SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, OFFICE OF THE ASSEMBLY
SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF CITIZENSHIP AND CULTURE
SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES
CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES
SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, PROVINCIAL SECRETARIAT FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
The House met at 10 a.m.
Prayers.
LEAKING OF REPORTS
Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: I think members of the Legislature will be aware, if they read the Globe and Mail this morning, that for the second time this week we have the problem of a major report of a standing committee of this assembly having been leaked to the press before it has been made available to members of the assembly and tabled in this place. On this occasion, the report of the standing committee on resources development on workers' compensation reform in Ontario has apparently been leaked to a reporter at the Globe and Mail.
As the Liberal critic on the committee I cannot vouch entirely for the authenticity of the report, as I have thus far seen only the dissent from our side and am not exactly sure whether the majority report and the New Democratic Party dissent actually run to the length that is reported by Rosemary Speirs.
I know this matter was raised by the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) on Monday and by my colleague the Liberal House leader in asking you to take a look at this matter, Mr. Speaker. Today's problem is a little worse in that, unless I am mistaken, members who may be called by injured workers will not have the report today. I may be corrected, but I do not believe that report can in any way be ready for today. The tabling had been planned for tomorrow at the earliest and likely for Friday.
I am not sure what we should do about that, but I hope we might be able to get a copy tabled so that all members of the press and all members of this assembly can see this material so that they might be able to discuss the matter with their constituents in an informed manner.
Hon. Mr. Eaton: Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on that. The chairman of the committee was in my office this morning and he was a bit disturbed that the report is in the paper. All copies were supposed to have been collected from all members of the committee. Apparently one might not have been turned in. He indicated the report went to the printer, is being printed and he expects to table it tomorrow. As far as we are concerned, it was kept under wraps as much as possible.
Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, just so there is no confusion one way or the other, I have had the opportunity to discuss this concern with my colleagues in the New Democratic Party who were on the committee and I can assure the House that, wherever the report came from, it did not come from our side.
Mr. Nixon: Oh, that goes without saying.
Mr. McClellan: I am not trying to be flippant about this. I accept it as a very serious concern that reports are presented to the public before they are available to members of the assembly. We disapprove of that practice as strongly as was expressed the other day.
We are at a serious disadvantage in regard to being able to interpret contents of reports to our own constituents when they start calling. I can assure everybody they will be calling my office within a few minutes. We have no interest in this kind of practice taking place and we hope the security arrangements can be looked at on a co-operative basis to make sure this kind of thing does not happen.
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I know nothing of the circumstances of this incident but, from long and sometimes bitter experience over the years on this, it should not always be assumed the reports have been leaked by someone on our side. There is a vigorous network at work to obtain these reports. sometimes by various means, and that also should not be overlooked.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
TEACHERS' SUPERANNUATION ACT
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, in introducing the bill for second reading, I should like to note that it is the product --
Interjections.
Hon. Miss Stephenson moved second reading of Bill 148, An Act to amend the Teachers' Superannuation Act.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I regret that my enthusiasm for completing this bill after so many years has overrun my understanding of the rules of the House.
This is indeed the culmination of several years of careful and deliberate discussions which have taken place between representatives of government and the Ontario Teachers' Federation with reference on frequent occasions to the Teachers' Superannuation Commission.
It is noteworthy this morning that the retiring guiding light for 31 years of the Teachers' Superannuation Commission is in the gallery. Mr. Causley is right there. This is his final day at the commission and he is leaving for parts west this evening. He said it depends on whether we get the bill through or not. If I can ask for the co-operation of my colleagues, we will ensure that Mr. Causley will spend Christmas in Winnipeg as he has planned.
Mr. Conway: Is there any conflict of interest potential in this debate?
Hon. Miss Stephenson: That is a matter of concern to some members of this House. I believe I would be derelict in my duty if I did not mention there are certain members of this House who feel strongly that those who might have a potential direct conflict of interest as a result of a pecuniary interest in this piece of legislation might restrain themselves from participation in the debate on the bill --
Mr. Nixon: Just receive the largesse with a quiet sigh.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: -- and say nothing about it.
10:10 a.m.
At any rate, it is my purpose very briefly to introduce to members the specific issues that are contained in this totally rewritten Teachers' Superannuation Act, which is, of course, one of the reasons it has taken a fair length of time in gestation.
There are 29 issues, I think, apparent to all of those who have read the bill, and the printed bill is available, and I will simply go through them on the basis not of their order of importance but of their chronological order in the bill.
The matter of the occasional teacher is one that has been addressed very clearly in this bill for the benefit particularly of retired teachers.
The composition and the operation of the Teachers' Superannuation Commission is a major change within the bill because it modifies the numbers of representatives and ensures there is a rotation of chairmanship. There is the liability of the commissioners, which must be clarified for the benefit of those who serve as commissioners.
There is a phase-out of the college education reference in the bill. There are notes regarding a modification related to the interest on government contributions, which is a matter of changing the interest rate that the government pays on its matching contribution to the teachers' superannuation fund. The Canada pension plan offset is going to correspond, as a result of this bill, to the Canada pension plan entitlement. There is a reduction in penalties for the B and C pensions within the bill.
There is an amendment regarding dependants' allowance to continue after the remarriage of one who is entitled to benefits. The direction of a dependants allowance is now clarified, I think appropriately, within the bill. There is reference in keeping with the amendments to the family law legislation in this province to recognize common-law unions for beneficiaries. There is the introduction of an option for an increased dependants' allowance for decreased pensions. There are amendments because of the proposal for this increased allowance for decreased pension.
Employees' contributions for those who are receiving long-term disability benefits are a major amendment within the bill as well. There is an amendment related to the employee contributions for those who are receiving long-term disability benefits under the Public Service Act as a specific and necessary amendment.
Reinstatement of former contributors is finally relatively clearly addressed as a result of amendments. The superannuation participation by Ontario teachers while working in educational projects outside Canada is an important amendment in these years of mobility of teachers into other jurisdictions. The subject of marriage after retirement, which has always been a bit thorny I gather, is now clarified within the bill.
Mr. Nixon: In more ways than one.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Are you speaking from experience?
The matter of entitlement at age 65 for an individual who has fewer than 10 years' service has been improved significantly. Of course, there is the important amendment in the calculation of the benefits achieved by teachers in this province to base them on the best five years of their service rather than the best seven, which is certainly the most expensive and probably the most desired of all of the amendments within this act.
The criteria for crediting foreign service have been clarified within the amendments to the bill and there is the earned interest rates on death benefits amendment, which is a significant one for survivors.
The timing of teacher contributions and the payment to the commission is clearly stated within the bill now and ensures that the appropriate transfer of funding will take place. The removal of payment time limits is a significant one because the stipulation that the removal will not generate a cost factor is important in the amendments to the bill.
The escalation of contributions related to the long-term disability income is an amendment that has been of significance to the participants in all of the discussions. The administration of short-term investments is a matter which was of concern to both the Ontario Teachers' Federation and to Treasury people who were involved in the discussions.
There are specific bridging supplements which are clarified within the bill supplementing retiring allowance plans. Proposals which were introduced by the Teachers' Superannuation Commission are those related to administrative changes which the commission deems to be essential to being the act up to date in order to effect efficient streamlining of various administrative procedures which obviously are necessary in a plan which is as large and as onerous a duty as this one.
There is the issue related to the calculation of benefit on the basis of related business and industrial experience which provides for a more appropriate basis for that calculation. There is, finally, the specific issue related to position sharing within the school system as a means of attempting to solve some of the problems attendant upon declining enrolment and relatively static teaching opportunities for those young people emerging from faculties of education.
I have very briefly outlined the specific issues addressed and the modifications included in this new act because it is in fact a completely rewritten act. Those 29 modifications or issues are dealt with in several amendments within the act and I will not detail them at this point.
I would like members to know that for purposes of further clarification of description of securities -- and I am trying to find the section right at the moment -- in subsection 72 of the bill, I do have one amendment. It is a wording amendment which is deemed to be necessary by legislative counsel. I really would like to pay tribute here and now to legislative counsel who has been involved in the rewriting of this act. I am not sure whether it is appropriate to name him, but I shall.
Mr. Tucker has done yeoman service over many months in the rewriting of this bill and I think is to be congratulated by all of those who have concern about this piece of legislation. I say that, of course, without in any way denigrating the great efforts of members of my staff who have been involved on a daily basis for a rather long period of gestation in the redrafting of the Teachers' Superannuation Act.
I think this is an important piece of legislation which brings the superannuation fund and its administration into line with the developments of pension planning within this province and this country. It sustains the philosophy of pension, the addressing of pension matters which is prevalent currently in Ontario and which I think is appropriate. I would hope all members of the House would support it with vigour so that we would be able to pass it with alacrity.
Mr. Bradley: And alacrity it is we will have this morning, Mr. Speaker, to ease the mind of the minister about people with conflicts of interest in legislation of this kind. I always quiver a little bit when we pass legislation referred to as LARAP, Legislative Assembly retirement allowances plan, which refers to our own pensions as members of this Legislature and when we pass other matters which provide us with new enrichments in terms of our salaries. I suppose there is no more conflict in this piece of legislation than that.
10:20 a.m.
Besides that, morbid as it may sound, those who are familiar with the Queen Elizabeth Way know that my travelling back and forth between St. Catharines and Toronto would certainly militate against my ever collecting either pension from this assembly or from my many years in the teaching profession.
However, I welcome the bill on behalf of those who are involved in the teaching profession and, let us face it, these are essentially the people who have been most interested in the amendments to this bill, in addition to people from boards of education across the province who recognize a certain disturbing trend taking place within their own systems as it relates to the number of teachers who are involved at the younger age levels.
I have to start out as an opposition critic, of course, by being critical of the Minister of Education. However, before I do that, I should commend her on the bill which ultimately has come forward. As she points out, that bill has been the culmination of negotiations between representatives of the Ontario Teachers' Federation and the ministries of Education and Treasury which have been involved in these developments.
My disappointment is that this legislation was not introduced at an earlier point. Members of the House will recall that I have spoken about it on a number of occasions in this House, both in the fall session during the consideration of the spending estimates of the Ministry of Education and during the spring session when the amendments were forthcoming to the Teachers' Superannuation Act.
It was not as though the world were going to end for teachers in Ontario if these amendments were not forthcoming. Many recognize that this particular act was out of line with other acts affecting pension plans in this province. Secondly, boards of education recognize, as I think all of us recognize now, particularly those of us in the teaching profession, that the average age of teachers in the classroom these days has gone up significantly.
The influx of young people into the system to provide the necessary balance between senior teachers and younger teachers has not been struck the way we feel it should be. The balance has probably been weighted more in favour of senior teachers. This is not to suggest in any way, and I think everyone here recognizes this, that those who are in their senior years of teaching are incapable of carrying out their responsibilities. Some of the best teachers in the system are those who are senior teachers and who will continue to teach up until the required time of retirement.
If I were not to say this I would be reminded very well of one occasion when I was making this particular point. At an interval for coffee, one senior teacher did remind me that senior teachers do have enthusiasm left in them and some new and good ideas. Subsequent to the interval, I was more than happy to make that point and accept the reprimand.
However, we recognize there is a need for some new young teachers in the system. One effect of this bill passed in the Legislature this morning will be that there will be a number of senior teachers who want to move on to other things, into retirement, who will now see the provisions of this bill in such a light as to encourage them to do so.
Indeed, during the preliminary discussions on this bill I received a number of telephone calls from teachers around the province, particularly from my own constituency, who are experiencing the problem that results from declining enrolment. For instance, Latin teachers or teachers of other subjects which are not as popular in terms of the number of students taking those subjects today are being shifted to other areas.
Because of declining enrolment, many teachers in their senior years who perhaps have taught English or science for a large number of years were really forced to shift into other subject areas if they wished to retain their positions within a school with the board of education. It is a very difficult experience when a person is in his late 50s or early 60s and is simply not prepared or willing to do so.
This legislation will ease the minds of some of those people and will certainly encourage them to take a step they have wanted to take, that is, the step to retirement. Unfortunately, we have missed out on an opportunity for at least the past year to have some of those people moved to the area where they wanted to move, because while they had the promise of the Premier (Mr. Davis) and the Minister of Education that eligibility would be retroactive to June 1982, nevertheless they wanted to see it enacted in legislation before they were prepared to take that very significant step in their lives.
As a result, over the past year we have had some people retain their positions who otherwise would have been willing and certainly happy to move on to a situation that involves retirement from the teaching profession. Be that as it may, as the lawyers would say, we now have the legislation before us and that encouragement is there. I think the minister recognizes as well as an one in this province that there will be a significant impact on the ranks of the teaching profession.
There were a couple of areas of concern to people. Naturally, I suppose there are a number of people in the profession who have been happy to see the minister adjust the magic number from 90 to 85 or 88 or 87. The member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel), when I mentioned one specific provision, used the figure 85. He and I mutually exchanged the figure 85 as the combination of years of service and age that would allow teachers to retire.
The minister in estimates, in response to my suggestions or questions in this area, indicated there was a significant and substantial cost and that Treasury would not be prepared to entertain that, and we do not have it. But we do have three quarters of a loaf and certainly a loaf that has been negotiated.
One of the reasons we will not be going to committee, except for the one minor amendment the minister wishes to bring in, is that this has been negotiated. I think it is important to know why a detailed bill of this kind would not go through the House and have clause-by-clause study. We have read the bill; the member for Hamilton West (Mr. Allen) and I have memorized it completely and gone over the compendium thoroughly. The minister understands it thoroughly; the Ontario Teachers' Federation knows every detail of it.
The people who are directly affected are aware of its provisions and are generally pleased that the compromise that has been reached between officials of the Ontario government and the Ontario Teachers' Federation is one everyone can live with. For this reason, we will not go into the kind of minute detail on this bill we might otherwise wish to go through.
There were some people who expressed rather significant concerns about their own situation which involved technical teaching. These are people who may have been involved in the education profession for not a large number of years in that they came from industry. In fact, one of the prerequisites of many of these jobs in secondary schools, perhaps even in elementary, is becoming what is called a shop teacher, for want of a better word. I call them technical teachers. These people had to serve outside the teaching profession for a number of years previously and now find themselves with a pension that is not quite as attractive as otherwise might be expected.
I want to read into a record a brief letter from an individual in such a situation. It is from a principal of a secondary school in the city of Hamilton. He writes as follows: "As principal of a vocational secondary school, I wish to express my concern about the situation in which many technical teachers find themselves as they approach retirement age and the current policies of superannuation. Schools such as the vocational secondary schools have a concentration of technical teachers, most of whom have several years of practical experience in the trades and industry prior to their entrance into the teaching profession.
"Trade experience has also been a prerequisite to qualify many for their teaching certificates. Their practical background is an important aspect of the teaching expertise that they bring with them to teach vocationally oriented students. Many of these students move into the work force directly from school and benefit greatly from the technical teachers' industrial and practical background. Therefore, the contributions of the technical teachers in service and dedication are every bit as vital and important as those of the academic teachers who, for the most part, have entered directly into the teaching profession at an earlier age.
10:30 a.m.
"The fact that most technical teachers enter into teaching at a later age is, in fact, a penalty when they reach retirement age. I would urge those concerned to adjust the superannuation policies to make them more equitable and less penalizing for technical teachers who find themselves in this situation. While I recognize that there are some provisions for that within the act, reducing the penalty that would be forthcoming for people in those circumstances, I am not convinced it is going to be entirely what they want, but it is a step in the right direction in addressing that problem at least. Hopefully, it will provide a degree of satisfaction to those people."
I could read into the record a number of other letters, but we have indicated to the House leaders, to the minister and others who are involved in this debate, that it was not going to be a lengthy debate today because these matters have been discussed very extensively on a preliminary basis. I am going to live up to that commitment and only share with the minister a couple more points of interest.
One is the teachers who retired some years ago and feel the amount of money they receive in retirement allowances is not easy to live on. I suppose one has to set a date somewhere and eligibility was, as promised, June 1982. I do bring to the attention of the House the plight of many fairly elderly teachers who retired some time ago from the profession at a rate which is not very attractive in today's economic circumstances. That will always be with us. Any time we can assist those people in any way. we should be looking towards that. I am glad to see the occasional teacher problem is addressed in this legislation. The penalties have been reduced in certain areas.
It is with a good deal of satisfaction that I see this culminate in a bill presented to the Legislature this morning in the form of Bill 148. The minister has the assurance of the support of the members of the official opposition in this regard; we want to see the bill implemented as soon as possible. It will certainly benefit directly those in the education profession by bringing their pension plan into line with many others in the public service in this country.
Secondly, it will benefit the boards of education and, ultimately, the younger teachers and the students who are served by the system. The minister will always appropriately remind us that education is all about the students who are served and, while the rest of us are important cogs in the machine, ultimately we must look at the service to the students.
I give three Christmas cheers to the passage of this bill which amounts to a wonderful Christmas present. It would have been nicer in the fall of 1982 --
Mr. Nixon: It should be called the Bradley bill.
Mr. Bradley: I hope Hansard picked that up.
We are pleased the minister has brought it forward and has accepted the encouragement of the opposition. I did not say she was dragged kicking and screaming into this; I say she has accepted the encouragement of the opposition to bring forward an extremely progressive piece of legislation.
Mr. Allen: Mr. Speaker, I rise with mixed feelings of support and some dismay to add my support to the second reading of this very important piece of legislation.
Ever since the founder of this party, J. S. Woodsworth, in 1926 put the matter of pensions on the legislative agenda of this country, there has been no issue of greater seriousness, of greater moral compulsion or of greater compassion for this country. As the nation and the provinces that make it up have moved through the years and have amplified their pensions legislation in a variety of ways so that most of the senior members of our community might live with some degree of dignity and health through their senior years, this has been a preoccupation of those in our country who have treasured the quality of its civilization.
It is because of that seriousness and the important history attached to it that I want to give my wholehearted support to the bill before us. At the same time, on that very ground of the seriousness and importance of the question and the importance of the profession in particular to which this is addressed -- and I think there is no more important or significant one for our social life -- I do want to register some measure of protest. I received the compendium of this bill late last week. It was not until Monday evening that I received a copy of the act itself. In fact, neither anyone in my office nor I myself could put a finger on this act until Monday evening, when I secured a copy of it, not through the House leader and not through the minister herself but through the office of the Liberal critic. I find that astonishing.
But even if I had received it late last week and had had to pore over three quarters of an inch of Xerox paper to look at technical provisions in a very important piece of legislation, I would feel that my role as a critic and as a legislative member of this assembly had been abused. I am not here to be a functionary of the front bench opposite. I am not here, either, I must tell the minister -- and I am sure the teaching profession will understand this -- to be a functionary of the very effective and important lobby that they present to this Legislature.
They perform their work well and they give us very helpful information. I understand that this bill went through a long period of negotiation and that, presumably, all the t's have been crossed, all the i's have been dotted and everything is in its place. But there could be a provision in there somewhere -- I say this somewhat lightheartedly, but also with some seriousness -- that says: "Notwithstanding all the foregoing clauses, no teacher of Ontario shall receive his pension."
Hon. Miss Stephenson: There isn't.
Mr. Allen: I just do not know that because I have not had the time to look at it carefully, let alone to go into all the other matters that might concern me, such as comparability or portability. For example, I wonder whether in one provision I heartily endorse, which allows for related business and industrial experience at last, there is not some way whereby those who were not members of a pension plan before coming into the profession, as they were acquiring important and required industrial and business experience, might be incorporated as well as those who were members of a plan.
There simply is a whole host of questions that one would want to ask about a piece of legislation like this to be satisfied as a responsible member of this Legislature that it will effectively do for teachers what it purports to do.
I have asked fellow members of this House whether this is always the way with this ministry because I recall a year ago when Bill 42 was tabled in this House, it came in right at the tail end of the pre-Christmas sittings. Then when we moved on to debate it, it was at the tail end of June.
I noticed the correspondence in connection with this particular piece of legislation. I read how last June 22 the president of the Ontario Teachers' Federation announced to his fellow members that there were one or two outstanding issues that still remained and that the Premier (Mr. Davis) indicated at that time that the legislation was being drafted, it would be available early in the session and one could look forward to some leisurely perusal of a very important piece of legislation that would be the foundation stone of pensions for teachers in this province, presumably, for the next 15 or 20 years.
Here I am in the midst of a rush of legislation, a torrent of legislation. Anyone who looked at yesterday's order paper would almost have to lie down and laugh at the preposterousness of this assembly attempting to deal in an intelligent way with that roster of legislation and then fitting in some major legislation like this or the bill pertaining to the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) the other day and thinking that any of us really had time to think about them and weigh them carefully.
10:40 a.m.
Because of the seriousness of this bill, the importance of the subject it addresses and the importance of the profession for which it provides, I register a very serious protest against the manner in which it has come before us, the time in which it has come before us and the speed with which we are being asked to expedite it. I am happy to engage in that expedition but I certainly do it with a sense of dismay that I am being abused and that parliamentary democracy is being subverted in the process.
I do not want to attempt to comment upon each of the scheduled items to which the minister briefly introduced us. It is obvious this bill makes changes in contribution rates by which both the government and the teachers will increase their contributions to the fund. It makes important provisions, for example, for the calculation of pensions on the five best rather than the seven best years of a teacher's service.
It entitles surviving spouses who remarry. It allows for some greater degree of flexibility in spousal relationships in terms of allowances provided. It provides more generous refund arrangements, for example. It modifies present termination provisions when a teacher becomes re-employed.
The structure which administers the plan now provides for straight equality between teachers and government members and the chairmanship will thereby alternate from one to the other year by year. The members of that commission in the future will not be open to liability under this plan as they have been in the past. All those and many others are extremely important provisions in this plan. I endorse them heartily.
Martin Luther once said that a teacher ought not be required to stay in the profession more than 10 years. Having taught, I know exactly what he meant. The member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley) will understand that, too. This is a very demanding profession; perhaps the small amount of early retirement allowed by this bill does not go far enough in making it possible for our teachers to move in and out of the profession in various ways to liven their own experience, for example, to bring enrichment to the classroom.
We talk these days of the variety of careers that each of us or our children will have in the future. I do not think I can look forward to many more, having gone through about three already. None the less, my children will look forward to having that opportunity of variety, experience and will need the kind of training and background that will make it possible.
One cannot do enough to provide adequate and flexible support for the teaching profession. We would want to have the richest possible resources available and not to have to maintain a professional activity beyond the point at which it ceases to be creative for themselves, for the children and the community. To make those remarks is not to say anything invidious about teachers who persist through a long lifetime in the classroom. They, above all, are to be admired for their capacity and their ability to maintain a creative role in that setting over those years.
I would hope that as we look upon teachers' compensation, pension arrangements and so on in the future, we would move to still more flexible arrangements of support for a teaching profession which needs all the creative resources we can provide, all the support necessary for educating our young people in the great traditions we have as a people and in the skills necessary for their satisfying performance of lifelong living and learning in a community which I would hope would treasure that kind of contribution. This plan is a measure of the degree to which that is already the case. We can go on and improve it.
With that, I conclude my remarks and reiterate my support for this piece of legislation.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I regret that the member had some problem with the photocopy of the act. The printed act was not available until 10 o'clock this morning. In fact, the final deliberations regarding the two items that were still not settled in August were completed within the last month. A very long and arduous discussion has gone on.
I would like the member to know that on Thursday of last week legislative counsel distributed 30 photocopies of the act to the Legislature. One of them was very specifically delivered to the Education critic of the NDP party.
Mr. Conway: Let me correct the minister. "NDP party" is redundant, like irregardless.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: I am sorry, the New Democratic Party. I thank the member.
The suggestion of the member for Hamilton West that there be some participation permitted for those who were employed previously to their experience as teachers but who were not members of a pension plan is a delightfully utopian view that is not shared at present by Revenue Canada. Revenue Canada will not allow that sort of participation at present.
Mr. Allen: One man's Utopia is another man's hell.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: I gather the modification would have to be effected at the federal level in order to permit that to happen.
I have no further comments to make. I am grateful to my colleagues for their strong support of this bill. I suggest my motion for second reading of the bill now be considered.
Motion agreed to.
House in committee of the whole.
TEACHERS' SUPERANNUATION ACT
Consideration of Bill 148, An Act to revise the Teachers' Superannuation Act.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Chairman, my amendment is to subsection 72(3) of the bill.
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Chairman, I want to take the occasion somewhere in the course of this bill to raise a point of order. Standing order 22 is the only provision I can find under which a member may declare a conflict. I realize it might have been more appropriate in some other part of the discussion.
I searched through the standing orders and had the Office of the Clerk go through the Legislative Assembly Act, looking for a place where a member may declare a conflict of interest. Oddly enough, I find in this Legislature those words are not used. The words used, as I recall them, are "a direct pecuniary interest," which may or may not apply in this instance.
I want to put on the record that there are many of us in the assembly who have paid into the superannuation fund and will at some time benefit from these changes. There is an air of awkwardness about attempting to declare this conflict, but in principle I want to find the occasion where it can at least be raised.
As in Alberta and Quebec, I suspect what more properly should be done is that the matter of declaring conflicts should be referred to the procedural affairs committee to provide a more readily available vehicle through which members can declare a conflict. However, I could find it only under standing order 22.
10:50 a.m.
I want to put on the record now that I, for one, do have a conflict that I consider to be worthy of note. In particular, since in the last session we went through an exercise which established what I think is a good thing, that is a Municipal Conflict of Interest Act which laid out the grounds under which a member of a municipal council declares a conflict, I think that is a worthwhile exercise.
I would draw to the chairman's attention that this ought to be done for this assembly and in the only way I could find that it is possible, under standing order 22, I want to declare that I do have a conflict of interest and I do not intend to vote on either the amendment which is before the House or any other part of the bill.
The Deputy Chairman: Under standing order 22 of the Legislative Assembly you are very clearly within your own rights. It says, "No member is entitled to vote upon any question in which he has a direct pecuniary interest, and the vote of any member who has such an interest shall be disallowed." You are really absenting yourself from the vote and from discussion on the matter. I thank you. It is recorded, as has been done previously.
Mr. Nixon: I am very glad the matter has been raised because I am sure you are aware, Mr. Chairman, that almost every piece of legislation that comes through this House has a pecuniary impact on some of its members.
I happen to be a farmer, as are a few other members and we are very proud of that, just like the teachers are proud of their profession. When we are talking about subsidies for beef farmers and so on it may be to our detriment but we do not absent ourselves. I understood that rule had a direct application when as an individual one is attempting to do business with the government or a government agency.
In that instance, there have been cases in the House where a special private bill has been brought forward to permit a member, for example, to sell some property to the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Snow) or the crown in the right of Ontario on that behalf.
If there is any ambivalence about this, perhaps it should be referred to the committee. I am very glad the Chairman quoted the rule. I am saying that if we get into an elaborate system whereby every time farm policy is discussed in this House then all the farmers have to refrain from discussion and voting and every time education is discussed, the teachers have to refrain, we are going to find ourselves in a really ridiculous impasse.
It is very good that people are aware of any potential conflict of interest, but it is more complex than perhaps one might think at first blush. If the problem continues to bother many members of this House, then perhaps the procedural affairs committee ought to review it.
I would simply say we have gone through more than a century of debates in this House without getting ourselves into too much terrible trouble.
The Deputy Chairman: I appreciate what the honourable member has said. I just wish to advise the House that it has already been referred to the procedural affairs committee and your points are well taken.
Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, I just want to add to what my friend says because there is hardly a piece of legislation about which someone would not have some sort of conflict. If one looks at legal matters, all of the lawyers who ultimately will leave this place and go back into private practice could be the beneficiaries of whatever might be passed. I see my friend from Oxford rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
Mr. Conway: What about opted-out doctors? Do they count?
Mr. Martel: Opted-out doctors might find that if they vote on something down the road; it could be anything, the amount of money that the government agrees to pay the medical profession, I say to the Minister of Education, I have I have not seen any doctors declare, and I have seen a number of doctors in this Legislature over the years who --
Hon Miss Stephenson: Not enough. Not a sufficient number.
Mr. Martel: Not enough? Well --
Mr. Conway: That is not what you said about Stuart Smith when he was here.
The Deputy Chairman: Order.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: There are not enough.
Mr. Martel: Some of us have a direct, and in my case both a direct and an indirect, benefit out of this --
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Direct and tangential.
Mr. Martel: It is almost perverse. There is so much there that one would almost want to shy away from it, but I will not.
I think it is important that we have an understanding of where we are going, because I do not think any of us wants to appear to be advancing things that appear to be just for ourselves. That is ridiculous. That is not the purpose of this Legislature, but I think this matter must be reviewed so that we get a firm understanding of what the rights and responsibilities of members are, pertaining to legislation in all fields. It may affect lawyers or people in private business and insurance who are here. It transcends so many fields we will be in terrible trouble.
The Deputy Chairman: I think the point of order is well taken and I will ask the Office of the Speaker to refer the comments that have been presented here this morning to the procedural affairs committee. It has already been referred there and it is an important matter. Unless someone else has anything further to add to this subject, I think it has been well said and it is certainly on their agenda.
Mr. Stokes: Mr. Chairman, I think it is important that every once in a while we as members of this assembly take a step back and see what it is we are doing on a regular basis. It is very easy to say, "Somebody has to do it," and leave it to ourselves, not knowing what the implications are or what the public perceptions might be in any given instance.
When I discussed it with the table officers last evening, they indicated to me the Speaker had referred this question to the procedural affairs committee along with legislation covering similar situations in at least two other jurisdictions in Canada. I believe Alberta has it and another province has similar legislation. It might be useful to the procedural affairs committee if the members had copies of that when they are making their deliberations and coming in with some kind of recommendation.
It will at least let the public out there know we are aware of the invidious position we sometimes find ourselves in here. I think that is even more important to let the public know, to let our constituents out there know we are concerned about situations such as these and we are trying to deal with them. It is important that we should have had this little debate here this morning.
The Deputy Chairman: I thank the honourable members and I accept the point of order. I would ask that the remarks of the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes) also be forwarded.
Sections 1 to 71, inclusive, agreed to.
On section 72:
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Chairman, there is some concern about the way in which the current subsection 72(3) is written. The phrase "with a corresponding term" really should apply to all three types of securities, not just to those securities guaranteed by Ontario, which is the way it appears right at the moment.
The Deputy Chairman: Hon. Miss Stephenson moves that subsection 72(3) of the bill be struck out and the following substituted therefor:
(3) "A debenture issued under subsection 1 shall bear interest payable half yearly at a rate based on the Canadian secondary market when the debenture is issued for Ontario securities, securities guaranteed by Ontario and other similar securities or any of them with a term corresponding to the term of the debenture."
Hon. Miss Stephenson: This simply clarifies that the modifying clause applies to all three kinds of securities, not just one.
Mr. Bradley: Mr. Chairman, very briefly, that amendment meets with our approval.
Mr. Allen: Mr. Chairman, that amendment meets with our approval and we are happy to see it go forward.
Motion agreed to.
Section 72, as amended, agreed to.
Sections 73 to 80, inclusive, agreed to.
Bill, as amended, ordered to be reported.
11 a.m.
On motion by Hon. Miss Stephenson, the committee of the whole House reported one bill with a certain amendment.
House in committee of supply:
SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, OFFICE OF THE ASSEMBLY
On vote 1001, Office of the Assembly program:
Mr. Stokes: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: I realize I cannot speak on these again -- at least I do not believe I can -- as I have already spoken.
The Deputy Chairman: In supplementaries the honourable member can speak.
Mr. Stokes: They are supplementaries?
The Deputy Chairman: Yes.
Mr. Stokes: Not concurrence?
The Deputy Chairman: No.
Mr. Nixon: Who is responding on behalf of these?
Mr. Stokes: That is the point of order I want to raise if we are dealing with either concurrence or supplementary estimates of the Office of the Assembly. While the Speaker as the chief presiding officer is responsible for guiding the estimates through the committee, and that is done, when we are in the House in this particular setting there is nobody to speak to or whom one can engage in conversation with about the nature of the supplementary estimates and the purpose to which the money is dedicated.
Perhaps the government House leader could be of some assistance and enlighten us as to how much money is being requested. I have no knowledge of that. To what purpose is this additional sum being put?
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Chairman, I can provide that, although I am not sure I should be the one necessarily to speak on behalf of the Board of Internal Economy. I am sure the other House leaders could equally speak in some of the instances about this, but I thought the member should have received the supplementary estimates sheets. Did not all the parties get them?
Mr. O'Neil: Maybe we could have the minister tell us what they cover.
Hon. Mr. Wells: The Office of the Assembly vote covers a total of $4,108,900 less statutory appropriations of $2,176,300. What it includes is indemnities and allowances for all support services provided to members by the various offices of the assembly and various expenses associated with the administration.
In other words, there was no change. The five per cent change for salaries, constituency office accounts and so forth had not been taken into account when the original estimates were presented. This represents the various changes that were to occur as of April 1. They now come along as supplementaries to change the various things like support services, caucus support, administration, constituency offices and so forth, the various changes for this fiscal year 1983-84. The increases are represented here.
The big amounts that are represented are money for the Ontario Electoral Boundaries Commission, $901,000, which is a statutory appropriation, and the contributions to the Legislative Assembly retirement allowances account which again is provided for as a statutory appropriation and has to be made upon the presentation, as my friend knows, of certain information to the board. That amounts to $1,274,900.
Mr. Stokes: Are there no additional funds in here for the Office of the Speaker, the Office of the Clerk, the Legislative Library or any of those emanations of the Office of the Assembly? It is strictly to take care of the five per cent increase other than the amounts that are covered by statutory appropriations as opposed to estimates. Would that be a fair assumption?
Hon. Mr. Wells: There are some minor amounts in here. For the Office of the Speaker, there is an amount of $15,000; for the Office of the Clerk, $31,000; and for the chief election officer, $1,000. Sessional requirements are $801,700 and then the rest are pretty well all the other items I indicated. There is $119,000 additional for the Legislative Library.
Mr. Stokes: The minister mentioned an amount of $15,000 for the Office of the Speaker and an amount for the Office of the Clerk. Could he repeat those amounts?
Hon. Mr. Wells: Yes. There is $15,100 for the Office of the Speaker and $31,300 for the Office of the Clerk. As far as I can ascertain from the information here, these are all in the area of salary and employee benefit changes. I think there were some changes in the remuneration to various staff there and they are picked up in these estimates.
Mr. Stokes: There is just one final question. It came to my attention within the last week that the services of an individual had been engaged to write a book associated with the Office of the Clerk. Is the minister aware of that? Is there any way he could find out to what purpose that person's services are being put?
Hon. Mr. Wells: I cannot answer the member in complete detail, but it is my understanding that at least three or four months ago a person was employed on either a six-month or a one-year contract -- I am not sure -- as an assistant to help the Clerk develop a book on precedents in the Ontario House. He was to be a sort of executive assistant to help put that information together. I cannot give the member any more information than that. I was told his name, but I cannot recall it at the moment. There is someone doing that, and it was on a contract.
Mr. Stokes: That is fine, but will it be made available for general circulation and to members so they can better familiarize themselves with the precedents?
Hon. Mr. Wells: Oh, yes.
Mr. Stokes: As the minister may or may not know, during the regular estimates I raised the point that I thought we should be more involved with the idea of this parliamentary institution and the kind of rapport we have with other Commonwealth countries, national legislatures and state or provincial legislatures, and I thought there should be a much freer sharing of information, particularly among the members of the Commonwealth family.
A member of this Legislature did travel to the conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Nairobi, Kenya, I believe it was. I know the member for Perth (Mr. Edighoffer) will be making a report so that we will have a general idea of what went on and what was talked of there.
I think it is very important that we keep abreast of what is going on in other jurisdictions to see if we can improve the way we do things here. I think it is equally important to dedicate funds to compile precedents to make it a lot easier for presiding officers, table officers and members of this assembly to understand the rules better and perhaps make better use of our time around here.
It is an excellent idea that we should be dedicating a modest amount of money for that purpose, but it does not serve the purpose for which it is intended or the purpose to which it should be put if we do not share it with members so they can become more aware of the rules. Perhaps we can save a lot of time if we dispense with a lot of unnecessary or irrelevant points of order or points of privilege. I do not think it serves anybody well if we keep it locked up in a back room someplace.
I think we should make use of it and I think the members themselves would be much more enlightened as to the way in which this place should operate. It is important that we spend those kinds of funds, but then once we get the information, it should be shared. We could make much better use of our time around here than we do at the present time.
11:10 a.m.
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend the member for Lake Nipigon for his comments. He is absolutely right. I think we all would want to be sure these precedents are shared. My understanding is that it will be a volume that will be published and available to everyone. It is a rewrite of the Lewis book, Parliamentary Procedure in Ontario, a second edition. This will be a second volume to go with that on the precedents and procedures of this House.
Mr. O'Neil: Mr. Chairman, I take it we are speaking on the supplementary estimates of the Ministry of Citizenship and Culture.
The Deputy Chairman: No. We are on the Office of the Assembly.
Mr. O'Neil: Sorry about that. When are we starting on that, I want to get --
The Deputy Chairman: We are not into that.
Ms. Bryden: Mr. Chairman, I presume we are dealing with the whole vote 1001, Office of the Assembly, all the subvotes. I want to ask whether the minister has considered a Christmas present to the staff of the constituency offices in the form of equal employee benefits.
They do not get the same benefits as legislative assistants in the members' offices at Queen's Park. It seems to me it is long overdue that the benefits extended to the staff in the Queen's Park offices should be extended to the staff in the constituency offices. I would like to ask the minister if that is being considered or could be considered as supplementary estimates for this year.
Hon. Mr. Wells: My recollection is that was on the agenda of the last Board of Internal Economy meeting. It was discussed and was deferred to another meeting, so it is still actively under consideration by the board, but is not represented in these.
Ms. Bryden: I am glad to know it is still under consideration because I think the persons who serve in the constituency offices do a great deal of very responsible work. They work alone and sometimes they have to deal with members of the public who come in and are very agitated. They really have work that merits the same remuneration as that of the Legislative Assembly staff. I think all of us would recognize this from our own experiences in our constituency offices.
Vote 1001 agreed to.
SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF CITIZENSHIP AND CULTURE
On vote 2906, ministry capital support program:
Mr. O'Neil: Mr. Chairman, there is specified an amount of $3 million, I wonder if the minister could give us an overview as to where that $3 million is going.
Hon. Ms. Fish: Mr. Chairman, I would be pleased to do that. There is a total of $2 million to the Royal Ontario Museum. Of that amount, $800,000 is to develop and mount a special exhibit that is currently entitled Georgian Elegance in a New Land. I am not sure that title is meaningful to people who hear it, so I should say it is tentatively titled; it is under review.
That exhibit is a display of materials, fabrics, tapestries, furnishings, artefacts and so forth that are principally in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum but are being supplemented by the Queen's own collection in the United Kingdom as part of a special exhibit associated with her visit here in the bicentennial year.
There is also $1.2 million to the Royal Ontario Museum for accelerated gallery development. This responds to several expressed concerns about the pace of development and opening of the galleries at the Royal Ontario Museum and is by way of incentive money for private fundraising, matching funds as well, to provide additional support to the Royal Ontario Museum from the private sector.
Finally, there is $1 million in capital money going to Stratford, specifically for additions to the Festival and Avon theatres in Stratford in an effort to respond to concerns expressed last winter, with the approvals coming in the late spring and early summer, to provide for improvements they feel are extremely important as part of their developmental work at Stratford and for the continuing quality of the productions they are able to mount and the physical facilities they have in those theatres.
Those are the three items that account for the total of $3 million.
Mr. O'Neil: Mr. Chairman, I was hoping the supplementary estimates would have been a little more far-ranging so we could have gone into some different issues on other capital grants programs, such as the building of TVOntario towers, and look at some of these items. We will have to wait until we have another chance later.
Mr. Allen: Mr. Chairman, I have just a very brief comment. I appreciate the utility of the expenditures that are being contemplated and, in particular, the assistance that is being given to work on the Avon theatre stage at Stratford.
I would like to use the occasion to ask the minister to pursue a question which is of growing concern to myself and my colleague in this party who is the formal critic for the Ministry of Citizenship and Culture. It relates to the problem of expenditures, costs and income with relation to the special exhibits the Royal Ontario Museum has mounted in recent years and, in turn, to the problem of maintaining curatorial positions, curatorial assistants and backup services in the museum.
Earlier in the session I asked the minister for an account of the income and expenditure of the museum in mounting its very ambitious and interesting exhibits, which we have all noted as we have walked by, in, and through the museum and which we have all profited from.
It is of some concern that the income only measures somewhere in the order of half of the expenditure and, therefore, constitutes a substantial drain upon the resources of an institution which ought to be doing rather more than it is, and should have the capacity to do more than it is, to mount its own exhibits out of its own unique and extensive holdings. Yet some of the departments that are most renowned in that institution are cutting back on their curatorships and their curatorial assistants positions, making it increasingly difficult to mount those exhibits with the material that is at hand in the institution.
However exotic and attractive many of the exhibits have been in the special exhibitions, none the less, it does appear to me to be something the minister ought to be concerning herself about. The public is not having adequate access to displays of the genuine and rich holdings the museum itself has as a result of that problem.
There are other items I would like and, I am sure, my colleague the member for Oakwood (Mr. Grande) would want to bring to the minister's attention on another occasion. If she could pursue that particular issue, I would appreciate it.
11:20 a.m.
Mr. J. A. Reed: Mr. Chairman, I do not want to let the moment pass without drawing to the minister's attention and putting on the record a subject I have discussed with her privately, namely, an article which appeared in the Toronto Star yesterday concerning an internal University of Toronto task force that was appointed to make recommendations about the future of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.
I should point out for the record that while the minister admittedly does not have a direct hook, as she would say herself, in how the royal conservatory decides its future or how the University of Toronto decides the future of the royal conservatory, nor does the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Miss Stephenson) in a direct way, I am going to appeal to the Minister of Citizenship and Culture (Ms. Fish) to go on record as being willing to use every means at her disposal to see to it that this institution is not only maintained but, we hope, enriched in the future.
The fact is that the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto perform two very distinct functions regarding the performing arts. The University of Toronto is a degree-granting institution; the royal conservatory develops artists, performers. They are two very different things.
An armload of degrees does not make a performing artist. Therefore, the royal conservatory has historically been the standard in this country for musical performance and has been recognized around the world on a level with institutions like the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Juilliard School of music in New York and so on. It would be a tragedy if this great institution were allowed to be diluted in any way, shape or form.
I should go on record as saying that I think we all recognize that the performing arts in this country and in this great city make a very solid economic contribution. All we have to do is look at Roy Thomson Hall, the services that go along with the act of performing, the kind of employment it provides and the kind of financial health that those institutions generate.
The Royal Conservatory of Music represents a base upon which this quality performance is founded. I therefore appeal to the minister to do her part, as I will do mine, being an alumnus of the Royal Conservatory of Music, to see to it that every effort is made to preserve the vitality and integrity of this institution.
Mr. Chairman: Does the minister have a reply to that, or does she wish other members to speak?
Hon. Ms. Fish: Mr. Chairman, we had started on a pattern where I was replying to each, but you did recognize the honourable member before I was able to reply to my colleague across the way and I thought that perhaps under those circumstances I should list them and reply at the close.
Mr. O'Neil: Mr. Chairman, I have one important question which I think I should put at this point. When the minister is dealing again with the supplementary estimates, dealing with such places as Stratford, there is a committee that at present has been travelling around the province, the Macaulay committee. I think some of the things they are going to report will have some effect on what happens to such places as Stratford.
When the minister is replying to the previous questions, can she give us some idea of when the Macaulay committee will be submitting its report? Will it come to the members of the Legislature at the same time as it does to the cabinet, or will the cabinet be looking at it first and dealing with the recommendations? I would like to know just what the process is and where it now stands.
Mr. Stokes: Mr. Chairman, we are asked to vote an additional $3 million for centennial projects and for capital works for other cultural pursuits. I know I am treading on very thin ground here because there is no money in the supplementary estimates for the citizenship wing of the Ministry of Citizenship and Culture. I did not get an opportunity to engage in the regular estimates because I was otherwise engaged, but if my memory serves me, they passed rather quickly in the concurrence debate of these estimates.
The minister and the Chairman will know of my interest and involvement in the wellbeing, cultural and otherwise, of the first citizens in Ontario. There is a very modest sum in these estimates for the native community branch. I have always lived in hopeful expectation for that branch of this ministry that has been floated around from ministry to ministry and pillar to post -- I can recall at one time it was under a provincial secretary. It was not under the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development or Provincial Secretary for Social Development; it was before these superministries were ever thought of.
If we are going to pay the kind of attention needed, particularly now when we have Indian self-government being talked about at the federal level, when we are seeing our first citizens being given status and sitting down at the table at first ministers' conferences, this is the one ministry that should be playing a lead role in coming to grips with what we as provincial members of this assembly see as our role in assisting first citizens.
The minister gets a variety of requests. She will have one on her desk shortly as a result of a letter I have written to her on behalf of the Whitesand Indian band which is trying to obtain reserve status next door to the hamlet of Armstrong. This is the kind of thing this ministry and this minister can get involved in. I hope the minister will give a much higher profile to the native community branch and what it can do to assist native people.
It has been generally thought that was primarily the responsibility of the federal government, particularly for status Indians, but it is becoming quite clear now that if the concept of Indian self-government is going to be a reality there are many things the province can do much better, with much better results for our taxpayers' dollars.
It does not matter whether it is at the federal or provincial level. Ultimately, the dollars to do those things we all wish to do collectively come out of our pockets. With amendments or perhaps a complete scrapping of the Indian Act in Canada, of necessity, by way either of transfer payments from the federal government or some administrative arrangements, this government, this ministry and this assembly are going to have to pay more attention to the social, economic and cultural needs of our first citizens.
11:30 a.m.
I know this is not the time logo on at any great length about it, but it is the first opportunity I have had to express in very general terms what I see for this ministry. I see a much greater opportunity to engage in that kind of thing than there ever has been since I have been here. I know the minister is very sensitive to those kinds of problems and needs. I do not think it is appropriate for the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development (Mr. Sterling) to be playing the lead role as he does now. It has not worked in the past. If there is going to be any meaningful dialogue with the federal government or with our first citizens and the organizations that presume to speak for them, I see a ray of hope in the appointment of the minister in this role.
I am not inviting a private meeting such as the member for Halton-Burlington (Mr. J. A. Reed) has boasted of, but I think we must begin some kind of dialogue. No, I am just being jealous.
Mr. J. A. Reed: Even you can do it.
Mr. Chairman: The member acknowledged at the outset that he knows he is somewhat out of order. We are permitting it in the spirit of Christmas. Could the member give us some idea of how long his remarks might take?
Mr. Stokes: I readily admit to that, but it is the only opportunity I have had to express that particular concern to this minister. I am just serving notice that she has not heard the last of me on that very important subject.
Hon. Ms. Fish: Mr. Chairman, let me first say that the remarks of the member for Lake Nipigon come as no surprise. His views are well known to me, having listened carefully to representations he has made to my predecessors in previous estimates debates. I share his concern and commitment to the native community in this province and I look forward to working with him and all members of the assembly on such matters.
Going in slightly reverse order of items that were raised, a question was put by the member for Quinte (Mr. O'Neil) about the Macaulay committee, the timing and that sort of thing. The member may recall that the original schedule did specify a target for reporting at the close of this year. The committee has not been able to meet that deadline. However, I am advised they are feeling rather confident about being able to file within the first two months of the new year.
I am not in a position to provide any more specificity because I am being guided by the committee. It is small; it does feel it has a considerable amount of material, not simply to digest but to sort through. I am hopeful it will be the end of January, but I would be loath to suggest that as a firm date as indeed it might take until the middle of February.
I have not turned my mind to some of the details on the process the honourable member has raised, but I have given consideration to at least one other aspect. I am concerned that the report he printed in sufficient quantities so that, in addition to members of this Legislature, it will be available to a number of other groups and institutions who have a direct interest in the matter and have participated in the process of that committee. I am also concerned that it be published in both official languages of this country. That is a precedent in several reports that is worthy of repeating.
I will undertake to give some thought to some of the other questions that were raised on the process. I have genuinely not thought through some of these other questions on timing.
I think this has been a rather beneficial and very public review of the role of the arts in our society and the role of government in relation to the arts. I expect a very broad spectrum of response and consideration of the committee's most important report. It seems fundamental that part and parcel of that is getting a report in a timely and effective manner to those who are concerned with the arts.
On the matter of the Royal Conservatory of Music, the member for Halton-Burlington (Mr. J. A. Reed) did indicate that my opportunities for intervention as minister are really in the area of what perhaps might reasonably be described as friendly persuasion, that I do not have a direct opportunity in this matter, for the reason that I think the member himself adequately described, which is that this matter is within the University of Toronto itself.
I would, however, assure you, Mr. Chairman, as I sought to assure the member previously, that the position I am taking might reasonably be described as a watching brief, to monitor the work of the Wolff task force on the future of the conservatory. The member has pointed out, as only he can with his rather particular concern, which I share, for tradition in this matter, that there are some special aspects to the conservatory that warrant special attention. I will continue my watching brief and, I am sure, work closely with the member in every way possible in this matter, recognizing that there is not an opportunity for direct intervention.
On the matter of the TVOntario expansion and other questions surrounding the Ontario Educational Communications Authority that the member for Quinte indicated he would like to raise, as he has in the past and I know will continue to do in the future, let me once again assure the member that I am continuing in my commitment, as I indicated earlier in this House, to explore with OECA the opportunities available to us for network expansion in eastern Ontario.
I am certain that I will continue in my discussions with the member for Quinte and others in that regard and I wish to assure him of my continued activity directly with TVOntario on this matter. I am hopeful that we can see the commitment to network expansion into eastern Ontario fulfilled at the earliest possible opportunity, which would indeed provide for the direct broadcast to all of our residents throughout this area of the province.
Finally, the member for Hamilton West (Mr. Allen) restated, I think in a finely toned fashion, the concerns that have been raised on the costs and the revenues of exhibits mounted by the Royal Ontario Museum among others. I share the member's concern not simply on the question of revenue shortfalls as they apply to these exhibits and expenditures but as well on the desire to have as many opportunities as possible for the public to view, appreciate and learn from what I think the member will agree are truly extraordinary items in the ROM collection.
I assure the member that I and my officials are in continuing discussions with the museum on that question as well as the broader question of such things as accelerating the gallery development, for example, which is before us today in supplementary estimates, so as to provide some move in the direction of ensuring additional exhibit space and additional opportunities for the residents of this province to see some very fine pieces in the collection.
Vote 2906 agreed to.
11:40 a.m.
SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES
On vote 3102, adults' and children's services program:
Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Chairman, I am sure most of the members will know how the funds are designated. There is approximately $119,300,000 for income maintenance and $3.5 million under the category of adults' social services. As the members will recall, $1 million of that $3.5 million was announced by the acting minister on October 11 and was for senior citizens' programs, which enabled the ministry to ensure the continuance of those senior citizens' programs that were no longer going to be funded by the federal government.
The remaining part of the senior citizens' program was to bring up to balance the funding mechanism in the homes for the aged in conjunction with the settlements and improvements that were reached with the Extendicare nursing homes, in the private sector, by the Ministry of Health.
Mr. Wrye: Mr. Chairman, there are two areas on which I want some response from the minister, particularly because it is a rather large amount of money. Perhaps I will ask about one area at least.
With respect to the income maintenance program, since the estimates were introduced, the minister has reduced the level necessary to qualify for an added bit of assistance from the government in welfare payments for people in various cities. I wonder if he could outline to us how many cities have managed to avail themselves of that. I believe that took effect on October 1, if I am not mistaken. Could he give us some estimate of the kind of money we are talking about in terms of increased help from his ministry to those cities which have faced these kinds of difficult welfare problems for some long time?
The second area is under the program description, residential and community support services for developmentally handicapped adults and children. I wonder if the minister could outline what new money has been put into that program since the original estimates. Is some of that money being diverted as a result of his ministry's study of the document called Moving Time? I see the minister shaking his head, but I think it is fair to say, and I am not trying to be provocative or critical, that as a result of some of the concerns that were expressed --
Hon. Mr. Drea: It is not in these estimates.
Mr. Wrye: Maybe the minister could outline what new money is involved since I see it under the program description. That is fine. I will leave it at that for now.
Hon. Mr. Drea: On those two questions, if I can be helpful to the member, there is no new money in the second category in these estimates.
On the question of increased assistance to the hardest hit municipalities, the first bills are just coming in. There is no real pattern yet. The member will recall it is retroactive. They have the rate for four months and then it is paid back. This is the month the first cheques will go out. There is a question on the order paper about it, but perhaps if we can have until the end of the month or to the first part of January, as soon as the first results are available, we can answer the question on the order paper, an interim one, by mail to the member and to the New Democratic Party.
The question of how much funds there are is really an estimate. It is up to $1.5 million, but the member should bear in mind that is only for a portion, for the remainder of the fiscal year. That is an estimate and, quite frankly, we do not know the figures.
Bad as the situation may be in certain areas, including the member's own, through September, October and November, it is really with the advent of December, January and February that the true winter numbers and the long-term numbers become available. There is no question that municipalities like the member's are going to qualify. That was known when we started. It is the same for Sault Ste. Marie and some others. As soon as we have an idea of how much is going out, we will let the member know.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Chairman, the one supplementary question I had to that raised by the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye) has been answered in terms of that being just a guesstimate and not really a clear idea of how much would be needed. I would appreciate it if by the end of December the minister could give us some kind of interim idea of what the first stage will look like. It would be very helpful.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Could I reply to the guesstimate part since the member has raised it? One of the difficulties with the guesstimate is that in many municipalities we are very rapidly taking many people off general welfare assistance and putting them on family benefits. That is a pattern that was really in high gear in the fall. On the guesstimate, it may be the first payments do not really reflect what is likely to occur in the first quarter of calendar 1984 because so many were being transferred from the general welfare assistance roll to the family benefits roll.
It would be unfair to draw conclusions from the fact that the figures appearing in the first payout month do not correspond to the guesstimate, or vice versa, or to make projections. We will send the member the material for January as soon as those claims are in. I think the January period may provide a better idea for 1984 than the December payments.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I just have three short points. I will wait until concurrences to deal with things more generally involved with the ministry.
I accept the need for the money that has been requested and have no difficulty with that. I had hoped at some point the minister would be taking a new look at the whole question of the welfare system in Ontario -- in fact, the whole income maintenance 5551 cm in Ontario -- and doing a major review of that. As he knows, I have been advocating that for some time.
One of the things he might do for us today on the subject of assistance to the municipalities would be to tell us which municipalities have to this point submitted bills, invoices or whatever we want to call them and for how much. I think that would be interesting to know.
On the senior citizen programs, although I am glad the money has come forward, rather than having the sort of precipice-saving kind of help this has been -- these have been groups on the brink of disaster and the ministry has stepped in to help them either because they were losing federal funds or for other reasons -- I would like to know when we are going to have a new approach to funding these kinds of community programs for senior citizens with some kind of rational basis, like for instance, the one suggested in Metropolitan Toronto about a year ago. I would like to have some idea of when that might be coming forward.
Mr. Bradley: Is this a supplementary estimate?
Mr. Chairman: We are in supplementaries still. Concurrence is the next order.
Mr. Bradley: I will wait until concurrences.
Hon. Mr. Drea: We do not have all the bills yet. We will be sending those out. That is what I am saying; they are just coming in now. We will provide them to the member today or tomorrow.
11:50 a.m.
I would disagree that this was precipice funding of these seniors' organizations in relation to the study that came out in the spring. That study drew attention to the fact they were losing their funding. I think it is also erroneous, as some have done, to blame the federal government for their losing their funding. The federal government did start them up as developmental projects and said there would be no more funding at the end of the three years. However, if they had proven themselves, they would have ceased to be developmental and would become part and parcel of community programs. This is exactly what happened.
I really do not know how one could respond to the matter raised about putting it on a different funding basis. If one is talking about a co-ordinated design program, I think it is something at which we are looking. However, in terms of the actual funding, I do not think there is a need for improvement on that because, basically, it is a purchase of service or funding for a purchase of service.
I discussed this before in ms own estimates. Part of the difficulty is that when it comes to senior citizens' programs, some of the more centralized service approaches which look so good on paper simply do not work, particularly in Metropolitan Toronto. Those approaches have been suggested over the years.
The successes appear to be the ones that started in an area, responded to a particular need in the area and concentrated their services in the area. Rather than a design type of program, I would far prefer to respond to an evolutionary kind because I think we have to look at the demographic differences which are there. Even in as centralized an area as Metropolitan Toronto, even in as centralized an area as the city of Scarborough, there are areas where there is a heavier population of elderly people living in their own homes. They are primarily the service recipients, rather than those in senior citizen apartments, etc.
Also, I think in the light of the demographic changes, there has to be a great deal of evolutionary and developmental planning, rather than looking at the traditional approaches, because we are dealing with two particular trends. One is the numbers. However, more important, it is the age and certain societal mannerisms which are beginning to take place. In our own time, for instance, senior citizens apartments, or their own homes, have taken the place of residential care.
I think those are things we have to look at because in any of the planning -- and I am not talking about the ministry planning; I am talking about any type of government or any type of community planning of even a decade ago -- none of this was anticipated. Therefore, we are looking at new approaches. However, I would not want to give the impression or the idea that there is one overall model being worked on, that is on the drawing board. I do not think it would be practical, feasible or desirable at this time.
Vote 3102 agreed to.
On motion by Hon. Mr. Drea, the committee of supply reported certain resolutions.
CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES
Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, I want to make a few more remarks than I might otherwise make at this late hour, not of the day but of our session. I want to make them with the minister here and as the new critic, since the main estimates of the ministry were completed before I became critic for the Liberal Party.
I will start out by saying to the minister the difficulties of the recession and the impact of the government's inflation restraint measures and its spending restraints in the last two years have been nowhere more felt than by the poor of Ontario. It seems to me it is time we came to some realization that this is the group of people in Ontario we must deal with on an urgent basis. They can no longer be ignored or given simply minimal increases.
The poor of Ontario have not only got poorer, but also more numerous because of the recession, because businesses that could not contend with the lean times went bankrupt and other companies were forced to stay in business by trimming down their work forces. As a result, unemployment rates have jumped; they are at the highest levels. They have come down somewhat, but they are still at near record highs. Those who were already on the unemployment rolls before the recession began remain on the unemployment rolls today.
I come from a community where that is very obvious, where there simply are no jobs and where those who were unemployed in 1980 and 1981, for the most part find themselves unemployed today and are receiving general welfare assistance for themselves and their families. Now that the province has managed, along with the federal government, business and labour, to bring under control the inflation affecting all of those in our society, we must turn our efforts towards the unemployed and the working poor so they can have a share in the economic recovery.
Recent studies have shown that the popular perceptions of those receiving general welfare assistance as being nonproductive, lazy and unwilling to look for work are patently untrue. As a matter of fact, any one of us, having met with the people who have come into our constituency office and have looked for jobs month after month, with hundreds and sometimes thousands of employers, knows it to be untrue.
The majority of welfare recipients are in that financial condition through no fault of their own. Many, indeed, are single mothers with children, persons whose unemployment insurance benefits have run out and people who are permanently ill or disabled. They are not shirking and they are not people who do not want to work. To add to the tragedy, we find that a large group of the poor in Ontario -- and we sometimes forget about them -- are children.
Children make up 42 per cent of those on public assistance in Ontario. They are the children of the sick, the disabled, the single parents and the long-term unemployed. The National Council of Welfare in its report on poor kids has shown the serious and lifelong effects of poverty on Canadian children. According to the council, inadequate family incomes increase the likelihood that children will suffer from poor health, malnutrition and family conflicts.
12 noon
Poverty was also linked to poor school attendance, low educational aspirations, low career expectations and conflicts with the law. That should come as absolutely no surprise to any of us. By not beginning to attack the problem of poverty in our society here in Ontario, we may be consigning a very large group of poor kids, the 1980s poor kids, to a life with that kind of problem.
The minister stood in his place when he returned earlier in November, and his answer to ease this problem was an increase of five per cent in welfare assistance aid and in family benefits. Even comparing Ontario's 1984 welfare rates with the 1983 rates for other provinces, Ontario still ranks 10th or eighth, depending on which province one looks at. The Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto has estimated that it would take an increase of anywhere from eight per cent to 19 per cent, depending on family size, to bring those recipients back to the 1975 levels of income.
At present, the poverty line for a family of three -- and I do not think I am being overly generous -- is estimated at somewhere in the $12,000 to $13,000 range. However, we expect such a family to live on $10,000 a year. That hardly covers, and perhaps in Metro Toronto does not even cover, the basic needs of food and shelter.
In addition to the unemployed and the welfare recipients, another group is suffering from the effects of the economic recession. However, this group is often forgotten in the debate. I am referring to the working poor. Before the minister shakes his head and says he does not have responsibility for the working poor, I know this comes under the aegis of the Ministry of Labour. I am pleased to see what little increase in the minimum wage we saw in recent days.
But I say to this minister that he, as Minister of Community and Social Services, has a role around the cabinet table to bring aid and support to his colleague the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) and to other colleagues who are trying to help those who are poor in our society to be able to reach up and to be able to enjoy some of the fruits of our Ontario. I simply do not believe the increases in the minimum wage announced recently by the Minister of Labour will really have that effect.
The numbers do not look terrible today, but we must remember the first increase does not take effect until March 1984 and the second part of the increase, to $4.05 an hour, in October 1984; that is almost a year away. So figures that do not look too bad today, I suspect are going to look very inadequate a year from now, and once again this province will be at the lower end of the scale. It is not there today, and I acknowledge that, but we will wait and we will see, and I believe we will probably find that other provinces will once again move ahead of ours.
I want to turn briefly to one aspect of the problems with the elderly. I want to direct the minister's attention to one of the problems of services to the elderly; that is, the co-ordination of residential services for seniors. I realize again that only one part of this problem is under this ministry and that part of it comes under the Ministry of Health.
At present, there are many contentious issues involving nursing homes and homes for the aged. These include the lack of stringent regulations governing their operation, the inspection process, complaints investigation and a shortage of beds. The ministries are juggling nursing homes and homes for the aged back and forth between them like the political hot potatoes they are.
The major problem seems to be a lack of co-ordination in the operation of residential facilities for the elderly owing to the fact that they are under the jurisdiction of different ministries. At present, care for the elderly is disjointed and can be moved back and forth between two types of facilities depending on their immediate condition. The two types of facilities, because they are regulated separately, do not provide a uniform quality of care.
I suggest to the minister that the distinction between nursing homes and homes for the aged, and the type of client they serve, is no longer clear. The various types of facilities perhaps should be placed under a single ministry's control, and at that point licensing and inspection would be more uniform and gaps or duplication in one area of care could be eliminated.
A typical gap in the continuum of care was addressed by the Ontario Association of Homes for the Aged. I raised this matter in the House, I believe, before the minister's return. At its recent convention it repeatedly demanded a fourth category of care -- I know the minister is aware of that -- namely, heavy extended care, to bridge the funding gap between extended and chronic care.
In question period recently, I raised a very specific example. I gave the government specific figures detailing the problem faced at the Villa Maria Home for the Aged in my own riding of Windsor-Sandwich. I might say that I received a nice letter from Villa Maria, thanking me for raising it in a responsible fashion and for bringing the numbers directly to the attention of the minister and of the government.
I am sure the minister does not believe that anybody out there is trying to pad the figures. These are very definite needs of the homes for the aged, and I can certainly attest to the fact that other funding sources are not available in the case of Villa Maria. These homes are not operated to make profits, and the funding certainly must come from somewhere. I do hope the minister will move very quickly on that.
I want to turn to one area pertaining to Ontario's women. I might say by way of introduction that I applaud in general what is a reasonably credible governmental response to the standing committee's report. I certainly want to lend my support to that response. I think all of us were pleased with a number of the aspects of that report.
The major problem, and I know the minister realizes it is a major problem, is that one of the most important recommendations of the report, the need for block funding, was not addressed. Transitional houses, as he knows, continue to be funded as hostels under the General Welfare Assistance Act. The municipality in which the house is located pays a per diem for each occupied bed. The Ministry of Community and Social Services reimburses the municipality for part of that payment.
There are many problems with the per diem funding. I know the minister is aware of them, and he has heard of them, but I want to repeat them. The per diems cover only room and board and no other operating costs. They are dependent upon the number of women in a hostel at a certain time and thus, if the occupancy rate drops, the funds are cut, But at the same time the funds are cut, the number of staff cannot be cut holus-bolus, on a "here today, gone tomorrow" basis.
The major costs of the transition houses remain fixed, and yet the funding is sporadic at best. As a result, many houses were having funding difficulties, and the government moved in with its announcement of bail-out money. I certainly applaud the fact that there is bail-out money, but there is going to have to be a final and definitive answer. I hope we are going to move ahead on that.
I simply want add for the minister's information, since I see my friend the Minister responsible for Women's Issues (Mr. Welch) is here, that in the estimates last week I shared with him some of the material we received back from the transition houses in terms of their views. They are unanimously of the opinion that the only option is block funding. Indeed, in a survey we sent to them we asked them whether there were alternatives that they could suggest. They came up with only three alternatives. The vast majority of them said -- and these are the experts in the field -- "as far as we can see, block funding is the only way to go."
12:10 p.m.
I want to touch briefly on one other issue before I conclude. It is an issue that is becoming increasingly near and dear to me as I take on this role. I want to talk briefly about the problems of the developmentally handicapped. We could go on for some time about those problems.
The minister has to begin to come to his senses on this issue. I say that advisedly. The minister and this government have failed the people who are in those homes, they have failed their families and loved ones who care so deeply about their future and they have failed many of the people who have cared for them. They have acted in a manner -- I do not want to say that it has been cavalier -- that has shown a distinct lack of feeling and understanding.
The minister is aware of the document called Moving Time, which is an assessment of how the ministry lived up to its promises and what happened in the closing of St. Lawrence Regional Centre. It is a pretty damning indictment of the failure of this ministry to properly plan and co-ordinate that closing. It is an indictment of the fact that those closings in a sense are not deinstitutionalization; they are a shuffling of the players.
The last information I saw a couple of days ago was that the Bluewater Centre is not entirely closed yet --
Hon. Mr. Drea: Yes, it is.
Mr. Wrye: Is it now closed? Okay. The minister tells me it is now closed.
Hon. Mr. Drea: For the sake of the record, there are no patients there.
Mr. Wrye: As far as I knew, as of late last week, there were still 35 or 40 there, but that is fine.
I am thinking particularly of the shuffle of people from Bluewater to Palmerston. I do not understand how that becomes deinstitutionalization. If the minister believes that is deinstitutionalization and if he believes everything is going fine, we can stand here and say we are simply having a political disagreement; but I suggest to the minister, and he knows what I am talking about, that the disagreement he is having with this party and with the party to my left is nothing compared to the disagreement he is having with the people who have the immediate concern for the residents of those homes.
The minister does not have them on side. They do not accept or support what is going on. He still has a major selling job to do. We now have two of those centres closed. It is time to come up with a major selling job before the others are closed.
I want to close by discussing briefly the plight of another group of Ontario residents, the disabled in general and I realize it is a great catch-all. We are in a grave way with what we are doing with the disabled in this province. This tracks over a number of ministries of this government, and rightly so. We have shortchanged the disabled.
In October, while the minister was still recovering, his colleague the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mr. McCaffrey), who was acting on his behalf, along with my colleague the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston) and me, attended a rally for disabled rights held at Queen's Park. In a sense, at that rally as a new critic -- and perhaps I should have been a little more sensitive to it before -- I was made painfully aware of the frustration being experienced by the disabled on a wide variety of levels. As a consequence, I promised to draw their concerns to the attention of the government.
I am sure the minister is aware that accordingly I submitted a resolution to the House which calls for a select committee on the disabled. It would be given a mandate to review the impact of existing legislation on employment, education, housing, accessibility, transportation, benefits, health and recreation, among other things, for the disabled.
A lot of the material is in place and it has some very stringent time limits, because I think it is very important that we get off the dime and start moving ahead on this issue. I felt, and still feel, that such a committee would give the disabled a chance to voice their concerns and give us, the politicians, a clearer picture of those concerns.
However, my resolution has thus far not been acted on and, indeed, has apparently been turned down by the government. When the minister was away, the acting minister, the Provincial Secretary for Social Development, said that a select committee was unnecessary and that instead he would ask the serious ministries involved with the disabled to meet and discuss their problems.
I have heard very little about that interministerial discussion, and it appears to have been nothing more or less than a stalling tactic, which will produce few results other than the lack of initiatives we have had over the last while in this whole area. I genuinely hope the minister will stand up, contradict what I am saying and indicate to me, to the House and, most important, to the disabled of Ontario, that concrete results are emanating from these discussions between the ministries.
In closing, one of the things in the ministry that is very complex, one of the things I have learned in my short time as its critic, is that the plight of the disabled in this province is one of the saddest problems we face. The time has come -- indeed, it has long since passed -- when we ought to address the problem in a very serious and concerted attempt to overcome the grave difficulties that we as a society have placed upon the disabled in addition to the difficulties that often they are born with or have acquired as a result of various accidents or problems during their lives.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Chairman, it is traditional at this time to review one or two areas of ministry policy that have been of concern to us, which perhaps we have not dealt with adequately within the estimates proper and would like to make a few remarks about.
This is the Christmas season, and it is generally a time when we are all feeling very hospitable towards one another and anxious to get away from here to our families. But I decided today, as a result of happenings in this Legislature in the past two days, to make my remarks slightly different from what I have had to say in the past. I want to proffer my thoughts about the role of this minister and particularly the way he has taken on his responsibilities, or abdicated them from time to time in the context of what is in my view the most sensitive ministry of all the cabinet portfolios, one of the largest spending as well as the one that deals most closely with the needs of our most disadvantaged and those in the greatest need of protection.
When I look at the way this minister operates I cannot help feeling he is inappropriately placed in this position. I know I sometimes contribute to the air of confrontation that takes place and the minister and I are not known for passing many sweet words between each other, but I cannot help feeling that our relationship here in the House and the kind of battling we might take on here is a very different matter from how a minister should behave towards the constituents he represents because of his ministry or towards those whom he needs to protect within his ministry.
12:2O p.m.
The minister has often acted unilaterally without proper consultation with the policymakers within his own ministry. The minister has insulted many of his constituent groups, whether deliberately or just by an exaggerated slip of the tongue. He has now, for the first time that I recall, because he has been very careful about this in the past, gone against the precepts of the notion of the absolute need to protect children and the identities of children who may have been victimized in our society.
Look at the way in which the minister has dealt with a number of issues; for example, income policy. I do not again want to get into my views on what is needed in income policy. I want to talk in terms of the way he relates to constituent groups in society, trying from their position to better the lot of individuals, the levels of income they receive and the rational bases for making those kind of decisions and having more equity in the system.
I look back to the kinds of conflicts the minister has had with a group such as the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto, giving it tags and names which demean his role. Even if he is in fundamental disagreement with that body, as he often is, I do not think it behooves a minister of the crown to take on those people the way he has done and in the terms in which he has done it. He should do it factually and challenge the council's statistics. He has done that but he has done much more than that in terms of what I would name-calling.
In terms of his own ministry and the whole question of the developmentally handicapped, the way in which he has operated within and without his ministry has been irresponsible and uncommunicative. Let us take the five-year plan as an example. In a responsible fashion he could have been much more open in meeting with the parent groups and much less evasive and confrontational, especially in those early days, than he has been. He has called into question the motivation of those people who are in opposition to him.
Let us look at the triministry -- the minister would probably call it the devolution of the triministry project; I would call it the disintegration of the triministry protect. I would say it was done without proper consultation. Those who have been running that program were the last to know what was going to happen to them. The change and the speed-up of moving people to the regional offices came down out of the blue. It had a great deal of personal motivation behind it and very little in the way of planning.
His attitude towards the report on spousal abuse by the standing committee on social development and his initial comments to that were in my view totally irresponsible and totally unnecessary, employing provocative language both here and again out in the hall. It was not suitable at all.
Again to do with the consultation process, there is, as the minister knows, the Association of Interval and Transition Houses. If he does, he ignores all the things the committee has talked about and the recommendations it has made. Without proper consultation he sets up family resource centres in the north in a way which will provide second-class care for the people in the north. He has people who have had no experience at all in the field when I question them coming to our committee to explain why it takes place. They could not explain why this has taken place except it was a good Board of Industrial Leadership and Development project.
I look at the way the minister set up the Ontario Centre for Child Abuse. Who knew about that? Nobody knew about that in his ministry. That was something that the minister, his deputy, his friend Dr. Bates and maybe one or two others cooked up, but his policy people sure did not know about it. I remember some jaws dropping when that announcement was made; people who had been actively involved in that field within the ministry for some time felt a little passed over.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Name one.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am not going to name them here. I have seen what the minister has done to others I have named in the past. That is not proper planning or interaction.
Take the example of the Sarnia-Lambton Children's Aid Society and the case of the alderman there who had been very actively promoting the cause of a number of parents, family members and others who felt the society was not doing a good job. He went down there, and properly in the end, after he had been asked to by myself and others and said he would not, to clean up matters.
He did not a bad job when he was standing there giving his speech, trying to make it very clear the association was now doing a much better job. Then he ends up with a throwaway line to a reporter, saying, "If I hear any more of this stuff I am going to come back down here and clean the place up," or take it over or whatever.
That was totally unhelpful, totally unnecessary and inappropriate for a minister. As he said in his statement, his job was to re-establish faith in that institution. If anything, all he has done is prolong the questioning because of his approach, because of his style.
Then, the day before yesterday and yesterday we had the spectacle in this House of the interaction between the minister and the member for Hamilton Centre (Ms. Copps). The member for Hamilton Centre somehow believing that because a name has been out some place in the past she has the right to use that name again -- that person has been on the registry -- which is totally incorrect. She stood in this House using her privilege, I presume, in this House to use that name. It should have been called out of order, I might suggest. If we were little more aware of these things she should have been put in her place; but instead what do we have?
The first day we had the minister responding correctly. The first time he said he would not speak about the individual case and that was exactly the position the minister should take. This is no place for discussing the matters of a child abuse case, and specifically in this case a matter that is on the register. This is inappropriate. At that point the minister should have sat down and stayed there; but he got back up in this House later on, purporting to want to clear the record for the besmirching of the register, to indicate information about why this woman was on the register.
Quite frankly, that was inappropriate. That is as much an abuse of the rights of this House and of the protection of the child involved as was the actual naming by the member for Hamilton Centre. By responding to it in that fashion and giving out information, which one must say is in confidential files either in the ministry or with the register or with both, the minister was going farther than his responsibility should allow him to go. Not only did he do it then in the House, he walked outside of this place and, as we learned if we watched the news, made further statements outside of this House which were referred to yesterday.
I would suggest to the minister that whether or not he wants to retract an individual part of that or wants to accept that he was right on that matter in terms of the substance of what he said he should not have been saying those things. He should not be talking about why somebody is on the register, what got them on to a register; especially when he knew, and I believe the member for Hamilton Centre knew, that the child involved in this whole matter was back living with the mother.
The identification of the woman, then talking about the nature of why that person is on the registry, can be directly pointed at that child. How many of her neighbours now know? How many of the kids who are friends of that child know now? How much of this is common talk in the schoolyard? What kind of abuse is going to be placed on this child just in terms of verbal interaction?
That is why we have that whole notion of confidentiality in this. It is not to protect persons whose names are on the register. They can ask for expungement, they can take it to the legal process, they have the right to do that. We have that process to protect the children. Surely it is our job here to be the protectors and not to participate in the violation. That is what we were doing and that is what this minister was doing.
Interjection.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: The member for Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid) may believe this is sanctimonious crap, but we have been through this already in this House.
Mr. T. P. Reid: You are the people who started naming individuals in this House.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Garbage.
The Deputy Speaker: Order.
12:30 p.m.
Mr. T. P. Reid: It was his party that started it, so do not give me that.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Those who have done it should take responsibility for it.
Mr. T. P. Reid: I am not agreeing with it, but you people have done it for years so do not --
Mr. R. F. Johnston: What we have at the moment is a specific case of a specific minister who has the ultimate responsibility for this who has been very careful about this in the past. He knows about the kind of interaction we have had in the committee about particular cases, where he said, "I will not talk to you about that in committee but if you want to talk to me about it elsewhere I will give you the extra information."
That is exactly the way to deal with it, in that kind of confidence; not in this House, not outside in the hallways. I have no idea what was in the member for Hamilton Centre's mind, but knowing this minister and how this all operates did she really expect this woman to get an apology because the member for Hamilton Centre raised it again in this House ? What balderdash. What kind of advice was she giving that woman?
I would just like to say in conclusion that I do not understand how the minister, after what he has done, after what he has been involved in -- and I see it as a culmination of his kind of attitude, his approach to this ministry; his offhand comments, his launching programs without proper consultation, his taking on the groups that are out there in the field -- can possibly feel he can stay in his position.
He has contributed to a very bad situation for that child and has therefore set an example; and if this goes unanswered he has said it is all right for all of us to speak on it, because he is the minister of the crown who is ultimately responsible and he has participated in this horrible thing that has gone on in the last couple of days.
He rightfully attacked members of our committee when they gave out a name in committee. He rightfully did that and now he has just jumped in with both feet and helped along this matter at this time. I would suggest to the minister that it is time for him to move along. This is not the appropriate place for him, and it would be a very honourable thing if he were to stand in his place and admit that was the case and that he was no longer going to sit as Minister of Community and Social Services in this House.
Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, I have one small point I wish to raise with the minister. In my riding there is an organization called Day Care Connection, which is a parent-child drop-in centre at Adam Beck school. It provides a very valuable opportunity for parents and children to socialize, learn about parenting and exchange ideas.
At present it is being partly funded under a Ministry of Community and Social Services day care initiatives grant. I very much appreciate this recognition by the ministry of the importance of this facility in getting parents and children out of the isolation of the home and helping parents to become better parents.
However, the centre has not been able to ascertain whether its grant will be continued next year and it cannot wait until the estimates are tabled for 1984-85 to know if it can continue. At this date it has no committed funds from other sources. It will have to close its doors if continuing funding is not assured. I would therefore like to ask the minister if he will communicate with this organization as to whether the funding will be continued for 1984-85 or whether another day care initiative will be dropped.
It is fulfilling a very important function. Last year there were 1,884 adults and 2,643 child visits to this centre. They are asking for the sum of $24,700 for next year.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, we will communicate with the member by tomorrow if she will leave the appropriate information now with my staff here.
First, in reply to the new critic of the official opposition, I would like to take this opportunity to say a few words about the former critic of the official opposition.
Mr. Wrye: A great man.
Hon. Mr. Drea: I would appreciate it if the member did not say my lines, I did not say his. The member for Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) was the critic of this ministry for the last couple of sessions. His assignment was switched while I was still around. However, he did not venture back into Toronto until I was not around so I have not had the opportunity to say anything to him.
The member for Prescott-Russell served his post honourably and he served his post well. He served his area well. I know from time to time some of the hotshots in the House did not appreciate the fact that he would bring up individual or group problems on such things as how the family benefits office was operating and how some of the smaller things were operating.
I know they do not fit into some people's ideas, grandiose as they are in their own egos, about the true place of social welfare in our society. However, they are very important in the community areas, in the towns, in the crossroad centres of an area like the united counties of Russell and Prescott which primarily make up the member's area. I know how important they are.
I think it is a great tribute to him that even at a time of great restraint, when even Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. turned its back on a commitment in the area -- a small commitment, I know, in terms of the very vast expenditures which go on in this province -- he persevered on behalf of a small house of refuge for battered women. He persuaded and he really worked at it to the point where my deputy and I really felt obligated to twist a few arms in Ottawa to make sure, in a manner which we are never going to reveal, the mortgage money came to that particular centre. However, it is there.
I think that is a great tribute to a member. It is one thing to be a critic, it is one thing to be a great thruster and a great fencer down here; however, it is another thing as to what to do for one's riding, particularly in some of these less populated areas of the province, those that do not have all of the resources or all of the services which many of us take for granted in the larger urban areas.
The member for Prescott-Russell served his party well. He served his area well. I certainly hope he finds the same challenge and the same responsibility in his current assignment as he did for so many months opposite me.
I will just make a couple of points on the remarks made by the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye) concerning the developmentally handicapped. Because I presumed he was new and he was being informed by others who have a bit of a vested interest and so forth, I really have not pushed too hard on some of the remarks he has made over the last couple of months.
12:40 p.m.
However, we are now at the point where I think it is incumbent upon me to state a couple of facts. First, he talked about the parents who are closest to the developmentally handicapped in the facilities. The parents in Brockville overwhelmingly support what we did. The parents of those at the residence at Bluewater Centre -- and there were not 40 there last week; I do not expect the member to have a day-to-day count but I will be very glad to provide a day-to-day count -- are very supportive of what we did. The parents at the St. Thomas Adult Rehabilitation and Training Centre are pushing us to expedite the closing of the START Centre and the opening of the community programs. The parents' group at Pine Ridge in Aurora supports us publicly.
I detect a change in the official Liberal Party policy. They were not asking for a moratorium today, they were asking for a better selling job while we close the last two facilities.
While parts of the contents of the report in Moving Time at Brockville base been read to this House, because it is a very balanced report, I think I could also read some very laudatory things about this ministry, about the five-year plan and about the comments of the individuals who are now living in the community who used to live in the institution.
I would welcome the same people who did the Moving Time report to look at Bluewater, at the START Centre and at Pine Ridge, because I am sure they will find an improvement at Bluewater over Brockville and they will find at START in St. Thomas an improvement over the closure of Bluewater and so on down the line.
We are doing those closings with a great deal of feeling and sympathy for those who are going to be moved; we are doing them with a great deal of feeling for the employees as well. We understand what dislocation means; we understand what change means to parents, particularly older parents; we understand what change quite often means to the family, even to the younger members of the family. The program is proceeding very, very well.
On the questions of interval houses and so forth, I will answer both of them. First of all, the 12 places of refuge in the north are the result of the joint work of my friend and colleague the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier), of his ministry and mine, and the municipalities and many women's groups in the north; and they are first class.
I was asked in Matheson if the remark had been made that they were second class and I said, "Certainly not." There are municipalities with women's groups that had not been established long enough or really want to undertake it and the municipal council sat down and started a program; I wish we had that type of leadership in many of our larger centres of this province.
I should also say this about the logistics of it. In many of those municipalities, in at least three of them, they know that the bulk of the people who will be in there are not residents of their municipality and are not in any type of county or district social assistance program where they are going to get easy reimbursement. They are looking after people who simply have no other place to go, regardless of their address; they know this is going to occur.
With respect to many of the things we have been told as part of some of the great myths of our time, about how people do not want to get involved because of the jurisdictional boundary lines and who is going to pay for what, I wish they would go to a place like Sturgeon Falls. I really wish they would talk to the municipal council in Sturgeon Falls or in Mindemoya. It might be enlightening. I wish they would go to a small place like Black River-Matheson, a small place which is perfectly prepared to do what Timmins would not do, what Kirkland Lake would not do, and to do it right there. That is great leadership by a council and by the women's group there.
We have been meeting for quite a number of weeks with people in the transition or interval house field or the house of refuge field. We have been listening to many of their concerns about some of the particular applications of funding. We are compiling them, looking at them and we will shortly be making some decisions about the next fiscal year.
As the members will recall, the reason why not only this ministry, but the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mr. McCaffrey), the Provincial Secretary for Justice (Mr. Walker) and the Deputy Premier and Minister responsible for Women's Issues (Mr. Welch) put out guarantees that no one would close because of lack of funding in the remainder of the fiscal year was to give everybody an opportunity to look, assess and see where we would go in this field. Notwithstanding the desire of some -- and I do not care how many surveys there are; it is still only the desire of some -- to be funded on a block basis, that is not in the cards.
It is also a bit of a misconception that the payments being made now on the per diems only cover board and lodging. In many cases, they are higher than the cost of board and lodging and they do pay for counselling and a number of other things. The member is quite correct that in some, because of the decision by the municipalities, they are right at the board and lodging level, but that is another aspect we are looking at.
I do not find it amazing and I do not find it surprising, in fact, I won my bet with a number of people, that the tone and the content of the speech by the critic for the New Democratic Party would be identical to last year's.
Mr. Mackenzie: Say it again.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Identical. One of the interesting things about it being identical is that for the second consecutive full year, it represents a total lack, a bankruptcy of new ideas on that side. If all he can do in the concurrences is say he does not like the minister, he has not produced very much.
I would like to point out some of the accomplishments of this ministry in the last year. That will more than adequately take care of the comments that have been made by the critic of the New Democratic Party and the people who have just arrived who feel an inordinate urge to speak.
12:50 p.m.
Notwithstanding the fact we are in a substantial recession, this social services ministry in Ontario is the only one in the Dominion of Canada and, to the best of my knowledge, in the 50 states of the United States that has not had to cut a single social program because of the extraordinary demands of the need for income maintenance. That is a record untouched anywhere.
It is a tribute to the present Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) and a tribute to the past Treasurer, the member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller), whose prudent foresight has provided us with the funds so that we can stand up in the last quarter of the year -- last year we announced $52 million over the wintertime in a recession package and this year we came in with a package valued at $61 million, of which $15 million was looked at this morning in supplementary estimates -- that we are able to come in here this morning with more than $120 million in supplementary estimates to bring my spending to $2.4 billion.
We have not had to sacrifice a single social program because of the extraordinary demands upon our income maintenance cheques. That shows the leadership and foresight in this ministry.
It is very significant that after yet another full year, all the one-time voice of social reform, and I emphasize the words "one-time voice," because it is a pretty forlorn one today, can do is get up and say it does not like the ministry. That may indicate why there is a lot of trouble in that corner of the House. I think those members know what I am talking about.
Interjections.
The Deputy Speaker: Order.
Resolution concurred in.
House in committee of supply.
SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, PROVINCIAL SECRETARIAT FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Chairman, in the absence of the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mr. McCaffrey), I present for the consideration of the committee a request for supplementary estimates in the amount of $2,805,000 to supplement vote 2801 for the Ontario bicentennial project office.
It seems very interesting, almost coincidental, that as this particularly supplementary estimate is being presented to the House, there is a great function downstairs, as background music for this particular matter, as we get ready for what should be a great year in this province, marking 200 years of the contribution of people from all over the world to make this part of Canada such a distinctive part, not the least of which, of course, is the area I come from, being the first capital of this province, the great town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, formerly known as Newark.
It has celebrated its 200th anniversary. However, I am quite prepared, in the context of the bicentennial and the enthusiasm it will obviously generate throughout this province, to present for the consideration of the committee this request for supplementary funds.
Ms. Bryden: Mr. Chairman, I think we should remember that last night we passed a restraint bill. Every ministry is at the moment cutting back on requests for new services or underfunding some very important services to people. We are being asked today to vote $2.8 million for the Ontario bicentennial project office. We have already spent a total of $2.2 million on this project, which will make a total of $5 million to date if this vote goes through. I think this is only the tip of the iceberg because there will undoubtedly be a great many expenditures in 1984-85.
The ministry did two surveys to see whether people were interested in having a bicentennial. These surveys were done by Kwechansky Marketing Research Inc., and I have seen a summary of one of their reports. They say that the overall climate of receptivity for a bicentennial was the same as the first study, that is, ranging from indifferent to hostile. The year 1784 as a base point is not the same as 1776 or 1867.
In other words, what they are saying is that not very many people recognize 1984 as a bicentennial year of significance to this province. The founding of the province of Upper Canada was in 1791, so the bicentennial should be in 1992. We are eight years ahead. They found that very few people are aware that the Loyalists, the first large immigrant group, came in 1784.
A lot of people are questioning why we are having a bicentennial celebration at this time. I understand Ottawa questioned it and at one stage decided not to participate. In Sudbury they felt it was probably mainly a southern Ontario celebration and they were not particularly convinced that the celebration of one immigrant group's arrival justified a very large bicentennial celebration. They did not deny we should recognize the coming of the Loyalists, as we recognize a lot of other events of an historical nature each year, but they did not feel it justified spending what appears will be from $10 million to $15 million on a program.
There are only two or three reasons why we are having a bicentennial. One is the opportunity for the Premier (Mr. Davis) to appear on a lot of platforms in what may be an election or a pre-election year, and another is the opportunity to create new regional jobs. I would like to ask the minister whether these regional coordinator jobs, which have just been filled, were advertised or were they simply handed out as part of Tory patronage?
The bicentennial program undoubtedly will give the government great opportunities to hand out several million dollars in grants to municipalities, organizations and schools. It will not necessarily create any new jobs. People are wondering whether we should not be spending this kind of money on things like creating more jobs for youth, topping up the Ontario career action program and so on. We should look very carefully at this bicentennial project and consider whether the money could not be better spent on looking after our job creation and other activities which will cost less but will recognize the Loyalists. Maybe we should have a bicentennial in 1991.
Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Chairman, in following up, I remind the member who just spoke that Ontario did celebrate its 100th birthday in 1884. We are not talking only about Loyalists; we are talking about the contribution of people from many lands and about a very interesting program with a tremendous people emphasis throughout the province. We are also talking about one-time funding for what will provide the people of Ontario with an opportunity to reflect on their roots and the whole concept of tradition. I think it will be a great year.
I was encouraged when the leader of the New Democratic Party indicated in a speech in this House a few days ago how he was looking forward, along with the members of his caucus, to being involved in this program.
Vote 2801 agreed to.
On a motion by Hon. Mr. Wells, the committee of supply reported a certain resolution.
CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY
Resolution for supply for the following secretariat was concurred in by the House:
Provincial Secretariat for Social Development.
The House recessed at 1 p.m.