Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 1330.

Prayers.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

GARBAGE DISPOSAL

Mr Chiarelli: On 12 April 1991, to great media interest, the Minister of the Environment said she would introduce an amendment to the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton Act which would give the municipality the right to collect a surcharge on all imported garbage disposed of in the region. This was the result of a written commitment by the minister to provide legislation to expand the region's control over importation of waste to Ottawa-Carleton from other regions.

Two months have passed with no provincial action, and time has almost run out for this bill to be dealt with before the summer recess. In the absence of the promised legislation, the minister may be depriving the region of its negotiated legal right to be collecting compensation for imported garbage.

This government has no provincial policy for solid waste management and now it cannot even deliver on a promised law for the Ottawa-Carleton region. I ask the minister, where is her government's promised bill? The people of Ottawa-Carleton want to know. I also ask the member for Ottawa Centre, who is chit-chatting across the hall, why will she not speak to her minister and bring this legislation forward?

HOSPITAL BEDS

Mr J. Wilson: My statement is to the Minister of Health and it concerns a potentially volatile situation within Simcoe county. In the past two weeks, Stevenson Memorial Hospital in Alliston was forced to cut 21 beds, Collingwood General and Marine Hospital cut 10 beds, and the Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie may be forced to cut 36 beds. There are strong indications that neighbouring hospitals in Owen Sound and Orillia will also be closing beds soon.

I am very concerned about the sudden rash of bed closures and cuts to staff and service. The Ministry of Health appears to have no organized plan to ensure that beds are not closed at random.

Because the Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie is Simcoe county's main referral hospital, it treats a large number of my constituents in Simcoe West. The RVH has been told by the Ministry of Health to submit a plan to remove its $5-million operating deficit. The result of this will be that RVH may have to close one of its five operating rooms, which will mean a reduction of 20% in elective surgery. In addition, six critical care beds will be closed and 30 elective surgery beds will be forced to close. RVH is presently operating with an occupancy rate of some 98%, so this is a critical blow to Simcoe county.

The rapid-fire announcements of bed closings coupled with the rumoured announcements are creating a sense of hysteria among the residents in Simcoe county who are concerned for their health. Where are the sick to go when all the hospitals in Simcoe county are flashing No Vacancy signs?

RENT REGULATION

Mr Ferguson: Last week the Minister of Housing lived up to the NDP government's commitment to real protection for tenants. He introduced rent control that can actually give tenants a sense of security and certainty about their rents in the future. Tenants can stop being afraid of being hit with huge rent increases and can stop wondering just how high their rent increases could go. Tenants will know they will never have to pay more than an increase of 3% above the guideline in any given year.

The minister is also encouraging landlords to keep tenants' homes in good condition and penalizing those who do not. What did the Liberals do for the tenants of this province over the past five years? The Liberal idea of protecting tenants was to set up a system that let more than 170,000 tenants pay increases of 15% or more. In addition, they let the tenants of this province finance the investments of landlords here in Ontario.

That is not this government's idea of tenant protection. This government is bringing in fair legislation that is going to protect tenants from high rent increases, ensure that the rental housing market is properly maintained and encourage landlords to keep tenants' homes in good condition. Finally, the minister is also recognizing the needs of small landlords and is providing a flexible system that builds in assistance for landlords to do necessary repairs and maintenance.

I salute the Minister of Housing, and I am sure my colleagues join me in saluting him.

TENANT PRIVACY

Mr Henderson: The House and the Minister of Housing should know of a very serious situation which severely threatens many of my constituents. Despite this government's alleged rent control, at least one very large landlord with many high-rise apartment buildings in Etobicoke and other parts of Toronto has embarked on a campaign of apparent harassment. The landlord has given notice that every apartment will be entered and searched for appliances for which written permission has not been given.

In so doing, the landlord has cited subsection 93(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act. The Landlord and Tenant Act does not of course give landlords the right to enter apartments to conduct appliance hunts. Many of my constituents facing the possibility of their homes being searched have had air-conditioners and other appliances in their homes for years, mostly with verbal permission from the superintendent. Now their quiet enjoyment of their homes and their privacy is being threatened by a capricious appliance hunt.

Clearly landlords have no legislative authority to conduct such hunts. The Minister of Housing must act to protect tenants from capricious acts like appliance hunts by landlords. Tenants should not have to fear eviction simply for having an air-conditioner in their home. The minister must act now to ensure that tenants are protected from harassment or eviction for trivial or no cause.

1340

CAPITAL FUNDING FOR SCHOOLS

Mrs Marland: On 31 May, the Minister of Education finally announced the province's capital grants to school boards. Patrick Meany, chairman of the Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board, responded to his board's $25-million allocation by saying: "Disillusionment is the only way I can describe my reaction.... The Premier's commitment to reduce the number of portables has not been met... Of the 15 urgent projects, none will be addressed for three long years."

The allocation to the Dufferin-Peel separate school board raises the obvious question of how $25 million can meet the board's accommodation needs, which the board estimates amount to $322 million of capital funding. Other questions include: Why did the Ministry of Education skip items ranked as high priority by the board and allocate funds to lower-priority projects? Why were no elementary schools funded? Why is the province permitting more development when schools will not be in place to serve new housing projects?

A year ago our party raised the problems of educational capital funding with the previous government. A year has gone by, another government is in power and the schools' accommodation crisis has worsened. The capital grants announcement, combined with the appalling decisions not to participate in a national testing program and to cancel the Ontario scholarship program, leads to the conclusion that education has slipped as a priority of this NDP government.

PLANT CLOSURE

Mr Wood: I want to congratulate the people in Kapuskasing and all the surrounding towns for surpassing their goal of $12.5 million and pledging over $13 million to assist the purchasing employee group plan. Over 1,900 individual pledges were received from all sectors of the community. Organized workers, management people, workers in the business community and professional people, as well as retirees from across the province, have shown their commitment to Kapuskasing and the community. They are to be applauded for their support.

I also want to compliment all the unions for their patience and understanding at this time. Locals 89 and 256 of the Canadian Paperworkers Union, Local 1149 of the electrical workers, Local 2995 of the IWA Canada and Local 166 of the office workers have not forced the pattern settlements on the industry. They have also kept their members working through these times while new owners are sought for the mill. This is an indication that all groups want to work together to find a solution.

This government too is committed to finding a solution to the situation. Over the past months, a number of ministers have taken an interest by coming to Cochrane North to learn more about the situation by meeting with PEG and community officials. As well, the working group under the Minister of Northern Development has been working non-stop with PEG and other interests to see that a suitable solution is found.

As a former employee of Spruce Falls Power and Paper and as a representative of the community, I want to assure the people of Cochrane North that the government is working with this group and myself as an active member in trying to find a resolution to this situation which will benefit the whole community.

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr Kwinter: Friday's release of Statistics Canada's national unemployment statistics demonstrated very clearly the effect the NDP budget is having on Ontario jobs, and it is all bad.

In his budget statement, the Treasurer told Ontario he was running a $10-billion deficit and increasing spending by 13.4% so that he could create 70,000 new jobs. Soon after, under questioning from our party, the Treasurer was forced to backtrack on that weak claim.

The truth is that the Treasurer cannot point to one new job that will be created as a result of his $10-billion deficit. The facts now prove that this NDP budget is killing Ontario jobs faster than they can be created. The NDP is prolonging the recession on the backs of the people who work and create wealth in the private sector.

The Premier and his lackeys like to stand in the House and say the recession was made in Canada. It was made in Canada, but it is being held over in NDP Ontario. Across Canada, total employment rose by 31,000. Seven of the 10 provinces experienced increases in employment. After employment growth in the province over the previous two months, 18,000 Ontarians lost their jobs in the first month after the NDP budget. The NDP promises of huge debt loads, higher taxes and punitive labour laws for years to come are driving jobs out of the province.

According to business people today, competitiveness is a dirty word in the Premier's Ontario, something the NDP does not understand and does not want to hear about. If the NDP does not take out the dictionary soon, the next lesson for all --

The Speaker: Will the member take his seat, please.

DEVELOPMENT DEPOSITS

Mr Turnbull: On 5 June Mr Perruzza made a statement in this House in which he quoted Councillor Berger of North York. I have Mr Berger's response, which he wishes read into the record.

"Dear Mr Turnbull:

"I was very surprised to hear Mr Perruzza, former member of North York council, state in the Legislature on June 5th that I said that returning the $25 million of letters of credit was an immoral act.

"I believe Mr Perruzza is trying to vindicate himself by using statements which are not correct after it was found that he used municipal funds for his provincial election material, ie, stationery and calling cards.

"My statement to the press at the time, when the city released the letters of credit, was that prior to releasing the letters of credit we should have entered into a different type of agreement to make sure that these things would be built.

"To be fair to our council, there was nothing wrong with what they did, since the letter of credit was to go into effect a year after all the official plan and zoning amendments had been finalized.

"At the present time the zoning is not in place and might not be in place perhaps until the end of this year, which means the earliest these letters of credit could become effective would be some time at the end of 1992.

"This is addressed to you in order to straighten out the matter and to help me contradict Mr Perruzza's comments."

The member for Downsview suggested that I should get my facts straight before coming to the House. I would suggest it would be more accurate for the member for Downsview to do this. I will once again call on the Premier to apologize to the North York councillors for the slur made against them.

ALGONQUIN PROVINCIAL PARK

Mr Drainville: It is a great pleasure for me to stand today and to recognize the excellent work that has been done recently by the Minister of Natural Resources, the Ontario native affairs secretariat, the Algonquin band of Gold Lake and the Ministry of Natural Resources and staff.

In the last while there have been a number of comments made about Algonquin Park. Some people have even gone so far as to say there would be unrestricted hunting. We know that is not true. In fact, for the interim agreements that are being worked on by the ministry and the band from that area, they have consulted with so many people, and some of the people on this list -- the Algonquin Park Residents Association, the Friends of Algonquin Park, Muskoka Tourism, Dwight/Oxtongue Business Association, Algonquin Outfitters, Muskoka-Parry Sound Hunt Camps, Huntsville-Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce, Huntsville town council, Algonquin Coalition, and on and on it goes. There are three interim agreements that they are working on and presently they have come to very reasonable accommodations on each of those interim agreements.

It is our hope that the government will continue to do its fine work and leadership, both advancing the cause of aboriginal rights in this province but also maintaining our strong commitment to conservation. This is what we call in government good government and government of leadership. I want to commend all those parties that have been so involved in these negotiations.

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY

SENIORS' ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

Hon Ms Ziemba: I would like to rise to inform the members that last Thursday, on 6 June, the Lieutenant Governor and I had the privilege of honouring 21 distinguished seniors in Ontario.

The Ontario Senior Achievement Awards ceremony is one of the most important events in Senior Citizens' Month. This achievement awards program is our way of recognizing and thanking seniors, whose dedication and tireless work have made Ontario a better place for all seniors.

This year we are particularly excited with these 21 award recipients because they have been chosen by their peers. We initiated this new selection process of involving a group of six seniors as the selection committee. They worked long and hard, and out of 465 nominees selected the 21 whom they believe are the most deserving.

I would like to thank those wonderful people who spent their tireless efforts:

Phil Adams, special adviser, office for seniors' issues; Bill Hughes, vice-chairman, Ontario Advisory Council on Senior Citizens; André Lécuyer, president, la Fédération de aînés francophones de l'Ontario; Jane Leitch, president, United Senior Citizens of Ontario; Vera Lee-Nelson, president, the Ontario Coalition of Non-Profit Organizations Working with Seniors; and Jean Ross Woodsworth, president, One Voice Seniors Network.

In our government we believe seniors must be treated with respect and dignity. These values are the foundation of new legislative initiatives such as the Advocacy Act. That is why the process for the selection of seniors' awards is a reflection of this government's strong conviction that seniors can make their own decisions and live independently with dignity.

I would like to name those Ontario recipients who received the 1991 Ontario Senior Achievement Awards: Diana Hains Meltzer Abramsky from Kingston; Lillian G. Belliveau from Terrace Bay; William A. Bodden from Toronto; Chi-An Chiu from Toronto; Georges and Clara Dassylva from Orleans; Lester Scott Davis from Toronto; Bethia Elliot from Collingwood; Tom Evoy from Oil Springs; Donald D. C. Harvey from Willowdale; Alex Mansfield, Mississauga; Luk Ting Wan Mark, Toronto; Clifford Moss, Stouffville; Margaret Reid, Toronto; Soeur Gisèle-M. Richard from Cornwall; Elmer Preston Shaw from Nobel; Bert Sitch, Kakabeka Falls; Zygmunt (Ziggy) Sojka from Fenwick; Stan Sugarbroad from Toronto; (Elder) Gladys Taylor from Curve Lake; and Amy Thompson from Don Mills.

Our heartiest congratulations.

1350

RESPONSES

SENIORS' ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

Mr Mahoney: I too attended, along with the minister, the awards presentation and would like to congratulate all of the recipients on behalf of my caucus. I think it is a very worthwhile award. I appreciate the fact that the minister has publicly recognized it, both in the presentation ceremony, Mr Speaker, that I know you were in attendance at, and as well here in the Legislature.

I do think, along with my colleagues, that it is extremely important and worth while that we recognize the achievements of these volunteers in the senior citizens' community. In fact, as the minister knows, it was our government that established the ministry and that in fact assigned the job of being minister responsible for senior citizens' affairs to one individual rather than having the minister representing sort of a grab-bag of five different ministries. I have made that point over and over again, and would do so again.

I ask the minister to encourage the Premier to re-establish the significance of the senior citizens' ministry in this government rather than just talking about things like treating them with respect and dignity. Perhaps a little more direct concentration in that area, rather than having it in all of the other ministries, would be appropriate.

My colleague the Health critic and the member for Scarborough-Agincourt got quite excited -- and that does not happen often -- in the lobby when he heard that an announcement was coming forward from the seniors' ministry, in the hope that it would have something substantive to do with issues like long-term care. While we certainly pass on and share in the congratulatory remarks to the recipients of the awards, the member for Scarborough-Agincourt and I were talking about, "Wouldn't it just be wonderful if, for a change, we could have a substantive announcement," particularly with the patience that he and our caucus have shown in the areas of long-term care.

I do congratulate the recipients, and I think my colleague may want to add some remarks.

Mr Phillips: I would. Just to echo what my colleague said, certainly we applaud the recognition of the seniors. I heard that there was an announcement coming today, I grabbed my Strategies for Change document and headed on over here. I was reading the estimates book, and it says that a key element of the division is a newly established decentralization of systems managers to 14 locations around the province. So we have qualified and very competent civil servants at 14 locations awaiting direction.

It goes on further in the estimates book to say that the agenda for the coming year includes the release of a public document outlining the new policy framework, followed by a public consultation process designed to encourage input from the community and the consumers' reorientation policies. As I say, I was very anxious about today's announcement. I thought it was the long-awaited long-term care reform announcement. Certainly it seems to be coming out in dribs and drabs. In the estimates book there is a hint of what is to come.

I would just urge the government to get on with it because, as I said here in the House last week, there are many acute-care hospital beds closing in anticipation of more community facilities being available to look after those people. The community health care system is anxiously awaiting the long-term care reform.

I do not mean to belittle the announcement the minister made today, because these are individuals who are extremely worthy and should be recognized, but I think all of us would appreciate that we cannot wait much longer. I have now been asking questions for, I guess, five months in the House, awaiting the government's long-term care reform, and I would hope we would see it within the next couple of days, as I think we might.

Mrs McLeod: I just want to echo the sentiments that have already been expressed by my colleagues and certainly want to acknowledge the important announcement that has been made today and the recognition that has been given to seniors who are carrying out very active, very involved lives in their community. It is important that we recognize their very real achievements.

But the members of the government and the members of the cabinet will be well aware that there are many other seniors who are not able to lead fully independent lives and who need different kinds of support. They need support to be able to stay at home as long as possible. They need support in institutional care when that is what they need.

The waiting list for extended care is just longer and longer. There is confusion about the delay. A consultation has taken place. People are waiting to know what the minister's concerns are and why she has not been able to move. The silence is leading not only to confusion but to dismay, and we can only plead with her to please give seniors in the communities across this province some indication of what her plans are to proceed with long-term care reform.

Interjections.

Mrs Marland: Mr Speaker, I will respond to the minister's statement in one moment, but I will take a moment in response to my colleague's comments to say that at the first caucus meeting of our brand-new caucus last fall I was very excited and very impressed with the fact that as I looked around at our new caucus they were so young. As members know, we have 10 new members and they are all young, enthusiastic and vibrant. I went into the caucus meeting and looked at all these wonderful young faces and said, "Isn't this wonderful, we've got such a young caucus now," and my colleague the member for Simcoe East said: "Margaret, that's the good news. The bad news is, you're now the second oldest." I think that is why I have been asked to respond to this statement.

We did share the happiness of that occasion of the recognition of our seniors in their volunteerism last week, and although I personally could not stay for the whole celebration I was there at the beginning of it. Our party obviously feels the same way as everyone else does in this House, that these recipients of these special Ontario Senior Achievement Awards are indeed very special people. Although there are only 20 in number who are actually recognized, we realize that they are representatives of many hundreds of people in this province who work for the betterment of seniors' lives in Ontario -- those who are seniors themselves and also people who are not yet seniors who work for their welfare.

We would say in recognizing the award recipients that we really wish this government perhaps would celebrate seniors' achievements a little more often than once a year. We recognize that June is Seniors' Month in Ontario, but we feel that there are 11 other months when it seems that seniors are not the priority of this government, unfortunately. I bear reference to the fact that in the budget there was not one single mention of seniors, and we feel that is a very significant void.

Long-term care is something our seniors have been asking for for many years now, and the reports that have been written that have identified that very real need must be considered very carefully. We simply say to this government, it is fine to have the events and we agree with the events, the support and the recognition that were given last Thursday to the special people, but if you were to ask them directly, they would also say that the reason they are working in the volunteer field for the betterment of seniors in Ontario is because they see the needs out there.

1400

They recognize that there are thousands of seniors in Ontario who are not blessed with families and friends and a support system in the community. They are dependent on government programs. When those government programs are not forthcoming, then their lives become more and more difficult. They have nowhere else to turn for help in order that they can stay in their homes or their apartments and not have to resort to being institutionalized simply because the support services are not there for them in the community where they need them every day, every week of their lives.

We say to the minister that we appreciate her recognition through this Ontario Senior Achievement Award, but we say, "Please think about our seniors and show some real tangible evidence that your government cares about senior citizens for the other 11 months of the year as well." Hopefully, the minister will be able to lobby our mutual friend the Treasurer and get some funds out of him for some very much needed programs for senior citizens in Ontario.

VISITORS

The Speaker: I invite all members to join me in welcoming to our assembly this afternoon, seated in the Speaker's gallery, visitors from the state of Baden-Württemberg of the Federal Republic of Germany, headed by the Honourable Hermann Schaufler, Minister of Economic Affairs and Technology. Also accompanying the delegation is the consul general of the Federal Republic of Germany in Canada, Dr. Henning Von Hassell. Would you welcome our visitors.

Mr Ruprecht: I would like to ask the House for unanimous consent to appropriately recognize Portugal National Day.

Agreed to.

PORTUGAL NATIONAL DAY

Mr Ruprecht: It gives me great pleasure to introduce to the House leaders of the Portuguese Canadian community and distinguished representatives of the government of Portugal: the consul general, Dr Pessanha Viegas, his vice-consul, Mr Moniz, and his chancellor of the consulate, Mr Fereira. As well, there are the president of the Alliance of Portuguese Clubs and Associations of Ontario, Manuel Brito, the chair of the alliance, George Rabeira, the treasurer of the alliance, Jose Reis, and the public relations person of the alliance, Paula Reis.

On behalf of our party, I rise to recognize an important event that dates back over 400 years. It has been celebrated as Portugal National Day since 1880. The celebration of the national day of Portugal is special and unique in the pages of history. Unlike some dates that commemorate an important political event such as a declaration of independence or the end of a war, on this historic occasion we ask the people of Ontario to join Canadians of Portuguese heritage in the remembrance of a great, world-renowned poet and writer, Luis de Camoes. Although he passed away more than 400 years ago, Camoes left a living legacy of meaningful poetry of immortal beauty that has not withered with age.

We are all, of course, very cognizant and appreciative of the tremendous contribution that Portuguese Canadians have made to the development and growth of our province and country both in the economic and cultural fields. Yet as important as economic contributions are, the attention of Portuguese Canadians today is focused not on the prosperity and wealth that opportunities bring in Canada, but on our democratic system of government, which allows the people in our multicultural society of Ontario to celebrate a national literary hero of their forefathers' original homeland as a right.

Indeed, Luis de Camoes is an intellectual giant whose footsteps have crossed centuries of time and the Atlantic Ocean to be implanted into Canada's great heritage of love for literature, poetry and education. May this Portugal National Day today inspire us to pause more often to study and admire our writers and poets. Perhaps one day we might recognize that a new Luis de Camoes could be inspired as a result of paying tribute to the eternal de Camoes whose remembrance we are honouring today.

I am certain all members of this House will wish all of you well as you celebrate this day, not only as you participate in celebrating a Portuguese writer and poet, but as you participate in the economic, spiritual and cultural life of Canada.

Mr Cousens: On behalf of the Ontario Progressive Conservative caucus, we too extend a very special welcome to our guests from Portugal and from Portuguese associations. We are glad to have them with us and glad that the House recognizes this as a moment when we can share in Portugal National Day.

It is most fitting that we in Canada should help celebrate Portugal National Day. Portugal has a centuries-old tradition of exploration and trade around the world and has become a country that has given much to the world. From Macao to Mississauga, the vibrance of Portuguese culture has enriched the growth of many nations. From the explorations of Vasco de Gama to the immigration of the Portuguese to Canada after the war, these people have shown fearlessness in taking on the challenges of an ever-expanding world.

It is well to remember just what courage it takes to leave everything you have and then travel to another country and make a better life for yourself and your family. This is a reality we often forget when we remember the immigrants of years gone past and those émigrés braving an uncertain future in Canada today. In a sense, Portuguese Canadians are much like all the other émigrés to our nation, special in that they come here to build a better place for their children and a strong nation for their fellow countrymen.

We should not, however, forget those things that the Portuguese have shared with us. Foremost among these must be an appreciation of the lyric poet, Luis de Camoes, a man who died in 1580 but whose epic narrative of Portuguese achievement, Os Lusiadas, is one of the great works of the Renaissance. It is thus that we honour today a poet who wrote of the soul of a culture and its people. In a world that has all too much violence and misery, this most civilized day should be an example to the world.

To the Portuguese Canadians who have made Canada their home, may we have a sense of letting them know that they are welcome and that they are Canadians, proud of their heritage and proud of the great country that has sent them here. May we hopefully share with one another a sense of unity as Canadians, Portuguese and all others, coming together to make this a better land.

Hon Ms Ziemba: On behalf of the government of Ontario and the New Democratic Party, I too would like to congratulate the Portuguese community on Portugal National Day.

I would also like to take a few minutes to congratulate and to extend our hospitality to our new consul general who just arrived on 2 June from Portugal. We look forward to a long relationship. You have already been introduced in the House and we appreciate that introduction.

I would like to say that the vice consul, Mr Moniz, is leaving after 30 years of working here in Ontario, helping the Portuguese community. I extend our congratulations to him for that hard dedication and good work and thank him for all his efforts.

Also, I would like to take just a moment to congratulate the Alliance of Portuguese Clubs and Associations of Ontario for its hard work. They are in the process of setting up a new organization which would be a congress of the Portuguese community in Canada. I know that is a very important step and we as a government look forward to working with them as they work towards that means and I thank them.

This is a very important day for the Portuguese community. There are a few other things that are happening in Portugal that make us look to Portugal for leadership. The presidency of the European Community will be headed up by the Portuguese government. We are very pleased about that.

1410

This is a day when Portuguese communities across Ontario revisit their history and their culture and how it relates to Ontario, which is now their home. A province like ours certainly relates to the Portuguese experience. Ontario was built on diversity. This is one of our assets as a province. We are a rainbow of cultural identities which blend to give Ontario a unique colour and identity.

It is through these days such as Portugal day that we reaffirm the Portuguese stamp in that identity. Like many communities before it, the Portuguese community came to Canada, and Ontario in particular, to sow seeds which have matured to the advantage of our province and all who live in it. The Portuguese contribution is present in all spheres of life, be they economic, cultural or social. It might have been hard for the first generation, but they looked ahead to the future because they believed in Ontario. This is what makes us Ontarians, a belief that our province is worth working for, a belief that we all equally belong here, that this is our home.

As Minister of Citizenship, it is my responsibility to see to it that barriers that work against that ideal are removed. We are working towards attaining full participation for all communities. Greater understanding among all communities is an essential foundation to a society as diverse as ours.

Again, congratulations to the Portuguese community. I look forward to sharing in this wonderful day.

Hon Mr Allen: I would ask unanimous consent of the House to make a few remarks with regard to the founding of this province in 1791 with the passage of the Constitutional Act. I presume that representatives of other parties would want to follow suit.

Agreed to.

CONSTITUTIONAL ACT, 1791

Hon Mr Allen: It was in 1791 that the Constitutional Act was passed that laid the foundation of this province. Those of us who look back to those days as contemporary Ontarians can only marvel at the changes that have taken place over all those many decades and even generations.

We celebrate and have been celebrating in the past few moments something of the cultural diversity of this province. Truly this province has become a congregation of the peoples of the world; nothing less.

As one looks back to the beginnings of the province, one also recognizes that in its very beginnings it was a very multicultural community. It was a place, for example, where there resided an aboriginal population, where there was a small settlement of francophones in 1791, where there were British settlers, where there were those who had come just shortly after the American Revolution and who represented the Pennsylvania Dutch. The region itself, interestingly enough, in terms of the divisions that marked the area at the time, was in fact named after several German states like Mecklenburg and Hesse, for example.

From our very beginnings we have been a very diverse and very multicultural people, but of course the contrast is most notable in the growing role that small community forged for itself in the northern half of the North American continent, becoming eventually the driving force in many respects of the Canadian economy and taking its place among the determiners of the future of many peoples.

Apparently Lieutenant Governor Simcoe, when he was given his appointment, wished to see this place, governed as it was at that point from Niagara-on-the-Lake with the first Parliament of Canada established there, as a superior, more happy and more polished form of government.

Of course, over time this province did make very signal contributions to the constitutional development of modern government, and in particular with the ingenious conception of responsible government whereby the executive would be responsible to the majority in the assembly.

Some people of a very traditional turn of mind would say that nothing has ever been the same since. Indeed, from some points of view, that was true, but for many of the rest of us, and probably for the majority, that was a very signal development that created, indeed, a superior, more polished form of government that could redound to the benefit of the population of this province and, indeed, elsewhere abroad, not only in Canada but wherever that system of arrangement between executive and assembly was adopted.

It indeed was one of the very signal developments in the foundation of modern democracy itself in its modern form. We in Ontario must herald and lay claim to that.

Finally, I would like to say that it is not only with reference to constitutions and constitution-making that one wants to make a few remarks this afternoon. We all of us, of course, stand on the shoulders of our forebears. It was small groups of people across a very difficult wilderness area, forging out there their farms and building their settlements, who laid the foundations that we all enjoy as a modern, prosperous province today. Indeed, certainly politically speaking, traditions were established of the Conservative tradition in this province, the Liberal tradition in this province, the social democratic tradition in this province. All, over the years, have taken their place in the development of this province, and we celebrate all of them at this point in time. All have their significant and unique perspectives. Working together with the diversity that this gives us politically, we are a stronger province for all of that. I think none of us wants to forget those facts.

I think all of us want to rejoice in what has developed in this region in the wake of the decision in 1791 to constitute a formal province, which then has gone on and taken various shapes as the Constitution of the country has developed, and to pay our respects to those in our past who have contributed so much to us in this province.

Mr Scott: I have been deputized by the Liberal Party to speak to this issue. I am afraid the views I express are probably my own views and not those of the party, as there was not much time for consultation about it.

Of all the silly things we do in this Legislature -- and the Sunday opening bill is only the latest example -- the celebration of events of this type is probably the silliest. I accept, as a moving and warm experience, the welcome to visitors, especially when they do us the courtesy of appearing in our gallery, as happened this afternoon, and I find the commemoration of lives of important people like Mr Nehru and members of our own assembly a moving and, in the best sense, a sentimental occasion. But the celebration of historic events, as if we could do anything about them except celebrate them, is absurd. It is particularly absurd to celebrate the Constitutional Act of 1791, as probably the Minister of Colleges and Universities in the other gallery will understand better than anybody else.

There is probably not a single member of this Legislature -- certainly not I -- who would have voted for the Constitutional Act of 1791, assuming we were given a chance to vote on it. Now, I accept the member for Etobicoke West and those on the far reaches of the Conservative Party might have found the Constitutional Act of 1791 congenial, but nobody else possibly could have. It was the first example of corporate separatism in this country, which has bedevilled the country for more than 200 years. The honourable member for Algoma can laugh, but it is true. It also led directly to the rebellions of 1837, because it failed to take account of democratic will in the new colonies.

What had existed before the Constitutional Act of 1791, which my friends want to celebrate, was a system estabished after the Seven Years' War by the Treaty of Paris and the Quebec Act of 1774, which allowed the French-speaking settlers of what became Lower Canada and the immigrants from the American colonies, some 5,000 or 6,000 of them by 1785, to work together in one system of government, which had been decreed by imperial authority, but which was working reasonably well until the United Empire Loyalists came along and demanded to be governed separately, in their own way. That was, of course, what led the United Kingdom to enact the Constitutional Act of 1791, the fact that people living on the western fringes of this colony would not permit themselves to be governed in unity with people who had been here 200 or 300 years longer than they had. So it is not a cause for celebration.

The good news was that, over the long run, the imperial government refused a request for responsible government, which led to the rebellions of 1837 and Lord Durham's Report, in which responsible government was ultimately implicated. But this act is the first act of corporate separatism in our national history and was a denial of responsible government, a concept that had come to the United Kingdom only a few short years before.

Now there is one piece of good news in this phoney celebration that the province is going to foist on us. The only piece of good news is that the Constitutional Act of 1791, while a thoroughly bad idea, was the second experiment in governance in non-American North America.

The Treaty of Paris and the Quebec Act experiment had failed. The Constitutional Act of 1791 was going to fail within a generation, and a united Canada would be formed shortly following 1837. Following that, there were a couple of other experiments, and the latest experiment -- and it is no more than that -- is the Confederation Act of 1867.

So the good news inherent in it is an illustration that Canadians on both sides of the Ottawa River, and now in the west and in the Maritimes, can learn from their mistakes and can go forward in ways that are sometimes regarded as radical, to experiment again in their efforts to continue to live together, and in that very limited, narrow sense, I am prepared to celebrate the Constitutional Act of 1791.

1420

Mr Harris: I know the Liberal Party will be happy that the member for St George-St David was speaking on behalf of himself and not the whole caucus or, indeed, the whole party. As much as we all enjoy the remarks from the member, he does bring in an interesting slant on history that I think is a tad biased.

I want to join with the Minister of Colleges and Universities and with you, Mr Speaker, and with members of the House in, indeed, reflecting on our history. I believe it is time to take a few moments and reflect upon an event that played such an important part in the history and the development of this province, the province of Ontario, Upper Canada at the time.

Of course, it was not perfect. It probably was far more perfect than anything we have developed since. Members I think would agree with me that we have not since this time nor are we ever likely to have a perfect Constitution, a perfect act that all will agree with. But what people do when they believe, as they believed in 1791 in the new world, when they believe in its people and in its future, they take a commonsense route, as they see it at the time, and they make do with that. I believe this is what the Constitutional Act of 1791 did.

I also think it is important as we celebrate that we also reflect and learn from history, as we are going through such a difficult time with Upper Canada and Lower Canada, indeed with the other regions of this country right now, in our very difficult constitutional discussions.

I find it a tad ironic that the solution of 1791 -- essentially, as the member for St George-St David put it, the United Empire Loyalists, those of British ancestry if you like, did not believe that the new world should be governed with the Napoleonic order of law in the French language and in the customs and the habits that obviously the French were more comfortable with. It was not working very well as Upper and Lower Canada, or the new land at the time was struggling as to indeed which customs, which language, which basis of law they would follow.

I think the Constitutional Act of 1791 was a marvellous piece of diplomacy that said Upper Canada will follow and speak the English language primarily, will follow British common law -- obviously not perfect, as many more changes were required along the way, but for 1791 pretty forward thinking -- and a recognition that Lower Canada would be primarily French, would have the Napoleonic code of law and indeed those customs that they were comfortable with, and that there were so many things in common that they could still be together in so many other areas. Surely that is what we are striving for now. I guess the ironic part of it to me is that we seem to have had difficulty believing we can function as a country with a French province and English provinces and bilingual provinces.

There has been a move afoot by the Scottuesques and the Trudeauites who believe that we should all have the same customs, the same history, the same language and be exactly the same. I reject that argument. I have always rejected it; it has not worked very well. It has led to a great distrust of English Canada of French Canada, of French Canada of English Canada.

I believe the Constitutional Act of 1791 is a more accurate reflection, even today, of how French Canada feels and English Canada feels. Ironically, in those areas where we are supposed to be together -- on defence, on economic arguments, free trade within our borders -- we have raised all these barriers. We seem to have worked in the wrong direction in all those areas of things that we have in common, and in areas where I think we can respect one another's differences, we have tried to be all the same. It has not worked very well.

I believe now, as we are entering into these constitutional discussions, that quite frankly the vision, as I understand it, expressed by Joe Clark is now closer to the Constitutional Act of 1791, certainly dramatically different from the Trudeau vision, from the Mulroney vision, from those that the federal government has espoused for the last 30 years while this country has come asunder.

I am proud to stand up today to celebrate our heritage. I think we can learn something from the lessons of the Constitutional Act of 1791. I think that, while we have a long way to go, we can look at some of the lessons here and the lessons of Sir John A. Macdonald, as we celebrated the 100th anniversary of his death just last Thursday in Kingston.

The other reason I am proud to celebrate is that in spite of all the abuse our province and our country have taken -- and I speak as a provincial politician of the province of Ontario -- we are so blessed in our geography, in our environment, in our resources, in our people that we have been able to sustain a large amount of abuse and still survive, and still survive rather nicely.

I am very proud of this province, of its people and of its history. I am also cognizant of how very fortunate and lucky we are to live in this geographic area, with the temperate climate that we have, the resources that we have, the access to this northeastern Ontario market that, in spite of ourselves, has allowed us to have the quality of life and the jobs that we have really, in many cases, in my view, not deserved, but we have enjoyed them in spite of ourselves.

I hope we reflect on that as well as we deal with the constitutional discussions of the day and as we deal with the aspirations of the people of this province and of this country economically, socially, environmentally. We can ill afford to continue to take for granted, we can ill afford to continue to abuse this province and this country.

The Speaker: The variety of contributions to recognizing this historical day are certainly appreciated.

VISITOR

The Speaker: Before continuing, I would like to invite members to welcome to our midst today a former member from the riding of Algoma-Manitoulin, John Lane, seated in the members' gallery west.

1430

ORAL QUESTIONS

MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Mr Offer: Before asking a question of the Attorney General, might I have a page? I want to send this to the Attorney General. I have three pieces of information which I think the Attorney General should have on hand in response to my question.

On 24 April, in response to a question from the member for St George-St David on whether or not he discussed the RCMP investigation with the Premier or anybody in the Office of the Premier, the Attorney General stated, "The investigation...was launched by myself.... That decision was discussed with no one else other than senior legal advisers in the ministry."

On 8 May, two weeks later, I asked him a question, whether anyone in his office had contacted the Premier's office between 12 April and 22 April, and he stated, "I can confirm to the member that no one in my office contacted the Premier's office regarding this matter."

The RCMP report, that part which I have sent over to the Attorney General, clearly states that he did contact the Premier on the evening of 22 April to discuss the impending RCMP investigation. In fact, he met with the Premier before he met with the RCMP to provide formal directions regarding the investigation. Can the Attorney General tell us why he did not inform this Legislature of this meeting when given two separate opportunities to do so?

Hon Mr Hampton: The member is obviously somewhat confused. He asked me if anyone in my office discussed the issue with anyone in the Premier's office or anyone in the cabinet office. When I met the Premier on the evening of 22 April, it was to discuss nothing. It was simply to tell him that an RCMP investigation had been called. There was no discussion.

Mr Offer: The facts of the Attorney General's own investigation do not state what he has just led this House to believe. He states that nothing untoward occurred as a result of these meetings and his failure to mention them on at least two separate occasions, but the facts speak for themselves. The Attorney General did meet with the Premier and he has kept this meeting secret until the RCMP report came out, more than a month later.

We do not know how long this meeting took or what was discussed, but we do know that this meeting did take place before he provided any formal direction to the RCMP regarding the investigation. One must only assume that he and the Premier did discuss the nature of the investigation and the directions he was going to provide to the RCMP regarding the investigation. It was the morning after this meeting that he gave instructions to the RCMP in terms of its formal directions. It was 12 hours later.

To clear up any questions regarding the Premier's political involvement in the directions to the RCMP, will the Attorney General now tell us exactly what he discussed with the Premier?

Hon Mr Hampton: The honourable member is obviously intent upon finding how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and that is what this is all about. I want to inform him to go back and read the detail of the summary of the RCMP investigation.

It is very clear that the director of criminal prosecutions contacted the RCMP very early on the evening of the 22nd. It is very clear that I had already talked with the assistant deputy Attorney General criminal law and the director of criminal prosecutions. We had agreed that an RCMP investigation would be asked for. That contact between the office of the Ministry of the Attorney General and the RCMP took place very early on the evening of 22 April. The only discussion with the Premier was to inform him at 9:30 pm that night that an investigation had been called.

Mr Offer: That is not what this report states. On page 11 of the report it states that the Attorney General met with the Premier at 9:30 pm, that he stated there would be an investigation, not that there had been an investigation called. It was not until the following morning at 8 am that he stated a formal investigation by the RCMP was requested on behalf of the Attorney General of Ontario.

There is no question that the Attorney General met with the Premier on this matter prior to calling this investigation. On this basis, does he not realize that the integrity of his office as well as the Office of the Premier is now being called into question? Will he, in addition to recommending that the Solicitor General resign, ask the Premier to immediately refer this matter to a standing committee?

Hon Mr Hampton: I repeat my answer and I wish the member would read the whole of the RCMP report. If he would read page 1, page 2, page 3, if he would read the summary --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Would the Attorney General complete his remarks.

Hon Mr Hampton: I wish the member would read the whole of the summary, because the sequence of events is very clear. I had already met with the assistant deputy Attorney General responsible for the criminal law division. I had already spoken to the director of criminal prosecutions, had already spoken with the Deputy Attorney General. The decision had already been made to ask for an RCMP investigation. The phone call establishing that had already been made, and it was only after the fact that the Office of the Premier was advised that there would be an RCMP investigation.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr Curling: My question is for the Solicitor General. On 4 June his colleague the Minister of Labour announced with a lot of fanfare and hoopla that the Employment Standards Act would now give workers an absolute right to a day of rest. But Saturday evening on Global TV's Focus Ontario the Solicitor General told the province that the government's legislation that gives workers the right to refuse to work on Sundays is weak and unenforceable. Does the Solicitor General stand behind his statements of Saturday 8 June that the so-called absolute right to refuse Sunday work is unenforceable?

Hon Mr Farnan: I would encourage the member to look at the transcript of the particular broadcast he talks about. Let me just give some comments.

The legislation "also reaffirms our commitment to the protection of retail workers," a basic, fundamental principle. Again, quoting from the transcript,

"But the reality of the matter is that this government has the courage to address the issues head-on, and among those issues, the protection of retail workers."

"I have a high degree of confidence that the bill will indeed stand up to scrutiny."

"Nevertheless, I think we can make an honest effort, and the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Tourism, which have both been involved in the legislation, are concerned to give as much protection as possible."

The bottom line is that this legislation has better protection for retail workers than any other legislation in North America, simple as that.

1440

Mr Curling: I notice the honourable member has a way of going for his briefs and quoting out what maybe he wants to be reflected. Let me then quote for members.

From the transcript also, the statement of the Solicitor General was made perfectly clear, and let me illustrate this, as I said, by quoting exactly from where he took his quotation.

Keith Cox of Broadcast News asked the Solicitor General, "By your own admission, the right to refuse work on Sunday is rather spineless, it is weak, it cannot be enforced." The Solicitor General responded like this, in his words, if he looks in his brief there, "There is no question what you say is true."

That is what he stated. The Solicitor General has conceded that his colleague's provisions, the Minister of Labour's much-vaunted provisions to give workers the right to refuse Sunday work, are spineless, weak, unenforceable. Given that he thinks the Labour minister's proposal is useless to workers, what is the Solicitor General going to do to fulfil his commitment to protect the rights of the retail workers of Ontario?

Hon Mr Farnan: The hyperbole that has been quoted as the substance of the questioner to me -- where, I ask the member, can he find on the record anywhere that I have ever said "spineless" or "weak"? Certainly the questioner did.

The other point is this: When the member was quoting me, he left out one word. I was interrupted by the questioner. It is very clear here in the transcript.

Let me say furthermore, how can he jibe --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Farnan: I am not finished.

Interjections.

The Speaker: I appreciate that there is a great interest in both the question and the response. It would be a little easier to hear the response if others were not talking.

Hon Mr Farnan: Again to quote from the transcript, "Now, within this bill is also a beefing up of the powers of the employment standards officers." Why the hell do they think we are beefing up the standards of the employment standards officers but to protect the retail workers of Ontario?

Mr Curling: It is quite evident, as he popped up and down and got so emotional, someone should pass him a tablet now to keep his nerves quiet.

It is quite clear that the Solicitor General has no confidence in his legislation. He has ridiculed it by supporting the statement by Mr Cox that it is spineless and it is weak and it is unenforceable. If the Solicitor General himself has no confidence, as is shown in his own legislation, how does he expect the retailers of the province, the consumers of the province and the workers of the province to have confidence in his legislation? The Solicitor General has broken his promise of a province-wide common pause day. He has broken his promise to border communities. Now he admits, in his own little way, that he has broken his promise to protect the rights of retail workers.

Given this litany of broken commitments, will the Solicitor General withdraw this poorly drafted legislation, pending, of course, the establishment of an effective, enforceable system which will protect the interests of the workers, consumers and retailers of the province?

Hon Mr Farnan: Not only do retail workers have the absolute right to refuse work on Sunday; they also have 36 hours of continuous time away from work, whether or not they work Sundays. The reality of the matter is that this represents --

Interjections.

Hon Mr Farnan: I know it hurts the former administration when it hears this, because it refused to give workers the kinds of protection we are determined to give them. We are determined to work hard to provide retail workers with the very best protection possible. In addition, as we go around the province we are open to listening. The principle of protecting retail workers will not change, but we are prepared to listen to the fine-tuning that indeed can enhance that protection.

GOVERNMENT POLICY

Mr Harris: In the absence of the Premier and the Treasurer, who are off across this country winning friends left and right, I would like to ask a question of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

A number of Ontarians, I among them, have been expressing grave concerns about the NDP policies, many of them similar, by the way, to the Liberal policies before them, to drive the private sector out of health care, out of housing, out of nursing homes, out of day care and replace it with government-owned and government-run service which has proven more expensive, less efficient and worse.

There is one area where I believe the minister is differing from the Liberal Party and I wish to ask him about that today. On 21 May CFTO news aired a special report on businesses leaving Ontario. During that report, NDP policy adviser Brian Shell said that for companies without unions, "Ontario is not the place to do business." Is it the policy of the government that you are not welcome in Ontario unless you have a union?

Hon Mr Pilkey: That is not the case and that is not the policy.

Mr Harris: Last month, my colleague the member for S-D-G & East Grenville met with George Astley, a local shoe manufacturers' representative. Area manufacturers had scheduled a meeting with the Premier. When they arrived they were told, in no uncertain terms, that without union representatives they could not meet with either the Premier or any member of cabinet. This clearly says, as his adviser said, that non-unionized companies are not welcome to do business in Ontario.

I would like to know how the minister explains the attitude of the Premier, of the ministers, of others involved with his party and with his government. How does he explain this venomous attitude towards business in this province?

Hon Mr Pilkey: The only venomous part of that dissertation was the question. I do not believe that question is factually correct. Of course, the New Democratic Party supports organized labour and bargaining units and all of that which organizes people to increase their quality of life. There are, on the other hand, other circumstances where there are plants and organizations in this province that are unorganized. They certainly are part of this landscape and our door is open to them as well.

I am sorry I do not know the particular circumstance that the leader of the third party alludes to, and even he was having some trouble getting it out, but I do not have any particular problem dealing with organized plants or unorganized plants so long as they benefit Ontario. We quite certainly would see a circumstance where we believe that organized plants probably deliver an enhanced circumstance for the workers, generally speaking, but the idea, the assertion that our door is closed to anybody is not the case.

1450

Mr Harris: Mr Astley, who was to be part of that meeting, and the area manufacturers from eastern Ontario will be glad that the minister's response is that they are lying, that it did not happen. That is his answer.

The Speaker: The leader of the third party, if he would consider what was just said with respect to the veracity of a statement made by a member in the House, might wish to withdraw that.

Mr Sorbara: It was the other members of the House.

Mr Scott: It was the other person outside the House.

The Speaker: I will review the transcript.

Mr Harris: The minister is sending out a very clear signal that Ontario is closed for business. The attitude and the policies of his government have made it more difficult for business to compete.

Ms Gigantes: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Have you asked him to withdraw the remark?

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. The member quite rightfully asks a question. I will say to the member I am not sure I heard precisely what she believes she heard. I will endeavour to take a look at Hansard and I will report back to the House. There are always two matters: first, the precise words which are spoken; and, second, I guess the general context of trying to maintain decorum in this House. In that regard the language is key and I ask members to try to temper their language at all times. I do not believe there was a direct reference to the member uttering a falsehood. It may have been expressed in an indirect way. That is the matter which I will review in Hansard.

Ms Gigantes: Mr Speaker, what I heard was an allegation --

Some hon members: Stop the clock.

The Speaker: Stop the clock.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Whoa, just a minute. Members on occasion raise matters from all sides of the House --

Mr Harnick: She's challenging your ruling. It is the third time she stood up.

The Speaker: One moment. First of all, members will note that the clock has been stopped. We are not going to penalize any members.

Interjections.

The Speaker: If members would listen for a moment, there are occasions, and this has happened many times in this House, where certain members have a deep concern about something which has occurred. The Speaker has the responsibility to try to assist all members. I would like to hear what the member has to say which offends her so much. After hearing that, then we will continue with the orderly business. The clock will not start until after I have heard what the member is concerned about. The same courtesy will be extended to all members in this House.

Ms Gigantes: As I understood the allegation made by the leader of the Conservative Party, it was that the minister was calling people outside this House from eastern Ontario liars. It seems to me that is a breach of House etiquette, about which I feel very strongly.

The Speaker: The member raises the very point which I addressed. I said I am not convinced that she heard precisely what I heard, but I will take a look at the Hansard and I will report back later. My apologies to the leader of the third party who is waiting patiently to place his supplementary.

Mr Harris: Mr Speaker, I do accept your apology.

The attitude and the policies of the government have made it more difficult for business to compete. Rumour has it that the word "competitiveness" has been banished from the NDP dictionary. We know the word "profit" does not appear in their dictionary at all. We know the word "entrepreneurial" does not appear in their dictionary at all. The dictionary of this government is restricted to words such as "deficits" and "taxes."

As the advocate for business in Ontario, as the minister responsible for what is left of industry and trade in this province, how can he justify his government's total antibusiness attitude?

Hon Mr Pilkey: The assertions by the leader of the third party are absolutely without basis, are not factual and are not true. As a matter of fact, not only is Ontario not closed for business; it is in fact the Ontario government budget which has just been tabled here that is keeping people at work and keeping them employed.

Quite frankly, I am pleased this government is not following the lead of the governor of the Bank of Canada, with the support of the federal Conservative Party, who wants to hit a 2% inflation target by the year 1995 by closing business and putting people out of work and putting them on the street. That is what I am happy about.

I want to suggest one other thing. Not only is the word "competitiveness" not a problem; it is something we have got to talk about more at all levels of government. We have got to do it in every provincial Legislature in this country. We have got to do it in Ontario. We have done it and will continue to. But more important, we have got to have Ottawa understand the word "competitiveness." If they do not understand the reality of high interest rates as compared to our main trading partner, the United States, and the disparity which sets us in an uncompetitive position, if they do not understand the impact of the free trade agreement and how that has disadvantaged the Ontario trucking industry and any number of other industries --

The Speaker: Would the minister conclude his remarks, please?

Hon Mr Pilkey: -- if they do not understand the North American free trade agreement and what the potential impact with Mexico could be here, they do not understand competitiveness. It is not the Treasurer of Ontario who does not understand it; I think it may be the treasurer in Ottawa who does not understand the word "competitiveness."

HUDSON'S BAY CO

Mr Harris: My second question is also to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. Last week, despite the assurances of the Premier, big statements, big hullabaloo, the president of the Hudson's Bay Co said a move by his company to the United States may be inevitable. Quite simply, the president of Hudson's Bay went on to say that it costs too much to do business in Ontario.

I would like the minster to tell us one single initiative within his purview of the Legislature of Ontario that he, his Treasurer or his Premier can name that has reduced these costs the president of Hudson's Bay says will inevitably lead to its leaving Ontario?

Hon Mr Pilkey: First, I do not recall in the Treasurer's budget tabled here any increase in the corporate tax rate -- none.

Second, the question is based on a false premise. I believe the question was raised in the House. I certainly read in the local media that the story carried by Maclean's magazine was denied by the Hudson's Bay Co, that it was not accurate, that it was inaccurate. In fact, they are going to be making further investment in Ontario, which stands in quite stark contrast to the proposition just offered by the leader of the third party.

1500

Mr Harris: For the benefit of the former Minister of Health, I will simply quote not what the member for Nipissing is saying; I am quoting the president of Hudson's Bay. If the minister thinks he is lying, I guess he is free to say that, but that is who I am quoting. Mr Kosich, the president of Hudson's Bay, told his company's annual meeting that sales fell --

Interjection.

The Speaker: To the member for Ottawa Centre, it is not a point of order. He did not accuse another member of lying.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Stop the clock for a moment.

Ms Gigantes: Mr Speaker, I could put it to you that in fact what he is doing in impugning the motive of another person by alleging that words are in his mouth which are not in his mouth. It is that I would like you to consider.

The Speaker: To the member, I listened very carefully, and while the general tenor of the remarks may cause a discomfort for some in the House, there is nothing out of order in what was said. Some may hear it differently than others in terms of their level of comfort, but there is nothing out of order.

Mr Harris: I think the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology and I understand one another very well. We disagree 180 degrees in opposite directions, but I think we understand each other very well.

Mr Kosich told his company's annual meeting that sales fell earlier this year when Sunday shopping stopped in Ontario and that 4,800 Hudson's Bay jobs were lost. Would the minister tell us what he intends to do about the thousands of jobs that will be lost as a direct result of his government's new Sunday shopping legislation?

Hon Mr Pilkey: The suggestion was that the first-quarter losses reported by that company were being blamed on Sunday shopping. My recollection is that Sunday shopping was in vogue and was in fact the case, so obviously that assertion as a problem for the losses in the first quarter cannot possibly be true.

Mr Harris: It is not me. It is Mr Kosich who said that when Sunday shopping stopped, 4,800 Hudson's Bay jobs were lost.

During our task force on the government's budget, the chairman of the taxation and finance committee of the Ottawa-Carleton Board of Trade told us that he would advise any new company that wished to set up in the Ottawa-Rideau region to set up business in Quebec instead of Ontario. Why? Because he said Ontario has lost its corporate tax advantage. He estimates that, on average, Quebec's corporate tax rate is 36%, compared with 44% in Ontario.

Surely the minister and I can agree that: Ontario cannot afford to lose any more jobs. Ontario cannot afford to lose any more opportunities. Companies are leaving this province. Some of them are going to the United States; some are going out west. Now we have advice being given by an Ottawa tax consultant to companies saying, "If you're interested in competitiveness, if you're interested in making a buck, you should locate in Quebec." What does the minister have to say to these companies?

Hon Mr Pilkey: All I can suggest to the leader of the third party is that all advice should not be taken. I think this province has done very well in the past. It will continue to do well into the future. It is regrettable that all of us find ourselves in this malaise of a recession, a made-in-Canada recession, by a group of people he knows well. It will be our effort, with the support, I hope, of all members of the House, to continue to make Ontario a very competitive and innovative type of province where we might continue producing a very fine quality of life for our people and enhancing investment and business occasions in our province in the future, as we well have in the past.

BUSINESS PRACTICES

Mr Chiarelli: My question is to the Minister of Financial Institutions. No doubt the minister will be aware that TFP Mortgage Investment Corp, an Ottawa investment firm, went bankrupt last spring, owing investors about $3.7 million. An investigation was commenced at that time. Many elderly investors lost their life savings. Yet despite the crying need for action, the NDP government failed to lay charges for a usury scam involving interest rates in excess of 14,000%. This charge was laid Friday afternoon, and only after prodding from me and Peat Marwick as the trustee involved.

The minister and his government are doing nothing to prevent investor fraud, to protect investors or to improve enforcement of the existing legislation in this area. In fact, over 3,000 investors in the Ottawa area have lost over $250 million over the last two years. What will the minister do to demonstrate that his government has the political will to solve this serious problem?

Hon Mr Charlton: I thank the member for the question, because it is a question which very clearly reflects a problem that has been an ongoing problem in this province for a number of years. Each of the regulatory sections that my ministry is responsible for is currently undergoing review so that we can attempt to weed out some of the problems that were built into the system by the regulations put in place by the former administration.

Mr Chiarelli: That is a very cute answer. However, it continues to show that this ministry is totally obsessed only with one issue, the issue of automobile insurance, and has left a whole host of other issues in a vacuum.

In particular, the minister will know that prior to last summer's election the Liberal government had approved a proposal to strengthen the role of the Ontario Securities Commission, allowing it to become more effective in its enforcement role. This government and this minister have done nothing to bring that forward on to the agenda.

Will the minister specifically commit to devoting his ministry to bringing forward this requested legislation, which will strengthen the role of the Ontario Securities Commission and enhance its enforcement role? This ministry and this minister have delayed legislation which has been on the books and which the Ontario Securities Commission has been asking for. When will the minister do something?

Hon Mr Charlton: The member should know that as we review the operations of the Ministry of Financial Institutions and all of its regulatory agencies, we will decide as a government how to proceed. I am not going to make commitments here today to introduce legislation which was prepared by the previous administration but which it could not find the time or the commitment or the necessity to pass.

CROSS-BORDER SHOPPING

Mr Stockwell: My question is to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. Last week his department released a report saying that 14,000 jobs and $2.2 billion were being lost to cross-border shopping, headline news in the St Catharines Standard.

The Ontario Border Communities Mayors' Task Force on Cross-Border and Sunday Shopping gave the minister a number of recommendations, all of which could be implemented, would it help to resolve this issue, which is obviously becoming an ever-growing concern to the people in cross-border towns specifically.

They have asked him to lower taxes on gasoline, cigarettes and alcohol. What did his government do? They raised them. They asked the minister to introduce a buy-Ontario program, establish a task force on cross-border shopping and a Sunday shopping exemption.

What exactly is the minister doing for the people of the cross-border cities to ensure that they are viable, going concerns, rather than withering on the vines like they are today?

Hon Mr Pilkey: Prior to the free trade agreement and the increase in the value of the Canadian dollar that followed that, cross-border shopping was a two-way flow of tourists and shoppers that really received little attention. In the first two years since the free trade agreement, the number of Canadians making same-day trips across the border has increased by 57%. Since implementation of the GST, it has gone up a further 20%. So far, the member will understand where these policies causing the problems he enunciated have come from.

We now have a very difficult problem of a $2.2-billion expenditure that is being made outside of our country, and there appear to be no magical or easy solutions for the problem.

We have involved ourselves with the federal government, with Otto Jelinek, with our own interministerial task force, with the border communities mayors' committee, with the Retail Council of Canada and others, who all have a vested interest in attempting to solve or mitigate this difficulty.

We will be meeting with the federal government, with the mayors' committee, with our own provincial representatives and my own involvement, probably the first week in July, to attempt to seek solutions that we might bring back to help mitigate the problem. I hope that collectively we can do that.

1510

Mr Stockwell: That was absolutely pathetic. Last week in the standing committee on finance and economic affairs, the minister himself admitted that the free trade agreement was not causing the cross-border shopping problem. He said that himself. Today we hear a total reversal.

He tells the people in the border towns that he is meeting. They did not ask him to meet. The problem is real. The 14,000 jobs they are losing are real. The $2.2 billion leaving this country is real. There is no more time to meet. This question has been asked since this House sat, and all we have got is pathetic, lame answers from a lame-duck minister.

They asked the minister to lower taxes on alcohol, gasoline and cigarettes. They have asked him to strike up a task force with them to come forward with some reasonable, prompt answers. He blames the feds. It really does not matter any more that he blames the feds or he wants to meet at future dates with other interested parties.

The Speaker: The interrogative part?

Mr Stockwell: The problem is, for nine months he has sat on his thumbs and done nothing. What is the minister going to do to help the people in the cross-border towns, what immediate action, within the next week or two, to stop the 14,000 job losses and the $2.2 billion? He should not tell me he is going to have a meeting; give me some positive response.

Hon Mr Pilkey: In response to the member's question, the first and immediate thing I am going to do is not follow the lead of the federal Conservative government or of the provincial Conservative government, because they have led us to this malaise that we are finding now.

The facts and the numbers I have indicated in response to previous questions are not numbers that I mathematically contrived or made up. They happen to be the facts that are open to everyone who cares to see them.

Third, the member suggests that I have not been asked to meet --

Interjection.

The Speaker: The member for Etobicoke West.

Hon Mr Pilkey: In fact, we have been asked to meet. Mayor Millson extended a personal invitation for my personal involvement, which I agreed to give, and we are going to fulfil the promise of having them, the federal government and ourselves all meet towards filling it.

Ms Harrington: My question is also for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. This past week I met with the director of the Niagara Falls Chamber of Commerce, and yesterday, which happened to be a day-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Rainbow Bridge, I had occasion to speak with representatives of the bridge commission, with local customs and local immigration officials and with various US politicians and US businessmen. We discussed the relationship between our two sides of the bridge. In fact, there was some hope that in the next year, possibly before the next federal election, the value of the US dollar would be lowered.

The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology recently reported that cross-border shopping would cost Ontario $2.2 billion in lost retail sales this year. What is being done is what we need to know.

Hon Mr Pilkey: Let me just reiterate the same response I gave to the member opposite from Etobicoke. The numbers I have commented upon are quite valid. Many of the cross-border shopping circumstances have happened since the FTA, since the GST. That is a circumstance that was not of our making but it is one which we are prepared to address. We will in fact meet with all of the parties involved in this difficult situation and try to elicit a response and some movement to mitigate the difficulties that have occurred as a result of this increased cross-border shopping.

We hope we will find a basis of co-operation. We certainly will not find it with the antics of the member opposite, but hopefully with cooler heads and more responsible perspectives we will.

SMALL BUSINESS

Mr Mahoney: It must be the Minister for Industry, Trade and Technology day. I do not know what he has done to deserve this. My colleagues are telling me "nothing," so maybe that is the answer.

My question is to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology and has to do with small business, a sector of our society that is getting smaller by the day, as he and people in his ministry, obviously, sit and try to figure out what to do. I know the minister has had some trouble in answering directly the questions, perhaps because they are too broadly based. I would like to focus in on one specific initiative that was started by my colleague the former minister when he was the minister, the member for Wilson Heights, when the one sector of our society that had a financial impact statement prepared on every piece of government legislation, on every piece of regulation was the small business community. That financial impact statement was conducted so that cabinet would have some idea what it was doing or creating to the small business sector before it agreed to go with something.

My question to the minister is, is his ministry still preparing financial impact statements on legislation, government policy, regulations or anything that would have an impact on the small business community?

Hon Mr Pilkey: The answer is yes, and it extends beyond small business. There are reference notes with respect to all legislation that will be emanating from the government as it would impact on the clientele of our ministry. It provides a valuable insight so that the minister, in this case myself, is able to reflect the needs and concerns of our clientele when those decisions are being made.

Mr Mahoney: I must say I am surprised to hear he is still doing it, because in the first four months of this year business bankruptcies in this province have totalled 1,329 as compared to 730 last year, that is only an increase of 100%. I would appreciate he not tell me about the GST and all those problems our cousins in Ottawa have created. I understand that is part of the problem, but if he is doing a financial impact statement or study on legislation or any kinds of bills that are coming forward -- Bill 70, whether he is talking about the deficit -- did he do an analysis of the impact on the deficit?

In an answer to one of the earlier questioners, he said there was no change in the corporate tax rate. That can only lead me to believe he does not think of small business as being in the same category as the larger corporations, because they increased the surtax on small businesses with incomes over $200,000 by 3.7%. That to me clearly is a change in the corporate tax rate.

They did bring in the job guzzler-gas guzzler tax. That clearly has an impact on people in the tourism industry who need four-wheel drive vehicles, perhaps, for their operation. An increase in the cost of $700 to $2,400 has a clear impact. He could not have done a financial impact study, and if he did, obviously he did not care about what that financial impact study did -- all gasoline taxes, the impact on small business getting smaller by the day.

The minister tells us he does a financial impact study. He should either share with us the results of the financial impact studies as a result of the budget, as a result of the legislation, as a result of all of the ancillary legislation, or he should tell us he really did not pay any attention to the impact study and just does not care about small business in this province.

Hon Mr Pilkey: I find this whole place is very interesting, particularly receiving criticism from members opposite who were totally involved as architects with the past policies and programs in the first place, but I guess that is politics. But at least I get to agree, in response to this question, with my friend the leader of the third party, who has stated many times quite accurately that under the former government, the former Treasurer probably brought in more lists of different varieties of taxes than one could possibly count unless one had an adding machine.

None the less, we have a very sincere interest in small business, in large business and in all business in the province. We believe that through the budget the Treasurer tabled he did not go out and kill business. He provided dollars and pushed them into the economy, which maintained and stimulated jobs and kept people at work. Small business was a beneficiary of all those contracts and all of those awards that were let. It will be our intention, as we have done through a wide variety of programs, to continue to support small businesses in the future. They are a vital part of this economy. I am sorry if the member opposite does not like to hear that it is primarily the federal government fiscal policies that have caused this recession, but that is the case.

1520

ELECTROLYTIC EPILATION

Mr Eves: I have a question for the Minister of Health. Can the minister tell me how she can justify OHIP spending over $6.5 million of taxpayers' money last year on the cosmetic procedure of electrolysis in this province?

Hon Ms Lankin: I think it is a very good question the member raises. He will be aware there was a group of people here today outside the Legislature, who are involved in the delivery of electrolysis services in the private sector, who are not covered under the OHIP procedures. It is not done in a doctor's office. They have raised very serious concerns about this issue.

The ministry, under the former minister, prior to my coming into this portfolio, set up a process to review that policy question. The member may be aware there are situations and where many times it is women patients who have hormonal imbalances and medical problems that give rise to a need for this service.

In the past there have been medical criteria. I wonder how closely those medical criteria have been monitored and implemented, and that is one of the issues I have asked the ministry to report back to me on. In any event, that issue is currently under review.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Ms Lankin: I have asked for --

Interjections.

Hon Ms Lankin: It is very difficult to answer a serious question if the members opposite do not want to listen to the answer. Anyway, in wrapup on that, I think the member raises a very good point. I have asked for a response to come back very quickly and will be glad to let the House know.

Mr Eves: Mr Speaker, through you to the minister, I am sure the minister is aware that this review, as she refers to it, by Dr MacMillan, I believe, and others in the ministry, has been going on for some months if not years now.

In the health care system in the province today we have waiting lists, for example, for children's mental health, head injuries. We do not have proper facilities in the province for substance abusers. We have all these problems out there. We have hospitals having to close beds and emergency wards. And yet we have a situation where in 1981 OHIP was billed something like $16,000 for these same services, I believe, and last year that figure had risen to an almost unbelievable amount of $6.5 million.

Last week we sat in this House and watched this government's Minister of Education announce a program to cut out $2 million worth of awards for Ontario scholars because it could not be tolerated during this time of restraint. How can the minister stand there with her priorities in place and justify a policy that spends $6.5 million on a cosmetic procedure?

Hon Ms Lankin: The member raises the issue of places where there have been expenditure cuts, and I am glad he does that. I think it is important that people realize that as much as we often get criticism from the third party with respect to the deficit and expenditure increases in a certain area, we did undertake to make cuts from budgets and achieved about $700 million in reductions, and that was an important part of this.

He talks about the fact that this review has been going on perhaps for years. In fact, I am not aware whether it has been going on for years. I am sorry. The member will know I have been here a matter of months at this point in time.

I take the point that has been raised very seriously. Where we see procedures being done for cosmetic reasons, I agree completely with what the member says. My concern is that there are some situations where there is a medical basis to this. The growth and the expenditure in this area give me great cause for concern. I have asked for the report being done to be expedited to me very quickly. I have met with representatives of the industry out there. I have taken note of their concerns and hope to be able to have a response to this issue very soon.

FOREST FIREFIGHTING

Mr Jamison: My question is for the Minister of Natural Resources. We have all been watching with concern and interest the situation at Summer Beaver. I wonder if the minister might be able to update this House as to the status of the fire and the general condition of the community?

Hon Mr Wildman: I appreciate the member's interest in this situation that is affecting a small aboriginal community in the far north. The fire is covering an area of 7,400 hectares to the southwest of Summer Beaver. It is very erratic and spreading very quickly. However, the direction of the wind right now ensures the smoke is blowing away from the community, but we have had to evacuate 81 people, mostly children and elderly people, to the town of Geraldton and they are being housed there in the community hall.

Geraldton has extensive facilities and experience in dealing with this type of situation. In our view, this is a most inappropriate way of dealing with the situation and we want to rectify it in the near future. The ministry has five four-man crews, four helicopters and one airplane as well as water bombers in use. We have hired 50 local native firefighters to set up a sprinkler system in the community. We are working as hard as we can. I know this is a small community. It is the far north and most people in southern Ontario could not give a damn, but we care about it.

Mr Jamison: Even though the opposition parties do not believe this is a very serious situation, it is to the people who live in that community. I am still concerned, though; with the history of the evacuations in this community, does the minister have any intentions of improving the response for instances like this in the future?

Hon Mr Wildman: The evacuation is a problem that causes serious inconvenience and disruption to families, particularly the sick and the elderly. In the near future we will be moving towards new approaches to northern fire protection. We are committed to consultation with the aboriginal communities in the far, remote north to ensure that in future we do not have to continue to evacuate people. In most cases we can provide protection in their own communities. This is an important issue and one that everyone in southern as well as northern Ontario should be concerned about.

CHILD ABUSE

Mrs McLeod: I have a question for the Minister of Community and Social Services. The minister will be well aware of the mandate given to children's aid societies under the Child and Family Services Act. That legislation states that children's aid societies must investigate allegations of child abuse, protect children who have been abused and provide guidance and counselling to vulnerable families to protect and prevent child abuse from occurring. These services are not discretionary; they are services which the legislation demands the children's aid societies provide.

I ask the minister whether she agrees that investigation and prevention are essential, that protection involves much more than just taking children into care and whether she will commit to ensuring that children's aid societies are properly funded to be able to respond to growing the incidence of abuse.

Hon Ms Akande: Yes, we have committed, and it has traditionally been so, that issues that involve direct services to children who have been abused are paid for, are funded, are directed and there is no question but that they will continue to be so. However, the question of funding to which the member refers for the CAS is one that has grown over time. We have committed to studying the issue and to listening to the submissions of many of the children's aid societies about this, including their Ontario association, and when we can rectify those issues that have continued to grow we will do so.

1530

Mrs McLeod: I believe it is a correct statement to say that in not all cases are investigation and prevention considered to be and funded as mandatory services. I think the minister will fully recognize that one of the tragic results of a recession is that families are under additional stress and children are at greater risk.

The reality is that right now in this province, although the government's budget had an increase in expenditures of 13.4%, children's aid societies across the province are experiencing significant deficits; 46 out of 54 agencies are expected to have deficits and the deficits are expected to reach something in the order of $69 million this year.

With a 13.4% increase in expenditures, could this government not have made the protection of children at risk a true priority? What will the minister now do to help children's aid societies meet this growing need, and why have children fallen off the NDP agenda?

Hon Ms Akande: The member will recognize that we have always funded and continue to fund direct services to children. There has been no change in that. We have in fact sponsored the growth of any services we have to support children who have been victims of abuse, and we also continue to do that.

The reality is that where the CAS has come into problems and is having difficulty, it is for the capital funding in addition to the services that are paid. The direct services to children are always paid. For several years now those capital funds have not been given and the deficits have continued to grow.

We have addressed the problem widely, we have addressed it individually --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

An hon member: Tell them to shut up.

Hon Ms Churley: Just shut up.

Hon Ms Akande: What in fact we have --

The Speaker: What troubles me is certain words that are uttered. I realize people get emotional about these things, but please, more temperate language.

Hon Ms Churley: I withdraw that remark, Mr Speaker.

RENT REGULATION

Mr Tilson: I have a question for the Minister of Housing. In the new rent review legislation introduced last week, the minister has capped the amount landlords are able to increase rents due to capital expenditures at 3%. The Ministry of Housing has stated there is a $7-billion backlog of repairs needed to maintain the province's apartment stock, much of which is more than 20 years old. The epidemic slum situation in New York City will soon be witnessed here in Ontario.

Does the Ministry of Housing really believe that 3% will be enough to cover these necessary outstanding repairs of $7 billion?

Hon Mr Cooke: If the member takes a look at the capital requirements for this province as we outlined in the discussion document leading up to the permanent rent control legislation, he will see very clearly that the amount of money provided for within the rent packages proposed in last week's rent control legislation is adequate.

The 2% in the guideline will produce $160 million a year on its own. When you compound that year after year, you will see that this package is very generous indeed. It is generous for a reason, because we want to see our apartment stock in this province properly maintained. That is why the 2% for the first time is labelled in the guideline as being for maintenance and capital, rather than a simple giveaway in terms of profits.

We are making sure that tenants in this province will have two types of guarantees: affordability and maintenance.

Mr Tilson: I think the Minister of Housing is in a dream world. There is just no way what he is saying is going to happen.

The minister has made it quite clear that he is committed to the protection of tenants in Ontario. A press release issued by the Premier, who was the then leader of the NDP on 18 April, 1990, stated that one third of Ontario tenant households pay over 30% of their income on rent. How does the minister intend to protect these tenants of Ontario who are unable to afford the potential 8% annual increases allowed in his new rent review legislation?

Hon Mr Cooke: This argument really has caught me off guard because I have never heard the Conservative Party speak about the need to protect tenants in the province. I am very happy to hear the philosophy of the critic for the third party now. I am very happy to hear that they finally understand that tenants do have an affordability problem, and part of the solution to that problem is for government to act. This government has acted.

Mr Jackson: Mr Speaker, on a point of order: The Minister of Housing has asserted that is the first time he has heard that concern. The minister is very aware that the only political party in Ontario to support George Thomson and the SARC recommendations for the poor and rental housing in this province is the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. That has been entered into debates on several occasions and the minister is well aware of that.

The Speaker: The member will be well aware he has a point of great interest to many, but not a point of order.

FOREST FIREFIGHTING

Hon Mr Wildman: Mr Speaker, on a point of order: If the members of the House would give me unanimous consent, I want to make a very short statement about a serious situation in the northwest that has just come to my attention.

Agreed to.

Hon Mr Wildman: I just wanted to let members of the House know that we have just received news that in a forest fire at Deer Lake in northwestern Ontario a nursing home has been burned. We do not know any further details. We are attacking the fire and when there are further details we will inform the members.

PETITIONS

FRENCH-LANGUAGE SERVICES

Mr Cousens: I have a petition signed by approximately 30 people from around northern Ontario to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

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

"Whereas the French Language Services Act, 1986, Bill 8, continues to elevate tensions and misunderstandings over language issues throughout the province, not only at the provincial but also at the municipal levels; and

"Whereas the current government disputes its self-serving select committee and intends to encourage increased use of French in the courts, schools and in other provincial services to ensure that the French Language Services Act is working well to the best of their concentrated efforts; and

"Whereas the spiralling costs of government to the taxpayer are being forced even higher due to the duplication of departments, translations, etc, to comply not only with the written but also the unwritten intent of the French Language Services Act; and

"Whereas the spiralling costs of education to the taxpayer are being forced even higher due to the demands of yet another board of education -- French-language school board,

"We, the undersigned, request that the French Language Services Act be repealed and its artificial structures dismantled immediately, and English be declared as the official language of Ontario in governments, its institutions and services."

I signed that petition.

ALCOHOL AND DRUG TREATMENT

Mr Harris: I have a petition signed by 58 residents of North Bay and area 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:

"We, the undersigned, support the Vita Way Farm incorporated treatment centre as a long-term treatment facility for our youth. We feel with the closure of this facility that the chemically dependent youth will be forgotten. We also feel that sending the chemically dependent to the United States for treatment at a cost of over $60,000 per client is unjust to such a facility when our budget from the Ministry of Community and Social Services is only $240,000, which will treat 50 clients per year."

PLANT CLOSURE

Mr Wood: I have a petition here signed by 7,560 people. It is part of a petition where 11,174 names were collected. It is a massive undertaking on the part of several groups which has been circulated in the Kapuskasing area and around the province.

The petition simply states:

"Whereas the implementation of the AMIS plan at Spruce Falls Power and Paper Co in Kapuskasing would result in the loss of 1,200 direct jobs and an estimated 6,000 secondary jobs" -- and the summary on the petition is:

"We, the undersigned, ask the government of Ontario and the government of Canada to do all in its power to bring about a morally just and socially acceptable end to this dilemma."

ELECTROLYTIC EPILATION

Mrs Witmer: It is with a great deal of pleasure that I present a petition today that encourages the government to remove the cosmetic procedure known as electrolysis from the OHIP fee schedule. I had previously presented a petition with almost 1,800 signatures and today I present one with 394 signatures on it. I would like members to know that the Business and Professional Women's Clubs of Ontario also supports the intention of this petition. As well, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has indicated that it supports this petition, and it has a membership of about 40,000 people.

The petition reads as follows:

"Whereas we are citizens of the province of Ontario and we are angry because the provincial health plan (OHIP) continues to pay the full cost of hair removal by epilation to doctors who do not perform this service personally,

"We petition that this is a cosmetic procedure that is consuming an increasing volume of tax dollars paid to doctors under the guise of an important and necessary medical treatment. We submit that epilation by electrolysis should be immediately de-indexed from the OHIP schedule of payments. We are asking you to spend less, not more."

1540

OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

Mrs Sullivan: I have a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario reading as follows:

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

"That the assembly shall demand that the government of Ontario rescind its decision to eliminate the oath of allegiance to the Queen of Canada for police officers who must uphold laws that are proclaimed in the name of Elizabeth II."

I have affixed my signature to the petition.

SOCIAL SERVICES

Mrs Witmer: I have a petition here to the Legislature of Ontario that has been signed by 130 people from the Kitchener-Waterloo area and it reads as follows:

"Yes, I demand that the Rae government act immediately to introduce a social work act for Ontario. Without this urgently needed legislation, every member of the public in Ontario, including those most vulnerable and disenfranchised, remains at enormous and unnecessary risk.

"Mr Rae, your government must act now. Building a strong Ontario for tomorrow is dependent on protecting the children and families of today."

I have affixed my signature.

INTRODUCTION OF BILL

MUNICIPAL STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 MODIFIANT DES LOIS CONCERNANT DES MUNICIPALITÉS

Mr Cooke moved first reading of Bill 122, An Act to amend certain Acts related to Municipalities.

M. Cooke propose la première lecture du projet de loi 122, Loi portant modification de certaines lois concernant les municipalités.

Motion agreed to.

La motion est adoptée.

Hon Mr Cooke: Most of the amendments in this legislation were requested by municipalities. Some relate to individual municipalities such as the composition of Metro's licensing commission. Others will apply to all municipalities and their local boards such as the removal of the requirement for municipal auditors to be licensed by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

Most amendments reflect minor policy changes. Among these changes are permissive authority for county councils to elect their warden for a three-year term and the removal of a provision for the payment of fox bounties by municipalities which is inconsistent with the provision of the Game and Fish Act.

The bill also contains a number of amendments of a housekeeping nature. We have consulted with the opposition critics and I hope we will be able to proceed with this quickly.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

LAURAMAR HOLDINGS LIMITED ACT, 1991

Mr Elston, on behalf of Mr Henderson, moved second reading of Bill Pr3, An Act to revive Lauramar Holdings Limited.

Mr Elston: This bill revives a company which was, I understand, terminated for failure to comply with certain procedures. Steps have now been taken to comply with the procedures and for the purposes of legal actions and other steps, it is necessary to revive the company and give it full form and effect. I move, as a result, on behalf of Mr Henderson, that this bill receive second reading.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

EASTERN PENTECOSTAL BIBLE COLLEGE ACT, 1991

Mr Bisson, on behalf of Mr Sutherland, moved second reading of Bill Pr37, An Act respecting Eastern Pentecostal Bible College.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

CITY OF NORTH YORK ACT, 1991

Mr Bisson, on behalf of Mr Perruzza, moved second reading of Bill Pr54, An Act respecting the City of North York.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

TOWN OF OAKVILLE ACT, 1991

Mr Sterling, on behalf of Mr Carr, moved second reading of Bill Pr24, An Act respecting the Town of Oakville.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

1550

PLANNING STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1990

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 25, An Act to amend the Planning Act, 1983 and the Land Titles Act.

The Deputy Speaker: When we last debated that bill, I believe that Mr Sterling was the last person to debate it and adjourn the debate. It is now the government's turn to have a debate on it.

Mr Sterling: Mr Speaker, I believe I adjourned the debate, and therefore I just want to say a few words in addition to the words I had prior to the adjourning of that debate. I believe that happened some time ago, in fact over a month ago.

I brought forward a problem with regard to the retroactivity of Bill 25. Bill 25, for the people who may be interested in this debate, deals with the ability of people to will a piece of land to someone they want to inherit it when they die. On 25 July 1990, it became evident to the government of the day, the then Liberal government, that some people were using a will to subdivide large blocks of land into many pieces, which was really against the spirit of the Planning Act. Consequently, an announcement was put forward that as of 25 July, this practice would no longer be allowed in the province of Ontario. Until that time, it had been accepted by various governments that this practice was going on, and as a matter of fact, the practice had not been abused prior to perhaps the year 1990.

The problem with the picking of a date like 25 July or any other date is that it does not take into consideration those people who may have received a piece of land by the fact that someone has died in the last year since 25 July and has left the piece of land to, normally, their son or daughter. I indicated to the minister that I wanted to put forward an amendment to take into account what would happen to people between the date of 25 July and when this bill is proclaimed or passed or receives royal assent; in other words, once there is a law --

The Deputy Speaker: Order. We have just checked Hansard, and it is quite clear, Mr Sterling, that at that time, after you had debated, there were questions and comments. As far as the Hansard and the Chair are concerned, it is no longer your turn, so we will have to choose somebody else.

Mr Sterling: Mr Speaker, I will have an opportunity to speak on this during committee of the whole House. Therefore I will yield the floor at this time, since you are insisting that I do so.

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you very much. We need another speaker now.

Mr Elston: I am always entertained by the sterling words of the member who just recently departed from the floor. I appreciated his attempt, again, to kindle some spirit of lively debate in the place, and I must congratulate him for trying to sneak in this second opportunity to speak on the bill. He is very creative and crafty, and I wish to acknowledge to the constituents whom he represents his never-ending attempt at stealing the show in the Legislative Assembly.

Interjection.

Mr Elston: The member for Markham is in his place now, thinking that we are about to speak to Bill 74, but he will now wish to hear a little bit about Bill 25. It really does speak to a very serious problem which arose over a course of some time and was addressed originally by our government when we were there. There were certain announcements made by the then minister, Mr Sweeney, that would take into account the difficulties of dealing with subdivisions which were created willy-nilly and without adequate access to the planning required to make sure there was orderly growth in parts of the province.

There was in particular a concern raised on the question of the peninsula, and I know that the member for St Catharines spoke eloquently and at length about the serious nature of concerns raised there. He had also indicated, if my memory serves, how severely restricted the people are on the peninsula right now because of the difficulty in making an adequate return on the farm land that is generally seen to be the subject matter of these subdivision wills, if I can call them that.

It is quite clear that we are happy enough to be seeing the move to eliminate the difficulties caused by these types of subdivisions. There are social reasons as well as planning ones which come to mind, and I can think of at least one anecdote which was brought to my attention that caused me some real concern. There was a person suffering from a terminal illness who was actually approached to sign a will that would allow the subdivision. You can imagine the types of pressures and problems associated with those sorts of tactics in creating this sort of ad hoc subdivision approach. That bothers me almost as much as it does to see a loss of farm land that was not planned to be taken out of production or to be divided into smaller parcels, but maintained in the proper productive sizes that are necessary if farming is to carry on.

We are pleased to see the move, finally, to bring this back on. I know the problem itself has been around for some time, and I know the minister had originally introduced this some time ago and has issued some warnings about the degree of retroactivity which has been sponsored by the bill. As I understand it, this goes back to the date originally set by Mr Sweeney when he was minister. I must say that the maintenance of that particular date does not give me as much of a concern as perhaps others would say it would, because there has been a lot of warning.

I note that the parliamentary assistant has also provided me with a draft amendment which I understand will be proposed to answer some concerns raised by one of our colleagues from the Progressive Conservative caucus, to the extent that it will try to remove some of the difficulties with respect to retroactivity as well.

I therefore stand at this point not to prolong the debate, but to acknowledge some steps having been taken by the government. Sometimes people are concerned that we do not agree on very much in this place, and there is a sense that there is no development of a consensus here without a great deal of rancour. I would have to say that, from my point of view, when things are done in a reasonable fashion and when there is a way in which our minds can come together to agree on a course of action that is reasonable and realistic, we owe it to the House to express our support for the government in those initiatives.

It is not always that we would come to agree with our friends across the way, because they have a different view of the world and the way it is to be recast. I think that will cause us other, more interesting debates along the way. In fact, when we get to talk about Bill 74 -- my friend the member for Markham has just departed the House. I hope it was not something I said. But when we get back to Bill 74, perhaps we will have a few words to say about the philosophy behind some of the steps that have been taken with respect to that bill and others. In this matter, however, I wish to rise and offer, on behalf of our Municipal Affairs critic, the member for Oriole, the support of the caucus with respect to moving on this second reading. We will be supporting the bill.

The Deputy Speaker: Are there any questions or comments? Are there any other members who wish to participate in this debate? The member for Grey.

Mr Elston: Oh, oh.

Mr B. Murdoch: "Oh, oh" is right.

Mr Elston: I get two minutes.

Mr B. Murdoch: Yes, you get two minutes.

I would just like to stand up and say that, in our party, we also feel this is a good bill. We did have some problems, with the retroactivity. I am led to believe that we have had some changes, and our member spoke about these changes when we debated this bill some time ago. I am pleased to see that the government has listened and has brought some changes in. We will be looking at those later on.

I was just looking at some of the comments, though, that went on in the last debate, and I would like to comment on them. I was not here the last time, and this will give me a chance to do so.

I noticed the member for St Catharines went on at length to mention how in his area he had the Niagara Escarpment and how wonderful it was. We also in our area have the Niagara Escarpment, and we believe it is a wonderful asset to our area as well. We also, though, have a commission that runs it that we do not feel is an asset to our area. It has been too restrictive and has caused problems. People took advantage of this bill to create lots on the escarpment, which I do not believe has happened in my area, but maybe in the area of St Catharines. I believe that should not have been done.

The member for St Catharines also went on, in a lengthy debate, about the wonderful farm land that is in his area. I hope he has had a chance to pick stones from some of the farm land in our area. We have some good land, but we also have a lot of land that is not so good. We feel that this land should be developed for other than agriculture purposes.

1600

Another of the comments that was mentioned that day was from the member for Huron. He called the people who used this law greedy, and I do not believe some of the farmers who made a will and wanted to leave their sons or daughters some land were greedy. There may have been some people who used this to their purpose, but I do not think all the people were, and I think that was an unfortunate statement that was made in this House, putting all those people in that category.

I also would like to congratulate the member for Carleton, who went to great lengths to look at this bill and come up with some ideas on how we could amend it for the retroactivity, because that was the problem that we had. I think the governing party has looked at that and come up with an idea of its own, and I congratulate it for doing so.

The member for S-D-G & East Grenville mentioned that in his area also they have agricultural land that is not number one or two and could be used for severances and things like this, but we do feel it should be done through the Planning Act and that this bill sometimes lets some things slip through. I will look forward to the amendment when we get to committee of the whole and I will be supporting this bill.

Mr Ferguson: Very briefly, I just want to say that this is a prime example of this government's willingness to co-operate with the other two parties, when the other two parties and the government can meet on a basis where we put together our minds and we come up with a solution to what could have been, for a number of individuals in this province, a very real problem that no doubt would have existed.

The intent of this bill is to prohibit circumvention of the Planning Act. However, much like any other legislation that is passed in this place, I think we recognize that there is a period of time when in fact what takes place is a lead time for the legislation to be adopted and events that have taken place prior to the legislation being adopted.

What we are trying to do here is stop the abuse but try to accommodate those individuals who have already taken action with respect to lots created by a plan of subdivision that has been bequeathed by a will. We listened, of course, to arguments from members of our own caucus as well as the third party and the official opposition, and we recognized the validity of those concerns expressed. As is normal in this place, this government decided that they are legitimate concerns and that we would propose an amendment in order to keep everybody happy and to serve the residents of this province in a fair and equitable manner, and that is exactly what is taking place. So in doing that, I would like to support second reading of the bill.

Motion agreed to.

Bill ordered for committee of the whole House.

House in committee of the whole.

PLANNING STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1990

Consideration of Bill 25, An Act to amend the Planning Act, 1983 and the Land Titles Act.

Section 1:

Mr Ferguson: We have circulated a copy of the amendment to the other two parties, and I would just like to suggest that in repealing subsections 49a(4), (5) and (6) of the act, it would read that: "(7) Subsections (4), (5) and (6) are repealed one year after the day on which this section comes into force."

I am told that it would make life a lot easier for a number of individuals if we could put in a specific date. I suggest that the way the bill is worded now this would be 26 July 1991, so a two-year extension would take us to 26 July 1992, if that is agreeable to everybody.

Mr Sterling: No, a two-year extension would be 1993.

Mr Ferguson: No, it would be 26 July 1992. The effective date of this bill would be 26 July 1990. That is what we agreed upon.

The First Deputy Chair: I am going to read the whole amendment so that we are very clear on this.

Mr Ferguson moves that section 49a of the act, as set out in section 1 of the bill, be amended by adding the following subsections:

"(4) Despite subsections (1), (2) and (3), the minister may by order give effect to all or any part of a provision in a will purporting to subdivide land if the person who made the will died before the day on which this section comes into force.

"(5) No order shall be made by the minister in respect of land situate in a local municipality unless the council of the local municipality has, by bylaw, requested the minister to make the order.

"(6) A council may, as a condition to passing a bylaw under subsection (5), impose conditions in respect of the land to which the bylaw relates.

"(7) Subsections (4), (5) and (6) are repealed on the 26th day of July 1992."

1610

Mr Sterling: I think we should perhaps explain what we are doing here for people who might be interested in the debate. Basically, the amendment follows a suggested amendment which I, along with my colleague the member for Grey, drafted to give to the minister some discretion to allow a severed lot to continue to exist if it was severed by will and testament after 26 July but before this bill became law.

There is a conundrum in that in between those two time zones you have a situation where a person has a validly severed piece of property, but then when this bill passes it goes retroactively back to 26 July and says one no longer has a subdivided lot. I suggested to the minister that he give himself the power to grant the severance. The minister has taken upon himself that power, provided the municipality passes a bylaw which asks the minister to make this a valid severance. While I would have preferred the minister to retain this power of his own volition and not require the municipality to be involved, I accept that as a compromise.

The proposed amendment, as was presented to my friend the member for Grey and myself, was that this would come into effect immediately but this section would disappear one year after this law came into place. Supposing the law came into place on 30 June, assuming it received royal assent somewhere around that time, then this section would be repealed one year later, which would be the end of June 1992. Now they are putting in a specific time of 1 July 1992, which is probably better in terms of clarity of the legislation, and I do not argue with the intent.

My concern is whether or not 1 July 1992 is adequate time for someone who has been caught in this situation. I am saying that because it requires, first of all, action by a municipality to pass a bylaw, and in some of the more rural areas of our province municipal councils do not meet very often during the summer period, and therefore would not go into the mode of making this bylaw until some time in the fall.

As we all know, we have a municipal election coming up this fall and there might be a reluctance on the part of municipalities to take action where they should take action or do anything. Some politicians go into a state of being comatose in terms of what they do or they do not do when it approaches that magic election day. It is not only municipal politicians that do that; sometimes provincial politicians do that.

What I would prefer is that instead of it being 1 July 1992 it be 1 July 1993, so that if in fact there is a problem associated with having a bylaw passed -- and as I understand it from the parliamentary assistant, and I asked him before, that bylaw could be attacked by other people and you would have to go through an OMB hearing. I see some negative responses from the staff. Perhaps the parliamentary assistant was misinformed on that part.

The First Deputy Chair: Are you finished?

Mr Sterling: I yield to him briefly at this point in time to clarify the point.

Mr Ferguson: Just to clarify, in point of fact anything under this act will not be subject to an OMB hearing.

Mr Sterling: That does allay my concerns then, and I would accept 1 July 1992 as a reasonable date.

I would like to thank the minister for considering my amendment and I would like to mention, coincidentally, that after I had brought forward the concern a situation came up in my very own riding of Carleton which I was not aware of when I raised the issue originally. John and Cheryl Fennell of the township of Osgoode brought to my attention a problem which emanated out of this legislation, and that was that Mrs Fennell's mother had made a will in 1988 and died on 17 August 1990 and, therefore, fell out of the time frame of 26 July because her untimely passing was after that date.

After that, the three children who received the lot went to considerable expense to have the lot surveyed. One of the children listed their house for sale. The house was sold. Then they went to the township and said, "How do I get my building permit?" Therefore they had prejudiced themselves in a number of ways over what the existing law really was. Therefore it was my concern that we not be in a position in this province of making laws retroactively to take away rights from people where they exist as of this day, and they exist today on 10 June, that we not go back and take away those rights without having some method of fixing it up.

I would also like to acknowledge the interest of the member for London South, who also was very much interested in the debate and I believe may have spoken to the Minister of Housing because he was concerned over the point I brought forward.

Mr B. Murdoch: I also would like to thank the parliamentary assistant, the member for Kitchener, for taking the member for Carleton's suggestion. He looked after this and, for the record, I think he is the one who should be thanked for looking at this and changing it and coming to a compromise we all can accept.

Motion agreed to.

Section 1, as amended, agreed to.

Sections 2 to 4, inclusive, agreed to.

Bill, as amended, ordered to be reported.

On motion by Miss Martel, the committee of the whole reported one bill with a certain amendment.

1620

ADVOCACY ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR L'INTERVENTION

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 74, An Act respecting the Provision of Advocacy Services to Vulnerable Persons.

Reprise du débat ajourné sur la motion de deuxième lecture du projet de loi 74, Loi concernant la prestation de services d'intervenants en faveur des personnes vulnérables.

The Deputy Speaker: I believe the member for Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings had the floor. Would you like to continue the debate or should I ask somebody else?

Mr Johnson: I would like to continue the debate on Bill 74.

The last opportunity I had to speak to this was just prior to 6 of the clock Monday last. I do not want to rehash or belabour the matter on which I was speaking, but I will reiterate a little bit and continue some further debate.

Bill 74, An Act respecting the Provision of Advocacy Services to Vulnerable Persons, is indeed a far-reaching bill. It empowers vulnerable people to accomplish things that they want through an advocate. It is hoped that it will eliminate much of the abuse, neglect and exploitation that I would not say has plagued vulnerable people in the past, but certainly has been a reality of their existence.

Our society is changing, and I think this act, by the fact that it is going to have a commission of vulnerable people who are going to deal with the real problems of vulnerable people, will go a long way to representing the very people they advocate on behalf of.

Having been an advocate for many years, I think I have learned much and seen much with regard to vulnerable people. I think I speak with some authority and certainly with some knowledge about the needs of vulnerable people. This bill is certainly -- again to reiterate, there are people who see parts of it that they do not find particularly acceptable -- by and large very good and will allow people the kind of legislation they need if they are those individuals who fall into the category of vulnerable persons.

I do not want to belabour the issue or be redundant in my speaking, but the Advocacy Act, 1991, certainly is going to go a long way in making the lives of vulnerable people better in the future. I think the fact that vulnerable people will have a voice through their advocates will lend them an opportunity to be heard and to live a lifestyle that will allow them the opportunity to grant many of the needs they otherwise might not have had available to them as a result of not having Bill 74.

I said before that had Bill 74 existed years ago, then maybe people would not have fallen through the cracks, as we say, as a result of some of the inadequacies in previous legislation. Although we know families are concerned about their loved ones and we know they certainly want to see the best for them, I do not think this bill is designed to take away the advocacy families play on behalf of their loved ones. I think it complements that very fact.

I think that about sums up my concerns and my debate on Bill 74. I think it is a good bill. As I am sure all the rest of my colleagues on the government side will do, I will support this bill and look forward to the implementation of this law.

Mr Cousens: I thank the member for his presentation. What I would like to have him explain to me, if he can, is why he feels this bill and the companion legislation will help prevent the falling through the cracks that he talked about. I continue to worry that there is still that possibility. If he has any information that is not publicly available, I would be very pleased to have it. I realize that in the caucus meetings they probably discuss these things more than we ever hear in public and there may be some other facts he can bring to the Legislature now. I am concerned -- I will present some of my concerns shortly -- that there is still the possibility some people will fall through the cracks. Any comments the member has on that will be appreciated.

Mrs Marland: When the member for Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings spoke last week on this bill, the first two thirds of his presentation were lauding his New Democratic Party government for its thoughtfulness in bringing forward this legislation. From that juncture he then went on to talk about his party in a sense which, if it were not such a serious subject, I think almost would have been humorous. It was almost as though people in this New Democratic Party in Ontario were the only people in the world who cared about adults.

I think it is always unfortunate when political parties get up and start to say something that is basically questionable at best and leads the public who are listening to be convinced that nobody else in any political party in this province was ever worried about vulnerable adults before.

I really was personally offended, not only for our party but even for the Liberal Party. There is not a party in this province that has total licence in the area of caring. All of us in this House are elected to serve and to care for vulnerable adults, indeed for all those people we serve. I suggest to this member that he is not unique.

Mr Johnson: To the member for Mississauga South, I would like to say that I think I am unique, unless she has seen a clone of me wandering around somewhere, and I would like to know about that.

With regard to the comments from the member for Markham, I would just like to say that in talking about falling through the cracks, I think that if there truly had been advocates who were knowledgeable about the needs of vulnerable people, then quite likely government policy would not have closed down as quickly those institutions that housed mentally handicapped and developmentally handicapped individuals, because the real needs of those people were not realized by that quick closure of many of those institutions. That is what I meant by my comments.

With regard to lauding my own party and choosing not to condemn it, I say to the member for Mississauga South that having been in the field of advocacy for a number of years, I saw that at times governments did not look at the needs of vulnerable people from the perspective of the needs of vulnerable people. I think that is happening more and more. I will be honest and say it may not matter what party is in power, that this would have happened, but it surely did not happen in the past. I know that my government was not in power in the past, so I can say that my government was not at fault for that and certain other governments were. That is all I meant by that.

Mr Scott: My participation will be very short. I want to congratulate the government for introducing this bill. It is a bill in which I have had considerable interest because I had the opportunity to commission Father O'Sullivan to make one of the three initial reports that led to the drafting of this proposed act.

As the members will be aware, the other report was the Fram report, which was a consultative document that was actually begun by the previous government but was brought to completion by our government. The third was a report commissioned by the Minister of Health with respect to the psychiatric advocacy program. Those three reports have essentially produced the bill that is before the House.

I have two concerns, not about the bill but rather about the way the bill is being described by some of its advocates -- I use that word non-generically -- in this House. I have a feeling that the conception the government has of how the bill will operate is not consistent with the objectives Mr Fram and Father O'Sullivan had in mind and which are reflected in the legislation. In other words, my concerns are not so much about the legislation as they are about the way the government describes what it proposes to do with this legislation. The member who spoke last, who spoke about vulnerable adults often not knowing what they wanted and cases falling through the cracks and the usual sort of social worker description of events, is an example of the concern -- I place it no higher than that -- I have now.

1630

The purpose of advocacy is to allow people to make their own decisions. The purpose of advocacy is not to allow someone to have the benefit of a decision made by an advocate or a care giver. Its sole purpose is to allow people to make their own -- and I emphasize that -- decisions. The need for it is represented by the fact that vulnerability extends across a wide spectrum of the population and takes an almost unlimited variety of forms. People who are clearly incompetent to manage their commercial affairs are competent to decide that they would like a second medical opinion, or that they would like to do without lunch today, or that they would like to live somewhere else, or no, they would not like to go to vote, even though you are pestering them at their door. These people, in that wide spectrum of vulnerability, should be allowed to make their own decisions.

The advocate, in the Fram scheme and in Father O'Sullivan's scheme, comes to them not like a social worker, a doctor or even a lawyer; he comes to them completely neutral and says, "These are the options," being certain to exclude none, and outlines, if it is necessary or useful, how the options work, explicitly for the purpose of allowing the vulnerable adult to make his or her own decision. So when we talk about cases falling through the cracks and people getting the care they need or deserve, those are important social policy objectives that Community and Social Services and Health and other ministries will have in mind, but they are not the objectives of an advocacy program.

I must say, somewhat hesitantly in the presence of the minister who I know will do her best with this bill, this is why I was initially very concerned that the program had been moved out of the Attorney General's department, which has experience in running neutral programs like legal aid, into a much more mainstream, substantive, positivist ministry such as the honourable minister runs and has, by definition, to run. I am very concerned about that, because if advocacy is not completely a neutral matter, if it is driven by the advocate's agendas or interests, it will not only not have served its purpose, but it will have done a very great injustice to the decision-making capacity, no matter how limited or fragmentary, of the vulnerable adult.

My concerns about that are not raised in respect of the Fram report, are not raised in respect of Father O'Sullivan's report, or even in respect of the drafting of the legislation. I think the people who did that work got it right about what advocacy is. My concerns rise exclusively out of the way some of the well-intentioned proponents of this scheme describe what it is going to do, because it is not going to do the things that are so described. It is not intended to do those things, and it would be a major injustice to vulnerable adults in Ontario if it did those things, so let's have no more talking about the advocacy program as if it were some kind of social work program. It is not. It is precisely and narrowly an advocacy program designed to allow people exclusively to make their own choices. That is my first concern and I would like to know from the government, in due course, that that is what it means, because that is not what, from time to time, its representatives out there are saying.

My second concern is economic. This program will be a cruel hoax for vulnerable adults unless it is properly funded. A government like the present one, which is having some major difficulties -- I sympathize with it -- in funding legal aid, which is under very great stress -- and the honourable minister will want to know that the biggest legal aid increases arose under our government -- a government that, for reasons I understand perfectly, is having difficulty funding legal aid in family law matters, which currently is the situation, must be able to fund advocacy adequately. If the government is not prepared to make the commitment to fund the advocacy services, not only this year, but as they grow and as the need for them grows exponentially over the next decade, if it is not able to commit to that kind of funding right now, what the government is doing is making a promise, not a promise on the election streets that can be ignored or explained or dealt with, but a promise in government that it will have a moral obligation to respond to. If it makes that promise without the adequate resources to support it -- and frankly, I have grave doubt about whether the government will have those resources -- it has made indeed a cruel promise to the vulnerable adults of the province.

This is not something that it can do incrementally or halfway. It is not the kind of program that can be allowed to grow. It is a program that is open-ended and it is a program that makes a promise to people about a resource that will be available for them. It will be a cruel hoax indeed if, when the chips are down, those resources are not available.

So I ask the members of the government, all of whom are here, to make sure they understand -- as I am confident they do; as I hope they do -- the real meaning of advocacy, as David Baker of the Advocacy Resource Centre for the Handicapped and others will explain to those members, that it is not a social welfare system. I ask them also to remember the commitment they are making today for their government over the next four years and succeeding governments to finance the very significant costs that are part of this program. If those two things are done, I have every confidence that Ontario can be a model in providing advocacy services.

Hon Ms Ziemba: I thank the member, my honourable colleague in the opposition, for his comments. I value his judgement and his comments today because I know he worked very hard looking at this piece of legislation and, unfortunately, did not have the opportunity to see it go forward.

I do want to reiterate very strongly that advocates are a voice for the vulnerable adult. They do not speak with their own initiative; they only are an extension to what a vulnerable adult is saying, and that is very clear if you look at the purposes of the act. They are: "To contribute to the empowerment of vulnerable persons to promote respect for their rights, freedoms, autonomy and dignity." Thus, what we are saying is that we want to make sure that vulnerable adults have that voice, have somebody to speak on their behalf and to express their wishes and desires through that person.

I share the concern that it be kept that way. I know that when we have professional advocates, the training and what we are going to do in our commission, that will happen because the commission itself is going to be set up so that vulnerable adults are going to have a voice. For the first time, they are going to be empowered to sit on a commission and to have the right to see how they can have that commission carry forward with the act. So it is an extremely important piece of legislation in that we are seeing empowerment -- not only that they are empowered with an advocate to speak on their behalf, but also that the commission is going to reflect that in the choice of commissioners.

I also want to talk about why it is in our particular ministry and not in the Attorney General's office. This, as members know, comes forward with three pieces of legislation. One of them is guardianship. Guardianship is going to be carried through in the Attorney General's office. Saying that, we cannot have an advocate speaking on behalf of and for a vulnerable adult when the advocate is also in a guardianship position, entrusted with power over the vulnerable adult's affairs. It must be somebody who is at arm's-length relationship. It has to be separate so that the advocate can certainly speak on their behalf.

1640

Mr Johnson: The member for St George-St David reaffirms in my mind the notion that he does not always know what he speaks of, and by that, I will say he talks of the advocates being only in the roles of advocates and speaking with their own mouths on behalf of the vulnerable, instead of speaking on behalf of the vulnerable.

I have to say that there are people in this world who function at a level where they cannot communicate. They function at a level that will never allow them to communicate, and someone in society has to advocate on their behalf. I think the member for St George-St David has overlooked this very important point, because if we were to implement this legislation as he advocated, then certainly there would be a group of our population who would have been exempted by the legislation that he suggests.

So I think it is important to note that, yes, I do agree with him that this legislation is in the interests of vulnerable people and it ensures that we have people advocating on behalf of them, but not advocating on behalf of them when they can advocate on behalf of themselves. I think that is a very important point to make. But there is a small percentage of our population that functions very low. They cannot communicate, and at that point in time someone knowledgeable must come forward and advocate on their behalf. I think he has missed that point.

Mr Scott: I am grateful that the minister has got it right, because the honourable member who spoke last, while he may hurl insults at me, clearly has it wrong.

I remember the case of Justin Clark, a young man for whom the Advocacy Resource Centre for the Handicapped acted, who could not communicate at all, and people out there thought he did not know what he wanted to say. In fact, to say that he could not communicate did not mean he could not think and make judgements. What we did not need in a case like that was someone who would come in and say, "I'll decide what Justin Clark needs." What we needed was somebody who could explain to Justin what the options were. Why? So he could make up his own mind.

Now I am confident the minister has that right. I am confident the bureaucratic staff by and large will get it right under her influence, and I simply ask the minister to take aside members like the honourable member for Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings and explain that if you cannot speak, that does not mean you cannot make up your own mind in the most intelligent way. Remarks like that are going to get advocacy off to a wrong start unless the minister can control it.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs Haslam): Perhaps everyone here would like to join me in welcoming John Sweeney, former member for Kitchener-Wilmot and former Minister of Community and Social Services.

NOTICE OF DISSATISFACTION

The Acting Speaker: I would also like to take this opportunity to mention, pursuant to standing order 33 and the unanimous consent of the House to have an adjournment debate on a day not specified in the standing orders, the member for Mississauga West has given notice of his dissatisfaction with the answer to his question given by the Solicitor General concerning letters sent to members of the judiciary and the Attorney General regarding constituents' parking tickets. This matter will be debated at 6 pm today.

ADVOCACY ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR L'INTERVENTION

Mr Cousens: We are discussing and debating a very important bill and I am pleased to follow on from the member for St George-St David. On 16 December 1986 he announced the appointment of Sean O'Sullivan to begin a committee which ended up with a report called You've Got a Friend, and is certainly a person who has a lot to offer on this important subject.

I think when you are dealing with vulnerable people it is not something that needs to be or should be a partisan matter. It crosses the boundaries of all our society and it certainly has to be an issue in which every one of us from this Legislature and from society as a whole participates and understands as fully as possible.

The fact of the matter is that we have in excess of one million vulnerable adults in the province of Ontario, and these are people very dependent upon the rest of society to make sure we maintain the kind of resources and the kind of advice, counsel, support and services that will allow them to live a life as fully as is possible with a quality of life and to find the happiness and the wellbeing and the security that really are rare in the world but should be something that is no exception here in the province of Ontario.

I think very often we take for granted just how great a province this is in that we are concerned with the wellbeing of all the people in this province. Over a period of time I think we have somehow failed to address the concerns that are being brought forward in this bill and the companion legislation. I am pleased that this House and this Legislature will spend some time to try to clarify the services and the support mechanisms that society should be giving to vulnerable people.

There is a real need for advocacy in our province, and I know that a number of our members have addressed it, but it is going to boil down to a number of issues. There is a need for funding, and how can we continue to say we need certain things if in fact the resources are not applied to them? It may well mean the realignment of priorities of the government and of society to make sure that as we go into the future there is at least a balanced understanding that says that for those who are vulnerable, there are services, there are support mechanisms available to them.

I think we also see that the people who are presently serving the needs of those who are vulnerable have excessive workloads. My experience as a therapist and a chaplain at Oak Ridge in the Penetanguishene Mental Health Centre gave me an insight as to the kind of workload that is carried on by people who are within an institutional environment. They do not have what you would call a ratio of patients and people being served with the delivery of those services that is all that great, so they end up having to look after a large number of people and are not able to give the time and the counselling and the services that they so often want to give, but it is just the pressure and the demands that are upon them.

We have a province in which we have institutionalized very many people, and there has been a movement out of institutions over the last five or seven years. That has ended up with disruption and problems for those people who need to be cared for. I have seen the repercussions, where in fact a number of those people who were moved out of an institutional setting in which they were comfortable and had a sense of identification have lost that, and many of them went into a cocoon. Many of them lost their sense of wellbeing and their confidence, and in fact a number are said to have died because of the shock of having been moved out of the comfort they felt in an institutional environment.

As we have made these changes over the last five, seven, eight years -- I remember when they started and I remember the concerns I had back then. I still have the same kind of concern that there are some who are well suited to an institutional setting, some to a smaller, group home setting and others to their own homes where family and friends will look after them.

What we really need to do is understand the kind of workload that is required to maintain a quality level of life for those people. I think we need direction for all those people who are vulnerable, so that it is not just a matter of in one setting, trying to do one thing and in another setting, something else. But maybe through the kind of bill we see here with Bill 74 we will begin to see a long-term strategy for those who are vulnerable. I think that we will see, through the bill, some kind of supervision at a higher level. I have some concerns about that, and I will address that in my remarks.

1650

I believe we need a commission to look at it and we need to have advocates who have an assignment within society. Certainly people who are in institutional settings now have advocates who are there to fight on their behalf, to present their concerns and to make sure that, like an ombudsman, there is someone who hears, listens, understands, interprets and passes on those concerns for further action.

I guess what we really have is a sense of increasing accountability on the part of all members of society for those who are vulnerable. We can never ever think that is going to happen automatically. There has to be a sense in which society has placed its responsibility on others who are then going to watch out for their needs and concerns.

The funny part is that some of us who are in this House, and many who are watching on TV, will know of healthy, fully active and dynamic people within society who were stricken after the fact and became one of those whom we are talking about now. That is the after-effect of Alzheimer's. It is the effect of different kinds of sicknesses that will come on people at different times. It is the result of accidents they can have that suddenly make them vulnerable people. We have a responsibility as legislators to develop a strategy and a process that will allow us then to say we are doing the right thing for vulnerable people in our province.

The fact of the matter is, we will do everything as best we can and it still goes down to the local level and the family and the home, which is still the most important part of our society. You can never ever do away with the home. We in the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party are great believers in it. I mention it because when people ask what we stand for, I believe strongly that whatever home it is you come from -- and there are very different definitions of what that nuclear unit is now -- it is the most important part of society. We as legislators have to support and undergird the home so that it continues to be a place where you find comfort and strength from one another.

The traditional sense of a home as I once knew it may be different under the modern definition, but it is still that small nuclear unit that allows us then to say we as legislators are reaffirming our faith and hope that within the home, where possible, they have the resources and the strength and the courage and the sense of society's backing to do what is right.

When I looked at Sean O'Sullivan's book, You've Got A Friend, one of the points he made there is that the lack of co-ordination of advocacy services to all vulnerable adults requiring assistance is a profound injustice. The fact that there are so many out there who still require assistance is one of the most profound injustices in our society. The fact that we are going to address it is in fact a step in the right direction which began many, many years ago.

I guess this is the problem I have with some members who say it is the New Democrats who are now coming of age and doing something. I think it is one of those issues that every one of us in this House can say we are moving towards with a sense of urgency and a sense of obligation to address and meet those needs conscientiously, fairly and in a concerned, compassionate way. I do not think there is any doubt that our society today demands that each one of us accept that responsibility.

I have a number of concerns with just how we are going to handle it. There are 76 pages in three different bills, all three bills dealing with three different areas that would fall under this area of advocacy for vulnerable people. There is guardianship, which is Bill 108, and the whole sense of decisions on behalf of adults. Another one is under the Ministry of Health, An Act respecting Consent to Treatment. Three bills and 76 pages, a lot of reading.

It is surprising that when these bills came down, they were not all delivered in the House at the same time. The Minister of Citizenship delivered Bill 74, An Act respecting the Provision of Advocacy Services to Vulnerable Persons, on 18 April. Why then were the other two bills not tabled at the same time? I think I know why. I do not think the government had its acts in place at the time. It had not finished the drafting of them or the translating or whatever. But these three bills should have been brought in together, not separately.

It was wrong to bring them in separately because you could not begin to understand what each one was trying to say. I venture to say I still do not know. There is still too much within these bills for my mind to fully comprehend because of the overlapping concern that we have for them. That is why I asked one of the previous speakers, "How do you know that with Bill 74 there aren't going to be people falling through the cracks?"

That has to be one of the concerns that will be addressed as we look at these three bills together, that we do not take them separately when they go to committee. Hopefully, there will be public input into what we are doing so that all three bills are seen on the scales of the balance of what is right and wrong and that we go away saying, "We have dealt with the issues that deal with that shady area, the murky area that has not really been dealt with for a number of years."

I am concerned. I start off with a criticism of the three ministers who brought these three bills down, two on one day, on 27 May, and Bill 74 on another day. It makes it incomplete for us to be dealing with this bill to the exclusion of the others. We should be looking at all three together somehow. In the opening statement by the Minister of Citizenship and in the other presentations by different ministers they have come forward and said it is going to be tied together.

This Legislature must now make sure that when Bill 74 goes to committee after we have dealt with it, it will be the same committee and somehow an overlapping concern is spent so that the three bills, 74, 108 and 109, are dealt with much around the same time. That has to be the case. I do not know whether it is true. Certainly it would be my strong suggestion that we try to deal with them somewhat together.

I do not know how Bill 74 is going to help. I have a situation in my riding which has the people in Unionville more than a little concerned. Whether or not those three bills are going to solve the problem leaves me a little bit concerned. I am dealing with a situation where a person who is thought to have schizophrenia was involved in an incident that affected the whole community last year, in which there was a dog killed. It had its throat slit and the dog ended up dying several hours later after this incident. This person was charged, was taken to court and has been incarcerated for almost a year. In July this same person will be released from jail, and at that time the community will begin to wonder what will happen to the community when this person comes out jail.

The person has been in a provincial jail and has served his full term. The judge, in his statement about this 26- or 27-year-old, had said this person is a dangerous person, and is concerned about the wellbeing of the individual as well as society.

Whose rights will be protected when this person is released from jail? Does society have any way of protecting itself, or does this individual have a way of protecting himself? For instance, if a person with schizophrenia does not take his medication, he is then capable of doing things he would not normally do when he is under medication. Yet you are not able to force a person to take medication under the present acts, the Ontario Mental Health Act and different laws of the province. When this person then is free to roam in society again, does the neighbourhood have reason for concern that something could happen?

1700

How do we protect either this person from himself or the neighbourhood from him, and how do you weigh one against the other? It is a complicated question. I have the judgement of the judge. I have information from the Law Society of Upper Canada which says there is very little that you can do in society in such a situation with a person with schizophrenia. There are people on the one side who say that an individual's rights and freedoms are more important and balance it off against the rights of all of society. I know it is a complicated question, and yet unless you want to take it to court -- my honourable friend the member for St George-St David would be able to explain the law far better than I, not being a lawyer, but I know that society does not feel protected from this vulnerable adult who is --

Mr Mammoliti: What's your solution?

Mr Cousens: The member should not make fun of this one. I do not think that there is an easy solution. My concern in raising this is that I would hope that when we take this legislation out for hearings and discussion, we can look at incidents such as the one I am describing that will take place in Unionville on 13 July when this person gets out of jail. He has been in protective custody, which is like solitary confinement, for a large number of months and will now be back in society. If he does not take his medication, what happens to him and to the rest of the community when he comes back into it?

I am saying this as one who really understands to some extent his need for individual rights and freedoms, but I also understand the needs for society to be protected. When we are coming out with vulnerable adults and legislation that affects them, how does this person fit into that legislation? I do not know. I want to make sure that we can draft some way in which we deal with the balance that is needed in society of the individual against the other needs.

I have been on CBC on this subject. I am meeting with the community on the matter. We are dealing with it at a level on which we are trying to come up with answers, and I realize there is no quick fix, but when we are looking at this issue, let's be smart enough as legislators to say, "Hey, not everything is easy and sometimes we are going to have to deal with those matters and hopefully come up with some kind of way of addressing the need."

I had a situation that was discussed with me yesterday of a mother of a 23-year-old young man who is handicapped. This young man was in for tests, psychological in nature, that were an assessment. As it turns out, the mother of this 23-year-old man, who she is looking after in her own home, cannot gain access to the results of those tests without her and her son going down together to the doctor and signing it off together, and yet she is the guardian and somehow responsible for him. The red tape that she is going through just in trying to get information to deal with her own son, who is now of age, is a nightmare. She is anxious to do the right things for her son. I know her as a most responsible, caring, loving mother, and yet the law prohibits her from gaining access to information under freedom of information and so on.

We have got to somehow break through the logjam and have some common sense that deals with people as people. We understand that there are a lot of caring parents who are trying to do the right thing for their children. Society should have some way of allowing them to do it and cope with the problems at the same time. Dealing with vulnerable people, handicapped people, has to be something that you just do not come along and say: "There's the law. It's black and white. There's no grey." There is a grey element to it, and what are we doing about that? Are we discussing it? We cannot when the House is just having a discussion on second reading, but we could if this bill does go out for more input and more guidance by the public as a whole and legislators around the table trying to deal with it.

I am concerned about issues within Bill 74. One that has me somewhat concerned -- the intent may be right, but the implementation could be a problem -- has to do with the right of entry into a home in which a vulnerable person is housed. I am thinking of a number of people who are vulnerable adults who are mature people in years chronologically and who have been in the home for a long period of time. If an outsider would go into the home and see this person, he would say, "Gosh, you're being rough on them," or "You're speaking too strongly," or "You're disciplining them too harshly," and yet for that very person who has had to be cared for in that way, if you really sat down and figured it out, it could well have been the right discipline, the right words, the right technique in order to deal with him. Yet an outsider or an advocate who did not fully understand the dynamics of that home and the relationships that were held between the caring family and the vulnerable adult might come along and say: "Aha, you are mistreating them. You shouldn't have that person, we should do something else," and then interfere and meddle. I am worried that if we just have, again, a clear-cut right of entry in all situations without some kind of understanding the situation and working it through, there could be an intrusion into people's homes where there is a vulnerable person.

I feel the right of entry into a person's home where there is anything going on has to be done very carefully. There is a delicate balance between the rights of that family to privacy and the rights of society to be involved in trying to resolve a concern that has arisen with that vulnerable person.

As this reads now, depending on how the regulations read that follow it up and depending on how it is interpreted by a justice of the peace, if in fact there has been a reluctance on the part of the family to allow an advocate to gain entry or an advocate who does not fully understand the significance of going into a private home and making demands and wanting to see things and have private meetings, this can lead in itself to expectations on the part of the vulnerable adult that might lead to other problems later on when he or she is trying to work with that person.

The fact that right now the legislation does not give the right of entry in all situations is a concern. We do have to address it, but we have to find a way that respects the privacy of the home. I just do not think that we want to be willy-nilly on something like this. We have to make sure that we have drawn some parameters around it. It is an issue that does require further discussion and elaboration.

I know many people who have in their own homes now a vulnerable adult they are caring for. I know, from having talked to a number of them already, they are very concerned with the right of entry that is going to be given to the advocates through this section 16 of Bill 74.

I therefore challenge this House and this Legislature in the public hearings to consider and address very seriously how that can be dealt with in such a way as to not take away the rights and freedoms of those people who are trying to do the right thing in a loving, caring way for that vulnerable adult.

I am concerned as well with one of the issues that comes out of this bill, and it has to do with the possible elimination of volunteers in the important work of serving the community. A number of years ago, I had the pleasure, with John Hanna -- there were a number of others, but he has now passed away. I recall very well the first meeting of the mental health association for York region. I guess there but for the grace of God go you and I, because any one of us could suffer the kind of problems that they have. With mental health, it is such a debilitating, terribly misunderstood disease in our society, and yet what we need to do is understand that the government and the law and the system is never fully going to be able to do all that is required to meet the needs of people. Therefore, let's make sure that when we draft legislation we include the role of volunteers on an ongoing basis towards the ongoing maintenance and support of those who are vulnerable people in our society.

We need desperately to have more people volunteering to go into homes and institutions and wherever to help those people to have a better life. We need to encourage the role of volunteers in our society.

One of the things that came out of the report, You've Got a Friend: A Review of Advocacy in Ontario, from Sean O'Sullivan has to do with the importance of volunteer advocates. The legislation in Bill 74 does not, in my view, address the role of volunteer advocates. He goes into his elaboration of the role of volunteers. They will receive training and certification according to standards developed by the central office and their responsibilities will include visiting vulnerable adults in care facilities and in the community on a regular basis.

1710

I do not think it is the intention of the government that we are trying to force everything into a government bureaucracy, but let's make sure we establish the role of volunteers so that those who have the interest and the care are given the opportunity under legislation to do those things: "visiting vulnerable adults in care facilities and in the community on a regular basis; receiving and investigating problems or complaints of vulnerable adults and working to resolve them through consultation and negotiation; reporting problems, complaints and actions taken...to the regional office."

Further in his report, when he talks about the role of volunteers, he puts a strong emphasis that is lacking in this government legislation, Bill 74. It is as if the government has not read and taken seriously the recommendations of You've Got a Friend. I credit the member for St George-St David for the leadership he gave in helping to have this drafted. It is part of the research that should go into the establishment of a better law.

In his closing comments he says, "The training of such volunteer advocates is consistent with our belief that advocacy is not just a function of government; it is part of our responsibility to care for one another as family members, friends and concerned citizens." That says a lot, and I challenge the Minister of Citizenship to review her legislation to develop a sense of the volunteer involvement in this bill. Failing the building in of amendments to this, our caucus will be developing a number of amendments that I hope will be considered by the committee which will give that sense of urgency to the role of volunteers in our society.

Consultation is my third point. The consultation process is inherent to the development of good legislation. I am not sure whom the minister talked to when she was preparing this, but I know there are diverse views on this whole question of advocacy. I just think it is imperative that we go out of our way to solicit their involvement in considering what is right. That is one of the problems we are going to have. If we are in a big hurry to have marks up on the wall so that the New Democratic government says, "Okay, we've got so many pieces of legislation passed," the Liberals did this all the time. They would come along and say, "Hey, we've done all this at once."

It does not do any good to the society in which we are trying to serve unless we do it correctly and well. The minister can say hopefully, "We will have second reading by the time we rise here on 27 June," and not try to set an artificial deadline of one or two weeks to listen to all the different groups that have something to say on this bill. There should be time for society, for the churches and for the professionals to react to it. The minister should let the different community groups react so that when we are finished we definitely have a piece of legislation there is a broad base of consensus on.

Then when the honourable member for Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings says there will not be anyone falling through the cracks, together we will have a sense that we have addressed those concerns -- the individual I described in Unionville, the schizophrenic, the mother with a handicapped son who has worries about how she can get information on him. These and many other issues will have been faced up to.

I lead to my next point. As an active member of the Kidney Foundation of Canada, I wonder about the definition of "vulnerable". That is the problem in our society: How do you define different things? When we were hearing about the Solicitor General's new legislation for Sunday shopping, we said, "What is the definition of a tourist area?" The fact of the matter is, that is not inherent in the legislation. The New Democratic government has not defined what a tourist area is. I will come back to this issue.

Let us then define what a vulnerable person is, what it takes to make up that person and what we are talking about. There is a grey area of: Is it Alzheimer's? Is it different forms of dementia that fall into it? Are there certain ways in which we can begin to define who a vulnerable person really is? I said earlier "what a vulnerable person is." I did not mean that. I meant who is vulnerable and who then would fall into the definitions we are talking about in this legislation.

I know the intent of the legislation is something we can all applaud. It is now a matter of taking the intention into the kind of legislative action, the legislative agenda, that will permit this government and this Legislature, all parties and all people from the province to say, "Yes, I have had something to say and something to do about these important pieces of legislation," and where the people will all become better advocates when we are finished. There will not just be a group of professional advocates out there fighting for vulnerable people, but every one of us in the province of Ontario will accept a greater role and responsibility to make sure that those who are vulnerable are being cared for and that we accept it in a responsible way. At the same time, may we all go away with a better sense of whose responsibility it is to have guardianship and whose responsibility it is for consent to treatment.

These are big bills. They are important pieces of legislation, and I am pleased that we have a chance to at least discuss Bill 74 today. I look forward to that opportunity when Bill 74, Bill 108 and Bill 109 will be considered together in committee. When we in this House come back after there has been a full, public and open discussion of these issues where we will have considered amendments honestly, openly and sincerely, we can then pass bills that will do something to protect those people who need to be protected.

Mr White: I was pleased to be reminded by the member for Markham of the mental health association in York region, on whose board I formerly sat. My wife ran a group in his area called Citizen Advocacy, a program that basically matched volunteer advocates with people who had some vulnerability, often people who were developmentally challenged. It is a problem with a group like this that the member addresses very well.

Obviously there are a number of areas that are very sensitive, for example, the entry into people's homes and the very difficult decision-making advocates are faced with. I think the member spoke about that eloquently. Those are things that can really only be dealt with by someone who has a fair bit of skill and training, such as a volunteer would not possess. Certainly the people my wife organized and trained as director of that group did not really have that training or that level of skills.

However, I think this legislation offers an excellent balance, as through it the commission is able to employ or direct or form programs that would meet the needs of people with very distinct and difficult problems, and also the more general problems that perhaps a volunteer could meet. It is a program that would encourage volunteer organizations, because they would be feeding into this group.

With this balance, the legislation is an excellent piece of legislation. It is a program for advocacy sometimes by professionals, but directed and empowered by the very groups it would be speaking on behalf of. For that reason it is an excellent piece of legislation to defend.

1720

Hon Ms Ziemba: I thank members very much for their comments. I enjoyed listening to them and am glad to see that people have a concern and understand the non-partisan attitude we should approach when we look at the Advocacy Act.

I also want to reiterate what we discussed in the debate last week: the fact that this particular bill was considered extremely important. We wanted to get it on the table quickly to make sure we had discussion on it. The other two bills will be coming forward for second reading. With the consent of all members of the House, we hope we will bring all three bills together in the standing committee on administration of justice. That is our intention. I have the recommendation from our whip that this will happen and that we will be able to do that in committee. I am looking forward to the comments that come through the committee, because I think it is extremely important.

I also want to mention the definition and have members look on page 2 in section 2 where it talks about the definition of "vulnerable person," Then, if members look on page 7, section 15, it gives categories, and people with Alzheimer's, people who have various disabilities we have been talking to, are addressed in those particular areas of concern the members raised.

Yes, there will always be a concern about how we deal with people who are violent and who have extreme problems. We hope that when we get into committee, when we get our advocacy commission set up as well, with people who represent vulnerable persons and their organizations, we can address some of these areas of concern.

I certainly look forward to working with members to share those concerns with me and to bring forward their ideas and comments, because we want to make this a piece of legislation that will address all the areas of concern. I understand the members' concern about balancing the two, the right of society and the right of the vulnerable person, and that definitely is our concern.

Mr Cousens: I appreciate the comments, first, from the member for Durham Centre. The worry that comes through his comments is to -- let us be careful we do not become too professional in the provision of services to society; exactly how we define a professional and someone else who is just loving and caring and is able to give a service.

I do not expect we are going to solve that one in a two-minute debate, but I lean to the fact that we somehow will overprofessionalize services in our society if we are not careful, and then you end up having them with special standards and other things. It happens with Meals on Wheels where they are saying, "You've got to have this, this and this," whereas it started out to make sure you were doing something right for those who otherwise could not have proper food.

If I could just make one suggestion: Understanding the difficulty of defining it, we will be able to look at it in greater depth once it goes to committee, and it may well be refined in different ways. What the Citizenship minister may well do -- and may I suggest it with the resources she has got -- is put together a summary document that breaks the three bills out into one large sheet so we can begin to see where they overlap, where one serves the needs of society and where she has other bills and pieces of legislation that are looking at it.

As it is now, it is still a nightmare for the non-legal mind. I realize it is probably easy for the bureaucrats and her staff who are doing it all the time but, for people from the community, it would be so much more helpful if in layman's or laywoman's language, she had something that was easier to understand and put the three bills in perspective with each other. I appreciate her intent; let us hope we come out with something that works.

Hon Ms Ziemba: First of all, I would like to thank all members of the House who participated in this debate. I feel very good about the participation and the fact that people took an interest in this extremely important act and showed a non-partisan attitude towards it. Some people who spoke got a little carried away, but others made sure they kept on topic and certainly addressed the important issues.

Advocacy and this Advocacy Act and the rights of vulnerable persons are extremely important in our society. All of us, as my colleague in the opposition in the third party said, have a responsibility to make sure vulnerable persons are cared for, that we understand their needs and that they have a voice in our society, a rightful voice.

I am looking forward to getting into debate in committee. I think it will be extremely important to hear all comments. We have heard comments already in our office about concerns, but also the fact that people are excited that finally, after 15 years of many documentations, of many reports coming forward, an act is being introduced that will be strong legislation to set a cornerstone for all vulnerable persons, and also that we will lead in the rest of Canada and North America with our piece of legislation. So I am looking forward to hearing everyone's comments and opening up a good debate, as I am sure will happen.

I also want to reiterate our position. Family and friends have an important role to play for all vulnerable persons. We do not deny them that. Our party supports family; it is extremely important with all of us. But sometimes family and friends need a helping hand, and there are people in our society who do not have family and friends to support and help them. In that particular case, we must have a mechanism in place to ensure that all vulnerable persons have an advocate, somebody who will speak for them, not on their behalf, but for them and express their wishes, to be able to carry through with what they would like to have happen with their lives.

I also want to talk about the volunteer aspect. Yes, it would be nice if all of our initiatives could be put forward by volunteers. Unfortunately, as we see in our society with our aging population, with the growing difference of the demographic changes happening in our society, volunteers are at a premium, they are not always there and they are not always ready and able to take on the work of a vulnerable adult.

Vulnerable adults take a long time to understand how to express their wishes. We cannot have volunteers coming and going in particular situations. We have to have somebody who will be there and will be assisting them. If volunteers want to help, and there are agencies that have volunteers that are appropriate, yes, they can play a role in our new bill. But we must remember that volunteers are not always there and we have to have a mechanism in place to make sure that people's needs are addressed, and that people have an advocate to speak on their behalf when there are no family and friends to do that for them.

Again, I really am looking forward to bringing all three pieces of legislation forward; it is a forward move. We are pleased we have had this opportunity for the debate in the House, an interesting debate. Good concerns were raised, important issues raised, and we look forward to hearing more of those and to working together. I think that is very important, as my colleague from the third party mentioned, that all of us have the responsibility to look after our vulnerable society, that we are all responsible and should work together on this piece of legislation to make sure that happens. It will benefit all of us because, who knows, any one of us could be a vulnerable adult in the future.

Motion agreed to.

La motion est adoptée.

Bill ordered for the standing committee on administration of justice.

Le projet de loi est déféré au comité permanent de l'administration de la justice.

ONTARIO LOAN ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR LES EMPRUNTS DE L'ONTARIO

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 81, An Act to authorize borrowing on the credit of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

Reprise du débat ajourné sur la motion de deuxième lecture du projet de loi 81, Loi autorisant des emprunts garantis par le Trésor.

The Deputy Speaker: I believe the member for Etobicoke West had the floor the last time, unless you prefer somebody else takes over?

Mr Stockwell: It is a valid suggestion, but I think not. I was just in the beginning stages, I think, of discussing the loans and the moneys needed to operate the government for the next -- I forget the term -- and we were talking about the debt, the deficit and exactly what was being accomplished by this government in its borrowing needs and the budget it brought down in April.

I will be very clear. I would like to say off the top that the borrowing being undertaken by this government, the $9.7 billion, although I am certain it is well-intentioned by the members opposite, and probably a belief by the members opposite that it will have some kind of major impact on our economy -- they suggested it will fight the recession. In my impression, the $9.7 billion is (a) being totally overestimated by this government with respect to how much work or how much the economy will turn around by the inclusion of this expenditure by the government; $9.7 billion truly is playing in the margins of an economy such as a province like this. When you are talking $200 billion plus of gross domestic product, it seems to me that $9.7 billion -- again, probably a thought that crossed their minds is that this would be a well-spent $9.7 billion and somehow jump-start the economy.

1730

It is a pleasant thought in theory, in back rooms somewhere. It may make sense to certain members opposite, but in reality it is not a significant amount of money to pump into the economy of the province. It is overestimating the worth and, as I said before, it is not going to make a major impact on Ontario's economy. In turn, what we have is a lagging, sagging economic forecast.

If the intent was to jump-start the economy, the deficit for this year's budget is basically wasted money. It is wasted because the private sector is the one which is going to have to jump-start the economy. How does the private sector jump-start the economy? Through expansion, growth, rehiring all those people who were laid off, and so on and so forth. Governments do not jump-start an economy, and it has been proven time and again in history that governments never did jump-start an economy.

The suggestion comes from -- I think it is the member for Durham landfill west, or something; I am not sure. I am sure when he was teaching the students and pupils that he taught in his previous life, he probably taught them otherwise. But when you get into the private sector and understand what the realities of the private sector are, you understand that although in theory one may sit around in classrooms and espouse this pap, it just does not work that way.

The $9.7 billion will be the proof of the pudding. We will see exactly how quickly this economy spins out of this recession and exactly how successful the government has been. If they want to counteract a recession in the province, some would suggest the best way to do it is to run a debt. If they are intent on running a deficit and they believe we must run a deficit to allow the economy to jump-start itself, the best method would be simply to reduce taxes.

An example would be a provincial sales tax reduction. A provincial sales tax reduction of one or two points would have added up to a total in the range of $2 billion; that is $2 billion at a two-point reduction. It would have made the border cities far more competitive than they are today. It would have allowed the economy to jump-start because it would leave the money in the hands of the consumer. Hopefully, the consumer would then go out and purchase because of the reduction in the provincial sales tax. That way it gets the manufacturing sector operating at a higher pitch.

The difficulty of collecting the money and then running a deficit is that the money has to go through the hands of the bureaucracy. There is no doubt in anyone's mind, even in the minds of the members opposite, that the bureaucracy tends to spend a lot of money and is very costly to maintain. They are not nearly as efficient with their money as the private sector would be. So you cut out the entire government sector by reducing taxes, thereby jump-starting the economy.

I am not suggesting for a moment that a 2% reduction would jump-start the Ontario economy, but it would have been a far better expenditure than this mistake that was adopted by the NDP. Again, the proof is in the pudding. We will see how this government manages its debt over the next three or four years.

They make great strides. They make great statements in suggesting that 11 or 12 cents in revenue dollars is used to service the debt. What they do not understand is that in 1984 when the Conservatives were in power, our take from gross domestic product was 14.1%, I think the number was. It generated X amount of money, and we took 14.1% out of the economy for taxes. In 1994, according to their timetable, it is going to be over 16%. With an increase in taxes, they are taking more and more money out of the economy to run government, thereby leaving less and less in the private sector so it can create jobs, hire new staff, approve expansions and so on and so forth.

As it grows, the government is taking more and more and more money. When the recession hit, they still needed the money to operate government, although the private sector was not producing as much. So there is a drop, but their percentage continues to increase.

As far as revenue numbers are concerned, there is not a whole lot of difference between 1984 and 1994. The problem is, the amount they are taking out as a percentage of gross domestic product is considerably greater. They are sucking the lifeblood out of the private sector. There are lot of taxes that do that, but clearly when you compare 1984 to 1994 and the percentage of money being taken out, considerably more is taken out of the private sector by the socialists of the province of Ontario.

Arguments are made all the time about the federal government and the its high interest rate and high dollar. I have no argument with that kind of theory, but that theory cuts both ways. If having a high debt and deficit at the federal level causes high interest rates and high dollars, how can the suggestion be made that a high debt and a high deficit at the provincial level would not in fact do exactly the same thing? It does. There is not an economist in the world who will not say this, who will not ask, if Ontario goes out to borrow $10 billion this year, where the money will come from.

Most of the money will come from offshore: Hanover, London, New York, etc. That money comes in from offshore. Why do they invest the money in this country? The simple answer is because they are going to get better return on their investments due to higher interest rates to attract the investment. Very simple. Every economist will agree with that. What is the sum total of higher interest rates because you want to attract offshore money? You support your dollar.

Mr Wiseman: You and Reagan would get along very well. Reaganomics.

Mr Stockwell: The member for Durham West can mouth the party line all he wants. He should find me one economist who is going to argue that point. Not one, except him. I think he taught grade school in Durham, so I do not know if that is a really valid argument.

The next argument that is made is that high interest rates and high dollars affect the Canadian economy. Yes, they do; no question about it. Why do we have high interest rates and high dollars? We have high interest rates and high dollars because they go out to borrow money: borrow $400 billion federally and a doubling of the debt provincially. It cannot be argued. Any economist will make this point. Any economist will put any member of the NDP socialist caucus in his place when he suggests that this is not true. It is a fact of life. They may not like it, but it does not change the facts. They do not have to accept it, but I do not know anyone who is going to endorse any other principle. I do not know anyone who is going to say that is wrong.

Mr Runciman: Bob White.

Mr Stockwell: Maybe Bob White, but I did not know he was an economist.

Mr Runciman: But he changes his mind a lot.

Mr Stockwell: He changes his mind. Exactly.

A socialist government is basically a theory that uncontrollable government debt will lead to a prosperous economy. That is what they believe. If they do not believe that, why do we have an uncontrollable government debt? It is that simple. It is the belief that by running up $35 billion in the next four years for government debt, they will create a prosperous Ontario. That is unbelievably naïve.

If they were going to the bank to borrow $10 billion and the bank manager said: "That's fine. I'm prepared to lend you $10 billion. How do you plan on paying it back?" their response would be, "I don't." It is obscene. It is absurd. It is not even kitchen-table economics. Grade school children would understand that running a debt, doubling your debt in four years, running a deficit of some $10 billion will not lead to a prosperous economy. It simply relegates you to the status of a Third World nation; that is all it does.

One of the suggestions from across the floor is that we should devalue our dollar. The brain trust that got together to think of that one obviously must have thought for about 22 seconds, banged heads together and then come out and suggested that is a good idea. Brazil devalues its dollar hourly. Is that the kind of pinnacle that we are trying to achieve as an economic comparison -- Brazil? We will devalue our dollar. We will borrow $10 billion, $35 billion over four years, and we will be dancing in the streets because it will be as prosperous in Ontario as anywhere in the world. Unbelievably naïve.

The other suggestion is that by having an uncontrollable debt, an uncontrollable deficit, they are in four years going to take the deficit of $10 billion down to roughly $8 billion. Astounding -- a marvel of economic and fiscal control, unbelievable ability to control the finances. They are going to go from a $10-billion deficit to an $8-billion deficit some four years later, incurring a total of $35 billion over four years, and introduce, I might add, to the overtaxed community of Ontario that will be so prosperous in four years because we are going so much into debt, some $8 billion in new taxes to take the deficit down from $10 billion to $8 billion.

1740

Let's take this one step further. If they were going to wipe out the deficit -- like they suggested they would if they are given a second term, which I highly doubt -- they would then have to increase taxes by $32 billion to wipe out an $8-billion deficit. My friends across the floor are a sorry, sorry lot. They are simply borrowing today to keep their necks out of the political noose from their hard-core supporters, with no idea how or when they will pay this debt; none whatsoever.

One could go into cabinet or caucus. No one knows how they are going to pay this debt. No one cares how they are going to pay this deficit. Their financial knowledge and logic could be put in the smallest thimble that you could find in any kitchen in this province.

We think, in this party particularly, that this government, through its high interest rates and high dollar policies, is fundamentally driving the border communities out of business. They are driving them out of business because they are borrowing like no provincial government has ever borrowed and they are increasing taxes on the exact components which the border communities requested they do not.

If this is not a government out of touch, I do not think there is one anywhere in the world that is as out of touch as this group. They must get polls like we get polls. They must understand that this particular approach is not an acceptable approach to the people of Ontario. It is not an acceptable approach from the finance ministers who are meeting, I believe, in PEI this week. They have almost to a person come out suggesting that the Treasurer has brought forward one of the worst budgets the province of Ontario could have brought forward, and those kinds of damning economic numbers will be traced to their provinces as well. This is the kind of leadership we are getting from a lacklustre, mindless group of socialists.

Mr Elston: But how do you really feel?

Mr Stockwell: Now, how I really feel. On most issues I can see, I suppose, a bright side, a silver lining, or at least I can throw my arms up and say, "Well, they'll be gone in four years and you can change it." Most issues you can say that about. The dilemma that we are faced with here today is the knot that they are going to tie this provincial economy up in. The red tape that the private sector is going to have to work its way through, the hoops they are going to have to jump through, are going to be so unbelievably onerous that I am not sure anyone will have the capacity to unravel the mess they created. That is the difficulty.

The second problem is, they will have borrowed their way to the poorhouse. They are incompetent and they do not have the capacity to run a pop stand, but they are in charge of a province. The difficulty we are faced with, because they could not organize a two-car funeral, does not make any difference in this House. Their lacklustre, shortsighted, socialist dogma decisions are introduced as legislation. So now in four years we are going to be $70 billion in debt, with an $8-billion deficit and with no hope of any growth in the private sector manufacturing sectors; the border community retail operations will be closing down, there will be people out of work, and we will be charted for economic ruin. I am not certain anyone can fix the mess up that these people left in four years.

Mr Mahoney: We will give it our best shot.

Mr Stockwell: And I will too. In closing, the difficulty that the people whom I speak to, the people whom I --

Interjection.

Mr Stockwell: I know the Liberals increased taxes and ran up the debt, and I thought they were bad, but they could not shine the socialist shoes when it comes to spending money. Their debt in one year was more than the Liberals accumulated in five years in office. In four years they are going to accumulate more than every government in this province did in the first 125 years or so. That is absolutely unbelievable.

What a compliment. That is the best I can think of the Liberals: When it comes to spending money, they could not shine the socialist shoes.

The big difficulty the people of this province are faced with and the major concern I hear about weekly is that the government is not listening to the people, the taxpayers, in the province of Ontario. They are going to go ahead and try and borrow, I think it was, $12 billion or something to open up and operate the province. What is $12 billion to socialists? I know it is not a lot, but the people of this province are trying to send the members on the other side of the House a message. The message they are trying to send to them is: "You're misguided. You haven't understood the message that we were trying to deliver on that September day in 1990. Your financial attitude is wrong and there is no one brave enough to stand up in that caucus and say so."

The people in my constituency have asked on a number of occasions: "How do you go about impeaching a government? How do you go about changing a government?" Because clearly --

Mr Duignan: How about Brian, your friend?

Mr Stockwell: Well, the member for Halton North will have a job back at the co-op, right?

They are not in favour of the economic approach that this government has adopted.

In closing, I would suggest to the government today that the mistakes it is making are unacceptable to the electorate. They are unacceptable to the union workers whom it is going to put out of jobs because they are no longer going to have a job to go to because it is not going to be competitive to operate in this province. They are unacceptable probably to the rank and file in the NDP operation. As one of the deputants to the Mike Harris task force put it, I do not think they are going to be satisfied until everyone in this province is on welfare.

Mr Scott: I wonder what is going to happen when they go home in July?

Mr Stockwell: That is a very good point and I think I may bring this up as well. When the members go home in July and they are still living in this unbelievable fantasy land -- and a fantasy land it is -- their constituents and the polls have indicated it -- I know they have polling firms out there polling and they are not telling them what a wonderful job they are doing. Those polls are not saying "You're number one in the polls" any more. Those polls are not saying, "Keep up the good work, you socialists." Those polls are saying the same thing our polls are saying. The government is dropping so fast it is crystallizing. The reason is their misguided financial and economic policies.

In closing --

An hon member: This is the third time.

Mr Stockwell: I may say it five more.

In closing, I would request that the Treasurer withdraw the budget he introduced on 29 April. He should listen to the people of Ontario, to the other finance ministers across this province, to the constituents in all four corners of this province and withdraw his budget and get back to some basic financial and fiscal understanding on how we are going to deal with this recession and stop closing plants, stop seeing people get laid off and stop the closing of border communities because they are no longer competitive.

He had better get his act in gear and re-evaluate where he is going because he is taking us down a road of economic ruin that I am not sure even the vaunted Conservative Party of Ontario can repair.

1750

Mr Bisson: Mr Speaker --

The Deputy Speaker: Take your seat, please. When the Speaker gets up, members always sit.

Before I proceed with questions and comments, I would like to bring the members' attention to the west gallery and recognize Jim Snow, the former member for Oakville and the former Minister of Transportation and Communications.

Mr Bisson: Mr Speaker, I stood before you had a chance to stand. That is why I was so quick on my feet.

It really is interesting to listen to the member of the opposition from the third party play his game of shells. He is moving a shell game here, trying to make people believe that the policies of the federal Tories have nothing to do with the ills of the economy of this country that we face, and that all of a sudden, magically, on 6 September all of the blame with regard to the economic disaster we find ourselves in in this country, because of Tory policies, is inherited by this government.

We in this government are going to take responsibility in making sure that we have a planned way of being able to work our way ourselves out of this recession, but it is not going to be done on the terms that are being dictated to us by the member of the third party, because I would beg to differ: It is exactly those policies of the federal Conservative government -- yes, I will say the Brian Mulroney government -- that put us in this mess in the first place. No, we are not going to follow the same example of Brian Mulroney and his cohorts. We are going to follow a socialist agenda because it is something we do believe in and it is something that works. We would point to countries such as West Germany that have been doing this kind of model for a long time. It works very well over the years.

Interjections.

Mr Bisson: We have them yelling on the other side of the House. They need to listen to the truth. They really do, but the point is that we hear them speak and we hear them yell, but we understand that what they are trying to do is shift the blame for what is happening with regard to our economy on to this government when it was not us that caused this. We inherited this mess, and we shall fix it.

Mr Mahoney: I guess what bothers me and I think my colleagues and the public at large --

Mr Bisson: You don't trust us.

Mr Mahoney: Of course I do not trust them. They know that. I do not trust socialists. There is no big secret there. The socialists --

Mr Bisson: No, you are paranoid.

Mr Mahoney: Say that with feeling. What concerns me is that they seem to be more concerned about blaming somebody else who has absolutely nothing to do with their lack of fiscal responsibility.

Let's just take a look at the real problem here. They should picture themselves running a household and having to run an overdraft, and so they run the overdraft and at the end of the year they go to their bank manager and they say, "Sorry, I can't pay off the overdraft, so what I want you to do is I want to pile it on top of my mortgage."

Hon Mr Pouliot: I have no mortgage problem.

Mr Mahoney: The member has no mortgage. I am sorry. The rest of us have to face reality.

They pile it on top of the mortgage and then they have increased mortgage payments. They did not increase their revenues, unless they are going to go and lay it on the taxpayers some more, so they do that in year one, and then they say to their bank manager, "Now that I've paid off my overdraft with this mysterious fiscal mentality, I would like you to give me another overdraft." He gives them another overdraft and they run that up for a year and they go at the end of the year and say: "Sorry, same deal, same story. I can't pay off my overdraft. Put it on my mortgage." That is exactly what they are doing.

The problem is that it is our children who have to pay the mortgage, not them. It is the legacy they are going to leave in taking this province from $39 billion in debt today to $76 billion in debt when we get a chance to boot them out of office: a $76-billion mortgage from $39 billion. That is irresponsible. It is insane. It is not good sound economics. They are going to ruin the economy of this province and we are going to have to rebuild it.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for York Mills.

Mr Turnbull: I will defer to my leader.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for York Mills, you were the first one to stand. Therefore, I recognize you and you have the floor.

Mr Turnbull: In fact, Mr Speaker, I was the first one before the last speaker, but you did not recognize me. I will be brief.

I would say to the member for Cochrane South that history does prove out what he is saying. He talks about Germany. As a matter of fact, when the socialists were in power in Germany, it was often said that Schmidt was really a conservative and that the rest of his party was out of step. But I will recount the fact that during the last election, when the socialists were defeated in Germany, there were massive amounts of money ready to move across the border because they did not trust Mr Vogel, who would then have become the leader of the socialist government. He was truly a socialist of the stripe of the member's government. There was not sufficient investment put into the West German economy during the years of socialism. If the member knew anything about the world, he would know that.

I have lived and I have worked in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as Britain and Canada, and I can assure the member that those countries that have had socialist governments have failed. Mrs Thatcher had to pull Great Britain back together after all the years of the ravages of socialism. The Mike Harris task force has indeed --

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you.

Mr Mammoliti: I do not often get up here and talk, Mr Speaker. When I do, you know that I am a little teed off.

First of all, to the member for Etobicoke West, do not act like God, sir. The job is taken.

The Deputy Speaker: Please address the Chair.

Mr Mammoliti: I am sorry, Mr Speaker. I will address the Chair.

Second, the member for Etobicoke West talks about border communities, so the question would be to the member, and that is through you, of course, Mr Speaker, why has he not been in committee for the past two weeks? The committee, I would like to remind him, is dealing with this particular topic. He talks about taxes and how much of an expert this individual is on taxes and how we could jump-start Ontario by reducing taxes. I would ask the Speaker whether or not he has spoken to his colleagues --

Mrs Marland: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: The member for Yorkview has just assigned a motive to the member for Etobicoke West by suggesting that had he been in committee the last two weeks. We already know in this House that we do not refer to members' absences, because the common sense is that in so doing we can incriminate on anybody's absence without knowing the cause. I would ask him to retract his insinuation against the member for Etobicoke West out of common courtesy.

The Deputy Speaker: The point of order is valid. You are not supposed to refer to anyone who is not in the House. Because of the interruption, I will give you 30 seconds to finish what you had to say.

1800

Mr Mammoliti: In order to expedite things, I will retract what I said then. The member talks about reducing taxes to jump-start Ontario. I would ask him whether or not he has talked with his colleague in Ottawa and whether or not he has asked his colleague in Ottawa to reduce the GST or to eliminate the GST completely, because that is the problem here and that is why we have had to do what we have had to do.

Mr Stockwell: First, the last couple of weeks I have been touring, on the Mike Harris task force, across the province and I have been to many towns: London, Hamilton, Cornwall, Kingston, Ottawa and Peterborough; I was in Oshawa for a little time.

It was quite a while and that was where I was for the last couple of weeks, hearing from constituents who have great opposition to this budget that the government has brought forward. I think before the member makes a suggestion next time, he should check up on his facts.

Interjections.

Mr Stockwell: They do not get a lot of time to talk in caucus. This is their first opportunity.

I did not address the federal government's budget. I did not address the federal government's attitudes to certain policies that it brought forward. I did not address them because I did not get elected to the federal House. I got elected to the provincal Legislature, just like the members opposite did.

All I talked about was the $9.7-billion deficit, which the government did all on its own. I talked about a billion dollars in new taxes that it did on its own. I am talking about $8 billion in new taxes over the next four years, which it did on its own. I am talking about increases in alcohol, cigarettes and gasoline taxes, which it did on its own. I am talking about the fiscal mismanagement and inability of the socialists to manage the economy of a province this size.

Those people did it. Those people have adopted these policies, regardless of what the federal government has suggested. I was simply trying to enlighten them on exactly how often I get addressed by the public to tell them how wrong it feels their policies are. As I said in the House one day, nobody put a gun to their head to run up the debt, to run up taxes and to ruin this province, but they are doing a good job at ruining the province. Maybe if they addressed the problems in Ontario a little more often than Canada, they might do a lot better job. I thank the members for their attention.

The Deputy Speaker: Are there any other members who wish to participate in the debate? Shall I then put the question?

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

All those in favour of the motion will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion the ayes have it.

Call in the members.

Interjection.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. Pursuant to standing order 27(g), it requested that the vote on the motion by the Honourable Floyd Laughren for second reading of Bill 81, An Act to authorize borrowing on the credit of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, be deferred until after routine proceedings on Tuesday 11 June 1991.

Vote deferred.

Le vote est reporté.

The Deputy Speaker: Pursuant to standing order 33, the question that this House do now adjourn is deemed to have been made.

MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY

The Deputy Speaker: Pursuant to standing order 33, the member for Mississauga West has given notice of his dissatisfaction with the answer to his question given by the Solicitor General concerning letters sent to members of the judiciary and the Attorney General regarding constituents' parking tickets. The member has up to five minutes to debate the matter and the minister may reply for up to five minutes. Start the clock again at five minutes.

Mr Mahoney: I would like to say in opening that I actually regret having to do this. It could have been avoided quite simply if the minister had even made the slightest attempt to answer what I thought were some very reasonable questions put forward. I was not getting excited, like some others have done in regard to this minister with the outrage and the answers he has given. I put forward some very legitimate concerns, and he chose to stand up and simply read from newspaper articles from some of his local newspapers talking about supporting him and that he should have the benefit of the doubt. That was not the question that was asked at all. The purpose of a late show, in my understanding, is to say how dissatisfied I am with this minister's answers and frankly with his total lack of respect for the procedures in this Legislature.

Considering the amount of time the Solicitor General spent on this side of the House, I would have thought that he, among all members, would have respected the right and the role of the opposition to ask penetrating questions and to demand reasonable answers and would not have been a smart aleck in standing up and simply reading and quoting from newspaper editorials giving him the benefit of the doubt. I mean, I could do the same thing. I have newspaper editorials here that are less than complimentary, that call for his resignation, that admit that he is a man they respect and they respect his integrity as a politician, but they fail to understand how he can simply whitewash himself away from the responsibility he has when members of his staff write letters to the judiciary and to the man who appoints the judges, the Attorney General, and how he can simply stick his head in the sand and then get up and almost filibuster to the point of bragging about his record, instead of answering the questions that I thought were very fairly and calmly put forward.

I take members to the evidence, the letter on the Solicitor General's letterhead. How he can avoid answering this is beyond me, when a member of his staff has written a letter to the Attorney General. I pointed out in the RCMP summary, when I asked the question, that the RCMP analysed the three staff people in the office, and the Solicitor General has said that his senior staff person has behaved in an appropriate manner.

I pointed out in the RCMP summary that the RCMP outlined the probationary staff person who wrote a letter to the justice of the peace on behalf of a constituent. That would be the junior staff. Then there was the intermediate staff, who was outlined as a receptionist. I again would suggest that would not be the senior staff.

The third member of the staff -- if there were three, my math would lead me to conclude that the third member would be the senior member -- wrote a letter to the Attorney General and said: "Could you please have someone on your staff review the attached and attempt to resolve this matter for" -- the name of the constituent. "I should point out that there is a trial date set for March, which this person will not be attending. She does not feel that she should have to incur expenses to defend herself when she is so obviously innocent."

The senior member of the Solicitor General's staff has set herself up as the judge in this matter and has accepted the word of the constituent, which may or may not be legitimate, and asked the Attorney General to have someone investigate it and solve the problem prior to the court date so that this individual can avoid the expense of travelling here to appear on that court date.

It may be that this person is innocent. I am not questioning that at all. What I am questioning is how this minister can defend this person who has written a letter to the Attorney General and then stand there and smugly and in a smart-aleck, almost contemptible way simply read from a newspaper article about what a wonderful person he is. I am embarrassed by that kind of answer.

I know the public feels that he ignored the question with that kind of answer, and I think he owes this House an apology for that kind of flippant remark on such a serious question. I put my questions forward in an honest attempt to get some legitimate answers to what I consider legitimate questions. Would the Solicitor General take his five minutes now and answer those questions, please.

1810

Hon Mr Farnan: The crux of the matter is that over the last seven weeks the opposition parties have hijacked the agenda of this House. They have used question period, which should be used for the House agenda, and turned it into a personal vendetta. They had a choice; however, unfortunately, they ignored the substantive issues facing Ontario. It is embarrassing, the number of questions that have been asked on the most important ministry, Health, which uses up to 35% of the budget -- hardly a question. On Education and Community and Social Services and the Environment, there were no questions being asked. It is unbelievable, it is unfortunate, it is an abdication of the responsibility we all share.

We have a collective responsibility to get on with the substantive agenda of what is important for the people of Ontario. What did the opposition parties use for seven weeks? They discussed a parking ticket and made out of that parking ticket a personal vendetta. That is totally unacceptable.

Out there are the people of Ontario. If one is a miner or has an investment in mines, one has to ask, why were there no questions to the Minister of Mines? If one is a farmer, one asks, why have there not been questions to the Minister of Agriculture and Food? If one is involved in the tourism industry as a tourist operator, one asks one self, why have there not been questions about tourism? Transportation workers, all of these workers, indeed the people of Ontario as a whole have the right to say to themselves, what is happening in this place when the opposition parties totally abandon the agenda of the House and simply are absolutely interested only in filibuster and sleaze?

Here is a record, it will be found in Hansard: 23 April, member for Nipissing; 24 April, member for Nipissing; 25 April, members for Brant-Haldimand, St George-St David, Parry Sound, Mississauga North, Ottawa South, Brampton South. What are they talking about? They are talking about a $35 parking ticket in which a legitimate mistake was made in processing that ticket.

On 29 April, members for York Centre, Willowdale, Scarborough North. What are they talking about? Agriculture, education, health? No, they are talking about a parking ticket.

On 28 May, member for Oakville; 29 May, member for St George-St David; 30 May, members for Bruce, Oakville South; 3 June, member for St George-St David, Oakville South again; 4 June, member for St George-St David, Leader of the Opposition, Oakville South, leader of the third party; 5 June, member for Willowdale; 6 June, members for Mississauga West, Willowdale, Oakville South. The people of Ontario have to say to themselves, what is going on with these guys? They have got to get real. They have got to start addressing the substantive issues of this province.

With only 12 days left in the legislative agenda, they suddenly discover today that there is a Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. How can you be in the House for seven weeks and not ask a question of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology?

Then they are talking about recession. On all of these occasions I have given total answers. I have been open, honest, forthright. I have been patient. Of course, I have been repetitious. They have been asking the same questions.

The Attorney General released the RCMP report. It exonerated myself and it exonerated my staff, and on and on they went. Nothing will satisfy them, not even a report by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It has been laid out as plain as day. I provided all the facts. The RCMP has provided the investigation. Human errors have been made. It is about time they got on with the business of Ontario.

The House adjourned at 1816.