L220b - Wed 27 Aug 1997 / Mer 27 Aoû 1997
The House met at 1830.
PUBLIC SECTOR TRANSITION STABILITY ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 VISANT À ASSURER LA STABILITÉ AU COURS DE LA TRANSITION DANS LE SECTEUR PUBLIC
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 136, An Act to provide for the expeditious resolution of disputes during collective bargaining in certain sectors and to facilitate collective bargaining following restructuring in the public sector and to make certain amendments to the Employment Standards Act and the Pay Equity Act / Projet de loi 136, Loi prévoyant le règlement rapide des différends lors des négociations collectives dans certains secteurs, facilitant les négociations collectives à la suite de la restructuration dans le secteur public et apportant certaines modifications à la Loi sur les normes d'emploi et à la Loi sur l'équité salariale.
Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): I'm very pleased to have an opportunity to speak to Bill 136 and to express very clearly the strong opposition that I personally have to this bill but that I am proud to represent my constituents as having.
It's indeed a very serious issue when a government is making massive change and then decides it is going so fast it cannot allow the normal process of labour relations to proceed. We have had a situation in this province over many years where due process in labour relations has been extremely important not only to employees, not only to union members, but also to the employers.
We all know that when those who are in a relationship of employment need to work together to find mutually satisfactory solutions, the possibility of those solutions holding, the possibility of those solutions being the groundwork for productive and very contributing work when it is in the public service is the best way to achieve these circumstances.
In this province, when the decision was made that there were some workers whose work was essential, who would not be able to strike, to withdraw their services, a process was put into place to make sure they did not lose all their rights in giving up the right of strike, that there was a fair process that would ensure they could come to a just conclusion when they have issues in the employment area.
Members of this House will remember how insulted, how incredibly insulted, firefighters were in this province when this government decided to put a no-strike clause in the new Fire Protection Act. They were insulted because it never occurred to them to withdraw their services. They are public servants and they are proud of it, and they are always prepared to go into a dispute resolution process that is balanced and has fairness on both sides. That is true of the other essential workers who, along with firefighters, are affected by this bill.
The underlying assumption in this bill is a disregard of the commitment, a disregard of the good faith of those who adopt public service in these essential service fields. That is what makes it so sad, because what this government is saying is: "We are making such massive changes, we are so hell-bent on ensuring that there are cuts and reductions in every area of public service, we know it's going to create chaos and we have come down very clearly on the side of employers."
Nowhere is that more evident than in the health care field. At least the Ontario Hospital Association and the chief executive officers of major hospitals, the big winners in the huge restructuring process, are not trying to fool their employees. They're very blunt and clear in public. But if they're going to accomplish it in the time frame this government has insisted upon, they need a process whereby they can get a resolution immediately, not a resolution that is mutually negotiated, but immediately.
They have again and again publicly stated that the only way they can meet the deadlines in the restructuring commission's orders is if they can override the collective bargaining rights of the employees they employ. At least they're not as duplicitous as municipal authorities, who we know have asked the government for the same kind of hammer for their employees but who, when they see the rage out there and understand the difficulty they're going to have in terms of retaining any kind of decency in their subsequent relations with their employees, at least are urging this government not to go forward with this bill at this point but to enter into meaningful dialogue with unions and with employers to see if some other method of resolving potential disputes is met.
My colleague the member for Hamilton Centre read from an article written by the head of the Canadian Union of Public Employees in which it was pointed out that all this paranoia being expressed by the government in this bill arises out of their view of the rights of workers. It is extremely important that we understand that Bill 136 is a very clear statement of the regard -- I should say, of course, the lack of regard -- this government is showing for the collective bargaining process, for the good faith and the commitment of public servants in this province, for the willingness of essential workers to continue to keep their promises around providing essential services even when labour disputes are there, and finally for the workers themselves.
Bill 136 is a very clear demarcation for this province in the whole field of labour relations. It's very sad, because once you make it very clear that there is no trust on the part of the government that those who are in essential services will continue to provide those essential services, ongoing problems in the labour relations field follow as the night does the day.
Why do I say there's a basic lack of trust and an imbalance in this act? Clearly, the way it is set up, both parties have to agree to go to an arbitration by a fair and impartial, mutually agreed-to arbitrator. We've heard from the OHA that there's no way they're going to agree to that. I was talking to employee representatives on the committee that has been set up in London to accomplish hospital restructuring, a human resource planning committee set up by order of the hospital restructuring commission to include all the representatives of all the bargaining units and the employers. Given the very urgent timetable of hospital restructuring, particularly the very imminent transfer of two psychiatric hospitals to the responsibility of the St Joseph's Health Centre, one would think this committee would be meeting weekly for hours to try to resolve the many issues there in terms of a human resource planning function.
1840
Is that what's happening? No, it is not. It's not happening because the employer representatives on that committee have made it very clear that they're not proceeding with the human resources planning function until Bill 136 is in place, until they have sword of Damocles in their hands, over the necks of all those union representatives, those employee representatives, until they have all the power in their hands. Why do they have all the power? Because if either party says an agreement isn't possible, it goes to this Dispute Resolution Commission, and we all know what that means.
We all know that the fair and impartial members of this commission are going to mirror the kinds of choices the Minister of Natural Resources has insisted upon for the Niagara Escarpment Commission. "Fair and impartial" means someone who has already declared his, usually, or her allegiance to a particular point of view. That certainly is clear with the new chair of the Niagara Escarpment Commission, who has opposed the ability of the Niagara Escarpment Commission to protect the environment along a very sensitive piece of the environment, has very clearly been part of the move away from the environmental and natural resource protection that has been very important.
Who can we expect to be appointed to this commission? Why on earth would employees believe that a government that has consistently and consistently attacked their ability to bargain collectively with their employers would appoint people in whom they could have any faith and trust? Why would they? These are not foolish people. They know that the arbitration process that was set up for essential employees was a tradeoff, and the tradeoff was, "If we can't strike, we have to have recourse to an arbitrator who is not necessarily going to represent only one side of the equation."
Arbitrators are chosen and have to be acceptable to both sides. There is a list of them, and they go along. They of course become unacceptable to either side if they show themselves unable to demonstrate the kind of impartiality necessary to the arbitration process when you have taken away the only tool people have to represent the interests of their employees.
For those employees who are not classified as essential employees who are also going to be affected by this act, they are going to come under this hammer as well. Of course, we all are waiting for the school board hammer; we're all waiting for Mr Snobelen to drop that crisis on the whole system of education.
What becomes very clear in all the actions going on is that the government is not prepared to patiently negotiate and to allow fairness to apply. They are so determined to get their own way that they cannot allow that process to unwind. They are in such a hurry to try to accomplish, according to their timetable, the transformation of Ontario from a well-serviced, well-respected, safe community to their vision of the neo-con heaven that they cannot have the patience to allow the kind of negotiation that could resolve these problems.
It is very sad to me, because I've seen the fact that this can be resolved between employers and employees during substantial change. The member for Windsor-Sandwich talked about how that had been accomplished with hospital restructuring in Windsor.
In London, University Hospital and Victoria Hospital joined to form the London Health Sciences Centre. University Hospital was not unionized in its nursing staff. There were substantial differences in representation and the groups representing the various non-nursing staff groups between those two facilities. Yet, with time, with patience, with a lot of discussion, they were able to accomplish what they needed to do to bring those two entities together without a labour dispute. It wasn't easy. There were many differences between the groups, but they managed to do that, and they managed to leave those employees who were unionized to maintain their status and those who were unionized to maintain theirs.
This government comes along and says: "When the next step of restructuring comes along, we know better than those employers and employees. We're going to set up a process whereby someone chosen by cabinet is going to decide who will be the representative of those groups and is going to decide what the outcome of any disputes will be" -- very, very contrary to what has gone on in Ontario over many years.
It doesn't have to be this way. Change can be accomplished without the confrontation, without the clear disregard for the rights of those who are employees in this province. It is completely unnecessary for this government to make any assumption about the inability of employees and employers to negotiate. It is not right that they would preclude a process that might indeed, as it did, I believe, at the London Health Sciences Centre, enable groups of employees to work together who had not been able to do that in the past.
I have another very deep concern, and that's around the police of this province. I have a very deep concern around the fine women and men who make up the Ontario Provincial Police, the fact that they are in a situation where they have slipped from being a force that had a very adequate level of salary compared to other police forces in this province to 27th place now, at the very same time they are having to take on more and more responsibility for complex investigations as part of the change in policing we're seeing, at the very time we are trying to find ways to police effectively in areas that may make determinations around the change of their policing structure.
They have not had a contract for a good length of time. They've been working for a year without a contract, and they applied on May 1 for arbitration. They didn't ask for the right to strike; they applied for arbitration. This bill comes along and says that if your proceedings were commenced after June 3, there is absolutely no way you can get to arbitration. Since they applied for arbitration on May 1, they have a little hope, because this bill says the prohibition doesn't apply if the proceedings were commenced before June 3 and a final decision is issued before the DRA comes into force.
1850
We know this government is trying to rush this legislation through so fast, and we know the minister didn't agree until recently. The last I heard, and certainly in the paper this morning, there was a suggestion that no arbitrator is yet acting with the parties. The minister said this morning in the paper that he has every confidence that he can resolve this dispute before this bill comes into place. Yet we have, I would say, in the London Free Press on August 19, the Management Board Chair saying very clearly: "`The provincial government is trying to hold the line.... This government holds the police in high esteem, but at the same time we have a budget to balance and that is a concern.'...Johnson said the government has to be careful it doesn't set a precedent with the OPP that would lead to costly new agreements right across the province."
We know who gets his way most often in the cabinet. We know who's more powerful in the cabinet. The police officers of this province, the Ontario Provincial Police, deserve better. We will be watching to see if the Solicitor General indeed is acting in good faith and if indeed there will be a resolution to this problem, because I have an apprehension and the police officers who talk to me have an apprehension. They believe very strongly that they may be left out in the cold even though they have been loyal supporters of their inability to strike and loyal supporters of the notion that you have an alternative dispute resolution when this sort of situation occurs that is binding on all parties.
Already we hear the police saying they will be supporting the other civil servants who oppose this bill. I would say to this government that one of the ways in which you need to understand the effect of this bill is to listen to those police officers and how it's likely to affect them.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Gary L. Leadston): Questions and comments?
Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls): I want to thank the member for London Centre for her comments and her contribution to the debate. I just want to touch on a few things that she touched on, one being that either party can refer a dispute to the Dispute Resolution Commission. This is true, but she did neglect to mention that that's the case only after each side bargains in good faith and has exhausted all existing labour relations possibilities which currently exist. So it's not something where they can just turn around tomorrow and say: "Well, we're not going to talk to you. Off to the DRC it goes." This is something where the commissioner at the DRC will say, "No, you have to bargain in good faith under the Labour Relations Act," and if he sees another side, he can send them back.
The other contention I think that's really unrealistic is who will be appointed to the Labour Relations Transition Commission and Dispute Resolution Commission. I think it would be naïve to say that the person who ran my barbecue last summer could be someone who the Tories would promote to one of these commissions. Realistically, the issues that are going to have to be handled by both commissions are very complex and you can be assured that the government will only appoint people who have a history, have experience and have a good knowledge of the issues that are going to come before them. That's only common sense.
Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): I'm pleased to respond to the comments made by the member for London Centre. They were thoughtful and very rational and well reasoned. I think she's absolutely correct when she points out the negative assumptions behind this bill. There's no doubt about it: There was no consultation, as everyone has said -- as AMO has said, as the police have said, as the firefighters have said. It assumes that people will attempt to take advantage of a situation and it definitely distorts the arrangement.
As a matter of fact, the Police Association of Ontario views the legislation as the government's way of fixing the game in favour of the municipalities' administrations. If that were not true, why is it that several municipalities have said they will not enter into negotiations until such time as 136 is in effect because they know it will favour their position?
When the member for Niagara Falls, the PA to the minister, says they have to pursue all possible avenues, we know that is not going to be the case when the employer has what the member for London Centre calls a hammer to use, and they will use it. Why will they use it? Because they're strapped for resources. Many resources have been taken away by this provincial government, resources that were needed to continue services, and now they have to scramble for various ways to cut costs to maintain as many services as possible, and that will of course include doing it on the backs of their own employees.
Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre): I want to commend and compliment my colleague from London Centre on her very exact analysis and carefully thought through remarks that clearly point out that indeed this government has no interest in real bargaining. What they want to do is to make sure that those working women and men and their families pay the price of their download and their tax cut. That's the message the member for London Centre is sending out.
I might point out that there's no doubt in anyone's mind that contrary to what the parliamentary assistant may be saying about the fact that there has to be meaningful bargaining and if there's bad-faith bargaining, it all has to start over, the reality is, and the members opposite should know, as the member for London Centre does, that winning a case of bargaining in bad faith is very difficult. It requires an awful lot of clear-cut evidence. This is not an easy threshold to cross.
Therefore, knowing that, an employer who has decided to use the benefit of the Dispute Resolution Commission, which of course will be the right-wing handmaiden of this government in terms of stripping collective agreements, can get to that commission quite readily, quite easily, and the chances of them getting caught out are relatively slim. We all know that. That's why, quite frankly, it's so insulting for this government to continue to say, as my colleague from London Centre has pointed out, that they care about having meaningful collective bargaining.
You have no such desire. That's not what Bill 136 is about. It allows you to spin that facade out there, but the reality is that there won't be any bargaining. There's going to be gutting: gutting of collective agreements, lowering of wages, lowering of benefits, lowering of standard of living for those families, for those women and men who provide the public service to the rest of us in this province.
Lastly, let me just say, because the member for London Centre did point out about who's going to get appointed to this commission, that for the parliamentary assistant to suggest how ridiculous it would be for the person running his barbecue to be appointed to the commission, don't forget that your Solicitor General, Bob Runciman, appointed his own campaign manager to the parole board.
Mr Michael Gravelle (Port Arthur): I would like to add my comments in response to the very thoughtful remarks made by the member for London Centre.
Certainly she touched on a number of areas, and I think did it in a very quiet but strong way, in the sense of recognizing that there seems to be this extraordinary need to rush the legislation through. We know about the rule changes. We've seen what's happened with that. We're sitting here again this evening discussing this bill, and one expects the government is keen to get into second reading as quickly as possible. But we think it's important that this bill be discussed in as long a fashion as possible so that the truth can be out there.
The fact is that the Dispute Resolution Commission, despite what the member for Niagara Falls says, is clearly a stacked deck. It's setting things up so that the person who will be appointed by the government will clearly be appointed with the government's intentions in mind. That seems very, very much the case.
1900
The fact is, this all comes back to the same issue, the issue that goes back to the beginning, in early January of this year, during mega-week I guess we called it, when the downloading process began. When that downloading process began, it became very clear that this government was intent on transferring a number of responsibilities which have become very clearly seen as a massive downloading on to the municipalities, putting the municipalities into a position where they absolutely have no choice but to make some tough decisions.
This government would like to say this is what the municipalities want and this is what the municipalities have asked for. The fact is, we know from the meeting this past week in Toronto with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario that they have asked the government to withdraw this bill. They have asked the government not to set up a situation where confrontation is the order of the day. They recognize that they're going through very difficult times. They do not want this difficulty added on with Bill 136. I suggest it would be in the best interests of the government to listen to AMO and to withdraw this piece of legislation right now.
Mrs Boyd: I thank the members of the House who have commented: the member for Niagara Falls, the members for Ottawa Centre, Hamilton Centre and Port Arthur.
I would say to the member for Niagara Falls that every time he speaks on this bill, he shows his naïveté. That is one of the real concerns I have. You seem to have some belief in things that can be shown not to be the case. I'll give you the example of his speech yesterday afternoon where he talked about, "You shouldn't worry about this because it's only the first contract that's going to be determined." Right?
We all know that the first contract sets the basis for all subsequent negotiation. It's the most serious place to start. For this member to stand up and say: "What do you think we're going to do? Appoint our friends?" the answer is yes. That's what you're doing every day, so of course we expect you to do that.
You could build into this bill a requirement that no one could sit on that commission if they had any party affiliation. You could build into this bill a strong conflict-of-interest provision for the members of this commission. You could build a lot of safeguards into this bill if you really want impartial bargainers. The reality is that the current process of both parties agreeing to a list of impartial arbitrators was determined because we know that's impossible; you know it's impossible to build faith on the part of those who see themselves at the mercy of arbitrariness. That's what will happen with this bill.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): I'm proud tonight to stand in support of one of the finest people ever to occupy the office of the Minister of Labour in Ontario.
Understanding the need for legislation to respond to the unprecedented restructuring which is occurring in local government, in our hospitals and in our school boards, an approach which provides a process that is fair to employees and employers as this restructuring takes place, with arbitration awards taxpayers can afford and assurance that essential services aren't interrupted: These are the key principles the Minister of Labour has sought to address with Bill 136.
In the interests of the almost half-million people who work on behalf of the public in Ontario, we must have a process that is fair and consistent and minimizes uncertainty for these employees. The public services they provide are essential, and too often we take little notice of the people who make them possible.
In Wellington we are very grateful for the jobs our nurses, firefighters, police officers and municipal workers perform. The demand for health care services has increased the workload of our nurses. They are asked to do more, yet they undertake their responsibilities with professionalism and provide the highest standard of care and compassion for their patients. Our firefighters and police officers are prepared to risk their own lives to protect ours and to keep our communities safe and orderly. I think of our municipal workers, who are sometimes expected to be available at a moment's notice; for example, to fix a broken watermain in the middle of the night in January in freezing temperatures.
The collective efforts of all of these people contribute to the health, stability and infrastructure of our communities. We must do all we can to preserve the integrity and quality of these services today and in the future.
All members of this House are aware of the serious financial problem our province faces today. Upon taking office in 1995, the government had to deal with the reality of a $100-billion debt. Since then, progress has been made in reducing our deficit, but we still have a long way to go before the deficit is eliminated and we can begin to pay down some of this debt, which will have substantially increased, despite our best efforts, by the year 2000.
The government cannot ignore this problem, as the opposition parties in this House from time to time seem to suggest. To ignore it would be utterly irresponsible. It would mean a very real potential for a scarcity of important services for future generations as the debt spirals upward, handcuffing the ability of future governments to provide services like health care, education and ensuring community safety.
To meet this challenge, the government has embarked on a course of action to streamline its services and those of the greater public sector. The goal is to deliver the best services and programs to the people of Ontario at the lowest possible cost. As a result, unprecedented school board, municipal and hospital restructuring is taking place across the province this year. To illustrate the complexity of the challenge we face, the restructuring of municipalities, school boards and health care facilities will involve the coordination of as many as 3,300 collective agreements. School boards are being reduced from 129 to 72. The number of municipalities will be reduced to 650 from about 815 as of January 1998.
This is a time of necessary but potentially disruptive change. In an effort to manage the labour aspects of this change fairly and to ensure that during this crucial transition period there continues to be a reliable delivery of important services, the minister has proposed the adoption of Bill 136.
I'd like to quote from an editorial on Bill 136 that appeared in the Windsor Star on June 13. The editorial states:
"With almost 400,000 public sector workers involved, the smooth running of the province depends on how well the provisions in Bill 136 are accepted and implemented. And implemented they must be. Although the transition is destined to be complicated and contentious, Ontario can't afford even one more year of government inefficiency."
I agree. We simply can no longer afford to ignore the deficit and the debt and their effects on our economy or the threat they pose to important services that people rely on now and in the future. We must turn the tide and reorganize the way we deliver services. We must have a framework to deal with the numerous labour issues that will develop because of this restructuring.
Bill 136 proposes the establishment of two bodies to assist in bringing order and fairness to the labour complexities associated with amalgamating school boards, hospitals and municipalities.
The first one, the proposed Labour Relations Transition Commission, is temporary. Its role is to help resolve labour relations issues associated with the public sector restructuring, such as the structure of bargaining units, union representation and seniority.
Second, the Dispute Resolution Commission will have the ability to use various dispute resolution mechanisms, such as mediation-arbitration, to help resolve outstanding issues in the fire, police and hospital sectors if negotiated agreements between the parties are not possible. At the request of either party, the Dispute Resolution Commission will have the temporary power to deal with disputes arising from the negotiation of a first contract following an amalgamation or merger.
Ideally, it's always preferable for the parties involved to reach an agreement through discussion and negotiation. Failing this, it's incumbent upon the provincial government to have a process in place to settle disputes fairly and promptly. Otherwise, with the scale of the restructuring we're going to be experiencing, labour disagreements could cause an enormous amount of disruption across the province. There are no winners if such a scenario unfolds. Employees delivering services and the public will suffer.
Under the proposed Bill 136, the Labour Relations Transition Commission might step in in circumstances where employers, employees and unions cannot reach an agreement on how employees would be grouped together for collective bargaining purposes. In such a situation, the Labour Relations Transition Commission would decide. In other cases where the parties cannot come to an agreement on seniority issues, the Labour Relations Transition Commission may dovetail the seniority lists of the existing bargaining units.
The Dispute Resolution Commission that is being proposed in Bill 136 would be permanent and is intended to improve upon the current system of arbitration. Currently, arbitrators are selected in a very ad hoc manner, which makes it difficult for decision-making to be consistent and fair across the board. Concerns have been raised that the current system of arbitration in some cases actually discourages negotiated settlements because unions and employers tend to rely on the arbitrator to impose a solution. Decisions on awards have sometimes been excessive, without due consideration to the budgets and ability to pay of municipalities, hospitals and school boards.
1910
To address the shortfalls in the current system, the Minister of Labour has modelled the proposed Dispute Resolution Commission so that greater emphasis is placed on negotiation and mediation. If Bill 136 is adopted as proposed, the Dispute Resolution Commission would have the ability to apply a binding dispute resolution process following an amalgamation or merger in the broader public sector if a negotiated agreement can't be reached and one of the parties requests such an intervention.
I want to emphasize again that a labour relations framework is needed to avoid the potential for massive disruption in the delivery of services to the public that might occur if labour negotiations stall. We need mechanisms like the ones proposed to effectively and efficiently deal with the labour relations issues that will result from the amalgamations taking place across the province.
The minister has indicated that the Dispute Resolution Commission would be composed of impartial, neutral and fairminded individuals headed by a chief commissioner. I believe it's essential that commissioners who are chosen to sit on a Dispute Resolution Commission have the confidence of employers, employees and union representatives, and above all they should be fair and balanced in their judgements. I support the opinion expressed in the Windsor Star editorial that I referred to earlier, which states. "These two commissions must be fair and impartial and those who sit on the commissions must have the appropriate academic and legal qualifications to do so."
The Minister of Labour has indicated that this bill is not written in stone, that it's evolving and that the government is interested and open to constructive suggestions to improve the bill. She invited labour leaders who had expressed their concerns through the media to meet with her and discuss their views and ideas. Regrettably, they refused. At the urging of the heads of the labour movement, the member for Hamilton Centre last week asked the Premier to meet with labour leaders. The Premier said okay. Again, the labour leaders refused to meet.
The leadership of certain unions seems to be more interested in playing games than entering into a constructive, frank discussion with the government regarding the needs and interests of their membership. In this regard, they are doing an extreme disservice to their members. At a fundamental level, they are not meeting the responsibilities that union members have entrusted them with. I hope they will reconsider and enter into meaningful discussions with the government on Bill 136.
I know this period of change is going to be difficult, especially for people employed in the broader public sector. Reorganizations are never easy, and some employees will suffer job dislocations. During this process, it's my hope, and I have absolute confidence, that the minister will ensure that this transition is handled fairly, equitably and with due regard to the employees involved and the public, who we are all privileged to serve.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mr Patten: The member for Wellington has from time to time exercised a degree of independence of thought, but I don't see any evidence of that in his speech this evening.
He suggests that people ignore debt. We disagree with your way of going about dealing with the debt, and so does Mr Klein. You don't give a tax break when you're trying to fight a deficit -- that's all we're saying -- because you get yourself into trouble like you've gotten yourself into right now. You're in trouble because you're chasing dollars and restructuring on the basis of reducing your payments to the local municipalities, to school boards, to the hospitals or whatever. That's what's got you into all this trouble. You know it, and so does every member of your caucus, because you get the feedback when you go home. One of your members said this afternoon -- I won't mention who it was -- "Who else can we alienate today?" I respect his candour.
The member for Wellington said that the Premier offered to meet with the labour leaders. It's my understanding that he has not invited them to meet with him. They said they would meet with him at any time, and he has not invited them to meet with him heretofore. If that's true, they would like to do it.
In terms of the police, the nurses, the municipal workers, if you think so highly of them, why would this legislation begin with such negative assumptions? The police say that the commission you talked about, the Dispute Resolution Commission, will be a permanent change for them. It's a negative assumption about them. They have no choice of an independent, mutually agreed upon arbitrator, and you know it. And the firefighters have never gone on strike.
Mr Christopherson: I want to say to the member for Wellington that if he's looking to find out who's playing games in all this, he need look no further than the seats to his immediate left where the Premier and the Minister of Labour sit. If you want to talk about games, first of all let's talk about the respect that elected leaders in the working community deserve. Over 2,000 of them came here and only asked that there be a representative to receive their alternative to your Bill 136, not one of you showed up, not the Premier, not the Minister of Labour, not one of you sitting here tonight. None of you had the decency to at least come out and receive a proposal for an alternative to the chaos you're going to cause as a result of Bill 136. If you want to talk about meaningful dialogue, start with the kind of approach your government has had in the way you've treated labour leaders in this province and treated the workers themselves.
I want to mention to the member that he talked about arbitration. This government, all of you keep talking about the fact that the arbitration is still in place and why is everybody upset? Everybody's upset because what's lost is the independence of arbitrators.
Interjection.
Mr Christopherson: Yes, it is. Arbitrators are now chosen by agreement, where both parties agree on who it will be. That's the way it works and that's why it does work, because both sides say: "We think this person will make a fair judgement. We will live by their decision."
That's not what's going to happen now. The person who makes the decision, which can't be taken to judicial review, by the way, is chosen by your cabinet. We know damn well they're going to be ideologically on side with you, which means stripping collective agreements, getting ready to privatize those jobs and lowering the standard of working people in this province.
Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): I'm pleased to comment on the points that were made by our colleague. Two things really have to be put on the record, because again we're hearing from the other side, very consistently, this rhetoric. There are no specifics. It's all generalities. It's pie-in-the-sky negativity.
Let's deal with some of the facts. On July 24, Gord Wilson -- yes, the same Gord Wilson who stood up in this House and engaged in a stunt and caused this House to close for about 30 minutes while the galleries were cleared. On July 24, the minister, in writing, followed up on a phone offer to meet with Mr Wilson, and he said no.
The suggestion is that municipalities are opposed to this. The comment was made that at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference this week, the mood was very much opposed to this bill. Let me read you something in the handwriting of the new president of AMO himself:
"Yesterday I spoke to Premier Mike Harris concerning Bill 136. This is legislation that municipalities asked for. Delegates to this convention expressed concern that the timetable was too swift. They felt that more discussion and consultation was necessary." He goes on to say, "AMO will be meeting with the government in quick order to bring forward their express concerns, but AMO remains committed to the principles it originally espoused and are found in Bill 136." That's what the new president of AMO said.
They'll stand here and suggest that because they say it's so, that makes it so. But they don't talk about the fact that there are offers outstanding to the union leaders, that the minister meets with these people at any time. The reality is, they're the ones who would rather engage in game-playing. We're committed to a productive, realistic, constructive dialogue on this bill and on all other bills.
1920
Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): I would like to take a few moments to comment on the member for Wellington's statements, especially what he said about being willing to meet with municipalities and to explain the downloading and the changes.
In the riding I represent in Cornwall and in S-D-G, tongues have been hanging out to meet with one of the ministers or the Premier to have them explain the downloading that's taking place. In the city of Cornwall there's $18.5 million, according to the province's own figures, and in the counties there's $18.9 million. They are doing everything possible to try to meet the goals the government would like them to achieve, but they've already downsized and cut everything they can cut. It's cut right to the bone at the moment. They were at the AMO conference, and I don't think they had any luck meeting with anyone here.
I also met with the fire departments, the police departments and the public employees, and they sure don't want a province-wide strike. They'd like to try to iron this out ahead of time and solve this peacefully, but unless there's further consultation, that will not happen.
I know it's not as rosy as we think. I happen to have had a lot of years in municipal politics and I know that municipalities are very careful in the way they spend their money. To achieve another 3% decrease, like the minister has said, I think is going to be very difficult. Anyway, the key to the whole thing is more consultation between the province and the municipalities, something we've not been blessed with.
Mr Arnott: I want to thank the members for Ottawa West, Hamilton West, my colleague from Scarborough East and the member for Cornwall for their constructive comments relative to what I said.
There were two issues that came up that I want to respond to: first, the independence of the people who'll be appointed to these commissions. I think we can only prove that over time, and I'm very confident that people will be appointed who will be fairminded and impartial, and you will see that we will set up an impartial process.
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): If only you could be the arbitrator, Ted.
Mr Arnott: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Second, the matter of dialogue: Clearly we need more dialogue, and clearly the Premier has indicated an interest in meeting with the labour leaders. The Minister of Labour has indicated a long-standing interest and continues to meet with labour leaders from time to time. I hope the labour leaders take these offers and respond in a constructive way. That's really all we can hope for. I know the minister is very interested in hearing the constructive suggestions that may be coming forward in the House during the course of this debate in the opposition, and we look forward to hearing those from the opposition side.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I won't pretend I'm happy about rising to participate in this debate. I'm not happy about the fact that this bill is here. I'm not happy about the fact that we are debating it in an evening sitting, which constitutes a second day of sitting on this one day of August 27, 1997, and that under the new rules we now are able to have two days in one and this government can ram through its agenda and its draconian legislation even faster without the accountability of having to come into question period other than every other technical day.
But I want to set out my concerns about this legislation. I'm afraid the member for Wellington will not find them constructive suggestions because I don't think there's anything constructive to be found in this bill. I want to set out exactly and simply what Bill 136 is all about. As complex as the act may appear to be, as many groups as this act affects, there are a very few basic bottom lines to it all.
First of all, this act will lead to government-appointed arbitrators making the decisions about public sector contracts. Second, those arbitrators must follow guidelines set out by government, and the ability to pay will be the key factor in any arbitration. Third, the government, through its own grant system, will control the ability to pay.
Whether it is a municipality that's going to be forced to absorb at least $667 million in additional costs at the same time as it has to pick up the offload of this government's social programs, or whether it's a hospital facing the financial restraints of what government will give it as it cuts hospital budgets by $17 billion, or whether it's a school board that will now be totally controlled by the provincial government's decisions about funding, there is not a single public sector employer who will be free of the financial restraints that are going to be imposed by the Mike Harris government.
That's the ultimate bottom line in this. Mike Harris and his government are going to be in total control. They don't have the courage to actually sit down at the bargaining table and face employees face to face, but they are going to be controlling the whole show from the back rooms in which they operate most effectively, because that's the style of this government. The style of the government is to force through their agenda and use the front men to deliver it. They never do it themselves.
Whether it is the hospital restructuring demolition crew going out and shutting down hospitals in communities across the province, or whether it's the education minister hiding behind his education implementation team that has no power to do anything that the minister hasn't already decided, or whether it is now to be the public sector bargaining done by appointed arbitrators who will no longer have the freedom to arbitrate fairly, they will have to follow the government's directions on how to arbitrate. I know for sure that the government's directions are not going to have much of a focus on the fairness of the settlement, because it's just the opposite.
I've looked through the criteria for arbitrators set out in this bill. I didn't find the word "fairness" anywhere in there. I didn't find "fair and equitable settlement" to be a factor that the arbitrators should give some consideration to. There is one factor that leads off, and that is the ability to pay, number one, and it will be the ultimate and defining factor in any arbitration done in the public sector.
There are some others, and one struck me in particular. The commission set up to resolve disputes, this appointed commission, can look at how services might be reduced in light of the decisions that are made about salaries, with the understanding -- and this is stated in the legislation; I can't believe laws are being created to put these kinds of constraints on the bargaining process. They are to look at the impact of their decisions on salaries with the understanding that funding and taxation cannot be increased to protect services. That's about as clear as it gets.
Mr Arbitrator, that's a warning to you. If you have any sense that justice might require some increase in salaries, be forewarned. If you should be tempted to look at a fair salary settlement, you have to know, first of all, whether that is going to mean fewer nurses or fewer policemen or fewer firefighters in a context where the government makes it clear in law itself that there will be no more money going into the pot to pay for any salary settlement.
This is obviously and blatantly a back-door way for the government to freeze public sector salaries at best and, more likely, to strip contracts to find the dollars it wants to pay for its income tax cut for those who are making considerably more money than the people affected by this legislation.
This is a government that likes to talk about efficiencies as if efficiency were some great god. Bill 136 shows us very clearly what the so-called efficiencies are. They are savings that will be made on the backs of public sector workers. That's really what this bill is all about. That's why this bill is here, because the government needs control of negotiations so that contracts can be stripped, so that government can save the dollars it wants to save.
The government says, of course, that that's not what all this is about. We've just heard the member for Wellington put forward the government's position, that this is a temporary measure that's needed, a temporary measure, ironically, to deal with the chaos the government itself has created, a War Measures Act -- nothing less -- to deal with a war that the government wanted and that the government set out to create.
The member for Wellington says, "There are some 3,300 collective agreements that have to be harmonized because of all the amalgamations going on in the public sector, so that's a necessary part of change." That's astounding to me because there is no evidence of any kind. The member for Scarborough East talks about specifics, "Let's get specific." Show me anywhere, in any amalgamation you are proposing to carry out, one shred of evidence that shows there are any savings to be achieved through the amalgamation itself. There is no evidence of that.
The only dollars to be saved from these amalgamations that this government is forcing are to be saved through cutting services or cutting salaries or both. The government is creating the conditions where it needs to be able to slash salaries. It's not a process of constructive and necessary change; it is a process of clearly dealing with chaos that this government has created as an excuse, I believe, to make the cuts in services and in salaries which it knew was the only way to bring about the cost savings it was looking for.
1930
I suggest if the government really believes this is temporary, the government members ask themselves one very basic question: If it's actually temporary, if all you needed was your War Measures Act to deal with the chaos of amalgamations, why are there two parts to the act? Why is there a permanent Dispute Resolution Commission being set up? There is clearly only one answer to that: Because this isn't temporary. This is part of an all-out, permanent, ongoing attack on collective bargaining and on organized labour.
I suggest to the government that this kind of attack on the collective bargaining process will ultimately prove to have been very shortsighted, because all the evidence, I say to the member for Scarborough East who likes to look for specifics in evidence, points to the fact that the majority of public sector collective agreements are settled without recourse to either arbitration or strike action. In the process of those local settlements there is a host of other issues, local issues that are resolved amicably and constructively and creatively and in an atmosphere which produces typically, most often -- not always, but most often -- a better working relationship between employer and employee. All of this will be lost in the environment the government has created.
As so many have noted, the association of municipalities itself, I remind the members who are using quotations in the media today, in a vote that took place on Monday, a large majority of the members of the association of municipalities said, "Stop and withdraw this bill until we can have some sense of how to get it right," and these are the very people the bill was supposed to help.
I don't want to get involved in any kind of dialogue, in the limited amount of time to speak, or any amount of debate about whether or not the Premier said he would meet and when he extended his invitation and how long he stalled and said, "No, meet with the Minister of Labour; I didn't really mean meet with me," or whether he actually put in writing his offer. All I know is we're already debating Bill 136. There was no offer from the Premier to meet before the bill was tabled and the bill was introduced for debate. The sheer hypocrisy of the government suggesting it would seriously enter into negotiations when it was already ready to debate the bill is rather breathtaking. I don't know how you can pretend to be serious about negotiations when you dump a bill like this with no negotiations, with no discussions with the very people it is going to affect.
Why would public sector workers, let alone municipal employers or anyone else, believe this government is serious about negotiation? The record of this government is one of bullying and autocratic "We don't care what you think, we're going to do what we want do" approaches to government. It is truly as breathtaking as Justice Archie Campbell has suggested in comparing the Mike Harris government to the autocratic government of King Henry VIII.
Let us not forget at any point that this is the government that forced through the very amalgamations that they need this War Measures Act to deal with. They forced through the megacity amalgamation despite the opposition of 76% of the citizens of the community. They're imposing school board amalgamations, emasculating local boards, creating chaos in educational governance, and they're doing it in spite of the fact that they heard over and over and over again, not just from employers and employees alike but from parents and students themselves, the cry to slow down and get it right. But that is not this government's style.
In hospitals they're forcing closures. They call them amalgamations, but they're closures. Let's call it by its name. They say this act is here to deal with the chaos of the staffing and the contracts that will come when we have these hospital closures, but there is nothing in this act that is going to deal with the chaos that's created for patients -- just the opposite. This government doesn't care. They just want to do it, get it done fast, steamroll over anyone who gets in the way, whether it is policemen or firefighters or nurses or school custodians or secretaries or thousands of citizens. Then they'll get some appointed henchmen to go and do the dirty work on the front lines and they'll say, "We didn't do it."
They are the masters of "Dump the blame on someone else, offload to the municipalities, and if they can't find the efficiencies, they will have to look somewhere else." They are not allowed to raise taxes because they're not doing a good enough job of finding efficiencies that they would even have to raise taxes. Well, efficiencies for municipalities really means cutting services, but when the municipalities face the reality of tax hikes or cutting services, the government will say, "It's not our fault; the municipality did it," just like they will lay all the blame on school boards when the minister controls all the funding.
Then they say: "Maybe there is going to be a problem. Maybe you really will have to cut services as you go through these amalgamations, as you deal with the offloading of all of these costs, so we'll help you out. We'll help you out by creating legislation which will gut salaries and create confrontation and labour strife in every community across this province." I say, "Some help. Thanks a lot."
I just think we have to remember that when the chaos begins, it is the Harris government that did this. The Harris government set the stage, they created the puppets and they are pulling the strings, whether it is of the Health Services Restructuring Commission or the Education Improvement Commission or now the Dispute Resolution Commission to be set up by this bill, whether it is services or salaries that are going to end up slashed, or both. Be sure where the blame truly lies: with a government that is still desperate to find $5 billion to pay for the tax cut and doesn't care who gets hurt in the giant cash grab that the government has launched.
The government will say: "The bill really is here to help. We haven't dictated new process. We haven't stripped rights. What are you talking about? We've given choices to the employers and employees. Look at all the choices that are in this bill. If you don't have the right to strike, if you have your disputes resolved through arbitration, you still have the right to go to private arbitrators." Some choice. It's not really a choice when the parties have to pay for the luxury of having private, non-government-appointed arbitrators.
Then there are the sectors that do have the right to strike. Theoretically the government hasn't taken away that right. Theoretically the parties can still agree to resolve their issues through local collective bargaining with the power of sanction, except they only have 30 days. Then either party can say they want to ensure that rather than risk a strike, they are going to go to the Dispute Resolution Commission to have this resolved. I honestly don't know what school board can risk the possibility of a strike, given the financial constraints in which they're expected to negotiate.
There will be no good-faith bargaining undertaken under this scenario. There is absolutely no chance left in this legislation for local collective bargaining to go ahead and to be successful. The police association has already been told that their employers will not negotiate until this bill is law. We know it's another fact of this legislation that no arbitration or grievance process that's under way right now can be concluded once this bill becomes law. So already all fairness and all due process are going to end with the passage of Bill 136.
It's no wonder, as I look back on it -- and maybe I didn't quite understand it other than as a simple insult at the time -- I realize that it is no wonder that the Harris government had to make sure that firefighters did not have the right to strike. It was a right they had not exercised in 50 years. They had voluntarily essentially waived the right to strike. It looked like it was a little bit of in-your-face to the firefighters that they created legislation to take away that right to strike that had never been used, but I guess they knew that their actions with Bill 136 were going to push even firefighters right up against the wall.
I want to just touch for a few moments on a specific group within the legislation that I have some concern about as critic for education, and that is school board employees. We have not seen the legislation affecting school teachers yet. As my colleague has said, we are expecting that legislation very shortly. I'm quite sure, given the teacher-bashing mentality of the Minister of Education, he is more than ready to declare war on teachers across this province.
The school personnel who are affected directly by Bill 136 are school custodians and school secretaries. They are the people whose actual jobs this government really wants. This government wants to privatize, to contract out those jobs. They wanted to do it in the first place with Bill 104. They wanted the education commission to tell boards how they will contract out these jobs. They backed away from it because of the uproar from parents, but now they're finding back-door ways to force the contracting out.
How do you save money by contracting out the work of an employee who is making, on average, less than $24,000 a year? I guess the only way you save money by contracting out those jobs is if you're prepared to pay poverty wages. I think that's probably a good summary of this government's backroom negotiating position in the development of Bill 136. "If you won't take a poverty wage, we'll contract out your position. We'll find someone who is prepared to work cheap, most likely temporary help or part-timers." That's the efficiency factor for this government. It's a very efficient way of doing things, because if you have temporary, part-time work you don't have to pay benefits, so you get a double saving: cheaper wages and no benefits.
1940
Parents made it very clear that they do not want their children's welfare entrusted to temporary help. They don't want dial-a-cleaners coming in as custodians in their schools, they don't want somebody from the secretarial pool. They want people who know their children, people who are concerned and caring for their children. They consider the custodians and the secretaries to be valuable members of the school team. They want knowledgeable, caring and full-time staff. I suggest to you that kids are not going to be served by the maximum efficiency boys with their wage slashing policies embodied in Bill 136.
I guess I come to the question of who actually is going to be served by Bill 136. I find it very difficult to find anybody other than the government and the government's agenda that is going to be served by Bill 136.
It's quite clear that employees are going to be hurt, no doubt about that. This is about cutting wages. But so are students going to be hurt. Students are going to be hurt because they are not going to end up with the full-time, knowledgeable, concerned school staff to maintain their schools and provide the custodial care and the secretarial services.
I think patients in hospitals are going to be hurt by Bill 136, patients who need professional and committed nursing staff and who don't need constant labour strife. I think just as somebody has said that a teacher's working condition is a student's learning condition, it's equally true that a nurse's working condition is a patient's survival condition.
I don't think that citizens who need municipal stability in essential services of police and fire and garbage collection are going to be served by Bill 136 and the strife that is going to be.
I know that women are not going to be served by Bill 136. There are pay equity provisions, seemingly minor provisions in this bill, that say if you're a public sector employer and you haven't got a pay equity plan yet, you don't have to have one unless somebody complains. Unless some employee, who may be concerned about the job security of making that complaint, has the courage to make a complaint, they don't have to have pay equity and those who don't have the plans now are the ones who are going to be rewarded for not having acted to deal fairly with women in the workplace.
This is not even going to work for employers. It may make it easier to get out of the collective bargaining situation and send an irresolvable problem to this government-appointed commission, but I think the labour strife and the tension that is going to result from this bill will make public sector management even more difficult.
I urge the government to withdraw this bill, to set aside its cost-cutting agenda and to have some faith that good, local bargaining can still come up with better answers than those that are dictated by a government.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mr Christopherson: I want to commend the remarks of the member for Fort William and to key in and focus on her comments about -- and I wrote it down -- the bullying and autocratic ways of this government.
Certainly this government likes to say that they've had consultation and they've talked to people. In fact, they're spending time talking about all these meetings that they're inviting people to. For the record, let me just read a letter that was forwarded to the minister -- I have two letters here -- dated July 25 from the Ontario Federation of Labour, signed by Gordon Wilson, the president. It reads in part:
"Dear Minister,
"I have received your incredible letter of 24 July 1997 in which you repeat your false assertion that I have rejected your invitation to meet to discuss Bill 136.
"In this same letter, you falsely allege that in drafting Bill 136 you listened to the `expressed concerns' of organized labour, when you know full well that Bill 136 was drafted in total secrecy from the labour movement. It was sprung upon us June 3 as yet another full-fledged fait accompli.
"For the public record, I have, as you know full well, written to Premier Harris and to you on July 22 requesting a meeting with the Premier and those ministers he deems appropriate, which I presume would include yourself, to explore alternatives to Bill 136."
Another letter dated July 29 reads in part:
"Thank you for your letter dated July 25. I must say that I'm very surprised at your refusal to meet with us to discuss" -- this is to the Premier -- "alternatives to Bill 136. I remind you of your public statement of June 7 as reported in the Star.
"I would invite CUPE, OPSEU, the nurses and teachers to sign a similar deal the doctors signed. It's on the table right now. Come and see me."
They did. He didn't show up and the Premier didn't agree to meet with those labour leaders, the representatives of the working people, until we shamed him into it right here in this House last week.
Mr Gilchrist: I'm pleased to respond to the member for Fort William's comments. Again, a very consistent theme; again, we're hearing a lot about a whole bunch of other issues that have nothing to do with this bill. We hear talk about education reform. We hear talk about Who Does What. We hear talk about taxation changes. We consistently hear from the other side a litany of woe, that somehow because there are other bills that they disagree with, this bill is inappropriate. We heard it earlier today on Bill 148 and we're hearing it again this evening on Bill 136.
In the same breath the member suggests that AMO is opposed to Bill 136, and yet goes on to say that the workers will somehow be constrained in their ability to have fair collective bargaining. Why would the member not have comfort that if in fact municipalities have said they don't intend to use this legislation at all, then obviously it will be the status quo in their collective bargaining? You can't have it both ways. The bottom line is either there is the spectre that the employers will not bargain in good faith or they will. You have said you believe some members of AMO will not be utilizing this legislation. Therefore, presumably nothing will change in their bargaining. How you can then go on to fearmonger that somehow we have anything to fear or the employees have anything to fear is quite incredible.
The fact of the matter is 85% of all of the collective bargaining agreements are arrived at amicably in the public sector. But that's still short of the 95% amicable acceptance by both parties in the private sector. It's that 15% in the face of the restructuring that will be taking place, the municipal reform -- every taxpayer and every employee in the city deserves to know that there will be every mechanism provided to both parties to ensure that bargaining is fair and that the appropriate collective decisions are arrived at.
Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): I would like to congratulate the member for Fort William on her comments, which have truly dissected Bill 136. As she has put it on the floor, the members of AMO have suggested, in a vote that took place yesterday, to the Premier, to the cabinet, to withdraw this bill.
As a member, I know that a good number of my mayors, reeves and councillors are there. I'm hearing the same thing from them when I go home. I look over at the Conservative benches there and I ask you, what are you hearing when you know that the majority of your representatives of the municipalities from your ridings have voted to have this bill withdrawn? I ask the folks over there what they're hearing, because we hear every day from the firemen, as the member for Fort William, has indicated. I hear from the policemen, the local nurses, the local municipal politicians, as I've just indicated, who have just suggested at AMO that they want this withdrawn, they want Bill 136 withdrawn.
Again, I put forth to the members across the way, what are you hearing when you go home? Are you not worried that people out there are saying that they are upset with the Mike Harris agenda, with the speed that he's moving forward? People out there are saying that he's not getting it right because of the speed that legislation is moving forward.
We're looking at the New Jersey model when we look at what Mike Harris is doing. They're concerned because it's not working there and they're suggesting that it's not working here. Again, I would suggest to all of the Conservative members to take heed of what the member for Fort William has said and listen to some of the constituents that we face on a regular basis, listen to your local municipal politicians and what they're saying about Bill 136.
1950
Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I'm pleased to be able to respond to the comments made by the member for Fort William. I think what really is key here in her whole discussion on this particular legislation is about how the government tries to paint this as being fair. I think we really need to try to figure out what it is that this government really thinks is fair. Is it fair for a government to say, "We're going to take away the ability for employees, in a case where you need to go off to arbitration, to choose your own arbitrator in agreement with your employer"? Is it fair that the government appoints the arbitrator so that in the end, basically, the friends of the government make the decisions about what will happen in collective bargaining?
Is it fair, in a case where an arbitrator makes a bad decision against either an employer or, more than likely, the employees, that the employees don't have access to judicial review? Is that fair? Everybody else in the province has the right to judicial review in the event that there's a bad decision having to do with any of the laws we pass here in this Legislature. But this government says: "Oh, no. Workers, we want to treat them fairly. They shouldn't have the right of every other person within the province and they shouldn't have the right to go to judicial review."
Is it fair that a government says that employees of the public sector, by way of this act, will not have access to the wage protection fund, the diminished fund because they've already diminished it from before that? Is it fair? No. Is it fair that the government says, "Workers in the public sector who are transferred to the private sector in cases of privatization will lose pay equity"? Is that fair? Is it fair that women who are paid less than men for the same job continue to be paid less and that this government perpetuates that and actually tries to say it's good? Is that fair?
This legislation isn't fair, and the more quickly the government accepts that, maybe the more quickly we can get on with this debate.
Mrs McLeod: I thank my colleagues from Kenora, Hamilton Centre and Cochrane North for their sharing of similar concerns to those I've expressed today.
As to the member for Scarborough East, I realize that listening skills are not ones which he either has or chooses to develop, but had he chosen to listen somewhat, he'd have known that my comments were indeed about Bill 136 and, at the same time, about all the rest of this government's agenda. Bill 136 is the underpinning of everything else this government wants to do, and the member for Scarborough East knows that full well.
The comments of the member for Scarborough East underline my sense of almost the futility of participating in a debate on legislation that this government brings forward. This is clearly a government which doesn't care, which is going through an exercise of defending what it wants to do when in fact it's going to go ahead and do it no matter how many concerns are expressed, no matter how many people are raising those concerns, no matter how little evidence there is that this government is on the right track, no matter how much evidence there is that it is clearly on the wrong track. This is a government that won't even slow down, even when they have voice after voice after voice of responsible leaders in our communities saying: "At least slow down. Take the time to get it right. Don't create sheer chaos."
This is a government that believes in confrontation, invites confrontation, in fact needs confrontation to be able to go ahead and do what it wants to do. They pride themselves on creating a confrontation, on pitting themselves against people, in some bizarre sense that that's how you define the strength of government, and then they pit people against each other, whether it's employers against employees or school board against school board or hospital against hospital.
I simply say to this government, to those who maybe genuinely believe the government's line that this is all about constructive change, that if you really want to bring about change, you can't do it without the people who have to implement the change coming along with you. You cannot implement change and improve services, anybody over there who has that in his agenda, without having the deliverers of the service on side. Tragically, people will pay a terrible price before the government learns that lesson.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Bisson: I have but 20 minutes in this particular debate. Unfortunately, this bill is very voluminous in the number of things it attempts to do -- does do, because I imagine the government is not going to take seriously the concerns of most working people in this province and probably won't do a heck of a lot of amending to this legislation. None the less, we will try to set out to the government some of the arguments that we think need to be made to find some justice for the working men and women of this province.
You always have to ask yourself this question: Why is it that a government puts forward this particular bill, Bill 136? Very simply, they're putting it forward because this government has chosen a course that is going to give the taxpayers of this province a $5-billion tax reduction -- that's the cost of this thing over the next number of years.
Mr Gilchrist: That's not true.
Mr Bisson: Not true? The government says it's not giving a tax break. This government is delusional. They don't believe even what they are doing. They can't even accept when they've done something wrong. They can't accept if they've done anything at all. It's the member for Scarborough East yet again, who is his usual self in this place.
The point I make is simply that this government has made a decision, and the decision they have made is that they're going to give taxpayers in this province a tax break of 30% on the provincial share of the income tax bill we get every year. That's a decision they made. We understand that. They campaigned on that in the last election and they've got to live or die by that decision. But with every action, just like in physics, there's an opposite and equal reaction. When you make a decision to take revenue away from the province, what happens? The government has to figure out a way to save money.
One of the decisions they've made, I think a very costly one, both for services for the people of Ontario and, I would argue, for the political capital of this government, is that to try to offset the $5-billion tax break, they are going to download services from the province to the municipalities. The municipal taxpayers then become responsible for taking on a number of services that the province always had the responsibility of carrying out.
They know that the minute they transfer all these services to municipalities, there has to be a whole rejigging of how those services are delivered. Let's just take one example. If you happen to transfer over, let's say, in the case of social services, 20% of the cost of FBA to municipalities and you want to enter into some sort of agreement about who's going to deliver that service, one of the issues you're going to have to deal with is the labour relations side of the issue.
This government says, "No, we don't trust municipal leaders and we don't trust trade unionists to negotiate with the provincial government a fair and equitable settlement about how that work is going to be performed and what the rules are going to be in the new collective agreement. We have no faith in working men and women and we have no faith in the municipal councils of this province. Therefore, I, Mike Harris, the Premier of Ontario, the soothsayer of the province of Ontario, will come down from the mount to the Legislature and introduce Bill 136 to be able to say, `I will tell you, municipalities, and I will tell you, workers, what it is you shall do according to the rules of Mike Harris when it comes to how business will be done in this new Ontario that Mike Harris is trying to create.'"
That's what this particular bill is all about. They're saying they don't trust working men and women and they don't trust municipal councils.
On that note, I was quite fortunate: I participated at the AMO conference, like many other members of this assembly, over the last two and a half days at the Royal York Hotel. It was quite interesting what happened on Bill 136 during the day of resolutions, I believe on Tuesday. The municipal delegates of that convention are whom? They are the aldermen, they are the mayors, they are the councillors and the reeves of all the communities of Ontario, who went to this particular convention in order to deal with what this provincial government is doing. What did they say about Bill 136? They said, "We reject what the government is doing."
By a 60% majority vote on the floor of the AMO conference, the municipal leaders of this province said to the Mike Harris government: "Put the brakes on. We want to negotiate ourselves with our own municipal employees what the new deal will be. We understand that it's going to be difficult. We understand it's not going to be easy. We understand that we're going to take a lot of flak as municipal leaders. But, Mike Harris, do not start shoving down our throats what it is we have to do in doing your dirty work because of your offloading of the services on to us." So 60% of the delegates of the convention said, "We reject what Mike Harris is doing and we ask the government respectfully to withdraw Bill 136 and allow us, the municipal leaders, allow us, the people who have to negotiate with the public sector unions at the local level, to negotiate what the new deal will be in the restructuring."
What's the response of the government? They come in here and try to make us believe that the AMO delegates were happy with what the Mike Harris government is suggesting by way of Bill 136.
2000
They're quite an interesting lot. I sat at that AMO conference and listened to the minister, the Honourable Al Leach, come and say, "We believe as a provincial government that no social services costs should be transferred over to the municipal ratepayer and we're moving in that direction." He must be delusional. He is a member of a government which is transferring what to the municipalities? They're transferring social costs to the municipal taxpayers like we have never seen before. Social housing? Is that not a social service? Twenty percent of the FBA costs, what people like to call mother's allowance, will be transferred to municipalities -- yet another social service cost. Land ambulances, the entire cost: Is that not a social service cost in regard to our health care system? They're delusional. They actually believe their own rhetoric, and they go around as if it's the gospel and expect everybody to believe what they're saying.
Madam Speaker, I was at that conference, as were you and others. I can tell you, through the three days I was there, many delegates, I would say the vast majority of delegates, at the AMO conference had great difficulty with what this government was doing, and not strictly on an ideological belief, but because they also understand that what this government is doing by way of downloading is going to mean a couple of things. The first is obvious: a reduction of services to the people of this province in everything from social housing to health care, especially on the long-term-care side, and also when it comes to a number of other services such as transit and others.
Community after community lined up and said, "This downloading exercise of the Mike Harris government is going to cost our local taxpayers" in the case of Dryden a 74% tax increase, "should the government move ahead with what it's proposing today." The community of Timmins, where I am from: a 40% tax increase to the municipal ratepayers. The community of Iroquois Falls, between the transferring of the OPP services and the transferring of all other municipal services, is looking at almost a 50% tax increase.
How does that relate to Bill 136? Because the Mike Harris government knows that once it starts doing that downloading exercise to the municipalities, the municipalities will have to scramble to either preserve those services or get rid of them entirely. I think it's going to be a combination of the two. That's my prediction. They're saying in the end that what has to happen is that the government of Ontario will dictate how bargaining is going to happen when it comes to restructuring the collective agreements.
What is even harder to take when it comes to Bill 136 is the definition of the word "fair" and how "fair" is used by this government when it comes to this particular piece of legislation. The Honourable Elizabeth Witmer, the Minister of Labour, a member with whom I've served in this House for seven years, for whom I have a certain amount of respect -- I remember her being, in opposition, a respectful and very hardworking opposition member -- comes into this House as a government member and says: "I have a new definition of fair. It will be fair when I take away people's bargaining rights. It will be fair when I take away the ability of workers to bring to judicial review a decision made by an arbitrator that he or she or a bargaining unit feels is unfair."
She is saying it is fair, along with Mike Harris, the Premier of this province, and all of these backbenchers. You can't hide. In the end you're Tories, and if you're with them you're going to have to go down with this one. You take away the employment equity rights of working women in this province to an extent we have never seen. Each government over the past 10 years, first with the Liberal government under the NDP-Liberal accord, then the Liberal government itself, and then the Bob Rae NDP government for five years, moved forward to try to address the issues of pay equity for working women in this province. We all recognized, all of us on all sides of the House, that when women go to work and do a job of equal value they should be paid the same wage as a male comparator.
We put in place pay equity to give finally some justice in the workplace to working women in this province. We moved at great length over the past 10 years to try to address the inadequacies that have been created over years by discrimination within the workplace in terms of how employers were paying women for doing work that was of equal value to men.
We haven't solved the whole problem. I don't pretend that for a second. There is still a long way to go, both in the public sector and especially in the private sector. But this government is doing what in Bill 136? They are taking away pay equity rights of working women in this province at a pace that we have never seen in the history of this province before. Compounded by the decisions that this government has made previously in budgets and previously in other pieces of legislation, working women are taking steps backwards. That should be shameful to this government, shameful.
I would think that in a modern society in the 1990s, even a Conservative government would be progressive enough -- after all, that is in their party title, "Progressive" -- to at least recognize that working women should be treated fairly. But no. This act says that they should not be. It says through the Minister of Labour, Elizabeth Witmer, along with the Premier and Dianne Cunningham, the minister responsible for women's issues, and all the Tory backbenchers and cabinet, that women should be treated unfairly.
It is very hard to take, and it takes an extreme amount of gall on the part of this government to stand in this Legislature, to go to an AMO conference or stand wherever in this province and try to pretend that Bill 136 is a fair piece of legislation, because it is not. It is everything but fair to the people of this province.
The other concern I have in regard to this bill as it relates to all other bills or almost all other bills that this government has done is what it means to the middle class of this province. Madam Speaker, you would have some sympathy for that because you come from the same class that I do, the middle class of Ontario.
Over a period of 50 years, in this province as across North America, but specifically this province, working men and women -- and that is who? That is teachers, that is police officers, those are nurses, those are clerks, those are underground miners, those are lumberjacks, taxi drivers, you name it -- have carved a place for themselves in this economy that we call the middle class, and it didn't happen by accident.
The middle class was created by, first of all, the efforts of working men and women to negotiate fair wages with their employers, sometimes public, sometimes private, but also by making sure that governments changed laws in order to help the middle class to establish itself and, once there, to sustain itself as an economic viability within our economy.
Those are the institutions such as health care, a publicly funded health care system. How else are we to remain as a middle class if we do not have a publicly funded system of health care that assures us, if we get sick, that we don't end up in the poorhouse? How else do we maintain ourselves as a middle class if we don't have a system of unemployment insurance and, yes, welfare, in the event that we lose our job, so that we can have some time to be able to secure ourselves financially somewhat, through either UI or social assistance, so that we can find time to find ourselves another job? Because in this economy, sometimes it is not easy. As a matter of fact, I was talking to a cab driver today from the Royal York who has been unemployed for two years as an architectural technologist, and this man has three or four years of college.
How else can you maintain a middle class if you don't have a government that makes sure the institutions that are necessary to support the middle class remain in place so that we, as an economic class within our society, are able to maintain ourselves within that economy?
What are they doing? This government, at every attempt, at every opportunity, is eliminating and trying to eliminate -- and I don't think some of them really realize it -- and diminishing the middle class of this province. They are eroding our public system of health care, one of the very tenets by which the middle class is able to survive. They are eroding our system of public education to where in the future, only those with the bucks in their pockets, with mom and dad who happen to work on Bay Street or be a personal friend of Mike Harris and the business community -- not small business, Madam Speaker; big business -- can send their children off to college or university.
2010
This government time and time and time again, as we see them in this Legislature, are undoing the very fabric by which the middle class is able to sustain itself in Ontario. Why? Because this government -- and I don't think all the backbenchers of the government realize this, but certainly Tom Long and a whole bunch of other ideologues around Premier Harris -- say there should be really two classes, those who got the money and those who don't, and those who don't be damned and those who do, more power to you. That's what this is all about. That's what Bill 136 is about, when you see a government strangle the working men and women of the public sector by way of this act.
When it comes to yet another tenet of our society that maintains the middle class, this government's got a failing grade. One of the things we need as a middle class to be able to survive is to have a strong and vibrant democracy by which the middle class is able to find some voice within this Legislature or within the House of Commons to make sure that their governments are, first of all, elected to represent them, and then, once there, are able to do things that are to the benefit of the middle class. Time and time again this government has shown by its actions that it does not respect the democratic institution to which they were elected. We have seen time and time again an erosion of our democracy, if not by changing the rules in this Legislature then by various acts this government has done that take away the rights of men and women in this province who are members of the middle class. As long as I am a New Democrat, as long as I am a member of this assembly, I will make sure this government gets a hell of a ride from me when it comes to them and their attack on the middle class.
C'est jamais avec plaisir qu'on regarde un gouvernement tel que le gouvernement de M. Harris pour les amener, comme on le dit, à l'avant de nous et les vexer jusqu'à un certain point quand ça en vient à leurs actions dans cette Assemblée.
Mais c'est terriblement important, et je pense que le public et même certains députés des arrière-bans du gouvernement conservateur se rendent compte vraiment de l'agenda de ce gouvernement. L'agenda de ce gouvernement est très simple : c'est pour diminuer la classe moyenne et c'est pour enlever les droits acquis que nous les Ontariens et les Ontariennes avons été capables d'aller rechercher au cours des dernières auprès 50 années de notre gouvernement provincial.
Ce gouvernement, à chaque reprise, à chaque fois qu'il en a eu l'opportunité, a fait quoi ? Ils ont tourné le dos à la classe moyenne et ils ont commencé à retirer les mécanismes dont nous avons besoin comme Ontariens et Ontariennes dans la classe moyenne pour être capables de nous soutenir.
A government which forgets who brought them here and turns its back on the very people who elected them the way these people have I predict will not live in this Legislature for a long time. Yes, they may be 32% or 34% in the polls, but we understand one thing in the province of Ontario, and we lived it as members of the New Democratic Party: It is a very volatile electorate. But this electorate is starting to make up its mind, and as I travelled around the province on committee this summer, as I went to the AMO convention this last week, I can tell you that the middle class of this province, this province we call home, Ontario, is not going to put up for very much longer with a Mike Harris government that turns its back on the middle class and says, "We stand four-square with the big business community and turn our backs to the working men and women of this province and the small business entrepreneurs who make up the middle class of this province." That, I say, is wrong, and this government should reconsider the actions that they are undertaking against the very people they are here to represent.
The Acting Speaker (Ms Marion Boyd): Questions or comments?
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): I'm pleased to rise and respond a little bit to the comments from the member from Cochrane South. I was happy that he spoke a little bit about Bill 136 so I'd have something to comment on.
Like him, I was also at the AMO conference, and it was interesting at the AMO conference last night to listen to the various members coming up and saying: "Please, please, please ignore the resolution. Bill 136 is absolutely essential if we are to restructure."
I would like to talk specifically about the restructuring that's going on in Chatham-Kent and the people from my municipality who approached me last night at AMO. In Chatham-Kent we're going from 23 municipalities down to one. We're going from 11 public utilities commissions down to one. We're going from five police departments down to one. We're doing all of that in the interests of the taxpayer so that taxes will be lower, so that we can attract more industry, create more jobs. There is only one taxpayer. We're doing that on his behalf.
It's interesting that the members of the municipality of Chatham, who are primarily responsible for making this process work, approached me last night in a panic and said: "Please, please ignore the resolution about Bill 136. We cannot restructure our municipality and reduce taxes for our members, for our constituents, and be fair to all the employees who work for us if we do not have the tools given to us by Bill 136. We've asked for them; you gave them to us. We need them. Please ignore the resolution." It would be interesting to see, if there were a new resolution put on the floor today, how the people from AMO would respond to that. My thinking is that we would get a different answer, that they would say: "Yes, Bill 136 is good legislation. We need it to restructure our province."
Mr Tony Ruprecht (Parkdale): I have listened very attentively to the member for Cochrane South. As we heard earlier, he agrees with what the member for Fort William has said, and that is the same message: Slow down the process and reconsider Bill 136. I only wish that message would be heeded and heard across the way. Obviously it is not. At one time, in fact two days ago, I thought it might. Two days ago we opened the newspapers in Toronto and we found that the Premier had said: "Yes, we hear you; we'll slow the process down. We know there's a fall in our numbers in terms of our popularity ratings and we know there's unhappiness across Ontario and that people want this process to be slowed down." He said, "I hear you." I was expecting some action. Today I see the opposite: a helter-skelter, quick-fix approach. The whole process is being speeded up instead of being slowed down.
I just want you to pay attention to one fact. When I look at the Pay Equity Act in Bill 136, I'm saying slow the process down. Did you consider all the sections? The member for Cochrane South indicated that in a number of issues and areas it's quite easy to see where fairness and openness and equity have not been produced.
I'm asking you also, along with the member for Cochrane South, to look at where it says, and I know the people of Ontario want to hear this: "People who provide private home day care in their own home are not employees for the purposes of the Pay Equity Act. That change is made retroactive to" -- guess what date? -- "January 1, 1988." Did you consider this? Is this fair?
Mr Christopherson: I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the remarks of my colleague the member for Cochrane South. I think the passion he brings to this debate is what's definitely lacking when we listen to the government stand up and read their canned speeches that, arguably, some of them haven't even read before they come into this place.
My colleague spoke of the AMO situation and what happened the other day and its importance in terms of the government's need to listen. I find it interesting to listen to the comments of the member for Chatham-Kent who now says, "No, no, don't listen to that resolution; don't listen to that vote; that shouldn't count." I'm prepared to live by that rule as long as you're prepared to apply it to June 1995.
I want to acknowledge, and I'll read later on in other two-minute responses, the resolution passed unanimously by Hamilton city council that condemned the Labour Relations Transition Commission and the Dispute Resolution Commission specifically, in addition to Bill 136 in its totality, and called on this government to pull back, to withdraw Bill 136. Why? Because they know the chaos it's going cause in our community. That's going to be replicated in community after community right across this province.
The government likes to say that the downloading issue doesn't tie into this; exactly the opposite. The city council of Hamilton last night was advised that $60 million is the shortfall after you net out the dollars you're offering to exchange. That's a $200-to-$300-a-month increase in property tax. Politically, you don't want to carry the freight for that, so Bill 136 lets every one of those dollars be paid on the backs of public sector working women and men. That's absolutely unacceptable.
2020
Mr Maves: I have to take exception right up front to the member for Cochrane South's claim that this government has no respect for collective bargaining. Right in the purpose clause of Bill 136 is, "To encourage the settlement of disputes through negotiation." What did the NDP government do in Ontario in 1993? What did the NDP government in Saskatchewan do in 1997? What did the NDP government in BC do in 1995? They have all chosen to implement legislation that determines collective bargaining outcomes, either through direct collective agreement overrides or by extending collective agreements. Most of the legislation these three governments brought in implemented measures such as contract extensions, wage rollbacks, wage ceilings and unpaid time off. Sounds familiar, I know.
The NDP in Ontario determined outcomes in 1993 and effectively suspended the right to strike and lockout for three years. The British Columbia NDP government and the Saskatchewan government, when restructuring health care, both appointed a commissioner to examine labour relations in the health sector. Following the commissioner's report, both provinces enacted regulations which determined new bargaining units and also determined which unions represent employees in each of the units. In both cases, the NDP government did not provide the parties with the process to negotiate their own solutions when determining new bargaining unit structures. Neither NDP government conducted representation votes or allowed the parties to achieve a negotiated solution.
In Ontario, we are encouraging negotiation solutions first. That's the purpose of the act: expeditious; same restructuring going on; encouraging negotiated solutions. You should be ashamed of the comments you made.
Mr Bisson: I am not ashamed of my words in this Legislature, as they are the truth. The member from Niagara talks about his government somehow having respect for working men and women and for the middle class in this province. This government, by its very actions under Bill 136, a bill that's supposed to deal with collective bargaining under Mike Harris's new Ontario, restructured Ontario, takes the word "fair" out of collective bargaining. How can that be a fair settlement for the working men and women of this province?
Other actions: Through Bill 7, the withdrawal of a whole bunch of rights that workers had gained over the past number of years; by changes to the Employment Standards Act; by changes they've done in regard to the worker health and safety agency, abandoning it; with Bill 39, Bill 99, and the list goes on, this government has indicated that they're anywhere but on the side of the middle class, and they're certainly on the side of big business.
The member for Chatham-Kent -- it was interesting -- said, "Delegates at AMO said: `Don't listen to the 60% resolution on the part of the AMO conference that says to scrap Bill 136. We want you to use your dictatorial powers as you use them all the time and not respect the majority of the AMO delegates to the province of Ontario who by 60% rejected what your government is doing under Bill 136.'"
It speaks volumes about this government when members of this government can stand up, after I've taken the time to point out that they're taking away the rights of working women in this province by the elimination of pay equity -- when the member Chatham-Kent gets up and speaks of only working men. What about the women? There are as many women in the workforce as there are men.
I would be remiss if I didn't take the opportunity to point out that my good friend Leo is up in the galleries. I want to make sure that all members of the House welcome Leo into the Legislature. He's taking time out of his busy schedule to watch this particular debate.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough): I am pleased to have the opportunity tonight to share with my colleagues some of my thoughts on Bill 136. The first point that must be reinforced when speaking about this issue is that currently in Ontario we do not have a legislative framework in place to deal with the scale of amalgamations and restructuring that is occurring in the public sector; amalgamation that is long overdue; restructuring that strives to deliver more efficient, effective and affordable services to the people of Ontario. This is long overdue.
For far too long, the manner in which provincial and municipal governments have serviced the needs of Ontarians has not realistically identified the taxpayers' ability to pay. Governments recognize the need to consolidate service delivery. The focus of Bill 136 is to ensure that these changes take place in an environment that minimizes conflict between employers and employees and that services will not be interrupted during these transition periods. Public service cannot afford to be interrupted because of strikes and walkouts while employers and employees work out the terms of new collective agreements. The people of this province deserve better.
As a businessman for over 30 years, I have always taken the position that the best way to resolve work-related issues and problems is to have employers and employees sit down at the table and negotiate, talk out the issue and find a common solution. Each workplace has different issues that must be addressed. I believe that this approach is the only way to resolve any issue. Amalgamation represents one of these issues.
The ultimate goal of this bill is to set up a system that encourages employers and employees alike to negotiate their own first contract. The key word here is to "negotiate," not impose but to negotiate openly, honestly and fairly. I believe most municipal governments, schools and hospitals also take this position. They asked for this type of legislation. If this exercise is to be completed, both sides have to work together for the good of Ontarians.
How does this government propose to take us from point A to point B in a smooth and orderly manner? The vehicle is Bill 136. First, Bill 136 proposes the creation of a temporary Labour Relations Transition Commission to deal with more of the complex issues arising out of amalgamation. Some groups and organizations are claiming that the commission will take away the democratic rights of workers when unions begin to merge.
Contrary to tonight's rhetoric, this is not the case. If a union does not represent a substantial majority of employees, either 75% or 60% depending on the number of unions merging, or disputes between unions arise as to who should represent the collective, the commission will conduct a vote, a democratic vote to allow employees to choose the bargaining agent for the new unit. Is this wrong? I don't think so. Let it also be stated that if 40% or more employees in the new bargaining unit are non-union, the option of not being unionized will appear on the ballot, a principle that is consistent with the Labour Relations Act.
How can anyone honestly and comfortably say that marking a ballot is undemocratic and violates the rights of workers? How can anyone honestly say that we are taking away the democratic right of workers, when the workers will have the right to determine who will represent their interests -- not the commission, not the government, but the workers? Is this not democracy?
Members of the opposition parties, usually from the third party, claim that Bill 136 is an assault on collective bargaining, an assault on the fundamental values of labour relations. That statement is wrong and it is most hypocritical, coming from the party that passed Bill 48, called the social contract, in 1993 as part of its effort to control costs in the wake of two disastrous budgets.
If any piece of legislation introduced in this House ever violated the most fundamental principles of collective bargaining, it was Bill 48. This legislation allowed the government to override existing collective agreements. Where parties were unable to find necessary cost savings, the act imposed a 5% wage rollback and up to 12 unpaid days. Now our opponents will say, "But the workers could still strike." The right to strike became irrelevant because the employer had no authority to negotiate terms inconsistent with those under the act. Bill 48 did nothing except impose outcomes on workers.
2030
Let me say to my honourable colleagues in the third party: That is your record on labour relations. That is your record, not ours. With the exception of a few courageous members of your caucus, your government clearly violated the rights of workers that you claim today to stand up for.
Bill 136 sets the stage for negotiated collective agreements. Labour has always told government not to intervene directly in collective agreement outcomes by removing successor rights and overriding collective agreement restrictions on contracting out. This bill does not predetermine outcomes, nor does it remove successor rights. Rather, it encourages workplace parties to resolve issues through collective bargaining.
The second highlight of the legislation creates a Dispute Resolution Commission, a panel created to promote negotiated settlements and resolve disputes should negotiations fail. The Dispute Resolution Commission will also have the ability to administer a binding dispute or resolution during first-contract negotiations. Let us be clear on this issue: This power of the Dispute Resolution Commission is a temporary one and can only be used at the request of either party and only on the first negotiated contract after amalgamation.
Some individuals are also claiming that employers will simply avoid bargaining and ask the Dispute Resolution Commission to impose a contract. Bill 136 adopts the provisions of the Ontario Labour Relations Act that require both parties to bargain in good faith and make a serious effort to reach a negotiated settlement. Both parties will be required to go through the normal conciliation process before applying to the commission. If either party prematurely applies to the Dispute Resolution Commission, the chief commissioner has the power to order the parties back to the bargaining table. Once the DRC is appointed to resolve the disputes, the emphasis will be on negotiating their own solutions. Mediation is a fundamental component of this process. Only after these efforts are fruitless will the DRC make an order to resolve the dispute.
I do not believe the DRC will look favourably upon either the employer or the employee triggering the DRC mechanism before meaningful negotiations have been exhausted. If workers are prepared to negotiate openly and honestly with employers, then employers must be prepared to do the same. Bargaining settlements have been, and still remain, the best way to deal with issues.
This issue is not about negotiating one individual contract with one individual union in one individual company in Ontario. Rather, this is about every hospital, school and municipality in Ontario restructuring all of their public services at virtually the same time: a truly monumental task, a task that requires a legal framework by which services to the public are guaranteed without the fear of strikes and walkouts. Employers must restructure their organizations in an efficient and organized manner, and employees will be treated fairly.
The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments? Member for Durham East.
Mr Gravelle: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I believe it should go to the Liberal caucus first.
The Acting Speaker: I beg your pardon. On this occasion, it should. Member for Cornwall.
Mr Cleary: I'm pleased to comment on the member's speech. As he knows and I know, we met with the wardens and Liberal caucus and government caucus in Kingston a few weeks ago and there were many questions asked there. Many of the wardens had a lot of questions. They presented us each with briefs. I didn't hear too many answers come out of those meetings, although there were several government members there.
The big issue is the downloading that this government is bringing on the municipalities. Provincial highways, big downfall; they're unloading the highways and probably only a third or a little bit more percentage of the money to go with upgrading those highways. They've even forgotten about the winter maintenance and the upkeep afterwards. I know that's a big issue all across Ontario, along with the shortfall to the municipalities.
As I mentioned earlier tonight, in my particular area in SD&G there's a shortfall of some $36 million between the city and the counties. In an area where there's high unemployment, I don't know where the municipalities are going to raise that money. I know municipal councils have pared back on employees and cut services and now they're looking at a big increase in taxes to keep what services they have left.
Please take the opportunity to consult with the municipal employees. I think dialogue is what we need here and I think everyone wants to work together.
Mr Christopherson: In responding to the comments of the member for Peterborough, let me say that he spent a fair bit of time talking about democracy. He must have mentioned the word at least three or four times. Democracy also means listening and giving people their say and letting them express legitimate democratic opposition. You don't believe in that as a government, and you as a specific member certainly don't.
It was only a couple of weeks ago in Burlington when we were on hearings of Bill 99 -- your attack on injured workers where you're gutting the WCB and going after the most vulnerable people in our society, taking $15 billion out of the pockets of injured workers, giving $6 billion of it back to your corporate pals -- where at that particular hearing I put a motion on the floor requesting unanimous consent to extend the hearings beyond the six measly days that this government had allocated. Every one of the government members sat there and did not oppose that request. When I turned to the Chair and said, "I seem to have unanimous consent to place this motion," that would allow injured workers to be heard in Mike Harris's undemocratic Ontario, this was the member who stepped forward and on the record said, "No, I oppose."
Applause.
Mr Christopherson: Look at you applaud. That's disgusting. You're all disgusting. You use the word "hypocrisy." What kind of hypocrisy is it to say that you believe in democracy and yet deny people the right to be heard? That's what you're all about. That's why you've changed the rules. The speakers now don't even get the full half-hour. Now they're down to 10 minutes: 10 minutes to talk about a bill that's going to drop the quality of life of the people who work in this province, and you don't give a damn. You've got a lot of nerve standing up and talking about democracy. You don't know the first damn thing about democracy.
2040
Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): I'll try to speak a little more quietly and perhaps a little more effectively.
Bill 136, the Public Sector Transition Stability Act, I believe is indeed that, trying to provide an environment for stability in the public sector for the people of Ontario.
The member for Peterborough, whom I have the greatest respect for, has clearly demonstrated that issues like the right to strike and successor rights are not negotiable. This government wants to provide a framework where we can move from where we are to where we need to be. I want the members today to recognize that our minister, Elizabeth Witmer, has clearly and very effectively asked for input. She's asked for input from the Legislature and from the participants throughout Ontario.
With over 3,300 collective agreements at stake in the public sector, it's clear that when we move on restructuring Ontario -- and most people here agree that we need to restructure; business as usual is not on -- we must have stability. We have to provide essential services, police, fire and hospitals, for the people of Ontario.
I wanted to make a couple of points. In the restructuring, it's clearly understood there are many sectors that presently don't have the right to strike. What we're trying to provide is a dispute resolution process by which the parties are clearly mandated and empowered to try and resolve their differences without the arbitration process. That's encouraged.
The arbitration process -- I wouldn't want to dispute with the member for Hamilton Centre. The arbitrators are professionals, and to think that they could be compromised by this government or any government, I think more highly of professional arbitrators.
I want to also recognize that the member for Peterborough has said there will be no transgression of successor rights. That's clear, that's in the bill, and there's no unilateral removal of bargaining rights.
M. Jean-Marc Lalonde (Prescott et Russell) : C'est un plaisir pour moi de vous présenter mes commentaires sur les points qui ont été soulevés par le député de Peterborough. Je m'oppose au projet de loi, c'est simple. C'est que le gouvernement a démontré que nous avons un manque de respect. Nous croyons que nous devons avoir la démocratie pour les citoyens et les citoyennes de cette province.
Je crois que nous avons omis de consulter les travailleurs. Nous avons omis de consulter les employés municipaux, les employés des services de santé, les employés du ministère de l'Éducation. Nous n'avons qu'à nous rappeler l'automne dernier lorsque le gouvernement a dit aux municipalités : «On doit procéder avec l'amalgamation. Si vous ne procédez pas avec les amalgamations, nous allons couper vos octrois.» Qu'est-il arrivé ? Nous avons décidé de couper les octrois. Amalgamation ou non, nous avons coupé les octrois.
Le 4 septembre, nous allons avoir trois élections partielles. Les gens de Tecumseh, d'ici-même à Toronto, et d'Ottawa-Ouest ne sont pas au courant encore que nous aurions dû peut-être discuter des deux projets de loi, le projet de loi 152 et le projet de loi 136, le transfert aux municipalités. Dans ce projet de loi, on va donner l'autorisation au gouvernement de démontrer aux municipalités que le gouvernement est maître, et nous allons oublier de consulter les municipalités. Nous allons établir des directives et les gouvernements municipaux n'auront pas d'autre choix. Mais Tecumseh seule aura une facture d'au-delà de 480 000 $ pour le transfert de responsabilité des ambulances. Est-ce que ces gens le savaient là-bas ? Absolument pas.
Mr Stewart: I'd just like to clarify something from the member for Hamilton Centre. Yes, I voted against extending the hearings, because what had happened -- you talk about democracy. We were hearing the same reports, the same statements from the same people, and the people we should have been hearing were not able to get on the agenda. The disabled were who we wanted to hear, and all we heard was the same groups day after day with no recommendation, and the gentleman who put on the resolution did nothing else but grandstand for two weeks instead of listening to the people we were there for.
As far as this bill goes, I have faith in the municipal politician. The municipal politician will go back to his municipality, he will restructure, he will amalgamate, he will negotiate in good faith, and that's what it's all about. Employee-employer relations seem to have gone out the window in your mind. I don't believe it has. I have been an employer. I know of many employees all over this province, all over this country, that have negotiated in good faith and have great relationships with them. Why are we turning everybody against each other? I don't believe this will happen.
Mr Wildman: Why are you doing that?
Mr Stewart: You are doing it again. You did it under the social contract and you want to put us in the same bloody position that you guys were in. You created a problem with the social contract. Now you're saying we're doing it. And the opposition over there, they don't believe in a balanced budget. They don't want nothing. Well, some days they do; other days they don't. It's a little bit hard to really know where they're coming from.
I believe that 136 will work.
Mr Gravelle: I'm glad to have an opportunity to speak on Bill 136. If I may, I would like to begin by responding actually to the member for Peterborough. The member for Peterborough --
Mr Christopherson: Another one-term wonder.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Hamilton Centre, the member for Port Arthur has the floor.
Mr Gravelle: The member for Peterborough has insulted everyone who made a presentation at the Bill 99 hearings, absolutely insulted everyone. Our critic was there, the critic for the NDP was there every day, and the fact is that the member for Peterborough knows full well that there were hundreds of recommendations put forward from every group possible, and the only problem was there wasn't enough time available to get all the recommendations in there.
I know our caucus or our critic has 76 amendments being put forward. To me, unfortunately, this is very indicative of what's happening across this province with this government. This government is getting very much out of touch, out of touch to the point that they do not mind insulting the workers of this province. They don't mind insulting anybody any more, and that is really part of the problem that's happening.
Bill 136 is certainly a part of that that we're seeing, a bill that clearly does attack workers, a bill that really is something that for absolutely -- I think a form of despair is developing as a result of all the bullying action of this government that have gone on for the last two years, because Bill 136 is really just the next in a long line, a long succession, of bills and actions by this government that are hurting people. I truly believe that people are beginning to lose hope, whether you're talking about our seniors who have been under attack in a variety of manners in terms of user fees being put on them and attached to everything that happens to them or in terms of our young people who are having all kinds of tuition fees increased by 10%. We just found out, for example, that those people who are applying for student loans now must have their vehicles assessed as part of their income, which is taking a lot of them out of their bracket. Action upon action is hurting desperately the people of this province that we're supposed to help, and this government doesn't seem to really care.
Something else that needs to be noted, I think, is that the rule changes have certainly kicked in in the Ontario Legislature. We have now reached seven hours of debate. Each of us now only has 10 minutes to make our point, to argue the issues that we feel are so important. It truly is extraordinarily tragic that 10 minutes is all that's left to speak on a bill as important as this which is going to affect so many, many people.
Because I have much less time than I planned and I hoped to have, I would like to, quite frankly, read a letter from a constituent that I think sums up very well the concerns that are expressed about Bill 136. The constituent is Mr Burns from Thunder Bay, and he writes:
"I am deeply concerned over the proposed changes suggested in Bill 136 as it applies to the collective bargaining rights for civil servants.
"These changes will take an already strained civil service beyond what could reasonably be expected and sow the seeds for what will surely be a diminished level of service, beyond what has already occurred through cutbacks.
"To suspend the bargaining rights for emergency service workers, who do not have the right to strike as it is, is a recipe for disaster. The public of Ontario count on these people in the most trying of times. Countless hours donated by these people, without pay, has been driven by pride and dedication." This is someone who obviously cares about the public service in this province. "This bill will undermine all of that and return a solid relationship between these associations and the government to the era of the 1800s.
"Mike Harris and the policies of his government would set a shining example for the robber barons of the last century. The message is Ontario is open for business, at the cost of your family's welfare and safety.
2050
"This is a government who removes billions from the pension plans of its employees for a pittance in return and is now going to crush them with draconian labour restrictions to meet unrealistic election promises. Any promised tax cut will not come without its price. That price may well be the public's security and support for the provincial Conservative Party." Signed by "One of many former Conservatives."
I think Mr Burns has expressed very well the feelings of a number of people and I am pleased to have the opportunity to read his remarks into the record and to speak also on behalf of the number of associations, the number of groups in terms of our workers across this province who, I think, need an advocate at this time.
The fact is, it's not the municipalities who are the problem in terms of the collective bargaining process. They want to maintain it. We know what happened at AMO despite what has been said across the floor several times tonight and in previous debates. The fact is that the Association of Municipalities of Ontario did pass a resolution two days ago at their annual meeting asking this government to withdraw this bill. The reason they wanted the government to withdraw this bill was very, very simple. It was because they recognized the chaos it would incur and they feel they can handle the situation themselves. They don't want to be put in that position.
Municipal governments are already facing some extraordinary problems and extraordinary problems that they also are battling with the government over. Some of the downloading realities are truly, truly wrong -- that's probably the most simple way of putting it -- if you look at some of the decisions being made by this government which Al Leach, the Minister of Municipal Affairs, has described as "a package," a package that can't be touched. As a result, you have public health: public health which I think even the Minister of Health, who I see is here tonight, must recognize truly should remain a provincial responsibility. We know that public health --
Interjection.
Mr Gravelle: How about the funding for the genetic counselling program, Mr Minister?
Hon Jim Wilson (Minister of Health): We'll look after that.
Mr Gravelle: The minister said he will look after it. You'll be funding it 100%?
Interjection.
Mr Gravelle: That's good news, if you can confirm that for us, Mr Health Minister.
We look at the situation that's being faced in terms of the extra policing costs. I know that in my riding in Port Arthur this past summer, for example, Shuniah township, July 2, torrential rainstorm, a natural disaster occurred, flooding which truly damaged large parts of the community. I've been trying since that time to get some assistance from the Minister of Municipal Affairs, but it has not yet been forthcoming. At the same time, very shortly after that we heard about the downloading costs that are coming in terms of the OPP costs for policing in Shuniah township, well over $800,000 a year being added on.
Municipalities are absolutely under attack and it's very, very important that this government realize that they cannot simply keep forcing the issue and ultimately attacking the property taxpayers because when you look at the attacks they've made on our seniors, the attacks that they made on our youth, the attacks that they're making on our workers in every sense, when you look at the attacks they're making on our workers, it goes right back to the very beginning of this mandate.
It's very, very clear. No matter what the members of the government will say, when one looks at 136 and sees exactly how this bill works, it's very clear, it's a stacked deck. It's a setup. The fact is that there's not a chance at all that with the Dispute Resolution Commission in place and when you have it, as the member for Fort William was very clear to point out, being based on the ability to pay, there is going to be any opportunity for workers to be able to truly advance themselves.
You know, we need to advocate on behalf of the middle class, the lower class and everybody who is truly under attack because the fact is, people are losing hope. We look at those people who are the most vulnerable. We look at a government that, as its first action before we even sat in this Legislature, cut the amount of money available to people on social assistance by 21.6%. It was the first action they took. It was done by a regulation, a rule, and we've now seen that this has had a devastating effect on those people most in need. We've seen the cuts to children's aid societies. We've seen continual attacks on those who can least manage it and we've seen a government that continues to drift further and further away from being in touch with the realities that are out there.
The Premier can certainly come back and talk about the warm reception he received at the AMO meeting all he wants. We know that's not the case. The member for Chatham-Kent can certainly talk about what he was being told by his municipality. The fact is that the municipalities do not want this bill to go forward. They've made that very, very clear. The fact is that the people of this province do not want this bill to go forward. The fact is that ultimately it is going to cause a level of chaos and a level of contentiousness that is simply going to bring us to a state where things will not be manageable at all.
We have to recognize that the people need to be listened to, and whether or not the member for Peterborough agrees, we should be having more public hearings, the fact is that we must have public hearings. We need to have the opportunity to let people out there express their feelings. But there's really no point in having these public hearings unless the government is willing to listen, and it's becoming more and more apparent each time we go out there that the government has absolutely no intention of listening to the concerns of the people and listening to the recommendations that come forward as a result of these public hearings.
I simply close, as my time is up, by asking the government once again to withdraw Bill 136. It will be the right thing to do.
The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?
Mr Wildman: I intervene in the debate to congratulate my friend for Port Arthur on his presentation. I agree with him completely that this government seems to be selectively hard of hearing. They say they are prepared to listen, but then when the municipality representatives in convention clearly vote and say --
Interjections.
Mr Wildman: It has been said in this House that we shouldn't count that vote, that 60% of the delegates asked for the government to reconsider, said that this bill was going to cause problems in terms of relationships in collective bargaining and that they wanted this government to rethink and they wanted dialogue before this moved forward, for the government to pull back.
What do we hear from the people who say that they are doing this for the municipalities? They say: "Oh, well, you shouldn't pay attention to what they voted. It doesn't matter. They didn't really mean it because if they really meant it, they would have agreed with us." It's kind of, as I said, selectively hard of hearing. When someone gives this government a clear message that they want the government to be more thoughtful, to rethink the situation, to consult with them, to have dialogue to determine if there's another better way to do things, they say: "Wait a minute. No, they don't agree with what we're doing, therefore they mustn't have said that. They didn't really mean it and it doesn't count."
Then the new president of AMO says, "We did ask for some tools," and they say, "Okay, that must be what we should pay attention to." The point is, there are a lot of delegates who expressed the views of their municipalities and this government should be listening to them.
Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York): I want to comment on one of the themes that has come through in a number of speakers here this evening, and that is the question of listening and the question then of what exactly is the role between the government and its municipal partners. I want to just comment on the fact that it is possible those municipalities who can and wish to and are able to negotiate an agreement obviously are able to continue to do so. Bill1 136 does not interfere with that opportunity to negotiate.
I'd also like to comment on those who have concerns about the whole issue of listening. That becomes very clear when you look at some of the history of this bill where employers wanted to look at the questions of successor rights and contracting-out privileges. When labour's concerns were addressed in this legislation to make sure that their concerns were maintained and that there was protection, seniority rights are there, successor rights are there.
The minister continues to listen. The minister has made very clear a willingness to meet with AMO, with the police associations, with the labour leaders of this province. I think it's important to maintain that opportunity for open dialogue and listening. Both the minister and the Premier have made it very clear that that is their goal.
2100
Mr Patten: I'd like to extend congratulations to my colleague from Port Arthur and sympathize with him that he didn't have the time he felt he needed to give credit to addressing this bill. He began by saying that many people are being insulted by this. It's an in-your-face bill. He used the term that the bill is a stacked deck. The more people see of this, the more they begin to see that indeed it is.
The member for Durham-York talks about listening. The police association was quite upset. This was tried before, in the final days of Frank Miller. You remember the dispute with the Metropolitan police when they attempted to impose something. They ended up doing what? They ended up assigning an independent, agreed-upon arbitrator, because that was the only way that you could resolve the dispute.
If you think the police or the firefighters will not go to the wall on this one -- believe me, that's all it is, because they have nothing left. There's nothing left for them. You've taken away the single tool the essential workers had, which will become permanent, by the way; that's not temporary with the essential workers. The single tool they had was a mutuality of agreement on an independent arbitrator, whom they both respected, to help resolve it if negotiations led to that particular point.
They will not be able to do that now. All it takes is any single party to call jeopardy and say, "We can't arrive at an agreement and therefore we will ask the Dispute Resolution Commission to resolve this for us." With the autocratic powers the DRC has in looking at ability to pay -- and of course nobody has the ability to pay -- in looking at programs or replacements for no increases in taxes etc, you can believe that some employers will utilize that opportunity.
Mr Christopherson: I'm pleased to compliment the member for Port Arthur. I point out to all those who are watching that the member, as he indicated at the beginning, had 10 minutes, that's it. Last week he'd have had at least 30 minutes to speak. Today he got 10 minutes to speak on behalf of the people in his community on a bill, a brand-new piece of legislation, that will directly affect hundreds of thousands of people in virtually every single municipality in this province. If that is not a total disregard for the concerns of the people, I don't know what is. It's certainly not wanting to listen. It's all about shutting down discussion.
The first comment that the member for Port Arthur made when he rose in his place was to condemn the comments of the member for Peterborough for the insult and the disrespect he showed for all the people who made presentations, all the injured workers who were there, and certainly for the literally thousands of people who wanted and deserved an opportunity to speak but were denied because this government doesn't like to face opposition. We couldn't go into Peterborough. We wanted to. We couldn't go to Peterborough because you wouldn't let the committee attend enough cities to let people be heard.
Mr Joseph Spina (Brampton North): You chose 66% of the delegates.
The Acting Speaker: You're not in your seat, member for Brampton North.
Mr Christopherson: If anybody doubts how they really feel, just watch a rerun of the tape and look at the look of contempt on his face as he talked about the presenters.
If you really cared about listening, given the fact that AMO voted the way it did, whether you like it or not -- and the OFL has taken exactly the same position -- you should be pulling this bill back and beginning dialogue with all the parties involved. But you're not listening and therefore you're not doing that.
Mr Gravelle: I certainly want to thank all the members who responded: the members for Algoma, Durham-York, Ottawa Centre and Hamilton Centre. It's difficult to know what to focus on in the time remaining, other than to respond to the member for Durham-York.
You talked about consultation. The problem we continually face here is that we have a government that says, "Here's what we're going to do and we'll consult later." That's a problem, because the government tends not to change things. The bill goes forward; they then say, "We want to consult." We've seen the consultation process and how it doesn't work.
You say this bill does not interfere with the power to negotiate. Well, I think it's a problem, because we've seen the problem with a number of groups that were not able to negotiate with this government, because it makes up its mind and sticks to it.
The fact is, there needs to be a greater understanding on your part. There seems to be a general understanding needed by the government that people who come forward to make presentations, the public, should be accorded some respect and their point of view taken seriously. That certainly doesn't seem to be what happens, when we saw the reaction we had in the House tonight.
I can only finish my remarks by making a plea to this government to recognize that ultimately they are not showing respect for people for whom they should show respect. A lot of the people out there actually supported this government in the election of 1995. Many of them certainly regret it. I read a letter from a constituent who clearly was one of those supporters. He's pretty upset, as are a lot of other people, because they recognize that this government is truly rushing things through in a manner that is frightening a lot of people in this province, that is not leading us to economic prosperity but is leading us to a form of chaos. That is absolutely frightening to a large proportion of this population.
The government members would do well to sit back and recognize that they may be getting out of touch. They would do well to listen to the people of the province and withdraw this bill now.
The Acting Speaker: Before we go on with debate, I would ask those who are not in their own seats to please resume their own seats or to take their conversations outside the chamber. It is becoming very hard to hear. As we all know, this is the end of a long day. It's important for us to give the floor to those who have the floor and to be respectful of this process. I really ask members to try and keep order in the House in the last half-hour that we're meeting today. Thank you.
Further debate? The member for Nickel Belt.
Mr Floyd Laughren (Nickel Belt): Thank you, Madam Speaker. A timely intervention on your part, much appreciated.
I've been somewhat bemused by some of the arguments that have come from government members about the whole issue of listening. The member for Chatham-Kent really brought it home to me -- a fine gentleman, I must say, but when he made his arguments about listening to people, I wasn't sure we were in the same universe. He talked about going to AMO and having a few, I presume, of the 40% who voted against the resolution saying, "Don't pay any attention to the resolution," and therefore that's what the government should do.
If I were a constituent in Chatham-Kent, I would feel that I had been defrauded. I don't want to use language too strong, but I think the people in Chatham-Kent didn't understand that the member for Chatham-Kent, when he ran for office, didn't use his real name. His real name, with that kind of logic, has to be Lewis Carroll. It simply has to be. That's not Jack Carroll sitting over there. That really is Alice in Wonderland logic. As I say, the people in Chatham-Kent will not be happy with that.
There's been a lot of talk tonight about not just the listening aspect in the exercise we're engaged in here, but some really brutal shots at the NDP government for bringing in what's become popularly known as the social contract. As someone whose name was attached to that piece of legislation, I've been sitting here smarting a bit at some of the comments. I would simply remind the members who imply that this was an anti-labour act on our part that it was done, plain and simple, for two reasons: one, to bring $2 billion in savings towards deficit reduction, and we achieved it.
2110
Hon Chris Hodgson (Minister of Natural Resources, Northern Development and Mines): You didn't achieve it.
Mr Laughren: You don't know what you're talking about, Chris. We achieved the $2 billion on the social contract. Second, and probably just as important, it was to save jobs for public sector workers in the province, and it did save jobs for public sector workers.
I have not even an ounce of guilt in my entire system about the social contract, because it accomplished what it was supposed to do: save about 20,000 to 30,000 jobs for public sector workers in the province. I think that was an admirable goal and an admirable accomplishment.
The fact that you people can sit there and tell us that we're not pro-labour because we did that -- you came to power and cancelled the anti-scab legislation. The lowest form of humanity is a scab who crosses the picket line, and you cancelled that. You did real damage to pay equity, and in this very bill you cancel a wage protection plan. How nasty and narrow-minded and mean-spirited can you be? That program for workers cost roughly $25 million a year for workers, the workers who had already done the labour, already performed the work in keeping with their belief in the work ethic, the Protestant work ethic that you people are always worshipping. If they did that and the company left town or went bankrupt, there was a form of protection there. It wasn't a lot, it wasn't enough, but it was some protection, and you people have cancelled that.
Worse still, you don't have the courage to stand in your place and say, "No, we don't think workers should have that protection." You say, "We're cancelling it because we think the federal government should bring in legislation," knowing full well that the federal Liberals will never in a hundred years bring in legislation to protect working people. You know that. That's why it's so hypocritical to use the argument you do. You know full well that it's not going to happen. There is no indication from the Minister of Labour or anyone else that that legislation is going to change at the federal level. You know it and I know it. That will never, ever happen. When it comes to protecting workers, we don't need any lectures from this anti-labour group that sits across the floor from us, no lectures at all.
I don't know what the reaction of the labour movement will be when this bill passes, which it certainly will. There could be others in this chamber who have a better idea as to what the reaction of the labour movement will be.
Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte): He is up there.
Mr Laughren: I wasn't looking for anybody in particular. I don't know what the reaction of the labour movement will be, but I will be very surprised and quite frankly disappointed if the reaction of the labour movement isn't white-hot anger at what you're doing to them and their members. I'll be very disappointed, because you are asking for it, whether it's what you're doing to workers' compensation, what you're doing to allow scabs. Deep in your heart of hearts you're encouraging scabs, not just making their existence legal.
I must say that you deserve every ounce of labour disruption that occurs in this province. I don't know how much there will be -- maybe there will be none -- but I sure hope I don't hear any expressions of surprise or dismay from across the floor if it does happen. You have no right to do that, absolutely no right whatsoever, because you're doing everything to provoke labour disruption in this province. If you don't know that -- maybe that's your goal. I don't know. I don't want to attribute motive. Maybe that's your goal. Maybe you need more enemies. Maybe you have alienated so many of your friends you now need to take on a battle with your enemies. Maybe that's what's driving you. I don't know that. But I want to tell you we're heading for some interesting times in this province.
We haven't even seen the legislation dealing with teachers yet. What are you going to do with teachers? Are you going to take on the teachers and provoke disruption in our schools? Completely unnecessary provocation, but that's what you're doing. That $5 billion a year in a tax cut is what is driving you, and you're absolutely determined that you're going to deliver that no matter what.
Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey-Owen Sound): What about the social contract? What was that about?
Mr Laughren: Maybe the member for Grey-Owen Sound wasn't here at the beginning of my remarks when I dealt with that very issue. If you were here, you weren't listening, because I dealt with that issue already.
I don't want to be accused of not dealing with the specifics of this bill. I support what 60% of the delegates to the AMO convention said, and that's that this bill should be withdrawn. I agree with the Ontario Federation of Labour, which say this bill should be withdrawn. I want to see a list of people who say that this bill should go through. Oh, of course. It's the Tory caucus. I forgot. It's the herd called the Tory caucus
I want to close by saying that we are going back in time to an era when governments, particularly Tory governments, looked for fights with people they thought might not be popular with the public at large. That seems to be what's happening here. I suspect they're going to get their wish. If that's your wish, that's what you're going to get, because you are sure picking your enemies in a very strange way.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Mr Laughren: I have trouble speaking when there is no noise around.
I hope the members opposite will take the time to respond to some of my remarks because I'd like to have some of my instincts proven wrong about what's motivating this gang of bandits. I'm not sure they can do that, but I hope they'll try.
The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?
Mr Gilchrist: I'm more than pleased to rise to help the honourable member on that path to enlightenment. In most of the ridings of Ontario, the voters did reach that judgement on June 8, 1995, and proved your methodology wrong.
But the member brought up the issue of the social contract and suggested that should be taken as some kind of positive contrast to the consultation our government is doing. To those who may not have been tuned in to the parliamentary channel about five years ago now, I remind you that there were no public hearings on the social contract. It was pushed through a committee of the whole House in two days. In total, from the first day they even brought up the concept to the day they passed the bill, it took three weeks, three weeks to trample on the rights of every single public sector employee in this province. You're suggesting that that should be taken as a positive contrast? I think we can see why the voters, including a majority, I suspect, of public service employees, voted against your government and in favour of ours in June 1995.
I'd like to also say that the member accused us of picking our enemies. I would suggest, sir, that you made a few enemies yourself. You decided that business was bad and you decided that every taxpayer in this province was your enemy as well. There's no other explanation for why you would have run up a $100 billion in debt at the rate of $11 billion a year. I suggest that is not exactly being friendly to the overworked, overtaxed citizenry in this province.
This bill and all other bills that have gone before us so far have been exposed to far more public consultation than they would have the viewing public believe: 720 hours of public hearings last year, and over and above that, untold hours of consultation by this ministers. This bill is an important addition to the labour negotiation tools available to municipalities.
Mr Bisson: Madam Speaker, I would ask for unanimous consent of the House to allow the member for Scarborough Centre to speak for yet another two minutes. I can see the Tory polling numbers going down every minute he speaks, and I'd like to give him that opportunity.
Interjections.
Mr Gilchrist: Madam Speaker, I don't know if we can convince the member for Nickel Belt, but clearly the member for Cochrane South --
The Acting Speaker: I'm sorry, member for Scarborough East, I did not hear unanimous consent. Is it agreed? No. All right.
The Acting Speaker: Order. Members, we have a little over 10 minutes to remain. Please let us continue with the debate. Member for Ottawa Centre, comments and questions.
2120
Mr Patten: I'm pleased to respond to the member for Nickel Belt. I won't deal with the Alice in Wonderland scenario he introduced, but I think he did raise a question suggesting that what was revealing about this legislation was the values, and he addressed the intentions of this government related to the wage protection section.
I'd like to make a few comments on that particular section. That wage protection program helped almost 90,000 people over the course of 1991 to 1997, people who had worked, had earned their wages, had earned their vacation pay or whatever it was and now had a chance, through bankruptcies or whatever would happen to a company, to be considered first in line. I think that's only just. And I think it is revealing because the only link between this particular wage protection program and the collective bargaining process that this government wants to change is money. It has nothing to do with collective bargaining. The wage protection program stands on its own. But it's a way for the government to get more money on the backs of people who live paycheque to paycheque very often.
Look inside when you listen and you see some of the people who are in those positions and what happens to them. They have to go out at 45 or 50 years of age to try and find another job, and a bank or a great big company, an insurance company or whatever the hell it is, goes before those particular workers who have already earned their wages and given of themselves to that particular company in good faith. You suggest that they're at the bottom of the creditors' list. I say shame on you. It shows your values, that you don't care about these workers.
Mr Christopherson: I always find it a special treat to be able to listen to the dean of this House, a member who has been here for 26 years, fighting for the people of his riding, the people he cares about, and making sure that with every pronouncement he makes it's improving the lot of working people, unlike this government which does exactly the opposite. This bill is just another indication of that.
I think it's actually lucky for us that you have decided to follow this ridiculous course, because it's so ridiculous that no one's going to buy into it; that somehow the government of Mike Harris is a bigger friend of working, middle-class families than Bob Rae was and that the labour movement ought to be thankful Mike Harris is there. I'll tell you, any day you want to try to defend that suggestion, we'll gladly take you on. Any day you want to compare your litany of attack on the rights of working people in this province to the measures that we took and the positive improvements we made to working people and their lives, we'll gladly take you on.
Let's take a look at 136. Just in 136 alone you are once again going after women. It's like you have a vendetta against women, because pay equity relates almost entirely to women and you're gutting it. The employee wage protection plan has already been described by others as a positive piece of protection for working people, and you're taking it away. What are some of the other things on the list? Well, you killed the Workplace Health and Safety Agency. You have taken rights away in the Employment Standards Act. Even non-union people, you have gone after their rights. You took away the successor rights for OPSEU without a minute of public hearings in Bill 7 and caused that terrible strike; the injured workers in Bill 99; you've gone after the police and firefighters --
The Acting Speaker: Order. Further comments and questions? Member for Chatham-Kent.
Mr Carroll: You could also refer to me as the member from Wonderland, Madam Speaker, if you like.
In response to the member from Nickel Belt, he had a lot of rhetoric about the vote at AMO. I'd like to put it in a little bit of perspective. There were roughly 1,400 delegates at AMO. They represented roughly 800 municipalities in the province. According to an article in the Globe and Mail, 198 people voted to request the government to withdraw Bill 136 pending further consultation. I don't know, but to me, 198 out of 1,400 doesn't represent a tremendous mandate. I just thought I would like to put that particular number in perspective so that you could understand a little bit about where the numbers came from.
The other thing I'd like to comment on is, the member from Nickel Belt said we would go down in history as the most anti-union government ever. I'm not so sure that his government and his party don't already have a lock on that.
I'd like to quote from Sid Ryan from April 28, 1993, -- this is the same Sid Ryan who stood up there in the front row of the gallery and embarrassed himself and the trade union movement about a week ago -- re the social contract: "We're going to put pressure on this government like they've never seen in their lives. The social contract is an insult to trade unionists and an insult to collective bargaining." I don't know; it sounds to me like the New Democratic Party already has a lock on the most anti-labour government that ever served Ontario.
Mr Laughren: We may be the most unpopular government ever in the eyes of Sid Ryan. That's quite possible. I would simply ask you if you think the majority of working-class people in this province believe that today.
Second, when we talk about the results of our policies being determined by June 1995, I would simply put that all governments make that argument when they get elected, and I can assure you that not all governments get re-elected. There's obviously lots of evidence of that.
I would like to thank those members who responded to my remarks. I would simply say too that there seems to be a misunderstanding by the new members of the Tory party about your views on the social contract. When we brought it in, Michael Harris was standing right over here, as a member and leader of the third party, and said, "Bring it in today; three readings, bang, bang, bang." Those were virtually his exact words. So I don't need any lectures from you people about what the social contract did for people. It tried to do a lot more for people than you will ever do in a million years.
I must say that the member for Hamilton Centre makes an excellent point when he talks about the approach of this government to women. It's no surprise there's a gender gap when it comes to polling on the popularity of this government, because if there's one perception out there it's that this government is anti-labour and, more specifically, anti-women, and you deserve it.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Carroll: I only have a very few minutes left, but I would like to address one small issue. We hear a lot in the House about health care and what our government's reaction has been to health care. I'd like to quote from an article called "A Hospital Perspective on Bill 136." This article talks about, "The restructuring that is now taking place at the municipal level in education and indeed in health care represents formidable challenges for the institutions responsible for providing services to the public." I think we all accept that.
It goes on to say: "There are many risks associated with change in the hospital sector; under current processes, implementing the changes required in the time frames required is not possible." Bill 136 would make these changes possible. "That's why hospitals support this bill. In our view, the legislation has many positives in terms of how labour issues are handled in the hospital sector. The changes will improve the collective bargaining process in the broader public sector so that it is more responsive to current realities both for the long term and the short term."
It goes on to say, "The legislation has been framed to balance the needs of employees, employers and taxpayers, and would result in: a fast-track and fair method of resolving representation issues; a more rational, consistent and fairer treatment of collective agreements."
It further goes on to say: "In labour relations, negotiated solutions are the ideal but this may not always be possible given the complexity of the human resources issues that need to be resolved.... Bill 136 does not do away with the collective bargaining process, but where negotiated solutions are not possible, it would provide a mechanism for a more fair, equitable and expeditious resolution of issues, without detracting from anyone's fundamental rights." An interesting perspective on Bill 136 from the hospital sector, probably the sector that will be impacted the most profoundly by it.
I appreciate the opportunity to put those comments into the record.
The Acting Speaker: It now being almost 9:30 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 am.
The House adjourned at 2131.