Hansard Transcript 1987-Dec-17 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

That, in the opinion of this House, the government of Ontario should amend the Insurance Act, RSO 1980, to regulate prepaid premiums for motor vehicle liability insurance policies to provide that premiums are held in trust for the insured until earned, and interest earned on the trust funds, until transferred from trust, would be paid to the insured.

Mr. M. C. Ray: The intention of the resolution is to provide motor vehicle owners with two forms of assistance, the first being that the premium money paid in advance to insurance companies remains the money of the insured vehicle owner until it is actually earned by the company. If prepaid premiums are trust moneys in the hands of insurance companies, motor vehicle owners are protected from the loss of their advance payments in the event of bankruptcy or receivership of the insurance company.

Second, this resolution provides that interest be paid to motor vehicle owners on premiums paid in advance. Under the current situation, insurance companies demand advance payment from their policyholders, with limited opportunity for instalment payments and, of course, without compensation for the lost income that policyholders thereby incur. The result is that the insurance companies have substantial cash flow without the funds being at risk.

All this is to the detriment of motor vehicle owners who prepay premiums for no immediate service in return and lose the interest income on their prepayment. In this day of higher and escalating insurance premiums, these types of benefits will assist, protect or reduce the burden on policyholders, particularly low-income earners, young drivers and fleet operators.

This resolution is consistent with other consumer legislation in recent years which has sought to protect consumers from the loss of prepaid moneys and which compelled trustees of the moneys to pay or credit interest thereon to the consumer. Members of this House will recall some examples.

The intent of the recently introduced Prepaid Services Act is to provide consumer protection from loss of travel funds paid in advance and to provide for interest payments to the traveller. The Prepaid Funeral Services Act similarly creates a trust situation to protect the consumer and provides that the consumer rather than the funeral director or operator receives the interest income. In a similar fashion, the Landlord and Tenant Act and/or the Residential Tenancies Act provide that interest be paid annually to the tenant on deposits made for the last month’s rent.

This resolution arises out of a complaint I received from a constituent, a Michael L. McCourt, president and general manager of a family owned and operated business in Windsor known as McCourt Cartage Ltd. This company, which was established in 1928, employs 50 people and has survived all depressions and recessions since that day. Mr. McCourt writes as follows, in part:

“I would like to know how an insurance company can demand that you put a deposit premium up front before you receive insurance and not have to pay any interest on this money even though they will obviously use this money to generate income.

“In 1985, I was informed by my insurance company that they were not going to renew my fleet insurance policy. This left us in a hell of a fix because it left only about three companies writing the insurance that we needed. We found a company to write our insurance at about three times the premium we paid the previous year.

“If that was not bad enough, they demanded that we send them $35,000 up front before the policy could be issued. We were still required to pay our premiums every month according to our gross revenue and we were to receive nothing for the money that we sent them.

“As luck would have it, this company’s parent company got into financial trouble. The company was wound down and my money, which was not owed to them or earned by them, was thrown into the pot with all other moneys.

“I then had to scramble and managed to become insured with Markel at twice the premium that was required with United Canada. Now, in less than one year, I was paying five times what my premiums had been. Markel also required that I send them $50,000 before they would issue a policy.

“It has been almost two years now and the money is still somewhere within the Markel organization. They are free to use the money to generate income and I, even though it is my money, am not entitled to any of it.

I have two questions:

“1. Why should my money that was given to United Canada up front be put into a common pot and returned to me at so many cents on the dollar?

“2. How come Markel can take my $50,000 and utilize it in any way they please to generate income and I do not receive anything for it?”

I believe this letter demonstrates some of the fundamental deficiencies and unfairness of the current insurance act which this resolution seeks to remedy. I therefore trust that honourable members of this Legislature will approve this resolution and I urge the Minister of Financial Institutions (Mr. R. F. Nixon) to bring forward appropriate amendments to the Insurance Act.

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Mr. Swart: I want to deal with the resolution we have before us and I want to say at the very beginning that there is not a member in this House who does not know about the problems related to auto insurance. Regardless of what members in the government party have said when the debate took place, they are not having many people come to them about their problems. If they are not, I suggest it is because people know members are not receptive to their problems. But I suggest everyone here knows about the problems that do exist in auto insurance as far as the drivers of this province are concerned.

Although the intent of the member’s resolution may be good and may be genuine, I really think it is one of the silliest resolutions I have seen before this Legislature because it really does not do anything to resolve the horrendous problems that do exist for drivers in this province. It is another attempt by people in the government party to flail around and pretend to be doing something about insurance but not do anything real. This does not deal with the real problems in the auto insurance industry, and I am sure members of this House, if they think in some depth, will realize that.

I am not sure why the member limited this to liability insurance. I would think if they were going to set up this money in a trust, it would be all the money paid in for insurance, so why the member only mentions liability I do not know. That in itself proves again how weak and ineffective is the resolution we have before us. Certainly, it does not deal with the problem that the member’s own constituent had of having his rates go up three times. His insurance rates tripled. The resolution only deals with one small part of that.

I also have to wonder whether the member does support his own government with regard to a rate review board. If he does -- and of course I do not because a rate review board is not the answer either -- then he must know that the proposed board, according to statements by the former Minister of Financial Institutions and even statements of the present Minister of Financial Institutions, will consider all income, including the interest on the money that comes in, and will set the rates based on all that income.

It is perfectly obvious if one is going to have that interest accrue to the benefit of the person who pays the premium, as this implies, it means that the industry will not get that money and in fact the rates will have to be increased to make up for this money which the industry no longer gets as revenue. It will be paid out and accrue to the premiums for that member, so it is not going to have any beneficial effect under the rate review board. It will have no beneficial effect whatsoever on the rate a person will be paying.

We are talking here, I suppose, about interest reductions in the neighbourhood of about $135 million altogether, which sounds like quite a lot. To me, and perhaps to you too, Mr. Speaker, $135 million sounds like quite a bit but, as I say, that is $135 million the companies will not get so they will have to up the rates to make up for that amount. In my understanding, about half of the premiums written now are for a six-month period in auto insurance and about half of the premiums are for a year. Considering the total premiums are about $3 billion, that is about the money that would be saved.

It is important to point out that is the exact amount of money the Minister of Financial Institutions will take from the motorists of this province and give to the insurance companies on January 1, 1988, by allowing the 4.5 per cent increase, an increase which, incidentally, he has awarded to them without doing the slightest investigation to determine whether they need that increase. It is wholly ineffective in dealing with the insurance problem we have.

By contrast, it is worth pointing out, as was pointed out by my leader, that the latest figures which come from the insurance industry show that last year, 1986, the companies used an amount equal to 42.5 cents of every premium dollar in expenses and profit, which means that the people only got 57.5 per cent back on every dollar they paid in. The public plan in British Columbia, and these figures are taken from the annual report, uses only 20 cents on the dollar and pays back 80 cents in claims. In Manitoba, it is 20.4 per cent. If we had a public plan here --

Interjections.

Mr. Swart: I will ignore the interjections, Mr. Speaker. You would applaud that attitude, would you not?

If we had one of those public plans here and we could save 22.5 per cent, that would be $675 million the government would be saving for the people of this province and it would not have to raise premiums to save that kind of money as will have to be done with the proposal being made by the member for Windsor-Walkerville (Mr. M. C. Ray).

This does not deal, of course, with the whole problem of interest. The insurance companies make tremendous interest on their investments. The member is proposing getting back the interest on premiums until they are earned, but what about the interest insurance companies are making on their investments? Last year, according to Statistics Canada, they made in the neighbourhood of $1.7 billion interest on investments. That is all their investments, but auto insurance is the big one. Auto insurance is the one where the money stays for a long period of time, where they get most of their interest on investments.

Boy, would I ever like to see a resolution here in this House that all the money in interest on their investments be returned to reduce premiums. If we got that kind of money coming back in, it would have some meaning, as the money comes back in in the western provinces. Last year in British Columbia, I am going by memory but I believe the amount that came back in to reduce premiums equalled 18 per cent of the premiums. In Manitoba, something like 14 percent or 16 per cent came back in to reduce premiums.

We do not start touching the interest rates on what people should be getting back. Mr. Speaker, you would understand, I am sure, that of the total premiums paid in this year by three years from now less than half of that money is paid out in claims. So the insurance companies have huge investments on which they are drawing interest, but there is no law in Ontario at the present time which says that money must be used to reduce premiums, even though that is the money people paid in.

There is no doubt in my mind that, as sincere as the member may be in introducing this resolution, it has no reality in dealing with the massive problems that exist in the insurance industry as far as drivers are concerned in this province. It has no real impact; in fact, it will not have any impact at all on reducing rates for the people of this province and, therefore, this resolution, as far as I am concerned, is meaningless. I am not prepared to vote in this House for meaningless things with regard to auto insurance. I want the real thing, a driver-owned public insurance plan for this province.

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Mr. Runciman: It is always interesting to listen to the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart). If you mention the United States or insurance companies, the members of the New Democratic Party go into a frenzy. It is predictable. I go into a frenzy when you mention the Liberal Party.

It is with some regret that I want to inform the member for Windsor-Walkerville that our party, as well as the official opposition, is not going to support his resolution. I can appreciate the time pressures that he found himself in as a new member when he was told, following the draw, he had to get a piece of business in there in very short order, so you do what you can.

But I feel this is somewhat a case of overkill in respect to the insurance industry with Bill 2 before this House, which is obviously a very significant piece of business, and now the member’s bill which again, in my view, uses the insurance industry as whipping boys. In the end, the people who really are hurt by this kind of legislation, specially by the significant interference into the private sector of Bill 2, are the consumers of this province.

I have been trying to talk about where this government is taking us in respect to auto insurance. I said during the debate on Bill 2 that that particular bill was a first step on the slippery slope towards government-run, state-run auto insurance. I believe that, and I believe the second step will come early in the new year in an announcement that we are going to move towards comprehensive no-fault insurance.

In my view at least, this government, at least the key players, is a left-wing interventionist group. One of the comments in a journal yesterday -- it was the official Liberal Party organ, the Red Star, as it is known in certain circles -- in an article by Rosemary Speirs, was that the speech of the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) indicated that there may be a constitutional challenge against the free trade agreement. One of the concerns expressed was that the free trade agreement would limit the government’s ability to intervene in the economy, but specifically, it could compel the government to compensate private insurance companies when the government moves to state-run auto insurance.

I thought that was a pretty significant little item and in my view is indicative of the mindset of the key players in that government, the people who really make the decisions, the five or six people on the front benches and the people in the office of the Premier (Mr. Peterson), the people who really make the decisions in this government.

Another significant comment that was made during the debate on Bill 2, which received no notice, was the remark of the Deputy Premier (Mr. R. F. Nixon) that public auto insurance, state-run auto insurance, was not anathema to the Deputy Premier. He did not find anything terribly wrong with state-run auto insurance. That is the Deputy Premier making a comment like that.

People who have been supportive of this government for the past two and a half years, especially those in the business world, say, “Well, they have to make these kinds of adjustments because of the folks on this side.” The reality is what we have been saying, that essentially we have a government that is anti-business and Bill 2 is a significant intrusion and this ballot item 7 is more interference in the private sector, interference that in many cases is not justified and will hurt the interests of consumers in this province in years to come.

Talking about some specifics about the ballot item -- and perhaps the member would want to respond to them in the time that is left to him -- the resolution does not specify how interest is to be calculated on the unearned portion of the premium. Is it to be calculated on a monthly basis or on an annual basis? We hope the sponsor will deal with that later in the debate.

The resolution does not specify how the interest is to be paid to the insured. For instance, payment could take the form of a cash transfer, where the interest could be applied to the insured’s account as a credit against the next premium payment; or using a discounted cash-flow approach, the premium could be reduced by the estimated amount of the interest earned on the unearned premiums.

In our view, the resolution would create an administrative problem for the insurance companies. They would have to track, for every insured person, the portion of the premium that was unearned, the amount of interest earned on the unearned portion of the premium and provide for payout or crediting of the interest.

In short, this resolution would set up a system that would increase the companies’ administrative costs. One thing the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. B. Rae) has been talking about is that the administrative costs of insurance companies are excessive now. What we are suggesting through this resolution is that we are going to further increase those administrative costs. What happens again? We have increased pressure on the premiums, the money that you and I pay out.

In addition, the resolution would cut into an insurance company’s return on its investment portfolio, which is funded by reserves and unearned premiums. By reducing investment income, the resolution would put upward pressure on premiums. That is what we have been hearing about in the past two and a half years, the concern about premiums, the increases in premiums. We have this resolution coming into the House that again is going to achieve directly the opposite of what we all would like to see occur, that is, increased upward pressure on auto insurance premiums in this province.

Hopefully, the member will respond to that as well. We have taken a look at it, we have talked to a number of people in the industry and one consumer group, and we are having difficulty finding any support out there for this resolution simply because of the impact it could have on premiums.

We are certainly going to be strongly opposing Bill 2 during the committee hearing process and introducing a number of amendments which we think could make it palatable. There is no doubt, with the government numbers, that the bill in February, when the House resumes -- that is, if we just do not keep going right through until February, which I guess is a real possibility given the attitude of the government House leader. In any event, whenever we have to deal with Bill 2, which I do not think will be any later than mid-February, it is obvious that it is going to pass, and probably in all likelihood it is going to pass unamended.

We think it is wrong, to say the least, to proceed with a resolution like this, which again, I suspect, is going to have the support of the member’s colleagues. But I hope the minister responsible, the Minister of Financial Institutions, does not take that as any clear indication of the wishes of this House, because quite clearly it certainly is not the wish of this party or the official opposition. We do not want him to read anything into the vote that is going to occur later this morning other than support for a fellow colleague.

We are going to see Bill 2 go into the system. I predict that it is going to have dire consequences for the consumers of this province. It is going to lead directly where these folks want the government to go, but not quickly enough, obviously. In any event, we think Bill 2 is going to go into the system. We will see what happens. We should not be further tinkering with the system at this stage.

Therefore, our party cannot and will not support the member’s resolution, although I do wish him a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

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Mr. Callahan: I have listened very closely to what I would refer to as the bookends. First, we had the extreme left and then we had the extreme right.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Now we have the mushy middle.

Mr. Callahan: That is right. Now we have middle of the road. Middle of the road, just like bland, is what the people of Ontario really look forward to. They proved that in the last election. Mr. Grossman, who was the bookend on the right end, found himself out on Bay Street simply because he was to the right of Attila the Hun. I think that is a message that perhaps suddenly should filter over to the third party, that right wing does not work. I think perhaps it should filter over to the official opposition that left wing does not work, but I want to get on to the meat of the particular motion.

I thought the member for Welland-Thorold, who is usually a very gracious individual, was somewhat hard on our new member for Windsor-Walkerville in immediately saying that his resolution is silly. Nothing in this House, by any honourable member, is silly. It is a conscious effort to try to serve his community and the province of Ontario. On the other side of the coin, the member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Runciman), the right end of the bookends, was very fair. He perhaps put it in perspective when he said that when a new member comes to Queen’s Park and finds himself or herself early on the ballot, he looks to contribute something meaningful in the capital of Ontario. In so doing, he presents his ballot and presents his issue.

When I first looked at the motion, preparatory to speaking on it, I was not quite clear what the member was trying to get at. I have had an opportunity of hearing his opening comments and I think his opening comments have been missed by both the right and left bookends. In fact, what this gentleman is saying is that we should have protection for individuals who pay their premiums in good faith to an insurance company and perhaps find that insurance company does not survive and goes under. What he is saying is, if you pay for a commodity, there should be some degree of protection, that in fact that premium that is prepaid will be saved if the insurance company does not survive the period for which they have contracted to provide coverage.

Mr. Wildman: That is not like you.

Mr. Callahan: I would have read it a different way. In fact, the way I read it at first was I presumed that the member was saying that if you prepay your premium the insurance company has an obligation to provide interest on your prepayment. With that, I would have to disagree simply because the contract of insurance is one to cover you for liability against an accident. They do not say, “We are covering you for tomorrow morning and then we will cover you for the next day and then we will cover you for the day after.” They enter into a binding agreement that says, “We will cover you if you have an accident.” That being the case, then the commodity has been purchased and, therefore, the price has been paid in full. I suggest under those circumstances interest would be inappropriate.

I think interest is more appropriate in cases where there is a trust imposed upon the money. I suppose any member of the Legislature who is of that revered profession, although down here it does not seem to be so revered, the legal profession, will know that on your trust account interest is paid. In the past, institutions, such as the banks, used to have the opportunity of just keeping that money. Then the august body that governs lawyers got smart and they halved it with the bank. Half of it went to support the legal aid program and the other half went to the bank and the bank then did not charge any service charges on the particular lawyer’s trust -- I am not sure if it is trust or general account. In fact, that is the place where I think interest is required.

Now if the member is saying that these are trust monies -- and if in fact they are trust monies -- then interest is appropriate, but I do not think that is the case. I think in the matter of insurance you are buying the commodity. You have effected your contract and you have paid for it. You are not entitled to interest.

However, then I thought to myself, on the other side of the coin and you can argue this about three different ways; I am about to go into the third way. If you paid your premium on a monthly basis you in fact pay a charge to the insurance company to pay it on a monthly basis.

Now if they can charge you to pay it on a monthly basis, then it might follow, from what the member for Windsor-Walkerville has said in his motion, that they should perhaps pay interest on the prepayment; which raises something that always bothered me with things such as utility bills. Utility bills would always charge you a penalty if you did not pay them before a certain date, and that was a problem for people who were senior citizens and had budgeted their funds, and yet, if they paid in advance, there might in some cases, not always, be a discount. I figure that what is fair for one side is fair for the other side.

In addition to that, what the member for Windsor-Walkerville is suggesting is not really all that outrageous, because this Legislature, about five, perhaps 10 years ago, introduced a concept of prejudgement interest. The whole rationale of introducing that prejudgement interest was to avoid exactly what was going on. There were lengthy delays in settling lawsuits, particularly motor vehicle accidents, where the money sat in the coffers of the insurance companies until a settlement was finally effected. It was an incentive, let us say, to get on with the issue and to see that people were compensated for the very nub of what insurance is for, to compensate people who are injured, who have suffered loss, and not to string out a process to their detriment.

We thought that prejudgement interest was an excellent tool to deal with that. We now find that prejudgement interest may very well be at the root of the high cost of insurance. So, to this extent, I agree with the member for Leeds-Grenville -- and this is probably the last time I will ever agree with the gentleman from Leeds-Grenville -- if you are going to adjust or tamper with a particular piece of legislation it is imperative that it be done in such a way that you examine the impacts. I think that old law of physics is that to every action there will be an equal reaction.

So I would love to support the motion by my colleague from Windsor-Walkerville because I know how it is in this House, as a rookie, to introduce a motion and have everybody vote against it, because that happened to me. I introduced a motion which would require municipal councillors to vote their salaries in advance of their going to the polls for an election, and not being able to change their salaries for the entire term, other than to reduce their salaries.

The honourable members in this House did not think that was a good motion even though perhaps a year prior to that, the trustees, under the Education Act, had in fact been governed by exactly the same amendment.

So I say to the member for Windsor-Walkerville, the fact that he may or may not lose this motion should not discourage him because oft-times the vote that takes place in this House, particularly during private member’s hour, has not been given the thought that perhaps it should have been given; and the statement that he makes today, which is voted against as perhaps not being appropriate at this hour, may be appropriate some hour down the line.

I say that I feel very badly that I cannot vote for it, but I think, for the reasons I have just stated, that on either one of the principles it would be inappropriate and I will be voting against the motion.

Mr. Farnan: I would just like to make some general remarks relevant to the debate surrounding the private member’s bill and to introduce them by some observations.

First, I do have respect for the viewpoints put forward by the Progressive Conservative members on most issues, mainly because I know where they stand. They seem to state what their position is. They are usually wrong, but at least I do know where they stand. That is very admirable. At the same time, I have some fondness for positions put forward by the Liberal members. Generally speaking, given time, given a lot of persuasion and given many years of hard work, they can be persuaded to take progressive positions that are valuable, but it does take time and it does take a lot of hard work.

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Last night, when reading over an article by Tommy Douglas, a famous Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and New Democratic Party leader, I was reflecting and recalling his parable of mouseland. It struck me that in my short experience in the House much that has transpired here fits very comfortably into the parable described by Tommy Douglas. Most of the members here are familiar with that parable and I will not go over it and recount it.

Mr. Fleet: I haven’t heard it. I want to hear it.

Mr. McClelland: I want to hear it.

Mr. Farnan: Just for the record, let me make the point that the mice of mouseland, as they trooped to the polls, elected a government of black cats. Of course, the problem for those unfortunate mice was that the cats passed laws that were good for cats. When they were totally disillusioned with the black cats -- sometimes it takes a long time; sometimes it takes up to 42 years -- and another election rolled around, what happened was they voted in the white cats. The white cats made promises. In this parable, Tommy Douglas points out that, unfortunately, a particular brand of cat is even more dangerous to the mice, and that is the type of cat that is spotted, cats that speak like mice and think and act like cats. I look at the analogy we face today, the analogy of free trade, and I see what is happening. We have cats that are speaking like mice but thinking and acting like cats.

I see this morning that the private member’s bill, as the member for Welland-Thorold pointed out, does not really grasp the root problems in the insurance industry. There is some little bit of movement there, but it does not address the real problems. Of course, the member for Brampton South (Mr. Callahan), who said he could not support the bill, in his statement said, “You now, maybe down the road we can support this bill.” Maybe that is four or five years down the road. Maybe in 42 years this government could support this bill, but right now it is not going to attack the essential problems in the insurance industry. That is for sure; not with this private member’s bill and not with the government bill presently before the House. They are not going to attack the problems in the insurance industry until they address the real issues as they were described by the member for Welland-Thorold.

It is a reality, whether it is insurance or whether it is free trade, that as we look at issues coming forward from private members on the government side of the House or at government bills coming forward from the government side of the House, what we have in essence is legislation that does not address the real needs of the people of Ontario. They talk the language. They have camouflage. They go out there and give the impression that indeed their real interest is for the ordinary people of this province, but we must remember that their agenda is an agenda for cats and not for mice.

The Deputy Speaker: Do other members wish to participate in the debate? If not, does the member for Windsor-Walkerville wish to reply?

Mr. M. C. Ray: I have just a few remarks. First, this motion was not intended to be, as some might suggest, an all-inclusive answer to the auto industry problems. It is interesting again to listen to the New Democratic Party chorus, as it usually is, with regard to publicly owned auto insurance. I would like to have the members of the opposition come to my riding as they did during the election and explain to senior citizens and the elderly who cannot afford or do not want to drive automobiles why they should pay to subsidize the auto insurance premiums of taxi fleets, trucking companies and other drivers, because that is exactly what happens when the government is called upon to subsidize publicly owned companies.

Mr. Wildman: What a silly, silly comment.

Mr. M. C. Ray: The western experience, which they do not like to refer to, shows us that millions upon millions have been pumped in to subsidize publicly owned auto insurance plans. That means ordinary taxpayers, ordinary people who pay to run the government, have to subsidize the trucking companies and the taxi fleets and others who can afford to own an automobile and can afford to pay auto insurance. I do not think that is a fair system.

Mr. Wildman: Why are you putting down the elderly so much?

Mr. M. C. Ray: I invite the member to come to 920 Ouellette in Windsor, a senior citizen’s building, and explain to those people why they should pay auto insurance through their tax system.

Mr. Wildman: You obviously don’t talk to them. They care a lot more than you do.

Mr. M. C. Ray: I just went through an election in that city, the capital of labour in Canada, I might tell the member, in my riding of Windsor-Walkerville where the taxpayers of this province did not buy his program.

I do not think Mr. McCourt in Windsor thinks this resolution is silly. I do not think this House thought similar legislation was silly when it passed the Prepaid Hospital and Medical Services Act, when it passed the Prearranged Funeral Services Act, and when it passed the provisions of the Landlord and Tenant Act and the Residential Tenancies Act which provided that interest would be paid and that moneys would be impressed with a trust in some circumstances.

That is the nature of this motion. It is not meant to be an all-inclusive answer to the auto insurance question. The Liberal platform is extensive in that regard and members will hear a great deal about it when we come to deal with Bill 2 and the other forms of relief the public is entitled to with respect to the problems in the insurance industry.

The Deputy Speaker: This concludes the debate on Mr. Ray’s resolution. As this debate was supposed to end at 11:02 this morning, the standing orders provide that the time available will be divided equally. Is there unanimous consent of the House to proceed to the next order of the day?

Agreed to.

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COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES ACT

Mr. Reville moved second reading of Bill 50, An Act to provide for Community Mental Health Services.

The Deputy Speaker: The member has up to 20 minutes to make his presentation, of which he may reserve any portion for the windup at the end.

Mr. Reville: I am proud to present to the Legislature today Bill 50, the Community Mental Health Services Act. As I read the cover of the bill, where it says, “1st Session, 34th Legislature, Ontario,” I note how happy I am to be a member of this 34th Legislature. I also note that it says “36 Elizabeth II, 1987.” It was in 1967, almost exactly 20 years ago, when I was discharged from Kingston Psychiatric Hospital after having spent a year and a half there.

I came out into a community which had virtually nothing in the way of community mental health services. In those days, many of the kinds of services we talk about today did not yet exist. In the 20 years that have passed, a great deal has happened. I think one of the most remarkable things that has happened in terms of the way we deal with the mentally ill in Ontario is the phenomenon called deinstitutionalization. In fact, Ontario, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, actually closed down 75 per cent of its psychiatric hospital beds. People who had spent many, many years in institutions were suddenly released into communities that were ill-prepared to receive them.

There is no question that over the last 20 years there has been a growth in community mental health programming, so that today in Ontario the Ministry of Health is spending about $65 million on community mental health programming. This is not to say, however, that this level of programming is adequate. There are some excellent programs available, but in almost every case the demand exceeds the supply and in many cases the services are available in a very spotty way For instance, north of the French River, in 1986 there were only 34 supported housing beds; 34 beds for people coming out of hospital in all of northern Ontario. It strikes me that this is one of the most glaring inadequacies in our community mental health services.

I want to remind the members of the Legislature of something that may already have been brought to their attention for other reasons. Today is the second anniversary of the death of Drina Joubert who died of exposure not very far from the Legislature in a truck in an alleyway on Sherbourne Street. In her memory, the Legislature is behooved to take action to put in place the kinds of supportive services that would have saved her life.

During the inquest into the circumstances surrounding Drina Joubert’s death, it was estimated that in the last year of her life, Ms. Joubert consumed over $85,000 worth of services of various kinds. Regrettably, the services she consumed were not timely; nor were they appropriate. They included days on which she was using a hospital bed in a psychiatric unit of a general hospital at around $500 a day. There were days when she was in a detox at around $90 a day. There were days when she was in the Queen Street Mental Health Centre at around $200 a day. There were many, many days when she was in a hostel at around $25 a day. Then, of course, there were those days when she slept in the truck at no cost to society but clearly at no benefit to her.

Her story is a good example, in my view, of the situation that confronts people who have had mental health problems and who may have them again. They are at times overresourced and at other times badly underresourced.

The implications of the lack of community supports are serious. One implication is that we have a large number of blocked hospital beds, some would estimate more than the Provincial Auditor suggests at 25 per cent. Those beds are blocked because the people who occupy the beds, while not seriously ill, cannot be released into the community because there is nothing to which to release them.

Another implication is the 60 per cent to 70 per cent recidivism rate for people with a serious mental illness. On any given day at a place like the Queen Street Mental Health Centre, 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the census of that hospital has already been there once this year. Community mental health program delivery people say it is the lack of community support that deepens or creates crises so that people have to be rehospitalized.

The third implication, of course, is the daily and often desperate struggle for survival that people undergo between periods of hospitalization, in which often their only home is a crummy boarding and lodging house, often in a section of town like Parkdale. Sometimes a 24-hour doughnut store is their home. At all times, many ex-psychiatric patients face severe economic deprivation and severe social deprivation, without something meaningful to do, without a decent place to live and without adequate income.

The auditor’s report, I am grateful to say, points out some of the failings of our community mental health system. For instance, the auditor notes the shortage of good quality, affordable housing. The housing that does exist offers no rehabilitation. The auditor notes the inadequate conditions of residential care homes because the support services are inadequate or often nonexistent. The auditor notes that some operators are permitted to continue operating despite failing to comply with licensing conditions because inspectors are aware of the shortage of alternatives. The auditor notes as well that supportive housing units, workshops and clinics have received increased funding, but there continues to be a shortage of services across the province.

In this morning’s Toronto Star is a letter from Paul Sherman who is the chairman of the Ontario Federation of Community Mental Health and Addictions Programs. This is a new federation. It is an umbrella group of a large number of agencies that deliver all the community mental health programming in Ontario.

Mr. Sherman says: “Despite a long-standing government policy of deinstitutionalization, the funding commitment to establish a mental health service system has not been evident. Currently, community mental health receives six per cent of the total mental health budget and less than six tenths of one per cent of the total health budget.”

This for a set of conditions and mental health problems that in fact are responsible for a very high percentage of total admissions to hospital which will, statistics show, strike over 12 per cent of the population; that is, one in every eight people will suffer mental health problems of sufficient severity to require hospitalization.

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I want to remind members of the Legislature of a letter which they received earlier this week. It is a letter from Howard Richardson, the executive director of the Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario division, and it recalls to members’ attention the survey that CMHA did during the election period and the results it received from all the members of the Legislature.

Mr. Richardson says: “One survey question will be of interest to you in relation to the recently introduced Bill 50, An Act to provide for Community Mental Health Services. The survey question asked if respondents supported CMHA’s call for a community mental health act which would legislate a minimum level and range of local and regional community mental health programs. Overall, 85 per cent of the respondents supported such legislation and of the elected members responding, 71 per cent were in support. Given this clear indication of support for such an initiative, we urge you to support Bill 50 at second reading on December 17, 1987.”

I think it is particularly timely for the Legislature to adopt this bill on second reading, send it to committee, where we can have hearings and where committee members can hear from consumer groups, advocates and people who deliver community mental health services, because the Ministry of Health has announced a working group on community mental health services. The working group, it says here on October 13, wants to define what constitutes a comprehensive community mental health system. In fact, the first substantive section of Bill 50 defines comprehensive principles and the second substantive section defines comprehensive services that should make up a system of community mental health.

I understand that the Ministry of Health and the government of Ontario are committed to doubling the size of the community mental health program budget. That is something I welcome. I am concerned, however, that the doubling is going to take place over three years and that some of the additional money will have to go to improving the salary levels of those who deliver community mental health services because they are being remunerated at levels which are far less than those in the public psychiatric hospital sector. Of course, the community mental health sector keeps losing people to the government sector.

A significant amount of the rest of the money will go to dealing with the waiting lists for community mental health programs that now exist.

I would like to reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker, and listen to what other members of the Legislature may have to say.

Mr. Eves: As Health critic, it is my pleasure to rise on behalf of our party and address this proposed bill, which we will be supporting.

Bill 50, defines the types of programs which should be available to persons seeking mental health services and, specifically, the bill legislates individualized programs which are set up with the help of the client, programs which will allow the client to attain as much self-sufficiency as is possible, annual reviews of individualized programs, and programs designed to meet the needs of clients in defined geographic areas which I think is a very important aspect of the legislation.

Co-ordination of services in a geographic area will be delegated to a specific authority. The services should be responsive to the changing needs of the client group and the bill goes on to say that consultation with conflict-free advocacy groups should take place to ensure responsiveness. The delegated specific authority must provide the following programs: housing, life skills training, medical and psychiatric services, co-ordination of programs and, as I have said, advocacy services.

During the recent 1987 provincial election campaign, the Canadian Mental Health Association surveyed all candidates regarding community mental health services. In a September 4, 1987, press release, the association said that all three parties supported its call for a community mental health act. The government party election promise provides for an increase of $81.7 million for mental health programs over the next three years. As my colleague has already alluded, although that would double the number of people being served by community mental health programs across the province, it is also going to take three years to accomplish. No mention was made of potential legislation to ensure that this was done.

This year, the province is spending $65.3 million on community mental health programs, but only 13.9 per cent of the mental health branch budget is represented by those programs, and $293 million is being spent on psychiatric services. Four per cent of the total ministry budget for 1987-88 is for the mental health branch and 41 per cent of the mental health budget is targeted for the community mental health branch.

The community mental health services program was established in Ontario over a decade ago. Mental illness is the country’s fourth most common reason for ending up in hospital. One in six people will be treated for a mental illness during their lives and one in eight will be put in hospital for that illness. Thirty per cent of the 20,000 to 40,000 homeless Canadians suffer from some form of mental illness.

The community mental health programs in the province this year number 303. That is up from 206 just four years ago. On May 4, 1987, the former Minister of Health, the member for Bruce (Mr. Elston), told the community mental health programs federation that the ministry priority for the time being will be to enhance and monitor the programs that already exist. We think we need much more than that. We think we need an expansion of community health programs throughout Ontario.

A very good example is my own riding of Parry Sound, where there is really no community mental health program per se. Currently, we have a group of concerned citizens and residents in the riding working in concert and with the co-operation of all the hospitals in the district of Parry Sound, trying to set up some sort of community mental health service program. Legislation such as this would certainly enhance that effort in many geographic areas of the province and, in particular, in northern Ontario.

The Canadian Mental Health Association provides 40 per cent of the community mental health programs in Ontario. They believe that what is needed is a comprehensive program, as I have said, of community mental health services in order to keep the psychiatrically disabled either out of expensive hospital beds or from having to live in our streets in intolerable conditions.

Community mental health services are definitely not distributed equally across Ontario. In Metropolitan Toronto, the majority of programs are located in the downtown area and are not easily accessible to most Metro Toronto residents. There are approximately 3,000 to 4,000 people living on the streets of Metro who have psychiatric disabilities. Four years ago, a patient discharged from the Queen Street Mental Health Centre had 15 or 16 housing choices. Today, only one or two choices exist. In 19B3, 183 patients of the Queen Street centre stayed three months or longer. This year, that figure is 224, or 40 per cent higher. Of those 224 patients, 87 could be released from the hospital if there was somewhere they could be sent where they would receive a fair degree of supervision, but no such place exists.

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During 1985, the Progressive Conservative government had a contract in northeastern Ontario with Dr. Covington to set up psychiatric clinics in northeastern Ontario. When the Liberal Party took over the government of Ontario, it chose not to honour the contract with Dr. Covington and the doctor has since left the province. There has been no work done on clinical services since that time, even though the need was definitely identified by the previous government.

Late in 1984, the member for Cochrane South (Mr. Pope), as Minister of Health, appointed a steering committee of representatives from northeastern Ontario to establish a model and practical implementation strategy for mental health programs in northeastern Ontario. That report was released on September 30, 1986. The proposed model closely resembles the model proposed in the bill of my colleague the member for Riverdale (Mr. Reville).

The report cited the following as the main problems with the present system of mental health services in northeastern Ontario: services are centred in large communities, there is a distinct lack of francophone services, there is a lack of co-ordination with existing services, there is a lack of communication among existing services, a lack of professionals and training programs, a lack of programs and services for ex-psychiatric patients, for sure a lack of services in remote areas of the province, distance, isolation in geography of areas and generally disappointment with the present regional services in northeastern Ontario and the province of Ontario.

Services for native persons is another aspect of community mental health. The Brant District Health Council has given top priority to the lack of mental health services on the Six Nations Indian reserve for the last three years. The ministry has been ignoring the call for a mental health program for the reserve. The director of the community health centre there says: “The province does not consider the mental health of Indians to be its problem. It thinks it is a federal problem.”

Likewise, services for rural Ontario are sadly lacking. One in three Ontario fatalities is a suicide. Eighty-eight per cent of farm families are suffering from stress-related problems. The provincial farmers in transition program includes a 24-hour distress hotline and family farm advisers who review farm operations and help farmers find alternatives to new life. However, farmers such as those in the Grey-Bruce area, the first area to be hard hit when farm financial crises came in the early 1980s, do not trust the government-run transition program.

I think I have helped to highlight a few of the shortcomings of community mental health services across the province at large in my remarks in the preceding nine and a half minutes. Suffice it to say that our party, and I as an individual, will definitely be supporting Bill 50. We think it is a piece of legislation that is long overdue. It addresses the concerns of the steering committee that was established, as I said, by the member for Cochrane South when he was the Minister of Health and that report which came out in 1986. We think it is certainly a step in the right direction and I will be supporting the bill.

Mr. Keyes: I am pleased to enter into this particular debate on Bill 50 for several reasons, particularly because Bill 50 does embody many of the principles that I am sure everyone in this House cannot help but support. That is the principle of sound mental health. I happen to be one of those persons who belongs to a group that believes one’s physical condition is, to perhaps 90 per cent, a factor of one’s mental condition. Therefore, if we are to promote a healthy lifestyle, it certainly must have in it a major component of sound mental health.

However, I will not be supporting the bill this morning because of the fact that it does have several deficiencies. I want to explain clearly that the principle of it is appropriate to support and we believe --

Mr. Harris: We might support your amendments.

Mr. Keyes: I did not believe this morning, in the time that we have, we would gain that much by going through all the amendments, although there could be many which perhaps could make it more appropriate to be used. I feel that the bill at the moment is inappropriate and I will try to show briefly some of the deficiencies in the bill and also to talk a little more positively about some of the programs we have raised. I hope I may find time in eight minutes to refer to some of the points raised by the two previous speakers.

Basically, as we know, this draft legislation that we have is pretty well the same as was introduced during the discussions on Bill 190, which was ruled out of order at that time. We know there are a number of community groups that are proposing similar legislation and we have suggestions from the Ontario division of the Canadian Mental Health Association and the community mental health program federation. I know that all worthy MPPs in this House have been approached, I am sure, by representatives of both those groups, either in person in their constituency offices or through letter writing.

We, as a government, are very much aware of the concern of Ontarians for this subject of sound mental health and a mental health philosophy and program across the province. That is why, in September of 1987, shortly after she was appointed, the Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan) appointed Robert Graham to chair this provincial community mental health committee which is to develop the components for a very comprehensive model community mental health delivery system and also to provide advice to the minister. We have given Mr. Graham a very, very short time frame, as the members well know.

In the news release of October 13 referred to, which set out some of the purposes of the working group, I might just refer back to a paragraph: “The working group will develop a framework that will assist local district health councils in setting priorities and co-ordinating community mental health programs. This will help ensure that recently announced funding for community mental health will be allocated in an effective and efficient manner.”

On August 28 the Premier (Mr. Peterson) did announce that there would be doubling of the client capacity. It was not specifically a statement of a doubling of funding, it was a doubling of client capacity over the next three years, with the annual expenditure of $130 million by that time. I think it is important that we address ourselves to the fact that it is a doubling of client capacity which is the significant part of that announcement.

I would also like to mention a news release yesterday from Mr. Graham on the work that he has been carrying out. The working group will hold its next public meeting tomorrow in Guelph and we are sure that those persons from Guelph and area will come to make their views known to this committee.

Members may not be aware that the group held a meeting in Thunder Bay on December 4; it held one in Cornwall on December 11 and after the one tomorrow it still has four more. I urge all members to do their utmost to be sure that people attend and have their views known, both those of committees and other organized groups and individuals. The group will be in Metro Toronto on January 11, in Chatham on January 15, in Oshawa on January 22 and in Sudbury on January 29. I urge all members to be sure to become involved and invite all their citizenry to do likewise.

It is also significant to note that this whole idea of consultation with the public again just characterizes what we have been doing in this government in order to try to get the input from the populace of Ontario on issues that are of dire concern to each and every one of us.

I said I wanted to touch just briefly on the issue of deficiencies. I should talk about the fact that really what is being addressed in this legislation, but is not entirely clear, has a lot to do with the payment of services relating to the care and treatment of an individual in a facility. It appears that this would tend to set out legislation that suggests a specific amount of funding for the community mental health branch as well as OHIP claims for family physicians and psychiatrists.

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There is a deficiency in the definitions. If we are going to define “minister,” as we have done in part of the bill, then we should get into defining such other things as “patient,” “disorder,” “facility,” “clinician” and “director,” because without these descriptions and clear definitions it is not totally clear what the purpose of this act would be.

Under the section on components, there seems to be an implication for the community mental health program in relationship to the current nonmedical focus, and we are trying to do a great deal of focusing within the ministry on the nonmedical aspect of it.

I believe we should touch briefly, for a moment, on some of the programs and just think again of what the community mental health branch of our ministry is all about, and I quote:

“Community-based mental health services are intended to replace inpatient treatment with outpatient services wherever possible, reintegrate discharged patients into the community environment, locate mental health treatment and rehabilitation services as close to the homes of clients as possible and increase the range of choices of interventions or services available.”

I would love to provide members a litany of the number of programs: 396 community-based programs are now in existence and received some $95 million in funding in 1987-88. There are volunteer programs, supportive housing programs -- which I will touch on very briefly -- co-ordination programs, psychogeriatric, rehabilitation, self-help treatment, and particularly alcohol and drug addiction programs; all of which have been increasing in funding. In fact, since 1981 in drug and alcohol dependency alone the funding has increased by over 200 per cent, going from $21 million to currently $95 million a year.

In the matter of supportive housing, which seems to be an issue that is particularly pressing with everyone, the work between the Ministry of Housing, as the lead ministry, the Ministry of Community and Social Services and our own ministry has been quite significant. In 1982-83, under a former administration, there were only 280 beds in this category and in 1987-88 we have 1,348 beds. I am not sure where my honourable friend opposite got his figures, which seem to differ slightly from mine, but my information suggests that is what we have.

These are all programs that have been designed and developed by community agencies and institutions in response to the locally identified needs and resources, and we plan to have considerably more, because within our ministry, we are currently undertaking a review to see exactly where we need to include more supportive housing. There is a working group that includes the Supportive Housing Coalition of Metropolitan Toronto, the Canadian Medical Association, the Ontario Alternative Housing Committee, the community mental health program and supportive housing program operators. We believe that we are on the right track in order to provide the appropriate type of funding.

May I just simply say also to the member for Parry Sound (Mr. Eves), who is not in the House now, that in the matter of francophone services I can again give a long litany of what is happening, but I believe the government has been working very diligently to increase in a large number of areas, actually as outlined in the bill, things we are doing to improve the status of those in need.

I simply say yes, I can support the principle of Bill 50, a sound mental health program in Ontario, and I believe we have such and are working towards that end; but it is inappropriate to bring forth the bill at this time. It is far better to integrate the whole role of sound community mental health programs into an overall community health program, which is the direction that this ministry is taking under the current minister.

I thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak to this very crucial issue on behalf of all Ontario’s citizens.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: One might have expected an evolution of some sort in the trend towards conservatism by this government, but a metamorphosis has taken place. The definition of metamorphosis, of course, as members know, is that there is a sudden and dramatic change in a being so its original identity is no longer recognizable. That is a much more appropriate term now, metamorphosis, for the conservatism that is now reigning on the other side of this House.

To listen to the parliamentary assistant for the Ministry of Health in a Liberal reform government today is only to listen to a Conservative parliamentary assistant many years past. It is just incomprehensible to me how he has changed. If this can be done in the first three months of a majority government, God knows what the next three to four years are going to mean for the people of Ontario as Bill Davis comes back to reign supreme once more.

I regret that I did not use my powers as chairman of the standing committee on social development in the last House less judiciously and less according to the orders than I was required to do. When it was brought to my attention during those hearings that an amendment to mental health legislation that was before us was going to be proposed which embodied the very things the member for Riverdale has brought forward today, I had to rule it out of order.

I should add that Liberals on that committee all thought the points within this Community Mental Health Services Act would be appropriate but should not be raised at committee. Now we find it is not appropriate to raise them today either in private members’ legislation, even though the principle is supported. Of course, that is all he is being asked to support at second reading, I remind the parliamentary assistant, who perhaps as a past minister has forgotten these things. All he is required to do in second reading is to support a principle.

I am glad to hear the parliamentary assistant does support the principle and therefore he should support the bill. If he wishes it changed in any way and amended in terms of its detail, then that can be done in committee; that is the appropriate thing to do. But if he supports the principle, he should not vote against it, as I gather the government is intent upon doing.

With hindsight, I really do wish I had made that in order, because I hear today that the Conservative Party is supporting the member for Riverdale’s motion, and therefore we could have had this as part of the legislation of the province if I had taken a slightly stronger hand perhaps and twisted the rules mildly to suit the purposes of the opposition in those days. Now, instead, we will be left with the same long, drawn-out, evolutionary process towards adequate mental health in the community that the Tories initiated so many years ago.

I am sure the member for Riverdale has already mentioned this, but when you hear the litany of supposed programs that are out there to meet the need that the parliamentary assistant has just enunciated, and you contrast that with the budgetary fact that 94 per cent of the money of the ministry going into mental health goes into institutional care and only six per cent goes into community care, I think you can see the lie that is put to that litany.

I see in the gallery today people from the community mental health field, advocates for schizophrenics and others who understand how important it is to state as a principle of government that community mental health is as important as, if not more important than, institutionalized care.

What is fundamentally important about what the member for Riverdale is trying to do is he is saying that by bringing forward an act to provide community mental health services we would finally be giving that part of mental health programming the status that it deserves and be saying that the budgetary consequences should follow, that the step-by-step conservative approach that is being perpetuated by this government to adding additional programs here or there, but within a framework that has overall dependence on institutional care, has got to end and that the shift towards real community-centred services in an organized fashion with guaranteed rights for the patients involved is vital.

Nowhere in our legislation -- I say this to any new members who want to look at the Mental Health Act in Ontario today -- does it say that the patients should be involved in the decision-making around the services that are provided to them, a magnificent principle that is embodied in this legislation and vital to the good operation of community services.

Anybody who has been involved in mental health services in this province over the last number of years will know that one of the reasons for failure that we have presently, besides the hodgepodge of programs and the lack of co-ordination, is the fact that once somebody comes out of a mental institution he or she has certain rights which then do not allow him or her to be coerced into a program, and yet the kinds of programs we have established are those that do not involve the person in making decisions around his own welfare so that he will feel open about going in and not threatened.

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It is vital to understand the attitude of many mental health patients about the professions that deal with them and that the dangers of incarceration are always there for them, and that if you are going to have a good community services program available for them, the need for those people to make decisions with professionals about the programs they are involved with is just vital.

There are so many other principles in this legislation which has been brought forward that are not only commendable but absolutely necessary in terms of basically a bill of rights for mental health patients in the community that I find it absolutely incredible that the parliamentary assistant would not want us to pass this legislation in principle today, have it go out to a committee of the Legislature, which could then benefit by any other initiatives the government is taking in terms of investigations of this matter and offer some chance to the 95 souls on the other side who have little or nothing to do, if they are not parliamentary assistants or ministers, to actually have an effect on the development of coherent community mental health services in Ontario.

When we think today of what happens to people who are mentally ill in our society and how difficult it is to get them the programs they need -- if we think of some of the cases that now come into the riding offices of new members or will certainly come into their offices over the next number of years, such as families coming in in crisis because they cannot find proper placement and the lack of meaningful supportive housing -- it is incredible again that the minister would talk as if the initiatives that have been taken in terms of supportive housing are anywhere near adequate for what we need. I gather we may get an announcement today which is going to indicate that singles are finally going to be admitted into Ontario Housing, something that has been kept from them and from a whole series of mentally ill people who have fallen apart from their families because of the nature of their illness and have had no place even to rest their heads, let alone to get consistent programming.

What this act does essentially is to say to the francophones in northern Ontario, who have been going to Quebec for services now for decades because they cannot get services here, and to the people in small communities, who basically have to see their loved ones shipped off to towns where there is a major psychiatric institution rather than being serviced in their own local community: “This act is an act of empowerment for you. This is an act that says your child, your brother, your sister or your mother has a chance to be dealt with in his or her own community in some coherent way and it is going to be an emphasis of government.”

I would just appeal to the members of the Liberal Party, who I gather are likely to follow the parliamentary assistant’s lead in this, to think twice about doing that and to understand that this is a very important matter for them to deal with, and to deal with strongly, in committee, to amend in any way they see fit after we have more public deputations on the matter and to bring in all the information that is available. But to sit down today and vote against this on principle will be a statement that they do not wish to be Liberal reformers, that they wish to be Conservatives in Liberal clothing only and that they do not believe in basic and total reform of the mental health programs in our province. I encourage them to support the member for Riverdale’s Bill 50.

Mr. Harris: I would like to read several facts into the record.

Mental illness is the country’s fourth most common reason for ending up in the hospital.

One in six people will be treated for mental illness during their lives. If members divide 95 by six, it might mean something to them.

One in eight will be put in hospital for that illness. If members divide 95 by eight, that might mean something to them.

Thirty per cent of the 20,000 to 40,000 homeless Canadians suffer from mental illness.

One in three Ontario fatalities is a suicide.

After listening to those facts, which I think have been accepted by all Ontarians -- I have not heard them refuted -- four per cent of the total ministry budget for 1987-88 is for the mental health branch, and of that, less than half is targeted for the community mental health branch. Those are the facts of what is occurring in Ontario today and those are the facts, I believe, and the context in which we ought to put the bill that is before us.

I want to agree and disagree with the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston). I want to agree with the member strongly on his plea to the 94 members of the Liberal caucus that what we are talking about here is a principle. We are talking about second reading, and second reading is agreement in principle that there is a problem; agreement in principle that this bill, or some amended form of this bill, will go a long way towards solving the problem.

I feel sorry for the parliamentary assistant because he agrees with the principle and yet he has obviously been told by somebody, whether it is his minister or the Premier: “Look, it is a good principle, it is something that has to be looked at; but let us not allow this to pass and get into committee. Maybe our timetable will be disrupted. Let us not get a full and open look at it.”

I do not think, quite sincerely, that the parliamentary assistant is altogether comfortable with that, but I understand how the system works and I am beginning to understand how the system works in the Liberal Party, and for that reason I am not entirely laying blame on the parliamentary assistant; but he is in a very difficult position.

None the less, the rest of the members are not in that position. The parliamentary assistant himself has said, “I agree with the principle,” and that is all we are asking the members’ support for today. If members agree in principle with the facts; if they agree in principle that there is a problem; if they agree in principle that we ought to examine this problem, we ought to get it out to committee, we ought to hear from those people in our community in the community mental health field; that we ought to get more information, we ought to be open about this, we ought to play a meaningful role as legislators -- after having heard that, they are free to reject the bill then if they want, if that is what the information and the facts find and if that is what they tell them; or they can amend this bill in any form they see fit that still agrees with the principle that the parliamentary assistant agrees with, and that is the principle of this bill.

I could read all of the facts into the record and more -- the member for Parry Sound has done some of that; other members have done some of that -- but if I do anything in this debate I would impress upon members what second reading means, what they are being asked to do here and what, if they support this bill in principle, will be the net effect. It is all positive. It is all good. It is all receiving more information. There is no finality to any single clause in this bill; there is no finality to the bill. It is saying there is a problem, we would like to get more information.

If for some reason members feel that causes them some difficulty with any type of decision that was made in caucus, maybe they should all absent themselves. At least that way, in conscience they will say: “Well, I did not vote against it; it is going to go forward. The right thing will happen with this particular piece of legislation.” That is an option that, if members cannot bring themselves to support this in principle, they should consider. I think they should also consider their vote very heavily if they should decide to vote against this. Members should consider the message that vote is sending back to their constituents. They should consider the message that vote is sending back to all those who are concerned about mental health.

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I said I wanted to disagree as well with the member for Scarborough West. The member for Scarborough West noted two or three times in his remarks that the Conservative approach is to piecemeal along. Maybe in his experience that is how he has sensed, over some period of time, the Conservative approach.

I represent the riding of Nipissing. We have the North Bay Psychiatric Hospital located in my riding. I was one of those who fought hard for and encouraged the mental health needs study that was carried out under the former government. You do not, as a government, commit to a major study like that -- and we all knew: the minister knew, the Premier knew, the cabinet knew when that was approved, or had a good inkling of, what some of the findings were going to be -- without realizing that you are going to have to act and you are going to have to fund it. In my discussions with the ministers of the day -- two of them -- and in my discussions with my caucus of the day and with those who were involved, they were prepared to act and they took that step, at least for northeastern Ontario which concerned me.

That committee was chaired by Peter Birnie, a chartered accountant from North Bay, with very able representation from all over northeastern Ontario. Briefly, some of the things the report brought forward were: services are centred in large communities, there is a lack of francophone services, a lack of co-ordination of existing services, a lack of communication among existing services and a lack of professionals and training programs.

That should have been addressed. When you commission a study like that, when that report comes in -- the final report came in after the Liberals had taken over as the government and nothing, absolutely nothing, has happened in that regard.

There has been a joint hospital proposal before this government that involves a Catholic hospital in North Bay, an acute care hospital, a civic hospital and the North Bay Psychiatric Hospital. As long as that is not proceeding the excuse is, “We do not know what is happening there, so we do not know where we should be going in the community mental health field.”

Recommendations also came out that there should be substantial investment into capital facilities and into operating facilities throughout all of northeastern Ontario. That has been sat on for the past two years as well.

So I disagree with the member for Scarborough West that what we are seeing is a Conservative approach. I think it is a unique one that only this Liberal Party can take credit for. It is not the approach that I saw in my years when we were in government and I saw what was happening.

But where I do agree with him, and I really think the most important message I can give to the members is: think about the signal we are sending out today when we vote on this particular piece of legislation.

Miss Nicholas: It gives me great pleasure to stand in the House today and put my comments forward on Bill 50, An Act to provide for Community Mental Health Services. It was not too long ago that we would not speak about mental health, even at local parties or in our own homes, and it is quite exciting to see us speak about it here in the House.

That is because mental health can affect anyone at any time. It can affect all ages. It can affect people from different financial backgrounds, different social backgrounds, different educational backgrounds. It does not pinpoint any particular group of people. Everybody can have mental illness at some time in his life. I think it is time we got it out of the closet, that we did not whisper about our friend who has mental illness, or our parents or grandparents who have Alzheimer’s. I am glad it is becoming more acceptable socially to discuss mental illness and to try to do something about it, because until we start talking about it we are not going to do anything about it.

I am quite pleased to say that before coming to this House I was able to assist in getting funding for the Canadian Psychiatric Awareness Committee, which tried to get out to the public and make it aware that psychiatric problems and illnesses are commonplace in our society and that we should do something about them. Mental health problems cost society a great deal, and it is time that we try to do something about them to treat them effectively and to try to reintegrate people who have had mental illnesses back into society.

I have a little bit of a problem with this bill, in that we have been discussing today some things that it is lacking. It is lacking some discussion about involuntary admissions, because in my riding I have had some difficulty with people who have a mental illness, need treatment and are unwilling to submit to it. I think we should deal with that problem in this bill. I think we should deal with the confidentiality aspect of mental illness in this bill.

I think we should deal with guidelines and standards for various program models, such as housing program standards and vocational rehabilitation program standards, because I think it is important that, if we are going to have community-based services, they have standards and that they be treated effectively, efficiently and with the best health care possible outside of an institutional setting. It is important that we do that, that we have some control of our community-based services. That is why I am interested to see that Robert Graham, in his committee, is looking to develop a comprehensive community health model for Ontario and is looking to set up guidelines for our community-based services.

Having said that, I would like very much to indicate my support for this bill and hope that the different aspects that are lacking will be discussed in committee. In my support I would like say that there is a need for institutional settings. They can give certain treatment and they can provide certain services that may not be available at the community level. But we are lacking sufficient space in the institutional setting, and there are not programs for reintegrating people into society after they have been treated for mental health problems. That is where I think the community-based programs can provide the best services: that is, to reintegrate people back into society and to have special services for people with mental illness.

It is important that we reduce the frequency and duration of admissions to psychiatric facilities, provide treatment to the patient in the home and in the community setting and reduce the risk of mental disorders in high-risk groups. These programs often depend on volunteers, as many of our community-based services do, and we should encourage volunteers to continue to get involved in the process of community-based services, in addition to people who have been qualified to provide some of these treatments.

Rehabilitation programs which include vocational and social rehabilitation to prepare former psychiatric patients for employment placement are an important aspect of our community-based programs. I think it should be an emphasis to reintegrate people back into society and to find them a way of being employed and of contributing to society for many years to come. We need more services on a community basis, and I think we have to look to our friends and to people we know who have had mental illness in the past.

I remember a person, a friend of mine who was quite mature, and I was quite surprised when she was stricken with a mental health problem. This was a lady who could make a worthwhile contribution to society. There were no support services there for her other than institutionalization. I felt that there was a need for us to give her more than just a room for many years to come and no possible chance of her coming out and contributing to society again.

The Liberal government has given a consider-able amount of attention to this issue, and I hope it continues to grow. I was encouraged by the fact that there is a doubling of funding to the community mental health programs and to the alcohol and drug dependency programs. I would like our thrust in this area continued, and I think the bill that is being proposed today, with some amendments at the committee level, I hope, will be something that would really encourage each of us to direct our minds to mental illness and to the different services that can be provided in the community, outside of institutionalization, and can really assist in the program and the process in reintegrating mental health patients back into society.

I support this bill today, I am very happy that it is something we can discuss today in this House and I hope that we continue to discuss it openly and make it something that is on the lips of many people in Ontario.

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Mr. J. M. Johnson: I had not intended to speak on this bill but since there is some time, I would like to make a few comments.

In the Toronto Star of Monday night, there was an article paying tribute to Jacques Tremblay, who is the key figure behind a number of innovative projects such as a courier business operated by former psychiatric patients, a low-income housing project for singles and a health clinic for street people.

He received recognition as being an outstanding individual in helping with the mental health problems we have in this province and I think we should pay tribute to him and to other people who do work of that nature.

I think one of the problems that we have with the mental health factor is that people live in fear. They have an extremely emotional problem in trying to resolve the fact that they do have a health problem and a health problem relating to the mind rather than to the body and they think it is something different, while the two should be equated in the same manner.

They have a fear of the way that they are being treated, they are not sure what is happening to them and they are under medication. It creates a problem. The biggest fear that they have is the fear of what happens when they are allowed to leave the institution and go out into the world. They need support, a tremendous amount of support.

The member for Riverdale has drafted Bill 50, which provides a lot of support services for these people. I can support this bill. In fact, I am very pleased to support it because it is the right direction we should be going. If amendments should be made, then have it sent to committee and we can work on it and come up with solutions that will best serve the needs of these individuals who have a tough time in life at the best of time.

Members ought to take the opportunity to visit some of these hospitals and homes where the people live and talk to them and realize the deep feeling they have about wanting to rejoin society and be a meaningful part of life. For some of them it is absolutely depressing, the feeling of hopelessness that they have. Surely it is incumbent upon all of us to provide whatever support services we can to bring them back into the mainstream of life and give them something they can look forward to, instead of living with that anxiety that they have.

Medication will help to some degree, but they need some support services and the member has set out some excellent examples of what we should be doing as members of this Legislature.

Mr. Speaker: I believe the member for Riverdale reserved six minutes and that is all the time we have left.

Mr. Reville: Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell you how pleased I am that all members of the Legislature who have participated in the debate today have indicated support, at least in principle, for Bill 50; there appears to be three-party support, at least in part, for the principles enunciated in the Community Mental Health Services Act. I am hopeful that those sentiments will be reflected by the Legislature as a whole.

I particularly want to thank the member for Scarborough Centre (Miss Nicholas) and reinforce her plea that we keep mental health and mental health issues on the agenda. In fact, that was the advice I gave in 1986 to the national conference of the Canadian Mental Health Association in Ottawa: that one of the things that people interested in mental health had to do was to get on the agenda.

We had an opportunity in the 33rd Parliament to discuss mental health issues on a number of occasions, in the estimates of the Ministry of Health and in the standing committee on social development when we were considering Bill 190.

One of the things that was so clear to those of us who had the pleasure of serving on the social development committee was that everybody involved in mental health understood the need for comprehensive community mental health programming and it was the plea of people from the Canadian Mental Health Association and the community mental health programs federation that we would not need to talk about forced treatment if we had the programs in place that would reduce or prevent the crises that resulted in people being hospitalized.

My sense is that the Legislature has an opportunity to send this bill to committee for review and for amendment and for the definitions that the member for Kingston and The Islands (Mr. Keyes) would like to see in the legislation. I say to the Legislature, through you, Mr. Speaker, that I believe very strongly that community mental health legislation is the wave of the future, that people with mental health problems are going to spend the vast majority of their time not in hospital but in the community.

I can say to you, Mr. Speaker, that there is community mental health legislation in some jurisdictions in the world and it has made an incredible difference to the personal empowerment of the individual afflicted with a mental health problem and to the capacity of the community to care for and nurture those individuals among it who are afflicted with mental health problems.

I say to the member for Wellington (Mr. J. M. Johnson) that I too would love to use this opportunity to give special kudos to Jacques Tremblay, the Toronto Star’s Man of the Year who was the originator of a vocational rehabilitation program in the riding of the member for Norfolk (Mr. Miller), who is a member of the government and a well-respected member in the area of Simcoe.

I have had the opportunity to visit Abel Enterprises on a couple of occasions and I can tell the members that program deals with 42 severely disabled individuals, most of whom are diagnosed as chronic schizophrenic. They operate a workshop in which they create furniture which has been purchased by the city of Toronto for use in its singles housing projects, and they run a landscaping business. The number of person days spent in hospital by each of those individuals has been cut to about a tenth of what it had been.

This is a program that costs about $100,000 a year and it is funded by the community mental health programs branch and it is an excellent program. In an difficult economy in Norfolk county, this group has found an economic niche and the community has learned how to have the capacity to care for some people who otherwise would have been consigned to spend the rest of their lives in an institution.

I see in the public gallery June Beeby, executive director of Ontario Friends of Schizophrenics. She leads a group of families and friends who deal daily with the consequences of the lack of community support and who do a very fine job at picking up where the government should be acting.

There are so many issues in mental health. We can reduce it to three fairly basic needs of people suffering mental health problems: a decent income, a decent housing situation and something meaningful to do. I believe Bill 50 would be a way to meet those three essential needs for all Ontario citizens who suffer from mental health problems.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr. Speaker: Mr. M. C. Ray has moved resolution 7.

All those in favour will say “aye.”

All those opposed will say “nay.”

In my opinion the ayes have it.

Motion agreed to.

COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES ACT

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Reville has moved second reading of Bill 50.

All those in favour will please say “aye.”

All those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion the ayes have it.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Reville: Mr. Speaker, may I move that Bill 50 be sent to the standing committee on social development?

Mr. Speaker: I do not know if I can accept a motion. However, standing order 71 states that it shall go to committee of the whole House unless a majority of the House agrees that it go to another committee. Does the House agree?

Agreed to.

Bill ordered for the standing committee on social development.

The House recessed at 12:02 p.m.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1:30 p.m.

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

PROPERTY TAXES

Mr. Philip: A very real problem is faced by a number of places of worship in Ontario. Subsection 3(3) of the Assessment Act provides an exemption from property taxes for places of worship. However, under clause 3(3)(b) of the Assessment Act, those who rent their places of worship are not exempted from property taxes unless they rent from another church or religious organization.

Many new groups moving into existing communities find themselves unable to purchase property as a result of high land and construction costs as well as restrictive zoning bylaws. An example of this is the Westview Community Church located in my riding, which has a long-term lease on an industrial property.

Churches such as Westview Community Church can apply to municipalities for a grant equivalent to their municipal taxes. However, a major portion of the property taxes consists of the education component, but boards of education do not have the legislative authority to rebate the taxes.

Thus, those who own property for their place of worship are exempted from paying property taxes while those who rent are denied such treatment. I understand there are about 30 congregations in Metropolitan Toronto alone facing this kind of discrimination.

Yesterday the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Grandmaître) gave me an empathetic hearing on the matter. I now urge him to introduce appropriate amendments to the Assessment Act when the House reconvenes. In the name of justice, I ask that all places of worship be treated equally.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr. Runciman: During debate on Bill 2, I emphasized that this bill was the first step on a slippery slope to government-run auto insurance. The government denies it is headed towards a state-run program, and many Ontarians, people normally concerned about government intervention in the private sector, have accepted those assurances.

They do not as yet appreciate the very antibusiness, interventionist nature of this government and its key players, people such as the Attorney General (Mr. Scott), a former New Democratic Party fund-raiser, who this week suggested the possibility of a constitutional challenge to the free trade deal. One of his concerns, as pointed out yesterday in the Toronto Star, the government organ, is that the agreement will restrict the government’s ability to intervene in the private sector and, among other things, force the government to compensate private companies before they can set up a public scheme in auto insurance.

That is one of this government’s concerns. What does that tell us about its long-range plans? Last week no less a personage than the Deputy Premier (Mr. R. F. Nixon) said, “I do not find the thought of publicly operated automobile insurance anathema.” That is right; the Deputy Premier does not mind the idea of state-run auto insurance.

The facts are there if one cares to look, and the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario has sounded the alarm. This government, with Bill 2, has begun the process that will ultimately take us into the socialist quagmire of state-run auto insurance. All Ontarians, small business people, taxi drivers, ordinary consumers, all of us will pay a very heavy price indeed.

ANNIE TAYLOR

Mr. Neumann: All members have heard of Alexander Graham Bell and Wayne Gretzky. Today, however, Brantford celebrates Annie Taylor Day.

Annie believes in and promotes the concept of high-quality, healthy living. Many years ago, she worked in what was the forerunner of the health food industry long before it became fashionable. Her healthy lifestyle includes refraining from smoking, moderation in consumption of alcohol and coffee, sensible eating habits, good exercise and a delightful sense of humour.

She and her husband for many years operated Taylor’s peanut butter factory. Annie remembers selling peanut butter for 25 cents a pound.

Annie’s only son, Glen Whitcomb Taylor, was killed in action as a Spitfire fighter pilot during the Second World War.

Annie Taylor was born on December 17, 1882, and this afternoon, along with her grandson, Cam Taylor, and all her friends at Versa-Care Centre of Brantford, she is celebrating her 105th birthday. As mayor, I attended her 100th birthday and found her to be perceptive, alert and an avid follower of public affairs.

I know Annie is watching right now; so on behalf of the Premier (Mr. Peterson) and everyone here at Queen’s Park, I say happy birthday, Annie. Thank you for promoting your strategy for healthy living.

TORONTO CITY COUNCIL

Mr. Reville: The Globe and Mail says that 13 members of Toronto city council accepted at least $300,000 in campaign contributions over the past two years, with most of the money coming from the development community. The Globe seriously suggests that there is a link between the contributions and the council’s approval of extra density for major office and condominium projects in the downtown core.

What went through the mind of the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Mr. Eakins) when he read the articles? Did he wonder what the councillors did or will do with the money? Did he worry that there might be conflicts of interest or influence-peddling? Was he concerned that there might be Income Tax Act and Criminal Code implications? Does he think development rights are for sale in Toronto?

The minister will not find the answers in his draft municipal election expenses legislation. He should launch an inquiry now.

GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING

Mr. McLean: My statement is directed to the Minister of Tourism and Recreation (Mr. O’Neil) and it concerns some, but not all, of the answers we are getting to questions put to various ministers of this government. A case in point is the question I put to the Minister of Tourism and Recreation on November 26. On that date, I asked the minister to provide the tendered prices for advertising contracts submitted by Camp Associates, Cossette Communication-Marketing, MacLaren Advertising and Vickers and Benson.

I want to make it clear that I did receive an answer to my inquiry on December 10, but that answer was somewhat less than satisfactory. The minister indicated to me that Vickers and Benson had been chosen through an open competition, co-ordinated with the Advertising Review Board. The minister went on to say that the selection process was based on capability and creative ability of presentations and was not a price bid. I am sure there was a price attached to each and every bid and I wanted, and still want, the minister to provide me with the dollar figures of the price tags attached to the four ads.

First, I am concerned that the minister is not conscious of the costs involved when he is spending the taxpayers’ money. Second, I am concerned about the quality of the answers we are receiving from some ministers of this government when we ask straightforward, logical and important questions that our constituents want and need the answers to.

TRADE WITH UNITED STATES

Mrs. LeBourdais: Apropos of the Christmas season and the tabling of the free trade agreement, I rise with these words and my apologies to the original author.

‘Twas the eve before free trade and all throughthe land, ministers scurried agreement in hand.

While Americans slept all snug in their beds,dreaming of trade deals they wrought from the feds.

All through Ontario there arose such a clatter from farmers, manufacturers and others that matter.

Then what to our wondering eyes did appearbut Brian Mulroney grinning ear to ear.

More rapid than eagles his ministers cameas he whistled and shouted and called them by name:

Now Reisman, now Burney, now Wilson, now Carney, our Prime Minister sure has a way with the blarney!

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they met with an obstacle the sparks did fly.

So up to the House on the hill they all flew before Christmas recess, that whole darn crew.

And then in a twinkling we heard on the roof the prancing and dancing of the first minister’s hoof.

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, spouting that Canadians had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to hiswork praying the polls would go up with a jerk.

And laying his fingers aside of his noseas though to snub all those who opposeforgetting our dreams as up the chimneythey rose.

But we heard him explain as he faded in sight“Please won’t you trust me and my majority’s might?”

Mr. Speaker: Do we have another poet?

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POLLUTION CONTROL

Mrs. Grier: My statement is from chapter 1 volume 1, of the sayings of the Honourable Jim Bradley.

April 28, 1986: “Ontario’s year-old air quality regulation is being totally revamped. My ministry will soon be issuing a green paper.”

October 21, 1986: “Tough new rules by the fall of next year.”

December 10, 1986: “Amendments soon.”

February 26, 1987: “The green paper will be available by April.”

November 30, 1987: “Today it is released. The new regulation will be phased in to cover the most hazardous 10,000 polluters within five years, the remaining within 10 years.”

Don’t hold your breath, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: That completes the allotted time for poems and statements.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

FEDERAL TAX REFORM PROPOSALS

Hon. R. F. Nixon: The federal Minister of Finance tabled a notice of ways and means motion in the House of Commons yesterday. The notice represents the federal government’s plan for reforming the federal corporate and personal income tax systems and contains a number of changes to the June white-paper proposals.

Members will recall that, as Treasurer, I made submissions to the Minister of Finance, along with the other treasurers, at the meetings that he has called, I believe, on two occasions since the white paper was issued. Some of the changes Mr. Wilson announced yesterday were the subject of interventions by this province and the other treasurers or other individuals.

The dependent child credit for families with three or more children has been increased. Implementation of the changes to the tax treatment of farmers has been delayed pending further review and consultation with the farming community.

Tax support for research and development in Canada has been modified. The June federal proposals would have limited the deduction of tax credits to half the federal tax payable. This limit is increased to 75 per cent in the final package. Those of you who attended the first ministers’ meeting at the Harbour Castle three weeks ago will recall that the Premier made a specific point of bringing that to the attention of the other premiers and the Prime Minister.

Home builders will be able immediately to deduct some of the financing costs associated with their land holdings. The write-off rates for film investment have been increased. Finally, the federal reform package includes a minimum tax on the capital of large banks.

I continue to be concerned with the proposed modifications to the tax depreciation rates for new investment in the manufacturing sector. As I indicated in my November report to the Legislature on the federal tax reform proposals, taxes are an important ingredient in the ability of Canadian businesses to compete in the international marketplace. This is particularly true for the manufacturing sector. It is important that tax reform not endanger Canada’s overall competitive position.

In addition, I am concerned that a higher federal tax on liquor and tobacco will reduce the province’s flexibility in these tax fields. Members will recall that over the years this direct sales tax on liquor and tobacco has been largely a provincial field, but since Mr. Wilson has become Minister of Finance, there have been successive large increases of the federal tax in that regard.

Interjection.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: We share the tax field, but it is getting very crowded in the tent, if I might put it that way, once the camel got its snoot in there.

The June white-paper proposals were estimated to reduce the province’s income tax revenues by $90 million in the current fiscal year and $250 million in 1988-89, assuming Ontario parallels all of the federal proposals. The changes to the proposals announced yesterday will have only a modest impact on Ontario’s revenues over the next two years. I notice they did not lead the Minister of Finance to change his estimated deficit figures at all.

On the subject of a joint national sales tax, members may be aware that at the finance ministers’ conference last week, first, Mr. Wilson announced that food would be excluded from such a tax, and second, he acknowledged that the tax should not impose an additional burden on schools, universities and colleges, hospitals or local governments. I add in parentheses, there was no specific exclusion for the provincial governments themselves. Therefore, I remain concerned about the effect of the proposals on other areas of Ontario’s expenditures.

The 1988 Ontario budget will outline the province’s position on federal income tax reform. In establishing our position, I look forward to hearing the views of members and the standing committee on finance and economic affairs.

ASSISTANCE FOR THE HOMELESS

Hon. Ms. Hošek: With my colleague the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney), I would like to take this opportunity to inform the House of a $31.5-million package of co-ordinated initiatives designed to move homeless people into permanent accommodation. Central to this initiative, we will create new emergency housing to meet specific urgent needs; fund community initiatives to help homeless people find permanent housing, and increase the supply of permanent housing.

Across Ontario, community groups will be provided with resources to help more than 7,000 homeless people find accommodation. The Minister of Community and Social Services will have more to say shortly on the initiatives to address short-term shelter needs.

While we will be strengthening and improving the adequacy of our emergency base, the government is committed to moving homeless people into permanent housing solutions. In keeping with this principle, I would like to point out that $12.5 million allocated for short-term emergency shelter will be matched with equal funds for long-term permanent housing.

What is vital is that groups with good, creative ideas will be provided with the resources to develop and carry out effective programs for their communities. We will be providing funding for at least 10 or 15 such projects in different communities across the province. For example, $3.6 million is being allocated to Ecuhome, a nonprofit corporation, to establish 16 houses with permanent room-and-board-style accommodation for 128 people in Toronto. As well, we have been discussing other proposals with groups in Ottawa and northern Ontario. A further $8.9 million will be provided for groups in all regions of Ontario.

This initiative demonstrates that a strong partnership between government and community groups is the real solution to solving homelessness.

This is but a first step in combating homelessness. This government will continue to develop its long-term strategy to deal with the elements of the affordable housing challenge which faces us.

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: Through the integrated initiatives the Minister of Housing (Ms. Hošek) and I are announcing today, the Ontario government will help to move homeless people into permanent accommodation. To do that, we are helping the Homes First Society of Toronto to renovate an existing building. The residents of this hostel will then take part in planning and developing the transition of the building into permanent housing.

Other initiatives will help to provide a community focus on how to address the permanent housing needs of homeless people.

We will support locally based groups to form access to permanent housing committees. This will allow communities across the province to develop projects and implement solutions to their housing problems.

The Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan) is also launching a pilot program aimed at helping homeless people in greatest need in Metro Toronto. Eight outreach workers will help people whose problems make it difficult for them to use hostels for permanent housing.

While we try to move homeless people into permanent housing, the provincial government will also ensure communities have the resources to give them the emergency accommodation they need now.

The existing Metro Toronto Family Hostel, a former First World War veterans’ residence, is being replaced by a new hostel. Another project tackles the growing problem of street youth in downtown Toronto. With our assistance, Covenant House will build a new 100-bed hostel to replace the one now in use. In order to prevent a continued influx of young people into the downtown core, we will assist community groups to build three new youth hostels in East York, Scarborough and the region of Peel. Also, Mercury Youth Services will provide outreach services and practical help to young people in Toronto who are now in adult hostels.

These are initial steps only. The government of Ontario is currently working on a major long-term strategy. Today we are taking action on items that cannot wait.

ELECTRICITY DEMAND AND SUPPLY

Hon. Mr. Kerrio: Today I am making --

Mr. Wildman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I do not have the statement.

An hon. member: He is doing it for the Minister of Energy (Mr. Wong).

Mr. Wildman: OK.

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Hon. Mr. Kerrio: Today I am making a statement for the Minister of Energy. The minister is down with a bout of pneumonia and I am sure all honourable members would wish him a speedy recovery.

On his behalf, Mr. Speaker, I wish to announce that Ontario Hydro’s draft demand-supply planning strategy was received yesterday by the government. I ask your leave to table this report today.

Please note that the draft strategy will be provided to each member of the Legislature today, and I want to assure you, Mr. Speaker, that interested members of the public may obtain the report, on request, from Ontario Hydro’s communications department, beginning this afternoon. A volume of supplementary documents will be made available to members and to the public by Ontario Hydro in the near future.

The review of this draft strategy will be an important step in determining how best to meet Ontario’s future electricity demands. In establishing the government’s position to accept, reject or modify this strategy, we will be seeking the views of interested Ontarians. The review will begin in the new year and will include wide public participation and the involvement of the select committee on energy.

Further details on the review process will be announced early in 1988.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

Hon. Mr. Elston: It is a pleasure for me to address the members of the Legislature concerning the province’s legislation on freedom of information and protection of privacy, which is to be implemented on January 1, 1988. It is my firm belief that this has to be regarded as one of the most important pieces of legislation in this decade.

Here in Ontario, we are proud to say that open government is not just a dream. It can also no longer be regarded as just an ideal. With the introduction of freedom of information, there is now a promise and a commitment by the government of Ontario to allow public access to information held by the government.

By formally announcing the implementation of this act, ultimately, we are opening a new window on the government. Also of major importance, we are assuring the citizens of Ontario that their privacy is protected through privacy protection measures established in the legislation.

As the minister now responsible for this act, it will be my duty to make sure that the citizens of this province be given the opportunity and the legal right to access their own personal information held by the government.

I am tabling today copies of two directories -- on personal information and general records -- that will be available at the provincial bookstores as well as at public libraries and ministry and agency offices across Ontario. I trust that the information contained in both directories will contribute to a better understanding of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

In addition, I am pleased to announce that the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, headed by Sidney Linden, is now able to assist members of the general public.

WOMEN’S HEALTH SERVICES

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: Members will know that our government has made a special commitment to the health needs of the women of this province and that we have been acting on that commitment with dispatch.

Today I am pleased to announce the establishment of a women’s health centre -- the second in this province -- at St. Joseph’s Health Centre in Toronto.

St. Joseph’s has a long history of service to Toronto’s ethnically and culturally diverse west end. The hospital has identified a large number of sole-support mothers, working women and older women who do not utilize health care services frequently and who would benefit from the health promotion emphasis at the new centre.

My ministry will provide a one-time capital grant of $200,000 and annual operating funds of $313,624 to establish the centre, which should be fully operational next September.

The hospital expects about 15,000 women annually will benefit from educational programs in nutrition, fitness, occupational health, dealing with violence and balancing work and family responsibilities. The centre will also offer a full range of prenatal and postnatal care and counsel-ling for women experiencing premenstrual syndrome, menopause and substance abuse.

The Sisters of St. Joseph have compiled an excellent record in maternal and child care services over the years. Their desire to establish a comprehensive women’s health centre reflects their special commitment to women.

I want to congratulate St. Joseph’s on its successful proposal and indicate once again that my ministry continues to welcome proposals from hospitals and community-based agencies and organizations for the provision of comprehensive women’s health services.

I will continue approving and announcing additional centres in the near future until a completely accessible and timely network of women’s health services is in place in this province.

FARM PRACTICES PROTECTION

Hon. Mr. Riddell: I am pleased to stand in this House yet again to bring more good news to the farmers of Ontario. Later this afternoon, I will be tabling for first reading of An Act respecting the Protection of Farm Practices.

The proposed Farm Practices Protection Act confirms the view that agriculture is the primary land use within rural Ontario. Ontario farmers need the freedom and flexibility to carry on normal farm practices to produce food, activities which sometimes cause noise, odour and dust.

Ontario farmers have been concerned for some years that normal farming practices may increasingly result in complaints and court actions under the common law of nuisance. Under the act, a Farm Practices Protection Board will be established. Individuals who complain about odours, noise and dust from farm practices may ask the board to investigate. The board will hold hearings on odour, noise or dust complaints referred to it. The board will have the power to dismiss complaints about a normal farming practice or to issue an order to rectify the problem if it is not normal.

In formulating this proposed legislation, we have consulted with the public through public hearings held by the Advisory Committee on the Right to Farm. The proposed Farm Practices Protection Act has been developed in consultation with Ministry of the Environment to ensure that it is complementary to existing laws such as the Environmental Protection Act and the Ontario Water Resources Act. Right to farm under this legislation does not mean the right to pollute. While farmers will be protected for normal practices, they will still be subject to land use control and environmental and health protection laws.

The act will deal with current and future nuisance incidents arising from existing conditions. The long-term solution is a strong agricultural planning policy to avoid incompatible and competing uses in agricultural areas. This is yet another Liberal promise fulfilled. I urge the members of the House to give their support in the speedy passage of this legislation to permit Ontario farmers the right to continue their business of farming using normal farming practices.

TRUCKING INDUSTRY

Hon. Mr. Fulton: Later today I will be introducing legislation to reform the trucking regulations in Ontario. As members will be aware, the issue of regulatory reform has been with us a long time. I will be introducing amendments to the Highway Traffic Act, amendments to the Ontario Highway Transport Board Act and a new bill, the Truck Transportation Act.

The three bills I will be introducing remain substantially the same as those which were introduced in the last parliament. There are some changes as a result of consultation lasting to the latest possible moment. A key component of reform is highway safety. Amendments to the Highway Traffic Act will allow us to more closely monitor the performance of commercial vehicle operators. The bill gives us the tools to apply more stringent sanctions against any operator who operates unsafely.

These bills will include all aspects of the National Safety Code, a code that distinguishes our reforms from those which have taken place in other countries. Safety on our highways will not be compromised. The main provision of the legislation, licensing on the basis of proving fitness to operate, remains virtually intact.

As most other Canadian jurisdictions are already well into similar reforms and as the federal government will be implementing reforms to extraprovincial trucking on January 1, 1988, I urge members to give this legislation their closest scrutiny in order that Ontario will be compatible.

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RESPONSES

FEDERAL TAX REFORM PROPOSALS

Mr. Laughren: I want to respond to the statement of the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) on the federal tax reform. I think we all understand clearly that the federal government intends to reform some of its taxes before the federal election and add the sales taxes after the federal election. Those same people who will benefit slightly from the tax reform are the ones whom the Tories in Ottawa have taxed to the tune of $1,000 more per family since the last federal election.

This government is no better. Even after these tax reform proposals go through, individuals at the poverty level in Ontario will still be paying $400 a year in provincial income tax. The only difference between the Treasurer and Michael Wilson is that Michael Wilson admits he is a Tory.

ASSISTANCE FOR THE HOMELESS

Mr. Breaugh: I want to respond to the statements that were made today by the Minister of Housing (Ms. Hošek) and the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney). It is unfortunate that this government has taken successful operating programs that offer reasonable accommodation and shelter for the homeless on a temporary and on a permanent basis and decimated those programs. It has replaced those programs with yet another new program, the total value of which is about the cost of a good hockey rink.

The program will put eight -- believe it, eight --social workers on the streets of Metropolitan Toronto; eight people to help the homeless in Toronto. It is a pitiful response to a problem that is widespread. The problem is more than here in the city of Toronto. It is across Ontario, and the government knows it. The government knows it because it has briefs from communities around Ontario that identified their need, that put forward their proposals last year. They have had more than a year to analyse those proposals. They knew what to do and they chose not to do it.

In its place, the government put together a new program. It is starting again. The real tragedy here is not that there will be only 25 new beds in hostels in downtown Toronto or eight social workers on the streets in Toronto. The real tragedy is that the government knew the size and the scope of the problem. More than that, they knew the solution and they chose to turn their back on that and give us one more little piece of political show business. That is a tragedy.

ELECTRICITY DEMAND AND SUPPLY

Mr. Charlton: I wish to respond to the statement by the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio), which he made on behalf of the Minister of Energy (Mr. Wong), on the tabling of Ontario Hydro’s demand-supply option study.

I suggest the minister should relay to his colleague that the government should be ashamed, first, to have allowed Hydro a one-year extension on its original completion date for this study and, second, to have pushed the tabling of this study to the very end of this legislative session.

Just a quick glance through the study makes it very clear that the documentation Hydro has provided us here, which it took Hydro supposedly three years to pull together, is substantially no different from the information Hydro provided to the select committee on energy a year and a half ago. Not only is it substantially the same information but also it is information the select committee clearly rejected as the future direction for electric power development in Ontario.

Now this government is telling us it is going to refer this matter back to the select committee instead of allowing the select committee recommendation to stand and have this report subjected to the very expert and thorough review that could be provided by the Ontario Energy Board.

TRUCKING INDUSTRY

Mr. Philip: It will not be a good Christmas for those involved in the trucking industry in Ontario. The Minister of Transportation (Mr. Fulton) has sold out those involved in the trucking industry. He knows that the deregulation bills he introduced before, which were opposed by the Ontario Trucking Association and by everyone driving a truck across Ontario highways, coupled with free trade, would mean the sellout of thousands of jobs in the trucking industry in this province.

That this minister would reintroduce this kind of legislation when he has had the feedback from the trucking industry, from the economists in this business as to how many jobs it would cost Ontario residents, is just absolutely shocking and the minister should be ashamed of himself.

ASSISTANCE FOR THE HOMELESS

Mrs. Marland: If it were not the season we are in right at the moment, we might perhaps better understand what is going on here today. It is really interesting to have eight statements. I think it is the Liberal government’s last-ditch effort to kill the idea that they are not the Grinch that stole Christmas.

I must congratulate the Minister of Housing (Ms. Hošek) because she has made a very honest statement in her last paragraph where she says, “This government will continue to develop its long-term strategy to deal with the elements of the affordable housing challenge which faces us.” That is all they are doing; they are developing long-term strategy. They are not doing anything and I think it is time that we stopped. We do not need any more development of long-term strategy. It is like an overdue pregnancy. I think we are way past full term. It is time that we had something more than being full of promises.

I would also like to say that the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) stood in this House about a year ago, after we had the tragic death of someone who was homeless and was living in a truck, and he told us he could assure us that there were more than enough spaces for those people in the Metropolitan Toronto area. When he says in his statement today that they will support locally based groups to form access to permanent housing committees, is that not wonderful? They are going to have an access to a committee. They are not going to have money to find the solutions that those committees already know and have identified.

If we are talking about implementing solutions for housing problems, there is only one thing that is needed by everyone and that is money.

WOMEN’S HEALTH SERVICES

Mr. Eves: I would like to respond briefly to the statement from the Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan). Again, I am pleased that the minister took my advice and decided to announce publicly where she is going to locate these women’s health centres across the province. She has now identified two. I believe a few short weeks ago she agreed with Dr. Marion Powell that about six out of 12 centres will be operational in Ontario by December 31, and we are just waiting to hear about the other four before the House adjourns.

FARM PRACTICES PROTECTION

Mr. Villeneuve: In reply to the announcement by the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell) today, yes, farmers do need protection. They need protection not only as farmers but their incomes need to be protected. This minister is presiding over one of the biggest fiascos we have seen: another big decrease in net farm income again this year.

The federal government provided $1.1 billion to assist agriculture earlier this week. The federal government is recognizing that agriculture does need some financial support. It is always interesting to see that again the Ministry of Agriculture and Food has abdicated to the Ministry of the Environment, and we will have Ministry of the Environment officials telling people in agriculture what they should be doing. The tail wags the dog here.

It is a situation that is not palatable to agriculture, and in this area, particularly where farm severances are to be accounted for, the municipalities would very much enjoy having a bit of local autonomy, not having a hot potato thrown in their hands, as the minister did earlier last week.

TRUCKING INDUSTRY

Mr. Harris: I want to comment very briefly on the statement by the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Fulton) on the process. At the end of his statement he says that, as most other Canadian jurisdictions are already well into similar reforms, and as the federal government will implement reforms to extraprovincial trucking on January 1, 1988, he urges members to give this legislation their closest scrutiny.

On December 16, 17 or 18 -- I am losing track of what day it is -- it is so important, everybody else is under way, and the minister brings this in on what was going to be the last day of the House. That shows the minister’s commitment to being in tune with what is going on.

I might also say I am processing eight statements. I do not know what the government has left for next week or the week after. Obviously, it has blown its bolt today, but we will see what happens.

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FEDERAL TAX REFORM PROPOSALS

Mr. Harris: I want to comment also on the statement by the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon). He talks on the subject of a joint national sales tax and says he has other concerns. Like this government, which sits back and criticizes everybody else, he does not state what his concerns are. He is going to wait until it is all out there and then he is going to sit back and criticize. There are a lot of things in the Treasurer’s statement that are typical of this government. It is to sit back and criticize, not be part of the process.

I want to comment on the comment made by the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren). In my opinion, the only difference between the Treasurer and Broadbent is that Ed admits he is a socialist.

Mr. Speaker: That completes the allotted time for ministerial statements and responses; oral questions, the Leader of the Opposition.

[Applause]

An hon. member: They’re not all clapping, Bob.

Mr. B. Rae: Most of them are, enough for me. Who is counting, really?

ORAL QUESTIONS

FEDERAL TAX REFORM PROPOSALS

Mr. B. Rae: I have a question for the Treasurer, speaking about who is counting. The only thing he is missing is his watch-chain today.

Mr. Laughren: His fob.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I don’t have a corporation.

Mr. B. Rae: He is getting awfully close.

I want to ask the Treasurer a question about the impact of the tax reforms on Ontario. The Treasurer will know that as a result of Mr. Nixon’s announcement -- what a slip -- Mr. Wilson’s announcement, a family of four living at the poverty line will still be paying about $340 in Ontario income tax and about $680 in federal income tax. A single person will be paying about $425 in Ontario tax and about $850 in federal income tax.

I must say I was surprised that the Treasurer’s only objection to Mr. Wilson’s announcement today was that it was too hard on business. I wonder if he might not also express the view that it is too hard on working families and on working poor people who still pay too much tax in Ontario. I wonder if he might not commit himself today to seeing that those people who are at the poverty line will not have to pay income tax in Ontario. It will cost him about $100 million. What does he say?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I think the Leader of the Opposition is aware that in the budgets I have read to the House in the last couple of years, we have increased the size of the Ontario tax reduction program each year. We would have to increase it substantially to exempt everybody below the poverty level, which for a family of four is in excess of $21,000. I wish we could do that. The allocation of that extra $100 million is something we should be considering, along with many other alternatives.

I want to say, however, that the government of Canada, and Mike Wilson particularly in his early budgets on his accession to that job, reduced the federal tax reduction program and put many thousands of low-income people back on the tax rolls. I am glad to see that in this reform he is reversing that trend and once again exempting quite a lot more people from paying personal income tax at the low end of the income scale.

Mr. B. Rae: The Treasurer will know that Ontario is going to receive, as he himself has indicated, quite a substantial windfall over five years, an increase in provincial revenues of several hundred million dollars as a result of the tax reform proposals. Those are the figures he himself and Treasury have presented.

In particular, I wonder if the Treasurer could comment on the fact that Ontario will gain at least $1 billion over the next five years because of the preferential treatment for capital gains. The Treasurer is on record on many, many occasions -- I would gladly cite him cases but I am sure he does not need them -- when he said he opposes this preferential treatment and stated how strongly he feels about this question.

I wonder if the Treasurer could tell us today just what he is prepared to do to ensure that the unfairness, which the feds are introducing again into the tax system by perpetuating this preferential treatment for capital gains, will not be paralleled in Ontario and that, rather, we will see far more progressivity, far more fairness, for Ontario working taxpayers, instead of this preferential treatment for people who have a lot of investment income.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: The original concept from Mr. Wilson was that every individual in the country would have a capital gains exemption of $500,000 in a lifetime. I am very proud of the fact that this government strongly opposed that view and felt that it was dislocating as far as any kind of fairness in the distribution of wealth was concerned. Although for many months he indicated his unwillingness to change that view, he has changed it. With the exception of small business and farmers, where the farm property is passed on, he has reduced that exemption to $100,000, and I am very glad he has done that.

The House must be aware that rather than getting a windfall this year, the first full year coming up in these amendments, if we do not change our tax system at all we will be about $90 million down in our revenue. Next year it will be about even.

Also, the member will remember from previous statements I have made that on the personal income tax side, because of the tax collection agreement with the government of Canada, if we do not change our rates at all, the people of Ontario will pay about $420 million less to the Provincial Treasurer through personal income tax than they would have if there had been no reform. This is a substantial reduction in personal income taxes payable, and that is certainly something I have to give careful consideration to.

Mr. B. Rae: I am sure the Treasurer will do that, but I wonder if he will now recognize that Mr. Wilson has rejected the idea of a minimum corporate tax, something which is in place even in the United States. He will also be aware, I am sure, because of the people who are advising him in the Treasury, that as a result of this, there are going to be somewhere in the area of 20,000 corporations in Ontario which are profitable making money and working out a return for both their employees and their owners and shareholders, and those corporations will not pay any tax whatsoever.

I wonder whether the Treasurer does not think that in itself is a gross unfairness in the tax system, and that if he is serious about wanting to make sure that Ontario is not only doing the things which are good for business but also doing the things which are good and fair for working families, does he not think it right that the very least he could do is make sure that corporations in this province that are making money are paying tax as a basic requirement of doing business in the province. What is wrong with that?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The question has been asked.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: The honourable member oversimplifies a bit. I think he is aware that under our corporation income tax law, the first three years of any new corporation are tax free, however profitable they are. This policy is designed to stimulate the corporate business sector to make investments of capital and create jobs. One need only look at the excellent achievements over the last three years to realize how effective that initiative has been.

Mr. Brandt: Whose idea was that? When did that come on? Who introduced that?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: The member opposite wanted a longer exemption than that. As a matter of fact, we did cut down on it a bit.

The second area where the honourable member ought to be aware of an initiative that surely even he supports, at least some of his friends do, is the exemption of new mining corporations from the payment of mining tax, which is ancillary in this connection. The whole design is not to leave money in the hands of bloated capitalists, in the view of the honourable member, but to leave money for the kinds of development and job creation which surely even he would support if he gave it careful thought.

Mr. B. Rae: I am sure my colleague the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) will want to apologize; he meant to compare the Treasurer to Frank Miller and he slipped and compared him to Michael Wilson.

ASSISTANCE FOR THE HOMELESS

Mr. B. Rae: I have a question now to the Minister of Housing. The minister announced today a “package of co-ordinated initiatives designed to move homeless people into permanent accommodation.” Yet she will have to admit that a very substantial sum of money has been spent not in terms of permanent housing programs but in just simply producing more hostel spaces and building more hostels.

Does the minister not feel that this really is a terrible announcement to be making at this time of year and that really what she is offering is charity and not justice? Can she explain how creating more hostel spaces has anything to do at all with creating permanent accommodation in Ontario?

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Hon. Ms. Hošek: I am glad to have the opportunity to tell the House that this program we announced today comes out of significant consultation, in particular with groups of people who have actively been working with homeless people for a number of years. Our proposals come from our talks with them.

They tell us, and we agree with them, that the most important thing to do is to provide permanent housing for people who do not have places to live. Most of the resources in this project are going to those groups of people who work actively right now with people who live either on the street or in hostels to help transfer those people into permanent housing.

Mr. B. Rae: But there is not any housing there.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: One part of our program is targeted in particular to buying existing buildings or renovating buildings that currently exist and having the various community groups who are prepared to do this right now make permanent housing available to people who are currently homeless.

Mr. B. Rae: All I can say, with great respect to the minister, is that what she is saying is simply not the case. What she is saying is denying the reality that $12.5 million is going from this government to build more hostel accommodation, which does not solve the problem of making sure that people have a place to live. All it does is delay and continue to treat people in the inhumane way that has been condemned very specifically by the leaders of those groups to which the minister refers.

I wonder if the minister can comment on the fact that her own estimates statements show that the 1986-87 target for total new rental units funded by the province was 15,614 units; that the actual was 14,487, 1,000 units short -- and that her 1987-88 target is 10,818 units, which means she is admitting by her own numbers that she is only interested in building 5,000 fewer units next year than this year and that that is the implication of her policy. Sticking people on the floors of churches or making sure they do not --

Mr. Speaker: Order. The question has been asked.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: The funds for the provision of hostels in our announcement are going this way: one is to improve the situation in the family hostel in the city of Toronto right now, which is absolutely unfit for families to live in. The current hostel will be transferred into permanent accommodation.

The others are for youth hostels, both in the city of Toronto and in the various outlying regions of Toronto, in response to the communities in those outlying regions who told us that because there was no housing for their young people there they would come into downtown Toronto and get into even greater difficulty than they would otherwise be in.

The members opposite know very well that no matter what we do with housing issues, there will always be some young people who, because their homes are truly difficult places to live, will leave those homes. The provision of decent hostels for young people seems to me to be a very important part of this project.

Mr. Breaugh: The minister knows that we have talked to the same people with whom she has discussed this problem. The minister will know that right now there are in excess of 20,000 people who are homeless in Ontario. The minister knows there are proposals in from all over Ontario to meet those needs.

How can she defend such a pitiful response today when she is shutting down effective and workable programs that were effective in August of this year but in December of this year seem to be no longer wanted? Why is her response such a pitiful response? I think that is our problem. Why is there not something of substance being presented here today? Why did she not at least crank up the existing working programs, which were actually doing some good? She seems to have shut them down to provide us with this rather political song and dance.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: It is in response to the groups all over the province that this program was designed. This program, with its community base, is going to be providing support for existing programs that are currently providing housing for people who are homeless and working with the communities who are committed to helping them to give them the resources they asked us for so that they will be able to provide housing for people who are homeless.

TRADE WITH UNITED STATES

Mr. Brandt: My question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, in the absence of the Premier (Mr. Peterson), who I understand is off participating in a photo opportunity in Ottawa.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. New question; the member for Sarnia.

Mr. Brandt: Mr. Speaker, I already indicated the minister would be the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology --

Mr. Speaker: You can direct the question to that minister.

Mr. Brandt: My question to the minister is in light of the fact that George Peapples, the president of General Motors of Canada, joined recently in a press conference with Ford Motor Co. as well as Chrysler Canada, Dofasco and Stelco, in indicating not only that they favour a free trade deal with the United States of America but as well, contrary to what the minister has been saying and what his Premier has been saying, that the auto pact is in fact strengthened under the proposed deal between Canada and the United States.

In light of that statement on behalf of all those major Ontario industries, will the minister commit to this House today that he is prepared to await the decision of the standing committee on finance and economic affairs relative to the free trade review before he attempts to rush through an ill-thought-out resolution before this House condemning the pact?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: The leader of the third party makes reference to the fact that George Peapples of GM and the other Big Three American manufacturers and the steel companies are supportive of the free trade agreement because they think the auto pact is going to be enhanced. I will say to him that for them it has been, because what it has effectively done is it has barred third-country manufacturers and assemblers from really participating.

A perfect indication of that is we have a situation where, when the elements of the agreement came out, it said one thing; once we saw the final text, it made provision for the inclusion of the GM-Suzuki CAMI plant in Ingersoll. The mere fact they had to grandfather that facility is a clear signal that they will never allow another facility like that in Ontario. How can the member say that is a plus for Ontario?

Mr. Brandt: Yesterday, the minister released a report in this House with respect to small business, a report which indicated that in the years 1976 to 1984, some 87 per cent of all jobs created in this province were created by small business. I agree with the statement made in that report, but I would ask the minister -- and this is not my key question -- why the report did not cover other aspects of small business, particularly as it relates to the fact that the two major small business organizations in this province have indicated they support a free trade agreement. If the minister is not prepared to take the advice of big business, is he prepared to take the advice of small business --

Mr. Speaker: Minister.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I do not want to get into a controversy on those two reports, but I want to disabuse the leader of the third party as to what their reports said, because I have met with the heads of both of those organizations. What they did was they sent out a questionnaire to their members and said, “Are you or are you not in favour of a free trade deal?’’ The majority or a significant number of their members responded and said, “We are in favour of a free trade deal.”

Having said that, I can tell the member that in my examinations as the chairman of our cabinet subcommittee, most people responded that they did not understand the deal but they are in favour of the economic concept of free trade. Those two business organizations are reflecting the views of their members in response to a questionnaire, saying, “Yes, we are in favour of free trade.”

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Mr. Brandt: I have simply to remind the minister that with 47 per cent of the vote, his party ended up with 95 seats. Is that not an indication of a vote that was taken by the people, the same kind of vote the small business organizations took with respect to the attitudes and the feelings of their membership?

Now we have big business saying it wants the pact. We have small business saying it wants to go ahead with the trade deal. We have the report of the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon), the government’s Treasurer’s own report, which said that wages would go up and prices would go down.

We have seven out of 10 premiers in this country who support the pact, two of whom happen to be Liberal premiers, philosophical bedmates of the minister. When will he be prepared to stand up with the rest of this country, move ahead into the future, begin the process of nation building and get behind this pact?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: The leader of the third party makes an interesting statement about who is supporting it, but he does not say who is not supporting it.

Mr. Brandt: No, you tell us that.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I will be happy to tell him some of the key groups that are not supporting it.

Mr. Reville: Us.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: We have organized labour virtually unanimous. We have the organization of churches in Canada. Virtually every church organization Canada-wide is opposed. The Canadian federation of teachers is opposed. We have a situation where we have the Canadian farmers’ association opposed. So what you have is the people who really care are opposed and big business is in favour. l leave it to the members which one they want to listen to.

Mr. Brandt: Not much applause after that answer. It was a good try, but.

Interjections.

Mr. Harris: I am moving up.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Please allow the member for Nipissing to put his question.

Mr. Harris: I am impressed that the teachers of this country are opposed. I know they will be affected dramatically one way or the other.

Mr. Speaker: The question is to which minister?

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. Harris: I have a question for the Deputy Premier.

Christmas is a special time of year for families. The Sunday after Christmas is a particularly special day for millions of people in Ontario. Many store owners, business employees, owners of stores and malls, who really do not want to work or be open on December 27, will be forced to because of inaction and bungling on the part of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara), the Attorney General (Mr. Scott), the Premier (Mr. Peterson) and the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith).

As Deputy Premier, the man in charge today while the photo op is on in Ottawa, would he not agree, with the support of my party and I am sure with the support of the New Democratic Party, to support special legislation to prohibit wide-open shopping and business openings on this one very special day every seven years?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: No.

Mr. Harris: I want to point out to the Deputy Premier and to the House that it is not too late for the Liberal government to show some leadership on the issue.

Petitions, letters and phone calls have been coming in to all members on all sides of the House. Given that the government has already tinkered with the issue, it has dilly-dallied, the Solicitor General has flip-flopped a couple of times on it, the Attorney General has taken the law into his own hands and exempted some stores from prosecution, why would the Deputy Premier not do just one simple thing that will solve the problem for this one day? It will be fair for everybody. Most stores are in favour of uniformity, and the only uniformity that can be brought into December 27 is one simple bill saying that for this one day of the year retail stores will not be allowed to open.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I know the honourable member will be aware that the government has given the situation he refers to the most careful consideration. The Solicitor General, a totally idealistic member of the government, has had an opportunity to participate in all the reviews. I believe the policy stated by the Attorney General, the Solicitor General and the Minister of Labour, which the member criticizes, has been well received.

I think it is reasonable under the circumstances. While we are quite prepared to continue the business of the province well into next week, and there is every indication that we will, we really feel that the request from the member is unreasonable.

Mr. Villeneuve: The Deputy Premier comes from a small community, as I do. He should always remember what he is doing to family-owned businesses in small malls on such a day as December 27. I was at the inauguration of a warden where 20 municipalities were represented. Many, many people wearing red ties, who thought they were maybe affiliated with the Liberal Party, are very unhappy with what the Solicitor General has done. Would the Deputy Premier not reconsider December 27, 1987?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Actually, the honourable member and I do share a rural background and a certain sensitivity. I do not know what church he goes to, but I go to the United Church in the village of St. George. When church is out, the elders of the church drive up to the local grocery store, which is open on Sunday now under the present legislation passed by the Progressive Conservative Party when it was the government.

Every store in town is open. I do not recall even having a chance to cast a vote for that, but frankly, I do not find the same opposition in my own rural community as the member finds in his. While it is obvious that, as is usual, not everybody supports a thoughtful initiative taken by the government, there it is. We feel it is for the best benefit of the community under the circumstances and we are prepared to go forward with it.

HOME SUPPORT SERVICES

Mr. Reville: My question is for the Minister of Community and Social Services. The home support services provided by the Woodgreen Community Centre in Riverdale allow 1,000 seniors to live independently in the community.

In February, the ministry informed Woodgreen that the ceiling for ministry grants would increase to 70 per cent and that the centre should use this figure when making budget submissions. Unfortunately, in November, the ministry said the funding would be 56 per cent. This bait and switch creates a deficit of over $40,000 for this one centre and creates cutbacks in the future. Woodgreen is not alone. Funding for home support programs provided by St. Christopher House, Community Care East York and Dixon Hall have all been cut back or limited.

Can the minister explain why, when this government is putting on such a show of support for seniors, valuable long-standing programs would be cut back?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: When this government took office, the share of home support programs was up to 50 per cent all across the province. We made a commitment to increase that, up to 60 per cent last year and up to 70 per cent this year. We have done both of those. When the member talks about 56 per cent, the “up to” means that --

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Outrageous. Oh, no.

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I have not finished yet. The “up to” meant that whatever other resources they had available were taken into consideration. We have recognized that a number of communities and a number of agencies had difficulty doing that and, as of January 1, 1988, it will be a flat 70 per cent for everybody.

Mr. Reville: “Seniors and disabled people want to be independent and remain in their home communities. We must provide the necessary supports to make this a reality.” That was a campaign trail quote from the Premier (Mr. Peterson).

I now ask the minister, is the reality that the government is siphoning money away from established programs, because of all those centres he has put into deficit, to put the money into its much ballyhooed pilot integrated homemaker and one-stop access programs?

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Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I am having some difficulty following the member’s line of reasoning. It was indicated very clearly when we met with the various home support agencies that they wanted a higher share available to them, taking into consideration their ability to raise money locally. We did that. We increased it from 50 to 60. Then we increased it from 60 to 70. They came back to us a second time and said they were still having difficulty raising money. We then made a commitment to flat-line all agencies at 70 per cent.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I have just told the member we are going to do that.

CULTURAL INDUSTRIES

Mrs. Marland: My question is to the Minister of Culture and Communications. As the minister for culture, the minister in cabinet undoubtedly is a strong and forceful voice on any issue that pertains to her portfolio or responsibilities. Equally, I am sure the Premier (Mr. Peterson), on any matters that touch upon cultural issues, asks the minister for her advice and guidance. Given that, can the minister tell the House under which article of the free trade agreement is the entire issue of culture discussed, and exactly what does the article say?

Hon. Ms. Munro: My briefing notes indicate that the cultural industries are not in as much jeopardy as we had originally felt. Certainly, copies of the free trade agreement are available as it relates to cultural industries. I would be pleased to send the member the briefing notes.

We, however, still continue to be concerned about such clauses as “notwithstanding,” about national treatment and a number of other issues. None the less, we have been informed that postal subsidies, for example, will be handled in a much more sensitive way. I have, and our ministry has, of course, been in close contact with the Premier and his briefing people. We feel a little bit more relieved about the cultural references, but we will have to wait and see.

Mrs. Marland: I did not hear the minister tell me the answer to my question, which is the article, so I am going to assume that she does not know the article number. By her answer, I am afraid she is saying that she is unaware of how that article impacts on our cultural industries.

The minister is admitting that she played no part and no role whatsoever in the formulation of the government’s policy on free trade. She is admitting that the Premier and his henchmen simply told her -- and I expect the rest of the cabinet -- “The agreement is bad and we want you all to repeat that until you have the line down pat.”

Given the ignorance of the issue that the minister has demonstrated today in the House as to the article in the free trade agreement, will she admit now that she does not really understand the free trade agreement, and will she agree that any resolution on the merits of the agreement should wait until the standing committee on finance and economic affairs of this Legislature completes its deliberations on this matter?

Hon. Ms. Munro: It is quite amazing to me the way in which people pass judgements on the understanding of other people. All I can tell the member is that I am well versed on the articles of the trade agreement as it relates to culture. I live, eat and sleep considering those particular requirements. I have certainly given the right kind of advice to my Premier, who has also relayed it.

If we are going to get down to a sort of personal bantering across the floor, we can do that. If there is any information the member wishes, I will give it to her; but, my dear, I certainly understand the article.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

ONTARIO’S BICENTENNIAL

Mr. Owen: In 1991, the 200th anniversary of the establishment of this province as a legal jurisdiction will take place. It was on June 10, 1791, that the British imperial government passed the Constitutional Act creating Upper Canada and Lower Canada. On June 19, 1791, the act received royal assent and it came into effect December 26, 1791. On August 24 of that year, John Graves Simcoe was appointed our Lieutenant Governor.

Unfortunately, and for the wrong reasons, an earlier government chose to commemorate the 200th anniversary a few years ago. However, historically and factually, it should be 1991. Will this province observe the real 200th birthday in 1991?

Mr. Speaker: Which minister?

Mr. Owen: It is to the Minister of Culture and Communications.

Hon. Ms. Munro: For a moment, I was starting to worry. In any event, I take heritage very seriously and I think the celebration of the 1791 event is very important to Ontario. Those of us who are historians remember the kerfuffle that was created in academic and community circles over the earlier celebration in 1984. None the less, that celebration was to celebrate the number of the United Empire Loyalists coming into Canada and Ontario, so that is fair.

What we have been doing since we came into government has actually been celebrating every year as a heritage year. When the 200th celebration comes up in 1991 -- and incidentally, 1992 -- I expect a number of ministries will become involved and provide money, direction and information to celebrate it.

Mr. B. Rae: I expect so too, particularly if it is an election year. Then I think we can count on it.

Hon. Mr. Scott: This question has a supplementary.

Mr. B. Rae: When will red become the official colour of the province?

Mr. Speaker: I am sure there are a lot of other members who would like to ask questions if we could continue with the supplementary.

Mr. Owen: As a boy, I was always told that it is a long road that does not have a curve in it. I appreciate some of the reasons the previous government chose to have a bicentennial before. It is almost like the television program: “Will the real bicentennial please stand up?” But what will the minister do to explain to the public that this is the real bicentennial and how do we explain what efforts or what schemes were behind the previous bicentennial? What will the minister do to have tattoos, to have educational competitions for 1991?

Mr. Speaker: I am sure the member has had opportunity to place his question.

Hon. Ms. Munro: I always find that truth will out. What will happen is that, through co-operation among a variety of ministers, the historical accuracy of the 1791 Constitutional Act, the times at which we elected our first Legislative Assembly, the occasions on which the tidings and the first provincial assembly came into being will be documented. I have no doubt that my colleague the Minister of Education (Mr. Ward) will assist in getting that information to the schools.

In addition, the Minister of Tourism and Recreation (Mr. O’Neil), along with myself, will be providing information on this truly glorious celebration year. In fact, the interest of the opposition has made me even more dedicated to making sure that we do truly celebrate.

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INTERVENER FUNDING

Mrs. Grier: I have a question of the Attorney General. In the months preceding the appointment of this government, I raised a number of times with the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) and with the Attorney General the promise that had been made by the Liberals in 1985 that they would introduce a comprehensive policy for the funding of interveners so that citizens and groups wishing to appear before tribunals or boards would be assured that funding would be available to them. Can the Attorney General tell us whether it is still the policy of this government that there ought to be a comprehensive policy for intervener funding?

Hon. Mr. Scott: I would like to thank the honourable member for the question. As she notes, there was a reference to intervener funding in the 1985 speech from the throne and we are working our way through the initiatives in that speech and in the succeeding speech. As the initiatives are developed, they will come before the House to be considered by all members of the assembly and voted on. I have taken an interest in the matter to which the honourable member refers, as has the Minister of the Environment, and we will be considering what response should be advanced shortly.

Mrs. Grier: That is almost identical to the answer that the Attorney General gave on April 30, 1986. It is very similar to the answer the Minister of the Environment gave me in May 1986. What prompted me to ask again was that last week, during the debate on my environmental bill of rights, the member for York East (Ms. Hart) told the House that the Ministry of the Attorney General is developing a progressive policy on intervener funding. Of course, I am anxiously awaiting that policy and I am glad to hear yet again that it is coming, but can I ask the Attorney General whether he considers that the present system of ad hoc funding at the pleasure of the Minister of the Environment is sufficient, and how long is he prepared to see that kind of ad hockery take the place of a comprehensive intervener funding policy?

Hon. Mr. Scott: The reason the answer I give today is very similar to the answer I gave the last time is because I know that the question is really intended to be directed to the Minister of the Environment, who is unavoidably not in his place today. I have tried to give the honourable member the answer that I think the Minister of the Environment would have given if he had been asked the question.

The Minister of the Environment and other ministers have tried to respond to the problem of funding --

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Stretch it out a bit.

[Laughter]

Hon. Mr. Scott: Is this the way it is done? -- on an ad hoc basis because of the difficulties that the formulation of a more permanent policy undoubtedly create. I think the Minister of the Environment would tell the member that in fact the ad hoc response, while not as a matter of principle precisely the way one would prefer to proceed in the best of all possible worlds, has indeed produced a satisfactory response to the actual problems that are being dealt with in the tribunals.

Mr. Sterling: I now know why the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon), who sits beside the Attorney General, has such little regard for the legal profession.

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION BOARD

Mr. Sterling: I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. Which area of concern has been identified by the small business sector as being the most significant problem affecting their operations today?

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I would say that if you had to identify the one major concern that small businesses have, it is their access to capital.

Mr. Sterling: That puts into perspective just how much the government knows about what small business is all about. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has identified the Workers’ Compensation Board as being the most significant problem facing small businesses today. Yet in the publication which the ministry produced yesterday, there are but two small mentions of the problems with the WCB.

My question to the minister is this: small business has called for a royal commission to look into the Workers’ Compensation Board. Labour has called for a royal commission to look into the Workers’ Compensation Board.

Mr. Reville: We have called.

Mr. Sterling: The New Democratic Party has asked for a royal commission to look into the Workers’ Compensation Board. The Progressive Conservative Party has asked for the government to look into this matter with a royal commission.

Mr. Speaker: The question is?

Mr. Sterling: As the minister of industry --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Would the member take his seat. I think there was a question there somewhere. Minister.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I apologize to the member. When he asked me the question, I thought he was talking about startup of a small business, which is basically what that book is talking about, and how we can encourage businesses. I can assure him the issue that has been identified is the lack of access to capital. Once they are in business, he is correct.

Notwithstanding that I am sure the member has heard the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) say that everyone recognizes there are concerns about the way the Workers’ Compensation Board is being utilized and some of the problems with it. We have undertaken to look at that. The minister has stood in his place on several occasions and given that assurance. I can assure the member he will.

Mr. Sterling: No. It is you who has to get it on the road. You represent small business.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: That is his responsibility and he is going to be looking after it.

ACCESS FUND

Mr. Carrothers: My question is directed to the Minister without Portfolio responsible for senior citizens’ affairs. It concerns the fund, called the access fund, operated jointly by her office and the office for disabled persons. This fund was recently mentioned in the House and I have been receiving questions in my constituency office as to the status of that fund. I wonder if the minister is in a position to inform the House of the current status of that fund.

Hon. Mrs. Wilson: The access fund is intended to increase physical access by physically disabled people and senior citizens to existing community facilities. The budget allocated $15 million over a three-year period which would be divided equally between the two offices. The program actually provides matching funds to nonprofit community groups of up to $50,000 per organization for eligible renovations. To date, 1,625 applications are in the hands of various senior citizens’ organizations and their proposals are being considered right now as we talk. In total, more than 6,000 applications are in the community.

Mr. Carrothers: I thank the minister for that information. I wonder if she could also clarify what seniors’ groups are eligible for funds and what type of project costs might be covered.

Hon. Mrs. Wilson: The eligibility criteria are clearly outlined in the application form. Incorporated, nonprofit organizations which open or will open their facilities to seniors and the disabled will be eligible for the grants. Organizations which are eligible are groups such as senior citizens’ centres, consumer and religious groups and municipalities which operate elderly persons’ centres. Grants are provided for various renovations to improve access, such as grab-bars, ramps, elevators, those sorts of renovations, and also certain professional fees will be covered.

I would be pleased to assist members with regard to this fund and members of their constituencies. I am sure the Minister without Portfolio responsible for disabled persons (Mr. Mancini) would as well.

LABOUR DISPUTE

Mr. Mackenzie: I have a question for the Minister of Labour. The minister will be well aware that the 235 workers at the McGregor Hosiery Mills, mostly immigrant women, working hard at very low wages for a company that is not doing that badly, thank you, have faced just about every roadblock possible on the way to a free collective agreement this time around. The minister will also know the workers have rejected the company offer in a section 40 vote. I believe his ministry has been talking with these people. Can he tell us just what he is doing now to see that they do get down to serious collective bargaining?

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Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I want to thank my friend the member for Hamilton East for that question. It really is a rather interesting situation that arose as a result of the vote which was taken under section 40 of the Labour Relations Act, a vote which, I remind you, Mr. Speaker, I am required under section 40 to provide for, and in that respect simply inform you and other members of the House that the vote took place last Monday.

The interesting result was that although the contract was rejected -- that is to say, more of the ballots agreed upon as valid ballots were against the agreement than for the agreement -- the result was so close that some eight contested ballots might well affect the resolution of that vote.

Let me just say that whether or not the contract is accepted or rejected is not the final determination of the matter. I understand that as a result of that vote, the parties are back negotiating now and the ministry will be providing whatever mediation or conciliation assistance we can provide to bring the parties together, resolve their differences and bring those workers back to work.

Mr. Mackenzie: The minister will also know that the chief threat of the company and the negotiations has been the argument that they are facing free trade, they cannot meet the competition and that is why they cannot raise the wages. Inasmuch as there are some 72,000 workers in Ontario in related industries -- shoes, clothing and so on -- can the minister tell us what he is doing to see that this kind of argument is not used in a deliberate effort to reduce wages in this province?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: My friend makes a very good point that is in many respects central to the whole debate on free trade. It may well be that in some corporate boardrooms this agreement, as the member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt) has suggested, is heralded; but for the workers of this province and this province, it may well be bad news indeed.

He asked me what steps we are taking. Obviously, we are taking every step we can through the Premier (Mr. Peterson), through the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology and within my own ministry to bring those arguments to the people of this province and this country as effectively as we can.

I should think that arguments that management at McGregor may use to suggest, “We cannot do anything about it; we are going to be the victims of free trade,” simply will not wash where unions are effectively negotiating on behalf of their workers; but frankly, it may well be a risk we are facing in these times, at least for the next little while.

ARBITRATION BOARD RULING

Mr. Harris: Earlier this week, I had a question of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) concerning witchcraft and the implications of the labour board ruling that in effect said that Wicca is obviously a religion, and that seems now to be his ministry’s interpretation. I asked the minister at that time if he would review that situation, because I feared we would start getting into other areas with other potential religions and into other areas of jurisdiction, like tax structure and what not.

I notice the Minister of Labour is listening carefully; he has not responded to that. But I do not have a question for him today; I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Yes. I understand.

Mr. Harris: The fears I brought forward last week are now being confirmed. I notice in the Etobicoke Life of December 16 that the warlock is applying for a licence to perform marriages. This matter, I understand, is being referred to the minister’s lawyers for a ruling. I would like to know what the minister thinks of that. I would like to know whether there has been any consultation with other areas in the ministry or other ministries as to what the position of this government is going to be.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: My friend says we should pray for divine intervention.

The information the member brings to my attention is the first I have heard of it. I am sure that if that application has been made, it is being duly considered as these matters move forward and that I will have a chance to review it, should that become necessary, at the appropriate time. There is a procedure for these matters moving forward, and I presume that procedure is being followed.

Mr. Harris: I am surprised he does not keep on top of these burning issues across this province --

Interjections.

Mr. Harris: Even as I speak, I am worried about whether I am going to be hit with a twang of pain.

I want to say to the minister that I think the matter can be far more serious than at first glance it appears to be. I would suggest that it be not only the lawyers in his ministry who look at this. We saw what happened with the labour board ruling. I would ask the minister if he would consult with lawyers in various ministries, particularly in the Attorney General’s ministry, and in Treasury when the tax implications come in.

Can he not see that this can have a rippling effect that may have very serious implications as to what is called a religion in this province and accepted as being called a religion by this government?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I hear the member’s very grave concern about witchcraft. I can say that it should not be a surprise to my friend the member for Nipissing that these matters go forward to the registrar and not to the minister for determination. Perhaps it would not be surprising to him that at this stage, where it is under administrative review, each and every case would not be brought to my attention.

We will have a look at the matter if it is deemed necessary. Certainly lawyers from the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, who are attached to the Ministry of the Attorney General, can consult with their peers if that is deemed necessary.

I think the honourable member is, as we move forward in this festive season, raising a concern that is perhaps premature.

POLICE DUTIES

Mr. Callahan: I have a question for the Solicitor General. Recently in the press there have been reported allegations in Milton that police officers are required to issue a certain number of tickets or carry out a certain amount of procedures as a condition of their employment.

I would like to ask the Solicitor General, first of all, is there any indication that this is correct, recognizing the fact that the administration of justice should not only be done but also appear to be done?

Hon. Mrs. Smith: Like the member for Brampton South, I have read the interesting information in the newspaper that would seem to indicate that indeed a policeman is being charged with not having given enough tickets. I find that very interesting. It confirms, as a driver, all my worst fears. I plan to be very cautious on the holidays and I wait with interest to see whether the courts decide that this is a reasonable ruling or not.

FUNERAL SERVICES

Mr. Swart: My question is to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations and it is further to the discussion we had the other day in this House on the Tom Turner report.

I want to say to the minister that, regardless of how he tries to excuse and denigrate that report, he has to admit that the accusations made by Mr. Turner against at least a segment of the commercial cemetery industry were extremely serious and indicated totally unacceptable practices.

I just want to say that if he and the previous minister had the slightest sincerity in getting to the bottom of this issue and protecting bereavement victims, how does he explain his statement to reporters, “There was no follow-up investigation on the Turner report”?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I explain it by saying I misspoke. There is one, and I have some of the details here, but part of the follow-up investigation is not complete. Some matters are still being investigated.

But I would say to my friend, while I am on my feet and since he has released this report -- and I do not excuse perhaps some of the actions that are pointed out; if they are so I would condemn them, as would all honourable members -- but I would draw my friend’s attention and the attention of the House to point one in the summary of Mr. Turner’s investigation. It is something my friend left unsaid. It said, “The investigation did not reveal evidence to support charges under the Cemeteries Act.”

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Mr. Swart: That is possible when we have such a weak Cemeteries Act that it could not support any charges regardless of how blatant the acts were.

I have here two Tom Turner reports, would members believe? One is a 20-page report, which I referred to on Tuesday, and a five-page report, from which most of his serious indictment of the commercial cemeteries has been removed and from which his original request to bring together a task force or public inquiry as soon as possible has been revised, although he still asks for an in-depth investigation.

Strangely, the two reports are dated the same day, July 18, 1985. I ask the minister, is it not true that Mr. Turner was told to go back and launder his original report so as not to be so critical of the government’s friends in the commercial cemetery industry?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: The answer to the question, “Is it not true that he was told to go back and launder?” is no.

Mr. Swart: Why is there a second report?

Mr. D. S. Cooke: Why is it from 20 pages to five pages?

Mr. Speaker: I am sure some of those questions can be asked at a later time.

SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES

Hon. Mr. Elston: I have a message from His Honour the Lieutenant Governor, signed by his own hand.

Mr. Speaker: The Lieutenant Governor transmits supplementary estimates of certain additional sums required for the services of the province for the year ending March 31, 1988, and recommends them to the Legislative Assembly. This is signed by the Honourable Lincoln Alexander.

PETITIONS

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. Owen: I have a petition addressed to the Lieutenant Governor of the province of Ontario, signed by 76 members of the Innisfil Community Church in Stroud, Ontario, and it reads,

“We, the undersigned, believe in the importance of keeping Sunday as a common pause day, so that all people may have physical, spiritual and social health. We are concerned about the quality of life and the well-being of the people of our province. We object to the further commercialization of life through the proposed Sunday shopping legislation. We further agree that such legislation should be enforced consistently throughout the province by the province, preventing general or mass exemptions by municipal authorities.”

HUNTING RESTRICTIONS

Mr. McGuigan: I have a petition signed by 625 people addressed to the Lieutenant Governor, as follows:

“Be it resolved that we, the undersigned, hereby petition the said Lieutenant Governor in Council to designate all shoreline properties which are zoned residential off limits to the hunting of all game birds. The said designation restricting hunting is to commence at the existing shoreline outward for a distance of 500 feet.”

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. J. M. Johnson: I have a petition to His Honour the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

“We believe in the importance of keeping Sunday as a common pause day, so that all people may have physical, spiritual and social health. We are concerned about the quality of life and the well-being of the people of our province, and we object to the further commercializing of life through the Liberal government’s proposed Sunday shopping legislation.”

Mr. Brandt: I have a petition to His Honour the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

Mr. Harris: I have two petitions. The first reads:

“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

I have a second one that reads:

“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, employees of businesses located at the Northgate Mall, wish to convey to you and the provincial Legislature our amazement that Sunday shopping will be permitted on December 27, 1987.

“We firmly believe that the law prohibiting trade on Sundays in August is equally valid in December and concessions to the law should not be made.

“For most working people of this province, the Christmas holiday of 1987 will be an extended one by virtue of the calendar. That same calendar would have given retail employees one extra day of well-earned rest but for the decision to allow shopping on December 27.

“For those retail employees among us who feel strongly that the sanctity of the Sabbath should be preserved, a conflict will emerge as to whether to obey the wishes of the employer or the dictates of the conscience.

“We request that you convey to the Premier in the strongest of terms that we consider recent concessions to Sunday trading laws to be ill-advised and contrary to the public interest.”

It is signed by hundreds, maybe thousands. I have not had time to count them all.

Mr. Speaker: Was that addressed to the Lieutenant Governor?

Mr. Harris: Yes.

Mr. Cousens: I have a petition as well for this House.

“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

“We believe in the importance of keeping Sunday as a common pause day, so that all people may have physical, spiritual and social health. We are concerned about the quality of life and the well-being of the people of our province, and we object to the further commercialization of life through the Liberal government’s proposed Sunday shopping legislation.”

Mr. Sterling: I have a petition as follows:

“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

“We believe in the importance of keeping Sunday as a common pause day, so that all people may have physical, spiritual and social health. We are concerned about the quality of life and the well-being of the people of our province, and we object to the further commercialization of life through the Liberal government’s proposed Sunday shopping legislation.”

Mr. Pope: I have a petition which reads as follows:

“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

Mrs. Marland: I too have a petition:

“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

Mr. Eves: I too have a petition which reads as follows:

“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

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Mr. Wiseman: I too have a petition.

“To His Honour the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

“We believe in the importance of keeping Sunday as a common pause day, so that all people may have physical, spiritual and social health. We are concerned about the quality of life and the well-being of the people of our province. We object to the further commercialization of life through the Liberal government’s proposed Sunday shopping legislation.”

Mr. Villeneuve: I am very disappointed to hear the Liberals taking this so lightly. It is a joke.

“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

“We believe in the importance of keeping Sunday as a common pause day, so that all people may have physical, spiritual and social health. We are concerned about the quality of life and the well-being of the people of our province. We object to the further commercialization of life through the Liberal government’s proposed Sunday shopping legislation.”

NATUROPATHY

Mr. Pelissero: I would like to present a petition to the Legislature, signed by 44 persons in the riding of Lincoln, which calls on the government “to introduce legislation that would guarantee naturopaths the right to practise their art and science to the fullest without prejudice or harassment.”

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. Jackson: “To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

“We believe in the importance of keeping Sunday as a common pause day, so that all people may have physical, spiritual and social health. We are concerned about the quality of life and the well-being of the people of our great province. We object to the further commercialization of life through the Liberal government’s proposed Sunday shopping legislation.”

Mr. McCague: I have a petition authored by the Liberal Party.

“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

“We believe in the importance of keeping Sunday as a common pause day, so that all people may have physical, spiritual and social health. We are concerned about the quality of life and the well-being of the people of our province. We object to the further commercialization of life through the Liberal government’s proposed Sunday shopping legislation.”

That did come from the Liberals too.

REPORT BY COMMITTEE

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

Mr. Philip from the standing committee on public accounts reported the following resolution:

That supply in the following amount and to defray the expenses of the Office of the Provincial Auditor be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1988:

Administration of the Audit Act and statutory audits program, $4,895,300.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

FARM PRACTICES PROTECTION ACT

Hon. Mr. Riddell moved first reading of Bill 83, An Act respecting the Protection of Farm Practices.

Motion agreed to.

CORPORATIONS TAX AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître moved first reading of Bill 84, An Act to amend the Corporations Tax Act.

Motion agreed to.

MINING TAX AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Grandmaître moved first reading of Bill 85, An Act to amend the Mining Tax Act.

Motion agreed to.

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Fulton moved first reading of Bill 86, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act.

Motion agreed to.

ONTARIO HIGHWAY TRANSPORT BOARD AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Fulton moved first reading of Bill 87, An Act to amend the Ontario Highway Transport Board Act.

Motion agreed to.

TRUCK TRANSPORTATION ACT

Hon. Mr. Fulton moved first reading of Bill 88, An Act to regulate Truck Transportation.

Motion agreed to.

GARBAGE RECYCLING PROGRAMS ACT

Mrs. Marland moved first reading of Bill 89, An Act requiring Municipalities to establish Programs for the Recycling of Garbage.

Motion agreed to.

Mrs. Marland: The purpose of the bill is to require all municipalities to establish and implement programs for the separation at source and recycling of garbage. The bill sets out the required elements of programs and allows councils of municipalities to include in programs other elements considered necessary. A municipality can establish and implement a separation-at-source and recycling program either on its own or jointly with other municipalities. A municipality will report annually to the minister on the results of its program.

CITY OF MISSISSAUGA ACT

Mr. Offer moved first reading of Bill Pr22, An Act respecting the City of Mississauga.

Motion agreed to.

POLL

Hon. Mr. Conway: Before the orders of the day, I want to inform the House that I have laid on the table a voluminous document which is a study, in the nature of an opinion poll, done for the Ministry of Health.

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ORDERS OF THE DAY

TRADE WITH UNITED STATES (CONTINUED)

Resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to government motion 8 on the proposed trade agreement between Canada and the United States.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Cochrane South adjourned the debate. He may have some further comment.

Mr. Pope: I was beginning my introductory remarks yesterday with respect to this most important issue and I realized that inadvertently I had misstated a fact. I want to bring it immediately to the attention of the members of the assembly. I had indicated yesterday that the Continuing Committee on Trade Negotiations had held 19 meetings since January 1986. I ascribed that to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. In fact, on December 10 of this year, the minister indicated that there had been 18 meetings of the Continuing Committee on Trade Negotiations, 18 occasions on which representatives of the government of Ontario had met with their counterparts from other provinces and with the federal government to discuss in detail various elements of this agreement.

I want very briefly for you, Mr. Speaker, and for the members of the Legislature to indicate why we believe this debate must continue. This is the most important economic and national issue confronting this country today. It is one on which many have expressed opinions and over which many have expressed anxieties. We believe it is incumbent on every member of this Legislature for this most important, critical issue to speak on behalf of his constituents and to offer his own advice and opinions on the nature of this agreement and whether this province should endorse the agreement and work within the context of the agreement reached between the federal government and the federal government of the United States in bringing about an improved and enhanced trading relationship between Canada and its biggest customer, the United States.

It was our understanding initially that this whole agreement, this matter, would be referred to a committee and that we would be discussing over the course of the last two days a procedural motion to refer the agreement to a committee. Rather, we now have the government House leader having introduced a substantive motion which urges members of this assembly to take an immediate position on the free trade agreement itself and urge its rejection.

By making that determination, I believe that we as members of the Legislative Assembly will totally prejudge the committee’s deliberations and the new and additional information that may come to light by representations of witnesses who will appear before that committee.

I believe the position our party takes is similar to the concerns that the official opposition has voiced in this House; that is, before a final decision on a position of this Legislature on the agreement itself, there should be committee hearings.

Now we are into the third day of debate on this most important resolution, which was introduced three days before the projected termination date of this session. Now we are in our third day of debate on this most important issue, on which I would urge every member in this Legislature, including the members of the Liberal government, to stand up and speak. If they have concerns about this agreement, if they have heard from their constituents about this agreement and some potential problems with this agreement, now is the time to stand up, because now is the time when this Liberal government is asking the members of this assembly to take a position on the agreement -- now, not during the committee hearings, not after having listened to expert witnesses, trade representatives, union representatives, community representatives, not after hearing what they have to say about the agreement, but before we hear what they have to say.

I urge every member of this assembly to join in. This is a historic debate in this assembly. This is a historic debate across this country, one that is being held in other legislative assemblies and in which members from all political parties in this country are participating, a debate which is ongoing through committee and in the federal House of Commons.

I believe the outstanding matters of this legislative session would have been expeditiously dealt with, by agreement, if this resolution had been referred to the committee as opposed to insisting, as the government House leader has insisted, that a vote be held on it. Matters that led six cabinet ministers today to issue eight statements of policy, that have led many cabinet ministers today to introduce important pieces of legislation, could have been reviewed today, yesterday and the day before.

Interim supply could have been dealt with. Metropolitan elections would have been dealt with had this matter been referred to a standing committee, as we originally thought it should have been and was going to be, without the necessity or the insistence of a substantive vote.

I think it is important to note that the Premier (Mr. Peterson) made this agreement and the free trade or enhanced trade relationships with the United States the cornerstone of his election campaign just three months ago. Yet in this debate the Premier has yet to participate.

I am not saying that he has not made statements in the Legislature with respect to different elements of the agreement and the constitutionality of it. I am not saying that it was not right or just that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. Kwinter) should lead off the debate, but I think on a critical issue of this great importance to all regions, all occupations, all businesses, all workers of this province, the Premier should have addressed this assembly and laid out in detail his objections to the specific text of the agreement that we now have before us, and laid out in detail his options to protect industries, workers and communities in the context of our trade dependence on the United States.

It was incumbent, as the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. B. Rae) has done and as the leader of our party has done, to stake out in detail the positions of the political parties of this province. So far the Premier has not spoken on this motion. We presume he will make a detailed statement next week in this Legislature, both with respect to reporting on today’s events in Ottawa and in terms of outlining on virtually a clause-by-clause basis his objections to this free trade agreement, the text of which we now have before us, and in detail his options.

Before this most important vote is to take place, we have not had a report to this House of the cabinet subcommittee on free trade. We have not had a tabling of the numerous reports and studies the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology indicated it had in its possession. As I recall the words of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology in estimates, I think he indicated he had had correspondence and communication with approximately 30 groups in Ontario over the past two months.

It is those studies from those 30 groups, it is the information from the 30 groups, not the two government studies that have been tabled. That is an entirely different matter. As the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology indicated in estimates, that is an entirely different matter. When we asked for that kind of documentation in the estimates of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology, the answer we got was that the material might not be provided because of confidentiality. They took the same position with respect to the minutes and the documentation of the continuing committee on trade negotiation.

All we have is the two legal opinions, both of which have been tabled by the government, which predate the publication of the final text of the agreement, and we have two studies by this government which, again, predate the precise documented agreement that was signed, that was negotiated by representatives of the federal and provincial governments. In fact, we got the agreement from the federal government, not from the provincial government.

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Mr. Haggerty: That is right. We have not got it yet.

Mr. Pope: This agreement has been in the member’s hands for the last three days. If he has not had the opportunity to read his mail, I suggest he do so. If he wants to make a decision, admitting he has not read the agreement, I find that rather interesting. Is that a Liberal position? He is going to vote on this resolution without having read the agreement. That is rather interesting. I am not surprised, but it is rather interesting.

It is our belief in this party that there is no overwhelming, compelling need for the House to take a formal position on this agreement at this time in advance of the legislative committee’s deliberations. We believe there are elements of this agreement that will be subject to further clarification and documentation in future meetings between the negotiators of the United States and Canada and that those negotiations, discussions and meetings will take place, as they have in the past in spite of the advice given to us by this government, through consultation with provincial representatives.

We also want to put on record our belief, my belief, that we were willing to expedite other items of business for this government in order to allow the House to adjourn today, on condition that this resolution be referred to committee. We were rebuffed in those efforts. It seems to us that this Liberal government seems bent on prolonging this sitting for no apparent reason, when this debate should really be taking place after the committee’s deliberations and report back to the House. That is the position that our party has with respect to the process, which has been discussed by spokesmen for the official opposition and for the Progressive Conservative Party over the past day and a half.

Yesterday I was discussing a number of elements or examples where I believe there is a growing perception that there appear to be two agendas with respect to Ontario’s involvement in the free trade negotiations, a public one and a private one. I indicated yesterday some of the history and comments that have been made, which taken on their own may not be cause for concern, but when we add it all up it appears to us to indicate a real problem of credibility and forcefulness in this government in representing Ontario’s position.

First, we had the softwood lumber issue. Second, we had the public comments of the federal Minister for International Trade about the attitude of the Premier in public versus his attitude in private. Third, we had the information given to us by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday about the impression the Premier left with the congressman he met with in the United States last year, that he might be willing to accept implementation and there might not be much he could do about it. Fourth was the indication of the Premier in news reports that he was not in the room when in fact there were 18 joint negotiating committee meetings held since January 7 of this year.

Fifth, we had the oft-declared intention of the provincial government over the past year and a half to veto this arrangement, to frustrate its implementation. We compare that with the speech of the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) two days ago and the response of the Premier to the Leader of the Opposition in explaining that speech by the Attorney General.

Sixth, we have had the Premier taking various positions on whether or not he is bound to implement it. I refer members of this assembly to the Premier’s responses to the questions of the Leader of the Opposition in yesterday’s question period, where for the first time he indicated some question in his mind as to whether this provincial government could frustrate implementation of this agreement, even if it involves some provincial context.

Seventh, we had the discussion about the domestic wines issue. The indication we got at that time from the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Wrye) was that there was an explanation. I just want to indicate that initially I believed the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology had indicated that the province was considering its options, that it might even defy the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ruling but would not make any final decision on its position until it saw what Ottawa was going to do by way of response.

However, I think it is important to note that very quickly the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology and the Premier indicated a consistent position with respect to supporting GATT as the best means of securing multilateral trade, knowing that one of the true bases, principles or objectives of GATT is to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating tariffs and other barriers.

So on the one hand, we have support given to the GATT arrangements by the Premier and also by the minister for trade in his statement to the Legislature on November 23 about “an institution that has as its raison d’être the promotion of international trade by reducing or eliminating tariffs and other barriers.” On the other hand, we have the statement by the same minister for trade and the Premier saying they would not implement provisions of a free trade agreement which had as their basis the same primary objective of promoting international trade with our best customer, the United States, by reducing or eliminating tariffs and other barriers.

The primary objective of GATT and of this agreement are the same, and yet the Premier is willing to implement a GATT ruling, agree to a phase-out of financial support for the domestic wine industry over a period of time, but he is not prepared to do exactly the same thing in the context of the free trade agreement. I find that a rather telling item, added to the others, that indicates a public posture versus a private implementation position that this government has begun to take over the last few months.

Because it was a very brief statement by the minister, I want to indicate a one-page statement by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations on November 23, 1987. He indicated his support and the support of the Ontario government for multilateral trade agreements when the aim is to bring about fairness in the international marketplace, something, if memory serves me right, that the free trade discussion with the United States is all about. He also emphasized the Ontario government’s ongoing support for the maturing Ontario grape and wine industries and indicated as follows:

“While the immediate elimination of Ontario’s current pricing, listing and distribution practices might be seen as an admirable goal by wine-making industries in France, Italy and California, the consequences” of immediate elimination “could prove catastrophic for Ontario’s vintners and grape growers. The key issue is time, enough time for Ontario grape growers and wine makers to become more competitive.

“Over the weekend, the government reached an agreement with representatives of the Ontario grape and wine industries that will provide for the gradual elimination of most of the practices viewed as discriminatory.”

Funny, that is not a quote out of the free trade agreement, although it could be. That is a quote from the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations on November 23 when he announced he would implement provisions that would give effect to the GATT ruling. Interchangeable words, interchangeable primary objectives, interchangeable goals; one is no good because it bears the label of the free trade agreement; the other is OK because it bears the label of GATT.

The fact of the matter is, whether they be in a multinational context or in a bilateral context, the primary objectives remain, and this government is willing to implement and give effect to that primary objective, which is the improvement of competition in the international marketplace by the elimination of tariffs and other trade barriers; but it will not say that in the context of the free trade agreement because to do that would be, in fact, to endorse the free trade agreement itself.

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I also indicated that this government, as item 8, has seemed to profess some concern about our economic and cultural sovereignty in the context of the free trade agreement, but no concern over issues related to economic sovereignty when it came to the securities industry.

I would refer members of this assembly to the statement of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology on June 11, 1986, when he announced an elimination of some of the barriers for the securities industry from the United States to enter into Ontario and carry on business in this province. He announced an elimination of those barriers almost in the same words as the free trade agreement deals with the elimination of those barriers. This government will not endorse the free trade agreement, but it will endorse the elimination of those barriers.

It will open the doors to the international securities industry to come in because it believes that the Ontario securities industry, the Canadian securities industry, can compete and that it is in Ontario’s interest to reduce those barriers to provide for a better investment climate by, of all things, American money. Yet it will not admit that the same goals in the free trade agreement are worthy of support.

The ninth indication -- and this was all by way of background to the members of this assembly and in reply to the member for Kitchener (Mr. D. R. Cooke) who wanted examples. He asked for examples of where I thought there was a public agenda and a private one. Mr. Speaker, you will notice I changed my terminology from yesterday, a public agenda versus a private one. We are on example 8.

Example 9, I say to the member for Kitchener who asked me to illustrate these, which is why I am doing it, is this government’s position with respect to international or multinational trade, the multinational trade option. Again, we have heard words from the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology and the Premier of this province that we should explore that option. Those words have been issued in this country and in this province for well over 100 years. It had to do first and foremost with our dependence on the British market, the British Commonwealth market, and now it is equally applicable to our dependence upon the American market.

I do not believe there is a single member of this assembly who would not support the words of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology and the Premier, who called for an improvement in international trade for this province and this country and the development of more multinational trading links.

More trade does not hurt our sovereignty, as some would like us to believe. More trade generates wealth, prosperity, jobs and economic security for the people of this province. We welcome more trade, whether it be with our very best customer, the United States of America, whether it be with Europe, with the Third World or with the Pacific Rim. We welcome anything that will improve and increase our trading relationship, our trade, with all nations of the world. We are all agreed on that.

What steps has this government actually taken in its two and a half years to implement those noble ideals? As fate would have it, we had this discussion in the estimates of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology last week and guess what we found out? That this government -- and I say this government uniquely, when I look at the events of the past 11 years in this Legislature -- this government uniquely has undertaken no new direct international trade initiatives on its own. Its position is that any contacts which might lead to an enhancement of trading potential, any contacts which may lead to an improvement or an increase in trade with any country in the world, must be done through the federal government.

I can say to my friends that is not a position that we took when we were the government of this province. Yes, we consulted with the federal government; yes, we sought the co-operation and help of the Secretary of State for External Affairs and the Minister for International Trade; yes, we did, but we also initiated on our own direct contacts and negotiations with the European Community and the Pacific Rim. We tried to open up those markets.

I can say that many before this government have worked hard to try to get access for our resource products in the European Community. Were it not for our refinery in Norway and a refinery in Wales, some of our mineral products would never have gotten access into the European Community. The fact of the matter is, in spite of the opposition of the official opposition party, those smelters and refineries in Europe gave us an avenue, a door into the European Community, a door that could not be shut under the existing rules and regulations that guide the European Community.

I can tell members something else. Despite repeated attempts, I believe there is a real challenge for this government to try to convince the European Community to let our forestry products into that market.

I can say that because I have been involved in those negotiations. We tried in 1983 through direct consultations. We were turned down because of a particular surplus of forest products emanating from a natural disaster in France in the summer of 1982, leading to a particular, specific decision that kept some forest products out of the European Community market. That situation has not changed.

Unless this government believes its only option is to negotiate these matters through the federal government, I say to look at our neighbours and competitors even within our own country. Quebec and the Maritimes have trading offices established in Europe. They make direct contact with governments in Europe but they keep the federal government informed.

British Columbia has had a marketing agency for its forestry products in the European Community for close to six years now. They involve themselves directly in improving trade relationships, in paving the way for more export of Canadian products into the European Community. They involve themselves directly, not because they want to be at odds with the federal government but because they see the unique interest of the provincial governments in the resource sector as being a primary issue that they must continue to support.

The British Columbia government has had some success in penetrating the European Community, granted with very specific prefabricated wood products, but it has had some success, and the governments of Atlantic Canada and Quebec likewise. But this government and this Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology admitted last Wednesday in estimates that the government had made no direct contacts, undertaken no initiatives as a provincial government to seek markets in the European Community or in the Pacific Rim.

I might add that their conduct during the softwood lumber issue as well is rather unique. In 1982 and 1983, when we last had our softwood lumber dispute, the government of Ontario, the government of Quebec and the government of British Columbia each sent cabinet ministers to Washington and met with the Canadian Embassy and the federal trade officials and together put forward both a federal and provincial position on the matter of softwood lumber. We met with Malcolm Baldridge, who was then Secretary of Commerce. We met with officials at the International Trade Commission. Not only did we present a united front vis-à-vis the federal government but we presented a united front as provinces which have ultimate jurisdiction over the natural resources of this country.

I say that when the government and this Premier indicate that multinational trade is the most viable option, they have not pursued it. They have made no direct contacts themselves. That is what the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology said last Wednesday. If the member wants to check the record, it is in Hansard; I will send it over to him. So if he says that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, his minister, is wrong, he should talk to him. Here is Hansard. It is right in there and those words were uttered.

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I think if this government really, truly believes that multinational trade is an option in opposition to the free trade agreement, where is the proof? What has it done?

I know they closed the trade office in Brussels in 1985. The member is quite proud of that fact; I know he is quite proud of that fact. He closed that office, and I know the Speaker has some knowledge of this matter as well. The government closed the trade office. That is clear. We got the signal.

All we want from this Premier during the course of this debate is that we want him to come in and clearly indicate to the people of this province how he will enhance trade on a multinational basis. What specific markets is he going to corner and has he cornered in his two and a half years of efforts? What additional exports are now going out of Ontario to foreign markets? How many jobs have been created? How many industries have been created or saved?

We would like that kind of detailed information if he truly believes in the multinational trade option. Let us see the proof of the commitment. Let us see the detail that no one in the estimates of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology could provide.

In response to the member for Kitchener, who asked for examples of where I thought there was a public agenda versus a private one, I have indicated nine areas which I think, taken together, indicate that this government has a problem with this whole issue and with its position in the free trade agreement. I want to say that I regret today the comments of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology in question period, where he said that the people who cared opposed this agreement. This is the same minister who said, “If it is bad for Ontario, it is bad for Canada; and if it is good for Ontario, it is good for Canada.”

This government must uphold the traditions of Ontario and lead the process of nation building, of consensus making. It must show it is willing to place the interests of all parts of this country before this assembly as part of its decision-making process.

When the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology says that the only people who care oppose this deal, he is saying that Premier Vander Zalm does not care. Care about what I do not know; I guess about this country, from the context. He is saying that Premier Getty of Alberta does not care. He is saying that Premier Devine does not care. He is saying that Premier Bourassa does not care. He is saying that Premier McKenna does not care. He is saying that Premier Peckford does not care. He is saying that Brian Mulroney does not care.

He is saying that the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada does not care. He is saying that the Business Council on National Issues does not care. He is saying that the Canadian Bankers’ Association does not care. He is saying that the Canadian Chamber of Commerce does not care. He is saying that the Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association does not care. He is saying that the Canadian Export Association does not care. He is saying that the Canadian Federation of Independent Business does not care.

He is saying that the Canadian Institute of Public Real Estate Companies does not care. He is saying that the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association Inc. does not care. He is saying that the Canadian Meat Council does not care. He is saying that the Canadian Urban Transit Association does not care. He is saying that the Financial Executives Institute of Canada does not care. He is saying that the Information Technology Association of Canada does not care. He is saying that the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association does not care. He is saying that the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada does not care. He is saying that the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association does not care and he is saying that le Regroupement pour le libre-échange does not care. He is saying that about half of the people of this country do not care because he deems it so.

That is not the kind of diplomacy and reaching out to the rest of this country that we need on this issue. We need a government of this province that is sympathetic and sensitive to the regional demands in a free trade arrangement with the United States and the regional concerns about enhanced trade with the United States. We need a government willing to listen and accept the fact that their positions are taken in good faith because they care as much as this government, as much as this Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology and this Premier, about this country and about the Canadians who inhabit it.

We do not need the kind of rhetoric we have heard over the past couple of days on this matter. As my leader said --

Mr. Ferraro: We agree on that.

Mr. Pope: Now there we have the member for Guelph defending the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology who says that all these people, these premiers, the Prime Minister and 50 per cent of the people of this country do not care. That is exactly what was said here today. If the Liberal member for Guelph wants to defend that position, let him do so.

Mr. Ferraro: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: The member for Cochrane South is absolutely wrong. I did not say that. I wish he would not, in my view, mislead the general public with statements like that. He knows full well I did not say that.

The Acting Speaker (Miss Roberts): It is not a point of order. I am sure the honourable member will confine himself to the appropriate statements from now on and will please continue.

Mr. Pope: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

I think it is important that we take a current view of these matters as this debate continues, not a point of view mired in legal opinions issued before the final text was completed, not a point of view of potential problems that any free trade arrangement with the United States could create before an examination of the detail of the agreement itself, and not a generalized concern about the state of the nation or sovereignty or culture that we have seen.

I think this government and this Premier have an obligation to the people of this province, and certainly to this assembly and to the rest of Canada, to explain in detail their concerns about this agreement, what they would change in it to make it better or what they would do that is different from an enhanced trading arrangement as it is set forth in this free trade agreement.

Quite frankly, it is now becoming clear that this province is not leading any movement any more that will succeed in frustrating a free trade agreement. It has given up its position of veto power. It abandoned those brave words uttered during the election campaign. It has given up, I believe, its position that it could block implementation of the deal. I think we saw the start of that process yesterday in question period.

I do not think we see a government of Ontario leading on this critical national issue. I think we see a government in full retreat in terms of the legal strategy the Premier set forth to the people of this province on so many occasions over the past two years. We see a political strategy in full retreat in the face of current comments today and yesterday and the day before, after the text of the agreement came out; thoughtful comments by leaders in all elements of Canadian life who believe this trade arrangement is good for Canada, good for Canadians and good for every single region of this country.

When the leader of my party, the member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt), was speaking yesterday, I recall he indicated that Donald Macdonald was for this trade arrangement and I can recall the Liberal members heckling him and saying: “He has not even read the deal. How can you say he is in favour of it?” Well, as it so happens, yesterday at 10 a.m., before my leader made his comments, the Canadian Alliance for Trade and Job Opportunities had a press conference, and guess what happened? Peter Lougheed, Donald Macdonald and Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien, all having reviewed the text of this agreement, were even more in favour of the detail of it than they were before. It was an even better deal than they had thought initially, and they put themselves on the record.

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So at the very time that the Liberal members were heckling my leader, in fact he was correct that Donald Macdonald, having examined the text, endorsed the agreement that was reached. So did Peter Lougheed and so have many other representatives of many other important employee and employer groups across this country.

I want to quote from Robert MacIntosh of the Canadian Bankers’ Association: “The final document is a tremendous achievement for Canada. Of course, it is not perfect, and some industries, including the banking industry, may have been asked to give more than they received. But on balance it is good for the Canadian economy and therefore good for the Canadian banks.

“Critics of the deal should tell Canadians what they would do instead. In effect, they are asking Canadians to support them in exposing Canada to the risks of American protectionism without offering any alternative to the free trade deal.”

Stan Wilson, Canadian Cattlemen’s Association: “The US is already Canada’s largest market for food and other agricultural commodities. We have a net trade surplus of $200 million to $300 million in beef and cattle alone. This is not only an opportunity to secure that market but is a powerful example to take to the multinational negotiations on the way world trade should be structured.”

Jean Bélanger, Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association: “The agreement will remove United States tariffs which limit Canadian chemical industry access and expansion into the United States.”

Frank Petrie, Canadian Exporters Association: “Canadian exporters are already out there competing with the best in the world, bringing in 30 per cent of Canadian income; it goes without saying that an agreement which we feel safeguards our existing position and improves our access to the US market has to be of benefit for all Canadians involved in export activity.”

John Bulloch, Canadian Federation of Independent Business: “A bilateral trading agreement with the United States will provide the type of liberalized, secure trading environment which strengthens the ability of small and medium-sized businesses to continue its vital contribution to the Canadian economy in the future.”

Contrast that with the statements of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology today in question period.

Norm Hathaway, Ontario College of Art: “It is imperative in my opinion that we ratify this agreement as soon as possible. I see no danger to our cultural heritage. In fact, I see great doors opening for our young artists, designers, writers and all those involved in the creative arts.”

Ron Daniel, Canadian Institute of Public Real Estate Companies: “The members of the CIPREC welcome the free trade agreement since it will reinforce and facilitate their real estate development activity in the United States. CIPREC members have one half of their $50-billion real estate assets in the United States.”

Laurent Thibault, Canadian Manufacturers’ Association: “The final Canada-United States free trade agreement appears to be fully supportive of the CMA’s fundamental objective of achieving an internationally competitive manufacturing sector.”

Sally Hall, Consumers’ Association of Canada: “Barriers to trade are always paid for by consumers, while producers are the main beneficiary of them. Free trade produces choice and competition and gives consumers real power in the marketplace. Signing the deal will provide positive economic gains for Canada; the deal deserves some support from consumers.”

Norm Clark, Motor Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association: “The Motor Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association member companies expect the Canada-United States free trade agreement to further consolidate the automotive industry in each country as an economic keystone, building upon the mutually beneficial experience under the auto pact.”

George Miller, Mining Association of Canada: “The Canadian mining industry lives by trade. The free trade agreement will help secure access to our most important market by limiting protectionist harassment. We are convinced that the binational dispute settlement mechanism will introduce real discipline in the trade remedy area.”

Al Cormier, Canadian Urban Transit Association: “The Canadian Urban Transit Association views the free trade agreement as an important tool to further liberalize trade in transit equipment and services between the United States and Canada.”

Jalynn Bennett, Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association: “The free trade agreement is, on balance, a significant and positive achievement for the Canadian economy. The primary and highly important benefit to the financial services sector is this: secure and improved access to each other’s markets over the long term. The Canadian industry and its customers will be well served by the agreement.”

Peter Dawes, Canadian Importers Association: “The members of the Canadian Importers Association understand the need to dismantle trade barriers multilaterally, which is why they enthusiastically endorse the Canada-US free trade arrangement as being the first and vital step in making that possible among all nations. This concept has been fully accepted by importers in Canada, even though they may not be importers of US products, as they recognize the value and importance of a strong, more competitive and vibrant economy with more business for everyone resulting from the free trade agreement.”

Graeme Hughes, Information Technology Association of Canada: “The point is, the information technology industry in Canada relies on its capability to freely import some products and to export others, particularly to the US market. The Canada-US trade agreement helps secure and improve this vital market.”

Malcolm Seath, Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association of Canada: “Free trade, coupled with the recent amendments to the Patent Act, will enable many pharmaceutical companies to significantly increase research expenditures, capital spending and finished product export from Canada. Canadian plants may well be responsible for total North American requirements for some product lines.”

John Herrick, Canadian Chamber of Commerce: “We believe that the negotiation process has produced an agreement which, on balance, will preserve and create jobs and offer tangible long-term benefits to Canadian consumers, investors and business in all regions of our country.”

D. M. Adams, Canadian Meat Council: “Our industry has prospered in a close trading relationship with the US and relatively free market access. We do not fear a closer relationship or free access -- we welcome it.”

John Macnamara, Algoma Steel Corp.: “For 20 years the Canadian steel industry has lived under the constant threat of US tariffs. Even the smallest protective US measure will result in layoffs in Canada. I am confident the free trade agreement will stabilize the Canadian industry and will be mutually beneficial to both countries.”

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Bill Boggs, Aerospace Industries Association of Canada: “The free trade agreement recently negotiated between Canada and the United States, based on the present free trade experience of our industry, will undoubtedly be beneficial to most sectors of the Canadian economy.”

So it goes on and on, but I will end with one last quote from Dennis Abernot, president of local 2251, United Steelworkers of America: “I support the section of the free trade agreement that pertains to the articles covering the steel industry. We in the steel industry are the anchor of Sault Ste. Marie’s economy and if protectionism continues in the United States against the Canadian steel industry, we could possibly lose approximately 400 jobs in Sault Ste. Marie.”

Industrial leaders and, business representative after business representative, in the last few days, having examined this agreement, have come on side and so has Frank McKenna, the Liberal Premier of New Brunswick. So now we have a coalition of the federal government, of seven provincial premiers, of virtually every industrial representative and organization in this country openly supporting this free trade agreement, having examined the contents of the document.

Is our Premier leading the charge to a new improved trading relationship with the United States? Is he leading the charge to improve access to the United States market? He is not. He is sitting on the sidelines, with a public agenda versus a private agenda, and allowing the battle to take place over the implementation and the support for this agreement outside of this Legislature.

He does not want a committee to sit until this Legislature has adopted a position on the agreement. He does not want the people to come in and put forward their points of view before the decision has been made here. I say, therefore, he is not leading the debate on this agreement in this country or in this province; nor has he done anything to improve our trading relationship with the United States and access of Canadian products into the US market.

We need economic as well as constitutional leadership in this province. We need leadership that is not just Ontario-based but Canadian-based. We need leadership that is going to reach out to the other provinces, the other regions, the other premiers; to reach out to the federal government which has a mandate of its own; to reach out to the various trade and industrial associations and representatives and, yes, to reach out to the union movement and the representatives of organized labour and take a concrete, specific, positive position.

If the Premier of this province has some concrete, specific ideas about how this agreement can be improved, is it not time we heard those concrete, specific suggestions? Is it not time he tabled a series of specific amendments which he believes are in order to improve this free trade agreement?

We have heard none of that. We have heard no specific proposals for amendments to this agreement and, in fact, this resolution indicates that the government has opted for a course of having this resolution passed, staking out its position and then sitting back and seeing what happens.

My friends should tell that to the bushworkers in Hearst, the waferboard workers in Timmins, the iron ore miners in Timiskaming, the gold miners in Kenora and Red Lake and the Algoma Steel employees in Sault Ste. Marie. They should tell that to the Stelco employees in Hamilton, the beef producers in eastern Ontario and the hog producers in southwestern Ontario. They should tell it to all those who somehow have had their economic lives touched and their economic security undermined by protectionist measures over which they had no remedy and no say.

They should tell it to them, and at the same time they are telling it to them, the government whip, the member for Middlesex (Mr. Reycraft), should read section 1904, paragraph 9. He will find the answer in paragraph 9 to the question he has just posed. It is a binding dispute settlement mechanism. These people who have analysed it say so.

Mr. Reycraft: So are the American courts.

Mr. Pope: My friend does not understand trade law one whit. He should seek the advice of those who are involved in it, not based on a generalized opinion, on a draft treaty, but on the text of this agreement. Yes, this government has tabled two legal opinions. What were the dates of those legal opinions?

Mr. Ballinger: December 17.

Mr. Pope: No, it was not December 17, as a matter of fact.

Mr. Ballinger: We just wanted to see if you were awake.

Mr. Pope: I will tell members what opinions are current: the Fraser and Beatty opinion of December 14 and the Fasken and Calvin opinion of the 14th, both of which undermine and in some aspects contradict or amplify the legal opinion that this government tabled as the final legal opinion before the detail of the trade agreement was even finalized; legal opinions that it has never updated, or if it has updated them, it has never tabled them in this House; legal opinions based on the 35-page draft and not on the detailed text of this agreement.

We saw being made public yesterday two opinions from well-known, respected Toronto law firms which indicate that some of the concerns earlier felt to exist by this government and those who would oppose this deal in fact no longer exist. When we analyse the text of the free trade agreement, many, if not all, of these issues have been resolved, and it is an even better deal than was produced in the original draft that the government sent to its solicitors for an opinion.

If the government members have not made up their minds, if they really want to listen to the debate and if they want to have an informed legal position -- because it has been obvious over the past two days with the speech of the Attorney General and the response of the Premier in here that the government is now just developing an informed legal strategy on this issue -- if the government wants to have an informed legal opinion and informed legal strategy, it should kindly update the opinions based on the actual text of the agreement and it should kindly table them in this Legislature so that they can be examined by everyone who has an interest in this matter.

The Fasken and Calvin opinion and the Fraser and Beatty opinion are public documents now and they indicate to the people of this province -- and they should indicate to the members of this Legislature -- a totally different perception and overview of the benefits and problems of the free trade agreement than we have had produced by this government to date.

I urge members of the Liberal caucus to take the time to read these opinions, because in there they will see, of all things -- I say again to the government whip -- the legal opinion that the dispute settlement mechanism is binding. They will learn that some of the fears that they spread across this province over the past year are groundless. They will see that some of the doubts they cast by way of the competence of the federal government in negotiating this agreement were baseless.

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Is it not time to right the record? Is it not time now to admit by a review of the agreement itself and the legal opinions and listening to the opinions of the leaders of this country in various fields that they should review their position and come on board with the majority of Canadians, the majority of premiers, with virtually every single industrial group in this province? Is it not time for a specific, detailed reassessment of this whole matter, a clearing out of all the rhetoric and all the unfounded concerns that they themselves were the authors of for so many months? Is it not time, and do they not have an obligation to the people of this province to clear these things up?

For instance, I recall it being often stated that a free trade arrangement with the United States would destroy our cultural industries. In fact, was it not one of the six conditions? Is that not funny? It seems to me that in paragraph 2005 that matter is dealt with. Maybe we should just turn to it and we will see what it says. This is why I call upon the government to clear away some of the mystique and the rhetoric it has indulged in over the past two years on this issue. One of the things they were most concerned about was the impact of this agreement on the cultural industries, and here is what it says:

“Cultural industries are exempt from the provisions of this agreement, except as specifically provided in article 401 (tariff elimination), paragraph 4 of article 1607 (divestiture of an indirect acquisition) and articles 2006 and 2007 of this chapter.”

A careful analysis of those provisions and those references indicates that to all intents and purposes “cultural industries are exempt from the provisions of this agreement.” Yet from the outset, they have maintained the position that this agreement will have a detrimental impact on the cultural industries of this country and of Ontario.

I have not seen the Premier or the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology stand up in their places and say, “I wish to report to the people of the province of Ontario and to this Legislature that article 2005 does give protection to cultural industries in this country and in this province.” I have not heard that out of this government. Does it not have an obligation to update the people of the province on the details, on what the trade agreement actually says and means for all Ontarians? I have not seen that and I regret it because, quite frankly, I think it is irresponsible not to do it.

I think it is irresponsible of this government, and it does nothing to further the perception of the rest of this country of the government of Ontario’s position on this matter, that this government will not stand up and clarify these matters and try to eliminate some of the disputes and concerns, to narrow the debate and at the same time give some positive alternatives.

At least the New Democratic Party has put forward some positive alternatives and has indicated in detail the problems it has with this agreement. I have not seen that from this Liberal government of Ontario. Yes, we did have two legal opinions submitted by the government. Of course, Hogan and Hartson was one of them, and now I have the date, for the member who asked for the date of that opinion. The date of that opinion was October 15, well before the text of this trade agreement was finalized, and counter that with the Fasken and Calvin and Fraser and Beatty opinions dated just three days ago.

You will see that the concerns about the legal implications of this agreement and its legal impact on this nation and the industries and businesses and the people of this nation, that issue has evolved but the government’s position has not evolved. It is stuck on October 15 and does not want to move from October 15. It does not want to recognize the reality that this agreement solves many of the concerns that were raised by the Premier of this province and by others across the country over the course of the last two years.

I want to indicate to the members that there are many other issues or aspects of this free trade agreement which I think the government has an obligation to update the people of Ontario on and to update this Legislature on. What exactly went on in those 18 meetings that were held with the co-ordinating committee that was negotiating the details of the free trade agreement with the United States?

Surely the government can find a way to provide the members of this assembly with the documents, the minutes of those meetings, so we can see in fact what private positions the government of Ontario took at various times during these 18 meetings of negotiation of our free trade agreement that the Premier said he did not want and would veto. Surely we have a right to see that information on this most important issue confronting this nation now. Why is there no mechanism available for us to get hold of those documents so we ourselves can examine this matter?

An hon. member: In another three months they’ll be on your side of this issue.

Mr. Pope: That I am not sure of, though I understand what the member is saying. I think I agree with him.

One of the members, speaking on behalf of the Liberal government in this debate -- and there have been Liberals speaking on this matter; it has not just been members of our party or just members of the two opposition parties -- Liberal government members spoke on this issue yesterday and in fact have continued to introduce some myths that I think have to be clarified.

First, that somehow this free trade agreement is unique because provincial laws are subject to it. Can the same member who made that statement explain it to me. Is it not true that by virtue of countervail provisions, by virtue of congressional trade bills, provincial laws and regulations are impacted? Is it not true that it was the stumpage rates and crown dues charged on softwood lumber that led to a countervail application in the United States in 1985? Is it not true that the government of Ontario, in its letter of September 26, 1986, recognized the problem and offered to increase its levies on the forest products industries?

Is it not true, therefore, that the government of Ontario took a policy position, changed its regulations and its programs because of the impact of United States law, even in the absence of a free trade agreement? Is it not true that the countervail provisions of United States law have always had an impact on provincial law, on Canadian law, on our economic well-being, on jobs in different parts of this province and this country? Who is the government kidding?

When we have such a dependence on one market, and in the absence of any efforts by this government to develop multinational trade patterns, when we have that dependence which is a reality of life, domestic law in that jurisdiction will always have an impact. That does not mean the Americans and individual American petitioners who feel there are subsidies in Canada, are out to undermine provincial law or Canadian sovereignty. It means they feel they have been harmed and they want to exercise a constitutional right under their laws to end the harm. In so doing, in this international world that we live in, you impact on other jurisdictions’ laws, regulations and programs.

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There is nothing new in that. The free trade agreement does not change that. It has always been the case among trading nations. It has been the reality in this world for 200 years that laws in one jurisdiction will affect laws in another if there is any kind of relationship between the two jurisdictions, economic or otherwise. It has always been that way, and a free trade agreement does nothing to diminish or increase that.

If they say it does, where is their proof? We have not seen it yet. That is just one of the myths that has been perpetuated in this assembly by the Liberal government members in this debate.

The other myth is that the provinces do not have access to US courts. Of course they do. Any interest has standing in any trade dispute. It always has been and always will be a recognition in any jurisdiction that those affected by a ruling have standing vis-à-vis the countervail discussions or findings of the International Trade Commission or the Secretary of Commerce’s final determination or court applications.

If provincial governments do not have access to US courts, what was the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) doing in New York state last year? I do not accept that concept that was put forward yesterday by a Liberal spokesman in this debate.

I want to indicate also that there has been other discussion about alternatives. I say to those who say there are better alternatives, produce them in the same concrete, specific form as this trade agreement that is before us. Yes, I will admit that the New Democratic Party has produced some specific alternatives on a commodity-by-commodity, industry-by-industry basis, but this government that wishes us to reject this agreement has not.

It has a civil service. It has the expertise within its employees to develop and present to this assembly a specific concrete alternative. We await, during the course of this debate, this government standing up and tabling that kind of concrete, specific alternative in the same kind of detail that the free trade agreement has been developed in, with the participation of this government of Ontario.

The other myth is that somehow we are operating only on the Americans’ timetable. My friends, we are the ones, in this country, who have been and continue to be detrimentally affected by congressional trade bills. We are the ones who are affected by quotas, by countervail and by other nontariff barriers.

Ask the potash producers. Ask the iron ore miners. Ask the softwood lumber companies and workers. Ask the copper and zinc miners. Ask the flower producers. Ask the hog producers. Ask the beef and cattle producers whether they have not been impacted detrimentally when there has not been some economic loss, some job loss, some devastation of one-industry communities across this province because of these trade matters.

Therefore, is it not our timetable? Is it not our timetable to bring all that to an end and have some dispute settlement mechanism and some arrangement that will give us better, less impeded access to the American market?

Is it not in the interests of the people of Hearst and of Kapuskasing, with its pulp and paper mill? Is it not in the interests of Cochrane, with its sawmill? Is it not in the interests of the people of Timmins, with their waferboard plant, their three sawmills, their gold mines, their copper and zinc mines? Is it not in the interests of the people of Hornepayne, of Manitouwadge, of Terrace Bay, of Thunder Bay, of Red Lake, of Kenora, of Dryden? Is it not to the benefit of the people of Owen Sound and Bruce county? Is it not to the benefit of the people of the Niagara region who are involved in the cut flower industry? Is it not to the benefit of the cattle producers of eastern Ontario?

Is it not their timetable to immediately resolve these issues that have so dramatically, and in some cases tragically, affected them?

We saw what happened with the softwood lumber issue. We saw the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology of the day get to his feet and say 500 jobs would be lost in northern Ontario. That was the government’s estimate, not mine. There would be 500 jobs lost in northern Ontario, let alone the jobs lost in eastern Ontario in Renfrew county because of the softwood lumber issue. Is it not in their best interests? Is it not their timetable to resolve these problems? I say it is.

To those who say our real choice is between bilateral trading arrangements versus multinational trading relationships, I say there is no such option. Do you end all exports to the United States so you can develop export products which will allow you to supply multinational trading partners? Who will pay for the dislocation? Who will pay for the job losses?

Of course, multinational trading relationships are preferable, but you do not end any bilateral trading relationship if it is to the benefit of your workers and your economy. You carry on and try and augment it. You try and diversify it by getting other commitments and access to other markets. That should be the obligation, keeping the bilateral trading relationship strong, improving the climate so that even more goods and more economic benefits can flow, and at the same time developing the other relationships.

The other myth, I find, is a statement made yesterday that the United States will always need our resources. Those who believe that should go to Louisiana, South Carolina and North Carolina and see the forestry programs now under way in those states. They should walk among the stands of 30-foot and 40-foot pine grown in 15 and 20 years when it takes us 120. They should go and see the road access into those stands close to mills, when our producers must travel tens and sometimes hundreds of miles to go out and harvest the timber and get it back to the mill.

They should look at the proximity of those producing industries in the resource sector to the major markets in the United States, when we have to travel thousands of miles by rail and truck to get that access. They should ask themselves, “Can we really depend for ever on the United States as our only source of resource exports?” Of course, we cannot. No one who supports this agreement would ever say that. Nor should we assume the Americans will always say, whatever the conditions may be, however arbitrary or nationalistic, “We will do whatever Canada tells us because we need its resources.” That is not always going to be the case.

Ask the iron ore miners of this province what happened when pressure was put on the steel producers of this province. Ask them about the sourcing of iron ore from outside the province and the problems the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) and others in this assembly had with those kinds of issues.

There are mineral and forest product resources in the United States that are being developed and have as much potential as our own resource products. We still have to compete. We still have to have improved access. We still have to prevent the economic interests in the United States from bringing countervail application after countervail application and congressional bill after congressional bill, trying to keep us out.

That is the real need of the resource sector of this province, as I see it, and of this country. It is the same for agricultural products. I would be the last to say there are not some commodities we have some concerns about. Of course, we do. What we have to have is a review, commodity by commodity, of those who benefit and those who do not, and decide what we are going to do to help those who do not.

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How can we improve the trading relationship within or outside of the context of this trading agreement? Surely we have an obligation to all commodity producers in this province to do that kind of detailed examination, to table that kind of detailed study. The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association supports the deal, and I believe the beef producers do. The hog producers do too, with all the problems they have had with access to the American market through nontariff barriers and tariff barriers. Certainly the people involved in the flower industry want this agreement because of their dependency on an American market.

But there are others who have some genuine concerns. Part of those concerns were addressed in the agreement itself. In spite of the fears and the general concerns, marketing boards and marketing mechanisms are protected. They are allowed to continue. What we have to do, therefore. is have a realistic and detailed debate in this assembly with the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell) participating and putting all this detailed information on the record.

We must not presume that we can do whatever we want unilaterally because the Americans will always want our product and will always need our resources. Instead, we must make sure that we always have access to the American market, that we always have the ability to compete fairly on equal terms. I have confidence in the ability of the working people of this province, in their productivity, their ingenuity and their hard work. We will always compete. In spite of our geographical limitations, in spite of our distances from market, in spite of a number of other issues that uniquely confront us as Canadians, I have confidence that we will always compete.

One of the other myths, as I call them, which this government has to share some responsibility for and which the Premier made one of the six conditions, was a concern about energy. I want to refer the members of this House to an analysis done in yesterday’s London Free Press. I know the Premier will be reading it this weekend. The London Free Press headline is, “Energy Sections of Trade Deal Not as Harmful to Canada as Claimed.” The article by Carol Goar says:

“Continental energy market. It is a troubling phrase. Of all the provisions in the free trade deal that Canada and the United States are proposing, the energy section is the most unsettling. It is also the most widely misunderstood.

“That is why it is such a relief to have the legal text of the agreement at last. Now we can clear away the rhetoric and the conjecture and find out what it really means to have a free flow of energy across the US border.

“But first, it may be necessary to correct some false impressions.” Now, I wonder who left those?

I refer you to those first three paragraphs and I will get on to the rest of it, Mr. Speaker, because this writer clearly indicates that, now that we have the text of the agreement, it is time to put aside the rhetoric and the conjecture and examine the detail of the agreement itself. Her conclusion is that it is now necessary to correct some false impressions of what the impact of this agreement is on the energy needs and supplies of Canada now and in the future.

I want to preface this part of my address by saying I believe when the Premier of this province is talking about energy, he is really discussing gas and oil, natural gas and oil products, much of which is exported from western Canada. It is interesting to note that, in an area I believe the Premier would say is exclusively within provincial jurisdiction, even though we no longer have a national energy program, and a matter of natural resources, clearly within the provincial jurisdiction, oil and natural gas, the Premier is representing the producing provinces -- not that Ontario is not a producing province -- but the major producing provinces of this country endorse the free trade agreement. It is their resource under provincial jurisdiction. They have responsibilities and obligations to the people of their province to develop resource policies for oil and natural gas, and they favour this agreement.

We in Ontario are talking about their resource. We are talking about oil and natural gas from Saskatchewan, which is within the provisions and within the jurisdiction of the government of Saskatchewan under the Constitution, and oil and natural gas in Alberta, which is within the jurisdiction of the government of Alberta under the Constitution. They support this trade agreement because they want access to the American market for their resource products.

In that context, therefore, let us continue with the discussion on the energy sections of the trade deal:

“Press reports for the past two months have speculated, in the absence of any solid information, that a continental energy market would mean Canada would have to open its energy storehouse to the United States. Even in times of short supply, it was suggested, the US would have guaranteed access to Canadian energy supplies. It is not quite that simple or that sinister.

“First, Canada is under no obligation to supply energy to the United States. Private energy producers can sell to whomever they want. Presumably, many will take advantage of the impediment-free access to the United States market envisaged in the deal, and this will increase the cross-border flow of oil, gas and hydro sales.”

By the way, I believe that is one of the main reasons Premier Bourassa, the Liberal Premier of Quebec, supports this deal. He understands that it will lead to an increase of cross-border flow of oil, gas and hydro sales to the United States market.

“But the agreement does not create a continental energy market. It lifts the restrictions that were preventing one from developing.

“Secondly, the Canadian government is not guaranteeing the Americans access to our energy supplies. It is allowing them into the market on the same footing as Canadian buyers.

“Finally, Ottawa is not giving up all of its control over Canadian energy supplies. The federal government still has the right to limit energy consumption for reasons of conservation, domestic price stability or short supply.”

So the wholesale sellout is not there, and any analysis of the trade agreement would lead to those conclusions. Maybe it is time the Liberal government of this province provided a detailed analysis of this agreement and its impact on the energy industry of this country instead of the rhetoric we have had over the past two years.

I would also like to turn to another myth with respect to the auto pact. Again, the leader of my party in question period today developed the argument with respect to this issue. Yes, the Premier of this province and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology may feel they have more expertise than the presidents of Chrysler Canada Ltd., Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. and General Motors of Canada Ltd. on matters involving automotive manufacturing and assembly in this country. They may feel they have more expertise than these individuals or those in their corporate organizations, but somehow I doubt it. Therefore, I do attach some credibility to their statement that in fact the auto pact is stronger now as a result of this agreement.

Now, Liberals may disagree because they have invested so much time perpetuating the myth that the auto pact would be devastated by the free trade agreement. As I say, the Premier may feel he has more expertise than these gentlemen, but somehow I doubt it. So even on the auto pact issue, the evidence is becoming clearer and clearer that it is not the wholesale gutting or devastation of the auto pact that we were led to believe.

I say to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology: If he wishes to adopt a position based on a future auto industry which has parts made abroad, not by Canadians, brought into this country and assembled and put on the Canadian market, in my respectful opinion that too is not the only element of the auto industry in this country that we should be looking to or protecting.

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My interest, and the interest of our party, is in having the manufacturing and assembly of automotive parts and automobiles in this province and in this country with Canadian labour because we think they are the best in the world. We think they can compete and we think they can compete under this auto pact, under the previous auto pact and under any new, revised arrangement with the United States or with any other country. We think they have the experience and the ability to produce a superior product at a competitive price. We are not afraid of the challenge and we think the auto workers of this province can compete and will compete in the future.

I wanted to mention briefly to the Premier that when he went to Sudbury and indicated that the free trade agreement had nothing in it for the north, he showed a profound lack of understanding of the past history of the problems of the resource sector in getting access to the American market. He showed a profound ignorance of the unemployment problems of the Sudbury region, which he claims he can do nothing about. He showed that he did not understand the problems of the bushworkers in Hornepayne who have been laid off as a result of the softwood lumber duty, export tax. He showed that he did not understand the problems of communities like Thunder Bay and their desire to get access to the American market. He showed he did not understand the mood or the challenges of the people of northern Ontario.

I think, on reflection, the Premier must state, as most Ontarians and most northerners know, that on balance, this deal is good for northern Ontario and for the resource sector. He must state that, because I believe it to be the case.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: Is that why he should say it?

Mr. Pope: No. Because I also believe it is true; and most northerners feel it is true, by the way. Even the United Steelworkers of America in Sault Ste. Marie believe it is true with respect to their industry.

Mr. Mackenzie: Some of them.

Mr. Pope: Yes, including their spokesman. So I say to the Premier that I do not believe that the north or those to whom he looks for advice in the north are of the same opinion as he is with respect to the impact of this agreement on northern Ontario.

I want to start with someone whom the Premier asked to do a special report on the economic problems of northern Ontario. It is Dean Rosehart, president of Lakehead University. Remember that name? Dean Rosehart. Those who were here from 1985 to 1987 will remember that name. He was one of the key advisers to the Premier in the developing of new strategies for this government in northern Ontario. Guess what Robert Rosehart says about the free trade agreement: It is good for northern Ontario. A direct contradiction to the Premier. It is good for the people of northern Ontario.

I want to quote from, I think, a very good publication in northern Ontario and one that is now widely read. It is called Northern Ontario Business. I have to say by way of background to Lord Fleet of Swansea that this publication has been rather generous to the Liberal Party of Ontario. It was willing to give this Premier and this government the benefit of the doubt. In fact, the results showed on September 10 that people wanted to support this government in northern Ontario. Fortunately, I was not part of all of that, but I have to admit that it is true. The member for Mississauga West (Mr. Mahoney) is worried about this.

I want to quote from an article in this eminent journal in northern Ontario that the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) regularly advertises himself in. This is the editorial page of Northern Ontario Business, and for all those who want to get it for themselves, I would urge them to get it because it does give a good overview of economic activity and economic issues in northern Ontario.

The editorial page in the edition of November 1987 says this: “Premier Lets Us Down on Trade.”

“Premier David Peterson is doing us a disservice this month.

“His wishy-washy response to the Canada-US free trade pact is a regression to the typical Canadian reaction to these things. As in the past, we are to be so irrationally afraid of the Americans that we cannot think clearly or well about our roles in the real world of today.

“Faced with a choice of firmly opposing the accord or embracing its possibilities, Peterson chose to do neither. He has been lukewarm about the negotiations since the beginning, neither supporting them actively nor seeking to halt them. Now that we have an accord of sorts in hand, he has said he opposes it. At the same time, he is unwilling to go about the country giving the rest of us the benefit of his inside knowledge about the Ontario economy.

“He is neither cleanly for it or against it. Presumably, he will simply sit on it -- sullen and recalcitrant -- until it dies an unnatural death.

“Peterson’s squeamishness has angered opponents of the free trade deal and disappointed those who see it as vital to this country’s trading future. He has pleased no one. Worse, he has contradicted the very values that Ontario residents -- particularly northerners -- have come to associate with both the man and his government. His stand makes a mockery of the economic challenge he has thrown to us in northern Ontario. It lacks any of the courage he has expressed on other occasions. It undermines his oft repeated arguments that Ontario can compete as a world-class province on the global economic stage. It is a close-faced, stubborn, backward-looking response from a province that has come to pride itself on its openness, its resilience and its willingness to embrace the future.

“Later this month, Premier David Peterson or one of his senior ministers will be in Thunder Bay at what used to be called the premier’s conference. He or his representative will urge us northerners to become more entrepreneurial, to break out of the shell of dependency and create our own future. He’ll challenge us to take risks, to dare to be better than we have ever been in the past. He’ll tell us, truthfully, that we must look within ourselves for growth and that we must have faith in our own ability to compete on this new world business stage.

“We will agree, of course, and applaud. Then we will try to live up to his vision of us.

“Sadly, for all of us in this province, the Premier’s shining vision -- as necessary and as true as it is --will lack a core. By embracing the comfortable old Canadian cocoon of fear and distrust, Premier Peterson has shown he hasn’t heeded his own words.

“He has taken refuge from the challenge and turned his back on the future. The province’s entrepreneurial spirit has been diminished as a result.”

In my readings over the past number of weeks, I think that sums up the kind of feeling I have heard from northerners with respect to the performance of this Premier and this government on a very vital issue. Yes, those in this assembly can sit comfortably, stick with the status quo, attempt to bicker with the Americans for some amendment of a US law. Yes, we can try and take our challenges and our problems to the US courts, but when we do so from this comfortable chamber in this great municipality with a low unemployment rate, let us remember that we are talking for the unemployed bushworkers, the miners and the pulp and paper workers in northern Ontario whose future is most at stake as we sit in comfort down here and make these decisions that dramatically and directly affect their lives.

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They may be smug and think it is just a theoretical issue, but in many parts of this province its impact is direct and dramatic. It means the loss of a job. It means no income for a family. A Liberal member can sit there and smile, but with his performance and his government’s performance on softwood lumber, that is exactly what happened to the bushworkers of northern Ontario. They did not hire a single one of them through a single provincial government program. The Liberals sat down here in their smugness while 500 people were out of work, while 500 families had no economic support and they did not give one of them a job through any provincial job creation program. They sit there smugly as the north and the resource sector are exposed, first and foremost, because of their dependence on the US market.

The fact of the matter is that it is the northerners, the people in the resource industries, the farmers, the people of eastern Ontario, and yes, the auto workers at General Motors, Chrysler and Ford who the Minister of Industry Trade and Technology thinks are not as important as the Asian manufacturers, who suffer the consequences of our abstract debate and theoretical discussions in this chamber. It is the people in the resource-dependent regions that get it first.

Even the Premier of this province said so when he spoke on March 31 of this year to the Ontario Mining Association. He said: “The status quo, I know, is intolerable. I know it is the resource sector that gets hit first. I know it is the resource sector that is the primary target of US protectionism.”

Noble words. What did he do about it? What has he done about it? There is a free trade agreement. It will help to resolve these matters. If he does not think it is any good, what is he going to propose to protect those jobs, those families and those communities across this province? Where is it? Where is a positive solution, not a negative resolution. Where is the positive solution to address the human and economic problems the people of this province face, because they are by essence and Canadians are by essence an exporting nation.

That will not change because the Premier wills it. That will not change because a union leader thinks it is wrong. We are an exporting nation; that is our history. We depend on access to markets. Canadian after Canadian and province after province will feel the brunt if we fail to secure that access, if we fail to improve the trading relationship with our most important partner.

My friends, these issues are not theoretical. They are not abstract. They deal with my constituents. They deal with the constituents of my friend from Windsor. They deal with the constituents in this great Metropolitan Toronto region because here the head offices of the resource companies are located. Here thousands upon thousands of Torontonians get their jobs and their economic livelihood as a result of the resource sector. Here new technology is developed for the resource industries, and in Sudbury and in many other centres in this province. Here research facilities are manned. Here we train the technicians in colleges and universities who depend for their livelihood on the health and expansion of the resource sector of this country. It does not involve just a bushworker in Hearst; it involves every single Ontarian.

If one bushworker in Hearst loses his job, we are all the lesser for it. Ultimately, we all will suffer economically because of it. Yet this government, when it faced the significant challenge with respect to softwood lumber, had a public agenda and a private one. There was an increase of $30 million in charges and levies on the forest products industry which exactly matched the allocation given to Ontario to resolve the softwood lumber dispute. It was not an accidental figure. It matched it exactly.

Then we had the Premier in January of this year announcing in Sudbury that the $30 million they had agreed to levy would be used to train laid-off resource workers who were in tough economic times, who did not have a job because of the softwood lumber matter. Four months later, he reannounced the same $30 million for a northern Ontario heritage fund and dropped his plan to help those laid-off workers -- four months later.

Were we to have a debate on interim supply, I say to the government House leader (Mr. Conway), my first question would be: If they are so concerned about the resource sector, how are they protecting it from US protectionism? If they are so concerned about the people of northern Ontario, they should transfer that $30 million out of the general revenue fund to a special bank account in northern Ontario where it can be accessed as it should be. They should set the guidelines for a northern Ontario heritage fund and actually disburse their first dollar out of it.

If they are really concerned about these economic issues, they should take some concrete measures and not sit down here in a cocoon and think that because there are trade problems in northern Ontario, they can be dealt with by some negotiation in Washington and that will be the end of their obligation to the people and the families that are affected. It is not so, and my leader would say it is not so.

I also want to indicate I am not satisfied with the detail of the studies or their justification, because I think they are more justification than studies, quite frankly. I want to express my concern with the justification and the detail of the justification, or I should say the lack of it, with respect to the province’s position on this matter. We have seen an examination of the sectoral and regional sensitivity of Ontario manufacturing industries to tariff reductions. That has been one study. We have seen a document called The Free Trade Agreement and Women. That is another document.

My friends, if that is the evidence they rely upon to vote against this free trade agreement, and if they relied on two-month-old legal opinions before the text was even finalized, I say they are not doing their duty to the people of this province. There is an obligation on a sector-by-sector, commodity-by-commodity, region-by-region basis to provide the detailed information to convince the people of this province and this House that we should reject the deal and there is an obligation to provide the alternative and tell us how it would be put in place through negotiation.

So I call upon the Liberal members in their caucus meeting next week and the week after to discuss this matter with the Premier and those in authority in the executive council of this government, to ask them to table more precise information and to ask them to make available to us as members of this assembly and the people of Ontario the kind of detailed information we need.

All we can rely upon in the absence of that information are the opinions of those who have expertise in their own fields of economic endeavour, who have expertise in their own businesses, who speak for their trade associations and industrial groups and who are almost unanimously in favour of this free trade agreement. I say “almost” because I realize that the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and some agricultural commodity groupings are not in support for very specific reasons.

But in the absence of the kind of detailed analysis that is needed, I think we have to rely upon the opinions of those who know, those who are carrying on business, those who are in the export market. I say on the basis of all the information available, all the opinions that I have read into the record, that it is clear a vast majority of those spokesmen think this is the preferable course of action.

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I want to call upon this government to remove the myths, to give us the detailed reasons why they still have some concern about our loss of control over our energy resources; give us detailed reasons as to why they still think the auto pact has been gutted; give us detailed reasons about how this agreement erodes our sovereignty any more than any trading relationship or any exporting dependency erodes sovereignty; give us detailed information about how our cultural industries are still at risk. I noted today that the Minister of Culture and Communications (Ms. Munro) started the first step in a retreat away from that argument.

If the six conditions are still there, how are they still there? What detail in the text of this agreement indicates that those concerns have not been resolved? If they have been resolved, admit it now before the vote. Do not start a slow process, the way the Minister of Culture and Communications did today, and say, “Really it is dealt with, but we still have perhaps some lingering concerns,” or “We do not know what is going to happen if it all works out.” That is not an adequate answer when there are many others out there who need this kind of arrangement to secure an economic future for themselves.

My region of the province was established some 75 years ago to process resources, to export them to foreign markets. That is its raison d’être. That was why northeastern Ontario was developed.

Today, yes, we are a changed economic society. We have modern transportation systems and we have centralization of transportation services and facilities in northeastern Ontario. We have much improvement by way of communications systems, telephone systems, many secondary industries now established, many service industries and governmental agencies and services now established. Things have changed for the better, and all members of this assembly, of this government and of previous governments have had a role to play in making things better. But there is still a basic economic need that all Ontarians have, and that is to continue to reinforce the base of our economy, to continue to secure market access.

We have seen this Premier, with respect to this agreement in the last two years, go through almost a complete about-face from veto, refusal to implement, to the beginnings of implementation under the guise of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade with respect to domestic wines, to opening up and doing the same thing by unilateral government action with respect to the securities industry in this province. We have seen a step-by-step approach, or étapisme, to this complex matter. It may be the strategy of the Premier to go step by step, commodity by commodity, business by business, but if so, say so and indicate to the people of the province what we can expect in the future.

One of the very important newspapers in northern Ontario is the North Bay Nugget. It has quoted -- and I notice that other members of the assembly have this document -- “North Gets Nothing from Free Trade Agreement: Peterson.” That was the article I was referring to earlier. A North Bay Nugget editorial of December 9 of this year had a very good analysis of it:

“One thing is sure about the free trade deal: Very few Canadians will ever completely understand it. It is reputed to comprise 1,000 pages, which, if single spaced, means half a million words. It will be as incomprehensible as the income tax regulations, which not many accountants admit to understanding. But Canadians owe it to themselves not to panic.

“They should at least look at it from an American perspective before assuming the Americans are trying to destroy this nation. The Americans see the wine industry, Bob White and the auto workers, John Turner, Ed Broadbent and a host of others all hammering at free trade. For every Canadian who is worried, upset or angry, there is sure to be an American. And the American negotiators have to consider their own backyard, just as much as do the Canadians.

“This agreement covers billions of dollars in trade. Canadians don’t panic when great commercial companies spend months, even years, in long, painful negotiations before agreeing to a new commercial relationship. Canadians have to look at this agreement as best they can. They have to hope that the provincial premiers will be cautious and pragmatic and do the best for Canada.

“Above all else, Canadians have to retain an open mind. It may be the best thing since sliced bread or the worst, but it is too important for emotion or prejudice. There is only one question: Taking everything into consideration, is it a good deal for Canada or not?”

I urge my friends in the governing party, the Liberal Party of Ontario, to approach this issue and this process that we embarked on starting on Tuesday of this week with caution and pragmatism, allowing for all to have their say prior to taking a decision on this matter.

This debate need not be going on now. There were other options for this government to pursue. There was a clear understanding that this matter would be discussed in committee and a clear understanding that some decisions would be made there, after all the evidence is heard, and reported back to this House; and that then, after thoughtful debate on the committee report, a final vote on a resolution position would be taken.

I say, what is the hurry? What is the hidden timetable? Was it the fact that the Premier wanted this resolution today to slap on the table at the first ministers’ meeting? Is it that he wants it by January 2 to throw on the table as the deal is being signed? And is that in the national interest? Does that help the process of nation building and conciliation?

What is the agenda? What is the time frame and why? Surely the Liberal government has an obligation to explain that, not only to us in this House but also to the people of Ontario.

l wanted to go on to the next topic, and that is whether or not the tribunal, or the dispute-resolving mechanism, is as it has been projected to be over the past few months. I want to refer members to article 1904 of the agreement, if members have their books. It is on page 273. When members are examining article 1904 --

Mr. Black: Oh, you’re going to read the whole thing.

Mr. Pope: The member wants me to read the whole thing because he does not have his book. OK. Point one, for the member who wants me to read it into the record because he does not have his book here -- he should have it here when this debate is going on; he should have the text of the agreement here if he is going to debate this matter.

Mr. Wiseman: They’re not interested.

Mr. Pope: OK, but for his benefit, paragraph 1 says:

“As provided in this article, the parties shall replace judicial review of final antidumping and countervailing duty determinations with binational panel review.”

The old system under countervail, under antidumping law, was a process entirely within the control of the American Department of Commerce, the International Trade Commission in the United States and, if need be, the federal courts of the United States. That is now being replaced with a binational panel, which will review final antidumping and countervailing duty determinations.

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Paragraph 2 says:

“Either party may request that a panel review, based upon the administrative record, a final antidumping or countervailing duty determination of a competent investigating authority of either party to determine whether such determination was in accordance with the antidumping or countervailing duty law of the importing party.”

I think the next sentence is particularly important. I want to read it into the record because it is not the same as the interpretation that was given by the mayor of Sault Ste. Marie yesterday.

“For this purpose, the antidumping or countervailing duty law consists of the relevant statutes” -- yes, that is true -- “legislative history, regulations, administrative practice and judicial precedents to the extent that a court of the importing party would rely on such materials in reviewing a final determination of the competent investigating authority. Solely for purposes of the panel review provided for in this article, the antidumping and countervailing duty statutes of the parties, as those statutes may be amended from time to time, are incorporated into this agreement.”

The understanding that many now have, having examined the wording of this agreement, is that it is not just the laws of the United States or Canada that are relevant, but also precedent, administrative processes and criteria on decision making.

I want to give an example, because I think that is an important and significant issue. It is not just the United States countervail laws or trade laws that are applicable; it is also the principles, the criteria and the regulations.

Where it would have made a difference, to give one example only, is with respect to -- maybe I will give two examples. Anyway, the first one is with respect to softwood lumber. If the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) were here he might correct me, but my understanding of this, having been through this once before in another incarnation as Minister of Natural Resources in 1983, is that the Americans, in their last countervail application involving Ontario softwood lumber, determined that there was a subsidy -- I think maybe even the Speaker will correct me if I am wrong -- being given by the provincial governments vis-à-vis crown dues and stumpage charges, and because of that subsidy there was harm. There was economic benefit to the Canadian producer and that resulted in harm to the American producer. Because the American producer could prove harm, he was able to proceed to the next stage of the countervail application.

The investigation that took place at the International Trade Commission was flawed. I believe that was the position of the government of Ontario in its legal submission in Washington. It was flawed because the only comparison to crown dues and stumpage charges in this jurisdiction was a private land sale in New Brunswick.

What I am saying is that I believe that kind of determination, that comparison of New Brunswick private-land-sale timber with crown, dues-for-Ontario-crown timber, which we objected to as being inherently foolish and really not in accordance with any known procedures or principles of economic calculation or determination on trade matters, would not be allowed. That would be precisely one of the matters that the binational panel would have the ability to review.

Mr. Reycraft: They’d be struck down by the courts.

Mr. Pope: I want to talk about that, because the government whip is saying it would be struck down. This is an important issue. The government whip is quite right; this is one of the concerns that the Premier and his government enunciated over the past two years, that somehow the binational panel finding would be nonbinding, that somehow it could be reviewed in a court of law and struck down, that court of law could be in Washington, DC, or in some other American jurisdiction and that therefore we had no protection from the extraterritorial application of United States law to Canadians and Canadian products.

Paragraph 9 of the same article, 1904, indicates:

“The decision of a panel under this article shall be binding on the parties with respect to the particular matter between the parties that is before the panel.”

Now it is binding; it is binding on both nations. This is where these legal opinions are very important. I am going to table the legal opinions because they are very important. This is where the legal opinions come into play, because it now is binding; it now has the force of law it did not have or was suspected not to have before the final text was negotiated.

I know that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology agrees with me on that and that he agrees with Fasken and Calvin and Fraser and Beatty in their opinions dated December 14 which were tabled yesterday.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: No, I don’t.

Mr. Pope: He is shaking his head that he does not. I want to say to the minister, I respect that. Will he kindly table the documentation, other than the October 14 Hogan opinion that was not based on this text, the additional legal opinions he has to support that position. I think we have a right to see them and he has an obligation to produce them. If he disagrees with Fasken and Calvin’s opinion and Fraser and Beatty’s opinion, he should table the documents now. That will become part of this debate. We will have time to examine these documents and opinions. We will have time to deal with these kinds of issues.

I want to continue on because I know my friend does not have the text there. I want to go to paragraph 3:

“The panel shall apply the standard of review described in article 1911 and the general legal principles that a court of the importing party otherwise would apply to a review of a determination of the competent investigating authority. “

In other words, the antidumping or review panel has the same context as a court of law.

Paragraph 4:

“A request for a panel shall be made in writing to the other party within 30 days following the date of publication of the final determination in question in the Federal Register or the Canada Gazette. In the case of final determinations that are not published in the Federal Register or the Canada Gazette, the importing party shall immediately notify the other party of such final determination where it involves a good from the other party, and the other party may request a panel within 30 days of receipt of such notice.”

Now not only do we have a binational panel process, and not only do we have what would be called, I guess, a quasi-judicial process, but we now also have notice provisions, not only with respect to final determinations that are listed in the Federal Register or the Canada Gazette but also in any other final determination.

“Where the competent investigating authority of the importing party has imposed provisional measures in an investigation, the other party may provide notice of its intention to request a panel under this article, and the parties shall begin to establish a panel at that time. Failure to request a panel within the time specified in this paragraph shall preclude review by a panel.”

The process has to be expeditious in terms of giving notice and it has to be expeditious in terms of starting the panel process.

Paragraph 5:

“Either party on its own initiative may request review of a final determination by a panel and shall, upon request of a person who would otherwise be entitled under the law of the importing party to commence domestic procedures for judicial review of a final determination, request such review.”

What that does is embody the right of every individual Canadian and every individual American to request, when he is affected by these trade matters, to request that his nation act on his behalf. I respectfully believe that includes provinces, so I do think the provinces have a status and a role they did not have before.

“The panel shall conduct its review in accordance with the procedures established by the parties pursuant to paragraph 14. Where both parties request a panel to review a final determination, a single panel shall review that determination.”

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Paragraph 7: “The competent investigating authority” --

Interjection.

Mr. Pope: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I appreciated your guidance on that.

“The competent investigating authority that issued the final determination in question shall have the right to appear and be represented by counsel before the panel. Each party shall provide that other persons who, pursuant to the law of the importing party, otherwise would have had standing to appear and be represented in a domestic judicial review proceeding concerning the determination of the competent investigating authority, shall have the right to appear and be represented by counsel before the panel.”

Not only are the two nations involved in this binational panel, not only does each individual economic interest or each individual or corporate entity have the right to request a binational panel, but even if they did not request this panel, they also have a right to be present, to be represented by counsel; to have standing in the processes of the binational panel.

Paragraph 8:

“The panel may uphold a final determination, or remand it for action not inconsistent with the panel’s decision. Where the panel remands a final determination, the panel shall establish as brief a time as is reasonable for compliance with the remand, taking into account the complexity of the facts and legal issues involved and the nature of the panel’s decision. In no event shall the time permitted for compliance with a remand exceed an amount of time equal to the maximum amount of time (counted from the date of the filing of a petition, complaint or application) permitted by statute for the competent investigating authority in question to make a final determination in an investigation. If review of the action taken by the competent investigating authority on remand is needed, such review shall be before the same panel, which shall issue a final decision within 90 days of the date on which such remand action is submitted to it.”

Then paragraph 9 fits into this context, and it is the most important paragraph of this article:

“The decision of a panel under this article shall be binding on the parties with respect to the particular matter between the parties that is before the panel.”

It is binding. I believe, subject to other legal interpretations, that answers the concerns I heard in this assembly --

Interjection.

Mr. Pope: Fasken and Calvin and Fraser and Beatty disagree. They indicate --

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: Blake, Cassels disagrees with that.

Mr. Pope: Blake, Cassels has not done a review of this agreement, and if it has, why has the minister not tabled it?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: Just because you haven’t seen it, that doesn’t mean --

Mr. Harris: You have more secret information. That’s exactly the problem around here.

Mr. Pope: The Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology has now admitted he has a legal opinion that analyses this text in his possession which he has not provided to this assembly, and yet he wants us to vote for or against this resolution on the basis of two legal opinions -- the only ones he has given to us -- dated October 14.

I say to the minister, in a kind way, he has an obligation to put it all on the table; he has to put it all on the table. This is an important issue. He has made it an important issue. It was the issue he ran the election campaign on. It is going to affect Ontario, according to his own words, for decades. He has an obligation to provide all the information he has.

I understand his reluctance. He had an obligation not to disclose the minutes or the documents from those 18 co-ordinating committee meetings. I understand that. He explained it very well in estimates. But if he has other documents, surely he has an obligation to put them on the table. Let us review them.

I say that because, before the minister came in, I indicated that I would table the Fasken and Calvin and Fraser and Beatty opinions, which I presume the minister has seen. I think all members have the right to see that kind of information when they are trying to make up their minds, because there are two very different legal interpretations floating around. Somehow, we have to have the ability to assess them. Those legal interpretations perhaps form the basis of some of the opinions that are being expressed by representatives of various groups and organizations in this province.

We have to have some information and an informed debate on this. It cannot just be an emotional reaction to a resolution, not when we are dealing with something of this magnitude. That has been our problem with this whole rush to get the resolution through before we had time to see all of the documents.

That is why we went to the estimates of his ministry last week. In the estimates, the member for Carleton (Mr. Sterling) asked on a number of occasions and in a number of different ways about the kinds of information the minister had available, and so did I, because we need to get it all out there and we need to examine it all.

Before the minister came in, I was reading expressions of opinion from about 20 to 25 industrial leaders or representatives in this province who in the last two days have expressed their opinions on this matter. I think it is important when we make a decision that we have all that information, and I really regret that the government has not provided it.

In fact, I can say to the minister that we did not know he had these additional opinions until he indicated them to us here tonight. Had we adhered to the government timetable on this important matter, we would have been making a decision without the benefit of the kind of legal opinion that he has. I think, in fairness, we should all have that. We should all share it.

Very briefly, I want just to complete the analysis of article 1904, because it is one of the major issues, as I understand it, and now the minister indicates that even interpretations are going to be in conflict of what these provisions mean.

Paragraph 10 -- and I think the minister would, in rebuttal, get up and read this section as well:

“This agreement shall not affect (a) the judicial review procedures of either party or (b) cases appealed under those procedures with respect to determinations other than final determinations.”

You could have an interim determination, such as harm, which may not be a final determination in the context of the countervail, and it may be that may not be reviewable by a binational panel. If that is the case and if that is the weight of judicial opinion on this matter, then it is a problem.

Paragraph 11:

“A final determination shall not be reviewed under any judicial review procedures of the importing party if either party requests a panel with respect to that determination within the time limits set forth in this article. Neither party shall provide in its domestic legislation for an appeal from a panel decision to its domestic courts.”

This is in direct response to the government whip’s earlier question, and it is the last sentence in paragraph 11:

“Neither party shall provide in its domestic legislation for an appeal from a panel decision to its domestic courts.”

That is prevented, and I think that was one of the concerns he voiced during the course of this debate. I am pleased that the government whip brought up that point.

Paragraph 12:

“The provisions of this article shall not apply where (a) neither party seeks panel review of a final determination; (b) a revised final determination is issued as a direct result of judicial review of the original final determination by a court of the importing party in cases where neither party sought panel review of that original final determination; or (c) a final determination is issued as a direct result of judicial review that was commenced in a court of the importing party before the entry into force of this agreement.”

I take (c) to have some import with respect to softwood lumber, and that is why in the last couple of days we have noticed a reference to the fact that the softwood lumber issue would not be affected by this agreement. That is a determination or an interpretation of subparagraph 12(c), as I understand it.

Mr. Harris: I do not understand it.

Mr. Pope: I say to my friend the member for Nipissing, who asked me what paragraph 12 means, basically this provision, I think, provides that either party shall have a right to a final review where neither party requests a final review or is asked to seek a review of a final determination by a person with an economic interest in his country. I think it then means that the binational panel would not sit and has no jurisdiction to do a review on its own.

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Article 1904, paragraph 13 -- we are coming to the end of this article; it is a complex one and for that I apologize -- says: “Where, within a reasonable time after the panel decision is issued, a party alleges that:

“(a) (i) a member of the panel was guilty of gross misconduct, bias or a serious conflict of interest, or otherwise materially violated the rules of conduct, (ii) the panel seriously departed from a fundamental rule of procedure, or (iii) the panel manifestly exceeded its powers, authority or jurisdiction set forth in this article, and

“(b) any of the actions set out in subparagraph (a) has materially affected the panel’s decision and threatens the integrity of the binational panel review process....”

There is an extraordinary challenge procedure that is available under Annex 1904.13.

What that means is if Canada or Canadian authorities including provinces or a state or the federal US jurisdiction felt there was bias in the panel by virtue of anything that was said or done during the course of the review, there is a resort to an extraordinary challenge procedure and it is set out in an annex to this agreement, which provides for a specific other alternative in the presence of perceived bias.

That again is another safeguard of the binational panel system that I do not believe was realized by those commenting on the binational panel system at the time the general framework agreement was signed in October.

It is important to note that this article, the binational panel and its binding provisions and the rights to extraordinary challenge, must be implemented by January 1, 1989. So, we have one year from the time of the signing of this agreement, which is scheduled for January 2, 1988, to put in place the various rules and to adapt our laws to the existence and the jurisdiction and the establishment of this binational panel.

Mr. Harris: So if we talk for over a year, we would be holding that up.

Mr. Pope: I do not intend to talk for over a year and hold that process up. I mean, this is very important. It is a binational panel that not only the federal government but also a provincial government and others with economic interests have access to, on request. There is a provision for an extraordinary challenge. There is a provision that the decisions with respect to final determinations are binding and I believe that this represents real progress and answers a lot of the concerns that we heard from the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

When he joins in this debate later on, I believe he will say it has not answered all of his concerns. I know he will, at the time he makes that statement, table for examination some potential scenarios which will indicate where he thinks there will be some gaps or some problems in implementation or in jurisdiction. We would appreciate having that kind of information, just as we would appreciate having those additional legal opinions that we have just been told now exist. All of this information would help the members of this assembly.

There are many other provisions in article 1904, but I will just deal with them in general terms without quoting. There is a requirement on both the United States and Canada to amend some federal laws that do now have some import with respect to this trade issue and there is an obligation on both Canada and the United States to promptly make those amendments.

There is also a requirement to establish a working group which I believe will help to resolve any implementation problems or any last-minute problems of statutory amendment to give effect to the binational panel.

There is a requirement for consultations in the establishment of a secretariat to make sure that if there is any frustration or concern with the operation of the binational panel or with this agreement, it can promptly and expeditiously be aired in this assembly in a binational context and some of these issues resolved.

I think a careful examination of every single provision of this agreement and a response from the government as to whether or not that wording answers some of its earlier concerns or the six conditions that the Premier of this province laid out for accepting the deal, would be helpful to the members of this assembly. I know that the government House leader, the government whip and the Deputy Premier (Mr. R. F. Nixon) will be considering this matter and no doubt in the coming days be tabling that kind of information and making a very positive and constructive contribution to the national debate that will go on for some time in this country as we proceed through the adoption process and the ratification process of this agreement.

It will be a prolonged one, as has been indicated by various spokesmen at the federal level. There will be many debates over the coming months and there are debates right now in Ottawa with respect to this trade agreement. The position, as I understand it, of the Liberal Party of Canada is that there should be a full and lengthy debate on this free trade agreement. I know the government House leader will, of necessity, consider that federal position for a full and considered debate with much more information being made available to the people of this country and this province before the final decision is made.

I want to indicate to you, Mr. Speaker, our concern about the timing of the introduction of this measure, about the timing of the vote and the passage of this measure, about the import of passing this resolution prior to the beginning of committee hearings, as well as our concern that, much like the Meech Lake accord committee, we will be dealing in committee with a decision that has already been made. The committee will be window-dressing for a decision or policy position that this government has taken. That, I may say, according to many observers, has undermined the credibility of the cabinet committee hearings -- the fact that the province is willing to go to the wall so early to oppose this agreement and had a cabinet committee accepting submissions from people when it had already adopted a position.

Most observers feel that undermined the credibility of the government on this matter and I believe to repeat this mistake in the legislative context, as well as the executive council context, lends credibility to that argument that this government has really made up its mind on this issue. Really, the amount of time that Liberal members and opposition members from the New Democratic Party and Progressive Conservative Party will spend on this will not change the government’s point of view. It will not change the position of the Premier. It will not change the challenges that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology faces as he seeks to convince his cabinet colleagues to really accept this deal and implement it in their own ways. I know he is facing that challenge in cabinet.

I do have faith that, as more precise information comes out, as the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology makes it available to his cabinet colleagues, he will win that battle and the Premier will be forced to acknowledge the benefits of this agreement and the fact that it is good for Canada and good for Ontario; that it provides better access to the American market; that it provides for a more secure trading relationship; that it gives economic stability for various important sectors of Ontario’s economy; that it provides for some guarantee of job security; that it will, as the Treasurer said in his own study, decrease prices and improve employment; that it is, as the Treasurer now admits in the privacy of cabinet, a good deal for Ontario.

I understand the problems and challenges of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, who now has an ally in the Treasurer as they seek to convince the rest of their cabinet colleagues to go along with the national consensus and do what is good for Canada and for Canadians.

On motion by Mr. Pope, the debate was adjourned.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Conway: I would like to indicate the business of the House for the coming week.

On Monday, December 21; Tuesday, December 22, and Wednesday, December 23, we will continue the debate on the free trade resolution. If we are to consider other business, it will be announced to the House following the usual consultations among the House leaders. I would also like to advise the House that committees will not sit next week.

The House adjourned at 6:01 p.m.