Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

CONTENTS

Wednesday 17 November 1993

Ministry of Education and Training

Hon David S. Cooke, minister

Dr Charles Pascal, deputy minister

David McKee, director, special education and provincial schools branch

James Doris, executive coordinator, education finance reform secretariat

Maurice Poirier, director, curriculum development policy

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ESTIMATES

*Chair / Président: Jackson, Cameron (Burlington South/-Sud PC)

*Acting Chair / Président suppléant: Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Arnott, Ted (Wellington PC)

Abel, Donald (Wentworth North/-Nord ND

Bisson, Gilles (Cochrane South/-Sud N)

Carr, Gary (Oakville South/-Sud PC)

Elston, Murray J. (Bruce L)

*Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND)

*Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent ND)

Lessard, Wayne (Windsor-Walkerville ND)

Mahoney, Steven W. (Mississauga West/-Ouest L)

Ramsay, David (Timiskaming L)

*In attendance / présents

Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:

Beer, Charles (York North/-Nord L) for Mr Elston

Cunningham, Dianne (London North/-Nord PC) for Mr Arnott

Malkowski, Gary (York East/-Est ND) for Mr Abel

Martin, Tony (Sault Ste Marie ND) for Mr Lessard

McGuinty, Dalton (Ottawa South/-Sud L) for Mr Mahoney

Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:

James J. Bradley (St Catharines)

Clerk / Greffière: Grannum, Tonia

The committee met at 1541 in committee room 2.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

The Chair (Mr Cameron Jackson): I'd like to call to order the standing committee on estimates. We have five hours and four minutes remaining to complete the Ministry of Education and Training estimates. However, we will plan to finish by 6 o'clock today, so I will need a few moments for seven votes at the end of today's session, since we have to report to the House tomorrow.

At this point, unless there were any outstanding questions that came from yesterday's hearings that the minister or the deputy wished to respond to, I'd like to recognize Ms Cunningham.

Mrs Dianne Cunningham (London North): I'd like to begin by saying that I wasn't here yesterday and missed hearing the minister first hand. He hates it when I quote from other things and I don't listen to him directly. It was great that I got his remarks this morning, so I've had an opportunity to look at them and I commend him for the initiatives that he feels are important; there's no doubt in my mind.

However, in spite of that, although we agree on some of the priorities for change -- because I think he talked a lot about that, the need for change -- I will be making some remarks that I hope will be helpful today with regard to education in the context of his remarks, quite frankly, as opposed to perhaps the real reason for being here, and hope that we can continue to work together.

I'm going to start, Mr Chairman, if you don't mind, and take 30 seconds. I asked a question in the House today, and it was by no means that I agreed with the article I was asking about; I just didn't know. That was the intent. If the minister thought I was trying to raise unrealistic, I suppose, expectations on behalf of students in the light that there would be yet another roadblock this year, that wasn't my intent. It was an opportunity --

Hon David S. Cooke (Minister of Education and Training): It just had been a while since I'd had a question.

Mrs Cunningham: I know. It showed. I can't promise you I'm going to keep you experienced by asking questions all the time. There's a big argument as to who gets questions on. But today there wasn't and it was --

Hon Mr Cooke: See, when we were in opposition, education was always put up at the top.

Mrs Cunningham: I remember that. I also remember what the questions were and what stands you took, which is extremely helpful to me these days.

Anyway, you can see that people try to work together in this province, and we'll continue to do that. I really appreciate the fact that the minister took the time to read our document. I think in some instances he's acted on some of the things that we thought were important, and I appreciate that.

I'm just going to put my remarks on the record now. I have a copy of them, so if anybody needs them down the road, they're most welcome to them.

In my view, 1993-94 has seen a flurry of government action in the education field. The government has announced a royal commission to undertake a full review of Ontario's education system and a parent council to reassure parents that the ministry does care about their views on how their children should be educated. We've seen the introduction of mandatory destreaming of grade 9 students and the passage of legislation to mandate junior kindergarten. Special education programs have been permanently changed with the removal of the hard-to-serve provisions from the act, despite the fact that the ministry cannot ensure that programs for all of Ontario's exceptional pupils will be in place. The government's proceeding with the introduction of the Common Curriculum despite its unpopularity.

I feel we should be looking for a new document there. I'm going to really try to leave some time before I have to leave to make a speech in London so the minister can respond to some of the things that he finds probably are, in his view, not correct or controversial on my part.

Violence in schools is on the rise and we have an unprecedented number of school days lost to strikes since September. Some may argue with that. I think we get our numbers from the same source, so I think I'm correct.

Post-secondary education has also been challenging, and the government has addressed equity issues associated with governing bodies, but has failed to recognize that universities and colleges are in financial decline. Today I raised yet another equity issue around a survey I didn't know about and was looking for his information on.

The only solution the government offers right now is significant tuition fee increases. We've been on the side of tuition fee increases, but not as the only solution. The definition, of course, of "significant" has yet to be determined by all of us, but it certainly has been determined by the students.

Training programs are said to be imperative for our economic future, I think by everyone, but they're rarely mentioned with the province's preoccupation with the establishment of the OTAB -- I'd like to say board but I have to say bureaucracy -- because of the process that most of us were subjected to for public input. The promised regulations for the LTABs have not emerged, and I hope the minister will put that down as a priority, because we do have people who are extremely valuable to the system that we should hope to keep there, and we have some LTABs that are working very well and we should be using them as models.

The promised streamlining and efficient delivery of programming is not evident, and we just have to ask workers over the age of 45 about the responsiveness of POWA -- the acronym there -- and the Transitions programs. The minister may want to speak to those, but I would hope he would speak to other things first.

The Jobs Ontario Training program is extremely controversial, and despite projections that 100,000 jobs would be created in three years, the program was only able to deliver 7,573 jobs in its first year of operation. I heard the question today, by the way, and the new numbers. Employers openly admit in the press that the jobs would have been created anyway and that they would be fools to pass up on the government's so-called training subsidy. We've all read those statements, and I have received letters on them, which I have passed on to the ministry.

Anti-racket investigators from the OPP are looking for $770,000 missing from the Jobs Ontario program at the Brant Community Development Agency. On any of these things, I hope the minister, if he feels I'm out of line, can speak to them. The government also gave $67,000 to a former drug dealer in St Catharines. I suppose we're in such a rush some days to spend money and get our programs up that the checks and references are not put in place the way they ought to be. Frankly, it's a relief some days that the Provincial Auditor is reviewing the program.

Despite all this activity, the most significant aspect of fiscal 1993-94 was the expenditure control plan and the social contract. The expenditure control plan cut $635.6 million from the budget of the Ministry of Education and Training. I will give the credit to the minister that he recognized there was a real need to get our books in order. It will result, however, in a loss of 224 full-time positions. The social contract cut a further $425 million from school boards and $130 million from colleges and universities.

The fiscal crisis of the province made the introduction of tough measures imperative, and again I'll give the credit to the minister. However, the government's plan has led to an administrative nightmare, and hundreds of hours are dedicated to negotiating sectoral agreements that in the end resulted in salary cuts.

I might go so far as to say that I think it is because of the social contract right now that some of our school boards are finding themselves either not understanding what the intent of the minister was or not believing the financial responsibilities of the school boards, that we're finding them, I think, taking the worst form of getting attention, and that is entering into strikes. I know the minister would agree that students should be in school.

I think the ministry, in its negotiations on the social contract, expected that everybody would work together. They had to come up with some concessions as well, and I would hope that school boards and teachers would understand that this is a special year and that a lot of people are going to have to give things up.

The element of society that we're all worried about is people who don't have a job, and it's really hurtful to them. I spent yesterday in southwestern Ontario and in some of those areas, ending up in Sarnia, where there is not a lot of respect for people who choose not to work, who have a job, in any area of society today.

Despite the frenzied activity, the government does not appear to have a clear focus about where it is heading in education. I'll try to explain that statement, because it isn't a positive one.

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It's been estimated that as many as half the jobs opening up by the end of the next century will require specialized skills and knowledge. Today's students will need specialized skills to meet the challenges of the 1990s, and the ability to learn new skills and acquire more knowledge throughout their lives to meet the challenges of the next century. For this reason, we certainly believe that our future prosperity will depend on the quality of education and training we can provide today.

That, in the eyes of the public, has been a very strong statement made to myself and my colleagues as we have received input in our constituency offices from the constituents we represent and as we've travelled throughout the province of Ontario dealing with what I think is one of the most important issues in society today, the future of our education.

Unfortunately, in their view, our education system does not appear to be making the grade, and it isn't good enough to say that that's always been the view of the public. We believe there have to be changes, and I think the minister himself said that in his presentation to the standing committee yesterday. I commend him for his observations. He's obviously very much aware of what the public expects and what the changes have to be.

Unfortunately, as I say, we're not making the grade. Ontario students perform below many other industrialized nations and provinces on international mathematics and science tests. Whenever I talk about this, I use the ministry's own data; I don't use other data.

First-year university and community college students are enrolled in remedial programs to improve their inadequate literacy skills. That's something the ministry should be looking at: Why?

The dropout rate, which Statistics Canada places at 17% -- which has always been controversial, which number we use; we're thankful there for a new counting system -- is still unacceptably high, given the fact that Employment and Immigration Canada projects that by the year 2000 almost half of all the new jobs -- this is so important; it's hard for us to understand this -- created will require more than five years of education beyond high school. We're seeing it in our students now, who need university degrees to get into some of our community college programs.

I'm sure it's a surprise to all of us when somebody comes to us and says, "I have to go to a community college." I'm not saying that's good or bad. Actually, I think it's probably a good thing. But the fact of the matter is that we're seeing it is a reality that students are having to go beyond the five years of high school.

Given the level of expenditure on education and training in this province, these figures are distressing. I'm now talking about the 17% dropout rate, and I'm talking about the first-year university and community college students who are enrolled in remedial programs.

We believe that it's time for a new direction in education and I know the minister does as well. That's why over two years ago we began work on policy proposals and ideas to reform the education system. We examined the strengths and weaknesses of the system through the eyes of students, parents, teachers, the employment community and others. Based on our consultations, we released our policy paper, New Directions, Volume Two: A Blueprint for Learning in Ontario. It outlined concrete proposals for renewal based on the principles of excellence, opportunity and accountability. I don't think we can ever ignore those principles.

Thousands of Ontarians have ordered a copy of our 40-page document and the orders keep coming in. Thousands have attended our community-based town hall meetings and answered our questions or sent in detailed letters with further policy ideas. We have participated in education panel discussions all across the province. The high participation level and enthusiasm of the response demonstrates how long it has been since a political party, or maybe a government, has asked individual Ontarians for their thoughts and ideas. I'll speak to the commission in a little while. Not everyone agreed with our ideas, but they all asked us for the opportunity to have input into the policy development process.

The idea has really caught on. The federal Liberal Party released its red book during the election, which in many instances mirrored our apprenticeship proposals. I think possibly it mirrored them because there isn't anybody who doesn't agree, including the former Liberal government in this province, that apprenticeship programs have to be totally overhauled.

The Premier's Council has made those statements, certainly while we've all been here in this House, during the last five years and before. Even the provincial wing of the Liberal Party, they've advised me, has concluded, at a weekend policy conference, that they too should let Ontarians know where they stand on the issues, and that's good. I think more than ever before, the voters are looking to government and political parties that are providing solutions, and they want to know where we stand.

With the announcement of the Royal Commission on Learning, on May 4, 1993, it appears the NDP had decided at that time that public consultation is essential. However, it's a late start, and because the final report is not due until the fall of 1994, no action can be taken during its mandate. I see the minister shaking his head. He wants to talk about that. That's fine; that's why I'm raising the issue.

Let's go into the royal commission. Governments generally announce royal commissions when they're unsure about which direction they should take. If that's the case, I question why this government continues to tinker with its piecemeal pet projects. Grade 9 students will be the guinea pigs as they must suffer the experimentation of destreaming and the Common Curriculum, both of which I'm not in support of -- neither is my party, and I don't think the school systems are either -- based on education outcomes.

Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): You'd be surprised.

Mrs Cunningham: I don't think I am surprised.

I am surprised to know and I'm happy to know that a lot of destreaming has not taken place in grade 9 across the province this year -- with ministry approval, I might add. Where courses and classes have been streamed in the past and where those teachers and school boards have been able to prove to the ministry that they're extremely important and successful, they haven't been asked to destream them, and I give the minister and the ministry credit for that. Where things are working, we shouldn't be getting in the way.

Demonstrable acquisition of knowledge and skills is obviously something that the NDP has to put into its education philosophy. Perhaps they are when they approve programs that are already streamed in our school systems in September. They're starting to look at what's happening out there and working in a positive way.

The fact that the royal commission could recommend that the province introduce a standardized curriculum and standardized testing is not considered. Why not introduce continual change? Teachers would be thrilled. That's the kind of thing we need.

The other major agenda item that has been removed from the royal commission's plate is the issue of education finance reform. When Globe and Mail columnist Jennifer Lewington came up with the title Overdue Assignment for her book, she must have been thinking about the education finance issue. Many of us were. The 1990 election featured the big 60% promise, yet three ministers of Education have failed to address the issue. I'm not saying implement it; I'm saying address the issue.

The Fair Tax Commission took a stab at the question and failed miserably. No consensus could be reached. Now we all wait in anticipation for legislation that will outline the reform agenda in the spring of 1994. The government forgot that the Honourable Tony Silipo had promised to have a new finance system in place by September 1993.

The questions during this committee will tackle numerous policy areas within the Ministry of Education and Training, but the limited time allowance will not allow a thorough review of the essential policy field.

Mr Chairman, I have a number of questions and I think it would be in order for me to table them with the minister shortly.

I'd like to say in conclusion that I think we're at a pivotal point in the history of Ontario's education system. We need to define the roles and responsibilities of students -- notice I'm saying "responsibilities" as well -- even with students. One of the questions I received last week, actually in the minister's riding, from a student was the question of homework. He was annoyed because the school board had come up with a homework policy and he thought it was too stiff. I asked him if 20 minutes per credit was too much to expect; not that it all had to be done on an individual evening; it could be worked out with the teacher. When he thought about it, he said, "Well, maybe that's not a bad idea." But initially, he really didn't think that the school board and parents should be demanding that he do homework. That's why I underline the roles and responsibilities of students, parents, teachers, school boards and the Ministry of Education. These roles and responsibilities have never been more crucial.

The need to make our workplace training programs responsive to the needs of the 21st century will determine whether we will be competitive in an increasingly interdependent world. There are hundreds of dedicated professionals delivering education programs in this province, and with their help we can have the best education and training system in the world. On that note, I think we're all on the same side.

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Mr Chairman, I have questions and I'll give you the areas because I don't think there's enough time. It's my problem perhaps, the time, but it's also the process's problem. There really ought to be an arena where we can ask these questions and have the minister discuss them in a thoughtful way with us, other than asking questions in the House, in other than time limits in this committee. I really believe that, because I think some of the controversial issues aren't always reported well because some of us don't always say well what we mean -- that's only part of it, I know -- and others don't read what they should read before they ask us questions. There just isn't time, I think, in this political environment that we work in -- and it's our own fault, because we can make the time in our committees -- for the kind of useful discussions that would be necessary.

The Chair: Mrs Cunningham, if it's useful, you have 10 minutes of your uninterrupted time remaining to discuss the process or to put on the record your questions. Then the committee by agreement and consensus has agreed to give you some time to ask further questions and the minister has the right to reply. If you wanted to put those on the record --

Mrs Cunningham: I'm actually finished now.

The Chair: -- or table them with the committee, we can prevail upon the minister to consider written responses at a future point.

Mrs Cunningham: Okay, what I would like to do then is put on the record -- I'm not going to read all the questions into the record; I'll put the topics on the record and give the minister a copy of the questions. There may be some that he would like to address at another time in an environment where we can have a useful discussion -- in a public way, I mean.

My questions are going to be with regard to the Royal Commission on Learning, on the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, on the Ontario Parent Council, on violence in schools, on testing, on curricula, on destreaming, on education finance reform, on the teachers' pension, on Jobs Ontario Training fund and on post-secondary education. We've put a lot of thought into them. What I'll do is actually give the minister a copy.

The Chair: As you're looking for those, Mrs Cunningham, it is the custom and practice of the committee, once compliance is given by the deputy or the minister, that when on limited time during an estimate they will treat them in a similar fashion to an order paper question and circulate them through the clerk so that all members of the committee and the critics who attended would get copies of those responses. That's sort of been our practice, as long as the questions are within the mandate of the ministry. I should seek the compliance of the minister and the deputy, because that's been the custom, if they'll be willing to treat them in that fashion.

Hon Mr Cooke: Sure.

Mrs Cunningham: What I thought, Mr Chairman, is that the minister might want to respond to some of the things I've just said because I saw him shaking his head and what not.

The Chair: Yes. I'm sorry, Mrs Cunningham, I'm going to say --

Mrs Cunningham: From my remaining time.

The Chair: No, Mrs Cunningham, there is a process we have to follow in this committee. The minister has saved his rebuttal time, waiting to hear your opening remarks; he has stacked some of that time. The committee has taken care of that part of it. I'm just trying to resolve the matters of specific questions that you're tabling that do not appear in Hansard. I will merely put on the record that the minister and the deputy will treat those as order paper questions since they've come through the clerk to the minister on your behalf. The responses will be circulated to all members of the committee.

If you wish to use the additional six and a half minutes you have in your time allocation to raise some specific questions, feel free to do so, but you still have six and a half minutes before I must recognize the minister, who will wish to respond to you. He has about 15 minutes allocated in accordance with the standing order to respond to you.

Mrs Cunningham: I'm not going to let him use any of my six minutes then. I'll use my six minutes.

Hon Mr Cooke: I only get 15 minutes either way.

Mrs Cunningham: You didn't think I'd do that. But you've got 15. All right, why don't I just ask questions. Actually, there are some questions with regard to the future of provincial schools that I didn't table, so perhaps I can ask them now.

There are three provincial schools for the deaf and one for the blind in the province, and the future of the provincial schools is currently under review. In fact a new layer of bureaucracy has been added to the ministry, I think headed by Ruth Taber, under the auspices of the provincial and demonstrations schools team, to decide on the future of the provincial schools.

We had a letter which summarized the concerns of a parent of a student at the W. Ross Macdonald School for the blind in Brantford. These schools are providing, in our view, and obviously in the view of the parents, a fabulous service, both to the residential students and integrated students on a resource basis.

We've heard rumours that some of the schools, or one of the schools, may be closed, and I'm just asking you if you can give us an answer: Are there any plans? What is the process? What's happening with the provincial schools?

Hon Mr Cooke: In terms of the way the ministry has been set up, the deputy can respond to that. I'd just like to make it clear that as part of the review of things that we're doing in the ministry and the bringing together of three ministries under one, we're looking at all aspects of the ministries' business to see how it can be done more efficiently.

Certainly the purpose of the review of the provincial schools is to take a look at the services that are provided and at how we can provide them more efficiently, whether the services are adequate and all of those very vital questions, but certainly with no intention of closing a provincial school. I know that rumour has gone around, but that's certainly not the intention. But I do think it's important that we review the role of the schools and the services they provide to see whether or not any cost-efficiencies or service improvements can be achieved.

In terms of how that's being carried out, I think it would be appropriate for the deputy to respond.

Dr Charles Pascal: Very, very briefly, I'm very sensitive to any perceptions that we're adding a new level of bureaucracy, especially the environment you called attention to earlier in terms of wanting to streamline and delayer for a quicker response time in terms of policy and program development and work with our external partners.

What we've established is a provincial schools project. The word "project" is really important in this regard, because this is the gathering of some dedicated staff to engage in the review, which will be a very external-partnership-oriented process. I would be very pleased, with the minister's permission, to share with you and the critics in a very timely way the critical path in terms of timeliness and the manner in which that review will take place, because I think it will answer a lot of the questions. We have a very clear operating instruction from the minister that the assumption that the same number of schools will be there at the end of the process is certainly part of our marching orders.

Mrs Cunningham: That clarifies that. Have I got time to ask a question on the commission on learning?

The Chair: Yes.

Mrs Cunningham: This will give the minister an opportunity, because he heard what I said about the 18 months and maybe he wants to clarify that, because that's quite wrong. But really, I attended some of the hearings in different places, and five minutes to give a presentation, and sometimes in two different locations with the commission split, doesn't lend a lot of credibility to the whole process. I want the minister to respond to that. Is he happy about that? Does he wish it would happen in a different way? We went through the same thing on OTAB, and there's so little credibility, people will be absolutely amazed if anything comes out of it that's good. I think that's too bad. We raised it in the beginning, and the public raised it, and yet it still continued to happen.

There are two other things. In these times when everybody's watching everything and people are very much aware of what others are earning based on their experience and the job that they do, and we know the minimum wage is going to be raised on January 1 and there may or may not, from what we all hear, be fewer jobs, and especially if you're a student -- we've got a young student on this royal commission without a lot of experience, but we do really appreciate her input and admire her, because she's doing an exemplary job. But don't you think that $450 a day takes away from the credibility of the process there too? Everybody mentions it to me, whether we like it or not. That's silly. I don't think that young person expected that, and we've got to be more reasonable.

One more question and then continue on.

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Hon Mr Cooke: You'll have to remind me about the first one because I'll forget it by the time you get to the third one. I have a limited memory.

Mrs Cunningham: Actually, David, if you take a look, they're in order --

Hon Mr Cooke: It's okay; I can handle it.

Mrs Cunningham: -- on the very first page of what I gave you. They're written down. What I dealt with was the timing, which isn't on there, the whole five-minute thing. Question number 4 was my second question and question number 3 is going to be my third one.

I really have to say, from watching this person in action, that I thought Mr Caplan was not appropriate in some of his questioning on one of the days that I was there because he argued with the presenters. That's not what we're supposed to be doing when we're listening -- didn't argue; disagreed. That doesn't lend people to believe that in fact we're listening carefully.

I just have to say, after that I see him as a political commentator with a television program, Canada AM. When he came before our caucus he said one of the reasons he was chosen was because he was non-partisan. That's your problem, thank God, not mine.

How do I explain the non-partisanship of the commission, the fact that you as a minister are looking for non-partisan points of view, that you really care about being fair, when these kinds of things are happening? At the end, all of us know that we're spending some 600 whatever it is. What is the number? I hate to say it out loud it's so painful. What is that cost? You know the cost.

Hon Mr Cooke: The commission? About $3 million.

Mrs Cunningham: How much?

Hon Mr Cooke: I think it's about $3 million.

Mrs Cunningham: You said it quietly too, I noticed. But the point of the matter is that it's expensive and we want it to be credible. Those are the questions I get. The floor is yours.

Hon Mr Cooke: I'll start with the last question first. The $3 million, actually, in terms of cost of commissions, this one is coming in at a fairly low rate. I don't know how you can have outreach, communication, some research background, per diems for the members and so forth and all of the services.

Take a look at how much it costs for a committee of the Legislature to have public hearings when the House isn't in session. Each day is an incredible cost. It's just a fact that this is what it costs to have a commission.

We could have followed what royal commissions have cost in the past in this province and doubled it or tripled it. But we tried to pull together a budget that was reasonable but a budget that would still allow for proper accessibility for the commission.

In terms of any commission member, when there are complaints about anything that happens at the commission, I pass those complaints on to the commissioner and certainly have done so. I understand that on occasion when you've been at public hearings, and I certainly know I have occasionally lost my temper -- that just simply happens.

Mrs Cunningham: Not you. You just get defensive. You don't lose your temper.

Hon Mr Cooke: I don't get defensive. When those types of complaints come in I pass them on and I certainly have spoken with Mr Caplan and I agree that we have to be very careful.

Mrs Cunningham: Have you spoken to him about being on Canada AM and telling me that he's non-partisan all in the same breath?

Mr Wiseman: Aren't all three of them non-partisan?

Mrs Cunningham: The others aren't on the royal commission for $450 a day, happily.

Hon Mr Cooke: I'm not --

The Chair: Are you enjoying this? Because Hansard isn't getting half of it.

Mrs Cunningham: That's probably a good thing for me.

Hon Mr Cooke: I hope it's her half.

The Chair: Try to go through the Chair and then you can read about this in generations to come.

Mrs Cunningham: I don't read any of this stuff. I want you to know that.

The Chair: Thank you, Mrs Cunningham. I believe the minister has the floor.

Hon Mr Cooke: The five minutes -- I haven't, quite frankly, looked at all of the procedures that the commission has used. There are going to have to be, obviously, restrictions on the amount of time if everybody's going to be heard.

That is not the only way that they are receiving information. People are filing presentations with them and that material is being gone through; they're going into classrooms; they're meeting in discussion groups; they're using media as well in order to communicate with people.

I think it's not terribly fair that on one hand you've said the commission is going on for too long, that the end of 1994 is too long a period of time for the commission to go on. You want them to meet with everybody who wants to meet with them but you want them to not have any time restrictions or have longer periods of time with each of the presentations. It's not physically possible. That's the reality.

I don't think the commission should just be travelling the province and receiving presentations. They have to get into classrooms. They have to meet with groups. They've been doing all of that as well. So there are certain realities, if this report's going to get in by December 1994, that have to be imposed.

The $450 per day for the student is, I think, reasonable. The original idea, quite frankly, that we had thought of when a student was on was to take a look at setting up a scholarship. It was the view of the commissioners, including the student, that if there's full partnership, if each of the members of the commission is a full partner and a full member of the commission, regardless of age, then there should not be a difference in the way that we treat members of the commission just because one is a student. That is the reason the per diem is as it is.

I'm sure that Manisha will be using that money to further her education, but there was a very strong case made that we should not have a distinction or different levels of commissioners, and therefore different pay rates, just because one of them is a student. I think that was a good case and an appropriate decision.

Mrs Cunningham: Could I just add at this time that I believe that the commissioners will be meeting with individuals and groups throughout the systems --

Hon Mr Cooke: They are. They have.

Mrs Cunningham: -- and that's a good thing. But the part that the public sees should be carefully thought through. The fact that sometimes in these committees we do, I think, a better job than others is to our credit. But when things don't work and a process is expensive, like some of our discussions here are -- some of our committees, I think, are expensive because of the way we're being paid, and there are some things I have to say about that -- I think that doesn't make it right.

But I will tell you, I've never sat on a committee of this Legislative Assembly that hasn't carefully thought about the witnesses who are representing groups having more time than individuals -- I think I'm fair in saying that; even part of that -- and carefully thought about the 200 persons who want to meet with us and we've had to pare it down to get maybe 25 or 30 meaningful presentations. Those are the kinds of decisions that we've had to take.

I think if somebody is getting $450 a day for doing that they should have taken the time to do that carefully as well, whenever they've been asked in different cities to take a look of groups. I sat through individuals getting five minutes, as well as official groups representing parents, representing school boards -- in London, you can imagine, there were some 11 different boards that made presentations in that region. They got the same five minutes as an individual. It was very difficult for them to have a discussion --

Hon Mr Cooke: I'll tell you, one of the complaints that I've heard from some people is that the commission, when it spends time with school boards and other traditional groups that quite frankly have a lot of input in terms of education policy in this province and individuals who don't -- that the complaint would be quite different if the school boards were given more time with the commission, because they do have many opportunities. Teachers' federations have lots of opportunities.

But look, I'm not a member of the royal commission, and anybody who knows Gerry and Manisha and the rest of the gang knows that they are very, very independent, and they remind anybody who talks to them about it on a regular basis.

What I would suggest you do is, if you have some views about how the commission is operating, you should phone it, you should go meet with it, and it would be glad to listen to your views about how it can improve the way that it's talking to the public. But make that effort. They are an independent royal commission under the Public Inquiries Act.

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Mrs Cunningham: You won't be surprised to know that I have already done that, and in fact before the presentations in London, because as an elected member I could not get a list of the people who were making the presentation in London until the morning of the presentation.

I have another colleague saying the day before that it's very hard to tell your constituents where they fit in, who's appearing, and whether or not in fact they can appear when we don't get that kind of information. Maybe it was early in the game. All I'm doing here is not giving a political opinion; I'm giving you the concerns of the public, and I think you need to hear them.

Hon Mr Cooke: It's not a public hearing of a legislative committee. This is a public inquiry under the Public Inquiries Act. So some of that information should be coming to the presenters from the commission, not through politicians.

Mrs Cunningham: I think the commissioners have heard that, and I'm letting you know as the minister.

The Chair: The Chair has allowed this sort of debate to go on, but really the minister has about eight or nine minutes left to do --

Hon Mr Cooke: Eight or nine? I haven't used any of my 15.

The Chair: The Chair has advised you that you have about eight or nine minutes left to provide some summary rebuttal remarks, but I'm anxious -- I have a speakers' list with Mr Malkowski and Mr Beer, so I would like to, please --

Hon Mr Cooke: I'll be very brief.

The Chair: -- if I could, get back on track. Minister, please.

Hon Mr Cooke: Very brief. The critic for the Conservative Party referred to the Common Curriculum document and the fact that it should be rewritten. I think she knows the process, and we ran through this a bit yesterday. We're consulting on the document to make some changes in it to reflect some of the concerns that have been expressed, and that revised document will be available at the end of 1994.

I'm not sure that you're accurate on the statistics when you indicate there have been more days lost because of strikes so far this year than any other year in the history of Ontario. I don't believe that's correct. We can get those statistics, but I don't believe that's correct. At this point, we've had Lambton, we've had the east Parry Sound elementary for a few weeks, secondary just in their second week, and Windsor elementary just their second week. That's significant enough, but I don't think it's the worst record in the history of the province at this point. That's not to underestimate the difficulties, and we had a bit of a discussion on that yesterday.

I'm pleased that you indicated that your party supports a tuition increase. It would be much more helpful and much more precise and much more in keeping with the philosophy that you were suggesting the Liberal Party should follow, that everybody should be clear, if you could tell me what kind of a percentage increase in tuitions you are willing to support.

Mrs Cunningham: We've already given it to you, and I gave it to you --

Hon Mr Cooke: Just it slipped my mind. Maybe Hansard will --

Mrs Cunningham: -- in a question in the House.

Hon Mr Cooke: What percentage was it?

Mrs Cunningham: It wasn't a simple percentage, so perhaps I could just table that with you again in this committee or give it to you in the House.

Hon Mr Cooke: You say it's on the record.

Mrs Cunningham: It is.

Hon Mr Cooke: Okay.

Mrs Cunningham: It's all part of the debates.

The Chair: You two really want to debate, don't you?

Mrs Cunningham: No.

Hon Mr Cooke: No. I just am responding.

The LTABs and the status of the LTABs we went through yesterday and had a fairly good exchange on that yesterday, so we might want to take a look at Hansard in there.

The Jobs Ontario Training irregularities: I just think there's one thing you should keep in mind, and that is that there was a conscious decision that was made by the government, and I think an appropriate one, that we would be using community brokers, that this is not a program that could be delivered directly by government.

I think there are about, what, 150, 160 brokers and sub-brokers across the province. It would be very surprising to me if we went through this entire process and there weren't some difficulties with a few brokers. Out of the 160 there were about four. Those difficulties were picked up by our ministry when we were doing our audits and checks at the various brokers, which I think speaks to the accountability that's been built into the program by the ministry.

When you look at other public services in the province, when a children's aid society -- I know over the years there have been a few of them that have had some financial difficulties. When they have financial difficulties, people don't say, "Well, as a result of one CAS having difficulty, we're going to throw out the entire system," and that the entire system is a failure. I mean, that's just not a fair characterization of the success that this program has experienced.

I ask you to take a look at the statistics. There are over 32,000 jobs now. Over 20,000 people have been placed. We expect that we're going to achieve targets within the ministry and a lot of people are going to benefit from this program. It's politically motivated and politically appropriate to condemn the whole program because there have been a couple of problems, but I don't think it is a fair picture of how successful the Jobs Ontario Training program is.

The dropout rate: too high, I agree entirely, whatever that figure is. I think that's one of the problems we have in education, that we don't have good, solid statistics. Part of the CMEC agreement is to take a look at better statistical analysis and tracking of things like the dropout rate, and I think we need to do that.

Mrs Cunningham: That's a new number, by the way.

Hon Mr Cooke: I know it's a new number but I still hear people --

Mrs Cunningham: That's the best one we could get.

Hon Mr Cooke: The federal Liberals were using 30% -- well, all the federal parties were using 30%; some were using 40%. I mean --

Mrs Cunningham: The number federally is 17%. Never mind the parties; that's Statscan.

Hon Mr Cooke: What I'm saying, though, is that no one has a good, solid number, so people can say just about anything they want.

You've had community meetings and I think that's good. I just want to remind you that we're doing that on a regular basis. We had six across the province, have had quite a few since then and you're quite correct that you get, I think, a good grounding in what the public feels and what parents want to see by going in and listening to them.

We have deliberately not delayed all action as a result of the royal commission and made it very clear when we announced the royal commission that it would not be used as an excuse about change. When I go and talk to school boards and to some extent teachers' organizations as well, the accusation is not that we're using the royal commission as an excuse for inaction; the concern is that there might be too much happening in terms of change in the education system and that we should slow things down just to let people catch up.

I'm not going to argue about destreaming other than to say that we have a fundamental difference of opinion. If you get out into classrooms and talk to grade 9 students in the destreamed classes, I think you'll get a different perception. I certainly have by talking directly to students who feel quite comfortable and feel quite good about being in the same classes with kids they went to grade 8 with, that the transition has been made easier, and the teachers I've talked to, and how much excitement there is out there and how much change has taken place in terms of the attitude of grade 9 teachers towards a destreamed grade 9. It's been really quite surprising.

I'd just point out to you that there was an awful lot of study that was done on destreaming. You sort of suggested that destreaming moved too quickly and should have gone to the royal commission. We had Radwanski; we had a select committee of the Legislature that looked at this. I guess the argument is that when you don't agree with a policy, then you want to refer it to a royal commission and have it study it. When you agree with a policy and it's not acted on, then governments are delaying.

I think enough study was done on this particular one and that the previous government actually was moving forward on it. I think we took the final steps.

Mrs Cunningham: I'm only saying, David, that there's no one universal program that's going to meet the needs of all kids and that all schools cannot be totally destreamed. That's all I'm saying. Where it's working I think is terrific and I approve of it.

Hon Mr Cooke: Ed finance reform: I'm not sure whether you were saying it should or should not be sent to the royal commission. We deliberately said and publicly stated it wasn't going to the royal commission. Work has been done at the ministry and I'll certainly be taking some of my views to cabinet in the next several weeks.

Mrs Cunningham: I'm just saying 1992 is past.

Hon Mr Cooke: That's true.

Mr Wiseman: We still have 1993.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Minister.

Mr Wiseman: I don't know if that's significant.

The Chair: If I could get everybody back on track now, I'd like to recognize Mr Malkowski.

Mr Gary Malkowski (York East): I would like to follow up on a couple of issues related to the provincial and demonstration schools and one related to special education within the school boards of Ontario.

We know that the government has a commitment to accountability and we know that we're facing difficult times and some reforms are happening, trying to improve efficiency within programs and how we deliver service to students in Ontario. We know that the population of Ontario is changing, and that because of medical technology and as a result of different situations, medical technology has allowed the population to change; for example, pollution, the quality of air, the pollution of our water. These things have had an impact on the population.

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Now what's happening is that school boards are facing an increased number of disabled children. They have a different process for learning and they need to be provided with adequate resources so that they can do that.

My question is about the school boards. Does the ministry have a system to monitor the school boards so it can get statistics on the number of disabled children, including subdata on the various different disabilities, so that we know what resources are then available? Some information seems to be overestimating or underestimating, but is there actually any system where there can be the actual tracking of the numbers, and then that information can be used for projections of costs within the ministry for school boards?

Then the second part is: Currently, for special education within school boards, the projected funding for 1994-95, is there any change, or what is the total cost for the programs? To go back to the provincial and demonstration schools for 1993-94, their budget, is there a change for 1994-95, and also, their total budget for provincial and demonstration schools for 1994-95?

Dr Pascal: I'll ask David McKee from the ministry to describe the database monitoring process.

Mr David McKee: The statistics that were inquired about come in annually in the September board reports that every school board in the province sends to the Ministry of Education. In addition to that, since the implementation of Bill 82, starting as early as 1980, school boards have been asked to review their special education provisions annually and to report to the Ministry of Education on any changes that they might make in those plans. So there are forms for that as well.

This year the reporting date was extended in view of deliberations that were under way regarding a possible policy on integration. But by the end of the calendar year, we will have those reports for this year also.

You also mentioned budget. I think probably someone else might be in a better position than I to speak as to budget for 1994-95, maybe one of the financial people.

The Chair: Do we have any takers from the number crunchers?

Mr James Doris: Jim Doris, project leader on education financing reform. On the funding of special education, it's on a per-pupil basis. In other words, it's not per student with exceptionalities, but for every student. Our recognition is $285 for every elementary student in Ontario and $211 for every secondary pupil in Ontario. That's for 1993.

The Chair: Can I ask a question for Mr Malkowski then? Can I ask when that change in accounting occurred, because as I understood, we were funding identified pupils; now we're funding an amount based on your total student population. What year did that change come in?

Mr Doris: It came in about four years ago.

The Chair: I think Mr Malkowski has a further question about tracking those dollars and how they're being spent on special education students.

Mr Malkowski: Just as a follow-up to that, you said there was a change four years ago about that. Are there changes every four years? Maybe I've misunderstood.

Mr Doris: We used to fund on specific numbers of students.

The Chair: As identified.

Mr Doris: As identified, exactly. So if a board said it had 40 students in one category, we funded for those 40 students. Now we have moved off that because it was very difficult to find the data and to get agreement on the data. It's now basically on a classroom situation on the assumption that across the province every school board is going to have to deliver programs for all the students and therefore it's on a per-pupil basis.

Mr McKee: If I may just add to that, the specific designation was for trainable retarded students and there used to be a separate supplementary grant for trainable retarded pupils, and about four years ago that specific per-pupil amount was rolled into what we called the special education grant for every pupil, either elementary or secondary.

Mr Malkowski: How do we know what the system looks like for monitoring changes that happen within the population? Because of the change in enrolment, do we just use statistics, or what system is used?

Mr McKee: The annual review of school boards' special education plans would address the topic you are raising here, so that if the population of the school board goes up or down, in all likelihood, the number of exceptional pupils would vary as well and the school board would, by legislation, be required to indicate any amendments it has made to its provisions for special education in view of those changes.

Mr Malkowski: Therefore, you look at the annual enrolment of the special education students? Or you give a chunk of funding specifically for funding so that when you look at the funding that's given to the school boards, you depend on the enrolment numbers of students and that funding would change every year?

Mr Doris: I think we want to know what school boards are spending on special education purposes, which is what David McKee has talked about. But when we come to allocate this money to the school boards, it's rolled into a per-pupil allocation, not an allocation, in other words, only to exceptional pupils.

Mr McKee: This is an allocation for every student in the jurisdiction.

The Chair: Perhaps, I may, for Mr Malkowski's benefit, ask the question to you this way: Prior to the change in the treatment of special ed funding, as you've indicated, the tendency was to drive up the numbers of identified students requiring remediation and special ed attention. Following that change, have we noticed that the numbers of identified students, as set out in the programs based on the dollar allocation, have in fact declined? I think that's the point Mr Malkowski's trying to get a handle on in terms of, are we funding an identified student or are we simply identifying a general program based on the gross population of students in a school?

Mr McKee: First, let me clarify that about four years ago when the funding mechanism was changed, it was changed because it was only trainable retarded students who had a separate amount of money earmarked for that particular exceptionality. Certainly, I think one could find evidence in the province where the numbers had in fact, as is suggested, been driven up because of that additional amount of money there.

For exceptional students generally, I do not think we have seen that and there has, I believe, been some reduction in the number of students -- we now call them students with developmental disabilities -- because there's no added benefit financially to give them that designation.

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The Chair: A final supplementary, Mr Malkowski, because I do want to move on.

Mr Malkowski: Yes, it is a final one. What is the total budget for the provincial and demonstration schools for 1993-94, and then, are there any changes for 1994-95?

Mr McKee: In approximate terms, it would be about $61 million; slightly less, because that amount would have included the operation of the special education branch.

Mr Charles Beer (York North): I have a couple of things, if we have time today, that I want to follow up on, but given that Mr Malkowski touched on the area of special education, and that was one of them, I'll go with that one first. Just prior to that, could I say that we had some questions which I neglected to table yesterday, and I'll leave those with the --

The Chair: We'll get copies made and then give them to the minister. Please proceed.

Mr Beer: That's fine. Thank you.

Minister, I want to take you back to a letter that you wrote in August of this year to Mrs Fran Stronach, trustee of the Carleton Board of Education. She had written to you after the hearing you had, the public meeting in Ottawa. In that letter, she asked you two questions, one of which was about the cost of additional services assumed by school boards for children with special needs. You had a short answer, and I'd just like to quote it back. You say:

"In response to your second question, school boards are not expected to pay for social workers, speech pathologists and other therapeutic services. Some boards in the past have provided these additional services to ensure consistency of programming to special needs children, but these services remain under the jurisdiction of the ministries of Community and Social Services and of Health."

I have subsequently received from a number of boards concerns about just what that meant in the broader context of children's services. You may have seen a minute from the Halton board, which is one that had a rather extensive presentation by its officials around these kinds of services. I think as members, earlier this month, we had a letter from the president of the Ontario Association for Community Living which also expressed some concern, not specifically on necessarily those issues but on where the issue of greater integration was. So I'd like to just focus on those.

There was an interministerial committee which the Ministry of Education was involved in looking at children's services. My reason for raising this, Minister, and what I'd like you to respond to, is that I think it's certainly fair to say that one of the questions before us is, what ought schools to do? We need to look at that. None the less, the needs are there. I'm not saying that's what you're saying here, but if a school board decides it will not pay for a social worker, a speech pathologist, other therapeutic services, those services are still required somewhere in the system because of the needs of the children. Where do you see us going in this one? What is actually happening that would bring about some kind of integrated approach to children's services?

I think when you read columns such as the one Michael Valpy had in the Globe and Mail several weeks ago, when you go back and look at the Sparrow Lake Alliance and the things it spoke about, when you go to Children First and Colin Maloney, a whole series of documents, people are saying, "Look, there is a real problem there." Perhaps we're expecting school boards to do too much, but if we're saying, "You don't need to do that," then how do we go about identifying who should be doing those things, what are the ones that are critical, what are the responsibilities? I think some might respond to your letter, in another response, by saying, "Look, over the years, school boards have built up an expertise in these areas, and that is the appropriate place, but the funding has to be changed." Could you just give us a sense of where things are with that?

Hon Mr Cooke: Let me first of all say that I think probably the way the letter is worded could be interpreted in a way that I don't really think it is meant. I think what the letter is basically saying is that in terms of the responsibility that boards have under the Education Act, it really is up to them whether they're going to provide services, social work services and so forth. It's not mandatory under the act.

I certainly wouldn't want to encourage school boards to withdraw from providing these services because, in many ways, my experience has been that the services that are provided by school boards not only are top-notch but are in many ways probably more cost-efficient than some other services that students would be referred to, and so forth.

I wouldn't want this to be misinterpreted in any way. We're not encouraging school boards to withdraw from services that are provided.

I'd certainly agree that we need to find mechanisms to try to better coordinate services that are needed by children, social services that are needed by children in communities and the schools. It's not particularly easy when one knows that most of the community-based services are having difficulties in terms of waiting list and so forth, and when kids need assistance, especially when it's a crisis situation, they need that assistance right away.

My own view, and I don't think this is any different than yours, is that over the last 25 years or more so many agencies in a lot of communities have built up that there really are some opportunities that exist if we can ever break through the institutional barriers that exist to try to get agencies to rationalize in communities and to focus on putting more money into services and less money into some of the duplication of just administrative structures that exist in our services.

Unlike the health care system where health councils actually exist and where we were not that many years ago heading towards the establishment of children's services councils in some communities, there aren't really the planning mechanisms that need to exist at the local level to make some of those recommendations and decisions to rationalize and to streamline.

My own view is that this is the direction we have to go. Some of the work that is being done in the Ministry of Community and Social Services I'm not entirely up to date with, but it just so happens, as you know, the deputy here used to be the deputy there and probably could be much more informative than I.

Dr Pascal: The questioner also used to be the minister there.

Mr Beer: I was going to say ministers never know anything.

Dr Pascal: This particular minister certainly did.

The question is a very important one and I would just add the following to what Minister Cooke has said. There are several places where the policy question is: Where do certain services begin and end? How do we redefine schools as community schools that are part of an interdependent system so that as individual entities they do fewer things better, they do it in a coordinated way, so that they not only provide direct services, educational and otherwise, but they act as brokers for each other?

As the minister has suggested, there are some communities where things are moving ahead in spite of the hardening of the categories at central headquarters where we still, quite frankly, have some problems. I was talking to the area manager in coincidentally a city called Windsor today in social services.

She described to me the integrated children's services activity that's being sponsored locally and with some help from Comsoc, and the work they're doing with the school system to ensure that as school boards begin to get out of certain types of things, they do it in a way, hopefully in a timely way, that identifies certain potential problems so that the social service agencies can come in as partners to try to ameliorate some of the problems that might be otherwise caused by unilateral action on the part of a school board. It's not perfect in that community, but they're beginning to take shape in terms of having the right kind of table constructed and the right people at that table.

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In summary, there are three places in answer to the first part of Mr Beer's question about not only the shape of the policy, which the minister and I have tried to talk to a little bit, but where the focal points are for that discussion. There is the ADM's committee for children and youth integration, which quite frankly has been in a bit of cryonic suspension for the last six or seven months due to an uncommon amount of reorganization taking place in the Ontario public service. That will be reactivated very shortly.

The Premier's Council on Health, Wellbeing and Social Justice has a children's and youth committee which is generating some very exciting policy and research work in terms of reinforcing the fact that healthy children yield healthy communities and what we need to do around this. As well, education finance reform is another place where the kind of -- the penultimate paragraph in the August 24 letter that the minister sent will be revisited in terms of what's core and what's not core.

Again finally, I would say the last person I heard elaborate on a vision of the school as an interdependent community organization, with the social service agencies and the justice system etc, was Monique Bégin reporting back to the Premier's Council a few weeks ago when she was giving initial impressions based on what people like Mrs Stronach and others are saying. So there's a lot of activity.

The good news is the activity, the policy work, may actually be interconnected. We may actually try to build some bridges between these four different places where some of this discussion's taking place.

The Acting Chair (Mr Jim Wiseman): I would just like to move on to Mr McGuinty; we do have others.

Mr Beer: I'm just going to finish, if I can, just very briefly.

Dr Pascal: I'm sorry about the length of the answer.

Mr Beer: No, no, I appreciate that and I'll be very brief.

I think that this is an area where we all have participated in sessions and looked at -- and I think most of the people who are out there are agreeing that we need to do some things.

I think that when you look at what the needs are, there is going to be a real need for the government, sooner rather than later, to say, "Look, we've got to integrate the services." We're going to have to do some of the sorts of things that were done originally in long-term care when we put Comsoc and Health at least together in a functional way or what the district health councils are doing around some of these related issues. I think the message is, "Look, we've really got to get moving on that because there are a lot of needs out there and there are some problems." It doesn't mean creating a ministry of the child, but it means integrating so that there is the ability to cross-fund and do other programs in that way.

Mr Dalton McGuinty (Ottawa South): Mr Minister, I wanted to pursue this issue of ancillary fees, because I'm sure you recognize it's something that is very important to students.

The concern they have raised with me and which I had time only to raise in part with you in the House today relates to the legitimacy of some of the dramatic increases we've witnessed in ancillary fees in the province. In particular, we saw some at the University of Toronto, Western and I believe at Queen's. U of T had an increase of $185 and Western of $200.

I have a copy of something I was trying to make reference to in the House today, a document that was placed before the board of governors at Western on May 20 of this year, and it reads as follows:

"Through its expenditure control plan and social contract, the Ontario government has announced cuts of at least $13 million, approximately 8%, from the university's current operating grant. The full impact of all announced measures are not yet known. In order to address part of these grant budget reductions, it is proposed to institute a student services and support fee."

So there the connection's made directly between a drop in funding from the province for its current operating grant and a commensurate increase in a new animal called a student services and support fee. This had not been in existence before at Western.

If I look at the ministry -- I'm not sure if you'd call this a guideline; it's an excerpt from the Ontario Operating Funds Distribution Manual for universities. Under 5.1.2.4, it defines "an ancillary fee." It says, "A non-tuition-related compulsory ancillary fee is a fee which is levied to cover the costs of items which are not normally paid for out of operating or capital revenue."

But the records from the board of governors' meeting for Western clearly point to this additional $200 cost, this brand-new animal called "a student service and support fee," as being used "to address part of these grant-budget reductions." Now, is that not increasing tuition fees through the back door?

Hon Mr Cooke: First of all, we've had a problem with or increases in ancillary fees for a period of time now, so this hasn't just popped up through expenditure control. Certainly, in the House you made the connection between social contract, and there's certainly no connection between social contract.

Mr McGuinty: It says it right here.

Hon Mr Cooke: I don't care what their minutes say, but the fact of the matter is that the universities get a reduction in cost through the social contract legislation and a reduction in their grants from the government that comes to the same amount of money. So there isn't a driving up of the costs or a reduction in grants that is not met by a reduction in the cost at the university sector.

We certainly have taken a look. There was a report that was prepared for us on ancillary fees. Western, Queen's and Toronto have had some large increases in fees. I've told the students that as part of the package we're looking at for tuitions we're taking a look at ancillary fees as well and a policy that the government might want to have.

Mr McGuinty: If I could make a suggestion --

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): Are you going to suggest that they abolish tuition fees? That was in the Agenda for People.

The Acting Chair: Not in the Agenda for People.

Hon Mr Cooke: It wasn't in the Agenda for People, Jim.

Mr McGuinty: The students are looking for an opportunity to have some voice in setting these kinds of fees. I think that's a very legitimate request.

Hon Mr Cooke: You see, that happens already. For example, back in my home community, the students took a vote and they have contributed through fee increases, through ancillary fees, $10 million along with the CAW to build a new student centre -- the first time that's ever happened in our country. So there are universities that use that kind of a model, and that's certainly one of the avenues, but there have to be some other considerations as well.

Mr McGuinty: That's of course not the kind of concern that the students have. I had the opportunity to visit that facility. It's outstanding, there's no doubt about it. But the concern that I'm raising and the concern that students have is that these are being imposed on them unilaterally.

Hon Mr Cooke: I realize that.

Mr McGuinty: They've had no opportunity for input, and it would be nice if it was made part of policy so that in future when these kinds of increases are seen there's been some codetermination.

Hon Mr Cooke: We're taking a look at the issue of the report. It has been in for, I don't know, several months now, and I've certainly promised the students that this policy will be looked at in conjunction with the tuition policy, because we're taking a look at a broader package than just tuitions.

Mr McGuinty: When are we going to have an announcement on the tuition fees?

Hon Mr Cooke: I haven't got an exact date in mind. Some time before the end of the calendar year.

Mr Bradley: You mean when the House isn't sitting?

Hon Mr Cooke: Not necessarily either way. At some point when you're not there.

Ms Christel Haeck (St Catharines-Brock): Before I get into my question, I wanted to actually advise the minister about something Ms Cunningham was making mention of with the task force going around looking at education. I did get a list of some of the names. We had, in advance of their arrival, as probably other members had, let people who were interested in the subject know that they were coming.

What I did get from some of the citizens who appeared before that committee was that they just showed up and they got on the agenda and were very able to make their presentation. So personally I feel that the citizens in St Catharines were heard and were accommodated to the best of the commission's ability.

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The issue I wanted to raise related to heritage language as well as the native language program. I've had some inquiries from the Niagara regional native centre with regard to getting some language instruction. I'm wondering what kind of uptake there has been overall, because I know of some interest locally and I'm not sure if someone here is in a position of answering today.

Hon Mr Cooke: I don't know whether, because that's a fairly specific question -- the only thing I will say is we have, with a fair amount of support, changed the name of the heritage language program to international languages. That's just been in the last few weeks. It seems like a minor issue, but it's a major issue and it more adequately reflects the importance that teaching additional languages plays in our education system and in our economic development, so that's something that we have just done in the last few weeks. I don't know whether, Maurice --

Mr Maurice Poirier: Mr Chair, I'm Maurice Poirier, the director of curriculum assessment.

The Acting Chair: Go ahead, please.

Mr Maurice Poirier: I have some statistics relative to the enrolment of children in international languages programs at the elementary school level. In the 1990-91 school year, 114,227 students were enrolled in these programs in Ontario; that is, 7,000 more than in the previous school year. Sixty-three languages were taught in 67 school boards through 5,400 classes and over 3,800 instructors. At the present time, 117,000 elementary students are studying some 60 languages through this program offered by approximately 70 school boards in Ontario.

Ms Haeck: You're reassuring me. I had heard also from someone else within the Ukrainian community that there was some concern about the change in the program, and obviously that's not the case, so I'm happy to hear that there's that kind of uptake in this particular area and I'll be able to let them know that there is good response, so thank you.

Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): I'll surprise the minister because I'm going to compliment him right off the bat here on the --

Mr Beer: Is that because you're from Essex?

Mr Hayes: And that's a surprise because --

Hon Mr Cooke: No, usually there is on the other side.

Mr Hayes: Yes. No really, on the Ontario Parent Council and I think that is certainly a compliment to the minister and the ministry on the initiative there and I think it's well overdue that parents did have some input into the education system.

The question that I really have though is dealing with destreaming. I know it has been a controversial issue. There have been some people opposed and some in favour and people like myself, even a while back I had really mixed feelings on destreaming. I know it may be a little bit early, but is the ministry getting any feedback from even the students and the teachers and parents on destreaming now or is it too early really to get an idea on how it is working?

Hon Mr Cooke: I can certainly refer to the tour that we've been involved in, in northeastern, northwestern and eastern Ontario as well. The teachers that I've talked to and the students in the classrooms that I visited -- as I've indicated earlier, it's been actually surprising to me that it's been as positive as it has been. Many of the teachers -- and when I've been doing my tour I've gone into staff rooms and met with teachers -- I've talked to have specifically gone out of their way to say that they're working through the problems and younger teachers in particular have been very, very enthusiastic about the kind of response and innovation and work that they've been able to do in the classroom.

I know we're going to be going through a more formal process, because it's a three-year, phase-in period. I'm sure there's been more feedback coming into the ministry and through the regional offices, and Maurice can probably give a better feel for it.

Mr Maurice Poirier: That's quite accurate. The regional offices are monitoring the implementation of this new program through the regional curriculum councils and through the regional education councils. There's a continuous monitoring of progress on these initiatives. As well, we have provided some in-service funding to provide assistance to teachers in continuing to implement this initiative over the three-year period.

Mr Hayes: I know that was one of the concerns with the teachers. It was the timing, I guess, for them to get the proper training to implement it.

Back to the part about the parent council: In your opening remarks you mentioned there were 1,000 applicants.

Hon Mr Cooke: Over.

Mr Hayes: I understand the response was higher than that, I had heard. People in my office were speaking to someone.

Hon Mr Cooke: Yes, I can't remember the exact numbers. I know it's well over 1,000 people who made application, which has actually slowed up the process in terms of being able to announce the membership of the council, because the regional offices have gone through a process, and we have as well, to make sure that every application is reviewed and people have been interviewed. We should be in a position, though, shortly to announce the membership of the council.

Mr Hayes: The next question: Close to home, on the north shore of Essex county, I know, Minister, you're well aware of the situation there with spaces. There isn't a solution yet, but there is a concern about one board building a school or even trading properties or whatever the case may be. I was wondering if you could bring us up to date on what the ministry's plans are to try to resolve that problem down in Essex county with both boards, the public board and the separate board.

Hon Mr Cooke: At this point, all of the capital forecasts were due or are due any time now.

Interjection: They're in already.

Hon Mr Cooke: They're in now. There was a school board that we were meeting with last week that was asking for an extension, so I wasn't sure whether it was due this week or soon. In any case, they're now all in, so the regional offices will be evaluating each of the school boards' capital forecasts and then making recommendations to the Mowat Block, the office down here. Then we will be making some decisions and announcing capital allocations next year.

Certainly the school down our way -- and I almost hesitate to even talk about Catholic and public schools in Essex county, but there is an overcrowding problem at St Anne's high school and we need to find a solution. But there's going to have to be a sensible solution found, one that I think builds on the needs of both the public system and the Catholic system. We're trying to arrange a meeting now of the two school boards.

The Chair: The deputy has requested a point of clarification, and then I'll recognize Mr Beer.

Dr Pascal: Just very briefly, when Mr McKee was answering Mr Malkowski's question about assessment and funding for exceptional students, special students, Mr McKee was accurately referring historically to the manner in which the funding used to take place and, in a historical manner, referred to students as "trainable retarded."

I just want to make sure we reinforce that the present context sees us as having removed permanently, as a result of recent amendments, that phrase and having replaced it with "students with developmental disabilities." I just want to be sure that Hansard has real clarity on that, that Mr McKee was accurately using that historically but not meaning to intend current usage.

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The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr Beer: I'd like to talk a bit about the testing program, leading off with grade 9. Briefly, though, by way of beginning, with the destreaming, which is something we have supported, my experience in talking to teachers to date has been reasonably positive. Obviously, it is early. I think the key in part is around the size of classes and the supports. I think that continues to be a major element of that working, but there are some positive signs there as we move to the end of November.

Now, with the testing, I'd like to just explore. We're into the grade 9 program and I wonder if you could provide us with a little bit more specific information. When we get those results, what happens then? How are, I guess to the use the term, the stakeholders -- the trustees, the teachers, others -- to be involved in how we analyse the results of those initial tests, and what will be happening then in terms of other areas? What is the time frame?

Again, it's early days, but different schools, different people have been more positive than have others. I think one of the things that would be useful to get on the record is precisely what the steps are, so that we know what it is we're going to be seeing in terms of results and how these are going to be analysed and used. Maybe I could just start with that.

Hon Mr Cooke: I'll give sort of a general response and then when we get into real specifics the ministry can respond. The general reporting, as I recall, is that individual results will be given to the student and the parent, and some of those individual results are dealt with at the local level. There will be province-wide marking of the test here, and those province-wide results and community results, or board results, won't be dealt with until next June. A lot of the students have had the test in the last few weeks, but because of the semestering and so forth more testing will be done in the next semester.

There is an attempt to have individual results, and that counts towards 10% to 15% of the student's mark, and then to get some province-wide results and board results that would be released by me next June.

Mr Beer: Can I just ask, getting a little more specific --

Hon Mr Cooke: Yes.

Mr Beer: -- the individual results, will they be numerical? You have 60 or 70 out of 100. How are those being expressed?

Mr Maurice Poirier: The results are going to be reported according to a six-point scale. These results will be reported back to the schools, and therefore the teachers, the students and then their parents. The teachers are expected to use the results of that marking to count towards that student's term mark.

Mr Beer: Sorry, can I just ask, the six-point scale with what, six being extremely good and one being not so good?

Mr Maurice Poirier: That's right.

Dr Pascal: If I can add to that, I think this is a very important discussion because what we're involved in is trying to make a distinction between the standards in learning outcomes and standardization.

A six-point scale will also have with it an explanation with respect to what a point on that scale means in terms of whether someone can or can't do something with respect to syntax and comprehension etc. We all want to get beyond numbers, which mean nothing to students, parents and educators.

Mr Beer: I appreciate that point, but we've all been talking about going around the province and public meetings and so on, and just even as a parent myself, if one has something that describes what that mark means, that's extremely useful. But for parents simply to have anecdotal information doesn't help. I notice British Columbia's now making changes. I think that's important and I appreciate the way it's going to be defined.

In terms of what's next, how do we see, over the next few years, this proceeding?

Mr Maurice Poirier: If I may describe the process from this point onward, we have received the materials from the schools for the first administration of the test and we are now proceeding with the marking. We will mark that work and we should have that finished before Christmas so that the work from the students will be returned to the schools in January, before the end of the first semester.

Work from those students who would take the test in February and April will be marked between April and June, because we have three cohorts of students, some in first and some in second semester, and there are also students who take a full-year program. So we have to allow for three administrations.

In each case, the results will be returned to the school for distribution to students and parents. The percentage of students at each performance level will be calculated for each school, each school board and for the province as a whole. School boards will be able to make their board results public as soon as they can. We will also publish reports for the provincial picture afterwards.

Mr Beer: If I can then, as a parent, one would have the result of one's own son or daughter. Then there would be available publicly the board results, and the school results within that. Is that correct?

Mr Maurice Poirier: That's correct.

Mr Beer: I just want to be clear.

Mr Maurice Poirier: We would be aggregating the data by school, by board and by the province.

Hon Mr Cooke: My recollection is that we'll be doing board results publicly, and province-wide results, but not individual school rankings.

Mr Maurice Poirier: We're not doing that.

Mr Beer: But the boards would have that information, would they?

Dr Pascal: The schools will have the information; the boards will have the information. The public presentation will be board by board, not school by school. So individual schools will be able to get some feedback for their own formative purposes.

The Chair: May I ask if trustees will be given access to that information, or just the boards, meaning the administration?

Hon Mr Cooke: Certainly my assumption has been that when we're talking about boards, we're talking about boards, which includes the policymakers at the board.

The Chair: In other words, the trustees.

Hon Mr Cooke: Yes.

The Chair: Continue. Who did I interrupt?

Hon Mr Cooke: You were asking about the future; you were talking future years?

Mr Beer: Yes. Having done this, then I guess the second thing just before that was, how do you propose to analyse how that went, how effective the process was, and the test, in terms of measuring what it was you wanted to have measured, and who's going to be involved in that?

Mr Maurice Poirier: We are selecting a subsample of the results of the first administration to ensure that the six-point scale is in fact measuring what it should be measuring. We are monitoring the administration of the test through the three times that it is administered. So we are having a formative evaluation process as we go through to ensure that the results are valid.

Mr Beer: Would that ultimately be made public?

Mr Maurice Poirier: Yes. In addition to reporting on the results, we're also going to be reporting on the process that we took to administer the test.

Mr Beer: Then, after this year, what?

Hon Mr Cooke: Part of this is that any future testing is going to be informed by the commission. We haven't had extensive discussions in the ministry yet about what we're going to do, but it's certainly my expectation that at this point we're not going to just administer a test for one year and then drop it. We need to take a look at this testing opportunity in future years and, quite frankly, other opportunities as well.

Mr Beer: Just one final thing. On December 15, am I right, the national indicators, there's going to be the release by the council of ministers of --

Dr Pascal: The 16th, yes.

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Mr Beer: My understanding is that will be released by the council but that school boards are not going to see that prior to the release. There's been concern raised that they will not be aware of what is happening and are going to be hit by a whole series of questions that they would like to be able to be prepared for. I just wondered, how are those results being released?

Dr Pascal: We're in the process of asking the very same question to CMEC, because in an ideal world we certainly would want our partners to have as timely an access to that as possible, whether that could be the day before, a couple of hours before, a couple of days before or something, the earlier the better, so that people are prepared with respect to the kinds of answers they wish to give in terms of interpretation. There's obviously some room for a differential response, depending on the data. So we're trying to find an answer to that question about whether we would be allowed to have that kind of opportunity for our partners in Ontario.

Mr Malkowski: I've heard a lot of concern raised by my constituents over the weekend. I went to a mayor's committee on multiculturalism and race relations, and parents are concerned about the increase in racism and violence that's happening in the schools.

I'm just wondering if the ministry has any plans to provide funding or to develop programs to try and reduce the racism and violence in schools, and if this could be done in partnership with the community and the parents as well as the students; for example, developing a student patrol system, a student judicial system, allowing the students to become accountable for themselves and to monitor other students. It would be done in cooperation with the schools and with the policing community. I'm wondering if the ministry has any plans in that area.

Hon Mr Cooke: Certainly, in terms of anti-racism, we announced, as the member would be very much aware, the policies that flowed out of Bill 21. That was part of the major announcement that we made in July and the requirements under Bill 21 to develop policies at the local level. They must be approved by the ministry and so forth.

In terms of violence in our schools, I indicated yesterday, and I actually have in the House a few times as well, that we are working on a comprehensive policy within the ministry. It's not quite as easy as just developing one part of the policy over a couple of months, because we need to take a look at how we respond to violent incidents, how we respond to the students who may in fact be expelled from the school system, how we get into more preventive forms to prevent violence in the first place, and the whole concept of mediation and conflict resolution and so forth.

It's got to be a much more comprehensive strategy. There has been a lot of work done by some school boards. It's a little bit hit and miss and I think we need to do more work on it. It's been one of the focuses of the secretariat for the last several months.

The deputy has just pointed out to me that on November 5, as part of the development of this policy, we sent out a survey to school boards to try to get a better idea of the policies that currently exist. There hasn't been a lot of information even on basic data, the numbers of incidents and so forth, collected centrally or even by all school boards, so that work needs to be done before we can develop comprehensive policies.

The Chair: Thank you. Mr Malkowski has a supplementary.

Mr Malkowski: Yes, I do. Does the ministry plan to monitor the anti-racism policy and the initiatives within the school board? Do we have some kind of system, a budget provided so that there can be a way to monitor what's going on within the school boards and develop the accountability of what's going on?

Hon Mr Cooke: As I indicated, the policies have to be approved by the Ministry of Education. That's the provision under Bill 21. So it's more than just monitoring. It's an actual approvals process. We've sent out material with guidelines and suggestions and so forth, but we want policies to be developed at the local level so that there can be a reflection of differences in need in various communities.

There was a small amount of money -- I think it was $1.5 million, if memory serves me correctly -- that was provided for some development and that might even have been under the harassment and discrimination policy. The two policies aren't linked, but the money, the supports that we've provided to school boards are primarily with the development of material and backup and sharing information.

But it's certainly our view that anti-racist policy needs to be the way that we do business in our school boards. A lot of work has already been done by some school boards in the province and we need to learn from that.

The Chair: Mr Malkowski wants a fuller explanation. If not, I still have a speakers' list.

Mr Malkowski: I'm satisfied. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr McGuinty.

Mr McGuinty: I wanted to ask a little bit about university accountability, if the task force has got its recommendations in, and you made reference in your opening remarks to an action plan being put into place. I just wonder if you could tell us in what ways you feel universities ought to be more accountable.

Are we talking about value-for-money audits? Are we talking about the kinds of programs they offer, teaching load, contact hours, tenure, sabbaticals, those kinds of things?

Hon Mr Cooke: Part of the accountability mechanism I think is not entirely unrelated to some of the suggestions we've made on makeup of boards of governors. I'm trying to think of the consultation period the report was sent out. All of the feedback was supposed to be back into the ministry last week. So the report itself I think sets out some mechanisms as well as a stronger role for the boards of governors of universities.

I don't have a whole series of specific initiatives that we're announcing at this particular point. Part of it is a change of attitude, I think, in terms of how boards view themselves, a role that they need to play, how they need to hold the administration accountable and that the community itself needs to see itself as an enforcer of accountability. I think that's kind of the theme of the report.

Mr McGuinty: Are you prepared to consider something like value-for-money audits?

Hon Mr Cooke: Are you talking at the school board level or at the university level?

Mr McGuinty: Universities.

Dr Pascal: If I could just add to what the minister has said about the nature of the report, the reason the minister and the ministry are pleased, as the minister said in his opening remarks, about this as a starting point is because for the first time in I think any Canadian jurisdiction, we have the university community talking about performance indicators, actually coming together and saying that the university system should develop output measures of success along with input and process measures -- how are we going to define quality? -- and to make those transparent and to have an arm's-length auditing body to determine whether or not institutions are performing. So we get beyond the kind of coffee table discussions around what quality is and what quality isn't, whether one has on the coffee table Maclean's magazine or some other distinguished journal.

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If I can use the example of sabbaticals, which you used in your example, it is perfectly appropriate for the public to expect that if somebody takes a sabbatical at public expense, there's a reporting back to her or his peers about how it went: Did you do what you said you would do in terms of your research and scholarship and, if not, why not?

The issue of value for money, because I want to use that as a way of dealing with the value for money: Whether the minister or the Provincial Auditor gets a yes on the nature of how the audit should take place around value for money or the complementary process, which is recommended in the Task Force on University Accountability, rests with how value for money would be done. I don't think any government would want to tell universities whether what the professor did on her sabbatical was a socially useful thing to do. That would be a major departure from anyone's definition of academic freedom since the university system was concocted in Bologna 820 years ago.

But the issue of "Did they do well with what they decided to research?" is something that requires, as an example, a much tougher, much more transparent accountability mechanism within the university system, and that's the nature of the debate. How the government and the auditor and the public accounts committee finally decide on the nature of those processes has yet to play out.

Mr McGuinty: Just one final thing related to that accountability: Tenure, and I guess some of the controversy that's connected with that, rears its head from time to time, and more so I think of late than in years past. It's often now connected with the discussion about a university's ability to respond to changing public demands in terms of different kinds of programs becoming more popular and having professors tenured in one area and being unable to shift resources to another area. Is that something you plan to take a look at?

Hon Mr Cooke: I don't think we were specifically going to be looking at tenure. I'm not sure that this is as much a question of university accountability as it is a question of the need for the post-secondary system to take a look at restructuring and the system looking at restructuring.

But I think governments find it difficult because universities are very independent organizations. They have a tradition of being independent and it has served the province well over the years, so we have to try to encourage universities to look at themselves as much as possible as a system and to restructure.

We are looking at how that could happen and what role OCUA should play, and I hope that we'll have something to say about that very soon, but I think that is more of a focus on restructuring and the impediments that exist in the system towards restructuring.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr McGuinty. I have Mr Beer and Mr Malkowski still on the list.

Mr Beer: Minister, I know we have a short bit of time, but I wonder if we could just look at the Tom Wells report, Windsor-Essex, and Brian Bourns in Ottawa-Carleton.

I think one of the things that was interesting, if I understood both their reports and their comments to the media, was that in going through the hearings and in looking at the whole question, the issue of amalgamation is probably more complex than we may all have thought at the outset, but that there are some options: this whole question around the consortia, I guess is the correct term, that has come forward.

But I'm just wondering, in terms of the government's reaction to both of these reports, is it your belief now that the way we should be moving is in trying to bring boards together around a whole series of things, be it transportation, purchase of goods and services, many of the non-educational services, which could even be done in concert with community colleges, with universities, with other public institutions, thereby leaving the boards, in a sense, to do more of what they are there to do, which is the education of those in the system?

Are there some general applications that you believe you can take now from those two reports as you look at streamlining the administrative structures of school boards in the province?

Hon Mr Cooke: I think that, as certainly learned from both of the reports, some of the difficulty is towards amalgamation of boards, and it's a fact that amalgamation may not make sense in Ottawa-Carleton or Windsor-Essex. That doesn't mean it doesn't make sense in other areas of the province.

I'll be the first to admit that I had the view that we could go into a few areas of the province and that the idea of amalgamation just simply made sense and that the same principles could be applied in more than one area of the province. That's not possible. Certainly even the funding models that we currently have are major barriers to looking at amalgamation of boards, pay rates and everything else. That's simply the reality.

I think there are opportunities to find savings through sharing of services. Some boards have done that. I think there's a heck of a lot more that they can do. I do have a bit of concern that it may not happen quickly enough or that it may happen during difficult times like we're all experiencing now, and then you'd begin to wander away from it when the economy improves. I've seen that with some boards in the province already.

The accountability is a question too. I mean, if you start having a lot of joint services, what board is ultimately accountable to the taxpayers, or is anybody accountable? You can even see that over on the municipal side, where all of these joint services and agreements between different municipalities have existed and there's no accountability to the taxpayer at all.

In the meantime, I think it's the only option we have available to try to move forward with amalgamation in Windsor-Essex. We haven't made any formal response to Brian Bourns yet and hope to do that in the next few weeks, but certainly in Windsor-Essex to move forward with amalgamation would have cost a considerable amount of money because of the difference in service and wages.

There are other examples. I still believe that the London and Middlesex public boards have made a major mistake by not moving forward with amalgamation and that it will only be a matter of time before that will have to happen. But it didn't seem to make sense to have a major war at this particular point.

Mr Beer: Just briefly, because I know there's another questioner, do you expect to be responding to the Brian Bourns report before the end of the calendar year, or is it more likely January?

Hon Mr Cooke: I hope we can do it before the end of the calendar year, and I chatted with you briefly about this. The one recommendation with regard to the French-language school boards, I think, makes a lot of sense, even though one of the newspapers responded by saying that the Bourns report recommended the creation of a new board.

The reality is that it's really recommending the reduction of one board, and it makes a lot of sense to do that, I think. There might be an opportunity, if we decide to go forward, to try to do that in legislation before next year, when we get into another municipal election year. I want to respond to it as quickly as possible. We just haven't had a chance to do it yet.

Mr Malkowski: Very briefly, the percentage from the federal government in terms of transfer payments for 1993-94 -- and we know that we just recently heard of a deficit of $40 billion. I'm wondering what you're thinking you can expect from the federal government in transfer payments for 1994-95.

Hon Mr Cooke: That's really something I haven't -- well, we worry about it in our ministry, but we let Floyd worry on our behalf. So I don't know at this point, but the Treasurer can worry about that; we'll worry about strikes and other things like that. I don't know at this point.

Mr Hayes: I'm just wondering, I think we've had a pretty thorough discussion here and I know we have a vote in the House coming up. I'm wondering if we could kind of speed up and get through with the votes on the estimates. I'm sure the members would agree with that.

The Chair: That's a request to call the vote at this time, if there's no objection. None at all? Fine. Given that we must report to the House tomorrow, the time, by mutual agreement, is concluded with respect to the estimates in the Ministry of Education and Training. I have a series of votes I must go through, with your indulgence.

Shall vote 1201 carry? All those in favour? Opposed? Carried.

Shall vote 1202 carry? All those in favour? Opposed, if any? Carried.

Shall vote 1203 carry? All those in favour? Opposed, if any? Carried.

Shall vote 1204 carry? All those in favour? Opposed, if any? Carried.

Shall vote 1205 carry? All those in favour? Opposed? Carried. Shall vote 1206 carry? All those in favour? Opposed? Carried.

Shall vote 1207 carry? All those in favour? Opposed? Carried.

Shall the estimates of the Ministry of Education and Training be approved? All those in favour? Opposed, if any? Carried.

Shall the 1993-94 estimates of the Ministry of Education and Training be reported to the House? All those in favour? Opposed? Carried.

This meeting stands adjourned.

The committee adjourned at 1742.