all of these groups are quite intelligent, can make up their own minds, can read the legislation and have concluded for themselves that this will lead to wide-open Sunday shopping and that the hoax is by the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith), not the opposition?

Mr. Runciman: I simply want to put on the record my thoughts with respect to the efforts undertaken by the member for London North on behalf of our party and the people of this province on this piece of legislation. Indeed, there has been a very serious evasion of responsibility on the part of the Liberal government in this province.

I want to say with respect to the member that she is a relatively new member of this House, but she has acted like a veteran. She does simply an outstanding job on behalf of consumers and people right across this province in representing their interests and concerns with respect to this piece of legislation. I want to say, as a member of the Conservative caucus, how proud I am and how proud all of our colleagues are with respect to the performance and the job she has done on our behalf.

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Mr. Neumann: I appreciate the opportunity to make some brief comments in regard to the remarks we just heard from the member for London North. It seems to me the issue has been placed where it should be: at the provincial level. This is a bill to amend the Retail Business Holidays Act, not to abolish it. The member should realize, and I am sure she does, that it was her party in 1975 which introduced the principle of municipalities having the local option through the tourism provision in the existing legislation. She should realize that the present legislation is fraught with problems and was crying out for reform and change and that this government undertook courageous action in stepping forward to reform this particular piece of legislation.

I would like to ask the member for London North (Mrs. Cunningham) why her leader has not responded to a letter which I sent to him. He sent me a letter suggesting how I should represent my constituents. I am quite capable of doing that myself and I do communicate with them. I answered his letter and I posed three questions to him, but I never received a response. My questions, which I posed to her leader, asked what the position of the Progressive Conservative Party is, because while they have been very critical, they have never stated what they do if they were in office with respect to defining tourism at the provincial level.

Would they remove the local option which they put into the present legislation? Do they still believe in municipal decision-making, which they introduced, or would they abolish that and handle it province-wide with a tourism definition? What is the wording of this tourism reform in the province-wide legislation? They have not put forward the position of their party. To be constructive critics, they should do that.

The Acting Speaker: We have about a minute left. The member for Mississauga South.

Mrs. Marland: It really continues to be very interesting and almost, I suppose to a degree, appalling to hear the members of the Liberal government on this issue talk about responsibility being where it needs to be. If that were true on this issue, then why would it not be true on very many more issues? The fact that we have government members today saying that the municipal option will make it work is unbelievable to me. It just reinforces the fact that the Liberal government is dumping this issue on the municipalities which loudly and clearly have said they do not want it because it will not work.

I must say it is particularly interesting to hear the member for Brantford (Mr. Neumann) talk about his viewpoint in terms of where he thinks we should be and what we should do. The truth of the matter is that all parties in this Legislature signed an all-party report. We know what we would do if we were the government. If the member were being completely frank, he would support the committee report that the Solicitor General supported as a member of that committee.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Next, the member for London North. Do you wish to reply?

Mrs. Cunningham: I have a couple of observations. I think the remarks we have heard today are just indicative of the nonlistening capabilities of the Liberals.

The member for Norfolk talks about being misleading. We went into the committee hearings with the Liberal government saying that the common day of pause was part of the framework of the legislation. I can tell the member that after four days of hearings, they no longer said that was part of the framework. They were the ones who were trying to mislead the government. I am very proud that over the period of months we have had we have been able to straighten this issue out and tell the public exactly what it means. It means extended Sunday shopping and it does not mean a common day of pause.

On the point that the member made about being naïve, I should just say I was naïve in the beginning, but I listened and I learned and I am no longer naïve about this bill. I know it and I understand it and we are right.

The member talks about the local level. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario does not want this responsibility for very good reasons: first, it is extremely expensive; and second, it is extremely divisive. It has been shown in provinces across this country how divisive this legislation is. Why do the Liberals not learn from other governments’ mistakes? It is because they are not listening.

On that very same point, the real problem with members of this government is that they are afraid to bite the bullet on leadership because this is tough. I will tell them something else. Hundreds of people were prepared to help them with the definition of tourism and that is the only problem with the existing bill now. Did the Liberals want their help? They did not want their help. They do not want anybody’s help, because somebody has told them that they have to vote in favour of this piece of crap, because that is what it is, and they are not prepared to stand up for what they believe in.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. Are there any other participants in the debate? The member for Etobicoke-Rexdale.

Mr. Philip: I will be sharing the half hour allocated with my colleague the member for Cambridge (Mr. Farnan), who has done such an excellent job on this committee and who has served his constituents well in presenting their views. I therefore ask that the eight minutes of questions and comments be directed after the member for Cambridge speaks, and they can be addressed to either myself or the member for Cambridge.

The Acting Speaker: I am not privy to any agreements between House leaders with respect to this and I will enforce the standing orders.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: He is asking that there be an agreement.

The Acting Speaker: There is not a House leader here with whom there can be agreement.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: Ask the people in the House. It is not up to the House leader for the government; it is up to the people in the House.

Mr. Breaugh: If I can help out, perhaps we can ask for unanimous consent to do it that way. I think the members are agreeable that we could do it that way and, if we have unanimous consent, that would assist us.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: We are dividing our time for our half hour, so we would like the two-minute responses to be held until our two people have spoken or else we will be able to have time for only one person to speak.

Mr. Reycraft: Mr. Speaker, there has been an agreement between the three party whips that each party will have 25 minutes and that the 25 minutes will include the time for questions and comments, so I do not have any objection to the request being made by the member for Windsor-Riverside.

The Acting Speaker: Let me get it straight. I understand that the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale and the member for Cambridge are going to speak for a total of 25 minutes.

Mr. Philip: And then we will have five minutes of questions and comments.

The Acting Speaker: And thereafter there will be comments and questions on the two speeches. Fine. Thank you.

Mr. Philip: It is rare indeed in the five terms that I have served the people of Etobicoke and Etobicoke-Rexdale in this House that legislation has been opposed by so many different groups in the community. This legislation is opposed by women’s groups which see it as an attack on many of the single parents, most of whom are women who are not going to be with their families now on Sundays as a result of this legislation. They are not with their families on Saturdays and now they will not be with their families on Sundays.

It is opposed by small business owners who recognize that in many jurisdictions where this kind of legislation has happened those small businesses have been forced out of business or have lost large amounts of money. Indeed, I spent some time with Mr. Shin this afternoon, who is the editor of the Ontario Korean Businessmen’s Association News and who expressed that very grave concern.

The auto dealers are opposed to it. They have said that it will increase the price of a new car by between $150 and $300 and that this has happened elsewhere. All major church groups are opposed to this legislation and have appeared and told the members of the committee so. All workers who appeared before the committee said that they were against both this and the subsequent bill, Bill 114.

Community organizations and leaders came forward and said that they were opposed to this legislation. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario, representing a majority of the municipal leaders in this province, has said it does not want this legislation and it is opposed to section 4, which is the principle of the bill.

This legislation has a long history. First, the Premier could not make up his mind about what to do about it. Then he set up a select committee -- a select committee costs some $90,000 -- that went around the province. It cited as its first principle, “The committee supports the principle of a common pause day in Ontario.”

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During the last election campaign, the Premier stated that he was in acceptance of both the committee- recommendations and the principle of a common pause day. Six months later, his Solicitor General introduced this legislation. Then the government said it wanted the legislation passed in two weeks. We forced public hearings by introducing petition after petition, and finally the government agreed to at least have hearings so that the public could speak.

Then the Peterson government said it would listen to the public now that we were going to have public hearings. But before they did that, before the hearings, the Solicitor General sent out a package to each and every Liberal backbencher which included such information as a typical letter they can use to respond to their constituents. All of this defends the legislation or attempts to defend the legislation. This package even went so far as to quote a nonexistent research report. That is how desperate the Liberals were to justify this.

The Liberals said that they would listen and we saw how they listened. Of the presentations dealing with section 4, which is the municipal option, 402 were against the municipal option as compared to 26 in favour. In other words, 93.9 per cent of the presentations made to the committee asked that section 4 be withdrawn, but the government refused to withdraw it. While saying that they were listening to the public, the Solicitor General again sent Liberal members the portfolio saying that the municipal option was not negotiable.

The public demanded some changes in the bill in addition to the withdrawal of section 4. They demanded that minimum fines be included. We moved that in committee, and the Liberals used their majority in the committee to quash it.

The public demanded that criteria be contained in the bill so that, if there was a municipal option, at least there would be some standards. We moved that in committee, and the Liberals used their majority in committee to defeat that.

The public asked for a provision for an appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board of decisions by municipalities affecting store hours. We moved that, and the Liberals used their majority in committee and in the House to defeat it.

The auto dealers asked for an exemption for themselves similar to exemptions in other wide-open Sunday shopping areas of the United States where at least auto dealers would be exempt. We moved that in committee, and again the Liberals used their majority to defeat it.

The Liberals would not even accept a simple amendment regarding the advertising so that the public could find out and regarding advertising in ethnic newspapers where there were large portions of the population in the municipality that did not normally read the English-language newspapers.

They defeated a simple review that we moved, which would be held in 1990, so that we could see the effect of this legislation. The Liberals were so afraid of their legislation that they defeated that as well.

The Solicitor General rationalized this flip-flop on Sunday shopping by stating that the tourist exemption was a problem, yet when AMO offered to meet with the minister and to work on a better definition for the tourist exemption, she refused its help. Indeed, as late as last Thursday, when I asked the minister in this House the municipalities in which a problem exists with the tourist exemption, she was not able to name them.

This legislation was brought in with very little forethought. It is fairly clear that there were no impact studies done. There were no impact studies to find out the effect of this type of legislation in other provinces, such as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where after two years the governments saw that it created such anarchy, such a mess, that they had to rescind the legislation. There were no impact studies on British Columbia to see what had happened there, where the municipal option in fact resulted in wide-open Sunday shopping, where 55 municipalities are now wide-open on Sunday despite the fact that many of those municipalities were not in favour of it in the first place.

There was no effort, in relation to the companion bill, to consult with the trade unionists or the businesses that would be affected by it. In essence, this is an ill-thought-out bill which is opposed by a majority of the citizens in this province, and the government does not have the courage to admit that it made a mistake and withdraw section 4 of the bill.

Tom Harpur tells the story of Albert Einstein, who once delivered a lecture at Harvard. When the applause at the end had died down, a bright young woman who was doing post-graduate studies rose and asked, “Dr. Einstein, I heard you speak at Yale some months ago, and what you said there seems to contradict what you have said here today.” Einstein said, “When I spoke there, I was wrong.” Albert Einstein had the courage, the conviction and the ethics to admit that he was wrong. This government, despite all the opposition and despite all the information it received in the hearings, does not have the courage to admit it is wrong.

It is a sad day for Ontario, but the fight will go on. It will go on in the municipalities and it will be carried on by the four million people who are represented by the Coalition Against Open Sunday Shopping and it will go on in the next election campaign. This government will suffer in the next election for not listening to the people and forgoing directly contrary to what they asked for.

The Acting Speaker: As agreed, the next speaker is the member for Cambridge.

Mr. Farnan: It is indeed a sad day. It is a sad day for democracy, a sad day for the traditional values that many of us hold so dear and a sad day for politics. It is a sad day for democracy because these bills represent legislation for which this government had no mandate. It is a sad day for the traditional values of home, family and worship that form the backbone of our society. In time, this legislation will affect the quality of life of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Ontarians. In time, more people will work on Sundays; many will have less quality time with their families.

It is a sad day for politics and politicians because the Peterson government has cheapened our coinage. Surely the people of Ontario have the right to expect a government to implement after it is elected what the government promised before it was elected. Surely the people of Ontario have a right to some honesty and integrity in government.

When the Premier in those lazy hazy days of summer went to the people of Ontario in 1987, he did say he supported a common pause day. My friends, that is the tragedy. The tragedy of this particular day is the tragedy of the breakdown of democracy, because the people of Ontario brought in the Liberal government based on a premise that this government was going to be open and accessible. What they found out was that having been given a huge majority, this government then proceeded to put aside the promises to the people and take a route it had not discussed with the people and for which it had no mandate. My friends, that is not democracy.

Following that, we did go out to the people in public hearings and we did say to the people of Ontario, “Let’s hear what the people have to say,” and in an extraordinary manner, something like 529 submissions or briefs were made. These briefs did not represent individuals; they represented large church groups, trade unions, business associations, etc., many of the petitions representing tens of thousands, literally hundreds of thousands, of Ontarians. Did the government listen?

Let me tell the viewers watching today what happened. The Solicitor General said, “The key clause of this bill, section 4, the municipal option, is non-negotiable.” The Premier said it would not be watered down. This is when the hearings were going on. When the committee went to London, the government whip, the member for Middlesex (Mr. Reycraft), said that no responsible member of the Legislature would comment on the outcome of the committee hearings while the committee was still deliberating the issue. The Premier commented; he prejudged the committee. The Solicitor General prejudged the committee.

Of course, when I introduced a motion to the committee that we report back to the House that the Premier and the Solicitor General be censured for prejudging the work of the committee, the Liberals on the committee voted against that motion of censure. How could they possibly support a motion of censure against the Premier and the Solicitor General, who are telling them exactly what to do? Tonight they will follow those instructions.

That is what democracy is about: going out to the public and listening to the people.

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The United Food and Commercial International Workers Union, Local 1977, perhaps summed it up best in its brief: “The Liberals were elected to represent the people in their ridings. The people are saying ‘no’ to the local option. It seems that everybody is wrong except the Liberal Party.”

We know for a fact that these bills were never discussed by the Liberal Party. We know there was no policy position taken by the Liberal Party. We know there was no convention where these issues were discussed. The Premier is not listening to the people of Ontario. He is not listening to the Liberal Party. The Premier, as is quite obvious, is listening to a small group of very powerful people, a very powerful moneyed group that represents large business in this province.

I say to all of the Liberal members out there that the small businessmen in their communities, the retail workers in their communities, the church groups in their communities, all of these people are saying to them: “We want a common pause day. We don’t want this legislation.” That is part of democracy. An essential ingredient of democracy is listening to the people and responding to the people. But the Premier is not responding to the people.

There is an arrogance now, Mr. Speaker, which you will not dispute. The Premier is saying: “I don’t care what the people of Ontario say. I don’t care what the businesses, church groups, labour groups and the municipalities who do not want this legislation say. We’re going to introduce this legislation whether they like it or not.”

That is not democracy; that is dictatorship. The people of Ontario recognize that for what it is. They also recognize all of those Liberal backbenchers who were sent here to represent the ridings, who have been told very clearly where their people stand on the issue and are not going to respond.

Perhaps one of the key moments for me was when I introduced a private member’s bill in this House requesting that for a period of some six to eight weeks this House would sit on Sunday so we could experience what it would be like to work a regularly scheduled Sunday shift; not forever but for a period of six to eight weeks. That bill was defeated by 67 votes to 23. It was defeated at first reading. Debate on the issue was not allowed because the government was basically embarrassed. It wants to legislate retail workers to work on Sundays while provincial members of parliament do not have to work on Sundays.

Obviously, the people of Ontario have to be very cynical about politicians who want to legislate them to work while they are not even prepared to work on a trial basis to see how it affects them. I want the people of Ontario who are watching these proceedings tonight to know that every vote cast which would not allow MPPs to work on Sunday was cast by a Liberal, and every vote that said, “Let’s work on Sunday for a trial basis,” was voted by the New Democratic Party with support from our Conservative colleagues. The people of Ontario can see through this.

The Rev. Derwyn Jones, bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Huron writes, “At the very least, it would seem to us that on a matter which affects the private lifestyles of so many people, the vote in the provincial Legislature should not be governed by party politics but rather by a free vote of conscience.”

The reality of the matter is that, although the Premier has suggested there will be a free vote, the people of Ontario know that the Premier was not, in this case, reflecting accurately what will happen in this House tonight. The people of Ontario know what a free vote is. They experienced such a vote in the federal House when there was a vote on capital punishment. This is not a free vote. The Premier knows it is not a free vote and the people of Ontario know it is not a free vote. It is an insult to the people of Ontario to suggest that what will take place in this House tonight is a free vote.

The Liberal members will come in and do exactly what they have been told. They have received the package that my colleague the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale (Mr. Philip) referred to: (a) the speech they are to give, (b) the correspondence they are to write, and (c) how they are to answer questions. We should not expect any more courage from the Liberals tonight than they have displayed throughout the process.

The Acting Speaker: As agreed, we will have comments and questions on both the speech by the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale and the member for Cambridge.

Mr. Owen: The Ontario government’s amendments to Sunday shopping continue to be misunderstood by many. Some say we are trying to give responsibility for Sunday shopping to the municipalities. In fact, they have had that responsibility –

Mr. Mackenzie: Total baloney.

The Acting Speaker: Order. We are entertaining comments and questions on the two speeches that I made reference to. Does the member have a comment or a question with respect to those two speeches?

Are there any members who do?

Mr. Sola: I would just like to respond to some of the allegations made by both previous speakers and by the Conservative speaker.

They say the present legislation is somewhat controversial; there were a few minor flaws. I wish they would try to convince five members of the present Conservative caucus who were sent on a chase around the province to “report on extended shopping hours.” This is the Ontario Progressive Conservative Task Force on Extended Shopping Hours. The reason for sending them on this chase after the somewhat controversial legislation with a few minor flaws was that, in their words, “The widespread and flagrant violation of the Retail Business Holidays Act by numerous retailers, primarily in the Metropolitan Toronto area and particularly on Boxing Day, 1985, has brought to the fore the need for amending this statute.”

I see the member for Mississauga South (Mrs. Marland) is here. Either she was under the delusion that there was flagrant and widespread violation of the act or, as the member for London North says, it was somewhat controversial with a few minor flaws.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: Last week you said it’s the local option and you’re not changing anything.

Mr. Sola: As far as the New Democratic Party members have said –

Mr. Breaugh: You should go back to your notes, John.

Mr. B. Rae: The core speech is right here.

Mr. Sola: Yes, both parties. This is replying to the members’ statements. They have such responsibility that they want to claim responsibility for the committee and yet they do not want to claim responsibility for the money spent on the committee. If they forced the committee, then the money spent should be on their shoulders.

Mr. Pouliot: In answer to the addresses from both the member for Cambridge and the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale, I would like to reiterate what has been said for the past month, that when we talk in terms of the local option, the people responsible for that local option have said emphatically, “No.”

There are some 800 to 850 municipalities in Ontario, represented by reeves and mayors and their councils, and 90 per cent of them, by virtue of resolutions at the last Association of Municipalities of Ontario convention, are saying, “We won’t have it.” How can the Liberals believe for even an instant –

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Mr. Sola: And they used it 110 times.

Mr. Pouliot: Under standing order 24(b), Mr. Speaker, will you please cap the bottle across there, please? We have just about had enough.

What those people have said almost unanimously -- 93 per cent of the presenters, representing mainstream Ontario, representing the great majority of the business community, representing spiritual leaders from all denominations, representing small business -- the taxpayers again and again have said, “We won’t have it; you’ve gone too far.”

But the government is determined to push it down the throats of Ontarians. What Ontarians have said time and time again as a last resort is, “Conservatives and New Democrats, try to amend, try to salvage what is indeed a bad piece of legislation.”

This afternoon, as a grand finale, the Liberal government is determined to go to the wall with this legislation. My friends will literally go to the wall in terms of the electoral process. They will pay very harshly and very dearly –

Mr. Speaker: Thank you. The member for Lake Nipigon has run out of time.

Mrs. Marland: I just want to say that I agree with most of the comments made by the previous two speakers for the official opposition party, but I think it is also important to place on the record, for the benefit of the member for Mississauga East (Mr. Sola), that I am under no delusions whatsoever. In fact, I am feeling that in the vote the Progressive Conservative Party will take this afternoon, we will be the only people in this Legislature who will represent the wishes of the people who elected them to be here in the first place.

It would serve the member for Mississauga East, who thought that I was under some delusion, to perhaps look at the petitions from the people from the riding that he represents who have asked him to vote against this legislation. I have not received a number of calls and requests, in letters or any other form, from people in Mississauga South asking me to vote in favour of this legislation, so I serve very seriously the responsibility that I have.

I also want to refer to a letter dated January 17, written by Cardinal Carter, the archbishop of Toronto, where he has written stating his concern to all his parishioners in this province about the fact that they are quite sure that this legislation will inevitably lead to wide-open Sunday shopping. What a terrible thing that this gentleman, in his position, has to get into a political issue between one government and its opposition.

The Liberal government of Ontario has now truly betrayed the people of this province by introducing this legislation and allowing it to continue through with their support in the face of the tremendous opposition which has been well expressed by everyone in this province.

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has now expired. As members know, there is a limit of 10 minutes. I believe there were two speeches made. In order to wind up, would it be agreeable to allow both members to respond?

Agreed to.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: At the same time? Together? Then I will recognize the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale and then I will recognize the member for Cambridge and then we will continue the debate.

Mr. Philip: The member for Mississauga East has not learned anything from the hearings. He says that he asked me a question about the Conservative Party task force. Well, Larry Grossman once held the position that there should be wide-open Sunday shopping. Larry Grossman was man enough, after sending a task force around the province, to change his mind and admit that he was wrong. He at least listened to the public.

The Conservative task force came to the same conclusion as the select committee on retail store hours that the Premier set up. It came to the conclusion that Ontario legislation should be retained in the province. That was what the Solicitor General signed and later did a flip-flop on and changed her mind about. She rejected the municipal option, which only a week before introducing this legislation she had called the chicken option. Now, she is defending it. It held out the principle of a common pause day. Both the select committee and the Conservative Party task force upheld the principle of a common pause day. That is what the government has refused and rejected. That is why I say to the government that it has not been listening to the public and it has not listened to the people who made their presentations. Government members might as well have been out in the lobby smoking, the way they were most of the time.

Mr. Farnan: A few final words. Don Thompson of Stratford, Ontario, had these words for the committee, “Public hearings into the local option for Sunday shopping are a farce and a sham that will cost Liberals their seats in the next election.”

Peter Hoogendam is a furniture store owner from Kingston. His final words to the committee were, “We will remember.” The people of Ontario will remember this day.

Mrs. Sullivan: In my view, Bill 113 maintains a provincial framework for regulating Sunday closings. We believe that it is unlikely to result in wide-open Sunday shopping throughout the province. Indeed, perhaps some of the response in the development of these bills provides some indication of what measure of change we might expect in various areas of the province in the future.

Where communities choose to allow retail business establishments to be open on Sunday, it is important that we look at what happens to the employees. More than half a million people are employed in the retail sector in Ontario today, a significant part of the economy. In that half a million people, many of them are students, part-time workers, and about 52.4 per cent are women, many with family responsibilities.

As we look at the question of where communities choose to open their places, we have to remember that many people already work on Sundays in the retail sector. In fact, about 160,000, or one third of employees who work in the retail trade, are already working in establishments that may be expected to schedule work on Sundays.

If we look at our own communities, we can see them around us -- small food stores, convenience stores, gasoline service stations, drugstores, antique-handicraft stores, tobacco shops -- all of which can legally be open on Sundays and holidays under the existing Retail Business Holidays Act. About one half of those employees are estimated to be women.

The government looked at those people who might be affected by a change in their working relationships as a result of Bill 113; who might, for legitimate reasons, whether family obligations, religious pursuits or even lifestyle commitments, not choose to work on Sunday.

It acted to protect them, and it put forward companion legislation, a balanced complement to Bill 113. That ensures that any worker who is affected by Bill 113, and all workers in retail establishments, have appropriate protection. It means that the people who already work in the retail sector on Sundays will now have protection; for the first time that protection will be extended to 160,000 people who already work on Sundays.

Interjection.

An hon. member: That word has to come out.

An hon. member: We heard it.

Mr. B. Rae: It wasn’t in.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I just hope that all members will control themselves and use the appropriate language in this House. I heard the member for Hamilton East accuse another member of lying. Will you withdraw it’?

Mr. Mackenzie: I am sorry that we cannot tell the truth in the House, Mr. Speaker. I will withdraw the fact that we are lying when we say this to people.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Elston: Throw him out.

Mr. Mackenzie: I said I withdraw it.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I wish all members would show some respect. The member for Hamilton East has withdrawn. I have accepted it.

The member for Halton Centre.

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Mrs. Sullivan: As I was saying, for the first time people who are already working in the retail sector on Sundays will have protection extended to them for that work, in addition to any new people who may join the retail sector as a result of choices that are made in their own communities about the kind of work the communities want to allow.

The government wanted to put forward a clear framework for both employer and employee. It wanted to put forward something that would be workable, enforceable and understandable, and that would provide the kind of flexibility necessary for dealing with the issue fairly.

As a consequence, the government said -- it was discussed quite broadly in the hearings of the committee, I understand -- that employees in retail businesses that are permitted to open on Sundays ought to have the right to refuse work they consider unreasonable. Further, the government said if the employer and the employee disagree on what constitutes unreasonable Sunday work, either of them should be able to ask for mediation by an employment standards officer, and the employee should be able to ask for mediation if he or she is punished or otherwise treated improperly for refusing Sunday work the employee considers unreasonable. Additionally, it said if no settlement is reached, the matter could be referred to an independent referee for determination.

It is important to recognize that the protection of workers who are affected by Bill 113 is not just against dismissals. It also explicitly prohibits disciplinary action, suspension, intimidation, coercion or the imposition of any penalty on the employee. In other words, the worker who is asked to work on Sunday will be protected against any reprisals taken by the employer against workers who refuse Sunday work.

I should say that such nonreprisal clauses are part of virtually every labour law statute in this country. They are found in all labour relations acts, in all employment standards acts, in all human rights legislation and in all but one occupational health and safety statute, that being in British Columbia.

I do not accept the premise that employers will generally disregard or try to circumvent the law. Most people, most employers will obey this law as they do other laws. The incentive to circumvent the old law is removed because this one is fair and safe, and sets out understandable and reasonable standards of practice between employers and employees in this area.

We expect most disputes that arise between an employer and employee will be resolved through the mediation process. However, the government has agreed that if the mediation process does not work, a referee can make a determination if necessary and the referee can look at the criteria, which are specifically set out, in making a determination.

For instance, in determining what is reasonable the referee can take into account the terms of a collective agreement, the existence of any premium pay arrangement for Sunday work, the existence of any policy of rotating Sunday work assignments as a policy of work, the place of work, the history of the work relations including any previous requirements respecting Sunday work assignments -- that is something that is going to be very important for the 160,000 people who already work on Sundays -- the efforts of an employer to hire additional staff to permit reasonable scheduling of Sunday work, whether the employee was hired on a part-time basis specifically to permit reasonable scheduling of Sunday work, and the existence of any emergency situation.

Under the new system, the Sunday workforce in the retail sector will be largely a voluntary one comprised of people who choose to work on Sunday. Indeed, for many students and part-time workers who prefer to work on Sunday, we will see a benefit from this legislation.

The bill gives new rights to more than half a million workers for the first time. I urge that members of the House support Bill 113 and its complementary piece of legislation, Bill 114.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any comments or questions?

Mr. Owen: I would like to concur with the remarks made by the member for Halton Centre (Mrs. Sullivan). We have heard today from some of the opposition who are trying to say we are giving or initiating the giving of responsibility for Sundays --

Mr. Speaker: You are just responding?

Mr. Owen: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: Fine.

Mr. Owen: -- to the municipalities. In fact, as has been pointed out by the previous speaker, they have had that responsibility since 1975.

I think the opposition is suggesting that if we take back the responsibility from the municipalities, we would then have to close up the entire province on Sundays. Under the 1975 statute, large numbers of municipalities have opened across the province on Sundays, and closing the province would have the effect of bankrupting thousands of businesses that have legally opened and catered to the weekend consumer. That would not be fair.

The amendments that have been referred to by the last speaker would improve the situation. She referred to the fines that would increase the maximum of $10,000 to $50,000, or to the gross sales of the business day if appropriate injunction powers can close a store. The allowed square feet of the store will be maintained and roping off will no longer be allowed. Prosecutions by the police will be made easier and simpler. Municipalities that are now legally open have up to five years to reintroduce open Sundays or they will be closed, and in the future they will have to give notice to the public of their intention to open Sundays and to hold public meetings beforehand.

Some have said there will be a domino effect if this legislation goes through. Two of the five municipalities in my riding are now legally open in full or in part. Barrie has not followed the lead of Innisfil township, nor West Gwillimbury the lead of Bradford. If they have not before, why should they now? Maybe the law should not have been introduced in 1975, but it was, and what we are doing will improve a difficult situation started 14 years ago.

Mr. Speaker: Any other comments or questions? Any response? Any further debate?

Mr. Brandt: I listened with great interest to the speech on behalf of the member for Halton Centre. I am going to respond in the course of my remarks to some of the suggestions made by the member that work on Sunday will now be on a volunteer basis, which I think is one of the most ludicrous ideas I have heard yet in connection with support of this bill.

But it does underline the fact that Bill 113 and Bill 114 are going to involve more people working on Sundays. It also underlines the fact, as we have been saying in this House consistently in connection with this bill, that it is not a Sunday opening bill; it is a Sunday working bill. That is what it is all about. It is about forcing more people to work when they do not have to work and when they should not be forced to work.

It is a sad day for Ontario in my view that we are coming down the track now where there is little else the opposition can do but vote, knowing full well the government is going to get its way and is going to be able to pass this legislation.

Let me say that I was somewhat taken back by the Premier’s comments to a high school class yesterday when he indicated that all those who are in opposition to this bill, who feel very, very strongly about the mistake the government is making in this connection, are engaged in nothing more than emotional hysteria.

I think it is absolute nonsense to suggest that, when you have leading members of the church community, retailers, municipalities right across this entire province taking virtually unanimous positions, indicating they do not want to have the responsibility for making decisions with respect to Sunday openings.

You have church leaders who have indicated their strong opposition to the point where they have actually spoken from the pulpit on this question, and they have circulated letters to their parishioners and to those who are members of their diocese. I want to read into the record just the names of some of those individuals who have indicated how strongly opposed they are to what this government is going to force through, because of its majority, later on this afternoon.

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This is only a partial list, but I want to share it with the members of the House: Emmett Cardinal Carter, representing the Catholic church; Archbishop Lewis Garnsworthy, representing the Anglican Church of Canada; Reverend Hudson Hilsden, the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada; the bishop representing the Greek Orthodox Church, Bishop Satirios; Reverend Dr. Raymond Hodgson, the Presbyterian Church in Canada; Reverend David Jones, the United Church of Canada. That is only a partial list of the church leaders.

We have municipality after municipality, including the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, including those people who represented the riding of my good friend the member for Brantford, who was the mayor of that fine municipality. Were he the mayor today, he would be taking an entirely different position than he is as a backbench member of the Liberal Party. The fact of the matter is that virtually unanimously, including, if I may put this gentleman’s name on the record -- I knew that would wake him up.

Mr. Neumann: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I have not had notice of the point of privilege. Usually that is the case. However, if it is a point of order, I will certainly listen to it.

Mr. Neumann: I speak for myself. I do not need the member to speak for me.

Mr. Brandt: That is extremely helpful. I just wanted to know if my colleague the member for Brantford in fact did join with all those other mayors who have thought this issue through right across this great province, and if he would have joined ranks with them. If that was not the position he was going to take, then he can certainly make that point clear.

Let me share with the members some of the history of the bill as it unfolded. The Ontario government initiated hearings on this matter back in 1987 when there was an all-party committee that looked into the entire issue of Sunday openings. The Solicitor General will remember that well because she was part of that process.

The Conservative Party of Ontario, through our own colleagues here, set up a task force that went across the province. We had input on this question as well. The conclusions those groups came to were exactly the same, that the responsibility should remain provincial and that it was wrong to pass the responsibility on to the local municipalities. That was very clearly the position taken by the all-party committee, and also the task force we sent out across this province to get input on this question.

The other very fundamental and important point those committees came to a conclusion on was that we should retain a common day of pause and a common day of rest in this province, that we should not open it up for commercialism on every single, solitary day of the week. In May 1987, there was an all-party committee, as I mentioned, that endorsed a day of rest -- the Solicitor General was on that committee -- and indicated that Sunday shopping was wrong. That was the conclusion. That was the report that was signed. I saw it with my own eyes.

Then, as I understand it, the Premier supported those conclusions up to and including the date of August 6, 1987, when he stated very clearly for the record at that time -- I believe he was speaking in eastern Ontario, to give the members a geographical context in which to understand where these remarks came from; I guess it was popular to keep stores closed on Sunday in that area -- that there were two things he wanted to see: the status quo retained and that we have a common day of pause and a common day of rest.

Interjections.

Mr. Brandt: That was what the Premier said in August about 30 days -- I say to the member for Lambton (Mr. Smith) who I know wants these comments to be completely accurate -- before the September 10 election, when some things changed, primarily a very large majority that developed on the other side of the House.

What changed the Premier’s mind after his comments of August 6? Who whispered in his ear that perhaps something should be altered with respect to his promises and his decision to pass on the responsibility to the local municipalities? I do not know who the adviser was or where the Premier was briefed at that time, but obviously he changed his mind. I am not completely and totally surprised by that because this is not the only issue on which the Premier has changed his mind.

I recall another date that will be etched in concrete in the memories of the people of Ontario -- September 7 in the great community of Cambridge -- and what he said with respect to another issue. I remember at that time he stated without any equivocation whatever that he had a plan, and not only did he have a plan but he had a plan that would lower automotive insurance rates. That is what he said.

I want to tell members that in August he changed his mind. In September he again changed his mind. How many more times is he going to make an unequivocal statement to the people of Ontario and then end up changing his mind still again?

We now have offered to us on a platter by the government of Ontario this infamous municipal option. I want to tell members what the municipalities think of this government today. As I sat in my office, I signed dozens of letters back to municipalities that were complaining about the way in which they were being handled by the current government.

Do those folks opposite know what the municipalities are saying about them? The municipalities are saying they froze unconditional grants. They say the only kinds of municipal responsibilities the government passes on to them are the ones they do not ask for. They said on Sunday shopping: “We don’t want that responsibility. It should be province-wide legislation.” But what happened? The government passed it on because it could not take the heat. That is what happened. It could not take the heat, so it passed it on.

I want to tell the government that this party and my colleagues have been consistent on this issue, as perhaps on no other we have ever dealt with. Right from the beginning we have indicated our consistent opposition to Sunday openings. We have indicated very clearly to the government that we would fight it at every step of the way, and that by whatever method was available to us, we would attempt to delay passage of this bad legislation, because clearly the majority of the people of Ontario do not want to have this legislation enacted by the province.

We have even been, I guess, faulted in some ways for some of the lengthy debates we have had surrounding this issue. If members can believe this, the government House leader, the honourable member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway), even indicated that it was quite appropriate to bring in a time allocation motion, that it was quite appropriate to bring in a guillotine motion, that it was quite appropriate to beat the opposition into submission by limiting what it could say on this bill, because the government would have its way -- the very same member, I might add, who used every single device at his disposal when he sat on this side of the House and who was adamantly opposed to any form of time allocation, any form of closure, any form of guillotine motion.

But of course the circumstances at that time were different. We are doing nothing different, I say to my friends, and many of them were my friends until I started this speech. I say to my friends opposite that we are doing what a responsible opposition is elected to do, namely, to represent its constituency. I want to tell the government who our constituency is. It consists of church leaders, the municipalities and retail workers, those people who do not want to be forced into working on a Sunday.

I want to say again to the member for Halton Centre who spoke earlier on this business about the only workers who are going to be called to work on a Sunday -- listen carefully to this, I say to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) -- are going to all be volunteers, according to his earlier spokesman.

They are going to come forward and say to their employer: “Please find a way to employ me on Sunday, because the other six days a week that I work and that I am away from my family, am away from my children, those are not enough. I want to work the seventh day because I really think that is a good idea.” That is so much nonsense. To even use the word “volunteer” in the context of bills 113 and 114 shows just how far out of step the government really is with the realities of this bill.

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I want to say that there are those on that side of the House who believe our opposition to this bill is simply to oppose whatever the government does. But we are consistent, totally consistent, with the position their leader, the Premier, took back in August 1987.

What happened? What metamorphosis, what change, occurred between that time and now? Who influenced him I do not know. The same basic principles hold today as held back at that time; that is, by passing on the responsibility to the local municipalities, the government has done one very significant thing. It has allowed the municipalities, which are under different types of pressure from what the province faces, to have different kinds of lobby groups that approach them in a much more direct and intimate fashion and that can force them to open -- one municipality opening in various parts of this province will cause others to open.

Those are not simply the words of the member for Sarnia. They are the words that have been spoken by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. They have pleaded with the government: “Don’t force us to fight each other in a commercial war that’s going to pit one of us against the other and force us to open as a result of the need to meet the competition next door. Don’t force us to do that.”

The government has in fact opted for what the Solicitor General said some time ago was wrong, when she indicated with respect to this part of the bill, that it would be -- her famous words should be etched in marble on the walls of this historic building, because she was so right at that time, she was so correct. Her analytical mind had zeroed in and probed this issue to the point where she came to the conclusion that was so absolutely right in every respect, that on the part of her government it was going to be the chicken way out.

If the minister did not say those words, she has more than adequate opportunity to stand up in this House and indicate to all of us that I am misquoting her, but the fact of the matter is that that is exactly what she said. Of course, there were some changes: a car, a driver, a cabinet appointment, an unlimited administrative budget. The high life of a minister of the crown then took place, and the minister was at that particular time sold on the idea of what a wonderful concept this was: opening on Sunday, the shop-till-you-drop kind of philosophy. Well, we think this is wrong.

Hon. Mr. Elston: Is this Port Huron you are talking about? December 18 in Port Huron?

Mr. Brandt: My friend suggests that Port Huron is open on Sunday. Yes it is, quite legally. I have been over there on a Sunday. Certainly I have, and I go to a convenience store that is open in my own municipality on a Sunday. They are legally open and they would continue to be legally open. The difference is that certain stores, for convenience purposes, should be open on a Sunday. We do not take issue with that.

Restaurants should be open on a Sunday. Recreational activities should be open on a Sunday. I do not have any problem with that. What I have a problem with is shoe stores, hardware stores, furniture stores, the wide-open, no-holds-barred, Liberal-style commercialism. That is what I am against and that is exactly what they are proposing.

I do not think the members of the Liberal Party and the government have thought this issue through all that carefully, because those who have spoken before the all-party committee of the Legislative Assembly that heard submissions on this particular matter indicated very strongly, well in excess of 90 per cent of the submissions made before that particular committee indicated very clearly that they were opposed to bills 113 and 114.

First of all, let me say to the Minister of Labour that he had a herculean task in trying to fill the holes that were caused by Bill 113 and forcing people to work and then trying to give them some limited amount of protection. The problem is that his bill will not provide the protection for workers that he suggests because there are a hundred subtle ways in which workers can be forced to work on a Sunday that are not covered by his bill.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: Are you telling me that employers will break the law all over the province? Is that what you’re saying, Andy?

Mr. Brandt: No, I am saying that there are all kinds of ways to break the law that the minister cannot enforce. There are all kinds of ways in which people will be forced to work on a Sunday which we think are wrong. That is why bills 113 and 114 are going to result in bad legislation for Ontario.

We have opposed this bill, as have so many others who appeared before the all-party committee because of reasons that we think are very valid. We already think that in a family context there are sufficient strains and stresses in today’s fast-moving life that we should not subject those people, many of them single mothers already forced to work six days per week in the retail industry, to working still another day.

Many of them, I want to suggest to the minister, will be forced to work another day; or, and here is where Bill 114 does not cover these things, they will be passed over for promotion or they will not get the allocation of the appropriate number of hours that they need to make a living.

I want to acknowledge for the record that the minister is shaking his head and saying that I am wrong. Well, I want to tell the minister that he is wrong. That is exactly what is going to happen. The minister is wrong.

If we can, let’s talk about the Premier who stood up in this House and before all of us in the Legislative Assembly indicated that he would provide the opportunity for a free vote. Do members remember that? My good friend and colleague the member for London North asked a question today in connection with this particular issue and asked the Premier if he would lull those Liberals who are somewhat queasy about this thing, who have a sense of responsibility to their constituents and who know full well that the people back home do not want wide-open Sunday shopping. Those particular Liberals would love to have a free vote, but what did the Premier say when he was asked the question today? He said very clearly in his usual fashion, “Every vote in this House is a free vote.”

I want to say of the government members who are assembled here this afternoon that very few of them applauded that comment because they know as well as I do that they are shackled to their desks on this vote. They are whipped into submission. They are forced to march the government line on this particular question.

I want to tell members what they have done. Some of them have voted with their feet. Fully one third of them did not show up in the House when we had a preliminary motion leading up to bills 113 and 114. Fully one third of them were not here because they felt uncomfortable about having to vote for Sunday shopping.

I want to tell members that the member for London North is here today and the honourable member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry (Mr. Villeneuve) is here as well today and will be voting on it. He will vote as will all of my colleagues who have, I want to say, a completely and totally free vote.

The difference is this: The Premier’s free vote comes with certain subtle conditions. Our free vote is in fact exactly what it implies, a totally free vote. Our members are going to vote against the government legislation and they are voting against the legislation because it is bad legislation.

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I want to respond, if I might, in the brief time that is available to me before my time has expired, to the member for Simcoe Centre (Mr. Owen), who drew some comparison between the legislation that was passed in 1975 and the legislation that is being proposed now in 1989.

There is no comparison whatever between those two pieces of legislation. The legislation in 1975 was province-wide. That legislation required on the part of a municipality that it seek out, with the province, a tourist option under certain conditions, and although it was not a perfect solution to a very complicated problem, not one municipality came forward to argue about it. They indicated clearly that they were reasonably satisfied with the legislation in 1975. Even the Premier said in 1987 he wanted the status quo and wanted to retain that particular legislation.

What they are proposing is a direct shift of responsibility. What they are proposing is to hand this off to the municipalities. The Liberals are forcing them to make decisions that are going to be extremely difficult for them to fight on a local basis under certain conditions. If in fact those municipalities break ranks, it will result in what AMO has quite correctly identified as the domino effect. The domino effect is going to be where various municipalities are going to have to fall in line with a competitive jurisdiction in close geographic proximity, and they are going to have to fall in line because of commercial interests.

That is what the Liberals have foisted off on municipal leaders in this province, and they have done it through legislation they did not ask for and they have done it through legislation –

Mr. Chiarelli: And you don’t trust the local councils.

Mr. Brandt: My friend says I do not trust the local government leaders. I happened to be in local government for 10 years. I do not know how long he was in local government, but I found that I had a certain feeling of uneasiness when the government, without being requested to so do, passed on legislation to me that I did not ask for.

Usually, what happened in that particular case is that it was a hot potato the government did not want to handle, and this is a difficult issue, admittedly, that the government does not want to handle. They are hoping it will go away and they are hoping that over the passage of time people will blame local governments for wide-open Sunday shopping, if and when it occurs in this province, and I believe it will occur.

Mr. Chiarelli: It will never happen.

Mr. Brandt: The member says it will never occur. My friend indicates that this is not the direction in which this province is going to go. I do not have to give him a long list of the groups and the organizations and well over 50 per cent of the people of this province who have been surveyed and indicated that they are in fact opposed to what this government is doing because they are worried about the commercialism that will result from wide-open Sunday shopping.

It is just simply wrong, what they are doing. They are moving in a direction in which this province does not want to go. They are changing, in a very fundamental way, the quality of life in this province. They are making a decision which is going to cause a deterioration, in my view, of family life.

It has happened in other jurisdictions. To those who shake their heads and believe that this is some kind of a dream on the part of the member for Sarnia, let me suggest that it has happened in British Columbia; it has happened in California. They are trying to get out of that legislation now because it is bad legislation that was enacted in those jurisdictions. You would think that this government would learn from the errors of others, but what it did was to take the easy way out by shifting the responsibility.

I want to tell my friends that when the vote comes in a matter of minutes from now, about 60 minutes from now, and when we in our party stand up in opposition to what the government is proposing, we will do so proudly. We will represent the families, the working people, church groups, union organizations and municipalities. We will represent the people from all walks of life who tried to get the government’s ear during the all-party legislative hearings before the committee, where 93 per cent of them said no to the government’s proposals, where 93 per cent of them said it was wrong.

We have tried, by way of bringing before the members of the government all the arguments in connection with this issue, but obviously they are going to stonewall it. They are going to proceed with what they intend to do. I will tell them they are taking this province in a direction in which neither I personally nor the members of my party want to go. We think it is the wrong direction. We think it is dangerous. We think it will lead to a type of commercial activity that is not in the best interest of this province.

I say once again that when we vote against the government’s proposals, when the vote is taken, we will do so after having caucused this issue, after having studied this issue, after having sat on an all-party committee, after having had a task force on the issue. After having really looked at what the needs of the people of Ontario are, we say to the government that we do not need Sunday shopping. We say that we do not need this kind of wide-open commercial activity.

We say to the government very clearly that we have tried to muster every ounce of energy we could bring to bear on this particular question. Yes, we have delayed this House and, yes, we have used certain tactics to get to this point in time, but we have done so with the best intentions in mind. We have done so because we believe in the cause we are fighting for.

We believe that cause is one that puts us on the side of the vast majority of the people of this province who have stated their position. The government has not listened to the position that they tried to pass on to it. As a result, it is going to make a very serious political mistake later this afternoon.

I feel sorry for them. It is a sad day in the province of Ontario that they have forced it to this point. But when it comes time to vote, I will stand proudly with my colleagues and vote against what the government plans to do in connection with Bill 113 and Bill 114.

The Acting Speaker: As agreed, the next speaker, for his windup on this, is the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. B. Rae: I am delighted to participate in this debate. I think I have to wait for some of my Conservative friends to leave. I will give them that opportunity.

Mr. Brandt: I am staying.

Mr. B. Rae: I know the leader of the third party is staying, but some of his members obviously have –

Interjections.

Mr. B. Rae: No, it is all right. They may not be able to take it, but I certainly can.

I want to take this opportunity to go through some of the arguments that have been made and some of the history of this legislation. I want to start out by saying that I cannot think of a law or set of laws that have been more poorly thought out and defended than the two laws which were presented by the Liberal Party over a year and a half ago and which we are now being told we have to vote on at a quarter to six.

There have been many opportunities throughout this debate when a wiser government and indeed a wiser Premier would have realized how offensive much of this legislation is to the majority of people in this province. He would have looked to the opportunity that was given to him on a number of occasions to sit down with all those people out there who are opposed to this legislation and try to devise a reasonable compromise.

There have been many times when church groups, retail workers, all kinds of people have stood up and said to the Premier: “Look, sit down. We have a compromise to propose to you. We have some other suggestions to make.”

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At each and every step of the way this Premier and this government have said: “No, we’re not interested in what you think, we’re not interested in what you feel. We know what is best for you. We are proceeding with the legislation regardless of what you think.” That is always the kind of arrogance that precedes a beginning of unpopularity of a government and that is what we are now seeing as history turns in Ontario.

In 1975, this House in its wisdom considered the question of changes to the legislation on the Retail Business Holidays Act, but it is important to go back to the time prior to 1975 and to know that there were studies by the Ontario Law Reform Commission looking at the question of a common pause day. They looked at legislation in Europe, including the Soviet Union, they looked at legislation throughout the western world and they came to the conclusion that it made the most sense for this province, in terms of its history, in terms of the rights of its working people and what they wanted, to maintain the principle of a common pause day.

That was the decision of the law reform commission. That was a decision of the government taken in 1975 when we changed the legislation to allow for some exceptions, but not for exceptions that would drive a truck through it. That is indeed what has happened and indeed what has taken place. Since 1975 we have had legislation which has guaranteed the continuation of a day of common pause and of common rest with some minor changes, the most major change being that which took place in 1975 of course, the bringing in of the tourist exemption.

That, as some might say, has been the beginning of a problem and the problem has now been used by this government to take away any protection that really exists in terms of Sunday working and Sunday shopping, so in fact more and more workers, as a result of this new law, are going to have to work on Sunday, are going to be away from their families on Sunday and are going to be taking time away from their leisure on Sunday.

What happened in the 1980s that caused this worm to begin to turn? What is it that took place? People started breaking the law. That is what took place. As people started breaking the law, governments of the day were reluctant and incapable of enforcing the law effectively and so we had an enforcement problem. It was an enforcement problem that was confined essentially to our large urban centres.

But it would be a foolish person indeed who would say that there was no enforcement problem prior to the beginning of the change. There was. In 1985 there was, as we will all remember, a chaotic situation on Boxing Day. We also had prosecutions which led to a case going to the Supreme Court of Canada, and in its wisdom, the Supreme Court of Canada said the legislation was perfectly lawful.

We just heard a speech from the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, from the leader of the third party. I think it is worth remembering, if we might, that it was back in January 1986 that the then leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, Larry Grossman – who I understand is, until the next convention, still technically the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party –

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: And doing a fine job.

Mr. B. Rae: And, I think, doing a very good job from where he sits -- said, and I quote, “The Progressive Conservatives are prepared to stand up and be counted to say we must change the law to greatly expand Sunday shopping in response to demand.” That was the position of the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party back in 1986.

I think it fair to say, in the interests of historical accuracy, that as soon as he made this speech and this statement to the press, he was mugged by his colleagues. In fact, they required him to set up a special task force under the leadership of Terry O’Connor, which task force sat and recommended that the common pause day be retained and that there be some other changes in the law.

Then we had the select committee, of which Mr. O’Connor was also chairman. Our colleagues went across the province. It has already been described. The member for London South (Mrs. Smith) was an active member of the select committee. She signed on before she joined the cabinet. She was an active member of the committee.

What was the foundation of that committee when all the dust had settled, when all the Magder cases were dealt with, all the legal finagling was over and all the issues had been heard? The select committee had travelled. The House was representative of the three parties, no one party having a majority able to ram through a narrow point of view, all parties having to listen. What was the foundation of that select committee of 1986-87? The foundation was that there should be a common pause day for Ontario as much as is humanly possible. That was the foundation.

Liberals signed that report, the same Liberals we see face to face now, the same ones we see in the corridors, the same people. Some of them have different titles. Some of them were just members and now they are ministers. But they are all the same folks and their signatures are remarkably similar to the signatures that they had when they signed this report.

They were in favour of a common pause day before the election in 1987. They said they agreed with the approach to a common pause day in 1987. I am not talking 1787 or 1887. I am not talking about a Liberal Party that is totally different from the one we see before us. I am talking about people who are still members of this House.

I am talking now about the most remarkable transformation. Since the transformation of Cinderella, we have seen none equivalent to that which took place in the heart of the member for London South. When she was a member of her party and her caucus, she was in favour of a common pause day. Give her the coach and the carriage and the footmen, and my God, it has all changed. Make her a minister and suddenly the opinions are totally different. She is given the job of, in fact, ramming this legislation through the House and not listening to what the people are saying.

While we are on the topic of Cinderella and magical changes, while we are looking at the most amazing transformation, listen to the words of the leader of the Liberal Party spoken in the middle of an election campaign. Let’s give some background to this. We on this side have all certainly known that the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) has been talking about a local option since he got here in 1985. The Attorney General is in the classic position of the guy who can enforce the law who then turns around and says: “You know, this law is unenforceable. We are going to have to go to a local option.” Of course, if he does not enforce the law, he should not be surprised if it is not enforceable.

We all knew there were those within the Liberal Party who still believed in the local option, despite what the select committee had said. So we all listened with interest to the words of the Premier at the beginning of the election campaign when the Premier said that as far as he was concerned, the compromise which had been worked out on Sunday shopping was acceptable.

I got hold of the information package which has been handed out by the Ministry of the Solicitor General. I am going to be referring to this so-called information package in a moment. I have looked high and low in this information package for the comments that the Premier made in 1987. I cannot find them. I can find Agnes Macphail in 1950. I can find Ted Joliffe in 1950 when they began to allow spectator sports on Sundays. I can find Leslie Frost quoted in 1950. I cannot find the Premier quoted in 1987 in the Ministry of the Solicitor General’s own information. It is an amazing gap. It is as if that year did not happen. It is as if it did not take place. It is as if suddenly there had been no commitment made by that party at that time.

The Premier said that a common pause day was the platform upon which he wanted to be elected by the people of Ontario. It was not a big issue for him. He wanted to make that clear. It was not a priority for the government, one way or the other. He wanted to make that clear. But it was still one which he accepted and which he thought was a fair compromise.

Let me say that if the principle of a common day of rest was good enough to get the Premier elected in 1987, it ought to be good enough for the Premier and the Liberal government in 1989. That is the principle, the word that has been broken, the commitment that has been shattered.

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Mr. Sola: You’re wrong.

Mr. B. Rae: No. The member opposite says I am wrong. I can only say those are the words that he spoke and those are the things that he said. Those are things that his own leader said. If he wants to say to his own leader, “You’ve let us down,” that would be fine. It would be novel to see this 94-member Red Army Chorus saying anything out of sync with respect to what has been said by their leader -- novel, interesting, unusual.

Mrs. Grier: And democratic.

Mr. B. Rae: It would be democratic and exciting to perhaps give members a chance to express themselves.

What is the principle behind these two bills, two very simple pieces of legislation which we are now being asked to deal with? In December 1987, I can remember the Solicitor General, the Attorney General and the Minister of Labour got up and delivered themselves of their package, saying what they were in favour of.

My favourite comment by the Attorney General was that the major reason they had to introduce this legislation was because the old legislation was unenforceable. This is legislation that was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1986. The case was not argued by the Attorney General that time, which may be why we won it. I would rather have my affairs handled by Hamilton Burger than by the Attorney General, but that is another matter.

What he said was, “What this new law says is this: There is going to be a local option and I want you to listen to the various ways in which the municipalities are going to be able, according to this legislation, to deal with the question of Sunday shopping.”

The member for Norfolk, who just spoke, said we should not even call it Sunday shopping; we should simply refer to it as the Retail Business Holidays Act and that to call it Sunday shopping in fact is a misnomer. This whole thing is called Sunday shopping by the Ministry of the Solicitor General, so that is what I am describing it as.

I want you to listen to this wording, Mr. Speaker, because you are a lawyer and you know how important the wording of the act is.

“A bylaw or regulation under this section,

“(a) may apply to any part or parts of the municipality or territory.”

Oh, that is great. So you are going to select one part of the street and not another part of the street? That will be easy for municipalities to decide, that will be a cinch.

“(b) may limit the opening of retail business establishments on holidays to specific times or to a certain number of hours;

“(c) may permit the opening or require the closing of retail business establishments on certain holidays and not on others.” That is just to make it easy and more enforceable.

“(d) may restrict the opening of retail business establishments on holidays to specific periods of the year or require the closing of business establishments on holidays during specific periods of the year; or

“(e) may classify retail business establishments by size, number of persons employed, character of business, geographic location or any other criteria.”

This is the provincial framework which is supposed to end the problem of the different interpretations at the local level of the tourist exemption and the fact, for example, to use the most notorious case, that Mr. Magder has consistently said: “I don’t care what the law says. I’m going to go open on Sunday and I’m going to insist on my rights.” The Liberals’ answer to this persistent lawbreaking in certain communities is to establish a new framework which they say will get rid of this problem of unenforceability.

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask you, sir, since you are not only a lawyer but also a former municipal councillor, to reflect for a moment on the pressures that will be brought to bear under this legislation. Right now, we have tourist exemptions in some parts of town, in some areas and in fact, in some smaller communities, for the whole community. I am troubled by that. I think that is too wide an exemption. I have already said that. We have already made our suggestions in terms of how we would tighten that up.

I want to say what this is going to mean for every single business establishment in a community that feels it is unfairly done by because of the tourist exemption. If I may relate one example to Metropolitan Toronto for a moment, we have two tourist areas in place right now. As soon as this bill comes into place, there is a period of grace during which there must be a transition from the old world to this new Petersonian world we are being introduced to. Think about it. Every single retail business establishment that feels it is at a competitive disadvantage is now going to be coming down to the city council and asking:

“What gives? Tourism is not your exemption any more. What is your logic now? How do you differentiate between us and the people you are allowing to be open?”

Mr. Speaker, because you are a lawyer as well as a former city councillor, you know that these developers have some legal armoury in their bow as well. They will use not only the persuasion of saying to city council, “We think that your current exemptions are totally arbitrary and unfair and we insist on being included in them.” What are they also going to say? They are also going to say, “If you do not do so and if you do not make your distinctions fair and reasonable, we are going to take you to court.”

So a law which has been introduced in an effort to end the problem of unenforceability and legal chaos is going to do the exact opposite. It is going to inevitably promote it.

Second, we heard from the member for Halton Centre who said that the only people who would be working on Sunday would be volunteers. My party and I have often been described by members opposite, by members of the other party, and indeed by many people as people who do not have a great deal of knowledge of how the world of business works.

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask you to form a mental picture in your head, if you would, and hold it there for a moment, of a small retail establishment that is in a mall. The mall is opening on a Sunday. The small retail firm selling shoes, whatever it may be, has two or three employees. Does anybody seriously think that there are going to be employees lining up, volunteering and saying, “Please, choose me to work on Sunday and choose me to work the next Sunday and the next Sunday”? What do you think the response is going to be from the employer who says, “I have to come in on Sunday, so therefore you come in on Sunday,” when some person says: “No, I do not want to come in. I do not think that is reasonable”?

The minister talked for a long time about how he was going to grant us the right to refuse, but what has he done? He has not given us the right to refuse. He has loaded it and corralled it with so many exceptions and so much work for lawyers, that the people who are going to be working harder on Sunday than anybody else as a result of this are lawyers and arbitrators who are going to have a field day with this legislation. They have to go through it all -- the history of the work relationship, whether the employer has or has not made reasonable efforts, the existence of an emergency situation and all the rest of it.

I want to remind members of what this government said when it took Paul Magder to court. Do you know what this government said? It said the reason that this law is constitutional and not simply a law to enforce the religious Sabbath of one religion or another is because it is essentially designed as labour legislation to protect working people. I am here to say that the best way to protect working people in the retail trade is to keep stores shut and to make sure they do not have to work. That is the best labour legislation you could have.

For the first time in recent years, a Minister of Labour has introduced changes which, in fact, are going to take away from the rights of working people and not add to them.

Je veux vous dire deux choses, tout simplement. D’abord -- et c’est très clair -- le Parti libéral, avant la dernière élection, a promis que le dimanche resterait, autant que possible, un jour de congé. C’était la promesse faite par le premier ministre (M. Peterson) au cours de la dernière élection, et c’est pourquoi nous disons clairement et directement au gouvernement : « Si cette promesse était bonne pendant l’élection, elle devrait être bonne pendant la vie du gouvernement. » Voilà un principe politique.

Mon deuxième point, qui est fondamental : si le gouvernement veut vraiment protéger ceux qui travaillent dans le monde du commerce, dans les magasins et dans les boutiques de notre province, la meilleure législation possible est de garantir que ces magasins resteront fermés le dimanche. C’est la meilleure protection possible pour eux ; non pas les choses promises par le gouvernement libéral.

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I want to say to the members of the Liberal Party, because I know we are approaching the time when they are going to be making up their minds on a free vote, that they have been given a lot of bunk information from their own minister. For example, in the literature she handed out, there is a question-and-answer section:

“Question: Are there any benefits to Sunday shopping?

“Answer: Yes. Experience in other jurisdictions.”

Then they have a myth that allowing Sunday openings will just spread six days of consumer spending over seven days. Not true. What is the basis for this? A recent study by Clayton Research Associates of Toronto entitled The Impact of Sunday Shopping in Alberta, 1982-1986. My staff phoned the Ministry of the Solicitor General and said: “Have you got this study?” They said, “No, we don’t have it, but Clayton has it.” We phone up Clayton and say, “Clayton, have you got this study?” Clayton says, “There is no such study.” It does not exist; it is not there, so the foundation on which this legislation was put forward is false, is untrue.

I want to come to a basic point, and that is this:

When we all go back to our constituencies, as we do, we all have a sense that there is a common value that all of us share in being together as much as possible with our families.

I want to read to members just one letter that was written by a schoolgirl in Etobicoke. Katherine Silviera writes:

“I think that shopping on Sunday will destroy our families because moms, dads, brothers and sisters will be forced to work and be away from home. My mother works at Eaton’s Sherway. She already has to work one night a week and if she works on Sunday we won’t be able to go to mass, eat dinner together or do girl things that ladies do. Please vote for no Sunday shopping.”

I think of Sunday in my constituency; it is for many a religious day. I think that is a principle and an understanding that all of us should have when a vast majority of the people in this province feel themselves to be Christian and feel that Sunday is a special day for them.

I think that Sunday has taken on a meaning and a value that really transcends any of our common religions, and that value is the fact that it is a common day in which as many of us as possible can be at home. It is a day when we do not have to obey the boss. It is a day when we do not have to do as we are told by our employer. It is a day when we can be with our families. It is a day when we do not have to worry about commercialism. It is a day when we do not have to shop. It is a day when we can simply be together and not be driven by: “Buy, buy, buy. Shop, shop, shop.” It is a day when we can in fact take some time. We can have a lunch that can last for a couple of hours. We can go for an afternoon in the park and spend all that time together.

Some will say, “None of that will change.” I want to say to members that some of it might change. In fact, I think if we follow the logic of this legislation, some of that will change.

On balance, I want to say that if we have to cast a vote one way or the other in favour of more time with families on Sundays or less time with families on Sundays -- I do not regard it as meaning, as the Minister of Labour has said on many occasions, “This doesn’t mean the end of the family.” Of course it does not mean the end of the family. That is not the issue.

The issue is whether we are strengthening the family. The issue is whether we are strengthening time off. The issue is whether, on balance, we are doing a little more for working people or a little less for working people, whether we are doing a little more for commercialism or a little less for commercialism. That is really what we are left with.

I say to those members who are no doubt whipped into shape now and eager and prepared to vote and to do nothing but vote on this particular issue, I think they are making the wrong decision. We have fought this battle hard, and we have fought it long, for one simple reason: We think the legislation is bad. While we never felt we were in a position numerically to defeat the legislation, we did feel we were strong enough and in good enough shape that we could in fact hold it up long enough to give the opposition a chance to form.

That is why I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that because the government has dropped the ball and given it to the local level of government, because it has decided to avoid its responsibilities, because it has broken its election promises –

Mr. Chiarelli: You do not trust the local municipalities.

Mr. B. Rae: -- l say to the member for Ottawa West (Mr. Chiarelli), who has been interrupting me, because of that simple fact, this battle is not at all over. This battle in fact has just begun. This is a battle that has just begun. It will be fought at the level of every municipality. It will be fought on the streets, and it will be fought in terms of relations among businesses, consumers, working people and business establishments that want to open and other small businesses that do not.

In that fight, this Liberal government is causing far more trouble than this issue deserves, or far more trouble than municipal councils or workers want. It is putting incredible pressure on people to do things they do not want to do. I say to the minister, it is my feeling and my understanding that the willingness to fight is there, and the fight has just begun.

Hon. Mrs. Smith: Ontario is changing, and in almost every respect these changes are for the good. We are a diverse province. Our people, our commerce and our varied communities all mirror this diversity. This new and fair act is a recognition of this rich reality. Our great cities, towns, villages, all of our communities, must adjust as we grow. This is one of our great challenges.

Let me speak to my own personal experiences as a Londoner. In Bayfield, a small town north of London that has always prided itself on its historic background, new bylaws have encouraged the creation of a flourishing town of small boutiques. We have a cottage in Grand Bend, and my children often go up there on a Sunday to browse around and shop. Port Stanley, a small community south of London, had serious problems as a resort centre some years ago and created a brand-new image: cottages redone into permanent homes, boutiques, restaurants. It is now a very popular family activity to pack everyone into the car and go to Port Stanley to mosey around and have brunch, lunch or dinner. New jobs were created: important new jobs, jobs that went to people who lived in those localities who otherwise might have had to give up and move to a city, which they did not want to do.

In Toronto, there is a visible presence of many groups who have different religious traditions and different holy days to observe. Is any of this destroying our family values? Of course not. Occasionally when I am in Toronto for the weekend, I wander down to Harbourfront. I have the sense there that other people, like myself, are out for a break, a fun time, possibly away from a small apartment. Lifestyles change and they do vary.

I would remind all the members that in Sault Ste. Marie, after a one-year test of open Sundays, almost 60 per cent of the people voted to make a seven-day shopping week a permanent feature. Every ward in that city voted in favour of this. This is not to say that every municipality has the same needs as Sault Ste. Marie, Bayfield or downtown Toronto. It is impossible to sit here in Toronto and make that kind of judgement for another place. I doubt that most Ontario communities really want us to exert that kind of control.

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Over 100 Ontario communities have used their presently existing power under the tourist exemption clause of the old legislation to rewrite their bylaws. Often it has been to accommodate tourism, but not always.

Mississauga’s so-called food stand is no more a tourist attraction than the neighbouring stores beside it, which must remain closed. Sarnia remains closed while Point Edward, practically a part of Sarnia, is open. Is this for the province to rule on? No, but it is for our government to ensure that when changes are made in a community’s bylaws, the local people have a chance to input into that process. This has not been the case up until now.

Recently, I am told, yet another council has passed a bylaw with little or no opportunity for objection or input from the community or from competing businesses. They simply said to somebody, “You can open.” This will not happen again, once this bill is enacted. The people will get their day in court, so to speak. They must be allowed the same type of input they have in zoning matters under the Planning Act within their own community.

Bill 113 is not a revolution. It is designed to accommodate change, when change is wanted, in a fairer, more open way. It is designed to reflect changes that have already occurred. It is designed to allow communities to have a chance to comment on those exceptions that have occurred over the past years without public consultation. Within five years, the public will have an opportunity to speak to and approve or disapprove those changes.

As well as that, this law gives the community a strong instrument to enforce the status quo if that is what it desires. The provincial guideline for most businesses is exactly as it was. If a community does nothing, then almost nothing will happen, because this guideline will rule the day. Stores being opened illegally will stop doing so. Stores that are legal but too big will have one year to cut down their size or to get a municipal exemption to allow them to remain in business as is.

We have said from the beginning that this bill is fairer and more enforceable. Let me speak first to the enforceability. Strong teeth have been put in this bill so that when the people have spoken, when they have fashioned a bill that suits their community, whether by staying within the provincial guidelines or by moving outside those guidelines, this bill will make it extremely difficult for business to defy the law with impunity.

The maximum fines for breaking this law have increased to $50,000, with a requirement upon the courts to take into account in setting these fines any evidence of gross sales. If any business defied the law in such a way that even the $50,000 maximum may not act as a deterrent, then the courts may impose a maximum fine amounting to the gross sales of the day in question -- an amount which may be considerably in excess of $50,000.

Under the old legislation, charges could be laid, but the stores could not be closed down. This will no longer be the case; now stores can be closed. As Solicitor General, I want to say that this is a law that our police forces can enforce and our courts can uphold. It is a good law.

Let me speak then to the fairness of this bill. Recently in British Columbia, its retail shopping bill was declared unconstitutional because it did not protect the rights of religious minorities. Our bill directly addresses this question, protecting not only the rights of those who celebrate the Sabbath on Saturday but indeed the rights of all religious minorities, with all their varied traditions. Our bill meets the challenge that overthrew the BC bill.

Concern has been expressed by some members, in particular the member for Wellington (Mr. J. M. Johnson), that the requirement for a declaration of its religion by a business is an infringement on privacy. On the contrary, where a community wishes to maintain a pause day based on our traditional Christian Sunday, then this religiously based exemption meets the requirements and the language expressed in the Supreme Court decision of Chief Justice Brian Dickson in the Edwards Books and Art case. It is by its own choice that a business makes such a declaration in order that it may take advantage of the clause that allows this equal opportunity for minorities to celebrate their own holy day.

Fair and enforceable: These are the challenges that we set ourselves and that we met in Bill 113.

Much time has been spent by my ministry and by the committee to make sure that this bill is practical. It recognizes that tourism is one of the four biggest industries in Ontario. Tourism created 400,000 jobs last year. It meant to Ontario $10 billion worth of business in 1988. Those who are concerned about the working people should indeed be concerned about the people who were happy to get those 400,000 jobs.

We spend a great deal of money to encourage tourism because we know how vital it is to our economy, and I might say especially to our economy in those parts of the province that most need those jobs. We intend to continue to do this, and we know that the people of Ontario are the beneficiaries.

This bill deals also in a practical way with the area of essential services. We believe the new drugstore clause represents a practical solution. The sawoff between the rights of the many existing drugstores that have come into existence under the old law and the fair competition to other merchants was most difficult to achieve.

We believe, first, this bill will ensure that almost every community will have a drugstore service. We believe as well it is fair to those existing drugstores while at the same time preventing unfair competition for other types of retailers. Large quasi-department stores calling themselves drugstores, if they do not meet the definition of pharmacies, will not be allowed to remain open.

Many groups addressed the moral or social values involved in this bill. I must point out that even the largest churches did not object on religious grounds. Rather, their questions were based on family life issues. Many studies have been done on this subject; none has been able to establish any proof, any statistics that would support that Sunday openings contribute in any way to marriage breakdown, juvenile delinquency or any other measurable quality of family life. Members may be sure that if such a study had been found, the opposition would have been quoting it extensively. Such figures cannot be proved.

Ontario values deeply the rights and needs of each of its citizens. Morality displays itself in our social services, our health care laws and our labour laws. It is demonstrated in the support given by government, by volunteer organizations and by individuals to help programs and to help their fellow citizens.

I, for one, believe that family life is most important. I do not believe for a minute that in Sault Ste. Marie, Temagami or St. George the quality of life will suffer because of the shopping hours. Probably TV has done more than anything else to alter family living. Many churches have adapted their service hours to the fact that many people work on Sunday and have other leisure Sunday activities as well.

The Supreme Court of Canada has spoken on employee rights and my confrere the Minister of Labour will speak to that.

We have reached the end of a long, thoughtful, healthy debate and now it is time to act. It is fair to say that we have listened to hundreds who disagreed or who misunderstood. It is equally fair to say that there are thousands and thousands across the province who are not being vocal because they understand and support this act. This silent majority wants the opportunity to shape its own community.

I look to the people of Ontario to decide for themselves what arrangements will best protect the lifestyle they want in their community. Their input at the local level will be appropriate. This bill belongs in a true sense to every person, as it empowers that person to help create in his municipality the kind of community he wants. I know that every community in our great and growing province will use this law wisely and well.

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EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Sorbara moved third reading of Bill 114, An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I begin with the standard requirement of moving third reading of Bill 114, I know with the unanimous consent of all my colleagues, and sometimes with the support of the opposition parties as well, I suspect.

This is an historic moment and I am deeply honoured to be able to complete the debate in this Legislature on Bill 114, and as I do so, on the discussions we have had for many months now on the issue of better regulation of Sunday retailing.

We are about to conclude a debate that has taken up more legislative time perhaps than any other measure, certainly in this parliament and I think in the history of recent parliaments. This afternoon, we will pass these bills. Soon they will be given royal assent, and then they will become law and the debate will come to an end.

What really impresses me as this debate comes to an end is the marvellous news, the good news, that notwithstanding how protracted this debate has been, notwithstanding how long it has been, notwithstanding some of the antics we have seen, this parliament and its rules, its standing orders and its procedures, has accommodated, tolerated and made room for the democratic process with absolute ease. The good news is that after all the debate is over, we are in pretty good shape in this parliament.

During this debate, we have seen some of the strangest antics that any parliament should be asked to endure. We have seen members introduce petitions endlessly, for hours and hours, notwithstanding long-standing traditions to the contrary in this House. We saw the unusual, unprecedented situation where a New Democratic Party member of this House introduced a private member’s bill and arranged for all his colleagues in his party to stand up in opposition to the bill so as to have an opportunity to ring the bells for a day or two. We have seen a most appropriate and accommodating use of a motion to allocate time so that we could all be satisfied as to how we were going to conclude the debate.

After all the antics, all the petition-reading, all the arguments on the other side repeated and repeated to the last syllable of recorded rhetoric in this House, we are going to pass the bills. After all that discussion, what was really the issue? The real issue was whether this government was going to discharge its responsibility to replace a law that was simply held in common disrepute and disregard around the province. Could we provide in this province a better framework to regulate retailing on holidays? It was challenging.

I think congratulations go not only to the Solicitor General and her parliamentary assistant, the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick (Mr. Kanter), but to the standing committee on administration of justice, which tolerated all that process and all those arguments repeated over and over again.

Our challenge was really to do three things: to provide a strong framework that could be uniformly adopted all over the province to regulate Sunday shopping; as we did that, to acknowledge that in this province, huge and diverse as it is, we would need to provide a flexibility to accommodate the local needs of local communities; third, and most important, in doing that, for the first time in this province to address ourselves to providing in statute, in laws, a measure of protection, an appropriate protection to regulate the extent to which retail workers were to be called upon to work on Sunday.

The most bizarre experience for me during this debate was to hear the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. B. Rae) in the speeches he has made on this subject condemn a measure that provides power to workers to say no. I remind the members of this House that in Bill 114, the amendments to the Employment Standards Act are very simple in their thrust. They provide a power to workers to say no to Sunday work.

It was bizarre indeed to hear the Leader of the Opposition seriously argue in this House against simple and straightforward mediation, because that is what Bill 114 calls for where there is a dispute in the workplace; and to seriously listen to the Leader of the Opposition argue against mediation expeditiously provided by a referee where there is a dispute between the workplace parties.

Power for workers to have some sort of control over their hours of work, an opportunity to have mediation expeditiously and at no cost, the opportunity to effectively arbitrate and mediate and resolve disputes expeditiously at no cost to the workplace parties are the very things I thought the New Democratic Party, with its close affiliation with organized labour, was in favour of. I could not believe my ears when I heard the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) and others in that party make those arguments against real authority for real retail workers to make real decisions and to have the power for those decisions to be upheld by a statute that gives them the authority to do just that.

I am not surprised at all that the third party, the Progressive Conservative Party, was not supportive of Bill 114. After all, it is the party that introduced the current Retail Business Holidays Act. When they did so, they did not bring in companion legislation. They did not say, “We’ll have to do some thinking about the workers who are going to be affected by the legislation we’re introducing.” They simply said: “We’ll let the marketplace govern. We do have an Employment Standards Act but we won’t address it, because it’s not an issue.”

I understand where they are coming from, but believe me, I find it surprising and it is continually a cause of amazement for me that the New Democratic Party in this province resolutely refuses to support that initiative.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. The Minister of Labour has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: It is very nice to see the member for Cochrane South (Mr. Pope) here, the Labour critic for the Progressive Conservative Party. I am sorry he has not spoken more forcefully on this bill or perhaps convinced his party to support it.

1740

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. All members know that the minister is entitled to make his speech without interruption. Could he please be given the regard that he should be given in this final windup?

Mr. J. M. Johnson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I would just say that if the minister wants the regard he is entitled to, then he should not address comments like he just did to my friend the member for Cochrane South.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: As we conclude this debate, I think it is important to focus once again on the real substance of Bill 113 and the significance of the fact that, for the first time in this province, we have put into a bill, which will soon become law, a measure that retail workers can rely on.

If members look at Bill 114 and examine it, as we have done throughout this debate, they see that its terms are simple: that a retail worker who decides that for one reason or another he does not want to be assigned work in businesses that are open now -- and I remind my friends in the New Democratic Party that Bill 114 applies to businesses that are open now legally on Sunday -- those workers as well will have an opportunity –

Mr. B. Rae: If they’ve already been working, they can’t stop working.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I tell the Leader of the Opposition that those workers as well –

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I tell the Leader of the Opposition that those workers as well who now work on Sundays in businesses that are open will have new and enhanced rights under Bill 114. To do what? To simply say that they prefer not to work on Sunday, and if there cannot be an accommodation or an agreement reached with employers, an expeditious means of mediating the differences and resolving the differences is placed in the legislation.

As we wind up this debate, which, as I said, has taken a lot of our energy and a lot of our time, I simply want to say to the members of this House that all of us, I think, have participated fully and actively and that the result, when this legislation is passed, will be that we will have a strong, enforceable framework for regulating retail shopping on all those days covered by the act; we will have in a piece of legislation the flexibility to accommodate communities that choose, for one reason or another, to vary from that framework; and for the first time in this province, we will have legislation that specifically and clearly and appropriately provides protection for retail workers in this province who choose not to work in retail establishments on Sunday.

As we wind up this debate, I urge the passage of both of these bills and an opportunity to get on with the additional business that confronts us all in this House and in this province.

Mr. Speaker: On a point of order?

Mr. Mackenzie: No, there is still a minute, I believe.

Mr. Speaker: No, there is no response on the final windup, according to the standing orders.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Well, I have no choice, I guess.

Mr. Mackenzie: It is unfortunate that there is only a minute left to deal with such an absolute and total con job on workers in Ontario, and the minister knows that is what it is. The minister knows it clearly. He cannot name, other than one of his minions, a single person involved in terms of organized labour or in terms of dealing with the ministry and dealing with employment standards or dealing with contracts who will tell him that this bill is worth the powder to blow it to hell because it is not. It gives no protection to workers whatsoever and it is clearly a con job.

Mr. Speaker: Order. According to the orders set out by this House, we will vote now on Bill 113 and Bill 114. I will take first the motion of the member for London South (Mrs. Smith) on Bill 113.

1800

RETAIL BUSINESS HOLIDAYS AMENDMENT ACT / LOI MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LES JOURS FÉÉIES DANS LE COMMERCE DE DÉTAIL

The House divided on Hon. Mrs. Smith’s motion for third reading of Bill 113, which was agreed to on the following vote:

Ayes

Adams, Ballinger, Beer, Black, Bossy, Bradley, Brown, Callahan, Campbell, Carrothers, Chiarelli, Cleary, Collins, Conway, Cordiano, Dietsch, Eakins, Elliot, Elston, Epp, Faubert, Fawcett, Ferraro, Fleet, Fontaine, Fulton, Furlong, Grandmaître, Haggerty, Hart, Henderson, Hosek, Kanter, Kerrio, Kozyra, Kwinter, LeBourdais, Leone, Lupusella;

MacDonald, Mahoney, Mancini, Matrundola, McClelland, McGuigan, McGuinty, McLeod, Miclash, Miller, Morin, Neumann, Nicholas, Nixon, J. B., Oddie Munro, Offer, O’Neil, H., Owen, Patten, Pelissero, Peterson, Phillips, G., Polsinelli, Poole, Ramsay, Ray, M. C., Reycraft, Riddell, Roberts, Ruprecht, Scott, Smith, D. W., Smith, E. J., Sola, Sorbara, Sullivan, Sweeney, Tatham, Velshi, Ward, Wilson, Wong, Wrye.

Nays

Allen, Brandt, Breaugh. Bryden, Charlton, Cooke, D. S., Cousens, Cunningham, Cureatz, Eves, Farnan, Grier, Hampton, Harris, Jackson, Johnson, J. M., Johnston, R. F., Kormos, Mackenzie, Marland, Martel, McCague, McLean, Morin-Strom, Philip, E., Pollock, Pope, Pouliot, Rae, B., Reville, Runciman, Sterling, Villeneuve, Wildman, Wiseman.

Ayes 82; nays 35.

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT

The House divided on Hon. Mr. Sorbara’s motion for third reading of Bill 114, which was agreed to on the following vote:

Ayes

MacDonald, Mahoney, Mancini, Matrundola, McClelland, McGuigan, McGuinty, McLeod, Miclash, Miller, Morin, Neumann, Nicholas, Nixon, J. B., Oddie Munro, Offer, O’Neil, H., Owen, Patten, Pelissero, Peterson, Phillips. G., Polsinelli, Poole, Ramsay, Ray, M. C., Reycraft, Riddell, Roberts, Ruprecht, Scott, Smith, D. W., Smith, E. J.. Sola, Sorbara, Sullivan, Sweeney, Tatham, Velshi, Ward, Wilson, Wong, Wrye.

Nays

Allen, Brandt, Breaugh, Bryden, Charlton, Cooke, D. S., Cousens, Cunningham, Cureatz, Eves, Farnan, Grier, Hampton, Harris, Jackson, Johnson, J. M., Johnston. R. F., Kormos, Mackenzie, Marland, Martel, McCague, McLean, Morin-Strom, Philip, E., Pollock, Pope, Pouliot, Rae, B., Reville, Runciman, Sterling, Villeneuve, Wildman, Wiseman.

Ayes 82; nays 35.

The House adjourned at 6:10 p.m.

7 février 1989