Journal des débats 1994-avril-14 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Mr Offer, you will have 10 minutes to initiate debate, after which every recognized party within the Legislature will have 15 minutes each to debate, and then you will have two minutes in summation.

Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): In the time allocated, I firstly would ask for the Legislature to give approval to second reading of Bill 93, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act.

The reason for my request to ask for the passage of second reading of this bill follows from its explanatory note:

"This bill prohibit persons under nineteen from operating a motor vehicle while having any alcohol in their blood. The penalty for contravention is the suspension of the person's driver's licence for one year."

It is my belief that the passage of this bill will, as a result of the explanatory note, cause less death on the road as a result of motor vehicle crashes in which alcohol is a contributing factor and will also reduce the number of injuries to our young people as a result of, again, motor vehicle crashes where alcohol is a factor.

Members of the Legislature will know that I was one of those members on the committee which was looking into the issue of graduated licensing, and it is fair to say that that particular initiative received wide acceptance. It is also clear that those who came before the committee, while signifying their approval of the graduated licensing scheme, also said that it was a good first step but it indeed could be made stronger.

I discussed this particular initiative in my constituency, through letters to my constituents, cable TV programs, columns in local newspapers, and the reaction to the initiative has really been a direct reflection of those who came before the committee and, indeed, I believe the reflection and opinions of people across the province.

But we also heard at the hearings from Dr James Young, who is the chief coroner of the province of Ontario, and we heard about the incidence of drinking and driving and we saw in cold, hard numbers what that means: the death, the injury and the destruction of property. I know that numbers cannot in any way measure the human tragedy of what befalls a family and friends for those who are involved in car crashes, but none the less it is something we which have to use to underscore a particular need for improved legislation.

I have been informed that there have been, I believe, 14,012 drinking drivers involved in crashes: 7,525 of those drivers were involved in property damage crashes, 6,193 drivers were involved in personal injury crashes and 294 drivers were involved in fatal crashes. My bill will hopefully address this particular tragedy.

We know the current law in this province is that the legal age to drink is 19. We also know that any driver of a motor vehicle exceeding a blood alcohol level of 0.08%, upon conviction, has their licence suspended. It does not matter whether the person was driving erratically, swerving or exhibiting any signs of impairment. If a person, after taking a breathalyser test, exceeds the legal limit, then they lose their licence for a year. It is straightforward, it is clear, the penalty is strong and the result over the years has been less injury and death on the roads.

As I've said, we know that the legal age for drinking is 19, but here is the area my bill wishes to address. My bill will state that if a driver under that age, 16, 17 or 18, is stopped and has any alcohol in their body -- because that is the current law in this province, people under the age of 19 are not allowed to drink. So if a person 16, 17 or 18 years of age is driving a motor vehicle and has any alcohol in their body, then upon conviction, their licence would be suspended for one year. I believe this is reasonable. I believe it sends out a very clear signal to all that drinking and driving do not mix, that if this is followed, there will be less death, there will be less injury and there will be less property damage on the roads.

I know, under the graduated licensing system, there has been a small improvement in this area, and that small improvement is that if someone under the age of 19 does have alcohol in their body, then their licence is suspended for 30 days. But I do not believe that is enough. I believe we must send out a clear and strong and firm message, when young people get behind the wheel for the first time, that their penalty is the same as our penalty, that if we contravene the driving rules by driving with alcohol in our body, then upon a first conviction, our licence is suspended for one year.

It is coincidental, but none the less a fact, that in my local newspaper, the Mississauga News, of Wednesday, April 13, there was an article entitled "Driving Sober is Cool with These Teens." It recites that there was a conference held in my riding, at the Delta Meadowvale Hotel and Conference Centre, by a group called Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving.

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The article says: "Last year in Canada, 34 people per hour were killed in alcohol-related accidents. It's a figure 18-year-old Kathy Simington of Paris, Ontario, would like to see whittled down to zero." I agree with her.

It goes on: "'In the past year we've seen so many friends die and it's all been related to alcohol,' said Simington. 'It's just peer pressure I guess, but if it only takes one person to put on the pressure, then it should only take one person to take it off too. It's the domino effect.'"

I agree. I hope that this bill will add to that peer pressure to send out the message that drinking and driving do not mix and the penalty for contravening this rule is at least a one-year suspension.

The article goes on: "A desire to be that one person was a motivating factor in inspiring Simington to join the Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving (OSAID) at her local high school, an involvement that brought her and close to 500 other Ontario students to a conference at the Delta Meadowvale Hotel and Conference Centre last week."

It goes on to say: "'You can't stop people from drinking, but the idea is to stop them from getting behind the wheel afterwards. I know so many people who have been in drunk driving accidents,' says Jeanette Harris, 18, of Brantford.

"Mandy Stringle, 18, of St Thomas agrees. 'Drunk driving is a real problem at our schools because teens go out there and drink and don't know the facts. Teens think they're indestructible, but we learn at the group that this is definitely not true.'" The article goes on.

I would like to take a moment to congratulate the Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving organization. I'd also like to congratulate the Mississauga News, cable 10, the Mississauga Booster, the Streetsville Booster, in my area for carrying on the message in so many ways that drinking and driving do not mix.

This particular bill is designed to do one very simple yet very important area: It is designed to say to young people, 16, 17 and 18, who have the right to drive but under our laws do not yet have the right to legally consume alcohol, "If you go behind the wheel of a motor vehicle with any alcohol in your body, because you have contravened the current laws of the province of Ontario, upon conviction, your licence is taken away for one year."

I believe that this will result in a reduction in death, injury and property damage, and I hope that all members of the Legislature will support this bill.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member for Mississauga North will have two minutes to participate at the end of the debate. All parties now have up to 15 minutes to participate in the second reading debate of Bill 93.

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): I'm pleased to rise today in broad support in principle for this bill. I do have some problems which I would like to outline, but I believe the member brings it sincerely in his concern for protecting the lives of our young people.

Indeed this effort I think will be applauded by Mothers Against Drunk Driving. During the hearings into graduated licensing -- which I feel personally very responsible for, because for some two years before the government brought forward graduated licensing, I was asking in this House for this measure -- we heard from John Bates of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and it was just one of his quotes which really jumps out at me from his testimony: "Drivers between the ages of 16 and 20 make up 5% of the driving population...for 13% of all traffic accidents, 70% of impaired and 18% of all fatal crashes," indeed a very, very serious statistic.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving would like to see the age for drinking raised significantly and many coroners' inquests have suggested this would be a useful move. In fact Mothers Against Drunk Driving have suggested we should have zero tolerance for any alcoholic consumption when somebody gets behind the wheel of a car. Indeed, I think we can all sympathize with their concerns.

The problem that we have with this bill -- and I believe we can further discuss this if it's passed today and we can send this out to a committee and at least address these problems. One of them is that during the graduated licence hearings it was pointed out by the Ministry of Transportation that they were concerned that we had a number of people who were driving without any licence, and if we were to suspend these teenagers for this offence for one year we might encourage these teenagers -- and undoubtedly they are the more reckless types of teenagers who would be drinking and driving in the first place and contravening the law -- to go and drive a car without a licence. That has very serious implications in terms of insurance and so far as the crash victims are concerned, if these people are driving under those circumstances.

There is additionally the very real possibility of a charter challenge if we treat these citizens differently from others, because the police at this moment have the right to suspend for 24 hours the licence of anybody who is driving with a blood alcohol level over 0.05 against the 0.08 which we so typically talk about as the point at which you will be charged with drunk driving.

If we treat these teenagers differently, there could be a charter challenge on the basis that we are discriminating by age. I think it's unfortunate that the charter presents us these kinds of problems and challenges, because I do believe that the intent of this bill is right-headed. However, it is a problem and we should recognize that, and certainly at committee we should discuss that and see if there's any way we can address that particular problem.

In terms of my position as Transportation critic for the PC Party, we are in favour in principle of this measure. I applaud my colleague for bringing it forward, but I do hope that in his closing remarks he can speak to those two concerns I have raised today.

Mr George Dadamo (Windsor-Sandwich): I want to stress further that public hearings, of course, were held here in Toronto and around the province of Ontario on this particular issue of graduated licensing, the resources development committee taking that on the road.

I'd also like to stress, the committee considered this issue and concluded that additional sanctions would not be appropriate, as a problem of underage drinking is an issue more closely related to social and health policy than to driver licensing.

Since the private member's bill proposed by the member for Mississauga North, Mr Offer, parallels one of the new licensing conditions -- it would apply to most of the same drivers -- the Ministry of Transportation would prefer to evaluate the effectiveness of the graduated licensing restriction as a deterrent measure rather than creating a new violation.

As parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Transportation and as a member of that committee, I'd like to thank those who came before us across the province of Ontario and gave us much direction and advice on the issue of graduated licensing.

I rise today to address the private member's bill from the member for Mississauga North and the government believes that, while the member's bill is indeed well intentioned, the changes it proposes are unnecessary; they are already covered under the new graduated licensing rules. New drivers applying after April 1, 1994, for a licence will be the first to enter Ontario's new system.

Learning to drive safely is difficult enough without adding alcohol to the mix. New drivers of all ages are overrepresented in collision stats. This is especially true for those between 16 and 24 years of age. These young people comprise 16% of all licensed drivers but 25% of all drivers that are killed. They are three times as likely to be killed on the road as to die from suicide or cancer. Road collisions are the leading cause of death among this age group. The human toll of collisions, as you know, is staggering, and we must also consider the financial impact, costs that total well over $9 billion a year for property damage, health care, wage loss and also future earnings.

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That is why the government included tough but realistic penalties for drinking and driving under graduated licensing. This law, which will be fully in effect on June 6, 1994, establishes a clear policy of zero tolerance for alcohol during the two-year graduated program. New drivers must not drink at all when driving. Graduated licensing effectively prohibits all drivers under 19 years of age from drinking and driving. It is that simple.

In addition, all new drivers must be accompanied by a licensed driver with at least four years' experience. That experienced driver, who might be asked to take the wheel in certain circumstances, must therefore also maintain a blood alcohol concentration of less than 0.05%.

I'm quite sure all members would agree that drinking and driving invites disaster at any time, but now there's one more reason not to drink and drive: It also violates the conditions of the graduated licensing.

Graduated licensing imposes the most stringent restrictions ever on new drivers anywhere in North America. We will be evaluating the new system's effectiveness as a deterrent to drinking drivers and can make any adjustments that prove necessary.

The government feels there is no need for any new laws covering this matter. The Minister of Transportation does not see the justification for creating a new violation, as proposed by this private member's bill. In fact, we believe that graduated licensing takes the member's bill one step further by prohibiting all new drivers from drinking and driving.

The government takes the matter of drinking and driving very seriously. We are committed to ensuring that new drivers of all ages learn their driving skills gradually, in low-risk conditions and also in alcohol-free conditions.

Graduated licensing is part of the government's safety agenda, designed to make Ontario roads the safest in North America. The member presenting this bill today and the government have the same goal: to save lives by making our roads safer. It is a goal we all share. We would allow the law to do its job.

Ms Dianne Poole (Eglinton): I am very pleased to enter the debate today in support of the bill put forward by the member for Mississauga North. First of all, I would like to commend the member for Mississauga North for bringing forth this bill. I think it reflects his interest in protecting the young people of this province and it also reflects his very keen interest in ensuring that drinking and driving never, ever mix.

The member for Mississauga North mentioned some statistics. I just happened the other day to be reading through the Queen's Park report for Hans Daigeler, the MPP for Nepean, and, as you know, he is also the Transportation critic for our caucus. So even before I knew the member for Mississauga North's bill was coming forward today, I was looking through these statistics with great interest.

I'd like to let you know a few other statistics that I think are very important; one relates to the trends in drinking and driving. The number of drinking drivers involved in crashes decreased by 47% from 1982 to 1991. That is really welcome news. It means our educational programs are working, it means our RIDE programs are working, it means there is the public will and the political will to do something about this devastating problem. But the fact of the matter is that there are still 14,012 crashes caused per year in Ontario where there is drinking and driving.

If you look at the statistics for drivers fatally injured in crashes who were tested in 1991, 55% showed no evidence of alcohol. However, 45% were still found to have been drinking prior to the crash, and of those, 37% had a blood alcohol content over the legal limit -- 37%. It means it is still a problem.

Of course, many times the statistics about young people and drinking and driving have been reiterated. However, I'd like to mention one other statistic, and it involves the characteristics of drinking drivers involved in crashes. Drivers aged 25 to 34 accounted for the largest proportion, that is, 38%, of all drinking drivers involved in crashes. I suspect they are proportionately a much larger body of drivers to begin with. However, drivers aged 16 to 24 were second, accounting for 28%. That means our young people are still drinking and driving.

The law of the province is that a person cannot drink until the age of 19; that's very clear. Yet I think we are sending out a mixed message when there's no specific penalty for drinking and driving under the age of 19. We have heard from the parliamentary assistant, and certainly a letter -- I have a copy from both the Attorney General and the Minister of Transportation -- which quotes current provisions of the Criminal Code and also talks about graduated licences.

I commend the government for coming forward with the graduated licence program. I have been a strong supporter of it since it was first supported in 1989 by the then Liberal government. I was very pleased that we were moving ahead, and I was glad to see that the NDP government followed this commitment and did bring in the legislation. We all waited a long time for it, and we believe it will have a major impact on drinking and driving and on the driving habits of our young people.

I supported that legislation, notwithstanding that I have a 15-year-old daughter who turns 16 next month and notwithstanding that I have an 18-year-old son who, when news last year came forward that they were going to bring in graduated licences, decided that maybe it was time to get his licence. I talked to not only my own teenagers but also to other young people at the time. I am not naïve. I do not believe that because the law of the land says there shall be no drinking until the age of 19, that in fact happens in every instance. In fact, it's clear that there is violation of this law.

I remember that back when I was a teenager -- and this was a very, very long time ago -- at that stage the law was actually that you could not drink till the age of 21. In fact, I had graduated from university prior to being able to drink. I think at the time the politicians and the people made the decision that it was somewhat unreasonable that a person could leave their teen years and have to attain the age of 21 years before they could legally drink. They changed the law because it was being flouted. The reason they changed it to 19 was to keep alcohol out of the high schools.

But having said that, we still know it occurs. While we can encourage our young people not to drink or, at the very minimum, to drink responsibly, I'm not sure our message that they shouldn't be drinking till the legal age of 19 ever really gets through. But there is one message that we have to get through, and that is that they should not drink and drive.

I am very encouraged by speaking to young people, by speaking to my 18-year-old son. I know his policy is zero tolerance. He will not allow a friend of his to get behind the wheel of a car if they have had anything to drink, even one beer. To him, this is totally unacceptable. My son is not unique; I think a lot of young people have this message. But I think we need to reinforce that message of zero tolerance.

I would like to bring up another matter. If members of this House can remember when we were young -- granted, for most of us, a very long time ago. I don't see Mr Sutherland in the House today; he's probably one of the few for whom it was a relatively recent memory when he was young. But do you remember when you were young and you were first learning to drive, how you obeyed the letter of the law? You came to a full stop, you always signalled, you never, ever cut in front of anybody, you always drove the speed limit, and you remembered these rules that had been drummed into your head.

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Mr Gordon Mills (Durham East): What ever happened to that?

Ms Poole: The member for Durham East says, "What happened to that?" and he's absolutely right. If you drive on the road today, you know that a lot of us have tended over time to kind of bend those rules. What we started out in a very principled way has changed.

But that's where it ties in to drinking and driving. If we say to young people from the moment they are driving that there is zero tolerance -- and the member for Mississauga North's bill says this very unequivocally. There is a special penalty for those who are under the legal drinking age and have any blood alcohol content at all. I'm not sure if that was the right phrase, whether it's "blood alcohol" or "alcohol blood content," but you know what I mean.

It's important when they start out that they start out fresh, believing that you cannot under any circumstances, even with one beer, drink and drive, because we know that as human beings, over the years we will tend to relax our rules, we will tend to relax our principles, we will tend to relax what we have learned. So I think it's very important to emphasize right from day one that we have zero tolerance.

The member for York Mills mentioned the possibility of the charter challenge because of the discrimination on age. I really cannot see this as a problem because, after all, we have in law right now a provision that you cannot drink until you are the age of 19. That is the law. It has never been challenged under the charter, even though the charter has been around for, what, 12 years now? This ties in very clearly with that drinking age that has been mandated by the laws of the province and found by the Legislature of this province and the people of this province to be a reasonable law. So I can't see why it would be a charter challenge on discrimination by age when we already have made that decision that young people under the age of 19 shall not drink.

I'd like to conclude by reading a letter of support that came from the Police Association of Ontario. This is a letter they sent Mr Offer on November 15, 1993. They say:

"Pursuant to your correspondence of October 14 past in relation to the bill you introduced into the Legislature on October 7, which, if adopted, would prohibit persons under the age of 19 from operating a motor vehicle while having any alcohol in their blood, I am pleased to respond as follows.

"The executive board of the Police Association of Ontario met in Burlington on November 3 and 4, and a copy of your bill to amend the Highway Traffic Act in this regard was distributed to those delegates in attendance. Subsequent to reviewing this matter our delegates adopted a motion supporting your bill.

"We trust that our actions in this matter meet with your approval and we wish you well in your efforts to have this proposed legislation enacted."

It is signed by Mal Connolly, administrator for the Police Association of Ontario.

Mr Offer, the member for Mississauga North, has mentioned several other areas of support, very strong support: from students, from local media, from parents and from legislators. I really feel that notwithstanding the fact we've put in the graduated licence system, we have to take that extra step, make it very clear that it is zero tolerance and that there is a significant penalty attached to drinking and driving if you are under the legal age. If I had my wish, it would be zero tolerance for all parties, but that is probably something that, while we will pursue it as a goal, may never reach universal acceptability. But we can but try.

So I commend the member for Mississauga North. I very much appreciate his standing up on behalf of the young people of this province, the parents of this province and the drivers of this province, and I thank him.

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I welcome the opportunity to comment briefly on private member's Bill 93, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act. It's a very short bill. Thursday morning is the right time for private members' bills, and this one, I think, is appropriate.

Section 38.1 of the Highway Traffic Amendment Act says:

"No person under the age of nineteen...shall drive or operate a motor vehicle on a highway while having alcohol in his or her blood."

It says:

"Section 41 of the act is amended by adding the following subsection:

"(1.1) The driver's licence of a person who is convicted of an offence under section 38.1 is thereupon suspended for a period of one year."

I trust the people all agree that operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol is just not socially acceptable. It should be just as unacceptable to operate a vehicle with any level of alcohol in the blood. It is a sad fact of life that there is still far too much drinking and tragedy on our roads and our highways.

Perhaps people may stop and think before having a drink, and they should before they even consider getting behind the wheel, if they are aware that the first conviction of impaired driving, driving with more than 80 milligrams of alcohol in the blood, is a fine of no less than $300 and a licence suspension for one year. But that's not all: Their insurance rates go up and their legal costs of going to court. I predict it could be a matter of $10,000 minimum just for having that one drink and driving.

The second conviction brings a minimum 14-day jail term and a licence suspension for two years, and a third conviction brings a 90-day jail term and a licence suspension of three years. Consider that if you have a job and you were counting on driving to work.

A lot of people realize it when it's too late. That one year to many people will seem like for ever. But I have to say to you that when we see the second and third convictions, that is really a concern because that means they didn't get the message the first time around. I can tell you, when you have your third conviction, I'm sure the insurance companies are going to find it very difficult to consider you to insure.

Having said that, I would suggest there will be no opposition to private member's Bill 93, but I observe, from the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Transportation, that there is opposition from the government members. He indicates that it's probably already in the legislation they passed with regard to the young drivers, but I think this adds to it.

I would like to take this opportunity to read into the record a short letter I received from a constituent of mine at the time we were dealing with the graduated licensing last December. Jordana Simek, a grade 10 student attending Eastview Secondary School, resident of Oro township, lives about 12 miles from the city of Barrie.

It says: "The government's proposal to legislate graduated licences is unfair to the majority of 16- and 17-year-olds who are responsible. I do not intend to become intoxicated and drive dangerously...how many by males of the same age range" who drive now. "The legislation punishes the majority and merely delays the same youths in acting irresponsibly. Living in the country, a mode of transportation is necessary. Don't make us walk because they broke the law.

"I would greatly appreciate you presenting my and many other future voters' point of view at Queen's Park."

Jordana Simek is referring to the debate on graduated licensing last December. I supported Bill 122. At that time, after raising the issue of young drivers who do live in rural Ontario, Jordana refers to this issue in the following letter I received from her in February:

"I was overwhelmed upon receipt of the Hansard excerpts of December 6, 1993," which she received "on January 4, 1994, my sixteenth birthday. I have since obtained my level 1 Canadian Ski Instructors qualification, written my final exams, continued my piano commitments, and worked as a ski instructor at Pine Ridge Ski Club on weekends. I have also continued to be a member of the jr. girls' volleyball team and have enrolled in Young Drivers of Canada. My parents drive a great deal to provide me with transportation.

"Your efforts in presenting my letter and making a case for the rural youth at Queen's Park far exceed all of my expectations.

"Your actions have made me realize that you are an honest, empathetic and energetic representative of the constituents and in this case, the rural youth of all of Ontario. Thank you."

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Mr Mills: Is there an election coming up?

Mr McLean: That's the type of letter, Gord, that we all should get.

Another Oro resident raises the same issue in a letter I received just this week. I'd like to bring her concerns to your attention:

"My name is Catherine Gilchrist. I am writing this letter about the graduated licensing program. I am 15 and will turn 16 in the fall.

"I live in the country (Oro township), and because transportation is limited, I have to rely on my parents to drive me around. For this reason, it is difficult to find a summer job or to meet friends.

"I understand the reasons for this is so the roads would be safer, but most of the people my age are mature enough to drive in a responsible way." These are some of the comments I've received with regard to the graduated entry licence.

I supported that legislation, but I also brought to the ministry's attention certain young people who are responsible. Most of the accidents that had happened over time was with youth where there were three, four, five people in a car. I often thought there should have been some clause in there that would allow individuals, if they're driving to and from work, to be able to do that.

The concerns I have raised with those two people are the same concerns raised by a rural resident, Mrs Kathleen Rupnow of Hillsdale, when she wrote to me last month about the difficulty in scheduling her son's driver's test.

"My son is already 18 and needs to get his licence for work as he graduates high school this year. Since we live in Hillsdale, he has to drive to work. Since his 365 runs out in June, he will have to do his written test again (additional cost) before he can try his driving test....I don't disagree with the new legislation and I have another son who will be 16 in December who will be affected. I do disagree with a government who would not staff their offices to reduce these ridiculous backlogs during the transition period."

That is her complaint. As I said earlier, the graduated licensing system should have given due consideration to young rural motorists who have no alternative but to drive to and from work.

However, I was pleased that it contained the provisions that a novice driver will be required to maintain a zero blood alcohol content. That was my theory with regard to the bill. Now we have a bill today brought in by the member which is indicating the same. I have no problem in supporting that, because I think the more we debate this issue and get the word out, the better off we'll all be.

The people of Ontario are concerned and upset every time they pick up a newspaper and read about the tragic deaths on our roadways. Traffic collisions are the leading killers of Ontario's young people aged 16 to 24. Almost half of the traffic-related deaths among 16- to 24-year-olds occur when they are driving the vehicle. Most deaths involve new drivers and involve alcohol. I commend the member for Mississauga North for bringing this important matter to our attention today.

With regard to the numerous coroners' reports that we have had on this very issue, they have recommended raising the drinking age. Another strategy is to deal with drinking-and-driving problems. I've had a boating bill before this Legislature on two different occasions which has never gotten past second reading, and a lot of those accidents on the waterways are caused by drinking. I say to the member for Mississauga North, this just reinforces what a lot of us feel, what a lot of us think.

I want to leave with the message of those people who think and consider that they can drive with an alcohol content in their blood. If you lose your licence, the minimum cost to you, I predict, is some $10,000 to $20,000 by the time you're done dealing with the court system, by the time you pay the extra insurance that you're going to be charged and by the time the whole mess is cleared up. I hope those who have their second offence will really stop and consider because, to me, that innocent people are killed by drunk drivers should not be acceptable in society today.

The Acting Speaker (Ms Margaret H. Harrington): Further debate?

Mr Mills: I'm pleased, along with others of my colleagues in the House, to rise and speak to Bill 93, the private member's bill from the member for Mississauga North.

I think it goes without saying that everybody who sits in this Legislature is interested in reducing the terrible carnage that happens on our highways, and the parliamentary assistant, my colleague from Windsor-Sandwich, has already spoken this morning, that what we're talking about in the province of Ontario is a staggering $9 billion a year that is accountable to traffic accidents with death, the cost of medical care and all those things; $9 billion.

I think we, as legislators, should stand in our place and be absolutely convinced that we should do everything we can to stop this. I know that our government has done more to make the roads of Ontario safer than any other government which previously sat in this Legislature. We've done more to make Ontario safe.

I find it passing strange that here we have a member who introduced a bill that effectively prohibits all the folks under 19 from driving without zero tolerance, and I subscribe to that, but how on earth can you people, the third party and the official opposition, stand in your places and advocate for something that's going to reduce accidents when you wouldn't support photo-radar?

Photo-radar is proven by statistics, and when I gave my speech on that bill in this Legislature I produced enough statistics that showed you that it reduced deaths and it reduced accidents, and this statistical evidence is all across the country and all over the world. Yet these people stand here today and they want to support a bill that's going to reduce the carnage on the highway. They all stood in their places and they voted against photo-radar, which alone would reduce carnage, reduce deaths and accidents across the province on our highways beyond all kinds of -- you know, it's incomprehensible how people can stand there and advocate one form of life-saving and be adamantly opposed to photo-radar. I find that passing strange, to say the least.

Well, lots of things they say I find passing strange, but this sticks in my throat as a former police officer and having to investigate fatal accidents, having been to post-mortems, having to tell people that their young folk have passed away. You want to try that, my friends. You want to try standing in a post-mortem room and see what happens there. Then, if you had seen all of that, you would willingly stand in your places and support photo-radar, because, man, that is a traumatic experience when you go through that in life. It's a pity that many of you haven't had that experience, because if you had, you would support this government in its overall efforts to reduce the carnage on Ontario highways. We're going a long way to do that and one of the ways that we're achieving that is through graduated licences.

I want to just touch on that. We know and I have no doubts about the good intent of the member for Mississauga North and I support that. However, what we've got to come to grips with is what the graduated licence system is going to do.

It will address the issue of drinking and driving by inexperienced drivers by requiring all new drivers, not just young drivers -- statistics show that people over 24, it's not the people who are under 19, they're involved in a lot of drinking and driving accidents, so it's not just young drivers but every inexperienced driver -- to maintain a blood alcohol level of zero in their first two years of driving. What could be better? What could be more explicit? What could be more obvious that this government is committed to zero tolerance driving?

We are committed to making the roads of Ontario the safest roads to drive on, not only in Ontario, in North America and in fact in the whole world. We are setting an example in this province, this government is, about driving and safe driving, and our commitment to it, gradually, through different stages, and one of them is the graduated driver's licence.

Our government, in graduated licensing, has included tough but realistic penalties for drinking and driving under the graduated licences.

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I agree with my colleague the member for Windsor-Sandwich, the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Transportation, that the Highway Traffic Act is not the vehicle where you impose laws about drinking. That's not the role.

Anyway, I'm going to close up. My colleague wants to talk; I've just got the message, the pink slip. Graduated licensing effectively prohibits all drivers under 19 years of age from drinking and driving. It's that simple.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate.

Mr Mike Cooper (Kitchener-Wilmot): I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the debate on Bill 93. Obviously, what I'd like to do is get some things on the record that came out of the resources development committee. As everyone knows, the member for Mississauga North also sat on that committee and I understand that this is probably his intention, because I would never want to accuse him of grandstanding or jumping on a popular bandwagon of graduated licensing, because I think the member already knows that the laws are already in place, that the legal drinking age in the province of Ontario is the age of 19 and that there are penalties for breaking that law. The Criminal Code of Canada and the Highway Traffic Act currently provide for the suspension of the driver's licence of any driver convicted of driving while impaired or having a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08%, with a suspension period for first offence being one year, exactly what he's proposing here.

The member sat on the resources development committee, which held public hearings on the graduated licensing system process, and he was involved in the committee process and the public hearings and is fully aware that the committee considered a number of options and sanctions and concluded that further actions beyond those covered under the current graduated licensing process would not be appropriate. The basic agreement is that the issue of drinking under age is related to social and health policy.

Under the graduated licensing system, all new car and motorcycle drivers must not drink any alcohol if they're going to drive. The licensing condition requires the new driver's blood alcohol concentration level to be zero in their first two years of driving. This is not simply restricted to those underage; it is meant for everyone. This ensures that new drivers assume responsibility for their actions or be subject to licensing conditions.

Suspension periods are part of these conditions. These include a one-month suspension for greater than zero and less than 0.05%, and for those individuals with a blood alcohol concentration of greater than 0.05%, the suspension period is one year.

We must remember that there are various situations that may arise in which a person's blood alcohol concentration would be above zero, and these include the use of various cough syrups and medications that include in their content alcohol. The member for Mississauga North is fully aware of this, as it was discussed by various presenters during the public hearings, and this was fully discussed by representatives from the Ministry of Transportation, and he is fully aware that these other variables must be taken into consideration.

As I have previously stated, the member was involved in the committee as it reviewed and conducted public hearings on the Ministry of Transportation graduated licensing system. The member is fully aware of the ministry's recommendations on the six-point integrated safety project. Our government is taking seriously its commitment to make our roads among the safest in North America. The integrated safety project is another safety initiative of the NDP government's vision to make Ontario's roads the safest in North America.

The member is also well aware of the increased numbers of people driving while their licence is under suspension and driving without insurance. This needs to be dealt with, and adding further penalties and suspension only encourages this action to occur more often.

By using state-of-the-art technology, we can improve compliance with Ontario's traffic laws and as a result reduce the toll on Ontario's roads and drivers. If more drivers obey our existing laws and police are better able to enforce these laws, we will reduce highway deaths and injuries.

The more effective and responsible way in which to deal with the proposal brought forth by the member is to evaluate the effectiveness of the graduated licensing restriction, and since the graduated licensing system just took effect April 1, 1994, then perhaps we should give the graduated licensing system the opportunity to work.

The member for Mississauga North is persistent and is an individual who often needs to have things repeated over and over again to fully grasp ideas. I commend him for his persistence but wish to state that I will not be supporting this bill and feel confident in the laws that currently exist and those included in the six-point integrated safety project. There is not the necessity to duplicate laws.

As the member for Eglinton stated, the Liberals had brought forward this initiative. I know that for years New Democrats have been called Liberals in a hurry. Well, I would suggest to the member opposite that New Democrats are Liberals of action.

The Acting Speaker: Any further debate? The member for Mississauga North now has two minutes to respond, plus the remaining time for your party.

Mr Offer: In terms of my response, I would first like to thank the members who have spoken in support of the legislation: the member for York Mills, the member for Eglinton and the member for Simcoe East. I appreciate the support.

I am, I must say, a little disappointed with the fact that the government does not see fit to support this legislation. I did write to the Police Association of Ontario. The Police Association of Ontario wrote to me a letter under the date of November 15, where it indicated its full support for this very short yet very direct piece of legislation.

I did take this matter up earlier with the Minister of Transportation and with the Attorney General. I took this matter up with them when I first introduced the legislation. I felt very strongly about this legislation in terms of its saying to people who are 16, 17 and 18 that, "Under the current laws of the province of Ontario, you cannot legally drink," saying to those 16-, 17- and 18-year-old people, "If you break that law, which is your law, by not only drinking but getting behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, your licence upon conviction will be suspended for one year." I felt and feel very strongly that this bill would save lives, would reduce injury and would reduce property damage.

I was very disappointed that the Attorney General and the Minister of Transportation wrote to me saying that they wouldn't support the legislation, but I thought that since those letters were dated from the Ministry of Transportation November 24 and from the Attorney General March 29, possibly they and/or their caucus might have changed their position. Hearing the debate from the government members today, I see that is unlikely.

This bill is not directed to us here; it's directed to young people who are sitting in the gallery today, young people who I believe would be safer on the roads if this particular bill were passed.

The members of the government have hung their hats on graduated licensing. Graduated licensing will, first, give a penalty of only 30 days for drinking and driving. I believe that is not a sufficient penalty. A penalty must be in line with the type of penalty that we suffer, and that is at least one year. We realize that the result of the strict drinking-and-driving penalties has been a reduction of death, has been a reduction of injury, has been a reduction of property damage. What I want to do is extend that to the 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds. The passage of this bill will allow that.

The members on the government side have spoken about the $9 billion that is lost and about carnage on the highways, all of which I agree with. So I am disappointed that while eloquently speaking about the cost in terms of dollars and the cost in terms of lives, they do not support a bill which will in fact reduce property damage, reduce injury, reduce death on our roads.

The members of the government have spoken about graduated licensing. I opened up my comments by saying I was a member of that committee. I understand graduated licensing. Members of the government should recognize that the 30-day penalty only applies to young people while they are in that system. Members of the government should remember that that means a person will be in and possibly out of graduated licensing by 17 1/2, actually 17 years and eight months.

Graduated licensing will only apply and that very small penalty will only apply when they are in that system. They could be out of that system when they are 17 and 18 years old. Graduated licensing, which you have hung your hat on, will not help those who are under the age of 19 and outside of the graduated licensing system. Understand your own legislation.

My time is just about up. I urge the members of government: Support this bill. It will reduce property damage, it will reduce injury, it will reduce death on the road for our young people. I urge you to support this legislation.

The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. The time for ballot item number 47 has expired. A vote will take place at 12 noon.

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JUNIOR KINDERGARTEN

Mr Arnott moved private member's notice of motion number 36:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government of Ontario should refrain from continuing to implement the policy announced by the previous Liberal government, in the 1989 throne speech, of forcing all school boards in Ontario to initiate junior kindergarten programs by the fall of 1994.

The Acting Speaker (Ms Margaret H. Harrington): Pursuant to standing order 96(c)(i), the member has 10 minutes for his presentation and then each party will have 15 minutes to debate.

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): This resolution comes from the people of Wellington. For the past three and a half years it has been my privilege and honour to represent them here in this Legislature, to work and speak on their behalf.

It is a responsibility I have taken very seriously, as I have endeavoured to represent their views and be true to the values and principles of the people who sent me here to speak on their behalf in the best way that I can: to voice the common sense of the farmer in West Luther township, the wisdom of the retired senior in Harriston, the concerns of the shopkeeper in Erin, the homemaker in Aberfoyle, the small manufacturer in Fergus, the factory worker in Arthur, all of the people of Wellington, to the very best of my ability.

This resolution is about education, in our federation the provincial government's constitutional responsibility and government's most important long-term investment, for with excellence in education, our children will grow to show the world that Ontario, Canada, is its centre, leading in the arts and culture, leading in science and technology, leading in commerce and business. But without excellence in education, our children will grow to show the world nothing more than mediocrity and decline. That's why we must strive for excellence.

More specifically, this resolution is about how the New Democrats have continued the policy of their Liberal predecessors to force all school boards in Ontario to initiate junior kindergarten programs by the academic year coming, 1994-95.

It's an issue which raises many questions: What will this cost the taxpayers of Ontario? What about local autonomy, the whole rationale for the existence of local school boards; the idea that excellence demands you allow for local differences through flexibility in the application of programs in different areas of the province; the idea that Toronto is different from Drayton and Mount Forest, much different, and also different from the communities in Halton, Wentworth and Simcoe? That's why we have school boards: to allow for excellence by allowing them to tailor education to fit their local community's needs.

Other questions arise: Are Ontario's teachers prepared and qualified to teach four-year-olds and in some cases three-year-olds? Have teachers been consulted? Have parents? Have taxpayers?

What about our children, our toddlers, as they really are at three and four? Is it really in their best interests to start school at this tender age? Is it safe to put a toddler on a school bus? These questions need to be answered during the course of this debate, and if the answers are as evasive or don't make sense or are as inadequate as they've been to date from this government, then members of this Legislature must support this resolution.

Junior kindergarten is a very important issue, but it's symbolic of an even larger issue. More than three years ago, I rose to join in our first debate of this 35th Parliament on the NDP government's first throne speech. I was in the back row then and I'm still in the back row, which tells you something about the last three years. But don't get me wrong; I'm very content to be here.

In that first speech in December 1990, I said: "We in Wellington understand the economic value of hard work and the social value of personal responsibility. From this understanding stems a serious concern when our government refuses to live within its means, when our government grows until it begins to inhibit overall economic growth, when even excessive taxation does not prevent the expansion of government debt."

In the three years since I gave that first speech I have heard, time and time again, from people in Wellington county how the NDP policy agenda runs totally contrary, totally against those basic principles that we expect from our government, the simple principles that govern the daily lives of all of us in Wellington, policies like mandatory junior kindergarten being forced on us in 1994-95.

I am totally opposed to mandatory junior kindergarten for Wellington county because I'm convinced that the vast majority of people in Wellington believe we don't want it, can't afford it and don't need it. I believe it should be an optional program which communities and local boards can decide upon for themselves to see if it's necessary for their own needs and their own people.

I'm absolutely convinced of this based on what I've heard since I campaigned against the Liberal mandatory junior kindergarten plan in 1990 and since our New Directions policy paper on education, which was released in 1992, in which we called upon the government to make junior kindergarten a local option. Based on what I've heard since I asked constituents in a questionnaire which I send to every household in Wellington last spring, a full 80% of more than 1,000 responses I've received to date said they were against mandatory junior kindergarten.

Since, in response to a constituent's request recently, I launched a petition about two months ago, which hundreds have signed from Wellington and beyond, calling upon the government to cancel its policy of forcing junior kindergarten on to local school boards.

Since I've introduced this for debate in the Legislature, I have received much support for this resolution. I've received support from the Wellington county council unanimously. I've received support from the town of Fergus council, unanimously; the town of Mount Forest council; the village of Arthur council; the township of Arthur council; the township of West Garafraxa council; the Wellington County Board of Education, our public board, several of whose members, trustees, are with us in the gallery today to listen to this debate.

I've also received support from the Wellington county separate school board and many ordinary people, parents, who've written to me in the past few weeks expressing support for this resolution, people like Bob and Loretta Bray of RR 3, Listowel, who have written to me, and I'd like to read this letter into the record.

"Mr Arnott:

"We are in total agreement and support your position concerning the forced implementation of junior kindergarten by the Ontario government.

"We feel very strongly that junior kindergarten is not required and should not be implemented. We do not see any benefit to the children and have seen many disadvantages to the implementation of junior kindergarten in the Perth county separate school system.

"In our opinion, junior kindergarten is a very expensive substitute to day care -- and not everyone needs to send their children out to day care. Therefore, those who do not have the need for day care should not have to pay for other parents to send their children.

"This letter is a written endorsement of your resolution which will request the Ontario government to refrain from forcing the implementation of junior kindergarten into our Ontario schools."

I've received a number of letters of this nature. I wanted to read this one into the record.

When we get into the issue of cost, we have a number of estimates that are coming out of Wellington county as to what this will cost local taxpayers and beyond, all of us as taxpayers in Ontario.

A consistent estimate is approximately $4.5 million for our local school board annually in terms of operating cost, and it's my understanding from meeting with some of our board trustees this morning that a new, more recent plan, which follows the one that was rejected by the New Democrats recently, indicates that it will cost in total to initiate junior kindergarten for the next three years about $7.7 million. That will be the total cost.

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That means higher local taxes or less government programs, less school board programs, many of which are very important to parents and the students who are in the system: programs like core French, programs like teachers' aides for children who are integrated into regular classrooms but who have disabilities and special needs.

We have something like 190 portables in our Wellington county public system, and so we see the need for new capital money being made available which would be appropriate for new classrooms for all the students, yet we find this is the government's priority.

We see this idea coming forward in a time of a very difficult financial situation in terms of the province of Ontario. When the New Democrats came to office, as we know, the provincial debt was approximately $40 billion. In four years they've doubled that to approximately $80 billion.

Interjection.

Mr Arnott: Yes, here we go again. I'm going to continue raising it because you know and I know that this is additional money that the kids we're talking about in the context of this debate will be forced to pay the interest on and pay the principal at some point to retire that debt. It demonstrates the absolute irresponsibility of this government in a financial sense.

We've seen the context of this year's deficit numbers: $10 billion to $12 billion, the government's not sure. Yet they walk around in a daze saying: "We don't know where to cut. We don't know what we're going to do." Here's an example of a program that should be made optional.

I'd like to conclude my initial remarks by indicating that I have received the support also of the Ontario Public School Boards' Association for this resolution and they have said, "The forced implementation of junior kindergarten, like any new program, is a drain on school boards' resources."

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Derek Fletcher (Guelph): I'm very pleased to be able to rise on this issue of junior kindergarten, its implementation and Wellington county.

The government's policy, as with the previous government, has always been to provide four-year-old children with the opportunity to benefit from a junior kindergarten program. It has always been the case that participation in junior kindergarten and kindergarten is the choice of the parent. A child is not required to attend school until they're six years old in Ontario; that's the legal age for attending school. So this is a choice that parents will make.

Parents who choose not to enrol their children in junior kindergarten have done so in many areas because the program is not being offered. So there's a bit of a discriminatory barrier in certain areas. It's clear that many parents want their children to have the opportunity to enrich their learning, and let us remember that children of kindergarten age are natural, eager and enthusiastic learners and the junior kindergarten program will enhance this.

The policy requiring all boards to offer junior kindergarten was first announced, as was mentioned by my colleague from Wellington, in the 1989 throne speech. In that throne speech they said, "The early childhood years are the most important years for acquiring basic learning and social skills." When we talk about the benefits to children, I think there are many to be learned.

In fact, the Wellington county school board research on multi-age groupings, which is the program it wishes to implement over the next three years, states:

"Multi-age grouping is an organizational strategy that combines two or more grades into one classroom. Multi-age groupings foster the feeling of family and community within the class. Children increase their awareness of others and gain appreciation and acceptance of differences which results in reduced competition and high levels of cooperation.

"Specific benefits to younger children: In the early years, language development is critical. Multi-age groupings show a natural acceleration in language development. Older students provide models of language, behaviour and problem-solving and are a support to the learning of younger children." Children helping children.

The Ministry of Education and Training has conducted extensive consultations on kindergarten and junior kindergarten programs, and when Bill 4 received royal assent on July 29, 1993, it required the establishment of junior kindergarten programs by September 1994. But the government has listened to some of the concerns of school boards, and the school boards that do not currently have junior kindergarten can apply for an exemption, and that's what the Wellington county board has done, applied for an exemption so that it could have a phased-in program from this year until 1997.

It must be emphasized that approximately four out of five boards will offer a full junior kindergarten program in September 1994, and many of these boards of course offered junior kindergarten years before they were required to do so. In fact, only 22 boards in Ontario are in the position of having to request for an exemption.

The Ministry of Education and Training has worked, where requested, closely with the boards to develop this implementation plan. As far as the Wellington county board is concerned, it has demonstrated a commitment to implementing junior kindergarten by 1997.

If we look at some of the projections from the Wellington County Board of Education, projections over the next three years about enrolment in junior kindergarten -- and these are from Alma, Eramosa Public School, JD Hogarth school, John Black school, all within Wellington county, all within your riding, Aberfoyle, Brisbane, Drayton Jr -- we're looking, in the first year, 1995, at an estimated enrolment of 402 students.

In 1996, the second year of the phase-in, we're looking at an estimated enrolment of 551 additional students, and in 1997, when implementation is completed by the board, we're looking at another addition of 592 students. This brings a total of 1,545 students. Obviously, they weren't included in the survey that the member took. The parents wish their children to receive the benefits that junior kindergarten can accomplish for their children.

In judging the process, the bottom line is that within three years every child in Ontario will, where his or parents wish, be able to attend junior kindergarten. It's an accomplishment that I'm proud of, and I think it will benefit the children of Ontario and it will contribute to the betterment and the social wellbeing of our province.

Mr Charles Beer (York-Mackenzie): It's a pleasure to rise in the debate that our friend and colleague has put forward today on the question of junior kindergarten. I want, at the outset, to say that I have a great deal of respect for the member and I understand the concerns he has expressed previously on this issue. I would simply note as well that we may also, as we craft resolutions, perhaps be getting into that season that we sense is pre-electoral, so the references to other parties and other policies sometimes get brought in in a way.

I want to talk a little bit about what I think was the policy that we put forward where it differs from the present government, but that the place where I think we share the concern that the honourable member has put forward is in the verb "forcing." We had quite a debate on that aspect of junior kindergarten when we were dealing with Bill 4 last spring in the Legislature.

But before doing that, let me just go back with a bit of history here. Over the course of the last decade, and indeed longer than that, since the early 1980s, there has been increasingly, I think, work done which has suggested that providing an educational program in the years prior to grade 1 can be very helpful, can be advantageous to young people.

Indeed the Progressive Conservative government, prior to 1985, had launched a number of projects such as To Herald A Child and the early primary education project, both of which dealt with this issue and were suggesting that we need to look at how we can provide a broader range of senior and junior kindergarten programs. Again, in reports that were done when we became the government after 1985 from the project that looked at what would help kids to really have equal opportunity, there were many areas where being able to get into school earlier would help.

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I can recall, when I was the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Education, going to one area of the province where the socioeconomic level in this particular area was low; many problems in that community. One of the things the school board felt was that if kids could come in for half a day of junior kindergarten, that would open them up to learning and begin to give them a base that would be different from other kids in whose homes perhaps there was more attention being paid to those early years of learning.

The key here is how we go about doing that and to what extent the province, any provincial government, says, "Thou shalt; thou must do that now because we want this to be right across the province in every board."

It's fair to say that in the throne speech of 1989, it was certainly the intention of the previous government that junior kindergarten be implemented across the province. But it's important to recall that in the legislation, the way it was referred to was that the board "may" provide the program, and it was only with Bill 4 that it was changed to "shall." At that time we argued that, particularly in the present economic climate and given the fact that the vast majority of boards were in fact offering junior kindergarten, it would be best to leave it as "may," that there were some real problems that some of the larger boards had around how they were going to implement it. So we voted against Bill 4, not because we were opposed to junior kindergarten but we were opposed to that method of ensuring that it was done.

I think there could be an approach by the government which, through discussion and through financial support, was bringing most of the boards on side and having these programs developed. The issue here, if there is one, is really just the method, the way in which the present government is going about it.

I want to go back to the throne speech of 1989. Some excerpts have been read from it, but let's put this on the record again. In that throne speech on Tuesday, April 25, 1989:

"In this session, my government" -- the then Liberal government -- "will address the following priorities." The second one was, "Investing in the future of our children by making our education system a more effective springboard to opportunity."

It was the clear sense that junior kindergarten, a better program at that level, would provide opportunity. It was not intended to be simply a babysitting exercise. It was intended to really be encouraging the development of learning among younger people.

Further in the body of the throne speech, as the Lieutenant Governor read it, it said: "Our elementary schools must assist our children to develop basic learning and social skills in their early years. They must build on that foundation by setting high standards for achievement in subsequent years....

"My government is determined to improve the quality of education for our children. New initiatives will refocus our education system from kindergarten to the end of secondary school....

"The early childhood years are the most important years for acquiring basic learning and social skills. The quality of education that our children receive in these critical foundation years will largely determine their ability to succeed at school and in later years.

"My government believes that children have the capacity to benefit from education at an earlier age. Our education system must build on their natural curiosity and their capacity for early learning.

"My government's long-term vision is to make the opportunity for full-day junior and senior kindergarten available to all four- and five-year-olds.

"As a first step, my government will:

" -- Ensure that all school boards offer half-day junior kindergarten for four-year-olds as well as half-day senior kindergarten for five-year-olds.

" -- Provide funding for school boards to offer full-day senior kindergarten programs, where classroom space permits.

"These two initiatives will, over the next five years, provide parents with an opportunity to place their children in a stimulating learning environment at an early age."

I don't think there is anything there that I would disagree with. What we have recognized in the ensuing years is just that there are some financial difficulties the government has not been able -- and it's probably fair to say no government, given the economic recession we've been in, has been able to provide the kind of funding we were looking at in those earlier years. Hence the need for a more flexible approach.

The government, as has been noted, in the debate over Bill 4 did say, "Originally we wanted this program in place as of September 1, 1994, so we're going to have a period from 1994 to 1997 where it can be brought in and where school boards can come and say, 'We would like an exemption until September 1, 1997.'"

There's no question, though, when you talk with the representatives from the Ontario Public School Boards' Association and from the 20 or so school boards that have been wrestling with how to do this, that they find, with the social contract and expenditure controls, that in terms of priorities they may feel, "Yes, junior kindergarten is something we would like to do, but on a phasing basis, there are other things that at this juncture we believe are more important."

As we go along in this place and as we mandate a variety of programs, I think we really need to step back and try to determine, where do we allow the school board to make some of those decisions? If I were a parent in Wellington county, as I am in York region, which has been having a similar sort of question -- I favour junior kindergarten. I think it can do a lot of good things. But I also recognize, when I talk to my school board representatives, that they're saying: "These are the priorities we have. Yes, that one is important, but we would like to bring it in in a way that we think is more acceptable to the community." We too often have a tendency here at Queen's Park to say, "That's all very interesting, but we're telling you that you're going to do it, and you're going to do it within a set period of time."

That is what is at issue here. When I look at the critical verb in Mr Arnott's resolution, it is that "the government of Ontario should refrain from continuing" and then "forcing all school boards." What has to happen here is to allow the residents of those school areas to determine how quickly they want that program to come into place.

My sense is that if that were an issue, and it may well be an issue in some of these areas in the school board elections later this fall, I think one would be surprised to see that there's much more support for moving to a junior kindergarten program than perhaps some critics feel there is. But by the same token, the wise course -- and the course we discussed during the debate over Bill 4 was that this was not the time to be moving the obligation on the board from "may provide the program" to "shall." The debate is not essentially around the value of that program.

I recognize that there are those who feel strongly that there should not be a junior kindergarten, that there is a feeling that the children are too young. As was pointed out, as parents you don't have to send your child to that program. The Education Act makes it clear that education is mandatory from the age of 6. For those who don't want it, they simply don't have to participate. Granted, they are paying taxes and they have concerns about that, but there are all kinds of activities that boards do, that municipalities do and that provincial governments do that people are not necessarily in agreement with. But that's democracy; that's how it gets worked out.

But if the government had continued with the approach that had been in place, where as funds became available -- where the province was saying, "We believe you should do this program," there's an obligation on the province to ensure that those dollars are there, and where a school board has a different set of priorities, that school board should be able to determine those priorities. That's one of the big lessons from the recession: that we can't simply be mandating programs that then have to be paid for out of the funds of the local board if we're not prepared in a more effective way to fund it.

With the boards that are remaining, I understand from talking to officials in the Ministry of Education and Training that they believe a lot of progress has been made. A number of boards have different kinds of proposals. I know Grey county is one that came and said, "Could we do some different things in working together with a number of child care and day care operations in providing this program?" To the ministry's credit, it has been sitting down and working with the board on that. Other areas? I know Peel has been looking at some optional ways of providing the program, where it's not necessarily in the school but making use of a variety of child care programs that are in the community.

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When we're dealing with these early childhood years, we want to be able to look at a number of options, because young people at the age of four have different capacities for learning and also different capacities just in terms of what they can take in a more structured setting or in terms of how far they may have to travel. What we've seen in many places is that a number of the rural areas have real concerns about how this program would work, and "Leave it to us to determine what the best way is to bring that in."

It comes back to this question of forcing boards to do it by a set time as opposed to allowing the people in that area to set out exactly what the priority is. I continue to believe, as I look at the program around the province, that it will of itself become something people want to do, because as families look at how it's done in other areas, they see ways in which it can be done so that distance is not necessarily a problem and that there's a flexibility in the kind of programs that are set up, that this is a good thing and that it really can, as the throne speech said back in 1989, help to increase the opportunity of young people for learning and can mean that when they get into grade 1 they will be on a much more level playing field as they go forward with their education.

But in this case, as with a number, the much better approach is to do it in a permissive vein, to work with the boards without a club. The best thing would have been to have left the legislation to continue to be "may" and not "shall." I still think that's the best way to go and I still think that by the end of this decade, if we were to approach it that way, we would probably see junior kindergarten throughout the province.

Mrs Dianne Cunningham (London North): It gives me great pleasure to be here today to support my colleague Mr Arnott's resolution with regard to junior kindergarten programs in this province.

I was interested to hear the member for York-Mackenzie speak, and interested also to see that he was the only person who spoke on behalf of the Liberals, because this happens to be one of the biggest issues in the minds of parents right across this province, riding by riding, and certainly is on the minds of all school boards.

He stated that in 1989 the Liberal government of the day wanted to provide an opportunity to young people for learning. I think two major mistakes were made at that time. First of all, there was not public consultation as to how best to do it. The Premier of the day, in the throne speech, made certain that half-day junior and half-day senior kindergartens were promised. In my view, and in the view of many educators and early childhood specialists, they would not say that the school system is the best place to provide learning opportunities for young people right across this province. There are other opportunities, in child care centres and early child centres, and there are many --

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): Do you support universal child care?

Mrs Cunningham: I do not support universal child care. I support a learning program for young children, but not universal child care in the context in which the member for Oxford has raised it. I should tell you right now that this province is crying out for public discussion around early intervention and early learning for young children, ages two to six, probably.

We need it badly. We're discussing it right now in the standing committee on public accounts and we're discussing the efficiency of it. The auditor has made the comment that we are not efficient in our junior kindergarten program in terms of the outcome for early childhood education. We have to look at it in a very different way.

Although the Liberals got this ball rolling, without the public consultation necessary -- and this NDP government has not consulted on this issue. As a matter of fact, they referred to the issue of junior kindergarten in Bill 4 as "housekeeping." There was no opportunity for public discussion in Bill 4 on section 170 of the act, section 28. I can only say that the concern was raised by school boards and parents across the province at that time. We had very little time for public deliberation, and this issue, because of its importance to society today, is worthy of public discussion.

The Progressive Conservative caucus does not support the mandating of programs, any programs, without sufficient funds allocated to these programs. The member for York-Mackenzie said two things. He said they promised that these programs would be in place with funding. They have never been in place with funding. If they are in place with funding -- I stand to be corrected -- the school boards are saying they can't afford it.

Life is priorities, and education is priorities, and if you have to choose them, I would say we have local boards and it's up to them to set their priorities and what they can afford to do. Many of them are well educated and know a better way of providing these kinds of programs. I think we should be listening to them.

I should also say that in January 1994, when the memo was sent out to the school boards stating that "school boards must forward their requests for exemption, together with their plans for the phased-in implementation of junior kindergarten to regional office by April 15, 1994," that related back to the legislation of junior kindergarten. My colleague used the word "forces." It's now forcing by legislation, never before in this province. It was a policy of the Liberal government, but not legislated. Now we have legislation, so the boards are really concerned about what they're going to do.

We know there are 22 school boards that do not have junior kindergarten right now, and as of Tuesday, April 12, three of the 22 boards had not submitted their plans. Those three are submitting their plans to their own boards this week.

All I can say right now is that this is a topic worthy of serious public discussion, and I think those recommendations will be forthcoming from the public accounts committee. There are more efficient ways of providing early childhood learning programs to any child who needs it in his or her own community. Now, as we see the deplorable action that boards are forced into, forcing three-year-olds to go to school all day every second day -- that's not appropriate early childhood learning, and that's the decision that rural boards and boards within the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto have been forced into. It's deplorable.

We never looked at how; we never looked at why. All we looked at was a philosophy, and we didn't seriously think about how children could best be served.

Mrs Karen Haslam (Perth): In considering this issue, members should never lose sight of the fact that most school boards and a majority of parents have already made a decision for junior kindergarten. Kindergarten, JK and K programs, is widely available in Ontario, and in a sense the vote is already in. Both parents and boards have voted in favour of junior kindergarten by participating in the program.

Just yesterday or the day before, my board put out a press release indicating that it has 169 young people, four years old, registered for the JK program and 273 junior kindergarten students for the upcoming school year.

The early years are crucial because it is in junior kindergarten and kindergarten that the foundations are built for a lifetime of learning. Numerous studies have shown the value of an early beginning in quality programs. I mention Lazar, Hubbell, Murray, Rosche and Royce in 1977, Schweinhart and Weikart in 1980, Lazar and Darlington in 1982, Wright in 1983. Junior kindergarten and kindergarten are the years when young children can develop strong foundations in social, physical, language and thinking skills. Through their interaction with other children and adults they can also develop attitudes that enable them to approach later, more formal schooling with confidence.

Junior kindergarten helps parents also in the important task of providing children with a stimulating environment that encourages discovery and growth. Music and art programs, sand and water tables, exposure to good books and stories -- these are some of the features of junior kindergarten programs that build on and enhance the work of parents.

As a parent I used to, with my own children when they were that age, go to the library once a week and bring home 20 books and we read those 20 books, and then we'd go back to the library and we'd bring home another 20. It got so that my three-year-old, my daughter, could memorize and read with me the Madeleine books because she had heard them so often and they were her favourites.

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But there are additional programs and additional things that are available for them in a junior kindergarten program. That wasn't available for me at the time. My children were ready for junior kindergarten and it wasn't there. I wish that option had been there for me and for the children. I ended up putting my children into a nursery school, because they needed something more than I could give them at home.

But dramatic changes in society are transforming the world of our children. The media, and particularly television, are changing their attitudes and the way children learn.

Also, because of increasing diversity in family structures and support systems, children no longer enter school with a common set of experiences. In the past most children came to junior kindergarten and kindergarten from the home, and these programs functioned as an introduction to formal schooling and a bridge between the home and school environments. Today junior kindergarten and kindergarten link schools to a variety of support structures that may include child care, nursery schools, before- and after-school programs and informal arrangements for care.

Children also come to early years programs from a variety of linguistic, cultural, ethnic and racial backgrounds. This diversity enriches the school environment for all children and provides opportunities for them to be exposed to new ideas, cultures and languages.

Increasingly, the days and learning experiences of young children are becoming fragmented. Their lives may be disrupted by moving or changes in family and support structures. It's believed that greater continuity and stability in education in the early years will help children achieve success in the primary grades and beyond.

Continuity and stability may be particularly important for children from low-income communities. For these children, it has been shown that two years in preschool, starting at age three, are more effective than only one year in improving social, intellectual and cognitive development. That was in the Wright study of 1983.

While many children come to school from stable, nurturing environments, some children come to school frightened, hungry or neglected and unable to learn. Many children live in poverty. Many witness spouse, child and substance abuse as well as racial, social and gender inequities. Many also experience tremendous instability in their lives. Their family structures and home environments change frequently and unexpectedly as the result of unemployment, increasing mobility or family breakdowns. Educators can assist these children by finding ways to provide stable environments and provide positive role models in school.

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): Schools will fix all our social problems.

Mrs Haslam: No, they won't fix all of their social programs. But I want to reiterate that this is not a mandatory program that mothers must send their children to. It is an option, and there will be people who don't want to take up that option.

Mr Jackson: Why? They're paying for it in their taxes. Why wouldn't they?

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mrs Haslam: When Dianne talks about rural school boards, that's one of the areas where many people are going to be concerned because of transportation issues and young children. But it is an option, and just because there are some people who say, "We don't want it," they shouldn't say to others, "You can't have it." Providing equitable access to junior kindergarten throughout the province is a worthwhile and a valuable goal and one which I am proud to support.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Chris Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton): It's a pleasure to be able to speak in support of my colleague the honourable member for Wellington's resolution. I would just like to state that we have two objections. And an objection to junior kindergarten is not to junior kindergarten as a concept; it's to the mandated forcing of junior kindergarten upon all of Ontario as if the needs of Metro and urban areas are the same as of rural Ontario.

I represent two school boards. In Victoria county, they've chosen to have junior kindergarten. In Haliburton county, it doesn't make common sense to have junior kindergarten.

I think there's a consensus in this House that we all recognize: that the ages of zero to five are very formative and that's the basis on which children grow up and that forms their socialization and their education skills. We all share that belief. Where the problem exists is thinking that from Queen's Park we can mandate what's best for rural areas like the county of Haliburton.

The two areas of concern are with regard to the costs of implementing the program, and there are a number of costs. Our grants have been depleted or decreased in the last number of years. The burden on our tax base has grown, and the majority of our tax base is comprised of residential dwellings. We do not have the industrial and commercial base that you have in urban centres, and it's putting a great deal of pressure upon the households in our county.

There are number of costs from the supplies younger children need: the space that's required, additions to schools, teachers, who need training, their curriculum needs to be developed, and transportation costs.

In our county, under the proposed -- because it's forced, they were against it, but they were forced to submit a staged process -- junior kindergarten will be delivered every other day. Now, the school buses in our area take up to an hour in some cases. There is a tremendous cost if we were to have half-day programs. You can't afford to double-bus the whole county, so the option is every other day, with up to an hour.

Now, it's up to the parents' option whether they go, but as it's been pointed out, they're paying for it in their taxes, and there's also a financial incentive that's forcing working parents with low incomes to go to what's the most affordable. So it's really a misnomer in rural Ontario, in places where working people aren't making very much to start with, to then say: "Well, you have an option. You can pay out of your paycheque and have child care services, or you can get it free and have your child travel on a bus for half an hour." That's some choice.

I also have concerns about the way the program's been implemented. As I mentioned, there's stress on young children travelling great distances on school buses. We've all acknowledged that three-and-a-half-year-olds to five-year-olds are at an age where they learn and they develop their social skills for life. I have a boy who's four and another who's six, and when they're on the school bus, there are a lot of high school kids who will be able to teach them quite a bit, and they'll pick it up.

There's also the potential -- and this is the real problem that I see. The smokescreen is that it's for the child and to have everybody have an opportunity to have junior kindergarten for the child's interests. But there have been no criteria established for the ratio of teachers to children.

In the early childhood education program, it's one qualified teacher who's trained in the needs and assessing what that child needs, because they all learn at different rates. Under this program, there are no criteria. It's one school teacher to maybe 20. I read that in Durham it's going to be one to 27. This is in the classroom.

There are also standards in the play yard. Under the ECE program -- and the government regulates it and they're licensed -- it has to be one to eight. If you're smaller than that, it's one to five, and that goes inside and outside. I see no criteria from the government on how it wants this developed in the school system.

I just want to conclude that this will have implications for the future. Implementing junior K as a mandated program that meets the needs right across Ontario, without regard to local autonomy and local school boards, is not as simple as this government would have us believe, especially in a riding like Victoria-Haliburton, where great distances and time will undoubtedly have serious repercussions. With that, I'd like to conclude.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Gary Malkowski (York East): It is my pleasure to join in the debate this morning on the resolution that was introduced by the member for Wellington.

I'm actually a little bit shocked by his resolution, because I'd just like to remind him that it was the Tory government which had a report called Report of the Early Primary Education Project. The report was released in 1985, and it was released by a Tory government. I think I would really strongly encourage all the Tory members to read the report and the recommendation that came from that report, which was the implementation of junior kindergarten as an investment for children because it will save costs for social assistance and it will also save costs in terms of providing remedial programs. I would remind the member for Wellington to read that carefully, because it is your responsibility to provide education for the constituents.

I think one thing that is important to remember is that children need to have those early education opportunities for themselves because they need to be able to develop their critical thinking skills, their problem-solving skills, their literacy, not only in the spoken word but in the written word. They need to have that opportunity for the incidental learning. It also provides children the opportunity to develop emotionally and socially, and most importantly, we want to provide them with a violence-free environment.

I think that junior kindergarten is an excellent opportunity. I think the bottom line is that the child needs to be able to build and develop a strong foundation so that they can have a good language base and have good social and emotional development, and this can be done with a wonderful environment. I think it's something you need to know.

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Early childhood, the ages from zero to five, is the most critical time of learning. That is the time where we learn the most in comparison to our later years in life. I'm talking about the Report of the Early Primary Education Project that was released, again, as I said, by the Tory government, and it is an important investment in children that they are provided with the best educational opportunities possible.

You know that technology is changing and the world is changing, and our children need to be ready. They need to be given the opportunity to accept those changes. I think really our point is that our government is being accountable.

We want to make sure that parents have a right to an access for early education for their children so that they can get into the educational system. There are many parents who are frustrated because they do not have that program now, and this is why we are here. I think we are very proud to force the school boards to implement this so that there is the availability.

I think you don't want to misunderstand us when I use that word "force." We're not forcing parents to send their children to school. What we are doing is having the school boards provide the program and then parents have an opportunity to send.

Mr Jackson: You are right. You are just forcing them to pay the taxes.

Mr Malkowski: Really it is -- you're saying that if it doesn't happen, you are forcing them to pay more for social assistance and remedial programs, and that's a problem. I think it shows where your accountability or lack of it is. I would challenge the Tory members to read the report on the early primary education project and it talks about being helpful. I think it would be helpful for the Tory members to understand, and I think we are very proud, in East York specifically, that the board of education has an excellent junior kindergarten program.

I'd just like to thank all the members.

Mr Jackson: I'm very pleased to participate in this debate because I believe that my colleague's resolution is very timely and very appropriate. I think it's timely because this government is imposing a deadline tomorrow that all those 22 boards that don't have junior kindergarten have their plans filed or, as the Minister of Education has indicated, there will be financial penalties imposed on school boards that fail to comply. When the member for York East uses the word "force," he really meant the word "force." That's the style of this government.

The reason that junior kindergarten is successful in some jurisdictions in this province is because it has done that based on the academic leadership in some of those boards, in spite of the government not having a management plan. There's no leadership from the Minister of Education or the Minister of Community and Social Services on how to implement junior kindergarten or any early childhood programs in this province.

The proof in the pudding is, there's no funding. Let's call this what it is. This is a grand plan on the part of the Liberals to offload child care onto the local taxpayer, pure and simple.

In my municipality of Halton region, 80% of the four-year-olds in our jurisdiction are in some form of program today, but people are paying. They're paying on the basis of their ability to pay. People who can't pay and are on social assistance are getting a subsidy because they need to have access to that day care or an intervention program for their child.

That's typical of the Liberals to think that we can con the public into offloading day care for four-year-olds, where the province pays 75% of the cost, onto a municipality like Metro Toronto, where it pays 100% of the cost of educating a child.

In my region, it's the exact opposite: 75% is paid by the local taxpayer. That's what this is all about: a sleight of hand as to who provides services for these children. Because there's no management plan in place, typical of the NDP and the Liberals, because there's no funding in place, we're going to have problems with this junior kindergarten program.

I'll give you a couple of examples. One of the most important elements -- and I'm glad the member for York East is with us in the House to hear this and to read this debate, and I'll tell you why -- is that in my community of Halton, children getting ready to go into school, and there are a good number of them, need speech and language pathology services.

I heard one of the NDP members tell us about how her three-year-old was reading at a grade one level. We're happy for her child. But what about those children with cognitive deficiencies, those children with handicaps, those children who can't speak the language? Why is it that your government has no program in place to assist preschool children with these language and cognitive skill needs, to strengthen them? A good system would take those children who need help and help them directly, but the Liberals and the NDP have got a system to pick up everybody, whether they need it or not.

In Halton region recently Joseph Brant hospital cancelled its preschool speech-language pathology program. We had 120 children on that program and 90 on a waiting list. These are two-, three- and four-year-old children. I want the members of the government to hear this. When the Ministry of Health cancelled its pre-school speech-language pathology program, they went running to the school board. They said, "We're not getting funded; we're not helping those children." They went running to Comsoc and they said, "We're not providing that support and funding for those children." Those 90 children today still in that program are paying $80 an hour to the woman who was laid off at Joseph Brant hospital, who walked down the street and opened up her own private clinic. That is the legacy of your government. I ask the member for York East to look into the case of hundreds and thousands of children across Ontario who are now into a user fee system just so they can speak their own language in this province. Yet you feel that we need junior kindergarten imposed at all levels.

I wish we had more time for this debate because there are a lot of issues here to be raised. I want to commend my colleague who has indicated that what the Conservatives believe in for early childhood education in this province is, first of all, true parental choice and that there should be some financial testing, so that those families in absolute need get the support for their child, but not a universally funded day care system in our schools, which is what this government is proposing. You know it's going to fail, because it doesn't have the support of the people and it isn't properly identified as academically helpful.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): This completes debate. The honourable member for Wellington has two minutes in response.

Mr Arnott: I want to thank the members who have spoken to this resolution: the member for Guelph -- I want even to thank him -- the member for York-Mackenzie, the member for London North, the member for Perth, the member for Victoria-Haliburton, the member for York East and the member for Burlington South.

I am quite disappointed with some of the comments that I've heard this morning. It appears that the New Democrats will not support this resolution and there appear to be enough of them in the chamber perhaps to defeat it. It appears the Liberals have indicated some measure of support.

I appreciate the sincere presentation of the member for York-Mackenzie on behalf of the Liberal Party. I think he demonstrated that there has been some movement on the Liberal Party's part to recognize that the initial policy in 1989 of -- you could call it "requiring," but to me "requiring" and "forcing" are synonymous in the case of provincial government downloading something on local government, forcing school boards to adopt junior kindergarten programs.

It appears now that the Liberal Party's position is moderated somewhat, that it would like to work with school boards in a cooperative way, so I think we've made some progress in that respect. But many of the questions that I asked in the context of my initial presentation have not been answered by the government side.

On the question of cost, the estimate we have seen, if as I believe 40,000 kids are in junior kindergarten in the next three years, will be something like $80 million. Again, we can talk about costs of programs but we must talk about them in the context of the financial situation that the Ontario people find themselves in today and the government increasing the debt, doubling the debt in its four years in office.

It took 120 years to accumulate a debt of $40 billion in this province, and in four short years of this irresponsible, profligate NDP government, they have doubled that debt. We know that this debt will eventually hold our children back in the future and we must speak against it.

I encourage all members of the Legislature to support this resolution.

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT (BLOOD-ALCOHOL), 1993 / LOI DE 1993 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE (PRÉSENCE D'ALCOOL DANS LE SANG)

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): We will now deal with ballot item number 47. Are there any members who object to a vote? If so, please rise.

Seeing none, we now are dealing with Mr Offer's motion, ballot item number 47. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour, please say "aye."

All those opposed, please say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

I declare the motion carried.

Shall the bill be ordered for committee of the whole House?

Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): Can we put that into the justice committee?

The Acting Speaker: Do we have a majority for the justice committee?

All those in favour of going to the justice committee, please rise.

All those opposed for this motion to go to the justice committee, please rise.

The majority is not in favour. Therefore, the bill will go to committee of the whole.

JUNIOR KINDERGARTEN

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): We will now deal with ballot item number 48 standing in the name of Mr Arnott. Are there any members opposed to a vote on this motion? If so, please rise.

All those in favour of Mr Arnott's motion, please say "aye."

All those opposed, please say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Call in the members; a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1203 to 1208.

The Acting Speaker: Could all members please take their seats.

We are now dealing with ballot item number 48, private member's notice of motion number 36, standing in the name of Mr Arnott.

All those in favour of Mr Arnott's resolution, please rise and remain standing until named by the clerk.

Ayes

Arnott, Beer, Brown, Callahan, Caplan, Carr, Crozier, Cunningham, Harnick, Hodgson, Jackson, Johnson (Don Mills), Kwinter, McLean, Miclash, Murphy, Offer, Poole, Ramsay, Runciman, Tilson, Turnbull, Waters, Witmer.

The Acting Speaker: All those opposed to Mr Arnott's resolution, please rise and remain standing.

Nays

Abel, Bisson, Carter, Cooper, Dadamo, Duignan, Fletcher, Frankford, Hansen, Harrington, Hayes, Hope, Huget, Johnson (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings), MacKinnon, Malkowski, Mammoliti, Marchese, Martin, Mathyssen, Mills, Murdock (Sudbury), Perruzza, Rizzo, Sutherland, Wessenger, Wilson (Frontenac-Addington), Wilson (Kingston and The Islands), Winninger, Wood.

The Acting Speaker: The ayes are 24; the nays are 30.

I declare the resolution lost.

It now being past 12 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 today.

The House recessed from 1210 to 1330.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

PAUL WATSON

Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): I rise and take this moment to congratulate Paul Watson of the Toronto Star as Canada's first Pulitzer Prize winner for his photograph of a dead American soldier being dragged by a mob through the streets of Mogadishu in Somalia. It is this photograph which prompted the United States Congress to reshape its policy in Somalia.

Pictures such as this push people into thinking about and discussing what is going on in other places. I do not believe that photos such as this are a mechanism to sell newspapers but rather to graphically explore the realities of war and its horrific cost. Photographs such as this do not and are not meant to sensationalize an event but rather to portray as best as can be done the truth of those events.

I wish to congratulate Mr Watson specifically, but also recognize that he is representative of many journalists who risk their lives day to day to bring the facts from far-off places to our attention. We must remember, as we celebrate Mr Watson's well-deserved award, that others not only risked their lives but lost them in their pursuit of unfolding events.

I congratulate Mr Watson on his award, and congratulations to all other media who bring us news from places far removed from where we happen to be.

CLOSING OF CAMPGROUNDS

Mr Noble Villeneuve (S-D-G & East Grenville): This statement is addressed to the Minister of Culture, Tourism and Recreation and also the Minister of Labour.

In eastern Ontario, the St Lawrence parks provide what is possibly the most important focus for tourism in the region, apart from the National Capital Commission. They are also an important source of local jobs. Ever since the former Liberal government announced the closure of two campgrounds and three parks in 1990 and the current government restraints added a further two parks in 1993, there have been efforts to reopen the parks through long-term leases.

These efforts have been only partially successful, with the result that we still have parks whose only purpose in recent years has been to grow weeds and grass. To the NDP, this appears to be a preferable alternative to job creation.

The main reason these parks are growing weeds is not the lack of individuals wanting to operate them. The main reason is the lack of progress from the Minister of Culture, Tourism and Recreation and the Minister of Labour. In order for these parks to be economically viable, they must be exempt from the existing collective agreement of the St Lawrence Parks Commission. The Successor Rights (Crown Transfers) Act and now Bill 40 require existing collective agreements to stay in effect when a new employer takes over the operation of one of these parks. The Minister of Labour can take that exemption away.

The excuse used by both Liberal and NDP governments to close these parks was that they were too expensive to operate. Potential private operators know very well that's true, and they can do a very good job. I hope the government addresses this before the summer.

ASSISTANCE TO NATIVE FARMERS

Mrs Irene Mathyssen (Middlesex): Earlier this week I accompanied the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, the Honourable Elmer Buchanan, and the parliamentary assistant for the Ontario Native Affairs Secretariat, David Winninger, to the first nations community of ON_ YO TE'A:KA in Middlesex.

For over 30 years, the ON_ YO TE'A:KA settlement and local municipal governments have tried to work with federal and provincial governments to resolve drainage problems in communities around the reserve and flooding problems on reserve lands. Until recently, these efforts have not been successful.

Early in our government's mandate, I met, as did Mr Winninger and Minister Buchanan, with the members of the native and non-native communities. The results of those efforts were realized last Monday. The Minister of Agriculture signed a memorandum of understanding with Chief Al Day, chairperson of the Southern First Nations, that provides provincial funding of $54,250 to conduct a study that will identify procedural mechanisms and funding arrangements that may allow outlet drains to be constructed on first nation territories and the identification of environmental concerns in preparation for a watershed approach to drainage planning.

The minister also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indian agricultural program of Ontario representative, Mr William Brant. This agreement provides $120,000 to ensure aboriginal farmers will receive loans for tile drainage under the same terms as other farmers in this province.

I would sincerely like to thank the minister, the first nations and David Winninger for their diligent efforts to make this important initiative work.

RACE RELATIONS

Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): I am rising to comment in essence on a television news clip I saw last night about some black and Asian students who were essentially concerned about how the issue of crime can become focused on a particular group.

I think it's important for us in this assembly to recognize that while we should be concerned about crime, victims and, unfortunately, perpetrators of criminal activities come from all backgrounds, and that while we, as legislators, have a responsibility to reflect the public mood, we have a responsibility to lead as well and to be maybe slightly different than the public mood. I think of Edmund Burke's famous speech to the electors of Bristol in that regard.

I think how difficult it must have been to be a black youth in the last few days as people have looked askance because of the Just Desserts situation, and how difficult it must be, for example, for black youth in my riding and I'm sure all across the city.

As we strive in this House to fight crime and make the city a better place to live, and the province, we also have to make extra efforts, it seems to me, to ensure that we do not, as legislators or as the media covering this, allow that fight against crime to become an attack on any group, but instead be focused on a way to make our neighbourhoods safe and secure for all of us.

PROPERTY ASSESSMENT

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): My constituents in the riding of York Mills are concerned that they are paying punitive property taxes and demand that the whole question of inequity in property taxes be addressed.

We need major property tax reform in Ontario. You have done nothing to address this issue since you were elected. The report of the Fair Tax Commission, an $8.6-million report on this question, is gathering dust. I do not subscribe to all of its recommendations, but it does underscore the need for major reform in this area.

Rental apartment buildings continue to be taxed at a higher rate than homes and other buildings like co-ops and condominiums. The president of the Federation of North York Tenants Associations, Bob Gosschalk, has said "that residential tenants are being discriminated against in a brutal way." He is absolutely correct.

In addition, many owners of new infill single-family homes feel that they too are discriminated against by the existing assessment process which attempts to assign 1940's values to new homes.

Small tenants in shopping malls are in danger of bankruptcy, unless changes are made immediately, due to some recent precedent-setting appeals.

Premier, the Assessment Act needs to be completely overhauled. The tax burden must be distributed on a more fair and equitable basis. This is an issue of grave concern to property owners and tenants alike. It's time for real property tax reform.

CITIZEN OF THE YEAR

Mr Donald Abel (Wentworth North): Next week the town of Dundas will be honouring its 1993 Citizen of the Year. The selection committee has now completed the difficult task of narrowing the long list of nominees to six finalists. They are Dick Beemer, Amar Chahil, John Farnan, Frederic Hopkinson, Colin MacDonald and Ian Stubbs.

The six finalists were all nominated for their tireless dedication and support within the town of Dundas: Mr Beemer for his work with senior citizens; Mr Chahil for his dedicated to the Dundas youth soccer; Mr Farnan for his work with the Dundas Valley School of Art and the local architectural conservation advisory committee; Mr Hopkinson for his long history of involvement with the Air Cadet League of Canada, the Hamilton air show and the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum; Mr Stubbs for his volunteer work with the Dundas Skating Club and other community activities.

Colin MacDonald, who unfortunately was recently killed in an automobile accident, has been nominated for his many years of involvement in environmental issues.

Dundas is truly blessed to have people who are always willing to give so much of their time to their community. They have, in their own way, made Dundas an enjoyable place to live.

Congratulations to all the nominees and finalists, and thank you for your kind and generous support. You are all winners.

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WATER EXTRACTION AGREEMENTS

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): Today I want to rise to revisit an issue about which I have presented a private member's bill to this House; that is, the issue of water extraction, particularly from underground aquifers.

Water is the lifeblood of this country, as it is for all of humankind and all of the animals and the creation that exists around us, and it is astounding that we continue to issue bit by bit water permits that allow individuals to basically extract as much water as the permit will allow without understanding the very serious implications of this piecemeal approval of applications.

I want to call on the Minister of Environment and Energy today to institute a moratorium on the issuance of any new permits and to require a review by the Ministry of Environment and Energy of any transfer of the right to take water under any of the existing permits to take water that have currently been given.

The reason is this: There are day by day new examples of the wholesale movement of water from our province to other areas. Some of them have been tracked, but many of them are misunderstood or not understood at all. It is time that we as legislators took the bull by the horns and actually wrestled this issue to a conclusion that all of our constituents will understand.

VICTIMS OF CRIME

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): Yesterday, in response to the CAVEAT report card on justice reforms, which gave our Premier a failing grade, the Attorney General stated she was moving on several issues on behalf of victims. However, the facts do not support her statements, since the actions of her own ministry officials have slowed down the critical justice reform recommendations before the standing committee on justice.

In June 1991, the Advisory Board on Victims' Issues released its report entitled Victims of Crime in Ontario: A Vision for the 1990's, which contained 13 detailed recommendations for improving services and compensation for crime victims. That report is an indictment of the NDP government's inactivity on victims' rights.

In May 1993, the PC Party under standing order 125 caused the justice committee to consider justice reforms including a bill of rights and a review of criminal injury compensation. Priscilla de Villiers, Debbie Mahaffy and many other victims presented their concerns.

In June of last year, I asked the Attorney General to respond to these recommendations and any implementations to date. To her shame, the committee had to wait seven months for her response, a fact that held up the work of the justice committee.

On October 3, 1992, Attorney General Howard Hampton promised to table legislation for a dedicated fine surcharge fund to help crime victims. Nothing happened.

On June 25, 1993, Marion Boyd pre-empted the work of the standing committee and stated she would bring in that legislation in the fall of 1993. Nothing happened.

Ontario's the last province to create a dedicated fund for the victims' fine surcharge, in spite of the government's repeated promises. This is further evidence of the government's failing grade.

Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): Violence and victims of crime are uppermost in nearly everyone's mind today. This is a complex issue that we on all sides of this House must work together to address. It affects all of us. Just last week, in the city of Niagara Falls, the mother of a murder victim spoke to a group of women. For many years I have been involved with a feminist group in my city that is concerned about the causes of violence against women.

A lot of factors are contributing to this frightening violence that we are experiencing. We must not use any opportunistic political gamesmanship. This issue is far too serious. Our society in Ontario has always been and strives to be a model to the world of how to live together with respect and tolerance. Our society is very precious to us.

There are no easy answers. There are no quick solutions. I ask all members to look at very carefully and to evaluate very carefully every possible solution to this complex problem and to act here in this Legislature in the most responsible way, and also to encourage and work with the federal level to also act.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

WORKERS' COMPENSATION

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): It has been apparent for some time now that Ontario's workers' compensation system is in critical need of reform and renewal. All across North America, governments are grappling with the need to make their systems of workers' compensation more viable, efficient and affordable.

In Ontario, workers have become increasingly critical of the impact of earlier legislation and of the difficulty of getting back to work. Employers worry that their costs may have to rise beyond what they can afford in the future because of present and future liabilities.

A change that will meet the twin challenges of real fairness and fiscal responsibility is not easy. But it is essential that the change be balanced. It must speak to injured workers and speak to the needs of the broader economy.

A year ago, I asked my Labour-Management Advisory Committee to find areas of consensus around WCB reform and they made substantial progress. Today my government is going to build on that momentum and bring forward a number of measures to fix the workers' compensation system.

We are going to get workers back on the job more quickly, we are going to help older injured workers and tackle the critical urgency of the board's finances.

We expect to see immediate and positive results from these measures. Long-term issues will be turned over to a royal commission for further study, the details of which will be announced in the coming weeks.

It's also my duty to inform the House today that the board's current chair, Odoardo Di Santo, and its vice-chair, Brian King, will both be stepping down when their terms of office expire later this month.

These gentlemen have served with distinction since 1991 in what is surely one of the most difficult and challenging areas of government. I am personally grateful to both of them. Their successors will be part of a newly revamped structure at the senior levels of the WCB. The new WCB will have a fully bipartite board of directors, with equal representation from labour and management.

Throughout this time of transition, the government will be working with the WCB to establish its strategic and its financial direction.

There will be a transition team involving WCB and government officials, along with representatives from business and labour. The transition team will be headed up by Bill Blundell, who is the former president and chief executive officer of General Electric Canada and now a director of a number of Canadian companies. An interim CEO for the WCB will be appointed in the next few weeks.

Injured workers' pensions will be indexed according to a method known as the Friedland formula. Labour and business both agree that this formula is an acceptable compromise to the current system of full indexation.

There are two important exceptions. Approximately 45,000 older injured workers and family members who are living in difficult circumstances because of minimal benefits will continue to receive fully indexed pensions. Survivors' pensions will be fully indexed and so will the pensions of those who are fully disabled.

In addition, the lifetime pensions of many unemployed older workers will be boosted by $200 a month, and that will not be subject to social assistance clawback. We are sending a strong message that injured workers will be treated with compassion and justice by the Workers' Compensation Board.

The adoption of the Friedland formula and other changes, including strengthened return-to-work measures, will reduce the Workers' Compensation Board's unfunded liability by some $18 billion over the next 20 years. That is a substantial reduction, and when combined with other financial and administrative measures, the additional savings will be in the billions over the next two decades.

Our government has believed all along that it was possible to hold the line on employers' compensation costs without reducing benefits, and that's exactly what we've done. The Minister of Labour will table legislation in this House to effect these changes in the very near future.

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As to the longer term, I am announcing today that a royal commission will be established with a wide-ranging mandate to conduct a thorough review of the options and alternatives to the current system of workers' compensation in Ontario. I am doing this at the request of both labour and management.

These are the first vital steps towards designing a compensation system that will serve the workers of Ontario into the next century. Getting the Workers' Compensation Board back on track is in everybody's interest.

Workers need security and justice, and they will get it. Business needs financial stability and will get it. The people of Ontario, rather than somehow sensing that the board is a drain on the province's economic prospects, now have a clear sense of change and reform.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Responses?

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): The first thing I'd like to do is congratulate the Premier for finally firing Mr Di Santo and Mr King, a move that we've been calling for for some time. That's obvious in this statement. What is not obvious is that he must have fired the Minister of Labour as well, because you would have expected Bob Mackenzie to make this statement. I don't know what other job you've got lined up for him, but that's a good decision too, Premier, to fire the Minister of Labour, along with these two.

I don't see anything in here except some smoke and mirrors and some attempts by the Premier to deflect any criticism off to a royal commission into the future. What did he say about rates? Business communities have been hit with 30% to 50% to 75% increases in their rates by this government, by this board, and the Premier did nothing to address that.

The Premier touts his Premier's Labour-Management Advisory Committee process. The management caucus brought out a report which they released. They got together with the labour caucus, got beat up by everybody involved on the government side and had to back off addressing rates or addressing any of these substantive issues, such as expansion of coverage or anything else that all people in this province, including injured workers, are concerned about. You can talk about your PLMAC process as being something wonderful. We all know the wheels fell off it last week, Premier, and you know that as well as I do.

There is nothing on coverage. What happened to the issues? Don't just shake your head. Why didn't you tell us about that? Everyone is sitting here waiting to see some kind of leadership on the issue of coverage from this Premier. We've seen nothing on the benefits; we've seen no guarantees about freezing rates.

As a matter of fact, if you just take one aspect of this statement, where the Premier says, "The adoption of the Friedland formula and other changes, including strengthened return-to-work measures" -- let me just ask you, what are those other changes? Are those other changes increased rates to business to pay for what you in fact have no idea what it's going to cost? You have not analysed the impact of the $200 a month. That has to be analysed. Where is the money going to come from if you're showing any kind of responsible leadership in the area of reform of workers' compensation?

Premier, you know that I've been out on the road for two months on this issue, meeting with injured workers. This system is not only broken, it is clearly broke. This system has no financial leadership coming from the government, and obviously, since you're firing the chair and the vice-chair, you would at least agree with the opposition in that there is no fiscal responsibility and leadership coming from them.

What about the unfunded liability? We understand that the liability is increasing at a rate of $2 million a day, seven days a week. It is the mother of all unfunded liabilities in this country. What did you say about the unfunded liability -- $18 billion over 20 years?

Let me tell you, the Friedland formula in year one reduces the unfunded liability by $3 billion. Don't tell me that you're adopting a formula to save money, because you're stealing that money to pay for your other plans, the other changes that you know about. A billion dollars a year in a system that has, we understand, an $11.5-billion unfunded liability, and you're going to hide behind a royal commission.

We're talking about December 1995. This government will be long gone. They will be but a footnote in the history of this province. The devastation that this Treasurer has laid on the entire province, on the entire infrastructure, the Premier is now laying at the foot of the Workers' Compensation Board. We were hoping for some real leadership, for some real courage. Address the concerns of the injured workers. Address the concerns of the business community.

I see no reference in this to the medical community. What kind of nonsense is this? The most important group in reforming workers' compensation are the doctors and the chiropractors who work within the system. The Premier has done nothing to address and use that system. This is nothing more than a sad day and a great disappointment on the part of this government.

Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): This is an announcement that was long awaited, but I can tell you it is an extreme disappointment to me personally and to the people in the province of Ontario, because I can assure you that this announcement today does not meet the challenges of fairness or fiscal responsibility. It demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the financial crisis facing the WCB.

Indeed, I can tell you that this is only going to further contribute to more chaos and uncertainty and drive business further away from the province. If you put in charge of this province a transition team, if you put in charge of this WCB bipartite government before you even work with the royal commission report, I can tell you it will create uncertainty. This transition is not going to be handled very effectively.

In fact, what's going to happen here is that we're not going to see any reduction in the unfunded liability of $11.5 billion. Under the figures that you have given us, we are going to see it increasing by the year 2014. Yes, you've indicated we'll save $18 billion, but it had been projected to be at least $31 billion, and I don't believe your figure of $18 billion.

I can tell you that this announcement is not good news for the taxpayers in the province of Ontario. It is not good news for the international community, because you know that the Canadian bond-rating system has indicated that this is going to negatively impact on the bond rating. It's not going to reduce the pressure on the assessment rates for the employers and this is not going to re-establish a fairer workplace.

There is nothing in here. It is void of any proposal to reduce the real costs of the system. There are no expenditure cuts. You can't continue to pay money to injured workers without looking at reducing the benefit level. We have been suggesting that this should be reduced. We should be reducing it and putting it in line with other provinces like Manitoba and New Brunswick, to 85% or 80%. You cannot continue, as you are doing, to expand the benefits. It will only mean higher assessment rates for employers in this province, who are already, some of them, facing looming bankruptcy.

Until you have in place a plan to deal with the unfunded liability, this announcement is empty, it is totally meaningless. A question I have for you is, does the board have the legal authority to operate under this new bipartite governance model? I do question the bipartite governance model. You are leaving a body in fiscal crisis in extreme peril by changing the governance body and introducing the bipartite process.

Bipartism has not worked in this province. A good example is the Workplace Health and Safety Agency, which was set up by the Liberals. They have been unable to cooperate and they have been unable to reach agreement or a consensus ever since they were established.

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What you do by putting bipartitism in place is have the government withdraw and you put the labour unions in charge of determining the agenda in this province. I can tell you that is not in the best interests of the injured workers or the people of this province.

I'm very disappointed that on the bipartite governance body we're going to have representation only by unions. You talk about four people from the labour side. Well, the only people who will be represented are people nominated by unions, and we know that unions don't reflect the wishes of the people in this province. The majority of workers will not be represented on this governance model.

I can also say to you that I question why we would put two citizens on this body. Why would we bring in two people who have no knowledge of the system, two people who have no accountability? I think we need to remember that it's the employers in this province who pay the price of the system.

I would also suggest to you that if you put in a CEO, it should be an insurance executive, someone who has the capabilities.

Finally, in conclusion, as far as your royal commission is concerned, it's too late and there's nothing there that is going --

The Speaker: The member's time has expired.

REFERRAL OF QUESTION

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): On Tuesday, April 12, 1994, the member for London North (Mrs Cunningham) raised a point of order on the referral of a question during question period from one minister to another. The Minister of Environment and Energy (Hon Bud Wildman), the member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr Runciman), the member for Parry Sound (Mr Eves) and the member for Brampton South (Mr Callahan) all contributed to the discussion on this issue. In addition, the member for Etobicoke West (Mr Stockwell) rose on a similar point yesterday.

Members may know that one of the first things a Speaker must consider when disagreement arises as to the interpretation of a standing order is how the rule in question has been interpreted by his or her predecessors. In concert with that, the Speaker must review any applicable authorities and past practice.

Standing order 33(f) states: "A minister to whom an oral question is directed may refer the question to another minister who is responsible for the subject-matter to which the question relates."

In reviewing precedents on the referral of questions from one minister to another it is very clear that this has for many years been an accepted practice in this chamber and one in which the Speaker does not become involved. There have been a number of rulings by various Speakers on the very issue of where the right to redirect a question belongs.

In particular, I refer members to a decision on February 9, 1987, in which Speaker Edighoffer stated: "The right to redirect belongs to the minister and not to the questioner. This has been borne out in reviewing Speaker Turner's rulings from 1981 to 1984."

This is but one example of a Speaker's ruling which confirms that the right to determine whether or not a question should be redirected rests solely with the minister to whom the question was addressed.

Finally, I refer members to the 21st edition of Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice at page 286, where it states: "It is a long-established principle that decisions on the transfer of questions rest with ministers and it is not a matter in which the Chair seeks to intervene."

VISITORS

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): I invite all members to join me in welcoming to our chamber, seated in the Speaker's gallery, a visiting delegation headed by Mr Dror Zeigerman, consul general of Israel to Toronto. He is accompanied by a number of other important dignitaries. Please welcome our guests to our chamber.

ISRAELI INDEPENDENCE COMMEMORATION

Hon Bob Rae (Premier and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): I believe the House leaders have arranged for an agreed time of statements by me and by the members of the opposition with respect to the commemoration of the 46th anniversary of the foundation of the state of Israel.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Is that agreed? Agreed.

Hon Mr Rae: Last night many members of the Legislature and my wife, Arlene, and I had an opportunity to attend at Beth Tzedec synagogue a celebration. It was really a wonderful evening of song, of celebration and also of reflection. The consul general, who's here with us today, spoke very movingly and thoughtfully about the mixed emotions that the Jewish community in this province and country feels on this day and as well, obviously, the very profound mixed emotions that are now at play in Israel itself.

It is difficult for me to find the words to express my own feelings on this occasion. Just a few short months ago, I had the opportunity of representing the province, together with a number of business leaders from many different sectors, to have what really was a wonderful visit to Israel, as well as to Jordan and the West Bank. Other premiers have gone in the past, and there is and has been for many, many years a very special tie between this province and the state of Israel.

I know that the leader of the Conservative Party was there just a few days ago. I haven't had a chance to talk with him about his trip, but I'm sure he experienced, as I did, the sense of vibrancy, the tremendous dynamism of Israeli society, its extraordinary sense of fellow feeling and its outward look to the world, its determination, the great determination of its people, as well as the sense of being on the edge of enormous change, which always brings with it great emotional and personal challenges for all of us.

I'm happy to announce today that later on this afternoon I will be signing a memorandum of understanding of cooperation between the province of Ontario and the state of Israel, which will follow on from the discussions which I had with the Minister of Industry and Trade of the state of Israel as well as with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister.

It's really an expression of what I think would be a common feeling among many of us in this House that we ought to be finding more ways to express, through our business and commercial relations, what we have already been expressing in terms of our personal lives and work, and that is the increased ties between Israel and Ontario.

Our trade has been small, but it can grow, and in fact there's enormous potential. We saw, even in the short time that we were there, great opportunities, and a number of companies which were with us were able to really expand their own horizons and look to more trading opportunities. We believe, if there is, as we call upon in this agreement, a fuller trade agreement between the government of Canada and the state of Israel, that Ontario, Ontario business, Ontario science, Ontario universities, Ontario research and development, many of our cultural organizations, all will benefit from these associations and from these ties.

So on this day we want to celebrate with the community the 46th anniversary of the founding of the state. As I said last night, the Canadian-Jewish community had a very important role to play in the struggle for independence. All Canadians, through their governments, were supportive and very much involved in the organization of the state of Israel and in the preservation of the peace in 1956, again in 1967, and 1972, and it's been a long, long association we've had between our country and our province and the state of Israel. As Premier, I'm enormously proud of this relationship.

We celebrated here just a few short months ago the signing of the Washington agreement. We continue to want to work with the people of Israel, with those living on the West Bank, with the other citizens of Arab countries, in effecting a true and genuine peace between Israel and its neighbours, and we will do everything we can in a practical way to help that process.

But above all, it's important for us on this day to express our solidarity with the people of Israel, with the Jewish community in this country, which is such an important part of my own life, and say how much we celebrate this day and how delighted we are to have the consul general and members of the Jewish community with us here today.

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Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): Today we stand, each of us a representative of our own party, to mark the 46th anniversary of the existence of the state of Israel. I would like to take just a moment to reflect on the achievement of one dream and the hope of realizing yet another.

This day is commemorated and observed by people in every corner of the world, and that is because we are all prepared to celebrate that on this day in 1948 out of the blood and the ashes of the Holocaust there came into being a Jewish state, a national homeland.

This was indeed the fulfilment of a dream held by people who had been living homeless and scattered to the four corners of the earth for over two millennia, the dream of a place they could call their own, a haven for every Jew on earth.

Against what people might have considered in 1948 to have been all odds, the people of Israel have made the desert bloom. They have created a political system that is fiercely democratic, and they have built a modern state renowned for its scientific, its cultural and its social achievements.

I've not yet had the opportunity of visiting Israel, but I understand it to be a country as rich in natural beauty as it is in history and tradition. Yet it is also a place of war and of tragedy and suffering.

Just as we all celebrated the anniversary of the existence of the state of Israel, we all rejoiced this year when a peace treaty was signed by the state of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, something that not many people ever expected to see in their lifetime, and at last, we all want to believe an end to the bloodshed is in sight.

Yet in the aftermath of that historic event, those who deny and reject the peace process have sought to derail it. Too many lives have been lost as innocent people are killed by those who prefer war over peace, bloodshed over coexistence and death over life. Yet we must be confident that the peacemakers will prevail over the warmongers, and we believe that people of good conscience on both sides want peace and will strive to achieve it.

We have great hopes for the peace process. The creation of the state of Israel has been called the miracle of the 20th century. We believe that the second miracle is within reach now, an Israel of peace.

On behalf of my colleagues in the official opposition, I would like to extend my congratulations to the government and to the people of Israel, and to join with them in celebrating the 46th anniversary of the achievement of the dream in the proclamation of the existence of the state of Israel.

May we now see the dream of peace realized. Shalom.

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): I too am pleased to rise today to acknowledge the 46th anniversary of the state of Israel. It's also one of those rare occasions when it's a privilege to be able to rise in the House when we have 130 voices virtually unanimous from three different parties in celebrating today.

I extend greetings of course, on behalf of my caucus and my party, to the consul general, Mr Zeigerman, and of course to the vice-consul and members of B'nai Brith and of the Canadian Jewish Congress in the gallery today.

It's a special occasion, as you would expect, for me. I believe you're aware that I've just returned from a hectic trip to Israel and to Rome. I was pleased to be part of a worldwide delegation of people who joined His Holiness Pope John Paul II at the Vatican to acknowledge the Shoah. As a gentile member of the board of directors of the Toronto Yad va-Shem, I was honoured, as was my wife, to participate in this special ceremony in concert with some 7,000 people, many from around the world, at the Vatican.

As part of this trip, I was able to spend four days in Israel. I witnessed myself the beauty of the land and the industry of the people. I met with government officials and spoke with ordinary citizens about the challenges and the triumphs of the state of Israel. I got my best information, as I do in Ontario, from the cab drivers.

Just over a week ago I stayed in a kibbutz very close to the Lebanese border. We toured the very lush valleys of the area and we saw the fields and fruit trees of the area. We visited several of the holy sites, including Nazareth and the shores of the Sea of Galilee. We drove along the Golan Heights and the West Bank.

Travelling down the Jordan Valley was a miracle. It was amazing to see the industriousness of the communities and the success the people had in turning desert into lush, productive farm land.

In 46 years, the state of Israel has faced many challenges, not just challenges of a military nature but the challenges imposed by nature itself. Upon entering the holy city of Jerusalem, I was captured by the beauty, the history and the majesty of the city. My wife, Janet, my son, Michael, and I were personally touched at what we saw at the Yad va-Shem Memorial. We felt deeply honoured to plant a tree in the Peace Forest overlooking the city.

I must say to the Premier that our hosts at the Peace Forest -- I insisted on knowing where the tree was that was planted by the Premier of my province in that forest, so the representative from the Jewish National Fund pointed the tree out to me. It is flourishing; I watered it. On behalf of 10 million Ontarians, I watered it with pure water that came from the River Jordan, not something you have in mind.

All the people of Israel deserve to live in peace and security. We know they face much conflict and that conflict continues. I was pleased to be in Israel while important negotiations with the Palestinians were under way. I spoke with representatives of the Knesset and the Israeli foreign office. I visited New Orient House and spoke with Palestinian representatives.

Finding a negotiated solution to these conflicts will not be easy, but I detected a will on all sides, official and in the streets, that they felt there was a bigger enemy, Palestinians and Israelis, than each other: that they did not want to see the next 46 years for themselves and their children as the last 46 years were. So while it won't be easy, I believe there is a will there to reach a peaceful settlement.

Israel rose from the dark days of the Second World War. Today we celebrate the 46th anniversary. It's a beautiful land. The land flourishes when it is tended with plowshares and pruning hooks, in the words of Isaiah.

Let us pray that the peace process can succeed, because all people can flourish when they know they are secure. Chag Sameach.

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ORAL QUESTIONS

PUBLIC SAFETY

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): My first question is for the Solicitor General. Minister, this week I will be holding a conference on Metro Toronto's future, with several hundred people from across Metro attending.

As a part of the preparation for this conference, we sent out a survey on Metro issues and we received something over 2,000 responses. It was very clear in the responses to that survey that the number two issue on people's minds after jobs was clearly the concern about crime and safety, and I tell you that those responses were received before anxiety was heightened by the tragedy of Just Desserts.

Last week you indicated in this House your support for an immediate review of crime and safety issues before the standing committee on administration of justice. I thought we had agreed that we needed to take immediate steps to ensure the safety of the streets of this and other Ontario cities, and yet today we were told by the government House leader that in spite of those words of support, your government is not yet ready to act.

Minister, I say to you again today that the high level of concern about crime and safety means that the public will not tolerate delay. So I ask you, why are you delaying this committee's work? Why is your government getting bogged down instead of being ready to take immediate action to ensure that the people of this city and the cities of this province are safe?

Hon David Christopherson (Solicitor General): I am of course aware of the meeting that took place among the House leaders earlier today. I was disappointed to hear that there was some clear disagreement on what was said and what commitments were made. Let me try from the government's point of view to put things back on track.

When the honourable member rose in the House and asked if indeed the government would be interested in a non-partisan -- however, all-party -- legislative review of this issue in the interests, as I understood it, of trying to deal with this in a comprehensive way and not to play politics with it, I responded in kind, I believe, in saying that we were very much interested in looking at that, if that were possible.

Since then there have been a couple of very brief meetings. You and I have also spoken on a couple of occasions, very briefly, about this, and also with your critic. There have been discussions with the House leader on the part of the third party. At the last meeting we had, my understanding was that Thursday's meeting would allow us to get a sense of where the parties were in terms of the possible parameters --

Interjection.

Hon Mr Christopherson: Mr Speaker, I'm very interested in answering the question if the honourable member would please be quiet enough to allow me to answer the question.

I said to the Leader of the Opposition that Thursday would not be a decision-making meeting but that we would move from there. Now I understand there's some question of whether or not today was supposed to be a deciding meeting.

I'm prepared to discuss this further. I see the Speaker asking me to sit down. I want to continue this and will do so under supplementary questions.

Mrs McLeod: Disappointment and some sense of disagreement at a committee is not going to respond to the kind of frustration and concern and real anger that people of this province will feel if the government and its legislators refuse to take action. I don't believe that a willingness to take action on these issues that are causing such anxiety for people is in any way playing politics, and I'm somewhat dismayed that that should be a suggestion in the minister's response.

When I meet this weekend with people from across Metro who are talking about making Metro Toronto work, they are clearly going to be asking what government and what this Legislature are prepared to do to deal with their concerns.

I just want to take a moment to tell the minister the sense of concern and urgency that we are hearing from people in response to our survey. A senior citizen from Scarborough wrote:

"I have daughters and granddaughters, and they and their friends are nervous about being out, especially after dark. Many people over the age of 25 have stopped going out at night. They don't feel safe."

A person from downtown Toronto wrote and said:

"Street crime is the most important issue. I've lived near Yonge Street for eight years and I rarely see older people, single women or children walking after 7 pm. These groups perceive Yonge Street as unsafe. Let's change this."

A young woman from the west end of the city writes:

"One killing a week in Toronto is way too much. For children to live their dreams, we must have peace."

Minister, there is no question about the kinds of issues we need to deal with. They have been raised over and over again. They include community policing, gun control, tougher sentencing and plea bargaining on gun offences. We do not need to wait any longer. Why will you not get the committee under way now? I ask you today if you will commit to putting these items on the agenda of the justice committee and commit to taking action when the committee completes its work.

Hon Mr Christopherson: It's the last part of the member's question that indeed has us talking about this. The fact of the matter is that this is not business as usual, where the government would refer something to a standing committee. The honourable Leader of the Opposition said, "Would the government be prepared to consider an all-party, non-partisan...?" I and my colleagues took that to mean that if we were to do this, it would involve a certain level of discussion, negotiation, if you will, so that hopefully there was an agreement on what it was the committee would do. To merely say, "Yes, we're going to do this differently," and not have decided what it is you're agreeing to I don't think is a practical way to approach this.

We did say from the outset that the initial discussions would take place at the House leaders' weekly meeting. That took place today. The question now is, having heard those discussions, is this government prepared --

Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): That was not a discussion. You came with nothing today.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order, the member for St George-St David.

Hon Mr Christopherson: -- to respond to the offer, and do we believe there's a possibility to respond in this fashion?

I say to the honourable member that after today -- most of us are in our riding tomorrow -- the government, my colleagues and I, will review the issues that are before us on Monday, and by Tuesday we'll advise the opposition parties about whether we believe there's enough room to do this. If there is, we'll begin discussions immediately; if not, then let's go about the usual way of dealing with this matter. The opposition will do what it does; the government will press ahead with the responsibilities we have.

But let me end by saying I'm still very optimistic that we can do this, and I sincerely hope that whatever miscommunication took place today does not prevent us from possibly doing this in the way that the honourable member offered earlier this week.

Mrs McLeod: The minister's right: This is not business as usual. That's why we raised this issue as we did last week. This is not a negotiating session. This is not miscommunication that's getting in the way. What we called for was a willingness on the part of this government to sit down and talk about immediate action on issues that concern people, that would allow us to relieve people's concerns about the safety of the streets. We talked about urgent, immediate response to people's concerns, and that's what we are calling for.

Yesterday one of my colleagues raised the issue that while the government has restrictions on such things as driving and tobacco and alcohol and films, there are absolutely no restrictions on the purchase of bullets. I was appalled, quite frankly, not having been in the House yesterday, to realize that it is possible for criminals to simply walk into a store and buy bullets for guns that can be used in illegally obtained guns.

There is no question that one of the issues that needs to be dealt with is the issue of gun-related violence, but we believe there are some very specific and very immediate steps this government can take to ensure public safety.

Our caucus will be introducing a bill today to restrict the sale of bullets to those who own guns legally as certified by a valid Outdoors Card or its equivalent. I ask the minister if he will support this bill to prevent the purchase of bullets for illegal guns, at least as a signal to the public that you are indeed committed to action.

Hon Mr Christopherson: There were two issues, and I'll respond to both of them.

The first one was a continuation of the first two questions on whether we would be able to refer a matter to the standing committee in a way that all the parties could agree. I still maintain that this is a reasonable approach we have taken. The alternative extreme of what the honourable member is suggesting, in terms of will we commit to a blank cheque, is like asking you, would you agree to go into the committee and we'll just go ahead and set the agenda and you agree that that's the kind of work we'll do. I would think not.

Therefore, I again commit to the honourable member that the government needs a chance on Monday to review what has transpired today, and by Tuesday we will respond to the honourable member. If indeed it looks like this is doable, because it is a good idea, if we can achieve it, then we will begin negotiations immediately and there should be no need for delay.

On the second part of her second supplementary, let me say that I have reviewed this issue with my ministry officials and I'll comment in two ways: One is to reiterate the comments of the Premier to say that we are very much interested in looking at this issue. I haven't yet seen your bill. Obviously we need to take a look at that, and this issue may again become part of the items we could look at as part of an all-party committee review.

The second part is that the honourable member should know there is real disagreement as to whether we have the clear jurisdictional ability. However, I'm not standing on that and saying that therefore we can't do anything. But I am raising the point that there is a legitimate constitutional question.

The Speaker: Could the minister conclude his response, please.

Hon Mr Christopherson: However, the Attorney General and I and the Premier are prepared to use our offices and the offer from the federal government, that if we need its cooperation, then we will certainly seek that out in as aggressive a way and in a cooperative attempt as we would need to. I wouldn't see that preventing us, but let's acknowledge it's not necessarily ours to decide alone.

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DANGEROUS OFFENDERS

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): A new question again on the subject of people's anxieties and of violence and the failure of this government to take action. In this case, I will pose the question to the Premier.

Representatives of CAVEAT were here yesterday, Canadians Against Violence Everywhere Advocating its Termination, and they were here to condemn your government's failure to act on the recommendations of the Yeo inquiry.

Many of those recommendations focus on how the public can be given greater protection against dangerous offenders and, in the case of this particular inquiry, it was especially to protect people against known violent sexual offenders.

There have been three coroners' inquests in the last two years. All have made recommendations about the way that we handle dangerous offenders in our justice system, and each of the inquests was called to deal with a murder that was the result of a dangerous offender slipping through the system.

In each of the cases of those three coroners' juries, the citizens on those juries put their heart and their soul into making recommendations that would fix the problems that resulted in the deaths of these people, and I ask why you have not acted on the solutions that these citizens put forward in good faith. Why are you not doing everything that you possibly can to protect the people of this province from known dangerous offenders?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): I'm going to refer this to the minister responsible, the Attorney General.

Hon Marion Boyd (Attorney General): As I indicated yesterday, the concerns that are raised by the coroners' juries and by the CAVEAT report are concerns that we certainly share.

We have taken very vigorous action since we came into government in terms of the whole issue of how to best deal with serious interpersonal crime. A lot of the action that's taken place, the revamping of our court system and so on, has been so we can focus our resources on ensuring that those serious crimes are met.

The speaker will recall that when we came into office the backlog of cases had created a situation called the Askov crisis, which in fact was a huge backlog of cases, and there was a Supreme Court decision that the delay that was being caused was unconstitutional. As a result, many court cases were lost because of the unreasonable delay. We took action to change that, and we have turned that around. Court cases are now proceeding appropriately, and we are doing what we can.

The other issue is the dangerous offender designation. This government is very proud of the vigour with which we have instructed crown attorneys to look at the application for dangerous offender situations, and we have indeed been very successful in our applications before the court.

Mrs McLeod: There are some very specific steps that each of the coroners' juries have indicated can be taken right here in the province of Ontario, and quite clearly, Priscilla de Villiers believed that this government can take specific steps. That's why she came here yesterday, and that's why, remarkably, the chief coroner of the province of Ontario came here with her.

The coroner's inquest into the Yeo case simply recommended, and I take just one specific recommendation, that this government study the implementation of an Ontario central registry for violent sexual offenders. I ask the minister, what possible reason can you find for not at least proceeding with a study of whether this would help and how it could be made to work?

Hon Mrs Boyd: Along with the attorneys general across the country, this whole issue of how to track dangerous and high-risk offenders is of concern to all of us. The member will be well aware that the kind of registry that's suggested raises very serious constitutional issues, and we all have to be mindful of those.

At our recent federal-provincial-territorial meetings, we very clearly indicated our willingness, all of us, a unanimous willingness, to work with the federal government to find ways within our constitutional responsibilities that we could track dangerous and high-risk offenders. We pledged to work together with the ministers of health of our various jurisdictions to look at how the mental health provisions could work together with the justice provisions to ensure that the kind of tragedy that was the subject of that inquest could not happen again.

Mrs McLeod: I just don't think it's good enough to go on telling people that we are meeting and discussing or that there are some bureaucratic reasons for not acting or that in fact it may fall into the jurisdiction of another government. It's quite clear, once again, on this issue that there are steps which this government can take.

The Yeo inquiry recommended that you study the implementation of this kind of a registry for the province of Ontario. The Stephenson inquiry recommended that a national registry for known violent sex offenders be established. The Kerr inquiry this week recommended a central registry for all violent psychiatric patients in the system.

Clearly, there is an overwhelming consensus that there is a problem and that this problem needs to be fixed and it is within the jurisdiction of the province to take action on at least a provincial registry. We simply cannot sit back and wait for another inquest into another brutal murder or another sexual assault in order to act. We need action from this government now.

Minister, I'm urging you to act and I ask, are you not prepared, as a first step, to move towards the establishment of a provincial registry for violent offenders?

Hon Mrs Boyd: I'm astonished that the Leader of the Opposition would call constitutional concerns "bureaucratic delays," quite astonished.

We have looked at it and we would say and we would urge the Leader of the Opposition to recognize that we, particularly, as the province of Ontario, with the kind of part that we play in the national prison system and the fact that most people who would be in this category of high-risk offenders would have been convicted and assigned to a federal prison, are in a situation that is very unusual compared to most other jurisdictions. The member is also aware that the federal prison system moves prisoners from province to province.

The only thing that makes sense, as the Stephenson inquiry showed, was a national register that in fact would deal with this on a national level. I have said to the member that our province has committed ourselves to working with all of our counterparts to achieve what we can that is going to meet the test of constitutional validity. We continue to do that. We share the concern but we do not have the facile kind of solutions that would ignore the constitutional reality that is now Canada.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): New question, third party, the honourable leader of the third party.

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

Applause.

Mr Harris: That's all right; go ahead.

Applause.

Mr Harris: I hope the leader of the Liberal Party is aware of how many times we asked the same question of Ian Scott that she's asking today to the Attorney General.

WORKERS' COMPENSATION BOARD

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): My question is to the Premier. Concerning your announcement today on the WCB, the management members that you appointed to your advisory council on WCB point out that the unfunded liability of the WCB before today's announcement would reach $52 billion by the year 2014. With today's changes, their calculations say the unfunded liability of WCB by the year 2014 will be $34 billion, $3 billion more than what you said it would be yesterday and $21 billion more than what you have told us today with your announcement. This isn't me, Premier; this is the people you appointed, the management members, to your advisory committee.

Who do you think the bond raters will believe -- you or those who are paying the premium rates that you appointed to advise you?

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): I can tell the honourable member that during all the discussions that I had with the management members of the board, the management people who are on the advisory committee, the figure that they agreed with in terms of the actuarial assumptions -- all of us were working from a common set of actuarial assumptions -- was that unless something was done, the impact of doing nothing would be a potential liability of $31 billion.

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I would say to the honourable member that it is clear to me that this government has taken steps which will have a major impact on future unfunded liability, will have a major impact on the unfunded liability this year of close to a $1-billion immediate reduction. I would say to the Leader of the Opposition, during the entire time that he was in office, the unfunded liability of the Workers' Compensation Board didn't come down by a cent. It kept going up. It kept going up during the 1980s. It went up under Bill Davis and it went up under David Peterson, and under the New Democratic Party government it's going to come down. I believe that everyone will see that clearly and that that in fact is the case and that is in fact true.

Mr Harris: By way of supplementary, let me say that I think it is disgraceful --

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): We want to hear Mike's math. Let him say it. Come on, say it, Mike.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order, the member for Downsview.

Mr Harris: -- that the member for Downsview is even allowed in here.

Interjections.

Mr George Mammoliti (Yorkview): You're insulting. Withdraw that remark.

The Speaker: Would the member for Yorkview please come to order. The leader of the third party with his supplementary.

Hon Floyd Laughren (Minister of Finance): No explanation?

Mr Harris: The voters can withdraw him if they want; that's the way it's done around here.

My question is to the Premier. The original goal, Premier, of your Labour-Management Advisory Committee was to reduce the unfunded liability of the WCB to zero by 2014. That was the goal: labour-management. Let me agree with you that the fact that the unfunded liability increased under Bill Davis, David Peterson and you to date is disgraceful and wrong. All you've told us today is that something's going to happen in the future, and any time we've heard that from you, it's never, never, never happened yet.

But given, Premier, that the goal was zero, can you explain to us today that the unfunded liability, after your announcement, will be $34 billion, according to some estimates of those who are paying the bills, and in your best-case scenario $13 billion, that you have presented to us today, by the year 2014, assuming your estimates are anywhere close to actuarially sound.

I would ask you, Premier: What happened to the only acceptable, achievable goal that was going to bring some sanity to this whole run-amok organization? What happened to the goal of zero unfunded liability?

Hon Mr Rae: I want to just say to the honourable member again -- and this isn't a matter of numbers but it is a matter of clear principles -- as soon as the Friedland formula is introduced, the impact on the unfunded liability -- and as soon as the cost of the $200 increase is worked in, that works out to an $828-million reduction in the unfunded liability as of 1995. That is close to a $1-billion reduction, and that's without dealing with the return to work and without taking into account the other changes that the board can make.

So I would say to the honourable member, and I would challenge him directly, all rhetoric aside, I am telling him, this government is putting itself on the line. We are asking people to make a sacrifice; we're asking people to give. People are giving up something which they now have in terms of their potential future pensions in order to help the board out with a problem. And if you don't recognize that, and there are some employers who don't recognize that and there are some business people who don't recognize it, I think the common sense of the world will recognize that this is the only government that's had the guts, and the workers of this province are prepared to do something in order to help to reform the board. If you don't think that's valuable, I think you're sadly, sadly mistaken. I think that's very valuable.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. The leader of the third party with his final supplementary.

Mr Harris: I think the bond-rating agencies, Premier, will judge the actions not by how loud you yell and scream, but as they always do, by results. So far their judgement on you has been zero, negative, no good.

Today you announced that 36,000 people will have their WCB pensions increased by $200 per month for life. This decision will add $8 billion to the system by the year 2014. Quite frankly, Mr Premier, while this may be a justifiable social expenditure, I would ask you, why do you lay this $8 billion on top of the payroll tax of the WCB employers when that pot of money is already $12 billion in debt today and, according to your best estimate, by the year 2014 will be $13 billion in deficit? Why do you take that $8 billion out of that pot, which has no money in it, whether it is a justifiable social benefit or not? Why do you do that?

Hon Mr Rae: The honourable member is using numbers and arguments which are simply wrong. I would say to him very directly that the net impact on the unfunded liability to 2014, including the $200 increase, with the Friedland, is $18 billion.

Mr Harris: I didn't talk about Friedland.

Hon Mr Rae: You can't talk about one without the other. Your member said: "We think all the benefits should be cut. We think all the workers should get less. That's what they've done. That's what they've done in Ottawa with unemployment insurance. We think that's right." That's what she said. That's the policy of the Conservative Party.

I'll tell you what the policy of the NDP is. We say to workers and management that workers will give up a little bit of something in terms of future earnings on the indexing formula, we'll change the formula, but you'll have some protection. We'll help the workers who are hurting the most. We'll improve the return to work. We'll get the WCB on a really businesslike basis in terms of how it operates, and we'll ask that people cooperate and work together instead of simply sticking it to the workers.

I wasn't elected Premier of the province of Ontario to stick it to the workers. I was elected to bring people together, and that's exactly what I'm trying to do.

Mr Gregory S. Sorbara (York Centre): Mr Speaker, on a point of privilege: The Premier mentioned principles. I want to say to him that the principles of the New Democratic Party on workers' compensation were clearly stated during the debate on --

The Speaker: The member does not have a point of privilege. Would the member please take his seat.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Would the member for York Centre please come to order.

The leader of the third party with his second question.

Mr Harris: I agree with you, Premier. You weren't elected to stick it to workers and that's why they're so disappointed with you over the last three and a half years.

My question is to the minister responsible for women's issues --

Interjections.

The Speaker: I must caution the member for York Centre that if he refuses to come to order, he will be named.

Interjections.

The Speaker: If the member continues to refuse to come to order, he will be named.

The leader of the third party with his second question.

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JOBS ONTARIO

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): My question is to the minister responsible for women's issues. The one thing, Minister, that your government repeatedly hails as an attempt to create jobs in this province is Jobs Ontario. The majority of this money, billions, is directed at infrastructure. I call it a good infrastructure program, but your government calls it the job creation program. This is the bulk of your job creation program. This is where the billions of dollars are being spent.

Minister, only 5,000 women in Ontario in total work in that construction industry. That's less than 2% of construction workers, or that's less than 0.002% of the women in the workforce today. Therefore, the only effort that your government has made to create jobs in this province has clearly failed to help women.

As the minister responsible for women's issues, I would ask you this: How can you justify to the 224,000 women in Ontario who do not have a job today that your job creation plans and your billions of dollars have virtually ignored them?

Hon Marion Boyd (Minister Responsible for Women's Issues): The member is quite mistaken in one of his first statements, and that was that the infrastructure program is our only job creation program. His concern is one that we share in terms of the construction industry, the lack in spite of very repeated efforts by government to try and get entry for women in non-traditional occupations. There is no question that there is a substantially higher proportion of representation within those construction industries, and we are working with the industry to try and ensure that women are more welcome. But that is only one of the programs.

If we look at the Jobs Ontario Community Action fund, we have named women as one of the community-of-interest groups. We have specifically geared the program to try and help women as partners in that economic development plan to create jobs for themselves and others.

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): Name them unemployed.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): The member for Burlington South, please come to order.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Similarly, the Jobs Ontario Training is geared primarily at people who are on social assistance. We know that the vast majority of recipients are women, and so women are very much the target of that job creation program; our work in the child care area, our work in the long-term care area, all of those jobs.

The Speaker: Would the minister please conclude her response.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Above all, the employment equity provisions, which that party voted against, are primarily directed at ensuring that women have equal representation in the workforce.

Mr George Mammoliti (Yorkview): Stockwell for leader.

The Speaker: Would the member for Yorkview please come to order. The leader with his supplementary.

Mr Mammoliti: Stockwell for leader.

The Speaker: I asked the member for Yorkview to come to order. The leader with his supplementary.

Mr Harris: Minister, your government daily has talked about how you're creating jobs, that you are taking a proactive role, that you're a job creation government in the middle of this difficult time in Ontario. There is $4.8 billion being spent on infrastructure, all called job creation: Jobs Ontario, jobs now. Could you tell me how many dollars are being spent, targeted towards women in this province, who are equally as unemployed as men?

Hon Mrs Boyd: No, I can't give him a dollar figure because of course all our job creation programs are done in conjunction with partners who make decisions that we don't make. What we do say and what we have made clear to those partners is that the employment equity provisions that we have clearly stated and put into law are extraordinarily important factors in achieving viable partnerships. So when we look at what is happening in each field, we are very clear with our partners that we take this seriously and that we want to see some real results.

The member is quite right that the traditional inequity that women have faced, which this government has attempted to address and indeed we believe our legislation will address and will redress over the next few years, is a situation that was allowed to go on and on by previous governments, even though those of us in the women's movement had pointed out this problem time and time again, so the member is hardly in a position to criticize this government for its action, which is much more proactive than any previous government.

Mr Harris: What I am talking about is what you are telling us every day: your extraordinary interventions and job creation programs. That's what I am talking about: $4.8 billion. I hear it every day, announcement after announcement. I asked you how much was being targeted towards women. You didn't give me an answer.

Can you explain to me why it is that, not with the ordinary programs but with this extraordinary spending that you're targeting and calling job creation, 95% to 98% of the money is being targeted to men and less than 1% or 2% is being targeted to women?

Hon Mrs Boyd: We simply don't accept the figures the member is giving. We want the member to recognize that in our tendering process for the kinds of construction jobs we are doing as a government, where we are tendering, we are requiring employment equity provisions in terms of our tenders. Many of the programs that we have are specifically geared to areas where we know women's employment is done.

The member is completely ignoring the issues of job retention within the public service. The 40,000 jobs that the social contract has saved are primarily women's jobs.

It is absolutely unconscionable for this member to suggest that our policies are not working, along with our laws, to try and provide better employment equity for women.

WORKERS' COMPENSATION BOARD

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): My question's to the Premier regarding your announcement today on the supposed reforms --

Hon Floyd Laughren (Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance): Ah, now we'll find out what the Liberals will do.

Mr Mahoney: You will very soon -- supposed reforms to the Workers' Compensation Board. The leader of the third party, Premier, has suggested that you should somehow magically get the unfunded liability from its current level of somewhere between $11.3 and $11.5 billion down to zero, without suggesting how that might be done.

The financial people I've met with over the past couple of months have said that they don't believe it's possible, that it's simply too far out of control, but that it is indeed possible to bring some form of fiscal responsibility to the board and that it is possible to bring some plan, some financial plan, that will show business and injured workers some long-term sustainability. That would not attain zero, as the leader of the third party is dreaming, but it would put the plan on some form of good footing.

I have a question, Premier: I'd like to know if you would do something to ensure that the unfunded liability does not grow any further than it already is while the new board that you put in place will have an opportunity to develop some fiscal responsibility.

Will you agree, Premier, to instruct the new board that you've announced today that it should not expand coverage to include occupational stress, and will you also instruct that new board to invoke a freeze on rate increases to business until at least your new -- what do you call it? -- commission has had a chance to report? Two things.

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): I can say to the honourable member that I feel very strongly that it's important for us to send some very clear messages to the board about what should and should not be done over the next while. I can tell him that it's my firm view, and I hope and expect that this will be reflected in various cabinet -- and the statements with respect to the future of the board. I fully believe that any issues about extension of coverage, and I also believe that questions about extension of coverage in terms of other employees who might be covered including those in the financial sector and others -- the government has decided that we will not simply do that unilaterally, that we will ask the royal commission for its view and we will establish a process where the pros and cons can be clearly put in front of a royal commission. We will not be expanding coverage.

In answer to the second question, I firmly believe that what we are doing and proposing must be done within the current assessment rating levels that are now in place. I don't think assessment rating levels should be increased at all.

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Mr Mahoney: I truly do appreciate that, because I believe the solution to the reform of the WCB is much less of a partisan issue than perhaps all of us in this place make it from time to time. I want it absolutely clear that I include myself in that, but I include all of us in that.

I want to make it absolutely clear that the board that you have talked about in your new, restructured WCB is not really much of a change. You're talking about four labour appointees, four management appointees and two citizen appointees, I guess you call them, who would be recommended by management and labour. With the recognition that the two citizens would be new -- they're coming in as a result of an agreement between the labour and the management caucuses -- I fear that the domination of organized labour in the makeup of this board will continue to make it very difficult for a balanced decision approach to be put forward by the board.

I want your undertaking that you will instruct the new board on the two issues that I asked you about, that you will make it absolutely clear that you will instruct your Labour minister to make it absolutely clear that this government, at least until after the royal commission has had a chance to report, will reject and will roll back any rate increases and will, without any question, refuse to allow the new board to come in and through some pressures brought to bear by the OFL or others --

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Could the member please conclude his question.

Mr Mahoney: -- expand coverage. Will you absolutely, unequivocally today give us that assurance?

Hon Mr Rae: I can tell the honourable member that the cabinet has made a decision that we will not extend coverage until or unless, depending on the advice that we or another government receives from the royal commission. The royal commission is not expected to report until late 1995 or early 1996, and I have advised members of the PLMAC, labour and management, of that fact. I've told them that is not part of any approach or any package that has the approval of the cabinet. It was a difficult discussion.

I want to just say, in answer to another part of the member's question --

Mr Gregory S. Sorbara (York Centre): Read what Bob Rae said.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Rae: -- that I believe there are a couple of --

Mr Sorbara: Read what they all said. I am just encouraging them to read Hansard.

The Speaker: The member for York Centre.

Hon Mr Rae: -- important changes which flow in terms of the board structure, but more than the board structure, the management structure. I can tell the honourable member that it is my view --

Mr Sorbara: Those who fail to read history are destined to repeat it, federally as well.

The Speaker: The member for York Centre is to come to order.

Hon Mr Rae: -- on the basis of the experience which we have had and on the basis of the experience which other boards have had, that it is extremely important that there be one CEO of the board who is somebody who has the confidence of all the parties to the system, including the confidence of the business community and the confidence of the government as well as the confidence of the injured worker community and of the labour community.

It's going to be very hard to fill that position with the right person, but I believe we must and can do it. I believe it's extremely important that this person be clearly empowered to make the kinds of administrative and entrepreneurial changes within the board that are going to be required to make that internal structure happen. There has to be a cultural change within the board --

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

Hon Mr Rae: -- and in order to do that, we have to empower the person to do that. That person will be the CEO of the board. There will be a chair whose responsibilities will be broader in terms of communicating with the public and so on, but the real administrative authority has to lie with one person. I certainly --

The Speaker: Would the Premier please conclude his response.

Hon Mr Rae: -- think we need to look at the experiences that we've had with other bipartite organizations in assessing where there have been difficulties. I've been very candid in my discussions with people about that and I'd be very happy to hear --

The Speaker: The question's been answered. Would the Premier please take his seat.

HOMES FOR THE AGED

Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): My question is to the Premier. Today, the Cummer Lodge home for the aged has been described in a headline in the Toronto Sun as being "repulsive."

Hon Bob Rae (Premier): A headline in the toronto Sun!

Mr Harnick: Well, this may be joke to the Premier. But I tell you, Mr Speaker, when he was in the opposition, if a home for the aged had been described in any newspaper as being "repulsive," as Mr Ian Scott would say, "You would have had to take the Premier and scrape him off the ceiling."

Premier, this home for the aged has been described as "repulsive." I have been writing to your government, and I've written as far back as June 1992. This nursing home or home for the aged does not accommodate wheelchairs through doorways. It does not have private or even semi-private rooms. It positively reeks in terms of the smell, and I will tell you that it's not safe.

Premier, I want to know if you will spend an hour one afternoon and come with me to take a look at this nursing home so that I can sit down with you and come up with some plan to deal with this particular problem. I hope you won't refer it, because if you don't get involved, this particular home is going to remain like this for years and years to come. Will you take me up on the offer and come and visit this place with me?

Hon Mr Rae: I'd be delighted to do that. I think in my last 20 years I must have visited 100 or 150 nursing homes and homes for the aged. I'd be more than pleased to do so. I've already visited it on a number of occasions.

I want to say to the honourable member that the capital project Cummer Lodge is a priority on the Ministry of Health's 1994-95 capital work plan. We've indicated that as clearly as we can to Metro. I would remind the honourable member that Metropolitan Toronto runs the home. It is one of the wealthiest municipalities in the country.

I would say directly to the honourable member that we're happy to work with Metro on this project to make sure that the renovations that are required are done. But I want to say to him very directly, I'd be more than pleased to visit the home.

Mr Harnick: I would be pleased to set up that appointment with you at any time that you're free. You're much busier than I am, so whenever you're available, I'm ready to go. But I don't want to delay this for any longer than we have to.

But I will tell you, Mr Premier, that Metro says it can't deal with this, or it won't deal with this, because it has some notion that your government is going to do something --

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): They won't deal with a lot of things, Charles.

Mr Harnick: The member for Downsview doesn't care about the Cummer Lodge, and I'm sorry about that.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Mr Harnick: Metro does not want to deal with this because it has some notion that your government has a long-term care project up its sleeve that's going to be announced at any moment. They say, "Well, why should we start investing money in this if the Ontario government's going to be looking after it anyway?"

All that's happening is that the people who live in this positively repulsive home are caught, as two governments shadow dance with one another. Unless you're prepared to show some leadership and to take the bull by the horns and deal with this problem and indicate to Metro the direction that you're going in --

The Speaker: Would the member complete his question, please.

Mr Harnick: -- so that Metro can deal with it, the people are nothing but pawns in your hands.

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Will you please come with me and begin some discussions with all of those who are involved so that we can repair this positively offensive lifestyle that my constituents are forced to endure?

Hon Mr Rae: I just say to him very directly that I'm of course busy but I'm not too busy, and I'm happy to do it. We will work out a time to do it. I just want to say to him very directly and say to my friends in Metropolitan Toronto, we have absolutely no desire to get into any kind of a jurisdictional battle on this question. We continue to act in good faith. We kept up the transfer payments. We participated fully in the infrastructure program. We are trying, even within our limited means.

Metro has an AAA credit rating. As you know, ours is a little less spectacular. I would say to the honourable member, it is important for us to work together, and we are prepared to work in partnership with Metropolitan Toronto. I can only say that when Metro Councillor Maureen Prinsloo said, "It's horrible to use people as hostages," I couldn't agree with her more, which is why I have difficulty accepting the decision that Metro council made.

PLANNING APPROVAL

Mr Norm Jamison (Norfolk): My question today is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs. Over the last little while, I have been increasingly hearing complaints from many of my constituents about the planning process. Coming from rural Ontario, this process, I can say, simply is not working the way that it should. They are frustrated and angry about the process that, number one, produces poor results, and which, in their minds, is characterized by red tape, lengthy delays, and I'm talking about the long time spans it takes to get appeals heard.

I understand that the Sewell commission looked into the Ontario planning process, and subsequent to their report, the minister has instructed -- I hope you have in any case -- your ministry to review the Sewell commission's recommendations. Minister, what is the status of your ministry's review into this extremely important issue?

Hon Ed Philip (Minister of Municipal Affairs): The member raises an important point. The planning process and the planning decisions that are made have a long-lasting effect on people and businesses in this province. At the time that -- indeed long before this government came to power, the planning process was seriously questioned as to its integrity, as to its efficiency or lack of efficiency, and the problem of openness in the planning system was seriously questioned by people on all sides of all issues.

I'm pleased that the Sewell report has managed to galvanize our public's focus on where we should be moving in the planning process to make it more responsive to local needs, to make it more responsible to environmental concerns and to make it more responsive to the economic priorities of this government and of this province.

Mr Jamison: It has been my experience over the last four years to have constituents come into my office and, rightfully so, complain about the process and the length of time in getting to the OMB. This situation has gone on for years and years, and there is extreme need to change that particular process.

I can tell you I'm very supportive of making constructive changes and acting on the recommendations made by the recent Sewell commission, particularly those that protect the public interest, reduce time in delays and provide for economic growth. It's my opinion that there's a tremendous amount of economic growth being curtailed by virtue of the cumbersome way in which the old system works.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Could the member place a question, please.

Mr Jamison: Mr Minister, what is your ministry doing in these particular areas?

Hon Mr Philip: The Sewell commission clearly deals with that problem, and part of the problem is dealing with the responsibilities of differing layers of government and clearly defining the approval process so that the duplication and the delays are no longer a problem. It's a matter of ensuring that each of us knows what our responsibilities are and that we can work to carry them out.

I can assure you that my ministry has already delegated planning responsibilities to municipalities in Bill 40. We are delegating more responsibilities in the planning process right now as we move along, and we intend to have more decision-making at the local level as we implement the Sewell commission report legislation.

CHILD CARE

Mr Charles Beer (York-Mackenzie): My question is to the Minister of Community and Social Services. Before the election of your government and indeed since taking office, you have made two clear promises to the child care community: first, that there would be fundamental child care reform and, second, that there would be legislative recognition for early childhood educators. This morning at a packed press conference here at Queen's Park, the child care community delivered its verdict and said that you had broken faith with both of those commitments.

My question, Minister, is very simple, and it is this: The child care community has said that federal funds are available for child care reform and that all Ontario has to do is ask. The federal Minister of Human Resources Development has said there are federal dollars available under the strategic initiatives fund for child care. Have you put forward a project to the federal government under that fund, and if you haven't, why haven't you?

Hon Tony Silipo (Minister of Community and Social Services): I appreciate the question because it gives me a chance to tell the honourable member very directly the answer is yes, we have asked. We asked on January 10 when I met with Minister Axworthy. We asked again on February 14 when I met again with Minister Axworthy. I asked again on February 28 when I met with Minister Axworthy, and we recently sent a formal proposal to him. I'm waiting to hear the answer from Mr Axworthy.

Mr Beer: Clearly information is difficult to ascertain all over the place on this issue, because again and again what we've heard is that you haven't asked.

In trying to determine specifically what it is that you have asked for, is it in relation to the Job Link program, which was going to be a key component of your welfare reform? If that is what you have asked funding for, that is fine as far as it goes, but that is a very limited program.

My question then is, what specifically have you asked for? Is this part of a major revamping of our child care system so it will no longer be simply a welfare program? Is this going to lead us to real and true reform so that we recognize the economic importance of child care as part of our whole attempt to get out of this recession? Minister, what have you asked for?

We need to know specifically, because as far as the child care community is concerned --

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Would the member complete his question, please.

Mr Beer: -- and the minister's office of human resources, there has been no request for funds for child care reform.

Hon Mr Silipo: On each of the three instances that I've outlined, I discussed with Mr Axworthy very directly both requests for funding from this government in terms of the relationship between child care and Job Link, and I can tell the honourable member that a formal written request to supplement those discussions is now in front of the federal government, in front of Minister Axworthy, and I am awaiting anxiously a response to that request.

We are also working on finalizing a formal written request to add to the request that I've discussed directly with Mr Axworthy on the broader issue of supporting the reform initiatives that we have put forward and to which we remain very much committed as a government, which would help us to move the child care system from a welfare-based system to a public service, something that we believe in very strongly and something that we believe we need to continue to work for.

I'm delighted to say to the member that I will look forward to a positive response from Minister Axworthy on that request as well, and any help that he can give us to get a positive response sooner rather than later will be greatly appreciated.

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The Speaker: Could the minister conclude his response, please.

Hon Mr Silipo: I will also tell the member that, as I leave this Legislature this afternoon, I'm going to a meeting with the various child care advocates to outline to them exactly what we are prepared to do --

The Speaker: Order. Would the minister please conclude his response.

Hon Mr Silipo: -- and what we do will be dependent on some further help that we can get from the federal government, and that is also part of the commitment that we want to get.

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): My question is to the Minister of Transportation. In announcing the Highway 7 project, the Premier said that the private financing would save taxpayers' money and get the road built quickly. Now you're saying that government financing through the Ontario Transportation Capital Corp will reduce the cost of the highway. Are you just incompetent or are you hiding something, specifically debt, for example, in the capital corporation? In view of this, will you file all of the details of the competitive proposals?

Hon Gilles Pouliot (Minister of Transportation): The member repeats what the marketplace has been addressing vis-à-vis borrowing money to build the 407 over a period of six years using the Ontario transportation corporation as a facilitator. The member should know, by way of an answer, that the possibility, the capacity to borrow from Ontario incorporated, from the government here, is better than anyone else.

Mr Turnbull: That's not what the Premier said when he made his announcement.

Hon Mr Pouliot: When the member looks at the long-term bonds and he compares benchmark debentures of 25, 30 or 35 years --

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order, the member for York Mills and the member for Etobicoke West, please come to order.

Hon Mr Pouliot: -- he will see that those benchmark debentures of 25, 30 and 35 years, when sponsored by a government, are anywhere from 50 to 75 basis points cheaper and those savings are passed along to the consumers, to people who will pay tolls. They won't have to pay as much as if the private sector were to borrow.

Furthermore, it enhances and is not at all a deterrent to the partnership between the private sector and the government made possible by way of the capital corporation.

The Speaker: The time for oral questions has expired.

MOTIONS

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Government House Leader): I move that notwithstanding standing order 96(h), the requirement for notice be waived with respect to ballot item number 52 and that Mr Harris and Mr Hodgson exchange places in the order of precedence for private members' public business.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

PETITIONS

VIOLENCE

Ms Dianne Poole (Eglinton): I have another 16 petitions signed by 186 people from Blenheim, Chatham and Cedar Springs. This is addition to the 2,949 names already submitted.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas serial killer trading cards are being imported into and distributed throughout Ontario and the rest of Canada;

"Whereas these trading cards feature the crimes of serial killers, mass murderers and gangsters;

"Whereas we abhor crimes of violence against persons and believe that serial killer trading cards offer nothing positive for children or adults to emulate or admire, but rather contribute to the tolerance and desensitization of violence; and

"Whereas we as a society agree that the protection of our children is paramount,

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

"That the Ontario government enact legislation to ensure that the sale of these serial killer trading cards is restricted to people over the age of 18 years and that substantial and appropriate penalties be imposed on retailers who sell serial killer trading cards to minors."

I am very pleased to add my signature in support.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION

Mr Jim Wilson (Simcoe West): I have a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It was sent to me by the Reverend Mark Koehler of the Lutheran Mission of Collingwood.

"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.

"Therefore, we request that the House refrain from passing Bill 45."

I have signed that petition.

FIREARMS SAFETY

Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): I have a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas we want you to know that we are strenuously objecting to your decision on the firearms acquisition certificate course and examination; and

"Whereas you should have followed the OFAH advice and grandfathered those of us who have already taken safety courses and/or hunted for years -- we are not unsafe and we are not criminals; and

"Whereas we should not have to take the time or pay the costs of another course or examination and we should not have to learn about classes of firearms that we have no desire to own;

"We, the undersigned, petition Premier Bob Rae, Solicitor General David Christopherson and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"Change your plans, grandfather responsible firearms owners and hunters and only require future first-time gun purchasers to take the new federal firearms safety course or examination."

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Further petitions? The honourable member for St George-St David.

TUITION FEES

Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): I appreciate the recognition.

"Whereas the NDP have hiked tuition 42% since taking office; and

"Whereas the 20% increase in tuition announced this year is the largest tuition increase in history; and

"Whereas the Premier has commented that the enormous tuition increases are simply bringing tuition levels back to the same level as they were in 1967; and

"Whereas unemployment levels for young people were at 3.6% in 1967, but today in 1994 are over 19%; and

"Whereas the NDP government has singled out young people as the only group to face record tax increases this year so far; and

"Whereas Mike Harris and the Conservatives have been silent about the unprecedented tax hike that this tuition increase amounts to; and

"Whereas Mike Harris and the Conservatives have been silent about the plight facing young people facing the worst economic circumstances since the 1930s;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to overturn the unfair 20% increase in tuition the NDP has instituted this year."

I sign my name in support.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): I have three petitions here, all of a similar nature. Bills 45, 55 and 56 are made reference to. Of course, Bills 55 and 56 have been withdrawn; Bill 45 has not. I wish to present them at this point.

Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): Mr Speaker, on a point of order: Bills 55 and 56 have not been withdrawn. It requires a motion.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): That is not a point of order.

Mr Arnott: Mr Speaker, is it not accurate that both the members have indicated their intention to withdraw those bills?

The Acting Speaker: Further petitions? The honourable member for Chatham-Kent.

Interjections.

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): It's good to see the other side fighting among themselves.

FIREARMS SAFETY

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): I have a petition here signed by a number of constituents of mine. It is a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and as my colleague earlier read out, it is a petition to Bob Rae, the Solicitor General, Dave Christopherson, and the Legislative Assembly. What they're asking is:

"Change your plans, grandfather responsible firearms owners and hunters and only require future first-time gun purchasers to take the new federal firearms safety course or examination."

On behalf of those constituents, I present their petition.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION

Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): I have a petition to the Lieutenant Governor:

"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 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 that all such references should be removed from the code.

"Therefore, we request that the House refrain from passing Bill 45."

Mr Jim Wilson (Simcoe West): I have a petition that reads as follows:

"We, the session and members of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Creemore, Knox Presbyterian Church, Dunedin, and St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Maple Valley, are opposed to the changing of Bill 45 on the ground that such changes are contrary to the word of God."

I've signed that petition.

LAND-LEASE COMMUNITIES

Mrs Irene Mathyssen (Middlesex): I have a petition from more than 200 seniors who live at Twin Elms in Strathroy, who petition the Legislative Assembly as follows:

"Whereas Bill 21 has received second reading in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario; and

"Whereas Bill 21 will provide needed protection to owners of mobile homes in mobile home trailer parks and owners of modular homes in land-lease communities; and

"Whereas many owners of mobile homes are threatened with eviction and loss of their investment in their mobile home by the action of their landlord;

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

"To proceed as expeditiously as possible with third reading of Bill 21."

I have signed my name to this petition.

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FIREARMS SAFETY

Mr Michael A. Brown (Algoma-Manitoulin): I have a large number of petitions to the Legislative Assembly, both from my constituents and from the constituents in Algoma and in Sault Ste Marie.

"Whereas we want you to know that we are strenuously objecting to your decision on the firearms acquisition certificate course and examination; and

"Whereas you should have followed the OFAH advice and grandfathered those of us who have already taken safety courses and/or hunted for years -- we are not unsafe and we are not criminals; and

"Whereas we should not have to take the time or pay the costs of another course or examination and we should not have to learn about classes of firearms that we have no desire to own;

"We, the undersigned, petition Premier Bob Rae, Solicitor General David Christopherson and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"Change your plans, grandfather responsible firearms owners and hunters and only require future first-time gun purchasers to take the new federal firearms safety course or examination."

I have signed this petition.

HAEMODIALYSIS

Mr Jim Wilson (Simcoe West): This petition is also addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas several patients from the town of New Tecumseth are forced to travel great distances under treacherous road conditions to receive necessary haemodialysis treatments in Orillia or Toronto;

"Whereas the government has done nothing to discourage a patchwork dialysis treatment system whereby some patients receive haemodialysis in-home and others travel long distances for treatment;

"Whereas there are currently two dialysis machines serving only two people in New Tecumseth and one patient is forced to pay for her own nurse;

"Whereas the government continues to insist they are studying the problem even though they have known about it for two years; and

"Whereas the Legislature passed Simcoe West MPP Jim Wilson's private member's resolution which called for the establishment of dialysis satellites in New Tecumseth and Collingwood;

"We demand the government establish a dialysis satellite immediately in the town of New Tecumseth."

I have signed that petition.

TRANSPORTATION FOR THE DISABLED

Mr Larry O'Connor (Durham-York): I've got a petition to the Legislative Assembly.

"Whereas the Metro Toronto council passed a bylaw, 95-93, prohibiting the cross-boundary of accessible taxis; and

"Whereas the Minister of Municipal Affairs has been requested by Mr Ronald Cowan to amend the Municipal Act to reflect open boundaries for accessible taxis throughout Ontario; and

"Whereas the Municipal Act states that the municipality may exempt taxis from outside municipalities engaged in the transportation of the disabled;

"Now therefore and hereby be it resolved that:

"The town of Whitchurch-Stouffville requests that the rights of the disabled continue to be protected by the Ontario provincial government in the recognition of various disability programs, such as accessibility to public buildings and accessible taxi programs, and that the provincial government amend the Municipal Act to reflect the exemption of all the restrictions involving the transportation of disabled throughout the province of Ontario."

It's been circulated to all the mayors in the greater Toronto area, and we ask the Minister of Municipal Affairs to work with the Metro licensing commission and the Metro council to correct this oversight that is causing a great deal of difficulties for the constituents of the riding of Durham-York.

I affix my signature to this and hope that Metro council will react very quickly.

VIOLENCE

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

"Whereas serial killer trading cards are being imported into and distributed throughout Ontario and the rest of Canada;

"Whereas these trading cards feature the crimes of serial killers, mass murderers and gangsters;

"Whereas we abhor crimes of violence against persons and believe that serial killer trading cards offer nothing positive for children or adults to admire or emulate, but rather contribute to the tolerance and desensitization of violence; and

"Whereas we as a society agree that the protection of our children is paramount;

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

This is signed by several people and I'm prepared to add my name to this, as I agree with the petition.

FIREARMS SAFETY

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

"Whereas we want you to know that we are strenuously objecting to your decision on the firearms acquisition certificate course and examination; and

"Whereas you should have followed the OFAH advice and grandfathered those of us who have already taken safety courses and/or hunted for years -- we are not unsafe and we are not criminals; and

"Whereas we should not have to take the time or pay the cost of another course or examination and we should not have to learn about classes of firearms that we have no desire to own;

"We, the undersigned, petition Premier Bob Rae, Solicitor General David Christopherson and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"Change your plans, grandfather responsible firearms owners and hunters and only require future first-time gun purchasers to take the new federal firearms safety course or examination."

I've signed this petition and I agree with it.

HIGHWAY SAFETY

Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): I have a petition that's signed by 130 residents of Fauquier, and it's sent to me by Paulette Gauthier. They're petitioning the Legislature to do something about slowing down the traffic that is going through the town of Fauquier. They're concerned about the residents who are crossing back and forth across the highway, and they've asked that we do everything we can to have new signage and possibly an amber light on the highway so we can prevent accidents and encourage the people to slow down.

I'd point out that in a previous petition, I forgot to mention the number of people who had signed about the firearms acquisition. It was 225.

CAMPING

Mr Michael A. Brown (Algoma-Manitoulin): I have a petition containing a huge number of names from people in my constituency.

"We, the undersigned, petition against the Ministry of Natural Resources' recent proposal to prohibit overnight camping on crown land. Some of the areas to be affected are Moose Lake, Little Hannah Lake, Deerhound Lake, Stratton Lake, Walker Lake and West Branch. We feel this decision is taking away another one of our rights as Canadians."

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

AMMUNITION CONTROL ACT, 1994 / LOI DE 1994 SUR LA RÉGLEMENTATION DES MUNITIONS

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

Bill 149, An Act to control the Purchase and Sale of Ammunition / Projet de loi 149, Loi visant à réglementer l'achat et la vente de munitions.

Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): This bill restricts the sale of ammunition to persons holding a valid Ontario Outdoors Card with the appropriate hunting licence or a valid firearms acquisition certificate, and it is my hope that the government will support it.

REGISTRATION OF PEDOPHILES ACT, 1994 / LOI DE 1994 SUR L'INSCRIPTION DES PÉDOPHILES

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

Bill 150, An Act to provide for the Registration of Persons who have committed Sexual Offences Against Children / Projet de loi 150, Loi prévoyant l'inscription des personnes qui ont commis des infractions d'ordre sexuel contre des enfants.

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): The bill will require persons convicted of a sexual offence involving a child under the age of 14 to make a report to the police. Failure to make a report will be an offence punishable by fine or imprisonment. The bill will provide for the register of sexual offenders and be kept by the police. The public will have access to information in the register. The police will have the power to disseminate the information in the register.

On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I don't believe we have a quorum in the House.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Is a quorum present?

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees (Ms Deborah Deller): A quorum is not present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees: A quorum is now present, Speaker.

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ORDERS OF THE DAY

RETAIL SALES TAX AMENDMENT ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LA TAXE DE VENTE AU DÉTAIL

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 138, An Act to amend the Retail Sales Tax Act / Projet de loi 138, Loi modifiant la Loi sur la taxe de vente au détail.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): When we last debated, the honourable member for Etobicoke West had the floor, and the floor is certainly his again.

Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): Like the cathedral of the desert. Here is a symbol of it.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): Thank you very much. The member for Fort York is truly an amazing man. He's a cathedral in the desert.

I would like to pick up my comments from yesterday. I would like to comment on a question that was asked today that probably didn't get any interest, at least in the media, and probably won't get any interest in the next year or so but may well be, financially, one of the most important decisions the government has made in this place in quite some time. I'm speaking about Highway 407. Highway 407 was the brainchild of this government. One of the most recent ideas was to create tolls on a road run by private operators to pay for road construction.

This comes back in the form of a tax bill for one simple reason. Why it does is because the whole scheme of this idea, this toll business, was that the private sector was going to underwrite the cost of constructing a road, then charge a toll to those who choose to drive on it and thereby pay off its capital commitments and make some kind of profit and in effect get a new road built in the northern portion of the GTA at no cost to the taxpayer.

There was some debate around whether it was a good idea for private people to get involved in road construction and taking it out of the hands of the government, but I think in the end there was some kind of universal acceptance that maybe this would be the route to go. There was some debate from this side of the House about the costs and implications and so on and so forth, and at the time that debate took place, we were promised categorically in the lucid tones of the Minister of Transportation that this would not cost the taxpayers money. It was one of those truly entrepreneurial private investment programs of the new-found socialist conservative government that we elected in this province.

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): Did you believe them?

Mr Stockwell: Well, there's a curious question that came up today. The question came from the member for York Mills, put to the Minister of Transportation. As usual, he avoided the question, vacillated, waffled, and he didn't really get an answer. But what it came down to was fundamentally this: This road was now going to be constructed through a private corporation that they set up with government guarantees --

Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: There are only 9 NDP members, government members, in the House. I don't think we have a quorum here.

The Acting Speaker: Is a quorum present?

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees (Ms Deborah Deller): A quorum is not present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees (Ms Deborah Deller): A quorum is now present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member for Etobicoke West may resume his participation in the debate.

Mr Stockwell: The very tactical change in financing of this development is rather interesting, because on June 24, 1993, the Premier of this province, Mr Bob Rae, made the following announcement: "Premier Rae said two Ontario-based private consortia will prepare comprehensive proposals for designing, financing and building the first phase of Highway 407, from Highway 401 in the west to Highway 48 in the east."

The only major difference between the announcement that was made on that date, June 24, 1993, and the announcement made today by the Minister of Transportation is that now the government will be guaranteeing all debt of these private construction companies, the private financiers. That's really curious, because I recall vividly not so many years ago when a similar situation happened.

A similar situation happened some number of years ago regarding the infamous white elephant close to Front Street, the SkyDome. The SkyDome really took off as far as expenditures were concerned when the government of the day, the Liberals, guaranteed the debt.

Mr Paul Klopp (Huron): They signed a blank cheque, though. Tell the full deal.

Mr Stockwell: Let me finish. They guaranteed the debt. They were full of good intentions, but the cost of SkyDome blew up, went through the roof, literally. It went through the roof and the cost expanded to some $600 million. At the end of the day, the private companies that in fact ran SkyDome knew that the government was guaranteeing debt so they weren't concerned about the capital costs, which in the end sunk the government position with respect to SkyDome.

I relate that story to today because it's very similar circumstances, except that rather than SkyDome we're talking about the construction of a toll road. The government, by committing to underwrite the debt of the construction of this road, has fundamentally said, "Regardless of cost -- "

Mr Klopp: Oh, no, no, no.

Mr Stockwell: Oh, yes, yes, yes. When you underwrite the debt of construction and costs go up and they escalate, you will underwrite the cost of those escalations. Mark my words: The private sector corporations, the financiers, sold the deal to their people on the proviso that they do not have to pay the capital costs, that they will simply build the thing with government money and operate the operating costs associated with the tolls themselves.

That's very, very curious decision-making, very, very much related to the same kinds of ideas and philosophies and financing the previous government used when it approached building SkyDome.

I say to you that today it may not be at the top of the people's agenda, but I promise you that inside of a few years, when the economy turns around the cost of construction simply begins to rise because the economy speeds up, the cost of this road, this highway, this toll will increase. When the cost increases, by the government guaranteeing the debt, its commitment to the cost of that road will ultimately increase and cost the taxpayers money.

The argument from the other side will be that the private sector will operate this road, will collect the tolls and will service our debt. I say to those across the floor, how long, in this taxing and spending approach we've used, how long will a private sector operator operate a road that loses money on an ongoing basis, if they're serving a significant capital debt? Not long. Not long.

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Could I just get clarified what piece of legislation we are dealing with here?

The Acting Speaker: I want to remind all members that we are dealing with Bill 138. It is an Act to Amend the Retail Sales Tax Act, and I would certainly suggest that all members who participate in this debate attempt to stay on track.

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Mr Curling: On a point of order, Mr Speaker -- and this is a real point of order -- since the member just woke up to know it's 138, there are 13 NDP government members in the House. I don't think there's a quorum here, Mr Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: Is a quorum present?

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees: A quorum is not present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees: A quorum is now present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Etobicoke West can resume his participation in the debate.

Mr Stockwell: I thank the member from the Liberal caucus. It is always important to have a quorum to do the business of this province. What I am suggesting about --

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

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

Mr Bisson: No, Cochrane South. He's Fort York. I'm just wondering: Do we need to have Liberals in the House --

The Acting Speaker: The member for Cochrane South, okay.

Mr Bisson: According to the standing orders of this House, is it important to have the official opposition here to listen to the wonderful debate of the honourable member from the Conservative Party?

The Acting Speaker: Order. It's not a point of order. It's a matter of having 20 members present which constitutes a quorum; it doesn't matter where they're from. We now have a quorum and we are continuing with the debate.

Mr Stockwell: Bill 138 is a retail sales tax bill and there's no doubt in my mind that when this toll bridge opens they will charge retail sales tax on the toll. As people drive through the baskets, they'll throw their change in. On that will be an 8% retail sales tax. Very applicable.

The point I was driving at was, I have some real concerns any time any government, through --

Hon Ed Philip (Minister of Municipal Affairs): What about the GST?

Mr Stockwell: There may well be GST on it as well, to the Minister of Municipal Affairs. But any time any government decides to start dealing with the private sector and during negotiations in those deals, any government -- I don't care what party; be it the Liberals, be it the NDP, or us. Any time a government says, "I will underwrite the cost of capital; I will guarantee your loan; I will guarantee the cost of construction regardless of what that cost may be in future years," that to me is an open-ended agreement that spells one thing: trouble.

It spells trouble because then the private sector builder, the financing people, lose sight of the costs of construction because no longer is it their money; no longer is it their guarantee. It is now the government's guarantee and you know what happens when you starting spending other people's money: You're not nearly as frugal or tightfisted as if it were your own.

That's what happened on SkyDome. On SkyDome, people started spending government money and they weren't spending their own any more. That's how you had a facility go from $150 million in 1982, when I sat on Metro council, to $600 million upon completion.

So I don't think this is the top agenda item today, but I will say this today, and I hope to read it back into the record if I'm lucky enough to be re-elected: You're setting a very dangerous precedent here. You're setting this precedent because you're allowing people to spend your money, and nobody spends your money better than you. If you want to capture this, rein this idea in, I would caution you as much as publicly possible: Don't let them have a free rein. Don't guarantee to pay the capital cost. Don't underwrite their financing unless you get to make the decisions on how it's built and where it's built and how much it costs, because they'll spend your money far quicker and far more than you would have spent it yourself.

The member for York Mills asked a very germane question today. It is germane because the decisions we make today are the taxes that people will have to pay tomorrow. I will tell you that if this toll road is not successful because the capital costs were too high and the private sector companies realize they're not making any money and they have no debt commitments and they have nothing holding them back, they're gone. If they're losing money on a yearly basis, they'll go. The only thing that will tie them there, through this toll bridge, provincial sales tax that you'll have to pay into the basket, I say to the member from Chatham -- I'm speaking in the member from Chatham's riding tonight, as a matter of fact; I hope to speak about this -- the only thing that is going to happen --

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): Go ahead. Ask me if I care.

Mr Stockwell: Ask him if he cares. Do you care?

Mr Hope: Ask me if I care if you're speaking in my riding. I hope you get a turnout.

Mr Stockwell: I'm trying to say this: Do you care?

The Acting Speaker: Please address the Chair, the honourable member.

Mr Stockwell: Well, he asked me to ask him.

The Acting Speaker: Interjections are out of order.

Mr George Mammoliti (Yorkview): He's cutting people off.

The Acting Speaker: Interjections are out of order. The member for Etobicoke West has the floor.

Mr Stockwell: I'm making a very impassioned plea, I am begging this government, to rethink this idea of financing. You know something? I don't think it was such a bad idea to have a toll road; I don't. I don't think it was a bad idea that you should in fact ask the private sector to pay for this toll road. I don't think it's a bad idea to have a toll road to pay for construction that we can't afford any more, if that's what we decide as a government. I honestly don't believe that decision-making was flawed at all. I think it was reasonable decision-making.

Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): There have been toll roads for years.

Mr Stockwell: Yes, there have been toll roads for years. In fact, in the United States they are quite accepted and very profitable. But let me tell you the difference in the United States. In the United States, when they build a toll road the private people who own and operate that toll road pay the capital cost for that toll road. So when they build that toll road they ensure that capital costs are kept as low as possible, because they know that how they're going to have to pay that back is through the basket that people throw their coins in when they travel the road.

So look, I'm not condemning you for the decision of toll roads. I'm not condemning you for that decision at all. In fact, I applaud you in your decision to go out and find private financiers to pay for it. I applaud you in finding private corporations to build the road. I applaud you in this joint venture to allow them to take on the responsibility of building the toll road. I applauded the minister when he made the announcement. But now the only thing I want to caution you on is that from the date of that announcement, June 24, 1993, a very important and a very conscious decision was made that changed the very fundamental principle of this toll road, and that fundamental principle is that the private sector isn't paying for it any more; the taxpayer is paying for it. That's completely different than what was announced on June 24, 1993.

I wanted to get that on the record because I didn't think it would be given the public debate that it should be given. I ask the backbenchers and caucus of the government and the cabinet ministers who go to cabinet meetings, just explore the concept of who is going to underwrite the cost. If you're going to do one thing if you're not going to change your mind about underwriting the capital cost, could you do one thing: Put a lid on it. Give them a capital expenditure of X, and once you get to X no more money comes from the government. If you could do that, that's not as good as going the private financing route, but at least it limits your liabilities. Any business person will tell you, when getting into a prospective deal, a risk business, you want to limit your liabilities.

Mr Mammoliti: I'd rather put a limit on you.

Mr Stockwell: I say to the member for Yorkview --

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Mr Mammoliti: I'd rather put a limit on you.

Mr Stockwell: He's suggesting he'd rather put a limit on me. There's lots of people out there who would probably agree with you.

But I would ask that you limit your financing on this and say: "Okay, if it's $600 million, that's it. You don't get a nickel more than $600 million." If you could do that at least, then I think you would probably be doing the taxpayers a big, big favour. In 10 years, when this thing is built, if it costs $1 billion rather than $600 million, somebody's going to have to pay for that. If the tolls aren't making the payments and the private sector people decide the tolls aren't going to make the payments, they'll leave, and you'll be left with a toll road that costs a lot more than you thought that isn't paid for out of the box that you thought it would be.

Finally, when this Bill 138 was introduced -- I just wanted to get one last item from my notes from yesterday. I kept my notes from yesterday. Insurance tax was the 5% car, home insurance tax that was -- one thing I wanted to put on the record is that I think there should be a law passed in this province. That law would say that no government in future can in fact charge a sales tax or a GST or any form of tax on anything that is legislated that you must own, and I say this for insurance purposes specifically.

You can't drive a car in this province without having insurance. Then I think it's not responsible government to tell people they can't drive a car in this province without insurance and then tax that insurance, because you leave them with no option. No way can they avoid that tax. They can't make a decision of buying or not buying insurance like they make a decision about buying an appliance or buying a house or any of these kinds of things. If they own a car, they must buy insurance, and if they must buy insurance, you're taxing them and they must pay a tax on a decision that they don't make.

Mr Hope: You make a decision on buying a car.

Mr Stockwell: You say they don't have to buy a car, but you know full well, coming from Chatham, and other rural areas and some areas outside, that you have no choice but to own a vehicle of some sort to get around. Otherwise you'd have cabin fever year round. You couldn't get anywhere.

Mr Hope: We don't live that isolated from society.

Mr Stockwell: I'm not saying you, but there are rural areas that do, that in fact can't get around without a car. I make that point through you, Mr Speaker. I put forward the petition on transportation, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak to this.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you very much. It is now time for questions or comments.

Mr Bisson: It is always actually with a lot of pleasure that I have an opportunity to listen to comments from my friend across the way from Etobicoke.

Mr Hope: Speak for yourself.

Mr Bisson: Speak for myself? No, I really do. I really find him the most entertaining of speakers in this House, and for that I applaud him.

But I have got to ask myself a question, because if I know Chris Stockwell to be one thing, it is the defender of the private sector and the defender of making sure that the private sector just goes ahead and forges ahead and makes sure it's able to make bucks in the end.

What we are doing here, I just would want to point out to our friend, is not changing the practice that has ever happened in the province of Ontario or any other province for years. For example, if you were to take a look at the northern Ontario heritage fund or the Northern Ontario Development Corp or programs offered by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology, the same kind of process applies when we lend money to private firms in order to be able to do what they need to expand their facilities, to take advantage of new markets or to be able to build a new plant, for that matter. What we do is that we don't give them money; we say, "Go to the bank, go and borrow the money you need, and we'll guarantee a portion of that money and we'll be the guarantor."

I know one thing about the private sector, because I've had the opportunity not only in this job but in the job before to find out, that the private sector does take the responsibility quite seriously. I think you would agree -- oh, he nods his head no, but I know he knows otherwise -- if you take a look at the track record of those companies that have dealt through those programs like NODC or the heritage board, you'd find their success rate is quite phenomenal. In the vast majority of those programs, I would say over 90% of the money we lend out we end up getting back. It's a good investment on the part of Ontarians in getting people back to work.

I think he needs to be somewhat fairminded when looking at that and recognizing, as I'm sure he does, that the private sector in the province of Ontario is responsible and will take the responsibility. In the unfortunate event that they were, let's say, to go into a bankruptcy situation, the company itself would drop. So there's no advantage for them to walk away from the project. It's basically, they would live and die by the project itself.

Mr Gary Carr (Oakville South): I'm pleased to comment on the speech by the member for Etobicoke West. I appreciate what the member said about the member for Etobicoke West, how he's entertaining, but I think the point you missed in all this is the fact that beneath all this, if you listen to the member for Etobicoke West, he understands the issue of taxation probably better than anybody else in this House. He understands it, having spent some time in municipal politics and understanding what goes on in taxation. We've been telling you for literally years in this House, going back to when he was our critic for the old Treasury, now the Ministry of Finance, that you can't continue to tax, spend and borrow like there's no tomorrow.

We've been telling you for years that we have hit the tax wall, that you can't increase any more taxes. Last year, in the budget that came in, you thought you were going to get $2 billion by increasing the taxes. The higher taxes have done nothing except drive more people to the underground economy and kill more jobs, and until you understand that, we don't on this side of the House speak to entertain you, although I must admit he says it eloquently and I must admit I often laugh at some of his comments.

But look beyond that. What we're trying to tell you on the taxation matters is the reason we had the job losses in the province of Ontario is because it's the highest-taxed jurisdiction in Canada and one of the highest-taxed jurisdictions in all of North America. If you want to put it in a nutshell, until you cut spending and cut taxes, there will never, ever, ever be any opportunity for tax relief.

In all fairness to this government, it's been governments at all levels and of all political stripes that have been overtaxing, but you, this government, in the last budget introduced the biggest tax increases in the history of the province. I believe one of the reasons that it was defeated was because of the high tax increases, and you couldn't let well enough alone; you had to beat them. Until you understand that, there will not be job creation.

Mr Mammoliti: I wouldn't call the previous questioner or speaker a liar; I wouldn't do that in this place. I wouldn't say that it's just not true --

The Acting Speaker: You're dealing with the comments from the member for Etobicoke West.

Mr Stockwell: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: You cannot infer something that you cannot directly charge somebody with and I would ask that he withdraw that, because he's inferring that although he's not prepared to make the charge.

Mr Mammoliti: I wouldn't do that in this place.

The Acting Speaker: Would the honourable member please consider withdrawing? I'm asking.

Mr Mammoliti: Yes, I would consider withdrawing.

The Acting Speaker: You have withdrawn?

Mr Mammoliti: Yes, I have withdrawn.

We are not the highest-taxed province and I think the people in this place know that. As a matter of fact, in some cases we are lower than others. I'm not going to dwell on that; I think the people at home will know that's the case.

Directly to Mr Stockwell, the person we're supposed to ask questions to, I will ask a very direct question. If his party were to become the government of the day, I ask him this question and I ask him very directly: Would you increase taxes at any time? Because the impression I'm getting from this gentleman is that his government, if we were ever to see his government in Ontario, would never increase taxes. I want him to directly answer this question. Don't do it over a four- or five- or six-minute period, do it in 10 seconds: Yes or no, would you increase taxes?

The Acting Speaker: We can accommodate one final participant.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I quite enjoyed the speech of the member for Etobicoke West, because he dealt with a very important issue that I think is one that the public should know about. He related it to this bill because he knows that there will be even more tax increases of this kind if indeed there's that problem with the highway being built just north of Toronto.

I think what he pointed out most appropriately and should be emphasized is what the government is up to is hiding debt under different agencies. That's what it's all about. There was going to be a bonus with Highway 407. Everyone, I think, recognizes the need for Highway 407; that's beyond question.

The way of financing it is rather interesting, because the government came out, the Premier said, "This is a brand-new way of financing; we're going private sector-public sector cooperation," and there was going to be a considerable risk taken, as the member pointed out, by the private sector.

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That risk is now gone. The public sector is going to be assuming the huge risk. That debt, however, will not show up in the government books. That debt, as Wacky Bennett used to do in the Social Credit government in BC, will be placed on one of the other government agencies, in this case the real estate and -- whatever term they use for that.

Hon Mr Philip: Sounds a lot like Bourassa. Robert Bourassa.

Mr Bradley: What is the name of it? The member for Etobicoke-Rexdale is going to help me with the name of this agency. But they put it under a different designation so it doesn't show up in the books. I think it's extremely important to remember that, because we're going to watch as we move into the next few years that a lot of these decisions are going to come back to haunt, not this government or any future government, but the taxpayers of Ontario. I would prefer that they be up front, put it on the books and then try to justify it, as they may or may not before the people.

The Acting Speaker: This concludes questions or comments. The member for Etobicoke West has two minutes in response.

Mr Stockwell: Thanks to the members for St Catharines, Cochrane South, Yorkview and Oakville South.

I think the comments from the member for St Catharines were encapsulating what I was trying to say with respect to the risk and the risk factor. It was announced as a private sector risk factor, which didn't turn out that way.

The member for Oakville South talks about taxes, and I think he's right. He's grabbed the issue that I think that this party has stood on, at least in the last three or four years since I've been here.

To answer the member for Yorkview directly: No, tax increases are off the table. They are a non-starter.

Mr Mammoliti: Oh, right, Chris.

Mr Stockwell: Well, you asked me, member for Yorkview. You asked me. I'm giving you the answer. Now, you're saying, "Oh, right."

Mr Mammoliti: Will you raise taxes? That's the question.

Mr Stockwell: No. Tax increases are a non-starter. They are not on the table in this government, if it were lucky enough to be elected. It's a non-starter, and I'll say to you, I think your government has gotten the message, because your Treasurer stood in this place and stood outside this place and said: "No. No more tax increases in the next budget and the foreseeable future."

How can you charge that we're making rhetorical statements to the public because we're saying no more tax hikes, when you're doing exactly the same thing, except your history has suggested that maybe your credibility is a little less stable than maybe what we're saying, because in the past three years you've increased taxes in an incredible fashion.

To the member for Cochrane South, I want to directly respond. I say to you, in your program you lend money. I am not a huge fan of government lending money to anybody, first off. I don't care, private sector, whatever, I don't think the private sector should get government money. They sink or swim on their own, in my opinion. That's why I believe in capitalism and those ideas. I believe the private sector can either sink or swim, period. Competitive or not, you swim. Don't beg the government for money.

But let me say, on your loan structures and guarantees, the problem with this loan is that there's no cap. The costs can rise significantly, and you're not going to leave Highway 407 three quarters done. You're going to finish it, and it could cost you more money.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate on Bill 138?

Mr Curling: It's quite an opportunity for me to speak on Bill 138, and I know too that it's a important bill. I know that the government side actually would like to hear the comments which I would be making, but it's unfortunate, though, for me to make those comments. I think there is no quorum in the House, Mr Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: Is a quorum present?

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees: A quorum is not present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees: A quorum is now present, Speaker.

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

Mr Curling: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It seems to me this government has a difficult time being even government, even to be attending in the House. It's unfortunate.

Mr Hope: We won't look behind you, Alvin, to see who is sitting behind you.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr Curling: I recall when this government, the NDP government, took over, one of the major statements it made was that it should spend its way out of this recession. There is no doubt that all parties here understand that we were going through a rather difficult time and that the recession was coming and that we must be rather careful of how we spend our money. But they thought the best way to get out of this recession was to spend. No matter how they were warned by the opposition and no matter how much they were warned by some economists, they felt if we spent our way out of this recession, it's quite possible it could have been turned around.

Lo and behold, they found themselves short of money. I don't have to remind them how many people they called in and started giving out a lot of money and felt that the money was going to come in anyhow, and today they find themselves short of those resources. What were they going to do? They decided that the only way to get money now is to tax people. It seems to me they've come into this trend. I think they must have increased taxes about 22 times since they've been in power. Their philosophy now is, if it moves, tax it, and if it doesn't move, tax it anyway. So every time that we look around --

Hon Mr Philip: How many times did you raise gasoline taxes?

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. Interjections are out of order. The member for Scarborough North has the floor.

Mr Curling: I know how difficult it is for them to listen to this, because the fact is they have no strategy whatsoever in how to govern, but they feel, like the minister, or the member from Etobicoke somewhere, if he heckles me, you may not hear the facts, and he can't take the truth about it.

But what has happened now, what we have found is that we have a tax bill here now, Bill 138, to amend the retail sales tax. I couldn't believe when they said here that they're going to tax parking. It's almost ridiculous that even people who are already being highly taxed -- and everywhere they turn they're being taxed by what they buy -- now they're going to be taxed if they park their car; they shall be hit again with an 8% tax.

They're going to be taxed also, as I see, to brew your own. It's funny: They're going to tax these people for brewing their own booze. Where else are we going to go to tax those individuals? What has happened to taxes at this time? The fact is that every time we tax individuals, and especially hitting the poor -- we are not discriminating in any way; we're going to tax right across -- what this has done is reduce the disposable income of those individuals.

People today are asking themselves, "What else are they going to tax?" The few dollars they take home to support their family, it's now known that you're going to be taking more at the source by taxing them before they even get an opportunity to spend it, and even when they have an opportunity to spend it, the government is still digging into their pocket to take away some more money from them. At a time when people don't need their money to be taken away from them, this government again is coming to tax the people.

Even without this tax bill, one of the most awful, one of the most vulgar moves, I would say, that ever happened is nailing the students today, taxing their tuition more, or increasing their tuition fees by 20%. This same government, this same party, before it came into power said it would eliminate all tuition fees so that access to post-secondary education would not be charged by tuition fees.

I tell you, those students, I'm sure, who were able to vote, came to the polls in droves to say: "Yes. This is the way we'd like to see it go." Because the fact is the greatest gift that any government could give anyone is an education or some training. Here it is now that we're giving it without a tuition fee.

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In a short time they were increasing the fees. They were going the other way. Instead of eliminating the fees, they have increased them by 20%. One of our youngest members, who I don't think has finished paying off his OSAP loan yet, if he has one, the fact is that he can recall what an opportunity it would be for him that he wouldn't be paying an OSAP loan now because of the burden it placed on him.

But he has a job, a lovely job as a member of Parliament, and he can easily pay off his tuition fees. What has happened to those young people who can't get jobs today? They are now paying off the OSAP loans. Of course, I don't see anything wrong with paying off their loans, but they had anticipated that this government would eliminate tuition fees, and today that burden has increased.

I think it's a sellout by this government. They should hang their heads in shame to know that they promised one thing and delivered something else. If you hit them 10% this year and 10% next year, an increase in tuition fees, they will not forget you. Their brothers who are younger than they are will remember, and their mothers and fathers and parents will not forget that you have increased their tuition fees to a point that is unbearable at a time when they themselves are losing their jobs. Here you come again increasing taxes on people who cannot afford it.

I remember too that this government spoke about that this economy is driven by small business and any way the government could help to make sure that small business could carry on their work and their businesses would be helpful. You know what they've done? They've immediately increased their taxes on small business, on insurance benefits too.

I recall too when the Liberal government did the health tax on employers, the cry of course from the Conservative Party and everyone saying that the burden had been placed on employers, making it more difficult for them to see the bottom line.

Mr Noel Duignan (Halton North): What the hell is that?

Mr Curling: That's what I'm talking about, the health tax, which was resisted by all --

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. Interjections are out of order.

Mr Curling: This was really resisted and debated very energetically inside this House. Now they are moving to tax some insurance and they feel that the cost itself will be transferred to the employee. They're going to feel it. They're going to feel it many ways because of the expansion of business. I tell you, it's that thin wafer that will break the camel's back. They cannot continue any more.

In my constituency the bankruptcy rate is extremely high and they tell you that they cannot afford to carry on their business because of the amount of taxes that this government, all governments have levied on them.

Mr Hope: They're paying at a high rate, Alvin. They call it high risk.

Mr Curling: The member is interjecting here and saying that he banks call it high risk, because the banks have realized that each time they had to take more money out to pay more taxes, it makes them incapable to pay their loan premiums to the bank so they become a higher risk, and you continue to tax these companies more and more and more and then ask them very much to employ people.

This government stands in here every day and blames other governments. I recall that when they were in opposition and I was on the other side, in government, they said if they got their hands on government how much they would help small business, how much they would help the little man or the little woman or the little person. Today they have put more burden on these people by taxing them 22 times in under four years, and then you have the gall to talk about how we increased our taxes in this place.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. I want to remind members that it's Thursday afternoon and we still have an hour and a half to go. Interjections are out of order. The member for Scarborough North has the floor very legitimately, and you will have an opportunity to reply or question the honourable member as soon as he has completed his participation in the debate. The member for Scarborough North.

Mr Bisson: Tell him to sit down.

Mr Curling: Mr Speaker, I know they want me to sit down. Some of them are sleeping, some are not here. Do we have a quorum here, Mr Speaker?

The Acting Speaker: Is a quorum present?

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

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

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

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

Mr Curling: Ever since this debate on Bill 138 started, for the last three days in this House the words have been, "Is there a quorum here?" This government should understand that it should keep a quorum here to get the business conducted. They have enough members to do so.

I was about to tell you about the warranty tax, which I tried to understand. The parliamentary assistant is here, and maybe at some time he'll explain to us how this warranty tax is going to work and how this will not be a burden on that individual who is struggling through to pay his basic living expenses. If you feel it's the companies that are going to take on this warranty tax -- not at all. It's the individual who comes in and finds that the job was not done properly in the first place on the goods under warranty, and now faces the fact that he has been taxed again for something that should have been done before.

I can't believe a government could look now to start taxing warranties. As I said, it seems to me that if something moves, tax it, and if it doesn't, tax it anyhow. The fact is that people with warranties are living in fear that, my golly, if something should ever happen to a car, for instance, an extra cost is going to be levied on them again.

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I was trying to understand that, how you could ever tax warranties, but you find a way to do this. My overall appeal to this government is that now is not the time to increase taxes; it's not the time at all to do so. People are trying their best to meet the day-to-day expenses and find again that another Treasurer has put his hand in their pocket and taken out the money want to feed their family with. You may think that another $5 here or another $3 there is not enough to break a family. I'm telling you, the families who are coming into my constituency or the individuals coming into my constituency office on Fridays are saying to me that they're just about giving up.

An individual came into my office the other day and told me he was going to declare bankruptcy. Whatever the cost of bankruptcy was at the time, he was unable to find that money. He couldn't find that money to pay the bankruptcy fee, it was so bad. The bankruptcy counsellor, or whatever they call them, decided it was okay and waived half of it, and told him to come in and talk. He didn't even have that amount of money. That's how bad it is out there. They need every penny.

New taxes at this time is the wrong direction to go. One person defined it this way to us on the task force on jobs I was on. He said: "In this province it's like three treasurers picking your pocket at the same time. When it's not the provincial government dipping its hand into the pockets of our citizens, it is the federal government or the municipal government." Lo and behold, they just give up. No wonder the welfare line is longer, because there are no jobs out there and there is more bankruptcy out there. I'm saying to you that it is the wrong time for us to increase taxes on these people.

You would think that this government, which felt it was the disciples of the poor and the downtrodden, to protect all those without jobs, to protect those without funds to maintain their families, would be the party that looked after their welfare. But oh, no. They are the first ones to quickly jump on and abuse the whole system of welfare for those people. As a matter of fact, when my leader spoke about some of the discrepancies and the bad management of welfare, the Minister of Community and Social Services over there, Mr Silipo, said, "There's nothing wrong with the welfare system; it's fine," and that there did not need to be any kind of changes within the system. Then all of a sudden, a couple of weeks afterwards, he had welfare cops looking into that system.

I thought these NDP members here would talk about protecting some of those welfare recipients, but no. What they did was they went around cutting welfare indiscriminately. The poor people feel rather vulnerable, that they had no representatives looking after their cause.

I for one would say that yes, there is abuse in the system. I don't think the abuse is as widespread as some would say. Like any other system, we've got to clean up where there's abuse, like workers' compensation or unemployment insurance. But I hear nothing from those over on that side to say they would protect those who are legitimately on welfare. It is almost like, "Let's find a victim and blame it all on the people who are on welfare."

Mr Sutherland: A little like Lyn did with the Somali community.

Mr Curling: I think he's speaking of our leader, Lyn McLeod, and the Somali situation. The leader of my party pointed out to you that maybe we should start looking at a system that has not been run properly, and talked about a report that is sitting out there, which I'm sure they were about to implement; I think it was from the federal government. We weren't quite sure whether they were going to implement it. But all of a sudden that side, the government side, started to talk about the fact that the leader had made these remarks and comments about the Somalis, which she did not.

Mr Mammoliti: What did she do? Oh, come on.

Mr Curling: What she did is that she brought to the attention of the government that there was a report out there that stated that Somalis are abusing the system, and she asked, when will the government be looking into these instances?

Mr Bisson: She charged that something had happened, a shot from the hip.

Mr Curling: It wasn't her report. She was going to ask, "Where is that report?" The fact is that they, immediately accusing my leader --

Mr Mammoliti: She isolated them. What are you talking about?

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. The member for Scarborough North has the floor.

Mr Curling: The problem is that the members over there can't take the truth. They would like to play politics with all of this, to say that --

Mr Bisson: Oh, my God, listen to this guy.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr Curling: If you stop playing politics with it, you may be able to resolve the problem. But you sit there on your high horse, in your seats, and feel that we're going to blame the leader of the Liberal Party for this report.

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): Who is the leader of the Liberal Party?

The Acting Speaker: Order. The member for Scarborough North has the floor, very legitimately.

Mr Mammoliti: He's not answering the question.

The Acting Speaker: This is not question period. We will have the opportunity to ask questions or making comments as soon as the honourable member completes his participation in the debate. In the interim, the member for Scarborough North has the floor, very legitimately.

Mr Curling: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The member over there was talking about hot air, and Now I start feeling it coming over to this side. I presume he has gathered back his air and is pumping it across here.

Is there a quorum in the House, Mr Speaker? This government can't even keep a quorum in the House.

The Acting Speaker: Is there a quorum present?

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

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

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

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

Mr Curling: I take my job rather seriously. The people of Scarborough North, who have sent me here on three different occasions, have sent me here to represent the issues and causes they believe in. Members who believe they have more importance here than anybody else will start checking themselves. I respect everyone in this House, that their views must be listened to and heard.

I believe also that there are people in our community, across this province, who are today out of jobs. Their businesses are folding up. There are business people who'd like to invest in this country and in this province and are being dissuaded, because the way this province is being governed, they decide to go elsewhere.

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I think when this government can take its responsibility seriously in how it taxes its people and how the pain and suffering are being levelled on the people today, it could understand that, and that members here ridicule others in here, the disrespect that you have for me -- and that's fine -- is the same disrespect you have for the people I represent and many of us represent.

It may not be easy for you to listen to all of this, and I understand that and that's why you're not here. It may not be easy for you to be told that people are losing their jobs and people are losing their homes and that you're taking away money from them that they need to feed themselves. It's not easy to listen to that. I also believe it's not easy to find a solution to all these kinds of problems, but the fact is that if we are objective in what we're hearing, what we can do then is to take those ideas, as tough as they are, and make sure that we can have policies to have people have some respectability in just living itself.

Today, in these couple of weeks, we're seeing a lot of crimes that are being committed in our country, in our province, and we see that people are trying to find blame with individuals, and, "Who are the ones who are causing this?" I caution all the members here that while all are concerned about the crime wave that has been happening, some people will blame it on the economy and that may be some cause; some people may blame it on the loss of jobs and that may be the cause; and some people may blame it on the government approach to how it taxes, and that may be the cause.

So it's difficult to listen to. It's difficult to see that the unemployment rate increases because there are no jobs to go to, and it's easy, of course, to blame the previous government for not putting things in place properly, or blame it on other governments of other levels so that we would have a better economy around here. But we may look at ourselves, at the policies we put in place, how we have people participate in the system.

One member over there from Etobicoke has stated that I am anti-employment equity.

Hon Mr Philip: You voted against it.

Mr Curling: The fact is that we want a province which can participate in everything. We don't want people cutting deals with unions and cutting deals with business. We want to be fair. We don't want an equity bill that excludes white males and includes others; we want a bill that's fair, to include all human beings if they are qualified, because when we do that -- we set people against each other. When the member for Etobicoke said, "You voted against it," the fact is that he himself doesn't even understand what equity is all about, what fairness is all about --

Hon Mr Philip: You didn't have the guts to get up and vote against your own party members.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr Curling: -- and that's how we tax too. The member -- will we have this yapping from the member?

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member who is interjecting knows very well that interjections are not in order. He's not in his seat.

Mr Curling: Levelling taxes must be fair, and allowing people access to work must be fair. It must not be dressed up in all kinds of clothes and coats.

The fact is that only some may come in, and I am proud to know I voted against that employment equity thing you have there. It's not on employment equity; it's a restrictive bill. We want a province that is fair to all. We want policies, we want taxes that are fair that do not discriminate in any way, and as long as you start bringing in discriminatory laws, you will have friction within the province. We'll continue to have friction.

No one is asking you, "Don't allow them in participate in paying their way in bringing this economy back to where it could be." Everyone would like to do that, to pay their portion, but no one wants to be punished more than the other. No one wants to be told to go to the back of the line because they are white males. They want to go to the back of the line if they are not qualified, if people are not qualified within this --

Hon Mr Philip: The bill doesn't do that. Why are you misleading the public on this?

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member, I beg -- he is not in his seat and I heard some unparliamentary comments. Please. The Minister of Municipal Affairs, please withdraw those comments.

Hon Mr Philip: I withdraw the comments. I feel that he was certainly not giving the right facts.

Mr Curling: Mr Speaker, I don't know how sincere the member is. He's not even in his right seat when he's withdrawing that.

The Acting Speaker: Will the honourable member please take his own seat and withdraw those remarks from his own seat.

Hon Mr Philip: I withdraw the remarks from my own seat.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. The member for Scarborough North.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order. The member for Scarborough North has the floor.

Mr Curling: The most misleading situation here is that we must make sure that all people can participate fairly in this system and that people are not penalized for one reason or the other because of the colour of their skin or because of their height or their size. We should remove barriers so that all can participate fairly, and when they understand that, when we all understand it, regardless of what party we are, then we can talk about equity, fairness, fair access. Governments are here to make policies that are fair, and if there are things that impede that kind of access, then that's when we have a government that is -- justice could be, as we said, blind.

The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments.

Mr Carr: I'd like to comment on the remarks made by the member for Scarborough North, and I appreciate some of the remarks he made. I think at one point he hit the whole gist of the argument that we are making on this bill. The taxes are so high in the province of Ontario and when this government was elected, it was going to tax the rich. The rich people were going to pay, we could have all these social programs in the world and they were going to tax the rich.

As the member for Scarborough North pointed out, this bill hits the average working man and woman in the province of Ontario. This is a tax on the average citizen; the poor and the average citizens are the ones who pay the bulk of the tax. That's what this bill does. It puts a tax on beer; beer, of all things. We're not talking about expensive wine or Chivas Regal or whatever.

The taxes on beer that you buy at the Beer Store now are so high that the average working person can't go out there and afford a case of beer in the province of Ontario to watch the hockey games because it's so expensive, so on their own behalf they go out and decide to make some beer. They'll take the time, the two, three hours it takes, to avoid the taxation because the taxes are already too high. And what does this government do? They are so strapped for cash, they've got to go out and tax the you-brews and tax beer for the average working person in the province of Ontario. That's what we've stooped to.

They were elected, they were going to tax the rich, the big corporations, they were going to pay for all the programs, and now the average working men and women, the ones who come back from the Ford Motor plant in my riding and want to have a beer, are now going to be taxed on the beer that they make on their own time. That's what this bill comes down to. You're now taxing the average people. You're taxing the average worker, the average person. It's wrong and we're going to fight you every inch of the way on any tax increases.

Mr Hope: Boy, life is tough when you can't buy a case of beer and watch a hockey game.

I must start off by saying it was good to see here that we have one member from the Conservatives and one member from the Liberals and it seems like nobody wants to listen to their comments. But I was interested in listening to you where the comments were made about the tax on working people and tax on small businesses.

Back when the Liberals were in government, let's talk about the attacks on working people. The 8% sales tax went across right on everybody. It didn't matter what your income was. He talked about the Ford Motor worker. Let's talk about the woman who worked in the small factory down there making seven bucks an hour, how the 8% sales tax affected her -- in good economic times, I must remind the member.

You want to talk about another attack on working people? How about Bill 162 that you brought forward as the Liberal government? Let's talk about the Ontario motorist protection plan which you brought forward and attacked on the working people. Let's talk about market value reassessment you levied on all the rural communities and you put forward on us. You want to talk about attacks on working people? They're paying for those attacks that you put on them today.

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Let's talk about the 8% sales tax that you levied on them too, where they lost clients because working people couldn't afford to pay for stuff.

Let's talk about the employer's health tax the Liberals put forward.

Let's talk about no training funds put forward for those employers to make the changes. Your government supported free trade and never helped the corporations make the structural change.

Let me tell you what this government's trying to do with small business and those working people. It's called Jobs Ontario, which is a major program that has a lot of good success.

I see Mr Bradley laughing. Well, let me tell you, Andre Lamoue, Pontiac-Buick dealer in Tilbury, is not laughing. Let's talk about Coca-Cola Bottling in Chatham. It's not laughing. Let's talk about Elan Corp in Chatham. It's not laughing. Let's talk about Navistar in Chatham, which is one of our major truck manufacturers. It's not laughing.

So when the member stands up and gives this self-righteous speech, he better have his facts put forward.

Mr Bradley: I want to commend the member for Scarborough North for --

Mr Bisson: Jim, you said you weren't going to get up.

Mr Bradley: Oh, I was not supposed to get up; I just realized that. But now that I'm up, I guess I'll have to comment on my colleague's speech.

I thought it was an excellent speech. I listened with a good deal of interest to it, as I always do, and I know it's provoked the members of the government to make certain statements. But I think what the member has put forward is something that's related to 1994 and the circumstances we face in 1994 and the fact that there's another tax -- it's coming back a little later now -- that has been levied. He's expressing concern that at a time when you're into a recession and you need as much money in circulation as possible with individuals and with groups within our society, it is unwise at that time for a government to extract more funds.

You find, generally speaking, that in good economic times people still don't like taxes, but they're prepared to sustain those taxes when they're making a lot of money, when the economy is booming, much more so, and they're much less damaging, than when you are in a difficult situation where you want to put money back in the hands of consumers. And I know he noted that my good friends in the New Democratic Party, when they sat on this side of the House, justifiably in their own platform and in their own philosophy, demanded many, many services of government and the expansion of those services. I think they recognized at the time when they asked for those services that implied would be some tax increases.

Well, today we're seeing a decline in services. Because of economic circumstances, the government has made that decision to reduce its expenditures, and as a result, the government shouldn't have to increase the taxes at this time. So I think that was the point he was making in a very moderate and sensible fashion, and I want to commend my colleague the member for Scarborough North.

The Acting Speaker: We can accommodate a final participant.

Hon Mike Farnan (Minister without Portfolio in Education and Training): I'm very perturbed by the direction of the debate. I find that members are not dealing with reality. When I talk to my constituents in Cambridge, very clearly we ask them: "What is the sense of the general direction?" The people of Ontario recognize that the plan that we are working with as a government to maintain services, to maintain jobs, to keep a balance in society between fiscal responsibility in terms of keeping our eye on the budget and having the deficit go on a downward course this year and next year is the kind of realistic, sensible, logical approach that the people of Ontario want.

They look back at the 1985 situation. In the previous administration -- and this hasn't been mentioned by the speakers. They say, "In good times, we should be taxing." We say, "In good times, you should be going consciously after your deficit and eliminating it and having money in the bank."

Unfortunately, what we inherited from the Liberals went in the opposite direction. Good times -- they didn't think of what we had to face. But the people of Ontario are fair and the people of Ontario are looking at our government. They see we have a plan. They see we're sticking to the plan. They know that the deficit is on a downward course.

They know that we are maintaining jobs, they know that we are maintaining services, and this is precisely the sensitive approach that the people of Ontario want. They don't want the Klein approach of Alberta. They don't want the Liberal approach of more taxes. They want more and more services, but how are they going to pay for it?

The Acting Speaker: This completes the time allotment for questions and comments. The member for Scarborough North has two minutes in response.

Mr Curling: It seems to me I rattled the cages over there. The member for Chatham-Kent didn't want to deal with the -- he never said "Bill 138" once, or "the retail tax credit bill." He talked about the fact of our time in government. We were talking about a present taxing of this government now. The fact is that they say, "I don't want to deal with this." We have the largest deficit ever in any government. "We don't want to deal with that."

If you want to talk about facts, my dear friend from Cambridge --

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr Curling: My dear colleague from Cambridge stated that when he speaks to his people in Cambridge, it's what they say. Ask them what kind of government they have now and the government they thought they had in 1990.

Interjection: They told you.

Mr Curling: They told us what kind of government they wanted in 1990 and they're telling you right now the kind of government they want now: to take your hands out of their pocket and to make sure the economy gets back working again. They want to tell the member from Chatham to deal with reality, deal with today, deal with the fact that people are hurting. They're saying to you today --

Interjections.

Mr Curling: It's difficult, I know, Mr Speaker, to talk over the noise over there.

Mr Hope: I'd deal with your legislation today --

The Acting Speaker: Order. The member for Chatham-Kent has had his opportunity. The member for Scarborough North has the floor.

Mr Curling: If you are all reasonable people, if you are the type of people you said you were in 1990, you will start listening to the poorer people or those ordinary people out there who are hurting, and you should look very seriously at this present bill.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate on Bill 138?

Mr Carr: I'm pleased to enter the debate, on behalf of the people of Oakville South and the Burlington portion of my riding, on Bill 138.

I sit on the finance and economics committee, and this bill, as we may have heard through some of the discussions, is a result of last year's budget. It's interesting we're coming up on this year's budget some time in April or early May. This is a result of last year's budget.

I was going back on part of the report we did last year on the pre-budget finance committee where we talked about what the government should do prior to the bill being introduced that we're debating here today.

When we heard from the people across this province -- and the process, I'll just outline it very quickly, during the finance committee, the pre-budget, is that you hear from the people of the province. People come in and tell you on taxation issues and housing issues and social issues what they would like to see.

During that period there was a chap who came in, and I want to quote what he said. Then I'll tell you exactly what happened with Bill 138, which was part of the largest tax increase ever brought in by a provincial government, during some of the worst economic times.

There was a chap who came in and he said, "Never in the past half century" --

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. On a point of order, the honourable member for Brampton South.

Mr Robert V. Callahan (Brampton South): Mr Speaker, we're discussing the question of taxation, which is important to all the people of this province. You would think the government would be able to keep at least 20 members in here to maintain the quorum of the House.

The Acting Speaker: Is a quorum present?

Senior Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Journals (Mr Alex McFedries): A quorum is not present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

Senior Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Journals: A quorum is now present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member for Oakville South may resume his participation in the debate.

Mr Carr: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I will try to not antagonize the members opposite. I know it's Thursday and tempers are sometimes a little frayed at the end of the week, but I will continue on.

It wasn't me who said this, but there was a chap who came through who said this, and I think it's very important for some of the members to hear what was said prior to Bill 138 coming in. They came in and talked about what they felt should be done with regard to taxation.

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The quote he gave is: "Never in the past half century have business conditions in Ontario been as bad. We've had a record number of bankruptcies, chilling numbers of plant closures and layoffs. See our blood. No more taxes. Tax increases will only make the deficit position worse and subsequently put even more pressure on our social programs."

I'll repeat, that was prior to the pre-budget hearings, not this winter, this January, but the previous January, prior to the implementation of Bill 138. To put it in a nutshell, what he said is that if you increase taxes any more, you're going to actually get less revenue and put more pressure on our social programs. The government didn't listen. They didn't listen to our pre-budget report, which is what I quoted from, where we listened to the people of the province and said: "Here's what they are saying. We agree with them. Would you please do it."

They didn't listen, and now what has happened as a result of bills like Bill 138? Exactly what that chap said would happen happened. You now have less revenue. Last year's budget, including Bill 138, increased taxes to the tune of $2 billion. What happened to revenue? It actually went down. You increased the rates, you increased taxation on insurance premiums, on the brew-your-own beer people, and the revenue you got went down.

It's not very complicated. You don't need to be a graduate. It's very simple: We have now hit a point where any increases in taxes get you less revenue, plain and simple. Economic theories are very simple. People will do anything to avoid paying taxes, and I will get into a little bit of the underground economy, which has been spurred by high taxation levels.

My friends opposite were talking about different governments in different jurisdictions. In all fairness, the problem with taxation is the cumulative effect. The people of this province aren't concerned whether it's the municipal politicians' fault or whether it's the federal government's fault or whether it's the provincial government's fault; they're saying that the taxation is too high.

It's interesting that in one of the federal budgets when they lowered the taxes this provincial government jumped in and increased it the same amount that the federal government had reduced it. All people in this province are concerned about is the bottom line. They're sick and tired of the finger-pointing, saying: "It's your fault, it's your fault. It's the federal government, the municipal, the provincial." Quite frankly, governments at all levels have created the problems.

But what you've got to realize is that bills like Bill 138, with the taxation levels that you have put together, are killing the jobs in the province of Ontario. The economists that came before that committee two years ago said that the recovery was slow, that domestic consumer demand would remain relatively weak, that the unemployment rate would remain stubbornly high and that now was not the time to increase taxes, because consumer confidence was very fragile.

It wasn't complicated. It was very simple. They said you cannot increase taxes, like you've done in Bill 138, because if you do you're going to threaten the recovery. That's what happened. What do you think happens to the average person, the average consumer, who now has his beer taxed, his insurance premiums taxed? Do you think he's going to go out and spend money on a new fridge, a new stove, on any new clothes, anything that he needs in terms of discretionary spending when the taxation level in the province of Ontario is such that we have to stoop to taxing insurance premiums and beer?

The reason that the taxation has gone on the beer and the insurance premiums is because it's something that can't be hidden. In everything else in the province of Ontario they're going underground. That's why we had the major problem with cigarettes. You could have increased it as much as you want. They were bringing it across the border, smuggling, which gave rise to all the problems that we had down in the Cornwall area. You've got to realize that any tax increases will get you less revenue.

I'll get into some of the details on Bill 138, because there's a broad overview. I want to tell you, the people who came before that finance committee said it again. I'll use a quote, not from me, because I know some of the members opposite think we always attempt to be partisan in our rhetoric.

One of the people who came forward said, "The problem with the deficit-debt-interest black hole is the fact that the provincial government has not just reached, but has effectively passed, the limits of taxation, the limits where further tax increases and new taxes result in less revenue, not more revenue." That's what was predicted two years ago in the prebudget finance committee. They said, "You're going to get no more revenue if you increase taxes." What does Bill 138 do? Bill 138 attempts to increase insurance premiums; taxes the brew-your-own-beer houses. That's where we have gone in the province of Ontario.

I want to be a little specific and talk about the tax on insurance. Ontario residents or businesses purchasing new insurance policies after last year's budget or renewing existing premiums are liable to pay the 8% tax on premiums. On top of everything else, in this day and age, when it's difficult to make ends meet, this NDP government is now taxing insurance premiums in the province. I defy any member on the other side to say that he or she got elected by promising taxes on insurance premiums.

If you talk to some of the people who supported you in the last election, if they knew you were going to stoop to putting a tax on insurance premiums I suspect a lot them would not have voted for you. I'm not going to get into why people make promises and get in. I'm sure a lot of you thought the money was going to fall out of the sky.

But we told you prior to the 1990 campaign that the taxation levels were too high in the province and that there couldn't be any more increases. That's why you stooped to putting it on insurance premiums, because it can't be hidden. That's something that's out in the open and you can't go underground. The people of this province don't believe governments are spending their money properly and believe it is being wasted on a lot of programs -- to be non-partisan, they think that about municipal governments and the federal government as well the provincial government -- and they will do anything to avoid paying taxes. That's why the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Finance are attempting to tax insurance premiums: They're trying to find something that can't be hidden.

We have now reached that point where the men and women, the hardworking people of this province who go out every day, will do anything to avoid taxation, because they believe that right now the taxation levels are too high and that governments are spending it incorrectly. What did the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Finance in this last budget do? They taxed insurance premiums.

Non-residents of Ontario purchasing new policies or renewing policies that cover individuals residing in Ontario are liable also to pay the 8% tax. Ontario residents or business holders of group insurance are liable to pay an 8% tax on premiums.

Here we have a party that has fought for many years for benefits for workers, in some of its members past experience, involved in collective bargaining process with unions and so on, trying to get more money for the hardworking men and women of this province. For that I give a lot of you credit; I know some of the members are here. But as a government, what are you now doing? You are now taxing benefits.

It's not good enough to tax based on income, which is what you said you would do, and tax the corporations and that the rich people would pay. If you had a higher income, your personal tax rate would be paid and it would be on the rich people, and the corporations would pay. That's what you said in the last election campaign. You said you'd increase taxes, not on the benefits of the working people in the province of Ontario.

That's what you're doing. That's what Bill 138 is hitting. It is hitting the hardworking average citizen who just wants to go out there and work hard, make a buck. You're taxing their insurance premiums and their beer. That's what this bill is all about, for those members who may not have read it. If you don't agree that you would not have been elected if you'd said to the hardworking men and women of this province, "We're going to tax your insurance premiums, we're going to tax your beer," well, you're wrong. You would not have been elected had you said that prior to 1990.

Group benefits are going to be taxed now in the province. They put in some exemptions in terms of insurance policies. I don't know who decided that. I guess the bureaucrats went through a list and said: "In. Out. In. Out." The bottom line is that they're attempting to get more money out of the benefits of insurance premiums in the province of Ontario. Ontario residents provided benefit plans are liable to an 8% tax payable by the plan-holder. That's what this bill is all about.

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I wish the members opposite would sometimes have a little bit more political courage to stand up to the Minister of Finance and the Premier when some of these measures come in. If you don't want to do it publicly -- I think there are some members who disagree with this bill on taxing beer and insurance premiums and that some of you -- and we'll never know unless we're a fly on the wall -- may have voiced your concern to the government. I think what happens, quite frankly, is that they don't find out about it until after the budget and it's too late, and they say nothing and we're merrily on our way.

But if you don't say anything to the Minister of Finance or the Premier about these taxes, even if it's after the fact, even if you don't change Bill 138 -- because it's too late, as it's been introduced -- maybe you'll have an impact on some of the other things the Ministry of Finance is now looking at taxing or, as it's looking at doing now, increasing fees. Had you had the political courage to stand up to the Minister of Finance and the Premier during this period when Bill 138 was pushed through, I believe we may not have seen some of the tax increases that have been brought about over the last little while -- non-revenue taxation, as they call them, increases in fees.

A lot of you sit there, and I appreciate that you may not want to publicly come out against your Premier. Quite frankly, in the last election most of you wouldn't have been elected had you not had the party symbol in front of your name; most people didn't even know who you were. But when you don't stand up for the hardworking men and women you represent on bills like 138, you are not doing your job, because that's what they sent you here for.

On some of the other issues out there, the welfare issues and the education issues, I suspect we can disagree on how to handle them, but the people who sent you here did not believe you were going to tax insurance premiums and beer. That's why they're angry at you. And they're more angry at you because a lot of you did not have the political courage to stand up to the Minister of Finance and the Premier when they did this. I think the Minister of Finance sits back -- the bureaucrats, in a lot of cases, are pushing this through -- and says, "Get me more revenue," and they say: "Okay, here's how we do it. We can't allow people to go underground in the economy, so here's how we'll do it. Here's how we'll do it so the people can't get around paying this tax."

That's what you've done. You've taxed insurance policies and beer. I say you should be ashamed of yourself. Even if we can't change Bill 138, you should have had the political courage to tell the Minister of Finance that it's wrong so it won't happen in the next budget.

There has been tax added on the statutory insurance schemes. This bill will bring taxes on parking charges. That's how low we have stooped in terms of trying to get revenue: We are now taxing parking charges. A lot of the members opposite, if there had been any increase in any fees charged by parking lot attendants, would have been the first ones to jump up and down and accuse them of gouging and ripping off the people who are trying to park their cars. What does this government do? They are now taxing parking charges. Another reason they did this is because they know it can't be hidden. They know it's out in the open and you can't get around paying it, like you can with some of the other taxes. You can't smuggle, like you can with cigarettes and liquor. So they are now taxing parking charges.

Before I go on to some of the other things, I want to basically tell you the problem this government has. The problem this government has is that it believes it has a revenue problem. They believe there is not enough revenue in the province of Ontario. The fundamental difference between them and our party is that we do not believe we have a revenue problem in the province of Ontario. We have a spending problem in the province of Ontario. In some respects they've done a better job than a lot of governments over the last 10 years; they've been forced to, based on the revenue dropping. Until you realize that it is not a revenue problem, that it is a spending problem, and until you tackle the issues of spending, you will never, never, never get the deficit down and allow the taxation levels to be reduced.

It's not an easy task. What needs to happen right now is spending still needs to be reduced. We're still at least $10 billion in debt each and every year; that's "billion" with a "b." Each and every year we go further and further into debt, and even with the tough choices you've had to make -- in your minds they've been tough choices. They're not easy for any political party or any member to make, but in your own mind they've been a lot tougher than you probably thought you were going to do when you came in in 1990. But there still need to be major decreases in spending in the province of Ontario.

Now again, a lot of the problems weren't your fault. During the 1980s we spent double, triple the rate of inflation, we ran up the spending to unconscionable levels and it was just simply unsustainable when the recession hit. That's why the fundamental principle has to be, if you want to put it in a nutshell: What needs to happen in the province of Ontario is that we need to cut spending; we need to cut taxes. That's what will create the jobs, because higher increases, like Bill 138, in taxes are only going to mean fewer jobs to the people in the retail sector, for example, because the consumers out there are fearful for their own jobs and they're not going to be spending as long as you bring taxes in on insurance premiums, on parking lot charges, on beer. They're fearful of every budget brought in by you people because you've done nothing but increase taxes. You've killed consumer confidence. That's what killing jobs.

I believe there are some long-term things that need to be done, but until you realize that you need to cut spending and allow some of these taxes to come down, you will never create the jobs necessary. That's why, when you came to power, the unemployment rate was about 6%. It's probably double or remains close to 11.3%, give or take whatever it is. In the province of Ontario, when you came in power, we had the fourth-best unemployment rate in all of Canada. It's now the worst: 80% of the jobs that were lost in this recession were lost in Ontario because of the high taxation level. The high taxes have driven businesses out, killed consumers' confidence, killed investment and that's why the consumers aren't spending.

When the people came in and voted for this government they thought, in spite of the ideologies of the socialists, the one thing they would do was protect the average worker. In 1990 that's what they thought, that the one thing they would do -- most people aren't socialists in the province of Ontario, but they thought the NDP would at least protect the average worker.

What you're doing with Bill 138 is taxing the average worker's insurance premium, it's beer, it's parking lot charges. The average worker is whom this bill is hitting; the average worker, not the big corporations like you said you would. You were going to tax the Conrad Blacks and your minimum corporate tax was going to pay for all these programs. What happened to that? Why do you stoop to taxing the hardworking men and women and the average worker in the province of Ontario? Why?

One of the reasons is, and most of you probably didn't know this, but I think the Premier and the Minister of Finance knew it: The bulk of our revenue comes from the people in the middle class. The rich people, a lot of them can move their money to offshore jurisdictions. You can move your bank account to Switzerland or Sweden or Germany tomorrow and no one will know. You don't even need to go to the bank any more. The rich people can move their money into tax shelters and move it all over the world. The people who can't are the hardworking men and women you've hit with your Bill 138.

The bulk of our revenue, for those who don't know, comes from the retail sales tax and the personal income tax. Only about 7% of our revenue comes from corporations. I believe the Minister of Finance knew that in the last election when he said, "We can have all the social programs in the world and we're going to tax the corporations." Somebody who had been around 20 years, like the Minister of Finance, knew that only 7% of our revenue came from corporations. You could increase it 200% and you wouldn't get very much more revenue; in fact, less, because more companies would leave. But you know what? He said it anyway. He said, "We'll do it anyway."

I don't suspect a lot of these members knew, particularly the new ones, where the revenue came from and that you couldn't tax corporations. But the Premier knew and the Minister of Finance knew you couldn't tax corporations, but they said it anyway. Of course the reason they said it was that they never thought they'd be elected. That's why the people are so cynical and mad at you, because the Premier and the Minister of Finance knew. The promises you were making about taxing corporations and taxing the rich, the number of people and the amount of revenue that could be taken out of there is very small.

That's why, when the personal income tax was put on, the massive surtax that was put on for the middle class, the average worker got hit with it. The average worker making a little over $53,000 got the massive surtax.

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When this government was in opposition, it was going to tax the rich. There was going to be a surtax on everybody making money. The average worker at $50,000 didn't think they were going to be ones who were going to get hit with the massive surtax that you brought in over the last few years. That's why, over the last little while, there was so much anger from the working people of this province towards this government, because the tax increases were towards the middle class and the average working people, unlike what you said you would do in opposition, which was to tax the rich.

On the finance committee, I put together some recommendations -- sometimes I wonder why I even do them; I suspect most people don't even read them in this House -- practical solutions of what we want to put together. Mr Speaker, I want to tell you, what the men and women who came before the committee two years ago in the winter were saying was right. Had you listened to them, your revenue wouldn't be dropping and you wouldn't have had to tax insurance premiums.

This year we did the same thing. We put together our pre-budget report. It was tabled I guess around the end of January. I suspect again the members don't even read it, don't even look at what's been put forward by the people of this province. If any members do want to look at it, the same things were said: The tax levels are too high, you can't increase taxes any more, and if you do, you're going to get less revenue. You have to look at spending, not tax increases, if we're ever, ever going to deal with the problems in this province.

We're not content to do a couple of finance reports. We put together, as part of the underground economy report, some of our suggestions again, because that's all the underground economy is: The biggest tax revolt in this history has been the underground economy. The average person here who's willing to pay their taxes says: "We're not going to do it any more. I will do anything to avoid paying taxes." That's why we have the underground economy that, folks, could be taking up to 20% of our gross domestic product; 20%, some economists are saying, has now gone underground because of the high taxation levels.

We put together some solutions at the end of our minority report, because unfortunately the members of the finance committee couldn't come to an agreement, so we had to put together a minority report. But I put together, as part of my function on the finance committee, along with my colleague from Markham, nine commonsense solutions of what to do about the underground economy, nine little points that we put together in conjunction that the members opposite, I guess discouragingly, probably don't even read. Sometimes you try to be practical and put some solutions forward, and you wonder whether it's worth it.

But we will continue to do that. As long as people come before the finance committee and the underground economy committee and are willing to give their solutions to me, I'm going to attempt to put them forward in these reports, which are now piling up in my office, and some of the suggestions we want to put forward. If nobody reads them, I will attempt to put them forward in the reports. I'll attempt to articulate them as best I can in the speeches in the House for the members who are now at least having to sit to listen to me. But I would encourage you to get into some of the detail. Look at the solutions.

In the finance committee we had about 15 points that we felt would be helpful to the government. In the underground economy, we put together about nine points that we thought would be helpful. And had you listened to some of those suggestions that came before the finance and economics committee, you would not be sitting here today debating taxes on insurance premiums and brew-your-own beer.

We have a deficit crisis. You don't need to turn around -- as a matter of fact, today's newspaper had "Booze Taxes Imperil Jobs."

"Government must lower taxes on booze or risk losing thousands of jobs to black-market smuggling, the president of the Association of Canadian Distillers warned yesterday."

It isn't complicated. What you promised in 1990 about taxing the corporations: Right now the fact of the matter is that taxation levels are too high. We've been overtaxing in this province, and the people of this province will do anything to avoid paying taxes.

He goes on to further say, "Cut the taxes and remove the incentives to smuggle, because if you do not, at the end of the day, you're going to get less and less revenue." You're going to have to run around and look at cutting more and more programs because, as this government found out, all of the things that we care about, whether it's the health care system, the education system, they don't depend upon the compassion of a government. They depend on having a healthy and prosperous economy to support them.

All your self-styled, self-serving sensitivity in the world isn't going to pay off until you learn one lesson. Government spending is still too high. Taxes are still too high, and that's why jobs are not being created in the province of Ontario.

To the members opposite, some who are here and some who are listening: If you take one thing away from this debate, when you try and tax insurance premiums and beer for the average hard-working people out there, it's wrong, and we're going to oppose the taxation levels.

You need to cut spending, because when it gets to taxation, you have to talk about specifically the spending cuts, and for those members who want the 10-point plan, for the last three reports, they're in there. They deal with welfare reform. They deal with WCB. They deal with the employer health tax. They deal with all the broad issues that we felt were important, and we laid them out for you.

I've also had the opportunity over the last little while to sit on our small business task force as the critic for Economic Development and Trade, and I want to tell you, the people who have created the jobs, the small businesses, the entrepreneurs are very discouraged.

One person summed it up. I guess we were in Belleville. The man owned a small menswear store. He said, "You know what the problem is right now? This is it in a nutshell. I have two children. One wants to be a nurse and one wants to be a teacher." Great professions, very respectable. We've got a lot of nurses and teachers. I think everybody is very respectful.

He said, "The reason they don't want to be entrepreneurs is they said, 'Dad, we see how hard you work, six days a week, sometimes seven days a week, never take a holiday and at the end of the day, you barely take anything home for your hard labour because of the taxation levels.'" Again, to this government, it isn't just provincial. "You don't take very much home. We don't want to be entrepreneurs. We want to get in the public sector and be teachers and nurses because being an entrepreneur today doesn't get you much because of our taxation levels."

The fact of the matter is the new generation coming up does not want to be entrepreneurs because, at the end of the day, if you make a buck in the province of Ontario, this government's going to just tax more of it out of you.

The only good news here is that this government's mandate is coming to a close. I don't think their last budget, which will be the one in May, will increase taxes. We'll continue to fight on it. The only good thing is, at end of the day, we're getting closer and closer to the end of this great socialist experiment in the province of Ontario. That will be the best thing for job creation. I can't wait for that election.

The Acting Speaker (Ms Margaret H. Harrington): The member's time has expired. Questions and/or comments?

Mr Sutherland: I just want to make a few things clear here at the beginning. First of all, the member for Oakville South has been talking about taxing beer and taxing insurance. Let's be very clear about what we did.

Yes, we increased taxes on you-brew, but let's remember, you-brew only makes up a very, very small portion of the brewing industry in the province of Ontario. So to say that the average person who wants to -- first of all, making it sound like it's an essential item is a little bit extreme, and the you-brew beer is still far cheaper than the amount of tax on the other beer. He's making it sound like beer has never been taxed before in the province of Ontario, which is just absurd.

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I found it very interesting, though, that again he brings up what they've done on welfare. He brings up what they suggest to do on WCB. He didn't mention Hydro. Do you know that the unfunded liability for WCB in 1980 was only $400 million? By 1985 it was over $5 billion. That's the Tory record of so-called managing WCB.

What about Ontario Hydro? What about the huge debt that was brought on at Ontario Hydro during the Tories' time? They talk about that they've managed things and then the solution to everything: Reduce taxes, you get lots of jobs.

In a modern economy, you've got to do more than that. You've got to have skilled, trained people. You've got to have Jobs Ontario Training. You've got to have the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board. You've got to be proactive. You can't just sit back and take a 17th-century, Adam Smith view that if we just sit back and do nothing, the economy's going to do very well.

While you're sitting back doing nothing, the countries that are spending money on people, the countries that are investing in training, in technology, in community economic development, they're the countries that are having the healthy economies, they're the countries that are creating the jobs. That's what we're doing. We're going after the good models, not some 17th- century view that's totally out of date.

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): I'd like to congratulate the member for Oakville South on his words of wisdom with respect to this bill. I think we could talk about a number of things in summary as to the things he's talked about: the tax on insurance, the tax on health and drug and dental and dirt and brew-your-own and all of those sorts of things. But I think the message that he's giving out to the people in this place, in this government, and with respect to the people of the province of Ontario, is that we've had enough with respect to taxes. We can't stand it.

I don't think he's suggesting, in response of some of the members over here, that the people of Ontario are dishonest; not at all. The fact of the matter is that they've had enough with respect to taxes. They're doing whatever they can do to avoid these taxes, and the underground economy is the result. It's a well-known thing and it's being developed. And yes, to be fair, it's not the sole result of your government; it's a result of the federal government as well. I don't think that you can take the full blame, but you can take a lot of blame with respect to this.

This topic with respect to auto insurance is one of the things that we could spend a lot of time on, and if I have an opportunity, I'd like to spend some time on it, specifically with respect to the trucking industry, simply with respect to people in my riding and other ridings like mine that are out in the country, where a car is a necessity, where you need a car, and it's just an added expense.

The minister who is responsible for auto insurance is sitting here in the House today. Of course, we remember back when the Ontario motorist protection plan, OMPP, was created, and that was created as a result of the fear of auto insurance going up. We heard great opposition to that.

Now we've come along, and I know the minister could come forward and say, "Oh, it's because of OMPP." It's not because of OMPP. It's one of the matters that is involved with respect to this tax. You have a lot of nerve standing in your place and saying, because of your policies, there's no increase in tax, when your Treasurer has the gall to tax auto insurance. It's an absolute disgrace.

Hon Richard Allen (Minister without Portfolio in Economic Development and Trade): I just want to react to a few of the comments made by the member for Oakville South. The overarching thesis of his argument appeared to be that somehow the taxation levels, whether they're high or not, are the principal cause of the fact that we have a depressed economy.

It only takes a little bit of observation around the world to look at many different kinds of tax regimes that in fact are having similar problems with their economies. Therefore, one would have to conclude that there may not be so close a relationship in point of fact.

In reality, if you're looking at some of our principal competitors around the Great Lakes states, for example, the combined corporate tax rates in Ontario are less than the combined corporate tax rates in those particular jurisdictions.

If you look at a tax that has sometimes been complained of by people in that party, namely, the employer health tax, it's very interesting that, although there have been some comment about that and some criticism of that particular tax, if you take a comment by Mr Iacocca, the head of the Chrysler Corp, in fact our tax is very modest with respect to the costs of employers in the United States when it comes to the cost of putting a car on the market. In fact there's an $800-per-car benefit that our particular approach to health care funding creates for our auto producers.

One can go through our approach to taxation. We basically have a taxation system we inherited from the Tories and from the Liberals, added with the GST thrown on top from the federal government. We have taken an approach that we're trying to move towards a fair tax regime, and if we have been marked by anything for the common people of Ontario, it's because we have taken 270,000 people at the lower income level off the taxation system. We've moved our taxation more on to the upper level, away from the bottom, so that the people at the bottom will spend it all on the goods and services that are produced by Ontario workers.

The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. Further questions or comments?

Mr Bisson: I didn't think I'd get a chance, but I want to put on the record a couple of things.

First of all, the member talks about the level of taxation. I would say to the member that he's saying that Ontarians, like everybody else across North America and the free world, want their taxes to go down. Well, does he purport at the same time that you have to do an equal cut on services?

One of the problems we have is that the people in this province -- and it's a good problem to have -- have a really good system of benefits and a really good system of government when it comes to providing services to the people, such as health care, such as public education, such as day care, which people ask and want from their governments. Are you advocating that we should absolve ourselves from that responsibility and take the draconian, Mike Harris, right-wing view of things, à la Ralph Klein and Brian Mulroney, and try to move in the opposite direction so that what we end up with is a shell of the systems we know now, so that when people are ill they don't have the right to go to a hospital unless they've got a cheque in their pocket or the cash to put up front? If that's what you stand for, I don't stand for that at all. It's reprehensible that you would try to put forward such a view.

You also talk about taxation, that the level of taxation and the things this government has done are scaring investment out of the province. I would like to talk about a little bit of private sector investment in my riding in northern Ontario of Cochrane South. The figures this year on private sector investment are anywhere between $600 million and $700 million: on the part of Placer Dome, $300 million for a superpit; Potter Station, over $100-million investment -- Northland Power is in the final throes of putting in a new plant into that community, over $100 million; Hemlo, up in Marathon, a brand-new gold mine, $50 million; Malette wafer board, expansion of the OSB if approved, $50 million; a new granite plant up in Iroquois Falls still being negotiated, probably $2 to $3 million; Royal Oak, a new mine it's working on at the open pit in Hallnor -- and the list goes on.

They're not being scared out of Ontario. They're rushing into the province because we've created the atmosphere for investment in this province.

The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. The member for Oakville South has two minutes to reply.

Mr Carr: All you've got to do is talk to the average person. How can you be so out of touch, I ask the member for Cochrane South? Prosperity abounds, according to that member. The fact is that you've lost more jobs than any other province in Canada, than any other jurisdiction in North America. The unemployment rate has doubled. You've done more to cut services in education, health care, all the things you cared about, than any other government. You've been an absolute disgrace.

To the member for Hamilton West, who did listen intently, I will be polite, because I appreciate the fact that he was very intently listening. What I'm saying very clearly is that it's all relative to other jurisdictions. Yes, other jurisdictions have had problems, but it's all relative: Ours has been worse because of the high taxation.

He may be right about corporate taxes. What the people of this province want is the bottom line. Whether it's the municipal government's fault or the federal government's fault or the provincial government's fault, or all of them combined, or whether it's the WCB cost, the bottom line is that our jurisdiction has higher taxes than anybody else. And you cannot increase taxes, because if you increase taxes you're actually going to get less revenue. That's the bottom line, I say to the members opposite. You can't increase taxes. We've hit the wall. If you do it, people will avoid it. You will get no more revenue.

At the end of the day, the people are going to judge this government on the record, and the record is you've lost more jobs than anybody else. One of the big reasons is the high taxation levels. You'd better learn that quickly, because you've got another budget coming up. Unless you have the political courage to stand up to your Premier and your Minister of Finance now, they'll continue to go down the road that we've been telling you for three years has been wrong. We've been proven right. At the end of the day, the people of this province are going to put their report card on you. The good thing is, in less than a year, I won't have to stand across from you, because most of you are going to be gone.

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The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Bradley: Thank you for the opportunity, Madam Speaker, to address a few remarks to this bill and the general budgetary policy at the same time, because this does deal with a budget bill, interestingly enough, from last year's budget.

One of the reasons I think the Premier and Minister of Finance are able to say, copying the Premier of British Columbia, that there'll be no new taxes is simply because they've already levied several taxes over the last three years and the implementation of those taxes is bringing considerable revenue to the government. We expect that as we get near the provincial budget we'll have all kinds of talk about no new taxes and things of that nature.

In addition to this, of course, there have been increases that a lot of people call taxes, what we in this House refer to as non-tax revenue; that is, various charges put out there to the private sector and to individuals in our province. I think that has to be remembered.

This particular bill has some taxes that I think could be somewhat detrimental to the province. It's very difficult to handle budgetary policy in difficult economic times like these. One can sympathize with the government's desire to have more revenue, and the quibble will be over how best to derive that revenue: Is it best to tax something else or is it best to tax what is proposed in Bill 138? Is it best to trim expenditures so you don't have to have tax increases? Is it best to borrow? It's not an easy choice, any way you look at it. I happen to object to certain parts of this tax, although I recognize that from time to time governments, this government included, have had to levy taxes to derive some funds to operate government.

It's interesting that many of the people out there who don't want a decline in services also don't want an increase in taxes. I've listened to people on the far right, for instance, who talk about cutting back. It's interesting when you meet with people who have these views but have two hats.

I've sat with some groups who, when they're part of one group, say: "What the provincial government should be doing is avoiding any tax increases. It should be reducing the deficit, trimming expenditures even more, getting out a knife that is very sharp." They sit in one group to say that. Some of the same people, however, sit on the hospital board or sit on the board of the children's aid society in an area, or sit as a director of one of the groups in the community that wants more funds to address its needs.

I always have to ask, "Which hat are you wearing today?" and explain why it is difficult for those of us who are in elected office to make those choices, because sometimes we hear arguments made both for services to be provided, which is going to incur expenditures, and they would also like to have it the other way, with the taxes reduced. It's somewhat like oppositions always do, no matter which party sits on this side of the House: We would like to see that magic.

But the taxes here are a problem. I mention, for instance, that in good economic times people don't like taxes either, but if you want to expand programs -- many of the members who sit on the government side today and some who didn't sit there before but were activists in the communities asked previous governments, Tory and Liberal, if they would increase services. They were quite effective, I thought, and quite committed to seeing these services expanded, the new programs brought in, and seldom called for trimming of expenditures. To meet these needs, governments did put forward taxes.

Sometimes there are taxes withdrawn. I think everybody, at least probably the government and the official opposition, would agree, for instance, with the withdrawal of OHIP premiums. I remember when the Progressive Conservative government brought in OHIP premiums. I knew they needed funds to operate the system of health care in the province, but I always felt OHIP premiums were not equal for everyone. There were some people who were not covered. Those who were fortunate enough to have a strong labour union in their area that fought for these particular premiums to be paid had the premiums paid. Some people who didn't necessarily have the union fighting on their behalf but were fortunate enough somehow to have those premiums paid or partially paid were in a better position than those who didn't have the premiums paid. It was an extremely unfair tax.

I remember the huge uproar there was when former Progressive Conservative Treasurer Darcy McKeough proposed a 37.5% increase in those premiums. Those of us who sat in the opposition at that time thought that was, first of all, a very excessive tax increase, but second, I think we fought it even more because we recognized that premiums being paid for the purposes of health care did not balance out equally for people. They were often hardest on those who did not have the ability to pay. Even with a system that assisted with the payment of those premiums, there were still a lot of people who were left out in the cold. So those premiums were abolished.

Well, revenue had to be found to replace those premiums because they represented a lot of the cost of health care being provided for through the payment of those premiums. So other taxes were levied, including the employer health tax, which certainly isn't popular but was designed to replace the OHIP premiums to a certain extent.

I'm concerned in the present, fragile economy. We're still in a recession. I hope we're coming out of it. I see some good signs and some negative signs, but I think it's not wise right now to be increasing taxes, because it extracts money from the economy.

I don't believe that if you abolished all taxes somehow the economy would start booming and everything would be fine, but I just thought at the time of the last budget when this tax was levied that it would have a negative impact on the economy rather than a positive impact on the economy.

I looked at the specific ones -- I heard the member for Hamilton Mountain, who is the minister responsible for insurance premiums and insurance, talking about insurance premiums not going up. He has to be the only one in the province -- he's fortunate; I must find out who his insurance company is -- whose insurance premiums have in fact either stayed the same or declined. I know I went into the office to have mine lowered and I even upped the deductibility and so on, and I left the office with even more of a premium. So I think the tax on those premiums increases that cost, and for many people that's essential.

I'm concerned about the tax on the premiums for what we call group benefits. Again, I think the employees are going to end up paying that because employers, at this time, cannot afford to pay more in most instances and, as a result, they are trying to extract concessions from their employees. One of the reasons they would want to extract a concession is so that the cost of the tax on the premiums on group benefits could be looked after.

In addition to this, there was the issue of aggregate and soil and so on where the exemption was removed. So that increased the costs at a time when we want to get the economy spurred on.

The brew-your-own tax is the one that is a mystery to me most of all because I know that the New Democratic Party always portrayed itself as the party of the person who didn't have much money, and brew-your-own --

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order. I'd like to be able to hear the member speaking. Please resume.

Mr Bradley: Thank you, Madam Speaker, for assisting me. Brew-your-own was what some people could do and save themselves some money, and perhaps they saw it as a hobby as well, and I'm surprised actually to see the government bring a tax in on that.

Warranty repairs: Again, I think my colleague has addressed that particular issue.

I think there are places where governments can save money. For instance, I look at the budget for polling. I've raised with the Premier on a number of occasions how much money is spent on polling. All governments have spent that money on polling, but I remember the New Democratic Party, in principle, was very much opposed to spending money. I saw some $8 million over the last few years spent on polls to tell the government what it thinks, and I think that's one place where money could be saved.

I think on government advertising the money could be saved. I know I've had constituents, as you, Madam Speaker, may have had constituents do the same, who have contacted me, written to me, telephoned my constituency office to say they're highly annoyed -- and I realize this is a government agency, not the government directly -- with the Ontario Hydro ads that say, "This is the new Ontario Hydro."

All that is is a self-serving, self-congratulatory ad. If it's solid news, if it's solid recommendations to people on how they might save energy, good information, then I think that's justified. But these ads that come on and say, "The new Ontario Hydro," I think even the president of the Power Workers' Union has objected to that.

So those are the kinds of things that could be done to save money, and even the government members agree with me, I see. I'm happy to see that.

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I'm worried about something else. I understand why governments tax. I'm worried about a couple of other things, and I won't go into my anti-gambling speech today. I will allow that for another day, although I intend to speak on that a number of other times because I really think it's a movement in the wrong direction. But because you're in the chair today -- the Speaker in the chair is the member for Niagara Falls -- I'm going to be charitable and not address that particular issue.

I want to deal with the tuition hike as well, and compare it with this, yet another, tax, ill-timed, excessive. I'm quite concerned because I remember -- when I was young I thought this would be great -- the New Democratic Party was going to abolish tuition. As a person coming out of high school, I thought: "This is wonderful. I won't have to pay very much in the way of tuition. In fact, it'll be declining, it'll be removed." What we've seen in the latest initiative is in fact a 20% increase.

I notice the editorialists are largely in favour of this. The university presidents naturally are in favour of it; it's more money for the universities. But the students find themselves in a more difficult situation. Let me say why. Again, if the economy were booming, a lot of those students could go out and get a job, often a good-paying job in industry, to help supplement the cost of education. But it's very difficult today; there aren't many jobs out there. I won't assign blame or get into that today, but there aren't many jobs out there and that's why I thought, as with this tax, the tuition increase of that magnitude was not justified. The opposition and students would complain if there were any increase, but I think the complaint becomes more legitimate when we look at the size of it.

I know that if the money were spent on what people considered to be appropriate, it would be much easier to accept taxes. I have a couple of letters today from people who are friends or spokespersons on behalf of residents of Linhaven nursing home in St Catharines. It's a senior citizens' home and a nursing home and it has a reputation over the years of providing top-notch service to the people in it. But because of cutbacks in that area, that service is now declining.

This is from Peter Monck, the president of Linhaven residents' council, who writes as follows --

The Acting Speaker: Excuse me. To the members, if there are conversations that are important, could you please hold them somewhere else. Thank you. I would like to hear the member. Please go ahead.

Mr Bradley: Mr Monck states the following in writing to the Minister of Health:

"As the president of the Linhaven residents' council, I am writing to you on behalf of the council to express my concerns about the social contract act and long-term care funding cutbacks on the quality of life of residents of Linhaven.

"During the last provincial election campaign, it was often affirmed that the long-term care facilities would never be cut back in funding. Such reductions would contribute to a ghetto-like senior society similar to the sad situation that existed during the Great Depression.

"In the past, the province has always been a supportive partner with long-term care facilities management and has allowed for progress in caring for Ontario's elderly. Please don't let the strong anti-institutional bias of a few slash care to unacceptable levels for seniors who need it most. Please fulfil the promise made with long-term care reform of better care in facilities and easier access to that care when it is needed.

"We will watch future developments with great interest and will assess your government's performance with respect to this issue. This issue is one of great importance to those of us who may speak for the interests of those seniors who are dependent upon services provided by Linhaven Home for the Aged."

It's signed by Peter Monck, president of the Linhaven residents' council, and I've received from parents of people in there, from spouses of people in there, from relatives and the families, the daughters and sons of people in there, other letters.

If the money from this tax were applied to this service, and it's obviously not being applied, these people might be prepared to sustain this tax. It's similar to the situation we confront with safety in our streets. I happen to think there are a lot of people out there who, while they are averse to increases in taxes, if they could see that community safety was increased as a result, might be prepared to accept those kinds of taxes.

We've had some suggestions over the past couple of weeks in the House that I think have been positive. We've had suggestions from the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force that people turn in their guns in exchange for some kind of vouchers. That suggestion on the part of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force is a good one and it was raised by one of the party leaders here at the same time.

There was a suggestion yesterday by the deputy leader of the Liberal Party that there be a restriction on the ability to purchase ammunition, and I think there was a lot of consensus in this House that it was reasonable, that somebody shouldn't simply be able to walk in off the street and make those purchases.

I think there was a general nodding of heads in this House when it was stated that there shouldn't be plea bargaining where people can bargain away a sentence that is for the use of a firearm or a firearm violation while at the same time they are convicted of something else -- pretty good consensus there.

In terms of police budgets, though I don't believe the only solution is to add more and more police, I think in communities there are initiatives where there's community policing, where there's a visibility out there that can be very helpful.

The cutbacks have had an effect on policing and have had an effect, to a certain extent, on those people who might be contemplating committing a crime. That's why I believe that people in our province, if they could be reasonably assured this would act as a deterrent, would be prepared to accept a tax of this kind.

I also believe that people want in the longer term to address the social conditions which exist, which end up in crime. Those social conditions are never an excuse for committing crimes and never should be an excuse, but they're always there to be noted and there to be addressed so that again we reduce the chances of crime being committed.

People out there are looking, in my view, for value-for-dollar. Sometimes they get it. Some of the programs the government proposes are good and they're good value for the dollar that is spent. If you can sell that to the people, and I say that in the best sense, people will accept that.

This is where I divert back a bit to gambling and this is why, if the government were to put forward programs and then put forward taxes and those programs were accepted by the people, I think you would find less opposition to taxes even in difficult times. This is why I see a trend across this country of governments wanting to go to gambling. It's difficult to get a bill such as this past the House. The opposition objects, the third party objects, the people object, and even within the government caucus there are objections to tax increases.

So the easy out is to set up casinos, to expand offtrack betting, and the next thing I predict is that you're going to see the video terminals. That debate is before the cabinet at this time, because they need that revenue.

What I am saying with a tax like this is, the reason you see as much opposition to this is because a sufficient number of people object to specific programs the government has out there that they believe do not represent a good expenditure of dollars. Where you have good programs and where you can tie a bill such as this to the provision of those services, I think you make it much more acceptable for people out there to sustain this kind of revenue-raising.

I have an opportunity to go on at some more length, but we are getting close to 6 of the clock, as we say in this House. I simply want to say that in the new budget, my expectation is that since we have all kinds of taxes already levied with revenues coming in, and greater revenues I'm sure when indeed the economy improves, that we can expect there will be no increase in taxes. The member for Kitchener-Wilmot, who sits behind me, nods acquiescently, if not in quick agreement, with what I'm saying.

I urge the government, then, to look at other places where they can trim expenditures. They've tried some of this, and I want to say to the Chair of Management Board, there have been some cuts made, and they're not easy. It's now treasury board that has that responsibility, but the Chair of Management Board had that at the beginning; that position had that. It's not easy to do, because I know, for instance, on local councils, senior levels of government --

The Acting Speaker: I'd like to ask the member to break off his remarks.

Mr Bradley: As I get near the very end of my remarks with about 30 seconds to go, I notice that many of our friends on municipal councils, who are often the most vociferous in wanting to cut taxes and trim expenditures, are also the most vocal when it comes to suggesting that the provincial or federal government should spend more money, and I think that's rather revealing in itself.

I hope to have an opportunity to conclude my remarks at the next session of this Legislature and thank members for their rapt and kind attention.

The Acting Speaker: We thank the member for St Catharines. He will have a chance to resume the debate on Bill 138 at a future date.

At this time, I will ask the government House leader for his report.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Government House Leader): Pursuant to standing order 55, I wish to indicate the business of the House for the coming week.

On Monday, April 18, we will continue second reading of Bill 138, the Retail Sales Tax Amendment Act. Following that, we will begin second reading of Bill 110, the employer health tax act.

On Tuesday, April 19, and Wednesday, April 20, we will give second reading consideration to Bill 146, the Corporations Tax Amendment Act.

On the morning of Thursday, April 21, during private members' public business, we will consider ballot item number 49, a resolution concerning shelter allowance standing in the name of Mr Bisson, and ballot item number 50, standing in the name of Mr Chiarelli, the subject matter of which is to be determined and will be tabled on the next day this House meets. On Thursday afternoon, we will begin second reading consideration of Bill 136, the courts of justice act.

The Acting Speaker (Ms Margaret H. Harrington): It being 6 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until Monday, April 18.

The House adjourned at 1803.

14 avril 1994