Journal des débats 1993-mai-17 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): Undeniably, unemployment is a problem across the province. Just as secure employment is a challenge for permanent workers, opportunities are as scarce for summer students. I am pleased to report, however, that the community I represent recently pulled together for a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Canada Employment Centre for Students.

Area businesses not only encouraged the hiring of summer students but also contributed to the 25th anniversary celebrations. They include: Wilma's Kitchen, Herb's Deli, Mister C's, Maynards Independent Grocer, Mexicali Rosa, Pepsi-Cola Bottling, Coca-Cola, Rosemarie McAlear, and Jim and Pat Brunt.

I know that the supervisor, Carolyn Sayyeau, and the entire Canada Employment Centre for Students will be working hard throughout the summer to find as many jobs as possible for the students.

Together we can invest in our future by giving our youth the hope, jobs and education they need.

VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS

Mr Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): Recently, the Lanark County Mutual Aid Association provided a ceremony acknowledging the efforts of firefighters in Lanark county. The fire marshal of Ontario and the regional manager were present to recognize 12 retiring firefighters with service amounting to 355 man-years.

At the same time, 18 new volunteer firefighters were accredited for having completed the 100-hour volunteer course. This course, offered for the first time in Smiths Falls, provided 1,800 man-hours of training for volunteers who will use these skills for the benefit of all and to help train their colleagues.

I would like to recognize the tremendous contribution volunteers make in Lanark county. The average county in Ontario depends upon volunteer firefighters for 72% of their firefighting services. In Lanark county, 96% of our firefighters are volunteers. Out of the 13 fire departments in Lanark county, 11 are entirely dependent upon the contributions of volunteers.

Each of these individuals should be duly recognized for their dedication to the community. It is this spirit of volunteerism that binds the community together. Lanark county's new volunteer firefighters warrant special consideration, for in their service to the community they often face many dangers as they try to save the lives of others.

JEAN LITTLE

Mr Derek Fletcher (Guelph): Today I'd like to join the people of Guelph in congratulating children's author Jean Little. Jean is a long-time Guelph resident who was recently admitted to the Order of Canada.

In her 30 years of writing, Jean has published 20 books and has six more in progress. She has won several literary awards. Her popular novel Mama's Going to Buy You a Mockingbird was adapted for television.

In Guelph, Jean has personally brought hours of listening pleasure to many children, visiting libraries and schools with her guide dog, Ritz.

Jean is a strong defender of meaningful literature for all children. In the 1960s when Jean was working with children with cerebral palsy, she saw a need for stories that dealt in a realistic way with the issues facing physically challenged children. Five of her books feature children with special needs.

Jean has modestly said that this award is a recognition of the new-found status of Canadian children's literature, but those who know her work credit her with being one of the pioneers in this field. Her first books were published in the 1960s when there were no Canadian children's book editors or publishers.

Along with everyone in this Legislature, I'd like to congratulate Jean Little.

LEGISLATIVE AWARDS

Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): Mr Speaker, I am sure you, like many others throughout our province, have been watching the hockey playoffs.

Debates rage as to who will be the award recipients for the past season and for these playoffs. Although we in this Legislature continue to debate the issues of the day, we cannot help but gaze skyward, wondering who is going to win the Ontario Legislature awards.

I am in receipt of a confidential memo which identifies the award recipients and I feel duty-bound, as a member of the Legislature, to make publicly known information heretofore only privately held.

The Don Cherry award for understatement in the face of fact goes to the Minister of Finance, Floyd Laughren, for his predictions on the 1992 Ontario deficit.

The Don Cherry award for overstatement in the face of fact goes to the Minister of Finance, Floyd Laughren, for his prediction on the 1993 Ontario deficit.

The Don Cherry award for straight fact goes to -- no one in the Ontario government qualified.

The Chicago Black Hawks award, which recognizes the group effort in placing first and then being knocked out in the first round, goes to the NDP caucus.

Finally, the John Ziegler award, the award which recognizes the non-attendance of an individual holding the highest office in an organization, goes to the Premier, Bob Rae, in recognition of his many days of absence in this Legislature.

Congratulations to all.

CHILD SAFETY

Mr Gary Carr (Oakville South): The second annual Green Ribbon of Hope Campaign commemorating National Missing Children's Day will be May 25.

Green is the symbol of the Child Find organization and is the colour of hope. It epitomizes their quest for the safe return of all missing children.

Child Find Ontario is a member of Child Find Canada, a registered non-profit charitable organization established in 1983 to educate the public, and particularly children and their guardians, on the topic of abduction prevention and to assist in the search process for missing children.

Each year in Canada, police receive reports on thousands of missing children who are classified as runaways or the victims of parental or stranger abductions. The Green Ribbon campaign is designed to draw the public's attention to the issue of missing children in Canada.

The loss of a child affects not just the family and friends but the entire community. A missing child is everyone's responsibility.

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CANADIAN NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR THE BLIND

Mr Paul R. Johnson (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings): Mr Speaker, you'll remember that last Wednesday evening a group of members of this Legislature and representatives of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind met in the legislative dining room in order to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.

Better known, I guess, as the CNIB, it was founded by Lieutenant Colonel Edwin A. Baker, and he lived from 1893-1968. What I didn't know until I went to that meeting was that Lieutenant Colonel Baker was born in my constituency. He was born at Parrotts Bay in Ernestown township just west of Kingston.

It was very interesting to me to find out about him and to know that he had been wounded in the First World War and because of damage to his eyes could no longer see. He along with six other individuals founded the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.

I want to say too that Mr Baker was an outstanding individual and that all those people who represent the CNIB certainly deserve a great round of applause and certainly a great recognition for what they've done. But as an aside, I'd like you to know too that he had a son named Phil Baker who is presently a judge in Kingston, and a little bit of trivia that not many people know is that Rob Baker is a member of the group from Kingston that is becoming quite well known, known as The Tragically Hip.

ROOMING HOUSES

Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): On December 23, 1989, 10 people died in the Rupert Hotel fire, one of the worst blazes in Toronto's history. Tomorrow in my riding at 11 am a plaque will be unveiled at the corner of Queen and Parliament streets to commemorate the victims of this disaster. In attendance will be Bob Keele from the Rupert House Coalition, Dale Parsad and other former residents.

As you know, the Rupert House Coalition brought together 35 legal, church and service groups. The ceremony will also be attended by tenants of many neighbouring rooming houses.

It has been nearly a year since the government released the Lightman report on unregulated rooming houses. Let us not forget that nearly 50,000 people in this province use these facilities for housing, which is a substantial number of people and represents a community the size of Barrie, my home town.

The residents of these facilities are relying on this government for reforms in this area, and people in my riding are concerned about rumours that the Minister of Housing in her submissions to cabinet is diluting those recommendations. I would call on the minister, since the minister is scheduled to be in attendance at tomorrow's unveiling, to do the right thing and announce the changes that the government will be making to better the lot of the residents in rooming and lodging houses.

FRUIT GROWERS

Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey): As the Minister of Agriculture and Food will know, most apple growers have been paying into a tripartite insurance plan for the past 10 years along with federal and provincial governments. Because of national averaging, there have been no payouts in Ontario for the last four years even though our producers have suffered from low prices, drought and frost injury to their crops.

The returns in 1991 were certainly low enough to trigger a payment. In 1992, returns are estimated to be 30% less than those in 1991 because of miserable weather which produced fruit with a reduced sugar content and record low prices.

This province's apple growers are suffering badly. Many have had to borrow simply to pay into an insurance scheme which offers no support. Because they have not received as much from this plan in the past as producers in other provinces, they feel there should be a surplus in Ontario's portion, and they would like to receive it. They maintain that a national tripartite scheme has hurt them. They feel that a regional scheme would be of far more benefit and would not drain Ontario's budget.

Our apple industry has a proud tradition and an excellent reputation. In my view, it deserves to survive, but it will die if we do not do something immediately to assist it. The apple growers are asking for nothing more than fairness. I urge the minister to listen to their request and to move quickly to establish a regional plan to help those struggling farmers.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): On the weekend, I had the opportunity to renew some old thoughts and old feelings that were there, and one of the old thoughts and old feelings was around free trade. About six busloads of Chathamites and Kent countyites joined the buses, everyone from the small business community to farmers to auto sector workers and workers of all sectors, as we entered the buses and travelled our way to Ottawa in a deal that was called the North American free trade agreement, which we were protesting.

One thing about my community is that it has understood what the free trade agreement has done to it and what NAFTA will do to it in the future economic policies of the Tory government. As we entered the buses and took our trip down the 401, we were met by a number of colleagues throughout Canada, everywhere from Vancouver to Newfoundland and all around Ontario. Almost 100,000 people joined the front in Ottawa to protest NAFTA. We were joined by a number of our colleagues. I know the Minister of Housing was there, as we met on the streets. It was a pleasure.

It brought back a lot of memories, memories of what we told people the effects of free trade would be and how devastating it would be to our communities. But one thing we did notice, as I looked around the front lines, is that there were more and more people. More and more people have understood the effects of free trade and will understand the effects of NAFTA.

One of the important parts was that my international colleagues were there, because one thing the northern United States is doing is using Ontario as an example of what NAFTA will do to its communities. It's important for us to kill the Tory policies and to kill NAFTA.

CORRECTION

Mr Paul R. Johnson (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: In the statement that I just gave recently, I erroneously said that it was the 100th anniversary of the CNIB. Indeed, it's the 75th anniversary of the CNIB, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lieutenant Colonel Baker.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

FLUOROCARBONS

Hon Bud Wildman (Minister of Environment and Energy): On Earth Day, April 22, we heard that the ozone levels over the northern hemisphere were at their lowest in 14 years. In the upper atmosphere, ozone acts as a shield that protects all forms of life on earth from the harmful effects of ultraviolet radiation.

Even today, as a matter of interest, the ozone level in Toronto is 6.9 on an overcast, rainy day like this. Most people will know that 7.5 is considered dangerous.

But because of the release of synthetic chemicals, commonly known as fluorocarbons, the ozone layer is shrinking. Ontario is taking the lead in Canada to reduce ozone-depleting substances. Today I'm introducing a draft regulation to prevent the release of fluorocarbon refrigerants. These include chlorofluorocarbons, hydrochlorofluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons, used in refrigerators, freezers and air-conditioning systems.

Under this regulation, venting of refrigerant CFCs, HCFCs and HFCs will be prohibited. As of January 1, 1994, only certified persons will be allowed to handle, service and repair refrigeration equipment containing fluorocarbon refrigerants. All equipment to be dismantled, destroyed or disposed of will have to drained of CFCs and tagged accordingly. As of December 31, 1995, new model cars will no longer be fitted with air-conditioning units that contain CFCs and HCFCs.

This regulation is the most comprehensive for refrigerants in Canada. It was developed following consultation with industry, labour and environmental groups. Ontario is the only province regulating CFCs together with HCFCs and HFCs.

In the coming 30 days, we invite public comments on the draft regulation. We're working with potential partners to provide an ozone depletion awareness training and certification program for people who service equipment that contains fluorocarbon refrigerants.

While the fridge in your kitchen or mine may not release a huge amount of CFCs, the cumulative effect of millions of fridges, not to mention the millions of home and car air-conditioning systems, has an enormous destructive potential to the ozone layer.

We all must bear the responsibility to properly maintain this equipment and to ensure that fluorocarbon refrigerants are not released. The small cost to consumers will bring a tremendous savings to human health and to the planet.

Protecting the environment can bring in economic benefits as well. With Ontario's technological knowhow, we are in a position to develop innovative processes that will not only deal with CFCs but also create jobs and stimulate the growth of our green industries.

These industries are the province's fastest-growing economic sector. Helping to build and maintain Ontario's leadership in this field is part of the government's 10-point plan to put Ontario back to work. I look forward to continued cooperative efforts as we work together to address one of the most serious environmental issues we face: the depletion of the ozone layer.

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Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): In response to the statement, I want to begin by indicating to the Legislature that in October of last year, the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment issued a report outlining the national action plan for recovery, recycling and reclamation of ozone-depleting substances such as CFCs. The plan committed provincial governments to acting on CFC recycling and recovery initiatives by the end of 1992. Here we are in 1993, with nothing announced today except further consultation. I think many would say that the announcement today could be characterized as too little and too late.

It is interesting to note that a press release was issued by the internationally renowned group Friends of the Earth which grades the effort of the Ontario government in addressing this important environmental issue. I think we should take a moment to take a look at where our province stands with respect to this group. Are we ranking high or in the middle?

I happen to have a copy of that report. An A-minus was given to Manitoba, a B-plus to British Columbia, a B to Saskatchewan, a B-minus to Nova Scotia -- this is not being done alphabetically -- a C-plus to New Brunswick and a D to Ontario. The province of Ontario ranked lowest of any province in this country with legislation.

The report notes that Ontario has not acted upon the conditions of the national action plan. It notes that the regulations that do exist are inadequate, incomplete, and have failed to be enforced. This record is even more deplorable considering that the province of Ontario releases the majority of Canadian ozone-depleting substances, accounting for approximately 60% of the national total.

The government promised to implement an immediate ban on CFCs in flexible furniture foam and rigid foam insulation, with a complete ban by 1995 of all ozone-destroying CFCs, methylchloroform, halons and carbon tetrachloride. This announcement today contains no announcement, no action on your promise.

I believe the minister should have stood in his place today and indicate to the Legislature whether -- strange as it may be -- they have changed their position on promises previously made. Are they going to be implemented? If so, when and how?

With respect to the halon issue, you claim in your press release today that with this action, 90% of the sources of ozone-depleting substances will be controlled. I disagree with that percentage. The release of halons, which are used in fire extinguishers, among other places, accounts for up to 40% of the total source of ozone-depleting substances in the province. The regulation, the consultation around regulation, the discussion around consultation dealing with regulation, that has been announced today does not address the use and release of this environmentally dangerous substance.

Ozone depletion is a serious environmental problem for Ontarians. This announcement of further consultation is wanting in the extreme. But if this government is slow off the mark in this area, then what about ground-level ozone?

I have a press release from Pollution Probe, and the date is today. It states that Ontarians experience the worst summer smog problems in the country and everyone is asking the Minister of Environment to clear the air. Ground-level ozone is the principal component in urban smog. It is also the pollutant which most frequently exceeds Health and Welfare Canada's acceptable levels at Ontario air-monitoring stations. A survey of Ontario hospital records has shown increased admissions for respiratory problems on days with polluted air. People are pointing out that British Columbia is actively fighting smog. Ontario is still without targets, time lines or an action plan for clearing the air.

In the absence of real control actions, the government's smog alert program will merely tell Ontarians when they should hold their breath: "Don't inhale." People are asking the Ontario government to commit to clear time lines, put some teeth into policy, tighten regulations, establish new programs, hold talks on initiatives to prevent the forming of smog.

Minister, get on with the job full-time of protecting our environment.

The Speaker: The member's time has expired. Responses, third party.

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): I'd like to comment on the Minister of the Environment's announcement today.

I think all of us congratulate the minister in taking the actions he has. I think we've been waiting for it for some time. There's been more and more concern about skin cancer and the danger from the sun, and every day we hear of the fear for the ozone layer.

To be critical, obviously we have to refer to the little chart that the Liberal critic read to you. It is a little late. Manitoba presented legislation back in 1992; British Columbia, if only in February of this year; Saskatchewan, January 1991; Nova Scotia, February 1991; New Brunswick, September 1992. So it is a little late bringing this forward, particularly with the serious concerns we have. For the first time, this year there are going to be gauges telling us about the dangers of being out in the sun too long for our children, which you mentioned in your press conference this morning. So this is something that's been coming up and up. Why have you taken this long to do that?

There are other issues you haven't dealt with: the issue of acid rain. That is another topic that has been going on for a great number of years, and you've failed to deal with that.

One of the concerns I have is that this government has spent all of its time on the landfill issue. It isn't looking at other issues. Although Bill 8 was introduced several weeks ago, although it didn't give all of the answers, it did introduce recycling issues.

The other subject, of course, has to do with the landfill sites. We're concerned about our water in this province, and the government continues with its policies destroying the water in this province, destroying the agricultural lands in this province, by putting superdumps on these area.

I will be very brief in simply saying that I congratulate the minister in putting forward this paper at this time. It's a little late, and I think he's going to have to spend a little bit more time making it quite clear as to how it's going to be paid for. Certainly it's something that needs to be done, but the cost of it is going to be high. Once again, this province isn't going to pay for it; you're going to put it on the backs of private enterprise. I think that's something your government's going to have to have a long look at.

I encourage you to do more. I encourage you to do more in saving the water of this province. I encourage you to do more in solving the acid rain of this province.

Mr W. Donald Cousens (Markham): Why has it taken so long? Does it take a crisis, to reach the state that it has now in the province of Ontario, to finally have the Ministry of Environment and Energy wake up and realize that it may almost be too late now? There isn't a parent who isn't concerned about the welfare of his or her children, or should we stop and think about the consequences of going outside and being exposed to the sun's rays without the ozone layer to protect us.

Here you are now, pontificating as if you're finally doing it all. It's only the beginning. You haven't done anything about the acid rain abatement. You haven't even looked at the air, you're so busy working with the IWA and landfill and wrecking York, Durham and Peel. You haven't done a thing for us yet.

So talk is cheap. Let's come along a year from now and see what you've done. It's probably not very much. You're good at the talk, Minister, but you're not good at the action. We're sick of talk, talk, talk. Make it happen.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): It leads one to think that what this government and this minister spoke of in opposition was either simply hot air or they weren't really interested in what they were saying. The suggestion in opposition was that these problems could be solved very simply, very quickly, with legislation introduced in this House by previous administrations.

It's astounding that it's taken nearly three years, a few months short of three years, to bring this kind of announcement to this House. It shows that, ideally, this government either couldn't implement what it said was so simple in opposition, or it simply wasn't interested.

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I would say too that this ministry has been so bogged down in this internal project to find a landfill site in the Metropolitan Toronto area that practically all important issues on the environment have been put on the back burner.

Hon Mr Wildman: Oh, don't be silly.

Mr Stockwell: They're saying, "Don't be silly," but it's three years, Mr Minister. You know, you sat there barking at every critic who stood up and commented on this announcement; three years for something you suggested was so simple and legislation could be written, when you were in opposition. Clearly, either you're not committed or what you were saying on this side of the House simply wasn't doable. My prediction is, what you said on this side of the House wasn't doable and you're learning every day when you're the government that it's not quite as simple as you suggested it was.

ORAL QUESTIONS

TRANSFER PAYMENTS TO MUNICIPALITIES

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): We will all remember that when this government was elected to office, it promised a new spirit of partnership with the municipalities. The municipalities are now learning that the partnership has been thrown out the window and replaced with an atmosphere of chaos management and complete distrust.

When the government first announced its expenditure control plan, it sort of led municipalities to believe that the cuts would only be in the range of about 2%. We knew, of course, and said so, that the cuts to unconditional grants were actually more in the order of 11%. Last week the government confirmed the municipalities' fears. It admitted that the cuts could be up to 12.9% of unconditional transfers for many municipalities.

But in announcing this double-digit reduction, the government also promised that smaller municipalities in rural and northern Ontario would be protected. We can't understand why, if this was the plan, a small rural municipality like Wallace township, for example, with a population of less than 3,000 residents, is facing a full 12.9% reduction in its grants.

I would ask the Premier, why would your government say that it promises to protect small municipalities if that's not what's happening? Is this in fact not just one more example of the complete lack of planning and the complete chaos that your government's last-minute expenditure control plans have created, and, I ask, how you can expect municipalities across this province to continue to cope with this kind of chaos management?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): I would say, with respect, to the honourable member that I'm sure she can bring forward whatever examples she chooses. I would simply say to her that there is a cap on the impact of the reductions. It's a 3% cap as a percentage of municipal operating revenues.

The formula that has been put forward by the ministry is intended to deal as fairly as possible with a circumstance in which it is simply quite necessary for this province to include our social partners in the realities of the day. For a period of time now, we've been transferring subsidies to the municipalities, and the province was borrowing in order to effect those transfers.

I would say to the honourable member, if she thinks it is sound, fair or reasonable for us as a province to continue to borrow to transfer subsidies to municipalities and to others that are simply going to have to be paid for by future generations, I think that's pretty unsound. We're carrying forward on a basis that we think is fair and reasonable, and there is a cap in terms of the impact on any groups affected.

Mrs McLeod: It seems to me that the Premier had a rather descriptive term for the federal government when it engaged in a similar kind of downloading. "Absconding debtor" is the phrase that comes to the minds of most of my colleagues around.

The Premier will know well the caps on operating budgets of the municipalities don't stop the constant downloading of costs to the municipal level that this government is currently engaged in, and we can see no rhyme and no reason in the kinds of figures that the government has presented to try to manage that expenditure control plan. In fact we can't understand why the Premier has refused to meet with the municipalities to even discuss their concerns with them.

The Premier has talked over the last weeks about the importance of the disentanglement talks as an example of how the municipalities and the province can work together. He will know that last week the Association of Municipalities of Ontario turned down the disentanglement proposals because they say that this government's chaos management approach to offloading costs has eroded the principle of any supposed partnership.

The municipalities are concerned that the disentanglement process is going to be just one more step in the offloading of costs to the municipal level of government. The disentanglement talks failed, Premier, because of the atmosphere of distrust and chaos which your government has created, and I ask you now, what are your next steps?

Hon Mr Rae: The honourable member was a member of a government at a time when its revenues were increasing in double-digit numbers, double-digit increase in revenues to the cabinet of which she was a member, and it froze its transfers to the municipalities. We're dealing with a situation where, in real terms, our revenues have been falling in this province for the last three years and where we've made a very real decision to say to the municipalities, "We have to inject an element of reality into the fiscal relationships that exist between us."

I am disappointed, obviously, by the decision of the AMO executive with respect to disentanglement. All I can say to them and say to the honourable member is, this government intends to proceed with social assistance reform; we intend to proceed with a fairer system as it relates to the taxpayers of the province. Of course, we'd much prefer to do it on a cooperative basis with the municipalities, but the reality of social assistance and reform and the need to make those reforms is very, very clear.

We must proceed on those reforms. The people and the taxpayers of the province are interested in that, and I think they're also interested in getting on with things and not simply pointing fingers from one level of government to another.

Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): Frame that quote.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): You haven't lost your sense of humour.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order. Final supplementary.

Mrs McLeod: Mr Speaker, words are taken away when the Premier uses that particular rebuttal. I do want to suggest to the Premier, though, that in the past municipalities might have looked for at least clear and consistent budget statements and not constant changes in the middle of their year, when they've already levied the taxes, when they've already set their budgets, and that's why the municipalities are particularly concerned. They're concerned when what is an 11% cut is somehow presented as something that won't really affect their budgets, won't really affect their taxes.

I say to the Premier, the expenditure control plan is creating chaos, the disentanglement talks have broken down and you are still looking for $2 billion in savings to be achieved in social contract talks that are going nowhere.

I take you back to these same municipalities, Premier. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario insists that it cannot and it will not take part in the social contract talks. The municipal association insists that, like other provincial employer and employee organizations, it simply cannot speak for the hundreds of municipalities in this province. The municipalities understand what your government seems to fail to learn, and that is that your attempt to negotiate over 9,000 individual collective agreements at one table has no hope of being successful.

Will you not listen to what the municipalities are so clearly telling you? Will you not take the responsible act of sitting down and negotiating with your own provincial employees and let the municipalities negotiate their own restraint measures with their own local unions?

Hon Mr Rae: I would say to the honourable member, if she's now saying that she's encouraging the municipalities to stay away from the talks or she supports the municipalities in staying away from the talks, I'm very surprised that would now be the position of the Liberal Party. I would have thought that the position of the Liberal Party would be, better to have serious discussions and negotiations with all the partners at the table, all sharing the same information, than for her to be saying, "No, we support the municipalities."

I support the hospital association, which said last week that it felt the government's proposals were the beginning of a serious dialogue. That's exactly what we're trying to establish. I would say to the honourable member, obviously, we believe that it's important for us, in order to effect the kinds of savings that have to be effected this year, it's crucial for us to have the partners at the table.

I would have thought the municipal governments would benefit from that participation rather than from being absent. Obviously, it's a judgement for them to make, but I can't see that being away is in their interests. To me it makes less sense than the alternative.

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HEALTH CARE

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): My second question is to the Minister of Health. In the last few days the government has put before the talks a detailed set of expenditure control proposals affecting medicare and health and hospital services in the province. I have a copy of that document in my hand and I'm sure the minister, though she has not presented it to the House, is quite familiar with it.

My first question to the Minister of Health is concerning this expenditure control plan that targets medical and hospital services and expects to save over a quarter of a billion dollars this year. Among the proposals -- and there are very many interesting proposals in this document, but let me start with one of the proposals -- you plan, as a government, to propose the elimination of the right of medical residents to bill the Ontario health insurance plan. There is no question that should you achieve that end, this change potentially will have a very significant effect on rural and small hospitals right across the province.

Madam Minister, can you indicate to all of us who represent rural communities like I do in Renfrew, like the Minister of Transportation does in northwestern Ontario, what alternative you are going to be able to offer the residents of communities like Barry's Bay and Manitouwadge since you plan to eliminate the right of medical residents to directly bill the Ontario health insurance plan?

Hon Ruth Grier (Minister of Health): The objectives of the expenditure reductions as well as the issues that we're discussing with the Ontario Medical Association are to contain the costs and the rapid expansion of OHIP expenditures that have gone uncontrolled for many years as well as to provide a more equitable service throughout the province and in all regions of the province, particularly in the rural areas. We certainly look forward to discussing with the OMA ways in which that objective can finally be achieved.

Mr Conway: We all understand what the objective is, and the Minister of Finance tabled now almost a month ago a specific program that indicated that, on the payment to physicians this year, you plan to reduce that payment by $275 million. I understand that.

You have now put before your partners a very specific, very interesting detailed set of proposals as to how you're going to achieve that this year. It's your plan. I am asking you on behalf of my rural constituents -- they want to know -- how you are going to, in rural communities, replace the right of medical residents to bill the plan, which replacement I understand.

If you're going to take that away, how are you going to provide an alternative that is going to maintain a level of good care in all of these small rural hospitals across eastern, central, western and particularly northern Ontario? We know what you want to do. How are you going to do it?

Hon Mrs Grier: We intend and we have very fortunately in this province a mechanism to discuss with the Ontario Medical Association, which represents the physicians of this province, how in fact we can best accomplish what we are totally committed to, which is a containment of the costs of OHIP billings. We are more than happy and in fact intend to discuss with the OMA the details of how those reductions will be accomplished.

Mr Conway: I just have to say, as a final supplementary, this is your proposal that is to fit into this budgetary policy. This is on the table. I would tell my honourable friends across the House, if you haven't seen this, you'll want to read it, because this is dealing with the integrity of medicare and this is going to --

Hon Bud Wildman (Minister of Environment and Energy): Oh no, it isn't.

Mr Conway: I tell you, this is full of very interesting proposals, having to do with a whole range of very important health services. It's your plan; it's not my plan. You've put this on the table and you have said this mechanism is going to achieve a quarter of a billion dollars' worth of savings in this year, a fiscal year which began seven weeks ago.

I understand what your objectives are. I want to know, but more importantly, my rural constituents in places like Deep River and Barry's Bay served by community rural hospitals want to know how you're going to provide the alternatives to ensure that those practitioners who are not going to be allowed to access the plan through traditional means -- fee for service -- can provide health and medical services to people who rightly expect them.

Hon Mrs Grier: The member is correct. There are a number of proposals that have been put forward by this ministry, proposals that we wish to discuss in their detail and in their implementation. What is clear is that we have to reduce the amount of money that is currently expended for OHIP and we have to contain the costs of our health care system. But what is not up for discussion is the commitment of this government to medicare, the commitment to protect and to preserve medicare and the commitment to access and equitable health care services in communities large and small around this province.

TAX INCREASES

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): My question is to the Premier. Premier, this morning's Toronto Star reports, "Rae says he has no option but to raise taxes to help reduce the deficit." Premier, you and I know that you have many other options, so I don't know why you continue to try to fool the public by saying that you have no option.

This past weekend, you and I were both in Thunder Bay. The message that the chamber of commerce gave was quite clear to all three leaders -- we were all there in Thunder Bay this weekend -- and that was that if you expect them, the private sector, to create even one new job this year, if you expect that, there must be no new taxes in this budget you're bringing in. That's what I've been telling you and the Liberals for the last four years. That's what economists and investors have been telling you ever since you won the election.

I would ask you this, Premier: Given that you hiked taxes in your first budget and you hiked taxes in your second budget, and both of those two budgets for job creation in the private sector were absolute disasters, and given as well, Premier, according to you, even after you hiked taxes in both budgets, you got less overall revenue -- you said your revenues are going down -- what is it that makes you think that in this budget, hiking taxes will either give you more money or will create one single job?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): Let's just say that the member and I have a difference of opinion. I think to talk about Canada being able to deal with a $600-billion problem without looking at revenues is, frankly, completely unrealistic.

I'm talking about Ontario as well. With respect to our own jurisdiction, I would say to him very clearly that the emphasis of the budget on Wednesday is going to be jobs. The thrust of what we've been doing has been jobs.

Let me say directly to the honourable member, the honourable member talks about the impact of last year's budget on jobs. The fact of the matter is -- the Treasurer will be able to show this very clearly in his budget on Wednesday -- that there are more people working in Ontario today than there were at the time of the last budget. Employment has increased, job creation has increased, and this pattern is one which we want to encourage, having a realistic talking out of the same side of one mouth at the same time.

I'm not going to go into the business community and say, "Yes, we have a deficit problem, but there's no way that you're going to be able to contribute to it on the revenue side." I think that's unrealistic. I think it's equally unrealistic to go to public sector unions and say, "Yes, we have a deficit problem, but you're not going to have to make a contribution to deal with it."

The message from this government is quite consistent. In order to create jobs on the investment side, in order to encourage the creation of new jobs, we have to have a realistic approach to public finances.

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

Hon Mr Rae: That requires a contribution from everyone in our society who has the ability to contribute, and that's the philosophy and the position of the New Democratic Party government of Ontario.

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Mr Harris: The Premier continues to say that that's his philosophy. The Liberals said the same thing. Hike taxes; that's their philosophy. You continue to say everybody must share the burden of deficit reduction. Premier, for the last eight years, Liberal and NDP governments have asked the taxpayers all by themselves 55 times to share deficit reduction to the tune of $8 billion in new taxes. They're the only ones who were asked, for eight years in a row, 55 times. I say to you, and the business community, taxpayers, union members, everybody is saying to you, "It's now time for the government to play a little catch-up," because for those same eight years government kept spending and spending. In the last eight years it's been taxpayers all alone 55 times. Now what we're simply saying to you is, you've got eight years and 55 cuts of catch-up before you go back to the taxpayers for one more cent.

I would ask you, given that there are many other options, many alternatives, will you look to those alternatives of government spending instead of going back to the taxpayer for the ninth year in a row?

Hon Bob Rae: I'm obviously not in a position to discuss the budget on Wednesday, but I think if the honourable member is here on that day he will see very clearly, and I think the public will see very clearly, that this government is going to be doing more to deal with the question of expenditure and government spending than any government in the last half-century. That is, I think, a fact which needs to be brought to his attention.

In addition to that, we are also going to the public sector and saying that there has to be some recognition of the extent of the problem, in terms of restructuring the public sector. We're saying as well that in order for us to have a realistic job creation/debt reduction strategy -- and the two go together -- there have to be increased taxes.

I'm not pretending this is the popular thing to do. Sure, it doesn't take a whole lot of guts to go into the chamber of commerce and say, "I promise you no new taxes ever." That's not exactly the charge of the light brigade. I'm saying that when I went to the chamber I said, "We are looking to a real reduction in the level and pace of debt increase in this province; we're looking at a serious attempt to deal with the public sector restructuring."

The Speaker: Would the Premier complete his response, please.

Hon Mr Rae: We're also going to be asking the people out there for a contribution, by way of taxes, on the basis of their ability to do so, which is the foundation, I think, of any fair tax system.

I think this is a sound approach. I think it will lead to the strongest possibility for job creation for the future of this province. We can't do it on another basis.

Mr Harris: Premier, you and treasurers for the last eight years have tried to do it on the basis of 55 tax hikes, to the tune of $8 billion. Each time you did that, you destroyed jobs.

We've outlined for you many options other than hiking taxes. In the Progressive Conservative minority report on the budget this year, for example, we gave you the option not to spend millions to drive the private sector out of day care. We gave you another option which the Canadian Federation of Independent Business gave to you as well. They say it will save you $500 million each year for 30 years if you freeze the expansion of the failed government-owned housing programs started by the Liberals. You have an option to crack down on welfare fraud that the auditor told you of and on health care fraud that has been pointed out to you by the auditor and by our party for the past year.

Premier, even some of the options that we have given you will wipe out completely the need for any tax grab on Wednesday. I would ask you this by way of final supplementary: Given that 55 times you and the Liberals went to the taxpayers over the last eight years, why will you not consider some of the proposals that are given to you by our party, by the CFIB, by citizens all across this province, even by the unions, instead of hiking taxes? Why won't you consider these proposals?

Hon Mr Rae: I would say to the honourable member that he's making a number of proposals, some of which I've heard before, some of which I think are extremely reasonable. I think the suggestion, for example, from the Provincial Auditor with respect to the question of fraud, wherever it is to be found, the question of dealing with improving the management of the health care system, are issues that are of great concern to us and issues which we're dealing with directly. I think you'll find on the management side, on the health care system, this government has done more to control costs -- and the people out there know it full well -- than any other government in the last half-century. I don't expect the honourable member to stand up and say that or admit that it's true, but those are the facts.

I would say to the honourable member, he can, if he likes, persist in his view that it's possible to deal with the extent of the problem that we have in this province or in this country without dealing with the issue of taxation. I don't happen to agree with him, and we continue to have to address that question.

Mr Harris: The Premier is quite right: We have a fundamental disagreement over taxes, he and I.

GAMBLING

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): My second question is to the Premier as well, and this, Premier, regards one of your initiatives from last year's budget.

Last year you announced in your budget a 180-degree shift of policy from this government and in fact from your party and from your election campaign. In fact, not once during the 1990 campaign did you mention you had shifted your support for casino gambling. In fact, you were clearly on the record opposing casinos. You said, "The casino plays on greed."

Premier, given your record against casinos, why do you now feel somehow that you have a mandate from the people of this province to bring casino gambling to Ontario?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): First of all, let's put this in some perspective.

Gaming of various kinds did not suddenly get introduced into the province of Ontario by the New Democratic Party government. Horse racing has been going on in the province for a very long time. Bingos have been under way in the province for decades. Various kinds of casino gaming of a temporary nature have been in place in the province for a very, very long time, and the lottery, of course, has been in place since the mid-1970s, I assume brought in by the Conservative government, since it was in power somewhere between 1372 and 1985.

So I would say to the honourable member that the fact that the government is proposing --

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

Hon Mr Rae: -- an opening of a casino in Windsor, which we are establishing as a pilot project that will give us a chance to assess its impact, its success, if I may say so, in substantial response to a very strongly expressed desire on the part of the people of Windsor as expressed through their city council and other means, I would say to the honourable member, I don't think marks a huge departure for this province. I don't even think it marks a huge departure for the New Democratic government. It was, I remind you --

The Speaker: Could the Premier please conclude his response.

Hon Mr Rae: -- a New Democratic Party government in Manitoba which introduced the casino in the hotel in Winnipeg.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Rae: I don't see it as any huge departure. It's simply a fairly modest response --

The Speaker: Would the Premier please take his seat.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Would the Premier please take his seat. Supplementary?

Mr Harris: Premier, there have been many jurisdictions in the United States that have changed their status quo on casino gambling, but only after they held a referendum on legalized gambling: Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Florida, Ohio, to name a few.

Some of the people there endorsed plans after being given an opportunity to have their say; others turned them down. But at least there the public was given an opportunity to voice their opinion before their government unilaterally imposed a reversal of the status quo.

I would ask you this, Premier: Given your stand on casino gambling, given what you have said in the last election, do you not think it would be fair to ask Ontarians for their opinions, either by an election -- and I don't really expect you're going to give them that opportunity in this particular climate, so I would offer you the other option, which many American city and state jurisdictions have used: by giving them a referendum before implementing this about-face in position and before significantly changing the lifestyle of communities in Ontario?

The Speaker: Could the leader place his question, please.

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Mr Harris: Are you prepared to do that, Premier?

Hon Mr Rae: I think the honourable member -- if I can cut to the core of his question, there was one option which I must say didn't leap to my mind as being the first one that I would jump to. But on the other one, I would say to him that, first of all, as a matter of policy, we would never, ever impose a facility of this kind on any community that did not want one. Secondly, I would say to the honourable member that in the event that a city council --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Rae: If I could, Mr Speaker. In the event that a city council -- I'm having difficulty, not getting the words out but getting them heard. In the event that a city council decided, in its wisdom, that it wanted to hold a referendum with respect to a question, that would be entirely up to the city council and there would be no objection from this government at all if that's how a city council chose to respond.

But we've made it very clear that where there is an objection from a city council, we would not be intending to proceed. It's entirely up to a city as to whether or not to encourage that to happen.

Mr Harris: Premier, the first thing that has changed has been provincial policy, the NDP party's position and Bob Rae's position. Some have argued that the party hasn't changed but they've lost control of their leader.

Premier, your minister has kept secret a report done by the Windsor Police Services Board which calls for the need for increased police resources as a result of casino gambling coming to Windsor. There is no doubt that communities in Ontario will significantly change if a casino comes to town. As Donald Trump says, "Gaming doesn't come cheap." I have to agree with a lot of the critics on that. It brings crime, it brings prostitution, it brings a lot of the things that maybe areas didn't have before. There is a big cost to pay. Surely the Premier would agree with me that it brings a lot of things that bingo doesn't bring. I don't think he's suggesting that bingos and bingo players bring these kind of things that Donald Trump is saying.

Given this, Premier, given that a significant change is going to come to the community of Windsor, given that there's been a significant provincial change, or that you wish to change policy, significantly different from the status quo and different from what you campaigned on, will you hold,l as most other jurisdictions in the United States got the opportunity to do, a referendum on whether Ontario should allow full-blown casino gambling in the province of Ontario, a change from that which you campaigned on? Will you do that?

Hon Mr Rae: As I've indicated to the honourable member, the government has no plans for a province-wide referendum. But certainly if a municipality chose to have one with respect to whether they would ask for one or seek one in a municipality, that's entirely up to a municipality.

You're assuming, if I may say so -- I don't know what Donald Trump was referring to exactly, but I do know that to compare having a single facility in a community like Windsor with situations in some of the American jurisdictions is completely outlandish and bears no relationship to the world of reality.

I would say to him as well that the whole reason for taking the measured approach that we have in terms of having a pilot project, making the assessment of the impact, being able to assess the impact on a case-by-case basis, the whole reason for doing it is to allow us to make the kinds of assessments that need to be made in a practical, pragmatic, reasonable way, rather than reaching the sorts of conclusions the leader of the third party now seems to have arrived at. I would say to him that that's the approach we're taking. I happen to think it's a very reasonable, practical, sensible kind of approach.

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): My question is for the Premier. Premier, we continue to raise in this House our concerns about this government's lack of commitment to the young people of this province and, most specifically, our concern with the fact that there will be fewer job opportunities for students and young people this summer because of government cutbacks.

I know, Premier, that you and your ministers have consistently denied that this is in fact the case, but today we've learned that another program for young people, the two-year internship program for visible minorities, women and the disabled, has been eliminated.

Premier, it was just five weeks ago that your government advertised this program offering 91 jobs, 91 jobs that would have provided young people with a real opportunity to get the kind of training and experience they need in the workplace, and you had thousands of applicants for those 91 jobs. Five weeks later, they're told the program is cut.

You will remember, Premier, that when we asked this question before, we were told by the Minister of Education and Training, and it was repeated by you in answering another question, that there had been no cuts, no reduction in support for programs for young people. It is clear to us that in fact your spending cuts have resulted in cuts to job programs for young people. Premier, it is time to tell the whole story, and I would ask you to tell us exactly what youth employment programs have been reduced or cut as a result of your expenditure control plan and other spending cuts.

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): I would refer that to the Chairman of Management Board.

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet): The Leader of the Opposition referred in her question to the employment equity internship program, and she's equating that program somehow with the answers that I and the Minister of Education and Training have given here in the House with regard to summer employment programs for students. It is neither a summer employment program nor is it anything other than a program for employment equity internship.

It is a two-year program. The article in the Toronto Star this morning suggested that the program has been cancelled. It has not been cancelled. The program in fact has been cut in half for two years. All of the second-year participants in the program will continue this year. For this one year, the program will take no first-year applicants, and next spring we'll start accepting first-year applicants again.

Mrs McLeod: The answers just lead to more and more confusion. We understand this program has been cut: There are no applicants being accepted and none of the applications are being processed. This is in fact a program that affects mostly young people, according to the program's director. And we're not confusing it with summer employment programs; we know this is a different program. We are also concerned about summer employment programs, the same summer employment programs that you tell us have not been cut but which in fact have been cut, the same summer employment programs which you told us were in place now, but as of this morning the agencies tell us it will be weeks before the funds for those programs are confirmed.

We want some straight answers. We don't know what to believe when your government keeps talking day after day about its concern for young people. I would just point to other parts of your record, Minister. In the last budget, this government cut OSAP payments by $10 billion. Students that are accepted into colleges this year, with the letters of acceptance that went out on Saturday, have been accepted conditionally, pending the outcome of the social contract negotiations.

We've just been talking about the medical students, the residents and interns who've completed 10 years of their university education program and are being told that there is no alternative from this government other than to leave this province.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Would the leader place her supplementary, please.

Mrs McLeod: Now we see that five weeks ago ads were placed for the internship program, and the program is cut. I ask you, how can you keep saying to young people that you are concerned about them when every action you take just takes more jobs and more hope away for the young people of this province? Why are young people not on the agenda of your government?

Hon Mr Charlton: Obviously, the Leader of the Opposition doesn't understand what has been going on or what this government has just been through. I think it has been made clear by the Minister of Finance and by the Premier and by others that the government has just been through a very serious expenditure reduction effort. The employment equity internship program is a two-year program which is designed to take in graduates, not students, and to hopefully see that they get placed in the civil service. The civil service is in the process of downsizing. I think that's been a major part of the debate here in the Legislature this spring around the social contract and a number of other issues.

We wanted to ensure that the dollars we spent on youth in this budget were spent in the most effective way that we could. We wanted to ensure that we didn't in fact have to cut and reduce the number of, for example, student jobs that were available through a variety of programs that this government provides this summer. The internship program is a program that we were having difficulty placing those people from, because we're going through a downsizing in the OPS. We tried to make the cuts in the most effective way to have the least impact on young people and to ensure that our summer employment programs this summer provided as many jobs to students as they did last year.

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HEALTH CARE

Mr Jim Wilson (Simcoe West): My question is to the Minister of Health. The government's draconian decision to slash fees paid to new physicians by 75% will effectively lock out 2,500 doctors now in training and 400 physician graduates.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Mr Jim Wilson: The Treasurer listens to the questions from the opposition about as well as he listens to the business community in this province.

My question to the Minister of Health is: Your decision to slash fees paid to new physicians will effectively lock out 2,500 doctors now in training and 400 physician graduates this year in Ontario. Minister, will you table in this House today any needs-based studies -- not doctor-population ratios, but actual patient-needs-based studies done by the government which have led you to declare that there are too many family doctors, paediatricians and psychiatrists practising in Metropolitan Toronto?

Hon Ruth Grier (Minister of Health): Let me, before I answer, take issue with the wording in the preamble to the member's question. He says "our decision to slash fees to new entrants to the profession." I have said, on a number of occasions in this House and elsewhere, that we have made a number of proposals to the Ontario Medical Association, proposals that didn't come to it as any surprise. On the proposal to have a differential fee for new physicians, the OMA was authorized by its counsel a year ago to discuss with the ministry, precisely because studies of resources that have been done by all provinces and a national agreement that was reached earlier last year indicated that Ontario was one of the few provinces not to have put some restrictions on the amount of billing and the entry of new physicians to the profession.

The discussion, the proposals, are all on the table for negotiation with the Ontario Medical Association, and that is where they will be resolved.

With respect to ratios and numbers, I'm sure the member, as a very effective critic, is well aware that the royal college of physicians and surgeons has standards for number of doctors per patients that are used by both the profession and the ministry to determine where there is a need. What has to happen is to make sure we have the appropriate professionals meeting the needs of areas and of special populations across the entire province.

Mr Jim Wilson: It's very interesting how the minister really fudges her answer to this question. The decision to cut fees paid to new physicians in this province is contained in the government's expenditure control plan, and if we're to believe the expenditure control plan which was put out some weeks ago by the Treasurer, then there's no alternative but to believe that these are actual decisions taken and that they are not part of the social contract talks. The minister always tries to fudge the two.

Minister, you talk about saving money. Leaving aside for the moment the frustration and anger felt by hundreds of medical graduates who have been told that their home province doesn't want them, do you think taxpayers enjoy the fact that they have spent $2 million per doctor on education and training only to have these doctors locked out of practice in Ontario and forced to move south of the border to help subsidize Bill and Hillary Clinton's health care reform?

Hon Mrs Grier: That is a ridiculous suggestion. Let me remind the member that the negotiations with the Ontario Medical Association are quite separate from the social contract and are part of the framework agreement that the ministry or the province has with the OMA, and that one of the other proposals on that negotiating table is a way in which physicians -- and there are almost 2,000 of them -- who have passed the average retirement age of 65 can in fact be encouraged to take a retirement in order that there will be room for the new physicians who, the member is quite right, are anxious to begin practice in Ontario.

He's also right that the taxpayers have funded their education, as the taxpayers have funded the education of architects and engineers and nurses and many other professionals. And the taxpayers are saying, legitimately, "We want to make sure that those new doctors practise in areas where they're really needed" -- in northern Ontario, in parts of Metropolitan Toronto, where there are populations that are suffering because, under the current fee-for-service system, there are not doctors there to meet their needs.

Managing resources within the health care system is a major challenge. It is a challenge that every province is undertaking, and it is a challenge that, together with the profession, we will manage in this province too.

The Speaker: The Minister of Environment and Energy has a response to a question asked earlier.

CLEANUP OF INDUSTRIAL SITE

Hon Bud Wildman (Minister of Environment and Energy): The MPP for Mississauga North asked a question last week and I indicated I would get back to him. Unfortunately, I was ill, so I wasn't able to. I will now at this point.

He raised a concern about what he considered to be a delay in a cleanup of PCBs in and around Smithville. The cleanup of the PCBs in and around Smithville is being managed in four phases. There has been no delay in the PCB remediation-cleanup programs associated with the Smithville PCB storage site located in the Smithville industrial park.

Phase 3 of the program for the cleanup and destruction by incineration of all stored PCBs on the site and all the PCBs-contaminated earth down to the bedrock, both on and adjacent to the site, was completed in December 1992. The contractor is now working on grading and landscaping the area. The work is expected to be completed this June.

The program has been conducted successfully and all cleanup and environmental standards are being met. To date, over $50 million has been spent on cleanup and remediation programs.

An agreement between the municipal council, the public liaison committee and my ministry is very close to being finalized. This agreement will establish a three-party management board of directors that will oversee phase 4 of the Smithville remediation. Through the project management team, research has been undertaken and pilot projects run aimed at developing the technology to deal with the PCBs on the rock aquifer.

This research will be fully funded by the ministry and, when the research is completed, we will hopefully have the proper technology to deal with this difficult problem.

Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): With respect to the response, I think that clearly just underlines the problem. In the last part of the response by the minister, he said that there's going to be further study. I can tell the Minister of Environment that those studies have in fact been completed.

Work was scheduled to be started this summer. As a result of your fiscal restraint in the matter of cleanups, as was outlined in the report by the Treasurer -- work in Smithville with respect to the cleaning up of that area was to have been commenced this summer. It is now no longer going to be started this summer.

All you are doing is further studying the problem when those studies have in fact been completed. We need a commitment from you and the people in Smithville need a commitment from you that cleanup will take place, will be carried out without any further delay.

Hon Mr Wildman: I didn't note a question or an interrogatory in the member's statement. But the commitment to completing the necessary research work and studies to determine how we can clean up the rock aquifer will be done. It is there.

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POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION

Mr Dalton McGuinty (Ottawa South): My question is for the Minister of Education and Training. Minister, late last week Ontario colleges began to send out letters of acceptance to over 70,000 students applying for admission, but because of your government's social contract talks, colleges are saying their offers of acceptance are conditional upon the outcome of these same talks. In other words, 70,000 students across the province are having their future put on hold while your government fumbles with a restraint program.

Minister, how can you, as the person specifically responsible for the future of these students, possibly permit this situation to exist?

Hon David S. Cooke (Minister of Education and Training): The letters that were sent out by the colleges last week were the decision of the presidents of the individual colleges when they decided to make this move. Not all colleges have decided to take that approach. I believe that if you take a look at the numbers, the colleges are in fact projecting that they should be able to have increased enrolments, and the numbers of students in places have actually increased considerably over the last couple of years.

Yes, I would agree that there is some uncertainty until the social contract talks are completed. There are some time lines associated with those contract talks and it would be in the interest of all parties to have those talks completed in a positive way as quickly as possible.

Mr McGuinty: Minister, you may find that uncertainty acceptable, but I certainly don't. It's important to understand what we're talking about here. Letters of acceptance have always in the history of this province, without fail, been good news in the life of a student; that is, until now.

By some remarkable manoeuvring, this government has managed to twist one of the most important pieces of news that young people receive in their lives into something, in some ways, even worse than outright refusal. Colleges are saying to their students: "Your future's on hold. We may or may not have a space for you. Just hang tight." All of this was brought about by your government's ineptitude in economic planning, and don't try to slough it off on to the colleges.

Will you here today assure those 70,000 students who have obtained a qualified acceptance, or who will shortly be obtaining such, that you will speak up for them at the social contract table and that you will guarantee them their acceptances and that they can get on with their lives and plan accordingly?

Hon Mr Cooke: The member knows that it is absolutely impossible for the minister to guarantee anybody a place in the colleges, but it's obviously very clear that the vast majority, if not all of those students, will in fact be accepted.

But one of the difficulties we have in the college system right now in Ontario is that the system had been neglected for a number of years. I look here at the increases in operating grants that were provided by the Liberal government when it was in power and the fact that we were in the best of all economic times, with revenues going up double-digit, and your government did nothing to rebuild the college system in this province at all. That's when we should have been investing in our education system, and if we've got difficulties now, it's because of your lack of foresight in the education system.

DAY CARE

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): My question is for the Minister of Community and Social Services. Minister, there has been a lot of controversy about your government's handling of day care in this province over the last two and a half, almost three, years.

Certainly your involvement as the former Minister of Education and now the Minister of Community and Social Services has caused some additional concern, because a leaked cabinet document shows that your government is considering changes to the current system of day care in this province and that you may be poised and ready to set up yet another level of bureaucracy to administer day care subsidies instead of going through the existing mechanism of municipalities.

In the case of York region, York region's community services commissioner recently advised, upon reflecting upon that document, that the current system is a mess and that the government is moving in a very unilateral fashion.

My question, Minister, is, why are you even considering setting up another level of bureaucracy to administer day care in this province, especially the subsidies, when we already have a perfectly good system in place with regional municipalities that pay 20% of the costs?

Hon Tony Silipo (Minister of Community and Social Services): I appreciate the question from the member opposite. He of course is free to read into leaked cabinet documents whatever he wishes, but I can tell him that, far from trying to establish another level of bureaucracy, what we are trying to do is to drastically improve the system of child care in the province.

We are doing that, first, by trying to inject into the system additional subsidized spaces through the Jobs Ontario initiatives, ones that we think will be a great help both to those people who are trying to get off social assistance, and into the retraining programs, as well as then trying to look over a longer period of time at some of the other significant improvements that we need to bring into the system, including the link between education and child care.

In that prospect and in that process, we certainly know and intend to have a number of important discussions with municipalities because of the interest that they have in the delivery of child care.

Mr Jackson: That just doesn't square with what happened in York region. In York region, the actual committee dealing with recommendations to your government -- the region of York was told it could not be on that committee which is looking into the reforms and advising the minister. They've now been put in a position of being responsible, or will be responsible, for moving the current subsidy program so that the subsidy goes directly to the centre and to the parents, and the region, which pays for it, won't have any access.

Minister, you and your government have been fooling around with this whole issue of the delivery of child care, whether it's junior kindergarten, whether it's home day care, whether it's starting day care in our schools as early as age 4. All this you've been playing with at taxpayers' expense, and yet today in Ontario there are fewer children in these day care spaces than ever before.

Now, I ask you, Minister, given your government's record of not consulting municipalities on these social issues -- on social assistance reform, for example; on day care -- how can you reassure York region, which has now said it will withdraw its 20% contribution for subsidies because your government plans to eliminate it? How can you reassure municipalities that that's not what you're going to do and that you will allow the input from municipalities, and the taxpayers through them, which pay 20% of the child care costs in this province?

Hon Mr Silipo: I can tell the member that I'll certainly look into the issue of York region specifically that he raises, but I would be very surprised if there is any process under way that tries to exclude the municipalities either in the way in which we are going about putting out and making sure that we use the spaces that we've established under the Jobs Ontario initiative or indeed in the discussions that need to continue under the process of reform.

We certainly understand, and I certainly understand as minister, that there's an important role that the municipalities are playing. We know that in a number of municipalities people have said to us very clearly that they want to continue being involved in the delivery of the system and that the very least that we owe them and that we are ensuring will happen is that they are involved very much with us in the discussions that will lead to, we hope, a better and improved system of child care in the province.

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ONTARIO ECONOMY

Mr Donald Abel (Wentworth North): My question is for the Minister of Finance. I was concerned to read in the Toronto Star this weekend that Judy Darcy, the president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, says that the economic assumptions behind our fiscal plan are insupportable and misleading. Mr Minister, could you please explain to the House why the union and the economic analysis firm that CUPE hired have two different results?

Hon Floyd Laughren (Minister of Finance): I did read with some interest the comments of the president of CUPE, who I understand received a lot of the analysis from Informetrica, the consultant firm. I think that the main problem with the difference in the numbers has to do with the assumptions of economic growth that are built into the analysis that Informetrica did and which CUPE then used in the press conference that it had.

I think as well that they make the assumption that if we'd proceeded with the almost $17-billion deficit this year, it would just be business as usual out there, and that simply isn't

the case. Even the conference board said that God only knows what kind of growth we'd have if they proceeded with the $17-billion deficit in this province.

As well, since there won't be a supplementary, I assume, Mr Speaker, there are some assumptions on the corporate tax side in which it seems to me they've neglected to consider the carry-forward losses that are appropriate for the private sector when they are computing profits.

So there seems to be an assumption there that, first of all, growth will be much more dramatic than most people think it will be and, secondly, that corporate profits will be as high, but they think they will be lot higher than anybody else thinks they'll be.

Mr Abel: Mr Minister, what concerns me the most is that their analysis claims there's going to be a loss of about 70,000 jobs over the next two years. How would they arrive at this conclusion?

Hon Mr Laughren: I'm not at all sure. If you come to the conclusion that the higher the deficit the more economic stimulation there is, it seems to me that's the kind of analysis that gets you into very deep trouble very, very quickly, and that simply would not be sustainable.

As a matter of fact, what we're trying to do will protect jobs and services in community after community all across this province. So I would take issue with their assertion that the budget will cost 70,000 jobs. For one thing, when the assertion was made, they had not seen the budget, so I'm not too sure how they could come to that conclusion, but our budget is going to put the emphasis on the protection of jobs, not on the costing of jobs in this province.

NOTICE OF DISSATISFACTION

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Time for oral questions has expired.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Very briefly, I want to, under standing order 34(a), serve notice to you orally -- I will submit a written filing later this afternoon -- of my complete dissatisfaction with the response of the Minister of Health to my question earlier today.

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: With respect to what is perhaps a budget leak, I have here a document and I seek your guidance on this. I'd like to read from a memo briefly.

It's regarding the retailing of official road maps in Ontario. The official road map of Ontario has been identified as a product which falls within the scope of --

The Speaker: Order. Would the honourable member please take his seat.

Interjections.

The Speaker: No. Just take your seat, please. At the outset you indicated that this has something to do with the budget, in which case it has nothing to do with the Speaker. The Speaker will deal with procedural matters with respect to this House, but the budget is the domain of the Treasurer and not of the Speaker.

Mr Turnbull: Perhaps you could guide me on this matter.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Mr Turnbull: I am concerned, Mr Speaker. Perhaps somebody can --

The Speaker: The guidance on the matter is that there is no point of order.

PETITIONS

EDUCATION FINANCING

Ms Dianne Poole (Eglinton): I have a petition 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 102,000 students across Metro 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 $2,188 less on each of its elementary school students and $2,764 less on each of its secondary school students in our public school counterpart,

"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."

I have signed this petition.

GAMBLING

Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): I have a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It reads as follows:

"Whereas the Christian is called to love of a neighbour, which includes a concern for the general wellbeing of society; and

"Whereas there is a direct link between the higher availability of legalized gambling and the incidence of addictive gambling; and

"Whereas the damage of addiction to gambling in individuals is compounded by the damage done to families, both emotionally and economically; and

"Whereas the gambling market is already saturated with various kinds of government-operated lotteries; and

"Whereas large-scale gambling activity invariably attracts criminal activity; and

"Whereas the citizens of Detroit have since 1976 on three occasions voted down the introduction of casinos into that city, each time with a larger majority than the time before,

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

"That the government of Ontario cease all moves to establish gambling casinos."

I have affixed my signature to this petition.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr Paul R. Johnson (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly and the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.

"Whereas the people of Ontario are undergoing economic hardship, high unemployment and are faced with the prospect of imminent tax increases; and

"Whereas the Ontario motorist protection plan currently delivers cost-effective insurance benefits to Ontario drivers; and

"Since the passing of Bill 164 into law will result in higher automobile insurance premiums for Ontario drivers,

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

"That Bill 164 be withdrawn."

GAMBLING

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I have a petition from people who are opposed to casino gambling. It reads as follows:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has traditionally portrayed itself as having a commitment to family life and quality of life for all the citizens of Ontario; and

"Whereas families are made more emotionally and economically vulnerable by the operation of various gaming and gambling ventures; and

"Whereas the NDP government has stated that it has a historical concern for the poor in society, who are particularly at risk each time the practice of gambling is expanded; and

"Whereas the NDP in the past has vociferously opposed the raising of moneys for the state through gambling; and

"Whereas the citizens of Ontario have not been consulted regarding the introduction of legalized gambling casinos despite the fact that such a decision, a significant change in government policy, was never part of the mandate given to the government by the people of Ontario,

"Therefore, we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly as follows:

"That the government immediately cease all moves to establish gambling casinos by regulation;

"That appropriate legislation be introduced into the assembly along with the process which includes significant opportunities for public consultation and full public hearings as a means of allowing citizens of Ontario to express themselves on this new and questionable initiative."

I have signed this petition as I'm in agreement with it.

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

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has not consulted the citizens of the province regarding the expansion of gambling; and

"Whereas families are made more emotionally and economically vulnerable by the operation of various gaming and gambling ventures; and

"Whereas credible academic studies have shown that state-operated gambling is nothing more than a regressive tax on the poor; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has in the past vociferously opposed the raising of moneys for the state through gambling; and

"Whereas the government has not attempted to address the very serious concerns that have been raised by groups and individuals regarding the potential growth in crime,

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

"That the government immediately cease all moves to establish gambling casinos and refrain from introducing video lottery terminals in the province of Ontario."

This is signed by many individuals from my riding and I too have affixed my signature to it.

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Mr Dennis Drainville (Victoria-Haliburton): I add a number of names from Windsor, that city in Ontario that's going to have a pilot project, to the petitions against casino gambling.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has traditionally had a commitment to family life and quality of life for all the citizens of Ontario; and

"Whereas families are made more vulnerable, emotionally and economically, by the operation of various gaming and gambling ventures; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has had a historical concern for the poor in society, who are particularly at risk each time the practice of gambling is expanded; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has, in the past, vociferously opposed the raising of moneys for the state through gambling; and

"Whereas the citizens of Ontario have not been consulted regarding the introduction of legalized gambling casinos, despite the fact that such a decision is a significant change of government policy and was never part of the mandate given to the government by the people of Ontario,

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

"That the government immediately cease all moves to establish gambling casinos and that appropriate legislation be introduced into the assembly along with a process which includes significant opportunities for public consultation and full public hearings as a means of allowing the citizens of Ontario to express themselves on this new and very questionable initiative."

I'm very pleased to sign my name to this petition.

GRAVENHURST OPERA HOUSE

Mr Daniel Waters (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): I have a petition today from a number of residents of the community of Gravenhurst, calling on the government to provide full funding for the restoration of the Gravenhurst Opera House, which was closed by the Ministry of Labour earlier on this year, and I too have affixed my name.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mrs Joan M. Fawcett (Northumberland): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly:

"Whereas the people of Ontario are undergoing economic hardship, high unemployment and are faced with the prospect of imminent tax increases; and

"Whereas the Ontario motorist protection plan currently delivers cost-effective insurance benefits to Ontario drivers; and

"Since the passing of Bill 164 into law will result in higher automobile insurance premiums for Ontario drivers,

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

"That Bill 164 be withdrawn."

I have signed the petition.

GAMBLING

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): I have a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It has about 10 signatures and it says the following:

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has not consulted the citizens of the province regarding the expansion of gambling; and

"Whereas families are made more emotionally and economically vulnerable by the operation of various gaming and gambling ventures; and

"Whereas credible academic studies have shown that state-operated gambling is nothing more than a regressive tax on the poor; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has in the past vociferously opposed the raising of moneys for the state through gambling; and

"Whereas the government has not attempted to address the very serious concerns that have been raised by groups and individuals regarding the potential growth in crime,

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

"That the government immediately cease all moves to establish gambling casinos and refrain from introducing video lottery terminals in the province of Ontario."

BRUCE GENERATING STATION

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): "We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"When discussing the future of Bruce A, to consider that the undersigned are in full support of the continued operation of all of the units at Bruce A. Furthermore, we support the expenditure of the required money to rehabilitate the Bruce A units for the following reasons:

"In comparison to other forms of generation, nuclear energy is environmentally safe and cost-effective. Rehabilitating Bruce A units is expected to achieve $2 billion in savings to the corporation over the station's lifetime. This power is needed for the province's future prosperity.

"A partial or complete closure of Bruce A will have severe negative impacts on the affected workers and will seriously undermine the economy of the surrounding communities and the province."

The particular signatures to this petition are from the Scarborough/Toronto area and join with the labour, business and chambers of commerce and councils from the Bruce area. I have affixed my signature to the petition.

GAMBLING

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

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has not consulted the citizens of the province regarding the expansion of gambling; and

"Whereas families are made more emotionally and economically vulnerable by the operation of various gaming and gambling ventures; and

"Whereas creditable academic studies have shown that state-operated gambling is nothing more than a regressive tax on the poor; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has in the past vociferously opposed the raising of moneys for the state through gambling; and

"Whereas the government has not attempted to address the very serious concerns that have been raised by groups and individuals regarding the potential growth in crime;

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

"That the government immediately cease all moves to establish gambling casinos and refrain from introducing video lottery terminals in the province of Ontario."

Mr Speaker, there are 20 signatures on this petition, and I am happy to support the petition with my signature.

BICYCLING SAFETY

Mr Mike Cooper (Kitchener-Wilmot): I have a petition from several constituents from Kitchener, New Hamburg and Baden. It's a petition opposed to Bill 124, the mandatory bike helmets. They feel it's an infraction of their freedom of choice.

GAMBLING

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): I have a couple of petitions, one of these petitions being filed by people in my constituency, but all of the petitioners incredulous that a New Democratic government would succumb to the evils of gambling. I share their incredulity and I submit the petitions on their behalf.

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

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has not consulted the citizens of the province regarding the expansion of gambling; and

"Whereas families are made more emotionally and economically vulnerable by the operation of various gaming and gambling ventures; and

"Whereas creditable academic studies have shown that state-operated gambling is nothing more than a regressive tax on the poor; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has in the past vociferously opposed the raising of moneys for the state through gambling; and

"Whereas the government has not attempted to address the very serious concerns that have been raised by groups and individuals regarding the potential growth in crime;

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

"That the government immediately cease all moves to establish gambling casinos and refrain from introducing video lottery terminals in the province of Ontario."

I've affixed my name to this petition.

Mr Paul Wessenger (Simcoe Centre): I have a petition.

"Whereas the Christian is called to love of neighbour, which includes a concern for the general wellbeing of society; and

"Whereas there is a direct link between the higher availability of legalized gambling and the incidence of addictive gambling; and

"Whereas the damage of addiction to gambling in individuals is compounded by the damage done to families both emotionally and economically; and

"Whereas the gambling market is already saturated with various kinds of government-operated lotteries; and

"Whereas large-scale gambling activity invariably attracts criminal activity; and

"Whereas the citizens of Detroit have since 1976 on three occasions voted down the introduction of casinos into that city, each time with a larger majority than the time before;

"Therefore, we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly as follows:

"That the government of Ontario cease all moves to establish gambling casinos."

BRUCE GENERATING STATION

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): "We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"When discussing the future of Bruce A, to consider that the undersigned are in full support of the continued operation of all the units at Bruce A. Furthermore, we support the expenditure of the required money to rehabilitate the Bruce A units for the following reasons:

"A partial or complete closure of Bruce A will have severe negative impacts on the affected workers and will seriously undermine the economy of the surrounding communities and the province."

Mr Speaker, the signators to this particular petition hail from the Pickering area. I affix my signature to it as well. This is one of a collection of petitions which has garnered well over 15,000 signatures in support of the continued operation of Bruce A nuclear generating station.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): The time for petitions has now expired.

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INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR L'ÉDUCATION

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

Bill 15, An Act to amend the Education Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'éducation.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Does the honourable member have some comments?

Mr Robert V. Callahan (Brampton South): The proposed government Bill 4 will eliminate, as I read it, any special education for people who require special education. The purpose of this bill is to ensure that a full range of special education placements is available to exceptional children so that they will have access to the programs that best meet their needs. The bill makes it clear that special education will be available at no cost to the child as well as to the child's parent or guardian. It also gives the child the power to appeal a special education placement.

PROVINCIAL PUBLIC CONSULTATION ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 SUR LA CONSULTATION POPULAIRE À L'ÉCHELLE PROVINCIALE

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

Bill 16, An Act to obtain the Opinion of the Public on Questions of Provincial Interest / Loi visant à obtenir l'opinion du public sur des questions d'intérêt provincial.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Does the honourable member have some brief comments?

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): The purpose of the bill is to enable an Ontario elector and the Lieutenant Governor in Council to obtain a referendum on a question that is of general application to Ontario and that is within Ontario's legislative authority. An elector who wishes a referendum must submit the question to the chief election officer on a petition containing the signatures of at least 15% of the Ontario electors.

The chief election officer must accept every petition that meets certain procedural and substantive requirements and place the question on the ballot for the general election to elect members of the Legislative Assembly. The Lieutenant Governor in Council may order that a referendum be held at a general election to elect members of the Legislative Assembly.

If at least 50% of the electors vote in the referendum and if 60% of those electors vote the same way, than a minister of the crown is required to introduce a bill into the Legislative Assembly that proposes to implement the results of the referendum. The act does not require the minister or any other members of the Legislative Assembly to vote on the bill in any way particular.

CAPITAL INVESTMENT PLAN ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 SUR LE PLAN D'INVESTISSEMENT

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

Bill 17, An Act to provide for the Capital Investment Plan of the Government of Ontario and for certain other matters related to financial administration / Loi prévoyant le plan d'investissement du gouvernement de l'Ontario et concernant d'autres questions relatives à l'administration financière.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Does the minister have some opening remarks?

Hon Floyd Laughren (Minister of Finance): The Capital Investment Plan Act, 1993, is a key part of the government's 10-point plan to strengthen our economy and support jobs. It is the most comprehensive program of infrastructure renewal in a generation. This new way of doing business means construction of infrastructure projects will begin sooner, be completed faster and create jobs more rapidly.

The bill establishes three new crown corporations: the Ontario Transportation Capital Corp, the Ontario Clean Water Agency and the Ontario Financing Authority. It renews the Ontario Land Corp as a crown agency called the Ontario Realty Corp.

By working together in partnerships and joint ventures with the private and public sectors, the corporations will use new sources of revenue while reducing costs to the taxpayer. These crown corporations will use innovative and entrepreneurial ways to finance investment in economically important infrastructure that will lay the groundwork for Ontario to compete in the 21st century. The bill also enables universities, hospitals and school boards to gain access to loan-based financing for capital projects.

The government is changing the way it does business. Our new approach will encourage efficient and more cost-effective operations. More jobs will be created, and capital projects vital to preserving the economic strength of this province will be --

The Acting Speaker: On a point of order, the member for Bruce.

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): This particular presentation is a statement. It could have been done during statements by the ministers. There was ample time to do that. When the first reading is done, there is a brief explanation of what this does. This sets up the shell game that these people have been contemplating for some time. Mr Speaker, I ask you to call him to order or else I ask for unanimous consent to revert back to statements, and I am prepared to allow him to make his statement.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Would the honourable Minister of Finance summarize briefly, please.

Hon Mr Laughren: I had completed my remarks before the intemperate, silly outburst from the member for Bruce.

CHRONIC CARE PATIENTS' TELEVISION ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 SUR L'INSTALLATION DE TÉLÉVISEURS APPARTENANT À DES MALADES CHRONIQUES

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

Bill 18, An Act to permit Patients receiving Chronic Care to install their own Television or combined Television and Video-Cassette Recorder / Loi permettant aux malades chroniques d'installer leur propre téléviseur ou leur propre combiné téléviseur-magnétoscope à vidéo-cassette.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Would the honourable member have a short summary?

Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): The bill gives chronic care patients the right to install their own television or television and combined videocassette recorder in their rooms rather than having to rent such a unit from the hospital or to use the equipment down the hall if they can't make it down to the chronic care facilities that are provided.

I'm quite happy to introduce this bill today. I'd like to thank my legislative intern, John Martelli, for helping me with the research.

VICTIMS BILL OF RIGHTS ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 SUR LA DÉCLARATION DES DROITS DES VICTIMES

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

Bill 19, An Act to establish the Rights of Victims of Crime / Loi portant déclaration des droits des victimes d'actes criminels.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Would the honourable member have some brief remarks?

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): This is the third time I've tabled this modified bill. It was submitted in 1990 as Bill 113 and in 1991 as Bill 103. Unfortunately, it lacked the support of the two previous governments. I was hopeful that now that this matter is before the standing committee on justice, Ontario being the last province in Canada to enshrine a victims' bill of rights for its citizens, that somehow this bill will assist the government. I invite them to assist in making it a reality.

It recognizes that victims are part of the equation of catching criminals but they should also be compensated and be provided certain basic services which are not codified in our laws. The bill also provides that persons convicted of an offence shall not profit from the offence through their recollections or through public interviews and public appearances.

I would certainly hope that the members of the House will support Ontario, even though it's the last province in Canada, getting victims' rights legislation enshrined for our citizens.

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ORDERS OF THE DAY

RYERSON POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE LA RYERSON POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY

Mr Gary Wilson moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 1, An Act to amend The Ryerson Polytechnical Institute Act, 1977 and the University Foundations Act, 1992 \ Loi modifiant la loi intitulée The Ryerson Polytechnical Institute Act, 1977 et la Loi de 1992 sur les fondations universitaires.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Mr Wilson has moved second reading of Bill 1. As parliamentary assistant, would he now have some opening remarks?

Mr Gary Wilson (Kingston and The Islands): I'm pleased to introduce the second reading of Bill 1, amending The Ryerson Polytechnical Institute Act. When this bill is passed in the Legislature, Ryerson will become Ryerson Polytechnic University, Ontario's first polytechnic university.

In introducing the second reading of the bill, let me take you back to five weeks ago. That's when Richard Allen, former Minister of Colleges and Universities, announced to an assembly of students, faculty and staff at Ryerson that Ryerson Polytechnical Institute would become Ryerson Polytechnic University.

The response on campus that Sunday afternoon was joyous. All members of the Ryerson community were pleased to know that their institution of learning would receive full-fledged university status. They were also pleased to know that Ryerson will continue with its special mission of providing applied education to thousands of learners. As Ryerson's president, Terry Grier, put it, "Ryerson University will be equal but different to its university counterparts elsewhere in the province."

Speaking of President Grier, I'm pleased to say that he is in the east lobby with his associates from Ryerson: Dennis Mock, Ron Swirsky, Arnice Cadieux and Debbie Chant. So welcome to the Legislature.

Ryerson students who have taken university-level programs and have met university-level expectations will now receive the same degrees as other students taking similar programs in other universities.

Ryerson is unique in this province. As a university focused on applied learning and research, Ryerson enriches a variety of post-secondary educational opportunities available in Ontario.

Ryerson Polytechnic University will be an institution providing education directly tied to emerging economic goals and societal needs. Its mission will contribute directly to economic renewal. Ontario needs the kind of education that Ryerson provides -- an applied education providing a balance between theory and practice.

Ryerson graduates know that the degree they will receive represents an education that allows them to make an immediate contribution to their chosen profession. For an eager, enthusiastic university graduate, that's a good feeling to have. For Ontario, that's proof of a sound investment made for the future.

The economic and educational marketplaces have already recognized the level of education provided by Ryerson. Ryerson alumni have made their mark in many, many fields, such as engineering, business, health care, journalism and urban planning. And let's not overlook the value of applied research. Today's internationally competitive business world is in constant need of innovation. We must continually search for a better way of producing new products and services. Applied research can do this. Applied education, applied research: This is where Ryerson Polytechnic University excels.

As a government, we are dedicated to economic renewal. Ryerson carries out the applied education and applied research so vital to that economic renewal. Ryerson, in the coming years, is poised to make an even stronger and more influential contribution to the quality of life in this province.

I know that my colleagues on all sides of this House support Ryerson in becoming a polytechnic university, and I'd like to acknowledge their support of this bill. Therefore, I am pleased to introduce second reading of Bill 1, amending the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute Act.

The Acting Speaker: Questions and/or comments? Seeing none, further debate on Bill 1?

Mr Dalton McGuinty (Ottawa South): It gives me great pleasure to participate in this debate and to support Bill 1. I've had the opportunity, the good fortune, to meet with President Grier and his colleagues and to tour the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, as it is presently known, and developed a flavour for the institution and a good understanding, I think, of the background to this bill. For those reasons I lend my full support to it.

One of the things you learn is that this bill is really another step in the natural evolution of Ryerson. It started in 1948, if I might briefly remind the members here, as the Ryerson Institute of Technology. At that time it offered a trades-oriented style of programming, two-year diplomas. It was in 1963 that it became known as the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute and it established a board of governors. Later, there was a bicameral system of governance developed.

In 1971, Ryerson was first given the authority to grant degrees, and a lot of people aren't aware of that. I think it's very important. It was a significant milestone. Ryerson has, for the past 22 years, been giving out degrees. The number of degree designations has been increased over the years to 28. Virtually all of those degree programs have university-level admission requirements and they last four years; they're four years in duration.

So Bill 1 is essentially a formal recognition of what everyone has taken for granted, and that is Ryerson is de facto a university, not only because it's been a degree-granting institution for 22 years, but also for a number of other reasons, including the fact that Ryerson is a full member of the Council of Ontario Universities and the Association of Commonwealth Universities.

Another important fact is that Ryerson students pay university tuition fees which, as you will know, Mr Speaker, are significantly higher, at least twice as high as college tuition fees.

I think another important factor here is that in 1992, this House, through passage of the University Foundation Act, listed in a schedule of universities that were able to access or able to establish a foundation for purposes of fund-raising, right between Queen's and Western, Ryerson Polytechnical Institute.

But apart from its unique programming and the fact that it can't offer post-grad programs at this time, the vital difference between Ryerson today and Ontario universities is that Ryerson's students receive 10% less government support than a student in any other Ontario university program, even though the two, that is, Ryerson and universities, essentially have the same admission criteria, the same fundamental structure, the same professional recognition for the degrees, the same accreditation received, offer essentially similar degrees. This is obviously a fundamental inequity, and I'm delighted to say that Bill 1 addresses this.

There's been no basis for the justification of this inequity and hence there are no objections to this bill, and I think that's something that is rather remarkable. I've only been here some three years, but never have I seen a bill receive so much support. In fact, I've received no letters of objection to the bill, not even from the university brotherhood, if I might refer to it that way: the people who are going to have to make more room at the table for Ryerson. There has been no objection received from that body, notwithstanding, as I say, that they are going to have share from the same pool in order to assist Ryerson to develop into a full-fledged university with post-graduate programs and additional research capabilities.

I was pleased to learn that the Ministry of Education and Training will be phasing in the additional funding of approximately $11 million over six years. I think that's appropriate because Ryerson cannot -- and I know President Grier himself recognizes this -- establish its new post-grad programs and its research programs overnight. The phase-in will allow Ryerson to grow into its full university status in a thoughtful and intelligent manner.

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I think it's absolutely critical for me to remark as well at this point that the Minister of Education and Training must not permit Ryerson, or any other university for that matter, to lose its ability to provide a quality post-graduate education and to meet its obligations to provide accessibility and affordability with respect to universities.

I think it's not stretching it too much to say that the future of post-secondary education is at risk in this province. The government must take up the challenge -- and I don't believe it has yet -- of ensuring that post-secondary education in Ontario is of the very best quality, that it's affordable and that it's accessible.

Right now, in fact, by reducing the funding to universities and colleges both directly and indirectly, I think that accessibility and quality of education is under attack. Furthermore, by eliminating grants to students, there's been a reduction in the affordability, an asset which is something we were proud to have in this province.

I want to come back to Ryerson, though. I'm very pleased to see that Ryerson's distinctive mission will be maintained, and object number three of the bill will provide that one of the objects of the new Ryerson Polytechnic University will be: "The provision of programs of study that provide a balance between theory and application and that prepare students for careers in professional and quasi-professional fields."

One of the things you learn about Ryerson is that the key to its real strength, the key to what makes it so attractive to its over 12,000 students and the key to what will enable it to play what I believe will be a vital role in our economic recovery, lies in its programs. In particular, there are two special qualities.

The first quality is that it has a unique blend of theoretical and practical application. In other words, it combines classroom experience with time spent in studios, labs or clinical settings or something of that nature, I think the point being that students not only acquire knowledge but they learn how to apply that knowledge.

From an employer's perspective, I must think that a Ryerson graduate would be seen as rather attractive and obviously a potentially valuable asset. The programming, this blend of theoretic and practical application, effectively eases the transition for the student from the academic experience to the workplace.

The second quality related to the programs at Ryerson is that the programs have a career focus and they have a focus on some professional and quasi-professional fields. One measure -- and surely it's not the only measure, but one we apply to our full secondary institutions in the province -- but surely one measure of success is to determine whether an institution's graduates are able to obtain employment.

In 1989, the latest figure I was able to obtain, Ryerson was able to place 90% of its graduates in employment within six months of graduation. I think that's a remarkable rate of success in terms of placing students with employers. I would be surprised if that percentage had not been decreased at this point in time, given the present economic climate and the lack of jobs, but nevertheless it's certainly a tradition in which the Ryerson people and students can take great pride.

These two qualities, the combination of theoretical and practical in the career focus, are obviously extremely attractive to the growing body of students who feel that the traditional university program is not meeting their needs in one form or another. I have no doubt that Ryerson will continue to fill this need into the future.

My father, as you may know, Mr Speaker, who was a former member for Ottawa South, also spent 27 years in university classrooms. He lectured in English literature and Romantic poets, but he always felt there were still a significant number of students attending his classes who would have been better off spending their time in a learning environment where there was a greater hands-on experience available to them in order to hold their interest and to give them a greater certainty of employment at the end of the day. I don't think there's any doubt from whatever perspective you might bring to this debate; no one can argue surely that there is not room for Ryerson in our learning culture here in Ontario.

I heartily endorse Bill 1. It has my full support. I'm certain it will enable Ryerson to continue doing the kinds of things that make it distinctive. I feel that it will be a vital part of our post-secondary learning culture in the province and, furthermore, a vital part in strengthening our faltering economy.

I want to congratulate Mr Grier and his colleagues and his students and the faculty at Ryerson for their patience, for the role they have played in bringing this task to fruition. I'm also pleased to learn that the timing of this bill's passage and ultimately its royal assent will enable the students of Ryerson graduating this year to graduate from Ryerson Polytechnic University.

The Acting Speaker: Questions and/or comments.

Mr John Sola (Mississauga East): I'd like to congratulate my colleague from Ottawa South. I think he convinced me when he mentioned that his father would have agreed with this, because I was a great admirer of his father.

He listed a long list of important factors for recognizing Ryerson to become a full-fledged university, but I think he left out one which, to me, would probably be the most important, and that is, my daughter Vesna is presently a student at that institution and I would appreciate it if she could graduate from a university.

I would like to also take this opportunity to express a potential conflict of interest and I would ask you to render a decision on whether I would be in conflict in voting on this bill. I think this bill is an excellent bill. I intend to give it my support, but I would like to get your decision on that matter.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member for Ottawa South has two minutes in response.

Mr McGuinty: Just very briefly, I apologize to my colleague for the oversight in leaving out that other critically important reason for supporting the passage of this bill.

But in seriousness, I know that this will mean a great deal to this year's graduating class in terms of being able to have inscribed on their degree, their diploma, that Ryerson is a university. It's not going to, in any real sense, alter the quality of the programming, the quality of the education that's available to students there, but in the broader scene there's still a great deal internationally of -- I wouldn't call it bewilderment so much as confusion with respect to Ryerson's status, and this will, I think, go a long way towards enabling Ryerson to make those forays into the international scene and to take some comfort in knowing that it will be properly recognized as an institute of higher learning and particularly a university.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate on Bill 1.

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): I would like to say a few words with respect to the second reading of Bill 1, which essentially makes Ryerson Ontario's first polytechnical university. We talk about the need for improving the quality of education in this province, whether it be at the secondary level or the post-secondary level, and it's something that's on all of our minds continually. I certainly welcome Ryerson to the university community and hope that this bill passes.

I will say that when we read some of the articles that have been put forward recently, particularly by people in the post-secondary community, we get concerned with the issue of funding. As I understand it, this bill, if it passes, will mean "Ryerson will gain up to $18 million in provincial financing over the next six years as grants are brought up to par with other full-fledged universities." I'm reading from a news clipping from the Toronto Star of April 7 where this was one of the first times it was reported.

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I will say that that is the financial impact on Ryerson, that it will get more funding for its programs. However, I notice that some of the administrative officials from Ryerson are in the House today, in the gallery, and I must say, my observations of watching the various universities around this province and the fears as to where they're going to find their next dollar to provide funding must give these administrative officials some concern in joining this community, because this government certainly has not shown good faith in providing the funding that's necessary to improve the post-secondary quality of education in this province.

Of course, one reads the latest article from Education Today in which our Minister of Education is prominently described as being a crusader for change. You can take that for what it's worth, but there is an article by a Mike Benson talking mainly about the secondary education, but it does talk about the concern of this philosophy of education that is predominant throughout the province.

Mr Benson, in this article which is featured in the March-April 1993 issue of Education Today, which is Ontario's education magazine and is published by the Ontario Public School Boards' Association, states that "although education is a costly public service (and always will be so), it is also a vitally important one for our future economic wellbeing. It is an investment. In an emerging post-industrial, information-based economy, education will be crucial to that other important component of any debt reduction strategy: long-term wealth creation."

So for that reason, I would hope that members of the House will be unanimous in supporting this bill, because certainly we need more post-secondary education, particularly universities such as Ryerson. I certainly wish them well in their ventures. As the member for Kingston and The Islands said in his introductory remarks, we must be continually searching for new ways to provide education to the people of Ontario. I don't think those were his precise words, but it was a summary of one of his comments.

With respect, as I understand it, Ryerson will be allowed to offer masters degrees and doctorates, but that will take a period of time. I don't think that they will be doing that initially, as that will be spread over a number of years.

One of two criticisms that seem to be coming out after the introduction of this bill was the concern of smaller classes, the concern that more teachers will turn to research. That's a continual complaint, of course, with the educational community at the university level. I suppose it is a genuine concern that the students of Ryerson will be concerned if this bill passes and Ryerson does become a university, that there will be a fear of -- I'm sorry; I meant larger class sizes as opposed to smaller class sizes, that there will be smaller class sizes as more -- I'm still getting it wrong -- with respect to more teachers turning to research.

Finally, the other criticism is that only 26% of its professors hold doctorates currently, and I suppose that will increase, notwithstanding the fact that in other Ontario universities an average of 67% of faculty members have earned doctorates. So Ryerson will be, in those areas, somewhat behind the other universities, and perhaps hopefully, with the appropriate funding incentives from this province, those facts will change.

However, I do wish to spend a few brief moments on the whole issue of funding to post-secondary education, specifically with respect to universities, because that is what we are doing: We are creating another university in the province of Ontario.

This letter is a little out of date, but I'm going to refer to a few paragraphs from it because it does express the concern that's been given by the Council of Ontario Universities. The letter is addressed to myself, and I would assume it's been sent to all members of this House. It was dated last September, but it concerned the whole financial and overcrowding concern that is going on in our universities. It referred to a report that was just released by the Council of Ontario Universities called the Financial Position of Universities in Ontario: 1992.

The writer of this letter, who was Peter George, the president, wanted to emphasize to all of us the concerns that the report had put forward. I'm going to quote very briefly from it:

"Your Ontario universities have lost significant financial ground in the past 15 years.

"Since 1977-78, expenditures per student in Ontario universities have decreased by more than 13%. By contrast, expenditures per student in elementary and secondary education have increased by 37.2%. The recent OECD findings indicate that Canada spends more of its GDP on education than other industrialized nations. Our study clearly indicates the money is not being spent on university education."

That's the concern of the Council of Ontario Universities and it will be a concern, I'm sure, of Ryerson -- I believe it will be called Ryerson Polytechnic University; I hope I've got the name correctly -- as well if it joins the university community.

The letter goes on by saying:

"Since 1977-78, the universities' share of the provincial budget has declined from almost 6% to barely more than 4%.

"Since 1977-78, Ontario's support of its universities has lagged behind economic growth; university grants have grown 15% less than the economy, whereas provincial government expenditures have grown by 25% more than the economy.

"On several bases, whether per student, per capita or by income or wealth measure, Ontario's support of universities continues to rank at or near the bottom of Canadian provinces. Only Nova Scotia provides lower operating grants per student.

"Universities in Ontario are much less well funded than private and state universities in the United States, and the gaps are increasing. Michael Porter, John Kenneth Galbraith and Lester Thurow have all warned of the adverse consequences of underfunding higher education. What do you think Ontario's funding record implies for Ontario's competitiveness within the North American free trade arena?

"There is clear evidence of the economic value of university education: Over 84% of the population with university degrees participate in the labour force, unemployment rates among university graduates are consistently the lowest of any sector in the labour force, and university degree-holders earn significantly higher incomes than persons without degrees. Indeed, projections are that half of all new jobs created by the year 2000 will require 17 or more years of education."

Obviously, there is a need for this university that's being proposed by Bill 1, and I think we should all support it, but at the same time, members of this government on all three sides should emphasize the fact that there has been a lack of funding to post-secondary education, particularly in the university sector.

As I say, the $18 million that will be brought up over the next six years, I hope this commitment that's being made to Ryerson will be honoured, what with the government cutting back left and right and specifically in the education field. Education is a most important commodity if we're going to compete in all areas of industrial growth in this world, and I'll tell you, we are falling behind.

I'd like to refer to a very brief set of figures that the government has given in cuts, which concerns me and should concern the people of Ryerson as to where we're going on the emphasis of financing of university education in this province.

The plan of the government has outlined $269.9 million in cuts for the department of colleges and universities for the fiscal 1993-94 year. That includes the restructuring allocation which has been reduced from $56 million to $25 million, a savings, as they call it, of $31 million. New program starts under the university research incentive fund will not be approved in 1993-94, a savings, as they call it, of $3 million. General operating grants for colleges and universities will be reduced by 0.8%, a savings, as the government calls it, of $22 million. Thirty million dollars in planned expenditures for 1993-94 will be deferred until next year, a savings, as this government calls it, of $30 million. Finally, the changes previously announced will save $178 million.

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The emphasis is on savings, as this government puts it, the determination to cut the budget. But is that the appropriate thing to cut? Our universities are having a more and more difficult time to operate. Tuitions are going up and it's more and more difficult for our young people and older people to attend university because of the unbelievably high cost of education. We have a great need to support our universities, and I would submit that this government is not honouring that need. Certainly I am very, very dubious about its honour to help assist this new university that will be created.

The social contract document contains wage-saving targets of $520 million for schools and $170 million for colleges and universities. That's the plan of this so-called social contract. In order to realize savings for the provincial government, operating grants will need to be cut by these amounts.

I think we should look forward to this university prospering, but I'll tell you, across this province we're all concerned as to where this government is taking us in post-secondary education and particularly in the area of colleges and universities.

Obviously, the Progressive Conservative Party has tried to deal with this issue in a document called New Directions, Volume 2: A Blueprint for Learning in Ontario. I would recommend, if you haven't read this, that other members of this House refer to it. It does deal specifically with a couple of areas that I would like to refer to.

The federal government has estimated that by the end of this century almost half of the new jobs created will require more than five years of education beyond high school.

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): Is this Brian Mulroney?

Mr Tilson: No, this is the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario putting forward a blueprint for education in this province, which is a heck of a lot more than the education that you're putting forward.

Mr Elston: But you're reading Brian Mulroney's stuff. You're actually reading Mulroney's stuff, right?

Mr Tilson: The federal government has estimated that by the end of the century almost half of the new jobs created will require more than five years of education beyond high school. Post-secondary education has never been more important for the future.

Mr Elston: You guys never give up, do you?

Mr Tilson: Mr Speaker, I wonder if we could control the member for Bruce.

Post-secondary education has never been more important for the future of Ontario's young people, yet our colleges and universities have been weakened by a decade of underfunding. In too many cases, classes are overcrowded, equipment is obsolete, library facilities are inadequate and buildings are deteriorating. Ontario currently ranks 9th out of 10 provinces in operating grants for university students.

As I hope and assume that this bill will pass, I again express the grave concern that I have as to the funding that's being put forward by this government in assisting the universities to stay open and operate and provide the necessary university education that the young people -- in fact all the people of Ontario -- require.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Questions or comment?

Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): I rise to congratulate my colleague the member for Dufferin-Peel for recognizing, as our party does, the importance of Ryerson Polytechnical Institute as a degree-granting institution.

It's interesting to note that we in our party have developed a document called New Directions, Volume 2: A Blueprint for Learning in Ontario, and that document is a document to provide excellence in education in the province of Ontario. We support this piece of legislation because we believe it will support our concept of excellence in education at this institution for the betterment of the province of Ontario.

While my friend was speaking, my colleague the member for Bruce was indicating that we were reading from a Mulroney type of document. Nothing could be further from the truth. We were reading from a document that we are developing by way of policy to constructively criticize what the government does today. I ask my friend from Bruce, where are your policies? Where is anything but bald criticism coming from the member for Bruce and from his party? We don't know where the Liberals stand on this piece of legislation, or on any piece of legislation, for that matter, because they don't believe in the development of policy.

We in the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party are developing policies, and in so far as education is concerned, those policies are directed towards excellence in education. When my friend, my colleague the member for Dufferin-Peel stands with the New Directions series, we can point to a document that says because of our concept of education, which is broadly known within the community in Ontario, we can therefore support what the NDP is doing in this particular instance because it supports excellence in education and it supports a proper view to the future in so far as Ryerson is concerned.

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I want to thank, first of all, the member opposite and the member before him, from the Liberal caucus, for getting up and speaking to this bill in order to ensure the fast passage of this legislation that I'm sure we recognize is well overdue, something hopefully that could have been done a long time ago.

I want to speak quickly, though, to the member for Dufferin-Peel in regard to the whole question of funding. I'm going to skate somewhere where politicians don't like to skate sometimes and tread out a little bit here.

One of the things that strikes me in the whole debate around this issue and around the greater issues of funding in the province of Ontario, like in other jurisdictions, is that there is an argument that seems to be coming from two sides of the same coin. What I mean by that is that it's one thing to stand in the Legislature and to stand in opposition and to say the government should be doing whatever in regard to going in one direction or the other, but the problem is that the member stands up and says, on the one hand, he wants this government to spend more money in order to build up our post-secondary education system -- -- I agree all of us would like to be able to do that -- and in another minute in question period the Leader of the Opposition will get up and say that the government is spending far too much money or not enough money. It seems to be an inconsistent position.

I think we need to be honest with the people of Ontario, the same way that we need to be honest, I think, as all politicians from all levels.

We are into a situation now, not only in the province of Ontario but across all of the jurisdictions of Canada and North America, I would say, that governments find themselves in a position where there are not enough dollars to pay for the services we've built up over the years, and that puts us in a very difficult position as politicians, that we have to make some choices. I would say those choices are very difficult. We have to do things sometimes that we really would rather not be doing, but we can't forget and we have to recognize that we have to face the fiscal reality we find ourselves in.

For the members of the opposition to get up and cry that we need to spend more money, I really think you're doing a disservice to the people of Ontario. I think we need to learn how to redirect our dollars to make sure of their most effective use for the taxpayers of Ontario and we need to make sure that we have efficiencies in the system. I urge the member to work with us on that.

Mr Elston: I wasn't going to join in the two-minute speeches until I heard some of the material that came from the member for Willowdale and my good friend from Dufferin-Peel, an up-and-coming new member, but new none the less, and he needs to remember a few pieces of information.

One is, first of all, that his leader, the member for Nipissing, is the fellow who is yelling at Bob Rae almost daily that they should chop, axe and cut anything that moves or looks like it provides excellence in anything.

Mr Harnick: Waste.

Mr Elston: I have never before heard such a diatribe in my life from the member for Dufferin-Peel, who in suggesting that their material, that so-called blueprint --

Mr Harnick: Spend, spend, spend. They got us into this problem.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, the member for Willowdale.

Mr Elston: -- is going to provide some kind of excellence in education when these people want to axe and just remove any kind of invigorating and creative activity, not only in education but in health care and all across this particular province.

I have looked at the blueprint, and it is a blueprint, all right. There is no detail in that thing at all. You cannot build on that. Lots of nice words on it, lots of nice paper, lots of nice graph-like things, but I'll tell you, it would not give us one advantage at all. In fact, it would not advantage the people at Ryerson one iota, because at the backdrop of the blueprint for their education, or whatever, is their propensity to cut and axe anybody or anything that wants to be creative, that wants to develop the educational skills in our young people that will really make us competitive in the long term.

Mr Harnick: Spend and tax.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Willowdale.

Mr Elston: It's interesting that these people from the Conservative Party think that our party has no ideas in terms of creating new policy. There is a leader's conference. Lyn McLeod is holding a conference on June 4 and 5 which will focus on these very items, because we're going back to the grass roots to get them to feed us again. We're not élitist like the PCs and we don't want to axe and crash our very good educational system.

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Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): I think it's a mistake for any politician to get into debate about who's more élite than the other. Sincerely, Mr Speaker, I don't think the Liberal Party necessarily takes a back seat to anybody when it comes to élitism.

Mr Elston: Is that so?

Mr Stockwell: Well, the electorate thought so three years ago.

To the member for Cochrane South, who just got up and started explaining what a responsible party in opposition should do, that has got to be the height of -- it's absolutely unbelievable that any member opposite should even have the guts to stand up and start questioning the ethics and the morals of opposition parties when he represents a party which, may I suggest, was devoid of any rational, sensible thought, of actual thoughtful opposition.

This party which is in government now, everyone will tell you, was opposed to anything that didn't mean more spending: spend, spend, spend, spend. Even the champion spenders, the Liberal government, would never satisfy you people. It was never enough. It was never enough on education. it was never enough on any issue.

So may I suggest that for a member from that government to stand up and suggest that opposition parties should be a little more consistent in their message -- I know I have the Agenda for People still in hand. I know what their message as an opposition party was, which has absolutely no relationship to the kind of government you've been providing the people of this province.

I don't want to hear any more lectures on what a responsible opposition party is, about integrity, consistency and a moral high ground. You haven't got any high ground on any issue, let alone moral high ground or integrity high ground. Please stop those speeches. Nobody's buying them any more. Humble up a bit. It's getting rather nauseating.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Dufferin-Peel, you have two minutes to reply.

Mr Tilson: I would like to thank the members for Willowdale, Cochrane North, Bruce and Etobicoke West for their contribution to this debate.

The Liberals and of course the NDP are basically saying the same thing as they always have, and that is that they're supporting these cuts. I simply put forward to them that if you're going to compete on the international market, you're going to have to educate the people of Ontario, the young people, and if you don't do it, we're going to become a third-rate nation. It's as simple as that. To simply support these cuts is inexcusable.

I will say the basis of my thoughts and I think the thoughts of this Progressive Conservative Party, the thoughts that have been expressed by the member for Willowdale; that is, emphasizing the excellence in education. If we don't do that, we're going to fail.

You can put forward all the universities you want. You can create university after university after university, but if you don't provide the funding to improve the quality of this education, to compete with the Europeans and the Asians, we're going to become zero, we're going to become absolutely zero. That's the fear, and that's why I took the time to read some of the concerns that have been put forward by the educational community, particularly at the university level.

We're in difficult times. I agree with the member for Cochrane North that we are in a difficult time. It's tough. Education is tough to put forward. We are in a period of recession, perhaps the worst financial times we've had since the Depression. On the one hand, I sympathize with you: You have to make cuts and it is difficult for you. But if you don't emphasize education, we're going to fail, we're going to fail as a people.

So I encourage the passing of this bill, but I would say you take a second look at the whole issue of funding the university system. Don't leave it up to the commission. Make some decisions yourself.

The Deputy Speaker: Further debate.

Mr Dennis Drainville (Victoria-Haliburton): It gives me great pleasure to rise in the House today to speak on the second reading of Bill 1.

I'd like to say first off that it gives me pause when I look over what has been said by the group here in the House today over the last 10 minutes. I'm very happy at times to be an independent member and to have the opportunity of listening to the kinds of conversations that we hear between all the various parties and their various agendas. But I want to say that on this bill, we come to a bill which essentially has unanimous support in the House. That is the thing that needs, I believe, to be communicated to the people of Ontario.

In 1948, Ryerson began its illustrious history and began to teach students and began to employ teachers in an attempt to try to bring a different perspective on applied education. They have succeeded magnificently over the years. It is because of that success, it is because they have been able to establish a centre of excellence and true higher learning, that they have come to the point today where we can ensure that they can move now to be a full degree-granting institution and continue on the very good work that they have begun.

When Mr Grier speaks of the words "equal but different," he speaks in a very true way about the multifaceted education reality which is Ryerson. Many people have talked about the engineering courses and programs in health care and business, but I'd like to take a very different focus and also mention the other areas that they are involved in: theatre, radio and television arts, social work, areas indeed where they have shown such excellence and they have been able to provide opportunities for people to be employed in those various areas.

I have spoken many times over the years to people who have not only graduated from those courses and programs but people who teach in those programs, and I have seen a commitment to higher learning which is again an example that we must strive for and continue to strive for.

The motto of Ryerson Polytechnical Institute is "Mente et artificio," which means, I am told, with mind and application. If we begin to think about that motto in regard to the work that has been done since 1948, what we see is that it is not just a motto or something which honours the insignia of Ryerson, but rather it is in a sense the goal and the underlying philosophy of education which that institution has had since the very beginning of its foundation.

The mind is a very, very important thing. We have entrusted to this institution the opportunity to increase knowledge in our society, to give leadership, to build spirit and character, and it has taken that opportunity and has used it as a jumping-off place to ensure that our society in Ontario is a vibrant and dynamic society. A great deal of thanks must go to those who began this whole adventure of Ryerson, and great thanks must be given to the membership of that faculty and the students of Ryerson today, as they continue to work towards the establishment of that vision and that goal.

I'd like to speak just very briefly now about one thing. I'm going to diverge considerably from some of my colleagues who have spoken about the importance of our global economy and linking the kinds of education that take place at Ryerson and other higher-learning institutions with creating jobs. There are other reasons for higher education. We have these institutions of higher learning, institutions of excellence, not just to create jobs in our society.

They have, I believe, a more important function. That function is to help create spirit, to help create the abilities and the knowledge base that young people are going to have to encompass if they are to be members of our society using their talents and their abilities for the betterment of all: not just for themselves, but for the betterment of all.

In fact, at times I worry that when we make this linkage between jobs and education, we do a disservice to the whole educational journey. I believe that Ryerson has placed the focus of its endeavours in education in the right way. They have looked at students and they have shown students that there are ways to live and to learn and to be in community, and that vision they have imparted to students has led to a more vibrant society in Ontario.

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So I affirm the work of Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, I look forward to it becoming a full degree-granting university and I look forward to the future, when the students and the faculty of Ryerson continue to put forth a vision that means that mind and application will build a better society for all people.

The Deputy Speaker: Any questions or comments? If not, any further debate?

Mr Elston: I have just a very few words to say. One of them has to do of course with the influence of Ryerson on the people in my area. Ryerson has been known for some time as a great place for radio and television journalism schools. They have graduated several people who have become very well known in the field of broadcast journalism. They have sent a number of their students to the area from which I hail, which is Wingham, Ontario -- I'm now living in Walkerton -- and they have for a long time attracted a number of the students from our area to go there to complete post-secondary education courses of one sort or another.

I'm a person who believes in the continuing education role in establishing our young people as highly competitive individuals in the very difficult marketplace they find themselves in these days. I think we should be doing all that we can to supplement and provide a wide choice of fields into which these young people can graduate after completing secondary school.

It's of interest to me, however, at the time when we are changing Ryerson Polytechnical Institute into Ryerson Polytechnic University, that at the same time we are also taking away institutions of higher learning from the people of this province. My friend the member for Timiskaming and myself have suffered the recent loss of two colleges of agricultural learning, both the New Liskeard facility and Centralia from the county of Huron, which is an area I hail from, and about which we were quite proud of having that institution in our area. Both those places are gone.

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): That is stretching your geography a bit, isn't it, Murray?

Mr Elston: The member for Oxford doesn't think that somebody from Bruce county should be associated in any way with some place from Centralia. I'll tell you, in case you don't understand the geography, there are no institutions of higher learning after secondary institutions in my part of the province. There are none. You guys, you New Democrats, all you people who speak about being enamoured with providing post-secondary education, have the gall and the nerve to remove the one post-secondary educational institution in Huron county.

The people from Bruce county have gone there and have prospered because they went there. They have gone there and graduated from courses that have provided real people with real education to do real jobs. The member for Oxford laughs about saying that I'm stretching the geography to say that I hail from the same part of the province in which Centralia is located.

Well, I will tell you that more and more what is happening with this administration is that you are drawing away from providing the public services that the people of this province have come to expect should be provided. No colleges in New Liskeard, no colleges in Centralia; no opportunities for the 171 people who are students at Centralia. Now we hear that you're going to be pulling away the support for residents and interns so they cannot go into the rural parts of our province and actually provide medical treatment for people.

The Deputy Speaker: The debate is on Ryerson Institute.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The debate is on the act on Ryerson Institute. Please stick to that.

Mr Elston: Listen, something is very interesting, and that is this: Here we are dealing with a bill, and I'm contrasting this particular bill, which is providing a university status to a post-secondary education institution, at the same time as this particular government is stealing from the people of this province the right to go to post-secondary education institutions in Centralia and in New Liskeard. They are, at the same time, taking away from the people of this province the ability to provide themselves with medical care by cutting away at the very institutions which are providing them with social support services.

If that doesn't talk to the needs of this bill and the needs of these people, if that isn't within the mandate of this particular House to allow me to speak on, then shut me up and ship me home, because I'll have no part of making this place a place of silence, a place where people cannot come up to complain about the types of terrible things that are happening to this province of mine.

I am proud to stand and say good things about Ryerson. I am not proud to have this government letting on that it stands for principles with which this bill would associate it when it is doing exactly the opposite in other places. There are young people all over the province who would like to get into these institutions of higher learning, and there are not enough places for them to go.

I suspect that in the short term Ryerson Polytechnic will have all kinds of active considerants looking to get into their classrooms. I suspect they will not be able to take all of the people who apply. I know they can't take all of the people who apply to some of their courses now. I know it full well. I know some of the students who are going there now.

If that is the case, then why can I not speak about the problem being associated with students trying to find placement in other locations, like New Liskeard, like Centralia? Where do they go when the doors are shut? Where do they go when the lands that they have occupied as an institution of higher learning are pulled from underneath them and sold off to do something with the budget of this particular Finance minister?

There is a bit of a crisis in this province, and the crisis is all around how we prepare our young people for moving into a new era of competitiveness, as everybody likes to speak about, of difficulty finding jobs of any shape or description, of difficulty remaining prepared to face up against the new problems in the international marketplace. That's why Ryerson is so important. It is one of those institutions where people can go, where they can seek some counselling as to how to learn, how to grasp, how to continue to learn the skills that need to be used if this country of ours is to prosper in any shape or description.

Who knows? Maybe after a while, when the current administration is finished taking away all of the professional freedoms of the medical practitioners or others who are going to be chopped and hacked in the Health ministry's new constraint program, maybe it will go to Ryerson and ask Ryerson to start developing a new degree program to help to recover the medical problems which are being put loose among us these days.

This is a rant that I am on -- it cannot be described as anything other than that -- but I will tell you that I have come to discover more than ever that unless we are prepared to stand up and hold our place, the people who are now administering this province, the New Democratic Party of Ontario, are prepared to take away all of the things that the combined population of this province have brought together to provide us with the great sense of security we now share.

Take a look at it: They are hacking away at our educational institutions, not just post-secondary education, but also elementary and secondary education fields. They are taking away from the medical system. They are taking away from the health care system. They are chopping away at seniors who have for so many years earned a certain livelihood and who have contributed to the development of the foundations of our social programs.

Mr Sutherland: I don't want to hear one comment about the deficit from one of your members, not one comment.

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The Deputy Speaker: The member for Oxford, you will have ample time afterwards if you have any questions or any comments. In the meantime, I would ask you to reserve your comments. The member for Bruce.

Mr Elston: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I didn't really intend to be too long, but some people may get me going much longer than I wanted to.

It seems to me that while we celebrate the Ryerson breakthrough -- degree-granting status, university status for Ryerson -- we must confront ourselves with the bleak prospects of several hundreds of students who will no longer find post-secondary education placements. That's what is so stark in the reality that is provided to the Ontario of today. While we celebrate the university, we mourn the loss of Centralia College of Agricultural Technology, we mourn the loss of New Liskeard College of Agricultural Technology, we mourn the loss of the skills which the young people who were at Centralia and New Liskeard would have shared with the society in Ontario.

At the same time, we celebrate the skills that are going to be brought to this province of ours, indeed the entire country and in fact even internationally, because I know some of Ryerson's graduates have gone on to other countries as well. We celebrate those people and we celebrate the fact that those people will be able to stay in a way associated with a living, evolving and an educating facility.

But the alumni of Centralia, after next May, will no longer be associated with a living faculty of education; they will be associated with history only. Even the member for Huron, who is a graduate from Centralia, will no longer have a living alma mater to which you can resort when you have questions concerning certain, let's say, farm problems which may confront him. He's a farmer; he went to Centralia. From time to time, people do resort to calling their former mentors, their teachers, to figure out exactly what they can do to lift the burden of the problem. But Centralia ceases; thank God, Ryerson will continue.

But what does it say about the world we now see ourselves in when we can celebrate, under Bill 1, the new university and yet hardly a word is said -- hardly a word at all has been said by the government party about the death of Centralia and New Liskeard, about the loss of several hundred placements for post-secondary education learning, for continuing education, for assisting the marketplace in research, for assisting the farm people in discovering what it is that has caused problems with their flocks of chickens or turkeys?

I want only to tell the people that the folks governing this province now are very, very quickly making sure that this province doesn't have the types of educational facilities we need to make sure we have the broadest possible skills we will all need into the next century.

I can gladly say that Ryerson university will be probably a very good place to attend. I know students there now who not only enjoy it because at least social parts of growing up are accommodated at Ryerson, just like at other universities, but they will prosper from it. I'm sure they will do quite well by it, but I want to make sure that people likewise know there are several other areas in which those prospects will not be offered to individuals.

One more thing I want to say about Ryerson; it's a very practical thing: Ryerson is located in downtown Toronto. I have been there on a couple of occasions. I actually help to bring students from my area to Ryerson on occasion when my schedule accommodates their schedule. I drop them off there. To my concern on some of those dark November nights -- when I drop some people off at residences I take them right to the door. I am concerned, from time to time, about possible problems of security, sometimes with the lighting which is around there. The safety of the student, of course, for all of us, I think, is probably paramount. After that, you start considering how they're able to prosper with their lessons and otherwise.

I know that the people have always been concerned with that as an issue, but whatever it takes on your first board of governors meeting, I would hope that the first resolution would be to confirm some steps even to increase the vigilance for the very young people who are coming to the downtown of Toronto, sometimes, for some of them, for the very first time, and to make sure that their safety is not only preserved but enhanced in ways which I know the people who are here would want to realize.

Educational facilities are in charge of our most precious resource. Elementary, secondary and post-secondary education guide and mould. They provide skills for those young people. They have them in their formative years, at times when our attitudes are beginning to become moulded, and the charge which they have is an onerous one. And while I congratulate you on receiving university status, I'm not sure that will help Ryerson one little bit, because I know that it has provided good, sound guidance to those young people in years past and it is now an expectation that you will continue to do the same thing.

There's a charge which I think the educators in this province have accepted generally very well in the past. It is one which, however, is sometimes increasingly difficult to bear because expectations have been sometimes unrightly placed on the --

Mrs Irene Mathyssen (Middlesex): You mean wrongly.

Mr Elston: Well, wrongly, sure. My friend the educator from Middlesex corrects me, and I thank her for that very much.

But in any event, the charge of our educational institutions guaranteeing success for people sometimes places expectations beyond reality on some of our educational facilities. That concerns me. It bothers me to a degree that sometimes people substitute the institutions' existence for the fact that they must work towards getting themselves a good job, a good placement. They have to earn the skills, they have to learn the skills, and I'm just hoping that the Ryerson situation can be spun into something new and real for some of our secondary school graduates this coming year and the next years.

I can congratulate those who will be receiving this year degrees which will show on them "Ryerson Polytechnic University" for the first time. I guess those will be extremely historic pieces of parchment. I congratulate all who have successfully completed their schooling there and remind them that unlike New Liskeard and Centralia, which will cease to operate a year hence, Ryerson, like its brief but very heady and successful past, will have an extremely important and successful future for this province and indeed for the country.

The Deputy Speaker: Any questions or comments? The member for Etobicoke West.

Mr Stockwell: I think some of the comments were rather salient and to the point from the member for Bruce. His points were well taken with respect to what this arbitrary closing and opening process is that's taking place from this government.

The other interesting point of view: This is one of the few education bills that have come before this House, and I'm not trying to play down this particular bill, but it's not exactly, in my opinion, earth-shattering. In the comments I would ask for from the member for Bruce -- I mean, this basically changes the name of one of our institutes of higher learning and that's basically it. With all the concern out there, with all the education forums that are taking place, with all the problems that are being outlined by the constituencies that we all represent, I didn't hear too many people saying, "What you need to do is change Ryerson Polytechnical Institute to a university." In fact, nobody came to me, other than a few people who were involved in the school itself.

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Let's be perfectly clear: This is not a burning issue. This is not an issue, as an education bill, that is going to resolve a whole pile of problems with respect to class sizes, with respect to the number of people enrolling in secondary education, with respect to a whole series of things. It may change the hierarchy and workings of Ryerson. It may give us more money or costs with respect to the hierarchy. It may give professors a better remuneration or tenure or I'm not certain what. It may do a lot of things, but it's not going to put one more student in any classroom anywhere. It's not going to do that. I think that's what people are talking to me about when it comes to post-secondary education reform. They're not talking to me about renaming Ryerson Polytechnical Institute to Ryerson university.

I would ask maybe one of the government members to come forward and say what makes this such a burning issue that we have to deal one, two, three through this House to get it on the table, as if we're resolving some crisis out there. What crisis? I didn't know this crisis existed.

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): In the brief moments that I have to respond, I'd like to pick up on the issue of a burning issue. You know, there are some things that traditionally aren't very controversial in this place. The way I understand it is that you bring housekeeping matters to this place and you move them through and generally there's agreement between all three parties that this is generally the way it happens.

But this isn't just housekeeping. This is a burning issue and it's a very important issue to the institution we're talking about, Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, and to the students and the people who are going to be applying to get into that institution and essentially to the people who are there now. To those people, it is a rather pressing, important issue.

It's not a burning issue that's going to set the entire province of Ontario in flames. If my Conservative colleague here today is suggesting that this Legislature should only deal with issues that are of a burning nature to the entire province, I would like to say to him that before we set the province of Ontario afire with all of the burning issues that he would like to attend to, let's deal with a very important pressing issue for Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. That's what we're doing here today.

Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): I'd certainly like to add my comments to those of my colleagues here today, especially -- I must tell you, I ran down two floors from my office, because I was listening to the speech by my House leader, the member for Bruce, and was very pleased that he mentioned the closing of Centralia College and New Liskeard College.

I think it does relate to this bill in relation to what's going on here today, because here we are, spending a lot of good legislative time really spinning our wheels, talking about the renaming of an institution, a very well-respected institution. Meanwhile, we could be having a very constructive consultation and discussion as to why this government is closing other technical schools in this province when we know we need a training culture, need to make sure that our children right across Ontario have access to training. Without any consultation, the government arbitrarily closed these two colleges of training that are actually very scientific.

Both of these schools carry out research which is very, very important, Centralia for research that's concentrated on specific sectors of the agricultural industry and some, obviously, to field crops that are very particular to the Huron county area, such as white beans. New Liskeard of course is the northern outpost by the Ontario government for northern agriculture.

Here we are debating name changes and change of status of a very prestigious institution in Toronto, while at the same time closing two institutions that deserve to be preserved and invested in. In fact, we have invested in these institutions. We should carry them on and attract our children to those polytechs, if you will, in other parts of this province. That's probably what we should be doing here today: how we can get a whole network of polytechnicals in Ontario, and our ag colleges could be the first step towards that new network.

The Deputy Speaker: Further questions or comments?

Mr Bisson: I just wanted to take a couple of minutes to go through the member for Bruce's comments. I understand, like all members and people who live in his riding and also the people who live in the riding of the member for Timiskaming, how difficult the closure of a college would be. We don't need to underestimate what that means, and I think we on this side of the House, the government, fully realize what that means. We don't do this lightly, we don't do this with vindictiveness; we do it because of the situation we find ourselves in.

I think the member for Bruce recognizes -- I have a lot of respect for him -- that the province of Ontario, like other provinces across Canada and like all other jurisdictions in North America and in Europe, I would say, are going through very difficult times where governments have to make decisions about how best to spend taxpayers' dollars and where we can afford to spend those dollars.

The closure of those two institutes he talks about, one in southern Ontario and the one I'm more familiar with in the riding of Timiskaming, is a question of consolidating our educational facilities, when it comes to agriculture, into other facilities that are undersubscribed. We have a system of agricultural colleges across the province of Ontario which are not fully being utilized to capacity, and the government has to make some decisions along the way about how best to spend the taxpayers' dollars.

Are these simple, are these easy decisions? No. Do governments do this lightly? No. Governments do this with a lot of regret, but the reality is that we need to deal with the fiscal situation we find ourselves in.

I think we don't add anything to the public debate when we in government or we in opposition, or whatever position we might find ourselves in, try to come at this from the position of really trying to get the -- I understand your frustration, it's something that's difficult, but we need to find in this province, like we need to find across the country, a way we can start dealing with some of these issues, because they're very difficult, very complicated issues. We need to find a way we can create public debate by which we can get into these things and get into decisions that are for the betterment of the people of Ontario.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Bruce, you have two minutes to reply.

Mr Elston: I don't want people to think it is not important. In terms of changing the status of Ryerson, changing the name or changing the status is not all that will occur there. There are some really important things that will happen to that institution.

But again I want to remind people that as difficult as the times may be, I find it unacceptable for a government, any government, to eliminate post-secondary education placements for our young people. If there is one resource in this country that we should be guarding -- not even guarding, but nurturing through these difficult times, it's our young people. Our young people ought to be able to go to places to learn, to acquire skills, to receive training, and it is just such an error in judgement to be removing post-secondary education placements, no matter what your problems are economically.

I would say that you put your priorities straight. Health care, education -- I'll go on record -- are my areas of priority, and I would tell you that those places ought to receive a paramount amount of your attention.

That will mean that difficult decisions will have to be made through other parts of the budget, and I fully appreciate that. But where in the world can we say we are leading this province if we're taking away post-secondary education placements? Where are we leading this province if we are chopping away at the very basis of a health care system which was seen to be second to none?

I make that argument now, understanding full well that difficult decisions do have to be made in face of a very difficult economic situation, part of it added to by the New Democrats, built on the record of the Liberals and the Tories, but you shouldn't be closing those particular facilities while creating a new university.

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you, your time has expired. Any further debate?

Mr Stockwell: I'd like to address --

Mr Perruzza: Oh, no.

Mr Stockwell: Excuse me, the member for Downsview.

Interjection: He said, "Go to it."

Mr Stockwell: "Go." Okay, I will. There are a few issues I think we need to deal with when dealing with the education issue in this province.

I did pull out the legislation earlier, and I was reviewing it and commenting on how this is the first and only piece of legislation with respect to education that has been definitely through the Legislature in this session and I think as well last session.

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What I think we must remember, before we hear about this government talking about educational reform and so on and so forth and this piece of legislation before us, is there are some problems in the education system that I think it has itemized itself. They've struck a royal commission to last two years to review our education system in this province.

It's kind of interesting, and the cynical sorts out there would suggest that this royal commission is very, very curiously timed. It's timed to report right around the next election, so some cynics would suggest that this particular royal commission was struck simply to avoid any decision-making in the next year and a half or two years, thereby avoiding any responsibility for making decisions and ideally avoid any of the repercussions that come with decision-making. That seems to be a far more pressing and urgent issue that this government should deal with rather than the issue that's before us today.

There are those who suggest that there are some changes besides the name for this particular school of higher learning, and I'm quite certain there are. It just hasn't been enunciated quite clearly by the government members themselves why this becomes so pressing and urgent today when the issues that face municipalities and boards of education around this province are somewhat dumfounding, how this happens to be the most important and pressing and urgent issue that is on our legislative agenda today.

That does not just come from my own personal comments; it comes from comments that I've heard from people around this province, the comments about children or graduates of high school trying to gain access to all kinds of schools of higher learning, all the post-secondary schools. "Does this piece of legislation create one more space?" the question is always. No, it doesn't. "Does this create one more dollar towards education?" No, it doesn't. "Does this help in the cash crunch for students going to school as far as grants are concerned that this government took away?" No, it doesn't.

As I said before, I have my Agenda for People here, and in this document this government spoke about 60% funding for local boards of education as far as education is concerned. In the three years we've been here, we haven't seen a nickel more go to education. In fact, we've seen reductions go to education.

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): Do you want them to spend more?

Mr Stockwell: No, no, no more money was spent that way to increase the education dollars. The member for Mississauga West, who now has jumped into this fray, not exposed to one word of the comments other than the last three he just listened to, doesn't seem to understand what I was suggesting. What I was suggesting was that what this government promised in the Agenda for People and what it's delivering today are two very different issues.

We as a party didn't promise 60% funding in education. We didn't in fact make that promise, and therefore we wouldn't have had to deliver on a 60% funding formula. This is the party --

Mr Perruzza: That's why you didn't get elected.

Mr Stockwell: I got elected. This is the party that made that promise, that sits here today and says: "The most important and pressing issue facing the educational system today is the renaming of Ryerson. That's one of the most important issues facing our education structure." The only piece of legislation that comes forward with respect to education in this province is the renaming of Ryerson. That appears to be priority one for this government on the educational side. Bill 1, priority one: renaming Ryerson.

Mr George Mammoliti (Yorkview): Not important enough. Is that what you're saying?

Mr Stockwell: Now there are some arguments to be made to effect this change. Mr Speaker, again -- the member for Yorkview this time -- it's confusing sometimes, but the member for Yorkview, I'm almost certain, is suggesting that it's not important. I'm not suggesting it's not important, but if I were ranking this particular piece of legislation on a priority scale with all the other impacts on education today, I would hardly suggest --

Mr Perruzza: Why don't you sit down so that we can get to the important ones?

Mr Stockwell: Mr Speaker, if they're going to ask the questions they should at least have the decency to hear the responses. I was only suggesting that this particular bill, Bill 1, is not exactly, from a priority point of view, the most important issue facing the province today.

I can talk about two schools that are closing today that the member for Bruce spoke about earlier. Those would be two very pressing and urgent concerns from constituents in those areas and surrounding areas and those in the farming educational field. Those are important issues. Those are concerns that people are talking about.

Making a final decision on junior kindergarten would be something that I think is an important issue. I know the members from the city of Mississauga would like to hear their response on that, because that school board itself isn't providing junior kindergarten.

I know there are students out there who are looking to get into universities across this province who think you could free up some spaces, which you made promises to do -- that's an important issue.

Maybe the grants program, which you abolished -- I might add, Mr Speaker, when you were running for this job, you said we'd abolish the loan system. You said we wouldn't give out any loans any more, it would all be grants. What did you do? You did exactly the opposite. You abolished all the grant programs. My goodness.

These are the kinds of issues that the constituents in Etobicoke are asking me about. I'm not saying this bill isn't important, but I haven't had one person ask me about this piece of legislation. I haven't had a single constituent say to me, "Boy, the biggest problem facing the educational field today in the province of Ontario is Ryerson's name." That's not what they're saying to me.

If the commitment could be made that we would let this bill slide through, we would let this bill go forward, and then we'd get some real reform, some real commitment, some real legislation to deal with the educational malaise that we've fallen into, I would be the first to say, "Yes, do it, process this bill." But what's following this piece of educational legislation from an educational front? Nothing. Nothing is following it.

All that's following it is a $3-million royal commission headed up by the biggest NDPer in this province, Gerry Caplan, to report back just before the next election so you can guarantee yourself you don't have to make any decisions on education for the next two years. That's what's following this piece of legislation.

So what do we have?

Mr Bisson: If you listen to Canada AM, you will find out.

Mr Stockwell: I've got the member from south Cochrane heckling again.

Mr Bisson: Talk about --

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr Stockwell: Here he goes again. I'm doing my best, but the member for Cochrane South continues to heckle. There must be a cattle prod behind him that wakes him up.

When the issues that my constituents ask me about, that need to be addressed, are issues like universal testing --

Mr Mammoliti: You said this before. You're repetitive.

Mr Stockwell: I didn't say that, and you're going to hear it, Mr Yorkview.

They're talking about destreaming. They're talking about the social contract and the costs on education by this social contract. They're talking to me about Metropolitan Toronto school boards and the no grants they get from this government. If the social contract is in fact adopted and they're going to cut unconditional grants, the Metropolitan Toronto school boards, which don't get any money, have to send a cheque to the province of Ontario to cross-subsidize it. Those are the questions they're talking about.

Mr Mammoliti: That's it. I'm leaving.

Mr Stockwell: I've finally succeeded. The member for Yorkview is going to leave. Thank goodness I finally succeeded.

There are a wide-ranging and broad number of issues that need to be addressed in this province with respect to education. I don't mean to demean a piece of legislation changing the name of Ryerson, but this piece of legislation is not pressing or urgent. It's not what my constituents are asking me about.

It doesn't deal with the closing of post-secondary schools in both Huron and New Liskeard. It doesn't deal with the issue of junior kindergarten. It doesn't deal with the issue of universal testing. It doesn't deal with destreaming. It doesn't deal with the spiralling cost of education. It doesn't deal with any of those.

As I am cynical, so are the constituents of this province. Please don't pass this off as education reform. Don't pass this off as something that needs to be done today. If you're really serious, you wouldn't have struck a royal commission at $3 million to begin a process that will ensure one thing and one thing only: that we will not see a tangible or meaningful piece of legislation in this House on education reform until the next election.

But there are many people out there who are saying, "Maybe it's a good thing that we don't see any education reform legislation," because if it meant this government bringing reform forward, they'd rather not see any reform at all.

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The Acting Speaker (Mr Dennis Drainville): Questions and/or comments? The honourable member for Downsview.

Mr Perruzza: You know, you just can't resist. He took -- what was it -- 13 or 14 minutes to say absolutely nothing on something that he says is not very important at all. This could have been done without taking up any of this assembly's time.

He talks about important issues. I recall a time when his leader, Mike Harris, the PC leader in this place, sat for days on end and read out every name of every river and every waterfall in the province of Ontario. He stood there and he read out "Crickle Creek Lake" and "PC Waterfalls." He read them all and for days on end that was an important and pressing issue.

We're talking about one of the finest institutions in the province of Ontario and we're talking about an issue that is of paramount importance to it, and he takes this opportunity to just simply lambaste the government on every other issue except the issue that we're talking about.

He knows very well why the royal commission on education was set up. He knows that every other study that's been conducted in this place has never dealt with the fundamental issue in education today, quite frankly an issue that was created by our Conservative friends. I don't even blame the Liberals on this one, the fact that there are so many school boards and so many administrative structures in the province of Ontario that relate and deal directly with education. One of the principal mandates of the royal commission is to review precisely that: why our education system is so convoluted, why it's so top-heavy, why it's so expensive.

You know what his solution is? Crank up provincial funding to 60%. Spend more money on education. Let's spend far more money on education. That was his solution because that's somehow going to take it off the property tax. He's absolutely and totally off base on that one.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments? The honourable member for Mississauga West.

Mr Mahoney: There seems to be an underlying message, and it's interesting when government members opposite get excited when the member for Etobicoke centre --

Interjection: West.

Mr Mahoney: -- stands up and puts forward his concerns about the fact that we should be, in his view, dealing with issues of more significance.

I would frankly agree and disagree in the same sentence, because yes, we should deal with important issues, but this also is an important issue to many of the people who attend Ryerson -- not just to the board of directors, not just to the president, but to the kids who actually attend Ryerson, because this is really who will benefit from it gaining this status, I would suggest to the members. It's important from that perspective.

But the thing that's lost in all of this, that members opposite seem to ignore, is the serious damage that this government truly has done to post-secondary education. Just take a look at OSAP. I personally have two of my three kids currently in university, one just graduating from Western, another in second year at McMaster and a third boy still in high school.

The difficulty of gaining entrance to these universities is becoming much increased in this province. What are we saying to our young people? We're saying to many of them that we're going to increase the requirements to get them into school, we're going to make it more difficult for them to get money to go to school, and we're turning our university system into one of élite students who can pass very stringent requirements to gain entrance and who are fortunate enough to have families that are able to afford to send them there.

That's clearly the wrong message. I would think that the board of directors at Ryerson would share our concern that we turn that message around and make post-secondary education at their new university and all universities more accessible to the young people in Ontario.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments? The honourable member for Cochrane South.

Mr Bisson: I cannot resist but to speak after the member for Etobicoke West -- east, centre, north. He's all over the place. What riding does he come from?

I want to just say one thing: The member stands and pontificates in this House, probably to the ultimate in this House. I just want to remind people for the record, because the member was very careful in how he chose to speak on this particular bill -- first of all, I want to agree with the members opposite, the Liberals and the government, in regard to the question of this bill being a very important one, not only for the institute of Ryerson but for the students and people who are attending or will be attending that facility either now or in the future.

The other thing in regard to legislation that the House is dealing with in regard to education, the member for Etobicoke West, centre or east, wherever he comes from -- because, again, I don't know where he comes from half the time -- is a little bit misleading in his assertions to this House that the government is not dealing with educational questions.

I would first of all remind the member that the government is going through the process of passing an education omnibus bill that is very far-reaching in regard to education at the secondary and the primary level; more importantly, to the secondary level -- that the member hasn't forgotten, there happens to be the most major reform of post-secondary education that's going on right now through the Ontario training advisory board by which, for the first time in the province of Ontario, for the first time across the country, employers and workers will play a very great role in determining the training needs of their workplace and the training needs they need as individuals within the province, rather than leaving it to people within the Ministry of Education or the former Ministry of Colleges and Universities.

We're putting that directly in the hands of people who most know what needs to be done about education; namely, the employers who utilize that education and the employees themselves who are going to need it in order to work in the workplaces of the future.

I accept the member's political speech that he gave over here. I thought he was at his nomination meeting, but other than that I think the member should be a little bit -- come clean when it comes to the question of education in the province of Ontario.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member for Etobicoke West has two minutes to make a response.

Mr Stockwell: Firstly, with respect to the Ryerson -- I mean, there are some benefits to that. I said that in my speech. Yes, there are some benefits to the name change, the adjustments in students and so on.

Mr Perruzza: They are not going to be out talking.

Mr Stockwell: The member for Downsview continues to act -- I listened carefully and hung on every syllable and they're all one-syllable words I noted, every one-syllable word you -- just listen up for a minute.

Yes, there are some changes that are necessary. I understand that. If there were some legitimate pieces of legislation following this, I suggested, then I could see processing it through the House because there is some substantive debate on education reform. Clearly that point was lost on the member opposite. I understand why it was lost. I will send a copy of Instant Hansard in the next hour and maybe he'll catch up on it.

To the member from Mississauga West, again, I would suggest, yes, there are some benefits to changing the name and I am not opposed to that. It's going to help some students who are there now, maybe some who have graduated and those who are thinking of entering post-secondary education. But again, the point must be made that this is the most substantive piece of education reform, education legislation, this House has dealt with in a long time. We haven't seen any education reform.

I hearken back to the 60% funding and, as the member for Downsview is suggesting, I was supporting that. You know, these people can't even remember their promises. He started accusing me of writing the Agenda for People, for heaven's sake. You made the promise, not me. You're supposed to keep your promises. We didn't promise 60% funding. My goodness, at least they can remember what they promised.

The ex-member from Cochrane South --

Mr Perruzza: Are you sure you didn't promise 60% funding? Are you absolutely sure?

Mr Stockwell: Sure, I didn't promise 60% funding. The member for Downsview is grunting inaudibly again. The ex-member from Cochrane South who has directional problems -- well, it's the member for Etobicoke West. When the next member comes in from Cochrane South, I'll be happy to explain the education problems. It'll be a lot easier because he'll be sitting much closer to me.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

[Applause]

Mr Gregory S. Sorbara (York Centre): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Is that applause for the fact that I'm over here now? I guess those who have been following this debate wonder what it really is that we're talking about as we debate Bill 1. For those who care to follow along, perhaps I'll just, in summary form, point out what the effect of this bill does.

I address my remarks through you, sir, to the member for Etobicoke --

Mr Stockwell: Centre.

Mr Sorbara: -- Centre, who suggests that this bill simply changes the name of Ryerson Polytechnical Institute to Ryerson Polytechnic University. Of course, that's not the case. This is actually, in the history of the development of Ryerson, as everyone calls it, a fairly important piece of legislation.

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I want to put my position on the record right away, and I want to tell you that I support this bill, I'm going to vote for this bill and I'm going to urge other members in the Legislature to support it and to vote for it. It is not a bill that simply changes the name of an institution and gives it a classy university name; it actually is going to change, I think rather significantly, the kind of institution that Ryerson will be in the future, although the comments that some of my colleagues made about the ignoring of all of the other educational problems in the province I think are worthy of some note.

But we have an opportunity here in debating and passing this legislation to assist, in the small way in which we do as legislators, in the development of what I think is a very important educational institution in the province of Ontario.

Yes, Ryerson's going to get a new name. I think people will ignore that and continue to call it "Ryerson" and continue to give it the respect that it deserves, but what does this bill do? I think that's the basic question that we should be debating here, and if you're in favour of what this bill does, then of course you will support it; if you're not in favour of what this bill does, you won't support it. What it does is change the status of an institution that has always had a unique status in the province of Ontario and gives it full parity with all the other universities that we have in the province, and there are some 16 of them.

So in part, this bill is about money. This bill will change, believe it or not, the granting formula that determines how much money a university or a post-secondary educational institution gets, and it will allow Ryerson to participate in that funding on the same basis as the other universities in the province. Frankly, I think that's a good idea, because the work it does and the kind of teaching it does and the kind of research it does argue for the fact that it should have that so-called parity or equality of funding, so in that respect, we are doing a good thing here when we support this bill.

Secondly, what this bill does is that it allows Ryerson, in the fullness of time, as these programs are developed, to grant not only undergraduate degrees -- a power it's had for quite some time -- but to grant graduate degrees as well in the 30 or 40 programs it offers. That doesn't mean that as of next year Ryerson will be granting graduate degrees in all of these programs, but it, if I might use the phrase, opens the door to creating post-graduate degrees in a number of programs. Whether they be in telecommunications, computer technologies, nursing and a whole host of other disciplines, it allows this new university to begin to develop graduate programs in these areas. I think that's a good thing and I think we should be supporting that enthusiastically and wholeheartedly, so that's the second point.

The first point is parity of funding; the second point is the ability to now begin to develop graduate programs and ultimately grant graduate degrees.

The third thing that this bill creating this new university will do is to allow it to participate more aggressively in research, both primary and applied research, in the disciplines that Ryerson is known for. That as well is important. There is a vicious competition, I should tell you, among universities throughout Canada for the scarce research dollars that fund the kind of research and development that our university system is known for and needs to continue to be known for.

Because Ryerson has never quite been a university, it's been at a disadvantage -- not that it doesn't do research -- in applying for and securing funding to do a variety of research projects and undertakings, and now, once we pass this bill, Ryerson will compete on a level playing field with all of the other universities in Canada and indeed around the world for that funding. That funding is scarcer and scarcer, and I think Ryerson ought to be able to compete for it like the other universities in Canada.

This bill takes me back, sir, I should tell you, to the period from 1985 to 1987, when I had the honour and the privilege to serve this province as its Minister of Colleges and Universities. At that time, the president of Ryerson was Brian Segal. He's now the -- now, I'm not going to get his title right. He is now the publisher of Maclean's magazine, working for the Maclean Hunter organization. He didn't go directly from Ryerson to Maclean's. He went for a time to Guelph as president of the University of Guelph.

I remember, I think it was my first meeting with Dr Segal, we were talking, as I recall, about the funding of the Rogers communication centre, which is now a reality, and I'll be saying a few words about that as well. He just brought up the subject very briefly. He said, "Minister, I want to" -- I said, "Don't call me 'Minister."' He said: "Minister, I want to talk to you at some time in the near future about our interest in amending the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute Act to change our status to that of a university; not that we are thoroughly uncomfortable with our unique status, but we think there are very important things that will happen at Ryerson as a result of that change. But we're only at the preliminary stage of investigating the affect of the change right now, and I hope some day down the road to talk to you about it."

I see in the gallery the current president of Ryerson, Dr Terry Grier, who has brought this project to completion, at least from the perspective of Ryerson and the internal work that had to go on there. He's done a very good job of working with officials within the Ministry of Colleges and Universities; now I guess we call it the Ministry of All Education, or Education and Training, or something like that, and we're here now debating the bill. So I guess one could say that it's been a little while coming. But the way things go in this province, I'm not surprised that it's taken from, I guess, 1985 to 1993 to complete the project.

I just want to say a couple of words about the history of Ryerson because I think it's important to understand the history of the institution to fully appreciate this completion of its development as a post-secondary institution in the province of Ontario. I'm relying here on some notes that I just quickly acquired from the library, from The Canadian Encyclopedia.

Ryerson was founded just after the war in September of 1948. It was founded, really, as a trade school. It was thought, I think appropriately at the time, that Canada's postwar industrial future required us to have an institution that would appropriately train young men and women in Ontario -- because it was to serve all of Ontario although its first students came from the Toronto area -- but really a trade school for young men and women to prepare them for the industrial age that Canada was about to enter into after the Second World War. It didn't stay that way for very long. In fact, this Legislature has amended the Ryerson act I guess three or four times. The last time was in 1977.

But the Ryerson of today was really created by an act of the Legislature in 1963 which created really an independent institution. Prior to that, it had some rather direct relationship with, at that time, the Ministry of Education, and after that, in 1963, became an autonomous institution, with its own board of governors and its own budget.

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I guess the other important event was the power that Ryerson was given in 1971 to grant degrees and diplomas, so to those who say that the change simply gives Ryerson the opportunity to grant degrees where before it granted diplomas, that's simply out of date. Ryerson began granting degrees and does grant bachelor degrees in a variety of fields and has done so since 1971.

The thing that really fascinates me about Ryerson is that it is all tied up with the very beginnings of education in the province of Ontario, although it wasn't created until just after the war. In fact, it bears the name of the person who really gave Ontario the education system that we have today, Egerton Ryerson, who was quite a character and quite an important character in the history of Ontario, dating back to pre-Confederation days and going, I guess, back to when Dr Ryerson was made president of the Methodist Church of -- we always get interesting notes from the whip in this place; I won't read this one out.

In any event, Dr Ryerson was, among other things, a president of the Methodist Church of Canada. But what most of us remember him for is the fact that he was one of the true crusaders in education in the province of Ontario and gave to us the system of compulsory education and universal education in the province of Ontario. Compulsory: We all have to go to school until we're 16. Some of us think that should be changed to 18 but that's another debate. Secondly, universal education: That is a system whereby the province of Ontario was required, is required to provide education for every young person in the province.

So Ryerson kind of carries the history of Dr Ryerson. If Dr Ryerson were here today and saw what was happening to the institution that bears his name, I think probably he would be pleased and he would be saying the Legislature is doing a good thing.

But there's one other aspect of this bill and this development and this graduation of Ryerson that I wanted to mention and that is the program work that it does today and the program work that it's going to be doing in the future.

Many of us spent a lot of time rambling on or expressing views on where we should be going in education in the province of Ontario. It's trite now to say that our whole future is tied up in our ability to educate ourselves. But I've always thought that somehow Ryerson had the unique ability to kind of know where we are going as a society and had sort of a wonderful insight into the kinds of skills that we need as a society and was always among the first institutions to develop programs to educate and train people to fill those jobs.

I remember as a kid, 15 years old or 16 years old, I was just completing high school and I was very interested in radio broadcasting and I went down to Ryerson to look at its program. I guess it was the only institution in the province at that time that did any trainer education in broadcasting. I was absolutely fascinated by it and, unfortunately, I decided to choose another career. But just think of all the people who have come through Ryerson, trained in broadcasting and now working as journalists not just in Ontario but really around the world.

The list goes on. Whether it's applied sciences, computer technologies or whatever, Ryerson seems to have a sense of where we need to be going, and I think it does a really good job in that regard.

I wanted to say a word about the broadcast centre, because one of the other things that Dr Segal came to talk to me about, shortly after I became minister, was provincial funding to help build the broadcast centre. Fortunately, at that time this province was in a very different economic situation than it is in today, and there were resources enough to begin a rebuilding process, new buildings for a number of our institutions. One of the ones I was most attracted to was the new broadcast centre that Dr Segal at that time was proposing for Ryerson.

I must say I regret a little bit that I've not yet had an opportunity to be inside the building. I guess I wish somebody had sent me a little notice that there was going to be an official opening, but ministers come and go and things have to go on. I don't know what minister was actually there when it was finished, but all the reports that I get are that this facility really is one of the best in North America for all of the things that it does, including training in journalism and broadcasting, and I'm glad that we did it.

We did a number of other things at that time not directly related to Ryerson; more directly related to building of facilities all around the province. I remember we started a new building at Queen's University. We started a new building --

Mr Mahoney: It's not working.

Mr Sorbara: No, it's not going to work. Sorry, I say to my whip, it's not going to work.

I guess the one thing that saddens me about the fact that it's taken so long to debate this bill is we are in a totally different economic set of circumstances today than we were back at that time and, unfortunately, I think a number of the things that the New Democratic Party of Ontario is doing during this brief time that it's going to be in government is allowing -- I was going to say irreversible; I hope it's not irreversible -- a significant deterioration in the quality of our post-secondary institutions, This bill, although it's important for Ryerson, is going to do nothing to turn that around.

The amount of funding that we are providing for our educational institutions is being reduced and squeezed with every new budget of this government. My friend from Etobicoke centre pointed out the conversion of the student assistance program to an all-loan program, making it, for many students in the province of Ontario, a financial impossibility to go to school, whether at a community college or one of Ontario's universities.

We are reducing systematically the level of funding that we're providing for research, whether primary research or applied research, in every one of our institutions. If you talk to anyone associated with a university today, whether a student, someone who works on the support staff, a university professor, a university administrator, they will tell you in no uncertain terms that things have never been worse. I want to repeat that: They say that things have never been worse.

They reflect on the bad old Tory days when, for some reason or other, Bill Davis, although a former Education minister and thereafter Premier, lost interest in the funding of universities and community colleges. I do think they speak well of the period while we were in government, if I might blow our own horn for a while. I don't think that was particularly surprising. The province was in a buoyant financial situation. We believed that education was important and we put the taxpayers' money where our beliefs were.

But now, when you talk to people in our post-secondary system, whether in community colleges or in places like Centralia, mentioned by my friend the member for Bruce, and in particular in the university system, they say that under the administration of the New Democratic Party of Ontario, things have never been worse.

Students are finding that the programs they need are no longer available. They are finding that class sizes get larger and larger. They are finding that because of constraints, their access to professors and their access to library books and their access to research materials is being cut and squeezed and dwindled with every semester.

I think it's important to note, sir, during this debate at the culmination of the development of Ryerson, that we remind ourselves that, with all of our rhetoric about how important education is and how important it is that we train the people of this province and we educate the people of this province to really take on the challenges of a highly technological and global economy, what's really happening, university by university, community college by community college, institution by institution, is that things are getting worse and worse. And Bob Rae with his social contract and Bob Rae with all the rhetoric about, "Well, we've got to find some way to deal with the deficit," knows full well that if there's one place where we ought to be very, very careful about our cuts, it is in the post-secondary education system.

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Dr Grier's going to be delighted when, in a few minutes or a few hours of debate, we're going to pass this bill. But if Dr Grier were called upon to testify before this Parliament about the state of post-secondary education in Ontario in 1993, he would say that we have not lived up to the expectations of Dr Egerton Ryerson about the challenges that we face in educating ourselves.

Now, how are we going to turn that around? We can't just turn that around by opening the floodgates of funding again, because we do have serious funding constraints in every program of government and in every activity in this province that government funds.

But what is incredible about this long, extenuated discussion about social contract is that you hear nothing from the Premier and you hear nothing from his ministers and you hear nothing from the government about what we're going to do to create new economic growth in this province, because it's only with a flourishing economy, I say to you, sir, that we're going to create the resources, we're going to generate the wealth to educate ourselves so that we can continue to grow and to flourish.

This bill, which creates a new university in Ontario and enhances the stature of Ryerson, is not going to do anything about the serious economic circumstances that we find ourselves in. And Bob Rae's social contract, which is really a code word for cutting salaries and laying people off, is not going to do anything about the economic circumstances that we find ourselves in in this province.

This bill, important as it is, is not going to give any encouragement to the young people of this province who are graduating from Ryerson and from Lakehead and from York and from the 16 universities and the 22 community colleges -- I'm sorry, 23, now, community colleges -- who knock on the doors of the businesses of this province looking for an opportunity to begin to apply the skills that they've acquired and they find signs that say "No help wanted."

So we'll pass this bill, and Ryerson will grow and flourish with its new status. But as we do so, let us remember that Ryerson and all of its sister institutions are not going to be able to grow and flourish until this government or its successor finds ways to create new, vibrant economic growth in Ontario that allows us, and provides us with the funds, to give our children and our students and indeed the entire province the kind of education that they need.

So, sir, I simply say to you and to the students of Ryerson, to its faculty, to its support staff, to its board of governors and to its president that I'm glad to be here in this Parliament to speak on this bill and I wish all of you great success. I simply want to say to you that as Ontario's newest university, we expect great things from you, both in the classroom and in the research laboratories that come under your umbrella, and I'm glad to be able to lend my support to this bill.

The Acting Speaker: Questions and/or comments?

Mr Dave Johnson (Don Mills): The member for York Centre has made some comments with regard to Ryerson and the history of Ryerson, and I find them particularly appropriate knowing that Ryerson was formed in 1948 and since 1971 has issued degrees in many different areas, including applied arts, engineering, social work and many other degrees.

Certainly, I'm going to support this bill and recognize that the benefits pertain to a number of areas, including enlarging the mandate for applied research, including graduate studies, as well as parity in funding with the universities.

I might say that it's been brought to my attention that this is a movement that's happening not only here in Canada but across the world in that polytechnics are being converted into universities, universities of technology. This is happening in Britain. It's happening in Australia. There is a worldwide acknowledgement of the importance of the polytechnical institutes in our modern world in graduating students who are equipped for the regular world.

It's also interesting to note that there are 12,000 full-time students and 43,000 continuing education students at Ryerson. This is the largest number of continuing education students of any community college or institute.

I will say, though, that the comments of my colleague the member for Etobicoke West are very appropriate with regard to the $3-million commission. Getting on to that topic, the $3-million commission, that's a great waste to the taxpayers of this province, with regard to the necessity for testing which the people of this province are demanding and with regard to the cost of education, and there should be more movement in that direction. I also say that I hope that they get on with the job of improving Centennial College in East York to bring it up to the proper standards.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments? If not, the honourable member for York Centre has two minutes to make a response.

Mr Sorbara: It's nice to be able to have just a couple more minutes. Look, we all agree that what the government has done in creating its so-called learning commission is an absolute abomination. I mean, the last thing we need in Ontario is an opportunity to study once again what we need to do, particularly under the chief bagman for the New Democratic Party, Gerry Caplan. I think there's universal agreement that it was just sort of one of the low points of this year in terms of government policy. I think we also agree that frankly, if the government --

Interjection.

Mr Sorbara: And, I say to my friend the member for Middlesex, Monique Bégin as well. I mean, she needs this job like she needs a hole in the head. It was a silly thing to do. It's a way to avoid the issues rather than to address them directly.

Let's be fair as well. Although the government will issue a press release and take credit for this bill creating Ryerson Polytechnic University, this has nothing to do with the New Democratic Party. This has nothing to do with the social contract. It has nothing to do with Bob Rae. It's a project that's been in the works for some seven or eight years now. It's been a long time coming. It's appropriate to do. We're going to pass the bill, I think, in very short order and it's going to be a good thing. If the government could just abandon the rest of its education agenda and get on with the real problems facing our schools and our colleges and our universities in the way in which it's responded here, we'd all be in much better shape.

I support it and I think everyone in the House supports it. Frankly, it's the first thing of this session that the government has presented that is worthy of our support.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): I've been otherwise occupied this afternoon and I understand from my friend the member for Bruce that an arrangement has been made. I don't know who has carriage of the bill, but I don't want anyone to have a cardiac arrest because I have arisen at 20 of 6, because I don't intend to be particularly long-winded on this subject.

Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey): That'll be different.

Mr Conway: The member for Grey says, "That will be different," and unfortunately he's quite accurate. I will try to be restrained.

I'm glad to see Dr Grier and his colleagues from Ryerson with us this afternoon. I know it must be a very happy day for them. I'm very pleased to join with members on all sides in supporting Bill 1 and giving one of the province's and one of the country's most successful post-secondary educational institutions this further entitlement. I'm sure that in the very capable hands of the people who are gathered in the lower gallery this afternoon, all of our expectations for Ryerson Polytechnic University will be met in spades.

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I must say that having been in this assembly some time now, Ryerson has always enjoyed a particular place in the relationships it's had with governments of all kinds. In fact, I can remember coming here back in the mid-1970s, and it was always said by my old friend Bob Nixon that Ryerson's board was as close as it could get to a good Tory senate provincially and therefore it could be expected to do well in any of the claims it made with respect to Queen's Park.

I know that in my time in government, I always felt that there was a very good association between our government and Ryerson, and I'm very pleased, as I said, to support this particular bill that provides for the new opportunities at Ryerson.

I can tell you that constituents of mine throughout the constituency of North Renfrew have spoken to me as recently as just the other day. The mayor of Deep River, His Honour Lyall Smith, is a graduate of Ryerson, and he is a good example of the very outstanding individual and graduate that this institution has sent to not just my part of the province but across the country.

So I simply want to say that it's a happy day for Ryerson and I want to join in supporting colleagues in this particular endeavour.

Since this bill does give an opportunity to address some of the questions in the post-secondary area, I want to take a very few moments to share some hopes and some concerns I've had in recent times about how well we're doing in terms of meeting the needs and the expectations of people across the province in this key area of post-secondary education.

I'm sure it's been said earlier this afternoon in this debate, but the Ryerson tradition of offering education that meets the needs not just of the academic interest but also the technical interest -- I heard my friend the member for York Centre talking about his experience with the broadcasting program. I know one of my brothers graduated from the radio and television arts program at Ryerson some years ago. It seems to me that Ryerson has set a very good standard, a very high standard in many of these programs and in its relationship with the community, whether it was the business community, the labour community or so many others elsewhere.

I don't want to be too provocative, but when I reflect upon my time in this place and when I think about some of the experiences that I have had in even recent months, I'm saddened, quite frankly, and surprised to say this, but I've met some of the most conservative attitudes, some of the most profoundly conservative attitudes anywhere in the province and in the country in the university world.

I sat a few months ago at the pre-budget hearings that were initiated by the government through the standing committee on finance and economic affairs. I heard a great number of people, individuals and groups, come before the committee to make representations to the government, to the Legislature, as to what should be done in terms of planning for the new reality in Ontario that we've all come to experience. There were some very interesting, innovative ideas, but I was just in a rage when certain people from the university community came. I'll be very specific: OCUFA, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, the university professors association. Essentially, they made a presentation to that committee that had not changed in 20 years, and the script was essentially this: "We're underfunded. Send more money and raise taxes." End of discussion.

I was just livid, because there are a lot of very bright people involved in that organization, and I'd just spent the weekend with all kinds of people who are unemployed or underemployed, and they expect from the academic leadership, as they expect from the political leadership, a greater creativity and a greater sensitivity than they got that day.

I've got a bit of a conflict of interest because I've got a number of friends who are professors, who teach in the Ontario universities.

Mr Perruzza: Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

Mr Conway: The member says, "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy." That's putting it mildly. There are a lot of very good people and there are a lot of great programs, but there is a very, very considerable conservatism, rigidity:

"I'm all right, doc. Don't talk to me about a new program that might meet a particular need in the community."

"I'm in the university world; I don't talk to the colleges."

"I'm in the college world; I don't talk to the high schools."

"I'm in the academic stream in the high schools; I don't have to talk to the senior people in the public schools."

"I'm a professor; I don't really have to go to the labour council and really listen to what it's telling us about trades and technology programs."

As I say, I think Ryerson has set a very good example to the province and the country in many of these key areas where we know as a community we have got problems. I look at the Ryerson story and say, why has it been so limited? I looked at the co-op program at the University of Waterloo and I said to myself, why was that so limited to that one institution? Happily, we are seeing now more uptake of those kinds of programs.

I simply say, through this debate today, to the post-secondary world, you've done many very interesting, creative and constructive things for this province and this country, and you rightly have a claim on the interest of this Legislature, the support of the government and the tax revenues of Her Majesty's loyal subjects living in Ontario. But this is a two-way street: You have an obligation to become more flexible, more sensitive and more understanding of the contemporary reality.

Because there's a lot of rhetoric around that would make you think that the universities and their post-secondary colleagues are on the cutting edge of a new tomorrow; there's a lot of rhetoric and there is some evidence, but I want to say that there is still, from my personal experience, altogether too much evidence that this is still a very comfortable pew of a very considerable status quo, and the community has a right to expect more leadership, more adaptability and more creativity from this sector than, quite frankly, we have been getting over the last number of years.

I was polite the day that group came, but it was everything I could do to hold my very considerable tongue and my even more considerable temper in check and in silence and to say nothing of the pitch which was essentially this -- I'm talking now about the presentation made by the university professors association to the standing committee on economic affairs just three months ago in the midst of a gut-wrenching hardship that is hurting the people of this province in a very real way. The best the university professors association could do was to say, essentially: "We're underfunded. Raise taxes and send us more money."

To hell with you if that's all you've got to tell this Legislature in the spring of 1993. I expect more than I got that day.

When I go to institutions -- and I graduated from two of them, the old Waterloo Lutheran and Queen's University -- and I look at some of the progress that's been made, I'm impressed, but I look at some of what yet remains to be done. I look at my rural community, I look at the area that I represent, a big chunk of rural eastern Ontario. I see the chief government whip; he represents a very similar kind of constituency north of Highway 7. I ask myself when I'm in communities like Eganville and Cobden and Barry's Bay, and I see the Speaker and I'm sure he wonders up in Minden and Haliburton, what kind of community outreach has there been from some of these universities and colleges? Oh, there is no doubt there is some, but when I hear about just how conservative and careful and cautious, the mountain has got to be taken to the institution in most cases. The idea that there's going to be a real and effective outreach -- boy, not too much evidence to support that, in many cases.

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I think of the great experiments that Father Coady and the people at St Francis Xavier had decades ago with cooperative education, community-based education, going out to those miners in Cape Breton and along. How much of that have we seen from the Ontario universities?

We've seen some, but as far as I'm concerned not enough, and I'm getting a little angry about the fact that while everything and everybody from Sears Roebuck to Ontario Hydro is having to change and having to change in ways they never imagined possible five years ago, five months ago in some cases, we've still got, according to some of my professorial friends and on the basis of some of my own anecdotal evidence, too much of the comfortable pew of a very considerable status quo that increasingly does not meet the emerging needs of this province and its citizenry in the last years of this century.

I say again, it's kind of unfair to do this to poor Dr Grier and his colleagues because Ryerson has set a very good example, and I am sure that, now that it is a polytechnical university, all of the dizzying opportunities that this nomenclature provides will not distract it from the successes it has enjoyed in the past and that it will not do anything but continue the innovative and creative programs in, particularly, polytechnical education in the coming years and in the coming century.

Having served as Minister of Education for about four years in the last administration, I have many memories, but one memory I have that is going to be a long time leaving me is the notion of the territorial imperative -- the high schools that weren't talking to the colleges that weren't talking to the universities.

We were encouraged to take public dollars and develop articulation programs. What are they? Oh, that's just an opportunity, really, a linkage between high school, college and university. A lot of the taxpayers I represent just assume that is happening, that in Kingston, Queen's and St Lawrence and the various high schools are talking very routinely and that we've got program integration that allows a good technical student, for example, to proceed through high school, then to get into a college program and to proceed through that college program maybe into the workforce and then to go back to Queen's or some other place and not be told: "Oh, the experiential learning counts for nothing, the college program. We are a university. Therefore, we don't recognize any of this. Back to square one." It's that kind of barrier building that has hurt and hindered this province.

Happy day for Ryerson. Delighted to see my friends here. On with a good cause, and I'm sure, Dr Grier and colleagues, that at the turn of the century we will look back on this development as just yet another positive step in a long and storied tradition at one of our great educational institutions.

The Acting Speaker: Questions and/or comments?

Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): I rise to support the comments made by the member for Renfrew North. As many members and, Mr Speaker, you might know, Ryerson is right next door to my riding and many of its students and I'm sure a few of its professors and teachers live in my riding as well. Of course I will support this bill and I think it's a wonderful thing that it will now be a polytechnic university.

In the course of campaigning recently in the by-election, I spent a lot of time knocking on doors in Regent Park and St James Town. I think one of the important functions of a university, and of Ryerson as a collegiate institute, is its outreach programs, and I know that there were some 40,000-odd people in the continuing education program there.

I know that Ryerson is an example and I hope other universities and institutions take that example, because I can think of the people in Regent Park and St James Town, many people who are coming new into Canada and have been here for a while who need access to the training and the trades and the programs that are available at Ryerson and other post-secondary institutions that can provide them a transition into the Canadian workforce and the Canadian economy.

I only hope, and make this a cautionary tale, I guess, that outreach will continue and will be expanded. I can think of many people in my riding who are, as youth, suffering from unemployment and the difficulties related to the current economic climate and require greater training and greater access to the kinds of facilities and services that Ryerson can provide. I only hope that I can look forward to working with them as a university to provide those services for my constituents.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments? The honourable member for Renfrew North has two minutes to respond.

Mr Conway: I'll yield, Mr Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: I believe the honourable member for Kingston and The Islands wishes to wind up.

Mr Gary Wilson: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I'm sure we're all very happy to reach this point in the debate where I can thank all members in the House, those who spoke to the bill before us, and I think it reflects the --

The Acting Speaker: If I might just interject, was there anyone who wanted to involve himself in the debate before we move to the honourable member?

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker: No. I'm sorry. The honourable member for Kingston and The Islands.

Mr Gary Wilson: I'd just again like to thank everyone. I began my remarks on this debate by referring to the joyous atmosphere at Ryerson that greeted the news that the name would be changed, and we heard bits and pieces of it here today.

I think it's well launched on its way, but I would like to read just one of the objects from the bill, because I think it reminds us that while there is a tendency to try to twist education to the purposes of a particular party, I think the project is greater than all of us and will yield results that will benefit everybody.

This object refers to the advancement of learning, the intellectual, social, moral, cultural, spiritual and physical development of university students and employees and the betterment of society. I think that's a goal we can all support, I think that by changing the name, that represents a small but significant step towards that goal.

The Acting Speaker: Mr Wilson, Kingston and The Islands, has moved second reading of Bill 1. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Shall the bill be ordered for third reading? Agreed.

It now being 6 of the clock, this House do now adjourn till tomorrow, May 18, at 1:30 of the clock.

The House adjourned at 1758.

17 mai 1993