The House met at 1333.

Prayers.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

WOMEN'S ISSUES

Ms Dianne Poole (Eglinton): Today I attended the annual lobby of the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses along with hundreds of women who came to share their tragic experiences with spousal abuse and how women are dying as the system fails them. They came with many questions and left with few answers. They left feeling frustrated, angry and bitter because the NDP government had betrayed them.

Today I want to raise some of their questions that received no answer. The first thing they wanted to know was why the Premier had abandoned them, why they were so low on his priority list that he couldn't spare a few minutes to hear their stories and why Premier Rae and most of his cabinet were not there.

They asked why police training on spousal abuse is not uniform and mandatory across the province. They wanted to know why the Solicitor General prepared an expensive, extensive police training manual which ignored men's violence towards women.

They wanted to know why, against the advice of abused women's groups, the Attorney General is pressing for family law clinics instead of a woman's right to individual legal aid.

They wanted to know why the government won't provide emergency child care for victims of spousal abuse.

They wanted to know when the government is going to increase support for advocacy, court support and counselling.

In 90 seconds I can only begin to touch on the two hours of questions asked by these women this morning. It's time this government engaged in action, not rhetoric, and gave these women some answers and some hope.

VICTIMS OF CRIME

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): Later today I will table in the House my private member's bill, An Act to establish the Rights of Victims of Crime. The bill is designed to assist all victims but especially those of sexual assault and spousal abuse by making the justice system more responsive to their immediate and ongoing needs.

For example, the bill guarantees the right of crime victims to be interviewed by an officer of the gender of their choice and contains a statutory presumption that sexual assault and spousal abuse result in emotional distress without leaving the burden of proof on the victim.

This legislation would also help prevent the kind of breakdown in our legal system from occurring which allowed a deranged murderer like Jonathan Yeo to tragically take the life of Nina de Villiers in my community, leaving her family to deal with the ongoing pain of her loss. Today Nina's mother, Priscilla, heads a group which actively promotes the legal protection of crime victims' rights, a point which is also contained among the many jury recommendations of the Yeo inquest.

This morning, I met with representatives of the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses. Their message was clear: Women in Ontario are more at risk now than ever before, and while politicians continue to promise action on their behalf, they fail to deliver.

Premier Rae, your absence from the OAITH lobby day was widely noted. However, as a reflection on the dozens of women who have died as a result of violent abuse and sexual assault since last year at this time, will you, Premier, today reaffirm your commitment to the rights of women victims in Ontario and support the crime victims' bill of rights act?

PETERBOROUGH ECONOMY

Ms Jenny Carter (Peterborough): This year there are two ideas being implemented in Peterborough to help stimulate the local economy during the holiday season. We all know the benefits of shopping in our own community. Every dollar spent locally helps pay the earnings of people who live, work and shop there. It makes sense that we support our local merchants in these difficult times.

Shop Here First is a promotional campaign designed to keep Christmas shopping dollars in Peterborough. The campaign has two major components: interest-free shopping loans organized by the Bank of Montreal and service training organized by the Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce. The entire Peterborough retailing community has been invited to participate, making it the largest Shop Here First campaign in Canada.

The Festival of Trees Festcard established by the organizers of the Festival of Trees is also aimed at boosting the local economy by offering incentives to shoppers. Each Festcard costs $10 and can be purchased at any chartered bank in Peterborough. When this card is used at designated retailers in the Peterborough area, consumers will receive a discount of 7%, the equivalent of the federal goods and services tax, on whatever they buy.

I am confident that local initiatives such as these will make a difference in real dollars to our community. I applaud these efforts.

GOVERNMENT POLICY

Mr Gilles E. Morin (Carleton East): A bill was passed last week that bans the sale of lottery tickets to minors. This is a good thing, and I am pleased that the government and parties reacted so quickly. Some issues demand a quick resolution, especially when they involve the most vulnerable segments of our population.

I would like to know why other matters involving the exploitation of vulnerable persons are not addressed with such diligence. Why does the same sense of urgency not apply when it comes to fighting child poverty or helping low-income persons? Why are some commercial practices, said to be unacceptable, allowed to continue while others are not? What is this government's order of priority?

Procrastination is not just this government's problem; all governments procrastinate. I realize that some policies cannot be implemented overnight, but it shouldn't take three years to bring about change. The protection of vulnerable citizens should always be a priority.

One of the main reasons the government exists is to protect citizens who cannot protect themselves or their interests. This role should not be distracted by other considerations and should be fulfilled as expeditiously as possible.

Government has the authority, the capacity and the means to act quickly on matters of great urgency. Even the most complex issues can be dealt with quickly when the political will exists.

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LANDFILL

Mr W. Donald Cousens (Markham): From day one the Interim Waste Authority has tried to get communities to like the idea of having a megadump. Well, we're not buying this idea.

I have here a confidential document from the ministry of the greater Toronto area and it outlines how the Interim Waste Authority will compensate those people living near the megadumps in York, Durham and Peel.

This document says each host community will have its own unique compensation concerns. It calls for planting trees to block the view of the dump. It calls for building community recreation centres. What for? To hold protests in, I suppose. It calls for air-filtering systems for homes in the area around the dump and money to improve windows in your home.

It also states that the Interim Waste Authority will give its commitment that a full range of impact-management measures will be conducted, including protection for property values, community monitoring and royalty payments to the host municipalities.

The IWA has done little until now to earn the trust of the people, because its commitment is worthless. There is only one concern the host communities have: Why them and why are the alternatives such as rail haul not being considered?

Planting trees will not make the dump go away. People know it's there. Property values cannot be protected and payments to municipalities are still unclear. Trying to buy acceptance of these dumps won't work. The people of York, Durham and Peel are not for sale.

DAVID "RED" WILSON

Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Walkerville): Last Saturday evening my wife and I attended the Charles E. Brooks Labour Community Service Award dinner. I'm proud to announce that this year's award winner was David "Red" Wilson.

Red, the vice-president of CAW Local 444 since 1982, has been a hard-working, dedicated trade unionist for over 25 years. He's been a steward, plant chairman and has been involved in contract negotiations since 1976. Since 1978, Red has played a lead role in substance abuse programs and has raised funds for the Brentwood recovery home.

Red has contributed much time and effort to providing affordable housing in our community as the first chairperson of the Charles Brooks co-op homes and as vice-chair of Windsor-Essex county community homes.

His assistance to youth includes being a founding member and director of Sports Club 444, raising over $75,000 for recreation programs, helping establish the Sandwich teen action group and raising over $60,000 for that organization.

He's currently a cabinet member of the United Way, a member of the Windsor citizen advisory group on bingos, the CAW council substance abuse committee and also a labour member on the board of referees of the Unemployment Insurance Commission.

By his responsible and untiring commitment to the betterment of his coworkers and the people of the city of Windsor, Red Wilson is indeed a deserving recipient of the Charles E. Brooks Labour Community Service Award and it's a pleasure to acknowledge his contribution to our community.

LANDFILL

Mr Carman McClelland (Brampton North): On Friday, to no one's surprise, the Interim Waste Authority came up with its short list of sites. In the few moments we have available, I can't even begin to touch on the matters, concerns and issues this raises, but I think one of the important points to note right from the outset is so well said by Mayor Bob Johnston of Georgina, "It's nice to hear all these platitudes." He noted that IWA officials were accompanied by armed officers and said as follows:

"It's interesting that instead of provincial politicians like the Minister of the Environment, Ruth Grier, we have officials here who are spouting the party line."

I'm not sure Mayor Johnston knew exactly how accurate he was when he talked about the party line, because the Interim Waste Authority is an extension of the New Democratic Party's line. It is a product of the minister's legislation and she bears full responsibility for it. Try as she might to wash her hands and stand apart from it and say, "Oh, this wasn't me," what we have here is flawed legislation resulting in flawed results, and Mrs Grier, as Minister of the Environment, alone bears full responsibility for it.

Another article from a paper:

"Money, population and politics are the determining factors in this charade. The whole process of site selection was flawed from the very beginning. Despite the extra time the IWA has spent in studying and revising the original data, we see no sign of professionalism."

Mr Speaker, it's unbelievable that after all this process by the citizen advisory committee set up by the Minister of Natural Resources, we could have a site sitting in the proposed boundaries of the Rouge Valley. You, sir, are sensitive to that, as are so many members. It's indicative of the haphazard, absolutely absurd fashion in which this government has handled this very important issue.

CHILDREN'S SERVICES

Mr Robert W. Runciman (Leeds-Grenville): I rise to address a serious matter in my riding which involves alleged physical and sexual abuse of the three children of Kathy Gillespie.

Ministry of Community and Social Services officials conducted interviews with the children to determine whether the alleged abuse occurred and to determine who the perpetrator might be. Dr Christopher Padfield, an acknowledged expert in dealing with sexual abuse of children, concluded from his diagnostic assessment that sexual and physical abuse have likely occurred. Because of a ruling by the Ontario Court of Appeal, these children have been returned to the custody of their father, who resides in New Zealand.

I ask the Ministry of Community and Social Services to review this matter to ensure that the best interests of the children were the priority. Unfortunately, the Brockville children's aid concluded that the alleged abuses were unsubstantiated and it didn't have reasonable and probable grounds to determine that the children were abused. That conclusion is not satisfactory, given that Dr Padfield has stated that further diagnostic assessment and therapeutic sessions are required. He has even recommended that a family court clinic assessment be an urgent priority. Despite these recommendations, the CAS has refused to intervene, citing legal grounds.

I would ask that the minister, who I know cares deeply about these issues, review the circumstances of this matter at once and take appropriate action on behalf of these children. Time is of the essence, as the children are scheduled to return to New Zealand some time tomorrow.

FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS

Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): A magical time of year has arrived. This past Saturday in Niagara Falls, Mickey Mouse was on hand to switch the lights on for the annual Festival of Lights. This is a spectacular fireworks display over Niagara Falls as well. Thousands of children and their parents thrilled to this wonderful sight.

The Festival of Lights is also an annual event to celebrate the natural beauty of winter. The falls can be transformed, in the winter, into living sculptures, even more beautiful than in summer, forming a natural ice bridge as thick as 20 metres. Combined with a gentle mist over the park, you truly have a fairy tale winter wonderland.

The festival includes seven kilometres of lighting displays and many special events, such as a musical comedy in the historic cellars of Brights Wines and displays at the Niagara Parks Commission greenhouse.

This year we also have something very special, and it's new, and that is the Enchantment of Disney motion-light displays, and these are in the park, including Snow White, Fantasia, Beauty and the Beast, the Little Mermaid and Aladdin. I hope all the children out there will enjoy it.

Niagara also includes the very finest in accommodation, in dining, in shopping and in entertainment, so please come and visit.

1350

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

ONTARIO TRAINING AND ADJUSTMENT / BOARD CONSEIL ONTARIEN DE FORMATION ET D'ADAPTATION DE LA MAIN-D'OEUVRE

Hon Richard Allen (Minister of Skills Development): I rise to advise the House today of an important task that it is my duty and, I must say, my pleasure to perform. Later this afternoon I will be introducing a bill that has been greatly anticipated, namely, An Act to create the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board.

The creation of the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, or OTAB, as it is familiarly known, is in fact an historic initiative that represents a bold step to reform Ontario's workforce development system. I believe that OTAB will create a system that is second to none for training current and future workers and for helping individuals and communities adapt to economic change.

Currently, people who need training or who must adjust to our changing economy have to face what can only be described as a confusing and fragmented array of programs and services provided by various levels of government, post-secondary institutions, school boards, vocational schools, community organizations and others. With OTAB, the people of Ontario will have easier access to a coordinated training and adjustment system better able to meet the needs of the economy, employers and individuals.

The key to the success of the new workforce development system under OTAB is the power and responsibility that will be shared by the government with those who know best what is needed. We call these people our labour market partners. They are representatives of business, of labour, of educators and trainers, of those people traditionally at a disadvantage in getting fair access to training and adjustment services and programs, namely, women, racial minorities, people with disabilities and members of the francophone community.

Comme je vous le disais, ce sont ces personnes que nous appelons les «partenaires du marché du travail». Il s'agit des personnes représentant le patronat, les travailleuses et travailleurs, les éducatrices et les éducateurs, les formatrices et formateurs et les personnes qui ont été traditionnellement désavantagées en ne bénéficiant pas d'un accès équitable aux programmes et aux services de formation et d'adaptation, soit les femmes, les membres des minorités raciales, les personnes handicapées et les francophones.

An individual representing aboriginal people may also be appointed to the OTAB board at the request of, and in consultation with, representatives of recognized aboriginal organizations. In addition, OTAB will have non-voting representation from our government, from the federal government and from the municipal level of government.

Representatives of our labour market partners are here in the gallery this afternoon. These persons have worked very hard with us as participants in the OTAB initiative. I salute them and thank them very much for the very hard work they have provided in developing this program. Thank you very much. I appreciate that greatly.

La création du Conseil ontarien de formation et d'adaptation de la main d'oeuvre est un projet considérable et complexe. J'ai eu le privilège de guider cette importante initiative jusqu'à maintenant, mais je n'ai pas accompli ce travail seul. Un grand nombre de personnes et d'organismes, ainsi que d'autres députés de l'Assemblée législative, ont contribué à l'élaboration des idées et des principes qui soutendent le projet de loi sur le COFAM.

L'idée de regrouper au sein d'un seul organisme dynamique les activités de mise en valeur de la main-d'oeuvre, organisme dirigé par les personnes qui ont besoin de ces services et qui les utilisent, est apparue depuis plus d'une décennie dans plusieurs autres provinces canadiennes et dans d'autres pays. Toutefois, le COFAM comporte des caractéristiques uniques adaptées aux besoins de l'Ontario, tout en intégrant les meilleurs éléments d'autres régimes de formation qui connaissent du succès.

OTAB will need to respond to many challenges and demands over the years to come. These demands and needs will of course change from time to time. OTAB will have to be innovative, flexible, adaptable, if it is to meet the needs of different sectors in our economy.

Some of OTAB's objectives are already quite clear. It will seek to ensure that labour force development programs address the barriers that currently prevent some people from participating in the labour force. With its mandate, OTAB will promote access and equity, Ontario's linguistic duality, and will respond to the needs of Ontario's diverse population and accommodate the special needs of people with disabilities.

OTAB -- and this is most important -- is part of a long-term industrial policy framework for Ontario designed to encourage a higher-skill, higher-wage economy. OTAB's goal of a high-quality workforce is in the best interests of us all to increase competitiveness, to attract investment and to improve the lives of current as well as future workers.

It will of course also provide leadership to demonstrate to employers and workers that investment in skills is not just the government's job. While government has an important role to play in labour force development, employers must also invest more in training and individuals must assume greater responsibility for their own training decisions. To this end, OTAB will work to foster an understanding that acquiring new skills and upgrading existing ones is a lifelong process of continuous learning.

Together, employers and workers must increase their level of cooperation through partnerships within firms, between firms and across entire sectors. It is exciting to see that this kind of work environment is emerging at many locations around the province even at this very moment. OTAB will play a major role in assisting workers and management to develop partnerships in the area of workforce training and adjustment.

This major reform of Ontario's labour force development system will ensure not only that there will be a healthy economy, and therefore jobs for Ontario workers, but meaningful, relevant jobs that give people stability, dignity, equal opportunities and a promising future.

I spoke earlier of the absolutely essential role that our labour market partners play in this process. In fact, they have already contributed extensively to the development of this training board. This is a unique example of getting those people for whom policies are intended directly involved in making policy. All of the labour market partners have taken a very profound role in refining OTAB's mandate and in developing the bill that I will be introducing later today. As a result, I know that we have a foundation for an effective partnership.

L'inclusion de la diversité de perspectives des partenaires du marché du travail sera une partie intégrante du processus de création du COFAM et de ses activités courantes. Avec leur aide, nous pourrons éliminer les obstacles qui empêchent les gens de participer à la formation. Ces obstacles constituent un gaspillage coûteux du potentiel économique de notre population et une entrave inacceptable aux efforts des gens visant à améliorer leur vie.

Ce programme coordonné comportera aussi d'autres avantages. Il donnera à l'Ontario les outils dont il a besoin pour recueillir et analyser des données sur le marché du travail qui serviront à faire des prévisions, à préparer les budgets et à effectuer la planification stratégique et l'évaluation.

With an agency in place that can survey and plan for all of Ontario's publicly funded training and adjustment needs, we will be able to identify the overlaps and gaps in what is now offered to make sure our resources are used as effectively and as efficiently as we possibly can.

To ensure that OTAB is aware of conditions across the province, it will be linked to a network of local boards run by the labour market partners at the local level. These local boards will be a joint federal and provincial initiative to coordinate access to both governments' programs and services. One of OTAB's first priorities will be to work with the Canadian Labour Force Development Board, Employment and Immigration Canada and this government on a local board implementation guide.

OTAB will be a dynamic leadership body which, through consensus and innovation, will respond to Ontario's changing economic and social needs for years to come.

OTAB will help drive economic renewal in Ontario by ensuring that we have a flexibly equipped workforce, well trained, flexible, adaptable, ready to do the job, a workforce that will help attract investment to Ontario in today's highly competitive international economy. When we take steps to improve the skills of our workforce, we are making an investment of our own, an investment in our greatest resource, namely, our people.

I ask members to give this act close attention. It represents an important opportunity to create a new agency that has so much to offer to all the people of Ontario: to employers, to workers, to the workers of tomorrow. All of us want to work hard at economic renewal and build a strong and prosperous future for Ontario. OTAB is a vital tool to be used in that task.

Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): It's sad, and I must say I feel sorry for the minister today, that on a day when all of us in Ontario should be turning our heads and focusing on the issues of skills development and the government's initiative, how to try to get Ontario retrained and reskilled, unfortunately we inevitably find ourselves turning our heads to other matters with this government. That is really sad. This shows this government's inability to do its job, period, but I'm sure we'll be talking about that later on.

1400

It's been two years and two months in this government's mandate, and only today are we now seeing what this government says is one of the cornerstones of its legislation to try to redevelop the economy of Ontario. We certainly were expecting this legislation, according to the minister and this government, at the beginning of this session, but we find it now. OTAB is supposed to be the cornerstone of this government's strategy for economic renewal, yet we have experienced one delay after another. If training is such a priority, why then has it taken two years for this government to move on OTAB? Since this government took power, we have seen nothing but job losses.

As the minister and the government know, we now have 609,000 people without work in this province. To me, this translates into two things: Ontarians are crying out for work and training and this NDP government has delayed in both departments. Two years later, all this government has to offer is legislation. The people of Ontario need action today. They need to know where to go for access: how to access their training and how to access funding for their training.

The unemployment rate in Ontario is currently 11.3%. Most of those people want to go back to work and most of those people know they need new skills in training. Today's announcement is not going to help them for months to come.

There are a lot of questions that we over here have in regard to this legislation. I think the first one is the fundamental principle of this particular agency that the minister wants to establish, and that is, should a primary function such as skills training be privatized? Should the education and skills training not still be a creature of government? I await our first and second reading of these bills and committee work to debate that principle, because I think it's important.

The makeup of this is obviously very important also. I still have a grave concern about all those people who, for whatever circumstance, find themselves not represented by a union, how they are going to have some input into skills training. They also have to be represented.

We also have concerns about the budget, how this is going to be funded and where all the money is going to come from. When are the local training and adjustment boards going to be set up, and how is that transition going to happen? We have the federally established community industrial training committees right now and we shouldn't waste that tremendous effort of cooperation that's been established over the last few years. We need those people.

We'll have more time later to debate. I look forward to that debate on this legislation.

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): This statement, coming today after so long, is simply a blatant attempt to put out something positive to cover the series of disasters that this government is facing. I would suggest to the minister that his statement on OTAB now seems to be the height of irrelevance, because you can't train people for jobs that don't exist.

Furthermore, I have to say that I am not surprised that we had no statement on the success of the Premier's trip to Asia in bringing new investment and new jobs to the province. In fact, the only statement we've seen on that subject was the last spin document produced by the departed spin doctor for the New Democrats. I remind you that this particular press release was an announcement of a $10-million investment which the company the next day said was actually announced two years ago. This is the reality of what has happened since the Premier has been away.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Mrs McLeod: Plants in London, Waterloo, Windsor, Napanee and St Thomas have closed or are in the process of shutting their doors for good. As a result, another 1,400 people are set to join the unemployment rolls. We've seen that the Premier's much-touted Jobs Ontario Training program has turned out to be a failure. Less than 700 people have enrolled in the first six months of this $1-billion program.

We have a new government report that says that under the New Democrats workers stay unemployed longer and that when they are rehired, they earn less than they did before.

Success usually means achieving your goals. No wonder we have no statement of the success of the Premier's trip to Asia.

The Speaker: Responses, third party.

Mrs Dianne Cunningham (London North): Unfortunately, as a party that was very much interested in looking at the public participation process with regard to OTAB, I have to stand here today and say that whereas this announcement should have been met with some degree of satisfaction and some degree of confidence in the government, it does just the opposite, for two reasons.

First of all, this is exactly what the NDP government wanted. During the deliberations we advised the government that 5- and 10-minute presentations were not sufficient. And then we did say, "Listen carefully to what the public of Ontario are saying in deliberations in a 23-city tour across this province," and I have to say they didn't.

The makeup of the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, as it went out for public consultation, came back exactly the same way, instead of listening to the public, which said two things: first of all, make sure that you welcome the input of the private sector; make sure that you welcome the majority of Ontario workers -- those are the non-unionized workers; make sure that you welcome the education community and, second, make certain that you ask them to be part of the training process for Ontario, which is so much needed.

They didn't; the board has stayed exactly the same way. Non-unionized labour does not have one single seat of the eight labour seats, in spite of the request on behalf of all our constituencies. Even if it was a token appreciation, somebody could have stood up and said, "Thank you for listening," but there wasn't one token seat given to non-unionized labour. It was extremely important, given the tenure of this government and given the experience of the last two years, to have people bend over backwards to all of the citizens of the province of Ontario. I can say that it is with cynicism that this will be received today on behalf of the public, and I can say that because I did advise the minister over and over again.

Secondly, I will say that the Ontario labour force right now is going to be "heavily involved" in training, and I hope that's true. That's the positive part. But there is one word missing, and that's "accountability." For every dollar that we spend on this board, our expectation will be that the majority of that dollar will not be spent on the board itself or the administration of the board itself, but on training programs that produce workers who have been trained to meet the needs of the citizens of Ontario.

Thirdly, I have to say that there are a number of questions associated with the implementation. Will this new board become a bureaucratic colossus? If the government imposed a payroll tax for training in the future, in the next two or three years it could become -- and I'm warning the government again -- another Workers' Compensation Board. The WCB has a $10.3-billion unfunded liability and satisfies no one.

Will private trainers be allowed to deliver programming in the future? I hope so, and certainly the minister made that point during the press conference today. I'm only saying it now because I want to reassure them, because they certainly were not reassured during the process at all.

Will business and labour be able to work together, given the fact that these hearings did not respond to the non-unionized workers? Will they be able to work together? The Ontario workplace health and safety training is in gridlock. The accountability is extremely important. There is a need to streamline, as the minister said today in his statement, and improve existing training programs.

We are now looking at some $400 million to $500 million that will be the responsibility of this board. It's not new money -- as we warned, it's not new money -- but in fact it may be down the road. I have to say that for this government to say that this is the same as the federal board, which this parallels, in that they have the same message and the same structure -- it simply is a very different board. The federal board, as you know, Mr Minister, is one that advises the government through two standing committees. This board is totally responsible for administering all of this money and deciding on the programs.

In closing, I'm told today that we will wait another 18 months for this board to be up and running. That was the response on behalf of the administration representing the ministry. That's 18 months more, and yet we face now this legislation being tabled today, later this afternoon, with just three weeks left in our agenda. It's unacceptable.

VISITOR

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): I invite all members to welcome to our midst this afternoon, seated in the Speaker's gallery, Mr Fred Gingell, the MLA from the province of British Columbia. Welcome.

1410

ESTIMATES

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Standing order 62(a) provides that "the standing committee on estimates shall present one report with respect of all the estimates and supplementary estimates considered pursuant to standing orders 59 and 61 no later than the third Thursday in November of each calendar year."

The House not having received the report from the standing committee on estimates on Thursday, November 19, 1992, respecting the estimates of the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation as required by the standing orders of this House, pursuant to standing order 62(b), the estimates before the committee of the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation are deemed to be passed by the committee and are deemed to be reported to and received by the House.

It is time for oral questions.

PREMIER'S STATEMENT

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): Mr Speaker, point of order.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Point of order, the leader of the third party.

Mr Harris: I'll be very brief and, I believe, to the point. We've just had the Premier returning from a 16-day trip to Asia. We had ministers' statements in the House today. We had no report on that. The only indications we have are some new frequent flyer points and two $10 baseball caps of trade. I wonder if we could have unanimous consent to allow the Premier to report on his trip.

The Speaker: Is there unanimous consent?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr Speaker, if I could just respond, since it's effectively a question, because the minister's statement had been scheduled for some time for this day, I've agreed to make my statement tomorrow. I'll be glad to make a full statement to the House tomorrow.

ORAL QUESTIONS

JOHN PIPER

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): Mr Speaker, as I'm sure you would have anticipated, our questions today are all for the Premier.

Premier, John Piper, your personal friend and your top adviser, has now resigned in disgrace over his dirty tricks campaign to smear a member of the public. Mr Piper today says he believes he has done no wrong. I ask you, do you believe that your friend and adviser has done no wrong?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): I'm delighted to answer the question. I stand entirely by the comments that I made on Friday. I made it very clear on Friday, as soon as I heard of Mr Piper's conduct, that I regarded it as frankly appalling. It doesn't conform in any way or in any respect to what I expect of people who work on behalf of the government of Ontario. I made that absolutely clear and I would have thought the Leader of the Opposition knows that full well.

Mrs McLeod: Given that statement, we have to ask some further questions about how this incident could have occurred at all. I remind you, Premier, that you brought your friend John Piper into your office. You made him your top official, you made him your closest adviser. You gave him one particular job, and the job you gave John Piper was to make your government look good.

I ask you, Premier, what kind of standards did you set for the operation that Mr Piper would be carrying out on your behalf? Did you set any standards at all? Have you become so desperate that you were prepared to give John Piper free rein to do whatever he needed to do to clean up the messes of your government?

Hon Mr Rae: Talk about advisers; I regret that the Leader of the Opposition is taking advice from those who would prompt her to ask those kinds of questions, which are really quite out of character for her. She knows full well, I would hope, the kinds of feelings that are shared by everyone in this House with respect to what took place, what Mr Piper did. She knows that full well. I've expressed that publicly. I think any commonsense reaction would be shared.

To imply, as her question does, that I would in some sense have condoned what he did flies directly in the face of what took place. Mr Piper resigned as soon as anyone became aware of what he had done and I expressed myself very clearly as soon as I heard of it and as soon as I had an opportunity to express myself. So don't let the honourable Leader of the Opposition go around implying in any kind of way, underhanded or any other way, that there's any other reaction from this Premier than to say that I disapprove entirely of what Mr Piper did. Don't let her mistake in any way, shape or form my views in that regard.

Mrs McLeod: Premier, the question is, how could such an action even have been contemplated? Don't talk to me about something underhanded; if you want to talk to me about fairness, we might want to talk about what's fair to Judi Harris.

We are dealing with a question which we believe is a very serious question of judgement, of standards and indeed of ethics. Our concern is with your responsibility for the operation of your office and the operation of your government. The question is therefore a question of your standards, your judgement and your ethics.

Now the question is: How do we get to the bottom of all this? I ask you whether you will commit today to an immediate, full inquiry, an all-party inquiry in this House that would look into the question of how this incident could possibly have taken place and what it says about the operation of your office and your government.

Hon Mr Rae: What it says about my views is that as soon as I became aware, as soon as anyone else became aware, of what Mr Piper had done, he resigned. I stated very clearly my views on the subject. I quite agree with her; it is a matter of judgement, and yes, it is a matter of ethics. I've stated my views very clearly on that, and the member opposite knows that full well.

With respect to the matter of an inquiry, I ask her to cast her mind back to the experience of the administration of which she was a member, in which Mr Ashworth resigned, the executive assistant to the Premier of the day, and in which the Houlden inquiry was then set up. The Houlden inquiry was subsequently shut down right away because it coincided with the criminal investigation.

As the Leader of the Opposition knows full well, the OPP are currently conducting an investigation into what took place. There is no way in which any other inquiries can take place until that has been concluded.

Mrs McLeod: What we're dealing with today is one incident after another for which you are solely responsible. I suggest to you that this is not the first time we've seen this kind of abuse of power and responsibility from your government. Cast your mind back to just a year ago, when the Minister of Northern Development was advised to take a lie detector test to prove that she lied when she smeared a member of the public. What is it about your leadership that makes your ministers and your staff feel that these kind of tactics are appropriate?

Hon Mr Rae: I'll let my leadership be judged just as her former leader's leadership was judged, just as Bill Davis's leadership was judged and that of John Robarts and others. It happens in public life that sometimes people make mistakes; they make errors of judgement, and things happen like that. It does take place. I don't condone it; I don't approve it. But to suggest and to create this kind of sense out there which the Leader of the Opposition together with her friends has been trying to do, to say that this is somehow unique to this government is quite false. In fact, it's something that happens in the life of every government that has ever been formed in this province and every government that has ever been formed in Canada.

People make mistakes. Mistakes have to be dealt with; standards have to be set. The record will show clearly where this Premier stands and where this government stands. With due respect to the honourable member, it compares quite favourably to where her leader stood when she sat on his cabinet and in previous governments as well, and that's the truth.

Mrs McLeod: Indeed, Premier, the record will stand, and there is no record and no precedent that will show this degree of breach of trust and abuse of power. What we see from your government, what we see under your leadership is a government that has been prepared time and time again to go to any length to cover up its mistakes. I suggest that your government is consistent in one respect, and that is in the respect that anybody who disagrees with it is going to be silenced one way or another.

Again I come back to the fact that it is a question of standards, of judgement, of confidence and of ethics. How can anyone, after the record that has been established by you and your government, trust what your government does? How would any person want to sit down and try to do honest dealings with your government?

Hon Mr Rae: People do honest dealings with our government every day. That's a reality. I ask the honourable Leader of the Opposition to try to get a grip on what has taken place. Someone working in the Premier's office made a serious error of judgement and did something which I do not for a moment or for an instant condone and which is not condoned or approved by anyone on this side of the House. She then says there's been some kind of a coverup. What nonsense. As soon as the information is revealed to anybody, it then is referred immediately to the OPP. That's the Liberal Party's definition of a coverup now.

The Liberal leader -- I can understand today, and I knew full well -- says all the questions today are going to be for the Premier. I can only say, "What a surprise." But I want to tell the honourable member and say to the honourable leader that I'm ready to answer questions which are asked simply and in a straightforward way. But I can also tell the Leader of the Opposition that this kind of insinuation and innuendo that somehow something has been done which I approve of or condone is really just out to lunch. It is not something where I'm going to just stand up here and say, "Fine, all well and good. You can make these insinuations," because they just can't be allowed to stand on their own.

1420

Mrs McLeod: Premier, I remind you of the fact that the individual who has resigned was your closest adviser, your personal friend, the person whom you directed to make your government look good.

Premier, exactly what we are trying to do is to come to grips with it, to get to the bottom of what happened. You have successfully avoided responding to our call for an inquiry so that we could begin to ask the questions of what exactly has happened in this situation and what it says about the way in which you run your office and the way in which you run your government.

I would suggest to you that this question has to be dealt with because people across this province are desperate. They are desperate in the kinds of concerns that they're facing. The only thing that your government is desperate about is trying to cover up the messes that you've made.

Premier, I would suggest to you to answer the question of how the desperate people, the jobless people of this province, can expect anything from a government that is spending all of its time and energy and effort in just trying to cover up with smear campaigns and damage control and pure crisis management.

Hon Mr Rae: I'd just say to the honourable member again, as I answered before, that to even suggest the use of the word "coverup," which of course one has to expect will be thrown out and grasped by whoever wants to grasp the word in the air, is ludicrous. Let's get real here. As soon as any information was made available, it was made public and was referred immediately to the OPP, exactly what one would expect of any Premier, of anybody faced with this situation, exactly what I would expect of anyone else in public life. That's what anyone would do in this circumstance.

Second, to suggest that we're somehow preoccupied -- let me tell the honourable member, I'm happy to answer questions on the economy, I'm happy to answer questions on jobs, I'm happy to answer questions on this. The people who are preoccupied with what is in the media from day to day are members of the opposition. They're eating out on it. They're dining on it. They're having fun with it. But the people of Ontario want to get on with other business, and that's exactly what we're prepared to do, what we're prepared to discuss, what we're happy to do.

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): My question is to the Premier. There are many questions that need to be answered today, but I want to begin with what I believe to be far and away the most important and certainly the most disturbing to me. A senior member of your office deliberately attempted to smear the reputation of an alleged victim of the Grandview incidents. He has resigned with an apology to you, Premier -- he apologized that he has perhaps hurt you -- but without any hint of remorse for what he attempted to do to Judi Harris.

Premier, why was Mr Piper allowed to resign without apologizing, not to you, but to Miss Harris?

Hon Mr Rae: Mr Piper offered his resignation as soon as the information became public in the Toronto Sun newspaper.

I can only tell the honourable member that I profoundly regret what has happened. I am very sorry for what has taken place to Miss Harris, and I think any right- and sensible-minded person would be. I certainly want to convey those thoughts to you and to members of the House.

Mr Harris: What very much disturbs me is that your highly paid spin doctor, the one you brought in, resigned because he said he embarrassed you. Premier, that statement that he resigned because he embarrassed you -- and nothing from you on Friday, which I understood; perhaps we'd have to wait till Saturday to get the time change taken care of; nothing on Sunday, nothing today, no statement from you in the House -- that speaks volumes about the total disregard that Mr Piper has for the seriousness of what he's done.

He deliberately attempted to smear the reputation of an alleged victim. Why? For political gain for your government. This government, you will know, Premier, came into office promising to be clean, to be open, to be upfront and promising as well to defend women who have been victims. That was your promise, and Mr Piper has done just exactly the opposite in his actions to try to smear Miss Harris.

Premier, given that he was hired by you personally, that he had your personal authority to act on your and your government's behalf and that he refused to apologize, why would you, Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, this morning, today, not have come into this House and apologized to Miss Harris?

Hon Mr Rae: With due respect, I think I made my views very clear on Friday. I think as soon as I heard of the event in the Vancouver airport I made my views entirely clear, as I've done in the House today. I think what has taken place is not something that anyone on this side of the House would either condone or accept, it's not something I condone or accept and I'm very sorry for what has taken place with respect to Miss Harris. I've made that very clear and I'd make it clear any time.

I don't think what took place is right. To suggest somehow that we are in any way, shape or form condoning or accepting what has taken place really doesn't reflect my views and doesn't reflect how I feel. I've made that very clear, I will continue to make it very clear and that's precisely what took place on Friday.

Mr Harris: I appreciate that after my asking the question, the Premier is making that position clear. What very much disturbs me, though, is that this wasn't the first thing on Mr Piper's mind, it wasn't the first thing on anybody's mind in your office. The first thing was damage control: "Get rid of the cancer. Have him resign." There wasn't any indication of any remorse from anyone in your office or from any single one of your cabinet members or any single one of your caucus members, or from you until I just asked you in this House today.

We look at the federal rape shield law, supported by us all, brought in to protect victims of rape. The reason? There are people who think it's okay to try and smear a woman by raising her past or raising information irrelevant to the case at hand, particularly when she has become a victim, and we are dealing now with an alleged victim. We don't know; none of us know the details of the case, nor do people know during a rape trial. You know why that legislation was brought in.

So there may have been criminal wrongdoings. This net may, if the investigation is full, bring in others and there may be criminal charges. But to me, Premier, it speaks volumes, the silence from Mr Piper, from your cabinet and from you until it was asked today.

I would ask you if you will investigate why the first reaction of everyone was not for the alleged victim in this case; why the attitude of the whole office was, "Get rid of the cancer; have him apologize to Bob Rae, because it may be damaging to him, his friend, the NDP or the government," without a single thought, until just now when I asked you, for Judi Harris. Will you investigate that as well?

Hon Mr Rae: It was a very long question. I can only say the member's characterization of some of the issues I can certainly accept in terms of what he has said about why the issues are important, why it's important to protect people's reputations and about why it's important not to do anything to the contrary.

I can only say to the honourable member that his characterization of my response, his characterization of the response of this government, of members of the cabinet on Friday and of members of my government throughout the weekend and today, that's the characterization which I just don't accept and don't regard as an accurate reflection of how I feel or what I've stated.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): New question.

[Applause]

Mr Harris: I assume you're applauding me for asking the questions so the Premier could finally say the right thing. Thank you.

1430

I want now to get at a few other facts, Premier. We've had example after example after example of your government trying to, I would suggest, harass those who want to come forward with information that may be embarrassing to the government.

Ernst and Young with a labour study: The Minister of Labour smeared them. Civil servants who tried to bring information to light: The first thing you do, this great party -- whistle-blowing legislation, openness, civil servants should be free, it should be public information -- is call in the OPP to see if you can get some charges.

But perhaps the case that bothers me the most because it strikes right to you, Premier, your standards and your willingness or ability to enforce them, has to do with the Minister of Northern Development and Mines and the reaction to her political opponents by slandering a doctor and smearing his reputation. Mr Piper, sir, was in your office. He was in charge of spin-doctoring that out as best he could. The message he was in charge of in that case was, "It's okay to lie and slander an opponent of the government."

Now this same senior adviser -- that was his job; that's what he was brought in to do -- given what happened in the Shelley Martel affair, thought it was okay to discredit a woman who had made allegations against a member of your cabinet. There's a pattern here. There's a modus operandi, if you like.

I ask you, Premier, do you not now understand that very seriousness of not dealing with the Martel affair as it should have been dealt with, the seriousness of allowing that kind of conduct to go without any action from you, to be condoned by you? Do you not now understand that by not acting you in fact are responsible for the behaviour of Mr Piper?

Hon Mr Rae: I suppose the simple answer is no, but I really do think the member has to at least recognize that what Mr Piper did was seen, I think by everybody, as something which should not under any circumstances be done. It's something which, as I've said, in no way, shape or form corresponds with what I think in any way makes sense or is fair or is acceptable from somebody working in the Premier's office.

I suggest that we not draw all the comparisons, because we can make comparisons going back to time immemorial, to previous governments, to things that were done and not done from time to time. I think the point is that action has been taken very clearly with respect to Mr Piper. I don't approve of or condone it. To suggest that I'm somehow responsible for it I think is the exact opposite of the truth.

Mr Harris: Except that in this case the one who was to be smeared was an alleged victim of sexual assault or of sexual impropriety; in the Shelley Martel affair the one being smeared was a doctor. In the one case the one being smeared was politically incorrect; in the other case perhaps politically correct.

Mr Premier, we have example after example after example where if the cause is okay, you can break the law, you can lie, you can smear, you can do whatever it takes to defend government policy, to defend Bob Rae, to defend the government, to defend the NDP. But if the cause is not, then you're prepared to act.

I would ask you, Premier, to tell me the difference, aside from what the case was, between Miss Martel lying and slandering to discredit a doctor criticizing this government and Mr Piper attempting to get information in the public domain to smear Miss Harris. Can you tell me what the difference is in those two actions, one by a cabinet minister that you condoned and approved of and said was okay, and now this action by Mr Piper? What was the difference?

Hon Mr Rae: Again, I want to say very directly to the member -- I'm not going to get drawn into these comparisons, but I want to say very directly to the member that the kinds of allegations that he's made with respect to conduct which is seen by me or by this government as acceptable are really quite out of keeping with the case or with what is taking place in the province.

We've made very clear what happens, just as in former governments things took place, just as in former governments premiers exercised their judgement -- not always agreed upon by others, not always accepted by all members of the House, but nevertheless, judgement was exercised.

I think very clearly, with respect to this instance of Mr Piper, he himself offered his resignation right away, realizing, as he must have done, that what had taken place was in no way, shape or form acceptable to this Premier and to this government. Let there be no doubt or illusion about that. That is very, very clear with regard to what we've done.

Mr Harris: Other than causing some embarrassment for his close friend Bob Rae, Mr Piper said yesterday that he didn't do anything wrong; he doesn't see anything wrong with what he did. I'm suggesting to you that perhaps that's because he did exactly what others have done, including Miss Martel, that he was led to believe it was okay if the cause was right.

Mr Premier, do you now have an investigation under way as to what all Mr Piper was doing for the last 15 months in the way of spin doctoring, in the way of putting information out, in the way of perhaps smearing others? Do we have that kind of investigation under way from what Mr Piper thought was okay, which clearly you today say is not okay? Is that under way?

Hon Mr Rae: Let me say to the honourable member that we, I think, have acted very clearly and in a very direct fashion with respect to what took place. I think the experience has been a very, very difficult one for everyone concerned, and I don't think there's any masking or getting around that. We have dealt with it. We are dealing with it. I will say directly to the honourable member that there are investigations taking place that are being conducted by others, by the OPP.

As for me, I can honestly say to the member that I am doing everything I can to look to the future, to look to jobs, to look to the agenda of this government and to not allow ourselves to get preoccupied or blown off course by the mistakes that people make. We deal with those mistakes clearly; we deal with those mistakes directly. But we also have an agenda, we also have a job to do, and that's precisely what this government is doing.

The Speaker: New question.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): My question is to the Premier. Mr Premier, do you honestly believe that the people of Ontario are going to want to engage you and your government on issues like the economy and job creation when they have very real and repeated evidence that they may suffer the same fate that Judi Harris and Dr Donahue faced when they stood up and took positions at variance with the Rae government? When they did, they were smeared in the most vicious and public way imaginable.

Surely, Mr Premier, you understand how, given what's happened in the Piper affair and in the Martel affair, men and women in this province are going to be very reluctant to engage you and your government on critical questions like the economy, when they have seen what happens to people like Judi Harris and Dr Donahue, men and women, good citizens, who have stood up and engaged you and your government in a debate, only to be smeared and slandered in the public domain.

How do you expect people to engage you and your government on economic issues when there has been in recent days more evidence that at the highest levels in your government close advisers and long-time personal friends are quite prepared to use high office to abuse the public trust and to abuse and to slander anyone who might get in your way?

Hon Mr Rae: I don't know how I could be clearer or more categorical with respect to Mr Piper's conduct, and I think the honourable member for Renfrew North, in his heart of hearts, knows that.

I think he also knows full well that for the vast majority of people in this province who look to the economy and who look to how governments respond to difficult situations, who look to how individuals respond to difficult situations -- all I can tell the honourable member is that my experience tells me that the people of this province want to deal directly with this government.

They will be dealt with, as they have been dealt with in the past, fairly and openly. They express their disagreements with us clearly and openly. That's the way it is. We will continue to operate on that basis, without fear and without favour, and if anybody conducts himself in a different way, very clear indications are given by me as to how I feel about that and what needs to be done.

Mr Conway: We must remember that this is a Premier who doesn't yet understand that there's something wrong when his own constituency assistant corresponds with the Ontario Municipal Board to advance a hearing in his own constituency.

It's quite clear that these people, including the Premier himself, don't get it. They don't get the import of their own conflict-of-interest rules. They don't get the import of the Premier's high-minded rhetoric of November 19, 1990, when he called us all to his commitment that his government's ethics would be the highest and best ever.

Let me say this to the Premier: I think I know the political history of this province reasonably well. While it is true, as the Premier suggests, that other governments have had difficulties, I submit to this House and to this Premier that I know of no other incident in the political history of this province where as high an official in the Premier's office and someone so close to the leader of the government as Mr Piper was to Mr Bob Rae, someone as close to the nerve centre of the government itself, was willing, almost eager, to go out and take the past criminal record of an Ontario citizen and use that past criminal record to smear a defenceless woman in the court of public opinion. There is no precedent for that kind of breach of trust and abuse of power.

The Speaker: Could the member place his supplementary, please.

Mr Conway: Is the Premier satisfied that his good friend John Piper acted alone in this outrageous misconduct? Is he further satisfied that the cancerous behaviour that Mr Piper's attitude shows in this Harris affair has been completely rooted out of his office, that is, the Premier's office? Will the Premier and the leader of this government give this assembly and the people of Ontario an undertaking this day that he will accede to an all-party legislative inquiry into the conduct of his office in these matters? Will he give us that assurance this day?

Hon Mr Rae: I don't know whether anybody's keeping a record, but I think that must be the longest question I've ever heard in the history of the Parliament of the Legislature of Ontario. As somebody who knows something about high-minded rhetoric, the member for Renfrew North is a whiz at high-minded rhetoric, low-minded rhetoric or any kind of rhetoric, and also a whiz at synthetic indignation.

He sat as a member of a cabinet that had its problems, that had its difficulties, where members of the cabinet sat for day after day in response to questions and either moved or didn't move, depending on the politics of the moment or whatever it was. I don't recall his getting up and saying, "I'm going to resign as a matter of principle because this conduct is unacceptable."

I'm going to say to the honourable member that I respect his views and that I knew full well I was going to get another dose of his synthetic indignation this afternoon. I fully anticipated and expected it, but I just want to remind the honourable member of a couple of very basic facts.

First of all, clear and categorical action was taken by this government and this Premier with respect to what took place on Friday. Second of all, I want to say that my answer to his second part of his question is precisely the same as the answer I gave to his honourable leader. Perhaps he wasn't listening.

The Speaker: New question, the leader of the third party.

Mr Harris: My question is to the Premier. To follow up on the seriousness of the issue, to follow up on my concern that it was only an afterthought that we would apologize to the alleged victim, that "How do we handle the public relations for the government?" was the first order of the day, to follow up on a question by the member for Renfrew North on who else may have been involved in this, I would like to ask you this: Last evening, Mr Piper entered this building at 8:59 pm. He indicated he was visiting the office of Melody Morrison, your chief of staff. Ms Morrison signed into this building two minutes after Mr Piper. Can you confirm what a source has told my office today, that Mr Piper left the building at 9:39 pm with several boxes? I'd like to ask you, Premier, were you aware of this? Were you aware that Ms Morrison was involved in this? Do you know with certainty what was in the boxes that Mr Piper hauled out of here last night?

Hon Mr Rae: I know nothing of any of the allegations the member is making.

Mr Harris: We have a police investigation going on into this affair, yet Mr Piper was allowed to enter this building last night and was allowed to remove what may very well be valuable information to this process. We know that Ms Morrison, at least, came in two minutes after, and that Mr Piper gave, as the reason he wanted to be here, a meeting with Ms Morrison. Would you not agree with me that this is now totally out of hand, Premier? Will you agree this instant, immediately, to make sure that the OPP -- and if they need help, they bring in whoever they need -- are brought in this minute to lock the doors, to lock up all the information in all of your offices?

Would you also agree with me, in light of what happened last night, that Ms Morrison is not the one who should be receiving this report but in fact should now be part of the investigation as well?

Hon Mr Rae: The OPP have full carriage of whatever investigation they intend to carry out.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Would the Premier take his seat, please.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Premier.

Hon Mr Rae: I can only say to the honourable member that it would be entirely inappropriate for me to do anything other than to say that the OPP have full carriage. The idea that the Premier would tell the OPP what to do or whom to talk to or whom to interview or whom not to interview, in my view would be totally inappropriate.

The Speaker: New question. The member for Cambridge.

Mr Mike Farnan (Cambridge): My question is to the Minister of Community and Social Services.

Mr Harris: The OPP would have to be told that they can't trust the chief of staff to --

The Speaker: Order, the leader of the third party.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): Can you imagine that? You can tell them to run out and check every Liberal who gets a secret document, but they can't --

The Speaker: The member for Etobicoke West, please come to order.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. The member for Cambridge.

Mr Farnan: My question is for the Minister of Community and Social Services. The Cambridge Family Crisis Shelter has been struggling to --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. I ask the House to come to order.

Interjection.

An hon member: Get a life.

Mr Stockwell: We've got a life. That's the difference.

The Speaker: The member for Etobicoke West, please come to order.

Interjections.

The Speaker: The member for Cambridge.

Mr Farnan: The people of Cambridge would be extremely grateful if the opposition would allow this question to be asked.

1450

SHELTER FOR WOMEN

Mr Mike Farnan (Cambridge): To the Minister of Community and Social Services: The Cambridge Family Crisis Shelter has been struggling to survive financially while providing a desperately needed service. Last year, they completed construction of a new facility using a capital grant from the Ministry of Community and Social Services. The new facility was built to accommodate 16 beds, up from 11 beds, and the bigger building reflected the need in the community for more spaces in the shelter. There has been no increase in the operating grant to keep up with the increased size of the building and the needs of Cambridge residents. The shelter cannot continue to operate, as it is now doing, on a $10,000 monthly deficit. I would ask the minister whether there are plans to fund the operation of the shelter in proportion to the scale on which they funded the building of this much-needed community resource.

Hon Marion Boyd (Minister of Community and Social Services): At the time that the permission was given for the enlarged size of the shelter, we did have available the capital grants and were trying to think strategically ahead in order to provide for growth in the service when the operating funding became available. So the operation knew, and this is true of several other shelters in the province, that we were only going to be able to promise to fund at the same level of beds for the short run, but that we were encouraging the building to accommodate more space when that time came forward.

The area office is working with the board to look at the particular funding arrangements that it has now and in fact has arranged a joint meeting of all the shelters in the area to talk about how some interagency collaboration might assist with these particular difficulties. But at the time that permission was given to build the 16 beds, the shelter was aware that we could offer operating funds only for the 11 beds for the short run.

Mr Farnan: As a supplementary question, Minister, I would like to ask about fairness of funding to different shelters for the women and children who are the victims of family violence.

I understand the restraint under which your ministry is forced to operate and that current funding arrangements were inherited by this government, but I must ask whether there can be a reasonable basis on which one 11-bed shelter serving a population of roughly 90,000 people -- I refer to Simcoe shelter in Haldimand-Norfolk -- can be funded at nearly double the rate of the 11-bed Cambridge Family Crisis Shelter, which also serves 90,000 people.

I do not want to suggest that one shelter should be benefiting at the expense of another, but surely similar communities deserve similar levels of service. It would appear to me, Minister, on the basis of the information that I have provided you, Cambridge is being shortchanged.

Hon Mrs Boyd: This is an issue that really is of great concern to people who run shelters. The major funding for women's emergency shelters comes through the general welfare assistance grants. They are built on per diem rates that are approved by the municipality, which of course is responsible for the administration of GWA.

The provincial maximum has been set at $34.10 a day, but local municipalities currently have the discretion to fund hostel services at a lower per diem rate. That is where many of the discrepancies come in, and the discrepancies are great across the province.

Hostel funding is part of the discussion that is going on between the province and the municipalities around GWA funding, and this is an issue that we hope to see resolved as part of those disentanglement discussions.

There's also a difference in the services. There is a list of core services that we do fund from the province, but every shelter doesn't offer all the core services, so there's a difference in service level and therefore a difference in funding level.

The last issue of course is how much local fund-raising does go on in each area.

JOHN PIPER

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): We recognize that the OPP is investigating aspects of Mr Piper's resignation. That investigation will continue, as it must, as indeed other OPP investigations involving members of this government and this government's actions will continue and will report in due time. That is not the issue we are dealing with today.

The issue, Premier, is that an offer of confidential information, however obtained, was made, and it was refused. The story of that offer then broke in the newspapers, and your trusted adviser and friend resigned. We know that the Minister of Tourism and Recreation, who also resigned while you were away, resigned after the story of the investigation became public.

Premier, the question before us is that we don't believe that you can continue to deal with issues only when they become public. You can't refuse to take responsibility for what is happening in your office on a day-to-day basis. You cannot wash your hands of the situation once the mess you're involved in comes to public attention, and that's what you're trying to do here today, Premier. I ask you, if you continue to take that position, how can the people in this province possibly know what else is going on in your government?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): I followed the question carefully. I'd say to the honourable Leader of the Opposition that I've responded, as others would, on the basis of advice offered to me by senior members of the public service from time to time with respect to some difficult issues, and I have responded as effectively as I could to difficult situations. The honourable member may disagree with the way I've handled things. She may feel that she has a better way. No doubt she will have an opportunity to express those thoughts at an appropriate time.

I just want to say to the honourable member that we have dealt, with respect to a situation that I found and, as I said, that I think any member would find to be unacceptable, in a way that's as clear and categorical as possible. I would hope that at some point the Leader of the Opposition would say: "That is now being investigated. We all have confidence in the integrity and the independence of the OPP, everyone in this House does, and therefore it is not possible to have all kinds of other fishing expeditions and inquiries." The courts have been very categorical, even recently on the Westray case, and therefore we have to deal with the situation as it has been dealt with. She can take whatever shots she wants to take, but I can tell the honourable member that's the way it is.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): I want to talk, in supplementary, about what is going on, as we speak, in the Premier's office. When the Premier got off the plane from Vancouver on Friday night, he said in clear language that he hadn't talked to John Piper and he would have no conversations with John Piper. John Piper was persona non grata.

Now we find out that within hours of the Premier's declaration of non-involvement with his former spin doctor and very good friend, within hours of that statement from the Premier, his chief of staff, Ms Morrison, is meeting with John Piper in the Premier's office in this very building, and allegedly Mr Piper carts out boxes of presumably interesting information that may in fact bear on whatever inquiries we are to have in this case.

So my question to the Premier is this: Following upon your return on Friday night, did you give any specific instructions to Ms Morrison and all others in your office? What kind of policy are they are operating on in your office, particularly with respect to, first, discussions with Mr Piper, and second, the removal from this precinct of papers and things that might bear upon any police or legislative inquiry that we will have in this connection?

Hon Mr Rae: Since the allegation was made in the House by the leader of the third party, I've received the following information. It's a memo to me from my principal secretary, Melody Morrison, dated November 22, 1992:

"On the advice of the Deputy Minister of the Attorney General, George Thomson, at 9:02 this evening I supervised John Piper while he packed his personal effects from his office on the third floor. His assistant, Joanne O'Regan, was there to help.

"I examined all the material he took with him and was entirely satisfied that only his personal effects and no government documents were removed.

"Mr Piper has not been in his office since 8:30 am on Friday November 20, 1992. He returned his key to room 371 to me and he left the building before 10 pm. The locks will be changed tomorrow," which means today.

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Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): First, Premier, do you have any information of Mr Piper being in his office on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, or at any time other than the time that I brought to this House's attention today?

Second, were the OPP or anyone who is in charge of this investigation there to make certain that all documents, pieces of paper, phone slips, anybody else who might have been involved in this attempt to smear Miss Harris -- was there anybody who is in charge of the investigation, both for Mr Piper and for Miss Morrison, and for every person in your office and all of the staff, there to make sure that nothing that was being removed was relevant to this investigation?

Hon Mr Rae: I can only tell the honourable member what I have just told the House, and that is that what Miss Morrison did was on the advice of the Deputy Attorney General.

Mr Harris: Mr Premier, I go back, then, to the question I asked earlier. Will you this instant, since 10 minutes ago you would not, advise the OPP that nobody in your office can be trusted, including you, and that "You better change the locks today, you better secure every document today if you want to make sure that the documentation you're looking for may still be there"? Will you do that this instant?

Hon Mr Rae: My short answer to the member is --

Mr Harris: That's the problem.

Hon Mr Rae: No, I think that we see part of the problem. Part of the problem is that the rhetoric in this place gets so overblown and out of proportion to what is taking place. Allegations get made, statements get made with respect to my conduct or anyone else's conduct. What is done is done and has been done according to the advice that we received. Every step has been taken to ensure that proper measures were followed, and that's precisely the attitude and the direction that I've given to my staff.

HYDRO PROJECT

Mr Daniel Waters (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): My question today is for the Minister of Energy. There's been a great deal of concern in my riding over the Sudbury-to-Toronto-area transmission reinforcement corridor proposed by Ontario Hydro. This corridor passes through the riding of Muskoka-Georgian Bay. To allay some of these concerns, could you please inform me and my constituents if, in light of the recent deferrals of Hydro projects, this corridor is still going ahead on schedule. If so, what stage is this project at and what stages does this project have to go through before it is approved?

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Minister of Energy): I thank the member for the question. The member made reference in his question to the announcement last month by the Ontario Hydro board of the deferral of a number of capital projects. Part of that announcement was an announcement that Hydro had entered into discussions with Manitoba Hydro about also deferring the purchase of power from Manitoba by five years. If those negotiations are successful, it's my understanding that the north-south portion of the Toronto-to-Sudbury reinforcement project would be deferred by a similar five years, from 2002 to 2007, but it's contingent on the outcome of that negotiation. In any event, the environmental assessment studies on the corridor will proceed regardless of deferrals of the construction.

In response to the last part of the member's question, whatever route Hydro finally chooses as its preferred route will be subject to a full environmental assessment under the Environmental Assessment Act.

Mr Waters: I wish to thank the minister for his information. In supplementary, Ontario Hydro has had a number of information sessions, which my constituency staff have been attending, regarding the proposed hydro corridor in my riding. I also know that Ontario Hydro has even offered to meet with groups in my riding to discuss the corridor. My question to the minister is, how can concerned citizens or groups in my riding get more information or express their opinion over the hydro corridor now that this round of information sessions is over?

Hon Mr Charlton: Again, it's an important question that the member asks. I guess I should start out by emphasizing that first of all there isn't a corridor. A number of corridors are being explored. There are a number of options that Hydro is exploring in the process of internally trying to decide which is its preferred route from Sudbury to Toronto.

There will be another series of information sessions in the summer of 1993, similar to the first round of sessions that were held this summer. But people shouldn't necessarily wait for those information sessions. They can certainly be in touch with Hydro, both about making their views known to Hydro now and in terms of receiving more information about the alternative routes that are being considered. As I said in response to the first question, at the end of the day, whatever routes Hydro should choose as its preferred routes will be subject to a full environmental assessment. There's that hearing process that the member's constituents could also become involved in.

JOHN PIPER

Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): My question is to the Premier. Last week, in what I thought was the most inappropriate and cavalier response from your Attorney General, he, in attempting to justify the suppression of the Grandview report, suggested that the Leader of the Opposition was trying to achieve cheap headlines at the expense of a victim of Grandview. I find it incredibly ironic that, at the very same time, your most trusted communications adviser was out there trying to get cheap headlines at the expense of Judi Harris by smearing her.

I ask the Premier, in light of these events, what would he say to Judi Harris that could give her any confidence that his government will ensure that the people of this province will not be smeared, as has been the record by his government, and that they will understand that they will receive appropriate treatment from the Attorney General, the justice system and, most especially, the Premier's office?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): First of all, I think the action that we've taken and what has taken place is a clear indication of how I think anyone would feel -- certainly how I feel -- about what has taken place. I think the question of the conduct of the Grandview investigation is something the Attorney General has full carriage of. It's not something with which I could in any way, shape or form interfere, except to say that it is obviously an issue that has troubled a great many people in terms of the length, the scope and the breadth of the investigation and its effect on the many, many women involved. I can only say that I would hope and expect that every government official, everyone working on behalf of the government of Ontario would be treating everyone with respect and compassion, and where that is not the case, to respond very directly and very swiftly, which is exactly what we've done.

Mrs Caplan: The Premier must understand that it is his duty, the duty of his government and his Attorney General to see to the administration of justice in this province and to see that that administration is now thrown into disrepute and lack of confidence. I would say to the Premier of this province that members of the public must not fear that confidential information will be used against them if they disagree with or challenge the government. I would ask him to stand in his place today and admit that the actions of his office constitute an abuse of power and a gross abuse of the public trust.

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Hon Mr Rae: I think I've indicated as clearly as I can how I feel about what took place between Mr Piper and a journalist for the Toronto Sun newspaper. I think that it was quite inappropriate. I think, frankly, it showed a judgement which does not in any way correspond to the way I do things or the way I would approve of or the way which I've ever seen as appropriate.

I would say to the honourable member that the attempt to use information or to pass on information which was intended, I presume, to speak to the credibility of a person who has made certain allegations with respect to events at Grandview is something which I just find quite unacceptable. I've made that very, very clear, and I would say to the honourable members --

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Will the Premier conclude his response, please.

Hon Mr Rae: -- that this government has taken very clear action.

The member raises the question of the report, and I would say to the honourable member that she knows full well that the Attorney General has taken steps, the steps that he feels are necessary, on the advice of the OPP, with respect to the investigation, and that has been the sole motivating factor behind any decision taken by a member of this government. That's precisely the direction that he has taken and that anyone in our government would take.

The Speaker: New question by the leader of the third party.

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): My question is to the Premier. On November 20, 1990, the speech from the throne: "My government's first challenge is to earn the trust and respect of the people of Ontario. My government's integrity will be measured by the way this government is run and our relations with the people we serve. Our task is to guard against institutional arrogance and the abuse of power wherever they exist." These are your words in the speech from the throne, November 20, 1990. What say you today, Premier, to the people of Ontario?

Hon Mr Rae: I would say exactly the same thing. And I would say --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Rae: And I would say that where we have found that mistakes have been made and errors of judgement have taken place, we have taken steps and we have taken measures, as other governments have taken steps and taken measures, and that's precisely what we will continue to do.

The Speaker: The time for oral questions has expired. Motions? Petitions? The member for Northumberland.

Mrs Joan M. Fawcett (Northumberland): I move that leave be given to introduce a bill entitled An Act to revive Women in Crisis (Northumberland County), and that it now be read the first time.

The Speaker: Sorry, I thought you had a petition. We're in that section of business entitled Petitions. We'll save that for later. The member for Wilson Heights has a petition.

PETITIONS

EDUCATION FINANCING

Mr Monte Kwinter (Wilson Heights): I have a petition signed by 58 parents and ratepayers from St Antoine Daniel Catholic School. The petition states:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the British North America Act of 1867 recognizes the right of Catholic students to a Catholic education and, in keeping with this, the province of Ontario supports two educational systems from kindergarten to grade 12/OAC; and

"Whereas the Metropolitan Separate School Board educates more than 104,000 students across Metropolitan Toronto; and whereas these students represent 30% of the total number of students in this area, yet have access to just 20% of the total residential assessment and 9.5% of the pooled corporate assessment; and

"Whereas the Metropolitan Separate School Board is able to spend $1,678 less on each of its elementary school students and $2,502 less on each of its secondary school students than our public school counterparts,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to act now and restructure the way in which municipal and provincial tax dollars are apportioned, so that Ontario's two principal education systems are funded not only fully but with equity and equality."

PROPERTY ASSESSMENT

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): I have a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"Whereas the proposed imposition of market value assessment in Metropolitan Toronto will result in increased business bankruptcies and job losses and will undermine economic recovery in the region;

"Whereas it will cause a decline in commercial investment in Metro Toronto; and

"Whereas the proposed market value assessment plan is an unfair location tax,

"That the provincial government declare a moratorium on any proposed changes to the property tax assessment in Metropolitan Toronto until all alternatives to market value assessment have been studied and the results reported to the public."

I too have affixed my signature to this.

POLICE JOB ACTION

Mr Carman McClelland (Brampton North): I have a petition addressed to the Parliament of Ontario expressing, among other things, citizen support for police officers, specifically in Peel region, and indeed throughout the province of Ontario, and secondly, calling upon the government, particularly the Premier of the province, the Honourable Bob Rae, to meet with leadership from the police associations across the province and police officers to deal seriously with the concerns expressed by police officers. There are 113 signatories to this petition and I have attached my signature to it as well.

POLICE USE OF FIREARMS

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): I have a petition to the Parliament of Ontario:

"Whereas the proposed NDP use-of-force legislation requiring police officers to write a report whenever they should unholster their pistols in anticipation of a situation of danger poses a potentially serious threat to their safety and security;

"Whereas this proposed legislation also poses a grave threat to the safety and security of the citizens and their communities the police officers are sworn to serve and protect;

"Whereas the police officers themselves are not being consulted in a meaningful way by the Rae administration concerning this proposed legislation that so seriously affects their safety on the front line of service to the public; and

"Whereas we, in union with the spouses of Ontario police officers, support the health and safety concerns of members of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Association and other police officers across the province,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Parliament of Ontario as follows:

"That Premier Bob Rae undertake to invite immediately representatives of front-line police officers to a meeting to discuss their legitimate concerns without setting any preconditions for such a meeting, and

"That this NDP administration, which in the past made health and safety one of its primary concerns, determine to exhibit the same concern about the lives of the men and women who police our communities as it does about people who work in factories, offices and elsewhere."

I have also affixed my own signature to this petition.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr Paul Wessenger (Simcoe Centre): I have a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly.

"I, the undersigned, hereby register my opposition in the strongest of terms to Bill 38, which will eliminate Sunday from the definition of a legal holiday in the Retail Business Holidays Act.

"I believe in the need of keeping Sunday as a holiday for family time, quality of life and religious freedom. The elimination of such a day will be detrimental to the fabric of the society in Ontario and cause increased hardship on many families.

"The amendment included in Bill 38, dated June 3, 1992, to delete all Sundays except Easter (51 per year) from the definition of legal holiday and reclassify them as working days should be defeated."

STANDING ORDERS REFORM

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): This petition takes on particular importance in light of today's activities.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas Premier Rae of the province of Ontario has forced upon the Ontario Legislature a change in the rules governing the procedures to be followed in the House; and

"Whereas Premier Rae has removed from members of the opposition the ability to properly debate and discuss legislation and policy in the Legislature by limiting the time a member may speak to only 30 minutes; and

"Whereas Premier Rae, who once defended the democratic rights of the opposition and utilized the former rules to full advantage in his former capacity as leader of the official opposition, has now empowered his ministers to determine unilaterally the amount of time to be allocated to debate bills they initiate; and

"Whereas Premier Rae has reduced the number of days that the Legislative Assembly will be in session, thereby ensuring fewer question periods and less access for the news media to provincial cabinet ministers; and

"Whereas Premier Rae has diminished the role of the neutral, elected Speaker by removing from that person the power to determine the question of whether a debate has been sufficient on any matter before the House; and

"Whereas Premier Rae has concentrated power in the Office of the Premier and has severely diminished the role of elected members of the Legislative Assembly, who are accountable to the people who elect them,

"We, the undersigned, call upon Premier Rae to withdraw the rule changes imposed upon the Legislature by his majority government and restore the rules of procedure in effect previous to June 22, 1992."

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POLICE USE OF FIREARMS

Mr Jim Wilson (Simcoe West): I have a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas the proposed NDP use-of-force legislation requiring police officers to write a report whenever they should unholster their pistols in anticipation of a situation of danger poses a potentially serious threat to their safety and security;

"Whereas this proposed legislation also poses a grave threat to the safety and security of citizens and the communities the police officers are sworn to serve and protect;

"Whereas the police officers themselves are not being consulted in a meaningful way by the Rae administration concerning this proposed legislation that so seriously affects their safety on the front line of service to the public; and

"Whereas we, in union with the spouses of Ontario police officers, support the health and safety concerns of members of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Association and other police officers across the province,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Parliament of Ontario as follows:

"That Premier Bob Rae undertake to invite immediately representatives of front-line police officers to a meeting to discuss their legitimate concerns without setting any preconditions for such a meeting, and

"That this NDP administration, which in the past made health and safety one of its primary concerns, determine to exhibit the same concern about the lives of the men and women who police our communities as it does about people who work in factories, offices and elsewhere."

That's signed by several hundred good citizens of this province, and I too will fix my name to this petition.

GAMBLING

Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): I have a petition here signed by 40 residents of the city of Niagara Falls who belong to Main Street Baptist Church. They address this to the provincial Parliament of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, hereby register our opposition in the strongest of terms to the proposal to establish and license a permanent gambling enterprise in the Niagara Peninsula.

"We believe in the need of keeping this area as a place where family and holiday time will be enriched with quality of life. Such gaming establishments will be detrimental to the fabric of the society in Ontario and in the Niagara region in particular.

"We believe that licensed gambling will cause increased hardship on many families and will be an invitation for more criminal activities."

DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED

Mr Ron Eddy (Brant-Haldimand): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"We, the undersigned members of Canfield United Church, having been advised of the government's decision to discontinue grants to the Haldimand Association for the Developmentally Handicapped to assist in running the bakeshop at 9 Cayuga Street North, Cayuga, Ontario, would petition the government through the appropriate minister to reconsider this decision and continue support to this worthwhile endeavour in our community."

That is signed by 52 residents. I have affixed my signature.

PROPERTY ASSESSMENT

Mr Gary Carr (Oakville South): I have a petition signed by about 400 constituents from my riding that says:

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

"That the province of Ontario will reverse legislation which would allow the municipalities of Ontario to implement market value assessment as presently proposed due to the adverse effects this would have on the commercial base of Ontario, and that the province of Ontario instead recommend a more equitable system of reassessing properties which would encourage, not discourage, investment in the province of Ontario."

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Walkerville): I have a petition provided to me from Our Lady of the Rosary church parishioners, which states:

"I, the undersigned, hereby register my opposition to the terms of Bill 38, which will eliminate Sunday from the definition of legal holiday in the Retail Business Holiday Act. I believe in the need of keeping Sunday as a holiday for family time, quality of life and religious freedom. The elimination of such a day will be detrimental to the fabric of society in Ontario and cause increased hardship on many families."

PROPERTY ASSESSMENT

Ms Dianne Poole (Eglinton): I have a petition about market value assessment.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas Metro Toronto council has passed an ill-conceived plan to bring in market value assessment in spite of the solid opposition of the city of Toronto; and

"Whereas we believe market value as the basis for property tax assessment in a volatile market such as Metro Toronto is the wrong tax at the wrong time in the wrong place; and

"Whereas market value assessment bears no relation to the level of services provided by the municipality; and

"Whereas, if the province changes legislation to deny the city of Toronto the right to determine our own method of property tax reform, Toronto home owners, tenants and businesses will in future be left to the mercy of regional government; and

"Whereas Toronto businesses are already paying the highest property taxes in North America and our small businesses will be devastated by further increases; and

"Whereas the city of Toronto residents account for 29% of Metro's population but Toronto taxpayers foot 40% of Metro's bills,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario not to impose market value reassessment on the city of Toronto against the wishes of the people of Toronto and to allow each local municipality in Metro Toronto the autonomy to determine our own method of property tax reform in our own municipality."

I've signed this and thoroughly agree with it.

GAMBLING

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): I have a petition and it reads as follows:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the NDP government is considering legalizing casinos and video lottery terminals in the province of Ontario; and

"Whereas there is great public concern about the negative impact that will result from the abovementioned implementations,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That the government stop looking to casinos and video lottery terminals as a 'quick-fix' solution to its fiscal problems and concentrate instead on eliminating wasteful government spending."

I've affixed my signature as well.

DAY CARE

Mr Carman McClelland (Brampton North): I have a petition as follows:

"Whereas the Ministry of Community and Social Services has embarked upon a plan to introduce a system of universal day care in the province of Ontario at a significant cost to taxpayers; and

"Whereas this plan will take away parental choice, put 650 privately owned day care centres out of business and throw 6,500 employees out of work and do nothing to improve the quality, affordability or accessibility of day care,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to treat both non-profit and privately owned day care centres equally, to cease funding capital and startup costs of non-profit day care centres, and to use the funds rather to provide increased subsidies directly to those parents qualifying for assistance."

It's signed by 62 ratepayers from Brampton, and I have affixed my signature as well.

GAMBLING

Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas the NDP government is considering legalizing casinos and video lottery terminals in the province of Ontario; and

"Whereas there is great public concern about the negative impact that will result from the abovementioned implementations,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That the government stop looking to casinos and video lottery terminals as a 'quick-fix' solution to its fiscal problems and concentrate instead on eliminating wasteful government spending."

I have affixed my signature.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr Ron Eddy (Brant-Haldimand): A petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, hereby request you to vote against the passing of Bill 38. We believe that this bill defies God's laws, violates the principle of religious freedom, reduces the quality of life, removes all legal protection to workers regarding when they must work and will reduce rather than improve the prosperity of our province.

"The observance of Sunday as a non-working day was not invented by man but dates from God's creation and is an absolute necessity for the wellbeing of all people, both physically and spiritually.

"We beg you to defeat the passing of Bill 38"; signed by 15 residents, and I've affixed my signature.

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INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

WOMEN IN CRISIS (NORTHUMBERLAND COUNTY) ACT, 1992

On motion by Mrs Fawcett, the following bill was given first reading:

Bill Pr71, An Act to revive Women in Crisis (Northumberland County).

CITY OF LONDON ACT, 1992

On motion by Mrs Cunningham, the following bill was given first reading:

Bill Pr65, An Act respecting the City of London.

ONTARIO TRAINING AND ADJUSTMENT BOARD ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 SUR LE CONSEIL ONTARIEN DE FORMATION ET D'ADAPTATION DE LA MAIN-D'OEUVRE

On motion by Mr Allen, the following bill was given first reading:

Bill 96, An Act to establish the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board / Loi créant le Conseil ontarien de formation et d'adaptation de la main-d'oeuvre.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Do you have any comments?

Hon Richard Allen (Minister of Skills Development): Just to say that this bill establishes the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, otherwise known as OTAB, a crown agency which is to assume broad responsibility for the promotion, funding, coordination, design and provision of programs and services with respect to the labour force training and adjustment.

OPPOSITION DAY

SKILLS TRAINING

Mr Harris moved opposition day motion number 4:

Whereas 320,000 jobs have been lost in Ontario; and

Whereas there are 595,000 unemployed individuals in this province; and

Whereas over one million persons are dependent on welfare; and

Whereas the NDP's Jobs Ontario Training fund has proven to be nothing more than a public relations scam; and

Whereas the NDP government's flagship program for older workers, Transitions, is badly backlogged to the point where participants have to wait more than 34 weeks to have an application approved; and

Whereas the NDP government is incapable of managing change and has failed to prepare Ontario for job creation; and

Whereas our children need to have the skills necessary to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing workplace;

Therefore, this House calls upon the NDP government to immediately:

(a) review the job training initiatives that are outlined in the Progressive Conservative caucus's documents New Directions Vol I: A Blueprint for Economic Renewal and Vol II: A Blueprint for Learning in Ontario;

(b) redirect the resources that have been allocated to implementing its flawed Ontario Training and Adjustment Board to improving delivery of the Transitions program;

(c) repeal the Act to amend certain Acts concerning Collective Bargaining and Employment (Bill 40) as a means of attracting new job-creating investment to Ontario;

(d) tie social assistance payments more directly to job training.

Mrs Dianne Cunningham (London North): I'll be our first speaker and I believe we have three-party agreement to divide the time.

It is with some degree of concern that we have to place such a motion before the House on this opposition day, especially as we understand that there are so many unemployed in Ontario right now, that there are so many people waiting for training, that there are so many young people who don't know what direction our school system is moving in and that there are so many parents, teachers, employers and workers who really want to find a solution to the tremendous challenges facing us in Ontario.

I think that the key to this opposition day and the reason that we've presented it is to let everyone know that we in the Conservative Party are trying to present solutions to problems. The one way we have chosen, at least in the area I speak for our party on, is A Blueprint for Learning in Ontario, which was referred to by our leader in his opposition motion, New Directions volume 2. I think it's extremely important that all the citizens of Ontario have an opportunity, either via their school boards or via phoning our party, to take a look at this document and have input to the solutions we present.

I do know that without our education institutions and without the excellence in education that we've know in the past and without the support for the future, we will not be able to train our youth so that they can compete in today's global economy. At the same time school boards are extremely concerned about initiatives of this government that have not been agreed to by the teachers and the parents. In fact there has been no public consultation on issues such as destreaming.

The Minister of Education and this government claim that destreaming, which has become a household word and which means the removal of course labels such as "basic," "general" and "advanced" in September 1993 so that there will be just one level in a classroom, will enhance equity, lower dropout rates and remove barriers for students when there are school boards across this province that have learned that putting all children in one classroom without regard or support for their individual needs does just the opposite.

There are many models of basic, general and advanced programs in our school systems that have been particularly successful. That's not to say there isn't room for destreamed classrooms -- there is room -- but they do exist now, and I have to tell you that we've been told that the pilot projects that were implemented around destreaming have not been analysed.

School boards are most upset by this initiative on behalf of the government. The idea of it was first introduced in 1989, by of course the Liberal government. All of us in this House have been meeting with our school boards, teachers, principals, students and parents to discuss the direction that the ministry is moving in with respect to education in this province. We're hearing the same thing from everyone, that there has been a lack of consultation. Parents are just learning about this initiative now, because of local media, because of concerns of school boards, and are phoning our office to receive further information and register their complaints.

Unfortunately, we're not able to respond in a positive manner, because the minister has not been able to respond to our questions in this House. He stated that there will be a three-year phase-in period. As for the pace at which the full implementation takes place, he has stated that it's being left up to local school boards. He's also added that he will be sending out some clear explanations in this regard, but the school boards, to our best knowledge, have not yet received them.

We also know that teachers without experience -- and there are many who haven't had experience with destreamed classes -- must be trained and retrained so that they're fully equipped to deal with this experience. We know that this program is to be introduced in September 1993, and there have been, to our best knowledge, no new dollars to train or retrain teachers.

We also know that although there is some support for this initiative, as I explained earlier, there must also be smaller classes. We're not certain what the level of transfer payment will be this year.

We also know that core curriculum is not in place throughout our education system, and that's exactly what parents want to know, what their students will be learning year by year, grade by grade. All these questions remain unanswered. The ministry said that it was reviewing postponing streaming until grade 11, but it hasn't confirmed this yet. We know that there are many unanswered questions.

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The Ontario Public School Boards' Association stated that:

"The education of secondary level students in Ontario will be in chaos if the Ministry of Education proceeds with its plan to force schools to implement destreaming without providing the necessary resources to do so."

They continue to say:

"Public school boards cannot support mandatory destreaming of grade 9 by September 1993 unless we are assured that destreaming will enrich and not detract from the quality of education."

School boards, teachers and many parents do not support this initiative, and at a time when parents and employers are calling upon education to do more to equip students for the workforce and post-secondary education, destreaming could reduce the opportunities for students to specialize in their studies. Why then, we ask, would the government pursue this matter with a total lack of support?

With regard to curriculum form, which seems also to be an issue that teachers and parents and students are hearing about and are concerned about, we know that of particular concern is the lack of new curriculum material required for destreamed classrooms and those plans to retrain teachers.

We also know that we received two draft documents, which the ministry said are old copies and since have been revised. We'd love to see them.

We're absolutely disappointed to find out that there's no indication that the ministry will be establishing this grade-by-grade outcome so that parents know if their children have specifically mastered the skills required of them at the end of a specific grade.

With regard to transfer payments already mentioned, school boards are going to be waiting with some degree of concern with regard to the response from the ministry for the consistent transfer payments as promised on January 21, 1992, by the Treasurer.

By the way, they were historically low transfer payments. At no time before in this province have we ever looked at a 1% transfer payment to school boards, with promises for 2% in the upcoming year and 2% in the following year.

School boards, universities and community colleges recognize that these economically difficult times have made responsible financial decisions based on your government's announcement impossible. School boards and universities are now hearing they may not even receive the promised 2% transfer payments for 1993. If this is true, how in fact can they plan and organize and run their school systems, as they would hope, like a business, which is what the taxpayers are expecting?

We wonder how the province can be organized and managed in this regard with these changes at the last minute, but we do know that if this government is truly committed to improving the economic situation in this province, it will ensure that the transfer payment agencies receive their 2% increase for the next two years so that they can continue to educate our youth so that the young people can meet the challenges of tomorrow.

If the Treasurer does proceed with education cutbacks, then school boards will have no choice but to reduce school programs or increase local property taxes.

One of the great complaints of local municipal governments in the past, especially school boards, has been the thinking up of new programs here at Queen's Park, in the Mowat Block, with no resources to support them. I have to tell you that under Bill 88, which was tabled last week, all school boards must provide junior kindergarten by September 1994, whether they like it or not.

Local school boards are elected to represent parents and students and taxpayers, and I can hardly believe that some 19 school boards that do not offer junior kindergarten in these tough times are going to be required to do so by September 1994 in spite of a lack of space and in spite of a lack of dollars. It seems to me that we really truly have a government which promised to listen and which is not listening, in spite of its understanding of the great concerns.

As we talk about training, today the minister tabled a bill with regard to OTAB, the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, and I responded in a way today that wasn't as positive as I would have liked. That was because the whole process with regard to this Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, the community discussions, which I have a copy of here, were dealt with in a manner that didn't receive the confidence of the public.

Many people were given 5 or 10 minutes, and we knew today for sure that in fact the government didn't listen to the public. There was not one change in the makeup of the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, and in spite of the emphasis on the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, the public hearings just related to the local boards. I will tell you also, Mr Speaker, that the local training boards, which have done so much for Ontario and many of whom have evaluated training needs of communities, were totally ignored.

The concern of the education community that it was underrepresented on the board was not addressed. There was no change in that regard.

And there will be no role for the community industrial training committees that I spoke of before, resulting, I think, in the loss of existing local expertise.

It is my great hope these boards will advise us that all their members, who have produced and worked so hard with their local communities, will be appointed to the boards.

I'd also like to say at this time that the government has been most unsuccessful in its Jobs Ontario Training fund. Only 600 to 700 of some 10,000 people have been listened to or given any of the training they were promised; just 600 to 700 out of 10,000 promised places.

In the Transitions program, which is for older workers, there's a 34-week waiting list. Many of these people have to go on unemployment before they're eligible for any training.

We put this motion forward today because we wanted the government to know that we're extremely concerned with the lack of response on its behalf to the tremendous need for jobs and training in the province of Ontario. We hope they will look seriously not only at our Blueprint for Learning in Ontario, where we have put forward the concerns and suggestions on behalf of the public who spoke to us, in a very positive way, but that they will look at our recommendations for change, which we hope will be most helpful to them in their deliberations as they deal with responsibility, I hope, with the challenges in Ontario today.

Hon Richard Allen (Minister of Skills Development): It's my pleasure to stand and speak on this opposition motion, to be able to address some of the issues that pertain to training in Ontario and, in particular, initiatives being taken by this government.

Mr Speaker, perhaps you would advise me, since I haven't been advised -- I've been out of the House in a scrum -- as to how many minutes I have for the presentation.

Interjections.

Hon Mr Allen: Forty-five minutes? We're moving around. So it's not en bloc: We're not doing three blocs, we're doing a series of individual speakers.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): The time is divided equally, Minister.

Hon Mr Allen: I would just like to speak globally for a moment. Ontario and Canada are not exactly without a talented and skilled workforce. In fact, in world competitiveness reports, the measure was that we stood about fifth out of 27 countries that were being compared. That's not bad. But when you look at some breakdowns and you look at where the training is happening and whom the training is for, you realize there are a lot of major problems there in terms of the capacity of various parts of our workforce to access training.

That is partly because of the division of responsibilities that has grown up in this country between federal and provincial governments; the way in which past governments in this province have responded piecemeal to the training problems of their time; and the fact that there are further divisions in terms of municipal initiatives, in terms of a breakdown between community private trainers, schools, universities, colleges. There has been across the front a very divided set of training initiatives around the province that have been difficult to access.

If you look at the amount we devote per worker to training, you discover, for example, that in this province and country, we devote about half the amount to training for employed workers at this point in time that is provided in a country like the United States, which in turn is only half of what happens in France and less than what happens in Germany, Sweden, Japan and so on.

So notwithstanding the fact that the education system in general has provided a fairly decent level of skills in the province, in certain important respects we have some major deficits to make up. Most of all, in order to become a thoroughly competitive economy, with a workforce that is first-ranked in terms of training, we have some measure to go.

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That is why when this government first came to power and we looked at, for example, the amount of federal financial transfers for training that we received in this province, we discovered that notwithstanding the fact that we have 38% of the workforce in this province, we were only receiving 23% of the federal training transfers. That, to us, was not satisfactory.

So we went into a series of very hardheaded negotiations in which we finally concluded a new agreement with the federal government, which got us at least up to slightly over 30% and overall did much better than any other government across this country in terms of the total new dollars that were being accessed from the federal government. As a result of our negotiations, we got about 85% of the new dollars that were being allocated, and that massively boosted the amount of resources available to us.

At the same time, this province began allocating considerably larger amounts of money for training. In the first year of that agreement, we indicated that we were allocating $751 million, considerably in excess of the past for training initiatives, and this past year we have moved that up by 24%, so that we now allocate almost $1 billion, $930 million, for training initiatives in this province.

Those dollars, of course, are being used to fund quite a diverse range of training initiatives. I don't want to go into them all, but they include, for example, the whole administration and deployment of apprenticeship across the province of Ontario. But this government was not satisfied simply to accept the programs it inherited in the field of apprenticeship. Almost immediately, realizing we were going into a recession, realizing there was a major problem in terms of the retention of apprentices in a downturning economy, we became the only province in the country, and the only province ever, to introduce a laid-off apprenticeship program, which devoted $6 million to retaining apprentices in their training and in their workplaces in order to assure them of the capacity to further their apprenticeship even though the economy was on the way down.

We have since then allocated a further $13.7 million for the renewal and extension of apprenticeship. That will, of course, then lay the basis in apprenticeship for the new Ontario Training and Adjustment Board to take over the apprenticeship branch and its activities and move into still further reforms and developments to expand apprenticeship as a means of training in Ontario.

In the meantime, we had already expanded the dollars going into pre-employment, apprenticeship training. We had expanded dollars going into technologist upgrading, for example, so that people in technological programs work across the province could get access to specially arranged programs devised for them, for their upgrading, in sites across this province. Many of those programs, in fact, were offered free of charge to people who were seeking upgrading. All of that with the intention of making the economy much more productive through a better level of training for technologists and technicians across Ontario.

Of course, we are in somewhat of an emergency situation with regard to people who are out of work, with regard to people who are on social assistance rolls and with regard to people who are unemployed and have exhausted their unemployment benefits. The numbers are now becoming quite staggering.

This government therefore decided last spring that it was essential to launch an emergency program which would combine job creation and training. We at first went out there thinking that we would do the traditional kind of job creation program, which would be kind of a wage subsidy program. So many governments have done that: You provide a wage subsidy to an employer; he creates a job for, say, 20 weeks; the employee then is able to requalify for unemployment assistance and therefore becomes a charge on the federal government, off the backs of the provincial government. But then what does that do? It simply sets up a continual cycle in which nobody really makes any further headway.

When we went out there asking, "What kind of program should we put in place?" we got some very good advice from both labour and business. They said: "Don't do the old kind of job creation program. Don't do the wage subsidy program. Do something that gives people some add-on benefits, some value added out of this." So what we finally decided to do was to create a series of training credits, very generous training credits, up to $10,000 that an employer could access in order to put a new worker to work in his or her plant and provide them with training, but could access at least 50% of those dollars in order to provide the training for other workers who are in that workplace.

Of course, when it was announced at the end of April, it took some time to put in place a sophisticated set of brokerages all across Ontario. That was complete by August 17 and doors opened, but still, at that point in time, people were getting themselves set up, working out the bugs and getting used to the operation and were finally able to begin to receive employment options from employers and to begin to match people on social assistance with that program.

While we had that article by the Star which made it look as though we'd spent $1.1 billion and only created 600 jobs at the time, the sheer fact of the matter is that this program had only been up and running for just slightly over two months. What was happening out there was that we had at that point, when the article appeared, something like 3,200 jobs registered in the brokerages offices which we were busy filling. We'd already filled some 675 of them. Now, about a week and a half later, what have we got? We've got almost 4,500 jobs on register in those same offices, we've got almost 900 jobs filled, and we are getting job proposals, positions, being offered to our brokers across the province at the rate of 300 to 400 a week.

If that isn't a major and significant initiative and a remarkable development in terms of training in a very short space of time, and employment in a very short space of time, I don't know what is.

Of course, in that same period of time, the member for London North made some reference to the fact that there were so few graduates of the pre-employment programs. We created 1,100 places and we have put them all through their paces, and they have been graduating, these last few weeks, across the province. What has been happening for them? What has been happening for them is that in Ottawa, for example, there were 38 persons in this particular class. A few days after the class was completed and they had their graduation ceremonies, there are 34 of them who are now either at work or in further training.

[Laughter]

Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): That's a high percentage.

Hon Mr Allen: Exactly, a high percentage; more than 90%.

If you look at the group that just came through the pre-employment program at Mohawk College in Hamilton, there were 101. They just had their graduation ceremony. I was at it. The members who laughed perhaps might have been moved to tears to listen to some of the graduates of that program explain what they felt they had accomplished in the course of a summer, preparing them for the workplace. It is a moving experience, and I suggest that the member who chuckled about all this should go to one of those events and really get on the ground with respect to this program. Of those 101, three days after they were finished their program -- and I was at the graduation -- 50 of them were already at work and 30 of them were in active interview situations, with good prospects. The operators of the program at Mohawk, who have got great experience in this kind of thing, were expecting very high percentages of success in this program.

Just today, my colleague from Windsor has a report for me about what has been happening over at the St Clair meeting, for example, with regard to the brokerage at St Clair College. They have 218 positions on file, and they have so far, out of social assistance recipients, filled 83. That's remarkable. Those are people who are no longer on the social assistance rolls. Those are people who are working, finding fulfilment, being creative, contributing to the competitiveness of this economy, creating the renewal of Ontario's economic life.

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So there is no reason to think that in the first full year in the operation of the Jobs Ontario program we will not in fact achieve the kind of targets we have set for ourselves, which admittedly were ambitious. But the program is in that respect, for a full year's operation, on target.

Finally, let me just say that today, of course, I introduced the legislation to create the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board. This is a board which will do for this country what has been done in a few other countries in the past, by bringing together the various leadership partners from the labour market to direct and operate the training programs of a jurisdiction.

In some countries these have been rather long-standing institutions; in some others not so long. Germany has had this kind of structure for some time. Holland just recently went about trying to create this kind of structure. It took them 10 years to do what we're doing in the space of three or four. In Great Britain it took approximately the same length of time it's taking us.

There's nothing untoward at the moment about the progress we're making towards the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board. Employers who have never worked together across this province before as a group on the training agenda are now working together as a group on the training agenda. We have labour, which has never had a fully coordinated approach to the training agenda across this province, now working on that agenda. Francophones across this province who have never worked together on the training agenda now have training organizations in place to do something.

We have the educators and trainers. Never before in the history of this province have universities, colleges, schools, community trainers and private trainers sat down in one room and talked about the training agenda in Ontario -- never. Never have women's groups in this province sat down across the province and talked about the training agenda. Never have disabled persons; never have racial minorities.

I'm telling you, in the course of the last year and a half we have put all that in place and it is there as a fundamental reference base and social base for the whole training and adjustment board that will exist in this province in the future. What each of those groups will do, of course, will be to provide the ongoing advisory base and the ongoing nomination facility that will place people on the boards and advise them over the years to come.

I think we've done an immense amount. It doesn't look very visible yet to the broader public. OTAB is just coming on stream and it will be taking over major functions of the government that are now diverse, spread across diverse ministries, concentrating them, coordinating them, gaining new efficiencies. This isn't going to be a brand new big bureaucracy, because it's taking people already at work in most of these programs, taking them over in OTAB. It is going to get more efficiencies out of them by virtue of putting them together in a single institution and coordinating their activities.

This government is proud of what it is doing in the training agenda, proud of the constituencies it has put together to bring a new era of training to Ontario, creating a training culture and providing for the kind of competitive context in which business can function in this province and workers can work and gain the kind of objectives for their personal lives that, of course, have to reside and be based in their working lives and their capacity to earn money and to spend it. That, of course, is good news for all of us, and I look forward very much to the cooperation of everybody in the House, on both sides of this Legislature, as we go into creating a new training culture for this province and a new era of competitiveness in the Ontario economy.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Scarborough-Agincourt.

Mr Phillips: I'm pleased to join the debate on the motion. Before I get into the area I want to discuss, I'll just comment briefly on OTAB.

I would say to all members of the House that the most significant part of this is the establishment as a crown agency. The publicly elected people in this province will have virtually no say in this. The Premier often talked about moving training from a federal responsibility to a provincial responsibility. I'll just say to the members of the Legislature, it has skipped the province and is going to an independent crown corporation over which the government has virtually no control. I would ask all of us to take a very close look at that part.

But I wanted to talk a little bit about a part of the motion here that talks about the NDP government being "incapable of managing change." The government members may wonder why there is the real concern around the Piper issue. I will just say to the government members -- and I hope they recall when I first raised this issue -- that I saw this coming. It was inevitable that we would see something like this.

Where it started was when two very insignificant government documents came into the hands of the official opposition. One was a mere document called Questions and Answers. Do you remember that? It was about a year ago. In both those cases the government called in the Ontario Provincial Police. This was the start of my major concern about the trust of this government. Do you remember when they called in the OPP and went after the official opposition? This is very dangerous stuff.

When the state starts to order its police force to go into the opposition's offices and to interrogate the opposition, it's the start of something that is very dangerous. I wondered why some of the government members didn't raise it in caucus, didn't say to the Premier, "This doesn't sound right, the OPP going into the opposition's offices and investigating minor leaks."

Then, you may recall, Mr Speaker, that the Premier himself said in answer to my concerns in the Legislature, and they were major concerns about the abuse of the police: "There may be a legitimate question that should be referred to a parliamentary committee with respect to this kind of question. I have no objection to its being considered in that way."

Then, when we finally did get it to a committee, all the government members refused to appear, wouldn't come to that committee, wouldn't allow that committee to do any work. We were stonewalled in that.

But that's when I first had major concerns about the direction the government was taking in terms of its trust and its abuse of power. I was shocked that none of the members of the government back bench would have stood up and objected to that.

The second major concern was when the Premier's executive assistant sent a letter to the chairman of the OMB, the Ontario Municipal Board. As you know, that is what's called a quasi-judicial body. It's the body that is supposed to protect the citizens of this province from their governments and from abuse. It is supposed to be a body that is detached from government. But what happened? The Premier's executive assistant sent a letter to the chairman of the Ontario Municipal Board saying that this was a project that the government supported and wanted dealt with expeditiously.

You can't do that. The Premier can't do that. It's wrong, wrong, wrong, and every one of you knows that. Every one of the backbenchers on the government side has been told: "Don't write to the OMB. You can't do that." But what happened? The Premier himself wrote. Don't you begin to wonder about the trust that you can have in the Premier when he himself decides that he can write a letter directing the OMB to take action?

You may want to barrack and argue against it, but that is the second thing that raises concern by members in the opposition about the way this government views things. I must say I think I know why. I think the government, particularly the cabinet, somehow or other feels that the world is against it, that someone is out there trying to stop it from implementing its agenda, for whatever reason. They believe that to the bottom of their souls.

I'm sure at caucus you must have discussions of, "Gosh, it seems like all the establishment's against us." Where does that lead you? It leads you then, I'm afraid, to saying that the end, which is the NDP agenda, justifies the means. So we see the OPP being asked to come in and investigate leaks to the opposition --

The Deputy Speaker: I would remind you of the topic of the debate.

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Mr Phillips: The topic is very clear, and that is, is the government capable of managing change? I would say that the government is losing the trust of the people with actions like sending in the OPP, with actions like the Premier of the province writing to the OMB, with actions like saying that we will have a hearing to get at the heart of the matter with regard to the Holt affair at Ontario Hydro.

Do you remember that, Mr Speaker? The Minister of Energy said, "Everything will come out at the hearing when we have the legislative hearing on Mr Holt's severance." We get there, and there is a complete shutdown of anyone coming to that legislative committee.

The reason I raise this is, what is most important to the government? It is trust; it is people in this province having a sense of confidence in this government, feeling that they can at least trust it. The latest affair, the Piper affair, comes as no shock to us in opposition, because we could see it coming.

I would say that we have significant concerns about the government's ability to manage its finances, and from the day that the Rae budget came out, we have expressed concerns about how the numbers are reported. I'll repeat those concerns again today because it has to do with the government's ability to get the confidence of the people of Ontario to manage the financial affairs of this province.

We see, for example, that in its latest report, after six months, the government continues to say we are going to get $1.2 billion from the federal government in something that's called fiscal stabilization funds. There is not a hope that they will get more than a fraction of that, but it continues to be put in the budget as $1.2 billion worth of revenue this year. That is why people are beginning to get right at the heart of the matter of a government, and that's questioning its ability and its trustworthiness.

I'd also say, Mr Speaker, that in this budget you'll find something called "revenue from sales and rentals." Here's exactly what's going to happen there: There's going to be a paper transfer. It's like a flip. They are going to flip $400 million worth of government land over into the Ontario Land Corp, they're going to flip $400 million worth of government buildings over into that and they're going to sell $315 million worth of GO trains to some offshore investor and then lease them back. Those are the three things that will happen; there's no question of that. Flipping $400 million worth of land: All it is is a paper transfer. It will be flipped into the Ontario Land Corp, which is a crown corporation of the government. The $400 million worth of buildings will be flipped into the land corporation, which again is simply a government agency.

The last thing they did was to postpone $564 million worth of pension payments that were due this fiscal year to next fiscal year.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): At a price.

Mr Phillips: It's all smoke and mirrors. As my colleague from Etobicoke West said, "At a price," and it is at a price. The taxpayers are going to pay a penalty on that. We're going to pay extra interest charges of $3 million on that. It's just like throwing money away. Every time some group in our constituency says, "How come we are being held back on the services?" I'll say, "Because Bob Rae chose to spend $3 million in extra interest payments because he wanted to artificially show the wrong deficit number."

The reason I raise this is that at the heart of a government's ability to govern is the trust that people will have in it. I wanted to outline why we on this side of the House have serious concerns about how much we can trust Bob Rae and the government. We've been burned by him calling in the OPP, to the laughter of the opposition, on insignificant documents which came into our possession. The reason they were called in was merely to intimidate us and to intimidate the people who gave them to us.

We've seen a letter by the Premier of this province to the chairman of the Ontario Municipal Board instructing him to do his bidding. We've seen a variety of things that I don't think the Treasurer supports, that in my opinion are under direction from the Premier's office to report the finances in a way that we don't think accurately reflects them.

So I wanted to raise those matters to show the kind of climate that we in the opposition are operating under and the climate that I think this government is being judged with. With those remarks, I conclude and say that I am truly concerned about the way this government is choosing to deal with its power; I'm truly concerned with what can only be described as its gross abuse of its power.

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): I am delighted to lend my support to my party leader's resolution today on this opposition day motion about jobs and training for Ontario. As the Community and Social Services advocate and the seniors' advocate, the matters before us in the House today are of great concern to me.

I want to say at the outset that it's no surprise, now that we're living in a full-fledged welfare state, that we end up in the kind of situation that we're in. I'm reminded of immediately following the Second World War when England was in the process of rebuilding itself and there were various academics who applied their minds to what was helpful for postwar England. At that time Sir William Beveridge named the five giants that postwar Britain should set out to destroy, and they were want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness.

After 50 years, it's clear to those welfare states around the world that the most devastating of these to a society is idleness. That's what the economists are telling us, all the social scientists are telling us, the newspapers are telling us, but most important, that's what the public is telling us, the growing numbers of unemployed people in this province whose loss of dignity, whose loss of self-respect, whose loss of feeling of worth in their own family environment has gripped them as a result of a government that has its own existing labour policy -- to protect those with jobs -- but it has no policy in place, no economic strategy, to specifically deal with this issue of the growing numbers of unemployed, people who are resigned to social assistance, people who are quite frankly idle, frustrated and not contributing to our society at this most critical time in our society's history.

There are a lot of issues that I want to raise today, there are a lot of concerns, from one who has been watching our social assistance system. Constantly people are telling us, whether they're coming into the food banks in my riding of Burlington: "I want a job. I want any kind of work. I want a STEP to employment. I want to be doing something other than being here trying to just make ends meet."

So when our party says that social assistance should be tied more directly to training and employment opportunities, we have listened to the growing numbers of disenchanted young people who have finished with their education and find that there's no employment out there and are so disenchanted with the kinds of programs that are of limited access to them that they ask the basic question, "Why can't government organize social assistance so that it is tied to training and employment opportunities?"

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It's a very basic question, but I don't believe it's within the capacity of this government to be able to understand the fundamental point here, that training has to be tied as well to those people who are on social assistance.

In the short time that I have, I also wanted to make a reference to some of the contradictions of this government, such as its approach to the disabled community and their access to training dollars. We heard from this government all sorts of commitments at election time that it was going to help disabled individuals and yet this government has trimmed $5 million from sheltered workshops, which are training institutional environments for our disabled community.

The government said, "Oh, but by the way, we'll take $3 million out of that $5 million and put it into new training initiatives." Well, we're not seeing those new initiatives. What in fact we've been seeing is that the government is continuing to fund sheltered workshops and the training that's going on there at 100% taxpayer dollars, and going out and closing sheltered workshops out in the community. Do you know what the essential difference between those two workshops is, other than the fact that taxpayers subsidize sheltered workshops in the community at 80%, and 100% of the costs in an institution are borne by taxpayers? The difference is that Fred Upshaw and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union workers are in those institutions, and on that point, to save their jobs, they will support those sheltered workshop training environments for our disabled young adults in this province.

But it is an offence, it is a human offence, for this government to state on the one hand that in fact it supports the disabled community and their training needs when this offensive practice of protecting union jobs in institutions while destroying the opportunities for the training goes on with the disabled community in this province. It's more than a crisis; it is a scandal that deserves to be exposed, to show the contradiction in this government and the kind of low priority it puts on training the differently abled people in this province.

As I say, there are other issues such as the fact that women who are forced to flee abusive situations simply ask if they can have access to shelter and perhaps access to day care services for their children so that they can begin the process of rebuilding their lives and have access to training and therapy and to day care services. Nowhere has this government tied into its training regimen the special and unique needs of battered women in this province.

We heard this morning at our meeting with the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses that this is a very critical issue. As they said at the meeting, it's more profitable to stay on welfare -- and this is the message that we're getting from this government -- than it is to go out and seek employment when there are none of these additional services in place in order to recognize that this woman must begin to rebuild her life as a single parent.

I believe my time has nearly come to an end, but I wanted to mention one other issue. We talk about trying to assist the poor with training opportunities and assisting them to go look for jobs in this city of greater Toronto, and yet there have been proposals from Gerard Kennedy to assist with the access to a Metropass. The costs of transportation are so serious and so expensive that even if we could set up training regimens for these people, if we could tie work to social assistance, the fact is that we have a government without the political will to greater utilize our rapid-transit systems in greater Toronto to ensure that the poor have mobility in order to achieve training.

Yes, the government's guidelines are written in such a way that if you want to take your training in Ottawa, they'll put you up in a hotel and they'll pay your expenses, and we've seen some of the abuses of the supports to employment program in this regard. But those are for a finite, small group of very, very fortunate people who have access to that program in this province. What we're saying is that we have to radically rethink the way we provide training services so that the poor will also have access to the kinds of ancillary services that are so essential in order to ensure that they can maintain a training regimen that's tied to their social assistance.

I wish to commend my leader, Mr Harris, the member for Nipissing, for his commitment in this regard. I will be supporting this motion wholeheartedly.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Further debate?

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): It's my pleasure to stand here today to speak on this resolution. As I read it, I start to understand that what I was arguing in 1988 is now actually becoming a reality.

But before I get into that, I was very interested in listening to Mr Phillips's comments that he dealt with scandals. For five years the Liberals ignored the issues of training workers and getting workers back on, because they were in good economic times. Why bother training workers and developing a better apprenticeship training program in those workplaces when you can talk the rhetoric we just heard today instead of dealing with the specifics of workers?

When I look at the numbers that are indicated in this resolution, there are a number of things that I reflect on. When I see the 595,000 jobs lost, it reminds me of back in 1988 when we entering into the free trade argument. The numbers that the labour movement and the working people in the province of Ontario were using -- we were trying to identify a concern that the working people of Ontario had, especially in my riding which is heavily automotive and agricultural and we brought these numbers out. The Tory party of the federal government, with its economic policies, said, "No, no, we're going to have jobs, jobs, jobs."

The impact of what has happened today is because of the free trade agreement. In my own community especially, I see the impacts it's having, especially on the older workers. As I also read in the resolution, it talks about the delay in the older worker program, Transitions, being a 34-week backlog. That tells me something, that the plants that are closing were part of the foundation in small communities or in the community in itself, which has to relate back to the first item I talked about, which was about the impacts of the free trade agreement.

Then I look at the issue of training our younger people. I remember back in 1981, I happened to be one of those younger individuals who was in a workplace and went through the 1981-82 recession, and 1983. During that time frame as a young individual in that community I was fighting for retraining programs to help us bring our skills up. But the Tory government at that time provincially and the Liberal government at that time federally turned a blind eye to it because they'd seen the economic situation starting to turn, so why try to fix something? They said: "Well, good times are here. Why do we need to upgrade our skills?" Even their own statistics proved that our unskilled labour force was starting to move to a more skilled, added-value labour force. But they ignored those statistics and thought they could sit back, enjoy the free ride with good economic times and not worry about training our younger people to adapt into a high-tech field.

When I start looking at the issues about meeting the challenges, this government has met more of the challenges in two years than I know the Conservative government provincially and the Liberal government provincially have done in the 10 years before we even came in, because what we're faced with is a federal economic policy that's a dark cloud coming over Ontario that's hurting agricultural communities, especially when you deal with the ridings of Essex-Kent and Chatham-Kent, God's country of agriculture. We're feeling the impacts of what's happened around that.

In those two communities we also know the impact because most of the plants that were established in rural Ontario, and especially in the ridings of Essex-Kent and Chatham-Kent, were automotive parts sectors, and they were American-based corporations that were established in our communities. When we saw the free trade agreement coming in, we knew that those plants would be closed down. The only reason they were there was because of the Canadian content rule.

Now we're hearing the Tory party put forward a resolution by its fearless leader, talking about the impacts that supposedly the NDP government has had. It's their federal Tory policies that have caused these numbers to skyrocket.

But what we're trying to do through the initiatives like the Minister of Skills Development is doing around OTAB -- something they say is new is old. I remember the argument about OTAB being put forward in 1981 and I can testify -- my wife is probably watching this right now, because she put up with the headaches of me not being home, of making sure that I was fighting for retraining programs, for ones that were more centralized and more diverse, to help our communities establish those.

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When I started reading this resolution I found it kind of ironic because it talks about Jobs Ontario Training fund. An employer in my community -- 75 people have entered that program in Navistar. The only Canadian manufacturer of trucks in Canada and in Ontario is in my riding and it has hired 75 people under Jobs Ontario. It helps the bottom line out.

I have funeral directors calling me and they say, "Well, this is only for the big companies." I have funeral directors calling my office and talking to the brokerage about hiring people and training them. You know, it is a dead business and business is a little dead, but you're trying to use that to promote education.

You talk about our agricultural community. Our agricultural community is citing Jobs Ontario as being an initiative. The farmers in my community who have pork producing are asking, "Jobs Ontario can help me?" and they're making inquiries.

It's the first thing I've heard from a lot of American boards of directors of companies who are saying: "This NDP government is not all as bad as we're reading. They're putting programs out that are over a three-year initiative." Not only putting the money as a wage subsidy, but putting the money in so it can be totally utilized by the workforce to put skill-added value into our labour force, something that should have been done after the last recession when we identified that there was a surplus in our marketplace. The Liberals carried the free trade a bit and then the Tories took it over and made it an issue in 1988 for us.

It was very ironic that the bottom of the resolution talked about tying social assistance payments directly to job training. If I remember the comments, exactly what came out of that member's mouth in my riding, he talked about his job training program, about digging ditches, shovelling snow in the winter time.

That was the Tory training policy he was talking about because he made direct comments saying that people on social assistance were making $17.50 an hour. That created a lot of confusion in my community, when you have the leader of the Conservative Party coming and lambasting -- and then they talk about job training.

Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): They'll say anything for a vote.

Mr Hope: You're absolutely right, anything for a vote.

This resolution is probably one that's been written in the federal House under the free trade agreement that was put forward, because the job loss is the same job loss the labour movement was putting forward back in 1988 when the number of individuals from southwestern Ontario took to the Ambassador Bridge and said, "No, this is a bad deal for us." But did the federal government, which happened to be a Tory government, listen to the people? No.

When I look at the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, an initiative started back in early 1980s, now becoming a reality under an NDP government that took the Tories and the Liberals 10 years to establish and still didn't understand -- we listened to the rhetoric put forward by the Liberal member for Scarborough-Agincourt. He dealt with totally the opposite of what this issue and this resolution dealt with.

This government in two years has put more programs in place to help employers and employees. There are a number of jobs we still have to do. I'm not saying it ends now, but I know in my own community, when they talk about Bill 40 -- you know, we listen to the antics and when I take the (c) of this article which deals with repealing Bill 40 and the (d) which is talking about it, it sends an indication to me they must want us to work like they're working for the wages in the Maquiladoras area.

In the Maquiladoras area they're working for $2.15 an hour. This is what the Tories want us to do because they're talking about repealing collective rights of individuals in workplaces to make major gains. Then I heard the member for London North, I believe it is, talk about no representation of non-unionized workers on OTAB.

Let me tell you, for the five years I was president of my local union and the five years that I established under the presidency of the labour council, one thing I always did fight for is for the non-unionized workplace, to make sure we were fighting for their rights in legislation. We had a hard time convincing that government over there to move on initiatives that would help the non-unionized workers achieve collective goals, whether it be in training, whether it be in WCB or whether it be in health and safety.

So it's very ironic for me to listen to the member of the Tory party put forward a resolution of this nature and then to listen to the rhetoric coming forward from the Liberals. One thing I can say is that the NDP government in this province in two years has done more in the two years than the Tories and the Liberals have done in their 10. I will not be supporting this resolution because all it is is a piece of paper that's trying to buy votes somehow.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate on Mr Harris's motion?

Mr Monte Kwinter (Wilson Heights): I am pleased to join the debate and talk about a concern I have. The members of the Conservative Party have brought forward a resolution that deals with the issue of job training, which I think is worthwhile -- job training absolutely is a critical situation in Ontario -- but I think it's important that we take a brief look at the situation of job creation. There's not much sense in being trained for a job if there's no one there to offer you that job.

One of the problems that we have is the atmosphere in Ontario. If I could just briefly go through the history, during the 1985-90 era Ontario had the most vibrant economy in the industrialized world. That's not the most vibrant economy in Canada but the most vibrant economy in the industrialized world. Our unemployment rates in Toronto were hovering around the 3.5% mark, and if you know anything about unemployment rates, 4% is considered full employment. We at the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology had situations where one of the most trying, difficult situations for our industrial sector was the lack of trained people. As a result, various programs were put in place.

I read with some amusement when the present government released its industrial strategy and had the nerve, and I say the nerve, to say that this is the first government in history that has released such a strategy. To read the strategy is to laugh. All it really is is a Reader's Digest version of the Premier's Council report on competing in a global economy. There is nothing that is new in it. There is nothing that any industrialized nation does not espouse.

How can you be against training your people to make you competitive in a global economy? I think that's important, and I applaud and I support anything that will train our people, but there is not much sense training people for jobs that are not there. That gets to the basis of what is the climate and what is the environment for job creation.

Unfortunately, Ontario happens to be a jurisdiction where we have been dependent on branch plant economies. Many of our industries are offshoots, are divisions of countries from around the world. As the economic crunch tightens -- we've seen it and this isn't just Ontario, it's global; there is a recession that has been termed the most severe since the Great Depression of the 1930s -- every manufacturer, every businessman, every investor has got to re-evaluate where he is expending his diminishing resources.

They look at jurisdictions, they look at places where they can put that money, and if they feel that there's a hostile environment, if they feel that this is an area where they are not going to be able to work in comfort and know that there's a level playing field, they're going to go somewhere else. Capital has no home, it has no conscience, it has no country. It goes where it feels it has got the greatest reception and where it can get the greatest return on the investment that is utilized.

I want to go back to the first budget of this government. I remember when it was brought forward. The clarion call of the government was: "Deficits don't matter. We are not prepared to fight the recession on the backs of the people of Ontario. So let her rip, let the debt and the deficit climb, because according to John Maynard Keynes, when times get better we'll be able to pay down that deficit."

Let me tell you the ludicrousness of that particular proposition. Can you imagine any government that would have the ability to stand up when times finally get good -- and I expect that they will, as all cyclical recessions come to an end -- and say: "I'm sorry we cannot give you the moneys that you have been deprived of for the last three years because times are too good. Because times are too good, we can't afford to give you that money, because we have to pay down our debt." What is going to happen of course is that they're going to spend because politically they will not be able to withstand the pressure and they're going to find that this debt is going to continue to rise.

Why is that significant? It's significant because somewhere along the line, that debt, the interest on it, has to be paid.

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I remember the member for Hamilton Centre, the then parliamentary assistant to the Treasurer, passionately defending the government's position as to why it should let these deficits run. He gave it with such passion that it wasn't a question of opinion, it was holy writ: "That is what has to happen and anybody who knows anything about economics would endorse it."

Now of course we have a government that's done a total reversal and is now saying, "We have to cut back; we have to make sure that the deficit doesn't exceed $10 billion," when in fact the deficit is already up to somewhere around $12 billion or $13 billion. They are now saying: "We're going to be cutting back. We're going to be cutting back on our transfer agencies. We're going to be cutting back on what we do so that we can keep that deficit under control." They had no such concern when they started this particular ride up the slippery slope of huge deficits.

What happens is that we have a problem, because the government is dealing with the optics of looking as if it's doing something, so it makes great store of the fact that it's got training going on. But I say to you, the question is, whom are you training, why are you training and where are the jobs? There is not much sense in teaching someone to be a candlemaker when the day he graduates somebody invents the electric lightbulb, because you suddenly find that that person is no longer trained for a job that is available.

We have a situation right now where the unemployment rate is at about 11.3%. There is no shortage of people with great skills who are unemployed. There are lots of them, and all you have to do is look at any one of our communities and you will see people who have spent 20 or 30 years in highly skilled jobs who are no longer working. You're talking about having bragging rights so that one unemployed person who says, "I'm unemployed, and I used to be in this particular category," can now say, "I'm unemployed, but I'm in a higher category because I've been trained."

What you've got to do is get to the point where you attract new investment to create new jobs, and that is where this government has fallen down. This government has fallen down because it has brought forward legislation that makes it very, very difficult to attract the kind of investment that will create the kinds of jobs that will give those people the jobs they require.

At one time, 150,000 people a year used to migrate to Ontario; I'm talking about in the early 1980s. As many people came into Ontario from within Canada as came into Ontario from outside of Canada. The reason for that was that Ontario was the centre of the industrial heartland of Canada, and if someone wanted a job, he felt his best opportunity was in Ontario.

That has been reversed. We now have a situation where Ontario has got the slowest growth, it's got the highest unemployment rates. If you saw an article in the paper yesterday, the government of Alberta is saying it has a problem now because of the huge influx of workers from Ontario going to Alberta because they think the job opportunities are greater.

The reason is that the investment is not coming here. The Premier has a misguided idea of what he should be doing. He should have been in Detroit where there is a very critical decision taking place as to what investment General Motors is going to keep in this province. The governors of all of the states that are being impacted are there banging on the doors to make sure that the executives of General Motors know of their concern. Our Premier was off in the Far East.

Now, I have no quarrel with going to the Far East and drumming up business, but you've got to get your priorities straight. I am looking forward to talking to the Premier to find out if he got any commitment for Toyota to expand its facility here in Ontario. They've already announced that they're going to expand their facility either in Mexico, in Kentucky, or maybe in Canada. It will be interesting to see what the result of that deliberation is. I can say to you that the prospects do not appear to be very rosy.

Mr Hope: Why is that?

Mr Kwinter: Why is that? All you have to do is take a look at your legislation, take a look at your record.

One of the things about a government is that if you have a difference of policy, that's one thing, but when you are held up to ridicule, that's something else. When you take a look at outsiders' perception of what is going on in this government, when they read about the peccadilloes of the Minister of Tourism and Recreation, when they read about what is happening with the Premier's chief policy adviser, when they read about some of the other things, they start to laugh, because it's one thing to deal with a government you don't agree with; it's another thing to deal with a government you have no confidence in, and that is one of the problems.

I would suggest to you that if we're going to do anything about the employment opportunities in this province, we're going to have to make sure that we establish a climate where investment will come, where jobs will be created, where people will feel there is a future and a government that is going to help them prosper, get a return for their investments, create jobs and be profitable.

The Acting Chair: Thank you. Further debate under time-sharing.

Mr Mike Farnan (Cambridge): I'm happy to speak today on the motion from the leader of the third party, and I'm proud to argue against his motion based on the record of this government.

It was with great interest that I read his Blueprint for Learning in Ontario, a document he claims will solve all of Ontario's educational problems. Unfortunately, I came to a different conclusion. I saw it as more a list of philosophical wishes rather than a blueprint for action, as its title would indicate.

This government is proud of the progress we have made in education. We are making schools more efficient by constructing multi-use buildings the entire community can use, buildings that will be a social asset. We are looking to make schools equitable and accessible to all students. This government is putting forward solutions that will address the problems, not just the symptoms of those problems.

For example, the high school dropout rate is unacceptable for Ontario. We are addressing this by destreaming grade 9 to give students an easier transition into high school. Schools that have participated in the pilot projects have been very encouraged by the results. We plan on introducing a curriculum designed to teach students the skills necessary for further education, work and life skills.

This government has been the leader in Canada in fighting this recession. Our federal government has failed to take a leadership role in renewing the economy and has forced the provinces to stand alone. This government developed innovative techniques to ensure that the victims of this recession were not its scapegoats.

Our Jobs Ontario plan, despite what the opposition is saying, is indeed working. As I told the House last week, my riding of Cambridge has benefited significantly as a result of this program. Everyone involved, the Waterloo region, unemployed people, large employers and small businesses, are working together to make this project a success in Cambridge. Similar positive responses to the program are emerging throughout the province.

The federal government, on the other hand, chose to slash transfer payments to the provinces, with this province taking the brunt of the cuts; yet last week, it announced its budget predictions were $3.4 billion off.

I have to admit, we have battled with our own deficit problems as a government, but we did not abandon the people while fighting it. Instead, we put the people of Ontario first, and we have managed to make some sensible cuts in the process, while providing support for those who need it most.

Remember, it was the Ontario government that initiated a $700-million job creating program and invited the federal government to participate in expanding job creation by shared funding of additional programs. We'll also recall that the federal government failed to respond to this challenge. The federal government has decided to follow Ontario's lead by investing in the country's infrastructure, but in the process it has attempted to undermine Ontario. I repeat: The federal government is attempting to undermine Ontario. Ontario represents 35% of Canada's population, yet we are included in only 15% of the federal government's road improvement plan. This is hardly fair, considering that Ontario was the province hardest hit by the recession.

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So this government has learned not to rely on the federal government. Instead, we have developed our own plan, a plan for people, a plan that will take us though this recession to position us favourably to take advantage of upturn in our economy, a plan that brings expenditures under control, a plan to make Ontario an equitable place to live, work and attend school.

Through our new Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, our workforce will be better positioned to compete internationally. The local training needs will be met because the decision will be in the hands of those who know best what those needs are.

This motion presented by the leader of the third party is not based on facts. This government is governing in the worst economic times since the 1930s, and yet we have made improvements for our people that will long be remembered. The leader of the third party is looking for overnight solutions to problems that have been building for years and years and years. There are no quick-fix solutions. However, I am confident that this government is leading this province in the right direction. This government can and should be proud of the work we have done in making Ontario a better place to live.

Mr Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity of addressing this motion.

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): I too am pleased to rise today in the House and speak to this motion. As a matter of fact, I see it as a wonderful opportunity to share with my colleagues and the folks out there some thoughts I have in front of such a criticism of the government of which I am a part. I find the criticism to be somewhat unfair, given the difficult time that all of us are experiencing in the province at this moment.

Interjection: In the world.

Mr Martin: In the world, yes. Actually, there are a couple of things that I would like to address in the few minutes that I have with you today on this motion. We came to power at a very difficult time in our history, not only because we were in the middle of a recession that's worldwide in nature but also at a time when in fact the way we do business, the way our economy is organized, is undergoing a fundamental shift and change. As a matter of fact, for me, what we're experiencing at this time in our history is akin to the Industrial Revolution. That, in my mind, is going to take a little longer than six months or a year or two years to get a grip on and to begin in fact to develop a blueprint to respond to so that the people of Ontario and the people of all the communities that we represent might be able to participate more fully in the economy that will emerge.

We, as a government, actually have been involved in a process that is twofold, one obviously responding to some of the crises that we face from one day to the next. In my own community, shortly after I got elected, there was the possibility that we would lose our major company, Algoma Steel. There was a great hue and cry when the parent of that company came out with a plan that spoke to a significant cut in jobs and a significant cut in opportunity for us in the north to actually add value to the resource that we extract so well from our surroundings.

This government, in partnership with the United Steelworkers of America, in partnership with the owners at that time and the management of the day, in partnership with the financial institutions that had a vested interest, spent hours and days and weeks struggling with this question and ultimately came up with a plan that not only responds to the present crises but sets us on a path and speaks very coherently to the kinds of things that we need to do as a province and that we as a government are committed to doing which will carry us through the next short number of years and indeed into the next millennium.

In this instance, we brought people together in a way that they were never brought together before, we created partnerships that a lot of people thought were impossible and we created a climate in that community which encouraged other things to happen as a result of that initiative, which, as I've said, was most clearly and definitely led by our government.

The other thing we're doing at this difficult time in our history, besides dealing with the everyday crises that all of us in our ridings confront, is that we're in fact trying to put a blueprint together which brings ministries together, which brings different sectors of our communities together in a way that is organized, coordinated and forward looking.

I don't think there's a ministry in our government that isn't at this point in time -- both because of the very difficult fiscal reality that we face and in fact as a commitment to some of the promises that we made before we were government, when we became government and that we continue to make as we struggle with the challenge of being government each day -- trying to make best use of the limited resources that we have so that the people of this province are served in a way that provides them and their children and their children's children with a future that is hopeful and exciting.

In my own community, again, some of the ways that we, in partnership with this government, are coming to terms with some of the challenges that face us are, for example, what we call a round table initiative, where we have pulled together all of the leading politicians in the community around the development of a strategic plan. We developed that strategic plan over a period of a year, and then we shared that plan with the senior levels of government.

I have to say that I stand here proudly today to say that our government has responded in every instance that it was invited to in several different ways. We responded, very obviously, by giving of our resources. There's been probably anywhere from $25 million to $35 million spent in Sault Ste Marie in significant ways above and beyond the ordinary or regular flow of health and social services and education money that goes into every community in this province.

The development of a community information and career centre, which wasn't there before this government came to power, is another significant initiative for my community. It pulls together all of the information so that people who have been laid off or who find themselves needing a change in direction re their career or their job track can go and get some help, sit down and talk with some people, explore some possibilities, put together a résumé and move on with their lives. This government, recognizing the good work that this particular organization was doing, decided that it would become the broker for the Jobs Ontario Training program.

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Since its inception a short couple of months ago -- I remember the day I went there and announced that they would be the broker -- they have begun to develop partnerships with the private sector in a way that now sees our having placed 20 people in some very exciting job opportunities for these folks who were previously on some form of social assistance, with a training component which will allow them not only to work in this job in a creative, productive, self-fulfilling way, but to imagine perhaps some further opportunities for them as they take advantage of a lot of the opportunities that we will bring forward in the next two to three years and then some, as we bring to fruition the blueprint that we in this government are working on so hard together to try and make a reality.

As I said when I first started, I am thankful for the opportunity to have been able to share a few thoughts today with my colleagues and with those folks out there who might be listening and to say that I definitely will not be supporting this motion, because it does not reflect my feeling, my sense of what's going on and in fact is a sorry example, I think, of the kind of negative idea, discussion, suggestion that continually comes from the other side of this House.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Dennis Drainville): Further debate?

Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): In joining this debate I would like to talk about some of the facts that are confronting Ontarians today. I just want to speak of three which affect not only myself in my riding of Mississauga North but indeed all members. Fact number 1 is that 320,000 jobs have been lost in Ontario, fact number 2 is that there are 595,000 unemployed individuals in this province and fact number 3 is that over one million people today are dependent on welfare.

The NDP government, when confronted with these facts, always has the same answer, and that is that it is the federal government's fault; it is someone else's fault. It is not their fault; it is someone else's. Well, to those 320,000 people who have lost jobs in Ontario, to those 595,000 unemployed individuals in this province and to the over one million people in this province who are now dependent on welfare, that is not good enough.

One aspect of this matter brought forward today is that the government is incapable of managing change. There is absolutely no question that this happens to be the case. Time in and time out we see where this government, when confronted with facts and issues of the day, seeks either to blame someone else or to polarize interests. If you are not with them, if you do not support them, then you must be against them.

The people of Ontario do not want to be put in one camp or another. They do not want to be part of the polarization efforts that this government uses day in and day out. They do not want to be part of this government's incapacity to manage change. The people in this province do want to be part of solutions, to be part of job creation, to be part of a positive message for investment in this province, with new jobs and businesses and where existing businesses can be expanded.

The government does not wish to embark in that area. They do wish to continue this process of polarization, of pitting one against the other, of continuing to say, "If you are not with us, then you must be against us." That is just not good enough for the people of this province. The people of this province demand, let alone expect, better government. They do not expect a government that will, whatever the challenge of the day happens to be, point to the federal government or point to some employment rate in Mexico, or point to what is happening in Europe. They expect and demand a government to deal with the issues at hand and to stop this polarization of interests.

We have examples day in and day out as to how this government is seeking to polarize and in fact erode the confidence of people in this province. I don't have to look far. We just finished a question period today about the Piper affair, and what is that? That is an individual in the Premier's office -- the highest, closest confidant of the Premier -- using information to smear a resident of this province. That is something which sends out a message of polarization, of dissension, of erosion in this province. It does not stand as an example of a province that can meet the challenges of today and tomorrow, but it is an example of a government which is seeking to divide, which is seeking to polarize, which is seeking to run roughshod over the rights of individuals in this province.

It sends out a message not just to the people within this province but to many outside this province: to those who listen to what goes on here, to those who may have some dollars to invest. There's a great competition for investment dollars in this world. That government which sends out a message of positive climate, of working with people, will get those investment dollars. It is no mystery that this government is lagging far behind and continues to fall far behind. It continues to fall far behind because we have examples of the Piper affair; we have examples of the individual's interests being run roughshod over, where we have a government which, notwithstanding the issues -- the 500,000-odd people who have lost jobs, the over one million people who are on welfare, who need help, need assistance, need cooperation, do not get that from this government.

We just last year, almost to the day, had the incident of the Minister of Northern Development. There was an individual in this province -- my goodness, there was a doctor in this province -- who did not agree with the actions of the government. We had an example of a minister of the crown taking that doctor to task and slandering that doctor. We had an example where the minister took a lie detector test to prove she was not telling the truth. That, to me, sends out a message as to how this government deals with and manages the issues of the day. Do they do it in a cooperative, consultative manner or do they do this in a way which divides, which erodes, which tears people apart, which rips apart a team working together?

It is clear that this government is intent on polarizing interests. Again, that speaks to whether this government is capable of managing change, whether this government is capable of putting some of those 320,000 jobs that have been lost in a replacement position. Can they replace those jobs? Can they put some of those almost 600,000 unemployed people back to work? Can they take some of those over one million people on welfare off of welfare, and can they do it in a way, in a spirit, in a manner which is not divisive, not polarizing? But no, we have the Piper affair. No, we have the Minister of Northern Development's affair of just a year ago.

And it is not just that. We have the Bill 40 matter. Let's not forget that the first cabinet document that was leaked out spoke of how this government was intent on neutralizing the opposition, how this government was intent on running a public relations campaign which was devised to neutralize those who had the audacity to speak against Bill 40, the changes to the Labour Relations Act.

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It is those examples which we see on this side of the House day in and day out which clearly indicate, at a time when it is absolutely necessary, that this government, under the leadership of the Premier, is incapable of meeting the issues of the day and is incapable of replacing some of those 320,000 jobs that have been lost. I speak from my vantage as the member for Mississauga North, and I have before me from the office of the labour adjustment of the Ministry of Labour validation that many of those jobs have been lost in the Mississauga area.

The Mississauga area, the region of Peel and areas throughout this province demand a government that looks to work together with people. It does not want a government that is divisive, that polarizes and that runs roughshod over the rights of individuals. It does not want a government that could mastermind the Piper affair. It does not want a government which does not see anything wrong with the actions of the Minister of Northern Development in smearing a doctor in good standing in this province. It does not want a government which, day in and day out, tries to sweep under the rug the goings-on at Ontario Hydro and the firing of Mr Holt. It does not want a government that walks away from those issues. It does not want a government which, no matter what the problem is, seeks to blame someone else. It wants a government which can work and respect the rights of individuals in this province.

This government, with the examples we see, is totally incapable of doing that. It is the result of its inaction, its incapability of working with people, its penchant for running over the rights of individuals that drives businesses out of this province, that drives investment to other jurisdictions, that causes job loss and that puts people on welfare. It is because of the actions of this government that those people suffer.

In that respect, I speak in favour of this motion, I speak in favour of the matter brought forward and I speak in favour of the many people in this province who find great fault with the actions of this government in dealing with the individuals in this province.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Noble Villeneuve (S-D-G & East Grenville): I too want to take a few minutes to participate in this debate. Firstly, I will tell you I will be supporting this motion, I guess to no one's great surprise. However, I want to try to provide some solutions for the government and I think that's important, because it's pretty easy to be negative.

I come from a part of the province, the far southeastern section, that's been tremendously hard hit by the economic downturn in this province. I'll start with a cheesemaker, St Albert, Ontario, well known for its cheese curd.

Would you believe that the Ministry of Health is now trying to tell these people -- and they have charged them; not just trying to tell them. They have charged them because they do not refrigerate these cheese curds immediately after manufacturing them, which would actually destroy the market, because cheese curds were made to be eaten without refrigeration and fresh. Squeakiness is there, and that's what brings people to purchase these cheese curds.

St Albert, a farmer-owned co-op, employs 55 people. Along with other cheesemakers throughout Ontario -- Ault Foods, for example, does sell fresh cheese curd at its Cheese House on Highway 31 south of Winchester -- it's bringing people from the United States and from other provinces.

What will happen if indeed the Ministry of Health forces St Albert and other cheesemakers similar to this, when selling fresh cheese curd, to refrigerate? They will simply lose that market and it will go across the river to the province of Quebec. Quebec knows how to produce cheese and how to make it and it does not have this kind of law forcing against what the consumer wants.

You may know, Mr Speaker, that our dairy farmers' manufacturing milk quotas are being reduced 3%, 4%, 5% and 6% a year. This is a niche market. This is a specialty product and it is selling, but the government wants to interfere and wants to prevent this from occurring. So I will be sending the Minister of Health these cheese curds, if I can get a page, to seat number 8, and I guarantee the good minister will not get sick.

Secondly, in regard to the city of Cornwall and surrounding area, I proudly represent the surrounding area to the city of Cornwall. We've had a loss in the last three years of 2,600 jobs, a net loss of 2,600 jobs. One of the most recent ones was Cordel, which closed down officially the day after Bill 40 received third reading and royal assent.

The government was cheering and rejoicing tremendously with the royal assent to Bill 40. I'll tell you, the employees at Cordel and Cordel itself announced its closure of 360 jobs the very next day. So quite obviously we need to look --

Mr Gary Wilson (Kingston and The Islands): Why was that, Noble?

Mr Villeneuve: Simply because there were many capital renovations to be made and they did not see an economic climate conducive to continuing. This was a company that was there for 68 years. You may have all sorts of excuses why they closed, but I'll tell you, we must remain competitive and this was a company that was there for 68 years.

Mr Hope: One is called federal economic policies.

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): What are you going to do about it?

Mr Hope: You never did anything about it.

Mr Mahoney: You're the government. What are you going to do about it?

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr Villeneuve: So 2,600 net lost jobs in eastern Ontario, the area I represent, and the city of Cornwall. The minister, Mr Philip, was there about 10 days ago and the city of Cornwall made a very good presentation. Cornwall cannot begin to heal its economic wounds and restore economic prosperity until senior levels of government enact immediate and effective policies to encourage new business growth. There's a clear message there. This comes from the city of Cornwall, and I could go on and on.

The city of Cornwall and the surrounding area that I represent is in desperate need of assistance: 37% of the families are on some sort of social assistance program. The unemployment rate is in excess of 20% and yet we have the government interfering, the Ministry of Health trying to possibly close down or hamper the operation of successful businesses. It's absolutely terrible.

The situation is deplorable and it's catastrophic. Ontario must be willing to compete internationally for new investment and development projects. I do not believe that Bill 40 is conducive to that. So remember, the city of Cornwall and surrounding area: 2,600 lost jobs.

I had a meeting with Kraft General Foods on Friday, with the municipality of Osnabruck. This is one that's most interesting because in this one the Ministry of the Environment is both the angel and the devil. As an angel, they have told Kraft Foods that it cannot continue the emissions past 1994. Kraft Foods has gone to its head office in Chicago and obtained the $5 million plus to do its share of cleaning up the problem that it has been charged with by the Ministry of the Environment. What we have now is the Ministry of the Environment saying, "We don't have any funding." What will occur here is Kraft General Foods coming in with about $5 million to enhance this project.

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I was at the very first meeting, where the Ministry of the Environment encouraged the municipality to go jointly with Kraft General Foods to provide a solution to the effluent problem. Everything went on well until Kraft Foods is now ready to meet the demand by the Ministry of the Environment that it clean up its emissions by 1994. But the Ministry of the Environment says, "Oh, well, you have to meet it by 1994, but we can't give you any sort of promise that we will meet our commitment." The Ministry of the Environment is forcing this on Kraft Foods; Kraft Foods has got the money and it's spent a lot of money in the last few years to meet the requirements of the Ministry of the Environment.

If this government is willing to work with private corporations, this is a prime example, an example the likes of which you won't find anywhere else. Indeed, the total cost will be somewhere in the area of $5 million to the Ministry of the Environment, Kraft General Foods will be putting in $4.2 million and the municipality will be putting in $1.3 million, for a total cost of $10.8 million. A perfect example, but the government is now backing off on its promise.

I was there initially, and the promise was made and renewed on a number of occasions. All we need is assurance that the government will indeed meet its commitment to provide its share of the financing. The ripple effect will be a cogeneration plant providing electricity and, hopefully, an ethanol production plant. Heaven knows, if we had ethanol production in this year, where 50% of our crop is very poor-quality corn which could be transformed into ethanol, we would have a solution to the half of the corn crop in Ontario that has no home and no viable market right now.

In conclusion, I am attempting to provide this government with some solutions to creating employment in the area of Ontario that I know is the most seriously hit by the economic downturn.

There is another project, Minister of the Environment, in my own municipality, where we have a developer ready to come in with 125 new homes. The Ministry of the Environment is saying, "We can't promise you any funding for this year or next year or whenever." It's an amazing situation. The Ministry of the Environment has agreed and provided funding to a point; then you get to where the real action occurs and it backs off.

Eastern Ontario needs this kind of development, eastern Ontario needs help. These kinds of developments will create a ripple effect throughout the entire community and they will create jobs. The economy is suffering terribly in eastern Ontario and probably, if the truth were known, it's the most seriously depressed area of anywhere in this province.

I rest my case. I have provided some solutions, and if the government wants to speak to me about further describing or assisting them, I'm ready, willing and able.

Ms Christel Haeck (St Catharines-Brock): I too would like to start off my comments today by saying that I cannot support this motion, because I know this government has spent the last two years trying to solve the jobs issue, something our federal government still has not come to grips with. As someone who has worked as a labour activist, I am aware of the cutbacks to the unemployment insurance plan and the massive deficiencies of the training options which were supposed to be there.

The federal government has not delivered, absolutely not delivered. It has left laid-off workers across Canada wondering what they are going to do once their UI ran out. Workers do not want to go on welfare, but that is the only option the federal government has given thousands of laid-off workers.

This government has taken a different tack. It has created a range of programs that are interlinked to ensure that Ontario's economy is well positioned for the recovery. OTAB, or the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, is a comprehensive planning tool to look at what this province needs to respond to training and adjustment concerns. Many understand what training means, but may not realize that adjustment means responding to the needs of workers who have been displaced by the downturn in the economy, workers who have been at a particular job for 25 years and then find themselves laid off. They too need retraining for real jobs, the jobs for the immediate and the far future. Those adjustment programs that already exist have had phenomenal success, seeing workers who have participated in the program placed in jobs, no matter what their age.

Bill 40 has come under the scrutiny of the opposition. Let me say that the amendments to the Ontario Labour Relations Act are part and parcel of the retraining agenda for this province.

I was born in Europe of parents who both have journeyman papers. Let me just repeat that. Both my parents, my father and my mother, went through apprenticeships. The relationship between the workforce and management in most European countries is such that the planning for training of apprentices can take place. This has not been the case in Ontario. Very few companies truly train apprentices, but OTAB and a more cooperative labour relations climate will allow the province to do what Europe has done for a very long time.

I am very much in support of the Jobs Ontario Training fund because it is employer-driven; it sets out to meet the training needs of that specific employer. This isn't a make-work project that will not provide any skills or long-term employment to that worker.

In a recent conversation with Bea Clark, the director of the Jobs Ontario Training fund in Niagara, I was made aware once again of how supportive this program is to people who have not been in the workforce for some time. Remedial training is being provided to those people in the program who need help with basic reading and numeracy skills. This program is sensitive to the needs of workers and to the needs of employers.

I have heard a lot of the opposition rhetoric here this afternoon. What are they saying, that this government is not doing enough? No one on this side of the House would say that we would not like to do more. The truth of the matter is that the Liberal government did not put in place any actions or programs to head off the recession. Their staff told them about it.

During the summer of 1990, the official opposition knew it had to do something about the downturn in the economy. Many of us remember the comments about the balanced budget. We all know that an election call is no solution to the recession and job loss.

This government is meeting the challenge and has set the agenda for the federal government by showing courage and resolve to implement innovative programs. This government remains firm in its resolve to be fair to the disadvantaged. Our commitment to the vulnerable is ongoing, even in these difficult times. I will not be supporting this motion.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Mahoney: It's interesting how times change. People have suggested that the reason the NDP is in power today is because the former Premier, my former leader, called an early election after three years. There was a lot of outcry against that. I wonder what the reaction would be if we were to have an early election now. It's really interesting to read the same journalists who said that it was a mistake and yet, in the weekend paper and today, are calling for a return to the polls. After only two years under Bob Rae and the NDP, the general consensus in the community and in the media is that it's time to go back to the polls. That's more than just an early election; that's a realization that it's only taken two years for it to sink in and come home to roost what a serious disaster has occurred in this province.

One of the interesting aspects of this resolution put forward by the leader of the third party is that it calls for some real action on the part of the government. It calls for them to address the problem in Transitions. It puts out a suggestion that they review job training initiatives, that they redirect certain resources, that they make some changes to Bill 40, that they do a number of things.

The problem with this government is that it hasn't got time to do any of this, I say to the leader of the third party. All they're doing is spending all their time in damage control, all their time dealing with scandals, one heaped upon the other, so that there's no possible freedom or no ability for their cabinet, if the ability existed there in a real way, to deal with this.

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What is their answer? Their answer is simply to blame the problems they're facing on somebody else. As my colleague the member for Mississauga North pointed out, when they're asked a question with regard to the job loss, they point to free trade. I didn't hear all the criticisms about NAFTA that I expected to hear today, about how this party believes that what we should be doing is simply building walls around the province and pretending that we can survive in a global economy. By trading with ourselves? I'm not sure. Maybe just trading interprovincially within Canada? We should ignore foreign markets? We should ignore the fact that there are more skilled workers coming out of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, from which the Premier just returned?

Does he come in the House and make an announcement? No, he says he's going to make it tomorrow. The only announcement we heard in the two weeks, other than the resignation of a cabinet minister and the resignation of one of the senior staff people, other than those problems, was the Premier dredging up a two-year-old announcement that was made. When Kubota, the company in Japan that made it, was asked about this $10-million investment in Ontario, it couldn't understand what the Premier was referring to. They checked their files and they found out that two years ago they actually made the decision to invest the money in the province of Ontario.

So the Premier's over there, I'm sure, enjoying himself, having some sushi and a little wine, he and Arlene are enjoying the culture in that part of the world and he says: "Gosh, we better make an announcement. We can't go back empty-handed. Why don't we get a hold of the spin doctors and see what they can figure out that we could announce?"

So they do, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was Mr Piper himself who put together the announcement, while the Premier was off in Asia, about a new $10-million announcement, not realizing that indeed it was two years old.

That's pretty sad. And it only goes to underline and underscore the basic dishonesty that we're seeing with the government, the fact that their spin doctors have to put out and resort to character assassination and to attacks. This is something that is inherent, Mr Speaker, I say with respect to you, sir, in the NDP. It's a philosophy that says, "If you don't like something we're doing, we're going to do it anyway and we're going to find a way to discredit you."

I know, having been the subject of personal attacks by the now Premier and by the spin doctors of the day when we were in government, that there is no one this government would not attempt to run over to make its point, including members of its own caucus, I say to the former Sunshine Boy.

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): See the tire tracks.

Mr Mahoney: Tire tracks are right. They did a wheelie right on your nose. I thought you hadn't washed. Clearly, they would run over and expel anyone. I see the member in the back who was expelled from caucus right off the bat, one of the first problems that this government ran into when it came into power. You have a mentality that says, "If you get in our way, we're going to bury you." That's exactly what they attempted to do to Ms Judi Harris.

Let's give the Premier the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn't know about it. But you can't tell me that it wasn't discussed in that office. You can't tell me that there's not a whole lot more to this than what we've seen so far. I think the information or the suggestion in one of the reports today was that this can of worms is only half open. I would say that this is true.

The problem you have with respect to Mr Harris's resolution is, when can the government get down to dealing with this? I have some information here from a small business person from the Oakville area, a former Mississauga resident who was a neighbour of mine and who has provided me with some material from the Ontario Ministry of Labour dealing with Transitions. That, you'll recognize, is the program for older workers, when people over 45 years old lose their jobs and need to find a way to get retrained to get into the workforce.

As members will know, today unemployment insurance generally runs for about one year. Then those workers, if they're still drawing UI benefits, have to resort to welfare or to personal savings or to some other source. Perhaps they have to sell their home. Perhaps they have to completely refinance. Perhaps they have to say to their kids, "Sorry, I can't afford to keep sending you to university." They have to make hard-nosed adjustments because they have lost their job. This government's answer is, "It's not our fault."

Let's assume that we're prepared to say -- I'm not -- but that it's not their fault. Who really cares whose fault it is when that individual is losing his family home, when that individual has to turn to his kids and say, "Dad has not only not got a job; I don't have the skills and I don't have the ability to get another job because I don't have the training that I need"? So he applies to Transitions.

These are memos. If I could just tell you, this is a memo from the Ontario Ministry of Labour and it's out to all the trainers in the program. It says:

"As you know, Transitions processing delays vary according to program activity. At the present time, training proposals received today should enable clients to begin training in early March."

This is in November. Now listen to this:

"Clients who apply for entry to the Transitions program should expect to be able to get into training in nine months' time."

They've got a one-year unemployment insurance benefit period and they're told that if they apply for training the day after they get fired or lose their job or get laid off, they have to wait nine months through the Transitions program to get into training.

Interjection.

Mr Mahoney: Well, I didn't make it up. It's on your government's ministry letterhead.

This is incredible. We would obviously understand that when they lose the job they wouldn't apply immediately. There would be a certain period of shock, of disbelief. There would be a certain period of time --

Mr Stockwell: That's a best-case scenario.

Mr Mahoney: That's right. That is a perfect case. A best-case scenario is nine months. More likely, they would sort of be confused and they would stumble around for a little bit. They would take a couple of months until they perhaps found out that Transitions was available to them. So the reality is that they're going to be asked to go to training school without any money.

Would it not make more sense -- if there's one thing you could do instead of standing up and blaming the former Liberal government or the former Tory government or the current Tory government in Ottawa, you could make Transitions mean what it says. It means, "We're going to assist you in a transition period from your state of unemployment to a state of full training."

As the former Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology says, they'll simply become an unemployed but well-trained, highly skilled, unemployed worker. So at the time, as you assist in the transitions, you've got to start creating jobs. You can't do that, I submit, when you've got people who are spending their time trying to discredit people, who are being dishonest instead of concentrating on getting this province back to work.

I'm going to support this motion and I, along with my colleagues, call for this government to get Ontario back to work and get people employed again.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate.

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): Let me say, first of all, that I regret I wasn't here for all the speeches today. I had a couple of other meetings to attend, but I want to say I appreciate my support, for all those supporting the resolution.

I understand there were a few members of the NDP who do not plan to support the resolution. That I really regret, because here is a resolution that states the facts as they've been reported over and over again by independent third parties: the numbers of jobs that have been lost, the number of unemployed and the number of people on welfare.

These are the facts. We've pointed out some of the programs that aren't working, but we've just used the facts as provided by treasury officials, for instance, or the Ministry of Skills Development, on the Ontario training fund.

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But more important than that, after having stated the facts, those that have been put out by Statistics Canada or by the government itself -- widely reported, widely known in Ontario -- we simply call on the government, as we are wont to do in this party, with positive proposals of our own. We're saying: "Look, here's something you're doing that's not working. Perhaps you could benefit from 42 years of sound government in this province." When there were recessions in the past we found cutting taxes, for example, in the automobile industry had the effect of more people buying cars, encouraging consumers to purchase, which put auto workers and the steel industry back to work in this province.

Here we are giving you positive suggestions that, instead of some of these programs that are causing the deficit to balloon and taxes to go up and they're not working, as has been reported by your own staff, your own ministries, acknowledged by your own Treasurer and your own cabinet, we are putting forward positive suggestions and saying: "We suggest you try this: tried, proven, worked well all across the world and has worked here in Ontario."

I am always intrigued as well, because some of the NDP have applauded the victory of Bill Clinton in the United States and it surprised me a little bit, because here's a guy who is obviously a progressive conservative. He has campaigned on tax cuts for the middle class, a key part of his economic platform. The second key aspect of his economic platform for jobs was to tie welfare payments to training and retraining and assistance, to apprenticeship, to work experience. So we call for that as well: Tie social assistance payments more directly to job training.

I would have thought that if you believed Bill Clinton's approach was appropriate -- I did, because he's obviously copied New Directions 102, taken it to the States -- the documents we put out -- and found that it sold just as well in the United States as it would here. He talked about training, talked about retraining, talked about education, talked about managing change -- all the things we've been trying to tell you.

There has been a tradition in the politics of the past that you and your cabinet and your caucus and your Premier still practise. That's the politics whereby: "We'll set out the direction, we'll set out what everybody will do, and everybody else is wrong. We want our majority members of our committee, the majority of our members, to go to committee and just defend the cabinet minister, right or wrong -- go ahead and do that."

With the exception of the member for Welland-Thorold, who, I publicly acknowledge, said, "Enough of that politics of the past; let's have a little independence, state what we believe as individuals," the rest of you have seen fit to defend these policies that are so disastrous. So I am disappointed today. I thought after the Clinton win, after this progressive conservative victory in the United States, that some of those things he is talking about bringing to the United States to get the economy moving again would have been, in fact, attractive to the members of the NDP. So I brought them forward once again to ask for their support.

Let me also publicly say, since I've acknowledged the member for Welland-Thorold -- I didn't hear him speak on this resolution; we'll see how he votes, we'll see whether he really means it and how he votes on this resolution when the time comes. But let me thank the members from the Liberal Party who came forward unselfishly with their support for our resolution today and the member for Mississauga West, I believe -- he's left -- who did say he liked everything in the resolution. So far the Liberal Party has just had a new leader. It takes five or six years before you overcome a loss like they had, and we found that out in our party too. They've had difficulty coming up with concrete proposals as alternatives for the government, so I thank them for supporting -- it's not their fault. We were in the same position.

I can remember after we lost and the denial that a party goes through and I can see it in the Liberal Party: "Well, it wasn't our fault. Oh, the voters made a mistake; oh, it was Peterson's fault; oh, it was that person; oh, Goldfarb and his silly old polling." You point the fingers, you see. We went through that: "It was Miller; it was Davis; we should have done this; we should have done that." I understand that and it takes several years before you get out of that and say: "Hey, we lost. It doesn't matter why. Let's now put forward some concrete, positive proposals, something we believe in."

While the Liberals are taking five, six or 10 years to do that, I want to say to their individual members that I appreciate their support for the concrete proposals we have put forward today. They're contained in New Directions, volume 1, on the economy, in New Directions, volume 2, and a couple of other areas.

I understand the chagrin, if you like, from the members of the NDP over the weekend. Mel Hurtig is finally going to bring a party that can articulate the views of the left and the labour movement, wanting to bring the barriers up, anti-free-trade and "Let's treat Canada and Ontario as an island." Those policies are not gaining much favour. They've been abandoned all over the world, in eastern Europe, in Europe and now in North America.

There is some legitimacy in the sense that some people do believe that and still wish to espouse these views. Mel Hurtig said the NDP can't even espouse the views, even though only 5%, 10%, 15% or 20% of the people believe in them or give them any shrift or credibility. I understand why the members of the New Democratic Party are a little concerned that there's somebody else taking over their turf. When you divide 15% two ways, it doesn't leave much: about 7.5%. I understand the concerns that may be there.

Many of my colleagues have expressed their concerns about northern Ontario, about eastern Ontario, about our farmers, about rural Ontario and small town Ontario; all the examples you have of other provinces that are doing things, of other governments in the past that have done things to give a little help during this very difficult time.

There are ways to kick-start the economy. You can cut taxes. We've seen them cut before by previous governments during difficult times, for example, during that recession in the early 1980s when the federal Liberal Party had brought this country to the brink of its knees and it was up to Ontario to lead this country out of the recession. Of course, we did in the early 1980s, in spite of the Liberals in Ottawa. We led this country out of recession.

The federal policies, no matter how bad they were, couldn't hold Canada down, because Ontario put Canada back to work with tax cuts. We cut taxes in the automobile industry and we put the workers back to work in automobile factories, in auto parts factories. We put them back to work in the steel mills. We had tax breaks as well in the housing industry and in the furniture industry, and we put Canadians back to work. We got consumers spending again. Housing sales boomed, builders built, bricklayers laid bricks, carpenters did carpentry, and it can happen again.

This party is so bereft of ideas that it spends all its time pointing the finger at Ottawa. When we were in government during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s we didn't point the finger at Ottawa. We didn't blame Ottawa, even though they were terrible and making a mess of the economy. We got down to work. We did what we could do here in the province of Ontario, through the BILD program, when we were building Ontario once again. We built bridges, we built roads, we built industries, we built factories. We got Ontarians working again. This province and this country got their confidence restored and they got back to work again.

Contrast how this province came out of the recession in the 1980s or any other time when we've had difficult downturns, either worldwide or North America-wide or Canada-wide, to what's happening today, the policies that have meant 320,000 jobs lost in Ontario, almost 600,000 unemployed in this province, the policies that are driving investment out of this province, discouraging consumers from buying.

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More important than all that, the net effect of it all is that our workers are hurting, our families are hurting.

[Interruption]

Mr Harris: There's nothing in that briefcase but a bunch of old documents we're not interested in anyway. If you'd move it out of the aisle, that wouldn't happen. Are those some of Piper's documents that he hasn't got all out of the building yet? We've still only got some this far.

When I talk to families, when I talk to workers -- I call them workers whether they're working or not, because they want to work -- they are hurting. Our agriculture industry, rural Ontario, has had absolutely no help from this government: cutbacks in the spending on the agricultural budget, no understanding of the problems that they are facing with massive subsidies in other countries.

The BILD program in the early 1980s began a program of food processing, of encouraging and making assistance available to farmers to help themselves. The one thing we've heard from this government is to shut down that cheese factory in eastern Ontario. There they were, working together cooperatively to help themselves to process that dairy product into cheese curds, a desirable product, and we see you shutting factories down, we see you shutting plants down, even in rural Ontario, where they are hurting so much as well.

It's a sad day when we here in the opposition will come forward, as no opposition party has in the past, giving you the ideas, giving you the suggestions, giving you some of the time-tested programs that have worked in the past to get Ontarians back to work and you reject them all for your tried and failed policies, as well as the number of innovative new proposals to manage change, to get prepared for the jobs of the future.

We know there are some jobs that are being lost, no question about that. We know that as each decade goes by there will be jobs that were appropriate for that decade and then they will no longer be appropriate and those plants will shut down. We understand that. But the world is passing us by. The jobs of the future, the new jobs, the ones requiring the new technology, the computer systems, the new machinery and the training and the skills required for that, they're passing us by and that didn't used to be.

This province was "Yours To Discover" for all those decades because we had sound, good government with balanced policies. We had the kind of government where Canadians all across Canada discovered Ontario. They wanted to come here; they wanted to invest here. As well, we had the kind of government in Ontario, Canada, which told the world, from Europe, the Pacific Rim, India, Pakistan, if you wanted a better life, if you wanted hope, if you wanted opportunity, if you wanted a chance to work hard and succeed and get ahead, Ontario was "Yours To Discover."

It wasn't perfect. Somebody can find something in those 42 years -- one, maybe two things, maybe even more -- that the government made a mistake on and went wrong. It wasn't perfect; I acknowledge that. But I'm going to tell you, it was "Yours To Discover," and it is not today.

I am trying to give the New Democratic Party the ideas, the sound management proposals, the suggestions, on how we can get Ontario back to work. If you won't take them, I can't force you to, but I can keep offering them; I can keep putting them forward. There will be a day, maybe sooner rather than later the way the Premier's office is going, when you will pay a price for not listening to the majority of Ontarians who are hurting and want to get back to work and believe your policies are in the wrong direction.

Hon Gilles Pouliot (Minister of Transportation and Minister Responsible for Francophone Affairs): Good style, good delivery.

The Acting Speaker: Order. Mr Harris has moved opposition day motion number 4:

Whereas 320,000 jobs have been lost in Ontario; and

Whereas there are 595,000 unemployed individuals in this province; and

Whereas over one million persons are dependent on welfare; and

Whereas the NDP's Jobs Ontario Training fund has proven to be nothing more than a public relations scam; and

Whereas the NDP government's flagship program for older workers, Transitions, is badly backlogged to the point where participants have to wait more than 34 weeks to have an application approved; and

Whereas the NDP government is incapable of managing change and has failed to prepare Ontario for job creation; and

Whereas our children need to have the skills necessary to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing workplace;

Therefore, this House calls upon the NDP government to immediately:

(a) review the job training initiatives that are outlined in the Progressive Conservative caucus's documents New Directions Vol I: A Blueprint for Economic Renewal and Vol II: A Blueprint for Learning in Ontario;

(b) redirect the resources that have been allocated to implementing its flawed Ontario Training and Adjustment Board to improving delivery of the Transitions program;

(c) repeal the Act to amend certain Acts concerning Collective Bargaining and Employment (Bill 40) as a means of attracting new job-creating investment to Ontario;

(d) tie social assistance payments more directly to job training.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour of the motion will please say "aye."

All those opposed to the motion will please say "nay."

In my opinion, the nays have it.

Call in the members: a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1757 to 1802.

The Acting Speaker: Will the members please take their seats.

Mr Harris has moved opposition day motion number 4. All those in favour of the motion will be please rise and be recognized by the table.

Ayes

Arnott, Beer, Bradley, Brown, Caplan, Chiarelli, Conway, Cousens, Cunningham, Curling, Daigeler, Elston, Eves, Harnick, Harris, Jackson, Mahoney, Mancini, Marland, McClelland, McLean, Miclash, Murdoch (Grey), Offer, O'Neill (Ottawa-Rideau), Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt), Poole, Runciman, Sterling, Stockwell, Tilson, Turnbull, Villeneuve, Wilson (Simcoe West).

The Acting Speaker: All those opposed to the motion will please rise and be recognized by the table.

Nays

Abel, Akande, Allen, Bisson, Boyd, Carter, Charlton, Christopherson, Churley, Cooke, Cooper, Coppen, Dadamo, Farnan, Ferguson, Frankford, Gigantes, Grier, Haeck, Hampton, Hansen, Harrington, Haslam, Hayes, Hope, Huget, Jamison, Johnson, Kormos, Lankin, Laughren, Lessard, Mackenzie, MacKinnon, Malkowski, Mammoliti, Marchese, Martel, Martin, Mathyssen, Mills, Morrow, O'Connor, Owens, Perruzza, Pilkey, Pouliot, Rae, Rizzo, Silipo, Sutherland, Swarbrick, Wark-Martyn, Waters, Wessenger, White, Wildman, Wilson (Frontenac-Addington), Wilson (Kingston and The Islands), Winninger, Wiseman, Wood, Ziemba.

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 34, the nays 63.

The Acting Speaker: As the ayes are 34 and the nays are 63, I declare the motion lost.

It now being past 6 of the clock, the House does now rise until tomorrow at 1:30 of the clock.

The House adjourned at 1805.