Journal des débats 1993-nov-04 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

That, in the opinion of this House, taking note of the government's decision to require the public disclosure of compensation paid to executives of companies which are publicly traded in Ontario; and

Believing that the government of Ontario should apply the same standards of accessibility and accountability to its own operations that it applies to individuals and companies in the private sector;

This House urges the government to immediately introduce legislation necessary to provide for the disclosure annually in the public accounts beginning with the public accounts for the 1993-94 fiscal year of the following information:

The details of the salary paid to the deputy minister and the four other highest-paid bureaucrats in each ministry of the government, the Premier's office and the Cabinet Office;

The details of the salary paid to the five highest-paid political staff in each ministry and the Premier's office and the Cabinet Office;

The details of the salary paid to the five highest-paid executives in each crown corporation;

The details of any non-routine loans made or guaranteed by a government ministry, agency or crown corporation to any of the above individuals;

Information on benefits paid to any of the above individuals that add significantly to compensation;

Information on compensation paid to a senior public sector executive, senior executive of a crown corporation or senior member of the political staff who left during the fiscal year but would otherwise have been among the highest-paid group;

Information on any contract that would result in a senior public sector executive, senior executive of a crown corporation or senior member of the political staff being paid more than $100,000 as a result of being dismissed or having to change duties;

The details of the compensation paid to the directors of crown corporations.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Pursuant to standing order 96(c)(i), the honourable member has 10 minutes for his presentation.

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): At the outset of the debate, I just want to point out that the reason I'm not moving forward today with my private member's bill with respect to vital services bylaws is because I feel it was adequately debated last week with respect to Bill 95. I thank all of those people who have sent petitions in support of my bill. Also, I will be continuing to pursue that issue in committee so that all municipalities are given an opportunity to be able to enact vital services bylaws.

Turning to my resolution, I note that the Minister of Finance, in his statement to the Legislature about disclosure of executive compensation, had two key quotes:

"By making these changes, we are responding to investors who have urged that Ontario set higher standards of disclosure....

"These changes give shareholders the information they need in order to compare a company's performance with the way it rewards its top people."

He further quoted:

"After public reaction and discussion, we have decided that the interests of shareholders are better served by fuller disclosure. These changes show our commitment to helping investors make informed decisions, the basis of a healthy financial system."

Those are the comments of the Minister of Finance of Ontario when he made his statement on 14 October. When the Minister of Finance was asked at his press conference following that whether he believed in the same kind of standards being applied to the public service, the minister suggested that he was pursuing this through the Chair of Management Board and that they were going to review public sector compensation disclosure. Asked whether he personally was in favour of it, he said yes, he personally approved of such disclosure. I thank the Minister of Finance for that endorsement of what we're moving forward with today.

I would point out to the honourable members that in fact the wording of my resolution virtually identically mirrors the wording of the government's announcement as to what it was going to apply to the publicly traded companies for full disclosure. The reason the government has said that it needs such disclosure is so that minority shareholders will have a better view into the affairs of those companies to identify whether they are being properly managed.

Additionally, there is a requirement for certain charts to be published by these public companies showing their performance against a broad range of companies in the same sector so that those minority shareholders will be able to compare the performance of those companies with similar companies and see whether they're better managed and if there's any relationship with that compensation, which leads me to my resolution.

There's a great feeling that exists today that there is not enough public disclosure of what civil servants and political staff are receiving. If we are to regain the confidence of the public -- and there can be no doubt that there is a great deal of concern in the public today for the activities of politicians and governments at all levels in terms of the responsibilities as to how they are spending the taxpayers' money -- it would seem reasonable to use those same standards that the Finance minister has come forward with to have that type of disclosure.

We have taken exactly the same criterion of the top five from each ministry and crown corporation. We've taken the top five bureaucrats and the top five political staff in terms of compensation, and the two are well balanced because we know that within a ministry or within the Premier's office you have career civil servants and you have political staff who come and go.

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If indeed these rules were enforced, I would emphasize to you that it would not just be the present government that would be faced with that kind of disclosure; it would be any successive political party that was fortunate enough to get the favour of the electorate. Those same standards of accountability would be applied.

This is part of a three-pronged approach the Conservative Party is bringing forward to ensure that we lift the veil of secrecy which exists in the public sector.

I would urge the government to support this resolution. It is reasonable and it would take away some of the cynicism that exists, because there is a feeling that no matter how one tries, one cannot find out how the government is spending the taxpayers' money. If we can regain the confidence of the taxpayer, we can start to solve some of the problems we have.

If we don't have the confidence of the public, then we see that order starts to break down. We have only to look at the sector of taxation to see how this erosion of confidence in what government is doing is affecting even the revenues of government. People are beginning to find it acceptable to buy cigarettes and alcohol on the black market, which is a very serious threat to the continued resources of the treasury, which I'm sure, Madam Speaker, you recognize your own government is most concerned about.

The efforts we're making, as I said, are three-pronged. My colleague the member for Dufferin-Peel, Mr Tilson, introduced Bill 108 to amend the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to provide for the release of information on salary and benefits, job classification and responsibilities of persons employed in the provincial and municipal sectors. I can say that when we have tried to identify certain compensation within the public sector through freedom of information, we have met with very little result. Usually the information that we get back, after many, many weeks, is all blocked out, all of the vital information.

Additionally, my colleague the member for Dufferin-Peel has just brought forward a private member's bill to amend the Labour Relations Act to make available to the public information about compensation paid to the presidents and other executive officers of trade unions. Despite the freedom of information act, this information is privileged. In fairness, there are indeed some trade unions that do disclose such information, but not all of them, and the members of those trade unions surely have a right to it.

My colleague the member for Etobicoke West, Mr Stockwell, introduced Bill 114, which parallels the efforts of the minister and in fact completely mirrors what our resolution is today. This is a resolution. He is bringing forward a bill to exactly call for the government to enforce these same rules of full disclosure.

I just want to read some of the reactions we've had to this move by me to put forward this ballot item.

The Board of Trade of Metropolitan Toronto says that it is in full support of anything which promotes full disclosure of finances in the public sector.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business: Judith Andrew, the director of public policy, said that she is supportive of anything to enhance the accountability of government to the taxpayer. "Public accountability involves anything that illuminates the use of public moneys by government. Crown corporations should be under public scrutiny."

A further endorsement by Ontarians for Responsible Government says: "If corporate executives whose salaries are paid by shareholders are being forced by the NDP to disclose their income, then surely bureaucrats who are paid by the province's taxpayers should also have their salary figures published. What's good for the private goose should be good for the public gander."

In an article in the Globe and Mail by Terence Corcoran, he states, "Indeed, on the very day Mr Laughren rose to support pension fund rights for information on corporate salaries, the Provincial Auditor was telling reporters he would not approve the annual report of the socialist paradise casino party."

The Acting Speaker (Ms Margaret H. Harrington): The member's time has expired. I thank the member for York Mills. Are there other speakers who wish to address the member's resolution?

Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): I'm very pleased to rise today to address the resolution from the member and to say that as far as this resolution goes, I don't think I have any problem in supporting it. I would like, however, to go through and outline where there are some drawbacks in this resolution.

If we are to examine some of the sections, I think we need to have a much broader definition of what we mean by a "public servant." I don't think it's sufficient to have it just relate to the provincial sector, because I believe the public has the right to know how much their school board directors make. I think they have a right to know how much the commissioners make at Metropolitan Toronto. I think they have a right to know how much the salaries out of the public purse are paying in terms of the political staff for the opposition parties in this Legislature. I think they have a right to know a whole host of information.

I would like to see that perhaps work can be done to expand the definition to administrators of hospitals. We don't know what administrators of hospitals make. We know there was an article in the newspaper a few months back, or a year back, I guess, now, about one administrator who had a car, had a penthouse apartment, had a really lucrative salary, between what amounts, we don't know. I think, in terms of the employees who work in those institutions and are now taking cuts, the disclosure of the salaries of people who administer those hospitals should be revealed. I think the salaries of the people who work at the Ontario Hospital Association should be revealed in that they get money indirectly from the public purse. I don't think we should be restricting this resolution solely to the ones that are listed in this resolution.

In fact, I would take it even another step further and suggest that people who are private contractors that are being paid in any sector, whether it be the colleges, whether it be the universities, that all of these things should be revealed, and the perks that go with them.

Mr Turnbull: I don't quite understand. Explain what you mean, contractors.

Mr Wiseman: I'm talking about the directors of the universities, the presidents of the universities, the presidents of colleges: whether they have houses included in their stipend, whether they have chauffeur-driven cars, whether they're paid on the basis of mileage, whether they're paid all sorts of different perks. If you're talking about revealing what the public purse is paying for, let's broaden these definitions and make sure we have an understanding out there that we're talking about chairmen of regions, commissioners; we're talking about whether they have cars, houses and a whole host of things.

In fact, I think this government has moved in the direction of disclosing some of these by creating the review committee on the government agencies for public appointments and by publishing a book so that everyone out there knows what is in fact being given out in terms of public appointments. That's the first time it's ever been done. I think this is something we need to be sure to continue.

In saying this, I recognize that to do what the honourable member is suggesting -- and of course I've said I support that -- it will take legislation. We will know the public's preoccupation at this time is on jobs. We need to move ahead with the creation of jobs, and we have many pieces of legislation before this House that will do that. These pieces of legislation need to be passed. I would ask at this point that if we could rely on the opposition to get that legislation through, then we can certainly move on these other pieces of legislation we have common agreement on. I think it's important that we recognize that the creation of the crown corporations -- that we get the community economic development legislation through, because this will allow people to help themselves. It will allow them to create jobs in the community.

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I think we need to recognize that there are other problems that are inhibiting the job creation agenda. We need to have banks that will lend money at a reasonable rate, that will lend money to people who need it below the level of $5,000. So I think we have a lot of work there and we have a lot of legislation on the agenda. While we support this and while we would like to see this happen in terms of legislation, I think that if we can get the other legislation through quickly -- I call upon both opposition parties to help us do that -- then we can turn to this very important piece of legislation that needs to be done as well. So I say to the member, let's consider that it needs to be a broader piece of work and that what we'll do is then try to expedite it.

The Acting Speaker: Are there further speakers on this resolution?

Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): It's a pleasure to rise in my place today to speak to this resolution. It's a resolution that I agree with. It's too bad that my colleague who just preceded me in his diatribe is coming out against it, because while maybe it is not as all-encompassing as some may want, I think it's a very good start. I know in my riding I get many complaints from people wanting to know what their public officials are being paid. While I would like to see this expanded, obviously, into school boards and, like my colleague says, hospital board chairs and administrators, and I agree with that, I don't think that's any reason why we should not support the commencement of this procedure, and I think that's before us today with this ballot item that we're debating.

It starts to deal with basically the highest-paid people in the Ontario government, and I think that's a good start. If we are to require people in the greater public service to be disclosing their benefits packages, then I think we have to start with our own shop, the Ontario government. So I think it is a good start for this. It would start to set the standard and be an example to other people in the public sector, because I think the greater public who foot the bill, and all of us as taxpayers foot the bill, need to know and have some certainty as to what our public officials are being paid. Then they can basically make their own judgement as to whether those officials are being paid adequately or maybe too much.

I think that's their right as taxpayers, as we all foot that bill, that taxpayers want a little more empowerment. They want to have a sense of control, they want to have a sense of what's going on and of whether there is value there in the money that is being expended. I think taxpayers don't mind paying taxes as long as they believe there's value there for that expenditure. What taxpayers don't like to see is, number one, frivolous waste and, number two, extravagant salaries and extravagant benefits packages. If the public doesn't know, if there's no disclosure, then how can they make that judgement? If we're to regain some credibility in the political process, in the whole political system, credibility by our taxpayers in our institutions and in politicians and in civil servants themselves, then I think we have to have full disclosure.

We certainly realize this on the political end. We have full disclosure of MPPs' salaries and of MPPs' benefits. In fact, we go beyond that and we disclose fully what our assets are, what our liabilities are. These are all on record at the Conflict of Interest Commissioner's office on Bloor Street, and I think that's right. I think people should know what our interests are. I think this needs to be brought forward to the top officials in the public sector, in the public service. All we see in the paper is the range of deputies' salaries.

Mr Norm Jamison (Norfolk): What about regional government?

Mr Ramsay: I think all of that, yes. My colleague across the way is saying what about regional government, municipal government. I believe anybody in the public sector is accountable to the public, and I think that's one of the drawbacks of working in the public sector, that I think taxpayers have a right to know.

So I think, as we might all agree, that for now this resolution maybe doesn't go as far as we would like to see. It's a good start. Maybe if we start to set the example and say we're going to put our own house in order, we're going to have disclosure of the top five salaries being paid to ministers' staff, to the civil servants in each ministry, I think that's a very good start.

I'd like to go through some of this because it goes beyond those that I've just mentioned. I think very important are the five highest-paid political staff in each ministry and the Premier's office and Cabinet Office. I think that again would be a very good example for us to set to the rest of the public service, that it's going to be starting from the very top all the way through.

In this day of restructuring, of reinventing government, we see government inventing new organizations. We call them in government schedule 4 agencies, crown corporations that are becoming quite independent from government: schedule 1, 2, 3 through the newly formed schedule 4 agency, 4 being very independent. We should know what those crown employee executives are making also. The resolution does talk about that, that "The details of the salary paid to the five highest-paid executives in each crown corporation" also be disclosed. I agree with that.

It also goes on to say, "The details of any non-routine loans made or guaranteed by a government ministry, agency or crown corporation to any of the above individuals." Again, from time to time such deals are struck. I think the public needs to know why they are struck and the details of those particular arrangements. When we don't know and we start to hear these things, they leak out, then we start to believe the very worst of such an arrangement. Therefore, I think if there is a strict disclosure of any arrangement such as that, people would have more confidence that the arrangement is sound, that it's an honest arrangement. I think people need to know that and be assured of that.

Also, "Information on benefits paid to any of the above individuals that add significantly to compensation." What the member is saying is that the total benefits package, basically, should be disclosed. I certainly agree with that.

What we find from time to time is that when people leave this place there are compensation packages that are negotiated. Many times those packages are extremely rich. I guess they are called in business parlance "golden parachutes." People get very angry when any sort of inordinate type of compensation package is awarded to any sort of official. If this is to go on for whatever reason, then I think it has to be justified, and to be justified it has to be disclosed. Therefore, I agree with the member that these compensation packages that are paid to "a senior public sector executive, senior executive of a crown corporation or senior member of the political staff who left during the fiscal year but would otherwise have been among the highest-paid group" also be disclosed. I agree with the member that this be there.

Also, "Information on any contract that would result in a senior public sector executive, senior executive of a crown corporation or senior member of the political staff being paid more than $100,000 as a result of being dismissed or having to change duties." Again, I would agree with that, that all types of compensation and benefit packages negotiated between top crown employees and the government should be disclosed.

In conclusion, I would agree with the motion that's been set forward today. I think it's a very good motion. As one of my colleagues has already said, maybe it doesn't go far enough and maybe we should be looking at the greater public sector, but I think this is a good start. It sets the example for the provincial government, and until we get our own house in order, who are we to ask other people in the greater public sector that they should enforce such a disclosure law? I think this is a good start, I support it, and I hope it has the support of all the members today.

The Acting Speaker: Are there further speakers to the resolution from the member for York Mills?

Mr Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): I'm certainly pleased this morning to have a few minutes to talk on this resolution in support of my colleague who has very well brought this resolution forward.

The concern here is that the Minister of Finance is bringing a government bill forward to disclose the salaries of the top executives in private sector companies under the guise of protecting the shareholders so that they would know the salaries being paid by the company because of them being shareholders.

But the point is that we the voters, we the public, are all shareholders in all aspects of government. Regardless of what agency it is or what ministry it is, we're all individual shareholders. I think we have a right to know what salaries are being paid to the people we have put our trust in to direct these agencies, government ministries and so on.

I can tell you from my experience on the municipal level of politics and at the county level that it's very frustrating to go in and set a budget if you're reeve and chief executive officer of the municipality and you don't even know what your administrator is being paid. You may find out in different ways, but technically and legally that salary is not made known. The salary range is there at the municipal level, but not the level in that range at which that person is set. So as you go to set up a budget, as you go to report to your electorate, you cannot comment on those top three or four executive positions.

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I find it difficult when the member for Durham West indicates that this resolution is not complete enough for him to support because it doesn't cover all aspects of the different areas that should be covered, and yet the resolution is very relevant to these areas of concern as we see them today, and the Minister of Finance, as I said before, is bringing forward a bill to request that those positions in the private sector declare their salaries in the interests of the stockholders or shareholders in that private company. I'm sure the people of Ontario are entitled to that same information relative to government and government agencies.

Other members of my caucus, the member for Etobicoke West and the member for Dufferin-Peel, are bringing forward bills to deal with this on a larger scale, all using this resolution as a base. But those bills, as brought forward by those members, will also add to the information that is required by the public, as will the bill that the Minister of Finance is bringing forward to release information on private enterprise.

All we're asking is that the government take a good look at the bills being brought forward by the members of our caucus, along with this resolution today, in that we are looking at the whole aspect of declaring this public information -- labour unions, private companies, ministries, government agencies and so on -- that these salaries be made known to the people generally.

Of course, when you just separate the private sector and say that those people should have to declare for the good of the shareholders, I find that difficult to understand when we have deputy ministers and all these other executive and director positions within government not being given the direction that their salaries should also be made public.

I don't want to belabour this too long; I just want to support my colleague who has presented this resolution very well this morning. It's difficult to understand: for instance, you're sitting on a hospital board and you're trying to work the budget for the hospital, the cost of operating the hospital, and you don't even know what your top employee's salary is. You don't know that. Actually, that chief executive officer-administrator at the hospital is really an employee of that board and of the people generally who support the hospital with grants coming from Ontario --

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. If you are conducting a conversation, would you please conduct the conversation somewhere else. The member for Lanark-Renfrew has the floor.

Mr Jordan: I know my colleagues are very interested in this. I'm also interested in their conversation. I'd like to be part of it later.

The bottom line is that the minister of revenue is bringing forward the concerns about the private companies relative to their shareholders, and is not taking a broader view of the whole aspect of government: public service, municipal administration, county administration, regional administration. All these are areas of concern, especially in these difficult economic times, and I strongly urge, as a start, that we support this resolution today.

Mr George Mammoliti (Yorkview): I want to thank, of course, the member who introduced the resolution for giving us time to debate and to talk about the necessity of this item. I quite frankly agree with the member and I certainly would vow to do my best in trying to get some sort of change in this particular area.

But there are a number of questions I'd like to ask the member while he is in the Legislature and listening. I look at the resolution, and I read the resolution, and I wonder why the resolution is very specific in and around the areas of highest-paid salaries. Why the question? I ask the question because I certainly don't understand why the member is only referring to the highest-paid bureaucrats, the highest-paid political staff, and in one part of the resolution, he talks about staff being paid more than $100,000 when they leave as well, whether they have been let go or whether they have voluntarily resigned. Why the top-paying jobs? I can't understand that.

Mr Turnbull: Say that again.

Mr Mammoliti: The member asked me to repeat it again and I certainly will. Why only the top bureaucrats, the highest-paid positions? Why are we not talking about all public sector employees? Why are we not talking about middle management? Why are we not talking about even the grass-roots bureaucrats? Why can't we talk about that in this resolution? I'm not too sure what the process is in terms of amending resolutions, but that's certainly a suggestion I'd like to make.

I think if you look at some of the books in the public sector, you'll find that even some of those middle bureaucrats are making well over $100,000. Some of them have credit cards, and some of them have the spending sprees that some of us find to be a little disturbing. Why shouldn't we talk about that?

That's certainly a question I'd like answered by the member across. I'm not going to take a lot of time because, quite frankly, looking at the resolution and actually working in the bureaucracy myself before political life, I've asked these questions for years. I can remember statements I've made and speeches I've made in the past that refer directly to this. Why are we not disclosing? When we find salaries to be an average salary in the bureaucracy, why at the end of the year do we find that the bureaucrats are making a little more than that? What's happening? Disclose it.

The question I'm looking forward to having answered is why? Why just the top bureaucrats? Why the highest- paid bureaucrats and political staff members? Why not everybody? That's something I'll close in asking.

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Mr Jamison: I'd just like to add some comment at this point in time. I find the resolution one that I could very well be favourable to, but it's very narrow and focused. I know that when I look at the experience that I've had in the area of disclosure, we had the chair of one of the hospital boards in Toronto in front of a committee, for an example, and when asked directly by the committee --

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): Point of order.

The Acting Speaker: Excuse me. The member for Downsview, on a point of order.

Mr Perruzza: My point is this, Madam Chair: You generally go in rotation, and we just spoke as a party --

The Acting Speaker: Thank you to the member. I do realize that. There were no other members standing. The member for Norfolk.

Mr Jamison: I don't know if there's a signal being sent there or whatever, but if there is, it's -- I'd just like to say that to broaden the point of view on this resolution I think is very important, very important indeed. To narrowly define whose salary should be made public seems very pointed. For an example, when I have a superintendent of my school board making well in excess of $100,000 a year, I'd like that to be made public also.

Having said that, I support the last speaker.

Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): The interesting thing about working at Queen's Park is that often you try to be in two places at once. At the present time, while I'm participating in this debate, I'm also sitting at the standing committee on finance and economic affairs. The elevator was a little slow, so that was why I was a few minutes delayed in coming to my place.

I believe the bill that is before us this morning by Mr Turnbull is one we should look at in two ways: First is its basic principle, and second are the policies that flow from the principles.

What I'd like to say is that I believe in the underlying principles of public disclosure. To me, those are liberal values of accountability and openness and they are a requirement of the kind of integrity that I believe we need not only in public life but in fact whenever we are talking about governments, or even the private sector. The concept of accountability and integrity and openness is something I not only hold dear but practise at every opportunity.

I believe we have seen, and rightly so, a lot of progress made in this jurisdiction over the last number of years which has enhanced openness and accountability as principles overall of integrity. One of the things I was proudest of as a member of the Liberal government in 1985 was that our very first piece of legislation to be tabled in this House was the freedom of information legislation. The flip side and the other name of that legislation is also the protection of personal privacy, and that is a very important principle to understand when we discuss openness and accountability, because we are accountable to two.

In corporations and business organizations, we expect accountability by the management to their shareholders, and similarly, in government we expect accountability by management -- the government, the bureaucracy -- to the shareholder: the taxpayer, the voter, the constituent. These are important principles that, as I said, I do hold dear.

We've seen movement not only in the area of freedom of information, access to government records and government information; we've seen recently a piece of legislation tabled which requires greater openness in the corporate sector.

I'd like to say quite frankly at this point in time that I believe there are a number of reasons why Ontario, and Canada in fact, should have consistent rules with their trading partners and consistent rules particularly continentally in North America.

The reason for that is that we have multinational corporations. If you have one set of rules in one jurisdiction and another set of rules in another jurisdiction, it can be confusing, and when shareholders of that corporation often live on different sides of the borders, it seems to me that it is a reasonable expectation of the shareholders that wherever possible, government will bring in rules that will simplify for the shareholders their access to information, and that it will be the same information available to them whether that company is headquartered in New York state or Ohio or Michigan or Ontario. The principles of having those kinds of similar rules for disclosure are very important, and I'm supportive of the legislation the government has brought forward which would disclose information that I think the shareholders of companies and corporations have a right to know.

On the other hand, today we have a resolution by Mr Turnbull which goes beyond those basic principles. As I read the resolution, he is calling for specific salary details. When I was in government, I was not only proud of the freedom of information and protection of privacy legislation; I was also very proud of the fact that we made available for the first time disclosure of salary ranges. That's good human resource practice. People applying for jobs should know what the job range is. When you are offering a job, you publicize that in your advertising. It's also extremely important that taxpayers, people who may not ever be interested in knowing, know what that job pays.

It's also very important that we realize that where a person is within that range is not relevant knowledge that an individual need know. All they need to know is that the person doing that job is within a range which is open and public and available information. That achieves the correct balance between freedom of information and protection of individual personal privacy.

I'll be specific. You may know that the salary range for deputy ministers -- and I will say hypothetically because it does change from time to time -- today is between $90,000 and $120,000. Whether a specific deputy is earning $90,000 or whether that specific deputy is earning $120,000 is not as important as knowing what that range is and knowing that all deputy ministers are earning within that range. If anyone is earning more than that, is earning outside the range, I believe that should be disclosed. It should be disclosed in an open and frank way so that nobody is deceived. That's the point; you mustn't deceive by saying, "This is the salary range," when this individual may be earning well outside the range. The taxpayers have a right to know if the government is paying people above the salary range, and I think that's an important principle.

It is my view that if we're going to err on the policies based on these principles and you have to choose which side you're going to err on, I believe we should always err on the side of openness, we should always err on the side of accountability and err on the side of the public interest, which is knowledge. Recognizing that, Mr Turnbull's motion, while it is deserving of support in principle, is quite simplistic and intrusive in an unnecessary way in its implementation and its request for detail. I think it crosses that line in a way which could be inappropriate. I'm not saying it is or it would result in that, but I have concerns and want to express that because I believe in individual right to personal privacy protection. I am concerned that this resolution, if it were to go forward intact and without thoughtful discussion and debate as to what the policy implications would be, could well have an inappropriate and negative impact on individuals.

I don't mean this in a partisan sense, but I find it interesting that it's taken the Tories in Ontario such a long time to come to this position. During the four decades the Tories were in power, the hallmark of their administration was no freedom of information, no access to information, no disclosure, no openness and very little accountability. I'm pleased to see that they have seen the light and I'm pleased to participate in this debate.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you, the member for Oriole. Further participants in this debate.

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Mr Perruzza: It's a pleasure to participate in this. While I agree essentially with the thrust of the resolution that's before us that's been brought forward by my Conservative colleague from York Mills, I believe this is an important thing to do, but I don't believe for one minute that it should somehow stop at this list.

I've had the good fortune of being able to be a trustee and a municipal councillor and I've seen the operation when people get elected to office, when they run, when they actually get elected and start doing the work, and the cosy relationships that develop between the political wing and the administrative, the bureaucratic wing. Quite frankly, the bureaucrats call the shots. They have the information, they have the expertise, they have the longevity. They're here for ever; we are not. Many of us fly-by-nighters, we fly in on the GO train and then we're taken right back out again on the first tidal wave. These guys stick around and they basically determine what they're going to get in terms of compensation and so on.

I believe the public out there should know right down to the nickel what people are getting in terms of remuneration and compensation. But my caution, and yes, there is a caution in all of this, is that once that happens and once you disclose what people are making in the private sector, you will find that people in the public sector, because a lot of them are simply in it for the money -- a lot of them are good public servants who have the public trust at heart, but a lot of them are not -- will claim, "We want equal pay for work of equal value and equal responsibility."

If you have some executive from some corporation making $500,000 a year, I tell you that the deputy ministers in this place will claim to want the same thing. Otherwise, as Ross Perot coined the phrase, that sucking sound is going to happen in the public sector. There's going to be that sucking sound out to the private sector and you'll lose all the talent. That's the caution I give you this morning.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. The member's time has expired.

Mr Turnbull: We've had, generally speaking, agreement with the intent of what I've proposed here. There have been some interesting points made, and typically the point most often made is that perhaps this resolution isn't broad enough. I did allude in my opening comments to the fact that this is part of a three-pronged approach being brought forward by the Conservatives. This started with Bill 128, the bill introduced by my colleague the member for Dufferin-Peel, Mr Tilson, on June 19, 1991. It is titled An Act to amend the Law related to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy. In this bill, Mr Tilson goes a long step towards getting complete disclosure of public officials in the broader public sector.

As my colleague the member for Lanark-Renfrew has pointed out, one of the great problems that elected officials at municipal levels have is that while they're responsible in the eyes of the electorate for expenditures of municipalities, they often don't have all the information, because they're precluded from knowing the compensation of senior staff in municipalities and in regions. The same has been said of administrators of hospitals. We've all heard these stories of very excessive pay packages, including all kinds of additional benefits such as cars, credit cards and houses being provided to them. The same can be said of school boards.

Yes, indeed, this debate today, in the application of what we have put forward, is relatively limited. The reason for that limitation was purely to try to mirror those measures which the Minister of Finance is proposing to bring forward. My colleague the member for dump site west -- I beg your pardon, Durham West -- had suggested we should include such people but also suggested we should not have this bill move forward until the government's measures are all finished with.

The interesting thing is that the government has put on notice the fact that it will be moving to enforce that the top five officials of publicly traded companies will have to disclose their compensation and benefits. Perhaps in the interest of expeditious movement of this bill, the government, in view of the fact that it seems to be in agreement with it, should amend its bill so that it does not include just the senior executives of corporations publicly traded but in fact includes all of the people we believe should be open to public scrutiny. My colleague the member for Yorkview suggests perhaps everybody who is on the public payroll should be open to scrutiny. It's the taxpayers who are paying for it, so why not?

There are all kinds of arguments that have been made about why executives of public corporations should not have their salaries disclosed, and it's been suggested that this will pose a significant risk to them because they might be kidnapped as a result of it. I have to tell you, kidnappers tend to have other sources. They're not just reading through the disclosure of the securities exchange as to whether they're good targets for kidnapping. I believe that's a somewhat bogus argument.

I do believe we should expand the area of public disclosure. Whether it should go to every single person or not, I'm not sure, but it would be appropriate that we have a full and open debate and committee hearings on this so that the public interest could be served.

The suggestion was made by the member for Durham West that in fact the government was only moving forward with job-creating policies. I would ask him, what jobs were created by Bill 40, the amendments to the Labour Relations Act? I would suggest that was a job-killing piece of legislation. If ever we have seen a piece of legislation in this present Parliament, Bill 40 undoubtedly has to be rechristened the "job-killing act," because we have seen the erosion of the confidence of companies to invest in Ontario.

It is not by chance that Ontario is still suffering the worst ravages of the recession as compared with other provinces in Canada. In fact, the mood present in Ontario is so much more gloomy than other provinces, which I would suggest is probably a great deal due to the stripe of the government we've got.

The suggestion was made that perhaps the political staff of the opposition parties should be disclosed. Absolutely; of course they should. There should not be a different standard applied to the government than the opposition parties. That is perfectly reasonable and I would absolutely welcome it if we were able to move forward with the bill proposed by my colleague the member for Etobicoke West, Bill 114, which exactly mirrors the wording of my resolution.

My suggestion would be that any move by the Minister of Finance to move forward with his legislation for public disclosure of salaries of the top five officials of publicly traded companies should be amended to include the top five salaries of political staff and civil servants, and political staff not just of the governing party but of the opposition parties. That is perfectly reasonable, because the public is paying the bill and wants to know, much in the same way as those people who buy shares listed by a public company want to know. The difference is, of course, that if you buy shares in a public company and you're not satisfied with the performance of that public company, you can sell the shares. You're not able to get out of paying taxes. There is the difference.

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When we look at the tax burden that we have in this province, which is the most excessive of any administration in the whole of North America, then we have to question what is happening to the expenditures of government and we must scrutinize those expenditures of government. Over and over again we -- my party, the Progressive Conservative Party -- have made the assertion that the government doesn't have a revenue problem, it has an expenditure problem.

I haven't done the exact math, but if you were to take the last budget that a Progressive Conservative government brought down in 1985 and adjusted for inflation, you would arrive at a budget which would be radically different from the budget this government has or indeed the budget the last Liberal government had, because they were much more frugal. They may have made many mistakes. I certainly wasn't around. I wasn't involved with the party in those days. They may have made mistakes, I don't deny that, but the fact is they were much more fiscally responsible than either the Liberals, who went on a complete spending binge and raised taxes 33 times, or the present NDP government, which has raised taxes 22 times in just three years and has raised almost every conceivable fee, squeezed every drop of money out of the province, to the detriment of future governments.

That is why when we make the assertion that this is an expenditure problem that we have in this province, the only way you can address it is by the public being cognizant of the expenditures. You start out by explaining what you are paying to your senior staff, much in the same way as public companies are being asked to explain how much they pay to their senior executives. Indeed, the government is calling for charts and comparisons with other companies in their sector for their performance so that investors can compare the performance of a company and take into account the compensation of those officers.

I would submit to you that the same type of approach should be made, in which the government would be obliged to submit to the public each year a comparison of what it is paying to its staff, the numbers of staff and how its performance compares with other governments in Canada and other administrations around the world. I think the jury would be very interested in this evidence.

The Deputy Speaker: The first ballot item has expired.

COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT LEGISLATION

Mr Marchese moved private member's notice of motion number 27:

That, in the opinion of this House, since small and medium-sized businesses in Ontario created 85% of all new jobs between 1979 and 1989, employ nearly two million people with a payroll of $44 billion, and are vital players in our province's economic renewal; and

Since small business claims the major federally chartered banks and provincially regulated financial institutions unnecessarily restrict access to capital for small business, creating a credit crunch; and

Since the Bank of Canada says small bank loans -- which small business rely on -- declined between 1990 and 1992, while loans to big business increased during the same period; and

Since the survival of many small businesses and the prosperity of Ontario is threatened by banks and financial institutions that are not doing their fair share of small business lending; and

Since Canada's major chartered banks recorded healthy profits during this recession; and

Since nearly half, or 44%, of Canada's bank deposits come from Ontario depositors, giving the province of Ontario a direct interest in where this capital is reinvested;

Therefore, this House urges the government of Ontario to call upon the new federal Minister of Finance to convene a meeting with provincial finance ministers on the economy, at which first ministers will work to ease the credit crunch facing small business; and

Urge the new federal government to call a national summit meeting with banks and business representatives, to discuss small business financing; and

Request the new federal government to introduce a community reinvestment act -- as the United States federal and state governments have -- requiring all deposit-taking financial institutions to recycle a minimum portion of their loan portfolio within the communities which provided the deposits; and

Support a federal community reinvestment act that is structured to promote full employment by supporting small business and community economic development; and

Introduce a community reinvestment act in the province of Ontario following the introduction of similar federal legislation; and

Ensure that Ontario's proposed legislation to regulate provincial financial institutions removes impediments which restrict access to capital for small business, allowing Ontario's financial institutions to play a greater role in the province's economic renewal.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Pursuant to standing order 96(c)(i), the honourable member has 10 minutes for his presentation.

Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): It is my pleasure to introduce this resolution before this House, and I would say that many people are looking forward to this debate. In fact, many are eager to talk about this issue, not just the members across the floor and some of my colleagues, but businesses, people who are unemployed and people who are looking for economic renewal in this province and in this country.

In this regard, in Fort York I've established a working group with about 50 small businesses to explore ways to address taxation and the paper burden of small businesses, ensure government legislation supports small business and improve access to capital. We have been meeting for approximately eight months, and this is a long process. It isn't an event where you meet, make suggestions and recommendations, and people go back to their homes. It is a long process that these business people have committed themselves to: seeking solutions to the problems I have alluded to.

Why is it important? It's important because we recognize that small- and medium-sized businesses in Ontario created 85% of all new jobs between 1979 and 1989, employ nearly two million people with a payroll of $44 billion, and are vital players in our province's economic renewal. Here in Metropolitan Toronto, in 1990-91 small business created an impressive 20,000 new jobs while big business, on the other hand, has lost 50,000 jobs.

The Fort York Small Business Working Group has made its mandate Ontario's economic renewal and has decided to focus on strategies that will promote a full employment economy. This strategy by itself will not magically create all those jobs that we're looking for, but we say it's a vital part of that economic renewal.

These businesses have argued that taxation and red tape are not the only concerns facing business in Ontario. In fact, they argue that access to capital is the major barrier they face today. They say that if they could get the capital they need to expand and hire more people, they would be supporting the province's economic renewal and helping reverse the decline in our revenues.

I want to thank the members of the Fort York Small Business Working Group for assisting me with this resolution. Since we have introduced it in this House, we have been flooded with calls from people who support this and want to engage in the debate.

The problem, as we see it, and the reason why this resolution speaks to this matter is that the focus needs to be on Canada's financial institutions, and we say banks in particular. Why? Since they are the major source of capital for business.

Small business claims that the major federally chartered banks and provincially regulated financial institutions unreasonably restrict access to capital for small business, creating what we call a credit crunch.

The Bank of Canada says that small bank loans, which small businesses rely on, declined between 1990 and 1992 while, on the other hand, loans to big business have increased during the same period. The survival of many small businesses and the prosperity of Ontario is threatened by the banks and financial institutions that are not doing their fair share of small business lending.

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Let me give you just one example. Just this week, as many of you saw in the Toronto Star and Financial Post, my riding's small business working group intervened on behalf of a Toronto company, Argord Industries, that was scheduled to be auctioned off today after being forced into receivership by the Toronto-Dominion Bank. We succeeded in delaying the auction so that the owner, who employs 45 people, could seek new investors in his company.

To many people, this example was indicative of the insensitivity of big banks, of big financial institutions, towards small business in this province. The same bank made a $7-billion loan to American utilities companies earlier this year, but could not find it in itself to continue to support this small Canadian manufacturer needing a credit line of $150,000.

This is what a spokesperson for the Canadian Bankers Association had to say: "You've got to remember, it's your grandmother's money that's being loaned. Banks are low-risk lenders." Well, how is it that grandma does not mind lending $7 billion to the American utilities company but grandma minds lending approximately $150,000 to a Canadian company that's keeping 45 people employed? Why is it that this is going on?

I would say that grandma is more upset and worried that she pays more in taxes proportionately than the Canadian banks put together. In fact, I would say that if the Canadian banks would put in a minuscule amount of their dollars, we could secure our social services in this country, we could put people back to work and put revenues back into this province and Canada and the federal government to be able to do all the things that we want to do in the social service end.

Argord, which hired 28 new employees recently and has work orders in excess of half a million dollars, has no future, according to the bank. As a result, the problem facing governments is that our deficits increase each time a company like this is forced to close by the banks. In the case of Argord, the cost to the taxpayer is over $640,000 in social assistance and lost revenues.

This case, for me, illustrates the hypocrisy of the banks criticizing government deficits on the one hand while causing unnecessary bankruptcies on the other, forcing our deficits to go even higher. Susan Bellan, a member of the Fort York Small Business Working Group and the chair of banking issues for the Canadian Organization of Small Business, says, "The banks have no right to criticize Queen's Park or Ottawa for their deficits when they make the problem worse by pulling the plug on promising businesses at the first sign of trouble."

The sentiment was echoed by the Toronto Star business columnist David Crane when we wrote last week, and again today, about the Toronto-Dominion's closure of Argord and urged Prime Minister Chrétien to follow up on his promises to improve access to capital for small business.

We are here to help him keep that promise. Today's resolution, if approved, will send a clear message and a clear signal, both to Ottawa and to the government of Ontario, that urgent action is required.

I want to speak to the special responsibility of the banks. This resolution is aimed primarily at Canada's federally chartered banks, although it encompasses provincially regulated financial institutions as well. Canada's major chartered banks recorded healthy profits during this recession while virtually every other sector of the economy took a beating. We must begin to demand that the banks do their fair share of community lending, given particularly that their risk has been considerably reduced by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corp and programs like the federal Small Business Loans Act.

We must realize that banks are not just like any other private company. They are chartered by the federal government and have exclusive privileges to invest Canada's deposits. As such, I argue that the banks must bear a responsibility to the public that supplies their deposits. Our economy depends on them, and it depends on them working with small businesses.

Nearly half, or $148 billion, of Canada's bank deposits come from Ontario depositors, giving the province of Ontario a particular interest in where this capital is reinvested. As some of you know, the head offices of all of the major banks are located in my riding of Fort York. You would think that of all the small businesses in the country, the small businesses in my riding would have the best access to these banks. But they don't.

This is a problem shared by small businesses everywhere, and we need to deal with it. That is why this resolution begins the debate in Ontario and begins the debate at the federal level.

I'm looking forward to the debate in this House from my colleagues and the members of the opposition. I look forward to their comments.

Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): I'd like to begin by saying that, yes, I too will be supporting the resolution as put forth by the member for Fort York. I must say that in my riding I've had a good number of small businesses come forth and actually talk about this problem that they're having with lending institutions.

I think we have to look beyond what the banks and lending institutions are doing for the small businesses across Ontario, and I speak from northern Ontario, particularly northwestern Ontario.

I'm sure the member for Fort York would have been present at the Northwestern Ontario Chamber of Commerce presentations as they presented various resolutions to the two opposition parties and the government. They brought forth a lot of very positive-type material which showed that it's not only the banks and the lending institutions that are prohibiting small business from flourishing in Ontario, but it also goes back to a little of Bob Rae's government, if I could speak about that just a bit.

If we take a look at what used to be the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology, and we have a new word for it today, we find out that the Bob Rae government froze its budget, a very important ministry that was dedicated to the development of small and medium-sized businesses. While government spending rose some 13.4%, this ministry had its budget frozen out.

If we take a look at something else which I was part of in the past, and that of course was the parliamentary assistants committee for small business, this was a very important committee to the small business community of this province. I travelled extensively with that committee. What has the Bob Rae government done to it? It's dismantled this particular committee. It was something which I felt helped small business, but it was dismantled, and I'm quite concerned about that.

We also had the small business development corporation program --

Mr Norm Jamison (Norfolk): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I chair that committee. That committee is still in existence.

The Deputy Speaker: That's not a point of order.

Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): You're getting action already.

Mr Miclash: Action already. I go back to that committee and the extreme importance of it and the good work it does on behalf of small and medium-sized business. I take a look at the committee and the work that it did.

The other program that I was speaking about when I was interrupted is the small business development corporation program. Here's a program which fuels the private sector. It was a program that was extremely successful. In the past 14 years, it brought in more than $527 million to small business and created some 26,000 jobs. Again I ask, what has the Bob Rae government done to this particular committee? They've actually axed that particular committee as well.

So I go back to a number of points that were good things that were being done in terms of helping out small business. I indicated at the beginning that I will be supporting this resolution, but I think what the member for Fort York has to do is ensure that his own house and government are in order.

We hear him mention the federal Minister of Finance, who has now been appointed in the new federal Liberal government, and he talks about having the federal minister come together with his provincial counterparts. I'm sure that at the federal level we will see this minister wanting to come together with the provincial counterparts, wanting to work with them, because I know in their plan they indicated a lot about small and medium-sized business and its importance not only to the province of Ontario, but to the entire country. So I too look forward to that happening. I think that's a very important portion of this member's resolution.

Let me conclude by taking a look at the final part of the resolution put forth by the member. It says, "Ensure that Ontario's proposed legislation to regulate provincial financial institutions removes impediments which restrict access to capital for small business, allowing Ontario's financial institutions to play a greater role in the province's economic renewal."

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I can't agree with that more. I think that's the most important part of the member's resolution, but again I have to get the member to go back and take a look at what this Bob Rae government is doing to small and medium-sized business across the province. I again must go back to the resolutions as presented by the Northwestern Ontario Chamber of Commerce, a very, very unique scope on what's happening not only in northwestern Ontario but across the province.

I must also remind this member that finger-pointing at the federal government, which we know is going to carry on and which will probably flourish in this House, will not be the only answer to a lot of the unanswered questions out there. It's going to have to be the Bob Rae government that is going to have to become more involved to ensure that small and medium-sized businesses flourish across this province.

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): I'm pleased to rise on this important issue. There can be no doubt that one of the most important things we could do to help small businesses would be to provide funding to them by way of finance, particularly to small and medium-sized companies, finance that to a great extent a lot of companies are finding themselves starved of today. I want to speak about that in some detail. I also want to point out that another very serious and probably even more important issue is the issue of the tax burden that businesses are finding themselves in.

We will be supporting this resolution by Mr Marchese today because we do believe it's important we send out a message that part of the job of helping Ontario's faltering economy lies with the banks. There are many examples of organizations that have been viable businesses for many years having difficulty renewing mortgages and renewing loans.

I will give you the example of somebody who is quite a close friend of mine. He has saved all of his life and put money into an investment. I will be fair; I will say this is an investment in real estate that he bought, maybe at the height of the market. At least you understand that, yes, obviously he's lost money.

But the example is that he purchased this building for $1.8 million. The banks offered him a mortgage of $1.3 million, and at the time he purchased it he and his partners, his group of partners -- because it certainly wasn't all his money -- said, "No, we want to make sure we've got more equity in the building." So instead of taking the $1.3 million the bank offered, they only took $1.1 million.

The mortgage is up for renewal within about a month. The bank has offered him 70% of what it considers the value today, which is $800,000, which would mean that my friend would have to come up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to pay the difference between the current $1.1 million and 70% of $800,000 that it's estimated to have as value today.

That's a serious problem. He is contemplating personal bankruptcy. This is a tragedy. This is his life's savings, and it isn't just him. There are about 10 partners in this and they were trying to establish some type of pension fund for themselves because, unlike civil servants and MPPs if they stay long enough, he doesn't have a pension. This was his life's savings and this is what's going to happen. They're going to be wiped out.

When we talk about accountability to the public, and we talked about it in my resolution before, we must consider what is happening in the private sector. It's a very serious situation. There are many companies that absolutely cannot get any renewal of their mortgages under any terms from the banks. We need to send out a strong message to the banks that the banks must be part of the solution of kickstarting our economy.

But I really want to turn to the problem with governments, specifically the problems we find with this present government.

The member for Fort York talks about capital not being available, yet 44% of Canada's bank deposits come from Ontario. That is true, absolutely true. But I want you to contemplate the fact that governments by and large, all governments across Canada, are sucking up huge amounts of funds which would otherwise be available for reinvestment. That is because governments are involving themselves in deficit financing. The impact of deficit financing is inevitably that you squeeze out the private sector, and that is what we've had in Canada for many years.

I remember during the mid to late 1980s the concern that western Canada had, with a great deal of validity, about how overheated the Ontario economy was. Despite the fact that we had massive amounts of revenue coming into the government and the Liberals increased taxes 33 times, they still increased the deficit instead of paying off the deficit. In just five short years, we added $10 billion to the debt.

Mr Phillips: That's not right. He's incorrect.

Mr Turnbull: I hear my colleague the member for Scarborough-Agincourt saying I'm incorrect. I remember, sir, during a debate during the last election when the suggestion was that the debt hadn't risen by very significant numbers. I was just about to jump with the numbers at the Liberal, who I defeated, when lo and behold, the Libertarian candidate got up with a copy of the budget from both the Liberals and the Conservatives, the last Liberal budget and the last Conservative budget, and pointed out that they had increased the debt of this province by $10 billion. But that's not what I'm talking about.

I am saying that when governments, and it doesn't matter what political persuasion they are, increase deficit financing, inevitably the private sector is squeezed out. That's what's happening.

We now know that Ontario has become one of the largest borrowers on the international market. So, my friend, when you say that 44% of Canada's bank deposits are made in Ontario, don't forget that the government of Ontario is in fact sucking in enormous amounts of cash, not just from Ontario-based banks but from the whole world. On the latest list of borrowers in the international market, Ontario lists fourth behind the European Investment Bank, the kingdom of Sweden and the World Bank. They are the only people that are borrowing more on the international markets than the Ontario NDP government, and therein is one of the serious problems that we have in kickstarting this economy, because as you suck up money, it is not available for companies. And, yes, we have to get the banks to spend more money.

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): How about the Conservatives' GST? How much money has that sucked up?

Mr Turnbull: I hear once again heckling as to the GST. My friend, the GST is sucking up the same amount of money in taxes as the amount that it replaced of manufacturers' sales tax. Check the numbers. This is what is very frustrating, when you rise to debate and you get people who are totally misinformed about the facts, for partisan reasons. Check the numbers. You may not like the GST, but the fact is that it is collecting about the same amount of taxes.

So we are now in the position that Ontario is the fourth-largest borrower internationally. What must we do? We must get government reduced in size, and it has to be done in a reasonable, workmanlike way so that the needy in society are not squeezed. But those people who don't need all of the handouts through government -- and that includes some large corporations that are getting large handouts from government. This NDP government has given millions of dollars to Toyota, one of the world's largest companies, a Japanese company, for goodness' sake. They've given them millions of dollars to try to get them to expand in Ontario.

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The answer is, as my friends pointed out, that more jobs are created in the private sector by small companies, so take the burden off small companies. If we could get governments off our backs, we have the fundamentals of a very good recovery in this province, because rental rates have gone down for office towers, rental rates have gone down on a per-square-foot basis for industrial buildings, but the taxes haven't gone down. If you take a look at any international survey of the cost of rental rates of office buildings in the major centres of the world, you will find that Ontario, Toronto, used to be one of the highest on the list in terms of the net rental rates. It is down to a fraction of what it was before; however, the add-on costs connected with it, which means taxes and operating costs, but predominantly taxes, are still among the highest in the whole world.

Mr Perruzza: The GST had nothing to do with it?

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr Perruzza: Your bloated interest rates had nothing to do it?

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Downsview, I don't want to have to remind you again, please.

Mr Turnbull: As my friend across the floor said, bloated interest rates have a lot to do with it. He's quite right, absolutely right. Bloated interest rates come from excessive government borrowing. There's no doubt about it that governments in Canada of every political persuasion have been the greatest source of the problems we have in Canada today. Businesses have done their fair share: Businesses have worked to create jobs. Governments have created destruction of jobs in the private sector. If anybody in any political party wants to look at themselves in the mirror, they will have to admit it, and unless we finally come to terms with this tax burden problem, we will never fix the problem.

Returning to the debate about what we should do, we're going to have to have a very honest debate with all the citizens, all of our constituents, about what the fundamental problem is. Perhaps we need a little more focus about what the problem is, because the problem is that we don't agree on what the problem is. In this Legislature, if you listen to debates, it's as if we're from different planets when we're speaking about the problems.

The public sector is bloated. The last government added thousands to the payroll. They added just to the civil service 9,000 people in five years, at a time when the companies in the private sector were downsizing to make themselves more efficient so they could meet the competition. Believe you me, the workers of Ontario are capable of competing with anybody anywhere in the world. When we have any debate about the merits of free trade -- I want to point out that the Premier's Council, the investment panel on which I sit, had a very interesting presentation by Professor Dezsö Horvath, who is one of the Premier's appointees. Professor Horvath's conclusion was that not only should we have free trade with the US and Mexico but we should extend it to include the whole of Latin America because therein would be our saviour.

We've got the fundamentals of low rental rates, we've got a relatively well-trained group of workers in Ontario, we've got a relatively good productivity compared with most countries in the world, but we have a horrendous tax burden, and the tax burden has got to be lightened. When we lighten the tax burden by reducing government, we can then start having smaller deficits. Smaller deficits will lead to less government borrowing, and less government borrowing will mean that the banks will have more money to invest. They are going to have to invest the money, but the only way they get their customers is that they put their money in and want to earn interest, and they won't have anything to invest if governments are sucking it up. If you hear that great sucking noise, it's the noise of governments right across Canada sucking up taxpayers' dollars.

Yes, we can have a healthy economy. I am confident about the workers of Ontario. I am confident about the small businesses and medium-sized businesses and indeed the large businesses of Ontario. But I am not confident about governments, because I don't think the message has got out, not just to you across the floor, the NDP, but maybe most political parties, maybe all political parties: We've got to downsize the amount of government so we don't suck out the energy of our nation.

Mr Jamison: Very interesting comments and interesting theories being put forward in the House today. This resolution that's been put forward is a very good one indeed. It talks about community investment, about community development in the face of global competition.

The banks have turned their attention to the globalization of the marketplace and they've turned it that way with a vengeance, simply dealing the small business community out. The resolution describes the need to expand the ability of provincially financed lending institutions, institutions under our jurisdiction, to become a major player in allowing the small business community to access the needed capital.

The member for Fort York indicated that there are a number of concerns presently in the mind of the small business community: taxation, red tape. This government, in those areas, is moving to unify the tax system. We're moving to clear the path or reduce the paperwork significantly.

But the other point that was made was access to capital. The previous speaker indicated that it is government borrowing that has taken money away from the possibility of lending more money to the small business community. Well, I'd like to bring your attention to the O&Y situation, Olympia and York. When that financial situation developed, the banks all pulled their horns in, and where did they pull them in? They pulled them in at the expense of the small business community that provides the major portion, 85%, of all new jobs being created.

With O&Y suffering financially, O&Y was treated very well throughout that whole situation. The people who weren't treated well were the small business people. What happened to them was that their line of credit was reduced, the very line of credit allowing them to do business and to expand and to continue producing and accepting orders as they come in. Some very good small businesses found their business practices interfered with to a great extent. So when people indicate that the banks are trying very desperately to work with the small business community, and the banks are indicating that themselves, I say be aware that, in my humble opinion, that is certainly not the case.

Banks are a major source of capital, and they're based here. Our national banks are based right here.

The credit crunch in small business is really limiting what small business can do. Government can apply tax credits to hire people who are unemployed, but if the line of credit for small business is reduced or halved or cut to a third, the ability to participate in programs that would benefit small business beyond normal lending is hindered.

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The banks have jumped on the global economy bandwagon, there's no question about it. If we can convince the federal government to move somewhat in the same area that we're prepared to move, in the area of community economic development, we'll be able to add a new life to the small business community along with other efforts and other things that have to be done, such as reducing the amount of paper. We have reduced the level of taxation on small business in our term. By the sound of the opposition parties, no one would ever know that. That's a message, obviously, they don't want out.

In conclusion, I want to stress that the livelihood of many Ontarians is dependent upon small business. Our hopes for the future creation of jobs is dependent very much on this sector. I support this resolution. I support it strongly because I believe that if the banks are left to do what the banks feel they should have the freedom to do, the small business community will simply be left out once more.

Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): I'm very happy to be speaking in favour of the resolution by my neighbour the member for Fort York because, as a member for a downtown Toronto riding, I share many of the same problems in my riding that he faces in his.

Specifically, I have, for example, a small business in my riding which has faced exactly the same problem that a business in his riding is facing. I have written and requested of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, the member for Beaches-Woodbine, to have the Ontario Development Corp assist. I won't mention the name of the company, for obvious reasons, because it is approaching difficult straits, but with some assistance it could get over the hump and continue to provide 100 jobs for people in my riding. I hope the minister, whom I've approached on this subject, will listen to what I've had to say and will find a way within her ministry and within the Ontario Development Corp to assist.

I too have a concern, because the same bank which gave rise to the concern of my neighbour the MPP for Fort York, the TD Bank, has recently closed a branch near Moss Park in my riding. Many people who live there, who are disabled, seniors and others, have difficulty going a long way to banks in order to do banking, and this is going to be a real problem. We have met with bank officials, to be fair, who have listened but have not found it in their hearts or pocketbook to help and assist. We are looking for other alternatives. Again, I hope this government will assist. We're looking towards perhaps a credit union that can assist others. I hope the minister will listen as we move forward and will be able to assist us in that regard as well.

I'm happy to see this. I think this is only part of a small business strategy, which frankly I have not seen from this government. I took a look at the list of legislative priorities that was leaked out of the NDP caucus's meeting up in Barrie a few months ago and a community reinvestment act wasn't on that list. Maybe they've changed their mind; I hope to see it.

But I am concerned too about the impact of taxes. That's a major cause of heartache for businesses, why they're not able to hire more and expand. This government, unfortunately, has added to that burden. I can think of the taxes on insurance premiums which is going to be a very real increase in cost for people, and it's not something they can avoid or duck or move around. In fact, I suspect that's why the government imposed it.

I hope they are going look not just at this and not just blame other levels but think about what this government can do, because I think there's a lot it can do and should do and is not doing. I hope the member for Fort York, in his good efforts on this point, will be able to convince his colleagues in his own cabinet to do some good work in other areas as well.

I thank you for the opportunity to speak and I look forward to supporting the resolution.

Mr Perruzza: I'm going to be supporting this resolution, as I suspect all members of this House are going to be supporting this resolution, because it makes an awful lot of sense. Not only does it make sense as you go through the "whereases," but it makes sense when you get down to the "therefore." I urge all my colleagues to support it as well.

We're here this morning talking about small business. There's a difference between small business and big business. Small business has a name, has a face, there's an individual there or a number of individuals. You can see them, you can touch them, you can feel them, you can talk to them. Big business has no face. They have hired faces. They project images on people, and quite frankly small business, that individual, more often than not is completely overlooked, overlooked by government, overlooked by many of our institutions which are there and are supposed to be taking care of small business.

Who is and what is a small business person? Has anybody asked themselves that question? I'll tell you what a small business person has to be. They have to be an accountant. They have to be a public relations expert. They are risk-takers. They are hard workers. More often that not you find small business persons burning the midnight oil. They are personnel managers. They are inventors. They are creative individuals. They are artists. They are innovators. They are multitrades people.

What are they asking of us? They're not asking anything else of us other than they're saying: "We need access to money. We need to have cash when we need to do business." They do not have the cash because banks are persecuting small business. The minute they deposit money in the bank, the bank takes it and it squeezes their credit. They squeeze their credit until there's nothing left.

Where do the banks' lending criteria speak to what I call grey-matter equity? Where do they take into account the ability of a small business person? Where is that in their credit policy statement? I'll tell you where it is. It's nowhere to be found, because all the banks are interested in is bottom-line equity. We all know what's happened to the equity over the last while in the recession. It is gone. Bottom-line equity is gone. It's not there. That needs to be replaced with what I call grey-matter equity -- ability, creativity, innovativeness -- and that just isn't there. It's really unfortunate that we as a provincial government have no power in the face of that.

I say support the resolution, and my message to the new Prime Minister, Mr Chrétien, is, "You better strap on your big boots and you better kick some bank butt if you really mean to do what you say you mean to do, and that is create jobs," because small business, and it's shown time and time again, is the biggest creator of jobs.

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Mr Phillips: I'm hopeful of supporting the motion, but after hearing that drivel and nonsense, you've almost talked me out of it. If in fact you believe that sort of nonsense, then we're in more trouble than I thought we were.

Having said all that, I don't think there's any doubt but that many of our small businesses are facing a crunch in terms of their funds for their businesses, and there's no doubt the banks are having difficulty dealing, in all instances, with small business. I happen to think the resolution will advance the issue of, how do we help ensure that our small businesses have the necessary debt and equity financing? I think having an opportunity for governments and the banks and the public to discuss the issue has a lot of merit.

I don't buy what I call the nonsensical rhetoric of the member for Downsview. That doesn't help a reasoned debate around this. It simply is drivel.

I'm looking forward to the banks, government and small business having a rational, logical discussion around this. That's why I can support the motion and hope that the member who's supporting it doesn't support that nonsense I just heard from the member for Downsview.

Mr Stephen Owens (Scarborough Centre): I'm quite pleased this morning to stand up and support the resolution by the member for Fort York. I want to talk this morning about some of the things the government is doing with respect to the financial institutions that fall under the control of provincial jurisdiction; first, credit unions and caisses populaires.

The government set up an industry-led committee to review the Credit Unions and Caisses Populaires Act, which has not been reviewed for many years. I'm pleased to tell this House today that we will be bringing forward legislation in the very near future that will update and modernize the credit union act.

As we all know, at the credit unions and caisses populaires in our communities are the kinds of people the member for Fort York described as people you live beside, people with whom you do business. These are the kinds of financial institutions that our government -- not wanting to give a competitive edge to credit unions and caisses populaires, but to put them on an equal footing so that they can offer the kinds of creative financial services and financial instruments small business particularly needs, not only to survive but to grow and flourish in these tough economic times.

The second, and just as important, initiative that we're undertaking is a review of the Loan and Trust Corporations Act. I think all members in the House, particularly in the two former governments opposite, have had examples of trust company failure and the kinds of difficulties that result from these kinds of failures, which are catastrophic for the investor, the small business person, the grandmother, the small business owner in your community who have investments in trust companies. They are a multibillion-dollar industry, but they deal in your local neighbourhood. We are going to provide legislation, again, to provide them with the instruments that they need to compete on a equal basis with the banks.

The third issue we are involved with in terms of community economic development is a task force on legislative review that I'm personally involved in, and that's the review of the Co-operative Corporations Act. We see that as being a process that will dovetail quite nicely with the credit union review and the loan and trust act review, as well as the broader financial services review that has been ongoing since our party took government in 1990.

It's our view that in this province we have a very competitive financial services market, and we're certainly not doing enough as a government or as an industry to promote the kind of financial services industry that we have operating within our jurisdiction.

With that, again I want to tell the member for Fort York that I support his resolution. He has been a leader within caucus on community economic development issues and I urge all members on all sides of this House to support the resolution.

Mr Carman McClelland (Brampton North): I want to say to the member for Fort York that I appreciate his efforts in bringing this issue forth for discussion. I'd like to concentrate on that word for a moment. I think we do need to have some discussion, and some fruitful discussion, with all levels and players, if you will.

Reference has been made to the federal government. I note that during the consultation with the people of this country not too long ago, not quite two weeks ago, during that period of time much was said about small business. It seems to me, as my party's critic and advocate for small business, that as I travel across the province, one of the frustrations businesswomen and businessmen tell me is that there's a tremendous amount of lipservice paid to many of the things we talk about, but oft-times government fails to act on that.

To the extent that the good offices of the Premier and people in financial senior portfolios can be brought to bear to negotiate and work with banks in assisting the dilemma that many small businesses are in, I applaud the member's efforts.

I hasten to add that I want to distance myself, with all due respect to my friend from Fort York, from the kind of rhetoric we've heard from the member for Downsview. I wish he were here right now because I don't want to make that comment in his absence, and if he's in the lobby I hope he can come in.

Quite frankly, I think that kind of inflammatory rhetoric in the long run doesn't serve anybody's interests. We're beyond the point of drawing lines in the sand and castigating the banks as institutions that are without a sense of responsibility. I agree fundamentally that there needs to be some movement. Small businesses need to have some sensitivity. But to paint an adversarial relationship into heightened, almost inflammatory rhetoric, in the final analysis serves nobody very well.

I think it also important to note that there has been some response from the banking community. I note, by way of example, and I'm sure the member for Fort York would be aware of this, that the Canadian Bankers Association is sponsoring a conference at the Toronto Westin Harbour Castle November 7 to 9. I hope that he, together with some of his caucus colleagues, would drop in and visit and have a sense of some of the things that are taking place and the dialogue and the interchange and the exchanges that are taking place as the financial institutions in this country recognize the realities that we're facing in this province, indeed in this country.

I take some pride in the fact that the new Prime Minister of this country -- I was going to say "the Prime Minister designate" but I understand he would have been sworn by now -- during the debate and the consultation with the people before the election of October 25 indicated that he had as a cornerstone of his economic plan and development strategy a focus on small business.

He worked with Mr Paul Martin and other individuals, Chaviva Ho_ek, a former member of this House, in developing strategy that encompassed as part and parcel of that strategy accessibility to funding. I think of the concept of venture pool capital that has been bandied about and brought up again in the last federal election. I would hope that the Minister of Finance of this province would, at the convening of a first ministers' or financial ministers' conference, reintroduce that idea and seek to find ways that the province of Ontario could be supportive and cooperative in developing that.

I also want to put on the record that I hope my friend from Fort York and members of his caucus would perhaps use their good offices to look to the loan collections procedures. I say that as directly as I can. When I think of the province of Ontario, I think of some of the new ventures loans that are out there. I hear from small businesses that the collection squeeze by that albeit arm's-length agency of the Ontario government is very onerous and that there could be some latitude and that we can look in the mirror as well as looking outside. There's much that we could talk about of what is the role of the provincial government, and we're not here to debate that today.

I would just hasten to add that the fourth paragraph of the member's good efforts here says that the survival of many small businesses is threatened by banks and financial institutions. Financial institutions and banks and access to money is an issue. It is not the only issue and there's much else that we need to do. To the extent that the resolution addresses the issue with respect to financing --

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you. The time has expired.

Mr McClelland: -- I applaud the member, I thank him for his efforts and hope that it'll move us towards a reasoned, thoughtful debate.

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you. Your time has expired.

Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): First, I would like to thank the member for Scarborough Centre for all his work with regard to credit union legislation. I think members on all sides realize how much that is needed, and the other initiatives needed to keep local dollars invested in local communities for economic development.

I truly believe that small businesses, medium-sized businesses, as Mr Marchese says, are very important and do create 85% of the new jobs in this province. I'd like to say that this, to me, is very important because I represent Niagara Falls and I believe it is reality that we probably have more small business per capita in Niagara Falls than any other area of the province. That's why I insisted on joining the parliamentary assistant's committee on small business 2 1/2 years ago. What we did was an initiative called Clearing the Path, which is to reduce red tape. In fact, I remember the budget of 1992, where the small business tax was reduced. That doesn't happen very often, and that was a direct result of the work that Mr Jamison did with this committee.

I want to tell you, Mr Speaker, that I see in Niagara Falls many small business people coming to me, whether they own motels or other small businesses, in desperation. These are desperate times and the banks have not been cooperative. I remember last spring being up at the top of Commerce Court with a group of small business people and they said to me, "The banks are a problem."

Finally, Mr Speaker, I want to tell you that my husband is now, this month, starting a small business, and I know the absolute struggle that he has gone through. So I call upon this government and the federal government to help small business.

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

Mr Marchese: I want to congratulate and thank all the members for speaking. It's too difficult and there's too little time to name them, but I want to thank them for participating in this debate.

I want to as well say to Mr McClelland, about the invitation that he was extending me, that the $500 it costs to get there makes it impossible for me to be present, but I thank him for the invitation.

With Mr Turnbull, I must say there is one thing that we agree on -- we do indeed cohabit a different hemisphere, perhaps three different hemispheres. On that we agree. I have heard a lot of myopic and unimaginative suggestions from the opposition. This I must say: While I accept the fact that they agree with the resolution, in terms of what else they suggest, in my view it's completely unimaginative.

I want to say that the tax burden, the red tape, is not the problem.

Mr Turnbull: Your government has no responsibility.

Mr Marchese: Most of the people in my work group are not NDPers. Susan Bellan, the chair of banking issues for the Canadian Organization of Small Business, says, "The banks have no right to criticize Queen's Park or Ottawa for their deficits when they make the problem worse by pulling the plug on promising businesses."

Let's not create false dichotomies between the economy and the social services that this government provides. This resolution says that we can and should do both, that economic renewal is possible by giving access to capital to small businesses. If we can do that, we get revenues we need to keep the social programs that this country needs to keep on doing.

I want to add that we have done many things, and I'm willing to share some of the things that this government has done. There's very little time to share them, but I will pass them on to some of the opposition members who obviously have no clue about what this government has done.

By relying on private capital, a community reinvestment act also recognizes that governments have limited resources with which to create jobs. All the government job creation programs in the world won't help us achieve full employment if the banks are busy pulling the plug on Canada's small businesses, throwing more people out of work and increasing the deficit.

I invite small business people to write to me and support this resolution.

The Deputy Speaker: I'd just like to remind the members that when the Speaker stands up, you have to take your chair. Also, I'd like to remind you that the speakers are completely cut off, so whatever you say is not heard.

The time provided for private members' public business has expired.

PUBLIC SECTOR COMPENSATION

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): We will deal first with ballot item number 33, standing in the name of Mr Turnbull. If any members are opposed to a vote on this ballot item, will they please rise.

Mr Turnbull has moved private member's resolution number 28. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): Excuse me, Mr Speaker, it's number 33.

The Deputy Speaker: That's what I said: Ballot item number 33 but resolution number 28.

I declare the motion carried.

COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT LEGISLATION

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): We will now deal with ballot item number 34. If any members are opposed to a vote on this ballot item, will they please rise.

Mr Marchese has moved private member's resolution number 27. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

All matters relating to private members' public business having been completed, I do now leave the chair and the House will resume at 1:30.

The House recessed from 1205 to 1330.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

COURT FACILITY

Mr Robert V. Callahan (Brampton South): It's always been my position that justice should not be a political issue, it should be based on the genuine needs of communities. When we were in government, the Attorney General of the day, Ian Scott, announced that there would be a new court complex constructed in Brampton, which is the seat of the region of Peel's justice system. We have heard a number of announcements thereafter. The then Attorney General, Howard Hampton, also announced that this would take place.

It has come to my attention from senior justice officials within that region that they have severe concerns that perhaps Brampton will be overlooked and that in fact a project will take place in another area. In looking at what other area they're speaking of, it causes me concern that in fact politics is creeping into the administration of justice, that the decisions that are being made are being made on the basis of who happens to be the member of what political stripe in that particular riding.

The region of Peel is perhaps one of the fastest-growing areas in North America. We have the airport there, which of course increases the case load. If what the senior officials have told me is correct, I urge the Attorney General to drop the political side of it and to get on with the job that was promised by Ian Scott, by Howard Hampton and, hopefully, by this Attorney General.

ESWAR PRASAD

Mr Jim Wilson (Simcoe West): It gives me great pleasure to rise in this Legislature to salute Dr Eswar Prasad who has been chosen as the first recipient of the Collingwood community development award of excellence. I wholeheartedly commend the town of Collingwood for its selection of Dr Prasad, president of Sensor Technology Ltd.

Not only has Dr Prasad helped to put Collingwood on the global technology map, but his company stands as a working blueprint, the type of industry that Ontario needs to attract and promote if it's to regain prosperity in the 1990s and beyond.

In 1992, the Canadian space agency launched its first microgravity rocket, which included a ceramic furnace built by Sensor Technology. Sensor will also be a participant with CSAR-2 in 1994 and has been chosen for inclusion on the planned space station Freedom.

Another exciting project engineered by Dr Prasad and Sensor Technology is the creation of an acoustic levitation system for processing materials in space. This device will enable manufacturers to move and position objects in space by using sound.

Thanks to Dr Prasad, Sensor Technology is making impressive and vital strides in the advancement of Canada's technology base as well as enriching the economic development in the Collingwood community.

I encourage all communities in Ontario to follow the lead provided by the town of Collingwood. The town has demonstrated its commitment to industrial development by establishing this important award and by bestowing it upon such a worthy and dignified individual and company.

ROYAL COMMISSION ON LEARNING

Mr Tony Rizzo (Oakwood): On the 30th of this month the Royal Commission on Learning will be holding a public meeting in the city of York.

For my part, every effort is being made to let the constituents of Oakwood riding know about this meeting and the importance of getting involved in this process.

I wish to take this opportunity to voice my support, loud and clear, for the work the commission has undertaken and for the need to improve the quality of education in this province. We all know that the issues we face are complex and require the involvement of parents, educators and legislators if we are to create a dynamic for real change.

Not a day goes by that I do not hear or read about the serious problems in our schools. The most common complaints raised by my constituents are threefold. They are the perceived lack of discipline in schools that serves to undermine the entire educational process; the failure of the system to teach little John or Jane to be able to read, count or write, even after having graduated; and the feeling that the system is weighted down by a bureaucracy too big and complacent and by too many school boards and trustees that consume tax dollars that would be better spent on our children.

These are very serious complaints, and I hope that parents in particular will assist the royal commission in producing the necessary answers. With the establishment of this commission our Minister of Education, Mr Cooke, has already shown he's determined to tackle the challenges that face our government in preparing the province's educational system for the future.

GLEBE CENTRE

Mr Hans Daigeler (Nepean): Recently I received a letter to the Premier from the Glebe Centre in Ottawa. This centre is a non-profit voluntary organization that has provided care and services to the elderly of Ottawa-Carleton since 1889.

The Glebe Centre board of directors is very concerned about the NDP government's plans for multiservice agencies in the long-term care field. Like many other similar groups, they fear the erosion of the role of voluntary organizations in long-term care. They argue forcefully, and rightfully so, that volunteer boards have played an essential role in providing health and social assistance in Ontario.

To replace these organizations with an administrative superstructure would put further distance between the people being served and the people serving them. Community boards allow the institutions to respond best to local needs and priorities.

As the Glebe Centre said in their brief to the government, "The elderly client has developed a personal trusting relationship with their neighbourhood-based home support service; many may not wish to be linked to a large bureaucratic organization."

I encourage the government, therefore, to recognize the important role played by local community-based groups in the provision of community-based services and to permit flexibility in the development of its new multiservice agency.

EXPENDITURE CONTROL IN MISSISSAUGA

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): People who live and work in Mississauga are very fortunate. While many governments and utilities have increased taxes and energy rates, the city of Mississauga and Hydro Mississauga are giving their residents and customers a break.

This year the city of Mississauga achieved a 1% decrease in property taxes, bringing taxes back to the 1990 level. Council achieved a tax cut by continuing to follow its pay-as-you-go philosophy. Because Mississauga does not build new facilities or introduce new programs unless the money is in the bank, the city does not have to pay debt service charges.

Now Hydro Mississauga has announced that next year, electricity rates will drop an average of 3.4%. Hydro Mississauga has the lowest overall electricity rates in the greater Toronto area.

I know that everybody in Mississauga joins me in congratulating the city of Mississauga and Hydro Mississauga for their sound financial management.

Bob Rae's big-spending, high-taxing government could learn a lesson from Mississauga. If people have money left over to invest and spend, our economy will grow. That means giving Ontarians tax breaks, not tax hikes. But since the NDP was elected in 1990, the average family's provincial tax bill has jumped $633 a year.

I would suggest that the Premier seek advice from the council of Mississauga and the hydro commission of Mississauga: Mayor Hazel McCallion, chairman Alan Bradley, vice-chairman Ron Starr, Donna Howard, Ken Newton and general manager Karl Wahl.

JOBS ONTARIO

Mr Donald Abel (Wentworth North): Yesterday the Honourable Brad Ward and myself toured several locations in Dundas, Ancaster and Flamborough that benefited from the Jobs Ontario program.

During our tour we had the opportunity to visit the Greater Hamilton Technology Enterprise Centre in the town of Flamborough. The GHTEC is a high-tech business incubator administered through the Business Advisory Centre of Hamilton-Wentworth. As we toured the facility, Ron Wallace, the executive director of the BAC, told us, "Jobs Ontario is working and working well."

Based on this comment and many others like it, I would like to suggest to opposition members, who insist on continually condemning the NDP government's Jobs Ontario program and other job-creating initiatives, talk to the construction workers who are now working at St John's Anglican Church in Ancaster, the Dundas Public Library and talk to the thousands of others in this province who have gained employment through Jobs Ontario, and perhaps you should talk to the executive director of the Business Advisory Centre of Hamilton Wentworth.

Mr Wallace was spot on when he stated, "Jobs Ontario is working and working well," and I think it's a shame that the opposition refuse to recognize that fact.

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PHARMACY AWARENESS WEEK

Mrs Barbara Sullivan (Halton Centre): The month of November marks the first national program of Pharmacy Awareness Week, and the Ontario Pharmacists' Association is playing a key role in the provincial portion of that campaign. Today and tomorrow pharmacists are available, through an information line, to answer consumers' questions about their medications. These two days are specially set aside to highlight the work they do with consumers on a day-to-day basis.

People who are anywhere in the province can call their pharmacist for advice, and not just about prescribed medications. Although over-the-counter drugs are available without a prescription, they are potent enough to cause considerable harm. Many individuals try to diagnose and treat their own symptoms and don't take the selection of non-prescription drugs as seriously as they ought. People should be aware that these medications are very powerful, can cause side-effects and can adversely interact with prescription medications.

Today and tomorrow, as I've indicated, people can call pharmacists for advice. Pharmacists are health care professionals with particular expertise in knowing the implications and contraindications for medications. If anyone has questions about their medications, they can call an information line at 1-800-463-6479. We salute the pharmacists for offering this service.

JUNIOR KINDERGARTEN

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): In the spring I sent a comprehensive questionnaire to people in Wellington county, asking for their opinions on a variety of issues. Over 1,000 people responded. One of the questions in the questionnaire was, "Do you believe that the government should require school boards to provide junior kindergarten?" Some 80% said no.

The Wellington County Board of Education is also opposed to mandatory junior kindergarten, yet the government insists that the board make plans to provide mandatory junior kindergarten. Our public board conservatively estimates that the operating costs of junior kindergarten will be about $4.5 million per year.

Ironically, $4.5 million is the total operating budget for Family and Children's Services of Guelph and Wellington County. It is my understanding that this agency will see its budget cut by about $75,000 under government plans to claw back money received from parental contributions and children's special allowances.

Our children's aid agency, whose work is so essential, estimates that the financial impact of the government's plan will have three times the impact of the social contract. This organization cannot withstand cutbacks of this magnitude without jeopardizing the lives and wellbeing of the children it serves.

As Moe Brubacher, the executive director of Family and Children's Services of Guelph and Wellington county, states: "We've cut all the corners we can. My question is 'Which of the essential services we provide should we cut?' You can't put abused children on a waiting list."

A program like junior kindergarten, with very little public support in Wellington, becomes a government edict and a priority, while at the same time the government is pillaging the bank accounts of children's services organizations. I say to the Premier: Take your junior kindergarten. We don't want it. We don't need it. But give us enough money to look after the children who need our help.

FIRE PREVENTION AND PUBLIC EDUCATION AWARDS

Mr Gary Wilson (Kingston and The Islands): I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the 1993 Fire Prevention and Public Education Award winners. Today the Solicitor General and Minister of Correctional Services presented plaques to 22 groups and individuals who have generously given their time, energy and resources to promote fire safety and prevention. I'm proud to say Mr Jim Lyon accepted, on behalf of the Kingston area office of Bell Canada, a plaque this afternoon.

Leaders in the fire service across Ontario will tell you that fire prevention and public education are essential to saving lives and protecting property. That's why it's important to recognize the organizations and people who have won the 1993 fire prevention awards. What they have done is extremely important. They have not only helped to save lives but have also worked to change the attitudes of people in this province towards fire. We're talking about people who care enough about their families, their friends and their neighbours to join with the government in working for the safety and wellbeing of others.

On behalf of all Ontarians, I extend to the 1993 fire prevention award winners a heartfelt thank you for their actions and their help. I ask all members of this House to join me in showing their appreciation for the leadership of the award winners present in the gallery today.

VISITORS

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): I invite all members to join me in welcoming to our Legislature this afternoon, and seated in the Speaker's gallery, participants from across Canada and Alaska to the National Ombudsman Conference. The delegation is headed by Mrs Roberta Jamieson, the Ombudsman of Ontario. Please welcome our guests.

LEGISLATIVE PAGES

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): I would also appreciate all members joining me in thanking our current group of pages. This is their last day of service. I think all members will agree with me that our pages have served with great distinction. They have served both the members and the assembly, and this would be a good time to thank them for their service.

VISITORS

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Before proceeding and recognizing the honourable member for Durham East, I would also invite all members to welcome to our midst this afternoon a former member from Lambton, Mr David Smith, who is seated in the members' gallery west. Welcome.

The honourable member for Durham East.

Mr Gordon Mills (Durham East): I would like to ask unanimous consent of the House for myself and one member of each opposition party to say a few words in regard to Remembrance Day.

The Speaker: Do we have unanimous agreement? Agreed.

REMEMBRANCE DAY

Mr Gordon Mills (Durham East): This coming weekend we will once again celebrate Armistice Day in our towns and our villages across Ontario. It's a time to remember, a time to look back at times past, sometimes with a happy smile and sometimes with a great deal of sadness.

As we remember and honour those who gave their all, we can also remember wartime experiences that are for ever etched in our memories.

I'd just like to say today that I can remember the wartime sausages which my mother suggested were made with sawdust. They were touched with herbs, which allowed us to eat them.

I remember an hour or two before the imminent invasion of Great Britain, there was a newspaper seller down the road, and he pitched his tent outside of a pub and he had a board proclaiming these words. He said, "Chin up, don't look so solemn. Nuffin's 'appened yet. Why worry about tomorrow? T'aint 'ere yet," a message to dispel the gloom of the threatened invasion.

I can also remember Mr Churchill's famous speech: "We will fight in the streets, on the beaches. We will never surrender." I can say that that speech made my hair stand on end.

This weekend, many stories will be exchanged in the local Legion Hall. The sadness felt as we remember will also be intermixed with laughter as many an incident from time past is recalled.

Time of course has taken its toll of the veterans we gather to honour, but we gather to honour them in a very special way because they are our friends. We pause today, amid the challenges we face in the changing world as legislators, to honour the veterans who made our being here possible. We honour those who served in the campaigns of the North Atlantic, in northwest Europe, in Italy, in North Africa and in the Pacific. We honour those who gave their lives at Dieppe and in the defence of Hong Kong, the battle of Ortona, the Normandy invasion and the Battle of Britain.

Let us also remember and honour those who gave their lives for peace in the Great War.

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Today we also honour all who gave their lives in peacekeeping actions around the world.

The wars have taken a terrible toll. Thousands lost their lives fighting for our freedom. Today that freedom is brought home to all of us here in a meaningful way. We come here to debate the issues affecting our peers free of fear, free of reprisals and free to say what we want. This freedom we share because of those who gave their all.

Mr Gilles E. Morin (Carleton East): Once again we rise in respect of Remembrance Day. I would like to take this opportunity to speak not only about the importance of remembering our past, but about Canadian heroes. Heroes, I should point out, are ordinary persons who accomplish extraordinary deeds. Heroes are the countless men and women who risk and sometimes sacrifice their lives during war because they believe in the cause and the values they are defending.

Today, in 1993, war remains a constant presence. It has even moved a bit closer to us, as Canadian involvement in UN missions overseas illustrates. War has not lessened its grip on the minds of those who would use terror and violence as a means to achieve an end, and the impact of war is no less horrifying and devastating today than it was 50 years ago. It is perhaps more so as humanity, in its infinite capacity for innovation, devises yet new methods of annihilation.

The loss of loved ones remains fixed in the memory of family and friends. They are not forgotten. They are the child, the spouse, the parent, the friend who went away to fight a war and never returned.

Perhaps our society tends to forget that heroes are not some abstract notion that we pull out once a year, but very real people. Some of our heroes were recognized for their exploits and were present to receive military honours. So many others never returned home. They are remembered by the people who knew and loved them best.

Conrad LaFleur, George Robert Paterson, Frank Pickersgill, Lucien Dumais, Ted Wong, John Di Lucia and Ivan Starcevic are but a few known Canadian heroes. One in particular I knew personally, a fellow by the name of Raymond LaBrosse.

Raymond left Canada for an overseas mission in 1940 at 18 years of age. He started out as a signalman with the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals. When the network he operated within was infiltrated by the Gestapo, he was forced to flee France. He later returned to France with a partner, Lucien Dumais, as part of a larger escape network whose main objective was to locate Allied airmen shot down over France and safely escort them out of the country. One can easily imagine the risks involved. A total of 307 Allied airmen safely made it to England. Both Raymond and Lucien returned to Canada.

The same courage that propelled Raymond LaBrosse during the war accompanied him throughout his life. I met with him just three days before his death which ended his battle with cancer. I cannot overstate my profound admiration for his exemplary courage. This is the stuff of which real heroes are made. This we must remember.

Gustave Biéler is another Canadian hero, but one who was not so fortunate. Involved in sabotage activities in France aimed at destroying German troop movements, he was eventually caught by the Gestapo, tortured and executed. He never betrayed the cause.

Frank Pickersgill and John Macalister suffered a similar fate. Pickersgill was a romantic intellectual who had witnessed the Nuremberg rally during a trip to Germany. Completely opposed to fascism, he longed to do useful work. With a fellow Canadian, John Macalister, he was parachuted into France in June 1943. The two men were to be part of a network involving sabotage. Just a few days into this mission they were captured, then tortured and executed. They too never revealed any information of use to the enemy. This goes beyond the call of duty. What a supreme act of loyalty, of integrity towards one's country.

Lest we forget, thousands of soldiers on the front lines also merit our recognition, for they committed the ultimate act of bravery. They gave their lives. They are our unsung heroes.

In an effort to keep the name and deeds of Raymond LaBrosse alive, I have succeeded, with the cooperation of the city of Gloucester and a local developer, in having a street named in his honour. This is but one way of remembering our war heroes, their courage and their sacrifice. I encourage you, my colleagues, and the citizens of Ontario to seek ways of honouring the heroes in your communities. We must retain in our collective memory the singular heroism of these persons.

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): Next Thursday, Canadians will gather at cenotaphs, march in parades and attend services and assemblies to honour the men and women who served in the First World War, the Second World War and the Korean conflict. We will remember the 110,000 Canadians who made the ultimate sacrifice, their lives, so that our great nation could live in peace and freedom.

We will also pay tribute to the surviving war veterans who continue to share their experiences and their wisdom with us. Our veterans ensure that we do not forget the lessons of war. They also remind us of Canada's heritage of personal sacrifice for the greater good of our country.

For those of us who are old enough to have memories of the world wars and the Korean conflict, the pain and the pride endure. There are members of this legislative chamber who grew up in small towns which lost virtually all their young men in battle, towns where hundreds of names on war memorials are the legacy of this tragic loss of youthful potential.

Some of us also have firsthand experience of those wars. Having grown up in England, I have searing memories of the air raid bombing of Liverpool in the Second World War. I have only a child's remembrance of my father, who never returned from the theatre of war. But happily, I also have a husband and relatives who proudly served their country and are still with us today.

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However, for our younger generations, war isn't something they have experienced. It is something that happens in some distant land, something they read about or see in movies and on television. Even so, all it takes is to watch the horrifying news footage of other war-torn nations for young Canadians to realize that we are very, very fortunate to live in peace.

Already there are precious few First World War veterans who are still among us. As the generations of our war veterans pass on to a greater existence with God, we must work harder to remember their struggles and their bravery. Wearing a poppy is one way to remember; the poppy symbolizes the blood of those who fell in battle. We must also continue to hold Remembrance Day services to commemorate all Canadians who struggled for peace and democracy.

Despite our freedom from war on Canadian soil, today there are 2,400 Canadian troops helping to bring peace to troubled areas of the world such as Somalia and the former Yugoslavia. In the tradition of the soldiers who served in the world wars, they are committed to ending oppression, even if it costs them their lives.

When we commemorate those who served in earlier battles, we also recognize Canada's modern defenders of the peace, like our police and fire forces, who risk their lives to save ours. We owe them our gratitude and respect also.

Remembrance Day, or Armistice Day as it was originally called, marks the end of the First World War at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month. The Great War was supposed to be the war to end all wars, yet the Second World War saw another 50 million people perish.

Wars continue to cause grievous pain and suffering in less fortunate parts of the world. The loss of loved ones, starvation, sickness, bombing raids, mortar fire, whole-scale destruction of communities, death camps, prisoner-of-war camps -- in too many places these horrors are still part of the routine of daily living. We have a responsibility to help those troubled areas achieve the peace that has blessed our lives. By helping them, we are paying the greatest tribute of all to our war heroes who gave their lives for peace and freedom.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): I invite all members and visitors in our galleries to stand and observe a moment of silence that we may not forget.

The House observed a moment's silence.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

PUBLIC SERVICE AND LABOUR RELATIONS REFORM

Hon Bob Mackenzie (Minister of Labour): In keeping with our government's progressive agenda for working people, later this afternoon I will introduce an omnibus bill designed to bring significant change and reform to labour relations in the Ontario public service. There are three distinct yet complementary components of the proposed bill.

Members may recall that two of these components, reform of the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act and expanding political rights for crown employees, have previously received first reading in this House. We are now combining those two initiatives into a new bill and adding a third element which will provide whistle-blowing protection for public servants. The result is a package of proposals that is naturally linked and progressive for workers in the Ontario public service.

I'd like to now briefly summarize the essential elements of the bill I will be introducing later today.

To begin, we are proposing to modernize the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act, otherwise known as CECBA, and bring it into line with similar laws in other provinces. We intend to open up the act in a number of ways, primarily by making collective bargaining available to most of the public servants who are now excluded from organizing. We also intend to lessen the reliance on expensive and time-consuming binding arbitration by requiring mutual consent beforehand.

In addition, Ontario public servants will receive the right to strike, but only after essential services have been designated and protected ahead of time. There will therefore be no danger or threat to the public in the event of a strike or lockout.

The reforms contained in this bill will give working men and women in the public sector rights and opportunities they have been requesting for many years. They will also allow the two parties to develop the better working relationships that are necessary to improve both the quality of work and the services government provides.

The Chair of Management Board has been instrumental in bringing CECBA reform forward through consultation and consensus-building. We have been able to build on that foundation in drafting this legislation. The Chair of Management Board is also responsible for the other two elements in today's omnibus bill: providing protection for government whistle-blowers and expanding the political activity rights of crown employees.

Under our proposals, Ontario will be the first jurisdiction in Canada with legislation specifically to protect whistle-blowers. We intend to protect government employees who, in good faith, wish to bring forth allegations of serious wrongdoing in the public interest without fear of being penalized. At the same time, we feel our proposals strike a very necessary balance. We have a duty not only to protect whistle-blowers but also to ensure that allegations are dealt with in a manner that is professional, responsible and fair to all concerned.

Finally, the omnibus bill proposes to expand political activity rights for crown employees. Under our proposals, most crown employees will have more freedom to comment on political issues, to canvass without having to take a leave of absence, and to take a voluntary leave of absence to seek political nomination at any level of government. As a result, crown employees will enjoy freedoms similar to their counterparts in the private sector without threatening the traditional neutrality of the public service.

These are the highlights of a bill that is progressive for workers, practical for government to administer and protective of the public interest, and I urge this House to give it speedy passage.

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The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Responses? The official opposition, the honourable member for Mississauga West.

Interjection: Here it comes.

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): "Here it comes" is right. It's rather ironic for us to sit here and listen to this Minister of Labour trying to patch the wounds of the public servants in the province of Ontario for everything you've done to them so far. This is a great day for democratic labour negotiating, for the public sector unions finally having their rights protected by this wonderful Minister of Labour.

The whistle-blowing is really quite interesting. This is put out by the Management Board secretariat and it gives an example. It says: "The following example illustrates a possible government scenario. An employee of a government agency provides documents and correspondence to an opposition MPP which disclosed that senior managers of the agency are pressuring their subordinates to falsify data." This government's response? Call the police.

We'd like to know, we're just curious, why do you just not do it? Why do you need to bring in legislation? Why don't you just stop calling the police? I think the police are busy. They don't have time to deal with the Premier's request to attend the member for Bruce's office or the member for Halton Centre's office to ask them: "Where did you get that information? Who was that dastardly civil servant who leaked that brown envelope? We want to investigate you." That has been your modus operandi to date.

Hon Frances Lankin (Minister of Economic Development and Trade): You don't understand the concept. Do you understand the concept? That's not what it means.

Mr Mahoney: I know it's sensitive; I know it upsets you. This same government, civil libertarians, my friends say, which has totally destroyed the collective bargaining process with the broader public service --

Interjections.

Mr Mahoney: You can pretend you haven't. Why is it they're no longer sending their dues your way? Why is it that the Ontario Federation of Labour is having a convention, the member for St Catharines tells me, and there may be some calls for a leadership review of the New Democratic Party? They may be asking for this Premier's head on a platter. Could it be, possibly, that by bringing in some omnibus bill under the pretext of attempting to soothe the wounds of the people in the labour movement, they're trying to deflect some criticism away from the Ontario Federation of Labour convention coming up?

Why don't we ask Sid Ryan how he feels, or Buzz Hargrove? The Premier set up the Provincial Labour-Management Advisory Council only to have them quit, saying: "We can't deal with you. You're not a labour government. You don't care about collective bargaining rights. You don't care about the rights of the public servants in this province." You've just totally abandoned everything you ever stood for.

On top of that, this particular legislation was part of a throne speech. The pontificating Premier stood here and said, "We're going to do things differently." In November 1990, we had to sit here and gag while this government and this Premier and this Labour minister tried to pretend they indeed were going to support the labour movement in the province of Ontario. It hasn't worked. You have abandoned every principle you ever stood for.

If you think for one minute that bringing in some omnibus bill, trying to wrap it up as a Christmas package in time for December 25, I say to the Treasurer, if you think that's going to solve your problems, let me tell you, you're not listening to the union leadership in the broader public service. You don't understand how upset they really are with you.

Let me tell you something else. If you think this is going to stop them in 1996 from demanding all the Rae days that they are currently putting in their pocket and waiting to come out and negotiate with the next government on, this isn't going to stop it. As a matter of fact, this legislation, this omnibus bill gives them a power to come down on the next government: the right to strike. Don't think you can soothe their wounded egos by bringing in nonsense like this.

Mr Ernie L. Eves (Parry Sound): On behalf of our party, I would like to --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. We'll reset the clock. I ask the House to come to order. A statement was made. There's an opportunity for both parties to respond. The honourable member for Parry Sound now has the floor.

Mr Eves: On behalf of our party, I would like to say that it's about time. As other honourable members have already pointed out, this is one of the first statements this government made upon being sworn in in the fall of 1990. It's taken them till November 1993 to get around to doing something about whistle-blowing, which they said they would do in November 1990.

I might point out that this bill combines two previous bills with some new aspects: Bill 49 of course was first introduced in this House on June 14 of this year; Bill 111 was first introduced on December 3, 1992, about a year ago.

It wasn't until the Ontario Court of Appeal really told the government, the province of Ontario, that it had no choice that it decided to move on some of these issues.

I want to reiterate a couple of the principles enunciated by the Ontario Law Reform Commission on this very subject. They said, "Public trust and respect is earned through integrity and openness in government, and accountability in government is promoted when public employees understand that they are free to disclose matters of serious wrongdoing and that they will not suffer any adverse consequences for having done so."

I would like to put that in its proper context with this government, which orders OPP investigations into leaks from various ministry offices of wrongdoings by some of their cabinet ministers when they prove embarrassing. That is what this is all about.

Recently, we had a leak from the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations with respect to casino projects. So we sent in the OPP. The honourable member for Bruce knows all too well about OPP officers attending at his office to inquire about another leak.

That is exactly the type of principle that the Ontario Law Reform Commission spoke out against. That is exactly the type of initiative that the Ontario Law Reform Commission several years ago was insisting that the previous government and now this government act upon.

Why has it taken you three years to get around to doing what the Premier said he would do in November 1990, just conveniently, of course, or just by coincidence, after the Ontario Court of Appeal left you with no choice? They said the public servants had a majority of these rights. Now you're finally going to do something about whistle-blowing. All I have to say is that it's about time. We look forward to perusing the legislation.

MEMBER'S PRIVILEGES

Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): On a point of privilege, Mr Speaker: I rise on a point of personal privilege, and I've previously supplied you with a copy of the letter.

A few weeks ago I spoke in private members' time in favour of a bill by my friend the member for Willowdale regarding a civil right of action related to hate crime issues.

I've received a letter today in my office from a self-styled communications director from the Heritage Front, and I think it's an attempt frankly to intimidate me and perhaps other members of this assembly in the practice of our responsibilities on behalf of the electorate.

It starts, "When reviewing the videotape record of the zealous dialogue conducted by yourself and other members of the Legislature preceding the introduction of your Bill 56," -- it's actually Mr Harnick's bill -- "one cannot escape the feeling that they bear witness to either a Salem witch trial or a re-enactment of the Spanish Inquisition."

It goes on to request that if there are public hearings, the Heritage Front be allowed to come to those hearings. But it ends in a way that I find offensive, and I would ask for your ruling whether this is an attempt to limit my privileges. It says:

"Myself and many others like me regularly put ourselves in harm's way for our ideals and have had to face our fears long ago. The question then, sir, is, do you have the courage to face yours and look deep in the eye of the tiger?"

I will not be intimidated or cowed, Mr Speaker, but I would ask that you look into this affair and see if it is that attempt to influence me in the practice of my privileges as a member.

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The Speaker (Hon David Warner): To the honourable member for St George-St David, may I first say that I appreciate the courtesy he extended by informing me in advance of the point he wished to raise and providing me with a copy of the letter to which he refers. While I am not sure on the face of it whether or not he has a point of privilege, I will be most pleased to take a look at it, reserve on the item and get back to him as soon as possible.

May I say in conclusion that I share the deep concern which he has expressed. As he will know, and other members, all members must always have the right to speak freely without fear of reprisal. That's a long-cherished privilege and tradition and one of course which I, among others, will always attempt to uphold. I will get back to the member as soon as possible.

Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): On the same point of personal privilege, Mr Speaker: I too received that letter and I will say that I will not be intimidated by the white heritage hotline groups, fronts and whatever else they want to call themselves.

I only wish to rise and thank the member for St George-St David for his remarks, and also to say that if there was ever any doubt in my mind that this was not a good piece of legislation we should all pursue together, it's now been totally confirmed. I appreciate the support of the Attorney General, the rest of this House who voted for this bill and I hope we can get it passed faster than ever now.

The Speaker: I appreciate the comments by the honourable member for Willowdale.

ORAL QUESTIONS

JOBS ONTARIO

Ms Dianne Poole (Eglinton): My question is for the Premier. This morning Liberal leader Lyn McLeod released a confidential cabinet document which clearly shows that the billions of dollars of Jobs Ontario funding are going to be directed to NDP ridings.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Ms Poole: Premier, over the last 18 months, time and time again in this House we have raised problems with Jobs Ontario, such as fraud, misspending of funding, poor quality of jobs, not enough employers registered and, above all, your government's mismanagement and mishandling of this entire $1-billion program.

In every instance, you dismissed our concerns and you ignored our concerns. Now your government has decided to establish this secret cabinet committee which will take over the program and direct the money to ridings you choose. Premier, will you finally admit that Jobs Ontario is a failure and will you admit that what we've been saying all along is true?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): I just want to say to the honourable member that I've rarely heard such rubbish and I'm sorry that the Leader of the Opposition can't be here herself to respond. Let's deal with the facts. This government is spending $4 billion on jobs across this province and I am proud of that. We are investing more in projects across this province than any government in the history of Ontario and I am proud of that.

I'm also proud to say, and I'm glad the member is here and he's going to be surprised when he hears his name called out, that the member whose riding has received more funds from Jobs Ontario Community Action than any other member in the House is the member for Lanark-Renfrew, who has received nine projects worth $1.2 million. So I think we should award our congratulations to the member from Smiths Falls.

Interjections.

Hon Mr Rae: The Liberals are experts at dishing it out, but they can't take it and they're going to get it directly from me today because what they have put forward today and what is in the Liberal Star today is absolute drivel and I intend to drive that point home today. If it's such a lousy program, can you explain to me why, on July 30, Murray Elston was announcing on behalf of the minister of industry and trade the renewal of the library in Kincardine for $300,000 --

The Speaker: Could the Premier conclude his reply, please.

Hon Mr Rae: -- why the member for Northumberland was announcing, on the same date, $1.133 million in her riding on behalf of Jobs Ontario Community Action --

The Speaker: Could the Premier conclude his reply, please.

Hon Mr Rae: -- why the member for Cornwall was doing the same thing and the member for St George-St David was doing the same thing?

I have rarely heard such bunk and guff from the Liberal Party of Ontario when it comes to jobs. We're going to be investing across the province.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Ms Poole: This Premier has so much gall to talk about bunk and drivel, because that's exactly what he's delivered. His very words have proven that he is keeping tabs on who politically is getting this money, riding by riding, and he's decided now that he wants, riding by riding, the money to go to NDP ridings.

Let me quote directly from this document.

Mr Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The Speaker: I trust this is important.

Interjections.

The Speaker: I ask the House to come to order. The honourable member for Lanark-Renfrew.

Mr Jordan: I just want to remind my colleague in the opposition party that the statement made by the Premier is more than correct.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Stop the clock, please.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Supplementary.

Ms Poole: I know they say politics makes strange bedfellows, but it's nice to see the Tories and the NDP in bed together. Does this mean the political money will now go to joint NDP and Tory ridings?

I'm going to quote from the specific confidential cabinet document. I might point out that this cabinet document was signed by the Premier's very good friend and campaign manager, David Agnew. I'll quote: "All Jobs Ontario funds be considered an envelope to be administered by the jobs committee of cabinet." If the program was working, then why did you have to create a secret cabinet committee to take it over?

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The document goes on to say it will "review capital and Jobs Ontario spending on a geographic basis" -- a geographic basis. There is no other way this can be interpreted but that you're going to spend money and create jobs where it will do the NDP the most good.

Premier, how can you justify the creation of a secret cabinet committee to spend money that was to be targeted for job creation and training as a political gravy train instead?

Hon Mr Rae: A secret cabinet committee is like a secret caucus meeting: There's no such thing. I would say directly to the honourable member, let me give you another example, because you don't seem to be satisfied with the earlier ones.

First of all, in direct response to the honourable member, we're saying that we want to make sure that capital is fairly invested in the province on a geographic basis. Yes, we want to make sure that eastern Ontario gets its fair share, that northern Ontario gets its fair share, that the Niagara region, which has been hit as heavily as any other part of this province, gets its fair share. We're going to be working with the Liberal Party in Ottawa and with the Liberal government in Ottawa to ensure that that's exactly what happens in terms of the Jobs Ontario approach we're taking.

Do you want the Eglinton subway to go through your riding or not? Answer yes or no. Do you think it's fair that we do that, yes or no? You'll be the first one there. You'll be the first one to line up. You'll be the first one there. You'll be there with a hard hat and a pick and shovel saying, "Please, Premier, get me in your picture because I want to get credit for this program."

I've never heard such drivel from the Liberal Party. We're going to make sure $4 billion is fairly distributed. All the piffle and drivel from the Liberal Star isn't going to deter us from providing jobs for the people of this province right across Ontario. We're not going to be deterred by you or by anybody else in that effort.

The Speaker: Final supplementary.

Ms Poole: Mr Speaker --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Would the member for Eglinton take her seat, please. I ask the government side to come to order. Would the table add one minute to the time. The honourable member has her final supplementary.

Ms Poole: The Premier claims that the reason this special, secret cabinet committee was set up was in order to ensure that these funds were distributed fairly all across Ontario. I've got news for him: Civil servants in this province for decade upon decade have been doing exactly that. That's their purpose, not your political purpose.

Premier, the most disturbing thing about your memo is that it shows very clearly that the real purpose behind this secret cabinet committee is not to create jobs but to use the taxpayers' dollars to further the NDP cause in the next election.

Now, it's been clear that jobs are not the Tories' priority, because they never ask any questions about jobs, but it's equally clear that jobs are not your priority. Your priority is to sell the NDP government to the people of Ontario. Your priority is a public relations scam, using taxpayers' dollars to pay for it.

Premier, if that isn't true, then tell me why in this document the most important task of this committee is supposed to be communications. Tell me why the establishment of this jobs committee --

The Speaker: Will the member place a question, please.

Ms Poole: -- is to be kept "low-key" and "primarily internal" unless you don't want people to know what you're up to. Premier, in spite of what you may think, the people of Ontario are not going to be fooled by the 1970s Tory-style pork-barrelling.

My question for this Premier is, why don't you realize that you can't buy votes in Ontario and, secondly, why don't you admit that the cabinet jobs committee is nothing but a re-election ploy for the NDP and cancel it?

Hon Mr Rae: I presume the same criticism will apply to the $2-billion federal contribution, the $2-billion municipal contribution and the $2-billion provincial contributions that are to be expected in the program that was announced by the current Prime Minister in his last election campaign.

The member for Cornwall isn't here, but listen to what the member for Cornwall had to say on July 30, 1993, when he announced an $893,000 program in his riding under Jobs Ontario Community Action. What did he say? I'm quoting from him:

"'These are projects that will revitalize our city, improve quality of life for residents, promote community-led change and respond to the needs of the people living here,' said Cleary. 'The short-term benefit is job creation, but the long-term benefits of these cooperative ventures between government, business and members of the community will be greatly welcomed by a city hit hard by the recent economy.'"

I couldn't have said it better myself. That's what this government is all about. Your colleagues know it and you're only too happy to take credit for it when it happens in your own constituencies. There's a double standard at work in the Liberal Party today.

The Speaker: New question, the honourable member for Halton Centre.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. The honourable member for Halton Centre has the floor.

CANCER TREATMENT

Mrs Barbara Sullivan (Halton Centre): Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question to the Minister of Health has a bit of a prelude.

Yesterday the leader of the Liberal Party, Lyn McLeod, and I, along with several other colleagues, were in Kingston for the first hearings of our cancer task force. We met with professionals and patients and I believe that we have some recommendations that will be valuable when we compile our final report. We heard additional concerns from patients and doctors about the extreme pressures that the cancer care system in the province is working under. We hear those concerns almost daily now in the correspondence we receive.

I have a letter from Mrs Giovannini of Rexdale, whose 32-year-old daughter has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. Her daughter has been told that she may have to go to Sudbury for treatment because of the continuing waiting lists in Toronto, and the family is obviously very distraught about this prospect. Mrs Giovannini writes, "In order that she would get well, we would do anything in our power, even to mortgaging the house, should it come to that."

I don't believe that people in Ontario should be under any impression that medicare will not provide the timely and necessary medical services that they need, and yet they are coming to believe that more and more. I'm asking the minister what she has to say to people who are prepared to mortgage their homes because they don't believe the health system will work for them any more.

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Hon Ruth Grier (Minister of Health): I'm delighted to be able to reassure the member, and in fact any resident who is concerned about access to radiation treatment in a timely manner, that the million dollars which I announced earlier this week with respect to the ability of the Toronto centres to hire radiation technologists is exactly to deal with the waiting list problem that the member has identified. This government believes that what has to happen is some funding, some movement and some planning on the cancer treatment system, and we have put that money in place so that the waiting list she refers to will not exist in the very near future.

Mrs Sullivan: While I agree that the million dollars will go a fraction of the way to assisting people receiving timely care in radiation and other cancer therapies, it is only a fraction and we are only beginning to learn what a tiny fraction it is. We will have that debate on another occasion.

But I want to move in my supplementary to a situation that occurred earlier this week, when reports in the press indicated that there were some conclusions that had been drawn through the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences with respect to the way breast cancer cases are being treated in Ontario. That report has not been formally presented and the formal presentation of that report will not occur for another two weeks approximately.

I believe it's important that the work of ICES not be compromised and not be misinterpreted if it's to be used properly in health planning, management and patient care. I believe, however, that the minister has contributed to undermining the credibility of ICES work by freely making comments with respect to the report before that report was presented.

I can just quote, for instance, from the Globe and Mail of November 1. The minister says, "It's obvious from this study that some doctors haven't responded quickly enough to changes in medicine." Then she says, "Pressure is necessary so that it can result in changes in protocol and practice."

I believe it would have been appropriate for the minister to withhold comment until the report had been presented rather than adding to the speculation about its contents. You can laugh, Minister, but this is very important. You have undermined the credibility of that body.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Would the member place her question, please.

Mrs Sullivan: I want to know why the minister has commented in such a way when she did not know what the report said nor clearly what it meant.

Hon Mrs Grier: It's mind-boggling. I could say, why did the member raise questions about the report? And what would she have said if I'd said, "It's only a report in the Toronto Star that the author of the report commented upon on Saturday and therefore I'm not going to say anything"?

The report was presented by the authors to a conference of colleagues. The press were there; the press reported on it. I was given a copy of the report. The report clearly says that the responsibility for quality control and for dealing with the variations in practice lies with the surgeons of this province and the doctors of this province. I commented that I thought that was an entirely appropriate conclusion and that through the joint management committee that this government has established with the profession, along with setting up ICES so that we would have these data, we intended to make sure that in future the women of this province were guaranteed of a general consistency in standard of practice so that unnecessary breast surgery did not continue. That's the objective.

Mrs Sullivan: There are two things I want to point out and request of the minister immediately. One is, since she has the report and since that report has not been made public in a way other than to privileged people who are professionals working in the field, will she make that report public now?

Secondly, I want to reiterate the response from the president of the Ontario Medical Association, Dr Dickson, who has written a letter reacting to the minister's public comments and who says, "To immediately blame doctors at this early stage and imply that political pressure will be used as a remedial tactic does a tremendous disservice to our mutual goal of improving health care in the province."

I am asking the minister how she responds to Dr Dickson.

Hon Mrs Grier: I think that our discussions with the profession through the joint management committee will undoubtedly have differences of approach on many occasions, but the way to resolve that is to work with them.

Let me say to the honourable member, who started her questions by talking about the task force that has been holding hearings and travelling across the province, that I hope she and the Leader of the Opposition are listening with open minds to what they hear, because one of the people who appeared before them in Kingston yesterday said, "We don't need more dollars to provide the kinds of services that consumers need; we need services for patients and families in this community." I couldn't agree more.

Another person appearing before them, a leading physician, in response to a question as to how elected officials could help reallocate resources, said: "First, through research and evaluation. Second, do not politicize the disease. It reduces our flexibility to respond as a treatment system and it freezes valuable resources."

I regret that the opposition is obviously disregarding that particular advice.

Interjections.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): No lectures from the NDP. How dare you? You have a bad memory of your leader rising in the House with people in that gallery. That is vintage Bob Rae. Just don't be so phoney.

The Speaker: Order. The honourable member for St Catharines, that is not helpful. Order.

REDISTRIBUTION OF BOUNDARIES

Mr Ernie L. Eves (Parry Sound): My question is to the Premier. Late yesterday, a copy of a report by the chief election officer was delivered to my office. This report, as you know, forms the basis for changing Ontario riding boundaries to more accurately reflect our current population.

Premier, how long has your government had this report, and why was it not shared with the opposition House leaders until after we requested it yesterday?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): I will refer this question to the Chairman of Management Board and government House leader.

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet and Government House Leader): The member for Parry Sound will know, if he's taken the time to look, that the report to which he's referring is in fact not a report at all. It's a set of comments from the chief election officer, and it's a copy of a report, with a couple of minor changes, that he's had in his hands since the fall of 1991.

The present version which he's referring to has been in my hands for about a week, but it is a set of comments from the chief election officer; it's not a report. In fact, he only has it now because there is no reason for him not to, but there is no obligation for the government to table or to address that report to the opposition.

Mr Eves: The minister will know that every single page of this report -- first he said it wasn't a report, then he said it was a report -- is dated: "Revision for September 27, 1993." Every single page says that, so it isn't some report that we on this side have had for months or years. It's been revised September 27.

According to the expedited schedule outlined in this report dated September 27 of this year, this House was to have passed a resolution last month, in October, in order to enable a commission to be appointed to make boundary changes in time for the next provincial election. It is now November. Did your government deliberately sit on this report until after October had passed so you wouldn't have time to expedite this and have boundaries redistributed before the next provincial election?

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Hon Mr Charlton: I can certainly get the member opposite the precise date on which I received the report, but the date that's on the report is not the date upon which this minister received the report.

Secondly, the member made reference in his comments to, "The government was to have." The member knows full well, because he's been here and he was through the last redistribution process in this province, as were some of the members in the official opposition as well, that the decision to proceed with the redistribution is a decision that is the government's, and the government is considering the comments that were made by the chief election officer.

Mr Eves: That's exactly the point. The comments were made by the chief election officer and the government is considering whether or not to proceed with an expedited schedule, knowing full well that if it doesn't hurry up and deal with this, it's not going to be able to implement it by the time the next provincial election is called. Given the fact that the population --

Hon Floyd Laughren (Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance): That's in six months.

Mr Eves: Can we have that commitment then, I say to the Minister of Finance, that the election will be within the next six months? Then I'll withdraw the question.

Given the fact that I think population trends would show that the population around the outside of Metropolitan Toronto has grown very rapidly, as evidenced by the 1991 census, and that if in fact ridings, 130 seats in the province, were redistributed to give effect to that, your party would stand to lose politically in terms of seats in Metro Toronto and certainly the seats on the outside of Metro, will you give effect to looking at expediting this schedule so that these boundary ridings can be redistributed before the next election? Yes or no?

Hon Mr Charlton: I would suggest that the member opposite would like to make a particular point here which would allow him to totally forget his own part in all of this. I think it's time that we made clear some of what's in this so-called report that he keeps referring to. The report that he's referring to is a report that he's had since the fall of 1991. The only substantive changes in that report -- because there are no changes in relation to the population changes or the seat requirements or any of the other issues in that report -- relate to the timetabling.

They are suggestions. The whole report is a set of suggestions. I would suggest that the member for Parry Sound, who's had this report since the fall of 1991, forgot about it. He's now been reminded about it, but it certainly didn't have any urgency for him in terms of proposing redistribution in this province.

The government will take its responsibility to review the question of redistribution and to make a decision and to proceed when it has made a decision.

PUBLIC SECTOR COMPENSATION

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): My question is to the Chair of Management Board. My resolution, which called on the government to immediately introduce legislation to apply the same standards of accountability and access to compensation information of political staff and civil servants that is being required of companies in the private sector, was passed this morning.

The Minister of Finance, when he announced the new requirements for the private sector on October 14, stated he personally favoured broader disclosure in the public sector. Further, all of your members involved in this morning's debate spoke in favour of my resolution. You, sir, were asked by the Minister of Finance to review the issue of public sector compensation disclosure. Have you acted on the minister's request?

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet): The member is correct that his resolution was supported by most members in the House this morning; it's a principle this government supports. The member's resolution, unfortunately, didn't go far enough, because it only deals with the Ontario public service.

The broader public sector in this province -- school boards, hospitals and a whole range of other public agencies that are publicly funded -- requires the government to look at a whole range of required legislative changes that would be necessary to proceed with the kind of disclosure that we think the public in this province deserves. I was instructed by cabinet long before we ever heard about any resolution from that member, when the Minister of Finance took his proposal through cabinet, to proceed to look at the whole range of legislative changes that would be required in order to have equal disclosure across the entire public sector, and I'm pursuing that objective.

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): I'm pleased to hear the minister is at least working on this subject, because obviously the Treasurer, with a stroke of the pen -- bang, bang, bang -- has decided that the executives of private enterprise are going to have full disclosure. I'm glad you're doing it.

The problem, Minister Minister, is a problem that they --

Interjection.

Mr Tilson: It is tricky to say, isn't it? The problem, Mr Minister, is that the Liberals have caused this problem when they amended the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, and we are giving you an opportunity, because this is a problem that has clearly existed, to fix their error with our private members' bills.

There have been two private members' bills, as you know, introduced recently, one by the member for Etobicoke West and one by myself. We've tabled bills on this issue. I'm sure you will use those bills to assist you in developing proper procedures.

Ontario taxpayers want and demand full accountability. They want to know how their employees are being compensated. My question to you is, you say you're working on it. Can you tell us today specifically what you're going to do?

Hon Mr Charlton: Let me say first of all that in terms of the two private bills the member has referred to, I'm certain that the debate around those private members' bills here in the Legislature will in fact assist us in the process of addressing this problem. Having said that, neither the resolution that was dealt with this morning nor either of the private members' bills deals in a very comprehensive way with the issue before us.

As I've said, we're talking about the Ontario public service. We're talking about a whole lot of crown agencies and crown corporations that have separate legislation. We're also talking about school boards, hospitals and hospital boards across this province and literally thousands of other public-sector-funded agencies across this province that we wish to deal with.

We're going to proceed. My instructions from cabinet are to look at and define the legislative requirements that will allow us to proceed with disclosure in those areas, but we want to do it in an evenhanded and comprehensive way right across the public sector in the province of Ontario.

Mr Tilson: The problem, of course, is that private enterprise isn't exactly looking at what the Treasurer has done recently with his stroke of a hand. That is not evenhanded procedure.

I agree that you should be looking at the whole picture. In fact, many members of this House in this morning's resolution supported that principle and said you must go further.

Private member's Bill 116, which I presented in the Legislature yesterday, called for amendments to the Labour Relations Act that would require the top five union executives to table their compensation packages with the labour relations board once a year. Union members would then have the right to examine what their representatives are being compensated for working on their behalf.

Unlike shareholders, who can sell their shares and not support businesses whose philosophy they do not agree with, union members don't have that same option. Because of the Rand formula, and I'm sure you're aware of that, union members cannot opt out of paying dues to their unions. Union members deserve the right to know how their fees are being spent and to whom.

Because of the positive response to the member for York Mills and to his resolution this morning, will you now proceed expeditiously with all of these private members' bills, specifically Bill 116, to match the philosophy that's being put forward by the Treasurer?

Hon Mr Charlton: First of all, in response to the member's last question, I said clearly that we intended to proceed to identify the best ways, legislatively, to approach the question of disclosure of the top salaries in the public sector in the province of Ontario.

Second, I said that we felt the debate around those pieces of legislation would be useful to us in that process. I also said that we felt both of the bills to which the member refers were woefully inadequate in terms of their focus and their intent, specifically with respect to the bill the member just referred to around trade union leaders. That is an entirely different issue from the public disclosure of public sector employee salaries. The member is right that the members of trade unions may have the right to access to the salaries of their leaders, but that's a different issue from the issue that's being raised here.

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ONTARIO DRUG BENEFIT PROGRAM

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I have a question for the Minister of Health. I have had the opportunity to sit in this House and listen to Donald MacDonald and Stephen Lewis and Michael Cassidy and Bob Rae and all of the NDP critics indicate to this House that a person's ability to pay should not be the criterion used when one is applying health care services.

I ask the Minister of Health, if you and your government truly believe in the philosophy which you have enunciated in this House and in other places over the years, why then is your government forcing kidney dialysis patients, such as Jack Leake of St Catharines, into financial hardship by compelling him and others to pay for drugs that are essential to their health?

Hon Ruth Grier (Minister of Health): I stand proud in the tradition of the leaders of my party that the member for St Catharines has listed and share with them our commitment to the preservation and protection of the universality of the medicare system, which was created in this country because of the work of the people of the New Democratic Party in Saskatchewan.

Let me say to him that with respect to the specific question he raises, my colleague the member for St Catharines-Brock raised with me yesterday the issue that a hospital within the member's riding had in fact been indicating to dialysis patients that they might not be able to receive drugs under our special drugs program. Let me say to him and to the member for St Catharines-Brock and to all of the people concerned that there has been no cutback in the special drugs program and that patients suffering from end-stage renal disease are entitled under our special drugs program to the prescriptions they need, at no cost to them.

Mr Bradley: I have been in contact with at least three kidney dialysis patients today, and with Mr Leake, who has been a very effective spokesperson for kidney dialysis patients in our part of the province, and they have an indication from the Hotel Dieu Hospital in St Catharines that reads as follows: "With the cutback in provincial funding to hospitals, this now means that Hotel Dieu will no longer be able to provide this service except in cases of extreme need."

They list several drugs that I will not go into detail on today, but they indicate that, "For prescription medications no longer covered, your physician can apply to the Ministry of Health for special coverage for you under requests for unlisted drug products." My colleague the member for Halton Centre indicated yesterday or the day before just how long that process takes.

You have received as well from the Kidney Foundation of Canada a press release and other information which indicates that dialysis and transplant patients denied access to effective, medically necessary drugs will ultimately cost the health care system far more in prolonged hospitalizations, more frequent medical interventions, poorer prospects for rehabilitation and failed kidney transplants.

I ask you again, why are you forcing kidney dialysis patients in this province to go on bended knee to get essential health care services to which they are entitled and which they deserve?

Hon Mrs Grier: Let me point out to the member that in the beginning part of his very long question he indicated that in fact it was a decision of a particular hospital that his constituents and the people he had been talking to had referred to. I want to say to him that as soon as I was made aware by my colleague of this situation, the ministry has been in touch with the hospital and has indicated to them that the action they have taken is not appropriate, and I agree.

JUSTICE SYSTEM

Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): My question is to the Attorney General.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order. The member for Willowdale has the floor.

Mr Harnick: On August 4, the Attorney General announced the release of the Martin report. As the Attorney General knows, the Martin report was designed to provide the Attorney General with recommendations on how to improve and streamline the justice system. Minister, when can we expect the government to implement the recommendations contained within the Martin report, and will the Martin report be adopted in full?

Hon Marion Boyd (Attorney General): Since the Martin report was received, we've been in very deep consultation with affected groups. That includes people within the judiciary, members of the bar, victims advocate groups and so on.

As to how the guidelines that are suggested in the Martin report would best be implemented, we are about to enter, I think in the next two weeks, into the final phase of that consultation, which will enable us to determine what directives will actually be given to crown attorneys around the suggestions around disclosure, early resolution and screening in the Martin report. As soon as that is done, it is my hope that we will be able to announce our investment strategy. We have got treasury board approval for some changes in terms of how we operate within the courts, but we felt it was necessary for us to do this final bit of consultation in terms of the directives and guidelines before we proceeded across the province.

Mr Harnick: The implementation of the Martin report could save the government tens of millions of dollars annually. However, my understanding is that the Martin report must be implemented in full to achieve this saving. To quote Casey Hill, a former president of the crown attorneys association and a member of Mr Justice Martin's advisory committee, "You're not going to make any impact on the system unless you buy into the entire package." Are you going to shelve this report or are you going to take concrete action, and if so, when?

Hon Mrs Boyd: I think I answered in my first answer, but I will go over it again. With regard to the elements contained in the Martin report, indeed Mr Hill is quite right: The elements around the attention at the early end of the criminal process, the attention to disclosure, the attention to screening and early resolution decisions all are absolutely necessary to be done as a continuum. I would say to the member that, yes, our intention is to ensure that all those elements are present.

Mr Justice Martin suggested in his report specific directives around how this should be done. The only discussion we are having at present is whether in fact those directives are clear enough and give enough context to the actions and the decision-making and the discretion that'll be exercised by individual crown attorneys in doing this kind of work. As soon as that final consultation has been done, I anticipate an announcement of the implementation of the report.

UNIFIED FAMILY COURT

Mr Gary Wilson (Kingston and The Islands): My question is also for the Attorney General. I was pleased recently to welcome the Attorney General to Kingston, where as part of her visit she toured local court facilities. Then, with her additional responsibilities as minister responsible for women's issues, she visited a couple of local agencies that provide services to women in crisis.

As members may know, the way the courts are currently structured, different courts deal with different family law matters. This situation leads to extra costs for families that are suffering through divorce, custody and support and other family law proceedings.

Since the late 1970s, a Unified Family Court has been operating in Hamilton with great success. It was originally set up as a pilot project wherein all family court matters could be heard in one court. Bill 68, which is currently before the House, will provide for the extension of the Unified Family Court model across Ontario. Can the Attorney General tell the House when she would expect to see the extension of unified family courts across Ontario?

Hon Marion Boyd (Attorney General): Indeed, the courts of justice act, Bill 68, does include as one of its provisions the expansion of what has been called the longest-running successful pilot project in the entire history of Ontario. It is certainly my hope that Bill 68 will move through this place in a very timely manner so that we can begin.

We've already set up an implementation team within the ministry. We need to negotiate with the federal government because the plan would include the addition of approximately 12 additional federally appointed judges in order to begin that expansion through the province. We will not be able to do it in every location immediately. We will have to do it in a gradual way in one or two locations, but it is certainly my hope that we will be able to move forward, with the cooperation of the new federal government, as soon as possible.

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Mr Gary Wilson: Madam Attorney General, as you know, Kingston is very interested in being one of the first communities to have a Unified Family Court as part of the extension you mentioned. Many individuals and agencies from Kingston that deal with family law matters have written to me and to you expressing their eagerness to have a Unified Family Court in Kingston. I'm sure you would agree with me that the document submitted by the legal community in Kingston is remarkable in its thorough, logical and creative presentation of the case for Kingston as the location of a Unified Family Court. Can you tell me if Kingston will be considered as a location for a Unified Family Court in the early stages of expansion of this court model?

Hon Mrs Boyd: The member is not the only one who has lobbied for the location of a Unified Family Court in his riding. I can tell the member that I get equally lobbied in my location. I know the member for Ottawa Centre does as well.

I cannot tell you what the locations will be. There has been no determination of that at this point. We can be very clear that there will be a lot of interest in this. I only wish we could do it in every jurisdiction immediately.

ASSISTED HOUSING

Mrs Yvonne O'Neill (Ottawa-Rideau): My question is to the Minister of Community and Social Services. The Salvation Army retrofit of 135 Sherbourne Street is a major initiative aimed at alleviating the real suffering of down-and-out homeless men in the city of Toronto. The Sally Anns, through their own fund-raising efforts, have realized 83% of the cost of the retrofit of this hostel. The province is being asked but for 17%, around $1 million, as an investment in the homeless of this city.

Minister, in the light of the growing number of people on the outer margins of society right here in our midst, will you respond to the motion passed earlier this week by Toronto city council and reconsider your decision not to participate in this very valuable endeavour?

Hon Tony Silipo (Minister of Community and Social Services): I appreciate the question being raised. My understanding is that the request that had come from the Salvation Army was considered very seriously at area office level in looking at the capital needs of the areas that were submitted to the ministry. That request was then considered, obviously, along with all the other requests we had before us, and it was simply a question, at the end of the day, of the funds not being sufficient to be able to make allocations to all the projects that came forward. In the ranking that was done, unfortunately this particular project did not rank as high as some of the other projects to which we have directed the funds. It really is a matter of that, and the process, I am satisfied, was followed appropriately. Unfortunately, in this instance we're not able to provide funding.

Mrs O'Neill: The ranking, as we understand it, is based on ministerial guidelines, and the ministerial guidelines in this case, as in other cases, such as those for child care subsidies, are often ideologically driven. They just don't fit within this government's ideology. Minister, I ask you again, as winter approaches, will you reconsider and broaden your limiting criteria -- you've done it before, Minister, in child care subsidies -- and broaden your guidelines for this project, a project which will help real needy, right here in our midst in the capital of Ontario?

Hon Mr Silipo: I can tell the member very clearly that the problem here was not the criteria. The problem, as I said, was simply having to gauge, on the basis of a number of projects we had before us, the relative need. I know we're talking about relative need.

One of the other issues that I think is particular to this project is that even though the agency knew it was not getting any funding from us, it proceeded to build. Now there is a problem in terms of the agency having proceeded to put up the building knowing full well that there was no opportunity for funding to come from the ministry.

All I can say is that if there are additional funds, we'll continue to look at what additional projects we can provide. In that light, I would certainly say that if the discussions that I know will take place with our federal counterparts result in additional funds that will become available, then obviously we in this ministry, as across all other ministries, will look at what more we can do beyond what we are trying to do at this point.

TAXATION

Mr David Johnson (Don Mills): I have a question to the Minister of Finance, and my question is on behalf of the beleaguered property taxpayers of the province of Ontario. In Metropolitan Toronto, just as an example, there are currently about $600 million of uncollected taxes. People are being taxed to death. Businesses are being taxed to death. They cannot afford to pay the taxes and they are not paying the taxes in record numbers.

Your new taxes, Mr Minister, earlier this year have worsened the problem for municipalities. I'm talking about the new taxes on auto insurance, the new taxes on health benefits, the new taxes on sand and gravel, just as examples.

Now you have implemented yet another fee. For the first time, a residential property owner will have to pay $20 to appeal their property assessment; a business, for the very first time, will have to pay $70 to appeal their property assessment. This is a fee on a tax. This is a tax grab.

My question to you, Mr Minister: Is it fair to require property owners to pay a fee simply to ensure that they're not already paying too much in taxes?

Hon Floyd Laughren (Minister of Finance): I would disagree with the honourable member -- I'm sure he's not surprised -- in his assertion that it's a tax on a tax. If someone wishes to appeal their assessment, of course, under our system, that should be a right that's there, for them to appeal the decision of the assessor. I have no problem with that. But what we've decided, and I thought the third party would support this kind of measure, is that whenever possible, there be at least some cost recovery for the services delivered.

The members in the third party are very quick to be on their feet whenever there's a hint of a rise in the deficit, which is hinted at every now and again, or whenever there's a hint of an increase in taxes. That's the role of the third party and I have no problem with that.

But I would just say to the member that you can't have it both ways. You can't complain about the cost of government and then complain every time we engage in any kind of active cost recovery for the services that government provides.

Mr David Johnson: We have -- and I'm saying we, the Progressive Conservative Party -- a task force talking to the small business community, and the message that we're getting back is that there are too many taxes, too many fees already, that we should be cutting the cost of government.

I've checked with the province of Quebec, for example. You do not have to pay a fee to appeal your assessment in Quebec. You do not have to pay in Alberta to appeal your assessment. Revenue Canada doesn't charge you a fee if you dispute your income tax.

We have recently approved Bill 7, the waste management bill, which introduces new fees for garbage collection. We are about, apparently, to approve Bill 40, a community development bill, part of which will introduce new planning fees in the province of Ontario. There is no end to the new fees and the new taxes.

My question: Is it not time to stand back, to look at all the taxes, all the fees we have heaped on the property taxpayers of the province of Ontario and to look at cutting those fees and cutting those taxes?

Hon Mr Laughren: I have no problem in agreeing with the member for Don Mills about the need to stand back and take a look at the amount of taxes that property owners pay. I know you won't accuse me of hiding behind the Fair Tax Commission when I say that the Fair Tax Commission will be reporting by the end of this year, and I'm sure we all look forward to what it has to say about property taxes and how we respond to what it has to say.

I think, to be fair, there is nothing wrong in principle with government attempting to recover some of the costs of the services that the taxpayers deliver, because it's not everyone who appeals their assessment. I don't believe that $20 is an undue amount to ask somebody to pay, because you can be assured that the amount of money they're appealing on their assessment is many, many times the $20 fee for the residential rate. So I don't think it's asking too much to ask the property taxpayers who appeal their assessment to pay a small portion, a very small portion, of the cost of that service they're receiving.

Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey-Owen Sound): You're asking them to pay for your mistakes.

Hon Mr Laughren: No.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

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FAMILY SUPPORT PAYMENTS

Mr Mike Cooper (Kitchener-Wilmot): My question is for the Attorney General. As you know, the Family Support Plan Act provides for automatic wage deduction of support payments from paycheques of payers by their employers. However, I understand there's no obligation in the legislation for employers to forward the money to the family support plan in any given period of time. As a result of this, there's no specific time mentioned for the remission of these funds to the family support plan, and funds are remitted weekly, biweekly or monthly.

This inconsistency has caused some problems for recipients and payers alike in that the family support plan does not credit the payer's account until they receive the funds from the employer. In some cases arrears have been accumulated and further action has been taken to enforce the support order when payments have actually been made. My question is, what obligation does the employer have to remit these payments within any given period of time?

Hon Marion Boyd (Attorney General): The member is quite right that the legal obligation on the employer is to deduct and remit the payments. The way in which it is done is usually within the month in which the deductions are made. The member is quite right that when deductions are made on different bases, for example, weekly pay or biweekly pay, it may not be remitted until the end of the month, and that has created some difficulty.

On the other hand, we have to be aware that employers have been very cooperative with this system, and it is their view that they want to remit once a month so that they can do it as they do income tax or as they do UIC and so on.

As long as the total support due is paid within the month for which it's owed, FSP does not consider that the payment is late and won't take enforcement action.

Mr Cooper: There are people phoning my constituency office fairly regular now, and they're getting caught in the cracks on this specific issue. What it does is it causes them grievous problems because they're trying to make their payments. They aren't the deadbeats that a lot of people talk about. These are people who are actually making their payments and they're being troubled by this. I realize the employers are under some hardship, but can we expect any action to be taken and when can we expect that action?

Hon Mrs Boyd: I recognize the problem, and so we are changing it for those employers and those recipients who are willing to participate in direct deposit systems. The employers will be permitted to electronically deposit their support payments, and recipients will be able to opt for direct deposit to their bank accounts. That will really end the delays that occur between the time in which the payment is mailed by the employer to the plan, and then from the plan to the recipient. It is hoped that this will streamline the process and make it less costly for all concerned.

TUITION FEES

Mr Hans Daigeler (Nepean): I'm pleased that the Minister of Finance stayed for these final minutes that I still have to ask my question. In the absence of the Minister of Education and Training, I'm directing my question to you. You will be aware that the minister has given some very ominous hints that students will again -- and I say that deliberately -- again face very significant tuition fee increases. I understand this may be coming very soon, perhaps even next week. This threat of significant tuition fee increases comes at a time when our students are having a very hard time finding jobs to pay for the costs they have already, never mind additional costs.

Minister, my question to you is, first of all, when is your government going to announce it? Secondly, will these fee increases bear any kind of resemblance to the promises you made to the students when you were on this side of the House?

Hon Floyd Laughren (Minister of Finance): I'm always pleased to stay longer than I had planned to entertain a question from the member for Nepean. I do not know when the Minister of Education and Training intends to announce his decision on the tuition fee increases. There have been a significant number of calls from the broader community, including some student organizations, for increases in tuition fees, and by the universities themselves, and by others who think there should not be any increase in tuition fees. I'm sure the Minister of Education and Training, being as perceptive and understanding as he is, will take all those considerations before he comes to a decision.

I know the member for Nepean does not want to see any increases in tuition fees at all. I think he simply wants to see an increase in taxes go into the universities in order to have to provide the programs they offer. That final decision will be announced by the Minister of Education and Training and I don't know what date he's going to do that.

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

ASSISTED HOUSING

Hon Evelyn Gigantes (Minister of Housing): On October 27, the leader of the Conservative Party in the Legislature asked me a question concerning a Peel Non-Profit Housing Corp development at 27-37 Clipstone Court in Brampton. I promised to provide information related to that development to the members of the Legislature. I'm tabling that information now.

PETITIONS

PROCEEDS OF CRIME

Mr Gary Carr (Oakville South): Thousands of constituents from my riding of Oakville South have asked me to table a petition which says the following:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas criminals can currently derive profit from the sale of recollections of their crimes; and

"Whereas criminals can also derive profit for interviews or public appearances; and

"Whereas this can cause suffering of crime victims and that of their families;

"We, the undersigned, demand that the private member's Bill 85, Proceeds of Crime Act, 1993, be passed into law."

I've signed that as well.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

PUBLIC SERVICE AND LABOUR RELATIONS STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE LA FONCTION PUBLIQUE ET LES RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL

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

Bill 117, An Act to revise the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act, to amend the Public Service Act and the Labour Relations Act and to make related amendments to other Acts. / Projet de loi 117, Loi révisant la Loi sur la négociation collective des employés de la Couronne, modifiant la Loi sur la fonction publique et la Loi sur les relations de travail et apportant des modifications connexes à d'autres lois.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Minister, do you wish to make a few remarks?

Hon Bob Mackenzie (Minister of Labour): Just very briefly, this bill is, I hope, the finalization of a commitment made some time ago to both whistle-blowing political activity rights and the reform of CECBA, the collective employees bargaining act.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

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

Deferred vote on the motion for third reading of 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 / Projet de loi 17, Loi prévoyant le plan d'investissement du gouvernement de l'Ontario et concernant d'autres questions relatives à l'administration financière.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): We will now have the deferred vote. Call in the members. This is a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1530 to 1535.

The Deputy Speaker: Would all members take their seats. Mr Laughren has moved third reading of 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. All those in favour of the motion will please rise one at a time.

Ayes

Abel, Akande, Allen, Bisson, Boyd, Buchanan, Callahan, Caplan, Carter, Charlton, Christopherson, Churley, Cooper, Coppen, Curling, Dadamo, Daigeler, Duignan, Ferguson, Fletcher, Frankford, Gigantes, Grandmaître, Grier, Haeck, Hansen, Harrington, Haslam, Hayes, Henderson, Hope, Huget, Johnson (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings), Klopp, Kormos, Lankin, Laughren, Lessard;

Mackenzie, MacKinnon, Malkowski, Mammoliti, Marchese, Martin, Mathyssen, Mills, Morrow, Murdock (Sudbury), Murphy, O'Connor, O'Neill (Ottawa-Rideau), Owens, Perruzza, Philip (Etobicoke-Rexdale), Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt), Pilkey, Pouliot, Rizzo, Ruprecht, Silipo, Sullivan, Sutherland, Wessenger, White, Wilson (Frontenac-Addington), Wilson (Kingston and The Islands), Winninger, Wiseman, Wood, Ziemba.

The Deputy Speaker: All those opposed to the motion will please rise one at a time.

Nays

Arnott, Carr, Cousens, Eves, Harnick, Johnson (Don Mills), Jordan, Murdoch (Grey-Owen Sound), Runciman, Tilson, Villeneuve.

The Deputy Speaker: The ayes are 70; the nays are 11. I declare the motion carried. Resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

We'll wait for a few minutes for members to leave the House, if they so wish.

PROVINCIAL OFFENCES STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE LES INFRACTIONS PROVINCIALES

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 47, An Act to amend certain Acts in respect of the Administration of Justice / Projet de loi 47, Loi modifiant certaines lois en ce qui concerne l'administration de la justice.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): At the last debate, Mr Conway was the last speaker. We were at questions and comments. Mr Conway is not here. I will therefore recognize the member for Leeds-Grenville.

Mr Robert W. Runciman (Leeds-Grenville): I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this debate on Bill 47, the photo-radar bill. I think it's important, from my perspective anyway, that I speak on this legislation and put my concerns on the record.

Up to this point there's been very little public debate in respect to this legislation and I would think as well very little public understanding, let alone recognition, that this bill is now being debated by the Ontario Legislature and will in all likelihood come into law some time early in 1994. Of course, at that point the proverbial you know what is going to hit the fan and we're going to start hearing from our constituents in respect to this legislation, even though we're not hearing a great deal of concern being expressed now.

As I said, part of that is the fact that, for whatever reasons, the media choose not to look at or report on issues like this or debates in this House beyond what takes place in question period. I think many at different levels of government, and even within some elements of the media, have expressed concern about the lack of coverage of these kinds of debates. However, we have to live with it. I simply wanted to put my concerns on the record for when my constituents come to my office early in 1994 because they've had their licence removed for late fine payment or they've received a significant bill in the mail from the government for something they weren't even aware they were involved in, a whole host of concerns that are going to come forward.

I'm someone who drives back and forth on a regular basis between Queen's Park and Brockville. I know this has been expressed in the House, but I simply want to put my own observations in place in terms of the speed limits. I'm sure there are people who will take issue with this, but I think the speed limits are artificially low.

When Highway 401 was built, you will recall the speed limit was 70 miles per hour. That was felt to be an appropriate speed limit back in 1968; I believe the section of 401 running through my riding was opened in 1968. Over 20-some-odd years ago, 70 miles an hour was considered an appropriate and safe speed limit on Highway 401.

As you know, when we went through the energy crunch, the so-called energy crisis, speed limits throughout the world were dramatically reduced, to 55 miles per hour at the time, primarily as an energy conservation measure. That was the argument put forward by all levels of government when they came in with dramatic reductions in speed limits.

What's happened over the past 20-some years is that we've seen the evolution of the automobile in terms of concern for safety, some of it mandated by governments, others that the automotive industry, for competitive reasons, has brought forward, significant advances in terms of protecting individuals driving cars and passengers in cars.

We now see where the use of not only seatbelts is fairly significant, but also the air bags. Many of the models currently on the market have not only driver but passenger air bags. The cars themselves are built structurally in a much safer manner than they were in the past. We now have new cars coming out. I'm seeing the ads where various companies are coming out with reinforced cars so that they can withstand impacts from the side of the car to a much greater extent than they have in the past.

So the automobile, the car that you and I have to drive to work in or to go shopping, what have you, to travel in, is a much safer mode of transportation than it was 20 or 25 years ago when 70 miles per hour was considered a safe speed limit on Highway 401.

I would have significantly less difficulty with many elements of this legislation if speed limits in the province were more realistic and appropriate. Most of us who travel know that virtually everyone drives, we'll say, an average of 120 kilometres per hour, which is around the 70-mile-per-hour mark, and that's an appropriate speed level, I think. There are exceptions to this, but I think most police officers now recognize that that's a safe level and an appropriate level, and you don't get pulled over by the police if you're doing 120 kilometres per hour in most instances. There are occasions when you have some relatively young perhaps and enthusiastic officers who will pull you over and give you a warning for that speed limit, but by and large it's considered by the police officers, I believe, to be a safe driving speed.

So if government can recognize that and then move in this direction, I think it would be much more appropriate. Instead, I think they have approached this -- and this has been raised by others from a different angle. Although they get up and express concerns about safety and suggest that their primary concern in introducing this legislation is to reduce the carnage on the highways, to try and improve the safe driving practices of Ontarians, I simply don't buy that. Obviously when you look at what's happening here, the speed levels, in most instances in a safe manner, are not compatible with what this government wants to do in respect to improving safety on the highways.

If they wanted to do things that were going to improve the situation, there are all sorts of opportunities available to them. We've seen the results of coroners' inquests recently related to the death of a number of young people, I guess it was in the Halton Hills area, where something like seven young people were killed in --

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): Caledon.

Mr Runciman: In the Caledon area, a year or two ago. That inquest came out with a significant number of recommendations in terms of how to deal with this sort of situation, especially with younger people. There are some moves being made in terms of graduated licences, I'll grant you that, and my colleague the member for York Mills has been one of the driving forces behind the move by this government to bring in graduated licences.

But there are hosts of other areas that could be moved on. Perhaps one of the most controversial ones that came out of that coroner's inquest was the question of the drinking age. The coroner's jury recommended that the drinking age be raised to 21.

Most of you will know, in respect to what's happening in the United States, that if you compare the speed limits, many of the speed limits in the United States were dropped during the energy crisis as well. Now in many areas they've been raised. But at the same time, former President Reagan instituted measures whereby he would withhold transfer dollars to the states if they did not increase the drinking age. So the United States government obviously recognized the relationship between drinking and driving and safety and was prepared to go along with the states increasing driving speed limits, but at the same time saying, "We want you to increase the drinking age, and if you're not prepared to do that, we're not going to transfer funds to assist you to improve and upgrade your highway system within the state." So there's obviously a clear recognition within the United States of where the problem really lies.

What I'm suggesting here is that the government, in moving in this one directly solely, is doing it for reasons based more on revenue generation, I believe, than on real concerns about highway safety. If you look at an unrealistic speed limit and virtually 80% to 90% of safe, careful drivers exceeding what is an unrealistic speed limit, it's clear that the revenues that are going to be generated are significant. I know we've heard expressions in here of $15 million. One of my colleagues, the member for Etobicoke West, was using a figure of $200 million.

The minister has said that this is going to be revenue-neutral. I'd like to hear him say that during a response or during debate in this House, because I don't think anyone, even the minister, believes for a moment that this is going to be revenue-neutral. I've heard consideration, depending on how wide-scale the use of photo-radar is, that the revenues generated could potentially be in the neighbourhood of $1 billion. That came from a responsible source, that if the government really turned towards this as a significant revenue generator, it's an almost unlimited revenue source.

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I think that in reality, that's what behind this initiative. Certainly we've talked about dedicated revenues and assisting policing in this province, but obviously there's nothing in this legislation indicating that the revenues generated will be dedicated. They're going into the general revenue fund of the government. They're not going towards the improvement and upgrading of the highways and allowing them to be much safer.

For example, in my part of the province, Highway 416, Highway 16, we've had a significant number of accidents. Mr Speaker, you're familiar with this issue. The four-laning of the southern portion of Highway 416 could make that a much, much safer highway on which to drive. It's the link between the 401 and the nation's capital. Yet this government has placed that construction, that development, on indefinite hold.

Again, this is the sort of thing, if they were truly committed to safety on the highways, they would dedicate these revenues to so that we could go ahead with the four-laning of highways like the 416, and I think it's 17 in other areas of northern Ontario. In the Renfrew area -- Mr Speaker, you could correct me on this -- I know they've had significant numbers of fatalities, where all they've done up to this point is put in a few passing lanes and we're still having significant numbers of accidents in those areas.

It's not necessarily because of the speed; it's because of the two lanes, the fact that people get frustrated on these highways. They get trapped behind slow-moving vehicles -- we'll say commercial transportation vehicles -- which are going about 30 to 35 miles per hour. There's no opportunity for them to pull off. You get these long, long lines of traffic extending a mile or two miles. People who have to drive between Ottawa and Prescott or the 401 or what have you get frustrated, pull out into oncoming traffic, and we have fatalities, or serious accidents at best. That's the history of that highway and I'm sure many other highways in this province.

Again, if this government was truly committed to safety on the highways as a key element of this particular piece of legislation, obviously a significant portion of the revenues should have been dedicated for that purpose.

Another purpose which I would have thought would be appropriate in terms of dedication of revenues would have been towards the policing situation in this province. Again, I'll relate this to my part of the province in eastern Ontario.

There are sections of the highway between the Quebec border and Prescott-Brockville that would be, I guess, 70 or 80 miles, something like that, 90 miles perhaps, where I'm advised that in virtually all of that corridor, between the hours of 2 o'clock in the morning and 7 o'clock in the morning, there's absolutely no police coverage. There is a regional headquarters and a car occasionally does come down in that area, but in terms of patrolling the 401, there's virtually no coverage because of the shortage of funds, the cost-cutting measures that have been implemented by the OPP, their inability to get adequate numbers of cars on the road, not to mention the shortage of manpower, which has been pointed out on a number of occasions by a number of studies. It's a real problem.

We're not just talking in terms of highway safety or traffic safety, but we can talk about public safety, a bigger question. There are simply not enough police officers available, not enough cars available. If this government was truly committed, was truly concerned about these kinds of very legitimate situations that currently exist, they would, again, have dedicated a portion of these revenues, perhaps 25% to 50% of these revenues, towards policing, and perhaps specific areas of policing.

We now have studies under way I think throughout the province of Ontario on further downsizing the OPP: the closure of smaller detachments in rural areas, the amalgamation of detachments.

Again, these touch on real problem areas. A lot of the significant accidents we see occurring in the province are in some of these smaller rural areas, the two-lane highways, whether it's Highway 15, Highway 16, Highway 17, Highway 42. These are the areas where we need police presence, and what we've seen over the past number of years is a gradual reduction of police presence and in fact in some areas during certain hours of the day a complete removal of police presence. The concern is increasing not only in terms of highway safety, but in terms of increasing criminal activity, a whole host of public safety concerns.

I want to put a couple of things on the record about this legislation. I was interested, in some of the research that I did on this matter, that the RCMP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, have taken a look at photo-radar systems, and they mention a number that they've taken a look at. I'm not familiar with this sort of equipment, but they talk about the Multanova, the Gastometer, the PR 100 and Traffipax systems. All of these systems do not meet RCMP standards. What they're suggesting clearly here is that these systems currently, the systems now available, are not reliable and cannot be found to be accurate. I suggest that based on what the RCMP is saying, many of the fines that arise out of the institution of the system could be open to challenge, if for no other reason than the stand taken by the RCMP.

It says here: "In addition to the technical requirements, the RCMP has policy concerns about the use of photo-radar. The system is contrary to RCMP policy of maintaining contact between the police officer and the offender. It is also felt that photo-radar has little deterrent effect, since tickets are received weeks after the offence, and that it is unfair to charge the owner even if the owner was not driving at the time of the offence." This isn't me saying this; it's not a partisan politician saying it. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are saying, "In short, the RCMP views photo-radar as a revenue-generating scheme." That's from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The government members can get up and wail, and I heard them in this House the other day with regard to this, charging that opposition members, who are very concerned about this legislation, are not concerned about public safety. Indeed we are, and there are meaningful measures out there that this government could be taking and is not taking. In fact, they're justifying what the RCMP describes as nothing more than a revenue-generating scheme as their response to concerns about highway traffic safety.

It is a sham, and obviously we want to have that on the record. As this goes through the public hearing process and we come back into the House at some point, I gather early in the new year, we're going to have more of this sort of testimony made available to us.

I understand that police organizations, police associations, are generally supportive of this, but I suspect their support is off-base. I tend in most instances to find agreement with the police associations on many of the stands they take, but I think on this one they should revisit it, see what the RCMP has said about photo-radar, look at where the revenues are going to go and really conclude whether or not it's going to be of any benefit in terms of highway safety and whether it's going to be of any benefit in terms of policing in this province.

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I seriously doubt it. It's a cash cow, and my colleague is going to be talking later on about the Big Brother elements of this legislation, the pervasive elements of this legislation in terms of its intrusion on our personal privacy and what it may mean for other pieces of legislation that could be introduced by this government or future governments. I think it sets a bad precedent, an unfortunate one indeed.

I really don't have a great deal more to say about the legislation. I think we've talked about the other element of the suspension of drivers' licences on fine default. This is an element that, again, I suspect people are going to be surprised by who, for whatever reason, may not have been aware of a fine or forgotten about a particular parking fine, what have you. They're now going to discover that they have no longer the opportunity to appear before the judiciary, that their licence is going to be pulled through some form of bureaucratic administrative function.

I wanted to talk a bit too about another element, the personal contact between the police officer and the driver. This is an important consideration as well. When you do go a few miles over a limit or you're in an unsafe situation, there's that personal contact between the driver and the police officer who has pulled you over to perhaps simply warn you or to charge you with an offence.

I think there are occasions, and they've happened to all of us, when I believe situations can merit a slight increase above the speed limit in terms of personal reasons. You may even draw police into a personal situation: It could be the birth of a child, it could be any number of things. Now what's going to happen? If you happen to be going 10 miles over the speed limit taking your wife to the hospital for the birth of a child, you're going to find you get your $50 or $100 fine in the mail instead of having that face-to-face meeting with the police officer who could indeed assist you in making that trip to the hospital.

Perhaps that's a situation that's not going to crop up on that many occasions, but I think there are other reasons when you may slightly break the speed limit and there's clear justification for doing that, in my mind, which a real, human person talking to you can understand and appreciate and allow you to continue on your way without some penalty from the state.

But this cold system, where a camera simply takes a picture of a licence plate and three or four weeks down the line you get a fine in the mail, simply is not something we believe is appropriate in the province of Ontario. We're going to continue to lobby against this. We're going to try and heighten public awareness of it as the days and weeks go by so the government is going to start to feel the heat on this. We know ultimately they're going to feel the heat on this, and we're going to do what we can.

If there's one piece of legislation I feel quite strongly about, and I've heard some members of my own caucus -- and I know the deputy leader of the Liberal Party and their caucus chair also feel very strongly about this particular piece of legislation. The House leader for the government was alerted to this fact back in the summer when we were debating which pieces of legislation should be proceeded with and which should be delayed until the fall session. There was a very clear message delivered to the government House leader that the concerns on the part of the opposition were significant, deeply held concerns and that this was not a piece of legislation that was going to be dealt with lightly.

To suggest, as I understand, that perhaps we don't even require public hearings is surprising, shocking. Clearly, this is the sort of thing that Ontarians need to be made aware of. They need to be made aware of all of the implications, not simply the fact that they're going to be getting fines but the increasing pervasiveness of the state: the fact that you can lose your licence overnight without any recourse to the judiciary; that you go in to have your licence renewed and, bingo, it's gone; a whole host of concerns we have which we believe are very much important.

If the government wants to move in a host of areas in terms of highway safety and tie in something like this, I think it's the sort of thing we could perhaps look upon more favourably, but given the current nature of this bill, it's one which we cannot support and I can assure you will be vigorously opposing in the days and weeks to come.

The Deputy Speaker: Questions or comments?

Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): In the time allotted, I'd like to make a few comments on the speech made by the member for Leeds-Grenville. I think the speech he's made has outlined and underscored some of the real problems with this particular legislation. As debate rotates in the Legislature, I too am going to have the opportunity to take part in a more full fashion in the debate.

I think it is clear that the problem with the legislation is that it is pervasive in terms of its intrusion into the civil rights of individuals. It is important for us, as best we can, to heighten the awareness of this piece of legislation with the general public. I believe very strongly that if the general public was aware of what was being debated and aware of what it actually means, there would be a hue and cry that might be sufficient to move the government to actually not proceed any further with this legislation.

So it's important that we all take part in this debate, and I think it's important that those who are watching on the legislative channel, when they hear what this bill is about, what this bill will do, what this bill will take away, share their concerns with the government and put a stop to this bill proceeding any further.

I would like to state to the member for Leeds-Grenville, who has spoken on the bill, that I believe he has underscored some of the real concerns that many, many people have with this legislation. I only hope that members of the government might be listening to some of those things that are being said and might say: "Wait a minute. What we're doing and where we're intruding upon is wrong, and let's just stop the debate where it stands."

Mr Tilson: I congratulate the member for Leeds-Grenville on a whole slew of issues he's raised with respect to this bill, but the one issue I have taken note of is the lack of personal contact with an accused person. Normally, in cases of criminal or quasi-criminal matters, you can't get convicted unless you've been identified. Cases are thrown out of court if the police are unable to identify the person who's committing the crime.

That principle will now go out the window with this particular charge. You're going to take a picture of an automobile and you're going to look at the licence plate, and the person who happens to own that motor vehicle, even though he or she may not be driving it, is the one who is going to be convicted and fined.

Meanwhile, speeders today who are still caught by conventional methods will be subjected to far greater fines. Those individuals will have a loss of their licence as a result of points that have accumulated, and increased insurance rates. Not so with the principle of a photo-radar: There will be no notification of the insurance company of the driver who's committing speeding offences, nor will they be obliged to lose demerit points.

It's a rather strange thing the government's trying to do. The suggestion that it's simply a cash grab I think is the truth, because when you look with the number of accidents that are being created today and what the current laws are trying to do -- and there's no question that there's room for improvement. The member for Leeds-Grenville listed a whole slew of things, everything from graduated licensing to improved roads to other matters such as the whole issue of age of driving and of impaired driving. All those issues need to be looked at together. I congratulate the member on his comments today.

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Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I just want to respond to a couple of points the member raised in his debate that I think are worth noting. I want to deal with two issues because I've only got two minutes to deal with them. One is the issue of the owner of the vehicle getting the fine. The second one the honourable member talked about was the whole question of whether all the money raised through photo-radar would go to a dedicated fund to deal with highway initiatives or infrastructure of highways.

On the first issue, in regard to the owner getting the fine for the speeding violation, what we're trying to say through this legislation to a certain extent is that owners have to take responsibility for their vehicles. I am a father. I have a vehicle at home and I have a young daughter who drives. I must take responsibility to make sure that my daughter, when she borrows my car, is not taking her life into her hands and that she does things safely. I want to make sure that my daughter drives safely. I want to make sure I find out at any time if she's been speeding, that she doesn't just get a fine and I don't hear about it. I would like to have some notice that somebody who is using my car is not using it safely so I can make some decisions about whether that person should have the right to use my vehicle again.

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): Your insurance premiums will go up.

Mr Bisson: Like the member for Chatham-Kent says, it will also affect my insurance premiums. I recognize the opposition of the members and where the members in the opposition parties are coming from on that issue, but I think you have to be fair and see the other side of it as well. I understand your argument; I understand the other side.

On the question of dedicated revenue, the honourable member knows well that all revenues raised through the province, as with every other province across the country, go to the general revenue fund. Out of that general revenue fund, the Treasurer of Ontario, now the Finance minister, attributes money back to ministries to spend money on programs in terms of highway safety and highway initiatives. I would remind the member that the province of Ontario spends $1.8 billion a year in building new roads and maintaining the roads we have in the province, far more than any other province. This is not seen as a means to get money to do that; we already have the budget to do that.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I think it is revealing, it is significant, when a member of this House who has stood on many occasions and agreed with police actions and has been among those in the House who have defended the police and has been in agreement with the police associations is prepared to stand in this House, as the member for Leeds-Grenville is prepared to do, to disagree with the associations' stand and with this piece of legislation.

If there's one reputation that the member for Leeds-Grenville has established, it's as a law-and-order person, whether one agrees or disagrees with him, and many people have had disagreements with Mr Runciman on many occasions with the stance he has taken, particularly those on the governing side at present. I think it's very significant when he has taken the stand he has on this particular piece of legislation.

I want to commend him for many of the arguments he's brought to the attention of the House this afternoon, arguments which really point to the fact that this is nothing more and nothing less than a revenue bill designed to bring in revenue for the government, a bill which is designed, as he has mentioned -- and I want to again compliment him on that -- to derive funds from the driving public, funds which will not be dedicated to any specific endeavour on the part of the government which would assist motorists or assist safety.

All the money that is collected by government goes into the consolidated revenue fund. It's interesting that a lot of people don't realize that even lottery funds go into the consolidated revenue fund. They don't go into some special fund to be used for recreation. None of them does. There is no such thing that is ever done.

Interjection.

Mr Bradley: For the member over there for -- wherever he's from; he's just there for a little while, so it doesn't matter. I can tell you, yes, every tax that is levied, every charge that is levied, anything that happens goes into the consolidated revenue fund and still goes into the consolidated revenue fund.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Leeds-Grenville, you have two minutes.

Mr Runciman: I appreciate the participation of other members and their responses to my comments. I simply want to say that I'm not optimistic. The member for Mississauga North was hoping that public reaction and making people aware of this might generate a different response from the government. I'm not really optimistic about that, but I do hope we can raise public awareness about the implications of this legislation. But in terms of the government members changing their views, I over the last three years have become pretty dubious about that sort of response being generated, despite the fact that the public may be very much opposed to what they're doing or considering doing.

We've seen that certainly in law-and-order issues where I simply can't believe the responses of some of their ministers. They're out of touch. Their backbenchers -- we've described them as sheep-like and I think it's pretty accurate -- dutifully get on their feet and try to justify what their government is doing or not doing.

I want to reinforce one thing: Take the politics out of this. The most important element that I raised in my comments today was the fact that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police took a look at photo-radar. They didn't believe it was appropriate; they didn't believe it could be scientifically accurate. But the most important observation: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said that photo-radar was, in their view, nothing more than a revenue generator.

That's not a politician saying it on the opposition side of the House. That's not someone with a bone to pick with the NDP saying it. That's the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who've said that. If you want to think about one thing, and one thing only, that's the one to think about.

The Deputy Speaker: Any further debate?

Mr Bisson: I'm glad to have this opportunity to spend a few minutes going over some of the points on this particular bill.

I think what's really needed at the beginning of this debate is an explanation of what this bill is all about and what photo-radar is all about. Because, for whatever reasons, the way that this particular bill has been portrayed by some members of the opposition has left certain points out. That tends to confuse the public to a certain extent and I'd like to make the record show what this bill is all about and what it's actually intended to do.

First of all, what is this? We're talking about photo-radars. We're talking about installing at first a few photo-radars along some very troubled highways that we have in the province of Ontario. We're not talking about putting photo-radars at every street corner across the province of Ontario so when our neighbours go out they're all going to get nabbed by some photo-radar. That's not what this is all about.

This is about saying we have certain highways within the province of Ontario that have particular problems when it comes to speed. If we look in our ridings we can probably find a few, but the way this is going to go is that you're going to see probably about two or three photo-radars set up initially in order to evaluate how they work and to see the effectiveness in being able to reduce the amount of accidents through speed on those particular stretches of highway. What you will see is at the most two or three of these particular photo-radars being set up initially.

The second part of this will be that there will be posted along the highway by which the photo-radar will be installed that the highway is being patrolled by photo-radar. Imagine driving down Highway 401 or Highway 11 going up to northern Ontario where there is a sign saying: "Be careful, there's a police officer on the side of the highway. Slow down." This driver knows what to do; he's going to slow down and watch what he's doing or she's doing.

What we're doing is saying we want to put people on notice that this is a troubled highway, that this is a highway on which we've had fatalities in regard to speed, and that we will post that photo-radar will be on those roads, and people will have ample opportunity to read that sign because it'll be big enough and written in such a way that you'll be able to see it and know that you're going into an area that's being monitored. So drivers will have an opportunity to slow down in order not to get caught by photo-radar.

The second thing is this whole question about the cash cow. Opposition members' role is to oppose. I'll be very frank with you: If I was in opposition I would be finding all of the reasons why I should oppose this bill, because that is a role of an opposition member. When we're in opposition we oppose government; that's what we're supposed to do.

One thing Ontarians and all Canadians have said to us, through the referendum and even to a certain extent in this last federal election, is that people are getting disenchanted with the system of Parliament and how we represent the people in our ridings. They look at this Parliament and they say, "We would like to have some debate, yes, where people are critical of what governments are doing, because that is the role of opposition," and I accept that. But let's be somewhat fairminded about how we approach particular debates.

So when we talk about the issue of this being a cash cow --

Mr Bradley: You're doing a fantastic job.

Mr Bisson: There goes the member from Niagara again. Thank you very much, I'm glad to know that.

Mr Hope: The member from St Catharines says we're doing a fantastic job.

Mr Bisson: Yes. The point I was getting to was that they turn around and talk about this being a cash cow. Frankly, if the government of Ontario doesn't collect a dime on this, I'll be perfectly happy, along with everybody else within the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Transportation and the minister himself. Because it will mean that the program is a success, that people are not speeding in troubled areas, that people are watching their speed themselves and they're able --

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Mr Robert V. Callahan (Brampton South): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: This is a very essential bill. It's a justice bill. I don't believe we have a quorum in the House right now. I would call that to the Speaker's attention.

The Deputy Speaker: Would you please check if there is quorum.

Acting Table Clerk (Ms Lisa Freedman): A quorum is not present, Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker ordered the bells rung.

Acting Table Clerk: A quorum is now present, Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Cochrane South.

Mr Bisson: Just to repeat the last point, and before I get into debate, one of the issues that's been raised over and over again is the question that somehow photo-radar is a cash cow and that it's a way the government is trying to get money from people.

As I say, if this photo-radar doesn't raise a dime in the province of Ontario, that will be considered a success in my books, because it will mean that people are actually watching the speed they're driving on our highways. Really, that's what this is all about. This is a safety initiative in order to get people to reduce speeds.

Why do we want to do that? Let's take a look at some of the costs we have when it comes to speed. I was listening to the member for Durham the other day, Mr Gord Mills, talk about some of the percentages in regard to the amount of traffic fatalities that have been prevented in particular jurisdictions across Europe, and even in North America, where photo-radar has been put together. He was comparing what the accident rates were before and what the accident rates were after photo-radar had been installed in those particular jurisdictions, and the numbers were quite telling. The numbers were saying anywhere from 20% to 80% reduction in traffic fatalities and accidents across those jurisdictions.

Let's do a little bit of math on this. We know that presently in the province of Ontario there are approximately 90,000 drivers injured every year on our highways. We know that roughly 1,100 people are killed every year on our highways, related to traffic deaths. Of those accidents, a fairly high percentage are attributed directly to speed, people who are going too quickly and cannot react to an emergency in front of them and the accident happens.

The cost of that is tragic. We're talking about people's real lives. People actually get injured and die through these accidents, and I think that's something all of us really don't want to see.

If we were to accept the very low estimate and we were to say we can reduce traffic accidents by 20% -- let's say we save 20% to 30% at the most -- if we were to say that we can reduce traffic fatalities and accidents in the province of Ontario, let's think about what that means. We're talking about 250 to 300 people a year who would not die in traffic accidents who presently do. Those are people's husbands, wives, children, brothers, sisters. Those are real lives of real people.

The other thing is on the cost side and this is something I think people need to take mind of. If we have 90,000 people who are getting injured in accidents and we're able to reduce that by 20%, 25%, 30%, we're able to save roughly about 25,000 to 30,000 to 35,000 injuries a year. That is a direct cost to our health care system if somebody gets banged up in an accident and ends up in an emergency ward somewhere in a hospital, in Chatham or Iroquois Falls or Timmins or wherever it might be. If we don't have to pay those dollars, those are dollars saved to the taxpayers through our health care system.

The estimates on those numbers haven't even been done, but I think you can well imagine that we're talking in the tens of millions of dollars, if not the hundreds of millions of dollars, that we could save in our health care system at a time when there's not enough money to go around, and to balance the books at the end of the year.

I think on that particular point it makes a lot of sense. If we want to be able to save dollars overall as government and if we want to be fiscally more responsible, we have to look at all the mechanisms that are before us in order to be able to save some dollars, and one of the things that photo-radar will do is reduce the number of accidents.

Why do we say that? Because it is the experience in every other jurisdiction. They've had photo-radar in Alberta, in the city of Calgary, for some four years now. They've just recently introduced it in March 1993 in Edmonton. The experience there is that we've had a reduction of accidents. We've had a reduction in both fatalities and injuries in those jurisdictions where photo-radar has been installed.

We know that in California, in Arizona and in different states across the United States that have installed it, they have similar figures, depending on what state and how it's been implemented, of from 40% to 80% reduction in accidents.

We know that in Australia, New Zealand and all of their states, they have photo-radar in place and they have pretty telling stories in regard to reduction of actual accidents. Virtually every country in Europe has photo-radar, with the exception of a few. What you're finding there is the same kind of thing.

I think we have a responsibility, when it comes to public safety, to make sure that indeed we do everything we can to make our highways safer.

I accept the argument from the opposition in regard to some people in the province of Ontario won't like this. Listen, I remember back in the 1980s when the Conservative government brought in seatbelt legislation in Ontario, I was one of the people who were saying: "God, don't do that. That's awful. You're going to restrict my ability in a vehicle."

Interjection.

Mr Bisson: It was 1974? Is it that long ago? It seems like only yesterday, but I remember when that legislation came in, and the government of the day, a Conservative government, introduced seatbelt legislation. Most Ontarians, I would say 80% to 90% -- I don't know what actual figures -- were opposed to wearing seatbelts in their cars because it was not the culture for people to wear belts in their cars. Most of us opposed it, and most of us went out and we lobbied our local MPPs at the time to say: "Hey, we don't want that. We don't want to be restricted by having to put on seatbelts. We don't like that." But look at today. How many people actually drive their cars without a seatbelt? It is now an accepted standard that people do. The result is that many people have had their lives saved because of wearing seatbelts.

The government of the day did something that was technically right, something that had to be done, something that made a lot of sense but that wasn't very popular on the part of the people. In the long run, people accepted it and saw it for what it was: It was a good safety measure.

The government of the day, the Conservative government -- I think it was followed up by the Liberal government -- put in fines in regard to seatbelts. They increased those fines at different times. If you didn't wear a belt, you paid a fine. Was that a revenue grab? No. It was a question of safety. It wasn't a revenue grab when the Conservatives put a fine on seatbelts. It was a question of having to find a way to get people to do that in order to become more safety conscious when they were driving their vehicles, and to wear a belt. So they put on their belts in order not to get the fine, and conversely, we have saved a lot of lives.

I know that I was involved in a head-on accident some 10 years ago up on the airport road in Timmins where I was doing about 50 and the other person was doing about 50 for a total impact of about 100 miles an hour, and everybody walked out without a scratch. I dare say that if we hadn't been wearing our belts, people might have been killed or people might at least have been injured. I recognize that sometimes government makes me do things I don't like, but sometimes they're better for me.

I understand and I realize that there are people in my constituency I've talked to who don't like photo-radar, and I'll say publicly in this House that I understand that. I think every member in the House has probably been lobbied on both sides of this issue. But by and large, when you sit down with people, people do accept the premise that we have to find a way of making our highways safer. We need to find a way of making highways safer by making sure they're properly maintained, that we don't have more curves on our highways than we need, that things are maintained properly in order to be able to have as safe driving conditions as possible, but part of that conditioning also has to be done on the driver.

I want to go through a couple of more issues with regard to photo-radar, with regard to some of the issues that were raised and some of the questions around the implementation of the legislation.

One of the things that was talked about: I think it was the member for Willowdale a few days ago who raised the issue of collection of fines. There are really two issues there. One of the things he talked about was that we're going to be in the position where the legislation is not going to stand before the courts, and that we may have some court challenges in regard to the charter on the implementation of the legislation.

Everybody is like a Sunday morning quarterback when it comes to new legislation being put in place. We have an experience where it has been put in place in Canada, in Alberta, particularly in Edmonton. It has withstood court challenges before the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the law has been written in such a way, with that in mind, so that we don't end up in a situation where we have all kinds of charter challenges.

Yes, we recognize that if the legislation was not properly put together, we may have a problem, but one of the things we took time to make sure was that legal counsel here in Ontario looked at it and made sure it was written in such a way that we don't get a court challenge, that it would basically stand up.

Will somebody take us to court? That's always a possibility. Everybody takes the government to court at one point, but I don't think that should detract from the initiative of trying to make our highways a little bit safer.

The other issue around the whole question of the fine and how that worked was the whole issue about the person who gets the fine is the owner of the vehicle. A lot of members have stood in this House and said: "Well, that's awful. How are we ever going to administer that kind of system?" We already have that. Every time I go out and rent a vehicle at Tilden or any other rental agency in the province of Ontario and I get a fine for whatever it might be, they send the bill to Tilden, Tilden puts it on my Amex card, and I pay for it. That's been in place for a long time. Why do I know? Because I've paid a couple of parking tickets that way, to be practical about it. That's what they do. They put it on your card. If you don't have a card, they get hold of you to collect it. So we already have a system like that. That's something that's already happened.

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The other thing, quite frankly, is I think there are two sides to this argument: There are those who will argue in opposition and there are those who will argue in my constituency that what you've got is a system by which the driver will be penalized if somebody's going out and speeding in his or her car. An argument can be put that that's unfair. I understand that argument. But I say again what I said at the very beginning: we, as the owner of the vehicle, have to have some responsibility in making sure that we take care who we pass our vehicle to.

In my case, my daughter is a new driver. She's 16 years old. She's just got her licence. She's now starting to drive. I want to find out if she's out on the highway and she's speeding somewhere where she shouldn't be. I want to know about that, because I want to suspend her bloody -- excuse me. Julie, I was thinking of you. Sorry. I want to suspend her driving privileges if she starts to take that kind of behaviour behind the wheel, because I want her to be a responsible driver. I don't want her putting her life in jeopardy by doing something behind the wheel that she shouldn't be doing. I can't prevent her from ever having an accident, but I certainly want to take every precaution, as a father, to make sure that I know about her driving habits so that she doesn't do things that she shouldn't be doing. If it means to say that the government of Ontario, through the Ontario Provincial Police, is going to send me a bill because she was speeding, I will find out about it, and you can guarantee it will come out of her allowance.

Mrs Ellen MacKinnon (Lambton): Way to go, Dad.

Mr Bisson: Well, some people would call me cheap, but she'll have to pay her way the same way I have to pay mine.

The same will take care of if I lend my car to my brother or my neighbour or whoever and I get a ticket. It will be my responsibility to go to the individual to whom I lent the vehicle and say: "Hey, you were speeding in my car. I got a ticket. I want you to pay the fine." If the person doesn't pay the fine, well, excuse me, I shouldn't have lent him the car in the first place. He doesn't deserve to have my friendship if he doesn't want to pay back what he owes.

I understand there are two sides to this argument, but I just ask members to be fairminded. I accept the argument of the opposition and I understand the argument that you made, because people in my constituency have made the same argument to me. It is a valid one to a certain extent, but there is another side to this, and I think we need to take that into consideration.

The other thing I want to talk about is the whole question of police presence. The previous member who was up from the Conservative Party talked about the whole question behind the RCMP and how they see this legislation as being simply a tax grab. I've got to say, it's like having two-fisted economists. You have people out there who will say different things about different pieces of legislation from various sides. This is a democratic society in which people, organizations and groups have the right to be able to express their particular view.

In the view of the RCMP, they feel that way. That's fine. But there are many other groups out there that feel quite the opposite. So just because one particular law enforcement agency says they see this as a tax grab doesn't mean to say it is so. It means to say they have a view that is different than other groups, and in a democracy that's the way it works.

There are plenty of jurisdictions that have done this. Does it mean to say that every other jurisdiction across North America and across the world that has done this is wrong because one particular group says they are? It means to say that we have a difference of opinion, and I think that's healthy in a democratic society. I think we should take it for what it is and understand what they're saying, but I don't think you take it as the gospel truth and regard it as the only view that's out there on photo-radar. Let's be a little bit fairminded about this.

The other issue with regard to the police is that, for example, on Highway 400, most of us recognize that the OPP trying to patrol that particular highway would have an extremely difficult time trying to basically apprehend every speeder who goes down that highway. It is virtually impossible.

One of the things photo-radar will do is that it will allow the police the opportunity to get those troublesome drivers on those highways who are speeding in excess of what they should be driving.

Now, I want to make it clear. Highway 400 says the speed limit is 100 kilometres an hour. The photo-radar is not going to be set at 101 or 102 or 105 or 110. My God, you'd have everybody on that highway being apprehended. Nobody drives at 100 on that particular highway. But what they will do is set the photo-radar at a speed level, an increase 20 to 30 kilometres, it is imagined, above what the actual speed limit is, to get those people who are really abusing the system to a certain extent.

What happens is that --

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villenueve): Order, please. The member for Cochrane South does have the floor very legitimately.

Mr Bisson: Let's put this into perspective. I hear the member from across the way. I know him as the man with the keys to the Don jail. I know the member across the way. I forgot your riding. I apologize; I shouldn't have said that. I just forgot your riding. It's the first thing that came to my mind.

The thing is that we know the practice of the Ontario Provincial Police, like every other police force across this province. If you're driving on a highway and the posted speed limit is 90 kilometres an hour, they're not going to nab you at 91 or 92 or 95 or even 100 in 99% of cases. But if you're driving in excess of probably 10 to 20 kilometres over and being dangerous, they start watching what you're doing. If you're doing anything that's remotely out of the ordinary when it comes to how you're handling your vehicle, they will pull you over. There are instances out there, I am sure, where police officers have pulled people over for 110 in a 100 zone, but that is not the current practice within the police forces of Ontario.

The point I'm trying to make is simply this: Let's not go out and start spreading a certain amount of fear across the drivers of Ontario by saying photo-radar means anybody who's doing 105 in a 100 zone is going to get a ticket. That's not what this is all about, and I think people recognize that. Basically, what would be done is that the photo-radar would be set at a speed somewhere above the speed limit in order to watch those people who are really abusing their privileges when it comes to driving on the highways of Ontario.

I'll say again and I'll say publicly: The other thing is that if photo-radar doesn't raise one dime, one red cent, it'll be a success and it'll be wonderful. I really hope that happens. If that happens, that's great, because then we will have achieved exactly what we wanted to do when it comes to photo-radar.

L'autre point que j'aimerais faire, c'est toute la question des revenus que ce programme-là va être capable de soulever faisant affaire avec les revenus qui vont venir à la province de l'Ontario.

Les députés de l'opposition ont dit : «Écoutez. Si les argents qui sont soulevés à travers ce programme seraient dirigés directement pour réparer les routes dans notre province ou qu'on utilisait l'argent pour des initiatives pour conduire nos véhicules, «safety», ce serait très bien. On serait d'accord avec le programme et on dirait que oui, c'est une bonne idée et on donnerait notre appui à la législation.»

Le point est, et on le sait tous dans cette Législature ici, que tous les dollars que le gouvernement soulève à travers de différents mécanismes de perception à travers la province vont dans la même place : dans le trésor de l'Ontario. Le Trésorier de la province de l'Ontario chaque année s'assied, fait un budget pour chacun des ministères et dit, «Tenez, les argents appropriés pour cette année faisant affaire avec les opérations de votre ministère.»

Ça veut dire que si, par exemple, le «photo-radar» veut dire qu'il va y avoir, on va dire, deux millions ou cinq millions ou 20 millions ou pas de dollars de revenu d'attirés à travers ces initiatives, l'argent va directement dans «general revenue» et le Trésorier prend des décisions faisant affaire avec où l'argent va aller pour les différents ministères.

L'autre affaire, c'est que le ministère des Transports de l'Ontario dépense déjà environ 1,8 milliard de dollars par année dans la province de l'Ontario quand ça vient à l'infrastructure de nos autoroutes et nos chemins. C'est plus que n'importe où à travers la province. C'est même plus que le total dans le petit livre rouge de M. Chrétien à Ottawa, qui parle d'un milliard de dollars pour une année pour tout le pays. Nous autres, on dépense 1,8 milliard de dollars par année seulement pour nos routes et quatre milliards de dollars pour des projets de capitaux.

Dire : «Écoute, la raison pour laquelle je ne veux pas donner mon approbation à ce morceau de législation, c'est parce que l'argent ne va pas directement aux initiatives de sécurité sur nos autoroutes -- on a besoin de regarder cette affaire-là un peu plus clairement et puis dire que si on veut trouver des raisons à s'y opposer, je ne pense pas que ce soit la meilleure raison qu'on a.

The other point I would like to make, and I'll end at this point, is just to say this. I'll say again directly to the members of the opposition that I accept and I understand the arguments that some of the members are putting up on photo-radar. I accept it because I understand the role that opposition plays. Some of the concerns you raise are legitimate concerns that have been raised to you by your constituents, and I understand that. I've had the same people come to me and express pleasure and displeasure about all kinds of legislation introduced in this House and every other House that ever sat before us, but that should not deter us when it comes to a safety initiative.

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If at the end of the day, through photo-radar, we are able to make our highways safer and are able to save lives and prevent injuries, I think we have done a service to the people of the province. Will it be the most popular piece of legislation or program this province has ever done? Of course not. There will be people in opposition to it, the same as when we did the seatbelt laws, but nobody can argue with the fact that by making our highways safer, we're going to be able to save lives within the province and prevent injury. For that, I think we need to give support to this legislation and we need to go ahead.

With that, Mr Speaker, I would like to thank you for this opportunity in debate.

The Acting Speaker: The time is now for questions or comments.

Mr Callahan: One of the problems with this bill, like some of the justice bills brought in by this government, is that they're eroding the rights of people, taking away their right to be heard.

The member for Cochrane South says, "Well, they'll set the radar at 110 in a 100-kilometre zone." I hope they carry a copy of your Hansard with them so they can wave that at the judge or the justice of the peace and say, "I was told by the member for Cochrane South that I wouldn't get a ticket until I went over 110 kilometres." That may be a defence. Who knows?

What I've got to say to you is that you're making laws for people and you seem to think it's perfectly all right to take away the basic right, the basic freedom of every person who lives in a free country to have the right of a trial, to have the right to confront their accuser. This bill eliminates the necessity for the officer arriving at the court if you enter a plea of not guilty, unless you serve notice that you want him there. How many people do you think are really educated in the law and are going to know that? So what you're doing, just to grab money -- that's the only reason I can see for this -- is that you're depriving people of rights they will not be aware of unless they go out and hire a paralegal at $600 or $800 or a lawyer at perhaps more or less than that.

With every piece of legislation you look at in terms of justice, you seem to forget there is an inalienable principle that everyone who is accused of a crime, whatever crime it is, be it a Highway Traffic Act offence, has the right to be heard, has the right to confront their accuser. You're creating what in effect could be the inquisition of the 1990s through to the year 2000 and beyond. That is part of the problem. I suggest that the Magna Carta perhaps is being eliminated by some of the justice policies that have been brought forward by the Attorney General, who doesn't seem to understand that it's justice. It's not a question of revenues being collected.

Mr Tilson: I'd like to make a few comments with respect to the member for Cochrane South. The emphasis of the member's comments is that this is a safety issue, and it is that specific point I take great exception to.

When you look at what photo-radar is trying to do, it is trying to stop accidents, and it is identifying someone who's driving a car and the message goes to the owner of the car. It's rather a strange process. You've cited other countries and other jurisdictions where photo-radar has been tried, but to be fair, there are other jurisdictions that have tried it such as Illinois, Arizona and California, to name several, that have tried it and have said it doesn't work. They don't want it and they've backed off. That's exactly what's happened.

There are three basic reasons why photo-radar is not going to be successful.

The first is that there's no traffic stop, which means that people who are committing other offences, drunk driving or other offences, won't be stopped at that specific time.

The second is that the vehicle owners are being presumed guilty and must prove their innocence, a rather strange new introduction into our laws, even for motor vehicle drivers. It's a rather strange situation to say you're presumed guilty and you must prove your innocence. That's one factor that is rather a new process that this government is introducing into our society.

The third challenge with respect to the legislation is that it can take a week for a ticket to arrive in the mail, perhaps longer, depending on where you are and the type of mail service that's available. Sometimes the equipment may be incorrect or erratic. If people get something in the mail, they don't know what in the world it is, let alone something that happened a week before, whereas if they were charged at the time of the offence they would know exactly what they'd done. It's a rather unfair procedure you're creating. In fact, you are indeed creating a cash cow.

Mr Hope: I know the member in his time would have loved to talk about the parking ticket issue. When a car is parked on the side of the road, there's no driver, there's nobody in it, and it sits there and we put a parking ticket on it. Who is responsible for that ticket? The owner of the vehicle is responsible for the ticket. Sometimes they don't even know the ticket's there because it might fall off the windshield or whatever. When you argue about being presumed guilty until proved innocent or whatever allegations you're talking about, I think you have to use it in that context.

We try to grasp this thing, because I guess it is a breaking of habits, the habit of driving over the speed limit. The member asks, "How do you know what this radar's going to be set at?" Talk to most OPP officers. They'll tell you that the radars they have are already set a little higher than the normal speed limit. That's common knowledge. That doesn't take a mathematical genius to figure out.

I also have to ask a serious question: Why do we have speed limit signs posted on our highway and on the bottom it says "maximum"? Doesn't that tell people that is the maximum speed we can travel?

If we were to equip our police officers appropriately to start catching some of these Porsches and other turbo-chargers -- let me tell you, the motorcycles they're building today are rocket spaceships; they fly down the highway. Do you want to jeopardize more lives by even higher-speed chases to catch somebody speeding? That's what we're talking about.

You talk about the state of California. Do you know why the state of California brought in photo-radar? They brought it in because they had to have super-charged cop cars there to try to catch them on the highway. They were making sure they could put the radar in place to stop jeopardizing the safety of officers.

If people are driving over the speed limit, they're breaking the law and they have a responsibility, just as if they park in a no-parking zone they will get a parking ticket.

I go back to the real issue: What is the maximum speed limit? If you're over, you know you're in violation of a law.

Mr Bradley: The member in his remarks to the House kept suggesting that those in the opposition speaking on this bill are opposed to it because that's the opposition role, to oppose government policy. In fact, there are a number of pieces of legislation that come before a House in any session with any government in power where there is some agreement on the legislation. Bill 17 was one example. Everybody in the House except me agreed with Bill 17 apparently, so I exercised my option to not vote in favour of Bill 17. I point that out to the member. In this case it has nothing to do with the fact that you are bringing it in. I opposed this when this bizarre idea was brought before the Liberal cabinet. There's always discussion of some of these measures. I thought it was crazy at that time and I still think it's crazy because it's a straight cash cow.

I know the member will say that if you put these cameras up, it allows the police the time to spend on other things. I think the police should spend their time going after bad drivers, people who are weaving from lane to lane, people who are driving in a very dangerous fashion, and police over the years have largely exercised that particular option to go after those very dangerous drivers.

Another problem that exists on our highways -- the member lives in northern Ontario. If one has to drive up Highway 11, what about the pokers who sit in the left lane doing 37 miles an hour with 91 cars behind? People pass, and they have to accelerate to pass. If there happens to be photo-radar there, we're going to have a good cash cow for the Ontario government because everybody's going to have to speed up to pass the parade leader.

These are the kinds of things I think the police should be concentrating on. I don't mind that they're going after people for speeding when they're clearly in a dangerous situation, but this is simply a cash cow and nothing else.

The Acting Speaker: This completes questions and/or comments. The honourable member for Cochrane South has two minutes in response.

Mr Bisson: I listened to comments from members in the House in regard to what I had to say in the debate. I say to the member for St Catharines that I don't pretend for a second that the opposition parties don't have the right to oppose legislation; that's not what I'm saying. I am saying that I would like, at least sometimes when you come into this place and you're having a debate, that you speak around the issues and try to recognize that there are some net benefits in this legislation. For anybody to stand here and say this is strictly a cash cow and that there is no safety initiative tied to this I think is not being as upfront about this legislation and as fair as they should be.

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Fair is fair. I understand the point and I accept the arguments from the members of the opposition. I've heard the same comments made in my riding on the part of some of my constituents, but in fairness, when we sit down and we talk about this, my constituents also recognize that there is a safety component. They may not like it but they understand it and all I ask the members is to do the same thing.

In regard to the member who raised the issue of comparing photo-radar to the Magna Carta -- my God -- I won't even comment on that one. I would only say to that member, you don't have any rights if you're dead. If somebody gets killed on a highway because of speed, they're not going to have any rights if they're dead. If we can save 250 to 350 lives a year in the province of Ontario in traffic accidents, I think it's an initiative that's well worth taking and something that's deserving of the support of the members of this Legislature.

I would just urge members again at the end that I recognize this is a partisan Legislature. It's a Legislature whereby people have a role to play by bantering back and forth when it comes to legislation, but all I ask is members to be somewhat fair in the debate of this legislation. I've been listening here patiently for a week. I've heard members make the same points over and over again and not once is there even an attempt to be fair when it comes to looking at this legislation.

I accept some of your arguments the same as the rest of the members of this government. We ask you to be somewhat fairminded reviewing this legislation and give support for this very important legislation of the people of Ontario.

Mr Offer: I'm pleased to join in the debate on Bill 47, which is referred to as the photo-radar legislation. I speak, let me say right at the outset, in opposition to the bill, with some serious concerns which the government and government members have not been able to address. I hope that in the time allotted maybe we can go through some of those concerns I have.

Just to begin, I have the news release from the Minister of Transportation which indicates what this thing is all about. I thought it might be fair just to read part of it so those who are watching can put this debate in some context.

It says: "The use of photo-radar cameras" will be used "to photograph the licence plates of speeding vehicles. Virtually all speeding vehicles are captured by the cameras." They say that it will reduce risks, that it will make the system fairer. "A speeding ticket will then be mailed to the vehicle owner, together with a photo of the licence plate of the vehicle."

I think it's important to realize that, firstly, what we're talking about is that they're going to set up some photography, contraptions on the side of roads and they're going to take pictures of cars that pass. We've heard members from the government side saying, "Well, it's not going to really be people who are above the maximum limit; it's going to be people who are way above the maximum limit," and we've heard some discussion as to what way above the maximum limit might be, whether it's 10 kilometres above the maximum limit, 20 kilometres or 30 kilometres.

The fact of the matter is that if we can, and we must, believe what the press release of the Minister of Transportation says, there is going to be a ticket issued for anyone who exceeds the maximum limit, period; not 10 kilometres, not 15 kilometres, not 20 kilometres, but one kilometre. That's basically what the minister, through his press release, has indicated.

I'm opposed to this for a variety of reasons. The first reason I'm opposed to this, and the government just can't come to grips with this, is that individuals who were not in the car, but happen to be the owner of the car, will be the ones who are charged. I just have a very difficult time understanding how we can change the law so fundamentally that we say the person who is speeding doesn't get the ticket; rather the car gets the ticket and whoever owns the car gets the ticket. There's something that's just wrong about that. If someone is breaking a law and they are caught, they should be charged and then have the right to a trial to prove their particular position. This bill is a real difference in that the person who receives the ticket or the fine may, in many ways, never be the person who broke the law.

For members of the government, that might be a small point but I think it's an important point. I think it's very important that we keep as best we can the principle that those who break the law and are caught and charged are the ones who, if that charge is proved, face the penalty.

This bill takes us into a whole new area, and that is that it doesn't matter whether you broke the law. If you happen to own the car that was driven by somebody who broke the law, then you suffer the penalty. There is something very wrong with a system that creates that. The government has not been able to address that point.

I will state at this point that I find it patronizing, if not demeaning, that members of the government side say that whenever opposition members bring forward arguments or concerns about the legislation, it is only because we are opposition and not that the points we raise have some validity. I say that just as an aside because I find that to be particularly demeaning to members on this side of the Legislature, and particularly demeaning to, for instance, my constituents who have brought forward these concerns to me, that I, as their member, bring forward in this Legislature. I think that there's a problem in that area which, I will tell you, I don't expect members in the government to address, because it would be surprising if they would.

We have heard these examples of children speeding in cars, our cars, and that this is the bill that's going to really make sure we keep tabs on our kids. I'm a father of three girls; the eldest is 14. Let me tell you something: This bill doesn't help me at all. I will tell you why. You would think, by listening to the members of the government, that on Friday your child is going to have borrowed your car, have sped, that their picture is going to be taken and that you're going to get a letter and a fine Saturday morning so that you can say: "Wait a minute. I didn't have the car last night. You did. You're the one who sped and I want to know more about it."

Listen, this bill isn't going to do that. You're going to get a letter, but it's going to be six weeks after the date, and I challenge anybody to try to remember where they were six weeks ago. I challenge anybody to remember where they were driving six hours ago in many cases. So you're not going to have any real confidence that it was your kid. It could have been you. You're going to say, "Jeez, was I on that road that night? I can't even remember where the heck I was going."

There is no security that you're going to receive because of these letters you're going to receive four and five and six weeks and probably three months later, and you're going to say: "Jeez, I don't know who the heck had that car. What the heck was I doing on the road that evening?"

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The problem is that what the general public in many cases is going to do is pay that. That's wrong, because they might not have committed an offence. It is wrong to plead guilty to a matter that you have not done. If you think that it is right, in the sphere of expeditiousness, then you're totally wrong in principle. So there is no grand scheme in which you're going to be able to keep tabs on your children, because you're not going to remember who was in the car. That is a problem. It is a problem of fundamental, if not natural, justice.

These are not just my concerns; they're the concerns of people who have called me who are very concerned with maintaining safety on the highway. I've heard people speak about, "The speed limit is this and it should be that," or, "It should be changed to this." I don't think this bill is about that. There are others who decide what a proper speed limit on a road should be, and they take into account a whole variety of factors: the type of road, the lanes in the road, the usage of the road, where it's located. That's not for this bill. This bill assumes that roads have speed limits. What this bill fails to do is make certain that safety is enhanced. This bill does not enhance safety; I believe it takes away from safety.

I think it's just absolutely clear why this bill fails. This bill fails because it is an effrontery to natural justice -- it is an effrontery to justice. It does not permit the person to be charged with an offence at the time of committing an offence. It leaves a lag period of six or seven or eight weeks.

Mr Turnbull: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I think the member has some very salient points to bring to the assembly, and we don't appear to have a quorum.

The Acting Speaker: Do we have a quorum? Can the clerk check, please.

Acting Table Clerk: A quorum is not present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

Acting Table Clerk: A quorum is now present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member for Mississauga North may resume his participation in the debate.

Mr Offer: Just made it. When I left off, I spoke about how this bill didn't enhance safety but really did take away from the safety aspect. I want to explain why I feel this way. I have spoken about my concern that a person who has not broken the law is going to get charged as if they had broken the law, and there will be a sufficient lag of time, in my estimation -- six, seven, eight weeks -- that they will not know with any real degree of certainty what in fact they were doing or where they were driving a couple of months ago. I have a concern about that.

But what about the safety issue? We also have to recognize that not only is this bill faulty in terms of its justice issue, but, remember, there are no demerit points attributed to any conviction. I want to talk about that for a short period of time, because we now find ourselves listening to different speeches by the same minister.

The Minister of Transportation, on photo-radar, Bill 47, says this bill will enhance safety. The same minister says, in the area of seatbelts -- I happen to have a quote. We will remember that just a very short few weeks ago the Minister of Transportation announced that for those who do not wear seatbelts, demerit points would be issued. So here we have speeding, photo-radar, demerit points not issued; seatbelts, it's announced by the same minister that demerit points would be issued.

Why did the minister say in that area, "Sadly enough, experience in other jurisdictions indicates that it's not the risk of being killed" -- and he speaks about the seatbelt in this case -- "but rather the penalty of demerit points that convinces non-users to buckle up"? So the Minister of Transportation, on seatbelts, is saying that the way in which we can enhance safety is by saying to those who don't buckle up, "Two demerit points," but for speeding, no demerit points. Many people would say: "Now, wait a minute. How can the minister say two different things and try to come to the same conclusion?"

The point I make is that it is clear that in many areas demerit points are the real deterrent, that people don't want to have demerit points added to their driving record. In this case, photo-radar, the one that's trumped up by the government as enhancing driver safety and highway safety, no demerit points are added. In the words of the minister, the same minister, where is the consistency?

I have just thrown aside the issue that government members tried to promote, and that is that photo-radar enhances highway safety, because in the minister's own words, it doesn't. Demerit points, in the opinion of the minister, are the only things that really will cause people to buckle up or to comply with the law. So it is a fallacy.

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Now we have two problems. Firstly, people are going to be charged for no other reason than that they happen to own a car that was speeding. Secondly, they will not get notification of that, in my opinion, for at least two months, so I believe there is a serious justice problem as to then being fully aware of the time and the place when the offence occurred.

Next we have the issue that demerit points by the Ministry of Transportation are important to be assessed for seatbelts, because that will cause people to buckle up, but are not important in photo-radar for people who are speeding. For the first time in the history of this province since demerit points were introduced, there will not be any demerit points for speeding upon a conviction. If that enhances road safety, then we have a strange sense of what's right and wrong in this province.

The next issue I want to deal with is one I came upon in an article, and I think it's important to refer to this article. It's written by Bob Vaillancourt, and it states:

"A new form of radar designed to photograph the licence plate of a speeding car will be nothing but a colossal nightmare, says a Sudbury lawyer." This lawyer, "who in addition to practising law has taught the subject at Laurentian University, says that while the new devices will generate 'tons of money' for the province, they will also generate a legal nightmare."

Let me stop there. That's not a member of the opposition saying that. It is a person who is both a lawyer and a professor who is giving us the benefit of his opinion.

It goes on to say that "photos of the licence plates of speeding vehicles and speeding citations will be sent to the registered owner of the vehicle who is held responsible.

"'They are going to be real bugger,' says Hurtubise. 'The big problem with them is they will be charging the owner rather than the driver.'"

They expect the device to be challenged under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and there's concern with the potential for administrative errors. "'It's going to be an administrative nightmare. If you assume that nine out of every 10 cars are speeding'" -- and we can change those numbers to whatever assumption we wish to make -- "'the camera will take nine out of every 10 cars' pictures.'

"But when it comes to entering all those numbers in government computers, there are bound to be human errors and that is where the problems come in."

"Nightmare" is the same word that is used by the police in describing the device.

"'It will be a public relations nightmare,' says Sergeant Dan Lee of the Sudbury district headquarters of the Ontario Provincial Police. 'People don't like it.'

"Lee predicts it will have a tremendous effect on the speeding driver. But he says the device takes human contact with police out of the equation."

Let's talk about that, because members of the government side have brought forward this issue that the speed limit might be 100 but it's really 110. What they've done is they've introduced the human equation, without using those words. In the past, the only way to get a speeding ticket was to be handed one on the spot by a police officer. With the new photo-radar, there won't be that contact, and that I believe to be not only a human equation issue but also one of justice and fundamental rights.

It goes on to say:

"'You can't say to the camera, "I'm on my way to the hospital with my wife; she's pregnant."'

"Police will lose any discretion in laying charges, says Lee. 'Either you were speeding or you weren't.'"

There is no human equation, as in fact even members of the government side have said. They have given examples of the human equation. The example they themselves gave was that charges are not laid unless you're 10 or 15 or 20 kilometres over the maximum speed. That now is out. There is no human equation.

"'Either you were speeding or you weren't speeding. But,'" it goes on to say, "'you can go to court and say, "I was on my way to the hospital with my wife and she was pregnant," but you have to go to court to prove that.'"

Mrs MacKinnon: What's wrong with that?

Mr Offer: The member says, "What's wrong with that?" What's wrong with that is that you're taking -- and the member shakes her head in utter disbelief, which I can understand. The fact is that in the laying of charges, especially in speeding, there has been a human equation, and if there was a discretion that police officers would give to drivers, it was they who did that. If there were extenuating circumstances such as having to rush someone to a hospital, that would be taken into consideration.

You now will have to go to court to have that extenuating circumstance proven, and the problem is that you're not even going to get notice of that until two and three months later. I believe this is nothing at all to do with safety because you're not issuing demerit points, and if you're not issuing demerit points then you can't say it has anything to do with safety. It has to do with collecting loot. It has everything to do with sending people a notice that says, "Three months ago you were on this road and your car did this and if you pay, you're okay, but if you don't, you're not going to get your licence renewed, or you can go to court and try to prove you weren't there."

We are getting ourselves into a problem of incredible dimension. No safety is enhanced. In fact, as soon as people figure this out, it will be eroded. Justice, civil rights are eroded. The only thing that the government is doing by this bill is setting up the mechanism to collect money. I have a concern with the government doing that under the auspices of, "We're going to make our roads safe."

Let me ask anybody, since when does your road become safer when a speeder, convicted, doesn't get a demerit point? The roads don't get safer. The opposite occurs. The government gets its money, but at what cost? They get their money at the cost of a person's rights. They get their money at the cost of extracting the human equation from these things which have been the rule for years.

People speeding to hospitals in an emergency don't get speeding tickets. They have an excuse and the police understand that and have accepted that. You are bringing in legislation that takes that away. People who have been found guilty of speeding over the maximum limit, upon conviction, are awarded demerit points. That is viewed by everyone, including the Minister of Transportation, as a deterrent. At least he said that when he talked about buckling up seatbelts. That is taken away. You are taking away all of the strengths and replacing it with weaknesses, just so you can collect some dollars.

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You are saying that this is going to allow us to have a better sense as to what and how fast our children are going when they borrow our cars. That's wrong, because you're not going to get notification three hours later; you're going to get notification three months later and you're not going to know if it was your kid who was driving the car. In fact you're not going to know who was driving the car.

What option do you have? Are you going to go to court and say: "Well, it's my car. That's the picture. That's the speed"? They're going to say, "Can you swear that it wasn't you?" You're not going to be able to do it. It was too long ago. So what you're going to do is be found guilty of an offence that you did not have notice of in a timely fashion. You're in effect going to be pleading guilty to a matter when you should not. It takes away your right of defence.

People will say, "Well, you know, it's just a speeding ticket." I think the principle is much greater than that. I believe it's important that when people break the law they are informed of that fact, that they are informed of the law that they broke, that they are informed of the events that led up to the breaking of the law, that they are informed of their rights and that they then can try to take whatever action they wish. This takes all of that away.

It is not about road safety. It is all about the government doing a quick and dirty pickup of some loot at the expense of people's rights, and I am very much opposed to this bill for that.

The last point I want to make is one that I have not heard from the government side, and that is, are there going to be public hearings on this bill? Are we going to allow the general public to have a significant and sufficient time to come to a committee and share their thoughts?

The reason I bring this up is because I asked a question in the Legislature to the Minister of Transportation on October 5, 1993, on this very issue. The minister responded by saying January 1 is when this is going to be implemented by way of a pilot project. Well, we are sitting here on November 4, still in second reading debate. The bill has not yet, obviously, gone out to a committee for public hearings.

Is the general public going to be allowed to speak on this bill? Is the general public going to be allowed to be part of a consultative process about what this bill means to them, about whether they are in favour or opposed, or has the minister unwittingly indicated that this bill is going to be shoved through this Legislature so that it will be a pilot project January 1?

If it is a pilot project January 1, then the public will have no right to be part of a public hearing process. They will have no opportunity to let their thoughts be known, their opinions be heard, and I would like to hear from members of the government whether there is a full commitment to public hearings on this bill and that they will be done in a way which is befitting the public of this province and not railroading and ramrodding a bill through which erodes public safety, which is nothing less than a cash cow and is one that should be defeated at the very earliest opportunity.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. The time has come for questions or comments.

Mr Tilson: I'd like to congratulate the member for Mississauga North on many of his thoughts with respect to this piece of legislation. One comment he raised was the issue which exists in my riding of Dufferin-Peel, which is really two large municipalities. One is Dufferin and one is the town of Caledon. Many of the people in my riding live in the "country," to put it in quotation marks, and many of them have, not out of wealth but out of necessity, more than one vehicle. I can think of several families where the mother or the father have a vehicle and there are several adult children who have a vehicle. It's a fairly common occurrence, and they all interchange with their vehicles.

I guess the member for Mississauga North raised an interesting question if something comes in the mail. It's hard to say whether more than one individual would own those vehicles but generally it's owned by one or two individuals, the various vehicles, depending on the age of the adult children. I could just see it arriving in the mail. Who is who? Who was driving what car? Where were they?

It's going to be a really unfair problem, and I can just see that in many households there will be denials left and right as to who was driving the car, where they were, how fast they were going.

The member for Mississauga North is quite right. It's an unfair, impractical situation when the whole issue that the government's trying to do is to create safety, and yet they won't know they were doing it. They won't know they were even in a specific car. So the whole thought process is invalid.

I will say, when you start talking about the issue of safety, that there are statistics out that I believe are reasonably accurate, and that is the whole subject of motor vehicle accidents. There are more accidents caused by careless driving, going through red lights, and other areas under the Highway Traffic Act that are broken. Speeding is only one component.

I would support the member for Mississauga North in his comments.

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): There's only really one statistic here that I think needs to be looked at. It's not a statistic that you and I can produce. It's not a statistic that you're going to find in any one book. I believe it's a statistic that exists deep within each and every one of us and that's the one statistic that if a photo-radar is the -- if there's a camera on a highway, someone who's going to be a maniac on that road knows there's that camera and slows down and doesn't wreak havoc on that highway and on the life of my mother, my father, my brother, my sister, my son or my daughter. I think each and every one of us can say the same thing: Those lives have no prices; there is no price.

I fundamentally believe that statistic is out there. We all know it. We all feel it. No one is going to flash it before our eyes in black and white, but it's there. If there is nothing else, that in itself is worth supporting this bill.

I don't support entrapment, I don't support the concept of Big Brother watching over everyone. I support the principle of safety and if this use of technology saves one life, it will have been worth it.

Mr Callahan: The member for Downsview talks about if his loved ones were out on the road and there's some nut driving along in excess of the speed limit, how he will be concerned about that. He feels safer because they won't be speeding because they know they're entering an area where their picture's going to be taken.

The issue was raised before. Let's say somebody is doing 150 or 160 kilometres in a 100-kilometre zone, weaving all over the road and they take the picture. There's no police officer there to stop that person. It's far more likely that person is going to be a danger. If he was stopped by the police, they could take him in for whatever is wrong, for what is causing his driving that way. They could get him off the road as an unsafe vehicle. No, instead of that it's going to be, "Smile, you're on candid camera," and the person takes off and continues to drive all the way to London from perhaps Kingston at the same speed, because he doesn't see any police cruisers. He's had his picture taken; that's it.

I tell you something: If you look at this bill closely, those aren't the only things that are in here. This is a pot-pourri, it's a cash cow, it's an effort to impose licence suspensions for such things as the Game and Fish Act. Now tell me where that is safety enforced?

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It's got such things as any other act that the Lieutenant Governor in Council wants to put into the schedule. That means the cabinet, any time it figures it's not collecting the fines and the treasury's getting a little low, can go out and suspend people's licences for infractions of offences under the provincial offence legislation that have absolutely nothing to do with driving.

We've all seen the great turmoil that came about when they brought in this wacko provision that you had to go and pay all these fines and people were at the provincial court saying, "I paid the fine; give me my licence back." "Well, we don't have any record of it, so you'll have to pay it again." Then when you go and pay your fine to get your licence back, for some reason, with the computer age, it takes 10 working days for a trucker or a person who needs their licence for their livelihood to get their licence back.

The Acting Speaker: We can accommodate one final participant.

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): The member for Mississauga North makes many excellent points, but most importantly, he makes the point that really this is a cash grab by the government. They want more revenue. If indeed the government claims this is not a revenue grab, it would be very easy to prove this. We know the provincial police forces and the municipal police forces around the province are seriously underfunded. If the government wanted to refute the claim that this is a cash grab, then what it could do is move to make sure that all additional revenues as a result of photo-radar would be dedicated not to the general revenue fund but to the police forces as additional revenue, not instead of the current funding.

I suggested that in my own debate, but there was no response from the government. It's quite obvious this is a government that is desperate for funds.

The real disincentive to speeding is demerit points. If you have somebody who is terribly affluent, it doesn't really matter to them that they get a fine. What they have to get is the contact with police and the demerit points. That is really a disincentive because they, like anybody else in the community, will suffer as a result of demerit points.

Also, we have to consider the very serious legal potential for charter challenges in that this legislation does not allow the person who has sped to face their accuser, which is a fundamental right within our system of law. I would think the government should have thought hard and long before it introduced this legislation.

The Acting Speaker: This completes questions and/or comments.

Mr Offer: I thank all who have taken part in the 10-minute wrapup. I can only reiterate the point I made earlier. I believe this is a bill which takes away the fundamental rights of individuals to know of a charge at the time they have committed the charge. I believe this is a bill which in essence charges and will charge in many cases the wrong person, that this is a bill that is only involved in and only concerned with raising money and that's the only reason the government brought it in.

I believe this bill does not enhance road safety; rather it detracts from road safety. The reason I say that is because this is a bill where a person who is a speeder will not receive any demerit points. The Minister of Transportation, in his own words on this type of issue dealing with demerit points, says that demerit points are the only effective deterrent in making people comply with the law. Yet for speeding on our highways, they are not going to be issuing any demerit points.

This can lead one to only one conclusion: It has nothing to do with road safety. It has nothing to do with making our family and friends safer when travelling the roads. It has everything to do with a nifty new way the government has found to raise money. But they have raised money at the sacrifice and expense of people's rights. They have raised money at the sacrifice and expense of highway safety.

I believe this is a bill which should, firstly, be defeated, and, secondly, have full public hearings so the public can impress upon the government how wrong they are.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate on the second reading of Bill 47? The honourable member for Dufferin-Peel.

Mr Tilson: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I do want to participate in the second reading of this bill.

The title of the bill is the Provincial Offences Statute Law Amendment Act, 1993. It's also known as Bill 47. It has three objectives, although the most controversial is the photo-radar section, which many of us in this place have been spending most of our time on. But I would like to say what I understand the three objectives are. It amends the Highway Traffic Act to allow photo-radar technology to be used to detect speeding offences; it amends the Provincial Offences Act, the Highway Traffic Act and other statutes to make fine enforcement more effective; and it amends the Provincial Offences Act to change the procedures governing minor provincial offences and to change the duties of the justice of the peace.

I don't intend to spend too much time on the issue of the efficiency that the government is trying to improve on. I suppose that I could congratulate them on that aspect. But I do take strong exception to the first issue, which has to do with photo-radar.

The member for Downsview a few moments ago referred to George Orwell and the "Big Brother is watching" issue. Almost every other speaker talks about that. In other words, many, many speakers in this place, I believe on all sides, are concerned with the issue of civil liberties, and we do look back to our school days when we studied George Orwell, and specifically Nineteen Eighty-four. Ironically, it's now almost 10 years later. I think when we were students and we read this book, we had a lot of concerns. Is it possible that the things in Nineteen Eighty-four are going to happen into our future? So I took the time, because of the number of people who have referred to Orwellian --

Interjection.

Mr Tilson: Well, I'd like to tell you what it says. You may laugh at what it says, but it does give me grave concern because the element of possibility is there. In other words, the element of when we're watching television, for example, having someone in the screen looking back at us. That is the fear, I suppose, that we have.

I will quote from page 6 of this text, which I got out of the legislative library. It's well read:

"The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."

Scary stuff. I know the members of the government will say: "Oh, give me a break. Is this happening in Bill 47?" But when you think of it, a camera is going to be on an unmarked motor vehicle on the side of a road, watching us drive down the road.

Mr Perruzza: At every gas station, you're on camera. In this place, you're on camera.

Mr Tilson: Well, you're right. We are on camera in this place, but I guess I'm concerned about a further erosion of our privacy. Do we have the right to drive down a road undetected by cameras even though we may not be breaking the law? Someone may be taking my photograph even though I'm not speeding, because that's what this camera's going to do.

I will give you an example. Every motor vehicle will be photographed. Every motor vehicle will be photographed that goes down the road, and that concerns me. I believe that safety --

Mr Perruzza: You don't walk into any variety stores any more? Any time you walk into a variety store, you are on camera.

Mr Tilson: The member for Downsview continues to interrupt me. I know he has the concern of safety as well, as do all of us on all sides.

Reference has been made to a Caledon inquest where we had a tragedy in my riding of Dufferin-Peel, and specifically the southern half of my riding, the town of Caledon, where there was a grave tragedy. I made a statement in this House expressing my concern. There was a coroner's inquest in which many of the topics were discussed: graduated licensing, the age of the drivers -- was it too high? was it too low? -- the whole issue of impaired driving, and there's no question that the subject of photo-radar was discussed.

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I have a news clipping from the Orangeville Banner of October 1 which reported on this Caledon inquest. It talked about evidence given at the coroner's inquest about photo-radar. I'd like to quote from it regarding some of the findings that were made at this inquest:

"Superintendent Brittan told the jury that in Australia, the introduction of photo-radar was accompanied by a graduated licensing system, roadside spot checks and improved highways. With a coordinated safety program, you could save lives and billions of dollars."

In other words, in many of the jurisdictions that are being cited by the government, other things are going on. Are our roads being improved? Is graduated licensing coming? Yes. There's a paper that's been moving around this place; a committee this summer spent some time on graduated licensing. But it is strange that this specific piece of legislation is being introduced alone, away from all other things, without consideration of any other matters: without consideration of the driver's age; without consideration of the issue of impaired driving, particularly of young drivers and new drivers; without consideration of the graduated licensing process; without any planned attempt to improve our roads, aside from the issue of toll roads, which may or may not happen in this place. That is part of it, the whole issue of overall safety.

When we say it's a cash cow, it's very suspicious. Of course you can say, "You're just playing with words," but it's very suspicious when you're not looking at the overall picture. You can say you're looking at the overall picture and, yes, you're looking at graduated licensing, but so far we haven't seen anything. We've presented petitions in this House to get you moving on it, but you continue to delay.

"Engineer David Ellis" -- this is the main reason I'm referring to this article -- "set up a photo-radar system on Highway 10, Highway 50 and the Forks of the Credit Road on September 7. Mr Ellis told the jury that between 4:18 pm and 5:25 pm on Highway 10 near 5 Side Road, 448 cars were monitored." In other words, every car is looked at. "Of the cars that were photographed, Mr Ellis found that 96% were travelling at more than 80 kilometres per hour, which is the posted speed limit."

The speed limit is 80 kilometres per hour and 86% were travelling in excess of that speed limit. It said that 40% of the vehicles were travelling at speeds of 100 kilometres or more, and the average speed of the vehicles was 98 kilometres per hour.

In other words, speaker after speaker in this place talks about the fact that they drive the speed limit and everybody passes them. If that's the problem, is taking a picture of the cars going to solve the problem? I suppose you'll get some sort of summons in the mail. If you have two or three vehicles in your garage, particularly if you live in an area such as mine where out of necessity there's more than one vehicle and more than two or three people are driving the same vehicle, who knows who was driving the vehicle a week ago or two weeks ago, as I commented to the member for Mississauga North. It's a grave problem. Is that really going to save lives?

I'm sure any of you who have been caught speeding -- and I must confess I have. I've been caught speeding. I regret it, but I have. When a police officer in full uniform comes up to my car, boy, I'll tell you, I've been breaking the law and I know it, and he says a few words to me and I take note of that. I'll tell you, that has an effect on my driving, perhaps more so than the fine or the demerit points I may lose. Well, gone are those days.

And besides that, I know who my accuser is. All I know is that I'm going to get something in the mail; I'm going to get something that will be mailed to me. What defence do I have? What happens, as the member for Leeds-Grenville asked, if there's an exception? Police do overlook things; grave emergencies, for example. It may not be an adequate excuse, but for whatever reason, things can be explained. You really won't have that opportunity. Oh, yes, there's a process where you have to go to court to indicate you want the police officer to come, and then you have to go to court again to fight your case, to set a date for trial. There's a lot of administration the accused person is going to go through.

The whole personal contact issue is being left out of this legislation. It's very impersonal and very Orwellian. That word has been used. I'm not going to get into the issue of civil liberties, because that has been expressed by more than one person in this House and the point has been made. Taking pictures of innocent people for no reason whatsoever: There's something wrong about that. Yes, if you're committing a crime, then I have no problem. But if most of the people in this province, aside from the article I just read from the Orangeville Banner, are driving safely, why should their photographs be taken?

Does this mean, for example, that there are going to be fewer police? I don't know who's fully responsible for this bill, whether it's the Minister of Transportation or the Attorney General. It makes me very suspicious in these difficult financial times we have that perhaps they'll say, "Well, we've got cameras out and they're going to catch all the speeders, so we don't need police officers." The problem with that is --

Mr Hope: Tell me how that applies to rural Ontario.

Mr Tilson: I'm simply saying that no matter what part of Ontario you are in, people are stopped for different reasons, for speeding. Invariably, if you're speeding, you've been doing something else. How many times does a police officer stop someone who's breaking another law, such as impaired driving? That person, who may be not capable of driving, for whatever reason -- he may be impaired by drugs or alcohol -- continues on down the road and commits another accident. They commit an accident down the road and all there is is something up behind that's taken a photo of him driving too fast. That's the purpose of safety. It's preventive; it's not to make money.

I know the argument has come forward from the government that, "Oh, we're not trying to make money; we're trying to improve safety." Well, show me. Why would you allow someone, an impaired driver who's speeding, to continue driving down the road? If we have these problems that have been reported in the Orangeville Citizen -- and I'm sure this is just a typical example. This evidence happened to come out in a tragic coroner's inquest, but I'm sure there are other examples the police could come forward with at the public hearings I hope we're going to have. I mean, there are rumblings that we're not even going to have public hearings.

I'd like to hear more. I'd like to hear more statistics on safety from the professionals who know, from the police associations, from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that the member for Leeds-Grenville has referred to, and from other people who support it. I'd like to hear more of that, because I would like to ask them many specific questions.

Some of the other things this bill does that I'd like to speak of are the unfair procedural problems that I believe are going to be created. It's my understanding that where a defendant intends to appear in court to challenge a photo-radar charge, he must indicate if he intends to challenge the evidence of the person operating the photo-radar equipment. If so, the operator will be notified by the clerk.

Will the average person know all this bureaucratic red tape? They're going to walk into a court facility where there are police officers in uniform. They won't know what in the world to do.

The procedure now is that they are confronted by a police officer when they are committing the offence of speeding, and invariably they realize that they've been caught with their hands in the cookie jar and they're terrified of that police officer -- and well they should be; they've done something wrong -- particularly the remarks that are made by the police officers at the time of the offence. These officers are well trained and are able to influence people to perhaps slow down. So aside from the offence that's been committed, the police officer gives that person a lecture, and it has an effect on people. I defy anyone to say that's not the case.

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Another issue is that for photo-radar offences, the defendants will have to request the court to issue a summons to require the attendance of the officer who completed the certificate of offence at the trial. In the case of photo-radar offences, the function of that officer is to match the photo negative with the Ministry of Transportation vehicle ownership records. Since there's little additional evidence that may be provided, the justice will determine whether the officer will be summoned.

We seem to be getting away from fair justice. People can say, "Oh well, it's only speeding." Speeding, as has been quoted to me -- interrupted particularly by the member for Downsview -- causes accidents. It does. I agree with him. The difficulty that one has is that when you arrive at this court facility you may not agree that you were speeding; you may not know what in the world they're talking about. Everyone in your family, where there may be two or three motor vehicles, may deny that this happened. They may even deny they were there. They want to meet their accuser. The procedure that's being set out is making it more and more difficult for the individual, for the citizens of this province to meet their accuser.

I received a letter from the Association of Agents at Court, commenting on these two issues and I would like to read their concerns. I could try to summarize them, but they expressed the concerns, Mr Speaker, very well, if you would allow me to read a couple of paragraphs from this letter which I have just recently received. If we have public hearings, I'm sure groups such as this will come to the committee hearings and express their concern.

The Association of Agents at Court have two major areas of concern, from their correspondence at least, and both of those have to do with procedure that has developed as a result of this legislation.

"The amendments introduce an apparent disincentive program to those persons who wish to dispute their charge. The current system allows a defendant to mail in his request for a trial. This saves having to commute to the court that holds jurisdiction over the ticket. This reflects the informality of the Provincial Offences Act versus the serious stigma of a charge under the Criminal Code."

This is where they speak with respect to the new legislation:

"However, the amendments," mainly Bill 47, "would force the defendant to physically take the ticket to the court to request a trial. Once at the court, the individual would then be required to complete a form and decide whether he intends to challenge the evidence of the police officer or whether to concede to having the ticket admitted into evidence without the police officer having to be present in court."

Is he going to know that? Is the accused person going to know what to do? Somehow I doubt it. Is the police officer going to tell him? The police officers, of course, are trying to get convictions; that's their role.

I have grave concerns as to the fairness for the innocent person, and there are always innocent persons in this process. Many of them are guilty, but there are innocent persons, and these people are going to be seriously prejudiced, because if he, and I'm speaking of the accused person, the alleged speeder, "does not indicate his intentions then the ticket would be all the evidence the crown needs to present. Now, while this may seem to be a keen money-saving idea, I do not think that John Q. Public would honestly be in the position of knowledgeably deciding whether his particular circumstances warrant the attendance of a police officer or not."

He's right. This person who wrote this letter, Gary Parker, the president of the Association of Agents at Court, is absolutely right. Will the average John Q. Public, to use his words, know? Will he be in a position of making this sort of decision?

I continue on with the letter, "Without starting from an informed position, the public will not be doing either themselves, the financially concerned government or our justice system any good." So that's the first issue that they raise.

The second issue that they raise: "Once the defendant has indicated his decision to have a trial by attending at the court, he or she will be required to reattend at the same court for a special 'first appearance court' where they will be once again interviewed regarding the correctness of their choice to fight the charge." All of this over a speeding ticket. We've now been back twice and we haven't even got to trial.

"They may be met by either an 'experienced police officer' or a clerk of the court who may then appraise the defendant's circumstances and then may offer to negotiate with the prosecutor, on the defendant's behalf, for some sort of plea bargaining."

This is the concerning issue that this group, the Association of Agents at Court, has with respect to the accused person. Their concerns on this issue are twofold.

"Firstly, most persons who are intending to dispute a ticket are present at the court with the express purpose of fighting a police officer's decision. Few persons would then put the fate of their charge in another police officer's hands."

Very true. Who's going to explain all this stuff to the accused person, the accused speeder? I doubt very much whether it's going to be the police when they in turn are trying to get a conviction.

"Secondly, speaking as a former police officer myself, I cannot envision any police officer acting within the best interests of the defendant. I honestly cannot foresee an officer telling a defendant that he has, for example, an obvious defect on the face of the ticket; therefore the defendant has an easy win. The most likely route would be for the officer who even recognizes such a defect to hastily arrange a good 'deal' for the defendant to plead guilty to."

That's the sort of procedure this bill is creating for perhaps the innocent speeder, the person who feels that he or she was not speeding, that he or she wasn't even in the car, that anyone who had access to his or her vehicle -- they simply will have no adequate way of defending themselves, so there is grave concern on that issue.

The member for Cochrane North in his remarks talked about the car rental business, and I'd like to briefly refer to that, although that's been referred to on several occasions. The member for Cochrane North said: "If you're renting a car, the car rental business will have your Chargex card and they'll just put it on, and they may bill you later but they'll just pay it. They won't be able to go through the process. Or they'll go after you."

First of all, since when is the car rental business going to be a collection agency for this government -- a most strange procedure?

Mr Hope: They currently are.

Mr Tilson: Not in this particular process. Are you telling me that when someone rents a car --

Mr Hope: It's just like with parking tickets.

Mr Tilson: The member continues raising the issue of parking tickets. We're talking safety. We're talking lives in this province. I get back to your main premise of this bill, to create safety, and parking is a completely different issue and is inappropriate to be compared to this specific issue.

These individuals have expressed a concern. I'd like to briefly refer to that.

"The owner who is a victim of the offence that the driver has committed, if the vehicle is caught speeding, gets fined and the Ministry of Transportation will likely withhold the licence renewal privileges until those fines are paid. The owner is left to chase the driver" -- the owner being the car rental person -- "for those fines. Does this change to having the vehicle owner liable for speeding infractions mean that the police and government are losing their war against speeding? Does it mean that the Ontario government is more interested in revenues than deterring speeders?"

That's the point that we on this side are trying to express to you. You keep saying this is a matter of safety. How in the world is that a matter of safety? The fine is going to be paid by the car rental business. They have to do that to protect their interests. They'll charge the individual who was driving the vehicle. There will be no means of adequate defence. How in the world is that going to deter the speeder in the future, particularly when they'll have no adequate way of defending themselves? All of that expresses grave concerns.

There is an estimate that the photo-radar could generate $40,000 or more per day per camera, or $1 billion per year with only 69 units. That's a lot of money. That's an awful lot of money, and again it makes us more concerned. Is it going to be like the Liberal tire tax where they put a tax on tires? Is it going to be like that? I hope not. Is all of this money going to go into saving the Treasurer's deficit from going up higher, or is it going to go towards improving the roads or improving the standards of safety in this province?

I, for one, as one member of this House, am very sceptical as to what you're going to do with that tremendous amount of money that's going to be generated from this bill. It's another tax. That's all it is. This is a revenue bill, and there's no way of getting around it. It's a way to raise funds in this province.

It's been suggested that there's the relationship with the police, and we are continually, on all sides, trying to talk about improving it, notwithstanding many of the policies of this government in the past number of years and the bad relationships that have been developed with this government and the police. But this technology, I believe, is going to set back an already terrible relationship between the police and the public and will simply reduce the police to cashiers, to collecting fines for speeders, when the real role of the police officer is to get out there and prevent speeders from breaking the law, prevent them from making other infractions, to stop people from creating other offences.

If you're speeding, you could be drinking, and all we're going to have is a photograph, a picture of a drunk driver going down the road. I shudder as to where that drunk driver is going to end up. That's all we're going to have: a photograph watching a car containing a drunk driver going down the road; rather a strange issue.

In the few moments remaining, I'd like to emphasize again the issue that I raised earlier with my response to one of the speakers. I believe that there are three major flaws in this legislation, and this has been referred to before. I'd like to conclude my remarks by referring to these positions with respect to photo-radar and what these flaws are.

The Acting Speaker: Can I remind the honourable member that it is now very close to 6 of the clock. We have to report the coming events of the week of the 15th.

Mr Tilson: I would like to adjourn the debate.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Could the government House leader give us the schedule for the week of November 15?

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Government House Leader): Yes, I can. Pursuant to standing order 55, I would like to indicate the business of the House for the week of November 15.

On Monday, November 15, we will continue second reading of photo-radar, Bill 47.

On Tuesday, November 16, we hope to complete second reading of Bill 47, and following that we will continue our committee of the whole consideration of casinos, Bill 8.

On Wednesday, November 17, we hope to proceed with third reading consideration of casinos, Bill 8.

On Thursday, November 18, during the time reserved for private members' public business, we will consider ballot item 35, a resolution standing in the name of Mr Kwinter, and ballot item 36, second reading of Bill 2, standing in the name of Mr McLean. On Thursday afternoon, we will begin second reading consideration of the public services omnibus bill, Bill 117.

The Acting Speaker: As we adjourn the House for a week, I want to bid a fond farewell to our pages, who have served us so very well since the beginning of this session, wish them well in their studies, and may they all have a safe journey back to their ridings.

It now being 6 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until Monday, November 15, at 1:30 pm of the clock.

The House adjourned at 1804.

4 novembre 1993