STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER AND RESPONSES
CONTENTS
Monday 15 June 1998
Prevention of Unionization Act (Ontario Works), 1998, Bill 22, Mrs Ecker,
Loi de 1998 visant à empêcher la syndicalisation (programme Ontario au travail),
projet de loi 22, Mme Ecker
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Chair / Président
Mr Jerry J. Ouellette (Oshawa PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte PC)
Mr Dave Boushy (Sarnia PC)
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South / -Sud L)
Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold ND)
Mr Gerry Martiniuk (Cambridge PC)
Mr Jerry J. Ouellette (Oshawa PC)
Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming L)
Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte PC)
Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough PC)
Mr Bob Wood (London South / -Sud PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Dominic Agostino (Hamilton East / -Est L)
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent PC)
Mr Bill Grimmett (Muskoka-Georgian Bay / Muskoka-Baie-Georgienne PC)
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie PC)
Clerk / Greffier
Mr Douglas Arnott
Staff / Personnel
Mr Avrum Fenson, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1534 in room 228.
PREVENTION OF UNIONIZATION ACT (ONTARIO WORKS), 1998 LOI DE 1998 VISANT À EMPÊCHER LA SYNDICALISATION (PROGRAMME ONTARIO AU TRAVAIL)
Bill 22, An Act to Prevent Unionization with respect to Community Participation under the Ontario Works Act, 1997 / Projet de loi 22, Loi visant à empêcher la syndicalisation en ce qui concerne la participation communautaire visée par la Loi de 1997 sur le programme Ontario au travail.
The Chair (Mr Jerry J. Ouellette): I call the standing committee on administration of justice to order. The first order of business today is that someone move a motion to accept the report of the subcommittee.
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): I move the adoption of the report of the subcommittee for the meeting dated Wednesday, June 10, 1998.
The Chair: Discussion? All those in favour of the acceptance of the subcommittee report? All those opposed? Carried.
At this time, according to the subcommittee report, we move into members' statements.
Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): On a point of order, please, Chair: Correct me if I' m wrong, because I may well be, on this one. I see the report from Mr Fenson regarding the two issues, "Bargaining rights" and "Present implementation." Perhaps this is the full response to the query about the application of the Labour Relations Act and who it is and who it isn't who could engage in collective bargaining and trade unionization in any event. I don't know if this is the response or if there is more forthcoming.
Mr Avrum Fenson: I hope to have more details in response to that part of the question.
Mr Kormos: No problem. I'm not wanting to push legislative research, because they' re underpaid and understaffed.
Hon Janet Ecker (Minister of Community and Social Services): And overworked.
Mr Kormos: Especially since the cutbacks here at Queen's Park. But could Mr Fenson let us know a rough idea of when those would be available?
Mr Fenson: I hope I can have something tomorrow.
Mr Kormos: Thank you kindly. Again, no criticism of Mr Fenson or the staff.
STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER AND RESPONSES
The Chair: Okay. We're going to move to members' statements. At this time, according to the subcommittee, each caucus is allowed 20 minutes. We begin with the minister.
Hon Mrs Ecker: Thank you very much to the Chair and to the members of the committee. I am very pleased to be here today as the committee begins its consideration of Bill 22.
The purpose of this legislation is clear. It provides that the Labour Relations Act does not apply with respect to participants in a community participation activity under the Ontario Works Act. It will prevent the use of the Labour Relations Act for purposes of unionizing, bargaining collectively or striking.
Let me be clear about the reason for this legislation. It is the direct result of some Ontario labour leaders attempting to sabotage welfare reform. They have been actively harassing community agencies participating in Ontario Works and they are now attempting to unionize welfare recipients. We saw in the press this weekend another example, where CUPE picketed St Mike's hospital because two individuals on social assistance asked to be there for experience they thought could lead to a job.
We do not intend to allow this sabotage to succeed. Bill 22 protects the integrity of the reforms our government has been making to this province's welfare system. We have come too far in transforming welfare into work to turn back now. We will not return to the insanity of paying people to do nothing.
The reason we have drawn this line is simple: People on welfare want to work. They want to become self-sufficient. Until recently, though, the welfare system did not provide them with the kinds of practical assistance to achieve that objective.
When our government came to office three years ago, we inherited a welfare system that had completely lost its way. It had ceased to represent the values of mainstream Ontario, the values that built this province.
You can see it in the statistics: The number of people on welfare tripled between 1985 and 1995; 1.3 million of our citizens, a full 12% of the population, had become trapped on welfare; Ontario, our richest province, had the highest per capita welfare caseload in Canada.
This situation is unacceptable. With all its advantages and opportunities, this province must have more to offer its people than welfare dependency. We simply could not stand by and accept this tremendous waste of human resources.
The key challenge we faced was the need to restore the credibility of the welfare system with taxpayers. The people of this province are compassionate and generous. They are willing to help people in need, but they had some tough questions about the welfare system. They wondered why it seemed to be more attractive to be on welfare than to work hard and pay the taxes to support the system. They asked why the more money Ontario spent on welfare, the bigger our welfare problem became. They also wanted to know why the objective of the welfare system was not employment.
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When we searched for the answers to these questions, they were easily found. The first was high welfare rates. With the best of intentions, successive governments had mistaken excessive generosity for compassion and raised welfare rates to record levels. The result was predictable. High welfare payments removed the incentives for self-sufficiency, and over time the welfare system departed from its original purpose. It ceased to be a transitional bridge to self-reliance and a stepping stone to employment. It had become a trap for far too many Ontarians.
The second reason for the welfare mess we inherited was much more complex, and it goes right to the heart of our welfare reforms. The welfare system was not offering focused and sustained employment help to recipients. Passive income support was not enough. In failing to help people move from dependence to self-sufficiency, the system offered neglect instead of real help.
Members are familiar with the first steps we took towards reform:
We reduced assistance rates significantly, but to a level that is still, on average, 16% above the average of rates in the other nine provinces.
We brought in the most generous earn-back provisions in the country, which allow recipients to earn back the difference between the new rates and the old rates without penalty. That's a stepping stone back into full-time employment.
We acted to reduce the most prevalent misapplication of funds, by tightening eligibility rules for teenagers, for people in common-law relationships and for those who voluntarily quit jobs or refused employment.
We set up a welfare fraud hotline to catch people ripping off the system and to prevent future frauds.
These initial controls on the system were important, but they were just a down payment on real reform. We recognized that fundamental change would require an entirely new approach to welfare.
In 1996 we began the phase-in of Ontario Works, our mandatory work-for-welfare program. Its objective is simple: to help welfare recipients find the shortest route to a paying job.
Ontario Works provides the resources necessary to link welfare recipients to employment. In return, it requires them to use those resources and asks that they take the necessary steps to invest in their own future. Personal responsibility is now a fundamental expectation of our welfare system. Doing nothing is no longer an option.
In addition to providing financial assistance to people in need, Ontario Works links welfare recipients to employment. It has three main components: community participation, employment supports and employment placement. Through the program, participants receive opportunities for work experience that build skills, references and contacts for future employment; links to basic education and job-specific skills training; and job search, help in finding a job and referrals to job placements.
Community participation is a critical component of Ontario Works. Many welfare recipients lack the self-confidence, the work experience and the basic skills they need to connect with the world of work. These are skills you learn by doing, not from books or in a classroom.
Many welfare recipients already knew this, and that is why so many have volunteered with community agencies in the past. They took the initiative to seek out opportunities to obtain these skills on their own. They also recognized an obligation to put something back into their communities.
We thought that if welfare recipients themselves saw the value of work experience, the least we could do was recognize that need and respond to it. We made community participation a mandatory part of Ontario Works, to reflect the true value of work experience.
By threatening the very agencies that provide community placements, some labour leaders have resorted to the most selfish and destructive form of intimidation. Attempting to unionize welfare recipients has nothing to do with the wellbeing of Ontario Works participants. It has everything to do with the political agenda of those labour leaders. They are saying to welfare recipients: "I'm all right, Jack. I've got a job. But because we are picking a fight with the government, you can't have one."
The critics of Ontario Works are entitled to their views, and I respect that. But I believe they are wrong and that the issue at stake in Bill 22 is far more important than a difference of opinion. What counts in the end is what Ontario Works participants themselves believe about community participation and how it links them to jobs and a better future.
If you go and talk to them, like I have, they will tell you that community participation makes a difference. Community placements help them get ready to work. The old skills come back and new skills are learned. They get experience and references they can take to a prospective employer. They meet people who can connect them with future jobs. A new world opens up.
You don't have to take my word for it. Listen to what they say themselves. From Haileybury: "I get references on my résumé that I wouldn't have had." From Acton: "It's a good way to get out and get more experience." From Kirkland Lake: "I think workfare has given me the go-ahead to do what I have learned." From North Bay: "You feel good about yourself because you are actually working for the money you are taking." From Burlington: "I have a brighter outlook on my future."
This linkage between experience and opportunity is so obvious and it makes such common sense that I am surprised anyone would question it. Certainly the people of Ontario do not, because they have told me again and again that Ontario Works is working. Ontario Works participants are not asking me, "Why is this program mandatory?" What they are asking is: "Where do I sign up? Why aren't there more community placements?"
Ontario Works participants are also now telling me they would like to see community participation extended to the private sector. Once again, they are ahead of the critics. They know that the Ontario economy has already created 381,000 net new jobs since September 1995. They know that job opportunities are out there and they want their chance to get them.
Bill 22 is therefore another vital step in our plan for welfare reform. It protects the integrity of Ontario Works. It sends the clear message that we will not allow some labour leaders to hold welfare recipients and community agencies hostage to their narrow political interests. Bill 22 ensures that the full benefits of our welfare reform initiatives will be realized -- for those who want to escape welfare and for Ontario taxpayers.
As members begin detailed consideration of Bill 22 today, I would like to address some of the specific issues I expect will be raised by the critics of this legislation. Its opponents will be advancing a number of myths about community participation and this bill, and I would like to address these directly.
First, you will be told that making Ontario Works mandatory is somehow immoral because it victimizes welfare recipients and blames them for their dependence on welfare. I cannot think of anything further from the truth.
Indeed, it was the old welfare system that made victims of recipients by offering little more than a cheque and a pat on the head. In the name of compassion and a misplaced concern for rights, all it really offered was neglect. In effect, the old system said: "Here's your cheque, now off you go. If you don't bother us, we won't bother you. Call if you find work."
Ontario Works turns that approach upside down. The new system cares enough to take an active interest. It says, "Here's the money you need right now, but here also are the resources to become self-sufficient so you won't need us any more."
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Another myth you will hear is that Bill 22 is designed to strip Ontario Works participants of employment protections. Here again the critics are wrong. People in community participation placements in Ontario Works will continue to benefit from the following workplace protections and benefits: health and safety protections under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997, and the Occupational Health and Safety Act; workplace insurance, either under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act or equivalent accident insurance where the WSIA does not apply; privacy protection; a limit of no more than 70 hours per month in a community placement, as well as a limit on hours of attendance to eight hours a day and 44 hours per week; a restriction on the number of hours to be spent in community placements to ensure that the monthly benefit divided by hours of attendance equals at least the minimum wage; entitlement to public and religious holidays; and pregnancy and parental leave.
Given that list of protections, it is difficult for me to understand the claim that community placements victimize Ontario Works participants.
Critics will also claim that this legislation is taking away the rights of welfare recipients to belong to unions. Again, that is untrue. This legislation does not say that a recipient can't belong to a union or participate in union activities or work in a unionized workplace. The only restriction applies to unionization related to community participation.
As you consider Bill 22, you will be told that Ontario Works replaces real jobs, that community placements will become, as one critic put it, a "life sentence." Neither of these fanciful charges is true. The sole purpose of Ontario Works is to move people off welfare and into employment through the shortest possible route. No purpose would be served by replacing public or private sector employees with welfare recipients. Unlike other parties, this government does not believe that the public sector is the last employer or the employer of last resort.
Another claim made by the critics is that Ontario Works does not provide single mothers with the child care support they need to participate. That claim is also false. Affordable child care is obviously a critical support to parents seeking to escape welfare. Our government has an unparalleled record in expanding child care support:
This year, the ministry and our municipal and community partners will spend up to $660 million on child care services, the highest level in Ontario's history.
The parents of over 73,000 children are receiving assistance with child care fees. Close to 14,000 new licensed spaces have been created in Ontario in the past three years.
The recently announced Learning, Earning and Parenting Program, or LEAP, will provide $25 million for child care subsidies and other supports to help young single parents on welfare finish high school.
We are increasing our child care assistance for other parents in Ontario Works from $30 million to $40 million to support transition to work.
Finally, the budget added $100 million to the Ontario child tax credit we established last year. The new Ontario child care supplement for working families will provide a total of $140 million to 350,000 children under the age of seven in working families with low and moderate incomes.
Since the moment our government began its welfare reforms three years ago, the critics have forecast failure time and time again. They have filled the air with outlandish claims and scare tactics. It is time for them to take another look, to forget the rhetoric and to look at the facts.
Since Ontario Works began, more than 323,000 Ontarians have participated in one or more of its employment activities. More than 270,000 people have stopped relying on welfare. The majority of those people are working. They have escaped the welfare trap. They are paying their way and are contributing to this province.
Ontario Works builds a bridge to employment for welfare recipients. Those labour leaders and those union representatives who intend to sabotage this program have issued the challenge. Bill 22 makes our response clear. We will not let them bomb the bridge of opportunity.
The Chair: Thank you, Minister. We now move to --
Mr Kormos: On a point of order, Mr Chair: I don't want to prejudge the situation, but it has been the protocol here for 10 years to distribute the minister's comments in written form while they're being read. I'm sure it was just an oversight on the part of the minister's staff. I tried to make notes but I was so riveted by the style and the delivery that I found my pen idle.
The Chair: Are you requesting a copy of the notes, Mr Kormos?
Mr Kormos: I'm requesting that we might have a copy of the minister's statement to the committee this afternoon.
Hon Mrs Ecker: We will certainly do that, Mr Kormos. My apologies. I think it probably had something to do with the fact that the minister has been known to change the odd word at the last minute. We will certainly endeavour to get you a copy.
Mr Kormos: To her credit or at her peril; one way or the other, I suppose.
The Chair: We move to the official opposition.
Mr Dominic Agostino (Hamilton East): It's certainly my pleasure to respond on behalf of my party --
The Chair: Can I interrupt just for a moment? I won't include it in your time. Although it was not specifically discussed during the subcommittee meeting, we have the okay for part of your 20 minutes to be questions. The minister is more than willing to answer those. Okay? You may begin.
Mr Agostino: Thank you, Chair. I'm pleased to get a few minutes. Since I'm no longer the critic, I don't get the pleasure of asking the minister questions in the House on this issue.
Hon Mrs Ecker: We miss you.
Mr Agostino: I miss it as well.
I was interested in listening to the comments of the minister about this. I'll give her credit: On this issue, she certainly has the spin down pat, the buzzwords and the angles, but the reality doesn't match what has been said by this government. The issue of welfare dependency became a hot political button for this government. You ran an election campaign on hot-button politics. Whether it was visible minorities, through employment equity, or welfare recipients, you were going to whip them all into shape. You pushed the buttons in a nasty politics of division that had not been seen in the history of this province, a politics of division that said: "We will add by subtracting. We'll lose all those folks. It doesn't matter how we hurt those people because we're going to get a whole bunch on this side." That is really an American-style, Republican-style politics that has been practised over the years but introduced in Ontario for the first time.
Workfare was one of those. If we look at what this government has done since they took office -- the minister made reference to higher welfare rates and the lack of incentive. Remember the press conference of Mike Harris, then leader of the third party, who paraded a woman in front of the media and said, "This woman was making $40,000 a year and she has quit her job and she's on welfare because she can make more money." Within an hour, every single credible bureaucrat and welfare official in this province said no, that Mike Harris was wrong, those facts were wrong. That didn't stop Mike Harris from continuing that line, although there wasn't one shred of evidence to suggest that this woman was better off on welfare than she was in her job.
That set the mindset and the tone and the attitude this government was going to take when it came to dealing with welfare recipients. We have seen the most massive attack on the poor in the history of this province. This government decided that right across the board, for every individual on welfare, there would be a 22% cut. There were 500,000 kids who all of a sudden had whatever income came into their home cut by 22%. Right across the board, regardless of circumstances, regardless of situations, your first move was to cut 22% off the benefits of every welfare recipient in Ontario.
You then moved on to reduce shelter allowances. You then went on to wheelchairs, ambulatory aids, surgical supplies, walkers, bathtubs, things that people who were in need required, often particularly as a result of medical conditions. You cut those.
You then decided that mandatory workfare for mothers of children as young as three years old would be brought in.
You then reduced the amount of earnings that could be retained if you get a job. That was meant to be an incentive, that people could work and on a graduated scale the benefits would be clawed back. The incentive was clearly there, but you got rid of that as well.
You cancelled the $37 pregnancy allowance because the Premier thought that women would use it to drink beer instead of trying to do things that would help their pregnancy and the child.
You eliminated the drug card for low-income earners.
You gave police extensive powers: police powers to welfare officers.
You've made your appeal process much more difficult. Not only have you made the tribunal and the process for appeals much more difficult; you then proceeded to stack this board with advocates of government welfare-bashing policies, failed candidates of the Conservative Party who ran on the platform of bashing welfare recipients. Now you have the individuals sitting as part of the Social Assistance Review Board, judging the cases of individuals who come before them. These are people who ran on the Mike Harris agenda and said: "Welfare recipients need to be fixed. Their benefits are too high. We're going to cut them." Now these folks get to make a decision on appeals. You have stacked that board with political appointments of failed candidates who ran on your agenda, on the welfare agenda that you had.
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Now we get to workfare, first of all why this bill is here. The minister knows that the reason this bill is here, with the $700,000 cost to the taxpayers of Ontario, is because one of your members fell asleep at the committee and a vote and an amendment that had to get through did not. That is why it is here, what my colleague from Windsor-Sandwich referred to as the sleeping beauty bill. This is really a $700,000 bill we have here in front of us.
I take issue with the numbers. The minister, and I hope I heard her correctly -- maybe she can clarify it -- said in her statement that there are now 323,000 people who have participated. That is a magical jump, unless I heard it wrong. Could I get that clarified? It's 273,000 in the statement.
The Chair: Are you asking a question?
Mr Agostino: Could I ask for clarification? Did the minister say 323,000? Yes, so we've had a magical jump of 50,000 people in less than a month on this program, because in her statement of May 14 the minister said 273,000. In three weeks, somehow we've plopped 50,000 more on to this. I tell you, they must be working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in every welfare office across this province to ram them through.
Hon Mrs Ecker: Are you doubting the credibility of municipalities, Dominic?
Mr Agostino: No. Very clearly what I'm doubting is the validity of the numbers.
What has happened, and the minister knows this and she can later give me information to the contrary, is that you have taken every single program that used to exist -- and municipalities used to run them. You're running on this myth that somehow there were no programs in place and the municipalities never did anything. The minister said, "The old system basically was to give them a cheque and a pat on the head." You wonder who's doubting the credibility of the work of municipal officials when the minister can sit here and suggest that before the magical transformation brought about by your government, all the welfare officials across this province did was simply hand out a cheque and pat welfare recipients on the head.
Let me tell you what you've done. You've increased the caseloads dramatically because of the cuts, first of all. That is really detrimental to welfare recipients. The point of view that programs are all of a sudden new and you've introduced them is a fallacy. You have taken these numbers -- you've taken every single program that existed, and you don't even have the courage to acknowledge that. At least come clean and say, "Yes we've rolled in programs that were in place before and we've included them in our Ontario Works numbers." But you're not doing that. You're suggesting that the either 273,000 or 323,000, which could be 350,000 by the end of this committee, are due to new programs you've brought in as a result of workfare. That is not accurate. The minister knows that.
In my own region of Hamilton-Wentworth programs were in place for years, programs like Helping Hands, which took people who were hard to employ, young people who often had a history of drug and alcohol problems, literacy difficulties, a lack of education, a lack of skills, and put them into programs that were tailored to the individual, programs that fit, programs that helped through a combination of on-the-job training and educational upgrading. Those programs were there long before your government took office. Those programs had about a 70% success rate in employment once those people got through the program. These were the hard-core, hard-to-employ individuals in the system. That was nothing new.
But you've rolled those numbers in and said: "Hey, workfare. That's what it's all about." Every municipality that had programs in place -- and every single municipality in this province had programs in place before you took office. You have now somehow taken credit for those numbers. Magically, you've said that these programs didn't exist before. As the minister said, they simply got a pat on the head, and all of a sudden you have all these wonderful new programs in place. That is inaccurate. That, in my view, is not giving a true picture to the people of Ontario as to the true effect of the program.
What I'd like you to do is come clean and tell us how many people were enrolled in retraining, educational programs, on-the-job training and any other programs the municipalities ran for welfare recipients before you brought in workfare. If you want to compare, those are the numbers you have to compare. Tell us what those numbers were and then tell us how many people have gone on to the program since. Then you get a much more accurate thing and see what kind of bang for the buck you're getting. I think it is condescending, truly patronizing for you to suggest to municipal governments or to municipalities and regions that ran social service programs that somehow all they did was pat people on the head and give them a cheque before you took office and brought in slave labour, or workfare, as you like to call it. That is wrong. That is inaccurate.
Now the minister says, "We're going to move it to the private sector," which was one of the fears many of the opponents had when workfare was brought in. Initially you sold it on the idea that this was going to help social service agencies. You cut their funding. You cut their grants across the board by about 5%, and on every year. Then you said, We'll make up for the dollars; we'll give you welfare recipients to work for free for you; we'll give them a chance to earn their money," as you put it.
Our fear at that time was that you were going to expand it to the private sector. It was denied up and down by this government: "We have no plans of going into private sector workfare." The previous minister made it clear that workfare was not going to be expanded to the private sector. Now it's expanded, or will be expanded, to the private sector.
Now you have slave labour for industry across this province. It doesn't cost them anything. There is no guarantee of job replacements. There is no guarantee of hiring at the end of the day, but they'll get someone to work for them for free, forced upon them. It's no longer fitting a program to a need for a program, or trying to fit an individual to a program that you have. It's going to be across-the-board, "Let's slot in as many people as we can and let's give the private sector a free ride."
That is what this is going to be. It's going to be expanded simply for the sake of giving your friends in the private sector more of an opportunity to have free labour in the workforce and this is what you're going to encourage.
This bill, for you as government members, captures the best of both worlds. With one bill you get not only to bash welfare recipients, which you've done so well for three years, but you get to bash labour unions again: two of your target groups, two of the groups you've gone after since day one. You hated labour unions right from the beginning. You hated the fact that organizations in this province protected their workers, fought for the rights of workers, for decent working conditions, decent standards in the workplace, health and safety and decent wages. Somehow that doesn't fit into your whole agenda of what Ontario should look like.
You would probably prefer a system that you would have in Alabama or Mississippi where there are very few labour standards, very few protections for workers, and low wages. They get their product done a hell of a lot cheaper, but what quality of life do they have in those states? You would prefer that. So you attack unions with this and you also tie in welfare recipients. What a convenient whipping boy here. Your numbers go down in the polls a bit. It doesn't look quite as good. "Let's push the welfare button again. What program could we bring in this week to just push that button?"
No one in this room would be opposed to programs that made sense, that could be fitted into the needs of welfare recipients and lead somewhere. No one would be opposed to that. No one is suggesting that if the opportunities are there for individuals to be involved in meaningful programs, they shouldn't be. But that is not what this is all about. This is public relations, hot-button politics, exploiting divisions in our province and our communities to try to score some cheap political points. That's all this program of workfare and the act that you have brought in today are all about.
We've seen it again and again. You continue to somehow, directly or indirectly, suggest that welfare recipients don't want to work, that their benefits are too high and you are going to fix them. You ignore the fact that the vast majority of people who have come on welfare in this province in the last five or 10 years often have done so as a result of economic conditions, often as a result of job loss, often as a result of plants shutting down, people whose UIC has been exhausted and have no choice.
I can't tell you the number of times when I was chair of social services in my region of Hamilton-Wentworth that I had men and women in their 40s and 50s come into the office, come and see me, crying, devastated that as a result of the economic conditions they were facing, the result of a job loss, they had to go on welfare. It was devastating to these individuals.
These were not people who lacked a work ethic or who needed you to give them a kick in the butt. These were people who had worked 20, 25, 30 years, had come to this country with a few skills, didn't know the language, but knew the work ethic. Now, as a result of conditions beyond their control, they were forced on to welfare.
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What are you going to do? Somehow you're going to force these people to get on to a workfare program because they need that incentive, they need that boost, they need that work ethic you're trying to instil, which somehow disappeared after 30 years. They woke up one morning and said: "You know what? I don't want to work any more after 25 years. I want to go on welfare and live high on the hog, with a couple of kids and maybe $800 or $900 a month. That is the lifestyle I choose." That is what you're hinting through this, in its continuous attack. I think that's a great insult to many Ontarians.
Granted, there will be a few people, a percentage, as there is in every system of government, who tend to have generational welfare dependency. That is more of a myth than a reality. That is a small percentage of the cases. That is not reflective of most welfare recipients across Ontario.
It's the same thing with your fraud hotline. You've noticed with the hotline that the percentage of cases you're going after has not increased dramatically, that the percentage has always been somewhere in the 3% to 5% range and has remained constant. You haven't all of a sudden found a dramatic increase in the percentage of fraud cases as a result of your hotline. None of that has been borne out.
I look at this bill and I see it simply as nothing more than a reaction, trying to push some buttons, trying to send a message to people across Ontario that you're being tough on welfare recipients, frankly punishing some of the most vulnerable people in our society who have committed the crime of being poor or being out of work or being a single mom. It's a crime in Ontario under your government to be in that unfortunate situation, and you're going to punish them, you're going to fix them. You somehow are going to take credit for a great turnaround in the number of people in programs and I think that's wrong.
I ask government members to take a step back and look at the responsibility you have with governing. You're responsible to govern for all Ontarians, not only for your friends. I think that in government and in politics, we have a special responsibility to ensure we don't do anything to hurt the most vulnerable, the individuals who rely on and look to government for a hand up and for some help when they're going through difficult times in their life. They don't expect government to turn its back on them. We have a special responsibility to those individuals. You've taken that responsibility and you've decided to totally abandon it and abandon them in the process.
I have a quick question to the minister, if I may.
The Chair: You have about four minutes, closer to three.
Mr Agostino: I want to go back to the question of the numbers, whether it's 273,000, as you said on May 14, or whether it's the 330,000 or whatever thousand you have as of today here. Minister, has your ministry done a breakdown to look at how many people were in programs, in all programs in municipalities right across the province, before you brought in workfare compared to now? How many people were enrolled in programs like Helping Hands and First Job and Job Finding Club, and those types of programs that retrain or help people on welfare get into the workforce? Do we have any idea?
Hon Mrs Ecker: I don't know. I could certainly ask officials if they have the answer to that question. We keep statistics about how many individuals have participated or are participating in Ontario Works based on data and information that are supplied to us through the municipalities. I can ask officials if there are any further data from past programs.
Mr Agostino: What we are looking at is basically a comparison, at what the numbers would have been, at how many people were enrolled in programs previous to workfare being brought in compared to now. I think that's a legitimate question, a fair question. I'm glad the Minister has committed today that she'll get that information to us.
Hon Mrs Ecker: I said I'd ask. I don't know what's available, but I'll certainly ask.
Mr Agostino: I can assure you, Minister, that information was kept. I know in my own region it was kept and was available on a monthly basis to us, so I obviously believe it will be available to the ministry and to the minister.
Is it accurate to suggest that for the programs that were in place before workfare or Ontario Works came into effect, those programs now have all been captured under the Ontario Works umbrella? I use the example of Hamilton and the job club for people over 50 or Helping Hands, those types of programs. Are they now all under the umbrella of Ontario Works or do the municipalities still continue to run other programs aside from the people who are involved in Ontario Works, as far as retraining and back into the workforce is concerned?
Hon Mrs Ecker: No, and I guess the one thing, in response to your previous question, is if all the old programs were so successful then I guess I would say, why had the number of people on welfare continued to grow far out of proportion to the economic cycle? It is quite true that the economic cycle has an impact on welfare. But what you had seen over the last 10 years was that the caseload was growing far out of proportion to the economic cycle.
Municipalities: There is new legislation, new program guidelines, new components of Ontario Works that they are meeting and, as you know, many of the programs they use are sometimes programs they contract out with other community agencies to provide on their behalf. The rules are very clear. It's based on a very different premise than it had been based on before. Basically it is mandatory that someone participate. There are three main components, and under those three components -- community participation, employment supports or employment placement -- there are, many times, different agencies and different kinds of programs municipalities may provide. But we've been very clear that it must meet the standards and the new rules of Ontario Works.
The Chair: We now move to the third party.
Mr Kormos: I want to thank Mr Carroll and the ministry staff for distributing a copy of the notes. I appreciate what Ms Ecker says when she indicated that she might deviate from the notes. I'm not sure I got the copy I should have. On the bottom of the last page is a handwritten notation: "Who writes this crap, anyway? It's so partisan." But we'll let it stand at that. I don't feel very partisan today.
Hon Mrs Ecker: We recognized your handwriting.
Mr Kormos: It could be the nice weather, it could be because we're not in the Amethyst Room, it could be any number of things. I listened carefully and, as I say, I made quick reference to your notes. In the report from Mr Fenson, the research officer, and again this isn't at odds, he indicates 240,000 people, as of April 1998, as "having participated." I assume that means have participated or are participating in community works. You indicated 323,000, so you're suggesting -- I don't have the numbers you do -- that an additional 83,000 have joined since April 1998. Is that a fair observation?
Hon Mrs Ecker: The current number is 323,000. It changes monthly; actually, it has been increasing monthly.
Mr Kormos: Is that "is" or "have been"? I'm talking about the conjunctive "or" rather than the exegetical "or" in terms of 323,000.
Hon Mrs Ecker: It's 323,000 have or are participating.
Mr Kormos: Fair enough. No quarrel with that.
Another interesting comment was that you said that since Ontario Works began -- I want to make sure I get this one right -- 270,000 people are off welfare. Then you say the majority of these people are working. What about the rest?
Hon Mrs Ecker: Some left for income-related reasons, for example. They may well have had their family support payment come in; they may well have had other sources of income that came to them. Some left because they moved to other jurisdictions. Some left because they were in jail. There's a whole range of reasons, but the majority have left for employment-related reasons.
Mr Kormos: You say the majority. Do we know how many of those 270,000 people? I know you can't give numbers down to 572.4, but do we know how many of the 270,000?
Hon Mrs Ecker: We did a survey where we found that over 62% of those who had left welfare were leaving for employment-related reasons. One of the reasons we're improving the information technology in the welfare system is so we can have very accurate and better data as to why people come on the system and where they go when they leave, because it's a very good question.
Mr Kormos: Those 270,000 were tracked?
Hon Mrs Ecker: No, we did a survey before, so the 270,000 individuals may or may not have been part of the group that was tracked.
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Mr Kormos: Do we know how many were part of the survey?
Hon Mrs Ecker: I don't think we'd be able to get that information. That's a level of detail that I don't think the system is capable of. Unfortunately, it's a very old system. As you know, it has been there for something like 20 or 30 years. That's one of the reasons we need to change that technology. It's one of the things that Andersen, the contract consulting company, is helping us with, to upgrade that technology so we can provide that level of detail to you, because they're excellent questions.
Mr Kormos: But there having been a survey, surely we know how many people were queried in the course of the survey.
Hon Mrs Ecker: Yes. We did a survey and we can give that information to you. We released it publicly.
Mr Kormos: Okay. Perhaps, Chair, we could make a note of that, the minister's cooperation.
You indicate that Ontario labour leaders "are now attempting to unionize welfare recipients." Can you give us examples of where they're attempting to unionize welfare recipients? You said that in the third paragraph of your speech.
Hon Mrs Ecker: Yes. We've seen efforts in some communities. We've seen public comments. We've had reports through anecdotal evidence as well as public statements; Sid Ryan from CUPE, for example, the SEIU up in northern Ontario. We've also seen numerous examples of where the labour groups are harassing -- that's the only word I can think to use -- community agencies; for example, the labour council in London threatening to pull funding, picket, harass any agency that participates. We had CUPE this weekend going after St Mike's. The list is actually quite long.
Mr Kormos: But that's a pretty bold statement: "They are now attempting to unionize welfare recipients." I hope you and I are on the same ground here. Unionizing means signing people up to union cards. In these instances -- you spoke of Sid Ryan and SEIU -- how many welfare recipients have signed union cards?
Hon Mrs Ecker: I haven't asked them how many they've signed up. All I know is that they have stated an intention to do so. We do not think it's appropriate, and in order to protect the reforms we've made to the system, which we think are very valuable reforms, we need to act and act now. We don't believe it's appropriate to wait until later. We need to take this step and that's why we're doing it.
Mr Kormos: But you agree with me that the Labour Relations Act defines those types of persons who can participate in the collective bargaining process, to wit, join a trade union, don't you?
Hon Mrs Ecker: There are certainly rules and regulations and standards in the Labour Relations Act. What we are doing is making it very clear that people who are on community placements, people on welfare who are participating in a community placement, are not employees for the purposes of the labour relations legislation.
Mr Kormos: I want to get back to that, because Mr Fenson tells us in his research provided to us -- and when we did Bill 142 we realized that the eligibility requirements covered a broad range. Mr Fenson described them as: (1) participation in community activities, (2) participating in measures that might secure employment and (3) accepting and undertaking basic education and job-specific skills training. I don't know if you have that.
Hon Mrs Ecker: I don't know if I have that.
Mr Kormos: Second page, under "Bargaining rights."
Hon Mrs Ecker: Ah yes, here we are. I'm sorry, I didn't catch your question.
Mr Kormos: Mr Fenson identifies those as what workfare consists of in Bill 142, three categories.
Hon Mrs Ecker: Three major categories: community participation, employment support or employment placement.
Mr Kormos: That means job searches, for instance.
Hon Mrs Ecker: That would be one piece of the components, yes.
Mr Kormos: You see, when you talk about the number of people -- and for the moment let's live with 323,000 -- how many of those 323,000 are merely engaging in job searches as compared to engaging in participation in community activities?
Hon Mrs Ecker: First of all, one of the things we ask recipients to do is a participation agreement, which is a process they go through with their case worker where they talk about what their goals are, where they want to go, what will need to be done to get them there. We've been very clear from the days early in the election when we talked about Ontario Works that we recognize that many different kinds of components are sometimes required. As the Premier was quoted as saying many times: "Workfare, learnfare, trainfare." We recognize there are different components that are required. The goal is to get that person into a paid job as quickly as possible and to do what it takes to do that. The research from other jurisdictions has indicated very clearly that the most successful programs are those that combine elements of employment experience -- that's our community placement -- supports, placement and a mandatory participation requirement. That's why we have adopted those in our Ontario Works program.
Mr Kormos: I understand, but once again 323,000 participating in workfare -- how many individual people are on welfare rolls in the province? Not to the final number, but how many individuals -- I'm not talking about households but individuals -- are in receipt of social assistance right now?
Hon Mrs Ecker: I'll have to get you the exact number, because as of June 1, as you'll probably know, because of the new Ontario disability support program, people with disabilities are no longer on welfare. We can get you an exact number on that.
Mr Kormos: Give me a rough idea and I promise not to confront you with it at any point, recognizing that it is a guesstimate.
Hon Mrs Ecker: Before ODSP, it was just over a million. We can get you an exact number for after ODSP.
Mr Kormos: I've read reports that 50% of the people on the social assistance rolls are children. Is that a reasonable estimate?
Hon Mrs Ecker: One of the things we're finding that we're very pleased with is that over 108,000 fewer -- actually, it would be higher after the last month -- children are on social assistance, which I think is a goal we would all share, in terms of getting more children off social assistance.
Mr Kormos: Are they part of the 270,000 who are off welfare?
Hon Mrs Ecker: What we can do if you'd like is have one of our officials, who is very experienced with how the statistics are gathered and what they mean, answer your detailed questions.
Mr Kormos: So we can get a response.
Hon Mrs Ecker: Yes.
Mr Kormos: Let me put this to you: Do you dispute the observation that 50% -- let's assume it could be anywhere from 47% to 53% -- of the individuals supported by social assistance are children?
Hon Mrs Ecker: I think it would be appropriate, since I know you want to have the most accurate information, that we make sure that one of our officials, who have all the data available for you in terms of what is there and how it is collected, answer those questions for you.
Mr Kormos: My observation is that if you say we're just shy of a million people on welfare right now --
Hon Mrs Ecker: Just over, and that's pre-ODSP.
Mr Kormos: Right, so we'd be shy of a million now, as a fair guess. My concern, then, is that if 323,000 are participating in workfare, basically what you're talking about is that the adults, be they single adults or adults without children or heads of households, are on welfare, because everybody who's on welfare is engaged in workfare, aren't they, as an adult?
Hon Mrs Ecker: As you know, we are phasing in sole-support parents now, as municipalities are getting their system and their infrastructure up and running. Sole-support parents are now starting to come on stream this year, so there will be some sole-support parents who will not yet be part of the program. It's part of the transition process we're going through, and as you know, children are not mandatory participants in workfare.
Mr Kormos: But every adult who's on social assistance is required to comply with one or more of the three eligibility requirements. Am I correct in that regard?
Hon Mrs Ecker: Yes, but as you also know, we are phasing in the program because, as you would agree, a change as fundamental as this one, that involves as many people, is something you can't do overnight. We said when we introduced this that it would probably take several years to be fully up and running and implemented. We have all the municipalities now delivering that should be delivering, the legislation is now in place, and we are now phasing in sole-support parents over the course of this year.
Mr Kormos: Do we know how many of the 323,000 are engaging in the participation in community activities, as Mr Fenson puts it, or the community participation, as you put it?
Hon Mrs Ecker: We gather the overall participation rate. That is, I think, the appropriate figure to keep, because as we've said, Ontario Works has many components and at the end of the day the goal is to get someone into a paid job, and that person may need different kinds of supports or experience or programs to do that.
Mr Kormos: If I end up on welfare down in Niagara region, for example, where do I obtain basic education as, let's say, a grade -- well, as a matter of fact, I am a high school dropout. I didn't drop out; I got thrown out. As a person without a high school diploma, how does the workfare program facilitate or accommodate me getting my high school diploma?
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Hon Mrs Ecker: Through the municipality, they would link that individual up with the appropriate training programs or support programs that they might well need, and there could be a range in terms of what that person might need.
Mr Kormos: You see, adult ed has all but dried up down in Niagara region.
Hon Mrs Ecker: We've been working with municipalities to ensure that the programs that are required are there and to take steps if necessary to work with them to make sure there are programs there for individuals when they require them.
Mr Kormos: You say Bill 22 is designed to deliver a message, I trust, to the labour leaders.
Hon Mrs Ecker: I would say Bill 22 is designed to be very clear that we do not believe it is appropriate for people in community placements to go on strike.
Mr Kormos: Yes, but you prefaced all your comments by saying: "Let me be clear about the reason for this legislation. It is the direct result of Ontario labour leaders attempting to sabotage welfare reform." That's from your opening remarks. Is the focus of Bill 22 a message to labour leaders?
Hon Mrs Ecker: The focus of Bill 22 is to ensure that we can continue to reform the welfare system with Ontario Works. I'm sure you can draw whatever message you would like, but we are being very clear that we do not believe that people who are participating in placements should be able to do things like go on strike, so we are preventing that activity with this legislation.
Mr Kormos: You talk about, first, the threat of unionization, and then you talk about harassment of agencies that endorse or engage in workfare placements. Correct?
Hon Mrs Ecker: A number of things have been done to undermine and prevent people on social assistance from getting the opportunities they would through a community placement.
Mr Kormos: Threats of boycotts of United Ways?
Hon Mrs Ecker: That's certainly one thing that has occurred and is continuing to occur: threatening to pull the funding from community agencies in the middle of funding campaigns, which I think is quite a despicable activity.
Mr Kormos: Other examples?
Hon Mrs Ecker: There have been a number of different kinds of harassment tactics, as we've understood, picketing and several other activities.
Mr Kormos: Can we talk about any of the "several other," or are they secret?
Hon Mrs Ecker: I think that picketing and harassing individuals and threatening to pull their funding are pretty serious, over-the-top responses to a policy that is indeed helping people. I can understand why those individuals might not agree with the government's program, and that is certainly --
Mr Kormos: You mentioned the several others. What are the several others?
Hon Mrs Ecker: I think harassing individuals --
Mr Kormos: You already mentioned that one.
Hon Mrs Ecker: Yes, I think harassing individuals is not something that should be occurring.
Mr Kormos: But what about the several others? You talked about harassment and picketing. What about the several others?
Hon Mrs Ecker: I think harassment, threats, picketing and threatening to pull funding --
Mr Kormos: You talked about those. I want to know about the several others.
Hon Mrs Ecker: I think those are very serious, Peter.
Mr Kormos: I want to know about the several others, or was that merely hyperbole? Far be it from me to criticize hyperbole, but was that merely hyperbole?
Hon Mrs Ecker: I think that those activities they have done are not acceptable and not appropriate, and that is one of the messages we are trying to say, that we don't think that activity is appropriate.
Mr Kormos: So you're going to straighten out Sid Ryan with Bill 22, so you think, and obviously Bill 22 is focused towards efforts to unionize. I understand. How are you now going to straighten out the social justice groups, the church leaders, the community leaders, the social activists, the religious leaders, the moral leaders, the anti-poverty advocates and the advocates for the poor? What can we expect next? We heard your speech in the Legislature; we knew who you were talking about. How are you going to straighten out all those clergy people, darn it, priests and rabbis and ministers, who are as adamantly opposed to your workfare? Can they anticipate similar legislation to parallel Bill 22?
Hon Mrs Ecker: First of all, Peter, you're using the words "straighten out." That is not my term nor what we're attempting to do here. This legislation deals with one specific aspect, and I think this government will continue to promote the positive attributes of Ontario Works. We're going to continue to work with community agencies and any other group or organization in terms of answering their questions.
One of the things that has been quite unfortunate is that there are groups basing their opinions of Ontario Works on the misinformation and mistruths that have been spread by other groups and other individuals. That has been quite unfortunate. As a government, that is one of the reasons we have done as much promotion and had as much information available for members of the public on Ontario Works, so people can judge for themselves what is actually happening with this program.
Mr Kormos: How much money have you spent on the promotion?
Hon Mrs Ecker: The numbers we had for the campaign last fall were publicly available, and we can get those details for you if you would like.
Mr Kormos: Thank you, ma'am.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Kormos. That concludes the hearings for today.
Mr Kormos: One moment, Chair, please. There are several matters arising from today's sitting. I posed a couple of questions to the clerk for him to convey to the appropriate people, during the course of the discussion with Ms Ecker. I wonder if I could put some other questions forward to be answered, for responses to the committee.
Mr Fenson: Is this for me or for the ministry?
Mr Kormos: I'm addressing it to the Chair.
The Chair: There were a number of questions posed, yes, although I wasn't specific as to which they were and if they were asking the legislative counsel to review or to get back with anything. Do you have some questions that you --
Mr Kormos: Some very specific questions.
The Chair: Proceed.
Mr Kormos: First, Ms Ecker talked about relying upon a survey to indicate the number of people off welfare going to work. Could we please have the details of that survey? What do they call that? The modus operandi of the survey.
Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): The process?
Mr Kormos: The process, the structure of the survey, including the questions asked, the number of persons to whom inquiries were made, the geographic distribution of that survey and of course the answers; in other words, the methodology. That was the word. If any of you guys had known it, you would have jumped in, I know. The methodology of the survey and the results of the survey. That's number one.
Second, we have from Mr Fenson's report a figure of 240,000 people as of April 1998, increased to 323,000 people in Ms Ecker's comments today. Could we have (1) verification of those numbers, and (2) how those numbers are arrived at: whether these are hard data or whether it's the result of surveys or the result of estimates.
Third, we had the identification by Ms Ecker in her comments of workfare consisting of three components, and I'm referring to page 5 of her comments: (1) community participation, which is what we colloquially identify as workfare, (2) employment supports, and (3) employment placement. Whatever the number of people is on workfare, how many of those people are de facto participating in community participation, in what we colloquially refer to as workfare; in other words, being placed with an agency or being placed in a location to participate in this volunteer work? How many are currently, and how many of the gross number who have been or are were in that? Similarly, how much of that number of "have been or are" are merely people who have done, let's say, job searches or either of the other two components?
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Fourth, Ms Ecker made strong points about basic education and job-specific skills training. Can we please have the number of so-called workfare recipients, which is basically welfare eligibility, who have received basic education and/or job-specific skills training -- and we're not talking now about the community activities, the community placement -- the number who are currently involved? I want numbers and, although I appreciate we can't be exhaustive, I would also like an illustration of locations and places where people are getting basic educational upgrading. I have concerns about that, because adult re-education has been gutted in the province. It's gone, finished, it's history.
Fifth, Ms Ecker -- and I'm sure her staff are here -- very specifically talked about harassment, picketing, boycotting and threats, and then spoke of "several other" modes. I don't know; where I come from, "a couple" means two, "a few" means three, and "several" means more than three. If it were a few, you'd say a few. If it were a couple, you'd say a couple; that means two. She was adamant about there being several other forms but she was equally adamant about not identifying them. I want to do justice to Ms Ecker because she is under such pressure that she can't be expected to know these things off the top of her head, but she wouldn't have said "several others" if she hadn't meant it. She said it, quite frankly, several times.
Mr Ramsay: Meaning four.
Mr Kormos: More than three. So could we have an illustration, please? I trust that the ministry staff may well be involved because they brief Ms Ecker on this sort of stuff. They tell her what to say and how to say it, other than when she deviates from the script. I've got to tell you, she really didn't deviate from the script very much, notwithstanding her comments. She was pretty dead on. So could we have some illustrations of the "several others"?
This comes I think to number six. I'm trying to be helpful.
The Chair: How many more are there? I'm just asking.
Mr Kormos: We've got until 6 o'clock. That's what the time allocation motion says.
Sixth, the statement that "they are now attempting to unionize welfare recipients," on page 1, the third paragraph of her comments, is not only in the text of her comments but in the script. For the minister to say that, they must have some information, some hard proof. Could we please have the locations we're talking about, which cities, which workfare locations, which unions are engaging in union drives? That's what "unionize welfare recipients" means.
I don't know if you've ever been involved in that. What happens is that workers sign union cards, and that's how you unionize. I know a whole lot of the folks over there on the government side wouldn't understand that, but that's how you do it. That's what unionizing means. Unionizing doesn't mean picketing an agency or the United Way that endorses workfare; unionizing means going out there and signing up members. The minister must have meant it if she said it, because she's a very cautious minister. She wouldn't say it if she didn't have some inside information. So could we please, in response to my question, have the identify of those attempts to unionize welfare recipients? I want the names of the unions. By God, I want their names, I want their locations, I want the workfare placements, the workfare locations where they're trying to unionize workfare recipients.
Finally -- and we're getting close to the end; I did make notes -- Ms Ecker talked about case workers sitting down with welfare recipients. I've got to do a little preamble to my question here, because the case workers I'm talking to say: "Sit down with a welfare recipient? We're running a sausage factory here. There are so few case workers that we're not able to work with individuals or with families the way we used to," admittedly a good chunk of time ago.
I think this would be very important. Let me put in this way: What kind of caseloads are case workers carrying? In other words, could we identify Niagara region -- Niagara region might be among them -- and the number of active case workers? I'm not talking about the supervisory staff, the people in management, but the number of active case workers as compared to the number of recipients so we can get some handle on caseloads. It wouldn't be difficult to ascertain.
This isn't something for tomorrow, I appreciate, Mr Fenson, but I'm sure the minister's staff are more than eager to help you. I can see them champing at the bit. Could we have -- I know ministry offices keep this kind of data -- the amount of time that individual case workers spend with individual clients over the course of, let's say, a one-month payment period, and some illustrations --
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): It's a good question.
Mr Kormos: It's an excellent question -- and some illustrations from across the province? I don't expect it to be exhaustive because we've got a whole number of jurisdictions.
I'm eager also about -- I made a note. She suggests that labour leaders are holding welfare recipients and community agencies hostage.
Mr Ramsay: Where are they being held?
Mr Kormos: Before Stockholm syndrome sets in, before the Patty Hearst thing takes effect --
Interjection.
Mr Kormos: In the ministry staff, can anyone help? Darn it, I know that one of you wrote the speech. Ms Ecker wasn't up until 11:30 in the evening. If worse comes to worst, we could have Charlie Harnick convict these people without a trial for holding others hostage. Why go through the waste and expense?
Mr Klees: You want to represent them.
Mr Kormos: I may well. Harnick's prosecutions haven't been all that fruitful. It's always easy to win one if you get a bad prosecutor. It's when you've got a real crown attorney that it gets tough.
Could I have some reference to where the "hostage" language comes from? I really don't understand that. I've got a feeling about that.
The only other thing is that I've got to confess I find some problems understanding Ms Ecker when she says that this bill really doesn't do anything, because she seems to suggest that her workfare scheme isn't going to go into the private sector; ergo, the people on workfare now are not people who, under the Labour Relations Act, would be entitled to participate in a trade union and collective bargaining. She made reference to the OLRA and the fact that it already covers these situations. Did you hear that, Chair? Did you hear her when she said that? You were paying attention. Did you hear her say that? Seriously.
The Chair: We'll proceed, Mr Kormos, please. Are you getting to your point now? You said it was your final one.
Mr Kormos: I'm putting a question. I think this is darn near the final one.
You heard her talk about how the Labour Relations Act, the OLRA, already covers this situation. Then what the hell are we doing here dealing with Bill 22 if the Labour Relations Act still covers it? I know why we're here: because of Ipperwash. Gentlemen, you know that as well as I do. It's because the government had to displace standing order 124, the inquiry into Ipperwash.
I'm suggesting to you, Chair, and to Mr Fenson that before we proceed much further, I would really like to know how much Bill 22 is simply redundant. The current workfare participants are not people who are eligible to participate in trade unionization because of the Labour Relations Act in any event, which then begs the question -- and Mr Agostino may want to speak to that -- of why Ms Ecker would be so adamant that this isn't a plan to be pursued into the private sector.
The Chair: Mr Agostino has asked to speak after you.
Mr Kormos: I'm sure he has, and I look forward to hearing what he has to say. Those are my questions, but Mr Agostino may provoke more.
Mr Agostino: I'll be brief, because Mr Kormos has covered most of them. One question I want to go back to, if we could get it answered, is to get a breakdown of how many welfare recipients were involved in programs of all types run by the municipalities across Ontario prior to workfare being implemented; what that number is. I think it would be fairly easy to get from the municipalities across this province. Certainly, if we can get that, I think it would be very helpful in the debate.
The Chair: Seeing no further discussion, we'll call this committee to a close until 1330 of the clock tomorrow.
The committee adjourned at 1650.