Journal des débats 1997-juin-23 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Hon David Johnson (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet, Government House Leader): Mr Speaker, I believe we have unanimous consent to begin routine proceedings today with question period, followed by the deferred vote on Bill 129, followed by members' statements and ministers' statements, and then to proceed through as normal to motions.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Do we have unanimous consent? Agreed.

ORAL QUESTIONS

AIR QUALITY

Mr Dominic Agostino (Hamilton East): My question is to the Minister of Environment. We have seen an air quality crisis develop in Ontario under your charge and under your responsibility. Our research has shown so far that on 18 occasions in the first 23 days of June the air quality level in the city of Toronto has reached the "unacceptable/unsatisfactory" rating by Environment Canada.

That means that on almost 75% of the days so far, on what has not been a very hot month, the air quality level has been unacceptable in the city of Toronto. Smog is creating havoc with people's lives. People who have breathing problems, people who have asthma are finding it very difficult so far.

What have you done? You've cut 92 air monitoring stations. You have left 13 communities across the province without any air monitoring facilities whatsoever. You've cut your staff by one third. Simply, you've abandoned the tools you need to monitor the air quality in Ontario. We're starting to see the results very clearly.

We have a crisis. Will you commit to bring in emergency legislation before the end of today's session to deal with this crisis in Ontario and take some steps to rectify the problem before the end of the summer?

Hon Norman W. Sterling (Minister of Environment and Energy): I don't think air quality problems are new to Ontario; they're not new to the greater Toronto area. They are a serious problem that this government is dealing with in a more aggressive fashion than any previous governments have.

We are, as you know, updating our air quality standards, which have been left dormant for some 20 years. We introduced just a month ago new volatility gas regulations to improve the air quality of Ontario. We introduced a new PM10 standard for particulates, which had never been introduced by previous governments. We are focusing on this effort. We are attacking this particular problem in the most logical and reasonable fashion possible.

Mr Agostino: As usual, the minister failed to answer the question. Very clearly, we have seen so far, 75% of the days in the month of June, the air quality level in the city of Toronto has reached the unsatisfactory level. That to me does not seem to be dealing with this problem. What have you done? Absolutely nothing.

You've committed on over 25 occasions to bring in vehicle emissions testing in Toronto, and Ontario. On over 25 occasions you're on record as saying you're going to do it, and you've wasted time. You've gone to the United States, you've taken trips, you've run pilot projects, but the reality as of today is that we're going to go through another summer in this province of heavy pollution, heavy smog. You have responsibility to do something about it, and you've failed.

Fifty per cent of the air pollution in this province is caused by bad vehicle emissions. The testing would help minimize that. The tests would reduce that, Minister, and you've done absolutely nothing except talk about it. Today, will you commit to this Legislature when you plan to bring in vehicle emissions testing? Give us a time line, because so far you have failed on 25 occasions on the commitment you have made.

Hon Mr Sterling: There are good vehicle emissions testing programs in North America and there are bad ones. We will bring one in in due course that will be a good one, but we are going to be cautious in how we approach this problem because there have been so many failures in the 32 states and the one province in Canada that have tried this before. When we introduce a program, we will have a program that will work and that will have an effect on the emissions going into the air and will control those emissions.

Mr Agostino: Frankly, we don't believe you, because you've said this before. On at least 25 occasions we have you on record as talking about this program. The pilot project's been completed; you haven't released the information. Your trip to the United States has been completed; you haven't released that information.

Minister, you don't understand. By your own words, 1,800 people a year in this province die due to poor air quality; $365 million is added to health care. Let me put it in simple terms: Two to three people a day die in Metro Toronto as a result of poor air -- two to three people a day in Metro Toronto alone.

Municipalities are tired of waiting. Metro Toronto council passed a resolution last week asking for permission to run vehicle emissions programs. The chair, Joan King, said, "We've waited for the province to do something for a year and we've said, `If you're not going to do something, give us the tools and we can do it.'" The municipalities are getting frustrated. They understand the difficulty. You seem to be the only one who does not understand. I'm astonished today that you again would stand up in this House and not give us a clear date and commitment for vehicle emissions testing.

I'm going to ask you again, Minister, if you won't do it, will you give municipalities the power and the funding to run the programs and take over a job that you simply don't seem to have the responsibility or courage to do?

Hon Mr Sterling: I am indeed concerned about people who have trouble with the quality of air in Ontario. As I've said in this Legislature before, 50% of the problems relate to trans-border pollution and 50% of the problems are here. Part of that 50% relates to vehicle emissions, so we are looking at that part as a real opportunity to improve the air quality.

I might also remind the member that while there are premature deaths relating to air quality, there are premature deaths relating to other hazards we have; smoking, for instance. We have about 20 premature deaths in the greater Toronto area as a result of tobacco.

We have a number of problems to address. We are addressing this one more aggressively than any previous government has. We will come up with a good vehicle emissions program.

Mr Agostino: When?

Hon Mr Sterling: When we have it right. We don't have it right quite yet but we will have it right. When it is introduced it will get real results for the people of the greater Toronto area.

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CHILDREN'S SERVICES

Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor-Sandwich): My question is for the Minister of Community and Social Services. Last week I asked you about amendments and what you have done on amendments to the Child Protection Act, what you've done with them for better protection of children the children's aid societies themselves feel are being threatened today. Today, the way the law is, it allows more protection for abusive parents than it does for abused children.

After that question last week, we again spoke to a number of people in the field, to learn that you have done absolutely nothing. Not a call to those who've supplied you with information. Your ministry has done nothing to pull together some sort of task force to actually draw up legislation. You refuse to appoint a child advocate, someone that would take on the leadership role you have refused to take on. When are you going to take that small, first step to introduce amendments to legislation? When are you going to show some leadership, Minister?

Hon Janet Ecker (Minister of Community and Social Services): The honourable member, not to put too fine a point on it, is in error in the information she's providing the House. We've had extensive consultation with the Association of Children's Aid Societies in terms of trying to develop steps that need to be done. She should be aware -- I'm assuming she is aware -- that we are completely restructuring children's services in this province to try and make sure that we are taking our resources and focusing on intervention and prevention. She should also be aware of the $45-million announcement that we made with the Premier a month or so ago.

One of the significant components of that is to screen babies at birth, newborns, to try and identify at that very early stage. She should also be aware that we've already tendered a contract to do the computer database that has been recommended. She should also be aware that in the budget we announced $15 million in additional resources that we could have to support responding to the recommendations.

I categorically reject her characterization of what is happening. We have taken steps; we will continue to take steps.

Mrs Pupatello: Mr Speaker, have you noticed that whenever we ask these ministers questions, we've got it all wrong? Have you noticed it's us? We've got it all wrong. Let me say this, Minister: You have social workers on the front line dealing with children in crisis today. These are different from children who need that instant initiation from government programs such as you describe. I am talking about children who are in crisis and social workers who have the highest levels of caseloads ever. They don't have time for training new staff people, let alone getting them out there.

The children's aid societies themselves don't have the funding for training, and given the state of the crisis for children under their view today, will you at least, at minimum, restore the funding cuts that you have made? I may say you've made them blindly, without any thought as to the impact of those cuts. Minister, will you restore that funding today?

Hon Mrs Ecker: If the honourable member had listened to what is being said at many of the inquests that are occurring, resources and how those resources are applied are only one of many steps that need to be taken to improve the system. For example, one of the things the ministry has just completed is a complete review of the standards for handling cases to see how children's aid societies are meeting those. It's the first time any government has gone out and done that. We have indeed done that, and that is identifying further things we need to do work on.

We already spend over $800,000 to assist children's aid societies in training. We will be increasing that amount of money. We know we need a better risk assessment mechanism. We'll be announcing that this week. There are a number of steps we have taken and will continue to take while we improve the system.

Mrs Pupatello: There are other agencies that you fund for child and youth programs, kids who have witnessed abuse or have been abused at home. Last week, you sent a letter to women's shelters across the province indicating that you've now cut by 20% the youth and child programs those women's shelters provide. Day after day, we ask you to show leadership. The coroner's inquests that are being held on those children are indicating a lack of leadership by you and your ministry.

We beg you to do more for these kids in crisis and at the same time you are cutting more, in this case, children and youth who have witnessed or have been abused in their homes and are now in shelters. Minister, when are you going to stand up and protect children?

Hon Mrs Ecker: With all due respect, perhaps the honourable member has not been listening to the steps I have announced. I've talked about what we've done; I've been talking about what we're doing. We are going to increase resources. We said that very clearly in the budget. We're increasing resources for training. We'll also increase resources for children's aid workers to support when they have children coming in their care who have been witnesses to abuse. We've been very clear about those steps we are taking.

In addition, we've also been very clear that we will review the legislation. I want to make sure the experts who will advise us on doing that will give us the input we need on the key questions about whether the balance is right in the legislation or whether it's the way the legislation is being used by those on the front lines. Those are important questions.

She may think she has a simple answer to them. That's certainly not what I've been hearing from the experts, and we want to make sure we take appropriate steps.

CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETIES

Mr Howard Hampton (Rainy River): I have a question to the Minister of Community and Social Services. In the recent budget, the Minister of Finance went on at length about the fact that $15 million was to be allocated for responding to the Child Mortality Task Force. Can you tell us, Minister, how much of that $15 million will go to hiring more case workers at Ontario's 55 children's aid societies?

Hon Janet Ecker (Minister of Community and Social Services): Whether or not we need additional case workers is certainly one of the issues that need to be considered, but before we do that, as the honourable member may know, there are a number of other steps -- the recommendations from the coroner's inquest -- the task force has talked about which are equally important: the way by which workers judge the risk; the way the legislation is being used; training budgets; increasing training. There are a number of steps that need to be put in place to make sure the system we have is working as well as it can; that people who are in that system can work as well as they can. That certainly is another issue we need to consider.

Mr Hampton: I didn't hear an answer to my question. What I heard was evasion. Perhaps you can explain this: The reality is that many children's aid societies are being overwhelmed by their case loads. In Simcoe county, for example, the children's aid society case load in the first five months of this year was already more than two times last year's total. Social workers are carrying the highest case loads they've had in 15 years, and you stand up here and say that money is not the issue, more case workers isn't the issue.

What we find confusing is this: Your government, through the tax scheme you've arranged, is going to have all kinds of money for people whose incomes are over $100,000 a year. Bay Street executives are going to cash in on your tax gifts, yet when we ask you time and time again about children, you don't have any money. Minister, can you explain how you have money for people who are already wealthy through your tax scheme but you have no money for children who are --

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you. Minister.

Hon Mrs Ecker: With all due respect to the honourable member, who may wish to attempt to make a political point on this, we do indeed have resources available for children's aid societies, for high-risk prevention programs. As I said in answer to the previous question and I will repeat again, we've put forward $45 million for high-risk and prevention activities. We are restructuring the entire children's services to try and do exactly what has been recommended: that we need more of those resources on intervention and prevention.

I whould also like to mention the $800,000 we have in training. We will increase that to help them train their workers to deal with a situation. There are many steps we have taken and that we will continue to take to improve the system because we take those recommendations we've heard extremely seriously. A lot of thought and effort have gone into them and we want to make sure this government is responding expeditiously to them.

The Speaker: Order, please. I understand there's a bit of a din going on. Thank you.

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Mr Hampton: I gather members in the Conservative caucus don't think this is an important question. They'd rather carry on their private conversations.

The minister tries to spin a good line.

Interjections.

Mr Hampton: You don't like it. That's the reality. We raise important questions about child welfare and you people carry on as if it's not a serious issue. That's the reality around here.

The problem is this: If we look at the budgets, this year there's another 2% cut to child and family intervention. It means that you've cut more than $7 million out of child and family intervention since you became the government. You can spin figures all you want. When we look at the budgets of children's aid societies, they have been cut; when we look at your own internal ministry budget for child and family intervention, it has been cut another 2% this year. You can spin all the numbers you want. The bottom line is, you have money for people who are wealthy, but for kids who are at risk, for kids who don't have resources, you don't have any money. Can you explain how that is?

Hon Mrs Ecker: Well, 655,000 low-income families and individuals will pay no Ontario income tax as a result of the changes that this government is bringing in, and that will help strengthen the financial bases for many of those families. Perhaps they do not believe that $140 million for low-income families to help them afford quality child care -- perhaps they think that is insignificant. Perhaps they think the $800,000 for training is insignificant. Perhaps they think the $45 million for intervention and prevention in terms of high-risk families is insignificant. Perhaps they don't agree that we should have $15 million in the budget to help respond to those recommendations.

If the honourable member, when he and his party were in power, had had as much concern for child welfare as they now claim today, perhaps they would not have cut child welfare budgets themselves.

The Speaker: New question, leader of the third party.

Mr Hampton: I would say to the Comsoc minister: Bottom line, you're cutting kids and you're giving money to the wealthiest people in this society.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. New question, leader of the third party.

STANDING ORDERS REFORM

Mr Howard Hampton (Rainy River): To the government House leader, in the absence of the Premier: I'm going to bring over a copy of a modern-day Magna Carta. You may not remember the Magna Carta. King John was forced to sign it at Runnymede in the year 1215. It stands for the principle that, before governments pass laws, before kings try to make laws, they have to at least consult with the people. They cannot pass laws unilaterally without letting people know what's happening.

You're trying to shepherd through this House rule changes that will allow you to throw something on the table on Monday and pass it into law by Thursday. King John would be envious; in fact dictators in the modern world would be envious. Can you tell us why you need those kinds of powers, why you need to take us back before the years of King John? Can you tell us that, Minister?

Hon David Johnson (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet, Government House Leader): I suspect King John and many other people who support democratic principles would say that within --

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Government House leader.

Hon David Johnson: I will simply say in terms of the democratic principles of the standing order changes being proposed that they do allow for more debating time for the members of this House; they do allow for more individual members to be involved in the debate of this House; they do involve allowing members to abstain if that's the choice of the members of this particular House; they do involve the privileges of the independent member in this House and allowing that independent member more rights and privileges in this House. I would say the democratic principles in terms of this House are being enhanced by the standing order procedures we are proposing to bring forward.

Mr Hampton: The salient part of that answer is that the government House leader thinks King John was a democrat. King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta. I think what we realize here is that the Premier is not very good with his numbers and you're not very good with history.

Democracy is not just about which member here gets to speak. It's also about the opportunity for the press to scrutinize your legislation; it's about the opportunity for the press to have the time to put information out; it's about the opportunity for the public to read and understand what you're trying to pass. That's what you're trying to take out of the democratic process.

Under your rules, essentially people who sit here and try to report on what's happening become irrelevant. If you introduce it on Monday, before their reports get to the public you've passed the law. The public is shut out of the democratic process. Do you not understand that? That's the sum total effect.

Hon David Johnson: What I understand is that in 1992 the government of the day proposed to bring forward changes to the standing orders and indeed did at that time. The most notable aspect of those changes to the House procedures was a time allocation provision. It's interesting that the leader of the party that first brought forward the time allocation motion would take the sort of approach he is taking.

In addition to the provisions I've noted, many of which are in place in the federal House at present and seem to work well there, one other provision is a requirement that this House actually vote on a budget. In seven of the last 10 years, there has not been a vote. Is that not a democratic thing to do, actually vote on a budget? Is that not something the people of Ontario would expect us to do? I think that's a good thing.

Mr Hampton: The government House leader refers to the federal Parliament. We looked at the federal Parliament, and nowhere do they have the capacity to introduce a piece of legislation on Monday and pass it into law by Thursday. In fact, no Parliament across Canada has that power or is seeking that power. Your government, and your government alone, seeks to rush through legislation at such a pace that you shut the press out of their proper role in a democracy, of reporting, and you shut the public out of having an opportunity to understand whether you're passing a good law or a bad law. Your government, and your government alone, seeks to have those almost dictatorial powers.

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Tell me this, Minister: Why should a government whose hasty and thoughtless actions have made such a mess of the family support plan, brought in the Bill 26 omnibus legislation, made a mess of hospital closings, made a mess of your megacity scheme -- why should a government that's been reckless and thoughtless in all those things have the power now to ram through legislation in less than three days?

Hon Mr Johnson: The leader of the third party might have added: a government that has reduced the deficit of the province from the $11 billion you left us, a government that's got Ontario back on track with the economy --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon David Johnson: We're a government that has reduced taxes, reduced the deficit, reduced unemployment, that's got this economy back on track.

The previous government introduced, through the closure motion, through the time allocation motion, the ability to put a bill through from second reading to third reading in five days, effectively. I have stated categorically that we will not reduce that time. At the end of the day, whenever this debate is finished, you can rest assured that this government will not reduce that time that you brought in in 1992.

HATE LITERATURE

Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South): My question is to the Attorney General. I'm rising on an issue that is of serious concern to the people in my riding but I believe also to people throughout Ontario.

A week ago last Friday some literature was distributed by a group from outside my riding to students at a high school and to the residents living in the immediate vicinity. What it does is it excoriates a religion and at the same time takes a negative and hateful view of students simply because of their religion. As you can imagine, there's been a response within that constituency, within Weston. In fact there's been a response by the hate crimes unit of the Metropolitan Toronto Police.

Attorney General, I rise today to ask you if you're aware of the information that's been conveyed to you by the Metro police and when we might expect from you the decision that's required on this particular case.

Hon Charles Harnick (Attorney General, minister responsible for native affairs): I concur with the member that this is something that cannot and should not be tolerated. The police are investigating. I personally have had no contact with the police. Generally, the procedure is that the police investigate complaints that come to their attention. If the police need legal advice, they have access to crown law officers who can provide the advice upon their request. If the member would provide me with the details, I certainly will inquire within the crown law office if indeed that is the case.

Mr Kennedy: I'm sure you recognize that in cases like this, where someone is deliberately trying to poison people's view of other people in society, timeliness is an issue. The Metro police hate crimes unit have completed their investigation. We want to congratulate them for expeditiously moving in recognition of this.

Area elected officials are moving to work together to condemn this statement, but you, Attorney General, under section 319 of the Criminal Code, have the unique ability to express the sanction of society. What I'd like to know and what my constituents would like to know is, will you be acting soon either to authorize that charges be laid or, given that you don't have that information, to ensure that you become aware so we can move as quickly as possible with the sanction that is afforded you by that section of the law?

Hon Mr Harnick: I want to advise the honourable member of the procedure that takes place when a prosecution is to take place under section 319. A recommendation is made to the Attorney General, who reviews the material as a quasi-judicial officer and then makes a determination whether to consent to the prosecution under section 319.

That material has not been delivered from the Metropolitan Toronto Police hate crimes unit. The paperwork that goes with it and the briefing material that has to come to me to be able to review the matter and make that determination, if it is following that course, has not been delivered to me. I can tell the honourable member that in other cases when the material is provided to me, I take a very detailed and comprehensive approach to reviewing it. I do it within a matter of hours of receiving it. You have my commitment on that.

NIAGARA ESCARPMENT COMMISSION

Ms Shelley Martel (Sudbury East): I have a question to the Minister of Natural Resources, and the question is regarding one of his recent appointments to the Niagara Escarpment Commission. You've appointed Mr Norman Seabrook to the Niagara Escarpment Commission despite the fact that he has an obvious conflict of interest. Mr Seabrook has an application before the Niagara Escarpment Commission to remove his property in Holland township from the Niagara Escarpment Plan area.

Surely the minister understands that it is completely inappropriate to sit on the commission and at the same time have an application before the commission to remove your property from the Niagara Escarpment Plan area. Minister, were you aware of this conflict of interest before you appointed Mr Seabrook?

Hon Chris Hodgson (Minister of Natural Resources, Northern Development and Mines): I appreciate the member of the third party's question. As she knows, these are nominations to the Niagara Escarpment Commission. They're taken under consideration, they're put forward to a committee and there's a process in this democratically elected House called the public appointments committee. At this committee level they will look to see if there are any conflicts of interest. If her allegation is correct, of course the government will make sure that any conflicts are taken into account before they're appointed.

Ms Martel: I say to the minister, what is your responsibility --

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Order.

Ms Martel: Minister, as the person responsible for making the appointment or the nomination, you have a responsibility to ensure a person does not have a conflict of interest. That's your responsibility.

Over and above that, Mr Seabrook is a leading figure in the Grey Association for Democracy and Growth, an organization which has consistently railed against the Niagara Escarpment Commission, its mandate and its operation. In 1995, at the NEC's Leading Edge research conference, Mr Seabrook was publicly highly critical of the commission. In his closing remarks, he recommended, "Terminate the Niagara Escarpment Commission and the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act."

Minister, don't you think it's time to pull the plug on Mr Seabrook's appointment?

Hon Mr Hodgson: As I stated before, these are nominations.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Minister.

Hon Mr Hodgson: I find it kind of ironic that one minute they're talking about rule changes and accusing us of subverting their democratic will. Today they want us to short-circuit the process that's established for public appointments where members who are democratically elected get a chance to review appointments. They want to do away with that and they call that democracy. They make an allegation and say automatically they're the judge and jury, that that's the way it should happen.

There is a process in this place that respects people's rights. These appointments are nominated in good faith on the best people available for the job. There's a balance that's required and we're pleased with our appointments.

However, if there are conflicts of interest, the government will have to make sure we're satisfied with all the people and that conflicts do not exist before this appointment would become final.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: The day has been rearranged so many members can attend the funeral of the late Mr Larry Grossman. To this point in time, the government refuses to tell the opposition what it's going to call for debate this afternoon. I wonder whether this can be ironed out because we wouldn't want the government to hide behind something --

The Speaker: Order. That's not a point of order. Clearly, it's something the House leaders would discuss.

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GROW ONTARIO

Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): My question is for the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Recently I had the privilege of attending with you Grow Ontario announcements in Leamington for the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Producers Marketing Board. As you know, Leamington has by far the largest area of greenhouses anywhere in Canada. You and I both enjoyed the great taste of their cucumbers and tomatoes while we were there. Can you inform the House what these Grow Ontario projects have meant for the Ontario agrifood industry?

Hon Noble Villeneuve (Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, minister responsible for francophone affairs): I want to thank my colleague from Chatham-Kent for that very important question. Yes, I was in the Leamington area with my colleague and I simply want to tell my colleagues in this Legislature of the importance of the agrifood sector.

Ontario's greenhouse production of tomatoes and cucumbers has more than doubled, to $100 million, from 1994 to 1996. The quality that Ontario producers are putting is very impressive to our American neighbours and most of that production is going to the northern United States. In spite of the fact that the opposition seems to think the agrifood sector is not important, it is the second most important business in Ontario.

Mr Carroll: The agrifood producers in my riding and indeed all of southwestern Ontario are happy with your commitment and our government's commitment to their industry. Can you inform the members of what else Ontario is doing to boost exports of our top-notch products?

Hon Mr Villeneuve: I'm pleased to report that in Ontario, $5.3 billion of agrifood exports were sent to the world last year and this government is committed to boosting our agrifood exports to the area of some $10 billion by the turn of the century. As Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, I want to tell my colleagues here that for every $1 billion of exports, 15,000 new jobs are created in Ontario. That's what this government is doing and we are supporting the agrifood business.

EDUCATION REFORM

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): My question is for the Minister of Education. Your announcement on secondary school reform is a major retreat from your original proposals. Those were so poorly thought out and objectionable that the criticism you got was overwhelming and you had no choice but to back down from them.

But part of your announcement last Friday is puzzling because you still talked about removing grade 13 and bringing in a four-year program. In fact, the words of your announcement could have been recycled from a speech made in 1984 by a former Tory Minister of Education, Bette Stephenson, when she did in fact eliminate grade 13 and introduced a credit program. You're keeping exactly the same number of credits and the same number of credit hours as were in place before. I'm wondering exactly where you have shortened the program. Are you going to force students to do their 30 credits in four years by denying them the chance to do any extra credits in areas like art or music or phys ed? Is that how you're going to force them to do this in four years?

Hon John Snobelen (Minister of Education and Training): With all due respect, the honourable member knows that's not the case, knows that arts and drama, that some of the physical activities in school will still be there in a four-year secondary school program. Obviously those programs are part of the four-year secondary school programs that are in the other nine provinces and in all 50 states. The only exception has been Ontario.

Yes, we have lagged behind taking up the recommendations of two royal commissions in moving to a four-year secondary school program. The announcements we made last Friday suggest that this government is moving forward very steadily to that four-year program, doing so in concert with educators, with parents and with students, and making sure that our new program meets the needs of our students, not just today but on in the future.

The question that remains is why the member opposite didn't make these changes, didn't answer the royal commissions' suggestion that we go to a four-year program when you were in office. Why did it take this long to bring this reform to our secondary schools? It's a question that remains unanswered by the member opposite.

Mrs McLeod: I'm concerned about the unanswered questions by the Minister of Education, who has certainly not implemented the royal commission recommendations on the secondary school curriculum -- far from that. He certainly has not, by anything that we know of what he said on Friday, made any changes in terms of the length of time students would be in school based on the number of credits they do or the number of hours they need to do those credits.

We don't know what the Minister of Education is actually planning to do. That's why I'm asking the question. We know that he's delaying his plan, which isn't a plan at all, for two years, and that all he's really done is made another political announcement. He's delaying any changes he might have in mind because he had to go back to the drawing board. He has nothing to go forward with.

I guess one of the things I wish is that he had been held back, for the same reasons, from demanding that his elementary school curriculum be in place for this September, because that was another political announcement that is being rammed through. He's going ahead with his so-called rigorous curriculum in elementary school, but he has no curriculum materials to back it up with.

I wonder if you would tell --

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Question, please.

Mrs McLeod: This is the question, Mr Speaker: Would this minister tell the grade 7 students he spoke to on Friday exactly how they are supposed to master his rigorous curriculum?

Hon Mr Snobelen: For the edification of the member opposite, they were grade 6 students I was talking to last Friday who will be entering grade 7 next year, who will be the first students to take advantage of a curriculum that, in math and languages, is very clear about the expectations we have of students on a year-by-year basis, because students and teachers and parents would like to know very clearly what level of achievement, what level of skill and knowledge is necessary to be successful year by year.

Those are things that were denied the parents and teachers and students by your government when you were in power, and by that government when it was in power. Finally, we have answered that. For that group of students going into grade 7 next year, those expectations will be there, a demanding new curriculum. They will graduate into a secondary school program that's been designed to meet their needs, where most people will go through in four years and have the same graduation standards they now have with OAC.

Again, these are not political statements. What's absent is courage and leadership from the two political parties that ran this province over the last --

The Speaker: New question, third party.

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EDUCATION LEGISLATION

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): That cut me to the quick. I have a question for the Minister of Education and Training as well. This government has a penchant for shutting down democracy and shutting out the public. The government rammed through the Fewer School Boards Act with time allocation and then changed the time allocation to remove the opportunity for committee of the whole House consideration, because they said they wanted to get it through as quickly as possible to be in place for January 1.

We have today many people who want to serve their communities, even in the reduced role you're now giving school trustees, but they can't register as candidates because of your delays in implementing the legislation that you said was so urgent. What is the reason for this kind of rush and then a delay subsequently that means that the people who want to run will not be able to register in time?

Hon John Snobelen (Minister of Education and Training): I thank the member for Algoma for the question. I will perhaps have to straighten out his memory a little bit. First of all, the reason Bill 104 did not go to committee of the whole House wasn't because of some particular urgency in getting the bill through that week, by this government; it was because based on the performance in Bill 103, we thought it might be good to get Bill 104 through this Legislature during this century so we could get on with the business of reforming education, so we could get on with the business of lowering the cost of bureaucracy in our school system so we could make reinvestments into the classroom to make a difference with our students. That's why we didn't go to committee of the whole House, just for reference.

If the member for Algoma will think back to that time, during Bill 103, he might see the cause of the delay in bringing forth Bill 104, the cause of the delay to the electoral process across the province, and he might want to answer those people who would like to get about the business of reforming this system as to why he and his colleagues delayed the passage of the bill.

Mr Wildman: Since the minister asked me a question, I'll answer him. We delayed 103 because we believe in democracy and public input into the legislative process. What we see happening in the electoral process today at the school board level is a sign of what will happen if your government gets these rule changes through, which will make it possible for you to ram through even more pieces of legislation even more quickly.

Sometimes when you do things in a hurry they are not well prepared, not well-thought-out, and sometimes you make mistakes. That's why scrutiny is so important. Why won't you admit that the Ontario voters deserve to see a government listen, and be prepared to listen rather than simply limit public debate about legislation you want to proceed with?

Hon Mr Snobelen: I think it's not simply a matter of a belief in democracy. I wish the member opposite and his colleagues believed as firmly in the need to reduce the bureaucracy in our education system, in the need to fix the funding system so there are no longer second-class students in Ontario. I know that in the member's own riding this is an important issue for people, that there be a fair funding model, and Bill 104 is part of that building block. It needs to go there to replace a system that produces mediocre student achievement, which is not what students in Ontario are up to, which is not what teachers in Ontario are up to, and so we're building that system piece by piece.

In direct answer to the member's question, right now there are in place local education improvement committees that are working with clerks to make sure that the election process this year will go forward and that the people elected as trustees for these new district school councils will be in place, ready to answer the local community needs.

TELEMARKETING PRACTICES

Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): My question is for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Minister, in my riding of Durham East, many constituents have called with a very high degree of concern about the 1-900 employment telephone numbers. As you know, the 1-900 numbers result in a charge back to the caller. What steps are you taking to protect my constituents from these unscrupulous business practices?

Hon David H. Tsubouchi (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): First of all, I think we're all very concerned with respect to any type of fraudulent telemarketing practices. It seems right now the soup du jour is the 1-900 numbers that deal with employment opportunities to the public.

I take the opportunity right now to congratulate my colleague from York-Mackenzie who actually led the charge with respect to employment ads that were being printed. My colleague had taken some steps to go before the CRTC and they had ruled, as a result of his action, that the telephone companies belonging to the centre group of phone companies across Canada, including Bell Canada, can no longer act as a billing and collection agency for companies.

We continually try to get out consumer advisories through the media, and we also use the vehicle of Consumer Beat to make sure the public knows. I can only warn the public that they must read the fine print. The end result of all this is that the consumers, when they call the 1-900 numbers, do get charged for the time they spend.

Mr O'Toole: I appreciate this opportunity to educate the public on the use of the 1-900 telephone numbers. Yes, Minister, I'm aware of the hard work of the member for York-Mackenzie, Mr Klees, in defence of all consumers in this province, along with yourself.

Minister, with regard to telemarketing fraud, how successful have your efforts been to date?

Hon Mr Tsubouchi: I would like to point out again that the initiative in Ontario, and certainly across the country, was started really at the impetus of the OPP, who started an organization called Project Phonebusters. Project Phonebusters is a cooperative effort of not only the Ontario Provincial Police but the RCMP, our ministry, Industry Canada, and certainly we've involved the Canadian Bankers Association and the Canadian Couriers Association, because they are the vehicle quite often that some of these 1-900 scams try to use to confuse and get payment from the consumer.

I think the OPP and certainly Project Phonebusters have had quite a large effect in terms of this type of telemarketing fraud, because it has resulted in about a 40% reduction in this type of fraud in the province since then. Charges are continuing to be laid and certainly the OPP and Project Phonebusters are tremendous organizations which are really leading the charge across the country.

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): My question is for the minister of municipalities. Last week, residents and commercial businesses in the Ottawa-Carleton area received a notice from the Ottawa-Carleton Police Department informing them that they are now --

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Order. I understand. Member for Durham East, I don't think he meant anything derogatory about it, but it is Minister of Municipal Affairs, if we're going to be technical.

Mr Patten: The Minister of Municipal Affairs. They were being notified that they were required to pay a fee to have police respond to a burglar alarm. This new user fee could turn into a big cash cow for the police, who are now required to raise their own funds. But they're notifying people that if they don't pay up, the police won't respond to the alarm, whether or not there's a break-in, so this is double taxation.

Everyone knows that you are the one who's responsible, Minister, for this new user fee. Your government opened the door with Bill 26 --

The Speaker: Question, please.

Mr Patten: -- and your massive cuts to public services and downloading everywhere. Can you explain why people of our area are having to pay more than twice for police services?

Hon Al Leach (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing): To the member of the official opposition, the decision whether to have a user fee for false alarms clearly rests with the municipality. It's not a unique user fee; it's in municipalities right across Ontario. Many municipalities exempt the first three calls and then charge for every one after that, to make sure that there is some responsibility on behalf of homeowners and apartment owners, to make sure there is some control over false alarms. But again the responsibility lies clearly with the municipality. If they choose to put a user fee on that type of service, it's certainly within their prerogative to do so.

Mr Patten: The minister doesn't understand. This is a registration fee over and above everything else, before the fact, and if you don't register, you will not be responded to if indeed there is an alarm. This is a proliferation that's going on all across Ontario as a result of the pressure and the loss of services and downloading on to municipalities.

Let me tell you what Aron Spector of Ottawa has had to say. He sent me a letter and he says:

"I am quite perturbed about the need to pay...$26 for police service that I already pay for in my property taxes, and indirectly, in the taxes I pay to the provincial government....

"I estimate that in the last two years, new costs to my family...are now approaching 500%" of their provincial tax cuts.

Can you explain to Mr Spector and other residents and businesses in the Ottawa-Carleton area why they should have to pay for police services more than twice, not only through their local property tax, not only through their provincial tax, but now a registration fee on top of that?

Hon Mr Leach: It is a local decision. It's up to the local municipalities to determine what services they apply user fees to. Some municipalities have chosen to apply fees for false alarms and for other services, some have chosen to put $1 a bag on garbage, some have done many other types of user fees. Municipalities are becoming more cost-effective. There are ways of making the residents of communities pay for the services they receive. This is one of the matters Ottawa has selected to adopt. It's up to the duly elected council of Ottawa-Carleton to do that, and if that's what they've chosen to do, that's certainly not something this government would interfere with.

SERVICES FOR ABUSED WOMEN

Ms Marilyn Churley (Riverdale): I have a question for the Chair of Management Board in the absence of the minister responsible for women's issues. I have a question about this government's habit of shutting down democracy and shutting out the public.

Several months ago your government's plan to cut services for abused women was exposed for what it really is with the unplanned release of your McGuire report. Now we understand that you're about to come out, perhaps tomorrow even, with your plans for services for abused women and their children, which have been written once again behind closed doors and without the benefit of any consultation.

I'm asking you today, Minister, when you release your plans for those services, will you commit to a public consultation process before any implementation?

Hon David Johnson (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet, Government House Leader): I am not able to make any announcements here today, but I would say to the member opposite that I will convey her request to the minister responsible for women's issues. I know the minister was here earlier today, but because of the untimely situation we face today, many members have left the House. I will convey the request to the minister responsible.

Ms Churley: I understand why many people have had to leave today; I'm certainly not commenting on that. But I do want to say to the minister that it's very important that he convey to the minister and to the Premier as well that there is a funny spin being put on this issue and I don't want to hear that spin tomorrow from the minister.

You've assumed the municipal portion of funding women's shelters. You will recall that's part of your Who Does What plan. At the same time, you try to talk about expansion of services with the automatic increase in your budget that comes from the municipal share. That is double counting, Minister. That is no expansion. We know that your government to date has a history of doing away with equity and gender-based services, so we want to make sure tomorrow that there is not such a spin on it. We don't want to see double counting and we want a promise of public consultation.

Hon David Johnson: With regard to public consultation, I can only say that this government has had more public consultation than the previous governments. Last year, in terms of public hearings on the legislation, this government not only had more days, more hours of public consultation than either of the previous two governments, but this government had much of the consultation time right across the province. I'm so delighted that this government has taken the opportunity to travel to Ottawa, to Windsor, to Sault Ste Marie, to Thunder Bay, to many fine communities across the province to listen to the people of Ontario, to have the people of Ontario assist us in making legislation for this House. In that way, we get better legislation.

I'll assure the member opposite that this government is committed to maintaining that we listen to the people of Ontario and to involving the people of Ontario in all the legislative initiatives that we pass through this House.

JOB GROWTH AND TAX REDUCTION ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LA CROISSANCE DE L'EMPLOI ET LA RÉDUCTION DES IMPÔTS

Deferred vote on the motion for second reading of Bill 129, An Act to stimulate job growth, to reduce taxes and to implement other measures contained in the 1997 Budget / Projet de loi 129, Loi visant à stimuler la croissance de l'emploi, à réduire les impôts et à mettre en oeuvre d'autres mesures mentionnées dans le budget de 1997.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Immediately following question period will be second reading of Bill 129, according to the order paper, moved by Ms Bassett. It will be a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1435 to 1440.

The Speaker: All those in favour of the motion will please rise one at a time and be recognized by the Clerk.

Ayes

Arnott, Ted	Hardeman, Ernie	Ross, Lillian
Baird, John R.	Hodgson, Chris	Sampson, Rob
Barrett, Toby	Johns, Helen	Shea, Derwyn
Beaubien, Marcel	Johnson, Bert	Sheehan, Frank
Boushy, Dave	Johnson, David	Skarica, Toni
Brown, Jim	Jordan, W. Leo	Smith, Bruce
Carr, Gary	Kells, Morley	Snobelen, John
Carroll, Jack	Klees, Frank	Spina, Joseph
Chudleigh, Ted	Leadston, Gary L.	Stewart, R. Gary
Danford, Harry	Martiniuk, Gerry	Tilson, David
Doyle, Ed	Maves, Bart	Tsubouchi, David H.
Elliott, Brenda	Munro, Julia	Vankoughnet, Bill
Fisher, Barbara	Mushinski, Marilyn	Villeneuve, Noble
Froese, Tom	O'Toole, John	Wood, Bob
Galt, Doug	Ouellette, Jerry J.	Young, Terence H.
Gilchrist, Steve	Parker, John L.
Grimmett, Bill	Rollins, E.J. Douglas

The Speaker: All those opposed will please rise one at a time and be recognized by the Clerk.

Nays

Agostino, Dominic	Grandmaître, Bernard	Miclash, Frank
Bisson, Gilles	Gravelle, Michael	Morin, Gilles E.
Bradley, James J.	Hoy, Pat	North, Peter
Christopherson, David	Kormos, Peter	Patten, Richard
Churley, Marilyn	Lalonde, Jean-Marc	Pupatello, Sandra
Colle, Mike	Marchese, Rosario	Ramsay, David
Conway, Sean G.	Martel, Shelley	Silipo, Tony
Duncan, Dwight	Martin, Tony	Wildman, Bud
Gerretsen, John	McLeod, Lyn

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 49; the nays are 26.

The Speaker: I declare the motion carried.

Shall the bill be ordered for third reading? Agreed? No. Well, committee of the whole.

Interjections.

The Speaker: I need some direction, I think. Government House leader.

Hon David Johnson (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet, Government House Leader): This is a bill that we're hoping will go through for third reading debate.

The Speaker: Let me just explain it quickly: I've asked for third reading. There was a no, therefore I've asked for committee of the whole. It will go to committee of the whole unless you can direct me to send it to one of the committees. Committee of the whole House.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

STANDING ORDERS REFORM

Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): My remarks today are addressed to all my colleagues in the House, to the media and to the people of Ontario. One of the hazards of being born in a long-standing democracy is that we take it for granted that it will always be with us and that, "It cannot happen here."

Many people are blasé and are cynical about government and politicians. I say to you that the erosion of democracy is happening here in Ontario today with the proposed changes to the rules of the Legislature, and if implemented would make it the most undemocratic Legislature of all, in all of Canada. I am personally alarmed and I am appalled at the same time with the intended changes.

On June 19, 1992, this is what the Honourable Norm Sterling had to say when in opposition: "In our 125-year history the rules...have never been changed without negotiation with the other political parties. Parliament is intended to be a balance between the right of the government to govern and the opposition to oppose. In a majority Parliament, the only tool for the opposition is to seek compromise and to delay."

These current changes will affect everyone. They will enable the government to pass legislation, no matter how significant, within a few days without a reasonable opportunity for the opposition, the media and you the public to react to what is being introduced. If apathy is the enemy of democracy, media and public cynicism are its partners. I urge everyone to speak up.

Ms Shelley Martel (Sudbury East): The government rule changes work to shut out and shut down any media or public opposition to its right-wing Reform agenda. The rule changes are part and parcel of the Conservative government's ongoing attempts to muzzle opposition members, avoid public scrutiny, and drastically reduce public participation in the democratic process in Ontario.

Consider time frames to respond to discussion papers. Affected groups get documents and have impossible deadlines for review and reply. Parties must attend quick briefings with many other groups. There's no time left to raise concerns. Parties get 24 hours' notice that a parliamentary assistant is coming to town and they have 15 minutes to meet and express concerns; or, only corporate friends of the government get consulted in advance and other parties have limited or no input after a bill is introduced.

This Conservative government severely restricts public hearings because ministers don't want to hear opposing points of view. There were no hearings on Bill 7, which took labour laws back 50 years. There was only one day of debate in Toronto on changes to public libraries. This government wants to ram through Bill 99, the gutting of workers' compensation, in a process where only 130 out of over 1,300 possible presenters might be heard.

This government's approach is completely undemocratic. The Conservative back bench needs to learn that rule changes won't make this place work any faster. Proceeding with draconian changes in an arbitrary way will only make the label "dictatorship" stick. Since some of your own are already publicly calling it what it is, you can bet your current actions are only going to reinforce that view.

DR BRIAN GAMBLE

Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): Today I'd like to pay tribute to a physician from my riding who has recently been honoured for forwarding the principles of family medicine in a significant manner.

Dr Brian Gamble was one of 15 Ontario doctors to earn a fellowship in family medicine from the College of Family Physicians of Canada and is the first from Kent county to be so honoured.

The college, in naming Dr Gamble to a fellowship, cited him for such achievements as helping fellow physicians with new computer systems at work; his work in primary care reform with the Ontario Medical Association; and the significant work he has done to boost cooperation between the Ontario Medical Association and the college. It is perhaps this latter achievement that most clearly underscores Dr Gamble's dedication to his profession and the respect in which he is held by his peers, his community and those of us who know him well.

I have known and worked closely with Dr Gamble over the years, including the time I served as chairman of the St Joseph's Hospital board. During that time I have come to admire his innate ability and affable willingness to help develop successful solutions to the issues we faced. I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge Dr Gamble's wife, Joanne, and his children, whose support and understanding have been most important.

I know all members join me in congratulating Dr Gamble on this honour and wishing him continued success in all his endeavours.

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr Michael Gravelle (Port Arthur): I want to use this opportunity today to plead once again with the Minister of Health to recognize that the decisions made by the Health Services Restructuring Commission are leaving health care in Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario in an increasingly perilous state.

for example, we now know that mental health care has reached a point where a patient, even in severe psychiatric need, must wait six months for an appointment. The reason is that we only have six psychiatrists left in Thunder Bay to provide the service, and the reason they're leaving is the utter state of confusion that restructuring has left us in.

Also, because of the speed with which restructuring is taking place we have a severe shortage of acute care beds, with the patients there being tended by overworked, exhausted staff who often cannot meet the needs of the people for whom they are trained to care.

But the situation becomes even more grim when we learn that the waiting list for long-term care in Thunder Bay has now grown to over 500 people, a list that can only increase with the mandated reduction in our chronic care capacity. Yet in our long-term-care facilities, staff and family members are horrified because your government no longer funds the minimum 2.25 hours of care per day per resident, which at least guaranteed a level of dignity to our elderly and frail population.

Perhaps dignity is what is being lost throughout the system. Minister, in your headlong rush to change the system, you seem to have forgotten about the people who rely on our health care system. Unless you are prepared to step in and view health care from the eyes of those who need the care, your legacy will be that of a minister who, in his haste to renovate the house, somehow destroyed the foundation.

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YOUTH EMPLOYMENT

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): This weekend in Sault Ste Marie people were just beside themselves when I explained to them what this government was attempting to do by way of the rule changes. They're already shell-shocked re the impact of the agenda of this government and the devastation it's having on people and the reckless nature of everything that's going on. To be told that this is going to happen to them even faster and with less input by them is shocking.

However, there are some good things happening. People are taking some leadership in light of the lack of leadership from this government to try to put in place and develop some new strategies, particularly around the question of jobs and jobs for young people. On Saturday I participated with a group of very excited and energized young people under the leadership of the Economic Development Corp. A group called the opportunities for youth task committee put on a workshop at the Water Tower Inn to listen to young people, to listen to other stakeholders in the community, to share and come together around some possible strategies in front of the devastatingly high percentage of people unemployed in our community and across the province, particularly the high percentage of young people who find themselves without any hope, without any opportunity, without any vision for the future because this government has abandoned any responsibility they have to put in place a strategy that would provide jobs for anybody in Ontario, particularly young people.

ONTARIO GAMES FOR THE PHYSICALLY DISABLED

Mr Derwyn Shea (High Park-Swansea): I would like to inform members of this House about the 1997 Ontario Games for the Physically Disabled, which will take place in New Liskeard from July 10 to 13.

Approximately 120 of the province's best athletes with physical disabilities will vie for medals. They will display their talents in bocce, golf, power lifting, slalom and track and field.

The Ontario Games for the Physically Disabled, launched in 1975, have created many more opportunities for athletes with disabilities to hone their skills and progress to national and international competitions. These games, and the athletes in particular, help enormously to increase public awareness and understanding of persons with physical disabilities.

The games also give athletes the opportunity to display their talents on the provincial stage, strive for personal bests and gain valuable experience that comes from exchanges with fellow athletes at major competitions such as this. Ontario's athletes with disabilities, through dedication and hard work, set a standard of excellence that inspires our youth to participate in sport across Ontario. We are all very proud of them.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the people of New Liskeard for acting as gracious hosts for this most important event. I believe I speak for all members of this House when I wish the very best of success to every athlete competing at the 1997 Ontario Games for the Physically Disabled.

EDUCATION REFORM

Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): My statement today is directed to the Minister of Education. I have a press clipping here from the June 20 edition of the Kenora Daily Miner and News. The headline reads "Newspaper Receives Curriculum Before Teachers." Teachers in my riding, and indeed throughout the province, want you to explain why you did not see fit to give them a copy of the new math and language curriculum before it got to the media. It's unusual that the minister would provide this material to the media first and forget about the teachers who have to implement these when they go back to the classroom in September. I think the minister should be ashamed that the teachers had to find out about the policy through the media, which reported on it before the teachers even saw it.

Linda-Beth Marr is the president of the Kenora Women's Teachers' Association, and she certainly indicated to the minister that she was not happy. She indicated this by saying: "We are leaving today without a curriculum in our hands. This is not right, but it is not surprising. Teachers have been excluded from the development of the curriculum as well."

On behalf of Ontario teachers, I call upon the Minister of Education to apologize for ignoring and not including them in the development process of this new curriculum. Ontario teachers want you to explain why you're asking them to implement your policy but refusing to provide time, with the necessary tools in a timely fashion.

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): Downloading by this government on to regions and then on down to municipalities is going to generate higher and higher property taxes and reduce services for those least capable of paying those higher taxes and those most in need of those services.

The Canadian Automobile Association -- Niagara has recently expressed its great concern about the downloading of provincial roads on to the regional municipality of Niagara, kilometre after kilometre after kilometre, which is going to result in the downloading of regional roads on to municipalities. CAA -- Niagara -- and I tell you, I am in complete accord with them -- points out that municipalities will simply not be in a position to build or maintain roads to established Ontario standards.

This is going to create a patchwork quilt approach to roadways across this province and across regions, it's going to directly impact on industry and any industrial growth that might be developed within any part of Ontario and certainly within Niagara, where with an unemployment level of 10.9% and growing, this region has been ill served by this government to date.

CAA points out, and again I join with them, that if the province is adamant about continuing to download responsibility for roads to the municipal tier, it should also be transferring the revenue collected from Ontario motorists to the municipalities. This government, Mike Harris's Tories, has been playing a cruel trick on municipalities and municipal taxpayers across this province, Niagara included.

HEALTH CARE

Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough): After recently hearing remarks made about the health care system in Peterborough, I feel the need to express my thoughts.

Our health care system should be above the political fray. Health care is the only thing common to each and every citizen in Ontario. By politicizing death and illness, we do nothing but hurt everyone involved.

The comments I am referring to involve a situation where patients were found in the hallways of Peterborough Civic Hospital. Unfortunately, patients have been in the halls for many, many years and it is totally unacceptable. However, Ministry of Health officials and hospital staff are taking appropriate measures to rectify this most serious problem.

Operational reviews and restructuring reports have been conducted and the time to act on those reports is now. Patients and all front-line staff deserve the best possible health care available.

Too much finger-pointing by everyone has occurred over the last number of months. I ask all parties involved to work together on this most important issue. Real cooperation is the best means by which to solve any difficult issue, and our health care situation is no exception.

Our front-line health care workers, from the cleaning staff to the nurses, do an incredible job. The commitment they make to local health care is appreciated by our entire community. Let me personally thank everyone --

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you.

ANNUAL REPORT, COMMISSION ON ELECTION FINANCES

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): I have an announcement, and then I want to talk about one of the statements. I beg to inform the House that on Friday, June 20, 1997, the 22nd annual report of the Commission on Election Finances, for the year 1996, was tabled.

USE OF MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Today the member for High Park-Swansea made a statement with respect to the 1997 Ontario Games for the Physically Disabled. I've already cautioned members about this before. The member is the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation.

First off, the front page of the statement said, "Member's statement to the Legislature on the 1997 Ontario Games for the Physically Disabled, by Derwyn Shea, parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation." It's marked "Confidential."

This talked in paragraph two about "Approximately 120 of the province's best athletes with physical disabilities will vie for medals. They will display their talents in bocce," etc. "The Ontario Games for the Physically Disabled, launched in 1975, have created many more opportunities for athletes," and it also announced to the House that the 1997 Ontario Games for the Physically Disabled will take place in New Liskeard from July 10 to 13.

This is not an appropriate announcement for a parliamentary assistant to make. This is an announcement for a minister to make. Then the opposition are allowed an opportunity to respond to these kinds of announcements.

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I've mentioned this before, and I want to be very clear to parliamentary assistants. In the future, if you are uncertain, particularly if you're announcing anything to do with the ministry you happen to be parliamentary assistant in, I would ask that you check with the Clerk's table before you make these announcements because now that the announcement has been made, I have no power to allow opposition five minutes to respond.

It's simply a case where the rules are very clear. I would ask parliamentary assistants to check, be careful before you make the announcement if it's in your ministry and in future it would make things a lot easier to handle. Also, ministers, if these announcements are coming out, these are ministerial announcements to be made by ministers during ministerial announcement period and opposition will then get five minutes to respond. Thank you.

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: In light of your statement, I would ask for unanimous consent of the House to allow the critics for the ministry to make their five-minute responses to this ministerial statement.

The Speaker: The House leader for the third party has asked for unanimous consent for five minutes for opposition parties to respond. Agreed? I heard a no.

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: In light of the fact that is at least the second time --

Mr Wildman: You better learn what the rules are before you try to change them.

The Speaker: Order.

Mrs McLeod: In light of the fact that is at least the second time that you have addressed this very same issue and in light of the fact that it is an issue of serious concern to the opposition because once the opportunity to respond has been missed, it has been missed for the foreseeable future, I wonder if there's a way you have of communicating your decision on this and your caution on this to all the parliamentary assistants who are clearly not here today.

The Speaker: The member for Fort William, I just did and I couldn't have been any clearer than I was. Maybe I wasn't clear the first time and that could have been my fault. I think this time I have been abundantly clear and I'm very certain that all parliamentary assistants in the government now are fully cognizant of the rule and that they will pass it on to the members who are as well.

Mr Wildman: Point of order, Mr Speaker: I don't know if you're aware, Speaker, but the no that you heard in response to the request for unanimous consent came from the minister. That indicates this was intentional. The minister intended this to happen.

The Speaker: No.

Mr Wildman: She led the noes.

The Speaker: Member for Algoma, I ask you to come to order. There was more than one no, and I will say that I heard a number of noes on the other side.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: It deals with a violation of the rules that I think has been committed once again. As we all know, the standing orders of this House are paramount in the way in which we conduct ourselves. Here we are, 15 minutes right after petitions, which may be shorter than that, before we get into orders of the day.

Rule 55 is quite clear. It says, "Before the adjournment of the House on each Thursday during the session, the government House leader shall announce the business for the following week." To the best of my recollection, this has not happened for the last five or six weeks in regard to what exactly would be discussed in this House each week.

I would ask you to take this matter under advisement and to, in effect, hold the government accountable. They have violated the standing order the way it presently exists. I know in the amendments that have been moved forward, they want to change this to "may announce," but in fact they have not announced it. Currently, House rule 55 is very specific: "...the government House leader shall announce the business for the following week." He did not do this on Thursday evening and he has not done so today, which leaves the opposition, quite frankly, in a very precarious position since we don't know what's going to be called and our various speakers who may wish to speak on the various issues don't know whether to get ready for today's debate or not.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): I'm going to rule, unless you want to have input into this particular one.

Hon David Johnson (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet, Government House Leader): Actually, would it be appropriate for me to talk on both of the issues, just quickly?

The Speaker: I don't know which two there are.

Hon David Johnson: The one that you previously ruled on, and we certainly respect your ruling. I think it may be germane --

The Speaker: That's gone.

Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre): You didn't respect his ruling or you would have given unanimous consent.

The Speaker: Order, the member for Hamilton Centre. You can stand and speak to it during debate, but if you're asking about my ruling or querying my ruling or debating it, it's not on the table.

Hon David Johnson: I wasn't going to debate that. I was just going to suggest a course of action as a result. It might be helpful for the three parties to get together and the House leaders to discuss this, because in this case I think the announcement had formerly been made and the information was being conveyed. I think it might be helpful for the three House leaders to get together and --

The Speaker: Government House leader, I appreciate the fact that you may have formally announced this etc, but I think it's clear, if you want re-read what I spoke to, it was speaking about the announcement, about the fact that the parliamentary assistant to the minister was making that announcement in the House, talking about that specific announcement.

It really goes beyond when or where or how the announcement was made. It's a practice in this House that we've stood by for a great many years. It's fairly clear that it was completely out of order. If you, as the House leader, want to get together with the other two and work out some arrangement, wonderful. As far as Kingston and The Islands --

Hon David Johnson: As far as Kingston and The Islands is concerned, he does --

Mr Gerretsen: I assume he's talking about the member.

Hon David Johnson: The member, yes. My good friend and colleague the member for Kingston and The Islands raises a point which is fairly specific in the procedures. However, I think we all know in this House that it's a rule that's been observed more in the breach than in the observance.

Certainly the House leaders do get together every Thursday morning and attempt to work out the calendar for the House the subsequent week. Unfortunately, I was out of town last Thursday and indicated to the two House leaders that I would not be able to attend. As a result, and in addition to that, because this is the final week of the session, we think at this point in time, things are a little bit up in the air. But I have indicated to the other two House leaders that at this point in time our intention is to go back to debate on the standing order changes this afternoon.

I would say that in terms of his point of order, clearly the procedure, the -- what's the word I'm looking for? -- way this has been dealt with in the past is that this has not been a mandatory requirement for the House leader.

The Speaker: I will say -- further? Quickly, if that's okay.

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): Prompted somewhat by the argument of the government House leader, who has suggested that one of the standing rules of this House is observed more in the breach than in the recognition of that order, it is nevertheless a rule of the House. This argument comes from a minister who is carrying through proposed rule changes which are significantly going to change the orders and the way in which debate is carried out and to limit that debate.

The fact that he is saying that he has already acted to limit the debate by not providing sufficient notice of the orders of the day can hardly be an excuse for not observing them while they are still, even if it's just for the next few hours, in place. I believe that one of the Speaker's obligations -- and I think it is borne out in repeated decisions made under any parliamentary rules that are observed -- is the obligation of the Speaker to observe the rules of the day, the rules of the House that are in place at this period of time.

There is no question that due notice has to be given of the business to be conducted. It is now some 15 minutes before debate is to resume on the orders of the afternoon. It is only in the last 30 seconds that the government House leader has informed those of us in the opposition what issue we are going to be debating 15 minutes from now. Surely that is not due process and is not in accordance with the rules set out.

The Speaker: Let me just say quickly that the rule as read by the member for Kingston and The Islands is read accurately. It says "shall." To be fair to the government House leader, this rule has not been followed to the letter throughout the last number of administrations. It has been allowed to fall by the wayside, with the greatest of respect in this House for all parties.

I understand it's stated in here, but it's very difficult because of practice that has been allowed by previous Speakers not to be lived up to to the letter of the law. Having said that, there also is not a whole bunch in here, as far as repercussions are concerned, that the Speaker can impose other than to direct the government House leader to do it. I would ask the government House leader in future if he would kindly provide the House with the business for the week next week. Beyond that, that is really all I need say on the subject.

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PETITIONS

STANDING ORDERS REFORM

Mr Michael Gravelle (Port Arthur): The people of Ontario are getting increasingly furious about the Harris plan to kill debate in the Legislature. Once again we've been suddenly told we're discussing rule changes again today. The petition reads as follows:

"Whereas the people of Ontario want rigorous discussion on legislation dealing with public policy issues like health care, education and care for seniors; and

"Whereas many people in Ontario believe that the Mike Harris government is moving too quickly and recklessly, creating havoc with the provision of quality health care, quality education, and adversely affecting seniors; and

"Whereas the Mike Harris government now wishes to change the rules of the Ontario Legislature, which would allow the government to ram through legislation more quickly and have less accountability to the public and the media through exercises such as question period; and

"Whereas Mike Harris and Ernie Eves, when they were in opposition, defended the rights of the opposition and used the rules to their full advantage when they believed it was necessary to slow down the passage of controversial legislation; and

"Whereas the Mike Harris government now wishes to reduce the amount of time that MPPs will have to debate the important issues of the day; and

"Whereas the Mike Harris government, through its proposed rule changes, is attempting to diminish the role of elected members of the Legislative Assembly who are accountable to the people who elect them, and instead concentrate power in the Premier's office in the hands of people who are not elected officials;

"We, the undersigned, call upon Mike Harris to reject these proposed draconian rule changes and restore rules which promote rigorous debate on contentious issues and hold the government accountable to the people of Ontario."

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

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre): I have petitions signed by members of the London and District Labour Council forwarded to me by Mario Cordeiro, who is the chairperson of the occupational health and safety committee for their labour council. The petition reads as follows:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas this government's contribution to prevention services made through the WCB has been reduced from $62 million to $47 million, with no explanation as to where this money has gone; and

"Whereas the prevention services that the Ministry of Labour once provided are being offloaded to the Workers' Health and Safety Centre and other safety associations, thereby increasing the demand for the prevention services provided by the centre; and

"Whereas the government has gutted the certification training standards for health and safety committee members and is replacing them with minimalist performance standards which, in combination with funding cuts, have resulted in a 40% reduction in the staff of the Workers' Health and Safety Centre; and

"Whereas the Workers' Health and Safety Centre is facing further cuts of $2.3 million to finance the establishment of several new employer safety associations, thereby duplicating administrative costs and services;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to stop the gutting of the funding of prevention services provided by the Workers' Health and Safety Centre.

"Further we, the undersigned, demand that the moneys taken from the health and safety prevention services of the Workers' Health and Safety Centre and the other safety associations be returned to them."

On behalf of my NDP caucus colleagues, I add my name to theirs.

RURAL HEALTH SERVICES

Mr Toby Barrett (Norfolk): I have about 400 names on petitions that continue to be distributed by two farm women living in my riding, Mrs Helen Snowden of Nanticoke and Mrs Marlene Phibbs of Hagersville. The title is "Stand Up for Rural Health Care."

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas there is urgent concern about the future of community hospitals located in Dunnville, Hagersville, Simcoe and Tillsonburg; and

"Whereas distance, weather and doctor shortages are serious barriers to people in rural areas accessing emergency services and health care; and

"Whereas local communities have worked for years to establish, maintain, improve and modernize hospital, physician and other health services;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to adopt a rural health policy to deal with these problems and to protect the health care rights of rural communities; and that hospital boards, district health councils, and the Health Services Restructuring Commission and the government of Ontario adhere to this rural policy."

I am in agreement with this petition and therefore affix my signature to it.

BEAR HUNTING

Mr Peter North (Elgin): I have a petition to protect the right to hunt black bear in Ontario. This is to the Parliament of Ontario.

"Whereas the bear population in Ontario is not threatened in any way by wildlife management programs such as the spring bear hunt; and

"Whereas the Ontario black bear population is one of the largest in North America due to effective wildlife management, including hunting; and

"Whereas black bears are just one of the many species of game animals that Ontario residents have the right to hunt during the spring and fall; and

"Whereas the combined total economic impact of bear, moose and deer hunting accounts for more than $302 million, $30.1 million of which can be attributed to the bear hunt; and

"Whereas the Ontario Game and Fish Act provides laws which protect the black bear resource; and

"Whereas the rights of Ontario residents who enjoy recreational outdoor activities such as hunting and sport fishing are being threatened by the misleading campaigns of animal rights activists;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Parliament of Ontario to uphold the fish and game act and protect and preserve the rights therein."

I have affixed my signature to it. Thank you.

RÉFORME DU RÈGLEMENT

M. Jean-Marc Lalonde (Prescott et Russell) : J'ai une pétition demandant à Mike Harris de ne pas éliminer les débats à l'Assemblée législative.

«Attendu que la population de l'Ontario veut des discussions rigoureuses sur les projets de loi portant sur les politiques publiques tant que les soins de santé, l'éducation et les soins aux personnes âgées ; et

«Attendu que bon nombre d'Ontariens et d'Ontariennes croient que le gouvernement Harris agit trop vite, trop rapidement, que sa disposition concernant la qualité des soins de santé et la qualité de l'éducation causent des ravages, et qu'elles causent du tort aux personnes âgées ; et

«Attendu que le gouvernement Harris veut maintenant changer le Règlement de l'Assemblée législative pour lui permettre de faire adopter plus rapidement ses projets de loi et moins rendre compte à la population et aux médias par l'intermédiaire d'activités telles que la période des questions ; et

«Attendu que Mike Harris et Ernie Eves, alors qu'ils étaient dans l'opposition, défendaient les droits de l'opposition et qu'ils ont utilisé le Règlement à leur avantage lorsqu'ils croyaient que cela était leur droit de ralentir l'adoption des projets de loi controversés ; et

«Attendu que le gouvernement de Mike Harris désire réduire la période de temps allouée aux députés pour débattre des questions importantes au feuilleton ; et

«Attendu que le gouvernement de Mike Harris, par ses changements proposés au Règlement, tente de réduire le rôle des députés élus à l'Assemblée législative qui doivent rendre compte aux personnes qui les ont élus, et que ces changements concentrent les pouvoirs dans les mains des personnes non élues au sein du bureau du premier ministre ;

«Nous, soussignés, demandons à Mike Harris de rejeter ses propositions draconiennes de changements au Règlement et de remettre en vigueur les règles qui encouragent un délai rigoureux sur les questions litigieuses et qui forcent le gouvernement à rendre compte à la population de l'Ontario.»

J'y ajoute ma signature. Merci.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre): I have a petition signed by members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees in the Ottawa area and forwarded to me by their eastern Ontario area office. The petition reads as follows:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the Minister of Labour has begun a process to fundamentally alter the Occupational Health and Safety Act and its regulations with the release of the discussion paper Review of the Occupational Health and Safety Act; and

"Whereas these changes threaten to deregulate the health and safety protection for workers and reduce or eliminate the rights of workers and joint health and safety committees; and

"Whereas the ministry intentionally organized meetings in a manner which allowed only marginal opportunity for workers to discuss with the ministry the issues raised in the discussion paper; and

"Whereas workers deserve a full opportunity to be heard regarding the proposals that threaten the legislated provisions that provide them with protection from workplace injury, illness and death;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to oppose the deregulation of workplace health and safety and any erosion of the protection provided workers under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

"Further we, the undersigned, demand that province-wide public hearings be held once any amendments to the act are introduced."

I proudly add my name to theirs.

COURT DECISION

Mr Bert Johnson (Perth): I have a petition signed by over 50 constituents of mine to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas communities strongly disagree with allowing women to go topless in public;

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

"To enact legislation to require women to wear tops in public places for the protection of our children and public safety in general."

I've signed this so that it can be put to this Assembly.

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STANDING ORDERS REFORM

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): This petition, I believe from the Citizens for Local Democracy, reads as follows:

"Whereas the people of Ontario want rigorous discussion on legislation dealing with public policy issues like health care, education and care for seniors; and

"Whereas the Mike Harris government now wishes to change the rules of the Ontario Legislature which would allow the government to ram legislation through more quickly and have less accountability to the public and the media through exercises such as question period; and

"Whereas the Mike Harris government now wishes to reduce the amount of time that MPPs will have to debate the important issues of the day; and

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly to reject these proposed draconian rule changes and restore rules which promote rigorous debate on contentious issues and hold the government accountable to the people of Ontario."

I affix my signature as I'm in complete agreement with this petition.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre): I have petitions signed by hundreds of auto workers from the Canadian Auto Workers union and forwarded to me by their national president, Buzz Hargrove. The petition reads as follows:

"Whereas workers' health and safety must be protected in the province of Ontario, especially the right to refuse work which is likely to endanger a worker, the right to know about workplace hazards and the right to participate in joint health and safety committees; and

"Whereas the Occupational Health and Safety Act and its regulations help protect workers' health and safety and workers' rights in this area; and

"Whereas the government's discussion paper Review of the Occupational Health and Safety Act threatens workers' health and safety by proposing to deregulate the existing act and regulations to reduce or eliminate workers' health and safety rights and to reduce enforcement of health and safety laws by the Ministry of Labour; and

"Whereas workers must have a full opportunity to be heard about this proposed drastic erosion in their present protections from injuries and occupational diseases;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to oppose any attempt to erode the present provisions of the Occupational Health and Safety Act and its regulations. Further we, the undersigned, demand that public hearings on the discussion paper be held in at least 20 communities throughout Ontario."

I wish they were doing that with the WCB as they'd promised, and I add my name to theirs.

STANDING ORDERS REFORM

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): I probably have one of the most important petitions we've heard here over the last two years. It's addressed to the Harris Reform government's plan to kill debate in the Legislature.

"Whereas the people of Ontario want rigorous discussion on legislation dealing with public policy issues like health care, education and care for seniors; and

"Whereas many people in Ontario believe that the Mike Harris Reform government is moving too quickly and recklessly, creating havoc with the provision of quality health care, quality education, and adversely affecting seniors; and

"Whereas the Mike Harris Reform government now wishes to change the rules of the Ontario Legislature which would allow the government to ram legislation through more quickly and have less accountability to the public and the media through exercises such as question period; and

"Whereas both Mike Harris and Ernie Eves, when they were in opposition, defended the rights of the opposition and used the rules to their full advantage when they believed it was necessary to slow down the passage of controversial legislation; and

"Whereas the Mike Harris Reform government now wishes to reduce the amount of time that MPPs will have to debate the important issues of the day; and

"Whereas the Mike Harris Reform government, through its proposed rule changes, is attempting to diminish the role of elected members of the Legislative Assembly who are accountable to the people who elect them, and instead concentrate power in the Premier's office in the hands of people who are not elected officials;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, call upon Mike Harris to reject these proposed draconian rule changes and restore rules which promote rigorous debate on contentious issues and hold the government accountable to the people of Ontario."

I have affixed my signature to it as I'm in full agreement with this petition.

LONG-TERM CARE

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I have a petition signed by literally hundreds, close to 1,000, people from the community of Timmins. It deals with the whole question of cuts to the long-term-care system, specifically homes for the aged. It reads:

"Sick people are not asking to be sick. People at nursing homes are in need of special care. There are many disadvantages with the cuts of nursing staff that will be made in the future. The disabled people will end up suffering more because they will not be getting the care they should have. Lack of proper care could lead to depression in some patients.

"At this moment, nurses have difficulty to keep up with their duties because there are so many sick patients in nursing homes. With the proposed cuts, the nurses who will be left working will get exhausted from rushing too much, which could lead to accidents."

It goes on to state their opposition to the cuts by the government to the long-term-care system, and I affix my signature to that petition.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

STANDING ORDERS REFORM

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for adoption of amendments to the standing orders.

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): On a point of order, Speaker: As many members will know, the member for Cochrane North had the floor when we last debated this motion. Over the weekend he had a medical emergency. I understand he is in the hospital this afternoon and will not be able to be present to continue his remarks. I would ask unanimous consent of the House that the member for Cochrane North be able to resume his remarks when he returns to the Legislative Assembly.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Do we have unanimous consent to allow the member for Cochrane North to resume his remarks when he gets back to the assembly? Agreed.

Further debate? The member for -- the minister --

Hon Rob Sampson (Minister without Portfolio [Privatization]): The member for Mississauga West. Maybe you'll have a chance to get that right one of these days.

The Speaker: Sorry.

Hon Mr Sampson: I have some amendments to move on the standing orders that are before us.

I move that the motion to amend the standing orders be amended as follows:

That the proposed clause 9(c) be amended by adding, immediately following the first sentence, the sentence "Such a motion requires notice, and must appear on the Orders and Notices paper by the first sessional day of the first week to which the motion applies."

That the proposed clause 9(c) be further amended by adding immediately following the words "according to the terms of the motion" in the sixth line, the words "but no government bill shall be called on more than one sessional day during a single calendar day without unanimous consent."

That the proposed clause 16(b) be struck out.

That the proposed clause 25(a) be amended by striking out the words "but only during the first five hours of debate."

That the proposed clause 28(h) be deleted and the following substituted:

"(h) Except where a standing order or other order fixes the time of the vote, a vote may be deferred at the request of any chief whip of a recognized party in the House. The Speaker shall then defer the taking of the vote to the next sessional day during the routine proceeding `Deferred votes' at which time the bells shall be rung for five minutes."

That the number "45" in the first line of proposed clause 36(h) be replaced with the number "24".

That the entire amendment to standing order 38 be struck out and the following substituted:

"That standing order 38 be amended by the addition of the following clause: `(g) No introduction of a single bill shall last more than five minutes.'"

That the time "5:45" in the first line of proposed clause 42(g) be replaced with the time "6."

That the number "15" in the third line of proposed clause 42(g) be replaced with the number "5."

That the time "5:45" in the second line of proposed clause 43(b) be replaced with the time "6."

That the time "5:45" in the first line of proposed clause 46(b) be replaced with the time "6."

That the number "15" in the fourth line of proposed clause 46(b) be replaced with the number "5."

That the following clause be added immediately following the proposed clause 46(c):

"(d) A time allocation motion may not be moved on the same calendar day that any of the bills that are subject of the motion have been called as a government order."

That the number "three" in the first line of clause proposed to be added to standing order 57 be replaced with the number "four."

That the number "45" in the first line of proposed clause 97(d) be replaced with the number "24."

That the number "four" in proposed clause 97(g) be replaced with the number "10."

That the words "take effect on the first day after August 1, 1997" in the fourth last paragraph of the motion be replaced with the words "take effect on the third sessional day after August 1, 1997."

That the date "June 12, 1997" in the second line of the second last paragraph of the motion be replaced with the date "June 23, 1997."

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The Speaker: Mr Sampson moves that the motion to amend the standing orders be amended as follows:

That the proposed clause 9(c) be further amended by adding, immediately following the words "according to the terms of the motion" in the sixth line, the words "but no government bill shall be called on more than one sessional day during a single calendar day without unanimous consent."

That the proposed clause 16(b) be struck out.

That the proposed clause 25(a) be amended by striking out the words "but only during the first five hours of debate."

That the proposed clause 28(h) be deleted and the following substituted:

"(h) Except where a standing order or other order fixes the time of the vote, a vote may be deferred at the request of any chief whip of a recognized party in the House. The Speaker shall then defer the taking of the vote to the next sessional day during the routine proceedings `Deferred Votes' at which time the bells shall be rung for five minutes."

That the number "45" in the first line of the proposed clause 36(h) be replaced with the number "24."

That the entire amendment to standing order 38 be struck out and the following substituted:

"That standing order 38 be amended by the addition of the following clause:

"(g) No introduction of a single bill shall last more than five minutes."

That the time "5:45" in the first line of proposed clause 42(g) be replaced with the time "6."

That the number "15" in the third line of proposed clause 42(g) be replaced with the number "5."

That the time "5:45" in the second line of proposed clause 43(b) be replaced with the time "6."

That the time "5:45" in the first line of proposed clause 46(b) be replaced with the time "6."

That the number "15" in the fourth line of proposed clause 46(b) be replaced with the number "5."

That the following clause be added immediately following the proposed clause 46(c):

"(d) A time allocation motion may not be moved on the same calendar day that any of the bills that are the subject of the motion have been called as a government order."

That the number "three" in the first line of clause proposed to be added to standing order 57 be replaced with the number "four."

That the number "45" in the first line of proposed clause 97(d) be replaced with the number "24."

That the number "four" in proposed clause 97(g) be replaced with the number "10."

That the words "take effect on the first day after August 1, 1997" in the fourth last paragraph of the motion be replaced with the words "take effect on the third sessional day after August 1, 1997."

That the date "June 12, 1997" in the second line of the second last paragraph of the motion be replaced with the date "June 23, 1997."

Further debate?

Hon Mr Sampson: In moving these amendments, I want to make it clear up front that these amendments are a result of what I believe are continuing and fruitful discussions that have occurred between House leaders in this House, who have tried, as we have suggested, to provide their input to us on how we can better the motion ahead of us.

I also understand, and you can probably guess from the comments still coming from the other side of the House, that the House leaders have not yet quite reached an agreement on the full context and the full breadth of this motion before us. But I think it's important to understand that discussions have taken place, although I have not been at those meetings, and that these discussions, I believe, have resulted in amendments that are changes to the standing orders changes that were brought forward to this House last week.

Let me speak briefly to what these amendments will mean and how they change the motion before us. Firstly, notice will be required now, under these amendments, for all evening sittings. This notice will be such that it has to be tabled before the week of the extended sittings. I think that's a significant amendment, to have changed the existing motion, which of course did not have the requirement for the motion. We have now said that there should be an appropriate notice period and have set that notice period.

Secondly -- and even today we've heard some comments from the other side of the House in question period and in the petitions as I sat and listened carefully to them -- no government bill will be called more than once on the same calendar day. I think there were at least two petitions brought forward to this House today saying that there is some concern about the same bill being called on the same calendar day. We've listened and we've changed that proposed standing order amendment with this particular amendment, which says that no government bill can be called more than once on the same calendar day.

I must say, in looking at the rule that will allow us to extend sittings in the House into the evening hours, there is some concern from the members on the back benches I have talked to, frankly on both sides of the House, that private bills being brought into this House do indeed get the hearing at first reading, private members' hour does allow the chance for the House to debate a particular private member's bill on second reading, but there doesn't seem to be a time, especially where there's a government with a very busy government agenda, for the House to appropriately address private bills that are brought forward by members who are trying to represent a particular interest they hold in their community or as it relates to this House in general. There doesn't appear to be a time that's appropriately allocated for private members' bills to be dealt with in the third and final reading stage.

I am hopeful that our proposal to extend the sittings of this House into the evening hours will allow for the scheduling of the third reading hearing and perhaps passage of the very important private members' bills that I think are a very key part of what happens in this House.

I am a relatively new member in this House and over the two years I've been here it has become quite apparent that private members' business is one of the very important areas for private members to deal with the issues they find important. I would welcome any changes in the standing orders that would accommodate those issues being brought forward and dealt with as expeditiously as possible.

As it relates to the amendment for no government bills being called more than once in the same calendar day, I think it's important -- and one has to sit down and work back the number of days that are available for the passage of a government bill -- that this particular amendment I have put forward today will ensure that bills will not be passed any sooner than is the case today under the current rules that are governing the operation of this House. I believe that responds to the concerns that have been raised by members opposite in regard to the timely enactment of government bills.

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The amendments I have brought forward and tabled today will also reinstate what we've called around here the 10-minute hits, the member responses, following five hours of debate. The earlier amendments to the standing orders had taken that away after five hours; we're reinstating that.

Division on the introduction of first reading will be reinstated. Our amendments that had been tabled earlier did not allow for that. That of course now is the case; we've reinstated that.

Divisions relating to the want of confidence motions, opposition days and time allocation motions shall be moved from 5:45 to 6 o'clock.

A time allocation motion may not be moved on the same calendar day that any bills that are the subject of the motion have been debated. Of course this relates to the point I raised a few minutes ago. It will mean, as it relates to the time that could elapse between the introduction of a bill and the passage of the bill, the rules that we have, as amended and brought forward today, will not change or shorten that particular period of time.

Government responses to order paper questions and petitions will be much quicker than is the case federally. Response to petitions will be made from 45 days to 24 days, which is a lot quicker than the current situation in the federal House. Responses to order paper questions will be reduced from 45 days to 24 days. That effectively means that within 24 days, ministers and ministries will be required to respond to order paper questions. As it relates to order paper questions, members will be able to table 10 of these at any one time, as opposed to the four which we had suggested earlier.

In closing, and I think it's appropriate to do so to pass the debate time to the opposition to deal with these amendments, I still believe that these amendments, inclusive of the ones I've brought forward today, strike a good balance between the rights of members to participate in a free and open and thorough debate on the issues and the legislation that face this House and the authority and the responsibility that's given government to deal with the issues in a timely manner.

I don't have the history to speak to in this House that some of the other members do, which I suppose is a point of frustration in many cases for both sides of the House, but I think it's important that members have their chance to debate thoroughly in this House issues that come before this House, whether they be private members' issues or government issues. I think it's important also for the government to be able to deal with the responsibility of governing in a timely manner, which means the ability to be able to move forward on legislation that in many cases is controversial and in many cases has fair representations on both sides of the issues but where debate and the procedures of this House shouldn't delay, I would say, the responsibility of government to be able to move forward on the agenda on which it has been elected to do so.

The Acting Speaker (Ms Marilyn Churley): Further debate. The member for St Catharines.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): Thank you, Madam Speaker, although I'm not thanking you for the opportunity to speak on this, because it should not be before the House this afternoon.

Once again, the government has chosen a rather strange day to be dealing with this. Members of this House and the public will remember that the first time we heard anything about this was of course the situation where we were in a federal election. On the day of a federal election we had the government coming in through the auspices of the member for Nepean with changes that would be made in terms of the rules that govern the Ontario Legislature.

I was very concerned at that time that the government was trying to hide its real intentions, that it was specifically choosing a day that was not a day when there would be a lot of attention given to this issue, and when the government did so, that it must have been ashamed of what it was doing. It had a good reason to be ashamed, because what it's trying to do is change the rules of this House so the government can bulldoze its controversial and radical legislation through very quickly, with a minimum of public scrutiny and with a minimum of question periods and accountability to go with it. The public should know, make no mistake about it, that's the intention of this government. The tinkering with the original proposals really changes very little in regard to the intent of the government.

The first day they brought it in, the federal election was on. They had a press conference in the morning, when they knew nobody would be watching. As I've said on many occasions, you can judge a government best by what it does when it thinks nobody is watching it, and it thought nobody was watching. Then, when it actually introduced these for debate into the House, it was late on a Thursday afternoon, the last afternoon that the House sits. It was about five minutes to 5 that they dropped the bombshell on the table in front of us, the bombshell being the actual rule changes that they were going to try to implement.

Then today we have an event on which is a sad event, and that is the funeral of Larry Grossman, a beloved member of this Legislature and one who was a friend to many of us. Interestingly enough, when there's a lot of interest concentrated on that event, as there should be, paying tribute to Mr Grossman for his many years of service, lo and behold, the government decides it's going to drop this this afternoon.

I mentioned this to one of the more moderate government members and he said -- and I won't identify the person because I don't want to embarrass him -- "No, we wouldn't do this." That member, who knows who he is when I was talking to him, should be watching the television set. That's exactly what they did. They dropped again this issue of rule changes on an afternoon when people justifiably, in my view, are thinking of something else, and that is a tribute and a send-off, if you will, to our good friend Larry Grossman, who tragically passed away just a couple of days ago.

What this is all about is making the trains run on time. There are some members of the government who have not served in this place before who do not like the pace at which it moves. This is not unique to this government. I'm sure with all governments, when the members are newly elected, they ask the other members why the opposition takes more time than they believe is necessary to deal with legislation. They do so because that's how you alert the public to the issues of the day: by taking the necessary time.

I remember a phoney letter which was sent to the leader of the official opposition in which one member tried to say, "The members of the opposition don't want to work all these days." What I'm saying to the members of the government is, if you wish to sit more days of the year, we're happy to sit more days of the year. In fact, this government has decided it would sit almost continuously since January 13, with a couple of breaks, through to the end of June. That's fine with me, that's fine with the opposition. Why is that fine? Because the government can deal with its legislation, but every day that it deals with legislation -- in other words, every day that counts for a day in the legislative calendar -- has with it a question period, and that's the accountability that goes with it.

It's obvious that the people in the Premier's office don't like that. They don't want the accountability. The Cadillac is getting scratched as it drives by. They want the Cadillac to zip by unscathed, without the necessary analysis, detailed in many cases, and criticism.

Ultimately, if the government wins in the court of public opinion, that's what we all accept as elected representatives. But what this government wants to do, through the people in the back rooms of the Premier's office, is shove through its legislative agenda just as quickly as possible and with as little accountability as possible. Virtually all of these rule changes are geared to do that. People who know the rules of this House, people who have observed it in years gone by, not just members, look at these rule changes and tell you that's exactly what it's all about. When you want to reduce the amount of time that members have to speak on legislation, on bills, that's exactly what you're doing, because very often the bills are detailed, very often they must be taken in context with other legislative action that the government is undertaking. In this case, of course, the government wants to rush that through in a minimum amount of time.

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It also doesn't want to give information out in a timely fashion, so it sets some ridiculously long period of time for replying to what we call order paper questions from any member of the House who is not a member of the cabinet. But most particularly the opposition uses the order paper questions to obtain specific information, legitimate information that should be available to anyone in the public. What does this government do? It wants to limit the number of questions an individual can place on the order paper and to increase the number of days in which a reply must be forthcoming. If you think that's democratic, it is not.

What the government has done this afternoon is said, "You didn't like the arsenic, so here is some hemlock to drink," because that's what it's all about. This is tinkering. Is it better than what existed before? Some might say it is, but it is certainly far from what I consider to be an important opportunity for analysis and debate in this House. Even the government and certainly the people of this province benefit by this additional debate and discussion.

There are times when the government must be stopped in its tracks, even momentarily, to reassess its position, to reconsider its position. But no, the backroom boys in the Premier's office are not satisfied with that. They want to shove everything through and forget about what anybody else has to say. They want to have their own members up, clapping for the government legislation, spinning the government line, when I believe the most important things that are said by government members are within the confines of the government caucus room where they can tell them what they really think instead of simply reading the speeches that their backroom boys provide for government members to read.

I think Ernie Eves was right. I asked a question of him the other day, and it wasn't very confrontational, because I have a lot of respect for him as a parliamentarian and as a person knowledgeable of the rules of this House. This is what Ernie Eves had to say on June 22, 1992, when a previous government was proposing rule changes for the House. I think these words are particularly important and should be considered by all government members:

"I think one has to understand that the only way opposition -- not just opposition members but any public opposition to any proposed piece of legislation -- can be effectively dealt with or talked about under our system of government, under the parliamentary system of government, is through the opposition parties' ability to debate, and yes, on occasion even stall or slow down progress of a particular bill, and that has worked very effectively over the years against governments of all political stripes."

That's Ernie Eves saying that -- I'm not saying that -- and he was absolutely right. He made some excellent speeches about this very matter when he was in opposition. I agreed with him then and I agree with him now.

Norm Sterling is again a long-serving member, elected June 9, 1977, and on June 22, the letter that Norm Sterling wrote to the Ottawa Sun was read into the Hansard by Ernie Eves. Let me quote what Norm Sterling, the member for Carleton, now the Minister of Environment and Energy, had to say:

"Over the past six years in opposition I have been successful in forcing the government of the day to accept some amendments to their legislation. My only tool was to delay or threaten to delay. What sense is there for me to bother to debate if I have no means to make them listen?"

That's exactly what these rule changes are doing. They're taking away the means the opposition has to make the government listen. Things will proceed very quickly. If you're running an insurance business and you simply snap your fingers and something is done, that's the way it's done in business. I'm not here to pass judgement on that, because a business operates differently from a government. That is not to say that governments from time to time should not use good business practices; they should. But governments, in the processing of legislation through a Legislature, should not work the way a business does, because we are doing the business of all the public.

The ramifications of the changes that you are bringing forward -- and you're bringing them rapidly and recklessly and certainly drastically -- are very substantial for this province. That's why it's important that we take our time and deal effectively and comprehensively and exhaustively with the legislation and that the opposition have within its tool chest -- the Minister of Education likes making references to tool chests -- the tools to slow down the process, and on rare occasions, to halt the process momentarily so that the government can reconsider its position.

The best example of this was Bill 26, the massive budget bill, the omnibus bill as it was referred to, that dealt with some 47 different pieces of legislation, that established a hospital closing commission called the Health Services Restructuring Commission of Ontario, that is now going around the province ordering the closing of hospitals in all our communities.

Does that mean members of this Legislature have any input in that process any more? No, because that bill contained a provision that gave all that power to the hospital restructuring commission. It seems to me that we are elected as members to make those decisions. Sometimes they're difficult, sometimes they're not easy, but surely the democratically elected people, those that the public can get at, should have that kind of decision-making input.

Bill 26 in effect concentrated all kinds of power, tremendous power, into the hands of unelected individuals, whether the senior civil service or the political advisers to the Premier or a few select cabinet ministers. That power was taken away from everybody else in this province, particularly the elected members of this Legislature, and placed in the hands of a few. That is not healthy for democracy and in fact that is not good government.

It has been said in the past of some people who have been notorious in history, "Well, at least the trains ran on time." Surely there are more important things than making the trains run on time and, of course, I'm saying that in a symbolic sense as opposed to a literal sense. There are things that are important, and when the government was slowed down, when the government was stopped momentarily in its tracks on Bill 26 -- much to the chagrin of the mad dogs out there who could not understand why anybody would have this power -- once that bill was stopped, the government had a chance to reconsider. It held hearings right across the province of Ontario, not a few show hearings just before Christmas at 11 o'clock at night, but rather hearings in various communities, including the Niagara Peninsula, where the public could have input into that legislation. As a result, the government itself amended the bill with I think in excess of 150 different amendments. That was an important process.

Then the government decided on Bill 103, the megacity bill, that it would simply thumb its nose at the people of Metropolitan Toronto who had voted in the local plebiscites some 76% overall against the plan for a megacity. This government particularly said it was interested in the results of a referendum or a plebiscite, the voice of the people. In fact they ignored that completely and rammed through the legislation. The opposition slowed that down for a number of days, and there was a lot of consideration, a lot of discussion about that particular bill, and we could really see the ramifications.

We would have preferred, by the way, to have had more time to actually debate that legislation, but when you keep rewriting the rules to limit debate, as you are in this case once again rewriting the rules to limit debate, then oppositions, now and in the future, will have to find extraordinary parliamentary manoeuvres to get around the government ability to shove its legislation through quickly. The changes proposed in the government's own motion are minor changes. If you wanted to say one was arsenic and one was hemlock, that would probably be a good description. Both are poison for the parliamentary system, and this is most unfortunate.

I think some members of the Conservative caucus must be embarrassed by this whole exercise. I understand the government selecting one or two ways that it might want to prevent a future ability of an opposition to stop it in its tracks. I understand that. I don't agree, because it takes away any of the so-called bargaining chips that the opposition would have to enable more debate to take place on legislation or motions. Nevertheless, I would understand that. But this government has gone full bore ahead to trample the opposition.

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That's why the other day the members of the Liberal caucus, led by Dalton McGuinty, the leader, after he directed a question to the Premier on rule changes -- which the Premier refused to answer, by the way; fobbed it off to the House leader -- walked over and the leader of the official opposition, Dalton McGuinty, placed his procedural rule book of this House on the Premier's desk and members of the Liberal caucus placed their rule books symbolically in front of the Premier's desk to demonstrate that all power would reside within the Office of the Premier and the rest of us might as well go home. That's what this is all about.

I know people will say, and I take them at their word, that in future we will look at rule changes, but I'm going to tell you it's so easy to accept the rule changes that are there by the previous government and not make significant changes, because this gives the hammer to whatever government is in power.

The government has 82 seats. It has all kinds of money it can spend on public relations, and indeed does spend. The public of this province will know that the government spent millions upon millions of dollars on television advertising with the Premier in it, trying to sell the government message -- not Progressive Conservative Party money; government money on blatant advertising, and the government will continue to do that.

The government has, as I mentioned, 82 members and can win any vote in this House or any committee of this House. The government has what are called time allocation motions and closure motions which can eventually close off the debate. So it's not as though the government is without its resources to be able to push its agenda through.

Is that good? It's not good for the opposition, but this isn't about the opposition; this is about whether it's good for the people at large in the province, and also, I might add, the government. I think governments work better when they're called to account. I think governments work better when they're forced to slow down and do things right instead of doing them quickly. I know the revolutionaries, the zealots and the radicals in the party and in the Premier's office and those within the caucus who are eager to ingratiate themselves to the Premier are going to want to move the agenda more quickly.

Here we are two years into the government and the government has already passed several regulatory changes and legislative changes, probably more than other governments in the same period of time. That's not good enough for the zealots; that's not good enough for the backroom boys in the Premier's office. They're not satisfied because they don't like the fact that they're getting some criticism along the way. Because the opposition has had the tools to slow the government down when necessary, the government gets some criticism it might not otherwise get.

Let me tell you what the night sitting is all about. John Baird will try to tell you, speaking on behalf of somebody in the Premier's office, that this has something to do with working: "Doesn't everybody have to work at night?" as though members don't. There isn't a member of this House who in all honesty doesn't know that there's far more to our responsibilities, to our job, than sitting in the House itself. If the government is so eager to have more time to debate, then the government should sit more days of the year. What they're going to get is two legislative days with one question period. That's less accountability.

The other changes we see in there are designed to push the question period, which is the focus of accountability and the focus of attention in this House, back further and further, from third place to seventh place, so that if on any other matters that are placed before question period there is any time taken, question period is pushed further and further back in the afternoon. At 4 pm, under the rules that were written, the government business would start even if question period had not been completed.

The government tries to characterize what went on as negotiations. What the government did was load a gun -- I don't know what kind, a .45 or whatever it is -- put the six bullets in and put the gun at the head of the House leader of the NDP and the House leader of the Liberals and say, "Either you accept this or something close to it, or we're going to ram through the original." What the government really wants is a bargain. They want to be able to make changes and then say, "The opposition agreed to these." That's hardly going to happen unless the government confines its changes to something far less than what we saw originally and what was snuck in again this afternoon behind other news events of a tragic nature. That's what the government is up to.

It was just interesting, and I go back to the point of a government member for whom I've always had a good deal of respect: When I said to him, "They're going to ram the rule changes in this afternoon," he said to me, "Dave Johnson wouldn't do that." I said: "Dave Johnson is not going to do that. Mike Harris is going to do it. Dave Johnson will simply be the messenger." That's what happened this afternoon.

If you think there isn't anything these people on the other side will do -- not all of them, because in fairness I know some of them and I'm sure they're not enthusiastic about what's happening this afternoon in the House or previously. But many, particularly those in the Premier's office, are going to be eager, and they think they're being clever. They'll say:

"Wasn't that clever? The day of the federal election we had this press conference and announced these proposed rule changes. Wasn't that sly when on Thursday afternoon, when nobody was around at five to 5, we made the changes come into effect by placing them on the order paper? Isn't it clever that today, when many members are away at another event and there's much attention diverted to another event, we'll drop the rule change changes in this afternoon?"

I look back at Thursday. Didn't we pass three bills last Thursday? I think we did. We were going to pass third reading of one of those bills, Bill 129, for instance, this afternoon quite easily, probably with no debate, and get into some other bills. But you have to know the government isn't interested in those negotiations. It's interested in shoving its rule changes through. I contend to you that if the opposition agreed to pass everything on the order paper that the government has indicated it would like to pass this session, that wouldn't be enough. What they really want is not all these bills, not all this legislation, but they want to be able to gut the rules of this House so they can simply grease the skids to ram everything through that this government considers desirable.

Make no mistake about it; they're going to do some of this in the summer. That's why we're debating this today, because in August there's going to be more controversial legislation and the government doesn't want extensive debate on that. The government doesn't want the ability of the opposition to stop the government in its tracks even momentarily in a rare, extraordinary gesture. So the government has made all these changes, and the Pablum which was served up this afternoon does not solve the problem, not by any means.

Even in the St Catharines Standard on the weekend -- and we have a lot of other things to worry about -- there was an editorial. I don't have a copy of that editorial -- I wish I did -- to read right now from the Saturday St Catharines Standard. My good friend the member for St Catharines-Brock has the Saturday Standard. I think he's sending it over with a page; I don't know.

I saw, by the way, an advertisement; the member for St Catharines-Brock had a full-page ad on a prominent page in the Standard, extolling the virtues of the government. Was that it, Tom? I just glanced at that. There was a full-page ad in the St Catharines Standard.

There was an editorial which was very good. It was an editorial that pointed out that it is important to have a democratic debate even if it takes a little longer.

What you have to understand is that these rule changes will bring about an ugly mood in this House. If they are implemented -- and we've tried to be reasonable until such time as they might be implemented -- if you think you're going to get the opposition saying yes to unanimous consents, you're wrong; if you think you're going to get the opposition to cooperate when the government makes a mistake inadvertently, you're wrong.

That's how the House has to work. That's most unfortunate, because as Ernie Eves once noted, the House works at its very best when the three House leaders are able to get together and come to an agreement on when and how legislation shall pass in the House. When you have an ugly mood in the House because the government has put the boots to the opposition, then you find out that it's not easier for the government. You find out that the government is in some very difficult circumstances and that's because it brings them upon itself.

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You on the other side will always get your way, and you're going to ensure that there's something the public doesn't know about this change as well, and that is, it's retroactive. In other words, all of the legislation and motions and so on that the government has on already, it's going to pass this retroactively to affect those.

The member for Scarborough East, one of the zealots over there, one of the people always happy to ingratiate himself with the Premier, is a person who would say: "Aren't we clever? We're going to make that retroactive. Isn't that clever?" I suspect that some of his colleagues who have been around here for a while, who have served on a municipal council, will say: "I don't think that's so clever. I don't really think that's clever." Some of the people who have dealt with retroactive legislation and have been very, very cautious about it would say, "I don't think it's a good idea to pass motions which are retroactive." That's always considered by thoughtful parliamentarians to be not a wise course of action. But of course the zealots, the radicals, the new breed want it through quickly and the heck with everything else.

The government will have a victory ultimately on this because it can't lose, because it has 82 members. It will be a pyrrhic victory ultimately because some of the legislation that's going to go through will have mistakes in it. Because the government didn't take additional time, because it didn't take into account additional input, then the government is going to make mistakes, and ultimately the people of this province will pay the price for those mistakes.

There is no more important legislative initiative that has come before this Parliament in two years than this motion -- none at all. There are individual bills which have been controversial and have had consequences for the province, I understand that, and they are individually important, but this is the most important legislative initiative because it opens the door wide to the government being able to push everything through quickly and with a minimum of debate.

I've looked at these rule changes as they are proposed, looked at them carefully, and I've tried to look at some other conclusion. I've tried to say, "Is there somebody over there trying to be fair, trying to make the system work better?" No. They're trying to make the system work more efficiently for the government, not fairer for members of the House and not better for the people of this province.

I've often said as well that you can judge a government not only, as I said previously, by what it does when it thinks no one is listening but also by what it doesn't do when it has the power to do so. With the massive majority that the government has obtained, it does have the power to implement whatever it pleases. To use that power with prudence, with discretion, with thoughtfulness is what is important for a government, and that is not what is happening today. They are using it because it is expedient to use it, and they are using both boots to kick the opposition with this particular motion.

The amendments, as I say, make some minor changes, so the rules are not as radical in their changes, not as draconian, as we like saying in this House, but they are nevertheless very, very strongly tilted towards the government.

It is clear that Mike Harris, it is clear that Mike Harris's advisers and it is clear that some people on the government benches are not satisfied with the democratic system, are not satisfied with the rules under which they were elected. I recall the Premier not saying during the election campaign that he would change any rules of this House, that he would tamper with the democratic procedure. Yet we see this afternoon once again, hiding behind another event, this government tampering with that democratic procedure with the goal of being able to trample the opposition, whether it be in this House or outside of this House.

Mr Wildman: I rise to participate in this debate this afternoon with some considerable regret. This is a delicate matter, but I want to review briefly in my opening remarks what has happened here today.

The legislative session began today with question period beginning immediately at 1:30 because many members on all sides of the House wanted the opportunity to attend the funeral of Larry Grossman, a former leader of the Conservative Party for whom most of us, if not all -- I think all of us -- have had tremendous respect and regret his passing, particularly at such a young age. In order to facilitate the ability of many members of the executive council to be here both for question period and to attend that funeral, the government House leader requested that the other two House leaders agree to unanimous consent to change the orders of proceedings here so that we could begin immediately at 1:30 with question period. We readily agreed.

Both the Liberal House leader and myself also intended to attend that funeral because we wanted to pay our last respects to Mr Grossman and to express our condolences to his family. However, even though we had agreed to unanimous consent to change the time of question period, the government House leader did not have the courtesy to inform the two opposition House leaders about what was going to be debated this afternoon. So both of us are here now because we had to be here to be able to deal with whatever the government decided to call for debate, and that meant we could not make it to the funeral.

During this process too, we had members' statements subsequent to question period because of the agreed change of order. I think during those members' statements we had an incident which indicated the lack of respect that members of this government have for this place and for the rules that govern this place currently. They like to accuse the opposition of having a lack of respect for the rules.

The Speaker called the Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation to order because she had her parliamentary assistant read what essentially was a ministerial statement, and as the Speaker indicated, that was inappropriate and this was not the first time he had ruled on this matter. The Speaker had indicated previously that parliamentary assistants must not make what are essentially ministerial statements in this House. The reason is that if the minister makes a statement, then the opposition critics, according to the current rules, have the opportunity to make five-minute statements in response. However, if another member makes a statement rather than the minister, that is not afforded to the opposition critics, and the Speaker called him to order.

If it had been an inadvertent transgression of the rules, then you'd think the government would want to make it right. So after the Speaker made his ruling, I got up and asked for unanimous consent, keeping in mind that we had agreed to unanimous consent earlier, to allow the opposition critics to make their responses to this statement that had been made by the parliamentary assistant. What happened? A number of members of the party supporting the government said no, but what was most significant was the fact that the minister herself led in that chorus of noes and, in my view, in doing so, demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the Speaker, for the assembly and for the process. I think that's what this is about.

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The member for Mississauga West then, after the order was called, got up and moved an amendment -- no warning for the opposition, no notice, nothing. He had the gall to introduce that amendment as the result of conversations among the three House leaders. The member was attempting to give the impression that these proposed amendments to the amendments to the standing orders were agreed to by the three House leaders. How can one put up with that kind of subterfuge in this place?

I resent personally the fact that I was not able, as a result of the shenanigans and the machinations of this government, to attend the funeral of a friend of mine. I won't prolong that.

But this again is part of the whole strategy this government has followed with regard to rule changes. Initially the government proposed rule changes, but they didn't do it with the minister, the government House leader, getting up in this place and saying, "We want to have rule changes," or coming to a House leaders' meeting and talking to the other two House leaders and saying, "We'd like to have rule changes." Instead the government had a backbencher, the parliamentary assistant to the government House leader, hold a press conference on June 2.

June 2, you'll remember, was the federal election day, when many members were not present in Toronto because they were in their ridings to vote, when the media were concentrating for obvious reasons on federal politics, not on provincial politics, and the member who held the press conference stated clearly that these rule changes he was proposing were his idea and that they weren't government policy; they were simply his idea and they were being put out there for debate and discussion.

Frankly, if that were the case, I would have commended him for it. I don't agree with most of the rule changes, but if a private member simply had done some work and put out an idea for discussion and perhaps be responded to by other members, fine. But what happened that day? One half-hour after that press conference, 30 minutes later, the government House leader sent a letter to the two opposition House leaders in which he said the government has put forward some proposals for changes and that he hoped we would respond to him at the House leaders' meeting the following Thursday, three days later.

Obviously the member who had done this was a stalking-horse, a running dog of the government House leader, considering that he tried to paint the rule changes as an attempt to strengthen the role of individual members, which is completely at variance with the truth. When you limit the number of days the government has to respond to an individual member, you're not enhancing the role of that member.

Now we have, under the guise of a day when the attention of members, some members, certainly long-standing members, and of the media is distracted by a very sad event, the member for Mississauga West gets up on behalf of the government -- at least it was a minster of the crown this time -- and moves amendments with no notice. But he tries to paint it as if it was the idea of the three House leaders, which is completely untrue and at variance with the facts.

I would remind the members of the government party of what the member for Parry Sound said in 1992 when rules were discussed for change at that time. He said, and it's been quoted a number of times, that if a government moves unilaterally on rule changes, it will produce an enormous amount of acrimony in the House, and it's going to do that.

The rule changes were unilateral proposals by the government to speed up the government agenda and to diminish the role of individual members in this assembly. They were designed to make it more difficult for opposition members to do their job. The responsibility of opposition members, and for that matter all private members in the House, is to hold the government accountable, to criticize, to propose alternatives, to suggest amendments, and this government finds that to be a nuisance, that it's too slow, that it doesn't make it possible for them to get their agenda through quickly enough.

The member for Mississauga West has proposed a number of changes. These changes are cosmetic. They do not change the central issues; they don't respond to the central issues that have been raised by the opposition in this debate about rules.

I'll deal quickly with the minor ones he has proposed in this amendment. Starting with the last one, I'll go in reverse order. He proposes to change the date on which the new standing orders will not affect questions placed on Orders and Notices. He's going to change it from June 12 to June 23. What does that tell us? That tell us that this government intends that these rule changes will be in effect by the end of this week. That's what it means. This is not about debate and discussion and maybe changing it after there has been time for all members to have input and for the government to respond. That change of the date is just making it possible for the government to have these rule changes in effect by the end of this week.

When will these changes take effect? The amendment proposes that standing order 110 will take effect on the third sessional day after August 1 instead of the first sessional day after August 1. It gives us two more days. Well, whoop-de-de. What a farce.

The next one is the amendment to standing order --

Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): You shouldn't have to check this. You had a House leaders' meeting.

Mr Wildman: You really don't take this seriously, do you?

Mr Gilchrist: Not the righteous indignation, no.

Mr Wildman: I didn't intend to be here this afternoon, and I mean that sincerely. I had to speak to this because you guys wouldn't have the courtesy to tell us what we were going to debate today.

Mr Gilchrist: The House leader said you knew on Thursday.

Mr Wildman: That is a lie.

The Acting Speaker: Member for Algoma, you must withdraw that comment.

Mr Wildman: I will withdraw that comment. The veracity of the statement stands.

The Acting Speaker: I'm afraid I can't accept that. Under the rules you must simply withdraw the statement, member for Algoma.

Mr Wildman: In respect to you, Speaker, I will withdraw the statement. I do have some respect for this place.

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The government intends to change a couple of other things. The government, in its proposed amendment, was going to limit the number of written questions that an individual member could have on the order paper to four; now they're going to increase that to 10. The member for Scarborough East had indicated that this was a result of discussions among the House leaders. Let me tell you how this discussion occurred. The government House leader said, "How about changing `four' to `10'?" Our response was, "That's not good enough." So how can this be the result of a discussion and agreement among the House leaders? That was the extent of the discussion.

The government is also, in this amendment, proposing to change the number of days that it takes the government to respond. It is currently 14, and they were changing it to 45; they are now proposing to change it to 24. Well, 24 is better than 45, but it's still not good enough.

The government is proposing to amend this motion on the debate on the budget to change the number of days proposed from three to four, one more day. This wasn't even discussed in the House leaders' meeting. It wasn't even raised. We said, "If you want to have a number of days set aside for budget debate, that's okay with us." These are minor matters; they don't deal with the important issues.

The government is also proposing to give us 15 minutes more debate by changing the time for the vote from 5:45 to 6 pm in a number of the clauses in these proposed rule changes. I'm supposed to be thankful for 10 or 15 minutes more debate? Really. These are supposed to be major amendments that the government is introducing to respond to the concerns of the opposition, so they change the time of the vote from 5:45 to 6 pm. Great. But at the same time, after they give us 15 minutes more debate, they cut the number of minutes for the bell to ring for the vote from 15 minutes to five. As my mother used to say, "Same difference." It still works out to the same thing.

Let's get to the major issues. The fact is that this government is bringing in changes to the rules because they want to move their agenda forward more quickly, because they don't believe they have been able to get things through here quickly enough. They want to cut the amount of time that the opposition has to speak to matters in this House. They want to cut the amount of time it takes to get a bill from first reading to third reading.

What amendments have they suggested to deal with that? They have proposed that clause 9(c) be changed. What it means is that if they extend the day, they will give us some notice. That's better than not giving us notice. All it means, though, is that members, I guess mainly Toronto-area members, will not be so much up in the air that they won't be able to schedule any meetings in their ridings in the evenings, because they'll know in advance whether the House is going to be sitting and we're going to be debating that night. That's about all it means.

The central issue is not changed in these proposed amendments by the member for Mississauga West. The central issue is that not only can the government extend debate into the evening, which we don't mind, but that the government will still be able to count it as two sessional days in one.

The government is proposing a change in this amendment which will say that the government cannot call the same bill in the evening, when it is being counted as another sessional day, as was debated in the afternoon. What does this mean? What it means is that instead of being able to get one bill through in three days, the government will now be able to get two bills from first reading to third reading, and law, in six days. Right now it takes a minimum of six days to get one bill through, and there are very few governments I know that are able to do that because of the length of speaking times, which hasn't been debated and discussed in these proposed amendments to the changes to the standing orders. The fact is that the government's agenda will still be able to be rushed through under these proposed amendments.

The government has said that they are just bringing in rules to bring us in line with the House of Commons. This isn't a House of Commons rule; this rule comes from the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. What the government ignores is that while the Legislative Assembly rules in British Columbia allow a government to extend debate into the evening and allow the government to count that as two sessional days, in the British Columbia Legislature they have two question periods. They have a question period for each sessional day, so if they have two sessional days in one calendar day, they have two question periods that day. This government is attempting to have their cake and eat it too. They want to have the two sessional days so that they can bring in time allocation more quickly, they can have it in a day and a half instead of in three days, which is the convention now -- a day and a half in terms of calendar days -- but they don't want to be held accountable by the opposition for the same number of question periods per sessional day, so they can have two sessional days but only one question period.

The government is amending this proposed change to the standing orders in another way. They are proposing to make a change to clause 28(h). The amendment says:

"Except where a standing order or other order fixes the time of the vote, a vote may be deferred at the request of any chief whip of a recognized party in the House. The Speaker shall then defer the taking of the vote to the next sessional day during the routine proceeding `Deferred Votes' at which time the bells shall be rung for five minutes."

What does that all mean? Most people listening to that won't really understand the significance. What it means is that this change will facilitate time allocation motions. It will make it easier for the government to have the vote on a time allocation motion deferred to a convenient time for the government.

What the amendments to the proposed changes to the standing orders mean is that this government is still committed to rushing through its agenda, is still committed to limiting the amount of time that members have to hold the government accountable and to debate. There is nothing in the amendment from the member for Mississauga West which deals with the other crucial matter, and that is the limiting of the amount of time members have to speak.

As I said, these are cosmetic. They are not real amendments, and it is terribly galling for me to have the member for Mississauga West, for whom I have a great deal of respect, get up and try to characterize these amendments as if I have agreed to them, as if they are the result of discussions among the three House leaders and the three House leaders have agreed that there are some things wrong with what the government was proposing in its rule changes, and that the government now has brought in an amendment that deals with the concerns of the two opposition House leaders.

That is not correct. That is not the fact. Many of these minor changes have never even been discussed by the House leaders. A few have been suggested by the government House leader in our discussions, but the opposition House leaders have indicated that they are not good enough, and the central issues raised by the opposition House leaders have not been responded to by the government.

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I suppose the government will now say they have responded to the issue of the possibility of getting a bill through in three days, in one week. All it means now is they'll be able to get two bills through in two weeks. They're still rushing through their agenda.

What will this actually mean? Let's think back to what has actually occurred in this House in this session. You will recall that there were two very controversial matters before this House at the same time. They were time-allocated. They were Bill 103 and Bill 104. Bill 103 dealt with the megacity for Metropolitan Toronto, one big city, and Bill 104 dealt with the restructuring and amalgamation of school boards all across this province.

The government time-allocated both of those bills. This party introduced thousands of amendments to both of those bills. The Speaker ruled those amendments to be in order on Bill 103 and that led to a long debate on amendments, which the government referred to as a filibuster, that went on for many, many days around the clock.

We held up the passage of Bill 103 because 76% of the population of Metropolitan Toronto had voted against it and as an opposition we saw it as our obligation to speak on behalf of the majority of the people who were opposed to that legislation and who were affected by it.

Interjection.

Mr Wildman: I remind the member who's commenting that only 45% of the population who voted, voted for the government, yet they would not argue that they didn't get 45% of the vote.

Under these proposed rule changes, what this government could have done is instead of having time allocation on these two controversial pieces of legislation and trying to get them through in one week, it could have avoided time allocation and got those two controversial pieces of legislation through in two weeks, from first reading to third reading.

The length of time members have to speak on each of those pieces of legislation would have been limited and the people who had voted against Bill 103 would have had their views put forward by the opposition, but in a very limited fashion. The people who are concerned about the amalgamation of school boards would have their views put forward, again in a very limited fashion, and the government would get things through and be able to run roughshod over the views of those who were opposed. That's what these amendments are about. It's about getting the trains to run on time, as has been said.

These are only token changes. They don't respond to the significant concerns of the opposition and of the public to ensure that the public can have input into the process and can be heard by the government. We have a government that isn't interested in hearing opposing views. We have a government that isn't interested in responding to concerns of people who don't agree with them. The problem is, it makes it possible for the government to move more quickly. They can make more mistakes, and all of us will not benefit from it.

The introduction of these amendments by the member for Mississauga West is one more example of the lack of respect this government has for the Legislative Assembly, for the democratic process, for the opposition in this House and for the public in general. They're determined to move forward and they don't care if anyone disagrees with them.

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): I'm pleased to participate in this debate dealing with the proposed changes of the rules of this place. Most of the people in the opposition parties and many people on the government side have sat in opposition and in government and have experienced governments moving ahead with legislation and opposition fighting that.

It's a never-ending debate, in my estimation -- having sat only since 1990, and I know many members have sat much longer than that -- as to how fast a government should be allowed to put through legislation, and similarly, how much right an opposition party or an opposition member should have to slow down the government, or in some cases stop the government from even moving.

I must say, we have seen since 1990 a couple of occasions -- one was the current Premier of the province, the member for Nipissing, as the leader of the Conservative Party, the third party at the time, introducing a private member's bill dealing with rivers and streams. It was quite obviously, blatantly a delaying tactic of New Democratic legislation. The New Democratic government stopped that. You can't do that for an indefinite period of time. There's a limit as to how long it takes to introduce bills. There are time frames in this place as to how long it takes to do that.

I'm going to refer to three parties, because I think all three parties in this place have participated in delaying tactics. In the Liberal Party, Mr Curling, the member for Scarborough North, refused to vote on a piece of legislation when it was called on, and then he ignored the order of the Speaker to remove himself for his refusal. Essentially, it turned into a one-man sit-in by the member for Scarborough North in this place. This place came to a dead stop. The Speaker left the chamber, members from both opposition parties surrounded Mr Curling and prevented the Sergeant at Arms from physically removing the member for Scarborough North, and it finally took negotiation from the government and the members of the opposition parties to enable the member for Scarborough North to leave this place.

The question is, if the rules aren't changed, how long should a member of the opposition or any member of this place have to stop this place? Can an individual do that? Should an individual in this House have the right to stop this place from operating, to just make it come to a dead stop? Should a member have that right? I don't think he or she should.

The purpose of this place is to listen to debate for and against pieces of legislation. The purpose of the opposition, if they don't like what a government is doing, is to try and persuade the government to change its direction, to make amendments, but I don't think this place is designed so that an elected member of this place can simply come in here and stop the Legislature from proceeding. That's what the member for Scarborough North did. Some people gave him credit. I quite frankly don't give him credit. I don't think that's the way we should be doing business in this place.

The more recent incident, which was referred to by the last speaker, was the great filibuster, as it has been called. Some members of the opposition are particularly proud of that. That's where we went on for, what, 10 days, 24 hours a day, where members of the opposition introduced thousands of amendments.

Mr Wildman: Which were in order.

Mr Tilson: I'm not denying that they were in order and I'm not denying that members of the opposition have the right to introduce amendments. I remember occasionally members of the government would stand up and ask the Speaker: "Are they frivolous? Are they vexatious?" and yes, to the member, they were in order.

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But I guess the question is, could an opposition party in particular -- and all of us have been in government in the last decade, all three parties have been in office -- have the right to quadruple the number of amendments they introduce and hold this place to ransom? I don't mean to provoke the opposition, but do they have that right? Do they have the right to hold this place up for an indefinite period of time?

I give credit to the opposition. They were very ingenious in thinking of this tactic, in my estimation. I don't approve of it because, again, I don't think that's the way to do business in this place. I don't think that's the way to operate this province. It costs thousands of dollars to operate this place, opening 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Mr Wildman: What a bogus argument.

Mr Tilson: Well, I'm sorry, it does.

Mr Wildman: The Speaker said it's bogus.

Mr Tilson: You can agree or disagree with me. I guess the question I'm asking you as members of the opposition, particularly the members who are interjecting now who were in government, is, does an opposition party have the right to indefinitely hold up the House?

Mr Wildman: No, not indefinitely.

Mr Tilson: The member says no, and there lies the question, because in the great filibuster, which happened fairly recently, you could conceivably think up amendment after amendment after amendment after amendment and go on for more than 10 days. You could go on for months.

Mr Wildman: But they have to be tabled by a certain time.

Mr Tilson: They could be tabled by a certain time. It is possible. Now that it has happened, it's possible. If an opposition party doesn't like a particular piece of legislation, and obviously there are many pieces of legislation where this opposition doesn't like what this government is doing, if you felt like, "We're going to stop this government from doing anything; we're going to freeze this province; we're going to stop it dead in its tracks," that's the ability you have now. You've discovered it. You've discovered a means within the rules of presenting amendments which are in order, essentially bringing this province to a dead stop.

Mr Gilles Pouliot (Lake Nipigon): Name one piece of legislation we were able to trash.

Mr Wildman: Name one bill that you haven't been able to pass.

Ms Shelley Martel (Sudbury East): Name one bill that you haven't been able to pass.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Order. The member for Nipigon, the member for Sudbury East and the member for Algoma, order.

Mr Tilson: The member for Scarborough North, of course, discovered a way of simply not voting. There may be other ways as we proceed. Rivers and streams was one.

The question is, do we stand by as a government and allow members of the opposition to -- in my view, you have the right, as members of the opposition. How do I know that? I sat over there. I got upset with many of your government bills, as you well know: Bill 40, for example, and on it goes. We get into a philosophical difference, and I'm not here to get into that.

I believe that an opposition has the right to debate and has the right to put forward views and to say, "You people are crazy in what you're doing. You're destroying the province," etc, that type of rhetoric which everybody uses when they're in opposition. But do you have the right to stop this place from operating? I say you do not have that right.

Ms Martel: Name one bill you haven't been able to pass. Name one that the government hasn't been able to get through.

The Deputy Speaker: Member for Sudbury East.

Mr Tilson: It is for these and other reasons that these draft rules were introduced to this place for debate. The members of the opposition have said it's undemocratic and democracy is coming to an end in the province of Ontario, but I haven't heard one suggestion from the opposition on how to improve the decorum of this place -- not one. That's your job. Your job is to come forward with alternatives, not just to sit there and criticize. Anybody can criticize, but your job is to come forward with alternatives, and you haven't come forward with one alternative.

I'm going to refer to some of the amendments that were brought forward, the proposed amendments to the standing orders of this place.

Mr Wildman: We weren't prepared to concede that you could group amendments.

Mr Tilson: The member says he wasn't prepared to --

The Deputy Speaker: Order. There will be no interjections, please.

Mr Pouliot: We are fighting for democracy.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, member for Nipigon.

Mr Pouliot: The member for Nipigon is fighting for his democratic rights.

The Deputy Speaker: Member for Nipigon, I don't need to repeat it. Member for Dufferin-Peel.

Mr Tilson: All the members of this place have a copy of the notice of motion and the proposed amendments that were read into the record today. The first one is a general purpose clause, which in my estimation gives more authority to the Speaker. I can't believe that all members of this place don't agree with those four principles that are set forward, that members of the House have the right to submit motions, resolutions, bills -- I won't read them all. They're all there before you.

In my estimation, this place gives the Speaker more authority to do more things to better run this place, and the Speaker has a larger discretion, and I believe the Speaker needs that. Without provoking particularly the New Democratic members again, with respect to the issue of putting forward amendment after amendment after amendment after amendment, the Speaker now has the right to group. It's now codified in a later order.

Another question is the next one, which is that standing order 9(c) be deleted, and it talks about meeting between 6:30 and 9:30. Many members of the opposition are particularly annoyed with that order.

Mr Wildman: We are prepared to sit. We just don't want it to be counted as a second day.

Mr Tilson: Give me a chance and I will respond to that. I listened attentively to what you put forward.

To the member for Algoma, you commented that, yes, this has come from British Columbia, which allows this type of extension, and, yes, he is absolutely right, it allows for two question periods. He's absolutely right. It seems to be the main opposition from the two opposition parties that there is --

Mr Wildman: Before you say it, they don't count the answers when they move the clock.

The Deputy Speaker: Member for Algoma.

Mr Tilson: I'm trying to put forward some comments here. I had the courtesy to listen to you and I hope you'll give me the same courtesy.

In British Columbia, yes, the member for Algoma was quite right when he indicated that two question periods are allowed, but you've got to remember that those are only 15 minutes.

Mr Wildman: No, they are 45 minutes -- 15 minutes for questions. They don't count the answers.

Mr Tilson: They are 15 minutes.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr Wildman: Why doesn't he put the facts on the table?

The Deputy Speaker: Member for Algoma, you had your time. It's his time now. Just listen attentively. You'll have a chance. We'll go by rotation and you'll have a chance to debate. It's his turn. Member for Dufferin-Peel.

Mr Tilson: It has been referred to by the finance minister in a question in the House, and I have some Hansard before me of a response to a question by the member for St Catharines. I think this is important, and if I've got the facts incorrect, I'm sure it will be corrected at a later date. My understanding was that it was 15 minutes. If I'm incorrect, I stand to be corrected, but there are certainly other jurisdictions where there are shorter periods of time. We have an hour each day.

To quote Mr Eves from Hansard back on June 19: "...Parliament in Westminster where the Prime Minister of Great Britain stands up and makes himself available for all of about 20 minutes twice a week to answer questions." It was here where I got the facts, if I have them correct. This is what Mr Eves, who has researched it, has said: "British Columbia has a 15-minute question period.... The province of Saskatchewan has a 20-minute question period."

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Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Please, it is not questions and answers, it's a debate. It's his turn. If you have any remarks, any interjection you would like to bring in or anything you may oppose, wait for your turn.

Mr Tilson: The House of Commons has a 45-minute question period. All these times are shorter. Quite frankly, the issue of accountability, I would submit to you and to other members of the House, is there and remains to be there with respect to those sessional days.

There are other sections that are interesting. The naming of a member: Very little time has been spent on that. Standing orders 15 and 16 have been deleted. Last week a number of the New Democratic caucus, those who were in the House -- those who were participating in committees, I noticed, weren't here -- put on little stickers. Of course the Speaker ruled them out of order, they refused to take them off and the Speaker named them one by one and they left this place.

The question remains, what is a minor offence and what is a serious offence? In my short time here I have had a great deal of difficulty determining the difference between minor and serious because they seems to be the same. Whenever some offence occurs of the orders of this place, the rules of this place, the member leaves. Mr Curling, the member for Scarborough North, was an exception. That situation was an exception, but other than that, I can't really recall any other situations where the Speaker on that particular day says, "You're named," and you're gone for the day.

It seems to me, with respect, if members commit very serious offences, that something should be more than that.

Ms Martel: Call the police.

Mr Tilson: You say, "Call the police." You can be silly about it, but the fact of the matter is that there are serious rule offences and there are minor ones and there doesn't seem to be a distinction between the two. It seems to me that if a member is acting inappropriately in a very serious manner, the Speaker should have the right to treat that differently from a minor offence.

This rule says, "When a member is named by the Speaker, if the offence is a minor one, the Speaker may order the member to withdraw for the balance of the sessional day; but if the matter appears to the Speaker to be of a more serious nature, the Speaker shall put the question on the motion being made, no amendment, adjournment or debate being allowed, `that such member be suspended from the service of the House,' such suspension being for any time stated in the motion not exceeding eight sessional days."

Mr Pouliot: Dictatorship.

Mr Tilson: You can say that's dictatorship; I don't think it is. If a member in this place is acting in an irresponsible and serious manner, he or she should be treated accordingly. If you don't do that, we're going to have chaos.

I haven't much time to speak, but with respect to the change, we now have that when members are speaking in their place, the lead speaker speaks for 90 minutes, or has the ability to speak for 90 minutes, and then each subsequent speaker can speak for half an hour, 30 minutes. I must say it has become a very rare occasion for the lead speaker or the critic of the opposition party, or the minister indeed or parliamentary assistant, the opening speaker, to speak for 90 minutes, very rare indeed. In fact, generally what happens is, on unanimous consent, two speakers share that time.

There's no question that members of the opposition and members of the government have the right to speak for and against. I guess it leads back to the time the New Democratic Party's member for Welland-Thorold gave his famous filibuster, 17 hours. He had a filibuster. You can't filibuster in this place any more; you can't go on forever. The question remains, if you're a member of the opposition, how much time do you have to criticize the government? Should 90 minutes be fair? Should forever be fair? Should 17 hours be fair? What is fair? I ask you. You're supposed to be providing constructive alternatives.

With respect to what these standing orders are saying, the opening speaker shall speak for 40 minutes, and then after that I believe it's 20 minutes.

Mr Wildman: And then 10.

Mr Tilson: And then 10.

Ms Martel: You'll be gone by then.

Mr Tilson: Maybe I should be.

The Deputy Speaker: Member for Dufferin-Peel, just ignore the interjections.

Mr Tilson: Oh, it's so tempting.

The Deputy Speaker: Just ignore them, please.

Mr Tilson: The other issue which seems to be of contest to the opposition parties is the issue with respect to changing the order of routine proceedings. One of the latest tricks that has occurred --

Interjection.

The Deputy Speaker: Member for Lake Nipigon, I have repeatedly told you to stop interjecting. I would ask you to stop interjecting.

Mr Tilson: There obviously are attempts by the opposition from time to time to delay proceedings, particularly if they're annoyed at action that is being taken, particularly if the action is being taken by a government in a resolution or bill. One of the things they do is that somewhere in the line just before orders of the day they ask for an adjournment, 30 minutes, and they can do that. It causes substantial delays. I must say, in my estimation as one member of this place, I find those tactics very trivial. Is that the way business should be done in Ontario, by ringing bells? This has been going on for some time. Is that the way you, if you were ever to regain power over on this side, want to do business? Is that how you want to do it, by simply allowing those trivial tricks to delay the proceedings of this place? I would hope not.

One of the other issues which may be considered of a minor nature, and I think the member for Algoma mentioned it, is the questions on the order paper. The original draft amendment said four, and now that has been increased to a proposal of 10. You look at these things, these Orders and Notices, and they go on for pages and pages and pages. Yes, members of the opposition have the right to put forward questions, but they all have to be answered by the staff.

Interjection: That's good.

Mr Tilson: Yes, good. Exactly. But should you be given the unlimited discretion of putting forward questions and questions and questions forever? I submit that some of the questions are very repetitive, are frivolous and don't need to be asked. I know we're going to get into a debate since you're in the opposition and I'm in the government, but I think we've all seen how it works. That is why that has come forward. When you start looking at pages and pages of these questions on the order paper, one has to provide some sort of restraint on that issue.

The issue of the independent member is being dealt with in these rules. I understand that the member for Elgin had some say in those proposals. That's occurring. We have one independent member in the House of Commons. In the last government, there were several other independent members sitting in this place. From time to time that happens. Right now, they don't have any rights; they have zero rights at all, unless the Speaker feels in a good mood to give him or her the right to speak. I feel that these amendments being put forward for the independent member, not only to speak in this place but to sit on at least one standing committee, are good changes.

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I know it has been quoted before. The opposition enjoys quoting what the now Premier said and what the finance minister said when he was House leader. Well, I'm going to quote the former House leader for the Liberal Party, the government House leader at the time, the member for Renfrew North. He made a number of statements almost eight years ago.

"We felt we were facing a pattern of obstructionism that was really making this place somewhat less effective and less effective than the people of Ontario expect it to be." That applies today. "What we saw here through the spring of 1988 to late spring 1989 was unprecedented in so far as the traditions and the customs and practices of this Legislature were concerned." That's happening today.

"These rule changes are significant. They do move this Legislature forward, and they move it forward in a way that respects a lot of what is being done in other parliaments in the British Commonwealth. I believe they are changes that effect a fair and reasonable balance, giving to the government a clearer means by which to get on with business. Surely the emphasis must be on debate, on decision."

I respect the member for Renfrew North.

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): I don't think you really mean that. Tell us you don't believe that.

Mr Tilson: Well, I do respect him. I think that one quote, that one sentence -- surely the emphasis must not be on stalling, on delaying. Surely the emphasis should be, as the member for Renfrew North said, on debate, on decision.

To again quote Mr Conway, the member for Renfrew North:

"Government members always think the opposition is being really rude and obnoxious and not doing what an upright citizen should do. Opposition members think the government is really being pigheaded about all this and ramrodding something down the throats of everyone else. This is the heart of the parliamentary system."

That's the way it has been. All members of this House have discovered that the system we have in this place isn't working. The members in the opposition are going to scream that it's undemocratic and that democracy has come to an end. If they don't like the proposed rule changes, I challenge them to come forward with some proposed rules that will make these things that have been happening stop.

Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): I don't think that, other than Bill 26, there is a more important bill or motion before the House than this one. The reason for it, of course, is because it affects the procedures of the whole House.

I must tell you that I take my job as an opposition member seriously, to try to be critical and to critique something on the issue. It's not easy not to be cynical when you see the way, first of all, this motion was introduced. It was introduced on the day of the federal election, the first time since 1874 that the members of the provincial Legislature have not been released to participate in the federal election. Why? Because the media would be preoccupied.

The motion was introduced into the House later in the week, and then today it was introduced, without any notification to our House leader, with literally minutes to go, on a day on which one of their own members is having his funeral, Mr Larry Grossman. Why? Because the media will of course be preoccupied with covering the life and the work and the contributions Mr Grossman has made. I bet that Mr Grossman, if he were here today, would be very upset with what is going on here.

I think it's important that we understand the context. I can recall that during the discussions on Bill 26, when we tried to -- and I guess we successfully did. We caused the government to back off from trying to ram something through very quickly. Because we were able to hold the government up a bit, they introduced about 155 amendments of their own to that piece of legislation and backed off on many issues that had to do with the rights of people and the role of this Legislature.

Interjection.

Mr Patten: Mr Speaker, could I get some quiet?

I can well recall talking with -- I won't name the member. It would be ironic. I won't name the member on the government side who at that time said: "We got elected. We should be able to do what we want." That is, unfortunately, part of the mentality. Some people come here from business and think the same way: "If I have a business licence, I can do anything I want, as long as it's within the law." That shows there is little understanding or little sensitivity to the concept of what responsible government is.

Mr Gilchrist: You get your way and we don't.

Mr Patten: Mr Gilchrist, I'd like to address that, because I think you're one of the proponents of: "Just move everything through. To hell with anybody else. The opposition is just a pain in the neck." I'd rather use other parts of the body to be more illustrative of your attitude.

But there is a step in there: The party that forms the government formulates their legislation -- fine -- and then they have a responsibility to put it before the people. They do that in a Legislature which has a balance of opportunity for discussion, exploration, debate and critique. That's a form of parliamentary procedure we have. I'll address this in the words of many of the Conservative Party's members when they were in opposition, when in 1992 the NDP was looking at changing some of those bills and what some of the comments were, and we'll see where they stand today.

I hear the term "efficiency" and one of my colleagues said that the Legislature is not the same as a company --

Interjection.

Mr Pouliot: You appeal to the worst instincts. Press all the sensitive buttons: attack the poor, move up the food chain.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Nipigon, the member for Ottawa Centre has the floor.

Mr Patten: Thank you to the member for Nipigon.

I hear the term "efficiency" being used. Efficiency, of course, is a relative term, related to what you are doing. I know there is a prevailing view that we always take the business view: everything's business. I'm surprised that there hasn't been a bill put forward in this Legislature to privatize the Legislature itself. Maybe that is in the works.

What do you talk about in terms of efficiency if you're a heart surgeon or a neurosurgeon? Of course the business view would be: "We've got to get these procedures down into so many hours. We've got to average it out and we've got to make sure that the surgeons can only operate for a certain period of time." If they can't do the job within that period of time, then what are you going to do? Walk away from the operating table and let the patient die? It's a silly concept unless you apply the concept of efficiency to the reality of, what is your mission and what is your responsibility? In terms of ours, it is of course to debate, to explore, to criticize, to suggest and all those kinds of things, in the interest of the best possible legislation for the people of Ontario.

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I also want to say that in the prelude to the paper provided by the member for Nepean, not only I but every member in this House should have been personally insulted by attempting to suggest that our workweek of 20 hours in the House -- why were we not ready to work as most other workers are, who work 37 to 40 hours a week? Frankly, I was insulted. I think most members were, or if they weren't, they should be.

Mr Gilchrist: Not the hardworking ones.

The Deputy Speaker: Member for Scarborough East.

Mr Patten: The member for Nepean knows damn well that part of his job is to go home to his constituents, to his riding, and listen to what people are saying about proposed legislation, listen to what people are saying about what the government is doing and how it's doing it and what they think and feel about that. That takes time, to go to meetings, to attend conferences or to have people in your riding office or to visit hospitals or to visit schools, whatever it may be. That takes time. That's the only way, in my opinion, you can make sure you don't retain tunnel vision, by getting out and talking to the people of Ontario, especially the people you represent.

That takes a lot of time. I can't tell you how many nights and weekends I work in my riding, as I think most members do. To insinuate that somehow 20 hours in this House is almost the total job of MPPs is an insult to every member in this House, and I think every member knows that: the time you spend with people not only in your own riding but in other parts of Ontario travelling around listening to people on different pieces of legislation.

I fear this motion fits with what I would describe as, "The heavy hand of government strikes again." The government is showing that it does not trust the existing structures. It doesn't trust the existing structures in terms of health services restructuring; it had to set up the Health Services Restructuring Commission as a separate body, ostensibly to have more objective analysis of what may happen. Why did it not negotiate with the district health councils, which had proposals, had all the data? Health restructuring commissions are out there.

We don't even know the database on which they're operating. We have to wait, like little children, for information, not even sure of the information they're dealing with, the nature of their analysis. When we ask them to provide independent analysis of some of their recommendations that don't hold water, it has apparently no affect at all. Of course it's at arm's length from the government, and the Minister of Health will say, "This was not me, this was this independent body of experts," in relation to whatever part of Ontario they're going to be dealing with.

They have a report, I understand, from Ottawa-Carleton that is complete, but they're not releasing it. Why is that? Is that because they want to share their findings and their final conclusions with the government and want to talk about that and want to explore its reaction? Hopefully, that's part of it. Is it because they want to completely brief and share all the information on which they have based their findings and their recommendations? Hopefully, that's true too. Some people may say the reason they're waiting is because the House is still in session and the government will be held more accountable by virtue of question period if they come through with what might be, and most likely will be, very unpopular recommendations.

We have in the field of education what's called, I think cynically, the Education Improvement Commission. It might better have been called the education implementation or adjustment commission, but they always use these neat terms. There's some wordsmith in the Premier's office who's obviously very good at coining these phrases that often mean the antithesis of the true mission of the legislation. This Education Improvement Commission, by the way, will be another vehicle that will stand between the government and school boards so the minister can say, "It wasn't me, it wasn't the government; it is this group that will be sorting out these particular issues."

Then, because of all the changes that are going to be taking place in health, in education, in municipalities, what do we find? Lo and behold, another commission -- two. The commission for the transition phase of groups, in a municipality, for example, where there is an amalgamation: What happens to the workers who have one contract and one arrangement and the other workers on another? I spent a little time studying this. I must ask, why did the government not use the Ontario Labour Board? They say because the Ontario Labour Board is busy, too busy to deal with this particular issue.

That's not the information I glean when I do an analysis of the situation. Why didn't they take some of the resources they will automatically have to spend and add them to the role of the labour board? There's a body of knowledge and experience there that will not be utilized. The Ontario Labour Board is highly respected, does a lot of work. It's probably the greatest body of knowledge in labour relations in our province. What is this other commission going to cost? Nobody's talked about that. It'll be funny to see -- it'll be interesting to see, rather, not funny -- how much all these interventionist, transitory, government-set-up structures that affect the lives of people are going to cost.

Then we had, in terms of legislation, the impositions: Bill 26; Bill 103, the imposition on Metropolitan Toronto, when the Premier himself said he would never impose amalgamation on any municipality. Tell that to the people of Metro Toronto.

Then with a major bill, Bill 99, the behaviour of this government: snuck in on a Thursday afternoon, with two hours' notice to the opposition parties, with no notification. This doesn't happen by accident. They're not that sloppy. They're sloppy on a number of issues, but they're not that sloppy. This is calculated: "How can we catch the opposition off guard? How can we catch them when the media is preoccupied and they have their attention on other things? What's the quietest time?"

Thursday afternoon is probably one of the quieter times, because the members who don't live in Metropolitan Toronto often travel hundreds of miles to their ridings so they could go to a meeting on Thursday afternoon or Thursday night in their ridings and spend Friday and the weekend there and get ready to come back here again, late Sunday night, usually. These things are not by accident, but that's what this government likes to do, like today, as I've said: notification minutes before this was introduced.

Then we hear, "We want an opportunity for the backbenchers on the government side." Let me address that. The backbenchers on the government side have a luxury the opposition parties do not have. First of all, if your caucus operates democratically, you have prior knowledge about what's coming down, what your government wants, what your cabinet wants. You should be having hours and hours of opportunity to sit in caucus and debate these issues and form subcommittees and throw in your ideas and test some of these ideas etc etc. We in opposition do not have that luxury.

You say you get no chance to speak to it. It's got nothing to do with offering your ideas, unless you have an undemocratic caucus, I say to you; there is some evidence that may be true, according to some of your own members, that it is not as democratic as it may be.

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But that's where the backbenchers on the government side can have their greatest voice: in the very creation of the legislation your government is proposing. You should be a big part of that. That's where things happen. We are not afforded that opportunity, for obvious reasons. When you say "to be able to come here and speak," you should have said that prior to the introduction of that legislation. That should have had some effect, hopefully. If you were right, if you had good observations, good suggestions, that would have made a difference and you would have some satisfaction in knowing that you carried forward some thoughts that made a difference in the proposed legislation. But no, I suspect there's frustration because that's not what has happened. The only other recourse is to try to stand up in the House and comment on it. It's a poor alternative.

I would like to give an analogy: It's like a bus. Let's say the driver of the bus is the government House leader. We're all on the bus, and the bus is filled. Most of the members are from the government side. When you step on the bus and the bus gets going, the opposition is told, "We're just going here, this direction." Then, because some of the members who are sitting on that bus are opposition members, they say, "Mr Bus Driver, I'd like to ask you, if you're going to such-and-such a destination, why don't you take this road over here, because you could get there a little quicker?" or, "If on the way you want to stop and listen to people, why not go over to this community?" That would be normal for the opposition to do, because they don't have the strategy. The bus driver does, and the government members on the bus all know it, so they don't say very much, because they're in the know. The opposition is not in the know, until they get on the bus and find out where they're going.

The member for Scarborough East, for example, the other day used the phrase "the nattering nabobs of negativism." What a cynic. I would say to that that the "napalm bombs of bullyism" is really what should best describe you guys.

Mr Gilchrist: Is that your idea of alliteration? I see we need more education reforms.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Scarborough East, keep control.

Mr Patten: So I would say to you, on the issue of backbencher involvement and participation, look to your own caucus for that kind of an opportunity.

I'd like to share with the government a few comments that were made by some of their own revered and respected members of the Legislature. Some of them may have already been quoted, but one in particular that I would like to quote has to do with the present Minister of Finance, Mr Eves. This was during a debate in 1992. I wasn't in the House at the time; of course, I was watching it faithfully on television because it was so exciting. It was so exciting at the time, I followed this day and night. That was a debate on some pending rule changes that the NDP wanted to bring in, and the Conservative Party didn't like these recommendations at all. Ernie Eves said:

"This government" -- at the time he was referring to the NDP -- "surely is no different from any other government before it. Be we Conservative governments, Liberal governments or now New Democratic governments, we have all had difficulties with very controversial pieces of legislation."

He goes on to say:

"The party that has always stood for...minority groups and minority interests, was always willing to go to bat for an individual's freedom of speech and right to differ, now wants to introduce a set of totalitarian rules or dictatorial rules -- despotic rules, actually -- so it can cut off debate and have any piece of legislation it wants in a certain given amount of time."

That's what Ernie Eves said at the time. Then we have Norm Sterling. I quoted part of what he said in his statement today. Norm Sterling, the Minister of the Environment -- I wonder where he stands today -- said in a letter quoted in the House by Ernie Eves: "In our 125-year history the rules (our constitution)," the rules of our House, "have never been changed without negotiations with the other political parties. Parliament is intended to be a balance between the right of government to govern and the opposition to oppose. In a majority Parliament" -- and I underline that; a majority Parliament, which is what we have -- "the only tool for the opposition to seek compromise is to delay."

I go on further in Mr Sterling's letter: "If Mr Rae gets his way (and he eventually can), he will virtually eliminate the usefulness of opposition members in the Legislature and in committees, save for question period. Over the past six years in opposition I have been successful in forcing the government of the day to accept some amendments to their legislation. My only tool was to delay or threaten delay. What sense is there for me to bother" to be here "to debate if I have no means to make them listen?" "To be here" was my addition. That was Norm Sterling. I wonder what he's saying in caucus these days about the proposed rule changes coming down that will change the face of this Legislature.

Mr Eves goes on to say: "Rules governing our Legislature are boring stuff for the public. I understand why the public believe that we are being childish in using every stalling technique available to us. However, we are fighting for the life of our democratic institution and must continue to do so until the government agrees to sit down and find a reasonable compromise. We will continue to be ready to negotiate new rules which will make Parliament more efficient" -- not afforded the opposition today.

Mr Eves continues: "Because of the fact that opposition parties exercised their right to delay and express opposition to certain aspects of that legislation and because members of the public had an opportunity for weeks on end to come and express their concerns -- and very sincere concerns at that -- to many different aspects of those pieces of legislation, the end result was that we ended up with better legislation.

"That is exactly how this place is supposed to work and why it works so well. That is why, in my opinion, our system of government is far superior to the republican or presidential system of government." Mr Ernie Eves, the present finance minister; I wonder if he's sharing his views.

He goes on to say that introducing legislative changes "can't be done by holding a gun to somebody's head, so to speak" -- I've heard that phrase used in a few of the speeches on this particular motion -- "and it can't be done by forcing unilateral rule changes on members of the other two parties." What is happening? That's what we're getting: something being forced on the opposition.

As has already been said in a nutshell, the biggest and most important change is that the government will be able to proceed without the messiness of the opposition parties intervening; this is efficiency. Well, it's not efficiency, because you are not afforded the views of members from all over this particular province, with different backgrounds, different talents, different observations. The beauty of this place, at the end of the day, is the opportunity to hear viewpoints. The system is set up and designed to protect the people of Ontario from tyranny.

What's tyranny? Tyranny is when somebody grabs power, takes power and tries to do whatever they want when they want. In Latin America, that's called a junta. You take power, you do what you want and, "Everyone else be quiet, because we are right." I must say in all regret that I feel some of that attitude is there with this particular government.

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I suggest that I don't think any government in any Legislature in Canada, any single party, has the right to impose unilateral changes. They should not have that right. I, for one, propose that we should have a committee, let's say four members from the government side, two members from the Liberals, two members from the NDP, and let them go to work and hammer it out. They would have to convince each other of rules that make sense. They would have to be big enough to think of this institution as being germane and core to our very way of life in Ontario, our democratic way of life that we have now taken for granted in many ways, which is a hazard.

I used to feel proud, as I went around the world -- when I worked in international development I visited almost 60 countries -- to talk about the democracy in Canada. But if the implementation of these rules --

Interjections.

M. Patten : Monsieur, s'il vous plaît. Sacrement.

Excuse me. I'm sorry, Mr Speaker. I withdraw that statement.

Mr Pouliot: Mr Speaker, on a point of order.

The Deputy Speaker: Please take your seat, member for Nipigon. I think I heard the same word. Do you withdraw it?

Mr Patten: Yes.

I feel very deeply about this. I feel that our way of life is based upon the health of the Legislature. I fear that the media is not paying much attention to this. People outside, for whatever reason -- our vehicles of communication perhaps are not as effective as they should be. But if we lose the right in the opposition be able to critique something satisfactorily and reasonably, I say to you that every Ontario individual and the media themselves will lose rights as well. They'll wake up and say, "What happened to the Ontario we care about, that was so democratic?"

The democratic veneer is very thin, and as the member for Carleton East said the other day, it can be chipped away in many small steps. If that's allowed to happen, one day we may wake up and find ourselves in situations like those unfortunate individuals who live in other countries we call totalitarian states or dictatorial states, non-democratic states. We are facing the Legislature of Ontario the most undemocratic Legislature in all of Canada if these rules are implemented. That is the gospel truth. We can't let that happen. I hope the people of Ontario wake up, and I hope the members individually stand up for the Legislature of Ontario.

Report continues in volume B.

23 juin 1997