Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES

AFTERNOON SITTING

MINISTRY OF TREASURY AND ECONOMICS

CONTENTS

Wednesday 13 February 1991

Ministry of Community and Social Services

Afternoon sitting

Ministry of Treasury and Economics

Adjournment

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ESTIMATES

Chair: Jackson, Cameron (Burlington South PC)

Vice-Chair: Marland, Margaret (Mississauga South PC)

Carr, Gary (Oakville South PC)

Daigeler, Hans (Nepean L)

Hansen, Ron (Lincoln NDP)

Haslam, Karen (Perth NDP)

Lessard, Wayne (Windsor-Walkerville NDP)

McGuinty, Dalton (Ottawa South L)

McLeod, Lyn (Fort William L)

Perruzza, Anthony (Downsview NDP)

Ward, Margery (Don Mills NDP)

Wilson, Gary (Kingston and The Islands NDP)

Substitutions:

Bradley, James J. (St. Catharines L) for Mrs McLeod

Charlton, Brian A.(Hamilton Mountain NDP) for Mr G. Wilson

Christopherson, David (Hamilton Centre NDP) for Mr Lessard

Haeck, Christel (St. Catharines-Brock NDP) for Ms M. Ward

Hope, Randy R. (Chatham-Kent NDP) for Mr Lessard

Stockwell, Chris (Etobicoke West PC) for Mr Carr

Also taking part:

Cooper, Mike (Kitchener-Wilmot NDP)

Elston, Murray J. (Bruce L)

Sterling, Norman W. (Carleton PC)

Clerk: Carrozza, Franco

Staff: Campbell, Elaine, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service

The committee met at 1006 in room 228.

MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES

The Vice-Chair: Good morning. Thank you for being prompt this morning. We welcome the minister back and we are going to have just as productive a day as yesterday, I hope. When Mr Perruzza comes in, we will give him the same message.

Ms Haslam: Careful now, Margaret. That was not fair. The man is not here.

The Vice-Chair: When he comes in, he can defend himself. He actually told me at the end of yesterday that he thought I did an excellent job in the chair.

Interjections.

The Vice-Chair: That is fine. We are starting off with the official opposition. Mrs McLeod.

Mrs McLeod: We would like to start this morning by looking at income maintenance, which is vote 802, item 3, and raising some of the questions related to social assistance and the problems with greatly increased numbers on our welfare rolls. Without wanting to reduplicate everything in Hansard, I will begin specifically by looking at the issue of income maintenance staff and staff complements.

Recognizing, as I would read the salaries and wages line, that there was no planned increase in staff in the estimates that we are reviewing and that there has been, as you well know, a tremendous increase in the number of people on the welfare rolls in virtually every community, a concern becomes, is the current staff able to deal with the requests coming in? I wonder if you would speak to the issue of the staff loads, the increased case loads that they have been dealing with and whether or not you will be able to address that in the coming budget.

Hon Mrs Akande: I will say some things about that and then I will pass -- the deputy is poking me here. She wants to go on record giving some important information.

Mrs McLeod: And committing your government to much larger staff.

Hon Mrs Akande: It is called a plea.

Ms Gibbons: I was just making sure you were awake, that is all.

Hon Mrs Akande: I am here.

The actual fact is, you know, that because of the growth there was a period there -- and there continues to be but a little less so, as will be explained -- when we did not have sufficient staff to do the kinds of things that we wanted to do.

In order to make the actual program work, you have to have the staff able to do the revisits and to do the counselling and redirection into things such as the supports to employment program, STEP. They were saying that the only thing they could do, because of the growth and because of their limited numbers, was process the applications and actually put people on the appropriate welfare benefits. Of course, that caused a backup, and we all read about that kind of backup.

So the answer to your question is that an increase in staff was definitely required, some of which we have addressed, and we have actually increased the staff to a better case load but not the best.

Ms Gibbons: I think you will be aware that over the last few years we have been trying to get some redress to the increase in case loads and have not been very successful at that. This year, with the unprecedented growth we are seeing in the welfare rolls, we are successful at the board in releasing upwards of 300 staff, but we are now in the process of trying to decide the best way to utilize. It is our hope, at the minister's suggestion, that we orient them to do things that would facilitate individuals getting back to work. That could be called an employment planner. That would be one way we would look at using them, a generalized relief to case loads, some targeted use of them in particular areas to try to link specific individuals with employment opportunities.

Mrs McLeod: You raised, in the answer to the question, one of the important aspects of the social assistance reform program, and that was my second area of questioning, because with the increased case loads again a concern becomes whether or not that STEP program and the support for return to employment can in fact be implemented.

I am not sure if you would have the figures available today, but I would be interested in knowing how many people are involved in the STEP program and what percentage that is of current adult welfare rolls. Is it possible to provide a figure that would give us some idea of the number of people who are on the STEP program who would have been in the workforce prior to the introduction of social assistance reforms?

I appreciate that might be a very difficult figure to obtain, but what I am interested in here is to get a sense of how many people have been able to move from welfare rolls into employment, and separate that from the number of people who were employed who now qualify for welfare through the STEP program because of the reforms that were introduced. I do think there has been some confusion and perhaps some difference in interpretation of the STEP program across the province. I would be interested in your comments on that as well as the statistical information.

Hon Mrs Akande: The actual fact is, and it is important that you mention that, because that is one of the things that we think is so important to these programs, there is a difference in the interpretation. We have found that and we have been working with that. There is also a difference in the takeup of those programs and how they are responded to across the province and we are concerned about that.

But all the research says that the faster you get someone back to work the less likely they are to remain on the welfare rolls or on the social assistance takeup. So we are very interested in getting in there quickly and, of course, as you mentioned, giving support to the working poor, who are in fact struggling and unable to make ends meet and that makes a difference in the way they operate.

We will get those numbers. We do not have them here.

Ms Gibbons: I can give a generalized response and Bob Cooke, who is our director of income maintenance, may be able to give me something a little more up to date. I think it is safe to say that the STEP program, from our perspective, is working. When you factor all costs in, we are still able to show a decreased cost to the individual and some return on the investment to the Treasurer.

If my memory serves me right, and Bob can help me, we have a small number of people on the welfare rolls now declaring income and participating in STEP. We have not a huge number of people coming on to the welfare rolls declaring income and taking advantage of STEP. The people that are taking advantage of STEP, I think it can be said, are ones that we did not attract into the program, if that is the question that you are asking.

Mr Cooke: I am Bob Cooke, and I am the director of the income maintenance branch.

What the deputy said is accurate. The number of people accessing the STEP program are derived primarily from people who were in receipt of assistance at the time of the introduction of the program in October 1989. I have a couple of statistics to give a sense of the growth of the STEP program since its inception. There are now, as of December 1990, 58,000 FBA and GWA cases with some form of earnings, which means that they are in fact STEP recipients. This is 103% increase since the introduction of the program in October 1989.

There were only about 29,000 people declaring earnings at that point in time, and it has essentially doubled. The amount of earnings that people are reporting is also up significantly. It is up about 89% since September 1989. The average person reporting earnings is now reporting approximately $615 per month in earnings. As I say, that is 89% increase since before the STEP program was introduced.

Mrs McLeod: You can appreciate my concern in wanting to understand that statistic, which I was aware of, perhaps not that precisely in that my understanding is that people who are not on welfare can qualify for the STEP program, so there can be two different types of people coming into the program, both equally valid. I am not challenging that at all. What I am concerned about is to ensure that we are bringing people currently on welfare into the STEP program, doing opportunity planning for them, so they are in fact able to take advantage of employment.

Mr Cooke: If I could say one more thing, just a couple more statistics with respect to the number of fully employed cases on general welfare. We are indeed seeing people coming on to the program and also leaving the program, working their way off benefits. We have seen approximately -- this is general welfare -- 2,000 cases come on in each of the last three months with earnings. At the same time, we have seen just a little over 1,700 cases per month leave the general welfare program who, basically because of earnings, have worked their way off the program. So it is a fairly modest net gain in terms of numbers of fully employed. But certainly the program is benefiting people who were recipients before the program was introduced as well as those who are not.

Mr Daigeler: Just to continue that very briefly, I would really appreciate if we could get something like that in writing to give us a sense of the success of this particular program. I think this initiative is certainly what is considered extremely important and I think the minister is agreeing with the direction of this reform, that we try to get as many people as possible working in order to get out of what is called the welfare trap.

I think you mentioned that yesterday as the direction that you want to move in in order to keep your overall budget within some sort of limits. I am very, very interested, and I think so are my constituents very interested, to monitor very closely the progress of this program and whether it is working. If you can give us something in writing that I can share with my people, I would appreciate that.

As you know, the Social Assistance Review Committee program had several steps, several phases, and we were able to implement only the first phase and move somewhat on the second. One of the important plans for the future was some work on services for people who are disabled. Some sort of a universal disability insurance type of thing was envisaged by Mr Thomson. I am just wondering what is your view in this regard. Have you started to look at that? Are you considering it? What is your timetable, in other words, with regard to the remaining SARC phases?

Hon Mrs Akande: Let me answer that question in two parts. First of all, not all of the first stage was completed. I think that is something that I should say. The legislative committee that was struck, the advisory committee on SARC, will be reporting to us some time around the end of this month to give us its recommendations about how we should proceed in terms of implementing the SARC recommendations.

Some of those recommendations are grouped in a way, because they are interrelated in terms of how they should be presented. When they come back to us with that implementation package -- and they will be presenting it to the Liberal Party as well as the Progressive Conservative Party -- we will begin to look at it in terms of what is possible relative to the budget. The reality of all things must be based on the budget.

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The second part of what you were asking had to do with long-term disability, and that is an initiative that actually has been taken up by Floyd Laughren. He has taken the responsibility of initiating the interministerial committee that is focusing on long-term disability. They have been working for some time, I believe since the middle or end of October, towards a solution relative to that. You are quite right that it does look at something, a provision of services or provision of support for the disabled. It is mentioned in SARC and it is also touched on by some of the other papers that have been presented to Comsoc in recent periods.

Mr Daigeler: So there is presently an interministerial committee at work, you are saying, and it is under the leadership of the Treasury?

Hon Mrs Akande: Yes. There is an interministerial committee and there are parliamentary assistants also who are working, so there is a two-level committee. The ministers met in October three or four times to establish some kind of direction, and the parliamentary assistants' committee is working to carry out that package. It will be brought back to us, I am expecting, relatively shortly.

Mr Daigeler: What is relatively shortly?

Hon Mrs Akande: I cannot give you a specific time because I do not know one, but we are wanting the package very quickly so that we can begin to look at it at the same time that we are looking at what the recommendations are from the advisory committee from SARC.

Mr Daigeler: What is the precise involvement of your ministry in this?

Hon Mrs Akande: We do have a member, my parliamentary assistant, Randy Hope, who sits on that committee, and I was sitting on the interministerial committee in October when we were planning the directions and making the considerations about that. Since the responsibility for the disabled sits in my ministry, I have been and continue to be, through my parliamentary assistant, involved.

Ms Gibbons: And there are two bureaucratic staff working in support of that committee from this ministry.

Mr Daigeler: I must say I am rather impressed that the Treasurer would -- I think this has been a long-standing interest of his, if I am not mistaken. I think it goes way back --

Hon Mrs Akande: Yes.

Mr Daigeler: -- and I am pleased to see that. I think it is important that the Treasurer, who, after all, holds the purse-strings, has such a personal interest in this. But I hope that your ministry shows equal commitment towards this question.

Hon Mrs Akande: You can be assured --

Mr Daigeler: -- although it obviously has tremendous implications, especially fiscal implications. It is a policy question that I think we would be very interested in and supportive of and I hope that you can move on that.

Mr Jackson: Let me see if I could follow in on income maintenance. Does the deputy have any revised figures for the estimate for income maintenance at $1,961,000,000 on page 30? Is there a revised figure that you are working with at the moment?

Ms Gibbons: You will be aware that the Treasurer has indicated in his, I think, last status statement that we are anticipating that growth in that line by -- Barbara, was it $500 million?

Ms Stewart: The Treasurer had recently announced additional case load issues for the current year of just under $500 million, covering both the FBA program and the GWA program. That information was tabled in the Treasurer's third-quarter Ontario Finances.

Mr Jackson: Okay. Then, given $500 million obviously unanticipated at this time a year ago, or else it would have appeared as a revision, to what extent are we looking at underexpenditure in other areas? Or is the bulk of this a transfer from general revenue to support this statutory commitment? Deputy?

Ms Gibbons: It is the latter. As we experience case load growth, so the Treasurer needs to consider how, within his general revenue, he can participate in assisting us with the expenditure.

Mr Jackson: We will be seeing the Treasurer later this afternoon and tomorrow and I can build on that answer as it relates to him. But can you then identify areas within the estimates where you can anticipate significant underexpenditures?

Ms Gibbons: Underexpenditures?

Mr Jackson: Yes.

Ms Gibbons: It has not been my experience since I joined this ministry that underexpenditures are a phenomenon that I have much --

Mr Jackson: I can probably give you one or two examples, but "significant" may be in your view $10 million; "significant" to some others might be $100,000.

Ms Gibbons: I think it is safe to say in a budget of almost $6 billion last year we had a surplus, an underexpenditure, of some $22 million, which is less than half a per cent, which I would suggest many might think was a budget managed very well indeed. Now those surpluses appeared in a range of lines and I do not have at my fingertips a range of those lines, but I think as we go through them we can pick some of them up.

Mr Jackson: Okay. If I can move to some questions with respect to what we are experiencing in the field, many of us are getting a lot of our information from the media and from contacts with municipalities which are coping with the large increases in applications. What we are seeing are various trends. One, that rules for application and follow-up have been dramatically revised to reflect the increased demand and also to reflect the fact that there was a policy change for the homeless to be able to receive benefits in the last year and it is having its impact in this budget year in terms of what it means in terms of case load, the further complications for audit accountability and follow-up and the issue of inconsistent staffing complements, case loads.

When I talk to field workers, case workers, I, all of us in the social policy field, are aware of the burnout, but it strikes me that when someone is carrying a case load of 400 and another one is carrying a case load of 150, that is patently unfair to both sides of the equation, the worker and the recipient who is dependent.

Please speak to the committee, if you would, with respect to how we are coping with that through our field offices. I realize that means additional dollars which are being spent for that follow-up and supervision of the process in the field, or is the situation so strained that the funds are being flowed to recipients as priority? I think you understand the nature of my question.

Ms Gibbons: Let me say a couple of things and Bob can more fulsomely flesh it out if I do not get it quite right. The range of case load that you speak to, the 150 to 400, might reflect, and I need the clarification from you, the difference in case loads at the local level, the municipal level, versus the provincial level. We have in the past agreed that a differential could exist in those two populations because they vary significantly and we have been operating at the municipal level at the range of 100 to 125 and at the provincial level with 250. With the increasing case load growth over the last few years, we have not been able to maintain that average. We have tried all kinds of variations on a theme of work distribution to ease the load so the client could get the service intended, and as the minister said, the recent increase to our staffing levels will allow us to move the current average, which is something in the order of 350, down to a more workable load.

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Mr Jackson: Yes. I want to hear that we have a specific strategy, that we have a monitoring mechanism so that those are allocated appropriately, because we know what is implied if they are not.

If I could perceive that into the STEP program, I am glad the minister corrected the impression that we are not on target with SARC, that we did not implement the first phase of SARC appropriately, and both her party and my party complained bitterly at the presentation of the then Minister of Community and Social Services because the government of the day put a very heavy emphasis on the so-called success of the STEP program as a means of saying, "Well, we have the strategy in place and, quite frankly, we anticipate such good things happening that we may not have to go the full nine yards with SARC."

I happen to still maintain my position that we should be on target with SARC and therefore I have a healthy scepticism of how the STEP program interrelates with the issue of generally raising income levels for the poor in a more comprehensive income support process.

You may wish to comment. Could you clarify for the record, for example, that STEP obviously is not growing at the same rate as case loads, so it is on a rather rapidly declining ratio of applicants for general benefits to program applications to assist those, predominantly women.

Hon Mrs Akande: I think you are quite right in that STEP is not growing at the same rate as the case loads, but the point that you raised previously is also a very important point to bring into the discussion, that until recently we have had to increase workers in order to have the kind of ratio between worker and recipient so that in fact those people could do the entire job that they are set out to do. A very big part of that, especially in relation to STEP, is the employment counselling. So now that the numbers are better -- as I say, not at their best but better -- our expectations can be more realistic about their including within their responsibility sufficient time to do that counselling, and we are expecting, I would say, rather than just hopeful, that the returns of that particular exercise and that labour and that determination will be shown in the numbers that do take advantage of the STEP program.

I must say too, in addition to that, it is also necessary to make sure that STEP is being picked up by all groups evenly across the province, because you know that in some areas it is presented somewhat differently and therefore the advantage is not the same.

Those are two of the responsibilities that we are going to address in order to make sure that those numbers increase. I am in no way trying to imply, though, that it is going to be a sufficient substitute for introducing the rest of the SARC recommendations. That is not what I am intending to do.

Mr Jackson: I do not consider the STEP program that successful if it is in a no-growth mode in that we are essentially dealing predominantly with women who have had access to the program at its inception. It was a different economic time, with a considerable amount of money expended by the previous government publicizing and promoting it. We do not have the luxury of doing it now with the high value placed on putting dollars into people's hands so that they can buy food and maintain their residences. I understand all that. I just feel that this is a program area which -- the words used by your director of income maintenance are, "It's in a no-growth mode." I think we obviously have to re-examine, from a policy point of view, how we get back on track with SARC, which leads me to my next question.

Given the incredible pressures that are being put on the whole area of income maintenance, and given your party's prior commitment to staying on track with SARC and that perhaps it may not be able to come on track, could you give us a status report? I would be specifically requesting a written report on how many of the 272 SARC recommendations have been implemented to date and to freeze-frame for us exactly where we are along in phase 1 implementation.

I know you cannot speculate on what your strategy for the future is. That is a discussion for your cabinet and it will appear in your estimates and your budget. But can you tell us exactly where, in your opinion as minister, we are going to be on 31 March? That helps all of us to determine just how far we have to go and to assist all three political parties in the House to have an understanding of how we can come together in order to move the SARC agenda, which I think is singularly the most important issue in your ministry today.

Hon Mrs Akande: Certainly we can provide for you a status on the SARC report as it is at this point, what things we have implemented to this point. Do we have it here?

Ms Gibbons: Yes, I was going to take a flyer with it and Bob can help. I think, Bob, I would be right in saying that 26 of 66 stage-1 recommendations of SARC have been implemented. The answer to the second question, I think, is captured in the direction that you have given to your advisory committee to fast-track the remainder of those recommendations and to be prepared to provide you with a report in the next few weeks. As you have suggested, only when the minister has an opportunity to have a response from the Treasurer on the planning process for next year's expenditures can she say what pieces of those will actually be moving ahead.

Mr Jackson: So the 26 of the 66 basically represent the point that we have only half implemented phase 1, which was of concern to us who were not in government. But can the minister share with us those areas which she already is aware are of a priority in the process of her consultation with groups in the five and a half months she has been minister?

Hon Mrs Akande: Are you speaking of those areas that are of priority but are being studied by the advisory group?

Mr Jackson: Which of the deficient stage-1 recommendations have been drawn to your attention by groups as priorities? I am asking you what your understanding is from listening to groups. What are the priorities within those 30-odd recommendations that the previous government did not proceed with?

Hon Mrs Akande: I will tell you a few. One of them that is loud and clear is opportunity planning. There seems to be -- and that is under discussion from a lot of groups -- a feeling that this is the primary area which would make a significant difference in the lives of social assistance recipients, and that comes not only from various groups and poverty groups that I have met with but it also comes from people who are dealing with food banks and people who are related to this problem in other interests. That would be, I suppose, the number one issue that we most frequently discuss.

The other area I think that comes close to that is a system of providing welfare where -- I cannot remember the phrase that they use -- but without the constant supervision of counselling; in other words, so that they are asked to keep track of the changes in their circumstances and it is more based on a trust than an effective count. They feel that would reduce the number of workers who would be needed and would significantly increase the possibility of those workers being used in other ways.

The folding in of general benefits so that there is no separation between GWA and FBA and the way the applications are made for that; certainly it is felt that there is a halt in the system -- and that is spoken about often -- in the two-stage application and it seems an unnecessary way of doing that.

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Mr Jackson: My time is up, but I was just hoping that the minister would be aware of my concern with transitional housing and those recommendations.

The Vice-Chair: Well, you can discuss that.

Mr Jackson: I would ask that maybe the minister could have a meeting with that group again to ensure that it comes back as a priority. Thank you.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you. Who would like to speak for the government committee members? Mr Hope.

Mr Hope: As we go through the whole analysis of the Community and Social Services review and as I start looking at the parts dealing with federal contributions, provincial contributions, municipal contributions, it seems like a lot of us are being heavily attacked in our municipalities by a number of concerns dealing with the overall cost of the programs that are being implemented. Do you see the ministry doing more direct communication with the municipalities on their concerns? As we start to meet a number of municipalities giving us calls, asking for consultation, do you see yourself moving more in a direction of interaction between those municipalities?

Hon Mrs Akande: We have already begun, as you know. Some of the communication has been initiated by the municipalities. Some has been initiated by us in response to issues that are brought forward by various members of the House that their concerns are that municipalities are unable or unwilling or having difficulty in providing the appropriate services for people. There is a long lag time between the time in which the application is put forward for social assistance and people are actually given social assistance. There is also the difficulty that people wait until the need is immediate and then they make application. Some of them are waiting as long as two and three weeks, and more than that, in order to be brought on to social assistance. The communication between the municipalities and our office has long begun.

It will intensify because there are specific issues, of course, as you know, that we have to talk about -- the interrelationship of funding, but also how we operate on the long term, because we recognize that this is a difficult problem and it requires more than just an immediate response. It requires that and it also requires some long-term planning.

Mr Hope: Stealing to another part of the topic, dealing with the issue about drug and alcohol abuse, and I am looking at the anti-drug secretariat section of it. I am looking at page 103 and it talks about treatment services. In the previous years I see no commitment by the previous governments to the treatment services aspect. Do you feel it is a very important issue that we move in that direction for the change, with adding moneys into that section?

Hon Mrs Akande: As I mentioned, I believe, yesterday, there are two new specialized treatment services; there is one in Ottawa and one in Windsor. We are collaborating with the Minister of Health and the Minister of Correctional Services in initiating this, and also with those ministries on their new treatment initiatives, because you know the Ministry of Health has been quite involved in this particular area.

The government has received the advisory committee's report for the anti-drug strategy, and it is using an interministerial committee under the leadership of the anti-drug secretariat to respond to these recommendations. We recognize too, and I think that point has to be made, that as the Minister of Health has stopped funding or has reduced the funding of drug and alcohol abuse treatments from the United States, then that responsibility will sit more and more in the Ministry of Community and Social Services. We will have to focus on picking that up. Certainly we will be looking at extending the services as they are required, but we are not entirely sure that the focus of the service will sit only here, in that, as we have said, Health and the Ministry of Correctional Services are involved in this.

Mr Hope: Just a couple of other points dealing with -- as most of us are well aware, at least in our previous lives -- and everybody will wonder if I have come to a new life; I know it is not heaven -- but one of the things I --

Mr Jackson: You are in the government. Think about that.

Mr Hope: One of the things in my previous life which we fought against were the changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act that were being implemented by the federal government, which took away the responsibility of the federal government, putting the responsibility on the employer and employees. During that time frame when the federal government announced the changes to UIC, it talked about taking the surplus moneys or moneys that were going to be allocated for training purposes. That was one thing that was tacked on to our paycheques and started 1 January 1990, and to this day the minister responsible, Barbara McDougall, has not even announced any training program.

Why I bring this to a question is because we, as a government, have programs in Community and Social Services dealing with retraining to get people back into a job market, yet we are not seeing the commitment of the federal government to help workers through the UIC section of its mandate addressing the concerns facing people especially of Ontario and throughout Canada as a whole. Do you see your ministry moving in a direction to put more pressure on the federal minister, Barbara McDougall, to implement a program, and will you see any role you may play as the minister making sure that the guidelines, what will be constructed as a training program -- will you make sure you voice your concerns on programs you feel it is very important that the federal government do?

Hon Mrs Akande: Certainly this is an area that must be addressed collectively by our government and not by any single ministry; that is not to say that I would not add my voice to the chorus. But it must indeed, in order to be effective, be a chorus. There are a number of initiatives that have been announced by the federal government which have been differently picked up and the reasons behind them are varied.

One of the things that certainly is true is that there are not sufficient skills training programs that have been provided by the federal government to be used by those who have found themselves unemployed because of some of its other policies. You also mentioned that the UIC has been cut back and rests on the shoulders of the employer. I have to mention again and again and again and again that the ultimate result of that is that people move more quickly to social assistance, so it does ultimately become our problem.

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One of the members yesterday questioned my mentioning the federal government in response to this budget area. I think the reason I continue to mention the federal government is obvious: It is that as it moves, so do we, and very often those moves are negative and a poor effect. So yes, I would add my voice to the chorus. We do need more training programs.

Mr Hansen: My area of concern actually gets into Mr Hope's area also, of unemployment insurance and people going on welfare. It has to do with the supports to employment program. In 1989, I believe, the figure was 28,000. We went up to 59,000. That was a 103% increase. What would be the percentage increase forecast in 1991-92? The other thing is that we have 1,700 clients leaving. Does it look like we are going to increase that amount, because the program, being the length of time it is and the number of people going into the program, is there any indication of the number of success stories, let's say, which will increase in the upcoming year?

Hon Mrs Akande: Some of the information about the current history on success stories was given by Mr Cooke, and I will ask him to look into his crystal ball now and see if he can come up with some projections for success stories.

Mr Cooke: One thing I should say is that we are in the process of conducting an evaluation of the STEP program with an independent consultant to get at some of those success stories you refer to. I should mention that the growth of the STEP program has moderated in recent months, largely due to the economy. To the extent that the jobs are not there, our clients are not able to access them and the growth has moderated.

Just to tie it back to the federal government, it is very difficult to say the extent to which UI cutbacks and other things, high interest rates, have impacted on the ability of our clients to access STEP. We are not in a position to say what that 103% increase would have been had it not been for the downturn in the economy. Suffice it to say it would have been significantly higher.

Hon Mrs Akande: I want to add to that one thing, though, that you will note that our government has allocated $700 million in an anti-recession package and this ministry will have the takeup of part of that and focus on not only STEP but other back-to-work programs. So we are hoping that with that focus, but not only that focus, the results will be favourable.

Mr Hansen: Have you got any indication on exactly the areas it works best? Does it work better in an urban area or a rural? I come from a rural area and have a little bit of urban also. Are there any statistics percentage-wise where actually the success is, because sometimes a rural area, there are not the opportunities of an urban --

Hon Mrs Akande: Perhaps Mr Cooke has some statistics. What I know is that it works best where the jobs are. It works best where you can access the facilities and access the jobs and services that make it possible for women to go back to work. If you have any more detail than that, Mr Cooke?

Mr Cooke: We have not done an analysis of urban-rural, but this independent evaluation I mentioned is going to be quite comprehensive. It will look at urban-rural and also native reserve, so it is very thorough in its scope.

Ms Haslam: I would like to switch to a report I had called the Scarborough poverty conference report. I notice that poverty is something you have mentioned quite often, and it is a major factor today. One of the things I would like to address is life insurance for people on welfare and social benefits, and the fact that in some cases there is no life insurance or there is not enough to cover a good life insurance situation. I wondered if you had any information on that. I have a problem. I would like to know if there is a life insurance package for people on social benefits, on social welfare.

Hon Mrs Akande: I am not aware of there being any such thing. I have never been, even in my previous -- Bob, do you know about life insurance?

Mr Cooke: There is a very modest amount built into the benefit structure -- I believe it is $10 per month -- to allow for a life insurance policy, and that amount has not changed for quite some time.

Ms Haslam: I am raising the concern because it was drawn to my attention that markers on graves -- the fact that deaths occur and there is very little money for them and it is another dignity --

Interjection.

The Vice-Chair: We will let Ms Haslam have the floor, thank you.

Ms Haslam: I knew I liked you, Margaret. Someone had mentioned that there was not a fund for insurance, and that the possibility of having markers on graves was a problem in that they did not have enough money to even do that type of thing in case of death. That is a dignity problem. I just wondered if that was the case.

Hon Mrs Akande: There is a funeral benefit in that social assistance structure which -- I am afraid I have been focusing on making sure that people maintain life and not on the death benefit. Bob, would you be good enough --

Mr Cooke: Municipalities have a legal responsibility when someone who is indigent passes on to ensure that the appropriate burial arrangements are made. Under the General Welfare Assistance Act, there are cost-sharing terms under special assistance and supplementary aid whereby the province will cost-share with the municipality for the costs of indigent burials. The municipality negotiates with local funeral parlours an arrangement that it feels appropriate to the circumstances and it is up to the municipality, I guess, the number of features that would go into the package it would negotiate with local funeral parlours.

Ms Haslam: It is the municipality that deals with this particular issue?

Mr Cooke: That is correct.

Ms Haslam: I was not sure about that information. Can I go to --

The Vice-Chair: I am sorry. You cannot at this time.

Mr McGuinty: Minister, returning to the STEP program, that, I think, is generally recognized as meeting the needs of single parents. I wonder if any thought has been given to extending or adjusting the program so that it addresses the concerns of disabled persons returning to the workplace. They have particular costs associated with transportation, assistive devices, clothing that wears more rapidly, those kinds of things. What is happening in that regard?

Hon Mrs Akande: In fact, the disabled are eligible for the STEP program. In addition to that we have targeted them as one of the groups with our new wage adjustment packages we have announced in the last House, so they are really not excluded. The whole concept does include the assistive devices, transportation costs: whatever is required in order to get people back to work is included within that, in both of those.

Ms Gibbons: As well, part of the redesign of the employment programs includes a very specific focus on how we can use those better to repatriate the disabled to the workforce.

Mrs McLeod: I wanted to ask about the whole area of supplementary aid and special assistance. I am concerned about funds which are discretionary in their administration within the municipality, and the fact that with the municipal costs increasing at a rate greater than they feel they can manage that may put some real pressure on the decisions in the discretionary areas. I am first of all wondering whether or not at some future point it is possible to provide us with some statistical data on the differences from municipality to municipality in the provision of the special assistance moneys. When I ask for something like that, I would certainly be willing to have the minister say: "That figure is not available without a tremendous amount of work. I don't want to tie up ministry staff that need to be involved in program implementation with producing figures that are not readily available." So let me make that statement at the outset of asking for information.

But besides the statistical information, Minister, I am wondering if you are considering looking at the cost-sharing formula so that there would be some relief from the municipal share of those discretionary costs so that they can be applied where the need is real.

Hon Mrs Akande: You know, of course, that one of the recommendations in SARC does recommend that in fact those things not be discretionary to the municipality and that it be taken up by the province, but we all know the cost that is involved in that.

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Let me answer first about the discretionary data. Let me tell you something you probably already know, Mrs McLeod, and that is that it is very uneven, not only from municipality to municipality but from day to day. What is refused a recipient one day will be given to another recipient on another day. So it makes the collection of data very difficult because of the inconsistencies in the way it goes. The whole area of discretion is indeed applied differently by different people even within the same municipality, so that becomes a difficulty.

However, whatever information they do have we would certainly be happy to let you have, as long as you recognize that it is not as beautiful a piece of research as we would like to have or as thorough.

The other thing about discussions within municipalities -- certainly, as I have said, that is an important part of our work right now. As we have had to be discussing with so many of them because of the difficulties they are having in responding to the needs in their municipalities, we are structuring a more formal approach. We have met with OMA -- forgive me; I get all of these letters mixed up: AMO, thank you. I knew I would get it backwards. I remember when we used to speak English. It is a good thing I do not work for the UN. This is why I have them around. They tell me what the letters mean.

The point about meeting with them is that that was one of the issues that was very up front, that they are finding it difficult to cost-share. We have had to go in and rescue some. We have had to have negotiations with others. Certainly, when that difficulty becomes apparent, the first thing that goes is the discretionary area.

Mrs McLeod: What is the cost of going to the SARC recommendations on these particular funds? Another SARC recommendation, which is potentially very costly but very important, was the market-basket approach for establishing rates for social assistance. Is there an effort being made to cost the current costing terms, the market-basket approach?

Hon Mrs Akande: Yes, there is. That is something that will be reported on, as you know, by the advisory committee when it comes to it at the end of the month. Certainly there is the market-basket approach, and we are looking at the costing of that relative to the costing of some other means of getting a more realistic cost of what people should be receiving on social assistance. But that is one, certainly the most popular and high-profile, technique of getting a handle on that and it is being funded.

Mr Daigeler: I am going to ask, for a change, a question on the actual estimates book.

Ms Gibbons: What page are you on, Mr Daigeler?

Mr Daigeler: Page 30. You probably will not be able to answer that without you looking at it. The increase for the family benefits is listed there from the 1989-90 estimates to the 1990-91 estimates as 21%, which is of course a very significant amount. Does this increase only reflect the SARC reforms for the increased family benefits or did you already calculate into this figure the possible impact of a recession?

Hon Mrs Akande: No. What that consists of is the shelter benefits, the increase in costs of that, the children's benefit from STEP, the rate increase of 6%. It includes the rate increase of 5%, which was funded in the estimates. The first increase of 6% was in January 1990 and the other of 5% was January 1991. It also includes 6% case load growth and the staffing for STEP, which was 32 staff.

Mr Daigeler: So there is a 6% case load increase figure into that?

Hon Mrs Akande: Yes.

Mr Daigeler: What do you expect the actual increase to be as you can currently estimate it?

Hon Mrs Akande: Mr Cooke?

Ms Gibbons: Thirteen per cent is our current estimate.

The Vice-Chair: Mr Cooke nodded.

Mr Daigeler: Obviously, we are looking at some very significant figures here, very significant dollar amounts as well. This is not related to income maintenance, although I guess in a way everything is. The drug benefits plan obviously also has had a very significant increase. It is on page 39. The figure is also 21.7%, an increase from the 1989-90 estimates to the 1990-91 estimates. Is that figure also continuing to climb in the same way, continuing to do that? If so, what are your views on this matter as a new government?

Hon Mrs Akande: The escalation of that figure is all related to growth. It is cost escalation. It is the increase in growth, and as the case load --

Mr Daigeler: And takeup.

Hon Mrs Akande: That is right. And as the case loads grow that figure will probably grow.

Mr Daigeler: It is not so much the seniors but really people who are on family benefits --

Hon Mrs Akande: The seniors are included in that, but as the --

Mr Daigeler: But you would not see a dramatic increase in the seniors --

Hon Mrs Akande: No, but the family benefits are also included. I did not want you to think there were two separate funds for them.

Mrs McLeod: We have been following news reports about the apparently close agreement between MCSS and Metropolitan Toronto to move people more quickly from GWA to FBA. I wonder if you could tell us a little more about the nature of that agreement, how long it currently takes to move people from GWA to FBA, and whether any kind of agreement which would make a difference here in Metro Toronto would be considered for other areas of the province.

Hon Mrs Akande: We have been meeting with Metro Toronto. As a matter of fact, soon after I assumed the responsibility in this role they made an appointment and came to meet with me about the fact that there was a great delay in movement of people from GWA to FBA. As I have said, we increased the number of workers and met with them to talk about increasing the rate of movement. Currently I believe the time is -- what?

Ms Gibbons: We have quickened the rate of transfer from the GWA to the FBA case load. My memory says 1,200 per month.

Mr Cooke: That is the historic figure. We are now attempting to achieve a higher rate of transfer.

Ms Gibbons: I think, though, the increase has been 1,200 per month, I understand, as of the discussion with Metro yesterday. There have been various sort of administrative activities at the local level to see how they could smooth that transfer, and it has been reinforced by the addition of new staff. So we are hoping those changes administratively and changes of staff will expedite that backlog and its conversion to FBA.

Hon Mrs Akande: How many days would it take? What is the rate of movement?

Ms Gibbons: The rate of movement was at what and is now what, Bob?

Mr Cooke: It was taking approximately five to six months on average for the transfer, and we are hoping to bring that down considerably over the next few months.

Mrs McLeod: Is it a problem exclusive to Metro, or do you have similar kinds of long periods in other communities?

Hon Mrs Akande: There are similar difficulties, I would hope not as extensive, but they do exist in other areas.

Ms Gibbons: In those parts of the province where we have integrated welfare services, this is not a problem. I am not aware, Bob, of major problems in other jurisdictions. Are you?

Mr Cooke: A number of municipalities have negotiated over the years with the ministry for what is called a joint intake process, and what Metro is doing now amounts to the same thing.

Mrs McLeod: We are trying to cover a number of areas, as we have still a little more time. I am wondering whether you have any figures you could provide us with as to the number of people who are currently on welfare rolls who would be part of the federal refugee backlog.

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Ms Gibbons: My sense is that we currently have 24,000 refugees on our case loads -- the bulk of those in Toronto, some 17,000 or 18,000 in Toronto. Have I got that right?

Mr Cooke: That is an estimate. Metro is the only municipality that keeps very accurate statistics. There are several others that estimate the numbers they have, and those numbers are projected to increase because the capacity of the federal government to process cases will not be equal to the number of people they expect to come into Canada over the next year.

Mrs McLeod: Is it possible to provide some or all of those individuals with provincially issued work permits in order to make them eligible for employment?

Hon Mrs Akande: Certainly it is something we have been discussing because of the fact that -- as you know, and as I am always reluctant to say -- they do form a significant percentage of those who are looking at other emergency measures, food banks being among them. One of the things we thought would be helpful is to provide for them a work permit so that in fact their numbers using those emergency services would be significantly reduced. It is currently being looked at.

The Vice-Chair: Mr McGuinty, two minutes.

Mr McGuinty: You expressed an interest yesterday in addressing the issue of food banks. I am going to allow that opportunity to you now. Also, could you tell us how you plan to address the recommendations for improvements which arose out of Bishop Finlay's task force? In particular he talked about an emergency food fund which would be administered through welfare offices, and changes in municipal zoning laws to make basement apartments and extra rooms as part of the affordable housing stock.

Hon Mrs Akande: Let me tell you that the emergency initiative already exists to some extent at welfare offices. It unfortunately comes under some of the discretion that Mrs McLeod referred to and therefore it applies differently in different places. Of course, there are also limitations on the number of times people can access that service.

I did not want to leave you with the impression that there was no emergency response at all that existed in terms of social assistance. Our initiative with the food bank, our work around that, has been more to effect a change in people's income so they would not need the food banks as a way of doing that. The food banks informed us quite directly that one of the things that brought more people to the food bank was the shelter costs, so we in fact increased the increase to address the shelter costs.

You know also that this government has moved legislation which in effect attempts to put a hold on the escalation of those shelter costs, so that is another initiative which attempts to focus on the food bank population, if you will, so that there would be less need there, because we were told a significant percentage of that group came because of the increased shelter costs.

All of the moves we have done in terms of the increase in social assistance, the increase in the minimum wage, all of them have been addressed towards getting a segment of the population off the use of food banks. In addition to that, we have initiated back-to-work projects that we have referred to as anti-recession packages, which here again target that specific group.

In terms of your saying this access, I relate it to an access program where the recommendation is that we encourage people to convert their basements and other space to living quarters for those who have not. You know that that has already been going on by a few groups in various areas and they have a large group or co-ordinated group meeting around that. I am very supportive of it; I might say that right now. The difficulty is to encourage the tax group to allow that without increasing the taxes of those people who take up that initiative and do that. Currently what happens is that if you convert some of your space to liveable space your taxes are increased; while we are encouraging that to happen, on the one hand, that acts as a disincentive on the other.

Mr Sterling: I would like to talk to you a little, Minister, about Rideau Regional Centre. May I at the very outset say that I disagree with the name of Rideau Regional Centre, as it is located in Smiths Falls, approximately 10 kilometres from Rideau Correctional and Treatment Centre? Therefore, I would appreciate your consideration of changing the name of that particular residence, as I would call it, or home. It has been a wonderful home for many, many severely mentally handicapped adults for as long as 40 years.

I am concerned about this particular residence, as I call it; some would call it an institution. At one point in time this residence had as many as 3,000 residents in it. At the present time it is down to about 850. The remaining 850 residents are, quite frankly, severely mentally handicapped and have in addition many medical problems as well. In fact, I understand their medical needs are probably about five or six times the normal resident in Ontario. I am concerned about the demoralizing effect on the staff of Rideau Regional Centre, as it is now called -- hopefully, not for all of the future -- but I am also concerned about the responsibility of the province when a resident is discharged from this particular institution, particularly as we peel down to people who are perhaps less and less able to take care of themselves outside in the community. What is the responsibility of your ministry in the province of Ontario on the discharge of a resident from Rideau Regional Centre?

Hon Mrs Akande: You touch on a question in which I have expressed a great deal of interest and received a great deal of focus during my first term in office, that is, the multi-year plan. It is a question I am most happy to discuss with you.

First, let me try to take these things in order. Relative to the name Rideau Regional Centre, we will all agree that that was established long before I came. This is the first time I have heard that it is considered inappropriate, and I will take that under advisement and refer it to those who deal with such matters, though I have not yet identified who that might be. I just looked at the deputy and she looked at me and we both raised our eyebrows and that is it.

Ms Gibbons: We could do it right here, Minister.

Hon Mrs Akande: That is it, but we will certainly take that under advisement.

Mr Sterling: Well, I would prefer it to be called a home or a residence rather than anything else.

Hon Mrs Akande: I see.

Mr Sterling: I do not care what the other words are. Perhaps you might want to ask the parents of these residents what they might think it should be called.

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Hon Mrs Akande: I recognize your concern and I have recorded it.

The second thing about the closure: We are moving in our multi-year plan towards moving residents into the community. I think everyone should have an opportunity to be part of the community and that the community should spread its arms, so to speak, and take on the responsibility of recognizing all who live within it and supporting them appropriately. We are quite proud -- or certainly the previous government can take pride, and I will do so, in the fact that this is an initiative that has been moved along and that people are being moved into the community.

But you ask about the responsibility of the government when someone is moved into the community, and I think it is there. My feeling would be that when we have identified someone as needing support and assistance, then of course the support and assistance responsibility for that continues when that person is moved into the community. Because there is a recognition of that, the government has worked through the various groups, the Ontario Association for Community Living for one, which I mention because it is quite well known, and it has assumed the responsibility in caring for these individuals, in seeing they are supported out in the community.

But as a government our responsibility continues, and to make sure there are criteria and standards that are followed, that there is a monitoring in place. In fact, our government has indicated that responsibility, not only with those who are being moved out of centres but also others in the community, by initiating an advocate and an advocacy office that will work independently out of Citizenship.

Mr Sterling: Those are nice words, and I do not disagree with the nice words. Your legal responsibility, as I understand it, lasts for 90 days after discharge. There are people now, very vulnerable adults, who are falling between the cracks. I cannot give you her name, but a resident was discharged two and a half years ago from Rideau Regional Centre. A still existing resident at Rideau Regional Centre wanted to contact this woman. She has disappeared from the face of the earth. No one can find her. No amount of effort in trying to locate this individual seems to lead to anything. I raised it with the last government and its answer to me was that there was no method of tracking these individuals. There is no concern by the ministry after 90 days as to whether resident A or resident X is happy, whether they are clean, whether they are being cared for or whether the social net out there, which we would all like to brag about, has actually picked up that individual. If I call this woman Jane Doe, obviously somewhere along the line a social worker or someone did not pick up her interests.

I fear for a great number of those residents from Rideau Regional Centre who have been deinstitutionalized, if you want to call it that, in the last two or three years, because we are starting to get lower and lower in terms of their ability to speak for themselves. I would plead with you, Minister, that you undertake a study of the last 300 residents who have been discharged from Rideau Regional Centre, follow through on each and every one of those individuals to find out. Are those people happy? Are they alive? Are they being taken care of?

While it is very politically popular and astute, I think, to talk about the fact that we can have in our communities a nice caring community for all of these individuals, to a lot of these people, who are unbelievably vulnerable and have serious medical problems, the community at Rideau Regional Centre offers to them more chance for freedom to operate a normal life than on the outside.

For instance, you put five very severely mentally handicapped individuals into a bungalow sitting in the middle of another community. Those five individuals look at each other, look at the workers who are involved with them and their life is very, very contracted. Often the workers involved in those smaller units do not have the same skills as the workers do in the larger units.

Therefore, I would really hope that when you are dealing with your policies as to whether or not you should close down places like Rideau Regional Centre, or Rideau Regional Home as I would like to call it, you would go and look at what has been the real success of these low-functioning adults. There are adults in Rideau Regional Centre who have to wear a helmet all the time because they will injure themselves. There are people who have to be restrained because they will tear their eyes out if given the chance. There are people who cannot function without a high degree of supervision.

I want to tell you, Minister, that you should go and visit this particular home, because a lot of people have the wrong idea of the kind of services that these particular residences can provide. I think it is an extremely good institution and home for a lot of people.

My particular question to you, and I think it is a serious one that you should not continue on with going to these very low-level functioning adults, is will you go back and look at the history of people who you have been discharged from these residences, and say: "Are you happy? Are these people healthy? Have we made the right decision in putting them on the street?"

Hon Mrs Akande: Mr Sterling, you have of course come to the topic of the review, have you not? You have touched on the area of the review that I have been reluctant to advertise because of the fact that I thought it would have unwarranted negative affects on people. I appreciate what you are saying and I have recognized it. I know that many of these people are looked after by adult protective service workers when they find themselves into boarding homes or into other circumstances, and some of them are picked up there.

I know too that this ministry has not done tracking because, you see, legally they are adults. If they desire to leave, they leave. That is a cause for concern as far as I am concerned because of the fact that we have already recognized that some of them are medically frail. Actually those who are most medically frail are least likely to leave. But some of them are dependent intellectually, are not, let's say, able to make a wise decision and we are concerned about that.

We are looking at that and that is part of the review that, as I say, I did not want to advertise, because I did not want to present it as opposition to the multi-year plan. I am in support of the multi-year plan. I am in support of people moving into the community.

Let me tell you about appropriate care. I know that some of these people are in fact very medically frail. They do require specialized care. Very often those people who have previously been working in the institutions move into these community living centres and are working with these people. They find themselves employed differently. As a matter of fact, they are not pushed to do that, are not coerced to do that, but when they move into the community centres, that becomes some of the conflict, some of the difficulty, some of the concern around staffing, because they compare the circumstances in their previous work situations to these. We know that.

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I also know that this is a great responsibility that I feel that the government must extend itself towards, and certainly it is discussion of that very fact that you mentioned. That is included in the review and it will be looked at. There is an advisory committee now established, which includes provincial groups, which is looking at the longitudinal quality of life, but you have asked very specifically that we go back and we trace people. I have asked, and I have very specifically the numbers that we have and where they are.

I do not know that we can find all those people. I know that many of them are being taken care of by APSW workers. I am not entirely sure where the others are. Certainly it is a topic for concern, but I want it framed within another frame, if you would, and that is not to be discussed as multi-year plans or not, but to be discussed as a way of improving and extending the government's assurance that the people who are moved out into the community are followed, are traced and are not at risk.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Madam Minister. Mr Hope.

Mr Sterling: Can I just --

The Vice-Chair: Well, I am sorry, Mr Sterling. We will have to come back to you. Mr Hope and then Ms Haslam.

Mr Hope: Currently, we have a major topic going across the province. This government introduced a bill that talked about rent control, and it seems like we got the opposition out there quite hot about the whole issue. There is a problem that most of our municipalities face with the problem of housing people. In my area we have a list of 400 people waiting for affordable accommodation. I see it as a factor that affects us in the welfare income-maintenance section of your ministry to make sure that, number one, people have an adequate roof over their head without escalated rental cost which has been diverted back to us. When we talk about high rental cost, we also take away in order for people to provide food on the table. They take away the moneys allocated towards food for shelter.

I am glad to see our government put forward some regulations to regulate rent review, but I think it is very important and I would like to know your comments on your whole issue of the Ministry of Community and Social Services' relationship with the new rent legislation.

Hon Mrs Akande: I think that as it provides relief for the people in the province who have been suffering under high shelter costs, it will in turn provide relief for the Ministry of Community and Social Services in terms of the funds we have been directing towards that. There is an increase. The cycle of that is ever-present. As rents go up, if there were not legislation to support their being somehow contained, we would be in a position where more and more of our welfare dollars would be eaten up by those shelter costs, so we are indeed in support of that legislation.

Mr Hope: It is too bad Mr Sterling has left, because I had one particular thing as he started talking about the centres. I have one in the neighbouring riding to mine. I wish he would have stuck around just for a bit longer because it is very important --

Mr Jackson: Point of order, Madam Chair --

Mr Hope: Oh, sorry about that. I apologize.

Mr Jackson: On a point of order, Madam Chair: The standing orders specifically prohibit references to absenteeism. I certainly see a few on your side of the table so let's just be mindful of the standing orders. Thank you.

Mr Hope: I made an apology. It was not meant to be in any way, shape or form -- it is just that I understood his concerns. The issue I would like to bring forward deals with the Southwestern Regional Centre and its technology dealing with helping people in communities in, number one, helping them turn their taps on. There is, I feel, a high volume of new technology to help those people who were indicated by Mr Sterling about their ability to function in a community. I think it would be worth while for your ministry to look at the research that is being done at this centre to provide more accessibility throughout the homes these people are living in. I think it would be most appropriate that we look very carefully at providing new technology in the homes to make it more adequate for people in those centres to have access to the communities.

Hon Mrs Akande: Of course, we have been using some of that, you know that, from the newer centres where you move. Very often when there is a home that is specifically designed for people who have disabilities, who are moving out of centres or who are living in the community, that high technology is incorporated to whatever extent the finances will allow. However, when you are looking at changing centres that are there and areas that are there and making it possible for people to move, you also look relative to what are the needs of the particular client.

Ms Haslam: I would like to get back to municipalities. We talked about the children's aid societies coming to the municipalities for extra money. We know that they are facing high increases in cost for welfare benefits for general welfare assistance, and municipalities also have these costs. The 1990-91 estimates maybe do not recognize the anticipated cost increases, and I want to know how the minister is going to respond to the municipal administration cost when it deals with these issues.

Hon Mrs Akande: One of the things that we have done is that we provided an additional $9 million in November to assist with the cost of administering the higher case loads, and you recall, of course, that we did make that takeup, but there are downsides as well as advantages, disadvantages to that.

The advantage is that it makes those things accessible to the people we are trying to help, and there is less resistance or -- I hate to call it stall -- less lag time in terms of municipal takeup for whatever initiatives we have because their cost is borne. The disadvantage is that it creates expectation. The municipalities then operate in a way where they expect that more of their costs should be picked up by the province, and such is not always possible because of our own financial limitations. Certainly that is a part of the discussions I have referred to that are going on, but at the same time we do recognize that it is an ever-growing problem.

Ms Haslam: I would like to go on to another topic that I mentioned before and that I have an interest in, and that is day care. In particular I am looking at day care positions where there are some people with different cultures who wish to make use of day cares, and they have different beliefs and different situations that they deal with in day care. I wonder, is there cross-cultural training going to come on? Are you dealing with this maybe interministerially, or what availability is there for cross-cultural training for day cares?

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Hon Mrs Akande: Certainly the colleges that provide training for day care have become more and more aware of the need for that within the province of Ontario, but not only the province of Ontario, and have been focusing a lot of their training towards the preparation of students in order to work in this particular setting. Actually in my previous life I did workshops for Ryerson and for some of the other colleges concerning this and multicultural day care. Our own ministry has produced a kit which is useful as a resource for child care centres to give them expertise, some help, some support, some material to deal with the multicultural environment.

It is an interesting topic that you raise, though, because you recognize that a great deal is done in our elementary schools to prepare teachers and to facilitate their dealing with the multicultural environment. Very little has been done up until this point, relatively recently, in terms of preparing day care staff. We are dealing with that same environment. Something as simple as even having dolls about of the variety of races and groups of those who are using the service was considered new.

The Vice-Chair: Mr. Hansen has a question too, if you wish to relinquish the floor. You have the floor at the moment.

Ms Haslam: How much time is there in my time?

The Vice-Chair: You have five minutes.

Ms Haslam: Just because he is a friend.

Mr Hansen: Mine gets back into the rural setting. You talk about decentralization of governments, but what seems to be happening in our particular area is that some of the social services are becoming more centralized and are moving out of the community into a centralized area. Quite a few concerns are coming forward that this centralization, and not only that. The larger areas have interval and transition houses. Mentioning Smithville as one of the small towns that I look after, if there happens to be violence in the home, then the family is moved into, say, Welland or St Catharines, which is a big disruption in the lives of these children attending school, etc.

They are taken out of their family setting. Here we are talking about putting people into the community, and here on the other hand we are actually moving people out of the community. Is there any foresight into the future of more services within these small rural communities? What I see right now is that co-operative housing is starting to move in, so there is affordable housing in these small communities.

These small communities cover quite an area. The village of Smithville covers 200 square miles, so you have to see the distance that some of these people have to travel. I am looking at the Niagara area, which is supposed to be a populated area. I think this would be a concern also in the north, and in the native communities also I hear it coming across.

I would just like to hear from the minister on exactly where we are moving in this particular area. I know everything has been set up as it is. So far as I can see since the government has taken over we have got more into the community. I know it takes a long time to turn that ship around a little bit, but for the people in the rural areas, can you see affordable day care and all these particular areas that people in the large urban areas already enjoy?

I hear quite a bit: "We don't have food banks. We have the churches." That is the food bank. That is all volunteer. I do not want to see that stop either, but I am talking of emergency need and I think we have to address some of these problems.

Hon Mrs Akande: I think I have said, and I will say again, that the services -- I hope that within my term I will not have to say it too often because I hope it will change -- the services throughout the province are very unevenly distributed, and some of them are community services that have sprung up through a community initiation and they exist where they do.

I know that when we are travelling through rural communities there is a large and a wide area where the services seem to be centred in a particular town or a particular area, and that of course is a big problem. You raise a very serious point when you say that very often with emergency shelter, children are disrupted. They have to leave their schools, leave their community at a time when in fact they require the support and familiarity that will allow them to see themselves through this terrible situation. They are in fact removed from that community and taken to some place where they will be physically safe, and obviously the need is there. The point is that there is a lot of discussion around this. Some of it is quite focused around, is it the woman and the child -- usually the woman and the child -- who should leave?

The other part of it is, why will municipalities not have emergency shelters within their own environs? Very often some of them reject the whole idea of having emergency shelters in those towns and make it necessary for them to be established outside, so that becomes an issue where in fact accessibility and proximity are real issues within the community. To move the community-initiated agencies may become difficult. For us, though, to see and to encourage through some kinds of incentives and our own development that community services exist in a way that is accessible to all people in all areas is a very real initiative and one that we have taken most seriously.

The Vice-Chair: I draw attention to the committee's information that we are given eight hours. We do not have to use the full eight hours if you do not wish, but if we want to be on time for Treasury at 4 o'clock this afternoon, I would suggest we go a few minutes past noon today because we are a little behind because of some late starts. Mrs McLeod.

Mrs McLeod: We would like to move now to the area of long-term care and senior citizens, so it will be vote 802, item 4. Before doing that, I just want to follow through on my colleague's last question on food banks with a request for future information about the $1 million that was allocated, what the takeup of that $1 million has been, specifically who has taken advantage of the $1 million and what programs it has been used for.

Hon Mrs Akande: The takeup has been quite good and I will give you the specifics of that, who and what, and what the programs are during this afternoon some time.

Mrs McLeod: I would appreciate that. That would be excellent. Thank you very much. If we could move then to the whole area of long-term care, I too am going to begin at least with one specific reference to the estimates book itself, the first line, in terms of the 11.6% increase for Homes for the Aged and Rest Homes Act. I am not sure whether or not that percentage increase allowed for any movement of funding from existing residential care beds to extended care beds.

Hon Mrs Akande: You are on page 47. There was a very small amount last year.

Mrs McLeod: Would you know the amount?

Ms Gibbons: Michael or Geoff might know the specific amount. My sense was that it was a small number of conversions last year and that the bulk of the cost increase has to do with other items.

Mrs McLeod: May I ask, and again it could be for future information if it is available, for some indication of the vacancies that exist provincially in residential care beds and the waiting lists that exist provincially for extended care beds? Again, I do not want to put the ministry to a lot of work gathering new information, but what is available so that we can get a sense of the very pressing need for extended care and the fact that we may not be adequately using existing residential beds for the purposes most needed?

That takes me to the second question: In the area of the commitment to long-term care reform, and I fully understand the consultative process that was under way, one of the very important aspects of the proposals was the initiative to move to multicare funding in residential settings and it speaks to the concern I have about waiting lists for extended care beds. I am wondering whether or not you are proposing to move in that direction and whether it is your belief that the 1992 date, I think it was January 1992, was the target for implementation of multiple-level funding.

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Hon Mrs Akande: Let me say first of all that it is our intention; there has been no redirection on that. We do intend to continue and focus on multicare funding. We have not changed our minds relative to that. I will say, though, that at this time I cannot confirm that that date will be the date we establish. Certainly we are attempting to move quickly enough to be able to implement this by that date, but I would not at this time -- I want to be clear -- be able to confirm that we will be able to achieve it.

Mrs McLeod: I do appreciate hearing your commitment, though, to continuing in the direction of establishing multicare funding. I think it is quite revolutionary in the way in which funding is provided for long-term care in residential settings. Can I understand that the commitment then is to provide multicare funding in either homes for the aged or nursing homes without any differentiation between the two?

Hon Mrs Akande: We do not at this time anticipate that there will be direct differentiation between the two, because as I say, we are very much focused on this area now in order to try to meet the timetables. But unless there is something new in our discussions which would cause us to change our minds, at this time we are on side with that.

Mr McGuinty: Minister, the previous government had committed $2 billion to be extended over a six-year plan and I am wondering where you stand with respect to that. Do you intend to press your fellow cabinet members for an equivalent type of commitment in the future? And specifically with respect to the $52 million which was used to initiate the program, I am concerned about how much of that money actually found its way into community hands. Perhaps in addition to that, have you considered any kind of cost-benefit analysis to find out exactly how well this program is working?

Hon Mrs Akande: How much of this money has found its way into community hands?

Ms Stewart: Barbara Stewart, director of financial planning and corporate analysis.

Of the $52 million to which you refer that is related to long-term care reform, $36 million was applicable to this ministry. The balance was applicable to the Ministry of Health for expenditures applying to the homemaking program and those sorts of programs. At this juncture, that $36 million that is in this ministry is flowing out, particularly in expansions to the home support program and funding for communities in greatest need and a variety of projects related to the in-home service expansion area. So there were announcements made last summer and those funds are flowing out to projects at this time.

Mr McGuinty: With respect to the cost-benefit analysis then, are we doing anything to determine the savings realized by providing programs for the elderly and disabled in their own homes?

Hon Mrs Akande: Yes, we are. That is part of not only the discussions of this ministry but part of the responsibility of a person who we have employed to focus in on that particular issue as well as a few others that are under that study. It really is important to us to have a sense of what that cost-benefit would be in making decisions about this long-term care.

Mr McGuinty: Any kind of timetable established?

Hon Mrs Akande: Well, as I have said, we are trying to meet some of the timetable that obviously was previously established. There are problems with that, because now that we have entered into this study and moved towards consultation, there is going to be a lag in time. We are hoping and we are focusing on it so that the lag in time will not be great.

Mr Daigeler: Just to complete this, in a way, has this person arrived at any kind of figures yet and, if so, can those be shared with us, even if it is preliminary figures?

Hon Mrs Akande: Certainly it is preliminary. It is not the kind of thing that I would think would be fruitful to share at this time.

Mr Daigeler: So we will have to wait. Did you want to follow this up?

Mrs McLeod: Go ahead.

Mr Daigeler: As part of the long-term care changes, the ministry I think further decentralized its whole office operation as a ministry. I think your ministry already is quite decentralized compared to some of the other ones. I am just wondering, what is the experience of the ministry in this regard? Your decision-making happens to a great extent at the district level, if I am not mistaken. While your ministry has always I think followed that approach, in the long-term care it is even more pronounced. How are you yourself looking at this administrative approach? Is it working? What are the difficulties with it? What are the special advantages? I wonder whether you could comment on that.

Hon Mrs Akande: First of all, it really has not been totally implemented yet. You know, we do have 14 local community support service area offices that have been established and we did appoint those service managers on 12 September, which I had already noted to my staff is a significant date in that it is six days after the election, but we will not discuss it any further.

Ms Gibbons: Absolutely not.

Hon Mrs Akande: So there is a move towards that. But in terms of their total implementation, they cannot be totally effective and we cannot evaluate their effectiveness until long-term care is implemented. However, Michael Ennis is here and he may want to extend the information that I have given you in terms of our move towards decentralization in this area.

Mr Ennis: It is Michael Ennis, assistant deputy minister of community health and support services. As the minister mentioned, we do have 14 decentralized offices now established in various parts of the province. The managers are in place and they have gathered with them staff that will meet the management requirements of those offices. They are small offices and they are preparing to have staff from the existing ministry and community and social service structure join them in these offices. So then in fact they will be an integrated health and social service office management centre for long-term care.

As the minister mentioned, the managers and their staff at this point are working with identifying in the community the various issues, concerns, and they are awaiting the further direction of this government concerning the consultation and planning for reform.

Mrs McLeod: I would like to return to the home support programs and there are two items that I recognize. One is an almost $15-million -- somewhere between a $14-million and a $15-million -- provision under home support services for the elderly, and the other on page 50 is a $21-million increase in the integrated homemaker service, which would come very close to the figures you provided Mr McGuinty in the new allocations.

Can I ask whether or not the integrated homemaker program increase reflects an expansion of the program to additional communities, or just what has been achieved with that increased budget?

Ms Gibbons: The integrated homemaker program has not in fact been expanded, and it had been our intention, had the long-term care initiative moved according to pace, that the new strategies would overtake the integrated homemaker program and become something quite different. As the minister has suggested, she and her colleagues are evaluating all of those seven strategies at the moment and will be shortly going to discuss with the public their particular sense of where they want to take it. There will be no further expansion in that area until those decisions are taken.

Mrs McLeod: The $21 million then was really just to meet increased demand in communities that currently have an integrated homemakers program.

Ms Gibbons: That is right.

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Mrs McLeod: Has there been any attempt to cost the expansion of the integrated homemaker program province-wide?

Ms Gibbons: I am sorry?

Mrs McLeod: Has there been an attempt to anticipate the costs of expansion of that program province-wide?

Ms Gibbons: No, as I say, because it was anticipated that we would not be expanding the program as such but moving to a whole new strategic shaping of the system that would include things like a single-access organization and home support with a whole new sense of how they would provide assistance to families and to individuals as they age.

Mrs McLeod: We may come back to that. Do we have a few more minutes?

The Vice-Chair: One minute.

Mrs McLeod: One minute. Two other questions then I will simply table as a request for information because I am not sure if we will get back to them later. I am interested in capital renovation programs in homes for the aged, and I would be interested in a figure on how many requests have been made for renovations. I am particularly interested in the fact that I understand that there are a number of proposals taking up what are now four-bed units and converting them to two-bed units, and my concern arises from the fact that l am not sure whether or not those proposals are being put on hold while the whole direction of long-term care is being reviewed. So I would be interested in knowing how many proposals for renovation-conversion have been made, what the status is of those approvals, whether or not there are some which have been approved for funding but have not begun because of the funding not having been flowed. I will just table that.

The other question I would like to table is whether or not there is a figure that could be provided for the budgetary impact of increasing comfort allowances for residents in homes for the aged.

The Vice-Chair: Perhaps the staff could get those answers back to all the members of the committee. I am sure they are all interested in those questions. Is that agreeable?

Hon Mrs Akande: Sure.

Mr Jackson: I would like to follow up on those questions. On page 48, I am rather disappointed that we have minimal narrative explanation, and I understand why. I had stated earlier in my opening commentary about the quiet reduction in beds in this province for the aged, and of course I have statistics which talk to me, or talk to this committee, about available beds. What that means is that there is space but it does not necessarily mean there is someone in that bed. According to these statistics, it represents perhaps even a reduction of as few as 150 in some areas. The truth of the matter is that the beds that are currently being used, and therefore being paid for, are substantively lower, so my first question is a request for accurate information about the numbers of beds that are actually being utilized and are therefore being funded in these categories.

I can tell you one institution in my region is deficient by 150 vacant spaces. They are sitting there not being utilized. So I mean, the entire provincial stat here in one institution is even larger, that I am aware of. Could staff give us the accurate figures of those that are currently being funded and at what level?

Ms Gibbons: I think that question has already been asked, and we will undertake to get back to you with that unless Michael or Geoff can say something on that at the moment.

Mr Quirt: I am Geoffrey Quirt and I am the director of the residential services branch.

I think the member's question related to the number of homes for the aged beds currently in operation. That number, which is subject to confirmation today, is 28,451. In 1986-87 there were 28,848 beds in operation. The member is quite right in suggesting that a number of those beds are currently vacant. Our estimation and the estimation of the Ontario Association of Homes for the Aged would be that approximately 1,100 of those beds are vacant.

Those are residential care beds and they are vacant primarily for two reasons. Usually the vacant beds are in unattractive ward accommodation and our funding arrangement for residential care requires the operator to charge a substantial amount often for residential care services in the home. The combination of those two factors often make other options, like living at home with supports or taking a private sector rest and retirement home option, more attractive than a residential care bed in ward accommodation in homes for the aged.

Mr Jackson: Thank you. I am pleased that we are more forthcoming with the actual numbers for the record. As the auditor has suggested in the past, I hope that in next year's estimates greater information will be treated in this section. I know the auditor has generally recommended that the estimates books, relative to other jurisdictions in this country, could be improved. I am simply suggesting that for next year's estimates, that is a suggested improvement to help us with our questions.

My next question has to do with the concern about the integrated homemaker expansion. I guess I may have heard the deputy correctly when she said that no further expansion is planned for next year, and I sense from that that it is a policy decision in the framework of the long-term care, the one-window access, all of that, which I am familiar with. What concerns me is the integrated homemaker program is so highly taxed in only 18 jurisdictions in this province, so we are hearing there is no expansion.

For the record, it was an election promise of the NDP to spend some $62 million over two years, and it would appear that that entire election promise is being dropped in terms of expansion. That is going to create all sorts of problems in the field, and I wonder to what extent you are doing priority-setting with this envelope. We are now on to an envelope system, and the minister knows what an envelope system is. I am not fond of them, but you and I both know what they are.

I have concerns that in the pilot areas where you are operating a program, we are now putting this to an envelope system and we may be expanding the definition. Groups may be getting home care dollars for information lines and all sorts of other interesting and neat things, but where is the priority-setting within, now that we have established these limited dollars, to ensure that these moneys go to ensure that people are staying in their homes and are getting the badly needed services?

Hon Mrs Akande: First of all, I want to clear up perhaps a misunderstanding, where you say there is no increase. What I would like you to understand is that there is no increase in the number of sites, but there may be expansion in terms of the service within those particular sites.

Mr Jackson: Say "dollars," and I will feel more comfortable.

Hon Mrs Akande: Certainly dollars in relation to an increase within those particular sites, so that there may be greater takeup there, but there is no increase in the number of actual sites that will be moved along.

The reasoning behind all of that is that we are hoping and intending -- I like it much better than hoping -- to come in with long-term care on time and be able to move this agenda along, so our hope would be that we would not want to expand the integrated homemaker program to do a job that will be done by another program that we are bringing on side.

Mr Jackson: I have been contacted extensively by the Victoria Order of Nurses and the Red Cross and other support groups providing this service, and they are expressing concern that there are parallel programs that require your ministry's commitment and the Ministry of Housing's commitment and that we are seeing examples of those housing programs being cut by your government, but they are part of, as Mr Hope has indicated, the whole picture. They have to be able to afford to be in the home in order to get home support, so they are not put in an institution.

I have referenced two programs. One is the Phoenix Place program in Hamilton, which is a current application before your government and your ministry and the Ministry of Housing. We are not getting positive signals at all from either ministry in terms of victims of violence. The other is the program in the Hamilton district office that I am most familiar with, which is the home sharing program for which the delivery agency is the VON. They are getting signals with their application that this program may not be renewed by the Ministry of Housing.

You are affected in a small way with the financial commitment, but it stems from the holistic view that you have to be able to be in a home so you can avoid going to an institution, and Housing is involved. I have written you personally and the Minister of Housing letters about those programs. Could you comment on how you are working with the Minister of Housing in those specific program areas so that that ministry is not compromising your objectives because it is putting out other brush fires?

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Hon Mrs Akande: Actually the Minister of Housing and I and our staff have been in consultation around many of these homes. You know of course that supportive housing, if we are going to move generally into that discussion, is an initiative that both ministries have supported. We have picked up other housing; certainly the Rupert Hotel housing initiative was one that we supported. How our ministry is involved is through the costing of services, the operating grants funding for those particular services, and we do discuss the initiatives. We do have to discuss them in order to be sure that we are both on side with these proposals in order to move them forward. There are times in all discussions where there is not total agreement, and when that occurs, there is some compromise.

Mr Jackson: Minister, I presume that you consult; that if you ask for an application, you are going to get clarification and consult.

Hon Mrs Akande: Yes.

Mr Jackson: You are stating the obvious. For the two programs I have identified, the problem is that the Ministry of Housing is saying no and this is compromising in a more evasive way the overall health and security of some of these seniors who are involved in the program. I want to know what specific pressures you are bringing to bear to ensure that the linkages are working, not to have the Minister of Housing say, "There is no more money and we have to tell the groups everything has collapsed on that side and we are not going to finish." I am talking about programs that are in jeopardy, that have already been told that they are going to be shut down. I am not talking theory here. I have got applications where ministry staff have said: "There is no money. We are shutting down the program."

Hon Mrs Akande: If in fact if you are talking specifically about those programs, I would have to review that specific information in order to give you a specific answer. I would be quite willing to do so if in fact that is what you request.

Mr Jackson: Not to say it for the third time, I have given you the name of the program, I have given the district office and I have given you the key elements. The deputy is nodding and acknowledging that she will look into it for me and she will get back to me.

Hon Mrs Akande: And not to say it for the second time, Mr Jackson, I have given you my response that we will give you that information and indeed we will.

Mr Jackson: I would like to --

The Vice-Chair: Three minutes.

Mr Jackson: Three minutes. Comments were made earlier about training and I may reserve those until this afternoon. There were comments about food banks, and I hope we are going to get into a discussion a little more fully.

Mrs McLeod: It is up to you.

Hon Mrs Akande: It is up to you.

Mr Jackson: It is up to me. Okay. The other one was this concept of housing. If I have only got a few moments left, let me just simply state a few concerns I have. I understand that the government has developed a rent control program which is to stop any further increases. I am taking exception to some of the inferences that you made that you are in fact helping the poor, when in fact you are helping Comsoc. I was delighted that you understood that you are helping Comsoc, so you can divert fewer shelter subsidy dollars that can go into direct income. The fact is that rent control as is now prescribed even under the government's Bill 4 -- SARC specifically has made recommendations which say that rent control does not work. The Thom commission has said rent control does not work to help the poor.

It strikes me that you are not that concerned about my constituents who spend six months of the year in Florida because there is a cap on their rent. It strikes me that your mandate is clearly that if a woman is receiving $1,200 or $1,000 a month in support, if her rent is capped at $800, it is still, by anybody's definition, unaffordable for her. So the solution lies in shelter supports. You are increasing your shelter supports at an alarming rate.

Given all of the evidence, the food bank report to the all-party committee, the Thom commission, SARC, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, most of all the antipoverty groups, that a Bill 4 type of rent control structure does not help the poor, how can you suggest, Minister, that Bill 4 is a solution for the poor when in fact the comprehensive income maintenance and a shelter subsidy affordability component is the solution?

Hon Mrs Akande: Let me say, first of all, that your question is posed a little bit like, "When did you stop beating your wife?" You presume a premise that I do not share. I believe that rent control is of assistance in that it puts some kind of a stop on the kind of escalation that was very, very common during the time of the campaign, where people felt and realized it in the cheques they had to write, that the cost of housing was way beyond their means and most of their cheque, if not all of it, went into paying their shelter cost.

When I say that has been the kind of thing that has been brought to me again and again by people at the food banks and others as taking up so much of the rent and being the reason for people to move to emergency initiatives, then I really feel that our addressing the shelter costs by increases is made less necessary if in fact the escalation of rents is somehow controlled. If that continues to grow, there will be more people who will have to use funds to pay their shelter costs and therefore more and more of the social assistance support will go to that direction.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Minister. May I just point out to the committee that we will start again promptly at 2 o'clock in order to be on time to complete the total eight hours and for the Treasury to start at 4 o'clock this afternoon. We would appreciate, if possible, having a quorum at 2 o'clock, when we will start with the NDP.

The committee recessed at 1218.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The committee resumed at 1403.

The Vice-Chair: Welcome to the afternoon and our last two hours for Community and Social Services. It is the turn of the government members of the committee for 15 minutes.

Mr Hansen: What has been the response, Minister, from the communities regarding your December $1-million food bank announcement, something I was touching on earlier? In my community we looked at it. What other communities are on the $1 million?

Hon Mrs Akande: In Kingston we have eight community kitchens for low-income families, in Niagara we have a community kitchen, in Hamilton we have FoodShare, and in Brantford we have a teaching homemaker program. There are other examples, but these are some examples of what types of programs out there have taken the funds, the $1 million. They were given certain criteria they had to adhere to. We had to be sure it was a fund that would reduce the dependency on food banks and seek to eliminate that, and it had to be therefore used in a way that was not initiating or perpetuating a use of food banks, because we had said specifically that the funds were to be used to reduce the dependency on food banks. These are examples of some of the projects they have taken on.

Mr Hansen: So my earlier question on the rural communities, this is being spread out on all of Niagara, then, distributed?

Hon Mrs Akande: That is right. We had to depend, too, on interested parties who took up -- you are talking about where the projects were --

Mr Hansen: Actually, the distribution of it.

Hon Mrs Akande: -- who took up that challenge. We did not go out and say, "Here, you take this $1 million." You remember there was considerable controversy at the time, because some of the food banks were saying, "We don't want the government to supply any funds to food banks," and others were saying, "We need some emergency money." So we had to be fairly sensitive to the fact that we could not go out and deliberately offer to individual food bank areas. We had to wait until they came to us, and that is what came to us.

Ms Haeck: I am very much interested in programs in the native area. Could you please let me know what the Ministry of Community and Social Services is doing to address the needs of native children in the province?

Hon Mrs Akande: I think it is important that we say this from the beginning, that there are three children's aid centres that are directly run by the native community. They do have to operate under the Child and Family Services Act, but nevertheless they are administered by that particular community. There is another community we are also looking at in terms of taking over the running of its own CAS centre. The three centres I referred to are run very much like ours. There is an attempt to assume some particular style or model that relates more to the way native Canadians would want to take care of their children. Certainly it is within the goals of this government that the natives assume a greater governance relative not only to the children's centres but to all of the issues of the social services.

The other thing I wanted to stress is that in the project that was announced, I guess it would be about two weeks ago now, Better Beginnings, Better Futures, there were two native Canadian centres that were sponsored and doing a project around that. That project, if you recall, was specifically focused on the integration of services for children. So there is quite an active part, and we are constantly in discussion with these groups in order for them to assume more and more responsibility for their services, not only children's services but also -- not because we are not willing to assume that responsibility but because there is definitely a feeling they have that it makes a difference if they serve their own. It makes a difference not only in the way they provide the service, but also there is a whole question of credibility because they themselves do provide that service.

Ms Haslam: Actually, I do a lot of research. We are spending a lot of money on the problems of children, and I am fully in support of that. I come from an educational background and I think that is very important. But we talked about this the other day: I think there is a continued stress on child protection and treatment services, not just a stress on the families but the stress it puts on the services we offer. We need to change this cycle and provide support before the children are referred. I know you talked about Better Beginnings, Better Futures, and that was part of the information we got, about getting them when they get into school or before they get into school, looking at day care and all of those things.

What I would like to know is maybe the direction your ministry is going in to prevent this situation and make sure we are getting to the families before they have to resort to these types of measures. Is there something ongoing that your ministry is looking at in that area?

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Hon Mrs Akande: Exactly two weeks after I was appointed to the ministry I met with the Minister of Education and the Minister of Health to talk about integrated services for children. I was a part of the advisory committee on children's services which was initiated by Mr Sweeney and later supervised by Mr Beer, and we had discussed at that time, and certainly I was a contributing member to, the philosophy that a better integration of children's services for all children would ensure that those children who after all did require exceptional services would be more likely to get services that would be more appropriately designed for their needs.

That meant we had to begin looking at redesigning the system with an interministerial base. The three of us met initially. That committee has, since that time, extended to include the Minister of Housing and the Minister of Tourism and Recreation and the minister responsible for francophone affairs. There is also a committee that operates or works for that committee at the staff level, the ADM level, and its focus is, again, to redesign the services.

Let me talk to you about the revision we have for the services. First of all, I have said they would be integrated in that they would not be allocated in relation to any particular ministry and categorized in that way -- health or education or recreation. All of us who know anything about children know they require a continuum of support, and because their problems are not lockstep. The certain thing about it is that they would be community-based in that the community would be involved in the design of the services and identifying what is necessary in seeing how it would like the services to operate. That is especially significant in that it means the services would look different in different parts of the province. What would be appropriate for a group here in the city might not be the same thing that is designed for some other group up north.

That is not to say it would be entirely left up to the community. There would be ministry input, there would be guidance, there would be a basic set of services that every centre must have, but nevertheless it would allow for their involvement in the design and in the responsiveness and how those services would operate. It would include not only child care but education and all of those services that are currently involved with children. The idea is to provide children with the kind of base which allows for their better achievements in the future and better development.

Mrs McLeod: We would like to turn to the area of children's services and continue have some questions in that area. First, looking at vote 802, item 5, which is child welfare services, I wanted to raise some issues related to children's aid societies. I believe the figure that is shown here, the 17.1% increase, includes the $8 million in additional funding that was provided through the foster care system?

Ms Stewart: The previous year.

Ms McLeod: The previous year. I wanted to ask whether the additional funds going into the foster care system has made a difference in the recruitment and retention of foster parents, and to get some sense of the foster parent situation in relationship to the number of children coming into foster care.

Ms Gibbons: I do not know the answer to that specifically, but coming through the door is Sue Herbert, and I will repeat the question for Sue Herbert. It is in relation to foster care, from Mrs McLeod, the moneys going into enriching the foster care system and whether that has made any difference in terms of the recruitment and retention of foster parents and whether there has been any change in the stability of children in that system.

Ms Herbert: I am Sue Herbert, the director of the operational co-ordination branch.

The foster care money that went in brought the average floor rate up to $14 per day. The preliminary evaluation results are just coming in now. What it looks to be is that the funds have stabilized the system. We are not seeing the rapid reduction in the number of foster parents. We are not seeing a growth either, so we appear to be in some position of stabilization.

The other part of that initiative also is testing out the new models of foster care, seeing different ways of supporting foster parents besides just a rate increase. The first results are due, Phil, when? This spring will see the first evaluation results of also the models to see whether different kinds of models also increase recruitment and also stabilize the rate of reduction of foster parents.

Mrs McLeod: You have seen increases in the numbers of children coming into foster care even beyond what was predicted; I think a fairly small increase was predicted. Obviously, one of my concerns here is whether the recession also has an impact on children coming into foster care.

Ms Herbert: Into the care of CASs generally, not just into foster care but into the care of societies, the rate has remained relatively stable. We have just had the preliminary data in from the provincial association at the end of December, and it is still to be verified. It is probably a little too early to answer the specific question about the recession.

Mrs McLeod: I just have two other questions on children's aid societies specifically and then will yield to my colleague for another question.

I am not sure enough of the funding system for children's aid societies -- I should probably have asked for briefing prior to coming into estimates on it -- but I hear of great ranges in the funding for children's aid societies from one area of the province to the other; without being able to fully account for these figures or know whether they are actual, I hear ranges as large as from $55 per capita in York region to as much as $400 per capita in the Kenora region, and I understand the funding is allocated on a population basis. I wonder if you could comment on the funding nature without going into too great detail but also whether this range exists and why it would exist.

Ms Gibbons: I will ask Sue after I take a quick run at it.

My memory on this is that much of the variance across the province exists historically, and over the years we have been trying to address that by allocating new initiative money on a per-child basis. The inequities in the system, I think, will always exist in terms of the basis that agencies start from, but we try to deal with it in an ongoing way by making sure that as new moneys become available they get assigned in the areas where a deficit occurs.

You may or may not remember back to about 10 years ago, when we did some real serious attempts at trying to realign budgets from one society to another. That led to very serious strains and howls in the system. I think you will be aware that once you give, it is hard to take away, and sometimes the best way to address it, when you are allocating new moneys, is to try and get some better balance in the system.

Ms Herbert: The only thing I would add is that when we are looking at unequal bases in the CASs I think the other piece we need to be looking at is what other funding for other children's services is going into a particular area. There will be variations in other support services for children that will impact on the amount of money that goes to a CAS for its services, to look at that larger picture of funding, the funding envelope of children in a particular area.

Mrs McLeod: So the funding envelope, if that is the appropriate term to use then, is a funding envelope for children's services in a region?

Ms Herbert: So that will have an impact on how much is going into a particular children's aid society. For example, in the north we may have children's aid societies which provide much broader services than just the protection service. So a mathematical number may not give you a picture of the full range of services they are providing for their community.

Mrs McLeod: Is there in fact, then, an objective set of criteria, as objective as it can be on which the funding envelopes for different regions would be determined.

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Ms Herbert: As the deputy said, depending a large part on history then, one tries over time to reallocate with new initiative money, and so, for example, in the north we try to recognize the special needs of the north -- the transportation, the geographic realities of serving the north -- by providing it with a 5% increase higher than the other regions would get.

Ms Gibbons: If I can add, the minister has suggested that we are taking a very close look at children's services generally both within the ministry and across ministries to see if there is a more efficient way to manage that. One of the projects within that look has to do with the whole funding of the child welfare and children's system.

Hon Mrs Akande: That whole issue about funding and the number of deficits that are reported and the fact of the timing, of when the various budgets are necessary, is something I have become very involved in and very aware of because of the number of letters, submissions and requests that I have had to clear up this particular difficulty. So it is something that is under study.

Mrs McLeod: My last question in this area -- and I recognize, Minister, that this is a situation you in fact inherited, but nevertheless it is one which continues to trouble all of us, I think, and I do want to raise it and ask for some comment -- is the issue generally of children's aid society budgets and the fact that I understand there were at least 12 child welfare reviews that were done over the past year. I am told that in virtually every case those reviews led to a conclusion that there was underfunding of what are mandatory services that the agencies were providing, and yet there has not really been redress of the budget situation. I would like you to comment on that, clarify, correct, if you would, please.

Ms Gibbons: It is not my understanding that the child welfare reviews deal with mandatory services, but rather deal with support in the kind of clerical ancillary supports to staff -- have I got that right? -- that are part of the response through the exceptional circumstance review and deal with what we will call non-mandatory services.

Mrs McLeod: Could I ask, is there a little bit of an either/or here? Again, recognize that I am not absolutely clear on the way in which the funding envelopes would work. But if the agency requires more and more of its budget for mandatory services, would that lead to a deficit on the support services side?

Ms Gibbons: The exceptional circumstance review process allows adjusting the agency's base budget in relation to the volume of service required in the mandatory area, in the child protection area. So when the society says, "We've had a tremendous increase of youngsters coming into care," that becomes part of an exceptional circumstance review. If they say, "In addition to the kids coming into care, we have some other kinds of non-mandatory services that we're providing," those are subject to a different review process. You would be right in saying that recently our response to that has been not to be able to fund as a budgetary limitation.

Mrs McLeod: But in all cases of exceptional services reviews, where those are found to be warranted, those funds are provided?

Ms Gibbons: Yes.

Ms Stewart: If I can just add to that, as an example in the current budget year, $11 million was added to base budgets for the exceptional circumstance reviews related to the mandatory services.

Mr McGuinty: Minister, Joanne Campbell, as I am sure you are aware, conducted a review of safeguards in children's residential programs. One of the problems she felt needed to be addressed arose out of the split jurisdiction between your ministry and the Ministry of Correctional Services. Would you be in favour of supporting the notion that your ministry have sole responsibility for those programs?

Hon Mrs Akande: Our cabinet has directed that an interministerial committee be initiated in order to look at that whole subject of where the responsibility should be placed, whether it should be solely placed in the Ministry of Community and Social Services, or shared as it is now, or moved. So we are at present studying that whole issue.

Mr McGuinty: I wonder if that study will also be incorporating a more general study of the Child and Family Services Act. I think it has now been six years since its proclamation. Has that been reviewed generally?

Hon Mrs Akande: Well, there are areas of it that are reviewed. When you look at the fact that this government has promised self-governance to native Canadians and you recognize that as they provide CAS services they are going to be under the act, you realize that we have then of course had to open up that whole issue and review it in relation not only to that initiative, but also in relation to several other things which now appear to be in conflict.

Mr McGuinty: I wonder if I could ask as well then a bit of a branch from that. How widespread is the practice of double staffing at night now in Young Offenders Act agencies?

Hon Mrs Akande: I was not aware really that the practice was that widespread at all. I know that there are 130 new staff added to the system to improve security and to ensure that two awake staff are on duty at night. There are some recommendations which we must respond to. But when you say double staffing, do you mean two staff or are you referring to it as an overlap, because --

Mr McGuinty: Two staff at the same time.

Hon Mrs Akande: -- the two expressions are used in duplicate form. What we must do is what is recommended and that is what we do adhere to in the province.

Mr McGuinty: I guess in terms of a percentage of the YOA residences, how many right now are operating with double staffing?

Hon Mrs Akande: I would say that all are operating with double staff.

Mr McGuinty: At night.

Hon Mrs Akande: Yes.

Mr Daigeler: Minister, about 10 days ago or so I received a letter from the president of the -- I think it is called the Parent Finders group in Ottawa-Carleton. That is a group that is looking at adoption disclosure. She sent me quite a long letter actually. I had not been that familiar with this question before and I found it rather interesting. She had a lot of concerns. I would just like to hear from you about some of them.

To start out with, she said that there is quite a backlog in terms of requests that have been made for adoption disclosure. I would just like to hear from you or from your staff how we are doing now with managing that backlog. When the legislation was finally implemented, I think there was quite a rush to get information and I think we are still struggling with that information request load. So my first question would be, how are we doing with that backlog? Are we managing?

Hon Mrs Akande: I must tell you that there is a backlog and that we have increased staff in order to address it. It had extended as long as a year. It has now been reduced to as little as six months. It is not as good as we would like it to be, but as you yourself have pointed out, when that whole door was opened there was a flood of response and the staff has been increased in order to work in that area.

Mr Daigeler: You expect then that that will be further reduced? Six months is still pretty significant.

Hon Mrs Akande: A long time.

Mr Daigeler: So do you expect that to be reduced in the next little while still?

Hon Mrs Akande: It certainly would be our intention that it be reduced. If it continues to flow as it is now, the likelihood is that there will be a reduction. There will be a more steady flow of the number of requests rather than what has happened initially.

Mr Daigeler Let me ask then a more general question.

The Vice-Chair: I think that is it, Mr Daigeler.

Mr Daigeler: That is it?

The Vice-Chair: Sorry.

Mr Daigeler: I will get back next round.

The Vice-Chair: Yes.

Mr Daigeler: I have a few more.

Mr Jackson: If I could return to food banks, I thought the government had been asked some questions about how much of the $1 million had been spent to date and how many applications were pending because, as I understand it, this fund lapses on 31 March. Can the deputy, if she has that available, give me those two figures? Failing that, can she get me the two figures?

Ms Gibbons: I do not have those two figures, Mr Jackson, but I can certainly get them to you.

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Mr Jackson: I have checked with a couple of area officers and I understand the uptake is not that strong. My only general comment would be that I do a lot of work with food banks, and my tracking of it is that we have to be careful not to imply that because someone has taken up the program, it means people are off the food banks. The cases that I am aware of are ones where they have been in a form of semi-collapse and other food banks have picked up their route, as it were, and that just as business consolidates in recessionary times we are finding that the voluntary sector with food banks is following suit.

In my own community of 121,000 people, we have four food bank distributions -- formal, informal, some legally registered, some not. We envisage in the short term that this will have to be consolidated in the name of efficiency. I am sure the minister has been briefed or is aware that conceptually at least it would appear that we are reducing the number of food banks, but in fact we are doing what is a logical reaction to the marketplace.

I could give specific examples, but I think it is fair to just leave food banks for the moment, if I could move then to children's aid societies. I would like to know from the deputy if she can tell. You have put on the record the $9 million in boost funding to the CASs. Can you tell me what your area offices have reported to you with respect to the accumulated deficits for CASs across the province? I have several I want to raise with you, but can you tell me --

Ms Gibbons: In specifics? Do you want specifics?

Mr Jackson: No. You know the quantum of CASs in this province. You know how many have reported to you. What is the total of their deficits, that have you been apprised of?

Ms Gibbons: I think the minister could respond to that.

Mr Jackson: That they are anticipating at this time, is a fair way of putting it.

Hon Mrs Akande: All right. In 1989, 22 CASs reported deficits totalling $3.7 million and 23 reported surpluses totalling $1.9 million.

Mr Jackson: Okay.

Hon Mrs Akande: That was as of 1989 and that is my current --

Mr Jackson: I would presume that you gave $9 million recently because you understood the crisis today --

Hon Mrs Akande: That is right.

Mr Jackson: -- not the crisis under the Liberals. I specifically asked if you were aware today of what the anticipated deficits were in the CASs. Another way of asking you the question is, when will your area offices report to you? Do they report monthly on budget progresses and, if they do not, why not? But I am assuming they must. You were able to determine they needed $9 million in October. What is the effect of that $9 million, because I am still seeing deficits?

Ms Gibbons: Let me just separate two things, Cam. I think the $9 million you are referring to may in fact be the dollars that we put into the children's aid societies to deal with the wage compensation issue.

Mr Jackson: Pay equity; okay, thank you.

Ms Gibbons: I think to the extent that the agencies were experiencing deficits as a result of salary problems, that would certainly help that particular issue. Whether I know at this moment what the deficits are for this year, as I explained to your colleague across the way, the process of arriving at an approved CAS budget is rather a cumbersome one.

Mr Jackson: Yes.

Ms Gibbons: It is not unusual that one would be well into the next year before one signs off completely what the compensation or budget due to the agency actually is. I do not have a figure at the moment -- Sue, you may have -- that says this is what the deficit picture is looking like, but we, in a yearly kind of a way, protect some funds to deal, as I said earlier, with exceptional circumstances, so that we can help address some of the stresses that are experienced at the local level based on volume.

Mr Jackson: And what size is that budget?

Ms Gibbons: It is about $9 million, Mr Jackson.

Ms Stewart: The amount for the current year, as we mentioned before, related to last year's deficits or last year's exceptional circumstance reviews, had been $11 million. At the moment we are just finalizing the material for the current year. In broad terms the numbers are at similar levels, but we have not finalized that package just yet.

Mr Jackson: Did the nine come out of the 11?

Ms Stewart: No, the nine --

Mr Jackson: The nine was new money?

Ms Stewart: The nine is in addition to, and it is actually to assist with the salary levels of staff in that system.

Ms Gibbons: It might be useful to let you know, Mr Jackson, that $12 million has gone into the children's aid societies for native services, $11 million for mandatory cases. That is the sort of exceptional circumstances.

Mr Jackson: I am familiar with that, Deputy, and I really have a series of questions, but I only have a limited amount of time left. The other two parties --

Ms Gibbons: We are trying to use it up for you.

Mr Jackson: I know you are trying to use it up for me, and be helpful to the other parties, okay? In that case, I wish on behalf of the Vice-Chair who is in the chair -- she has presented me with a recent task force report from Peel region where they are one of the luckier regions. They only have a $350,000 deficit, but they have a substantive report and I would like to give that to the minister for her examination because of the circumstances in Peel region and the concerns that they have.

It is a Fair Share for Peel Task Force Report and it is only one of the many who are experiencing difficulties even with the adjustments for the, I call it, bump funding, but we understand that is the necessary pay equity moneys, and I appreciate the minister receiving that.

My second document that I want to share is with respect to the Simcoe County Children's Aid Society. The minister is aware that the pressures for pay equity have resulted in most social service agencies doing some program cutting in order to make that up, and it was that basis predominantly that has forced all of us to respond to the need for bump funding.

With that understanding, I can differentiate when there is a loss of program because moneys have to be diverted to salary, but when there is a ministry directive to withdraw service, I take that as rather serious. I have a letter here from the children's aid society of Simcoe which was presented to me by my colleague, Al McLean, from Simcoe East, and it specifically refers to the fact that children's protective services at home, prevention programs, are being cut by your ministry, and in fact that subsection 15(3) of the Child and Family Services Act specifically indicates that it is the mandate for children's aid societies to provide this type of programming.

I quote from the letter: "Staff at the corporate level of the ministry have recently taken an administrative decision not to provide funds to children's aid societies to offer this kind of service, even though the legislation requires it of us."

The letter goes on to suggest that: "Few issues with respect to our services to children have disturbed us to the degree that this one does. The action taken by ministry staff is an ill-conceived and poorly thought out attempt to reduce the number of dollars being made available for children's services in Ontario. It pays little or no attention to the potential consequences for the children we are required to serve."

Now, are you familiar, Deputy, with the concerns being raised by this children's aid society and others and can you enlighten this committee as to why the directive not to continue the child -- I underscore the word "preventive" and it is in fact the entire emphasis that the government presented to the social development committee when we were studying the 10,000 children on waiting lists for children's mental health services in this province. Can you please reconcile the two positions taken by the government in this regard?

Ms Gibbons: I am afraid, Cam, that the information you have got before you, to the best of my knowledge, is completely inaccurate information, that somebody has misconstrued an attempt to clarify definitions of what falls within categories of services in the child welfare budgets and presumes some sort of nefarious plot to discontinue prevention.

Ms Herbert: I think that is it exactly. It was a definitional cleanup as part of our service planning process and there was never any intent to infer that we would not fund prevention services, but rather it was an attempt to be clear about what kinds of services children's aid societies were providing.

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Mr Jackson: On the basis of a clarification, I understand that there is a shift from Better Beginnings, Better Futures, to look at the school and to look at a community-based grouping of supports, but I am stating the obvious to suggest that the minister had precious few dollars to be distributed among eight school boards; whereas children's aid societies, which are currently providing the service, are providing it across this province, in every corner of this province.

I am not disputing the concept that you may be shifting emphasis, but it is abundantly clear that a larger number of children who had access to the program in one delivery system are now being led to believe -- and this letter goes on to explain that -- that if the school boards are to take it up, when can Simcoe county be considered for some of those dollars in order to replace the program? I am not arguing with you. I am simply saying we are moving from one definition of who should deliver the service to another, and this in itself presents a loss of service, even though it can be described as more efficient, more co-ordinated, more collegial, more co-operative. You can throw all those tags on it; it is just less accessible.

Hon Mrs Akande: I am pleased on the one hand that they have anticipated our good results and accepted our vision and planned for it.

Mr Jackson: Read the letter.

Hon Mrs Akande: I must say, though, that they have been presumptuous in jumping from one boat to the other before the other is afloat. We have always been committed and we continue to be committed to making sure that those services which support children and which support people are in place. We make our changes while that is going on, and when of course we are ready to make the shift it will be done smoothly. If people anticipate that change before in fact we are ready for it, the fault must lie with them.

Mr Jackson: No, Minister, quite the contrary. I am afraid you are not listening to the points that are being raised. You have children's aid societies in deficit positions. They cannot fund --

Hon Mrs Akande: And we do share their mandatory service. Any time they come to us --

Mr Jackson: Excuse me, Minister. I am trying to explain the thesis here that we have established in the last two years that there were program deficiencies by virtue of the fact of pay equity issues. We now are moving into a period where we are seeing the ministry advising that it may not be part of your mandate. So they are basically sending signals to children's aid societies that, "These are the kinds of areas that you can cut," and you can believe that in the field that is what is being interpreted. So that is the areas which are being cut.

As you proceed to your first budget, you will experience what no minister enjoys experiencing, and that is, do you cut service, do you go on bended knee to the Treasurer or do you just leave it alone and hope that the chips will fall where they may?

Ms Gibbons: It is important to know that this is a misunderstanding. The Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies acknowledges that it is a misunderstanding and it is agreeing to help communicate the correction message to its member agencies.

Mr Jackson: I still ask you to respond to the concept of a deficit. Are you telling me you have an $11-million emergency fund?

Ms Gibbons: It is not a deficit; it is an allowance that allows us to provide new resources when a society is experiencing volume increases that are beyond the expected.

Mr Jackson: So you have no plan for budget deficits, when we are hearing so many of them -- you have no plan to deal with those.

Ms Gibbons: There is a 17% increase to the children's aid societies budget year over year and we have just outlined for you the other enrichments that are available to the societies. It is not surprising that somebody's forecast of a budget can cause alarm, but not all forecasts of a deficit actually actualize in a deficit.

Mr Jackson: I understand. That is my time.

Mr Hansen: Getting back to Mr Sterling's comments this morning on Rideau Regional Centre there, I have been involved with the developmentally handicapped for over 25 years and I dealt with it with closet cases where people were hidden at one time, and then we got into the point of starting a group home, which I felt was very good at that time, and then getting into the public school system on the education of the developmentally handicapped. I felt that all the way along we have developed in stages and then we get into the community living. And this was all to deinstitutionalize a lot of people who were in Orillia particularly, down in our area, and I felt that we were getting ahead.

But it does concern me a little bit about Mr Sterling's comments there, exactly where all these people are going. From Orillia they were going to the group home and from there to community living and then out into the community. My question is, Minister, what kinds of support and assistance are given to these developmentally handicapped who leave institutions? Those are my ideas and what I can see, but if you could give me a little more information on that.

Hon Mrs Akande: I am just telling you that the ministry seeks to provide or to support the services that are provided for these people. Now that is true, whether it is done through community living -- I do not want to leave people with the impression that the only way that people can move from the large facilities to community living experience is through the Ontario Association for Community Living. They can be moving back to families. They can be moving out into the community to other than the Ontario Association for Community Living.

The government's focus is, are they moving into situations where they are going to have to have care, they are going to have services, whatever those services are that they require, and to what degree can they participate in that community? And to whatever degree they can, are there services and facilities out there that can engage them in that way?

What happens is that the government has responsibility for, I believe, 90 days after they leave, but we often extend our responsibility much beyond that to try to ensure that the placement is appropriate, that there are some changes -- if there are changes that need to be made, we are involved in making those changes, moving them to another placement if in fact the original placement is not suitable for whatever reasons, and sometimes assisting them to develop so that they move beyond that into group homes, depending on what their needs are and on what their level of dependency is.

There are adult protective service workers, who are workers who monitor their involvement. They are a type of more informal advocacy group. They do assist these people in their daily living activities.

But because they are adults, if they are adults, and because some of them are more able than others, they may choose to leave. And when they leave centres, as I say, we do have APSW workers, and where they go and their needs often determine whether or not they are attached to an APSW worker. I am concerned with that attachment being formalized.

Mr Hansen: Okay. There was a friend of mine who was hurt in an industrial accident and he was able to go back and live with his family in the end. I can see your explanation on that, but these are concerns that I have had that people in the community, as Mr Sterling said, have fallen through the cracks. But I did not really see that in my community.

Hon Mrs Akande: Yes. Our focus is on providing them services, but there is a difference, and legally they are adults, so we try to extend services where they are necessary, where they are identified. But if in fact that it is not something that we have found or the person has lost connections -- it happens relatively few times.

Ms Haeck: A situation that I know exists in my community and I have become aware of it at different times through the joys of being on the campaign trail: latchkey children. We all are concerned about the care or the attention that these children are getting, and one is always being caught betwixt and between the family and all the other things that are out there. What direction is the ministry going to address this group?

Hon Mrs Akande: Latchkey children are often of the age group that parents feel no longer requires child care, or at least especially if they have to strain in order to be able to afford child care. It is usually as the child gets a little older the parents say, "Well, fine. We can give them a key and they'll come home and they'll watch television until I get home two hours later." Of course, we all know the dangers in that. Even if we ignore the fact that under a certain age it is illegal -- and we will not ignore it -- there is a great danger in that.

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What the ministry has sought to do is establish relationships with education in terms of encouraging them to initiate after-school care programs. I know the school from which I came had an after-school and a before-school care program where parents paid a minimal sum for child care for those children, so they were not in fact going off to the homes and really being at risk. So there is an initiative there. There is certainly some funding allocated for that.

Ms Haeck: How widespread is this initiative?

Hon Mrs Akande: Well, it is never as widespread as you would like, because certainly we try to encourage the development of these programs across the province, but between 1987 and 1990 the number of school-age children in licensed care increased by 58%, from 11,400 to 19,400. They make up 50% of the children served, and that child care basis is also that after-school care and that includes that number.

Ms Haslam: Sticking with children, I know that you went to Ottawa -- Commons committee on child poverty, I believe it was.

Hon Mrs Akande: Yes.

Ms Haslam: We have been talking today about a lot of different -- and I keep coming back to children and coming back to poverty, because it is a theme that I feel is very important in the Ministry of Community and Social Services and I would like to make a mention here too that I believe poverty affects women. It is not just children but it is women and single-parent families and it is a concern of mine.

I would like to know whether you could give us a comprehensive view of this. You are talking about different programs to deal with poverty. Do you have some elements of a comprehensive attack on child poverty?

Hon Mrs Akande: One of the things I think that is desperately needed -- and I will be heard to say this frequently -- is a children's benefit. It would solve a lot of situations if in fact we could encourage the federal government to be responsible for that children's benefit. We recognize that the children's benefit is implemented by a province or assumed as this province's responsibility. It becomes a very attractive invitation for many who seek that kind of support for their own family. Certainly, it would alleviate the situations that occur in terms of child poverty today, but there are many fronts on which this must be fought.

I have to agree with you that very often a single-parent family is headed by a woman and it is a situation that has to be fought, not only by this ministry. If we are going to create work or create a climate in which work exists, we have to make sure that those are good jobs, not just low-paying service jobs. Certainly pay equity enters into that situation by evaluating jobs in a way which makes them better paid for women. But it is important that we create good and long-standing jobs, because as it is now, women who exist in the service sector are the first ones to go whenever there is a situation that requires cutbacks.

We have to reform the tax system to recognize the cost of raising children. Perhaps it is just my perception of it, but you people seem to understand that the costs of raising children certainly are not accounted for in the benefits that are given when people are paid the GST and are given the small sum of money. I do not know how they exist when that return is given them. I do not know if anyone has ever gone, you know, into stores and realized what the cost of raising children is, because it certainly is not reflected in the kinds of credits that they have for children.

We have to have situations that certainly emphasize income security, so that if we are talking about income security, we are talking not only about good-paying jobs but we are talking about those kinds of things which ensure that women are going to have their jobs. If in fact they are going to have maternity leave, it has to be extended in such a way that they are going to have support while they have it and then feel comfortable to return to jobs, rather than having a situation where a leave over a certain period means that in fact that their jobs would be lost.

And last and certainly not least, because I could go on and on and on and I know that is not the desired thing, child care is extremely important -- good, affordable child care that focuses on a continuum of the parent's role, that begins or continues child development, rather than one that says, "We'll keep him from getting hurt and we'll keep him fed and you continue his child development when you get home."

Ms Haslam: I would like to just switch over to the child care and go a little further, and this is perhaps a question that your staff can answer. I came across a case where there was a young woman with rapidly advancing cancer and she needed day care for her young child and she would have to go on a six-month waiting list. Is there an emergency response situation that could deal with a case like this?

Hon Mrs Akande: The emergency response would most commonly come through our social assistance, but whether the child care response would be that immediate, I will turn that over to you.

Ms Gibbons: Yes. I would suspect that if there was -- I do not know what municipality is involved.

Ms Haslam: My legislative assistant happened to do some reading and knows about cases and she said, "You know, that -- " Is there an emergency situation, is there an emergency response?

Ms Gibbons: Most municipalities have their own way of assigning subsidies to individuals, but I have some confidence that were the municipality involved to be made aware that this is sort of a life-and-death situation, that accommodation could be made through the area office, either through the municipality or through one of the nonprofit organizations. But it would be important that you let us know who the particular individual is, so that we can see if we can help.

Mr Jackson: And home support.

Ms Gibbons: And home support.

Mr Daigeler: Now that I am back in the rotation, I would like to continue with that earlier question that I had regarding adoption disclosure, and I can understand that you cannot remember all the questions. Adoption disclosure, we are back to that.

The president of the Parent Finders group in Ottawa who wrote to me complained bitterly about the process that is in place. Even though there have been changes made, she was not satisfied, I think, with these changes and would like to go further. In particular, she is requesting that adoptees can see their original birth certificate. Perhaps that is sort of the ultimate request, I guess.

I am wondering your own view and your government's view on this whole question of adoption disclosure. Are you planning to move further in opening up the process or are you satisfied that with the legislation we are basically where we can be, or is this not a priority for you?

Hon Mrs Akande: Let me tell you frankly that I was not aware that, other than the backup, the waiting list in terms of people having their cases looked at with adoption disclosure, there was a real problem about this. There is nothing that I have received in terms of letters or phone calls or concerns that speak to people being discontented with the process that is in place now. So as of now I had no real concern about it so that I would be interested in hearing further.

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Mr Daigeler: I certainly will share a copy of the three-page letter that the presidents -- I was not that familiar either, but I am sure the government must have received representation from different groups that represent adoptees in this province. I am sure they would have been lobbying the government before. Perhaps your deputy minister might want to respond to that, where in fact the previous government was with that.

Ms Gibbons: We have processes in place that reflect the policy of the day around who can and cannot access information about their original parents. It is my sense that no matter what policy one enacts in this area, you are going to get some group not quite happy with it because it will feel either too exposed or underassisted. I would be pleased, as the minister would be, to receive the specific, to see if there is something that could be done around the specific, if it just reflects the service as opposed to a policy decision. It is my understanding that adoptees can access their birth certificates with the agreement of the original parent.

Mr Daigeler: They can access information as to who their birth parents were, but apparently they cannot get a copy of their original birth certificate. This is the letter that was sent to me and again I will be sharing with you a copy of that letter.

Hon Mrs Akande: I appreciate that.

Mr Daigeler: It addresses, I think, the general policy questions. What she is really asking for, and presumably you will be getting more letters like that, is a further opening up, a significant opening up of the adoption disclosure process.

Mrs McLeod: I would like to look again at the issue of children's mental health services. I am having a little bit of difficulty focusing it in terms of the estimates book because it seems to divide itself in a number of places between family and children, family intervention and child treatment centres. I assume those two budget items include what we formally refer to as children's mental health centres, and the other budget item refers to family counselling agencies and a variety of other programs which essentially are providing similar services.

Ms Gibbons: Child welfare and family intervention.

Mrs McLeod: So it would be just as a request for a future budget, if you are looking at the way the estimates were presented. It will be helpful to find a way of being able to identify the range of services that are provided to children and families under those budget lines so we have some sense of how to focus our questions.

Let me ask specifically about the report that Craig Shields is doing, which we did reference in our social development committee. We are wondering whether or not that report is imminent and whether or not it will be dealing only with the waiting list for what you firmly designate as children's mental health centres and, therefore, treatment.

Ms Gibbons: Part of the process, Lyn, that we went into had as one of the conditions that the survey and the people contacted in the survey would have the opportunity to review the findings before the study was published. We are in the process now of having Craig take his analysis back to them to see if it fits with the input that he provided them. Once that is done, then the study can be available.

Mrs McLeod: And it will deal just with waiting lists for children's mental health centres, formally designated as such?

Ms Gibbons: My answer is it will deal with the issue of whether community agencies and area offices are satisfied with the processes locally for dealing with children at risk.

Mrs McLeod: That is much broader and would certainly address the concern I was wanting to raise. I have absolutely no need to challenge the differential figures that go into child and family intervention services and child treatment services -- I suspect that both could use considerably more resources -- other than to just recognize that -- I believe our social development committee suggested that there was a tremendous need still to be addressed in both of those areas.

Certainly, we are familiar with the waiting list in the children's mental health centres, but I think, if other communities are similar to mine, that, for example, the number of families dealing with sexual abuse cases within the family coming to family counselling centres and the availability of trained staff to deal with it all are continuing concerns. Other than to look forward to a report as broad as it sounds as if Craig Shields will do, I will not pursue that area further today.

Another question on page 77 in relationship to young offenders' services: There may be a very clear explanation for this that I should be familiar with and am not, but I was struck under the total days of care, by the almost continuous increase, except for 1987 to 1988, in the numbers of days of care in both open custody and secure custody. I am wondering whether there can be some explanation given for that.

Ms Gibbons: My explanation would be two things. The new Young Offenders Act is having a progressive impact on the decision-making at the court level. We have seen an ongoing rise in the number of youngsters being admitted to open and secure detention and custody and have just recently tried to access some funds to help us beef up that system. We also anticipate that, as a result of the Askov decision, we may see even more coming into the system.

If one were to ask the question, "Why do you think the judges are doing that?" it would be my guess that it is in response to fears expressed at the community level about violence and increased delinquent behaviour and that judges are reacting to that as a phenomenon and trying to balance the protection of the community with the care and treatment of the child.

Mrs McLeod: Does the ministry track recidivism rates for young offenders? Do you have a sense of how many young people come back into care on a repeated basis?

Ms Gibbons: We do track that. I do not have that figure right with me, but I can certainly get to you, Lyn, with what our recent experience is of that, unless, Sue, you know at the moment. Do you know?

Ms Herbert: No, I do not know at the moment. At this point, we are matching our side. I am Sue Herbert, director of operational co-ordination. Lyn, we have the figures for recidivism within our own system, within the Child and Family Services Act and the Young Offenders Act, and we are trying to match those figures with the figures of the Ministry of Correctional Services for children who may be recidivist, into phase 2 of the Young Offenders Act. We are matching those figures and we can get you what we have at this point in time.

Mrs McLeod: That would be of great interest. I am not sure whether another figure might be available in terms of numbers of days of care -- because the figure that is here is total days of care in the system -- whether the average number of days of care for a particular individual is changing.

Ms Gibbons: Grouping of children.

Mrs McLeod: If I could just leave one other question before I yield the floor, on the capital side again -- and I would like to keep returning to capital budgets -- on the children's services side on page 62, is it possible to provide us with some information as to the numbers of projects that are waiting and the cost of proposals? I ask this with some hesitation again. I am really just looking to try to get a sense of the buildup of need in the system.

Ms Gibbons: So you are looking for the number of proposals that might be on the capital plan in the five-year sense?

Mrs McLeod: Yes, with children's services and, if it is possible, the approximate cost of those proposals. At some point I would be interested in knowing how the costs are controlled on capital.

Ms Gibbons: Yes, we can get that.

Hon Mrs Akande: We will get back to you with that.

Mr McGuinty: Minister, I want to have you address the foster parent program. Based on the limited reading I have done, so I cannot pretend that this is an intelligent opinion, but based on that limited reading, it seems to me that the viability of that program is at risk. It also appears that the thinkers in this field are arguing that the foster parent program is no longer or ought to no longer be considered an integral part of the child care service program in particular, because of a change in demographics. We are dealing with more and more families where both parents are working. Given the relatively low rates that are paid, do you intend to encourage the program, to foster the foster parent program in any way and, if so, how?

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Hon Mrs Akande: Really, it is an interesting point that you have raised about the program no longer being viable, because one of the things that I questioned on my arrival, on going through the multitude of briefings, was why we still have this. The question always comes down to the needs of children that we do not seem to be able to address in the particular cases in any other way. Certainly it is a piece of what we are looking at in the total picture, how that program might be better, how those children might be better served. As it sits right now, it is there and it is being studied and I have questions about it too.

Mrs McLeod: Are we going right till 4 o'clock?

The Vice-Chair: Yes. What we are down to, in order that it is equal, is 18 minutes each and you started at 3 o'clock.

Mrs McLeod: So we are continuing and this will be our last rotation.

The Vice-Chair: That is right.

Mrs McLeod: I had it figured out that we had another rotation so I am glad that I checked with you to try to prioritize our questions then within the next five minutes. We will move from children's services and try and table with you a number of other questions in other areas.

One thing is the area of developmental services, coming back to the question of community support for those who are being moved out of institutions as well as for those who are already in the community. I do feel, because this becomes part of the record, that it is important for one of us to say in response to some of the comments made by Mr Sterling that, if you pursue the question of what happens with those who have moved from institutions into community-based settings where the support provided is good support, the behavioral changes in the individuals are really quite remarkable.

I think that we must never be limited in our sense of what an individual can achieve, provided that support is given. That has always been our position in raising this issue with you even during the period of the hold, that we would not back away from the commitment to moving people into a supported community setting, but we agreed that there needs to be adequate community support.

With that in mind and without using any more of my time, I have a question that I would like to have addressed now or at a future point. It is very difficult for me to sort out from the two areas of the budget where they seem to be addressed the financial support that is given for sheltered workshops and what I suppose might loosely be called a support to employment or support of living program delivered in a non-sheltered workshop setting. I would be interested in being able to get a breakdown of that figure and some sense of whether there is a growth in the non-sheltered workshop side. Perhaps on a future occasion we could discuss the future role of sheltered workshops and whether they are seen as being still the preferred supportive setting for people.

Hon Mrs Akande: I believe Ms Stewart can certainly give you the actual breakdown right now.

Ms Stewart: On page 93 there is an attempt to break down the specific support for sheltered workshops as opposed to things like the life skills types of programs that will assist people with daily living skills, protective services the minister mentioned previously, the kind of APSW support and other supportive services. You will note the growth in expenditures in those areas. A number of the larger increases in both the sheltered workshop areas and the supportive service areas relate to a combination of the multi-year plan, additional services to people in the community, and as well, some additional funding to raise the salaries of the workers in the supportive areas.

Mrs McLeod: I appreciate that and I guess the specific line that I was missing was the actual support to employment in the non-sheltered workshop as a separate line. I realize that would not be the way the budget is structured, but it was difficult to isolate that and make that comparison.

Since you are on page 93, in the support services line, does that include special services at home that are provided? I understand that program was extended, I know not necessarily financially, but in terms of the number of people covered and I understand that there was concern about funding of the program even before the expansion. There is not time to respond fully, but I would want to raise concerns about issues of family cost-sharing, whether that had increased, whether the hours are being restricted and whether the waiting list for special services at home programs are building.

Hon Mrs Akande: Do you want to give me those questions?

Mrs McLeod: I will. Thank you very much.

I think I have time to get one more question at least on the table. Totally unrelated to this specific area, I would be interested in knowing what the constraint was that the ministry was asked to absorb in this past budget year and where we would see that constraint absorbed.

Ms Gibbons: The constraint in the past budget year?

Mrs McLeod: In 1991.

Ms Gibbons: I will do this from the top of my head, Barbara, and you can get the right page. The constraint that we have undertaken this year was in the order of $100 million. It was taken in three different ways. First of all, we tried to look at the programs that we were initiating in the year, to make a projection about startup dates and on the basis of the startup dates offer some cash flow up towards the constraints. So, in that process, we did not eat into the funds available year after year. In other areas we undertook some actual program cuts, and in a third area we looked at some strategies to increase our revenue from the federal government. In its ballpark sense, we have roughly delays in the $40 million annualized; in the program reductions, $34 million, and in the revenue generating, $21 million.

Mrs McLeod: Thank you very much. I think that expends our time, Madam Chairman.

The Vice-Chair: You have a minute, but we will --

Mrs McLeod: Do we really?

The Vice-Chair: Yes, we are very precise.

Mr Jackson: Which means you have 45 seconds left.

Mrs McLeod: Having prioritized my questions, I was going to leave the one that I thought was almost impossible to answer. It may in fact be impossible to answer and may necessitate a more thorough briefing at another time. But I want to come back to the issue of the regional allocations, the envelope approach that our colleague Mr Jackson has raised, and the extent to which this results in very different program priorities in different regions, how discretionary that is in the regions.

If I could relate it back specifically to the children's aid society question, if there is that range historically of difference in the per capita funding for child welfare, does that mean that that particular region or area is having to cut back on children's services in some other area of children's service delivery?

Hon Mrs Akande: But the fact that the mandatory areas will be picked up and that we will be providing funds there, it has to be said because of the confusion that seemed to arise previously that that is not an area where we expect or encourage any cuts at all. So that, you know, has to be clarified. But certainly the re-establishment of priorities in terms of those -- I am aware of it because, as I say, it has become such an important problem now that we are looking at ways in which it might be alleviated.

Mrs McLeod: I would hope that the way in which the funding is provided does not force areas into choosing between meeting their costs of child welfare or providing adolescent crisis intervention, just as an example.

Hon Mrs Akande: No.

Mr Jackson: Maybe I can build a bit on that. First of all, I want to thank Mrs McLeod for asking her second final question. It was the one I always finish my estimates on, but thank you for getting the question on the record.

Earlier today the deputy referred to the $56 million allocated for long-term care initiatives and $30 million was Comsoc, the balance Health. We may have been left with the impression that this is $30 million that is all going into program and there was a specific reference by the minister. I really would like to know how much of that is for startup, paying for their rent and buying desks and computers and salaries of all of the staff. I have had occasion to meet with some of those people to discuss that. I am trying to just differentiate between what are new moneys that will find their way into program and those that are associated with startup.

Ms Gibbons: It is all new money, but it is not unusual that new money would go in the first round to facilitate some startup costs, and it would be annualized later into the ongoing budget of the organization.

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Mr Jackson: Okay. I know we have the Lightman commission, a one-man commission, looking at issues of advocacy. The minister would be aware that nursing homes have a bill of rights. During the minority government, when all three political parties were on an equal footing, we did major amendments to the Nursing Homes Act. At that time I tabled a resolution that would have extended the bill of rights to homes for the aged. At the time the NDP and the Liberals voted against my recommendations to extend that. I wonder if the minister would be able to put on record if she would support a similar type of bill of rights for long-term care citizens in provincial institutions.

Hon Mrs Akande: At this point, what I see as advocacy initiatives certainly seem to take care of that particular aspect. Before I would be able to judge that, certainly I would think we would have to have the experience of our advocacy office; in turn, I would think the monitoring procedures of the ministry itself would meet with the advocacy and ensure that any other process or bill might not be necessary. I have not seen the bill, though. I must say I have not seen it.

Mr Jackson: I know. I am trying to establish the notion that, if it is a matter of chance that a frail elderly ends up in a nursing home over a home for the aged, it strikes me as odd in Ontario today to have a bill of rights protecting them should Martha be put in a nursing home instead of the fact that Mary went into a home for the aged. You are familiar not only with my point but also the two very famous ladies.

Interjection: The Bible.

Mr Jackson: I know the deputy is. If I could proceed. Minister, in your opening statements you referenced the $700-million anti-inflation new moneys the Treasurer announced and your Premier announced in the throne speech. I guess I am fascinated by the growing list of ministers who have a piece of this action. Could you be specific, or could the deputy tell us just how much of the $700 million the Treasurer is allowing you to work with?

Hon Mrs Akande: I do not think that figure has been passed.

Ms Gibbons: That figure has not been finalized yet, and I anticipate we will hear about that shortly.

Mr Jackson: That explains why there are so many ministers who all have a piece of it.

Ms Gibbons: Yes.

Mr Jackson: The next part of my question, then, was that in your statement you made specific reference to types of projects. I want to ask you at what stage are you examining projects if you are not aware of how much money you have to play with?

Hon Mrs Akande: We do have a sense of how much we have to play with. I am not at liberty at this point to announce it to you. It is a certain sum and growing and it will continue to grow as long as I can lobby for growth --

Mr Jackson: All right. I am sorry, but you have answered my question. If I can proceed, because I only have a few moments left.

I want to be very specific about those projects that have been budgeted for by a previous government that can quickly move into a category and be used as something new. I will give you a case in point. When the oppressive greater Toronto area tax was put on in the community of Burlington, we were told that these extra taxes my citizens were paying were going to go towards growth-related projects. We had a major highway project which was approved by the Liberals, announced by the Liberals and then got cancelled. It resurfaced a year later under the guise of, "Well, we have this new program, new taxes."

What I am really getting to, the point was that I do not wish to see projects such as the Halton Centennial Manor redevelopment plan, which has the ministry approval but has not received its money -- I would hate to think, in its worst cynical approach, that somehow these projects would resurface and be re-categorized as some sort of inflation-fighter package from that Mighty Mouse of men, our Treasurer. Could I ask what assurances we have that we are not going to be playing that game, even though we know previous other governments have played the game?

Hon Mrs Akande: What you do know is that if the ministry had not sufficient funds to fund programs that had ministry approval at a prior date, now that we have money we are committed to funding those programs. I would expect, Mr Jackson, that your interest in seeing that Burlington has the facilities it requires would supersede your interest in where the money came from.

Mr Jackson: Actually, if you wish to reference Burlington -- I am talking about Halton Centre -- I am presuming you are not going to fund us our Burlington location. We have lost 200 beds in Halton region. I do not want you to redefine something the Liberals promised us three years ago; the fire marshall and everybody else has told us those people are living at risk and in contravention of the laws of this province and they have been for the last four years. I just do not want that to resurface, that is all.

Hon Mrs Akande: As it was promised three years ago, perhaps the deputy, who was there at least two years ago --

Ms Gibbons: I think, without equivocation, the money associated with the $700 million is new money. It would be possible for Centennial Manor, whichever one it is, to be moved over to the $700 million, but that would only free up money that would then allow us to address another project on our capital list; and we would only move it over if it fit within the criteria, so you had to get it done within the year. If we can find a way to expand our budget by using the $700 million, that will happen, but this is incremental money.

Mr Jackson: My grandfather taught me that trick, but he used half shells and a pea.

Ms Gibbons: He was probably in show business, not a bureaucrat.

Mr Jackson: The very best showmen become bureaucrats, you know that. My next question has to do with an item I raised in my preamble, and that was the gap in the speech and language therapy for three- to five-year-olds. I referenced that in my statement; I am sure, deputy, you are aware of it. In 1987 Minister Sweeney acknowledged that there was a gap and he was looking into it. In 1988 then Assistant Deputy Mendelson stated he was looking into the issue. In 1989 ADM Ennis stated it was under review. In 1990 we were told, "We're still looking at it." Meanwhile, the children and the families I talk to in the Down syndrome association and the Ontario Association for Community Living are still asking: "Where does this government stand? We want to know what names we should be putting in, the groups who are still studying it."

Hon Mrs Akande: This is one of those issues I have inherited. I must tell you briefly that I was on the other side of this fight a few months ago, and here I sit answering to the other side. There is a shortage of speech and language pathologists in Ontario and this has certainly contributed to the long waiting lists. It is a matter of who owns the problem. Is it Education's, is it Health's or is it ours? It is one of the indicators that we certainly do need an integrated system; it certainly speaks to that. Yes, we are trying to not study but now do something about the problem, that is, that in our discussions on that interministerial base we are deciding who will take responsibility until that interministerial base is in place.

Mr Jackson: My very short question, because I know Mrs Marland has a question in the remaining time we have -- we are going to change places.

Hon Mrs Akande: This is the pea trick you were talking about.

Mr Jackson: Yes, something like that. Earlier there was reference to the additional staffing for security in institutions, and we do not wish to leave the impression that all residential facilities have access to this kind of funding to ensure staff levels for safety. In fact, we have had two women murdered in transition homes in this province in the last two years, one a staff member and one a resident, and they are not getting anywhere with respect to discussions for the staffing. The other example is the Krista Sepp example, because not all those institutions to which she was attached have received that funding. In fact, it was other institutions which Mr Sweeney announced. Can you please tell this committee what kind of priority you have put on this issue of team staffing to ensure safety in particular cases that are super-sensitive to violence, and I would include transition homes in that category, very clearly.

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Hon Mrs Akande: Certainly in the homes we have put a very top priority on it. You know the report has come out. When I was responding to your question, I am sorry, I did not mean to imply that it took into account all the homes, but I know it should and we have put a priority in terms of funding for that staffing so those kinds of crises will not happen again. It is a situation we responded to. Unfortunately, it was not responded to quickly enough, but certainly it is a priority and we are focusing on getting that double staffing in place in all of those situations.

Ms Gibbons: Just to correct the record, it is my understanding that this staff did in fact go to the facilities like the Krista Sepp facility.

The Chair: No, they did not.

Ms Gibbons: No? I thought they ran a young offender --

Ms Herbert: If the facility had over 50% of its children there through the young offender system, it received funding for double night staffing. So there would be some children's mental health centres which do not serve young offenders which would not receive double night staffing.

Hon Mrs Akande: But there is an instrument in place now, is there not, to predict or to attempt to predict those youths who are in fact high risk? In those particular cases, there would be double staff.

Ms Herbert: Yes.

Mrs Marland: Minister, this afternoon you have been presented with the report from the Fair Share for Peel task force entitled Redressing the Chronic Underfunding of Social Services for Children, Youth and Families in Peel. I am going to, in a moment, give you an example of one of those families. Having just received this report -- it may even be in the mail at the office as well -- I do not expect you to be able to answer this report, but I do want to place on the record the report. A concern in Peel -- I know it is a widespread concern, and some of that has come out in the questions yesterday and today -- is that in Peel the per capita allocation for children's services is less than $94 and the average in Ontario is $223.82, which is relevant, I think, in some of the questions of Mrs McLeod for the Liberal Party.

When you start to read what it is that this Fair Share for Peel task force is talking about, and bear in mind that the task force itself is made up of the Children's Aid Society, Family Services of Peel, Peel Children's Centre, the Social Planning Council of Peel and the United Way of Peel, you know that those are people who are totally committed and non-partisan and unbiased about the needs of the people they are serving. In fact, minister, all the MPPs in Peel are requesting a meeting with you to discuss this report on a non-partisan basis, because we are from all different parties.

I think it is important to recognize that what we are talking about in Peel is a waiting list of 160 children for residential and non-residential treatment services, and the wait is approximately 14 months. The other thing is that of those 160 children, 38% have extreme need, and even in the extreme need it is four to five months. What is very critical in Peel is that there are no crisis intervention services available at all, and the Peel Children's Centre itself has not been able to fully utilize its 28 residential treatment beds because of a serious staffing shortage. Here is a situation where we have the beds and we cannot even use them.

It would be wonderfully refreshing if your government could develop a formula where there is a recognition for inner-city core problems in a high-growth area like Peel. Peel is over 800,000 people. Its growth rate per year is more than the average small town in Peel. We grow more than 20,000 people a year in Peel in population. We do not have any recognition for the intensity of that growth and the truly inner-city core problems which are in old, established inner-city situations such as in Metropolitan Toronto.

The one example I wanted to give you is about a young person called Gregory who lives in Mississauga. He was identified in January 1989 by their special placements advisory committee as needing a placement outside of his home on a residential basis. This Gregory cannot walk, speak or feed himself He is in diapers and he is 10 years of age. He is an actual case, but it is only an example of 40 or so that Community Living Mississauga has on its waiting list. Once that child or young person has been identified -- I think what is particularly relevant in this case is that this young person is 10 years old, this child is 10 years old and the family has never sought any government help for 10 years. The only reason they are at that point now is because he is 10 and physically he is too demanding for the family to cope with, even to lift him.

It is two years since the case was identified and the need and the remedy was identified. What from your ministry, now that you are the new minister, can I tell those parents and similar parents in Community Living Mississauga who face the same -- it is an unbelievable challenge. In terms of human priorities, I hope you will be able to set priorities in terms of human need.

Hon Mrs Akande: I want to thank you for bringing me this report. I had not seen it before. If it has been mailed to me, it has not reached me yet. Certainly I will read it and address the general concerns you state here. Concerning the specific example you have given of Gregory, there is a program, the special services at home program, which will provide respite to parents. There are some other programs. I know you have only outlined Gregory. There are probably more specific needs his family has, and if later I could give you the area office person to get in touch with, or Sue Herbert would direct that, there will be programs that respond directly to him.

I recognize you are saying that Gregory is but an example and that there are many others. I realize that. Not to make it sound trivial a! all, but it is like the James Taylor song: that is why I am here, and for no other reason. Certainly we will address these. There will be changes well within whatever the budget can be stretched -- whatever elasticity can be developed within the budget to address children's needs, I will do it.

Mr Hope: As I was leafing through the report and listening to some of your comments, first, I have to commend the minister for her knowledge on the book that is before us today. As the reference was made to Mighty Mouse, I would have to make reference to King George and the sheriff of Nottingham; as we look at our federal government I am waiting to find out when Robin Hood is going to appear.

Ms Haslam: King John. We told him it was John.

Mr Hope: As I look at page 28 of the text in front of us -- I am giving you time to refer to this. I am not sure who to refer the question to, whether it be to the minister or the deputy, but there are two key important issues I have to look at and when I start looking at percentage increase then I start to open my eyes when I notice it is of that magnitude of 130.7% for transportation and communications and 169.5% for supplies and equipment.

As we go through this, we never see any percentages that high throughout this whole book. My question would be to either the minister or the deputy, whoever would feel comfortable. There is a group out there that is very concerned about the creditability of this government, making sure that we are fiscally responsible, as the major tax revolters throughout the areas of this province, paying attention to both the municipal and provincial. Some of them forget about the federal. But dealing with the provincial government is my obligation also, to make sure that we have a true sense of making sure that we are fiscally responsible for our actions. I would like to pose the question, why is it such a high increase in those two areas?

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Hon Mrs Akande: You are talking about the 130.7%, Mr Hope?

Mr Hope: The 130% and 169.5% in the two areas, transportation and communications, and also supply and equipment.

Hon Mrs Akande: It is an error actually, but Ms Stewart will explain exactly where the error has come.

Mr Hope: Good.

Hon Mrs Akande: And your office drawer will be locked.

Ms Gibbons: The air is out of your tires.

Ms Stewart: I do appreciate the opportunity, Mr Hope, to grovel in humility, but indeed we have made an error in the book. These percentage increases, and you will see in between them the percentage decrease of some 60%, do not reflect the actual budget plans of the ministry. This is an error. I will point out, however, that some of those three items, some of which are showing very large percentage increases and one which shows a very small, actually a negative increase, reflect overall about a 4% increase in that whole group of expenditures, and as well some specific projects related to supports to employment program and to the electronic funds transfer, a pilot which we are trying to undertake in the income maintenance area. By and large, the figures indeed prove that sometimes we too are wrong.

Ms Gibbons: Why do you not move over here, Randy?

Mr Hope: Well, I have an obligation. That is why we were elected here. The people are looking for a responsible government, fiscally responsible, as they have indicated in the past that previous governments have not been fiscally responsible. If you are stating that it is an error, and I believe these are public documents, is that error going to be corrected?

Hon Mrs Akande: It shall be corrected. The parliamentary assistant is going to sit and redo every one of them.

Ms Haslam: That is right.

Hon Mrs Akande: That is going to be your job tonight.

Just to be clear, Randy, I do not believe that we can correct this at this point but the correction will be reflected in next year's book.

The Chair: To state the obvious, it has now been corrected for purposes of Hansard and forms part of the discussions surrounding that which we will approve.

Ms Haslam: I have two or three different questions. One deals with your speech on page 18. The other one I am going to be dealing with in the audit book on page 92, in particular some of the new program directions including the programming. In that particular area, I am going to dealing with something in my own riding.

In your opening speech yesterday, it said, "Over the coming weeks and months, we shall sponsor a number of forums for consumers, families, advocates, workers, union representatives and leading experts in the field of services for people with developmental handicaps." I wanted to know a little more about it. Is that set in place? Is there a schedule? Is it public? How do we find out? How do we access that? How do we take part in it?

Hon Mrs Akande: Certainly they will be announced in various communities. Let me tell you what we have done to this point.

We have got in touch with some of the larger associations that are focused around developmental handicaps. For example, People First, the Ontario Association for Children with Learning Disabilities, various groups that are focused around serving that population. We will also be dealing with the families. Many of the facilities have parents' groups and we are going to use that system to also get in touch with many of those parents' groups and so on.

The forums will be published. You will know in various areas where those forums are, but we do not want to initiate a system which will have a negative reaction on the multi-year plan, so it is not going to be done in a way that allows for other than a fruitful discussion.

Ms Haslam: You talked about large centres. In other words, they are going to be centred in large areas, not in any of the outlying areas?

Hon Mrs Akande: Yes, they will be in outlying areas too, but I am talking about centres where people in the area have access to that facility. That is what I meant by "large."

Ms Haslam: How will we find out? Will it be in newspapers? Will there be letters going out?

Hon Mrs Akande: Certainly we will contact the members when we are having discussions in their particular areas, so that they would hopefully attend those discussions.

Ms Gibbons: Maybe I could just add to what the minister said. We are intending to hold area focus groups and get some input on a whole range of issues at that level about ideas for new services, how are the current services working, to roll that up to provincial level discussions and to formulate, if the minister agrees to the process, a position paper that shares that experience of consultation with the public.

Ms Haslam: Coming back to --

The Chair: I am obligated to advise you that I have the last questions from Ms Haeck and Mr Hansen and they are at your mercy in terms of yielding.

Ms Haslam: No, I would like to get another --

The Chair: As long as they know that, then that is fine with me.

Ms Haslam: They live with me. They can lock my door tonight.

The other area, on page 92 and 93, when we are talking sheltered workshop, in particular I look at your new program directions and taking a little bit off what my honourable colleague -- am I getting that right, Margaret? My honourable colleague was talking about the money that is in the system when there has not been any money before, and I hope I am on the right area here.

I deal with associations for community living, and I am going back into my own riding again because I have had meetings with some of these people. When you look at your new program direction it says, "Assist the sons and daughters of aging parents to set up their households with the support and supervision they need." In that case do they have to make a special request to the ministry for funding because there is no funding? In other words, they have not been in the system up until now. They have lived at home.

In this particular case he has lived on the farm all his life. The man is 40 years old. The aging parents can no longer afford to keep him and in order for him to be taken into community living there is no money attached to him. There is no money in the system for him. There is nothing that he brings with him to the association for community living. How does he go about getting funding and am I correct in that it must be a special presentation to the ministry?

Hon Mrs Akande: Yes, there must be a presentation; there must be a request. It comes through community development funds and he or his family would have to access those funds, if this is a person, as you say, who has not yet been in the system.

Ms Haeck: I have not had the chance to peruse the document because I am substituting and therefore I am working at something of a disadvantage, but there was a situation that arose within my own riding shortly after the election campaign where someone definitely raised the issue about vocational rehab, and to what degree those programs would be funded on an ongoing basis. There seemed to be an impression that those moneys would be folded into other programs. Is this the case or are we looking at an extension of vocational rehab?

Ms Gibbons: There appears to be a misunderstanding. We have no intention to take money from the vocational rehabilitation services program and put it anywhere else. We are, however, looking at employment services generally and trying to redefine what is captured by that particular area. In the redefinition, VRS may come out looking and sounding like something else, but we do not intend to take any money from this program area.

Ms Haeck: So you are really still talking about servicing those people who have some physical handicaps, to get themselves into the workforce.

Ms Gibbons: Absolutely.

Ms Haeck: Thank you.

Mr Hansen: On vote 802, item 07, on page 103, for the first time in 1989-90 there was a change of $1,500,000 for treatment services. These treatment services, like the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Correctional Services, are already involved in the anti-drug program. Was this program brought in for children, who were below, as you say, adults? It is not a duplication of any services in any other particular area? I am just a little bit confused on this money that has gone into here.

Hon Mrs Akande: It is not a duplication.

Mr Hansen: So this is actually younger children who would be involved in the drug -- okay.

Hon Mrs Akande: Now I require some time. There was some information that was requested and the deputy has that information here.

The Chair: I would ask the deputy to indicate the breadth of the information she is sharing and -- give that to the clerk -- just refer briefly to the items and the clerk will distribute --

Ms Gibbons: One is in response to your question, Cam, about what were the decisions around the transitional houses, where the allocations went, and we are giving the news release that supports that. There were several questions around data for STEP and we have a package of data that describes what our current state-of-the-art knowledge --

The Chair: I do not want that because I did not ask for that. That is it? Then I might just indicate that I do get your press releases and I do file them. That is not what I asked for. I asked for those who have made application who had not been approved.

Ms Gibbons: Oh no, I am sorry; I misunderstood.

The Chair: Yes; so we will clarify that later and not take up additional time --

Ms Gibbons: I beg your pardon.

The Chair: -- so I apologize. I was not as clear as I could have been. So that material is being distributed?

Mr Hansen, did you have a question?

Mr Hansen: No, I did not.

The Chair: Thank you. We have now completed the assigned time for the 1990-91 estimates for the Ministry of Community and Social Services. I should now like to call the vote on each of the estimate vote items. Shall vote 801 --

Ms Haslam: Could I just have a few minutes, Mr Chair? Thank you.

The Chair: Well, no, I am not giving you a couple of minutes. Shall vote 801, carry?

Interjections.

The Chair: I will call it one more time please, and people can only vote if they are in their seats. Those are the standing rules. I will call one more time. Shall vote 801 carry?

Vote 801 agreed to.

The Chair: Shall vote 802 carry?

Vote 802 agreed to.

The Chair: Shall the estimates of the Ministry of Community and Social Services, 1990-91, be reported to the House?

Agreed to.

Interjections.

The Chair: Order, please. If I might, I just simply would like to thank all members of the staff who have been present for the two days under unusual circumstances. At a point yesterday, it was as difficult to get fresh air in this room as it was to find a seat. So I want to thank the staff. I want to thank the minister. Many of you will not be aware but cabinet met today, and the minister chose to be here for the estimates. Since estimates are never allowed to meet during cabinet meetings, she has clearly indicated the importance she has put on the estimates process. I wish to thank her publicly for that, as chairman of the committee.

This meeting stands adjourned for five minutes, until we can reconvene for the estimates of the Ministry of Treasury and Economics.

Mrs McLeod: As for any remaining information that we had requested, would that be distributed to us individually or become part of the record?

The Chair: The Chair has recognized Mrs McLeod, and she has asked if all of the materials and questions raised were going to be circulated to the members of the committee. My understanding is that was the case and that the deputy was merely bringing those items she could pull together on short notice while the estimates were in process.

Ms Haslam: I would like to go on record as saying thank you to the Vice-Chair for doing such an admirable job.

The Chair: Thank you. This meeting is adjourned for five minutes.

The committee recessed at 1555.

1604

MINISTRY OF TREASURY AND ECONOMICS

The Chair: I would like to call to order the standing committee on estimates to begin our seven hours of deliberations on the estimates of the Ministry of Treasury and Economics. I am pleased to welcome the Treasurer, the Honourable Floyd Laughren to the table.

Mr Bradley: How frightening.

The Chair: Is it the honourable part or the treasurer part?

Mr Bradley: I never thought I would think of Floyd Laughren as being the Treasurer of this province.

Ms Haslam: Are we all allowed to make comments?

Mrs Marland: No, we are not.

Hon Mr Laughren: I am glad the Chair is keeping things in order.

The Chair: Yes.

Mr Christopherson: Is this a great province or what?

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Christopherson.

Mr Bradley: To quote from the Bible, I think the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

The Chair: Enough parables now.

Mr Charlton: I move Hansard strike out everything after "think."

The Chair: I thought I had already handed the floor over to the Treasurer, but I would certainly like him to take it now.

Hon Mr Laughren: I do not blame you for doing that.

Just for the information of members, I did not come with a prepared text that I can hand out to all of you. I thought that given the fact that this is February and these estimates are due to cover to the end of March, it did not make much sense to go over these estimates, because I can tell you I was consulted very little when these estimates were being drafted, so I cannot take much responsibility for them.

But I thought the committee would perhaps be more interested in where we are at, where the economy is at and how we got here and where we are going. If that meets with the approval of the committee, Mr Chair, I propose to do that.

The Chair: It is your half-hour and you can do with it as you wish.

Hon Mr Laughren: Okay. I think most members are very much aware of the fact that when we took over on 1 October as a government, the numbers that tell the story about the economy were changing very dramatically and very rapidly and had started to do so I guess at the end of the second quarter. In other words, in the summertime they were starting to change a lot more quickly and more profoundly than anybody had anticipated and what started out as a surplus very quickly turned into a deficit of $25 billion.

To be fair, there were some numbers that were put into the equation that helped make -- if "help" is the right word -- that meant the deficit went up to $2.5 billion, and there were a couple of things that had not been put in the equation that we did put in.

One, for example, was the money that we had an obligation to pay on behalf of UTDC. That was $400 million and there was clearly no way around that and we simply had to pay it. It was ticking away at interest rate payments of about $1 million a week, so we paid that $400 million off. That is now clear. I think it came out to about $407 million by the time all of the accounting was done. So that helped bump it up higher, too. It added to the deficit, but it was clearly an obligation we had.

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Also the SkyDome obligation, which is still there, quite frankly, had to be considered because it was clearly an obligation of the province as well. There were negotiations to be concluded with the doctors of this province, who had not had a settlement of their fees since the spring of 1988. So we felt that those things should legitimately be factored in when anticipating what the deficit would be at the end of 1990-91, 31 March 1991.

Those were some of the reasons that the deficit became the $2.5 billion. There was nothing mysterious in it and there was no attempt to embarrass the former government. It was simply a way of laying out all the numbers as we found them. Since then the numbers on the economy have gotten worse. The recession is deeper and will last longer than we thought it was going to, even in the fall.

And of course there are some external factors that we have absolutely no control over, or so little that one would not pretend that we did, such as the Gulf war, for example, and the price of oil -- that can have a major impact on the economy here in Canada. The US economy and to what extent it goes into -- it is in a recession, but how deep it is and how long it lasts and the effect of the Gulf war on the US economy, all those things are factors over which we have very little control.

I have my own views, and I think you probably know what they are, about the federal government policies with its high interest rates and the high value of the Canadian dollar, which we feel is hurting the Ontario economy. We think that the federal government is preoccupied with the spectre of inflation rather than the problem with the economy and the recession. In Ontario, the last number I saw, we had an inflation rate in December of 4.4%. It seems to me that is no reason to put the Bank of Canada on a war footing. We should be concerned with the recession rather than with inflation. I think that they have gone too far and the whole philosophy of dealing with our economy should change.

We have made that point as often as we can with Mr Wilson, and the Premier has written and asked for a first ministers conference on the economy, with no luck, but that is how we feel about it. So some of the factors are not within the ambit of Ontario at all.

The timetable for recovery, quite frankly, is uncertain and we shall do as best we can with it. There were some programs and policies of the previous government, and some tax policies, that we intend to honour, and we have already announced that; as an example, tax measures that had been introduced in the spring and had never been passed and the election was called and so forth.

The one change we did make was something called the Ontario current cost allowance, OCCA, which when it was brought in, introduced for first reading, was to increase the current cost allowance from 15% to 30%. What we did was leave it at 30% to the end of 1991 and then sunsetted it, and even after that, though, leaving it in place for pollution control equipment and one other category, I think. Anyway, it was basically for the pollution control equipment.

The idea behind that was that it would say to investors: "Look, we're in a tough time in 1991. We really want you to invest this year and if you want to take advantage of that 30% cost allowance, do it in 1991. Don't wait until 1992, because by then it'll be back down to regular levels." So that was the reason we did that.

I mentioned the SkyDome debt a minute ago and I meant to say, and I forgot that you probably know, we have appointed a team of negotiators who, almost as we speak, are working away at trying to work out some way in which that obligation, which is well over $300 million now, can be met not totally by the province, the provincial taxpayers. The private sector should share in that responsibility. But the legal obligation is the province's, so we are working very hard.

The negotiating team is working hard to see if it can get that down. I have nothing to report to you at this point, because they are in the middle of negotiations and every week or so they have another meeting with members of the consortium and the negotiating team. So there is nothing to report there, but we very much want to get that resolved.

Actually, the SkyDome makes money. If it did not have its huge debt, it would actually make a surplus on its operations, which of course is why they are so anxious to resolve the problem at the SkyDome as well.

For the next year, the year ahead, there are some disturbing signs. We know that the unemployment is going to be higher. We know that the growth in the gross domestic product, the real growth, is going to be flat -- I guess negative actually -- that our revenues are going to be low and that some of our expenses are going to be up.

As you know, the welfare case loads have gone very, very high and you hear the municipalities complaining about it. Well, I want to tell you they are not complaining without cause. They have gone very high. I think the last number I saw was that for this year they are about $500 million higher than was budgeted, which is a lot of money; I think at least $500 million, which is big bucks.

What is hurting as well, and I am not here to engage in a fed-bashing exercise, but I think you would agree that when they put the cap on the Canada assistance plan, which is money that is supposed to go to the provinces to help pay for social programs, they put a cap of 5% on an increase over the previous year. That 5% cap means that any increase in those payments that we make out over 5% we eat and the feds do not take a part in it. At a time when welfare case loads are going through the roof, that is terribly expensive for the province, and of course the municipalities too, because the municipalities pay 20%. We are supposed to pay 30% and the feds pay 50%, but once it has gone past that 5% increase we are picking up 80%. That is very, very difficult for the province's bank account, as you might imagine, so that has really been a problem and we anticipate that welfare case loads are going to stay high in 1991 as well.

We know that housing is going to be down again next year, that unemployment is going to be up, that the inflation rate is going to be around 6% for 1991. In response to all of this, because of the nature of the economy and our need to respond to it, we have done a number of things.

We made a decision early on not to put the Ontario retail sales tax on top of the federal goods and services tax. We felt that would be a tax on a tax, and since we had stated very clearly that we were in principle opposed to living off the avails of the GST, that we should not do that, we said we would do a side-by-side arrangement. It is a little more complex and I know it would have been simpler to simply put it on top, but we felt that we wanted to do it side by side. That has posed some problems for consumers in that if the retailer decides to put GST included in his price, there is no way of monitoring that -- well, you can try. It ended up being a problem with putting the 8% on something you do not know whether it is included in the price or not. That has been a bit of a problem, but we are trusting the merchants at this point to be honourable, and the Ministry of Revenue does have a process of monitoring that, of policing that. But it is not without its complication.

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We introduced the $700-million anti-recession package, and that is going forward. I know a large portion of that has been approved now, the projects have been selected. We were very careful to try and approve projects that met certain criteria, environmentally sensitive, energy conservation, to help people with disabilities, things like that; and very much aware of the economic problems in particular communities and to be responsive to that, so that communities that were hard hit got a better share of the anti-recession package than the communities that were reasonably healthy. So those were factors that were built into the selection criteria, and there is a cabinet committee that works on that. Mr Christopherson serves on that committee.

So we tried to be very fair in the allocation of that $700-million package, and a big portion of it has now been approved. We picked that kind of project because we wanted an anti-recession package that was capital works projects that were not built into the base of our expenditures in years to come, because that would have meant we would simply be wrestling with a perhaps even larger deficit than we would want to in years to come. So they are one-time capital works projects which stimulate the economy, which improve the social infrastructure, if I can use that term, out there all across the province. It would simply be money that would have to be spent at a future date anyway. So for those reasons, we decided to make it a capital works program rather than program expenditures, and I believe that was the right decision.

Finally, because most of those projects will be completed in 1991, and we were hoping and still are that the recession would be basically over by the end of 1991, it would not be something that was carrying on after it was needed so desperately in the province, that it would end when the recession ended. We will see. The jury is out on that, of course. People still seem to think that the recovery will start taking place in 1991, but it will not be as early in 1991 as was originally thought; it would be later.

That anti-recession package is designed to create about 14,000 person-year jobs, but because a lot of the jobs will not last a year, in effect it is more jobs than that: It will create closer to 20,000. Also, with the local components -- school boards, municipalities, to that program -- it is more than a $700-million program, it is more like a $1-billion program with the local component.

We think that was a decent response to a recession, given our limited ability to spend a lot of bucks. We did invite the federal government to come in on it, but it declined without thanks.

The other thing we have done that does not directly affect the recession, but I think was an important signal to send out, was appointing the Fair Tax Commission. This very afternoon, right now as a matter of fact, the standing committee on government agencies is reviewing some of those appointments. There were two yesterday and I think they have five before them this afternoon, which is appropriate.

Mr Bradley: A very interesting exercise, too.

Hon Mr Laughren: I have heard some of the questions that have been asked, the comments that have been made, and I have found them interesting myself.

Mr Bradley: They have changed the name from "fair" to the "NDP tax commission."

Hon Mr Laughren: Now, now. That is not fair. You had better wait until the entire exercise has been completed before you slander us that way. I know that will be the accusation by some, but believe me, we tried very hard to make the tax commission representative of the province. I think that fair-minded persons will certainly conclude that. I remember when you were in opposition; when you were in opposition before you were very fair-minded, so I trust you will be this time as well.

So the Fair Tax Commission is going to be looking at all of our taxes. That was one area of criticism I got that really surprised me. As a matter of fact, a columnist said it, and then a businessman said to me he did not like the word "fair" in the title, which I thought really should not need a lot of comment. But if you do not want the word "fair" in it, what does it imply? I think there is a perception out there in Ontario by a lot of people that the tax system is not fair. Whether it is or not perhaps is another question, but the perception out there is that it is not a fair tax system. And if people do not think the tax system is fair, I think it is an encouragement for them to do what they can to avoid paying their fair share. If you have a perception that it is a fair tax system and that everybody is paying their fair share, then I think it has a legitimacy that, quite frankly, I do not think it has now. So we will see what happens.

We hope to take your advice on an ongoing basis rather than -- which is one of the reasons we did not set up a royal commission that will report only once at the end of three years or four years or whatever. I would remind you that it has been 25 years since it was last looked at, the Ontario tax system; that was the Smith committee. I think 25 years is long enough to go without examining the tax system in a province like Ontario.

So I feel very good about the commission and I look forward to the standing committee on agencies, boards and commissions concluding its examination. I think they will finish this week, which I appreciate very much. It was their choice whether or not to call them in, but when they did decide to, they did it very quickly, and I appreciate that because it will allow the matter to be resolved very quickly.

Just this week we have announced the transfer payments to our partners out there in the province; I do not know whether members want to get into that or not. They totalled about $16.7 billion and we had some tough decisions to make, because it is no secret that our revenues are going to be tough in 1991, it is no secret that our deficit is going to go up. When it came to making these decisions, we had to walk a line between giving them more than we did or being even tougher than we were and saying we were being tough because we were preoccupied with -- not preoccupied, but because we were not prepared to go that far, given the depth of the recession.

You have heard the Premier talk a lot about partnerships. We believe in that concept of those people out there being partners with us, not adversaries; I am talking about the school boards, the municipalities and the health care system. We feel very strongly about that, and to have come out right now with a level of transfer payments that was flat-lined or 1% or 2% or 3% would have been a bad signal to people we want to work in partnership with us in resolving some of the problems. I think it was a delicate balance, and I expect the transfer agencies not to be happy with what they get. That is their job. They are representing their constituents and they have simply got to fight for more. I understand that very well; I expect it. I would not be unhappy but I would be very surprised if they did not do that. I understand that, but at the same time I trust they will understand that we had some tough decisions to make too, and when the budget comes down in a couple of months, I think they will appreciate the fact that we have been as fair to them as it was possible to be.

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The other thing we did as a signal of how serious we are about equity is leaving the pay equity question out of those transfer payments, by saying that pay equity will be on top of those transfer payment dollars. I think that was a major commitment we gave at this time. It would have been quite easy to fold it in and say, "We assume you will meet your pay equity commitments within those dollars," but I feel very strongly that our commitment to pay equity is not determined by the depth of a recession or the length of a recession. If the dollars are big, all big dollars do on pay equity is signal how bad the discrimination has been historically; the bigger the dollars, the worse the discrimination against women in the workplace. We feel very strongly about that and that is why we did it that way, rather than folding the pay equity dollars into the transfer payments.

I must have gone on beyond my time, so I will close --

The Chair: It just feels that way. Actually, you have more time, Treasurer.

Hon Mr Laughren: Okay, I was not watching --

The Chair: It is the subject matter, Treasurer, not your presentation.

Hon Mr Laughren: Okay, okay. I know I sounded a bit gloomy today. At the same time, though, we should keep in mind the kind of province this is. We are a province with an enormous diversity. We have enormous wealth that is being created and has already been created in terms of the infrastructure out there; still, in my view, the best jurisdiction in the world in which to invest, and that the rest of the world will see that. We are encouraging that as best we can. We are very much aware of that as budget time approaches and we start considering tax measures, very much aware of the need to remain competitive. That is something we do not take lightly at all. We must have a competitive jurisdiction and we will be keeping that in mind, I assure you.

With that comment, I will close off my remarks, and I would be prepared to try and answer any questions. We have lots of people here from Treasury who know a lot more about specifics than I do and would be glad to help. To my left is Bryan Davies, who is Deputy Treasurer. I think you have all met my parliamentary assistant by now, David Christopherson, who has been most helpful in all sorts of ways; I appreciate that. If there are any questions, I shall be prepared to -- I do not know what your agenda is, whether you are allowing others to make statements or not, but thank you.

The Chair: The procedure is that your opening statement could encompass up to half an hour, and that precedent and standing orders continue. We will recognize the official opposition, which will have up to half an hour, then the Chair will recognize the third party and its spokesperson for half an hour, and the Treasurer will then have up to half an hour to respond in any way he feels comfortable responding.

Mr Bradley: I will use my half-hour to put on record a number of questions which the Treasurer and his staff will have an opportunity to develop answers for rather than giving the answers immediately, and give them an opportunity next day to be able to present those.

Obviously, as we approach these estimates, the outstanding issue confronting the province, in my view and I think the view of most people in Ontario, is the recession, a rather deep recession, a rather significant recession; the Treasurer has stated himself it is perhaps a deeper recession than most people would have anticipated we would be in. The facts and figures point to a gloomy short-term, at least, future; we hope not long-term future.

The Treasurer has indicated that, as must be the case in a province, the provincial Treasurer is not solely responsible for the economy in a jurisdiction. I know in his previous incarnation he may have emphasized the role and responsibility of the provincial Treasurer. We all recognize that the federal government and international circumstances also confront us.

As I remember, the January unemployment rate in Ontario rose to some 8.4%. This puts unemployment in our province ahead of that of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta, as we had 26,000 people in Ontario who lost their jobs last month alone. We look at specific areas of the province, and these have been rather chronic when we get into a recession. It is something the Treasurer may wish to address some day, because it is hard to get governments at any level to address it; that is the fact that Windsor is at over 14%, as is St Catharines and Brantford and Cornwall. All of these are among the hardest hit and very often some of these areas will not qualify for special programs of either the province or the federal government.

In the case of the Niagara Peninsula, for instance, considered to be part of the Golden Horseshoe, in time of a recession particularly it is somewhat of a tarnished horseshoe, because the unemployment rate appears to get higher in those areas. I realize they are susceptible to recession in that they are reliant upon such industries as the automotive industry. This is why, of course, it is particularly important that the Treasurer proceed with his plans to move the Ministry of Transportation to the city of St Catharines to ensure that there are some recession-proof jobs brought to that particular community. I know the Treasurer himself would recognize the importance of that decentralization program, would not see it, as some of his colleagues have, as a political ploy but rather a well-thought-out policy he would be supportive of, being from the Sudbury area, where they have been the recipients of these and it certainly has had some positive impact on that area.

I point out to the Treasurer that Ontario has recorded 1,943 bankruptcies in December, more than double the amount in 1989. That year had a total of some 19,194. The bankruptcies, again, are a reflection of the economic circumstances we are in. In December there were 49,000 fewer Ontarians with jobs than in November. There were 246,000 fewer people employed in Ontario in January than there were when this government took power in October of this year. I will be asking the Treasurer -- he has made some comment in this regard -- to tell us what his government is going to do for these specific people who are certainly in need.

In the Agenda for People the Premier stated: "The recession is here. We want to provide relief for those who need it most, protecting people's investment in their farms, their small businesses and their jobs. We propose adjustment and training measures to protect jobs today and in the future." That is the Premier. We would like to know what plans you might have in the future to carry out that promise. We would like to know what is being done to protect and enhance the jobs that exist at present. We would like to know what your current impressions are of Ontario's relative position of competitiveness and what the government will do to make this province more competitive.

You have stated that you believe we are still competitive, but obviously the competition is getting quite tougher on an international basis, on an interprovincial basis, and certainly we look in the American and Canadian context. One of the questions being asked by the government agencies committee of the people who are being appointed to the NDP tax commission is what their position would be on ensuring that Ontario is in a competitive position.

We would like to know what you intend to do to promote Ontario as a place to invest, given the government's intention to slash the budget of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology, a ministry which has specific responsibility in that regard. You may be able to allay our concerns about the thoughts that that might indeed be the case.

I point out to the Treasurer, again, that he and his colleagues were very interested in the field of housing. We know that in December housing starts declined to 32,000 units. In 1990 housing starts were down to their lowest level since 1982, according to Treasury and Economics figures. I will ask you now if you are going to let the housing industry deteriorate further before you do anything about that.

Layoffs due to permanent plant closures reached 20,000 last year, much higher than the level during the 1982 recession. The pace of layoffs and plant closures has only accelerated since this government took office. I would like to know what the Treasurer has to offer to these workers. I think one of the concerns you would have, as I do, is that back in the 1982 recession and in other recessions we had a loss of jobs on a temporary basis. People would be laid off, but they had the feeling they would be back in three, four, five, six, seven months. There is a feeling out there that many of the jobs that are being lost now are permanently lost, that they will not come back, and we would like to know what you plan to do about that. We are interested in what you are going to be doing in terms of plant closure justification, wage protection fund and severance and notice provisions promised by the New Democratic Party.

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Also in An Agenda for People was the bold statement, and I quote from An Agenda for People: "Ontario is now in a recession. The high interest rate policies of the federal Conservatives demand a provincial response." Your Premier went on to promise interest rate relief for farmers, small businesses and home buyers. Quebec was able to bring in these programs. Why have you not brought in any such programs to assist? That is an ill-conceived policy, I think most would agree, the high interest rate policy of the federal government. We know that you have been unsuccessful in persuading Michael Wilson or the Prime Minister to change that, so we are wondering what you will do to alleviate that for the people of Ontario?

The Treasurer announced the details of his $700-million recession package on S December 1990. At the time, the government maintained it would spend $41 million over the four months remaining in the fiscal year 1990-91. The Treasurer recently revised this prediction to $34 million because of difficulties at the province's end in flowing the money. In an appearance before the standing committee on finance and economic affairs, the Treasurer blamed this failure on bureaucratic red tape. Have you been able to get the bureaucratic red tape cut?

Hon Mr Laughren: I did not say that.

Mr Bradley: This is of course what I have been informed and the Treasurer may wish to refute that at the appropriate time. I am sure that you must have said something very close to that. Certainly, Mr Stockwell, who is unimpeachable in his recollections, recalls that to be the case.

The Chair: Even the Chairman may want to call order on that one. Mr Bradley has the floor and I question your willingness to give it up.

Mr Bradley: Right, I still have it.

We would like to know what the specific problem is with flowing the funds and why the Treasurer has allowed this to occur. Whose fault is it? Is it yours or the civil service's? What are you doing differently to ensure the money will flow now that the province is in the trough of the recession? Does the Treasurer expect the full $700 million to be spent before 31 March 1992, which is the end of the next fiscal year?

One of the things I am going to sidetrack to here that I think is important is the fact that --

Mr Perruzza: On a point of order, Mr Chairman, just for clarification --

The Chair: What is your point of order?

Mr Perruzza: Just a clarification.

The Chair: Then on a point of order or clarification.

Mr Perruzza: Actually, it relates to order. You mentioned that all of the parties are going to have half an hour to preamble their questions that we will be asking later.

The Chair: That is correct. It was a procedure that was explained.

Mr Perruzza: Well, is Mr Bradley going to simply be asking all of these questions later again? I do not understand what the objective is.

The Chair: Mr Perruzza, that is not in order. You are certainly not helping to clarify matters at all. Mr Bradley, please continue.

Mr Bradley: I will continue the way I did my first eight years in opposition asking these questions.

A number of conditional grants for municipalities have not yet been announced. That is of great concern to municipalities. They plan for their projects for the upcoming year; they work on a January-to-the-end-of-December basis for their budgets. Many of them are wondering if they are going to get grants for specific projects and how much the province is going to be providing. You have talked about unconditional grants. You have not talked about conditional grants. I think you said in your press conference that you would be dealing with that at the time of your budget.

I would submit to the Treasurer that that information has to be out to those municipalities earlier and it is particularly important in a recession because a lot of them may or may not proceed. A lot of them are reluctant to proceed because of the dollars they have to provide, and since you are only providing a 5% increase in unconditional grants from which they may draw some of that money, they would like to know what that is going to be, and therefore I think you should have made that announcement earlier. I hope you will be able to bring that information forward soon and I know, when you get a chance to respond, you will.

I would like to know from you how municipalities are supposed to plan for other capital projects, and that is exactly what we are dealing with, which would respond to the job need for the recession. I am talking about sewer and water funding, for instance. I remember the Treasurer writing me a letter at one time as the MPP for Nickel Belt, saying, "Isn't it time you started acting like a Minister of the Environment instead of talking like one?"

Hon Mr Laughren: I still feel that way.

Mr Bradley: So I would say, is it not time that you as Treasurer started acting like a Treasurer concerned about recession, instead of simply talking about it? Anyway, I have been waiting a long time to say that.

Hon Mr Laughren: I have been waiting a long time to hear it.

Mr Bradley: The Sewer and Water Corp announced by the previous government provided a structure to lever additional needed expenditures for sewer and water capital because the corporation could finance projects based on its assets beyond a level of funding currently dependent on a municipality's debt capacity. I would like to know what the government's timetable is for initiating work by the new corporation, and indeed if it is going to proceed with the new corporation or revert to some other method of financing.

The government of Quebec recently announced a $1.5-billion anti-recession package while facing a proportionately higher deficit of $2 billion on expenditures of approximately $35 billion. The Quebec package included a $311-million public works program for hospitals and schools, 8.5% subsidized mortgages for three years on new-home construction up to $5,000. This is estimated to generate $1 billion in new spending on housing and create 16,000 new jobs at a cost of only $170 million to the Quebec taxpayers. It announced $50 million for home renovation, more regional development projects, $15 million in assistance for small businesses facing bankruptcies. The total Quebec package will create an estimated 21,400 jobs. Why is the Treasurer of Ontario not involved in this particular sort of program?

I go on to the free trade with Mexico. I well recall in the election campaign and previous to that the man who is now Premier of this province standing in the House and demanding that the previous Premier of this province stop the free trade agreement and suggesting that he had the power to do so. We now have the same Premier and no doubt members of his cabinet, saying, "Well, of course, that's a federal responsibility and we can't do anything about it."

I remember that your Premier was promising that he would not do anything to implement or co-operate with the implementation of the free trade agreement with the US. Later, when the smell of power overcame him, he promised to rip up the free trade deal. I would like to know whether it is your plan, as the Treasurer, to rip up the free trade deal and what measures you are taking to thwart its implementation.

That was with the US. We now have free trade being talked about and negotiations begun for a trilateral free trade agreement with Mexico and the US, and I am wondering if the Premier and the cabinet have now changed their minds. The Labour minister and the Premier criticized the proposal on 6 February and then backtracked. Mr Rae said the possibility of an even further job haemorrhage stares us right in the face and then he said the responsibility for trade constitutionally belongs to Mr Mulroney. Mr Mackenzie said, "I'm not sure what the hell we can do about it," and Mr Rae admitted he cannot do anything to prevent the talks and said, "I'm not going to stand here and promise that I can stop something when I'm not convinced that's exactly what I can do."

What happened between 6 September and 6 February in dealing with free trade? Does this government support these talks and what is it doing to stop this? I think I saw your Industry, Trade and Technology minister on television saying, "Not so." I would be interested in the Treasurer's evaluation of these talks, whether he feels it is better to be at the table or not have a table there in any event. Has the government commissioned any studies on the ramifications of this agreement with Mexico on Ontario? If not, why not, since there have been some discussions of that for some period of time?

The Treasurer talked about competitiveness, and I mentioned that in the other committee we talked about competitiveness. Quebec has combined its retail sales tax with the GST in order to enhance its competitive position vis-à-vis other provinces. With its combined levy, Quebec will exempt business investments in plant and equipment on sales tax, providing a 3% cost edge over Ontario. What I am interested in is what the Treasurer will do to address this erosion of Ontario business competitiveness. How will he counterbalance that? He may not take the same action but he may have some idea of how he could countermeasure that.

There are indications that businesses are closing their plants now to avoid the tax hammer that they believe will be coming from the NDP government in coming months. What message will the Treasurer send to these businesses at this time? Will he work with them to help rebuild Ontario competitiveness or will he show the same consultation with business that his government has shown with the Essex county school board?

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How will he enhance Ontario competitiveness as a whole, in a time when we are experiencing record numbers of plant closures, especially in the manufacturing sector? That is extremely important. I mentioned on the other committee, when I was being harassed by members of the governing party, or someone -- I forget who; somebody was harassing me anyway -- I explained to them where I was coming from on this.

Unlike some people who have been born into privilege or who are serving because they have royal blood or something like that, lots of people like that, I come from a truly working-class background, and the Treasurer would be aware of that. I recognize, as do my neighbours who work at various factories, that unless their plants are competitive, unless the Ontario business world is competitive, in fact they are not going to have jobs. They are pretty hard-nosed people and they understand that when it comes down to -- that is why they are interested in our competitive position as well.

The members of this so-called Fair Tax Commission -- or as I call it, the NDP tax commission -- were announced on 7 February by the Treasurer. It will take the NDP tax commission three years and at least $9 million to prepare its final report, although the Treasurer expects it to submit regular reports, as he indicated. Who will set the priorities for what the commission studies? The Treasurer or the commission? Has the Treasurer set any direction yet? Which of the proposed NDP taxes does the Treasurer want the commission to study first?

I would suggest that, since you have made all of these promises to implement certain taxes, some might say, if they were cynical people, that perhaps the real purpose of the commission was to simply rubber-stamp the government policy and give it some legitimacy. Although when we look at the makeup of the commission --

Mr Perruzza: Mr Chairman, are you going to allow stuff like that?

The Chair: Yes, I am, Mr Perruzza, please.

Mr Bradley: When we look at the makeup of the commission, we recognize that that might well be the case, because many of its members' views appear to be those of the Treasurer and others in the province of Ontario.

Hon Mr Laughren: You are so sceptical.

Mr Bradley: An Agenda for People stated that Ontario should lead a tax revolt, a revolt against the Mulroney GST, a revolt against corporate giveaways, a revolt against the continuing accumulation of vast amounts of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. The Revenue minister has said that the tax revolt is a removal of the GST from the retail sales tax base and the legal challenge mounted with other provincial governments. Is this all we can expect from you and your government in its tax revolt?

As a stimulative measure and to remove the onus of sales tax from lower-income families and those who are now adjusting to layoffs or unemployment, would the Treasurer consider cutting the provincial sales tax by 1%, which would put over $1 billion back into the pockets of consumers?

Another issue which has arisen, and I know it is always a touchy issue, particularly with the Provincial Auditor, is the use of preflows as a tool of government to enhance the economy. The government in the past has followed a long tradition in preflowing transfer payments. Mr Laughren, I understand that you are considering stopping the practice, which you consider to be wrong. I heard that anyway, that may not be the case, and you can clarify that for me.

Why would you be considering stopping preflows? Which option is preferable to you: collecting interest on unexpected revenues languishing in a bank account or using the money to improve education, welfare services, or even save lives in the health care system, as soon as possible? I ask you that question in that context.

Hon Mr Laughren: Objectively put.

Mr Bradley: Borrowing on the rate on bonds is another problem. The interest rate charged on provincial borrowing is calculated as basis points. Each basis point is one one-hundredth of 1%; 100 basis points is 1% of interest. The cost of provincial borrowing has always been higher for a province than for the federal government, traditionally 25 points higher than the federal borrowing, in the range of the 35 basis points. There have been reports that the basis point spread on the NDP's provincial borrowing has increased significantly, up to an 85 point spread, or 0.4% above the previous government's borrowing rate. This is reportedly due to the financial uncertainties associated with the new government. Would the Treasurer clarify what change has taken place and what the dollar cost of the increased rate will be, and would he clarify why the increase has occurred?

There is also something called syndicate fees. In connection with the borrowing rate issue, there is also the question to be asked about the status of the syndicate services that are used to arrange the province's loans. I would like to ask the Treasurer whether there have been any changes in the syndicates, which are contracted to arrange the province's borrowing, and I would like to ask whether there have been any changes in the fees charged by those syndicates.

In terms of the deficit, the 1990-91 budget forecast a deficit of $2.5 billion. Extrapolations from the transfer announcements which pegged 1991 transfers at 30% of the budget indicate a $53-billion budget for 1991-92, which is an increase of $9 billion from the last budget of the previous government.

The Treasurer has warned that taxes may be increased. He has also indicated, however, that the government's financial position is solid enough to absorb increased deficit financing of required expenditures. I would like to ask the Treasurer how large a deficit he feels the provincial government can safely manage during a recession, what the impact of the deficit increase may be on the province's credit rating and on bond rating agencies, and what the increased cost of the province's borrowing and increased interest payments on the provincial debt will be for 1990-91. In addition, I would like to ask the Treasurer what the interest payments on the debt are projected to be for 1991-92.

We also have the question of money in the contingency funds. They are very, very interesting funds, the contingency funds. In the third-quarter finances, there was a projected revenue shortfall of $673 million below the spring budget figures. The shortfall projection is reduced $235 million from the $908 million shortfall announced in the second quarter finances. This will all be on record.

The third-quarter finances shortfall includes the increase in federal income tax transfers of $937 million. This increase is counterbalanced by further increased shortfalls in other revenues, specifically revenue from the PST, court taxes, gas and fuel taxes and land transfer taxes, and that is about an additional $670 million below what was listed in the second quarter finances. Expenditures have increased by $1.8 billion since the budget. They are up $242 million since the second-quarter finances.

Now, there is the contingency fund I want to get at. The contingency fund was increased by $743 million, from $153 million to $896 million. This increase was explained as money to refinance the Stadium Corp and to cover doctors' fee settlements and to accommodate other expenditure pressures. I think it is important for us to note that the $153 million already in the fund included funding for the doctors.

In the third-quarter finances, $354 million was moved out of the contingency fund and allocated for hospital operating costs and other expenditure pressures. The $542 million remaining in the contingency fund still includes an unknown amount for doctors' fee settlements and financing the Stadium Corp.

The Ministry of Transportation was allocated an additional $400 million to discharge a bank loan to do with the 1986 sale of the Urban Transportation Development Corp. This payment was made a year earlier than required and therefore some might say is a questionable allocation of scarce funding during a recession. However, being, if I can use quotation marks, "Blue Floyd" instead of "Pink Floyd" as they were calling you, you appear to want to move in a conservative fashion on that.

I would like to ask the Treasurer to detail how the remaining money in the contingency fund is allocated. I would like him to explain his decision to pay the $400 million UTDC funds earlier than required. You have done that to a certain extent but you may wish to elaborate on that.

In terms of budget consultation, I think you have allocated people 20 minutes instead of the normal one hour per presentation. If that is not correct, these may have been people who have had only 20 minutes with you and have been chased out the door after that. I am not certain, but I would like you to explain why the budget consultation has been restricted, and there are many who feel it has been restricted this year.

I would like to ask you what information you have about the level and the formula of funding under the Canada assistance plan, the extended health care services funding and the established programs financing, how you see that breaking down. I realize that the federal budget does not come out until the end of this month or next month, but I would like to know about your meetings with the federal minister and the discussions between officials, what you see happening with those funding programs.

The transfer payments you have made reference to. In each case, they are below what the people wanted. That may be no surprise to the Treasurer now that he is in office, but they were also lower on a percentage basis than the previous government's in each one of those cases. I expect that we will be hearing from each of those groups who are so vociferous in their criticism of previous governments, plural, and no doubt they will be at your door reminding you of such things as the 60% percentage of education that your province is going to pay because I know they were very interested in that subject in years gone by and will I am sure, despite the affiliation of their leadership, still be interested in what you have to say in that regard.

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So in education it seems to me that you have not made any progress towards that 60% because your allocation is lower than it was last year in terms of the percentage increase. I think people were looking for that, particularly in a year when you have to consider that people must pay their property taxes regardless of whether they are working or not. That is why I think there is a good reason for you to be generous in your allocation to the municipalities and boards of education, the hospitals, and to the universities and colleges as well.

Taking the school boards and the library boards, for instance, your direct grants to library boards and municipalities, it is very important I think that you provide sufficient funding, because these people have to pay the property tax, no matter what. Now, if they are not working, they are not paying as much income tax, and if they are not purchasing, they are perhaps not paying as much sales tax or other consumptive taxes. But the one tax that they have to pay regardless of what happens is the property tax. That is why I think it is important for your government to provide sufficient funds so that we do not see considerable increases in those taxes or appreciable cuts in the services they provide, because those services are often very basic services and they have to meet, for instance, the welfare costs and other costs that people incur during this time of difficulty.

I would be interested to know when you intend to pay 60% of the cost of education and what 60% is, because in opposition I know that your party was very clear on what 60% was. It was 60% of the cost of operating schools in the province of Ontario. I want to know what you are going to throw into that mix and what restrictions you are going to put on municipalities if you give them that 60% of the cost. I will certainly be very interested in that.

The hospitals: I would like to know whether you put sufficient money in to meet the expectations of nurses, who I think most people in this province would fairly agree are underpaid and their services are not appropriately valued. I would like to know, out of the transfer that you have given to hospitals, how the heck they are supposed to pay the nurses what they feel they are worth and what many in our society feel they are worth.

I would also like to ask you what services you feel hospitals should cut in trying to resolve their budget problems and whether the province will allow hospitals to operate with a deficit and whether the province will cover that deficit if that happens.

Colleges and universities: I want to ask you why post-secondary funding is being restricted at a time when the economy is going through a restructuring phase which will see demands for a more skilled work force and I want to know whether your government and your party have changed your policy to eliminate tuition fees and whether there will be an additional increase in future years, since you as a government have increased them by 8% instead of abolishing them, as I used to hear you talk about in years gone by.

I could probably go on at great length, but I know that my time is up, first of all, and that members of the committee will be interested in asking other questions as well. The minister will appreciate I put these on record so that tomorrow his staff and he will be able to develop the appropriate answers.

Mr Daigeler: You can have a good sleep.

Mr Bradley: I am sure you will sleep well tonight as well. In conclusion, I wish you well in your responsibilities. I do not wish you ill, because for the sake of the province of Ontario I hope that you succeed. But certainly we in the opposition have been disappointed with the beginning that your government has made.

The Chair: Where have I heard that one before? Thank you, Mr Bradley. I note that you are spot-on your 30 minutes. The Treasurer has made note of 27 questions, about a question a minute. I would like to now recognize Mr Stockwell, who has the floor for his half-hour.

Mr Stockwell: Thank you very much. When you follow someone as well prepared as the noble Liberal Treasury critic, it is obviously very difficult. You can appreciate, Treasurer, someone suggests I just go, "Yeah, that goes double for me."

Interjections.

Mr Stockwell: His research was very accurate. I do not think the Treasurer would disagree with any of those, other than possibly the comment about red tape. I think the comment was, "There was political red tape," just to clarify that. But it came out of your mouth and you did not really like the way that sounded so you retracted it and rephrased it to be fair to the Treasurer.

There were a few issues that I think I would like to cover. I will deal with them. There are five or six particular issues I think I would like some comments back from your staff. I am almost certain of what the comments will be. They have been the same comments we have been getting since your party was elected, which were, "Wait for the Fair Tax Commission," or the NDP tax commission or, "Wait for the budget."

I understand that those are very important key components and that sometimes you just have to wait for party strategy and government strategy. The difficulty you are faced with is, you are in a recession that was enunciated by your party during the election and it was very clear that there was a recession and there were certain rules and guidelines that your party lived by and it insisted that those things should be adopted by whatever government was in fact elected.

We speak specifically of the Agenda for People, and I understand it must be very difficult for you to be here trying to defend the Agenda for People. It is practically indefensible because it is just so costly, and I guess that is what it comes down to. Even those in your party, even the most ardent critics, would even soften their approach because it is so costly.

I think we are running around 40%, low forties, in education right now. We can argue about dollars and cents, but let's agree it is billions of dollars to top it up to 60%. I know full well you are not going to do it. I think probably the Liberals pretty much know full well you are not going to accomplish it and I guess everyone is waiting for the words to pass the mouth of the Treasurer that, "Yes, maybe it was a little bit bold to make those kinds of promises and we probably can't fulfil them." You came very close at the transfer payments announcement.

You came extremely close to making that statement, but not quite and you are going to have to in the next few years finally come clean and say, "Gee, I guess we weren't thinking straight when we made that promise." But still, I would like comments from yourself and I guess the Treasury ministry or whoever thinks up these responses. It cannot take too many people because it is either, "Wait for the NDP tax commission," or "Wait for the budget," so there cannot be any more than two employees working on these.

The other one I would like to have some response on is the difficulties with Algoma and de Havilland, a little bit of a review or where we are heading or how you think it should be going. Algoma, some reports suggest, is only a matter of days from declaring -- laying off, going broke, whatever term you want to use, and I think it is timely, very timely, that the government of the day decide what it is going to do, whether it be some kind of bail-out -- personally I think it should be something along an equity position in Algoma, getting concessions from Dofasco for purchasing of the product and guaranteed sales and then a privatization option after four or five years, once the equity position is considered a reasonable sell.

I understand that governments in fact have to do that sometimes. I am not such a right-winger that that does not in fact happen, and I understand that government has its place in situations like this, and if you are talking 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 people who would be out of work in a town the size of the Sault, it certainly warrants a review. But I would think the review would have to take place with an equity position, because I do not think there is any point in throwing good money in there, trying to bail out something without some concessions from the unions and guaranteed contracts on buys and a privatization option after your equity position is considered reasonable. But I would like comments from you and your staff as to where we are going. What direction can these people look for from our Treasury minister?

We move on -- and those are a couple of highlights. We can go on for ever on the Agenda for People. There are so many promises in there that I do not think you are going to be able to fulfil. I suggest you meet with your ministers too. I find it astounding, literally astounding, and you are really stretching the intelligence of those people listening when the Minister of Education comes into the standing committee on finance and economic affairs and has the gall to suggest that, "We're not certain of the 60% framework, we're not certain exactly what 60% is measured against." I mean, that is insulting, Treasurer, and I think it is insulting to the educators, it is insulting to the opposition parties and it is insulting to everyone. Clearly either your minister is very, very confused or you are taking a very different tack than you did before the election.

And if you are, so be it. no one is going to condemn you for -- well, they will, I am certain, but at least have the guts to stand up and say you are changing your mind. Maybe it is not you; maybe it is the Minister of Education, but someone should come clean on that one because it is absolutely an insult to the intelligence of those people sitting on the committee when the Minister of Education starts playing a financial interpretation game with the 60% funding. I cannot accept it and I do not think a lot of people can accept it and I think you are going to very surprised with the educators in this province, because I do not think they accept it.

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Some of the more senior people who lean I think to your party may in fact mouth some statements that will make you feel good, but the rank and file do not. I do not believe the rank and file buy into it and I think you would be better off coming clean on it rather than playing this one out.

The deficit projections are also very interesting. I think Mr Bradley had commented on the -- he called you Blue Floyd actually. I do not think you are Blue Floyd, frankly.

Hon Mr Laughren: Thank you.

Mr Stockwell: Pink Floyd -- well, you are not really Pink Floyd. I think you are more like Count Floyd, because we have a $2.5 billion that is not scary and Count Floyd would be the only one who would be scary when it comes down to these kind of billion-dollar deficits. I think the scariness of this particular deficit projection that I seem to be working towards, and at least the press are working towards, is around $7 billion.

Now, if we take your announcement last week at its word and we were talking about 30%, $16.7 million, you know, simple calculations, we will come to around a $53-billion, $54-billion, $55-billion budget. Let's say you have a 9.5% growth rate. I think that is being very, very good to you. I do not think you are going to have that.

Hon Mr Laughren: What percentage?

Mr Stockwell: I said 9.5%, anywhere, 6%, 7%, 8%, 9%. I will give you the top of the range. That still means that you are going to be looking at a $7-billion problem -- big problem, Treasurer, $7 billion.

You have mentioned in the past about selective tax hikes and so on and so forth. I am not certain that you can squeeze much more money out of this economy. I mean, it is like blood from stone. Say you get another billion out of the economy and selective tax hikes. You are looking at a $6-billion, maybe $7-billion deficit. In my opinion, that is very scary, $6 billion or $7 billion.

It took the Liberals five years to bang it up $10 billion. It is like you two are comparing Visa accounts. The Liberals are showing you their Visa card and they say: "Look, in 10 years we banged on billions and billions of dollars. We are the greatest spenders of all time." Then now, your Visa bill has come in and frankly you are embarrassing them. You have outspent them without even starting. You are going to be the number one spenders of all time and Visa is going to love you for it, I suppose.

Hon Mr Laughren: What have we spent?

Mr Stockwell: You are going to spend at least, according to your numbers, and it is 30% of the transfer payments, you are at least in the $53-billion, $55-billion range. Now, unless those numbers are inaccurate, unless you are floating some kind of trial balloon that is going to go out there and we are going to look for $6 billion or $7 billion in deficit and you come in at $3 billion or $4 billion, you know -- but that has been tried before by another Treasurer and it did not work out very well.

So I am assuming that those numbers are in fact accurate. That concerns me, $7 billion of new deficit. It really worries me and it gives me pause to think that this is exactly how the federal government got into its mess, and it is in a total mess. Everyone will agree the mess they are in; $380 billion I think they owe. It is no longer manageable; 35 cents of every dollar in taxes I think federally is paid towards the debt. That is not a manageable budget, that is not a manageable debt and it gives me a great fear that after four or five years and we run up the deficit -- because I think it is easier to run up the deficit or the debt than it is to in fact tax the people, and politicians will always take the easier way out, nine times out of 10 -- that we are going to have a very, very large problem.

A few of the deputants at last week's finance committee meeting outlined those concerns and they were very clear. They were very clear when it came to taxes. I can give you some of the comments. The Canadian Bankers' Association said, "This is not the time to increase taxes"; the Canadian Manufacturers' Association said, "No introduction of new taxes or tax increase"; Ontario Chamber of Commerce said, "They would be particularly harmful in the current environment and should be avoided," speaking about taxes.

So in essence the question is, if the $7 billion is scary -- and I think we will all agree that that it is a scary figure; even the left-wingers would agree that it is a scary number -- and we do not want to see any kind of tax increases, selective or not, what are you going to do? If you are just going to implement selective tax increases, and you agreed that numbers above $2.5 billion may become scary, gee, what do you do about your Agenda for People? You are going to have to come clean in the not-too-distant future, and it is going to be a very sobering day for Bob Rae and the NDP.

The deficit will continue to be the number one issue. In fact I think government debt is going to be the issue in the 1990's, frankly, because it begins to outweigh every other issue. You cannot do anything when you owe too much money. The federal government, for instance, if it wanted to have an anti-recessionary package, if it was inclined to go along with some kind of anti-recessionary package, there is nothing it could do about it, even if it wanted to, because it owes so much money, because it has no flexibility. I think we have a lot more flexibility than the federal government, but --

Mr Perruzza: Is that not the Conservative Party?

Mr Stockwell: If the attitudes, and the attitudes of this particular government, do not change dramatically, we will not have that kind of flexibility in the not-too-distant future.

I am not going to argue with the federal government, just to comment on the comment that was made, but frankly, I do not think the number one person who ran up that debt was a Conservative, to be perfectly blunt. And he certainly was not NDP. So I think it is unfair to slam the federal government for the federal debt. They have added, in some instances, to it, but not to the great extent when it took off in the 1960s and 1970s, to such a great degree. And this is what I fear, here. I do not want us to get into a situation where you feel obligated to carry out your Agenda for People and the only way you can do it is to mortgage my future and the future of my children, because I do not think that is a very intelligent way to budget. It is a bad way to budget. It is all those things we have talked about, deferred taxes and so on. So if your selective tax increases -- it is 30% of the transfer payments and we are looking at $7 billion, it would be interesting to see what other alternative forms of financing you can see.

Of course, a triple A credit rating might be a little bit of a tempest in a teapot for the amount of money it costs you to go from triple A to double A plus, but it is certainly a perception out there. The perceptions in politics are quite often the most important factors we deal with and I would not want to see us drop our triple A credit rating. It has happened before and we have regained it, and I think maybe we could regain it again, but I would rather see it not drop. But I think it is more important to control the deficit, government spending and taxes.

The other point that I would like to make at this time is about the deficit that you inherited. Again, I think that you had a very difficult job inheriting this deficit for this year because everyone was so happy and frolicking around with this $30-million surplus.

I guess what it comes back to, and I wrote it down here, is broader political rights for civil servants -- gee, I sound like one of you guys, do I not? -- and whistle-blowing legislation. This is what irritates me about our $30-million debt, and I would like you to respond or have staff respond.

Mr Perruzza: Do you mean $2.5 billion, Chris?

Mr Stockwell: I am sorry. We went from the $30-million surplus to the $700-million debt to the growing debt from that point on.

I would like you to talk to your staff and find out how the heck that happened. We were in the middle of a campaign and the Premier of this province was waltzing around, talking about balanced budgets and talking about $30-million surpluses, and getting a lot of votes -- maybe not a lot but some votes, on fiscal responsibility.

Mrs Marland: Not enough, anyway.

Mr Stockwell: It is a slam against the Liberals, no doubt about it -- fiscal responsibility and all this good stuff, when our economy was going into the dumper.

I am willing to accept the fact that you did not know. You were the critic, okay. No one thought you would be the Treasurer, so probably no one told you. But I cannot believe that nobody told Mr Nixon. But let's say nobody told Mr Nixon and nobody told the Premier that in August and September -- it is about the same as having a terrible environment spill somewhere in this province and we are in the middle of the campaign and nobody phoning the Environment minister and telling him. I think it is exactly the same.

Here we are with everyone talking about a $30-million surplus, ads running on the radio, etc, and we are in debt, big time. I have a great deal of difficulty understanding why somebody in the Treasury department did not pick up the phone and phone the Treasurer, the Premier, and say: "You know that stuff you are mouthing? Well, you better stop because it is not true." I have great difficulty with that.

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Whether it comes down to the fact that they did phone them and would not say it, that is wrong; or they just did not want to call them because it was inappropriate and they thought someone would say, "Be quiet," it makes a great case for some kind of opportunity for the civil servants to outline these kind of things that are taking place.

It is not fair to the other parties running in the election, because they are stating a position on financing and economic concerns and debt and all those kinds of things and we are not dealing with the facts. If I cannot deal with the facts, how can I fundamentally run a fair and even campaign and expect to get a reassurance from the people who are electing us that they in fact have all the information before them to make a decision? I am very upset about that and I have held that off until we get a chance to deal with your staff. This is the time to deal with your staff and I am very irritated about it.

I do not know if it is your fault. I do not know whose fault it is, but it is somebody's fault. If it is Mr Nixon's fault, then somebody should say someone told him and he would not clean or someone told Mr Peterson and he did not come clean. If you did not tell anybody, why not? Because you should have.

The other point is with respect to the Fair Tax Commission. Mr Bradley pretty much covered all the real pertinent questions that allow me to go on with this kind of easy-going flow I have about me, I know.

The Chair: Calm and temperate.

Mr Stockwell: That is it. The Fair Tax Commission, the NDP tax commission. I really wish you would strike "fair." Fair to you may be a lot different from fair to me, and fair to this group may be different from fair to this group. I think you would be better off to either call it the tax commission or call it the NDP tax commission or call it the let's go out and gouge commission. I do not care what you call it, but in my opinion it is not the Fair Tax Commission.

I sat through I think nearly every one of the commission members. I said in the House last session that it is going to slanted, biased towards your party. I understand that. This is a political process, this is a political operation.

Mr Perruzza: How can you say that before they go out and do their work?

Mr Stockwell: Let me finish.

The Chair: Mr Perruzza, I do not want to have to correct you again.

Mr Stockwell: This is a commission that was established by your government, and I said before you announced your people that I do not think it is fair, I think it is slanted, etc. And I think it is. Seven have come through so far. Five are in fact card-carrying, financially donating money or working for your party. Five of the seven so far. At least half, probably going to be ending up more than half. I would think you are going to see seven or eight.

Well, 37% of the people in this province voted for you. Probably significantly fewer than that actually carry your NDP membership card. I do not know how it happened that out of 10 people, son of a gun, Treasurer, if you did not pick six or seven who were card-carrying or financial donations made in their name to the NDP. It is almost coincidental. It is just crazy, is it not, that that happened?

You think that is fair; funny, I do not, and I do not think the other party, the official opposition, thinks it is that fair either. In fact, probably 62% of the people in this province do not think it is fair either. So either drop "fair" or allow us to have an all-party committee pick the people who are going to sit on this commission, because it is not a representative view of the Ontario public.

Further to that, I find it incredible that one of the members -- there are 9 million or 10 million people in this province, Treasurer. Was it because you could not find 10 who agreed with your thinking that you had to go to Quebec or was it because we could not find anyone who would be prepared to sit on this commission from Ontario. It seems incredible to me that we went outside Ontario to Quebec to handpick one person to sit on this commission. I cannot believe there is not at least one more person out of the 9 or 10 people in this province who could have sat on this tax commission.

The statement is going to be made, you are going to go forward and tell me that is not a fair comment. But we are talking about education tax, we are talking about home ownership, we are talking about a lot of taxes that have to do with where you live. It seems to me that if you are going to ask people to comment on the tax system in this province and you are going to ask people to suggest ways in which this system can work better, then they should at least have to pay taxes in this province. That is one criterion that I think is universally accepted.

The other points I would like to make on the tax commission or questions I would like to ask are the annual budget of the commission, if the commission will be allowed to travel outside the province at public expense and whether all reports prepared by or for the commission will be open and available to the public. That is very important. I am very keen to find out exactly what everyone thinks on that commission; if there are dissenting views, I think they should be allowed to make those dissenting views very public. If not, then I think it is even more stacked and unfair and slanted than it is right now.

In the end, you are going to get what you want. I could be corrected, but I thought this commission was supposed to report back in 12 to 18 months, when it was initially announced or established. Now everyone is talking three years or 36 months, which is significantly different than what you originally announced. It seems to me that that is a vast difference, considering that I believe all the major tax issues have been fobbed off to this commission. Really, once it gets going, it is going to have a life of its own, it is going to spend a lot of money and it is a monster created. I am not so sure you can grab it and haul it back in.

Public sector restraint, the domed stadium: I agree with those comments. Quickly, I assume the negotiations are not going well with the Dome board. What a shock. You mean these people do not want to give up their equity position and they do not absorb any of the losses? I am surprised. Frankly, I think I could have told you that that committee was a colossal waste of time. It would be interesting to report back on what is happening, but let me give you a bit of advice: You are not getting anywhere with them.

Public sector restraint program: A lot of Canadian provinces have implemented public sector restraint programs: Manitoba's sector, with the exception of nurses, at 3%, transfer payments to 2%; Saskatchewan to 4%; 600 public sector jobs for the next two years. I would really like a comment on why you will not even examine it. It seems to be an accepted approach in a lot of other provinces, by a lot of other governments, and your Premier last week said it is not even on the books to be looked at. I think that is unreasonable.

If we are in such a deep, dark recession, and it is going to be very difficult to get out of, it seems to me that by holding the line on the government, holding the line on the public sector, you can send a clear message that, "We're in there with you, we're prepared to fight and help you any way we can." And I think taxes are a big issue out there. Whether or not you agree, it still is a big issue.

So those are some of the questions, some concerns. To sum up, it would be very interesting if we could in fact strike what I consider to be a Fair Tax Commission. I do not think this is. I am really disenchanted and I think very disappointed. A lot of people in this province may be very disappointed, because from interviewing the people you have put on this commission, it is not in my opinion anywhere near fair, and not the least bit balanced in its thinking. From your government, "open" and "accessible" and all those lovely words you used -- it is a long way from what I consider to be open and accessible.

The Chair: As previously announced, I would like to ask the Treasurer to respond. He has up to 30 minutes, which should bring us right to adjournment.

Mr Elston: Do you allow some interjections here?

The Chair: That interjection is not accepted, or any future ones, Mr Elston.

Hon Mr Laughren: Mr Chairman, if you would permit me to answer some of the questions I made notes on, but there are some that are fairly technical and some that I think warrant a more thoughtful response than I would give off the top of my head; if you would allow us to come back tomorrow with some more appropriate answers, if that meets with your approval.

The Chair: It does.

Hon Mr Laughren: I want to start with -- because both the opposition critics spent some time on it -- the deficit. I have absolutely no reason to defend the former government or Treasurer; I have nothing to gain by doing that. My understanding, and the civil service can respond if that is the wish of the committee, is that the numbers started to fall apart around the beginning of the summer, perhaps a little before the election was called. But I think you appreciate the time lag there is: those numbers come in, it takes some time to get numbers such as corporate income tax and retail sales tax revenues in and get those dealt with, but by the time the election was called, the numbers, I gather, were coming in and showing that.

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I have never said it and I do not believe there was a deliberate attempt to disguise the numbers. Call me naive if you want, but as I said at the beginning, I have no reason to defend the former Treasurer or his government. It is quite conceivable that the numbers will change underneath me as well as time goes on, and rather quickly. Who knows?

I would wish Hansard to record the presence of a new and charming Chair.

I cannot give you any more than my idea of how the whole thing happened with the deficit, but I can tell you that after 6 September, actually 1 October, when I first walked into the Treasury building, the numbers were continuing to deteriorate. It had not stopped then. The numbers were continuing to deteriorate. I think most objective observers would say that started to happen in the summer, at the beginning of the summer perhaps, out there it started to happen but by the time numbers got filtered through it was well into the summer and of course well into the election campaign. I cannot answer you more than that because I do not know who knew what.

On the size of the deficit, I do not know yet how big it is going to be, because, quite frankly, we have not done any of our tax numbers of what, if any, taxes we will increase or decrease. We are just now going through the estimates process, which some members will be very familiar with, where we are trying to set levels of expenditures by the various ministries. All that is just happening now, and I could not give you the number even if I wanted to. I do not know how large the deficit will be in 1991-1992.

It is very safe to say it will be higher. I do not think that is any secret to anybody. I think, though, that as the capital markets view what is happening I trust they will see that our response is a responsible one and is no less than anyone would expect a government to do in a time of recession. I cannot imagine what some critics would have us do in terms of the transfer payments, for example. Should we have flat-lined them, zero increase? I see my Conservative critic nodding that that is what we should do. I do not know if you have any idea what the impact would be if you flat-lined the transfer payments in terms of, for example, bed closures in hospitals. I have no idea, but I can tell you it would be an enormous number of hospital beds that would be closed, and I know who would be on their feet demanding that we provide funding to open them. You cannot have it both ways in this world.

If flat-lining education, I cannot imagine, with enrolment increases, how you would do that, both at the post-secondary level and in the lower levels of education. While it is very nice to talk about balancing a budget and flat-lining and not having a big deficit, I do not think it is even fair to talk that way without talking about the ramifications of it. To simply get up and almost mindlessly talk about a low deficit and flat-lining makes no sense whatsoever. People out there understand that. People expect us in this province to have a government that has some compassion. The welfare case loads, for example: When they go up as dramatically as they have, what would you, Mr Stockwell, suggest we do? Would you suggest that --

Mr Stockwell: We are here asking you questions.

Hon Mr Laughren: All right. I am telling you that we are not going to do what you suggest. We are not going to flat-line those kind of expenditures.

Mr Stockwell: I did not say health care.

Hon Mr Laughren: Well, you are going to start picking and choosing now, which you were not doing a few minutes ago. If we were to flat-line our transfers to the municipalities, I can imagine what the outcome would be for the property taxpayer, for example. You simply cannot have it both ways, and passing on the problem to the lower level of government as dramatically as the federal government has done to us is not the answer. There is a line we walk provincially with sharing the burden with our municipal partners. There is a line there. We are going to have to raise taxes, we are going to have a higher deficit. I think you would appreciate, most members would appreciate, that it really is going to be a case of sharing the burden during a recession. There is no question about that. I do not think, though, that it is appropriate to talk about flat-lining in a time of recession.

In part of the pre-budget consultation, and I will deal with that in a minute, the pre-budget consultation was having people come in and tell me that we should keep the deficit under control, etc, because there are automatic stabilizers out there that are looking after the problem. I do not know how many single parents with kids on social assistance have ever known they were labelled an automatic stabilizer, but that is what they are called, and when the bottom falls out of the economy and the federal government changes its rules on unemployment and more and more people go on social assistance, the province provides that safety net, which, so help me, we will always be there to provide, I hope -- because you tell me what the alternative is for those people. There has simply got to be that safety net.

I do not like it either. I do not like the fact that that is the only alternative. That is one reason we believe very much in the Transitions report, the SARC committee report, because it talks about that transition from being on social assistance to being employed, and that is an honourable principle and an honourable goal and we stand by it. It is doubly difficult in a recession, when you have an increasing number of people going on social assistance and you are trying to reverse that. It is very frustrating and very difficult and very hard for the municipalities to handle as well, and the local property taxpayer.

I can tell you that when we established the transfer payments levels, it was keeping all those things in mind, at the same time fully anticipating that when the federal government brings down its budget in the next month or so -- I do not know the date -- it is going to make it very difficult for us again. This year, this 1991-92, what the federal government has done to Ontario is about $1.3 billion less than we should have been able to expect from it on the established programs financing transfer payments which provide for health and post-secondary education and the social services -- $1.3 billion. So you can put the blame for whatever the deficit is going to be, you can put at least $1.3 billion right at the doorstep of Michael Wilson in Ottawa, and, I might add, you can also put a good part of the blame on his federal monetary policies as well. I do not know how much of it, but some of it, not to mention the free trade agreement and the dislocation that is causing. You are laughing, but I want to tell you --

Mr Stockwell: Sure I am. You are blaming them every day of the week.

Hon Mr Laughren: That is not true. The free trade agreement is causing a restructuring of our economy to go on right underneath us with none of the programs being put in place that the federal government assured us would be there as a result of what it knew would go on in our economy. I am not blaming everything on the free trade agreement, but I am saying that is part of it. You combine all of the things the federal government has done and you have to realize, if you are fair-minded at all, that it is at least partly to blame for this recession and for the deficit we are going to have.

I wanted to spend a minute on the Agenda for People. I have never seen an NDP document so fondly held by members of the opposition. I have never seen anything like it. It is a remarkable document and what I have said to everybody who will listen to me --

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Mr Elston: We actually got our copies that were thrown out of the window of the seventh floor of the Frost Building.

Hon Mr Laughren: The Management Board end or the Treasury end? Anyway, on the Agenda for People, there is nothing in the Agenda for People that I -- and I have read it --

Mr Stockwell: I believe it.

Mr Elston: I know.

Hon Mr Laughren: -- that I would refute. I believe in the principles that are stated in the Agenda for People. At the same time it would really be misleading to say that we intend to implement the Agenda for People in this term of office. We will do, and I am quite serious about this, what we can in this term but if the economy of the province continues to be sluggish -- we know that 1991 is mostly gone in terms of recovery -- if it is so sluggish, it is going to be a slower timetable than we had thought it would be.

When the Agenda for People was written and presented and taken across the province, the belief was that we would be able to do that. I think most of you would agree that the economy has deteriorated substantially since then. No politician likes to live with broken promises. Despite the cynicism some people have of politicians, it is very painful when politicians make promises they cannot keep.

The Agenda for People laid out a series of promises that we really believe that we could keep and I still believe that we will keep. The question is, when? I have no illusions that we can do it in the next couple of years. I have no illusions about that at all, but there is nothing in the Agenda for People that I do not believe in. I think the principles in there are sound. Some of the things, even if we were able to do a lot of them, we would hold back on now because there is an examination going on such as the Fair Tax Commission, and such as the process of the municipalities and the province looking at their relationship one with the other.

Even if we could afford some of these things, we would be holding back on some of them anyway because we want to consult with our partners out there. Just so that you are comfortable with our position on the Agenda for People, it is that we still believe in the Agenda for People, but we also know that the timetable has been changed and that we are not going to be able to implement it in the way we thought we could. It is as simple as that.

The pre-budget consultation I should mention because that was a decision we made. I gather we started the prebudget consultation a little later than in previous years, although I am not certain of that. I was taken aback by the number of groups that wanted to come in. There were literally hundreds wanted to come in and talk to the Treasurer and in looking at --

Mr Elston: The same ones you used to talk to in opposition.

Hon Mr Laughren: No, I never met an investment dealer before I became Treasurer.

There were so many that we had to make a choice. Either we restricted the length of time that each of the consultations was or we did not see as many. So it was one of those tradeoffs. I can remember chairing committees not unlike this one, and Mrs Marland remembers that too --

The Vice-Chair: I will never forget it.

Hon Mr Laughren: I digress.

Mr Stockwell: Sounds like it was good for you, Margaret.

Hon Mr Laughren: Enough of that -- in which we had the same problem where groups wanted to come before the committee on an issue or a bill and we had to make a decision as to how short of a time frame in order to fit as many as we could in. In Treasury what we did was not in 20 minutes, to be fair. I think last year they were an hour; that is what they tell me. We restricted them to 30 minutes and we think that is reasonable. It does impose a certain discipline on the parties and on us in our responses to them. I know it would nicer to have an hour but we have cut it down to 30 minutes. I think somebody said 20 minutes. I do not know whether it was Mr Stockwell or Mr Bradley.

Mr Stockwell: I didn't even know you met with them.

Hon Mr Laughren: That is not true. It is not 20 minutes; it is 30 minutes.

On the question of the $700-million package and the red tape, I do not recall using the words "red tape," but I have not checked Hansard yet to see. Maybe I can clear it up a bit. When the $700-million package was announced, we said we wanted it to be part of a package that local governments had sent in -- either school boards, municipalities or ministries -- in proposals. I think you would agree that it is necessary to consult with people to see whether or not those are still priorities because perhaps those priorities could have changed, by school boards, by municipalities, by hospitals, by ministries and so forth.

That took a little while, but I do not consider that red tape. That is simply consulting in the way everyone expects us to consult, to make sure the priorities are still there.

Then the operations committee: We set up the criteria for which ones would be selected. The operations committee, which is a cabinet committee on which my esteemed parliamentary assistant sits, looks at the projects and makes the very difficult decision on which ones to fund. As soon as that was through, as soon as that was done, they were farmed out to the specific ministries.

I am sure that Mr Christopherson will correct me if I misread how the operations committee of cabinet worked, but that is how it was done. I think now it is about $300 million or more that has been approved. Maybe even more, Mr Christopherson, has been approved. Then we get them out there as quickly as possible. There is no red tape in it. It is a case of once that announcement is made, the municipalities, the school board, the hospital, whoever, then decides. in some cases, I suppose, they have to put out contracts. I do not know what all they are doing, but at that point then the process of the work starts as quickly as possible; the quicker the better as far as we are concerned.

But we do not have any bills yet coming in. It is the bills that you pay that go into the budget, so I do not think it is an appropriate criticism. I do not mind if you criticize it, but believe me, the faster we can get those out there, the better. We were not trying to delay it at all. We were trying to get it as fast as we could and I think the operations committee did an admirable job.

So it was not a case of red tape; it is a case of going through a process of making sure that the projects that they were going to approve were still priorities by our partners out there. That was why we did that and I hope that clears up the problem. It is not a case of bureaucracy slowing things down. If anything, you could say we consulted perhaps when we could have done it arbitrarily, but I do not think you would want that trade-off

On the question of the Fair Tax Commission, I must say that I was very disappointed in Mr Stockwell's comments, although he has a right to express them. I am not disappointed in them because they were of a partisan nature so much as for other reasons. We tried very hard to select 10 Canadians who were representative of this province. I think that if you go out there and talk to any sector you want to -- whether it is the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, the Canadian Bankers' Association, the chartered accountants -- and give them the names of the 10 commissioners and ask them if they think that is a representative group from the province of Ontario -- ask them. We did. We asked them that. We consulted widely with different sectors out there before those people were selected.

We made sure there was gender balance. We made sure there was regional representation. We made sure there was a francophone on the committee, a visible minority. We tried very hard. The various sectors are represented on that as well. We spent a lot of time making sure that was the case. Those were our priorities when we set up the Fair Tax Commission.

When the people who were doing all of the digging to find people who would do this -- believe me, it is not everyone who will serve on a Fair Tax Commission like this because you want to get people who have expertise, and often they are very busy. The 10 people who volunteered to serve on this commission, I am very proud of. Not once while that process was going on did I ask anyone if he was a member of the New Democratic Party. I did not ask the staff that; I asked no one that. I knew personally, I think, 2 people out of the 10. I did not know them in a social way at all either. I had met, I think, 2, maybe 3 out of the 10.

It was not some kind of personal selection that we went through and it certainly was not a party selection that we went through. It was trying to get a mix of people who would comment objectively on the tax system in the province of Ontario.

The fact that one person works in Ottawa for a public sector union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, we wanted someone from the public sector unions. The fact that one happens to live across the river in Hull, I find it passing strange that this would be seen to be unacceptable. There are a couple of taxes that person would not pay in Ontario, I assume, such as income tax and property tax, but I would assume that the other nine pay those and that she pays all those other taxes that we pay in the province of Ontario. I think to criticize someone who lives across the river is really inappropriate. I could make the argument that it is not a bad idea to have someone from the province of Quebec who is exposed to the Quebec tax regime as well.

I think it is a good cross-section of people whom we have chosen for the Fair Tax Commission and I would ask you to go out there, if you do not believe me, and talk to people in the various sectors and see what they think. nd I think that you will be perhaps surprised, but I think you would find that they meet with virtually everyone's approval and that it is not a stacked deck.

I can tell you another thing. When we were designing a model for a tax commission and we were talking to the people, like the chairs and the vice-chairs and so forth, they took a look at the model we were proposing and they said, "If you want us to serve on this commission, here are some changes you'd better make." They are tough-minded, independent-minded and insisted on those changes and we made those changes, because I think they have a right to insist on that.

That is another reason why we have not made a lot of announcements about what the Fair Tax Commission is going to be doing, or about its priorities, because I think it should be making those decisions. We will be giving them direction, and already have, on the areas of taxation and so forth, but I am not going to tell them how to run their show. We are providing a secretariat that will help them with research and so forth, but we are not going to be messing around with them.

It is going to be an arm's-length commission. We very much want this commission to have a legitimacy out there and that is why I stress the fact that I think the business community believes in this commission. They believe it is fairly struck and that there are some people, of course, who will not like certain aspects, but I think that overall it is going to be a commission that has legitimacy and the respect of people in Ontario from all sectors.

I will conclude my remarks with that and I look forward to tomorrow when I will come back and join you.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Treasurer, and this committee now stands adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning, at which time we will begin with our questions and answers, rotating through each caucus for 15 minutes per caucus, as we have done with the other estimates.

The committee adjourned at 1754.