Journal des débats 1993-déc-07 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Government House Leader): The House leader for the third party has just arrived. The House leader for the official opposition and I have been talking. We had considered the possibility of waiving the rest of question period, sitting down with the House leader for the third party and making some alternative arrangements around their non-confidence motion, which we were supposed to be debating this afternoon, and moving into routine proceedings through to orders of the day and then proceeding from there.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Is this an arrangement which has been agreed to by the three House leaders?

Hon Mr Charlton: The third party to the suggestion I've made just walked into the House, as you're aware, Mr Speaker. I believe it's okay and I'm seeking consent. He's shaking his head yes. I believe we have agreement to waive the rest of question period, move through routine proceedings to the vote, which is supposed to occur before orders of the day, and then into orders of the day.

The Speaker: Is that agreed? Agreed. If the three House leaders could use a few more minutes to discuss these items in order to reach some arrangements and accommodations.

Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: It just might be appropriate if you took a minute to explain to people watching what's happened so that they'll understand what's going on.

The Speaker: For the benefit of the members, we had to call a recess due to a security concern. Understandably, it's awkward for all members to know precisely when they needed to be back here. We did ring the bells, but of course members were advised to move away from the building and, under the circumstances, the three House leaders, in an effort to accommodate the public business, need a few minutes to reach an accommodation that will be agreeable to all three parties. We now have such an agreement.

Hon Mr Charlton: I believe we now have an agreement to waive the rest of question period, to proceed through routine proceedings to the vote that occurs before orders of the day, and then orders of the day.

The Speaker: Agreed? Agreed.

Petitions. The member for Brant-Haldimand.

Mr Ron Eddy (Brant-Haldimand): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was --

Mr Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): On a point of privilege, Mr Speaker: I just want to make clear that my question was to be put when the decision was made that we would leave the Legislative Assembly, and I want to make clear to you that my question was relative to the eastern Ontario summit and 175 delegates.

The Speaker: To the member for Lanark-Renfrew, would the member please take his seat. I understand the member's concern, and indeed whoever draws up the question list has probably noted your concern as well.

Petitions. The member for Brant-Haldimand.

Mr Eddy: I have a petition to --

The Speaker: Order. This has been a very difficult afternoon. I would ask members for their cooperation. To the member for Brant-Haldimand, when a member raises a point of privilege and the Chair trusts that it's serious, then there's an obligation on the person who has the floor. The member for Mississauga South with a point of privilege.

SECURITY SERVICE

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): Mr Speaker, my point of privilege is this: When we have an incident as we did this afternoon with the bomb scare --

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): What?

Mrs Marland: It has been of course referred to in the news media, so I'm not saying anything that isn't out in the public. But when this takes place in this building, we have to be very grateful for the unsung heroes who very quickly and expeditiously look after our safety and then go to the root of the problem. I think sometimes when we have these evacuations, we never come back and say thank you to Tom Stelling and the OPP officers who are there to protect us in these kinds of circumstances, and I do thank them on behalf of all of us.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Indeed, while the member does not have a point of privilege, her point of commendation is well taken. Under the direction of our Sergeant at Arms and indeed our security officers, the evacuation was handled expeditiously and without incident, and the matter was attended to quite well by our security forces, again under the capable direction of our Sergeant at Arms, for which I too am most grateful.

PETITIONS

WASTE MANAGEMENT

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

"Whereas the Ministry of Environment mandates that all municipalities (whether upper- or lower-tier) which require to expand or relocate municipal sanitary landfill sites must conduct a waste management environmental assessment study; and

"Whereas it is the policy of the Ministry of Environment to assist in funding these studies at the upper-tier level of local government only; and

"Whereas of the 830 municipalities in Ontario, only 39 are upper-tier municipalities organized at the regional or county level;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to direct the Ministry of Environment to cease this discriminatory policy and give funding assistance to all municipalities that are required to conduct a waste management environmental assessment study, and that this funding be made retroactive where applicable."

It's signed by 212 residents of my constituency, and I've affixed my signature.

TAXATION

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): "To the Legislative Assembly:

"We, the undersigned, petition the government of Ontario that,

"Whereas the government of Ontario has introduced over $3 billion in new taxes; and

"Whereas the government has continued to mismanage the economy; and" -- whereas they have been solely responsible for this bomb scare --

"Whereas new taxes will only further hurt business in Ontario;

"The government of Ontario should cancel any new tax initiatives and place more emphasis on reducing wasteful spending."

I affix my signature to this.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION

Mr Peter North (Elgin): I have a petition, which reads as follows:

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

"Bill 45 will change the meaning of the words 'spouse' and 'marital status' by removing the words 'of the opposite sex.' This will redefine the family as we know it.

"We believe that there will be an enormous negative impact on our society, both morally and economically, over the long term if fundamental institutions such as marriage are redefined to accommodate homosexual special-interest groups.

"We believe in freedom from discrimination, which is enjoyed by everyone by law now. But since the words 'sexual orientation' have not been defined in the Ontario Human Rights Code and may include sadomasochism, paedophilia, bestiality etc, and since sexual orientation is elevated to the same level as morally neutral characteristics of race, religion, age and sex, we believe all such references should be removed from the code."

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): I have a petition that was circulated in the riding of Chatham-Kent. Accompanied with the petition is a letter addressed to Michael Harris, both dealing with Bills 45 and 55. Those constituents of Chatham-Kent are asking that we refrain from the passage of Bill 55 and Bill 45. On their behalf, I present them.

TAXATION

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): This petition is to the Legislative Assembly.

"We, the undersigned, petition the government of Ontario that,

"Whereas the government of Ontario has introduced over $3 billion in new taxes; and

"Whereas the government has continued to mismanage the economy; and

"Whereas new taxes will only further hurt business in Ontario;

"The government of Ontario should cancel any new tax initiatives and place more emphasis on reducing wasteful spending."

I wish to affix my signature to this petition.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION

Mr Peter North (Elgin): I have a number of petitions here in opposition to Bill 55.

"Bill 55 will make it illegal, with fines of up to $50,000, for people to make any public statement, written or oral, which ridicules, demeans or discriminates against a person on the grounds of sexual orientation, still undefined. This is a grave threat to free speech in a democratic society.

"Bill 55 is also an attack on freedom of religion, against historical Christianity, which does not condone homosexuality.

"We want to maintain our basic right to disagree with homosexuality, which in no way should be equated with hatred."

Mrs Irene Mathyssen (Middlesex): I have a petition here from several hundred Middlesex residents who respectfully ask that the opposition Bills 45 and 55 be withdrawn.

Mr Donald Abel (Wentworth North): I have two petitions here, one from the Free Reformed Church, and it's sent to me by Mr J. Bargeman, who is the clerk of that particular church, and also from Pete Feijer, who both send these to me in opposition to the Liberal Bill 45 and the Tory Bill 55, which I submit.

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VISITOR

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Before calling for reports by committees, I invite all members to welcome to our chamber this afternoon, seated in the members' gallery west, the former member for Cambridge, Mr Bill Barlow. Welcome.

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

Mr Cooper from the standing committee on resources development presented the following report and moved its adoption:

Your committee begs to report the following bill, as amended:

Bill 80, An Act to amend the Labour Relations Act / Projet de loi 80, Loi modifiant la Loi sur les relations de travail.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Shall the report be received and adopted? Agreed.

Pursuant to the order of the House dated November 25, 1993, this bill is ordered for third reading.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

Mr Cordiano from the standing committee on public accounts presented the committee's report and moved the adoption of its recommendations.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Does the member wish to make a brief statement?

Mr Joseph Cordiano (Lawrence): I would just like to thank all the members of the committee for their participation. This report, as well as the report on non-profit housing, I think marked for the committee a process whereby the committee worked with the ministry in an effort to get the ministry's participation in the recommendation process and an evaluation of the report. I believe this interim report goes a long way to pointing a direction for the ministry and I believe that cooperative effort is something the committee will pursue in its final recommendation and report to the House some time in the new year.

Mr Speaker, I move adjournment of the debate.

The Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

Mr Marchese from the standing committee on administration of justice presented the following report and moved its adoption:

Your committee begs to report the following bill, as amended:

Bill 79, An Act to provide for Employment Equity for Aboriginal People, People with Disabilities, Members of Racial Minorities and Women / Projet de loi 79, Loi prévoyant l'équité en matière d'emploi pour les autochtones, les personnes handicapées, les membres des minorités raciales et les femmes.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Shall the report be received and adopted? Agreed.

Pursuant to the order of the House dated December 1, 1993, this bill is ordered for third reading.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

CITIZENS ASSEMBLY PROJECT ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 SUR LE PROJET D'ASSEMBLÉE DE CITOYENS

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

Bill 132, An Act to provide for the establishment of citizens assemblies and the expedited consideration by the Legislative Assembly of legislation prepared by citizens assemblies / Projet de loi 132, Loi prévoyant la mise sur pied d'assemblées de citoyens et une procédure accélérée pour l'étude, par l'Assemblée législative, des projets de loi rédigés par ces assemblées.

Mr Robert Chiarelli (Ottawa West): The bill establishes a pilot project whereby certain public policy issues defined by the Lieutenant Governor in Council would be examined by citizens assemblies established under the bill with a view to preparing legislation for consideration by the Legislative Assembly in accordance with the expedited procedure set out in the bill.

INCOME TAX AMENDMENT ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 MODIFIANT LA LOI DE L'IMPÔT SUR LE REVENU

Deferred vote on the motion for second reading of Bill 31, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act / Projet de loi 31, Loi modifiant la Loi de l'impôt sur le revenu.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Before calling orders of the day, we have a deferred vote on second reading of Bill 31, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act. There is a five-minute bell. Call in the members.

The division bells rang from 1726 to 1731.

The Speaker: Would all members please take their seats. Mr Laughren moved second reading of Bill 31, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act. All those in favour of Mr Laughren's motion should please rise one by one.

Ayes

Abel, Allen, Bisson, Boyd, Buchanan, Carter, Charlton, Christopherson, Churley, Cooke, Cooper, Coppen, Dadamo, Duignan, Farnan, Ferguson, Fletcher, Frankford, Gigantes, Grier, Haeck, Hampton, Hansen, Harrington, Haslam, Hope, Jamison, Johnson (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings), Klopp, Kormos, Lankin, Laughren, Mackenzie, Malkowski, Mammoliti, Marchese, Martel, Martin, Mathyssen, Morrow, Murdock (Sudbury), O'Connor, Owens, Philip (Etobicoke-Rexdale), Pilkey, Pouliot, Rizzo, Silipo, Sutherland, Swarbrick, Ward, Wark-Martyn, Wessenger, White, Wildman, Wilson (Frontenac-Addington), Wilson (Kingston and The Islands), Winninger, Wiseman, Wood, Ziemba.

The Speaker: All those opposed to Mr Laughren's motion will please rise one by one.

Nays

Bradley, Caplan, Chiarelli, Cleary, Conway, Cordiano, Cousens, Daigeler, Eddy, Elston, Eves, Fawcett, Harnick, Harris, Johnson (Don Mills), Kwinter, Marland, Murdoch (Grey-Owen Sound), North, O'Neill (Ottawa-Rideau), Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt), Poirier, Ramsay, Runciman, Sola, Stockwell, Sullivan, Turnbull, Villeneuve, Wilson (Simcoe West).

The Speaker: The ayes being 61, the nays 30, I declare the motion carried.

Shall the bill be ordered for third reading? Agreed. So ordered.

Before proceeding, two items: First, due to the unusual nature of the afternoon, the cafeteria will remain open until 7 o'clock.

VISITOR

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Seated in our members' gallery west, a newly elected member of Parliament for the riding of Bruce-Grey. Please welcome Mr Ovid Jackson.

COMMITTEE SITTINGS

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Government House Leader): Mr Speaker, just before I call the first order, there are two matters which the three House leaders have been discussing, also as a result of the disruption that we had this afternoon, regarding two of our committees. I believe we have agreement on both of these items.

The first item deals with Bill 100, which is in the standing committee on social development. I think we have an agreement and seek consent to authorize the social development committee to sit tomorrow under the same terms and conditions as were set out in the time allocation motion associated with the completion of the committee stage of that bill.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Agreed? Agreed.

Hon Mr Charlton: Secondly, Mr Speaker, I think --

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): And that it be dealt with on Monday.

Hon Mr Charlton: Third reading will occur likely on Monday, when we can get the bill reprinted.

Secondly, I think we have reached agreement to authorize the standing committee on administration of justice to sit from 4 pm to 6 pm tomorrow to consider the matter of a teachers' pension technical briefing, which had been agreed by motion in this House the other day.

The Speaker: Agreed? Agreed.

EMERGENCY EVACUATION

Mr Ron Eddy (Brant-Haldimand): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: This House has proceeded in a manner as if nothing has happened. Something has happened. I don't want to wait till tomorrow morning to read the newspaper. What has happened? What is the result of what has happened? May I please have some information? I've been evicted from my place of work and I want to know why.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): The member for Brant-Haldimand indeed raises a legitimate point of order. I can tell the member that we had a bomb scare. In fact, on two occasions we had received a telephone call that a bomb would be detonated at a particular time, and the security were able to locate an unidentified package. It was their considered advice that extreme caution should be used, so hence they recommended that we evacuate as soon as possible, which we did. The bomb squad were called. They came to conduct their examination and, fortunately for all concerned, it was not an explosive device.

I appreciate that at the time, due to the natural confusion and so on, it was not possible to inform all members as to precisely what was happening, but I do appreciate the fact that the member raised the point of order. If there are further details available tomorrow, after the report -- there will be a report which will come through the Sergeant at Arms, will come to my desk, and if there are more details, I'll be more than happy to share those details with all members of the House.

Mr Eddy: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, because my wife is really concerned whether I survived or did not survive.

The Speaker: It would appear that you survived.

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VISITOR

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Members may wish to also extend a welcome to a former MPP for the riding of Grey who is with us and seated in the members' gallery west, Mr Ron Lipsett.

Now to the business at hand.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT (DIMENSIONS AND WEIGHT), 1993 / LOI DE 1993 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE (DIMENSIONS ET POIDS)

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 74, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act / Projet de loi 74, Loi modifiant le Code de la route.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): The Minister of Transportation.

Hon Gilles Pouliot (Minister of Transportation): Mr Speaker, you will recall that I had the privilege, it being close to 6 of the clock, to adjourn the debate, and coincidence has it that it was also the conclusion of my opening remarks on Bill 74.

The Speaker: The Minister of Transportation has completed his remarks. Are there questions and/or comments?

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): Very briefly -- this is a two-minute observation on this bill -- I must indicate to the minister that I think there is a consensus of support among the three parties on this.

I must express the viewpoint that there are many people in the city of St Catharines who are not happy with the longer trucks. They are people who travel the highways of the province of Ontario. They are very hopeful that the minister would ensure, in whatever way he can, that despite the fact that the trucks will be longer, the safety factors will be maintained on our highways.

Anyone who drives the highways, as many of us do back and forth between our residences and Toronto, knows that there's a lot of traffic these days. Those who are operators of commercial vehicles are often required to put the brakes on or take some evasive action at various times, particularly in the winter. It is the feeling of many of my constituents that the longer the vehicle, the less chance there is of being able to manoeuvre it to avoid an accident and the more chance there is of an accident.

I will be looking this afternoon for some assuring words from the Minister of Transportation that the safety of people on the highway can be preserved despite the fact we have longer vehicles on the highway. People who have to pass these vehicles, if they're in the right lane and they're in a situation where there is a lot of rain or a good deal of slush on the highway and the vehicle, a car in this case, is going past one of these longer vehicles -- we know there's a spray on the windshield. There's a good deal of concern about the safety.

As I say, I think there's a consensus in the House that for reasons of a competitive industry, this bill will in fact be passing. But I would look for that assurance from the minister that we're not going to have a new rash of accidents on our highways.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): I have not been involved to any great extent in this subject, but I do want to agree with the member for St Catharines. I know there are a variety of accords that the governments of Ontario and the adjoining states and provinces have entered into. One has only to look at the map of southern Ontario and see how we jut into the Great Lakes basin. I understand from my time here in public life that we're not an island unto ourselves.

Having said all of that, I want to say that I have been approached on a number of occasions by a number of my constituents who are increasingly worried about the point the member for St Catharines has raised. On their behalf, I just simply want to make the point.

I think it is well known that I have spent a great deal of my life on the highways of Ontario and a great deal, too much time, on Highways 400 and 401, particularly the 401 east of Toronto. I'm not generally viewed as a shrinking violet on the highways, but I've got to tell you that the point Mr Bradley makes is a good one, that there is a war on out there.

When I say "war," let me rephrase that. It is to me as well as to others a real concern that at 11 o'clock at night, on a dark, rainy or snowy night, as it was last night when I was coming into Toronto on the 401, the volume of truck traffic is up, for reasons that we all understand. But I've got to tell you that I do not personally believe that an increase in the number of trucks and an increase in the allowable size and length of trucks are going to improve road safety. It may in fact be a necessary requirement of doing business in the 1990s, and that I understand, but I simply want to say on my behalf and on behalf of a number of my constituents in Renfrew North that this whole business of increasing the size of trucks is a concern around road safety.

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): To the minister, as we deal with longer trucks and the issue, I just want to thank the minister for his cooperation in working with a number of us government members who have worked in the field working with trucks, both driving them and building the brakes.

To address the safety issue that I heard the two members opposite indicate, I know the minister and his staff worked very closely with a number of us to address those concerns; also the minister's cooperation in working with the business community because of this just-in-time theory that is there. So, to the minister, I know he's worked very closely with a number of the government members in working at the issue of longer trailers, making sure our roads are safer but also trying to address the issues that some of us cherish: making sure that, number one, the industries themselves wouldn't be devastated by a change in the trucking industry, and also allowing our truck drivers to have a more competitive edge and an equal competitive edge with the US market. On behalf of especially myself and my colleagues on the government side, we thank you for your cooperation in addressing the safety issues that are there on behalf of our constituents.

The Speaker: Questions or comments? Seeing none, the minister has up to two minutes for his reply.

Hon Mr Pouliot: I'd like to thank Mr Hope for his kindness and generosity towards the cooperation from both our political and of course the ministry staff.

Whenever we mention a new configuration, in this case longer trucks, it brings out from consumers and from critics opposite what is a normal, what is a rational, substantial question. For reasons, it tends to paint a negative picture of what we're talking about here.

It's a competitive issue, without sacrificing, to make sure -- and we did -- that the safety aspect would be respected to its fullest. In fact, it's an opportunity to enhance it. Let me share with you some examples.

A longer wheel base is safer, with less opportunity to jackknife. By going from 48 to 53 feet, people will buy trucks. They've been holding back in anticipation of the new law. Newer trucks are safer. With the overall payload remaining the same, you can't carry any more weight, but your distribution on axle weight therefore becomes more equal, more even. That's also a safety feature. With 10% more volume, you have fewer trucks on the highway. Newer trucks also allow you the opportunity to buy an automatic brake adjuster, which would reduce the rate of faulty brakes from 33% to a more acceptable -- not acceptable, but a more acceptable -- 9%.

All those six safety features will become reality --

The Speaker: The member's time has expired.

Hon Mr Pouliot: -- when we unanimously pass this bill, as we shall.

The Speaker: Is there further debate? I recognize the honourable member for Nepean.

Mr Hans Daigeler (Nepean): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. When you explained what happened in this House this afternoon, I thought perhaps you were going to give as an explanation that the House was so afraid the minister might start his usual very elaborate and very eloquent speeches that everybody fled this holy place. But I guess this was not the case and the minister, perhaps in due consideration of what happened this afternoon, decided to speak very, very briefly.

On this matter of the longer trucks, perhaps it was a good thing the minister did not speak too long, because there are other views as well. I will in fact remind the minister of some of the views his party used to represent in this House on this particular item.

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Before I do so, I would like to say that I'm glad we are having an opportunity to debate this Bill 74, the so-called longer truck bill, still before Christmas, and presumably that we will be able to pass it before Christmas. There was a great deal of concern, frankly, by the Ontario Trucking Association and its representatives that we might not be able to get to this bill. However, on behalf of my party, I assured the trucking association that we were certainly interested in dealing with this matter as quickly as possible.

Why am I saying this? Well, the government, about two weeks ago, had planned to put what's called an omnibus legislation forward, putting the graduated licences, the longer trucks, longer buses -- everything -- and a number of smaller, minor, what they call housekeeping amendments all into one bill and to call that. Our House leader had been burned on a number of other occasions where some very controversial items have been put together in one bill, forcing the opposition, both the official opposition and the third party, to vote one way on all of these matters even though perhaps they would have liked to support one but not the other, or the other way round.

We felt it was extremely important for us to make clear that these bills, like graduated licences and longer trucks, while they're coming from the Ministry of Transportation -- and that's perhaps the only link between the two -- are clearly two very separate items that deserve to be and should be discussed separately in this House. To the credit of our House leader, he succeeded in convincing the House leader of the government to separate these bills and not come forward with an omnibus bill.

As soon as the trucking association heard about this, they were very concerned that perhaps we might not be able to deal with this bill before the House rises. I assured them, certainly on behalf of my party, that we were pushing to have all of these bills discussed before the House. I do say, and I'm taking credit for this on behalf of my House leader, that we are able to discuss these matters, and I appreciate the cooperation from the government as well, and the Conservative Party. We can debate these matters perhaps not to the length that we would like to, but nevertheless we are able to put some of our views on the record on all of these matters. I appreciate that and I'm sure the Ontario Trucking Association is rather pleased to see this matter now come before the House, being discussed and presumably being voted on very shortly.

Why is the Ontario Trucking Association so concerned about this matter? They have put forward, in my view, a rather convincing argument. I should say I had questions about this initiative as well, but the arguments and the reasons that were put forward by the industry I think are convincing ones. The member for St Catharines briefly alluded to it, as did the member for Renfrew North: that we cannot be an island on our own. Perhaps we would like to, but it is not possible.

Free trade is in effect, and with NAFTA I think increasingly we do have to look at a North American competitive reality. The trucking industry is, and has been for some time now, operating in that environment, and some of the rules that apply to all of North America obviously will have to apply to Ontario as well. One of those rules is this longer truck provision that will enable our trucking industry to better compete with especially the American companies. It's not only the American companies, but also some of the Canadian competitors in the trucking industry, because most of the Canadian provinces already allow the provisions that we're debating this evening and that are the object of Bill 74.

Really what we're doing here with this bill is putting Ontario on a level playing field with most of the North American jurisdictions, and I support that. In fact, to go back a little bit in history, this is an initiative that was first announced by the Liberal government. Bill Wrye, when he was the Minister of Transportation, did announce his intention to provide for longer trucks in the province. It is rather interesting to go back a little bit and to re-read Hansard and what the opinion then was both of the third party, and I don't know whether they did go back to what some of their colleagues said at the time, and also of the representative from the NDP at the time, which is now the governing party.

I don't want to read too much, because frankly I don't want to tease both parties in case they should change their minds, but I think it is important to show for the record that the Liberal Party has been very consistent on this issue. They were the ones who, in November 1989, first announced that they were going to allow longer trucks in this province.

Let me just read for the record what the reaction of the Conservative Party was at the time. Mr Don Cousens, who was the critic, I guess, at the time for the Ministry of Transportation, had this to say: "The Minister of Transportation announced at a luncheon today his intention to increase the maximum allowable length of tractor-trailer combinations on Ontario roads.

"Fortunately, perhaps, for the minister, he's presently on his way to Thunder Bay. Our party strongly opposes the minister's decision to increase the allowable length of trucks on Ontario roads and highways. Our party strongly supports the minister's decision to leave town."

Again as I said, I don't want to tease the third party too much by reminding them what their reaction was to this initiative when the Liberal Party first announced it, but in honesty and in fairness I think we should make clear that I do think they have changed their minds and there's nothing wrong with that. I don't criticize that. Since then, almost four years have gone by and we have seen how this measure will impact on the trucking industry, and I think there has been a renewed recognition that what the Liberal government was going to do in 1989 was in fact the right thing to do. So better late than never.

Again I don't want to be too critical but I do want to say that even the NDP, the government party, had also a rather different view on this measure at the time than it has today. Now the minister is smiling a little bit and he would rather not hear what his colleague from the north, Mr Morin-Strom, who was the critic at the time for Transportation, had to say on November 28, 1989.

I should say, by the way, that I do have the highest respect for Mr Morin-Strom. I remember the position that he took at the time surrounding Meech Lake and how that really was not the most popular decision in his own riding. Nevertheless, in view of a national perspective, he put that forward and I gave him at the time full credit for it and I continue to do so. I have high respect for the member and frankly I regret that he's not here, because he did make a contribution that was worthwhile, I thought. I think he would be an asset to the current NDP caucus.

But in any case, here's what he said on November 28, 1989:

"We do not need and we do not want monster trucks on our streets and highways. Our highways are dangerous enough today without the government allowing another two-metre increase in the length of trucks in Ontario.

"Is the minister crazy or is he going to come to his senses and do something about making our highways safer?"

I left out another few of the juicy morsels that I could really put forward here to show, from a partisan perspective, how much the government caucus has changed its mind. But in view of the fact that we do want to pass this matter, I think I will not refer to it and I'll simply leave it there to say that I'm glad and I congratulate both parties, the caucus of the government party and the third party, for having come to the same conclusion that the Liberal Party did way back in 1989, that in fact this was a measure whose time had come in the interests of the industry, in the interests of the economy of the whole province, not just of the trucking industry.

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I will come back a little bit later to the safety requirements and the safety concerns that both parties mentioned at the time and some of my colleagues mentioned today. I think they're important ones and I will be speaking about that a little bit later. But I do want to say that this measure is of significant economic impact not just on the trucking industry but on the economy of Ontario at large.

Last year, on March 25, a news conference was held here at Queen's Park and some of the major economic representatives of this province were present. There were Maria Rehner from the Canadian Industrial Transportation League, Jim Carnegie from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, Alasdair McKichan from the Retail Council of Canada, Norm Clark from the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers' Association and Paul Nykanen from the Canadian Manufacturers' Association.

They were all there on behalf of their employers and on behalf of their employees to encourage the government, together with the Ontario Trucking Association, to move forward with this provision. Here's what they said:

"The issue at hand is whether or not Ontario should join with most other North American jurisdictions in introducing longer truck lengths to stimulate productivity in the transportation sector, reduce transportation costs to Ontario manufacturers, retailers and shippers, enhance the overall competitiveness of the Ontario economy and do it all without compromising highway safety."

At this press conference -- and as I say, I do have at the time the release that they distributed in front of me -- they came to the conclusion that yes, something like Bill 74, allowing the longer trucks in this province, would in fact achieve this purpose. If anybody is interested in getting a copy of this release, I certainly would be pleased to send it to them. I think it helps people to understand why this is being done and why the industry, not just the trucking industry but industry representatives from all sectors of Ontario's economy, is supportive of this measure and has been calling for this for some time.

Certainly one of the groups that is very interested in this measure as well is the truck manufacturers. Many of the shipping companies have been holding off placing their orders because it was not quite clear what was going to be the length of the trucks that was going to be allowed in Ontario. Now, with the passing of Bill 74, I'm sure these companies will be placing their orders and obviously will be filling the order books of the Ontario truck manufacturers. I think that's a good thing.

We all know how difficult the employment situation is in the manufacturing sector, in the truck manufacturing sector in particular. I think anything that can stimulate business there will be appreciated by the workers. That's probably the main reason why the government as well is finally supporting this initiative and putting it forward. I think they too see the economic impact of this measure and the positive impact on employment. If this can in fact reduce unemployment in the province, then we're certainly in favour of it.

As you know, the main concern of the Liberal Party, its main concern over the last year, has been job creation. Anything that relates to and that really will provide job creation we have supported and we will continue to support because that is, I would say, the most important concern of the public out there right now, that people can get back to work.

If we have people working, they have dignity. I think that's most important. But second in importance is also that they can pay taxes. I do want to maintain that order: The dignity comes first but if they work, then they have to participate in the economy, they pay the GST and so on and everything else and that helps us, the government, to provide the services that we all want, the health care, the social services and so on. From that perspective I think this measure, Bill 74, allowing the longer trucks, is an important economic stimulant. Certainly that's why we support it and that's why I think the government caucus supports it as well.

I should say that I will be moving an amendment that will allow longer buses as well. The Ontario Motor Coach Association has approached us. There's a small addition that will be allowed. Again, Ontario is the only jurisdiction which does not allow this provision at the present time, and the Ontario Motor Coach Association has been working very hard with us to make sure that it as well can benefit, like the other Canadian provinces and the other North American jurisdictions, by being under the same rules and regulations. I certainly will be moving this amendment and I'm hopeful that the government will support this particular amendment.

I should also say that even the disabled community is very interested in this measure because this will allow for building some of the new buses in a way that makes them more accessible, makes those intercity buses more accessible to the disabled and to the handicapped. I'm sure this is a measure that we all want to support, and from that perspective as well it's an amendment that I think is worthwhile to put forward and worthwhile to see supported by all parties, I hope, in the House.

There were nevertheless, and I don't want to go on for too long, concerns out there in the public. Those concerns were raised way back in 1989 when this measure was first introduced by the then Liberal government and those concerns continue to be raised. The member for St Catharines and the member for Renfrew North mentioned them: safety concerns. It is true that when you drive by a truck on the highway it can be somewhat of a scary experience, but I must say already then, in 1989, Minister Wrye clearly recognized this concern and was willing and wanted to address it.

I'm glad to see and to say that the current Minister of Transportation also is aware of this concern and is trying to address it, inasmuch as possible, with various protective measures around the wheels and the sides of the trucks so that the splashing will not go to the side, in so far as that's possible, onto the other cars but stay basically either behind the truck or under the truck. There are various measures that the government is proposing with this bill to try to make sure that the safety concerns that people have are addressed.

I should say that Transport 2000 -- people who are watching may not be familiar with this organization --

Hon Evelyn Gigantes (Minister of Housing): Yes, we are.

Mr Daigeler: The Minister of Housing says the government is aware of Transport 2000. Well, I'm sure they are; so are we. But since we are hopefully followed by more than just the government tonight, since there are hopefully viewers out there across the province, perhaps not everybody there is familiar with Transport 2000. Transport 2000 is a group of people who are simply interested in transportation issues across the province --

Hon Ms Gigantes: Very progressive. They support apartments in houses.

Mr Daigeler: "Very progressive," says the Minister of Housing. I didn't hear the other point. But, in any case, they have members across the province and they follow what's happening on the transportation scene quite closely. They put forward, frankly, a very well written, well-researched and I thought a well-balanced brief to the government last August. I do hope the Minister of Housing did receive and read this particular brief from Transport 2000 because it was not too complimentary, frankly, towards this particular initiative of the longer trucks.

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I should say that the way they formulated their brief I thought was well done. It was not aggressive. I thought they put forward certain questions, certain concerns, and to the credit of the government, it did respond. The government did prepare -- it took a little while, but nevertheless they did receive an answer from the minister, and the minister did send a copy of his reply to all the members of the House, because the original brief went to all the members of the House as well.

I am sure I'm not giving up any secrets, and perhaps the minister can correct me if I'm wrong, and I certainly would be pleased to correct the record, but I'm sure it wasn't the minister himself who prepared this rather lengthy reply from the ministry. In fact, in reading the language of the particular reply, which is a little bit bureaucratese, I would say it's not the language the minister normally uses. In any case, don't criticize him for it. He does have to have staff that prepare these things.

Anyway, I would say that the ministry officials I think took the brief from Transport 2000 quite seriously and at some length addressed the concerns of Transport 2000. I don't think they answered all the questions to the satisfaction of the people who prepared the brief. Nevertheless, the ministry made an honest effort to address the concerns, and especially the safety concerns, that were raised by Transport 200.

So, again, if anybody out there from the public might be interested in receiving either the brief from Transport 2000 or the minister's reply, I'd be pleased to provide that, because I think it shows that this matter was not taken lightly. After all, it has again taken four years, as with the graduated licences, to finally move from where we, the Liberals, were in 1989 to finally bring this matter before the House and vote on it.

There has been time to review this matter, to discuss it, for people to reflect on it, and I think all of us have come to the conclusion that this is an initiative whose time has come. I'm glad to say that my party will be supporting this initiative. I will be moving a minor amendment that will allow longer motor coaches as well, which has been called for for quite some time from the motor coach industry and also from the disabled community. I do hope that we will see speedy passage of this matter still before we rise for the Christmas recess.

The Acting Speaker (Ms Margaret H. Harrington): Questions and/or comments to the member for Nepean? Seeing none, further debate?

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): This bill, I'm pleased to say, the Conservatives will be supporting. It's long overdue. If we could just review the history of this, the Liberals brought in Bill 96 immediately before the last election, the election of 1990, which they lost. They brought it in with enough time that they could have passed it. We're seeing by the time that it's taking to pass this particular bill that it's easily possible in the dying days of a Parliament to get it through, but it was an election goody. It wasn't a real offer. It wasn't something to help the truckers of Ontario.

Mr Daigeler: It was supported by the Tories at the time, David.

Mr Turnbull: My colleague from the Liberals is suggesting as to what the Tories at the time did. I'll tell you, the record is that the PCs supported Bill 96 at the time. The record, however, was that the NDP vociferously opposed this legislation. The Liberals had the numbers, they could have passed this -- it certainly had the support of the Tories -- but they didn't do it.

Now, let's turn to the question of the validity of this legislation. The legislation stems from very wide consultation with a variety of affected groups: the Ontario Trucking Association, the railways, the Hamilton branch of the Canadian auto club. From this consultation, we have been informed by the Ministry of Transportation, there is a very broad consensus in terms of support, which is very good.

It is interesting to note that the original Minister of Transportation under the NDP government stated that in no way, shape or form would he support longer trucks. This is something which the Conservatives have consistently suggested was important in terms of creating, to use that hackneyed expression now, a level playing field when we consider that Quebec and all of western Canada west of Ontario and the whole of the US industry have a standard for truck lengths which was at variance with Ontario. This legislation will bring us into those parameters.

Why has it taken three years? Well, to a great extent it's because the NDP government started off saying they were opposed to longer truck lengths. Finally, I guess some light is beginning to dawn on them as industries flee from Ontario and the trucking industry is absolutely in emergency surgery on this one. What the government has done is they brought in increases in the fuel tax. They have done everything they can to injure an industry which was on the critical list and now finally they're beginning to wake up. So we support them in this.

Let's just talk a little bit about the process by which we're going through this, though. We're debating this tonight and it will be passed, according to the government's own agenda, by next week. There is no possibility of any public hearings, and that's a shame, because while there has been broad acceptance of this measure from the affected industries and, we're given to believe, according to the ministry, from the CAA, there are still individuals who are concerned about this legislation. I've gone on record as saying that the Conservatives are in favour of it, we've heard the Liberals saying they're in favour of, it and the government has brought this in, but nevertheless there is a legitimate reason to allow opposition voices to be heard. The opposition in this case has a legitimate right to put on the record why it believes this is wrong.

The evidence suggests that there is no decrease in safety as a result of this. Just reading actually from a newspaper report which encapsulates some of the statistical data: "'There's been no increase in accident statistics or added wear and tear on the roads with the semitrailers being granted the extra length,' said Anne McLaughlin, spokeswoman for the Transportation ministry. 'Safety statistics are comparable or better in other jurisdictions that have allowed these vehicles.'"

That was one of the key criteria that have always driven the Conservative Party: Was there any compromise of safety? Indeed, because the statistics suggested there wasn't, that perhaps there might be an improvement in safety, then we're interested in it.

In addition to that, the added length of trucks will allow lightly loaded trucks, of large material which is quite light, to carry 10% more load. So there will be an attendant reduction in the cost of fuel, and that will also translate into an improvement in the environment if we can move 10% more in a truck than under the existing legislation.

So from a safety point of view it is at least as safe as we have at the moment, from an environmental point of view it is an improvement, and we're pleased that finally the government is waking up after three years to what we have been saying all along.

The need for a level playing field is so compelling when you consider that we have very aggressive US truckers coming into Ontario and taking loads away from our truckers.

Indeed, there are supposed to be fuelling regulations which suggest that fuel taxes for fuel bought in administrations outside of Ontario will be applied in Ontario to truckers while they're operating in Ontario. The suggestion from the trucking association is that this is not the case, that the government of Ontario is not enforcing the collection of taxes in a strong enough way, which is kind of strange when you consider how aggressive this government has been at moving against all of its own citizens in terms of tax grabs and every conceivable fee that it could squeeze out of people. We've got to the point that we have driven many people to start buying illegal cigarettes, which I certainly don't condone, but I understand that this government has pushed the taxpayer over the edge.

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There are some concerns with this legislation, mainly from the point of view of what is not in the legislation. A matter of two or three weeks ago, the government came forward and wanted to collapse this bill, Bill 74, into an omnibus bill, and we know about omnibus bills. These are these nasty bills that the government brings with a host of items in them, some of them issues which the opposition parties agree with, some of them which we thoroughly disagree with. It usually ends up that we have to vote against some aspects of legislation that we're in agreement with. It should be discouraged, because we know that the example the US has set is you have omnibus bills where you're voting for a dam in Colorado and tacked on to it is a snail farm in New Hampshire. How ridiculous, but that is the reality of the US, and that is the direction this government has taken us in with omnibus bills.

The opposition parties expressed some concerns with having an omnibus bill, but one of the things in the omnibus bill, amendments to the Highway Traffic Act, was the allowance for longer bus lengths. The government has accepted the fact that longer bus lengths are desirable, and indeed many of the bus companies of Ontario have been holding back placing orders for new buses, to the detriment of the Ontario economy, because they believed that legislation may be forthcoming.

Well, that has disappeared into the ether. In discussions with ministry staff, there seems to be some confusion as to whether longer buses can be allowed under this legislation. In fact, the minister seemed to suggest in an answer that he gave recently in the House that this was possible.

I would like at the end of my speech for the minister simply to rise and tell me unequivocally whether his legal staff have advised him as to whether longer buses will be allowed under this legislation or not. The regulations are certainly such that, as we read them, you have the ability to give permission for longer bus lengths, but the answers we're getting from the Ministry of Transportation are very confusing.

I'm alarmed that the Minister of Transportation is just about to slide out of the House, because that way he would not answer the question, which is a very legitimate question, sir, as you leave the House, which really should be answered. Perhaps you're going to check with your staff. I hope so. Please do come back. Check and do come back for the end of my speech. I won't be speaking very long, so I hope the minister will be back in that time.

There is another concern, and that was brought to my attention by the people who haul automobiles for the auto manufacturers in Ontario. I believe two large companies do all of the hauling of new automobiles.

The standard of 25 metres for the truck length which is allowed in this bill is something they can live with. The present standard of 75 feet long for an overall truck to carry automobiles is quite acceptable, and it is standard with the US.

However, under the present regime, the auto haulers are being restricted to only carrying nine full-sized automobiles on their truck, so that the automobiles are fully contained within the framework of the truck, whereas these trucks have been designed with the intention that the front overhang over the load can be up to three feet and the back overhang can be up to four feet, which will bring them in exactly within the 82 feet or 25 metres allowed under this bill.

This too we believe can be allowed under the regulations, but the truckers are getting conflicting pieces of information -- I'm delighted to see the minister's back. We're getting conflicting pieces of information as to whether this will be allowed.

The reason it is important that 10 automobiles should be loaded onto a truck is once again the level playing field. A huge number of the automobiles that are manufactured in Ontario are exported to the US, and this is undoubtedly one of the highlights of free trade which was foreseen many, many years ago under the Conservatives in Ontario when they brought in the auto pact.

The auto pact has been very good for Ontario. We export a huge amount of our production. The production of automobiles from Canada which go to the southern parts of the United States go on rail transportation, but to the northern parts of the United States they are trucked down predominantly. So it's very important from an economic standpoint to these companies that they be allowed to load 10 automobiles as they do in the US.

These trucks travel at a lower average speed than most trucks. They have an exceedingly high safety record with nine or 10 automobiles, so there is nothing in the experience to suggest that there's a safety-related concern. But in Ontario, the way the present regulations are being interpreted, it suggests that only nine can be loaded.

The auto companies only pay on the basis of a fully loaded truck, that is 10 automobiles, and they refuse to countenance the fact that Ontario regulations may be different to the US. So we have an uneven playing field, which puts our automobile plants at a competitive disadvantage.

Now, Madam Speaker, you will recall I said that there is no experience to suggest that there is a safety concern here, and we do believe that within the regulations of this bill the ministry has the ability to allow 10 automobiles with the three-foot overhang on the front and the four-foot overhang on the back to be transported.

I simply would like to get from the minister a definitive answer tonight as to whether his counsel have advised him as to whether this will be allowable under these regulations. and if not, I would suggest it would be important in the life of this Parliament -- because I suspect that amendments to the Highway Traffic Act will probably not come up again under this government -- that we could then move to bring forward an amendment in committee of the whole to allow that to be done, so that we achieve that level playing field which allows Ontario automobile manufacturers and the trucking companies that transport their product to be able to operate on that level playing field.

It makes sense, it makes economic sense, so we're in favour of this legislation. We just want to make sure that the government says within the regulation that (a) longer buses will be allowed and (b) the overhang which will bring us up to the same standard as the US will be allowed. On that basis, I certainly will be very pleased and happy with this legislation.

The other point I would just like to make is the government has improved safety standards in this legislation by way of the kind of bumpers at the back of trucks to stop the cars from sliding underneath in an accident. That's a very good idea. I would suggest, Minister, that perhaps we should be looking at some sort of equivalent railings on the side of trucks so that we don't have cars sliding under a load on the road.

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Hon Mr Pouliot: Ferraris have a tendency to.

Mr Turnbull: My good friend the Minister of Transportation says Ferraris have a tendency to. I suppose he would know. He's a very dapper man who certainly likes the bonne vie. Far be it from me to deny him that. I wouldn't know about such because, as somebody who just works away to pay the mortgage, I don't know about Ferraris. But it would be desirable that we look at the safety standards for the side of trucks, and I hope that maybe the minister could reflect on that in his remarks.

Hon Mr Pouliot: The member opposite, as did his predecessor, the previous speaker, the distinguished critic for Transportation for the official opposition, raises pertinent questions that need current and precise answers.

One subject matter being raised is you have legislation proposing that trucks go from 48 to 53 feet, longer trucks. He raises a number of issues, as did Mr Daigeler, vis-à-vis the safety aspects as you allow a longer configuration or a different configuration. "Why don't you include intercity buses?" The member has a valid point. If you choose to do so as a government, how do you put it into practice?

Mr Turnbull: Can you do it under the regulations?

Hon Mr Pouliot: We cannot. We will not do it under regulations, but we're consistent and reasonable in our approach. We're presently the only jurisdiction in North America that does not allow 45-foot intercity buses. Being reasonable and consistent, we will therefore, in committee of the whole, look favourably -- we shall be sympathetic, by way of an amendment, to longer buses.

Mr Turnbull: What about the overhang?

Hon Mr Pouliot: In terms of the second inquiry regarding overhang, we have a policy of consultation. We cannot in conscience bypass the people who have given us their confidence and their counsel and expertise: the automobile association, different client groups. We've got to go back to them. Yes, we can do it under regulation, but first we must consult with them --

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

Hon Mr Pouliot: -- because they've given us their good office, and it's only fair practice that we do so.

Mr Daigeler: Again, I appreciate what the minister just said. I indicated in my own remarks that I will be moving an amendment with regard to the longer buses and certainly look forward to seeing that supported.

I do want to briefly comment on what the critic for the Conservative Party said. Most of what he said I agree with, and I think my remarks were along very similar lines. However, I must take exception to one thing that he said, that his party has always been in favour of this initiative. As I have shown by quoting Hansard from 1989, Mr Don Cousens, who was speaking on behalf of the party at the time, clearly said that they were opposed to longer trucks.

Now, as I said in my remarks, I am glad that the Conservative Party under this Parliament changed its view on this matter, but I do think, unless the member wants to correct the Hansard record, it's simply not what happened when the Liberal government was in place and was planning to introduce this measure. The Conservative Party at the time clearly said that it was opposed to this measure.

As I say, I'm glad to see a change in that position. I'm glad that both the NDP and the Conservatives changed their minds on this matter and that they have come to see the light in the way the Liberals saw it. Sometimes it happens that way; sometimes we see it differently as time evolves.

In fairness to the record, I think it would not be proper to say that the current Transportation critic could say that the Conservative Party has always been in favour of this. He may have been in favour, and perhaps the current Conservative caucus has been in favour, but not the previous one.

Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey-Owen Sound): I would first like to congratulate the member for York Mills on his brief, on what he was talking about here, and to mention how the member was saying that the Conservative Party didn't always support that. That may be right. That's why we have elections around here and I think people change from time to time.

I'd like to mention that the member for York Mills probably had a lot to do with that -- in fact, he did -- in changing the mind of some of the Conservatives, and as he mentioned, they do support this. As the critic for rural Ontario for Transportation, I also support this bill.

But it doesn't mean that it's all right, though. It's unfortunate that we have a minister -- it seems we've been talking about this for the last couple of weeks, about some of the high-handed measures he uses to bring his bills in. First, on photo-radar he brings in a motion to close the debate on that. Now I understand that this bill will not go for any more public consultation, that he's just going to ram it through again at third reading tomorrow.

Again, we have a minister who is using his high-handed style to ram bills through this Legislature, even though some of us do agree with it. I want to express that this minister is using his powers to do that, and that is very unfortunate because this minister has talked many times about how he's worried about safety. This one is another one that will do some safety aspects to the roads, but it's not enough; we need more safety measures.

In northern Ontario, especially with the roads, there was a lot of promise that some of the roads were going to be fixed up. We've seen nothing that's happened in the north. He sort of forgot about the north and it's very unfortunate because this minister does come from the north and he seems to have forgot everything that happens in the north and has done nothing to help us up there.

Mr David Johnson (Don Mills): I've had a little bit of a history lesson here this afternoon, I guess, from the member to my right in terms of who supported what back in 1980-something-or-other and who didn't; 1989 or whenever.

I can only say that since I've been here, following the by-election in April, the member for York Mills to my right has been an extremely keen supporter of this legislation to permit longer trucks. Indeed, my arm is a little bit sprained I think from his constant pressure in our caucus meetings and in this Legislature, right on the floor. He's asked the minister, and I see the minister over there --

Hon Mr Pouliot: At least you've still got your wallet.

Mr David Johnson: I've still got my wallet and I've still got my arm, but it's a bit sore from being twisted to support this legislation.

The member, of course, is our critic for Transportation, for urban transportation. He's aware of the necessity to provide an even playing field for businesses in the province of Ontario, the fact that they must be competitive. He has pointed out to us over and over again that other provinces surrounding Ontario and other states in the United States -- I think just about all the states in the United States -- permit these longer vehicles. For our businesses to be competitive, we must have this legislation.

He's also talked about safety. Certainly, in our caucus and on the floor of this House, he has indicated that safety is a concern, but he's addressed all the safety issues and he has constantly promoted legislation for the longer vehicles.

I don't know about the history lessons going back when, but I know the evidence that I have seen and witnessed in this Legislature.

He's also taken a keen interest, as the member has pointed out, with regard to photo-radar and with regard to graduated licensing, and he's been fair. He supported graduated licensing because he knows it's good and longer vehicles because he knows it's good, and he's opposed photo-radar because he knows it's not good.

Mr Murdoch: Money grab.

Mr David Johnson: It's a money grab for this provincial government.

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The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. The member for York Mills has two minutes to respond.

Mr Turnbull: I was pleased to read from what the Minister of Transportation suggested that he is saying definitely that under the regulations he does have the power to allow longer intercity buses and that he does have the power, subject to consulting with the various people you consulted with prior to bringing in this bill, on the question of the overhang of auto transports.

That's fair, Minister. I'm not asking you for anything different. I wouldn't want you to do anything differently. One of the concerns that over and over I and my caucus colleagues have brought to this House is that this government isn't consulting properly, and the best example of this has got to be photo-radar, where the government has jammed it through in almost record time. They absolutely ignored any possibility of public hearings. We were given two days in committee, which wasn't enough for adequate clause-by-clause consultation on that.

Hon Mr Pouliot: Five days of debate.

Mr Turnbull: The minister is shouting five days in second reading. It wasn't five days, Minister. It was four days plus 20 minutes, which if you put that together in terms of hours on one of the most draconian pieces of legislation you have brought forward -- Orwellian, some people have suggested -- you have probably had a total of something like about eight hours of debate. On top of that, there has been massive correspondence on this and you have refused to open it up to public consultation, which is the normal way. So I accept the fact that you should be consulting on it, but I do take it under advisement that you can do these things under regulations.

The Acting Speaker: Further speakers to this bill? Seeing none, the Minister of Transportation.

Hon Mr Pouliot: I'll be quite brief. It's an issue that has been debated through the years. On the one hand, there was a focus, and I think rightly so, where people were concerned about longer vehicles being safe; real concerns.

A lot has been said in this House vis-à-vis the transition from railways to roadways. Consequently, because of just-in-time delivery, because people prefer to have door-to-door service, because of the improvement in the road system, the facility to deliver quicker, better and at your doorstep and come back with a backhaul, all those factors indicate that more than 70% of cargo, of freight, of commodities, is being delivered by way of trucking. That's the reality of the day. There is no escaping that this is the order of the day.

By not being competitive, by not being like the others, Ontario, vis-à-vis the people they do business with, the competition, was losing $100 million per year. We were $100 million behind the eight ball simply because all other jurisdictions in North America, all other provinces and states, except four states of the union, and provinces east of us, everybody else was on side. Everybody else was saying that if you wish to move some goods from point A to point B we shall give you 10% more capacity. In terms of volume, your trucks will be able to carry 10% more goods from point A to point B. Until today, Ontario had said, "No, we will not comply because we have too many questions that are unanswered."

We went through extensive consultation. We've talked with Transport 2000. We have consulted with the Canadian Automobile Association, teams of experts, groups of engineers, the business community, the consumers, and today we echo the sentiment, the consensus of all those groups, organizations and of course, first and foremost, individuals. People have said to us, "We wish to have the guarantee that allowing longer trucks will not jeopardize safety."

We're all afraid. It's a normal reaction. If not all of us, most of us are afraid of longer vehicles. They create a bit of anxiety and that leads to fear and that's not a bad scenario. There are worse-case scenarios. In fact, I've heard someone say that given the climatic conditions in the northern part of our province, "Gilles, for a second I began to die, and you want to make them longer."

You take those sentiments from real people, those really anxious moments, that real fear, and you bring it back to your colleagues, you bring it back to the people who are experts and the people said: "Yes, we have heard the same dilemmas. We have an impasse but this is what we're prepared to do. We know that you will have as much as 10% fewer trucks on the highways because you'll be able to carry in most instances 10% more volume, but you will not surpass, exceed the capacity that you have today, the overall payload. The weight will not increase. You will have a longer wheel base. That's safer. You will have the opportunity to go to an automatic brake adjustment system when you purchase a new vehicle. When you do that, you will reduce the number of faulty brakes from 33% to 9%. So that's safer again."

People have been holding back. They simply weren't buying, but now they will go to the marketplace in order to compete and they will buy new trucks. New trucks are safer. Five, six or seven components come into play, and that's a true story. People will be able to bid on a block of goods the same as their neighbours. It's called competition in the marketplace.

We don't have the opportunity to sap that element in the free-enterprise system. It's called competition and we're doing this here. We're simply saying we're now like the others. We can do it as well, if not better than the others. We're not jeopardizing safety. We shall never jeopardize safety. This is a matter which is commonsensical. It brings $100 million to the province of Ontario in competitiveness.

If we're talking about amendments, if we're referring to bagatelle, if you wish, when people talk about omnibus legislation, in some cases it could be a gadget, housekeeping matters, we have to go through because the system works in such a fashion that in order to amend the existing Highway Traffic Act you have to have an issue. In this case, we have 15 issues that are on the back burner.

You know what we could have done? We could have gone the omnibus route and said we have a majority in this House, that nothing else matters. Our House leader, the great democrat that he is, could have gone to his colleagues and said: "We have 15 or 20 items; like it or not, we have the numbers to back it up and with the omnibus we will bring in closure. You can take your chances come election time because this is the will of the majority."

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No, this member, our House leader, searched long and hard and said: "Okay, let's get unanimity. If the opposition and the third party can get together with the government and go to the graduated driver's licence, why don't we do it together?" We've done that. "If the opposition and third party, with the government, can come up unanimously, if we can get an agreement to go to this piece of legislation, Bill 74, let's do that. If, by way of an amendment, the opposition and the third party can get together with the government and go to an amendment which suits the ideology, the philosophy, of all concerned, addresses the public need, let's do that."

We have a win-win-win situation. We're saving the time of the House. With a great deal of pride, I feel relieved that people have come to their senses. The reason we did take a long time at arriving at a change in vehicle configuration is because we wanted to give ourselves and, more important, the motoring public in the province every assurance that safety was enhanced. Safety shall never be compromised.

The Acting Speaker: Mr Pouliot has moved second reading of Bill 74, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Shall the bill be ordered for third reading?

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Government House Leader): I believe we'd like to see this bill go to committee of the whole House.

The Acting Speaker: Agreed? So ordered. The bill is accordingly referred to the committee of the whole House.

Hon Mr Charlton: Madam Speaker, just before I call the next order, there are a couple of matters that I wanted to clarify that should have been clarified earlier about the rest of this evening before we go on. They got forgotten in the excitement earlier.

The three House leaders had agreed that we would next move to the debate on Bill 120, which I will call in a moment, and that we would debate Bill 120 from now until 9 o'clock or some earlier hour than that if we should find a shortage of people who wish to speak to the bill. Either at that earlier hour or at 9 o'clock, the debate on Bill 120 should be adjourned, because there are a couple of members who are unable to be with us this evening who do wish to speak to the bill.

We would then, at the earlier hour or at 9 o'clock, move to the debate on the concurrences, which are the 69th through the 80th orders. We would move to those debates as a unit. There would be no votes until the end of the concurrences process and members would be free to speak to any of the individual concurrences or, for that matter, to all of them in their comments so that we would have a wide-ranging debate around the package of concurrences, much as we did last year. That debate would continue from 9 until midnight or until we find ourselves without further speakers, at which point we would adjourn that debate as well.

The Acting Speaker: Is it the agreement of the House that we proceed in that manner? Agreed.

RESIDENTS' RIGHTS ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE LES IMMEUBLES D'HABITATION

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 120, An Act to amend certain statutes concerning residential property / Projet de loi 120, Loi modifiant certaines lois en ce qui concerne les immeubles d'habitation.

The Acting Speaker (Ms Margaret H. Harrington): I believe the member for Don Mills has the floor.

Mr David Johnson (Don Mills): I was quite taken by the speech of the Minister of Transportation. I thought it applied equally to this issue of apartments in houses as it did to the issue of long trucks.

The minister was saying that the government could have taken the position that it had the majority, and the government could have taken the position that it could simply implement what it wanted in terms of longer trucks, but it wanted to get unanimity, it wanted to have unanimous opinion between the opposition, the third party and the government. The minister was saying, "If we can get that unanimity, then let's do it."

Unfortunately, in this case the government has said, "Let's not bother, let's just go ahead and do it, even though the third party is against it, the opposition is against it, and indeed the municipalities of the province of Ontario are against it as well." Many other people, I might add, are against this legislation too.

What we're talking about, and this is a debate that was adjourned at midnight last night, in a portion of Bill 120 is the duplexing of Ontario, the right of this government: This government is putting forward a motion that every single-family house, every semidetached house and every row house in the province of Ontario, with the exception of a few that are connected to septic tanks, will have an apartment, or will be allowed as of right to have an apartment, either a basement apartment or a flat contained somewhere in that dwelling.

So if you are an owner of a single-family home in the province of Ontario, this would mean you now would own a duplex after this legislation is passed. If you are an owner of a semidetached house, two semidetached houses together, two units today, tomorrow there will be four units. You could have two basement apartments, one in each unit, and the semi itself. If you live in a row house complex with 10 units, in the future you'll find yourself in a 20-plex row house; you could have 10 basement apartments as well as the 10 row houses. This with the stroke of a pen, this without any agreement, either by the opposition parties or by the municipalities in Ontario.

I mention the municipalities, and I can say that it's not just individual municipalities that are opposed to this legislation. Having served at the municipal level until recently myself, I have been involved with a number of discussions with organizations at the municipal level. For example, the mayors of the greater Toronto area have gotten together on several occasions to talk about various issues that are of mutual concern. About a year ago, I recall going through a number of those meetings and I can tell you that there were two issues that predominated in those discussions.

One of those issues was Bill 40, that's the labour bill, to give more powers to the labour movement in the province of Ontario, and the municipalities were dead set against Bill 40 because they were concerned that it would depress investment within their municipalities, and that it would consequently kill jobs and kill economic development within their municipalities. That bill has been implemented and their worst fears have been realized. That was one issue they were concerned about.

The second issue that municipalities, and through the GTA, were most concerned about was apartments in houses, the very legislation we're talking about today, and they opposed it very strenuously. It's not just within the GTA. I can tell you that the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, which represents 700 of the 830-some-odd municipalities in the province of Ontario, has also firmly opposed this legislation.

By the way, the populations of those municipalities represent 95% of the people of this province and they are opposed. Not only are they opposed, but they say that they have not been properly consulted. They say they've been talked to, they've been told what they're supposed to do, but they haven't been consulted by the minister in coming forward with this policy.

1900

They are concerned because they view this as being a severe intrusion into their right to plan their communities. Municipalities have this strange notion that they are best suited to plan their municipalities, that municipalities in conjunction with the local citizens, with local tenants, with local home owners, with local businesses, are best able to plan their own communities. This is their notion.

But the minister doesn't agree with that. The minister feels that municipalities have not taken her direction. She has various initiatives that she wants to see with regard to housing. She feels that over a period of time she's made that clear to the municipalities, that the municipalities and their citizens have not responded, and consequently they're to be dictated to.

Completely ignore the fact that municipalities have successfully for decades, with their citizens, with their businesses, planned their communities. Throw all that out the window and dictate in this instance how those communities are to be planned. That's what this bill does. That's exactly what this bill does. It tells municipalities how to plan in terms of housing. It's a very serious intrusion and it's one that the municipalities will fight right to the very end.

They're also concerned about local flexibility. Does it make sense to have the same planning approach right across the province of Ontario? Does it make sense to have the same approach in Toronto to a housing problem as it does in the city of London or as it does in North Bay or as it does in the town of Dundas? There are so many different circumstances across this province. Does it make sense to have exactly the same approach?

Well, the minister says it does. The minister says that her initiatives should be uniformly instituted. Every home right across this whole province of Ontario and every single-family home right across this province of Ontario should now become a duplex. You may choose not to duplex your house, by the way, but the neighbour across the street or the neighbour next door on either side or the neighbour in the rear yard, as of right, without any notice to yourself or without your having any rights to speak to it, could duplex their property. The minister says that's the way we should plan our province, without any flexibility right across this province.

When she says that, I think of an issue that was before the East York council when I was mayor just about a year ago and we were talking about intensification. We were looking at ways and means, particularly on the major arteries in East York, to increase housing potential in East York, and we actually implemented methods. We increased the number of residential units above the retail stores that would be permitted within the municipality.

But as we were coming to the end of the debate and as we were about to approve it, we were approached by a local business, a large industry, a big employer in East York who had been located in East York for many years. This employer said: "There will be problems. We're an industry. We're located right across the street from where some of the intensification is being recommended."

As we all knew, there were odours that were associated with this particular business. They were very pleasant odours, but nevertheless they were odours and those odours tended to get on the nerves of people after a period of time. The business said: "We are looking at investing millions of dollars in this business. We are looking at job creation. We are looking at stabilizing this industry in East York, but we know full well that if intensification occurs right across the street, there will be problems. The people who live in those units across the street will have complaints about the odours and that will cause problems for the business. It won't be good for the people who live there. It won't be good for the business."

They recommended that we exclude a small area from the intensification. When we all looked at it as a community, when we all got together, we said, "That makes sense," and we excluded that small area.

That's the kind of flexibility. If you leave it to local municipalities, they can come up with a policy, a policy that will meet the needs and yet a policy that will work within each municipality.

It's interesting that this very same government that is coming forward with this bill to allow apartments in all houses has commissioned the Sewell commission on planning in the province of Ontario, and that very commission recommends against the approach that the government is taking. The Sewell commission -- it hasn't been tabled yet, I admit, but the report is out and everybody is aware of the contents of the report, about 100 different recommendations, I think.

That report recommends that the province of Ontario be responsible for setting policies -- policies such as housing policies, such as environmental policies, such as heritage policies -- but that then the province leave the details of planning to the municipalities; let the municipalities carry out planning and let the province set broader policies.

They are ignoring the advice of their own commission. The minister, because she's not happy that her lofty goals in housing have been achieved, has not only decided to set the policy through this bill, but is recommending that the government implement it, get right down into the details of implementing this policy right across Ontario, and I think that's wrong.

The question may arise as to what this will mean to the average person. I'm quite sure that the average person doesn't recognize what's happening here and won't recognize it until and if apartments start to spring up across the street, next door. The complaints will start and then people will realize.

But I think we recognize that to most people who own a house, that is the single most important and largest investment of their whole life, and when they make that investment, they consider a large number of factors. They consider how close that house is to their employment, how close that house is to schools, to parks. They consider the neighbourhood that the house is located in. Some people like a very quiet neighbourhood, a single-family neighbourhood. They like low-rise buildings so that they can see the sun in their backyard, that sort of thing.

Other people perhaps, on the other end of the spectrum, may like a busier neighbourhood. They might like the hustle and bustle. They may like a high-rise neighbourhood. They may like to have all the conveniences, the retail shops and everything, close at hand. But the one thing that people realize, whatever neighbourhood they select, is that the rules of planning, the zoning bylaws, the official plans, are etched in granite and they do not change. They do not change unless people are consulted. People must be consulted if they are to change. A municipality cannot come along with the stroke of a pen and change the rules in their neighbourhood. They will not wake up one morning and find out that an apartment building has been zoned across the street from them, or a store or an industry or something like that. They know in the province of Ontario that if the rules are proposed to be changed, they will be consulted.

First of all, they'll be notified. All the people in a community will be notified. They'll be brought into the picture. The change will be described to them. They'll be invited to a public hearing. They'll be welcome to speak on it. They'll be welcome to give their views, whether they support it or oppose it. Through this process, in conjunction with their local council, all the tenants, all the home owners, all the business people in that community will come to a decision on whether there should be change or not.

That is the system we have in place in Ontario, until today. But what this is proposing is to throw that out the window. Unilaterally, without consultation with people, without consultation with the municipalities, with the residents in a municipality, with the businesses, with the tenants, throw that out the window and unilaterally change every single-family house, every semidetached house, every row house; change the zoning in the province of Ontario and in effect duplex each and every one of those houses. I think that's very serious business.

1910

Today we're talking about apartments in houses. We're talking about that because the minister is not satisfied that municipalities have heeded her request for more affordable housing, even at a time when rents are actually going down in some instances, even at a time when there's a vacancy rate, even at a time when the price of houses is plummeting, even at a time when the interest rates to purchase a house have gone down, even at a time when housing is more affordable today than it has ever been for many, many years on this province of Ontario.

Even at such a time, the minister is still not content that we have enough affordable housing, so she has decided, in this instance, to throw out all the rules of planning in the province of Ontario that we have abided by for decades and that people have come to believe in. In one fell swoop, she's rezoned every home in the province of Ontario. I think she's going to be in for a surprise.

The interesting thing is, in all the municipalities across Ontario, does the zoning comply with what the minister is going to do? No, it doesn't. Will the official plans in all the municipalities across Ontario comply with what the minister is demanding through this bill? No, they won't. So what will have to happen? Will they have to be brought into compliance? The minister says yes, each and every official plan in all the municipalities across this whole province of Ontario will have to be changed. All the zoning bylaws in all the municipalities across the province of Ontario will have to be changed.

Is this just some paper exercise? Is this something that you can do at the drop of a hat? Absolutely not. This is a major exercise; this is a costly exercise. Every municipality across the province of Ontario will have to go through its official plans. They will have to go through all their zoning bylaws and there will be tremendous costs, tremendous effort. At the same time, when municipalities are being asked to be more efficient, more frugal, are asked to cut costs and, as a matter of fact, are being given less money by the province of Ontario, they're asked to go through a very complex exercise to implement this.

The other interesting aspect of this is, how do they do that? How do they change their official plans? How do they change their zoning bylaws? They have to have a public hearing. Can you imagine what's going to happen at the public hearing? This is a major exercise. The official plan is one of the most important documents that a municipality has.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): The most.

Mr David Johnson: "The most," the member for Etobicoke West says. It probably is. All the people in the municipality will have to be invited. They'll all go out, find out what this is about. They'll say, "Why are we here?" The local mayor will say: "Because all single-family houses are now duplexes. All the row houses and the semidetached are now being duplexed, and we want to hear your opinion."

People will say: "That's a bad idea. There are other ideas that could achieve these various goals." They'll say: "Don't implement what the minister is recommending. Implement something else. Turn it down. Change it."

What will the local mayors say? They'll say: "Sorry, we must implement it. We have no choice. The minister has told us: 'You're bad boys, you're bad girls, you municipalities. You haven't followed my directions. You have to make these changes.'"

Then the public will say: "Why did you bother to invite us out? Why are we going to all these meetings if we can't be listened to? Why are you going through this silly exercise of inviting us out when we can have no say in this?" I don't know what the answer will be, but the ministry is insisting that these meetings be held.

The Association of Municipalities of Ontario has said that because those hearings are going to be a sham and there's going to be conflict, they're going to be ridiculous meetings, that the province of Ontario should conduct those meetings. The members of this provincial Parliament from the government who are insisting on this legislation should conduct those hearings and explain why people are going to be invited out to talk to something over which they'll have no say and which the municipalities, at great expense, are going to have to implement.

What's going to happen beyond that is that the complaints are going to start to come in, because the procedures that the minister is recommending -- for example, procedures with regard to right of entry, which have been somewhat improved -- will still not be adequate.

Mr Stockwell: This much?

Mr David Johnson: Yes, about that much. The member for Etobicoke West says they're approved about one millimetre, when they have about another kilometre to go to be useful.

The problem is that to get into a unit to see if there is a violation when the complaints come in -- and the complaints won't come here. The complaints won't come to this Legislature. The minister will never hear of the complaints. The complaints will go to the local municipalities. People will come to the local council meetings, people will phone their local mayor, their local councillor, and they'll complain about problems, about lack of maintenance, about noise and other problems associated with these apartments, and they'll insist on an inspection. But when the municipal inspector goes to the door and attempts to enter, the municipal inspector, as the inspector is today, will be denied the right of entry, and these new entry powers that the minister says are so improved will be of little use. They're just a very slight improvement.

Consequently, the municipalities will still be under the gun. So you start to see why municipalities are not too happy about this. The minister says municipalities are not happy because they are not representative of the whole population. The minister says that some people vote more than other people and consequently certain people aren't represented and that's why municipalities aren't happy. But when municipalities have had their planning authority taken away, when they are going to have to face angry citizens to explain something that has been mandated on them, and when they're going to get complaints day in and day out about this, I think they have every right to be concerned.

Mr Stockwell: I think the member for Don Mills has enlightened this House with respect to the ramifications of this piece of legislation.

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): Something you have never managed to do in this House.

Mr Stockwell: I hear the member for Cochrane South blathering. I'll ignore him.

He has brought forward the number of difficulties this piece of legislation will face in the local municipalities.

You talk about an official plan amendment. It's very true; when you want to amend an official plan -- you probably have to amend 99% of the official plans out there -- that's going to mean a public hearing in every municipality. Those people in those municipalities who don't favour this type of legislation will have to come out to a meeting and be told there's nothing they can do about it, if you're looking for an official plan amendment.

You're talking about changing the makeup of neighbourhoods in Metropolitan Toronto, throughout this province.

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): Point of order, Madam Speaker: I believe the critics were dividing the time and then there would be questions after both critics had made presentations.

The Acting Speaker: That was not agreed upon.

Mr Hope: Just so we know about the time allocation.

The Acting Speaker: Please resume your comments, the member for Etobicoke West.

Mr Stockwell: When our member, who was going to go first, gets her hour and a half, that's maybe when that will take place. This wasn't it. Can I have the time back on the clock?

Mr Bisson: No.

Mr Stockwell: I don't get the time back on the clock?

Anyway, as I was saying with respect to the official plan amendments, that will have to take place in every municipality and community around this province. Neighbourhoods that were designed as single-family residential neighbourhoods will now have to deal with this kind of draconian change legislated from the top down, when there are duly elected officials at the local level who understand the needs and concerns of each individual neighbourhood.

This flies in the face of New Democratic planning policy. It's a cookie-cutter approach to planning. Different neighbourhoods have different needs and different concerns and different issues. To simply legislate basement apartments across the board in every neighbourhood, in every community in the province of Ontario is absolutely planning fiasco and totally unacceptable. I thank the member for Don Mills for bringing these forward.

1920

Mr George Mammoliti (Yorkview): This is not a planning fiasco, as a matter of fact; it's managing a problem. I would argue that with anybody, including the individual who just stood up from Etobicoke West for two minutes. I'm assuming it's for two minutes.

Anybody who argues that this will not solve a particular problem is wrong. In North York, there are a number of us who are saying that this bill will solve the problems that the individual from Etobicoke West is standing up here and talking about. This bill will, in essence, solve some of those parking problems that the member keeps talking about.

Mr Stockwell: How so?

Mr Mammoliti: "How so?" he asks. Currently in the city of North York, the municipality isn't doing anything about parking. Currently in the city of North York, the municipality isn't doing anything in reference to even attempting to go into the units when there's a problem.

Today I had a call in my constituency office about a similar problem, where there are a number of people who are renting out a particular home, and I'm investigating that as we speak; my constituency office is. The city of North York doesn't want to investigate, in my opinion. This bill will bring it under the scope of a piece of legislation that I think would make it a lot easier for the city of North York to go into these units, to deal with the parking problem and pass the bylaws that are necessary for the problems that exist when we talk about simple things like parking.

Now the argument the member gives to me is, "What about all these tenants?" I'm going to stand up in a few more minutes and talk about this myself. Madam Speaker, in a few minutes I'm going to bring my views on this particular argument and I'll share them with you.

The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. Are there any other members who wish to participate in questions and/or comments? Seeing none, the member for Don Mills has two minutes to respond.

Mr David Johnson: Madam Speaker, I guess you won't be too surprised when I say that I think the member for Etobicoke West has the best grasp of the planning implications of this bill, as opposed to the member for Yorkview, for example.

You might think that's simply out of partisanship, but it happens to be the position of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario; it happens to be the position of just about every municipality, if not every municipality, in this province. When you start to line that expertise up against the expertise of the member for Yorkview, with all due respect to the member for Yorkview, then I think you have to at least ask yourself, are all the municipalities in this province wrong or is somebody else wrong?

The member for Etobicoke West says there's going to be tremendous cost because all of the official plans -- somebody must think you just go in there with a pen and make a few strokes and change an official plan overnight. It's an extremely expensive operation. You have to have particular expertise, and then there's the public hearing process. This is going to require a lot of time and effort.

Mr Stockwell: The OMB.

Mr David Johnson: Yes, an OMB hearing possibly. So the member for Etobicoke West is absolutely correct.

The member for Yorkview seems to feel that somehow parking problems are going to be solved if you can get into a unit. Well, first, this legislation isn't going to help you, hardly at all, gain entry into a unit. I doubt it'll be the list bit of assistance.

Mr Mammoliti: It will so.

Mr David Johnson: The member says it will so, but I'd like him to be more specific as to how this will help. Secondly, if you get into a unit, how is that going to help with the parking problems? Is somehow more parking going to magically appear on the street? I don't really know.

Mr Mammoliti: The tenants will disappear.

Mr David Johnson: Oh, the tenants will disappear. If you get into the unit, somehow the tenants will disappear. But you know, that could be a result. In some units, it'll be too expensive to fix up the unit, and tenants will be kicked out on the street. That may well be. The member for Yorkview may have a point. Some tenants will lose their accommodation as a result of this bill.

The Acting Speaker: I do wish to inform the members that it was agreed last night that the leadoff speaker for the third party would be allowed to debate today.

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): There is a great deal to be said about Bill 120, and I think to start my comments on Bill 120, I would like to read the first explanatory note of the bill, because I think it's important for us to understand what this bill is doing and, equally importantly, what this bill is not doing.

I'm reading from the bill's explanatory note itself: "The bill introduces a new concept of a care home as a residential premises occupied by persons who receive certain care services such as medical or health care services or assistance with the activities of daily living. Care homes are added to the list of residential premises that are subject to the Landlord and Tenant Act, but the charges made for care services or meals to tenants in care homes are not included in rent. Certain accommodation that is presently excluded from the list of residential premises is also added."

What is happening with Bill 120, as I said in this chamber the day the Minister of Housing introduced Bill 120, is in my opinion a misuse of the parliamentary process. First of all, we had Bill 90 tabled in this House by this government over a year ago. At the time that Bill 90 was tabled in the House, the government very quickly became aware -- whether or not they wanted to acknowledge it or not is another matter -- of the fact that there was a tremendous outrage by the people of this province through their local municipalities and through direct contact with their elected representatives of the Ontario Legislature.

Now here we have Bill 90, which permitted basement apartments and granny flats, as of right, on the property of any single-family home in this province. That meant not necessarily a single-family home on a single lot; it meant semidetached houses and row housing, stacked town houses. For everyone who owned a home, regardless of which category of home it was, Bill 90 permitted them to have the addition of a single-family dwelling unit.

This single-family dwelling unit could be in the basement or it could be an on-grade granny flat. The only exception to this as-of-right provision of Bill 90 was the requirement that if the property was not connected to city sanitary sewers and was on septic tanks, it was not allowed. With the exception of the property being on septic tanks, anyone could have this additional single unit to that property.

It didn't talk about where the granny flat had to be, whether it could be in the side yard or the rear yard or even the front yard if it was deep enough. It had no regard to municipal planning at all, and I'm going to deal with the details of what was Bill 90 further on in my debate.

1930

What is important to understand is that Bill 90 would not have passed in this chamber without a lot of strong opposition debate. Interestingly enough, the debate, as I said, was not only going to be in this chamber but was also going to take place through organizations like the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and the other levels of government, which also represent the same people the members of this chamber represent.

Here we had a situation where there was tremendous opposition to one bill, and what has happened is that this government, I presume, did not have the courage to bring that bill back as Bill 90. Instead, the Minister of Housing stood in this House and withdrew Bill 90. At the same time, she introduced Bill 120.

However, when we came to examine what Bill 120 covered, we realized that Bill 120 was in fact an omnibus bill containing all of the previous areas that were covered in Bill 90, but now it was linked to the matter of regulation of rest and retirement homes in this province.

I could say that to introduce an omnibus bill that on the one hand contains something the government knew the opposition parties were totally opposed to, and to link that with a matter that not only for the most part we are in favour of but also have been actively requesting, to put these two matters together, is rather sleazy and rather underhanded of this government. At best, it is very unrealistic on their part to think they're going to fool anybody by coming in with an omnibus bill that says, "Here are two matters. You're going to have to either vote against both of them or vote in favour of both of them," knowing full well that we're not in favour of both of these matters that now are addressed in Bill 120.

Lest the government members do not know the history of what we have been calling for in the matter of the regulation of rest homes in Ontario and why we would have supported Bill 120 if it had dealt only with the regulation of rest and retirement homes rather than including the other provisions of Bill 90, I want to recall for those members why we have been calling for regulation of the presently unregulated homes.

The benefits of regulating rest and retirement homes have been considered on several occasions in the past. Discussion about regulation has often followed on the heels of a tragic occurrence at an unregulated home.

We certainly are aware of a tragedy in January 1990 when four elderly residents were killed in a fire at an Ottawa home for the aged. Their deaths prompted calls from seniors' groups for provincial regulations to ensure a standard of care and safety for occupants. The Liberal government, already in possession of a report from an April 1989 advisory committee on rest homes that urged the government to regulate rest homes, neglected at that time to take any action.

In April 1990, a Brant county medical officer of health urged the province to licence homes and pass regulations to set standards on food, medication and care in rest homes after several incidents of abuse or poor care were reported. The medical officer reported that other health boards had similar concerns about rest homes in their area.

Bear in mind, of course, that this wonderful omnibus bill, Bill 120, which is what we are debating here this evening, doesn't address any of those concerns. It doesn't address standards of food or medication or care in any way at all. It simply addresses tenancy.

Throughout 1989 and 1990, then-Community and Social Services critic Dianne Cunningham, the member for London North for the Ontario PC caucus, lobbied extensively for the regulation of rest homes. The PC Party urged the Liberal government to take action on the 1989 recommendations of the advisory committee.

The tragic scalding death of a North York retirement home resident in July 1990 brought the issue of regulation to the forefront of discussions again. In this case, the coroner's office that conducted the inquest suggested the government take a regulatory role in the operation of rest homes. Nothing has been done with any of those areas and nothing will be done by the passage of this Bill 120.

During the summer election campaign of 1990, Mike Harris made a commitment to vulnerable adults residing in unregulated rest homes. Recognizing the opportunity for emotional, physical, financial and sexual abuse in these settings, Mike Harris promised to address these disturbing problems by "introducing legislation to regulate minimum standards of care and service in Ontario's rest homes." Mike Harris concurred with some findings of the Advisory Committee on Rest Homes, which reported to the minister responsible for senior citizens' affairs in April 1989. Specifically, he suggested legislation that would guarantee the quality of meals, a 24-hour staff presence, adherence to health standards and maintenance of a personal record for each resident.

Those were the concerns in the summer of 1990. We are now in December 1993, and none of those concerns has been addressed. As I say again, none of those concerns will be addressed by this particular legislation.

Part of the input for Bill 120 comes, of course, from the report of the Commission of Inquiry into Unregulated Residential Accommodation, which has become known as the Lightman report. Chief among Dr Lightman's 148 recommendations were the following: the creation of a bill of rights for residents of rest and retirement homes which would include the provision of locked spaces for storage of residents' belongings; the provision of a secure lock on bedrooms, a preventative measure to protect vulnerable adults from sexual assault; the right to decorate rooms as residents wish; the right to privacy, including no physical searches, no restrictions placed on access to mail, telephone, newspapers, radio and television and the right to receive mail unopened and to have visitors; and the right to practise religion.

1940

Mandatory municipal registration of all rest homes: Currently, public health and fire departments don't even know how many homes exist in their areas. It's rather a scary thought to think that there are rest and retirement homes in communities that the municipalities are not aware of. This bill doesn't do anything about that area identified by Dr Lightman.

Mandatory minimum staff-to-resident ratios at all hours and minimum required job skills and competence levels for staff: Obviously, Dr Lightman was very concerned about staff-to-resident ratios, and if he's talking about staff, he wanted them to be skilled at their job. That is not addressed by Bill 120.

Another of Dr Lightman's recommendations is a maximum to be set on the size of rest homes to limit the number of residents allowed in any facility. I think that has to be very important too. That is not addressed by this bill.

A speedy way for landlords to evict troublesome or dangerous tenants: Some administrators of privately run institutions complained about the Lightman report's use of sweeping generalities to describe conditions in rest homes. While objecting to some broad characterizations used by Lightman, operators are generally supportive of a regulatory system to monitor standards of care. These are the operators themselves, the members of the Ontario Long Term Residential Care Association. These members of OLTRCA are supportive of regulations because through regulations being imposed and being effective, obviously they will be rid of the kind of operators that none of them wish to be associated with. Some concerns, however, were voiced from operators about the inclusion of facilities in the Landlord and Tenant Act.

The Ontario Long Term Residential Care Association has made the following observations: "This association was started in 1977. It is a non-profit organization which provides members with education, special events, industry evaluations, communications and public information services. The association sets standards for members through its own code of ethics, resident contracts, commitment to residents, administrators' certificates and training programs."

I'm just going to stop at this point because I find it very interesting that a few minutes ago we had perhaps six people in this House. I guess I should be very complimented, because when I got up to speak we had the arrival of several members of cabinet, including the Minister of Housing. I think it's --

Hon Evelyn Gigantes (Minister of Housing): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I believe the member is out of order in noting the presence or absence of any member of this House.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): To the member for Ottawa Centre, it is indeed parliamentary practice not to mention the absence of particular members. However, it could be seen as a compliment that particular members are in the chamber when a certain member is speaking. But members, generally speaking, refrain from mentioning who is not present.

The member for Mississauga South would assist the Chair if she were to direct her remarks to the Chair and continue on her observation of the bill which is before the House.

Mrs Marland: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'm happy to address my comments to you.

I think it's interesting, however, that the government members have such a wonderful double standard, because I heard earlier today during question period the Treasurer criticizing the leader of the official opposition, Lyn McLeod, for her absence and in fact welcomed her back. So you talk about noting absences; I would suggest to the Minister of Housing that her own Treasurer already did that earlier today, at which point we did not stand on a point of order and say that was out of order.

The Speaker: Could the member for Mississauga South direct her remarks to the Chair and pertaining to the bill which is on the floor of the House.

Mrs Marland: I'm happy to do that. Mr Speaker, I am very complimented and I'm very flattered by the fact that in the last 15 minutes we now have all this influx of members of cabinet to the House. In fact, we have eight members of cabinet here, and I am complimented by that, that they wish to come in and hear my speech. Sometimes we hardly have eight cabinet members here for question period.

Interjections.

Mrs Marland: And the fact that there are so many interjections --

The Speaker: Order.

Mrs Marland: -- we have somebody in here in his suspenders without a jacket on the floor of the House who's now making interjections not even from his seat.

I am complimented, though -- let me say that, Mr Speaker -- by the fact that they wish to prattle on and cause the interjections.

The Speaker: Could the member, please, direct her remarks to the bill and direct her remarks to the Chair.

Mrs Marland: Mr Speaker, I will be happy to direct my comments to the bill if you would ask the members of the government not to interject, in fairness.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. The member for Mississauga South has the floor.

Mrs Marland: On the release of the Lightman report, Rick Winchell, the director of the OLTRCA, said that his association had been a long-time advocate of regulating rest homes. The association has actively been lobbying the government for legislation for the past eight years. Winchell suggested that province-wide standards would weed out the 15% to 20% of operators who are abusive.

In regard to the inclusion of rest homes in the Landlord and Tenant Act, the OLTRCA has stated that: "No one would be served by housing legislation. Residential care should be regulated by the province within the health care system. The Landlord and Tenant Act is legislation geared towards the protection of tenants and will do nothing to assist residents requiring 24-hour personal care. OLTRCA believes that standards should be monitored by the Ministry of Health, not Housing, which has a better understanding of the needs of post-psychiatric and elderly residents." I don't believe that the Minister of Housing has any special area of expertise in the understanding and needs of post-psychiatric and elderly residents in terms of their 24-hour personal care.

As long as there are no province-wide standards for care for these people in these facilities, they are unregulated and that means that this care, which is really attendant care, is also unregulated. The residents only have rights under the Landlord and Tenant Act and the Rent Control Act. They don't have any rights in terms of the right to have those concerns that were addressed by Dr Lightman that bear directly on their care.

I received yesterday a fax from a group representing the Ontario Long Term Residential Care Association in Ontario and I want to point out that these are the comments of OLTRCA that I wish to place on the record in the hope that the government will address these concerns one way or another. I'm not saying necessarily that all of the points that they made are the concerns. We do share the majority of them, however.

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"Bill 120, introduced in the Legislature last week, will cause serious barriers for retirement homes to continue to deliver all-inclusive, 24-hour personal care." I'm quoting entirely from this communication from OLTRCA.

"Unfortunately, the Minister of Housing took the Lightman commission's recommendations literally and applied them to this sector when in fact the majority of Professor Lightman's concern lay with unregulated boarding homes.

"Retirement homes have been advocating for years the need for province-wide standards and a formal system of disputes resolution to address concerns such as adequate care, resident safety, limited contract disclosure and emergency relocation.

"It had recommended that these problems be dealt with by enacting legislation that incorporated mandatory standards to be enforced by the municipalities. These standards would set out the terms for obtaining a licence to build and operate a retirement home and should apply to all residential care settings across both public and private facilities.

"But this government would not listen to this reasonable request and instead has decided to apply both the Rent Control Act and the Landlord and Tenant Act to retirement homes, thus tying it up in bureaucratic, expensive red tape which will cause severe problems for residents and their families.

"Application of these two acts will create the following problems:

"The Landlord and Tenant Act will make it impossible for retirement homes to deal with emergency situations quickly, particularly when a resident becomes a danger to others.

"Appeals can take up to a year. There is little or no case law in this area....

"What is required is a 'fast track' approach which takes into concern emergency situations.

"This legislation also fails to take into account special circumstances for short-term-stay residents."

Other areas of concern, as I continue to read this communication, are: "Retirement homes are very concerned that they will be unable to deal with those residents who refuse to pay for care services other than going to Small Claims Court on a monthly basis....

"The government must determine how it will deal with the general welfare assistance residents who currently reside in retirement homes.

"The government has reserved the right to apply rent control to care services by introducing a regulation at a later date. We believe this is an unduly harsh approach which could penalize the entire sector if one home steps out of line.

"Residents stand to lose from a tax standpoint. First, they will lose their GST-exempt status because GST will now be applied to most non-shelter services. Residents also stand to lose some or all the benefits from medical tax receipts....

"Owners and administrators are concerned that a resident will now be able to sublet their spaces to anyone.

"Finally, there will be the inevitable impact on necessary capital expenditures. Renovations are often made to retirement homes for safety, retrofit reasons. Under rent control, there are severe restrictions to recovering necessary capital expenditures.

"After spending years on dialoguing with this and the past government for province-wide standards for the sector, it is very disappointing to see once again the wrong approach being applied to what is an important part of our health care system -- Ontario's retirement homes."

That's the end of the quote from the Ontario Long Term Residential Care Association in Ontario.

There are a number of areas that we are concerned about. I'm just going to try to highlight some of them because of the fact that we are limited in time on this debate. One of the areas of concern is "In cases of incompetent patients (eg advanced Alzheimer disease), the family members will lose status as decision-makers under the Landlord and Tenant Act...we need to clarify how the Advocacy Act, Substitute Decisions Act and Consent to Treatment Act will interplay with the Landlord and Tenant Act in these cases. The role of the family members as decision-makers has already been somewhat diminished." We need to have that question clarified for the people of this province.

Another area is that "Short-term contracts for respite and emergency care and short-term agreements with municipalities may no longer be possible, either." We don't have that answer yet from the government. If there is an exemption to be granted, we need to know that now.

There is an organization in Windsor, and I'm glad the member for Windsor-Riverside is in the House because I'm sure he is familiar with this organization, and that organization is ALPHA, which is the Apartments for Living for Physically Handicapped Association, and I will refer to it as ALPHA as an acronym.

I received from ALPHA a letter dated December 1, 1993, and I think it's very important for this letter to be on the record of this debate today on December 7. The letter on ALPHA's letterhead is over the signature of Mr Charles Gascoyne, who is a board member, and it reads as follows:

"Re Bill 120 -- Apartments for Living for Physically Handicapped Association, Windsor, Ontario.

"I wish to introduce myself as a member of the board of directors of ALPHA. I was very disappointed to learn of the introduction of Bill 120 through the media. I would have hoped that the ministers of Housing, Health and Community and Social Services would have extended us the courtesy of advising us directly of its introduction, given events which they would be aware of since the spring of this year. I find it even more disconcerting in that we have asked for assistance from our local MPP, Dave Cooke. We had been led to believe by his office that he was looking into the matter on our behalf and would be advising us. By taking a leadership role in this matter at an early date and discussing the proposed amendments in an open and frank manner ALPHA could have saved a great deal of unnecessary expense.

"As you will be aware, Bill 120 proposes to treat residential care facilities such as ALPHA as simple residential tenancies under the Landlord and Tenant Act without regard for the implications of the care component. Unfortunately, the proposals put forward by Bill 120 ignore the serious and genuine care issues which should have been addressed to provide increased protection to both the residents and the care givers alike. This action by the government has therefore caused the continued existence of ALPHA, as it is now, to be called into question.

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"Bill 120 as proposed is incompatible with the attendant care program currently provided at ALPHA and will force the end of ALPHA's attendant care program unless the government addresses our concerns in a responsible manner. After a great deal of consideration and debate, the board of directors of ALPHA is forced to announce today the termination of this valuable program in our community effective March 31, 1994.

"I enclose a copy of the resolution passed by the board of directors last evening. All parties affected by the decision of the board are being notified of the board's decision today to allow the maximum time period to adjust to the changes being forced by Bill 120. In the interim, we are calling upon the government to meet with our organization not later than December 15, 1993, to discuss our concerns with respect to the proposed amendments with a view to preserving the integrity and the continuation of the attendant care program. In this connection, I would also ask that your office contact the administrator at the number above to arrange a meeting so that we may raise our concerns with your caucus."

I doubt very much whether ALPHA could be aligned with any political party in this province. So this is a letter of concern which has nothing to do with who the government is or who introduced the bill or what my role is in this Legislature. This is simply a letter that is stating a matter of fact on the impact of Bill 120 on the care and the opportunities for people who are living with physical disabilities. We're talking about apartments that are specially planned and used for people with physical disabilities.

Unfortunately, we have had some problems with this government, which seems to not be able to prioritize in terms of people with special needs. When this party was in opposition, it certainly felt that at every opportunity it would bring to the attention of this House its concerns about people with special needs.

But I think there was a very clear message sent out in this province last Thursday morning, when I brought my resolution to the floor of this House to address the needs of people with developmental challenges as adults. At that time, the member for Chatham-Kent, who I understand is the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Community and Social Services, voted against my resolution. The message that went out loud and clear was that he was voting on behalf of his minister, because when the parliamentary assistant takes a position, obviously there's no other way to interpret it.

There is a press release which the Apartments for Living for Physically Handicapped Association attached with its letter that it sent to me. I will not take the time to read all of their press release, but I think it's important to read a number of quotes from it, and I will quote.

This press release is also dated December 1, 1993. It says: "ALPHA has been a successful model in the deinstitutionalization of the disabled and remains committed to this distinctive approach in the continuum of long-term care in the city of Windsor....

"Bill 120 proposes to treat residential care facilities such as ALPHA as simple residential tenancies under the Landlord and Tenant Act without regard for the implications of the care component."

Further, "Bill 120 as proposed is incompatible with the attendant care program currently provided at ALPHA and will force the end of ALPHA's attendant care program unless the government addresses our concerns in a responsible manner."

Isn't there some irony in the fact that this letter to me from ALPHA in the city of Windsor and its press release of December 1 talk about the fact that it has been very successful in helping those people who have been deinstitutionalized, those people who have different disabilities and very big challenges in order to cope in their daily lives, and this government is the one that is planning the deinstitutionalization of many of our people with special needs, a program which obviously is one that we support as long as there are the support services in the community for those people who need them? Here we have an organization like ALPHA, which meets those needs of those people when they come out of the institutions, and here the board of this organization is telling us that Bill 120, this bill we're debating tonight, is going to put them out of business. That's a tremendously sad commentary on this government and its inability to listen to people.

Hon Ms Gigantes: It is a threat. It is one of the reasons why we need a bill.

Mrs Marland: The Minister of Housing is saying that this is a threat. If the Minister of Housing is saying this is a threat by ALPHA, I'm sure they would be more than happy to discuss why they had to make the decision to close their facility as of March next year. If either the member for Windsor-Riverside or the Minister of Housing would like to take the time to assure these people that they don't need to be concerned, then they wouldn't need to write this letter.

They actually sought, as they said in their letter, the assistance of their local MPP, Dave Cooke, and they were led to believe by his office that he was looking into the matter on their behalf and would be advising them. I'm happy to refer this matter to the Minister of Housing, who suggests that this is a threat, and let her resolve it on behalf of these people with special needs.

Our PC Party of Ontario is very concerned about people with special needs. I have stood in this House any number of times and asked the government to support the decisions that look after people with special needs before it does anything else. Even in this recession I have said that people with special needs have to come first because they are hurt more than anyone else when circumstances change and their means of support are removed.

One of the things the resolution of the ALPHA board says is, and I read again: "And whereas the government failed or refused to provide this information to the board of directors of ALPHA notwithstanding knowledge that ALPHA was presently before the courts on this issue and had been requesting guidance on this issue since on or about May 1993...." They still didn't know about it.

Further on, it says: "And whereas the government of Ontario introduced Bill 120 on November 23, 1993, which legislation inadequately addressed the issues raised in the report of Dr Lightman;

"And whereas counsel for the tenants challenging the validity of the 1987 amendments had been advised on Monday, November 22, 1993, that the amendments would be introduced to the Legislature for the province of Ontario on November 23, 1993, and had been invited to a press conference related thereto....

"And whereas the provisions of Bill 120 are incompatible with the attendant care program operated by ALPHA" -- and the rest.

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I think I'll just read the final part of their resolution, which says, "And further that the president request a meeting with the ministers of Housing, Community and Social Services, and Health, and Dave Cooke, MPP Windsor-Riverside, and representatives of the ALPHA board of directors...." Obviously, the resolution they have passed there says they want to meet with the ministers, and I certainly hope that when that happens, this problem for this organization will be resolved.

The Commission of Inquiry into Unregulated Residential Accommodation released this news release on June 24, 1992. There are some parts of this that I think need to be also introduced to you. They're talking about "Inquiry Proposes Bill Of Rights To Empower Rest Home Residents...A bill of rights for rest home residents and a tribunal to enforce it."

They go on to talk about how "Research done for the inquiry estimated that some 47,500 vulnerable adults live in rest homes." They also say: "The new bill of rights would set out protections and rights regarding both the physical environment and the quality of care in rest homes. Violators could be taken to the proposed rest homes tribunal." Again, the need is identified to address the quality of care in these homes, not just the tenancy. This bill does not do that.

"The report also calls for coverage of all rest homes under the Landlord and Tenant Act.

"In all, Lightman's 340-page report contains," as I said earlier, "148 recommendations."

Again, this news release from the Commission of Inquiry into Unregulated Residential Accommodation, which obviously is sponsored by the Ontario government, talks about key proposals. The key proposals are mandatory municipal registration of all rest homes, and mandatory minimum staff-to-resident ratios. This is a government inquiry that talks about what is needed. It talks about a "phase-out of domiciliary hostels." It talks about "Planning Act amendments to prevent municipalities from systematically zoning to exclude rooming, boarding and lodging housing and accessory apartments."

To quote Dr Lightman, "We considered adopting the nursing home model of comprehensive regulation, but we concluded a rights-based approach combined with limited regulation would better achieve empowerment and protection, at lower overall cost."

I think it is regrettable that with all of the areas Dr Lightman addressed as being very necessary for the protection of those residents of retirement and rest homes, this government has chosen to select only one of them. In fact, the information about all of those other areas is still being ignored in terms of quality of care and staffing ratio and the other areas I've already put on the record. We regret very much that this is what is happening with Bill 120.

When Bill 90 was introduced in this House, I tabled a private member's resolution. I think it's important to remind you, Mr Speaker, of what that resolution contained, because the wording of the resolution addressed the concerns that we have about that section of Bill 120 that pertains to basement apartments.

When I placed this resolution on October 8, 1992, it read as follows:

"That, in the opinion of this House, recognizing that on June 18, 1992, the Minister of Housing released the consultation paper, Apartments in Houses, which contains draft legislation to allow home owners to create an apartment in a house without municipal zoning approval; and recognizing that the Housing ministry's consultation period, even with the ministry's decision to accept written submissions after the deadline of August 31, 1992, is inadequate for legislative changes of this magnitude; and recognizing that several parties, including the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, many municipal councils, the Ontario Home Builders' Association and many ratepayer groups, have identified serious deficiencies in the proposed legislation; and recognizing that these deficiencies include the following:

" -- Failing to recognize that accessory apartments, unless located in suitably zoned areas, may not offer a reasonable quality of life for their occupants or be compatible with their surrounding neighbourhoods;

" -- Failing to provide adequate legal protection to home owners who need to regain possession of their accessory apartments;

" -- Interfering with municipal zoning authority and negating official plans and decades of land use planning decisions;

" -- Failing to provide municipalities with licensing authority for accessory apartments;

" -- Failing to consider how municipalities and the school boards will pay for the services required by the residents of accessory apartments;

" -- Failing to consider whether sufficient infrastructure is in place to accommodate the residents of accessory apartments;

" -- Failing to require onsite parking for accessory apartments;

" -- Contributing to the 'absentee landlord syndrome' by failing to limit accessory apartments to owner-occupied homes;

"Therefore, the Minister of Housing should not introduce the legislation proposed in the consultation paper, Apartments in Houses, which would permit an apartment as of right in a detached, semidetached or row house."

Obviously the minister had no regard for any of the concerns that were addressed in that motion. She did then bring forward Bill 90, which she left with the purview of the House until last week, when she withdrew Bill 90 and brought forward Bill 120, which of course, as I have already addressed, included all of the same components and consequently all of our concerns still stand.

In this area of where I had said, "Failing to provide adequate legal protection to home owners who need to regain possession of their accessory apartments," on that subject, I just would like to tell you about an example that is not fiction; it actually took place. It's referred to in an article by Alan Silverstein in the Toronto Star on October 23 of this year. Under the headline, "Under Bill 90, There's Little Respite from 'Tenant from Hell,'" he says in his article:

"When tenants won't voluntarily leave, landlords face costly, time-consuming court proceedings to get an order for possession. No distinction is made between individual and corporate landlords, or between small and large buildings; the same law applies to everyone....

"What if Bill 90 was passed and the proverbial 'tenant from hell' lived in that self-contained apartment downstairs?

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"Say Ted went on a rampage, causing $2,500 damage to his landlord (Jeff's) basement. Or Jim blared his stereo in the basement night after night, making it impossible for the landlord (Al) and his family to sleep. What could Jeff and Al do?

"Once again, a landlord's hands are effectively tied by the Landlord and Tenant Act. No automatic evictions are allowed; termination notices specifying the complaint must be first served on the tenant. And once again the tenant gets a statutory second chance.

"Jeff must give Ted seven days to either arrange to pay the costs of repairing the premises or make the repairs to Jeff's reasonable satisfaction. Al must give Jim seven days to cease and desist those activities which 'substantially interfere with the landlord's reasonable enjoyment of the premises.'"

There are situations where I totally support the process in terms of notice of eviction, but how this government feels they have to include in this act people who rent space in their own apartment in their own home --

Hon Ms Gigantes: Speak up, Margaret. We can't hear you, Margaret.

Mrs Marland: When you have an apartment in your own home, it's a little different than an apartment in an apartment building. When you're dealing with people who live in that same home and it is shared with someone who comes into that house with an agreement to lease that space, during the process of making that agreement the tenant gives certain information to the home owner. It may be something as simple as whether or not they smoke. Whether or not they smoke may seem simple to some people, but if it's a health matter to the people who own the house then it becomes very critical as to whether or not that tenant smokes. There is no way the owner of the house can evict a tenant because they said they weren't smokers and now they're smokers. That's just an example.

The fact that the tenant now has tremendously powerful rights in a private home just doesn't make sense, because I can assure you that the idea of selling basement apartments on the premise that it helps people, young couples for example, get into home ownership or, at the other end of the age scale, seniors to remain in their homes because now they can legally have somebody in their basement is not any measure of security, because through my own office I know of a young couple who bought their house because there was rentable space and their tenants did not pay their rent for nine months. It took nine months to evict that couple. In the meantime, the couple who owned the home had to give up the home under power of sale because they could not meet their mortgage payments because they had counted on the income from the tenant in the basement apartment.

We have similar examples where seniors have hoped to stay in their homes with someone coming to live there and have found that, as Alan Silverstein says, they ended up that they were tenants from hell. The mental stress that has been endured by some seniors who have rented space in their own homes is unbelievable.

The other aspect of this is the fact that we're saying basement apartments are a solution to affordable housing. Of course, we have long since said that our dream of affordable housing for people in this province is not a view from a basement window.

It's rather interesting that this concern about how you can evict an undesirable tenant is also shared by North York mayor Mel Lastman. He said, in an article written by Dick Chapman in the Toronto Sun of January 28 of this year:

"Many Metro home owners could get stuck with nightmarish tenants under provincial plans to legalize apartments in private homes, warns North York mayor Mel Lastman.

"The NDP government's Bill 90 would create legal apartments in houses in every type of residential zone in the province. Lastman says that will increase crime and create new problems and snow removal.

"'Soon, any home owner will be able to run a rooming house or a basement apartment in a single-family house and then how the hell do you get rid of a bad tenant? It's easier to get a divorce. What are they supposed to do, kill each other?'"

Mr Lastman goes on to say "he doesn't object to the apartments but said owners in single-family residential areas -- R-1 zones -- should be given greater powers to evict bad tenants."

That is the concern: How do people evict a bad tenant? What is a bad tenant when that person is in your home? This government wouldn't even agree to make it a prerequisite that the homes be owner-occupied. That's what Mel Lastman is referring to, the same concern that Mayor Hazel McCallion in Mississauga has talked about, and that is the fact that if there isn't a requirement for the owner of the home to be there and they are totally tenant- occupied with this multiple occupancy, who cares what the noise is or what the parking problems are and everything else that may be associated with a basement apartment?

We've actually had a very serious situation where a woman in Toronto ended up being taken to the police station herself because she hammered on the door of her basement apartment tenant who owed her money. In fact, I think the back rent is stated here in this article. She was more than three months behind in her rent, so this woman went down to demand her rent from her tenant and the tenant called the police. The owner of the home was taken to the police station.

It's a pretty scary thought that those are some of the things that will happen with the enactment of Bill 120.

I don't have any confidence that this government has read any letters that have been in the newspapers on this subject, but there certainly have been a great number of them. I have received, not only from my own riding but from across this province, a large number of letters stating their concerns about basement apartments and granny flats. In fact, a number of these letters, I notice, were also sent to the Minister of Housing. It would be interesting to know whether there was a response to those letters and what the response said.

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One of the best letters I've seen on this subject was printed in the Toronto Star on January 7 of this year, and this headline reads, "Apartment Law Undermines Municipalities." The name printed on this letter is Fran Wallace, Mississauga. Fran Wallace says:

"I am responding to your editorial of November 9 regarding the provincial intensification (basement apartment) legislation (Bill 90) introduced in October. I am surprised the Star would write in support of the legislation when it is obvious your position is so poorly researched.

"let's get some facts straight. There are a tremendous number of opponents to Bill 90, not the least of which is the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO). More than 100 municipalities across the province have reported their concerns to AMO, their top worry being the undermining of municipal authority. As a ratepayers' president, I support their position and see many, many additional problems with the legislation.

"First, let me state that I am very aware and supportive of the need for affordable accommodation and reduction in urban sprawl. However, this legislation will create more problems than it solves.

"Uppermost in my mind is the increased demand in community services which will result from the additional apartment residents and therefore the need for extra funding.

"Let's take the worst-case scenario: schools. Every additional child in the school system is a big cost. Right now, 63% of my municipal tax bill goes to education. The NDP is 'dreaming in technicolor' if it thinks homes with accessory apartments will be paying their fair share of the taxes under the proposed legislation.

"The NDP figures that houses with accessory apartments will increase in value and therefore their municipal taxes will go up accordingly.

"Sorry, but I disagree. The assessed value of a house must increase by $5,000 before any municipal tax increase can be levied. In my area, most of the houses already have finished basements. Any adjustment to accommodate tenants would be minor and not increase the value of the home substantially, if at all.

"In new homes where the basement does require finishing, most of the increased value would be swallowed up in that $5,000 benchmark, meaning little tax increase will occur.

"So where is the extra tax money going to come from? The fact is that home owners who elect not to have accessory apartments will be doubly punished through the extra taxes that inevitably will be levied to cover the cost of those with tenants and a loss of rental income by keeping the dwelling as a single-family residence.

"The position that the NDP has taken that accessory apartments will be a good income source for those on limited budget ie, seniors or a young couple buying their first house, is very misleading.

"These apartments will fall under the Landlord and Tenant Act, meaning that removal of a bad tenant (for non-payment of rent or disagreeable lifestyle) will be a long and costly process if the tenant doesn't want to leave. Documentation of the problem will require several months, then there are legal costs to consider, on top of emotional stress. Not much of a sales point, is it?

"Two other factors which must be considered include absentee landlords and the definition of what constitutes a household.

"Absentee landlordism is allowed. The definition of household composition is now wide open -- people do not have to be related. What is to stop a business person from buying up six homes in an area and renting out to 12 tenants, any one of which could include 15 non-related individuals. Is the NDP legislating ghettos?

"Your comment that the size of the average household is shrinking and therefore the services in communities, particularly in older areas, are underutilized is again misleading.

"My area demonstrates the problem with such broad statements. Built in the 1950s, our neighbourhood composition has undergone tremendous change over the years.

"When I moved in in 1980, the school was closed and sold because there were too few children in the area. In the last 12 years, as older couples moved out, more and more young people have moved in to raise their families. Right now, we have a tremendous mix of young and old but no school. We also have a great number of adult children living at home, many of whom have their own cars and are trying to park on what were designed as single-car driveways.

"The city of Mississauga also has identified a lack of recreational facilities in our recreational planning area. As a fully developed area, the addition of extra recreational facilities will be, at the least, extremely difficult.

"My area 'does not meet the norm,' yet the NDP is going to treat it as part of an 'average'. I suggest that my city council knows best what will work in my area, not the provincial government.

"Bill 90 is flawed. It needs revision. Let's get it correct, before we compound our existing problems.

"Fran Wallace

"Mississauga."

This letter from a resident I think covers all of the concerns of Bill 90. It also points out the fact that the municipalities that have spent in this province millions of dollars in planning the cities, towns, villages and hamlets have in fact wasted all of that money over the years because now, although we have official plans and secondary plans in place as to land use, what this bill says is that it doesn't matter, that you can now, as of right, have that additional dwelling unit.

I've received letters from many of my ratepayers' associations, all citing the same concerns, some of them addressed to me, but most of them addressed to the government ministers. I have a letter here from the Tecumseth Area Residents' Association. I have one from the Talka Village Residents' Association. I also have one from the Applewood Acres Homeowners' Association. On and on it goes, the concerns from across this province. We have one here from the East Gwillimbury Heights Ratepayers' Association.

This government boasts about its consultation. The truth is they don't consult with anybody. They don't consult with the residents; they certainly don't consult with the school boards; and they not only don't consult with the municipalities, they choose to ignore them.

I have a letter here dated January 19 of this year from the Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board on the subject of residential intensification. If anybody knows the problems about school accommodation in this province, it's the Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board. Do you know that this school board is now graduating students who have never had a day in school that was in a standard school building? Every one of their days in school, from junior kindergarten to grade 13, has been in a portable.

The Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic school board obviously is the second-largest separate school board in the province, second to the Metropolitan Separate School Board of Toronto, and their school accommodation is abysmal in terms of the opportunity for those children to be in anything but an overcrowded school. When they build a brand-new school, whether it's an elementary school or now they're building secondary schools, right away on the same property is the student population from another school in portables. They're not even able to use their recreational playing fields because they have portables on them. This board is concerned about residential intensification.

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It says in fact that if the city of Mississauga proceeds with the implementation of policies for residential intensification, the Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board would advise that it will continue to object to any new development applications in the city. "We would strongly urge the city of Mississauga to consider the implications of continued approval of new residential development applications where there exists no permanent school accommodation for the students generated."

In that paragraph they're referring to new residential development. Obviously it goes without saying that the other forms of intensification are also of concern. In fact, I will read from this letter. This is a letter of November 10, 1992, and it's actually a letter to the mayor, but there are a number of people who are copied, including the provincial MPPs.

"But the intensification of residential uses throughout the city of Mississauga has the potential for further accommodation problems for a school system which is currently operating in an overcapacity situation. The redevelopment of lands for uses such as rooming, boarding or lodging houses, infill severances, main street residential and granny flats, may have minimal student impact on student accommodation. However, larger types of intensification, such as conversion of non-residential building sites and apartment redevelopment, will have an impact on school accommodation."

Obviously this is a school board in dire need of accommodation, and on November 25 the Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board passed a resolution in response to draft legislation on apartments in houses. I won't read all of this but they do refer, in section 1 of this resolution that they passed, and the date of the resolution was November 17, 1992, to:

"The Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board adopted the following motion:

"Although recognizing the need for affordable housing due to the severe overcrowding in the schools within the jurisdiction of the Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board, the pending legislation regarding apartments in houses is unacceptable and will lead to greater influx of students into our schools, which will create a greater crisis in accommodation than that which is currently anticipated.

"The Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board supports the motions of the city of Mississauga, the city of Brampton and the town of Caledon with respect to their responses to the draft legislation on apartments in houses."

That is a school board with a tremendous concern about apartments in houses.

Also, I have a lot of correspondence here from the region of Peel expressing its concerns about the items that are outstanding following the introduction of Bill 90. They talk about the fact that there is an issue about the consultation process. They talk about inspections. They talk about municipal revenues. The region of Peel has lengthy submissions to this government on the subject of basement apartments and granny flats, all of which have been ignored by this government.

Of course, the city of Mississauga has even more. The city of Mississauga is within the region of Peel, and the region of Peel of course has its planning responsibility, as does the city of Mississauga. The city of Mississauga has made many submissions. They have done a very comprehensive report on Bill 90, Apartments in Houses Implementation Issues, dated April 1993, a multipage report presented to city council about the concerns that the planning commissioner has about granny flats and basement apartments.

That is why the city of Mississauga passed the resolution it did. They've asked for amendments. They've asked that, "The Ministry of Municipal Affairs be requested to amend Bill 90 and the associated regulations to include some of the following."

Accordingly, most of the affairs of concern have not been addressed by any amendments to Bill 90, because that didn't take place. There could have been an opportunity to have those concerns addressed, and they weren't addressed, when Bill 120 was introduced. The government just chooses to ignore everybody who has a concern on this matter.

The other thing is that we hear all the time, and certainly the member for Etobicoke West speaks very well, about Metro Toronto council's concern about basement apartments. I've heard the Minister of Housing talk about: "There's no problem in Toronto with parking. We have lots of these apartments today. They're illegal and they're now going to be legal." People are going to be able to come out from their underground homes and ask for protection under the Landlord and Tenant Act whereas before they feared eviction.

The fact is that Metro council is also concerned about some of the areas that we are. One of the changes they are concerned about is the ability to license basement apartments and restrict them to owner-occupied homes. I said that a few minutes ago. It's very important that if they're going to permit basement apartments, they have to be owner-occupied homes. All those areas have been addressed by the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto.

Obviously, as I said earlier, this is not just a concern of municipalities in the greater Toronto area, in case we think it is only limited. I've got correspondence here that might possibly be even in the Minister of Housing's own riding, as a matter of fact. I don't know whether her riding covers the Nepean city council.

Hon Ms Gigantes: No, it doesn't.

Mrs Marland: Oh, it must be somebody's riding that's in the Nepean city council's jurisdiction, but obviously the government chooses to ignore them as well.

How about the corporation of the city of Oshawa? Is that in a government riding? I think so. I know we don't have a member from Oshawa. Markham. How about the village of Lakefield? I'm sure the member for Peterborough must be concerned about what the village of Lakefield has been saying about Bill 90, but obviously that's not being addressed either. Anyway, on and on it goes.

The fact is that the government is not listening. They haven't listened on anything anyway, so why would they listen to the province on this issue? They don't listen to their own union friends on the issue of the social contract, which has a very far-reaching, devastating impact on the lives of thousands of people in this province. I guess it would be too much to dream in technicolour, to think they might listen to the concerns about basement apartments.

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The concerns have been well referred to in previous comments by a large number of people. I think, while we look at what the impact of this bill will have on the people of this province, we would not, I believe, be able to imagine what's going to happen.

You see, the very thing this government thinks it's doing is providing accommodation for people by legalizing basement apartments. But the thing they haven't anticipated is that when all the people who are today in illegal basement apartments -- since until this legislation goes forward basement apartments are illegal; you can't have two dwelling units in one single-family home -- as soon as this happens, all those occupants of the existing illegal apartments are going to be able to ask for inspections of their accommodations. They're going to be able to go to the municipality and ask the fire department to check it out and ask the health department to check it out, plumbing and so forth.

Now, in terms of the fire department, we support the fact that people who live in accommodation must be protected. But single-family homes were never designed to accommodate people to live in the basement. We're going to have all these inspections and the fire department is going to go to home owner A and say: "There is no safe point of exiting from this basement apartment. You have to create, in order to meet the fire code requirements, a new exit." That exit may require digging down to the basement and building another doorway and outside steps. In some circumstances, it may require a window modification. It may even -- I have discussed this with the fire department -- require sprinkling. Can you imagine the cost of sprinkling a basement apartment in terms of fire protection?

The point is that landlords, property owners who cannot afford to make those renovations to that living accommodation in their house will have no choice but to give notice to their tenants. Instead of creating more accommodation by legalizing basement apartments, I think what we will find is that this is not going to be the solution, because the property owners are simply going to say: "I cannot afford to retrofit my basement apartment for $300 a month. Where am I going to get the money from to make those renovations?" Bear in mind that the money is half now, because they're under the Rent Control Act.

It's wonderful, isn't it? It's a real argument about something they hope to achieve which is going to absolutely fall flat on its face. All these people they think they're going to protect, who have been in illegal apartments, are now going to risk losing the only accommodation they had because this government stuck its nose in the business of the private property owners in this province.

In fact, the private property owners of this province who made an investment to buy their homes -- and for most people, the purchase of their home is the single biggest investment of their lives -- this government doesn't respect that. This government doesn't care about property owners or property rights in this province. All they care about is pretending to do something for people which, in the end, will not be doing anything for anyone except causing a lot of distress, hardship and unhappiness.

This bill should not be passed. We are very concerned about the fact that the bill, as it is presented in 120, is an absolute sham about basement apartments and the regulation of retirement and rest homes. We are opposed.

Mr Stephen Owens (Scarborough Centre): I've sat and listened quite carefully, over approximately the last hour and a half, to the member's comments with respect to Bill 120. There are a number of things the member fails to address in her particular comments. During the time that she was speaking I did ask the member if she knew where Parkdale was, whether in fact she understood why we would have to pass legislation like Bill 120 with respect to boarding homes.

Hon Elaine Ziemba (Minister of Citizenship and Minister Responsible for Human Rights, Disability Issues, Seniors' Issues and Race Relations): What did she say?

Mr Owens: "What did she say?" people have asked. She doesn't know where Parkdale is. I thought that she would give herself and her Conservative colleagues credit for the closing down of Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital, which in fact created the necessity for Parkdale and created the problems that we are faced with today in terms of unregulated boarding homes.

I asked the member during her remarks whether or not she had read the book by Pat Capponi entitled Upstairs in the Crazy House. It catalogues the numbers of abuses, both physically and psychologically inflicted, by residents and by particular landlords in these unregulated boarding homes.

The member for Mississauga South talks about the problems that landlords have in terms of getting tenants out, whether it's basement apartments or the unregulated boarding homes. What about the tenants? In the last three-plus years, Mr Speaker, in the city of Scarborough, as you're well aware, we've had at least three people die in fires in basement apartments. It's time to get these basement apartments regulated. It's time to bring in a set of standards that can be enforced. It's time to give people the protection of the Landlord and Tenant Act that the member so aggressively critiques. She knows.

Her party talks about cut, cut, cut. My question to the member is, where do you put the 10,000 units that currently exist in Scarborough?

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I just wanted to take a couple of minutes to comment on the remarks made by the member for Mississauga South. I'll not be speaking on this bill, so I thought I'd take just a couple of minutes to put a few questions on the record.

The problem with this bill, as I see it, is that the member talks about the school situation. I'm not so sure the minister is fully aware of some of the problems that could be involved with regard to schools, especially in small-town Ontario.

When the minister was speaking in her opening remarks with regard to the 100,000 illegal apartments -- she says there's 10,000 in Hamilton -- there certainly is cause for concern. But when I look at the Sewell commission report, I don't recall seeing anything in that report that made any recommendations with regard to basement apartments and how they should be legalized.

The other aspect of the bill, and the problem we have, is the fact that AMO is against this legislation. Any municipal council that I have talked to to date has been opposed to it. when we look at the municipal councils and the zoning rights that have been taken away, which the member speaks about, I think we have to say, "What standards are there going to be?" What standard is there going to be that says we have to bring this basement apartment that's there now illegally up to a certain standard? Is this going to be a bylaw that's going to have to be passed by the municipality? Is the ministry going to dictate what's going to have to happen with regard to that?

The other problem that we have is, whose building code is it going to be? Is it going to be the provincial building code or is it going to be the municipal building code?

Mr Stockwell: The provincial building code.

Mr McLean: The provincial building code. Well, it's going to be interesting to see how that happens.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Just a few quick points: On the questions that the member for Mississauga South raised about care homes and the proposals in Bill 120, she suggested that there's grave inadequacy in addressing many of the issues raised by Dr Lightman. I point out to her that Dr Lightman is very approving of this legislation because he sees it in the context in which this government is bringing forward a whole system of advocacy for people who are in vulnerable situations. The framework for long-term care services is going to be available for the first time at the community level right across this province.

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She talks about legalizing apartments in houses. We're not talking about legalizing apartments in houses. We're talking about a situation in which it will be legal to apply for a building permit to build an apartment in a house. An existing apartment in a house will have to be brought to standard before it is legal.

She also talks about apartments in houses as if they're always basements and the people in them somehow are low-life dwellers. She talks about the florid image of people coming up from the underground to discover the horrible truth: number one, that the owners are not going to be able to afford to renovate apartments and bring them up to standards and therefore the tenants will be evicted; or number two, on the contrary, that there are going to be so many apartments which meet standards that we're going to have slums across this province. She better make up her mind whether we're creating slums and overcrowding and impossible living conditions in our municipalities or whether all the existing basement apartments are going to be impossible for owners to renovate and all the tenants are going to be kicked out on the street. We need to know which it is.

The Acting Speaker (Ms Margaret H. Harrington): Further questions and/or comments? We have room for one more speaker.

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): I was listening intently to the early part of the speech and had to go out just briefly. But it was interesting for me to listen to the remarks of the member for Mississauga South because she very carefully chose her words around several of the major issues with respect to what are called care homes. My concern is that perhaps there would be some people who would think that she wholeheartedly adopted all of the recommendations made by the association which is representing those people who now are known as landlords of care homes under the auspices of this bill.

I think it's extremely important, so that there be no misunderstanding, that of all of the material that she read on to the record, the member for Mississauga South very clearly underlines for the public which of those sections they actually do support and which ones they don't support. I will tell you, I don't like to have members in this place reading out entire manuscripts from advocacy groups -- from whatever advocacy group -- and then prefacing this reading by saying, "Some of this stuff is okay, but some of it's not okay," without identifying as the reading takes place that "This paragraph we support; that paragraph we don't support."

I want the public to be informed about what the Conservative Party under Michael Harris actually stands for. None of this doublespeak. I think they're adopting it from the current administration. The member for Mississauga South has got to identify exactly where Michael Harris stands on these issues, not to leave any mistaken impression that they've adopted holus-bolus everything that that advocacy group has provided for her to read on the record.

Do you know why? Because I suspect she will be sending out the Hansard --

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

Mr Elston: -- to indicate that she has put it on the record for them.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Would the member take his seat.

Mr Elston: I think it's important she clarify the record.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Mississauga South has two minutes to respond.

Mrs Marland: I certainly appreciate the fact that so many of the government members stayed in the House tonight to listen to my comments, and I certainly hope they will pay attention to the concerns that I have put on the record on behalf of residents and municipalities around this province.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. I'd like to hear the member.

Mrs Marland: In thanking them for their attendance, maybe I can have some optimism that there may be some amendments forthcoming to Bill 120 that will address once and for ever the fact that these basement apartments that we're talking about are in private homes; they're not in publicly owned buildings.

It will be encouraging if once and for all this government gets it through their heads that not everybody, not even a very small minority of the people in this province, want the government to run and own everything. The last thing they want the government to run is their own private homes. They want the choice to do whatever they wish with their own private homes without this government's interference.

I take with great interest the comment of the Liberal House leader, because I would simply like to tell him I don't need the Liberals to speak for me. Mike Harris certainly doesn't need them to speak for him. We are quite capable of communicating to the people of this province on our own policies and our own goals and, above all, our own visions for this province and the future of this province, in this particular instance in the accommodation of people who live here, and we hope that our vision will have the opportunity to give people more to hope for in this province than basement apartments.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Mammoliti: I understand there's some sort of agreement and at 9 o'clock we are to get into something else. For that reason, I'd move adjournment of the debate.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Yorkview has moved adjournment of this debate. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY

Miss Martel moved concurrence in supply for the following ministries and offices:

Ministry of Agriculture and Food

Ministry of Housing

Ministry of Health

Ministry of Labour

Office Responsible for Women's Issues

Office of Francophone Affairs

Ministry of Education and Training

Ministry of Economic Development and Trade

Ministry of Community and Social Services

Ministry of Natural Resources

Ministry of Northern Development and Mines

Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation

Hon Floyd Laughren (Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance): I shall be very brief as we engage in this debate on concurrence in supply of the various ministries. I suspect that all fairminded members would agree that each of the ministers responsible for the ministries on this list has had a very difficult year in which to manage those ministries, not by themselves, but with the very fine staffs that help them manage those various ministries and all the very difficult issues which they must face. For me, it has been a very rewarding experience to see how each of the ministers and the people in those ministries were able to deliver the essential services those ministries are responsible for delivering in the fairest way possible, given the very difficult circumstances. For those reasons, I'm sure the members of the assembly would want to join with me in giving their support for these various concurrences.

The Acting Speaker (Ms Margaret H. Harrington): Further debate? We will go in rotation.

Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): It is with pleasure that I take this opportunity to address some of the issues that face the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. Frankly, not all is well on the farm, so to speak. Farmers often tell me that they don't feel they're getting their concerns through to the minister. I'd like to talk a little bit about dairy inspectors, for instance.

I frequently hear from dairy farmers on an issue that affects every resident in this province. I refer of course to the minister's decision last April to eliminate on-farm dairy inspection. Farmers were upset that the minister made the decision without undertaking any consultation with the people directly involved in the industry. Many did not know how many dairy inspectors were eliminated, or what service, if any, would remain available to them. As a result, I sent many letters to the minister and I raised this issue both inside and outside the Legislature.

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In response, the minister assured me that the quality would not be affected, but he was very vague about which services would be available and he was certainly not capable of stating how many dairy inspectors were left.

We in eastern Ontario can confirm at least one individual whose job was terminated by the Minister of Agriculture and Food. Indeed, I attended the retirement party for Bruce Rutledge, who served the ministry so well for some 30 years. While all present were pleased to offer their best wishes to him, this man should not have been forced out on early retirement. Many said that night that they would much sooner have seen the retirement party some 10 years later.

However, despite my repeated questions, the minister was not available to provide information on the exact number and location of the remaining inspectors; that is, until seven months had elapsed. For seven months I have wanted to know and all the farmers across this province have wanted to know how many dairy inspectors would be left in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. I hope the minister is hearing some of the same stories that I hear.

Just last week, I finally received a letter from the minister which stated that he had slashed the number of dairy inspectors from 30 to 11, but I must wonder if even those figures are correct. Farmers who contacted me to express concerns over the reduction of inspectors told me that prior to the minister's announcement, there were 35 inspectors in Ontario. For seven months dairy inspectors have waited for this information, and for seven months farmers wanted to know how the reduction was going to affect them. In the same letter that I received last week, the minister attempted to explain this by responding, and I quote:

"An article has appeared in the September issue of the Ontario Milk Producer magazine, which is received by every dairy farmer in this province. Furthermore, a list of the remaining field staff, their address, contact numbers and the regions over which they have responsibility appears in the October issue. In addition, a direct mailing will be received by every licensed milk producer in Ontario."

Does the minister truly believe this to be an acceptable action plan? He made the announcement in April, waited six months to publish a few details in a magazine and then waited another month to dribble in a few more details. Then eventually, after a seven-month lapse, he contacted the farmers directly.

Even with the belated information campaign, dairy farmers continue to tell me that they are not satisfied with the way the issue was handled, nor the results. I hope the minister is aware of the confusion and the distrust he has created in the dairy industry.

To continue on the dairy industry, I would also like to raise the matter of BST. BST is a substance that can increase milk production by as much as 20%. While BST occurs naturally in cows, there have been discussions about injecting cows with artificially produced BST. Obviously, industry leaders are worried that the sales of milk and dairy products will decline because consumers are frightened about the new technology, and farmers are concerned about the long-term effects it may have on their cattle. Additionally, dairy farmers have expressed concerns that while the ministry is slashing something as basic and as needed as dairy inspectors on the farms, this same ministry may be spending a lot of money on studying this experimental and controversial drug.

Appreciating these concerns, I contacted the Minister of Agriculture and Food and asked him what his plans were for the BST and if his ministry was pursuing research on its use. In a letter dated November 17 the minister responded again, and I quote: "At present, BST is not licensed for use in Canada or the United States. The ministry is not at present undertaking, nor has it allotted any funding for, BST-related research."

Again, this letter was dated November 17, 1993. Meanwhile, however, the Farm and Country November 16 issue notes that BST was approved for use in the United States in early November and it would actually be available in February.

As well, the Kitchener-Waterloo Record has revealed that cows at the University of Guelph research station were part of a BST trial and that the milk was put into the provincial milk supply system.

I would like to take this opportunity to tell the minister that many farmers in eastern Ontario are gravely concerned about the implications for their cows and the milk they produce should BST get approved here.

I'd like to talk a little bit about deer farming. Of course, there's also the matter of the Minister of Natural Resources' Bill 62, which may stunt certain aspects of agriculture. The last time this bill was cited, which was some time ago, I believe it extended regulatory powers to include all animals in Ontario including domestic animals and livestock. Specifically, this bill allows the Natural Resources minister to identify any species as undesirable, and this allows him to eliminate commercial farming of this species.

If that's the case, then the Ministry of Natural Resources could arbitrarily decide that dairy cattle are undesirable and therefore may not be farmed in Ontario any more. While this does seem like an extreme example, I would still be concerned over the bill's potential impact on agriculture.

Meanwhile, however, the Agriculture ministry is supposedly working on something called the livestock diversification act, which will be more permissive towards deer farming.

On several occasions, and on behalf of the Ontario Deer Farmers Association, I have formally requested a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture and Food to discuss his plans for deer farming. In fact, I sent him a letter as recently as September 29, which followed an earlier request of June 9, to secure a meeting.

Unfortunately, it would appear that the minister had not a single half-hour to sit down and review his intentions for Ontario deer farms. I certainly hope this is not reflecting on his commitment to deer farming and I hope that we may see more of this livestock diversification act.

Another thing that I'd like to touch on is the ethanol production in Ontario. Of course, another issue of long-standing contention has been the development stage of an ethanol industry. Farmers are anxious to have this alternative fuel available across this province. Ethanol has been proven to be environmentally friendly. It conserves non-renewable resources and it creates stable markets for farmers in this time of uncertainty.

Farmers have been seeking a strong commitment from the minister to ensure a viable industry. This means assistance in feasibility studies, constructing production plans, job creation and a guarantee to maintain the tax exemption that makes ethanol production viable to produce and sell.

I have a certain energetic and dedicated group in our part of Ontario which has formed the Seaway Valley Farmers Energy Co-operative. They have put a lot of time and energy and many of their hard-earned dollars into the development of an ethanol production plant in eastern Ontario. Thus far, while they have the desire and the technology to make this plant succeed, they continue to face financial stumbling-blocks.

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I know they are not alone. Other ethanol cooperatives across this province are experiencing similar problems. Each likely requires additional support from the ministry. I hope the minister will work very closely with the Seaway Valley farmers and others, that these plants can become reality in the very near future. This includes one of the issues central to the Seaway Valley farmers securing financing, the tax exemption which I previously referred to.

While the current Minister of Agriculture and Food sits across the way from me and may not be in a position to provide the long-term commitment that the Seaway Valley farmers are seeking, I hope he will work very closely with them to secure an ethanol industry.

On the stable funding, which has been contentious for many years, there is unnecessary red tape in making all farmers send a cheque to the organization he or she may support and then have to apply for the refund of the same cheque; the cost of establishing a new bureaucracy to implement the legislation at a time when the ministry is cutting other programs and services such as dairy inspectors; the legality of excluding farmers from other ministry programs for not paying the $150 fee; the intrusion that the bill inflicts on certain communities, such as Mennonites.

I believe in stable funding and I always have, but I have expressions of concern over the particular piece of legislation as well as the badly flawed parent Bill 42. It is my understanding that the registration process for this legislation has already started and that the accompanying news release states:

"Individuals who object on religious grounds to providing a cheque to an accredited organization and/or registering their farm operation with the ministry may apply to the Farm Organization Accreditation Tribunal for an exemption order."

From this account it would seem that the Ministry of Agriculture and Food has not truly taken the Mennonite principles into consideration. To this end, I might quote from a letter I received from a Mennonite bishop. It reads as follows:

"Registration under Bill 42 is a violation of our beliefs. The tribunal idea does not meet the needs of Mennonite and Amish people. The simplest solution is to drop Bill 42 and leave the whole issue with the GFOs."

After 20 years in the making, I hope this is not a reflection of the concerns that will arise and that a solution may be found for the farmers, including the Mennonites.

The labour legislation: The ministry will be aware of the immense dissatisfaction surrounding the agriculture labour bill, which allows agriculture workers the right to organize while failing to protect farms from strikes.

Prior to the legislation being introduced, the Labour minister made promises that there would be provisions for protection. He has failed on that promise and the much-needed provisions are not there.

Surely the Labour minister as well as the Agriculture minister, who must have participated in producing this legislation, are both aware that the agriculture industry is time- and seasonal-conscious.

Producing corn is not like producing a piece of machinery. Corn cannot wait around unattended while a labour dispute is being settled. The legislation requires massive amendments or even a total rewrite to reflect a better reality of farming.

In the Ministry of Tourism: We've been getting the runaround in eastern Ontario from this minister and former ministers over the closed parks in the St Lawrence Parks Commission, namely, the two parks Charlottenburgh park and Raisin River park. We've been getting the runaround. One blames the minister, the ministry, the St Lawrence Parks Commission.

Just last week, I had a petition from the united counties council of S-D-G, which is made up of 20 municipalities, signed by 20 reeves in those municipalities, to try to get this settled. I had thought at one time we were getting close to an agreement to get private enterprise involved when the then minister Peter North was in charge. This has been going on for three years. We have private enterprise wanting to spend their dollars to open these parks, but we just get the runaround. Our students need summer jobs.

Interjections.

Mr Cleary: Just listen. We have the support of the municipal councils that are wanting to get these parks opened. They have the money to spend on these parks.

Just last year in the past tourist season, we had to put our OPP directing traffic to turn people around and send them back home to try to use the parks that were still open in the area.

I would hope that the minister would finally set up that meeting and get this problem solved, because it's been going on now for three years and people are pretty discouraged.

I have to talk a little bit about the smuggling issue in our part of eastern Ontario. I know that we encouraged the minister for many months to try to come to eastern Ontario; the Solicitor General never came to the source where the problem was, but he did have the meeting in Ottawa. We had all the players in the one room. I do think things have improved a bit since, but it's still not well. This same minister also promised that the next meeting would be in Cornwall. That's many months ago, and we have not heard any further about that.

Anyway, we're still waiting for the minister and the new federal minister to come to Cornwall --

Hon David Christopherson (Solicitor General and Minister of Correctional Services): Get your story straight.

Mr Cleary: I've got my story straight, but it took a long time to get it through to you.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Cornwall has the floor. Order.

Mr Cleary: Anyway, I'm still looking forward to that meeting, because all is not well on the smuggling issue. Maybe this province doesn't need the money, but I'm sure the federal government will and others sure need it too. I think it's something that's got to be solved, and I hope we get the cooperation of all governments.

Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey-Owen Sound): What I thought I would do tonight is take a short time and speak a little bit about each of the ministries that are involved in the concurrences. The first one on there is Agriculture and Food. I want to congratulate the member for Cornwall on his fine speech in bringing out many of the problems that we have with the Agriculture and Food ministry.

The stable funding was one of the good things they brought through, but they even messed it up the first time they brought it through, and they almost passed it. They didn't even know what they were bringing in the first time, which makes me wonder who is running that ministry, whether it's the minister or the bureaucrats, because the first bill they brought in was terribly flawed. Hopefully, the one that they brought and the one that all three parties supported will do a fine job.

But that's not enough. More things have to be done in the agriculture and food industry. That's the problem. There hasn't been anything else done.

Right now, we have the cream producers getting the shaft from a tribunal appointed by the Minister of Agriculture and Food. The cream producers had an agreement that they would get 100% of their milk quota if they sold off in the next year, or if they transferred to a milk quota, and that tribunal that was appointed by the minister has decided now they'll only get 85% after only three months that the year agreement had been in force. Someone got out with 100% now, and there were some of the quota on the market this Tuesday that today some of them have lost and they're down to 85%.

This is a tribunal that was appointed by the Minister of Agriculture and Food, and hopefully he'll overrule this tribunal and get back the fair deal that the cream producers got, because they want them to get out and they gave them a year and the incentive was that they would get 100% of their milk quota. I'm afraid that this tribunal -- again that was just appointed; they're not elected people -- has decided to do this.

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There are lots of problems in the agriculture industry, and the problem is, I think, that they're hanging their hat on stable funding to solve these. Well, it won't. It will certainly help and it was something that was needed, but we need more --

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Could members keep their conversations down.

Mr Murdoch: We need more things done in Agriculture and Food. I see the member over there is starting to talk out of place again, as he usually does, but we'll try to ignore him and carry on.

The second one is Housing. This has been a disastrous ministry since this government first took over. The first bill they introduced in the House was disastrous. That was the rent control and under the rent control it put many people out of business. Their idea was, "Well, we'll take over the businesses," and that's a socialist move and I understand that, but ever since their first bill was introduced in the House they've had nothing but trouble, and look where they are today.

They've got the bill that we debated before this came up, a bill that is probably one of the worst bills that this government has brought in. Now they're going to overrule any zoning or anything that the municipalities have done. They're going to say, "Now we're going to bring our heavy fist down and we're going to allow apartments wherever they want." It doesn't matter whether they have fire protection, it doesn't matter whether there's lots of parking or anything.

They've gone from a real disastrous bill on the rent control to one now that's going to legalize apartments in houses with no consultation. They're just going to ram this bill through again, like they've been doing all along. So in Housing, as the Minister of Finance has spoken about -- he said they've had a difficult time, no doubt, but unfortunately they haven't learned how to handle it.

Then we come to the Health ministry. Boy, have we ever got a lovely one here. We have a Health minister who was the Minister of the Environment; pretty well ruined the Ministry of the Environment and any credibility it had with any of the municipalities or any of the people around. So what does this government do? They take that minister and put her in charge of our Health ministry. That was a disaster.

As Hazel McCallion, the mayor of Mississauga, said --

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): Good old Hazel.

Mr Murdoch: Hazel spoke at the Good Roads convention and when Hazel announced at the Good Roads convention --

Mr Sutherland: I know Hazel. Hazel will mend the province.

The Acting Speaker: Members, one member at a time. I am now listening to the member for Grey-Owen Sound. You will have a chance later.

Mr Murdoch: Maybe the member for Oxford would like to speak later, and we'll give him a chance.

Anyway, the mayor of Mississauga stated at the Good Roads convention how the Minister of the Environment had been transferred away from that and she got an outstanding ovation; the whole floor, everybody stood up and clapped for that. But then she pointed out, "But now I'm worried about my health," and she was right when she said that. She certainly had reason to be worried about her health when we get a minister appointed who had been in Environment and made a mess of that.

Just to show you, what have we done with our ambulances? Where has the Swimmer report gone? We haven't heard about it at all in here. They've just left the ambulance service out there to fend for itself, and I can tell you, there are a lot of horror stories out there where people aren't being picked up because they can't get ambulances. This is up to the Minister of Health.

Also we have Bill 50 now, under which people aren't going to be able to get proper medication. The doctors don't like this. This minister has made a mockery of our Health. Our health system used to be one of the best and now we're coming down to Third World status.

Along with our Bill 48, which affects all of the ministries, now our hospitals are starting to close beds. We have a brand-new regional hospital in our area and now we've got one floor practically closed and they're going to close another floor in the spring, all due to the fact that we have a minister who is out of control and we've just got to wonder what ministry they'll put her into next that she'll take over and ruin.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): Solicitor General.

Mr Murdoch: Yes, that would be a good one. Somebody said put her in the Solicitor General, but we wouldn't want that to happen. That would be fun.

The next ministry I wanted to talk about is Labour. Boy, did they like to have fun there. They passed Bill 40, which, as you know, when this government takes over in 1995 will be the first bill that we rescind and get it out of there. They just totally made a farce of this area in Labour, and we have to get rid of that bill and that will be one of the first things that this government will do.

We also have WCB out of control. It's something that should be probably closed down and got rid of. It's just putting us into the hole more and more every day. They have no control there. The chairman of the WCB is out of control, and I'll tell you, my office has more problems with that than anything else that we have to deal with. So WCB, if they won't overhaul it and won't do something about it, then they're going to have to get rid of it. They haven't any other choice. We can't afford it; that's all there is to it.

Interjection.

Mr Murdoch: Now one other bill -- and the member for Oxford said, "Say something good about somebody."

Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): He didn't say anything.

Mr Murdoch: We'll mention that Bill 80 -- and I will congratulate the minister on Bill 80. I do agree with him on that bill, although I have concerns that a government like this would bring in a bill like Bill 80. They are giving more local autonomy to the local unions, which is a good idea, but they're acting like the internationals.

So here, on one hand, they're saying, "The internationals aren't doing their job properly so we're going to give local autonomy to the local unions," but on the other hand, they act like the internationals when it comes to municipalities. They said, "Oh no, you're not good enough to look after your own affairs." So it is ironic that this government would bring a bill in like that, even though I can support it. So, again, the Labour ministry is in trouble, there's no doubt.

Economic Development and Trade ministry: What can you say? They haven't done anything so it's pretty hard to cut them up, other than they've closed our office in Owen Sound. I guess you can give them credit for that, they're trying to save some money, but it happens to be now we don't have one in the northern area of Ontario. They just closed our office down. I guess if you want to -- you can't really give them credit for that, but that's what they've done. It's unfortunate, but that's about all you can say about them because they haven't done anything else.

Education and Training: I don't think we have long enough tonight to talk about that. We have Minister Cooke in charge now and we have strikes all over. So what can you say about him?

It is interesting that this is a socialist government and it has put forth bills that order labour people back to work, or labourers or teachers and people like that back to work. That is something that we never thought we'd ever see. If that was ever done by anyone from the opposition, they still would be yelling and hollering. So this is something now that we have. We have strikes all over Ontario in different parts, and our Education minister doesn't seem to have control of it.

Something else that we have asked, and we've asked right from the very start, is the breakfast program, if they would do something about that. We have it in our area in Owen Sound and over in Thornbury and some of the other areas in Grey county, but again the Minister of Education decides to do nothing about that. They just let it go on and on. They have not got the expertise to do that.

Madam Speaker, you may lose the mace, and then I don't know what we'll do now. I can see the good member for St Catharines would like to run off with that and down to the hockey game, I'm sure. Maybe he also is trying to tell me that he wants to wrap up tonight, but I have a couple more left.

Community and Social Services: Isn't that a great one? They've come up with the new idea of parental contributions. That is a good one: No more user fees, but we're going to have parental contributions. To most people who are vulnerable in our society, this government, which always proclaimed to help those types of people, now says that they're going to have to pay or, "Sorry, folks, no program."

Instead of calling it user fees, which is what it is, they call it parental contributions. They come up with all these new names, and I think they've changed the vocabulary in here, but it still doesn't help the people out there who need the help. That has been a shame on that government and a shame on that ministry.

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Next we come to Natural Resources. I have to say, when the previous minister, Mr Wildman, was in charge, things did move along a little better. But now we have the minister there who really, I think, is probably having a sleep for the last year. He comes into this House and lets on that he's doing a lot of work, but I'm afraid he's lost control of his ministry like he did when he was the Attorney General. Now nothing is happening there.

We have had no policy come out on ANSIs, which they promised. The wetlands policies -- nothing's happened there. This government paid tons of money to send this guy named Sewell around the country to find out what was going on. Obviously, he's still lost out there somewhere in an ANSI or in a wetland or in a woodlot somewhere and has totally disappeared on us.

Then the minister or his staff -- and I don't believe the minister's figured it out yet -- has come up with the idea: "We have to save money, so let's get the conservation authorities. We don't like those guys anyway because they have some local autonomy. We wouldn't want them making decisions, so let's get those people."

Something that has been promised for years and years and years by the governments that were here before, that the land taxes would be paid on conservation areas, they've just decided not to pay them. The minister says: "Well, I didn't know they were going to do that. Who's doing this?" So he sort of woke up for a little while and found out what is really going on.

In this House, a motion was put forward by me for that money to be paid back to them. It was voted on in here, voted on by all three parties and passed, yet the minister does not listen to a democratic vote that was made in this House. So he obviously is sound asleep somewhere in one of the offices here and hasn't woken up to the fact that there are some problems out there and that conservation authorities are going to lose some land if the taxes aren't paid. Local municipalities need those taxes. Again, the Minister of Natural Resources continues to do nothing about it.

Also, our conservation officers have been cut way back. They talk about preserving our wildlife and preserving the wetlands and things like that. Our conservation officers have been cut back and back and back till actually they have hardly anything to work with out there. Again, the Minister of Natural Resources has no idea what's happening.

Something else we've been asking for years -- and they do have a program, the rabid fox bait program. We've asked them to help us out on that. We have clubs that are prepared to drop the bait and help them out -- again, no answer. Somewhere along the line the Minister of Natural Resources has to wake up in whatever office he's in and get on his job and do some of these things.

The last one is Northern Development and Mines. All they can come up with over there is to give skidoo trails some money -- skidoo clubs to make some trails. That's all they can come up with. Again, it's hard to criticize in that area when they haven't done anything. Nothing's been done over there to help out our northern development. Our roads are not fixed up there.

This government continues to do nothing in a lot of the areas. The areas they start to do something, they make such a mess of it that it's not worth repeating. Ending up, this is the first time in the history of this province that the Provincial Auditor would not give his unqualified approval of the government financial statements. That shows what kind of a financial mess this government's in. I can't support this and I hope this government does wake up before they ruin what's left of Ontario.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I'm pleased to have the opportunity to join in the debate on concurrences because there's considerable flexibility. One is able to talk about a number of different issues, many of them of local import, but some with province-wide ramifications.

I do want to say, first of all, that with the various ministries we have before us, there are a number of deficiencies which must be addressed. This is the forum in which we may do it. I want to look first of all at Niagara College in St Catharines and in Welland.

Niagara College has provided an excellent education for a large number of people not only in the Niagara Peninsula but across Ontario for a number of years. Unfortunately, they've had to do so in less than satisfactory circumstances; that is, the buildings and the facilities which exist are not conducive to providing the best possible education.

I heard Captain Infrastructure say the other day -- Captain Infrastructure is the Premier of this province; he's known some places, in his office, as Captain Infrastructure. This is the person who of course removed $300 million from the budget of the government of Ontario for the purposes of capital expenditures. The Premier has ordered this to happen at the same time as extolling the virtues of capital expenditures on the part of all levels of government.

Well, I've got a good suggestion for the Premier, and that is that Niagara College, which has its proposal for redevelopment and expansion and new facilities before the Ontario government, if the government sees that this is a wise way to spend its money, then I think a good investment would be, in terms of a capital investment, an investment in Niagara College so that they can proceed with the new campus, so that they can upgrade the campus in Welland and replace some of the -- well, they're not even antiques; they're decrepit old buildings which exist at the present time. I know that the president, John Saso, and others at the university are eager to proceed with the development of the new campus so that they can serve the needs not only of those who are coming out of the high schools but people who are going back into education for the purposes of retraining, for the purposes of being able to get the kind of jobs that are out there today.

Second, we have another post-secondary building or facility which addresses the educational needs in the Niagara Peninsula, and that is Brock University. The president of Brock University, Terry White, has been eager, again, to see the appropriate funding for Brock University in order that this educational institution can meet the needs of the students. Brock has been very popular over the years, attracting a very large number of applicants, and has been pleased to accept a large number of those applicants into an institution of higher learning. Unfortunately for the students around this province, there are only so many spaces available. I'm sure that Brock University would like to have both the capital funds but now particularly operating funds to be able to provide the kind of education they believe would be useful to the students from the province of Ontario and from other jurisdictions.

In Lincoln county, the Lincoln County Roman Catholic Separate School Board and the Lincoln County Board of Education are both eager to obtain funding for various of those projects; one that comes to mind is Governor Simcoe Secondary School. We had a situation where Grantham High School, which I used to attend at one time, was transferred from the Lincoln County Board of Education to the Lincoln County Roman Catholic Separate School Board.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): No. You allowed that? You stood by and let that happen?

Mr Bradley: The condition under which this happened was that you had two boards of education under great pressure which sat down and were able to come to an agreement.

Mr Conway: With or without your support?

Mr Bradley: The member for Renfrew North would recall that all around the province we had circumstances where boards were fighting, where the facilities were not easily transferred, where there was a conflict, where the government had to order facilities transferred from one board to another. So the Lincoln County Board of Education, even though it had great pressure from the parents of the students and the community known as Grantham not to transfer that school or indeed any other school to the Lincoln County Roman Catholic Separate School Board, proceeded in good-faith negotiations and there was a transfer effected of Grantham High School, which is now known as Holy Cross Secondary School.

I think that when people are able to come to an agreement under difficult circumstances, when people in good faith, working very hard on both boards are able to come up with an agreement for the transfer of a school to another school board, there should be adequate compensation. That's where the second shoe drops. Lakeport Secondary School was to have funding for its expansion and for its rejuvenation and renovations, and indeed, after many months, that has come through. Governor Simcoe Secondary School, in addition to that, had to accommodate new students as a result of the transfer and was promised that it would have appropriate facilities. The Lincoln County Board of Education has been in discussion with the Ministry of Education for the funding of those facilities.

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I call upon the Minister of Education, as I know my colleagues in Lincoln county do, those who represent us at the provincial level, to provide the appropriate funding for Governor Simcoe Secondary School and the facilities that are to be added in that educational institution under a formula which the Lincoln County Board of Education believes to be fair. I hope, because we've had some good people in the Ministry of Education involved in those negotiations -- there have been people who've been extremely helpful; I think of Wayne Cross, for instance, who in our part of the province is well received and well respected by all boards of education in regional Niagara -- that there can be the appropriate funding provided to the Lincoln County Board of Education to compensate for that transfer.

You will know, Madam Speaker, as you are from the Niagara Peninsula, that we experience very high unemployment. We are either the highest or the second-highest, it seems to me, over the last few months in the whole country in urban centres in terms of unemployment. What a lot of people don't recognize as well is that we have not seen the full loss of jobs yet and we still have high unemployment. For instance, in Niagara Falls we have the Ford plant closing, which will be a substantial loss and is a substantial loss to the people of Niagara Falls. In St Catharines, the foundry at General Motors is scheduled to close and is in the process of having that closing taking place. There have been other job losses at General Motors as well.

But the full impact of those job losses has not been felt to this point in time. For this reason, I believe that we need the additional help of any programs that the government of Ontario has available to assist the Niagara Peninsula. But we also have a Labour office there which is, because of the circumstances facing us, understaffed, and so people have to wait several months before they are able to receive appropriate action from the Ministry of Labour. The employees there are working very hard to service those needs, but we need additional staff and space if we're to serve those needs as they increase in the future.

I know, for instance, that there's a program the government set up that we in the opposition were in agreement with. I congratulated the government and said it was an appropriate program. That was compensation for those workers who were laid off. It used to be they had to stand at the back of the line to get the money when somebody went bankrupt, for instance; the worker compensation fund. Unfortunately, what has happened, to my knowledge, is that the payouts are very slow in coming these days. On paper it's an excellent program; in practice, because of lack of funding, the program has not satisfied people in our area.

I offer my support to the Minister of Labour with his cabinet colleagues to get the appropriate funding for that because I think it was a progressive piece of legislation. I know it's one that the Minister of Labour in opposition in government fought for for a number of years and he would be justifiably proud when that passed the House. However, as we know with any piece of legislation, to make it entirely effective there must be the appropriate funding, and I certainly want his colleagues to know that his ministry should be receiving the appropriate funding for that and any additional funding he needs to service areas which have high unemployment.

I also want to indicate that the Ministry of Transportation will be coming to St Catharines. I understand that the Premier will be in St Catharines tomorrow to announce it again. We've had several people announce this. In fact, I remember standing on the steps of the library with the previous government announcing that the Ministry of Transportation would be coming to St Catharines. The commitment was made by David Peterson; Chris Ward, as the Minister of Government Services; the Minister of Transportation, Bill Wrye, were all there to announce that it was coming to St Catharines.

There was a little bit of reluctance, you will recall, Madam Speaker, early on because the Ontario Public Service Employees Union leadership in Toronto said they didn't want these ministries to move out of the city of Toronto. So there was a lot of reluctance on the part of many people who I would have anticipated would have been early and eager in their support of this move, reluctance to see that move take place.

But progress was made. I give credit to the city of St Catharines and its council. I give credit to the promotion task force, led by Walt Lastewka, who is now the federal MP for St Catharines, recently elected in the election, and to a number of other people in the community who promoted that move to St Catharines. You would be pleased, as the member for Niagara Falls, Madam Speaker, that the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation, now the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation, will be moving its head office to Niagara Falls. I was very supportive of that.

What happened was the government ran into a financial crunch and there was a lot of discussion about where moves would not take place. For instance, the Ministry of Labour, which was supposed to move to Windsor, did not move to Windsor, and there were a number of other moves that did not take place.

I rose in the House on a number of occasions and asked the ministers appropriate, plus the Premier of this province, would they live up to the commitment to move the Ministry of Transportation to St Catharines and the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation to Niagara Falls, because I knew that behind closed doors the government was looking at those programs and re-evaluating those programs and thinking of not making those moves.

I remember the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale, Mr Philip, who is now the Minister of Municipal Affairs, at the time said I was rumourmongering and that there was no fear that this ministry wouldn't be moving to St Catharines. Those of us who have sat on the government side know that in difficult economic times the government is looking at every expenditure.

I'm going to be pleased to welcome to the community that I've had the pleasure and privilege of representing for almost 17 years -- St Catharines -- and I will look forward to welcoming the Premier to our St Catharines. I will be very happy to have him there to make this announcement once again. The announcement tomorrow, as everybody knows, will be an announcement of the actual acceptance of the tenders for the building.

We've had the Minister of Transportation down. He made the announcement. I was delighted to be there on that occasion to see. It's nice to see when one government follows through on a commitment made by another government, because that doesn't always happen. This was such a logical idea, such a good idea, such a progressive idea by David Peterson to move the Ministry of Transportation to St Catharines and the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation to Niagara Falls that I certainly commend the Premier, despite all of the opposition that was out there, some within his own ranks, to see the Premier follow through on that particular recommendation. I'll be happy to congratulate him on that occasion tomorrow and welcome him, as I always do, to the city of St Catharines.

I had the opportunity, and it was difficult, to sit in on a meeting last Friday for two and a half hours with a young couple by the name of McLaughlin. They have a daughter by the name of Sara McLaughlin. Mr and Mrs McLaughlin sat in with representatives of the Ministry of Community and Social Services, with people from the local area, education and social services and services for young people, to discuss the challenges presented by their daughter.

What these people were looking for was some assistance from the Ontario government in terms of hours provided for an intervenor with their child. Their child was born in a circumstance where the child has very little or next to no hearing, where the child has extremely little vision, and requires hours upon hours of attention to make even minor progress. The parents have done an excellent job -- an outstanding job. The mother provided for us a video, which we watched, of her working with the daughter.

When I think of people who are hardhearted in terms of these difficult economic times, and one must always look at all of the expenditures government makes, but when I hear people who are on the extreme right and who say that all expenditures must be cut no matter what, I wish they could have sat in on that particular meeting to see these people trying to meet the needs of this young person. Certainly, I would be the first to commend to the government the idea of continuing that kind of funding. There may be other areas where there can be trimming without -- well, not without penalty or consequence, but easier consequence than this. But surely, everyone in our province would be sympathetic to the circumstances faced by this young couple and their daughter. I will continue to fight on their behalf.

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I want to report to the House, because I've asked questions in the House about this, that the individuals who met with us from Community and Social Services, from Education and, locally, from social services that are provided and education and health services were very helpful, were very sympathetic, were looking for practical solutions. I hope that as a result the appropriate service can be provided to this person.

When I see people from the National Citizens' Coalition and the taxpayers coalition making representations to government to slash all expenditures, almost without consequence, I invite them to sit in on a meeting of that kind and see the genuine needs that are out there. It seems to me that's why governments are in existence, it seems to me that's why we are elected: to protect those who are unable to speak for themselves. The rich and the privileged may not need the projects, may not need the intervention by government on this occasion, but certainly those who are in a disadvantaged position do, and I support those people.

I notice as well something that not all my colleagues might agree with. I saw a circumstance where the beer companies were starting to put more alcohol in the beer. I'm not particularly delighted with that because I think it's really aimed at young people. One company started out with some kind of ice beer, the iciest beer they can get.

Hon Evelyn Gigantes (Minister of Housing): It's existed for a long time, Jim.

Mr Bradley: The member for Ottawa Centre says what I'm saying is not true. I don't know why she would say that. Labatt's started out. They said that they were going to have a higher degree --

Hon Ms Gigantes: It's not new; I didn't say it's not true.

Mr Bradley: I'd like to know why it's not. Does anybody in this House think that's not true?

Hon Ms Gigantes: Not new.

Mr Bradley: Not true. Well, it's certainly new in terms of the last few months. Labatt's has come up with a 7% or over-7% alcohol content, and now Molson's has joined it. I guess what's new about it is the kind of marketing that took place when it first came out. If that marketing wasn't aimed at a relatively young group of people, then I would be very surprised. Because young people want to, I suppose, get the most out of the beer that they're going to drink and may be more inclined, because of their lack of funds, to spend money on a higher-alcohol-content beer, I would have hoped that the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations would have intervened early on. She has reported to the House, discussed this, but I want to report that I'm not particularly happy with this happening, because of its effect on young people in our province.

I also want to look at the police services board, and the Speaker, who is from Niagara Falls, would be aware of this. There was a very sad and unfortunate fatality which took place in the Niagara Peninsula where Police Constable Paolozzi was accidentally shot at a range which is under the auspices of the Niagara Regional Police Services Board. There has been an SIU investigation of this.

I'm sure that the family of Constable Paolozzi and others directly involved, as well as all of us in the peninsula, are wondering why it has taken so long to have this investigation and a report take place, because it happened several months ago. The chairperson of the Niagara Regional Police Services Board wrote to me in October and asked if I could assist in having this appropriately looked after. I directed this question to the minister, who I know has limited authority in this particular case, but I hope this could be solved.

I also want to say that in the Niagara Peninsula, if I could look at any of the issues that are affecting us, people still are talking about, with some deal of justification, the unfortunate homicides which have taken place in Niagara and the Hamilton-Burlington area. We commend very much the work of the police forces and the investigation they have undertaken for these particular murders that have taken place.

We're all concerned and repulsed by the fact that people can make money out of this. In other words, those who have perpetrated crime have the opportunity to make money on that. Certainly, if I were to listen to the calls that have come into my constituency office, people would hope that this kind of exploitation of these circumstances could be terminated by either the joint action of the federal and provincial governments or an individual initiative on the part of either one of the governments.

As well, I want to indicate that sometimes when people implement things such as a social contract, they don't understand some of the consequences when people are cutting back on the drugs available to people. I have a letter here from a constituent. It's actually from a doctor who is writing on behalf of a constituent. I won't mention the name, but it says the following:

"This is to confirm that the above is suffering from severe, recurrent, chronic pancreatitis. Among the medications she is receiving is Cotazym or pancrelipase." It's a very long name, as you can appreciate. "She requires these to aid her digestion. Without these, she experiences severe bloating and discomfort and indigestion and is unable to eat, resulting in weight loss.

"She has tried doing without these recently and has run into difficulties. It is my opinion that the patient needs this medication and needs help obtaining these."

The reason I raise this is that the cost of this medication is extremely expensive. This person now has to go on bended knee, with the assistance of her doctor, to obtain this particular medicine. I think in Ontario this should not necessarily be the case.

We have a number of Alzheimer patients in our part of the province as well. I met with the respite workers and others who are care givers, often people in the family, about the opportunities available for patients with Alzheimer. Again, what they were looking for was intervention. They were looking for respite care, because often the people who are providing these services themselves become extremely depressed and stressed out by the fact that they're dealing with people with extreme medical problems on an almost 24-hour basis. I hope the government would address that.

I've had people who have called my constituency office and said, "Would you please get somebody into one home or another so they can get this service?" Of course, we do not have a circumstance, nor should we ever, where people would get to the front of the line by political intervention, but I do make a plea on behalf of all the people who face those circumstances.

The Ministry of Transportation is not in this, so I can't appropriately deal with the issue of photo-radar; I'll save that for another occasion.

Mr Conway: Why would you stop? I think that's a women's issue.

Mr Bradley: I don't know if it is. At Allcare Landscape in St Catharines, and I'll say this very briefly, the manager is very concerned because he says that he has a number of trucks or a fleet of trucks out there and there's going to be a real dispute between --

Mr Marchese: Transportation isn't on concurrence, Jim.

Mr Bradley: This could be a women's issue, because I think some of the people who drive the trucks are women. They are very concerned that there are going to be squabbles between the employees and the employer once the photo-radar starts clicking away. I wanted to raise that issue.

The Minister of Housing is in the House. All of us have received from various people in the realty business a plea, along with people who would like to make purchases of new homes, for the continuation of the Ontario home ownership savings plan. I have urged both the Treasurer and the Minister of Housing, with letters to them, to continue this very popular and helpful program that of course has a very positive effect on job creation in the province and allows people to get into their own homes which they own themselves and can have a good deal of pride in. I hope the government will give favourable consideration to the extension of the OHOSP program, which could expire on December 31 of this year.

I want to talk for a moment about the circumstances faced by kidney patients. I'm assured that the Minister of Health, after much intervention on the part of those of us in opposition -- my colleague the member for Halton Centre, Barbara Sullivan, the Liberal critic in terms of health care, myself and others have raised the issue of the drugs that are needed by dialysis patients. I hope the matter's been resolved. I understand the minister presented a press release to members of the news media which said that she was going to deal with this problem. People were very concerned that they wouldn't be getting their needed medication and, as a result, could see their health deteriorate. I hope the problem has been solved and I certainly urge the minister to provide that medication.

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I have a letter from Tabor Manor in St Catharines -- it's a senior citizens' home and apartments -- complaining vociferously about the Workers' Compensation Board premium increases. For homes for the aged, they are scheduled to increase from the present $2.15 per $100 to $6 per $100 in 1994. They go on to say:

"We have all been pressed to decrease spending and are willing to do our share to reduce costs. On the other hand, we have been forced to spend more on health care premiums, medication etc. We feel that a 181% increase in any sector in this time of constraints is unconscionable. How were these rates established? We can prove that our claims did not go up by that percentage in recent years. I firmly believe that a serious attempt to curb abuse in the system would reduce costs to WCB and mitigate the need to increase premiums.

"I understand that WCB will be submitting a recommendation for the increases shortly and that the board of directors will discuss the matter in October." I received this in September of this year. "We would appreciate your support in helping us oppose the drastic measures which are presently planned." This is written by the administrator, and I certainly support their position, as my colleagues the Liberal leader and the Liberal critic in the field of Labour have done.

In addition to this, we've had other people writing to us. There are people who are in the private sector in terms of delivery of health care in the long-term care division. Here's the odd thing: Some of these people have shown up at my office and told me -- they didn't have to tell me because I knew it -- they were lifelong, or at least long-time, NDP supporters. If you could listen to what they had to say about the NDP government on this issue, you might be very surprised.

These aren't wild, right-wing free-enterprisers. These are people who simply believe that the product they are delivering should be allowed to continue. They don't say all of the health care should be from the private sector; they understand the public sector and the non-profit sector should both be involved. But they do believe they're providing an excellent service. They are ordinary people, just like myself and some others in the Legislature, who want to try to provide this service, perhaps make a small profit while they're doing that and be very efficient. In fact, they believe that by the long-term health care provisions of this government they're going to be put out of business.

Broadway Gardens in St Catharines has written to me to say that it is concerned about Bill 91. They say that the entire farming community is concerned about this, and I can understand that. They're talking about the Minister of Labour recognizing the significance of the task force recommendation by confirming in writing by May 19, 1993, that the government would "proceed with a separate labour relations act for the agriculture sector based on the task force report." They are concerned about the provisions of that task force report.

There are many other areas. Our party has conducted a task force in cancer care. The task force has gone around the province. I have found, because the member for Renfrew is in the House this evening and I had one on work and school, I think is the best way of putting it, back when we were in opposition previously, and I know members of the government have found the same thing when they were in opposition, because the NDP had some excellent task forces as well, that when you go around and talk to the people and get representations made, you really find out about the problems. If there's one thing that concerns a lot of people out there, partially because of an aging population but also because of a growing number of people who are afflicted in some way or other with cancer, they are concerned about their ability to receive treatment in a timely fashion and in an efficient fashion.

There have been many instances mentioned in this House, and that came to the attention of the task force, that indicate that all is not well in this field. An effort has been made over the years -- and it's difficult to keep up; I'm not unfair enough to say that it's a very easy problem to solve. But I think all of us would be wise to address that in a forthright manner. Again, if you're looking where the public is prepared to make an investment, that investment could easily be made in the field of health care and providing cancer services.

When a person is diagnosed and then you say to the person, "But of course you won't be able to receive radiation for about five weeks after you're diagnosed," that person becomes justifiably concerned.

I'll tell you what would happen in the Niagara Peninsula. If the person was rich, they would go to Roswell Park in Buffalo and receive the treatment probably the same week. If the person doesn't have the money or the wherewithal to get to Buffalo, then that person could wait five, six or seven weeks to receive that treatment, and cancer is a disease which we want to be able to address at its very earliest stages if we can.

I certainly commend to the government, because it has somebody -- some people said spying. I am one, by the way, who doesn't object to that, to the fact that the government has somebody from the Ministry of Health monitoring what goes on. As I say, opposition people, maybe some of my colleagues, would say it's a kind of spying mission, but I think it's positive, because they hear what we are hearing and perhaps can take appropriate action at the same time.

In addition to this, I've received a number of letters about Bill 47, which is on photo-radar. I can talk about that on another occasion.

Here's one that I thought the members of this government might find interesting. This is a doctor in St Catharines who is pointing out that although the government believes it is solving a problem through the social contract, it's really not.

Let me put this in context. This doctor is writing to a young patient who is diabetic, saying; "I'm sorry. I can no longer see you." He writes as follows. I won't mention the person's name. I don't like doing that without people's permission.

"Dear" -- and the boy's name

"As a result of the social contract imposed on me by the government of Ontario and the Ontario Medical Association, I will have to decrease my practice to save the government 4.8% of my billings, in addition to closing my office for nine" -- what he refers to as -- "Rae days. As the services I perform on children over 15 years equals the 4.8% of my practice, I have decided to stop providing medical services to this group. According to my records, you are one of this group, and I'm therefore writing to you to advise that as of two (2) weeks of your receiving this letter, I will no longer be considered as your doctor.

"May I suggest that you either try to continue with your family's doctor, or find a new doctor who will be able to start looking after your medical needs. You may obtain the name of doctors willing to take new patients by phoning the secretary of the Lincoln County Academy of Medicine.

"Let me say that I have enjoyed being your doctor in the past and wish you good luck and good health in your future.

"Yours sincerely," and it's signed by the doctor.

The point the patient makes to me is that there's not going to be a saving because this patient is simply going to go to another doctor and that doctor is going to take on the load from this. So the government, in fairness, may have said, "We hope we could solve a problem by doing this"; in fact, in practice, as has been demonstrated here, that simply is not working and that person is not enamoured with the Ontario government as a result.

I did want to give some of my colleagues an opportunity to address some of the issues of importance this evening. I do like the opportunity to go through -- is Agriculture on this list? It is, isn't it?

The Acting Speaker: Yes.

Mr Bradley: I'm a person who believes very strongly -- and I don't say I'm a majority in this province by any means, but I've made this speech in the House before as well, because I always thought the NDP was going to save the farm land. I remember during the last campaign the then opposition leader would stop in the Niagara Peninsula and say: "Look at all this agricultural land that's disappearing. Isn't it awful? I'm going to put a stop to this."

Well, as I drive, as I know you do, Madam Speaker, from Toronto to St Catharines or to the Niagara Peninsula, every time I turn my head sideways I see a new warehouse or some other building along the Queen Elizabeth Way. It used to be a quaint, beautiful drive, and now I see the rapid urbanization of that area, much to the detriment of farming and much to the detriment of a rural lifestyle we used to enjoy in the Niagara Peninsula.

I well remember Stephen Lewis getting up in this House and saying we were losing -- what? -- 35 acres an hour or something like that of agricultural land.

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I would have thought that the present Premier, who so vociferously and eloquently defended the position of preserving agricultural land, would not, for instance, have given London all that agricultural land in that famous land grab by the city of London, acquiesced to by the NDP members from London, who apparently supported it; at least did not raise public objection to it. If they're in the cabinet, I understand why, because cabinet ministers must maintain solidarity, but those outside of cabinet had a chance to fight to save that agricultural land.

I see it happening across the province now. I know --

Hon Ms Gigantes: What about Pickering?

Mr Bradley: And Pickering. Good. I'm glad you mentioned it, because in Pickering the provincial government is selling off all kinds of land. In a petition which has been read in the House on many occasions it's been enunciated. I wish I had that from the Hansard of yesterday. Perhaps the member for Renfrew will find it in the Hansard from yesterday. It lists the land the provincial government is selling in Pickering.

We've had some petitions from the member for Durham West and others --

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): Including the golf course.

Mr Bradley: Golf courses, all kinds of things that have been sold by the provincial government and are still selling in Pickering. I look out there and say, this was the government that was going to be different, and what do I see? The agricultural land being gobbled up, as well as being gobbled up by dumps in various places.

It's not that I want to be critical. I had to listen for all those years to the member for Ottawa Centre, when she was the member for Carleton East and then Ottawa Centre, talk about how the NDP was going to be so different, and I actually believed that over the years. I was one who was convinced that somehow the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party were evil and could not be trusted and the NDP would solve everything.

They got their chance. The member for Oxford ran for the party. I'm sure he was convinced they were going to be different. The member for Etobicoke West was never convinced they were going to be different. He warned me, but I was trying to give them a fair chance. The member for Etobicoke West said, "You shouldn't do that, because you will be disappointed."

I see the agricultural land now disappearing and I remember one person --

Mr Stockwell: Were you disappointed?

Mr Bradley: I was very disappointed, but I shouldn't be surprised, says the member for west Etobicoke.

Hon Ms Gigantes: What did you do as Minister of the Environment?

Mr Bradley: Oh, there; I could do a whole speech there, because this is where you're on very weak ground. I have made a practice in this House, because I said I would not -- I did not want to be the critic in the field of the Environment because I had worked for five years, three months and four days with an excellent staff in the Ministry of the Environment. I felt it would be very unfair to then stand in the House and be critical of that same staff.

I'll tell you that I could sear this government when I know what you're not doing with the environment. I think the last thing the member for Ottawa Centre should mention is your record on the environment. There has been virtually nothing happening.

Mr Sutherland: Oh, come on.

Mr Bradley: Well, I ask --

Mr Sutherland: The Environmental Bill of Rights?

Mr Bradley: The Environmental Bill of Rights is a joke. It is a watered-down -- I looked at the original bill put forward by the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore and now the bill that's put forward and I can tell you they're something entirely different.

The clean air program is dead. The MISA program is way behind. I looked at the chlorine provisions and the weasel words in the chlorine provisions. I know the members of the industry are happy that you put those weasel words in, but I'll tell you, that would never have been accepted if a Liberal government had done it. You would never have accepted that in the opposition and allowed that to happen. There was more action --

Hon Ms Gigantes: Give me a break.

Mr David Winninger (London South): So you did nothing.

Mr Bradley: I simply ask to go to objective observers and ask them to compare the two governments in the amount of environmental action and progress made, and not myself and not yourself, because we're both political people, we both have an opportunity to make our cases. I simply say, go to fairminded, objective observers, and they will say that the period of the Peterson government in the environment was far more progressive, far more active than has been this government.

I understand your financial circumstances. I apologize for you for that, because I know it's difficult, but please, never, never make the case that you could come anywhere near the record of the last government, and I say that as a government as opposed to anything else.

Mr Sutherland: On the environment?

Mr Bradley: Exactly, on the environment, sir. You just compare all of the things that were done in that period of time with what's been done in this period of time and I can tell you that it simply doesn't compare. I hope you make progress, because I know there are a lot of environmentalists elected over there.

Is there a time limit on --

The Acting Speaker: I would like to remind the member that I would like to give him lots of leeway, but the Ministry of Environment is not on our list.

Mr Bradley: Is the table saying I'm out of time? I don't think the clocks are working.

I'm very pleased to make these remarks and I now yield the floor to my fellow colleagues, especially from the Conservative Party who are sitting there.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate? Do we have a point of order?

Mr Turnbull: On a point of order, Madam speaker: I'm just surprised that the member for Oxford had so much to say heckling and now hasn't got up.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Another point of order, the member for Cochrane South.

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): Madam Speaker, I did not raise the point of order at the beginning of the honourable member's debate, but I was standing in my place ready to be recognized in rotation of my party in debate and ask that I be recognized at this time.

The Acting Speaker: I apologize to the member. I did see you standing. I didn't realize that you actually wanted to debate. I've made that mistake. I think you will be included in the next round. Would that be satisfactory?

Mr Bisson: That's fine.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate? The member for Etobicoke West.

Mr George Mammoliti (Yorkview): You're lucky, Stockwell.

Mr Stockwell: Mr Yorkview, thank you.

This is an excellent opportunity for opposition members to take time to debate a series of concurrences surrounding the ministries outlined in the orders of the day. What it does is a bit of a checklist, and you can go through that checklist and through each ministry assess the individual benefits and negatives that they've offered this province during the past number of months.

Since we started at Ag and Food, I'd rather move to 70, which is Housing.

Mr Conway: I think you should give us your agricultural perspective.

Mr Stockwell: I will leave the agricultural perspective to those such as the member for Grey-Owen Sound and the member for S-D-G & East Grenville because they offer up I think far better, more insightful points of view with respect to Agriculture and Food.

The Ministry of Housing: Why do I want to talk about the Ministry of Housing? It's probably got a lot to do with Bill 120 -- I think that's the new number -- and the complete and absolute ignorance of the processes that are in place at local levels which local councils, duly elected officials in this province, operate under to provide zoning, planning and the needs to the local people who elect them.

I say this because I believe fundamentally that local councils are the closest to the people of any of the elected officials. I don't think anyone would debate that point, because I think these people represent neighbourhoods and communities that are in the tradition of the John Sewells and Jack Laytons and people like that, the Richard Gilberts and so on of the NDP stripe at the local levels.

Why I say that is because those people on those local councils, those stalwarts of the NDP past often spoke to the issues such as local planning, neighbourhood initiative, grass-roots politics. Quite often they would say, "What we need is more local issues, more local meetings, more local input into how decision-making takes place," yet what we have from the Ministry of Housing is a cookie-cutter initiative, an across-the-board edict coming down from the minister that says regardless of where it is, regardless of who it's going to affect and how it could be implemented, all homes in the province of Ontario, all semi-detached housing, all row housing, now become duplexes, now become apartments, regardless of the impact on the local municipalities, regardless of the impact on the local neighbourhoods.

It flies in the face of all those important things these people stood for at local councils: neighbourhood involvement, grass-roots politics, participation, about letting local people make decisions that affect their local neighbourhoods.

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These are the policies they stood for. They quite often said, when it came down to something as simple as a simple addition in a neighbourhood to a house -- an addition, a small addition -- that a public hearing was necessary to allow the neighbourhood to vent their concerns.

Mr Bradley: Did Howard Moscoe say that?

Mr Stockwell: Howard Moscoe said it. Howard Moscoe was one of those protectors of local neighbourhood rights to change, initiate and discuss local planning. Gosh, there was nothing more important to an NDPer: local planning, the power of the people, grass-roots, bottom-up democracy, all those lovely phrases they hung their hats on.

Mr Bradley: Olivia Chow?

Mr Stockwell: Oh, yes, although I never sat with Ms Chow.

Mr Bradley: Jack Layton?

Mr Stockwell: Jack Layton, yes, quite often Jack Layton. My goodness, that reminds me; Jack Layton spearheaded the attack on the Spadina LRT. And what did Jack Layton do on the Spadina LRT? He said, "This needs neighbourhood participation," so much so that a four-inch curb they thought should be a two-inch curb for the LRT right of way, because of Jack Layton and neighbourhood involvement went through for environmental assessment, costing the taxpayers $1 million -- to make a four-inch curb a two-inch curb. That was participation. That was local involvement. That's what planning and zoning and official plans were all about. Now what do we have? We have a socialist government changing the fabric of neighbourhoods across this province.

Mr Winninger: For the better.

Mr Stockwell: You say, "For the better." I think there are a lot of people in this province who will disagree with you.

Mr Winninger: Seventy per cent favour apartments in houses. Check your facts.

Mr Stockwell: If they believe that, local councils would have allowed basement apartments in --

Hon Ed Philip (Minister of Municipal Affairs): He doesn't know we are not on that bill.

Mr Stockwell: Oh yes, we are on concurrence, I say to the minister. We're on concurrence, so I knew that.

Mr Conway: Let's not have a nasty little quarrel among Etobicoke members.

Mr Stockwell: Local councils would have the opportunity of implementing official plan amendments through public hearings, rezonings, take out R-2, put in zonings for multidwelling. You could put it in row housing and in semidetacheds; public hearings to make neighbourhood changes.

You see, that's what I don't like about this government. I thought they were truthful when they talked about neighbourhood -- but you know what I find? They were only truthful and they only wanted public participation and they only wanted neighbourhood involvement when they were in opposition, because they weren't the decision-makers. The minute they become decision-makers, there's no need for neighbourhood involvement, public participation, grass-roots democracy and ground-up democracy any more, because they know all. They know what's good for every residential neighbourhood in the province of Ontario.

They know it, so don't ask them any questions. Don't talk about neighbourhood involvement and democracy. Don't talk about cars trying to get up streets. Don't talk about snowplows trying to get up congested streets so they can get fire trucks through to houses that are on fire, but can't get through because cars are parked haphazardly because there are too many cars, and basement apartments will only exacerbate the problem. Don't talk to them about that, because they know all, they understand all.

They say to us, "We'll put in basement apartments." What are going to be your bylaws? What are the bylaws that will apply to these basement apartments? Do you know what their response is? "We're going to write some." Well, what are they? "We'll tell you when we write them." Don't you think you should write them first and then tell the municipalities what the new building code standards for the province of Ontario will be for basement apartments? Don't you think you should do that first, and then the municipalities can decide whether or not these are reasonable building standards to apply to municipalities?

I'll tell you, building standards for basement apartments to people in Parkdale are very different to people in Halton and are very different to people in Rosedale and are very different to the people in Kingsway and are very different to the people in Agincourt -- very, very different. All these homes are different. All these neighbourhoods are different. All these neighbourhoods have very different problems. To simply broad-brush the issue and say everybody lives in a basement apartment and here are the codes that everybody lives by, whether you live in Wawa or Dryden or Kingston or London --

Mr Murdoch: Or Owen Sound.

Mr Stockwell: -- or Owen Sound; all the same. It matters not.

Mr Mammoliti: Throw 'em in a cardboard box. That's Stockwell's solution. Under a bridge.

Mr Stockwell: I hear the member for Yorkview saying, "Throw them all into cardboard boxes." First, that is offensive, and second, not true, and I'm offended that he should say such a thing.

Let me just say this. If this basement apartment legislation passes, I'll tell you, basement apartments that are presently in place will not conform; 70% to 80% will not conform. You want to know why they won't conform? You need an entrance stairway and an exit. Practically none have an entrance and an exit stairway. You need minimum ceiling heights. Most of the basement apartment ceiling heights don't comply. They need minimum window requirements. Most basement apartments don't have that.

What this member says is that I want to put them in cardboard boxes. He's going to put 80% to 90% of those people now in basement apartments on to the street in the name of an ideological position adopted by a Minister of Housing that is so completely out of touch with the realities of municipality building codes, zoning and planning issues.

But there will be a public hearing. They will have input eventually, because when you amend an official plan -- I'm not sure the members know this -- you must have a public hearing, and the public will let them know what they think about basement apartments.

Health: I think our representative for the Ministry of Health has done an admirable job this session pointing out the (a) ineffectiveness and (b) lax methods of their holding on health cards.

The Ministry of Labour, Bill 80: Much debate about Bill 80. I would think that if this government --

Mr Mammoliti: You're not qualified to talk about it.

Mr Stockwell: The member for Yorkview says I'm not qualified to talk on Bill 80. I will say he's probably right. I don't pretend that there's an understanding about Bill 80 that I have on this side of the floor that you don't have on that side. So I'll move on.

Economic Development and Trade: Economic Development and Trade is a ministry that seems to be absolutely non-existent, and I say that very matter of factly.

Mr Bradley: Except for?

Mr Stockwell: Except when they close down offices and leave known NDPers on the public payroll long after these offices are closed, namely, Robin Sears, a friend of none other than Robert K. Rae QC.

Hon Ms Gigantes: How about Robert Nixon?

Mr Stockwell: Robin Sears is a friend of Robert Nixon? I didn't know that. So now Mr Sears is a friend of Robert Nixon and Robert K. Rae QC.

Mr Conway: The only thing about Nixon is, when they closed his office, he came home.

The Acting Speaker: Could we have one person speaking, please.

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Mr Stockwell: Yes, he did come home. He came home pronto and got a job with the federal Liberals. But Robin Sears didn't lose his job right away.

It seems to me there's very little this department is doing. The announcements are minimal, to say the least. The minister's responses seem to centre around the recovery, this jobless recovery that's taking place that no one knows about except the government.

Mr Bradley: Well, they've hired Murray Weppler.

Mr Stockwell: Murray Weppler's the new spin doctor who's going to explain to the people of this province, who have never been more unemployed, never been more on welfare, never had poorer-paying jobs, how this recovery is taking place and prosperity is breaking out all over.

The only people who seem to know about this prosperity are the Minister of Economic Development and Trade, the Treasurer and Robert K. Rae QC himself. They're the ones who seem to talk about this recovery. Other than the three of them and a few of the assorted backbenchers, I don't see it.

Mr Winninger: Open your eyes.

Mr Stockwell: Where? Where is it happening? The unemployment rate isn't coming down.

Mr Bradley: Not in St Catharines.

Mr Stockwell: Is St Catharines booming, I ask? Is Renfrew booming, I ask? Grey? Is there a boom taking place in London that the rest of the province doesn't know about?

Mr Winninger: London's doing well.

Mr Stockwell: London's doing well. I want to get on the record that the member for London South has said today -- it's official -- that London is doing well.

Mr Winninger: We had the lowest rate of unemployment in Ontario.

Mr Stockwell: You always have the lowest rate of unemployment. What is your rate of unemployed?

Mr Winninger: About 9%.

Mr Stockwell: It's 9%, and London's doing well. Wouldn't you love to see London doing terrible? What's terrible?

Mr Winninger: It's better than 11%.

Mr Stockwell: Sure, 9% is better than 11%; not as good as, say, 5% but it's better than 11%.

The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade has been limited announcements, closure of offices, return of the ministry staff from overseas, and some announcements about one-stop shopping for a non-existent manufacturing sector that isn't expanding or growing, and an announcement of spending -- I forget. Was it $50 million for 50 jobs at the Toyota plant?

Mr Sutherland: No. One million dollars from us and they're investing $50 million.

Mr Stockwell: One million from the province for -- how many jobs was it? I forget.

Do you know what I want to talk about? I want to talk about the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation. Do you know why? Those ministries have not been central in this government's platform in the last number of years. There's a decision made in this ministry that I think was absolutely, mind-bogglingly dumb. This ministry a few years ago announced -- believe it or not, this is what this ministry announced -- that to raise more money and to make it more profitable they were going to let people into Ontario Place for free.

There are probably a lot of people out there who really can't understand that or comprehend it, but this is true. They announced at Ontario Place that to raise more revenue and generate more profits they were going to let everybody in for free at Ontario Place. Is this a socialist concept or what? They're going to let people into Ontario Place for free and raise more money. Well, what happened? I ask the members opposite if any of them have looked into it. I myself have looked into it because I couldn't believe how dumb that idea was when it was announced.

Hon Anne Swarbrick (Minister of Culture, Tourism and Recreation): You are talking about me. What are you saying?

Mr Stockwell: The minister came in. You weren't there when that was announced. What happened was that Ontario Place decided it was going to generate more revenue and more cash flow and more money, I say with the minister here, by allowing people in for free. What has happened since this mind-boggling brainstorm? They lost more money than they've ever lost in the history of Ontario Place. You'd think that would just follow.

Hon Ms Swarbrick: That's not true.

Mr Stockwell: You tell me. You've made more money than you've ever made?

Hon Ms Swarbrick: Yes, we've been decreasing the annual deficit.

Mr Stockwell: No, they've been decreasing the annual deficit because they made this decision a couple of years ago. Those couple of years ago your losses bottomed out.

Hon Ms Swarbrick: The deficit has been decreasing over the last couple of years.

Mr Stockwell: Right, but two years ago you made the decision to let people in free and you never lost more money in the history of Ontario Place, ever. Now they've lost less in the last couple of years, but they're still letting people in for free. It's mind-boggling to me that a government would think --

Hon Ms Swarbrick: It's a good business decision.

Mr Stockwell: It's not a good business -- you see, you have people defending this still. This is what astounds me about this government. They let people in for free and they lose more money than they've ever lost and they're saying, "It's a good business decision."

Mr Murdoch: That's why they're running the country into the ground.

Hon Ms Swarbrick: I should tell you about other days of your government.

Mr Stockwell: When we ran the place, we charged people to get in.

Hon Ms Swarbrick: You lost a heck of a lot more.

Mr Stockwell: Then let us have this debate one day because the numbers that I get from the ministry staff indicate they've never lost more money than when they announced they were going to let people in for free. Now they let people in for free --

Hon Ms Swarbrick: We also do straight bookkeeping now, which you didn't used to.

Mr Stockwell: Excuse me?

Hon Ms Swarbrick: We also have straight bookkeeping now.

Mr Stockwell: Straight bookkeeping, yes.

Mr Murdoch: That's what the auditor said, didn't he?

Mr Stockwell: I've got to take a lecture on straight bookkeeping from a government that can't get the auditor on side to give you a clean bill of health on the books of the province of Ontario. But apparently they cleaned up their books to the point that they got a red-letter day when it comes to bookkeeping at Ontario Place.

Hon Ms Swarbrick: That was the best audit a government has had here since Richard Mackie can remember.

Mr Stockwell: Who's Richard Mackie? The guy from the Globe?

Hon Ms Swarbrick: It is the softest audit. Sean probably knows.

Mr Stockwell: Here we have a financial guru in our midst. The writer for the Globe and Mail, Richard Mackie, now not only writes for the Globe; he marks financial statements put out by the auditor and quoted by the Minister of Tourism in this Legislature. This is beautiful.

So, let me carry on. Here's what I will say --

Hon Ms Swarbrick: And he was speaking to a former cabinet minister who agreed.

Mr Bradley: So what was it Ross McClellan said?

Mr Sutherland: No Minaki Lodge in this auditor's report.

Mr Stockwell: Oh look, if you want to get into the auditor's report, let's talk about the auditor's report then. If this is what you'd like to debate, I've got four hours and 20 minutes to do that. I'll talk about the auditor's books, okay? The auditor did sign off on your books, I agree. He signed off I think under duress. Under duress he signed off.

But you see, you still don't understand why he took you to the cleaners and why he said you're not fiscally responsible people. He did that for one very important reason -- and the Attorney General may be interested in hearing this -- because, Attorney General --

Mr Bradley: What did she call you the other night?

Mr Stockwell: "Honey."

Because, Attorney General, you and your government --

Mr Conway: We have come a long way from that lecture of 18 months ago.

Interjection.

Mr Stockwell: I'm sure it was.

Mr Murdoch: Say it isn't true over there.

Mr Stockwell: I'm sure smaller sorts would've stood up on a point of order and had a rather outrageous rant on this. But I saw the source and I understand it was just a -- in a pique of anger, she responded that. But let me just talk about the auditor. The auditor would not give you a clean --

Hon Marion Boyd (Attorney General): It was a joke, Chris; it was a joke.

Mr Conway: It sounded very sexist to me.

Mr Stockwell: It may have been a joke but I went to the union joke school and that would've been considered a sexist joke. I'm trying to play it low; if you want to play it up, I will. At the union joke school they wouldn't have thought that a funny joke.

I will try to get to the auditor --

Hon Mrs Boyd: You, however, they would find a funny joke.

Mr Stockwell: Okay. The Attorney General's baiting me. I'm trying not to take the bait and I'm doing my best, so I will continue.

The auditor said very clearly that the reason they can't have a clean bill of health on their books is the $528-million payment to the teachers' pension fund.

Why will you not just admit you were fiddling with the books when it came to that $528-million payment? I say categorically it was fudging the books. I say categorically it was fiddling the books. I say categorically that in the private sector that would be near fraudulent, if you tried to pull that stunt in the private sector. I will say that.

If you went to your shareholders -- and I will say this, I will say it clearly, and I'm not talking preflows -- and issued a report that directly understated your debt by $528 million, you would be brought up and asked to explain that and very clearly, you'd either be given a very stern warning, "Never pull that stunt again," or you could be charged; no two ways about it. Absolutely, categorically, no two ways about it. If you tried to understate your debt knowingly by $528 million, you would be very close to being charged. Private sector companies would be charged for that, and why is that?

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Don't confuse it with preflows. Preflows have nothing to do with it. The Tories preflowed, the Liberals preflowed, the NDP preflowed. If all you did was preflow, I don't think the auditor would have been nearly as condemning as he was with the deferment of $528 million for 91 days, which is exactly one day longer than your fiscal year ran out.

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): Chris, is that dishonest?

Mr Stockwell: It's more than dishonest; it's fraudulent. It's more than dishonest; it is fraudulent, because you did it not through error; you did it knowingly. You made a deal with the teachers' pension fund to pay them an increased percentage of interest on that money. You knowingly went out, paid a greater interest rate to postpone a payment for 91 days and understated that amount on your books as debt. That, in the private sector, would be very, very dangerous for any corporation to do. In fact, this government, if a corporation did that, reported to the shareholders, would be standing up and screaming blue murder.

Mr Turnbull: What would the securities commission say?

Mr Stockwell: The securities commission would have a lot to say to a company that did that. That's very important.

My time's up. Let me just say, I hear what your Treasurer says in response, and he tries to sidestep the issue quite often. He doesn't face the issue directly. He doesn't face down the issue. If you want the auditor to get back on side, I'll tell you how the auditor can get back on side. It's not this cash-basis accounting. I mean, he wants you to do that and he wants you to do accrual-based accounting; I understand that. If you want to get the auditor back on side, when you start the crown corporations, show their debt on your books. When the education boards go out and borrow money on your behalf, show their debt on your books. When you defer the amount of money to the teachers' pension fund, show their debt on your books. If you show that debt on your books, this auditor will be one of your very best friends, but until you do that, he has a responsibility as an accountant and a professional to ensure the people of the province know when you're fudging the numbers.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): I appreciate the contribution of the member for Etobicoke West on the concurrence debate and recognize the member for Cochrane South.

Mr Bisson: I'd like to take an opportunity to go through some of the things in regard to a number of ministries that we have before us today.

Let me take this from the perspective of talking a little bit about what's been happening within the province and the decisions that we've had to make as a government over the last six, seven, eight to 10 months. Obviously the process started before that, but really what people are aware of and probably people are concerned with is the process that we went through in regard to the social contract and the expenditure control plan.

I would want to say first off to people out there who are watching that this has been a difficult process, I think, for not only people within the civil service to go through but it's also been a very difficult process for us as a government to go through. Because what do you do when you come to the point where you really have to start making some very difficult decisions about how much money you can afford to spend on various services within your budget?

The point that I want to make is this: The same kind of decisions are having to be made by a number of governments all across this country, and now soon our federal government, the newly elected Chrétien Liberal government, is going to have to make those same decisions.

I asked legislative research recently, in order to be able to pull together some information for me that made some comparisons of what various provinces have done within the past year within their budgets in regard to what's happening in regard to trying to contain costs and deal with taxation within provincial governments.

It's a very telling story. One of the things that we tend to do -- and I think we all do it and I think we're all just as guilty as the other one -- is that we all tend to take a look at things from where we're at and never take a look at what's happening around us. What I mean by that, simply put, is that I understand the concerns and I understand the frustration and, yes, anger on the part of some people in regard to the experience that we went through with the social contract, but I think what was never really looked at and what really never happened in discussion is that we never got into a discussion in regard to what is happening in other places around Canada in comparison to what's happening in the province of Ontario.

The approach that we took was a very comprehensive approach. The approach was to say that we need to be able to answer one basic question at the very beginning: Does the government have an obligation in regard to trying to find a way to deal with its expenditures in a way that they don't run away on you over the long run?

First of all, in 1990, we were elected to find that there was -- I would like to use the term lightly -- a structural deficit within the budget that was left by the previous administration that wasn't fessed up to. In 1990, the Peterson government called an election not even three years into its mandate in order to be able to deal with trying to get underneath this recession in a way that gave it five years to try to build some solutions so that when it went back to the people of Ontario, hopefully people would have forgotten.

What we ended up with was a structural deficit in year one of about $8.5 billion. One of the mistakes that we made as a government right at the beginning was that we didn't hammer it back to them when we had the opportunity. We decided that we as a government were going to take the high road and recognize what had happened to the government of Ontario of the day was not malicious by any intent in regard to what had happened to its budget. What had happened to their budget was the recession. The recession had started to take hold, and the revenues of the government were going down at the same time when costs were going up because of pressures that are put: in a time of recession, people need more government services. What that meant at the end of the year -- I see the Speaker looking at me.

The Speaker: To the member for Cochrane South, if the Chair can be of assistance to him, this is a debate on concurrence, concurrence in each of several ministries.

Mr Bisson: I am coming right to that.

The Speaker: The member should be addressing his remarks to the particular ministries, not a budget speech.

Mr Bisson: I realize this is not a budget speech. I wanted to put this in some context going into it because I wanted to go through concurrence of various ministries in regard to what's not only happening in Ontario but by comparison to what's happening in other jurisdictions within the country.

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): The overall picture.

Mr Bisson: The overall picture. Bear with me. It'll be very quick. It'll take one minute. The point that I want to make is that the government faces decisions in different ministries that are before us that we're debating today based on what happened in the economy. That's what I'm trying to say. What we maybe should have done, in hindsight, is been political in the beginning and turned some of the attention back to the other government; we decided not to. We took the high road. At the time, we thought it was the right decision; it probably was, but politically it had some cost.

Anyway, I want to turn to take a look at some of the things that we had to deal with within the province of Ontario within various ministries. This government has been chastised by not only the opposition but by the public to a certain extent in regard to how it dealt with containing the costs within various ministries. The point that I would make is simply this: When you compare what has happened to the ministries within this province to what's happened in other provinces, the approach that this government took was fairly comprehensive but also a fairly fair one.

I just want to go through a couple of figures that people should have an opportunity to find out about. I'm just going to go through this document, if you can bear with me. For example, social assistance: In the province of Alberta, the social welfare benefits were cut to social service recipients by a fairly significant number; $150 million is a lot of money for that province.

I know that there are some people out there who would say, "Well, good, we should do that to that group of people." But let's be very clear: People who are on social assistance today, by and large, are there because of the economy or the recession. Social assistance programs were put in place in order to deal with trying to provide some level of income to people in a time of need.

Health care spending, for an example: One of the issues that we talked about here in the province that we're still talking about today is changes that we've made as a government here in Ontario in regard to the northern travel grant, where we're now just paying to the closest referring specialist rather than just paying outright for anybody to go where they want.

Changes that we made to the Ontario drug benefit program: When we look at what happened in Alberta and a number of other provinces, almost every province dealt with the drug benefit program by reducing services to the people that it represents. What we did, in contrary, we said, "Rather than doing that, let's look at the drugs themselves, and let's look at what we can afford to pay in regard to generic drugs." If you have five drugs on the counter, or behind the counter in the prescription, and they all do the same thing and one is less expensive than the others, to pay for the less expensive drug is the decision that we took.

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In the size of the civil service, another interesting point is that in Alberta, for an example, they reduced the civil service by 7.8% overall. That's people who packed their bags and left. The government is saying it no longer has any jobs for them. What we tried to do in this province was to try to avert that by saying, "Listen, maybe we can get into an agreement with our unions in regard to coming to terms through a social contract and looking at ways of doing some job sharing." To a certain extent I would admit it was an extremely difficult process.

Mr Hope: Absolutely.

Mr Bisson: Absolutely a difficult process, because it had never been done before. Nobody has ever been asked on the part of employers going to their employees in the way that we did and said, let the unions and the workers come together and try to share in some of the decision-making. Unfortunately, some of the unions couldn't bring themselves to deal with that because of a whole bunch of reasons, including some public sector employees, as my colleague says. But overall we've been able to achieve that -- yes, by fail-safe, and I know that's distasteful to many union people, but at least we were able to protect some jobs in the public sector by doing that.

If you look at Alberta, what it basically did was announce 7.8% of the entire civil service is being put out the door.

On the question of privatization, they're privatizing the Alberta registries, which is basically where you get various types of certificates within the government, something that obviously this member and this government would not stand for. That is private information that we'd want to keep where it is as well, privatizing what we know as the LCBO.

When you compare what's happening in Ontario to other provinces, Mr Speaker, it's quite interesting. I'll turn the page for an example and take a look at the province of Manitoba.

The province of Manitoba, for an example, reduced the size of its civil service by about 500 people, not a large number to take a look at when you look at it on the surface, but when you look at the size of the civil service of Manitoba compared to Ontario, you can take that number and multiply it probably by about 10, so that you'd be looking at about 5,000 people being put out the door in the province of Ontario.

On top of that, they reduced the overall work week for provincial employees by one day and reduced the salaries by 3.8% -- no say on the part of the employees. The employees were not asked in any way, shape or form, to come to the table to try to come to terms. What they basically did was say, "We're going to lay off a number of civil service employees and what we're going to do is we're going to cut your salaries and we'll give you days off." No consultation.

Mr Hope: That's about 9%.

Mr Bisson: About 9%. What we tried to do in this province was to turn around and say, let's try to find a better way. It wasn't perfect in the end. It was a difficult process, I think, for everybody to deal with, but at least it was fairer. Less people have gone out the door.

I want to bring this point, in regard to health, a meeting that I had recently within my riding; as a matter of fact, last Friday. I met with hospital administrators from a Highway 11 group, which is basically Kapuskasing, Smooth Rock Falls, Cochrane, Timmins, Iroquois Falls, Matheson, in Timmins.

A number of hospital administrators came from those hospitals and we met in Timmins last week for about three hours to talk about some of the health care issues affecting institutions in northeastern Ontario and the area that I represent and the member for Cochrane North, Mr Len Wood, represents, in order to be able to talk about some of the difficulties that they're having and how we can, as members -- my colleague the member for Cochrane North and myself -- assist them in being able to deal with some of the difficulties they have.

The interesting point of that discussion was I asked each of those hospital administrators to report to me the effects of the social contract and the effects of the expenditure control plan, how it affected their operations as far as hospitals are concerned. What they reported to me by and large was it had not negatively affected the services that they deliver to the public. We managed, through that process, to cut about 10% to 15% of costs within the administration of those hospitals and did it in such a way that it didn't affect adversely the health care available to those communities.

I want to be fair about this. There were some difficulties in Matheson and there were some difficulties in Timmins. Timmins is going through a process where it has amalgamated two hospitals together to open up a brand-new Timmins District Hospital, and there are a number of other issues that are mixed in with that in opening up the new hospital. But when it comes to the social contract and expenditure control plan, some of the stuff is mixed up with the merger of the two hospitals. It's quite a complex issue that, as a matter of fact, the United Steelworkers and the hospital board and ourselves are working with in order to try to come to some terms with how we deal with that difficult problem.

Mr Hope: The United Steelworkers is a union, right?

Mr Bisson: The United Steelworkers of America is the union that represents the workers within that particular hospital.

I would say, in the case of Matheson, one of the problems that it got into is that the majority, about 60%, of their employees were under the LICO number, which meant to say that the amount of the money that the employer was able to get in regard to the contribution on the part of employees over $30,000 was quite reduced, so they ended up over there, I think, with what worked out to be about two full-time people losing their jobs overall.

They didn't actually lose their jobs, but they did reduce their working week from 40 hours to 30 or 28 -- not something that's desirable but, I would say, in comparison to what happened in Manitoba and British Columbia, a heck of a lot more humane, a heck of a lot easier not only when it comes to the people we serve, the public, but for the people who work in those institutions.

I want to say to those people quite directly: Yes, it has been difficult, yes, it's been hard and, yes, it's been pretty darned trying along the way. But we've managed in this province to achieve something that nobody else has been able to achieve, to try to find a way to reduce overall costs within government, at the same time maintaining services of the people we serve and to the workforce we employ. It has been difficult but, by and large, we have achieved that. Has it been perfect? No. Have there been some people who have lost their jobs in the province of Ontario? Yes. There are a number of employees who have been surplused.

But fortunately, for an example, at the Timmins and District Hospital, they were surplusing basically, I think it was, 20 to 25 RNs. What they've ended up doing because of a number of approaches that they took within that hospital -- it looks at this point where maybe two RNs overall will be in a position of losing their jobs. That's not necessarily because of the social contract, I want to say again, that is a question of amalgamation of those two particular hospitals together, their efficiencies in having one hospital compared to operating two.

I'd like to also turn the page and take a look at what happened on the tax side. The government was criticized in regard to the approach we took on raising revenue on the tax side. They did the same thing in the province of Manitoba and then somewhat in spades. The gasoline taxes were increased, payroll taxes were increased, the provincial sales tax in a number of provinces were also increased.

I want to raise the issue that the member from Etobicoke raised, which is the question of a change in accounting methods. I would like to point out that a number of provinces -- and he's quite correct. I've got to say one thing for the member from Etobicoke: On this issue, he's been somewhat fairminded about this.

Mr Hope: That's a matter of opinion about fairmindedness.

Mr Bisson: The member raises the point about the auditor general in the province of Ontario saying that basically we should report all of our debt together. We actually do that. When you look at the budget book at the end of the year, debt is counted for capital and operating and it's totalled within the budget books -- quite easy to find out what the total debt is. But I want to make a point: The province of New Brunswick, the province of Manitoba, the province of Alberta and a number of maritime provinces have all changed their accounting methods. We were one of the last ones to do it. If it's good enough for them, basically maybe we should be looking at what they're doing.

Basically, what we're doing is what any corporation does. It says operating expenditures are one thing and capital expenditures are another, and you separate those on your books so that you don't mix the two together. There are some accounting reasons why you do that. What you do is total up the number at the end and it still comes out to the same amount of money when it comes to overall operating and overall deficit.

I want to just go through quickly now -- I'm looking at the province of New Brunswick -- a number of things they did there. Municipal transfers were reduced to those particular municipalities within the province of New Brunswick. No consultation whatever with the municipalities -- they just went out and did it. At least in the expenditure control plan what we did when it came to reduction in transfers is we said we need to take a look at each of those programs and we need to assure ourselves that whatever we do in reduction on transfers within individual programs is done in a way that is not going to negatively affect services, or at least not affect programs that are very needed in this time of recession. Overall, that's been done.

The cost of the prescription drug program was reduced overall, which meant to say they cut benefits to the people they serve. In New Brunswick again, the reduction in the civil service, first of all, they had laid off 1,300 civil service employees there, then they did 500 on top of that. What they ended up doing is they put altogether about 1,800 employees out of the civil service in New Brunswick. I would point out, the total budget of the province of New Brunswick is $3.9 billion. Their GDP is $13.9 billion and they put 1,800 people out of work. That would be like us in Ontario throwing 30,000 or 40,000 civil servants out of work.

So when I look at the brothers and sisters within the labour movement of Ontario -- and I understand their frustration, pointing their fingers at me and members of this government or, as the member for St Catharines, Mr Bradley, likes to talk about, the heroes and the traitors -- we at least took an approach by which we're able to protect some services and jobs within the province of Ontario. Again, I say I understand the difficulty, but let's put it into proper context.

Again, in New Brunswick, 23 agencies were eliminated, which meant to say all the people who worked in those agencies lost their jobs, on top of the 1,800.

Mr Hope: Pink slips.

Mr Bisson: Pink slips were issued, exactly, to over 2,000 employees just there alone. On the tax side it was much the same story. Tax allowances were decreased in regard to what you can get back and taxes overall were increased.

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We take a look at Newfoundland and Labrador; my God, the story there is much the same. That was a Liberal province, I think, the last time I checked. Basically, again a reduction overall in expenditures on the part of the government, willy-nilly just slashing and burning; a 3% reduction in operating was reduced overall, overall reduction in gross capital expenditures. At a time when we should be investing in our infrastructure, that particular province and a number of others have reduced their capital infrastructure.

The cost of social assistance: again no increases in regard to social assistance premiums, and I understand that, but let's be somewhat fairminded. When I hear the Liberal members across the way accusing this government of not supporting people in their need, I ask them to look in their own backyards, to their own governments and other provinces. What they've done is far more draconian than this government ever thought about doing, quite frankly.

The really interesting one I've got here is in the province of Quebec. When you look at what they did in Quebec and Nova Scotia, again two Liberal governments, it's unbelievable: 5% in Nova Scotia in regard to overall operating reductions: a 3% reduction in operating in the first year, 2% the second year, 5% overall. Public sector employees basically were given five days off. Basically you're laid off for five days; you don't have a say. At least under the social contract we try to come to some accommodation, where there are some tradeoffs for those days, and employees have a greater say within their workplace in regard to how government is run.

Health care expenditures are cut, education operational grants are cut again, taxes increased, everything from gasoline taxes to income tax to personal sales tax are up. It's quite a telling story when you look at the document. Again, we need to put all of this in context.

Prince Edward Island: Accounting changes, when it comes to how they dealt with capital and how they dealt with operating, the same thing that was done in Ontario.

The point I would make, I can go through this document page by page by page.

Mr Hope: This is not a political document though, is it?

Mr Bisson: No. This is a document that is done by legislative research within the province of Ontario, non-partisan, looking at basically a comparison, budget by budget, what happens across Canada. The point I want to make again is a very simple one: Yes, there are some difficult times that we've had to deal with in the province of Ontario, like everywhere else in this country --

Mr Hope: But it's because of the reductions from the federal -- let's face it, the feds owe us $5 billion.

Mr Bisson: The member makes a good point. We've only lost over $5 billion in transfers from the federal government, but we won't mention that because I can't in this debate. But the point is that we've tried and we continue to work with our partners within the province of Ontario in order to find ways of running our ministries and running our programs more effectively so that we maintain the services necessary to the people of the province of Ontario. At the same time, we're keeping an eye on the cost in regard to those programs overall.

Is it an easy process? No, it's a very difficult process. Is it a process that we in government enjoy going through? Of course not. I'd rather be in government handing out cheques. There's no points for me in going out and saying, "Listen, we need to negotiate a social contract" or we've got to do whatever when it comes to the drug benefit program, or whatever the changes might be.

But there are changes none the less that have to be done, and I think when you compare what we've done in this province to what's happened in other provinces, it's quite a record to be proud of I think in regard to what we did. With that, I will finish my turn in debate and cede the floor to the members opposite.

The Speaker: I thank the honourable member for Cochrane South for his contribution to the debate on concurrence and invite any further debate.

Mr Conway: I'd like to take the time available to me tonight to address a couple of the concurrences contained in the order of business before us. I'd like to begin with the concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Natural Resources.

The county that I am privileged to represent, a substantial portion of Renfrew, is one where quite frankly the imperial authority of government is vested in the Department of Lands and Forests, more recently called the Ministry of Natural Resources. If you live in much of Renfrew county, I've got to tell you the government that really counts is the Ministry of Natural Resources. There are few municipal, provincial or federal authorities or mandates that impinge on your daily life quite like the Ministry of Natural Resources.

I want tonight to convey a growing concern, frustration and anger that are found among more and more of my constituency in so far as the policy and operations of the Ministry of Natural Resources are concerned.

Last Saturday, for six hours, we had in the city of Pembroke, sponsored by the county of Renfrew, what was called a summit on resource issues, land use issues. Three subjects were foremost in that debate: the whole question of the creation of a new wilderness zone in Algonquin Park, the ongoing issue of the Algonquin land claim throughout all of the Ottawa Valley, and the third issue was the so-called Madawaska Highlands issue that has been brought forward by the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Some 200 people were gathered, mostly by invitation, at that conference in Pembroke. If I could summarize the attitude of that conference, it would be simply that the people there, and many not there, are mad as hell and they are not going to take it much longer. I don't mean to be indelicate, but I do want to take an opportunity tonight to convey to this House the very, very serious frustration and anger around a number of these controversial and contentious resource issues.

I want to say on behalf of the people at that conference, and many not there, that I recognize the sensitivity of some of these issues. I recognize that there is no unanimity of opinion, certainly, on any one of these questions.

I want to say to the Minister of Natural Resources, who I understand can't be here tonight, and I don't complain about that, that we have now in my part of eastern Ontario a whole series of issues. I have named three of them that were debated on Saturday: the land claim, which is important and which I do hope is resolved in the interests both of first nations and the non-native community; the whole question of the Madawaska highlands and what we need to do or what should be done to protect the areas of significant scientific and natural interest; and the question of the creation of a substantial new wilderness zone on the eastern half of Algonquin Park. I could add to that the implications of the Sewell commission on rural Ontario and I could add to that a number of other questions.

I might add another MNR issue, and it won't sound like very much. I'll add two more: the wolf policy that the ministry has just announced for western Renfrew county, particularly affecting the townships of Hagarty, Burns and Richards. You might say, "What the hell is Conway over there talking about wolves for at 11:20?" Because out in my part of eastern Ontario, that's what the government is talking about, and boy, has it got the attention of hunters and farmers and trappers and just about every resident in that area of Round Lake, Killaloe and Barry's Bay. I'll tell you, we might come here to talk about the macro questions of finance and international trade, but I'll be in west Renfrew county tomorrow night and I expect to be roasted at a meeting about wolves.

I heard my friend the minister on the radio last week decrying the decision of the National Transportation Agency and the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railroad companies to amalgamate their rail lines through the Ottawa Valley, to abandon the CP line through the Ottawa Valley and run all the traffic over the CN line, which means it will all run through the eastern part of Algonquin Park. The Minister of Natural Resources is very concerned about the impact of that rail decision on wildlife in Algonquin.

I can understand some of that concern, but the people I represent in the main say: "What about us? What about we the people who pay the taxes, pay the freight, worry about our jobs, are concerned about our kids and their future, are concerned about the economic integrity of small resource towns like Killaloe and Round Lake and Barry's Bay and bigger centres like Pembroke and Mattawa?" What about the future of these towns and villages and rural hamlets where the unemployment rate today in some cases is at or above 30%?

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We hear the minister worrying about protecting wolves. We hear the Minister of Natural Resources worrying about deer that might be run over by a train in Algonquin Park. But we don't hear the minister, we seldom hear the ministry, worrying about our jobs, our resource-based jobs in the lumber industry. If you create the kind of wilderness zone you want in Algonquin, it will have a huge impact. The union representatives from Canada Veneers in Pembroke said to us on Saturday that if you create that wilderness zone in the eastern half of Algonquin Park it is going to cost hundreds of badly needed forestry jobs in places like Pembroke, at a time when we've got unemployment of the magnitude that I mentioned earlier.

The union leadership eloquently said on Saturday, "Is nobody at Queen's Park worrying about us, about me?" "Yes, we have to protect the wolves, yes, we have to be concerned about deer, but does anybody care about me?" said the union leadership on Saturday from Canada Veneers, and they asked a bloody good question.

If I seem exercised and if I seem frustrated, I want to tell you, those people from union and management in that badly, badly stressed lumber resource sector in the Ottawa Valley are really, really stressed themselves. When I look at the MNR mandate in my county and when I see the issue of the wilderness zone, when I see the issue of the Madawaska Highlands, when I see the question of the land claim, there is no doubt that those policies are going to have a very real impact on the amount of harvestable timber in that watershed, and we have a crisis already.

That is not to say that the people at the Renfrew county economic summit on Saturday want no action. They want fairness and justice for native and non-native alike, but they want some sense that the policy-makers in government, in the Legislature, in the bureaucracy, are going to make some balanced decisions in the public interest. They want some recognition that too much of this policy at the present time in these critical areas of land use and resource policy, at least in my part of eastern Ontario, are being driven by highly focused, rather narrow special interests that are being listened to to an extent that many people I represent feel is unreasonable and is producing bad policy.

I want to stand here tonight and tell the government and tell my colleagues that not all of these issues have developed in just the past three years. Some of the people at the meeting on Saturday rightly pointed the finger at previous governments, and I accept the criticism. I've been around this debate myself for over 20 years and I have a great deal of respect for a number of the environmental groups, but when I heard Howard Hampton on the radio on Saturday morning on the CBC and I heard his concern about the rail decision affecting the eastern half of Algonquin Park, I heard the Algonquin Wildlands League speaking, and so did most of my constituents.

What the men and women who work at facilities like Canada Veneers want to start hearing is the Minister of Natural Resources and a Legislature and a Parliament speaking with some regard to their interests as well. Let me say again that the overwhelming impression and frustration articulated at the Saturday meeting in Pembroke on these resource issues was, "We are sick and tired of these critical and sensitive and job-destroying decisions being made at Queen's Park by people who represent too narrow and too special a vested interest."

It is time, my constituents are saying, that we in government and in the opposition take a broader view, a better view, of the public interest and recognize that if we do what the government seems determined to do, create the big new wilderness zone, proceed with the Madawaska Highlands policy, settle the Algonquin land claim, that we are going to be withdrawing from the public domain very substantial parts of the resource base that employs thousands of people in communities like the ones I mentioned and others, like Palmer Rapids and Whitney, for whose people there are no alternatives, in the main, other than unemployment insurance and social welfare. I want to say to the Ministry of Natural Resources and to the minister that people's patience is beginning to wear thin, if not wear out entirely.

I'm not going to trouble you with details of the various presentations that were made on Saturday in this respect, but I have to tell you that tomorrow night I will be at -- I've been summoned to a meeting in Barry's Bay to give an accounting of the government's position on wolves, and I'm telling you, I just expect to be fried. I'm going to be standing in front of these farmers and these hunters who are facing some of the toughest times they have faced since their parents survived the Depression, and just about every government program that federal and provincial and municipal governments offer them these days is being cut back or cut out because we have --

Interjection.

Mr Conway: Just a little time allocation discussion. I'm sorry.

Mr Hope: Caucus meeting, right?

Mr Conway: Well, I think there's some question. I think my time will take me very close to midnight. I'm prepared to either adjourn the debate and defer to the Conservatives -- do you want to take a moment to talk about that now? I mean, it's late. I intend to use the full amount of my time, which takes me up to, what, about 10 to 12?

Interjection.

Mr Conway: I'll go until I complete at quarter to 12, and we can adjourn or somebody can get up. I'm easy.

The Speaker: The honourable member has approximately 17 minutes of his allocated time remaining.

Mr Conway: I can't now remember where I was in the midst of this.

Mr Hope: Cutbacks.

Mr Conway: That's correct. Thank you very much, I say to the member from Chatham.

These people I will confront tomorrow night, my constituents, good people, are faced with a whole series of program cuts in agriculture and a variety of other areas, because they're told -- and they understand to a substantial extent the problems the government faces. But now they're being told that there is going to be imposed on their rural community a ban on any trapping or hunting of wolves over a period of the winter months because a professor -- a good fellow, I gather -- at the University of Waterloo, Professor John Theberge, who advises the government on the wolf question, is concerned about certain problems associated with the migratory wolf packs that move out of Algonquin Park into that part of Renfrew county.

There's no doubt that the wolf packs in Algonquin Park are very healthy, from everything I hear, and the farmers and the others in communities like Round Lake and Killaloe and Barry's Bay and Brudenell tell me that most of their evidence, anecdotal as it is, but pretty reliable anecdotal evidence, suggests that the wolf packs are doing very well, thank you very much, outside of the park as well. But because Dr Theberge's study packs are having some problems, this ban has been imposed almost without notice and without any real consultation, effective, I think it is, December 1.

Then, as I say, on the weekend they hear that the Minister of Natural Resources is really upset because the federal rail companies have decided to run their trains on one track through the eastern half of Algonquin Park over the CN line, and that is going to perhaps affect some of the wildlife and some of the recreational opportunities in that part of east Algonquin Park. And every bloody one who hears that knows what Howard Hampton doesn't seem to know: that if every damn railroad in the country ran its every train over that track, there'd be less traffic over the CN lines through the eastern portion of Algonquin Park in 1993 than was being run over that track 10 years ago by the CNR alone, because we all know in those parts of rural Ontario and rural Canada what's happening to rail volumes. I want to repeat the fact, for Howard Hampton's benefit, that when the CP and the CN consolidate their lines and run all of their traffic over the CN line that goes through the eastern portion of Algonquin Park, there will be less train traffic with both companies running on that line in 1993 than the CN traffic alone probably was five or 10 years ago.

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The other thing people I represent wonder is that we hear the Minister of Natural Resources worried about recreational opportunities in Algonquin, and I suppose he should. He's worried about the fact that maybe some wildlife might be interfered with in the train corridor, and that's, I suppose, a worry. But they say to me: "Does anybody down there worry about the people who get killed when those trains run through highly populated corridors in cities like Pembroke and towns like Petawawa? Do we ever hear that in the debate?" No. That's because that's not part of the mandate of the Algonquin Wildlands League. They are a special vested interest with a very narrow focus. I understand that; that's their job.

But what about the men and women and the boys and girls who get injured and killed on those rail crossings near Cobden, Pembroke, Petawawa? We had a terrible spill there 10 years ago and we're bloody lucky that we didn't have a Mississauga-like catastrophe. But you see, if you don't run the trains through the CN line in Algonquin and perhaps prejudice some campers and some deer, you have to run those trains on the only other alternative, because a third option, to run them through some celestial corridor, does not exist. The only option is running those trains over the CP line, right through the heart of the most populated areas of Renfrew county. That is a decision that would prejudice the lives and the health and safety of people.

Mr Hope: Isn't that going to cut real access down?

Mr Conway: Listen, I'm just simply saying that we have got ministers of the crown, articulating public policies to the people affected, sounding sound very much like paid advertisements for certain special interests.

Mr Bisson: That was when you were Minister of Mines.

Mr Conway: I want to say to the member from Cochrane and to anyone else that the time I think has come for us all to understand that there is a broader public interest.

Mr Sutherland: No kidding.

Mr Conway: As the member for Oxford says, "No kidding." The people I represent aren't looking for miracles. They understand the art and the nature and the requirement of compromise. But I'm telling you and I'm telling the Minister of Natural Resources that if there are not some changes made around the number of issues currently boiling on the resource stove in the Ottawa valley, there is going to be trouble. Some of the initiatives that the government will want to see successfully completed will be severely impaired, if not completely pushed off the table.

I want to be very serious about that, because when we look at -- and I know the problems in government. God, we did it, we did our share of it. You get so busy with so many different items of the mandate, often different aspects of the departmental mandate, that there is no one, least of all the minister -- because she/he is just too busy standing back and saying, "What does this all add up to?" I'll tell you, the wilderness zone in Algonquin Park, the Madawaska Highlands issue, the Sewell commission's recommendation about planning in rural Ontario are adding up quickly to a very, very fluid and delicate and I think dangerous situation.

There is a very real linkage between a number of these issues. As I said earlier, and I will repeat again, if the government is successful in imposing the kind of highlands trust it seems to want, if the wilderness zone is created, those men and women from Local 2000 of the Carpenters and Joiners union who said in Pembroke on Saturday that hundreds of jobs will be lost are right, and there isn't a knowledgeable or thoughtful observer of the community scene in Pembroke and area who would not agree with them.

Do you know what? Some of the special interests that will push this government to particular parts of this mandate won't be there. They are not going to be there to give an accounting of that stewardship. The people who are going to be there are going to be people like Frances Lankin, Floyd Laughren, Bob Mackenzie and Conway, the local member. We're the ones who are going to have to give an accounting. I'm going to be there tomorrow night and I can hear the debate already about wolves. The professor won't be there. Oh no, he's not going to be there; I'm going to be there.

You know, all politics is local. Tomorrow night, every farmer I represent in that part of that county is going to say, "You just tell me about this wolf ban again, because everything we see here tells us X and government policy is going to mandate negative X." I'm going to get to stand there and try to explain that, try to justify that.

We wonder sometimes why we've got a sceptical electorate. We wonder why people who hear us say our number one concern is jobs, jobs, jobs --

Mr Bisson: That was the Tories.

Mr Conway: Pardon me?

Mr Bisson: That was Brian.

Mr Conway: That's all of us, and I don't think there's anybody who disagrees with me on that. Our concern for jobs has led all of us into some of the most interesting policies, callisthenics, imaginable. I never thought I'd live to see the day when a social democratic government in this province would so happily, so publicly embrace gaming as a way of creating jobs, jobs, jobs. But, lo and behold, I live in an Ontario where that has happened.

But I'm just telling you that in the resource communities I represent there are jobs, jobs, jobs on the line because of provincial government policy. That policy is adding up to significant economic trouble which is, as I said earlier, going to cost jobs in those little places. When you go to Round Lake Centre, you're talking about a hamlet of 300 to 400 people. Virtually everybody there is dependent on the forest economy, and the ones who aren't in the forestry industry are farming or doing some mix of both.

I just wanted to take an opportunity tonight, and the earliest opportunity I could get following upon the discussions on Saturday, because we had a very interesting group of people. Some people opposite will know Mr Frank Dottori, who was there, the chief operating officer of the Tembec resource company. He made a very strong pitch about the importance of community action in this respect.

We saw a number of people from outside of the area. One gentleman came from a citizens group on Vancouver Island, Share BC I think it was called, to tell the local residents how they might ban together as a community. Because, you see, the frustration for a lot of the regular, ordinary people I represent is they don't belong to the Algonquin Wildlands League, they don't belong to the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, they don't belong to any organized lobby that spends its time and its money on the doorstep of ministers and members here at Queen's Park. The people who were there at that meeting, in the main, were men and women who work in small or medium-sized resource companies who have to worry and spend all of their time thinking about doing and keeping their job.

As I say, they are extremely frustrated at the appearance and, I must say, the reality that altogether too much of this public policy in this resource area is being driven by, is being made by, is being developed for some very narrow special interests -- good people; I have known some of these people for a long time -- but I'll tell you they are a special interest. The government and the Minister of Natural Resources would do very well to stop and take account of what people, including those representatives from Local 2000 of the Carpenters and Joiners union, were saying on Saturday, that if this policy is not slowed down, scaled back, some priorities decided upon and some other issues put off the table, there is not only going to be a significant economic impact with real job losses, but there is going to be a burning heather that is going to consume perhaps more than just a few government policies.

With that I will conclude my remarks.

Mrs Marland: Although I do have quite a lot to contribute to this debate, in light of the time shown on the clock I will move adjournment of the debate.

The Speaker: The member for Mississauga South moves adjournment of the debate. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carries? Carried.

Hon Shelley Martel (Minister of Northern Development and Mines): I would move the adjournment of the House.

The Speaker: The Minister of Northern Development and Mines moves adjournment of the House. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried. This House stands adjourned until 1:30 of the clock tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 2342.

7 décembre 1993