Journal des débats 1994-déc-05 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr D. James Henderson (Etobicoke-Humber): At a time when health care in Ontario is under severe stress, we should note that demoralized and unhappy health practitioners do not do their best work.

Physicians in Ontario are indeed demoralized. They rallied a little some months ago when they heard a commitment from the government of Ontario that they would be permitted to incorporate their practices, as indeed do many other professionals practising in the province of Ontario. The NDP government agreed to incorporation and referred the matter to the Health Professions Regulatory Advisory Council.

Incidentally, the Ontario Medical Association has already agreed that any incorporation structure put in place would include the retention of personal liability on the part of individual practitioners.

Ontario physicians are increasingly constrained by a widening network of regulations, prohibitions and enactments which have the effect of undermining their professional freedom to practise medicine. I am speaking of the Canada Health Act in 1984, Bill 94 in 1986, the imposition of the GST in 1990, capping of physicians' billings, various clawback agreements and an ever-widening definition of professional malpractice policed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

Now the government is hedging on its promise, claiming that the advisory council's June 1994 report recommends withdrawal of its commitment. The government wants to renege on yet another NDP promise. That would not be in the public interest nor in the interest of promoting good health care in the province of Ontario.

I appeal to the government to honour its promises and to recognize that patients suffer when clinicians feel demoralized and unfairly treated.

LONG-TERM-CARE REFORM

Mr Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): This statement is for the Premier. Gary Winters, president of the VON, Lanark branch, has voiced serious objections to Bill 173 and this government's treatment of home care providers. His concerns are outlined in a letter to the Premier in which he states the following:

"To place the citizens of our community in jeopardy for future services and to add more uncertainty and anxiety on care-providing staffs when your proposed long-term-care reform is already unsettling to both groups is both irresponsible and unwarranted."

The VON has provided a list of situations in Lanark county where patients have lost home service because of this government's approach.

This list includes a 94-year-old patient with cancer, lives alone, no family; an 80-year-old patient, lives alone, needs weekly injections; an elderly couple, the wife bedridden, the husband had to become the caregiver, he fractured his hip while doing laundry.

There are many other cases, but I think the point is clear: The NDP will abolish home care systems that work and, for the sake of ideology, they have placed the lives of these patients in jeopardy.

COUNTY OF OXFORD

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): January 1, 1995, marks the 20th anniversary of the restructuring of Oxford county. The county of Oxford's foresight has resulted in an improved form of local government that other jurisdictions may well wish to study. The restructuring of Oxford's municipal government resulted in a significant consolidation in the number of rural townships, from 18 to 8. The city of Woodstock and the town of Ingersoll rejoined the county government system.

The drive to restructure came from local politicians, supported by the Ontario government, concerned with the need for a stronger, unified approach to land use planning which would be better equipped to deal with development pressures.

The restructuring was also seen as an alternative to regional government that many urban centres in southern Ontario were discussing at the time, and Oxford county did not want to be absorbed into a regional government based in urban centres such as London or Kitchener.

The changes have been an overwhelming success. Oxford county stands as the only example of complete county restructuring in Ontario. The county assumed control over land use planning and established Oxford's official plan. Water and sewer services are joint local and county functions. The county takes care of a network of county roads and administers the delivery of social services.

Oxford county has also led the way in the creation of a computerized property records system that has been the focus of international interest and now is the basis for a province-wide system.

In closing, I would suggest that other municipalities may wish to review the Oxford county experience. They would discover a municipal government that is smaller, more efficient and more effective. Municipalities struggling to cut costs and maintain services in today's economic climate may well benefit from Oxford's example.

M.M. ROBINSON HIGH SCHOOL

Mrs Barbara Sullivan (Halton Centre): For some time people in Halton Centre have been working diligently with me to ensure that safety and educational problems at M.M. Robinson High School are addressed in the Halton Board of Education's capital program.

To say that the need is urgent is no exaggeration. The art room, which is a converted janitor's storage room, is vented to the loading dock. Severe water damage has caused what appear to be structural weaknesses around large, original windows. Students are not allowed to use gas in their chemistry labs due to deterioration of the piping.

The Halton Board of Education has now set M.M. Robinson as its number one priority for capital spending. The problems at the school, I believe, need correction immediately, and I have asked the Minister of Education and Training to consider making the ministry's share of funding available in advance of the normal timing for capital allocations, since the renovation requirement is so serious.

Many of us who have been concerned with the needs of this school for some time were amused last week to hear the partisan rhetoric of the member for Burlington South on the topic. His intervention was distinctly unhelpful in assisting us to ensure that the students at M.M. Robinson attend a school that is safe and where the full curriculum can be presented.

Indeed, we haven't needed or wanted his help in Halton Centre for capital allocations for renovations, additions or new schools for either the public or the separate boards. In a cooperative effort, we have brought close to $200 million for schools to my constituency since my election in 1987. That is a record that is unmatched in any other constituency in this province.

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CORRINE LEGER

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): I rise today to bring to the attention of the Minister of Health and Solicitor General a situation that has caused undue stress on the family of one of my constituents. I bring it to their attention in this way as obviously the ministers have not paid attention to the letters written to them by my constituent's family.

A year ago this week, Mrs Corrine Leger died at St Michael's Hospital. Due to the sudden and unexpected nature of this death, an inquest was held. This inquest, held last July, did not provide conclusively the cause of death. In fact it raised many more questions than it answered.

Needless to say, the family is not satisfied. They have continued to try to find out the real circumstances surrounding their mother's death, and to this end they have appealed to the Minister of Health, the Solicitor General, the Ombudsman and the Premier.

The family has some very serious questions as to the recourse one has when not satisfied with the results of an inquest. The family feels the various ministries are closing ranks when it comes to their complaint. In over 20 letters to the government, the family has repeatedly asked for help. The only responses they have received from the ministers simply defend the accusations that a conflict exists when one has to contact the office one is complaining about in order to talk to the office that investigates the complaint.

The ministers have been quick to justify how their bureaucracies function but have done absolutely nothing to help these people. The family has serious concerns as to the availability of justice in this case and they deserve some answers. They have been treated extremely poorly, and I urge both ministers to get personally involved in this case and help the family put this unfortunate situation behind them.

TOWN OF BOSANQUET

Mrs Ellen MacKinnon (Lambton): I'm very pleased to inform the Legislature today of a historical event in my riding of Lambton which I had the pleasure of attending on Thursday, December 1. The township of Bosanquet, by order of Queen Victoria on May 30, 1849, was declared a township in the county of Lambton. On December 1, 1994, I took part in the official inauguration by an order of the Ontario Municipal Board to erect the township of Bosanquet to town status.

Bosanquet was first settled by Asa Townsend in 1821, and he described the new-found land as exotic. I commend Mayor Fred Thomas, the council and the staff of Ontario's newest and largest town for their progressive actions and efforts on behalf of the residents of the town of Bosanquet.

This day was also very significant as I announced the approval of a $436,000 Canada-Ontario infrastructure program. This funding will be used to construct a new building to house the town's firehall, municipal garage, water department and related offices. Work is to start immediately and will create 202 weeks of employment and one long-term job.

The town of Bosanquet is moving into an exciting era, and I encourage everyone to visit the town, which is one of Ontario's most beautiful tourist areas. With Pinery Provincial Park, the beaches of Lake Huron and many campgrounds and other recreational facilities, Bosanquet is truly a vacation consideration for the whole family.

INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM FINANCING

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): There's a crisis in OHIP coverage that cries out for immediate attention by the Minister of Health. It is becoming clear that NDP provincial government ministers may be suffering severe damage to their backs from constantly patting themselves on that part of their anatomy during the announcement of funding of infrastructure projects in Ontario.

Astute members of the news media will be well aware that the only new funding in the infrastructure program is that which is coming from the federal government and that the provincial government portion consists simply of routine, regular grants that have been made to municipal-provincial projects in years gone by with little fanfare.

The same ministers who habitually bash the federal government for partisan political purposes appear large as life at the news conferences with their federal counterparts to share in the glory of good-news funding announcements that have been made possible only by the present federal government abandoning the policy of the former Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney, which refused to participate in such a beneficial program.

The province has routinely funded road, sewer, water, recreational and cultural capital projects in years gone by as a normal part of its role. Federal funding has permitted far more projects to proceed, with employment benefits to the communities affected. This, members will recall, was the kind of job creation program ridiculed in Progressive Conservative campaign commercials.

Act immediately, Mrs Grier. The backs of your ministerial colleagues are becoming bruised and painful from all that self-inflicted patting.

RURAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): It's interesting to hear the Liberals and the NDP argue about who can spend more and who can congratulate themselves better, but today I would like to raise a number of issues regarding rural economic development which are important to Wellington county and all of rural Ontario.

First, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs has taken a disproportionate share of spending cuts. If all government ministries experienced the same level of cuts as Agriculture and Food, the province would not have a deficit. A new government should ensure that agriculture has its fair share of government support.

Second, Bill 91, the Agricultural Labour Relations Act, became law in June 1994. Bill 91 allows for collective bargaining in agriculture, the unionization of our family farms. Because of the nature of farm work and farm products, work slowdowns can be devastating to this industry. The government should repeal Bill 91.

Third, the farm tax rebate program was implemented to correct an imbalance in rural property taxes. Until reform of the provincial property tax system is complete, the government should retain the farm property tax rebate program in its present form.

In Ontario chemicals must be approved by both the federal Department of Agriculture and the Ministry of Environment and Energy. The present system is overregulated. The approval of a chemical at the federal level should be sufficient to ensure the safe use of these chemicals in Ontario.

Because of the continuing fluctuations in world markets and subsidies implemented by competing nations, we need effective safety net programs in Ontario. The government must actively promote the establishment of a whole farm support program. The inequities of the gross revenue insurance program should be relieved by increasing market revenue insurance coverage to 85%.

All these ideas have come from the people of rural Ontario and are referenced in our Conservative caucus's rural Ontario task force report. If implemented as government policy, our report would constitute nothing less than a welcome return to commonsense government in Ontario for the first time since 1985.

CAVE SPRINGS DOCUMENTARY

Mr Ron Hansen (Lincoln): I rise to pay tribute to the producers and subject of an award-winning documentary on Cave Springs Farm in Beamsville. The Magic of Cave Springs, a film made in 1993, was runner-up in the best documentary category of Maclean Hunter Cable TV 1993-94 in-house awards program. The 28-minute film was produced by Patti Crossley of Port Dalhousie. The executive producer was Joann Tweney of Maclean Hunter's Niagara division.

Maclean Hunter recently presented a special plaque commemorating the award to the film's main subject, Mrs Margaret Reed. Mrs Reed, fondly known as the witch of Cave Springs, has been giving tours of the Cave Springs site for years. She especially enjoys casting the magical spell of Cave Springs on the school children. Cave Springs has been the focal point of interest for many years, mainly because of the ice cave and magnesium springs. Its historical significance runs the gamut from lost treasure caves to early Loyalist settlement.

According to Maclean Hunter, the Cave Springs film was up against some tough competition from 22 other entries in the best documentary category, so finishing in the runner-up spot was a great honour. Maclean Hunter's Niagara division has only won this category once in the 10 years since the awards began.

The documentary has captured the essence of Cave Springs and the spirit of its keeper, Mrs Margaret Reed, a wonderful senior who says she'll live forever because she drinks the magic water of Cave Springs. Congratulations to Margaret Reed, Patti Crossley and Joann Tweney for a job well done, and be sure to visit Cave Springs in the future, Mr Speaker.

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STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

PUBLIC SECTOR RESTRUCTURING

Hon Floyd Laughren (Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance): I rise today to outline to the House this government's decision on next year's transfer payments to our largest partners in Ontario's public sector. I will also outline how we are reshaping the public sector to keep services affordable in the future.

As this House well knows, we have worked long and hard to strike a balance among our priorities: to get Ontarians back to work, to live within our means and to provide quality services at an affordable cost.

Our plan is working. We are striking the right balance. The current economic expansion that we've helped to create is fuelled by confidence about Ontario as a place to live and to work, and it holds the promise of sustained growth in the future.

It is tempting to think that our fiscal work is done and that economic recovery alone will solve our problems.

That would be wrong. We know it would be wrong because other governments in Ontario have made exactly that same mistake. They spent lavishly when the economy was expanding and ran up debt that we didn't need. A private sector report estimates that if government had kept spending increases simply to the rate of inflation between 1984 and 1989, we would have had an $18-billion cushion against the recession. Instead, when the good times ended and the money dried up, Ontario was $40 billion in debt.

We will not repeat that mistake. People in Ontario have suffered too much and we have worked too hard at setting things right.

It has fallen to us to make the tough decisions and bring about the lasting changes this province needed to get our fiscal house in order. We have done it in a balanced way. We put in place a social contract to trim $2 billion a year from the public sector payroll and to make those savings permanent. Our expenditure control plan will save government a total of $4 billion. Those measures and others have allowed us to cut program spending both last year and this -- an achievement that no Ontario government managed in the 50 previous years.

More important than our record on spending is our approach to it. At every step we have worked with our partners throughout the public sector in Ontario. With their help we have reduced spending without harming vital services that people depend on and without triggering the tens of thousands of job losses that would have followed from a harsher approach.

It is always easier to say, "Cut faster," but that rhetoric never admits the costs. Right now, we are seeing people elsewhere in Canada pay those costs, which are measured in security, fairness and human dignity. We must never forget that public services and public assets are woven tightly into our economy, and to tear them out unthinkingly weakens that entire fabric.

That is why we have taken a unique and measured approach to managing spending. We have focused on priorities. We have cut our own overhead costs by 16% in the past three years. We have found ways of making services more affordable, and shifted money to where the needs are greatest. Our community colleges have managed a 15% increase in enrolment in the past three years with less funding. Our school boards have been able to handle 3% more students over the past two years, even though funding has not increased. That's been achieved by trimming administration costs and getting a bigger share of funding into the classroom.

Health care spending has been basically flat, but we're managing the system better. Hospitals are handling 9% more cases with 20% fewer beds because stays are shorter and more people are being treated in day surgeries. That's allowed us to free up urgently needed funds for cancer and cardiac care.

Our approach has brought Ontario's deficit down by more than 30% from two years ago -- without destroying services, without laying off thousands of workers, without sending a recovering economy a shock it could not absorb.

We remain committed to balancing the operating budget by 1998, and we will meet that target with the same commonsense approach that has brought us this far. For 1995-96, this means that we will stick to the commitment we made to our transfer partners two years ago. Funding levels will be maintained for the coming year.

With these announcements today, transfers to schools, hospitals, municipalities, colleges and universities will total $15 billion in 1995-96.

The Social Contract Act will expire as scheduled on March 31, 1996. Our current fiscal plan reflects our intention to maintain funding to our partners at the existing levels for the 1996-97 fiscal year as well. However, our plan depends on action the federal government may take to reduce its own deficit.

Over the past four years, in decision after decision, the federal government has entrenched unfairness in Ontario. They unilaterally capped payments of the essential funding we needed for social assistance at a time when our needs were greatest. We have been shortchanged on training and on immigration funding. These and other actions will cost the people of Ontario $8.6 billion this year alone.

Now the federal government has made it clear that they intend to cut further into transfers to the provinces. Because of that probability, we cannot give our partners the guarantees they deserve on funding for 1996-97. Such federal cuts would have a direct impact on provincial funding for programs and services. We can only make our case with our partners to the federal government.

The work of reforming Ontario's public sector began in earnest three years ago, and since then we have achieved a great deal. But the job isn't done yet. We must continue to meet the challenge of reshaping Ontario's public sector to keep public services affordable in the future. The expiry of the social contract, our transfer announcement today and future federal cutbacks underscore this fact.

That is why I'm announcing today new ways in which we will help Ontario's public service and the broader public sector meet their goals. These new measures follow directly from the efforts we have made in the past to handle change in a way that is sensitive to the needs of workers and communities, and it is similar to the approaches we have taken to assist our private sector partners in dealing with change.

It will focus on the public sector's most valuable asset: its workers. We have consistently demonstrated our commitment to people affected by restructuring by offering labour adjustment support and by creating programs such as the wage protection fund and the worker ownership program.

Our strategy promotes cooperation between employers and employees. Through such initiatives as the sector partnership fund and the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, we have consistently encouraged workers and management to tackle their problems and plan their course together.

Our plan for the public sector builds on these approaches by using workers' skills, energy and experience to make changes that improve their work lives as well as their service to the public. It ensures that those affected by change have the chance to use their skills in new ways to serve the public, and it bolsters cooperation to better plan for the future.

This restructuring strategy will help manage public sector change in a way that is planned, humane, democratic and creative. It creates a foundation for positive workplace change.

We will support this initiative by expanding access to the resources of the $300-million job security fund created by the Social Contract Act. The success of the social contract in avoiding layoffs has meant that use of the fund has been minimal. We will therefore move resources from the job security fund to support these broader restructuring programs, which will run to April 1, 1997.

Our restructuring package has three major components. First, to help workers who are affected by change to find new jobs and to help employers find skilled and experienced people, each sector set up under the Social Contract Act must establish a job registry, a task that many sectors have already begun. All sectors are to have a registry up and running by March 1, 1995. These registries, to be run by sector panels, will match laid-off workers to new opportunities in the public sector.

Second, we will increase our support for training that leads to new opportunities. We will help organizations retrain workers for new jobs, either at the same workplace or a new one. We will provide income and training support for employees listed on the job registry and, when necessary, we will pay for any skills upgrading needed by employees hired from the job registry.

Third, we will promote new ideas by sponsoring a number of demonstration projects. These will highlight workplaces where partnership between workers and management is creating innovative approaches that save money and maintain services. In order to make sure workers are involved in change, an organization's access to the training program and to the demonstration projects will depend on the restructuring plans that are developed jointly by labour and management.

Finally, access to these two programs will be conditional on participation in a sector's job registry.

This strategy for supporting change in our public institutions is unique. It is the most comprehensive public sector labour adjustment strategy anywhere in North America, and it's good for everyone.

It is good for our public agencies. It will enable --

Interruption.

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The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Minister.

Hon Mr Laughren: In case anyone may have missed the last sentence, I'll repeat it.

This is the most comprehensive public sector labour adjustment strategy anywhere in North America, and it's good for everyone.

It is good for our public agencies. It will enable organizations that deliver a broad range of public services to make the changes necessary to improve efficiency, while ensuring that they have the skilled employees they need.

It is good for public sector employees. It will provide a measure of security and opportunities to continue to serve the public. It also will give our employees a voice in how workplaces change.

And it is good for the people of Ontario. Our strategy will promote efficient and affordable government while assuring access to important public services in the years to come. It exemplifies our measured and thoughtful approach to change.

We and our partners in Ontario's public sector have already made tremendous strides by working together. Today's announcements will help us to make those savings permanent, which will allow us to build tomorrow's successes on today's strengths.

I must acknowledge the huge contribution of the 900,000 public sector workers across Ontario and the many service organizations that are working with us to preserve jobs and public services. We could not have done it without their support.

Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): I want to respond partially and then I'll ask my colleague from Oriole to respond. I'll respond to the first part of the statement, which indicates that things are just fine in Ontario and things are working well under the NDP government.

I would just say that the report the government put out last week is really a report card on the four years of the NDP government. One only has to look at the four years of the NDP government to see that even in 1994, even with the economic recovery, the social assistance caseload continues to rise substantially. These are the government's own numbers indicating that social assistance continues to rise.

The government's own numbers: Jobs created in 1994 are going to be fewer in Ontario than they were in 1993. So we have the economic recovery, but it isn't a people's recovery. It isn't seeing job growth larger than 1993; in fact, fewer jobs created in 1994 than in 1993.

The statement goes on to say that the deficit is going down by 30%. For those people watching, the Provincial Auditor is our independent individual who monitors the finances. The independent auditor does not agree with the government. As a matter of fact, as colleagues will know, two weeks ago at committee the auditor said that the deficit is not going down. In fact the deficit, according to the Provincial Auditor, in 1994-95 will be higher than it is in 1993-94. This statement says the deficit is going down by 30%. The Provincial Auditor says, using any accounting rules you want, the deficit is going up.

So as we look at this report card on the NDP, the four years of this government, there is a record number of people on social assistance, fewer jobs created in 1994 than we had in 1993. The deficit, according to the independent Provincial Auditor, is going up in 1994, going up this fiscal year, not down.

What we have is a statement today by the government indicating its plans have been working. Fortunately, we are beginning to see some economic growth in Ontario, but we have dug an enormously deep hole and it is going to require years and years for the economic engine of Ontario to climb out of that hole.

Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): What I'd say to the Treasurer today would echo the words of the protesters who are here in today's gallery. They said it all when they said, "This is not what you promised." What we have here today is a $300-million shell game.

The announcement today leaves us with more questions than answers. It is an admission that the previous job training program was a failure. We know the chaos that was caused and the insecurity that was caused by the social contract. Now we are seeing the results of that chaos and that insecurity. This is yet another on a long list of failures of this government. We have seen a lot of words, a lot of action, and certainly we have not seen good management.

I would say to the Treasurer on his announcement today that he is very defensive about his statement, and for good cause: Nobody believes it. Everyone knows it's a shell game. People know it is not what you promised. It gives very little confidence to the people of this province who are workers in the broader public sector delivering the important services to the people of this province. I would say to you, sir, that the announcement that you made today gives them no comfort that the future for them will be one where they can depend upon what the future holds.

I would say to you that the $300-million program is a reallocation from an existing program that also had no criterion that anyone could understand, an inability for anyone to access those funds, and that's the reason why you have now reallocated it to a program which we believe, because of the lack of criteria, the lack of ability to access, will leave workers in the same precarious position as they have been in since the announcement of the social contract. This gives them no confidence, and this gives them no confidence that this government understands what the issues are or understands what the needs of real retraining and restructuring are in the province of Ontario.

I repeat: This is a $300-million pot of money looking for a program. It's an announcement of the government, but it is another admission of failure.

Mr David Johnson (Don Mills): The issue here is trust. If the Minister of Finance called "Fire," no one would leave the building. Three years ago, 1992, there was an arrangement with the municipalities of Ontario of a 2, 2 and 1 formula -- gone. Last year, there was an arrangement with the municipalities, a formula -- gone. Along came the expenditure control program in mid-year with no consultation to the municipalities. Last year, the social contract program -- very little consultation in mid-year.

Now it's expected that the cuts will be permanent, when in fact what was put forward was a makeshift, naïve, ill-planned proposal: the social contract. There's bragging about the fiscal arrangements of the province of Ontario, bragging about the deficits. In actual fact, that's the fantasy. The fantasy is the 30% reduction. The reality is four years in a row exceeding $10 billion a year in borrowing in the province of Ontario, a debt under this administration that has increased by 113% -- four credit downgradings in four years. This province under this government inherited a AAA rating. We now have a AA- rating in the province of Ontario.

And yes, let's point the fingers at the Liberals. The Minister of Finance points the finger at the Liberals and said: "If Liberal spending had been kept under control, then we'd be in a better situation today. If the Liberal Party hadn't increased welfare payments by 60% during its period of time, whereas the NDP have only increased welfare payments by 14%, then we'd be in a better position today." That's absolutely correct. The NDP inherited the spending follies of the Liberal government; no question about it.

But what have they done? What has the NDP done during its tenure? Increased spending. The debt in the province of Ontario will be $90 billion at the end of this year. That is reality. There will be fewer people employed in the province of Ontario at the end of this year than there were in 1990 when this government took office. There will be 200,000 fewer people employed in Metropolitan Toronto this year than five years ago.

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We urged this government one year ago to make the cuts that were needed to put Ontario in a proper financial position. We said, "Make the cuts and make them permanent," during the social contract debate. We said, "The cuts have to be across the board and they have to be permanent." We put forward amendments to that effect; it didn't happen. We said: "If you don't do that, what is going to happen is that the costs are going to balloon. At the end of the social contract process, there is going to be a problem." Indeed, there will be a problem: There will be hundreds of millions of dollars that will be pent up in 1996.

Think of the vital services, the police services, the ambulance services, the fire services, vital services where the cuts have not been made but have been deferred until 1996. Think of areas that have been mandated, such as homes for the aged, such as day care centres, where the payments and the staffing have been mandated, where again the cuts have not been made. Think of those costs that are accumulating.

Think of the grid system that the teachers of the province of Ontario are demanding restoration of. All of those costs are hanging over the people of Ontario like a boulder that will be dropping to flatten the taxpayer unless those cost cuts can be made permanent. We urged you, Mr Minister, to make those cost cuts permanent a year ago. You chose not to, and now this is the disastrous situation we're in: hundreds of millions of dollars in 1996. The taxpayers are going to pay the bill for this failed social contract process.

ORAL QUESTIONS

NON-PROFIT HOUSING

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): My first question is to the Minister of Housing. Minister, you'll be well aware that this past weekend there were media reports of a $10-million non-profit housing project being taken over by an insurance firm when almost half the bills went unpaid. May I ask you, Minister, how did the Unity Village project in Ajax, sponsored by Local 183, end up owing $4.8 million in unpaid bills on this project? And I ask you what the government's total liability is on the project now? How much money may the taxpayers have lost so far on this particular project?

Hon Richard Allen (Minister of Housing): The member will know that projects like this are normally insured either totally or largely with bonding agencies, and the insurance is with the construction company in question. When there is some difficulty between those two, as there was in this project, that the contractor did not fulfil the performance requirements with the insurer, the insurer took action. The insurer has since replaced the company in question with another construction company. As far as the ministry is concerned, there is no liability, no money has been lost and the taxpayers owe nothing.

Mrs McLeod: Over the past few years, as again you are well aware, there have been continuing stories about mismanagement in non-profit housing. In 1992, the Provincial Auditor warned you, warned the ministry, that ministry staff were not filling out required inspection reports monitoring the status of non-profit projects during the course of construction, yet during 1993, when the Unity Village project was being constructed, when the subcontractors were going unpaid, the ministry was apparently unaware of the problems that were developing.

Given the reports that we've seen from the auditor, repeated reports, given the examples of cost overruns, the examples of mismanagement that we've seen before, how could this happen yet again? How is it possible that there could have been a default of almost 50% on the bills for this project without your ministry being aware of what was going on?

Hon Mr Allen: I would remind her that the union in question, Local 183, has three projects with the ministry, two of which were contracted for under your past government. Two were denied by our government and one in fact has been accepted, which is the Unity Village project.

With respect to the nonsense that the Leader of the Opposition is talking about -- mammoth problems in the delivery of non-profit housing by the ministry -- let me remind her that there are 1,200 projects out there under the ministry and 1.5% of them have some order of difficulty, and we have located those ourselves as a consequence of our compliance reviews, our audit reviews and all the rest.

Since your government left office, we have tightened all the regulations, systematized the whole non-profit program, tightened up the auditing arrangements so that the accountants now give us a much fuller report on the program, and we have no problems at all that are not in hand.

Mrs McLeod: If the minister feels there are absolutely no problems at all in the management and the ongoing supervision of non-profit housing projects, if there is no problem with a lack of controls, then the same question applies: How is it possible that there could be a default of almost half the bills on a non-profit housing project? Surely the ministry responsible for that kind of project has a responsibility for making sure those controls are in place on an ongoing basis, and this government has not addressed concerns -- not just opposition concerns, Minister, but concerns of the Provincial Auditor.

But in this case there may be more than that to this particular issue, and I would ask the minister very directly if he could explain the allegations that have been made by some of the subcontractors on the project that the liens they filed on the non-profit project include costs for a commercial building next door. I would ask that you give us that explanation. I acknowledge that those are allegations, but I think it's legitimate to ask you for an explanation in this House, for your understanding of that.

I would also ask, given the other investigations that have surrounded Local 183's participation in government programs, including Jobs Ontario Training contracts and other government projects, will you launch an investigation into the management of this particular project and the outstanding unpaid bills?

Hon Mr Allen: The member is totally confusing the relationship between insurers and construction companies on the one hand, and the ministry's involvement and its investigation processes on the other. There is no essential connection between the two. We have monitored this project, been in touch with it, and when it had difficulties we have tried to help the parties work them out, but there is no connection between us and that operation as such.

The allegation that there is money lost to the taxpayers is not a matter of any substance at all. And as to the issue with relationship to the commercial building in question, the ministry has totally been on top of that. There is no connection between the two projects. There has been no money spent from the ministry or public funds for the commercial building whatsoever. This is a housing story flop, not a housing flop.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): New question.

Mrs McLeod: I gather the answer from the minister was no, he's not prepared to have an investigation to determine whether there is substance to the allegations and the concerns.

WORKERS' COMPENSATION

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): I'll place my second question to the Minister of Labour. Minister, today you are going to use your government's majority to force through the passage of Bill 165, a bill that will really do nothing at all to address the very serious crisis that faces the workers' compensation system. You may not be aware, Minister, that while we're voting in the House today, the bureaucrats are plotting strategy apparently intended to circumvent Bill 165.

On November 17, officials of the Toronto and eastern Ontario office of the worker adviser held an information session in Mississauga for people who work with injured workers. They told the meeting that it is the strategy of the office of the worker adviser to appeal every case where the Bill 165 supplement is denied. Their stated purpose in doing so is to tie up the system in order to force changes. Minister, were you aware that bureaucrats are advocating this kind of strategy, and if you were aware, can I ask you who it is who's driving WCB policy? Is it you or is it your bureaucrats?

Hon Shirley Coppen (Minister of Labour): I have listened to the Leader of the Opposition with interest. I don't have a comment to make to her remarks because history proves that many, many times in this House her remarks are totally inaccurate, so I wouldn't even waste my time answering them.

Mrs McLeod: Again I can assume that the ungiven answer is no, the minister was not aware that her bureaucrats are advocating the strategy to tie up the Workers' Compensation Board system. I would perhaps have to remind the minister, then, that this office, the office of the worker adviser, is a service of the Ministry of Labour. Its mandate is to assist injured workers with their WCB claims. Its mandate is not to establish board policy. Minister, you establish board policy. You're establishing WCB policy with the legislation you're going to force through the House this afternoon.

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You may be aware that in your Bill 165 you are not expanding WCB coverage to include stress, yet at this same meeting your bureaucrats advised people who work with injured workers to substitute the word "stress" with the words "psychosomatic incident." It appears to be some kind of code word that is allowing claims for situations that are not covered by board policy to slip through the system.

Minister, how can you force passage of a bill today when your own bureaucrats are publicly advocating strategies to undermine it? How can employers have any confidence in your ministry's supposed reform? But even more important, how can injured workers, whose cases are going to be backlogged for years as a result of these kinds of guerrilla tactics, have any faith at all in your ministry?

Hon Mrs Coppen: The staff who work in the office of the worker adviser are not bureaucrats. They are very hardworking people who have made the workers' compensation group work very well.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): Who pays them?

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Hon Mrs Coppen: You can laugh all you want. They have been doing their job to the best of their ability, helping injured workers. And today we're having condensation of Bill 165, which is going to be very good for injured workers in this province. This government, this side, does care about injured workers. That's why we're putting in extra money to help people over the age of 70. People who were not covered --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mrs Coppen: -- with the additional $200 a month we're going to put in. I don't want to hear negative remarks about the office of the worker adviser if it's not constructive. They have worked very hard the last couple of years, under shortages of staff, to make sure that injured workers' needs are addressed properly.

Coming from the opposition, condemning this staff is absolutely ridiculous. The staff should be commended for the work they're doing for injured workers.

Mrs McLeod: I simply asked the minister whether she was aware that people who are providing a service offered by the Ministry of Labour are deliberately advocating a strategy to undermine the very legislation that this government is forcing through in what it believes to be good policy for workers' compensation for injured workers in the province.

I trust not mistakenly, I was under the impression from the government's own document, Working in Ontario, that this office is not a part of the Workers Compensation Board --

Interjection.

The Speaker: Order, the member for Chatham-Kent.

Mrs McLeod: -- but is indeed a service of the Ministry of Labour, and felt it was appropriate to ask the minister to respond to the concerns.

The minister will indeed hear us criticize Bill 165. We have a lot of criticisms of Bill 165. We don't think it goes nearly far enough to reduce the $13-billion unfunded liability of the WCB. We don't think it addresses the problem of rising WCB premiums. It threatens to kill the system of experience rating. Equally, Bill 165 doesn't do nearly enough to make the Workers' Compensation Board system work efficiently and effectively for the very injured workers who need to have their claims dealt with quickly and fairly.

Now we have the spectacle of an office funded by employer assessments advising people to appeal decisions, submit claims to circumvent board policy and tie up the system even more than it is tied up now. Minister, what action are you prepared to take to stop these actions at the office of the worker adviser?

Hon Mrs Coppen: The office of the worker adviser is in place to assist injured workers, and Bill 165 is going to carry through our government's mandate of helping people who have been hurt. When the opposition talk to me about the unfunded liability, their memories are very short to not remember that the unfunded liability doubled in the four or five years that they were managing this government.

Bill 165 is going to help injured workers, and I don't know that the comment she's making that the office of the worker adviser is sabotaging this bill is fact. I stand firm supporting that office and the work it has done for injured workers and will continue to do.

Today the opposition is very upset because we are going to have third reading of a bill that is going to help people in this province. They just can't stand it.

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): My question is to the Minister of Community and Social Services. Minister, since January approximately 180,000 jobs have been gained in Ontario, but also since January 18,000 caseloads have been added to the social assistance system in Ontario. Minister, why is it that in Ontario welfare cases are increasing at a time of economic growth? Can you explain this prosperity paradox?

Hon Tony Silipo (Minister of Community and Social Services): It all depends, quite frankly, on what figures one chooses to use. The member is right that in the period from January to March caseloads have continued to increase, but I think he would also be the first to acknowledge that since March the caseloads have in fact been coming down.

We're just releasing -- people were working on the final numbers even as late as this morning. The indication for the last month, November, is that there has been a slight increase, which is not surprising given the seasonality that's historically been in the social assistance system. Overall, we are seeing fewer people on social assistance today than we had in March of this year, and that is a reflection both of the continued improvement in the economy and certainly of the kinds of actions that this government has taken through Jobs Ontario Training and other initiatives to help get people on welfare off welfare and back to work.

Mr Jackson: Minister, I only have to look at your own Treasurer's Ontario Economic Outlook figures to find you're projecting growth in social assistance cases.

The fact is that welfare rolls have steadily grown every year in Ontario since the recession of the early 1980s, no matter how strong the economy has been. Since you took over in government, the average length of time recipients were on general assistance was seven months, and today that figure has been stretched to 14 months as the average stay for a welfare recipient on social assistance.

There is therefore a clear trend developing in our province, a troublesome trend, a prosperity paradox. If we don't take action now, there are going to be serious consequences to our economy. What is needed is a comprehensive plan to tie welfare payments to work and to training, and to reduce benefit levels, because we're 30% higher than anybody else in North America. We're like a magnet to everybody who wants social assistance. We should be tightening eligibility and accountability.

Minister, my question: Why is it that you refuse to look at any of these comprehensive plans when Mike Harris and the Conservatives have clearly put forward a plan for your consideration? You refuse to consider even any elements of these necessary and specific reforms for Ontario.

Hon Mr Silipo: Unlike the Conservative Party, we don't assume that people are sitting around on welfare because they'd rather be doing that than being out in the workforce. We assume that most people who are on welfare would rather be working and we assume that the reason so many people have had to rely on social assistance has been because of the deterioration of our economy, which his former Conservative cousins in Ottawa did nothing but make worse because they completely forgot about Ontario and the fact that the economy of this country rests in large part on what happens here in Ontario.

They put us in a position where, through the free trade agreement and other initiatives they took, we saw job after job being lost. We have a high dependency rate, which is compounded, I might say, by the tighter rules we have around unemployment insurance in this province relative to other provinces. So that means people have to go on social assistance sooner in Ontario than they do in other provinces, again because of the unemployment insurance rules that the former Conservative government in Ottawa has put in place and which have been, unfortunately, perpetuated by actions that the present Liberal government in Ottawa has taken.

We believe that what we need to do is to continue to put into the system supports for people who are on welfare to be able to help them to exit from dependency on welfare, to be able to get jobs and keep jobs. That's what we're doing through Jobs Ontario Training, that's what we're going to do through programs like JobLink, and that's the kind of supportive way in which we believe we will make the welfare rolls come down, which is clearly our objective.

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Mr Jackson: It's starting to sound like a broken record for the last four years. The fact is, for every 100 jobs that are created in Ontario, 10 people march into a welfare office and lay claim for social assistance. Those are the facts. I'm asking you, Minister, why is it that you and the provincial Liberals seem to be the only ones who don't understand that the system is fundamentally wrong and needs a major overhaul?

I want you to consider what people across Canada are saying: Roy Romanow, the Premier in Saskatchewan; the new Labour Party leader in Britain; Liberal Premier Frank McKenna; former Liberal Treasurer Bob Nixon; and even Bob Rae. The Premier recently told the Empire Club, and I want to quote from his speech: "Welfare has, for some, become a permanent source of income and a permanent way of life. Welfare should not be a permanent destination." We in the Conservative Party agree, which is why we can't understand your answer.

Minister, isn't it time for a major overhaul of Ontario's welfare system, an overhaul that other provinces feel they can proceed with and do without the support of the federal government because it's important that they turn their economies around? Minister, will you ensure that you will implement immediate reforms in Ontario in order to stop this prosperity paradox, where every time a new job is created, more people go in for welfare in this province? Will you implement the reforms called for by Mike Harris and the Conservatives?

Hon Mr Silipo: In a word, no. We will not implement the kinds of reforms that the Conservative Party would want us to implement, because we do not believe in that slash-and-burn-and-cut approach. We do not believe that by reducing benefits by 20% you do anything but create a higher level of poverty in this country and in this province. What you do when you do that is you hurt the 500,000 children who now, through no fault of their own, have to rely on social assistance payments. That's not the way to reform the system.

We believe we need to change the system. We believe we need to break the dependency on social assistance. I agree, as my Premier has indicated, that welfare should not be a permanent destination. We agree with that. We believe very fundamentally in that. But the big difference between the Tories and the New Democrats is that we believe in getting there in a way that supports people, in a way that believes that there's goodness in people, that in fact says that people want to work and if we provide those opportunities, if we provide those links back to the workforce, people will take advantage of those opportunities.

That's the direction we want to go, and I'm proud to say that that's a different approach than the slash-and-cut-and-burn approach that the Tories would take.

NON-PROFIT HOUSING

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): My question too is to the Minister of Housing. Last spring and last summer my leader and I raised scandal after scandal in this House involving non-profit housing. The problems included conflict of interest, misuse of taxpayers' dollars and even criminal activities.

Two years ago, the Provincial Auditor warned us of widespread mismanagement and misuse of public funds in non-profit housing, and I emphasize it wasn't the opposition parties, it was the Provincial Auditor. Cases keep coming up to prove how right the auditor was.

Today I listened very carefully to your answer to the leader of the official opposition following up on the James Wallace story in the Toronto Sun. When I hear your answer, and the fact that you've already told us that you do understand the story behind the $10 million in public funds, can you explain why, in light of your answer, some of the subcontractors claim that the liens they filed and have since paid for covered the work and materials for the commercial building next to the project?

I heard your answer to the leader of the official opposition. I want to hear your answer again in order to know that you understood the question.

Hon Richard Allen (Minister of Housing): They claim to have uncovered scandal after scandal; all they did was repeat one or two instances over and over again. Where there has been one major instance, we have withdrawn the funding from that project totally. So we are taking action on all the issues. The auditor's report had to do with projects that he examined in 1992 that came out of the Homes Now project, which we have since totally rectified.

The issue that you're asking me about specifically, to the third-party critic, I simply say that those are allegations. The ministry has examined all the allegations. There is no substance to them. There was no money paid that was leaked in any way, shape or form to the commercial building, and every subcontractor that 183 was concerned about and which laid charges and sued for compensation under the commercial liens act, that has all been paid. The subcontractors have been paid. This is a project that is coming in under budget and everything is in order.

Mrs Marland: Minister, I would like you to explain to the taxpayers of this province, if everything is so perfect in non-profit housing and government housing in this province, why the taxpayers in this province are paying $800 million in a bill to KPMG for investigating a scandal and mismanagement of funds.

Minister, in terms of the situations that I've brought to your attention this afternoon, an audit revealed that Local 183 tampered with a receipt to try to hide the real use of supplies. Metro Toronto's fraud squad has been called in to investigate. I'm sure that as Minister of Housing you can agree with me that given these serious allegations, there is good reason to investigate Local 183's non-profit housing in Ajax. I ask you simply, will you ensure that a full inquiry, including a forensic audit into the failure of Unity Village, takes place?

Hon Mr Allen: First of all, with regard to accuracy, it might be useful to correct the sum that KPMG was paid in order to do the investigation. It was not $800 million; it was $800,000. It was 10 times smaller than the member alleges.

It was a very wide-scale investigation into a housing project that has 130,000 persons housed in it, 30,000 units of housing, an administration that is very, very large with many, many facets and a very complex series of problems. We wanted to get to the bottom of that and we were determined to spend the money to get the answers that we needed in order to fix the Metro Toronto Housing Authority, which we are now doing, as the member knows.

Mrs Marland: Obviously, I did mean $800,000, but the point is, if this minister is standing in the House saying everything's fine, then why would we need to spend one single dollar if everything was so perfect? That kind of answer is a little interesting, especially when the minister is avoiding the real issue of the question that I'm asking today, and I would like to tell this House that Local 183 of the Labourers' International Union is not the only union group with a questionable involvement in non-profit housing.

Local 793 of the International Union of Operating Engineers has had its assets signed over to the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Among those assets is a $32-million mortgage on the local's non-profit apartment building on Don Mills Road.

Curiously enough, this apartment building is next door to another Local 183 cooperative housing project on Don Mills Road. Last Friday, again, James Wallace, in the Toronto Sun, reported that members of Local 793 are calling for a police investigation of their own local.

If what we see here is just the tip of the iceberg, we have to know what is below the water line. Last summer, when my leader called for a full investigation into the provincial --

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

Mrs Marland: -- non-profit housing program, we said that this was necessary because we needed a similar investigation to the one in the Metro Toronto Housing Authority.

I ask you today, will you agree to expand the terms of the investigation by KPMG to include the provincial non-profit housing program?

Hon Mr Allen: I do not propose investigations into anything on the basis of stories that are written in the Sun and repeated in this place by the third party's critic for Housing, so anything that I do will obviously be based on more substantial grounds than that. I'd only say to the member that when she brings internal matters from a union operation onto the floor of this House, and that members are alleging this and alleging that and asking for investigations, that is not something that principally involves you or me, but it's important, of course, to the union members and they should pursue it.

What I'm saying to you, however, is it's rather strange for you to be standing up and criticizing us for spending even $800,000 on an investigation on one aspect of public social housing and then to turn around and ask me to spend an equivalent amount of money to investigate something else which is based on pure allegation and on no foundational evidence that you've been able to allege. When you've got some evidence to give me, tell me about it and I'll look into it and take the appropriate measures.

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LONG-TERM-CARE REFORM

Mrs Barbara Sullivan (Halton Centre): My question is to the Minister of Health.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order. The Minister of Health is not present in the chamber.

Mrs Sullivan: Perhaps I could address the question to the junior Minister of Health. My question once again relates to Bill 173 and the impact on workers who will be put out of work as a result of that bill and workers who will be affected in every single part of Ontario. The Minister of Health will know the impact on their lives will be substantial, whether or not they are employed by her new multiservice agencies.

We want to know, and we believe those workers want to know, what this government intends to do, what steps it will take and what steps it is already taking in terms of planning for dealing with the pension plans of those workers who will either no longer have jobs or who will be employed by a new agency or who are now employed by an agency which is forced to wind down its pension plan as a result of being put out of business as a result of Bill 173.

Hon Ruth Grier (Minister of Health): The member, as usual, makes a number of assumptions about long-term care, most of which I disagree with, and I predominantly disagree with her contention that there will be a loss of employment under our expansions of long-term care. In fact, she's the only person I ever met who believes that by investing a further $400 million a year in a service, it will somehow mean less employment and not more employment.

But let me assure her that it is precisely because of our concern for the patients, because it is the seniors and the disabled that this legislation is for, and for them continuity of service and, if possible, continuity of caregiver is very important, it is precisely because of our understanding of that that we have included in the legislation amendments to protect the rights of workers and make sure that workers will not lose as a result of a shift, if they in fact shift to a multiservice agency, and that we have built in a period of transition so that over the next four years, as multiservice agencies are planned and come into being, precisely the kinds of adjustments she's talking about can be negotiated and dealt with.

Mrs Sullivan: The protection of the rights of workers that the minister speaks to is not on. The legislation itself provides a clear priority for protection of workers when they belong to a union before they're transferred. There is no recognition, no equivalent recognition, of fairness or equity for those people who work in organizations now which are non-union shops.

As well, multiservice agencies may well be able to deal with some of the pension issues related to transfer of work, but only if this government assures those multiservice agencies that it will transfer the money to set up actuarially sound plans that match the provisions and benefits of the old ones.

But the problem is even more serious. The Victorian Order of Nurses' pension plan is a national one, and when the VON closes its doors in Ontario, which it is going to do, the national Victorian Order of Nurses' pension plan will be forced to wind down.

Minister, how do you justify legislation that strips workers of their pension rights, not only in Ontario but in every province of Canada? How can you do this?

Hon Mrs Grier: I said in response to the first question that the preambles were so often wrong and that I disagreed with them, and one of the things I should point out to the member is that the percentage of workers in the long-term-care system who have now the security of a pension plan is not very high and that for those who are part of a pension plan for a national agency like the VON, I can assure her that I believe --

Mrs Sullivan: What are you going to do for those people who work for VON in Alberta and Saskatchewan?

The Speaker: Will the member for Halton Centre please come to order.

Hon Mrs Grier: -- we can discuss how in fact the transfer will occur. Let me also say to her that her contention that the VON is going to close its doors in Ontario is again something that I think is absolutely dead wrong.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): They are the ones who said they are going to close. Don't you read your mail?

The Speaker: Order. New question. Is there a new question?

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr David Johnson (Don Mills): My question is to the Minister of Finance, who is just arriving on the scene. Mr Minister, I have been receiving a number of complaints from individuals, and I suspect each of us in this House has received a number of complaints from individuals, with regard to auto insurance premiums.

As you know, it's not uncommon for auto insurance premiums to be going up by 15% to 20%. Minister, the motorists in Ontario have been subjected to the 5% personal sales tax increase that you implemented a year ago.

They're also being subjected and have been subjected to the Liberal OMPP plan, which up until very recently has accounted for just about all of the premium increases. In fact, what the insurance companies and what the brokers tell me is that Bill 164, your plan, has barely made its way into the pricing at all, and they tell me that unfortunately here in the province of Ontario we can look forward to another two or three years of double-digit auto insurance premiums when Bill 164 takes effect. By the way, the public won't stand for that. There's going to be outrage.

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

Mr David Johnson: My question to the minister is, what plans do you have to bring control to the auto insurance premiums so that auto insurance will again be affordable to the people of Ontario?

Hon Floyd Laughren (Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance): I appreciate very much the call from the Conservative Party for more government intervention in the marketplace. The member is correct as well --

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): We are not listening to Mel Swart.

Hon Mr Laughren: There are limits.

The member is correct in that the increases that so far have found their way into the system have largely been due to the impact of legislation prior to Bill 164. I should tell the member opposite, though, that I disagree with him fundamentally that we're looking towards double-digit increases in insurance rates. That's simply not the case. There are cost controls built into the system that will prevent that.

As well, if I could be as candid as possible with the member, when we changed the legislation, going back to Liberal legislation as well as changes that we made, it did take a lot of the cost out of the court system and put it on to benefits that motorists received, injured people received, and in particular those who are seriously injured. So there's no question that there have been some increases, but at the end of the day there's less money going to lawyers and the court system and more money going to people who are injured on our highways in this province.

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Mr David Johnson: That may all be true, but there is more money coming out of the pockets of motorists to pay for their insurance, and there's no disputing that. Increases are going up by 15% to 20% in an era when the rate of inflation is 1% to 2%. People can no longer afford their auto insurance.

Let me explain to the minister why the increases are going to take place. Number one, the no-fault system that you have attracts fraud; there will be more fraud. Number two, the rehabilitation costs under your program are not in control. Number three, there will be increases starting in 1996 when the indexed lifetime pensions kick in for those people who cannot be fully rehabilitated to fully pursue the employment they had before. The insurance industry has no way to know how to fund that particular component or how much it's going to cost the automobile insurance premium holder to pay for it.

My question to the minister is, the pot is bubbling on auto insurance, the lid is about to explode; do you not have any suggestions today to tell us as to how your government is going to control these costs, or are you simply going to leave this whole débâcle to the next government?

Hon Mr Laughren: I would just say to the member for Don Mills that if he wants to see it blow up and the lid come off, we need only step back and let the marketplace determine the rates. We're not going to allow that to happen. We have cost controls built in, so we disagree with your approach to controlling auto insurance rates in this province.

I would say to the member, there is no evidence that I'm aware of that a no-fault system has more fraud in it than a fault system. It's true that under any system you're going to have some people abusing it. That's always been the case and, I regret to say, probably always will be, but there's no evidence that the no-fault aspect of this insurance is leading to any more fraud.

As a matter of fact, I would venture the opposite, that there's less fraud in the system now, and there's certainly a discouragement of frivolous claims that eat up the dollars and go only into the pockets of the legal profession. That surely was of no benefit to injured motorists whatsoever, and I apologize to the legal profession in the assembly, because I know that they're not ambulance chasers.

But I would say to the member for Don Mills that we do believe that the costs are under control, and it's true; I would not deny that the 5% imposition of tax on the premiums had an impact on rates. There's no question about that, but I would say in conclusion that costs are under control in the auto insurance system.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): My question is to the Minister of Economic Development and Trade. Minister, last week in response to the minister's financial Economic Outlook, the Leader of the Opposition, who continues to stand on her soapbox looking as she does for bad news, pointed out that Ontario's trade deficit has increased and it does not reflect the actual economic growth.

I went to the Liberal research department today and I notice that "Ontario's 'Secret' Boom Belt" is in the paper.

Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): Theirs is the Sun.

Mr Hope: So I would ask the minister, tell me and other members of this Legislature, especially my constituents, is our trade deficit increasing?

Hon Frances Lankin (Minister of Economic Development and Trade): I found it quite amazing last week after the Minister of Finance's economic statement that the leader of the official opposition could come out with a press release that had four or five -- so negative, their comments; so negative. She had to dig and separate and pull out statistics to be able to create this picture of gloom.

Let me be very clear: In terms of an international trade deficit, the leader of the official opposition says it's increased. In fact, she's right on that point, but I've got to put this in some context. Does that mean there's no economic growth? Absolutely not.

First of all, if the trade deficit is going up, we're only talking about international trade and on goods. We've had a trade deficit for the last 10 years, and in fact the biggest trade deficit that existed was in 1987, 1988 and 1989. So I guess the members opposite reigned over the darkest, gloomiest days in the province of Ontario.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Would the minister conclude her response, please.

Hon Ms Lankin: We have record exports. Exports are higher than ever this year. The reason the deficit has gone up is that there are more inputs on business machinery and inputs. So the member takes good economic news --

The Speaker: Would the minister please conclude her response.

Hon Ms Lankin: -- and turns it around. It is typical of her style of naysaying on everything that comes forward.

Mr Hope: As my colleague from Essex-Kent indicated, the Liberal research is the Sun and I have the Globe and Mail, and I apologize for that error. But as a supplementary to the minister, the Leader of the Opposition stated that the trade deficit does not reflect economic growth -- and I know you have to be careful on this -- is the Leader of the Opposition right or wrong?

Hon Ms Lankin: As I was pointing out, she was talking about one subset of figures on international trade and with respect to goods, and as I pointed out, our exports are at all-time highs. She didn't include services; she didn't include interprovincial trade. On interprovincial trade alone, we have a $21-billion surplus. She reached very, very hard to paint this gloomy picture.

Let's take a look at the last four or five days in the newspapers. Look at all of the stats about unemployment. November: Ontario's unemployment at 8.7%. The member comes from southwestern Ontario, Windsor. I can quote from the Globe and Mail. It says, "Perhaps no place demonstrates the revival of the economy better than Windsor, where the jobless rate hit 14% two years ago, and now it's down to 7.3%." Put that beside 5.3% in London, 5.5% in Kitchener: Things are truly turning around.

Now, in your region of the province, legislative member --

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

Hon Ms Lankin: -- there could be more economic growth. If the member opposite would stop being a naysayer, would in fact go after her federal colleagues to support ethanol tax changes that need to be made, we could have an ethanol plant in Chatham. Then we could have more jobs.

The Speaker: Could the minister please conclude her response.

Hon Ms Lankin: Maybe that's how the Leader of the Opposition could do something real for economic development in this province.

JOB SECURITY

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): Unlike the former questioner, my question was not written by a member of the cabinet. My question, actually, I figured out by myself.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): To whom?

Mr Mahoney: My question would be to the Minister of Labour. Over the weekend, my leader Lyn McLeod and I --

Interjection: Who?

Mr Mahoney: Lyn McLeod -- took part in a meeting in the town of Orillia with a number of businesses and people from those businesses, concerned citizens and municipal leaders -- it was actually quite a well-attended meeting -- concerned about losing their local branch rail line. This is a separate line from the Meaford-Collingwood branch line that we've discussed previously in this House, but it is also in jeopardy of being lost to the local businesses as a result of your Bill 40.

The residents told us that interested short-line operators say that the line is not viable if they have to hire all the different classifications of employees required under the successor rights provisions of Bill 40.

My question, Minister: Why will you not support our request to save this rail line by exempting short-line rail from the successor rights provisions of your Bill 40?

Hon Shirley Coppen (Minister of Labour): I refer the question to the Minister of Economic Development and Trade.

Hon Frances Lankin (Minister of Economic Development and Trade): I find this amazing for a lot of reasons, given who it is that in fact is abandoning the rail lines in this province. It isn't this government, but we'll come back to that. Let me say to the member opposite that I have met with people in that whole region of the province. I've met with municipalities, I've met with the shippers, with the plants there who are worried about this. I've met with potential investors who are interested in the short line and with the unions.

One thing that has happened over the last number of months that the member doesn't seem to have caught up to is that they have all come to the conclusion that Bill 40 is not an impediment at all. The unions have put on record, in writing, their agreement to sit down and to negotiate a collective agreement that is suitable to a short line. With the terms and conditions of the national rail agreements, they recognize that it would have to be one agreement. They've already said that they would do that. In fact, in another part of the province, they're already sitting down and doing it.

This is just nonsense to continue to try and hang this on one provision in one piece of legislation. The shippers know that. The municipalities know that. They've all agreed with me. We're working together to try and solve the problem. There is a creative solution: You could be of help, and I think you know how.

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Mr Mahoney: I'm quite fascinated, first of all, by the lateral from the Minister of Labour, who obviously is not aware of the seriousness of this problem, and particularly from the minister of apparently everything else in this government and the kind of flippant response to simply suggest that this is somehow the responsibility of the federal government.

The reality is this: You claim, Minister, that the municipalities know. Why were the mayors of all of Orillia and surrounding municipalities at that meeting on Saturday demanding action by your government? Are they telling you one thing and us another? Are you calling the local municipalities liars in this case?

Minister, your Bill 40, the successor rights, let me be very clear about this. There is a time and a place for successor rights. Absolutely. There's a legitimate reason to protect workers' laws from corporate manipulation. That is not what we're dealing with here. We're dealing with short lines going from one small community to another. They cannot function if they have to assume all of the labour contracts that apply to the national railroad. They need your help. You cannot wash your hands of this and pretend that Bill 40 is not the problem. You can grant a simple exemption to allow them to negotiate fairly to save those rail lines. Don't try to pass --

The Speaker: Could the member place a question.

Mr Mahoney: -- the buck. Deal with the exemption in your Bill 40. Will you do that today?

Hon Ms Lankin: I have to ask the member where he has been. His comments just now about the Minister of Labour are totally uncalled for. He knows well, as do other members who've been working on this issue, that the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade have been coordinating their efforts on this initiative and that I have been given the lead. So it appropriately comes to me, and that is an inappropriate comment on his part.

Let's get down to the facts of this here. If this member was following what has been going on -- I have been meeting with these communities. We have been trying to prevent --

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): You have been meeting with them for a year.

The Speaker: Order. The member for Etobicoke West is out of order.

Hon Ms Lankin: -- VIA from abandoning these rail lines --

Mr Stockwell: All you do is meet.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Ms Lankin: -- in the first place. Let me say to the member, look at Exeter. Look at a line that was abandoned and where a short line has come in before this legislation. They've now been certified with the rail union and they're negotiating a collective agreement. We have in writing from the unions that they are prepared to sit down and negotiate a new collective agreement suitable to a short line and not bring their successor rights. There is no problem there.

I want to say to this member, if he talks about passing the buck in here, it is not this Ontario government which is ripping up the rail lines in this province; CN is. It's not this government which is abandoning parts of the communities and isolating them; CN is, and CN has one shareholder, the federal Liberal government. If you want to do something about it, talk to your counterparts.

LABOUR LEGISLATION

Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): My question is for the Minister of Labour, and I hope she'll come to the defence this time.

Minister, our opposition to Bill 40 was based on the fact that it not only destroyed the delicate balance between unions and employers, but it did nothing to enhance the workplace relationships and communication. However, most importantly, what it did do was to diminish the rights of individual workers. Indeed, it is probably more accurate to say that it trampled all over the rights of individual workers.

Let me ask you about one of the changes in which you denied workers their rights. Bill 40 removed the right of workers who have signed union cards during a certification drive to change their minds and rescind their support for the unions. Further, your party rejected my proposal for giving workers the right to a secret ballot vote for certification as well as for strike decisions and collective agreement approval.

Minister, will you tell me why your government does not respect the rights of individuals to change their minds about joining a union? Will you tell us why you refuse to allow workers the right to a secret ballot vote for all certification applications?

Hon Shirley Coppen (Minister of Labour): If there was any piece of legislation that has ever brought workers and management together, it has been Bill 40. Prior to Bill 40, the adversary system that we had in this province was not working: long strikes, fights on the picket line, delays. It was only hurting business and it was hurting the working people. At least now, with a piece of legislation such as Bill 40, we're bringing all people to the table to negotiate.

When we talk about the certification, members have a long time to prepare and make their decision whether they want to join the union or not. Once the certification is signed, then we go on with the vote.

At no time will I ever speak against Bill 40. It is the best piece of legislation that working people have ever had in this province -- well, maybe number two, after we get Bill 165, the workers' compensation.

Mrs Witmer: It's obvious, Minister, that you do not understand the modern-day workplace. There is a tremendous need for communication and cooperation, and that has been totally eliminated.

Minister, what you did was you enhanced the power of the union and the union leader but you stripped away the rights of the individuals, and one of the areas of concern for employees is certification. This process is confusing. There is no obligation for a union organizer to inform a worker of the rules for certification or the significance of signing a union card. Employers cannot discuss this process with their workers for fear of being accused of unfair labour practices and thus subject to automatic certification. And the labour relations board refuses to answer any inquiries.

Our party has listened to workers, and we believe their rights must be protected --

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

Mrs Witmer: -- and adequate information about the certification process provided. In order to do so, we are prepared to ensure that information is made available --

The Speaker: Could the member please place a question.

Mrs Witmer: -- through the creation of a neutral office of the employee adviser. Minister, if you are as sincerely interested as you pretend to be about protecting the rights of workers, why have you not established a neutral office of the employee adviser?

Hon Mrs Coppen: I don't think the other member really has got it together what happened with labour and management in this province for over 90 years at least. The adversary system was not working, where there was intimidation for the worker --

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): Oh, come on. Why don't you have a secret vote?

The Speaker: Order. The member for Etobicoke West is out of order.

Hon Mrs Coppen: To build a better economy in Ontario, to build a better Ontario, we have to have these labour disputes stopped. We have to give rights to workers, and Bill 40 confirms those rights.

But also, as Minister of Labour, I have to work with the business community and we want that level playing field, and that's what Bill 40 accomplishes in this province: bringing labour and management together, making sure that the workplace does function, that we don't have long labour disputes. Bill 40 is going to be looked upon by other jurisdictions as the best piece of labour legislation.

NORTHERN TRANSPORTATION

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): My question is for the Minister of Transportation. In northern Ontario, there is no one issue that rises to the top more often when we discuss challenges to the way that we live and work and do things in northern Ontario than transportation, than the condition of our roads. Whether it's health care or whether it's getting the goods to market or whether it's driving our kids to school or whether it's recreating, we use our roads. Our roads are important.

But the problem is, our roads are also used by those who transport goods across Canada. We are a corridor from one end of the country to the other, so local needs and the safety of roads re local needs are often in conflict with the needs of the huge trucks that travel back and forth between Vancouver and Toronto, for example, on our highways. It's important that something be done about the condition of those highways, and my question today for the Minister of Transportation is, what is going on, Mr Minister, between your ministry and the federal government on a national transportation policy?

Hon Mike Farnan (Minister of Transportation): The federal transportation policy is something that we will be a willing participant in. It will cost the Ontario government some $7.34 billion over the next 10 years, but the Bob Rae government is prepared to meet our federal counterparts dollar for dollar, because we believe in meeting the needs of the people of northern Ontario and providing them with the best transportation system possible.

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Mr Martin: That's great, Mr Minister. I was wondering in light of that just how we in Ontario are going to raise that $7.34 billion to meet our commitment in that proposed scenario.

Hon Mr Farnan: Clearly the Ontario government's 50% will be budgeted through the normal budget allocations. The remainder will have to come from the federal government. One idea that has been put forward by the Liberal government in the province of New Brunswick was to have the federal government raise fuel tax by 0.8% per litre to fund this national program. I, however, remain concerned about this plan because the federal government already collects over $1.5 billion every year from Ontario drivers in the form of fuel taxes.

Interjection: What do we get back?

Hon Mr Farnan: What do we get back? We get back zero dollars on Ontario roads, no money at all, even for the national corridor roads. The Bob Rae government is committed to the people of Ontario, the people of Canada, but the federal government and the 98 Liberal members in Ottawa --

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Would the minister conclude his reply, please.

Hon Mr Farnan: -- have shown that they are not prepared to give Ontario a fair deal. This is a very similar situation to previous --

The Speaker: Would the minister please take his seat. The question has been answered.

HOSPITAL SERVICES

Mr Carman McClelland (Brampton North): My question is to the Minister of Health. I'm going to try and incorporate both the initial question with what I anticipate will be, hopefully, a supplementary.

Minister, you would know that the associate base hospital program at Peel Memorial Hospital has been in operation for some two and a half years. You would also know that the region of Peel has the highest number of emergency calls of any region in the province of Ontario. Considerably more of the prerequisites for a defibrillation program were put in place in Peel than in a number of other jurisdictions which received the program. In fact, it seems to me that the evidence of the prerequisites having been met was the fact that in early August your ministry allocated funds for a defib program for the associate base hospital that would serve parts of Peel. Two weeks later, however, those funds were frozen.

My question is, why were those funds frozen, and, second, will you commit to reinstating the funding you promised in August? If in point of fact you're prepared to reinstate and commit to that, can we have some assurances that you won't do the process again: allocate the funds and, as you did in August, subsequently freeze them? In short, are you going to reinstate the funding, and, second, can we have some assurance that the moneys won't be frozen if we're to receive a favourable response?

Hon Ruth Grier (Minister of Health): First of all, let me say to the member that our ministry certainly supports defibrillation and the expansion of that service in centres around the province where there is a base hospital where there is a 911 number, because we believe this service can save lives and is something that needs to be expanded.

As the member knows, we have made considerable progress in reallocating funds within the ministry, in taking that $17 billion that we still spend on health care and spending it more wisely and more effectively so that we can do expansions, not only for emergency health services but for cancer care and for dialysis.

I certainly hope that over the course of the next few months we will be able to continue to do that. I'm well aware that north Peel is one of those communities where the prerequisites are met and where there is a need and where the service could be operated effectively. All I can say to him at this point is that we're looking at north Peel as well as other centres and, as funds permit, the service will be expanded.

PETITIONS

KETTLE ISLAND BRIDGE

Mr Gilles E. Morin (Carleton East): I have a petition submitted by residents of my constituency which reads as follows:

"Whereas the government of Ontario has representation on JACPAT (Joint Administrative Committee on Planning and Transportation for the National Capital Region); and

"Whereas JACPAT has received a consultants' report recommending a new bridge across the Ottawa River at Kettle Island which would link up to Highway 417, a provincial highway; and

"Whereas the city and regional councils of Ottawa, representing the wishes of citizens in the Ottawa region, have passed motions rejecting any new bridge within the city of Ottawa because such a bridge and its access roads would provide no benefits to Ottawa but would instead destroy existing neighbourhoods;

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

"To reject the designation of a new bridge corridor at Kettle Island or at any other location within the city of Ottawa core."

I will affix my signature to this petition.

DANGEROUS OFFENDERS

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): I have a petition to the Parliament of Ontario.

"Whereas Christopher Higginbottom is a known homosexual paedophile who has been released into the Burlington community even though he was diagnosed by medical experts as remaining highly at risk of reoffending; and

"Whereas Higginbottom was acquitted of another sexual assault involving a child on the basis of inappropriate and unjustified conclusions drawn by the trial judge in relation to the evidence of the victim, all of which are unjustified in law; and

"Whereas in rendering the decision to acquit Higginbottom, the fact of his breach of probation and the long history of his past sexual attacks on children was not adequately taken into account by the judge;

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

"That the Attorney General, Marion Boyd, undertake an appeal of this case and that she pursue amendments to the Mental Health Act of Ontario and/or support federal high-risk offender legislation to prevent the release of offenders such as Higginbottom into the community; and that the government of Ontario undertake to entrench within law a bill of rights for victims of crime."

I have 2,000 petitions signed, mostly from Burlington and Hamilton communities, and both sets of these petitions I have signed with my support as well.

PENSION FUNDS

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): I'm proud today to stand in my place to present this petition on behalf of Joe Lessard, a constituent in Pat Hayes's riding of Essex-Kent, who's been out doing his job for what he feels is equity. It's addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas the NDP government has stressed that equality of treatment is essential in a modern society; and

"Whereas the former Liberal government chose to exclude thousands of workers in the Pension Benefits Act, 1988, whose employment was terminated prior to January 1, 1988; and

"Whereas workers are being denied access to pension funds that are in fact deferred wages;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to enact changes to the Pension Benefits Act that will enable workers whose employment was terminated prior to 1988 the option to (a) purchase a locked-in retirement account, LIRA, or a life-income account, or (b) transfer the pension moneys to a pension fund of the new employer, and that these workers be allowed the right to begin receiving payment from their pension funds or LIRA at the age of 55."

I support this petition in straightening out the inequities that were created by the Liberal government.

SUDBURY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): I have a petition here from the Sudbury area of 18,000 petitioners. They've asked me to do it because I guess the Sudbury members weren't interested in presenting it. It says:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the Sudbury Memorial Hospital is the most fiscally responsible health care facility in Sudbury; and

"Whereas the Sudbury Memorial Hospital is the regional cardiovascular centre for all of the northeastern Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, support maintaining Sudbury Memorial Hospital as an acute care centre."

I will affix my name to this petition.

DRINKING AND DRIVING

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): This is a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, which reads as follows:

"Whereas 81% of all driving fatalities are alcohol-related;

"Whereas 59%, or 18,000, of the 30,000 total convictions for drunk driving in 1992 involved repeat offenders;

"Whereas the Drinking and Driving in Ontario Statistical Yearbook released by the Ministry of the Attorney General's Drinking/Driving Countermeasures Office confirmed that drunk driving is on the rise;

"Whereas drunk driving is the number one killer of young people;

"Whereas the existing measures and penalties have failed to deter chronic drunk drivers from reoffending;

"Whereas driving is a privilege, not a right, and chronic drunk drivers have failed to take their driving responsibilities seriously;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to enact Margaret Marland's private member's Bill 195, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act, or similar legislation prior to the recess of the Ontario Legislature on December 8, 1994."

This has 1,000 signatures and I'm happy to support it.

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SNOWMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr Mike Cooper (Kitchener-Wilmot): I have a petition that's just been started, and I understand more are going to be coming in this week. It's to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas snowmobile insurance premiums have increased disproportionately to the economy; and

"Whereas increased premiums have the effect of forcing people to ride smaller machines which may not be suitable for families; and

"Whereas many snowmobiles have been blacklisted; and

"Whereas snowmobiling has over the years become a safer sport through better education;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to investigate the needless and unwarranted increases in snowmobile insurance."

I affix my signature to it.

AUTISM SERVICES

Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): I am introducing this petition on behalf of the member for York-Mackenzie. It's addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario and it's signed by numerous individuals from across Mississauga, Toronto and the surrounding communities:

"Whereas there is a dearth of therapeutic/educational programs for hundreds of children in the province of Ontario who have autism spectrum disorder; and

"Whereas 'Giant Steps Centre' for neuro-integrative disorders will provide the needed treatment and programming for these children and their families; and

"Whereas the 'Giant Steps' model has been presented to the triministry committee, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Community and Social Services, and the Premier's office;

"We, the undersigned, hereby petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario for help in bringing this project to fruition so that the needs of these children can be addressed."

I affix my signature on behalf of myself and that of the member for York-Mackenzie.

LONG-TERM-CARE REFORM

Mr Robert W. Runciman (Leeds-Grenville): I have a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the Ontario government has given second reading to Bill 173, An Act respecting Long-Term Care, and clause-by-clause consideration of the bill;

"Whereas seniors and the disabled are entitled to accessible community-based care;

"Whereas we do not believe that Bill 173 will provide more cost-effective and accessible care;

"Whereas we, the undersigned, believe the government of Ontario must recognize and value the work of volunteers in this province;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislature of Ontario to ensure that amendments are made to Bill 173 to allow for provision of community care based on the needs of the local communities in Ontario and acknowledge the role of volunteers in the delivery of care."

I am affixing my signature to this petition signed by 20 residents of Leeds and Grenville.

PENSION FUNDS

Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the NDP government has stressed that equality of treatment is essential in a modern society; and

"Whereas the former Liberal government chose to exclude thousands of workers in the Pension Benefits Act, 1988, whose employment was terminated prior to January 1, 1988; and

"Whereas workers are being denied access to pension funds that are in fact deferred wages;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to enact changes to the Pension Benefits Act that will enable workers whose employment was terminated prior to 1988 the option to (a) purchase a locked-in retirement account, LIRA, or a life-income account, or (b) transfer the pension moneys to the pension fund of a new employer, and that these workers be allowed the right to begin receiving payment from their pension fund or LIRA at age 55."

They want this corrected, the errors of the previous Liberal government.

LONG-TERM-CARE REFORM

Mrs Barbara Sullivan (Halton Centre): I have a petition as a result of the provincial conference of the Business and Professional Women's Clubs of Ontario, which reads as follows:

"Whereas the proposed long-term-care reform to be implemented in Ontario beginning in 1995 has multiple interpretations regarding the integration and funding of private and not-for-profit services; and

"Whereas the issue of diverse consumer need and the importance of consumer choice could be significantly affected should subsidies be directed through the proposed multiservice agency; and

"Whereas private facilities and services will no longer be able to compete with the government-subsidized services; and

"Whereas private services are owned, operated and staffed primarily by women, whose future employment is in question; and

"Whereas the government is simultaneously cutting expenditures and reducing services in both the affiliated ministries of Health and Community and Social Services, which reduces the government's capacity to meet the projected increased needs of our aging population; and

"Whereas care giving has traditionally been and is likely to continue to be the responsibility of women, thereby negatively impacting working women's earning power and potential for career advancement;

"Therefore, be it resolved that the Business and Professional Women's Clubs of Ontario strongly urges the government of Ontario to (1) ensure that the range and scope of long-term-care services be maintained and increased, (2) maintain an integrated system of profit and not-for-profit long-term-care delivery which is not controlled by the proposed multiservice agency, and (3) protect consumer choice between profit and not-for-profit service delivery agencies by eliminating the proposed 90% to 10% split." Mr Speaker, that should read 80% to 20%.

This is submitted from the executive of the Business and Professional Women's Clubs of Ontario, and I've affixed my signature.

WORKERS' COMPENSATION

Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): I have over 200 petitions signed by approximately 1,050 employees and employers in the province of Ontario who are opposed to Bill 165 and are demanding its withdrawal. It reads:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the Ontario Workers' Compensation Board is in a state of financial crisis; and

"Whereas the future benefits of injured workers are at certain risk; and

"Whereas the Premier ignored advice from his own business advisers on his labour-management advisory committee to eliminate the unfunded liability and to ensure that the WCB does not negatively impact the competitiveness of Ontario business; and

"Whereas Bill 165 increases benefits at a time when the Workers' Compensation Board is experiencing negative cash flow;

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

"That the Ontario government withdraw Bill 165 and accept the responsible business recommendations provided to the Premier to ensure the sustainability of the workers' compensation system."

I hereby affix my signature.

HEALTH INSURANCE

Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): I have a petition which should be of considerable interest to Ontarian snowbirds.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas Canadians and Americans have been accustomed to travelling freely in North America and the price, availability, conditions and degree of coverage by health insurance, both public and private, are restricting that mobility, thereby jeopardizing the wellbeing of individuals and families as well as destabilizing tourism economies;

"We, the undersigned, call on the Ontario Minister of Health to discuss and arrange with the governor of Florida the establishment of reciprocal health insurance coverage for the residents of their respective jurisdictions."

LONG-TERM-CARE REFORM

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

"Whereas Bill 173, the long-term-care reform bill, if allowed to pass without necessary and appropriate amendments, will result in a lower level of service to consumers in the province; and

"Whereas the enactment of this legislation in its present form will increase the cost of the provision of care to the elderly and those in medical need; and

"Whereas the passage of Bill 173 will bring about a decrease in the number of volunteers available to organizations now directly involved in providing services in the field of long-term care; and

"Whereas local communities will lose control and influence over the delivery of long-term-care services even though they are best able to determine local needs;

"Be it therefore resolved that the government of Ontario be requested to amend Bill 173 to comply with the recommendations of service organizations who at present deliver home care to people in communities across Ontario."

I affix my signature to this petition, as I am in agreement with its contents.

Mr Robert W. Runciman (Leeds-Grenville): I have another petition related to Bill 173, the long-term-care legislation. This one was brought to my attention by Mrs Greta Cardiff of Brockville, Ontario: over 200 signatures expressing concern about the destruction of local agencies such as the Red Cross homemakers and the Victorian Order of Nurses if this legislation is passed as currently structured.

I'm affixing my signature to indicate my strong support for their concern.

Mr Bradley: Mr Speaker, I have another petition that reads somewhat the same as the last one.

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): It probably was the same one.

Mr Bradley: No, this is a different one. This came from a different group of people.

This is addressed to members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas Bill 173, the long-term-care reform bill, if allowed to pass without necessary and appropriate amendments, will result in a lower level of service to consumers in the province; and

"Whereas the enactment of this legislation in its present form will increase the cost of the provision of care to the elderly and those in medical need; and

"Whereas the passage of Bill 173 will bring about a decrease in the number of volunteers available to organizations now directly involved in providing service in the field of long-term care; and

"Whereas local communities will lose control of and influence over the delivery of long-term-care services even though they are best able to determine local needs;

This has signatures from people from both Metropolitan Toronto and the St Catharines area. I affix my signature to it, as I'm in agreement with it.

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REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

Mr Paul R. Johnson from the standing committee on finance and economic affairs presented the following report and moved its adoption:

Your committee begs to report the following bill as amended:

Bill 190, An Act to amend the Securities Act / Projet de loi 190, Loi modifiant la Loi sur les valeurs mobilières.

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

Shall Bill 190 be ordered for third reading? Agreed.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

Mr Hansen from the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly presented the committee's report and moved the adoption of its recommendations.

Mr Ron Hansen (Lincoln): We started last December and our committee had quite a few other business items on our agenda. But I would like to thank many of the members of the committee, especially Norm Sterling and Murray Elston, who had experience when the report on the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act of 1989 was presented and helped the committee on some of the recommendations.

I move to adjourn the debate.

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

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

PENSION BENEFITS AMENDMENT ACT, 1994 / LOI DE 1994 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LES RÉGIMES DE RETRAITE

Mr Hope moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 203, An Act to amend the Pension Benefits Act / Projet de loi 203, Loi modifiant la Loi sur les régimes de retraite.

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

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): The bill I presented today will correct inequities that were caused by the Liberal government back in 1988. For those who have 10 or more years of service with their pension program, this will now allow those individuals portability.

I'm hoping that we will get support from all three political parties in supporting a number of people in my community. I believe the changes are long overdue and I'm hoping that I can gain the support of the members opposite in putting this legislation forward allowing people portability of their pension plans and to retire early from the workplace.

CITY OF ETOBICOKE ACT, 1994

Mr Henderson moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr162, An Act respecting the City of Etobicoke.

The Acting Speaker (Ms Margaret H. Harrington): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet and Government House Leader): There are a number of items that we need to deal with before I call the first order. The bill which the member has just introduced from the city of Etobicoke, he has basically talked to, I think, all three caucuses and wishes to seek the unanimous consent of the House to have this bill referred to the committee on private bills for deliberations. So I would, on his behalf, seek the consent of the House to proceed in that fashion.

The Acting Speaker: Does this House give its unanimous consent to Mr Henderson's request? Agreed.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet and Government House Leader): As I said on Thursday evening, each day at the end of the day I'll be announcing the business for the following day, and each day at the orders I'll be discussing the procedural agreements that the House leaders have reached with respect to that day's sitting.

In that respect, it's our intention to proceed today as we did on Thursday, so that any votes that occur where there is a division after 6 o'clock shall be deferred until the following day at orders of the day; in addition to that, today on Bill 165, which will be the first order I call, if there is a division on that bill, that it be deferred until tomorrow, whether that division would happen before or after 6 o'clock; on the debate on Bill 165, that the government reserve 20 minutes -- five minutes for the parliamentary assistant's opening, 10 minutes for the parliamentary assistant to close the debate and five minutes for one other member of our caucus -- and that the opposition split the remaining time in that debate.

If we have the consent of the House for those procedures for today, then I can call the order.

The Acting Speaker (Ms Margaret H. Harrington): Does the House agree to the handling to Bill 165 in this manner? Agreed.

WORKERS' COMPENSATION AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY AMENDMENT ACT, 1994 / LOI DE 1994 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LES ACCIDENTS DU TRAVAIL ET LA LOI SUR LA SANTÉ ET LA SÉCURITÉ AU TRAVAIL

Ms Murdock, on behalf of Mrs Coppen, moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill 165, An Act to amend the Workers' Compensation Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act / Projet de loi 165, Loi modifiant la Loi sur les accidents du travail et la Loi sur la santé et la sécurité au travail.

Ms Sharon Murdock (Sudbury): This bill has been out in public hearings and has had four weeks of clause-by-clause and now we're bringing it in for third reading, but it didn't just start this summer, as some people would have us believe.

Actually, this started a long time ago, well over a year ago, with the Premier's Labour-Management Advisory Committee, when it first decided that workers' compensation was a problem for all of the stakeholders and that something had to be done about it. As a consequence, there was much debate and much discussion in the PLMAC.

In early spring, they presented to the Premier what they called the reform framework. I just want to go over that and compare it to what is in the bill because I think it's really important, since we heard time and time again during the public hearings that Bill 165 did not in any way reflect the PLMAC agreement, and I want to show in my first five minutes how it did exactly that.

First of all, there was a bipartite board of directors recommended. That is in the bill very clearly because it is felt that both labour and management should take responsibility for the issue of workers' compensation, injuries on the job and health and safety.

It also changes the role of the chair of a board of directors in order to deal with impasses when they occur. Of the advisory committees that were recommended by the PLMAC, some are already in place, and I will cite the construction industry as one.

Thirdly, on the financial responsibility framework agreement, it was decided that business and labour felt that there had to be a framework set up, and I would point out that the unfunded liability has caused much consternation to all parties.

Then, the purpose clause, which we have amended during clause-by-clause, sets it out exactly as the PLMAC would have it, and that does now include financial responsibility and accountability, which both labour and management felt was necessary.

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We then go into the return-to-work provisions, and for me this was key. I was especially pleased to see that the return-to-work provisions make it mandatory. I don't think that the language in the existing act was clear enough, and the PLMAC very clearly said that if the language in the act fails to produce that obligation, then it should be clarified, and we did do that.

But there are three other areas where the PLMAC said they agreed that there was a problem but they did not have any agreement as to how to resolve it. One area was special consideration for those people who would be -- survivor independent benefits, 100% pensions, 100% FEL and unemployed workers with disabilities injured prior to 1990. That we have covered with a $200-a-month allotment to those groups.

There was no agreement on the issue of coverage and we passed that on to the royal commission, and then there was the whole issue of the Friedland formula and how that was going to be applied. I would point out that if nothing was done to the workers' compensation unfunded liability right now, then by the year 2014 the unfunded liability coverage would be at 17% and the unfunded liability would be at $32 billion, but with the formula as presented in Bill 165 the coverage will be 55% funded by the year 2014, and today, as I speak, it's 36% funded, so we've already seen an improvement.

I would say to those who are concerned about the indexing that what I think is going to be very, very important in the future is the royal commission and the work they will be doing. It was agreed that they had to study alternatives to the Ontario workers' compensation system and their mandate is extremely broad. It will end up, I'm sure, looking at a whole comprehensive disability area. Both labour and management are looking forward to the day the royal commission will present their findings to the Minister of Labour. We would then be able, as the next government in this province, to act on it.

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): I wish I could say that I was rising with some sense of pleasure to debate third reading of Bill 165.

Interjection.

Mr Mahoney: Let me first of all establish, I say to the minister of whatever he's minister of now -- I forget -- but I would say to the minister people should understand that this debate we're going into today is a result of closure of this government, because they were unable to really manage their way through the minefield, I guess you could call it, of the parliamentary procedure around here. Well, it's true.

This is just another example of the government's inability to manage their own agenda, so they had to bring in closure to shut it down. While there has been an agreement to leave most of the time with the opposition critics and only limited debate by government members, clearly what has happened here is that the government has said they don't want to listen to the concerns that are being expressed from all different areas, they've heard enough, they've made up their minds and they're simply going to barge ahead.

What's most interesting, I must tell you, about Bill 165 is that there was opposition from every area that you could possibly imagine to this legislation. There was opposition from organized labour. I see some representatives in the audience today. We heard locals coming forward before our committee saying they objected to 17, 18, 19 different sections of the bill, but they wanted the government to go ahead and pass it anyway.

We heard numerous presentations from injured workers who said they -- imagine -- it's hard to believe that a New Democratic government would put forward a piece of legislation to reform workers' compensation that would not be supported wholeheartedly by the Ontario Network of Injured Workers Groups, for example; quite interesting. But it really told me something during the debate during the committee hearings that this is not just an issue for business to express their concern but indeed labour as well. Many -- not all, but many -- facets of the labour community were equally upset with Bill 165.

I will admit that they came at it for different reasons. Their concerns were more around the deindexing of the pensions. Their concerns were more around the fact that the first socialist government in the history of this province is actually reducing benefits to injured workers.

If it appeared in some kind of futuristic book that Bob Rae and Bob Mackenzie would actually draft legislation that would take away benefits from injured workers, you would have to say that that was some kind of cockamamy idea, that it just wouldn't be possible. You just wouldn't believe that someone with the background of the New Democrats would actually do that, and that is why Karl Crevar and many others from the injured worker community came forward in absolute amazement that they were fighting that kind of scenario in this bill.

Although the obvious ability of this government to appear as a chameleon from time to time should not really surprise anyone -- and the interesting thing about it is that the parliamentary assistant --

Hon Gilles Pouliot (Minister of Northern Development and Mines and Minister Responsible for Francophone Affairs): It's her bill. She did a good job.

Mr Mahoney: -- who, by the way, I think did a commendable job with a bill that I dare say even she may not totally support, but did a commendable job. I recognize that. I recognize the ability of someone to hold their nose, shall we say, and do the government's bidding. That's a tough can to carry, and I understand the problem of having to carry cans for a majority government very well. So I congratulate her for the effort.

I certainly don't congratulate her for supporting a bill that we find absolutely repugnant in many areas --

Mr Bob Mackenzie (Hamilton East): Oh.

Mr Mahoney: -- and a bill that does nothing, by the way, I say to the former Minister of Labour, to really improve service delivery to injured workers. Tell me what it does to make the system more receptive to injured workers, to make it more accountable to the people who pay the bills, to make it more workable for the various different groups that are involved that actually in many ways drive the costs of workers' compensation up.

It does nothing to root out the systemic problems in the workers' compensation system, but the government's got the solution for that. What they're going to do is, they're going to tinker with this. They're going to bring in this bill, and then they're going to appoint a royal commission that's going to solve all the problems.

What everyone is a little bit afraid of, if the royal commission lives out its term, which is highly unlikely, since we all look forward in this province to the opportunity to change places, shall we say, in this place and to remove this government -- we look forward to that.

Interjection.

Mr Mahoney: The people will decide that, not you and not I. The people will decide.

The Acting Speaker (Ms Margaret H. Harrington): Please address the bill.

Mr Mahoney: If the people decide, Madam Speaker, that they've had enough of this kind of nonsense over there, which I suspect they will, then they will choose who they wish to lead this province towards the turn of the century. The result of that may indeed be that the royal commission does not get an opportunity to carry on very much longer.

The fear, though, is that I believe what this government, what the ideologues, what the philosophically bent individuals involved in the NDP really want to do with the royal commission is, they want to put in place some kind of universal system, universal accident and disability system and have it funded primarily by business. I think that's probably the plan. Well, they won't say that necessarily, but I can read between the lines.

Hon Mr Pouliot: What a wizard.

Mr Mahoney: Hey, I'm quick.

The problem with that, you see, is that it could be universal coverage, but the funding of it would come from a specific sector.

Hon Mr Pouliot: Oh.

Mr Mahoney: Well, I know, because you guys think -- I remember the days when they used to believe you should tax the rich. Now they've defined rich as being anybody over 52,000 bucks a year, I think. I remember the days when the members opposite used to stand over here and give all these wonderful speeches about increasing taxes from corporations and just going after all these hidden sources of revenue that successive Liberals and Tories were afraid to touch.

The fact of the matter is that what they want to do is, they want to place the burden for some kind of universal system on the backs of the corporate sector, which in reality is not the General Motors and the Royal Banks but the small and medium-sized business people. We have got to face reality in this province, that we are driving those people out of business. We are absolutely destroying any kind of incentive for a small or medium-sized business person to expand. Why would they bother? They know that as long as the NDP is around it's going to try to take any more of their profits back for its particular political purposes.

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When you do the surveys, it's really quite interesting. Several years ago you would do a survey of business and say, "What were the number one concerns" -- in the CFIB, for example -- "that your members expressed?" Five, six or seven years ago, they would very often talk about regulation, too much paperwork. They still talk about that, but you know the one, that actually used to be down around nine or 10 on the list of concerns, that has bubbled up to the top since this government came to power? Workers' compensation. Interesting.

They're concerned because they see abuses. They are concerned because they see a system that I have always said, and say again in this place, all three parties in this Legislature can share the blame for the position that the WCB is in, absolutely no question. We all have a responsibility in that, but we've got to finally wake up and start figuring out how to fix it.

The business community says its number one concern is workers' compensation and the things that go with it, the Workplace Health and Safety Agency. I hear the parliamentary assistant talk in terms of this particular bill reflecting, I think, the terms -- I see Mr Wilson is here in the audience with the Ontario Federation of Labour, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, Gord, but I think it was you who said that this bill mirrors the agreements in the PLMAC. I certainly heard it from members opposite.

It's absolutely mind-boggling when you look at the two and how the parliamentary assistant can stand up in this place and say that somehow this bill reflects the agreement of the Premier's Labour-Management Advisory Committee when the management caucus of the advisory committee walked away. They absolutely washed their hands of the process of reforming WCB and of dealing in any kind of a Premier labour-management advisory process, because they knew it was absolute nonsense.

What the PLMAC, the management caucus, agreed to with regard to the issue of the Friedland formula, a formula used to de-index the pensions, was they agreed to using that for the purpose of reducing the unfunded liability. What broke down? There was an agreement. They left the table. They said, "We're going to de-index the pensions, and we're going to use the money to solidify the WCB system and to reduce the unfunded liability."

This is really part of the problem with workers' compensation reform. Everybody, over time, does something that makes sense and then they start with the giveaways.

So what did this government do? They immediately took the money out of Friedland and they spent it. They generated savings for the workers' compensation system, and then they spent it on people they consider to be friends, I guess, people they consider would be beneficial, who might vote for them if they give them this kind of a benefit. That's the fundamental problem.

Should we help the older workers with the $200 supplement? Absolutely.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): On a point of order, Madam Speaker: If they're going to move closure on bills, I think we should have quorums in the House.

The Acting Speaker: We have a quorum call. Would the clerk please determine if a quorum is now present.

Senior Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Journals (Mr Alex McFedries): Speaker, a quorum is not present.

The acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

Senior Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Journals: Speaker, a quorum is now present.

The Acting Speaker: We will resume the debate. The member for Mississauga West has the floor.

Mr Mahoney: I guess I'm going to have to start over.

I want to just deal with the reference that the parliamentary assistant made to the relationship with the Premier's Labour-Management Advisory Committee. She talked about the bipartite system. First of all, if there's ever been an agency that proved how difficult bipartism is, it's the Workplace Health and Safety Agency. Don't shake your head. I get the calls. I'm sure you get them, but you just don't want to deal with them or something. I don't know what you do with them.

Let's go back to Bill 208. The purpose of setting up the health and safety agency was to try to deliver quality health and safety education to the workplace, to both workers and managers. That was the fundamental principle behind Bill 208.

These guys come into office, they set this up, they put a bipartite chair in place who is supposed to be an independent chair, and the independent chair, one of the most respected people in labour-management relations, Vic Pathe, walks away. He says, "I can't deal with this." If Vic Pathe can't deal with it, I don't think anybody can deal with it.

What happens is that the labour caucus starts dominating the agenda. All of a sudden, all the different agencies that are out there delivering health and safety training -- that's the key here, that we're attempting to improve the level of training, the level of knowledge around health and safety in the workplace.

Why? So we don't need a bill like this, because if we indeed improve the level of health and safety training, we will reduce accidents. It seems to me a safer, healthier workplace will reduce accidents. If you reduce accidents, you're going to reduce costs, therefore the employers will be happy. You're going to increase productivity if you reduce accidents, therefore the entire economy will benefit.

The principles behind Bill 208 in my submission are very solid, and if we have the opportunity at some time in the future to effect changes, the health and safety agency will be closed and a department will be established under the workers' compensation system that will ensure that fair training opportunities are available throughout the workplace.

I hear from people at the agency -- particularly the labour chair who I think now is the labour CEO; they've upgraded themselves in some way -- that only they know how to deliver training on health and safety, that we don't care about injured workers. If there's one thing that absolutely drives me crazy it's that every time anybody other than a New Democrat talks about health and safety or workers' compensation, the accusation is, "They don't care about injured workers." That is such nonsense. That goes back to the mentality --

Hon Marilyn Churley (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): We talk about business.

Mr Mahoney: You should think about business. Without business there are no jobs. Without business there are no problems with it. We'll just shut it all down. That's fundamentally the problem, that this should not be about philosophy.

We have an opportunity to make serious change in the workers' compensation system and this government is abdicating its responsibility and blowing it. They're absolutely blowing it. If there was one little bit of legacy that you could have left as you leave politics, it would have been that you could have said to injured workers and to organized labour and to the federation and to the people of this province that you did something for injured workers, that you did something to save this system.

It's a good system. I have people say to me all the time, "We've got to get rid of the workers' compensation system." That's absolutely wrong. If I were opening a business tomorrow, I would want to know that we had a compensation insurance system in place in the jurisdiction in which I was going to operate, because the fundamental principle is that, back in 1914, as a result of the royal commission headed by Justice Meredith, the agreement was that the worker would give up the right to sue the employer for an accident that occurred in the workplace.

What is he going to get in return? Does he just abdicate, walk away? He gets, or she gets, income replacement insurance. That's what it's supposed to be. It's not a social safety net, and I saw how the government in their wonderful -- I don't even have it any more -- in their Ontario Star tried to take, at their convention, quotes that I had made and turn them around somehow and play funny games with them.

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My position is very clear. This is not and should not be part of the social safety net. This is insurance. No business would want to be subjected to the threat of a lawsuit and the possibility that a judge would make a decision that could literally put them out of business because of an accident.

You know, I talked to CEOs and small business, medium, large, all of them all across the province when I did my outreach tour, and I travelled across the western part of this country at least, and I heard business people say to me all over the place that when somebody's injured in the workplace -- legitimately injured; they always add that, I know -- "We don't want them to suffer. We want to get them back to work. It only makes sense. Why do we want to bring in another employee and train them on the same job that we've already got a trained employee for who happens to be injured?" It makes no economic sense to have that happening throughout their workplace. They want this person to return to work, and in the meantime the responsible business community wants that person not to suffer.

I heard catcalls from members opposite during committee, saying: "Name names. Tell us who." Not the parliamentary assistant; other committee members. You see, they don't believe that. Here's the dogma from the NDP, particularly the left: "The corporate mentality is wrong. We've got to challenge the corporate agenda." That's how they think.

Mr Stockwell: That's Bob White.

Mr Mahoney: Well, that is Bob White, but I've heard members of the committee who said fundamentally that same thing. They don't believe there's any such thing as a good corporate manager. Well, I heard -- I forget his riding. Mr Hope made those comments on numerous occasions.

Mr Stockwell: Chatham-Kent.

Mr Mahoney: The member for Chatham-Kent, who isn't here. I shouldn't bring attention to that. I'm sure he'll be here in a minute, as soon as he sees this on television. But I heard the member, that he doesn't believe corporate Canada thinks like that. The attitude is: "To heck with the injured worker; get him out of here. We've got to get on with things." Well, frankly, that's why we have a workers' compensation system, so that it can take care of those injured workers and get them back to work.

What did you do in Bill 165 about service delivery? I've found that the number one problem in the workers' compensation system is that many of the decisions that are made at the beginning of a claim are made by the most inexperienced people in the system. That's not their fault. They're not provided with the training. In British Columbia, a junior adjudicator is assigned to a desk with a senior adjudicator for one year. They are not turned loose to adjudicate their own files until they have one year of experience, training and working with experienced adjudicators. That makes a lot of sense.

We have doctors who examine workers' compensation claims. You know how they do it? They open a file. They don't even see the individual involved, and they make a decision on whether or not this should proceed through the system based on paperwork. I think that's fundamentally wrong. Why didn't you take the opportunity to change that? Why not have the medical specialist, who does not necessarily have to be a physician in all cases -- I've been quite impressed with a number of the different groups who offer health and safety services. The health and safety nurses have got a lot to add, a lot that they can bring to the table in trying to effect -- they already do it; they just don't get recognized -- early return to work, early detection of the problems, early interference in the problems to ensure that the injured worker gets rehab, that they get returned to work, that if necessary you modify the workplace to allow them to do the job with the injury that's in place or you find them other work. These are the kinds of things that we need to look at and that I frankly see nowhere in Bill 165, other than some philosophical attempts.

You see, what they talk about in Bill 165 is quite interesting. They talk about programs and policies. Here is the difference: You either put in place a system pragmatically designed -- you see the worker, you diagnose the injury problem, you put in a rehab program, you get them back to work, you look at ways to create modified work. All those things are very practical.

What the NDP wants is more programs and policies. I think the perfect world is -- you can just picture this; it's almost Orwellian, actually -- all these little businesses out there are busily making widgets and in every business there are classrooms where they're studying hard. They learn such wonderful things as how a bill becomes law. That's part of the health and safety training, how a bill becomes law. They're busy. They've got committees and they're running to their union bosses to say: "Boy, we're doing great. We've got committees going and classrooms." Instead of concentrating on productivity and working with the unions to make sure that there are more jobs, they're creating these committees.

They kill time that way, I guess, and it's the philosophy. That's the philosophy. Have all these programs and policies in place, and that is the only thing that this bill talks about, programs and policies, and not actually pragmatic ways of reforming the workers' compensation system.

We know this bill's going to pass.

Mr Stockwell: People of the proletariat.

Mr Mahoney: People of the proletariat; that's exactly right. Let's all get together and --

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr Mahoney: We're not talking about -- yes, I think we're doing fine. The member says it isn't going to work. I think we're doing fine. Anyway, let's get back to the bill, which I know you would want me to do. Let's talk about, if we can, the NEER program. The parliamentary assistant will recall that there were a lot of people who expressed concerns about you eliminating the NEER program. I know that the argument is that you're not eliminating it. But the problem is, why do they think you are?

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): Maybe because you keep saying it.

Mr Mahoney: No, they bring it up. We don't bring it up. The member for Oxford says maybe because we keep saying it. We didn't say it. They do. Here it is. How many others do you want?

The Acting Speaker: Order. I would like you to address the Chair.

Mr Mahoney: Madam Speaker, tell him to address the Chair. When he gets an opportunity to speak, he can get up. What are all these letters? I didn't write these; trust me. You can believe me. I'm no longer with the government. You can trust me. I didn't write all of these.

Interjections.

Mr Mahoney: No, they're coming in. "Experience rating for employers instituted in 1984 is a system" -- this is from Dineen Construction, Disco Road, Etobicoke, about the NEER program. "Experience rating is a system where an employer's yearly number of lost-time injuries is compared to the statistical expected yearly number of lost-time injuries within the industry group. Based on the assessable payroll, the employer receives a financial rebate if he's done well or a surcharge if they haven't done well." You know, that's the problem. It's based on incentive to do well.

Interjection.

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

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Sudbury, come to order.

Mr Mahoney: Why not do what the good people at Dineen Construction suggest and leave in place a system that's based on incentive? How do you measure that incentive? Here's how the NDP will measure the incentive: It depends on the number of programs and policies you've got in place in the workplace. As long as you've got all those little classrooms, busy, busy, busy, studying and working on all of these philosophical issues -- "Have you got a good program for health and safety? Oh, well then, we'll consider a rebate." I mean, that's what it says. But the business community is saying: "Just a minute. If I can save money and get a rebate by reducing my lost-time injuries, maybe that'll give me some incentive to do that."

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Ms Murdock: What about reporting them?

Mr Mahoney: Well, what about reporting them? Tell me what putting in place programs and policies is going to do to report them. It's not going to do anything. If they're not reporting them, putting in place programs and policies is not going to help you get that information.

What will help you get that information -- I mean, we hear from government members about the greed in the business community. If you really believe that's true, then why not capitalize on that greed? Why not dangle a carrot out there? That's what NEER, the new experimental experience rating, is all about. The business program is saying: "Measure experience rating in terms of dollars and cents. Don't measure experience rating based on whether you like the committee process I have in the workplace."

What does it matter? You could have someone with very stringent health and safety regulations in the workplace who doesn't have all the committees and the classrooms going and has very low lost-time injuries. You're going to tell me that they won't get a rebate because they haven't bought into your philosophical bent to have programs and policies put in place.

See, that's the problem here. We have a government that is trying to make changes to one of the more dangerously ill systems, and, as I said before, a system we can ill afford to do without. Business cannot afford to do without a compensation system. It protects business. Injured workers certainly cannot afford to do without it. It's supposed to protect injured workers.

When I went out on the outreach tour that I refer to a lot and put out the Back to the Future report -- I'll give myself a little commercial; how's that? -- when I went out, I asked myself one question right at the beginning.

Mr George Mammoliti (Yorkview): You're the best, Steve. You are the best.

Mr Mahoney: Thanks, George. You're a heck of a guy.

Why is it that injured workers and managers aren't happy with the system? There's something wrong here. Why is it that everybody who deals in workers' compensation is unhappy with it?

Mr Stockwell: On a point of order, Madam Speaker.

Mr Mahoney: Not again. I don't need this, you know. I have to start over every time you do this.

Mr Stockwell: Considering that the member is handing out Back to the Future, I think there should be 20 members here to read that.

The Acting Speaker: Would the clerk please determine if a quorum is 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: We will resume debate.

Mr Mahoney: I guess the member for Etobicoke West isn't going to get an opportunity to speak on this so he's got to continually call quorums. I hate it when you do it right when I'm going to make a good point.

Ms Murdock: He's not listening to you.

Mr Mahoney: I understand that. I wish you would listen to me -- never mind him. It doesn't matter if they listen, because they don't have the limos. You guys have the limos.

Interjection.

Mr Mahoney: Well, you probably should have. You've done more work on this than the former Minister of Labour or the new Minister of Labour. Maybe you should get the limo. What do you think?

The Acting Speaker: We would like the member to make his remarks on the bill.

Mr Mahoney: When I looked through the bill, it talked a lot about the health and safety agency and the problems there.

I know where I was: I was talking about the rebate and the surcharge program.

Everybody worries about this off balance. Does it not make sense, I ask the parliamentary assistant, Madam Speaker, through you, to put in place a system that creates some incentive? If indeed the point made by some people in the workplace is legitimate, that employers refuse to report the accidents, maybe we've got to address that.

Do you know why they refuse to report the accidents, by the way? Not refuse -- they make a deal with the injured worker.

Mr Stockwell: They don't want to get reassessed.

Mr Mahoney: Isn't that the truth? I've had employers say to me, "I would rather have Revenue Canada and the Gestapo come in here than have the Workers' Compensation Board send in an inspector to try to investigate my workplace." Imagine what's going to happen under --

The Acting Speaker: I would ask the member not to be provocative. We would like to listen to your remarks --

Mr Mahoney: What's provocative about that? That's what people said to me. If it's provocative, it comes from the people in the province of Ontario who are quite serious about that, who do not want the Workers' Compensation Board to be coming into their workplace to increase their rates, to inspect them.

Imagine: Under Bill 165, when they walk in, guess what they're going to do? They're going to walk in and say: "Have you guys got some programs in place? How are your health and safety policies?" They're not going to look at the balance sheet and say: "Last year you lost this much in lost-time injury; this year it's increased. Therefore we can measure that. That's not subjective at all. We can measure that and you're going to pay a surcharge for that." They understand that, and that's going to give them some incentive to reduce their lost-time injuries in the future. What makes more sense?

If you put in place a system where that's true, then you won't have that problem because people will realize they're working together, that the workers' compensation system is protecting them from lawsuits, that it's protecting their injured workers, helping them get back to work, that it's helping productivity in the workplace. I don't think this is all crazy stuff; I really believe that should be a non-partisan stated goal of all three parties in this place.

I remember when we were the government -- fond memories -- and I remember the difficult times in Bill 162. I remember people coming before my outreach tour and before the committee, taking serious shots at Bill 162. People said to me, "Are you prepared to change Bill 162?" I said, "I am certainly prepared to look at it," and we discussed some of the aspects they were unhappy with.

Do you know the number one thing -- I'll bet you can answer this one -- that upsets workers, injured or otherwise, in Bill 162? Do you remember deeming? I remember it: the system whereby an injured worker is deemed to be capable of doing a certain job at a certain pay rate, even though the job doesn't exist, even though it's a phantom job. I remember that.

I remember the member for Sudbury East standing up here, as I said the other day in this place, giving an impassioned speech against deeming. Why didn't you do something about that in this bill? You're New Democrats. You spoke against that section of Bill 162. It was Liberal labour legislation. Why didn't you do something about it? Maybe then you would have had some of the injured worker groups coming before the committee to congratulate you, to support you. You didn't do that. You blew an opportunity to live up to what has to be considered, I would think, long-standing party policy.

I recall speeches about repealing Bill 162. I haven't seen that; I haven't seen anything even close. Why didn't you put in place a different system? Even I have recommended in my report changing and eliminating deeming and putting in place a STEP program that will concentrate on early return to work, that recognizes that it's absolutely absurd to take a high school janitor in Timmins and deem him capable of earning the pay or performing the work of an air-traffic controller -- and that happened. Thank God there were no air-traffic controller jobs available.

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Mr Mammoliti: Have you seen the full plan?

Mr Mahoney: Well, chirp if you want, but answer the question: Why didn't you eliminate it? You had an opportunity. I know why: because you didn't have anything to replace it with, and you're afraid the costs might escalate. I think it's totally unfair, and I believe that is one opportunity you have absolutely let slip through your fingers.

We talk in terms of putting in -- and the former Minister of Labour always scoffs at this suggestion -- a two-week period of voluntary self-insurance. What does that mean? What's driving the costs of the workers' compensation system? One of the things of course is the problem of the unfunded liability, and what's driving that? It's the number of claims.

We are the mother of all compensation systems in the country. The average cost of a claim in this province -- and I've checked it out; the parliamentary assistant always says my figures are wrong, but I've doublechecked and triplechecked -- is approximately $24,000. The average cost across the country is half that, $12,000. If $24,000 is the average cost of a claim, do you think if we reduce the number of claims we can save some money? It's an idea.

So I said, "Well, let's look at that." The other statistics show that 72% of the claims that are filed are finished, completed, dealt with and back to work in two weeks. Why are we opening those files and running up those costs? Because the injured worker needs to be protected. The accident occurs. You've got to file the claim.

I had an experience with my own son where he was injured on the job, didn't file his proper papers and everything else, got his initial claim and he couldn't collect any more because he hadn't done the work properly. I understand that's a very serious problem, so the proper forms must be made out and filed. But there is absolutely no reason that you cannot come to an agreement between the employer and the worker where the worker will continue to be paid for a two-week period, voluntary self-insurance.

If the worker says, "I don't want that; I'm mad at my employer; I don't trust him," then open the file. If the manager says, "I don't believe this is a serious injury; I'm unhappy with the worker; I think he's faking," whatever he wants to say, fine, open the file. But why do we just, like rote, automatically open every file for every injury claim, assign adjudicators and start the ball rolling?

If somebody can show me that this won't work, I'm all ears, I would like to know. But I haven't heard that. I've heard a lot of people say, once they understand the fact that it is totally and completely voluntary, that it's not putting an injured worker at any risk and that it does require the company to continue to pay the injured worker during that two-week period, "What's the incentive?"

Well, the incentive to me is quite obvious. The worker can get fixed. Workers have told us, "Nobody goes to work to get injured." If I heard that once, I heard it a thousand times: "Nobody goes to work to get injured. They want to get back to work. They want to get back to work as quick as they can." I believe that to be true. If you believe that to be true, what's to be gained by the injured worker agreeing to a voluntary two-week self-insurance program? Here's what's to be gained: He or she will get rehabilitated and will likely return to work 72% of the time. So there is incentive.

What's the incentive for the manager? What's the incentive for the company? The company has to continue paying the salary, paying the wages. Some would say, "Gee, that's a lot of money." Let me tell you, if we're going to get this compensation system whipped into shape, we've got to find ways to cut the cost, the administrative cost as well as any other cost associated with it. We've got to find ways to save it so that indeed there is a fund available for injured workers and it's sustainable and affordable for all corporations. Is that incentive? I think it is. Why not look at something like that instead of staying with the status quo, instead of putting in place some real reform?

I hear the parliamentary assistant talk about the bipartite board system. What have they done? This supposedly mirrors the PLMAC.

By the way, I didn't agree with everything that was agreed to in the PLMAC. In fact, I believe very strongly that what we need is a multistakeholder board, not just a bipartite board. I think there are lots of people who have a lot at stake. I think health care practitioners have a lot at stake and have a lot to add and contribute to this system and could be a major benefit to the government to help us reform the system. But I don't see any opportunity to meet with them.

In fact, one of my early recommendations was that the OMA and the chiropractors actually have a seat at the board. The initial reaction to that was: "What? Are you crazy?" Then everybody started thinking about it, and I said these people have a major stake in this. Yes, they're service providers, and I suppose you could say they've got some kind of conflict. But I trust the health care practitioners in this province, and they know that as much as they are service providers, and as much as they will rely on the compensation system in many cases for a lot of income, they know this system is seriously ill. And who better to turn to when you're sick? Why not put them on the board?

The most incredible thing happened in committee. We, the Liberals, put an amendment to include an injured worker on the board. Madam Speaker, being a New Democrat yourself, I'm sure you'd understand this: You would expect that the New Democrats would be rushing to replace my motion with one of their own. I was astounded that they didn't. Not only did they not replace my motion with one of their own to include an injured worker on the board of the compensation board, they voted mine down. It was quite amazing -- more amazing to the injured workers in the audience, by the way. I don't know if you were there that day, but every time the vote took place on that and they asked, "All in favour?" we put up our hands, and so did about 40 or 50 injured workers in the audience. They all put their hands up too. Why? Because they know the problems with the compensation system.

That's the most amazing thing about this. Talk to people who have been immersed in the compensation system. I know the parliamentary assistant has; I certainly know I have. We all learn very quickly what the problems are in the compensation system, whether it's around service delivery or whatever the area is. There's a number of areas where there are serious concerns and we learn them very quickly, but I don't see any attempts to resolve them.

Why wouldn't you look to the injured workers to get some kind of expertise on service delivery? I would suggest they could provide us with a lot of expertise, and after all, they'd only be one member; we're not talking about turning it over to one interest group. They'd only be one member, but they would have a place at the table.

If there's one thing I've learned about injured workers, you know the word that always comes up? "Dignity" always comes up, everywhere you go. They feel like they've been cast aside, that nobody cares about them. They feel they haven't been given an opportunity to recover their dignity by going back to work. They then feel that they get caught in the bureaucratic red tape. I can't imagine anything worse, actually, than being caught in the red tape of this particular system. It would debilitate you, it would destroy your zest for life in a lot of ways, and I really have some sympathy for that.

Could you not give them the franchise, so to speak, of being on the board, of contributing? They would have an opportunity, as they did recently -- I know they had a convention up in Barrie and passed a number of resolutions. I've got some of them here. I don't make any bones about it: I don't agree with all their resolutions. But they would know they had an opportunity to have their meeting, as they had in September of this year in Barrie, and to pass a resolution and that these resolutions would go to their designated person who sits on the board of the compensation system. They would have, I guess, a sense that there is someone who is listening to them.

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Instead, what they see, whether it's the Conservatives or the Liberals and now the NDP in government, is that nobody is willing to listen to these people. I just really believe we have to change that. As I say, I'm quite astounded that this particular government blew the opportunity to do that.

Along those lines, I want to talk about other ideas about how you fix this system. We hear stories about what's happened in New Brunswick, where they eliminated their unfunded liability and they reduced benefits -- what did they go to, 85%, in New Brunswick, of their net pay?

Mr Carman McClelland (Brampton North): They reduced premiums too.

Mr Mahoney: They reduced premiums too. There you go, a good Liberal government down there. Then we go to Alberta and we see that they have eliminated their unfunded liability and they did not reduce benefits. What they did is put in place some premium increases, I believe about 7% over two years, moderate. I think our business people would be delighted to look at a 7% increase over one year, never mind two years, the way it's gone for them with some of the 30%, 40%, 50%, 60% increases in their premiums that they've seen. So which one makes more sense?

For my part, I'm not supportive of reducing benefits. The reason is that I talked earlier about many of the CEOs of small, medium and large-sized companies around the province who said to me, "You know, if somebody's legitimately injured in our workplace, we don't want them to suffer financially." Their mortgage payments don't go down, their car payments don't go down, the cost of education for their kids doesn't go down, their food costs don't go down -- there is a little bit of a correlating reduction in their costs because they don't have to get to work every day and there are expenses to cover them getting to whatever rehab they have to get to, so there's some legitimacy for paying them less than full pay.

But remember, this is an income insurance replacement program, so let's set the level that's fair, and I think 90% of take-home pay is fair. I continually refer to the TV program that we had on W5, where they talked about tax-free money and everything. Let's be clear: The 90% is of take-home; it's after --

Hon Mr Pouliot: Like your tax refund.

Mr Mahoney: No, not like that at all. It's like after -- and you have a chance to change that if you want to too. I heard you were the minister the Premier was looking to on that. I haven't seen anything, fortunately.

Hon Mr Pouliot: The future can last a long, long time. It usually does.

Mr Mahoney: Yes. The fact is that it's after taxes have been paid; they're getting 90% of their take-home pay. People say if you reduce that, you can reduce the unfunded liability. Frankly, I think there's a number of things you can do to reduce the unfunded liability without doing it on the backs of injured workers. I don't know, it's just fundamentally unfair when it is an income replacement insurance program to talk about solving the problems by reducing the benefits.

I know people in the business community and the Tory party are absolutely committed to that. In many cases in the business community they say, "You've got to reduce it," but then when you talk to them privately and you say, "Just a minute, do you want one of your workers who's legitimately injured to suffer financially?" they say no. So it just doesn't go hand in hand. There are other things you can do that make a whole lot more sense.

The president and CEO of the Alberta board --

Hon Mr Pouliot: Like universal coverage.

Mr Mahoney: Yes, like universal coverage funded by the business community. See, there are no studies --

Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): Supported by the business community.

Mr Mahoney: Well, that's what they want to do. There are no studies that prove your philosophical opinion that some kind of magic universal system is the answer to this thing; in fact quite the contrary. That's the fear people have. What you've got here is a government that wants to expand coverage, expand the number of companies that are covered under WCB.

Hon Mr Pouliot: Expand our base.

Mr Mahoney: Expand your base. Good luck to you on that. But if you expand coverage -- what was it today? My leader, Lyn McLeod, asked a question today about the office of the worker adviser changing the word from "stress." They're not going to use "stress" any more. They're using "psychosomatic" -- what was the second word?

Hon Mr Pouliot: You're on your own.

Mr Mahoney: I know I am. It's "psychosomatic turmoil" or something like that to replace that instead of --

Interjection: Trauma.

Mr Mahoney: Trauma? Psychosomatic trauma, turmoil -- you get the point. Psychosomatic. Don't say "stress" whatever you do. We're not going to include --

Interjection.

Mr Mahoney: Well, you can apply for stress; you'd probably get it. But the fact is that you've got people within the ministry who are looking for ways to sort of get around the fact that the government did not, I say, thank goodness -- if there was one thing they did good in all of this, it was that they did not include stress as a compensable injury.

Mr Sutherland: They're not ministry employees.

Mr Mahoney: Well, I'm sorry, it's a program. He says, "They're not ministry employees." The office of the worker adviser is a program of the Ministry of Labour, funded through the Ministry of Labour's budget, and there is a chargeback by the ministry to the compensation board for the system. The director is an OIC appointment. Bob Rae put him there. He is put there by the Premier, presumably on the recommendation, you would think, of the Minister of Labour. So they're in there. You call them I don't care what. If you want to hide behind some different agency or manipulate the wording or do want you want, the fact is --

Mr Sutherland: Hey, I'm not manipulating --

The Acting Speaker: The member for Oxford is out of order.

Mr Mahoney: The fact is they're through the Ministry of Labour. That's the budget. They're appointed as an order in council by the Premier and by cabinet, and they are in fact training our own constituency people on how to appeal every single turndown in this system to tie up the system so that they can make changes.

Don't you just find that remarkable? If you were the Minister of Labour, I say to the parliamentary assistant, would you not be demanding to know what's going on if you've got people who were appointed by you, the staff of those people, who are laying subterfuge to destroy your own legislation? Would you not just find that sort of passing curious? I think I would. I think I would have somebody on the old proverbial carpet to say, "Just what do you think you're doing, and what is psychosomatic turmoil or psychosomatic trauma?" By any other name, it's stress.

I believe this government, if it was not for the absolute outpouring of anger and rage and frustration by the business community, would have included stress. I believe that was probably on their initial agenda. But the Premier, through his PLMAC process, saw that that may be a battle that he can't possibly win and so he'd better back off that. But this is sort of the way that this thing -- what is it, that a committee is a camel? I think what we've got here without a doubt is a bill that's been designed by a camel that doesn't solve any of the problems. It does nothing substantively and systemically to address the long-term problem of the unfunded liability.

The problem with the unfunded liability is more around the growth of that unfunded liability. To tell you the truth, I'm more concerned on an ongoing basis about the fact that the WCB seems to have adopted the government's mentality of running overdrafts or deficits in its operating budgets. That's a little more worrisome, frankly, than an unfunded liability, because the unfunded liability is made up of the long-term commitments of the workers' compensation system balanced off by the assets they have available.

You've got $17.2 billion in long-term commitments, not to be paid out today but actuarially adjusted over time and figured out on the basis of the injuries and the lifespan and the expected lifespan and all of those kinds of things, and then you've got the asset base of $6.8 billion. Both of those figures have probably grown, by the way; I would hope they're growing proportionately. But that's the fear. The unfunded liability is growing at a rate, depending on who you want to believe, of $1 million to $2 million a day.

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Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): So what are you going to do about it?

Mr Mahoney: We've put in place a number of recommendations that would in fact address the unfunded liability. The first problem is that you have to change the system to make the system manageable financially, and I've talked about some of them. We've talked about flat-lining benefits, not reducing them. There have been accusations --

Hon Mr Pouliot: Answer Ted.

Mr Mahoney: I will answer Ted. It's right here, by the way. I'll send a personally autographed copy to the minister. It's right here as to what we would do about them.

We've talked about flat-lining benefits because the complaint is that there are workers who receive 110% or 115% of their pre-injury net earnings, and I think even the Ontario Federation of Labour -- I stand to be yelled at -- agrees that they should not make more than 90% of their net pay. I think that has been agreed to.

Interjection.

Mr Mahoney: Oh, Gordie doesn't agree with that any more. Or he does. I'm not sure what that means.

We believe -- I'll speak for myself -- that they should not be paid more than 90% of their net, so we would flat-line the benefits. That's going to reduce the cost but not that dramatically.

Interjection.

Mr Mahoney: Well, not that dramatically. You have to do a number of systemic changes in this whole system to get the unfunded liability in line.

To give you an example: The investment fund last year in the WCB showed a return of about 12%, and most of the investment decisions were made in-house. There was a little bit of outside experimentation, but most of it was made in-house. The teachers' pension fund last year showed returns of 22%. Somebody left 10% on the table with this thing. Now, $6.8 billion, you leave 10% on the table, that's a lot of money.

Hon Mr Pouliot: Well, they're down 6% in the first six months of this year. That's a lot of money.

Mr Sutherland: What's the average? Don't take the highest.

Mr Mahoney: Rather than argue with me, why don't you look at it? Why don't you look at the possibility of using exclusively private sector investment firms to make the decisions? It's entirely possible you could make more money.

The other thing is, the two-week voluntary self-insurance will reduce your costs. There are a number of things you can do that will bring that into balance.

The Conservative Party's position is that we just slash benefits because we have got to balance the unfunded liability 100% today -- now. That's clearly their position.

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): That's not true. That's simply not true.

Mr Mahoney: Well, that's what I've heard stated by your leader on numerous occasions.

Mr Arnott: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: The statement that the Liberal critic just made is totally inaccurate and I ask that he withdraw it.

The Acting Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Mr Arnott: We have indicated that we'd like to see the unfunded liability reduced to zero by the year 2014.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Mississauga West may continue his remarks.

Mr Mahoney: What's really interesting is, since they've had trouble justifying some of their original positions, they have, I will have to agree, modified their position. It's quite interesting.

Interjections.

Mr Mahoney: Ever since they read this document, in fact you hear the statements, "Wait for the speech from the critic." You'll be quite amazed to find a lot of it in here. Originally, their leader said he wanted to fund it 100%; now they're saying by the year 2014. Well, okay.

Mr Turnbull: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I believe that the member who is debating at the moment is misleading us about what my party leader has said.

The Acting Speaker: I would ask the member to withdraw his comments. That is not acceptable in this House.

Mr Turnbull: I will certainly withdraw the wording. I won't withdraw the fact that he is indeed telling us things that our leader never ever said.

The Acting Speaker: The member has been asked to withdraw. Will you do that?

Mr Turnbull: I did.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Each party will certainly get the time to put their position on the record, and now I must go back to the member for Mississauga West.

Mr Mahoney: I can appreciate it. I know they're having some trouble dealing with some of the changes that have occurred in the position on workers' compensation. I understand why, though, because when you actually go out and do your homework and you listen to the problems here, then you come to the realization that maybe some of those positions are a little untenable so you'd better modify them because you're upsetting a whole lot of people.

The fact is that this party over here, the no-name party of this province, has said they would slash benefits to injured workers -- absolutely unequivocally their way to fix the workers' compensation system -- and I reject it entirely.

Hon Mr Pouliot: At least we have a philosophy. At least we have an approach.

Mr Mahoney: Well, we have an approach too, and you know what's really interesting? The minister of northern affairs -- did I get that right? -- is shouting over there that at least they have an approach. You used to have an approach too. I heard your good friend Shelley Martel up here on Bill 162. I heard her ranting and raving. Where is she today? Where is your philosophy and your approach today? You have absolutely abdicated your party's position and your responsibility.

I don't really care about that, because I don't happen to like most of your positions, if any. The real problem is that you've brought in a bill that does absolutely nothing towards fixing the workers' compensation system, and then what do you do? You decide you're going to give in to the business community on the issue of financial responsibility, supposedly being put in the purpose clause, and you come up with a clause with a few tricks in it. Then what do you do? The very next amendment, you spend all the money. You say that the board should be financially responsible, but there's no responsibility for the Minister of Labour to be financially responsible. And on top of that, in this legislation, the Minister of Labour, frightening as this may sound, for one year after this bill is passed into law has total and complete and irrevocable control of the Workers' Compensation Board.

One of the other things we heard as we travelled around the province was that you've got to depoliticize this entire system, put in place a board that is multistakeholder with a senior management team and a president and CEO and a senior management team to run this thing as if it were a business, recognizing that this system is an income replacement insurance program. Don't put it in the hands of a politician. In fact, that's who used to run it. Wasn't it your -- I shouldn't be unkind to someone who was fired by the Premier, but the previous chairman was a member of the NDP caucus for some 10 years and wound up, as a result of that wonderful piece of qualification, becoming the chairman of this insurance company? It's absolutely outrageous.

We need people with competency, with experience to run this board to put in place the kind of reforms that we need to save the compensation system. I admitted earlier that all three parties in this place have enough blame to share for the problems, but you have got the opportunity to fix it and you're blowing it. You're doing nothing. You're destroying NEER. You're taking incentive out of here. You're putting in place a system where the employers are frightened to death for any future for this board. You're doing nothing to sustain the financial accountability of this system, and then, to make matters even worse, you're shoving it down our throats.

I had planned on leaving extra time for one of my colleagues and I unfortunately got on a roll and didn't leave enough, but I'm going to sit down and at least leave him 40 seconds.

Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): I very much appreciate the fulsome opportunity I get to speak on the bill, and I want to thank the member for that opportunity. I want to say that what I hear from my constituents is of real concern related to the operation of the Workers' Compensation Board and that they're concerned that this bill, as it is now, will not help that situation. That's both from injured workers' perspective and from the small businesses in my riding, who are saying the cost of the system is too high and in fact that the way the rating system and other incentives are working in the system, and as proposed, will cause great havoc in the system and they need to get their costs down in order to be able to continue to employ workers --

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

Mrs Witmer: Today we have one final opportunity to discuss Bill 165, the act to amend the Workers' Compensation Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Although the government had ample opportunity to reform the WCB system and attempt to address the concerns of the employers and the employees and injured workers, it was not until the spring of 1993 that the Premier finally asked business and labour, under the auspices of the PLMAC, to review the problems of the workers' compensation system. He asked them at that time to work together to produce a new system which would pay workers fairly and also meet the test of being financially sound.

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The employer proposals, if followed, would have virtually eliminated the unfunded liability by the year 2014, they would have secured future benefit payments, they would have improved vocational rehabilitation, which is extremely important, and they would have placed the system on a secure footing while also improving the economic climate in this province, and also then, in turn, leading to the creation of new jobs. I can tell you, as I've told you before, that the unfunded liability of $11.7 billion is a deterrent to new business moving into this province. It's also a deterrent, to those who already have investments, have factories, to expanding. They are simply choosing to look outward to other provinces such as New Brunswick and Manitoba and to the United States.

In essence, it is legislation such as Bill 165 and Bill 40 and employment equity which have all placed a wall around the province of Ontario. It's a wall that says to people: "Don't come here. We have very restrictive employment laws and we have too much red tape and we have too much government regulation." So people are choosing to go elsewhere. However, even though the Premier had the opportunity to bring forward some proposals and a reform agenda that had been proposed by the management and labour sides, he aborted the process, he ignored the reform agenda and he brought in, of course, Bill 165.

Unfortunately, the bill that we have before us today, that we are discussing for one last time, does not meet his objective to produce a new system that will pay injured workers fairly and it certainly does not meet the test of being financially sound. I'll address both of those issues more thoroughly.

Why will Bill 165 not solve the problems of the workers' compensation system?

(1) Instead of reducing the unfunded liability, which we all know is a cause for concern, it's going to increase it to at least $15 billion by the year 2014.

(2) Bill 165, instead of imposing fiscal responsibility by means of a purpose clause, provides the authority to expand benefits and coverage without any regard as to the financial impact on the system.

(3) Instead of assisting the older workers who are in genuine need of additional assistance -- and we know there are individuals who do need the additional money -- this bill further stresses the financial health of the system by awarding additional benefits without any kind of needs analysis, and that definitely should have been done.

Mr Murphy: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: Given that the government is ramming this through on time allocation, it should have the courtesy of having a quorum in the House.

The Acting Speaker: Would the clerk please determine if a quorum is present now.

Senior Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Journals: 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.

The Acting Speaker: Now the member for Waterloo North may continue her remarks.

Mrs Witmer: Continuing my remarks as to why Bill 165 does not solve the problems with the workers' compensation system:

(4) Rather than providing employers with more meaningful incentives for reducing workers' compensation costs, this bill only introduces more complexity, imposes additional punitive measures and seems to replace experience rating altogether with a system that is going to recognize a process rather than results. Yet we have to remember that experience rating has been largely responsible for the 31% reduction in accidents since 1989 and the significant cuts in the average time on claim, by almost four weeks, in the last few years.

(5) While the accord found it sufficient for the WCB to enforce the existing pre-employment provisions in the act, Bill 165 imposes yet further penalties and administrative complexities. By its treatment of the return-to-work provisions, the bill is moving the WCB away from the role of being an adjudicative body to an agency that is focusing on return to work and mediation as its primary function. This was not a part of the accord.

(6) Instead of including injured workers on the board, we see that there is simply a bipartite mechanism for representation, and our party is very supportive of including not only injured workers but also health professionals.

Instead of creating a more arm's-length relationship between the government and the WCB, Bill 165, by authorizing the government to issue policy direction to the WCB's board of directors, undermines the very principle of independent administration that was the cornerstone of the system designed by Justice William Meredith 80 years ago. To make matters even worse, the power to direct policy is not balanced by any increase in accountability on the part of the government. Thus, the government will be free to dictate a policy which could have disastrous financial consequences on the system without even having to answer further for it.

Furthermore, the amendments to the purpose clause do not require the government and the WCB or its agencies to conduct their affairs in a financially responsible or accountable manner. The Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal, which is responsible for the granting of money and for new entitlements such as workplace stress, is not subject to this provision. As well, although the government is able to impose policy directions, as I said before, it is not subject to this provision either.

It is obvious that the government's approach to WCB reform contained in Bill 165 has caused and will cause damage to all of the parties that have been involved in the process. It doesn't respond to the concerns of the employers, the employees or injured workers. We heard this said repeatedly during the course of the public hearings. We continue to receive that type of information. Most recently, we have received information from injured workers telling us they're not happy with Bill 165. It has not taken into consideration the concerns they have.

What we have here is a bill in which everybody loses. Employers are going to continue to face cost increases. Workers will continue to face uncertainty about future benefits, as will the injured workers, and perhaps worst of all, as a result of the government aborting the process that it had established, neither party today has any faith left in the system itself.

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Furthermore, we need to remember, and the government seems to have totally forgotten this, that there is a financial crisis at the WCB. The unfunded liability is real. It must be repaid one day, and it is irresponsible and destructive to simply continue to pass that debt to the next generation of employers. As I said before, there just has been no attempt whatsoever to reduce the unfunded liability of $11.7 billion. In fact, what we're going to see as a result of this bill is an increase to $15 billion by the year 2014, and that is just not acceptable.

We know that assessment rates have increased by almost 200% since 1980 and yet the accident frequency has declined by 30% since 1989.

We also must remember that the crisis is real, the unfunded liability is real, and it's this deplorable state of the WCB's funding that has been a factor in reducing Ontario's credit rating. It has acted as a disincentive for businesses who might consider relocating or establishing their operations in our province.

It is a fact, and the government must recognize it, that the system is technically bankrupt. They need to recognize that cash-flow shortages required the sale of assets last year.

As we today consider Bill 165 we need to ask ourselves, what does this bill do to protect the long-term financial interests of those it is supposed to protect: the injured workers, the employees and the employers of this province? It is obvious when we ask ourselves that question that this bill does not protect the long-term interests of those individuals. It is extremely unfortunate that the government was not able to put aside partisan considerations and have the courage and the foresight to withdraw the bill, as many individuals and groups asked it to do, in favour of legislation that truly reflects what people across this province have determined to be in their best interests.

And it's unfortunate, although they were not able to find the courage to withdraw the bill, that they were not able to at least re-establish the purpose clause as it was agreed to in the accord. They refused to do that as well.

This bill, I just want to highlight again, does not provide the employers or the employees with the necessary tools and cooperation required to ensure effective rehabilitation and safe return to work through education and availability of effective resources. On the contrary, as I pointed out, the bill imposes more penalties on employers and yet more non-rehabilitative tasks on the case worker.

These solutions are not solutions to the very complex and difficult task employers face in returning workers to the workplace. Again, it's this political interference in the system that has resulted in organizational paralysis, a lack of effective governance and administration of the system.

We had Bill 162 -- we need to remember that -- implemented in 1990. That was incredibly complex for the WCB to administer, and even today its implications are not yet totally clear. That bill was put into place without full consultation with employers or with the people administering the act, and we still have chaos today and we still have fiscal uncertainty because of that bill. I can tell you that just as Bill 162 created chaos and uncertainty within the system, Bill 165 will only add to the problems at the WCB. It is not a solution in any way, shape or form to the very serious problems there today.

As I said before, the government had a wonderful opportunity to truly reform the WCB. The stakeholders across this province were all in agreement that there was an overwhelming need to reform the system. There also was at one time overwhelming support for the royal commission, and I can tell you that the support for that royal commission has also waned now, because it must overcome two very significant barriers.

First is the unprecedented decision taken by the government to appoint the chief commissioner, Mr Lyle Williams, from the labour community. All previous royal commissions on WCB have been conducted by neutral third parties from the judiciary. So this is a barrier: He does not have the confidence of all of the parties in this province.

Second is the terms of reference of the review. The people across this province were most supportive of the need for a royal commission because they believed that the key issues of concern were going to be addressed, and the key issues of concern to people in this province were the future disability delivery models. However, the royal commission is not going to deal with that issue. It is mandated to review issues such as benefit levels, entitlement and coverage. I can tell you, those are issues for which no royal commission is required.

This government could and should have taken immediate action. They've had ample opportunity since 1990 to do so. In fact, other governments across this country have taken immediate action. Take a look at governments in Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and PEI. They have all taken courageous decisions on a number of workers' compensation issues. This has proven that it is not necessary to delegate and postpone decision-making to a royal commission and that meaningful and serious reform is based primarily on political will, political will which this government has not been willing to demonstrate up until this time.

I want to refer now to a little survey that was done in the fall of 1993 by M.C. Warren and Associates regarding the WCB's terms of reference. They asked some questions to business people in this province. It was interesting, because when they asked about taxation of benefits based on gross earnings, 84% of the employers supported the taxation of these awards.

I mention that because the significance of this revenue loss to government has not been lost on the federal Minister of Finance, Paul Martin, whose department disclosed in late October 1994 that the non-taxation of workers' compensation payments removes $695 million from the treasury. I find it interesting, because I've listened to the Liberal critic, and he's indicated that this type of thing is not being contemplated. But why has Paul Martin publicly made a comment about the fact that these are not taxed and this is money that is now removed from the treasury? I wonder if, like Mr Martin, who's now proposing changes that were totally unsuspected months ago, our own Liberal colleagues are not contemplating making some changes if they were to have an opportunity to do so.

In addition, 88% of the respondents believed that the Ontario WCB should reduce its administrative costs immediately, with a further 76% identifying that a reduction target of 10% should be established. Some 69% of respondents supported privatization of services such as vocational rehabilitation.

The Ontario employers who responded to this survey generally supported the policy agenda and direction already initiated in other provinces to: reduce benefit levels, as Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia have done; introduce a waiting period, such as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have done; consider taxation of workers' compensation benefits, as Quebec has done; aggressively reduce administrative costs, such as Alberta has done and which our party strongly supports as a means of reducing the costs; and extending coverage to more workers, such as they have done in British Columbia.

That is an indication of where Ontario employers, some of them at least, are coming from on the issue of reform of the WCB.

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I want to conclude my remarks at this point by again, as I have in the past, highlighting the WCB reforms that the Ontario PC Party would introduce. We believe very strongly that the WCB must return to its original concept as a workplace accident insurance plan. We believe it is time to listen to what is being said. Our proposals to deal with WCB reform include:

(1) Entrench the concept of financial accountability in the purpose clause. This must be done if we are to ensure that benefits will be available for injured workers in the future.

(2) A freeze on new entitlements such as stress until there is a plan in place to deal with the unfunded liability, which we have indicated we wish to reduce to zero by the year 2014.

(3) Limit stress claims to those that result from a traumatic event in the workplace.

(4) Reduce benefit levels, as Manitoba and New Brunswick have done, to 85% from 90% and investigate lifetime pension awards.

(5) Replace political appointments with a new management team of insurance professionals to improve productivity, case management and quality and customer service such as, as I mentioned before, they have done in Alberta.

(6) Introduce value-for-money audits and spending controls. People still continue to tell us it was ridiculous that the WCB was able to get away with awarding a contract to build a new $200-million office tower without first getting government approval or at least being accountable for the decision.

(7) Examine contracting out for both the administration and provision of workers' compensation services and enlist private sector expertise to develop less expensive and more effective ways to retrain, rehabilitate and respond to the needs of injured workers.

(8) Replace the bipartite model of governance with a multistakeholder model and include there seats for injured workers, health professionals and others who have a stake in the system.

(9) Eliminate the Workplace Health and Safety Agency as it presently exists and make it a department of the WCB. We need to take a look at how we can continue to prevent accidents in the workplace.

(10) We need to redefine "accident" to ensure that employment is the dominant factor.

These are the reforms that the Ontario PC Party would introduce. It's unfortunate that there has not been an opportunity in the past four years and a few months to do this. It's unfortunate that the bad faith and the favouritism that the government has shown in the consultations on this issue have harmed business-government relations and management-labour relations to the detriment of Ontario's reputation as a place to do business. They have also destroyed any confidence that business had in the bipartite process.

It is also unfortunate that at a time when the workers' compensation system is in serious disrepair and desperately needs thorough reform, the government has opted for a package that will only worsen the state of workers' compensation in Ontario and does not address the needs of all the parties concerned.

Meaningful reform of the system will now have to wait for another day and for another government, and I can tell you that our party is committed to ensuring that meaningful reform will occur and that consultation will take place with all those who will be impacted by the changes.

Mr Arnott: It's with great disappointment that I rise this afternoon to speak to third reading of Bill 165. I say that for a number of reasons.

I participated for a couple of weeks in the hearings on this bill during the course of the summer and into the fall in the resources development committee, and I heard a great number of presentations made with some good ideas about how this bill could have been improved upon. Of course, many of those ideas were not accepted during the context of clause-by-clause deliberation. Many of those amendments we put forward were rejected by the government party.

I say that I'm disappointed because I believe that in the long run injured workers are not being well-served by this government's feeble attempt to change the workers' compensation system in Ontario. I say that because business people in this province are going to continue to see the kinds of increases in premiums that we've seen over the last two or three years, I would suspect as a direct result of this bill, and that concerns me very much.

I think in many ways our businesses, because of government policies, are uncompetitive overall, and I feel that addressing the workers' compensation system and the government's policies in that respect could go a long way to enhance the competitiveness of our businesses, which would lead to more jobs. I feel very strongly about that.

I see with this bill that ideology has prevailed over common sense, politics seem to have prevailed over good governance and financial irresponsibility has prevailed over sound management principles, the basic precept that all of us in Wellington county live by every day of our lives, the need to live within our means.

When this bill passes, and I expect it will unless there's some dramatic change of heart on the part of the government over the next day or two, whenever the vote takes place, workers will be very, very worried about whether or not there will be a viable compensation system in place should they get hurt at work.

I think employers will be very, very angry about how the government has played politics on this issue and they will see this as another abject betrayal by this pro-labour government.

I believe we will see a complete lack of commitment to the need for financial responsibility or cooperation among the various partners who have a stake in the workers' compensation process.

I believe taxpayers and their children should be very, very concerned if this bill indeed does pass, because it appears that any action to bring financial sanity to the affairs of the board will be delayed inevitably. Therefore, it would look more likely that taxpayers will be on the hook for the workers' compensation unfunded liability at some point in the future.

We know with any financial problem that any government faces, the longer the issue is delayed or put off, the worse it is and the more difficult it is to address when inevitably the day comes when it has to be addressed.

I want to speak again about the unfunded liability of the Workers' Compensation Board. Surely this is the most important issue facing the workers' compensation system today, purely because of its magnitude and the fact that it's growing and it's going up. The trend is upwards instead of downwards.

Currently the estimate we're using is that the unfunded liability is about $11.7 billion. It's rising at the rate of $1 million a day. Bill 165 does nothing to address the unfunded liability problem in a meaningful way. In fact, it actually increases the unfunded liability, projected to about $15 billion by the year 2014 by the government's own estimates. The position of our party that we've put forward is that the original plan to eliminate the unfunded liability that we had initiated as a government in 1984, a 30-year plan -- we ought to get back on track with that plan and get the unfunded liability eliminated to zero by the year 2014.

We find that employers are also very concerned that the growth of the unfunded liability means out-of-control assessment increases which have no correlation to an employer's safety record. Assessments go up because of the failure of the system to come to terms with its unfunded liability.

I've received a great deal of mail on this issue from many people within my riding and from adjacent ridings. I received a letter from William MacKinnon, who is president of MacKinnon Transport Ltd in Guelph, and I think he's articulated in a very clear way many of the problems with respect to this bill as it affects the unfunded liability. He writes:

"My greatest concern is with respect to Bill 165's failure to effectively address the escalating WCB unfunded liability and the resulting impact on assessment rates. Recently, the board of directors of the WCB approved an assessment rate increase for the trucking industry of 10% over the 1994 level. For my company, this represents a double-digit increase for the second year in a row.

"Assessment rate increases of this magnitude are never welcome news. However, when you consider the trucking industry's improving accident performance and the failure of Bill 165 to adequately address the expenditure and financial responsibility problems at the WCB, the prospect of higher assessment rates in 1995 only serves to increase my sense of frustration and disappointment.

"It is my contention that until the government takes the necessary steps to address the unfunded liability, the government's dependency on assessment rate increases will not be broken. I understand and accept being charged for unfunded liabilities that are caused through injuries that relate directly to my company but I should not be expected to shoulder any portion of the unfunded liability that has been caused by other companies that are no longer in business.

"We are all aware WCB appears to be broken. Broken to the point of not controlling expenditures, but not broken to the point of generating enough revenue to run an organization of such magnitude."

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So in essence what he's saying, literally, is that he shouldn't be responsible for other companies' accident records and that the government's inability and failure to deal with the unfunded liability issue is going to be very, very difficult for the competitiveness of his company over the long term.

We also see that the growth of the unfunded liability may have very negative repercussions in the future for injured workers and for the taxpayers in Ontario. From the employees' perspective, the failure to address the unfunded liability will put the future payment of benefits to injured workers at risk, as I've said earlier, and from the public's perspective, if the Workers' Compensation Board can't cover payments to injured workers, will the taxpayers in Ontario be expected to take over the payments?

Taxes are already too high. People in business are taxed out. The government must start acting responsibly in managing its resources and not raise taxes to cover its mismanagement. The unfunded liability and the government's inability to develop a strategy to reduce it has been identified by the bond rating services as a cause for concern. Higher ratings mean higher interest costs on borrowed money, which we can ill afford when we are looking at an estimated debt this year of approximately $90 billion.

I think we also must look at the unfunded liability in terms of the economic costs in terms of job creation to the province.

We have heard the Liberal critic for the Labour portfolio, Mr Mahoney, the member for Mississauga West, talk about what the Liberal Party would do if they came to power with respect to the workers' compensation issue, and I've listened very closely to him in committee and in this place. He says the Liberal Party would endeavour to address the problem of the unfunded liability, but he talks about solutions in a very vague way and he doesn't cost exactly what initiatives he intends to do, what impact they would have on the bottom line of the unfunded liability. So we don't know exactly what effect they would have or what effect he would hope they would have. He implies that our party's position to reduce the overall cost of benefits -- that we are unsympathetic to injured workers.

It is precisely because we are very sympathetic to injured workers that we're most concerned about the long-term viability of the whole system. That is why we have to take some unpleasant steps. The government itself has taken an unpleasant step, and I know for the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour, the whole concept of the Friedland formula is anathema, I think she said during the course of the committee. It's not an easy thing to do, but financial reality at some point stares you in the face and you've got to do something about it.

We're not excited, we're not happy about some of these things we're putting forward in terms of the need for them, but the reality is that the system has a severe financial problem, and if we're all being honest with ourselves, we're going to have to take steps to deal with that financial problem. It's because we're sympathetic to injured workers that we want the system to be maintained over the long run, and so that motivates our policy.

Interjection: Yeah, right.

Mr Arnott: It does.

The unfunded liability discourages companies from locating in Ontario. They see the costs of workers' compensation assessments and pick other jurisdictions with lower costs, and I've talked about that previously.

Another major issue with respect to this bill is the experience rating system. Bill 165 will change the experience rating system, which in the past has rewarded employers with good safety records. Under Bill 165, the government intends to complicate the experience rating system by basing it on rather vague criteria such as whether or not an employer has rehabilitation programs or return-to-work practices within its workplace. I don't understand exactly what that means and I don't know what it means in terms of dollars and cents, but I assume it means a civil servant assessing a company's practices with respect to return to work and with respect to safety committees and so on, and then arbitrarily making a decision as to whether or not that meets the government's criteria.

I would rather see the experience rating system enhanced. We've had a suggestion made to us, and I think it's a good one, that instead of basing the experience rating on past performance of safety in the workplace, you give a positive incentive for the future, so for the coming year giving employers an incentive that if in the coming year they have a better safety record, their premiums will be reduced and they'll get a bottom-line incentive to improve safety in their workplaces. I think that would be a better way.

I think we want to enhance the experience rating system in a direct way and not gut it, which is essentially what I believe the government is doing with respect to this bill.

I received another letter from a constituent, Gerald Boyes, Boyes Plumbing, of RR 1, Orton, and I'd like to read just a couple of excerpts from it. It concerns the experience rating system. Mr Boyes wrote the former Minister of Labour, Bob Mackenzie, on October 19 of this year and he said:

"An insurance system such as the WCB must adjust its costs in response to the performance of the customers. Employers in the past eight years have reduced accident frequency by 30% and employers in my industry, construction, have reduced injuries by 61% over the same period. However, instead of lower costs, our average premium per employee has soared from an average of $982 in 1983 to $2,508 in 1992," a 261% increase in their premiums.

"The costs of WCB coverage for the construction sector are particularly sad. When you divide the reduced number of lost-time injuries by the total expenditures in the construction sector, you will find that each accident costs the employer an average of $55,000, an increase of 517% over 10 years.

"Until Bill 165, the one saving grace of the system was the experience rating system. If an employer reduced accidents and saved the board money, some of the savings were passed on, and if not, the employer was surcharged. The beauty of the program is that it is 100% driven by performance. But Bill 165 says that it is not as important that I reduce accidents and bring workers back to work as how it is done.

"Obviously, it is now all right to have accidents if there is a paper trail that shows there shouldn't have been an accident in the first place. That may be how government works, but it doesn't apply to the construction industry. My business succeeds based on performance, not on theory. When I show I know how to install a mechanical system in a building, all of the knowledge is useless until we build it and it works."

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has echoed this concern as well, I think very effectively. They've said that small business owners have witnessed their own premiums consistently increasing, despite a major reduction in accident rates and the extension of workers' compensation benefits to accidents and injuries having dubious, if any, connection to the workplace.

Another major issue with respect to this bill is the purpose clause. We've heard this issue discussed extensively. Of course, the Premier appointed a special committee to give him recommendations, give him advice on the workers' compensation issue. He called it the Premier's Labour-Management Advisory Committee and it came back with a number of recommendations. The government then cherry-picked certain aspects that it liked and ignored others that it didn't like.

The purpose clause was something that was seen to be important by labour and management in that they agreed that the purpose clause should require that any proposed changes to the benefits, the services, the programs or the policies under the act be thoroughly analysed in order to evaluate the financial consequences of the proposed changes on workers and employers.

This was an effort to achieve the balance between the need to provide adequate and fair compensation to injured workers and the need to keep the system affordable for everybody. However, the purpose clause contained in Bill 165 does not require cost to be taken into account when new provisions are considered by the government or the Workers' Compensation Board. It means that if new categories of injuries are added without analysis of their impact on cost, the unfunded liability will grow.

This is discussion about the bill, this is discussion about what we've seen in the last four years from the New Democrats on the issue of workers' compensation. But what I'd like to do now in the remainder of the time that I have available to me is talk about what we need to do to restore confidence in the workers' compensation system.

We need a plan to eliminate the unfunded liability to zero by the year 2014. We need to reduce workers' compensation premiums by 5%. That would save employers $98.5 million, and we believe that's absolutely essential as part of the need to send out a signal around the world that Ontario is again open for business.

We need to study the possibility of privatizing parts of the administration of the Workers' Compensation Board. I think we need to entrench a concept of financial accountability in the purpose clause that would govern the administration of the board at every level. We need a freeze on new entitlements, such as stress, until there's a plan in place to deal with the unfunded liability. We need to limit stress claims to those that result from witnessing a traumatic event.

We need to reduce benefit levels to 85% of net income and investigate lifetime pension awards, again as an effort to try and deal with the unfunded liability in a meaningful way. We need to replace political appointments with a new management team of insurance professionals to improve productivity, case management, quality and customer service. We need to introduce value-for-money audits and spending controls at all levels in the board.

We should eliminate the Workplace Health and Safety Agency because we've seen numerous examples of why bipartism is not working. We should make the Workplace Health and Safety Agency a department of the Workers' Compensation Board and develop programs that respond to the need of the employee in the workplace.

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Our Labour critic introduced a resolution during the course of the committee hearings on September 27 that called for the withdrawal of Bill 165 because it's so seriously flawed, because the bill does not address the unfunded liability crisis the board is facing, because it imposes more administrative burdens on employers and it puts Ontario at a competitive disadvantage with other jurisdictions. The resolution, of course, was defeated by the government and we're here today. The government did not amend Bill 165 to any significant degree and the bill does not reflect the needs of workers or employers.

I would like to say in closing, with respect to Bill 165 that, yes, we need to address the fundamental problems in the Workers' Compensation Board system. We need to decrease the number of accidents overall so as to reduce the financial demand on the system and we need to support the return to work of injured employees after they've gotten better. I think we all agree on those two points, but it's a question of how do we get there.

We believe the benefits have to be affordable over the long term or the system overall becomes in jeopardy. Benefits to injured workers over time might be in question. We believe that, again, with the passage of this bill, we see an example of ideology prevailing over common sense, politics prevailing over good governance and financial irresponsibility prevailing over the need to live within our means.

There are fundamental problems within the workers' compensation system, but the addressing of those problems will be put off until another day and another government. I can tell you one thing, in closing, that if it is the Progressive Conservative Party that the people call upon to form the next government, we will deal with these problems.

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): I'd like to make a few comments with respect to Bill 165 and, of course, a few comments it will be because of the time allocation motion that has been allowed in this House.

Hon Ms Churley: Just get on with it.

Mr Tilson: You say, "Get on with it." The fact of the matter is we've got a very brief time to debate a very important bill. The standing committee held three weeks of public hearings from August 22 to September 8. You had clause-by-clause, which was concluded on November 28 of this year as a result of government time allocation motion. There's a time allocation motion in this particular House. So to say, "Get on with it," that's the whole problem with your government. You're trying to ram all of this legislation through, very important issues.

The people who come to this place to try and make comments with respect to very, very social issues such as workers' compensation must go away feeling very cynical. I'm going to be allowed 12 minutes, about 10 minutes to talk on this particular bill --

Hon Ms Churley: You just wasted two minutes.

Mr Tilson: It's regrettable that particularly the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations is bantering over there and not allowing me to make my comments.

I would like to say that this issue, of course, with respect to the reform of workers' compensation, received a great deal of optimism from all sides of the House and throughout the province when the Premier indicated that he wished to reform the workers' compensation because everyone recognized that reform was necessary.

I can tell you that one of the major issues that comes to my office is people who are disgruntled, workers and employers, with the system of the workers' compensation. The answer? The answer appears to be Bill 165. I can tell you that for something that's come forward, the Workers' Compensation Board certainly has been nothing but controversial since this government took office.

It has been embroiled in one public controversy after another since the NDP took office; specifically, one matter of contention was the $11.6-billion unfunded liability that continues to climb in this province without any real effort to reduce that. As well, the assessment rate increases continue to come forward. More importantly, there is the $180 million at last count -- I suspect it's closer to $200 million -- for the new building that's being built just near SkyDome.

Finally, as a result of all of this, the Premier in June 1992 announced the appointment of the Premier's Labour-Management Advisory Committee in which business and labour were to get together and try and deal with some of these issues. It hasn't worked at all because all the recommendations -- not all, but many of the recommendations that this committee put forward the government completely ignored with respect to the implementation of Bill 165.

This bill was introduced on May 18 of this year, it received second reading on June 14, and here we are. I'm one of only a few members who will be allowed to debate with respect to this bill and I'm being allowed roughly 10 minutes to speak. I have a lot of concern with that.

The bill totally ignored the reform plans that were recommended by the Premier's handpicked business advisers and union advisers. It does absolutely nothing to address the fiscal crisis of the system or the lack of financial accountability. I think accountability is one of the major concerns that we have. There doesn't appear to be any accountability with respect to fiscal responsibility.

I too have received letters, as I'm sure many in this House have. I have a letter that I received from one of my constituents in Bolton. It's a letter dated back in March, mind you, but it talks about their frustrations with the Workers' Compensation Board. They enclosed an ad that was for a chief vocational rehabilitation officer and was for a $90,000 salary. In closing this she says:

"The enclosed ad was in today's Globe and Mail advertising for a rehabilitation officer, salary $90,000. No wonder our workers' compensation rates are so high. This is another reason for business to leave the province and the country.

"I watched W5 on March 3, 1994, regarding the total unaccountable WCB operation. The new building that they are putting up in Toronto is a joke. What is your party line policy regarding this matter?"

I suspect that the Premier's office sent back a very vague response with respect to where they're going with this.

I can tell you that the only thing this bill does do is to place the NDP political agenda ahead of the total workers' compensation system. I think if you read it and if you read the philosophy as to where the bill is going, that's exactly what it does.

It very strongly resembles the labour agenda, notwithstanding the fact of the great opposition from many of the workers who came to the committee hearings. Worker after worker after worker opposed what is being done, yet that appears to be what this bill is to do, to follow through with the labour agenda.

The major concerns: One issue is with respect to the unfunded liability. It has been submitted by different organizations and groups on the issue of the unfunded liability, which is now at $11.7 billion, that instead of being reduced to zero it's going to go the other way; that this bill will result in the unfunded liability increasing to about $15 billion in the year 2014. In fact, there are those in this province who have indicated that it could well increase beyond $15 billion; it could be $31 billion or even in excess of $50 billion. That's of great concern when we start talking about the bond rating concerns of this province with respect to investing in this province.

There's no question that the Workers' Compensation Board in Ontario is in a crisis. The system is technically bankrupt now. When you look at that type of debt, it is bankrupt. It is money that simply can't be paid. This $11.7 billion is what is owed to the injured workers of this province more than what they have to pay for. In other words, they don't have that amount of money to pay for it, so it's always in arrears.

I don't think that people thoroughly understand what an unfunded liability is. It simply means that it owes $11.7 billion more than it has to pay the injured workers, and that's a real problem. I think that if the injured workers of this province realized that and the precariousness of this whole system, they would be deeply concerned. That's why, if this issue is not addressed, if the unfunded liability is not reduced to zero, we could place in jeopardy the future of benefits that are owed to injured workers. That is one of the issues that has been raised.

My time is fast disappearing. I would say that unless the taxpayers come up with the money, the system could go bankrupt. In other words, with all this money that could be owing, the system certainly could go bankrupt. Certainly I believe that everyone in this province has recognized and has indicated to us that they don't want any more taxation. The people in this province can't afford to come in and just simply cover the debt of the workers' compensation, and whether it's federal or provincial, any other government simply can't afford to do that.

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We have all hit a tax wall, and yet this bill clearly is going to continue the increase of the debt. The bond rating services, as I say, are a major concern. They have identified the unfunded liability as a cause for concern with respect to our provincial credit rating. The unfunded liability certainly acts as a disincentive to businesses that might be relocating in this province. Certainly the issue of rates that have to be paid, the premiums that have to be paid by businesses, is a great consideration when people move to this province.

I have about a minute left and I'm going to talk about the black hole clause, as I call it, and that is the purpose clause. Although this was to include a financial responsibility framework, it was never included in the manner in which it was intended and the way the bill is presently worded. It provides the authority to expand benefits and coverage without any regard for the impact on the system of the Ontario economy.

Again, it gets back to the letter I just read, the issue of accountability. There will not be any accountability with the purpose clause. The purpose clause and the financial responsibility framework were originally intended to inject a balance into the system, a balance between securing benefits for injured workers and the need for financial accountability at every level within the system.

It was agreed by both sides, the labour and business representatives of this committee that was put forward by the Premier, that the purpose clause should require that any proposed changes to benefits, the services, the programs or the policies under the act be thoroughly analysed in order to evaluate the overall consequence of the proposed changes on workers and employers.

None of this has been reflected in this current legislation. In other words, it's a typical action of this particular government. They simply are saying: "Write a cheque. Somewhere along the line, it will get paid for." Hence, the unfunded liability continues to increase just like the debt in this province continues to increase.

That particular clause, of all things, is one that I think you should all take a strong look at before you vote for this particular bill. I, for one, will be opposed to this legislation. Thank you.

Mr Turnbull: Let me first of all start out by just quoting some of the statistics with respect to the Workmen's Compensation Board in Ontario. Ontario's credit rating is being impaired by many actions that this government has undertaken, but one of the considerations of the various rating agencies is the unfunded liability of the Workmen's Compensation --

Ms Murdock: "Workers'"; it's not "Workmen's." It hasn't been for a number of years.

Mr Turnbull: There's a lot of background noise here. The same people who are cutting off debate, who refused to look --

Ms Murdock: Excuse me, but women are workers too.

Mr Turnbull: -- in a reasonable way at the amendments that my party put forward with respect to this bill are cackling in the background.

The unfunded liability of the Workers' Compensation Board is some 2.5 times greater than all of the other provinces combined, a rather startling statistic. It's currently growing by $1 million a day. This is just something to send a chill down the spine of anybody who is looking at locating a business in this province.

Since 1989, the amount of assessment earmarked for the unfunded liability has increased by 57%. So what does this mean? In real terms it means that new companies that are opening up business in this province are paying 28% of their premiums to fund the unfunded liability of companies that may actually have left the province, which is a very serious concern. That is the best way of ensuring that businesses don't want to open up here.

Ontario now has the second-highest assessment rate in Canada. Assessment rates have increased by almost 200% since 1980 and yet accident rates have declined by some 30% since 1989.

I think it's fair to say that we have vested interests being well protected by the current arrangements at the Workers' Compensation Board. It's vital that we get reform to secure future benefits for injured workers. This is the essential element. The reason this board exists is to ensure that we protect injured workers; that's why it was set up in -- if I remember correctly -- 1914. And yet the government is turning its back on the very reasonable proposals that were put forward by the employers' group that was advising the Premier with respect to the Workers' Compensation Board.

The unfunded liability today is some $11.7 billion and, as we've said, growing by some $1 million a day. There was a proposal put forward by the management representatives of the PLMAC to reduce the unfunded liability by the year 2014 to zero, which would have made Ontario a very attractive place to do business. There would be a pay-as-you-go system so that everybody who was injured would have their claims paid in that current year, which is very important.

The conference I attended last Wednesday and Thursday that was put on by the Fraser Institute, called Hitting the Wall, was attended by senior bureaucrats, politicians, bankers and media from around the world. We had the senior civil servant who worked under Sir Roger Douglas, a Labour government in New Zealand that addressed the serious problems, speaking about hitting the wall. We had the senior adviser to the governor of the Bank of Mexico when they hit the wall. We had the former Minister of Finance of Sweden when they hit the wall -- all talking about the very serious problems that existed in Canada.

One of the concerns expressed was that bond rating agencies and in fact the lenders this government has turned to so many times are concerned about all the unfunded liabilities with respect to pensions and with respect to the WCB which ultimately could collapse back on to the citizens of Ontario unless we address this.

This government ignored the very sensible proposals that were made by the employers' group and decided to barrel on with its own ideas. It's a disincentive for business to locate here because businesses recognize the high cost of workers' compensation. In the equation of a business deciding where it's going to locate, they will look across Canada and they'll look at the United States. Indeed, we know that Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island have addressed these problems, which is why they're getting some economic growth as a result.

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Ontario has been stymied by this Bill 165. There was great hope among employers when it was suggested that the royal commission would look at this very serious problem, but a lot of those hopes were dashed when the government appointed a labour leader to head this up. What we should have had was somebody who was very independent of the employers' groups and labour who could have dispassionately looked at the very serious problems and said, "This is how we're going to address it."

Hon Mr Pouliot: Someone like you, David.

Mr Turnbull: My friend from across the floor, the minister for northern affairs, says somebody like me. No, that's precisely what you're missing: not a politician, not one of your political hacks, but somebody who can be dispassionate -- that's precisely the point I'm making -- so we can arrive at a reasonable solution, so we can have in this province the assurance that workers will be paid what they are due to be paid in the future and that the system won't be completely broke and it won't fall back on to the taxpayers to bail out a system that is absolutely out of control.

Heading up the Workers' Compensation Board we should have somebody who is an actuary, somebody from an insurance company who understands funding and management of what is an insurance scheme, plain and simple, but we don't have that.

The government has absolutely refused to put in this bill a purpose clause which is meaningful with respect to financial responsibility. Financial responsibility would call for a reduction of the unfunded liability to zero.

Also, we have a government which has put through a benefit increase of some $200 per worker for older workers to extend beyond the age of 65. Let's just think about this: Traditionally, we've always thought, "Okay, pensions will click in at 65, therefore we don't need to spend as much money." An injured worker now under this scheme will receive more money after they reach pension age at 65 than somebody who hasn't been injured. They're both retired, but the injured worker is going to get more. There was a requirement that there should be some kind of needs assessment done, and this was suggested by the employees. There was an agreement between both the employers and the employee group that there would be an assessment, but this hasn't been done.

My party has put forward a 10-point plan to solve this, and I will just very quickly touch on it.

(1) Entrench concept of financial accountability in the purpose clause.

(2) A freeze on new entitlements, such as stress, until there is a plan in place to deal with the unfunded liability.

(3) Limit stress claims to those that result from a traumatic event.

(4) Reduce benefits, as Manitoba and New Brunswick have done, to 85% from the current 90% and investigate lifetime pension awards.

(5) Replace political appointments with a new management team of insurance professionals to improve productivity, case management, quality and customer service.

(6) We need to introduce value-for-money audits and spending controls -- something this government has failed to do in so many aspects of its operations. They don't understand value for money.

(7) We need to examine contracting out for both the administration and provision of workers' compensation services.

(8) We need to replace the bilateral model of governance with a multistakeholder model.

(9) We must eliminate the Workplace Health and Safety Agency, because it is not working. Bipartism is not working. We need to make it a department of the WCB.

(10) Finally, we need to redefine the word "accident."

Benefits have to be cut, as I've said, and we need to follow the lead of other provinces. What has this government done? It has allowed the WCB to build a palace, a new headquarters, for between $150 million and $200 million. They were going to rent part of the premises to other people, but instead it isn't big enough for their huge bureaucracy.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): The member for Brantford, you have five minutes, I believe.

Hon Brad Ward (Minister without Portfolio in Finance): I'd just like to express my views on Bill 165, a very important bill in reforming workers' compensation. I don't know about anybody else in this House, but in my office of Brantford, dealing with workers' comp has become a very difficult issue since my election. We've had umpteen hundreds of workers who have been injured on the job coming to my office looking for assistance because of the service delays at the present compensation board. I think the way the bureaucracy has developed over the years has led to these delays.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. I won't accept any debates between members while the member for Brantford has the floor.

Mr Mammoliti: It's a speech, Mr Speaker. It should be allowed in here.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The member for Brantford.

Hon Mr Ward: I'd like to point out in the five minutes I have that it's our government's view that any reform of workers' compensation would not be on the backs of the injured workers. It's not their fault they've been injured on the job, and we have to do something to try to improve the process, try to improve the system.

As a government, we looked at it two ways. We said: "What can we do in the short term to make improvements to the benefits, to the service that injured workers need and require? And in the long term, how can we look at the overall system to make it better to reflect the needs of injured workers and employers and the business community in the 1990s and into the 21st century?" We developed Bill 165 to deal with the short-term issues and we've assigned a royal commission to look at the long-term issues of workers' compensation.

Highlights of Bill 165 mean that a new bipartite structure for the WCB board of directors will be more at arm's length from the government; there will be a stronger emphasis on rehabilitating injured workers and getting them back to work safely and quickly; cost-saving measures, which include changes to indexing and establishing government-directed financial targets; special indexing protection for the most vulnerable injured workers, and an additional $200 a month on the pensions of many older injured workers; and finally, the establishment of a royal commission, as I mentioned, to take a wide-ranging look at the workers' compensation system.

When you look at Bill 165 and how it deals with the financial reform of the system, we think the changes that will be brought in under Bill 165 will save a minimum of $18.1 billion on the unfunded liability by the year 2014.

Currently, the WCB's asset-to-liability ratio is now at 36.7%, and if we had no changes, that ratio would decline to 17%. That would mean that things would get worse. With the changes we're bringing in in terms of the unfunded liability, the funding ratio will improve to 55%. So we are making inroads in dealing with what the opposition has expressed, a concern about the unfunded liability.

The real issue of reform, though, is dealing with the vocational rehabilitation, getting the injured people back to work. We think the reforms in Bill 165 go a long way to ensure that injured workers can get back to work as quickly as possible in a safe and justified manner, and we think that's very important.

When you look at the impact the reforms have on injured workers -- and I've had calls in my office about this already -- the $200 increase in pensions for workers who are most vulnerable in the system, this is very good news indeed for the older workers who have been injured pre-Bill 162. There are about 40,000 of them across Ontario, many in my riding of Brantford, who are quite anxious to get this bill passed so that $200 can go in their pockets. Maybe $200 isn't much for some people in this House, but $200 to an injured worker on a pension is quite a bit, and they're looking forward to it.

We're also dealing with the issue of the de-indexing, which is a very crucial issue, a very tough one. But still we are protecting the most vulnerable: 45,000 injured workers will be protected under full indexation. This includes the people who qualify for the $200 pension increase, the survivors and dependants, 100% of post-Bill 162 wage-loss recipients, and 100% pre-bill pension recipients. So we are protecting the most vulnerable.

I think the issue of workers' compensation isn't going to go away. Our government is doing the best it can, in the interests of injured workers, to do some short-term changes that will be positive, that will be of benefit to injured workers, and in the long run I'm quite anxious to look forward to the recommendations the royal commission has in overhauling the entire system so that injured workers are protected and then can return to work safely.

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you. Your time has expired. The member for Sudbury, you have 10 minutes.

1800

Ms Murdock: Before I begin my closing remarks, I just have a number of people I want to thank. The staff at the Ministry of Labour have been unbelievably supportive and helpful, so I want to thank April Eastman, Sherry Cohen, Mitch Toker and Marg Rappolt and my own executive assistant, JoAnn Gosselin. There are no doubt others at the ministry who helped too, but I want to thank you very much for the work you have done on this bill.

I don't know where to start, because there are so many places to start after listening to two and half hours of the diatribe from across the floor. But first of all, there are a number of corrections, I think. The chair of the royal commission is not Lyle Williams, as stated by the member for Waterloo North, but is Lynn Williams. I'm surprised, if he's that well known, that she didn't know that. I would have thought that everybody knew that he is a man of good conscience and is able to mediate extremely well. In fact, anybody who looks at the trade union movement knows that the whole business of trade unionism is learning to compromise and learning how to negotiate. So I would say that Lynn Williams is an excellent choice for the royal commission chair.

Having said that, I want to remind the parties opposite of where they were on the unfunded liability when they were the government of the day, because they make out that we, this government on this side, have been unconscionable in terms of how we have not, supposedly, controlled this debt.

In 1980, when the Conservatives were in power, the unfunded liability was at $400 million. By 1985, when the Conservatives lost the government, they were at $5.5 billion.

Interjection: How much?

Ms Murdock: At $5.5 billion; I'll repeat that.

The Liberals then took over in 1985 and they started out at a $5.5-billion unfunded liability. By 1990, when they lost the government, it was just over $10 billion.

Here today, with the actions our government has taken, we are at $11.8 billion. You're right, it's still a big problem, no question. But in the four years that we have governed, it has only grown by $1.8 billion, not like the $5.5 billion under the Tories and the almost $4 billion under the Liberals.

I would say that we have taken control of this and we will take more control of this after Bill 165 because of the moneys that will be saved. So I will not accept the scaremongering that has been made by the Conservative speakers for the system to go bankrupt. For the workers' compensation system to go bankrupt in this province any year, 20 years from now or any year from now, every single business in this province would have to close down. I'm telling you that is not true, because if you look at the statistics from the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, businesses are growing in this province, more and more are opening up, and unemployment levels are down.

The other point I wanted to make was the adjudicating system that the Conservatives have been mentioning, how we're moving from an adjudicative system into one that is more of mediation.

You're darned right, because in 1914, when the workers' compensation system was put in place, it was set up as an adjudicative system. Times have changed; 1994 is not 1914. I think we have to tell the Conservatives that over and over and over again, because we need to change the workers' compensation system. It doesn't work. An adjudicative system does not work.

Therefore, we have to go back to the system of looking at mediation and looking at return-to-work provisions. Return to work and getting healthy workers back to work quickly is and should be the goal of the workers' compensation system. I don't think that should have to be said, but in this place it seems that it does.

It is strange indeed. If we're driving small and medium-sized business out of the province, as the Liberal critic has stated, then I would like to know why more and more businesses are opening in this province. Much has been made about the whole question of businesses worrying about their workers' compensation premiums, and frankly, on this the Liberal critic and I are in agreement. I don't believe they really understand, because when the Canadian Federation of Independent Business sent out a survey to all of their members in the country, one of the questions on their last survey was, "Do you believe that workers' compensation benefits should be taxed?"

As Mr Mahoney has said, 90% of net, and I thought businesses would understand what "net" meant, means that it's after tax. So to send out a questionnaire like that and get answers back obviously means that the very employers out there have a misunderstanding of what workers' compensation is and how it works, and I think that education, as stated under Bill 165, is extremely important.

I also want to speak to the bipartism issue, because that was raised under the health and safety agency. If the labour caucus, as the Liberal critic has pointed out, is dominating the agenda at the health and safety agency, then I would strongly suggest that the management nominees be stronger. They are not, I would hope, sitting there saying nothing.

They are equally represented on that agency and therefore should be able to speak up on behalf of their membership. Why they aren't, I don't know. But having said that, we're only hearing about the issues that there is controversy on. The hundreds of decisions that the health and safety agency have made have been done consensually.

Lastly, before I close, I want to talk about the order in council for the royal commission, because I think it's very, very important what they are supposed to be doing:

"Undertake an examination of the manner in which the workers' compensation system is currently funded, including considering strategies for retiring the unfunded liability over time."

"Benefits: Undertake an examination of the existing compensation structure in terms of the type and amount of benefits to determine whether the current system is appropriate in light of the purposes of a workers' compensation scheme...."

Entitlement: Consider "entitlement with a view to developing specific principles to permit a fair and efficient adjudication of entitlement issues."

Coverage -- obviously, look, I mentioned that in my opening remarks.

"Occupational health and safety...system: Undertake examination of the mandates, roles and interrelationships of government organizations" -- and they include -- "the Ministry of Labour, the Workers' Compensation Board, the Workplace Health and Safety Agency, the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal, the Industrial Disease Standards Panel," which is now the Occupational Disease Standards Panel, "the office of the employer adviser, the office of the worker adviser and the Institute for Work and Health."

It's to look at the "existing legislative, administrative, reporting and funding relationships between these organizations in order to determine the best means of achieving the fair and efficient delivery of occupational health and safety and workers' compensation...." The very thing that the opposition members have been asking for is being done.

"Current workers' compensation system's relationship with other compensation and income support systems" -- and I think this is important -- "Undertake an examination of the relationship of the workers' compensation system with other compensation and income support systems, including the Canada pension plan, no-fault auto insurance, criminal injuries compensation, unemployment insurance, private disability plans and social assistance programs. The purpose of this examination is to identify ways to achieve coherence and closer integration...."

Last but not least: to look at alternative compensation models, such as comprehensive disability.

Clear, unequivocal. All you have to do is read this, and I frankly don't think any of you over there have.

Anyway, the other thing is that they're asking for oral and written briefs from any person or organization to make their inquiries to the commission and they will hold public hearings. "And further that the commission establish advisory groups as it considers appropriate, consisting of business representatives, labour representatives, injured workers, health care professionals, members of the insurance industry and other relevant stakeholders," the very thing that the opposition members have been calling for and exactly what the Premier's Labour-Management Advisory Committee has recommended and advised.

Then they are to prepare "a plan of inquiry that includes a budget, personnel requirements, the conduct of public hearings" and so on.

I would strongly urge everyone who wants to make a presentation to the royal commission to do so, to let them know at their first opportunity and make their presentation and their views known, and I look forward to the passage of Bill 165.

The Deputy Speaker: Ms Murdock has moved third reading of Bill 165, An Act to amend the Workers' Compensation Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

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

All those in favour will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

As previously agreed, the vote will take place tomorrow, the first order.

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet and Government House Leader): Before I call the next order, the 38th order, which is Bill 198, we've had some discussions again among the House leaders, so I need to seek consent with some of the disposition around this bill before we proceed. Basically, I'm seeking consent to refer Bill 198 to the finance committee when it finishes second reading and for that committee to meet on Tuesday, December 6, from 10 am to 12 pm and from 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm in hearings and from 4:30 pm to 6 pm in clause-by-clause. The bill will be reported back to the House on Wednesday, December 7. I'm seeking consent for that.

The Deputy Speaker: Is it agreed? Is there unanimous consent? Did I hear a no? Agreed.

Report continues in volume B.

5 décembre 1994