L046B - Tue 20 Oct 1998 / Mar 20 Oct 1998 1
LEGAL AID SERVICES ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR LES SERVICES D'AIDE JURIDIQUE
The House met at 1830.
Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): On a point of order, Madam Speaker: Quorum, please.
The Acting Speaker (Ms Marilyn Churley): Could you check and see if there's a quorum.
Clerk Assistant (Ms Deborah Deller): A quorum is not present, Speaker.
The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.
Clerk Assistant: A quorum is now present, Speaker.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
LEGAL AID SERVICES ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR LES SERVICES D'AIDE JURIDIQUE
Resuming the adjourned debated on the motion for second reading of Bill 68, An Act to incorporate Legal Aid Ontario and to create the framework for the provision of legal aid services in Ontario, to amend the Legal Aid Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts / Projet de loi 68, Loi constituant en personne morale Aide juridique Ontario, établissant le cadre de la prestation des services d'aide juridique en Ontario, modifiant la Loi sur l'aide juridique et apportant des modifications corrélatives à d'autres lois.
Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): I'm pleased to rise in my place tonight to talk about legal aid, about why maybe this government might require legal aid. This government should be brought up on charges of being uncaring of the people of Ontario. That's a good reason to have a legal aid system in this province, because I think they would need all the money in the world to try to defend their actions and inactions upon the people of Ontario in the last little while.
They'd be charged as a government that really doesn't know how to manage any more. We've seen that every day in question period in regard to the health care system, in regard to emergency wards, in regard to education, property taxes, downloading. They can be charged with those crimes and would certainly need a good legal aid system to try to defend them, but I don't think the Ontario public will want to defend them.
Quite frankly, I am offended by the disaster in our medical system, especially our medical care and chronic care system. It is in a shambles. While the Premier was trying to bring up past examples of inequities in the system, I have never seen a system in such disarray as this one. It's very easy to demolish a house. Certainly this government's raison d'être was to come in and dismantle everything. Anybody could do that, but to rebuild it with intelligence, with vigour and with caring is another challenge, a challenge that this government has failed.
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa-Rideau): Thank you very much.
Mr Ramsay: This government has failed that challenge, Judge, no doubt about it, and they should be charged with that irresponsibility.
That people are floating around our cities looking for emergency ward beds and ending up dying in ambulances is a charge that should be brought against every member of the government side of this Legislature. It's disgusting what's going on here, all to finance a tax cut for the very rich of this province. It's absolutely disgusting that we live in an Ontario where the health care system is going down the tubes. You folks had better do something about it. I'll tell you, the message is going to go to voters right across this province that our party is going to be doing that for sure. We've got to make sure that the health care system in a province as rich and as affluent as ours -
Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): On a point of order, Madam Speaker: The member seems to be engaging in a general rant against the government, which at other times and places might be appropriate. The topic of this debate is Bill 68, the Legal Aid Services Act. I haven't even heard the word mentioned yet.
The Acting Speaker (Ms Marilyn Churley): I think the member has a point. I'd ask the member for Timiskaming to come back to the subject at hand.
Mr Ramsay: I have mentioned legal aid, actually, about four times if you check Hansard for the first four minutes of my speech so far. I'm saying that this government requires legal aid to handle the mess they could be charged with for all their deficiencies in governing this province. Emergency services were just one of those areas I was talking about.
I'd like to get into the problem that was happening here, the lack of management on the part of this government. Actually, I don't think it was lack of management. In fact, I think this government was seriously considering a fall election. They thought the announcement in April could be reannounced place by place, town by town and hospital by hospital this fall if they had chosen to take that window of opportunity. I think that's what was going to happen, and they just forgot when they decided they were no longer going to have a fall election. They forgot about the April announcement that emergency care had to be patched up.
I think that's what happened with this government. They forgot their management, because the idea was to manage all the announcements during a fall election campaign that didn't happen because everything else was going to pot, like property taxes. They just didn't expect what was going to happen when the municipalities finally grappled with all the information, the weekly changes of information they have all been receiving since January. I spoke to clerk-treasurers right across this province - I was a clerk-treasurer for 10 years before I came here - and it was unbelievable the lack of information and the changing information they had.
That's why this government would need a legal aid program, to defend themselves from the charges brought forward against them for the absolute incompetence and mismanagement of all these issues across the province.
Mr Guzzo: Is that true for all municipalities?
The Acting Speaker: Member for Ottawa-Rideau, come to order.
Mr Ramsay: The member for Ottawa-Rideau is heckling, asking, "Is that true for all municipalities?" It was the Harris government that brought these changes -
Mr Guzzo: Not the ones where they're competently led.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Ottawa-Rideau, please come to order. Member for Timiskaming, I would appreciate it if you could come back to the bill at hand.
Mr Ramsay: That's why I think legal aid is important in Ontario, to bring this legislation in, because of all the mismanagement and incompetence of this government. The member for Ottawa-Rideau asked, "Is it true that all the municipalities brought in these tax changes?" Most municipalities brought in the tax changes as ordered by Harris government legislation; the whole assessment system of properties was changed across the province. Then, coupled with that, which added to the things they could be charged with and therefore require legal aid, was the downloading to the municipalities. Costs increased for many municipalities, in fact most municipalities -
Mr Tilson: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: The member continues to go on, and these matters wouldn't even be covered by legal aid. He knows that. He's using this as an opportunity to go on a rant against the government, and it's a most inappropriate time to do that -
The Acting Speaker: Take your seat. The member for Dufferin-Peel does have a point. I would ask the member for Timiskaming to discuss the bill at hand tonight, which is the legal aid bill. I'm afraid it's just not quite good enough that you keep mentioning that the government might need it. You must talk, at times anyway, about the bill at hand.
Mr Ramsay: Madam Speaker, I'm trying to tie in the issue of legal aid to what I want to say tonight, the things on top of the mind of the constituents I represent in Timiskaming or northern Ontario. I want to take the opportunity to express the views of my constituents, and I guard that right.
Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): David, if someone wants to appeal their property taxes, can they get legal aid?
Mr Ramsay: That's a very good point from the member for Welland-Thorold. Let's talk about property taxes and the right to appeal them. The government through this bill has narrowed the issues on which the citizenry can apply for legal aid. In some of the complications people have with their property tax assessments - people who have multiple properties, residential properties, are coming before an assessment board, eventually, if the government gets its act in order with this - legal aid may be one of the tools they might be able to take advantage of to present their case, because some of these cases are very complicated.
Mr Tilson: That's not what legal aid is for.
The Acting Speaker: Will the member for Dufferin-Peel come to order.
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Mr Ramsay: What had happened in this regard and why these people might find themselves in a position where they might have to call upon legal aid is that in the rush to judgment the government took to absolutely cause a revolution in the property tax situation, this was done without the assistance of the clerks and treasurers association or the Ontario assessors association, which had offered and volunteered to this government their assistance in order to do this properly because, yes, there certainly were some deficiencies across the board with this situation, but what they said was that to do it properly and to do it right, you had to take the time. This government refused to do that, and so now we have certainly a backlog in this court, if you will, a different type of court - an assessment court, if you will - where people are going to have to appeal their property tax assessments.
As I said, this is coupled with, in some cases, the doubling and tripling of property taxes. That's why they would require that sort of legal aid system, so that they could get involved in making the case why their property had been inappropriately, number one, assessed and, number two, taxed.
An issue that has caused this problem, of course, is downloading of such essential, across-the-board Ontario issues as ambulance service.
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I think it's important for the people of Ontario to be reminded that there is a process in place to appeal their assessment and it is not legal aid -
The Acting Speaker: Member for York-Mackenzie, take your seat.
Hon Charles Harnick (Attorney General, minister responsible for native affairs): This is as relevant as his speech.
The Acting Speaker: Take your seat. I'm following the rules here, Attorney General. You can't stand to correct somebody's record, so please take your seat. Continue.
Mr Ramsay: Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Legal Aid Ontario corporation that we're talking about here could be used, I would think, by a lot of these people who are finding that they have a lot of disagreement with these issues with the Harris government. That's a point I certainly wanted to make, and I appreciate the member bringing that to my attention.
Services such as ambulance services that as a Liberal I believe are Ontario-wide services should not be the responsibility of the municipalities, and for the very reason that municipalities across Ontario have varying degrees of wealth. I'm very sensitive to that, coming from northern Ontario, very sensitive to that, having lived almost half my life in southern Ontario in a very affluent municipality. I know, having lived in both areas of the province, the divergence of the affluence of our municipalities. To place a service such as ambulance service with the municipalities is absolutely wrong.
What is going to happen in the next few years with the increase of taxes, especially on small business, as we've seen, is that small business people and others in the community are going to come to the council table rather than rallying outside of Queen's Park, and what they are going to say to those councillors is: "You know, I'm not sure that in Left Wishbone municipality of Ontario we can actually afford to sustain 24-hour ambulance service. Maybe we should have it on call from 6 in the evening to 6 in the morning."
That's where you're going to start to get the divergence of services across the province. I think that's wrong. On basic services such as health, that's absolutely wrong. That would be a case where somebody might want to go to legal aid to make a case against this government, to sue this government for dereliction of duty. I think that's why you'd want to look for legal aid.
I was looking at a clipping the other day in the Northern Daily News, the Kirkland Lake daily paper. The town council in Kirkland Lake is very upset with the new assessment system. What's interesting is that for small business people, small landlords who might have a commercial enterprise downstairs on the main street, Government Road in Kirkland Lake, if that business was vacated after October 1, it would be 15 months before that landlord would be able to get any assessment relief from the province. Therefore, that landlord would be paying very high taxes on a vacant building, not generating any revenue at all. That is absolutely wrong and irresponsible to small business across Ontario, small business that is the sector of the economy that's generating all the jobs.
What is this government, which I thought was very interested in creating jobs, as we all are here, doing? Absolutely socking it terribly to the small business community in this province through the property tax system and the assessment system, and that's wrong.
Further down on Government Road in Kirkland Lake we've got the mining recorder's office. In that we've had a great reduction in services. I could see mining prospectors wanting to go to legal aid to make charges against this government, to help fund that charge - those cuts to the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines have really hurt their ability to discover new wealth in this province - because they can't get the maps they need. They can't get the files they need. They can't get the timely help and the expertise they used to be able to get on the phone from the folks in Sudbury. As a matter of fact, one of the officials in the ministry from Sudbury had said that they are now getting their people to train at night to try to get up to speed with the other areas of the ministry because they've had to fire a lot of the experts in the other fields. So now they've got generalists trying to answer a lot of specific questions being asked by mining prospectors and developers.
All the way along people are being hurt in this province by this government. A very good reason why a good legal aid bill should be there is so that people can access that so they can go after this government for all the deficiencies they have.
We haven't even talked, Madam Speaker, about education tonight. I think you're aware, as all members of the Legislature are aware, of the tremendous turmoil that has happened in the education system. The last few weeks I've been in the riding and I've been touring our schools, and I can't believe the level of morale in our schools, an institution that should be just so enthusiastic and energetic about the future of our young people, because it's our young people in our schools that are the future of this country. I just can't believe the terrible low morale that's there.
Why is that? It's caused by the Harris government, by the abrupt changes which the Harris government forced upon the school system, the education system, without any consultation at all with the people who know: the front-line workers, the teachers and the trustees and all the other educators in the system.
In a democracy, the government certainly has a right to set goals and to set targets. That's your duly won right for sure. But just because we have a majority government there doesn't give you the right to dictate to the people of Ontario for four years. I think that's the fatal and tragic mistake you've made. You feel that because you have a mandate you can absolutely dictate to the people of Ontario how everything should change and all the minutiae of change. That is wrong. You still have to work in partnership with people.
When I talk to municipal officials throughout northern Ontario, that's the greatest sense of loss they have with this government, that for some reason now there's no sense of partnership any longer with the Ontario government. In the past they would say: "When we had a dispute with the government, we always knew we could come down to Queen's Park, we could get a meeting with the deputy minister or a minister, and usually we could work things out. Not that we always got things our own way," the municipalities would say, "but at least we could get some sort of accommodation. Or even in the case where we didn't maybe get our way, we knew there was a sense of partnership between the province and the municipality." Now there isn't. It's, "My way or the doorway." If you don't do it the Harris government way, that's it.
We're forcing amalgamations. We're forcing DSSABs. We're forcing area services boards in the north. This is the type of dictatorial government that we're facing. No wonder people are crying for a better legal aid bill. It's in order to get the revenue to go after this government, to defend themselves in court when they feel they're being attacked by this government, or to charge this government for irresponsible action. That's why they're doing that.
In my area of northern Ontario we have a severe doctor shortage situation. Part of that situation has been caused by the competitive nature of the programs that have been placed out there. I've got one community, Englehart, that has seven or fewer doctors. Therefore, they can avail themselves of a program where doctors can come in and take a salary. But in Kirkland Lake, 40 miles up the road, they cannot avail themselves of that program. So what have we got? We've got a doctor from Kirkland Lake and a doctor from the Tri-town leaving those areas, going to Englehart and setting up practice. Now we've got patients driving up and down Highway 11, going to this town that's got the sweeter deal for their doctors. That just doesn't make sense. Within a catchment area of 40 to 50 miles each side of this town of Englehart we've now got patients driving up and down the highway. It just doesn't make sense. Talk about a lack of common sense. This government lacks it in spades. It's wrong. It's absolutely dead wrong.
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I would say to this government that if they ever think they've got a chance of getting re-elected, they had better start, in the next six to eight months or whenever they're going to call this next contest, to correct these problems. I think that's why they didn't go for a fall election. I think they were planning to go for a fall election and then all hell started to break loose. That's what started to happen both in health care and property taxes, in doctor shortages and all the downloading. It's just not working because you went at it far too fast and far too deep.
While a lot of people in the province of Ontario understood that change had to happen, I don't believe they're embracing your approach to making that change happen. I think the next few months are going to be very telling for the future of this government, to see how you respond to this. We've been pushing this government to respond to emergency care in the last few days. Maybe we got the Premier a little motivated now. He actually went out to a hospital and delivered a cheque. That's a good start. There are still a lot of hospitals around Ontario that need their cheques so that we can present the very best health care for the people of Ontario. I suggest you start to do that, government.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): I should say to the member for Timiskaming that much of what he spoke about today certainly wouldn't find any disagreement from us. We find a certain irony, of course, in the member for Timiskaming talking about the government's habit of saying, "My way or the doorway," especially today when the Liberals showed the doorway to one of their members. So there's a little bit of irony there.
The other irony is, of course, that the member is a critic in the justice area and yet spent very little time talking about the legal aid bill and the importance of legal aid to those who are accused of crimes or to those who are seeking help in the family law area or in the mental health area or the clinic law area, all of which are covered by the bill.
However, it's very important for us when we hear a member speak with such knowledge and passion about his riding and about what the people in his riding are experiencing at the hands of the government. The member for Timiskaming has described very accurately the very deep concern that people have around the health system, the very deep concern they have around their inability to get the government to understand that these are issues often of life and death, that they are issues that face people in a very visceral way and that it is as important for the government to listen to those pleas as it is for those who are faced with imprisonment or faced with family law problems to get legal aid.
So he didn't have time to carry through his analogy into the legal aid bill that was being discussed because he was so passionately concerned, but I think we all can make the connection of his concern to legal aid.
Mr Tilson: The topic before us today is Bill 68, which is the Legal Aid Services Act. The member for Timiskaming didn't really get into that too much. I made a note. I was writing down so fast the number of things he talked about. He gave a state of the union address. He talked about doctor shortages, ambulances, health care, tax assessment, creating jobs, small business, education governance, emergency in hospitals. Maybe I left some topics out. He covered pretty well everything, and good for him. It's an opportune time to take a rant on the government.
The problem is, you, as an opposition party, have an obligation to take the Attorney General to hand and say whether you support or whether you oppose this bill. If you oppose it, do you have a constructive alternative? Do you have any objections? I didn't hear one objection. Do you have any compliments about it? I didn't hear one compliment about it. I didn't hear anything. You had no comments about anything. You just blathered on and on and on.
There are all kinds of things that the member could have gone into: the new organization's mandate, the governance, accountability. I understand they kicked their justice critic out. I understand he's gone away and he took all their notes with them. I understand that. But at the very least, he could have read the bill and studied some of the topics that this bill is dealing with. Legal aid in this province has come to a dead stop. The Attorney General is solving that with this bill. He should be complimented, he should be congratulated and he should be encouraged by you with respect to encouraging legal aid.
The poor in this province, single mothers who need assistance for legal aid - there are all kinds of serious legal aid problems, and all you have to do is stand up and go into a general rant against the government. You had an opportunity to stand in your place and talk about this bill but you decided not to. And why? Because you're a Liberal.
Mr Michael Gravelle (Port Arthur): I want to compliment the member for Timiskaming for his comments.
If I could respond to the member for Dufferin-Peel, the fact is that the member for Timiskaming is incredibly concerned about the extraordinary damage that the Mike Harris government has done to his constituents and how that affects their access to legal aid. He made very strong reference to that on a number of occasions. I certainly want to use the opportunity to compliment him for doing that. And there are so many other areas, you're right. He talked about a lot of areas where there are a great number of problems and was trying to give some direction back to the government. I think we should applaud him for that, rather than describing it as a rant. I think you, sir, were ranting more so by attacking him for simply standing up for his constituents and the concerns they have.
One area that interests me is the fact that certainly we know that the cuts that Mike Harris has brought upon all the people in this province have made it more difficult for people to access legal aid. It also strikes me as passing strange that we should be in many ways sitting here and also talking about ways we can fix up the family support plan, the Family Responsibility Office.
The minister knows all too well that the system that he put in place by destroying and taking all the regional offices out of the system and by setting up one system in the Toronto environs where everybody had to call through on a 1-800 number is not working. He knows it's not working because those of us in our constituency offices, and I suspect the member for Dufferin-Peel has the same experience, are discovering that people are having a horrendous time dealing with this office. They are not able to access the support they are supposed to be receiving. I can tell you that from my constituency office point of view, there are some very tragic stories of people who are counting on us to make that link between them and the Family Responsibility Office, and it's dreadful to think that nothing is being done to improve that system. That also very much needs to be worked on and, frankly, it needs to be discussed more often in this Legislature.
So I'm glad I got an opportunity to say that and to compliment the member for Timiskaming for fighting for his constituents on the issues that matter to them, as they should to everybody in this House.
Mr Kormos: I'm going to be speaking to bill after we're finished the questions and comments. You permitted my leadoff speech, an hour long, to be deferred until tonight. Mrs Boyd from London, of course, has dealt at length with the bill. So I'm going to be speaking to the bill shortly, in around three and a half minutes, as a matter of fact, for an hour.
I should warn some of the members that an hour can be a short time or it can be a real long time. It can be a short time or it can be a long time. There are concerns we intend to raise about the bill, but I tell you, in the context of an hour, there are a few things that I'm going to talk about that are surely related to this piece of legislation.
I appreciate the fact that you are the Speaker this evening because I know you are capable and bright and your judgment is good. I know that before you jump the gun and rule somebody out of order because you think they might be meandering, you wait until they've made their point to see whether in fact they were able to bring it back home. There are a number of areas I'm going to visit in the next hour and, Speaker, bear with me, please, because I'm going to be bringing it back home at some point during the hour. So I don't want to see you jumping up and down responding to points of order which aren't valid in the first place and simply waste our time. As I say, all it does is make the process more painful rather than expedite it and let it flow along as it should.
Mrs Boyd, as I indicated, analyzed the bill at some length when she spoke to it with the modest amount of time permitted her. I'm going to refer to some comments and I think people should pay close attention to some of the observations that are going to be made during the discussion, that are going to affect them significantly.
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Mr Ramsay: I think we should all take notice that we have been forewarned by the member for Welland-Thorold that for a whole hour, not just the 20 minutes I had - he may be trying to make some other cases too in regard to this bill.
I accept the comment of the member for Dufferin-Peel. I accept your comment that I wasn't that accurate on the topic of this particular bill, because when I spend my time back in the riding and talking to my constituents, legal aid is not the issue they bring up. When I hear complaints from mothers with new babies in Kirkland Lake, where 50% of the population of the town does not have a family doctor, I really feel for those people. That's wrong, and those are the issues that the people I represent really care about. It's my duty to bring that up here at Queen's Park. That's my job, that's what I'm charged to do and that's what I feel deeply inside I need to do. That's why I'm doing it here tonight.
When I see a constituent in the southern part of my riding die shortly after a heart operation because he was on a waiting list for six months longer than he should have been, that upsets me. It's my duty and my charge to bring that forward down here at Queen's Park, to say that is a major problem affecting the people in my riding.
Unlike many Harrisites, I believe there is a strong role for government in this province to make sure there's a very strong health care system. As my leader, Dalton McGuinty, said, our job is to make sure there's a ladder in place. It's the job of the citizens to climb that ladder, but we have to make sure that every rung in that ladder is strong so those citizens can climb it. You have failed us in that.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Kormos: There are several things at the outset. One, I can indicate to people that Blain Morin, the new member for Nickel Belt, is in the House, so folks in Chelmsford or Chapleau or anywhere in that huge riding - I suspect that Mr Morin, if he's given the opportunity, will be making his contribution to questions and comments during the 10-minute periods between the speakers on the bill.
I should also indicate that Ms Boyd and I were fortunate to have received a briefing on the bill from Nancy Austin in the Ministry of the Attorney General. She and her colleague spent some time with us going over the bill. I want to indicate to her that I appreciate that. She's present in the wings tonight. Obviously she's here; she's Mr Harnick's best friend right now. He needs her more than he needs just about anybody else. If Mr Harnick needs any help during the course of the evening, he's going to be counting on her. That's how it works.
I should tell you that Ms Boyd and I raised a number of issues with Ms Austin. Our perspective - Ms Boyd's perspective and my perspective - I suppose was a little bit of a political one, a little bit of a partisan one. Both of us, along with our colleagues in this caucus, have some serious concerns about the future of legal aid in this province and about whether or not this bill - look, we know, you of all people know, certainly you understand that the law society has effectively relinquished its control or supervision of the provision of legal aid. That is the long-standing position of the law society that was administering legal aid. It has relinquished that. I understand as well that the vote was not unanimous by the benchers, by the members of the law society, but it remains, I suppose, at the onset to the law society not wanting that much to do with it.
I should tell you also that I was at a couple of hearings that the law society conducted when it travelled across the province, consulting. The law society was consulting; I have no hesitation in saying that. The law society was far more consultative over the issue of legal aid than this government has been over any given issue. The law society travelled around the province, speaking with people in communities, including Niagara, about proposals to enhance the plan, because there have been increasing problems with the resources of the plan.
I don't know whether the law society was perhaps intimidated by some of the rather novel propositions that were made to it, including - I recall one down in Thorold, when the law society met with members of the bar and other interested parties in Niagara. I recall one member of the bar suggesting that maybe all law firms - because you see, there had developed a clawback of 5% from lawyers who accepted certificates. They had to pay back 5% of the modest hourly fees or block fees that they were able to charge. The proposal was, why should those practitioners in legal aid law - the family lawyers, the criminal lawyers - be the only ones kicking into the coffers that help to provide legal aid? This young lawyer from Niagara pointed out that maybe all law firms, including the big Bay Street law firms, the big multi-million-dollar-a-year billers, should be charged a modest percentage of their annual billings. Maybe they should have to kick in as well and pay their fair share. I wonder if propositions like that - I thought it was an interesting starting point for a discussion about whether or not all lawyers and all law firms are carrying their weight, whether they're paying their fair share. You know what I'm saying?
I know criminal lawyers and family lawyers - and we'll talk about legal clinics in short order - are certainly carrying their weight and going above and beyond. But I wondered if some of the big-priced, high-ticket law firms were paying their fair share. As it ends up, the law society says: "No, we don't want to deal with legal aid. We don't want to concern ourselves with it." I wonder if those kinds of propositions influenced in any way, shape or form the law society in relinquishing its supervision of legal aid.
All of us in the New Democratic Party accept - it's a fait accompli - that the bill is going to pass. We know that; we understand that. It's not going to pass because opposition members necessarily want it to pass; it's going to pass one way or the other because the government has a majority and government members are ill inclined to balk, to speak up, to dissent in any way, shape or form. I suspect that government members are afraid to demonstrate any dissent. I suspect that some members of the official opposition might be afraid to express any dissent, but that's a different -
Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): You think we're bad.
Mr Kormos: That's a different story for a different day.
The bottom line is that this bill is going to pass second reading. We also understand, and this is incredibly important, and I hope the Attorney General understands this, that the bill is going to be subjected to a period of hearings here at Queen's Park. It's incredibly important, in view of a number of areas that have been raised already by some members of the bar and others in the community - by legal clinic staffers, be they lawyers or paralegals or other staff in legal clinics. We anticipate and have requested that there be an opportunity for these people to address the bill by way of committee hearings.
I told you that I might digress. I have to get this out of the way. The House already heard about how on Sunday at the United Church in Thorold, Mel and Thelma Swart were celebrating their 60th - can you believe it? - wedding anniversary. Both of them were in fine form, and there were literally hundreds of people who poured through that church hall, giving them their best wishes. I tell you, I join all those who at that church hall asked but one thing of Mel and Thelma: that they invite us to their 65th and then to their 70th wedding anniversaries. It's been referred to in the House already, but I wanted to indicate what a pleasure it was for me to be there and just see Mel and Thelma again, and their kids and their grandkids - it's the Yungblut family and the Swart family, and it's just an enormous, great family, great people.
The night before, Saturday night, I had been at the Slovak Hall in Welland, at the Canadian Slovak League, Branch 23, their 58th annual dinner. What's interesting is that Mel and Thelma were celebrating their 60th and the Slovak league was celebrating its 58th.
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I appreciate that we're talking here about the Legal Aid Services Act, and I certainly want to deal with that, but of great concern was - well, the community there wasn't of great concern. They're wonderful people and their hospitality and generosity of spirit and warmth are tremendous. Branislav Galat, the president of branch 23, shared the - and we're talking about the Slovak Hall, OK? This is a hall run by what tends to be an increasingly elderly group of participants, like so many other ethnic organizations across Welland, across the province. Their property taxes, because of the new actual value assessment, market value assessment, whatever - it's the same thing. Now it's the same thing. Before, when it was being debated, Al Leach said it wasn't the same thing; now it's the same thing.
The property taxes on the Slovak Hall went from $12,000 a year to $20,000-plus. That's around a 70% increase. This is a volunteer, non-profit organization. Again, it's not a big group any more. This community is getting older. These people use their hall for their dinners. They've got the Bratislava dance group, little kids, just everything from almost two-and-a-half, three-year-olds up to young teenagers. They have bingos there at least once a week to try to raise some money and every once in a while there's a rental of the hall. But also what's happened is that these ethnic halls and social clubs - the Lion's Club got whacked too, big time, down in Welland. They got whacked big, along with all the other non-profit organizations. They're treated as commercial assessment and the impression one gets is that they're presumed to be commercial enterprises, to whit profit-making enterprises, business enterprises, and they're not. I think most people here understand that they're not.
I've encouraged my friend Mr Galat to speak with his executive and his board about the prospect of, I suppose, appealing the assessment once we get the legislation to extend the deadline for appeals. New Democrats were the ones who proposed that legislation and were able to see it passed so people can get those appeals in. But I think that we're going to have to rethink and ask this government to rethink, because I'm sure that is not unique to the Slovak Hall in Welland. I'm confident that it isn't. I think that's hitting hard -
Interjection.
Mr Kormos: Yes, ma'am, I told you I was going to bring this home, but I had to get this out of the way because it was important that I raise this at the first possible opportunity.
I think it's happening in those same sorts of ethnic halls, be they Slovak halls, Croatian halls, national homes across the province. These are non-profit organizations. These are people who struggle with small fundraisers, raising money to maintain their hall as a social club, and they're also, to the last one, great contributors to the community in terms of charitable organizations. These are the people who donate to the hospital funds, to the cancer fundraising drives etc. The Minister of Culture might be interested because small ethnic halls have been hit hard, I'm confident, across the province.
I wanted to get that out of the way because it was something I simply had to raise here in the Legislature, and I'm pleased the Minister of Culture is here because I knew she'd be interested; I'm sure she is. I exhort her to speak out for these social and ethnic clubs to her colleagues in cabinet.
I highlighted areas of this as I progressed through the bill. We know that it is going to be a so-called, as it was described, arm's-length corporation that's going to be running legal aid.
Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): He's on the bill.
Mr Kormos: Hold on. Oh, the veterinarian over there, he wouldn't know spit from Shinola about legal aid but he wants to comment. Well, at the end of the day, look, it's not your bailiwick. This can be a short hour or a long one because I've got other things to talk about as well as Bill 68 and I can tie them in like in a New York minute.
One of the first problems we encounter, because we've seen it with this government before - I have no confidence, I have none whatsoever, and I don't think any other members of this House have either when they've seen what's gone through the boards, agencies and commissions committee, the BAC committee, because the structure -
Mr John L. Parker (York East): ABC.
Mr Kormos: I call it BAC, boards, agencies, commissions. Get with it. In the 10 years I've been here it's been boards, agencies and commissions. You're going to change the rules like you have with so many other things. You guys are so cocky, so arrogant, so pushy, so naughty, so ideological. You guys simply want your own way, whether it's good for other people or not, and you've had your own way for far too long.
But we've seen the pattern of this government when it comes to appointments because I've seen them in the course of that committee. I've seen what they've done to district health councils because they talk about protocol or process. The bill indicates that five of the members of the board - now everybody's got to be appointed by the government. That's the scary part.
Mr Galt: Lieutenant Governor.
Mr Kormos: Oh, give me a break: the government; let's cut to the chase here. One of the problems with politics in this province is the dishonesty that's inherent in it and people trying to dress things up and turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, when the public knows it's a sow's ear. No matter how many millions this government may spend in slick advertising, the public knows what it is: It's a sow's ear, and this government keeps on trying to dress it up like a silk purse.
But let's get down to the board, and I wish the Attorney General would take some note of this: What's very dangerous about this bill, insofar as I can see here, is that you've got five persons exclusively selected by the government, so we're talking about five Tory appointees because this government pork-barrels like you haven't seen in a good 25 years. You've gone back to the good old days of pork-barrelling and just sniffing and gobbling out of the trough.
Mr Parker: Come on, Sean Conway does a much better job than this.
Mr Kormos: Did somebody wake up over there or did somebody drop their crayons? It's incredible how at 7:20 at night this fellow could finally blurt out something.
The problem you've got with the boys is that you've got five government appointments.
Look, I don't know whether he's one of the lawyers in that caucus or not. Is that member one of the lawyers? Somebody help.
Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): That's what I heard.
Mr Kormos: OK. I guess they come in all shapes and sizes and all levels of intellect.
Mr Galt: This is honest.
Mr Kormos: I suppose they come in all shapes and sizes, all levels of intellect. There you go.
So here's a lawyer; I don't know if he's one of the Tory lawyers who's still practising law. I know there are a few.
Mr Len Wood: Most of them.
Mr Kormos: I know there are more than a few Tory lawyers who are - I call it - double-dipping. I figure the people who have the fortune, or misfortune - I suppose it depends upon where you stand to have elected a Tory lawyer - those people should be able to go to his or her constituency office and get legal advice. They're already paying for it because they're already paying the salaries of those same people, aren't they?
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): That's right.
Mr Kormos: Those Tory lawyers shouldn't be conducting practices where they charge people money.
Mr Baird: The Liberals also -
Mr Kormos: I don't think anybody in this Legislature should be doing that. Instead of double-dipping, and I tell people who live in ridings that are represented by any member of the Legislature - I don't care whether it's Tory, Liberal or NDP - who've got a lawyer as their MPP: "By God, don't be paying those fees. Don't be paying for those services. You're already paying that person's salary." As far as I'm concerned, that MPP has no business spending time in a law practice. They should be, if they're not here at Queen's Park, in their constituency office taking care of constituents, and if that means doing legal work, so be it. I know that other MPPs with other backgrounds apply the skills of their work in their constituency offices. Why shouldn't the lawyers do the same?
God forbid that any of them should have billed legal aid over the course of the last three years. I'm confident - or dare I say that? I was going to express confidence in the fact that there wouldn't be a Tory lawyer who would have billed legal aid over the last three years.
1920
Mr Ramsay: I think he picked up his crayon. He's very quiet now.
Mr Kormos: Interesting, isn't it? I dare say there isn't a Tory lawyer who would have billed legal aid in the last three years. I don't know; I suppose that remains to be seen.
Your problem that people out there should be concerned about is the fact that this government, in my view and in our caucus's view, can stack the board of directors of this new corporation. We've seen it with district health councils, where rather than the protocol of relying upon nominees from the district health council, the government circumvented that and went out and picked political personalities so that those political personalities can represent their interests on district health councils, for instance. Quite frankly, we've seen it far too often.
The other area, of course, is that in our view the bill is somewhat deficient in describing the extent to which the board should be representative of a community. The bill, no two ways about it, highlights some sectors that should be represented. The bill doesn't require the representation of ethnic minorities, for instance. It doesn't require that there be francophone representation on the board, which is especially of concern when the legal aid system is relieved of compliance with the French Language Services Act. Even in Bill 8 communities it's optional. It's up to the board to decide whether a particular legal aid office, even if it's in a Bill 8 community, is going to provide French-language services. I know that's of concern.
Quite frankly, the Attorney General may want to explain why the board is exempt from Bill 8. The Attorney General may say that is because it's not a government agency because it's an arm's-length agency. Right? Because that's the premise here, that it's an arm's-length agency.
Hon Mr Harnick: Wrong, Peter.
Mr Kormos: Hold on. The Attorney General is getting anxious. He's going to have to wait 39 minutes if he's going to use two minutes for responses.
Hon Mr Harnick: Don't make me wait that long.
Mr Kormos: Now he's getting anxious, he's getting nervous.
Hon Mr Harnick: I'm going back to reading the paper.
Mr Kormos: He's going back to reading his paper. That's yesterday's paper, Attorney General, but I suppose to you, it really doesn't matter.
Hon Mr Harnick: No, it's Tuesday's.
Mr Kormos: I saw yesterday's paper. I know that's yesterday's paper. The Attorney General is still reading yesterday's paper. It could be Monday of a year ago, for all I know.
The Acting Speaker: Order, please. Address your comments to the Chair.
Hon Mr Harnick: He's not sticking to the bill.
The Acting Speaker: Order, please. Attorney General, come to order. I don't care what paper you're reading. Member for Welland-Thorold, come back to order.
Mr Kormos: Yes, it was yesterday's paper before 6 o'clock, because now it's tomorrow.
In any event, I suppose the only nice thing about the pension buyouts is that those of us with lesser years than the members of the millionaires' club, like the Premier and the Treasurer - I suppose the Premier -
Hon Mr Harnick: You're part of that club.
Mr Kormos: I'm just a little player. The government had to accommodate the little players. I don't belong to the instant millionaire club that the pension buyout resulted in, with the Premier, the Treasurer. Who's the minister who sits right down at the end? Energy? Environment. He's a member of the millionaires' club. There are New Democrats brought into it as well, but the neat thing is that the Premier lost a good 50 grand in the last month. Right? Those smaller players, whose buyouts were far more reasonable, lost a few. But the Premier lost a good 50 grand in the last month with the collapse of stock markets. Think about it. I suppose if there's any justice -
Hon Mr Harnick: You don't know how he invested it.
Mr Kormos: Don't tell me Mike Harris went Bre-X as well. The Attorney General is suggesting that he wasn't in one of those conservative -
Hon Mr Harnick: How do you know where people invest, Peter? You invest your money in the stock market.
The Acting Speaker: Attorney General, come to order. Member for Welland-Thorold, would you come back to the bill, please.
Mr Kormos: The Premier's down 50 grand, and that's the only modest pleasure we can take, I suppose, from the last month, although a lot of other people who earn their money got -
Mr Baird: Gaining pleasure out of other people's misfortune.
Mr Kormos: No. A whole lot of other people who earn their money got hurt big time.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Nepean, come to order.
Mr Kormos: But I take some pleasure out of the fact that the Premier is probably down a good 50 grand, in view of the fact that the Premier bought himself out for a million bucks. The Premier, the Treasurer, Minister of the Environment - who else is in that? Is the Solicitor General in that?
Mr Galt: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I believe the subject is Bill 68, having to do with legal aid. I've heard very little about legal aid this evening. I'm wondering if we could have -
The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Member for Welland-Thorold, I ask you again to come back to the main point of the bill. I am tolerant and I let people deviate quite a bit from the subject, but you've gone way off for too long. Would you please come back.
Mr Kormos: The Attorney General here keeps leading me off of Bill 68 on to things like the Premier's pension buyout. If the Attorney General wants to talk about the Premier's pension buyout, he should do it in his two minutes, which will come in relatively short order.
Hon Mr Harnick: No, 36 more minutes is not short order.
Mr Kormos: Stick with us, Attorney General, because if you haven't had this brought to your attention by your staff, we want to bring it to your attention now.
You know that the refugee lawyers' association has expressed grave concern about the omission of refugee law. The argument, according to the explanation tendered to Ms Boyd and me, as we recall it - I don't want to put any civil servants on the spot - is that the civil procedure embraced or encompassed refugee law, including all wide ranges of administrative law. Far be it from me to pass judgment on that.
Mr Galt: No, a real shame.
Mr Kormos: Well, no, far be it from me. But I talked to a number of lawyers who practise that kind of law, and they suggested to me that if they meant administrative law, they should have specifically said administrative law, because when they talk about refugee law over in the sections where they've got the three- and two-year guarantees, they use the specific language "refugee law," but it's a two-year guarantee to maintain the status quo of the budgeting for refugee law and three years for legal clinics.
The problem, in essence, with the bill - the Attorney General knows full well and he should anticipate what the arguments are going to be - is that that are no guarantees here beyond the three years for legal clinics and the two years of status quo funding. I spoke with Ms Austin before I began, because the Attorney General had talked about how the status quo in terms of overall funding was guaranteed for three years. What I find out is that that isn't included in the legislation. I invite the Attorney General to point to the section in the bill that talks about the guarantee of three years' funding to maintain the status quo for the overall funding of legal aid.
Sure, the Attorney General said it here in the Legislature. He said the government is committing itself. Well, you can't believe this government's promises, can you? This is the same Attorney General who told us that the family support plan was up and running. Two months after it was supposed to have started, you told us it was up and running. Three month, four months, five months after it was started, you told us it was up and running. Did he lie? Did he, Speaker?
The Acting Speaker: That's unparliamentary. You have to withdraw that, please.
Mr Kormos: I withdraw the question. I withdraw that. I won't ask whether the Attorney General lied. I won't ask that question.
Mr Galt: You can't use that word. That's terrible.
Mr Kormos: I won't. I won't ask that question. All I know is that our office is still inundated -
The Acting Speaker: Member for Welland-Thorold, you just did it again. You have to withdraw that, please.
Mr Kormos: I withdraw "lie." I withdraw that the Attorney General lied.
The Acting Speaker: You can't keep doing that. Just withdraw.
Mr Kormos: I withdraw.
We finally found out that the Attorney General hadn't been as forthright as he could have been. As a matter of fact, if Diogenes had been here in the Legislature he could have swung that lamp in front of the Attorney General for a good day and a half, a week, two weeks, a month, and still wouldn't have found anything he was looking for. Think about it, Speaker.
1930
Mr Parker: Speaker, on a point of order: The member just did it again. I wonder if you would have a word with him.
The Acting Speaker: I'm not so sure that he did do it that time.
Mr Parker: We all heard him.
The Acting Speaker: Take your seat. I'm on my feet and I'm ruling. My mind must have wandered briefly. I didn't hear the member. If he did say something unparliamentary, I would ask him to withdraw. That's all I can do.
Mr Kormos: If I said anything unparliamentary, I withdraw it. What I did say was that if Diogenes had been -
Interjection.
Mr Kormos: Well, the Speaker can rule on this.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Welland-Thorold, if you want to get through your next 30 minutes, you have to stop doing that. You have to withdraw that.
Mr Kormos: I withdraw Diogenes. Poor Diogenes, still searching through the whole legislative precinct, through ministry offices nearby and even all the way down Bay Street - what's the address on Bay Street? You know the one, over on the west side of Bay Street, just near the bus station. Diogenes is searching and searching and searching, to no avail. The lamp is burning oil far beyond anybody's capacity. Diogenes is still searching, because we know the minister wasn't forthright about the family support plan.
The Acting Speaker: You can't say that either. Would you withdraw, please.
Mr Kormos: We know that the minister was less than thorough in his responses to members of the opposition about the status of the family support plan office, the Family Responsibility Office.
The minister has made a commitment. He said the government is going to maintain for three years the level of overall funding for the legal aid system that it has currently. It's not in the bill. If we can't trust - I'm being very careful here, Speaker; blink once if I'm OK, blink twice if I'm erring. If the minister did not engage in full disclosure about the status of the family support plan, why should we expect the minister to be any more straightforward, to be any more reliable than he was then, in his comment that the government is going to maintain for the next three years the level of funding that's available currently to this new legal aid plan?
The government clearly has forced the corporation to maintain the funding of legal clinics at the status quo for three years. The legislation says that. It has clearly forced the corporation to maintain the funding of refugee law for a mere two years; the legislation says that. The fact that the corporation will still have a mandate and an obligation to run clinics after the three years is contrasted significantly with the fact that it has no obligation to provide refugee law services, none whatsoever. The description of clinic services, specifically omitting refugee law, means that not only will the corporation be in a position never to provide a single certificate to private counsel for refugee law but that, two, clinics will not be authorized or permitted to engage in refugee law as well. That's one of the omissions that Ms Boyd made reference to and that I refer people to now.
The bill, when it indicates "shall provide," throws in the little kicker which we saw in this government's inevitable tinkering and toying and attack on arbitration processes. The government here is totally empowered to do through the back door what it wouldn't dare do politically through the front door. The board, this corporation, must consider - because it has an obligation to provide criminal certificates and family certificates to private counsel and legal clinic services, but in the course of providing those it must have reference to the funding available to it.
This government, if it doesn't make more than merely the Attorney General's promise - what's that worth? What is the Attorney General's promise worth? A pocket full of change? Maybe not even that much. We've seen the history. The fact is that if there was a commitment to three years of maintaining the status quo - is the change bit getting to you, Speaker? You're blinking twice. OK, I'll put the change away.
I see the dialogue here. The Speaker is being tipped off that maybe I'm getting close to violating rules of procedure. You know what's incredible about the Legislature? That it's OK to lie, but it's not OK to call somebody a liar. I'm not making reference to anybody in particular. It's a remarkable thing: It's OK to lie in the Legislature, but it's not OK to call somebody a liar. If that's not a contradiction, nothing really is.
I've had specific conversations with members of the refugee lawyers' association, with members of the bar who represent refugees. I understand that this government probably is going to indicate that it is the feds that should be picking that up.
Mr Klees: On a point of order, Speaker: As a member of this House, I would ask for a ruling from you as to whether in fact the member's statement that it is appropriate for a member of this House to lie in this chamber is correct. Would you do that for me, please.
The Acting Speaker: Let me say that in my view what he said was not unparliamentary in that he was not accusing any particular member in this House of lying. From my point of view, whether he was accurate or not is beside the point. My ruling is that he was not unparliamentary because he didn't accuse anybody of lying or of being a liar.
Mr Klees: Madam Speaker, that was not my request.
The Acting Speaker: I heard your request. Take your seat a moment. You asked me to rule on whether or not what he stated was factual. I'm telling you it's not my job to tell you whether a member is factual or not. My job is to make sure that members do not use unparliamentary language. In my view, the member at this time did not do that.
Mr Klees: On a point of personal privilege then.
The Acting Speaker: It had better be good because you're using up the member's time.
Mr Klees: On a matter of personal privilege, Madam Speaker, I consider this very serious because as a member of this Legislature the member opposite has left the impression clearly with anyone who is watching here that it is appropriate for members of this Legislature to lie in this place.
The Acting Speaker: No. Member for York-Mackenzie, I understand your point, but my point is very clear. It's not my job to rule on the accuracy of members' statements. You will have to deal with that; perhaps you will have two minutes later, whatever. But I rule that the member was not unparliamentary and that is the end of it.
Member for Welland-Thorold.
Mr Kormos: Thank you, Speaker. Needless to say, I agree with your ruling in that regard. I was very careful in terms of how I approached it and I stand very much by what I said.
It's just one of the ironies, one of the contradictions about this place. What does a member do if a member catches another member, if it were to happen, in a mistruth, not a misstatement by inadvertence? What's a member to do if you catch another member expressing a total falsehood?
You see, that's the problem, because this is where I say a member is powerless, because of that rule, to say to another member, to point out, to expose that person for what she or he really is. Surely other members find that incredibly frustrating, that it's not OK to call somebody a liar here, even if it's an observation and a conclusion that's based on fact, even if it's a conclusion that's accurate. Needless to say, I find that frustrating, and I'm not accusing anybody of engaging in mistruths.
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): On a point of order, Madam Speaker: The discussion that the member for Welland-Thorold is having with himself about this issue is quite entertaining. I would like you to rule on that as having anything whatsoever to do with Bill 68.
The Acting Speaker: I would ask the member for Welland-Thorold if he would come back to the bill at hand, please.
Mr Kormos: You know what the issue is. The issue is that we have to rely merely on the Attorney General's say-so, the Attorney General's commitment, the Attorney General's promise that the current level of funding of legal aid in the broadest sense is going to be maintained for three years. That could have been contained in the bill. It could have been included in the legislation, the same way - and that's why I have now, for probably the tenth time, made reference to the sections that guarantee the status quo in terms of funding for (1) legal clinics for three years and (2) refugee law for a period of two years. Had this government really meant what it said when it said it was going to maintain the current level of funding for a minimum of three years, it would be in the bill, and it isn't.
1940
That's what I said to you at the very outset, before I talked about the Canadian Slovak League, branch 23 down in Welland, and its 70% property tax increases, and before we got to whether we should be satisfied with the mere promise by the Attorney General about the level of funding. His promise is very much to the point here. I talked to you about this bill being more about what is not in here as compared to what is in here and the fact that this government can effectively scuttle legal aid, be it clinics, notwithstanding that there's an obligation for the board, this new corporation, to provide clinic services. I agree, the bill says that or at least pays lip service to it. But the government can defund to the point where the board has to shut clinics down and will shut clinics down because the funding of the program isn't legislated. The level of funding isn't obligatory, it's purely discretionary on the part of the government.
I know that there's not a whole lot of spin out there on the issue of legal aid. That's why Branislav Galat was talking to me about property taxes rather than Bill 68. That's why it's up to that small community out there that is interested and is concerned to make their voices heard.
This government has an ongoing problem with the Askov type of rulings. Just recently it was brought to the Attorney General's attention that an incredibly serious charge, allegedly resulting in a fatality, was stayed as a result of the application once again of - I think Askov and Melo v The Queen is the full decision.
The Attorney General doesn't understand. Judges have observed over the course of the last couple of years that while the role of the criminal defence lawyer may not be applauded by all in the community, and least of all by those who feel that somehow victims are shortchanged in lieu of the rights of accused - and I'm not going to say that there is a reason for not feeling that way. I have every sympathy with the observation that victims are often overlooked, even with the Victims' Bill of Rights. Again, another promise. Was it kept? If it wasn't kept, why? Because my experience with the Victims' Bill of Rights and the contacts I've had through my constituency office and through my office here and the questions that have been raised with the Attorney General and the recent lawsuit that was entered upon - you recall the lawsuit, yet more litigation - was by victims who were denied their rights under the Victims' Bill of Rights.
The bill places interesting obligations on lawyers. It requires them to effectively rat out their clients to legal aid and creates an offence for lawyers who neglect to do that. I am referring specifically to section 43. There are going to be grave concerns raised about the extent to which that interferes with, violates, interrupts, forces a lawyer to abandon or begin to question his or her obligation to his or her client. Again, what the government is trying to do is turn lawyers, with the unique solicitor-client relationship, into its own policing officers for its legal aid plan, and I think that's entirely inappropriate.
This government hasn't really cared about the issue of family law, and I don't think there is anyplace where the legal aid system is more critical and has demonstrated itself to be as deficient as in the area of family law. Have you tried to get a family lawyer to take on a legal aid certificate case? Have any of you called family lawyers? Because the fact is that most family lawyers recognize that the cap on billing makes it virtually impossible for them to do family law.
Mr Guzzo: I have no conflict.
Mr Kormos: The judge - are you suggesting you're still doing law and charging for it? I talked about that a little while ago: a Tory backbencher practising law and charging money for it. I find that a real contradiction of one's obligation to the Legislature.
Mr Guzzo: I haven't sent out a bill in years.
Mr Kormos: I just find it interesting that you've got backbenchers here engaged in the practice of law and charging fees. Again, I don't know whether any of them has billed legal aid. I saw some body language over there by one backbencher that suggested he had, that he had done family work on legal aid. That's really unconscionable, in my view.
Once again, we'll return to the whole difficulty that all of us have in our offices with constituents who come into our offices who are in dire straits. We predicted it with the Attorney General when the family support guidelines were in place. The Attorney General once again jumped up and down and said: "Oh no, everything is underway. We're more than capable of dealing with the applications for variation." Not the case; it's simply not the case.
Women particularly are finding themselves without counsel and being forced to carry their own cases into courts which as often as not are incredibly overcrowded. I should indicate that there's going to be some redress in that regard as the result of the adoption, or the expansion at least, of the Unified Family Court system. But the fact remains that the biggest chunk of women out there, low-income women or no-income women, simply aren't able to access counsel for the purpose of family litigation, and there's nothing in this legislation that's going to guarantee any minimum level of service to those women. At the end of the day, the government can do to legal aid through the back door what it won't do politically through the front door, and that is, it can simply defund legal aid so that it all but eliminates legal clinics and private practitioners who take certificates.
The Attorney General has made it quite clear what he thinks about picking up the tab for young offenders and, indeed, in the legislation an interesting section makes it merely discretionary. When a court orders counsel to be appointed under the Young Offenders Act for a young offender - I'm looking at section 16 - the section merely says that the Attorney General "may" direct that the corporation provide legal services to that young offender. Again, the Attorney General wants to pursue some sort of crass political agenda rather than engage in any sort of compliance with the Young Offenders Act.
You know, Attorney General, that appeals of bail, for instance, are simply not being performed by way of lawyers who are retained by legal aid certificates. The tariff provided for appeals of bail is simply not sufficient to enable a lawyer to engage in the preparation of material necessary to file a notice and all the other paperwork that I'm told is involved with an appeal of bail to get the accused person into court and so on.
This government is inviting, I tell you, literally more and more Askov problems if it thinks it's serving its law-and-order interests by removing criminal lawyers from the court. Judges have noted that; the Attorney General prefers simply not to understand it.
I've got seniors in my community who led middle-class lives, who thought they had done all the right things, who now find themselves confronted, for instance, because of the increase in property taxes - in Niagara region it was $18 million in new property taxes imposed by Niagara region. They're not my numbers; they're the numbers of the regional municipality of Niagara. That's after they had done all the trimming and the cutting and the tearing away of fat that they'd been doing for years already.
This government is punishing those municipalities like the regional municipality of Niagara that have been efficient, that have trimmed away the fat, that have done their best to reduce their costs. We've got a community like Niagara with $18 million in new property taxes; that's the number. Fewer services; that's the reality. More user fees; that's the reality. But higher taxes across the board.
1950
I told you about Slovak Hall and similar ethnic social clubs. Let me tell you about residential property taxpayers. I talked about senior citizens. I've got senior citizens in my community who thought they had done all the right things all of their lives, who worked incredibly hard, who saved a few dollars, who invested in their kids' futures as well and who thought that they were going to be OK, who thought that they were going to be able to retire in what had been the family home, the same home that they had raised kids in, that their grandchildren had visited them in, who now, because of 40%, 50% and 60% increases in property taxes, are literally fearful of the prospect of losing their homes. What's the government going to suggest to them? Reverse mortgages? You know that what you've effectively done is made a deal with the devil.
Mr Galt: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I believe that this hour is dedicated to Bill 68. For the last five minutes, we've been talking about property tax. I wonder if there's any chance we could get back to Bill 68. I'm really quite -
The Acting Speaker: I tend to be somewhat lenient in the chair with members of all parties. I listen carefully and when I feel that the member has wandered too far, I will ask the member to come back. Please remember what we're debating here.
Mr Kormos: I got carried away a little bit by the recollection of recent comments. I apologize to the veterinarian. I got carried away. I wasn't speaking to the bill, Speaker. No, I wasn't speaking to the bill. I admit I was not speaking to Bill 68. I confess. Look, do what you will with me. Punish me if you must. I applaud the veterinarian for being oh, so bold as to stand up on a point of order and say that the member for Welland-Thorold wasn't on point. Big deal. So what? What's new? Give us a break, for Pete's sake.
Of course I wasn't on point because I was talking about increases in property taxes that have been imposed on seniors in the region of Niagara. That has very little to do with legal aid, but it has very much to do with the government and the issue of whether it can be trusted. You see the connection? Speaker, we're taking this back home. You see the connection? This government couldn't be trusted when it said that the downloading was neutral. What was the phrase? Revenue-neutral. The fact is that it left Niagara regional taxpayers with a new bill of $18 million in new taxes. That's not revenue-neutral. You could have relied -
Mr Galt: Wrong, wrong.
Mr Kormos: They're not my numbers. They're the numbers that come from the regional municipality of Niagara, the new property taxes this year. They're the new taxes and reduced services and increases in new user fees. That's the reality of it. You see, we couldn't trust the government when it came to their mere say-so that there weren't going to be new property taxes. That's clear now. They said it was to be revenue-neutral. Once all the evidence is out there, new taxes to the tune of $18 million is the net effect.
I'm talking about whether you can trust this government to live up to its promises about legal aid. That's what I'm talking about. Let's take a look at the track record of this government. Was it honest - can I say that? - when it said that the downloading was revenue-neutral? I suppose maybe it was misled by the bureaucrats. I mean, that's the impression one gets. Bureaucrats can mislead, can't they? A member can't, but bureaucrats can. Why, that was the pitch of the Premier when it came down to the $200-plus million that emergency rooms have been waiting for across this province since spring of this year. He blamed it on the bureaucrats. The Premier suggested that it wasn't he, the Premier, who - you know what I mean - but rather it was the bureaucrats who misled the people of Ontario. That's what he said. He didn't use that exact language, but that's the impression he was trying to create.
Well, can we believe - can we rely on him, rather? I think not, because I don't think very many people have been conned or fooled by that. Heck, I suppose the government may embark on some multi-million dollar ad campaigns to try to prop up its following up of that financial support that was promised for emergency rooms, a broken promise that has resulted in significant tragedies across the province already. We saw but one cheque delivered. I suppose the cheque may have cleared by now. But the remaining countless hospitals - well, can we trust the government?
Mr Tilson: Yes.
Mr Kormos: The member for Dufferin-Peel says yes. I ask him to reflect on the fact that the people in Niagara were stuck with $18 million in new taxes because of the government's downloading. The government promised it would be revenue-neutral. I put that to him. I suppose he's so indoctrinated that if I ask him once again, "Can you trust this government?" he might still respond yes, nodding his head up and down. The strings are marginally visible.
Ms Marilyn Mushinski (Scarborough-Ellesmere): Only marginally?
Mr Kormos: From this distance you can just barely see the outline of the strings as these little marionettes - can I say that, Speaker? Oh, no, now I can't say "marionettes." Please, Speaker. What have we got here? If we can't use language, what exactly are you suggesting, Speaker? What exactly are you encouraging or inciting if we can't use language? If you're going to forbid language, exactly what is the point? What is it that you're suggesting be the option?
We couldn't trust this government when it came to downloading. We couldn't trust this government when it came to jobs. Down where I come from in Niagara, I'm visited by legions of people whose unemployment is persistent and increasingly chronic. People recognize that there have been new jobs when a new chain restaurant opens up and there are 300 applications for 20 positions, part-time, minimum-wage, temporary. But you don't support a family on part-time, minimum-wage, temporary, and that's what this government is talking about when it talks about its new jobs. So we couldn't trust them when it came to that either.
We couldn't trust them when it came to property taxes.
We can't trust them when it comes to real job creation. Oh, I know it has its dog-and-pony show. A bunch of these folks are going to be down in Niagara region, in St Catharines, at the Ramada Parkway Inn on Thursday. I'll be there. A few of my colleagues from Niagara are going to be there. But it's their dog-and-pony show, so-called jobs and prosperity.
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I was in Kingston last night. They tried to play that card in Kingston, but the people of Kingston weren't fooled. The Tories who were at their expensive dog-and-pony show, trying to put on the dog, I suppose, trying to create the impression that somehow this government had anything in mind other than minimum-wage jobs and maintaining increasingly high levels of unemployment, should have been down where I was, with the folks across from city hall in the lakeside park in Kingston, who talked about real jobs and real prosperity rather than phony jobs and phony prosperity.
Here we are with the government's so-called legal aid reform. Here I am with but two minutes and 31 seconds left.
Mr Toby Barrett (Norfolk): You can do it.
Mr Kormos: I am going to struggle. I'm going to muster all the energy I have to occupy that remaining two minutes and 20 seconds.
The bill is going to pass. We know that. I'm telling you, though, that the absence of legislated commitments to minimum levels of service, both at the clinic level and at the certificate level, should be bothersome for every single Tory backbencher. This government is inviting yet more problems. If it wants to get criminal lawyers out of the courts, I suppose, by defunding the certificate system for criminal law, it can and it will, but then it has aggravated the Askov situation. You know what that is. It has been around for a good chunk of time. It has been around since the Liberals. I understand that. I was here then too. That's when it occurred, its roots, its origin.
This government is not serving anybody's interests by denying the need for criminal representation and understanding that criminal representation, especially that occurring in most parts of this province in provincial courts and county courts, General Division courts, indeed makes the system work and expedites the flow of files of accused through the system. It does.
The Attorney General was jumpy and antsy for a while. He was. Then he finished the Globe from yesterday. Yesterday, of course, ended at 6 o'clock. This is day two, having commenced at 6:30. Now the Attorney General is going to want to impress us with yet more assurances. We couldn't trust him on the family support plan - didn't.
Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte): Is it working now?
Mr Kormos: Well, no. We don't trust him any more now than we did when he was telling us the family support plan was up and running. What you have here is another family support plan in waiting with this bill, a legal aid plan that's destined to be scuttled if the Tories have their way with it.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): Comments and questions?
Hon Mr Harnick: I listened intently to the member's words, as always puffed with air, highly exaggerated and, I might say, quite worthy of the stage at Stratford. Mr Speaker, I know you're well aware of Stratford, your home town.
I think it's important to know that this bill was developed in full co-operation with the Law Society of Upper Canada, which has been the traditional body that has run legal aid. We relied very much on their expertise. We relied very much on the expertise of the Criminal Lawyers' Association, which has fully supported this bill, and the Family Lawyers' Association, which has fully supported this bill, and clinic lawyers, who have fully supported the development of this bill.
I have had an opportunity to meet with clinic lawyers, with family lawyers, with criminal lawyers, and they all indicated that it was very important to build a plan under which people could be served appropriately, where there would be an appropriate amount of time allocated to do the work so that clients could be properly served. They have guided us in the development of this bill.
I might tell you that if you take a look at section 13 of the bill it provides for clinic services, for criminal services under the certificate system and for family services and for mental health law.
Section 81 provides that this bill will be governed by the French Language Services Act. The member didn't read that section.
I could go on, and I will have that opportunity at another time, but I think it is very gratifying to know that those who practise in the profession and serve those who need legal aid support this bill.
Mr Gravelle: I want to compliment the member for Welland-Thorold for his usual eloquent remarks and his ability to certainly get under the skin of the government very effectively.
Interjections.
Mr Gravelle: I'm glad they're agreeing with me with their chorus right now.
What needs to be said is that, as we all know, the McCamus report made 92 recommendations. Part of the problem with this particular piece of legislation is it really only deals with one aspect of those recommendations. One can't deny the reality that basically the inability of low-income earners to access legal aid has been affected in a very dramatic way in the last three and a half years by, in very specific terms, the cuts that have taken place under the Mike Harris government. We know the number of certificates that were issued in the last year was dramatically down from previous years even though the funding was still maintained at a certain level. So there are some real problems attached to this.
We all know what the lack of legal representation can honestly mean. It results obviously in increased court appearances, it adds more delay to the court system and it also puts judges in a very difficult position frequently when there's no legal counsel in place.
The important thing to remember is that we need to be able to maintain access. For those people who are in circumstances where they can't afford a lawyer, the legal aid system is very important.
In my community in Thunder Bay I work very closely, for example, with the Kinna-Aweya Legal Clinic, which is a remarkable legal clinic in Thunder Bay. They've been very conscious of some of the difficulties that have taken place over the last three and a half years.
While this legislation deals with some aspects of the McCamus report, what's important to recognize - I'm sure the Attorney General does recognize this and would acknowledge this - is that there's still a long way to go to make this legislation what it really should be. Certainly those are some of the concerns we have and I know my colleague from Sudbury will be expressing some of the other concerns as we carry through the evening.
Thank you for the opportunity, Mr Speaker.
Mr Blain K. Morin (Nickel Belt): I would like to start by thanking the member for Welland-Thorold for that concise and yet very descriptive presentation on Bill 68.
The intent of the bill is to meet the needs of Ontarians who need legal aid. I was particularly interested in the member's description concerning the government's commitment to level of funding for legal aid. That is so important these days.
I believe the member, in representing his constituency for over 10 years now, has done an excellent job. When the member says that we have to be concerned about the level of funding, we know about that level of funding and we've seen that lack of funding around issues, particularly in Nickel Belt, particularly in that level of funding around nurse practitioners. We've heard the announcements, we continue to hear the announcements from this government and yet we don't ever seem to see the money.
Interjection: The cheque is almost in the mail.
Mr Blain Morin: The cheque is almost in the mail.
We heard from the Minister of Health today, who is busy making cheques today. In Nickel Belt we're concerned about that lack of funding and we're really concerned around emergency wards. We're very concerned about the lack of funding and what it has done around transfer payments. Finally, the constituents in Nickel Belt are very concerned about the lack of funding for basic rights, and in this case the basic right is one of justice.
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Mr Galt: I'm going to have to compliment the member for Welland-Thorold as well. It's amazing how supportive he is of Bill 68. He talked about everything else except Bill 68 and that tells me he's very supportive of it. He was so far off topic. He talked about lawyers in the House double-dipping. He talked about property tax extensively. He talked about investments and how he invests his money. He talked about the track record of the government which, by the way, has been absolutely exemplary but he doesn't recognize it. Then he spent a very long time talking about House etiquette and what people could or couldn't do in the House. I'm a little concerned about the image what he was saying would leave with the people at home: that it's in order to lie in this House. I certainly cannot support his concerns there.
He talked about refugee law and that area. There's some responsibility the federal government must have when it comes to immigrants and when it comes to refugees. They're the ones who are letting them in. Surely to goodness.
They have almost eliminated their support in health care. They have almost eliminated their support in education. They've almost eliminated their support in social services. I don't know what those Liberals in Ottawa do with their money, but it's certainly not to support programs they have forced on to the provinces in the past.
I think his comments about trusting a government are interesting. This government has developed in the last three years a reputation of doing what we said we would do. You just go out and ask on the street and people will repeat that over and over again. If you ask them if we're on the right track, 58% say we're on the right track.
The Deputy Speaker: The member's time has expired. The member for Welland-Thorold has two minutes to respond.
Mr Kormos: The problem is that the Attorney General still persists in conjuring up images that are less than real. The attorney is - well, I know I can't call him a liar. The Attorney General says that this bill was drafted in consultation with clinicians; with legal clinics across the province. It wasn't, Attorney General. You know that, I know that and the people working in those clinics know that, because if they had had a role in drafting the legislation, there would have been guarantees about the ongoing funding of the overall legal aid system. There's no guarantee in this legislation about the ongoing funding for the legal aid system.
We know this government's attitudes towards the courts. It has allowed Askov cases to pile up. It has abandoned its own Victims' Bill Of Rights. It has underresourced police officers across this province. We've got cops down in Niagara three and four and five at a time manning speed traps so they can collect money on option 4 rather than being out there investigating criminal activity that they want to be out there investigating and should be out there investigating. We've got response time by police officers dramatically reduced because of the gross shortage of police officers.
This government talks a big game about justice but simply doesn't deliver. Attorney General, some of those very same people you talked about - the people working in legal clinics, the people working on certificates in criminal law and more significantly with respect to this issue in family law - know all abut your track record. When it came to the family support plan, the Family Responsibility Office, they're the ones who had to deal with the crisis you created. They couldn't trust you then; they can't trust you now. You would put it in the bill if you really meant it.
We know the bill is going to pass. We know it's inevitable. But you have not made a commitment, and won't, to anyone.
The Deputy Speaker: The member's time has expired. Further debate.
Mr Parker: I am pleased to have this opportunity to rise to add my comments on this bill, which happens to be about reforming the legal aid system, regardless of what anyone listening in might be misled to believe the topic is this evening.
I see by the clock that I have just 10 minutes to register my remarks this evening, but I promise you, Mr Speaker, that in the 10 minutes available to me I will dedicate more time to the subject of this bill than the member for Welland-Thorold was just able to put towards the bill in the total hour he had available to him.
I know the member for Welland-Thorold didn't talk all that much about this bill because it's not in his nature - it's not his job - to speak in complimentary terms of an initiative by this government, but if he had spoken more about this bill he wouldn't have been able to avoid being complimentary towards this government, particularly for this specific initiative.
The real test is going to be when the time comes to vote. I'm going to be watching to see just how the opposition members vote when this bill comes to the time to make a decision. I wonder whether the members of the opposition will agree with the members on this side and with the vast members of the public, the members of the practising bar, the members of the consuming legal aid public and others, and with the Toronto Star, which are all very supportive of the initiatives that are to be found in this bill.
I refer you to the Toronto Star editorial of October 12, about a week ago, under the heading "Sound Legal Aid Plan." I'll just pull out a few of the salient comments from this editorial, leading with this, "It's been a long time coming, but Ontario's new legislation to overhaul the legal aid system was worth the wait." The Toronto Star lays out a number of criteria that it determined were vital to a proper overhaul of the legal aid system. One point that the Toronto Star is looking for is that "Legal aid should be independent." Another point is that "The agency's budget should be adequate, predictable, and preferably multi-year." Another point that the Toronto Star was looking for in legal aid reform was that "The agency should have room to experiment, innovate and test ideas."
What's the verdict of the Toronto Star on the bill that has been brought forward by the Attorney General? "Harnick has met our concerns on all points." That's what the Toronto Star has to say about this bill that we are here debating this evening. I am going to be looking with interest to see just how the members of the opposition parties vote when this bill does come to a vote before this House.
Given the excursion we've been given through all sorts of topics, however tenuously related to this bill and I would suggest totally unrelated to this bill, maybe it's time to bring the discussion back to bear on the subject matter of the bill and touch on some of the key elements not only in the bill itself but in the process leading to the bill. Remember, as the Toronto Star says, "It's been a long time coming." It's been about 30 years since there has been a serious overhaul of the legal aid program in this province.
Ms Mushinski: How many years?
Mr Parker: Some 30 years.
Other governments have come and other governments have gone, other governments have had the chance to review and to revise and to reform the legal aid system. Have they done it? It looks like they haven't. But this government and this Attorney General have taken on the challenge and have brought forward a bill that has the endorsement of the Toronto Star, no less, for the nature of the reforms that are brought to bear.
It was clear that the status quo was not working for Ontarians who needed access to legal aid services and it was clear there was a need to do a thorough review of the system. The Attorney General brought in an independent expert, Professor John McCamus, to review the system thoroughly and to form the blueprint for the creation of a new model to deliver legal aid services in Ontario, recognizing that the demand for legal aid had changed greatly during the past three decades. In fact, in the years between 1989 and 1994 spending on legal aid had doubled. That shows you the magnitude of the problem, the challenge that had to be addressed.
The government launched this review under the overall direction of the Attorney General and specifically carried out by Professor McCamus. The review was carried out to ensure that the $230 million - that's the budget that goes into legal aid - spent annually on legal aid provided the maximum amount of high-quality legal services to those Ontarians who need those services the most. What we're looking for is the best application of those taxpayer dollars to meet the needs of the people who need the service.
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During the review process, many constituencies were consulted. Major legal, community and legal aid user groups were involved in a host of public hearings. The review, in addition to that, received more than 200 written submissions. Following the release of the Ontario Legal Aid Review study in September 1997, the government continued to consult widely and broadly to get feedback from the public.
The response that was received in this process was absolutely consistent. What people wanted was a legal aid plan that was independent of both government and the service-providers, that was accountable and well managed and that was fiscally stable. That's what the people were looking for and that's what the Toronto Star was looking for. The result that the government set for itself was also that in the end services must be improved as part of the process.
The government has worked with legal aid, with the public, with the legal community and with those representing users of legal aid to ensure that the proposed reforms were balanced, fair and in the public interest. I'm submitting to you, Mr Speaker, and to the members of this House that the Legal Aid Services Act, Bill 68, the bill that we are debating here this evening, if passed, accomplishes all of these goals. I'm not the only one who thinks that. The Toronto Star is on record saying that they believe it as well.
The legislation we are proposing here this evening and we are debating will ensure that the legal aid plan in Ontario will operate on three key principles: better service, better accountability for public funds and the quality of service, and independence, above all, from government and from the legal service providers.
The main elements of the bill I will enumerate for you:
To create an independent statutory agency to provide more services to Ontarians better than was done before. This is independent of the law society, independent of government.
To create an expert board with more public representation, an increase in public representation on the board that governs the provision of legal aid in the province.
To ensure that the new agency is publicly accountable.
To provide a statutory mandate to ensure that the board composition, organizational structure and funding mechanisms for the agency are fully set forward in statutory form.
To establish a modern, cost-effective governance and delivery framework, much more streamlined and much more up to date than has traditionally been the case.
Not least of all, to create a flexible framework for service delivery.
That is exactly what this bill will bring about and that is what the goal was going into this project. That's what countless hours of consultation with numerous groups have been directed towards and that's what has been achieved in the bill that is before us this evening.
The Deputy Speaker: Comments and questions?
Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): I'm pleased to respond to the member for York East. Indeed, he stuck to the bill throughout his comments. But I have to wonder. He quoted the Toronto Star so extensively that I must wonder whether there was a visiting editor who may have been at the Toronto Star writing this particular article.
However, he pointed out that the Toronto Star talked about three criteria. One was independence, another was stability, I believe, and predictability. In terms of stability, there's some question. The minister, of course, has an opportunity to address the whole question of stability in terms of funding levels. Predictability: I would say, yes, you might predict by virtue of the new structure that's being proposed, but will that tell you the funding levels that may be required? I'll be dealing with this.
The member said this had not been addressed by other governments. If I'm able to get on to speak this evening, I will do a very quick review of the last 47 years to show that there were extensive reviews and task forces and bodies that looked at legal aid. This is a very important area for the people of Ontario. It is my hope that the government will see that this goes to committee for hearings, rather than putting out for hearings the bill dealing with registering lobbyists. This is far more substantive. Perhaps this should be the one that goes to hearings.
Mr Kormos: These most recent comments were most interesting in that the member reading from his script, following his marching orders, engaging in trying to generate spin around this, was contradicted but minutes earlier by his own Attorney General here. The Attorney General, you see, doesn't want to take responsibility for the bill. The Attorney General wants to say: "The law society helped draft the bill. Any number of members of the bar helped draft the bill. Don't point the finger at me. These people helped put the bill together." The Attorney General insists that legal clinics were engaged in the consultation.
I say to the member from somewhere around York East, after he read from his scripted little set speech there, the fact is that the bill could have contained guarantees about ongoing funding for legal aid so that clinics, practitioners, would know with some confidence - you're saying once again, "Trust us." That's what you're telling these people, "Trust us," and the bottom line is that the bill doesn't provide any guarantees for ongoing funding for clinics or for practitioners who accept certificates, be they family law, be they civil law, be they criminal law. There are no guarantees whatsoever.
This government, I'm confident, can't be trusted to the point where we can rely, on the Attorney General's mere say-so, that it's going to maintain the status quo in terms of funding for three years. And even if that's the case, what happens at the expiration of those three years? The corporation is going to be forced to do what the government wants it to do, even though the government is going to be able to say: "Oh, it's an arm's-length corporation. It wasn't our decision." But with the government defunding, it'll be responsible for the elimination of those -
The Deputy Speaker: The member's time has expired.
Mr Tilson: I'd like to compliment the member for York East on giving a summary of what is in the bill. This process has been going on since 1967, which I understand is when legal aid first arrived in the province of Ontario, and since that time the process has gradually deteriorated. The process eventually came to the point where it was bankrupt. It was run by the Law Society of Upper Canada. There were people who applied for legal aid who weren't getting it, who simply didn't get it when perhaps they should have.
Mr Kormos: Perhaps?
Mr Tilson: There are a whole pile of people who applied for legal aid and received it when perhaps they shouldn't have. There were abuses that took place in the legal aid process.
Mr Kormos: What do you mean, perhaps?
Mr Tilson: The member for Welland-Thorold says perhaps. I have had perhaps as much experience as he has had, and I can tell you that there have been abuses in the process. I've worked in the process and there clearly were abuses. The system wasn't working, and I congratulate the Attorney General for bringing this forward.
Mr Kormos: You shouldn't have taken those certificates.
Mr Tilson: The member for Welland-Thorold continues to interject, but I will say that his government sat there - this crisis, this problem of providing legal services to people who simply don't have it isn't something that has just started. This has been going on for a period of time. Your government sat there for - I don't know how long you were in power - four or five years and you didn't do anything, didn't even think about it.
The Liberals of course say, "This has been studied before," and yes, I expect there is a bookcase of ideas that have been put forward by different governments to amend the process, to try to improve the process. This Attorney General has finally had the courage to correct the system and get a system that's going to work so that the poor single mothers, people who desperately need money to deal with legal problems they have, are going to have assistance, and I congratulate him for that.
Mr Gravelle: I'm glad to have an opportunity to comment on the remarks by the member for York East. It's probably important to point out that it's not simply a question of - there seems to be some concern about which way we're going to be voting on this bill. There's no particular problem, as far as I'm concerned, with some aspects of this bill. The real problem is that it actually doesn't go far enough in terms of some of the recommendations that have gone forward. It's only one piece of the pie.
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Most significantly, and I think it's an important point to make, there's a great feeling of distrust among the people of this province about many of the programs put forward by this government because of the pain they've inflicted on people in the past. A great concern that's being felt by people who want to access legal aid is that there have been many people who, for a variety of reasons and as a result of their circumstances, have not been able to access legal aid. There is some concern that this doesn't go far enough to ensure that takes place. We know that the number of certificates issued was down considerably last year. That's of great concern. As somebody who sits in my constituency office and meets with constituents on a regular basis, I know a variety of people come forward who have not been able to access it. It has an extraordinarily negative effect on their lives, and they have no other way to access it.
I hope that as a result of this legislation, that will be changing. You just need to understand that our experience has been - we've watched the effect on people of the cuts your government has made. We've watched how people have been devastated and hurt. We've listened to speakers tonight talk about other aspects besides legal aid for exactly those reasons. We've seen what has happened in terms of our health care system and we're watching what's happening in our education system, so there's a level of distrust.
It's important to recognize that if indeed this legislation improves the system, we're all for it. But it doesn't go far enough and it doesn't in any way truly reassure us that people who actually need legal aid are going to receive it. That's the problem. I wish I had a few more seconds, but I don't. Those are our concerns.
The Deputy Speaker: The member for York East has two minutes to respond.
Mr Parker: I am pleased to have the opportunity to thank the members for Ottawa Centre, Welland-Thorold, Dufferin-Peel and Port Arthur for their comments. I want in particular to congratulate and to express my appreciation to the member for Welland-Thorold for his remarks. I am not sure, but I think it's possible that in the course of his two-minute hit he dedicated more time to the subject matter of this bill than he did in the whole hour he had available to him to speak on the subject of the bill earlier on this evening. He criticized me for speaking from notes to keep me on track. Maybe if the member for Welland-Thorold spoke from notes he would do a better job of keeping on track with his remarks.
He criticized this bill, in the course of his remarks, for involving the law society in consultations in drafting the bill. There's no pleasing some people, is there? If the government had drafted the bill without consulting, then we would have failed to consult and it would be an in-house cooked job. By involving other bodies as broadly as we did, he's suggesting that we're somehow trying to blame others for what he is suggesting is already failed legislation. I'm not altogether sure where he was going with that point, but that seemed to be what he was driving at.
The member for Ottawa Centre told us that there were extensive studies and bodies set up to look into this subject by previous governments. That is precisely the point, isn't it? This is an area that has been studied widely and broadly. Has anyone done anything about it? Not until this government, and that's exactly my point here tonight.
The member for Port Arthur said he has some reservations because he believes the bill doesn't go far enough. I'm not really sure what he means by saying it hasn't gone far enough, but we do know one thing: His party, the Liberal Party, formed the government in this province for five full years and they went nowhere, absolutely nowhere, on this subject.
The Deputy Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Bartolucci: I only have 10 minutes under the new rules and I will be spending the entire 10 minutes talking about the bill. It is very important that we start off this discussion by pointing out what is good about this bill. There are parts that I consider to be very important.
First of all, it's extremely important that a board of directors be set up. That's a good concept. I encourage you to refine that process a little bit to ensure that we don't get what we've come to know at the agencies, boards and commission meetings as the Tory hacks taking over. That's a concern. I have a lot of respect for the Attorney General and I think he'll take that concern very seriously. He will not want to appoint people who are going to be so biased that there will be the perception that the government is selling out the system to Tory appointees. We certainly don't want that to happen.
The concept of a board of directors is a really good idea. In fact, the implementation of the board of directors is going to be very important, and the Attorney General having this much power is not in the best interests of the process. I like the concept and I'm glad the concept is in there, but I think that has to be refined just a little way to ensure that there is protection for the users of the system - and they're not abusers of the system. That's a point I want to make clearly to the people who are watching this tonight. Those people who use legal aid by and large are very genuine users of the system, as opposed to abusers. Are there abusers in the system? Yes. Will there be abusers after this legislation passes? Yes. There will always be those who abuse the system, but the reality is that we should be trying to pass legislation here that it is the best legislation for those people who want to legitimately use it.
I'm also happy that there is mention of paralegals and mediators in the bill. These are very good concepts to implement in the bill. I believe there has to be some more clarification of roles of both the paralegals and the mediators, but I would suggest their inclusion is important and that we try to refine that so that paralegals and mediators are able to use the skills they've been trained to implement in a way that is enhancing of the product for the people who are using it, as well as ensuring that the interests of the province are protected. That's another aspect of the bill that I like, but again I think it has to be more refined, I think it has to be more defined, and if that happens, at the end of the day maybe this legislation can be tolerable to the people of Ontario.
I also like the idea, and I'll commend the Attorney General, of involving the front-line people in the process. I don't believe at this point in time that he's gone far enough with the law society of Ontario. I don't believe that he has consulted enough of the groups and enough of the individuals, but there has been a good first step, so I want to commend the Attorney General for that.
There are some definite disadvantages and weaknesses of the bill that I'd like to address in the next little while, and I'd like to preface those comments by saying I hope the Attorney General and the government are serious about ensuring that this bill goes to committee. I agree with Richard Patten, my fellow Liberal member, who suggests that this is an important piece of legislation to be brought out to committee for further discussion, for further refining. There's no question that this Attorney General doesn't think he's got all the answers, and he does involve the people in the process. With this bill he's made that attempt. I honestly believe it is important that it go to committee, because there are still some very significant players who haven't been involved in the process and that can best be addressed at the committee level.
The bill has significant shortcomings in that it addresses too few of the problems that exist in the legal aid system. The McCamus report released last fall made 92 recommendations and we're only addressing one or two of those recommendations. I suggest that it is extremely important that the authors, those people who have the legal minds and think these things through, be a part of the committee hearings so that some more of the recommendations can be addressed, and possibly implemented before this finally becomes law.
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I would suggest that for low-income earners the inability to access the legal aid system is becoming severely intensified by the Mike Harris government cuts, and I believe that should be a real problem for the government members. Whether perception is reality, the reality is that in politics perception is the reality, and the perception out there is that you're trying to tilt the balance in this province to a select few at the expense of many. If that perception isn't true, then I think you have the opportunity, with amendments, to ensure that low-income earners have a greater ability to access legal aid.
The bill gives the appearance of making inroads into the issues of legal aid but in fact is of little tangible help to the people who require the services of legal aid. Although the bill brings up the issue of legal aid, it does very little to actually solve the problems of legal aid in Ontario. That's the weakness of the legislation as I see it at this point in time. Is it fixable? Absolutely, it's fixable, but it's not going to be fixed during debate here in the House, because what we have here, what we will always have here, is very partisan comments. Am I partisan? Absolutely, there's no question. Are the members of the third party partisan? No question.
Mr Kormos: No.
Mr Bartolucci: Are the members of the government partisan? No question. One would have to be ignorant to think that they're non-partisan in this place. Maybe the two members who came here from the third party, from the NDP, think that they're not partisan. I suggest that they are very partisan and they show that on a daily basis, as we all do. That's the process in this House.
Courts, like hospitals, continue to be clogged with backlogs. In September there was a case where a young woman was killed as the result of a drunk driver. The case was thrown out of court because of administrative delay. That's a weakness this government should want to address as part of fixing up the legal aid situation which exists presently in Ontario.
Another example: A recent survey by crown attorneys found that they have an average of only five minutes with clients before they go in to prosecute a case. You really have to wonder if our direction with this particular piece of legislation is addressing the concerns that are out there.
Let me spend a few moments with regard to the family support plan. There is absolutely no question that this is crucial for people who are having trouble with the family support plan. Are there people having trouble with the family support plan across Ontario? Absolutely. The government can't deny that. Certainly we in the official opposition, the Liberal Party, have presented case after case. The third party has certainly done its part in presenting cases to the government and to the Attorney General. The concerns are there. We have to ensure in this legislation that those concerns are addressed adequately and fully.
In wrapping up, my one piece of information or knowledge that I would like to transfer to the government that I'd like them to hold on to is that this bill isn't perfect, it needs refining and it needs committee work. Is it savable? Yes.
The Deputy Speaker: Comments and questions?
Mr Kormos: I've got to confess I'm a little amazed at how benign the member is in his comments about the bill when, at the end of the day, this is all about the law society effectively not wanting to administer legal aid any more. That's a given. So be it. The proposal of an arm's-length corporation providing legal aid and administering its services is a viable option. The fundamental criticism is that the corporation is still dependent upon the government for funding. The government sees fit to provide, specifically mentions, and we talked about this already, what I guess you'd call stable funding, ongoing funding at the current levels, to legal aid clinics for three years - that implies that something is going to happen after three years - and similarly, ongoing funding at the current level for two years. The minister promises that the status quo in terms of funding will be maintained for three years. Why couldn't that commitment be in the legislation if indeed the government intends to live up to that particular promise, because it is prepared to legislate with respect to three years for legal aid clinics and two years for refugee law.
As well, there is no establishment in the legislation of a minimum level of service that the corporation has to provide and that the government is therefore responsible for funding. This government or, quite frankly, any subsequent government can effectively scuttle legal clinics - incredibly important in our communities - and legal aid by simply defunding them, notwithstanding this legislation. That's what the Attorney General and the backbenchers don't seem to understand yet.
Mr Tilson: I'd like to respond to the member for Sudbury, and I will say that finally we have a Liberal who stood up and made some comments that pertain to the bill. I don't agree with a lot of his comments, but at least he made some comments directly on topic.
I think we all agree that legal aid has been in a serious downward turn for some number of years. The member for York East made a comment that between 1989 and 1994 spending on legal aid doubled, and it gradually has been getting out of control.
The member for Welland-Thorold finally got into some of the concerns that he has: Where is the money going to come from? Well, that may apply to a whole pile of things, a whole pile of topics. I'm satisfied that this new organization will be looking at new, innovative ways to solve many of the issues that the member for Welland-Thorold - oh, there he is. He's running back; we've got him. But his time's up. He can't talk any more. So there will be new, innovative ways to deliver services, and they will run pilot projects to test new ways.
The answer that the member for Welland-Thorold says - and I know he's not the person, Mr Speaker - is to simply spend money. The Liberals say the same thing: spend, spend, spend. That may not necessarily be the answer. We've got an obligation to assist people who don't have financial resources to get legal aid, legal assistance, but spending money like they've been doing for the last 10 years isn't the only way of doing it. We have to come up with new ways, and this organization will be developing those new ways, to settle many of these new issues. As I keep saying, I think finally we have an Attorney General who has the courage to bring this forward, because the last two governments didn't have that.
Mr Patten: I want to likewise congratulate my colleague from Sudbury, who did address the issues in a serious manner in talking about the reorganization. I think most members will address and will be a shadow on the discussion, and that of course will relate to the funding of the new organization.
My colleague talked about the involvement of the law society. It seems to me that there is some thought that the law society was happy to have a bit of a different arrangement than their being seen as saddled with all the responsibilities and being blamed for mismanagement in certain quarters, and things of that nature.
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My friend from Sudbury also talked about how users are not abusers, although there is always an element in any large system where, human nature being what it is, some people will take advantage of it. But when I have a chance to speak, I will point out the most recent study that was done on the people who receive legal aid and the certificates, that 90% suited and fit the requirements as outlined by the program. That's an important thing to remember, because often people will exaggerate and suggest that perhaps these people don't really need it, and if they would only get off their butts, they might not have these kinds of problems. I think that's an important point.
I've got 18 seconds. The point of legal aid, of course, as my colleague suggested, is that everything happens in tandem. It's not just legal aid, isolated. Legal aid can function better with mediators, with paralegals, and with an improvement to the administration of the court system itself.
Ms Marilyn Churley (Riverdale): I want to pick up on the funding issue. I would say to the Attorney General and the government that I support this bill in principle. I know that our caucus will be putting forward amendments, and I want to pick up on the funding aspect of this, which we keep talking about. I just heard again from the member for Dufferin-Peel that throwing money at it - "We have to be careful with taxpayers' money," and all that kind of stuff - doesn't fix the problem.
Well, you know, sometimes you have to spend money to get justice, and that's partly what governments do. There's nobody in this House suggesting that it be spent unwisely, inefficiently, that fraud be committed, or any of that. What we are saying is that this is a shell of a bill, that it is empty, unless you guarantee in the bill that adequate funding is there so that people who need the services have them. Is that too much to ask of this government? I see the Attorney General is shaking his head. If you listen carefully over there and don't just have the knee-jerk response when the NDP caucus talks about the need for proper funding to serve the people who need it, you will hear what we are saying. We want to make sure -
Hon Mr Harnick: You have no credibility talking about money.
Ms Churley: Listen to who's talking about credibility to me: the Attorney General who is making women who go to family court now serve their own restraining orders. A woman in my riding got run over by a car, by her abuser, because the judge's instruction was to tell that woman that she had to serve her own restraining order. Is that what these people on the government side are talking about?
Hon Mr Harnick: Wrong. Wrong.
Ms Churley: I'm not wrong, and I will speak more to that in a couple of minutes.
The Deputy Speaker: The Chair recognizes the member for Sudbury.
Mr Bartolucci: I'd like to thank the members for Welland-Thorold, Dufferin-Peel, Ottawa Centre and Riverdale for their two-minute rebuttals and their comments. I certainly appreciate their comments. We may not always agree, certainly, but it's important that there is this exchange of information.
I'd also like to thank the Attorney General for being present here this evening to listen to the debate. I think he's here for a purpose. I would hope he wants to be here because he's serious about listening to some of the amendments and some of the suggestions. There's a key suggestion here that I will make again: that this thing goes to committee and that we try to get it right. It's imperative for the people who use the system that we get it right. It's not right now, but it can be refined and made a good piece of legislation.
The government will have to address the number of legal aid certificates available to the people who require legal aid. There is such an imbalance now that it's a concern to me, and I guess I can speak from a little bit of authority because the legal aid office in Sudbury is in the same building as my constituency office. Because I am at the corner of Frood and Elm and the legal aid office is at the back of the building, a lot of people come in who require the services of legal aid, so I know there is a great number of people out there who require the services, who don't have the proper certificates and who are fearful that the service won't be there. It's certainly an area of great concern, to ensure that the legislation is proper.
There is the issue of funding. You don't have to throw money at it, but you have to put an adequate amount of money into it. I would suggest that that will probably happen. I would only hope it's enshrined in the legislation.
The Deputy Speaker: Further debate?
Ms Churley: I want to pick up where I left off in my previous two minutes. I wasn't going to start this way, but I was rather provoked by the Attorney General, who continues to say that poor women who can't afford lawyers who go to family court, civil court - because of cuts, they now are given responsibility for serving court documents. I have evidence of that. The Attorney General will not listen. It is very serious.
A woman who went to a shelter in my riding was told by the judge to do that. She delivered it herself. Her abuser deliberately ran her over in his car and injured her. That is one incident. I wish the Attorney General would take note of this and try to correct it. It is happening out there.
I want to say that I do support the bill in principle, but there are amendments that we will be bringing forward. Earlier, our very able critic the member for Welland-Thorold - I had the great pleasure of listening to his entire speech - raised the issue around the appointments to the board. There is real concern about this. I recognize that the law society does not want to run legal aid any more. I guess that the independent, arm's-length body is a good idea, it's an alternative. But they don't agree with everything in the bill. They have some concerns. We are bringing those concerns forward during hearings. I understand there will be hearings. We, as well as other concerned people, will be able to bring these forward. But we hope very much to see at least some kind of establishment of an advisory committee to make sure that those appointments aren't totally partisan.
We've expressed some really big concerns, particularly for the interim or transition committee, where five people will be appointed directly by the Attorney General. That is not a good process. We want to make sure that this is non-partisan and done for the right reasons.
I'm concerned about it because I have sat sometimes on the appointments committee. I have seen, for instance, Norman Seabrook, remember him? He was appointed to the Niagara Escarpment Commission. I and my colleague Shelley Martel, the member for Sudbury East, went to that committee, we put out a press release, we asked the Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of the Environment about this question. We pointed out time and time again that here was a man who had a direct conflict of interest. Furthermore, he believed in the abolition of the body that he was appointed to. He had a direct conflict of interest. He was a Tory hack appointed to this board. It was so obvious, it was laughable. He was appointed, and sure enough a scant couple of months later he had to resign in disgrace. Everything we said about him was true.
We saw what happened to Marion Dewar in Ottawa, who was a very able member of the police services board -
Mr Kormos: Out.
Ms Churley: Out. Out. Years of experience, and she was replaced by a Tory hack.
We saw it over and over again. Grace Patterson from the Environmental Assessment Board, a long-time environmental lawyer, very committed and very knowledgeable: out, a political appointment.
I can guarantee that this is what's going to happen with this board unless you set up a process that is non-partisan. I believe that some kind of advisory body might be the best way to do that. I don't know; we can discuss that further. But I believe, and my caucus believes, that's extremely important.
One of the things I'm concerned about and why I brought up funding - and why the member for Welland-Thorold keeps talking about it - is that we're seeing more and more cases go through the court system. Part of that is because there are no laws passed, for instance, on the Ontario disability act. I'm glad to see the minister responsible here tonight. That was promised during the election campaign. Remember that? We still don't have it. Same-sex legislation: No laws in place. Those are just two examples where more and more people are going, and having to go, before the courts.
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We're seeing poor women not being able to get legal aid. On top of that, as I mentioned earlier, some of them are being put in a terrible position, very offensive. They are caused directly by this situation, these cuts, to be put in danger again. That absolutely has to stop.
Another thing that's just cancelled by this government is intervenor funding for environmental assessment hearings. I won't get into that tonight, but of course environmental assessment hearings are a shell of what they used to be. The heart and soul has been taken out of that, and they're not really hearings any more; they're scoped down so much.
On top of a scoped environmental assessment hearing, there is no longer any intervener funding. So communities, people who are concerned - we saw that with the Adams mine situation and we're going to see it more and more - very scoped, basically looking at the liner in the ground and nothing else, and then no intervener funding. That's the kind of thing we're concerned about.
This bill that we're speaking to tonight is, yes, specific to the situation where the law society does not want to run legal aid any more and the government has come up with a plan. I'm glad to see the government has come up with a plan to deal with that, but there are a lot of other issues that have to be dealt with that we cannot ignore, and those have to be mentioned in the context of what we're talking about. I want to see that the people who are appointed to this board don't just have an interest in following the direction, following the policy, the cutback policy, the anti-people policy, the anti-community policy of this government. I would like to make sure that poor people, who are going to be mostly using these services, are represented on the board. As I see it now, there is no guarantee of that.
Well, guarantee it. I see the Attorney General is nodding his head at this. Let's put it in the legislation. Let's see that that is a guaranteed right. They have a right to a say in how this board is set up and how it functions.
I also want to say tonight that despite what the Attorney General said earlier, there are still problems at the family support plan. I expect that you will be hearing about them soon. The problems there have not been solved. We are still getting calls about some very serious problems that are evolving for a number of reasons, so I just want to put the Attorney General on notice tonight that that is not the end of the story.
Hon Mr Harnick: Give me some specifics and maybe we'll try and deal with them.
Ms Churley: I will. I believe your members were saying earlier to speak to the bill. I will be giving you some specifics, but I think that the problem is a long-standing problem which still has not been fixed.
Hon Mr Harnick: Long-standing, about 10 to 12 years.
Ms Churley: The Attorney General never listens. He is sitting here tonight reading his newspaper and every now and then will look up and make a derogatory comment. What I am saying is really happening out there. What is the point of the Attorney General being here tonight when we're trying to have an exchange, and the Attorney General has just completely closed his mind to any discussion about how this bill could be improved so people will be more comfortable about it and guarantee tonight that he is listening and will make some of the changes that are needed?
I would like to ask the Attorney General quite specifically tonight if he will accept an amendment from our party - or if he wants to put the amendment through himself, that's fine too - that adequate funding will be guaranteed in this bill so that the poor people who need their legal rights, which of course under the Constitution they have, will be upheld. If that is not guaranteed, with a bunch of Tory hacks, the way the bill is set up now, there are absolutely no guarantees that this is going to work for the very people for whom it's designed.
What we're talking about here tonight may seem like just a simple formula if you take it out of context. But if you put it in the context of the kinds of things that are happening to people, to real people in our communities whom we hear from all the time, it is a very serious piece of legislation. The government has two choices. It can go ahead with the way it is now: without the funding guaranteed and the board consisting of Tory hacks who are not chosen on the merits and contributions they can make but more for their desire to follow the Tory line. If that's changed, this can be a very acceptable bill. If those two issues in particular that we are raising tonight are not taken care of, then this could turn out to be a disaster and a sham for the very people who most need it.
The Deputy Speaker: Comments and questions?
Mr Tilson: I'd like to ask a question of the member for Riverdale on this issue of funding, and this may be the crux of what the opposition's concern is, although gradually more and more members are coming out and saying that they're going to support the bill in principle, and we'll await how the voting comes from that. This issue she has raised about adequate funding, that it be guaranteed, that may be all fine and good. It gets to everything that we talk about in this place, whether it be health, whether it be education, whether it be this topic of legal aid, whether it be social services. I guess we have to live within our means. To guarantee that the money is going to come, where is it going to come from? That's my real question.
I suppose we can raise taxes, which your government did and the Liberals before you did. That's one source of where the money is going to come from. We can ask the lawyers to do it for nothing, which essentially was what they were doing before and was why more and more lawyers stopped doing it. They couldn't afford to run their offices and do all these things for nothing.
I know the member speaks very sincerely and believes what she's saying on this issue, and I suspect that when it gets to committee she will raise it. That may be the main issue the New Democratic caucus would be putting forward, and I look forward to more debate on that. But the real question, somewhere along the line - she can't just say, "Commit X dollars for funding" - the money has to come from somewhere. Where is it going to come from? How are you going to raise the money? It just doesn't float down from heaven.
Mr Gravelle: I certainly enjoyed listening to the comments from the member for Riverdale, her usual impassioned remarks and great concern for the people she represents expressed very well, as always.
It's important to state that the concern we all feel in the House, that I trust all members of the House feel and the Attorney General feels as well, is that we want to be sure that people who need legal representation are able to access it. We have seen far too often in the past, especially under this government as they've slashed and taken away programs and services, that more people are in greater need and in fact are often in need of legal representation and not able to receive it. I certainly want to compliment the member on that.
I want to use the opportunity, if I may, while the Attorney General is still here, to once again bring up the concerns we have about the Family Responsibility Office and the family support plan. Certainly we know the process quite well, but I think perhaps some people have forgotten what has happened. About a year and a half ago, the Family Responsibility Office was put in place, regional offices were all shut down and suddenly access to the family support plan was changed in a very dramatic way. Those of us who are in the positions we're in, in terms of being elected officials in this province, are now dealing with an extraordinary number of cases of people who simply still cannot access the office. The minister needs to hear and understand that.
This is unacceptable. We are seeing situations where, even from the bureaucrats who are doing the job, as well-intentioned as some of them are, often the information is absolutely incorrect. We're being put in the position where as members of Parliament we're giving incorrect information to our constituents based on what they're giving us. This is not acceptable. I trust that the minister will listen to these remarks and will try to correct that. We know the system is not working.
The legal aid plan is being updated and needs some changes, but this goes only part of the way. One of the things that needs to be dealt with is the improvement and fixing up of the family support plan and the Family Responsibility Office. I hope the minister will be listening to that tonight.
Mr Kormos: I congratulate Ms Churley, the member for Riverdale, for again bringing insights to the defects here, the problems here, the very basic, fundamental problems with this legislation and how it's far from what the Attorney General says it is and what he would want people to believe it is.
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People on the opposition benches are raising legitimate concerns about the bill, concerns about the makeup of the board of directors, whether it's going to be effective in serving the interests that the legal aid system should be serving or whether they're simply going to be mouthpieces for the Tory government; concerns about adequacy of funding so that there really are going to be legal clinics three years from now, so that there really are going to be legal aid certificates in adequate numbers three years from now; concerns about the role of lawyers and the obligations they have and the penalty sections that apply specifically to lawyers that may require them to breach solicitor-client privilege or face the consequences of prosecution. That's what the act says.
The Attorney General, smug little guy that he is, sits there and snarls and smirks and shakes his head. He did the same thing two years ago when we were raising with him problems about the family support plan. He did the very same thing then, and it blew up in his face and he got caught. He got caught, not with his hands in the cookie jar, he got caught doing nothing, because he hadn't paid attention to the concerns that were being raised about the family support plan.
People are raising concerns now about your legal aid plan, and rather than wanting to engage in some sort of dialogue, rather than wanting to listen to concerns that are legitimately being raised, you want to ignore them and just wish we'd go away. We're not going away. You're going to create another disaster.
Mr Galt: I was intrigued with the comments being made by the member for Riverdale. She said more in 10 minutes about this bill, and did a critique on it, than the member for Welland-Thorold did in a whole hour. But, then, in his response to her speech, in two minutes he said more than he did in the whole 60 minutes earlier in the evening when he was speaking on the bill. I was just a little disappointed that he wouldn't have zeroed in a little more during that 60 minutes.
The member for Riverdale talks about adequate funding, having it guaranteed. That's like an open-ended cheque book, and that's exactly how they operated for their five years and why it got into such a mess. That's why the legal aid plan became a total boondoggle, just a mess. It was all because of the open-ended cheque book policy that you were operating under. The lawyers were enjoying it immensely. They could run out and make out a few certificates and they were in business. That's just not the way to operate in a responsible sort of manner.
It was also interesting to note that the member for Port Arthur was very much in support of the member for Riverdale. It just confirms this unholy alliance, that these two parties have joined together in this coalition. You just can't tell the difference between the members of these two parties. They're almost identical. The Liberals have moved so far to the left that they're pushing the NDP out of the way. If I was Mr Hampton, the leader of the third party, I'd be pretty concerned with how far the Liberals are moving to the left, because there's just not going to be any space left at all. We can see what's going to happen in this next election: They'll probably decide in each riding whether it will be a New Democrat who runs or a Liberal, and then afterwards they'll go on and develop a coalition like they did back in 1985 to 1987.
Ms Churley: The member for Northumberland has got that wrong. I can tell him the big difference between the NDP and the Liberals: We've been very clear that we will take back the tax cut from individuals who are making $80,000 or more. The Liberals have said they're going to put back a lot of money into these programs but they're going to keep the status quo. I think people are going to have to make choices based on that.
I would say to the member for Northumberland as well, don't underestimate the member for Welland-Thorold and don't make fun of the member for Welland-Thorold. He has more knowledge in his little finger about legal issues than I would say anybody in that party does. I would listen very carefully to what he has to say.
I would say to the member for Dufferin-Peel that he hit the nail on the head when he asked where the money is going to come from. They're certainly not going to have bake sales. I'll tell you where the money is going to come from. It's your responsibility to sit down and figure it out, not just leave it open-ended so that in three years there might be no legal aid plan. If you've got the money to take billions of dollars out of our economy, that's hurting our schools, our education system, our environment - he's waving his hand at me - you've got the money to make sure that the vulnerable people in our society, poor people who need legal aid, are well taken care of.
Nobody is talking about spending money irresponsibly. We're talking about this government taking responsibility, sitting down and figuring out what kind of funding is needed and would be adequate and guaranteeing that it's there. That's what we're talking about tonight.
I would also like to thank the members for Port Arthur and Welland-Thorold for their comments. I think the member for Welland-Thorold also hit the nail on the head. My sense of the government members tonight, including the Attorney General, is that they're cocky and indifferent and are sitting there not paying any attention to what's being said tonight.
The Deputy Speaker: Further debate.
Mr Galt: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to debate this Bill 68. I was interested in the member for Riverdale's comments about their position, that they'll never be the same as the Liberals, that they're going to take back the tax cuts or return the tax cuts if they form the government. With the Liberals, you're absolutely right, we just never know where they might go, whether they'll flip or they'll flop. At least we know the position the NDP is going to take and they have made that very clear.
Bill 68 really focuses in on providing legal aid for low-income people in Ontario. It's designed to create more accountability and greater independence, something that has been very lacking for the last 30 years in our legal aid plan. Bill 68 is the foundation that provides a fair chance for people to get legal representation, and this foundation will be called Legal Aid Ontario.
The original intent of legal aid services in Ontario was to provide legal representation for those who couldn't afford it, to provide services that were essential for them to have a fair trial. The original intent was forgotten when money became squandered on redundant and often unnecessary services, more or less to line some of the lawyers' pockets who took advantage of this. It was sort of a twist on Parkinson's law where -
Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Riverside): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: We should have a quorum here to hear these remarks about lawyers, I think.
The Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order.
Mr Lessard: Can you check to see if there -
The Deputy Speaker: The Chair recognizes the member for Northumberland.
Mr Lessard: I'm asking to see whether -
Mr Galt: Parkinson's law, where work expands to fill the available time. In this case, the work expands to use the available funds.
Mr Lessard: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I don't believe we have a quorum present.
The Deputy Speaker: You have to take your seat after one point of order.
Mr Lessard: OK.
The Deputy Speaker: The Chair recognizes the member for Windsor-Riverside on a point of order.
Mr Lessard: I don't believe we have a quorum present.
The Deputy Speaker: Would you like me to check and see? Would you check and see if there's a quorum. I think that's what he wants.
Acting Clerk at the Table (Mr Doug Arnott): A quorum is not present, Speaker.
The Deputy Speaker ordered the bells rung.
Acting Clerk at the Table: A quorum is present, Speaker.
The Deputy Speaker: The Chair recognizes the member for Northumberland.
Mr Galt: Bill 68 will provide legal aid services through an independent body and will ensure that the funds are managed properly and are used to maximize client services.
This is the first comprehensive review of legal aid that's taken place in some 30 years and I'm pleased that this has being chaired by John McCamus, a leading Canadian law scholar. This review was necessary to understand why on earth the spending had more than doubled from 1989 to 1994.
I welcome back the NDP members who left during the quorum call.
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It's also important that this was carried out to re-evaluate the changing demand on services to ensure that the funds are used to maximum value.
The consultation was very extensive and this is a government that has been doing an awful lot of consultation. If you look at the number of days we've sat in the House versus the number of bills passed, one good example is third reading where the PCs have two hours and 10 minutes for third reading in the first session, the NDP had 48 minutes per bill and the Liberals had seven minutes per bill, just to give you some indication of the kind of -
Mr Parker: How much? Say that again.
Mr Galt: Seven minutes was all the -
Mr Parker: Was that the Peterson Liberal government?
Mr Galt: The Peterson Liberals. That was all the time they gave in the House for third reading.
Mr Parker: Seven minutes.
Mr Galt: The consultation has been very extensive, and because of the interruptions I've had, I won't list all the areas, but it certainly thoroughly covered the public, the legal community and the users of legal aid.
There is no question reform was necessary because spending was totally out of control from 1989 to 1994. It was obvious that the Law Society of Upper Canada was not able to provide the services, and our government brought the spending under control. Ontario taxpayers want to feel secure that their tax dollars are being managed appropriately. They want to know that legal aid services are being provided to those who really need them. They want to know that decisions are not going to be influenced by pressures of either government or the legal profession.
Bill 68: Legal Aid Ontario will be an independent, statutory corporation managed by a board of directors. A majority of the board cannot be lawyers. Most will be from the public sector. It will establish a different kind of relationship between the legal aid plan and the ministry.
Through this legislation, Legal Aid Ontario will be independent and a well-managed organization, delivering improved services. In the past, legal aid services have been abused by both consumers and providers. Recipients, for example, have been misrepresented through things like financial resources to qualify. It's been suggested that to get legal aid, there's been so much misrepresentation that it has gone further than even some of the misrepresentations we hear about from fishing and golf combined.
Bill 68 recognizes the abuses that have occurred in the past and is being very specific on the offences and consequences. There's one in connection with false statements regarding eligibility; also things like extra billing and breach of confidentiality. We as a government have ensured that there will be stable funding at least for the next three years to ensure that services will be maintained through that transition period.
Legal Aid Ontario will be an independent organization. We heard the member for Riverdale being quite critical that it's going to Tory hacks or whatever who would be running and overseeing it, when in fact this will be a very independent organization at arm's length from the government. It will have the responsibility of finding new and innovative ways to deliver the services to the people in Ontario who really need those services.
The bill and Legal Aid Ontario will provide a flexible framework for the delivery of these services. It is being built on the learning experience from the legal aid plan over the last 30 years. It's also a reflection to see and hear, with all the consultation that's been carried out, that we are incorporating most of the recommendations made by McCamus in his report. This will lay out the foundation for legal aid in Ontario for the next 30 years.
The basis of legal aid services will continue through the certificates to private lawyers that we have been familiar over the past 30 years or so. It will ensure that the clients will be represented and have proper representation when they're in court, and it will ensure that the legal aid clinics will continue to deliver the front-line services that those in need have learned to appreciate in the past.
It's interesting to note that with the consultations and the examination carried out in the review, Bill 68 is designed very similarly to legislation in other provinces and in other countries. For example, throughout the Commonwealth, in countries like England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand, they have adopted very similar legislation.
It's also interesting to note that most, if not all, of the stakeholders who have been consulted agree with the direction in which we are going. They agree particularly since the government is ensuring that $230 million will be there annually for the next three years. They're pleased that it's going to ensure improved services and that there will be a smooth transition from the present legal aid plan to Legal Aid Ontario.
I'm really pleased to be able to support Bill 68. Certainly it was a big issue in our campaign. In the Common Sense Revolution we made reference to it, to the problems it was creating and that we were going to straighten it out. That is what we're doing: fixing government.
In conclusion, Legal Aid Ontario will provide innovative services to ensure a just and accessible system of representation is available to low-income people in the province of Ontario.
The Deputy Speaker: It almost being 9:30 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 tomorrow.
The House adjourned at 2130.